smiled appreciatively. Dvorбk had been the son of a pork butcher. After composing this symphony, he had left his native Czechoslovakia to travel to the United States of America, where he had been appointed director of the National Conservatory of Music. During his free time, he would often walk to the railway station to watch the steam trains, or to the docks to watch the ships. What would he make of Constantine’s world, where people could travel through the solar system and cause great cities to be built from a few tiny machines? What would he make of the moon colonies, or people such as Gillian who had lived in the Oort cloud? What would he think of people sitting down to listen to his music in a concert hall where recording equipment was set up to blank out as much interior and exterior noise as possible in the quest for near perfect reproduction? A hall where the electronics formed the audio equivalent of a Faraday cage, so that a group of people could hold a secret meeting, secure in the knowledge that their conversation could not be recorded. Only the orchestra, now swelling in timbre as it developed the first theme, could be heard.
Constantine sat back. He could hear Blue humming snatches to himself as the music proceeded, occasionally pointing out items of interest.
– Now listen to this: this theme will be introduced again by the basses in the final movement.
– Never mind that, said Red. What are we going to do when this piece finishes? How long have we got, anyway?
– About thirty-six minutes, usually, replied Blue. I’d guess thirty-three if the conductor maintains this gain on the tempo all the way through.
– Yeah. Well. But what’s Constantine going to say? We’ve got problems. Is this what they’re after?
– I doubt it, said Blue.-Why go to the trouble of putting him in a simulation to ask a question they themselves have as much chance of working out as we do? How could anyone work out when the Watcher came into existence?
– Good point, said Red.
– I say that we just tell them we think 2030 is a safe cutoff date. If that’s the reason they trapped us in here, more fool them.
– Okay, said Red.-I concur. However, we are merely deferring the problem. We need to know what they are really trying to find out so we can avoid giving them the answer. If we follow our current path of divulging no information, they are bound to become suspicious.
– Fine, said Blue. How are we going to find that out? We can hardly ask them. “Erm, excuse me, Marion, what is it that we should be avoiding telling you. We don’t want to-”
– Come on, Blue. You can be funnier than that. No. We’ll have to get Constantine to ask the other Jay. The Night Jay.
Constantine had half closed his eyes, ostensibly to listen to the music, but really to pay closer attention to the conversation going on inside himself. The person in the seat behind shifted position, pressing their knees into Constantine’s chair back. Constantine straightened himself up, making himself more comfortable, and then pretended to yawn.
He covered his mouth while subvocalizing, “I’m not sure the Night Jay will have a method of contacting the outside world.”
– She’ll have to give it a try. What else can we do? answered Red.
– Fine. Back to the point at hand. What are we going to do when this concert ends? asked Blue.
– Make our excuses and leave. Constantine is going to have to pretend to be sick or something.
– Where’s Grey when we need him? Blue asked petulantly.
– Take his absence as an indication that we’re doing our job properly, answered Red.-He’d be bound to interrupt if we made a mistake.
– If he’s still there, answered Blue.-Hasn’t it struck you as odd that we still have an independent consciousness? We must be an incredible drain on the resources of the host machine.
Constantine felt a little shiver of excitement run up his back. The idea had already occurred to him, but he hadn’t mentioned it with good reason. He kept quiet for the moment and just listened to the pair of them arguing. He wondered if they would raise the corollary to that thought.
Red spoke up.
– The idea had occurred to me. It all depends how the capture was made, I suppose. It could be argued that we are part of Constantine’s mindset, albeit an artificially amplified part. Imagine a picture being taken, ostensibly of a flower, but capturing the image of a beetle crawling across a leaf in the same moment.
– And we’re the beetles? Thanks.
– You’re welcome. You understand the analogy. I’m not sure if it holds, but it is a theory, and a theory that is preferable to another that has occurred to me.
– What’s that?
– That we are not the original personality constructs. That we have been planted by the enemy to steer Constantine down the wrong path. I’m sure this has already occurred to you, Constantine?
Constantine grinned faintly despite himself. “Yes,” he muttered.
– So why give yourself away? asked Blue.
– You already know the answer to that, Blue.
– I know. Because the enemy knew that Constantine would figure out for himself the fact that we might be fakes, so by me raising the idea first, we gain credibility in his eyes. Well, I’ll tell you this, Constantine, I certainly feel real.
– Of course you do, answered Red, — but you may just have been programmed that way. You may be an AI designed to believe you are Blue, with only the slightest modification to twist you to the enemy’s purpose.
– Oh, I hate this. And all this doublethink is making me miss the concert…
– Well, it needed to be said. It may also explain why we’re not hearing from Grey. Maybe they’ve deactivated that personality after yesterday’s little exhibition.
“And maybe we are not in a computer simulation at all,” added Constantine, subvocalizing. “Maybe it’s just another bluff. Maybe the Watcher is trying to put us off.”
– That does sound plausible, said Blue.-Just listen to those clarinets. Nobody would deliberately simulate someone playing that badly, surely?
The concert ended and the meeting broke up in disarray, Constantine claiming that he needed to contemplate what had been said. Marion wasn’t happy. Only one more meeting was permitted. Constantine and Marion locked gazes for some time. Then the group was pulled apart by the random movement of the audience, Constantine joining a stream that swept him down the shallow carpeted stairs and out through a small door at the side of the hall. He walked in quiet contemplation, a ghost in the center of a colorful, chattering crowd discussing the concert.
They spilled out of the narrow doorway into the yellow evening. The disk of the sun could be seen across the empty plain, sinking beneath the horizon. The city of Stonebreak was slowing down, preparing for the transition to its night-time activities. Constantine slowed to a halt and allowed the crowd to divide itself and stream around him. A forgotten island in the middle of the homeward-bound traffic. The classical columns and entablatures of the concert hall stood behind him; before him lay the wide, flagged space of the fourth level.
– Look to your left, said Red.
Constantine did so. There was Mary Rye. She gazed at Constantine in blurred disbelief, then mumbled something.
– We penitents are all mixed up, translated Red, reading her lips.-What does that mean?
Constantine noted the bottle gripped firmly in her right hand. The hem of her green skirt was stained with something yellow. Constantine stepped toward her, but she shook her head, turned and began to lurch away in the other direction. She was quickly swallowed up by the remnants of the concert crowd.
“Mary!” called Constantine.
– She’s ignoring you, said Red.
“Thanks, Red,” muttered Constantine sarcastically. He began to run after her, pushing his way through the people. He couldn’t see her.
“Where’s she gone?” he muttered.
– Headed toward the elevators to the third level, answered Red.-Look to two o’clock.
