This is possible because the people who design sims are lazy. Why invent scenery from scratch when you can plagiarize it from reality? So I set out to find the place that whoever it was used as the deal for the beach where I met the girl. Where she told me who I wasn’t, and where she gave me back my past.
It was surprisingly easy. And here I am. I’m not alone; apart from my company here on the beach, there’s an old Orbiter hanging around at one of this place’s Lagrange points. It’s full of rare species. It says it’s checking this place out as a possible host planet for some of them. I guess it knows what it’s doing.
They told me that, before, I wouldn’t have been allowed to grow a new body. The Heg’ had banned it, apparently. But that was before the Creation Machine and Muz and the Monk joined hands in immolation; before a spiky little AI flew out of the wreckage and spilled its guts to the first people who looked like they might get rough with it.
Finally, it was before the collapse of something called the Haas Corporation, which then took most of the Hegemony with it. What’s left behind is sort of chaotic, but it’s fun. I’m glad I stayed around. I’m thinking of getting involved in the remediation of Silthx. I know it can’t really be put back to the state it was before the people we used to know as the Fortunate raped it. Maybe it will become some sort of memorial. I like that idea.
They refer to them as the Filth now. They’re mainly history too; there were over five hundred ships surrounding Traspise, most of them far enough out to survive the destruction. A lot of scores got dusted off and settled, all the way. No one seems particularly sorry.
I have another reason for being glad, of course. I did the job Muz asked me to.
I watch the girl walking along the beach. She moves carefully, as if she’s having to do a lot of thinking about her muscles. She probably is. Whatever it was that the big packet of code helped fix up, it was well advanced. The other woman from the ship told me afterwards that Fleare was mostly dead by the time they worked out how to undo the damage.
I know how she feels. I am getting used to my own new body. In one way I hope I never do get used to it. I still love the newness. I didn’t have to get a new body. The Monk restarted the sim of Sallah’s world. I think he was expecting me to dive back in gratefully but I’m done with being virtual.
I did take a look. Sallah’s career survived after all. She’s in line for promotion. Rudi has stayed safely dead as far as she’s concerned.
I haven’t told Fleare everything I found out about Muz and her. It feels private. Anyway, she looks as though she is managing to move on a bit. I am too. Now I’ve got a body again, I’m back to an ordinary lifespan. I’m glad about that because virtual immortality looks like it sucks, but it does mean I have the urge not to waste time.
I watch as Fleare reaches down and picks up a handful of stones. She sorts through them, selects one and transfers it to her other hand. She hefts it and tosses it a few times then winds her arm back and skims it out over the water. It starts out well but the angle is wrong; it falls into a trough between waves and disappears.
She tries again. This time the stone is spinning wrong, or something, because it banks away along a curving path and flies sideways into a wave.
She compresses her lips and sorts through the remaining stones, frowning. She chooses one, and lets the others drop with a series of clicks. She closes her eyes for a moment, then skims the stone, her arm whisking through a flat arc. Her effort is so great that her feet briefly leave the ground. She lands in a predator’s crouch, her eyes staring fiercely out to sea.
The stone flies, and skims, and goes on skimming, leaving a dead straight line of tiny circles, so slight that it seems hardly to be touching the water at all. Then, just as it begins to slow down, it catches the crest of a wave and leaps up in a little spray of foam. As it drops Fleare turns to me, her face triumphant.
Even though I suspect she hasn’t had much practice recently, the look suits her. I think things are going to be okay.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my family, who suggested I should write things and then had to live with the consequences; and to Lara Higgins, who made possible everything that happened afterwards.
About the Author
Born in 1965, Andrew Bannister grew up in Cornwall. He studied Geology at Imperial College and went to work in the North Sea before becoming an Environmental Consultant. For the day job, he specializes in green transport and corporate sustainability, but he has always written – initially for student newspapers and fanzines before moving on, encouraged by creative writing courses, to fiction. He has always been a reader and has loved science fiction since childhood. From the classics of the fifties and sixties to the present day, he’s wanted it all: space, stars, astonishment and adventure – and now he’s discovering that writing it is even better. Creation Machine is his first novel. He is currently working on his second, Iron Gods. Andrew lives in Leicestershire.
To find out more, visit www.andrewbannister.com
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
www.penguin.co.uk
Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Andrew Bannister 2016
Cover photographs: Alamy and Shutterstock
Design by Stephen Mulcahey/TW
Andrew Bannister has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473527188
ISBN 9780593076484 (hb)
9780593076491 (tpb)
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Creation Machine Page 30