Two of them approached her one evening as she came out of the showers after finishing her routine.

“Lisa Friemann?” said the taller of the two—a dark-eyed woman who had taken the trouble not merely to shave but to permanently depilate her head. “I’m Arachne West. This is Delia Vertue.” Arachne West’s shorter companion, whose still-abundant hair was flagrantly dyed a peculiar shade of blue-black, nodded. “We read about what happened in court.”

“It happens,” Lisa said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Maybe not,” the bald woman said, “but it reflects on us all when people begin spouting that kind of hate. There are too many willing ears about. You five alone, don’t you?”

Lisa blinked. “What makes you think so?” she asked warily. She was trying to edge away and terminate the conversation, but the two Real Women followed her into the dressing room.

“We haven’t been digging,” Arachne West assured her. “No reason why it should be a secret, is there? We can give you some numbers, if you like. Support, in case of trouble.” She held up a small card, but Lisa could see only one phone number on it.

“I’m a police officer,” Lisa said disbelievingly. “We gotsupport.”

“Yeah—but sometimes there’s support, and then there’s support. We have policewomen in the movement, and they don’t always seem to feel that their male colleagues are as supportive as they might be. Things do change, but they change slowly, and appearance doesn’t always match reality.”

“I’m fine,” Lisa assured them. “Really.”

They should have gone away then, but they didn’t. “You really should get rid of those dead clothes,” Delia Vertue observed. “It makes good sense to keep up with the technology—for the sake of safety, not of fashion.”

“What do you mean?” Lisa asked, taken somewhat aback by the woman’s presumption.

“We Uve in a plague culture,” Arachne West informed her. “You can steer clear of pricks, but steering clear of STDs is harder. Soon everyone will need a whole second skin.”

“But not yet,” Lisa pointed out.

“Soon,” the bald woman repeated with perfect confidence. “Health is our most precious possession, and it gets even more precious as you get older. Keeping fit is only part of the answer. If you’d like to come to a meeting, we’d be very glad to see you. If you want to talk in private, that’s okay too. Call me.”

Lisa accepted the makeshift card but she didn’t call. The sin of omission didn’t offend Arachne West sufficiently to make her stop greeting Lisa when she saw her in the gym, often taking time out to exchange a few friendly words, but the Real Women didn’t press their case any harder than that. They never offered to supply her with any body-building advice, but they presumably figured that a genetic analyst probably had access to any legitimate somatic modifiers she might need or desire.

In the course of the next couple of years, Lisa’s chats with Arachne West grew gradually longer. Although she always thought of the Real Woman’s theories and ideals as slightly crazy, she couldn’t help but find them intriguing and mildly amusing.

“You might think that we protest a little too much,” the strong-woman told her, “but that’s because you haven’t realized the depth of feeling that’s wrapped up in the continuing backlash. Feminist analyses of the mechanics of male domination didn’t just serve to educate women. They also educated men in the sly art of holding on to their most cherished privileges while making slow concessions in other areas. The iron fist wears a velvet glove nowadays, but it’s still an iron fist. When it comes to the crunch, it’s all about power, and men aren’t going to let it go easily. This is one cold war that won’t end in collapse and surrender.”

“Oddly enough,” Lisa told her, “I know a man who says much the same thing.”

“Don’t be beguiled by that kind of tactical honesty. It’s a gambit. Never underestimate male hatred of womankind, or the lengths men will go to in serving that hatred. Know your enemy—and fear your friend.”

“I value my male friends too much to fear them,” Lisa said dismissively, “and I’m not entirely convinced that you have sufficient experience of the male of the species to qualify you to tell me to discount my own.”

One of Arachne West’s better points was that she was capable of laughing at barbs of that kind. “You’re a treasure, Lisa,” she said. “I bet your friends think so too. I hope you’ll never be disappointed. But you really should get rid of those old clothes. Think smart, lady— alwaysthink smart.”

“You might be eager to acquire a second skin,” Lisa replied, “but I’m not. Too claustrophobic.”

“It’s a claustrophobic world,” the Real Woman reminded her. “Crowds are germ Utopia, and the whole world is one big crowd struggling to get through the aisles of the Megacorp Mall. Smart insulation is the only thing that can keep you safe in the conflicts to come.”

“Claustrophobia isn’t just a matter of crowding,” Lisa said, quoting Morgan Miller. “It’s also a matter of continuity. Nobody panics in a crowded elevator while it’s moving, but when it stops …”

“Not relevant,” Arachne informed her loftily. “All continuities come to their end. When crowd fever finally comes your way, little Lisa, you’ll need those smart fibers for a shield—all the more so if you haven’t got us to back you up. Invest now, and keep on investing. It’s the only way.”

In time, though, Arachne West seemed to give up on Lisa, and as the Real Woman movement waned, her attendance at the gym dropped off. Lisa didn’t miss her much, because she figured that she’d already heard all her best Unes, but she did recognize the loss as one more stage in a developing pattern of isolation. Some of the things Arachne had said about her existential inertia continued to rankle, and when Victor Leverer’s release date rolled around, she paused more than once to wonder whether the backup she had on call was really the best available.

Fortunately, Leverer never came looking for her. The next woman he attacked was a mere slip of a thing, not yet out of her teens, but she was also a member of the ALF and she had studied the “Self-Defense Handbook” as carefully as the “Rioters’ Handbook.” She cut his hamstrings and his Achilles tendons with his own knife and he didn’t walk again until the NHS got to the very bottom of the waiting list for new-generation prosthetics.

Lisa never had any confrontational dealings with apocalyptic cultists or hobbyist terrorists. She was occasionally called upon to sift through the debris of an explosion in search of complex organic material, but she never turned up any evidence that was crucial to a prosecution. No amateur biological weapons—or, for that matter, amateur chemical weapons—were deployed in the vicinity of the Bristol cityplex while she was stationed there. She was co-opted to assist with the investigation of the London Underground incident of 2019 and the Eurostar incident of 2026, but her part in each operation was minor and she was not required to appear at either trial. For her, therefore, what the tabloids called “the creeping chaos” remained part of life’s background. It seemed ever-present on the TV news and in newspaper headlines, but it never became personal. It was a mere phenomenon, and as such, could be discussed in a perfectly dispassionate manner with everyone she knew.

TV researchers and tabloid reporters sometimes visited Mouseworld in search of a hook on which to hang their latest story, but they received no encouragement from any of the staff. Chan Kwai Keung would not repeat in their presence the kinds of argument that he was still, on occasion, prepared to lay before Lisa.

“Of course the world continues to mirror Mouseworld,” Chan told her in the aftermath of the Eurostar incident. “How could it be otherwise? The cities continue to mock us by setting an example that is by no means good but is nevertheless measurably better than our own. The H Block continues to pile up its tangled record of failed experiments, obsolete stratagems, and forgotten secrets. Morgan’s incessant declarations about the redundancy of the entire operation ring more true with every year that passes—and the same emotional sickness resonates in the hearts of millions of people. It is as ludicrous an oversimplification to group all the tiny explosions of wrath together as symptoms of stress disease as it is to regard them as facets of a mysterious chaos emanating from the depths of Hell. The violent effects may be depressingly similar, but the motive forces are much more various than anyone will allow.”