XIII

Improbable. Irresponsible. Utterly plausible. The robot's story is exactly the kind of thing that might happen in the paranoid, peculiar world of the Guild.

Under the letter of the law, the Guild could be a slick, mysterious mega-corporation, as of the old era. It could be the force that sweeps through the population, cutting away the dead flesh, aligning the lives of billions. Something that calls people "units." But it isn't, and really, I don't know why not. The Guild is inefficient and irresponsible. It's led by a group of people who just want to have fun. It's administrated by a group of Dom Dranes. Most employees spend most of their days trying to scam themselves another pay rise through the Milieu. The rest are playing computer games. It seems . . . reasonable, somehow, that I could have died because of a bureaucratic error. One of my own.

From what the robot proceeds to tell me, it seems that the good Duke Geis Vonnegut, of Ashley Estates, was about to be Guild-approved for the full works. Body hunted down and killed. Holdings razed to the ground. Back-up personalities uprooted and ripped to shreds. It's not as if anything in the Milieu is actually secure, if you're willing to pay the right price. But if my brain patterns were being treated like royalty, it seems likely my back-ups were shot, stabbed, squashed and burnt within minutes of the form clearing, mostly by random passers-by who couldn't believe their luck, all the weirdos that browse through the Almost Cemetery. I was probably done in by ten-year-old girls. In the real world, they probably wore black lipstick.

We talk for a while, the robot and I. I establish that it's just following orders, and probably believes the story it just told me. Maybe it is true. I don't know.

It's a matter of common practise for the Sons of Isaac to stretch their victims across a barrel filled with rats, and heat the bottom of the barrel, forcing the rats to burrow through the victim's soft stomach. Oh yes, and at the instant before death, the victim's brain patterns are copied to the temple computers. Then they can put you in whatever body they want, and they grow some of their own animals, designed specifically to be sensitive to pain. In religion, you need to be competitive if you want to stay ahead.

So maybe I'll stay in here, lounging in my fortress, worrying, talking to the robot. It promises, a couple times, that everything's going to be fine. It says it's not going to leave until I come out, which is reassuring, in a way. I'm developing a sudden, irrational fear of being left alone again. I try to get it to tell me some news of the outside world, but it takes my request as just another token to negotiate with. I explain that the Yellow Book receives all news imperfectly. It's all jumbled, or censored, and I don't know why. Some of the best information is actually in the scramble river. But the robot won't tell me anything. Come outside and see for yourself, it says. How come it's not afraid of the Yellow Book? Superstition. Everything they say about the Yellow Book is superstition. I've got a feeling it doesn't believe that, and I say so. We fall silent.

XIV

Later on, because there are certain forms and traditions that must be observed, the robot says, "You can't stay in there forever, you know."

It's almost got a point. I'm not the first to do this and there is a policy for people like me. I have to pay off service providers and the owners of terminals I've holed up in. If somebody tracks down all the profitable projects I have going throughout Milieu and shuts them down, sooner or later I'll run out of money, sooner or later I'll be evicted. Or they could have a go at cracking open the Fish from the outside. Time and money would do it. But people like me have policies too. Have a lot of projects, all over the Milieu. Have a lot of money. Have a back door.

"You know I can."

"Yeah," it says. "But Dom, it's not much of a life."

"Stop calling me Dom."

"Sorry. What shall I call you?"

I hesitate. "I don't know. What's your name?"

"My name is Omni-ysp5's Nimmet."

"Mm. Pleased to meet you, Omni-ysp5's Nimmet."

"Age and physical characteristics uncertain, even to me. Gender mostly female. Permanent resident of the Milieu. Hobbies include psychology, conversation, and meeting interesting people. Especially enjoy the reassurance that comes from long conversations with people more interesting, read, fucked-up, than myself. Hence the job. That would be Nimmet to you."

"Okay. Call me Dom Drane II. That would still be Dom to you."

"Yeah. Okay, Dom. You can't stay in there forever."

"Watch me."

XV

-- I didn't wake up the morning of my birthday. Instead I noted its arrival on the softly glowing digits, across the room from me, as I counted out the moments until bank opening time. I left my flat an hour early, and wandered the streets, clutching to myself a brown paper bag.

It contained half a lemon, a set of wind chimes wrapped in foam, some of my best child pornography, the mysterious oblong doodad that came with the last terminal I bought, an incomplete set of Berlin street maps, a pair of antique spectacles, a bloodied bit of extension cord, some elaborate and nasty and mostly unused sex toys, and the Improbable Pearl of the Sons of Isaac.

At exactly seven that morning, I peeled the paper bag from my sweaty chest, stepped into the clean white world of Burrin Allied United, and requested their second-cheapest type of safety deposit box under the name of Mr. Underhill. Apart from running away and telling lies, my biggest talent is in hiding things. It seemed unlikely anyone would ever get into the Burrin Allied United safety deposit boxes, but if somehow this ever occurred, the bizarre mess at the bottom of mine should generally put off too close an inspection. Every little bit counts. I had removed a part from one of the especially nasty sex toys and replaced it with the pearl itself. Although this did render the device unusable, or at least extremely uncomfortable, there are few who, upon discovering it, would admit to such expert knowledge of its workings. A further precaution: the bloodied extension cord actually incriminated me in a minor crime, the non-fatal murder of one of my creditors (a nice old lady called Tiki. I didn't do much damage to her body, and they dragged her back and restored her life with a back-up from the Almost Cemetery. At that stage she had no recollection of money lent to me. I had killed her four times over the previous two years). I assumed my methodology wasn't perfect, that I was leaving behind traces of guilt, making tiny errors that pointed towards a secret. If anyone were ever to peek into my box, they'd see the obvious crime and ignore the subtle one. Of course, the bloodied cord could have lead to a thorough examination of all contents. But it was worth the risk. I'd rather serve a sentence of pleasant rehabilitation in a Guild jail than an eternity of inventive hell, in a church. Besides, it was all temporary, until I could figure out what to do. I'm good at hiding things, and I know every little bit helps.

Then I went for coffee. I found, that my trembling hadn't ceased when the safety deposit box was shunted down its secure tube, to whatever secure location its stored in. And I was still shaking when I walked three blocks from the coffee dispenser to the Back-up Booth, to begin a new life.

XVI

It's late. I say, "Nimmet, since when does the Guild go to so much trouble to rectify its mistakes?"

Nimmet seems to think about it. "It isn't, really, going to much trouble. It just made a request of the Almost Cemetery, and my firm decided to take on the task . . . and we like to do things thoroughly."

"You don't work for the Guild?"

"What? No. The Lassie Sisters Corporation. We own a chunk of the Almost Cemetery, we do some of the related work. Did you think I was a Guild employee?"

"Don't sound so offended. It's offensive."

Does the Guild ever sub-contract, just to find a particular piece of information, namely me? I try to remember. The Sons of Isaac would.

"I suppose. Sorry. You know, you're beginning to sound a little more defensive of your position at the Guild. From what I'm picking up, it's not a bad life at all."

"I'm bored, Nimmet."

"Yeah. I'm the only one getting paid for this."

"The trouble is, as soon as we actually get talking about something, you immediately try to summarize the subject, concluding that it's the reason why I should come out of here."

"Like I said. They pay me for that."

"We get talking about movies, you say, can't play any movies in the gut of a fish. What I'd do, if I were you, is try to attain a measure of subtlety. Rather than plea for my surrender, talk to me, befriend me, and bit by bit, try to paint me a picture of an interesting world, populated, perhaps, by interesting beings, such as yourself, where there is love and compassion and where the altruism you claim is a plausible. Perhaps one day the image of a still vital world will become real enough for me to risk stepping outside."

"Well. Dom, if you believe there's the possibility of all that, why not come outside and experience it yourself?"

"You just don't get it, do you? You just don't get it."

"I do, actually. I was trying to make a sort of joke. Sorry, I'm very tired."

"I'm tired too," I say quietly.

"My strategy is different, anyway. Visions of Hell, rather than paradise, out here. Hell is --"

"-- plausible."

"-- that. But I was going to say, Hell is sitting here talking with me. Sooner or later, you'll risk coming out."

"Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm having fun."

"Scramble. I'll try harder. Shall I sing to you?"

"You can sing?"

"No. Pack up your troubles . . . in your old kit bag . . . and smile . . . smile . . . smile . . ."