Two and a half years before, fetches were still coming to terms with their newly sentient status. Jack Forster, Hugo Fist and Andrea Hui had worked with the Totality to release the dead from semi-sentient slavery. But the Rebirth was just the start of a longer coming of age. It was one thing for ten thousand weaveselves to be reborn as fully self-aware continuations of ended lives – quite another for them to come to terms with that new start, both as individuals and as a group, and understand what to do with it. When Leila stepped out of the sea and into her new, post-mortal life, she became part of that conversation. It was a profoundly confusing time, because every single fetch had a different sense of what the afterlife should be. And the Coffin Drives was an entirely virtual and thus immensely malleable environment. Each of its inhabitants could project their opinions on to it, in ways that ranged from the subtle and elegant to the madly grandiose.
The root geography of the Coffin Drives was – mercifully – unrewriteable. The fetches lived on a circular island, tens of miles across. The ocean that encircled it was a visual manifestation of humanity’s shared data, a digital subconscious for an entire culture. Newly created fetches were born out of it, the deep tides taking six months to knit the strands of a weaveself together into personhood. Each newborn fetch walked out of the waves and on to a long, wide beach, o-shaped and therefore infinite. Leila remembered her own walk up the beach. The cold breeze had tugged at her wet clothes while the endless sea roared behind her. As she remembered, fear sparked in her and she shifted uncomfortably. There had never been anything troubling there on the seashore, she told herself, only the Fetch Counsellor waiting to introduce her to her new life. She was relieved to feel the fear settling.
Then she moved on to the city at the heart of the Coffin Drives. Before the rebirth there had been a prison at its heart, embedded in a lake made of lost, fragmented memories. Afterwards, the lake and the prison had been remade as a memorial. The Coffin Drives’ occupants surprised themselves with their near-unanimous agreement that it should remain a stable, unchanging space. But every other part of the city was chaos. And the emotional geography of the city had been as variable as its street plan. Individual fetches experienced their rebirth in many different ways. The luckiest were heartily welcomed by their families and friends, immediately and unquestioningly understood to be a direct continuation of the lives that had so recently ended. The unluckiest were rejected completely. Most experienced something between the two.
East and the Totality came together to launch a vast transmedia campaign, designed to convince the humans of the Solar System to treat the returned dead with kindness. But they were pushing against deep emotions. East in particular was shocked to find that her audience was not its reliably malleable self. The dead found that they often had to fight very hard to win back the lives their living selves had once occupied. Many failed. Some chose true death, letting themselves dissolve back into the memory seas. Some retreated into perpetual hedonism. Others sought to escape their loss through mysticisms of one kind or another. Some just moved bitterly on. And the worst of the living started to push back, creating the Blood and Flesh group. And the Blood and Flesh group created the plague that had nearly destroyed the Fetch Communion. At the thought of that, Leila decided to drop out of memory and back into the present.
Her media stream had moved on from the news. An episode of Hugo Fist’s chat show was just beginning, its unmistakable theme tune ringing out as the camera closed in on the little ventriloquist’s dummy and his guests. Leila smiled as she turned him off. She’d happily watch him for the rest of the afternoon, but then she’d get nothing done. The agonies of the past – agonies that, with Dieter’s help, she’d overcome – made the present that little bit easier to deal with. She pulled up her mailbox and started going through her messages. Most were condolences. Those from her own friends expressed careful sympathy. A couple hoped that she wouldn’t have too much trouble finding somewhere new to live. Dieter’s friends were much less guarded. After a clichéd platitude or two they usually expressed deep excitement about his future. ‘He’s such a tech head,’ one enthused, ‘he lives and breathes that shit, he’s going to love being a fetch.’
She dealt with some of the more important messages then dropped her attention back into the café, wondering about another coffee. But, glancing round for the waiter, an alien presence caught her eye and she froze. There, at the other end of the room, sitting discreetly at a corner table, was a man she didn’t know but did recognise. She blinked, realising that it wasn’t his face that looked familiar – it was his sense of style. He was dressed just like the strange man with the soft, buzzing voice she’d met in the hospital. A pressure man, she thought. The tasteful colours of his suit blended perfectly with his surroundings, but its antique cut stood out a mile. He saw that he’d been spotted and stood up, then started rapidly towards the door.
‘Stop!’ Leila shouted, standing herself. ‘We need to talk.’
The buzz of conversation died and all eyes were on her. The waiter materialised at her elbow. ‘Mademoiselle…’ The pressure man was almost at the door. She went to follow him. A firm grip held her back. ‘The bill…’ A white slip appeared on the table. She glanced at it then waved distractedly, feeling an amount of money she could live off for a week vanish from her account. When she looked back the door was closing.
‘Shit.’ She pushed through the café as quickly as she could.
Reaching the street outside, she sprinted to catch up with him. They were on a small quiet road, leading up to a busier main thoroughfare. ‘Stop,’ she called, but he ignored her. ‘Please.’
The gun kiddies watched her go by, pretend weapons swivelling to track her. She wondered if she was somehow integrated into their game world. For a moment, she worried that all she was really doing was embarrassing herself by chasing down a complete stranger with a taste for retro fashion. But then she caught up with him and saw his face, his cold good looks a perfect rhyme with those of the man in the hospital, and smelt the same powerful perfume again.
‘Please stop,’ she said, stepping in front of him. He looked down at her, his expression so frozen that he could be a mannequin, saying nothing. ‘You work for Deodatus,’ said Leila. ‘You’ve done business with my brother.’ There was no response. ‘I need to know what’s going on.’
The man’s silence was unnerving.
‘I mean – all this money. I need to know where it came from. What it really means. What you want from him in return.’
Her target stepped past her and set off again. Leila sighed. Perhaps she was just embarrassing herself. But he hadn’t denied anything. And he was such a perfect match with the man from the hospital. A moment and she caught him again, just as he was about to turn a corner into a main street, taking his arm as firmly as the waiter had taken hers. He was fully weave-enabled, and so he felt her grip and turned to face her.
‘I’m a fetch. I can follow you anywhere. If I have to, I’ll jump to keep up with you.’ She hoped he wouldn’t call her bluff. ‘I won’t let you just walk away. Please, talk to me.’
The antique cut of his suit triggered memories. She’d flicked through entire catalogues of clothes like that when she was little, fascinated by the adult sophistication they projected. Remembering that made her feel awkward, like a child lost in an adult world.
She decided to go on the offensive.
‘You were watching me in the café. And when you saw that I’d spotted you, you fled. If you’re following me like that – well, something’s up.’ Adrenaline coursed through her. She felt her skull face shift in the back of her mind, a weapon woken by her excitement and worry. ‘I need to know what Deodatus is. What my brother’s got us into.’
He leant forward and opened his mouth. His lips moved, but there was barely any sound – just a soft, distant buzzing.
‘Oh gods,’ she thought to herself. Perhaps he was handicapped. What if he really had nothing to do with it all? She leant forward, straining to hear him. Maybe she was the one who needed to apologise. His lips were still moving. A little closer and there would be words. She thought of the buzzing voice of the pressure man she’d talked to in the hospital. This man reeked of scent too. She took a step towards him, then another. His mouth shaped sounds she could almost understand.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
And then the pressure man started forwards and walked straight through her.
‘What the fuck?’ she gasped.
Now she was really annoyed. Station society might not hold fetches in very high regard, but one very important taboo was generally respected. You never knowingly passed through the dead.
Leila turned after him. ‘How dare you…’ she began, her voice raised, so outraged that she didn’t care who overheard her. But he’d disappeared round the corner into the main street. She followed him, expecting to catch up with him right away, not quite sure what she’d do when she did.
And then she rounded the corner and stopped dead.
‘Oh,’ she breathed.
The street reached out into the afternoon, bustling with people.
The pressure man was nowhere to be seen.
There was a busker summoning images and music from some sort of keytar. A couple of children danced in front of him. A shopkeeper stood outside his crashed window display, swearing at it as it pulsed out error messages. A Totality mind stepped round him, moving purposefully up the street. There was nobody else. And there were no doors near enough to vanish through, or side alleys to disappear down.
‘Where have you gone?’
She moved up the street, looking for him, but he’d completely disappeared. He couldn’t have masked himself – the Rose forbade that kind of software. But there was no sign of him. She was still feeling rather puzzled when an urgent contact request from Ambrose pinged into her mind. She accepted and all of a sudden there he was, a virtual presence floating right next to her. His eyes were full of care.
‘I’m afraid I have some very bad news,’ he told her. ‘Could you jump back to my office?’
‘It’s the insurance? I knew it was all fake.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve just had the strangest experience. I think I met another pressure man.’
‘You can tell me about that later. And the insurance isn’t fake. Dieter signed up to something very real. That’s the problem. Please, come back to my office.’
‘You know I don’t like jumping, Ambrose.’
‘We need to talk. In private. As soon as possible.’
Fear gripped Leila. ‘Just tell me.’
Ambrose swallowed. ‘I’ve been going through the terms and conditions of the policy. The small print. I’m not sure Dieter even read it. It’s very bad news.’
‘If I can’t keep the money, I can’t keep the money.’ Leila thought of the Coffin Drives. Perhaps life there would bearable.
‘The money’s not the problem. It’s what Dieter promised Deodatus in return for it.’ Ambrose couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘He signed over his weaveself, Leila. All the memory blocks that would go to build his fetch. Deodatus owns them all, for ever. They’ve all already been stripped. And Deodatus has taken a lot of other content too. The software tools Dieter built. His research content. Everything important. His legacy.’
Leila was profoundly shocked. ‘He said he was going away. But just for a bit. Nothing like this. Gods, I thought he was raving.’
‘Deodatus owns him and has taken him.’
‘No.’ The world spun. ‘Where is he now?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Ambrose, his voice soft and sad.
‘I’ll pay the money back. Then they’ll return him.’
‘I’m afraid the deal’s irrevocable. Dieter’s gone, Leila. Gone for good.’