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By Root 1159 0

tape, is lashed into the structure with white poly-tie. Beside the three lighters, which are tucked partially beneath the player, in a row, are an unopened moist towelette and a red fine-point felt pen. To the left of the player is a square red plastic alarm clock, the white face cloth, and the Casio C-Shock. The Casio is grimy, one of the only objects in this sequence that actually appears to be dirty. The book, atop the box of laundry detergent, is hardbound, its glossy dustjacket bearing the photograph of a suited and tied Japanese executive. It looks expensive. Inspirational? Autobiographical?

To the right of the Lx-43: a rigid cardboard pack of Lucky Strike non-filters and a Pokka coffee tin with the top neatly removed (to serve as an ashtray?).

On the cardboard bulkhead above these things are taped up two sentimental postcards of paintings of kittens playing. “Cat collection” in a cursive font.

Below these are glued (not taped) three black-and-white photographs.

#1: A balding figure in jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt squats before an earlier, unpainted version of this structure.

One of the cartons seems to be screened with the word “PLAST — ”. He is eating noodles from a pot, using chopsticks.

#2: The “alley” between the shelters. The balding man looks up at the camera. Somehow he doesn’t look Japanese at all. He sits cross-legged among half-a-dozen others. They look Japanese. All are engrossed in something, perhaps the creation of murals.

#3: He squats before his shelter, wearing molded plastic sandals. His hands grip his knees. Now he looks entirely Japanese, his face a formal mask of suffering.

Curve of square tiles.

How long has he lived here?

With his cats, his guitar, his neatly folded blankets?

Dolly back.

Hold on the cassette-player.

Behind it, almost concealed, is a Filofax.

Names.

Numbers.

Held as though they might be a map, a map back out of the underground.

The Wedding Album

David Marusek

David Marusek is relentless as he explores the implications of creating simulated people in VR. This story asks us to reconsider the criteria for being considered human. Who has rights when there can be multiple copies of an individual? Meanwhile, the advent of a cybernetic iteration of the singularity is thwarted, only to be replaced by one that is decidedly post-human. At the center of a tour through future history that is practically Stapledonian in its scope are a pair of newlyweds; it is their fragile relationship that gives Marusek’s speculation emotional weight. For them, and perhaps for us, this is a horror story. And yet, for the post-humans who gather around them, there is a happy ending indeed.

Anne and Benjamin stood stock still, as instructed, close but not touching, while the simographer adjusted her apparatus, set its timer, and ducked out of the room. It would take only a moment, she said. They were to think only happy happy thoughts.

For once in her life, Anne was unconditionally happy, and everything around her made her happier: her gown, which had been her grandmother’s; the wedding ring (how cold it had felt when Benjamin first slipped it on her finger!); her clutch bouquet of forget-me-nots and buttercups; Benjamin himself, close beside her in his charcoal grey tux and pink carnation. He who so despised ritual but was a good sport. His cheeks were pink, too, and his eyes sparkled with some wolfish fantasy. “Come here,” he whispered. Anne shushed him; you weren’t supposed to talk or touch during a casting; it could spoil the sims. “I can’t wait,” he whispered, “this is taking too long.” And it did seem longer than usual, but this was a professional simulacrum, not some homemade snapshot.

They were posed at the street end of the living room, next to the table piled with brightly wrapped gifts. This was Benjamin’s townhouse; she had barely moved in. All her treasures were still in shipping shells in the basement, except for the few pieces she’d managed to have unpacked: the oak refectory table and chairs, the sixteenth-century French armoire, the cherry wood chifforobe,