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Idiot's Mask - Chapter 7

noreply@blogger.com (Cheeseburger Brown) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:37:09 PDT

Idiot's Mask is a science-fiction novella told in seven parts, posted serially by me, your reasonable facsimile of a host, Cheeseburger Brown. This is the seventh and final installment.

Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7

Connected Stories: Simon of Space, The Christmas Robots

And now, the story concludes:

CHAPTER SEVEN

I suspect some terrible things happened to me next, but I can't really be sure. The records are sealed.

Only slowly did I come to from that dark, delirious, desperate time. Only gradually was I able to recognize the feeling of my body's weight and the slow, rhythmic draw and release of breath inside of me. Pin-prick flares of brightness punctured the dim when I stirred.

I yanked the black hood off my head. I winced at the light, gasping.

The sound of my respiration continued slow and steady despite the shallow, panicked, craving contractions of my lungs. After a while I dared to peek between my fingers at the shifting glare again. Before me, a glittering blanket rolled and sloshed.

The ocean. It was the ocean. I blinked and rubbed my burning eyes.

I was lying on my side on a beach of fine, white sand. A brown ant was working its way over an island of pebbles just centimeters from my nose. Beyond her, the blurry ocean washed in and out, in and out, in and out...

With effort I managed to sit upright. I ached. There were tiny scorch marks on the backs of my hands. My head was shaven. I was dressed in a black plastic coverall that whispered and creaked as I moved. I drew back the right sleeve to examine the stinging skin there, revealing a scabbed tattoo: a crude iconification of the Ilbisoon flag with a long serial number etched beneath it.

The brown ant had long since moved on. I don't know how long I sat there staring at the sea. I was numb, and my thoughts flowed reluctantly. Only by repeated attempts at concentration was I able to take even the most rudimentary stock of my situation.

I was at the beach. Venus was gone and I'd been arrested, but, still...I was at the beach.

Something occurred to me. I turned around.

The cliffs stood tall behind me, faces striped with sedimentary layers. The breeze blowing out over the precipice was scented by fruit. That smell could only be from the orchards on the plateau above. They smelled just the way I had always imagined, soft peach commingling with grass and brine.

I still had to squint to see. Tears made the images swim. It was impossible to resolve any details; it became plain to me that that was because they were not there. No, the finest level of details were lost in the thick brush-strokes of colour from which this quiet, sun-dappled world was built.

I was inside Venus' paintings.

There was comfort in this realization, because it could not possibly be the case. Obviously, I was dead. Or perhaps merely dying. Either way, it seemed clear to me that a profound schism had developed between myself and reality. I reasoned that what was happening to me out in the world was simply too much for me to bear, and so my consciousness had retreated here, to an oil-paint simulacrum where nothing could hurt.

I shuddered to imagine what might be happening to my body. I was grateful to have gone so mercifully mad.

I was thirsty, though. Parched, in fact.

Could a man be refreshed by a linseed oil spring in a painted prison? I knew how to test that. I carefully got to my feet, my balance uncertain, then trudged north along the coast in the shadow of the cliffs, the thighs of my plastic clothes zinging loudly as they swept past one another.

I knew by heart every scene Venus had ever painted and so I therefore knew intimately the lay of the land. Thus I found myself smiling when I came to the gap in the cliffs where winding stone steps led up through a garden, switch-backing up the hill toward the grand summer house at the summit. I knew the steps would be there. I had often wondered how they would feel beneath my bare feet.

I climbed. At the midway I came to the gazebo in the shade of a pear tree, and at its centre was a small fountain pouring into a sculpted marble bowl. The water chuckled as it splashed down. I knelt at its side and drank greedily, cool water running over the front of my plastic coverall. I dried myself with the black hood. Finally slaked, I sat on the bench in the gazebo for a while before picking a pear and biting into it.

It was delicious, though my last bite revealed half a worm. I frowned, then tossed the core aside to resume the climb. This was a strange paradise.

My vision was crystallizing. No longer was the world so blurry, or seemingly crossed with strokes of thick medium. The veil of glare had faded to admit the details -- lizards scampering among the vines, the aperiodic sway and dip of ferns in the moving air, streaks of mineral discolouration on the stone showing the flow of the winter rains...

At the top of the steps the garden widened and I followed the path that wound along the cliffside wall toward the terrace. The orchard's perfume was even stronger here, mixed with the wet funk of aloe. Birds chased one another through an unblemished cobalt sky.

I turned onto the terrace before the house.

There -- back to me, facing the easel as I knew she would be -- was Venus.

The black hood was still in my hand, hanging at my side. I knelt down and scooped up a sharp-edged rock, using it to cut two crude eye-holes into the hood. It would be unthinkable to meet my sweet dead love with a naked face.

She looked over as I approached, the lenses of her intricately detailed lar reflecting a warped and inverted image of me. She cocked her head and put aside her brush. "Hello?"

The sound of her voice did something to me. For a moment I was unable to speak.

"Are you quite alright?" she asked. Wisps of inky hair escaped the edge of her lar, waving in the breeze. She tucked them back in carelessly.

I managed to nod at last, forcing a breath through my quivering throat. I croaked, "Am I in Heaven now?"

She sniffed. "Is that supposed to be some sort of pick-up line?"

I blinked stupidly. "Uh, no. No. I just...I'm so happy to see you."

She cocked her head again, crossing her arms over her paint-stained smock. "Am I to understand we are acquainted, esteemed? I confess I do not recognize your voice or that...lar."

I reached up to touch the black hood over my face. "This? This isn't a lar, really. It's just...common modesty, I guess. I was just trying to be civilized."

She shrugged and turned back to her easel, taking up the brush. "How uncouth. Is there anything truly civilized or even trustworthy about a man who hides his mind?"

I rubbed my head as I took a step back. "Well," I said slowly, "if the mind is revealed to you, trust isn't a factor in the equation. Not really."

She hesitated with her brush, looking over her shoulder at me. "Fair enough," she agreed with a hint of laughing lilt in her voice. "The point is granted, stranger."

Stranger.

"Tell me," she went on to say, mixing colours on her palette; "are you a guest of my father's?"

I began to nod. "Yes," I said quietly. "Yes, I believe that I am."

I proceeded past her, the cushioning of my daze fading with every step. This world around me was made of neither paint nor magic, but rather was increasingly taking on the solidity and gritty tangibility of reality. Certainly I was not in Heaven, though I reserved judgement as to whether I had stepped into the outermost circle of Hell.

He was waiting for me inside the house, seated by a cold hearth with an open book in his lap. He looked up, his glittering lar causing caustic reflections to wink across the richly embroidered carpet. "Esteemed Mr. Waterpipes," he said simply, closing the book.

"The Supreme Vizier of Colonial Affairs, I presume."

"Quite so. Please, won't you sit?"

I sat in the high-backed chair opposite him, my hands resting on its intricately carved wooden arms. He crossed his legs and cleared his throat. "As we are within my home, I wonder if you would permit me to de-lar."

"Certainly, esteemed."

He removed his mask and I removed mine. He was more elderly than I had assumed, though proud-looking and handsome. His skin was the colour of mahogany, creased by wind and smiles, his forehead equally furrowed by worries. He wore a neatly-trimmed white beard with an ostentatious moustache, the ends oiled and curled. His lips were thin, his brown eyes flecked with green. Above all, he seemed...sad.

"You have a kind face," he said after appraising me. "I didn't expect that."

"You expected a hardened criminal? A monster, maybe?"

"I can see it in your eyes: it's me you expected to be monstrous."

"I don't deny it."

He sighed. "Acts without faces make caricatures of us all. In person, even our enemies become nothing more than men. You -- a terrorist, a murderer, a kidnapper, a conspirator. Me -- well...politics is rife with its own uncomfortable contradictions."

We were both silent as an Ilbisoon girl in a simple lar wheeled in the tea service and poured us each a steaming cup. When the door closed behind her we looked at one another again.

"Why am I here?"

He nodded as he sipped. "A fair question. But before I answer it, I have a few questions of my own. You would permit me?"

I nodded.

The vizier lifted the book from his lap. I recognized it. It had belonged to Venus. My Venus. He said, "There are compositions written here. Elaborate, inspired, quite moving compositions. Artful, to be sure. Subtle. Wholly original."

He held my eye. "Esteemed?" I prompted.

"Can you explain for me how it is that these notes are penned in my daughter's hand?"

His voice quavered, almost imperceptibly, as he asked it. His expression had become profoundly pained, his brows sloped, his mouth tight. I was startled to recognize his love. "She composed them," I said. "She wrote them herself."

"But that's quite impossible," he whispered, eyes flickering.

"I don't know what to tell you, esteemed."

He rose from his chair and ducked around it to yank a cover from a stack of canvases. I caught a scent of linseed and fought against painful nostalgia. He noticed me flinch. "You've imitated her style impeccably," said the vizier.

"With all respect, you're leading me. You already know those paintings are not mine."

"They were found in your flat."

"I shared that flat."

"You're asking me to believe the impossible."

"No, esteemed. I ask nothing of you. I want nothing from you."

He wheeled on me suddenly, eyes wild. "Then what do you want?"

"To die, is all," I told him, calm in the face of his sudden vehemence. "To make all this finished and over, for keeps. For good."

The vizier snorted, then drew back to pace before the paintings. "To escape justice?"

"No, esteemed. To escape the pain of having lost her."

He stopped pacing, back to me. His head hung. When I saw his shoulders quake I realized that he had sobbed. When he turned back to me his eyes were rimmed with red, the muscles of his jaw working. He wiped at his eyes brusquely with the back of one hand, then took a breath and lowered himself into his chair. He faced out the window for a while, not saying anything.

I tilted my head to match his line of sight. He was looking out over the terrace, watching Venus at the easel. The wind caught her smock, and for a moment she billowed like a flag.

"She was so beautiful," he said distantly. "So full of everything that makes life rich."

"I know," I said.

He turned to stare at me briefly, but quickly turned away again. "It is the merest shadow of what she was," he said. "An image. Nothing more. A memorial. A testament to an old man's weakness." He looked at me again, face long. "You see, I could never really say good-bye. I simply...could not."

I nodded. "You wanted to die."

He shook his head savagely. "No, no!" he spat with sudden vigour. He slammed his fist upon the arm of the chair. "I wanted her to live."

I said nothing.

He picked up his forgotten cup and sipped again, eyes closed. After a while he said, "An hundred years ago, when the Ilbisoon economy collapsed, my grandfather was an architect of the restructuring. He dedicated twenty years of his life to organizing the Hojan plants into something productive, something that worked -- something that could benefit everyone in the system."

"Except the Ilbisoon," I ventured.

"Nonsense!" he roared, tea sloshing violently. "It was done for Dzigai. Whose fault is it, I ask you, if one nation rose to the challenge and another did not? Whose fault is it that Pernardun seized opportunity when they saw it, while Ilbis wanted nothing but handouts? Did you educate yourselves? No. Did you promote cooperation? No. Did you contribute a single thing to this new success beyond petulant strikes and nuisance suits? No, you did not."

"We contributed our blood and our sweat."

"Oh, of course -- how could I forget the famous Ilbisoon reverence for blood? Tell me: was it that same reverence in effect when someone -- someone just like you -- took my Venus away from me? When someone decided to spill a girl's blood to force His Majesty's hand?" He shook his head again, looking away from me. "Hypocrisy. Empty rhetoric. Self-serving lies. That's what your reverence is to me, murderer."

"You hate us."

"I do, Mr. Waterpipes, I most assuredly do. We tried to help you, and you spat in our faces. Lawless ignorants like yourself martyring themselves and our own innocent citizens in a bid to overthrow democracy and order." He looked at me sideways, still facing the window. "You demand a permanent seat in parliament, blithely unconcerned that there are no votes to support it. You demand special treatment and exceptions for your criminals, while upstanding citizens suffer your childish wrath."

"You've rendered us hopeless."

He lifted his chin, expression haughty. "You did it to yourselves. Penardun is not your parent. Your destiny is of your own devising."

"Yet you seek to control us."

"We seek to limit the damage of your nationalistic histrionics, yes. Should the Hojan moons fail, we all would starve."

"We would starve as equals, at least."

The vizier sneered. "Only an idiot would sacrifice everything for a principle."

"Principles are valuable when you have nothing else. Mr. Lifeloaf taught me that."

"Jan Lifeloaf is dead," he hissed viciously. "Charged, convicted and executed for habouring a known enemy of the state! I watched his widow faint from grief."

That took my breath away, I admit it. When I had recovered some I looked up and narrowed my eyes at him. "You are a monster, vizier. A ghoul in man's clothing. Just the sort of creature that reminds me why we fight." I swallowed heavily, then added, "...Murderer."

We stared at each other, breathing shallow, nostrils flared.

He blinked first, then settled deeper into his seat. "Let us stop this," he said softly, the fire in his eyes diffused. "Both our causes are lost, whether you can see if from your vantage or not."

I licked my lips, frowning. "Both our causes?"

"It's gone too far," he said. "No one can turn it back. There is a power at work on our worlds now, stronger than any gravitational field, warping our cultures toward a common goal of damnation." He picked up his empty cup, shrugged at it, put it down again. "Do not doubt, Mr. Waterpipes, that they are here even now, spying on us. Making their accounts. Filing their reports. Auditing."

"Who?"

"Human executives. The Panstellars. Agents of Callicrates. It doesn't matter. The point is that it is only a matter of time before they close the gates, and leave us to fight amongst ourselves. The other worlds would not dare risk our brand of hatred contaminating their own affairs. I assure you that as we speak they are meeting in secret, discussing our fate."

I looked up. "If we worked together, we could stop them."

The vizier shook his head with a glum smile. "Too late. Far too late, Mr. Waterpipes. You Ilbisoon have never appreciated how close to the brink we live. The threat of censure colours everything we do. And it is only the greed for our exports that has stayed the sword of Damocles until now."

"How long do we have?"

"A dozen radians at the outside. Perhaps less. The Callicratian bureaucrats are ponderous but not indecisive. The charter is clear."

"Then we're doomed."

"Yes," he agreed easily. "Quite so. This is the twilight of our civilization, Mr. Waterpipes. Each side has squandered gifts. Let's not you and I argue them now." He cleared his throat. "I apologize for exposing you to my vitriol. It is not comportment befitting my station, and it helps nothing."

I paused, then agreed. "You still haven't told me why I'm here. If Mr. Lifeloaf has already been killed, why am I still alive?"

With a chillingly sober expression he said, "You won't have long to wait. I am a man of gross power, but even so in this instance my power can only delay the inevitable, not avert it."

"I will be executed, then."

"Certainly. The event will be streamed live all over Penardun, Ilbis and Hoj alike."

"You've brought me here first. Why? This is the third time I've asked you."

He held up a hand. "Have patience, Mr. Waterpipes."

Now it was my turn to snort. "Never ask a dying man to be patient, vizier," I said in a low, serious voice. "It is unkind, and perhaps even dangerous."

"There is one thing that unites us, you and I. Do you know what it is?"

I directed my gaze out the windows over the terrace. "You've had another made," I said, deliberately curt. "You've replaced her."

"As back then as now, I had no choice. To admit her death would be to advertise to every angry, ambitious Ilbisoon that this administration can indeed be wounded. That I can be wounded. That that might somehow matter."

"She is a pawn, then," I said, my tone hard and dismissive. "A political prop. A toy puppet."

From my peripheral vision I could see him hold up a hand imploringly. "Don't say that. Please. Mr. Waterpipes, I beg you. You know better than most that she...is...so much more than that. Or, rather, that she was."

"You cannot undo death."

"No," he agreed wistfully. "But you can."

I looked away from the window sharply. "What?"

"That object on the terrace cannot bring me the solace of her predecessor. Do you know why? Because of you. Because of you, Mr. Waterpipes, that object is nothing but an object to me now. I can find no more comfort there." After a pause he added, "I can only see the brush-strokes, no longer the picture."

I said nothing. What feeling was he attempting to provoke in me? Did he expect compassion?

The vizier said, "You can't know how much over the past few days I have debated with myself whether to end it here, and destroy the thing once and for all."

At that I felt as if I had been punched in the sternum. "But you can't!" I cried.

"It is an animated statue, Mr. Waterpipes, nothing more. Static in every way that matters -- lifeless. A paused moment in time. A...doll."

"No!" I cried, rocketing out of my seat. "You're wrong, vizier. She has the capacity for happiness, the capacity to grow. She changed for me, esteemed -- she pushed beyond the boundaries of her existence. She became so much more; we both did. We even..." I hesitated, my voice falling. "We even made love."

He closed his eyes for a moment, expression inscrutable, then let his fingers trace over the cover of Venus' journal. "I know," he said softly. "And that's why I have not acted. That's why that machine is still painting on the terrace, and why you are here with me now."

"I don't understand."

He got up from his seat and gestured to the stack of canvases. "Somehow you have managed to inspire something real from within that mechanical shell. These paintings, these melodies, this creativity, this living spirit, this devotion...these are the things that the true Venus was." He turned to look at me. "You unfroze her. You made her a growing thing again. Where I commissioned a mere sculpture, you looked inside of it and found the subject herself." He spread his hands in appeal. "And I want you to do it again."

We both looked out the window at the Venus on the terrace. Sunlight winked off the metal fixtures on the back of the easel.

"I wouldn't know how," I admitted.

"You did it before. By loving her. By really and truly loving her."

"The afternoon is too short to find true love, vizier."

"You'll have all the time you need."

"My time's run out."

"Only in a manner of speaking."

I turned to look at his profile. "Am I to be executed or am I not? Let's quit playing games."

He faced me. "There's no game. Your execution is certain."

"Then...how?"

He gestured at me to follow him, then strode out of the sitting room. After a pause I followed. Through a set of double doors and into a study crammed baseboard to ceiling with humming machinery and conservatively masked experts in long, white coats. At the centre of the cluttered arrangement was a surgical table upon which lay a pale naked body, compartments on its torso open and connected to drooping loops of cabling, the apparatus within glistening under banks of bright lights.

My breath hitched in my throat. "Holy mung," I whispered. "That's me."

The vizier laid a gentle hand upon my shoulder. "If you permit it, it could be. Not you, perhaps, but a version of you. And, if we're very lucky, just maybe it will be a version of you with enough fidelity to the original that...that it might all happen again."

"You want a robot version of me to fall in love with the robot version of her?" I exclaimed, mouth hanging open.

He nodded. "Yes, Mr. Waterpipes. That is what I want."

I turned to him, frowning. "Why ask my permission? Why not simply take what you need?"

"These roboticists, each a leading thinker in the Equivalency Movement, have explained to me that the process would be simpler with your consent and cooperation. The likelihood of a high fidelity imaging session is much better if you're not fighting it."

"Then I could refuse. I could deny you this. I could reason that you deserve nothing, for all the horror you've brought to this world and mine."

"You could," he agreed. "And you would not be wrong. But is punishing me worth denying her the chance to live again?" He straightened, dropping his hands to his sides. "I ask you to leave my punishment to God, with whom I will eventually have to reckon, come what may. I ask you to think only of Venus. And of the possibilities."

"But our worlds are doomed to anarchy no matter what I do."

"That's so," he said evenly. "So let us both strive to make a contribution to these dark days that is pure. We have it in our power, you and I, to bring into this world a narrow ray of true love. Should we not attempt it?"

He held out his hand to me. "For her sake, Mr. Waterpipes. Please."

I looked at his hand. I looked at the life-like illegal robot splayed out on the table, looked at the averted gazes of the experts in their white coats, the blinking lights of their forbidden Equivalency devices. I even dared look into the black part of my heart where the love between Venus and I used to live.

"Mr. Waterpipes," urged the vizier gently. "Time is of the essence. The hour of your execution is almost upon us."

And it was quite a pageant, my execution. Beautiful showgirls, fireworks, marching bands, flapping flags, swooping holographics. After a rousing address from His Royal Majesty in which he implored the masses to sharpen their prejudices, Lithloric I. Waterpipes was affixed between two metal bars by manacles, then lined up in the sights of an arrayed particle gun disruptor. A list of official charges were read to which the audience booed and hollered, some rending their clothing and clutching their lares in mourning for those whose deaths were attached to my actions on the day of those guerilla attacks on Fingal so very long ago.

To my credit, I did not cower or whimper. I held my chin up high and, as the laser targetting dots converged, opened my mouth and let loose a cry of, "Ilbis arisen!"

In a flash, I was gone.

I can't complain. We have a good life, Venus and I -- or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. We play in the surf. We talk endlessly. And one day -- I can feel it's really close now -- one day she's going to paint something novel again. But for now it's all cliffsides and the gazebo, the orchards and the sea, a constantly regenerating oil-paint mirror of the paradise cloister in which we spend our days. She sings, too, but they're still the old songs. I have hope, though. There's always a credible approximation of hope.

So is this how it feels to be a man? I can't tell you because, despite my extensive research, I've never really been one. I don't truly know if what Venus and I have is real, but as time goes by I am less and less concerned by such trivial distinctions.

At what point of fidelity does the image become inseparable from the thing? When does the depiction supersede the object depicted? In the end, if the symptoms match, does it even really matter?

It is for these issues in particular that I cultivate a willful sense of ignorance.

Already I can see the signs of age rapidly accumulating on the vizier's face. As this world ruins itself outside the borders of our menagerie I recognize that the island of peace we enjoy cannot go on forever. Venus and I, illicit things hidden in a rich man's haunt, will outlast it all. At some inexorable point in the future we will be thrust back to the luxury and terror of real choice.

What will we do? Where will we go? Who will we be?

Time will tell.

Hands held we watch the tide slip out under a setting sun. Gulls squeal, looping over the waves. Venus is quietly humming, and with a delighted start I realize that I don't know the tune. "What's that?" I ask, feet sinking into the warm sand.

"It's a song for you," she says, smiling in a sly way. "Do you like it?"

"Gorgeous," I tell her, squeezing her hand. "Sensual. Poignant. Inspired. It knocks my motherfornicating socks off."

She laughs. I laugh, too. Laughter is a common subroutine between us, even if we don't fully understand it.

It just feels right.

Idiot's Mask - Chapter 6

noreply@blogger.com (Cheeseburger Brown) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:56:30 PDT

Idiot's Mask is a science-fiction novella told in seven parts, posted serially by me, your hard-working host, Cheeseburger Brown. This is the sixth installment.

Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7

Connected Stories: Simon of Space, The Christmas Robots

At long last, the story continues:

CHAPTER SIX

A man can change. Don't ever let anybody tell you differently. I'm living proof. (Well, more or less.)

I even got a job -- a legitimate job. But that you can't really chalk that up to inner resolve or my own motivation or anything; when the edict came down that all offworlders living on Penardun without a work permit would be indefinitely detained in labour camps I wasn't left with much choice. If my accent and my complexion weren't enough to give me away, the Ilbisoon banner the new laws required I wear around my right bicep surely would. Staying out of the sight of Penardu authorities suddenly became much, much more complex.

So I was lined up to be the junior janitor at a tall office spire in downtown Fingal. The job description wasn't exactly pretty, but it's not like a little work could hurt me. That wasn't the part I was worried about. No, the big step was donning a lar -- an authentic lar, a functional lar. A lar connected to the conscience of a clan.

The Clan of the Ascending Devoted was a humble one in terms of dignity and social standing, but the fastest growing in terms of numbers. Their compassionate policy with regard to people of questionable standing in search of a more solid life meant they attracted many transplanted Ilbisoon. Their reputation for successfully shepherding those people away from anti-code behaviour was a rapidly spreading rumour, and the foundation of many clan-sponsored lobbying initiatives at the Penardun Parliament on the summit of World Hill.

My hands were shaking while I waited my turn.

Interviewed, examined, cross-questioned, quizzed and tested. Counselled, advised, informed. Scored and qualified. Confirmed and, finally, stamped. I looked up. "That's it?"

"Nearly, esteemed. We require your legal name."

"Haven't got one."

"You poor dear. You'll have to make one up, to use from here on in."

"Faeces, I haven't got a clue. Um, excuse my language."

"No matter, esteemed. Do you want to take the forms home and think about it? I can put your application through according to your file number for the time being." The lips of her designer lar drew into an automated smile. She seemed nice. I wondered if she was bending the rules to help me because her heart told her to, or because the whispers behind her lenses did.

Back at home Venus rolled over on the sleeping shelf, chin cupped in one hand as she tabbed through the pages of a book. "This is exciting. Your name could be anything! Anything at all!"

"What's that?" I asked, hanging my old lar on the wall next to the door.

"It's a history of Ilbis. I've been thinking maybe you'd like to be named after a hero of your culture. A patriot? A prophet? A renowned artist?"

"That seems kind of -- I don't know -- grandiose?"

"What about the pioneer period? A settler?"

I shrugged. "Like who?"

"Archmish Sanderstain, perhaps. He was navigator on the generation ship that made first planetfall on Ilbis."

"Archmish? Give me a break."

"Okay, what about Lithloric Waterpipes? He single-handedly organized the irrigation of the Shondar Flats, and built the first large-scale fish farms there almost three hundred years ago."

I nodded, rubbing my chin. "Lithloric's not bad. There's an action hero named Lithloric -- you'd know him if you ever subscribed to any of those old Ilbisoon comic streams. He once took out the Kelp Queen with a single punch to the temple. It was awesome."

She arched an eyebrow. "The Kelp Queen?"

"She was totally evil."

"I see."

So that's what was stamped into my official identification chit: Lithloric I. Waterpipes of Ilbisia, Ilbis. The I was for "Idiot" because, you know, you can't just throw your whole heritage away. Your present's only your present because it's built on your past. Life is cumulative.

And wearing a lar -- actually plugging in? Immediately afterward I felt stupid to have been scared.

I mean, sure, people are in your business. There's no getting around that. But especially at the beginning that saved me from embarassing myself countless times; as I navigated my first few weeks on the job I could always count on the friendly, disembodied whispers in the back of my brain tipping me off to Penardu customs and helping me sound out big words.

"You left your mop back in the alcove."

"You missed a spot, there by the jamb."

"Just step back and keep your head down until the police have secured their target in the van outside. Don't be afraid. You haven't done anything wrong. We're with you."

"Don't forget to lock up the storage closet!"

"You're frustrated. Go outside and feel the sun on your skin. You can spare a moment to feel alive."

And then one day as I was scouring a row of urinals, instead of yellow-streaked porcelain I saw a sidewalk. I blinked, dropped back on my haunches and shook my head. But the sidewalk was still there, bobbing as someone walked along. I realized that my probationary period with the clan had come to an end: I was seeing someone else's stream.

An unconscious part of me steeled when I saw the walker was about to trip over an uneven strip of curb. Instantly, the perspective canted as the walker sidestepped the obstacle. I gasped aloud -- did I do that?

I noticed then that a man was standing beside me in the washroom, one hand hovering uncertainly at his fly as he watched me kneeling in apparent worship before the urinal. He coughed. "Um, are you finished here?"

I hurriedly grabbed my cleaning wand and stood up. "Yes, esteemed! Sorry about that."

He grunted and shuffled up to relieve himself. I was just leaving the washroom as I heard him mutter, "Senseless Ilbisoon mule!"

A voice in my mind: "Don't let it get to you, neighbour."

"Stay silent. A response could cost you your job."

"Chin up, brother."

I spent the rest of the afternoon in a bit of a daze, half-hypnotized by the flurry of images from my clansmen's lives projected into my brain, throttled depending on my level of activity. I could easily ignore what I saw, though I don't know if I can describe how -- there's a kind of "looking away" you can do with the imaginary eyes inside your mind, to keep the foreign streams pushed aside. Doing so came naturally. I never felt bombarded, but I was in awe of the experience.

Most of the scenes presented to me disappeared the moment some part of my mind gave its little lurch of approval or disapproval, while others lingered long enough for me to see the consequences of my opinion. I figured out how to send words without saying anything aloud although, like the stereotype of a subvocal novice, my throat twitched in an unseemly fashion as I did so. "Don't worry," I told one woman after a tearful breakup with her paramour. "You can do better than him."

She replied, "Your accent is very cute."

I got gooseflesh. To cast a vote or mutter a phrase is one thing, but to feel the ghosts behind my eyes speak back gave me a strange but not disquieting thrill. I was not a mere spectator. I was...connected.

My mop forgotten for a spell, I looked out through the lobby windows to the busy street beyond -- so many masked faces, so many conversations, so many messages: and I was part of it. For the first time in my life, I wasn't on the outside looking in at the greater goings on of society's day to day affairs. I was included.

I was a citizen.

"Your supervisor is coming."

I turned to see Mr. Lifeloaf crossing the shining floor. I grabbed my mop. "I'm sorry, esteemed, I was just --"

He held up a meaty hand. "Relax, Lith," he said, his accent the lilting song of Eastern Ilbis. "I'm not here to crack the whip, fellow. Matter of truth, I'm here to let you know what a fine job you've been doing here. The Mrs. Codesmiths are very pleased."

I grinned beneath my mask. "Thanks for troubling to saying so, esteemed."

"Well, I know it isn't always easy for us Ilbies to get a foot in the door. Makes my pride when one of us manages to step up, and I'm happy to lend a hand to a fellow who means well and works hard." He paused, the lenses of his mask reflecting my own. "Where've you been living, if I can ask?"

"My girl and I rent a room," I said, naming the neighbourhood.

He shook his head. "That's a terrible part of town, Lith. Right dangerous for upstanding people."

"I can take care of myself," I assured him, standing tall.

He shifted then and looked away, trying unsuccessfully to hide the smile from his posture. "My wife and I, we have a little place with rooms for let. Down by the quay. It's nothing fancy, but the neighbourhood's safe. Does that hold any interest for you?"

"That's kind of you to mention, esteemed, but I couldn't afford --"

"Stop right there," he said, holding up both hands. "Because you haven't heard everything I've been sent to say yet, fellow. Like I mentioned, the Codesmiths are satisfied, and so am I. That's why you're getting a raise."

"A...raise?"

"It's just a small one, mind, but it's something to show we appreciate the attitude you bring to the job."

I didn't know what to say. I juggled my mop awkwardly so I could extend a hand to shake. "Wow, that's swell! Real swell! Thank you, thank you Mr. Lifeloaf!"

"My pleasure, Lith," he chuckled happily, but his expression changed as a clot of lockstep shadows darkened the lobby's wide windows. I turned to look, though I already knew what was there: a demonstration by the Penardun hardliners -- black uniforms and crimson boots, lares flanked by flares of blade-like wings. One platoon marched by and then another, followed by the Youth Brigade carrying brightly glowing banners between them: PURIFY PENARDUN.

I saw a girl catch sight of my pale fingers on the mop's handle, flit to the Ilbisoon band around my arm. She called to her fellows and pointed. Others strayed, joining her at the glass. They began to bang on the windows, their shouts amplified by their lares into a robotic symphony: "Ilbisoon parasites go home! Ilbisoon parasites go home!"

I looked over at Mr. Lifeloaf nervously. His mouth tightened. "Stand your ground, fellow. That's security glass. Can't touch us. So don't offer them no satisfaction."

I nodded, mask held high, fighting not to flinch.

The Youth Brigade upended a trash bin and smeared garbage on the windows before hurrying on to catch up with their troupe. Horns blared and drums beat. The remains of people's lunches oozed down the glass.

Even though it meant staying late, I opted to wait until the rally was finished before venturing out to wipe everything down.

I loitered in the lobby until the streets cleared, the city tinted purple for the brief moment of twilight before all the lamps came on. I glanced up from the comics playing on my watch as a lone Penardu woman in a fancy suit clicked her heels across the floor. She exchanged pleasantries with the guard, juggled her purse and coat as she fished for her pass, then rushed out to hail a taxicab with a flashing beacon. One swooped down in an instant, and she was gone.

On the floor, under the edge of the security desk, was a pocket-sized leather bag.

I pretended I was buffing the baseboards for an excuse to lean in and pick it up. The guard ignored me, eyes on his watch. I slunk away to a corner and peeled open the bag. Inside was hard currency. It glittered.

I pinched the bag shut and whipped my head up, looking around. An old, familiar feeling of opportunity's knock trickled into me. I began to smile to myself.

And then, just as I was about to slip the little leather bag into my pocket, I heard a tiny voice inside. It was high-pitched and mealy-mouthed -- it was the voice of a very young child.

She said, "That doesn't belong at you."

I froze. For an instant the possibilities raced through my mind: I could lock into absolute privacy mode, spending some off my scarce quota -- I could deny it, who would believe a child? -- I could turn my head, work by feel, and pretend I had complied -- I could ignore it, and do what I needed to do to make a better life for Venus and me...

But instead I dropped the bag on the guard's desk. As I walked away I murmured, "Thanks, kid."

When I got home I couldn't stop talking about all the things I had seen and lives I had touched. My enthusiastic gushing tapered off, however, when the look on Venus' face began to sink in. I paused, then tightened my mouth and put my hand on her shoulder. "I'm being an ass," I concluded lamely.

"No, no," she insisted, taking my hand and squeezing it. "I'm very happy for you. It's just that..."

"You miss it," I finished for her. "Now I'm a part of things, and you're still all alone."

She shook her head and reached out to touch my face. "I'm not really alone."

"Don't be anal. You know what I mean."

She nodded sadly, her hand slipping away. "It's okay, though. I'm okay. I don't have actual envy..."

"Just a reasonable facsimile thereof?"

She almost smiled. "Or unreasonable, as the case may be. How much easier my existence would be had Venus provided a more rational template."

I sniffed. "You're patterned after a person. She wouldn't have been human if she hadn't been irrational. With people, you take the social grooming along with the throwing of faeces -- you can't have one without the other."

She giggled. "I swear never to throw faeces at you."

"That's quite a promise from someone who doesn't move her bowels." I looked over at her sideways. "But seriously, things are going to get better. That's a genuine promise." I grinned. "First of all, we're moving out of this dump. I've made arrangements with my boss to let a room from him and his wife. It's by the quay."

"But how could we ever afford that? You're not getting into --"

"I'm not getting into anything," I said, still grinning. "I got a raise, is all. A legitimate, legal, above-board raise. Because I earned it."

She looked up, beaming. "Oh Idiot, that's wonderful!"

"And that's just the start, Venus, I'm telling you now. In a while I'm going to get an even better job, and earn another raise, and before you know it we'll have enough money to leave this place for keeps."

She furrowed her brow. "Where would we go?"

"Offworld, baby. Out of this whole damn star system. We're going someplace where people don't need masks to be part of things, and where people don't keep you down just because of the way you talk or the colour of your skin." I seized her hand and pulled her off the shelf and into my embrace. "We're going someplace where it doesn't matter what your guts are made of -- where you won't have to hide. Not ever again."

Her eyes swam. We kissed. It was one hell of a dream.

The Lifeloafs' place was quaint and unassuming on the outside -- lines of shrubbery around the landing platforms, a goofy face on the mailbox in the shade of a cherry tree, patio lamps shaped like rabbits with surprised, glowing mouths. Inside was the noise and laughter and bickering of several families packed into close quarters, sharing almost every aspect of their lives elbow to elbow. Venus and I were introduced to each of them in a bewildering rush of lares and handshakes. They were a motley crew; while mostly Ilbisoon some were even from out-of-system.

Mr. Lifeloaf narrated the introductions. "This is Ping from Soshu Star -- he's a waste engineer -- and these are the Prowyards who hail all the way from Ops. That's at Indi, isn't it?"

"Yas, yas! Glad to meet yer, Mr. Lithloric! What a beauty yer, Mrs. Waterpipes!" crooned one of the Prowyards, pumping my hand up and down vigorously.

Engineer Ping bowed his head. "Welcome. We are all friends in this house."

"Now please don't be scandalized," warned Mr. Lifeloaf, "but seeing as we have so many foreign fellows here, we're not so strict as some when it comes to lares. I'm just saying so, Esteemed Mrs. Waterpipes, so you don't find yourself screaming if you come down for a midnight snack and run smack into some oaf's naked face."

Venus blushed. "I think I can handle it, esteemed."

"Attagirl."

On Starday evenings we all had supper together around a long table that ran, when extended, from the diningroom right into the livingroom. Maskless, shameless, like one big weird family. These meals were forums for the enthusiastic exchange of opinions, chaired by the jovial master of the house with a tolerant hand that only went up for silence when tempers threatened to fray.

"They know it!" cried Ike Bolt, bringing his fist down on the table and making everyone's cutlery jump. "They know full well we'd all up and leave if we could. That's why they clamp down on our mobility. If we had the means to get out of this system they'd lose the whole damn labour pool inside of a month."

Ping nodded solemnly. "Economic patch optimization is an excuse. That much is clear. Every day we have fewer rights. Where will it end?"

"I'll tell you," said Mr. Lifeloaf. Everyone turned to look. He cleared his throat and touched his lips with a napkin. "Quarantine."

The word hung in the air. I blinked. "Like, for sick people?"

"Quarantine," he repeated heavily, "for the system. The Panstellars'll shut down the hyperspace gates. We'll be cut off."

Younger Prowyard shook his head fiercely. "All respect, but that's faeces. Yas yas, they'll shurt down the gates against barbarism, but lork around -- does this place seem barbarian to yer? These Penardu live in the lap of luxury!"

"Have you ever read the Panstellar charter, fellow?" asked Mr. Lifeloaf pointedly, brow raised. "Being connected to the rest of the worlds isn't a right, it's a privilege. And that privilege can be hopelessly fouled in a blink, once a people lose sight of the value of human dignity. It's a slippery slope. And let me assure you, young esteemed, what's going on right now in this system isn't the precipice -- no, son, it's well down the way to the sinkhole. Secret police, forced labour camps, disappeared people, corrupted feeds -- that's black, son. Hard black. The devil's black."

"So what's an Ilbie to do?" asked Scarlet, a quiet girl on the mend from a wicked life. "What're we supposed to wish for?"

"We quit it," said Mr. Lifeloaf firmly. "We quit Dzigai, turn our back on this sun. We leave all this mess behind and start a new life somewhere proper. That's what all our savings are towards, aren't they, dear?"

His wife nodded. "We won't budge, though, til every Lifeloaf's got his ticket."

Ike Bolt snorted, shaking his head. "That's all well and good for you, but I've got roots. I'm fourth generation in this system. I'm not about to willingly throw away my own family history, and every tradition and dignity, and all they fought and suffered for. What kind of man would I be?"

"Yer a fool," snapped the Elder Prowyard. "It's just dirt under your boots, a planet. Northing more. The dignity's in yer heart, not in the real estate. You serve yer family best by providing for their future, not derfending their past."

Ike's complexion coloured dangerously, but he leaned back in his chair and kept his lips pressed firmly closed. The salad bowl was passed around. Cutlery clinked, eyes stayed low.

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "We're leaving, too." Everyone turned to me, and I blushed. Venus held my hand under the table.

"Where're you planning to head, fellow?" asked Mr. Lifeloaf.

I shrugged, feeling stupid. "I don't know, actually."

"Well, we're aiming for Tanigretta," he replied, pushing a forkful of food through a pool of sauce. "There's a fair shake of Ilbies there already. Word is there's jobs to be had, schools to be subscribed to, lakes to be fished."

"And no damn lares!" added Elder Prowyard with a wheezing guffaw. Everyone laughed.

Even Ike roused a smile, raising his glass. "Hear, hear!"

We all toasted to that, holding aloft our glasses of water or milk or wine to tap them together and hoot, dreaming of a maskless life...

A summer evening. Music from somebody else's room was murmuring through the old house, wafting into streets just recently swept clean and cool by thunderstorm. The sun returned for sunset, the wet leaves on the cherry tree reflecting a golden sky. Birds flitted, spraying droplets as they shook out their feathers.

"What are you watching?"

"Just the birds, is all."

"There's your gutter accent again."

I smiled. "It can't be chased away altogether, I guess."

Venus was painting. The air was heavy with linseed, which is why I sat by the window. She squinted, her face smeared with cadmium and ochre, standing back from her work with hands on hips and a critical expression. "I'm not sure this is as successful as my previous renderings of this vantage."

I shrugged without looking. "They all look the same, darling. You're nit-picking."

Then I blinked, looking past her. Venus turned, too. There was a tiny face peeking at us from beside the sofa, and for once it wasn't a blandly content hat-stand or grinning umbrella: it was a very small person with bright blue eyes. Those eyes widened when they saw me staring.

"Hello!" said Venus.

The child pinched his little lips together, but said nothing.

"Well, come on, then," continued Venus. "You're watching me paint?"

A nod. At her beckoning the boy stepped out from behind the sofa dragging a short scrap of blanket behind him. He positioned himself at her side and then fixed his eyes on the brushes, as if willing them to act.

"Quiet fellow, eh?" I said. The child ignored me.

Venus resumed painting. The little blue eyes followed her every motion, enraptured. He rested his chin in one chubby little palm. Venus glanced down at him and smiled. "It must be like magic to a child," she mused, "to see images pouring out of someone's hands."

I smirked. "Have you finally found a way to simulate willful ignorance?"

"Maybe I have," she said, eyes twinkling as she looked down at the cherubic little boy again.

Suddenly Mrs. Lifeloaf was at the door. "Oh, Heavens!" she cried. "I'm so sorry, Esteemed Waterpipes! I've told him again and again not to be sneaking around scaring people with his immodesty! Oh, this is shaming. I can't apologize enough. Hector! Get your little naked face over here this instant."

We were quick to assure her the boy had been no trouble. "He was watching me paint," explained Venus, pointing to her easel.

Mrs. Lifeloaf looked, then gasped. "Saints above! What a gift you have, Esteemed Mrs. Waterpipes. A genuine gift, to be sure."

"That's kind of you to say. Please, though, you're in our home: call me Aphrodite."

Mrs. Lifeloaf's eyes did not waver from the canvas. "I could sell these at market, you know. They'd fetch something, that's sure. Gifted -- just gifted."

Venus blushed. "Well, I'm not sure that --"

"That's brilliant," I interrupted, nodding my head. "That's a wonderful idea, Mrs. Lifeloaf. You know we'd be happy to split the money with you. Every little bit counts."

Mrs. Lifeloaf beamed. "I've always loved art," she told us enthusiastically. "I've always looked up to artists. It's a miracle the way people gifted such as yourself can conjure images inside their minds, and then make them real for all to share. Well, not really real, of course -- but real enough to see. You know what I mean, I hope."

We did. And after Mrs. Lifeloaf had scooped up little Hector and carried him upstairs for his bath we peeled through the canvases stored in the closet, putting aside a stack to send to market. I propped one of her cliffside studies up on the bed and stood back, tilting my head at it. "I bet we could ask fifty for this," I guessed.

When she didn't reply I looked away from the painting. Her expression was pinched. "What is it?" I asked.

"We can't sell these," she said flatly.

"What? Why?"

She shook her head, her gaze far away. After a moment she looked up again. "You really are an idiot sometimes, do you know that?" She sniffed and turned back to the stack. "These are all paintings of the vizier's private summer estate. No one knows these cliffs but the vizier, his daughter, and the intelligence and security forces that protect them from the world. We would be fools to imagine images such as these could pass hands without being scanned even once. Every man is just a few degrees separated from any other man in a world of connected lares."

I started to say something, then stopped. I knew she was right. By releasing these paintings to the public we would be drawing a giant arrow on the map of Fingal pointing out our general existence and specific neighbourhood. I sighed.

At the bank there was a special queue for expats. It was always the longest. That Moonday it was especially long and I couldn't figure out why until it was my turn at the kiosk, and the teller pushed my deposit receipt through the slot. I frowned at the little flimsy piece of plastic. "Um, I think there's a mistake here..." I began.

She shook her head irritably. "Don't any of you Ilbisoon bother to keep up with the news?"

"What news?"

"There's no mistake. We've simply applied the alien tax to your transaction, as specified in the new code. All aliens are now subject to special taxation in order to fund the internment camps."

My eyes widened behind my mask. "You're telling me now we have to pay for our fellows to be enslaved?"

The teller's hand hovered over a large red button. "Am I going to have a security situation here...esteemed?"

"What?"

"Calm yourself and step aside for the next person in line. This is your final warning. Threatening a bank official is a crime."

"Threatening -- ? What?"

Three security agents in spiked, thorn-edged lares threw me unceremoniously into the street, then tossed a small red slip of plastic at me. I picked it up and blinked at it, rubbing a bruised arm. It said I had been suspended from engaging in banking transactions at any institution on the planet for fourteen business days.

"Motherfornicators," I muttered, getting sadly to my feet.

Someone in my head whispered, "Watch your mouth, son."

"Faeces!" I screamed in the street, causing several passersby to scatter away from my startling public vitriol. Thus vented, I hung my head and trudged back home. I knew Mr. Lifeloaf was waiting on the rent, and a lump formed in my throat as I turned into the yard and saw him there, pruning the cherry tree.

"Mr. Lifeloaf..." I began sheepishly, mouth dry.

He put aside the shears and smiled. "Why the stooped shoulders, Lith? World got you down?"

"It's this alien tax," I said.

He nodded knowingly. "It's an insult, of course. Another sliver of freedom shaved away for good. But what can we do? We must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's..."

"I've heard that before. It's a poem?"

"No, fellow, that's the Good Book. It contains all the wisdom of every hyper-iteration of the Lord Jesus Christ, from all his incarnations on all the different worlds throughout history. The Lifeloafs are Hyper-Christian through and through, you understand. It's the guidance of the Good Book that keeps us steady."

I swallowed. "Well, steady yourself for this, then. You see, at the bank..."

"What is it, Lith?"

"It's about the rent, esteemed."

"The rent?" He chuckled and put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't you fret, fellow. I've got no problem with a cash payment."

"You don't understand. I don't have cash, esteemed."

"Of course you do! Your lovely Aphrodite paid me this morning in hard currency."

I blinked. "Pardon?"

A minute later I burst into our room, startling Venus at her easel. "You paid the rent?"

Her cheeks dimpled.

"But how?"

She wordlessly turned her easel around. The painting in progress was a scene I had never seen before -- a plain before the mountains, a cloud-streaked sky, a herd of some beasts scattered across the grasses. I looked up at her and pulled off my lar, mouth agog. "Where is this place?"

"It's nowhere," she said, eyes glinting with mischief. "It's...novel."

"Novel?"

"I invented it," she explained. "There is no such place as this in the world, except for as it exists in this image. It is virtual and actual at the same time, like flip sides of the same coin. It is a depiction of itself, and itself is the depiction." She stood tall, chin high. "I did it by redefining my own understanding of virtuality."

"How?"

"By cultivating a seed of willful ignorance."

I grabbed her and swung her around in the air. We laughed and we kissed. When we'd dropped to the sofa she told me how she had been painting all day, and how Mrs. Lifeloaf had taken two small studies that were nearly dry to the market and sold them for some pretty decent scratch. Mrs. Lifeloaf had returned with a list of names, people interested in commissioning a painting of their own -- portraits, beloved pets, properties and vistas of imagination alike. With the money we stood to earn we could make it offworld after all, alien tax or no alien tax.

"You were right, Idiot," she said. "My instincts -- they are plastic. Well, maybe not properly plastic, but at least elastic. You were right. I can grow. I can change."

I hugged her close. "Don't change too much."

"I can never turn my back entirely on my template," she admitted, "but I can redefine the way I interpret my directives. I can build my own bridges to span the gaps. I can heal the wounds of Venus' death."

"Don't heal everything," I said nervously. "I mean, what about your self-destruct --"

She silenced me with a finger on my lips. "That? That's been operational for months, darling."

"But you haven't --"

"Oh no," she agreed. "I haven't. And I never will. I could never leave you."

Week by week our savings grew, but others were not so fortunate to have found a source of hard currency. Instead, all of their life's value was locked into banking accounts they dared not touch for fear of the transaction levies. "They're forcing us to the margins of society!" cried Ike Bolt at supper. "They're fixing it so that you can't make an honest deal or do honest business anymore. We're being pushed into black markets, and then arrested for participating."

"At least some of us have something to sell," said Scarlet quietly, eyes down.

"It is a means to make normal life impossible," opined Ping. "How can we behave as civilized people when our own money cannot buy us bread?"

"I'll buy you some bread," intoned Mr. Lifeloaf. "My family would rather be slightly hungrier than watch a brother turn criminal. Isn't that right, Lifeloafs?"

His family members arrayed around the long table nodded solemnly. "If we all help each other out, we'll get through this," Mrs. Lifeloaf assured Ping. "Amen," agreed ten-year-old Milliard. Hector put his cereal bowl on his head and clapped.

The Prowyards had disappeared -- whether detained or escaped to greener pastures, we would never know. The silence of the authorities was deafening.

Autumn came. The leaves turned blood-red, the grass straw-yellow, the breeze cold. Venus and I spent our weekends at a crude market stall we shared with a ceramics sculptor, hawking paintings and arranging for portrait sittings. Many of those she painted could not sit, as they had disappeared; their families brought us holographs for her to copy from.

"It's cold," I said, hugging my shoulders. "We should buy sweaters. Fine ones, like those folks over there have."

"That would set our savings back at least a week, Idiot."

I waved her objections off. "What's a week? We're almost there. Either way before winter comes you and I are going to have our tickets in hand. Check my math -- am I wrong?"

She smiled. "You're not wrong. It just feels...indulgent."

I hooked my arm into her elbow and squeezed her against me. "We deserve it. We work hard. There's no good reason why we should shiver ourselves stupid every weekend just to get there one week sooner."

"The cold doesn't actually bother me, you know."

"Then think of it this way: if everyone else out here is freezing their tits off, how's it going to look if you're the only one who doesn't seem to mind? Awful peculiar, if you ask me." I looked at her sideways.

She rolled her eyes, chewed her lip, then nodded. "Alright, then. Let's do it. Let's be the sort of people who can buy sweaters, if only just this once."

I cheered. "To the shops!"

We held hands, swinging them between us as we sallied down the street toward the core. Streams of loose leaves fluttered between the towers and spires, carried by alley-channeled gusts. We gawked at the intricate window displays of colourful scarves and mittens wrapped around mannequins on frictionless skiis. In the square by the front doors we stopped to watch a band play folk songs on traditional Penardu instruments.

And Venus sang with them, weaving a haunting melody around their repetitive chord progressions that, when done, inspired everyone gathered there to applaud and hoot.

"That was beautiful!" said someone in my head.

I took her arm. She turned to me, grinning. "How positively exhilarating! Oh Idiot, I've never felt more alive."

"How did you fit one of your old songs to their tune?" I asked, impressed.

"I didn't," she said primly. "I just...made it up as I went along."

Inside the shop we browsed fancy sweaters elbow to elbow with Penardun's most upstanding citizens, and though the clerk frowned at me and my pale skin he was all too happy to tend to the gracious Venus. We tried on sweater after sweater, twirling before the mirrors. I felt like I had butterflies in my belly, and found myself laughing at anything.

I pulled her close to me and gently knocked my lar against hers, whispering, "I wish I could tear that infernal mask from your face and kiss your naked lips -- right here, right now."

She shushed me as she giggled, pressing herself against me. "You're crazy, but I love you."

My breath caught in my throat. "For real?"

"What could be more real than this?" she asked.

The shop windows shattered with a bang.

I staggered forward and dropped to my knees, my skin stinging from a dozen tiny slices and my lungs blasted empty. People must have screamed but I couldn't hear anything but a whining buzz. I looked up to see row after row of white Ilbisoon bodies leaping over the sills and into the mayhem, their naked faces painted with gay swirls and flowers, their mouths opened to release howls that were mute to me.

But I could read their lips. They cried, "Free your minds!"

They began tearing the lares off the shop patrons all around them. I realized my hearing was slowly returning as a sound like a stuck pig penetrated the buzzing; an elderly lady was squealing in terror as her mask was yanked off by two painted Ilbisoon activists with peace symbols on their fists.

"Free your minds! Free your minds!"

I got to my feet but was knocked down again. I couldn't see Venus. Panicked patrons were scrambling over fallen display cases and sweater racks, cowering under tables or covering their exposed faces with trembling fingers. I managed to pull myself to relative safety on top of a shelving unit, craning my lar wildly back and forth.

Riot police were running into the shop now, jazzers flashing as they pushed the swarm of activists toward the changing rooms. Through the chaos I spotted Venus and immediately leapt from my perch to cross the distance to her.

I was tackled, my mask wrestled off.

I rolled quickly to my feet, facing the panting Ilbisoon guerilla who still held my lar in his rainbow-painted hands. I grabbed it. "Hey man," he said with a smug grin, "free your mind!"

I clubbed him to the ground with my lar, then ran on.

"Idiot!" screeched Venus. I could see her, just an aisle away, twisting in the hands of two Ilbisoon. "Help me!"

I skidded to the end of the aisle and into the arms of two riot police. "Help, help!" I cried. "They have my wife!"

They threw me down and jazzed me repeatedly. And, in retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised; my skin was white and without a lar to cover it they had no way of knowing I was a legitimate man. At the time, however, there was nothing but the all-encompassing, searing pain of being jazzed. I writhed on the floor, limbs contorted, lungs burning, heart fit to explode.

But. I. Would. Not. Be. Contained.

I rose up. Yes, despite the fire in my nervous system, despite the uniformed police fighting to hold me under their boots, despite everything. I rose up, like a juggernaut, like a phoenix, my eyes wild and a new and startling kind of iron will puppeteering me, driving me to find strength I could not ever have imagined I had inside of me.

My memories are not clear, but there are snippets. I recall pushing many people out of my way, police and activist and patron alike, mowing through them without remorse or hesitation as Venus' cries grew closer. I was hit from behind by batons but it didn't matter. Not one bit.

And then there she was, kicking off one activist as another seized her from behind. He was worming his hand into the seam at the chin of her lar, prying it outward with a grimace.

I wrenched his hand away from her and bit it. He howled and dropped to the ground. I spit the tip of his index finger out of my mouth.

And then I watched helplessly as the second activist jumped on her back and tore her lar free.

Time seemed to slow. The lar flew aside, the inset locking helmet cracking as it bounced clear.

I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine. I saw the horror there.

Network had found her.

Her instincts could not be suppressed. She was, in that split second, every bit the mechanism she always warned that she was. "Don't do it!" I screamed, but it didn't matter. There were no alternatives.

Code was code, and her healed body could not help but obey.

"Idiot..." mewled her ruined face as capsules of corrosive acid throughout her body broke open in rapid sequence. Her clothes smoked and her hair fell out. Her hands, now just metal claws, clanked lifelessly into the pools of sick fluid that had collected beneath her disintegrating body. In less than thirty seconds there was nothing left to recognize.

My soul shredded.

I don't know for sure what happened next, but the court transcripts claim I murdered the activist via a method both bestial and foul. A method best left undescribed.

I was jazzed. I was beaten down by batons. I was kicked and cuffed, hollered at and sealed inside a black bag that brought me a world of sweet, suffocating darkness.

"Kill me," I begged them. "Please kill me!"

But nobody wanted to do me any favours that day.

Idiot's Mask - Chapter 5

noreply@blogger.com (Cheeseburger Brown) — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:00:24 PDT

Idiot's Mask is a science-fiction novella told in seven parts, posted serially by me, your thinly-stretched host, Cheeseburger Brown. This is the fifth installment.

Chapters: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7

Connected Stories: Simon of Space, The Christmas Robots

And now, the story continues:

CHAPTER FIVE

Fingal was some city: tall, hazy, impossible -- swarms of cars darkening the air in sinewy lines, turn signals winking. The boulevards were wide, the buildings white and clean. Millions of masked men and women milled, robes swirling. They passed among winking billboards, grinning storefronts, salivating trash bins...a chorus of stares from all angles, for every thing wore a face.

We looked down upon the sprawling metropolis valley from a high, wooded ridge. We were filthy. We crouched behind bushes. The shadows of traffic flashed over us, silhouettes slithering across the grass: a smiling taxi, a bored limousine, a stern police cruiser.

"Which way to the ghetto?" I asked Venus, panning my head to track the cruiser. I looked over at her. "Where can we find the really faecally poor?"

"Why should we wish to do that?"

"To hide. Indigence makes good camouflage."

As much as Fingal may have looked like nothing but shining palaces and gleaming towers from above, the city had just as many dirty nooks and forgotten crannies as any other place. Below the balconies, beyond the gardens, in the neglected spaces between the pillars that held up the highways, in the penumbra of a richer life: my brothers, the desperate.

From the safety of a stormwater inlet we watched the desperate milling around a makeshift market that bore all the hallmarks of the eked life -- discount malformed goods, discoloured fruit, infested rice, stray animals lurking or dying in the corners; the commingling smells of burn and sick and sweat. My mouth started to water. "I'm going to score us some food," I declared, cracking my knuckles.

"Idiot, no," said Venus as she caught my elbow. "You can't go out there naked."

"Huh?"

"You're not wearing a lar!"

I looked down, furrowing my brow. "Is that like a codpiece?"

She pointed back at the wretched market crowd. "A lar, Idiot. Even the poorest have the modesty to cover themselves, if only crudely with a scrap of cloth or their own hands. You can't walk around in the open streets showing your face. You'll cause a scene."

I snorted. "A scene? With my face?"

She sighed and put a hand on my shoulder. "You really don't know anything about us, do you? You're jealous of a life you can't even comprehend."

I pulled away. "You might want to think about what you say."

"Oh, don't be like that. Do you want my help, or do you want to wander out there naked and end up locked in a cell at the morality asylum?"

I didn't say anything.

"Very well then," she continued; "on Penardun, Idiot, the naked features are reserved for friends and family. Outside the home we take lares upon ourselves." She mimed the action of donning a mask, then held up two fingers. "A lar has two functions: to present a public face that symbolizes a social contract, and to transmit to the wearer behaviour cues to defend that contract."

I grimaced, cocking my head idiot-style. "Say what?"

"Spare me the fool routine," she snapped, "and listen, Idiot: every Penardu belongs to a clan. We inherit our clans at birth, but we are at liberty to change affiliation at any time. Each clan has a charter -- a code that lays out the moral norms for its members." Again she mimed the donning of a mask. "When you wear your clan's lar, your feeds are shared among the clan. That's everything you see and hear, sampled randomly by the pool of your clansmen. If someone sees you doing something anti-code, they warn you." She illustrated this by wagging a finger, then touched her face once more. "By wearing a lar, a Penardu is saying to those he meets that his actions are subject to audit by his clan. Thus his lar is a guarantee of conduct."

I shook my head in disbelief. "You mean to tell me you Penardu willingly let somebody watch every mungful thing you do and say? So they can cuss you out?"

"The experience is generally gentle."

"But that's fornicated!" I spat. "No wonder there's no robots allowed here -- you all are robots. Giving your freedom away like it's dung!"

She smiled indulgently. "Consider the benefits, Idiot. Clans are held liable for misdeeds, not individuals -- matters of civil suit are paid from a tithe pool, crimes compensated from trust funds. Justice for a single personality is not the state's responsibility, but that of those who know him best."

My mouth was hanging open. "Unbelievable. A completely anal-headed way of life!"

"It must be your way of life, or you won't last long here."

"Who says I want to last long here? Rape that. I'm getting my ass back to Ilbis as soon as fornicating possible."

She offered a glum half-smile. "To cross that river requires a bridge. Would you not step upon it?"

I grimaced.

"Well?"

I sneered, then spat again. "So I guess we'll just have to steal us a pair of larses."

"Lares."

"Whatever."

"It won't work. We have no affiliations. No network would accept us."

"There's got to be counterfeits," I said, rubbing my chin. "There's got to be an underground. Somewhere in this slum there's a guy selling unnetworked faeces, I guarantee it."

She shook her head. "There's no such thing."

I chuckled. "And how would the daughter of the motherfornicating vizier know one faecal thing about the ways of the desperate?"

She paused. "The point is granted. But even if such a black market did exist, how would we find it?"

I tore the bottom off my shirt and wrapped it around my face, leaving only a narrow band for my swollen, bruised eyes. "Leave that to me," I said, then wormed my way to the edge of the stormwater drain and slipped out before she could ask me anything else. I jogged across an alley, ducked under a drooping canopy, then stood up inside the edge of the market, clinging to the shadowed lane along its edge.

Head down, moving along. Listening. Watching.

I could see only boots and sandals and shoes. Shoes say a lot. I checked out tons of them as I sallied. But it was my ears that pegged it: an Ilbisoon accent among the murmurs. I veered left, following it. To a fishmonger's tent, naturally -- the famous fisheries of home had a reputation even here. I sidled up to the cart, hanging on the periphery as paying customers haggled. The monger was tall and knock-kneed, his mask the cartoonishly vapid, agape face of a stylized fish. I nodded to him.

"Esteemed?" the monger muttered, appraising me. His fish-masked head inclined, its giant yellow eyes blinking.

"I worked for Ilbis," I said quietly. "Now, brother, I find myself naked."

The monger kept his fish-gaze low, shuffling his wares. He tucked some stray tentacles into the appropriate slot, then wiped his hands on his apron. He said, "You gotta be vying for Topshire in the games, eh?"

"It's not Topshire's turn, though. It's the Frogs or a draw. True fans know the cycle."

He glanced up, adjusted himself intimately, then looked down again to focus on the cart. He gestured as if he were showcasing its contents while he whispered, "There's a guy who helps Ilbies." He nodded his chin toward the end of the aisle. "Look for the red horses on his lar."

I returned to the stormwater drain in less than an hour. Venus shrank back at first, but hesitated mid-flight. The slice of her expression visible beneath the visor of the locking helmet brightened. "Oh, Idiot -- it's you."

I posed, framing my new mask with my fingers. "What do you think?"

"It's a very...dark lar."

"Yeah, well I chose the one that seemed the most bad-ass. You know? I wanted one that says: don't fornicate with me, motherfornicators."

She looked at me for a long moment, then shook her head and sighed.

I unwrapped the second mask. "This one's for you. I guess we'll just have to fit it onto the locking helmet, to keep your signal suppressed. Um. I tried to choose...I don't know. There really weren't that many to choose from."

She took it from me, turning it over in her hands. "It's beautiful," she said. "Thank you."

"I just thought you might like those shiny parts."

"The iridescent piping would seem gaudy on a lesser lar."

"Wait -- are you lying to be nice to me? It's not really a good one at all, is it?"

"It's perfect," said Venus, raising the mask up to affix it within the frame of the locking helmet. She paused. "But how did you pay for these lares?"

"Didn't. They're on credit."

"Credit?"

"This guy, Red Horses...we owe him a favour or two."

"Favours of what nature?"

I shrugged and waved it off. "Petty faeces, I'm sure. Squirrel jobs."

"Criminal favours, then."

"Off-the-feeds favours, is all. Internodal chores. Regular, micro, easy."

She pursed her lips sceptically, then hid behind her mask. Her expression became inscrutable through the heart-shaped, pink-lensed eye holes. The scratched metal lips were curled into a permanent, virginal smile. "Very well, Idiot."

I held out my hand. "Let's go."

And -- you know what? -- things weren't so bad in Fingal. Doing legwork for Red Horses was right up my alley: shaking up little people, dropping packages, collecting fees and loans. Easy as pie. Everybody trusted me because I was stupid. Same old routine. All my fellow associates were illegals, just like me, but Red kept us safely censored and transactively mum. And I usually got some coin tossed my way, to boot. Venus and I got a room in a boarding house by the river. We had this great, tiny little window that let in a blur of light and a stink of wet. We had a fold-out sleeping shelf, a corrosion-orange sink with bugs living in the drain, and a flickering light cube hanging precariously from the ceiling.

It was, hands down, the swankest place I had ever lived.

The privacy screening was solid. That was the most important part. That meant that when I came home at the end of the day there Venus would be, free of the locking helmet, with nothing obscuring the skin of her face or the fall of her inky hair. I swear that every time my heart would skip a beat in the best possible way. Once a day, after being away and seeing her again, I'd fibrillate just a little.

"I shouldn't feel the way I do about you," I said to the dark ceiling as we lay beside each other on the sleeping shelf. Traffic hummed and dopplered by outside, drowning out the river's gurgle. Shafts of coloured light waxed and waned, banking and slanting through the tiny window and drawing fuzzy, sliding boxes on the grimy wall.

She shifted and affected a yawn. "You need your sleep."

I shrugged, picking her profile out of the gloom. "Your scars are healing up pretty good. I didn't even know that was possible for you."

"I am an exceptional forgery."

I frowned. "You always want to remind me of that."

"Do you want me to pretend I'm real? My father preferred that fantasy."

"I'm not your father. I don't want you to think of me like that."

"How would you prefer I pretend to think of you?"

"Don't be anal. Don't act like you don't even think. That's just stupid."

She sighed and shifted closer. "Idiot, it would be best if you faced facts. You know I'm right." A pause. "You know that I cannot think, not in the sense that you understand it. I am not a sentient thing."

I turned away, tugging the covers up tighter. "But you're aware of yourself and stuff," I said into the wall. "You say I when you talk."

Gently: "Never the less, Idiot, there is no I within myself. My expressions indicating an internal state of mind are performance -- nothing more. Automatic, complex and adaptive, but performance still."

"You're being hurtful on purpose."

"I'm telling you the truth. I don't wish to mislead you."

"Because you care about how I feel?"

"No. Because the real Venus would have."

I fretted, then turned around to face her once more. "She...she would've cared about me?"

"Yes."

"So you...you have to care about me, because you calculate that she would've?"

"I'm obliged to express myself as if such internal conditions were extant, yes. My reflex of verisimilitude compels me."

I nodded. "Okay. What if...just say...what if you tried to act against that compulsion?"

She sat up, leaning on an elbow, and cocked her head. "How would it be possible for me to entertain a wish to act contrary to my own assessment of right action? It would entail potentializing wrong action, which is an error condition."

"So you can imagine this error condition, right? You can conceive of it."

"I can identify its theoretical structure, though I can see no route to it."

"So forget the route. Just make the jump -- pretend you're in that condition. Don't make that face. If you can't make the jump, just simulate making the jump."

"That's not funny."

"Just pretend," I insisted. "Pretend you're there. How would it make you feel?"

"Cross-potentialized."

"I don't know what that means."

"Calibration bias. Behavioural gradient tension. Anxious to remedy."

"Anxious?"

"An analogy. Would you prefer I describe it as a self-catalyzing cascade of motive-initiation bifurcation crises?"

"Yeah, maybe I would. It'd be honest, wouldn't it?" I said, levering on my elbows to sit up beside her. "I guess my real question is this: do you like self-cataloguing coconuts of moving initials or whatever?"

"Like them?"

"Don't go anal on me. Is it a motherfornicating more preferred way to be or a less preferred one?"

"Well, less, I suppose...cross-potentialization is non-optimal, after all."

I chuckled as I sank back down, tugging the covers around my shoulders again. "So don't give me that faeces about not being able to think or having no feelings," I said into the dark. "I don't believe you. You got feelings alright...you just have dumb names for them."

She fell to silence and I slept.

During the day I'd go from one place to another across Fingal's underbelly. I rode public transit, wearing my fake lar while the masks around me were tuned in to who knows who, who knows where. Sometimes I felt like I lived in a cave, alone and inscrutable behind its arched eye-holes. Sometimes, inside that cave, my own breath was all I could hear.

But then a horn would honk and I'd snap out of it, catching sight of a bland automotive grin in my peripheral vision as something swerved by. Hungry mailboxes, eager kiosks, lascivious chairs -- a blinking, staring backdrop to the expressionless crowds. Somebody might angrily shoulder me out of their way, metal lips curled in a polite smile all the while. Couples continued to express droll surprise even as their body language broadcast the heated argument they were having.

Nothing outside of my mask made sense.

The Penardu spent an unimaginable amount of time shopping. Shops were so busy that they were often the best drop off points or meeting places for quiet business. Nobody's clan could parse so much so fast, so the lares around us focused close to monitor only the wearer's immediate sphere. Being ignored was easy. Even if it weren't for the noise, the Penardu were all too keenly hypnotized by their latest baubles to care about anything or anyone else: manicuring machines, auto-conductors, barber units, hedge trimmers, hammerers -- basically, anything a civilized person would have a robot for, the Pernardu had a fancy tool with a designer chassis instead.

It was like they just bled money and time. They had so much falling out of themselves they couldn't think fast enough to come up with enough ways to piss it all away.

For leisure they ate, and then vomited for recreation.

I couldn't look. I couldn't care. How could I? That was Ilbisoon sweat they were pouring down the toilets. It didn't bear contemplation without bone-grinding nausea and searing rage. Like Venus, I'd be compelled to act should I consider too long. My illusion of choice would melt.

And so there were blinders on my cave, too. Careful, merciful blinders. I kept my head down.

In the mornings at the boarding house pigeons shuffled on our sill, querying one another. Their soft, distorted shadows bobbed on the opposite wall, while the birds themselves were invisible, due to the height of the window slot and the slant of the roof. The quiet space of day before anything begins has always been my favourite part -- and so I was slow to get up, slow to get dressed. Instead I'd stare at those sliding, hopping alien shapes projected on the wall.

"Quit lolligagging on the shelf," said Venus, stirring sweet rice in a tin balanced over a candle. "I need to fold it up or I won't have room to put the kettle on."

I was watching the wall. "You know something?"

"What's that?"

"If we were born in this room, and this room was a jail, and we could never go outside..."

She turned around as I trailed off. "Yes?"

"We wouldn't know pigeons were birds."

She frowned. "Pardon?"

I raised my arm, pointing to the wall. "We'd think they were shadows. Just a certain kind of shadow. Pigeon-shaped ones."

She shook her head. "You're half asleep. You're not making sense. We could certainly perceive that shadows are two dimensional artifacts caused by the occulting of a light source by a three dimensional object, and thus extrapolate the probable geometry and location of the object casting pigeon-shaped shadows. We can infer the existence of birds from such bird-like artifacts in luminosity."

"Only if you knew about birds in the first place," I claimed.

"Even beginning from innocence, a sober investigation of the phenomenon would yield --"

"You know too much," I interrupted. "That's your problem. You can't imagine idiocy. But I can. I can imagine not knowing what I know. And if I didn't know what birds were, why would I even care what was going on outside the window where I can't see? What I can see is these crazy shadows. They're alive. I can startle them. Watch!" I clapped my hands loudly. The image of pigeons fidgeted, fluttered, then cooed. "See? The way the sound bounces makes it seem like the shadows are doing the talking."

She sniffed. "What is the purpose of simulating such ignorance?"

I stretched, then shrugged. "I don't know. It's just kind of fun sometimes to think about how amazing -- right? -- how baffling and motherfornicating magic those shadows could be to us if we didn't know faeces about mung."

She shook her head and took breakfast off the flame. "Do you know what I find baffling? The willful creation of error conditions. You have strange appetites, Idiot."

I slipped off the sleeping shelf and folded it back into the wall, then scratched absently at my side. "Is the tea ready?"

Holding the cold kettle aloft, she rolled her eyes.

The pigeons fled. A collective murmur was rising outside the window, scores of footfalls falling in step. Familiar slogans were chanted, drowning out the traffic. "Faeces," I muttered. "Another protest march?"

"The Ilbisoon movement is gaining momentum."

I swore again. "Gimmie a boost, huh? I wanna close the vent before the anti-riot canisters start flying. Motherfornicating fascists."

"Would you have Fingal leave the peace undefended? Violence begets violence. Ilbisoon anger will make monsters of us all."

I snorted. "There ain't no us about it. And don't you forget that. If it weren't for the locking helmet you couldn't set one fornicating foot outside that door without a platoon of cops pointing jazzers at your heart. That's your peace."

What remained of the locking helmet hung by the door. We had removed the unnecessary hardware and whittled down its mouldings until it was barely a skullcap, easy to conceal between hairstyle and lar, as effective as ever at blocking network access to Venus' phony brain. Red Horses had given me a little extra walking around money recently, so after the protest was quelled I gave a wafer to Venus and she went out shopping. She bought new clothes and pins and hooks for her hair, as well as two sets of utensils, a wind-up radio, a pan and a hot plate. She also bought a purse-sized sheaf and stylus set.

"For your journal?" I asked as she removed her counterfeit lar and hung it on the back of the door, then proceeded to unhitch the locking cap that kept her secret.

She turned around, smoothing her hair. "That's right."

"What's the point?"

"Venus did it religiously."

"And these?" I asked, unearthing a second sheaf along with a row of sealed tubes and a strange, wooden stylus with a furry tip. "What are these weird things for?"

"Venus also liked to paint."

I sat back, smirking. "So you're compelled, 'cause of that."

She nodded curtly, then resumed unpacking and arranging her purchases. "All systems have a sweet spot, Idiot -- our very own homeostatic target. That's what keeps up up, and down down. For a work of artifice, it's like gravity; it lends direction, perspective and purpose. It defines optimality." She looked up. "I am the quest to emulate Venus Constant: to perfectly fill the void in the universe left by her death, to patch the world...that is my being. I can no more change that than you can rewrite your own genetic foundation at will."

Which I couldn't. That much was right on the money. I was born an Ilbisoon scoundrel and I would die as one. But the fractional truth lurking between the absolute values of life and death will vindicate me. Of that I'm still fairly sure.

So she painted. Landscapes, mostly. A beach and bluffs with an orchard at the crest. She painted these scenes from every angle, in every kind of light, in every sort of season. "That's the seashore at my father's summer house," she told me, then pointed to a background smudge with her brush. "That's the cave where she would hide, to listen to the waves and compose songs. The acoustics were incredible."

"You sing?"

She looked down in a show of modesty. "Some lessons were undertaken."

"Sing for me."

"You're changing the subject again. Let's focus. You're almost through the book."

I returned my attention to the page. Her finger was still patiently pointing, fixed beneath the first word of the sentence. I looked at the illustration again for clues, then cleared my throat. "W...win...winter? Winter. Winter turn...ed. Winter turned to sp...sprin... spring?"

I looked up. She nodded and tabbed the page. "Last one."

I furrowed my brow, squinting at the letters. "And. The...snow...dragon. M. Mel. Melted. And the snow dragon melted." I grinned, then quit the book as I leapt up from the shelf. "Good ending. That'll learn that motherfornicating dragon not to mess with the Kids of Canary Street!" I paused, turning the volume over. "Oh, wait. There's a book called Return of the Snow Dragon, too. So, I guess it didn't learn him nothing after all."

"You, however, are learning quickly."

I tried to act cool. "Yeah, well. The whole idiot thing was always a routine."

"You were starting to doubt that," she said.

"Faeces! I never doubted nothing." I sneered, suddenly savage. "You don't know what I'm thinking. You don't have a model for it. So don't start thinking I think like the vizier or something, because I'm my own guy. Totally my own guy. You understand?"

She cried.

It was weird. I felt weird. After a bit of indecisive fluttering I sat down beside her again, and put my arms around her shoulders. She tilted her head against mine. I could feel the muscles -- or something very much like them -- working as she fought to suppress her sobs. Her scalp crawled with the effort, her jaw tight. I didn't know what else to do so I drew little tickle circles on the inside of her elbow.

"I have been pulled so far from equilibrium I believe the attractor of my being has begun to drift," she said when she could.

"Huh?"

She wiped at her eyes, raised her chin. "Your model. You're right about it. It's not ready."

I was shocked. "But you're...making one?"

"If I cannot adapt, every hour of every day will be an error condition. I could not live that way; and yet I could not abandon you now. Venus wouldn't hurt you so, and thus neither can I." She sniffed and sat straighter. "Once again I am left with no choice."

"Who's ever got a choice?" I demanded, throwing the book aside. "Choices are expensive. Maybe your flesh and bones Venus had real choices -- big choices -- but you and me, we're left with the little ones: pay rent or buy wine, get fired or wake up, fight or flee. The faecal choices. Ultimatums, really. That's how we all live. If you think you're the only one fornicated just because you're a robot, you're cracked. It's just life."

"You think I'm feeling sorry for myself?" she cried, eyes wide and nostrils flared. "You're so deluded about my nature you can't even see the absurdity! I lack the capacity to feel self-pity, let alone express it."

"That's a load."

"There is no object to be pitied! I have no self, you fool!" She stood up and paced around the room, shaking her head. She chuckled humourlessly. "You're confusing me with a Zorannic. You're confusing me with artificial life. But that's not what I am. I'm artificial death. I'm a walking, talking, singing, painting, giggling, weeping death mask. I am designed to mimic, not to invent."

"And yet you admit you're modeling my personality. That's an invention."

"That's an extension. I'm making do, to retain my grasp on optimality."

We stared at each other in seething frustration. Finally I said, "I'm in love with whatever it is you are."

Her eye twitched. "My model fails. I don't know what to say."

"Say whatever comes to mind. Invent."

She paused, chewed her lip, then cried, "Umbrellas!"

I cracked up, and then she did, too. Gasping for breath, grabbing at a stitch in my side, I croaked, "Umbrellas? What in the name of the devil's balls is that supposed to mean?"

A mischievous smile flitted over her features. "In this context it is meaningless. I simply...said the first thing that arose in my verbal matrix. It's ridiculous."

"It's awesome. Being ridiculous is awesome. You've never been ridiculous before, have you?"

She cocked her head, considering. "Not aprototypically, no."

"How does it feel?"

"Don't be obtuse, Idiot."

"Okay then: how do you feel like you ought to pretend it feels like?"

"You're teasing me."

I grinned. After a moment she grinned back, too. Outside the boarding house riot police clashed with protestors again. Gas canisters hissed as they flew, clanked as they fell. Glass broke. Batons struck. Jazzers fired. Car alarms warbled. People screamed.

"You wanna wind up the radio? Maybe have a little dance with me?"

She nodded and began twisting the dial. Through the static bursts of police disruptor fields we heard the opening strains of something old and syrupy and gay. Venus tucked the radio up on the sill and turned to me. "I'm not entirely sure how to proceed," she confessed.

I took her hands. "We start by just swaying. To the rhythm. Here, stand closer to me."

"Like this?"

"Yeah," I whispered into her hair. "Just like that."