Ca.s.s looks thoughtful. aSo if weare supposed to mimic a family, we probably ought to start by pairing off and going to whatever dwelling theyave a.s.signed us. After a diurn or so of ploughing through these notes and getting to know each other, weall be better able to work out what weare supposed to be doing. Also, I guess, we can see if the partnering arrangement is workable.a Jen wanders off toward the knot of males at the other side of the room, gla.s.s in hand. Angel fidgets with her tablet, turning it over and over in her hands and looking uncertain. Alice eats another lump of cheese. I feel quite ill watching hera"the stuff tastes vile. aIam not used to the idea of living together with someone,a I say slowly.

aItas not so bad.a Ca.s.s nods to herself. aBut this is a very abrupt and arbitrary way of starting it.a Alice rests a hand on her arm, rea.s.suring. aThe s.e.xual relationship is only implicit,a she says. aIf you pick a husband and donat get on, Iam sure you can choose another at the Church meeting.a aPerhaps.a Ca.s.s pulls away and glances nervously at the group of males and one female, who is laughing loudly as two of the males attempt to refill her gla.s.s for her. aAnd perhaps not.a Alice looks dissatisfied. aIam going to see what the partyas about.a She turns and stalks over toward the other group. That leaves me with Ca.s.s and Angel. Angel is busily scrolling through text on her tablet, looking distracted, and Ca.s.s just looks worried.

aCheer up, it canat be that bad,a I say automatically.

She shivers and hugs herself. aCanat it?a she asks.

aI donat think so.a I pick my words carefully. aThis is a controlled experiment. If you read the waivers, youall see that we havenat relinquished our basic rights. They have to intervene if things go badly wrong.a aWell, thatas a relief,a she says. I look at her sharply.

aLook, we need to pick a ahusbanda each,a Angel points out. aWhoeveras last wonat get much of a choice, and as it is weall be stuck with whomever the others have rejected. For whatever reason.a She looks between us, her expression guarded. aSee you.a I stare at Ca.s.s. aWhat you said earlier, about the ice ghoulsa"a aForget it.a She cuts me off with a chopping gesture. aMaybe Jen was right.a She sounds downbeat.

aDid you know anyone else who was going into the experiment?a I ask suddenly, then wish I could swallow my own tongue.

Ca.s.s frowns at me. aObviously not, or they wouldnat have admitted me to the study.a Then she looks away, slowly and pointedly. I follow the direction of her gaze. Thereas an un.o.btrusive black hemisphere hanging from the ceiling in one corner. She sets her shoulders. aWead better socialize.a aIf youare worried about the implications of pair-bonding, I donat see why we couldnat share an apartment for a couple of diurns,a I offer, heart pounding and palms sticky. Are you really Kay, Ca.s.s? Iam almost certain she is, but she wonat talk where we might be being monitored. And if I ask and she isnat, I risk giving away my own ident.i.ty to whoeveras hunting me, if any of them have followed me in here.

aI donat think that would be allowed,a she says guardedly. She makes a minute nod in my direction, then jerks her chin toward the others, who by now are making quite a buzz of conversation. aShall we go and see who theyave fixed us up with?a On the other side of the room it turns out that Jen has broken the ice by insisting that all the males compete to demonstrate their merit, by pouring her a drink and presenting it to her elegantly. Needless to say sheas stinking drunk but giggly. She seems to have settled on Chris-from-the-back-row as her targeta"he seems to be a little embarra.s.sed by her antics, I think, but he canat get away because Alice and Angel have zeroed in on three of the others and are leaving him to Jenas clutches. Big Guy, Sam, is standing stiffly with his back to the wall, looking almost as uneasy as Ca.s.s. I glance at Ca.s.s, whoas hanging back, then mentally shrug and approach Sam, bypa.s.sing Jenas raucous gaggle.

aLife of the party,a I say, tipping my head at Jen.

aEr, yes.a Heas holding an empty gla.s.s and swaying a little. Maybe his feet are sore. Itas hard to read his expressiona"the black mane of fur around his mouth obscures the muscles therea"but he doesnat look happy. In fact, if the floor opens up beneath his feet and swallows him, heall probably smile with relief.

aListen.a I touch his arm. As expected, he tenses. aJust come over here with me for a moment, please?a He permits me to lead him away from the swarm of orthos trying to vector through the social asteroid belt.

aWhat do you make of this setup?a I ask quietly.

aIt makes me nervous.a His eyes glance between my face and the doors. Figures.

aWell, it makes me nervous, too. And Ca.s.s.a I nod at the bunch across the room. aAnd, I think, even Jen.a aIave read part of the backgrounder.a He shakes his head. aItas not what I expected. Neither was thisa"a aWell.a My lips have gone dry. I take a sip from my gla.s.s and look at Sam, calculating. Heas bigger than I am. Iam physically weak (and wait until I get my hands on the joker who set that parameter up), but unless Iam misreading him badly heas well socialized. aWe might as well make the best of things. Weare expected to go set up a joint apartment with someone who is a different gender. Then we get settled in, read the briefings, do whatever they tell us to do, and go to the Church on Sunday to see how everyone else is doing. Do you think you can do that if you treat it as a vocational task?a Sam puts his empty gla.s.s down on the table with fastidious precision and pulls out his tablet. aI could, but it says here that the anuclear familya wasnat just an economic arrangement, thereas s.e.x involved, too.a He pauses for a moment. aIam not good at intimacy. Especially with strangers.a Is that why youare so tense? aThatas not necessarily a problem.a I take another sip of wine. aListenaa"I end up glancing at the camera dome (thank you, Ca.s.s)a"aIam sure none of these arrangements are going to end up permanent. Weall get a chance to sort out any mistakes at the meeting on Firsta"uh, Sunday? Meanwhileaa"I look up at hima"aI donat mind your preference. We donat have to have s.e.x unless we both want to. Is that okay by you?a He looks down at me for a while. aThat might work,a he says quietly.

I realize Iave just picked a husband. I just hope he isnat one of the hunters . . .

What happens next is anticlimactic. Someoneas probably been watching the group dynamics through that surveillance lens, because after another few centisecs our tablets tinkle for attention. Weare instructed to go through the doorway at the back of the lecture theatre in pairs, at least two seconds apart. Weare already in YFH-Polity, in the administration subnet, beyond the longjump T-gate leading back to the Invisible Republic. Thereas some kind of framework with a bundle of shortjump gates behind the next door, ready to take us to our homes. So I take Samas handa"itas enormous, but he holds mine limply, and his skin is a bit clammya"and I lead him over to the door. aReady?a I ask.

He nods, looking unhappy. aLetas get this over with.a Step. aOver with? Itas going to takeaa"stepa"aat least three years before itas over with!a And weare standing in a really small room facing another door, surrounded by the most unimaginable clutter, and he lets go of my hand and turns around, and I say, aIs this it?a Ending on a squeak.

4.

Shopping.

REEVE and Sam Browna"not their, our, real namesa"are a middle-cla.s.s couple circa 1990a"2010, from the middle of the dark ages. They are said to be amarried,a which means they live together and notionally observe a mono relationship with formal approval from their polityas government and the ideological/religious authorities. It is a publicly respectable role.

For purposes of the research project, the Browns are currently both unemployed but have sufficient savings to live comfortably for a amontha or thereabouts while they put their feet down and seek work. They have just moved into a suburban split-level house with its own gardena"apparently a vestigial agricultural installation maintained for aesthetic or traditional reasonsa"on a road with full-grown trees to either side separating them from other similar-looking houses. A aroada is an open-walled access pa.s.sage designed to facilitate ground transport by automobile and truck. (I think I have seen automobiles somewhere, once, but whatas a atrucka?) At this point the simulation breaks down, because although this environment is meant to mimic the appearance of a planetary surface, the askya is actually a display surface about ten meters above our heads, and the aroada vanishes into tunnels which conceal T-gate entrances, two hundred meters in either direction. There are cultivated barriers of vegetation to stop us walking into the walls. Itas a pretty good simulation, considering that according to the tablet itas actually contained in a bunch of habitat cylinders (which orbit in the debris belts of three or four brown dwarf stars separated by a hundred trillion kilometers of vacuum), but itas not the real thing.

Our house . . .

I step out of the closet Sam and I materialized in and look around. The closet is in some kind of shed, with a rough ceramic-tiled floor and thin transparent wall panels (called awindows,a according to Sam) held in a grid of white plastic strips that curve overhead. Thereas stuff everywhere. Baskets with small colorful plants hanging from the wall, a doora"made of strips of wood, cunningly interlocking around a transparent panela"and so on. Thereas some kind of rough carpetlike mat in front of the door, the purpose of which is unclear. I push the door open, and what I see is even more confusing.

aI thought this was meant to be an apartment?a I say.

aThey werenat good at privacy.a Sam is looking around as if trying to identify artifacts that mean something to him. aThey had no anonymity in public. No T-gates either. So they used to keep all their private s.p.a.ce at home, in one structure. Itas called a ahousea or a abuilding,a and it has lots of rooms. This is just the vestibule.a aIf you say so.a I feel like an idiot. Inside the house itself I find myself in a pa.s.sageway. There are doors on three sides. I wander from room to room, gawping in disbelief.

The ancients had carpet. Itas thick enough to deaden the annoying clack-clack of my shoes. The walls are covered in some sort of fabric print, totally static but not unpleasant to look at. Windows in the front room look out across a hump of land planted with colorful flowers, and at the back across an expanse of close-cropped gra.s.s. The rooms are all full of furniture, chunky, heavy stuff, made of carved-up lumps of wood and metal, and a bit of what I a.s.sume must be structural diamond. They were big on rectilinear geometry, relegating curves to small objects and the odd obscure piece of dead-looking machinery. Thereas one room at the back with a lot of metal surfaces and what looks like an open-topped water tank in it, and there are odd machines dotted over the cabinet tops. Thereas another small room under the staircase with a recognizable but primitive-looking high-gee toilet in it.

I prowl around the upstairs corridor, opening doors and trying to puzzle out the purpose of the rooms to either side. They separate rooms by function, but most of them seem to have multiple uses. One of them might be a bathroom, but itas too large and appears to be jammeda"all the hygiene modules are extended and frozen simultaneously, as if itas crashed. A couple of the rooms have sleeping platforms in them, and other stuff, big wooden cabinets. I look in one, but thereas nothing but a pole extending from one side to the other with some kind of hooked carrier slung over it.

Itas all very puzzling. I sit down on the bed and pull out my tablet just as it dings for attention. What now? I ask myself.

The tabletas sprouted a b.u.t.ton and an arrow and it says, POINT AT OBJECT TO IDENTIFY.

Okay, so this must be the help system, I think. Relieved, I point it at the boxy cabinet and press the b.u.t.ton.

WARDROBE. Storage cabinet for clothes awaiting use. Note: used clothing can be cleaned in the UTILITY ROOM in the bas.e.m.e.nt by means of the WASHING MACHINE. As new arrivals, you have only one set of clothes. Suggested task for tomorrowa"go downtown and buy new clothes.

My feet itch. I kick my shoes off impulsively, glad to be rid of those annoying heels. Then I shrug out of the black pocketless jacket and stash it in the wardrobe, using the hook-and-arm affair dangling from the bar. It looks lonely there, and I suddenly feel very odd. Everything here is overwhelmingly strange. Howas Sam taking it? I wonder, feeling concerned; he wasnat doing so well in the reception session, and if this is as weird for him as it is for me . . .

I wait for my head to stop spinning before I go back downstairs. (A thought strikes me on the way. Am I supposed to wear the same outfit inside my ahousea as I do in public? These people have a marked public/private split personalitya"they probably have different costumes for formal and informal events.) In the end, I leave the jacket but, a trifle regretfully, put the shoes back on.

I find Sam slumped in one corner of a huge sofa in the living room, facing a chunky black box with a curved lens that shows colorful but flat images. Itas making a lot of indistinct noise. aWhat is that?a I ask him, and he almost jumps out of his skin.

aItas called a television,a he says. aI am watching football.a aUh-huh.a I walk round the sofa and sit down halfway along it, close enough to reach out and take his hand, but far enough away to maintain separation if both of us want to. I peer at the pictures. Some kind of mechaa"no, theyare ortho males, right? In armora"are forming groups facing each other. Theyare color coded. aWhy are you watching this?a I ask. One of them throws something alarmingly like an a.s.sault mine at the other group of orthos, who try to jump on it. Then they begin running and squabbling for ownership of the mine. After a moment someone blows a whistle and thereas a roaring noise that I realize is coming from the crowd watching thea"ritual? Compet.i.tive-self-execution? Game?a"from rows of seats behind them.

aItas supposed to be a popular entertainment.a Sam shakes his head. aI thought if I watched it I might understand morea"a aWhatas the most important thing we can understand?a I ask, leaning toward him. aThe experiment, or how to live in it?a He sighs and picks up a black k.n.o.bby rectangle, points it at the box, and waits for the picture to fade to black. aThe tablet said I ought to try it,a he admits.

aMy tablet said we have to go and buy clothing tomorrow. Weave only got what weare wearing, and apparently it gets dirty and smelly really fast. We canat just throw it away and make more, we have to buy it downtown.a A thought strikes me. aWhat do we do when we get hungry?a aThereas a kitchen.a He nods at the doorway to the room with the appliances that puzzled me. aBut if you donat know how to use it, we can order a meal using the telephone. Itas a voice-only network terminal.a aWhat do you mean, if you donat know how?a I ask him, raising an eyebrow.

aIam just repeating what the tablet says.a Sam sounds a little defensive.

aHere, give that to me.a He pa.s.ses it and I rapidly read what heas looking at. Domestic duties: the people of the dark ages, when living together, apparently divided up work depending on gender. Males held paid vocations; females were expected to clean and maintain the household, buy and prepare food, buy clothing, clean the clothing, and operate domestic machinery while their male worked. aThis is c.r.a.p!a I say.

aYou think so?a He looks at me oddly.

aWell, yeah. Itas straight out of the most primitive nontech anthro cultures. No advanced society expects half its workforce to stay home and divides labor on arbitrary lines. I donat know what their source for this rubbish is, but itas not plausible. If I had to guess, Iad say theyave mistaken radical prescriptive doc.u.mentation for descriptive.a I tap my finger on his slate. aIad like to see some serious social conditions surveys before I took this as fact. And in any event, we donat have to live that way, even if itas how they direct the majority of the zombies in the polity. This is just a general guideline; every culture has lots of outliers.a Sam looks thoughtful. aSo you think theyave got it wrong?a aWell, Iam not going to say that for certain until Iave reviewed their primary sources and tried to isolate any bias, but thereas no way Iam doing all the housework.a I grin, to take some of the sting out of it. aWhat were you saying about being able to request food using the atelephonea?a DINNER is a circular, baked, bread-type thing called a pizza. Thereas cheese on it, but also tomato paste and other stuff that makes it more palatable. Itas hot and greasy and it comes to us via the shortjump gate in the closet in the conservatory, rather than on a atruck.a Iam a bit disappointed by this, but I guess the truck can wait until tomorrow.

Sam unwinds after dinner. I take off my shoes and hose and convince him heall feel better without his jacket and the thing called a necktiea"not that he needs much convincing. aI donat know why they wore these,a he complains.

aIall do some research later.a Weare still on the sofa, with open pizza boxes balanced on our laps, eating the greasy hot slices of food with our fingers. aSam, why did you volunteer for the experiment?a aWhy?a He looks panicky.

aYouare shy, youare not good in social situations. They told us up front wead have to live in a dark ages society for a tenth of a gigasec with no way out. Didnat it strike you as not being a sensible thing to do?a aThatas a very personal question.a He crosses his arms.

aYes, it is.a I stop talking and stare at him.

For a moment he looks so sad that I wish I could take the words back. aI had to get away,a he mumbles.

aFrom what?a I put my box down and pad across the carpet to a large wooden chest with drawers and compartments full of bottles of liquor. I take two gla.s.ses, open a bottle, sniff the contentsa"you can never be sure until you try ita"and pour. Then I carry them back over to the sofa and pa.s.s him one.

aWhen I came out of rehab.a He stares at the television, which is peculiar because the machine is switched off. Under his shoes heas wearing some sort of short, thick hose. His toes twitch uneasily. aToo many people recognized me. I was afraid. Itas my fault, I think, but they might have hurt me if Iad stayed.a aHurt you?a Sam is big and has thick hair and isnat very fast moving, and he seems to be very gentle. Iave been thinking that maybe I lucked out with hima"thereas potential for abuse in this atomic relationship thing, but heas so shy and retiring that I canat see him being a problem.

aI was a bit crazy,a he says. aYou know the dissociative psychopathic phase some people go through after deep memory redaction? I was really bad. I kept forgetting to back up and I kept picking fights and people kept having to kill me in self-defense. I made a real fool of myself. When I came out of it . . .a He shakes his head. aSometimes you just want to go and hide. Perhaps I hid too well.a I look at him sharply. I donat believe you, I decide. aWe all make fools of ourselves from time to time,a I say, trying to hang a rea.s.suring message on the observation. aHere, try this.a I raise my gla.s.s. aIt says itas vodka.a aTo forgetfulness.a He raises his gla.s.s to me. aAnd tomorrow.a I wake up alone in a strange room, lying on a sleeping platform under a sack of fiber-stuffed fabric. For a few panicky moments I canat remember where I am. My headas sore, and thereas a gritty feeling in my eyes: If this is life in the dark ages, you can keep it. At least n.o.bodyas trying to kill me right now, I tell myself, trying to come up with something to feel good about. I roll out of bed, stretch, and head for the bathroom.

Itas my fault for being so distracted. On my way back to my bedroom to get dressed I walk headfirst into Sam. Heas naked and bleary-eyed and looks half-asleep, and I sort of plaster myself across his chest. aOof,a I say, right as he says, aAre you all right?a aI think so.a I push back from him a few centimeters and look up at his face. aIam sorry. You?a He looks worried. aWe were going to buy clothes and, uh, stuff. Werenat we?a I realize, momentarily unnerved, that weare both naked, heas taller than I am, and heas hairy all over. aYes, we were,a I say, watching him warily. All that hair: Heas a lot less gracile than Iad normally go for, and then I realize heas looking at me as if heas never seen me before.

Itas a touchy moment, but then he shakes his head, breaking the tension: aYes.a He yawns. aCan I go to the bathroom first?a aSure.a I step aside and he shambles past me. I turn to watch him. I donat know how I feel about this, about sharing a ahousea with a stranger who is stronger and bigger than I am and who has a self-confessed history of impulsive violent episodes. But . . . who am I to criticize? By the time Iad known Kay this long, wead gone to a wild orgy together and f.u.c.ked each other raw, and if that isnat impulsive behavior, I donat know . . . maybe Samas right. s.e.x is an unpleasant complication here, especially before we know what the rules are. If there are rules. Vague memories are trying to surface: Iave got a feeling I was involved with both males and females back before my excision. Possibly poly, possibly bia"I canat quite remember. I shake my head, frustrated, and go back to my room to get into costume.

While Iam getting ready, I pick up my tablet. It tells me to look in the closet in the conservatory. I go downstairs and find the conservatory is chillya"donat these people have proper life support?a"and inside the cupboard that held a T-gate yesterday thereas now a blank wall and a couple of shelves. One of the shelves holds a couple of small bags made of dumb fabric. Theyave got lots of pockets, and when I open one I find itas full of rectangles of plastic with names and numbers on them. My tablet tells me that these are acredit cards,a and we can use them to obtain acasha or to pay for goods and services. It seems crude and clumsy, but I pick up the wallets all the same. Iam turning away from the door when my netlink chimes.

aHuh?a I look round. As I glance at the wallets in my hand a bright blue cursor lights up over them, and my netlink says, TWO POINTS. aWhat thea"a I stop dead. My tablet chimes.

Tutorial: social credits are awarded and rescinded for behavior that complies with or violates public norms. This is an example. Your social credits may also rise or fall depending on your cohortas collective score. After termination of the simulation all individuals will receive a payment bonus proportional to their score; the highest-scoring cohort will receive a further bonus of 100% on their final payment.

aOkay.a I hurry back inside to give Sam his wallet.

Sam is coming downstairs as I go inside. aHere,a I say, holding both the wallets out to him, athis one is yours. Can you put these in a pocket for me until I buy one of those shoulder bags? Iave got nowhere to put mine.a aSure.a He takes my stuff. aDid you read the tutorial?a aI started toa"I needed something to help me get to sleep. Letas . . . how do we get downtown?a aI called a taxi. Itall be here to pick us up in a short while.a aOkay.a I look him up and down. Heas back in costume again. It still looks awkward. I canat help tapping my toes with impatience. aClothing, first. For both of us. Where do we go? Do you know how the stuff is sold?a aThereas something called a department store, the tutorial said to start there. We might run into some of the others.a aHmm.a A thought strikes me. aIam hungry. Think thereall be somewhere to eat?a aMaybe.a Something large and yellow appears outside the door. aIs that it?a I ask.

aWho knows?a He looks twitchy. aLetas go see.a The yellow thing is a taxi, a kind of automobile you hire by the centisecond. Thereas a human operator up front, and something like a padded bench seat in the rear. We get in, and Sam leans forward. aCan you take us to the nearest department store?a he asks.

The operator nods. aMacyas. Downtown zone. That will be five dollars.a He holds out a hand and I notice that his skin is perfectly smooth and he has no fingernails. Is he one of the zombies? I wonder. Sam hands over his acredit carda and the operator swipes it between his fingers, then hands it back. Sam sits back, then thereas a lurch, and weare moving. The taxi makes various loud noises, so that Iam afraid itas about to suffer a systems malfunctiona"thereas a loud rumbling from underneath and a persistent whine up fronta"but we turn into the road and accelerate toward the tunnel. A moment of darkness, then weare somewhere else, driving along a road between two short rows of gray-fronted buildings. The taxi stops and the door next to Sam clicks open. aWe have arrived at downtown,a says the operator. aPlease disembark promptly.a Sam is frowning over his tablet, then straightens up. aThis way,a he says. Before I can ask why, he heads off toward one of the nearest buildings, which has a row of doors in it. I follow him.

Inside the store, I get lost fast. Thereas stuff everywhere, piled in heaps and stacked in storage bins, and there are lots of people wandering about. The ones in the odd-looking uniforms are shop operators wh.o.a.re supposed to help you find things and take your money. There are no a.s.semblers and no catalogues, so I suppose they can only sell the stuff theyave got on display, which is why itas all over the place. I ask one of the operators where I can find clothes, and she says, aon the third floor, maaam.a There are moving staircases in a central high-ceilinged room, so I head for the third level and look around.

Clothes. Lots of clothes. More clothes than Iave ever imagined in one placea"and all of them made of dumb fabric with no obvious way of finding what you want and getting it adjusted to the right size! How did they ever figure out what they needed? Itas a crazy system, just putting everything in the middle of a big house and letting visitors take their chances. There are some other people walking around and fingering the merchandise, but when I approach them they turn out to be zombies, playing the part of real people. None of the others are here yet. I guess we must be early.

I wander through a forest of racks hung with jackets until I catch a shop operator. aYou,a I say. aWhat can I wear?a She looks like an orthohuman female, wearing a blue skirt and jacket and those shoes with uncomfortable heels, and she smiles at me robotically. aWhat items do you require?a she asks.

aI needa"a I stop. aI need underwear,a I say. The stuff doesnat clean itself. aEnough for a week. I need some more pairs of hoseaa"since I tore the one on my left lega"aand another outfit identical to this one. And another set of shoes.a A thought strikes me. aCan I have a pair of pants?a aPlease wait.a The shop operator freezes. aPlease come this way.a She leads me to a lectern near a display of statues wearing flimsy long gowns, and another operator comes out of a door in the wall carrying a bundle of packages. aHere is your order. Pants, item not available in this department. Please identify a template, and we will supply correctly sized garments.a aOh.a I look around. aCan I choose anything here?a aYes.a I spend a couple of kiloseconds wandering the shop floor, looking for stuff to wear. They sell very few pants here, and they look damageda"made of a heavy blue fabric, ripped open at the knees. Eventually I end up in another corner of the store where thereas a rack of trousers that look all right, plain black ones with no holes in them. aI want one of these in my size,a I say to the nearest operator, a male one.

aItem not available in female fitting,a he says.

aOh. Great.a I scratch my head. aCan you alter it?a aItem not available in female fitting,a he repeats. My netlink bings. A red icon appears over the rack of pants: SUMPTUARY VIOLATION.

aHmm.a So there are restrictions on what theyall sell to me? This is getting annoying. aCan you provide one in my size fitting? Itas for a male exactly the same size as myself.a aPlease wait.a I wait, fidgeting impatiently. Eventually another male operator appears from an inconspicuous door in the shop wall, carrying a bundle. aYour gift item is here.a aUh-huh.a I take the pants, suppress a grin, and think about these irritating shoes and how . . . aTake me to the shoe department. I want a pair of shoes in my size fitting, for a malea"a When I pay using the acredit card,a I score a couple more social points: Iave made five so far.

I catch up with Sam down in the furniture department about five kiloseconds later. Weare both ma.s.sively overloaded with bags, but heas bought a portable container called a asuitcasea and we shove most of our purchases into it. Iave bought a shoulder bag and a pair of ankle boots that have soft soles and donat clatter when I walka"I shoved my old shoes into the bag, just in case I need them for some reasona"and Iam a lot more comfortable walking around now. aLetas go find somewhere to eat,a he suggests.

aOkay.a Thereas an eatery on the other side of the road from Macyas, and itas not unlike a real one, except that the food is delivered by human (no, zombie) attendants, and is supposed to be prepared by other humans in the kitchen. Luckily, this is a simulation, or Iad feel quite ill. For deep combat sweeps they teach you how to synthesize food from biological waste or your dead comrades, but thatas different. This is supposed to be civilization, of a kind. We order from a menu printed on a sheet of white film, then sit back to wait for our food. aHow did your shopping go?a I ask Sam.

aNot too badly,a he says guardedly. aI bought underwear. And some trousers and tops. My tablet says there are a lot of social conventions surrounding clothing. Stuff we can wear, stuff we canat wear, stuff we must weara"itas a real mess.a aTell me about it.a I tell him about my difficulty ordering trousers that didnat have holes in them.

aIt saysa"a He pulls his tablet out. aAh, yes. Sumptuary conventions. Itas not legally codified, but trousers werenat allowed for females early in the dark ages, and skirts werenat allowed for males at all.a He frowns. aIt also says the customs appear to have changed sometime around the middle of the period.a aYouare going to stick by the book?a I ask him, as a zombie walks up and deposits a gla.s.s of pale yellow liquid called beer next to each of our settings.

aWell, they can always fine us,a he says, shrugging. aBut I suppose youare right. We donat have to do anything weare not comfortable with.a aRight.a I hike my right leg up and put my foot on the table. aLook at this.a aItas a heavy boot.a aA boot from the males-only department. But they sized it for me when I told them it was a gift for a male the same size as me.a aOh?a I realize Iam showing the leg with the torn hose and put it back under the table. aWeave got some autonomy, however limited. Now weare in here, we can live however we want, canat we?a Plates of food arrivea"synthetic steaks, fake vegetables designed to look as if theyad grown in a muddy corner of a wild biosphere, and cups of brightly colored condiments. For a while I busy myself with my plate. Iam really hungry, and the food is flavorsome, if a bit basic. At least weare not going to starve in here. I fill up quickly.

aI donat know if we can,a Sam mumbles around a full mouth. aI mean, the points systema"a aDoesnat stop us doing anything,a I interrupt, sliding my plate away. aAll we have to do is to agree to ignore it, and we can do whatever we want.a aI suppose so.a He forks another piece of steak into his mouth.

aAnyway, weave got no idea what they take to be a violation of the system. I mean, what do I have to do to lose a point? Or to gain points? They havenat actually told us anything, theyave just said aobey the rules and collect points.a a I stab my fork in his direction. aWeave got these reference texts in our tablets, all this stuff about how itas a genetically determinist society and there are all these silly customs, but I donat see how that can affect us unless we let it. All societies have some degree of flexibility, but these guys have just picked the first narrowly normative interpretation that came to hand. If you ask me, theyare just plain lazy.a aWhat will the others think?a he asks.

aWhat will they think?a I stare at him. aWeare here for a hundred megs. Do you really think theyall put a bonus payment at the end of the experiment ahead of, say, having to wear stupid pointy shoes that make your feet hurt for three years?a aIt depends.a Sam puts his knife down. aIt all depends on how they balance the relative convenience of making other people uncomfortable against their own future wealth.a His expression is pensive. aThe protocol is . . . interesting.a aOkay.a I stand up. aLetas test it.a I shrug out of my jacket and lay it over the back of my chair. A couple of the dining zombies look round. aHey, look at me!a I yell. I unzip my dress and drop it around my ankles. Sam is startled. I watch his face as I reach behind my back and unlatch my breast halter, drop it, then step up onto my chair and push down my hose and G-string. aLook at me!a Sam looks up, and my face feels hot as I see his expressiona"

Then thereas a red flash that blots out my visual field, and a loud chime from my netlink, like the decompression alert we all learn to fear before we can walk. MINUS TEN POINTS FOR PUBLIC NUDITY, says the link.

When my vision clears, I can see waitrons and the matre da rushing toward me holding up towels and ap.r.o.ns, ready to do something, anything, to cover the horrible sight. Sam is still looking up at me, and Iam not the only one whoas blushing. I climb down off the chair and three or four male zombies, all bigger than me, converge and between them pin my arms and carry me bodily into the back. I bite back a scream of fright: I canat move! But they take me straight to the females-only lavatory and simply shove me through the door, on my own. A moment later, while Iam still trying to catch my breath, the door whips open and someone throws my discarded clothes at me.

Minus ten points, causing a public nuisance, intones my netlink. Police have been summoned. Help function advises you to correct your dress code infraction and leave.

Oh s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t . . . I scrabble around for a moment, pulling the dress over my head and then shrugging into the jacket. Underwear can waita"I donat know what these apolicea are, but they donat sound good. I pull the door open and glance round the corner but thereas n.o.body about, nothing but a short corridor with doors back to the restaurant and one that says FIRE ESCAPE in green letters. I shove it open and find myself standing in a narrow road with lots of wheeled containers. It stinks of decaying food. Shaking slightly, I walk to the end, then turn left, and left again.

Back on the road I walk right into Sam. aNow will you take the protocol seriously?a he hisses in my ear. aThey nearly arrested me!a aArrested? Whatas that?a aThe police.a Heas breathing heavily. aThey can take you away, lock you up. Detention, itas called.a Heas still flushed in the face and clearly concerned. aYou could have been hurt.a I shiver. aLetas go home.a aIall call a taxi,a he says grumpily. aYouave done enough damage for one day.a SAM has bought a thing called a cell phonea"a pocket-sized replacement for the blocky network terminal wired into the wall. He keeps it in a pocket. He speaks to it for a while, and a few cents later a taxi pulls up. We go home, and he stomps into the living room, leaving the suitcase in the front hall, and turns on the television. I tiptoe around for a while before looking in on him to find that heas engrossed in the football, a faintly puzzled expression on his face.

I spend some time in my bedroom, reading from my own tablet. Itas got lots of advice about how people lived in the dark ages, none of which makes much sensea"most of what they did sounds arbitrary and silly when you strip it of the surrounding social context and the history that explains how their customs developed. The way my experiment in the restaurant backfired still burns me (how can not wearing clothes be so harmful in any rational social context?), but after a while I realize that I didnat get zapped this morning when I went around the house naked. So I take off my new boots, then my dress, which is beginning to get a bit whiffy. I go downstairs and open the suitcase, take out my purchases, and carry them up to my room. I stash them in the wardrobe, but thereas enough s.p.a.ce for ten times as much stuff, which leaves me puzzled. But I donat feel like trying the new costumes on right now. In fact, I feel like s.h.i.t. Sam is ignoring me pointedly (a defensive reaction, I think), weare living in a crazy experiment that doesnat make sense, and I wonat even get a chance to find out if everyone else thinks itas mad until the day after tomorrow.

Iam reading the tabletas explanation of how vocationsa"excuse me, aworkaa"worked in dark ages society, boggling slightly, when a bell rings from the low table next to my bed. I look toward it and my tablet flashes: ANSWER THE PHONE.

Oh. I didnat realize I had one. I fumble around for a while then find the chunky gadget on a cord that youare supposed to hold to your face. aYes?a I say.

aR-Reeve! Is that you?a aCa.s.s? Kay?a I ask, blanking on names for a moment.

aReeve! Youave got to help me get out of here! Heas crazy. If I stay here, Iam sure heas going to end up hitting me again. I need somewhere to go.a Iave heard panic before, and this is it. Ca.s.s (Kay? a little corner of me insists) is desperate. But why?

aWhere are you?a I ask. aWhatas happening? Calm down and tell me everything.a aI need to get away from here,a she insists again, her voice breaking. aHeas crazy! Heas read the manuals and heas insisting heas going to get the completion bonus, and if he has to, heas going to force me to do everything by the book. He went out this morning, locking me in and taking my walleta"heas still got ita"and when he got back, he threatened to beat me up if I didnat prepare a meal for him. He says that for maximum points the female must obey the male, and if I donat do what the guidelines say, heall beat me upa"s.h.i.t, heas coming.a Click.

Iam left holding the receiver, staring at the wall behind the bed in horror. I drop it and rush downstairs to the living room. aSam! Weave got to do something!a Sam looks up from his tablet. aDo what?a aItas Ka"Ca.s.s! She just phoned. She needs help. Her husband is crazya"heas taken away her wallet, locked her indoors, and is threatening to beat her up if she doesnat obey him. Weave got to do something! Thereas no way she can defend herselfa"a Sam puts his tablet down. aAre you sure of this?a he asks quietly.

aYes! Thatas what she told me!a Iam just about jumping up and down, beside myself with fury. (If I ever catch the joker who leeched all my upper body strength, I swear I am going to graft their head to a tree sloth and make them run an endurance race.) aWeave got to do something!a aLike what?a he asks.

I deflate. aIam not sure. She wants to get out. Buta"a aDid you check our c.u.mulative score?a aMya"no, I didnat. Whatas that got to do with it?a aJust do it,a he says.

aOkay.a What is our cohortas c.u.mulative score? I ask my netlink. The result sets me back. aHey, weare doing well! Even after . . .a I falter.

aWell yes, if you look in the subtotals, youall see that we get points, lots of them, for forming astable normative relationships.a a His cheek twitches. aLike Ca.s.s and, who is it, Mick.a aBut if heas hurting hera"a aIs he really? All right, we take her word for it. But what can we do? If we break them up, we cost everyone in our cohort a hundred points, just like that. Reeve, have you noticed the journal log? Infractions are public. Everyone noticed your littlea"experimenta"at lunchtime. Itas all over their journal, in red digits. Caused quite a stir. If you do something that costs the cohort a stable relationship, some of thema"not me, but the ones who will be obsessing with that termination bonusa"will start to hate you. And as you pointed out earlier, weare stuck here for the next hundred megs.a as.h.i.t. s.h.i.t!a I stare at him. aWhat about you?a He looks up at me from his corner of the sofa, his face impa.s.sive. aWhat about me?a aWould you hate me?a I ask, quietly.

He thinks for a moment. aNo. No, I donat think so.a Pause. aI wish youad be a little more discreet, though. Lie low, think things through before you act, try to at least look as if youare planning on fitting in.a aOkay. So what should I be thinking? About Ca.s.s, I mean. If that sc.u.mbag is taking advantage of his greater physical strength . . .a aReeve.a He pauses again. aI agree in principle. But first we must know what we need to do. Can she leave him of her own accord, without our help? If so, then she ought toa"itas her choice. If not, what can we do to help? We have to live with the consequences of our early mistakes for a very long time. Unless Ca.s.s is in immediate danger, it would be best to try and get the entire cohort to take action, not go it alone.a aBut right now, weave got to stop him doing anything. Havenat we?a I donat know whatas come over me. I feel helpless, and I hate it. I should be able to go round to the sc.u.msuckeras house and kick the door down and give him a taste of cold steel in his guts. Or failing that, I ought to plan a cunning two-p.r.o.nged a.s.sault that whisks the victim to safety while b.o.o.by-trapping his bathroom and putting itching powder in his bed. But Iam just spinning my wheels, venting and emoting and unloading on Sam. My normal network of resources and capabilities is missing, and Iam letting the environment dictate my responses. The environment is set up to inculcate this weird gender-deterministic role play, so Iam . . . I shake my head.

aWe donat want anyone to get the idea that hurting or imprisoning members of our cohort is a good way to earn points,a Sam says thoughtfully. aDo you have any ideas about how to do that?a I think for a moment. aPhone him,a I say, before the idea is completely formed in my head. aPhone him and . . . yeah.a I look out at the garden. aTell him weall see him, and Ca.s.s, at Church, the day after tomorrow. Thereas no need to be nasty,a I realize. aIt says weare supposed to dress up and look good in Church. Itas a custom thing. Tell him we could lose points if she doesnat look good. Collectively.a I turn to Sam. aThink heall get the message?a aUnless heas very, very stupid.a Sam nods, then stands up. aIall call him right away.a He pauses. aReeve?a aYes?a aYouare not . . . youare making me nervous, smiling like that.a aSorry.a I think for a moment. aSam?a aYes?a Iam silent for a few second while I try to work out how much I can safely tell him. After a while I shrug mentally and just say it. I donat think Sam is likely to be a cold-blooded a.s.sa.s.sin in the pay of whatever enemies my earlier self made. aI knew Ca.s.s. Outside the experiment before we, uh, before we volunteered. If that t.u.r.d-faced sc.u.m hurts her Ia"well, right now I canat punch his teeth so far down his throat that he has to eat with his a.s.s, but Iall think of something else to do. Something equivalent. And, Sam?a aYes?a aI can be very creative when itas time to get violent.a

5.

Church.