‘Czioc, thanks for coming, glad you could spare the time.  How is everything?’

Czioc cursed openly to everyone outside the picturehouse.  It was Colonel Trimasth’s favourite greeting, knowing damn well that nobody could avoid one of his “meetings”.

An elderly couple turned to frown at him and muttered to themselves about young people these days.  ‘Colonel, to what do I owe the pleasure?’  He sat down cross-legged amongst the buzzing people, the sign that he was engaged in conversation.

‘Czioc, you know how much I value your opinion,’ continued the old buffer inside his head.  ‘As do all of us here on the Public Standards and Improvements Committee, although I must stress that there’s others less trusting than myself, if you catch my drift young lad.’

‘I thought it was the Upholding Standards in Public Life Committee?’ said Czioc, as innocently as he could.

‘Public Life?!  The Committee was restructured over 6 months ago boy, don’t you keep up?  My word, I’m already reconsidering my decision to see you.’

Czioc knew full well about the name change – he simply enjoyed winding the Colonel up in the little ways he knew how.  The Colonel knew too.  It was just one of the games they played.

He noted the way the old bore always said “see”, when neither of them could see each other.  He watched people and various creatures amble to and from the old picturehouse.

‘So what’s happening?’  he said.  ‘Sir?’ he added, straightening his back a little.  ‘I’ve been pretty good lately, on form you might say.’

He heard the Colonel sigh a little inside him.  ‘Much as we all love giving you a little slap on the wrist for your misdemeanours,’ breathed the old man, ‘this is more a formal visit.  In an informal way, of course, old chap.  You remember a girl – hmm, let me get her name right – a certain Miss Noksalika Chastity Ellastia Chuunim?’

His heart stopped.  The world zoned out.

‘…Yes?  Yes?’

‘She’s dead.  The powers that be thought you should know, wanted a friendly face, ahem, as it were, to tell you.’

His chest and scalp burned with pin pricks of intense heat.  The world seemed to lose its colour.  ‘But … she was barely older than me?’

‘Aye, you’re right.’

Trimasth you stupid old prick, he thought.  ‘What happened?’

‘Not sure, looks pretty innocent though, the boys at Legal Policies and Procedures are putting everything together.  Just wanted to let you know, I’m sure you’ll be fine, of course, these things happen.  Lovely to see you, catch you soon.’

He sat staring into this dark world, watching people walking around, opening their mouths and making sound.  He stayed still on the ground so no-one would disturb him.  Idiots.  All of them.  Useless idiots.

Did you know her well?

This wasn’t Colonel Trimasth.

This was the other voice in his head, the cold one.

‘Yeah.  I knew all of her.’  His words were bitter, and true.

Shit.  You seem pretty upset.

‘I am.’

I guess I’ll leave you alone then.

Czioc didn’t say anything for a few moments.  Then he blurted out angrily, ‘Couldn’t you just fucking leave me alone full stop?!’

But there was no-one there.  Quite a few passers-by on the steps of the picturehouse overheard him and stopped, staring.  Some whispered and pointed.  He didn’t know where to look.  So he threw his head back and exhaled, looking at the ceiling of the cavern, where other idiots walked and chattered.

Thankfully Pshappa came back, making Czioc bring his head back down and sit forward.  Pshappa had a big grin on his face and was about to speak when he saw Czioc’s position.  ‘Sorry are you busy…?’ he mouthed.  Czioc shook his head slowly.

‘Great.  Look, I got ice creams.’  He grinned triumphantly and presented two of his hands towards Czioc.

Czioc stood up and they walked off, Pshappa chatting away gently, and left behind the milling crowds carrying dead people in and out of the picturehouse.

Spring had come, finally, and the smell of plant pheromones in the air was like magic to Czioc.  They sat together on the bench of an outdoor restaurant, and he felt no appetite for food – not when he felt Spring in the air like a woman’s hand stroking his bare back.

‘So what was so special about this girl then?’ chewed Pshappa, chomping his way through a leg of meat.

Czioc’s eyes were fixed on the distant walls of the cavern, where he wished he could stay … somewhere further away, on the edge of melancholy, with traces of joy.  ‘She was something else.’

‘What, like a horse?’

Czioc turned to see Pshappa’s toothy grin punctuated with flecks of dead animal.  ‘Got your attention, didn’t it,’ he grinned, and took another huge filthy bite.

‘Pshap,’ breathed Czioc, shaking his head, ‘you know why she was important.  You’ve just got to check the Ethe.  Are you,’ he blinked, frowning, ‘are you trying to say you haven’t heard of her?’

‘Not heard of her?  I’m no retard, I’ve heard of everyone,’ Pshappa sprayed bits of meat indignantly.  ‘And of course I know who Noksalika “porn-star-classical-genius-politician’s-daughter” Chuunim is.  Was.  I want to know why she was special to you.’

Czioc stared in mild disgust at his friend.  ‘She was amazing.’

‘People are.’

‘And now she’s dead.’

‘People die all the time.  That’s what we’re here for.’

‘Huh, touché.’

‘Seriously, I don’t understand.  According to the Ethe you were seeing each other for-’  Pshappa’s eyes glazed over briefly, then he snorted a laugh, ‘-eight and a half months, and that was twenty-six years ago.  You’ve not even seen each other since!’

Czioc nodded glumly, gritting his teeth.

Pshappa looked at him accusingly.  ‘And you’ve seen other women since?’

Czioc nodded.

‘And you’ve fucked other women since?’

Czioc nodded, smiling weakly.

‘Right.  People come and go.  Things change.  Especially for us.’

He itched on the seat.  He put his arms down to rest on the table, and pulled them up again, and fidgeted.  He raised his feet on tiptoes.

‘Mate, seriously,’ continued Pshappa, ‘you’re not even eating anything.  Look, I don’t care how hung up you are about this girl, just eat something will you?’  He signalled to the kitchen, a green igloo in the centre of the restaurant, to send food via one of the servants.

‘I’m not hungry.’  Czioc held his gaze.

‘You’ll waste away mate.  Your favourite fish is calmtrout, right?’

‘I don’t want any!’

‘Well I’ve ordered some anyway!’

Czioc growled at his friend, and – gripping the table – tore a piece away and put it in his mouth.  Pshappa’s eyes widened.  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he hissed.  Nobody was looking, but everyone had heard it across the airwaves, and the unseen chitter chatter was suddenly about them.

‘We can all live off the Ethe,’ replied Czioc steadily, chewing the chunk of table.  Dark blue liquid glistened for a second where he had torn the piece away, then crystallised quickly.  In his mouth, the chunk broke up easily, melting as he gulped it down.  The sticky warmth spun round in his stomach.

‘Are you twelve years old or something?’  Pshappa shook his head.  ‘It’s not what you do in polite fucking company!  You’ll mark yourself out to the Committees with crazy stuff like that.’

Amongst the multi-shaped crowds eating at the restaurant, one of the shell-like servants came scuttling up to their bench holding cooked dishes aloft, skilfully dodging other servants and the thrashing gestures of drunken customers.  It stopped at their table and, instead of laying their food down, glared at them with the beady eyes set in its smooth shell.

‘Arruta’s Restaurant is a decent establishment and will kindly not tolerate delinquent behaviour from its guests,’ it said in their heads.

‘I completely understand, I apologise for my frie-’ started Pshappa.

‘The committees will not provide currency to repair damage like this.  Arruta expects customers to pay for such damage in full.’

Czioc exhaled and turned to face the servant creature.  ‘It’s okay, I’ll-’

A sharp stabbing pain suddenly split his head, pitching him forward onto the table, making him cough and gag and squirm.

‘Shit Czioc are you alright?’  Pshappa put hands on Czioc’s head, and turned his face to the servant, who sat unimpressed.  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it, I’ll pay for it.’

Pshappa’s eyes glazed again, and the back of his head glowed gently green.  Czioc’s head spasmed gently on the table.

‘Thank you.  Your food as requested.’

The funeral attracted quite a crowd to the town’s sports stadium.  Everyone had heard a little or a lot of the prodigal wildchild Noksalika Chuulim, a rebel on two counts – for scandalising the political establishment with her public pornographic career, and scandalising popular society with her affection for the regime.  Several senior colleagues of her father had been dismissed for their physical exploits with her, viewed far and wide across the Ethe, while she remained unconvicted, unarrested.  Then again, political figures seemed to be dismissed and reinstated at random anyway.

‘How’re you feeling?’  Pshappa looked at his friend, as others filed into the stadium, up steps and along tiers.  Technically they should have left the town that morning, but a special notification from the Public Standards and Improvements Committee had made sure they could stay another day to see it.

The field below them lay quiet, blank.  A species of thin grass coated the ground, even growing up the sides of the stands.  Three figures, two male and one female, were engaged in quite physical sexual behaviour in the centre of the open space and had to be shooed away by a steward.  Pshappa smiled to himself as they walked off still trying to touch each other.  Czioc just concentrated on the ground where they’d been screwing.

‘I said how’re you feeling?’  Pshappa gave him a light clip round the ear and Czioc turned on him, an ugly look on his face.  ‘I’m okay,’ he replied.  ‘I’d be much happier if you’d stop pissing me off.’

‘I’m being a mate and checking how your head is.’

‘The Ethe says everything’s fine.  I even saw a doctor, he said everything’s fine too.  I dunno.  Could be anything.  Not bothered.’

‘You’re not bothered.’

‘Not bothered.’

‘Really.’

‘Whatever.’

‘No, you’re only bothered about miss underpants-grand-piano down there.’

Czioc grunted dismissively.

The ground itself was still bare and empty, the midday stadium basking in the light of day.  The stands were nearly full now though, and – despite the relative silence on the soft breeze – the public chatter on the Ethe had risen to excited noisy levels.

‘Where did they say she died again?’ Pshappa mused, scouting out some friends across on the far side.

‘Jzilinasa, maybe a town nearby.’

‘Whoah.  I was near Jzilinasa once, that’s a good six thousand miles away.’

‘Eight thousand, nearly.  Pretty much due East-Takwards from here.’

‘Shit, wow.  You looked that up, didn’t you.’

‘Sure I did.’

Czioc looked up and slightly to his left and stared through the distance to the far cavern wall, light brown and slightly hazy, in the direction of the distant city.

‘You know they’re talking about you.’

‘Who?’

‘People.  Around.  You’re like a little mini-celebrity, an old boyfriend turning up to the funeral.’

Czioc broke away from his own melancholy, and realised he hadn’t even tried overhearing any of the chitter chatter that buzzed all around (although only in his head).  He suddenly heard his name in snatches of conversation, and found amongst the large and small creatures around him many eyes staring, and many silent mouths smiling.

‘Gossip.  So bloody childish,’ he said out loud.

‘Huh, whatever.  Everyone loves to be the centre of attention, don’t think you’re any different,’ Pshappa grinned.

Suddenly there was a loud moan, both as a sound in the air and a rumble across the local Ethe.  The vast buzzing of a thousand opinions hushed and died – and left a leaden, eerie silence, as the ground began to move.

On the field far below them, shapes moved like worms under skin.   Forms pushed and thrust their way upwards while grass shoots withered, died, and fell out.  Dark colours flashed and shapes shifted.  Everyone watched intently, not just Czioc.

Figures appeared in the shapes.  The ground was rising up to become, slowly, blocks and circles and spheres … then, slowly, angles and dots and details … then, slowly, objects, people, and things.

Czioc recognised Noksalika’s features before her face had even formed.

The field in the centre had formed a scene; a funeral scene.  In the circular field, rings of silent figures sat on magisterial benches which merged with the ground, although the angles were so precise even a critical eye would be fooled.  They wore bizarre mixtures of grand uniforms and torn rags, polished gleaming medals and bare dirty skin, and ultimately sombre faces – certainly much more sombre than the tantalised crowds in the stadium.

In the centre of these rings, an altar had formed, smooth blocks of stone carved with runes and sigils and other fancy meaningless symbols.  On the altar, the pure naked body of Noksalika Chuunim, colour swimming gently beneath her skin.  It was a perfect form of a perfect form; even her hair was wispy and smooth.  And above her, tall and brooding, stood the priestmarshall – a bald man of indeterminate age in sombre dark robes.  The last of the pale colour fixed in his cheeks and his eyes, and he came alive.

‘Friends, comrades, brothers and sisters; citizens, children and fellow believers,’ his voice boomed out across the Ethe.  His mouth stayed still, and he dictated his severity not through speech but the motions of his head and the gestures of his hands.

‘Here we are gathered not to respect the dead, whom we respect every day – in our lives, in our work, in our minds – but to mark a life different to ours, notable and stronger in so many ways.  Today we mark the end of the life of Noksalika Chastity Elastia Chuunim.’

Czioc recognised various figures in the seated audience – her father, in a rather stuffy semi-military suit, her mother wearing some sort of elaborate dress made from fruit and vines, and other friends or relatives he’d seen on the Ethe.  There were even a few he’d met in the physical world.  Even at this distance he watched their forms itching, swaying, crying or smiling in perfect detail.

‘Everything Noksalika did, she shone brightly at.  Her passion for life and her talents in music and the arts-’

Pshappa wondered if by “arts” they meant her five-man, five-day marathon video shoot she made for a pornographic magazine.

‘-were matched only by her love for the Ethe, and the strength of her faith…’

Czioc wasn’t really listening, even though the words boomed around his head like a basketball in a mortutary.  He was watching her face.  Even moments after the final touches of colour had blossomed on her gentle skin, he watched as her body began to fade gently, the pigment just starting to waste away.  Maybe it was his eyes imagining it.  Either way, he could see her features losing definition, her innards slowly merging, her brain becoming softly translucent…

Of course none of these things were really happening.  After all this time and so many grand semi-state funerals, Czioc still laughed at the irony – this was a perfect physical depiction of her body, which wasn’t her body at all.  Upon death she would have been found, recorded, investigated and collected – no matter her glamour or status, in death she would be worth the same as anyone.  Thousands of miles away at the “real” funeral, a model of her body was made for appearances.  What was being shown here in the stadium was a presentation of a presentation, an illustration of an imitation.

‘-a life as intense as it was controversial, she was nevertheless-’

Czioc engaged with the funeral in his mind, flagging his presence up before the thousands gathered around.

‘Mate what are you doing?’ whispered Pshappa on the Ethe, in the open electronic silence.

Czioc breathed softly to himself, and placed an item on the local Ethe.  It was only small, just some rows of words placed underneath each other.  The priestmarshall’s words continued to flow like dust poured from a jar, but a few watchers found the item, and more began to switch their attention to the lines of text.

What they saw was a poem.

a thousand billion networks

but all with borders.

we dream a network that we breathe

and it breathes us

we carry its dead until we are dead.

we carry its dead until we are the dead.

horizon and sky for a father and mother

she had a dream

of something other.

we, the heavy metal behind the glitter

we, the trauma inside the tragedy

we, the word and inside your bible.

these are our dreams

and we are fused to our dreams

by our wrists.

‘What … is this?’  Pshappa had the expressionless face of someone genuinely concerned, and a little frightened.  ‘What are you playing at?’

Czioc smiled blankly, and sighed.  ‘I just wrote it yesterday.  It’s a poem.’  Others gathered in the Ethe, reading the piece, chattering about him, poking him, asking him questions.  He batted them away in his mind.

‘It’s fucking subversive, that’s what it is,’ breathed Pshappa as low as he could.  Anyone who wanted to hear him could.  Many did.  But there was a difference between whispering on the Ethe, and posting crazy notes that would get you noticed.

The figure of the priestmarshall continued to boom emphatically and motion sincerely, even (Czioc noticed rather cleverly) lifting a foot off the floor at one point.  The lavishly-dressed figures on the ornate benches circled around the altar continued to watch, fidget and roll their eyes as though genuinely watching a funeral.  But hundreds, now thousands of people were jabbering about the poem, wondering to each other what it could mean about Noksalika Chuunim and pestering Czioc to talk about their long-dead relationship.  It was only a matter of time before the authorities got in touch…

On both the Ethe and in reality, Czioc simply looked bored.  Noksalika’s body had faded rather more rapidly than a genuine dead body would – this was for show, after all – and her shape had rounded too, leaving merely generic female features.  Even from this distance, Czioc could make out the tiny black bead inside her vaguely translucent skull.

One concerned and rather persistent bystander was Pshappa.

‘You’ll get us both arrested,’ he snarled quietly, still watching the funeral scene earnestly, but itching frantically in his head.  From the corners of his eyes he could see the large dark bulks of nearby security golems, and felt their heavy glares.  ‘What have I said?  What do they tell you in school?  You don’t mention the system – and yet right now you’ve got ten thousand people here looking at us, never mind anyone else on the Ethe.  And you don’t talk mysterious bullshit either!  What the hell is a “sky” anyway?’

‘Czioc, may we have a word?’  The thin voice of a Minister hissed in Czioc’s mind.  He snapped up involuntarily, and saw a birdlike man in a casual suit several rows to his left, looking straight at him, smiling.  He gulped, his eyes went dry.  It was a secure connection – no-one around had heard what had just been said, not even Pshappa.  ‘It’s regarding Noksalika Chuunim.  We have reason to believe she is still alive.’