Conflict: Singularity's Children, #3

By Toby Weston

Action Adventure and Techno-Utopian Manifesto.

Conflict is compelling and provocative—a romp through the alien landscape of our not-so-distant future. 

 

The balance is shifting. The Forward Coalition is losing relevance, it knows the world is slipping through its fingers. But Nebulous and the Kin are still too weak to confront the old bulls, who, cornered and confused, are at their most deadly. Can the torrent of fantastic technologies emerging from the Klan's Fabs bring about utopia as the optimists claim, or only speed the planet's inevitable appointment with annihilation?

Cold wars are growing hot as governments lash out at what they don't understand. Plutocrats and blue-eyed idealists face off across a planet bristling with micro-nukes, chthonic bio-machines, and weaponised hallucinations. Mankind's million-year run will finally take it to the brink of an abyss with oceans of darkness awaiting above and below…
 

The fast-paced action ricochets the reader between neon stained riots of urban flesh and idyllic tropical islands where humans and their BugNet companions have built a pan-species utopia. Conflict crackles with the energy of an approaching storm as plutocrats and blue-eyed idealists face off across a planet bristling with micro-nukes, devilish bio-machines, and weaponized hallucinations.

 

"Skillfully blends the underlying pessimism of tech-noir with the core optimism of cyberpunk."

 

"Shockingly good! ...this is the best SF I've read in a couple of years. If you like Hertling or Gibson, you'll love this!"

 

"Fabulous imagination and reality. It's a wonderful story with great characters and objects and scenery."

 

Technology. Adventure. Hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Toby Weston
• Release date: Jul 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781393713487

Book preview

Preface

The Earth of this book is not ours.

This is not important.

It is mostly a literary device to allow the author lenience with dates and with histories past and future.

Mostly.

A glossary of technologies and locations from the books and a

full dramatis personæ of characters is available at:

www.tobyweston.net/members

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."

Antonio Gramsci

Chapter 1 – Narasimhan

The lecture theatre was pretty much how he remembered it, but less scruffy, with better fittings. Just as he himself had upgraded from white trainers and stone-washed jeans to tweed jacket, cargo pants and handmade moccasins.

Heads turned away from whatever worlds they had been inhabiting and followed him as he walked self-consciously from the double doors to the bench at the front of the lecture theatre. He placed his leather portfolio and scarf on its ancient, pitted, deeply waxed surface.

It felt strange to be back. It was years since he had delivered a lecture to proper students. It was not the same as performing keynotes to privileged, but mostly ignorant, luminaries. It was also years since he had been outside the Caliphate—all the T-shirts and bare legs made him feel like he was a visiting alien.

The lecture would be a favour for his old college—he was the famous alumnus returning to deliver words of inspiration to a new generation.

Turning away from the heat of keen minds radiating enthusiasm, Professor Abhyuday Narasimhan looked to the meticulously wiped whiteboard.

The pen squeaked as his loopy, erratic hand movements laid down navy blue lines:

../SinChildren_Book_Three__Conflict/Images/Blackboard/information_entropy_energy_mass.png

Still with his back to the class, the professor squeezed in the triangles he had left out:

../SinChildren_Book_Three__Conflict/Images/Blackboard/with_delta.png

Hard-won experience told him that this class of first-year undergraduates should be smirking and mocking his back by now. However, unnervingly, there was no sniggering or bangs of miscellaneous percussion, only sounds, which generously interpreted, might have been hundreds of sleeves brushing varnished desks as fingers took up pens and styli.

Still looking away, he continued with his often-rehearsed routine, and said:

Through the transitive property of equality, we can see…

And, with a flourish, he wrote:

../SinChildren_Book_Three__Conflict/Images/Blackboard/information_mass.png

He turned, expecting, at best, a sea of blank faces; at worst, rows of empty benches, and perhaps the backs of hastily departing pupils. Instead, he was confronted with hundreds of students diligently writing down his words. It was disconcerting.

Hello, I am Professor Narasimhan. He waited until the murmuring of hellos and welcomes had petered out. You can call me Abhyuday. I am very much pleased to have been invited here today to share with you my work. He took in the fresh faces and then caught two older figures sitting further back, slightly away from the other students. They might have been lecturers sitting in, but they might just as well have been the Caliph’s Mutaween, watching him for slips in obedience. "It is also an honour for me to represent Amir al-Mu’minin," he added, just in case.

More affirmative buzz from the room.

Now, have any of you already heard a little about my work?

Hands shot up.

Oh, very good. I am very flattered. So, I am not going to focus on the math today. It is all in my paper, or my book even. So, today, instead, I want to share with you some of the implications and questions still open. Perhaps one day some of you may help to close the gaps. He smiled. Before we start, do you yourselves have any questions?

Professor Nara-sim-han? A boy, aged perhaps twenty, had raised his hand.

Yes, of course, but please call me Abhyuday.

Abooday?

Abhyuday, he corrected.

Apoodee?

It’s okay, never mind. What is your question?

Do you think you will win the Ozimkov Prize?

Oh, well, truly I don’t think about such things. Narasimhan really did hate these questions. He couldn’t help the waswas that came with the swell of pride, and the inevitable shame that followed such unclean egotism. He glanced fleetingly at the two possible Mutaween and concluded, The universe is a gift, and my ability to perceive it is another gift. All praise is to Allah. Are there any other questions before we begin?

What would you do with the money if you won? a girl in an indecent vest top asked. But a few other students, who were more interested in physics than celebrity, hushed her down, so that Narasimhan didn’t have to answer.

Okay, thank you, thank you. So, let me see. As we already know, mass curves space…

***

This is the guy? Dee whispered, digging Keith playfully in the ribs with her elbow.

Sure. What were you expecting?

And we can measure mass, the professor continued at the front of the theatre. We can measure mass with gravity and we can measure gravity very accurately these days with Condensate balances...

Dee shrugged. Stick to the plan? she asked.

I don’t see why not. We know where he’s staying. Let’s pick him up later. Drink?

It’s nine fifteen in the morning!

Coffee then?

Yeah, sure.

***

We can measure flows of information as changes in mass...

The two observers were standing and squeezing along their bench, making for the exit. Narasimhan remarked to himself that one was a female, not unheard of for Mutaween, but rather unusual. Either way, he was more comfortable once they were gone.

"…and what are thoughts if not flows of information? You may have read or heard in the streams that I have weighed a thought… well, this is precisely what I have done…"

***

Even though he was literally dead to his homeland—his biometrics a ruined maze of circular references, which might eventually lead to a confused plumber in Bedfordshire who looked quite a lot like Keith—being back in England always made him feel skittish. At least Bristol was better than the foaming insanity of up-North. There was still some money down south and Bristol University was old and prestigious; a liberal haven, rather than a fanatical hotbed of Forward militancy.

Some kids wore T-shirts with the trollified head of Lawrence Pritchard—the First Minister of the Forward Coalition—poking through a noose. The more daring wore black and the plain sans-serif ‘N’. A few even sported tongue-in-cheek tributes to Keith’s King on their chest; tridents or caricatures of muscled and imposing sea gods with massive beards. Keith knew that Niato, with his Japanese heritage, would love to be able to carry off one of those.

They had a coffee, watching indulgently as harassed students came and went. Then, Keith stuffed the duvet and bottle of water they’d bought in the boot of their hired auto before heading off for something to eat. Lunch at the university canteen was uninspired, but pleasantly unpretentious: a heap of chips with some sort of stew ladled on top. They both took the vegan option.

Keith insisted that they have at least one drink in the bar, which turned into three. Then it was five o’clock, their quarry would soon be on the move.

Trusting their handlers, they didn’t follow Narasimhan. Instead, they went straight to his hotel. Dozens of rats, bats and crows had scouted the place before Dee and Keith had even set foot in England. When it was raining, as it was today, guests were dropped directly by the lifts in the basement carpark. Their BugNet agents had identified the ramp into the hotel’s carpark as the least surveilled location, best suited for their recruitment transaction. As soon as they got the word that Narasimhan was on the way, they let out a few BugNet cockroaches to get up close and phreak the signals of a single inconvenient camera.

Narasimhan’s auto turned off the road and headed towards his hotel. As expected, it took the ramp down to the carpark, turning the first corner, but slamming to a halt to avoid another auto badly parked across both lanes.

Let’s see how he takes this then, Dee said. He clocked us this morning. Did you notice?

Yeah, said Keith. He probably thought we were religious police, sent here to make sure he doesn’t get seduced by the flesh…

Bacon or human? Dee asked, pulling down on her loose, white T-shirt to ensure ample amounts of human surface topology were visible.

Let’s hope human, said Keith. We don’t have time to run back and get a BLT sandwich. With that, they both set off towards Narasimhan’s vehicle.

Professor Narasimhan? Dee said hesitantly as she approached his auto.

Yes, hello. Can I help you?

I hope so. I have a little problem.

Narasimhan recognised the woman from the lecture theatre that morning. Up close, she didn’t look like any Mutaween he had ever met. Her hair was pink and she was shamelessly displaying her womanhood. He stepped out to see if he could help.

I will certainly endeavour to assist. What is the problem?

Please take a look at this. Dee was pointing into the boot of the auto slewed across the road.

Narasimhan walked over to join her and followed her gesture. He was disconcerted to see a comfortable nest of duvet, a bottle of water and a flashlight.

Err… He began stumbling back, but the woman’s partner was suddenly behind him. Narasimhan looked between the crazy woman and the man, trying to work out what was going on. The man didn’t have a beard, or even the pale, vulnerable chin of the recently shaved.

You can help me a lot by climbing into the back of this auto, Professor Narasimhan, Dee said disarmingly, gesturing to the boot of their auto. It is very comfortable.

No, no… I don’t think so.

Sorry about this, said Keith. But we do have to insist. I have a gun. He had taken Narasimhan’s shoulders gently when the professor had backed into him.

But, more importantly, Dee continued. We have your wife and daughter…

Narasimhan tensed and his neck began to colour. Don’t hurt them!

Professor Narasimhan, I can honestly tell you it is a pleasure working with somebody who has his priorities right, Keith confessed.

You have been drinking! Narasimhan said as the lager fumes drifted past his head.

Get in the fucking car! Dee shouted.

Keith gave him a little push and the professor scurried forward and climbed into the open boot. It was a squeeze, but he turned on his side and lay down, bringing his knees up to his chest. It was only when he was comfortable that he realised quite what he had gotten himself into, and made to speak. But this was not the first scientist they had kidnapped, and the boot was slammed shut before he could finish whatever it was he was about to plead.

Chapter 2 – TeenLife™

Breasts mostly, but buttocks, too. Oversized and animated; an undulating façade of flesh slathered over every spiritually compatible surface of the city’s architecture.

Stella had found a place in the packed carriage next to a chubby woman bescarved in a purple tudung, gripping a bag of cleaning products between her knees. Stella’s boyfriend Jeno was trying to find a free space where he wouldn’t intersect any of the other passengers’ bodies or avatars.

As the carriage trundled from north to south, Stella sat facing the Qibla, with her back to the blushing riot. By decree, ads visible when facing Mecca must not compromise the delicate sensibilities of the faithful.

She ignored the reflections, which refused to comply with the Caliph’s fatwa; bouncing indiscriminately and insubordinately from windows or Spex to intrude on her retinas.

She didn’t care about ideas of propriety. However, these days, sometimes her own flesh was featured, and she tried to avoid being confronted with her hyper-sexualised image; breathless, with parted lips and sensual eyes, leaning down from multi-storey mega screens.

The train rattled along its ancient concrete skyway, allowing on new arrivals at each station; then, reaching their common destination, discharging a bulge of energetic revellers dressed to party. Jeno laid his weightless hand on Stella’s shoulder and they followed the group down the steps.

The night was hot and perfumed. Monkeys and birds chirped and screamed from the black vegetation around them. A throng of people milled outside the club, exotic and beautiful.

Listlessly, Stella performed her practised pouting poses; not bothering to check for the existence of an audience. She really didn’t care. Besides, she had read the metrics and knew that her drowsy movements and vacant stare were accepted as signs of deep emotional scarring, which seemed to increase her appeal with a core subset of her fans.

A few heads turned to follow as they passed. Dunia, as the club was called, occupied four basement levels of a tower, which had never been completed. At ground level, the only visible structure was a discrete retro-futuristic pagoda in the middle of an exotically planted garden. Architecturally it was a folly, little more than a roof for a wide set of stairs leading down to a bank of elevators.

The pagoda’s small café garden was open twenty-four hours, popular during the day with tourists and local office workers escaping their cubicles to enjoy overpriced cups of coffee and perhaps a scoop of Dunia’s wonderful homemade ice-cream. At lunch and early evening, the degenerate subterranean aspects existed in schizophrenic disconnection with the surface; but after dark, the music and atmosphere seeped up out of the abyss to spread and draw in groups of partygoers, turning the park into a nightly, self-assembled festival.

Up top, amongst the tamed jungle, the vibe was laid back. Consisting mostly of a younger set, unable to afford the fee at the door, they were content to enjoy the night and the company of friends, while they watched KL’s elite glide up and descend. Firebrands from Nebulous and the other agitant Klans would often show, distributing merch or drugs and delivering live streams to knots of variously engaged listeners.

As Stella and Jeno approached the club, Stella looked longingly back at these clusters of revellers sitting on mats, talking and touching. A chubby man in a too-tight suit was standing on a bench, surrounded by a small crowd. Judging by his wild gesticulation and the odd word Stella caught as she passed, he seemed to be prophesying impending doom or inciting bloody revolution. He didn’t seem to mind that the hemisphere of people around him appeared more interested in the diminutive, species-ambiguous woolly animal curled at his feet than the contents of his rhetoric. The air was heavy with the aromas of burnt or vaporised medicinal leaves and, despite the man’s earnest apocalyptic delivery, the night rang with sweet laughter.

There was a queue to get into the club proper, but Stella was ushered through.

Dunia was a place outside time, another example of ‘the Real’ re-arranging itself around patterns laid out in the digital. Its architecture was simple: a cube with dance floors on its interior surfaces. Looking up from the Dunia in KL was to look across to the Woruld in London. Left and right, facing each other across a space crowded with circular platforms, were Mundo in Los Angeles and мир in Moscow. The seating was laid out at the perimeters of disks, suspended invisibly, rotating sedately, rimmed with plush velvet sofas. Like gears in a colossal baroque clock, these meshed both horizontally and vertically, allowing virtual—or agile and adventurous—guests to transition between axes and time zones. The two remaining faces rotated through a plethora of wannabe locations, too B-list to deserve a permanent mapping within Dunia.

Stella allowed a polite man, with the physique of a bodybuilder, to lift a red velvet rope and let Jeno and herself onto a VIP disk. They joined a group of glitterati who looked her way as she sat down. She ignored them, especially the aloof pair who obviously marked her as a social parasite. Their tutting as they got up and left was audible, even over the club’s pumping mukka.

Stella waved her hand to call an attendant to take her order. A tiny bird swooped down and hovered a couple of feet from her face.

She couldn’t tell if it was real, virtual or animatronic. Prosecco, she told it.

Her viewers would want action, but she could probably sit and relax for a few minutes before Jeno—or her cloud-based minders—began to nag her to do something captivating. She scanned the interior of the Escheresque cube, looking for other celebs she could improv a hook-up with. The easiest way to generate ‘material’ was to simply bump into another personality and swap gossip and affectionate mutual praise. This news would be taken up, regurgitated, commented on and spun back into the rich web of superficial interactions that sustained the interest of hundreds of millions of people across the planet. Stella had arranged to bump into a couple of vocaloids from a local pop group, but that wasn’t scheduled for another hour. As her gaze jumped from face to face, traversing the complex internal geometry, her Spex highlighted one severely beautiful, latex-sheathed shape across the room; a body gyrating obscenely in the centre of a circle of dancers aligned to her movements.

Even better for hype than meeting up with a celebrity friend would be blundering into an enemy and precipitating an A-list cat fight. Sheena Black—the stupid skinny slut, air-fucking on the Mundo dance floor—could always be counted on to say something way out of line, forcing Stella’s loyal fans to swoop in, all filled with delighted outrage, to defend her. If they were lucky, the episode might be blown up into a full-on feud.

Unfortunately, it looked like Sheena was physically present in the LA time zone and Stella had no intention of going mountaineering. Sheena noticed Stella’s attention; alerted by her Spex, which would be continually scanning the digital for mentions. The algorithms would probably have picked Sheena’s own face out of Stella’s live stream feed.

Sheena favoured Stella with a pouting wink and then, very deliberately, extended her middle finger while blowing a kiss across the room.

Well, better than nothing, Stella supposed.

She accepted her drink from a human waiter and took a sip. Jeno said something. She looked away and was caught in the middle of a perfumed exhalation from the tiny Asian woman, or possibly boy, sitting next to them.

It was dark and smoky. The music was cerebral. Lasers and clouds of birds—oid or virtual, Stella had decided—filled the space between the platforms. Complicated beats overlaid helical melodies. Spiritual chanting danced with electronica. The mukka built to a crescendo, then blurred and spread out to take in the entire universe. An isolated voice broke through and swelled to dominate—

Stella felt herself being carried away and decided to give in to her spirit—which, it seemed, was already halfway to the dance floor.

As a schoolgirl on the Farm, with the others, while the boys beat on pots and tubs with sticks and wooden spoons, the girls had learnt the local dances from the Pussycat’s multifarious collection of whores.

—the beat broke. Poetry acquired musical rhythm.

On the dance floor, she closed her eyes. She held the shawl tight across her back, letting its lace, lifted by her movements, twist and waft. A circle had cleared around her. She moved her soul into her knees and elbows, meshing birdlike movements to deliberate gestures of her head. Fingers curling and flaring. Staccato became flowing. Her shawl was ejected and carried upward and away by a growing flock of golden birds. Beneath the filamentous, geometric cotton-lace—now ascending to Woruld above, amongst a galaxy of golden stars—she wore a bodysuit of wrapped white ribbon. Birds darted down from the glowing halo around her. She smiled and shooed them away as they nipped in to catch ribbons and unwrap her—

A cappella voices incanting palindromic poems. Kaleidoscopes of fragmented meaning—

Jeno, her knight, came to her aid and they fell into a set piece. They danced while he swatted at the mischievous avian cupids. But the clever birds would not be thwarted, and now, the shawl—somehow cleverly substituted by its identical digital twin—was dropped over him. He was enveloped, swaddled like a stork’s infant bundle, and carried aloft by what looked like a hundred chirping golden phoenixes.

A new voice joined as counterpoint, its beats clear with crystal perfection—

Stella pretended not to notice Jeno’s exit and feigned indifference as the newly energised birds performed the aerobatics necessary to peel her free from her wrappings, while she spun to the ascendant hymn. Within the cloud of birds, many hundreds of them now, circling, trailing ribbons, which shimmered in the laser light, she was unwrapped until she was left with nothing but a few strategically placed shreds.

Shouts and cries stretched into a single vocal tone, which sustained, lifting all precariously higher. The dancers on the floors were held captive, raised on tiptoes, arms pulsing—reaching up across the Woruld, well past their climax, sustained by sound. Faces lined the rims of the suspended disks. Bodies turned in their seats, kneeling on red plush, hands gripping brass rails; watching, enthralled, reaching hungry fingers to the dancers.

Finally, the bass returned. With a thousand screams and cries, the entire club achieved its single distributed orgasm.

—Breathe—

Wrapped again in two metres of fine crocheted lace, Stella pushed her way through the applauding crowd and headed back to her seat. She ‘subvocalised’ to her Spex and had them highlight Sheena among the spent throngs. Sheena had paused her pornographic floorshow. Their eyes met briefly. Stella placed two fingers onto her crimson lips and sent her adversary a kiss—which flapped its butterfly wings and set off erratically across the confused space that separated them. Sheena looked away in disgust and huffed off to surround herself with her fans.

Jeno was happy—which was Stella’s clue that the punters were, too. She ordered another drink—determined to more than taste this one—and settled back on the soft velvet, shifting the shawl to allow a soft breeze to touch her clammy skin.

A young man and woman entered the VIP zone. They sat down on the section of the perimeter sofa that the ‘tutters’ had vacated—or, at least, the man did. The woman veered off and, instead of sitting, kept going, walking the circumference of the seating disk. She blundered through legs not retracted with sufficient haste, showing very little respect for either people or geometric integrity.

The club was filling up. Stella shook her head with something like scorn and pity at Sheena, who was desperately trying to match Stella’s tightly choreographed, perfectly executed, high-production-value routine, by stepping up her gyrating and flashing the odd nipple: just like the subscriber-whore that she was.

Stella could feel the new arrival staring at her impolitely. She ignored him for as long as she could, then snapped: What?

The man looked away quickly. He had been staring, stealing illicit glances, but now seemed inordinately interested in something nonspecific on the other side of the dance floor. Stella didn’t let him off the hook, he had been caught red-handed. She continued to glare at the side of his reddening cheek, ignoring the crazy, circular power walking of his girlfriend.

Eventually, he was compelled to turn into the heat of her stare.

Hey, Stella… it’s me.

Over the previous two years that she had been working for TeenLife™, Stella had established herself as one of the stable’s hottest properties. The voyeuristic impulse, which had explained her audience’s early fascination with the rescued, trafficked orphan, had become displaced into a parasocial bonding, where Stella was a self-surrogate for fans to vicariously experience triumphs—and, more often, tragedies—as they dialled in from their own perplexing and unsatisfactory lives.

Stella the beautiful; the whimsical; the irrepressible serial victim of a harsh patriarchal world—who still managed to look great and meet boys.

Look at her, she’s out there, so I don’t need to be.

Stella stared at the stranger, who, without altering his features, seemed to transform into Marcel—in the years she had been away, he had become a man. His face was more angular, his nose bigger, his jaw square and dimpled; but it was the same wavy mass of brown hair, and now he flashed the same, bashful smile, which finally erased any doubt.

She was literally struck dumb for long moments of frozen time.

This life was a Styrofoam package around the fragile core of her soul. The Coin, the clubs, the clothes and her hyper-managed synthetic celebrity life—these all formed a buffer zone between her and any sharp objects that might pierce the cyst, which had grown over her psychological wounds.

The first emotion was shock—if that even counted as an emotion. It was certainly a feeling, and, breaking through the internal stalemate, Stella was suddenly feeling very angry.

What was he even doing here? This was an exclusive club. Her deal with the place and with TeenLife™ was, very specifically, her right to absolute hermit-like privacy.

Old friends shouldn’t be able to just sit down next to her and talk—that was the entire point!

She got up to go. She’d deal with whatever the security lapse was later. Now, she just needed to be gone.

Hey, don’t go! This took too long to set up!

[Message] – Super Fan —10 mins 1-1 time remaining.

You! Stella said with incredulity. "You’re a Super Fan?!" Astonishment momentarily triumphed over rage.

Yeah, sure. Not me, it’s the Pussycat really. I’m sharing the Madam’s account.

Jeno, privacy please. Stella glared briefly at her pouting virtual boyfriend. Jeno shrugged, got up and moved away, taking the live stream with him. He would be scanning the dance floors for something to fill the sudden gap in 50 million attention spans.

Marcel, you damn idiot! What a waste of time!

What were we supposed to do? We missed you too much. Marcel slid over so that they were no longer shouting above the resurgent mukka.

Stella was warmed by involuntary happiness; but anger and defensive snark were just below the surface.

Look, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to talk to anybody. It’s not fair for you to barge in like this!

But we are family, Stella. You’ve got to come home. It’s been too long. We want you back. The girls at the Pussycat all stream you like every day. It’s not just me, we all miss you. You’ve got to come home some time…

Come home? To the Farm? It’s a shit slum! Why would I want to go back to float through garbage?

Don’t be so mean!

You’re a Super Fan, so I’ve got to give you ten minutes. We can dance if you want, but I’m not coming home. Don’t even talk about it once Jeno comes back. TeenLife won’t like it and you’ll just get kicked out.

No, they hit me up. It must be good drama for your fake life! A big audience to see you push away your friends. Marcel looked away.

The woman had completed another circle of the seating disk and was jogging in a tight loop around Marcel, who had now stood up.

"I’m going. No need to dance with me. Dance with your oid!"

Jeno was on his way back, frowning, clearly not happy to be referred to in such a way. However, the Sages who ran him would be more concerned about breaking the fourth wall and reminding Stella’s fans that he was just pixels and not a real boy.

Shut up, for God’s sake, said Stella. You spy on me anyway, so take your dance! I’m a whore after all, right?

[Message] – Contract breach – R-Rated Content – Fine 0.5Mc

What’s wrong with you?! said Marcel. I thought you might be happy to see me!

Well, I’m not. I didn’t want to see you! I don’t want to see you.

Please… he begged, suddenly aware of the precarious crust they were walking out on to. Don’t let’s part like this. I’ll go. But maybe I might come back and we can talk? You don’t need this…

Marcel reached out his hand to hold Stella’s shoulder, to make her admit that, at least in some sense, she still wanted his friendship. But Jeno jealously reached past her and slapped Marcel’s avatar’s hand out the way.

Step off, bud! Jeno, the synthetic hallucination, said to Marcel, the virtual avatar. She doesn’t want you.

Shut the fuck up. Fake person!

Marcel stepped past Stella, getting right up to Jeno’s face, bringing his nose to just centimetres away from the virtual boy’s flawless skin and puppy-dog eyes. But something deep in the uncanny valley of those eyes must have conjured revulsion—with a sharp, two-handed push, Marcel shoved Jeno in the chest.

At some base level, he was trying to get this artificial enabler away from his damaged friend; trying to separate Stella from TeenLife™ and its insidious whispering, so that he could tell her how much he missed her. How much they all missed her, and how bad for her this fake life was. She didn’t need to sell her soul and stream her body.

He had fucked it all up. He had wanted to start with a message from Chris: Sagong Marine needed her. She could make money doing real work. Or, perhaps he would have begun with Segi’s offer to take her back to his garden, for real this time if she wanted. But, as it turned out, he had been stunned by her and struck dumb. The icy crust that seemed to block all emotional warmth had robbed him of his confidence and he had fucked up this one chance.

The push must have been harder than intended. Jeno tripped backwards and fell heavily onto the rich carpet, his head barely missing the edge of a glass table on his way down.

What are you doing! How dare you bully us! Stella said, shocked.

Stella, I’m sorry. Chris said he needs you back at Sagong…

Shut up! She turned towards her boyfriend, who, having executed a rippling ninja flex, was standing again. Jeno, are you okay? she asked with apparently genuine concern.

Jeno nodded curtly to Stella, then rounded on Marcel. He crossed the two steps separating them in a sort of crouching, sliding lunge. As he closed the final metre, he dropped deeper and span like a dancer. Mid spin, his back to his enemy, Jeno’s trailing leg slid out behind him, swept low and connected with Marcel’s ankles. With both legs knocked from under him, Marcel’s body rotated like a wheel; legs ascending, head descending. Meanwhile, Jeno completed his spin and, in a fluid continuation, pivoting up on the leg which had just swept Marcel, he rose from the crouch and used his momentum to deliver a brutal kick with his other leg.

The follow-up connected with the airborne Marcel. He was swatted like a toy—or a weightless computer avatar—and smashed through metres of empty air to thud heavily into the wall behind the sofa. As Marcel entered the perpendicular geometry, Mundo’s virtual gravity took over, reality rotated and the wall became floor. From Stella’s perspective, Marcel thudded into the wall, then became stuck there like a squashed fly on a windscreen.

Jeno leapt over the sofa in pursuit. An elegant somersault brought him into compliance with local digital gravity. He faced Marcel, who was struggling to his feet.

A few thousand miles away, the furious Marcel began fumbling in a box under his bed for his favourite controller.

Fucking sucker punching bastard! We’ll see about this! he mumbled.

Jeno waited patiently while Marcel got up. As Marcel paged through menus and paired his controller to his Spex, his avatar did some limbering-up pantomime. A grinning audience had spontaneously formed a ring around the combatants and they had taken up the chant of Fight! Fight! Fight!

All this action is freaking out the dolphin.

Stella looked away from where the two figures were facing each other inside a circle of baying observers.

What?

The dolphin. The guy speaking must have come over to stand next to her while she had been distracted. He was