Its still lucky, she assured me.
I knew that she was probably right. It had taken me some time to get my head around the idea that being forgotten for so long might have been a lucky break, whether my initial condemnation had been deliberate or accidental, but I could see by now how she might take the view that wed both been luckier than we could ever have deserved.
But I still felt betrayed: by time, by circumstance, by my friends.
Its too soon to tell how well off we are, I told her. They didnt bring us back in order to shower gifts upon us. Were just the trial runs, to make sure that they can bring thousand-year-old corpsicles back with their minds more or less intact. Once weve convinced them that were as well as can be expected, well be redundant. They may have certain reservations about welcoming us into the company of the emortals.
Why? she asked, warily. She didnt know that I knew who she was, and she was prepared to hope that I might not.
Because you were a murderer, Miss Caine, I said, as gently as I could, And theyve probably assumed that I must have been one too.
I was found guilty but insane, she informed me, stiffly. Then she took another pause for thought before saying: Were a thousand years down the line. If they can cure death, surely they can sort out a few lousy bugs in the meatware. Their infotech must be foolproof by now . What did you say your name was?
Madoc Tamlin.
She shrugged her bony shoulders, but shed already worked out that she couldnt possibly have heard of me. Im Christine Caine, as you seem to know, she said. The way she looked at me suggested that she wasnt entirely sure that I could be familiar with her case, even though I knew her name and what shed been put away for.
I know who you are, I said, but was quick to add: Im probably the only one who knows much more than your name, though. The people who brought us back claim to have lost the relevant records.
Do you think theyre lying? she was quick to ask.
I dont know what to think. Im not even sure that were what they say we are. Even if were in meatspace rather than some super-tricky VE, we might still be sims of some kind.
Thats a little paranoid, isnt it? she observed, pitching her voice so that the word paranoid sounded more compliment than insult. I have this creepy feeling that you might be right, though. I dont feel like myself .
Neither do I, I admitted. Maybe thats just because weve been kitted out with these weird suitskins and internal nanotech thats ten generations ahead of anything we could have had in our day. On the other hand, it might be because were sims or androids: AIs programmed to believe that were people who died a thousand years ago.
Why would anyone want to make sims of people who died a thousand years ago? she asked. I could see that she was working on the problem herself, but I was slightly surprised by the ease of her assumption that if we werent who we thought we were then the people we thought we were must be dead.
Maybe theyre interested in the outlaws of olden times, I suggested, wondering what Davida and her sisters thought
of the direction the conversation was taking. Maybe they want to know what made us tick.
I didnt tick, she said, her tone becoming oddly distant. If Id been ticking, Id have blown up or run down. Not a bomb and not a clock, let alone a pacemaker. Silent but deadly. So they said.
Not so silent, I thought, once people started hooking into Bad Karma .
Either way, I said, it might be wise not to take anything for granted. I think theyll want to take a good long look at us anyway. Whatever we may think of ourselves, to them were the next best thing to reanimated Neanderthals. Adam Zimmerman has his sainthood to keep him warm, but we dont. Quite the reverse, in fact. We might have to handle our situation very carefully and it wont be easy.
Are we being watched? she wanted to know.
All the time, I assured her. Monitored inside and out. So far as I know, they cant overhear our private thoughts, but nothing else is secret.
If appearances could be trusted, that thought disturbed and distressed her more than any shed so far come across. Her gaze flickered as her pale blue eyes looked toward the window, then up at the ceiling and round the walls, then back at me.
Shit, she murmured. Then she composed herself again. Lousy view, she remarked.
It was supposed to be a slice of home, I said. Its long gone blown to smithereens, so they say.
The whole Earth?
Just America but the whole ecosphere had a catastrophic fit and had to be regenerated.
She didnt seem to think that the destruction of America was an issue worth pursuing. Whos they , exactly? she asked.
I told myself that the fact she was taking everything so calmly was a compliment to the IT the microworlders had installed in her brain but I knew that if that was true for her it ought to have been true for me, too. I wasnt taking everything calmly. My tranquilizing IT obviously wasnt programmed to kick in until I got badly steamed up; a certain amount of inner turmoil was permitted, presumably because the people observing us found it interesting.