Glasshouse - Charles Stross [21]
So, in summary, I’m short and weak and unarmed, but cute if your sense of aesthetics centers on old-fashioned body plans. “How reassuring,” I snarl at my reflection. Then I go back into the bedroom, sit down, and look at the tablet. READ ME NOW, it says. “Read to me,” I tell it, and the words morph into new shapes:
Dear Participant
Thank you for consenting to take part in the Yourdon-Fiore-Hanta experimental polity project. (If you do not recall giving this consent, tap HERE to see the release form you signed after your last backup.) We hope you will enjoy your stay in the polity. We have prepared an orientation lecture for you. The next presentation will be conducted by Dr. Fiore in 1294 seconds. To assist with maintaining the correct setting, please attend wearing the historically authentic costume supplied (see carton under chair). There will be a cheese and wine reception afterward at which you will be given a chance to meet your fellows in the current intake of participants.
I blink. Then I reread the tablet, frantically searching for alternate meanings. I didn’t sign that! Did I? Looks like I did—either that or I’ve been hacked, but my having signed the release is more likely. I tap the link, and it’s there in black and white and red, and the sixteen-digit number works when I feed the fingerprint to my netlink. I signed a contract, and it says here I’m committed to living in YFH-Polity under an assumed identity, name of Reeve, for the next . . . hundred megaseconds? Three years? During which time my civil rights will be limited by prior mutual agreement—not extending to my core sentient rights, they’re not allowed to torture or brainwash me—and I can’t be discharged from my obligation without the consent of the experimenters.
I find myself hyperventilating, as I oscillate between weak-kneed relief that I’m not a victim of identity theft and apprehension at the magnitude of what I’ve signed up for. They have the right to unilaterally expel me (Well, that’s all right, then, I just have to piss them off if I decide I want out), and they have the right to dictate what body I can live in! It’s a ghastly picture, and in among the draconian provisions I see that I also agreed to let them monitor my every action. Ubiquitous surveillance. I’ve just checked into a dark ages panopticon theme hotel! What can possibly have possessed me to—oh. Buried in the small print is a rider titled “Compensatory Benefits.”
Aha.
Firstly, the Scholastium itself guarantees the experimenters against all indemnities and will back any claims. So if they violate the limited rights they’ve granted me, I can sue them, and they’ve got nearly infinitely deep pockets. Secondly, the remuneration is very satisfactory. I do a brief calculation and work out that what they’ve promised to pay me for three Urth years in the rat run is probably enough to see me in comfort for at least thrice that long once I get out.
I begin to calm down. I haven’t been hacked; I did this to myself of my own free will, and there are some good sides to the picture. My other self hasn’t completely taken leave of his senses. It occurs to me that it’s going to be very hard for the bad guys, whoever they are, to get at me inside an experimental polity that’s only accessible via a single T-gate