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Sara Vibeke Stensrud (best known to her friends as Vibe) marvels at the little town from the train station, as she fumbles a heavy backpack into place on her skinny frame.

She takes pause, only for a second, to appreciate the change in surroundings. For weeks, she has been stuck in an office, playing with sterile computer programs; here, with the wind on her face and the sun in her eyes, she can finally sense that she is part of the world.

This is a real place. It is alive and I am not even part of it...

Very cool indeed. It’s like finding a world, in the VR, where things are going on even though you are not there to see them. People actually live here and stuff changes by itself; and now, she gets to sample the delights, interact with the characters.

The little station is idyllic; newly painted railings show an attention to detail and a caring warmth, despite the icy mountain wind. She texts a quick message to Bea, even as she fumbles with her sack, to say “Duh!” and snaps a picture of the scene with her glasses, sending it along with the message.

Like agony aunts, doom-saying the outcome of inevitable plastic surgery, they have been betting on what the little town would look like after its shoe shine. Bea’s roots were once torn from this countryside and replanted in deepest Urbania; given a podium, she can talk for, well minutes, about it, describing the scene as a mausoleum of badly painted wooden houses, surrounding prefabricated concrete boxes, which were thrown up in the sixties and seventies, and have long since passed their use-by date.

Norway might be known for its natural beauty, but not for its architectural prowess. Well, even after its recent shoe-shine, the town looks like a theme park for the urbanly challenged.

Anyway. In a moment, the train behind her will pull away and Vibe will be on her own, maybe even for the next few days. So friendly is good. It looks even a little homey, but it doesn’t quite feel like home. She smiles playfully and texts Bea: “In love, will stay here and raise kids,” and she adds a wink.

Are we ready?

All right then.

The sun’s halting disc beams serenely down from autumn cobalt; but, high above her, flags are fluttering like mainsails, catching the icicle rush traffic that is streaming off the mountain. The shuttle-train has been shielding her from it thus far, but in an instant the deceptive clemency will grow fangs to suck the warmth from the unwary. Time to get moving before she catches her death.

Vibe removes her glasses as she goes–a little vanity that she enjoys: flirting with eye-wear in public places. No use for them on the mountain perhaps, but still good to have. Men find them sexy– precisely because they are an anachronism. They emphasize her intellectual side, and it gives her the edge in first impressions, should she want it.

Oh yes, “Vibe” might be a playful downtown girl, but “Sara” can still be a brain-box when it suits her, studying for her Doctorate. Personas are useful, especially when they come off this easily.

Her mobile beeps a message back at her. It’s from Bea. It says “Duh!” and has a smile! Vibe grins and rolls her eyes at her own silliness.

Bury my mobile! she smiles to herself. Anyway, here we are, ready to make the trek into the mountains. Off we go.

Ambivalence simmers in her hind-brain. She did not exactly become flavour of the month for deciding to come out here. “Go!” “Don’t go!” they said. What was that all about? Mamma was okay–she was supportive (staunch proponent of self-help is mamma), Dr Lindgren said it might be worth a try, but did not have time to help; he just seemed preoccupied as usual. So she cut through the proverbial excrement.

For her, this trip is partly a nostalgia, partly survival, and partly a sense of adventure, rekindled. And, of course, there is that one big reason for coming, which clinched it.

But we won’t talk about that one for now...

She pulls up a local map on her wristband and checks directions. She’ll probably have to get a taxi from here to the start of the path up the mountain. Too far to walk all the way.

Besides there’ll be enough walking in the next few days to give Ghandi blisters...

She flicks through some menus with her thumb and dials the number of the team leader. The charmingly way-too-slow voice at the other end is clearly a machine, or else Mrs. Laurent has been doing drugs. “Hello, Mrs. Laurent? This is Sara Stensrud. Just letting you know that I have arrived at the train station and should be with you tomorrow. I’ll call again from the cabin this evening.”

Vibe pulls her backpack straps tighter and extricates her long, mousy ponytail from the rigging. She heads to the station exit.

The M-thing signals again and her hand has palmed the wrist strap before she realizes that she has no self-control. The message is a form, from the research council, for her travel expenses. Useful, but late. Famous government bureaucracy is about as timely as a tortoise on stilts. It should pretty much fill itself out, so she just flicks through, accepting its terms. Approval from her advisor is already there; there will have to be confirmation from Brussels before she can start the spending... blablabla. Fine. It’s better than nothing.

She squeezes ‘send’ and does not wait for confirmation before flipping over to send a quick one-liner to her advisor.

Then something odd. The display freezes with a quickly flashed message “alpha send” or some such crap, and then the display returns with a ‘battery low’ signal. It was charged on the train.

What Is The Matter With You, Fone?

That’s Swedish technology for you.

Impatient, Vibe drops the M thing into her pocket as she descends the short flight of steps at the station exit, and begins to cross the road. She has other appendages she can use, but not all of them have all of its functions. Besides, it is starting to rule her life.

She looks up, glad to see something other than her wrist.

Two cars are parked over by the old car pumps. One of them has a darkened police light on top. A woman in uniform stands by as a man unloads some plastic cartons from it. He glances at her and holds the glance for just a moment too long, as if guilt obliges him.

There is a shop at the pumps, with food and supplies and stuff. She needs to pick up a few things: a little junk, some snacks. She trots towards it, ignoring them. The brooding urgency of city concerns seems to have lifted from her in this unfamiliar territory. The burden of worry is replaced by the pragmatism of adapting to the moment. Travel is useful that way: it rubs out pointless intricacies and replaces them with broad strokes of necessity.

Inside the shop, life is predictably pedestrian. A lone teenager is sitting by the checkout of the mini-mart, dividing his attention between a TV and a security monitor. It could be a scene preserved from twenty years earlier, she thinks. A museum piece, unaware of its own failure to accede to the passage of time.

His eyes fix elsewhere as she enters, but he sees every aspect of his world go by on a monitor screen in front of him. Those four corners are his world, she imagines. And what a predictable and thankless world is framed within it. Only after she has her back to him does she see him turn to give her the once over, in the reflection of a glass door. Well: hot girl–who wouldn’t?

Her brother always used to say that, in small incestuous places like this, the whole village must be vampires, because everyone would be bitten by now. He’s certainly pale enough, and he hasn’t moved much yet, but ... this is no time for a stake-out.

Bite me! she smiles.

Vibe grabs stuff from the shelves without out stopping to browse. She has most of what she needs–just a little snack for the trip up the mountain. Maybe a new battery for the M thing, in case something is actually wrong with it. A bottle of water for later.

At the checkout, the kid seems kind of cute–or would be if he were five years older. She pulls a few hair strands loose from her pony tail to make herself look “more”, enjoying the effect it has on him. She is used to having boys look at her. Most of them shouldn’t be looking, but this one deserves to think about her later on, when he’s alone. He’ll ripen.

The kid debits her mobile and puts her things in a bag. He doesn’t dare to say anything, or even chance a smile at her, but she can see what he’s thinking. He can think of her later too, if he wants. She rewards him with a smile that he will not forget any time soon, and strides purposefully out.

Outside again, she sees the town from the opposing viewpoint. The towering mountains in the background make it a depressing oasis of concrete stonewall, colourless against the powerful rock-faces and forested ascents. It has been only a year since she was last here, but the power of it is still haunting. Even its recent shoe-shine has not made the town sit better along side the mountain.

The rock face is a dragon, she thinks, a monster that could crush her with the slightest effort. She feels tiny. Better to get up there before she changes her mind.

Her mobile flinches again and the car with the police light pulls up as she approaches the crossing. The second car has gone, or is out of sight.

A woman, dressed up in a badly fitting uniform gets out and approaches her. The attire does little to hide her masculinity,

“ID?” she queries flatly, and with gracious Nordic charity. Her stoney face is pointy and thin; she is too darkly tanned and her hair is pulled back so tightly in a pony tail that it looks like a Do-It-Yourself face-lift.

Vibe touches her ID-send, and the woman reads of the details on her mobile. “Got her” she says monotonically to the wire in her ear. She does not even look at Vibe. “Unlikely.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re going up the mountain?”

“Uh huh.”

“Hmmm.” She is entering something on her mobile.

“Is there something wrong with that? Is there something I should know?”

“You can’t go up there yet. There’s a disturbance. Police operation.”

“What kind of disturbance?”

She pauses for too long. “Gangs on the loose.”

“Gangs?”

“That’s what I said.”

“But I came here to go up there. What kind of gangs?”

The police woman looks at her with eyes that are too wide. Must be a zombie, or a vampire. “Sign in at mountain rescue, while you’re waiting, and don’t make any trouble here.”

“What? I just arrived.”

“How long do you plan being up there?”

“A few days. maybe a week. What did you mean ‘got her’?”

“You see the car parked over there just now?” She points to the place where Vibe saw the cars parked.

She shakes her head and shrugs, lying. No sense in asking for trouble.

“We’re doing stop-searches in the area.”

Vibe shrugs and smiles on the inside.

She’s doing a little alcohol trade on the side! Hah. She knows I saw her.

The woman looks her up and down. “Just doing our job. Don’t go up there until you get the okay signal from mountain rescue.” She looks her up and down once more and runs some kind of scanner over her backpack, checking twice. Then she just says “okay” and gets back into her police car.

It is not even a real police car. It’s just her single-mother bang-wagon with a stupid light on top.

As she drives off, Vibe notices a child seat in the back of the car.

So they are arresting kids now. Bitch.

She reels in a local map on her M thing and starts heading towards a taxi that is parked across at the station. So they made the town shine again with a lick of paint and some nice weather, but she doesn’t think she’ll stay and have kids here after all.

A single drop of October rain lands on her face, from out nowhere, as if protesting against the unusually long summer mildness, and the failure of autumn to supplant it with any convincing charade of its own. It is a signal for her to hasten her resolve. Besides, the backpack is feeling heavier than she imagined. It will either kill her or do wonders for her stomach contours.

She texts another ridiculous message and sighs, bored with her own habit. Okay – now we’re sick of the mobile, she thinks and puts it away.

Stupid invention. So stupid, so necessary.

Vibe checks in at the information centre. It is a pokey wooden bungalow with large windows, decorated in predictable Norwegian wood and linoleum flooring, which tapers towards a plastic drain in the middle of the floor–almost as though they are expecting someone to take a shower right there in the middle of the room.

The centre is run by a skinny stick-boy, probably a college student, maybe her own age, and a bulbous fat woman, who is squeezed way too tightly into her blouse.

No grace in denial.

Vibe approaches the desk. They see her, but no-one comes to her aid.

It is deadly quiet in the room. It is deadly quiet outside. Probably, they see only two people in a whole day at this time of year, but they keep her waiting.

Hey, freaky college student person!

Stick Boy is showing Fat Lady something about the combo workstation on her desk. Something tells her that the ugly one is in charge. Sara decides to put on her glasses, something that makes her look more ordinary, in case her startling good looks should weigh to her disadvantage here.

Hello? Echoes repeating... I’m here.

She is not used to being ignored, but she knows enough to recognize when it is deliberate. She turns and browses the information room, looking at maps and leaflets to distract herself from the wait. Best not to lose one’s temper and get off on the wrong foot.

Wave of stress building from within. Can’t control... may have to kill...

“Do you need any help?” asks the woman, eventually.

“Yes please!” Suppress urgent need for sarcasm. “I am going up into the hills. I’m supposed to check in with mountain rescue.”

The woman greets her with an edge of disapproval. “Well. You can’t go up there now. There’s a police operation operation going on.”

Headline, lady: button fatigue causes fat explosion. Danger of deep-frying village. “I heard,” she says. “What’s it about?”

“Some idiots with toy guns are playing up there.”

“Toy guns?” She articulates the words incredulously.

“Paint balls or something,” says the student, joining them at the counter. “They are having some kind of war games up there. The cabins are on alert.”

“Police don’t do anything,” says the woman. “They should throw them all in jail.” She smiles sullenly.

Seems pleasant enough. Could have misjudged.

A thought occurs to Vibe. Could there be a connection between this information and the reason for her visit here? Her babies are not answering like they are supposed to. How come no one told her about this before?

“So what’s the prognosis?” Vibe asks. “How long is it going to take?”

The woman pouts. “Hard to say.”

“Hours? Days?”

“You shouldn’t get too excited. These things can take time. There is a big area to cover. They are trying to get a helicopter, but the budget has been cut so they don’t like using it.”

How dangerous could it be?

The mountains are a pretty big place, but that also works in her favour. The chances of her meeting these idiots is pretty small. Besides, it couldn’t be any worse than Oslo on a Saturday night...

Vibe uncovers her wrist-mobile and says: “Is there somewhere I can wait?”

The woman hits a place on the touch screen to scan Vibe’s ID and expected route. Vibe’s mobile signals approval of her route. “There’s a café just down the road here, on the second floor of the supermarket. They have services, so if you follow our information,” (she taps another touch-pad to offer the URI to Vibe’s mobile), “you should get the same information we have.”

“Thanks,” she says. “Maybe I’ll do that.” The words trickle out innocently enough, but every fibre of her being screams: Lady, you must be out of your mind if you think I am going to that concrete bunker to consume your lousy coffee and perfumed cakes.

“Bye then.”

Succumbing to an urge to flee this little time warp, Vibe heads out into the sunshine to make the most of the day. If she cannot do as she pleases then she can at least enjoy the moment. She toys with the idea of visiting the café, but rejects it swiftly. She does not have the funds to extend her stay here. It is out of the question to spend the night here. She needs to get up the mountain. Today.

Vibe walks towards a little square in the town. A pair of tête à tête park benches are getting some sunshine so she drops her backpack onto one of them and sits down to absorb some questionably healthy solar radiation.

As a city girl, she despises the small-town isolation of this place: the unadventurous paranoia about the outside world, the unreasonable contentment with what they have, the blinkered fantasy that their way of life is better. But she can also be bigger than that. She has seen enough to know that there is something charming and idyllic about a small-town life. The mountains almost embrace this little town as if forming a crucible to hold it, that gazes up at the sky. This is their prison, but also their paradise.

But she is a city girl, with no question or doubt. That is her instinct and it is her image; and a good image is the best way to keep one’s personality from overflowing.

From the bench she stares forward at the mountain face in the direction that she must travel. It looms over her with impossible size, so close and yet so reduced to be squeezed into her field of vision. Each gigantic tree on the rocky slope is clearly visible, yet surreal in its insignificance; and the cold rock slowly reveals its intransigence. The longer she gazes at it, the more the picture-postcard idyll transforms into merciless and defiant threat.

A momentary twinge of foreboding grips her. Turn back! She suppresses it as swiftly as it surfaces. She will not think of irrelevant unlikelihoods now. She is above such things. She is Sara Stensrud and she can do whatever she puts her mind to. It is time to go up the mountain, flouting peril, dodging the dark forces of fate.

She texts to Bea: Zombies have taken over. Making my escape.

Vibe kicks through dry, powdering leaves–a tossed salad of multi-coloured hand-prints, fracturing and disintegrating into the earth: vampires that saw sunlight. The road from the little town is narrow and straight; trees stand on parade at either side, flaunting their autumnal pomp and finery as if saluting her journey.

Well, I’m here, she thinks, and I am not waiting around here any longer. Weather could change.

She tries to call her contact, Mrs. Laurent, once again, but there is still no reply. She gives up and simply marches onward. Better to be up ‘there’ with something to do, than down ‘here’ in the dark, she thinks.

It takes her half an hour to reach the end of the trail, as it curves and winds, up an down, ending in what looks like a farm. A farmhouse is situated just off the road. Her mobile tells her that the path up the mountain starts here. In the distance she can see the densely forested valley rise, meandering upward to some snowy peaks beyond.

Vibe comes to a tractor trail, close to the farmhouse; she can see the metal bridge over the stream that’s marked on the map and the actual trail that winds around almost full-circle to avoid an old stone wall, blocked off by a fence. The fence is buckled slightly where hikers have jumped over it, rather than following the path around as they should. She could follow her conscience and take the muddy path along the stone slabs, but the ford she would have to cross looks like a recipe for getting pretty wet and a poor way to start her trip.

Stupid place to put a fence anyway, she thinks.

The fence then.

A man, off in the distance, next to a barn, shouts to her. She turns and squints to look at him. The sound of his voice echoes around the farmyard a little, and is otherwise lost in the void. it does not make much sense to her, but she can see that he is gesticulating, pointing with a finger. She is not sure what he is saying, but she can guess and she sure as hell doesn’t care much for his tone.

He is reminding her that she should follow the path.

Guess again, mate, she thinks. Had you asked me nicely...

Besides, Sara Vibeke Stensrud is used to getting her way.

I am a spoiled child, she thinks. That gives me certain rights.

She pushes down the thin wire that is already ruined and begins to climb over it. It is not too high, but there is an elasticity to it that makes it non-trivial to keep it down as she swings her backpack-laden form over it. Her stomach muscles give a satisfying scream of stress, indicating that her stomach will be hard and muscular after this trip.

As she tumbles onto the grass on the other side, she checks on him and sees that he is getting into a tractor. He is shouting again. No matter, she will have crossed the little metal bridge by the time he is even close. It is just ten metres from her now, thanks to this short-cut. Perhaps he will follow her up the mountain and hunt her down, like a wild animal. Heh-heh. He can try.

She starts up the stoney path, carved through the dense forest, rising sharply upward in zig-zag up the steep wall of the valley. It reminds her of her childhood trips, the misery of physical exertion, but the ultimate satisfaction of achievement. Somehow it seemed worse in her memory.

Sweat begins to moisten her T-shirt and her breath grows short. This is when one could wish to be on the Moon. The walking will be good for her though: flat tummy, firm backside. It will make some cute boy’s day, or night.

She passes a red “T” symbol painted onto a tree, indicating the tourist route and feels comforted that she is on the path. It shouldn’t be long before she starts to see some of her babies.

Message from Bea, says: Princes or toads?

Only toads so far, she replies absently, bored with the play. She pulls up a map of the local area and overlays the last reported positions of the VeiVeks onto it. She is some distance from the first of them yet. No sense in thinking about work until she has to, but she has a sense of purpose now, and a will to escape from herself, from her present rut. The power of the mountains: it will wipe your mind clean and soothe your aching worries.

Down below she can hear the farmer shouting. Is he still shouting at her? Christ, she thinks, get over it!

She texts: Weird Vibe here – not me:) Going up now. L8r.

The forest pathway is still mostly dirt, but the slope steepens quickly. She can’t text while walking for much longer. She packs away the little keypad and concentrates on placing her feet in the right place. Walking up rocky paths is an art of balance. If you proceed with grace, poise and slow determination, it is a simple matter. If you scramble around in uncertain movements, you are likely to slip and use up twice the amount of energy. It is meditative; it requires her attention and prevents her from doing anything other than completing this singular navigation of the trail.

The steady plodding up the hill erases time from her consciousness. She has been climbing for as long as she can remember and it will last a lifetime yet. It is like being a graduate student, she thinks. She is enacting a representation of her life. You start on the path and you have no idea where you are going. Then you end up on a trail that you are unsure of. It starts slowly then rises sharply and you chug away at it, utterly mesmerized by the singularity of the task, and completely unaware of how you are proceeding. Better watch your step or you might be falling before you know it.

Her dreaming has tricked her back to an unpleasantness of the past. And here she is, trying to purge it from her consciousness; trying to render a poison of uncertainty and doubt neutral with fresh mountain air and affirmative action.

She is here to take command of the obstacles that plague her. And what does she do? Only fall right back into the quicksand!

A recollection settles over her like a burden of unnecessary and surplus gravity, as if the mountain itself were not enough to try her. Arms and legs getting slower, body getting heavier. Her mind lets out a cry. Aren’t we happy to have the power of recall?

After an indiscernable time, the path seems to dissolve ahead of her, and the trees scatter as if startled by her arrival. Through the remaining cover, shafts of sunlight fire aimlessly at the trail. As she emerges into the bright sunlight, she raises her hands as if to stave off the sky. The vastness of the void is above her, and down below are rocks and mud.

Light rain and morning chill have summoned forth the tantalizingly invigorating smell of eucalyptus. The University of California in San Diego, UCSD has a beautiful campus, and the walk up the road from the guesthouse is pleasantly shady and cool, but Den has decided to take a swim in the pool before walking up to his meeting. It is quiet at the motel guesthouse. Most of the guests are busy guzzling their breakfast or watching TV in the lounge, so he has the pool to himself.

The water is still and clear, until he thrusts himself forward and out into it, shattering its glassy surface and replacing it with frothing waves that spill outwards to the edges. The water seems both chilly and warm at the same time. He can feel bubbles of air loosening from his body as he cuts through it.

The trajectory ploughs an expanding dovetail of ripples through the water and once resurfaced he begins to swim slow breast-strokes to work off the feeling of lethargy from his flight.

As he swims, Den runs through the walk up to the campus in his mind, which he dress-rehearsed yesterday, and tests himself on his mental agility. It will be important for them to feel that he is sharp and confident now. Den can be confident on the surface. He makes a good impression. He still has youthful good looks and can be charming, in an English sort of way, when he needs to be. He hasn’t come this far without being in command of his faculties. But that kind of discipline requires constant testing. He likes to use the training time for running through his list.

Remember to take charge of the meeting at once. Make sure that you have all the facts in your head. Marketing is a subtle business and the culture here is quite different from European culture. He should be sure to demonstrate his command of both worlds. Then there is his other agenda, but not something that can come out. He has to be convincing.

Coming to America is always a mixed blessing. The increasing militarization of the borders makes it harder to move around. So far the anti-terrorism laws have not made a significant impact on tourism and business, but soon it will be necessary to wear electronic visa inside the country. It seems absurd to Den. Even prisoners can opt out of wearing their dog tags if they stay in one place. Tourists will be more accountable. The freedom of movement will be at a premium, easy in prearranged tours by bus or by plane, but difficult by car or in solo. He must make the most of the freedoms while they still survive.

He will hire – no rent a car.

Still, the annoyance of a barrage of questions about his intentions and how much money he expects to make on this trip, make the whole effort somewhat tiresome. Soon he hopes that his connections with the top players in the game venture will afford him certain privileges in that regard.

He ducks his head down and swims in long broad breast strokes just under the surface, enjoying the extra thrust and speed it affords him. It charges him with a sense of power. He feels musculous, larger somehow and in command, isolated in the watery cocoon from the reality of the surroundings.

As he surfaces again, the gasp of his own breath is the only human sound he can hear. Far off in the distance he hears music from a television set tormenting the morning peace. Reaching the end of the pool, Den grabs on to the side and puts his feet to rest on the bottom. He takes a moment to enjoy his surroundings, to stress down and then runs quickly through his drill once again. He admires the heated stillness of the air. It teases with a sense of premonition, as though the air itself is waiting for something to emerge from the day.

“Morning, sir. How are you today?”, says a hotel employee who comes around the corner of the building to his right.

“Morning,” his primitive brain responds. He nods back with a smile, enjoying the pleasantly formal courtesy here in the United States.

This is a good way to start the day, he thinks. He should find a place to swim near his home, where he can make it a regular ritual, but he knows that he is unlikely to value the time when he is at home. This is a travel phenomenon.

A couple of young kids is hiding behind some erupting fronds, peering at him and his audacious morning display. They giggle and tease him, fully aware that he can see them. Hide and seek?

He suppresses an instinct to join in. Now is not the time to let down his concentration. Success requires a measure of control, of personal sacrifice. No pain, no gain, darling, nez pah? Whose pain? His or theirs?

Ghosts of supposed obligation. Focus, Den. They are young, middle class, thin, white. Their eyes are probably blue. She likes horses and he likes the tanks. His mind skips through a dozen stereotypes that characterize the moment. Always stay on your toes. Friendship can wait. This moment is about branching out of the box and becoming something.

Den reaches up and lifts himself from the envelope of the pool; he feels the transitory chill of the warming air seep into his limbs. His hand grabs a towel and rubs his body lightly down then throws on a robe. The fabric is deceitfully soft but stimulates him with a slight prickling sensation. The fibres will dry his skin and gently exorcise the dead skin cells of his outer shell, cleansing his skin as well as his mood. He dons his pool slippers and flip-flops back to his room, avoiding a small cleaning device that cringes respectfully into a ball as be approaches it.

Den climbs the short wooden steps, up the outside of the hotel wing to the second floor, where his fingerprints grant him access to the suite. The room seems dark and murky after the brightly lit morning, but the carpet is soft and television lights up as he enters.

There are chairs and tables as well as a bed, even a refrigerator and a kitchen here, with a breakfast bar, but he will probably not use it. He is not really sure why anyone would need such a thing. It makes the room seem cold and inappropriate but he affords it less than a passing thought as he moves directly to the shower. The air is naturally conditioned for temperature, humidity and scent which is unfamiliar and rather than relaxing him seems to trigger a disconcerting sense of suspicion. There must surely be a limit to how invasive environmental controls can be. Certainly the boundaries are far from what he is used to. He wonders why, in such a beautiful area with semi-natural fragrances like eucalyptus, they could not simply open the window and be done with it. Perhaps it would require additional insect control. Whatever.

He slips into the shower and lets the perfect water temperature massage his scalp and shoulders as the shampoo and conditioner revitalize his jet-lagged hair and the soap creams his skin. The hotel bathroom products are pleasant, he has to admit and they perform their duty in removing the effects of the chlorine from the pool. The hotel chain has probably paid handsomely for their own characteristic scent.

Emerging from the steamy cubicle, he catches sight of the television in the bedroom. An ad is chiming away. As always, he is both fascinated and revolted by the advertising culture here. It is his job, but this is so alien to him.

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The ad goes on relentlessly bashing away at the product name, but Den kills the sound as quickly as he can find the remote. Good grief, he thinks. It is a far cry from the ad his company made for the UK market. There they had created a scene in a caravan home with a middle aged man and woman. The man had bad breath and filthy teeth and was reaching for a bag of sweets (candy!). His wife slaps his hand with a fly swatter and gives him a tube of the new toothpaste, sending him off to the bathroom to brush. A week later, he is transformed into a smiling prince with a perfect smile and his wife admires him with ‘that’s better’ kind of look. As she turns around, satisfied with a job well done, he sees the bag of sweets still there and the camera zooms in, in slow motion, as his heart pounds and streaming saliva runs down his teeth like a pastiche of the classic Alien movies. Suddenly a second set of teeth snaps forward and grabs the sweet bag, swallowing it whole, as his wife simply rolls her eyes. A voice over concludes: “Icy Fresh – gives you twice the smile of any other toothpaste.”

He cannot help but smile at the memory. It is a far cry from the bombardment technique used here. But that, after all, is why they need him here. It is his job to understand these cultural chasms. They separate the continents into cells so discontinuous that they might have been forged on the very anvil of the ocean ridges themselves. Without his help their efforts would simply perish in a burial of subduction. He has been given an opportunity here, like everyone else and he has come to use it.

Den dresses quickly and heads down to breakfast, down the stairs, around around the short path to the main entrance; past the check-in desk to a dining room full of what seems to be families and groups of people. He dispatches breakfast quickly as he sizes up the people sitting here, watching the television in the corner of the room intently as they shovel down everything from melon to pancakes.

This is all part of the psych up. He has come here for a purpose. He has come to learn and to impress, to mingle and to climb. The cat is out of the bag for them now.

Someone has tuned the television to CSPAN, a refreshingly naked news discussion, he thinks, but with so many opportunities missed to convey a message. It is not long before the hotel management come and change it back to a different news channel, with its rolling text strip and staged presenters. Well, he has had his moment of peace at the pool, now it is time to rejoin the rat race.

He runs through his list again. He knows it. He can do it. I am here, he thinks. He eats lightly, still feeling a little sick from the long flight, checks the time and leaves the breakfast hall, dropping by his room to collect his stuff. Then, released into the Californian air, he stands at the edge of the flagstone path, looking out to the awakening freeway. A sign is planted at the side of the path. In the UK it would have said: PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS. Here it says. ATTENTION: FLOOR MAY BE SLIPPERY WHEN WET. He stares at it for a few seconds, realizing where he is.

Beating down on the calm forest of palms and bushes, the sun and its cloudless consort of blue, warm him to the bone. No sign of the chilly morning now. It has evaporated, like the mist from the pool, winding up in miniature vortices, fledgling tornadoes. A light breeze is blowing on is legs. Den checks that he has the necessary items in his portfolio and starts up the embankment from the parking lot of the motel towards UCSD.

The sound of distant water. At first, just a dull whisper, like a broken radio, or wind in the leaves. It grows slowly, gaining definition with each step. Then around the corner, the stream is there, erupting on her senses with a clarity, sharp and angular. Splashing water, tumbling over rocks. She fills her flask and drinks.

Sara Vibe Stensrud slips off her backpack for a moment to rest. She is making slower progress than she anticipated. Her goal is to reach the first of the cabins before evening meal, but she has not been to the gym for some time; aeorobic training has festered into anaerobic misery. But she will make it. She always has her way.

The water rushes past in this little valley outcrop. She is not far from a waterfall. She stoops to splash some water onto her face. Her cheeks are rosy now; she can feel the heat in her face. Best not to meet anyone like this. She will coast for a while once she gets close to the cabin, to cool off and recover a more becoming complexion.

Her breath billows in the damp air near the stream. This is a fantastic place, wild and rugged and free from empty restriction. She feels alive here, but it is getting cold. She needs to keep moving.

She checks her distance from the cabin on her wristband, as she loosens the strap. It seemed like a good idea to wear this handy accessory to keep her hands free and warm, but she forgets how the sweat builds up underneath the strap making the whole thing pretty icky. It itches. She takes it off and examines the soft screen, flattening it out to get a better image.

The map seems to be stuck on a position from some time ago. According to it, she is not even on the screen. She zooms out, with cold fingers. to see the stream where she is standing and sees the ‘X’ that marks her current position. She still has satellite contact, but mobile cell connectivity is not so good in the dips and troughs of the landscape. She won’t get more detail until she moves into the open again. So, for now, she will just have to make do with the painted T’s for-tourist, painted on the rocks along the trails. Just like the good old days.

Vibe gets a direction and stuffs the wristband into a pocket, hoisting up her backpack, tightening the belt a little and summoning resolve. Better not rest for too long; if she sits down and relaxes, she might never get moving again. Besides, the sun will be going down in about an hour, so she needs to get to the cabin.

She clambers up the boulder scree, away from the stream and towards the greenish, grassy hills that roll across this plateau top. An edge, an eyeful of the valley off to the right: the sinking sun and the thickening cloud. She stops for a moment, remembering this view from a previous trip. When was it? It seems a long time ago, in a different life. A little splash of nostalgia tears into her present detachment. It is worth remembering things like that, memories of the past, but only when she is alone.

She spent many summers here, in the mountains, with Bea and her family, walking through the mountains, like a troop of Girl Guides. They were the ‘mountain troupe’; not exactly hard core outdoors freaks, but strutting their own stuff, according to their own script. It was only when she turned sixteen that they came here together, by themselves, and experienced the freedom that comes from having one’s parents at bay. That was a summer that changed everything for her.

She borrowed a backpack from Bea’s brother; he, in turn, dutifully refused to join the ranks of their essentially female regiment. The pack made her special. It used to belong to Bea’s father. It was covered in sew-on patches and sported dozens of small tears from its weathered history. She liked the pack. It was solid and real, and had more character (and certainly more credibility) than the pink vanity cases the other girls were towing through nature’s noble corridor. Bea’s younger sister, Nina, looked up at her tall form with awe and admiration, through freckles and eyelashes. Her hair was spiky, mostly on top, like an exploding fountain of red. “You’re so beautiful, Sara,” she said. Somehow, the thought had never occurred to her before. With the lead backpack, she felt a new importance, like a leader of the pack.

Bea was cooler than all the others she knew. Sara always thought so. There was, after all, a reason they became best friends. When other girls were conspicuously going to parties, openly pretending to enjoy alcohol and boys (while hiding their pony magazines under their single beds), Sara and Bea were climbing trees and hanging out with boys because they were cool and because they weren’t so goddamn self-absorbed and bitchy. They both had brace retainers on their teeth back then. They felt like two fanged wolves, scurrying around in the wild. Other than their friendship, they had little in common. Perhaps that was part of it.

Sara was never much impressed by the boys of her age, but she knew she was attractive to them. They would whistle at her with that vulgar barbarism that boys feigned, or perhaps it was even real, but it did nothing for her. She had a mild crush on her math teacher, until he seriously dummed out by telling them that the reason hair waves were called ‘perms’ came from the mathematical term ‘permutation’. Duh, please.

The boys of her own age were mostly clueless and clumsy, but there was one who was quiet and smart and good looking. He was a loner, though: shy and deep looking. She liked that, but he was way too introverted for her then. Not to be.

She went to a special school in those days. A school that was supposed to teach old-fashioned academic values, Dad’s idea. He wanted her to grow up smart, not like the regular idiot savants that schools pump out, he said. Not many boys to choose from.

Sara did not really find her natural connection with boys until that summer. After her trip to the mountains, her father invited some French and American scientists home. Peter Green. The handsome one. He was young and dark. He had an intensity that she found magnetic and when he looked at her, she felt like jelly. She flirted with him openly. She was riding on the crest of a boosted self-image, having been troop queen for the younger sisters and Bea.

There was a party one night, just before they were about to leave, and she made sure that she was close to him. She wore a short white skirt to show off her long legs and a white sleeveless T-shirt that showed her belly button and small breasts. White sports shoes. She was purity. She left her hair long, not tied back, just pushed behind her ears. She practised a smoldering look.

The scientists were seated in a group of chairs and sofas in the crowded living room. There were all kinds of people from the University and people she had never seen before. She made certain that she was next to him, on the arm of the sofa and told him that she wanted to practice her English. When they were finished talking, she stood there, in the tightly packed room, next to him, so that her leg was next to his arm. She listened to him speak. He was calm, a bit forceful. He did not ignore her, even though he was talking to others. She felt important, sexy.

At first he put his hand on the back of her leg playfully, taking it away again, causally, not too forward, as he waved his hands in explanation. But she knew what he was thinking. Then, as she responded by bumping causally towards him and brushing him with her body, she started. His hand touched the inside of her thighs from behind, just gently with fingers brushing her at first. In the cover of the crowd, no one else could see; it gradually crept higher, testing her resolve, until his index finger just touched her panties in the rift between her legs and his thumb stroked the crease of her buttocks. He kept his hand there for several seconds. Her breathing became heavy but she forced herself to maintain her outward appearance as though nothing unusual was afoot. Even years later, the excitement she felt still paralyses her with its intensity. Such audacity, such a thrill of excitement from someone so safe. Finally, he removed his hand and she put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself, and then fled to a place where she could sit alone for a while and touch the spot where his hand had been. The next time she saw him, they both smiled coyly, but nothing more was said of it, and then he was gone. Peter Green.

It has always been hard to describe the sense of freedom she felt after that, to justify it and understand it, yet it altered her somehow. Sara has always been a loose canon, impulsive and unapologetic. That summer, she became freer, she became Vibe.

Both Sara and Vibe always had their way. Her father always gave in to her, in spite of her mother’s protests. Unlike many of her girlfriends, she felt an almost boyish passion for life. He let her be herself. She was never contented to simply coast along in the passenger seat, or wait for fortune to come to her. She always wanted to take the rudder and sail into stormy waters, to find the nexus, the place where something is happening. To hell with passive girl friends, waiting for life to show them what to do.

Something about her encounter that summer fostered the realization that she could be independent and that it was not only her father who would accede to her wishes. But then her father died suddenly of a heart condition, not long after the visit. He was still young, in his fifties, but there was some congenital weakness. She contained her emotions well in public, but she was devastated. She resolved to honour his trust in her by making the most of her life, to be someone – to not just hang out and get laid, like the other girls. Her only regret was that Bea could not join her on her quest. She was not the school kind. But she was still the only one who would keep her company during her struggle.

By the time that summer was over, she knew that there was no turning back. She was committed to a different path. The forces of destiny would steer her away from her remaining family, to a future that no one had considered for her.

Vibe focused on her studies, enjoying boys like a commodity, only when it suited her. She studied for three years at Oslo University College, learning programming and system design. She pursued her own interests, seeking a path of her own rather than following on her father’s footsteps, or her mother’s. Her mother set her straight on that, when she occasionally doubted her own judgement. She enjoyed mathematics and chemistry, but felt she needed to understand the all-pervasive tools of computing and communications. They are all around.

By the end of her degree, she felt as though she had transformed her view of the world, but she was weary of machines and their virtual worlds and felt that there must be more that she could apply her skills to. Computer science seemed like an empty shell: a skill to build things, but without a vision of what to build. She enrolled in courses of linguistics, mathematics and in environmental engineering to bide her time while she considered her options. She joined Bellona and learned how to enjoy the environment in a responsible way. She joined Bea and her family more often after that, walking in the mountains from cabin to cabin. It was a good way to keep in touch with her friend and to get out into the environment. Bea became a hairdresser.

Ultimately, it was a professor at the College working in the management of computer systems who convinced her that she could combine all her talents by applying technology to better the environment. She enrolled in a Ph.D. programme with the project of a lifetime, a project to make everyone envious: the testing and development of commercial applications of planetary robotic technology in mountain tourism and maintenance.

It seemed like an odd thing to do, developing little robots to wander around the Norwegian mountains, but where better to test such technologies than in a place where there is both highly variable terrain and sufficient human infrastructure to keep tabs on them. They could be put to work for the tourist board, maintaining and monitoring, helping mountain rescue.

At first the challenge had seemed almost too enormous to grasp, but she dismissed her fears and overrode them with a leap of faith. I can do it if I want to, she thought. Besides, who else could appreciate this unique mixture of skills as well as I can? It was not a case of talking her into it. It was just perfect.

Her college professor shrugged it off, joking: if you want to reach for the stars, you should build a rocket rather than waiting for the sky to fall on your head. So, standing on this very spot, two years ago, she decided to reach for the stars.

Ad astra, baby.

Streaky white freckles have opened up in the moonlit sky. This new pattern could mean a change of fortune; changing winds often mean precipitation is on the way. It could be snowing within the hour.

Vibe reaches the barely perceptible summit of an asymptotic climb, flouting Zeno and his stupid paradox to reach the top. It seems to have taken her hours to conquer this minor bump, winding upward through mud and stones, but she is careful not to pay attention to time. A watched kettle never makes the top.

Down below, in shadow, she sees a thin strip of a flag flapping in the chilly breeze, and the warm lights of the cabin she has been aiming for, with its grassy roof and dormitories. Her mobile signal has been strong for some time now and she has already checked in. They should be expecting her. She flashes her new ETA to reserve dinner. She should make it to the first sitting, in spite of being late. Oddly, she has not received any reply from the French team. Where are you?

No cinder of daylight remains now. She is following the trail by fortuitous moonlight. She sets off down the hill at a faster pace.

It doesn’t take long. The stone steps leading to the cabin are a little too steep to run up, but Vibe feels an exuberant lightness of step as she reaches her goal. This is it. She’s arrived. Soon it will be down to work, and ... well, one thing at a time.

She approves of the cabin, with the exception of a rank smell of overflowed sewage. The entrance is less kitschy than many of the other cabins she has been to. There are no overbearing wood-carvings or fake runes to greet her, no models of trolls for the tourists, just a simple sign saying “Reception this way”. In the Norwegian way it says “Eksepedisjon” or place of expedition. A fitting double entendre for the traveller.

It is close to dinner time. The benches where people are supposed to take off or put on their boots are empty and there is a buzz of conversation coming from inside. It is a strangely comforting sound after a day of isolation. She arrives at the cabin lodge to meet the team.

“Hello,” she says, with a smile. “I have a room for the night. I booked ahead.”

The man at the reception taps away at a touch screen and scans Vibe’s mobile.

“You know that you shouldn’t be walking around up here alone now? We are on alert up here.”

She nods. “I know. They told me down below. I have business up here.”

“Well, you’re here now.”

“Yeah.”

“You should check in your position so they don’t have kittens. Here’s your towel. Single room or dorm?”

“Better make it a single tonight,” she says. It occurs to her that her mobile has already reported her position to the police and rescue service.

He uploads a key into her mobile and she stores it.

“I am supposed to be meeting a group of French scientists here tonight. Do you know where they are? At dinner, perhaps?”

He looks back at her with wide eyes that she is unable to fathom. There is no show of emotion in them, nor is there any sign that he has comprehended her question. He seems to have expedited her and there is nothing more to say.

“French? A group of them? I guess I’ll find them here somewhere.”

She searches his face for some sign–some trace of understanding, or, indeed, of anything. She finds it dead, devoid of content, as if all of his facial muscles have died in some fatal brain crash. He is disinterested; he is merely dis.

She goes out into the darkening evening and looks around at the shadowy mountain scenery. Her room is across in the next cabin outhouse. In the dark, the ground between the cabin and the VeiVek at the base of the valley seems like an explosion of rubble, as though the aftermath of some great catastrophe. Defiant tree-sentinels line the forest edge, as if forming a quasi-human shield against the explosion. The boulders bear their granite teeth, smashed by some gigantic blow to the mouth of the rock.

This is the night from which she emerged only moments ago, yet already it seems hostile and alien. She is glad to finally be here in the shelter of the cabin.

An old fashioned key turns a lock. A door creaks open. A wooden bed with a simple douvé and pillow and a sink. Vibe sets down her backpack and sits down to take off her walking boots to swap for something more suitable for indoor use.

I can’t stay here in a single room for long, she thinks. Not unless I can get some funding for this trip.

She checks for voice messages on her mobile. Nothing, Jonas Lindgren, her secondary advisor, now at the Research Council. Where are you Jonas? Where is my money? She tried contacting him before leaving and again on the train, but he is not answering.

She opens her pack, pulls out shoes and fresh clothes and washes up for dinner. She texts a quick message to the leader of the French group, Mrs. Laurent, but receives no reply. The French team has been out here testing the research and environmental monitoring capabilities of the VeiVeks. They promised to meet her to show her the ropes and go through some of the procedures in the field. So why no answer?

They are not even here.

Vibe feels like an idiot and reels off a string of cuss words to pollute the environment a little more. Sorry, plants. Does anyone give a crap how much effort to took her to get here?

No answer. But she’d better go and check.

Vibe feels as if she has somehow been catapulted light years from home. What is the point of a mobile if you can’t get what you want when you want it? The rugged wilderness has seldom seemed so inhospitable as now. She resolves to lift her spirits with a little company.

STOP PRESS! The cat is out of the bag.

So the international newspapers say. The story has been leaked. The penny has dropped, the cat has scatted. Talk show hosts are mentioning it, conspiracy theorists are discussing it in private channels and even within the game itself. But here, in the US, no one is even wrinkling their whiskers. Virtual Reality – VR.

Virreality, Virreality, there is nothing like Virreality, in all the world, that vain and temperamental cat!

The game. Is it a fad? Is it good or bad? It is the VR scenic programmable chat-room, cat-room. And none should be the wiser about what has transpired beneath the surface. Users can meet, interact and play games with each other. They can win points by being good to each, or by killing the enemies of society. But what is it in reality?

Virreality, Virreality, a fiend of illusion and a master of depravity!

They go there to meet, to talk, to fight, to race, to dance, to love and to make art. They go there to be different or to be the same; they face their fears or they hide their shame.

But not every game is a game. Words and phrases are not always chosen to describe the truth of the matter. A veil of imagery can be designed to camouflage rather than to reveal; intention clouded in diversion; plain surfaces adorned with graffiti and slogans that delude the onlooker. Some see what they want to see. If playfulness is the art of mischief, then mischief is a game of deception.

Virreality, a master of disguise who invents the law. You seek her here or seek her there, but Virreality is not really there!

Delegates and conference attendees have gathered in the air conditioned melting pot of the public conference centre, centred on the larger auditoria in the UCSD campus. They are queueing up to register for this public event, the unveiling of the mystery cat. Carefully cooled, scrubbed and ionized air is tense with expectation following the alleged revelations about the unscrupulous intentions of the game. Almost everyone here has been involved in making it, but still there fosters a doubt in the backs of their minds. No one is stupid, but how far might they have been duped? Consider the embarrassment, the breach of trust.

Decades have been invested in the technology of computer games, to reach the sophistication that can be called a virtual reality. Distributed code and processing, on a public Internet, has made a new generation of interactive meeting places possible. Now they are here. Rejoice the advertisers, rejoice the governments.

At first, they imagined a complex web of scenarios, built into ever more programmed entertainments, but as always, it is the simplest ideas that are the best. From instant messaging to chat rooms and virtual realms to immersive games, the progression has captured the widest possible audience, using any and every language, interfaced by a nexus of universal communication and trust. The technology to reach into minds, young and old, wanting or lonely; it is embraced by anyone and everyone needing a lifeline to a wider community, or seeking a release from the stress of proximity...

Not only do personal mobiles allow players to enter the game from wherever they might be, they equip every person with their own social body armour. No one needs to meet anyone, no one needs to risk anything in an encounter. They are safe and deluded. They filter out anything they do not want to see. The quiet, the reserved and the shy are the winners and the losers in this game. The game allows them to be whomever they want to be. But in the end, the illusion of contact is the only contact they have with others. No more having to confront their fears.

And when the world thinks she is asleep, she’s always wide awake!

Games are Big Business. E3 LA OK. Action games, muddied together with the popular chat rooms: interactive environments mixing traditional problem solving with action and interaction in every imaginable fantasy: Hollywood companies and traditional action gaming companies funding the creation of a fully blown experiment to link home computers into a common generated environment. Open, free software. Al the world can join in. An amalgamation of popular and enticing meeting places. Virtual environments and businesses reaching out to the wider world of possibility.

There is a new economy to be won from trivial pursuits. Sponsorship alone for advertising, in this new space, is generating new markets and new opportunities. Given such as soap box, there are few voices who would not like to be heard.

From a gentle miaowing to a the lion’s roar, this cat creeps in and out of everybody’s door. Oil and gas tycoons with power galore.

Few have not been seduced by the idea of a controlling share in this adventure. Den and his company have been given the rights to develop message broadcasting technologies. It is a huge privilege, a considerable status, but there will be no resting on laurels here. The world of advertising and marketing is cut-throat and humans do not have nine lives.

Even from the start, Den realized that the possibilities were breathtaking and his head-start has been a fortuitous advantage in the arena. They have known for years that games would be a new dimension for marketing: every object, every movement, every colour or attribute of a virtual world is a potential icon for something. The skillful orchestrator of those attributes can make subliminal connections that will plant names, products, perhaps even attitudes in receptive minds.

Of course it is a tricky business. Too much, and they will simply shut down. Sometimes even Den feels the need to close his mind even to the simplest, most primitive advertising imagery, posted on the trains and tunnels of the London Underground. The barrage of messages and imagery can be overwhelming. Little catch phrases from posters go around and around in his head, driving him crazy. Now imagine the possibilities in a virtual worl. Total immersion and total control over the environment. Imagine how total immersion could be used to direct thought.

China has complained to the U.S: government about the excessive freedom of access to the game. They have imposed strict filtering policies on the content, but not even they can be sure that they have filtered every subtle message.

Norway, a gaming nation proud of its cultural heritage, was early in wanting to inject national cultural values into the scenery, so that generations of Norwegians would not grow up learning only Hollywood fabricated culture.

Other nations have followed suit. So far, activist lobbies have not argued seriously for regulation of access to virtual realms. The game, after all, is very carefully designed to allow people to see almost exactly what they want to see. How could it possibly offend? But it has set everyone thinking.

When all this came together and exploded into the world in a cosmogony of network reinvention, it was a force that could not be stopped. Corporate wishes and multimedia fantasies attracted each other like the explosive matter of a stellar nursery, falling gradually in on itself and igniting with the mesmerizing blaze of future profits.

Virreality, the unstoppable cat.

To the attendees of this meeting, the undertaking seems truly massive, and representatives from all parts of the world have flocked here for the public meeting. Some of the participants are saying: this is a drop in the ocean compared to SIGGRAPH, but one must remember that here is only the chosen elite, the controlling interest. The true numbers are more far staggering.

As Den arrives, he collects his registration package, his badge and begins to mingle. He knows a few faces from his personal involvement over the last few years, but there are many newcomers. It will not be easy to find anyone here during this public event. It will be the private meetings that count the most.

After he has given a speech on the benign involvement of the international marketing companies in designing game scenarios, he will probably be inundated with people wanting to ask him questions. He still needs to focus.

Never mind causal interest and pats on the back.

Friendship can wait. This is about achieving success.

Looking at the faces here, it is hard to know what to think. Will they buy it? Does he really buy it himself? Who is he kidding?

Listening to the eager effervescence of American accents around him, he feels like an outsider. The involvement of foreign contractors was always controversial to the game executive, but advisors and sub-contractors have been engaged to work on it from the start. Naturally, each company or individual was made to sign a contract of absolute secrecy. Some kind of deal was done with patents that Den could not understand, To him it barely seemed legal, but he is no expert.

They needed help. Even a U.S. led collaboration could not solve all of the problems internally. Cheap labour from the Far East, to create the code base quickly; advisors from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia were engaged to design scenery and advertising styles, as well as to decide on the boundaries for allowed behaviour–what users logged on from different regions would be allowed to see and do.

There is no cat in the metropolis that holds so many patent monopolies, for performing surprising illusions and eccentric confusions...

One government senator is reputed to have complained: “Can we allow these outsiders into the project?”

“Senator,” his counterpart rebuked, “without these outsiders we would not have the technology at all. We need to speak their language at the very least.”

Later he was to be shrouded in scandal for the allegation that the next major threat against America was to come from the European Community rather than Russia or China. We have given too much away! Time to take it back. Forget about Mao’s little red book, focus on the NSA’s Red Book. Unfortunately that would be a significant loss of revenue for the U.S, and money talks in Washington. The senator was eventually silenced but not before it had been reported in the Herald Tribune and the story broadcast.

Then the dam broke. A month ago, a story was leaked to the press from an unknown source, claiming that the game was really a ploy by the U.S. government to extend its public diplomacy engine, so as to reach out to children all over the world and show falsely romantic ideals of the American Dream with the help of the game.

From good press to bad press, a panacea suddenly turned into a pathogen. A web of communication, enabling the world to talk a common language, or advanced spy-ware, for eavesdroping on the activities of the entire world of users. Voices have claimed that it is to be used as a form of espionage, for information collection, but the proof? So far no one has managed to prove it. Surely, with so many experts watching, it would not be possible to pull such a fast one.

Peace activists argue that, by providing agency-sponsored war games for kids at home, the game designers could keep Americans and their allies attuned to the idea of violent intervention, paving the acceptance for future military interventions when necessary. By making the use of weapons a natural part of everyday life, the game designers could render the anti-gun lobby irrelevant and fanatical in the eyes of common people.

Well, I never; was there ever a cat so clever?

And so, the conference convenes and it is Den’s turn to speak.

Focus. Success. Impress.

Trickling words, captured and assimilated. From aimless wandering through the avenues of possibility, hoisted onto a stage to act out his part. He has come to explain how marketing opportunities will be managed within the game. Is he doing their bidding, or serving his own agenda?

After all, the game is the very paw print of Western capitalism. His company alone won the right to develop the technologies for advertising in VR. The challenge is to avoid the mistakes of the past: information overload. In VR there are more opportunities to tie directed appeals into individuals’ preferences, in an intelligent and context sensitive way.

“But aren’t you really saying that you now have the ability to control people’s emotions, tap into their real desires and fantasies and impress them with a specific tailored temptation?”

“Some have called it the nano-technology of information. Micro-managing the very bits of a person’s profile.”

“It is all about information.”

“Well,” Den replies coolly, “the game allows users to filter out things they don’t want to see, so in that sense this is a space in which their interests are better protected than ever before.”

“Doesn’t that assume that they know how to do it?”

“Well, we can’t mollycoddle them all the time. Everyone has a basic responsibility to look after themselves.”

“In other words, you’re betting on the fact that they won’t!”

No answer is forthcoming.

“Also, we have extensive user testing. We listen to the responses of users, their desires and needs in groups of subjects from every part of the world.”

Someone breaks in. “I think it is important to remember that this is a commercial venture, not a charity program. Someone has to pay for this, and we want the technology to pay for itself.”

“Yes, yes, but in the process we are giving the world a whole new technology to communicate with – with built-in universal translation! Never before has an African tribesman been able to communicate with a broker on the Hong Kong stock exchange, without an interloper, and in an environment of their mutual choosing. The possibilities for diplomacy alone are enormous.”

“But aren’t we also giving a new opportunity for organized crime and terrorism to flourish?”

A fiend of illusion, a master of depravity.

“Why would there be warfare or terrorism when ordinary people of the world can talk to one another without the intervention of their political leaders.”

“I think that view is somewhat naive.”

“Yes, Mr. Morris, you make it sound like a panacea, but this game has already been reviled as a political conspiracy–a private channel for western corporate and U.S. government propaganda.”

“What do you say to claims that it is fly-paper for organized crime?”

“Positive arguments for the game include the ability to covertly monitor illegal transactions by simply using anonymous software to signal anomalous transactions. Working with the FBI, Europol investigators have foreseen both the dangers of a virtual environment for organized crime and also the potential for setting traps for mafia organizations and child pornography rings from around the world. We are well aware of the possibilities.”

“Mr. Morris, research into virtual realities and business spaces has been the official line on the game, and users have been quick to play the demonstration scenarios, like fighting in the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq, joining the International Space Station and a range of favourite movie scenarios. It is not natural that America should be a scapegoat for every paranoid conspiracy now? After all, only the Americans have had the industrial might to initiate the game, and the environment of freedom to develop it. We are the maker of dreams.“

“If there is a conspiracy, it is that now everyone would like to hijack this great invention for their own purpose. The game executive issued a press release saying that, if there is any control or influence over behaviour in the game, it was made to instill moral values into a potentially unethical technology. These values should be sound American values of freedom, opportunity and morality. By offering a voice of hope and freedom the world over there must be positive repercussions. Fewer kids will turn to terrorism against the Western allies if they can see another way.”

“Of course, they fail to mention that multinational corporations have no ethics. They will deal with the devil himself if they can make a profit.”

“Well, we don’t call it corruption when it’s business.”

“Powerful evangelists from the Bible belt made their bid but the matter was never spoken about again.”

“In America, we have a constitutional separation of church and state, but we cannot keep religion out of peoples’ lives!”

“Halley, an opposition member in the house, had promised a public debate on the ethics of the game. He was due to give his speech last year, but was shot and killed in his car by a gang in Washington D.C. - murder capital of the U.S. Do you have any comment on that?”

The cat seems to have escaped its bag.

But who did it? Who is responsible?

As the meeting scatters into fragments of puzzlement and only partially abated concern, he feels calmly confident that he played his part well. His position in this assembly is now reinforced and cleansed of its tainting graffiti, as if he has been purged of witchery, or an unsightly stain on his suit has been skillfully erased by his silver tongue. One down and one to go. Den has arranged to talk to one of the researchers from the Supercomputing Center’s Crime Analysis Team. She has asked to see him, specially.

The walk through the UCSD campus is like visiting a tropical garden or zoo. It’s a far cry from the drizzle of London. The thought of focusing on his job does not hold much appeal here.

We should have held this meeting in London, he thinks. How do people work here anyway?

He reaches the sculpted oasis of shops and cafes. Lunch tables are lined up outdoors. Reddish green leaves hang from the spindly trees. He does not know what kind they are. The bustling of students and students hunched over fast food in this little crafted amphitheatre They call to each other, chasing and flirting. He glances over at the UCSD book-shop. There is someone coming out. College kids, tossing around like imbeciles.

“Lord Jesus Christ fill your heart,” someone says, distracting him.

Right.

His mobile beeps. There is a message waiting for him from his virtual sister. She is his eyes and ears in the VR, but there’s no time for that now. He defers the message until later. Need to concentrate now. A meeting has been arranged. He is intrigued.

A slim Asian-looking woman steps out of the bookstore. There is something about her that attracts his attention. His trained eye can see something undefinable about her that is not attuned to the surroundings. She is as foreign to this place as he is. She returns his glance, raising an eyebrow. As she approaches, he sees that her face is youthful but has a distinctive gravitas. It gives her an oddly attractive quality that is both old and young at the same time, concealing perhaps some deep secret behind a veneer of youthful charm. He has no idea how old she might be.

He finds himself intrigued and immediately speculates about her. Rise as she approaches, to take a better look. They shake hands, a little too warmly for a first meeting. Her blouse is open slightly, revealing the beginning of the curve of her skin. Her smart, tightly fitting skirt makes light work for the rest of his imagination.

Her eyes are friends: they exude a feeling of recognition, as though he has just taken a look into her soul and emerged unscathed. She is a friend, but he is not sure how or why he knows. He is dazed slightly at this momentary immersion and has to pull himself back to the present. This is his weakness. He has always been a bit of a player, but never really in command.

“I am Den Morris,” he says.

“Cathy Kim,” she replies. She flashes him a flirtatious smile.

He looks around, expecting a larger group. “Is it just you?”

She nods. “You want a sub?” She fumbles in a shoulder bag for something paper-wrapped.

“A sub?”

“A submarine?”

She takes out a baguette wrapped in paper and he recalls that sub is a nickname for these long sandwiches. He laughs at the thought of someone carrying a submarine in their shoulder bag. Is it nuclear? “Well a whole sub is probably too much. Maybe just a small bathysphere... ”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind.”

“You’re good?”

“No. I’ll take one.”

She looks confused but smiles and hands him one of the oversized packages anyway. “Why don’t we walk and talk, it’s going to get pretty crowded here any minute.”

He nods. “Lunch break for the students?”

“Exactly. Follow me.”

She walks up the steps of the amphitheatre in front of him, giving him a prime view of her tight rear end as she shuffles up the steps. She is pretty hot, Den thinks. And she knows it.

Cathy Kim is not what he expected a computer researcher to look like. Somehow he expected to see black jeans and a tent of a T-shirt, sneakers and greasy hair. Either she is not really a researcher, she is administration or she is married. All of these things might be true, but the thing that keeps his attention, apart from her ‘butt’ is that she has an air of successful wealth about her. That means that this is a serious enquiry and there might be something in it for him.

They emerge from the amphitheatre onto a garden path that seems to run through the campus. “Let’s go right”, she says.

Den nods. “Ok. So you know, I’m intrigued.”

She looks at him as they stroll. “Why I asked you to meet me?”

“Yes.”

“I heard your talk today. It was good. You gave a good presentation.”

“Thanks.”

“You’d think that a marketing viewpoint would not be all that interesting to the research division of the game, wouldn’t you? But actually, what you said was very interesting to me.”

“What do you do?” he fishes, looking down on her. She is petite. Under her blouse he imagines a soft but ribby torso with tiny breasts. She is attractive.

“Well,” she says. “Good question. I work on the flow security, of the social networks.”

Den looks at her gormlessly. “Flow security of social networks. Social flow. What is that?”

For a moment she looks back calmly. “Well it’s about channels of influence really. The game is this huge social network. In any network there are hundreds of channels of communication. All of the players can – at least in principle – send messages to anyone else. That allows them to generate implicit content that could be used to spread hidden messages, or simply to alter behaviour. To herd to people about... you know.”

“What kinds of messages?”

“Well–your kind.”

“My kind?”

“Like marketing. You deal in directed messaging.”

“Right,” he trails. “I must be tired. Jet lag.”

“Would you rather put this off?”

“No, no. Go ahead. Sorry.”

She smiles. “Well anyone could start their own advertising, mass messaging or soap box preaching, so there has to be some kind of security system that is looking for these intrusions. We call it intrusion detection.”

“Intrusion detection?”

She cocks her head. “Yeah–it’s a long story. Historical reasons.”

“And you work on this detection?”

“Sort of. It’s a fully automatic system that is supposed to detect and stop obvious attempts at illegal message transmission. I just do research on the mechanisms. There are access lists, permission and all the usual kinds of security authorizations that decide who is allowed to do what. My interest is in the actual pattern identification.”

“So, now that the press has caught wind of this conspiracy story, some would say that your system is more important than ever.”

“Exactly. There is certainly a lot of interest in it from high up. At the same time, there is pressure from our sponsors to not completely eliminate the possibility for mass suggestion!” She sends a knowing look.

He nods, interested, but not sure where this is going. “Who are we talking about?”

“Where do we begin? All of the usual peddlers of filth: companies, governments... you know” She laughs. “The Christian and Jewish lobbies are never far away, and the soft drink companies have been looking at it. And, of course, the largest marketing companies for major corporations. Then there are government bodies... should I go on?”

“So the stories of government involvement are not so far from the truth.”

“Certainly, the U.S. government is involved. They have subsidised the American interest in this game to ensure our lead. That is just par for the course. He who controls the flow of messages in the game is powerful indeed. You can only imagine how many people want in.”

“I can certainly imagine, but ... ”

“But why am I bothering you with all this?”

He chuckles. “I was going to put it more subtly, but that’s about it, yes.”

She examines him through the corner of her eye with a serious intensity, but smiles as if the transmit a dampening signal to disarm him.

“I am interested in your methods.”

“How we identify interest groups for marketing?”

She grins. “Exactly. I am guessing that our jobs are not all that different. I was hoping we could discuss methods and perhaps come up with some kind of collaboration.”

“Heheh–I would love to just say yes, but I know we have some technologies based on search engine methodology that is proprietary. I can’t just say yes, not without running it past our board.”

“I understand that. But we could talk informally, and perhaps talk about what we could do with such a collaboration. My work is sponsored by several groups, but that doesn’t grant me any particular access to the actual data of the game.”

“All right.”

“Some of our research is for the F.B.I. and Interpol. They have an interest in the game from several perspectives. The point is that we need access to information about what is going on in the game from other parts of the world too, from several different angles. Here in the U.S. law enforcement has access to anything it wants, but abroad there is only limited data to go on. ”

“You’re after intelligence? I don’t think our data would be useful for that.”

“Well, we’re after data. We are trying, amongst other things, to verify some claims that a group in Spain has put forward. It could be an important discovery that has security implications. I don’t know, of course, but I am guessing that your company’s unique mixture of marketing and analysis will allow me to see movements in the game by special interest groups.

“We need to be able to compare the patterns of usage in the game in other parts of the world with what is going on here, to see how it correlates with the information feeds. The more different data feeds we have access to, the easier it is to verify.”

“You’re hunting for terrorists,” Den translates.

She smiles. “Aren’t you the suspicious one?”

He shrugs and she laughs.

“That’s part of it. There are plenty of reasons for wanting to understand all these various channels of cause and effect. People are paying us to look into this, and law enforcement wants it to be able to follow behaviour in the game, because of all the private channels for communication. Possibilities for evasion.”

Den pauses on the path to think. The conversation is interesting enough, but, “Why me? I am not really one of the technical experts in the company.”

Kim turns to him. “I’m afraid that was my idea. I thought of you because I know that you have access to the roaming agents that your company has developed to pick up on trends in the game, and that you have the right kind of overview. Also, having listened to your talk - and having seen you in the flesh, so to speak... ” She winks at him, sending a shot of adrenalin through his torso. “... you struck me as someone I could work with. An ally. We might even be able to help each other.”

Den nods at her, evenly. “Thank you. I’m flattered.”

“And there is something else I thought you could maybe help me with too.”

His sideways glance is a question mark.

“Apart from the fact that this story leaked out, there has been other stuff going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have been getting strange data,” she tells him. “I was wondering if you have heard of anything similar from the others involved.”

“What kind of data?”

“Glitches in the billboards. Sudden movements of players from centres of attraction.”

“What kind of glitches?”

She nods, chewing a bite of her sub. Swallowing, “Some of the directed imaging has not been working. Some of the content has been suppressed so we have had to work around it. The high profile regions that game sponsors want players to visit have been less visited lately. I thought that, since you are in the business of attracting people to those locations, you would have seen the trends. I mean, it seems as though there is actually a trend to it, a pattern. But I do not have all the tools to find out what it is.”

“I haven’t heard anything, but I can check it out. Maybe an error in the specification?”

She shakes her head. “The spec has been automatically verified. We have verified the rule set using the best methods. There is money for that kind of thing from the military. Always useful for something.”

“Well... ” Den’s training has taught him that what technical people claim is definite and provable is often naive and only half the story. But he does not want to insult this fascinating woman. If he plays his cards right, he could be spending the rest of his visit in her company.

“At first we thought it might be a hacker. There are definitely hackers in there messing with stuff. But that cannot really explain it.”

“So what can I do? I am just a package designer.”

“The packages are the key modules. If they are not doing their jobs then our game is not paying for itself. These disruptions are a threat to your interest in the game too. We want you to be aware of this problem and find a safety net so that we can work around the disruptions.”

“Isn’t that a technological problem?”

”Well, that would be a partial solution. But security is mainly a human matter. You know, our sponsors are worried about this. There was a meeting last week at which one of our group made a big song and dance about how important this was. if we could solve this problem, they would like us a lot!”

“Enough to increase our fees?”

“Enough to make us the bee’s knees, if you please!”

“I think I can do that,” he nods, seeing possibilities.

“Good,” she says, examining him more closely now. She pauses, as if considering whether or not to proceed. “Can I ask you a question?”

He nods. “Go ahead.”

“I have a proposition for you.”

He waits.

“Would you like to do me a personal favour?” She turns towards him, channelling her charm. If Den didn’t know better, he would think she was trying to direct him. What the hell. “I might like that very much.”.

“You could be rewarded handsomely for your services.” Her flirtation is scarcely concealed now.

“Well,” he says, turning to walk once again, putting his hand on her shoulder blade and letting it slide down to the small of her back. “What do you have in mind exactly?”

Poverty, suspicion and then violence.

These wretched bed-fellows stalk us, at each fragile moment, waiting to split open society like an axe to the skull. Insolence? It violates reason. It is a direct affront to civilization.

Damn the police! And damn the politicians for their incompetence!

Looking out across the darkness of Oslo’s Birkelunden Park, old Arne’s shadow trembles in the doorway like an earthquake with the palsy. The evening is not cold, not even here at the breezy entrance to the vestibule; it’s mostly his nerves that fail him–that and the spectre of a pestilence, invading his neighbourhood.

Behind him, the church steeple thrusts up into a darkened sky, groping for a realm of higher grace, one that is immune to such stains on civic decency. It makes for a chilling contrast to see this freak of nature so close to hallowed ground, so close to the safety of home.

Shouldn’t someone take responsibility for them–get them away from here?

He follows the two down-and-outs, pushing their plastic newspaper cart, leaden with shopping bags. Where did they steal that? And what’s in those bags? Probably shouldn’t ask.

Look at them! They disgust him. Bickering like ten year olds, probably over whatever money they have managed to extort from decent folk, they mumble with that distant and petulant slur of persistent substance abuse.

The contrast disturbs all possible sensibility. The quiet beauty of the park with its empty bandstand and simple drinking fountain, the austerity of the old trees, the tidiness of the bushes and grass: they are all symbols of Man’s great achievement: the refrain from opportunistic violence, participation in the order of self-discipline towards the common good: Civil Society. It is demeaned by this vulgar show of abstention. These people are drop-outs by choice. In Norway, anyone can have a job, if they want one.

Arne views all this from across the tram lines, sensing that something is about to happen here. It feels to him as though the world is falling apart on these nights, but they tell him he is just a foolish old man, fearful of shadows and of change. The sceptics should be here now to see this. Tonight, for once, his fears are confirmed.

An immigrant refugee with greying hair, probably of Pakistani origin, approaches the couple, from the nearby tram station. He’s quite well dressed. At least one can say that about these immigrants.

“Hey there, chief,” says the dark-skinned man to the couple.

At first they ignore him, but the man persists in his salutation. They look at him sullenly, more concerned with whining to each other than bothering with him. The woman is trying to get the man to give her something–looks like a key from a big key ring, but he is like a sulky child. They are his keys. They are important to him. He is not going to give them up easily. He must be thirty but he looks forty-five. They are down-and-out. They are like children.

“So, chief. Are you some sort of a security chief? What you got all those keys for?”

The man’s scruffy belt bulges under his fleece with a huge key ring; it has dozens of keys on it. It shines in comparison to his filthy, old clothes, and pasty-grey, unshaven face, or what little of it shows from behind his shoulder-length shaggy hair. At the mention of the keys, he looks up.

“What’s it to you?”

The keys are probably just flea-market memorabilia; collecting them is likely what passes for a hobby for the hobo, but that possibility seems to escape their provocateur. He is haunted by the daemons of an experience that is not available to the onlookers. The Paki comes closer. He is smartly dressed in suit trousers with a white shirt. He looks nervous or agitated, although it is difficult to tell from this distance–and you can never tell what the hell these foreigners are thinking

“What do you need all those keys for?” he asks.

The man shrugs. If his face were not so deadened with years of abuse, one might have seen a quizzical expression on it. “They’re just keys.”

“Keys, eh? What does someone like you need so many keys for?”

The down-and-out glares at him and pushes the woman aside, as if to leave. He does not care to reply to the man. His consciousness of the situation has already dissolved into the numbness of his intoxication. There is neither understanding of the question nor emotional engagement in the encounter.

The dark man’s querying expression changes abruptly to one of accusation. “If you come anywhere near my home, I’ll fucking kill you!”

The threat of this outburst merits a glance, at least. “What???” Down-and-out steps back a step in surprise.

The well-dressed refugee comes closer, posed more threateningly. “I’m not afraid of you!” he shouts, suddenly angry for no reason and clearly lying. He pulls his shirt up, revealing a hammer stuffed into his trousers. “See this? You’re a fucking drug addict! My apartment has been broken into four times! If you come back again, I’ll get you! I’m not afraid.”

“Fuck off! Just ignore him,” says the woman, repacking her plastic bags for no apparent reason.

He takes the hammer out of his trousers. “You’re simple! You’re fucking simple!” the man shouts. “I’ll get you if you come near my family!”

“They’re keys,” the man replies. “I’ll kill you with ... a single... punch.”

He is a ghostly pale man in filthy clothes, probably he is a drug addict. He can hardly stand up, let alone muster a punch.

“Can’t you just leave us alone?” the woman sneers.

“He’s a fucking drug addict!” cries the dark-skinned man, as if in confirmation. He looks around him as if to involve onlookers and seek their confirmation. He has pulled out the hammer now and is gesticulating with it dangerously.

“What’s it to you?”

Arne’s heart is beating quickly now. He has not seen a violent incident in this city – not even in his home country – since his days doing his national service. He has never seen anyone brandish a weapon.

The two down-and-outs shuffle slightly backwards into the darkness of the park, trying not to cause a scene, but the man has already attracted the attention of the people on the street. This is a busy residential area where people go to bars and cafes. Even in this laissez-faire country people would notice something like this.

A figure in his field of vision is talking into his mobile.

So lashes the tail of diabolical intervention. Two figures emerge from the cover of night; they are large and their heads are shaven. Their clothing is disrespectfully contrary to fashion or style, jackets tied around their waists and nothing but T-shirts and faded jeans to cover them. One of them has a beer towel sewn on to his jeans as if for corporate sponsership. They wear the German swastika tattooed onto their bare arms. They are moving rapidly, purposefully, almost running, as though responding to a fire. They are carrying bottles of beer on the streets. That is illegal at best, Arne thinks.

Without introduction, challenge or warning, the leader shouts: “You fucking wop!”, and strikes the Pakistani over the head with his bottle. The man has not seen them coming. He falls to the ground bleeding and the skinhead kicks him for good measure, though it hardly seems relevant. He is barely moving. “Fuck off home!” the leader shouts, bending over him, as if the man is in a fit state to understand his words. “Fucking wop!” His sidekick imitates his brutish pose, both of the standing over what increasingly resembles a corpse.

People waiting for the tram are beginning to look nervous, woken by the act. They are wondering whether they should intervene or call the police or just get out of there. This lightning bolt of obscenity has paralyzed them. They cannot quite believe this is here in their world. Where did these figures come from? How did this situation escalate so quickly from ignorable poverty to threatening violence?

Arne reels. My god, he thinks, all that he holds dear! Everything he has, everything that matters–it could all be broken, twisted and smashed in a single instant of primitive reflex. This is terror of the worst kind! Against ourselves!

He falls back into the entrance of the church, wondering whether the youngsters talking into the mobiles called the police or whether they called the attackers. Tremors dominate his thoughts, as his own fragility is so brutally and graphically explained to him.

They are out there: the homeless, the drug addicts, the simple, the fearful, the ones who do know how to fit in, the ones who are expelled without tolerance. They are lurking in the sidelines, waiting to explode; a ticking time bomb, threatening the very fabric of society. An enemy within.

Arne is white and breathless now. They infiltrate our hallowed places, the very symbols of our civilization! They are where we least expect them to be, he gibbers in his mind. They brew the fear that makes us hate, the fear that leads to addiction, to that same poverty of thought, and to violence itself. How far has Man come in our world, only to be stopped by this?

What is the point of it all, if such a wound can bleed our very security?

Crystallizing in his panic, he watches the scene coldly, with a bitter fear, without interfering, without helping, without speaking up, without acting on his distress, without breathing or caring enough to act, without changing society or resolving to make it a better place. Instead, his emotion turns to hate and he turns inward. The righteous will prevail without his intervention.

Marketing for the post 2000 information age is a complex business, Den thinks. Barraged with the incessant and the unprovoked, information becomes noise. Communicating a message is no longer a simple problem. It becomes a battle of wits, a matter of hacking the consumer. But consumers are receptive to the right things. If you package things correctly, they will not merely read messages, they will go out and buy the produce.

And it is all in the packaging. Lacking the time or inclination to contemplate, modern Man and Woman allows the media to serve its ready-digested morsels, regurgitated chunks of what passes for society’s official collective thinking. Why think for yourself, if someone else is paid to do it for you?

Media. Where any idiot can write a book on the correct way to go to the bathroom... Interactive television, or web. Even books. And mixed up in there, is the power to manipulate the passive mind: you are a monkey, I am the scientist, you choose what we decide. Just push the buttons in the right order and we’ll give you some sugar and tap your bank account. No, don’t speak, I am afraid that we do not permit language. Stick to the pre-programmed menus, you’ll be safer.

Den never questions the correctness of all of this. After all, he has been fed the same opinion menu as everyone else from birth. Besides, the challenge of manipulating people’s thoughts is almost irresistible. The sheer audacity of it: the sheer power which an awareness of the strategy entailed. Thinking is now only a commodity for the masses, and creativity only for the elite.

He specializes in marketing the virtual reality. Not the electronic vision of imagined worlds, but the common variety which has arisen in the post war United States: the Disney land, car driving, hamburger eating buffer to Reality. The developed world hasn’t experienced Reality for years: a Chinese meal is not a real Chinese meal, but a Safe Hong Kong Happy Meal which would not be too different from the Allowed Menu. Outdoors isn’t safe. People drive everywhere, never experiencing real air on their faces, instead charging around the streets in a glorified video game, moving from air conditioned hallway to air conditioned hallway. And in the midst of this virtual reality is the need for New Things to satisfy a thirst for adventure. Of course it is precisely this marketing, choice-control strategy which has eliminated the possibility of adventure in the first place for most of the Flock, but Den is not worried by this. After all, it is the unattainable which we burn for: and that means that people will pay to achieve it.

“You’ll burn in Hell for your job description,” his virtual Chinese sister has told him with a wink. Mary Cheung is an artificial self-styled girl of the new millennium, with few hang ups. She occupies a different world to Den, an underground world of club reality which hardly does TV or Web. Den doesn’t disapprove of his sister. In spite of her lack of conformity to conservative ideals, he finds her straightforward manner refreshing, after all of the trickery and subterfuge of the real office. That is why he made her.

She has left a message for him and has agreed to meet him, on a park bench in VLondon, where they can talk privately. Most of her reports are routine stuff, but every now and then there is a specific alert. In the privacy of his hotel room, he dons his glasses and hooks into the system with his mobile. After selecting his destination, his doorway opens into a side-street in downtown VLondon.

The side-street breathes with living surfaces, dominated by nano-slogans and URLs changing slowly so as not to disturb the balance of those trying to navigate. He takes a moment to acclimatize himself and then emerges into the main street. He has selected a privacy mode so that they will not be disturbed by others moving through the region. They will have this region to themselves, for the extra expense.

Up ahead is a small square park, with two benches overlooking a circle of grass. Low hedges provide a feeling of closure. As he arrives, she is already waiting, legs together, but outstretched to the pavement, leaning forward, dressed in the usual black gear which contrasts with the many coloured stripes in her bleach-blonde hair. A mini skirt over black tights, leather platform-boots up to her knees. It is not difficult to see her amongst the advertising; she is practically monochrome. She is wearing a fashion mask; it is a fragile spaghetti of fine dark wiring, affixed by some mysterious means which defies physics. Behind the wires, her Oriental features add a calm pool of beauty to the decorative distractions.

For the first time, Den finds it marginally disturbing that she has some of the traits of Cathy Kim. Perhaps it was prescience on his part. He is a man, after all, and not always in control of his fantasies.

“Hi.”

“Denny. Howz things?” She is always cool.

“Great. You?”

“Startlingly aware of the world around me. Otherwise fine.” She winks coyly and knowingly, suddenly reaching forward to brush something from her sculpted boots.

“Good. You called me. You have information.”

“I’ve been scouting, meeting people. ”

A Christian angel is hanging around, croaking its worn-out hymns and crawling on its belly in the street. It flaps its wings spasmodically, begging for Belief amongst the pigeons. It is almost impossible to exorcize these from private rooms. They have rights that few other characters in the game have. Den kicks an empty coke can at its blackened form, to shoo it away and sits down. Can’t escape the fucking Christian missionaries, but his filters make them all look like shit.

“Tell me about the alarm.”

“I found an involvement of class one software corporation in online services. Alarm fourteen,”

She is true craftsmanship. Her diction is almost flawless.

“Okay, tell me more.”

She tosses her head slightly and looks up as she speaks, giving her a slightly bitchy edge, just right. “Street sellers in Bangkok are now offering portals for sex services using a new proprietary protocol. It has the signature of a class one. It seems to be tied to some special hardware. I’ve captured the signature for you.” She hands him a small ball, which is a representation of a data file. He stuffs it in his pocket for later, effectively transferring the file to his private storage.

“How many cases have you seen?”

She shrugs. “No established trend yet. It might just be a prototype in testing, but it was public. It was more of an anomaly event than a repeated signal.”

Interesting, Den thinks. A class one software company is a major player with a virtual monopoly interest. Why would they be involved in the sex trade? “Were there any unusual signs?”

“Well this is interesting,” Mary says. “I managed to observe the stream from the second session I found. It was encrypted, but an analysis of the stream indicates an alphabet of about thirty characters, plus or minus ten percent. It could be Cyrillic or it could be Scandinavian.”

“Not American? Even more interesting.” He pauses to think and she waits with the defiant look of someone with an attitude. It is a feature that he requested long ago to make her more sexy.

“How many people using it?”

“Not many. it seems quite new. My guess is that it is just a prototype under development. Maybe some underground sex shop has been recruited to test it. It might be mainly local, and someone jut happened to interface it into the game by accident.”

He nods to himself. “Yes, that could be it. But if someone is making a new protocol then it means they have come up with some new hardware or software that they hope is going to win against the competition. See if you can find out more about it. How large is your contact graph?”

Mary pretends to be consulting her mobile. It is a visual trick that is useful for allowing time for informational searches in a plausible behavioural way. “I have just about ten probable nodes on it.”

Den does not feel hopeful. If her web of contacts, related to this incident, is only ten nodes then it could take some time to follow sensible leads. Just as well this is not a high priority matter; but it is important enough to warrant an alarm from Mary Cheung. He makes a note on his own pad to remember this. “Okay,” he says. “Remind me about this in one week, would you?”

“Roger dodger.”

“Oh, and would you do me a favour? Find out whatever you can about a Cathy Kim, working at the Supercomputer Center here in San Diego.”

“Someone you know?”

He nods. “Someone I just met.”

She nudges him. “Interesting. Anyone I should know about?”

He laughs. “Not yet. Just find out who she is, what she does, something about her background. You know, the usual stuff.” He pauses. “Mary, any other stuff you should tell me about?”

“Sure. I have a trend report. Increasing numbers of American players going to the Middle-East sims. They are probably kids, or at least juveniles. Behavioural patterns suggest an average mental age of sixteen on the U.K. scale. They are headed to the interfaced battles; you know, the ones that are tied into real military activity. A lot of prostitutes are moving into the area too, targeting them. They seem to originate from the Mid-East itself, especially Jordan.”

“Figures.” He runs through some notes on his mobile, imagining that he has already thought about this, but does not find a note. “What are these kids doing?”

“Some of them are just playing amongst the real action, for the thrill of having a game room in which the action is based on what they can see on the TV or web-cam. Others are actually helping the combatants in the U.S. and British Armies, either by hooking into the control systems and monitoring or by voting on targets.”

“Sheesh,” Den mutters. “These days there are more people voting in these reality things than vote in the fucking democracy.”

“Hey, sweetie, you know that the days of democracy are long gone out there.”

“What else?”

“A herd of Christian missionary succubi is now spreading through much of the game.”

He grunts.

“PhoxHollywood has started deploying robot fighters in the war regions that can be activated on the sim. Kids can basically fight for the Army within certain parameters.”

That’s right, he thinks. One of the Ivy League colleges built a system for them to work like a virtual machine with certain policy based constraints, so willing fighters can use their cognitive abilities to remote control certain slow robots. The army commanders can limit their capabilities. It was based on an old student project.

“The next level of gaming,”. Is someone sponsoring the advertising?

“I don’t know, but they are selling advertising on the control panels. I think the National Rifle Foundation might be involved.”

“That makes sense,” he notes. “And I can probably can find out on Sunday. They have an interest in the game already. Someone will be at the reception.”

Den glances at the time on his display. “Okay, honey. Anything else? I have to leave soon.”

“Not much. There is a new trend in group art that seems to be growing in importance in Germany and Eastern Europe.”

“What is group art?”

“Usually it is animated dance sequences with choreographed colour and music. It is usually a group activity, but the groups can be of any size. I have seen forty-seven projects of this kind in VBerlin alone in the last two weeks.”

“Potential?”

“Marketing category has not yet been established. I need more data to go on. The groups seem to be quite diverse. Think of Einstürzende Neubauten playing with a theatre group.”

“Go on.”

“No more significant trends above noise levels. Encounters. One possible recognition as a sim while listening on a private room, standard surveillance. Two sexual encounters: one male business executive and one teenage boy. Nothing to report from the standard protocol.”

Den makes a note to review the protocol for handling sexual encounters. Possibly the questions and subtle trickery of the protocol is no longer effective in divulging the identities. “Was the boy genuine?”

“The responses indicated a behaviour consistent with a fifteen year old. He was just looking for a good time.”

Mary is programmed to engage with people whom she suspects might provide information about her mission objectives. Perhaps he should also program some more inhibitions into her.

“Okay, Mary, my sweet. What about background trends? How are the billboards working out?”

She pauses momentarily, as if the response time of the software is sluggish. “Not too bad, since you mention it. We are within our proposed margins of tolerance, although the anti-aging drug stuff is on the limits. It could be better.”

“Damn,” he mutters, and thinks: I hate that stuff. Imagine what it would be like if we all lived to be five hundred years old. People are already insufferably self-righteous when they are fifty!

“Society demands beauty, conformism, Denny.”

Youth is not just appearance, it’s innocence.

He smiles now at his sister. He actually likes talking to her, even though he knows that her brain is scattered across the floor-space of a large underground cavern, somewhere in the Welsh mountainside... “But you go against the grain all the time, girl... ”

She sniggers with a big smile, sensing the change in conversation dynamic. “I go with whoever I want,” she laughs. “You know: ’n’the creed ’n’ the colour and the name don’t matter...

“Some of our competitors’ campaigns are doing well,” she adds. “S&S are making a fortune in returns on their political advertising. It’s all funded by big companies or sponsors. Of course it’s all a tax dodge. They seem to be able to support the funding of these campaigns to invest in future relief. I understand that the Chinese government has made advances to them to commission some work.”

“The Americans will never allow that,” he thinks aloud. “These old states have to break eventually.”

“My strategy analysis gives a sixty percent probability that flooding these areas with multiple messages is the optimal vector for breaking down the old propaganda in the populations.”

“Maybe they are not strong enough to defy the will of dogma. They are still the victims of the advertising of a bygone era.”

“Emphasis on bygone. The propaganda messages are no longer really effective. you know. It now seems to be a generational effect. Word of mouth, old prejudices, you know. Passed on from father to son, mother to daughter. Kids will believe anything.”

Den purses his lips, dislodging his glasses slightly and providing a disorienting tremor in the landscape from the orientation sensors. “Maybe we are crazy to be chasing these new techniques when the old ones are still winning out there.”

Mary looks him squarely in the eye now. “If I were you, I would embrace your little madnesses. That’s what makes you an individual. Everything else is just the collective myth of ‘what is Natural, what is Right, what is Normal’. Do you really want to be that much of a good doggie ... do what we tell you because you are no different than we are? Says who!”

Well, she is doing her job, he th

Slogans

Mark Burgess

SLOGANS

Mark Burgess

Prologue

The Lighthouse and the Sirens’ Song