Glasshouse Part 14

Because when the dust stopped raining down on the cowering cohorts in the auditorium, while our other instances raced through the administration block and the hospital, frantically hunting down a.s.semblers and deleting their pattern buffers before another Yourdon or Fiore could ooze out of them, it was Janis who stepped up to the lectern and fired a shot into the ceiling and called for silence.

aFriends,a she said, a faint tremor in her voice. aFriends. The experiment is over. The prison is closed.

aWelcome back to the real world.a THAT all happened years ago. The river of history waits for n.o.body. We live our lives in the wake of vast events, accommodating ourselves to their shapes. Even those of us who contributed to the events in question.

Maybe the oddest thing is how little has changed since we over-threw the scorefile dictators.h.i.+p. We still have regular town meetings. We still live in small family groups, as orthohumans. Many of us even stayed with the spousal units we were a.s.signed by Fiore or Yourdon. We dress like itas still the dark ages, and we hold jobs just like before, and we even have babies the primitive way. Sometimes.

But . . .

We vote in the town meetings. There are no scorefile metrics with hidden point tables that some smug researcher can tweak in order to make the paris.h.i.+oners jump. We donat dance like puppets for anyone, even our elected mayor. We may live in families as orthohumans, but weave got an a.s.sembler in every home. Mostly we donat want to be neomorphs. Many of us spent too much time as living weapons during the war. We do havea"and enthusiastically usea"modern medical technology, with A-gates everywhere. The costumery and lifestyle upholstery is harder to explain, but I put it down to social inertia. I saw a blue hermaphrodite centaur in a chain-mail hauberk and no pants in the shopping mall the other day, and guess what? n.o.body raised an eyebrow. Weare a tolerant town these days. We have to be: Thereas nowhere else to go until we arrive wherever the Harvest Lore is carrying us.

As for me, I donat have to fight anymore. Iave got the best of my surrendered selfas wishes, without any of the drawbacks. And Iave been so lucky that thinking about it makes me want to cry.

I have a daughter. Her nameas Andya"short for Andromeda. She swears she wants to be a boy when she grows up; she isnat going to hit p.u.b.erty for another six years, and she may change her mind when her body starts changing. The important thing is we live in a society where she can be whatever she wants. She looks like a random phenotypic cross between Reeve and Sam, and sometimes when I see her in the right light, just catching her profile, my breath catches in my throat as I see him diving off that cliff. Did he know I was already pregnant when he carefully made sure I was out of harmas way, then jumped? It shouldnat be possible, but sometimes I wonder if he suspected.

Andromeda was delivereda"surprisea"in the hospital, by the nice Dr. Hanta. Who no longer needs a gun pointing at her head all day long, since Sanni gave her a choice between reprogramming herself to let her patients define their own best interests or joining Yourdon and Fiore. After going through with the birth, I went back to being Robin, or as close to the original Robin as our medical aware could come up with. Natural childbirth is an experience all fathers should go through at least once in their lives (as adults, I mean), but I needed to be Robin again: the only version of me that doesnat come with innocent blood on his hands.

Itas late, now, and Andy is sleeping upstairs. Iave been writing this account down longhand on paper, to help fix these events in my memory, like the letter someone wrote to me so long ago that I can barely remember what it was like to be him. Even without memory surgery, we are fragile beings, lights in the darkness that leave a trail fading out behind us as we forget who we have been. I donat actually want to remember much about what I was, before the war. Iam comfortable here, and I expect to live here for a long time to come, longer than my entire troubled life to this point. If all I remember of the first half of my life is a thick pile of paper and Samas conflicted love for me, that will be enough. But thereas a difference between not remembering and deliberately forgetting. Hence the stack of paper.

One last thought: My wife is dozing on the sofa across the room. I have a question for her, which Iall wake her up for. aWhat do you think Sam was thinking when he walked down that tunnel?a Oh. Thatas useful. She yawns, and says, aI wouldnat know. I wasnat there.a aBut if you had to guess?a aIad say he was hoping for a second chance.a aIs that all?a She stands up. aSometimes the truth is boring, Robin. Go on, put that in your memoir.a aOkay. Any other comments before I finish up here? Iam going to bed in a minute.a aLet me think . . .a Kay shrugs, an incredibly fluid gesture that involves four shoulder joints. aNo. Donat be long.a She smiles lazily and heads for the staircase, swinging her hips in a way that suggests sheas got something other than sleep in mind. Sheas been a lot happier since she stopped being Sam, which she did very shortly after the panicky last-minute backup in the library bas.e.m.e.nt. And so, you may be a.s.sured, am I.

Good night.

Ace t.i.tles by Charles Stross.

SINGULARITY SKY.

IRON SUNRISE.

ACCELERANDO.

THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES.

GLa.s.sHOUSE.