And then their conversation ceased. They were all staring at Judy 3-at Helen’s Judy.
“What’s the matter?” Helen said, but Judy 3 spoke without looking at her.
“We’re going to see Kevin. He’s up here. He uses the processing spaces of the factory and the Shawl. There is so much spare processing capacity up here, linked between the different virtual realities, that it is easy for him to escape detection. That’s what we think, anyway. Ten seems to think she’s got him pinpointed.”
“So let’s get him.”
“It’s not that easy, Helen. Kevin is not a normal personality. When he’s cornered, he just commits suicide. We need to stop him from doing that.”
“Well, think of something.”
“We have. It’s an old process. If we can locate his consciousness in the processing space, we can affect it directly, heighten his sense of self-preservation. It’s what Social Care does, Helen. Preserves life.”
Helen felt as if her skull was made of glass. She tried to suppress her thoughts. Everyone present knew what she would do if ever she had Kevin trapped in a processing space.
Judy 3’s look made her feel angry.
“If I do catch him, wouldn’t you want to watch?” Helen asked. A wave of disapproval came from the Judys again. Helen had the impression it was still directed at Three. It began to fade as, one by one, the Judys flickered out of existence. Soon, only Judy 3 remained.
“Come on,” she said, looking chastened.
They stepped between virtual sections of the Shawl via white hexagons painted on the floor.
“Anyone who says the Shawl wasn’t designed to be principally a virtual construct hasn’t tried to traverse it in the atomic world,” said Judy. “It only works when you can do what
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Helen said, still sullen. “Trying to get me chatting. Calm me down. Don’t talk to me about anything that isn’t to do with capturing Kevin.”
“Fine,” Judy said. They strode down a long, high corridor lined on both sides with low doors. A fine misty spray constantly rose from the floor to the ceiling, glowing eerily in the green light that suffused the tunnel.
“What is this place?” Helen asked, her face beaded with moisture. “What sort of person wants to live in this environment?”
“That’s nothing to do with capturing Kevin,” Judy replied, “so I won’t waste your time by giving you an answer.”
Helen could see how Judy was watching her from the corner of her eyes, the action giving the lie to her otherwise impassive expression.
“Just watching again, Judy?” she asked.
“It’s what I do. In Social Care we try not to judge. We let the clients judge themselves.”
“I call that moral cowardice. You’re so frightened of making a decision that you won’t even let a man close to you.”
“Maybe you’re right, Helen,” Judy said with a smile, and Helen silently cursed herself for being drawn into conversation.
They came to the end of the long corridor, and Helen walked quickly onto the hexagon painted on the floor there, eager to get away.
In atomic space the sections of the Shawl were all just over three kilometers apart. Here in the digital world there was no such thing as absolute distance. Helen stepped straight from green mist into a Mediterranean landscape: brilliant blue sky shining down over dazzling white buildings. She gasped at the beauty of the scene before her: whitewashed houses and apartments arranged around courtyards, narrow roads climbing between smooth, white walls linking the terraces that climbed up from the gentle blue sea that lay far below. Trailing plants and creepers cascaded down the various levels, brilliant red and orange flowers blooming around them in a riot of color, their heady perfume filling the air. The sound of bees and the smell of orange blossoms were carried on a cool breeze.
“This would be a nice place to live,” Judy said. She pulled an orange flower from a nearby creeper and tucked it into the fold of her obi, then began to descend a shady set of stone steps tucked into the space between two white buildings.
“Why are we here if there is no sign of Kevin?” Helen asked, trotting after her.
“We’re trying to triangulate on him. My sisters are stepping through the sections of the Shawl all around us, listening for him. We reckon he is in the space between us, in the area where the sections of the Shawl replicate.”
They rounded a corner and found themselves on a wide terrace directly overlooking the sea. The breeze was stronger here and they could see people on the terraces below flying kites. Blue and green dragons chased delicate pink birds-so many virtual people, all flying kites in a blue sky 22,000 kilometers above a virtual Earth. Helen had a sudden feeling of vertigo.
“What’s the matter?” Judy asked, picking up on Helen’s sensation, high as she was on little blue pills. “What’s the matter, Helen?”
Helen was suddenly dizzy, crouching down on the grey cobbles of the terrace as if she was afraid of falling into the sea below. She held one hand to her mouth.
“All these people.” She gagged. “I never thought…All alive in a processing space and they still fly kites. We’re not even here, and this is what we do. I can’t follow the steps sometimes. People fly a kite, standing on a roof of a house in a section of the Shawl that floats high above the Earth that really only exists in a processing space that is located who-knows-where…”
Judy folded her arms into her sleeves and stared. “A mind is a mind, Helen,” she said calmly. “Just think of a tune. Written out in musical notation, recorded digitally, played on a flute, sung by a human; it’s still the same tune no matter how the medium changes. It’s the same with your thoughts. Your mind is your mind.”
Helen stretched her hands out on the warm cobbles before her, feeling their smoothness, connecting with something solid and real. Except of course they weren’t.
“My mind…”
“Even in your atomic form, your mind was always more than just a bunch of neurons. Well, why should your mind be any less valid just because it is written in a processing space rather than in flesh?”
The wind gusted. The crack of kites and the slap of the strings could be heard. Three golden children chased past them wearing nothing but pale blue ribbons in their long dark hair. They were gasping and squealing as they played a game of catch.
“Children?” Helen said. “There are still children, even in this place? Children, and kites and nice places to live…”
“And good food and drink…music and literature and art,” added Judy.
Helen reached up to her scalp and began to pick at the edge of the piece of plastic that she had formed over her hair, aping Judy’s appearance.
“I do all this, and yet it means nothing.” She pulled at the plastic, peeled it free of her head, and dropped it to the ground.
“Even you, Helen? I’m disappointed.”
Helen’s head snapped up at the sound of Kevin’s voice. He was standing in the middle of a white hexagon that had suddenly appeared on the cobblestones. Tall and good looking, with that lazy smile, appearing utterly relaxed. Without hesitating, Helen flung herself at him. He sidestepped her easily; tripped her so that she fell sprawling on the ground, banging her knees on the hard cobbles. She gave a yelp of pain. Kevin dropped down on her, pulling her arm back in a lock behind her.
“Bastard!” she yelled.
Kevin said nothing.
“Judy!” Helen called. “Help me!”
She twisted her head to see that Judy had merely folded her hands into the sleeves of her kimono and assumed her calm expression.
“Is that all you are going to do? Just watch?”
“Let her go, Kevin,” Judy said easily.
