Glasshouse - Charles Stross [22]
I’m supposed to act in character for the historical period we’re pretending to live in, wearing a body that doesn’t resemble me, using an alias and a fake background identity, and not discussing the outside world with anyone else in the study. That means any assassin who comes after me is going to start with huge handicaps, like not knowing what I look like, not being allowed to ask, and not being able to take any weapons along. If I’m lucky, the me who isn’t in here will be able to take care of business within the next hundred megs, and when I come out and we merge our deltas I’ll be home free and rich. And if he doesn’t succeed, well, I can see if they’ll let me keep this assumed identity when I leave . . .
I pull the carton of clothes out from under the bed and wrinkle my nose. They don’t smell bad or anything, but they’re a bit odd—historically accurate, the tablet said. There’s a strange black tunic, very plain, that leaves my arms and lower legs bare, and a black jacket to wear over it. For footwear there’s a pair of shiny black pumps, implying a strongish grav zone, but with weird, pointed toes and heels that converge to a spike three or four centimeters long. The underwear is simple enough, but I take a while to figure out that the filmy gray hose go on my legs. Which, I notice, are hairless—in fact, I’ve got no hair except on my head. So my body’s ortho, but not undomesticated. I shake my head.
The weirdest thing of all is that the fabric is dumb—too stupid to repel dirt or eat skin bacteria, much less respond to style updates or carry on a conversation. And the costume comes with no pockets, not even an inconspicuous T-gate concealed in the jacket lining. When did they invent them? I wonder. I’ll have to find an outfit with more brains later. I put everything on and check myself out in the bathroom mirror. My hair is going to be a problem—I search the place, but all I can find is an elastic loop to pull it through. It’ll have to do until I can cut it back to a sensible length.
Which leaves me with nothing to do now but go see this orientation lecture and “cheese and wine reception.” So I pick up my tablet, open the door, and go.
THERE’S a wide but narrow room on the far side of the door. I’ve just come out of one of twelve doors that open off three of the walls, which are painted flat white. The floor is tiled in black and white squares of marble. The fourth wall, opposite my door, is paneled in what I recognize after a moment as sheets of wood—your actual dead trees, killed and sliced into planks—with two doors at either side that are propped open. I guess that’s where the lecture is due to be held, although why they can’t do it in netspace is beyond me. I walk over to the nearest open door, annoyed to discover that my shoes make a nasty clacking sound with every step.
There are seven or eight other people already inside a big room, with several rows of uncomfortable-looking chairs drawn up before a podium that stands before a white-painted wall. We—I’ve got to get used to the idea that I’m a voluntary participant, even if I don’t feel like one right now—are a roughly even mix of orthohuman males and females, all in historical costume. The costume seems to follow an intricate set of rules about who’s allowed to wear what garments, and everybody is wearing a surprising amount of fabric, given that we’re in a controlled hab. Those of us who are female have been given one-piece dresses or skirts that fall to the knee, in combination with tops that cover our upper halves. The men are wearing matching jacket and trouser combinations over shirts with some sort of uncomfortable-looking collar and scarf arrangement at the neck. Most of the clothing is black and white or gray and white, and remarkably drab.
Apart from the archaic costume there are other anomalies—none of the males have long hair, and none of the females have short hair, at least where I can see it. A couple of heads turn as I walk in, but I don’t feel out of place, even with my long hair