Permutation City

As she started the second message running, she smelled something burning downstairs, and suddenly remembered that the stove had been brain-dead since Friday -- everything had to be watched, and she couldn't even switch off the hotplates remotely. She turned up the volume on the terminal, and headed for the kitchen.

The spinach was a blackened mess. She threw the saucepan across the narrow room; it rebounded, almost to her feet. She picked it up again and started smashing it against the wall beside the stove, until the tiles began to crack and fall to the floor. Damaging the house was more satisfying than she'd ever imagined; it felt like rending her clothes, like tearing out her hair, like self-mutilation. She pounded the wall relentlessly, until she was breathless, giddy, running with sweat, her face flushed with a strange heat she hadn't felt since childhood tantrums. Her mother touched her cheek with the back of her hand, brushing away tears of anger. The cool skin, the wedding ring. "Sssh. Look at the state you're in. You're burning up!"

After a while, she calmed down, and noticed that the message was still playing upstairs; the sender must have programmed it to repeat indefinitely until she acknowledged it. She sat on the floor and listened.

"My name is Paul Durham. I read your article in Autoverse Review. I was very impressed by what you've done with A. lamberti -- and if you think you might be interested in being funded to take it further, call me back on this number and we can talk about it."

Maria had to listen three more times before she was certain she'd understood the message. Being funded to take it further. The phrasing seemed deliberately coy and ambiguous, but in the end it could only really mean one thing.

Some idiot was offering her a job.

+ + +

When Durham asked to meet her in person, Maria was too surprised to do anything but agree. Durham said he lived in north Sydney, and suggested that they meet the next morning in the city, at the Market Street Cafe. Maria, unable to think of a plausible excuse on the spot, just nodded -- thankful that she'd made the call through a software filter which would erase any trace of anxiety from her face and tone of voice. Most programming contracts did not involve interviews, even by phone -- the tendering process was usually fully automated, based entirely on the quotes submitted and the tenderer's audited performance record. Maria hadn't faced an interview in the flesh since she'd applied for part-time cleaning jobs as a student.

It was only after she'd broken the connection that she realized she still had no idea what Durham wanted from her. A real Autoverse fanatic might, just conceivably, part with money for the privilege of collaborating with her -- perhaps footing the bills for computer time, for the sake of sharing the kudos of any further results. It was hard to think of any other explanation.

Maria lay awake half the night, looking back on the brief conversation, wondering if she was missing something blindingly obvious -- wondering if it could be some kind of hoax. Just before two, she got up and did a hasty literature search of Autoverse Review and a handful of other cellular automaton journals. There were no articles by anyone named Durham.

Around three o'clock, she gave up pondering the question and managed to force herself to sleep. She dreamed that she was still awake, distraught at the news of her mother's illness -- and then, realizing that she was only dreaming, cursed herself angrily because this proof of her love was nothing but an illusion.

8

(Remit not paucity)

NOVEMBER 2050

Thomas took the elevator from his office to his home. In life, the journey had been a ten-minute ride on the S-Bahn, but after almost four subjective months he was gradually becoming accustomed to the shortcut. Today, he began the ascent without giving it a second thought -- admiring the oak panelling, lulled by the faint hum of the motor -- but halfway up, for no good reason, he suffered a moment of vertigo, as if the elegant coffin had gone into free fall.