Permutation City

"Now you're just being childish." She reached out and picked up her notepad, slid her chair back and rose to her feet. Trying to think of a parting shot, it struck her that the most frustrating thing was that the bastard had paid her. He'd lied to her, he'd made her an accomplice -- but he hadn't actually swindled her.

Durham looked up at her calmly. He said, "I've committed no crime. My backers know exactly what they're paying for. The Fraud Squad, like the intelligence agencies, are jumping to absurd conclusions. I've told them the whole truth. They've chosen not to believe me."

Maria stood by the table, one hand on the back of the chair. "They said you refused to discuss the matter."

"Well, that's a lie. Although what I had to say certainly wasn't what they wanted to hear."

"What did you have to say?"

Durham gave her a searching look. "If I try to explain, will you listen? Will you sit down and listen, to the end?"

"I might."

"Because if you don't want to hear the whole story, you might as well leave right now. Not every Copy took me up on the offer -- but the only ones who went to the police were the ones who refused to hear me out."

Maria said, exasperated, "What do you care what I think, now? You've extracted all the Autoverse technobabble from me you could possibly need. And I know nothing more about your scam than the police do; they'll have no reason to ask me to testify against you, if all I can say in court is 'Detective Hayden told me this, Detective Hayden told me that.' So why don't you quit while you're ahead?"

Durham said simply, "Because you don't understand anything. And I owe you an explanation."

Maria looked toward the door, but she didn't take her hand off the back of the chair. The work had been an end in itself -- but she was still curious to know precisely what Durham had intended to do with the fruits of her labor.

She said, "How was I going to spend the afternoon, anyway? Modeling the survival of Autobacterium hydrophila in sea spray?" She sat. "Go ahead. I'm listening."

Durham said, "Almost six years ago -- loosely speaking -- a man I know made a Copy of himself. When the Copy woke up, it panicked, and tried to bale out. But the original had sabotaged the software; baling out was impossible."

"That's illegal."

"I know."

"So who was this man?"

"His name was Paul Durham."

"You? You were the original?"

"Oh, no. I was the Copy."

16

(Toy man, picture it)

JUNE 2045

Paul felt a hand gripping his forearm. He tried to shake it off, but his arm barely moved, and a terrible aching started up in his shoulder. He opened his eyes, then closed them again in pain. He tried again. On the fifth or sixth attempt, he managed to see a face through washed-out brightness and tears.

Elizabeth.

She raised a cup to his lips. He took a sip, spluttered and choked, but then managed to force some of the thin sweet liquid down.

She said, "You're going to be fine. Just take it easy."

"Why are you here?" He coughed, shook his head, wished he hadn't. He was touched, but confused. Why had his original lied -- claiming that she wanted to shut him down -- when in fact she was sympathetic enough to go through the arduous process of visiting him?

He was lying on something like a dentist's couch, in an unfamiliar room. He was in a hospital gown; there was a drip in his right arm, and a catheter in his urethra. He glanced up to see an interface helmet, a bulky hemisphere of magnetic axon current inducers, suspended from a gantry, not far above his head. He thought: fair enough, to construct a simulated meeting place that looked like the room that her real body must be in. Putting him in the couch, though, and giving him all the symptoms of a waking visitor, seemed a little extreme.

He tapped the couch with his left hand. "What's the message? You want me to know exactly what you're going through? Okay. I'm grateful. And it's good to see you." He shuddered with relief, and delayed shock. "Fantastic, to tell the truth." He laughed weakly. "I honestly thought he was going to wipe me out. The man's a complete lunatic. Believe me, you're talking to his better half."

Elizabeth was perched on a stool beside him. She said, "Paul. Try to listen carefully to what I'm going to say. You'll start to reintegrate the memories gradually, on your own, but it'll help if I talk you through it all first. To start with, you're not a Copy. You're flesh and blood."

Paul coughed, tasting acid. Durham had let her do something unspeakable to the model of his digestive system.

"I'm flesh and blood? What kind of sadistic joke is that? Do you have any idea how hard it's been, coming to terms with the truth?"