"Jesus Mercy," Renie said, her fear turning sharp and cold, so cold. "And those . . . are Ticks?"

The Stone Girl's voice barely rose above the noise of the river beneath them. She was weeping again, the words fracturing.

"I w–w–want m–my s–s–s–s–stepmotherr."

NETFEED/SPORTS: "Body Fascism" Litigant Killed in Practice

(visual: Note outside courtroom after victory)

VO: Edward Note, who won a court case in which he proved a local professional football team was discriminating against him based on body type when they initially refused to give him a tryout, was killed in his second day of practice with the team. Members of the Pensacola Fishery Barons BMFFL team, who are responsible to UN antidiscrimination laws because their stadium was built with revenue from local taxes, put on a public face of regret, but some team members said off the record that Note "only got what he deserved."

TEAM MEMBER (anonymated): "What did the guy weigh, a hundred twenty pounds, old school measurements? Running around with guys that weigh three or four times that? It's no wonder he got his foolish tiny ass crushed. Too bad for his kids, though."

VO: The thirty-eight-year-old Note, who declared contemporary pro sports a bastion of "body fascism," was apparently caught underneath a pile-up in practice and asphyxiated. His family is demanding an investigation of his death.

"Just a minute, Olga." The woman, a stranger of course, but acting as familiar as an old friend, handed her a cup of coffee which steamed convincingly. "I hear you're working for that J Corporation now. That must be fascinating—you hear so much about them in the news. What's it like?"

"I'm not allowed to talk about where I work," she said.

The woman smiled. "Oh, of course not—I know that! But I'm not trying to get you to tell any important secrets, am I? Just . . . what's it like? Is it really on an island?"

Surely everyone knew that. Still, Olga was unbending, "I'm sorry—I'm just not allowed to talk about where I work."

The woman frowned. "You're being really grumpy and silly about this. You must not be getting enough sleep. Are you working nights or something?"

"I'm really sorry, but I am not allowed to talk about my work."

The woman waved her hand in disgust. A moment later the room wavered and changed, so quickly that Olga felt a bit dizzy, almost sick.

They should do a better job with their transitions, she thought. If they ever got a job on the real net, for Obolos or someone, they'd get ripped to shreds for something like that.

She sat patiently as someone who was apparently a relative of hers asked her to bring home some extra office supplies for the kids—nothing important, just a few sticktights or hardclips for the poor, underprivileged darlings to make art projects for school. Olga sighed and began her refusals, waiting as patiently as she could through the upward spiral of recrimination, waiting for it all to end.

"Well, an excellent score," Mr. Landreaux said after she had stepped out of the hologram room. He was a small man with a shaved head and a scatter of sparkling stones embedded in his wrist—trying a little too hard to look young, Olga thought. "You really studied up, didn't you?"

She tried not to smile. A quarter of an hour's examination of the company's voluminous hiring package the night before had made it pretty clear what the general idea was. "Yes, sir," she said. "This job is very important for me." And you can't even guess how true that is, can you?

"I'm glad to hear that. It's important to me, too." The personnel officer squinted at his wallscreen. "Your references are very, very good. Fourteen years at Reichert Systems—that's a very good company." He smiled, but she saw something else glint in his mild gray eyes. "Tell me again why you left Toronto."

This is really just a junior version of the man who gave me my exit interview at Obolos, she thought, another pink soft animal with sharp teeth. Does that Jongleur fellow grow them in vats, like those space-tomatoes? Aloud, she recited the story Catur Ramsey had invented for her, and that his friends had somehow turned into accomplished informational fact. "It's my daughter Carole, sir. Since her . . . since she split up with her husband, she needs some help with the kids so she can keep her job. She works so hard." Olga shook her head. This was cake. Convincing a hundred overstimulated children to be quiet so they wouldn't scare the Boxy Ox, that was real acting. If the whole thing were not so strange and terrible, she suspected she might even be enjoying this little trick—corporate folk were such easy yet somehow satisfying targets. "So I just thought, do you know, if I were nearer. . . ."

"So you left the Great White North and came all the way down here to the Big Easy," Landreaux said cheerfully. "Well, laissez les bontemps roulez, as we say." He leaned over, mock-conspiratorial. "But not during working hours, of course."

She tried to look duly impressed by his informality. "Of course not, sir. I am a hard worker."

"I'm sure you are. Well, everything's in order, so I guess it's my pleasant job to welcome you to the J Corporation family." He extended his hand without standing, making her lean forward to shake it. "Your shift supervisor is Maria. You'll find her in Building Twelve down on the esplanade. Go see her now. Are you ready to start tonight?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you very much, sir."

He had already begun to lose interest, and was just turning back to his wallscreen when his attention snagged on the patch of white high on her neck. "You know, I was meaning to ask you," he said with deceptive lightness that did not lull her one little bit. "About that bandage on your neck. You don't have a health problem you haven't told us about, do you, Ms. Chotilo?"

Caught a little off-balance by hearing Aleksandr's last name after all these years, even though she herself had chosen it as an alias she could remember, it took her a moment to reorient. "Oh, this?" She touched the adhesive strip covering her t-jack. "I had a mole removed. That's all right, isn't it? It wasn't cancerous or anything, I . . . I just didn't like it."

He laughed and waved his hand. "Just trying to make sure nobody's signing up with us just to get our medical insurance." His face went through another little shift; the slightly ominous flicker came back. "See, we don't like to be tricked, Olga. J Corporation is a family, but a family has to protect itself. It can be an unpleasant world out there."

Out there, she guessed, meant anything more than five kilometers from the black tower. "Oh, I know, Mr. Landreaux," she assured him. "Full of bad people."

"Right you are," he said absently, his thoughts already back on the day ahead of him, the little tricks and traps and bumps of mid-level management.

Olga stood. His back was to her as she scuttled out.

As she walked across the plaza outside the corporation's orientation center, heading across the esplanade, she made a conscious effort not to look up at the black tower looming on the far side of the water. It was hard not to feel she was being watched, although it seemed like a lot of effort to expend on the newest employee of a staff of thousands. And why wouldn't a new employee look up at the tower, the corporate symbol?