Brave New Worlds

Zbigkrot spooked when you got onto him, so he's long gone. "
    "Long gone as in—"
    "This is one of those things where we don't say. Maybe he disappeared and got away clean, took his sister with him. Maybe he disappeared into our. . . operations. Not knowing is the kind of thing that keeps our other workers on
    Their game. "
    "And I'm one of your workers. "
    "Like I said, the system isn't going anywhere. You met the gang tonight. We've all been caught at one time or another. Our little cozy club manages to make the best of things. You saw us—it's not a bad life at all. And we think that all things considered, we make the world a better place. Someone would be doing our job, might as well be us. At least we manage to weed out the real retarded sadists. " He sipped a little coffee from a thermos cup on his desk. "that's where Zbigkrot came in. "
    "He helped you with ‘retarded sadists'?"
    "For the most part. Power corrupts, of course, but it attracts the corrupt, too. There's a certain kind of person who grows up wanting to be a Securitat officer. "
    "And me?"
    "You?"
    "I would do this too?"
    "You catch on fast. "

    The outside wall of Campus was imposing. Tall, sheathed in seamless metal painted uniform grey. Nothing grew for several yards around it, as though the world was shrinking back from it.
    How did Zbigkrot get off campus?
    That's a question that should have occurred to him when he left the campus. He was embarrassed that it took him this long to come up with it. But it was a damned good question. Trying to force the gate—what was it the old Brother on the gate had said? Pressurized, blowouts, the walls rigged to come down in an instant.
    If Zbigkrot had left, he'd walked out, the normal way, while someone at the gate watched him go. And he'd left no record of it. Someone, working on Campus, had altered the stream of data fountaining off the front gate to remove the record of it. There was more than one forger there—it hadn't just been zbigkrot working for the Securitat.
    He'd belonged in the Order. He'd learned how to know himself, how to see himself with the scalding, objective logic that he'd normally reserved for everyone else. The Anomaly had seemed like such a bit of fun, like he was leveling up to the next stage of his progress.
    He called Greta. They'd given him a new pan, one that had a shunt that delivered a copy of all his data to the Securitat. Since he'd first booted it, it had felt strange and invasive, every buzz and warning coming with the haunted feeling, the watched feeling.
    "You, huh?"
    "It's very good to hear your voice," he said. He meant it. He wondered if she knew about the Securitat's campus snitches. He wondered if she was one. But it was good to hear her voice. His pan let him know that whatever he was doing
    was making him feel great. He didn't need his pan to tell him that, though.
    "I worried when you didn't check in for a couple days. "
    "Well, about that. "
    "Yes?"
    If he told her, she'd be in it too—if she wasn't already. If he told her, they'd figure out what they could get on her. He should just tell her nothing. Just go on inside and twist the occasional data-stream. He could be better at it than zbigkrot. No one would ever make an Anomaly out of him. Besides, so what if they did? It would be a few hours, days, months or years that he could live on Campus.
    And if it wasn't him, it would be someone else.
    It would be someone else.
    "I just wanted to say good bye, and thanks. I suspect I'm not going to see you again. "
    Off in the distance now, the sound of the Securitat van's happy little song. His pan let him know that he was breathing quickly and shallowly and he slowed his breathing down until it let up on him.
    "Lawrence?"
    He hung up. The Securitat van was visible now, streaking toward the Campus wall.
    He closed his eyes and watched the blue satin ribbons tumble, like silky water licking over a waterfall. He could get to the place that Campus took him to, from anywhere. That was all that mattered.

The Pearl Diver
    by Caitlín R. Kiernan

    Caitlín R. Kiernan is the author of seven novels, including Silk , Murder of Angels , Daughter of Hounds , The Five of Cups , and The Red Tree , the last of which has been nominated for the World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson awards. Her short fiction has been collected in Tales of Pain and Wonde r; From Weird and Distant Shores ; To Charles For T, With Love ; Alabaster ; A is for Alien ; and The Ammonite Violin & Others ; in