Accelerando | Page 8

mewling pathetically. Normally he'd pause a minute to reassure
the creature, but not now: Its' mere presence is suddenly acutely embarrassing, a
confession of deep inadequacy. It's too realistic, as if somehow the dead kitten's neural
maps -- stolen, no doubt, for some dubious uploading experiment -- have ended up
padding out its plastic skull. He swears again, looks around, then takes the easy option:
Down the stairs two steps at a time, stumbling on the second floor landing, down to the
breakfast room in the basement, where he will perform the stable rituals of morning.
Breakfast is unchanging, an island of deep geological time standing still amidst the
continental upheaval of new technologies. While reading a paper on public key
steganography and parasite network identity spoofing he mechanically assimilates a bowl
of cornflakes and skimmed milk, then brings a platter of whole grain bread and slices of
some weird seed-infested Dutch cheese back to his place. There is a cup of strong black
coffee in front of his setting, and he picks it up and slurps half of it down before he
realizes he's not alone at the table. Someone is sitting opposite him. He glances up
incuriously and freezes inside.
"Morning, Manfred. How does it feel to owe the government twelve million, three
hundred and sixty-two thousand, nine hundred and sixteen dollars and fifty-one cents?"
She smiles a Mona Lisa smile, at once affectionate and challenging.
Manfred puts everything in his sensorium on indefinite hold and stares at her. She's
immaculately turned out in a formal gray business suit: brown hair tightly drawn back,
blue eyes quizzical. And as beautiful as ever: tall, ash blonde, with features that speak of
an unexplored modeling career. The chaperone badge clipped to her lapel - a due
diligence guarantee of businesslike conduct - is switched off. He's feeling ripped because
of the dead kitten and residual jet lag, and more than a little messy, so he snarls back at
her; "That's a bogus estimate! Did they send you here because they think I'll listen to
you?" He bites and swallows a slice of cheese-laden crispbread: "Or did you decide to
deliver the message in person just so you could ruin my breakfast?"
"Manny." She frowns, pained. "If you're going to be confrontational, I might as well go
now." She pauses, and after a moment he nods apologetically. "I didn't come all this way
just because of an overdue tax estimate."
"So." He puts his coffee cup down warily and thinks for a moment, trying to conceal his
unease and turmoil. "Then what brings you here? Help yourself to coffee. Don't tell me
you came all this way just to tell me you can't live without me."
She fixes him with a riding-crop stare: "Don't flatter yourself. There are many leaves in
the forest, there are ten thousand hopeful subs in the chat room, et cetera. If I choose a
man to contribute to my family tree, the one thing you can be certain of is he won't be a
cheapskate when it comes to providing for his children."
"Last I heard, you were spending a lot of time with Brian," he says carefully. Brian: a
name without a face. Too much money, too little sense. Something to do with a blue-chip

accountancy partnership.
"Brian?" She snorts. "That ended ages ago. He turned weird on me - burned my favorite
corset, called me a slut for going clubbing, wanted to fuck me. Saw himself as a family
man: one of those promise-keeper types. I crashed him hard, but I think he stole a copy of
my address book - got a couple of friends say he keeps sending them harassing mail."
"There's a lot of it about these days." Manfred nods, almost sympathetically, although an
edgy little corner of his mind is gloating. "Good riddance, then. I suppose this means
you're still playing the scene? But looking around for the, er -"
"Traditional family thing? Yes. Your trouble, Manny? You were born forty years too late:
You still believe in rutting before marriage but find the idea of coping with the
after-effects disturbing."
Manfred drinks the rest of his coffee, unable to reply effectively to her non sequitur. It's a
generational thing. This generation is happy with latex and leather, whips and butt plugs
and electrostim, but find the idea of exchanging bodily fluids shocking: a social side
effect of the last century's antibiotic abuse. Despite being engaged for two years, he and
Pamela never had intromissive intercourse.
"I just don't feel positive about having children," he says eventually. "And I'm not
planning on changing my mind anytime soon. Things are changing so fast that even a
twenty-year commitment is too far to plan - you might as well be talking about the