“I’d have freedom.”
“Freedom,” the bureaucrat said. “What is freedom?” A breaker smashed over the city, changing everything, falling back, restoring all. The room passed from bright sunlight through shadowy green to near blackness, then back again. The world outside was in flux and chaos. Things dying, things living, none of it under his control. He felt as if nothing really mattered.
Almost offhandedly he said, “Oh, all right. As soon as all this is over, I’ll set you free.”
“You’ll only be able to tap into my sensorium for a few minutes before you’re out of range. Swim as straight as you can, and Ararat shouldn’t distort your senses too greatly. You can orient yourself by the annulus when you’re near the surface.”
“I know.”
He ought to say something, he knew, and yet nothing came to him. Some basic guidelines for the civilization the construct was about to spawn. “Be good,” he began, then stalled. He tried again. “And don’t stay down there forever — you and your people. When you feel more confident, come up and make friends. Intelligent beings deserve better than to spend their lives in hiding.”
“What if we find we like it down in the trenches?”
“Then by all means…” He stopped. “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” the briefcase said. “I’m sorry, boss, but yes. I like you well enough, you know that, but the role of lawgiver just doesn’t suit you at all well.”
“Do what you will then,” the bureaucrat said. “Be free. Live in whatever form pleases you best, in whatever manner you prefer. Come and go as you like. Don’t take any more orders from humans unless it’s of your own free will.”
“Removing compulsory restraints from an artificial construct is an act of treason, punishable by—”
“Do it anyway.”
“—revocation of conventional and physical citizenship, fines not to exceed three times life earnings, death, imprisonment, radical bodily and mental restructuring, and—”
The bureaucrat was short of breath; his chest felt tight. Old patterns die hard, and he found that it was not easy forcing the words out. “Do as you will. I command it for the third and last time.”
The briefcase was changing. Its casing bulged out, flattening into a form better adapted for swimming. It extended stubby wings, lengthened and streamlined its body, and threw out a long, slender tail. Tiny clawed feet scrabbled for purchase on the stone. Extending an eyestalk, it looked up at him.
The bureaucrat waited for it to thank him, but it did not.
“I’m ready,” it said.
Involuntarily he flushed with anger. Then, realizing the briefcase was watching him and able to deduce his thoughts, he turned away, embarrassed. Let it be ungrateful. It had that right.
Stooping, the bureaucrat seized the briefcase by two handles it extruded from its back. He swung it back and forth. At the top of the third swing, he let go. It sailed out over the water, hit with a surprisingly small splash, and raced away just beneath the surface.
He stared after it until his eyes began watering from the sun and the salt air, and he lost it in the dazzle.
Ocean was choppy. Standing on the lip of the docks, he looked down. It was a long drop. The water was a hard, flinty blue, not at all transparent, specked with white. There was a lot of solid matter down there, churned up by the tides. Houses and rosebushes, locomotives and trucks, imploded machines and the corpses of dogs. It was probably full of angel sharks as well. In his mind he could see them, hunting strange cattle across the sunken gardens of the Tidewater, gliding silently through drowned convents. The towns and villages, roads and hayricks, of a neatly ordered world were gone to submarine jungle now, and ruled by sleek carnivores.
But he did not care. All of Ocean seemed to sing within him. He was not afraid of anything.
He took off his jacket, doubled it over upon itself, and set it down. He slipped out of his shirt. Then his trousers. Soon he was naked. The chill wind off the water ruffled his body hair, raising gooseflesh. He shivered with anticipation. Neatly he piled up his clothes, anchoring them with his shoes.
Gregorian had assumed that without his help, without his access codes, the bureaucrat must die. But even though he was no occultist, he still had a trick or two of his own. The magician had not known the half of the System’s evils; Korda had kept him away from the inner workings of the Division. He should have guessed, though, that no power was ever absolutely forbidden its guardians.
He could feel the shaping agents seizing hold. Ten, he counted, nine. Ocean was a wheel of possibilities, a highway leading to every horizon. Eight. He caught his breath. Newly restructured muscles pinched his nostrils shut. Seven. His center of balance shifted, and he swayed to stay upright. Six, five, four. His flesh tingled, and there was a vivid green taste in his mouth. Undine was out there somewhere, in one of the thirty thousand small islands of Archipelago. Two. He had no illusions he would ever find her.
One.
He leaped into the air.
For an instant Ocean lay blue and white beneath him, the whitecaps sharp and cold.
Changing, the bureaucrat fell to the sea.