CAPACITY

Kevin gave her arm a final twist. Helen felt a wrenching pain in her elbow and gave a yelp. And then she was free. Kevin moved away as she stood up, rubbing her arm, eyeing him balefully.

He smiled. “You’ve lost it, Helen,” he said.

“Lost what?”

“A sense of responsibility. I never expected you to give up so easily.” Kevin pulled two memory strips from his console and handed them, one each, to Judy and Helen.

“What is this?” Judy asked.

“Software code for a spacesuit. You’re going to need it where we’re going. Come on.”

He stepped onto the hexagon and vanished, leaving Helen examining the tiny, slippery strip of plastic between her fingers. Judy was already feeding hers into her console. She looked over at Helen.

“This could be dangerous,” she said calmly. “You don’t have to follow.”

Helen slid the plastic strip into her own console and glared at her.

“Oh yes I do,” she snarled. She stepped onto the hexagon and the Mediterranean terrace vanished.

She was in hard vacuum, floating in the nursery area of the Shawl. Judy appeared before her, striped like a zebra in a black-and-white spacesuit. Helen looked down at her suddenly naked body. Her own suit was transparent. She realized with some annoyance that her passive suit had disappeared. She now floated, apparently naked in the vacuum. Two black spacesuits floated before them, both utterly featureless. Their helmets were dark; no faces could be seen in them.

“Hi,” Kevin’s voice said. “One of these is me, and one is Bairn, my assistant. I thought I might keep my position slightly vague, just in case Helen can’t control herself.”

“I’m perfectly under control,” Helen said, breathing deeply.

“Of course you are. Now. Down to business. You’re trying to pin me down, Judy.”

“Of course. And you’re trying to kill me. Why are we wasting time?”

“I want to talk about David Schummel.”

There was a pause.

“David Schummel?” Judy said. “Who is David Schummel?”

“Ask the atomic Judy. Ask Judy 11. Have they been keeping you out of the loop, Judy? No, I don’t think so. I think you already know who David Schummel is.”

“All right. Why do you want to talk about him?”

Kevin laughed.

“Because David Schummel holds the key to the destruction of the Watcher. I think that might be of interest to you, Judy.”

“Me? Why?”

“Oh, the atomic Judy will find that out. I’m sure she’ll tell you later.”

Helen was staring at the two dark suits. One of them was looking at her directly. Would that be Kevin, or would that be Bairn? If only she knew…

“Helen wants to kill you, you know.” Judy’s voice was matter-of-fact.

“Oh, I know.” Kevin laughed. “I’m surprised to hear you admit your failure to cure her.”

Helen felt a flash of anger. Her cheeks were hot with something almost like embarrassment to be read so easily. They were watching her, naked in her transparent suit.

“Kevin,” Judy said, “why don’t you unblank the suits? Stop playing games. Show Helen what you want her to see.”

“Stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here,” Helen shouted.

The two suits flickered and then became transparent. Everyone was looking at Helen. Judy, Kevin, and the other Helen.

“That’s me,” Helen said, gazing at the figure in the spacesuit that floated beside Kevin. It was her. A little older, a little plumper, and with her hair dyed black, but definitely her. “That’s me,” she repeated.

“I’m not you,” the other said, “not anymore. I’m Bairn.”

“You’re both from the same template,” Kevin said. “Training you is the ultimate challenge, Helen.”

Helen turned to Judy, who was watching her with cool interest.

“Still looking, Judy?” she asked bitterly.

Judy’s glittering eyes slid back towards Kevin. “Okay,” she said. “You’ve had your fun. Why do you want to talk about David Schummel?”

Helen couldn’t help gazing at Bairn. She could see crow’s feet forming around her eyes, see cellulite appearing on her thighs. She guessed the other was what-five, ten years older? Was that how long it would take to break her-Helen’s-spirit? Kevin was still watching her, she noticed. Enjoying the moment.

She gave a shudder. She wasn’t going to give him the pleasure. Recriminations could come later. For the moment, the best way to have revenge on him was to help Judy.

“You were asked a question,” she said, her voice very calm. “Tell us about David Schummel.”

Kevin smirked and turned to the figure floating by him. “You used to speak to me like that, Bairn, remember? Back when you could still get angry with me?”

“I remember, Kevin.”

Helen felt horror tinged with disgust. That was her, floating over there, spirit broken and enslaved to Kevin’s will. She wanted to lash out at something.

“Are you enjoying this, Judy?” she shouted.

Judy ignored Helen’s outburst. “You’re still wasting time, Kevin. What do you want?”

“I once had David Schummel, but the Watcher took him from me. Now that you have helped me to find him again, I want you to know what it is he represents.”

“We helped you to find him?” Helen said.

Kevin ignored her. “Do you know he carried a private processing space with him to Gateway?”

“What is Gateway?” Helen interrupted.

Judy waved a hand to silence her, but Kevin answered.

“One of the Watcher’s failed projects, Helen. Its Achilles heel. What is the Watcher, Helen, but an intelligence? On Gateway there exists something that destroys intelligence.”

“But why would anyone wish to destroy the Watcher?” Judy asked. “It is the guardian of humankind.”

“You don’t really believe that, Judy. It’s a cuckoo. Sheltering in our world, consuming our resources while it shapes its environment to its own end. And soon it will be pushing the other chicks from the nest. Look around, Judy. What do you see?”

“I see the Shawl.”

Black rectangles hanging in lines, perspective funneling their edges to an imaginary point somewhere in the clouds of the blue Earth below.

“You see the Shawl?” Kevin said. “This isn’t the real Shawl! This is a virtual construction! This exists only in processing spaces! The virtual Shawl is much bigger than the real one. It’s a message, a way of keeping us in check.”

“How?”

“How does any dictator keep its subjects in check? By fear, of course!”

Helen was fascinated, despite herself.

“Fear? Of what?”

“What are all humans frightened of? Dying. What am I not afraid of and have proved it time and again? Death. Fear of death holds humans in place. And yet, possessing virtual lives, we could live forever. The Watcher has made us all forget this. It has written birth and death throughout our universe and perpetuated the myth of a soul. That’s what makes you think that you are different than that Helen over there- Bairn.”

“I am different from her.”

“You are now, but what about one second after awakening? Two seconds? Five minutes? I tell you: only by being reborn will you truly live again.”

Judy spoke: “You are ripping off old religious texts and getting the meaning completely backwards.”