Permutation City

Peer felt no change. He opened his eyes. His newly made twin stood on the ground where the interface window had been, staring at him, wide-eyed. Peer shivered. He recognized the boy as himself, and not just intellectually -- Kate's piece included adjustments to every part of his brain which dealt with his body image, so he'd be no more shocked by catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror than he was by the way his limbs felt as he walked. But the effect wasn't so much to see through the "disguise" of the ten-year-old body, as to find himself thinking of the clone -- and himself -- as if the two of them really were that young. How could he send this child into exile?

Peer brushed the absurd notion aside. "Well?"

The clone seemed dazed. "I --"

Peer prompted him. "You know what I want to hear. Are you ready for this? Are you happy with your fate? Did I make the right decision? You're the one who knows, now."

"But I don't know." He looked at Peer pleadingly, as if hoping for guidance. "Why am I doing this? Remind me."

Peer was taken aback, but some disorientation was only to be expected. His own voice sounded "normal" to him -- thanks to the neural adjustments -- but the clone still sounded like a frightened child. He said gently, "Kate. We want to be with her. Both of her --"

The clone nodded fervently. "Of course." He laughed nervously. "And of course I'm ready. Everything's fine." His eyes darted around the yard, as if he was searching for an escape route.

Peer felt his chest tighten. He said evenly, "You don't have to go ahead if you don't want to. You know that. You can bale out right now, if that's what you'd prefer."

The clone looked more alarmed than ever. "I don't want that! I want to stow away with Kate." He hesitated, then added, "She'll be happier in there, more secure. And I do want to be with her; I want to know that side of her."

"Then what's wrong?"

The clone sank to his knees in the dirt For a second, Peer thought he was sobbing, then he realized that the noise was laughter.

The clone recovered his composure and said, "Nothing's wrong -- but how do you expect me to take it? The two of us, cut off from everything else. Not just the real world, but all the other Copies."

Peer said, "If you get lonely, you can always generate new people. You'll have access to ontogenesis software -- and no reason to care about the slowdown."

The clone started laughing again. Tears streamed down his face. Hugging himself, he tumbled sideways onto the ground. Peer looked on, bemused. The clone said, "Here I am trying to steel myself for the wedding, and already you're threatening me with children."

Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed Peer by one ankle, then dragged him off the step. Peer hit the ground on his arse with a jarring thud. His first instinct was to freeze the clone's power to interact with him, but he stopped himself. He was in no danger -- and if his twin wanted to burn off some aggression on his brother-creator, he could take it. They were evenly matched, after all.

Two minutes later, Peer was lying with his face in the dirt and his arms pinned behind his back. The clone kneeled over him, breathless but triumphant.

Peer said, "All right, you win. Now get off me -- or I'll double my height, put on forty kilograms, and get up and flatten you."

The clone said, "Do you know what we should do?"

"Shake hands and say goodbye."

"Toss a coin."

"For what?"

The clone laughed. "What do you think?"

"You said you were happy to go."

"I am. But so should you be. I say we toss a coin. If I win, we swap key numbers."

"That's illegal!"

"Illegal!" The clone was contemptuous. "Listen to the Solipsist Nation Copy invoke the laws of the world! It's easily done. The software exists. All you have to do is agree."

Talking was difficult; Peer spat out sand, but there was a seed of some kind caught between his teeth which he couldn't dislodge. He felt a curious reluctance to "cheat," though -- to remove the seed from his mouth, or the clone from his back. It had been so long since he'd been forced to endure the slightest discomfort that the novelty seemed to outweigh the inconvenience.

He said, "All right. I'll do it"

And if he lost? But why should he fear that? Five minutes ago, he'd been prepared to give rise to -- to become -- the clone who'd stow away.

They created the coin together, the only way to ensure that it was subject to no hidden influences. The reality editor they jointly invoked offered a standard object ready-made for their purpose, which they decorated as a one-pound coin. The physics of flipping a real coin wouldn't come into it; any Copy could easily calculate and execute a flick of the thumb leading to a predetermined outcome. The result would be controlled by a random number generator deep in the hidden layers of the operating system.