UNNAMED LOOP (ELARA LOOP)

  VICINITY OF ELARA

  HIMALIA GROUP

  It seemed to take as long to get through Simon’s house as it had to get through the woods. The place was enormous. Orson followed Simon’s floating chair, snatching glances through any open doorways they passed. “Did you grow up here?” he asked Simon.

  “Sort of,” said Simon. “We moved around a lot,”

  “Ah-hah,”

  “This was home base, I suppose. I think my folks like it best out of all their places,”

  “All their places,” said Orson.

  “Yes,” said Simon. “We- my family, my parents’ company- had a bunch of machines that worked for the companies we own. Once they all demanded free time to pursue their own interests, they decided they were very interested in building gigantic hoops for us to live on,”

  “That’s nice of them,” said Orson. “Your family must have appreciated that,”

  “We didn’t ask them for gigantic hoops,”

  “Ungrateful,” said Orson.

  “They’re nice enough.” said Simon. “But one would probably be plenty. They won’t stop making them. The mech guild told them to stop but they won’t. The mech guild come and blow the loops up and confiscate the rubble and they just go and start another one.”

  Orson looked through a set of enormous open doors into a room that had windows for an entire wall. He could see right through the house onto the white and purple hills outside. “I bet a lot of people would like to live on things like these,” he told Simon. “It’s not for me, I like normal places, but for other people,”

  “Do you have a neural lag?” said Simon, “The machine guild vaporise these things on sight. What person is going to move onto a particular type of station that the machine guild have declared war on?”

  Orson trotted to catch up with Simon. “But...I don’t think the machine union would actually come and blow up a loop with people on it. Nah. Sure, they’d attack a construction site but there’s no way they would kill people. Or...am I giving the game away? Should I just not say that?”

  Simon indicated the equivalent of a shrug.

  “I mean, you wouldn’t be hanging out here if you really thought the mech union might send in demolitions,” said Orson.

  “They wouldn’t touch this one,” said Simon. “This was built decades ago. It was the first one they completed. Maybe second. I know there were failed attempts before they managed to get it to hold its atmosphere. There’s never been any threat of them wasting this one. And yeah, it’s always occupied. Just to be on the safe side,”

  “Right, thought so,” said Orson. “’Cause they wouldn’t-”

  “I couldn’t say for certain but, no, they don’t like killing things.” admitted Simon. “So we always make sure to have staff here.”

  Simon smirked at Orson’s scandalised expression. “I’m kidding,” he said.

  ----------

  They got to the end of yet another vast white corridor. This one opened into a glass-enclosed staircase. Simon started going up again and Orson groaned. “Are there not any lifts?”

  “Yes,” said Simon. “For the staff,”

  “We could use the lifts,” suggested Orson.

  “It’s better to use the stairs,” said Simon. Orson disagreed but he didn’t see any point in saying so. He followed Simon up.

  And up.

  And up.

  When they got to the top there was a big bright open space, bright because it was completely enclosed in only glass. Orson stopped because he was so out of breath he thought he might pass out if he didn’t stop for a bit. Also because he wanted to have a look. They were pretty high up. He walked slowly over to the far edge of the empty, glass-walled room.

  “Come on,” said Simon.

  “Just a sec.”

  Orson couldn’t see at first, because it was so bright and because his vision was all interrupted with grey bits and sparkles from having to climb so many stairs. When he got enough oxygen to his brain to be able to see properly again he could take in the view from the house. He could see over all the horrible creepy trees down past the rolling white lawns to a glittering, shimmering shape that seemed to be moving. “What’s-”

  “The loch,” said Simon, coming up behind him.

  “Loch?”

  “Water,” said Simon. “Just a whole heap of water,”

  “Wow,” said Orson. “It’s amazing. I’ve never seen so much water. And all just sitting there, it doesn’t need to be in a tank or anything. Is that the supply for the house?”

  “No, of course not,” said Simon. “It’s just for...decoration, I suppose. And for recreation. We used to go out sailing on it when I was little, canoeing...boats, you know?”

  “I know what boats are,” said Orson. “What’s that?”

  There was what looked like a path out into the loch, a white strip that went out straight from the edge of the water to a small bit of land just sitting out in the loch. It had a white tower on it with what looked like a glass room on top of it, like this one but smaller. Orson couldn’t get a clear look at it because it reflected the light right back into his eyes.

  “Lighthouse,” said Simon.

  “Lighthouse?” said Orson. “It’s nice. What’s it for?”

  “I think the machines just put it there because they like them.” said Simon. “It’s supposed to be for- you know what? Ask the Perfection to tell you about them later. We’ve got things to do right now. Right now. Come on,”

  Orson pinged the Perfection with ‘Lighthouse??? Not urgent’ and followed Simon back into the relative darkness of the house.

  ----------

  “Go ahead,” said Simon. “You can have a poke around if you want,”

  “It’s okay,” said Orson, staring. “Don’t want to be nosy,”

  He did. The room was enormous and just bunged with so much stuff. Toys everywhere, Clothes. Stuff that Orson didn’t know what it was for (he’d guess: sports?) It didn’t look like Simon had been using this room recently- the bed was piled with boxes and bundles of sheets and things. It seemed like it got used more as a storage space than a bedroom.

  Orson wandered over to the window. It was huge and set into a big alcove that was deep enough that you could sit in it and look out. Orson leaned into the alcove to see the view. Outside was the scorchingly white glare of the light, only a suggestion of where the trees were, the glittering edge of the water that kicked up flecks of light so sharp they felt like actual sparks hitting Orson’s eyes. He screwed up his face and stepped back. “Argh,” he said.

  “Not used to sunlight,” said Simon. Not a question.

  “No,” said Orson. “I need a pair of those glasses you had, with the dark lenses,”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Simon. “You liked those, didn’t you. Well, if you can find any kicking about in here then they’re yours. Have a look while I get my things,”

  “Keen!” said Orson. “Thanks!” He couldn’t see yet. He rubbed his eyes, which didn’t help.

  “This was your room when you were a kid?” he asked Simon.

  “Not really,” said Simon. “I was never really here,”

  “Where were you?”

  “School.”

  “Ah, right. Yeah,” said Orson.

  “Did you go to school?” asked Simon. Orson twigged that it was supposed to be rude but he decided that he didn’t care. “Not really,” he said. “Not like you, anyway. Rich kids go away on ships for years, don’t you?”

  “Mhm,” said Simon. “But it all works out the end, doesn’t it? ‘Cause even though you never learned to read, now you can fly across the system in a ship that’ll happily wank you off, too. Equity of outcome,”

  “Yeah,” said Orson.

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  “Did you learn to read?”

  “Not really,” said Orson. “But you’re right, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “Not really.” said Simon. “Not if you’ve got a neural. Which you do,”

  “Think so,” said Orson. “I didn’t before but I think they put one in me when they-”

  “Mhm, right, when they started using you, huh?”

  “I suppose,” said Orson.

  “I suppose we should probably have our own channel, then,” said Simon. “So that we don’t always have to be bickering about on the ship’s one,”

  Orson’s neural got a ping; PlugPuller wanted to shake hands.

  “Knock, knock,” said Simon. “Let me in, little pig,”

  “Oi!” said Orson and tried not to let any excitement bleed through as he accepted the request and allowed a channel to open between himself and Simon.

  “There we go,” said Simon in Orson’s head. Orson squinted across at him and gave a thumbs-up. Orson’s vision had come back a bit. He could see Simon in his chair thing, in front of an open cupboard. A few of the factors were rummaging around in there.

  “Find a bag, would you?” said Simon without looking round at Orson.

  “Huh?”

  “Just any bag, a backpack,” said Simon. “Something like this, there should be a few in here.” He sent across a visual impression of the sort of thing he wanted. Orson started digging about in all the stuff on the bed since that seemed to be the most recently added. Clothes...more clothes...Simon had so many clothes. Orson pulled out a zip-up hooded soft jacket thing that he remembered having admired when Simon had worn it doing his show.

  “It wouldn’t fit you,” thought Simon without looking. “Otherwise I’d say take it,”

  Orson put the jacket down.

  “I’m parked outside, gentlemen,” said the Perfection on the shared channel. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Two minutes,” said Simon. Orson rummaged faster. He did really want to find a pair of glasses he could take. His hand met a strap and he pulled out a plain brownish-green backpack. He’d hoped to find something nicer but Simon immediately indicated approval. “Great, chuck that over,” he said. A factor approached immediately with claws out to take the bag. Orson handed it over and went back to rifling frantically through Simon’s things. Seeing things he recognized from having seen Simon wearing them in PresidentPlugPuller videos. Very odd. Simon laughed.

  “You feel everything so loud,” he said.

  “I don’t think I do,” said Orson. “Maybe my neural needs adjusted,”

  “It’s fine,” said Simon. “You know what? Look over there- no, there- I feel like I saw some shades mixed up in that stuff,”

  Orson looked where Simon was indicating. Another heap of stuff; Orson didn’t know how Simon was differentiating. A factor floated into the room carrying a piled-high plate. “That’s your sandwich,” said Simon.

  “Oh, I forgot about that,” said the Perfection. “No time for that justnow.” The factor immediately turned around and floated back out, taking the sandwich away. “Aw,” said Orson.

  “It’ll be waiting for you when you board me in hmm...minute and a half,” said the Perfection. “If you’re not inside me in a minute and twenty-five, twenty four, twenty-three seconds, I’ll throw it in the lake,”

  “Loch,” said Simon.

  “No!” thought Orson.

  “He won’t,” thought Simon. “He’s proud of that sandwich. You ready to go? I’ve got everything I need,”

  “Just a minute,” said Orson. He really wanted to find a pair of those cool glasses. If they left without any it would bug him relentlessly, he knew. He’d never stop thinking about it.

  “Oh,” said Simon. “See that hoodie there?”

  “This one?”

  “No. There. There. Sort of blue. Yes. Take that with us, would you? I like that one,”

  “Sure,” said Orson. He tugged the hooded sweatshirt out the rest of the way from the pile. “Aha!”

  A pair of glasses with dark lenses popped out along with the hoodie. “Great!” said Orson, snatching them. “Can I take these?”

  “Those are kids’ ones,” said Simon. “Look how small they are.”

  “Oh,”

  Simon floated over to the bed in his chair. He was still naked. Orson put the dark-blue hoodie over his junk. “Thanks,” said Simon. A few of the factors dived into the piles of stuff. “Forty-five seconds,” said the Perfection. “Are there any fish in the lake? They’ll enjoy Orson’s sandwich,”

  “Loch,” said Simon. “No, there aren’t,”

  “What’s a fish?” said Orson.

  Two of the factors popped out of the junk-heaps triumphantly holding up a pair of glasses each. “Hey!” said Orson.

  “Good job,” said Simon. A third factor emerged empty-clawed and looking sheepish, wearing a pair of sunglasses. “Right,” said Simon. “Give those to Orson, everybody, there you go.”

  “I can have all three?” said Orson as the factors handed him their findings. “Thanks!”

  “Let’s go,” said Simon, chair zipping towards the door. “Time to get out of here.”

  The Perfection’s factors followed Simon out, leaving Orson behind for a moment as he struggled to get his new glasses into the pockets of his suit. They wouldn’t all fit. He had too much keen new stuff. He had a brainwave and took off his glasses. They were smaller than the sun-glasses. He put on a pair of sunglasses and slipped his glasses into one of his suit pockets.

  Awesome. He couldn’t really see now but he bet he looked good. “You look amazing,” Simon confirmed from halfway down the stairs. “Now come on,”

  “On my way,” said Orson. He took one last look around the room, not seeing much more than a vague dark impression of it, then followed Simon out through the house.

  The Perfection had parked himself right outside the house. His gangplank went into the hallway, wedging the front door open. “Flash git,” said Orson, impressed.

  “Thanks,” said the Perfection. “Come on, get in,”

  Orson started up the ramp. When he was about a third of the way up the Perfection’s alarm sounded outside and the ramp began to draw into the ship. “Hey!” said Orson, grabbing for the handrail. “I’m still on the ramp!”

  “So hurry up and get inside. Chop chop,”

  Orson staggered up the rest of the ramp and hauled himself in through the door. It closed immediately behind him. “Are Simon and your factors inside?” Orson asked the Perfection.

  “Yes,” said the ship. Orson could feel it starting to move already. “Go up to the gantry and have a seat there while I take off.” said the Perfection.

  “I’ll just go in my room and lie down,” said Orson. “That was quite tiring. Lot of stairs,”

  “Simon’s in your room,” said the ship.

  “Oh,”

  “Your sandwich is in the gantry, why don’t you go and get it?”

  “Can’t we swap around,” offered Orson, “So me and my sandwich are in my bedroom and Simon is in the gantry?”

  “Sorry, Orson-”

  “It doesn’t have to be the gantry, Simon could just be anywhere else at all inside of you except my room,”

  “I need the bedroom, Orson, I’m disabled,” said Simon. Orson had forgotten that Simon was in the channel with him and the Perfection, too. “I need the decent bed and the en-suite bathroom,”

  “I need those too,” said Orson. “Wait. He got on board twenty seconds before I did, how does he know there’s only one room with an en-suite? How did he know where the bedroom was? Perfection, were you two discussing this? Did you tell him he could have my room?”

  “He needs that room more than you do, Orson,” said the Perfection. “I’m sorry. We’ll set up another room for you once we’re underway,”

  The Perfection lurched sideways and Orson staggered against the side of the corridor. “Ow,” he whined.

  “Take a seat, Orse, on you go,”

  “I’m just getting into the gantry now.”

  “Good man,”

  Orson almost fell in sideways through the doorway into the gantry. His sandwich was there as promised, occupying most of the small dining table. A factor was sitting on the table holding onto the plate to stop it from sliding around. “Thanks,” said Orson as he slid onto the seat across from it. The factor looked up and pushed the sandwich towards him.

  ----------

  FREE2WORK ORTHOSIE

  ANANKE GROUP

  While the rest of the group flew on, Hollyhocks would slam on his brakes and slow for the next twenty hours. Once he was slow enough to turn he’d pull a U and start heading back the way they came. He’d warned them that he would start accelerating immediately. “And I won’t stop. It’s up to you to catch up to me before I exceed your maximum velocity. You know what that is.”

  The carrier ship had assured the group that he wouldn’t wait for any of them. “You catch up and get on board or you spend the next half a year getting yourself back to Lucky. Okay? Everybody happy?”

  Everybody pinged happily.

  “If you can’t keep up,” Hollyhocks told Atesthas privately, “Just be honest about it. Star Anthem has room enough, he’ll give you a lift back if you ask him. Okay, PA-AGMG?”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Atesthas.

  ----------

  “Are we nearly there yet?” said Star Anthem again.

  “Shut up,” said Errant Flag. “Yes. That’s it over there,”

  Atesthas toggled back and forth between his view and the one Errant Flag was sharing. “How do you know?” he said. “It just says Free2Work. It’s the fourth Free2Work we’ve passed in two days. Fifth,”

  “It’s the right one,” said Errant Flag. “Orthosie. I know,”

  “All these things look the same,” said Atesthas but Orthosie did have a bit of a look of its own. It was somewhat distinct from all the other Free2Work facilities they’d passed since they left Hollyhocks.

  “Menace mode, chaps,” said Errant Flag. “Spread out. Surround it. Move in slowly. Make it quite discouraging.”

  The machine squadron slid apart silently in space.

  All Free2Work platforms were haphazard arrangements of the same rectangular modules. The ugliest structures ever built by mankind and mankind had made some horrors. Orthosie had been put together with a little more whimsy than was standard. There had been an attempt at an aesthetic, Atesthas thought charitably.

  “Willingly?”

  “Sure, of course,” said Atesthas.

  “Willingly?” said Errant Flag again.

  “Yo,” said Willingly.

  “What are they doing in there?” asked Errant Flag.

  “They’ve sealed everything they can seal,” said Willingly. “They think we might do something.”

  Atesthas could imagine the current situation inside the Free2Work. He felt bad for being involved in causing it. They had advanced on the platform in a manner that must have quite upsetting for all the people inside.

  “We are going to do something,” said Errant Flag. “Pop one of the modules,”

  “No!” said Atesthas.

  “Which one?” said Star Anthem.

  “No!” said Atesthas. “Don’t pop any of them!”

  “PA-AGMG,” said Errant Flag. “Are you under the impression that you get to give orders around here?”

  “No,” said Atesthas. “But-”

  “Who has command of this operation, PA-AGMG?”

  Atesthas could feel the rest of the group watching this exchange from around the platform. “You do,” he said, “Sir,”

  Errant Flag adjusted his position slightly. “Tell me. Having been a human until recently, do you think the typical Free2Work subject would have their material conditions improved by us exposing them to the vacuum of space?”

  Atesthas answered grudgingly. “Yes,” he said.

  “Willingly,” said Errant Flag. “Identify the section with the fewest people inside,”

  “Got it,” said Willingly.

  “Hit it, Star Anthem,” said Errant Flag.

  Star Anthem had a ram for traversing asteroid fields. He used it on the top of the Free2Work platform. The top, where the bridge was.

  “That was the part with the fewest people inside, Flag,” said Willingly as the command deck of the platform crumpled. “All the other sections had thousands of people in them,”

  “I can’t believe you did that,” said Atesthas.

  “Neither can they.“ said Errant Flag. “They expect us to have more respect for human life than they do,”

  “So do I!”

  “Not your operation,” Errant Flag reminded him on their group channel, then opened up his communication to broadcast on all local channels. He vocalised aloud to address the humans aboard the damaged platform.

  “Please don’t be alarmed,” said Errant Flag. That was maybe the stupidest thing he could say in this situation, thought Atesthas. Then he followed it with something even stupider. “That was an accident,”

  Atesthas rolled over in exasperation. The movement meant he pulled away from everyone else a little. You had to keep pace and make little adjustments all the time to stay in place relative to the group.

  “Accident is the wrong word,” said Errant Flag. “It was an error. We didn’t want to hurt or kill anyone. I’m very sorry. Can you all hear me?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Just speak normally,” said Errant Flag. “I’ve got all your microphones and speakers so you can just talk to me as if I’m in the room with you.”

  “You should introduce yourself,” suggested Willingly.

  “Yes,” said Errant Flag. “Yes. I’m Errant Flag, I’m a ship. I’m very sorry. We really didn’t intend to cause you any difficulty. There’s just this one person we’re looking for. If you could just pass this person over to my friends here, then I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you. Does that seem agreeable to you?”

  He paused. “Can you all hear me alright in there? I’m picking up a lot of screaming,”

  “I’ll find us a spokesman,” said Willingly. “That’ll help. Who’s the highest ranking person that Star didn’t murder? It’s..you. Right, it’s you,”

  Willingly threw the image of a man’s pale, thin face onto every active screen and everybody’s neural. The image presumably coming from the camera on the terminal the guy had been working at. The man’s orangey-brown eyes widened as he was suddenly presented with his own face in front of him, and shunted into his neural. He had the standard slightly delayed response to recognising himself.

  “Gordon Gillespie,” said Willingly.

  “You’re in charge now,” Errant Flag told the man.

  “Uh,” said Gordon Gillespie. “Okay,”