Accelerando by Charles Stross (books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📖

you leave your mouth open like that,

a bird will nest on your tongue.”

 

“Say no -” Pamela urges him, just as Manfred says, “Yes.”

 

Aineko laughs, baring contemptuous fangs at them. “Ah, primate family

loyalty! So wonderful and reliable. Thank you, Manny, I do believe you

just gave me permission to copy and enslave you -”

 

Which is when Manni, who has been waiting in the doorway for the past

minute, leaps on the cat with a scream and a scythelike arm drawn back

and ready to strike.

 

The cat-avatar is, of course, ready for Manni: It whirls and hisses,

extending diamond-sharp claws. Sirhan shouts, “No! Manni!” and begins

to move, but adult-Manfred freezes, realizing with a chill that what

is happening is more than is apparent. Manni grabs for the cat with

his human hands, catching it by the scruff of his neck and dragging it

toward his vicious scythe-arm’s edge. There’s a screech, a

nerve-racking caterwauling, and Manni yells, bright parallel blood

tracks on his arm - the avatar is a real fleshbody in its own right,

with an autonomic control system that isn’t going to give up without a

fight, whatever its vastly larger exocortex thinks - but Manni’s

scythe convulses, and there’s a horrible bubbling noise and a spray of

blood as the pussycat-thing goes flying. It’s all over in a second

before any of the adults can really move. Sirhan scoops up Manni and

yanks him away, but there are no hidden surprises. Aineko’s avatar is

just a broken rag of bloody fur, guts, and blood spilled across the

floor. The ghost of a triumphant feline laugh hangs over their

innerspeech ears for a moment, then fades.

 

“Bad boy!” Rita shouts, striding forward furiously. Manni cowers, then

begins to cry, a safe reflex for a little boy who doesn’t quite

understand the nature of the threat to his parents.

 

“No! It’s all right,” Manfred seeks to explain.

 

Pamela tightens her grip around him. “Are you still …?”

 

“Yes.” He takes a deep breath.

 

“You bad, bad child -”

 

“Cat was going to eat him!” Manni protests, as his parents bundle him

protectively out of the room, Sirhan casting a guilty look over his

shoulder at the adult instance and his ex-wife. “I had to stop the bad

thing!”

 

Manfred feels Pamela’s shoulders shaking. It feels like she’s about to

laugh. “I’m still here,” he murmurs, half-surprised. “Spat out,

undigested, after all these years. At least, this version of me thinks

he’s here.”

 

“Did you believe it?” she finally asks, a tone of disbelief in her

voice.

 

“Oh yes.” He shifts his balance from foot to foot, absent mindedly

stroking her hair. “I believe everything it said was intended to make

us react exactly the way we did. Up to and including giving us good

reasons to hate it and provoking Manni into disposing of its avatar.

Aineko wanted to check out of our lives and figured a sense of

cathartic closure would help. Not to mention playing the deus ex

machina in the narrative of our family life. Fucking classical

comedian.” He checks a status report with Citymind, and sighs: His

version number has just been bumped a point. “Tell me, do you think

you’ll miss having Aineko around? Because we won’t be hearing from him

again -”

 

“Don’t talk about that, not now,” she orders him, digging her chin

against the side of his neck. “I feel so used.”

 

“With good reason.” They stand holding each other for a while, not

speaking, not really questioning why - after so much time apart -

they’ve come together again. “Hanging out with gods is never a safe

activity for mere mortals like us. You think you’ve been used? Aineko

has probably killed me by now. Unless he was lying about disposing of

the spare copy, too.”

 

She shudders in his arms. “That’s the trouble with dealing with

posthumans; their mental model of you is likely to be more detailed

than your own.”

 

“How long have you been awake?” he asks, gently trying to change the

subject.

 

“I - oh, I’m not sure.” She lets go of him and steps back, watching

his face appraisingly. “I remember back on Saturn, stealing a museum

piece and setting out, and then, well. I found myself here. With you.”

 

“I think,” he licks his lips, “we’ve both been given a wake-up call.

Or maybe a second chance. What are you going to do with yours?”

 

“I don’t know.” That appraising look again, as if she’s trying to work

out what he’s worth. He’s used to it, but this time it doesn’t feel

hostile. “We’ve got too much history for this to be easy. Either

Aineko was lying, or … not. What about you? What do you really

want?”

 

He knows what she’s asking. “Be my mistress?” he asks, offering her a

hand.

 

“This time,” she grips his hand, “without adult supervision.” She

smiles gratefully, and they walk toward the gateway together, to find

out how their descendants are dealing with their sudden freedom.

 

(THE END: June 1999 to April 2004)

***

If you have enjoyed this book, you can make the author a

happy man by buying a copy of one of the dead-tree editions.

 

To find out more about “Accelerando”, including where to buy

a copy, please visit:

 

http://www.accelerando.org/

***