Accelerando, Charles Stross [classic novels for teens .TXT] 📗
- Author: Charles Stross
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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/
***
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