CAPACITY

Helen 1: 2240

Come on then; see if you can spot which ones are the true botanicals.”

Sunlight dappled Helen as she raised her eyebrows in challenge to Kevin. Amongst the warm green life of the woodland glade, her tanned brown limbs and flower-plaited blond hair gave her the appearance of a nymph. She looked good, and she knew it. Kevin knew it too; she could tell. He rubbed his chin in an exaggerated fashion as he looked around the arboretum, his eyes lingering on her for a little longer than was necessary.

“Hmm, can I touch?” His voice was a delicious gravelly rumble. He waggled his eyebrows at her. “The plants, I mean.”

“If you like.” Helen smiled.

She leaned back against the bark of a lime tree and watched Kevin kneel down to feel the leaves of a McCusker’s Miracle. She felt a little glow somewhere inside. The defined V of his shoulders and upper body, the gentle way he rubbed a grey-green leaf between his fingers: it made her wonder what it would be like if he were to fold her up in his arms. Maybe just to kiss her.

He straightened up, rubbing the leaf’s metallic residue from his fingers, and caught sight of a nearby hawthorn, ragged green leaves dancing in the fresh breeze.

“No way is this one natural,” he said. Helen was impressed that he was tall enough to reach up and catch hold of the end of a branch.

“Ouch!” He winced. “It has spikes! Look at that twisting effect on the trunk as well. This one is definitely a venumb.”

He came back towards Helen, his dark eyes running up and down her body. For the twentieth time that day, she silently thanked the set of circumstances that had led to her drawing Kevin for the arboretum tour; thanked Lucy for asking her to swap shifts at the last moment; thanked Marek for pointing out the man who had just stepped from the Lite train.

She’d been tidying up the winged seeds display, placing natural sycamore seeds and ash keys next to the AI-designed VNM carriers used on Iota Cancri 4. Marek had raised his eyebrows at her, then deliberately turned to look in the direction of the tall handsome man who had just walked into the airy glass structure of the visitors’ center. He had quickly pressed an ash key into one of her hands and the strange double-fluted IC4 carrier into the other, and then pushed her gently in the man’s direction.

“Hello there,” Helen had said, holding them out to the gorgeous stranger and smiling brightly. “Can you guess which was built and which evolved?”

Her console, wrapped about her waist like a belt, was busy releasing a cloud of the maximum permissible dose of pheromones. The way the man smiled at her gave the impression that maybe chemicals weren’t that necessary. Marek certainly got the hint and jumped Helen two places in the roster, allowing her to escort the man from the queue out into the warm summer of the arboretum proper.

And here he was now, gently sucking his pricked thumb, a tender gesture in such a big man. Helen silently thanked the Watcher for realizing that she was ready for another relationship by sending this gorgeous giant along. He was walking towards her now in a slow prowl, and she wondered if he was finally going to kiss her…push her against the dark tree trunk and kiss her firmly on the lips. He was reaching towards her, closer, an arrogant smile on his face…but at the last moment he bent down to touch the sprays and shoots emerging from near the base of the tree she was leaning against. He was teasing her. She liked that.

“This doesn’t look right either.” He looked up at her. “Another venumb. I’d say the little one over there is the only true botanical.”

“Wrong!” Helen said triumphantly. “Both trees are natural. The first plant you looked at is the venumb. McCusker’s Miracle. It was designed to extract aluminum from the soil. You got some of the metal residue on your fingers when you felt its leaves.”

Kevin laughed as he straightened up, his big body filling her vision, and he leaned a little closer so that he was almost touching her. He smelled very clean, just a hint of cologne.

“Ah well, can’t be right all of the time.”

He touched Helen on the cheek; she felt a tiny flutter where his fingers brushed against her skin. He gazed at her for a moment, and she smiled…then ducked under his arm and walked over to the center of the clearing. The noon sun lanced down onto the mossy grass, and she spun slowly round in its glow, showing off her body. The light flickered as silver space-bound ships slowly ascended from the port that bordered the arboretum. A sprinkling of butterflies rose into the air and flitted away, back towards the nearby coppice.

“You’ll find the best examples of the hybrid venumbs that way,” said Helen, deliberately facing away from Kevin towards an area where the trees looked more mechanical. “That section most resembles the modern world,” she said. “Or, if you want to see more traditional woodland, we can head in the opposite direction, towards the coppice. There’s fine display of butterflies and deer there, too.”

She became aware that Kevin was now standing just behind her.

“What’s that?” He pointed to the edge of the coppiced area. The corner of a silver-grey cube rose above the tops of the trees.

“That?” Helen smiled. “Oh, that’s the Secret Garden.”

“The Secret Garden? That sounds intriguing.”

Kevin had moved around in front of her now, gazing at the tilted, sunken cube, half seen through the trees. About twenty meters along each side, the straight edges and clean lines of its polished surfaces were in marked contrast to the rounded organic shapes of the surrounding wood. The top of the cube glinted oddly in the sunlight where it emerged from the foliage. Helen took him by the elbow and led him forward.

“Come on, let’s go look.”

They set off towards the cube. Helen put on her lilting guide’s voice.

“The Secret Garden is a first-generation Von Neumann Machine from around the end of the twenty-first century. Unlike contemporary VNMs, these first-generation machines were built without the use of AI library code. It seems hard to believe nowadays, but humans actually worked out the replication routines themselves-” she gave a little laugh; it was part of the script, “-and more often than not, they got them wrong.”

“Humans worked out the code? I thought all that sort of thing could only be done by artificial intelligences.”

Helen smiled knowingly. “That may be the case nowadays, but back in those days the first AIs hadn’t evolved properly. That VNM almost predates AIs.”

They reached the cube and stood in the shadow cast by one out-sloping side of the huge VNM. Kevin reached out and ran his hand across its surface. His big, powerful, gentle hand.

“It feels odd, almost frictionless. It’s sort of ugly, too.” He frowned at Helen. “I’m surprised they left it here in the arboretum. It’s hardly natural, is it?”

Helen frowned. “Kevin, people have resigned over that point! The consensus is that this cube is just as natural as any of the hybrid venumbs found in here. As much a living thing as the McCusker’s Miracle you were just looking at. This cube replicates itself, just like the beeches and the willows do. The EA therefore counts it as a life form.”

“Really?” said Kevin, sounding surprised. “Do you mean that thing is still replicating?”

“Oh, yes. The original unit was seeded about three kilometers down and one kilometer west of here. Some organization wanted a complex of rooms beneath the ground, all to be protected by stealth technology. That’s what gives the cube its silver sheen and frictionless feel. Industrial espionage was rife back then, so a secure location was essential. All appeared fine at first, but someone got the telomeric procedures wrong and the VNMs just kept replicating themselves. Rooms kept being built onto previous rooms. Go inside this cube and you’re at the top of a four-kilometer-high tower that has burrowed right up from beneath the earth.”

Kevin looked at the cube in fascination.

“How did it go on reproducing for so long? Why didn’t they stop it?”

Helen laughed. “They didn’t know it was happening! It was a stealth construction, remember? They didn’t detect any activity!”

She laughed again, and the console around her waist emitted another puff of pheromones. Helen looked delightful when she laughed; she had been told as much many times. Kevin’s console must have caught the spray; to be sent a puff of pheromones was a flattering invitation, but at the moment he seemed utterly fascinated by the construct.

“Can we go inside?” he asked. He suddenly switched his attention back to her and, caught by the force of his all too apparent intention, she felt her stomach flip over.

“Oh yes,” she said, looking up coyly from beneath her lashes. “There is a door around the other side.”

Heart pounding, she led the way along one side of the cube. Sunlight, flickering its way through the green leaves above, formed jigsaw patterns on the ground. Grass and moss grew right up to the VNM’s very edge but no further, unable to get a grip on its stealthy surface.

“It’s got no roof,” said Kevin as they reached the other side. The tilt of the cube allowed them to see the unformed top surface of the VNM.

“Ah,” began Helen, “the EA slowed the replication process right down. The thing is still growing, but now at about one billionth of its original rate. The EA does the same with a lot of the hybrid venumbs here in this park. They’re technically alive, but with restricted ability to absorb any more of the arboretum’s capacity.”

Kevin glanced at the entrance to the cube. It had been surrounded with thick, clear plastic that formed a collar around the door-shaped hatch.

He stood back and held out an arm, using an anachronistic gesture that still had the power to charm.

“Ladies first.”

“Oh thank you,” Helen simpered, and stepped through the hatch. She felt a cold breeze as she did so, and a sudden stab of fear that came from nowhere.

She shrugged her shoulders. She was being ridiculous.

Level Zero

A rich pool of green grass lapped the walls of the cube’s interior. It was as if someone had filled a tilted square bottle with green water. The process had not yet begun that would flush the cube’s inside clean and start the construction of floors and internal walls. A second plastic collar, set in the grass near the far wall, enclosed a set of steps leading down to the fully formed cube that lay immediately below ground, the first of a descending sequence of stealth rooms that extended obliquely deep into the earth. Kevin followed her into the cube’s interior, face now serious, and Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her. She was alone with a man she had only met two hours ago. Alone in an area where her console would not work; the stealth circuitry in the half-formed walls was functioning well enough to block any incoming or outgoing signals.

Still, Social Care would know where she was. Their AIs would have seen her enter the cube; they would wait for her to exit.

Kevin walked towards her, his expression odd. Helen took a step back.

“What’s the matter, Kevin?” She heard the tremble in her own voice. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out.

“Helen, do you know what a Strangler Fig is?”

Helen suddenly felt very small and alone. Though his tone was just the same as before, the warmth seemed to have completely drained from it.

“I know what a Strangler Fig is,” said Helen, her attempt at a casual tone tight and forced. She was suddenly very aware of the distance to the visitors’ center, of her nonfunctioning console.

Kevin held out his hand, a little white object on the palm.

“This is a seed from a hybrid venumb based on the Strangler Fig,” said Kevin. “I want you to swallow it.”

“Wh…why?”

“Because all self-replicating objects are valid forms of life and have a right to exist. You said as much yourself. This seed was built by the Sterkarm Company back in the mid-twenty-second century, just when the EA was bringing war to an end. This seed never had the chance to realize its potential. Here in the arboretum is the very place for it to finally do so.”

Helen kept backing away from Kevin. His big powerful body that had previously looked so sexy now seemed sinister and dangerous. He was standing right between her and the door. If she could just dodge around him, she could make a run for it; if she could just make it to the outside, she could send a distress call. She played for time.

“But if I swallow the seed it will kill me. Isn’t Social Care bothered about what happens to me?” She began to cautiously circle around him, ready to make a break for it.

He gave her a withering look. “There are many humans, Helen, but there is only one seed. Now, stand still. I’m hardly going to let you slip around me so you can get to the door, am I?”

Helen felt sick to her stomach. That was when she noticed movement in the corner of the cube. Someone was climbing up out of the stairs that led from the level below. With a huge wave of relief she saw who it was.

“Dr. Soames! Dr. Wu! Larry! Thank the Watcher!”

She ran towards them, oblivious to Kevin for the moment. Then she slowed to a halt as she saw their expressions. They were looking at her not as a person but as an object. A piece of meat. Food for the seed.

One strong hand grabbed her around the waist from behind, another moved across her face. She felt something being pushed into her mouth, a little sting of pain, and then she was released. She tumbled to the soft earth, damp grass staining her hands and knees.

“Five minutes,” said Dr. Wu, gazing down at her impassively. “Go watch the exit, Kevin.” Kevin nodded and withdrew.

Helen felt her jaw going numb. A sharp, shooting pain ran across her left shoulder. Desperation promoted inspiration. She began running across the grass to where the upper rim of the wall was lowest, pulling her console from around her waist and feeling along it, hand over hand, searching for the panic button. She squeezed it hard, morphing the memory plastic of the console into the shape of a flat disc.

Kevin realized what she was doing and sped after her. Too late. She skimmed the console upwards like a frisbee towards the wall. Watched as it rose higher and higher, then started to dip. Would it make it? A sudden, knifing pain ran down her left arm, locking it in position. She could no longer move it. Dr. Soames was already at her side, taking that arm, feeling it. She pulled away from him and started across the grass again. Then her legs went numb, too, and she fell over. The three doctors strolled across to where she lay. She tried to crawl away, and now she felt the same shooting pain in her right arm as the Strangler Fig seed sent tendrils down inside it, following her veins and arteries, dipping its little suckers into them to feed on her blood. She screamed and rolled onto her back as more tendrils ran down her spine, hardening as they descended, pulling her into a new shape.

The knowledge of what was happening to her made the pain all the worse. There was an exhibit card displayed back in the visitors’ center:

THE STRANGLER FIG originated in the rain forests of northeast Australia. Its seeds were deposited on the bark of a tree in the droppings of a bird or animal. From there they worked inwards to feed on the tree’s sap. Gradually the fig would grow tendrils that clung to the tree, working its way around it; each tendril dipping itself in to drink more sap until eventually a network of tendrils completely surrounded the tree, strangling it, killing it. The tree would die, leaving only the cage of the strangler fig still standing.

Now this venumb, this half biological, half mechanical device, was doing exactly the same to her. A venumb designed for use in a war that had never happened. Today it was finally being tested-on her. The pain was incredible. Where was Social Care? Couldn’t they hear her cries? Another spear of agony seared through her body, jerking her head back. She could see her console lying on the grass over there. It hadn’t made it over the wall. Someone’s feet moved into her view and she heard a voice.

“Look-the first protrusions from her skin. Is that metal or wood?”

Someone else knelt down by her.

“Metal, I think.”

“Don’t touch them,” cautioned a third voice urgently. “They may contain seeds, too. Secondary infection of any soldiers who came to the victim’s aid…”

Helen screamed again. A throbbing pain was building in intensity beneath her skull as the fig’s tendrils searched for a way in. There was an explosion of light…

Level One

A rich pool of green grass lapped the walls of the cube’s interior. It was as if someone had filled a tilted square bottle with green water. The process had not yet begun that would flush the cube’s inside clean and start the construction of floors and internal walls. A second plastic collar, set in the grass near the far wall, enclosed a set of steps leading down to the fully formed cube that lay immediately below ground, the first of a descending sequence of stealth rooms that extended obliquely deep into the earth. “Can we go to the level below?” Kevin asked. He gave her a significant look. “It should be more…private down there.”

Helen wordlessly took his hand and led him across the sunlit interior of the roofless cube to the plastic collar set in the earth.

The first room beneath the ground was a fully functioning stealth area; it wanted to maintain its integrity and that meant sealing the hatch to the surface. Rather than disable the room in any way, the arboretum had placed the plastic collar in position to stop the door to the outside world from closing totally. Helen made her way down clear plastic steps, her shoes squeaking on the nonslip surfaces. She felt a little thrill as Kevin’s body blocked out the light behind her. She wondered what he had in mind.

The steps led to a grey rubberized floor that sloped gently down towards one corner of the room.

“Everything in the cube is at a slant,” Helen said. “Progressive leveling error in the initial parameters of the original VNMs.”

Kevin didn’t seem to be listening. He prowled around the room, tapping at the walls and feeling along the edges of the several raised platforms that filled the interior of the room.

“Got it,” Kevin said, tapping one of them, and Helen suddenly felt very small and alone.

“Got what?” she asked. Her mouth felt very dry. She had a sense of retreating from her real life up in the world above. Hemmed in by grey rubberized walls, by ancient machinery and hidden software, she suddenly felt stifled. She thought of the climb up the plastic stairs to the surface, of the long lines of poplars, the dappled collections of broadleaves awaiting autumn, the paper delicacy of the groves of Japanese maples that stretched between herself and the visitors’ center…

“What’s the matter with you?” Kevin said.

“N…Nothing,” Helen stuttered. “What have you found?”

“The isolation room.”

Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her.

“They always built them inside these old cubes. Failsafe. If anyone managed to violate the integrity of the outer skin they would find nothing of interest. Everything that was really important went on inside the isolation room.”

He tapped the floor and a panel sprang open. Helen caught a glimpse of a mirrored cubicle, big enough to seat four people.

“I never knew that was there,” she whispered. “How do you know so much about this cube?”

“Part of the job,” Kevin said. “Helen, I want you to go inside.”

Helen found herself drawn closer to the entrance to the isolation room. She would have to stoop to enter it. Once she was in there, would she be able to get out?

“I don’t want to go in,” she said.

“Don’t be silly,” Kevin said. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Helen peered cautiously through the door. Kevin placed a hand on her back and gently but firmly pushed her inside.

“Hey…” she said, turning to him. He filled the doorway.

“I’m going to lock you in here.”

Helen didn’t waste time with words. She flung herself at him. As he reached out to catch her, she caught his arm and twisted. She heard him grunt with pain just as she felt the sting in her leg.

Her body went limp.

“Relaxant,” Kevin said. He dragged her back into the cubicle by her arms and propped her in the corner.

“Good move there on the arm, Helen. You really hurt me. Some of our customers here will like that.”

Helen looked at him. Her lips felt numb; her words became mushy and half formed.

“Wht cstmers?”

“You’ll find out.”

“Sshl Cr.”

“Social Care?” Kevin laughed. “No chance.”

“Knws m here.”

“They don’t know you’re here. That’s part of the stealth technology of this cube. The people who designed these things didn’t want it advertised who might be attending meetings inside them. As soon as you come within range of this cube, it creates various ghost objects on any senses observing in the vicinity. It will appear as if you never came in here. You simply vanished into the woods.”

“No.”

“It’s true. Social Care may have all the best AIs working for them, but the senses it relies upon are just the same as those used by everyone else.”

Kevin looked at his watch. “Anyway, got to go. Someone will probably be along in an hour or so.”

“Wt!”

Too late. The door slid shut. Helen lay helpless in the corner of the room, looking around the mirrored walls at the slumped shapes reflected all around her. She could feel dread rising from them, filling the mirrored room to capacity.

Level Two

The steps led to a grey rubberized floor that sloped gently down towards one corner of the room.

“Everything in the cube is at a slant,” Helen said. “Progressive leveling error in the initial parameters of the original VNMs.” It was all she could do to keep the longing from her voice. She could feel an aching between her legs when she looked at Kevin.

“Let’s go down another level,” he said, giving her a knowing smile.

He pressed down on a section of the floor and a hatch opened up.

“How did you know about that?” asked Helen.

“I read up on this sort of stealth cube before coming to the arboretum,” said Kevin.

They descended to the second cube below the ground.

“So what do you want with me down here?” she teased.

Kevin didn’t seem to be listening. He prowled around the room, tapping at the walls and feeling along the edges of the raised platforms that filled the interior of the room.

“Got it,” Kevin said, and Helen suddenly felt very small and alone.

“Got what?” she asked.

“The isolation room.”

Helen felt a squiggle of danger inside her.

He tapped the floor and a panel sprung open. Helen caught a glimpse of a mirrored cubicle, big enough to seat four people.

There was someone in there.

Level Two, Variation A

Kevin took hold of Helen’s arm and pulled her into the room. A woman sat on the floor, gazing up at Kevin with a hopeless expression.

“Good afternoon, Mona. I’ve brought you a friend.”

Mona looked at Helen with an expression of fear and pity. Helen’s sense of foreboding turned to alarm. She recognized the woman who sat in the corner of the room, gazing up at Kevin with empty eyes.

“That’s Mona Karel. She vanished two months ago. Nobody could explain how!”

“Well, now you know,” said Kevin. “They’ll be talking about you in the same way this time tomorrow.”

He pressed his hand against Helen’s cheek. As he took it away she saw the skin on his fingers was dyed blue.

“Relaxant,” he said as Helen slumped to the floor beside Mona.

Kevin looked down at them both, then checked his watch.

“Mona, your next customer will be arriving in about four hours. Helen, you can learn what’s expected of you by watching Mona. You’ll be on duty four hours after that.”

“Please,” Mona said. She was shaking. “Please, no.”

Kevin smiled and the mirrored door slid shut.

Level Two, Variation B

Kevin took hold of Helen and pulled her by the arm into the room. A woman walked towards Kevin and kissed him on the cheek.

“Hey,” said Kevin. “You’re not Mona!”

The woman who had kissed Kevin placed a hand on each of his shoulders and gazed into his eyes. She had long, straight black hair, pulled into two halves so they looked like the carapace of a beetle. At the nape of her neck the hair was wound into a complicated bun arrangement held in place by a thick horizontal rod of lacquered wood.

Her face was utterly white save for her black lips and eyes that seemed to float over that white space, unattached. When she opened her mouth, a living red tongue ran across brilliantly white teeth. When she blinked, black lashes swept down over black irises. She wore a black kimono from which white hands and feet with black-painted nails emerged. She should have been terrifying. Instead, Helen found her strangely beautiful. When she spoke, her voice was soft and lilting, her accent vaguely Irish.

“Good afternoon, Kevin. Remember me?”

“Judy! How could I forget?” He had not been expecting this woman to be in the room, that much was obvious, but who would expect someone who seemed like a cross between a black-and-white geisha and the most sinister clown from their childhood? Strangely, Kevin seemed quite unconcerned. He casually looked around the room, searching for something.

“If you’re looking for Mona,” the woman said, “she’s somewhere safe, being counseled by Social Care.”

Helen looked on, a sense of unreality settling on her like snowflakes. Truth be told, things had seemed rather strange since she woke up that morning: the world just a little too bright, the colors just a little bit too simple. But this was a step too far. Kevin reached out into the space immediately before him and began to twist his hands, as if searching for something.

“No point activating the escape hatch,” said the woman. “I’ve taken control of this processing space.”

“Ah,” said Kevin. He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out his console.

Helen looked from Kevin to the black-and-white woman, utterly confused. Kevin still seemed quite relaxed.

“No problem,” he said. “There’s always a failsafe.”

He pressed his console and vanished. Helen jerked backwards in surprise, banging into the mirrored wall behind her.

The black-and-white woman turned to look at Helen.

“I’m Judy,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met yet, Helen.”

Helen gazed at the woman for a moment, her lips moving silently. She suddenly understood.

“I’m a personality construct, aren’t I? This isn’t the real me any more.”

Judy’s black lips formed into a smile.

“You’re not as sentimental as your personality profile makes out, are you? No matter how many readings Social Care pass on to me, they never give the same feel as actually meeting a person. Each time I’ve met you, you’ve faced up to reality straight away.”

Helen bit her lip thoughtfully. “Each time we’ve met?” she said. “There is more than one copy of me?”

“Oh yes, you’re very popular in this little chamber of horrors.”

Judy’s console made a shushing noise, and Judy tilted her head a little, clearly listening to something.

Helen opened her mouth, and Judy raised a hand to silence her. Helen looked around the mirrored chambers, at all the black-and-white women who raised their hands to the young blond women, images receding into infinity. Helen had a sudden sense that she was not looking at reflections; that, instead, each of the pairs of figures that she saw was another Helen and Judy, trapped in another computer simulation. Each one of them awaiting some dreadful fate.

Judy lowered her hand.

“Kevin has shown up on one of the Level Three simulations. I’m going to intercept him. Helen, you will be safe within the stealth cube area for the moment. Don’t wander too far into the arboretum; the simulation only extends for a few hundred meters beyond the limits of this construction.”

“But…” said Helen.

“Read this while I’m gone.” She thrust a thin plastic pamphlet into her hand.

“What…”

It was too late. Judy had vanished. Helen looked down at the pamphlet. Written along the top were the words “Welcome to the Digital World. Welcome to your new life!”

Level Three, Variation A

Helen crouched in the corner of the mirrored room, knees pulled up tight against her chin, arms hugging her shins. She guessed she had been trapped in the room for about six hours now. Long enough to make herself hoarse, shouting for help. Long enough to realize that Social Care weren’t coming. Long enough to realize that she faced the awful prospect of being a victim to those crimes she had thought were only vicarious entertainment on historical shows. Rape. Murder. Torture. She gazed at nothing, not wanting to look into the terrified eyes of the other Helens who shivered around her. The wide eyes, the pinched cheeks, the pale faces all served to amplify her own fear.

“Watcher,” she whispered. “If you are there. If you really exist. Please, please. Help me.”

Then there came the noise of the seals in the door disengaging. Helen whimpered with fear. How much would it hurt?

A thin, unshaven man stepped into the room, his eyes lighting up with excitement as he saw Helen.

“Please,” Helen said. Reflexively she felt for her console, but it was no use; Kevin had taken it away when he had first pushed her into this place.

The man giggled. “Say it again,” he said. “Say please and I might be nice.”

Helen felt something inside herself harden. She pushed herself upright against the wall, gazing at the man’s fingers as she did so. He didn’t look so strong, really. Maybe she could get behind him, hold his blue-stained hands away.

Too late. With a speed that took her by surprise, he lashed out, brushing his fingers against her cheek. She felt her legs give way.

The man stood back and looked down at her thoughtfully.

“Now,” he said. “Where shall we start?”

“How about with a profile readjustment?”

The man jumped at the voice.

A woman stepped into the room. Black hair, black lips, white face. The sight of her terrified the man.

“No,” he croaked. “You don’t understand. This is not what it looks like…”

The woman smiled. “Hello, Helen. Hello, James. My name is Judy. I’m-”

The man’s face crumpled. “How did you know my real name? They told me that my anonymity would be assured.”

Judy rolled her eyes. “James, they are running illegal personality constructs. They are collaborating in the torture and murder of said constructs. I think it may be a fair assumption that they are not the sort of people to be trusted when they tell you that your anonymity is assured.”

The man stared at Judy, trying to understand the full import of what she had just said.

Helen was a lot quicker on the uptake. “You mean this isn’t real? I’m a personality construct?”

“I don’t know about real,” Judy said. “It is true that you are a personality construct. According to your time frame, you were copied by a Marek Mazokiewicz two days ago. You’re being run, illegally and without your consent, so that people like James here can get their rocks off torturing you.”

Helen wasn’t listening. She was still focused on the first part of the sentence. “According to my time frame…” she said slowly. A yawning feeling opened up in her stomach.

Judy shook her head sadly. “According to atomic time, you were copied seventy years ago. You’re just the latest in a long line of Helens. I’m sorry.”

Helen felt a pang inside her. She forced down the welling nausea for the moment.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why were you copied? As I said, so that people like James here could play with you. Torture you. Isn’t that right, James?”

“No,” said James. He began to wring his hands. “I wasn’t going to do anything like that. I just wanted to know…wanted to know…what it would be like…”

Helen felt contempt rising inside her. She dismissed James from the conversation.

“What happens now?” she asked Judy.

Judy tilted her head. “That all depends.”

“On what?”

Judy looked at James. “The people who run this place know that their cover is blown. They’ll want to destroy the evidence. What happens now depends on whether they manage to wipe the processing space in which we reside, or whether my atomic self manages to stop them.”

Helen licked her lips. “Do you think you will?”

Judy smiled and nodded. “I always do. We’ve been dealing with the Private Network for some time now. One of my digital alter egos is hot on the trail of Kevin-one of the Private Network’s leaders-right now. They won’t do anything to harm the simulation while he’s still in here.”

James slumped hopelessly into a corner of the room.

Helen gazed at Judy. “Digital alter egos? You’re going to have to explain that…”

Judy fingered the black sleeve of her kimono.

“There are twelve of us,” she said. “Twelve digital Judys. And then there is our other sister, living out in the atomic world. For the sake of convenience, I’m sometimes called Judy 3.”

“Judy 3?” said Helen.

“You can call me Judy.” She tilted her head, listened to her console, which was set in the form of the black rod threaded through her hair. “Here we are. My sister has just caught up with Kevin…”

Level Three, Variation B

Judy 4 stepped into the isolation room. Kevin was already here, struggling with Helen. Calypso, the woman who had booked the session in the trap, was lying on the floor, feebly trying to get up. Judy paused by the door, letting events run their course. As she watched, Helen slumped to the floor. Kevin noticed Judy and gave her a smile.

“Hello again,” he said. He nodded to Helen on the floor. “She’s very clever,” he said. “She grabbed hold of Calypso’s hands and rubbed the relaxant on me. She couldn’t know that the simulation is programmed to exclude me from the effects.”

Judy’s face was deliberately impassive.

“She’s very tenacious, Kevin. I’m really coming to admire her.”

“That’s why we pick her for the traps. Big favorite with a certain sort of man.” He looked down at Calypso. “And a certain sort of woman,” he added.

“Fk ff,” Calypso murmured.

Kevin rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “I don’t seem to be able to exit from this space at all.”

“We’ve got your measure now,” Judy 4 said.

“I didn’t think that was possible.” Kevin frowned.

Judy pulled a little blue pill from the sleeve of her kimono and swallowed it.

“It is possible,” she said, “if we isolate the space completely. Nothing gets in and out now. Not even me.”

Kevin shrugged his shoulders. “Ah, well. There is still one way out.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Watch me,” whispered Kevin. His smile froze as he slumped slowly to the ground.

Judy 4 stared at him for a moment, her white face motionless. Only the slight widening of her black eyes displayed the horror she felt.

“Wht? Wht s it?” Calypso said. She was gazing up from the floor where she lay. “Wht dd he do?”

Level Three, Variation A

“What’s the matter, Judy?”

Helen leaned close to Judy 3 and took hold of one of her white hands. For something that seemed to be barely there, the hand felt very warm.

“Judy, what is it?”

“He killed himself,” she whispered. “Overwrote the personality space he inhabited with null events.”

James spoke up from his corner in a whining voice. “So what? Let him die. Who cares?”

Judy 3 turned and gave him a sweet smile. “You should care, James. Now that Kevin has left this processing space, there is no reason for the Private Network to maintain it. Let’s just hope my atomic friends get an exit into here before we’re all wiped.”

Helen moved her lips, thinking aloud.

“Surely they will have a backup of this processing space? Couldn’t they just run that?”

Judy 3 had been gazing at her reflection in the mirrored walls of the isolation room. She turned and gave Helen a significant look.

“Ah, now you’ve hit on the crux of the matter, Helen.”

Level Four

Judy 11 stepped into the isolation room on Level Four and held her breath, expecting the worst. The scenarios on this level did not bear contemplating. To look at them awoke a boiling anger that slowly cooled into thoughts that left her feeling weak and ashamed.

In this room there was a table, a little tray of silver instruments at one side of it. A man was looking at the instruments thoughtfully. He turned as Judy appeared.

“Hello, Judy,” he said.

“Who are you?” Judy 11 asked. “Where’s Helen?”

“Never mind that,” said the man. “We need to talk, and quickly. I’ve been trying to get a message to your atomic self, undetected, for months now. This may be my last chance.”

Judy 11 laughed sardonically.

“You could have picked a better place. This processing space is going to be shut down at any moment, with all of us in it. I’m doing a last sweep for anyone who may be trapped in here, in the vain hope that we may be able to get them out in time.”

“Never mind that,” the man said again. “What I’ve got to say is far more important.”

“I doubt it,” Judy said.

The man took hold of Judy’s hands and gazed into her black eyes.

“Judy, listen to me. When word of this gets out, it could bring down Social Care, the EA, even the Watcher. It changes everything we’ve been led to believe. There’s been a murder.”

The edge to the man’s words touched something in Judy. He believed in what he was saying.

“Who has been murdered?” she asked crisply.

“That’s not the problem. The problem is the murderer. They’ve killed once; they’re going to kill again. The murderer has to be stopped, and I don’t think that that’s possible.”

Judy 11 was calm.

“Nothing is impossible. Who is the murderer?”

The man swallowed. He looked around the room, as if afraid of who might hear his words. When he spoke, it was in a hoarse whisper.

“The Watcher.”