exactly? This was what Bionet engineers debated after hours while downing Labatts. Some speculated that the brain was in the process of internalizing the Internet. A fringe faction asserted that this new stage would answer philosophical and spiritual questions that had haunted humanity since at least the Greek dudes. His was a brain, Rocco liked to say, that thought about how to build a better brain. But brains could forget and, by extension, cultures could forget. Abby’s brain struggled to locate artifacts that had been lost by the collective brain of civilization, archaeologically scrambling into the washed-out past, while Rocco’s brain clawed its way into some sort of future. From this nexus of memory and yearning and logic sprang their attraction to one another. They totally made each other cognitively and biologically horny. Usually.
Abby cursed herself for not telling Rocco about what Bickle had said about the neighbours but now it was too late. If she brought it up now she’d be admitting that she was ashamed of her voyeuristic streak. She’d missed her chance to drop that bomb in an offhand way.
“No more student loans,” Abby whispered in the night. That was her excuse for taking the job. The real reason, the one she dared not articulate even to herself, was curiosity.
The city of Victoria appeared to have regressed in age, its green-built skyscrapers brought to heel, malls and parking garages and condominiums razed, all replaced by roiling wilds. What remained standing were the buildings worthy of the city’s heritage—the Parliament, some Tudor-style B&Bs, a replica of Shakespeare’s house. This was a city that had once aspired to London’s botanical gardens and double-decker buses but had negotiated with the tribal culture that preceded it, arriving at an aesthetic truce, a fusion of potlatch and high tea. Here and there totem poles and longhouses materialized from the Emily Carr mists rolling off the harbour, monuments of extinctions far more distant than the end times of recent memory.
Abby disembarked, suitcase in one hand, a duffel containing her tools in the other. Up ahead was the Empress Hotel, a stately, ivy-clad structure that smugly lorded over the geography as if glaciers had sculpted the harbour for its benefit alone. It used to be a hotel, anyway. In recent centuries it had survived fires, vandalism, drug-addicted architects who’d added wings and bunkers. A scorched tower stood proudly unbowed. Abby ascended to the lobby entrance, skipping every other step.
Once inside, a fit, middle-aged man with gouts of grey chest hair frothing under his chin, wearing a silver tracksuit with the words “Official Delegate” stitched upon the breast, wearily took her bags. “So the entertainment has finally arrived,” he said, sounding disappointed as he led her down the hall. “The lady of the house has been waiting impatiently. Federico #37? Costume, please?”
Abby scrambled to get her bearings. A floor of river rock, walls paneled in extinct woods, scents of imitation campfires, dried flowers, decaying leather chesterfields. The man led her through the lobby of distressed furniture, down a hall, and into a dressing room disheveled with clothing. Another man wearing an identical tracksuit— actually this looked to be a twin of the man currently pointing her in the direction of a changing screen—stumbled into the claustrophobia-inducing room wheeling a creaking rack laden with costumes.
“The bunny? I think it’s supposed to be the bunny,” the first man said. Federico #37 rifled through the clothes and pulled out a pink fake-fur bunny costume with a grinning head-piece.
“I think this is a mistake,” Abby said.
“The bunny costume usually is,” Federico #37 said.
“Oh, by the way, I’m Federico #18,” the first man said. “This is #37.”
“There are other Federicos?”
“Don’t get us started,” #37 said. “You’re going to want to get down to panties and bra. It gets hot inside these suckers.”
Abby ducked behind a screen and changed into the bunny costume. She took this for some kind of initiatory protocol, a little good-natured hazing. When she emerged she turned and held out her arms. “How does it look?”
“Could use some filling out in the ass,” #37 said, “but we work with the entertainment options we have, not the ones we want.”
“I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else,” Abby said. “I’m not an entertainer. I was sent here to work on a project.”
The Federicos paused. “A project?”
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say.”
“Whatever. We’re just the entertainment coordinators. This way, please.”
One at each arm, grim-faced, the Federicos jogged Abby down a hallway. Through the bunny head’s eye holes she glimpsed garishly colored oil paintings and sconces crafted from ungulate hooves. They passed through several rooms—parlours and game rooms, a library, a room that appeared decorated solely with bowling trophies and a sculpture of a bird. At the end of a long hallway they skidded up to a black door marked STAGE, patted Abby on the shoulder, mumbled “Break a leg” in unison, then pushed her into the spotlight.
Abby found herself onstage in a theater before an audience that applauded as she made her entrance. The theater probably seated two or three hundred, the main floor and balconies filled to capacity. It was a three-layer affair, high and oval, gilded and bedecked in red velvet, gold ropes, rosette-print carpet, chandeliers the size of your more fuel-efficient compact cars. Abby, having no clue where to stand, stumbled, eliciting chuckles from the audience. Her throat went dry.
“I’m sorry, but there’s been a mistake,” Abby stuttered. “I’m not an entertainer. My name is Abby Fogg and I was sent here by a man named Dirk Bickle.”
The audience cheered and whistled loudly.
Abby waited for the applause to die down. “I don’t know what I’m doing here dressed as a bunny but this has been the weirdest twenty-four hours of my life.”
Assorted chuckles.
“I live in Vancouver. I recently graduated from the University of British Columbia with a master’s degree in data recovery. I’m here for a project that requires my expertise in restoring digital content. Is there someone I can talk to about this? I’m really sorry I’m not the entertainer you thought I was supposed to be. I’m not even sure if I’m in the right place. Are you in need of a digital recovery expert?”
The audience howled. As the laughter died down, some guy in the back yelled, “You’re in the right place all right!”
Abby tried to get a good look at the audience through the bunny eye holes. They were dressed formally, as for an opera, in tuxedos and satin ball gowns, with furs and top hats, monocles, clutch purses, and, here and there, a lap poodle. Every face exactly the same. Six hundred Federicos waited for her to deliver her next line. Things got blurry. Dramatically—this being a stage after all—Abby swooned and fell over, the bunny head providing a soft landing as she passed out and the audience rose to an ovation.
She woke to seagull cries, in a third-floor suite facing the harbour, her suitcases set beside the king-size bed. The open window let in a warm, salted breeze. There was a desk, a lamp, a chair, two bedside tables. In the chair sat one of the Federicos, reading a book. This Federico looked younger and had longer hair than the previous ones she’d met. When he noticed Abby stirring he set the book aside and folded his hands over his crossed knees.
“You hungry?”
“No,” Abby said. “Maybe a little.”
“Bring the girl something to eat,” Federico said to no one in particular.
“What is going on here?”
“I don’t blame you for being confused,” Federico said, “and I have to apologize. I was supposed to orient you, but numbers 37 and 18 got to you first. I expected you to arrive later.”
“What is this place?”
“We call it the Seaside Love Palace.”
“You’re all twins or—”
“Clones.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Six hundred and thirty-one.”
“I thought the quota was two.”
“It is in the United States and Canada. Vancouver Island seceded, remember?”
