Tim, Destroyer of Worlds A science-fiction story by Cheeseburger Brown

CHAPTERS 1|2|3|4|5|6|7

1/7

This is my confession: it's all my fault.

Here we are, over a billion kilometers from home, stuffed into a sardine can dragging an unstable bomb across space. It's big and it's getting bigger, but they built the housing extra large to accommodate its relentless growth over the course of our journey. We can broker no delay, lest the housing fail. We're grim but we're determined; we're claustrophobic but we have stiff upper lips. The recycled air stinks with duty. And, like I said, it's all my fault.

I'll explain.

My name is Tim, and I'm a civilian contractor assigned to Titan. I'm an infographic engineer and my specialty is encryption envelope manifold topography. My minor at school was metalibrary architecture, but I haven't coded anything in years. It's boring.

I'm fat. I tell people it's a glandular problem, but it's not true. I'm just a bad person.

I mention this because it's yet another thing that serves to separate me from the bulk of personnel on Titan, the overwhelming majority of whom are military or ex-military. People like that think it's a party to go jogging; their idea of a good time is doing high-G chin-ups until they barf. They're all svelte and tight, and I'm a walking jelly doughnut. So, it's fair to say I never really fit in.

I graduated with honours from the University of Huo Hsing, and within ten minutes of the ceremony I was approached by a naval head-hunter. "Your score is through the roof in enveloping," she said. "Have you ever thought about a career at Saturn?"

"I don't think I'd make a very good soldier," I told her, turning pink.

"Perhaps not," she agreed, "but Titan needs your brains. There are select roles we staff with civilian specialists in exchange for very favourable remuneration. That's a competitive salary on top of earning your military credit without ever having to do a single push-up. Think about it."

"I will."

I did. Who wouldn't? Earning my military credit would get me tax-exempt status for life, which would please my parents, and getting to actually get out there -- getting to actually see the System -- would make my childhood dreams come true. I fantasized about the possibilities as I lay in bed at my parents' house, watching the churning clouds in the time-lapse scale holographic model of the ringed world that had hung in my bedroom since I was six.

I still have it. Like an idiot, I brought it with me. But I keep it in the bottom of my trunk.

It seems like nothing but a cheap toy when the real thing is hanging over your head, staring at you through the ceiling through every hour of the day. It makes you shiver if you think about it too much -- that monster world, so close, unblinking.

On my way out to Titan I remember being so eager to see it. After breakfast I was always the first one up to the observation deck to press my face against the cold glass, to see if I could catch a glimpse of our destination. At first it looked like a fuzzy amber star, but it grew. At first I was delighted and then, later, terrified.

As the days passed the yellow orb continued to swell until it seemed like we couldn't get any closer without going right through it. But still it grew. The whorled stripes banding the gas giant were briefly beautiful and then humbling, then baffling, then incomprehensibly intimidating. As the globe filled the view the stripes started to look like what they really were: weather systems larger than whole planets, relentlessly roiling, shading from the sun in its secret depths storms that had been raging longer than the human race has been human.

Indifferent is the word that Saturn seared into my mind: an indifferent giant, longer and stronger and more sure than anything ever conceived by the insect apes who flit around it.

Those rings aren't decorations -- they're the accumulated rubble of events the violence of which we can barely fathom. In time the rings will fade, and eventually be replaced a hundred histories from now in the wake of some other cataclysm that would dwarf the devastation of even our most ambitious wars.

It's just too damn big, and too damn old.

Saturn gives me the creeps.

Another reason the whole place is spooky is because you know what a lonely outpost you're clinging to. Titan is just a single Aresian camp surrounded on all sides by the worlds of the Joviat. I mean, it's not like the dirty pioneers on Iapetus and Rhea pose any threat to us -- on paper we're all part of the same big Solar nation -- but it's hard to forget how much they hate us.

On the other hand, Jovian disenfranchisement is the whole reason I got to Titan in the first place. If you listen to our politicians you know how they're always fretting about the prospect of a revolt, and you have to know those political speeches are very watered down versions of the anxious warnings from the navy's top strategists. That anti-Jovian paranoia is the cornerstone of Titan's culture, because it's something we have to think about all the time. It's our work. There's no beating around the bush: we're out here for just one reason.

Advanced weapons research.

Granted, Titan also serves as a waystation for ferries inbound to or outbound from the heliopause bases beyond Pluto, and we also act as a platform for expeditions into Saturn's atmosphere to study the swirlies and sky-bugs. As far as the general public is concerned these fripperies are our raison d'etre on Titan.

The general public has no idea.

And neither did I, until I arrived. I wasn't tipped off by the psychological examinations or the security tests -- I figured that was just standard procedure for an anal-retentive military. It wasn't until they explained to me that the penalty for talking about my job was death that I started to clue in.

"Any discussion of [REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE ROYAL ARESIAN NAVAL INTELLIGENCE CORPS] is considered a capital offense," said the lieutenant in charge of my indoctrination. "Let me be positively clear: that doesn't mean leaking secrets -- that means any discussion or hint of discussion concerning any [REDACTED]-related matters. Is that understood, freshman?"

"Yes, it is."

"You will address me as sir."

"Yessir."

"You may be a civilian but this is a military establishment. Our culture is now your culture, freshman. Make it your business to conform, starting today."

"Sir yes sir."

"You are not qualified to assess the security clearance of other personnel. That means your assumption is always that your mouth must remain shut unless you are specifically ordered otherwise."

"Sir yes sir."

"Tell me, freshman: what is your duty department?"

"Sir, they told me to report to --"

"Secure your word hole, freshman!"

"Sir? You just asked me --"

"I just ordered you not to discuss your assignment with anyone regardless of your perception of their authority. Were you not listening, freshman?"

"Sir, I'm sorry sir."

"You'd be sorrier if you were dead. Remember that."

And I have. I can scarcely forget it. I left his office shaking, drops of sweat tickling down my sides under my shirt. I went back to my cramped cabin and ate a tub of yogurt, a quart of popcorn, a bag of beef jerky, two chocolate bars and an entire bunch of bananas before I felt steady enough to breathe freely again.

Suffice it to say I can't say much about my day to day work.

The off-hours were generally okay, though. I have a few friends, and they joke around with me even though they're military. They're alright. The navy people don't usually deign to so much as speak to contractors so I feel lucky to be included in their laughs, even if sometimes I'm only included because the laughs are at my expense. It's not a big deal: in school I put up with worse.

Nobody on Titan ever slapped my belly until it turned red, for example. Nobody ever pulled my pants down in front of the class, or loaded pencils in my butt crack.

"Hey Fatbags -- coming for a drink with us?" they'd say.

"Really? Oh, yeah. Just let me finish up here."

But when I turned around they would've left without me so I always arrived alone. When they were drunk they'd dare girls to kiss me, or warn newcomers that I'd sit on anyone who didn't hand over a food tax from whatever they had in front of them. This always caused them great amusement when I walked through the cafeteria only to have all the newest recruits offering me scraps. "I don't want your food," I'd explain, but then I'd usually eat it anyway.

All of that seems such a long time ago now that we're out here, on our way to the sun, towing our catastrophic cargo. How I got from Titan to this ship is a kind of involved story, but I guess that's why you're here, right?

I'll get to it. Like I said, this is a confession.

And, like so many tragedies, it all begins with a girl.

2/7

You probably don't know a lot about [REDACTED], so let me walk you through a typical day.

I'll leave it to the hardworking men, women and machines of Naval Intelligence to strike out anything too sensitive. I can't be expected to keep track at this point. I mean, is talking about [REDACTED] okay? I have no idea. It seems harmless enough to me, so I'm just going to include it.

After all, at least a vague understanding of [REDACTED] is kind of pivotal to the whole story, in a way.

Before things went badly I lived in a contractor hostel two pods past the west prairie. It was practically right on the equator, within walking distance of the World Train. Even for me.

Due to a policy called Professional-Social Shearing (always known as "piss" in the trenches) Titan was arranged so that you never lived near anybody you worked with. This was so that non-establishment associations would show up more clearly against the grain, like a smudge through iron filings: any contacts outside of routine required at the minimum an unusual effort of travel, an easy flag to see flapping.

Thus, my immediate neighbour in the hostel was a platoon of ex-military private paratroopers. Apparently paratrooper morale suffers if they're broken down into units smaller than platoons, so the system treats them as essentially a single individual with regard to security shear lines.

The net result of this was that I didn't need an alarm clock.

I was always on the third shift, which meant waking up at around quarter past twenty-four when many of my neighbours would be stumbling home after a second shift spent at the canteen. I never needed an alarm clock because somebody in the next cabin -- above, beside or below me -- was bound to come home at just the right time to loudly vomit or screw.

The walls in the contractor hostels were not thick.

More often than not I fell asleep watching The Revengineers on my palmtop reader. Entertainment media was tightly filtered on Titan but I brought along my personal collection of The Revengineers broadcast seasons six through fourteen inclusive, including the coveted alternative ending to season seven's famous finale cliffhanger. I always had to mind that my reader didn't touch the metalibrary though, or the censor daemon would've gotten in and eaten everything.

(Hardly anybody on Titan ever even watched The Revengineers, which is yet another thing that made the place feel so alien. I mean, can you imagine? It was like living in an alternative history.)

So, as I was saying, on a given morning I probably started the day by peeling my face off my palmtop reader and brushing the crumbs off my front. There were a lot of crumbs. My mother used to send me care packages of snacks that I stashed in a hollow corner between the head of my bed and where the wall flares out to form the closet. The paratroopers didn't know about this nook because their cabins didn't have them -- it was only in mine to permit the passthrough of a pipe that gurgled after a toilet was flushed.

(My cabin was five percent smaller than anyone else's, but I didn't care because otherwise they'd steal my candy.)

To the left of me someone would barf, to the right two someones would hump. My shelf jiggled in time. I'd attend to myself at my little two-piece toilet, trying not to look in the mirror except to comb and braid my hair. Most people on Titan had short and bristly hairstyles if they had hair at all, but my parents are pretty hardcore Oprans and they'd go mental if I ever cut mine.

(I know, I know -- I'm twenty-six years old, over a lighthour from home, and I'm still worried about my parents giving me grief. It's pathetic.)

I always kept my head down when I left my cabin because the later the others were coming home the drunker they were, which usually meant they were more likely to slow me down by wanting to josh around or something. Those guys were always fooling. "Yo ho, Fatbags -- off to sweat up some chubby fox's dough holes?"

"No, no," I'd say, blushing. "I'm just going on duty."

Drunk paratroopers like to hang off of one another. They like to touch, drooping and swaying from each other's shoulders as they guffaw. In this way they tended to form clots that blocked corridors. "Chow's plastered, maybe she'll do you."

"No, no," I'd repeat, bowing my head with little jerking motions in my intended direction of travel. "I'm just trying to get out of here, thanks. Um, could I get by here, fellows?"

"Do you have cheese under your tits?" someone might have asked, and then they'd all howl. Or maybe, "Captain tells us the new weapon against the Jovies is actually your ass, Fatbags. Whoda thunk it?" And so on.

They were always such an enthusiastic bunch of people. So full of life.

(A lot of them are dead now.)

Anyways, so a great part of every day for me was always just walking to the train station. There were flat fields of grass between the hostels, green carpets dotted with buzzing bugs, butterflies and blossoms. It always smelled great out there, and I often had to remind myself to resist my notorious childhood urge to eat grass by the torn, dirt-clodden handful.

Swarms of birds would always be flowing around the roof in waves and rivulets, their chirps echoing off the streaky, grime-stained dome. You never knew which ones were real birds and which ones were maintenance drones. The way they flock is exactly the same.

At the station nobody looked at one another, because nobody's business was nobody's business. Sometimes somebody would cough. Titan was such a quiet place, on the whole. You could hear the train coming from a long way away.

On the train I'd pull out my reader and watch an episode of The Revengineers. It's not like there was anything else worth looking at once you were moving between domes: murky orange fog is murky orange fog.

There were people, soldier friends of mine, who thought it was a blast to go out there and play around in that soup. They'd go skiing or repelling. They'd have buggy races. They'd parasail. But I hated going out-of-domes. It was way too cold and when you came back you smelled like cow farts.

I was most comfortable at work.

There were ten of us in the Enveloping Keychain Group, and we worked in a round room with ten infographic windows around its outer edge and a spiral staircase at its core. Our room had two pillars for passthrough: one for cabling and one for vines.

My station was between Fast Annie and Quality Barbecue Sauce. When I first came to Titan I worked beside Shogo Natamo but we argued too much so the management system cued a reshuffling. I was much happier after that.

(Shogo Natamo is a dick.)

Fast Annie is very fast. She's fast about everything because she's obsessed with efficiency and afflicted by what can only be described as frenetic focus. To strangers her speech is an unintelligible flicker of syllables -- like something soft grazing a fan.

She's tall when she unfurls, her forehead high and always somewhat shiny. She keeps her hair shaved but not because she's ex-military but because she idolizes Zoran's Nicola, a swarmily faux-oil painting of whom she hung above her infographic window on Titan and just yesterday affixed to the top of the nocturnal tank here on our slow boat to Sol.

Quality Barbecue Sauce, predictably enough, is Terran. But, despite this, he's almost like a totally normal person. He gets a little pushy sometimes but he usually backs off if you're firm. He says his people were like strict strict Commercial Islamic Futurists but they converted to Non-Commercialism when they emigrated to Ares. Whatever. I have to say I'm with everybody else on this one: once a commercialist, always a commercialist.

"What kind of treats your momma sending you this time, Tim?"

I'd narrow my eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"Man, come on. Can't a body ask after his friends?"

"I got some Brown's bars, Quality."

"You should ask your momma what she paid. I bet I can find you a better deal. A deal that's solid with Allah."

"No thank you."

"Body, I have a line."

"No thank you."

"Peace."

We all listened to different music while we worked but the airwaves were shaped so there were only narrow zones of interference or crosstalk, and you only noticed them when you moved too close to the edge of your workspace. Once I got to work I just sat, myself. Fast Annie paces when she's thinking but once I'm planted I'm good.

I spent my days crafting the encryption envelopes for [REDACTED] arrays that had been pre-folded by the Mathematical Ordnance Division, making sure the nodes in the solution tree didn't ghost up any invented keys. I had clearance to run trial waveforms in the Secure Universe Shell but usually just did it in virtualization so I wouldn't have to get up to cross the room.

At the time I'm talking about we were gunning hard to finish packing the matrix for Project [REDACTED] -- which I hope I'm allowed to say. It's just a code name. If I can't even use code names this is going to get very confusing very quickly.

Even if you don't know much about active number science, you can probably appreciate that I couldn't be just making stuff up to stripe the data envelopes: each day I had a new cypher provided by the management system to serve as a seed. It might run something like this:

Contrary to popular belief, the wind through Huo Hsing never speaks of {rubies|emeralds|diamonds} for fear of making the vapours ring. Hey nonny nay!

Using poetic cyphers minimized the possibility of intelligence leaks at the personnel-machine interface, because even if a stanza got into the wrong hands it would be useless without context. I mean, you'd never know in which part or parts the message had been hidden because meaning was encoded on the psycho-semantic level. Unless you were the one it was designed for and you knew which stanzas proceeded it and which followed, how could you possibly have a clue where the true information lay?

You had to really get the whole poem.

The message was, in effect, a completely personal one. It had no value except to the mind for whom it was intended, and that mind resided at the core of the most technologically advanced weapon of mass destruction ever conceived by the human race: Project [REDACTED].

The Enveloping Keychain Group's job was to explain to the Project its mission, in a form safe to manipulate without accidentally starting to execute in real space and thus triggering a critical mathematical cascade within the bomb.

You know?

If not, it's like basically the [REDACTED] Effect except in the real world, where [REDACTED] acts like a [REDACTED] [REDACTED]. You follow me? It's all a big puzzle, and an emergent property of the process of solving it is an interference pattern in [REDACTED] propagation. High school math, right? Okay, so this cues the gel-state phase-transition of all our pre-folded [REDACTED] arrays simultaneously, setting up an unresolvable [REDACTED] local topography [REDACTED] of [REDACTED] designed to describe in real physics a choke system to temporally-restrict the [REDACTED] collapse of the probability anvil...that buys you just about Planck Time of mayhem, but that's more than enough.

It's actually kind of cool if you think about it.

Somewhere on Titan we knew there was another set of us, doing the exact same work on the exact same solution trees, for the purposes of error correction. We were each other's safety nets, our stanzas entangled on a very low level and our results tied directly to the central processors for real time cross-comparison.

(Sometimes I wondered if their version of Shogo Natamo had nasty sardine breath, too.)

On the day I'm thinking of I'd just finished a productive shift of [REDACTED]-analysis and I was looking forward to getting home to watch a few episodes The Revengineers for comfort after swinging by the mess hall. I turned to say "see ya" to Fast Annie but she was already gone. Quality was gathering his jacket and taking out his walking bell.

"You skipping off to the show?" said Quality amicably, not looking up.

"You mean The Revengineers?" I replied, furrowing my brow. "Sure, yeah. I might watch one before bed."

"No man, I mean the entertainers. The ones in orbit."

Stupidly, I glanced up at the ceiling. "Um?"

"They flew in a circus for the sailors."

"Really?"

"Would a body lie?"

"Huh. Imagine that. A circus on Titan."

"You going to go?"

"I'm not a sailor. I wouldn't be able to get a pass, and I don't have the money to pay, probably."

"I just figured with all those warriors you chum with you had to have a body who'd be doing you a solid."

I shrugged. "If I want to see a circus I can always watch The Revengineers summer special from season ten."

Quality chuckled. "Peace."

But as I entered the square outside of my favourite mess hall (the blue one in Big North) I was just like everyone else in gaping as we stared upward, our collective pace slackening: the high curve of the dome was crisscrossed by trapeze equipment, shining in the roving beams of spotlights that swept along to track the motions of tiny, spinning people dressed in sparkling skins and streamers.

"Oooh," said everybody. And then, "Aaaaah." Even the hardened, military-types made tight little smiles as they took off their hats for an unobstructed view.

The giant round public intelligence screen at the west end of the square illuminated with depthy close-ups of the flying artists, their sequined costumes winking in the lights. A leather-skinned Aresian with a thick, curl-ended mustache next filled the view as he grinned and hooted, "Ladies and gentlemen, meat and metal, let me present Sanders and Sanders Celestial Circus! We'd be pleased to be your servants of delight in circumpolar orbit! Do you have your pass yet? Come one, come all! Three performances only!"

I smiled to myself and was about to turn away to grab my grub when I was arrested in place by the next image on the screen: it was her.

She moved like some kind of a fantastical creature: a pixie or a nymph, someone who could swim through the air and make it look divine and effortless, someone made of something lighter than matter. Even in low gravity she made the other trapeze artists look like lead weights, any hint of her mass blended perfectly so inertia was indistinguishable from afterimages. She smiled when she did it, careless of apish jealousies.

Honestly, I don't really tend to go for girls like that -- I mean, impossible air fish girls or whatever. Normally I try to fall for girls who have at least as much baggage as I do, so we don't have a vice gap. You know?

But the way she moved did something biological to me.

I will always own that moment when Alaia entered my life, one hundred meters over my head, her face framed, followed and adored by the public intelligence screen. I knew what I was feeling was beyond reason right away, because I started to hate the public intelligence screen for its relationship with her. I thought about trying to covertly break it, later on.

That's how crazy I was. That's what Alaia did to me. I was planning the murder of an inanimate object for stalking her.

She was too pretty to be recorded.

(Isn't that a ridiculous thing to think?)

I blinked and looked at the ground and tried to make the feeling go away but my heart was beating really fast and my fists were clenched and sweaty. I was dizzy, and also a bit giddy. I fought the urge to burst out laughing.

I looked up again and though the presentation on screen had moved along to a pre-recorded segment of elephants I could now easily pick Alaia's distinctively fluid motions out of the twirling dots that were the real trapeze artists high above.

I knew then and there I simply had to find a way to get to that show.

3/7

"Why so glum, jiggles?"

I was in the lobby of the contractor hostel, passing by my cabin to have a snack and quickly charge up my reader so I could watch The Revengineers over supper without worrying about an outage. While I was on my way in the private paratroopers were on their way out, their gear spit and polished for a day of combat drop training, plummeting through the sticky orange clouds to get themselves all tarred up with that cow fart stink that would hang in the halls for days.

I tried to smile. "It's stupid."

"Don't be like that," said Angiers, an ex-seal with a star-shaped scar along his jaw from the Callisto campaign. "We're your pals. What's eating you?"

"I just wanted to go to the circus," I said.

They all laughed. I started to turn away to head up the stairs but Angiers caught me by the elbow. "That's adorable, chubs. And you know what? Today I'm your motherplugging happiness faerie."

I blinked. "You are?"

"Sure," said Angiers, patting down the pockets on his fatigues. He produced a pass, creased rudely at the half-line. "Take it. It's yours. I don't want to go to no rinky-dinky circus, man. I got better things to do."

"Seriously? What do you want for it?"

Angiers grinned, his scar distorting around his stretched mouth. "I don't know. Show us your tits."

"Aw, come on."

"Do it, jiggles. The circus ship is sailing."

"Come on, you guys."

They all started chanting "do it, do it!" over and over again so I sighed and pulled up my tunic to show them my bare, doughy chest. The platoon cheered and hooted. Pink-faced, I tucked my shirt back in and tried to take the pass from Angiers but he held it up out of reach and told me to jump. I jumped, but I still couldn't reach it. They howled at the sight, punching each other in the shoulders and gasping for breath.

"I'm so cruel," chuckled Angiers ruefully, handing me the pass.

"Thanks," I mumbled.

"And he thanks me for it," Angiers added, raising his brow. The others guffawed.

"See you later," I said, slipping past him to the stairwell.

Even though I felt embarrassed at having them all laugh at how gross my body is this feeling was quickly eclipsed by excitement. As I leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs to catch my breath before trudging to my cabin I closed my eyes and watched the blurry afterimages swim until I swear I could see Alaia's graceful trajectories crossing the scintillating darkness...

Dinner was meatloaf and corn. While I ate I watched the ninth season premiere of The Revengineers, which by all accounts is probably the best episode produced to date. They have a float themed with it every year in the Freedom Day Parade back home, with Dr. Galacticon rendered in his most feckless form ever as a giant floating pinata which, at the conclusion of the parade, the children present gleefully smash. I've done it.

Good times.

The hours counting down to the performance were long and stubborn. I did my laundry and ate two sandwiches from a vending machine, then went back to my cabin to have a Brown's bar and a nap. I woke up groggily several times to glance at the clock and swear at time's reluctance to tick by faster.

Every time I moved I could hear the pass crinkle against my pocket. It made my heart pound.

Ultimately I was forced to spend some time browsing my pornography library in order to relax enough to get washed and dressed. I thought a lot of the girls I patterned into the library were very pretty once, but while fixed on Alaia I couldn't help but see them as clumsy, heavy and crass. I was sure none of them could fly.

"Where are you going, honey?" asked one of them as I zipped up my excursion jumpsuit.

"I'm going to the circus," I muttered, checking my braids in the mirror.

"I'm quite the performer myself, honey. Let me show you how flexible I can be."

"Another time, maybe."

"Honey --"

"Save and close."

So great was my anticipation that I didn't even watch any Revengineers on the train. I just played with my hands and stared past my reflection in the windows to the copper and brown smears of torpid atmosphere rolling by outside. We rushed past a clear patch and for a few seconds I could make out the nearest shore of a great ethane lake, its surface corrugated by wind. In a blink the sight was swept away by another curtain of cold fog.

On the shuttle I scored a seat near the front so I was able to see the circus ship as soon as we bellied off into orbit, the stars rolling. It was a narrow, spindly thing bereft of decoration except at its middle where three great connected rings turned to simulate gravity, each alternate curved swath of hull plating painted gaily orange or jauntily blue.

Spotlights converged on a giant logo of a grinning clown face encircled by the words SANDERS BROS. CELESTIAL CIRCUS in English, Marsgo and Chinese.

As we got closer it became apparent that every seam of the turning rings was lined with little rows of lights that winked on and off in sequence, making the ship appear to glitter at its edges. Our shuttle turned to manoeuvre up to the docking nipple and holographs of roaring tigers and dancing clowns began to project into space all around us. I didn't know which way to look -- it was all pretty cool.

It didn't become less wonderful until I was working myself along the rows to find my assigned seat. Any anxiety I had about being able to jam my ass into it was forgotten when I realized who I was supposed to sit next to: Admiral Phong.

That's right: the Admiral Phong.

Okay, no doubt you've heard all about the admiral. How could you not? He was the public face for the Royal Navy during the Callisto campaign and he appeared on like every chat show for a while there. His picture was everywhere. He has a nice smile and the kind of coarse, rumbling, paced voice the public expects to hear from its military princes: considered words and a sober tone, like grandpa on about something serious.

What you probably don't know is that every soldier in the fleet is totally scared of him, even the really tough ones who saw unspeakable horrors on Callisto. They even say stuff like, "Send me back into the Joviat before you send me to Phong."

Suddenly Angiers' gift to me didn't seem so generous. He probably didn't want to risk annoying the admiral and getting busted down to janitor, so he handed that opportunity off to me.

Lucky Tim.

The admiral's aides were arrayed to the right of him -- some in suits, some in uniforms, all of them stiff and cold. My seat was the empty one at his left elbow where he was currently resting a box of popcorn while he took off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves to get comfortable. I hovered at the side of the seat uncertainly, waiting for him to finish his arrangements. Finally he shot a glance up at me, his slit-like eyes crowded down by his beetled brow. "Eh?" he grunted.

"Sir, take your time, sir," I said.

"Are you being smart with me, sailor?" he wanted to know.

"Sir no sir," I told him.

"Your uniform seems to be out of order."

"Sir, I'm a civilian, sir."

"That's no excuse."

"Sir no sir, it is not, sir. Shall I requisition new attire now, sir?"

He frowned, his jowls bunching up around his chin. "No, sailor, we'll let it go this time. This is the circus, after all, and some measure of relaxation is indeed appropriate."

"Sir, thank you sir."

He picked up his popcorn and I sidled over to ease myself between the arm-rests which creaked in complaint. The admiral said, "It looks like you're packing some extra meat there, sailor."

"Sir, It's a glandular problem, sir."

"That's too bad."

"Sir, thank you, sir."

Up above in the performance area roustabouts were kicking off the girders to sail across the air trailing rigging for the trapeze set ups, gaining speed for their momentum as they drew nearer the audience and felt the centripetal tug. Guy wires caught them at the last moment, causing them to swoop aside over our heads.

The admiral shifted in his seat and glanced at my hair critically. "Are you Opran, sailor?"

"Yessir, my parents are, sir."

"I'm Mega-Christian, myself, but I don't have any grudge with the Oprans. Either way I like to see a sailor who knows what he owes -- not letting himself get caught up in all this secular mumbo-jumbo. Religion keeps a man humble."

"Sir, that's very true, sir."

He nodded, shifting in his seat to lean toward me as he scratched one of his fat, white, lambchomp sideburns. "I tell you, sailor, when we find ourselves toe to toe with an extra-solar civilization we'd sure as Hell be embarrassed to have to tell them we're not saved, wouldn't we?"

"Sir, no doubt about it, sir."

"Of course, we don't know what point of history they might be at when we make contact. If they're not saved yet we'd have the good fortune of educating them about the Mega-Christ. We'd be the first ones with the good news that their own saviour is on his way. We'd be an example."

"Sir, that would be a proud moment for humankind, sir."

"Damn straight, sailor. A proud moment for Mars. I hope I live to see it, Christ willing."

"Sir, I'm sure you will, sir. Praise Oprah."

"Yeah, well, whatever floats your boat."

The lights dimmed. The crowd hushed their conversations and then collectively rustled as everyone pulled a round-framed seeing glass from the pocket on the back of the seat ahead of them. Through it the spectacle would be magnified and, if desired, annotated.

Music sounded. From the core of the central ring raveled a parade, each component of which dropping into view in freefall and then pulling various stunts as they dropped down almost into our laps, struck trampolines interspersed between the rows, and rebounded away toward the core again. There was a brass band, a brigade of dancing bears, a brace of clowns, a fleet of poodles, a sextet of jugglers -- all weaving their way around the circumference of the packed torus by rappelling back and forth between its faces.

I found myself smiling. It made me feel like a kid.

I got shivers across my shoulders when my roving glass finally found Alaia, flying between other acrobats in matching outfits trailing streamers from their ankles. And then I couldn't look away.

Her motion hypnotized me. My blood ran hotter and, for a moment, I could forget all about how cramped and anxious I was pegged next to modern history's most dangerous and capricious military chief.

The show went on. Apparently the admiral was as bored by clowns as I am because the next thing I knew he was elbowing me for attention. "You ever see a graded-G circus before, sailor?"

"Sir no sir."

"Me neither."

"You're a busy man, sir."

"That's the truth, sailor. I've got one of the hardest jobs in the System. Hell, we all do."

"Sir?"

He popped a piece of popcorn into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. "It's a civilized world that we live in because people like you and I -- well, I more than you -- are willing to do the jobs we do. We get our hands dirty, doing what needs to be done. We sin so our people can live on in grace. Do you follow me, sailor?"

"Sir, I think so sir."

"It's about the glory of Mars, son. It doesn't come out of some mamby-pamby Aresian notion of high art or a bunch of idiots sitting around a big table yapping at each other -- that's culture, and culture rides on the coat-tails of authority. Do you know where Martian authority derives, sailor? Do you know what gives us the right and the responsibility to keep things looked after?"

"God?"

"Power, son. We have the science, we have the resources, and most important of all we have the will to make the hard decisions, to do the jobs nobody wants to think about. We murder the murderers. Isn't that right? Isn't that what happened on Callisto?"

"Sir," I said, "of course, sir."

He smiled then, and actually put his beefy hand on my soft shoulder. "You're a very clear minded individual, sailor."

"Sir, thank you, sir."

He waved to one of his aides, a finicky gentleman in a very expensive suit, and called out, "Get me some cold beer -- and one for my friend here." The finicky gentleman looked cooly down his nose at me and then turned abruptly to the woman next to him and barked, "The admiral and his guest need cold beer. See to it!" The woman, in turn, pointed at young yeoman in starched whites who leapt to his feet and sidled out of the aisle.

When our beers came we were applauding the conclusion of a complex juggling routine involving ignited plasma torches, medicine balls and knives.

"That was damned impressive," noted Admiral Phong. "Outstanding discipline -- damned impressive indeed."

I nodded, sipping my beer. "Sir, I should say so, sir. I bet they like practice all the time, too. I mean, especially considering that it's live."

"What do you mean?" he frowned, his brow knitted.

"No visual effects," I said nervously. "Um, they have to be authentic and they have to get it right the first time. There's no second chance when it's right in front of you, right sir?"

The admiral settled into his seat again. "Quite right, sailor."

"Do you ever watch The Revengineers, sir? Because there's this episode which totally speaks to my point."

"Eh?" he mumbled, distracted as the acrobats swarmed into view and without preamble began crossing the open space in great bounds, catching and throwing each other at each artful intersection.

My breath caught in my throat as I spotted her again. I put down my drink and raised the seeing glass by its ornate handle, my hand faintly shaking. In the magnified view she seemed to be soaring only inches from my nose, her face shifting in colour as she passed through the domains of different lights. She was smiling, always smiling, and her eyes sparkled and flashed.

"Well lookee here," said the admiral slowly, drawing his glass up level to his face. "If she's not an angel I don't know what is. Wouldn't you say, sailor? Isn't that a sublime slice of femininity right there?"

"Sir yes sir," I muttered.

The admiral sat back in his seat, the glass dropping. "It all goes to show you how tested we all are, son. The last thing I need in this world is to be playing games with some kid, but I see the way she moves and it does something to me."

"Sir yes sir," I said again.

He commanded his aides to fetch more beer and then to me said: "It's irrational."

"Completely, sir."

"But it's persuasive, isn't it? Look at me: I can't look away."

"I'm going to have to trust you on that, sir."

"It's like somebody's keying us up by remote control, isn't it, sailor?"

I blinked, and managed to pry my eyes from the glass to look at him in the shadows. "Sir?"

"The Devil," he said heavily. "People think the Devil makes us do bad things, but that's not it. Like I told you, I have dirty hands but the Devil doesn't have anything to do with it. No, son, the Devil's more insidious than that."

I gulped. "What does the Devil do, sir?"

"The Devil keeps us focused on the trappings of the body, on the animal, instead of oriented to the sublime, through Christ. The Devil wants you to get all wound up by the way some pretty chick slithers because it's the easiest way to keep you apart from God -- because you want it."

I nodded slowly, whispering, "I always want things. It never stops."

The admiral narrowed his eyes as he put his hand on my arm and squeezed it. "Look at how fat you are, son. Honestly, who are you feeding? It's not Jesus asking for all that food."

"No sir," I mumbled, hanging my head. "I'm just a bad person."

"Well," said the admiral, sizing me up with a pained expression, "you're probably right about that. But you can change. You can make choices. Like I said before, making the hard choices is what makes Mars great. And don't give me any of that Ares faeces, either -- I'm talking turkey here. I'm talking about Mars. I'm talking about God's people. But..." The admiral trailed off, his eye caught by the glass again. "But here I am talking the good word yet I can't stop looking at her, can I?" He sighed and drained the end of his beer. "The flesh is weak. It always will be. That's why it's all a wash without the Good Book to guide us. We can't steer ourselves alone."

"Sir, no," I agreed faintly, eyes riveted by Alaia's dance.

"In the beginning was the Word. And now here we are, the pinnacle of civilization in the System, with the power to speak the language of the Word directly -- we need no prayers, we can help ourselves. We're the caretakers of that power until Christ's return. These worlds are our wards."

"Sir, I'm glad there are men like you at the, like, helm, sir."

The acrobats retired, handing the reigns to the glittering riders of specially trained low-gravity horses who galloped along floating platforms, leaping over the gaps with a flourish of braided tails and flapping banners attached at the saddle.

"I wish I could see Heaven," said the admiral wistfully. "But I've lived too much to hold out that hope. I bought the way in for others by enforcing the King's peace."

"You do your duty, sir."

"I do it for the Mega-Christ and the greater glory of Mars."

"Sir, yes sir."

"I like the cut of your jib, sailor. What's your name?"

I said, "Timothy [REDACTED], sir. I'm in enveloping."

"You boys do good work down there."

"Thank you, sir."

He accepted two beers from his aides, passed one down to me. "It's an honour, what you do. I hope you realize that. You handle the Word. The Word is the power, and the power lifts our glory. It's the future of the System you deal in, son."

"It is, sir, that's true."

"You're locking in the peace for all worlds."

"I'm happy to be a part of the team, sir."

"Because, you know sailor, if we ever have to let one of these puppies go the Jovians aren't going to know what him them. They'll be boiled away into space before they even know we're mad."

"That's hitting them where it hurts, sir."

"Damn straight, damn straight," he nodded, drinking deep and then wiping his mouth on his forearm with an earthy gasp of relish. "May God guide us to deploy our authority wisely."

"Praise Oprah."

"Amen."

He piped down for a while so we could watch dogs flipping through freefall followed by a fellow who threw swords at his wife without slicing her. The elephants cavorted around and sang an infrasong, pushed into human hearing through little speakers in our glasses. We drank our beers and watched, and then moved on to a fourth round.

The admiral was swaying in his seat.

"Do you ever get lonely, sailor?"

I coughed on my beer, eyes watering. "Um, sir?"

"I'm not flirting with you, son," said the admiral, pursing his lips as he watched the action in the rings. "I'm just asking a question, man to man. No offense but I don't think you're very popular with the ladies."

"No sir," I agreed. "The ladies tell me about how much they like other guys. I'm a good confidant, I guess."

The admiral didn't care. His point was about himself. "It's absurd," he said quietly. "I'm one of the most important men in the System, and I'm never alone -- but I have no friends."

"I chum around with some soldiers," I said. "And I watch The Revengineers a lot."

"It's good to keep busy."

"Yessir."

"It goes to show you how people can't rule themselves. Even me, I'm plagued by urges that have nothing to do with nothing. If I had less discipline I'd make decisions based on how I felt rather than what Christ teaches. And that's why Mother Ares and all this malarky about putting democracy on a pedestal is a backwards way to go. When it's history itself you're wrangling the only answer is Father Mars, strong and sure. It might be unpopular but what's popular isn't necessarily right, is it?"

"You make an excellent point, Admiral."

"The people don't know any better, do they?"

"No sir, they don't. How could they?"

"They rely on us to make those kinds of decisions on their behalf."

"It's good to appreciate one's limitations."

"You're a wise man, Timothy."

"Thank you, sir."

As I raised my glass again I saw that we had missed the grand finale of Alaia and her troupe who were retiring into the core of the slowly turning three-ringed theatre. The performance was wrapping up and I'd missed most of it as Admiral Phong talked my ear off in his meandering, self-serving way.

I felt badly for the old man. He carried a lot. He ached inside. You could tell.

To be honest, I pretty much had no clue what he was trying to tell me that night but it was close enough to the way my own father used to lecture me about religion that my first instinct was to tune it all out as poppycock.

It wouldn't be until later that I recognized his point. It wouldn't be until my craven human appetites had caused monumental devastation that I began to suspect he was on to something.

I'm so stupid.

4/7

My mother mailed me a cube of instant bread, and when it was all swollen and ready I somehow daydreamed my way into consuming its entire length in a sitting. I only knew the loaf had ended when I accidentally bit my own empty hand. Then I got a stomach ache and spent some time supine on the bed, lowing miserably.

I know Oprah teaches us not to try to eat away our troubles, but she only knew that from experience. She had to have touched the sad satisfaction of giving in, too. She had to be intimate with the threat and the promise of the short peace.

Praise her or plug her: I don't care -- I was hungry for more than food. Doing something to scratch that itch wasn't a choice but an inevitable consequence, like gravity's suck.

I fell to the short peace. When the circus was done and my sweat dried I ate a loaf of bread, vomited, then chased it with twelve yellow blueberry muffins, thirty-six yogurt balls of various flavours, an entire sand cake with Nirgalese filling, a bag of frosted cinnamon sticks, two Brown's bars and a self-heating can of angel hair pasta in mushroom cream sauce.

I belched dangerously, then put away a box of after dinner mints and some pretzels and a bunch of slightly shrunken green grapes.

When I couldn't fit anything more inside of me I lay back on my bed and touched myself in a private way while watching the unrated and uncensored inner circle fan club recut of the Revengineers episode where Terrianna Sue Poptarts gets kidnapped by evil Texamerican pornography barons who make her toil for her freedom in the most lawless catacombs of the Old Moon...

When I woke up it was nearly third shift.

I washed my hands and face and brushed my teeth, then washed my hands again. I changed my clothes, eye on the clock. I ate a bowl of oatmeal and then stretched until it hurt then washed my hands again.

In the lobby I met the paratroopers. They were keener to chat than usual, rushing right up to corner me at the bottom of the stairs. They were falling over themselves to ask me whether I'd performed oral sex upon Admiral Phong or merely let him plug me anally. "I'm not even a homosex," I stammered, blushing.

"So explain to me," drawled Angiers with a simultaneous smile and glower, "why it is that the admiral dedicated half his motherplugging weekly address to you. Huh, jiggles? What's up with that?"

"What?" I said dumbly. "What do you mean?"

"'We should all be a little bit more like Tim!'" chanted the rest of them in mocking chorus. "How many times did he say that? Ten -- twenty?"

"What?" I said again, blinking.

Angiers continued to parrot Admiral Phong in a lilting, sing-song tone: "'I met a man at the circus, a civilian, who walked with God...one of our encryption geniuses, a man of remarkable clarity of mind.'"

I said, "Um."

"It's un-plugging-believable," grimaced Angiers. "The one day he decides not to be a hard-ass I give my seat to jiggles, so now he's the golden child and I'm still getting paid in tax credits and magic beans."

"I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you."

"Naw," said Angiers, spreading his arms wide. "No hard feelings, chubs. You deserve a little luck like any of us." He flashed me a wide smile and began to nod, then put a hand on my shoulder. "In fact, I've got a killer idea."

"What?"

"What's the name of that acrobat you were both drooling over? Alana?"

I flinched at hearing her name trampled. "Alaia," I said firmly.

"Why don't I see if I can't hook youse two up for a date?"

"Come on, Angiers. Don't tease me."

"I'm serious. Do you think they'd deny anything to the Admiral's Tim?"

"Come on."

"You'll see, jiggles. I'm going to fix it for you. That would pretty much put me on par with Santa motherplugging Claus, wouldn't it?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so."

Angiers pushed his arm around my shoulders and drew me in almost to his chest, then asked sweetly close to my ear, "So what's your offer? What'll you do for me if I can make this happen?"

"Anything you want."

He licked his lips. "I want that palmtop reader you're always staring at."

"My...reader?" I echoed, feeling it in my pocket. "I don't know, Angiers."

He dropped his arm away and shrugged. "It's up to you. I'm just trying to help out, man."

"It's not like she'd be anything but repulsed by me anyway," I mumbled.

"Yeah," agreed Angiers. "That's the spirit, chubs: look on the bright side."

They laughed and laughed and laughed, patting my back as they parted to slip around me and tromp up the stairs. The back of my neck felt hot and prickly until the last of them had gone. I crossed the field at a shambling rush. The chittering of the birds annoyed me that day, so I hummed the theme from The Revengineers to drown them out.

Do you know what the stupidest thing about birds is? It's the way they fall in love: the male sings and the female is supposed to choose, but that's the rub -- they don't choose at all. If the song the male sings resonates with her she feels compelled to mate with him; if not, not. Do you follow me? She isn't making a decision, she's succumbing to remote control.

If his song is right she has no power to deny her feelings. Like a key fitted to a lock, the tumblers can only turn.

This notion found a certain resonance with me as I banged on the door to Angiers' cabin. It swung open a moment later, Angiers glaring hotly as he clutched a sheet around his waist. He was sweating and winded and Lieutenant Carmichael could be seen over his shoulder lounging naked on his bed. "What?" barked Angiers.

I handed him my reader. "Here," I said quietly.

A smile flickered over his lips. He took the reader wordlessly and closed the door.

I released a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. To no one at all I said, "I hate being a bird."

I worked like a machine. We were in the penultimate stage of packing and the big field test was looming. We came untangled from the error correction team for an hour or so when their network was borked but parity returned after lunch. Quality Barbecue Sauce complained that we couldn't keep up the pace much longer without risking a compromise of [REDACTED]-stream integrity and everyone pretty much stopped working for a few minutes to chime in.

"I hear there might be a deadline jump," reported Shogo Natamo with smarmy satisfaction.

"Forward or back?" asked Hija DeSouza.

"Forward," he replied with a breezy wave. "Apparently the brass are already on their way from Ares and everything's bumped up three weeks to accommodate them."

"Where'd you hear that?" grunted Quality. "That rumour isn't solid."

"Oh, it's solid alright," said Shogo, looking down his nose. "I can't say more, but trust me, Terran: I have a line."

"We can't go faster," claimed Fast Annie. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm fully optimized. Project my curves ahead -- it can't happen three weeks sooner without bending spacetime a new keister vent."

"Isn't that what we're kind of doing anyway?" I ventured.

"There's a big difference between a controlled and an uncontrolled stanza unfolding," snapped John Chew. "If the product fizzles they'll probably shut us down, no matter what the King says. Our young majesty can only push so hard against the Zorannic Regency. It's a crap-tornado between them on Ares right now."

Politics bores me so I tuned out at that point and went back to work, weaving the day's cypher into each new branch of the decision tree I was simulating for the [REDACTED] aggregation sequence. I can lose myself in the math without much effort, and thereby get a thousand times further from the mangy world than I even could with The Revengineers.

Even if it were a two-parter.

Thinking about that made me jones to watch an episode, but I couldn't. On the train ride back to the contractor hostel I watched the murk smear by outside and fantasized about cool things I could say to someone as beautiful and talented as Alaia if I ever got to actually meet her and I wasn't so gross and nervous.

To look on the bright side, I anticipated getting my reader back once Angiers failed to arrange the date he'd promised. I mean, how could he succeed?

"How could I fail?" he asked me with a jaunty grin, leaning against the jamb of my cabin. "You didn't doubt me, did you, jiggles?"

"No," I claimed.

He held up a glossy red thoroughfare pass. "Have you got anything to watch on that reader of mine besides the motherplugging Revengineers and fat girl porn?"

"Not really."

"Damn," he muttered, then threw the pass into my cabin anyway. "Whatever. You'd better hurry. Get your ass to the gala at Central, then find the lady and tell her your name. She'll be expecting you."

"Right now?"

"Right-motherplugging-now, fatbags. Move!"

"Thanks, Angiers. You're really a good pal. I totally appreciate it."

"It's do or die. The clock's ticking. Hup-hup-hup!"

"Okay, okay."

Taking Fast Annie's spirit as my golden calf I drilled myself through the world's fastest shave and shower, operating with robotic efficiency inspired by my quivering mammal heart. I put on my dress suit which was rank with stuffy closet smell until the fabric detected enough motion to conclude it was in use and start scrubbing the fibres. In the moments before they were done I caught a whiff of the bland catering that had followed my sister's funeral.

(I still miss her.)

I sprayed on a cloud of cologne. It was the same I'd worn to graduation, on the day they asked me to try out for Titan.

(My sister was still alive then. She said, "Don't go.")

I caught the World Train to Central, zipping around the equator and deep into the heart of Titan's most distinguished quarter. Central is the only district where overcrowding is a problem, and thus it is the only district to expand vertically -- Central's famous fingers are inhabited spires that actually rise right through the top of the domes and into the thick, orange atmospheric ocean. Our world's most important men and women lived there, above and beyond what to most of us is the sky, streak-stained and welded at the seams.

In deference to military heritage, the towers' sides were studded with missile batteries, their dormant mouths dripping ethane from the night's rains.

My pass led me to a luxury elevator at the base of one of the spires to queue on a terrace nestled up against the top of the dome, the air kept fresh by the slow beat of giant silver fans. I loitered at the rail, looking over the densely packed labyrinthine buildings of Central connected by a glittering cobwebbing of causeways and bridges.

A couple of birds flew by below, chasing one another. They swooped and circled, disappearing under a crowded pedway.

I was tapped on the shoulder. "Sir, will you riding with us to East Spire tonight?"

I turned to see the plastic face of a simple courtesy robot, his shoulders decorated by gold-piped epaulettes. I said, "Um, yes."

"Sir, your car has arrived. It's time to embark."

"Okay."

"Sir, this way please."

The elevator was shaped like a doughnut. It was appointed around the edges with plush crimson couches, serviced around the middle by an automaton-manned bar. I asked my escort how long the ride would take. "Sir, six minutes," said the courtesy robot. "Would you care for an appetizer or aperitif, sir?"

I ordered one of each and then plopped down on a couch. "Six minutes," I said to myself, smiling at the absurdity.

One robot brought my snack and another my drink. They moved on to distribute other orders to little clumps of admiralty or clusters of commercial princes, their susurrusing conversations lost as the car began its humming climb.

We passed through the roof, and then we were all cast in the soft, ruddy light that filtered down through Titan's haze. The admirals' whites turned salmon.

I chewed my spicy samosa mechanically, chased it with Pastis.

As the car slowed I triple-checked that I had no crumbs on me, cleared my throat over and over until people were staring at me, then kept my head low and joined the shuffling line at the parting doors. "Sir, thank you for riding with us," said one of the courtesy robots.

I waved vaguely.

And then I was there, like a pretty but humble girl in a fairy tale, walking into the ball. I craned my head to take in the chandeliers, stared like an idiot at the very important people of all stripes scattered throughout the hall, my mouth falling agog at the sight of half-naked models slithering at the arms of half-dead dignitaries. Ambassadors laughed loudly and socially, forming little rings with circus performers at their cores, on the spot and quizzed or flattered, seeding future anecdotes live and apparently effortlessly.

Admiral Phong spotted me across the room and raised his glass, waving me over.

"Good to see you, son," he said. "I'm surprised you're here."

"Sir, I got a pass, sir."

"Attaboy. The hard work pays off, doesn't it?"

"Yessir."

"I bet you're hurting to see that Alaia thing, aren't you?"

"Um, yessir, sir."

"Right over there."

I followed his point, panning across the room until I saw a group of admirers part to show the graceful, demure artist at their core. Our eyes met. She excused herself and pressed between two of her circle to close the distance between us. My heart started to beat harder, a rumble clouding my hearing.

"Admiral," she smiled, her golden hair flashing.

The admiral nodded. "Have you met young Timothy? He's overcome a glandular condition to become one of our top active number engineers."

"Charmed, I'm sure," she said, batting her lashes at me.

"Hi," I squeaked.

She led me on a weaving course from one hall to the next, past another bar, through a mirrored corridor and then into a wide, high-ceilinged suite with a bank of windows looking out over the hazy turtle backs of Titan's domes. The sun was setting, discernible as a dim, blurry point melting into the red, smoky horizon.

There was an ice bucket with champagne, a mahogany bowl of fresh fruit, a hot tub shaped like the Marsgo ideogram for fortune.

"Did you enjoy the show?" asked Alaia, her brow raised. She unfastened a bun, letting her hair fall around her shoulders to cover a freckle I'd been fixating on.

"Yes," I said quickly, looking away to the windows. "Um yes, it was amazing. How long have you been at it? That is, how long have you been an acrobat, or artist?"

"Three years," she said, her cheeks dimpling.

"Only three years? That's incredible. I would've thought you'd have to practice for like your whole life. Wow. What did you used to do?"

"Nothing."

I smiled nervously, my hands screwed up with each other. I looked down. "Listen, this is probably wasting your time and everything. I know there's a lot of really important people out there you could be talking to. So I appreciate this. I mean, your taking the time to let me visit you. I just wanted to say, um, to your face..."

"Yes, Timothy?"

"I just wanted to say that I think you're an amazing performer. When you were, um out there, I couldn't look away. It was like a food my eyes had to eat. I...and I guess I couldn't just let that feeling happen without saying thanks. So...thanks -- Alaia."

When I looked up she was still looking at me, her expression sweet and rapt. "I saw you at the show," she said.

"You saw me?"

"I saw you in the audience. I saw you watching."

I shivered, and then paled. "Of course, because I'm so big. I guess I must stand out, even from that distance."

"I saw you with Admiral Phong. I was apprised of his seat, so I could have a smile just for him."

To this I simply continued to smile stupidly. No words would come to me. My mouth felt as if it were full of cotton. I was dizzy. I was useless. Her serene face seemed to shrink and grow, to warp in my confused sight. I wanted to run away. "Okay, so," I said, "thanks again. I just think you're great."

"Why don't we have a drink?"

I blinked. "I'd like some water. Um, that's dumb. I like champagne too, I've just got a dry mouth."

A courtesy robot stepped out of its niche and poured for us two steaming flutes of champagne and then handed me a glass of ice water, too. "That's not what I...oh, forget it," I mumbled. "Stupid robot. Why'd it do that?"

"It's trying to interpret the best way to address your needs," said Alaia. "It isn't always easy."

"I guess I should've been more clear," I admitted, shrugging sheepishly. I alternately sipped my water and my champagne. "Yummy."

She traced her finger around the top of her glass. "Do you live inside a dome here? Do you ever miss the sky, Timothy?"

"I do, but not really. The sky here's too weird, you know?"

She pursed her lips demurely. "Do you enjoy sports, Timothy?"

"Sports?" I frowned uncertainly. "Not really, no. I don't play much because I'm too fat and I'm not really into following the professionals." I coughed. "Do you watch The Revengineers?"

She said, "I don't really know what fat means."

I furrowed my brow, hesitating mid-sip, a frosty glass in either hand. "That's nice of you to say," I told her.

She smiled again, her eyes sparkling. "The Revengineers is the longest running television series in history, isn't that right?"

"Oh yeah," I agreed enthusiastically. "If you want to compare apples to apples, Revengineers has been on longer than The Simpsons and Coronation Street combined. And, of course, it's like a totally different kind of show than those old shows. I mean, The Revengineers pretty much redefined the medium -- the key to which, in my opinion, is the layering of the storylines and the way those layers interact. Do you know what I mean?"

Alaia set down her flute and then sat down on a short sofa. She crossed one long leg over the other, the high split in her elegant dress parting to expose one unblemished, muscular thigh. She patted the space beside her. "Come sit down, Timothy," she said. "Tell me more."

I took a deep breath and followed her, squeezing in beside her on the sofa. "I'm squashing you," I said, wriggling awkwardly and holding out my arms as I continued to carry both glasses.

"I don't mind," she claimed.

"You're being really nice to me," I observed. "Everybody's being really nice to me lately. It's nice."

"You have a great ability to express yourself," said Alaia pleasantly.

"I do?"

"Do you really think the course of televisual theatre was changed forever by The Revengineers phenomenon, Timothy?" she asked brightly, tilting her head with open curiosity.

"Um, yeah," I said, nodding.

"You seem tense."

"I'm okay."

"Do you want me to rub your shoulders?"

"I couldn't ask you to do that."

"It would be my pleasure. Come now. It won't hurt a bit. Don't be scared."

"I'm not scared."

She reached around me and kneaded the doughy flesh over my shoulders expertly, the gooseflesh at her first touch fading as she drew warm blood up to my skin's surface. I couldn't help but close my eyes. "That feels very nice," I admitted, resting my drinks on my knees.

None of it made sense. The nicer she was to me the more I feared a punchline.

My eyes shot open when I felt her breath against my nose, her lips parting to kiss me. I shook my head and snorted in confusion. Both drinks were spilled. I gasped at my suddenly cold lap and Alaia pushed herself back, eyes wide and hurt. "Don't you want to kiss me, Timothy?" she asked. "Am I not pleasing to you?"

My mouth was dry and unresponsive again. "You can't find me attractive. Tell the truth."

"Why not?" she said, startling me by suddenly smiling again. She leaned in to touch my arm but I reared back.

"Did somebody tell you I'm important?" I demanded.

Sweetly she cooed, "Every man I'm with is important for the time we have together."

"I'm not that gullible," I claimed. "I don't want to upset you but you have to level with me: Alaia, are you a kind of prostitute or what?"

"No, Timothy," she said, smile uninterrupted. "Of course not. I'm artificial."

"You're what?" I cried.

"I'm a robot, naturally."

5/7

If you don't watch The Revengineers, you probably can't appreciate what all the fuss is about. You probably go to plays or something.

(I know I've got important things to talk about, but bear with me here.)

The series is authored by twelve thousand random people collectively steering the twelve virtual intelligences of the regular cast. You know you've been picked to participate if a scope arrives in the printer, and then you wear it while the show airs.

The vicarious adventures you're invited to care about stir in you feelings that are fed back to the streamers, influencing which of the potential streams of narrative are actualized. In this way, the reactions of the authoring swarm define the show's reality.

The effect can be baffling but oddly narcotic when it works retroactively. If enough people in the swarm really wish some event had never happened, the show starts to behave as if it never had. Wishful thinking bears real fruit. The unscoped audience can't help but pray along.

That's what hooks you in. Your caring can matter. If enough of us care, the show feels it and together we have the power to undo that which we want undone.

(You can see this converging on my life now, right?)

I wish, I wish, I wish The Revengineers was real. I wish my life were that. I wish twelve thousand people were squinching their eyes shut in an effort to visualize a better history for me in hope of a better fate, trying with everything they're worth to make the scope read them the way they want it to.

That's the catch -- you don't necessarily want what you think you want. The scope knows you better than you do.

But nobody's scoped on me now. I'm no actor.

I can't take anything back.

(Okay, I know that I'm rambling. It's getting really hot in here. It's stuffy and I can't think. Actually, that's not it -- it's more that the next part makes me uncomfortable. I might as well be honest while I roast. The next part is bad.)

After fleeing East Spire I rode around in the World Train for a while. I was made of stone, or something else heavy and cold. We were humming through the dark side and there was nothing to look at except my own pallid reflection in the glass. I gave myself a wan smile, to see if I still could. The effect was unflattering so I closed my eyes.

I got off the train, eventually. I forget why.

Numbly I crossed the field to the contractor hostel. To myself I seemed tall in a loose way, like my feet and all their walking business was happening far, far below. I was a balloon.

I was startled by the laughter.

It echoed off the walls of the hostel lobby, and in my irritated confusion I looked over my shoulder when the paratroopers pointed at me. At this they fell into each other, gasping theatrically for air. I realized what they were laughing at was me.

Angiers said, "So tell us, fatbags: did screwing her require a Philips or a flat head?"

Suddenly, I knew how to feel.

The feeling rioted up from my insides like hot vomit, the journey unstoppable once begun. I was lost in its blaze. The next thing I saw was Angiers face, mysteriously bloodied, thrashing back and forth at the mercy of a white, red-spattered blur. He was so very far away and I was floating somewhere above him, breathing hard.

It occurred to me that the blur was my own hand. Dimly I could detect its ache as it rhythmically collided with bone.

In an instant my senses snapped fully on and I was jostled back into awareness. My face stung. Someone had hit me. I had stopped hitting Angiers. I was straddling his torso while he moaned. His eyes were swollen shut, purple. It was not possible to discern his mouth from his wounds, because everything was red and shiny. He was blowing bubbles.

Someone hit me again. I turned around.

Lieutenant Carmichael was standing beside me panting, rearing back to swing the sensor tripod at my head for a third time. She swung. I sort of fell aside ahead of it, dropping off Angiers. Carmichael stumbled forward. I caught her by the face and shoved her back at the stairs with everything I had. She cried out in a pitiable way when she landed, her leg bending under her at a rude angle.

Somebody jumped me from behind but I rolled with it and used our collective inertia to crush them against the wall with my shoulder. Something cracked and my attacker gave out a surprised, dismayed gasp. "Motherplugger."

When I stood back and turned the rest of the platoon was arrayed around me. With the hate pumping hard through my veins I was sure I could take them all. I could grind them together like clay. I was a juggernaut. They had unleashed my beast -- a thing growing inside of me since the very first day I was tripped and pushed and mocked as a kid.

But I didn't get a chance to find out how much of that bravado was delusion because the military police charged into the lobby and gassed us all before anyone could make another move.

In the fog we were all equal: a few seconds to cough, to drop to your knees, to flail or grimace and then give in to sweet, sweet slumber's iron pull...

The detective who came to question me at the hospital said it had taken a hundred and one sutures to close the wounds on Angiers' face. I didn't say anything. He went to explain that I had fractured the paratrooper's cheek bone and broken both his jaw and nose. In the process I had cracked my own knuckles and gashed open my fingers. They were sore.

The detective said, "You're going to have to talk eventually."

"My fingers are sore," I said.

"Plug up," he snapped.

Carmichael had earned a greenstick break in her right leg, and Henderson's collar bone had snapped under my ministrations. According to the security feeds all of this took place in less than ninety-nine seconds. "Ninety-nine seconds," repeated the detective gravely.

"Is that a good score?" I asked.

He growled, "What?"

"I never fought back before," I explained. "So I guess I'm just wondering -- how did I do?"

"You were fierce."

"Cool."

"It is definitely not cool."

"Whatever."

"I've had enough of your lip. This is a serious matter. Get your attitude under control."

I shrugged. "What's to stop me from jumping out of this bed and pounding your face until you need a hundred and one sutures?"

His eyes widened slightly. "What's to stop you?" he echoed, regaining himself. "What's to stop you is the fact that you're a real smart guy, and you don't want to make this situation worse than it already is. You've had your fit but now you've had a while to calm down. Damage control is in your best interest. Co-operation with me is the best form of damage control available to you. Make the most of it."

I considered this, chewing my lip. "Fine."

We chatted the matter over. I took him through pretty much what I've taken you through, starting with the circus and ending with the laughter. Even just remembering it cut me inside, and my hands started shaking. The detective sent a nurse to get me a cup of tea.

"Those troopers are dicks," he told me heavily. "But that doesn't excuse what you've done, Tim."

"No sir," I agreed quietly. "I've never acted like that in my life. You have to believe me. I didn't choose to make it start...it just started."

He nodded. "I've read your scan, and I believe you. But I want you to understand that your actions were criminal and, therefore, prosecutable. You could also be open to various civil liabilities. It's a whole jumbo-size cargo pod of faeces. You get me?"

"Yes sir," I said.

He held my eye for another moment and then sighed. "On the other hand, you've been flagged as critical personnel for Project [REDACTED] and the management system has made a request to the justice system to re-integrate you." He paused again, compressing his mouth into a thin line. "That request has been granted. You're due at your duty station in less than two hours."

"I -- what?"

"You're off the hook, Tim. You're too important. We need you to get back to work as soon as possible."

My mouth dropped open.

When I didn't move he clapped his hands and barked, "Hup-hup-hup!"

Everyone at work wanted to know about the bandages on my hands and the cut on my head. Gossip doesn't flow quickly in a high security environment. When I told everyone I'd beaten the snot out of a platoon of private paratroopers everyone assumed I was joking around. "How was the circus, anyway?" asked Fast Annie.

"Unforgettable," I mumbled.

"What was the best part?"

"When I fellated Admiral Phong."

There was no reason to be prickly to my colleagues but it wasn't something I felt I could control. I dove into my assignments rather than grumpily chat. I fondled the prayer beads in my pocket and muttered from The O Parables under my breath. It was strength from familiarity -- by the umpteenth repetition I could almost smell my mother's cookies.

I began to salivate.

And then, right in the middle of the shift, the management system sounded a bell for our attention. We each looked up to our upper infographic screens, our faces falling simultaneously as we processed our new instructions. Shogo Natamo's rumour was true: we had only three days until the tank test, four days until the field test.

Three days to the tank test. Three!

(That's twelve shifts, if we didn't sleep.)

"This isn't solid, bodies," grumbled Quality Barbecue Sauce, shaking his head. "This isn't solid at all. We've had the roadmap planned for ten months, pared to the bone -- how can they compress any of it and still expect a body to deliver?"

"Fornication," swore Fast Annie. "There's no way."

"When the brass says jump, we jump," said Shogo Natamo philosophically.

"Even when it makes no sense?"

"Especially when it makes no sense."

"That makes no sense! Is this engineering or politics?"

"It's neither. It's war."

"There's no war on. No real war. We already won."

"We all know the Jovies could revolt any time."

"We only all know that because the brass is always saying it."

"What you're implying is treasonous."

"I'm not implying anything!"

Our industrious and happy torus descended into overlapping shouting, pained rhetorical questions, plaintive whining, a babble of insecurity that made the air stink of rank mammal fear.

The management system had evidently been prepared for this: according to the readout we were on an unscheduled refreshment break without penalty.

When I saw that I laughed. It wasn't a merry laugh. It was too desperate, too wheezy, too lost. I stood over the back of my chair, leaning on its back for support. "What?" asked everyone. "What's funny, Tim?"

"This is expected," I said, suddenly sober. My eyes stung.

Fast Annie furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

"This," I repeated, gesturing around the room at the ten of us -- flushed, glistening brows, breathing hard; "This is expected. Everything we're feeling right now...maybe it's confusing or seems complex, but, you know what? To the motherplugging management system it's obvious. Look at the clock. Just look."

We all looked. The clock displayed a fifteen minute block of time, assigned in advance to accommodate our hysterics. The hour following our break was graded for low productivity quotas, the graph rising sharply thereafter -- double shifts upon double shifts.

"I can't go that long without sleep," whispered Hija.

"Apparently you can," replied Shogo Natamo, tracing her line on the chart. "The management system thinks you can. But I guess it will be hard for you, because you're slated for counseling immediately afterward." He paused, then raised one eyebrow. "And so are you, Tim."

I began to nod slowly, a sick grin on my lips. "Our behaviour is expected. Even our trips from sanity are included in our fates. We're birds."

"What, body?" said Quality, looking at me with concern.

"We're motherplugging birds," I repeated. Then I grabbed my jacket and left.

In the cafeteria I bought, begged or stole twenty-three standard ration packages and pushed them down my throat hand over fist. People stared at me, but instead of keeping my eyes down I stared back. They looked away. They put their eyes down.

I snorted. I ate more. Plug them all.

The next shifts were a marathon. The ten of us in the Enveloping Keychain Group lived, ate and breathed our work. If we weren't [REDACTED] we were [REDACTED] through virtualization. We slept in our chairs, which everyone grumbled about except me because going back to the contractor hostel to bump into the paratroopers held no appeal and there was no reason to anyway because I couldn't even watch The Revengineers anymore. Cypher:

He siphoned it bravely, she built it to last. The wind broke the news, inspiring a funk. Who denies this?

We were all Fast Annie. Any wasted microsecond made us anxious. When we needed to speak it was in clipped tones with abbreviated words. At one point when he was really up to speed [REDACTED] the loading script, Shogo Natamo peed his pants. Nobody made fun of him. I offered him a napkin. He took off his pants and put them in the garbage chute. His bum looks like a little kid's bum. Who could have guessed? Cypher:

A cucumber endowed with the facility of speech enters a tavern and orders a pint of vinegar. When the proprietor demands payment the cucumber attempts to flee, but fails because it lacks any means of locomotion.

Kevin Marineris had a break-down fourteen hours before the tank test. White robots with soothing voices carried him away. He didn't pee his pants, but he did barf on himself. Poor Kevin.

The final push was hard but in a way I was delighted. I had no thoughts to spare for anything that had happened, no reason to be reminded. I made myself insofar as possible a machine. Cypher:

A bankrupt man stands forty paces away from an isotope that may or may not release a quantity of gamma radiation sufficient to flash fry him in under one second. Given that, what colour was the pubic hair of the mammal to whom he lost his virginity assuming an initial velocity of 120,067 km/s?

When we did venture into the corridors outside the encryption unit it was madness. The ways were packed with rushing people, each convinced their personal mission was paramount. Politeness had long fallen by the wayside. Faces were tight and cold, words few and brusque. Each foray was followed by a rapid retreat back into our warren. Cypher: