And like a bubble something burst.
'Ten seconds to go.'
Mae's knees gave way; out it moved, something encased. She felt it move – move of its own accord – and the envelope tore and something sugary and sweet suddenly poured forth.
Kwan was shouting over all the noise, and stroking Mae's throat. 'It's coming. She's giving birth through her mouth.'
And then the Flood came.
A flash and a falling backwards, and then a waterfall of sound/ taste/images sense, rising up out of the earth, catching fire. A flood of Air roaring into her head with a sound like bells, washing away the breakage of the previous Format.
Mae thought, this time it will be right, this time it will be safe.
The people were imprinted again.
Because of Mae it was still the UN Format. It was not the UN Format that had made her ill, but the mailbox program. There was no need for a different Format. She had wrote and told Bugsy that. Bugsy had written a second, powerful article: 'Do We Want a Company to Own Our Souls?'
There were voices in the air like birds, and they shouted in all languages, Hello! hello! hello!
Mae understood them, understood all the languages; she tasted the tang of New York, the restraint and pride of Japan, the waves of salt from her own people.
And Bay Toh Van.
'Come sing a song of joy!'
Air bloomed as gently as knowledge itself; thing after thing was learned, as ignorance was healed like a suppurated wound. Cars, telephones, the Kings of England, the Japanese yen, the euro, the space shuttle, the iron molecules on old computer disks.
And the joyful ghosts. They came running even as Mae choked and clenched for one last time.
'bugsy@nouvelles: Babe! Honey, did you make it?'
'My baby! I've just had my baby!'
Bay Toh Van boomed, Bugsy did a virtual dance in the air, and Mae looked down, under crackling light.
'tunch@kn: Well, Mae, you won. You beat even me. We all won.'
'chungl@arm: Hiya, Mom, show us Kizuldah. We can see with your eyes, Mom!'
And Mae looked down at the thing that hung out of her mouth. Sunni held one hand, Kwan the other, and Kuei's arm was around her back.
The newborn was tiny, the size of a hand. How could it shrink so small? And it was burned black – black by acids. Its tiny fingers seemed melted together, and its tiny genitals were a blur of ruined flesh and its eyes had been seared shut.
And the child beamed – smiling, joyful, dazed.
The babe had been Formatted.
It was full of Beethoven, the history of Karzistan, the hysterical voices of joy live from Beijing, a new wall of Collab music rolling across the landscape from New York, and a sudden, huge warm hand of love reaching into it. Mae spoke to it through Air.
'My little future. You are blind, but you will not need to see, for we can all see for you, and sights and sounds will pass through to you from us. You have no hands, but you will not need hands, for your mind will control the machines, and they will be as hands. Your ears also burned away, but you will hear more in one hour than we heard in all of our lifetimes.
'I am called your mother.'
And then Mae looked up.
'You're alive,' said Kwan.
'We all are,' said Mae, and she caught up the dangling child and its father reached out for it, held it and cradled it. 'He burns!' Kuei chuckled. 'The child burns.' But he cradled him to his breast.
The light flicked and crackled for one last time; the fireworks of Kizuldah fell away to nothing. Kwan gave her a tug. Mae and Kwan, Sunni, Siao, Kuei and his new son, Old Mrs Tung, all of them, turned and walked together into the future.
