“Kate.”
“And then I’m to be conditioned against the use of the WormCam. Convicted felons like me, you see, aren’t to be allowed access to the technology. They will lay down false memory traces in my amygdala, the seat of my emotions. I’ll have a phobia, unbeatable, about even considering the use of a WormCam, or viewing its results.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She propped herself up on her elbows. Her shadowed face loomed before him, her eye sockets smooth-rimmed wells of darkness. “How can you defend them? You, of all people.”
“I’m not defending anybody. Anyhow, I don’t believe there’s a them. Everybody involved has just been doing her job: the FBI, the courts.”
“And Hiram?”
He didn’t try to answer. He said, “All I want to do is hold you.”
She sighed, and laid her head down on his chest; it felt heavy, her cheek warm against his flesh.
He hesitated. “Anyhow, I know what the real problem is…”
He could feel her frowning.
“It’s me. Isn’t it? You don’t want a switch in your head, because that’s what I had when you found me. You have a dread of becoming like me, like I was. On some level.” He forced it out. “On some level, you despise me.”
She pulled herself back from him. “All you’re thinking about is yourself. But I’m the one who’s about to have her brains removed by an ice-cream scoop.” She got out of bed, walked out of the room, and shut the door with cold control, leaving him in darkness.
He slept awhile.
When he woke, he went to find her. The living room was still dark, the curtains closed and lights off. But he could tell she was here.
“Lights on.”
Light, garish and bright, flooded the room.
Kate was sitting on a sofa, fully dressed. She was facing a table, on which sat a bottle of some clear fluid, and another bottle, smaller. Barbiturates and alcohol. Both bottles were unopened, their seals intact. The liquor was an expensive absinthe.
She said, “I always did have good taste.”
“Kate.”
Her eyes were watering in the light, her pupils huge, making her seem child-like. “Funny, isn’t it? I must have covered a dozen suicides, more attempted. I know there are quicker ways than this. I could slit my wrists, or even my neck. I could even blow out my brains, before they get screwed up. This will be slower. Probably more painful. But it’s easy. You see? You sip and swallow, sip and swallow.” She laughed, coldly. “You even get drunk in the process.”
“You don’t want to do this.”
“No. You’re right. I don’t want to do it. Which is why I need you to help me.”
For answer he picked up the liquor and hurled it across the room. It smashed against a wall, creating a spectacular, expensive splash stain on the plaster there.
Kate sighed. “That’s not the only bottle in the world. I’ll do it eventually. I’d rather die than let them screw with my brain.”
“There must be another way. I’ll go back to Hiram, and tell him.”
“Tell him what? That if he doesn’t ’fess up I’m going to destroy myself? He’ll laugh at you, Bobby. He wants me destroyed, one way or the other.”
He paced the room, growing desperate. “Then let’s get out of here!”
She sighed. “They can watch us leave this room, follow us anywhere. We could go to the Moon and never be free.”
The voice seemed to come out of thin air. “If you believe that, you may as well give up now.”
Kate gasped; Bobby jumped and whirled. It had been the voice of a woman, or a girl — a familiar voice. But the room seemed empty.
Bobby said slowly, “Mary?”
Bobby saw her face first, floating in the air, as she began to peel back a hood. Then, as she started to move against the background, the perfection of her SmartShroud concealment began to break down, and he could make out her outline; a shadowed limb here, a vague discoloured blur where her torso must be, the whole overlaid by an odd, eye-deceiving fish-eye effect, like the earliest WormCam images. He noted, absently, that she seemed clean, healthy, even well fed.
“How did you get in here?”
She grinned. “If you come with me, Kate, I’ll show you.”
Kate said slowly, “Come with you? Where?”
“And why?” Bobby asked.
“’Why’ is obvious, Bobby,” Mary said, an echo of her adolescent prickle returning. “Because, as Kate keeps saying, if she doesn’t get out of here the man is going to stir her brains with a spoon.”
Bobby said reasonably, “Wherever she goes she can be traced.”
“Right,” Mary said heavily. “The WormCam. But you haven’t been able to trace me since I left home three months ago. You didn’t see me coming. You didn’t know I was in the apartment until I revealed myself. Look, the WormCam is a terrific tool. But it isn’t a magic wand. People are paralysed by it. They’ve stopped thinking. Even if Santa Claus can see you, what is he going to do? By the time he arrives you can be long gone.”
Bobby frowned. “Santa Claus?”
Kate said slowly, “Santa can see you all the time. On Christmas Eve, he can look back over the whole year and see if you’ve been naughty or nice.”
Mary grinned. “Santa must have had the first WormCam of all. Right? Merry Christmas.”
“I always thought that was a sinister myth,” Kate said. “But you can only keep away from Santa if you can see him coming.”
Mary smiled. “That’s easy.” She raised her arm, pulled back her SmartShroud sleeve and revealed what looked like a fat wristwatch. It was compact, scuffed, and had the look of something out of a home workshop. The instrument’s face was a miniature SoftScreen; it showed views of the corridor outside, the street, the elevators, what must be neighbouring apartments. “All empty,” murmured Mary. “Maybe some goon somewhere is listening to everything we say. Who cares? By the time he gets here, we’ll be gone.”
“That’s a WormCam,” Kate said. “On her wrist. Some kind of pirate design.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Bobby. “Compared to the giant accelerators in the Wormworks.”
“And,” said Mary, “Alexander Graham Bell probably never thought a telephone could be made without a cable, and so small it could be implanted in your wrist.”
Kate’s eyes narrowed. “A Casimir injector could never be miniaturized that far. This has to be squeezed vacuum technology. The stuff David was working on, Bobby.”
“If it is,” Bobby said heavily, “how did the technology development leak out of the Wormworks?” He eyed Mary. “Does your mother know where you are?”
“Typical,” Mary snapped. “A couple of minutes ago Kate was about to kill herself, and now you’re accusing me of industrial espionage and worrying about my relationship with my mother.”
“My God.” Kate said. “What kind of world is it going to be where every damn kid wears a WormCam on her wrist?”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Mary said. “We already do. The details are on the Internet. There are home workshops churning them out, all over the planet.” She grinned. “The djinn is out of the bottle. Look, I’m here to help you. There are no guarantees. Santa Claus isn’t all powerful, but he has made it harder to hide. All I’m offering you is a chance.” She stared at Kate. “That’s better than what you’re facing now, isn’t it?”
Kate said, “Why do you want to help me?”