The Naked God

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Louise was sure that being immersed in the projection so much was bad for her little sister’s eyesight.

  “What?”

  “We’re going out. I can’t get the hang of the desktop block, so I’m going to buy some neural nanonics instead.” There, she’d said it out loud.

  There’d be no backing down now.

  Genevieve stared at her in astonishment. “Oh Louise, don’t tease so. We’re not allowed.”

  “We weren’t allowed. We’re on Earth, now, remember. You can do anything you want here as long as you’ve got money.”

  Genevieve cocked her head to one side. Then the most charming smile graced her face. It didn’t fool Louise for a second. “Please, Louise. Can I have one, too? You know I’ll never be allowed once we get home.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re not old enough.”

  “I am!”

  “Gen, you’re not. And you know you’re not.”

  She stamped her foot, little fists clenched in outrage. “That’s not fair! It’s not. It’s not. You always pick on me coz I’m the youngest. You’re a bully.”

  “I’m not picking on you. You just can’t have one, your brain is still growing. They can’t connect it. I checked. It’s not legal, and it’ll do a lot of damage to your brain cells. I only just scrape in if you measure my age in Earth years.”

  “I hate being small.”

  Louise put her arms round the girl, reflecting on how much she’d done so since leaving home. They never used to hug much before. “You’ll be bigger one day,” she whispered into her sister’s fluffed up hair. “And things are going to be different when we get home.”

  “You think so?”

  “Oh yes.”

  The receptionist seemed rather amused at being asked, in a lofty sort of way. But she was helpful enough, telling Louise that Oxford Street and New Bond Street were probably their best bet for clothes, while Tottenham Court Road was where they would find any conceivable kind of electronics.

  The sisters were also assured these areas were safe for girls to walk through by themselves. “And the hotel runs a courtesy collection service for any items that you purchase.” She handed over an authorization disk, keyed to Louise’s biolectric pattern.

  Louise loaded a comprehensive street map into her block, taken from the hotel’s memory; and combined it with the guidance program. “Ready?” she asked Gen. “Let’s go spend the family fortune.”

  Aubry Earle had spoken the truth on the lift capsule when he told them arcology dwellers would always respect their privacy. Out on the street, Louise couldn’t quite work out how people always slid to one side at the last second. She was constantly scanning bodies all round to try and find a way through the gaps, while locals moved as smoothly as the automated traffic without ever once glancing in her direction. Some of the pedestrians quite literally glided past. People their own age wearing calf-high boots with soles that seemed to flow over the pavement slabs without any resistance. Genevieve watched their effortless progress with admiration and longing. “I want some boots like that,” she said.

  A subwalk got them under Piccadilly and into New Bond Street. It turned out to be a dainty little pedestrian lane, lined with enchanting boutiques whose marble frontage was embossed with brass lettering saying when they’d been established. None of them were under three centuries old, while some claimed to be over seven. The labels on show meant nothing to either of them, but judging by the prices they must have been admiring the most exclusive designer garments on the planet.

  “It’s gorgeous,” Louise sighed longingly at a shimmering scarlet and turquoise evening gown, sort of like an all-over mermaid’s tail—except it wasn’t all-over, nowhere near. It was the kind of thing she would love to wear at a summer ball on Norfolk. The planet had never seen its like before.

  “Then buy it.”

  “No. We’ve got to be sensible. Just everyday clothes that we need to get about in the arcology. Remember, one day I’ll have to explain the entire bill to Daddy.”

  The evening gown was just the start of New Bond Street’s provocative temptations. They trailed past window displays she could have bought en masse.

  “We’ll have to have supper in the hotel dining room,” Genevieve suggested artfully. “I bet they won’t let us in unless we dress up.”

  It was an insidious suggestion. “Okay. One dress. That’s all.”

  They dashed across the threshold of the boutique in front of them.

  Privacy didn’t apply inside the shop; three assistants swooped eagerly.

  Louise explained what they wanted, and then spent the next forty-five minutes ricocheting in and out of a changing room. She and Gen would look at each other, comment, and go back for the next trial.

  She learned a lot in the process. The assistants were very complimentary about the sisters’ hair. Except … on Earth, it was fashionable to have actives woven among the strands. Their one-piece suits with big pockets, were current, but not that à la mode. Yes, Oxford Street stores were perfect for buying streetfashion clothes, and we recommend these.

  Louise could have sworn she heard the block’s memory creaking under the load of names they entered. She used her Jovian Bank credit disk with only a momentary twinge of guilt.

  Out on the street again, they laughed at each other. Gen had wound up with a scarlet dress and deep-purple jacket. While Louise had bought herself a full length gown of deepest blue, that was made from a material crossed between velvet and suede. There was also a short ginger-coloured waistcoat to go with it, which complemented its square cut neck.

  “It’s true,” Louise said happily. “Retail therapy actually works.”

  They didn’t get directly to Oxford Street. There was a stop at a salon at the top of New Bond Street first. The beauticians made an incredible fuss over them, delighted with so much raw material to work on. The owner himself came over to direct the operation (once their credit rating had been verified).

  After two hours, several cups of tea, and enthralling the staff with an edited version of their travels, Louise had the wrap taken off. She stared in the mirror, not believing she’d spent her life tolerating unmanaged hair. Norfolk’s simplistic regime of washing, conditioners, and sturdy brushing was barbaric ineptitude. Under the salon’s professional auspices her hair had become lustrous, individual strands conducting a little starlight shimmer of light along their length. And it flowed.

  Every day of her life she’d held that thick mane in place with clips and ribbons, sometimes getting the maid to braid fanciful bands. Flexitives made all that irrelevant. Of its own accord, her hair fell back over her shoulders, always keeping itself tidy and together in one large tress. It also rippled subtly, as if she was engulfed in her own permanent private breeze.

  “You look beautiful, Louise,” Genevieve said, suddenly shy.

  “Thank you.” Gen’s hair had been straightened, darkened, and glossed, its hem curling inwards slightly. Again, it held its shape no matter what.

  Stalls were lined up against the road barriers, filled with brassy, cheaper items than those in the shops. Genevieve saw one with pairs of the magical boots hanging from the awning. Slipstream boots, the cheerful owner told her as he found some her size. Popular with the under fifteens because you didn’t need neural nanonics to switch the directed frictionless soles on or off.

  Louise bought them on the condition Gen waited until they got back to the hotel before she tried them out. She also got a duster bracelet. When Gen clamped the trinket round her wrist and waved it round, it sprayed out a fine powder which emitted a fiery sparkle as it fell to earth. Holding her arm up and pirouetting, a spiral of twinkling starlight spun around her.

  Quinn sat on one of the benches along the banks of the Seine, opening his mind to the demented screeching reverberating through the beyond. It had taken him two and a half hours to reach the Paris arcology since being struck by that inexplicable wave of emotional torment that had swept through the beyond.

&nbs
p; The first thing—obviously!—was to get the fuck out of New York. It wouldn’t take the cops long to review the memories of sensors covering the concourse and identify him. He’d gone straight down to a platform and taken a vac-train to Washington. A short ride, not quite fifteen minutes.

  He’d kept within the ghost realm for the whole trip, apprehensive that the vac-train would be halted and returned to New York. But it arrived at Washington on time, and he switched to the first inter-continental ride available: Paris.

  Even then, he’d remained invisible as it streaked along the bottom of the North Atlantic. Still anxious that another of those waves would surge up and expose him. If it had done during the journey under the ocean, he knew he’d be finished. He couldn’t believe God’s Brother would allow that to happen. But the first time was causing all sorts of doubts.

  It wasn’t until he was out of the Paris terminus and walking through one of the old city’s parks that he had allowed himself to fully emerge. He clothed himself in an ordinary shirt and trousers, hating the way his white skin tingled in the bright sun shining through the colossal crystal dome. But it meant he was safe, there were no processors in the middle of the park to glitch at his appearance, nobody near enough to see that he’d appeared from nowhere rather than walked round the ancient tree. He stood there for a minute, scanning the nearby minds for any sign of alarm. Only then did he relax and make his way down to the river.

  Parisians strolled along behind him as they had for centuries—lovers, artists, business executives, bureaucrats; none of them paying attention to the solitary downcast youth. Nor did any of them avail themselves to the space left on his bench. Some subliminal warning steered them along past, frowning slightly at the unaccountable chill.

  Slowly, Quinn started to gather the strands together, faint images and hoarse wailing voices filling in the story. He saw clouds which surprised even him, an arcology-born. Rain cascaded down on huddled bodies, so thick it was almost solid. Terrifying blasts of lightning ripping through the darkness. The encircling forces, radiating their stern nonhuman determination, closing in.

  Mortonridge was not a place where a possessed should be caught outside today; and two million of them had been. Something had struck at them, tearing away their protective covering of cloud. Some technological devilry. The signal for the Liberation to commence. A one-off; a unique act in response to a unique situation. Not some miracle wrought by the Light Bringer’s great rival.

  Quinn lifted his head, and smiled a contemptuous smile. Such a shock was extremely unlikely to occur again. There was no unknown threat. He was perfectly safe. Night could still dawn.

  He stood up, and turned slowly, examining his surroundings properly for the first time. The celebrated Napoleonic heart of the city was encompassed by a range of splendid white, silver, and gold towers. Their burnished surfaces hurt his eyes, as their grandeur hurt his sensibility.

  But somewhere among all this cleanliness and vitality, the waster kids would be grubbing through dank refuse, hurting each other and unwary civilians for no reason they understood. Finding them would be as easy here as it had been in New York. Just walk in the direction everyone else was coming from. His heartland, where his words would bring its denizens purpose.

  He completed his turn. Right ahead of him the Eiffel Tower stood guard at the end of a broad immaculate park, with sightseers wandering round its base. Even in Edmonton, Quinn had heard of this structure. A proud symbol of Gallic forbearance through all the centuries of Govcentral’s pallid uniformity. Its very endurance reflecting the strengths and determination of the people who regarded it as their own. Precious to the world. And now, so terribly fragile with age.

  Quinn started to chuckle greedily.

  Andy Behoo fell in love. It was instantaneous. She walked in through the door of Jude’s Eworld, kicking off a cascade of datavised alarms, and he was utterly smitten.

  Terminal babe. Taller than him by a good ten centimetres, with the most gorgeous cloak of hair. A face with soft features so delicate as to be way beyond anything cosmetic adapter packages could achieve—a natural beauty. She wore a white sleeveless T-shirt that showed off a hot figure without revealing anything, and a scarlet skirt that didn’t reach her knees. But it was the way she carried herself that clinched it for him.

  Perfectly composed, yet she still looked round the shop with child-like curiosity.

  The rest of the staff were all giving her clandestine glances as the doorway scanners datavised their findings. Then the smaller girl entered behind her, and the scanners gave out an almost duplicate alert. How weird. They couldn’t possibly be a cop grab operation, too obvious.

  Besides, the manager was pretty regular when it came to slipping the shop’s bung to the district station.

  Andy told the customer he was dealing with, “Look it over, and have a think about it, you won’t find a better deal in London,” then left them to scoot over to the girl before any of his so-called colleagues could reach her. If the floor manager had seen, he’d probably lose his job.

  Abandoning a customer before the sale is sealed—capital crime.

  “Hi, I’m Andy. I’m your sellrat. Anything you want, it’s my job to push the more expensive model on you.” He grinned broadly.

  “You’re my what?” Louise asked. Her expression was half puzzlement, half smile.

  Her accent did strange things along Andy’s spine, making him shiver. The ultimate in class, and foreign-exotic, too. He scanned his enhanced retinas across her face, desperate to capture her image. Even if she walked out of his life now, she would never be entirely lost. Andy had certain male-orientated software packages that could superimpose her into sensenviron recordings. He felt shabby even as he recorded her.

  “Sellrat. That’s what the public calls Customer Interactivity Officers round these parts.”

  “Oh,” the smaller girl sighed dismissively. “He’s just a shopboy, Louise.”

  Andy’s neural nanonics had to reinforce his smile. Why do they always come in pairs? And why always one obnoxious one? He clicked his fingers and pointed both index fingers at the smaller girl. “That’s me. Try not to be too disappointed, I really am here to help.”

  “I’d like to buy some neural nanonics,” Louise said. “Is it very difficult?”

  The request startled Andy. Her clothes alone must have cost more than twice his weekly pay, why didn’t she have a set already? Beautiful and enigmatic. He smiled up at her. “Not at all. What were you looking for?”

  She sucked her lower lip. “I’m really not very sure. The best I can afford, I suppose.”

  “We don’t have them on Norfolk,” Genevieve said. “That’s where we’re from.”

  Louise tried not to frown. “Gen, we don’t have to give our history to everyone we meet.”

  Rich foreigners. Andy’s conscience struggled against temptation.

  Conscience won out, backed up by infatuation. I can’t sell her a pirate set. Not her. “Okay, your lucky day. We’ve got some top-of-the-range sets in stock. I can fix a reasonable deal for them, too, so there’s no need to get sweaty about the money. This way.”

  He led them over to his section of the counter, managing to get her name on the way. His neural nanonics faithfully recorded the way she walked, her body movements, even her speech pattern. Like most nineteen-year-olds who’d grown up in London’s manky Islington district with its history of low-income employment, Andy Behoo fancied himself as a prospective net don. It combined the goal of fringe-legal work (also his heritage), with very little actual effort. He’d taken didactic memory courses on electronics, nanonics, and software every month since he’d passed his fourteenth birthday. His two-room flat was stocked to the ceiling with ancient processor blocks and every redundant peripheral he’d managed to scrounge or steal. Everyone in his tenement knew Andy was the guy to visit when you had a technical problem.

  As to why such an embryonic datasmart prince of darkness was working as a sellrat in Jude’s Eworld
, he had to get the money to finance his revolutionary schemes from somewhere—or maybe even go to college. And the shop always employed technerd teenagers as their outfront salesforce, they were the only ones who kept up to date on upgrades and new marques that would work on minimum-wage weeks.

  The wall behind the counter was made up entirely from boxes of consumer electronics. All of them had colourful logos and names. Louise read a few of the contents labels, not understanding a word. Genevieve was already bored; looking round at other parts of the slightly shabby shop—one of seemingly hundreds of near-identical outlets along Tottenham Court Road.

  The inside was a maze formed by counters and walls of boxes, with old company posters and holomorph stickers stuck up on every available surface. Holographic screens flashed out enticing pictures of products in action. The section opposite Andy Behoo had a big GAMES sign above it.

  And Louise had promised.

  Andy began pulling boxes down and lining them up on the counter. They were rectangular, the size of his hand, wrapped in translucent foil, with the manufacturer’s guarantee seal on the front. “Okay,” Andy said with familiar confidence. “What we have here, the Presson050, is a basic neural nanonics set. Everything you need to survive daily arcology life: datavises, mid-rez neuroiconic display, enhanced memory retrieval, axon block. It’s preformatted to NAS2600 standard, which means it can handle just about every software package on the market. There’s a company-supplied didactic operations imprint that comes with it, but we do sell alternative operations courses.”

  “That sounds very … comprehensive,” Louise said. “How much?”

  “How are you paying?”

  “Fuseodollars.” She showed him her Jovian Bank disk.

  “Okay. Good move. I can give you a favourable rate on that. So, we’re looking at about three and a half thousand, for which we’ll throw in five free Quantumsoft supplement packages from their BCD30 range. Your choice of functions. I can arrange finance for you if you want, better percentage than any Sol-system bank.”