But to Dee, out in the wet night, it’s commonplace, and a drag. For about half an hour she’s had to keep the image-intensifiers at full blast, and her eyes are hurting. Her ears, too: sonar ping off wet walls a metre or so away on either side induces an enclosing sense of pressure. At the same time turning it down or off would strain her even more. So it’s with relief and relaxation that she sees the narrow waterway open out on a much wider and brighter canal.
‘Ring Canal,’ Tamara indicates as she turns her little craft to the right. Dee, craning her head and looking fore and aft, can see no curvature. Tall, narrow houses – rather than storage blocks and industrial units – overlook this canal, and lights are strung above its banks. Ahead, a rapidly closing hundred metres away, the Ring Canal itself opens out, and through the gap between the buildings at the end Dee sees what looks and sounds like a bonfire: a blaze of light, a roar of noise.
At the confluence, the Ring Canal separates to left and right, curving to a visible ring whose diameter Dee estimates as three hundred metres. More of the tall houses huddle around it, and within it there’s a flat island, accessible from the surrounding circular way by bridges. This central island is covered with corrugated-iron huts and fabric booths and shacks, among which many people are loudly busy. The light comes from overhead floods, and from each individual booth’s contribution of spotlights, fluorescent tubing, strobe, fairy-light cable, and fibre-optic.
Tamara takes another right and throttles back the engine, coasting along the outer bank, silent amid the din of music and commerce, both competitive.
‘What’s going on here?’ Dee asks.
Tamara spares her a glance. ‘Fi’day evening in Circle Square.’
A tiny jetty under a narrow wrought-iron bridge, with a set of steps attached. Tamara moors the boat and motions to Dee to climb the steps. She waits on the shoreward side of the bridge and helps Tamara to haul up the bag. The coming and going of people – couples, groups, kids dodging and weaving between legs and wheels, youths on or in vehicles built to go fast and moving slow, and things that might be vehicles except they have no riders – almost pushes her back off.
‘Right,’ says Tamara, ‘time to make you legal.’
She sets off along the bridge, Dee close behind her – one person in the crowd who has no difficulty getting through.
Most of the stalls around the circumference of the island are locked up, but still lit-up. The ones that aren’t are selling drinks and snacks. The main action is going on towards the hub, in a melée of fairground attractions, discos and rock concerts. Dee notices a stage with a band that looks and sounds just like Metal Petal, this week’s hit at every uptown thrash. A quick visual zoom and aural analysis reveals that they are Metal Petal. (Dee’s heard about copyright, but it’s one of those things she doesn’t quite believe, a song of distant Earth.)
Tamara stops in front of a thing like a big vending-machine between two stalls. It’s covered with dust and rust. It has a black window at the top and a speaker grille and a channel down one side through which Tamara swipes a card. Nothing happens.
‘Hey!’ she shouts. She bangs the side with her fist, making a hollow boom. ‘Fucking IBM,’ she says to no-one in particular.
Lights come on behind the dark window.
‘Invisible Hand Legal Services,’ says the machine, in a voice like God in an old movie. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Register an autonomy claim for an abandoned machine,’ Tamara says, catching Dee’s wrist and pressing her palm against the window.
‘Both hands please,’ says the machine. ‘Both eyes.’
Dee spreads her fingers against the glass and peers in, seeing her own reflection and bright, moving sparks of light.
‘How do you wish the claim to be defended?’
‘I’ll defend it!’ Dee says with a sudden surge of Self-ish passion.
‘By the principal,’ Tamara adds gravely. ‘And by me, my affiliates and by back-up if requested.’
‘Very well. Noted and posted.’
The lights go out. Tamara’s still holding Dee’s wrist, and she swings her around and grabs the other…then lets go, and clasps hands instead. Dee looks at Tamara’s eyes and sees her own reflection and the speeding, spinning lights behind her, the doubled fair.
‘Okay gal,’ Tamara yells. ‘That’s you with a gang on your side! That’s as free as it gets! Give or take…Later for that! Right now –’ she twirls to face the thrumming hub of the island market ‘– let’s party!’
‘You’re telling me,’ Wilde said incredulously to the robot, ‘that Reid is here?’
‘Yes,’ said the robot. ‘Why should that surprise you? Is it more remarkable than your being here?’
Wilde grinned at it sourly. He pushed away his empty plate and sipped at his beer. He shook his head.
‘Reid was one of the last people I saw,’ he said. ‘For all I know, it may have been him who had me killed. And as far as I’m concerned, it happened today. Christ. I keep expecting to wake up.’
‘You have woken up,’ the robot said. ‘You can expect some emotional reaction as your mind adjusts to your situation.’
‘I suppose so.’ A bleakness belying his apparent age settled on Wilde’s countenance. ‘It has already. So tell me, machine. I’m here, and you say Reid’s here. What about other people I knew? What about Annette?’
‘Annette,’ the machine said carefully, ‘is among the dead. Whether her mind as well as her genotype has been preserved I don’t know, but there may be grounds for hope.’
‘Because of the clone?’
‘Yes.’
‘I must find her, and find out.’
‘You can find out without finding her,’ said the machine. ‘It’s…I’ll explain tomorrow.’
‘Why not now?’
‘Trouble,’ the machine said. ‘Don’t turn around until you hear something.’
Wilde set down his glass. His shoulders began to hunch.
‘Relax,’ said the machine.
The doors of the pub banged open and the music stopped. Conversations ran on for a few seconds and then trailed off into the spreading silence. Everybody turned around.
Two men stood in the doorway. They were wearing loose-cut, sharp-creased business suits, over open-necked shirts, over tee-shirts. Their hair was as shiny as their shoes, and their knuckles flashed with studded stones. One of the men perfunctorily held up a card showing a mug-shot of himself and a grey block of small print. The other took from a jacket-pocket a crumpled ball of flat material. He grasped a corner of it and shook it out. With a final flick of his wrist he snapped it to a glossy, full-colour, high-res poster depicting the dark-haired woman who had fled from Wilde and the robot.
‘Anybody seen her?’ he demanded.
The pub’s customers could still be approximately differentiated into two groups, the men at the bar and the girls at the tables, although some mingling had begun. A little flurry of giggles and gasps came from the women, and a murmur of grunts and slightly shifted seats and glasses from the men. Anyone who looked about to say something would glance at the men at the bar, and find someone else to look at, something else to say.
Within half a minute everybody was talking again; the men at the bar had turned back to watching the television, where a commentator was interviewing a team-leader behind whom bodies were being stretchered from an arena. The only person still looking directly at the repossession men was Wilde. The one holding the picture strolled over; the other followed, fondling a revolver-butt with a look of distant pleasure.