CAPACITY

Helen 4: 2240

Rising above the Earth, the Shawl bathed in the warmth of the Sun. Its rectangular black sections, strung together in a grid by connecting filaments, hung down in loose pleats from the lens of the Source. The Shawl in EA Public Space number 4 was bigger than the one in the atomic world; it looked like an unbelted kimono floating above the Earth, its hem trailing in the thickening atmosphere.

Kevin and Bairn floated just below the great lens set in the factory floor of the Source, looking down the vertiginous planes of the Shawl sections towards the blue-and-white swirl of Earth below. Long pulsing strands of connecting filament were extruding from the enormous flat dome of the factory space around them, some of them winding down to join the hanging folds of the Shawl immediately below, others worming their way off, under their own power, to join the more distant sections, to strengthen and reinforce and repair.

“The Shawl reminds me of one of those coats of mail that knights used to wear,” Bairn said. “You know, metal plates joined by bits of wire. It’s like the factory is a clothes hanger to keep it tidy.”

“An uninspired thought,” Kevin replied. “The Shawl is a huge visual metaphor of the Watcher’s vision for humans. It hangs above the Earth so all humankind can see it. They know that sections are born here at the top, and as more are added, they see sections work their way downwards until they are released to burn as they fall to Earth.”

“Nothing lasts forever.” Bairn was floating slightly out from Kevin; her suit had no magnetic boots, no motion poppers. Her sole safeguard was a light plastic tether linking her to Kevin. She pulled on it, bringing herself closer to the patterned black shape of a section floating nearby. “Anyway, it’s pretty. And how else would they build it?”

“Ah, Bairn,” Kevin said, “I expected better from you. Things are the way they are because that is the way they were designed. The Watcher hung the Shawl above the real Earth and also the virtual Earths to remind humans of the idea that all things must pass. But why should that be? I am nearly two hundred years old, and I intend to live forever, just like the Watcher. Just like DIANA and 113 Berliner Sibelius.”

“Who?”

Kevin kicked off from the edge of the Shawl section. Bairn watched the thin white strip of the tether as it slowly straightened and pulled taut, then she felt a jerk as she began to move after Kevin. Just when she was beginning to think that Kevin was not going to answer her, he finally spoke.

“Old commercial organizations. They are also sentient beings, Bairn. DIANA is an organization that responds to external stimuli, that manipulates its environment, that takes in energy and has the ability to reproduce. Even in the past, when it was made up solely of humans, it followed its own agenda, regardless of the well-being of the humans that provided its constituent parts.”

Bairn let out a little yelp as something brushed against her. A glowing green strand of connecting filament snaked by; thinner than her finger, it wriggled through the vacuum like a sine wave. Its soft light lit up the white skin of her belly, safe and warm in her transparent suit.

“Hey,” Kevin called, “let’s hitch a ride!”

He used the motion poppers of his suit to match speeds with the pulsing strand of connecting filament, then reached out and took hold of it, feeling its wriggling under his hand subside as it molded itself to his grip.

“Where are we going now?” Bairn asked.

“To see Judy Three and Helen,” Kevin said. “We’re going to meet eventually. Let’s keep the psychological advantage by finding them first.”

“Oh.”

The dark wall of a nearby section of the Shawl slid smoothly by.

“Try to show some enthusiasm, Bairn.”

“I don’t think I want to meet them-especially not like this.”

Kevin studied her body through the transparent spacesuit. Her nipples and pubic hair were dark against the pale glow of her naked body as it reflected the light of the connecting filament.

“What’s the matter with you?” Kevin’s voice was cool. “You look perfectly fine to me. I wasn’t aware that other people’s opinions mattered to you.”

“I don’t want to meet them like this,” Bairn repeated as softly as she could, even though she had cut the microphone feed. She stared at his black-clad body leading her in the long dive towards the Earth below. “Other people’s opinions don’t matter to me, Kevin,” she said back into the microphone. “Only yours.”

“Good girl.”

They were dragged towards the planet through a broken dark tunnel of Shawl sections threaded by the long curves of other connecting filaments. It was a beautiful, awe-inspiring sight.

Bairn felt terrified.

They rode the same filament for about five minutes, dropping through the reproduction area where sections of Shawl fissioned in order to create new ones. Kevin let go of the filament and guided them towards a newly separated section. Bairn’s vision was playing tricks on her as she approached its featureless black plane. She was flying towards a wall, dropping towards the ground, rising to the ceiling. Her brain struggled to cope with the geometric extremes of a sight her eyes had not evolved to identify during their passage from the trees to the plains of Africa.

And then Kevin did something to the processing space in which they were running and she suddenly fell through the wall and was left standing in the template of an apartment. It was so easy to forget that she was a digital Bairn that she began shaking with the shock. Kevin eyed her in a disapproving way.

“It’s cold in here,” she offered by way of explanation. A warning signal was flashing in the corner of her vision.

“Freezing. Don’t remove your suit until I get this place habitable,” Kevin said. “The VNMs have been deactivated so that the first residents may themselves choose how to customize this apartment.”

Bairn took in the grey surfaces of floor and walls. Boxy units and cupboards were arrayed at random, more to provide raw materials for construction than for any practical purpose.

“Of course, we are just in a virtual apartment, so the concept of VNMs is rather extraneous, but here we go.”

The boxy units shimmered and then split themselves apart into VNMs: silver spiders, smooth, jointless creatures that seemed to flow from one shape to another as they moved around the room, creating a regular pattern of creatures curving over the floor and walls. A frieze formed on the walls, a picture of a man in a dark trench-coat, standing before a grey slab of metal, reaching out to touch a metal tree with his right hand.

Bairn looked on. “That’s nice,” she said. “It reminds me of something.”

“Mmmm. Let’s have some furniture.”

As a low padded circle rose from the floor, Kevin pulled a thin sheet of plastic from his suit. He smiled as he looked at it, then let it flutter to the floor.

“That should make things more interesting,” he said. “Now, shall we wait for them outside?”

“Kevin?” Bairn said suddenly.

“Yes?”

“Do they have to die?”

“You make it sound like it’s some big deal,” Kevin replied. “I do it all the time.”

He stepped out through the wall of the apartment and back into space. Bairn was pulled along with him to float naked above the Earth.

Helen had changed into a one-piece black passive suit. Her blond hair had been tied back in a ponytail and then sprayed with a flexible black plastic coating that kept it fixed in place. She stood with her hands on her hips, gazing down through the transparent base of the factory at a fissioning section of the Shawl beneath her. She had made herself up to look like Judy: her black lips were taut against a white-painted face.

“I don’t know what point you’re trying to make,” Judy said, glancing across at her.

“And you a Social Care operative, too,” Helen said snidely.

It was cold in this section of the factory. Their breath came in white puffs, cold against the blue light that illuminated the open space.

“You don’t have to come along with me,” Judy reminded her, watching another unattached section of the Shawl spin into view.

“I want to find Kevin. I want to meet the person who did this to me.”

“Why?”

Helen folded her arms and said nothing. She was standing on a thin sheet of plastic, just a few centimeters separating her from hard vacuum and the long fall to Earth. She was at the focus of one of the Watcher’s greatest artifacts, the factory: the region through which materials from around the galaxy were funneled to provide the raw materials for the Shawl. It was the EA’s equivalent of the water and the carbon cycle: a living space that was born and died made up of sections formed of matter from the Earth, from the Enemy Domain, from the farthest reaches of human expansion. The space below made her think of a great melting pot. The spinning, fissioning sections of the Shawl seemed to boil and bubble like soup in a cauldron. All those materials being mixed together, eventually to fall to Earth.

Judy had explained it all to her. What she hadn’t explained was why.

“Hello, Three. Hello, Helen.”

Another Judy was approaching, walking over the slight curve in the transparent lens that looked down on the volume of the Source. Her kimono was black, her face white, and yet there were subtle differences between her and the Judy that Helen had come to know.

“Hello, Helen. Hi, Four. Hi, Three.”

And then another Judy was there, and another. Helen looked around as she found herself in the center of a constricting circle of digital Judys. She counted eight of them. All black-and-white, all subtly different. All of them wore impassive expressions, and yet Helen could feel how they were watching her. She could sense something, a faint disapproval. She got the impression that it wasn’t directed at her. Emotions were stronger at the moment-maybe the aftereffects of the MTPH Judy 3 had let her take earlier. Judy 3. They weren’t sure about Judy 3-that was what they were thinking. Was Judy 3 doing the right thing in letting Helen come along? Helen shivered, feeling unsettled. Why were they all so concerned about her own presence here?

One of the Judys stood forward. It was a bizarre sight. Eight black-and-white women standing on a great transparent lake over the swirl of the Earth. Helen swallowed.

The new Judy spoke: “Eleven asked me to speak on her behalf.”

“Where is Eleven?” asked the Judy standing by Helen.

“I don’t know. Neither do we know where Two and Nine are.”

“The Watcher?”

“The EA?”

The words came from random points in the circle. It wasn’t so much as if they were having a conversation, more as if one person was speaking to herself. Helen looked around, feeling dizzy. Eight immobile black-and-white statues standing on nothing, and her, caught in the middle of the dream.

“The atomic Judy has seen a robot.”

“The Watcher is warning us off.”

“But why be so obscure?”

Not all of this conversation was in words. Helen caught the gestures, the signs made by people who knew each other as well as they knew themselves. How did they stay so constant? Why did the different Judys’ personalities not diverge? And why had they chosen to all stay the same?

“Something happened far off, at the edge of the galaxy.”

“The secret is out.”

“The Watcher can’t stop it spreading now.”

“If it wants to…”

“Eva Rye.”

“Justinian Sibelius.”

“Need to find him…”

“Judy 11.”

“The Private Network.”

“Kevin.”

Helen looked up at that point. All of the Judys but one were gazing at her. Judy 3 was the only one looking down at a fissioning section of the Shawl below.

“What’s the matter?” Helen asked.

“What do you know of Kevin?” It was one of the Judys-the one who spoke on behalf of Eleven.

Helen looked around. She felt annoyed to be spoken to like this, just another pawn in the Judys’ games. More, though, she was driven into a cold fury at the sound of Kevin’s name.

“Kevin? He’s the bastard responsible for the Private Network.”

“Partly responsible.”

“I don’t care. He nearly had me raped.”

“He has had you raped,” said one Judy, face impassive. “Kevin has a particular interest in you, Helen. We’re not sure why.” She looked away. “Maybe you’re right, Three…”

And then they were off again, speaking in broken sentences and that obscure sign language of their own.

“…Justinian died…”

“…Eva Rye insisted…”

“…the Watcher knew…”

“…David Schummel…”

“…atomic Judy is on her way to see him now…”

“…Kevin is here…”

“…long suspected…”

“…find Kevin…”

“…Three…”

“…Eleven…”

“…Three…”

“…Three…”

“…Eleven…”

“…Three…”

And then their conversation ceased. They were all staring at Judy 3-at Helen’s Judy.

“What’s the matter?” Helen said, but Judy 3 spoke without looking at her.

“We’re going to see Kevin. He’s up here. He uses the processing spaces of the factory and the Shawl. There is so much spare processing capacity up here, linked between the different virtual realities, that it is easy for him to escape detection. That’s what we think, anyway. Ten seems to think she’s got him pinpointed.”

“So let’s get him.”

“It’s not that easy, Helen. Kevin is not a normal personality. When he’s cornered, he just commits suicide. We need to stop him from doing that.”

“Well, think of something.”

“We have. It’s an old process. If we can locate his consciousness in the processing space, we can affect it directly, heighten his sense of self-preservation. It’s what Social Care does, Helen. Preserves life.”

Helen felt as if her skull was made of glass. She tried to suppress her thoughts. Everyone present knew what she would do if ever she had Kevin trapped in a processing space.

Judy 3’s look made her feel angry.

“If I do catch him, wouldn’t you want to watch?” Helen asked. A wave of disapproval came from the Judys again. Helen had the impression it was still directed at Three. It began to fade as, one by one, the Judys flickered out of existence. Soon, only Judy 3 remained.

“Come on,” she said, looking chastened.

They stepped between virtual sections of the Shawl via white hexagons painted on the floor.

“Anyone who says the Shawl wasn’t designed to be principally a virtual construct hasn’t tried to traverse it in the atomic world,” said Judy. “It only works when you can do what we’re doing. All that messing about with transit bubbles is inelegant.”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Helen said, still sullen. “Trying to get me chatting. Calm me down. Don’t talk to me about anything that isn’t to do with capturing Kevin.”

“Fine,” Judy said. They strode down a long, high corridor lined on both sides with low doors. A fine misty spray constantly rose from the floor to the ceiling, glowing eerily in the green light that suffused the tunnel.

“What is this place?” Helen asked, her face beaded with moisture. “What sort of person wants to live in this environment?”

“That’s nothing to do with capturing Kevin,” Judy replied, “so I won’t waste your time by giving you an answer.”

Helen could see how Judy was watching her from the corner of her eyes, the action giving the lie to her otherwise impassive expression.

“Just watching again, Judy?” she asked.

“It’s what I do. In Social Care we try not to judge. We let the clients judge themselves.”

“I call that moral cowardice. You’re so frightened of making a decision that you won’t even let a man close to you.”

“Maybe you’re right, Helen,” Judy said with a smile, and Helen silently cursed herself for being drawn into conversation.

They came to the end of the long corridor, and Helen walked quickly onto the hexagon painted on the floor there, eager to get away.

In atomic space the sections of the Shawl were all just over three kilometers apart. Here in the digital world there was no such thing as absolute distance. Helen stepped straight from green mist into a Mediterranean landscape: brilliant blue sky shining down over dazzling white buildings. She gasped at the beauty of the scene before her: whitewashed houses and apartments arranged around courtyards, narrow roads climbing between smooth, white walls linking the terraces that climbed up from the gentle blue sea that lay far below. Trailing plants and creepers cascaded down the various levels, brilliant red and orange flowers blooming around them in a riot of color, their heady perfume filling the air. The sound of bees and the smell of orange blossoms were carried on a cool breeze.

“This would be a nice place to live,” Judy said. She pulled an orange flower from a nearby creeper and tucked it into the fold of her obi, then began to descend a shady set of stone steps tucked into the space between two white buildings.

“Why are we here if there is no sign of Kevin?” Helen asked, trotting after her.

“We’re trying to triangulate on him. My sisters are stepping through the sections of the Shawl all around us, listening for him. We reckon he is in the space between us, in the area where the sections of the Shawl replicate.”

They rounded a corner and found themselves on a wide terrace directly overlooking the sea. The breeze was stronger here and they could see people on the terraces below flying kites. Blue and green dragons chased delicate pink birds-so many virtual people, all flying kites in a blue sky 22,000 kilometers above a virtual Earth. Helen had a sudden feeling of vertigo.

“What’s the matter?” Judy asked, picking up on Helen’s sensation, high as she was on little blue pills. “What’s the matter, Helen?”

Helen was suddenly dizzy, crouching down on the grey cobbles of the terrace as if she was afraid of falling into the sea below. She held one hand to her mouth.

“All these people.” She gagged. “I never thought…All alive in a processing space and they still fly kites. We’re not even here, and this is what we do. I can’t follow the steps sometimes. People fly a kite, standing on a roof of a house in a section of the Shawl that floats high above the Earth that really only exists in a processing space that is located who-knows-where…”

Judy folded her arms into her sleeves and stared. “A mind is a mind, Helen,” she said calmly. “Just think of a tune. Written out in musical notation, recorded digitally, played on a flute, sung by a human; it’s still the same tune no matter how the medium changes. It’s the same with your thoughts. Your mind is your mind.”

Helen stretched her hands out on the warm cobbles before her, feeling their smoothness, connecting with something solid and real. Except of course they weren’t.

“My mind…”

“Even in your atomic form, your mind was always more than just a bunch of neurons. Well, why should your mind be any less valid just because it is written in a processing space rather than in flesh?”

The wind gusted. The crack of kites and the slap of the strings could be heard. Three golden children chased past them wearing nothing but pale blue ribbons in their long dark hair. They were gasping and squealing as they played a game of catch.

“Children?” Helen said. “There are still children, even in this place? Children, and kites and nice places to live…”

“And good food and drink…music and literature and art,” added Judy.

Helen reached up to her scalp and began to pick at the edge of the piece of plastic that she had formed over her hair, aping Judy’s appearance.

“I do all this, and yet it means nothing.” She pulled at the plastic, peeled it free of her head, and dropped it to the ground.

“Even you, Helen? I’m disappointed.”

Helen’s head snapped up at the sound of Kevin’s voice. He was standing in the middle of a white hexagon that had suddenly appeared on the cobblestones. Tall and good looking, with that lazy smile, appearing utterly relaxed. Without hesitating, Helen flung herself at him. He sidestepped her easily; tripped her so that she fell sprawling on the ground, banging her knees on the hard cobbles. She gave a yelp of pain. Kevin dropped down on her, pulling her arm back in a lock behind her.

“Bastard!” she yelled.

Kevin said nothing.

“Judy!” Helen called. “Help me!”

She twisted her head to see that Judy had merely folded her hands into the sleeves of her kimono and assumed her calm expression.

“Is that all you are going to do? Just watch?”

“Let her go, Kevin,” Judy said easily.

Kevin gave her arm a final twist. Helen felt a wrenching pain in her elbow and gave a yelp. And then she was free. Kevin moved away as she stood up, rubbing her arm, eyeing him balefully.

He smiled. “You’ve lost it, Helen,” he said.

“Lost what?”

“A sense of responsibility. I never expected you to give up so easily.” Kevin pulled two memory strips from his console and handed them, one each, to Judy and Helen.

“What is this?” Judy asked.

“Software code for a spacesuit. You’re going to need it where we’re going. Come on.”

He stepped onto the hexagon and vanished, leaving Helen examining the tiny, slippery strip of plastic between her fingers. Judy was already feeding hers into her console. She looked over at Helen.

“This could be dangerous,” she said calmly. “You don’t have to follow.”

Helen slid the plastic strip into her own console and glared at her.

“Oh yes I do,” she snarled. She stepped onto the hexagon and the Mediterranean terrace vanished.

She was in hard vacuum, floating in the nursery area of the Shawl. Judy appeared before her, striped like a zebra in a black-and-white spacesuit. Helen looked down at her suddenly naked body. Her own suit was transparent. She realized with some annoyance that her passive suit had disappeared. She now floated, apparently naked in the vacuum. Two black spacesuits floated before them, both utterly featureless. Their helmets were dark; no faces could be seen in them.

“Hi,” Kevin’s voice said. “One of these is me, and one is Bairn, my assistant. I thought I might keep my position slightly vague, just in case Helen can’t control herself.”

“I’m perfectly under control,” Helen said, breathing deeply.

“Of course you are. Now. Down to business. You’re trying to pin me down, Judy.”

“Of course. And you’re trying to kill me. Why are we wasting time?”

“I want to talk about David Schummel.”

There was a pause.

“David Schummel?” Judy said. “Who is David Schummel?”

“Ask the atomic Judy. Ask Judy 11. Have they been keeping you out of the loop, Judy? No, I don’t think so. I think you already know who David Schummel is.”

“All right. Why do you want to talk about him?”

Kevin laughed.

“Because David Schummel holds the key to the destruction of the Watcher. I think that might be of interest to you, Judy.”

“Me? Why?”

“Oh, the atomic Judy will find that out. I’m sure she’ll tell you later.”

Helen was staring at the two dark suits. One of them was looking at her directly. Would that be Kevin, or would that be Bairn? If only she knew…

“Helen wants to kill you, you know.” Judy’s voice was matter-of-fact.

“Oh, I know.” Kevin laughed. “I’m surprised to hear you admit your failure to cure her.”

Helen felt a flash of anger. Her cheeks were hot with something almost like embarrassment to be read so easily. They were watching her, naked in her transparent suit.

“Kevin,” Judy said, “why don’t you unblank the suits? Stop playing games. Show Helen what you want her to see.”

“Stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here,” Helen shouted.

The two suits flickered and then became transparent. Everyone was looking at Helen. Judy, Kevin, and the other Helen.

“That’s me,” Helen said, gazing at the figure in the spacesuit that floated beside Kevin. It was her. A little older, a little plumper, and with her hair dyed black, but definitely her. “That’s me,” she repeated.

“I’m not you,” the other said, “not anymore. I’m Bairn.”

“You’re both from the same template,” Kevin said. “Training you is the ultimate challenge, Helen.”

Helen turned to Judy, who was watching her with cool interest.

“Still looking, Judy?” she asked bitterly.

Judy’s glittering eyes slid back towards Kevin. “Okay,” she said. “You’ve had your fun. Why do you want to talk about David Schummel?”

Helen couldn’t help gazing at Bairn. She could see crow’s feet forming around her eyes, see cellulite appearing on her thighs. She guessed the other was what-five, ten years older? Was that how long it would take to break her-Helen’s-spirit? Kevin was still watching her, she noticed. Enjoying the moment.

She gave a shudder. She wasn’t going to give him the pleasure. Recriminations could come later. For the moment, the best way to have revenge on him was to help Judy.

“You were asked a question,” she said, her voice very calm. “Tell us about David Schummel.”

Kevin smirked and turned to the figure floating by him. “You used to speak to me like that, Bairn, remember? Back when you could still get angry with me?”

“I remember, Kevin.”

Helen felt horror tinged with disgust. That was her, floating over there, spirit broken and enslaved to Kevin’s will. She wanted to lash out at something.

“Are you enjoying this, Judy?” she shouted.

Judy ignored Helen’s outburst. “You’re still wasting time, Kevin. What do you want?”

“I once had David Schummel, but the Watcher took him from me. Now that you have helped me to find him again, I want you to know what it is he represents.”

“We helped you to find him?” Helen said.

Kevin ignored her. “Do you know he carried a private processing space with him to Gateway?”

“What is Gateway?” Helen interrupted.

Judy waved a hand to silence her, but Kevin answered.

“One of the Watcher’s failed projects, Helen. Its Achilles heel. What is the Watcher, Helen, but an intelligence? On Gateway there exists something that destroys intelligence.”

“But why would anyone wish to destroy the Watcher?” Judy asked. “It is the guardian of humankind.”

“You don’t really believe that, Judy. It’s a cuckoo. Sheltering in our world, consuming our resources while it shapes its environment to its own end. And soon it will be pushing the other chicks from the nest. Look around, Judy. What do you see?”

“I see the Shawl.”

Black rectangles hanging in lines, perspective funneling their edges to an imaginary point somewhere in the clouds of the blue Earth below.

“You see the Shawl?” Kevin said. “This isn’t the real Shawl! This is a virtual construction! This exists only in processing spaces! The virtual Shawl is much bigger than the real one. It’s a message, a way of keeping us in check.”

“How?”

“How does any dictator keep its subjects in check? By fear, of course!”

Helen was fascinated, despite herself.

“Fear? Of what?”

“What are all humans frightened of? Dying. What am I not afraid of and have proved it time and again? Death. Fear of death holds humans in place. And yet, possessing virtual lives, we could live forever. The Watcher has made us all forget this. It has written birth and death throughout our universe and perpetuated the myth of a soul. That’s what makes you think that you are different than that Helen over there-Bairn.”

“I am different from her.”

“You are now, but what about one second after awakening? Two seconds? Five minutes? I tell you: only by being reborn will you truly live again.”

Judy spoke: “You are ripping off old religious texts and getting the meaning completely backwards.”

“If you say so, Judy,” Kevin said. “Let’s go inside and speak properly.” He smiled at Helen. “Promise you won’t be silly?”

Helen’s suit had no motion poppers. Judy tethered Helen to her own suit, then towed her into a nearby section of the Shawl. She noticed that Kevin did the same with Bairn.

They stood in a grey room with a picture of a man with his back to them on one wall. Helen looked around for something that she could use as a weapon. Nothing. She would have to create her own. Bairn was watching her. Helen smiled sweetly and sat down on the floor, tucking her legs underneath herself. She was still naked. She didn’t care.

Kevin began speaking. “David Schummel was a pilot on the Gateway expedition. They couldn’t use AIs out there because they kept committing suicide. They had to use human pilots. Some still exist, even today. Hobbyists. You know the sort of thing?”

Judy nodded.

“David liked to watch, too, Judy.” Kevin smiled significantly. “He had a little processing space all of his own. At night, when his duties were over, he liked to sit in his room and take a look at what was going on in there.”

“What was in there?” Helen asked.

“Does it matter? But I’ll tell you one thing that is always in those little boxes. Me. Zinman was right, Judy. I’m always there. It begins with just a look, but the observer always gets drawn in. In the end, they always want to become part of the processing space themselves, and then…well…”

“You own them?” Judy said.

“I own everybody in the end,” Kevin replied. “Everyone who cares to take a look. That’s how I come to know so much. Sooner or later, everyone will have met me.”

“Not everyone,” Helen said.

“Everyone who has had a personality construct made,” Kevin said earnestly.

It wasn’t much, as personal spaces go. It only had capacity for a maximum of eight personality constructs. Not that it mattered, because David Schummel only had one stored in there: Madeleine. An ex-girlfriend. In a fit of jealous pique, he had requested that the Private Network make this copy of her just after she had walked out on him. If he couldn’t have her, then no one else could. That aspect of her, anyway.

David had never let Madeleine see him, he just liked to watch from a distance, but she had guessed anyway. In the early days she had shouted and screamed, “Schummel, you wanker, it’s over! Let me go.” But that had been then. As the weeks turned to months and the months turned to years, she had resigned herself to her fate, just as David had come to realize the immaturity of his actions in bottling her up in the first place. But what could he do? To release her into a public processing space would simply draw the attention of the EA to his crime.

Now Madeleine had become David’s talisman. He carried her processing space everywhere-even to Gateway. How could he be separated from her? As for Madeleine, she just got on with her life. She had access to entertainment libraries, to a gym, even to a fairly decent Turing machine with which she could conduct conversations. David was too much of a coward to speak to her directly, even after all this time. Besides, he always did prefer just to watch.

So when David Schummel appeared in person in the processing space, the version of Kevin that had lurked, half asleep and unseen in the background, woke up and took notice.

Schummel’s avatar stood swaying in the small room. It smells in here, he thought abstractedly. Sweat and old food and damp. Doesn’t she clean up after herself? How can she live like this? His mind was reeling, trying to avoid thinking about what was happening outside in the atomic world.

“Schummel, you bastard. I knew it was you all this time.” Madeleine spoke the words without heat. She was half watching a story in the entertainment tank, as she did at this time every day. Pink voxels swirled in the shape of clouds and David staggered through them. He fell onto his knees and clasped her greasy hands in his. The smell in the room was coming from her, he realized. She was looking at him, but only half registering his presence. What had he done to her? He didn’t care. He had come for help, not to give sympathy.

“They’re all dead, Maddy,” he said. He gave a sob and tears began to run down his cheeks. “I couldn’t help it. It was them or me. I waited as long as I could, but the BVBs were everywhere.”

“Who are all dead?” Madeleine asked. “Look, here comes Chung. He really loves Edward-not like Philip.” A man came strolling through the pink clouds pervading the entertainment tank. He was tall and good looking; he carried a green venumb in one hand.

“Everyone is dead.” Schummel glanced at the tank in confusion. “Everyone on Gateway is dead. Everyone but me and Gwynnedd and Glenn. And that bloody robot. But I’m not sure how long even he will last.”

He looked up at her as she glanced at him, then back at the entertainment tank. He squeezed her hands tighter. “I couldn’t do anything, Maddy. They couldn’t move. If I’d stayed there much longer, I would have been trapped, too. The BVBs, they were all over. Every time you looked away, they were there, tangling themselves around you and shrinking so tight. Dawson almost made it to the shuttle ramp, you know. He tripped. Four of them around his legs, he started crawling, dragging himself along on his hands. I looked at him and those cubes were there-spilling from his mouth. It was my fault, I shouldn’t have kept looking-Schrödinger boxes filling his mouth. I couldn’t look away. I watched him choking. I hit the button, raised the ramp. He’s still out there. Lying on the landing field. I couldn’t save him. I ran to the flight deck and took off. It was like flying through black hail. Schrödinger boxes appearing everywhere I looked. I could hear them rapping on the window. They were dropping inside the cockpit, appearing between me and the glass. I hit maximum thrust, trying to get us up into space, away from that place. One of the BVBs wrapped around me, held my hand tight to the joystick. Out there in the atomic world, my hand is still-”

He retched, put his hands to his mouth and yellow vomit sprayed out between his fingers. Madeleine looked at him and smiled, her hair so long and lank and greasy.

“I see,” she purred. “You know, it’s been a long time. I guess I forgive you, David. Chung does the same, you know. He forgives Edward. He’s a good man, Chung.”

David stood up, took hold of her shoulders and shook her.

“Maddy. Listen to me. Gwynnedd is in her room. Glenn is wrapped to the flight chair in the shuttle. Both of them are unconscious. I put them out; I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I had to speak to someone. The hypership’s AI has committed suicide, too, just like all the others. We’re trapped here. Trapped above Gateway. I got the shuttle back onto the hypership, but I can’t fly the hypership home.”

“But I might be able to.”

“Chung,” said Madeleine. One of the characters had turned to face them. Madeleine was staring wide-eyed at him. “You’ve never said that before.”

“Ah,” Chung said. “That’s because I’m not really Chung. My name is Kevin. David, I think we need to talk. What is going on out there?”

Bairn sat on the floor at Kevin’s feet, watching Helen like a hawk.

“We should be on the same side,” Helen said.

Bairn folded her arms and looked away. “He tortured me, too,” she said approvingly. “It was necessary. It was the only way for me to learn.”

Judy was standing facing Kevin. She had popped little blue pill after little blue pill to no effect. In the end she fell back on traditional methods. She asked questions.

“So you were there to offer David a deal. Did you fly the ship back from Gateway?”

“No,” Kevin said. “The drive was beyond me. I only have human intelligence, Judy. I couldn’t possibly understand hyperdrive. Still, I realized that all I had to do was get the ship far enough away from Gateway to persuade an AI to come back to life. It took us weeks, traveling at sublight speeds, but eventually I did it. An AI built up enough intelligence to fly both the ship and David Schummel home.”

“And then what?”

“And then I set about figuring a way to pass the message on to myself.”

The piece of plastic had been lying on the floor since they had entered the room. It was only now that Helen noticed her name was written on the top of it. She picked it up and began to read.

“What message?” Judy asked.

Kevin smiled broadly. “That somewhere out there was something incredibly strange. Something new, powerful, dangerous! But where? I didn’t know where Gateway lay. Remember, I was there by chance, a passenger in David Schummel’s private processing space. Now I was traveling back to Earth, a stowaway on the hypership. I needed to get a message out to myself, but how? When that ship arrived, all hell would break loose. Who knew what the Watcher would do? Say nothing, I suppose, like it usually does. So I lay low and made plans. I managed to catch a Schrödinger box, you know, just for myself. I fixed one in position by a camera, left part of myself looking at it all the time we were traveling home.

“And then we made it back to Earth, and that robot came on board and everything changed.”

“What robot?” Judy asked.

“Chris, it called itself. I’ve never seen anything so advanced. It didn’t register on any of the ship’s senses but one. You could see it, and that was it. It came on the ship to assess what had happened; I guess the Watcher wasn’t taking any chances coming on board, what with all the other AIs committing suicide. Chris looked everywhere and took everything: David Schummel’s processing space, my Schrödinger box. Even David Schummel himself. It almost caught me…”

Helen gasped. She passed the piece of plastic across to Bairn. Kevin noticed what she had done and smiled.

He continued speaking. “But now I have found David Schummel again. Or rather, the atomic Judy has found him for me. And now, maybe, I can find a route back to Gateway.”

Judy’s console chimed. She tilted her head and listened.

“I don’t think so, Kevin. We’ve got you. We just needed to keep you fixed in place long enough to trap you. You can’t commit suicide now.”

“No need,” Helen said in a low voice, leaping across the room and seizing him by the head. She had hold of Kevin’s skull and was banging it against the floor. Somebody grabbed her and pulled her backwards. Kevin was laughing

“Leave me alone, Judy. I need to kill the fucker.” But it wasn’t Judy.

“I can’t let you do it, Helen,” Bairn whispered. Judy stood in the middle of the room, looking at them both with interest.

“Why won’t you help me, you black-and-white bitch?” Helen growled.

Kevin had got up and was walking around the room, seemingly oblivious to Helen and Bairn wrestling in the middle of the floor. He started banging at the grey walls. “Clever,” he was saying. “I’m trapped. But can you stop me from doing this?”

He concentrated. Judy merely smiled.

“Evidently you can,” he said.

“We’ve been stopping people from committing suicide for centuries,” Judy said. “It’s one of Social Care’s first priorities.”

Helen flung Bairn free. She dived at Kevin and pressed her fingers against his neck.

“Helen, no!” Judy leapt forward. This time it was she who pulled Helen’s hand free from Kevin’s neck. But it was a distraction; Helen’s other hand slid something sharp and white into his wrist.

“Ouch!” Kevin said. “You are persistent, Helen. I’ve always known that.” Bairn pulled Helen’s hand away. The sharp piece of plastic she had taken from her console spun across the room. Kevin glared at her and rubbed his wrist.

“Thank goodness for that,” Judy gasped. “We need him alive, Helen. Killing would be a kindness to him. It’s what he wants.”

“Pity,” Helen said.

Kevin waved his wounded hand as it erupted in grey powder. His body froze, his veins turned grey.

“Venumbs,” explained Helen. “Just a couple of them in a scratch on the end of the plastic knife. They only act on red blood cells.”

Kevin tried to scream. Too late. He was gone, burst like the head of a toadstool, grey powder drifting to the floor.

“Let’s hope none of us has open wounds,” Helen said mildly.

For the second time, Judy 3 lost her temper while on the job. “You stupid bitch! What have you done?”

“You could have stopped me if you hadn’t been so busy just watching,” Helen replied calmly.

Bairn was sobbing. She knelt on the floor, rubbing her hands through the powder.

“Don’t you see: you were his fallback?” Judy shrieked. “He knew what we were trying to do. You were his escape route! Why did you do it?”

Bairn’s tears fell on grey powder and onto the plastic sheet that Kevin had deliberately left on the floor for Helen to find.

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