James Kelly - Rewired - The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology

“Plans?”

“Yes, Simopolis.”

Anne tried to think of Simopolis, but her thoughts quickly became muddled. It was odd; she was able to think clearly about the past — her memories were clear — but the future only confused her. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I suppose I need to ask Benjamin.”

Cathy considered this. “I suppose you’re right. But remember, you’re always welcome to live with us in Cathyland.”

“Thank you,” said Anne. “You’re a friend.” Anne watched the old woman eat. The spoon trembled each time she brought it close to her lips, and she had to lean forward to quickly catch it before it spilled.

“Cathy,” said Anne, “there’s something you could do for me. I don’t feel like a bride anymore. Could you remove this hideous expression from my face?”

“Why do you say hideous?” Cathy said and put the spoon down. She gazed longingly at Anne. “If you don’t like how you look, why don’t you edit yourself?”

“Because I don’t know how.”

“Use your editor,” Cathy said and seemed to unfocus her eyes. “Oh my, I forget how simple you early ones were. I’m not sure I’d know where to begin.”

After a little while, she returned to her soup and said, “I’d better not; you could end up with two noses or something.”

“Then what about this gown?”

Cathy unfocused again and looked. She lurched suddenly, knocking the table and spilling soup.

“What is it?” said Anne. “Is something the matter?”

“A news pip,” said Cathy. “There’s rioting breaking out in Provideniya. That’s the regional capital here. Something about Manumission Day. My Russian isn’t so good yet. Oh, there’s pictures of dead people, a bombing. Listen, Anne, I’d better send you…”

In the blink of an eye, Anne was back in her living room. She was tiring of all this instantaneous travel, especially as she had no control over the destination. The room was vacant, the spouses gone — thankfully — and Benjamin not back yet. And apparently the little blue-faced message medallion had been busy replicating itself, for now there were hundreds of them filling up most of the wall space. They were a noisy lot, all shrieking and cursing at each other. The din was painful. When they noticed her, however, they all shut up at once and stared at her with naked hostility. In Anne’s opinion, this weird day had already lasted too long. Then a terrible thought struck her — sims don’t sleep.

“You,” she said, addressing the original medallion, or at least the one she thought was the original, “call Benjamin.”

“The fuck you think I am?” said the insolent little face, “Your personal secretary?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not! In fact, I own this place now, and you’re trespassing. So you’d better get lost before I delete your ass!” All the others joined in, taunting her, louder and louder.

“Stop it!” she cried, to no effect. She noticed a medallion elongating, stretching itself until it was twice its length, when, with a pop, it divided into two smaller medallions. More of them divided. They were spreading to the other wall, the ceiling, the floor. “Benjamin!” she cried. “Can you hear me?”

Suddenly all the racket ceased. The medallions dropped off the wall and vanished before hitting the floor. Only one remained, the original one next to the door, but now it was an inert plastic disc with a dull expression frozen on its face.

A man stood in the center of the room. He smiled when Anne noticed him. It was the elderly Benjamin from the auditorium, the real Benjamin. He still wore his clownish leisure suit. “How lovely,” he said, gazing at her. “I’d forgotten how lovely.”

“Oh, really?” said Anne. “I would have thought that doxie thingy might have reminded you.”

“My, my,” said Ben. “You sims certainly exchange data quickly. You left the lecture hall not fifteen minutes ago, and already you know enough to convict me.” He strode around the room touching things. He stopped beneath the mirror, lifted the blue vase from the shelf, and turned it in his hands before carefully replacing it. “There’s speculation, you know, that before Manumission at midnight tonight, you sims will have dispersed all known information so evenly among yourselves that there’ll be a sort of data entropy. And since Simopolis is nothing but data, it will assume a featureless, grey profile. Simopolis will become the first flat universe.” He laughed, which caused him to cough and nearly lose his balance. He clutched the back of the sofa for support. He sat down and continued to cough and hack until he turned red in the face.

“Are you all right?” Anne said, patting him on the back.

“Yes, fine,” he managed to say. “Thank you.” He caught his breath and motioned for her to sit next to him. “I get a little tickle in the back of my throat that the autodoc can’t seem to fix.” His color returned to normal. Up close, Anne could see the papery skin and slight tremor of age. All in all, Cathy seemed to have aged better than he.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” she said, “just how old are you?”

At the question, he bobbed to his feet. “I am one hundred and seventy-eight.” He raised his arms and wheeled around for inspection. “Radical gerontology,” he exclaimed, “don’t you love it? And I’m eighty-five percent original equipment, which is remarkable by today’s standards.” His effort made him dizzy and he sat again.

“Yes, remarkable,” said Anne, “though radical gerontology doesn’t seem to have arrested time altogether.”

“Not yet, but it will,” Ben said. “There are wonders around every corner! Miracles in every lab.” He grew suddenly morose. “At least there were until we were conquered.”

“Conquered?”

“Yes, conquered! What else would you call it when they control every aspect of our lives, from RM acquisition to personal patenting? And now this — robbing us of our own private nonbiologiks.” He grew passionate in his discourse. “It flies in the face of natural capitalism, natural stakeholding — I dare say — in the face of Nature itself! The only explanation I’ve seen on the wad is the not-so-preposterous proposition that whole strategically placed BODS have been surreptitiously killed and replaced by machines!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Anne.

He seemed to deflate. He patted her hand and looked around the room. “What is this place?”

“It’s our home, your townhouse. Don’t you recognize it?”

“That was quite awhile ago. I must have sold it after you — ” he paused. “Tell me, have the Bens briefed you on everything?”

“Not the Bens, but yes, I know.”

“Good, good.”

“There is one thing I’d like to know. Where’s Bobby?”

“Ah, Bobby, our little headache. Dead now, I’m afraid, or at least that’s the current theory. Sorry.”

Anne paused to see if the news would deepen her melancholy. “How?” she said.

“He signed on one of the first millennial ships — the colony convoy. Half a million people in deep biostasis on their way to Canopus system. They were gone a century, twelve trillion kilometers from Earth, when their data streams suddenly quit. That was a decade ago, and not a peep out of them since.”

“What happened to them?”

“No one knows. Equipment failure is unlikely: there were a dozen independent ships separated by a million klicks. A star going supernova? A well-organized mutiny? It’s all speculation.”

“What was he like?”

“A foolish young man. He never forgave you, you know, and he hated me to my core, not that I blamed him. The whole experience made me swear off children.”