a smile. “That’s me. Though I prefer the second movement.”
“
“Any fool could ask their console for a translation. Better that your feelings give meaning to the words. Can you feel it, Helen?”
“I feel something.” Helen smiled.
The music changed. A chorus of voices sang out all around. Zinman joined in.
“That’s beautiful,” Helen said.
“It is our creed,” Zinman explained, then he turned to Judy, still being held in the grip of golden hands. He gave a nod and they released her. The black-and-white woman stood up calmly, hands sliding into the sleeves of her kimono.
“Good-bye, Judy. You can go now. Helen will be staying here, I think.”
Judy made a show of regaining her customary stillness in the middle of the ever-changing scene. Once she was sure she had made her point, she spoke in her calmest voice: “Very well, Zinman. I’ve just got one question, though, before I leave.”
“Go on then, Judy. Whatever you want.”
Judy stood very straight, her face at its most impassive.
“Actually, it’s more a question for Ella and Ruby. I just wondered, how often does Zinman go underneath?”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Ella said dismissively.
“I’m sorry, I never really understood this sex talk. What I mean is: I’ve seen that Zinman has turned you to chocolate, that he conducts an invisible choir, and that he controls the golden hands. What I wanted to know was, how often does he take his turn in the submissive role?”
“He doesn’t,” Ruby said.
“See,” Zinman said to Helen. “She really doesn’t understand what’s going on here, does she?”
Helen gave a little moan of pleasure.
“I don’t think I do,” Judy said. “I thought that in this world all PCs have a handle on each other. No one of them is more privileged than another. You’ve argued quite eloquently that this is how things should be. I’m trying to square that with the same Zinman who used to rape women in the Private Network.”
Helen blinked once…twice. She seemed to be trying to remember something. Judy remained perfectly still.
“You raped several of Helen’s PCs, for example. You’re a persuasive man. I notice you’re already imposing your will on her, and Helen is a strong personality. I’m impressed.”
Helen shook her head. “Are you doing something to my mind, Zinman?” she murmured, but Judy just continued speaking, softly, remorselessly.
“You see, Zinman, I don’t think you’re strong enough to handle a relationship of equals. You couldn’t hack it in the regular worlds, so you retreated here where you could live out your power games.”
Zinman laughed, but it had a brittle sound this time. “Just because I choose to live my life my own way, and you can’t understand it…”
“Oh, I can understand it, Zinman. I just don’t think very much of it.”
“He raped me, didn’t he?” said Helen. “Or one of me. He’s one of those bastards who-”
Judy ignored her. “So you come to this place and link up with the likes of Ella, who still hasn’t learned any self-worth despite my best efforts, and with Ruby, who-”
Helen didn’t waste time with words; she simply flung herself at Zinman. He vanished.
“Where did he go?” Helen shouted angrily, looking around.
“Right out of Penumbra,” Judy said. “He can’t sustain the fantasy here anymore.”
For the first time since she had come to Penumbra, Judy showed some expression as her face split in a harsh grin. “
“What does that mean?” Helen asked.
“Look it up,” Judy said.
Out of Penumbra, back in one of the EA’s regular processing spaces, Zinman was running towards the entrance of a Lite station, hoping to lose himself in the crowds. A simple rectangular door opened in the air just in front of him and Helen tumbled out, naked and bleeding from where she had torn the thorns from her body. She caught Zinman around the waist and dragged him to the ground.
“Leave him, Helen,” Judy commanded, stepping easily through the doorway behind her. It was a relief to be back in a digital France, under the plain dull sky, to smell the salt air of the sea.
Helen released Zinman and gave him a nasty smile. “Okay, give him the pill, Judy. I’ll take one as well. I want to feel this, too.”
Zinman gave a whimper. Out here, away from the illusions of Penumbra, he was just a thin old man-sunken grey cheeks with three-day stubble, pale green eyes like a fish’s that bulged from hollow sockets. He licked his dry lips with a dry tongue.
“I don’t think so, Helen,” Judy said. “I’m going to hand the correction of this one across to one of my sisters. We haven’t got time to do it ourselves. We came to Zinman because we wanted to find Kevin, remember?”
Helen spat at him, and Zinman flinched. “I want the bastard to suffer,” she growled.
Judy stared at Helen, concentrating.
Helen gave a shout of disbelief as she realized what was happening.
“What? You’re actually trying to correct
“I correct everyone’s behavior,” Judy said. “Zinman, talk to me about Kevin.”
Zinman wiped a white trail of spit from his cheek. “What about him?” he moaned. “It’s years since I met him. He never went into Penumbra. He couldn’t stand the true reality.” He looked thoughtful. “In some ways he’s even more conservative than you, Judy.”
“I’m the most liberal person you will ever meet, Zinman. I’m holding Helen back, aren’t I?”
Zinman gaped at Helen and shivered.
Judy leaned closer to him. “You’re frightened of the wrong person, Zinman,” she whispered. “Tell me. Did Kevin get you into one of his processing spaces?”
Zinman looked down. “He came to me in the atomic world. Back then, he was only an image in a viewing field. I was just the one person then, the atomic Zinman.”
“Why did he come to you?”
“He said he’d read my profile. He claimed to know what it was that I really wanted.”
“And what was that?”
“You know.” Zinman dropped his gaze. “What you said in there.”
“Dominance? Is that what he offered?” Judy tilted her head questioningly.
“Not as such…” Zinman said. “But pleasure, hedonism. The chance to live my dreams.”
The salt wind blew from the sea. Helen hardly noticed that she was shivering; she was too absorbed by the grey wreck of a man kneeling before her.
“ ‘The chance to live my dreams’? Tell me the truth, Zinman.”
“That is the truth!”
“So what were your dreams? Say the words.”
“Dominance,” Zinman said in a small voice. “Rape.”
