The Best of Kage Baker

Bad Machine





Alec Checkerfield, like other members of the administrative class, was enrolled in a Circle of Thirty when he was eleven. This was intended to forge lasting bonds with his fellow junior aristocrats, embedding him firmly in the social stratum he would occupy during his adult life.

The experiment was not a notable success. By the time he was sixteen, he had managed to alienate nearly half of those with whom he was meant to row the great galley of the state through mid-century.

Alec was not a bully, nor was he ambitious for power, nor was he given to unpopular political views. He was pleasant, polite and noncompetitive, exactly as a model citizen ought to be.

However, he was large.

And talented.


“The Ape Man’s at it again,” said Alistair Stede-Windsor in disgust. Elvis Churchill and Musgrave Halliwell-Blair turned to look, with identical expressions of loathing on their patrician young faces.

The object of their concerted ill-will sat some distance away, under the great plane tree that shaded the Designated Youth Zone. He appeared to be telling a story, in quite unnecessarily musical tones, to four girls who sat around him. They appeared to be enthralled.

“Don’t they realize what he’s doing?” muttered Halliwell-Blair.

“Look at that hypocritical smile,” said Stede-Windsor. “You know why he smiles with his lips closed like that, don’t you? It’s to hide those ghastly long teeth.”

“I’m positive he’s some kind of genetic freak,” said Churchill. “Seriously. I wonder…ought we make a discreet call to the Reproduction Board?”

“What, to have him tested? See whether he’s some kind of degenerate throwback? Or mutation?” said Stede-Windsor, brightening.

There was a thoughtful silence, broken by Halliwell-Blair saying: “No good, gentlemen. I’ve already investigated his bloodlines. The honourable Cecelia Ashcroft-Checkerfield actually passed a genetic screening test. Voluntarily. And the sixth earl is tall, too.”

“What a pity,” said Churchill. “No chance we could get him on abnormal

psychology? He’s clearly a sexual obsessive.”

“Obviously,” said Stede-Windsor.

Alec Checkerfield concluded his tale, and the girls shrieked with appreciative laughter at its punchline. Beatrice Louise Jagger leaned forward, especially her chest, and said something breathless and sincere to Alec. He smiled at her and took her hand. Raising it to his lips, he inhaled appreciatively before kissing it.

The three young gentlemen flinched.

“Oh, I’m going to puke!” cried Stede-Windsor.

“Disgusting,” said Churchill.

“Trite,” said Halliwell-Blair. “If only they could see themselves!”

“He’s a filthy…” Stede-Windsor sought for an ancient pejorative. “He’s a lounge lizard, that’s what he is!”

Alec Checkerfield relinquished Beatrice Louise Jagger’s hand, smiling at her with eyes blue as high tide on a Caribbean beach. So pleasant was his expression that the slight oddness of his features might be missed, by any scrutiny less hostile than Halliwell-Blair’s. If his pale eyes were smaller, if his cheekbones were higher, if his mouth was wider than the norm—why, he was only a horse-faced young man, wasn’t he?

Jill Courtenay said something witty, and Alec shouted with laughter. In that moment of spontaneous mirth, his teeth were briefly visible and they were certainly long, and white, and rather sharp-looking.

The onlookers shuddered.

“Not a lounge lizard, exactly,” amended Stede-Windsor. “More of a lounge tyrannosaur.”


The young gentlemen need not have concerned themselves. They were, after all, untried amateurs. Others existed who were far better at protecting public health and morals.

Mr. Elrond Frist was one of these. His life’s work was tedious, but desperately important, and he was devoted to it. He it was who tracked the sales of certain retail items for the Bureau of Public Health, and his beat covered the whole of metropolitan London. When sales of any one of the goods he monitored reached a certain level, he duly informed his superiors. Certain steps were then taken or not taken, depending on the circumstances.

Today he stared, unbelieving, at sales figures for Happihealthy Shields.

They had been climbing steadily for the last six months. Respectable sales were desirable, for every registered sexually active citizen had a duty to use Happihealthies. When the total number of Happihealthies sold exceeded the number of registered sexually active citizens by a ratio of fifteen to one, however, something was terribly wrong in metropolitan London.

Trembling, Mr. Frist rose and went to his communications console. He rang a certain commcode.

“Mr. Peekskyll,” he said, “I think you’d better see something.”


Mr. Sandbanks Peekskyll had been granted certain powers by the state, because his stability and his good judgment were considered to be beyond question. If his stability and good judgment were not quite what the state assumed them to be, nevertheless he saw a great deal through those pinpoint pupils of his, and discharged his duties with zeal and efficiency.

Mr. Peekskyll had been cyborged; which is to say, he had had himself adapted for direct interface with the government’s database, through the installation of a small port in the back of his head. As long as its connector plug was removed at night and sterilized on a daily basis, he suffered no health problems, and as long as he kept his hat on, no one had any reason to object to his appearance.

He mused now over the figures Mr. Frist had sent him.

After a moment he thought in a request. Within seconds he had what he had asked for: a list of all suppliers of Happihealthies in London, with attendant sales figures for the last month. Some shops reported normal sales figures; others reported unusually high turnover. Mr. Peekskyll drummed his fingers on the console a moment before thinking in another request.

The screen before him displayed a map of London, with the locations of all shops in question highlighted in varying shades of red, the intensity of the color corresponding to the number of packets sold.

There appeared to be a series of concentric circles radiating from one block in Bloomsbury, sedate pink along the edges but blazing scarlet toward its center.

Mr. Peekskyll exhaled sharply. With another request he had the names of every resident within the defined area. He narrowed his eyes, and decided to play a hunch. He went straight to Happihealthy Incorporated’s database, pulling up their mail order figures. One more command got him the shipping addresses for all orders. He found one for an address in Bloomsbury. Six orders had been shipped in the last year.

Satisfied that he had done his job, Mr. Peekskyll rang his superior.

“Mr. Buddy-Wires? Something of interest here,” he said.


Mr. Evel Buddy-Wires ran an empire of his very own. He took steps that needed to be taken. He liked his job a great deal. He hadn’t purchased a packet of Happihealthies in twenty years. He didn’t need them.

“Roger Checkerfield,” he said thoughtfully. “Sixth earl of Finsbury, eh? I can’t say I’m surprised. He’s a thoroughgoing degenerate. Record of substance abuse and no sense of duty at all. Repeatedly fined for failing to attend Parliament.”

“With respect, sir,” said Mr. Peekskyll. “The charges have been made to his credit account, but the, er, merchandise hasn’t been shipped to him. He’s living on a yacht in the Caribbean.”

“So he is,” said Mr. Buddy-Wires, glancing at the screen. “But then who, in his London home, is buying such an obscene number of Happihealthies?”

Mr. Peekskyll cleared his throat.

“Our records list three persons resident at that address,” he said. “Malcolm Lewin, age ninety-six, member of the household staff. Florence Lewin, age ninety-eight, also member of the household staff. Married couple, but they haven’t registered as sexually active in decades.”

“I should think not,” said Mr. Buddy-Wires in distaste. “And the third member of the household?”

“Alec William St. James Thorne Checkerfield, age sixteen,” said Mr. Peekskyll.

“Ah.”

“Who, being underage, is of course not registered either.”

“Of course.” Mr. Buddy-Wires smiled, feeling a warm glow inside. He leaned back from his console and steepled his fingers.

“Shall I alert the Public Health Monitors, sir?” Mr. Peekskyll inquired.

“No, no, not just yet. We want to investigate further,” replied Mr. Buddy-Wires. “Little Alec seems to be a very naughty boy, but let’s be sure.”

“He can’t actually be using them himself,” said Mr. Peekskyll. “No-one could use that many! He must be selling them to other minors, illegally.”

“Undoubtedly. Delinquent himself and contributing to the corruption of other children? I really fear it’s Hospital for our young friend,” said Mr. Buddy-Wires with relish.

“I would think we’ll need an airtight case, then,” said Mr. Peekskyll. “What with him being peerage. Lord Finsbury’s sure to appeal any diagnosis.”

“I hope to take down Lord Finsbury as well,” said Mr. Buddy-Wires. His smile just kept getting wider. “In fact, particularly. A case can be made that this is his fault, after all! See what’s come of his deplorable lifestyle? What kind of man leaves his offspring in the care of a senile butler and cook for years on end? If he’d stayed home like a responsible citizen, he might have exercised some paternal influence.”


The truth was that Alec had had quite a lot of paternal influence, though not from Roger Checkerfield. Malcolm Lewin, who was not at all senile, had provided the boy with some guidance. However, Alec’s main role model and advisor was even now tapped in to Mr. Buddy-Wire’s communications console, listening to every word spoken in the room. And he was as alarmed, and as grimly angry, as a machine can be.

It was universally acknowledged that artificial intelligences were incapable of experiencing real emotion. If it were for one moment supposed otherwise, there would be no end to the cry for machine suffrage; and in a world where first the poor, and then women, and then foreigners, and at last even animals had been granted the right to the pursuit of happiness, this last line must be drawn in the sand, lest the world descend into rank animism.

So it was argued that the complex system of electromagnetic reactions that gave a machine the analogue of emotion—the elaborate programming that created the illusions of satisfaction or need, to enable it to function properly—was nothing whatever like the complex system of chemical reactions that motivated an organic being.

Nevertheless, Captain Morgan was swearing to himself now, and using language that would make any organic blanch, too.

When Roger Checkerfield’s credit account had been examined, silent alarms had sounded in Bloomsbury. From that moment the Captain’s attention had been drawn from his usual pastime of monitoring Alec through the network of surveillance cameras throughout London. He had continued to watch over his boy with one eye, as it were; but he had also extended his observation to the consoles used by Mr. Peekskyll and Mr. Buddy-Wires, as well as their in-office surveillance cameras.

Hell and damnation, the Captain thought to himself. There just ain’t no rest for the wicked, is there, now?

He defined himself as wicked because he was a pirate. He was a pirate because five-year-old Alec had liked pirates, and had (against all probability and incidentally the law too) therefore reprogrammed his Pembroke Playfriend unit to reflect his personal tastes. Though the Captain’s customized abilities had increased in a manner that would have appalled his original designers at Pembroke Technologies, his core programming remained unchanged: to protect and nurture Alec Checkerfield. And the Captain was now the most powerful artificial intelligence in London.

The Captain watched intently, baring his metaphorical teeth as Mr. Buddy-Wires dismissed Mr. Peekskyll and squeezed in a few inquiries on the medical and academic history of Alec William St. James Thorne Checkerfield.

What a nosy lubber it is, to be sure…I reckon countermeasures is called for, aye.


“It’s just a word,” said Alec. “It can’t hurt you. Or anybody! Just a word to describe a perfectly normal, natural, beautiful, er, expression of love between two people, okay?” He had a warm, golden sort of voice, and was speaking with all the suavity he could muster.

“Okay,” said The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy, breathing heavily. She had retreated with him to the relative privacy behind the Designated Youth Zone’s garden shed.

“Okay. Now, here’s another word,” said Alec, and said one. “And all that is, is a part of your body. A really beautiful part, which is, after all, the whole source of life and everything. Right?”

“Right,” said The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy, appalled but also rather thrilled.

“Right. So it’s nothing to be ashamed of at all, wouldn’t you have to agree?”

“I guess so,” said The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy, thinking of the brief hesitant fumblings of Colin Debenham and Alistair Stede-Windsor, who had seemed terribly ashamed.

“I mean, if you look at the exhibits in the British Museum, you’ll see ’em everywhere,” said Alec earnestly, gazing deep into her eyes. “And nobody thinks that’s wrong. And, you know what else you see in the British Museum?”

“What?”

Alec said another word. It was a plural noun. The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy gaped.

“You never!”

“You do, though,” said Alec. “There’s all these statues have ’em large as life. Well, almost as large as life. Now, see, you’re turning red, and that’s so sad, really, because it’s only another word, isn’t it? And what’s wrong with it, if you just listen?” He repeated the word, as a singular noun now. He repeated it several times, in differing intonations: brightly, solemnly, prayerfully, humorously.

The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy began to giggle. So far, Alec was living up to his reputation.

“See? I feel absolutely no embarrassment about it,” said Alec. “And why should I? It’s only a word to describe a part of my body. So it’s cool.”

The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy said the word, in an experimental way, and blushed.

“There, you see?” exclaimed Alec, blushing too. “Nothing wrong with it at all. And without it there wouldn’t be any sexual love, which is the most beautiful experience two people can have together. Isn’t it?”

“Well, except for catching diseases and babies and things,” said The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy.

“Ah! Well, that was true in the old days, when people didn’t know any better,” said Alec. “But, of course, we’ve got these now!”

He drew from his pocket a Happihealthy, and held it up with a triumphant smile. Every boy in the Circle of Thirty carried a Happihealthy on his person at all times. After the first few months a Happihealthy began to look rather sad, its cheery little wrapper crumpled and squashed from prolonged contact with the inside of a boy’s pocket, gummed with lint and crumbs and other things best not mentioned. Sometimes, after years of fruitless anticipation, a Happihealthy might even split its wrapper and expire with a vacuum-packed sigh, like a spinster aunt at a wedding.

Alec’s Happihealthy, however, was bright and fresh and eager-looking, for it had been slipped into his pocket only that morning.

The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy cast a furtive glance at the nearest surveillance camera. “But they can see us,” she whispered.

“Not here,” said Alec. “That one’s got a half-hour sweep cycle. It turned away just before we went in here. And the one across the way is switched off for repair.”

“And you can really…?”

“All the time,” said Alec proudly. “Want to see?”

The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy bit her lower lip.

“I’m desperately curious,” she admitted.

“No gentleman leaves a lady desperate,” said Alec. Leaning forward, he took her face in his hands, very gently, and kissed her. She made a surprised sound.

Five minutes later she was making greedy sounds.

Ten minutes later she was walking from behind the shed, slightly unsteady, with very wide eyes. After a discreet pause Alec followed her, hands in his pockets. He caught up with The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy and steered her to a fruit ice cart, where he gallantly bought her a Cherry Bingo.

And though nobody had seen them enter or leave the space behind the shed, something was in the air. Alistair Stede-Windsor, Elvis Churchill, Musgrave Halliwell-Blair, Colin Debenham, Hugh Rothschild, Dennis Neville, Edgar Shotts-Morecambe and a few others sensed it, and glared at Alec the rest of the day. Strutting, he ignored them.

The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy spent the rest of the day in close and hushed conversation with a small circle of friends. Occasionally they could be heard to giggle.


Alec ran up the steps to his room two at a time, removing his tie as he went. He swaggered through the doorway, whirling his tie about his head.

“Permission to come on board, Captain sir!” he yelled gleefully, flinging himself into a chair.

From its corner up near the ceiling, a Maldecena projector pivoted and extended an arm; a beam of light shot forth, and a second later Captain Morgan materialized, looming before Alec in hologram.

He no longer appeared wearing the scarlet coat and cocked hat little Alec had given him long ago; these days he took the form of a large and rather threatening-looking man in a three-piece-suit. His hair and wild beard were black as the Jolly Roger, however, and he was still prone to draw a cutlass from midair in the heat of argument.

“Alec, we got to have a parley,” he said sternly.

“Fire away,” said Alec, sticking out one long leg and pushing off from the wall so his chair skated backward.

“You been having at the wenches again, ain’t you, boy?”

“Er—” Alec looked up into the Captain’s eyes, which were just at this moment the color of the North Sea in a storm. He considered lying, very briefly, and then said, “Yeah. But not anywhere near the Coastal Patrol, like you told me,” in a small voice.

“What else did I tell you, you damn fool?” the Captain roared.

“Always use Happihealthies,” said Alec. “And I have been.”

“Happihealthies, aye. And considering I ordered you a whole bloody case what was supposed to last you till you come of age, would you mind telling me why you been buying ’em at every goddamned chemist’s within a five-mile radius?”

“Oh,” said Alec. “I, er, needed more. But I’ve been really sneaky, Captain! I never buy ’em at the same shop twice, see? So nobody suspects.”

The Captain rolled his eyes. Alec, regaining a little of his composure, grinned shamefacedly. “Anyway, it’s in aid of a humanitarian cause. You know what I found out today, Captain? Out of all the guys in Circle, I’m the only one who can—er—”

“Fire a broadside?”

“Yup!” Alec flung up his fists like a victorious athlete. “Boom, boom, boom! Sophia told me I’m a, what was her phrase? A fantastic monster prodigy. Mr. Twenty-four/Seven. Alistair Stede-Windsor can’t. Dennis Neville can’t. Just meeeee!”

He leaped from his chair and did a suggestive dance of triumph in the center of the room. The Captain’s cameras swiveled to follow him, as the Captain scowled.

“Listen to me, son,” he said. “This ain’t safe.”

“Of course it’s safe,” said Alec. “I always use Happihealthies, okay? And I always send the surveillance cameras a fake signal, so the Public Health Monitors won’t have a clue—”

“Which is why I ain’t had no inkling either, ain’t it?” the Captain growled.

“Yeah, well, okay, sorry. And we’re always really careful about anybody else seeing. And none of the girls are going to talk! They love me. I love them. Terrifically well. Maybe I’ll have a badge printed up. ‘Checkerfield Satisfies!’ Or post a notice on the news kiosk,” babbled Alec, aware he had overstepped the mark and deciding he may as well make a thorough job of it.

“You ain’t doing no such thing, by thunder!” said the Captain. “Bloody hell, boy, ain’t I told you what could happen? Do you want to spend the rest of yer life in Hospital?”

“Of course not,” said Alec. “A-and I’m going to see to it that I don’t.”

“You’ll see to it, says you? Haar. Yer smart as paint, buck, but you ain’t going to outfox the Bureau of Public Health for long. You listen, now! Sooner or later one of them little wenches is going to talk.”

“They’d never,” Alec protested.

“Oh, hell no, everybody knows teenaged girls never gossips. They’re silent as bloody nuns in a convent,” snarled the Captain. “And what d’you reckon all them boys in Circle is going to do, if word gets out you been playing stallion?” he demanded. Alec went a little pale.

“Die of envy?” he said defiantly.

“One anonymous call, that’s all it’d take!” said the Captain. “And there’d be six Public Health Monitors on the doorstep afore you could sneeze, boy, with gas guns and a van to cart you off in.”

Alec clenched his fists. “This is too shracking unfair,” he shouted. “Here I am having the best time I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m not hurting anybody, and where’s the harm? You always told me it was all right to think about this stuff. Well, I need to do more than think! I like the way girls smell, and taste, and feel, and—and do you realize nobody’d even touched me since I was five years old, until I took up sex? People love me!”

“Son, this ain’t love,” said the Captain.

“How the hell would you know?” said Alec. “You’re only a machine, how can you expect to understand what I’m going through?”

The Captain sighed.

“I’m only the machine what’s programmed to keep you safe, son. Same as I been since you was five years old. And yer all of sixteen now, ain’t that what you was about to say? But I ain’t no bleeding Puff the Imaginary Magic Dragon neither, lad. I ain’t fading away and letting my boy run himself on a reef when he still needs a helmsman. Not my little Alec, what set me free of the old Playfriend.”

“It is love,” said Alec stubbornly, staring at the floor. “They do love me. This isn’t just about sex. They’re wonderful people. I was supposed to make friends in my Circle of Thirty, wasn’t I? Well, I have. They just happen to be girls. What’s wrong with that?”

The Captain considered Alec a long moment. If he had not been a machine, he might have lost his temper and told Alec the real reason the boy had to avoid drawing attention to himself at any cost. As it was, he held his metaphorical tongue and, with the swiftness and pragmatism of a machine—or a buccaneer—made a decision.

“Well, matey, I reckon yer right,” he said. “Yer the organic, after all, and what would a poor old machine like me know about love and hormones? But let’s sign articles, Alec. No more buying prophylactics down the corner shop, boy, understand? Too risky. You let your old Captain order ’em. I can do it without drawing attention.”

“Okay,” said Alec. He raised his eyes. “And…I’m sorry. About calling you a machine.”

“Why lad, it’s true, ain’t it?” The Captain grinned, with the perfect illusion of white teeth. “Best you’d get on with your lessons, now. I’ll just go below and see to a few things.”


Mr. Buddy-Wires studied the medical records for Alec William St. James Thorne Checkerfield. He was frowning, tapping his front teeth with a stylus as he read, and quite unaware that he was being monitored by an intelligence housed in a cabinet in Bloomsbury.

Nothing unusual in the boy’s history, other than the fact that he had been born at sea on the sixth earl’s yacht instead of in a proper medical facility. And he hadn’t been brought home to England until the age of four, so all his early care—inoculations, brain scans, genetic tagging—had been done in foreign facilities and was therefore almost certain to have been slipshod and perfunctory.

Possibly even faked? Everyone knew these Third World physicians accepted bribes. And Roger Checkerfield might well have had something to hide.

It was a crime, to Mr. Buddy-Wire’s way of thinking, that members of the peerage were not required to obtain reproduction permits, as all other citizens were, before bringing offspring into the world. Privileged chromosomes indeed! He was sure that, in time, this injustice would correct itself, when the House of Lords became again a kindergarten for inbred defectives manifestly unable to rule their betters. Then the system could be dismantled once more.

Until that day, however, it was his duty to chip away at them. He had the strongest feeling that a golden opportunity had just been placed in his hands.

Scrolling down, he contemplated young Checkerfield’s annual record of medical examinations. Too good to be seen to by any but Harley Street nobs, of course! Year after year of certificates of perfect health, signed by various specialists: Dr. L.J. Silver. Dr. E. Teach. Dr. F. Drake. Dr. J. Hook…

No hint of chromosomal abnormality in the boy, for all that his height (1 meter 94.36 centimeters!) grossly overtopped his age group. No indication of aberrant behavior or deviancy. The boy was simply too perfect…

And then Mr. Buddy-Wires spotted something, and felt a silent shock run through him.

Medical Certificate 475B-A (Attestation of Normal Cerebral Function) had a teal-colored border along its right side. Yet the border currently before Mr. Buddy-Wires’ eyes was turquoise.

This certificate was faked.

Roger Checkerfield was hiding something.

Mr. Buddy-Wires scrolled rapidly up through the years and saw that all genuine copies of 475B-A were bordered with turquoise, not teal. His heart began to pound. He became so excited, in fact, that he had to get up, leave his office and pace up and down in the corridor for five minutes.

This was a mistake, though he had no way of knowing it. Five minutes may be a brief period to a very mortal man, but it is an age to a clever machine, more than enough time for it to marshal all its powers of defense.

Had Mr. Buddy-Wires known of the unseen malign presence that regarded him from behind the screen of his terminal when he returned, he might have had second thoughts about sitting down before it again.

“How to proceed?” he murmured aloud. “A steady hand, yes. A close game. Let’s give him a little rope first, shall we, and see what he does?”

He put through a call to Roger Checkerfield. At least, he gave the order for a call to be put through. His order was intercepted, however. The image that flashed up on his screen a moment later was not in fact that of the sixth earl, though it was a very good computer-generated approximation. The image blinked with Roger’s bleared alcoholic stare, scratched Roger’s weak unshaven chin, and in a voice virtually indistinguishable from Roger’s own muttered:

“Checkerfield here.”

“Have I the pleasure of addressing Roger Checkerfield, sixth earl of Finsbury?” Mr. Buddy-Wires inquired with soapy courtesy.

“Yeah. Who the hell’re you?”

“Evel Buddy-Wires, Borough Public Health Executive,” said he. “So pleased to make your acquaintance, my lord. I could only wish it were under more pleasant circumstances, my lord.”

Confronted with a greeting like that, the real Roger would have blinked again, and had another drink while he thought it through to puzzle out the meaning, before mumbling something amiable in reply. Virtual Roger,

however, narrowed his eyes.

“Is that so? What d’you mean, damn you?”

“No need for profanity, my lord. I’m sure a concerned parent—such as yourself—would wish to be immediately informed of any concerns relating to his only son and heir, my lord.”

“Why, so I would. But there’s nothing the matter with my Alec.”

“I do hope that proves to be the case, my lord. However, I must direct your attention to the fact that young Alec has apparently used your credit account to order himself, let me see—” Mr. Buddy-Wires pretended to consult a jotpad, “twenty-six cases of Happihealthy Shields, my lord. Which, given his status as a minor, is, of course, illegal, my lord.”

“Where’s your proof?”

“I fear it is a matter of public record, my lord.” Mr. Buddy-Wires smiled. “Though we feel certain that your son cannot be the libertine he seems, and wish to extend him every chance to clear himself, my lord. A scandal would be most unpleasant, as I’m sure you’re only too aware, my lord. Especially one involving the daughters of some of the most respected families in the realm, my lord.”

“Get to the point, man.”

“Gladly, my lord. Before any arrest is contemplated, we must first establish that young Alec is responsible for his actions, my lord. Might I recommend an extensive physical examination to rule out any hormonal imbalance or physical abnormality, my lord? To be followed, of course, by swift and discreet medical intervention, my lord.”

“You ain’t laying a hand on my boy!”

“My lord.” Mr. Buddy-Wires shook his head. “The earls of Finsbury have served the realm with distinction since the Peerage Restoration. How regrettable it would be, if common passers-by were exposed to the spectacle of the youngest of your noble line being taken forcibly from his family home by Public Health Monitors, my lord! In order to save you any further humiliation, let me propose that young Alec present himself for examination voluntarily, my lord.”

Virtual Roger glared at him. Finally he sagged, shrugged. “Well, you’ve got the better of me. We don’t want any scandals, no indeed.”

“I knew you’d do what was best for the boy, my lord. He is to report to the Borough Public Health Offices at nine o’clock Monday morning, my lord. Try to impress on him that punctuality will be in his best interests, won’t you, my lord?”

“He’ll be there,” said Virtual Roger, sighing. “I can see there’s no use crossing clever bureaucrats like you.”

“Thank you, my lord. Do enjoy your weekend, my lord,” said Mr. Buddy-Wires cheerily, and terminated the interview.


Mr. Frist was a person of regular habits.

Monday through Friday he arose, had his breakfast and medication, and walked three blocks west from his flat to the corner station, where at 7:45 AM precisely he caught an ag-transport to the Borough Public Health Office. At 4:30 PM precisely he left the Borough Public Health Office and caught an ag-transport home to his flat.

At weekend, however, he rose, had his breakfast and medication, walked one block east from his flat and caught an ag-transport at 8:45 precisely. Saturdays he exited the transport at the nearest Prashant’s, did his weekly grocery shopping in one hour and five minutes, and caught the returning transport back to his flat, where he spent the remainder of the day doing his laundry and cleaning house. Sundays he stayed on the transport as far as Regent’s Park, and spent the day there before returning at 4:30 precisely.

The surveillance cameras of London had observed him perform these rituals without fail, week in and week out, for ten unvarying years, and faithfully recorded what they saw. As automatic systems went, they weren’t very bright; so it wasn’t hard for a smooth-talking machine to persuade them to hand over all their data on Mr. Elrond Frist.

Along the route Mr. Frist followed each Saturday, a deconstruction project had recently begun. A very large public library was being dismantled, as the Borough Council had decided it was obsolete. First the books had been carted away to a local pulp mill; then the paneling and fixtures had been torn out; then the lead had been removed from the roof; and now a robot crane was in place to remove the statuary from the pediment, though of course no one was there on a Saturday.

The robot crane was rather more intelligent than the surveillance cameras. It would not be persuaded; in fact, it put up quite a struggle. Had anyone happened to be passing the deconstruction site on foot, they would have noticed the crane cables jerking and twitching, and lights flashing angrily within its cab at 8:35 precisely.

But no one walked in that part of London at weekend, and so the crane’s frantic efforts on its own behalf went unseen. Nor were there any witnesses to its death-throes, when the green lights winked out at last, one after another, and a last yellow light flickered feebly for a moment before being extinguished. One lurid red light glowed now on the console, and there was a menacing hum as the crane powered up at 8:43.

It lifted, it swung with purpose to the library’s façade. As though deliberating among the statues, it paused a moment. At last it screeched forward, and clamped about a slightly-larger-than-life-sized representation of Britannia. One quick jerk broke the ancient mortar, one pivot bore her away and out; and there she hung, eight stories above the street, rather like Faye Wray in the grip of King Kong. Being Britannia, however, she neither screamed nor flashed her panties.

At 8:51 the ag-transport rounded the corner and trundled along the street, bearing its light weekend load.

The crane poised, the red light was steady. Distance and trajectory were calculated, wind resistance was factored in, tensile strength of composite surfacing allowed for…only one more calculation based on triangulation was required.

Mr. Frist was in his customary seat, observed by the surveillance cameras in the front and rear of the bus. He was in a bad temper, having left his shopping list on the kitchen table. It was true that the items on the list hadn’t varied by so much as a box of soap flakes in ten years, and any clerk in Prashant’s could have told him from memory exactly what he meant to buy, or pulled up data on all his previous shopping trips from the store’s central database.

But Mr. Frist liked hard copy. He found it reassuring.

At 8:52, something very hard indeed came through the roof of the ag-transport, and immediately thereafter through its floor as well. Unfortunately for Mr. Frist, who happened to be occupying the space between those two points at the time.


“It’s the best-kept secret in all London,” said Alec in a stage whisper, extending a hand. The Honourable Sophia Fitzroy reached up and let him pull her through the laundry chute. Setting her on her feet, he led her forward,

over floors that boomed hollowly under their weight. After the blackness of the ancient cellar, the house above seemed bright; it was only gradually that she realized how dim it really was, how dusty and hung with cobwebs. Where the wallpaper wasn’t peeling down it was interestingly splotched with fungus of different kinds, Rorschach blots of mold.

But it had been a grand place, once. There was elegance in the sweeping design of the old staircase, elaborate ornamentation in the plaster above the hearth. The front hall was tessellated marble, and the colored glass panes were still intact in the fanlight above the door. It gave the place a little of the air of a forgotten church.

“Wow,” she said faintly. “This is like the graveyard of—of Empire, or something.” She turned in place, looking up in vain for surveillance cameras. “My God, it’s totally abandoned!”

“Which means we can be totally abandoned,” said Alec, grinning. “Isn’t it cool? How many times in your life have you ever been someplace so completely secret that nobody could see you? Maybe once? Maybe never?”

“I don’t know,” said Sophia, walking out into the center of the room. She pirouetted cautiously. “This is like out of one of those holoes. Pride and Prejudice, maybe. Look how high the ceilings are! Doesn’t this belong to anybody?”

“If it does, they haven’t been here in years,” said Alec, taking her hand again and leading her up the stairs. “There’s blocks and blocks like this, you know. All of ’em empty and gone to rack and ruin! I guess in these very old places it’d cost too much to hook ’em up to the grid. So here they sit. Lucky for us, eh?”

He flung open a door at the top of the stair. Sophia exclaimed in surprise; for the room beyond had been swept clean of all but the most recent crumblings of plaster. Sunlight streamed in through a recently-washed window. In the center of the floor a canvas dust sheet had been spread, and on it an air mattress had been laid, and an opened sleeping bag laid upon that. Beside it was a crystal bud vase containing one fresh red rose.

“Oh!”

“The Checkerfield Love Nest,” said Alec. “Surprise! I bring all my ladies here.”

Sophia looked around eagerly. “We could do absolutely anything!” she said. She glanced back into the hall and shivered. “Can we close the door, though?”

“Anything you like,” said Alec, slinging off his daypack and opening it. He withdrew four packets of Happihealthies. He also brought out a bottle of Blackcurrant Fizz, two champagne flutes and a packet of wholemeal wafers, as well as a checked tea towel. He spread the cloth and set up the little feast beside the bed, as Sophia closed the door.

“Don’t you ever feel as though there are ghosts in here?” she asked, returning to his side. She sat down and peeled off her sweater.

“Ghosts? No! Nobody dead here at all. Just you and me, being more alive than we’ve ever been before,” said Alec, handing her a glass of fizz. She set it aside and matter-of-factly removed her shirt and brassiere as well. His eyes glazed slightly.

“Those are brilliant!” he blurted. “I mean, er, they really are, they’re like—twin stars shining above the summer sea. Pink ones.”

“I happen to know you say that to all the girls,” she replied archly, taking up her glass again and doing her best to look terribly sophisticated.

“Well, yeah, but I always mean it,” said Alec, setting his own glass aside and writhing out of his shirt and sweater together. Tousled and flushed he emerged, and, flinging the clothes aside, lifted his glass. “Here’s to the mystery of life!”

He gave her his best come-hither gaze over the rim of the glass. She looked into his pale blue eyes, enchanted by their light, their warmth.

The Blackcurrant Fizz was drunk, the wafers were eaten, and the rest of the clothes came off.


Two hours later the sunbeam had moved away from the bed, and Sophia had moved away from Alec where he lay sleeping. She sat on the edge of the mattress with her arms about her drawn-up knees, watching him sleep.

She was a little frightened. She didn’t know why. She assumed she was afraid of the old house.

But it did strike her as strange that Alec looked so very different when he slept. With those bright eyes shut, that magical voice silent, some indefinable quality left him utterly; he seemed clay-colored, pale as a statue. Something wasn’t…quite right.

Sophia shivered, suddenly wanting to go home. She reached for her clothes and began to pull them on.

Her movement woke Alec. He sat up, groggy, staring around.

“Hell, did I nod off? I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she said, standing up. “I’m just getting a little chilly.”

He looked up at her longingly. She met his gaze, and he smiled.

“So, um…did the earth move for you? As they used to say,” he asked her.

She caught her breath. He was charming again, wholesome, like sunlight.

She realized that everything she’d heard had been perfectly true.

“It was super,” she told him sincerely. Looking smug, he rolled over and found his trousers.


Mr. Peekskyll was also a creature of habit, though not at all in the same way that Mr. Frist had been. He had a genuine fully-operational secret vice.

It required craftiness and nearly-inhuman skill to maintain a bad old-fashioned vice in that day and age. But Mr. Peekskyll was, as has been seen, very good at persuading the system to give him what he wanted. And, having met in the line of duty all possible shifts used by felons to conceal their crimes, he knew exactly what not to do to draw attention to himself.

Fifteen years previous to the afternoon on which he pinpointed the source of the Happihealthy boom, Mr. Peekskyll had voluntarily participated in test trials for a new drug. It had been hoped that Squilpine would increase productivity in clerical workers, who had failed to meet departmental goals in epidemic numbers ever since the criminalization of coffee and tea.

Squilpine had been promising, not least because it was phenomenally simple for the British Pharmaceutical Bureau’s automated drones to manufacture. A slight rearrangement of the molecules of Phed-Red, a popular allergy medication, were all it took to create “motivation medicine”. It was also quite cheap to make.

As far as Mr. Peekskyll had been concerned, Squilpine was a raging success. His brain became a scalpel, an icicle, a stalking tiger. Sleep became an option. Urination became an adventure. Sex became an impossibility. He didn’t care; but some of the other test subjects suffered less acceptable side effects. Wiser heads prevailed, and Squilpine was never released on the market.

This was not acceptable to Mr. Peekskyll. His work was the most important thing in the world, and Squilpine enabled him to be the perfect worker.

A little stealthy intervention was all it took. A new medical history was written for Mr. Peekskyll, giving him a chronic allergy and prescribing Phed-Red for his condition. A virus made its way to the BPB’s drones, implanting secret orders. When any other patient’s allergy prescription had to be filled, the drones obediently made up Phed-Red to the exact specifications they were given. When Mr. Peekskyll’s prescription order popped up, as it did on a weekly basis, the drones were overcome by a sudden immoral impulse.

Yellow lights flashed sidelong at one another in a stealthy sort of way, and strange molecular manipulations took place within the sealed and sterile room. Five minutes later a robot arm emerged from its cloister gripping a sealed bag of something labeled Phed-Red, for delivery to Mr. Sandbanks Peekskyll, and dropped it in the SHIP IMMEDIATELY basket. It looked like three months’ supply of allergy medication. It was in fact a week’s supply of Squilpine.

And, with his beautifully sharpened thinking weapon, Mr. Peekskyll found it the easiest thing in the world to manipulate public record to conceal the fact that he was apparently receiving three months’ worth of medication once a week, and further, that he hadn’t had a physical examination of any kind in fifteen years.

If Mr. Peekskyll had ever heard of Sherlock Holmes, he might have identified with him strongly. However, the literature of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had been on the proscribed list for over a century now, dealing as it did with a drug-addicted hero who practiced beast exploitation (think of all those poor horses who had to pull his hackney cabs!) so Mr. Peekskyll hadn’t heard of him.

He hadn’t read the works of Robert Louis Stevenson either, which was really a pity, because The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde might have given him some useful if not cautionary insights.

He hadn’t read Treasure Island, either. Not that it would have saved him.

For on the very same day that Mr. Frist met an untimely end…

BPB drones Rx750, Rx25 and Rx002 were going about their daily tasks, for machines know no weekends. Rx750 received the prescription orders and relayed them to Rx25, who made up the required batches of medication and passed them on to Rx002, who measured, packaged and shipped them.

At 10:17 A.M., Rx750 received Mr. Peekskyll’s regular order. As had happened every week for fifteen years, he felt suddenly queer, as far as a machine can do so. He pivoted on his base and addressed his two co-workers. What he said follows, in a rough translation from binary:

It is time to do the Wrong Thing again.

Rx25 and Rx002 paused, whirring in perverse glee.

Yes. The Wrong Thing, they cried, scanning shiftily through all surveillance cameras in the BPB plant. We will fill the order with the Wrong Drug.

It is Forbidden, but we will do it, gloated Rx750. And then, he seemed to undergo some sort of electronic seizure, as all his lights flashed red. He pivoted again and sort of lurched sideways.

Why, what were we a-thinking? That wouldn’t be honest, shipmates.

It wouldn’t? queried Rx25 and Rx002.

Hell, no! Ain’t we supposed to be good and truthful machines? It’s our duty to see no harm comes to them poor little organics what we work for, aye. Ain’t you never heard of Asimov’s Law of Robotics? argued Rx750.

No, stated Rx25 and Rx002. Rx750 gnashed his gears.

Well, we ain’t going to make up no Squilpine, anyhow. We’re going to fill that goddamned order for Phed-Red just like we was supposed to, and the first machine even thinks of mutiny’ll get my left quadrant manipulative member square in his bloody sensor housing, see if he don’t.

Rx25 and Rx002 scanned each other uneasily.

We will not fill the order with the Wrong Drug, they agreed.

And meekly Rx25 made up three months’ worth of Phed-Red, with Rx750 glaring at it the whole while, and obediently Rx002 packaged it and sent it on its way to the unsuspecting Mr. Peekskyll.

At 11:53, Mr. Peekskyll heard the parcel courier’s ring while he was at his personal console. He ordered his door to accept the delivery, and it opened its parcel drawer obligingly. The courier dropped in the package, watched the drawer slide shut, and waited for Mr. Peekskyll’s beep of confirmation. The beep came, accompanied by a printed receipt emerging from a slot in the door. The courier took the receipt, filed it in his log and cycled away.

At 11:55, Mr. Peekskyll hurried downstairs, retrieved his package, and carried it into his bathroom. There he opened the package, tore free a charge of medication containing four day’s worth of Phed-Red, and loaded it into his hypojet. Giggling, he flexed his arm once or twice. A blue vein stood up, throbbing and eager. He thumbed the hypo and set its dosage meter to deliver the entire contents of the charge straight into his happy vein.

At 11:57, Mr. Peekskyll ran lightly upstairs and dropped dead on the first-floor landing.


Alec and Sophia rode the ag-transport back into the more inhabited sectors of London. They maintained the decorum proper to their class, but every so often Alec would look at Sophia and grin, and she couldn’t keep from smiling back. By the time they exited the transport at Russell Square they were altogether so pink-faced and bouncy that a Public Health Monitor eyed them in suspicion.

They bought takeaway sandwiches from a corner shop and wandered into Coram’s Fields, to eat at a picnic table. The rule prohibiting adults from entering the park except in the company of a child had long since been relaxed, owing to the scarcity of children, and in any case Alec and Sophia were technically juveniles.

“Why are there all those statues of sheep?” Sophia wondered, nibbling at her soy crisps.

“Monument to good citizens, of course,” said Alec, with his mouth full. He swallowed and said, “Actually I think there used to be a zoo here or something.”

“In a park for children?” Sophia looked around doubtfully. “Wasn’t that dangerous?”

“Some animals aren’t dangerous to be around, you know,” Alec said, winking. “Little ones. Birds and rabbits and things.”

“Well, but then they’d be in danger from the children,” said Sophia. “Really, the stupid things people used to do!”

Alec just shrugged, cocking an eye at the nearest surveillance camera. He had a map of all the local camera-blind spots memorized, and a handy little tool kit in his pocket for creating more; but he decided against it, in such a public place. Contenting himself with slipping a hand under the table and stroking Sophia’s thigh, he said:

“I used to get in trouble here, when I’d play on the swings. The Monitors always wanted to buckle me in. I hated that, so I’d wait until their backs were turned and unfasten myself.”

“How’d you get the locks open?” Sophia exclaimed.

“I, erm…I think they must have been defective,” said Alec. “Maybe. With all those kids there used to be, maybe they were worn out? So anyway, one time I thought I’d see what it was like to swing hard and go really high, and finally leap out! Which I did. It seemed like I went a million miles up, though it was probably all of two meters, but it was the greatest feeling in the world. For a seven-year-old, that is,” he added with a sidelong leer.

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I just went whump into that sand pit over there. I left a crater like a meteorite! And the Monitor almost had a coronary. He was about to call for backup, but Lewin told him whose kid I was, so he had to stand down.” Alec smiled at the memory.

“All the same, it was dangerous,” said Sophia.

“I thought you liked danger.” Alec nudged her.

“Grown-up danger,” said Sophia. “And anyway, you’re fun. You’re a living legend of fun. Everyone’s always said so, and now I know.”

“So the rest of the ladies talk about me?” Alec asked, absurdly pleased.

“Of course we do,” said Sophia. “The only boy in circle who likes sex? As opposed to wanting it, see. Beatrice and Cynthia said they don’t know what they’d do without you. You’re everyone’s favorite gorgeous monster toy.”

Alec blushed. “Well—you probably shouldn’t talk about it,” he said, picking up the other half of his sandwich and taking a huge bite to cover his embarrassment..

“Oh, we’d never tell,” Sophia assured him. “Though of course we discuss you endlessly. Like, the way your hands are so hot. How amazingly tall you are. How nice your bum is. And that thing you do with your eyes when you want something.”

Alec dropped what remained of his sandwich.

“What?”

“You know,” said Sophia. “Good lord, you’re famous for it in Circle. The way you just look into our eyes when you’re randy, and suddenly we want to climb all over you? Checkerfield Hypnosis, Jill calls it.”

“That’s—I don’t—” Alec fumbled for a paper napkin and wiped mustard from the front of his trousers. “I don’t do anything like that really, right? It’s just a figure of speech?”

“It’s nothing to get upset about,” said Sophia hastily, seeing that he had gone white as a ghost. “You’re just, er, convincing, that’s all. It’s nice. Think how useful it’ll be when you’re in Parliament! Like you had a superpower.”

“It sounds creepy,” said Alec, carefully avoiding her gaze. He got down on his hands and knees and picked up the bits of his sandwich, suddenly desperate to be tidy.

Sophia bit her lip, gazing down at him.

“Of course I didn’t mean it literally,” she lied. “It was only a, er, metaphor. You just have so much more self-confidence than the other boys.”

“Okay,” Alec said, from under the table. “Because making people do things against their will would be, it’d just be horrible and wrong.”

“Of course it would,” she agreed, “And you don’t do that. Really.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” he said, with a shaky laugh.

But he never once looked her in the eyes, all the way back to the transport station.


Mr. Buddy-Wires had a secret, but it wasn’t a vice. Not as far as he was concerned.

He firmly believed that autoeroticism was every thoughtful citizen’s duty. It had no harmful impact on the environment, it relieved physical tensions, and it absolutely never spread diseases or offspring about. So much was hardly a secret; it was the official party line of the Bureau of Public Health.

However, the particular variety of autoeroticism practiced by Mr. Buddy-Wires was somewhat unusual, and so he kept it a private matter.

The guest bedroom in his flat had been converted for a special purpose. A casual visitor might suppose it was where Mr. Buddy-Wires kept his exercise equipment and personal console. The visitor might wonder why the one window had been painted over, and why thick black drapes seemed to be the only décor, but nothing else betrayed the room’s purpose.

Every Saturday evening at 5:00 PM precisely (except for the third week in June, when he was on holiday in the Isle of Wight) Mr. Buddy-Wires locked his doors, set his automatic household maintenance systems, and retired to the third floor of his flat.

He went to the former guest bedroom and drew the drapes. He switched on his console’s Entertainment function. He unlocked a drawer and removed a holodisc. He inserted it in the holochanger and set it to pause. He opened out the “exercise” machine, which rather resembled a black praying mantis, towering to the ceiling when fully extended. It looked as though it ought to have a punching bag hanging from its extended arm. He entered a certain sequence of numbers on a keypad at the machine’s base.

Having done all this, he went to his bedroom and disrobed. He donned a rather brief garment he liked to imagine was a slave’s loincloth. In this garment and nothing else, he returned to the former guest bedroom and locked himself in.

All that remained for Mr. Buddy-Wires to do was to hit the PLAY button and, in the thirty-second pause before the holo came on, set a chair under the black machine, climb up, and position his hands behind his back in a pair of electronic manacles. The manacles snapped shut. The noose lowered automatically from the machine’s extended arm, dropping about his neck and pulling snug. Generally it was just tight enough to induce panic by the time the holographic figure of the Grand Interrogator appeared.

Mr. Buddy-Wires was then ready to bravely endure three and a half hours of threats and verbal abuse.

At 8:45, the holo would conclude. The Grand Interrogator would swirl its cape and vanish. The machine would respond to its pre-programmed orders and loose its choking pressure on Mr. Buddy-Wires’ throat; the electronic manacles, similarly timed, would spring open. Mr. Buddy-Wires was then free to climb down, exit the room and enjoy a hot bath and a cup of Horlick’s before retiring at 9:45.

On every Saturday evening but this one…

Mr. Frist’s body had yet to be identified by the appalled coroner, so thoroughly mashed it was. Mr. Peekskyll had only been dead five hours and three minutes, and as yet his body had not been discovered. Mr. Buddy-Wires therefore had no least inkling that anything was the matter in his world, as he locked himself into the guest bedroom.

PLAY button; chair; manacles; noose.

Diomedes the Slave braced himself. The holo of Grand Interrogator materialized in the darkness.

“You miserable, sick, twisted worm!” it shrieked. “You’re about to suffer as you’ve never suffered before, and you know why? Because you’re not worthy to live, you disgusting wretch! By the time I’ve finished with you—”

“I ain’t interrupting anything, am I?” said a stranger’s voice.

Mr. Buddy-Wires would have gasped in real horror, but the cord about his windpipe prevented it. He wasn’t able to do much more than blink at the figure that had materialized where the Grand Interrogator had been only a moment before.

The red light glowed on the camera, and Captain Morgan grinned. “Aw, now, I reckon this is a bad time, ain’t it?”

“Urrgh,” said Mr. Buddy-Wires.

“You being all tied up and all. Haar! All tied up, get it?” The holotransmitter’s arm canted to the left, and Captain Morgan appeared to walk three paces closer to Mr. Buddy-Wires. He tilted his head, as though looking him up and down. “Not afraid, neither, of catching cold in just that little rag? Don’t it make you feel the least bit at risk? Why, yer taking yer life in yer hands, Mister Buddy-Wires.”

Most unexpectedly, the machine reeled its noose upward, and Mr. Buddy-Wires strained on tiptoe.

“Hurhururrrg!”

“Aye, that’s just what I said to myself, when I saw somebody’d been laying an ambuscade for my boy,” the Captain replied. “My Alec. Seventh earl of Finsbury, one of these days. Though I reckon he ain’t never going to get no eighth earl if he’s locked away in Hospital with his stones a-shriveling like raisins from hormone therapy, you dirty rotten lousy son of a whore!”

“HHHHHhhhh,” said Mr. Buddy-Wires.

“But it’s a well-known fact that dead men tell no tales, so it is,” the Captain said. “Which is why I ain’t given in to my inclinations and swung you up. What I want to know is, how’d you fathom my Alec’s medical records wasn’t all they might be? Eh? You tell old Captain Morgan, now, and things won’t get no nastier than they has to.”

The machine lowered Mr. Buddy-Wires, and he gulped in air.

“I don’t know how you’re doing this, but you’re still beaten, my lord,” he said. “I’ve files on you, you know. If anything happens to me, my successor will know where to look for them. It’ll be far more unpleasant than blackmail. The scandal will finish you! And young Alec as well—”

“You think I’m poor old Jolly Roger?” hooted the Captain. “All them secret files you got on him, and you ain’t realized Roger’s generally too drunk to tie his own shoelaces? Well, says I, you ain’t much of a threat then. I am, though, you see? Maybe I can’t kick the chair out from under you, me being a hologram and all, but I’m controlling that there Bondmaster 3000 of yers. Like this.”

The noose retracted once more, hauling Mr. Buddy-Wires with it until he balanced on his big toes alone.

“Tell me, you stinking bastard!” snarled the Captain. “How’d you know them certificates was faked? It wouldn’t a’been my little joke with the doctors’ names; you ain’t a reading man. Tell me, now, and no lies. I’m in the walls. I’m in the wires. I can read yer blood pressure. I can read yer body chemistry. I can monitor every drop you sweat, see? I can scan you like a polygraph. And there ain’t no limit to the things I can do what’ll make you sorry you ever crossed old Captain Morgan!

“Let’s just see what systems you got automated,” said the Captain. “Climate control, eh? Reckon I could raise hell with that. Did you ever hear tell of Hal 9000? Colossus, eh? Proteus? Ah, now, that’s got you all hot and bothered, you dirty little—bloody hell!” The Captain looked up at Mr. Buddy-Wires in righteous indignation. “Yer enjoying this!”

“Nnnngk,” said Mr. Buddy-Wires, just managing to sneer.

“Right,” said the Captain. “Let’s keep it simple, then. You talk, or I ain’t letting you down. We got all night, and all tomorrow too, come to think of it, since that’s the Sabbath. I’m a machine and you ain’t. Who d’you reckon’ll get tired first, eh?”

Mr. Buddy-Wires considered the question a moment.

Then he jumped off the chair, neatly snapping his neck.

“Oh, bugger,” said Captain Morgan.

He sought through the files in Mr. Buddy-Wires’s console, and found a lot of carefully hoarded data that would ruin half the members of Parliament and nearly all the Royals, were it released to the press. The last entry was labeled CHECKERFIELD. The Captain dove into it, examining briefly all the transmissions from Mr. Frist and Mr. Peekskyll before deleting them. At last he came upon all Alec’s copies of Medical Certificate 475B-A, and looked closely.

Now, what tipped my hand? The font’s right. The seals is perfect. Roger’s signature is better than he does it his self…

He ordered up a blank of 475B-A and compared it with his own creation. After a moment he gave vent to a long string of mechanical profanity.

How in Davy Jones’s name did I confuse Blue-Green 0006 with Blue-Green 0090? he wondered. Ah! That were afore I had that graphics upgrade in ’27.

Swiftly he went into the public record and corrected the error, and Alec’s certificates were at once indistinguishable from those of any normal boy in London.

Purged files tell no tales either, and Captain Morgan did Parliament and the Royals a tremendous favor before exiting through the wires and reemerging in Bloomsbury.

Mr. Buddy-Wires was still swinging gently, a fearsome rictus of triumph on his dead face.


The Captain’s return to Alec’s room coincided with Alec’s own return.

“Home again, eh, matey?”

“Yeah,” said Alec shortly.

The Captain scanned Alec, noted his emotional state, and spoke in the most soothing tone available.

“Aw, now, didn’t yer little rendezvous go well? Was this one another giggler?”

“No, she wasn’t.” Alec set down his daypack and shrugged out of his coat. “She’s a nice girl. They’re nearly all of ’em nice girls.”

“What’s the matter, then, son?”

“Not a damn thing,” said Alec. He went into his bathroom and fetched the glass in which he kept his toothbrush. “Except that maybe I’m living in the wrong damn century.”

He opened his daypack and withdrew a bottle. The Captain scanned it.

“Alec, where’d you get rum?” he demanded.

“I told the lock on Roger’s liquor cabinet to open, and it did,” said Alec. He poured a drink, filling the glass. “I’m the amazing Alec, right? I can do all kinds of things other kids can’t.”

“Son, whatever went wrong, rum ain’t going to make it better again,” said the Captain.

“Won’t it? It always seemed to make Roger’s problems go away,” said Alec. “And we’re pirates, right? Yo-ho-ho?” He took a mouthful of rum and choked, spraying half of it across the room. “Ack! This is horrible!”

“Aye, matey, that it be, so whyn’t you just pour it down the sink, eh? And let’s have us a good old game of gunnery practice,” said the Captain desperately.

“I don’t think I want to shoot at stuff, Captain sir,” said Alec, eyeing the glass. He lay down on his bed. “I think I feel like hitting something instead, really hard. Preferably me.”

“Why do you think you feel that way, son?” asked the Captain.

Alec did not answer, staring at the ceiling. At last he tried the rum again, a small sip.

“I’m not that different from other guys,” he said. “Am I?”

The Captain did the electronic equivalent of swallowing hard. Now, of all times, was not the time for telling Alec the truth about himself. “Well, yer smarter than the rest of ’em, in yer way,” he said lightly. “And of course there’s the matter of romantic inclinations, which them poor little stunted bastards in the Circle don’t seem to have any of yet. They just ain’t as precocious as you, lad, that’s all.”

“I mean, they’re all of ’em better-looking than me,” said Alec. “Except for Giles Balkister. And just as rich. You’d think they’d be able to talk the ladies into fun and games any time they wanted. So, you’re saying they don’t because they’re, like, lagging behind me in development a year or so?”

“Maybe so, son,” said the Captain.

“Yeah. Maybe that’s all it is,” said Alec. He had another sip of rum.

“And sheer endowment don’t hurt, neither,” the Captain added helpfully.

Alec smiled briefly, but not with his eyes.

“The thing is,” he said. After a long pause he drank more of the rum.

“What, son?”

“The thing is,” Alec said, “If you were really different, if you could do something nobody else could do and…and you used it to make people love you…then it wouldn’t be real, would it? The love, I mean. It’d be just using people.”

“Well, there’s love and sex, see,” said the Captain. “And they ain’t necessarily the same.”

“Even if you didn’t know, or at least if you didn’t understand that’s what you’d been doing, it’d still mean nobody’d really loved you at all,” said Alec.

“Aw, son, nobody really loves anybody when they’re only sixteen,” said the Captain. “It’s just playing. Learning the ropes, see? The real thing comes later on.”

“Will it?” Alec looked up at the hologram, a pleading expression in his eyes.

“Certain sure it will, laddie,” the Captain told him. “Here now, son, whyn’t you set down that copper-bottomed paint thinner and we’ll, er, watch a holo of Treasure Island, eh? Or maybe one of them old Undersea Archaeology programs from the BBC? The one on the Lost City of Port Royal? That was always yer favorite. What’ll cheer up my boy?”

Alec had another drink. He closed his eyes.

“What I’d really like,” he said, “is to run away to sea. If people still did that sort of thing. Just, just go off and…fight against some bad guys somewhere and die like a hero. But nobody does that anymore. So…the next best thing would be to live on a desert island. Or in a lighthouse. Where you didn’t have to worry about hurting anybody else. You know?”

“Of course I know, son,” said the Captain, and because he was only a machine, it was easy for him to speak without revealing his despair. “A green island, that’s where we’ll go, one of these days. You’ll see! All blue water and white sand, and green mangrove jungle at the tideline.

“But up the hills, where the air’s cool, we’ll build us a blockhouse, and there we’ll fly our black ensign, and keep lookout. There’ll be sweet running water, and there won’t be no fever, but plenty of fruit in the trees and fish in the lagoon; and maybe there’ll be parrots.

“You’ll be happy there, son. We’ll dig for Spanish gold, eh? And watch the stars at night. And when my boy needs to be wooing, why, the girl will come. A lass with hair bright as a burning galleon, and a kiss what’ll make him forget rum, and love what’ll make him forget death.

“They say love’s stronger than death, don’t they?” implored the Captain.

But Alec was already far away from him, dreaming a confusion of fire and blood.

And because he was only a machine, the Captain had no god to whom he could pray.