V

I find the fish about half a mile downstream, moving in tight circles a little distance above the water.

One of the things I picked out of the scramble flow, soon after I built my first net, was a fragmented general purpose management program. It was riddled with viruses, but its moment was almost completely intact, if a little small.

Moments indicate, without actually proving, the presence of self-awareness. I like to think of moments as the electronic translation of a certain antiquated concept: the soul. It is possible to absorb someone else's moment. This kills them. It also provides the consumer with a certain swiftness and clarity of thought, an upgrade that never quite wears off.

I would have gobbled that nutritious narcotic right up, and directed the rest of the carcass back into the flow, had it not been for the two garbled words that the program whispered as I scooped it out of my net.

It said, "thank you."

Things changed after my moment with the moment. Seventy-two others have met my nets in the past months, and I haven't swallowed a one of them. I've been separating them from their diseased hosts. I've been making a pile. I visit them each hour during the day. I sleep on them at night.

I count them every day: seventy-two so far, or seventy-three counting the fish. As expensive a mattress as you'll find anywhere -- and amidst all this sylvan poverty -- but I'm not in it for the money. When I'm happy with the fish, I am going to start making each and every moment its own electronic identity. Then I'm going to set them free.

This is something the old Dom Drane could never have done.

I beckon, the fish stops its agitated movements, and drifts towards me. I tell it to run a couple diagnostic tests on itself, and check for myself that its weapons are intact, all its booby traps unsprung. Everything looks okay.

According to the memory banks, just over half an hour ago, what had looked like an ordinary piece of scramble suddenly began displaying some very un-scramble-like characteristics, swimming against the flow towards my nets. It emptied the third net of everything that had been caught during the night and took up residence. This is theoretically possible, traveling in the scramble flow. I've been working on a safe way to do it, myself. The fish toyed with the idea of investigating, decided against it, backed off a comfortable distance and started chasing its tail.

"All okay?" says the fish.

I nod, then I shrug.

With the fish, I've turned savior. This is reform, this is altruism. The various weaponry I've attached is healthy paranoia. Well-founded. It's just been confirmed: as of 6:15 this morning, I am dead, and they are out to get me.

VI

My ride out of the Almost Cemetery, some months and months and months ago, was a bumpy one. Almost hi-octane. Bewildered, fragmented, paranoid, pursued by black and toothy retrieve-and-delete functions, I stumbled over a dusty downlink, panicked, and dove in, head-first.

The malfunctions that resulted in my existence are entirely Dom Drane's fault. The day before he had stolen a minor artefact from a particularly nasty corporate cult. His state of mind was less than calm. I was panicky, paranoid, I can remember the woman operating the Back-Up Booth had to keep wiping the sweat off of my palms and forehead, because the electrodes wouldn't stick.

You're not supposed to get backed up until you're feeling perfectly relaxed. My question: if you're feeling perfectly relaxed, why do you need to get backed up? The upload was pretty much completed -- memory, personality and all that -- and a disembodied voice asked me, very politely, to step into cold storage. In the face of this not unreasonable request, I screamed incoherently and ran. This is when I was the back-up, I guess. This was the first thing I did as my new self. I ran away.

I ran through the Almost Cemetery, which is like an empty city, all stone and low gray sky. The skyscrapers are packed with sleepers in three parts: moment, and information about mind and body. The streets were empty then except for my pounding feet, and the hissing of the black sparks and fury behind me. And out of the Almost Cemetery, deeper into the Milieu, in amongst the crowds, jostling for space.

Away from Dom Drane, the ageing plastic-legged I, eccentric dresser, unpleasant habits and acquaintances, and the violent past, the frequent thief, sex offender, occasional murderer, the opportunist, the Dom that's dead. Very nearly away from everything else, too. Things nibbling at my heels, burning bits of me away. After an exit like that, do they really think I'll come back because they sent me an invitation?

I ran away; and just before they caught me I took a downlink, and it took me here. No self-respecting retrieve-and-delete function follows into the Yellow Book. They skidded and stopped and gnashed their dark teeth, they whimpered, they left, intact.

And I dropped out of the metal treetops, into the shade. A little way away I could hear the sound of the river. And I lay there.

I listened to the forest and the river.

VII

I leave the river's edge, fish bobbing behind me. I skirt across the woods, coming out into bald, hilly territory. I climb to the top of a hill and start setting up. It doesn't take too long. I gather together a couple of programs I've concealed around here. The fish does most of the work, dragging my paranoid plans into place. I stand on my hilltop.

The morning sky gradually changes, becoming the color of fresh blood. After a while I notice a dot in it. It's high up, and some distance away, positioned above the space between two scramble rivulets that trickle their way away, down towards the river. The dot shouts at me. "Back-up brain pattern! Dom Drane! Guild employee! Follow me now!"

It's outside the range of all my traps. I send a tendril for it, intending to push it into one of the scramble flows. It wobbles out of range.

"Please wait, calling supervisor!" it shouts. Then it hums. Then it disappears.

Why is my program a fish? Because it was in the river. Tradition says you can't fish for cattle Practice, and genetics, say otherwise. But I have become a traditionalist. Perhaps it's just a phase. Perhaps not.

I do this: I wait.

VIII

There's a flash and part of the lower section of the hill caves in. I peer down at the hole. There's some smoke and a little scramble, but none of it looks like the remains of an intruder.

There's another flash on the opposite side, a little higher up. I start making a copy of my last remaining bomb, the one positioned just a few feet away, and a moment after I've finished that goes up too, in a hot roar of scramble. This time I catch a glimpse of what did it, something small and greasy and rat-like, with big lobster claws, which catches my eye and giggles then slips away.

I tell the fish to open up. It yawns, its blue lips stretching and stretching, resizing to receive me. I step inside and pull the jaws shut a little, leaving me a window to look out of. It's quiet and damp. There are passageways in all directions, deeper into the fish. The fish is bigger on the inside than on the outside. I watch the burning hilltop, bordered in yellow teeth.

The fish shudders, once, then there's a kind of choking sound, and it shudders again.

The fish says, "Check buffer 4."

For a moment I think my potential friend has located the intruder all by itself. Then I realize that the thing in buffer 4 isn't moving, a frozen copy. I trace the copy back to its point of origin, some software lodged in what I've called the fish's breathing apparatus.

A trap I laid near the foot of this hill was supposed to make a copy of anything that passed through and freeze it, which isn't actually protecting me in any way, but it's a safer bet than a straight delete. I got the fish to help me build that trap, a couple months ago, and to move it here, a couple minutes ago. Now it's copied the technique and installed six of the things in its own gills. The little guy is learning.

I extract values from all the copy's variables, only a couple hundred in total, and trace their probable paths of development. I locate the likely area and drop my copied bomb on it, deleting the whole thing. Napalm tactics. The fish shudders again, squeals in protest. The resulting scramble flows through my own careful irrigation system on its way out to the Yellow Book.

A final gurgle, and the last pieces of waste scramble leave through the mouth. I tell the fish to start repairs.

I'm feeling a little more relaxed now. I've been out of the loop for a couple months, but in one day, I've ignored one invitation and killed two messengers, and it's only noon.

I take one last look at the hills outside. Yeah, it's only noon. There's a wind blowing there now, spreading the smoke. The grass ripples. In the scramble, sliding down towards the river, I notice the rodent's head, in advanced stages of decay. It screeches, "Calling supervisor!" and disintegrates.