Brian Carnell's Wiki

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
<html>
<DIV ID="titlepage" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>Down and Out<BR>in the<BR>Magic Kingdom</H1>
	<H2></html>[[Cory Doctorow]]<html></H2>
	<P>Copyright &copy; 2003 Cory Doctorow</P>
	<P><A HREF="mailto:doctorow@craphound.com">doctorow@craphound.com</A></P>
	<P><A HREF="http://www.craphound.com/down">http://www.craphound.com/down</A></P>
	<P>Tor Books, January 2003</P>
	<P>ISBN: 0765304368</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="toc" DIR="LTR" STYLE="background: #eeff77">
	<H1><FONT SIZE=2>Table of Contents</FONT></H1>
	<UL>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#blurbs">Blurbs</A>
		</FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#aboutnew">About
		this book: Feb 12, 2004</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#about">About this book: Jan 9, 2003</A>
		</FONT>
		</P>
	</UL>
	<UL>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#prologue">PROLOGUE</A>
		</FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch1">CHAPTER
		1</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch2">CHAPTER
		2</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch3">CHAPTER
		3</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch4">CHAPTER
		4</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch5">CHAPTER
		5</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch6">CHAPTER
		6</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch7">CHAPTER
		7</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch8">CHAPTER
		8</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch9">CHAPTER
		9</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ch10">CHAPTER 10</A> </FONT>
		</P>
	</UL>
	<UL>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ack">Acknowledgments</A>
		</FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#ata">About
		the Author</A> </FONT>
		</P>
		<LI><P><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="#alsoby">Other books by Cory Doctorow</A>
		</FONT>
		</P>
	</UL>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="blurbs" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>Blurbs:</H1>
	<P>He sparkles! He fizzes! He does backflips and breaks the
	furniture! Science fiction needs Cory Doctorow!</P>
	<P>Bruce Sterling</P>
	<P>Author, <I>The Hacker Crackdown</I> and <I>Distraction</I></P>
	<P>In the true spirit of Walt Disney, Doctorow has ripped a part of
	our common culture, mixed it with a brilliant story, and burned into
	our culture a new set of memes that will be with us for a generation
	at least.</P>
	<P>Lawrence Lessig</P>
	<P>Author, <I>The Future of Ideas</I></P>
	<P>Cory Doctorow doesn&apos;t just write about the future&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;I think he lives there. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom isn&apos;t
	just a really good read, it&apos;s also, like the best kind
	of fiction, a kind of guide book. See the Tomorrowland of Tomorrow
	today, and while you&apos;re there, why not drop by
	Frontierland, and the Haunted Mansion as well? (It&apos;s the
	Mansion that&apos;s the haunted heart of this book.) Cory
	makes me feel nostalgic for the future&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;a dizzying, yet rather pleasant sensation, as if I&apos;m
	spiraling down the tracks of Space Mountain over and over again.
	Visit the Magic Kingdom and live forever!</P>
	<P>Kelly Link</P>
	<P>Author, <I>Stranger Things Happen</I></P>
	<P>Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is the most entertaining and
	exciting science fiction story I&apos;ve read in the last few
	years. I love page-turners, especially when they are as unusual as
	this novel. I predict big things for Down and Out&mdash;it
	could easily become a breakout genre-buster.</P>
	<P>Mark Frauenfelder</P>
	<P>Contributing Editor, <I>Wired Magazine</I></P>
	<P>Imagine you woke up one day and Walt Disney had taken over the
	world. Not only that, but money&apos;s been abolished and
	somebody&apos;s developed the Cure for Death. Welcome to the
	Bitchun Society&mdash;and make sure you&apos;re
	strapped in tight, because it&apos;s going to be a wild ride.
	In a world where everyone&apos;s wishes can come true, one
	man returns to the original, crumbling city of dreams&mdash;Disney
	World. Here in the spiritual center of the Bitchun Society he
	struggles to find and preserve the original, human face of the Magic
	Kingdom against the young, post-human and increasingly alien
	inheritors of the Earth. Now that any experience can be simulated,
	human relationships become ever more fragile; and to Julius, the
	corny, mechanical ghosts of the Haunted Mansion have come to seem
	like a precious link to a past when we could tell the real from the
	simulated, the true from the false.</P>
	<P>Cory Doctorow&mdash;cultural critic, Disneyphile, and
	ultimate Early Adopter&mdash;uses language with the reckless
	confidence of the Beat poets. Yet behind the dazzling prose and
	vibrant characters lie ideas we should all pay heed to. The future
	rushes on like a plummeting roller coaster, and it&apos;s
	hard to see where we&apos;re going. But at least with this
	book Doctorow has given us a map of the park.</P>
	<P>Karl Schroeder</P>
	<P>Author, <I>Permanence</I></P>
	<P>Cory Doctorow is the most interesting new SF writer I&apos;ve
	come across in years. He starts out at the point where older SF
	writers&apos; speculations end. It&apos;s a distinct
	pleasure to give him some Whuffie.</P>
	<P>Rudy Rucker</P>
	<P>Author, <I>Spaceland</I></P>
	<P>Cory Doctorow rocks! I check his blog about ten times a day,
	because he&apos;s always one of the first to notice a major
	incursion from the social-technological-pop-cultural future, and his
	voice is a compelling vehicle for news from the future. Down and Out
	in The Magic Kingdom is about a world that is visible in its
	outlines today, if you know where to look, from reputation systems
	to peer-to-peer adhocracies. Doctorow knows where to look, and how
	to word-paint the rest of us into the picture.</P>
	<P>Howard Rheingold</P>
	<P>Author, <I>Smart Mobs</I></P>
	<P>Doctorow is more than just a sick mind looking to twist the
	perceptions of those whose realities remain uncorrupted - though
	that should be enough recommendation to read his work. <EM>Down and
	Out in the Magic Kingdom</EM> is black comedic, sci-fi prophecy on
	the dangers of surrendering our consensual hallucination to the
	regime. Fun to read, but difficult to sleep afterwards.</P>
	<P>Douglas Rushkoff</P>
	<P>Author of <I>Cyberia</I> and <I>Media Virus!</I></P>
	<P>&ldquo;Wow! Disney imagineering meets nanotechnology, the
	reputation economy, and Ray Kurzweil&apos;s transhuman
	future. As much fun as Neal Stephenson&apos;s Snow Crash, and
	as packed with mind bending ideas about social changes cascading
	from the frontiers of science.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tim O&apos;Reilly</P>
	<P>Publisher and Founder, O&apos;Reilly and Associates</P>
	<P>Doctorow has created a rich and exciting vision of the future,
	and then wrote a page-turner of a story in it. I couldn&apos;t
	put the book down.</P>
	<P>Bruce Schneier</P>
	<P>Author, <I>Secrets and Lies</I></P>
	<P>Cory Doctorow is one of our best new writers: smart, daring,
	savvy, entertaining, ambitious, plugged-in, and as good a guide to
	the wired world of the twenty-first century that stretches out
	before us as you&apos;re going to find.</P>
	<P>Gardner Dozois</P>
	<P>Editor, <I>Asimov&apos;s SF</I></P>
	<P>Cory Doctorow&apos;s &ldquo;Down and Out in the Magic
	Kingdom&rdquo; tells a gripping,
	fast-paced story that hinges on thought-provoking extrapolation from
	today&apos;s technical realities. This is the sort of book
	that captures and defines the spirit of a turning point in human
	history when our tools remake ourselves and our world.</P>
	<P>Mitch Kapor</P>
	<P>Founder, Lotus, Inc., co-founder Electronic Frontier Foundation</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="aboutnew" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>A note about this book, February 12, 2004:</H1>
	<P>As you will see, when you read the text beneath this section, I
	released this book a little over a year ago under the terms of a
	Creative Commons license that allowed my readers to freely
	redistribute the text without needing any further permission from
	me. In this fashion, I enlisted my readers in the service of a grand
	experiment, to see how my book could find its way into cultural
	relevance and commercial success. The experiment worked out very
	satisfactorily.</P>
	<P>When I originally licensed the book under the terms set out in
	the next section, I did so in the most conservative fashion
	possible, using CC's most restrictive license. I wanted to dip my
	toe in before taking a plunge. I wanted to see if the sky would
	fall: you see writers are routinely schooled by their peers that
	maximal copyright is the only thing that stands between us and
	penury, and so ingrained was this lesson in me that even though I
	had the intellectual intuition that a &quot;some rights reserved&quot;
	regime would serve me well, I still couldn't shake the atavistic
	fear that I was about to do something very foolish indeed.</P>
	<P>It wasn't foolish. I've since released a short story collection
	(<A HREF="http://craphound.com/place">A Place So Foreign and Eight
	More</A> and a second novel (<A HREF="http://craphound.com/est">Eastern
	Standard Tribe</A>) in this fashion, and my career is turning over
	like a goddamned locomotive engine. I am thrilled beyond words (an
	extraordinary circumstance for a writer!) at the way that this has
	all worked out.</P>
	<P>And so <EM>now</EM> I'm going to take a little bit of a plunge.
	Today, in coincidence with my talk at the O'Reilly Emerging
	Technology Conference (<A HREF="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_sess/4693">Ebooks:
	Neither E, Nor Books</A>).</P>
	<P>I am re-licensing this book under a far less restrictive Creative
	Commons license, the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.
	This is a license that allows you, the reader, to noncommercially
	&quot;remix&quot; this book -- you have my blessing to make your own
	translations, radio and film adaptations, sequels, fan fiction,
	missing chapters, machine remixes, you name it. A number of you
	assumed that you had my blessing to do this in the first place, and
	I can't say that I've been at all put out by the delightful and
	creative derivative works created from this book, but now you have
	my explicit blessing, and I hope you'll use it.</P>
	<P><A NAME="license"></A>Here's the license in summary:</P>
	<P><A HREF="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/</A></P>
	<P>You are free:</P>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>* to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work 
	</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>* to make derivative works</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<P>Under the following conditions:</P>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>Attribution. You must give the original author credit.</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial
	purposes.</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this
	work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license
	identical to this one.</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>* For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to
	others the license terms of this work. 
	</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>* Any of these conditions can be waived if you get
	permission from the author.</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by
	the above.</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<BLOCKQUOTE>And here is the license in full:</BLOCKQUOTE>
	<PRE STYLE="margin-left: 0.39in; margin-right: 0.39in">        Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0
        
        CREATIVE COMMONS CORPORATION IS NOT A LAW FIRM AND DOES NOT
        PROVIDE LEGAL SERVICES. DISTRIBUTION OF THIS DRAFT LICENSE DOES
        NOT CREATE AN ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP. CREATIVE COMMONS
        PROVIDES THIS INFORMATION ON AN &quot;AS-IS&quot; BASIS. CREATIVE COMMONS
        MAKES NO WARRANTIES REGARDING THE INFORMATION PROVIDED, AND
        DISCLAIMS LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM ITS USE.
        
        License
        
        THE WORK (AS DEFINED BELOW) IS PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS
        CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC LICENSE (&quot;CCPL&quot; OR &quot;LICENSE&quot;). THE WORK
        IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND/OR OTHER APPLICABLE LAW. ANY USE OF
        THE WORK OTHER THAN AS AUTHORIZED UNDER THIS LICENSE IS
        PROHIBITED.
        
        BY EXERCISING ANY RIGHTS TO THE WORK PROVIDED HERE, YOU ACCEPT
        AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. THE LICENSOR
        GRANTS YOU THE RIGHTS CONTAINED HERE IN CONSIDERATION OF YOUR
        ACCEPTANCE OF SUCH TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
        
        1. Definitions

           1. &quot;Collective Work&quot; means a work, such as a
           periodical issue, anthology or encyclopedia, in
           which the Work in its entirety in unmodified form,
           along with a number of other contributions,
           constituting separate and independent works in
           themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. A
           work that constitutes a Collective Work will not be
           considered a Derivative Work (as defined below) for
           the purposes of this License.
        
           2. &quot;Derivative Work&quot; means a work based upon the
           Work or upon the Work and other pre-existing works,
           such as a translation, musical arrangement,
           dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture
           version, sound recording, art reproduction,
           abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which
           the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted,
           except that a work that constitutes a Collective
           Work will not be considered a Derivative Work for
           the purpose of this License.
        
           3. &quot;Licensor&quot; means the individual or entity that
           offers the Work under the terms of this License.
        
           4. &quot;Original Author&quot; means the individual or entity
           who created the Work.
        
           5. &quot;Work&quot; means the copyrightable work of authorship
           offered under the terms of this License.
        
           6. &quot;You&quot; means an individual or entity exercising
           rights under this License who has not previously
           violated the terms of this License with respect to
           the Work, or who has received express permission
           from the Licensor to exercise rights under this
           License despite a previous violation.

        2. Fair Use Rights. Nothing in this license is intended to
        reduce, limit, or restrict any rights arising from fair use,
        first sale or other limitations on the exclusive rights of the
        copyright owner under copyright law or other applicable laws.
        
        3. License Grant. Subject to the terms and conditions of this
        License, Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free,
        non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable
        copyright) license to exercise the rights in the Work as stated
        below:

                   1. to reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work
                   into one or more Collective Works, and to reproduce
                   the Work as incorporated in the Collective Works;
                
                   2. to create and reproduce Derivative Works;
                
                   3. to distribute copies or phonorecords of, display
                   publicly, perform publicly, and perform publicly by
                   means of a digital audio transmission the Work
                   including as incorporated in Collective Works;
                
                   4. to distribute copies or phonorecords of, display
                   publicly, perform publicly, and perform publicly by
                   means of a digital audio transmission Derivative
                   Works;

        The above rights may be exercised in all media and formats
        whether now known or hereafter devised. The above rights include
        the right to make such modifications as are technically necessary
        to exercise the rights in other media and formats. All rights not
        expressly granted by Licensor are hereby reserved.
        
        4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is
        expressly made subject to and limited by the following
        restrictions:

                   1. You may distribute, publicly display, publicly
                   perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work only
                   under the terms of this License, and You must
                   include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource
                   Identifier for, this License with every copy or
                   phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly
                   display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally
                   perform. You may not offer or impose any terms on
                   the Work that alter or restrict the terms of this
                   License or the recipients' exercise of the rights
                   granted hereunder. You may not sublicense the Work.
                   You must keep intact all notices that refer to this
                   License and to the disclaimer of warranties. You may
                   not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform,
                   or publicly digitally perform the Work with any
                   technological measures that control access or use of
                   the Work in a manner inconsistent with the terms of
                   this License Agreement. The above applies to the
                   Work as incorporated in a Collective Work, but this
                   does not require the Collective Work apart from the
                   Work itself to be made subject to the terms of this
                   License. If You create a Collective Work, upon
                   notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent
                   practicable, remove from the Collective Work any
                   reference to such Licensor or the Original Author,
                   as requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon
                   notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent
                   practicable, remove from the Derivative Work any
                   reference to such Licensor or the Original Author,
                   as requested.
                
                   2. You may distribute, publicly display, publicly
                   perform, or publicly digitally perform a Derivative
                   Work only under the terms of this License, and You
                   must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource
                   Identifier for, this License with every copy or
                   phonorecord of each Derivative Work You distribute,
                   publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly
                   digitally perform. You may not offer or impose any
                   terms on the Derivative Works that alter or restrict
                   the terms of this License or the recipients'
                   exercise of the rights granted hereunder, and You
                   must keep intact all notices that refer to this
                   License and to the disclaimer of warranties. You may
                   not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform,
                   or publicly digitally perform the Derivative Work
                   with any technological measures that control access
                   or use of the Work in a manner inconsistent with the
                   terms of this License Agreement. The above applies
                   to the Derivative Work as incorporated in a
                   Collective Work, but this does not require the
                   Collective Work apart from the Derivative Work
                   itself to be made subject to the terms of this
                   License.
                
                   3. You may not exercise any of the rights granted to
                   You in Section 3 above in any manner that is
                   primarily intended for or directed toward commercial
                   advantage or private monetary compensation. The
                   exchange of the Work for other copyrighted works by
                   means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not
                   be considered to be intended for or directed toward
                   commercial advantage or private monetary
                   compensation, provided there is no payment of any
                   monetary compensation in connection with the
                   exchange of copyrighted works.
                
                   4. If you distribute, publicly display, publicly
                   perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work or
                   any Derivative Works or Collective Works, You must
                   keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and
                   give the Original Author credit reasonable to the
                   medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the
                   name (or pseudonym if applicable) of the Original
                   Author if supplied; the title of the Work if
                   supplied; in the case of a Derivative Work, a credit
                   identifying the use of the Work in the Derivative
                   Work (e.g., &quot;French translation of the Work by
                   Original Author,&quot; or &quot;Screenplay based on original
                   Work by Original Author&quot;). Such credit may be
                   implemented in any reasonable manner; provided,
                   however, that in the case of a Derivative Work or
                   Collective Work, at a minimum such credit will
                   appear where any other comparable authorship credit
                   appears and in a manner at least as prominent as
                   such other comparable authorship credit.

        5. Representations, Warranties and Disclaimer

           1. By offering the Work for public release under
           this License, Licensor represents and warrants that,
           to the best of Licensor's knowledge after reasonable
           inquiry:

         1. Licensor has secured all rights in the Work
         necessary to grant the license rights
         hereunder and to permit the lawful exercise of
         the rights granted hereunder without You
         having any obligation to pay any royalties,
         compulsory license fees, residuals or any
         other payments;

         2. The Work does not infringe the copyright,
         trademark, publicity rights, common law rights
         or any other right of any third party or
         constitute defamation, invasion of privacy or
         other tortious injury to any third party.

           2. EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS LICENSE OR
           OTHERWISE AGREED IN WRITING OR REQUIRED BY
           APPLICABLE LAW, THE WORK IS LICENSED ON AN &quot;AS IS&quot;
           BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER
           EXPRESS OR IMPLIED INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION,
           ANY WARRANTIES REGARDING THE CONTENTS OR ACCURACY OF
           THE WORK.

        6. Limitation on Liability. EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT REQUIRED BY
        APPLICABLE LAW, AND EXCEPT FOR DAMAGES ARISING FROM LIABILITY TO
        A THIRD PARTY RESULTING FROM BREACH OF THE WARRANTIES IN SECTION
        5, IN NO EVENT WILL LICENSOR BE LIABLE TO YOU ON ANY LEGAL THEORY
        FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY
        DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THIS LICENSE OR THE USE OF THE WORK, EVEN
        IF LICENSOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
        
        7. Termination

           1. This License and the rights granted hereunder
           will terminate automatically upon any breach by You
           of the terms of this License. Individuals or
           entities who have received Derivative Works or
           Collective Works from You under this License,
           however, will not have their licenses terminated
           provided such individuals or entities remain in full
           compliance with those licenses. Sections 1, 2, 5, 6,
           7, and 8 will survive any termination of this
           License.
        
           2. Subject to the above terms and conditions, the
           license granted here is perpetual (for the duration
           of the applicable copyright in the Work).
           Notwithstanding the above, Licensor reserves the
           right to release the Work under different license
           terms or to stop distributing the Work at any time;
           provided, however that any such election will not
           serve to withdraw this License (or any other license
           that has been, or is required to be, granted under
           the terms of this License), and this License will
           continue in full force and effect unless terminated
           as stated above.

        8. Miscellaneous

           1. Each time You distribute or publicly digitally
           perform the Work or a Collective Work, the Licensor
           offers to the recipient a license to the Work on the
           same terms and conditions as the license granted to
           You under this License.
        
           2. Each time You distribute or publicly digitally
           perform a Derivative Work, Licensor offers to the
           recipient a license to the original Work on the same
           terms and conditions as the license granted to You
           under this License.
        
           3. If any provision of this License is invalid or
           unenforceable under applicable law, it shall not
           affect the validity or enforceability of the
           remainder of the terms of this License, and without
           further action by the parties to this agreement,
           such provision shall be reformed to the minimum
           extent necessary to make such provision valid and
           enforceable.
        
           4. No term or provision of this License shall be
           deemed waived and no breach consented to unless such
           waiver or consent shall be in writing and signed by
           the party to be charged with such waiver or consent.
        
           5. This License constitutes the entire agreement
           between the parties with respect to the Work
           licensed here. There are no understandings,
           agreements or representations with respect to the
           Work not specified here. Licensor shall not be bound
           by any additional provisions that may appear in any
           communication from You. This License may not be
           modified without the mutual written agreement of the
           Licensor and You.</PRE>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="about" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>A note about this book, January 9, 2003:</H1>
	<P>&ldquo;Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom&rdquo; is my first novel. It&apos;s an actual, no-foolin&apos;
	words-on-paper book, published by the good people at Tor Books in
	New York City. You can buy this book in stores or online, by
	following links like this one:</P>
	<P><A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765304368/downandoutint-20">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765304368/downandoutint-20</A></P>
	<P>So, what&apos;s with this file? Good question. 
	</P>
	<P>I&apos;m releasing the entire text of this book as a free,
	freely redistributable e-book. You can download it, put it on a P2P
	net, put it on your site, email it to a friend, and, if you&apos;re
	addicted to dead trees, you can even print it. 
	</P>
	<P>Why am I doing this thing? Well, it&apos;s a long story,
	but to shorten it up: first-time novelists have a tough row to hoe.
	Our publishers don&apos;t have a lot of promotional budget to
	throw at unknown factors like us. Mostly, we rise and fall based on
	word-of-mouth. I&apos;m not bad at word-of-mouth. I have a
	blog, Boing Boing (http://boingboing.net), where I do a <EM>lot</EM>
	of word-of-mouthing. I compulsively tell friends and strangers about
	things that I like. 
	</P>
	<P>And telling people about stuff I like is <EM>way</EM>, <EM>way</EM>
	easier if I can just send it to &apos;em. Way easier.</P>
	<P>What&apos;s more, P2P nets kick all kinds of ass. Most of
	the books, music and movies ever released are not available for
	sale, anywhere in the world. In the brief time that P2P nets have
	flourished, the ad-hoc masses of the Internet have managed to put
	just about <EM>everything</EM> online. What&apos;s more,
	they&apos;ve done it for cheaper than any other
	archiving/revival effort ever. I&apos;m a stone infovore and
	this kinda Internet mishegas gives me a serious frisson of
	futurosity. 
	</P>
	<P>Yeah, there are legal problems. Yeah, it&apos;s hard to
	figure out how people are gonna make money doing it. Yeah, there is
	a lot of social upheaval and a serious threat to innovation,
	freedom, business, and whatnot. It&apos;s your basic
	end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, and as a science fiction
	writer, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are my
	stock-in-trade.</P>
	<P>I&apos;m especially grateful to my publisher, Tor Books
	(<A HREF="http://www.tor.com/">http://www.tor.com</A>) and my
	editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden
	(<A HREF="http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite">http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite</A>)
	for being hep enough to let me try out this experiment.</P>
	<P>All that said, here&apos;s the deal: I&apos;m
	releasing this book under a license developed by the Creative
	Commons project (<A HREF="http://creativecommons.org/">http://creativecommons.org/</A>).
	This is a project that lets people like me roll our own license
	agreements for the distribution of our creative work under terms
	similar to those employed by the Free/Open Source Software movement.
	It&apos;s a great project, and I&apos;m proud to be a
	part of it. 
	</P>
	<P><A NAME="license1"></A>Here&apos;s a summary of the
	license:</P>
	<P><A HREF="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0</A></P>
	<P>Attribution. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute,
	display, and perform the work. In return, licensees must give the
	original author credit.</P>
	<P>No Derivative Works. The licensor permits others to copy,
	distribute, display and perform only unaltered copies of the
	work&mdash;not derivative works based on it.</P>
	<P>Noncommercial. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute,
	display, and perform the work. In return, licensees may not use the
	work for commercial purposes&mdash;unless they get the
	licensor&apos;s permission.</P>
	<P>And here&apos;s the license itself:</P>
	<P><A HREF="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0-legalcode">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0-legalcode</A></P>
	<P>THE WORK (AS DEFINED BELOW) IS PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS
	CREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC LICENSE (&ldquo;CCPL&rdquo; OR &ldquo;LICENSE&rdquo;).
	THE WORK IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND/OR OTHER APPLICABLE LAW. ANY
	USE OF THE WORK OTHER THAN AS AUTHORIZED UNDER THIS LICENSE IS
	PROHIBITED.</P>
	<P>BY EXERCISING ANY RIGHTS TO THE WORK PROVIDED HERE, YOU ACCEPT
	AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. THE LICENSOR
	GRANTS YOU THE RIGHTS CONTAINED HERE IN CONSIDERATION OF YOUR
	ACCEPTANCE OF SUCH TERMS AND CONDITIONS.</P>
	<OL>
		<LI><P>Definitions</P>
		<OL>
			<LI><P>&ldquo;Collective Work&rdquo; means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology or
			encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in unmodified
			form, along with a number of other contributions, constituting
			separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a
			collective whole. A work that constitutes a Collective Work will
			not be considered a Derivative Work (as defined below) for the
			purposes of this License.</P>
			<LI><P>&ldquo;Derivative Work&rdquo; means a work based upon the Work or upon the Work and other
			pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement,
			dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound
			recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any
			other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or
			adapted, except that a work that constitutes a Collective Work
			will not be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this
			License.</P>
			<LI><P>&ldquo;Licensor&rdquo; means
			the individual or entity that offers the Work under the terms of
			this License.</P>
			<LI><P>&ldquo;Original Author&rdquo; means the individual or entity who created the Work.</P>
			<LI><P>&ldquo;Work&rdquo; means
			the copyrightable work of authorship offered under the terms of
			this License.</P>
			<LI><P>&ldquo;You&rdquo; means an
			individual or entity exercising rights under this License who has
			not previously violated the terms of this License with respect to
			the Work, or who has received express permission from the Licensor
			to exercise rights under this License despite a previous
			violation.</P>
		</OL>
		<LI><P>Fair Use Rights. Nothing in this license is intended to
		reduce, limit, or restrict any rights arising from fair use, first
		sale or other limitations on the exclusive rights of the copyright
		owner under copyright law or other applicable laws.</P>
		<LI><P>License Grant. Subject to the terms and conditions of this
		License, Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free,
		non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable
		copyright) license to exercise the rights in the Work as stated
		below:</P>
		<OL>
			<LI><P>to reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work into one or
			more Collective Works, and to reproduce the Work as incorporated
			in the Collective Works;</P>
			<LI><P>to distribute copies or phonorecords of, display publicly,
			perform publicly, and perform publicly by means of a digital audio
			transmission the Work including as incorporated in Collective
			Works;</P>
			<P>The above rights may be exercised in all media and formats
			whether now known or hereafter devised. The above rights include
			the right to make such modifications as are technically necessary
			to exercise the rights in other media and formats. All rights not
			expressly granted by Licensor are hereby reserved.</P>
		</OL>
		<LI><P>Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is
		expressly made subject to and limited by the following
		restrictions:</P>
		<OL>
			<LI><P>You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
			publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this
			License, and You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource
			Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of the
			Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
			publicly digitally perform. You may not offer or impose any terms
			on the Work that alter or restrict the terms of this License or
			the recipients&apos; exercise of the rights granted
			hereunder. You may not sublicense the Work. You must keep intact
			all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of
			warranties. You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly
			perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work with any
			technological measures that control access or use of the Work in a
			manner inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement. The
			above applies to the Work as incorporated in a Collective Work,
			but this does not require the Collective Work apart from the Work
			itself to be made subject to the terms of this License. If You
			create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must,
			to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective Work any
			reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested.</P>
			<LI><P>You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in
			Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or
			directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary
			compensation. The exchange of the Work for other copyrighted works
			by means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not be
			considered to be intended for or directed toward commercial
			advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is no
			payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the
			exchange of copyrighted works.</P>
			<LI><P>If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
			publicly digitally perform the Work or any Collective Works, You
			must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and give the
			Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are
			utilizing by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of
			the Original Author if supplied; the title of the Work if
			supplied. Such credit may be implemented in any reasonable manner;
			provided, however, that in the case of a Collective Work, at a
			minimum such credit will appear where any other comparable
			authorship credit appears and in a manner at least as prominent as
			such other comparable authorship credit.</P>
		</OL>
		<LI><P>Representations, Warranties and Disclaimer</P>
		<OL>
			<LI><P>By offering the Work for public release under this License,
			Licensor represents and warrants that, to the best of Licensor&apos;s
			knowledge after reasonable inquiry:</P>
			<OL>
				<LI><P>Licensor has secured all rights in the Work necessary to
				grant the license rights hereunder and to permit the lawful
				exercise of the rights granted hereunder without You having any
				obligation to pay any royalties, compulsory license fees,
				residuals or any other payments;</P>
				<LI><P>The Work does not infringe the copyright, trademark,
				publicity rights, common law rights or any other right of any
				third party or constitute defamation, invasion of privacy or
				other tortious injury to any third party.</P>
			</OL>
			<LI><P>EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS LICENSE OR OTHERWISE
			AGREED IN WRITING OR REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE WORK IS
			LICENSED ON AN &ldquo;AS IS&rdquo; BASIS,
			WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
			INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES REGARDING THE
			CONTENTS OR ACCURACY OF THE WORK.</P>
		</OL>
		<LI><P>Limitation on Liability. EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT REQUIRED BY
		APPLICABLE LAW, AND EXCEPT FOR DAMAGES ARISING FROM LIABILITY TO A
		THIRD PARTY RESULTING FROM BREACH OF THE WARRANTIES IN SECTION 5,
		IN NO EVENT WILL LICENSOR BE LIABLE TO YOU ON ANY LEGAL THEORY FOR
		ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY
		DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THIS LICENSE OR THE USE OF THE WORK, EVEN IF
		LICENSOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.</P>
		<LI><P>Termination</P>
		<OL>
			<LI><P>This License and the rights granted hereunder will
			terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of
			this License. Individuals or entities who have received Collective
			Works from You under this License, however, will not have their
			licenses terminated provided such individuals or entities remain
			in full compliance with those licenses. Sections 1, 2, 5, 6, 7,
			and 8 will survive any termination of this License.</P>
			<LI><P>Subject to the above terms and conditions, the license
			granted here is perpetual (for the duration of the applicable
			copyright in the Work). Notwithstanding the above, Licensor
			reserves the right to release the Work under different license
			terms or to stop distributing the Work at any time; provided,
			however that any such election will not serve to withdraw this
			License (or any other license that has been, or is required to be,
			granted under the terms of this License), and this License will
			continue in full force and effect unless terminated as stated
			above.</P>
		</OL>
		<LI><P>Miscellaneous</P>
		<OL>
			<LI><P>Each time You distribute or publicly digitally perform the
			Work or a Collective Work, the Licensor offers to the recipient a
			license to the Work on the same terms and conditions as the
			license granted to You under this License.</P>
			<LI><P>If any provision of this License is invalid or
			unenforceable under applicable law, it shall not affect the
			validity or enforceability of the remainder of the terms of this
			License, and without further action by the parties to this
			agreement, such provision shall be reformed to the minimum extent
			necessary to make such provision valid and enforceable.</P>
			<LI><P>No term or provision of this License shall be deemed waived
			and no breach consented to unless such waiver or consent shall be
			in writing and signed by the party to be charged with such waiver
			or consent.</P>
			<LI><P>This License constitutes the entire agreement between the
			parties with respect to the Work licensed here. There are no
			understandings, agreements or representations with respect to the
			Work not specified here. Licensor shall not be bound by any
			additional provisions that may appear in any communication from
			You. This License may not be modified without the mutual written
			agreement of the Licensor and You.</P>
		</OL>
	</OL>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="prologue" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>PROLOGUE</H1>
	<P>I lived long enough to see the cure for death; to see the rise of
	the Bitchun Society, to learn ten languages; to compose three
	symphonies; to realize my boyhood dream of taking up residence in
	Disney World; to see the death of the workplace and of work.</P>
	<P>I never thought I&apos;d live to see the day when Keep
	A-Movin&apos; Dan would decide to deadhead until the heat
	death of the Universe.</P>
	<P>Dan was in his second or third blush of youth when I first met
	him, sometime late-XXI. He was a rangy cowpoke, apparent 25 or so,
	all rawhide squint-lines and sunburned neck, boots worn thin and
	infinitely comfortable. I was in the middle of my Chem thesis, my
	fourth Doctorate, and he was taking a break from Saving the World,
	chilling on campus in Toronto and core-dumping for some poor Anthro
	major. We hooked up at the Grad Students&apos; Union&mdash;the
	GSU, or Gazoo for those who knew&mdash;on a busy Friday night,
	summer-ish. I was fighting a coral-slow battle for a stool at the
	scratched bar, inching my way closer every time the press of bodies
	shifted, and he had one of the few seats, surrounded by a litter of
	cigarette junk and empties, clearly encamped.</P>
	<P>Some duration into my foray, he cocked his head at me and raised
	a sun-bleached eyebrow. &ldquo;You get any closer, son, and
	we&apos;re going to have to get a pre-nup.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I was apparent forty or so, and I thought about bridling at being
	called son, but I looked into his eyes and decided that he had
	enough realtime that he could call me son anytime he wanted. I
	backed off a little and apologized.</P>
	<P>He struck a cig and blew a pungent, strong plume over the
	bartender&apos;s head. &ldquo;Don&apos;t worry
	about it. I&apos;m probably a little over accustomed to
	personal space.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I couldn&apos;t remember the last time I&apos;d
	heard anyone on-world talk about personal space. With the mortality
	rate at zero and the birth-rate at non-zero, the world was
	inexorably accreting a dense carpet of people, even with the
	migratory and deadhead drains on the population. &ldquo;You&apos;ve
	been jaunting?&rdquo; I asked&mdash;his
	eyes were too sharp for him to have missed an instant&apos;s
	experience to deadheading.</P>
	<P>He chuckled. &ldquo;No sir, not me. I&apos;m into the
	kind of macho shitheadery that you only come across on-world.
	Jaunting&apos;s for play; I need work.&rdquo; The bar-glass tinkled a counterpoint.</P>
	<P>I took a moment to conjure a HUD with his Whuffie score on it. I
	had to resize the window&mdash;he had too many zeroes to fit
	on my standard display. I tried to act cool, but he caught the
	upwards flick of my eyes and then their involuntary widening. He
	tried a little aw-shucksery, gave it up and let a prideful grin
	show.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I try not to pay it much mind. Some people, they get
	overly grateful.&rdquo; He must&apos;ve
	seen my eyes flick up again, to pull his Whuffie history. &ldquo;Wait,
	don&apos;t go doing that&mdash;I&apos;ll tell
	you about it, you really got to know.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Damn, you know, it&apos;s so easy to get used
	to life without hyperlinks. You&apos;d think you&apos;d
	really miss &apos;em, but you don&apos;t.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>And it clicked for me. He was a missionary&mdash;one of
	those fringe-dwellers who act as emissary from the Bitchun Society
	to the benighted corners of the world where, for whatever reasons,
	they want to die, starve, and choke on petrochem waste. It&apos;s
	amazing that these communities survive more than a generation; in
	the Bitchun Society proper, we usually outlive our detractors. The
	missionaries don&apos;t have such a high success rate&mdash;you
	have to be awfully convincing to get through to a culture that&apos;s
	already successfully resisted nearly a century&apos;s worth
	of propaganda&mdash;but when you convert a whole village, you
	accrue all the Whuffie they have to give. More often, missionaries
	end up getting refreshed from a backup after they aren&apos;t
	heard from for a decade or so. I&apos;d never met one in the
	flesh before.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;How many successful missions have you had?&rdquo; I asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Figured it out, huh? I&apos;ve just come off
	my fifth in twenty years&mdash;counterrevolutionaries hidden
	out in the old Cheyenne Mountain NORAD site, still there a
	generation later.&rdquo; He sandpapered
	his whiskers with his fingertips. &ldquo;Their parents went to
	ground after their life&apos;s savings vanished, and they had
	no use for tech any more advanced than a rifle. Plenty of those,
	though.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He spun a fascinating yarn then, how he slowly gained the
	acceptance of the mountain-dwellers, and then their trust, and then
	betrayed it in subtle, beneficent ways: introducing Free Energy to
	their greenhouses, then a gengineered crop or two, then curing a
	couple deaths, slowly inching them toward the Bitchun Society, until
	they couldn&apos;t remember why they hadn&apos;t
	wanted to be a part of it from the start. Now they were mostly
	off-world, exploring toy frontiers with unlimited energy and
	unlimited supplies and deadheading through the dull times en route.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I guess it&apos;d be too much of a shock for
	them to stay on-world. They think of us as the enemy, you
	know&mdash;they had all kinds of plans drawn up for when we
	invaded them and took them away; hollow suicide teeth, booby-traps,
	fall-back-and-rendezvous points for the survivors. They just can&apos;t
	get over hating us, even though we don&apos;t even know they
	exist. Off-world, they can pretend that they&apos;re still
	living rough and hard.&rdquo; He rubbed
	his chin again, his hard calluses grating over his whiskers. &ldquo;But
	for me, the real rough life is right here, on-world. The little
	enclaves, each one is like an alternate history of humanity&mdash;what
	if we&apos;d taken the Free Energy, but not deadheading? What
	if we&apos;d taken deadheading, but only for the critically
	ill, not for people who didn&apos;t want to be bored on long
	bus-rides? Or no hyperlinks, no ad-hocracy, no Whuffie? Each one is
	different and wonderful.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I have a stupid habit of arguing for the sake of, and I found
	myself saying, &ldquo;Wonderful? Oh sure, nothing finer than,
	oh, let&apos;s see, dying, starving, freezing, broiling,
	killing, cruelty and ignorance and pain and misery. I know I sure
	miss it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Keep A-Movin&apos; Dan snorted. &ldquo;You think a
	junkie misses sobriety?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I knocked on the bar. &ldquo;Hello! There aren&apos;t
	any junkies anymore!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He struck another cig. &ldquo;But you know what a junkie <EM>is</EM>,
	right? Junkies don&apos;t miss sobriety, because they don&apos;t
	remember how sharp everything was, how the pain made the joy
	sweeter. We can&apos;t remember what it was like to work to
	earn our keep; to worry that there might not be <EM>enough</EM>,
	that we might get sick or get hit by a bus. We don&apos;t
	remember what it was like to take chances, and we sure as shit
	don&apos;t remember what it felt like to have them pay
	off.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He had a point. Here I was, only in my second or third adulthood,
	and already ready to toss it all in and do something, <EM>anything</EM>,
	else. He had a point&mdash;but I wasn&apos;t about to
	admit it. &ldquo;So you say. I say, I take a chance when I
	strike up a conversation in a bar, when I fall in love&hellip; and what about the deadheads? Two people I know, they just went
	deadhead for ten thousand years! Tell me that&apos;s not
	taking a chance!&rdquo; Truth be told,
	almost everyone I&apos;d known in my eighty-some years were
	deadheading or jaunting or just <EM>gone</EM>. Lonely days, then.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Brother, that&apos;s committing half-assed
	suicide. The way we&apos;re going, they&apos;ll be
	lucky if someone doesn&apos;t just switch &apos;em off
	when it comes time to reanimate. In case you haven&apos;t
	noticed, it&apos;s getting a little crowded around here.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I made pish-tosh sounds and wiped off my forehead with a
	bar-napkin&mdash;the Gazoo was beastly hot on summer nights.
	&ldquo;Uh-huh, just like the world was getting a little crowded
	a hundred years ago, before Free Energy. Like it was getting too
	greenhousey, too nukey, too hot or too cold. We fixed it then,
	we&apos;ll fix it again when the time comes. I&apos;m
	gonna be here in ten thousand years, you damn betcha, but I think
	I&apos;ll do it the long way around.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He cocked his head again, and gave it some thought. If it had
	been any of the other grad students, I&apos;d have assumed he
	was grepping for some bolstering factoids to support his next sally.
	But with him, I just knew he was thinking about it, the
	old-fashioned way.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I think that if I&apos;m still here in ten
	thousand years, I&apos;m going to be crazy as hell. Ten
	thousand years, pal! Ten thousand years ago, the state-of-the-art
	was a goat. You really think you&apos;re going to be anything
	recognizably human in a hundred centuries? Me, I&apos;m not
	interested in being a post-person. I&apos;m going to wake up
	one day, and I&apos;m going to say, &lsquo;Well, I guess
	I&apos;ve seen about enough,&rsquo; and that&apos;ll
	be my last day.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I had seen where he was going with this, and I had stopped paying
	attention while I readied my response. I probably should have paid
	more attention. &ldquo;But why? Why not just deadhead for a few
	centuries, see if there&apos;s anything that takes your
	fancy, and if not, back to sleep for a few more? Why do anything so
	<EM>final</EM>?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He embarrassed me by making a show of thinking it over again,
	making me feel like I was just a half-pissed glib poltroon. &ldquo;I
	suppose it&apos;s because nothing else is. I&apos;ve
	always known that someday, I was going to stop moving, stop seeking,
	stop kicking, and have done with it. There&apos;ll come a day
	when I don&apos;t have anything left to do, except stop.&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
</DIV>
<P>On campus, they called him Keep-A-Movin&apos; Dan, because
of his cowboy vibe and because of his lifestyle, and he somehow grew
to take over every conversation I had for the next six months. I
pinged his Whuffie a few times, and noticed that it was climbing
steadily upward as he accumulated more esteem from the people he met.</P>
<P>I&apos;d pretty much pissed away most of my Whuffie&mdash;all
the savings from the symphonies and the first three theses&mdash;drinking
myself stupid at the Gazoo, hogging library terminals, pestering
profs, until I&apos;d expended all the respect anyone had ever
afforded me. All except Dan, who, for some reason, stood me to
regular beers and meals and movies.</P>
<P>I got to feeling like I was someone special&mdash;not
everyone had a chum as exotic as Keep-A-Movin&apos; Dan, the
legendary missionary who visited the only places left that were
closed to the Bitchun Society. I can&apos;t say for sure why
he hung around with me. He mentioned once or twice that he&apos;d
liked my symphonies, and he&apos;d read my Ergonomics thesis
on applying theme-park crowd-control techniques in urban settings,
and liked what I had to say there. But I think it came down to us
having a good time needling each other.</P>
<P>I&apos;d talk to him about the vast carpet of the future
unrolling before us, of the certainty that we would encounter alien
intelligences some day, of the unimaginable frontiers open to each of
us. He&apos;d tell me that deadheading was a strong indicator
that one&apos;s personal reservoir of introspection and
creativity was dry; and that without struggle, there is no real
victory.</P>
<P>This was a good fight, one we could have a thousand times without
resolving. I&apos;d get him to concede that Whuffie recaptured
the true essence of money: in the old days, if you were broke but
respected, you wouldn&apos;t starve; contrariwise, if you were
rich and hated, no sum could buy you security and peace. By measuring
the thing that money really represented&mdash;your personal
capital with your friends and neighbors&mdash;you more
accurately gauged your success.</P>
<P>And then he&apos;d lead me down a subtle, carefully baited
trail that led to my allowing that while, yes, we might someday
encounter alien species with wild and fabulous ways, that right now,
there was a slightly depressing homogeneity to the world.</P>
<P>On a fine spring day, I defended my thesis to two embodied humans
and one prof whose body was out for an overhaul, whose consciousness
was present via speakerphone from the computer where it was resting.
They all liked it. I collected my sheepskin and went out hunting for
Dan in the sweet, flower-stinking streets.</P>
<P>He&apos;d gone. The Anthro major he&apos;d been
torturing with his war-stories said that they&apos;d wrapped
up that morning, and he&apos;d headed to the walled city of
Tijuana, to take his shot with the descendants of a platoon of US
Marines who&apos;d settled there and cut themselves off from
the Bitchun Society.</P>
<P>So I went to Disney World.</P>
<P>In deference to Dan, I took the flight in realtime, in the
minuscule cabin reserved for those of us who stubbornly refused to be
frozen and stacked like cordwood for the two hour flight. I was the
only one taking the trip in realtime, but a flight attendant
dutifully served me a urine-sample-sized orange juice and a rubbery,
pungent, cheese omelet. I stared out the windows at the infinite
clouds while the autopilot banked around the turbulence, and wondered
when I&apos;d see Dan next.</P>
<DIV ID="ch1" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 1</H1>
	<P>My girlfriend was 15 percent of my age, and I was old-fashioned
	enough that it bugged me. Her name was Lil, and she was
	second-generation Disney World, her parents being among the original
	ad-hocracy that took over the management of Liberty Square and Tom
	Sawyer Island. She was, quite literally, raised in Walt Disney World
	and it showed.</P>
	<P>It showed. She was neat and efficient in her every little thing,
	from her shining red hair to her careful accounting of each gear and
	cog in the animatronics that were in her charge. Her folks were in
	canopic jars in Kissimmee, deadheading for a few centuries.</P>
	<P>On a muggy Wednesday, we dangled our feet over the edge of the
	Liberty Belle&apos;s riverboat pier, watching the listless
	Confederate flag over Fort Langhorn on Tom Sawyer Island by
	moonlight. The Magic Kingdom was all closed up and every last guest
	had been chased out the gate underneath the Main Street train
	station, and we were able to breathe a heavy sigh of relief, shuck
	parts of our costumes, and relax together while the cicadas sang.</P>
	<P>I was more than a century old, but there was still a kind of
	magic in having my arm around the warm, fine shoulders of a girl by
	moonlight, hidden from the hustle of the cleaning teams by the
	turnstiles, breathing the warm, moist air. Lil plumped her head
	against my shoulder and gave me a butterfly kiss under my jaw.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Her name was McGill,&rdquo; I
	sang, gently.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But she called herself Lil,&rdquo; she sang, warm breath on my collarbones.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;And everyone knew her as Nancy,&rdquo; I sang.</P>
	<P>I&apos;d been startled to know that she knew the Beatles.
	They&apos;d been old news in my youth, after all. But her
	parents had given her a thorough&mdash;if
	eclectic&mdash;education.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Want to do a walk-through?&rdquo; she asked. It was one of her favorite duties, exploring every
	inch of the rides in her care with the lights on, after the horde of
	tourists had gone. We both liked to see the underpinnings of the
	magic. Maybe that was why I kept picking at the relationship.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m a little pooped. Let&apos;s
	sit a while longer, if you don&apos;t mind.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She heaved a dramatic sigh. &ldquo;Oh, all right. Old
	man.&rdquo; She reached up and gently
	tweaked my nipple, and I gave a satisfying little jump. I think the
	age difference bothered her, too, though she teased me for letting
	it get to me. 
	</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I think I&apos;ll be able to manage a totter
	through the Haunted Mansion, if you just give me a moment to rest my
	bursitis.&rdquo; I felt her smile against
	my shirt. She loved the Mansion; loved to turn on the ballroom
	ghosts and dance their waltz with them on the dusty floor, loved to
	try and stare down the marble busts in the library that followed
	your gaze as you passed.</P>
	<P>I liked it too, but I really liked just sitting there with her,
	watching the water and the trees. I was just getting ready to go
	when I heard a soft <EM>ping</EM> inside my cochlea. &ldquo;Damn,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I&apos;ve got a call.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Tell them you&apos;re busy,&rdquo; she said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I will,&rdquo; I said, and
	answered the call subvocally. &ldquo;Julius here.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hi, Julius. It&apos;s Dan. You got a
	minute?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I knew a thousand Dans, but I recognized the voice immediately,
	though it&apos;d been ten years since we last got drunk at
	the Gazoo together. I muted the subvocal and said, &ldquo;Lil,
	I&apos;ve got to take this. Do you mind?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, <EM>no</EM>, not at all,&rdquo; she sarcased at me. She sat up and pulled out her crack pipe
	and lit up.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Dan,&rdquo; I
	subvocalized, &ldquo;long time no speak.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yeah, buddy, it sure has been,&rdquo; he said, and his voice cracked on a sob.</P>
	<P>I turned and gave Lil such a look, she dropped her pipe. &ldquo;How
	can I help?&rdquo; she said, softly but
	swiftly. I waved her off and switched the phone to full-vocal mode.
	My voice sounded unnaturally loud in the cricket-punctuated calm.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Where you at, Dan?&rdquo; I
	asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Down here, in Orlando. I&apos;m stuck out on
	Pleasure Island.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;Meet me at, uh, the Adventurer&apos;s Club,
	upstairs on the couch by the door. I&apos;ll be there
	in&mdash;&rdquo; I shot a look at
	Lil, who knew the castmember-only roads better than I. She flashed
	ten fingers at me. &ldquo;Ten minutes.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Okay,&rdquo; he said.
	&ldquo;Sorry.&rdquo; He had his
	voice back under control. I switched off.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What&apos;s up?&rdquo; Lil
	asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m not sure. An old friend is in town.
	He sounds like he&apos;s got a problem.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil pointed a finger at me and made a trigger-squeezing gesture.
	&ldquo;There,&rdquo; she said.
	&ldquo;I&apos;ve just dumped the best route to Pleasure
	Island to your public directory. Keep me in the loop, okay?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I set off for the utilidor entrance near the Hall of Presidents
	and booted down the stairs to the hum of the underground
	tunnel-system. I took the slidewalk to cast parking and zipped my
	little cart out to Pleasure Island.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I found Dan sitting on the L-shaped couch underneath rows of
	faked-up trophy shots with humorous captions. Downstairs,
	castmembers were working the animatronic masks and idols, chattering
	with the guests.</P>
	<P>Dan was apparent fifty plus, a little paunchy and stubbled. He
	had raccoon-mask bags under his eyes and he slumped listlessly. As I
	approached, I pinged his Whuffie and was startled to see that it had
	dropped to nearly zero.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Jesus,&rdquo; I said, as I
	sat down next to him. &ldquo;You look like hell, Dan.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He nodded. &ldquo;Appearances can be deceptive,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But in this case, they&apos;re
	bang-on.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You want to talk about it?&rdquo; I asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Somewhere else, huh? I hear they ring in the New Year
	every night at midnight; I think that&apos;d be a little too
	much for me right now.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I led him out to my cart and cruised back to the place I shared
	with Lil, out in Kissimmee. He smoked eight cigarettes on the twenty
	minute ride, hammering one after another into his mouth, filling my
	runabout with stinging clouds. I kept glancing at him in the
	rear-view. He had his eyes closed, and in repose he looked dead. I
	could hardly believe that this was my vibrant action-hero pal of
	yore.</P>
	<P>Surreptitiously, I called Lil&apos;s phone. &ldquo;I&apos;m
	bringing him home,&rdquo; I subvocalized.
	&ldquo;He&apos;s in rough shape. Not sure what it&apos;s
	all about.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;ll make up the couch,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And get some coffee together. Love
	you.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Back atcha, kid,&rdquo; I
	said.</P>
	<P>As we approached the tacky little swaybacked ranch-house, he
	opened his eyes. &ldquo;You&apos;re a pal, Jules.&rdquo; I waved him off. &ldquo;No, really. I tried to think of
	who I could call, and you were the only one. I&apos;ve missed
	you, bud.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Lil said she&apos;d put some coffee on,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You sound like you need it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil was waiting on the sofa, a folded blanket and an extra pillow
	on the side table, a pot of coffee and some Disneyland Beijing mugs
	beside them. She stood and extended her hand. &ldquo;I&apos;m
	Lil,&rdquo; she said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Dan,&rdquo; he said.
	&ldquo;It&apos;s a pleasure.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I knew she was pinging his Whuffie and I caught her look of
	surprised disapproval. Us oldsters who predate Whuffie know that
	it&apos;s important; but to the kids, it&apos;s the
	<EM>world</EM>. Someone without any is automatically suspect. I
	watched her recover quickly, smile, and surreptitiously wipe her
	hand on her jeans. &ldquo;Coffee?&rdquo; she said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, yeah,&rdquo; Dan said,
	and slumped on the sofa.</P>
	<P>She poured him a cup and set it on a coaster on the coffee table.
	&ldquo;I&apos;ll let you boys catch up, then,&rdquo; she said, and started for the bedroom.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Dan said.
	&ldquo;Wait. If you don&apos;t mind. I think it&apos;d
	help if I could talk to someone&hellip; younger,
	too.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She set her face in the look of chirpy helpfulness that all the
	second-gen castmembers have at their instant disposal and settled
	into an armchair. She pulled out her pipe and lit a rock. I went
	through my crack period before she was born, just after they made it
	decaf, and I always felt old when I saw her and her friends light
	up. Dan surprised me by holding out a hand to her and taking the
	pipe. He toked heavily, then passed it back.</P>
	<P>Dan closed his eyes again, then ground his fists into them,
	sipped his coffee. It was clear he was trying to figure out where to
	start.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I believed that I was braver than I really am, is
	what it boils down to,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Who doesn&apos;t?&rdquo; I
	said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I really thought I could do it. I knew that someday
	I&apos;d run out of things to do, things to see. I knew that
	I&apos;d finish some day. You remember, we used to argue
	about it. I swore I&apos;d be done, and that would be the end
	of it. And now I am. There isn&apos;t a single place left
	on-world that isn&apos;t part of the Bitchun Society. There
	isn&apos;t a single thing left that I want any part of.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So deadhead for a few centuries,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Put the decision off.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No!&rdquo; he shouted,
	startling both of us. &ldquo;I&apos;m <EM>done</EM>.
	It&apos;s <EM>over</EM>.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So do it,&rdquo; Lil said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I <EM>can&apos;t</EM>,&rdquo; he sobbed, and buried his face in his hands. He cried like a
	baby, in great, snoring sobs that shook his whole body. Lil went
	into the kitchen and got some tissue, and passed it to me. I sat
	alongside him and awkwardly patted his back.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Jesus,&rdquo; he said,
	into his palms. &ldquo;Jesus.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Dan?&rdquo; I said,
	quietly.</P>
	<P>He sat up and took the tissue, wiped off his face and hands.
	&ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; he said.
	&ldquo;I&apos;ve tried to make a go of it, really I
	have. I&apos;ve spent the last eight years in Istanbul,
	writing papers on my missions, about the communities. I did some
	followup studies, interviews. No one was interested. Not even me. I
	smoked a lot of hash. It didn&apos;t help. So, one morning I
	woke up and went to the bazaar and said good bye to the friends
	I&apos;d made there. Then I went to a pharmacy and had the
	man make me up a lethal injection. He wished me good luck and I went
	back to my rooms. I sat there with the hypo all afternoon, then I
	decided to sleep on it, and I got up the next morning and did it all
	over again. I looked inside myself, and I saw that I didn&apos;t
	have the guts. I just didn&apos;t have the guts. I&apos;ve
	stared down the barrels of a hundred guns, had a thousand knives
	pressed up against my throat, but I didn&apos;t have the guts
	to press that button.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You were too late,&rdquo; Lil
	said.</P>
	<P>We both turned to look at her.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You were a decade too late. Look at you. You&apos;re
	pathetic. If you killed yourself right now, you&apos;d just
	be a washed-up loser who couldn&apos;t hack it. If you&apos;d
	done it ten years earlier, you would&apos;ve been going out
	on top&mdash;a champion, retiring permanently.&rdquo; She set her mug down with a harder-than-necessary clunk.</P>
	<P>Sometimes, Lil and I are right on the same wavelength. Sometimes,
	it&apos;s like she&apos;s on a different planet. All I
	could do was sit there, horrified, and she was happy to discuss the
	timing of my pal&apos;s suicide.</P>
	<P>But she was right. Dan nodded heavily, and I saw that he knew it,
	too.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;A day late and a dollar short,&rdquo; he sighed.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, don&apos;t just sit there,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You know what you&apos;ve got to
	do.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What?&rdquo; I said,
	involuntarily irritated by her tone.</P>
	<P>She looked at me like I was being deliberately stupid. &ldquo;He&apos;s
	got to get back on top. Cleaned up, dried out, into some productive
	work. Get that Whuffie up, too. <EM>Then</EM> he can kill himself
	with dignity.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>It was the stupidest thing I&apos;d ever heard. Dan,
	though, was cocking an eyebrow at her and thinking hard. &ldquo;How
	old did you say you were?&rdquo; he
	asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Twenty-three,&rdquo; she
	said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Wish I&apos;d had your smarts at
	twenty-three,&rdquo; he said, and heaved
	a sigh, straightening up. &ldquo;Can I stay here while I get
	the job done?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I looked askance at Lil, who considered for a moment, then
	nodded.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure, pal, sure,&rdquo; I
	said. I clapped him on the shoulder. &ldquo;You look beat.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Beat doesn&apos;t begin to cover it,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Good night, then,&rdquo; I
	said.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch2" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 2</H1>
	<P>Ad-hocracy works well, for the most part. Lil&apos;s folks
	had taken over the running of Liberty Square with a group of other
	interested, compatible souls. They did a fine job, racked up gobs of
	Whuffie, and anyone who came around and tried to take it over would
	be so reviled by the guests they wouldn&apos;t find a pot to
	piss in. Or they&apos;d have such a wicked, radical approach
	that they&apos;d ouster Lil&apos;s parents and their
	pals, and do a better job.</P>
	<P>It can break down, though. There were pretenders to the
	throne&mdash;a group who&apos;d worked with the
	original ad-hocracy and then had moved off to other pursuits&mdash;some
	of them had gone to school, some of them had made movies, written
	books, or gone off to Disneyland Beijing to help start things up. A
	few had deadheaded for a couple decades.</P>
	<P>They came back to Liberty Square with a message: update the
	attractions. The Liberty Square ad-hocs were the staunchest
	conservatives in the Magic Kingdom, preserving the wheezing
	technology in the face of a Park that changed almost daily. The
	newcomer/old-timers were on-side with the rest of the Park, had
	their support, and looked like they might make a successful go of
	it.</P>
	<P>So it fell to Lil to make sure that there were no bugs in the
	meager attractions of Liberty Square: the Hall of the Presidents,
	the Liberty Belle riverboat, and the glorious Haunted Mansion,
	arguably the coolest attraction to come from the fevered minds of
	the old-time Disney Imagineers.</P>
	<P>I caught her backstage at the Hall of the Presidents, tinkering
	with Lincoln II, the backup animatronic. Lil tried to keep two of
	everything running at speed, just in case. She could swap out a dead
	bot for a backup in five minutes flat, which is all that
	crowd-control would permit.</P>
	<P>It had been two weeks since Dan&apos;s arrival, and though
	I&apos;d barely seen him in that time, his presence was vivid
	in our lives. Our little ranch-house had a new smell, not
	unpleasant, of rejuve and hope and loss, something barely noticeable
	over the tropical flowers nodding in front of our porch. My phone
	rang three or four times a day, Dan checking in from his rounds of
	the Park, seeking out some way to accumulate personal capital. His
	excitement and dedication to the task were inspiring, pulling me
	into his over-the-top-and-damn-the-torpedoes mode of being.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You just missed Dan,&rdquo; she
	said. She had her head in Lincoln&apos;s chest, working with
	an autosolder and a magnifier. Bent over, red hair tied back in a
	neat bun, sweat sheening her wiry freckled arms, smelling of
	girl-sweat and machine lubricant, she made me wish there were a
	mattress somewhere backstage. I settled for patting her behind
	affectionately, and she wriggled appreciatively. &ldquo;He&apos;s
	looking better.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>His rejuve had taken him back to apparent 25, the way I
	remembered him. He was rawboned and leathery, but still had the
	defeated stoop that had startled me when I saw him at the
	Adventurer&apos;s Club. &ldquo;What did he want?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;He&apos;s been hanging out with Debra&mdash;he
	wanted to make sure I knew what she&apos;s up to.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Debra was one of the old guard, a former comrade of Lil&apos;s
	parents. She&apos;d spent a decade in Disneyland Beijing,
	coding sim-rides. If she had her way, we&apos;d tear down
	every marvelous rube goldberg in the Park and replace them with
	pristine white sim boxes on giant, articulated servos.</P>
	<P>The problem was that she was <EM>really good</EM> at coding sims.
	Her Great Movie Ride rehab at MGM was breathtaking&mdash;the
	Star Wars sequence had already inspired a hundred fan-sites that
	fielded millions of hits.</P>
	<P>She&apos;d leveraged her success into a deal with the
	Adventureland ad-hocs to rehab the Pirates of the Caribbean, and
	their backstage areas were piled high with reference: treasure
	chests and cutlasses and bowsprits. It was terrifying to walk
	through; the Pirates was the last ride Walt personally supervised,
	and we&apos;d thought it was sacrosanct. But Debra had built
	a Pirates sim in Beijing, based on Chend I Sao, the XIXth century
	Chinese pirate queen, which was credited with rescuing the Park from
	obscurity and ruin. The Florida iteration would incorporate the best
	aspects of its Chinese cousin&mdash;the AI-driven sims that
	communicated with each other and with the guests, greeting them by
	name each time they rode and spinning age-appropriate tales of
	piracy on the high seas; the spectacular fly-through of the aquatic
	necropolis of rotting junks on the sea-floor; the thrilling pitch
	and yaw of the sim as it weathered a violent, breath-taking
	storm&mdash;but with Western themes: wafts of Jamaican pepper
	sauce crackling through the air; liquid Afro-Caribbean accents; and
	swordfights conducted in the manner of the pirates who plied the
	blue waters of the New World. Identical sims would stack like
	cordwood in the space currently occupied by the bulky ride-apparatus
	and dioramas, quintupling capacity and halving load-time.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So, what&apos;s she up to?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil extracted herself from the Rail-Splitter&apos;s
	mechanical guts and made a comical moue of worry. &ldquo;She&apos;s
	rehabbing the Pirates&mdash;and doing an incredible job.
	They&apos;re ahead of schedule, they&apos;ve got good
	net-buzz, the focus groups are cumming themselves.&rdquo; The comedy went out of her expression, baring genuine worry.</P>
	<P>She turned away and closed up Honest Abe, then fired her finger
	at him. Smoothly, he began to run through his spiel, silent but for
	the soft hum and whine of his servos. Lil mimed twiddling a knob and
	his audiotrack kicked in low: &ldquo;All the armies of Europe,
	Asia, and Africa <EM>combined</EM> could not, by force, make a track
	on the Blue Ridge, nor take a drink from the Ohio. If destruction be
	our lot, then we ourselves must be its author&mdash;and its
	finisher.&rdquo; She mimed turning down
	the gain and he fell silent again.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You said it, Mr. President,&rdquo; she said, and fired her finger at him again, powering him
	down. She bent and adjusted his hand-sewn period topcoat, then
	carefully wound and set the turnip-watch in his vest-pocket.</P>
	<P>I put my arm around her shoulders. &ldquo;You&apos;re
	doing all you can&mdash;and it&apos;s good work,&rdquo; I said. I&apos;d fallen into the easy castmember mode
	of speaking, voicing bland affirmations. Hearing the words, I felt a
	flush of embarrassment. I pulled her into a long, hard hug and
	fumbled for better reassurance. Finding no words that would do, I
	gave her a final squeeze and let her go.</P>
	<P>She looked at me sidelong and nodded her head. &ldquo;It&apos;ll
	be fine, of course,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I
	mean, the worst possible scenario is that Debra will do her job
	very, very well, and make things even better than they are now.
	That&apos;s not so bad.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>This was a 180-degree reversal of her position on the subject the
	last time we&apos;d talked, but you don&apos;t live
	more than a century without learning when to point out that sort of
	thing and when not to.</P>
	<P>My cochlea struck twelve noon and a HUD appeared with my weekly
	backup reminder. Lil was maneuvering Ben Franklin II out of his
	niche. I waved good-bye at her back and walked away, to an uplink
	terminal. Once I was close enough for secure broadband
	communications, I got ready to back up. My cochlea chimed again and
	I answered it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I
	subvocalized, impatiently. I hated getting distracted from a
	backup&mdash;one of my enduring fears was that I&apos;d
	forget the backup altogether and leave myself vulnerable for an
	entire week until the next reminder. I&apos;d lost the knack
	of getting into habits in my adolescence, giving in completely to
	machine-generated reminders over conscious choice.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s Dan.&rdquo; I
	heard the sound of the Park in full swing behind him&mdash;children&apos;s
	laughter; bright, recorded animatronic spiels; the tromp of
	thousands of feet. &ldquo;Can you meet me at the Tiki Room?
	It&apos;s pretty important.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Can it wait for fifteen?&rdquo; I
	asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure&mdash;see you in fifteen.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I rung off and initiated the backup. A status-bar zipped across a
	HUD, dumping the parts of my memory that were purely digital; then
	it finished and started in on organic memory. My eyes rolled back in
	my head and my life flashed before my eyes.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch3" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 3</H1>
	<P>The Bitchun Society has had much experience with restores from
	backup&mdash;in the era of the cure for death, people live
	pretty recklessly. Some people get refreshed a couple dozen times a
	year.</P>
	<P>Not me. I hate the process. Not so much that I won&apos;t
	participate in it. Everyone who had serious philosophical conundra
	on that subject just, you know, <EM>died</EM>, a generation before.
	The Bitchun Society didn&apos;t need to convert its
	detractors, just outlive them.</P>
	<P>The first time I died, it was not long after my sixtieth
	birthday. I was SCUBA diving at Playa Coral, near Veradero, Cuba. Of
	course, I don&apos;t remember the incident, but knowing my
	habits at that particular dive-site and having read the dive-logs of
	my SCUBA-buddies, I&apos;ve reconstructed the events.</P>
	<P>I was eeling my way through the lobster-caves, with a borrowed
	bottle and mask. I&apos;d also borrowed a wetsuit, but I
	wasn&apos;t wearing it&mdash;the blood-temp salt water
	was balm, and I hated erecting barriers between it and my skin. The
	caves were made of coral and rocks, and they coiled and twisted like
	intestines. Through each hole and around each corner, there was a
	hollow, rough sphere of surpassing, alien beauty. Giant lobsters
	skittered over the walls and through the holes. Schools of fish as
	bright as jewels darted and executed breath-taking precision
	maneuvers as I disturbed their busy days. I do some of my best
	thinking under water, and I&apos;m often slipping off into
	dangerous reverie at depth. Normally, my diving buddies ensure that
	I don&apos;t hurt myself, but this time I got away from them,
	spidering forward into a tiny hole.</P>
	<P>Where I got stuck.</P>
	<P>My diving buddies were behind me, and I rapped on my bottle with
	the hilt of my knife until one of them put a hand on my shoulder. My
	buddies saw what was up, and attempted to pull me loose, but my
	bottle and buoyancy-control vest were firmly wedged. The others
	exchanged hand signals, silently debating the best way to get me
	loose. Suddenly, I was thrashing and kicking, and then I disappeared
	into the cave, minus my vest and bottle. I&apos;d apparently
	attempted to cut through my vest&apos;s straps and managed to
	sever the tube of my regulator. After inhaling a jolt of sea water,
	I&apos;d thrashed free into the cave, rolling into a
	monstrous patch of spindly fire-coral. I&apos;d inhaled
	another lungful of water and kicked madly for a tiny hole in the
	cave&apos;s ceiling, whence my buddies retrieved me shortly
	thereafter, drowned-blue except for the patchy red welts from the
	stinging coral.</P>
	<P>In those days, making a backup was a lot more complicated; the
	procedure took most of a day, and had to be undertaken at a special
	clinic. Luckily, I&apos;d had one made just before I left for
	Cuba, a few weeks earlier. My next-most-recent backup was three
	years old, dating from the completion of my second symphony.</P>
	<P>They recovered me from backup and into a force-grown clone at
	Toronto General. As far as I knew, I&apos;d laid down in the
	backup clinic one moment and arisen the next. It took most of a year
	to get over the feeling that the whole world was putting a monstrous
	joke over on me, that the drowned corpse I&apos;d seen was
	indeed my own. In my mind, the rebirth was figurative as well as
	literal&mdash;the missing time was enough that I found myself
	hard-pressed to socialize with my pre-death friends. 
	</P>
	<P>I told Dan the story during our first friendship, and he
	immediately pounced on the fact that I&apos;d gone to Disney
	World to spend a week sorting out my feelings, reinventing myself,
	moving to space, marrying a crazy lady. He found it very curious
	that I always rebooted myself at Disney World. When I told him that
	I was going to live there someday, he asked me if that would mean
	that I was done reinventing myself. Sometimes, as I ran my fingers
	through Lil&apos;s sweet red curls, I thought of that remark
	and sighed great gusts of contentment and marveled that my friend
	Dan had been so prescient.</P>
	<P>The next time I died, they&apos;d improved the technology
	somewhat. I&apos;d had a massive stroke in my seventy-third
	year, collapsing on the ice in the middle of a house-league hockey
	game. By the time they cut my helmet away, the hematomae had crushed
	my brain into a pulpy, blood-sotted mess. I&apos;d been lax
	in backing up, and I lost most of a year. But they woke me gently,
	with a computer-generated precis of the events of the missing
	interval, and a counselor contacted me daily for a year until I felt
	at home again in my skin. Again, my life rebooted, and I found
	myself in Disney World, methodically flensing away the relationships
	I&apos;d built and starting afresh in Boston, living on the
	ocean floor and working the heavy-metal harvesters, a project that
	led, eventually, to my Chem thesis at U of T.</P>
	<P>After I was shot dead at the Tiki Room, I had the opportunity to
	appreciate the great leaps that restores had made in the intervening
	ten years. I woke in my own bed, instantly aware of the events that
	led up to my third death as seen from various third-party POVs:
	security footage from the Adventureland cameras, synthesized
	memories extracted from Dan&apos;s own backup, and a
	computer-generated fly-through of the scene. I woke feeling
	preternaturally calm and cheerful, and knowing that I felt that way
	because of certain temporary neurotransmitter presets that had been
	put in place when I was restored.</P>
	<P>Dan and Lil sat at my bedside. Lil&apos;s tired, smiling
	face was limned with hairs that had snuck loose of her ponytail. She
	took my hand and kissed the smooth knuckles. Dan smiled beneficently
	at me and I was seized with a warm, comforting feeling of being
	surrounded by people who really loved me. I dug for words
	appropriate to the scene, decided to wing it, opened my mouth and
	said, to my surprise, &ldquo;I have to pee.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan and Lil smiled at each other. I lurched out of the bed,
	naked, and thumped to the bathroom. My muscles were wonderfully
	limber, with a brand-new spring to them. After I flushed I leaned
	over and took hold of my ankles, then pulled my head right to the
	floor, feeling the marvelous flexibility of my back and legs and
	buttocks. A scar on my knee was missing, as were the many lines that
	had crisscrossed my fingers. When I looked in the mirror, I saw that
	my nose and earlobes were smaller and perkier. The familiar
	crow&apos;s-feet and the frown-lines between my eyebrows were
	gone. I had a day&apos;s beard all over&mdash;head,
	face, pubis, arms, legs. I ran my hands over my body and chuckled at
	the ticklish newness of it all. I was briefly tempted to depilate
	all over, just to keep this feeling of newness forever, but the
	neurotransmitter presets were evaporating and a sense of urgency
	over my murder was creeping up on me.</P>
	<P>I tied a towel around my waist and made my way back to the
	bedroom. The smells of tile-cleaner and flowers and rejuve were
	bright in my nose, effervescent as camphor. Dan and Lil stood when I
	came into the room and helped me to the bed. &ldquo;Well, this
	<EM>sucks</EM>,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>I&apos;d gone straight from the uplink through the
	utilidors&mdash;three quick cuts of security cam footage, one
	at the uplink, one in the corridor, and one at the exit in the
	underpass between Liberty Square and Adventureland. I seemed bemused
	and a little sad as I emerged from the door, and began to weave my
	way through the crowd, using a kind of sinuous, darting shuffle that
	I&apos;d developed when I was doing field-work on my
	crowd-control thesis. I cut rapidly through the lunchtime crowd
	toward the long roof of the Tiki Room, thatched with strips of
	shimmering aluminum cut and painted to look like long grass.</P>
	<P>Fuzzy shots now, from Dan&apos;s POV, of me moving closer
	to him, passing close to a group of teenaged girls with extra elbows
	and knees, wearing environmentally controlled cloaks and cowls
	covered with Epcot Center logomarks. One of them is wearing a pith
	helmet, from the Jungle Traders shop outside of the Jungle Cruise.
	Dan&apos;s gaze flicks away, to the Tiki Room&apos;s
	entrance, where there is a short queue of older men, then back, just
	as the girl with the pith helmet draws a stylish little organic
	pistol, like a penis with a tail that coils around her arm.
	Casually, grinning, she raises her arm and gestures with the pistol,
	exactly like Lil does with her finger when she&apos;s
	uploading, and the pistol lunges forward. Dan&apos;s gaze
	flicks back to me. I&apos;m pitching over, my lungs bursting
	out of my chest and spreading before me like wings, spinal gristle
	and viscera showering the guests before me. A piece of my nametag,
	now shrapnel, strikes Dan in the forehead, causing him to blink.
	When he looks again, the group of girls is still there, but the girl
	with the pistol is long gone.</P>
	<P>The fly-through is far less confused. Everyone except me, Dan and
	the girl is grayed-out. We&apos;re limned in highlighter
	yellow, moving in slow-motion. I emerge from the underpass and the
	girl moves from the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse to the group of
	her friends. Dan starts to move towards me. The girl raises, arms
	and fires her pistol. The self-guiding smart-slug, keyed to my body
	chemistry, flies low, near ground level, weaving between the feet of
	the crowd, moving just below the speed of sound. When it reaches me,
	it screams upwards and into my spine, detonating once it&apos;s
	entered my chest cavity.</P>
	<P>The girl has already made a lot of ground, back toward the
	Adventureland/Main Street, USA gateway. The fly-through speeds up,
	following her as she merges with the crowds on the street, ducking
	and weaving between them, moving toward the breezeway at Sleeping
	Beauty Castle. She vanishes, then reappears, forty minutes later, in
	Tomorrowland, near the new Space Mountain complex, then disappears
	again.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Has anyone ID&apos;d the girl?&rdquo; I asked, once I&apos;d finished reliving the events.
	The anger was starting to boil within me now. My new fists clenched
	for the first time, soft palms and uncallused fingertips.</P>
	<P>Dan shook his head. &ldquo;None of the girls she was with
	had ever seen her before. The face was one of the Seven
	Sisters&mdash;Hope.&rdquo; The
	Seven Sisters were a trendy collection of designer faces. Every
	second teenage girl wore one of them.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;How about Jungle Traders?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Did they have a record of the pith
	helmet purchase?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil frowned. &ldquo;We ran the Jungle Traders purchases back
	for six months: only three matched the girl&apos;s apparent
	age; all three have alibis. Chances are she stole it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; I asked,
	finally. In my mind&apos;s eye, I saw my lungs bursting out
	of my chest, like wings, like jellyfish, vertebrae spraying like
	shrapnel. I saw the girl&apos;s smile, an almost sexual smirk
	as she pulled the trigger on me.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It wasn&apos;t random,&rdquo; Lil said. &ldquo;The slug was definitely keyed to
	you&mdash;that means that she&apos;d gotten close to
	you at some point.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Right&mdash;which meant that she&apos;d been to
	Disney World in the last ten years. That narrowed it down, all
	right.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What happened to her after Tomorrowland?&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We don&apos;t know,&rdquo; Lil said. &ldquo;Something wrong with the cameras. We
	lost her and she never reappeared.&rdquo; She
	sounded hot and angry&mdash;she took equipment failures in the
	Magic Kingdom personally.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Who&apos;d want to do this?&rdquo; I asked, hating the self-pity in my voice. It was the first
	time I&apos;d been murdered, but I didn&apos;t need to
	be a drama-queen about it.</P>
	<P>Dan&apos;s eyes got a far-away look. &ldquo;Sometimes,
	people do things for reasons that seem perfectly reasonable to them,
	that the rest of the world couldn&apos;t hope to understand.
	I&apos;ve seen a few assassinations, and they never made
	sense afterwards.&rdquo; He stroked his
	chin. &ldquo;Sometimes, it&apos;s better to look for
	temperament, rather than motivation: who <EM>could</EM> do something
	like this?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Right. All we needed to do was investigate all the psychopaths
	who&apos;d visited the Magic Kingdom in ten years. That
	narrowed it down considerably. I pulled up a HUD and checked the
	time. It had been four days since my murder. I had a shift coming
	up, working the turnstiles at the Haunted Mansion. I liked to pull a
	couple of those shifts a month, just to keep myself grounded; it
	helped to take a reality check while I was churning away in the
	rarified climate of my crowd-control simulations.</P>
	<P>I stood and went to my closet, started to dress.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;<EM>What</EM> are you doing?&rdquo; Lil asked, alarmed.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;ve got a shift. I&apos;m running
	late.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re in no shape to work,&rdquo; Lil said, tugging at my elbow. I jerked free of her.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m fine&mdash;good as new.&rdquo; I barked a humorless laugh. &ldquo;I&apos;m not
	going to let those bastards disrupt my life any more.&rdquo;</P>
	<P><EM>Those bastards</EM>? I thought&mdash;when had I decided
	that there was more than one? But I knew it was true. There was no
	way that this was all planned by one person: it had been executed
	too precisely, too thoroughly.</P>
	<P>Dan moved to block the bedroom door. &ldquo;Wait a
	second,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You
	need rest.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I fixed him with a doleful glare. &ldquo;I&apos;ll
	decide that,&rdquo; I said. He stepped
	aside.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;ll tag along, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Just in case.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I pinged my Whuffie. I was up a couple percentiles&mdash;sympathy
	Whuffie&mdash;but it was falling: Dan and Lil were radiating
	disapproval. Screw &apos;em.</P>
	<P>I got into my runabout and Dan scrambled for the passenger door
	as I put it in gear and sped out. 
	</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Are you sure you&apos;re all right?&rdquo; Dan said as I nearly rolled the runabout taking the corner at
	the end of our cul-de-sac. 
	</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why wouldn&apos;t I be?&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I&apos;m as good as new.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Funny choice of words,&rdquo; he
	said. &ldquo;Some would say that you <EM>were</EM> new.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I groaned. &ldquo;Not this argument again,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I feel like me and no one else is making
	that claim. Who cares if I&apos;ve been restored from a
	backup?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;All I&apos;m saying is, there&apos;s a
	difference between <EM>you</EM> and an exact copy of you, isn&apos;t
	there?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I knew what he was doing, distracting me with one of our old
	fights, but I couldn&apos;t resist the bait, and as I
	marshalled my arguments, it actually helped calm me down some. Dan
	was that kind of friend, a person who knew you better than you knew
	yourself. &ldquo;So you&apos;re saying that if you were
	obliterated and then recreated, atom-for-atom, that you wouldn&apos;t
	be you anymore?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;For the sake of argument, sure. Being destroyed and
	recreated is different from not being destroyed at all, right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Brush up on your quantum mechanics, pal. You&apos;re
	being destroyed and recreated a trillion times a second.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;On a very, very small level&mdash;&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What difference does that make?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Fine, I&apos;ll concede that. But you&apos;re
	not really an atom-for-atom copy. You&apos;re a clone, with a
	copied <EM>brain</EM>&mdash;that&apos;s not the same as
	quantum destruction.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Very nice thing to say to someone who&apos;s
	just been murdered, pal. You got a problem with clones?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>And we were off and running.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>The Mansion&apos;s cast were sickeningly cheerful and
	solicitous. Each of them made a point of coming around and touching
	the stiff, starched shoulder of my butler&apos;s costume,
	letting me know that if there was anything they could do for me&hellip; I gave them all a fixed smile and tried to concentrate on the guests,
	how they waited, when they arrived, how they dispersed through the
	exit gate. Dan hovered nearby, occasionally taking the eight minute,
	twenty-two second ride-through, running interference for me with the
	other castmembers.</P>
	<P>He was nearby when my break came up. I changed into civvies and
	we walked over the cobbled streets, past the Hall of the Presidents,
	noting as I rounded the corner that there was something different
	about the queue-area. Dan groaned. &ldquo;They did it
	already,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>I looked closer. The turnstiles were blocked by a sandwich board:
	Mickey in a Ben Franklin wig and bifocals, holding a trowel.
	&ldquo;Excuse our mess!&rdquo; the
	sign declared. &ldquo;We&apos;re renovating to serve you
	better!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I spotted one of Debra&apos;s cronies standing behind the
	sign, a self-satisfied smile on his face. He&apos;d started
	off life as a squat, northern Chinese, but had had his bones
	lengthened and his cheekbones raised so that he looked almost elfin.
	I took one look at his smile and understood&mdash;Debra had
	established a toehold in Liberty Square.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;They filed plans for the new Hall with the steering
	committee an hour after you got shot. The committee loved the plans;
	so did the net. They&apos;re promising not to touch the
	Mansion.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You didn&apos;t mention this,&rdquo; I said, hotly.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We thought you&apos;d jump to conclusions. The
	timing was bad, but there&apos;s no indication that they
	arranged for the shooter. Everyone&apos;s got an alibi;
	furthermore, they&apos;ve all offered to submit their backups
	for proof.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Right,&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;Right. So they just <EM>happened</EM> to have plans for
	a new Hall standing by. And they just <EM>happened</EM> to file them
	after I got shot, when all our ad-hocs were busy worrying about me.
	It&apos;s all a big coincidence.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan shook his head. &ldquo;We&apos;re not stupid,
	Jules. No one thinks that it&apos;s a coincidence. Debra&apos;s
	the sort of person who keeps a lot of plans standing by, just in
	case. But that just makes her a well-prepared opportunist, not a
	murderer.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I felt nauseated and exhausted. I was enough of a castmember that
	I sought out a utilidor before I collapsed against a wall, head
	down. Defeat seeped through me, saturating me.</P>
	<P>Dan crouched down beside me. I looked over at him. He was
	grinning wryly. &ldquo;Posit,&rdquo; he
	said, &ldquo;for the moment, that Debra really did do this
	thing, set you up so that she could take over.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I smiled, in spite of myself. This was his explaining act, the
	thing he would do whenever I fell into one of his rhetorical tricks
	back in the old days. &ldquo;All right, I&apos;ve
	posited it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why would she: one, take out you instead of Lil or
	one of the real old-timers; two, go after the Hall of Presidents
	instead of Tom Sawyer Island or even the Mansion; and three, follow
	it up with such a blatant, suspicious move?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; I said,
	warming to the challenge. &ldquo;One: I&apos;m important
	enough to be disruptive but not so important as to rate a full
	investigation. Two: Tom Sawyer Island is too visible, you can&apos;t
	rehab it without people seeing the dust from shore. Three, Debra&apos;s
	coming off of a decade in Beijing, where subtlety isn&apos;t
	real important.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; Dan said,
	&ldquo;sure.&rdquo; Then he launched
	an answering salvo, and while I was thinking up my answer, he helped
	me to my feet and walked me out to my runabout, arguing all the way,
	so that by the time I noticed we weren&apos;t at the Park
	anymore, I was home and in bed.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>With all the Hall&apos;s animatronics mothballed for the
	duration, Lil had more time on her hands than she knew what to do
	with. She hung around the little bungalow, the two of us in the
	living room, staring blankly at the windows, breathing shallowly in
	the claustrophobic, superheated Florida air. I had my working notes
	on queue management for the Mansion, and I pecked at them aimlessly.
	Sometimes, Lil mirrored my HUD so she could watch me work, and made
	suggestions based on her long experience.</P>
	<P>It was a delicate process, this business of increasing throughput
	without harming the guest experience. But for every second I could
	shave off of the queue-to-exit time, I could put another sixty
	guests through and lop thirty seconds off total wait-time. And the
	more guests who got to experience the Mansion, the more of a
	Whuffie-hit Debra&apos;s people would suffer if they made a
	move on it. So I dutifully pecked at my notes, and found three
	seconds I could shave off the graveyard sequence by swiveling the
	Doom Buggy carriages stage-left as they descended from the attic
	window: by expanding their fields-of-vision, I could expose the
	guests to all the scenes more quickly.</P>
	<P>I ran the change in fly-through, then implemented it after
	closing and invited the other Liberty Square ad-hocs to come and
	test it out.</P>
	<P>It was another muggy winter evening, prematurely dark. The
	ad-hocs had enough friends and family with them that we were able to
	simulate an off-peak queue-time, and we all stood and sweated in the
	preshow area, waiting for the doors to swing open, listening to the
	wolf-cries and assorted boo-spookery from the hidden speakers.</P>
	<P>The doors swung open, revealing Lil in a rotting maid&apos;s
	uniform, her eyes lined with black, her skin powdered to a deathly
	pallor. She gave us a cold, considering glare, then intoned,
	&ldquo;Master Gracey requests more bodies.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>As we crowded into the cool, musty gloom of the parlor, Lil
	contrived to give my ass an affectionate squeeze. I turned to return
	the favor, and saw Debra&apos;s elfin comrade looming over
	Lil&apos;s shoulder. My smile died on my lips.</P>
	<P>The man locked eyes with me for a moment, and I saw something in
	there&mdash;some admixture of cruelty and worry that I
	didn&apos;t know what to make of. He looked away immediately.
	I&apos;d known that Debra would have spies in the crowd, of
	course, but with elf-boy watching, I resolved to make this the best
	show I knew how.</P>
	<P>It&apos;s subtle, this business of making the show better
	from within. Lil had already slid aside the paneled wall that led to
	stretch-room number two, the most recently serviced one. Once the
	crowd had moved inside, I tried to lead their eyes by adjusting my
	body language to poses of subtle attention directed at the new
	spotlights. When the newly remastered soundtrack came from behind
	the sconce-bearing gargoyles at the corners of the octagonal room, I
	leaned my body slightly in the direction of the moving stereo-image.
	And an instant before the lights snapped out, I ostentatiously cast
	my eyes up into the scrim ceiling, noting that others had taken my
	cue, so they were watching when the UV-lit corpse dropped from the
	pitch-dark ceiling, jerking against the noose at its neck.</P>
	<P>The crowd filed into the second queue area, where they boarded
	the Doom Buggies. There was a low buzz of marveling conversation as
	we made our way onto the moving sidewalk. I boarded my Doom Buggy
	and an instant later, someone slid in beside me. It was the elf.</P>
	<P>He made a point of not making eye contact with me, but I sensed
	his sidelong glances at me as we rode through past the floating
	chandelier and into the corridor where the portraits&apos;
	eyes watched us. Two years before, I&apos;d accelerated this
	sequence and added some random swivel to the Doom Buggies, shaving
	25 seconds off the total, taking the hourly throughput cap from 2365
	to 2600. It was the proof-of-concept that led to all the other
	seconds I&apos;d shaved away since. The violent pitching of
	the Buggy brought me and the elf into inadvertent contact with one
	another, and when I brushed his hand as I reached for the safety
	bar, I felt that it was cold and sweaty.</P>
	<P>He was nervous! <EM>He</EM> was nervous. What did <EM>he</EM>
	have to be nervous about? I was the one who&apos;d been
	murdered&mdash;maybe he was nervous because he was supposed to
	finish the job. I cast my own sidelong looks at him, trying to see
	suspicious bulges in his tight clothes, but the Doom Buggy&apos;s
	pebbled black plastic interior was too dim. Dan was in the Buggy
	behind us, with one of the Mansion&apos;s regular
	castmembers. I rang his cochlea and subvocalized: &ldquo;Get
	ready to jump out on my signal.&rdquo; Anyone
	leaving their Buggy would interrupt an infrared beam and stop the
	ride system. I knew I could rely on Dan to trust me without a lot of
	explaining, which meant that I could keep a close watch on Debra&apos;s
	crony.</P>
	<P>We went past the hallway of mirrors and into the hallway of
	doors, where monstrous hands peeked out around the sills, straining
	against the hinges, recorded groans mixed in with pounding. I
	thought about it&mdash;if I wanted to kill someone on the
	Mansion, what would be the best place to do it? The attic
	staircase-- the next sequence&mdash;seemed like a good bet. A
	cold clarity washed over me. The elf would kill me in the gloom of
	the staircase, dump me out over the edge at the blind turn toward
	the graveyard, and that would be it. Would he be able to do it if I
	were staring straight at him? He seemed terribly nervous as it was.
	I swiveled in my seat and looked him straight in the eye.</P>
	<P>He quirked half a smile at me and nodded a greeting. I kept on
	staring at him, my hands balled into fists, ready for anything. We
	rode down the staircase, facing up, listening to the clamour of
	voices from the cemetery and the squawk of the red-eyed raven. I
	caught sight of the quaking groundkeeper animatronic from the corner
	of my eye and startled. I let out a subvocal squeal and was pitched
	forward as the ride system shuddered to a stop.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Jules?&rdquo; came Dan&apos;s
	voice in my cochlea. &ldquo;You all right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He&apos;d heard my involuntary note of surprise and had
	leapt clear of the Buggy, stopping the ride. The elf was looking at
	me with a mixture of surprise and pity.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s all right, it&apos;s all
	right. False alarm.&rdquo; I paged Lil
	and subvocalized to her, telling her to start up the ride ASAP, it
	was all right.</P>
	<P>I rode the rest of the way with my hands on the safety bar, my
	eyes fixed ahead of me, steadfastly ignoring the elf. I checked the
	timer I&apos;d been running. The demo was a debacle&mdash;instead
	of shaving off three seconds, I&apos;d added thirty. I wanted
	to cry.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I debarked the Buggy and stalked quickly out of the exit queue,
	leaning heavily against the fence, staring blindly at the pet
	cemetery. My head swam: I was out of control, jumping at shadows. I
	was spooked.</P>
	<P>And I had no reason to be. Sure, I&apos;d been murdered,
	but what had it cost me? A few days of &ldquo;unconsciousness&rdquo; while they decanted my backup into my new body, a merciful
	gap in memory from my departure at the backup terminal up until my
	death. I wasn&apos;t one of those nuts who took death
	<EM>seriously</EM>. It wasn&apos;t like they&apos;d
	done something <EM>permanent</EM>. 
	</P>
	<P>In the meantime, I <EM>had</EM> done something permanent: I&apos;d
	dug Lil&apos;s grave a little deeper, endangered the
	ad-hocracy and, worst of all, the Mansion. I&apos;d acted
	like an idiot. I tasted my dinner, a wolfed-down hamburger, and
	swallowed hard, forcing down the knob of nausea.</P>
	<P>I sensed someone at my elbow, and thinking it was Lil, come to
	ask me what had gone on, I turned with a sheepish grin and found
	myself facing the elf.</P>
	<P>He stuck his hand out and spoke in the flat no-accent of someone
	running a language module. &ldquo;Hi there. We haven&apos;t
	been introduced, but I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your
	work. I&apos;m Tim Fung.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I pumped his hand, which was still cold and particularly clammy
	in the close heat of the Florida night. &ldquo;Julius,&rdquo; I said, startled at how much like a bark it sounded. <EM>Careful</EM>,
	I thought, <EM>no need to escalate the hostilities.</EM> &ldquo;It&apos;s
	kind of you to say that. I like what you-all have done with the
	Pirates.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He smiled: a genuine, embarrassed smile, as though he&apos;d
	just been given high praise from one of his heroes. &ldquo;Really?
	I think it&apos;s pretty good&mdash;the second time
	around you get a lot of chances to refine things, really clarify the
	vision. Beijing&mdash;well, it was exciting, but it was
	rushed, you know? I mean, we were really struggling. Every day,
	there was another pack of squatters who wanted to tear the Park
	down. Debra used to send me out to give the children piggyback
	rides, just to keep our Whuffie up while she was evicting the
	squatters. It was good to have the opportunity to refine the
	designs, revisit them without the floor show.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I knew about this, of course&mdash;Beijing had been a real
	struggle for the ad-hocs who built it. Lots of them had been killed,
	many times over. Debra herself had been killed every day for a week
	and restored to a series of prepared clones, beta-testing one of the
	ride systems. It was faster than revising the CAD simulations. Debra
	had a reputation for pursuing expedience.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m starting to find out how it feels to
	work under pressure,&rdquo; I said, and
	nodded significantly at the Mansion. I was gratified to see him look
	embarrassed, then horrified.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We would <EM>never</EM> touch the Mansion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&apos;s <EM>perfect</EM>!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan and Lil sauntered up as I was preparing a riposte. They both
	looked concerned&mdash;now that I thought of it, they&apos;d
	both seemed incredibly concerned about me since the day I was
	revived.</P>
	<P>Dan&apos;s gait was odd, stilted, like he was leaning on
	Lil for support. They looked like a couple. An irrational sear of
	jealousy jetted through me. I was an emotional wreck. Still, I took
	Lil&apos;s big, scarred hand in mine as soon as she was in
	reach, then cuddled her to me protectively. She had changed out of
	her maid&apos;s uniform into civvies: smart coveralls whose
	micropore fabric breathed in time with her own respiration.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Lil, Dan, I want you to meet Tim Fung. He was just
	telling me war stories from the Pirates project in Beijing.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil waved and Dan gravely shook his hand. &ldquo;That was
	some hard work,&rdquo; Dan said.</P>
	<P>It occurred to me to turn on some Whuffie monitors. It was
	normally an instantaneous reaction to meeting someone, but I was
	still disoriented. I pinged the elf. He had a lot of left-handed
	Whuffie; respect garnered from people who shared very few of my
	opinions. I expected that. What I didn&apos;t expect was that
	his weighted Whuffie score, the one that lent extra credence to the
	rankings of people I respected, was also high&mdash;higher
	than my own. I regretted my nonlinear behavior even more. Respect
	from the elf&mdash;<EM>Tim</EM>, I had to remember to call him
	Tim&mdash;would carry a lot of weight in every camp that
	mattered.</P>
	<P>Dan&apos;s score was incrementing upwards, but he still
	had a rotten profile. He had accrued a good deal of left-handed
	Whuffie, and I curiously backtraced it to the occasion of my murder,
	when Debra&apos;s people had accorded him a generous dollop
	of props for the levelheaded way he had scraped up my corpse and
	moved it offstage, minimizing the disturbance in front of their
	wondrous Pirates.</P>
	<P>I was fugueing, wandering off on the kind of mediated reverie
	that got me killed on the reef at Playa Coral, and I came out of it
	with a start, realizing that the other three were politely ignoring
	my blown buffer. I could have run backwards through my short-term
	memory to get the gist of the conversation, but that would have
	lengthened the pause. Screw it. &ldquo;So, how&apos;re
	things going over at the Hall of the Presidents?&rdquo; I asked Tim.</P>
	<P>Lil shot me a cautioning look. She&apos;d ceded the Hall
	to Debra&apos;s ad-hocs, that being the only way to avoid the
	appearance of childish disattention to the almighty Whuffie. Now she
	had to keep up the fiction of good-natured cooperation&mdash;that
	meant not shoulder-surfing Debra, looking for excuses to pounce on
	her work.</P>
	<P>Tim gave us the same half-grin he&apos;d greeted me with.
	On his smooth, pointed features, it looked almost irredeemably cute.
	&ldquo;We&apos;re doing good stuff, I think. Debra&apos;s
	had her eye on the Hall for years, back in the old days, before she
	went to China. We&apos;re replacing the whole thing with
	broadband uplinks of gestalts from each of the Presidents&apos;
	lives: newspaper headlines, speeches, distilled biographies,
	personal papers. It&apos;ll be like having each President
	<EM>inside</EM> you, core-dumped in a few seconds. Debra said
	we&apos;re going to <EM>flash-bake</EM> the Presidents on
	your mind!&rdquo; His eyes glittered in
	the twilight.</P>
	<P>Having only recently experienced my own cerebral flash-baking,
	Tim&apos;s description struck a chord in me. My personality
	seemed to be rattling around a little in my mind, as though it had
	been improperly fitted. It made the idea of having the gestalt of
	50-some Presidents squashed in along with it perversely appealing.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Wow,&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;That sounds wild. What do you have in mind for physical
	plant?&rdquo; The Hall as it stood had a
	quiet, patriotic dignity cribbed from a hundred official buildings
	of the dead USA. Messing with it would be like redesigning the
	stars-and-bars.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That&apos;s not really my area,&rdquo; Tim said. &ldquo;I&apos;m a programmer. But I
	could have one of the designers squirt some plans at you, if you
	want.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That would be fine,&rdquo; Lil
	said, taking my elbow. &ldquo;I think we should be heading
	home, now, though.&rdquo; She began to
	tug me away. Dan took my other elbow. Behind her, the Liberty Belle
	glowed like a ghostly wedding cake in the twilight.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That&apos;s too bad,&rdquo; Tim said. &ldquo;My ad-hoc is pulling an all-nighter on
	the new Hall. I&apos;m sure they&apos;d love to have
	you drop by.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>The idea seized hold of me. I would go into the camp of the
	enemy, sit by their fire, learn their secrets. &ldquo;That
	would be <EM>great</EM>!&rdquo; I said,
	too loudly. My head was buzzing slightly. Lil&apos;s hands
	fell away.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But we&apos;ve got an early morning
	tomorrow,&rdquo; Lil said. &ldquo;You&apos;ve
	got a shift at eight, and I&apos;m running into town for
	groceries.&rdquo; She was lying, but she
	was telling me that this wasn&apos;t her idea of a smart
	move. But my faith was unshakeable.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Eight a.m. shift? No problem&mdash;I&apos;ll
	be right here when it starts. I&apos;ll just grab a shower at
	the Contemporary in the morning and catch the monorail back in time
	to change. All right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan tried. &ldquo;But Jules, we were going to grab some
	dinner at Cinderella&apos;s Royal Table, remember? I made
	reservations.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Aw, we can eat any time,&rdquo; I
	said. &ldquo;This is a hell of an opportunity.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It sure is,&rdquo; Dan
	said, giving up. &ldquo;Mind if I come along?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He and Lil traded meaningful looks that I interpreted to mean, <EM>If
	he&apos;s going to be a nut, one of us really should stay
	with him</EM>. I was past caring&mdash;I was going to beard
	the lion in his den!</P>
	<P>Tim was apparently oblivious to all of this. &ldquo;Then
	it&apos;s settled! Let&apos;s go.&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>On the walk to the Hall, Dan kept ringing my cochlea and I kept
	sending him straight to voicemail. All the while, I kept up a patter
	of small-talk with him and Tim. I was determined to make up for my
	debacle in the Mansion with Tim, win him over.</P>
	<P>Debra&apos;s people were sitting around in the armchairs
	onstage, the animatronic presidents stacked in neat piles in the
	wings. Debra was sprawled in Lincoln&apos;s armchair, her
	head cocked lazily, her legs extended before her. The Hall&apos;s
	normal smells of ozone and cleanliness were overridden by sweat and
	machine-oil, the stink of an ad-hoc pulling an all-nighter. The Hall
	took fifteen years to research and execute, and a couple of days to
	tear down.</P>
	<P>She was au-naturel, still wearing the face she&apos;d been
	born with, albeit one that had been regenerated dozens of times
	after her deaths. It was patrician, waxy, long, with a nose that was
	made for staring down. She was at least as old as I was, though she
	was only apparent 22. I got the sense that she picked this age
	because it was one that afforded boundless reserves of energy.</P>
	<P>She didn&apos;t deign to rise as I approached, but she did
	nod languorously at me. The other ad-hocs had been split into little
	clusters, hunched over terminals. They all had the raccoon-eyed,
	sleep-deprived look of fanatics, even Debra, who managed to look
	lazy and excited simultaneously.</P>
	<P><EM>Did you have me killed</EM>? I wondered, staring at Debra.
	After all, she&apos;d been killed dozens, if not hundreds of
	times. It might not be such a big deal for her.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hi there,&rdquo; I said,
	brightly. &ldquo;Tim offered to show us around! You know Dan,
	right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Debra nodded at him. &ldquo;Oh, sure. Dan and I are pals,
	right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan&apos;s poker face didn&apos;t twitch a muscle.
	&ldquo;Hello, Debra,&rdquo; he said.
	He&apos;d been hanging out with them since Lil had briefed
	him on the peril to the Mansion, trying to gather some intelligence
	for us to use. They knew what he was up to, of course, but Dan was a
	fairly charming guy and he worked like a mule, so they tolerated
	him. But it seemed like he&apos;d violated a boundary by
	accompanying me, as though the polite fiction that he was more a
	part of Debra&apos;s ad-hoc than Lil&apos;s was
	shattered by my presence.</P>
	<P>Tim said, &ldquo;Can I show them the demo, Debra?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Debra quirked an eyebrow, then said, &ldquo;Sure, why not.
	You&apos;ll like this, guys.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tim hustled us backstage, where Lil and I used to sweat over the
	animatronics and cop surreptitious feels. Everything had been torn
	loose, packed up, stacked. They hadn&apos;t wasted a
	moment&mdash;they&apos;d spent a week tearing down a
	show that had run for more than a century. The scrim that the
	projected portions of the show normally screened on was ground into
	the floor, spotted with grime, footprints and oil.</P>
	<P>Tim showed me to a half-assembled backup terminal. Its housing
	was off, and any number of wireless keyboards, pointers and gloves
	lay strewn about it. It had the look of a prototype.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This is it&mdash;our uplink. So far, we&apos;ve
	got a demo app running on it: Lincoln&apos;s old speech,
	along with the civil-war montage. Just switch on guest access and
	I&apos;ll core-dump it to you. It&apos;s wild.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I pulled up my HUD and switched on guest access. Tim pointed a
	finger at the terminal and my brain was suffused with the essence of
	Lincoln: every nuance of his speech, the painstakingly researched
	movement tics, his warts and beard and topcoat. It almost felt like
	I <EM>was</EM> Lincoln, for a moment, and then it passed. But I
	could still taste the lingering coppery flavor of cannon-fire and
	chewing tobacco.</P>
	<P>I staggered backwards. My head swam with flash-baked
	sense-impressions, rich and detailed. I knew on the spot that
	Debra&apos;s Hall of the Presidents was going to be a hit.</P>
	<P>Dan took a shot off the uplink, too. Tim and I watched him as his
	expression shifted from skepticism to delight. Tim looked
	expectantly at me.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That&apos;s really fine,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Really, really fine. Moving.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tim blushed. &ldquo;Thanks! I did the gestalt
	programming&mdash;it&apos;s my specialty.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Debra spoke up from behind him&mdash;she&apos;d
	sauntered over while Dan was getting his jolt. &ldquo;I got the
	idea in Beijing, when I was dying a lot. There&apos;s
	something wonderful about having memories implanted, like you&apos;re
	really working your brain. I love the synthetic clarity of it
	all.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tim sniffed. &ldquo;Not synthetic at all,&rdquo; he said, turning to me. &ldquo;It&apos;s nice and
	soft, right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I sensed deep political shoals and was composing my reply when
	Debra said: &ldquo;Tim keeps trying to make it all more
	impressionistic, less computer-y. He&apos;s wrong, of course.
	We don&apos;t want to simulate the experience of watching the
	show&mdash;we want to <EM>transcend it</EM>.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tim nodded reluctantly. &ldquo;Sure, transcend it. But the
	way we do that is by making the experience <EM>human</EM>, a mile in
	the presidents&apos; shoes. Empathy-driven. What&apos;s
	the point of flash-baking a bunch of dry facts on someone&apos;s
	brain?&rdquo;</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch4" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 4</H1>
	<P>One night in the Hall of Presidents convinced me of three things:</P>
	<OL>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">That Debra&apos;s people
		had had me killed, and screw their alibis, 
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">That they would kill me again,
		when the time came for them to make a play for the Haunted Mansion,
				</P>
		<LI><P>That our only hope for saving the Mansion was a preemptive
		strike against them: we had to hit them hard, where it hurt. 
		</P>
	</OL>
	<P>Dan and I had been treated to eight hours of insectile precision
	in the Hall of Presidents, Debra&apos;s people working with
	effortless cooperation born of the adversity they&apos;d
	faced in Beijing. Debra moved from team to team, making suggestions
	with body language as much as with words, leaving bursts of inspired
	activity in her wake.</P>
	<P>It was that precision that convinced me of point one. Any ad-hoc
	this tight could pull off anything if it advanced their agenda.
	Ad-hoc? Hell, call them what they were: an army.</P>
	<P>Point two came to me when I sampled the Lincoln build that Tim
	finished at about three in the morning, after intensive consultation
	with Debra. The mark of a great ride is that it gets better the
	second time around, as the detail and flourishes start to impinge on
	your consciousness. The Mansion was full of little gimcracks and sly
	nods that snuck into your experience on each successive ride.</P>
	<P>Tim shuffled his feet nervously, bursting with barely restrained
	pride as I switched on public access. He dumped the app to my public
	directory, and, gingerly, I executed it.</P>
	<P>God! God and Lincoln and cannon-fire and oratory and ploughs and
	mules and greatcoats! It rolled over me, it punched through me, it
	crashed against the inside of my skull and rebounded. The first pass
	through, there had been a sense of order, of narrative, but this,
	this was gestalt, the whole thing in one undifferentiated ball,
	filling me and spilling over. It was panicky for a moment, as the
	essence of Lincolness seemed to threaten my own personality, and,
	just as it was about to overwhelm me, it receded, leaving behind a
	rush of endorphin and adrenaline that made me want to jump.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Tim,&rdquo; I gasped.
	&ldquo;Tim! That was&hellip;&rdquo; Words failed me. I wanted to hug him. What we could do for
	the Mansion with this! What elegance! Directly imprinting the
	experience, without recourse to the stupid, blind eyes; the thick,
	deaf ears.</P>
	<P>Tim beamed and basked, and Debra nodded solemnly from her throne.
	&ldquo;You liked it?&rdquo; Tim
	said. I nodded, and staggered back to the theatre seat where Dan
	slept, head thrown back, snores softly rattling in his throat.</P>
	<P>Incrementally, reason trickled back into my mind, and with it
	came ire. How dare they? The wonderful compromises of technology and
	expense that had given us the Disney rides&mdash;rides that
	had entertained the world for two centuries and more&mdash;could
	never compete head to head with what they were working on.</P>
	<P>My hands knotted into fists in my lap. Why the fuck couldn&apos;t
	they do this somewhere else? Why did they have to destroy everything
	I loved to realize this? They could build this tech anywhere&mdash;they
	could distribute it online and people could access it from their
	living rooms!</P>
	<P>But that would never do. Doing it here was better for the old
	Whuffie&mdash;they&apos;d make over Disney World and
	hold it, a single ad-hoc where three hundred had flourished before,
	smoothly operating a park twice the size of Manhattan.</P>
	<P>I stood and stalked out of the theater, out into Liberty Square
	and the Park. It had cooled down without drying out, and there was a
	damp chill that crawled up my back and made my breath stick in my
	throat. I turned to contemplate the Hall of Presidents, staid and
	solid as it had been since my boyhood and before, a monument to the
	Imagineers who anticipated the Bitchun Society, inspired it.</P>
	<P>I called Dan, still snoring back in the theater, and woke him. He
	grunted unintelligibly in my cochlea.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;They did it&mdash;they killed me.&rdquo; I knew they had, and I was glad. It made what I had to do
	next easier.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, Jesus. They didn&apos;t kill you&mdash;they
	offered their backups, remember? They couldn&apos;t have done
	it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Bullshit!&rdquo; I shouted
	into the empty night. &ldquo;Bullshit! They did it, and they
	fucked with their backups somehow. They must have. It&apos;s
	all too neat and tidy. How else could they have gotten so far with
	the Hall so fast? They knew it was coming, they planned a
	disruption, and they moved in. Tell me that you think they just had
	these plans lying around and moved on them when they could.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan groaned, and I heard his joints popping. He must have been
	stretching. The Park breathed around me, the sounds of maintenance
	crews scurrying in the night. &ldquo;I do believe that.
	Clearly, you don&apos;t. It&apos;s not the first time
	we&apos;ve disagreed. So now what?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Now we save the Mansion,&rdquo; I
	said. &ldquo;Now we fight back.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, shit,&rdquo; Dan said.</P>
	<P>I have to admit, there was a part of me that concurred.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>My opportunity came later that week. Debra&apos;s ad-hocs
	were showboating, announcing a special preview of the new Hall to
	the other ad-hocs that worked in the Park. It was classic chutzpah,
	letting the key influencers in the Park in long before the bugs were
	hammered out. A smooth run would garner the kind of impressed
	reaction that guaranteed continued support while they finished up; a
	failed demo could doom them. There were plenty of people in the Park
	who had a sentimental attachment to the Hall of Presidents, and
	whatever Debra&apos;s people came up with would have to
	answer their longing.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m going to do it during the demo,&rdquo; I told Dan, while I piloted the runabout from home to the
	castmember parking. I snuck a look at him to gauge his reaction. He
	had his poker face on.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m not going to tell Lil,&rdquo; I continued. &ldquo;It&apos;s better that she
	doesn&apos;t know&mdash;plausible deniability.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;And me?&rdquo; he said.
	&ldquo;Don&apos;t I need plausible deniability?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;No,
	you don&apos;t. You&apos;re an outsider. You can make
	the case that you were working on your own&mdash;gone
	rogue.&rdquo; I knew it wasn&apos;t
	fair. Dan was here to build up his Whuffie, and if he was implicated
	in my dirty scheme, he&apos;d have to start over again. I
	knew it wasn&apos;t fair, but I didn&apos;t care. I
	knew that we were fighting for our own survival. &ldquo;It&apos;s
	good versus evil, Dan. You don&apos;t want to be a
	post-person. You want to stay human. The rides are human. We each
	mediate them through our own experience. We&apos;re
	physically inside of them, and they talk to us through our senses.
	What Debra&apos;s people are building&mdash;it&apos;s
	hive-mind shit. Directly implanting thoughts! Jesus! It&apos;s
	not an experience, it&apos;s brainwashing! You gotta know
	that.&rdquo; I was pleading, arguing with
	myself as much as with him.</P>
	<P>I snuck another look at him as I sped along the Disney
	back-roads, lined with sweaty Florida pines and immaculate purple
	signage. Dan was looking thoughtful, the way he had back in our old
	days in Toronto. Some of my tension dissipated. He was thinking
	about it&mdash;I&apos;d gotten through to him.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Jules, this isn&apos;t one of your better
	ideas.&rdquo; My chest tightened, and he
	patted my shoulder. He had the knack of putting me at my ease, even
	when he was telling me that I was an idiot. &ldquo;Even if
	Debra was behind your assassination&mdash;and that&apos;s
	not a certainty, we both know that. Even if that&apos;s the
	case, we&apos;ve got better means at our disposal. Improving
	the Mansion, competing with her head to head, that&apos;s
	smart. Give it a little while and we can come back at her, take over
	the Hall&mdash;even the Pirates, that&apos;d really
	piss her off. Hell, if we can prove she was behind the
	assassination, we can chase her off right now. Sabotage is not going
	to do you any good. You&apos;ve got lots of other options.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But none of them are fast enough, and none of them
	are emotionally satisfying. This way has some goddamn <EM>balls</EM>.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>We reached castmember parking, I swung the runabout into a slot
	and stalked out before it had a chance to extrude its recharger
	cock. I heard Dan&apos;s door slam behind me and knew that he
	was following behind.</P>
	<P>We took to the utilidors grimly. I walked past the cameras,
	knowing that my image was being archived, my presence logged. I&apos;d
	picked the timing of my raid carefully: by arriving at high noon, I
	was sticking to my traditional pattern for watching hot-weather
	crowd dynamics. I&apos;d made a point of visiting twice
	during the previous week at this time, and of dawdling in the
	commissary before heading topside. The delay between my arrival in
	the runabout and my showing up at the Mansion would not be
	discrepant.</P>
	<P>Dan dogged my heels as I swung towards the commissary, and then
	hugged the wall, in the camera&apos;s blindspot. Back in my
	early days in the Park, when I was courting Lil, she showed me the
	A-Vac, the old pneumatic waste-disposal system, decommissioned in
	the 20s. The kids who grew up in the Park had been notorious
	explorers of the tubes, which still whiffed faintly of the garbage
	bags they&apos;d once whisked at 60 mph to the dump on the
	property&apos;s outskirts, but for a brave, limber kid, the
	tubes were a subterranean wonderland to explore when the
	hypermediated experiences of the Park lost their luster.</P>
	<P>I snarled a grin and popped open the service entrance. &ldquo;If
	they hadn&apos;t killed me and forced me to switch to a new
	body, I probably wouldn&apos;t be flexible enough to fit
	in,&rdquo; I hissed at Dan. &ldquo;Ironic,
	huh?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I clambered inside without waiting for a reply, and started
	inching my way under the Hall of Presidents.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>My plan had covered every conceivable detail, except one, which
	didn&apos;t occur to me until I was forty minutes into the
	pneumatic tube, arms held before me and legs angled back like a
	swimmer&apos;s.</P>
	<P>How was I going to reach into my pockets?</P>
	<P>Specifically, how was I going to retrieve my HERF gun from my
	back pants-pocket, when I couldn&apos;t even bend my elbows?
	The HERF gun was the crux of the plan: a High Energy Radio Frequency
	generator with a directional, focused beam that would punch up
	through the floor of the Hall of Presidents and fuse every goddamn
	scrap of unshielded electronics on the premises. I&apos;d
	gotten the germ of the idea during Tim&apos;s first demo,
	when I&apos;d seen all of his prototypes spread out
	backstage, cases off, ready to be tinkered with. Unshielded.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Dan,&rdquo; I said, my
	voice oddly muffled by the tube&apos;s walls.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yeah?&rdquo; he said.
	He&apos;d been silent during the journey, the sound of his
	painful, elbow-dragging progress through the lightless tube my only
	indicator of his presence.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Can you reach my back pocket?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, shit,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Goddamn it,&rdquo; I said,
	&ldquo;keep the fucking editorial to yourself. Can you reach it
	or not?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I heard him grunt as he pulled himself up in the tube, then felt
	his hand groping up my calf. Soon, his chest was crushing my calves
	into the tube&apos;s floor and his hand was pawing around my
	ass.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I can reach it,&rdquo; he
	said. I could tell from his tone that he wasn&apos;t too
	happy about my snapping at him, but I was too wrapped up to consider
	an apology, despite what must be happening to my Whuffie as Dan did
	his slow burn.</P>
	<P>He fumbled the gun&mdash;a narrow cylinder as long as my
	palm&mdash;out of my pocket. &ldquo;Now what?&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Can you pass it up?&rdquo; I
	asked.</P>
	<P>Dan crawled higher, overtop of me, but stuck fast when his
	ribcage met my glutes. &ldquo;I can&apos;t get any
	further,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Fine,&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;You&apos;ll have to fire it, then.&rdquo; I held my breath. Would he do it? It was one thing to be my
	accomplice, another to be the author of the destruction.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Aw, Jules,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;A simple yes or no, Dan. That&apos;s all I
	want to hear from you.&rdquo; I was
	boiling with anger&mdash;at myself, at Dan, at Debra, at the
	whole goddamn thing.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Fine,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Good. Dial it up to max dispersion and point it
	straight up.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I heard him release the catch, felt a staticky crackle in the
	air, and then it was done. The gun was a one-shot, something I&apos;d
	confiscated from a mischievous guest a decade before, when they&apos;d
	had a brief vogue.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hang on to it,&rdquo; I
	said. I had no intention of leaving such a damning bit of evidence
	behind. I resumed my bellycrawl forward to the next service hatch,
	near the parking lot, where I&apos;d stashed an identical
	change of clothes for both of us.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>We made it back just as the demo was getting underway. Debra&apos;s
	ad-hocs were ranged around the mezzanine inside the Hall of
	Presidents, a collection of influential castmembers from other
	ad-hocs filling the pre-show area to capacity.</P>
	<P>Dan and I filed in just as Tim was stringing the velvet rope up
	behind the crowd. He gave me a genuine smile and shook my hand, and
	I smiled back, full of good feelings now that I knew that he was
	going down in flames. I found Lil and slipped my hand into hers as
	we filed into the auditorium, which had the new-car smell of rug
	shampoo and fresh electronics.</P>
	<P>We took our seats and I bounced my leg nervously, compulsively,
	while Debra, dressed in Lincoln&apos;s coat and stovepipe,
	delivered a short speech. There was some kind of broadcast rig
	mounted over the stage now, something to allow them to beam us all
	their app in one humongous burst.</P>
	<P>Debra finished up and stepped off the stage to a polite round of
	applause, and they started the demo.</P>
	<P>Nothing happened. I tried to keep the shit-eating grin off my
	face as nothing happened. No tone in my cochlea indicating a new
	file in my public directory, no rush of sensation, nothing. I turned
	to Lil to make some snotty remark, but her eyes were closed, her
	mouth lolling open, her breath coming in short huffs. Down the row,
	every castmember was in the same attitude of deep, mind-blown
	concentration. I pulled up a diagnostic HUD.</P>
	<P>Nothing. No diagnostics. No HUD. I cold-rebooted.</P>
	<P>Nothing.</P>
	<P>I was offline.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Offline, I filed out of the Hall of Presidents. Offline, I took
	Lil&apos;s hand and walked to the Liberty Belle load-zone,
	our spot for private conversations. Offline, I bummed a cigarette
	from her.</P>
	<P>Lil was upset&mdash;even through my bemused, offline haze,
	I could tell that. Tears pricked her eyes.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why didn&apos;t you tell me?&rdquo; she said, after a hard moment&apos;s staring into the
	moonlight reflecting off the river.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Tell you?&rdquo; I said,
	dumbly.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;They&apos;re really good. They&apos;re
	better than good. They&apos;re better than us. Oh, God.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Offline, I couldn&apos;t find stats or signals to help me
	discuss the matter. Offline, I tried it without help. &ldquo;I
	don&apos;t think so. I don&apos;t think they&apos;ve
	got soul, I don&apos;t think they&apos;ve got history,
	I don&apos;t think they&apos;ve got any kind of
	connection to the past. The world grew up in the Disneys&mdash;they
	visit this place for continuity as much as for entertainment. We
	provide that.&rdquo; I&apos;m
	offline, and they&apos;re not&mdash;what the hell
	happened?</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;ll be okay, Lil. There&apos;s
	nothing in that place that&apos;s better than us. Different
	and new, but not better. You know that&mdash;you&apos;ve
	spent more time in the Mansion than anyone, you know how much
	refinement, how much work there is in there. How can something they
	whipped up in a couple weeks possibly be better that this thing
	we&apos;ve been maintaining for all these years?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She ground the back of her sleeve against her eyes and smiled.
	&ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; she said. Her
	nose was red, her eyes puffy, her freckles livid over the flush of
	her cheeks. &ldquo;Sorry&mdash;it&apos;s just
	shocking. Maybe you&apos;re right. And even if you&apos;re
	not&mdash;hey, that&apos;s the whole point of a
	meritocracy, right? The best stuff survives, everything else gets
	supplanted.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, shit, I hate how I look when I cry,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Let&apos;s go congratulate
	them.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>As I took her hand, I was obscurely pleased with myself for
	having improved her mood without artificial assistance.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Dan was nowhere to be seen as Lil and I mounted the stage at the
	Hall, where Debra&apos;s ad-hocs and a knot of well-wishers
	were celebrating by passing a rock around. Debra had lost the
	tailcoat and hat, and was in an extreme state of relaxation, arms
	around the shoulders of two of her cronies, pipe between her teeth.</P>
	<P>She grinned around the pipe as Lil and I stumbled through some
	insincere compliments, nodded, and toked heavily while Tim applied a
	torch to the bowl.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; she said,
	laconically. &ldquo;It was a team effort.&rdquo; She hugged her cronies to her, almost knocking their heads
	together.</P>
	<P>Lil said, &ldquo;What&apos;s your timeline, then?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Debra started unreeling a long spiel about critical paths,
	milestones, requirements meetings, and I tuned her out. Ad-hocs were
	crazy for that process stuff. I stared at my feet, at the
	floorboards, and realized that they weren&apos;t floorboards
	at all, but faux-finish painted over a copper mesh&mdash;a
	Faraday cage. That&apos;s why the HERF gun hadn&apos;t
	done anything; that&apos;s why they&apos;d been so
	casual about working with the shielding off their computers. With my
	eye, I followed the copper shielding around the entire stage and up
	the walls, where it disappeared into the ceiling. Once again, I was
	struck by the evolvedness of Debra&apos;s ad-hocs, how their
	trial by fire in China had armored them against the kind of
	bush-league jiggery-pokery that the fuzzy bunnies in
	Florida&mdash;myself included&mdash;came up with.</P>
	<P>For instance, I didn&apos;t think there was a single
	castmember in the Park outside of Deb&apos;s clique with the
	stones to stage an assassination. Once I&apos;d made that
	leap, I realized that it was only a matter of time until they staged
	another one&mdash;and another, and another. Whatever they
	could get away with.</P>
	<P>Debra&apos;s spiel finally wound down and Lil and I headed
	away. I stopped in front of the backup terminal in the gateway
	between Liberty Square and Fantasyland. &ldquo;When was the
	last time you backed up?&rdquo; I asked
	her. If they could go after me, they might go after any of us.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yesterday,&rdquo; she
	said. She exuded bone-weariness at me, looking more like an
	overmediated guest than a tireless castmember.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Let&apos;s run another backup, huh? We should
	really back up at night and at lunchtime&mdash;with things the
	way they are, we can&apos;t afford to lose an afternoon&apos;s
	work, much less a week&apos;s.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil rolled her eyes. I knew better than to argue with her when
	she was tired, but this was too crucial to set aside for petulance.
	&ldquo;You can back up that often if you want to, Julius, but
	don&apos;t tell me how to live my life, okay?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Come on, Lil&mdash;it only takes a minute, and
	it&apos;d make me feel a lot better. Please?&rdquo; I hated the whine in my voice.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No, Julius. No. Let&apos;s go home and get
	some sleep. I want to do some work on new merch for the
	Mansion&mdash;some collectible stuff, maybe.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;For Christ&apos;s sake, is it really so much
	to ask? Fine. Wait while I back up, then, all right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil groaned and glared at me.</P>
	<P>I approached the terminal and cued a backup. Nothing happened.
	Oh, yeah, right, I was offline. A cool sweat broke out all over my
	new body.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Lil grabbed the couch as soon as we got in, mumbling something
	about wanting to work on some revised merch ideas she&apos;d
	had. I glared at her as she subvocalized and air-typed in the
	corner, shut away from me. I hadn&apos;t told her that I was
	offline yet&mdash;it just seemed like insignificant personal
	bitching relative to the crises she was coping with.</P>
	<P>Besides, I&apos;d been knocked offline before, though not
	in fifty years, and often as not the system righted itself after a
	good night&apos;s sleep. I could visit the doctor in the
	morning if things were still screwy.</P>
	<P>So I crawled into bed, and when my bladder woke me in the night,
	I had to go into the kitchen to consult our old starburst clock to
	get the time. It was 3 a.m., and when the hell had we expunged the
	house of all timepieces, anyway?</P>
	<P>Lil was sacked out on the couch, and complained feebly when I
	tried to rouse her, so I covered her with a blanket and went back to
	bed, alone.</P>
	<P>I woke disoriented and crabby, without my customary morning jolt
	of endorphin. Vivid dreams of death and destruction slipped away as
	I sat up. I preferred to let my subconscious do its own thing, so
	I&apos;d long ago programmed my systems to keep me asleep
	during REM cycles except in emergencies. The dream left a foul taste
	in my mind as I staggered into the kitchen, where Lil was fixing
	coffee.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why didn&apos;t you wake me up last night?
	I&apos;m one big ache from sleeping on the couch,&rdquo; Lil said as I stumbled in.</P>
	<P>She had the perky, jaunty quality of someone who could instruct
	her nervous system to manufacture endorphin and adrenaline at will.
	I felt like punching the wall.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You wouldn&apos;t get up,&rdquo; I said, and slopped coffee in the general direction of a mug,
	then scalded my tongue with it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;And why are you up so late? I was hoping you would
	cover a shift for me&mdash;the merch ideas are really coming
	together and I wanted to hit the Imagineering shop and try some
	prototyping.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Can&apos;t.&rdquo; I
	foraged a slice of bread with cheese and noticed a crumby plate in
	the sink. Dan had already eaten and gone, apparently.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Really?&rdquo; she said,
	and my blood started to boil in earnest. I slammed Dan&apos;s
	plate into the dishwasher and shoved bread into my maw.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes. Really. It&apos;s your shift&mdash;fucking
	work it or call in sick.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil reeled. Normally, I was the soul of sweetness in the morning,
	when I was hormonally enhanced, anyway. &ldquo;What&apos;s
	wrong, honey?&rdquo; she said, going into
	helpful castmember mode. Now I wanted to hit something besides the
	wall.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Just leave me alone, all right? Go fiddle with
	fucking merch. I&apos;ve got real work to do&mdash;in
	case you haven&apos;t noticed, Debra&apos;s about to
	eat you and your little band of plucky adventurers and pick her
	teeth with the bones. For God&apos;s sake, Lil, don&apos;t
	you ever get fucking angry about anything? Don&apos;t you
	have any goddamned passion?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil whitened and I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. It was the
	worst thing I could possibly have said.</P>
	<P>Lil and I met three years before, at a barbecue that some friends
	of her parents threw, a kind of castmember mixer. She&apos;d
	been just 19&mdash;apparent and real&mdash;and had a
	bubbly, flirty vibe that made me dismiss her, at first, as just
	another airhead castmember.</P>
	<P>Her parents&mdash;Tom and Rita&mdash;on the other
	hand, were fascinating people, members of the original ad-hoc that
	had seized power in Walt Disney World, wresting control from a gang
	of wealthy former shareholders who&apos;d been operating it
	as their private preserve. Rita was apparent 20 or so, but she
	radiated a maturity and a fiery devotion to the Park that threw her
	daughter&apos;s superficiality into sharp relief.</P>
	<P>They throbbed with Whuffie, Whuffie beyond measure, beyond use.
	In a world where even a zeroed-out Whuffie loser could eat, sleep,
	travel and access the net without hassle, their wealth was more than
	sufficient to repeatedly access the piffling few scarce things left
	on earth over and over.</P>
	<P>The conversation turned to the first day, when she and her pals
	had used a cutting torch on the turnstiles and poured in, wearing
	homemade costumes and name tags. They infiltrated the shops, the
	control centers, the rides, first by the hundred, then, as the hot
	July day ticked by, by the thousand. The shareholders&apos;
	lackeys&mdash;who worked the Park for the chance to be a part
	of the magic, even if they had no control over the management
	decisions&mdash;put up a token resistance. Before the day was
	out, though, the majority had thrown in their lots with the raiders,
	handing over security codes and pitching in.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But we knew the shareholders wouldn&apos;t
	give in as easy as that,&rdquo; Lil&apos;s
	mother said, sipping her lemonade. &ldquo;We kept the Park
	running 24/7 for the next two weeks, never giving the shareholders a
	chance to fight back without doing it in front of the guests. We&apos;d
	prearranged with a couple of airline ad-hocs to add extra routes to
	Orlando and the guests came pouring in.&rdquo; She smiled, remembering the moment, and her features in
	repose were Lil&apos;s almost identically. It was only when
	she was talking that her face changed, muscles tugging it into an
	expression decades older than the face that bore it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I spent most of the time running the merch stand at
	Madame Leota&apos;s outside the Mansion, gladhanding the
	guests while hissing nasties back and forth with the shareholders
	who kept trying to shove me out. I slept in a sleeping bag on the
	floor of the utilidor, with a couple dozen others, in three hour
	shifts. That was when I met this asshole&rdquo;&mdash;she
	chucked her husband on the shoulder&mdash;&ldquo;he&apos;d
	gotten the wrong sleeping bag by mistake and wouldn&apos;t
	budge when I came down to crash. I just crawled in next to him and
	the rest, as they say, is history.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil rolled her eyes and made gagging noises. &ldquo;Jesus,
	Rita, no one needs to hear about that part of it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tom patted her arm. &ldquo;Lil, you&apos;re an
	adult&mdash;if you can&apos;t stomach hearing about
	your parents&apos; courtship, you can either sit somewhere
	else or grin and bear it. But you don&apos;t get to dictate
	the topic of conversation.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil gave us adults a very youthful glare and flounced off. Rita
	shook her head at Lil&apos;s departing backside. &ldquo;There&apos;s
	not much fire in that generation,&rdquo; she
	said. &ldquo;Not a lot of passion. It&apos;s our
	fault&mdash;we thought that Disney World would be the best
	place to raise a child in the Bitchun Society. Maybe it was,
	but&hellip;&rdquo; She
	trailed off and rubbed her palms on her thighs, a gesture I&apos;d
	come to know in Lil, by and by. &ldquo;I guess there aren&apos;t
	enough challenges for them these days. They&apos;re too
	cooperative.&rdquo; She laughed and her
	husband took her hand.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We sound like our parents,&rdquo; Tom said. &ldquo;&apos;When we were growing up,
	we didn&apos;t have any of this newfangled life-extension
	stuff&mdash;we took our chances with the cave bears and the
	dinosaurs!&apos;&rdquo; Tom wore
	himself older, apparent 50, with graying sidewalls and crinkled
	smile-lines, the better to present a non-threatening air of
	authority to the guests. It was a truism among the first-gen ad-hocs
	that women castmembers should wear themselves young, men old.
	&ldquo;We&apos;re just a couple of Bitchun
	fundamentalists, I guess.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil called over from a nearby conversation: &ldquo;Are they
	telling you what a pack of milksops we are, Julius? When you get
	tired of that, why don&apos;t you come over here and have a
	smoke?&rdquo; I noticed that she and her
	cohort were passing a crack pipe.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What&apos;s the use?&rdquo; Lil&apos;s mother sighed.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, I don&apos;t know that it&apos;s as
	bad as all that,&rdquo; I said, virtually
	my first words of the afternoon. I was painfully conscious that I
	was only there by courtesy, just one of the legion of hopefuls who
	flocked to Orlando every year, aspiring to a place among the ruling
	cliques. &ldquo;They&apos;re passionate about
	maintaining the Park, that&apos;s for sure. I made the
	mistake of lifting a queue-gate at the Jungleboat Cruise last week
	and I got a very earnest lecture about the smooth functioning of the
	Park from a castmember who couldn&apos;t have been more than
	18. I think that they don&apos;t have the passion for
	creating Bitchunry that we have&mdash;they don&apos;t
	need it&mdash;but they&apos;ve got plenty of drive to
	maintain it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil&apos;s mother gave me a long, considering look that I
	didn&apos;t know what to make of. I couldn&apos;t tell
	if I had offended her or what.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I mean, you can&apos;t be a revolutionary
	after the revolution, can you? Didn&apos;t we all struggle so
	that kids like Lil wouldn&apos;t have to?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Funny you should say that,&rdquo; Tom said. He had the same considering look on his face.
	&ldquo;Just yesterday we were talking about the very same
	thing. We were talking&mdash;&rdquo; he
	drew a breath and looked askance at his wife, who nodded&mdash;&ldquo;about
	deadheading. For a while, anyway. See if things changed much in
	fifty or a hundred years.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I felt a kind of shameful disappointment. Why was I wasting my
	time schmoozing with these two, when they wouldn&apos;t be
	around when the time came to vote me in? I banished the thought as
	quickly as it came&mdash;I was talking to them because they
	were nice people. Not every conversation had to be strategically
	important.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Really? Deadheading.&rdquo; I
	remember that I thought of Dan then, about his views on the
	cowardice of deadheading, on the bravery of ending it when you found
	yourself obsolete. He&apos;d comforted me once, when my last
	living relative, my uncle, opted to go to sleep for three thousand
	years. My uncle had been born pre-Bitchun, and had never quite
	gotten the hang of it. Still, he was my link to my family, to my
	first adulthood and my only childhood. Dan had taken me to Gananoque
	and we&apos;d spent the day bounding around the countryside
	on seven-league boots, sailing high over the lakes of the Thousand
	Islands and the crazy fiery carpet of autumn leaves. We topped off
	the day at a dairy commune he knew where they still made cheese from
	cow&apos;s milk and there&apos;d been a thousand
	smells and bottles of strong cider and a girl whose name I&apos;d
	long since forgotten but whose exuberant laugh I&apos;d
	remember forever. And it wasn&apos;t so important, then, my
	uncle going to sleep for three milliennia, because whatever
	happened, there were the leaves and the lakes and the crisp sunset
	the color of blood and the girl&apos;s laugh. 
	</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Have you talked to Lil about it?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Rita shook her head. &ldquo;It&apos;s just a thought,
	really. We don&apos;t want to worry her. She&apos;s
	not good with hard decisions&mdash;it&apos;s her
	generation.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>They changed the subject not long thereafter, and I sensed
	discomfort, knew that they had told me too much, more than they&apos;d
	intended. I drifted off and found Lil and her young pals, and we
	toked a little and cuddled a little.</P>
	<P>Within a month, I was working at the Haunted Mansion, Tom and
	Rita were invested in Canopic jars in Kissimee with instructions not
	to be woken until their newsbots grabbed sufficient interesting
	material to make it worth their while, and Lil and I were a hot
	item.</P>
	<P>Lil didn&apos;t deal well with her parents&apos;
	decision to deadhead. For her, it was a slap in the face, a reproach
	to her and her generation of twittering Polyannic castmembers.</P>
	<P>For God&apos;s sake, Lil, don&apos;t you ever get
	fucking angry about anything? Don&apos;t you have any
	goddamned passion?</P>
	<P>The words were out of my mouth before I knew I was saying them,
	and Lil, 15 percent of my age, young enough to be my
	great-granddaughter; Lil, my lover and best friend and sponsor to
	the Liberty Square ad-hocracy; Lil turned white as a sheet, turned
	on her heel and walked out of the kitchen. She got in her runabout
	and went to the Park to take her shift.</P>
	<P>I went back to bed and stared at the ceiling fan as it made its
	lazy turns, and felt like shit.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch5" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 5</H1>
	<P>When I finally returned to the Park, 36 hours had passed and Lil
	had not come back to the house. If she&apos;d tried to call,
	she would&apos;ve gotten my voicemail&mdash;I had no
	way of answering my phone. As it turned out, she hadn&apos;t
	been trying to reach me at all.</P>
	<P>I&apos;d spent the time alternately moping, drinking, and
	plotting terrible, irrational vengeance on Debra for killing me,
	destroying my relationship, taking away my beloved (in hindsight,
	anyway) Hall of Presidents and threatening the Mansion. Even in my
	addled state, I knew that this was pretty unproductive, and I kept
	promising that I would cut it out, take a shower and some sober-ups,
	and get to work at the Mansion.</P>
	<P>I was working up the energy to do just that when Dan came in.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Jesus,&rdquo; he said,
	shocked. I guess I was a bit of a mess, sprawled on the sofa in my
	underwear, all gamy and baggy and bloodshot.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hey, Dan. How&apos;s it goin&apos;?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He gave me one of his patented wry looks and I felt the same
	weird reversal of roles that we&apos;d undergone at the U of
	T, when he had become the native, and I had become the interloper.
	He was the together one with the wry looks and I was the pathetic
	seeker who&apos;d burned all his reputation capital. Out of
	habit, I checked my Whuffie, and a moment later I stopped being
	startled by its low score and was instead shocked by the fact that I
	could check it at all. I was back online!</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Now, what do you know about that?&rdquo; I said, staring at my dismal Whuffie.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What?&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>I called his cochlea. &ldquo;My systems are back online,&rdquo; I subvocalized.</P>
	<P>He started. &ldquo;You were offline?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I jumped up from the couch and did a little happy underwear
	dance. &ldquo;I <EM>was</EM>, but I&apos;m not <EM>now</EM>.&rdquo; I felt better than I had in days, ready to beat the
	world&mdash;or at least Debra.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Let me take a shower, then let&apos;s get to
	the Imagineering labs. I&apos;ve got a pretty kickass
	idea.&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>The idea, as I explained it in the runabout, was a preemptive
	rehab of the Mansion. Sabotaging the Hall had been a nasty, stupid
	idea, and I&apos;d gotten what I deserved for it. The whole
	point of the Bitchun Society was to be more reputable than the next
	ad-hoc, to succeed on merit, not trickery, despite assassinations
	and the like.</P>
	<P>So a rehab it would be.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Back in the early days of the Disneyland Mansion, in
	California,&rdquo; I explained, &ldquo;Walt
	had a guy in a suit of armor just past the first Doom Buggy curve,
	he&apos;d leap out and scare the hell out of the guests as
	they went by. It didn&apos;t last long, of course. The poor
	bastard kept getting punched out by startled guests, and besides,
	the armor wasn&apos;t too comfortable for long shifts.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan chuckled appreciatively. The Bitchun Society had all but done
	away with any sort of dull, repetitious labor, and what
	remained&mdash;tending bar, mopping toilets&mdash;commanded
	Whuffie aplenty and a life of leisure in your off-hours.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But that guy in the suit of armor, he could
	<EM>improvise</EM>. You&apos;d get a slightly different show
	every time. It&apos;s like the castmembers who spiel on the
	Jungleboat Cruise. They&apos;ve each got their own patter,
	their own jokes, and even though the animatronics aren&apos;t
	so hot, it makes the show worth seeing.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re going to fill the Mansion with
	castmembers in armor?&rdquo; Dan asked,
	shaking his head.</P>
	<P>I waved away his objections, causing the runabout to swerve,
	terrifying a pack of guests who were taking a ride on rented bikes
	around the property. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I
	said, flapping a hand apologetically at the white-faced guests.
	&ldquo;Not at all. But what if all of the animatronics had
	human operators&mdash;telecontrollers, working with waldoes?
	We&apos;ll let them interact with the guests, talk with them,
	scare them&hellip; We&apos;ll get rid of the
	existing animatronics, replace &apos;em with full-mobility
	robots, then cast the parts over the Net. Think of the Whuffie! You
	could put, say, a thousand operators online at once, ten shifts per
	day, each of them caught up in our Mansion&hellip;
	We&apos;ll give out awards for outstanding performances, the
	shifts&apos;ll be based on popular vote. In effect, we&apos;ll
	be adding another ten thousand guests to the Mansion&apos;s
	throughput every day, only these guests will be honorary
	castmembers.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That&apos;s pretty good,&rdquo; Dan said. &ldquo;Very Bitchun. Debra may have AI and
	flash-baking, but you&apos;ll have human interaction,
	courtesy of the biggest Mansion-fans in the world&mdash;&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;And those are the very fans Debra&apos;ll have
	to win over to make a play for the Mansion. Very elegant, huh?&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>The first order of business was to call Lil, patch things up, and
	pitch the idea to her. The only problem was, my cochlea was offline
	again. My mood started to sour, and I had Dan call her instead.</P>
	<P>We met her up at Imagineering, a massive complex of prefab
	aluminum buildings painted Go-Away Green that had thronged with mad
	inventors since the Bitchun Society had come to Walt Disney World.
	The ad-hocs who had built an Imagineering department in Florida and
	now ran the thing were the least political in the Park, classic
	labcoat-and-clipboard types who would work for anyone so long as the
	ideas were cool. Not caring about Whuffie meant that they
	accumulated it in plenty on both the left and right hands.</P>
	<P>Lil was working with Suneep, AKA the Merch Miracle. He could
	design, prototype and produce a souvenir faster than
	anyone&mdash;shirts, sculptures, pens, toys, housewares, he
	was the king. They were collaborating on their HUDs, facing each
	other across a lab-bench in the middle of a lab as big as a
	basketball court, cluttered with logomarked tchotchkes and gabbling
	away while their eyes danced over invisible screens.</P>
	<P>Dan reflexively joined the collaborative space as he entered the
	lab, leaving me the only one out on the joke. Dan was clearly
	delighted by what he saw.</P>
	<P>I nudged him with an elbow. &ldquo;Make a hardcopy,&rdquo; I hissed.</P>
	<P>Instead of pitying me, he just airtyped a few commands and pages
	started to roll out of a printer in the lab&apos;s corner.
	Anyone else would have made a big deal out of it, but he just
	brought me into the discussion.</P>
	<P>If I needed proof that Lil and I were meant for each other, the
	designs she and Suneep had come up with were more than enough.
	She&apos;d been thinking just the way I had&mdash;souvenirs
	that stressed the human scale of the Mansion. There were miniature
	animatronics of the Hitchhiking Ghosts in a black-light box, their
	skeletal robotics visible through their layers of plastic clothing;
	action figures that communicated by IR, so that placing one in
	proximity with another would unlock its Mansion-inspired
	behaviors&mdash;the raven cawed, Mme. Leota&apos;s head
	incanted, the singing busts sang. She&apos;d worked up some
	formal attire based on the castmember costume, cut in this year&apos;s
	stylish lines.</P>
	<P>It was good merch, is what I&apos;m trying to say. In my
	mind&apos;s eye, I was seeing the relaunch of the Mansion in
	six months, filled with robotic avatars of Mansion-nuts the world
	&apos;round, Mme. Leota&apos;s gift cart piled high
	with brilliant swag, strolling human players ad-libbing with the
	guests in the queue area&hellip;</P>
	<P>Lil looked up from her mediated state and glared at me as I pored
	over the hardcopy, nodding enthusiastically.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Passionate enough for you?&rdquo; she snapped.</P>
	<P>I felt a flush creeping into face, my ears. It was somewhere
	between anger and shame, and I reminded myself that I was more than
	a century older than her, and it was my responsibility to be mature.
	Also, I&apos;d started the fight.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This is fucking fantastic, Lil,&rdquo; I said. Her look didn&apos;t soften. &ldquo;Really
	choice stuff. I had a great idea&mdash;&rdquo; I ran it down for her, the avatars, the robots, the rehab.
	She stopped glaring, started taking notes, smiling, showing me her
	dimples, her slanted eyes crinkling at the corners.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This isn&apos;t easy,&rdquo; she said, finally. Suneep, who&apos;d been politely
	pretending not to listen in, nodded involuntarily. Dan, too.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I know that,&rdquo; I
	said. The flush burned hotter. &ldquo;But that&apos;s
	the point&mdash;what Debra does isn&apos;t easy either.
	It&apos;s risky, dangerous. It made her and her ad-hoc
	better&mdash;it made them sharper.&rdquo; <EM>Sharper than us, that&apos;s for sure</EM>.
	&ldquo;They can make decisions like this fast, and execute them
	just as quickly. We need to be able to do that, too.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Was I really advocating being more like Debra? The words&apos;d
	just popped out, but I saw that I&apos;d been right&mdash;we&apos;d
	have to beat Debra at her own game, out-evolve her ad-hocs.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I understand what you&apos;re saying,&rdquo; Lil said. I could tell she was upset&mdash;she&apos;d
	reverted to castmemberspeak. &ldquo;It&apos;s a very
	good idea. I think that we stand a good chance of making it happen
	if we approach the group and put it to them, after doing the
	research, building the plans, laying out the critical path, and
	privately soliciting feedback from some of them.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I felt like I was swimming in molasses. At the rate that the
	Liberty Square ad-hoc moved, we&apos;d be holding formal
	requirements reviews while Debra&apos;s people tore down the
	Mansion around us. So I tried a different tactic.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Suneep, you&apos;ve been involved in some
	rehabs, right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Suneep nodded slowly, with a cautious expression, a nonpolitical
	animal being drawn into a political discussion.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Okay, so tell me, if we came to you with this plan
	and asked you to pull together a production schedule&mdash;one
	that didn&apos;t have any review, just take the idea and run
	with it&mdash;and then pull it off, how long would it take you
	to execute it?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil smiled primly. She&apos;d dealt with Imagineering
	before.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;About five years,&rdquo; he
	said, almost instantly.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Five years?&rdquo; I
	squawked. &ldquo;Why five years? Debra&apos;s people
	overhauled the Hall in a month!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, wait,&rdquo; he said.
	&ldquo;No review at all?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No review. Just come up with the best way you can to
	do this, and do it. And we can provide you with unlimited, skilled
	labor, three shifts around the clock.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He rolled his eyes back and ticked off days on his fingers while
	muttering under his breath. He was a tall, thin man with a shock of
	curly dark hair that he smoothed unconsciously with surprisingly
	stubby fingers while he thought.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;About eight weeks,&rdquo; he
	said. &ldquo;Barring accidents, assuming off-the-shelf parts,
	unlimited labor, capable management, material availability&hellip;&rdquo; He trailed off again, and his short fingers waggled as he
	pulled up a HUD and started making a list.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; Lil said,
	alarmed. &ldquo;How do you get from five years to eight
	weeks?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Now it was my turn to smirk. I&apos;d seen how
	Imagineering worked when they were on their own, building prototypes
	and conceptual mockups&mdash;I knew that the real bottleneck
	was the constant review and revisions, the ever-fluctuating
	groupmind consensus of the ad-hoc that commissioned their work.</P>
	<P>Suneep looked sheepish. &ldquo;Well, if all I have to do is
	satisfy myself that my plans are good and my buildings won&apos;t
	fall down, I can make it happen very fast. Of course, my plans
	aren&apos;t perfect. Sometimes, I&apos;ll be halfway
	through a project when someone suggests a new flourish or approach
	that makes the whole thing immeasurably better. Then it&apos;s
	back to the drawing board&hellip; So I stay at the
	drawing board for a long time at the start, get feedback from other
	Imagineers, from the ad-hocs, from focus groups and the Net. Then we
	do reviews at every stage of construction, check to see if anyone
	has had a great idea we haven&apos;t thought of and
	incorporate it, sometimes rolling back the work.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s slow, but it works.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil was flustered. &ldquo;But if you can do a complete
	revision in eight weeks, why not just finish it, then plan another
	revision, do <EM>that</EM> one in eight weeks, and so on? Why take
	five years before anyone can ride the thing?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Because that&apos;s how it&apos;s
	done,&rdquo; I said to Lil. &ldquo;But
	that&apos;s not how it <EM>has</EM> to be done. That&apos;s
	how we&apos;ll save the Mansion.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I felt the surety inside of me, the certain knowledge that I was
	right. Ad-hocracy was a great thing, a Bitchun thing, but the
	organization needed to turn on a dime&mdash;that would be even
	<EM>more</EM> Bitchun.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Lil,&rdquo; I said,
	looking into her eyes, trying to burn my POV into her. &ldquo;We
	have to do this. It&apos;s our only chance. We&apos;ll
	recruit hundreds to come to Florida and work on the rehab. We&apos;ll
	give every Mansion nut on the planet a shot at joining up, then
	we&apos;ll recruit them again to work at it, to run the
	telepresence rigs. We&apos;ll get buy-in from the biggest
	super-recommenders in the world, and we&apos;ll build
	something better and faster than any ad-hoc ever has, without
	abandoning the original Imagineers&apos; vision. It will be
	unspeakably Bitchun.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil dropped her eyes and it was her turn to flush. She paced the
	floor, hands swinging at her sides. I could tell that she was still
	angry with me, but excited and scared and yes, passionate.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s not up to me, you know,&rdquo; she said at length, still pacing. Dan and I exchanged wicked
	grins. She was in.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; I said. But
	it was, almost&mdash;she was a real opinion-leader in the
	Liberty Square ad-hoc, someone who knew the systems back and forth,
	someone who made good, reasonable decisions and kept her head in a
	crisis. Not a hothead. Not prone to taking radical switchbacks. This
	plan would burn up that reputation and the Whuffie that accompanied
	it, in short order, but by the time that happened, she&apos;d
	have plenty of Whuffie with the new, thousands-strong ad-hoc.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I mean, I can&apos;t guarantee anything. I&apos;d
	like to study the plans that Imagineering comes through with, do
	some walk-throughs&mdash;&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I started to object, to remind her that speed was of the essence,
	but she beat me to it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But I won&apos;t. We have to move fast. I&apos;m
	in.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She didn&apos;t come into my arms, didn&apos;t kiss
	me and tell me everything was forgiven, but she bought in, and that
	was enough.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>My systems came back online sometime that day, and I hardly
	noticed, I was so preoccupied with the new Mansion. Holy shit, was
	it ever audacious: since the first Mansion opened in California in
	1969, no one had ever had the guts to seriously fuxor with it. Oh,
	sure, the Paris version, Phantom Manor, had a slightly different
	storyline, but it was just a minor bit of tweakage to satisfy the
	European market at the time. No one wanted to screw up the legend.</P>
	<P>What the hell made the Mansion so cool, anyway? I&apos;d
	been to Disney World any number of times as a guest before I settled
	in, and truth be told, it had never been my absolute favorite.</P>
	<P>But when I returned to Disney World, live and in person, freshly
	bored stupid by the three-hour liveheaded flight from Toronto, I&apos;d
	found myself crowd-driven to it.</P>
	<P>I&apos;m a terrible, terrible person to visit theme-parks
	with. Since I was a punk kid snaking my way through crowded subway
	platforms, eeling into the only seat on a packed car, I&apos;d
	been obsessed with Beating The Crowd.</P>
	<P>In the early days of the Bitchun Society, I&apos;d known a
	blackjack player, a compulsive counter of cards, an idiot savant of
	odds. He was a pudgy, unassuming engineer, the moderately successful
	founder of a moderately successful high-tech startup that had done
	something arcane with software agents. While he was only moderately
	successful, he was fabulously wealthy: he&apos;d never raised
	a cent of financing for his company, and had owned it outright when
	he finally sold it for a bathtub full of money. His secret was the
	green felt tables of Vegas, where he&apos;d pilgrim off to
	every time his bank balance dropped, there to count the monkey-cards
	and calculate the odds and Beat The House.</P>
	<P>Long after his software company was sold, long after he&apos;d
	made his nut, he was dressing up in silly disguises and hitting the
	tables, grinding out hand after hand of twenty-one, for the sheer
	satisfaction of Beating The House. For him, it was pure
	brain-reward, a jolt of happy-juice every time the dealer busted and
	every time he doubled down on a deckfull of face cards.</P>
	<P>Though I&apos;d never bought so much as a lottery ticket,
	I immediately got his compulsion: for me, it was Beating The Crowd,
	finding the path of least resistance, filling the gaps, guessing the
	short queue, dodging the traffic, changing lanes with a whisper to
	spare&mdash;moving with precision and grace and, above all,
	<EM>expedience</EM>.</P>
	<P>On that fateful return, I checked into the Fort Wilderness
	Campground, pitched my tent, and fairly ran to the ferry docks to
	catch a barge over to the Main Gate.</P>
	<P>Crowds were light until I got right up to Main Gate and the
	ticketing queues. Suppressing an initial instinct to dash for the
	farthest one, beating my ferrymates to what rule-of-thumb said would
	have the shortest wait, I stepped back and did a quick visual survey
	of the twenty kiosks and evaluated the queued-up huddle in front of
	each. Pre-Bitchun, I&apos;d have been primarily interested in
	their ages, but that is less and less a measure of anything other
	than outlook, so instead I carefully examined their queuing styles,
	their dress, and more than anything, their burdens.</P>
	<P>You can tell more about someone&apos;s ability to
	efficiently negotiate the complexities of a queue through what they
	carry than through any other means&mdash;if only more people
	realized it. The classic, of course, is the unladen citizen, a
	person naked of even a modest shoulderbag or marsupial pocket. To
	the layperson, such a specimen might be thought of as a sure bet for
	a fast transaction, but I&apos;d done an informal study and
	come to the conclusion that these brave iconoclasts are often the
	flightiest of the lot, left smiling with bovine mystification,
	patting down their pockets in a fruitless search for a writing
	implement, a piece of ID, a keycard, a rabbit&apos;s foot, a
	rosary, a tuna sandwich.</P>
	<P>No, for my money, I&apos;ll take what I call the Road
	Worrier anytime. Such a person is apt to be carefully slung with
	four or five carriers of one description or another, from bulging
	cargo pockets to clever military-grade strap-on pouches with
	biometrically keyed closures. The thing to watch for is the
	ergonomic consideration given to these conveyances: do they balance,
	are they slung for minimum interference and maximum ease of access?
	Someone who&apos;s given that much consideration to their
	gear is likely spending their time in line determining which bits
	and pieces they&apos;ll need when they reach its headwaters
	and is holding them at ready for fastest-possible processing.</P>
	<P>This is a tricky call, since there are lookalike pretenders,
	gear-pigs who pack <EM>everything</EM> because they lack the
	organizational smarts to figure out what they should
	pack&mdash;they&apos;re just as apt to be burdened with
	bags and pockets and pouches, but the telltale is the efficiency of
	that slinging. These pack mules will sag beneath their loads,
	juggling this and that while pushing overloose straps up on their
	shoulders.</P>
	<P>I spied a queue that was made up of a group of Road Worriers, a
	queue that was slightly longer than the others, but I joined it and
	ticced nervously as I watched my progress relative to the other
	spots I could&apos;ve chosen. I was borne out, a positive
	omen for a wait-free World, and I was sauntering down Main Street,
	USA long before my ferrymates.</P>
	<P>Returning to Walt Disney World was a homecoming for me. My
	parents had brought me the first time when I was all of ten, just as
	the first inklings of the Bitchun society were trickling into
	everyone&apos;s consciousness: the death of scarcity, the
	death of death, the struggle to rejig an economy that had grown up
	focused on nothing but scarcity and death. My memories of the trip
	are dim but warm, the balmy Florida climate and a sea of smiling
	faces punctuated by magical, darkened moments riding in OmniMover
	cars, past diorama after diorama.</P>
	<P>I went again when I graduated high school and was amazed by the
	richness of detail, the grandiosity and grandeur of it all. I spent
	a week there stunned bovine, grinning and wandering from corner to
	corner. Someday, I knew, I&apos;d come to live there.</P>
	<P>The Park became a touchstone for me, a constant in a world where
	everything changed. Again and again, I came back to the Park,
	grounding myself, communing with all the people I&apos;d
	been.</P>
	<P>That day I bopped from land to land, ride to ride, seeking out
	the short lines, the eye of the hurricane that crowded the Park to
	capacity. I&apos;d take high ground, standing on a bench or
	hopping up on a fence, and do a visual reccy of all the queues in
	sight, try to spot prevailing currents in the flow of the crowd,
	generally having a high old obsessive time. Truth be told, I
	probably spent as much time looking for walk-ins as I would&apos;ve
	spent lining up like a good little sheep, but I had more fun and got
	more exercise.</P>
	<P>The Haunted Mansion was experiencing a major empty spell: the
	Snow Crash Spectacular parade had just swept through Liberty Square
	en route to Fantasyland, dragging hordes of guests along with it,
	dancing to the JapRap sounds of the comical Sushi-K and aping the
	movements of the brave Hiro Protagonist. When they blew out, Liberty
	Square was a ghost town, and I grabbed the opportunity to ride the
	Mansion five times in a row, walking on every time.</P>
	<P>The way I tell it to Lil, I noticed her and then I noticed the
	Mansion, but to tell the truth it was the other way around.</P>
	<P>The first couple rides through, I was just glad of the aggressive
	air conditioning and the delicious sensation of sweat drying on my
	skin. But on the third pass, I started to notice just how goddamn
	cool the thing was. There wasn&apos;t a single bit of tech
	more advanced than a film-loop projector in the whole place, but it
	was all so cunningly contrived that the illusion of a haunted house
	was perfect: the ghosts that whirled through the ballroom were
	<EM>ghosts</EM>, three-dimensional and ethereal and phantasmic. The
	ghosts that sang in comical tableaux through the graveyard were
	equally convincing, genuinely witty and simultaneously creepy.</P>
	<P>My fourth pass through, I noticed the <EM>detail</EM>, the
	hostile eyes worked into the wallpaper&apos;s pattern, the
	motif repeated in the molding, the chandeliers, the photo gallery. I
	began to pick out the words to &ldquo;Grim Grinning Ghosts,&rdquo; the song that is repeated throughout the ride, whether in
	sinister organ-tones repeating the main theme troppo troppo or the
	spritely singing of the four musical busts in the graveyard.</P>
	<P>It&apos;s a catchy tune, one that I hummed on my fifth
	pass through, this time noticing that the overaggressive AC was,
	actually, mysterious chills that blew through the rooms as wandering
	spirits made their presence felt. By the time I debarked for the
	fifth time, I was whistling the tune with jazzy improvisations in a
	mixed-up tempo.</P>
	<P>That&apos;s when Lil and I ran into each other. She was
	picking up a discarded ice-cream wrapper&mdash;I&apos;d
	seen a dozen castmembers picking up trash that day, seen it so
	frequently that I&apos;d started doing it myself. She grinned
	slyly at me as I debarked into the fried-food-and-disinfectant
	perfume of the Park, hands in pockets, thoroughly pleased with
	myself for having so completely <EM>experienced</EM> a really fine
	hunk of art.</P>
	<P>I smiled back at her, because it was only natural that one of the
	Whuffie-kings who were privileged to tend this bit of heavenly
	entertainment should notice how thoroughly I was enjoying her work.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That&apos;s really, really Bitchun,&rdquo; I said to her, admiring the titanic mountains of Whuffie my
	HUD attributed to her.</P>
	<P>She was in character, and not supposed to be cheerful, but
	castmembers of her generation can&apos;t help but be
	friendly. She compromised between ghastly demeanor and her natural
	sweet spirit, and leered a grin at me, thumped through a zombie&apos;s
	curtsey, and moaned &ldquo;Thank you&mdash;we <EM>do</EM>
	try to keep it <EM>spirited</EM>.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I groaned appreciatively, and started to notice just how very
	cute she was, this little button of a girl with her rotting maid&apos;s
	uniform and her feather-shedding duster. She was just so clean and
	scrubbed and happy about everything, she radiated it and made me
	want to pinch her cheeks&mdash;either set.</P>
	<P>The moment was on me, and so I said, &ldquo;When do they let
	you ghouls off? I&apos;d love to take you out for a Zombie or
	a Bloody Mary.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Which led to more horrifying banter, and to my taking her out for
	a couple at the Adventurer&apos;s Club, learning her age in
	the process and losing my nerve, telling myself that there was
	nothing we could possibly have to say to each other across a
	century-wide gap.</P>
	<P>While I tell Lil that I noticed her first and the Mansion second,
	the reverse is indeed true. But it&apos;s also true&mdash;and
	I never told her this&mdash;that the thing I love best about
	the Mansion is:</P>
	<P>It&apos;s where I met her.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Dan and I spent the day riding the Mansion, drafting scripts for
	the telepresence players who we hoped to bring on-board. We were in
	a totally creative zone, the dialog running as fast as he could
	transcribe it. Jamming on ideas with Dan was just about as terrific
	as a pass-time could be.</P>
	<P>I was all for leaking the plan to the Net right away, getting
	hearts-and-minds action with our core audience, but Lil turned it
	down.</P>
	<P>She was going to spend the next couple days quietly politicking
	among the rest of the ad-hoc, getting some support for the idea, and
	she didn&apos;t want the appearance of impropriety that would
	come from having outsiders being brought in before the ad-hoc.</P>
	<P>Talking to the ad-hocs, bringing them around&mdash;it was a
	skill I&apos;d never really mastered. Dan was good at it, Lil
	was good at it, but me, I think that I was too self-centered to ever
	develop good skills as a peacemaker. In my younger days, I assumed
	that it was because I was smarter than everyone else, with no
	patience for explaining things in short words for mouth-breathers
	who just didn&apos;t get it.</P>
	<P>The truth of the matter is, I&apos;m a bright enough guy,
	but I&apos;m hardly a genius. Especially when it comes to
	people. Probably comes from Beating The Crowd, never seeing
	individuals, just the mass&mdash;the enemy of expedience.</P>
	<P>I never would have made it into the Liberty Square ad-hoc on my
	own. Lil made it happen for me, long before we started sleeping
	together. I&apos;d assumed that her folks would be my best
	allies in the process of joining up, but they were too jaded, too
	ready to take the long sleep to pay much attention to a newcomer
	like me.</P>
	<P>Lil took me under her wing, inviting me to after-work parties,
	talking me up to her cronies, quietly passing around copies of my
	thesis-work. And she did the same in reverse, sincerely extolling
	the virtues of the others I met, so that I knew what there was to
	respect about them and couldn&apos;t help but treat them as
	individuals.</P>
	<P>In the years since, I&apos;d lost that respect. Mostly, I
	palled around with Lil, and once he arrived, Dan, and with
	net-friends around the world. The ad-hocs that I worked with all day
	treated me with basic courtesy but not much friendliness.</P>
	<P>I guess I treated them the same. When I pictured them in my mind,
	they were a faceless, passive-aggressive mass, too caught up in the
	starchy world of consensus-building to ever do much of anything.</P>
	<P>Dan and I threw ourselves into it headlong, trolling the Net for
	address lists of Mansion-otakus from the four corners of the globe,
	spreadsheeting them against their timezones, temperaments, and, of
	course, their Whuffie.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That&apos;s weird,&rdquo; I said, looking up from the old-fashioned terminal I was
	using&mdash;my systems were back offline. They&apos;d
	been sputtering up and down for a couple days now, and I kept
	meaning to go to the doctor, but I&apos;d never gotten
	&apos;round to it. Periodically, I&apos;d get a jolt
	of urgency when I remembered that this meant my backup was
	stale-dating, but the Mansion always took precedence.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Huh?&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>I tapped the display. &ldquo;See these?&rdquo; It was a fan-site, displaying a collection of animated 3-D
	meshes of various elements of the Mansion, part of a giant
	collaborative project that had been ongoing for decades, to build an
	accurate 3-D walkthrough of every inch of the Park. I&apos;d
	used those meshes to build my own testing fly-throughs.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Those are terrific,&rdquo; Dan
	said. &ldquo;That guy must be a total <EM>fiend</EM>.&rdquo; The meshes&apos; author had painstakingly modeled,
	chained and animated every ghost in the ballroom scene, complete
	with the kinematics necessary for full motion. Where a &ldquo;normal&rdquo; fan-artist might&apos;ve used a standard human
	kinematics library for the figures, this one had actually written
	his own from the ground up, so that the ghosts moved with a spectral
	fluidity that was utterly unhuman.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Who&apos;s the author?&rdquo; Dan asked. &ldquo;Do we have him on our list yet?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I scrolled down to display the credits. &ldquo;I&apos;ll
	be damned,&rdquo; Dan breathed.</P>
	<P>The author was Tim, Debra&apos;s elfin crony. He&apos;d
	submitted the designs a week before my assassination.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What do you think it means?&rdquo; I asked Dan, though I had a couple ideas on the subject
	myself.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Tim&apos;s a Mansion nut,&rdquo; Dan said. &ldquo;I knew that.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You knew?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He looked a little defensive. &ldquo;Sure. I told you, back
	when you had me hanging out with Debra&apos;s gang.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Had I asked him to hang out with Debra? As I remembered it, it
	had been his suggestion. Too much to think about.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But what does it mean, Dan? Is he an ally? Should we
	try to recruit him? Or is he the one that&apos;d convinced
	Debra she needs to take over the Mansion?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan shook his head. &ldquo;I&apos;m not even sure
	that she wants to take over the Mansion. I know Debra, all she wants
	to do is turn ideas into things, as fast and as copiously as
	possible. She picks her projects carefully. She&apos;s
	acquisitive, sure, but she&apos;s cautious. She had a great
	idea for Presidents, and so she took over. I never heard her talk
	about the Mansion.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Of course you didn&apos;t. She&apos;s
	cagey. Did you hear her talk about the Hall of Presidents?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan fumbled. &ldquo;Not really&hellip; I mean, not in so many words, but&mdash;&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But nothing,&rdquo; I
	said. &ldquo;She&apos;s after the Mansion, she&apos;s
	after the Magic Kingdom, she&apos;s after the Park. She&apos;s
	taking over, goddamn it, and I&apos;m the only one who seems
	to have noticed.&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I came clean to Lil about my systems that night, as we were
	fighting. Fighting had become our regular evening pastime, and Dan
	had taken to sleeping at one of the hotels on-site rather than
	endure it.</P>
	<P>I&apos;d started it, of course. &ldquo;We&apos;re
	going to get killed if we don&apos;t get off our asses and
	start the rehab,&rdquo; I said, slamming
	myself down on the sofa and kicking at the scratched coffee table. I
	heard the hysteria and unreason in my voice and it just made me
	madder. I was frustrated by not being able to check in on Suneep and
	Dan, and, as usual, it was too late at night to call anyone and do
	anything about it. By the morning, I&apos;d have forgotten
	again.</P>
	<P>From the kitchen, Lil barked back, &ldquo;I&apos;m
	doing what I can, Jules. If you&apos;ve got a better way,
	I&apos;d love to hear about it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, bullshit. I&apos;m doing what I can,
	planning the thing out. I&apos;m ready to <EM>go</EM>. It was
	your job to get the ad-hocs ready for it, but you keep telling me
	they&apos;re not. When will they be?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Jesus, you&apos;re a nag.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I wouldn&apos;t nag if you&apos;d only
	fucking make it happen. What are you doing all day, anyway? Working
	shifts at the Mansion? Rearranging deck chairs on the Great Titanic
	Adventure?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m working my fucking <EM>ass</EM> off.
	I&apos;ve spoken to every goddamn one of them at least twice
	this week about it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; I hollered at
	the kitchen. &ldquo;Sure you have.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Don&apos;t take my word for it, then. Check my
	fucking phone logs.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She waited.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well? Check them!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;ll check them later,&rdquo; I said, dreading where this was going.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, no you <EM>don&apos;t</EM>,&rdquo; she said, stalking into the room, fuming. &ldquo;You
	can&apos;t call me a liar and then refuse to look at the
	evidence.&rdquo; She planted her hands on
	her slim little hips and glared at me. She&apos;d gone pale
	and I could count every freckle on her face, her throat, her
	collarbones, the swell of her cleavage in the old vee-neck shirt
	I&apos;d given her on a day-trip to Nassau.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; she asked.
	She looked ready to wring my neck.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I can&apos;t,&rdquo; I
	admitted, not meeting her eyes.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes you can&mdash;here, I&apos;ll dump
	it to your public directory.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Her expression shifted to one of puzzlement when she failed to
	locate me on her network. &ldquo;What&apos;s going
	on?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>So I told her. Offline, outcast, malfunctioning.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, why haven&apos;t you gone to the doctor?
	I mean, it&apos;s been <EM>weeks</EM>. I&apos;ll call
	him right now.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Forget it,&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;I&apos;ll see him tomorrow. No sense in getting
	him out of bed.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>But I didn&apos;t see him the day after, or the day after
	that. Too much to do, and the only times I remembered to call
	someone, I was too far from a public terminal or it was too late or
	too early. My systems came online a couple times, and I was too busy
	with the plans for the Mansion. Lil grew accustomed to the drifts of
	hard copy that littered the house, to printing out her annotations
	to my designs and leaving them on my favorite chair&mdash;to
	living like the cavemen of the information age had, surrounded by
	dead trees and ticking clocks.</P>
	<P>Being offline helped me focus. Focus is hardly the word for
	it&mdash;I obsessed. I sat in front of the terminal I&apos;d
	brought home all day, every day, crunching plans, dictating
	voicemail. People who wanted to reach me had to haul ass out to the
	house, and <EM>speak</EM> to me.</P>
	<P>I grew too obsessed to fight, and Dan moved back, and then it was
	my turn to take hotel rooms so that the rattle of my keyboard
	wouldn&apos;t keep him up nights. He and Lil were working a
	full-time campaign to recruit the ad-hoc to our cause, and I started
	to feel like we were finally in harmony, about to reach our goal.</P>
	<P>I went home one afternoon clutching a sheaf of hardcopy and burst
	into the living room, gabbling a mile-a-minute about a wrinkle on my
	original plan that would add a third walk-through segment to the
	ride, increasing the number of telepresence rigs we could use
	without decreasing throughput.</P>
	<P>I was mid-babble when my systems came back online. The public
	chatter in the room sprang up on my HUD.</P>
	<P><EM>And then I&apos;m going to tear off every stitch of
	clothing and jump you.</EM></P>
	<P><EM>And then what?</EM></P>
	<P><EM>I&apos;m going to bang you till you limp.</EM></P>
	<P><EM>Jesus, Lil, you are one rangy cowgirl.</EM></P>
	<P>My eyes closed, shutting out everything except for the glowing
	letters. Quickly, they vanished. I opened my eyes again, looking at
	Lil, who was flushed and distracted. Dan looked scared.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What&apos;s going on, Dan?&rdquo; I asked quietly. My heart hammered in my chest, but I felt
	calm and detached.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Jules,&rdquo; he began,
	then gave up and looked at Lil.</P>
	<P>Lil had, by that time, figured out that I was back online, that
	their secret messaging had been discovered.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Having fun, Lil?&rdquo; I
	asked.</P>
	<P>Lil shook her head and glared at me. &ldquo;Just go, Julius.
	I&apos;ll send your stuff to the hotel.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You want me to go, huh? So you can bang him till he
	limps?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This is my house, Julius. I&apos;m asking you
	to get out of it. I&apos;ll see you at work
	tomorrow&mdash;we&apos;re having a general ad-hoc
	meeting to vote on the rehab.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>It was her house.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Lil, Julius&mdash;&rdquo; Dan began.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This is between me and him,&rdquo; Lil said. &ldquo;Stay out of it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I dropped my papers&mdash;I wanted to throw them, but I
	dropped them, <EM>flump</EM>, and I turned on my heel and walked
	out, not bothering to close the door behind me.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Dan showed up at the hotel ten minutes after I did and rapped on
	my door. I was all-over numb as I opened the door. He had a bottle
	of tequila&mdash;<EM>my</EM> tequila, brought over from the
	house that I&apos;d shared with Lil.</P>
	<P>He sat down on the bed and stared at the logo-marked wallpaper. I
	took the bottle from him, got a couple glasses from the bathroom and
	poured.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s my fault,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m sure it is,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We got to drinking a couple nights ago. She was
	really upset. Hadn&apos;t seen you in days, and when she <EM>did</EM>
	see you, you freaked her out. Snapping at her. Arguing. Insulting
	her.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So you made her,&rdquo; I
	said.</P>
	<P>He shook his head, then nodded, took a drink. &ldquo;I did.
	It&apos;s been a long time since I&hellip;&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You had sex with my girlfriend, in my house, while I
	was away, working.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Jules, I&apos;m sorry. I did it, and I kept on
	doing it. I&apos;m not much of a friend to either of you.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;She&apos;s pretty broken up. She wanted me to
	come out here and tell you it was all a mistake, that you were just
	being paranoid.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>We sat in silence for a long time. I refilled his glass, then my
	own.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I couldn&apos;t do that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&apos;m worried about you. You
	haven&apos;t been right, not for months. I don&apos;t
	know what it is, but you should get to a doctor.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I don&apos;t need a doctor,&rdquo; I snapped. The liquor had melted the numbness and left
	burning anger and bile, my constant companions. &ldquo;I need a
	friend who doesn&apos;t fuck my girlfriend when my back is
	turned.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I threw my glass at the wall. It bounced off, leaving
	tequila-stains on the wallpaper, and rolled under the bed. Dan
	started, but stayed seated. If he&apos;d stood up, I
	would&apos;ve hit him. Dan&apos;s good at crises.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;If it&apos;s any consolation, I expect to be
	dead pretty soon,&rdquo; he said. He gave
	me a wry grin. &ldquo;My Whuffie&apos;s doing good. This
	rehab should take it up over the top. I&apos;ll be ready to
	go.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>That stopped me. I&apos;d somehow managed to forget that
	Dan, my good friend Dan, was going to kill himself.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re going to do it,&rdquo; I said, sitting down next to him. It hurt to think about it.
	I really liked the bastard. He might&apos;ve been my best
	friend.</P>
	<P>There was a knock at the door. I opened it without checking the
	peephole. It was Lil.</P>
	<P>She looked younger than ever. Young and small and miserable. A
	snide remark died in my throat. I wanted to hold her.</P>
	<P>She brushed past me and went to Dan, who squirmed out of her
	embrace.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, and
	stood up and sat on the windowsill, staring down at the Seven Seas
	Lagoon.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Dan&apos;s just been explaining to me that he
	plans on being dead in a couple months,&rdquo; I
	said. &ldquo;Puts a damper on the long-term plans, doesn&apos;t
	it, Lil?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tears streamed down her face and she seemed to fold in on
	herself. &ldquo;I&apos;ll take what I can get,&rdquo; she said.</P>
	<P>I choked on a knob of misery, and I realized that it was Dan, not
	Lil, whose loss upset me the most.</P>
	<P>Lil took Dan&apos;s hand and led him out of the room.</P>
	<P><EM>I guess I&apos;ll take what I can get, too</EM>, I
	thought.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch6" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 6</H1>
	<P>Lying on my hotel bed, mesmerized by the lazy turns of the
	ceiling fan, I pondered the possibility that I was nuts.</P>
	<P>It wasn&apos;t unheard of, even in the days of the Bitchun
	Society, and even though there were cures, they weren&apos;t
	pleasant.</P>
	<P>I was once married to a crazy person. We were both about 70, and
	I was living for nothing but joy. Her name was Zoya, and I called
	her Zed.</P>
	<P>We met in orbit, where I&apos;d gone to experience the
	famed low-gravity sybarites. Getting staggering drunk is not much
	fun at one gee, but at ten to the neg eight, it&apos;s a
	blast. You don&apos;t stagger, you <EM>bounce</EM>, and when
	you&apos;re bouncing in a sphere full of other bouncing,
	happy, boisterous naked people, things get deeply fun.</P>
	<P>I was bouncing around inside a clear sphere that was a mile in
	diameter, filled with smaller spheres in which one could procure
	bulbs of fruity, deadly concoctions. Musical instruments littered
	the sphere&apos;s floor, and if you knew how to play, you&apos;d
	snag one, tether it to you and start playing. Others would pick up
	their own axes and jam along. The tunes varied from terrific to
	awful, but they were always energetic.</P>
	<P>I had been working on my third symphony on and off, and whenever
	I thought I had a nice bit nailed, I&apos;d spend some time
	in the sphere playing it. Sometimes, the strangers who jammed in
	gave me new and interesting lines of inquiry, and that was good.
	Even when they didn&apos;t, playing an instrument was a fast
	track to intriguing an interesting, naked stranger.</P>
	<P>Which is how we met. She snagged a piano and pounded out
	barrelhouse runs in quirky time as I carried the main thread of the
	movement on a cello. At first it was irritating, but after a short
	while I came to a dawning comprehension of what she was doing to my
	music, and it was really <EM>good</EM>. I&apos;m a sucker for
	musicians.</P>
	<P>We brought the session to a crashing stop, me bowing furiously as
	spheres of perspiration beaded on my body and floated gracefully
	into the hydrotropic recyclers, she beating on the 88 like they were
	the perp who killed her partner.</P>
	<P>I collapsed dramatically as the last note crashed through the
	bubble. The singles, couples and groups stopped in midflight coitus
	to applaud. She took a bow, untethered herself from the Steinway,
	and headed for the hatch.</P>
	<P>I coiled my legs up and did a fast burn through the sphere,
	desperate to reach the hatch before she did. I caught her as she was
	leaving.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;That was great! I&apos;m Julius! How&apos;re
	you doing?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She reached out with both hands and squeezed my nose and my unit
	simultaneously&mdash;not hard, you understand, but playfully.
	&ldquo;Honk!&rdquo; she said, and
	squirmed through the hatch while I gaped at my burgeoning chub-on.</P>
	<P>I chased after her. &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; I called as she tumbled through the spoke of the station
	towards the gravity.</P>
	<P>She had a pianist&apos;s body&mdash;re-engineered
	arms and hands that stretched for impossible lengths, and she used
	them with a spacehand&apos;s grace, vaulting herself forward
	at speed. I bumbled after her best as I could on my freshman
	spacelegs, but by the time I reached the half-gee rim of the
	station, she was gone.</P>
	<P>I didn&apos;t find her again until the next movement was
	done and I went to the bubble to try it out on an oboe. I was just
	getting warmed up when she passed through the hatch and tied off to
	the piano.</P>
	<P>This time, I clamped the oboe under my arm and bopped over to her
	before moistening the reed and blowing. I hovered over the piano&apos;s
	top, looking her in the eye as we jammed. Her mood that day was 4/4
	time and I-IV-V progressions, in a feel that swung around from blues
	to rock to folk, teasing at the edge of my own melodies. She noodled
	at me, I noodled back at her, and her eyes crinkled charmingly
	whenever I managed a smidge of tuneful wit.</P>
	<P>She was almost completely flatchested, and covered in a fine, red
	downy fur, like a chipmunk. It was a jaunter&apos;s style,
	suited to the climate-controlled, soft-edged life in space. Fifty
	years later, I was dating Lil, another redhead, but Zed was my
	first.</P>
	<P>I played and played, entranced by the fluidity of her movements
	at the keyboard, her comical moues of concentration when picking out
	a particularly kicky little riff. When I got tired, I took it to a
	slow bridge or gave her a solo. I was going to make this last as
	long as I could. Meanwhile, I maneuvered my way between her and the
	hatch.</P>
	<P>When I blew the last note, I was wrung out as a washcloth, but I
	summoned the energy to zip over to the hatch and block it. She
	calmly untied and floated over to me.</P>
	<P>I looked in her eyes, silvered slanted cat-eyes, eyes that I&apos;d
	been staring into all afternoon, and watched the smile that started
	at their corners and spread right down to her long, elegant toes.
	She looked back at me, then, at length, grabbed ahold of my joint
	again.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;ll do,&rdquo; she
	said, and led me to her sleeping quarters, across the station.</P>
	<P>We didn&apos;t sleep.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Zoya had been an early network engineer for the geosynch
	broadband constellations that went up at the cusp of the world&apos;s
	ascent into Bitchunry. She&apos;d been exposed to a lot of
	hard rads and low gee and had generally become pretty transhuman as
	time went by, upgrading with a bewildering array of third-party
	enhancements: a vestigial tail, eyes that saw through most of the RF
	spectrum, her arms, her fur, dogleg reversible knee joints and a
	completely mechanical spine that wasn&apos;t prone to any of
	the absolutely inane bullshit that plagues the rest of us, like
	lower-back pain, intrascapular inflammation, sciatica and slipped
	discs.</P>
	<P>I thought I lived for fun, but I didn&apos;t have anything
	on Zed. She only talked when honking and whistling and grabbing and
	kissing wouldn&apos;t do, and routinely slapped upgrades into
	herself on the basis of any whim that crossed her mind, like when
	she resolved to do a spacewalk bare-skinned and spent the afternoon
	getting tin-plated and iron-lunged.</P>
	<P>I fell in love with her a hundred times a day, and wanted to
	strangle her twice as often. She stayed on her spacewalk for a
	couple of days, floating around the bubble, making crazy faces at
	its mirrored exterior. She had no way of knowing if I was inside,
	but she assumed that I was watching. Or maybe she didn&apos;t,
	and she was making faces for anyone&apos;s benefit.</P>
	<P>But then she came back through the lock, strange and wordless and
	her eyes full of the stars she&apos;d seen and her metallic
	skin cool with the breath of empty space, and she led me a merry
	game of tag through the station, the mess hall where we skidded
	sloppy through a wobbly ovoid of rice pudding, the greenhouses where
	she burrowed like a gopher and shinnied like a monkey, the living
	quarters and bubbles as we interrupted a thousand acts of coitus.</P>
	<P>You&apos;d have thought that we&apos;d have
	followed it up with an act of our own, and truth be told, that was
	certainly my expectation when we started the game I came to think of
	as the steeplechase, but we never did. Halfway through, I&apos;d
	lose track of carnal urges and return to a state of childlike
	innocence, living only for the thrill of the chase and the giggly
	feeling I got whenever she found some new, even-more-outrageous
	corner to turn. I think we became legendary on the station, that
	crazy pair that&apos;s always zipping in and zipping away,
	like having your party crashed by two naked, coed Marx Brothers.</P>
	<P>When I asked her to marry me, to return to Earth with me, to live
	with me until the universe&apos;s mainspring unwound, she
	laughed, honked my nose and my willie and shouted, &ldquo;YOU&apos;LL
	<EM>DO</EM>!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I took her home to Toronto and we took up residence ten stories
	underground in overflow residence for the University. Our Whuffie
	wasn&apos;t so hot earthside, and the endless institutional
	corridors made her feel at home while affording her opportunities
	for mischief.</P>
	<P>But bit by bit, the mischief dwindled, and she started talking
	more. At first, I admit I was relieved, glad that my strange, silent
	wife was finally acting normal, making nice with the neighbors
	instead of pranking them with endless honks and fanny-kicks and
	squirt guns. We gave up the steeplechase and she had the doglegs
	taken out, her fur removed, her eyes unsilvered to a hazel that was
	pretty and as fathomable as the silver had been inscrutable.</P>
	<P>We wore clothes. We entertained. I started to rehearse my
	symphony in low-Whuffie halls and parks with any musicians I could
	drum up, and she came out and didn&apos;t play, just sat to
	the side and smiled and smiled with a smile that never went beyond
	her lips.</P>
	<P>She went nuts.</P>
	<P>She shat herself. She pulled her hair. She cut herself with
	knives. She accused me of plotting to kill her. She set fire to the
	neighbors&apos; apartments, wrapped herself in plastic
	sheeting, dry-humped the furniture.</P>
	<P>She went nuts. She did it in broad strokes, painting the walls of
	our bedroom with her blood, jagging all night through rant after
	rant. I smiled and nodded and faced it for as long as I could, then
	I grabbed her and hauled her, kicking like a mule, to the doctor&apos;s
	office on the second floor. She&apos;d been dirtside for a
	year and nuts for a month, but it took me that long to face up to
	it.</P>
	<P>The doc diagnosed nonchemical dysfunction, which was by way of
	saying that it was her mind, not her brain, that was broken. In
	other words, I&apos;d driven her nuts.</P>
	<P>You can get counseling for nonchemical dysfunction, basically
	trying to talk it out, learn to feel better about yourself. She
	didn&apos;t want to.</P>
	<P>She was miserable, suicidal, murderous. In the brief moments of
	lucidity that she had under sedation, she consented to being
	restored from a backup that was made before we came to Toronto.</P>
	<P>I was at her side in the hospital when she woke up. I had
	prepared a written synopsis of the events since her last backup for
	her, and she read it over the next couple days.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Julius,&rdquo; she said,
	while I was making breakfast in our subterranean apartment. She
	sounded so serious, so fun-free, that I knew immediately that the
	news wouldn&apos;t be good.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; I said,
	setting out plates of bacon and eggs, steaming cups of coffee.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m going to go back to space, and revert
	to an older version.&rdquo; She had a
	shoulderbag packed, and she had traveling clothes on.</P>
	<P><EM>Oh, shit.</EM> &ldquo;Great,&rdquo; I said, with forced cheerfulness, making a mental inventory
	of my responsibilities dirtside. &ldquo;Give me a minute or
	two, I&apos;ll pack up. I miss space, too.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She shook her head, and anger blazed in her utterly scrutable
	hazel eyes. &ldquo;No. I&apos;m going back to who I was,
	before I met you.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>It hurt, bad. I had loved the old, steeplechase Zed, had loved
	her fun and mischief. The Zed she&apos;d become after we wed
	was terrible and terrifying, but I&apos;d stuck with her out
	of respect for the person she&apos;d been.</P>
	<P>Now she was off to restore herself from a backup made before she
	met me. She was going to lop 18 months out of her life, start over
	again, revert to a saved version.</P>
	<P>Hurt? It ached like a motherfucker.</P>
	<P>I went back to the station a month later, and saw her jamming in
	the sphere with a guy who had three extra sets of arms depending
	from his hips. He scuttled around the sphere while she played a jig
	on the piano, and when her silver eyes lit on me, there wasn&apos;t
	a shred of recognition in them. She&apos;d never met me.</P>
	<P>I died some, too, putting the incident out of my head and
	sojourning to Disney World, there to reinvent myself with a new
	group of friends, a new career, a new life. I never spoke of Zed
	again&mdash;especially not to Lil, who hardly needed me to
	pollute her with remembrances of my crazy exes.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>If I was nuts, it wasn&apos;t the kind of spectacular nuts
	that Zed had gone. It was a slow, seething, ugly nuts that had me
	alienating my friends, sabotaging my enemies, driving my girlfriend
	into my best friend&apos;s arms.</P>
	<P>I decided that I would see a doctor, just as soon as we&apos;d
	run the rehab past the ad-hoc&apos;s general meeting. I had
	to get my priorities straight.</P>
	<P>I pulled on last night&apos;s clothes and walked out to
	the Monorail station in the main lobby. The platform was jammed with
	happy guests, bright and cheerful and ready for a day of steady,
	hypermediated fun. I tried to make myself attend to them as
	individuals, but try as I might, they kept turning into a crowd, and
	I had to plant my feet firmly on the platform to keep from weaving
	among them to the edge, the better to snag a seat.</P>
	<P>The meeting was being held over the Sunshine Tree Terrace in
	Adventureland, just steps from where I&apos;d been turned
	into a road-pizza by the still-unidentified assassin. The
	Adventureland ad-hocs owed the Liberty Square crew a favor since my
	death had gone down on their turf, so they had given us use of their
	prize meeting room, where the Florida sun streamed through the slats
	of the shutters, casting a hash of dust-filled shafts of light
	across the room. The faint sounds of the tiki-drums and the spieling
	Jungle Cruise guides leaked through the room, a low-key ambient buzz
	from two of the Park&apos;s oldest rides.</P>
	<P>There were almost a hundred ad-hocs in the Liberty Square crew,
	almost all second-gen castmembers with big, friendly smiles. They
	filled the room to capacity, and there was much hugging and
	handshaking before the meeting came to order. I was thankful that
	the room was too small for the <EM>de rigueur</EM> ad-hoc
	circle-of-chairs, so that Lil was able to stand at a podium and
	command a smidge of respect.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hi there!&rdquo; she said,
	brightly. The weepy puffiness was still present around her eyes, if
	you knew how to look for it, but she was expert at putting on a
	brave face no matter what the ache.</P>
	<P>The ad-hocs roared back a collective, &ldquo;Hi, Lil!&rdquo; and laughed at their own corny tradition. Oh, they sure were
	a barrel of laughs at the Magic Kingdom.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Everybody knows why we&apos;re here, right?&rdquo; Lil said, with a self-deprecating smile. She&apos;d
	been lobbying hard for weeks, after all. &ldquo;Does anyone
	have any questions about the plans? We&apos;d like to start
	executing right away.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>A guy with deliberately boyish, wholesome features put his arm in
	the air. Lil acknowledged him with a nod. &ldquo;When you say &lsquo;right away,&rsquo; do you mean&mdash;&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I cut in. &ldquo;Tonight. After this meeting. We&apos;re
	on an eight-week production schedule, and the sooner we start, the
	sooner it&apos;ll be finished.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>The crowd murmured, unsettled. Lil shot me a withering look. I
	shrugged. Politics was not my game.</P>
	<P>Lil said, &ldquo;Don, we&apos;re trying something new
	here, a really streamlined process. The good part is, the process is
	<EM>short</EM>. In a couple months, we&apos;ll know if it&apos;s
	working for us. If it&apos;s not, hey, we can turn it around
	in a couple months, too. That&apos;s why we&apos;re
	not spending as much time planning as we usually do. It won&apos;t
	take five years for the idea to prove out, so the risks are
	lower.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Another castmember, a woman, apparent 40 with a round, motherly
	demeanor said, &ldquo;I&apos;m all for moving
	fast&mdash;Lord knows, our pacing hasn&apos;t always
	been that hot. But I&apos;m concerned about all these new
	people you propose to recruit&mdash;won&apos;t having
	more people slow us down when it comes to making new decisions?&rdquo;</P>
	<P><EM>No</EM>, I thought sourly, <EM>because the people I&apos;m
	bringing in aren&apos;t addicted to meetings</EM>.</P>
	<P>Lil nodded. &ldquo;That&apos;s a good point, Lisa.
	The offer we&apos;re making to the telepresence players is
	probationary&mdash;they don&apos;t get to vote until
	after we&apos;ve agreed that the rehab is a success.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Another castmember stood. I recognized him: Dave, a heavyset,
	self-important jerk who loved to work the front door, even though he
	blew his spiel about half the time. &ldquo;Lillian,&rdquo; he said, smiling sadly at her, &ldquo;I think you&apos;re
	really making a big mistake here. We love the Mansion, all of us,
	and so do the guests. It&apos;s a piece of history, and
	we&apos;re its custodians, not its masters. Changing it like
	this, well&hellip;&rdquo; he
	shook his head. &ldquo;It&apos;s not good stewardship.
	If the guests wanted to walk through a funhouse with guys jumping
	out of the shadows saying &lsquo;booga-booga,&rsquo;
	they&apos;d go to one of the Halloween Houses in their
	hometowns. The Mansion&apos;s better than that. I can&apos;t
	be a part of this plan.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I wanted to knock the smug grin off his face. I&apos;d
	delivered essentially the same polemic a thousand times&mdash;in
	reference to Debra&apos;s work&mdash;and hearing it
	from this jerk in reference to <EM>mine</EM> made me go all hot and
	red inside.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Look,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;If
	we don&apos;t do this, if we don&apos;t change things,
	they&apos;ll get changed <EM>for</EM> us. By someone else.
	The question, <EM>Dave</EM>, is whether a responsible custodian lets
	his custodianship be taken away from him, or whether he does
	everything he can to make sure that he&apos;s still around to
	ensure that his charge is properly cared for. Good custodianship
	isn&apos;t sticking your head in the sand.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I could tell I wasn&apos;t doing any good. The mood of the
	crowd was getting darker, the faces more set. I resolved not to
	speak again until the meeting was done, no matter what the
	provocation.</P>
	<P>Lil smoothed my remarks over, and fielded a dozen more, and it
	looked like the objections would continue all afternoon and all
	night and all the next day, and I felt woozy and overwrought and
	miserable all at the same time, staring at Lil and her harried smile
	and her nervous smoothing of her hair over her ears.</P>
	<P>Finally, she called the question. By tradition, the votes were
	collected in secret and publicly tabulated over the data-channels.
	The group&apos;s eyes unfocussed as they called up HUDs and
	watched the totals as they rolled in. I was offline and unable to
	vote or watch.</P>
	<P>At length, Lil heaved a relieved sigh and smiled, dropping her
	hands behind her back.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;All right then,&rdquo; she
	said, over the crowd&apos;s buzz. &ldquo;Let&apos;s
	get to work.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I stood up, saw Dan and Lil staring into each other&apos;s
	eyes, a meaningful glance between new lovers, and I saw red.
	Literally. My vision washed over pink, and a strobe pounded at the
	edges of my vision. I took two lumbering steps towards them and
	opened my mouth to say something horrible, and what came out was
	&ldquo;Waaagh.&rdquo; My right side
	went numb and my leg slipped out from under me and I crashed to the
	floor.</P>
	<P>The slatted light from the shutters cast its way across my chest
	as I tried to struggle up with my left arm, and then it all went
	black.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I wasn&apos;t nuts after all.</P>
	<P>The doctor&apos;s office in the Main Street infirmary was
	clean and white and decorated with posters of Jiminy Cricket in
	doctors&apos; whites with an outsized stethoscope. I came to
	on a hard pallet under a sign that reminded me to get a check-up
	twice a year, by gum! and I tried to bring my hands up to shield my
	eyes from the over bright light and the over-cheerful signage, and
	discovered that I couldn&apos;t move my arms. Further
	investigation revealed that this was because I was strapped down, in
	full-on four-point restraint.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Waaagh,&rdquo; I said
	again.</P>
	<P>Dan&apos;s worried face swam into my field of vision,
	along with a serious-looking doctor, apparent 70, with a Norman
	Rockwell face full of crow&apos;sfeet and smile-lines.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Welcome back, Julius. I&apos;m Doctor Pete,&rdquo; the doctor said, in a kindly voice that matched the face.
	Despite my recent disillusion with castmember bullshit, I found his
	schtick comforting.</P>
	<P>I slumped back against the pallet while the doc shone lights in
	my eyes and consulted various diagnostic apparati. I bore it in
	stoic silence, too confounded by the horrible Waaagh sounds to
	attempt more speech. The doc would tell me what was going on when he
	was ready.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Does he need to be tied up still?&rdquo; Dan asked, and I shook my head urgently. Being tied up
	wasn&apos;t my idea of a good time.</P>
	<P>The doc smiled kindly. &ldquo;I think it&apos;s for
	the best, for now. Don&apos;t worry, Julius, we&apos;ll
	have you up and about soon enough.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan protested, but stopped when the doc threatened to send him
	out of the room. He took my hand instead.</P>
	<P>My nose itched. I tried to ignore it, but it got worse and worse,
	until it was all I could think of, the flaming lance of itch that
	strobed at the tip of my nostril. Furiously, I wrinkled my face,
	rattled at my restraints. The doc absentmindedly noticed my
	gyrations and delicately scratched my nose with a gloved finger. The
	relief was fantastic. I just hoped my nuts didn&apos;t start
	itching anytime soon.</P>
	<P>Finally, the doctor pulled up a chair and did something that
	caused the head of the bed to raise up so that I could look him in
	the eye.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, now,&rdquo; he said,
	stroking his chin. &ldquo;Julius, you&apos;ve got a
	problem. Your friend here tells me your systems have been offline
	for more than a month. It sure would&apos;ve been better if
	you&apos;d come in to see me when it started up.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But you didn&apos;t, and things got worse.&rdquo; He nodded up at Jiminy Cricket&apos;s recriminations:
	Go ahead, see your doc! &ldquo;It&apos;s good advice,
	son, but what&apos;s done is done. You were restored from a
	backup about eight weeks ago, I see. Without more tests, I can&apos;t
	be sure, but my theory is that the brain-machine interface they
	installed at that time had a material defect. It&apos;s been
	deteriorating ever since, misfiring and rebooting. The shut-downs
	are a protective mechanism, meant to keep it from introducing the
	kind of seizure you experienced this afternoon. When the interface
	senses malfunction, it shuts itself down and boots a diagnostic
	mode, attempts to fix itself and come back online.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, that&apos;s fine for minor problems, but
	in cases like this, it&apos;s bad news. The interface has
	been deteriorating steadily, and it&apos;s only a matter of
	time before it does some serious damage.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Waaagh?&rdquo; I asked. I
	meant to say, <EM>All right, but what&apos;s wrong with my
	mouth?</EM></P>
	<P>The doc put a finger to my lips. &ldquo;Don&apos;t
	try. The interface has locked up, and it&apos;s taken some of
	your voluntary nervous processes with it. In time, it&apos;ll
	probably shut down, but for now, there&apos;s no point.
	That&apos;s why we&apos;ve got you strapped down&mdash;you
	were thrashing pretty hard when they brought you in, and we didn&apos;t
	want you to hurt yourself.&rdquo;</P>
	<P><EM>Probably shut down</EM>? Jesus. I could end up stuck like
	this forever. I started shaking.</P>
	<P>The doc soothed me, stroking my hand, and in the process pressed
	a transdermal on my wrist. The panic receded as the transdermal&apos;s
	sedative oozed into my bloodstream.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;There, there,&rdquo; he
	said. &ldquo;It&apos;s nothing permanent. We can grow
	you a new clone and refresh it from your last backup. Unfortunately,
	that backup is a few months old. If we&apos;d caught it
	earlier, we may&apos;ve been able to salvage a current
	backup, but given the deterioration you&apos;ve displayed to
	date&hellip; Well, there just wouldn&apos;t
	be any point.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>My heart hammered. I was going to lose two months&mdash;lose
	it all, never happened. My assassination, the new Hall of Presidents
	and my shameful attempt thereon, the fights with Lil, Lil and Dan,
	the meeting. My plans for the rehab! All of it, good and bad, every
	moment flensed away.</P>
	<P>I couldn&apos;t do it. I had a rehab to finish, and I was
	the only one who understood how it had to be done. Without my
	relentless prodding, the ad-hocs would surely revert to their old,
	safe ways. They might even leave it half-done, halt the process for
	an interminable review, present a soft belly for Debra to savage.</P>
	<P>I wouldn&apos;t be restoring from backup.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I had two more seizures before the interface finally gave up and
	shut itself down. I remember the first, a confusion of
	vision-occluding strobes and uncontrollable thrashing and the taste
	of copper, but the second happened without waking me from deep
	unconsciousness.</P>
	<P>When I came to again in the infirmary, Dan was still there. He
	had a day&apos;s growth of beard and new worrylines at the
	corners of his newly rejuvenated eyes. The doctor came in, shaking
	his head.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, now, it seems like the worst is over. I&apos;ve
	drawn up the consent forms for the refresh and the new clone will be
	ready in an hour or two. In the meantime, I think heavy sedation is
	in order. Once the restore&apos;s been completed, we&apos;ll
	retire this body for you and we&apos;ll be all finished
	up.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Retire this body? Kill me, is what it meant.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said. I
	thrilled in my restraints: my voice was back under my control!</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, really now.&rdquo; The
	doc lost his bedside manner, let his exasperation slip through.
	&ldquo;There&apos;s nothing else for it. If you&apos;d
	come to me when it all started, well, we might&apos;ve had
	other options. You&apos;ve got no one to blame but
	yourself.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I repeated.
	&ldquo;Not now. I won&apos;t sign.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan put his hand on mine. I tried to jerk out from under it, but
	the restraints and his grip held me fast. &ldquo;You&apos;ve
	got to do it, Julius. It&apos;s for the best,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m not going to let you kill me,&rdquo; I said, through clenched teeth. His fingertips were callused,
	worked rough with exertion well beyond the normal call of duty.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No one&apos;s killing you, son,&rdquo; the doctor said. Son, son, son. Who knew how old he was? He
	could be 18 for all I knew. &ldquo;It&apos;s just the
	opposite: we&apos;re saving you. If you continue like this,
	it will only get worse. The seizures, mental breakdown, the whole
	melon going soft. You don&apos;t want that.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I thought of Zed&apos;s spectacular transformation into a
	crazy person. <EM>No, I sure don&apos;t</EM>. &ldquo;I
	don&apos;t care about the interface. Chop it out. I can&apos;t
	do it now.&rdquo; I swallowed. &ldquo;Later.
	After the rehab. Eight more weeks.&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>The irony! Once the doc knew I was serious, he sent Dan out of
	the room and rolled his eyes up while he placed a call. I saw his
	gorge work as he subvocalized. He left me bound to the table, to
	wait.</P>
	<P>No clocks in the infirmary, and no internal clock, and it may
	have been ten minutes or five hours. I was catheterized, but I
	didn&apos;t know it until urgent necessity made the discovery
	for me.</P>
	<P>When the doc came back, he held a small device that I instantly
	recognized: a HERF gun.</P>
	<P>Oh, it wasn&apos;t the same model I&apos;d used on
	the Hall of Presidents. This one was smaller, and better made, with
	the precise engineering of a surgical tool. The doc raised his
	eyebrows at me. &ldquo;You know what this is,&rdquo; he said, flatly. A dim corner of my mind gibbered, <EM>he
	knows, he knows, the Hall of Presidents</EM>. But he didn&apos;t
	know. That episode was locked in my mind, invulnerable to backup.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This one is high-powered in the extreme. It will
	penetrate the interface&apos;s shielding and fuse it. It
	probably won&apos;t turn you into a vegetable. That&apos;s
	the best I can do. If this fails, we will restore you from your last
	backup. You have to sign the consent before I use it.&rdquo; He&apos;d dropped all kindly pretense from his voice,
	not bothering to disguise his disgust. I was pitching out the
	miracle of the Bitchun Society, the thing that had all but obsoleted
	the medical profession: why bother with surgery when you can grow a
	clone, take a backup, and refresh the new body? Some people swapped
	corpuses just to get rid of a cold.</P>
	<P>I signed. The doc wheeled my gurney into the crash and hum of the
	utilidors and then put it on a freight tram that ran to the
	Imagineering compound, and thence to a heavy, exposed Faraday cage.
	Of course: using the HERF on me would kill any electronics in the
	neighborhood. They had to shield me before they pulled the trigger.</P>
	<P>The doc placed the gun on my chest and loosened my restraints. He
	sealed the cage and retreated to the lab&apos;s door. He
	pulled a heavy apron and helmet with faceguard from a hook beside
	the door.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Once I am outside the door, point it at your head and
	pull the trigger. I&apos;ll come back in five minutes. Once I
	am in the room, place the gun on the floor and do not touch it. It
	is only good for a single usage, but I have no desire to find out
	I&apos;m wrong.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He closed the door. I took the pistol in my hand. It was heavy,
	dense with its stored energy, the tip a parabolic hollow to better
	focus its cone.</P>
	<P>I lifted the gun to my temple and let it rest there. My thumb
	found the trigger-stud.</P>
	<P>I paused. This wouldn&apos;t kill me, but it might lock
	the interface forever, paralyzing me, turning me into a thrashing
	maniac. I knew that I would never be able to pull the trigger. The
	doc must&apos;ve known, too&mdash;this was his way of
	convincing me to let him do that restore.</P>
	<P>I opened my mouth to call the doc, and what came out was
	&ldquo;Waaagh!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>The seizure started. My arm jerked and my thumb nailed the stud,
	and there was an ozone tang. The seizure stopped.</P>
	<P>I had no more interface.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>The doc looked sour and pinched when he saw me sitting up on the
	gurney, rubbing at my biceps. He produced a handheld diagnostic tool
	and pointed it at my melon, then pronounced every bit of digital
	microcircuitry in it dead. For the first time since my twenties, I
	was no more advanced than nature had made me.</P>
	<P>The restraints left purple bruises at my wrists and ankles, where
	I&apos;d thrashed against them. I hobbled out of the Faraday
	cage and the lab under my own power, but just barely, my muscles
	groaning from the inadvertent isometric exercises of my seizure.</P>
	<P>Dan was waiting in the utilidor, crouched and dozing against the
	wall. The doc shook him awake and his head snapped up, his hand
	catching the doc&apos;s in a lightning-quick reflex. It was
	easy to forget Dan&apos;s old line of work here in the Magic
	Kingdom, but when he smoothly snagged the doc&apos;s arm and
	sprang to his feet, eyes hard and alert, I remembered. My old pal,
	the action hero.</P>
	<P>Quickly, Dan released the doc and apologized. He assessed my
	physical state and wordlessly wedged his shoulder in my armpit,
	supporting me. I didn&apos;t have the strength to stop him. I
	needed sleep.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m taking you home,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We&apos;ll fight Debra off
	tomorrow.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; I said, and
	boarded the waiting tram.</P>
	<P>But we didn&apos;t go home. Dan took me back to my hotel,
	the Contemporary, and brought me up to my door. He keycarded the
	lock and stood awkwardly as I hobbled into the empty room that was
	my new home, as I collapsed into the bed that was mine now.</P>
	<P>With an apologetic look, he slunk away, back to Lil and the house
	we&apos;d shared.</P>
	<P>I slapped on a sedative transdermal that the doc had given me,
	and added a mood-equalizer that he&apos;d recommended to
	control my &ldquo;personality swings.&rdquo; In seconds, I was asleep.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch7" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 7</H1>
	<P>The meds helped me cope with the next couple of days, starting
	the rehab on the Mansion. We worked all night erecting a scaffolding
	around the facade, though no real work would be done on it&mdash;we
	wanted the appearance of rapid progress, and besides, I had an idea.</P>
	<P>I worked alongside Dan, using him as a personal secretary,
	handling my calls, looking up plans, monitoring the Net for the
	first grumblings as the Disney-going public realized that the
	Mansion was being taken down for a full-blown rehab. We didn&apos;t
	exchange any unnecessary words, standing side by side without ever
	looking into one another&apos;s eyes. I couldn&apos;t
	really feel awkward around Dan, anyway. He never let me, and besides
	we had our hands full directing disappointed guests away from the
	Mansion. A depressing number of them headed straight for the Hall of
	Presidents.</P>
	<P>We didn&apos;t have to wait long for the first panicked
	screed about the Mansion to appear. Dan read it aloud off his HUD:
	&ldquo;Hey! Anyone hear anything about scheduled maintenance at
	the HM? I just buzzed by on the way to the new H of P&apos;s
	and it looks like some big stuff&apos;s afoot&mdash;scaffolding,
	castmembers swarming in and out, see the pic. I hope they&apos;re
	not screwing up a good thing. BTW, don&apos;t miss the new H
	of P&apos;s&mdash;very Bitchun.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Right,&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;Who&apos;s the author, and is he on the list?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan cogitated a moment. &ldquo;<EM>She</EM> is Kim Wright,
	and she&apos;s on the list. Good Whuffie, lots of Mansion
	fanac, big readership.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Call her,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>This was the plan: recruit rabid fans right away, get &apos;em
	in costume, and put &apos;em up on the scaffolds. Give them
	outsized, bat-adorned tools and get them to play at construction
	activity in thumpy, undead pantomime. In time, Suneep and his gang
	would have a batch of telepresence robots up and running, and we&apos;d
	move to them, get them wandering the queue area, interacting with
	curious guests. The new Mansion would be open for business in 48
	hours, albeit in stripped-down fashion. The scaffolding made for a
	nice weenie, a visual draw that would pull the hordes that thronged
	Debra&apos;s Hall of Presidents over for a curious peek or
	two. Buzz city.</P>
	<P>I&apos;m a pretty smart guy.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Dan paged this Kim person and spoke to her as she was debarking
	the Pirates of the Caribbean. I wondered if she was the right person
	for the job: she seemed awfully enamored of the rehabs that Debra
	and her crew had performed. If I&apos;d had more time, I
	would&apos;ve run a deep background check on every one of the
	names on my list, but that would&apos;ve taken months.</P>
	<P>Dan made some small talk with Kim, speaking aloud in deference to
	my handicap, before coming to the point. &ldquo;We read your
	post about the Mansion&apos;s rehab. You&apos;re the
	first one to notice it, and we wondered if you&apos;d be
	interested in coming by to find out a little more about our
	plans.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan winced. &ldquo;She&apos;s a screamer,&rdquo; he whispered.</P>
	<P>Reflexively, I tried to pull up a HUD with my files on the
	Mansion fans we hoped to recruit. Of course, nothing happened. I&apos;d
	done that a dozen times that morning, and there was no end in sight.
	I couldn&apos;t seem to get lathered up about it, though, nor
	about anything else, not even the hickey just visible under Dan&apos;s
	collar. The transdermal mood-balancer on my bicep was seeing to
	that&mdash;doctor&apos;s orders.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Fine, fine. We&apos;re standing by the Pet
	Cemetery, two cast members, male, in Mansion costumes. About
	five-ten, apparent 30. You can&apos;t miss us.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She didn&apos;t. She arrived out of breath and excited,
	jogging. She was apparent 20, and dressed like a real 20 year old,
	in a hipster climate-control cowl that clung to and released her
	limbs, which were long and double-kneed. All the rage among the
	younger set, including the girl who&apos;d shot me.</P>
	<P>But the resemblance to my killer ended with her dress and body.
	She wasn&apos;t wearing a designer face, rather one that had
	enough imperfections to be the one she was born with, eyes set close
	and nose wide and slightly squashed.</P>
	<P>I admired the way she moved through the crowd, fast and low but
	without jostling anyone. &ldquo;Kim,&rdquo; I called as she drew near. &ldquo;Over here.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She gave a happy shriek and made a beeline for us. Even charging
	full-bore, she was good enough at navigating the crowd that she
	didn&apos;t brush against a single soul. When she reached us,
	she came up short and bounced a little. &ldquo;Hi, I&apos;m
	Kim!&rdquo; she said, pumping my arm with
	the peculiar violence of the extra-jointed. &ldquo;Julius,&rdquo; I said, then waited while she repeated the process with Dan.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So,&rdquo; she said,
	&ldquo;what&apos;s the deal?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I took her hand. &ldquo;Kim, we&apos;ve got a job for
	you, if you&apos;re interested.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She squeezed my hand hard and her eyes shone. &ldquo;I&apos;ll
	take it!&rdquo; she said.</P>
	<P>I laughed, and so did Dan. It was a polite, castmembery sort of
	laugh, but underneath it was relief. &ldquo;I think I&apos;d
	better explain it to you first,&rdquo; I
	said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Explain away!&rdquo; she
	said, and gave my hand another squeeze.</P>
	<P>I let go of her hand and ran down an abbreviated version of the
	rehab plans, leaving out anything about Debra and her ad-hocs. Kim
	drank it all in greedily. She cocked her head at me as I ran it
	down, eyes wide. It was disconcerting, and I finally asked, &ldquo;Are
	you recording this?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Kim blushed. &ldquo;I hope that&apos;s okay! I&apos;m
	starting a new Mansion scrapbook. I have one for every ride in the
	Park, but this one&apos;s gonna be a world-beater!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Here was something I hadn&apos;t thought about. Publishing
	ad-hoc business was tabu inside Park, so much so that it hadn&apos;t
	occurred to me that the new castmembers we brought in would want to
	record every little detail and push it out over the Net as a big old
	Whuffie collector.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I can switch it off,&rdquo; Kim
	said. She looked worried, and I really started to grasp how
	important the Mansion was to the people we were recruiting, how much
	of a privilege we were offering them.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Leave it rolling,&rdquo; I
	said. &ldquo;Let&apos;s show the world how it&apos;s
	done.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>We led Kim into a utilidor and down to costuming. She was
	half-naked by the time we got there, literally tearing off her
	clothes in anticipation of getting into character. Sonya, a Liberty
	Square ad-hoc that we&apos;d stashed at costuming, already
	had clothes waiting for her, a rotting maid&apos;s uniform
	with an oversized toolbelt.</P>
	<P>We left Kim on the scaffolding, energetically troweling a
	water-based cement substitute onto the wall, scraping it off and
	moving to a new spot. It looked boring to me, but I could believe
	that we&apos;d have to tear her away when the time came.</P>
	<P>We went back to trawling the Net for the next candidate.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>By lunchtime, there were ten drilling, hammering, troweling new
	castmembers around the scaffolding, pushing black wheelbarrows,
	singing &ldquo;Grim Grinning Ghosts&rdquo; and generally having a high old time.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This&apos;ll do,&rdquo; I
	said to Dan. I was exhausted and soaked with sweat, and the
	transdermal under my costume itched. Despite the happy-juice in my
	bloodstream, a streak of uncastmemberly crankiness was shot through
	my mood. I needed to get offstage.</P>
	<P>Dan helped me hobble away, and as we hit the utilidor, he
	whispered in my ear, &ldquo;This was a great idea, Julius.
	Really.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>We jumped a tram over to Imagineering, my chest swollen with
	pride. Suneep had three of his assistants working on the first
	generation of mobile telepresence robots for the exterior, and had
	promised a prototype for that afternoon. The robots were easy
	enough&mdash;just off-the-shelf stuff, really&mdash;but
	the costumes and kinematics routines were something else. Thinking
	about what he and Suneep&apos;s gang of hypercreative
	super-geniuses would come up with cheered me up a little, as did
	being out of the public eye.</P>
	<P>Suneep&apos;s lab looked like it had been hit by a
	tornado. Imagineer packs rolled in and out with arcane gizmos, or
	formed tight argumentative knots in the corners as they shouted over
	whatever their HUDs were displaying. In the middle of it all was
	Suneep, who looked like he was barely restraining an urge to shout
	Yippee! He was clearly in his element.</P>
	<P>He threw his arms open when he caught sight of Dan and me, threw
	them wide enough to embrace the whole mad, gibbering chaos. &ldquo;What
	wonderful flumgubbery!&rdquo; he shouted,
	over the noise.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure is,&rdquo; I agreed.
	&ldquo;How&apos;s the prototype coming?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Suneep waved absently, his short fingers describing trivialities
	in the air. &ldquo;In due time, in due time. I&apos;ve
	put that team onto something else, a kinematics routine for a class
	of flying spooks that use gasbags to stay aloft&mdash;silent
	and scary. It&apos;s old spy-tech, and the retrofit&apos;s
	coming tremendously. Take a look!&rdquo; He
	pointed a finger at me and, presumably, squirted some data my way.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m offline,&rdquo; I
	reminded him gently.</P>
	<P>He slapped his forehead, took a moment to push his hair off his
	face, and gave me an apologetic wave. &ldquo;Of course, of
	course. Here.&rdquo; He unrolled an LCD
	and handed it to me. A flock of spooks danced on the screen,
	rendered against the ballroom scene. They were thematically
	consistent with the existing Mansion ghosts, more funny than scary,
	and their faces were familiar. I looked around the lab and realized
	that they&apos;d caricatured various Imagineers.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Ah! You noticed,&rdquo; Suneep
	said, rubbing his hands together. &ldquo;A very good joke,
	yes?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This is terrific,&rdquo; I
	said, carefully. &ldquo;But I really need some robots up and
	running by tomorrow night, Suneep. We discussed this, remember?&rdquo; Without telepresence robots, my recruiting would be limited
	to fans like Kim, who lived in the area. I had broader designs than
	that.</P>
	<P>Suneep looked disappointed. &ldquo;Of course. We discussed
	it. I don&apos;t like to stop my people when they have good
	ideas, but there&apos;s a time and a place. I&apos;ll
	put them on it right away. Leave it to me.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan turned to greet someone, and I looked to see who it was. Lil.
	Of course. She was raccoon-eyed with fatigue, and she reached out
	for Dan&apos;s hand, saw me, and changed her mind.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hi, guys,&rdquo; she said,
	with studied casualness.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, hello!&rdquo; said
	Suneep. He fired his finger at her&mdash;the flying ghosts, I
	imagined. Lil&apos;s eyes rolled up for a moment, then she
	nodded exhaustedly at him.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; she
	said. &ldquo;I just heard from Lisa. She says the indoor crews
	are on-schedule. They&apos;ve got most of the animatronics
	dismantled, and they&apos;re taking down the glass in the
	Ballroom now.&rdquo; The Ballroom ghost
	effects were accomplished by means of a giant pane of polished glass
	that laterally bisected the room. The Mansion had been built around
	it&mdash;it was too big to take out in one piece. &ldquo;They
	say it&apos;ll be a couple days before they&apos;ve
	got it cut up and ready to remove.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>A pocket of uncomfortable silence descended on us, the roar of
	the Imagineers rushing in to fill it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You must be exhausted,&rdquo; Dan
	said, at length.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Goddamn right,&rdquo; I
	said, at the same moment that Lil said, &ldquo;I guess I am.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>We both smiled wanly. Suneep put his arms around Lil&apos;s
	and my shoulders and squeezed. He smelled of an exotic cocktail of
	industrial lubricant, ozone, and fatigue poisons.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You two should go home and give each other a
	massage,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&apos;ve
	earned some rest.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan met my eye and shook his head apologetically. I squirmed out
	from under Suneep&apos;s arm and thanked him quietly, then
	slunk off to the Contemporary for a hot tub and a couple hours of
	sleep.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I came back to the Mansion at sundown. It was cool enough that I
	took a surface route, costume rolled in a shoulderbag, instead of
	riding through the clattering, air-conditioned comfort of the
	utilidors.</P>
	<P>As a freshening breeze blew across me, I suddenly had a craving
	for <EM>real</EM> weather, the kind of climate I&apos;d grown
	up with in Toronto. It was October, for chrissakes, and a lifetime
	of conditioning told me that it was May. I stopped and leaned on a
	bench for a moment and closed my eyes. Unbidden, and with the
	clarity of a HUD, I saw High Park in Toronto, clothed in its autumn
	colors, fiery reds and oranges, shades of evergreen and earthy
	brown. God, I needed a vacation.</P>
	<P>I opened my eyes and realized that I was standing in front of the
	Hall of Presidents, and that there was a queue ahead of me for it,
	one that stretched back and back. I did a quick sum in my head and
	sucked air between my teeth: they had enough people for five or six
	full houses waiting here&mdash;easily an hour&apos;s
	wait. The Hall <EM>never</EM> drew crowds like this. Debra was
	working the turnstiles in Betsy Ross gingham, and she caught my eye
	and snapped a nod at me.</P>
	<P>I stalked off to the Mansion. A choir of zombie-shambling new
	recruits had formed up in front of the gate, and were groaning their
	way through &ldquo;Grim Grinning Ghosts,&rdquo; with a new call-and-response structure. A small audience
	participated, urged on by the recruits on the scaffolding.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, at least that&apos;s going right,&rdquo; I muttered to myself. And it was, except that I could see
	members of the ad-hoc looking on from the sidelines, and the looks
	weren&apos;t kindly. Totally obsessive fans are a good
	measure of a ride&apos;s popularity, but they&apos;re
	kind of a pain in the ass, too. They lipsynch the soundtrack, cadge
	souvenirs and pester you with smarmy, show-off questions. After a
	while, even the cheeriest castmember starts to lose patience,
	develop an automatic distaste for them.</P>
	<P>The Liberty Square ad-hocs who were working on the Mansion had
	been railroaded into approving a rehab, press-ganged into working on
	it, and were now forced to endure the company of these grandstanding
	megafans. If I&apos;d been there when it all
	started&mdash;instead of sleeping!&mdash;I may&apos;ve
	been able to massage their bruised egos, but now I wondered if it
	was too late.</P>
	<P>Nothing for it but to do it. I ducked into a utilidor, changed
	into my costume and went back onstage. I joined the
	call-and-response enthusiastically, walking around to the ad-hocs
	and getting them to join in, reluctantly or otherwise.</P>
	<P>By the time the choir retired, sweaty and exhausted, a group of
	ad-hocs were ready to take their place, and I escorted my recruits
	to an offstage break-room.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Suneep didn&apos;t deliver the robot prototypes for a
	week, and told me that it would be another week before I could have
	even five production units. Though he didn&apos;t say it, I
	got the sense that his guys were out of control, so excited by the
	freedom from ad-hoc oversight that they were running wild. Suneep
	himself was nearly a wreck, nervous and jumpy. I didn&apos;t
	press it.</P>
	<P>Besides, I had problems of my own. The new recruits were
	multiplying. I was staying on top of the fan response to the rehab
	from a terminal I&apos;d had installed in my hotel room. Kim
	and her local colleagues were fielding millions of hits every day,
	their Whuffie accumulating as envious fans around the world logged
	in to watch their progress on the scaffolding.</P>
	<P>That was all according to plan. What wasn&apos;t according
	to plan was that the new recruits were doing their own recruiting,
	extending invitations to their net-pals to come on down to Florida,
	bunk on their sofas and guest-beds, and present themselves to me for
	active duty.</P>
	<P>The tenth time it happened, I approached Kim in the break-room.
	Her gorge was working, her eyes tracked invisible words across the
	middle distance. No doubt she was penning yet another breathless
	missive about the magic of working in the Mansion. &ldquo;Hey,
	there,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Have
	you got a minute to meet with me?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She held up a single finger, then, a moment later, gave me a
	bright smile.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hi, Julius!&rdquo; she
	said. &ldquo;Sure!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why don&apos;t you change into civvies,
	we&apos;ll take a walk through the Park and talk?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Kim wore her costume every chance she got. I&apos;d been
	quite firm about her turning it in to the laundry every night
	instead of wearing it home.</P>
	<P>Reluctantly, she stepped into a change-room and switched into her
	cowl. We took the utilidor to the Fantasyland exit and walked
	through the late-afternoon rush of children and their adults, queued
	deep and thick for Snow White, Dumbo and Peter Pan.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;How&apos;re you liking it here?&rdquo; I asked.</P>
	<P>Kim gave a little bounce. &ldquo;Oh, Julius, it&apos;s
	the best time of my life, really! A dream come true. I&apos;m
	meeting so many interesting people, and I&apos;m really
	feeling creative. I can&apos;t wait to try out the
	telepresence rigs, too.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, I&apos;m really pleased with what you
	and your friends are up to here. You&apos;re working hard,
	putting on a good show. I like the songs you&apos;ve been
	working up, too.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She did one of those double-kneed shuffles that was the basis of
	any number of action vids those days and she was suddenly standing
	in front of me, hand on my shoulder, looking into my eyes. She
	looked serious.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Is there a problem, Julius? If there is, I&apos;d
	rather we just talked about it, instead of making chitchat.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I smiled and took her hand off my shoulder. &ldquo;How old
	are you, Kim?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Nineteen,&rdquo; she said.
	&ldquo;What&apos;s the problem?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Nineteen! Jesus, no wonder she was so volatile. <EM>What&apos;s
	my excuse, then?</EM></P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s not a problem, Kim, it&apos;s
	just something I wanted to discuss with you. The people you-all have
	been bringing down to work for me, they&apos;re all really
	great castmembers.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But we have limited resources around here. Not enough
	hours in the day for me to stay on top of the new folks, the rehab,
	everything. Not to mention that until we open the new Mansion,
	there&apos;s a limited number of extras we can use out front.
	I&apos;m concerned that we&apos;re going to put
	someone on stage without proper training, or that we&apos;re
	going to run out of uniforms; I&apos;m also concerned about
	people coming all the way here and discovering that there aren&apos;t
	any shifts for them to take.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She gave me a relieved look. &ldquo;Is <EM>that</EM> all?
	Don&apos;t worry about it. I&apos;ve been talking to
	Debra, over at the Hall of Presidents, and she says she can pick up
	any people who can&apos;t be used at the Mansion&mdash;we
	could even rotate back and forth!&rdquo; She
	was clearly proud of her foresight.</P>
	<P>My ears buzzed. Debra, one step ahead of me all along the way.
	She probably suggested that Kim do some extra recruiting in the
	first place. She&apos;d take in the people who came down to
	work the Mansion, convince them they&apos;d been hard done by
	the Liberty Square crew, and rope them into her little Whuffie
	ranch, the better to seize the Mansion, the Park, the whole of Walt
	Disney World.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, I don&apos;t think it&apos;ll come
	to that,&rdquo; I said, carefully.
	&ldquo;I&apos;m sure we can find a use for them all at
	the Mansion. More the merrier.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Kim cocked quizzical, but let it go. I bit my tongue. The pain
	brought me back to reality, and I started planning costume
	production, training rosters, bunking. God, if only Suneep would
	finish the robots!</P>
	<HR>
	<P>&ldquo;What do you mean, &lsquo;no&rsquo;?&rdquo; I said, hotly.</P>
	<P>Lil folded her arms and glared. &ldquo;No, Julius. It
	won&apos;t fly. The group is already upset that all the glory
	is going to the new people, they&apos;ll never let us bring
	more in. They also won&apos;t stop working on the rehab to
	train them, costume them, feed them and mother them. They&apos;re
	losing Whuffie every day that the Mansion&apos;s shut up, and
	they don&apos;t want any more delays. Dave&apos;s
	already joined up with Debra, and I&apos;m sure he&apos;s
	not the last one.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dave&mdash;the jerk who&apos;d pissed all over the
	rehab in the meeting. Of course he&apos;d gone over. Lil and
	Dan stood side by side on the porch of the house where I&apos;d
	lived. I&apos;d driven out that night to convince Lil to sell
	the ad-hocs on bringing in more recruits, but it wasn&apos;t
	going according to plan. They wouldn&apos;t even let me in
	the house.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So what do I tell Kim?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Tell her whatever you want,&rdquo; Lil said. &ldquo;You brought her in&mdash;you
	manage her. Take some goddamn responsibility for once in your
	life.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>It wasn&apos;t going to get any better. Dan gave me an
	apologetic look. Lil glared a moment longer, then went into the
	house.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Debra&apos;s doing real well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The net&apos;s all over her.
	Biggest thing ever. Flash-baking is taking off in nightclubs, dance
	mixes with the DJ&apos;s backup being shoved in bursts into
	the dancers.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;God,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I
	fucked up, Dan. I fucked it all up.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He didn&apos;t say anything, and that was the same as
	agreeing.</P>
	<P>Driving back to the hotel, I decided I needed to talk to Kim. She
	was a problem I didn&apos;t need, and maybe a problem I could
	solve. I pulled a screeching U-turn and drove the little runabout to
	her place, a tiny condo in a crumbling complex that had once been a
	gated seniors&apos; village, pre-Bitchun.</P>
	<P>Her place was easy to spot. All the lights were burning, faint
	conversation audible through the screen door. I jogged up the steps
	two at a time, and was about to knock when a familiar voice drifted
	through the screen.</P>
	<P>Debra, saying: &ldquo;Oh yes, oh yes! Terrific idea! I&apos;d
	never really thought about using streetmosphere players to liven up
	the queue area, but you&apos;re making a lot of sense. You
	people have just been doing the <EM>best</EM> work over at the
	Mansion&mdash;find me more like you and I&apos;ll take
	them for the Hall any day!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I heard Kim and her young friends chatting excitedly, proudly.
	The anger and fear suffused me from tip to toe, and I felt suddenly
	light and cool and ready to do something terrible.</P>
	<P>I padded silently down the steps and got into my runabout.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Some people never learn. I&apos;m one of them, apparently.</P>
	<P>I almost chortled over the foolproof simplicity of my plan as I
	slipped in through the cast entrance using the ID card I&apos;d
	scored when my systems went offline and I was no longer able to
	squirt my authorization at the door.</P>
	<P>I changed clothes in a bathroom on Main Street, switching into a
	black cowl that completely obscured my features, then slunk through
	the shadows along the storefronts until I came to the moat around
	Cinderella&apos;s castle. Keeping low, I stepped over the
	fence and duck-walked down the embankment, then slipped into the
	water and sloshed across to the Adventureland side.</P>
	<P>Slipping along to the Liberty Square gateway, I flattened myself
	in doorways whenever I heard maintenance crews passing in the
	distance, until I reached the Hall of Presidents, and in a twinkling
	I was inside the theater itself.</P>
	<P>Humming the Small World theme, I produced a short wrecking bar
	from my cowl&apos;s tabbed pocket and set to work.</P>
	<P>The primary broadcast units were hidden behind a painted scrim
	over the stage, and they were surprisingly well built for a first
	generation tech. I really worked up a sweat smashing them, but I
	kept at it until not a single component remained recognizable. The
	work was slow and loud in the silent Park, but it lulled me into a
	sleepy reverie, an autohypnotic swing-bang-swing-bang timeless time.
	To be on the safe side, I grabbed the storage units and slipped them
	into the cowl.</P>
	<P>Locating their backup units was a little trickier, but years of
	hanging out at the Hall of Presidents while Lil tinkered with the
	animatronics helped me. I methodically investigated every nook,
	cranny and storage area until I located them, in what had been a
	break-room closet. By now, I had the rhythm of the thing, and I made
	short work of them.</P>
	<P>I did one more pass, wrecking anything that looked like it might
	be a prototype for the next generation or notes that would help them
	reconstruct the units I&apos;d smashed.</P>
	<P>I had no illusions about Debra&apos;s
	preparedness&mdash;she&apos;d have something offsite
	that she could get up and running in a few days. I wasn&apos;t
	doing anything permanent, I was just buying myself a day or two.</P>
	<P>I made my way clean out of the Park without being spotted, and
	sloshed my way into my runabout, shoes leaking water from the moat.</P>
	<P>For the first time in weeks, I slept like a baby.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Of course, I got caught. I don&apos;t really have the
	temperament for Machiavellian shenanigans, and I left a trail a mile
	wide, from the muddy footprints in the Contemporary&apos;s
	lobby to the wrecking bar thoughtlessly left behind, with my cowl
	and the storage units from the Hall, forgotten on the back seat of
	my runabout.</P>
	<P>I whistled my personal jazzy uptempo version of &ldquo;Grim
	Grinning Ghosts&rdquo; as I made my way
	from Costuming, through the utilidor, out to Liberty Square, a few
	minutes before the Park opened.</P>
	<P>Standing in front of me were Lil and Debra. Debra was holding my
	cowl and wrecking bar. Lil held the storage units.</P>
	<P>I hadn&apos;t put on my transdermals that morning, and so
	the emotion I felt was unmuffled, loud and yammering.</P>
	<P>I ran.</P>
	<P>I ran past them, along the road to Adventureland, past the Tiki
	Room where I&apos;d been killed, past the Adventureland gate
	where I&apos;d waded through the moat, down Main Street. I
	ran and ran, elbowing early guests, trampling flowers, knocking over
	an apple cart across from the Penny Arcade.</P>
	<P>I ran until I reached the main gate, and turned, thinking I&apos;d
	outrun Lil and Debra and all my problems. I&apos;d thought
	wrong. They were both there, a step behind me, puffing and red.
	Debra held my wrecking bar like a weapon, and she brandished it at
	me.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re a goddamn idiot, you know that?&rdquo; she said. I think if we&apos;d been alone, she
	would&apos;ve swung it at me.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Can&apos;t take it when someone else plays
	rough, huh, Debra?&rdquo; I sneered.</P>
	<P>Lil shook her head disgustedly. &ldquo;She&apos;s
	right, you are an idiot. The ad-hoc&apos;s meeting in
	Adventureland. You&apos;re coming.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; I asked,
	feeling belligerent. &ldquo;You going to honor me for all my
	hard work?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We&apos;re going to talk about the future,
	Julius, what&apos;s left of it for us.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;For God&apos;s sake, Lil, can&apos;t
	you see what&apos;s going on? They <EM>killed</EM> me! They
	did it, and now we&apos;re fighting each other instead of
	her! Why can&apos;t you see how <EM>wrong</EM> that is?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;d better watch those accusations,
	Julius,&rdquo; Debra said, quietly and
	intensely, almost hissing. &ldquo;I don&apos;t know who
	killed you or why, but you&apos;re the one who&apos;s
	guilty here. You need help.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I barked a humorless laugh. Guests were starting to stream into
	the now-open Park, and several of them were watching intently as the
	three costumed castmembers shouted at each other. I could feel my
	Whuffie hemorrhaging. &ldquo;Debra, you are purely full of
	shit, and your work is trite and unimaginative. You&apos;re a
	fucking despoiler and you don&apos;t even have the guts to
	admit it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That&apos;s <EM>enough</EM>, Julius,&rdquo; Lil said, her face hard, her rage barely in check. &ldquo;We&apos;re
	going.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Debra walked a pace behind me, Lil a pace before, all the way
	through the crowd to Adventureland. I saw a dozen opportunities to
	slip into a gap in the human ebb and flow and escape custody, but I
	didn&apos;t try. I wanted a chance to tell the whole world
	what I&apos;d done and why I&apos;d done it.</P>
	<P>Debra followed us in when we mounted the steps to the meeting
	room. Lil turned. &ldquo;I don&apos;t think you should
	be here, Debra,&rdquo; she said in
	measured tones.</P>
	<P>Debra shook her head. &ldquo;You can&apos;t keep me
	out, you know. And you shouldn&apos;t want to. We&apos;re
	on the same side.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I snorted derisively, and I think it decided Lil. &ldquo;Come
	on, then,&rdquo; she said.</P>
	<P>It was SRO in the meeting room, packed to the gills with the
	entire ad-hoc, except for my new recruits. No work was being done on
	the rehab, then, and the Liberty Belle would be sitting at her dock.
	Even the restaurant crews were there. Liberty Square must&apos;ve
	been a ghost town. It gave the meeting a sense of urgency: the
	knowledge that there were guests in Liberty Square wandering
	aimlessly, looking for castmembers to help them out. Of course,
	Debra&apos;s crew might&apos;ve been around.</P>
	<P>The crowd&apos;s faces were hard and bitter, leaving no
	doubt in my mind that I was in deep shit. Even Dan, sitting in the
	front row, looked angry. I nearly started crying right then.
	Dan&mdash;oh, Dan. My pal, my confidant, my patsy, my rival,
	my nemesis. Dan, Dan, Dan. I wanted to beat him to death and hug him
	at the same time.</P>
	<P>Lil took the podium and tucked stray hairs behind her ears.
	&ldquo;All right, then,&rdquo; she
	said. I stood to her left and Debra stood to her right.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Thanks for coming out today. I&apos;d like to
	get this done quickly. We all have important work to get to. I&apos;ll
	run down the facts: last night, a member of this ad-hoc vandalized
	the Hall of Presidents, rendering it useless. It&apos;s
	estimated that it will take at least a week to get it back up and
	running.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I don&apos;t have to tell you that this
	isn&apos;t acceptable. This has never happened before, and it
	will never happen again. We&apos;re going to see to that.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;d like to propose that no further work
	be done on the Mansion until the Hall of Presidents is fully
	operational. I will be volunteering my services on the repairs.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>There were nods in the audience. Lil wouldn&apos;t be the
	only one working at the Hall that week. &ldquo;Disney World
	isn&apos;t a competition,&rdquo; Lil
	said. &ldquo;All the different ad-hocs work together, and we do
	it to make the Park as good as we can. We lose sight of that at our
	peril.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I nearly gagged on bile. &ldquo;I&apos;d like to say
	something,&rdquo; I said, as calmly as I
	could manage.</P>
	<P>Lil shot me a look. &ldquo;That&apos;s fine, Julius.
	Any member of the ad-hoc can speak.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I took a deep breath. &ldquo;I did it, all right?&rdquo; I said. My voice cracked. &ldquo;I did it, and I don&apos;t
	have any excuse for having done it. It may not have been the
	smartest thing I&apos;ve ever done, but I think you all
	should understand how I was driven to it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We&apos;re not <EM>supposed</EM> to be in
	competition with one another here, but we all know that that&apos;s
	just a polite fiction. The truth is that there&apos;s real
	competition in the Park, and that the hardest players are the crew
	that rehabbed the Hall of Presidents. They <EM>stole</EM> the Hall
	from you! They did it while you were distracted, they used <EM>me</EM>
	to engineer the distraction, they <EM>murdered</EM> me!&rdquo; I heard the shriek creeping into my voice, but I couldn&apos;t
	do anything about it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Usually, the lie that we&apos;re all on the
	same side is fine. It lets us work together in peace. But that
	changed the day they had me shot. If you keep on believing it,
	you&apos;re going to lose the Mansion, the Liberty Belle, Tom
	Sawyer Island&mdash;all of it. All the history we have with
	this place&mdash;all the history that the billions who&apos;ve
	visited it have&mdash;it&apos;s going to be destroyed
	and replaced with the sterile, thoughtless shit that&apos;s
	taken over the Hall. Once that happens, there&apos;s nothing
	left that makes this place special. Anyone can get the same
	experience sitting at home on the sofa! What happens then, huh? How
	much longer do you think this place will stay open once the only
	people here are <EM>you?</EM>&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Debra smiled condescendingly. &ldquo;Are you finished,
	then?&rdquo; she asked, sweetly. &ldquo;Fine.
	I know I&apos;m not a member of this group, but since it was
	my work that was destroyed last night, I think I would like to
	address Julius&apos;s statements, if you don&apos;t
	mind.&rdquo; She paused, but no one spoke
	up.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;First of all, I want you all to know that we don&apos;t
	hold you responsible for what happened last night. We know who was
	responsible, and he needs help. I urge you to see to it that he gets
	it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Next, I&apos;d like to say that as far as
	I&apos;m concerned, we are on the same side&mdash;the
	side of the Park. This is a special place, and it couldn&apos;t
	exist without all of our contributions. What happened to Julius was
	terrible, and I sincerely hope that the person responsible is caught
	and brought to justice. But that person wasn&apos;t me or any
	of the people in my ad-hoc.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Lil, I&apos;d like to thank you for your
	generous offer of assistance, and we&apos;ll take you up on
	it. That goes for all of you&mdash;come on by the Hall,
	we&apos;ll put you to work. We&apos;ll be up and
	running in no time.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Now, as far as the Mansion goes, let me say this once
	and for all: neither me nor my ad-hoc have any desire to take over
	the operations of the Mansion. It is a terrific attraction, and
	it&apos;s getting better with the work you&apos;re all
	doing. If you&apos;ve been worrying about it, then you can
	stop worrying now. We&apos;re all on the same side.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Thanks for hearing me out. I&apos;ve got to go
	see my team now.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She turned and left, a chorus of applause following her out.</P>
	<P>Lil waited until it died down, then said, &ldquo;All right,
	then, we&apos;ve got work to do, too. I&apos;d like to
	ask you all a favor, first. I&apos;d like us to keep the
	details of last night&apos;s incident to ourselves. Letting
	the guests and the world know about this ugly business isn&apos;t
	good for anyone. Can we all agree to do that?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>There was a moment&apos;s pause while the results were
	tabulated on the HUDs, then Lil gave them a million-dollar smile.
	&ldquo;I knew you&apos;d come through. Thanks, guys.
	Let&apos;s get to work.&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I spent the day at the hotel, listlessly scrolling around on my
	terminal. Lil had made it very clear to me after the meeting that I
	wasn&apos;t to show my face inside the Park until I&apos;d
	&ldquo;gotten help,&rdquo; whatever
	that meant.</P>
	<P>By noon, the news was out. It was hard to pin down the exact
	source, but it seemed to revolve around the new recruits. One of
	them had told their net-pals about the high drama in Liberty Square,
	and mentioned my name.</P>
	<P>There were already a couple of sites vilifying me, and I expected
	more. I needed some kind of help, that was for sure.</P>
	<P>I thought about leaving then, turning my back on the whole
	business and leaving Walt Disney World to start yet another new
	life, Whuffie-poor and fancy-free.</P>
	<P>It wouldn&apos;t be so bad. I&apos;d been in poor
	repute before, not so long ago. That first time Dan and I had palled
	around, back at the U of T, I&apos;d been the center of a lot
	of pretty ambivalent sentiment, and Whuffie-poor as a man can be.</P>
	<P>I slept in a little coffin on-campus, perfectly climate
	controlled. It was cramped and dull, but my access to the network
	was free and I had plenty of material to entertain myself. While I
	couldn&apos;t get a table in a restaurant, I was free to
	queue up at any of the makers around town and get myself whatever I
	wanted to eat and drink, whenever I wanted it. Compared to 99.99999
	percent of all the people who&apos;d ever lived, I had a life
	of unparalleled luxury.</P>
	<P>Even by the standards of the Bitchun Society, I was hardly a
	rarity. The number of low-esteem individuals at large was
	significant, and they got along just fine, hanging out in parks,
	arguing, reading, staging plays, playing music.</P>
	<P>Of course, that wasn&apos;t the life for me. I had Dan to
	pal around with, a rare high-net-Whuffie individual who was willing
	to fraternize with a shmuck like me. He&apos;d stand me to
	meals at sidewalk cafes and concerts at the SkyDome, and shoot down
	any snotty reputation-punk who sneered at my Whuffie tally. Being
	with Dan was a process of constantly reevaluating my beliefs in the
	Bitchun Society, and I&apos;d never had a more vibrant,
	thought-provoking time in all my life.</P>
	<P>I could have left the Park, deadheaded to anywhere in the world,
	started over. I could have turned my back on Dan, on Debra, on Lil
	and the whole mess.</P>
	<P>I didn&apos;t.</P>
	<P>I called up the doc.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch8" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 8</H1>
	<P>Doctor Pete answered on the third ring, audio-only. In the
	background, I heard a chorus of crying children, the constant
	backdrop of the Magic Kingdom infirmary.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hi, doc,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hello, Julius. What can I do for you?&rdquo; Under the veneer of professional medical and castmember
	friendliness, I sensed irritation.</P>
	<P><EM>Make it all good again</EM>. &ldquo;I&apos;m not
	really sure. I wanted to see if I could talk it over with you. I&apos;m
	having some pretty big problems.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m on-shift until five. Can it wait
	until then?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>By then, I had no idea if I&apos;d have the nerve to see
	him. &ldquo;I don&apos;t think so&mdash;I was
	hoping we could meet right away.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;If it&apos;s an emergency, I can have an
	ambulance sent for you.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s urgent, but not an emergency. I need
	to talk about it in person. Please?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He sighed in undoctorly, uncastmemberly fashion. &ldquo;Julius,
	I&apos;ve got important things to do here. Are you sure this
	can&apos;t wait?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I bit back a sob. &ldquo;I&apos;m sure, doc.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;All right then. When can you be here?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil had made it clear that she didn&apos;t want me in the
	Park. &ldquo;Can you meet me? I can&apos;t really come
	to you. I&apos;m at the Contemporary, Tower B, room 2334.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I don&apos;t really make house calls, son.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I know, I know.&rdquo; I
	hated how pathetic I sounded. &ldquo;Can you make an exception?
	I don&apos;t know who else to turn to.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;ll be there as soon as I can. I&apos;ll
	have to get someone to cover for me. Let&apos;s not make a
	habit of this, all right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I whooshed out my relief. &ldquo;I promise.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He disconnected abruptly, and I found myself dialing Dan.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; he said,
	cautiously.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Doctor Pete is coming over, Dan. I don&apos;t
	know if he can help me&mdash;I don&apos;t know if
	anyone can. I just wanted you to know.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He surprised me, then, and made me remember why he was still my
	friend, even after everything. &ldquo;Do you want me to come
	over?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That would be very nice,&rdquo; I
	said, quietly. &ldquo;I&apos;m at the hotel.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Give me ten minutes,&rdquo; he
	said, and rang off.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>He found me on my patio, looking out at the Castle and the peaks
	of Space Mountain. To my left spread the sparkling waters of the
	Seven Seas Lagoon, to my right, the Property stretched away for mile
	after manicured mile. The sun was warm on my skin, faint strains of
	happy laughter drifted with the wind, and the flowers were in bloom.
	In Toronto, it would be freezing rain, gray buildings, noisome rapid
	transit (a monorail hissed by), and hard-faced anonymity. I missed
	it.</P>
	<P>Dan pulled up a chair next to mine and sat without a word. We
	both stared out at the view for a long while.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s something else, isn&apos;t
	it?&rdquo; I said, finally.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I suppose so,&rdquo; he
	said. &ldquo;I want to say something before the doc comes by,
	Julius.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Go ahead.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Lil and I are through. It should never have happened
	in the first place, and I&apos;m not proud of myself. If you
	two were breaking up, that&apos;s none of my business, but I
	had no right to hurry it along.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; I said.
	I was too drained for emotion.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;ve taken a room here, moved my
	things.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;How&apos;s Lil taking it?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, she thinks I&apos;m a total bastard. I
	suppose she&apos;s right.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I suppose she&apos;s partly right,&rdquo; I corrected him.</P>
	<P>He gave me a gentle slug in the shoulder. &ldquo;Thanks.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>We waited in companionable silence until the doc arrived.</P>
	<P>He bustled in, his smile lines drawn up into a sour purse and
	waited expectantly. I left Dan on the patio while I took a seat on
	the bed.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m cracking up or something,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I&apos;ve been acting erratically,
	sometimes violently. I don&apos;t know what&apos;s
	wrong with me.&rdquo; I&apos;d
	rehearsed the speech, but it still wasn&apos;t easy to choke
	out.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We both know what&apos;s wrong, Julius,&rdquo; the doc said, impatiently. &ldquo;You need to be
	refreshed from your backup, get set up with a fresh clone and retire
	this one. We&apos;ve had this talk.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I can&apos;t do it,&rdquo; I said, not meeting his eye. &ldquo;I just
	can&apos;t&mdash;isn&apos;t there another
	way?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>The doc shook his head. &ldquo;Julius, I&apos;ve got
	limited resources to allocate. There&apos;s a perfectly good
	cure for what&apos;s ailing you, and if you won&apos;t
	take it, there&apos;s not much I can do for you.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But what about meds?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Your problem isn&apos;t a chemical imbalance,
	it&apos;s a mental defect. Your <EM>brain</EM> is <EM>broken</EM>,
	son. All that meds will do is mask the symptoms, while you get
	worse. I can&apos;t tell you what you want to hear,
	unfortunately. Now, If you&apos;re ready to take the cure, I
	can retire this clone immediately and get you restored into a new
	one in 48 hours.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Isn&apos;t there another way? Please? You have
	to help me&mdash;I can&apos;t lose all this.&rdquo; I couldn&apos;t admit my real reasons for being so
	attached to this singularly miserable chapter in my life, not even
	to myself.</P>
	<P>The doctor rose to go. &ldquo;Look, Julius, you haven&apos;t
	got the Whuffie to make it worth anyone&apos;s time to
	research a solution to this problem, other than the one that we all
	know about. I can give you mood-suppressants, but that&apos;s
	not a permanent solution.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He boggled. &ldquo;You <EM>can&apos;t</EM> just take
	dope for the rest of your life, son. Eventually, something will
	happen to this body&mdash;I see from your file that you&apos;re
	stroke-prone&mdash;and you&apos;re going to get
	refreshed from your backup. The longer you wait, the more traumatic
	it&apos;ll be. You&apos;re robbing from your future
	self for your selfish present.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>It wasn&apos;t the first time the thought had crossed my
	mind. Every passing day made it harder to take the cure. To lie down
	and wake up friends with Dan, to wake up and be in love with Lil
	again. To wake up to a Mansion the way I remembered it, a Hall of
	Presidents where I could find Lil bent over with her head in a
	President&apos;s guts of an afternoon. To lie down and wake
	without disgrace, without knowing that my lover and my best friend
	would betray me, <EM>had</EM> betrayed me. 
	</P>
	<P>I just couldn&apos;t do it&mdash;not yet, anyway. 
	</P>
	<P>Dan&mdash;Dan was going to kill himself soon, and if I
	restored myself from my old backup, I&apos;d lose my last
	year with him. I&apos;d lose <EM>his</EM> last year.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Let&apos;s table that, doc. I hear what
	you&apos;re saying, but there&apos;re complications. I
	guess I&apos;ll take the mood-suppressants for now.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He gave me a cold look. &ldquo;I&apos;ll give you a
	scrip, then. I could&apos;ve done that without coming out
	here. Please don&apos;t call me anymore.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I was shocked by his obvious ire, but I didn&apos;t
	understand it until he was gone and I told Dan what had happened.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Us old-timers, we&apos;re used to thinking of
	doctors as highly trained professionals&mdash;all that
	pre-Bitchun med-school stuff, long internships, anatomy drills...
	Truth is, the average doc today gets more training in bedside manner
	than bioscience. &lsquo;Doctor&rsquo; Pete is a
	technician, not an MD, not the way you and I mean it. Anyone with
	the kind of knowledge you&apos;re looking for is working as a
	historical researcher, not a doctor.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;But that&apos;s not the illusion. The doc is
	supposed to be the authority on medical matters, even though he&apos;s
	only got one trick: restore from backup. You&apos;re
	reminding Pete of that, and he&apos;s not happy to have it
	happen.&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I waited a week before returning to the Magic Kingdom, sunning
	myself on the white sand beach at the Contemporary, jogging the Walk
	Around the World, taking a canoe out to the wild and overgrown
	Discovery Island, and generally cooling out. Dan came by in the
	evenings and it was like old times, running down the pros and cons
	of Whuffie and Bitchunry and life in general, sitting on my porch
	with a sweating pitcher of lemonade.</P>
	<P>On the last night, he presented me with a clever little handheld,
	a museum piece that I recalled fondly from the dawning days of the
	Bitchun Society. It had much of the functionality of my defunct
	systems, in a package I could slip in my shirt pocket. It felt like
	part of a costume, like the turnip watches the Ben Franklin
	streetmosphere players wore at the American Adventure.</P>
	<P>Museum piece or no, it meant that I was once again qualified to
	participate in the Bitchun Society, albeit more slowly and less
	efficiently than I once may&apos;ve. I took it downstairs the
	next morning and drove to the Magic Kingdom&apos;s castmember
	lot.</P>
	<P>At least, that was the plan. When I got down to the
	Contemporary&apos;s parking lot, my runabout was gone. A
	quick check with the handheld revealed the worst: my Whuffie was low
	enough that someone had just gotten inside and driven away,
	realizing that they could make more popular use of it than I could.</P>
	<P>With a sinking feeling, I trudged up to my room and swiped my key
	through the lock. It emitted a soft, unsatisfied <EM>bzzz</EM> and
	lit up, &ldquo;Please see the front desk.&rdquo; My room had been reassigned, too. I had the short end of the
	Whuffie stick.</P>
	<P>At least there was no mandatory Whuffie check on the monorail
	platform, but the other people on the car were none too friendly to
	me, and no one offered me an inch more personal space than was
	necessary. I had hit bottom.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I took the castmember entrance to the Magic Kingdom, clipping my
	name tag to my Disney Operations polo shirt, ignoring the glares of
	my fellow castmembers in the utilidors.</P>
	<P>I used the handheld to page Dan. &ldquo;Hey there,&rdquo; he said, brightly. I could tell instantly that I was being
	humored.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Where are you?&rdquo; I
	asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, up in the Square. By the Liberty Tree.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>In front of the Hall of Presidents. I worked the handheld, pinged
	some Whuffie manually. Debra was spiked so high it seemed she&apos;d
	never come down, as were Tim and her whole crew in aggregate. They
	were drawing from guests by the millions, and from castmembers and
	from people who&apos;d read the popular accounts of their
	struggle against the forces of petty jealousy and sabotage&mdash;i.e.,
	me.</P>
	<P>I felt light-headed. I hurried along to costuming and changed
	into the heavy green Mansion costume, then ran up the stairs to the
	Square.</P>
	<P>I found Dan sipping a coffee and sitting on a bench under the
	giant, lantern-hung Liberty Tree. He had a second cup waiting for
	me, and patted the bench next to him. I sat with him and sipped,
	waiting for him to spill whatever bit of rotten news he had for me
	this morning&mdash;I could feel it hovering like storm clouds.</P>
	<P>He wouldn&apos;t talk though, not until we finished the
	coffee. Then he stood and strolled over to the Mansion. It wasn&apos;t
	rope-drop yet, and there weren&apos;t any guests in the Park,
	which was all for the better, given what was coming next.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Have you taken a look at Debra&apos;s Whuffie
	lately?&rdquo; he asked, finally, as we
	stood by the pet cemetery, considering the empty scaffolding.</P>
	<P>I started to pull out the handheld but he put a hand on my arm.
	&ldquo;Don&apos;t bother,&rdquo; he
	said, morosely. &ldquo;Suffice it to say, Debra&apos;s
	gang is number one with a bullet. Ever since word got out about what
	happened to the Hall, they&apos;ve been stacking it deep.
	They can do just about anything, Jules, and get away with it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>My stomach tightened and I found myself grinding my molars.
	&ldquo;So, what is it they&apos;ve done, Dan?&rdquo; I asked, already knowing the answer.</P>
	<P>Dan didn&apos;t have to respond, because at that moment,
	Tim emerged from the Mansion, wearing a light cotton work-smock. He
	had a thoughtful expression, and when he saw us, he beamed his elfin
	grin and came over.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hey guys!&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hi, Tim,&rdquo; Dan said.
	I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Pretty exciting stuff, huh?&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I haven&apos;t told him yet,&rdquo; Dan said, with forced lightness. &ldquo;Why don&apos;t
	you run it down?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, it&apos;s pretty radical, I have to
	admit. We&apos;ve learned some stuff from the Hall that we
	wanted to apply, and at the same time, we wanted to capture some of
	the historical character of the ghost story.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I opened my mouth to object, but Dan put a hand on my forearm.
	&ldquo;Really?&rdquo; he asked
	innocently. &ldquo;How do you plan on doing that?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, we&apos;re keeping the telepresence
	robots&mdash;that&apos;s a honey of an idea,
	Julius&mdash;but we&apos;re giving each one an uplink
	so that it can flash-bake. We&apos;ve got some high-Whuffie
	horror writers pulling together a series of narratives about the
	lives of each ghost: how they met their tragic ends, what they&apos;ve
	done since, you know.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;The way we&apos;ve storyboarded it, the guests
	stream through the ride pretty much the way they do now, walking
	through the preshow and then getting into the ride-vehicles, the
	Doom Buggies. But here&apos;s the big change: we <EM>slow it
	all down</EM>. We trade off throughput for intensity, make it more
	of a premium product.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So you&apos;re a guest. From the queue to the
	unload zone, you&apos;re being chased by these ghosts, these
	telepresence robots, and they&apos;re really scary&mdash;I&apos;ve
	got Suneep&apos;s concept artists going back to the drawing
	board, hitting basic research on stuff that&apos;ll just
	scare the guests silly. When a ghost catches you, lays its hands on
	you&mdash;wham! Flash-bake! You get its whole grisly story in
	three seconds, across your frontal lobe. By the time you&apos;ve
	left, you&apos;ve had ten or more ghost-contacts, and the
	next time you come back, it&apos;s all new ghosts with all
	new stories. The way that the Hall&apos;s drawing &apos;em,
	we&apos;re bound to be a hit.&rdquo; He
	put his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, clearly proud
	of himself.</P>
	<P>When Epcot Center first opened, long, long ago, there&apos;d
	been an ugly decade or so in ride design. Imagineering found a
	winning formula for Spaceship Earth, the flagship ride in the big
	golf ball, and, in their drive to establish thematic continuity,
	they&apos;d turned the formula into a cookie-cutter, stamping
	out half a dozen clones for each of the &ldquo;themed&rdquo; areas in the Future Showcase. It went like this: first, we
	were cavemen, then there was ancient Greece, then Rome burned (cue
	sulfur-odor FX), then there was the Great Depression, and, finally,
	we reached the modern age. Who knows what the future holds? We do!
	We&apos;ll all have videophones and be living on the ocean
	floor. Once was cute&mdash;compelling and inspirational,
	even&mdash;but six times was embarrassing. Like everyone, once
	Imagineering got themselves a good hammer, everything started to
	resemble a nail. Even now, the Epcot ad-hocs were repeating the sins
	of their forebears, closing every ride with a scene of Bitchun
	utopia.</P>
	<P>And Debra was repeating the classic mistake, tearing her way
	through the Magic Kingdom with her blaster set to flash-bake.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Tim,&rdquo; I said,
	hearing the tremble in my voice. &ldquo;I thought you said that
	you had no designs on the Mansion, that you and Debra wouldn&apos;t
	be trying to take it away from us. Didn&apos;t you say
	that?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tim rocked back as if I&apos;d slapped him and the blood
	drained from his face. &ldquo;But we&apos;re not taking
	it away!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You
	<EM>invited</EM> us to help.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I shook my head, confused. &ldquo;We did?&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Dan said.
	&ldquo;Kim and some of the other rehab cast went to Debra
	yesterday and asked her to do a design review of the current rehab
	and suggest any changes. She was good enough to agree, and they&apos;ve
	come up with some great ideas.&rdquo; I
	read between the lines: the newbies you invited in have gone over to
	the other side and we&apos;re going to lose everything
	because of them. I felt like shit.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well, I stand corrected,&rdquo; I
	said, carefully. Tim&apos;s grin came back and he clapped his
	hands together. <EM>He really loves the Mansion</EM>, I thought. <EM>He
	could have been on our side, if we had only played it all right.</EM></P>
	<HR>
	<P>Dan and I took to the utilidors and grabbed a pair of bicycles
	and sped towards Suneep&apos;s lab, jangling our bells at the
	rushing castmembers. &ldquo;They don&apos;t have the
	authority to invite Debra in,&rdquo; I
	panted as we pedaled.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Says who?&rdquo; Dan said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It was part of the deal&mdash;they knew that
	they were probationary members right from the start. They weren&apos;t
	even allowed into the design meetings.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Looks like they took themselves off probation,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>Suneep gave us both a chilly look when we entered his lab. He had
	dark circles under his eyes and his hands shook with exhaustion. He
	seemed to be holding himself erect with nothing more than raw anger.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So much for building without interference,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We agreed that this project wouldn&apos;t
	change midway through. Now it has, and I&apos;ve got other
	commitments that I&apos;m going to have to cancel because
	this is going off-schedule.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I made soothing apologetic gestures with my hands. &ldquo;Suneep,
	believe me, I&apos;m just as upset about this as you are. We
	don&apos;t like this one little bit.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He harrumphed. &ldquo;We had a deal, Julius,&rdquo; he said, hotly. &ldquo;I would do the rehab for you and
	you would keep the ad-hocs off my back. I&apos;ve been
	holding up my end of the bargain, but where the hell have you been?
	If they replan the rehab now, I&apos;ll <EM>have</EM> to go
	along with them. I can&apos;t just leave the Mansion
	half-done&mdash;they&apos;ll murder me.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>The kernel of a plan formed in my mind. &ldquo;Suneep, we
	don&apos;t like the new rehab plan, and we&apos;re
	going to stop it. You can help. Just stonewall them&mdash;tell
	them they&apos;ll have to find other Imagineering support if
	they want to go through with it, that you&apos;re booked
	solid.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan gave me one of his long, considering looks, then nodded a
	minute approval. &ldquo;Yeah,&rdquo; he
	drawled. &ldquo;That&apos;ll help all right. Just tell
	&apos;em that they&apos;re welcome to make any changes
	they want to the plan, <EM>if</EM> they can find someone else to
	execute them.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Suneep looked unhappy. &ldquo;Fine&mdash;so then they
	go and find someone else to do it, and that person gets all the
	credit for the work my team&apos;s done so far. I just flush
	my time down the toilet.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It won&apos;t come to that,&rdquo; I said quickly. &ldquo;If you can just keep saying no
	for a couple days, we&apos;ll do the rest.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Suneep looked doubtful.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I promise,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>Suneep ran his stubby fingers through his already crazed hair.
	&ldquo;All right,&rdquo; he said,
	morosely.</P>
	<P>Dan slapped him on the back. &ldquo;Good man,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>It should have worked. It almost did.</P>
	<P>I sat in the back of the Adventureland conference room while Dan
	exhorted.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Look, you don&apos;t have to roll over for
	Debra and her people! This is <EM>your</EM> garden, and you&apos;ve
	tended it responsibly for years. She&apos;s got no right to
	move in on you&mdash;you&apos;ve got all the Whuffie
	you need to defend the place, if you all work together.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>No castmember likes confrontation, and the Liberty Square bunch
	were tough to rouse to action. Dan had turned down the air
	conditioning an hour before the meeting and closed up all the
	windows, so that the room was a kiln for hard-firing irritation into
	rage. I stood meekly in the back, as far as possible from Dan. He
	was working his magic on my behalf, and I was content to let him do
	his thing.</P>
	<P>When Lil had arrived, she&apos;d sized up the situation
	with a sour expression: sit in the front, near Dan, or in the back,
	near me. She&apos;d chosen the middle, and to concentrate on
	Dan I had to tear my eyes away from the sweat glistening on her
	long, pale neck.</P>
	<P>Dan stalked the aisles like a preacher, eyes blazing.
	&ldquo;They&apos;re <EM>stealing</EM> your future!
	They&apos;re <EM>stealing</EM> your <EM>past</EM>! They claim
	they&apos;ve got your support!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He lowered his tone. &ldquo;I don&apos;t think
	that&apos;s true.&rdquo; He
	grabbed a castmember by her hand and looked into her eyes. &ldquo;Is
	it true?&rdquo; he said so low it was
	almost a whisper.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; the castmember
	said.</P>
	<P>He dropped her hand and whirled to face another castmember. &ldquo;Is
	it true?&rdquo; he demanded, raising his
	voice, slightly.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No!&rdquo; the castmember
	said, his voice unnaturally loud after the whispers. A nervous
	chuckle rippled through the crowd.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Is it true?&rdquo; he
	said, striding to the podium, shouting now.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No!&rdquo; the crowd
	roared.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;NO!&rdquo; he shouted
	back.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You don&apos;t <EM>have to</EM> roll over and
	take it! You can fight back, carry on with the plan, send them
	packing. They&apos;re only taking over because you&apos;re
	letting them. Are you going to let them?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;NO!&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Bitchun wars are rare. Long before anyone tries a takeover of
	anything, they&apos;ve done the arithmetic and ensured
	themselves that the ad-hoc they&apos;re displacing doesn&apos;t
	have a hope of fighting back.</P>
	<P>For the defenders, it&apos;s a simple decision: step down
	gracefully and salvage some reputation out of the thing&mdash;fighting
	back will surely burn away even that meager reward.</P>
	<P>No one benefits from fighting back&mdash;least of all the
	thing everyone&apos;s fighting over. For example:</P>
	<P>It was the second year of my undergrad, taking a double-major in
	not making trouble for my profs and keeping my mouth shut. It was
	the early days of Bitchun, and most of us were still a little
	unclear on the concept.</P>
	<P>Not all of us, though: a group of campus shit-disturbers, grad
	students in the Sociology Department, were on the bleeding edge of
	the revolution, and they knew what they wanted: control of the
	Department, oustering of the tyrannical, stodgy profs, a bully
	pulpit from which to preach the Bitchun gospel to a generation of
	impressionable undergrads who were too cowed by their workloads to
	realize what a load of shit they were being fed by the University.</P>
	<P>At least, that&apos;s what the intense, heavyset woman who
	seized the mic at my Soc 200 course said, that sleepy morning
	mid-semester at Convocation Hall. Nineteen hundred students filled
	the hall, a capacity crowd of bleary, coffee-sipping time-markers,
	and they woke up in a hurry when the woman&apos;s strident
	harangue burst over their heads.</P>
	<P>I saw it happen from the very start. The prof was down there on
	the stage, a speck with a tie-mic, droning over his slides, and then
	there was a blur as half a dozen grad students rushed the stage.
	They were dressed in University poverty-chic, wrinkled slacks and
	tattered sports coats, and five of them formed a human wall in front
	of the prof while the sixth, the heavyset one with the dark hair and
	the prominent mole on her cheek, unclipped his mic and clipped it to
	her lapel.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Wakey wakey!&rdquo; she
	called, and the reality of the moment hit home for me: this wasn&apos;t
	on the lesson-plan.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Come on, heads up! This is <EM>not</EM> a drill. The
	University of Toronto Department of Sociology is under new
	management. If you&apos;ll set your handhelds to
	&lsquo;receive,&rsquo; we&apos;ll be beaming out
	new lesson-plans momentarily. If you&apos;ve forgotten your
	handhelds, you can download the plans later on. I&apos;m
	going to run it down for you right now, anyway.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Before I start though, I have a prepared statement
	for you. You&apos;ll probably hear this a couple times more
	today, in your other classes. It&apos;s worth repeating. Here
	goes:</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We reject the stodgy, tyrannical rule of the profs at
	this Department. We demand bully pulpits from which to preach the
	Bitchun gospel. Effective immediately, the University of Toronto
	Ad-Hoc Sociology Department is <EM>in charge</EM>. We promise
	high-relevance curriculum with an emphasis on reputation economies,
	post-scarcity social dynamics, and the social theory of infinite
	life-extension. No more Durkheim, kids, just deadheading! This will
	be <EM>fun</EM>.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She taught the course like a pro&mdash;you could tell
	she&apos;d been drilling her lecture for a while.
	Periodically, the human wall behind her shuddered as the prof made a
	break for it and was restrained.</P>
	<P>At precisely 9:50 a.m. she dismissed the class, which had hung on
	her every word. Instead of trudging out and ambling to our next
	class, the whole nineteen hundred of us rose, and, as one, started
	buzzing to our neighbors, a roar of &ldquo;Can you believe
	it?&rdquo; that followed us out the door
	and to our next encounter with the Ad-Hoc Sociology Department.</P>
	<P>It was cool, that day. I had another soc class, Constructing
	Social Deviance, and we got the same drill there, the same stirring
	propaganda, the same comical sight of a tenured prof battering
	himself against a human wall of ad-hocs.</P>
	<P>Reporters pounced on us when we left the class, jabbing at us
	with mics and peppering us with questions. I gave them a big
	thumbs-up and said, &ldquo;Bitchun!&rdquo; in classic undergrad eloquence.</P>
	<P>The profs struck back the next morning. I got a heads-up from the
	newscast as I brushed my teeth: the Dean of the Department of
	Sociology told a reporter that the ad-hocs&apos; courses
	would not be credited, that they were a gang of thugs who were
	totally unqualified to teach. A counterpoint interview from a
	spokesperson for the ad-hocs established that all of the new
	lecturers had been writing course-plans and lecture notes for the
	profs they replaced for years, and that they&apos;d also
	written most of their journal articles.</P>
	<P>The profs brought University security out to help them regain
	their lecterns, only to be repelled by ad-hoc security guards in
	homemade uniforms. University security got the message&mdash;anyone
	could be replaced&mdash;and stayed away.</P>
	<P>The profs picketed. They held classes out front attended by
	grade-conscious brown-nosers who worried that the ad-hocs&apos;
	classes wouldn&apos;t count towards their degrees. Fools like
	me alternated between the outdoor and indoor classes, not learning
	much of anything.</P>
	<P>No one did. The profs spent their course-times whoring for
	Whuffie, leading the seminars like encounter groups instead of
	lectures. The ad-hocs spent their time badmouthing the profs and
	tearing apart their coursework.</P>
	<P>At the end of the semester, everyone got a credit and the
	University Senate disbanded the Sociology program in favor of a
	distance-ed offering from Concordia in Montreal. Forty years later,
	the fight was settled forever. Once you took backup-and-restore, the
	rest of the Bitchunry just followed, a value-system settling over
	you. 
	</P>
	<P>Those who didn&apos;t take backup-and-restore may have
	objected, but, hey, they all died.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>The Liberty Square ad-hocs marched shoulder to shoulder through
	the utilidors and, as a mass, took back the Haunted Mansion. Dan,
	Lil and I were up front, careful not to brush against one another as
	we walked quickly through the backstage door and started a
	bucket-brigade, passing out the materials that Debra&apos;s
	people had stashed there, along a line that snaked back to the front
	porch of the Hall of Presidents, where they were unceremoniously
	dumped.</P>
	<P>Once the main stash was vacated, we split up and roamed the ride,
	its service corridors and dioramas, the break-room and the secret
	passages, rounding up every scrap of Debra&apos;s crap and
	passing it out the door.</P>
	<P>In the attic scene, I ran into Kim and three of her giggly little
	friends, their eyes glinting in the dim light. The gaggle of
	transhuman kids made my guts clench, made me think of Zed and of Lil
	and of my unmediated brain, and I had a sudden urge to shred them
	verbally.</P>
	<P>No.</P>
	<P>No. That way lay madness and war. This was about taking back what
	was ours, not punishing the interlopers. &ldquo;Kim, I think
	you should leave,&rdquo; I said, quietly.</P>
	<P>She snorted and gave me a dire look. &ldquo;Who died and
	made you boss?&rdquo; she said. Her
	friends thought it very brave, they made it clear with
	double-jointed hip-thrusts and glares.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Kim, you can leave now or you can leave later. The
	longer you wait, the worse it will be for you and your Whuffie. You
	blew it, and you&apos;re not a part of the Mansion anymore.
	Go home, go to Debra. Don&apos;t stay here, and don&apos;t
	come back. Ever.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Ever. Be cast out of this thing that you love, that you obsess
	over, that you worked for. &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; I said, quiet, dangerous, barely in control.</P>
	<P>They sauntered into the graveyard, hissing vitriol at me. Oh,
	they had lots of new material to post to the anti-me sites, messages
	that would get them Whuffie with people who thought I was the scum
	of the earth. A popular view, those days.</P>
	<P>I got out of the Mansion and looked at the bucket-brigade,
	followed it to the front of the Hall. The Park had been open for an
	hour, and a herd of guests watched the proceedings in confusion. The
	Liberty Square ad-hocs passed their loads around in clear
	embarrassment, knowing that they were violating every principle they
	cared about.</P>
	<P>As I watched, gaps appeared in the bucket-brigade as castmembers
	slipped away, faces burning scarlet with shame. At the Hall of
	Presidents, Debra presided over an orderly relocation of her things,
	a cheerful cadre of her castmembers quickly moving it all offstage.
	I didn&apos;t have to look at my handheld to know what was
	happening to our Whuffie.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>By evening, we were back on schedule. Suneep supervised the
	placement of his telepresence rigs and Lil went over every system in
	minute detail, bossing a crew of ad-hocs that trailed behind her,
	double- and triple-checking it all.</P>
	<P>Suneep smiled at me when he caught sight of me, hand-scattering
	dust in the parlor.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Congratulations, sir,&rdquo; he
	said, and shook my hand. &ldquo;It was masterfully done.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Thanks, Suneep. I&apos;m not sure how
	masterful it was, but we got the job done, and that&apos;s
	what counts.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Your partners, they&apos;re happier than
	I&apos;ve seen them since this whole business started. I know
	how they feel!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>My partners? Oh, yes, Dan and Lil. How happy were they, I
	wondered. Happy enough to get back together? My mood fell, even
	though a part of me said that Dan would never go back to her, not
	after all we&apos;d been through together.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m glad you&apos;re glad. We
	couldn&apos;t have done it without you, and it looks like
	we&apos;ll be open for business in a week.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, I should think so. Are you coming to the party
	tonight?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Party? Probably something the Liberty Square ad-hocs were putting
	on. I would almost certainly be persona non grata. &ldquo;I
	don&apos;t think so,&rdquo; I
	said, carefully. &ldquo;I&apos;ll probably work late
	here.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He chided me for working too hard, but once he saw that I had no
	intention of being dragged to the party, he left off.</P>
	<P>And that&apos;s how I came to be in the Mansion at 2 a.m.
	the next morning, dozing in a backstage break room when I heard a
	commotion from the parlor. Festive voices, happy and loud, and I
	assumed it was Liberty Square ad-hocs coming back from their party.</P>
	<P>I roused myself and entered the parlor.</P>
	<P>Kim and her friends were there, pushing hand-trucks of Debra&apos;s
	gear. I got ready to shout something horrible at them, and that&apos;s
	when Debra came in. I moderated the shout to a snap, opened my mouth
	to speak, stopped.</P>
	<P>Behind Debra were Lil&apos;s parents, frozen these long
	years in their canopic jars in Kissimmee.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch9" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 9</H1>
	<P>Lil&apos;s parents went into their jars with little
	ceremony. I saw them just before they went in, when they stopped in
	at Lil&apos;s and my place to kiss her goodbye and wish her
	well.</P>
	<P>Tom and I stood awkwardly to the side while Lil and her mother
	held an achingly chipper and polite farewell.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So,&rdquo; I said to Tom.
	&ldquo;Deadheading.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He cocked an eyebrow. &ldquo;Yup. Took the backup this
	morning.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Before coming to see their daughter, they&apos;d taken
	their backups. When they woke, this event&mdash;everything
	following the backup&mdash;would never have happened for them.</P>
	<P>God, they were bastards.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;When are you coming back?&rdquo; I asked, keeping my castmember face on, carefully hiding away
	the disgust.</P>
	<P>&apos;We&apos;ll be sampling monthly, just getting
	a digest dumped to us. When things look interesting enough, we&apos;ll
	come on back.&rdquo; He waggled a finger
	at me. &ldquo;I&apos;ll be keeping an eye on you and
	Lillian&mdash;you treat her right, you hear?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We&apos;re sure going to miss you two around
	here,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>He pishtoshed and said, &ldquo;You won&apos;t even
	notice we&apos;re gone. This is your world now&mdash;we&apos;re
	just getting out of the way for a while, letting you-all take a run
	at it. We wouldn&apos;t be going down if we didn&apos;t
	have faith in you two.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil and her mom kissed one last time. Her mother was more
	affectionate than I&apos;d ever seen her, even to the point
	of tearing up a little. Here in this moment of vanishing
	consciousness, she could be whomever she wanted, knowing that it
	wouldn&apos;t matter the next time she awoke.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Julius,&rdquo; she said,
	taking my hands, squeezing them. &ldquo;You&apos;ve got
	some wonderful times ahead of you&mdash;between Lil and the
	Park, you&apos;re going to have a tremendous experience, I
	just know it.&rdquo; She was infinitely
	serene and compassionate, and I knew it didn&apos;t count.</P>
	<P>Still smiling, they got into their runabout and drove away to get
	the lethal injections, to become disembodied consciousnesses, to
	lose their last moments with their darling daughter.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>They were not happy to be returned from the dead. Their new
	bodies were impossibly young, pubescent and hormonal and doleful and
	kitted out in the latest trendy styles. In the company of Kim and
	her pals, they made a solid mass of irate adolescence.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Just what the hell do you think you&apos;re
	doing?&rdquo; Rita asked, shoving me hard
	in the chest. I stumbled back into my carefully scattered dust,
	raising a cloud.</P>
	<P>Rita came after me, but Tom held her back. &ldquo;Julius, go
	away. Your actions are totally indefensible. Keep your mouth shut
	and go away.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I held up a hand, tried to wave away his words, opened my mouth
	to speak.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Don&apos;t say a word,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Leave. Now.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;<EM>Don&apos;t stay here and don&apos;t
	come back. Ever</EM>,&rdquo; Kim said, an
	evil look on her face.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;No
	goddamn it no. You&apos;re going to hear me out, and then
	I&apos;m going to get Lil and her people and they&apos;re
	going to back me up. That&apos;s not negotiable.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>We stared at each other across the dim parlor. Debra made a
	twiddling motion and the lights came up full and harsh. The expertly
	crafted gloom went away and it was just a dusty room with a fake
	fireplace.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Let him speak,&rdquo; Debra
	said. Rita folded her arms and glared.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I did some really awful things,&rdquo; I said, keeping my head up, keeping my eyes on them. &ldquo;I
	can&apos;t excuse them, and I don&apos;t ask you to
	forgive them. But that doesn&apos;t change the fact that
	we&apos;ve put our hearts and souls into this place, and
	it&apos;s not right to take it from us. Can&apos;t we
	have one constant corner of the world, one bit frozen in time for
	the people who love it that way? Why does your success mean our
	failure?</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Can&apos;t you see that we&apos;re
	carrying on your work? That we&apos;re tending a legacy you
	left us?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Are you through?&rdquo; Rita
	asked.</P>
	<P>I nodded.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;This place is not a historical preserve, Julius,
	it&apos;s a ride. If you don&apos;t understand that,
	you&apos;re in the wrong place. It&apos;s not my
	goddamn fault that you decided that your stupidity was on my behalf,
	and it doesn&apos;t make it any less stupid. All you&apos;ve
	done is confirm my worst fears.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Debra&apos;s mask of impartiality slipped. &ldquo;You
	stupid, deluded asshole,&rdquo; she said,
	softly. &ldquo;You totter around, pissing and moaning about
	your little murder, your little health problems&mdash;yes,
	I&apos;ve heard&mdash;your little fixation on keeping
	things the way they are. You need some perspective, Julius. You need
	to get away from here: Disney World isn&apos;t good for you
	and you&apos;re sure as hell not any good for Disney
	World.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>It would have hurt less if I hadn&apos;t come to the same
	conclusion myself, somewhere along the way.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I found the ad-hoc at a Fort Wilderness campsite, sitting around
	a fire and singing, necking, laughing. The victory party. I trudged
	into the circle and hunted for Lil.</P>
	<P>She was sitting on a log, staring into the fire, a million miles
	away. Lord, she was beautiful when she fretted. I stood in front of
	her for a minute and she stared right through me until I tapped her
	shoulder. She gave an involuntary squeak and then smiled at herself.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Lil,&rdquo; I said, then
	stopped. <EM>Your parents are home, and they&apos;ve joined
	the other side</EM>.</P>
	<P>For the first time in an age, she looked at me softly, smiled
	even. She patted the log next to her. I sat down, felt the heat of
	the fire on my face, her body heat on my side. God, how did I screw
	this up?</P>
	<P>Without warning, she put her arms around me and hugged me hard. I
	hugged her back, nose in her hair, woodsmoke smell and shampoo and
	sweat. &ldquo;We did it,&rdquo; she
	whispered fiercely. I held onto her. <EM>No, we didn&apos;t</EM>.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Lil,&rdquo; I said again,
	and pulled away.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What?&rdquo; she said, her
	eyes shining. She was stoned, I saw that now.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Your parents are back. They came to the Mansion.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She was confused, shrinking, and I pressed on.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;They were with Debra.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She reeled back as if I&apos;d slapped her.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I told them I&apos;d bring the whole group
	back to talk it over.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She hung her head and her shoulders shook, and I tentatively put
	an arm around her. She shook it off and sat up. She was crying and
	laughing at the same time. &ldquo;I&apos;ll have a ferry
	sent over,&rdquo; she said.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I sat in the back of the ferry with Dan, away from the confused
	and angry ad-hocs. I answered his questions with terse, one-word
	answers, and he gave up. We rode in silence, the trees on the edges
	of the Seven Seas Lagoon whipping back and forth in an approaching
	storm.</P>
	<P>The ad-hoc shortcutted through the west parking lot and moved
	through the quiet streets of Frontierland apprehensively, a funeral
	procession that stopped the nighttime custodial staff in their
	tracks.</P>
	<P>As we drew up on Liberty Square, I saw that the work-lights were
	blazing and a tremendous work-gang of Debra&apos;s ad-hocs
	were moving from the Hall to the Mansion, undoing our teardown of
	their work.</P>
	<P>Working alongside of them were Tom and Rita, Lil&apos;s
	parents, sleeves rolled up, forearms bulging with new, toned muscle.
	The group stopped in its tracks and Lil went to them, stumbling on
	the wooden sidewalk.</P>
	<P>I expected hugs. There were none. In their stead, parents and
	daughter stalked each other, shifting weight and posture to track
	each other, maintain a constant, sizing distance.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What the hell are you doing?&rdquo; Lil said, finally. She didn&apos;t address her mother,
	which surprised me. It didn&apos;t surprise Tom, though.</P>
	<P>He dipped forward, the shuffle of his feet loud in the quiet
	night. &ldquo;We&apos;re working,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No, you&apos;re not,&rdquo; Lil said. &ldquo;You&apos;re destroying. Stop
	it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil&apos;s mother darted to her husband&apos;s
	side, not saying anything, just standing there.</P>
	<P>Wordlessly, Tom hefted the box he was holding and headed to the
	Mansion. Lil caught his arm and jerked it so he dropped his load.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re not listening. The Mansion is
	<EM>ours</EM>. <EM>Stop</EM>. <EM>It</EM>.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil&apos;s mother gently took Lil&apos;s hand off
	Tom&apos;s arm, held it in her own. &ldquo;I&apos;m
	glad you&apos;re passionate about it, Lillian,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I&apos;m proud of your
	commitment.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Even at a distance of ten yards, I heard Lil&apos;s choked
	sob, saw her collapse in on herself. Her mother took her in her
	arms, rocked her. I felt like a voyeur, but couldn&apos;t
	bring myself to turn away.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Shhh,&rdquo; her mother
	said, a sibilant sound that matched the rustling of the leaves on
	the Liberty Tree. &ldquo;Shhh. We don&apos;t have to be
	on the same side, you know.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>They held the embrace and held it still. Lil straightened, then
	bent again and picked up her father&apos;s box, carried it to
	the Mansion. One at a time, the rest of her ad-hoc moved forward and
	joined them.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>This is how you hit bottom. You wake up in your friend&apos;s
	hotel room and you power up your handheld and it won&apos;t
	log on. You press the call-button for the elevator and it gives you
	an angry buzz in return. You take the stairs to the lobby and no one
	looks at you as they jostle past you.</P>
	<P>You become a non-person.</P>
	<P>Scared. I trembled when I ascended the stairs to Dan&apos;s
	room, when I knocked at his door, louder and harder than I meant, a
	panicked banging.</P>
	<P>Dan answered the door and I saw his eyes go to his HUD, back to
	me. &ldquo;Jesus,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>I sat on the edge of my bed, head in my hands.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What?&rdquo; I said, what
	happened, what happened to me?</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re out of the ad-hoc,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&apos;re out of Whuffie.
	You&apos;re bottomed-out,&rdquo; he
	said.</P>
	<P>This is how you hit bottom in Walt Disney World, in a hotel with
	the hissing of the monorail and the sun streaming through the
	window, the hooting of the steam engines on the railroad and the
	distant howl of the recorded wolves at the Haunted Mansion. The
	world drops away from you, recedes until you&apos;re nothing
	but a speck, a mote in blackness.</P>
	<P>I was hyperventilating, light-headed. Deliberately, I slowed my
	breath, put my head between my knees until the dizziness passed.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Take me to Lil,&rdquo; I
	said.</P>
	<P>Driving together, hammering cigarette after cigarette into my
	face, I remembered the night Dan had come to Disney World, when
	I&apos;d driven him to my&mdash;<EM>Lil&apos;s</EM>&mdash;house,
	and how happy I&apos;d been then, how secure.</P>
	<P>I looked at Dan and he patted my hand. &ldquo;Strange
	times,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>It was enough. We found Lil in an underground break-room, lightly
	dozing on a ratty sofa. Her head rested on Tom&apos;s lap,
	her feet on Rita&apos;s. All three snored softly. They&apos;d
	had a long night.</P>
	<P>Dan shook Lil awake. She stretched out and opened her eyes,
	looked sleepily at me. The blood drained from her face.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hello, Julius,&rdquo; she
	said, coldly.</P>
	<P>Now Tom and Rita were awake, too. Lil sat up.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Were you going to tell me?&rdquo; I asked, quietly. &ldquo;Or were you just going to kick
	me out and let me find out on my own?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You were my next stop,&rdquo; Lil
	said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Then I&apos;ve saved you some time.&rdquo; I pulled up a chair. &ldquo;Tell me all about it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;There&apos;s nothing to tell,&rdquo; Rita snapped. &ldquo;You&apos;re out. You had to
	know it was coming&mdash;for God&apos;s sake, you were
	tearing Liberty Square apart!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;How would you know?&rdquo; I
	asked. I struggled to remain calm. &ldquo;You&apos;ve
	been asleep for ten years!&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We got updates,&rdquo; Rita
	said. &ldquo;That&apos;s why we&apos;re back&mdash;we
	couldn&apos;t let it go on the way it was. We owed it to
	Debra.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;And Lillian,&rdquo; Tom
	said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;And Lillian,&rdquo; Rita
	said, absently.</P>
	<P>Dan pulled up a chair of his own. &ldquo;You&apos;re
	not being fair to him,&rdquo; he said. At
	least someone was on my side.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We&apos;ve been more than fair,&rdquo; Lil said. &ldquo;You know that better than anyone, Dan.
	We&apos;ve forgiven and forgiven and forgiven, made every
	allowance. He&apos;s sick and he won&apos;t take the
	cure. There&apos;s nothing more we can do for him.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You could be his friend,&rdquo; Dan said. The light-headedness was back, and I slumped in my
	chair, tried to control my breathing, the panicked thumping of my
	heart.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You could try to understand, you could try to help
	him. You could stick with him, the way he stuck with you. You
	don&apos;t have to toss him out on his ass.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil had the good grace to look slightly shamed. &ldquo;I&apos;ll
	get him a room,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;For
	a month. In Kissimmee. A motel. I&apos;ll pick up his network
	access. Is that fair?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s more than fair,&rdquo; Rita said. Why did she hate me so much? I&apos;d been
	there for her daughter while she was away&mdash;ah. That might
	do it, all right. &ldquo;I don&apos;t think it&apos;s
	warranted. If you want to take care of him, sir, you can. It&apos;s
	none of my family&apos;s business.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Lil&apos;s eyes blazed. &ldquo;Let me handle this,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;All right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Rita stood up abruptly. &ldquo;You do whatever you want,&rdquo; she said, and stormed out of the room.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why are you coming here for help?&rdquo; Tom said, ever the voice of reason. &ldquo;You seem
	capable enough.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m going to be taking a lethal injection
	at the end of the week,&rdquo; Dan said.
	&ldquo;Three days. That&apos;s personal, but you
	asked.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Tom shook his head. <EM>Some friends you&apos;ve got
	yourself</EM>, I could see him thinking it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That soon?&rdquo; Lil
	asked, a throb in her voice.</P>
	<P>Dan nodded.</P>
	<P>In a dreamlike buzz, I stood and wandered out into the utilidor,
	out through the western castmember parking, and away.</P>
	<P>I wandered along the cobbled, disused Walk Around the World, each
	flagstone engraved with the name of a family that had visited the
	Park a century before. The names whipped past me like epitaphs.</P>
	<P>The sun came up noon high as I rounded the bend of deserted beach
	between the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian. Lil and I had come
	here often, to watch the sunset from a hammock, arms around each
	other, the Park spread out before us like a lighted toy village.</P>
	<P>Now the beach was deserted, the Wedding Pavilion silent. I felt
	suddenly cold though I was sweating freely. So cold.</P>
	<P>Dreamlike, I walked into the lake, water filling my shoes,
	logging my pants, warm as blood, warm on my chest, on my chin, on my
	mouth, on my eyes.</P>
	<P>I opened my mouth and inhaled deeply, water filling my lungs,
	choking and warm. At first I sputtered, but I was in control now,
	and I inhaled again. The water shimmered over my eyes, and then was
	dark.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I woke on Doctor Pete&apos;s cot in the Magic Kingdom,
	restraints around my wrists and ankles, a tube in my nose. I closed
	my eyes, for a moment believing that I&apos;d been restored
	from a backup, problems solved, memories behind me.</P>
	<P>Sorrow knifed through me as I realized that Dan was probably dead
	by now, my memories of him gone forever.</P>
	<P>Gradually, I realized that I was thinking nonsensically. The fact
	that I remembered Dan meant that I hadn&apos;t been refreshed
	from my backup, that my broken brain was still there, churning along
	in unmediated isolation.</P>
	<P>I coughed again. My ribs ached and throbbed in counterpoint to my
	head. Dan took my hand.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re a pain in the ass, you know
	that?&rdquo; he said, smiling.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; I choked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You sure are,&rdquo; he
	said. &ldquo;Lucky for you they found you&mdash;another
	minute or two and I&apos;d be burying you right now.&rdquo;</P>
	<P><EM>No</EM>, I thought, confused. <EM>They&apos;d have
	restored me from backup</EM>. Then it hit me: I&apos;d gone
	on record refusing restore from backup after having it recommended
	by a medical professional. No one would have restored me after that.
	I would have been truly and finally dead. I started to shiver.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Easy,&rdquo; Dan said.
	&ldquo;Easy. It&apos;s all right now. Doctor says
	you&apos;ve got a cracked rib or two from the CPR, but
	there&apos;s no brain damage.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;No <EM>additional</EM> brain damage,&rdquo; Doctor Pete said, swimming into view. He had on his
	professionally calm bedside face, and it reassured me despite
	myself.</P>
	<P>He shooed Dan away and took his seat. Once Dan had left the room,
	he shone lights in my eyes and peeked in my ears, then sat back and
	considered me. &ldquo;Well, Julius,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What exactly is the problem? We can get
	you a lethal injection if that&apos;s what you want, but
	offing yourself in the Seven Seas Lagoon just isn&apos;t good
	show. In the meantime, would you like to talk about it?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Part of me wanted to spit in his eye. I&apos;d tried to
	talk about it and he&apos;d told me to go to hell, and now he
	changes his mind? But I did want to talk.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I didn&apos;t want to die,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh no?&rdquo; he said.
	&ldquo;I think the evidence suggests the contrary.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I wasn&apos;t trying to die,&rdquo; I protested. &ldquo;I was trying to&mdash;&rdquo; What? I was trying to&hellip; <EM>abdicate</EM>.
	Take the refresh without choosing it, without shutting out the last
	year of my best friend&apos;s life. Rescue myself from the
	stinking pit I&apos;d sunk into without flushing Dan away
	along with it. That&apos;s all, that&apos;s all.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I wasn&apos;t thinking&mdash;I was just
	acting. It was an episode or something. Does that mean I&apos;m
	nuts?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, probably,&rdquo; Doctor
	Pete said, offhandedly. &ldquo;But let&apos;s worry
	about one thing at a time. You can die if you want to, that&apos;s
	your right. I&apos;d rather you lived, if you want my
	opinion, and I doubt that I&apos;m the only one, Whuffie be
	damned. If you&apos;re going to live, I&apos;d like to
	record you saying so, just in case. We have a backup of you on
	file&mdash;I&apos;d hate to have to delete it.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;Yes, I&apos;d like to be restored if there&apos;s
	no other option.&rdquo; It was true. I
	didn&apos;t want to die.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;All right then,&rdquo; Doctor
	Pete said. &ldquo;It&apos;s on file and I&apos;m
	a happy man. Now, are you nuts? Probably. A little. Nothing a little
	counseling and some R&amp;R wouldn&apos;t fix, if you want my
	opinion. I could find you somewhere if you want.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; I said.
	&ldquo;I appreciate the offer, but there&apos;s
	something else I have to do first.&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>Dan took me back to the room and put me to bed with a transdermal
	soporific that knocked me out for the rest of the day. When I woke,
	the moon was over the Seven Seas Lagoon and the monorail was silent.</P>
	<P>I stood on the patio for a while, thinking about all the things
	this place had meant to me for more than a century: happiness,
	security, efficiency, fantasy. All of it gone. It was time I left.
	Maybe back to space, find Zed and see if I could make her happy
	again. Anywhere but here. Once Dan was dead&mdash;God, it was
	sinking in finally&mdash;I could catch a ride down to the Cape
	for a launch.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;What&apos;s on your mind?&rdquo; Dan asked from behind me, startling me. He was in his boxers,
	thin and rangy and hairy.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Thinking about moving on,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>He chuckled. &ldquo;I&apos;ve been thinking about
	doing the same,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>I smiled. &ldquo;Not that way,&rdquo; I
	said. &ldquo;Just going somewhere else, starting over. Getting
	away from this.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Going to take the refresh?&rdquo; he asked.</P>
	<P>I looked away. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I
	said. &ldquo;I don&apos;t believe I will.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It may be none of my business,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but why the fuck not? Jesus, Julius,
	what&apos;re you afraid of?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You don&apos;t want to know,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;ll be the judge of that.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Let&apos;s have a drink, first,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>Dan rolled his eyes back for a second, then said, &ldquo;All
	right, two Coronas, coming up.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>After the room-service bot had left, we cracked the beers and
	pulled chairs out onto the porch.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You sure you want to know this?&rdquo; I asked.</P>
	<P>He tipped his bottle at me. &ldquo;Sure as shootin&apos;,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I don&apos;t want refresh because it would
	mean losing the last year,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>He nodded. &ldquo;By which you mean &lsquo;my last
	year,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said.
	&ldquo;Right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I nodded and drank.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I thought it might be like that. Julius, you are many
	things, but hard to figure out you are not. I have something to say
	that might help you make the decision. If you want to hear it, that
	is.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>What could he have to say? &ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Sure.&rdquo; In
	my mind, I was on a shuttle headed for orbit, away from all of this.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I had you killed,&rdquo; he
	said. &ldquo;Debra asked me to, and I set it up. You were right
	all along.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>The shuttle exploded in silent, slow moving space, and I spun
	away from it. I opened and shut my mouth.</P>
	<P>It was Dan&apos;s turn to look away. &ldquo;Debra
	proposed it. We were talking about the people I&apos;d met
	when I was doing my missionary work, the stone crazies who I&apos;d
	have to chase away after they&apos;d rejoined the Bitchun
	Society. One of them, a girl from Cheyenne Mountain, she followed me
	down here, kept leaving me messages. I told Debra, and that&apos;s
	when she got the idea.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;d get the girl to shoot you and
	disappear. Debra would give me Whuffie&mdash;piles of it, and
	her team would follow suit. I&apos;d be months closer to my
	goal. That was all I could think about back then, you remember.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I remember.&rdquo; The
	smell of rejuve and desperation in our little cottage, and Dan
	plotting my death.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We planned it, then Debra had herself refreshed from
	a backup&mdash;no memory of the event, just the Whuffie for
	me.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. That
	would work. Plan a murder, kill yourself, have yourself refreshed
	from a backup made before the plan. How many times had Debra done
	terrible things and erased their memories that way?</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he agreed.
	&ldquo;We did it, I&apos;m ashamed to say. I can prove
	it, too&mdash;I have my backup, and I can get Jeanine to tell
	it, too.&rdquo; He drained his beer.
	&ldquo;That&apos;s my plan. Tomorrow. I&apos;ll
	tell Lil and her folks, Kim and her people, the whole ad-hoc. A
	going-away present from a shitty friend.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>My throat was dry and tight. I drank more beer. &ldquo;You
	knew all along,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You
	could have proved it at any time.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>He nodded. &ldquo;That&apos;s right.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You let me&hellip;&rdquo; I groped for the words. &ldquo;You let me turn
	into&hellip;&rdquo; They
	wouldn&apos;t come.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I did,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>All this time. Lil and he, standing on <EM>my</EM> porch, telling
	me I needed help. Doctor Pete, telling me I needed refresh from
	backup, me saying no, no, no, not wanting to lose my last year with
	Dan.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;ve done some pretty shitty things in my
	day,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This is
	the absolute worst. You helped me and I betrayed you. I&apos;m
	sure glad I don&apos;t believe in God&mdash;that&apos;d
	make what I&apos;m going to do even scarier.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Dan was going to kill himself in two days&apos; time. My
	friend and my murderer. &ldquo;Dan,&rdquo; I croaked. I couldn&apos;t make any sense of my mind.
	Dan, taking care of me, helping me, sticking up for me, carrying
	this horrible shame with him all along. Ready to die, wanting to go
	with a clean conscience.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re forgiven,&rdquo; I said. And it was true.</P>
	<P>He stood.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Where are you going&rdquo; I
	asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;To find Jeanine, the one who pulled the trigger.
	I&apos;ll meet you at the Hall of Presidents at nine a.m..&rdquo;</P>
	<HR>
	<P>I went in through the Main Gate, not a castmember any longer, a
	Guest with barely enough Whuffie to scrape in, use the water
	fountains and stand in line. If I were lucky, a castmember might
	spare me a chocolate banana. Probably not, though.</P>
	<P>I stood in the line for the Hall of Presidents. Other guests
	checked my Whuffie, then averted their eyes. Even the children. A
	year before, they&apos;d have been striking up conversations,
	asking me about my job here at the Magic Kingdom.</P>
	<P>I sat in my seat at the Hall of Presidents, watching the short
	film with the rest, sitting patiently while they rocked in their
	seats under the blast of the flash-bake. A castmember picked up the
	stageside mic and thanked everyone for coming; the doors swung open
	and the Hall was empty, except for me. The castmember narrowed her
	eyes at me, then recognizing me, turned her back and went to show in
	the next group.</P>
	<P>No group came. Instead, Dan and the girl I&apos;d seen on
	the replay entered.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;We&apos;ve closed it down for the morning,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>I was staring at the girl, seeing her smirk as she pulled the
	trigger on me, seeing her now with a contrite, scared expression.
	She was terrified of me.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You must be Jeanine,&rdquo; I
	said. I stood and shook her hand. &ldquo;I&apos;m
	Julius.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Her hand was cold, and she took it back and wiped it on her
	pants.</P>
	<P>My castmember instincts took over. &ldquo;Please, have a
	seat. Don&apos;t worry, it&apos;ll all be fine.
	Really. No hard feelings.&rdquo; I
	stopped short of offering to get her a glass of water.</P>
	<P><EM>Put her at her ease</EM>, said a snotty voice in my head.
	<EM>She&apos;ll make a better witness. Or make her nervous,
	pathetic&mdash;that&apos;ll work, too; make Debra look
	even worse</EM>.</P>
	<P>I told the voice to shut up and got her a cup of water.</P>
	<P>By the time I came back, the whole gang was there. Debra, Lil,
	her folks, Tim. Debra&apos;s gang and Lil&apos;s gang,
	now one united team. Soon to be scattered.</P>
	<P>Dan took the stage, used the stageside mic to broadcast his
	voice. &ldquo;Eleven months ago, I did an awful thing. I
	plotted with Debra to have Julius murdered. I used a friend who was
	a little confused at the time, used her to pull the trigger. It was
	Debra&apos;s idea that having Julius killed would cause
	enough confusion that she could take over the Hall of Presidents. It
	was.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>There was a roar of conversation. I looked at Debra, saw that she
	was sitting calmly, as though Dan had just accused her of sneaking
	an extra helping of dessert. Lil&apos;s parents, to either
	side of her, were less sanguine. Tom&apos;s jaw was set and
	angry, Rita was speaking angrily to Debra. Hickory Jackson in the
	old Hall used to say, <EM>I will hang the first man I can lay hands
	on from the first tree I can find</EM>.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Debra had herself refreshed from backup after we
	planned it,&rdquo; Dan went on, as though
	no one was talking. &ldquo;I was supposed to do the same, but I
	didn&apos;t. I have a backup in my public directory&mdash;anyone
	can examine it. Right now, I&apos;d like to bring Jeanine up,
	she&apos;s got a few words she&apos;d like to say.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>I helped Jeanine take the stage. She was still trembling, and the
	ad-hocs were an insensate babble of recriminations. Despite myself,
	I was enjoying it.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; Jeanine said
	softly. She had a lovely voice, a lovely face. I wondered if we
	could be friends when it was all over. She probably didn&apos;t
	care much about Whuffie, one way or another.</P>
	<P>The discussion went on. Dan took the mic from her and said,
	&ldquo;Please! Can we have a little respect for our visitor?
	Please? People?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Gradually, the din decreased. Dan passed the mic back to Jeanine.
	&ldquo;Hello,&rdquo; she said again,
	and flinched from the sound of her voice in the Hall&apos;s
	PA. &ldquo;My name is Jeanine. I&apos;m the one who
	killed Julius, a year ago. Dan asked me to, and I did it. I didn&apos;t
	ask why. I trusted&mdash;trust&mdash;him. He told me
	that Julius would make a backup a few minutes before I shot him, and
	that he could get me out of the Park without getting caught. I&apos;m
	very sorry.&rdquo; There was something
	off-kilter about her, some stilt to her stance and words that let
	you know she wasn&apos;t all there. Growing up in a mountain
	might do that to you. I snuck a look at Lil, whose lips were pressed
	together. Growing up in a theme park might do that to you, too.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Thank you, Jeanine,&rdquo; Dan
	said, taking back the mic. &ldquo;You can have a seat now.
	I&apos;ve said everything I need to say&mdash;Julius
	and I have had our own discussions in private. If there&apos;s
	anyone else who&apos;d like to speak&mdash;&rdquo;</P>
	<P>The words were barely out of his mouth before the crowd erupted
	again in words and waving hands. Beside me, Jeanine flinched. I took
	her hand and shouted in her ear: &ldquo;Have you ever been on
	the Pirates of the Carribean?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>She shook her head.</P>
	<P>I stood up and pulled her to her feet. &ldquo;You&apos;ll
	love it,&rdquo; I said, and led her out
	of the Hall.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ch10" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>CHAPTER 10</H1>
	<P>I booked us ringside seats at the Polynesian Luau, riding high on
	a fresh round of sympathy Whuffie, and Dan and I drank a dozen
	lapu-lapus in hollowed-out pineapples before giving up on the idea
	of getting drunk.</P>
	<P>Jeanine watched the fire-dances and the torch-lighting with eyes
	like saucers, and picked daintily at her spare ribs with one hand,
	never averting her attention from the floor show. When they danced
	the fast hula, her eyes jiggled. I chuckled.</P>
	<P>From where we sat, I could see the spot where I&apos;d
	waded into the Seven Seas Lagoon and breathed in the blood-temp
	water, I could see Cinderella&apos;s Castle, across the
	lagoon, I could see the monorails and the ferries and the busses
	making their busy way through the Park, shuttling teeming masses of
	guests from place to place. Dan toasted me with his pineapple and I
	toasted him back, drank it dry and belched in satisfaction.</P>
	<P>Full belly, good friends, and the sunset behind a troupe of
	tawny, half-naked hula dancers. Who needs the Bitchun Society,
	anyway?</P>
	<P>When it was over, we watched the fireworks from the beach, my
	toes dug into the clean white sand. Dan slipped his hand into my
	left hand, and Jeanine took my right. When the sky darkened and the
	lighted barges puttered away through the night, we three sat in the
	hammock.</P>
	<P>I looked out over the Seven Seas Lagoon and realized that this
	was my last night, ever, in Walt Disney World. It was time to reboot
	again, start afresh. That&apos;s what the Park was for, only
	somehow, this visit, I&apos;d gotten stuck. Dan had unstuck
	me.</P>
	<P>The talk turned to Dan&apos;s impending death.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So, tell me what you think of this,&rdquo; he said, hauling away on a glowing cigarette.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Shoot,&rdquo; I said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I&apos;m thinking&mdash;why take lethal
	injection? I mean, I may be done here for now, but why should I make
	an irreversible decision?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Why did you want to before?&rdquo; I asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Oh, it was the macho thing, I guess. The finality and
	all. But hell, I don&apos;t have to prove anything, right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; I said,
	magnanimously.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So,&rdquo; he said,
	thoughtfully. &ldquo;The question I&apos;m asking is,
	how long can I deadhead for? There are folks who go down for a
	thousand years, ten thousand, right?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;So, you&apos;re thinking, what, a million?&rdquo; I joked.</P>
	<P>He laughed. &ldquo;A <EM>million</EM>? You&apos;re
	thinking too small, son. Try this on for size: the heat death of the
	universe.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;The heat death of the universe,&rdquo; I repeated.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; he drawled,
	and I sensed his grin in the dark. &ldquo;Ten to the hundred
	years or so. The Stelliferous Period&mdash;it&apos;s
	when all the black holes have run dry and things get, you know,
	stupendously dull. Cold, too. So I&apos;m thinking&mdash;why
	not leave a wake-up call for some time around then?&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Sounds unpleasant to me,&rdquo; I
	said. &ldquo;Brrrr.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Not at all! I figure, self-repairing nano-based
	canopic jar, mass enough to feed it&mdash;say, a trillion-ton
	asteroid&mdash;and a lot of solitude when the time comes
	around. I&apos;ll poke my head in every century or so, just
	to see what&apos;s what, but if nothing really stupendous
	crops up, I&apos;ll take the long ride out. The final
	frontier.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>&ldquo;That&apos;s pretty cool,&rdquo; Jeanine said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Thanks,&rdquo; Dan said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;You&apos;re not kidding, are you?&rdquo; I asked.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Nope, I sure ain&apos;t,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>They didn&apos;t invite me back into the ad-hoc, even
	after Debra left in Whuffie-penury and they started to put the
	Mansion back the way it was. Tim called me to say that with enough
	support from Imagineering, they thought they could get it up and
	running in a week. Suneep was ready to kill someone, I swear. <EM>A
	house divided against itself can</EM>not <EM>stand</EM>, as Mr.
	Lincoln used to say at the Hall of Presidents.</P>
	<P>I packed three changes of clothes and a toothbrush in my
	shoulderbag and checked out of my suite at the Polynesian at ten
	a.m., then met Jeanine and Dan at the valet parking out front. Dan
	had a runabout he&apos;d picked up with my Whuffie, and I
	piled in with Jeanine in the middle. We played old Beatles tunes on
	the stereo all the long way to Cape Canaveral. Our shuttle lifted at
	noon.</P>
	<P>The shuttle docked four hours later, but by the time we&apos;d
	been through decontam and orientation, it was suppertime. Dan,
	nearly as Whuffie-poor as Debra after his confession, nevertheless
	treated us to a meal in the big bubble, squeeze-tubes of heady booze
	and steaky paste, and we watched the universe get colder for a
	while.</P>
	<P>There were a couple guys jamming, tethered to a guitar and a set
	of tubs, and they weren&apos;t half bad.</P>
	<P>Jeanine was uncomfortable hanging there naked. She&apos;d
	gone to space with her folks after Dan had left the mountain, but it
	was in a long-haul generation ship. She&apos;d abandoned it
	after a year or two and deadheaded back to Earth in a support-pod.
	She&apos;d get used to life in space after a while. Or she
	wouldn&apos;t.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Dan said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;Yup,&rdquo; I said, aping
	his laconic drawl. He smiled.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;It&apos;s that time,&rdquo; he said.</P>
	<P>Spheres of saline tears formed in Jeanine&apos;s eyes, and
	I brushed them away, setting them adrift in the bubble. I&apos;d
	developed some real tender, brother-sister type feelings for her
	since I&apos;d watched her saucer-eye her way through the
	Magic Kingdom. No romance&mdash;not for me, thanks! But
	camaraderie and a sense of responsibility.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;See you in ten to the hundred,&rdquo; Dan said, and headed to the airlock. I started after him, but
	Jeanine caught my hand.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;He hates long good-byes,&rdquo; she said.</P>
	<P>&ldquo;I know,&rdquo; I said, and
	watched him go.</P>
	<HR>
	<P>The universe gets older. So do I. So does my backup, sitting in
	redundant distributed storage dirtside, ready for the day that space
	or age or stupidity kills me. It recedes with the years, and I write
	out my life longhand, a letter to the me that I&apos;ll be
	when it&apos;s restored into a clone somewhere, somewhen.
	It&apos;s important that whoever I am then knows about this
	year, and it&apos;s going to take a lot of tries for me to
	get it right.</P>
	<P>In the meantime, I&apos;m working on another symphony, one
	with a little bit of &ldquo;Grim Grinning Ghosts,&rdquo; and a nod to &ldquo;It&apos;s a Small World After
	All,&rdquo; and especially &ldquo;There&apos;s
	a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.&rdquo;</P>
	<P>Jeanine says it&apos;s pretty good, but what does she
	know? She&apos;s barely fifty.</P>
	<P>We&apos;ve both got a lot of living to do before we know
	what&apos;s what.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ack" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>Acknowledgements:</H1>
	<P>I could never have written this book without the personal support
	of my friends and family, especially Roz Doctorow, Gord Doctorow and
	Neil Doctorow, Amanda Foubister, Steve Samenski, Pat York, Grad
	Conn, John Henson, John Rose, the writers at the Cecil Street
	Irregulars and Mark Frauenfelder.</P>
	<P>I owe a great debt to the writers and editors who mentored and
	encouraged me: James Patrick Kelly, Judith Merril, Damon Knight,
	Martha Soukup, Scott Edelman, Gardner Dozois, Renee Wilmeth, Teresa
	Nielsen Hayden, Claire Eddy, Bob Parks and Robert Killheffer.</P>
	<P>I am also indebted to my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden and my
	agent Donald Maass, who believed in this book and helped me bring it
	to fruition.</P>
	<P>Finally, I must thank the readers, the geeks and the Imagineers
	who inspired this book.</P>
	<P>Cory Doctorow</P>
	<P>San Francisco</P>
	<P>September 2002</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="ata" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>About the author:</H1>
	<P>Cory Doctorow is Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier
	Foundation, www.eff.org, and maintains a personal site at
	www.craphound.com. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing
	Boing at www.boingboing.net, with more than 250,000 visitors a
	month. He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the
	2000 Hugo Awards. Born and raised in Toronto, he now lives in San
	Francisco. He enjoys using Google to look up interesting facts about
	long walks on the beach.</P>
</DIV>
<DIV ID="alsoby" DIR="LTR">
	<H1>Other books by Cory Doctorow:</H1>
	<UL>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><I>A Place So Foreign and Eight
		More</I><BR>&ndash; short story collection, forthcoming
		from Four Walls Eight Windows in fall 2003, with an introduction by
		Bruce Sterling 
		</P>
		<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><I>Essential Blogging</I>,
		O&apos;Reilly and Associates, 2002<BR>&ndash; with
		Rael Dornfest, J. Scott Johnson, Shelley Powers, Benjamin Trott and
		Mena G. Trott 
		</P>
		<LI><P><I>The Complete Idiot&apos;s Guide to Publishing
		Science Fiction</I>, Alpha Books, 2000<BR>&ndash;
		co-written with Karl Schroeder 
		</P>
	</UL>
</DIV>
<P><!-- <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://web.resource.org/cc/"
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
    xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<Work rdf:about="http://craphound.com/down">
   <dc:title>Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom</dc:title>
   <dc:date>2003-1-9</dc:date>
   <dc:description>A novel by Cory Doctorow:

Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.

Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long&#45;ago twentieth century. Now in the care of a network of volunteer "ad&#45;hocs" who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high&#45;tech touches.

Now, though, it seems the "ad hocs" are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct&#45;to&#45;brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself. Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now it's war: war for the soul of the Magic Kingdom, a war of ever&#45;shifting reputations, technical wizardry, and entirely unpredictable outcomes.

Bursting with cutting-edge speculation and human insight, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom reads like Neal Stephenson meets Nick Hornby: a coming&#45;of&#45;age romantic comedy and a kick&#45;butt cybernetic tour de force.
</dc:description>
   <dc:creator><Agent>
      <dc:title>Cory Doctorow</dc:title>
   </Agent></dc:creator>
   <dc:rights><Agent>
      <dc:title>Cory Doctorow</dc:title>
   </Agent></dc:rights>
   <dc:type rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" />
<license rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0" />
</Work>

<License rdf:about="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0">
   <requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution" />
   <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction" />
   <permits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution" />
   <prohibits rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse" />
   <requires rdf:resource="http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice" />
</License>

</rdf:RDF>--><BR><BR>
</P>
</html>