Greg Egan - Permutation City: A Novel

"Good move. That might actually persuade a few of the doddering old farts that he can deliver what he's promising. Not many, though. Who's going to pay without getting the hardware on-line and running performance tests? How's he going to fake that? He can show them simulations of glossy machines, but if the things aren't real, they won't crunch. End of scam."

"Sanderson has paid. Repetto has paid. The last word I had was he'd talked to Riemann."

"I don't believe any of this. They all have their own hardware -- why would they bother?"

"They all have a high profile. People know that they have their own hardware. If things get ugly, it can be confiscated. Whereas this man, Paul Durham, is nobody. He's a broker for someone else, obviously -- but whoever it is, they're acting like they have access to more computing power than Fujitsu, at about a thousandth of the cost. And none of it is on the open market. Nobody officially knows it exists."

"Or unofficially. Because it doesn't. Two million ecus!"

"Sanderson has paid. Repetto has paid."

"According to your sources."

"Durham's getting money from somewhere. I spoke to Malcolm Carter myself. Durham's commissioned a city from him, thousands of square kilometers -- and none of it passive. Architectural detail everywhere down to visual acuity, or better. Pseudo-autonomous crowds -- hundreds of thousands of people. Zoos and wildlife parks with the latest behavioral algorithms. A waterfall the size of nothing on Earth."

Peer pulled out a coil of intestine and playfully wrapped it around his neck. "You could have a city like that, all to yourself, if you really wanted it -- if you were willing to live with the slowdown. Why are you so interested in this con man Durham? Even if he's genuine, you can't afford his price. Face it: you're stuck here in the slums with me -- and it doesn't matter." Peer indulged in a brief flashback to the last time they'd made love. He merged it with the current scene, so he saw both Kates, and the new lean gray-eyed one seemed to look on as he lay on the floor gasping beneath his tangible memory of her earlier body -- although in truth she saw him still sitting in the chair, smiling faintly.

All memory is theft, Daniel Lebesgue had written. Peer felt a sudden pang of post-coital guilt. But what was he guilty of? Perfect recollection, nothing more.

Kate said, "I can't afford Durham's price -- but I can afford Carter's."

Peer was caught off guard for a second, but then he grinned at her admiringly. "You're serious, aren't you?"

She nodded soberly. "Yes. I've been thinking about it for some time, but after being flatlined for ten hours --"

"Are you sure Carter is serious? How do you know he really has something to sell?"

She hesitated. "I hired him myself, when I was outside. I used to spend a lot of time in VR, as a visitor, and he made some of my favorite places: the winter beach; that cottage I took you to. And others. He was one of the people I talked it over with, before I made up my mind to come in for good." Peer regarded her uneasily -- she rarely talked about the past, which suited him fine -- and mercifully, she returned to the point. "With slowdown, filters, masks, it's hard to judge anyone... but I don't think he's changed that much. I still trust him."

Peer nodded slowly, absentmindedly sliding his intestine back and forth across his shoulders. "But how much does Durham trust him? How thoroughly will he check the city for stowaways?"

"Carter's sure he can hide me. He has software that can break up my model and bury it deep in the city's algorithms -- as a few billion trivial redundancies and inefficiencies."

"Inefficiencies can get optimized out. If Durham -- "

Kate cut him off impatiently. "Carter's not stupid. He knows how optimizers work -- and he knows how to keep them from touching his stuff."

"Okay. But... once you're in there, what sort of communications will you have?"

"Not much. Only limited powers to eavesdrop on what the legitimate inhabitants choose to access -- and if the whole point of this place is secrecy, that may not be much. I get the impression from Carter that they're planning to drag in everything they need, then pull up the drawbridge."

Peer let that sink in, but chose not to ask the obvious question, or to show that he'd even thought of it. "So what do you get to take with you?"

"All the software and all the environments I've been using here -- which doesn't amount to all that much data, compared to me. And once I'm in, I'll have read-only access to all of the city's public facilities: all the information, all the entertainment, all the shared environments. I'll be able to walk down the main street -- invisible and intangible -- staring at the trillionaires. But my presence won't affect anything -- except to slow it all down by a negligible amount -- so even the most rigorous verification should pass the total package as contamination-free."

"What rate will you run at?"

Kate snorted. "I should refuse to answer that. You're the champion of one computation per year."

"I'm just curious."

"It depends how many QIPS are allocated to the city." She hesitated. "Carter has no real evidence for this -- but he thinks there's a good chance that Durham's employers have got their hands on some kind of new high-powered hardware --"

Peer groaned. "Please, this whole deal is already suspect enough -- don't start invoking the mythical breakthrough. What makes people think that anyone could keep that a secret? Or that anyone would even want to?"

"They might not want to, in the long run. But the best way to exploit the technology might be to sell the first of the new generation of processors to the richest Copies -- before they hit the open market and the QIPS rate crashes."

Peer laughed. "Then why stow away at all? If that happens, there'll be nothing to fear from weather control."

"Because there might not have been any breakthrough. The only thing that's certain is that some of the wealthiest -- and best-informed -- Copies have decided that it's worth going into this... sanctuary. And I've got the chance to go with them."

Peer was silent for a while. Finally, he asked, "So are you moving -- or cloning yourself?"

"Cloning."

He could have concealed his relief, easily -- but he didn't. He said, "I'm glad. I would have missed you."

"And I'd have missed you. I want you to come with me."

"You want -- ?"

Kate leaned toward him. "Carter has said he'll include you -- and your baggage -- for another fifty percent. Clone yourself and come with me. I don't want to lose you -- either of me."

Peer felt a rush of excitement -- and fear. He took a snap-shot of the emotion, then said, "I don't know. I've never --"

"A second version, running on the most secure hardware on the planet. That's not surrendering to outside -- it's just finally gaining some true independence."

"Independence? What if these Copies get bored with Carter's city and decide to trash it -- trade it in for something new?"

Kate was unfazed. "That's not impossible. But there are no guarantees on the public networks, either. This way, at least you have a greater chance that one version will survive."

Peer tried to imagine it. "Stowaways. No communications. Just us, and whatever software we bring."

"You're Solipsist Nation, aren't you?"

"You know I am. But... I've never run a second version before. I don't know how I'll feel about that, after the split."

How who will feel about it?

Kate bent over and picked up his heart. "Having a second version won't bother you." She fixed her new gray eyes on him. "We're running at a slowdown of sixty-seven. Carter will be delivering his city to Durham, six real-time months from now. But who knows when Operation Butterfly will flat-line us again? So you don't have long to decide."