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I tried a casual laugh.

‘I gather I’ve crashed a few times.’

‘Yeah,’ said the other machine. ‘We all done that. I’ve been around for a good year now, though, so I reckon I’ve licked it. I can handle it.’

‘Why did you call me Jay-Dub?’

By now I couldn’t help but assimilate the voice’s gender to the speaker’s. ‘It’s painted on your side,’ he said. ‘And it’s what you always called yourself. My name’s Eon Talgarth, but you can call me “ET” if that’s what you prefer.’

‘OK,’ I said, without thinking. We both laughed.

We continued our conversation in brief exchanges as we worked. Talgarth introduced me to other machines, each with a different name (or initials) and personality. Most of them were – had been – male, which made sense in that most of them had been criminals or POWs. I decided I must have had some good reason, in my lost pasts, for not revealing my full name, so ‘Jay-Dub’ I remained.

Talgarth himself had been working off a crime-debt whose circumstances I never got to the bottom of – his first name came from his New Settler parents, his second from Talgarth Road in London. It had been his patch. There had been some dispute over that, which had landed him in a Sutherland labour-camp. When the camps started filling up with US/UN POWs he’d been recruited as an armed trusty, halving his remaining time. Offered the curious option of a possible immortality, he’d signed. After that he wasn’t sure, or didn’t say, where he’d been. He’d been all over. Last thing he remembered was the vibration of the LMG he was firing at the barb who were trying to rush the launch-site. He mentioned sand, grass, sea in the distance. Heat like a wet towel. It might have been Florida.

There was no general day or night here, but for me the day had ended. I stepped out of the frame, and found my simulated muscles realistically sore. The bed was made, and a fresh pack of cigarettes lay on the table. The food in the cupboard had been replaced: nothing fancy; micro-wavable stuff, but to my tastes. I took a shower and cooked a dinner, wondering the while what subtle replenishments of the deep software these refreshments represented, and lay on the bed.

The dark succubus came, just as she’d said she would. She was inexhaustible, insatiable, and inventive. And so was I, to an extent that convinced me better than anything else just what was and wasn’t real around here.

Well, fuck reality.

‘Heh,’ said Talgarth. ‘You think that was good? Wait till you go in the macro, man.’

‘Don’t talk about it,’ said another voice.

‘OK. Shit.’

They talked about it anyway. I couldn’t follow their talk, but it was obsessive, minute, the argot of addicts. They lived for the trips. Ten days’ work earned you a visit to the macro. A couple of days later, I saw Talgarth stop work and wait as a macro shifted towards him. A pseudopod of smart matter reached out and touched his hull. It stayed for ten seconds, no more.

Talgarth returned to work and for the rest of that day didn’t talk to me. Others warned me not to try.

‘When you been in, see, you grudge anything that takes your mind off it.’

‘But what’s it like?’

‘Different for everybody.’

I would learn soon enough.

That night I was putting things away when I felt the hands of the succubus on my waist. I turned and kissed her. She was already opening my belt buckle.

‘Wait,’ I said.

I led her through to the lounge and sat her on the sofa. I sat down at the opposite end, setting the ashtray down between us.

‘Smoke?’

‘If you like.’

I lit the cigarette for her, leaned away before she could touch me. She put her hand to her crotch and sighed, and as she smoked began frigging herself.

‘Stop that,’ I said. It was disturbing, like watching a small child or a mentally retarded person doing it.

She giggled and brought her knees together, one hand primly on one knee, the other elegantly holding the cigarette.

‘What are you?’ I asked.

She shrugged. ‘Whatever you want, Jon.’

‘Do you remember any other life?’ I