Rewired_ The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology - James Patrick Kelly [83]
He looked at her with a wobbly gaze and said, “Oh, here you are.”
“Where are we?”
“I’m not sure. Some kind of gathering of Benjamins. Look around.” She did. They were surrounded by Benjamins, hundreds of them, arranged chronologically—it would seem — with the youngest in rows of seats down near a stage. She and Benjamin sat in what appeared to be a steeply sloped college lecture hall with lab tables on the stage and story-high monitors lining the walls. In the rows above Anne, only every other seat held a Benjamin. The rest were occupied by women, strangers who regarded her with veiled curiosity.
Anne felt a pressure on her arm and turned to see Benjamin touching her. “You feel that, don’t you?” he said. Anne looked again at her hands. They were her hands, but simplified, like fleshy gloves, and when she placed them on the seat back, they didn’t go through.
Suddenly, in ragged chorus, the Benjamins down front raised their arms and exclaimed, “I get it; we’re the sims!” It was like a roomful of unsynchronized cuckoo clocks tolling the hour. Those behind Anne laughed and hooted approval. She turned again to look at them. Row-by-row, the Benjamins grew greyer and stringier until, at the very top, against the back wall, sat nine ancient Benjamins like a panel of judges. The women, however, came in batches that changed abruptly every row or two. The one nearest her was an attractive brunette with green eyes and full, pouty lips. She, all two rows of her, frowned at Anne.
“There’s something else,” Anne said to Benjamin, turning to face the front again, “my emotions.” The bulletproof happiness she had experienced was absent. Instead she felt let down, somewhat guilty, unduly pessimistic — in short, almost herself.
“I guess my sims always say that,” exclaimed the chorus of Benjamins down front, to the delight of those behind. “I just never expected to be a sim.”
This was the cue for the eldest Benjamin yet to walk stiffly across the stage to the lectern. He was dressed in a garish leisure suit: baggy red pantaloons, a billowy yellow-and-green-striped blouse, a necklace of egg-sized pearlescent beads. He cleared his throat and said, “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I trust all of you know me—intimately. In case you’re feeling woozy, it’s because I used the occasion of your reactivation to upgrade your architecture wherever possible. Unfortunately, some of you—” he waved his hand to indicate the front rows — “are too primitive to upgrade. But we love you nevertheless.” He applauded for the early Benjamins closest to the stage and was joined by those in the back. Anne clapped as well. Her new hands made a dull, thudding sound. “As to why I called you here…” said the elderly Benjamin, looking left and right and behind him. “Where is that fucking messenger anyway? They order us to inventory our sims and then they don’t show up?”
Here I am, said a voice, a marvelous voice that seemed to come from everywhere. Anne looked about to find its source and followed the gaze of others to the ceiling. There was no ceiling. The four walls opened to a flawless blue sky. There, amid drifting, pillowy clouds floated the most gorgeous person Anne had ever seen. He — or she? — wore a smart grey uniform with green piping, a dapper little grey cap, and boots that shimmered like water. Anne felt energized just looking at him, and when he smiled, she gasped, so strong was his presence.
“You’re the one from the Trade Council?” said the Benjamin at the lectern.
Yes, I am. I am the eminence grise of the Council on World Trade and Endeavor.
“Fantastic. Well, here’s all of ’em. Get on with it.”
Again the eminence smiled, and again Anne thrilled. Ladies and gentlemen, he said, fellow nonbiologiks, I am the courier of great good news. Today, at the behest of the World Council on Trade and Endeavor, I proclaim the end of human slavery.
“How absurd,” broke in the elderly Benjamin, “they’re neither human nor slaves, and neither are you.”
The eminence grise ignored him and