Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [190]
‘Ring Canal,’ Tamara indicates as she turns her little craft to the right. Dee, craning her head and looking fore and aft, can see no curvature. Tall, narrow houses – rather than storage blocks and industrial units – overlook this canal, and lights are strung above its banks. Ahead, a rapidly closing hundred metres away, the Ring Canal itself opens out, and through the gap between the buildings at the end Dee sees what looks and sounds like a bonfire: a blaze of light, a roar of noise.
At the confluence, the Ring Canal separates to left and right, curving to a visible ring whose diameter Dee estimates as three hundred metres. More of the tall houses huddle around it, and within it there’s a flat island, accessible from the surrounding circular way by bridges. This central island is covered with corrugated-iron huts and fabric booths and shacks, among which many people are loudly busy. The light comes from overhead floods, and from each individual booth’s contribution of spotlights, fluorescent tubing, strobe, fairy-light cable, and fibre-optic.
Tamara takes another right and throttles back the engine, coasting along the outer bank, silent amid the din of music and commerce, both competitive.
‘What’s going on here?’ Dee asks.
Tamara spares her a glance. ‘Fi’day evening in Circle Square.’
A tiny jetty under a narrow wrought-iron bridge, with a set of steps attached. Tamara moors the boat and motions to Dee to climb the steps. She waits on the shoreward side of the bridge and helps Tamara to haul up the bag. The coming and going of people – couples, groups, kids dodging and weaving between legs and wheels, youths on or in vehicles built to go fast and moving slow, and things that might be vehicles except they have no riders – almost pushes her back off.
‘Right,’ says Tamara, ‘time to make you legal.’
She sets off along the bridge, Dee close behind her – one person in the crowd who has no difficulty getting through.
Most of the stalls around the circumference of the island are locked up, but still lit-up. The ones that aren’t are selling drinks and snacks. The main action is going on towards the hub, in a melée of fairground attractions, discos and rock concerts. Dee notices a stage with a band that looks and sounds just like Metal Petal, this week’s hit at every uptown thrash. A quick visual zoom and aural analysis reveals that they are Metal Petal. (Dee’s heard about copyright, but it’s one of those things she doesn’t quite believe, a song of distant Earth.)
Tamara stops in front of a thing like a big vending-machine between two stalls. It’s covered with dust and rust. It has a black window at the top and a speaker grille and a channel down one side through which Tamara swipes a card. Nothing happens.
‘Hey!’ she shouts. She bangs the side with her fist, making a hollow boom. ‘Fucking IBM,’ she says to no-one in particular.
Lights come on behind the dark window.
‘Invisible Hand Legal Services,’ says the machine, in a voice like God in an old movie. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Register an autonomy claim for an abandoned machine,’ Tamara says, catching Dee’s wrist and pressing her palm against the window.
‘Both hands please,’ says the machine. ‘Both eyes.’
Dee spreads her fingers against the glass and peers in, seeing her own reflection and bright, moving sparks of light.
‘How do you wish the claim to be defended?’
‘I’ll defend it!’ Dee says with a sudden surge of Self-ish passion.
‘By the principal,’ Tamara adds gravely. ‘And by me, my affiliates and by back-up if requested.’
‘Very well. Noted and posted.’
The lights go out. Tamara’s still holding Dee’s wrist, and she swings her around and grabs the other…then lets go, and clasps hands instead. Dee looks at