Peter Watts - Echopraxia

Ah. Resident Institution: Simon Fraser.

“She had friends, ” Sengupta murmured, almost to herself. “I bet she got away from ’em.

“I bet they want her back.”

JIM MOORE WASdancing.

There was no floor to speak of. No partner. Not even any witnesses until Daniel Brüks climbed into the Hub; the command deck was uncharacteristically quiet, no tapping toes or clicking tongues, none of the staccato curses that Sengupta barked out when some command or interface didn’t see things her way. Moore was alone in the cluttered landscape, leaping from a stack of cargo cubes, rebounding off some haphazard plateau halfway down, hitting the deck for just a split-second in a perfect barefoot crouch before bouncing back into the air: one arm tight across his chest, the other jabbing at some invisible partn—

Opponent, Brüks realized. Those open-handed strikes on empty air, that heel coming down with a snap against a passing bulkhead; those were combat moves. Whether he was interacting with a virtual partner in ConSensus or merely faking it old school, Brüks had no idea.

The dancing warrior caught a loose strap of cargo webbing floating from the grille, swung legs overhead and planted them against the bulkhead: hands pulling against strap in lieu of gravity, legs pushing back from the grille in opposition, a human tripod planted against the wall like a three-legged spider. Brüks could clearly see his face. Moore wasn’t even breathing through the mouth.

“Nice moves,” Brüks said.

Moore looked right past him and lifted his feet without a word, turning slowly around the strap like a windmill in a light breeze.

“Uh…”

“Shhh.”

He jumped a little at the hand on his arm. “You don’t want to wake him up,” Lianna said softly.

“He’s asleep ?” Brüks looked back at the ceiling; Moore was spinning more quickly now, head out, legs spread in a V, the strap winding tighter between man and metal. In the next instant he was airborne again.

“Sure.” Lianna’s dreads bobbed gently in the wake of her nod. “What, you stay awake when you exercise? You don’t find it, um, boring?”

He didn’t know whether she was taking a shot at the thought of Dan Brüks coming equipped with some kind of sleepwalking option, or the equally ludicrous thought of Dan Brüks working out.

“Why do it at all? A dose of AMPK agonist and he’s a hardbody even if he lies in bed snarfing bonbons all day.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to depend on augments that can be hacked. Maybe the endorphins give him happier dreams. Maybe old habits die hard.”

Moore sailed over their heads, stabbing the air. Brüks ducked despite himself.

Lianna chuckled. “Don’t worry about that. He can see us just fine.” She caught herself: “Something in there can, anyway.” A kick and a glide took her to the port staircase. “Anyway, don’t waste your time with that loser—the moment he wakes up he’ll just dive back into his Theseus files.” She jerked her chin. “I’ve got some time to kill. Come play with me instead.”

“Play w—” But she’d already turned like a fish and darted down the spoke. He followed her back to the heavy quarters, to the Commons where Moore’s green bottle and his own abandoned gimp hood clung to the bulkhead between bands of minty astroturf.

“Play what?” he asked, catching up. “Tag?”

She grabbed his hood off the wall and tossed it to him, flumping into a convenient hammock in a single smooth motion. “Anything you want. Deity Smackdown. Body-swap boxing is kinda fun. Oh, and there’s a Kardashev sim I’m pretty good at, but I promise to go easy on you.”

He turned the Interloper Accessory over in his hands. The frontal superconductors stared up at him like a pair of startled eyes.

“You do remember that’s mainly a gaming hood, right?”

He shook his head. “I don’t game.”

Lianna eyed him as though he’d just claimed to be a hydrangea. “Why ever not ?”

Of course he couldn’t tell her. “It’s not real .”

“It’s not supposed to be,” she explained, surprisingly patient. “That’s what makes them games.”

“Doesn’t feel real.”

“Yeah it does.”

“Not to me.”

“Yeah it does.”

“ Not to— ”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, Oldschool, but Yes it does .”

“Don’t lecture me about my own perceptions, Lee.”

“It’s the same neurons ! The same signal running up the same wiring, and there’s absolutely no way your brain can tell the difference between an electron that came all the way from your retina and one that got injected midstream. Absolutely no way.”

“Doesn’t feel real,” he insisted. “Not to me. And I’m not playing Porn Star Cat Wars with you.”

“Just try, man.”

“Play the AI. It’ll give you a better run for your money anyway.”

“It’s not the sa—”

“Hah!”

Lianna’s face fell. “ Fuck . Skewered by my own position statement.”

“By a roach, no less. How’s it feel?”

“Like I just punched myself in the nose,” she admitted.

Neither spoke for a moment.

“Just once? For me?”

“ I don’t game .”

“Okay, okay. No harm in asking.”

“Now you’ve asked.”

“Okay.” She swung back and forth in the hammock for a few seconds. (There was something a little off about that motion, a hinted half-spiral oscillation. Coriolis was a subtle trickster.)

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said after a while, “I kinda know what you mean.”

“About?”

“About things not seeming real. I actually feel that way all the time. Gaming’s the only time I don’t feel that way.”

“Huh,” Brüks grunted, a little surprised. “I wonder why.”

And after a moment’s thought: “Probably the company you keep.”

Someone had set up a second tent next to his, stuck it like an engorged white blood cell right at the base of the ladder. Brüks had to effect a half hop sideways off the second rung to avoid bumping it. Something rustled and muttered inside.

“Hello?”

Sengupta stuck her head out, stared at the deck. “Roach.”

Brüks coughed. “You know, that doesn’t actually sound as much like a compliment as you might think.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “You should see this,” she said, and withdrew.

And poked her head out again after a few seconds: “Well come on .”

He hunkered gingerly down into the tent. Sengupta crouched at its center. Patches of flickering intelligence swarmed across the fabric: columns of numbers; crude plastic-skinned portraits rendered by some computer sketch artist struggling with insufficient eye-witness data; rows of—home addresses, from the look of it.

“What’s this?”

“Nothing you care about.” Reflected lightning played across her face. “Just some fucker going to be eating his own guts when I get hold of him.” She waved one hand and the collage disappeared.

“You do realize they’ve got a whole hab set up as a dorm,” Brüks said.

“That’s too crowded nobody uses this one.”

“ I use—” Never mind .

A roommate might not be so bad, he reflected. He’d have never sought one out—good parasites do not draw attention to themselves, no matter how lonely the lifestyle—but if things went south, maybe Valerie would eat Rakshi first. Buy him some time.