Agency

56 That Non-Posthuman Touch

Netherton stood at the window, having watched the feed from the car. The quadcopter was descending back into Alfred Mews, the car beneath it. “Ash?”

“Yes?”

“When I spoke with Lowbeer earlier,” he said, “she was unhappy, about the possibility of this having some very bad outcome for Verity.”

Silence, during which the car neared pavement. Then Ash spoke. “As well she might. I doubt any of us can imagine making the choices she must have had to make, during the jackpot.”

“I’ve never gotten over my own initial impression, that the stubs were a game,” Netherton said. “Which they are, of course, for the majority of continua enthusiasts.”

“You don’t, though, feel that Flynne’s life is a game. Do you?”

“No, but I can sometimes feel that you and Lowbeer treat it as one, and the more so since you initiated Leon’s presidential campaign. It seems like a parody of our own history.”

“We sometimes find ourselves wishing Leon were a bit less bright, so I’m not sure the analogy holds. That aside, his election was legitimate, everything scrupulously monitored by the aunties. Flynne insisted on that, if we were to have him run.”

“But you tell him what to do. You determine all of his positions on policy.”

“And he’s polling extremely well, while doing a minimum of harm. Progress, not perfection.”

The quadcopter, having fully lowered the car to the pavement, released it now, to rise swiftly out of view. The car’s door opened. Netherton, seeing Rainey’s head emerge, lit from behind, felt a wash of relief.

“Glad to have Rainey with us,” Ash said. “We can do with that non-posthuman touch, as far as Verity’s concerned.”

The non-posthuman bar being decidedly low, around you and Lowbeer, Netherton thought. Both Rainey and the peripheral had left the car now, he saw, and were walking toward the flat.

From the nursery, he heard Thomas begin to cry. Removing the controller, else it frighten him, he went to comfort him.