It was perfect. And it was real, Eva was convinced. She had felt the affection that radiated from Katie like the energy from a small star.
They stepped from the building into a cool night. Dark blue ink seeped away around the horizon, leaving only the bright stars in the blackness above. Maybe something like the Watcher looked down at them from one of those stars.
Maybe not.
Katie stood by the doorway, her arms folded. Eva and Nicolas walked across the enclosure. The digger had gone. So had Alison’s body. In its place stood a dark green Land Rover, its doors painted with little yellow trees. A forest worker’s vehicle, it stood on chunky black tires that barely seemed to touch the dark gravel.
“So this is it,” said Eva.
“Good-bye,” said Katie. “I’m sure we’ll meet up again sometime.”
“I’m sure we will,” said Eva.
“Good-bye, Nicolas,” said Katie. Nicolas appeared very distracted; he jumped as Katie spoke to him.
He turned in her direction and gave a nervous grin. “Bye,” he muttered, then turned and continued to scan his surroundings nervously.
“What’s the matter, Nicolas?” Eva asked, puzzled.
“Nothing,” said Nicolas. There was the sound of a door slamming, and he jumped again. A young woman dressed in grey dungarees came out of one of the broken-down buildings. She was carrying an old power saw.
“Nearly there, Nicolas,” she called. “I think this could be nursed back to life with a bit of oil and some TLC. The rest of the stuff in there is for the dump.”
Eva looked at Nicolas, amazed. He was blushing.
“Erm, this is Debbie. I met her down in the valley. She offered me a lift into town. She said that she just had to come up here first, to sort out some old tools.”
“Oh,” said Eva. “Then she locked you in a shed?”
Nicolas studied his feet. “I don’t know. I think that was the Watcher. I don’t think she would ever do that to me. What do you think?”
“I think you should go and give her a hand with that power saw, Nicolas,” said Eva.
—And for heaven’s sake, don’t stare at her tits when you do it, said her brother. It was probably just as well Nicolas couldn’t hear that last bit.
Eva and Katie exchanged glances for the last time.
“Bye,” said Eva, hugging Katie.
“For the moment.”
“I can’t believe you’re staying here with…him!” Eva nodded back toward the building.
Katie gave a patronizing smile. Eva had seen it before with couples.
“You’re bound to think that, Eva. That’s why he picked you. But trust me. The Watcher is good. He’s on our side.”
Debbie drove Eva down to the nearby town. Nicolas held the door open for her as she got out of the van.
“See you around, Eva?” he said.
“See you around, Nicolas.” Eva hugged him. He looked at her with a hopeful expression, and Eva leaned close to his ear.
“She’s lovely,” she whispered.
Nicolas’ face lit up with delight. He climbed back into the van and waved to her as Debbie gunned the motor.
Eva waved to them as the van drove around the corner. It was incredible, she thought. Debbie seemed so normal, and yet she really did seem to like Nicolas. Eva wouldn’t have believed that Nicolas was ready for a relationship. Did the Watcher really have that much insight about humans? Was it possible to find someone whose personality had just the right facets and features to mesh with someone else’s and thus to effect a healing process?
The idea was laughable: the idea that the Watcher was sent between the stars to act as an extraterrestrial dating agency.
It was getting cold. Eva reached in her pocket, pulled out her phone and turned it on. The screen flashed once, then again. A message was waiting for her.
Hello Eva, she read. The “Eva” flashed twice and then was replaced by something else. Now the screen read, Hello“?”
She got the message. The Watcher was offering her a new life. Who did she want to be?
She gazed up and down the empty street of the little Welsh town. Light streamed from the windows of a fast-food shop further up the road. The other shops were all closed for the night. It was incredible. In the last few weeks she had come from the crowded city to this. On the edge of a new life.
If the Watcher was to be believed, she was at the edge of a new era. An era of self-replicating machines, perfect romances, and who knew what else? A time of optimism. That would make a change. For too long the world had just looked around at itself and seen the downward slope to disaster.
Or was she just fooling herself? Believing what she wanted to believe? Justifying the fact that she had left Katie back there with the Watcher.
“What do you think?” she asked her brother.
—I think we’ve been tricked. We all got what we wanted. Katie got an equal; you’re free of South Street. Even Nicolas got a girl.
“Hmm, I know. But it was our choice, I suppose. Look how the Watcher lost his temper when I didn’t realize that.”
—Of course he didn’t lose his temper. That body, those expressions, they were all an assumed look. He’s—it’s still playing with us, making us think what it wants, even at the end. That’s why it had you there, I bet. If it can convince you to hand over power, it can convince anyone. We all got what we wanted. Especially the Watcher.
“I know,” Eva said sadly. “But what if it’s true? What if it’s here to help us?”
—We can’t take that risk. Someone has to watch the Watcher.
“What can we do?”
—I don’t know. Whatever we can? Now answer the phone. Who are you going to be?
Not Eva Rye, thought Eva. She died in South Street. She needed a new name. Anything. Eva what? She looked around at the little row of shops. A name over one of them caught her eye, a name as good as any other. She held the phone to her ear and spoke.
“Hello,” she said. “My name is Eva Storey.”
constantine 5: 2119
They quickly ran up the steps of the concert hall. There was so much to explain and, out in the real world, time was running out.
“There aren’t many real personalities in here,” Mary gasped, her face pink with effort, shiny with perspiration. “It’s a processor-intensive task, keeping a full personality running. There is a limit to how many we can model, so we only use a real one if we have to….”
Her breath came in great heaving rasps; Constantine offered her his arm. Mary may have been a simulation, but she had the poor stamina of an overweight fifty-something woman. He could feel the warmth of her body in the cold of the stairway.
“So who are the real personalities?” asked Constantine.
Mary gulped for air.
“Now? There’s only space for four. So it will be you and the three people they think will be the most persuasive to you. Marion and I are both hoping that we are two of the chosen ones…”
They turned another corner in the stairway to find Marion where they had left her. She was trying to read something on her console, distracting herself from the precariousness of her situation. She rose to her feet as she saw them approach.
“How did it go?” she asked Mary.
“As well as could be expected,” replied Mary. She nodded toward the door into nothingness. “Do we have to go back…out there?” she asked, blinking rapidly.
Marion gave a shrug; Constantine could tell from her expression that she wasn’t feeling as nonchalant as she was trying to appear.
“I don’t know. It all depends on what they’ve decided….”
She took a deep breath, then held her console to her ear.
“What next?” she asked. She tilted her head, listening to the reply.
“Only Constantine goes through,” she whispered. She listened again and a look of relief crossed her face. She gave Mary a great wobbly smile.
“It’s okay, Mary. They’re keeping us in here with
him.”
Mary took hold of Marion’s hands and squeezed them tightly. Marion spoke again.
“They’re rearranging space in here, making it as hard as possible for DIANA to detect what is going on.”
She turned to Constantine. “You’re to go through the door. You’ll step straight into your hotel room. Try to get some sleep while you can. I don’t know when you’ll next have the opportunity.”
“Fine by me,” said Constantine. Simulated personality or not, he was tired and he needed to sleep. As he took hold of the doorknob, Marion’s console pinged and she put it back to her ear. She listened for a moment then held up her hand for Constantine to wait.
“From the very top?” she said, her face creased in utter puzzlement.
She listened further, her expression becoming more and more incredulous. When the call was over, she returned her console to her pocket and turned to face Constantine. She looked thoughtful.
“They’ve decided on the fourth personality. They say it’s a token of their goodwill.”
“Really?” He looked at her closer. “Is that all? There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Uh…” Marion looked torn for a moment. Then she turned and hurried down the stairs, Mary close behind her, the clatter of their footsteps on the stone floor retreating into the distance. Constantine watched them go, wondering, then he pushed the door open and stepped back into his hotel room. There was someone sitting on the edge of his bed. The door swung shut and instantly became an open French window leading out onto the balcony. Constantine looked at the worried-looking figure on his bed, her arms wrapped around herself, gazing at Constantine through dark brown eyes that were wide with fear.
“Hello, Jay,” he said.
Constantine’s marriage contract was for an indefinite period. The figures in the small print predicted that they would remain faithful to each other with a confidence of six sigmas. It was what they had both wanted. That was why he felt so uncomfortable sitting here with what he liked to think of as the real Jay: the one that had been sneaked by DIANA into the virtual world, the one with all the strengths and vulnerabilities of a real personality, rather than the thought patterns of an actress playing a role in order to extract information from him. Resurrecting her after their discovery of her hiding in the floating building was supposed to be a gesture of goodwill on behalf of Berliner Sibelius, but Constantine couldn’t help thinking there were subtler schemes at work.
Monogamy had been Constantine’s choice. In the simulation it was no longer an option. How could he be monogamous when in one sense he wasn’t even Constantine: how could he be faithful or otherwise to a woman who lived in another world? 113 Berliner Sibelius had left him with the capacity for personal salvation of a clockwork orange.
They had left him marooned in a computer with a woman calculated to be attractive to him. Calculated to how many decimal places?
“Why you, Jay?” Constantine said.
“Why me sent here by DIANA, or why me resurrected by 113 Berliner Sibelius?”
“Both.”
“I already told you: Spearman’s coefficient of Rank Correlation. Someone did a personality match and found that of all the people available to DIANA I would be the most compatible with you. I guess 113 Berliner Sibelius resurrected me for the same reason.”
“Uh,” grunted Constantine, “I get the impression there’s more to it than that….” His voice tailed away. The room was dim, lit by the bright moon and stars shining from outside. Jay’s face was half in shadow. She had stopped rocking back and forth. She still shivered. Constantine wondered if he should fetch one of the thick white bathrobes from the bathroom. Or would that be just what they wanted? Would helping her be his first steps down the path that led to trusting her?
—It makes no difference what you do. Trust her if you like. I won’t allow you to say anything.
Grey’s words were a chilling whisper.
That made up Constantine’s mind. He rose to his feet, fetched the robe, and threw it to her. She began to pull it on gratefully.
“How did DIANA find out I was in here, anyway?” he asked.
“Routine scans. This computer, the one holding the simulation, is shielded against most attacks, but people don’t always keep quiet once they’ve left work. The comm lines are buzzing with talk about you. DIANA submitted transcripts of conversations to the courts as proof of your existence. Unsuccessfully, though. Their request for a warrant of disclosure was denied, but don’t let that comfort you. They’re trying everything in their power to get a picture of what’s stored in this computer’s memory. A snapshot of your personality construct: proof that you’re here. As soon as they get it, they’ll have you wiped. And as soon as you’re gone, that’s it for me, too.”
—And Marion and Mary, pointed out Red.—No point keeping the simulation going once you’re destroyed.
Constantine nodded. “What is 113 Berliner Sibelius offering you if you help them?”
Jay flinched. She was obviously frightened, but she was angry, too. It was building inside her. Her reply was a hoarse whisper.
“What is 113 Berliner Sibelius offering me?” she asked. “What are they offering me? I get to live. For as long as you want me, of course.”
She stared at him, eyes wide, as she spoke. Constantine said nothing in reply.
Jay glared at him. “Well? Say something. I live or die at your word. My whole existence in this place is down to keeping you happy. How do you think that makes me feel? And you ask what 113 Berliner Sibelius is offering me?”
Constantine shook his head. It really hadn’t occurred to him to see things from Jay’s point of view. He had been too busy feeling sorry for himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Jay waved a hand at him and stared down at the floor. She shuddered.
“Ah, why am I blaming you? You didn’t choose to come in here. I did.”
Silence descended. Jay shook her head gently. Constantine wondered if she was crying.
—It could all be a trick, of course, said Red.
—Shut up, Red, Blue said.
—I don’t think it’s a trick, said White.—Something’s happening. This room is not maintaining its integrity. I see it when we move around. Parallax. Things aren’t quite where they should be. Something is draining system resources.
—So what’s the point of saying anything? Blue asked.—As soon as DIANA gets proof that we’re in here, we’ll be wiped anyway.
Constantine nodded. The idea had already occurred to him. He opened his mouth to say something, but White interrupted.
—Something big has just happened. Get ready to move.
Constantine opened his mouth to ask what, then he saw it for himself. For a moment the room flattened, became two dimensional. Jay became a picture, pasted to the wall. The bed, the writing desk, the view from the windows, were all just a flatscreen picture.
Jay was moving, standing up, the robe slipping to the floor.
“What was that?” she asked.
Normality began to reassert itself. Her body separated from the wall. Looking down, Constantine saw his feet, regained his illusion of depth.
“I don’t know…”
Marion and Mary were in the room; the balcony window had been pushed open.
“Quickly,” called Marion, “this way.”
They brushed briskly past, heading for the door that led to the bathroom. Barely two days ago Constantine had showered there and attempted to rid himself of a headache. Now he was running for his virtual life.
“DIANA almost got a handle on you there,” explained Mary. “We had to relocate this room within the simulation.”
Constantine wanted her to explain more, but Marion had pushed open the door to the bathroom and he saw what she meant.
Through the door he could see another place. He saw the dark emptiness of a field, the night sky pressing down from above. They were looking out across the first level of Stonebreak. At the edge of t
he horizon was visible the first pale line of the approaching dawn.
Constantine wondered if he would live to see it.
Now they were making their way through the farmlands of the first level, wading through muddy fields, stumbling into ditches, pushing their way through hedges. Behind them rose the dark mass of the city proper.
Mary was gasping for breath. “Too tired. Too tired. Stop…can’t keep it up.”
Constantine was tired too, his breath heaving. Marion was talking into her console.
“Okay,” she said. She called out to the group.
“Over here. They’ve prepared an area for us.”
—Why do we have to keep moving? complained Red.
“Keep us moving, stop us thinking,” gasped Constantine out loud. He wanted them to hear what he said. Let them know he was onto them.
“Not true,” said Marion. “Don’t you realize the danger we’re all in? Come on. This way…”
They ran into a cornfield: genetically modified corn, standing taller than they were. They pushed on through the damp plants, tangled strings of vegetable matter clinging to their faces and bodies. On and on, pushing and pushing, lost in a maze of stalks. Just when they thought it would never end, they emerged into a clearing. They all fell panting to the ground.
“Okay,” Marion gasped, “we should be as safe here as anywhere else.”
Jay was biting her lip. Trembling. Hesitantly, Constantine put his arm around her. Wordlessly, she pressed closer. It felt nice. Constantine felt guilty.
“What now?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Marion. She was looking at Jay thoughtfully. “We just wait and see.”
The sun was rising. The heads of the surrounding corn were silhouetted against it. So he had lived to see the dawn. Now would he make midday?
They sat on prickly stubble in a cleared area, corn tickling their legs and bottoms, damp broken stalks caught in their hair and clothes. Constantine was holding Jay; the others were almost touching. Huddling for safety. No one had spoken for some time. They all looked at each other. Wondering. What was happening outside? Marion was watching Jay like a hawk. Why Jay? Why was she in here?
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