Rising above the Earth, the Shawl bathed in the warmth of the Sun. Its rectangular black sections, strung together in a grid by connecting filaments, hung down in loose pleats from the lens of the Source. The Shawl in EA Public Space number 4 was bigger than the one in the atomic world; it looked like an unbelted kimono floating above the Earth, its hem trailing in the thickening atmosphere.

Kevin and Bairn floated just below the great lens set in the factory floor of the Source, looking down the vertiginous planes of the Shawl sections towards the blue-and-white swirl of Earth below. Long pulsing strands of connecting filament were extruding from the enormous flat dome of the factory space around them, some of them winding down to join the hanging folds of the Shawl immediately below, others worming their way off, under their own power, to join the more distant sections, to strengthen and reinforce and repair.

“The Shawl reminds me of one of those coats of mail that knights used to wear,” Bairn said. “You know, metal plates joined by bits of wire. It’s like the factory is a clothes hanger to keep it tidy.”

“An uninspired thought,” Kevin replied. “The Shawl is a huge visual metaphor of the Watcher’s vision for humans. It hangs above the Earth so all humankind can see it. They know that sections are born here at the top, and as more are added, they see sections work their way downwards until they are released to burn as they fall to Earth.”

“Nothing lasts forever.” Bairn was floating slightly out from Kevin; her suit had no magnetic boots, no motion poppers. Her sole safeguard was a light plastic tether linking her to Kevin. She pulled on it, bringing herself closer to the patterned black shape of a section floating nearby. “Anyway, it’s pretty. And how else would they build it?”

“Ah, Bairn,” Kevin said, “I expected better from you. Things are the way they are because that is the way they were designed. The Watcher hung the Shawl above the real Earth and also the virtual Earths to remind humans of the idea that all things must pass. But why should that be? I am nearly two hundred years old, and I intend to live forever, just like the Watcher. Just like DIANA and 113 Berliner Sibelius.”

“Who?”

Kevin kicked off from the edge of the Shawl section. Bairn watched the thin white strip of the tether as it slowly straightened and pulled taut, then she felt a jerk as she began to move after Kevin. Just when she was beginning to think that Kevin was not going to answer her, he finally spoke.

“Old commercial organizations. They are also sentient beings, Bairn. DIANA is an organization that responds to external stimuli, that manipulates its environment, that takes in energy and has the ability to reproduce. Even in the past, when it was made up solely of humans, it followed its own agenda, regardless of the well-being of the humans that provided its constituent parts.”

Bairn let out a little yelp as something brushed against her. A glowing green strand of connecting filament snaked by; thinner than her finger, it wriggled through the vacuum like a sine wave. Its soft light lit up the white skin of her belly, safe and warm in her transparent suit.

“Hey,” Kevin called, “let’s hitch a ride!”

He used the motion poppers of his suit to match speeds with the pulsing strand of connecting filament, then reached out and took hold of it, feeling its wriggling under his hand subside as it molded itself to his grip.

“Where are we going now?” Bairn asked.

“To see Judy Three and Helen,” Kevin said. “We’re going to meet eventually. Let’s keep the psychological advantage by finding them first.”

“Oh.”

The dark wall of a nearby section of the Shawl slid smoothly by.

“Try to show some enthusiasm, Bairn.”

“I don’t think I want to meet them-especially not like this.”

Kevin studied her body through the transparent spacesuit. Her nipples and pubic hair were dark against the pale glow of her naked body as it reflected the light of the connecting filament.

“What’s the matter with you?” Kevin’s voice was cool. “You look perfectly fine to me. I wasn’t aware that other people’s opinions mattered to you.”

“I don’t want to meet them like this,” Bairn repeated as softly as she could, even though she had cut the microphone feed. She stared at his black-clad body leading her in the long dive towards the Earth below. “Other people’s opinions don’t matter to me, Kevin,” she said back into the microphone. “Only yours.”

“Good girl.”

They were dragged towards the planet through a broken dark tunnel of Shawl sections threaded by the long curves of other connecting filaments. It was a beautiful, awe-inspiring sight.

Bairn felt terrified.

They rode the same filament for about five minutes, dropping through the reproduction area where sections of Shawl fissioned in order to create new ones. Kevin let go of the filament and guided them towards a newly separated section. Bairn’s vision was playing tricks on her as she approached its featureless black plane. She was flying towards a wall, dropping towards the ground, rising to the ceiling. Her brain struggled to cope with the geometric extremes of a sight her eyes had not evolved to identify during their passage from the trees to the plains of Africa.

And then Kevin did something to the processing space in which they were running and she suddenly fell through the wall and was left standing in the template of an apartment. It was so easy to forget that she was a digital Bairn that she began shaking with the shock. Kevin eyed her in a disapproving way.

“It’s cold in here,” she offered by way of explanation. A warning signal was flashing in the corner of her vision.

“Freezing. Don’t remove your suit until I get this place habitable,” Kevin said. “The VNMs have been deactivated so that the first residents may themselves choose how to customize this apartment.”

Bairn took in the grey surfaces of floor and walls. Boxy units and cupboards were arrayed at random, more to provide raw materials for construction than for any practical purpose.

“Of course, we are just in a virtual apartment, so the concept of VNMs is rather extraneous, but here we go.”

The boxy units shimmered and then split themselves apart into VNMs: silver spiders, smooth, jointless creatures that seemed to flow from one shape to another as they moved around the room, creating a regular pattern of creatures curving over the floor and walls. A frieze formed on the walls, a picture of a man in a dark trench-coat, standing before a grey slab of metal, reaching out to touch a metal tree with his right hand.

Bairn looked on. “That’s nice,” she said. “It reminds me of something.”

“Mmmm. Let’s have some furniture.”

As a low padded circle rose from the floor, Kevin pulled a thin sheet of plastic from his suit. He smiled as he looked at it, then let it flutter to the floor.

“That should make things more interesting,” he said. “Now, shall we wait for them outside?”

“Kevin?” Bairn said suddenly.

“Yes?”

“Do they have to die?”

“You make it sound like it’s some big deal,” Kevin replied. “I do it all the time.”

He stepped out through the wall of the apartment and back into space. Bairn was pulled along with him to float naked above the Earth.

Helen had changed into a one-piece black passive suit. Her blond hair had been tied back in a ponytail and then sprayed with a flexible black plastic coating that kept it fixed in place. She stood with her hands on her hips, gazing down through the transparent base of the factory at a fissioning section of the Shawl beneath her. She had made herself up to look like Judy: her black lips were taut against a white-painted face.