The fountain sputtered. A blossom crashed into the basin, splashing gouts of champagne.
Gérard shoved through the crowd, wig askew, slipping on the wet floor. He skidded into place at Sylvain’s side.
The fountain sprayed champagne across their backs and high to the ceiling, snuffing out a hundred candles overhead.
“Go to your wife. Get her out of the palace,” said Sylvain.
Gérard ran full-speed for the door.
Sylvain raised his sword and brought it crashing down on the fountain. Ice limbs shattered. Champagne and ice vaulted overhead and fell, spraying debris across the marble floor. He shifted his grip and smashed the pommel of his sword on the side of the reservoir. It cracked and split. He hit it again and again until the floor flooded with golden liquid. Sylvain threw down his sword and shouldered the ice aside.
“Papa?”
The little fish was curled into a quivering ball. Sylvain slipped and fell to his hands and knees. He crawled toward her, reached out.
“It’s all right, my little one. Come here, my darling.”
She lifted her arms. He gathered her to his chest. She burrowed her face into his neck, quaking.
“Noisy,” she sobbed. “Too loud. Hurts. Papa.”
Sylvain held her on his lap, champagne seeping through his clothes. He cupped his palms over her ears and squeezed her to his heart, rocking back and forth until her shivering began to subside. Then he pulled himself to his feet, awkward and unbalanced with the child in his arms.
He stepped out of the shattered ice into a line of drawn swords. Polished steel glinted, throwing points of light across the faces of the household guard. Sylvain shielded the child with his body as he scanned the crowd.
The jostling guests were forced against the walls by the line of guards. The plumes of the king’s hat disappeared into the Salon of Peace, followed by the broad backs of his bodyguards. Madame, her sister, and their ladies clustered on the royal dais, guarded by the Marshal de Noailles.
De Noailles had personally executed turncoat soldiers with the very same sword that now shone in his hand.
“Let the water go, my little one,” Sylvain whispered.
She blinked up at him. “Be a bad girl, Papa?” Her brow furrowed in confusion.
“The water pipes, the reservoirs. Let it all go.”
“Papa?”
“Go ahead, little fish.”
She relaxed in his arms, as if she had been holding her breath a long time and could finally breathe.
A faint rumble sounded overhead, distant. It grew louder. The walls trembled. Sylvain spread his palm over the nixie’s wet scalp as if he could armor her fragile skull. A mirror slipped to the floor and shattered. The guards looked around, trying to pinpoint the threat. Their swords wavered and dipped.
The ceiling over the statue of Hermes bowed and cracked. Plaster rained down on the guests. The statue teetered and toppled. The guests pushed through the guards, scattering their line.
The ceiling sprang a thousand leaks. The huge chandeliers swung back and forth. Water streamed down the garden windows, turning the glass silver and gold, and then dark as the candles sputtered and smoked.
The guests broke through the wide garden doors and stormed through the water streaming off the roof and out onto the wide terraces. Sylvain retrieved his sword and followed, ducking low and holding the little fish tight as he fled into the fresh February night.
He ran across the gardens, past the pools and reservoirs, through the orangery and yew grove. He climbed the Bois des Gonards and turned back to the palace, breathless, scanning the paths for pursuing guards.
Aside from the crowd milling on the terraces, there was no movement in the gardens. The fountains jetted high, fifteen hundred spouts across the vast expanse of lawns and paths, flower beds and hedges, each spout playing, every jet dancing for its own amusement.
“You can turn the fountains off now, little one.”
“Papa?” The little fish was growing heavy. He shifted her weight onto his hip, well balanced for a long walk.
“Don’t worry, my little girl. No more fountains. We’re going home.”
One by one the fountains flailed and drooped. The little fish leaned her head on his shoulder and yawned.
The palace was dark except for an array of glowing windows in the north wing and along the row of attic garrets. At this distance, it looked dry and calm.
And indeed, he thought, nothing was damaged that couldn’t be repaired. The servants would spend a few busy weeks mopping, the carpenters and plasterers, gilders and painters would have a few seasons of work. Eventually, someone would find a way to repair a fountain or two. The toilets and pipes would stand dry, but the nobles and courtiers would notice little difference. What was broken there could never be fixed.
Dawn found them on a canal. Sylvain sat on the prow of a narrow boat, eating bread and cheese and watching his little fish jump and splash in the gentle bow wave as they drifted upstream on the long journey home.
CAPITALISM IN THE 22ND CENTURY, or A.I.R.
Geoff Ryman
GEOFF RYMAN IS the author of The Warrior Who Carried Life, the novella “The Unconquered Country”, The Child Garden, Was, Lust, and Air. His work 253, or Tube Theatre was published as hypertext fiction and won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award. He has also won the World Fantasy, Campbell Memorial, Arthur C. Clarke, British Science Fiction Association, Sunburst, James Tiptree, and Gaylactic Spectrum awards. His most recent novel, The King’s Last Song, is set in Cambodia. Ryman currently lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
MEU IRMÃ. Can you read? Without help? I don’t even know if you can! I’m asking you to turn off all your connections now. That’s right, to everything. Not even the cutest little app flittering around your head. JUST TURN OFF.
It will be like dying. Parts of your memory close down. It’s horrible, like watching lights go out all over a city, only it’s YOU. Or what you thought was you.
But please, Graça, just do it once. I know you love the AI and all zir little angels. But. Turn off?
Otherwise go ahead, let your AI read this for you. Zey will either screen out stuff or report it back or both. And what I’m going to tell you will join the system.
So:
Zey dream for us don’t zey? I think zey edit our dreams so we won’t get scared. Or maybe so that our brains don’t well up from underneath to warn us about getting old or poor or sick... or about zem.
The first day, zey jerked us awake from deep inside our heads. GET UP GET UP GET UP! There’s a message. VERY IMPORTANT WAKE UP WAKE UP.
From sleep to bolt upright and gasping for breath. I looked across at you still wrapped in your bed, but we’re always latched together so I could feel your heart pounding.
It wasn’t just a message; it was a whole ball of wax; and the wax was a solid state of being: panic. Followed by an avalanche of ship-sailing times, credit records, what to pack. And a sizzling, hot-foot sense that we had to get going right now. Zey shot us full of adrenaline: RUN! ESCAPE!
You said, “It’s happening. We better get going. We’ve got just enough time to sail to Africa.” You giggled and flung open your bed. “Come on Cristina, it will be fun!”
Outside in the dark from down below, the mobile chargers were calling Oyez-treeee-cee-dah-djee! I wanted to nestle down into my cocoon and imagine as I had done every morning since I was six that instead of selling power, the chargers were muezzin calling us to prayer and that I lived in a city with mosques. I heard the rumble of carts being pulled by their owners like horses.