Part 1 (1/2)

Gla.s.shouse.

by Charles Stross.

Acknowledgments.

Thanks due to: James Nicoll, Robert aNojaya Sneddon, Cory Doctorow, Andrew J. Wilson, Caitlin Blasdell, David Clements, Sean Eric f.a.gan, Farah Mendlesohn, Ken MacLeod, Juliet McKenna, and all the usual suspects.

aThis apparatus,a said the Officer, grasping a connecting rod and leaning against it, ais our previous Commandantas invention. . . . Have you heard of our previous Commandant? No? Well, Iam not claiming too much when I say that the organization of the entire penal colony is his work. We, his friends, already knew at the time of his death that the administration of the colony was so self-contained that even if his successor had a thousand new plans in mind he would not be able to alter anything of the old plan, at least not for several years . . . Itas a shame that you didnat know the old Commandant!a a”aIn the Penal Colony,a Frank Kafka Who still talks nowadays about the Armenians?

a”Adolf Hitler, 1939.

Note.

The polities descended from the Republic of Is do not use days, weeks, or other terrestrial dating systems other than for historical or archaeological purposes; however, the cla.s.sical second has been retained as the basis of timekeeping.

Hereas a quick ready-reckoner: one second One second, the time taken for light to travel 299,792,458 meters in vacuum one kilosecond Archaic: 16 minutes one hundred kiloseconds (1 diurn) Archaic: 27 hours, 1 day and three hours one megasecond (1 cycle) Ten diurns. Archaic: eleven days and six hours thirty megaseconds (1 m-year) 300 diurns. Archaic: 337 Earth days (11 months) one gigasecond Archaic: approximately 31 Earth years one terasecond Archaic: approximately 31,000 Earth years (half age of human species) one petasecond Archaic: approximately 31,000,000 Earth years (half elapsed time since end of Cretaceous era).

1.

Duel.

A dark-skinned human with four arms walks toward me across the floor of the club, clad only in a belt strung with human skulls. Her hair forms a smoky wreath around her open and curious face. Sheas interested in me.

aYouare new around here, arenat you?a she asks, pausing in front of my table.

I stare at her. Apart from the neatly articulated extra shoulder joints, the body sheas wearing is roughly ortho, following the traditional human body plan. The skulls are subsized, strung together on a necklace threaded with barbed wire and roses. aYes, Iam a nube,a I say. My parole ring makes my left index finger tingle, a little reminder. aIam required to warn you that Iam undergoing ident.i.ty reindexing and rehabilitation. Ia”people in my statea”may be p.r.o.ne to violent outbursts. Donat worry, thatas just a statutory warning: I wonat hurt you. What makes you ask?a She shrugs. Itas an elaborate rippling gesture that ends with a wiggle of her hips. aBecause I havenat seen you here before, and Iave been coming here most nights for the past twenty or thirty diurns. You can earn extra rehab credit by helping out. Donat worry about the parole ring, most of us here have them. I had to warn people myself a while ago.a I manage to force a smile. A fellow inmate? Further along the program? aWould you like a drink?a I ask, gesturing at the chair next to me. aAnd what are you called, if you donat mind me asking?a aIam Kay.a She pulls out the chair and sits, flipping her great ma.s.s of dark hair over her shoulder and tucking her skulls under the table with two hands as she glances at the menu. aHmm, I think I will have an iced double mocha pickup, easy on the coca.a She looks at me again, staring at my eyes. aThe clinic arranges things so that thereas always a volunteer around to greet nubes. Itas my turn this swing s.h.i.+ft. Do you want to tell me your name? Or where youare from?a aIf you like.a My ring tingles, and I remember to smile. aMy nameas Robin, and youare right, Iam fresh out of the rehab tank. Only been out for a meg, to tell the truth.a (A bit over ten planetary days, a million seconds.) aIam fromaa”I go into quicktime for a few subseconds, trying to work out what story to give her, ending up with an approximation of the trutha”aaround these parts, actually. But just out of memory excision. I was getting stale and needed to do something about whatever it was I was getting stale over.a Kay smiles. Sheas got sharp cheekbones, bright teeth framed between perfect lips; sheas got bilateral symmetry, three billion years of evolutionary heuristics and homeobox genes generating a face thatas a mirror of itselfa”and where did that thought come from? I ask myself, annoyed. Itas tough, not being able to tell the difference between your own thoughts and a postsurgical ident.i.ty prosthesis.

aI havenat been human for long,a she admits. aI just moved here from Zemlya.a Pause. aFor my surgery,a she adds quietly.

I fiddle with the ta.s.sels dangling from my sword pommel. Thereas something not quite right about them, and itas bugging me intensely. aYou lived with the ice ghouls?a I ask.

aNot quitea”I was an ice ghoul.a That gets my attention: I donat think Iave ever met a real live alien before, even an ex-alien. aWere youaa”whatas the word?a”aborn that way, or did you emigrate for a while?a aTwo questions.a She holds up a finger. aTrade?a aTrade.a I remember to nod without prompting, and my ring sends me a flicker of warmth. Itas crude conditioning: reward behavior indicative of recovery, punish behavior that reinforces the postsurgical fugue. I donat like it, but they tell me itas an essential part of the process.

aI emigrated to Zemlya right after my previous memory dump.a Something about her expression strikes me as evasive. What could she be omitting? A failed business venture, personal enemies? aI wanted to study ghoul society from the inside.a Her c.o.c.ktail emerges from the table, and she takes an experimental sip. aTheyare so strange.a She looks wistful for a moment. aBut after a generation I got . . . sad.a Another sip. aI was living among them to study them, you see. And when you live among people for gigaseconds on end you canat stop yourself getting involved, not unless you go totally post and upgrade youra”well. I made friends and watched them grow old and die until I couldnat take any more. I had to come back and excise the . . . the impact. The pain.a Gigaseconds? Thirty planetary years each. Thatas a long time to spend among aliens. Sheas studying me intently. aThat must have been very precise surgery,a I say slowly. aI donat remember much of my previous life.a aYou were human, though,a she prods.

aYes.a Emphatically yes. Shards of memory remain: a flash of swords in a twilit alleyway in the remilitarized zone. Blood in the fountains. aI was an academic. A member of the professoriat.a An array of firewalled a.s.sembler gates, lined up behind the fearsome armor of a customs checkpoint between polities. Pus.h.i.+ng screaming, imploring civilians toward a shadowy entrancea”aI taught history.a That much isa”wasa”true. aIt all seems boring and distant now.a The brief flash of an energy weapon, then silence. aI was getting stuck in a rut, and I needed to refresh myself. I think.a Which is almost but not quite a complete lie. I didnat volunteer, someone made me an offer I couldnat refuse. I knew too much. Either consent to undergo memory surgery, or my next death would be my last. At least, thatas what it said Iad done in the dead-paper letter that was waiting by my bedside when I awakened in the rehab center, fresh from having the water of Lethe delivered straight to my brain by the molecular-sized robots of the hospitaler surgeon-confessors. I grin, sealing the partial truths with an outright lie. aSo I had a radical rebuild, and now I canat remember why.a aAnd you feel like a new human,a she says, smiling faintly.

aYes.a I glance at her lower pair of hands. I canat help noticing that sheas fidgeting. aEven though I stuck with this conservative body plan.a Iam very conservatively turned outa”a medium-height male, dark eyes, wiry, the stubble of dark hair beginning to appear across my scalpa”like an unreconstructed Eurasian from the pre-s.p.a.ce era, right down to the leather kilt and hemp sandals. aI have a strong self-image, and I didnat really want to shed ita”too many a.s.sociations tied up in there. Those are nice skulls, by the way.a Kay smiles. aThank you. And thank you again for not asking, by the way.a aAsking?a aThe usual question: Why do you look like, well . . .a I pick up my gla.s.s for the first time and take a sip of the bitingly cold blue liquid. aYouave just spent an entire prehistoric human lifetime as an ice ghoul and people are needling you for having too many arms?a I shake my head. aI just a.s.sumed you have a good reason.a She crosses both pairs of arms defensively. aIad feel like a liar looking like . . .a She glances past me. There are a handful of other people in the bar, a few bushujo and a couple of cyborgs, but most of them are wearing orthohuman bodies. Sheas glancing at a woman with long blond hair on one side of her head and stubble on the other, wearing a filmy white drape and a sword belt. The woman is braying loudly with laughter at something one of her companions just saida”berserkers on the prowl for players. aHer, for example.a aBut you were orthohuman once?a aI still am, inside.a The penny drops: She wears xenohuman drag when sheas in public because sheas shy. I glance over at the group and accidentally make eye contact with the blond woman. She looks at me, stiffens, then pointedly turns away. aHow long has this bar been here?a I ask, my ears burning. How dare she do that to me?

aAbout three megs.a Kay nods at the group of orthos across the room. aI really would avoid paying obvious attention to them, theyare duelists.a aSo am I.a I nod at her. aI find it therapeutic.a She grimaces. aI donat play, myself. Itas messy. And I donat like pain.a aWell, neither do I,a I say slowly. aThatas not the point.a The point is that we get angry when we canat remember who we are, and we lash out at first; and a structured, formal framework means that n.o.body else needs to get hurt.

aWhere do you live?a she asks.

aIam in theaa”sheas transparently changing the subject, I realizea”aclinic, still. I mean, everything I had, Iaa”liquidated and rana”aI travel light. I still havenat decided what to be in this new lifetime, so there doesnat seem much point in having lots of baggage.a aAnother drink?a Kay asks. aIam buying.a aYes, please.a A warning bell rings in my head as I sense Blondie heading toward our table. I pretend not to notice, but I can feel a familiar warmth in my stomach, a tension in my back. Ancient reflexes and not a few modern cheat-codes take over and I surrept.i.tiously loosen my sword in its scabbard. I think I know what Blondie wants, and Iam perfectly happy to give it to her. Sheas not the only one around here p.r.o.ne to frequent flashes of murderous rage that take a while to cool. The counselor told me to embrace it and give in, among consenting fellows. It should burn itself out in time. Which is why Iam carrying.

But the postexcision rages arenat my only irritant. In addition to memory edits, I opted to have my age reset. Being postadolescent again brings its own dynamic of hormonal torment. It makes me pace my apartment restlessly, drives me to stand in the white cube of the hygiene suite and draw blades down the insides of my arms, curious to see the bright rosy blood welling up. s.e.x has acquired an obsessive importance Iad almost forgotten. The urges to s.e.x and violence are curiously hard to fight off when you awaken drained and empty and unable to remember who you used to be, but theyare a lot less fun, the second or third time through the cycle of rejuvenation.

aListen, donat look round, but you probably ought to know that someone is about toa”a Before I can finish the sentence, Blondie leans over Kayas shoulder and spits in my face. aI demand satisfaction.a She has a voice like a diamond drill.

aWhy?a I ask stonily, heart thumping with tension as I wipe my cheek. I can feel the rage building, but I force myself to keep it under control.

aYou exist.a Thereas a certain type of look some postrehab cases get while theyare in the psychopathic dissociative stage, still reknitting the raveled threads of their personality and memories into a new ident.i.ty. The insensate anger at the world, the existential hatea”often directed at their previously whole self for putting them into this world, naked and stripped of memoriesa”generates its own dynamic. Wild black-eyed hatred and the perfect musculature of the optimized phenotype combine to lend Blondie an intimidating, almost primal presence. Nevertheless, sheas got enough self-control to issue a challenge before she attacks.

Kay, shy and much further advanced in recovery than either of us, cowers in her seat as Blondie glares at me. That annoys mea”Blondieas got no call to intimidate bystanders. And maybe Iam not as out of control as I feel.

aIn that caseaa”I slowly stand up, not breaking eye contact for a momenta”ahow about we take this to the remilitarized zone? First death rules?a aYes,a she hisses.

I glance at Kay. aNice talking to you. Order me another drink? Iall be right back.a I can feel her eyes on my back as I follow Blondie to the gate to the RMZ. Which is right beside the bar.

Blondie pauses on the threshold. aAfter you,a she says.

aAu contraire. Challenger goes first.a She glares at me one more time, clearly furious, then strides into the T-gate and blinks out. I wipe my right palm on my leather kilt, grip the hilt of my sword, draw, and leap through the point-to-point wormhole.

Dueling etiquette calls for the challenger to clear the gate by a good ten paces, but Blondie isnat in a good mood, and itas a very good thing that Iam on the defensive and ready to parry as I go through because sheas waiting, ready to shove her sword through my abdomen on the spot.

Sheas fast and vicious and utterly uninterested in playing by the rules, which is fine by me because my own existential rage now has an outlet and a face. The anger that has been eating me up since my surgery, the hatred of the war criminals who forced me into this, of the person I used to be who surrendered to the large-scale erasure of their memoriesa”I canat even remember what s.e.x I was, or how talla”has a focus, and on the other end of her circling blade, Blondieas face is a glow of concentration and fury to mirror my own.

This part of the remilitarized zone is modeled on a ruined city of old Urth, shattered postnuclear concrete wastelands and strange creeping vegetation shrouding the statues of conquerors and the burned-out wreckage of wheeled cars. We could be alone here, marooned on a planet uninhabited by other sapients. Alone to work out our grief and rage as the postsurgical fugue slowly dissipates.

Blondie tries to rush me, and I fall back carefully, trying to spot some weakness in her attack. She prefers the edge to the point and the right to the left, but sheas not leaving me any openings. aHurry up and die!a she snaps.

aAfter you.a I feint and try to draw her off-balance, circling round her. Next to the gate we came in through thereas a ruined stump of a tall building, rubble heaped up above head height. (The gateas beacon flashes red, signifying no egress until one of us is dead.) The rubble gives me an idea, and I feint again, then back off and leave an opening for her.

Blondie takes the opening, and I just barely block her, because sheas fast. But sheas not sly, and she certainly wasnat expecting the knife in my left handa”taped to my left thigh beforea”and as she tries to guard against it, I see my chance and run my sword through her belly.

She drops her weapon and falls to her knees. I sit down heavily opposite her, almost collapsing. Oh dear. How did she manage to get my leg? Maybe I shouldnat trust my instincts quite so totally.

aDone?a I ask, suddenly feeling faint.

aIa”a Thereas a curious expression on her face as she holds on to the basket of my sword. aUh.a She tries to swallow. aWho?a aIam Robin,a I say lightly, watching her with interest. Iam not sure Iave ever watched somebody dying with a sword through their guts before. Thereas lots of blood and a really vile smell of ruptured intestines. Iad have thought shead be writhing and screaming, but maybe sheas got an autonomic override. Anyway, Iam busy holding my leg together. Blood keeps welling up between my fingers. Comrades.h.i.+p in pain. aYou are . . . ?a aGwyn.a She swallows. The light of hatred is extinguished, leaving somethinga”puzzlement?a”behind.

aWhen did you last back up, Gwyn?a She squints. aUnh. Hour. Ago.a aWell then. Would you like me to end this?a It takes a moment for her to meet my eyes. She nods. aWhen? You?a I lean over, grimacing, and pick up her blade. aWhen did I last back myself up? Since recovering from memory surgery, you mean?a She nods, or maybe shudders. I raise the blade and frown, lining it up on her neck: it takes all my energy. aGood questiona”a I slice through her throat. Blood sprays everywhere.

aNever.a I stumble to the exita”an A-gatea”and tell it to rebuild my leg before returning me to the bar. It switches me off, and a subjective instant later, I wake up in the kiosk in the washroom at the back of the bar, my body remade as new. I stare into the mirror for about a minute, feeling empty but, curiously, at peace with myself. Maybe Iall be ready for a backup soon? I flex my right leg. The a.s.sembleras done a good job of canonicalizing it, and the edited muscle works just fine. I resolve to avoid Gwyn, at least until sheas in a less insensately violent mood, which may take a long time if she keeps picking fights with her betters. Then I return to my table.

Kay is still there, which is odd. Iad expected her to be gone by now. (A-gates are fast, but it still takes a minimum of about a thousand seconds to tear down and rebuild a human body: thatas a lot of bits and atoms to juggle.) I drop into my seat. She has bought me another drink. aIam sorry about that,a I say automatically.

aYou get used to it around here.a She sounds philosophical. aFeeling better?a aYou know, Ia”a I stop. Just for a moment Iam back in that dusty concrete-strewn wasteland, a searing pain in my leg, the sheer hatred I feel fueling my throw at Gwynas head. aItas gone,a I say. I stare at the gla.s.s, then pick it up and knock back half of it in one go.