by Adam Roberts
41. But for all that, the Fansoc for Money + Media of Exchange = one of the largest in all the cultures of humanity. They have their rules + in-house laws, + if you sign-up to this particular Fansoc then you sign up to those laws. A little metaphorical greenhouse in which scarcity = simulated + people measure value by accumulating money.
42. Personally I have never seen the point of the Fansoc for Money + Media of Exchange. But nobodys obliged to join, + nobody obliged to stay, + it I rarely even think of it.
43. O O O our marvellous machines + the inexhaustible solicitude of our AIs.
44. Like any Fansoc, the Fansoc for Catching Oldfashioned Diseases had their own culture: disseminating memoirs + artworks inspired by their own experiences, having virtual + actual meets + moots to discuss Disease, acquiring knowledge.
45. One subgroup of the Fansoc for Catching Oldfashioned Diseases studied the possibilities for curing antique pathologies using only the resources available in olden days. This in turn was divided into two subgroups, those who worked at such cures using modern knowledge of Disease (but not modern tools + resources), + those who worked at such cures using only the knowledge, tools + resources of their chosen period. These latter called themselves ‘hardcore’.
46. Most people belong to one Fansoc or another, though not many to this particular one. Everybody has their own fave Fanscocs, from making models to playing games to learning music to eating some things but not others to eating other thing not those + so on + so on. Say your itch was to construct a lifesize replica of the Giza Pyramid out of pure diamond. Scratch it by all means, though youll be doing it on your own unless you can source a Fansoc of people who want to help you
47. Orbital solettas making Mars warm enough for maskfaces to wander the surface naked + some basic body tweaks made even the mask unnecessary.
48. I was living in a habitat called Lotus Dam + Adri Ann was staying with me + we were happy for a time + most of her energies went on earning money, her great passion, which she did by trading + lending + buy + selling + recouping. The Fansoc for Money + Media of Exchange was by no means the only Fansoc built around the gaming possibilities of money. It was tho the biggest + most widely publicised.
49. Adri Ann with her sky-colored eyes, + her skin the color of sunset on Via Veneto in pollen season.
50. Some people say time = the only currency now, since it = the only limited resource. Quite untrue of course, for there are many limited resources, including human genius, true beauty, dark continents, patience, privacy, innocence, bulwarks against entropy + love + most of all status, status, status. How we love to compete with one another for status! Plains apes we remain, though our empathy has been fixed for good.
51. A group had assembled a temporary bubble habitat upon HD209458b (which orbits a star in the constellation Pegasus) that powered itself by the interactions of the planet’s perennial superstorm upon the habitat outer membrane. AIS assessed its risk of catastrophic failure at 15% for the first month, rising sharply thereafter + many people visited the place. If Russian Roulette = your itch you can by all means scratch it, although if it continues to be your itch then you won’t be alive for the longterm.
52. My itch was the beautiful sorrow of heartbreak but that dont mean I liked losing her. She was my sun + my moon. Its rude of me to impose my sorrow on you + so violate your own empathy. Mutual empathy = a complex harmonic.
53. She moved to Burroughs for a while, I think, + became a leading figure in the Fansoc for Catching Oldfashioned Diseases. She contracted various cytopathologies + dermatopathologies + histopathologies wrote about them all. Her eloquence brought her a wide audience, amongst her fellow Fansoccers + a wider audience too. I had always loved her eloquence.
54. For a year or so she had her body altered so as to experience congenital pathologies: 3 weeks with rickets, + a 4tnight with a cleft palate. Then she had herself have cancer + saw this through to a dangerous degree: first the tumours like barnacles clinging to the membranes of her inner organs, + then three days of the nausea + hairlessness associated with the antique treatment regimen. She could not, she reported, endure this latter + had herself fully cured by modern means.
55. That we were no longer together was heartbreaking to me.
56. She elected to experience schizophrenia for a month, + then a manic depressive illness, + under the influence of this latter she self-harmed. The Authority intervened at this point: it was decided by a committee of AIS + human beings that, depression having altered the capacity of her mind to make fully humanly informed decisions, her self-harm in this context only was an itch she did not have the right to scratch. By no means. By no means. By no means. This occasioned a great deal of excited chatter + discussion + interaction + people on Io talked to people in Lagrangea + people in Hy-Brazil spoke to people in Indonesia + everybody had an opinion but most of the opinions were garnishes of the same opinion. She was cured of her depression by modern methods + after her cure expressed how profoundly glad she was that she hadn’t ended her life under the influence of her antique depressive state.
57. She disappeared somewhere + did not write anything for a long time.
58. When she returned she petitioned her Fansoc to experience the oldfashioned Disease known as dissociative or sociopathic disorder, a complex neuropathology the cure for which was in part responsible for the establishment of our present Utopia
59. Topos = place. U = good + not. I am sorry to have lost her. /We are upset by your displays of egregious grief’. Alright then.
60. She Adri Ann she petitioned her Fansoc to experience the oldfashioned Disease known as affective dissociative disorder or sociopathy, + there was discussion, + Authority debated it. The anxiety was: with such a pathology, might she harm others? + she agreed this could be a risk + so she willingly + in her right mind acceded to having drones tag her at all times during her experience of the oldfashioned disease in question. Should she do anything to impinge upon the wellbeing of any other person these drones were empowered by her, + the Authority as well, to intervene + disable her, whereupon (she agreed) her pathology would be cured.
61. There was some additional discussion concerning this eventuality: for if this happened, Adri Ann herself would surely experience suffering + distress to have violated her own empathetic connection to the other or others she had essayed to assault under the influence of her pathology? But it was decided – + many people contributed to this discussion – that such was the risk she took when she scratched her itch that she was entitled, by all means, to scratch.
62. Adri Ann became the first person in the history of the Fansoc for Catching Oldfashioned Diseases to submit to the disease known variously as affective dissociative disorder or sociopathy. She posted accounts of her experience, first daily, then less often. /It was strange/ she reported /that she felt no different to the way she did before/. There was some numbness of the affect, she said, but it intruded to a much less pronounced extent than she thought it would.
63. She attacked nobody. Her drones kept her company.
64. I tried to get on with my life, to fall in love again + so experience the sad sweetness of breakup again but for some reason I could not get past Adri Ann.
65. I am the snagged fly who snores in the web.
66. As a forest pool poured from rainclouds that settles + = ironed flat by gravity, this = how my love for her filled up the declivity of my soul.
67. There = a place called Gros Islet established upon the lnd of Ninety orbiting Sirius, a star, + in a room on that world, in cadmium yellow daylight of that world lit bright like firework glow by Sirius + shadows sharp as cutouts those great blocky buildings, famous Gros Islet architecture, somebody = waiting for Adri Ann. The somebody is not me.
68. I followed her writings, of course. The worlds were all before me, + I could go anywhere, + I went + distracted myself + lived nine months inside a Virtuality + gamed + played + lived for three months in an orgy habitat orbiting Venus + then I got caught
up in the challenges of cytheroforming that world to make it habitable to the sorts of human beings we can engineer. A/K makes the creation of gigantic solar shades achievable, + even the problems of keeping them in LG position under the pressure of solar wind = something we can manage. Blocking all sunlight would cause the planet to cool from hundreds of degrees to minus eighty or so, + the targeted bombardment by large oort cloud iced bodies would result in an ocean covering the whole surface.
69. I was distracted for a while, but never for very long.
70. I followed Adri Ann’s progress from a distance, + contemplated approaching her again. But the thought that she would be distressed by what she perceived as stalking wounded by empathy so much that I could not follow-through. Mutual empathy = a complex harmonic.
71. Welcome to Utopia, y’all!
72. I stopped following her updates. It was doing me no good. Her enthusiasm for the Fansoc for Catching Oldfashioned Diseases waned, + she took new lovers + devoted more of her time to the Fansoc for Money + Media of Exchange.
73. which latter is a much larger group than the other.
74. It was four years later + I met with Adri Ann again, + it was pure chance. I happened to be in Ica, to visit the Tallest Tower, a hundred klims tall, by White China Sea hovering its penstub base ten meters off the ground. We go strolling + our arms chainlink at dusk million lights alight petal-shaped + floating in the air, a thousand clouds like bombursts in the deepening blue in the distant high sky + the whole pavement hums, sub-base, rotary plays, + musk = in the air. Adri Ann was there too, + we chanced to meet.
75. She seemed pleased to see me. /Seems I still find you attractive/ she said.
76. /I certainly still find you attractive/ I said.
77. We went off together, + ate some saltolive bread + drank cold vodca + sat together + watched the lights float higher + mingle with the stars + Bear + Leo.
78. /You still have your drones/ I said.
79. They, hovering discrete.
80. /I hardly notice them/ she said.
81. /You are still enduring the oldfashioned Disease/ I joked, + dared to touch her arm + caress. She, accepting this.
82. /Come to bed/ she said, + I heard her + come to bed come to bed come to bed.
83. This section left intentionally blank.
84. After she said /I knew some small fame as part of the Fansoc for Catching Oldfashioned Diseases. But I shall tell you the truth + it was all a ruse, you know/ I listened, quiet + attentive, like a child listens. She said /my real passion has always been the Fansoc for Money + Media of Exchange. This was my plan, + it was to gain status in the Fansoc for Money + Media of Exchange, + that meant gaining money, because such = the only marker of status./ + I stroked her belly + listened, quiet + attentive, + she told me all about it. /Any fool can research the pre-Utopian days, back even before the Ghosts, when Capital=m was rampant. I joined the Fansoc for Catching Oldfashioned Diseases for one reason only to contract was common then, + some who were afflicted by it tortured + killed others, but some did not. + the ones who did not were disproportionately represented amongst the highest elites in corporations + companies + moneymaking organisations. +, to emulate them, I have contracted this Disease. + it has enabled me to make money within the Fansoc for Money + Media of Exchange at a much more rapid rate than my other Fansoccers, + to accumulate much larger overall wealth, + so status. Status status status! That’s my itch/– so I asked quietlike: /it dont hurt you?/ She laughed. /Do you want to know the way it feels?/ + we made love again, + then she slept.
85. That I was going to lose her again was the point. It wasn’t the losing her again. It was the impossibility of avoiding reacquiring her again, should that be her whim. Even then would be some stooping + I choose never to stoop. The pain we inflict on ourselves can always be borne. There is cause, + there is effect. Where does that great truth obtain more powerfully than in matters of love?
86. I took a piece of art from the roomside, + broke off a long metallic spike, + this had a hotspot at its tip which was part of the artistry. Adri Ann’s drones were watching her, not me. She was the one with the sociopathic disorder, not I. I slotted it in under her chin +, gripping it, drove it hard in through her tongue + in at the roof of her mouth + into her brain.
87. The drones acted then, + I was immobilised + she was dead
88. These 2 things not being the same thing.
89. Human policeofficers had something – finally, something worthwhile – to be doing.
9
A Dialogue in Four Parts
Community
First part of the dialogue
[CHARLES is driving towards the Scottish border as the sun is rising. He leaves his stolen car in an NCP in Berwick-on-Tweed. He is exhausted, but chivvied on by PETA he limps to the railway station. Here he buys a ticket for London with his debit card, and then goes to a different window and buys a ticket to Edinburgh with cash. Since the cash isn’t his, he doesn’t baulk at first class.
As far as the onlookers are concerned, he now pulls a regular, if slightly oversize, mobile phone from his jacket – although there has been no ringtone, and he has not pressed or swiped anything on the screen – and speaks into it. ‘How far north is far enough?’ he asks. He gets a reply, but the onlookers cannot hear it.
CHARLES has no luggage. At the station café he has a sausage bap for breakfast and some black coffee, and then boards the northbound train. Caffeine notwithstanding he falls asleep almost as soon as the train starts from the station. The first-class carriage is empty, apart from himself, and the seats are evidently very comfortable.
When he wakes he feels a little better. He limps down the swaying train to the buffet car and returns with biscuits and a second coffee. In fact coffee is delivered to customers travelling first class but he, unused to such luxury, is unaware of this fact. He sits back in his seat and stares out of the window. The track ran along an impressively bare and massive valley, with a turbulent river running below and beside the track. He watches the tourbillons of white and black in the eddying water. It is hypnotic. The everlasting universe of things. He takes the device from his jacket and lays it on the little table in front of him.]
CHARLES
Peta?
PETA
Yes?
CHARLES
You’ve seen it. Yeah? The thing itself?
PETA
I don’t know about seen.
CHARLES
When I was in Antarctica I had the vision. It was pretty scary. Now, I can believe that only caught a … What’s the phrase? Fleeting glimpse. Do I quote Pink Floyd? Very well then. I quote Pink Floyd. I contain immensities.
PETA
You’re agitated.
CHARLES
Is scary. Is that what the thing itself is? Undiluted horror. What Mister Kurtz saw.
PETA
He dead. You got a glimpse of something. You want to know if it was the true nature of reality. Or was it just the result of a mind habituated over a lifetime of seeing the world through the lenses of space and time being disoriented by seeing things in a less mediated way.
CHARLES
I suppose that’s the question to ask.
PETA
I haven’t exactly ‘seen’ the thing in itself. It’s not ‘seeable’. It’s not through a glass darkly, and then face to face.
CHARLES
So?
PETA
It’s … complicated. Professor Kostritsky was working on: that exposure to it, outside the protective skin of spatiality, temporality, doesn’t seem to scramble my ability to think rationally. It doesn’t drive me mad the way it drove Curtius mad. Human minds may be a different matter.
CHARLES
He was already mad.
PETA
It’s a force. It’s not passive. It’s active. It’s a will. It has valence.
CHARLES
I don’t know what that means.
PETA
It wouldn’t b
e right to call it vast or enormous, or use terms like that, since size is something your structuring consciousness brings to the perception of it. Yet there is something ‘in’ it that provokes your mind to register it in terms of … scale. Here’s a thing: human scientific history has long tended increasingly to support Kant’s ideas. The closer human consciousness looks at the cosmos, the more attention it pays to the cosmos, the bigger that cosmos gets. Primitive man was distracted by the day-to-day struggle to survive, and didn’t pay the world around him a lot of attention: and the world around him was a few kilometres wide, the sky a stone bowl arching a kilometre over his head. The Greeks looked more carefully, and they found the cosmos was hundreds of thousands of kilometres wide. With the Enlightenment human beings developed new tools and instruments the better to refine the attention they paid – to see more clearly what the cosmos was like. The sixteenth-century cosmos reached about as far as Saturn – that’s one and a half billion kilometres or so. By 1790 the best scientific estimate was that the universe was 8,000 light years across. In 1924 scientists’ observations led them to believe it was 900,000 light years. By 1931 this had swelled to 100 million light years. At the end of the century science had established that the universe is 93 billion light years across. And last year the Dutch team measured it at 200 billion light years.