Stone Gods (4 page)

'Don't get me going. I'm on duty.'

I make my way back past the translucents, one of whom is doing his party trick with a Campari-soda. You can see the red going all the way down. So this is the future: girls Fixed at eight years old, maybe ten, hopefully twelve. Or will they want women's minds in girls' bodies and go for genetic reversal?

The future of women is uncertain. We don't breed in the womb any more, and if we aren't wanted for sex ... But there will always be men. Women haven't gone for little boys. Women have a different approach. Surrounded by hunks, they look for 'the ugly man inside'. Thugs and gangsters, rapists and wife-beaters are making a comeback. They may smile like beach-boys, but they are pure shark.

So this is the future. F is for Future.

Out of the window, where it's going dark, I can see the laser projection of Planet Blue. She needs us like a bed needs bedbugs. 'I'm sorry,' I say, to the planet that can't hear me. And I wish she could sail through space, unfurling her white clouds to solar winds, and find a new orbit, empty of direction, where we cannot go, and where we will never find her, and where the sea, clean as a beginning, will wash away any trace of humankind.

The phone rings - it's Manfred. He sounds excited. 'Pick up a new dress on your way home. Media wants a live TV interview with that Robo
sapiens
they're dismantling. You're going to front it. I want you to look good.'

'I already look good — we all look good.'

Cut the crap, Billie — get the dress.'

He hangs up again.

This is worse than a bad relationship. Still, it's my job, while I have it, so without more ado I leave the Peccadillo and walk a few blocks to a chic clothes store. I should be glad to be shopping in work time, but I'm not glad about anything. In fact, I'm depressed, which is pretty much illegal. By that I mean that at the first sign of depression I, you, anyone is supposed to see their doctor and be referred to someone from Enhancement, but I am someone from Enhancement, and I am depressed.

I tried smiling, straightening my back and walking positively into the scented, rnauve-coloured, cool interior of the fishpond-fitted intelligent shopping experience.

As soon as my dusty unacceptable feet triggered the sensor, Tasha's face appeared smiling on the wall. Tasha is in all the best women's clothing stores. It's a way of giving clone-clothing the exclusive but personal feel. 'Hi, Tasha,' I say, 'A112.'

'Hi, Billie, nice to see you. You look a little dusty.'

'I feel dusty. Can you find me something to wear? A dress?' My number has already given Tasha my name, details, size, previous items bought — in fact, my entire shopping history since nappies.

'Let's see,' said Tasha, 'I'll go into Wardrobe, and flash a few things on the wall, and if you like any, we'll send them right up to try.'

In a few seconds a selection of summer dresses and strappy sandals replaces Tasha's face on the wall.

'I think: you'd look good in numbers one, three and six with matching footwear,' she says from somewhere, nowhere.

She is right, of course, because computers are good at matching things — including people and their clothes. Mind you, as we all look more or less alike, and there are only two sizes, Model Thin and Model Thinner, it isn't hard.

'I'll send up one and six MT size,' says Tasha, before I have time to make a pretence of being part of this intelligent shopping experience. Never mind, the clothes are nice.

When I try on number six, it fits perfectly. I look wonderful in a normal sort of way because I always do look wonderful.

'You look wonderful,' says Tasha, purring like the computer cat that has just appeared next to her. 'Smartie thinks you look wonderful too.'

We all love Smartie, who is there to purr us on when we can't make up what is left of our minds. Some marketing guru realized long ago that animals, even fake ones, make people feel smug, good and relaxed. We feel like Tasha and Smartie really care, and who am I to say that they don't?

'Your size used to be MTT,' says Tasha. 'Are you happy with the extra weight?'

'Yes, I like it,' I say.

'I like it too,' says Tasha, taking her cue and, really, what is the difference between a size eight and a size ten? Only this: we still have a dieting industry.

Tasha, Smartie and I agree to charge the dress to my account, and I make a voluntary donation to Charity of the Month, which this month is Apes in the Wild.

'There isn't any Wild,' I say.

'Exactly so,' says Tasha. 'The money is to create a strip of Wild, and then put Apes in it.'

I don't know where the money goes, but everyone likes to give to charity: it shows we care.

'Anything else I can do for you today?' asks Tasha.

'Lipstick?'

'On me. My pleasure. I'll drop it in the basket by the door. Goodbye, Billie. See ya soon!'

Tasha disappears, leaving Smartie to wash himself. As I reach the door, my dress drops wrapped and ready into the Exit basket, and there is my lipstick in a bag on top. Very thoughtful ofTasha. Like a friend, I suppose.

I walk back towards the car park to pick up my Solo.

Guess what? The windshield is yellow. There's a code number flashing on it in black, like a demented hornet. As there is no parking meter, I have to key this code into my phone to drive away. It's what happens when you're caught on CCTV doing an illegal. But this isn't an illegal. This is private parking.

I am beginning to feel justifiable paranoia. I look around for the cameras, not that you can ever see them. I am being watched, but that isn't strange. That's life. We're all used to it. What is strange is that I feel I am being watched. Staked out. Observed. But there's no one there.

I stand for a moment in the bleak and empty underground parking lot. I am human. I am thirty. I am alone.

I key in the ACCEPT code, and begin my way back to the office. On the radio, all the talk is of the new blue planet.

You dreamed all your life there was somewhere to land, a place to lie down and sleep, with the sound of water nearby. You set off to find it, buying old maps and listening to travellers' tales, because you believed that the treasure was really there.

Here I am, dreaming blue but seeing red. There's a red duststorm beginning, like spider-mite, like ants, like things that itch and bite. No one has any idea where the red dust is coming from but it clogs the air-filtering systems, and since it started about two years ago, we are obliged to carry oxygen masks. This one might blow over or it might not.

As I close the air-vents on the Solo and switch to the compressed air in the cabin, I hear something on the radio about the arrest of twenty-five Unknowns. What are they saying? 'Caught in the space compound, attempting to sabotage the next mission to Planet Blue. All of them identity-closed X-Cits.'

I is for Identity. In the long past, governments could destroy your papers and rescind your passport. Then they learned how to freeze your assets and steal your cash. Now that we have no cash, just credit accounts, those can be barred, but the tough measure is Identity Closure. Simply, you no longer exist. You become an X-Cit, an ex-citizen. There will be no record of you ever having existed. You can't travel, you can't buy anything, you can't register for anything, you can't plead your case. You can't use what was your name. When you get out of jail, if you ever get out of jail, you will be micro-tagged for life as an Unknown. You see them sometimes, cleaning the streets, their taggers flashing at fifteen minute intervals, checked and recorded by the satellite system that watches us more closely than God ever did.

Twenty-five Unknowns. The official line is that the Resistance has been smashed. There is no Resistance to the Central Power. That's why it seems to me to be useful to be able to read — if only between the lines.

Ahead of me are the huge double laser-arches that take me back into Tech City. You can see the giant golden Ms for miles, glittering under the sky, adapting to the weather.

Sometimes, for security reasons, there are long queues through the high, cathedral-like vaulted welcome into the capital.

But today we are all speeding under the golden arms of the arches into our city, into our lives, into the world that is a stream of information, ceaselessly collected and projected.

She is all States, all Princes I, Nothing else is.

Manfred, shirt perfectly cut to his pees, is waiting for me.

'Congratulations, Billie. This is your lucky break. An in-depth special for
The One Minute Show
.'

'In depth? One Minute? Do you sense any conflict here, Manfred?'

'Don't make this difficult, Billie. All you have to do is interview the Robo
sapiens
, and write a Download for after broadcast.'

'That's Media work, not my work.'

'Billie, you are standing at a Career Moment. Stop complaining and take your opportunity.'

'Why me?'

'The Robo
sapiens
had the idea herself. She thought you were impressive at the presentation this morning. Call it her Last Request. This is a poignant personal moment for her. They are draining her data right now.'

Manfred sets off down the corridor. How come progress has done nothing for the corridor? They have always looked like this — dead carpet, faceless doors, blank pictures, water-cooler, chocolate machine, signs for the restrooms and the elevators.

The free corridor soon becomes a pass-code corridor. Biometric sensors note Manfred's very presence, and the doors swing open.

Guards lounge against the walls, shaking themselves upright as Manfred appears. We go into a bright white room. Sitting in the centre is the Robo
sapiens
, dark hair falling across her face. Her arm is bare and strapped with wires. She looks like she's giving blood. I suppose she is — the data she stores is her life's blood, and when it's gone, so is she.

'Sorry, I can't shake hands.' She looks across at me, smiling.

'Billie, meet Spike — a legend in her own lifetime. Spike, this is Billie Crusoe, as requested, for your final interview.'

Manfred turns to the three lab scientists and addresses them briefly. They nod, and file out of the room. Manfred is smiling. 'The cam-host is set to record. Short interview, and we'll edit it later. Billie — did you buy the dress? Put it on! Buzz me when you're done. I have to authorize your release myself'

'Am I in jail already?'

'And keep it light, upbeat, OK?'

He swings through the swing doors. We are alone.

Spike doesn't say anything, but she looks at me, and I know she'll be reading my data-chip implant. Everything about me is stored just above my wrist.

'I can't read your data,' she says, reading my mind instead. 'That function is passive while I'm draining.'

'How long will the draining take?'

'A few hours, including questions, then I'm done.'

'You were built entirely for the space mission, right?'

She nods and smiles. She is absurdly beautiful. I start to slip off my jeans and I feel her gaze as I stand in my bra and pants. Why am I embarrassed about taking off my clothes in front of a robot? I pull the dress over my head like a schoolgirl, untie my hair, and sit down. She is smiling, just a little bit, as though she knows her effect.

To calm myself down and appear in control I reverse the problem. 'Spike, you're a robot, but why are you such a drop-dead gorgeous robot? I mean, is it necessary to be the most sophisticated machine ever built and to look like a movie star?'

She answers simply: 'They thought I would be good for the boys on the mission.'

I am pondering the implications of this. Like a wartime pin-up? Like a live anti-depressant? Like truth is beauty, beauty truth? 'How good? I mean, I'm assuming you're not talking sexual services here.'

'What else is there to do in space for three years?'

'But inter-species sex is illegal.'

'Not on another planet it isn't. Not in space it isn't.'

'But you were also the most advanced member of the crew.'

'I'm still a woman.'

Manfred's voice comes booming into the room. 'This is not public-broadcast material.'

I get up to fetch some water, and as I pass Spike, I say, so low that she can barely hear me, 'Can we switch him blank?'

As I return with the water, she whispers, not looking at me.

'Red panel, blue relay.' I do it.

'We're still on cam-cast.'

'What you did Disables Record.'

'So you had sex with spacemen for three years?'

'Yes. I used up three silicon-lined vaginas.'

There is a roar from Somewhere, like a dinosaur in space. Obviously Record has not Disabled. 'Sorry, Manfred!' I yell. 'I know this is a prime-time family show.'

While my voice is placating Manfred, my feelings are confused. I want to be outraged on this woman's behalf, but she isn't a woman, she's a robot, and isn't it better that they used a robot instead of dispatching a couple of sex-slaves?

And yet. And yet Robo
sapiens
are not us, but they may become a nearer relative than the ape.