Peter Hamilton - Manhattan in Reverse

Harwood’s Hill, the capital, was small, barely half a million people. But it was beautiful, one of those places which had banned combustion engines. It was spread across a big slope that rose up out of a freshwater sea, with green spaces outnumbering buildings five to one. If I could afford it, I’d probably move there. You knew this world was making an effort to get things right . But it cost to grab a chunk of a dormitory planet for the upper-middle classes. For Christ’s sake, real estate here was more expensive than back on Earth.

My train had arrived late evening. I took a taxi out to the airport using the company card. Even the taxi cost more than the return train fare. I watched the yachts out on the lake, trying not to be all sour and envious, there must have been hundreds coming in to port, their sails all lit up by the sinking sun. Didn’t anyone in the city work?

The flight to Essendyne was another three hours. At the other end, the airport was little more than a flat patch of grass with a strip of enzyme-bonded concrete down the middle like it was left over from an experimental road building project.

Essendyne itself was a little town of stylish houses at the end of a valley. The surrounding mountains were impressive, too. In winter they have over a metre of snow. It is perfect for skiers.

I took another taxi out to the resort, a forty-minute ride. The place was only half-finished, with the main building a mass of scaffolding crawling with construction bots. Some of the cabins had roofs, but the insides weren’t fitted. I got that shitty sinking feeling as soon as we arrived. The office had told me the whole thing was in its final stage of completion, with the staff busy getting ready for guests. All that was left to do was a bit of landscaping. Complete crap.

The taxi dropped me outside the site manager’s office. She wasn’t available, some crisis out there among the scaffolding with a malfunctioning bot. Her assistant had the grace to look embarrassed as he explained that the hand-over date had been put back three months. It was difficult to get the materials out to Essendyne from the nearest train station, two hours’ drive away along a narrow road. No one from the resort company was even on site, let alone available to meet me.

Fucking pricks! Nobody back in Sydney had even bothered to check. Bastard scum! So I’d wasted an entire day on a trip to a client that didn’t even exist yet. I wanted to bill the dicks back home for the commission I’d lost and the expenses I’d built up.

The taxi took me back to the airport. And of course the plane back to Harwood’s Hill didn’t leave for another five hours. I hit the bar in the concourse — grand way to describe a hut with a glass wall. After an hour, when the anger was really peaking, I called Sydney and told the dick of an office manager what I thought of him. I didn’t wait for him to say anything back, I cut the channel and got my e-butler to block all incoming calls. There was a seafood bistro next to the bar. I went in and tried some of the local food. Not bad. Waitress was kind of pretty, too. Then I went back to the bar.

I remember one of the stewardesses helping me onto the plane. Great-looking chick with flaming red hair and a cute smile. I told her so, too. Then we took off and I was poorly. She helped clean it up. I slept the rest of the flight.

Harwood’s Hill was a grind. Strange city, small hours of the morning, with a mother monster hangover. Took a taxi to the CST station. Managed to find a little store that was still open and bought some cleaner tabs. I don’t take them often, they’re worse than the hangover if you ask me. But they do only last an hour before your body stabilizes. I was back in Sydney by then. Cold, depressed, with bones that ached. Couldn’t eat, and felt real hungry thanks to the cleaners. And absolutely fuck all to show for my time.

I went home. Bugger the expense, I took a taxi. I was kind of surprised my company card was still working by then. You know I thought that was my low point. Then the bloody next thing I know, the police are blowing up my door. I don’t know what they hit me with when they stormed in, but it was like my whole body was on fire. I just wanted to die. I mean, how could the universe do this to me?

It was the biggest case ever to be heard in a Nova Zealand court; in fact it was the biggest anything to happen on Nova Zealand, period. Reporters from every unisphere news show flooded into Ridgeview, with their companies block booking entire hotels. Those unable to snag a room had to park their mobile homes on the ring road where they were jostled by curious camels brought to the planet by Bedouins eager to recreate their ancient culture out in the freedom of the vast deserts. While in town, the narrow streets with their broad white canvas awnings rapidly became clogged by giant mobile studio trucks.

Paula was given a room in the city attorney’s office. It was cramped, with desks shoved against the wall, and a noisy water tower, but better than trying to catch a train in each day.

When the case was opened in front of Judge Jeroen, Paula was surprised when the defence lawyer, Ms Toi, entered a plea of not guilty.

‘Is she going for some kind of technicality?’ Paula whispered to Stephan Dorge, the Directorate’s prosecutor.

‘I don’t see how,’ he whispered back. ‘They didn’t ask for a deal.’

‘What about the memory deposition?’

‘Nah, we can prove it’s an implant.’

When Paula looked at Ms Toi, she thought the lawyer seemed uncomfortable.

Prosecution opened with the forensics evidence from the launch site. The DNA match between Dimitros Fiech and the urine sample. Skin analysis taken at the Directorate’s Sydney office immediately after the arrest revealed traces of the missile’s chemical rocket booster exhaust on his arms and face; there were also plume traces on his yellow shirt. The jury was shown camera pictures from the Larsie marina and Ridgeview’s CST station. Additional corroboration was skin cell DNA taken from the boat.

‘The evidence which places Dimitros Fiech at the launch site is incontrovertible,’ Stephan Dorge concluded. ‘He fired the missile which killed a hundred and thirty-eight people. And for what? To push his perverted ideological platform.’

In the docks, Dimitros Fiech shook his head in disbelief.

Defence called Paula Myo. ‘I’d like to concentrate on the deposition of Dimitros Fiech’s memory on the day concerned?’ Ms Toi asked. ‘You ran the memory read yourself, did you not?’

‘I did,’ Paula said. ‘They contained no recollection of the missile launch. We believe false memories of his day on Ormal were inserted at the same time his true memory of the attack was erased.’

‘False memories? You mean someone created them in a studio like a Full Sensory drama?’

‘No. An accomplice went to Ormal in his place to provide an alibi. That experience was recorded, then loaded into Fiech’s brain.’

‘You believe someone like the defendant went to Ormal. How do you know it wasn’t him?’

‘Because he was on Nova Zealand firing the missile.’

‘But the person, the personality , sitting here in this courtroom today did not fire the missile, did he?’

Paula gave the defence lawyer a small smile. ‘Nice try. The defendant’s personality arranged for the current memory to be implanted, therefore he is what he wants to be.’

‘But what he is now is not the original personality?’

‘Who knows? There is no test that I’m aware of for identifying personality; in any case as any first-year psychology student will tell you, personality is fluid, it changes as you age, some say it matures. Just because you don’t remember committing a crime, doesn’t mean you’re innocent of it. That precedent was established when the first memory erasure techniques were developed. The Justice Directorate suspension chambers are full of criminals who removed inconvenient incriminating memories. I’d point out that Fiech has erased his entire life prior to joining the Colliac Fak company; which has very neatly blocked our investigation into the Free Merioneth Movement, and we all know what that’s led to in the last six months. To me such behaviour is the personality trait of a real fanatic.’