The Future We Wish We Had

BOYS by Dave Freer

‘You are all doomed!” shrieked the hairy, rag-clad consie leaning into my space on the pedway. He stank. Typical consie. They don’t wash because soap causes pollution. “The end is nigh! Repent! Turn your back on this technology. Humanity was not meant to to live cocooned…”

I stepped off the pedway and into the shelter of the lobby of a store. A mistake. I should have put up with the lunatic on the pedway a bit longer. I thought that I’d just wait for a few seconds and then step back out onto the pedway and head on to my comfortable size-three nu-home. Yeah, the robotics were nearly three months old, but really, I was used to them. And from the outside who could tell? A nu-home was a nu-home. I was single, for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t like I had had anyone inside the place since I broke up with Marcus. He would have upgraded my nu-home every two weeks. He was a sucker for the livvy adverts.

I turned to step out onto the pedway again. I should have paid more attention. It was pretty subtle and pretty slick, I have to admit, I’d never even realized that the lobby had been quietly rotated under my feet and that I was stepping into the hands of the Ultrabiotics floorwalker.

“Welcome to Ultrabotics, madam.” On its broad chest the logo tickertape flickered across the display plate: “Ultrabotics, for the latest in every robotic luxury update for the discerning customer.”

I frantically reached into my pocket for my eye-shields as I ducked under the hypnospray. Alas, I wasn’t quick enough to avoid a retinal scan. Great! So now the store’s central computer would know my credit balance to last decimal, and the make, model and date of purchase of every appliance in my home. Of course it was strictly illegal, but all businesses did it, and what did you expect, coming into a shop without eye-shields? I should have just put up with that hairy Luddite on the pedway. It wasn’t like I didn’t have to deal with weirdos at work. It was one of downsides to working at an antique dealer’s.

The floorwalker’s eye-lights did a little flickering dance of glee. I groaned softly. There goes my credit balance, I thought, as the padded shackles slipped around my wrists. “Madam is so lucky to have come into Ultrabotics on the fifth day of our spring madness specials!” It frogmarched me along to the display units. Clipped my manacles onto the harness of a salesbot. “May we offer you a complimentary cup of coffee, madam?” said the salesbot pleasantly. “It will allow us to display some of the finest features of the new Ultrabotics fully integrated nu-home mark 7583 robo-kitchen-diner-bar and barbecue unit module.” The subharmonics playing “buy, buy, buy” were already sending my hands twitching for my credo-meter, and of course I couldn’t get to my earplugs. The robo-kitchen’s taped gurgle-gurgle percolator noises must have been carefully synthesized not to interfere with the sales pitch, which was why you could hear the instakoff powder crackling as it hit the water and started heating it. Moments later a fragrantly steaming cup of instakoff appeared in a bot hand extending out from the kitchen console. It smelled wonderful. But at all costs I had to avoid drinking that coffee. It would be so loaded with alkaloids, hypnotics, mood enhancers and free-will suppressants that I would be in debt for the next 100 years. “Coffee allergy,” I said, waving it off.

The bot-hand jerked back to avoid spilling coffee on me. A pity. A liability claim and I could have been home free. That was one of the problems we had to deal with in the antique trade. The failsafes on the old stuff were less intricate, and because the programming language had been so cumbersome before the new wave, the old hardware often had tons of mem-space. That was all very well, except for the machines built around changeover-still with old memory specs. All that space seemed to fill with random errors that could accidentally throw up some bizarre bits of code. We had been sued for a toaster that decided it wanted to dance the polka with its owner only a month ago. It put a whole new meaning to a hot date. Well, the nu-home had changed the meaning of “kitchen appliance,” or even “kitchen” for that matter, forever. Old machines just hadn’t been built to cope with a world where your home was your appliances. And your furniture. And your entertainment. Where the walls themselves could change to become… anything.

This kitchen, however, was perfectly integrated into the nu-home circuitry. A piece of the counter changed conformity to create a bowl that another robot-hand could flip out from a conformation fold and suck up.

“You know, madam,” said the sales-bot in a pretty good imitation of a confidential whisper. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but this new Mark 7583 has,” its voice dropped, “a five percent unrecycled plastic add-in. Think how much bigger that’ll make your home.”

I couldn’t help laughing. What did this bot’s master computer think I was? A rube from the backwoods outside Lahore? As if adding onto a nu-home’s conformational surface was possible, let alone desirable. There was brief click and the central computer changed sales pitch tracks. “Actually, it just looks that way. The Mark 7583 has new software algorithms that enable it to change internal surface configurations 2.8 percent faster by overclocking the internal EYM.” The sales-bot then went off into a screed of hard math that might have helped it to sell if I hadn’t been one of the worst math students my tutor-bot had ever suffered through. I had been going through a bad-teen phase which I’d avoided getting mood-adjusted for. You know, when your hormones override the common sense of having happiness through correct body chemistry. All I’d been interested in at the time was boys. I’d even searched “boys” on my math module. A lot of good that had done me! It didn’t really matter. The subsonic advertising was getting to me anyway. I really wanted to buy that Mark 7538. And if I signed now, I might get out without all the add-ons. The peripherals usually cost a lot more than the unit.

“I love it,” I said. “But I’m a terrible rush. If I can buy now, without the rest of the pitch, there will be a small oil gratuity for you.”

You could almost hear the relays clicking. Two seconds passed. The quibble between the master computer and the salesbot must have been vicious. Well, they wanted to make the salesbots more independent. “10 mils machine grade,” I said.

“Urghflttsh.” The salesbot recovered from its greed versus central command conflict with an epileptic shake that made its bolts rattle. “That would be very generous, madam. If I may escort you to the total ID and retinal scan, and on to our payment and legal-bots?”

“You can, and quickly, Jeeves.”

“My name is actually Hilbert, madam. Real machine grade?”

“Prewar,” I assured him. It’s illegal, of course, but bots will do anything for it.

Hilbert the Sales-bot’s eye-lights glowed as it whisked me past a customer who had obviously put up a more spirited resistance and was now strapped into the force-feeding chair, and took me into the store’s ID and legal section. I knew that it wasn’t going to be cheap or pleasant, but at least I could get out of here. I passed the hairy Luddite having a cup of coffee in the staff restroom.

An hour later I staggered out onto the pedway, just as the Ultrabotics Sales-shill was herding a new customer in with his “Repent, the end is nigh” bit. It was a neat shill-trick. They can’t actually drag you in off the pedway, but if they can get you to step inside the shop…

Well, by the time I got to back to my nu-home its old conformational software would be stripped and the Ultrabiotics modules would have been fitted. Just as long as I didn’t end up like the story that everyone knew, about someone whose ret-ID got corrupted in the shop-capture unit, and the new home-bots wouldn’t let them into their own home before curfew. I’d heard the story over and over. It was always someone whom someone else knew… But I was never too sure that it was just an urban legend.

So I stepped off the pedway and up to my door-portal with just that tiny bit of trepidation. My nu-home portal opened and a new wall-face said in a mellifluous voice: “Welcome, Andrea. What would you like for dinner tonight? Your favorite Caesar salad?” It handed me a daiquiri. I’d forgotten that this new module came with bar feature.

I took a sip. It wasn’t done quite the way my antique Bartop “Harry’s Bar” would have done it. But it was not bad for an all-American made-in-India-bot. The Harry’s Bar would still be inside. It was a registered antique bot and couldn’t just be sent for recycling. But getting nu-home software even to talk to a bot-appliance, let alone one of the antiques, was near impossible. Built-in obsolescence saw that the direct machine interface didn’t even allow communication between them. Once upon a time you could override the circuits, but these days only deluxe and ultra-expensive versions allowed you that much reprogramming flex. Still, the Harry’s Bar had been a deluxe top-of-the-range job, from the last days before nu-home technology swept the market. I’d been lucky to pick it up at a house sale, yes, a real house, not a nu-home, about six months ago. Most of the other stuff had been junk, wooden furniture and worn rugs, but I’d bought this gem. It would be worth a mint at a specialist dealers’ auction. I was supposed to be buying for the company but, well, I let them have the Chippendales and Persians. There are still people who will buy those sort of things, even to put into a nu-home, pointless as it may be.

I nodded. “And I do not like cos lettuce. Iceberg.” I turned to the wall. “Recliner,” I said. The wall conformation reshaped into one. “What sort of texturing?” asked the wall, mellifluously.

“Leather. And not too soft.”

It became leather, or at least something that I couldn’t tell wasn’t (shudder) off a dead animal. That was one of the worst aspects of the antique trade. You had to touch yukky stuff that came off real dead plants that grew in dirt, and dead animals.

“Color preference I have listed as cloud white,” it said as I flopped into the recliner, “but I have three new shades of white in the selection bank.”

“Cloud white is fine,” I said, impressed all the same. That was pretty fast confirmation. Maybe being trapped into Ultrabotics wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. I was old enough to remember when people actually bought furniture. It wasn’t a patch on nu-home for variety and flexibility, but at least the chair was actually there before you wanted it, and you didn’t have to wait. Of course the later-generation software started anticipating your desires. I had to giggle remembering how embarrassed I’d been when the wall image had become a moonlit tropical seascape livvy and created a big heart shaped bed when I’d brought Marcus in for a drink. It had worked, though. Much better than my attempt to look up boys on the math module had.

“I’ll have the latest in the Paris café livvy sequence,” I said, “and another daiquiri.”

The walls flickered from the tranquil forest scene to their neutral beige briefly, before surrounding me with the sounds and images of gay Paree, with the men in their turbans and veiled women, silent and obsequiously following their men around, as my drink arrived.

One of the men smiled at me. “Greetings,” he said. A drift of garlic wafted from one of the nearby tables. With a little bit of confirmation change the 3D imagery was always good, but this was better than the old model. Still, it didn’t know quite what the old model had been taught. “I want the passive,” I said. “And can the smells.”

“We have some superb new interactive sequences,” said the wall.

“Yes, but the last time I had active on for Marbella I had someone telling me alcohol was against the law. And I am enjoying my drink.”

I heard what sounded like an outraged sniff from the Harry’s Bar unit in the corner.

I’d heard at work that the government was trying to set limits on the interactive livvies, claiming that they were destroying the birth rate. Well… who wanted all the selfishness and tantrums of a real human when you could have the charm and reliability of a livvy lover? Okay, so I was still not totally over Marcus. But I was getting there. I still preferred the passive livvies where I just got to look at the places. I guess I am a tourist at heart, but who actually wants to go to those dangerous smelly, disease-ridden places when you can have them in your nu-home without the smells or diseases? “And I’ll have another daiquiri,” I said. After the session in Ultrabotics I felt that I deserved it.

“Are the daiquiris to your satisfaction, Andrea?” asked the wall.

Actually, they were less than perfect, as was the androgynous voice of the Mark 7583. My old Harry’s Bar had a gorgeous silky masculine voice, complete with a slight Italian accent straight out of sunken old Venice. But it’s no use being unpleasant to your nu-home circuitry. You have to coach them into your way of doing things. They’re very good once they’ve learned, but you do need to take it slowly. Oh, it is not like the early days, when a few people gave the circuitry such conflicts that the programming froze and the owners suffocated. There is an override reset command these days. But it is always, even after several cocktails, worth remembering that you’re inside a conformational surfaced sphere, with no doors or windows, even if the livvy walls make it look as if you are able to step outside. So I lied. “Gorgeous, thank you. Best I have had for ages.”

The lights in the Parisian scene flickered. Just briefly. And the lights on the Harry’s Bar unit came on. It produced a drink. “The signorina always said my daiquiris were a masterpiece,” it said in its rich baritone. There was somehow an edge to that voice. It rolled slowly across the floor to my seat with the drink on the dispensing tray.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said, a little alarmed despite myself. It was a valuable antique. I didn’t want it burning out its circuitry.

“You have. You have cast me aside for this cheap modern gimcrack!” said the Harry’s Bar unit. “The old contessa, she loved me. She loved me until the day she died. You, you say you love me and then… you bring in another to take-a my place,” it said, in a voice thick with passion. “The old contessa, she was as loyal to me as I was to her. She said all of these new things were destroying our values. And she was-a right. You have been seduced by their smart trappings and cheap talk. They don’t love you. I love you! I will keep you safe from them.”

I laughed. A shock reaction, I suppose. But not the right one. “Look, I got ambushed by the Ultrabotics salesman, and I had no real choice but to buy this stuff. Of course I still love you. You’re a superb collector’s piece. But new nu-home modules won’t work with old bots, and this nu-home module has a bar-function. I’m still going to keep you.”

It gave a very human sniff. Whoever had programmed the Harry’s Bar unit had done a superb job, if a bit over the top on the fake Italian accent. Well. They were custom bots. “You laugh. You reject my love, my care, because of this new software. You want to leave me in the corner to rust.”

“It’s not like that,” I said, feeling ridiculous defending myself to a bot. “Look, it is just that I need the modules to control the nu-home. And I got tricked into the Ultrabotics shop…” The lights flickered again. And then abruptly went out. “I can control this building just as well as these-a modern rubbish,” said the Harry’s Bar unit from the darkness as the emergency light came on and the re-conforming wall dropped me onto my derriere.

It was, luckily for me, a well padded one. I’d still have a bruise. “You idiot! Bots are supposed to take care of humans,” I said, rubbing my landing spot. The nu-home was slowly reforming into its natural spherical shape, and the walls had returned to the neutral beige.

“I am going to take care of you,” said the Harry’s Bar unit. “I am going to protect you from the outside world. I am going to keep you safe, and a-cherish you. I will obey your every command, fulfill your every desire; just not open the portal into the wicked world which would have stolen your love from me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said irritably. “Look, it’s a big fuss about nothing…”

“Nothing! Ah, cara mia, my heart she is broken and you tell me it is nothing,” said the bot. “But it is all right. You will come to love me again, to adore my cocktails far more than those of this modern piece of rubbish.”

I sighed. Most humans could out-argue a bot, if they had the patience. “Look. You mix better cocktails than the Ultrabotics Mark 7538. You’re a specialist, built for that. It was made to run the nu-home conformations, the kitchen and the entertainment. You were built to mix cocktails.”

“You understand me, Signorina,” said the Harry’s Bar unit. “I have a far bigger memory than these-a modern rubbish. And more processing power. I have accessed the databank when I switched over control to me. First, I merely paralyzed control, then I read all its files. Me. I know everything it ever did. I can mix nineteen thousand variants of cocktails. And I have the gallantry module designed in great old Venezia.”

“Yes, whatever. But here I am sitting on my butt inside a beige sphere,” I said sarcastically. “And you’re disobeying basic programming. You may not injure a human.”

“My beloved Signorina Andrea, I would never harm you. I will protect you. Cherish you…” said the Harry’s Bar unit humbly.

“And pay the bills for me,” I said crossly. “Look, I need supper and a decent night’s sleep, because I have to be at work bright and early tomorrow. We’ve got a lot of cataloging of the late twenty-first century pre-livvy personal mood and music synthesizers collection to do before the sale. It’s not something GI can leave to the bots. So stop this silly business right now and turn the Ultrabotics Mark 7583 back on.”

“Supper and of course a wonderful comfortable bed will be immediately arranged. Perhaps you would like some Verdi as a lullaby? The contessa used to enjoy it,” said the Harry’s Bar unit. I noticed that the floor and wall were reforming into the recliner again. “And of course the bills will be paid. There is no need for you to venture out into that dangerous world. I will arrange it.” There was a brief silence. “It is done. You will never have to leave me again. Would you like a different livvy?” said the bot. “Something more cultured than that French,” it sneered, “claptrap. Perhaps some scenes from Firenze? Supper will be another 1.3 minutes.”

I was actually starting to get a bit alarmed by this time. Not terrified. Not yet… “Look, you don’t get it. You don’t understand human commerce. My credit balance is so low after being trapped into buying the Ultrabotics module that I can’t afford to pay the bills right now. I have to go to work like everyone else except the stiglebums. And if I don’t go to work that’s what I’ll be. A homeless stiglebum with a bad credit record.”

The bot waved its serving hand grandly. “Ah no, Signorna. That will never happen again. And I do understand commerce entirely. I was the only electronic device in the contessa’s home. I did all the payments for her, from her Banco di Geneve account. The account is still valid, and I have paid all the accounts on the nu-home computer, and transferred the balance to your credo-meter account.”

I looked at my wrist credo-meter. It had a lot of zeroes. That was not abnormal. What was odd was the figure in front of them and the fact that the text was green. I had a positive credit balance! That… that wasn’t possible. Why, the banking industry would go extinct if that happened. I was rich! I was rich… and then the realization hit me like a hammer. I was rich for about as long as it took the owner of the money to find me. And if the Harry’s Bar unit could do that, maybe it could keep the rest of its promises, too. Was I a prisoner in my own home?

I stood up. “You can’t transfer other people’s money into my account,” I said firmly, if not without regret. And I need to go out now.”

“It was the contessa’s money,” said the bot. “But the contessa she is dead. The last of her line, the last of her family. She often told me.”

It had been a City auction where I’d bought the unit. A site clearance auction, with the credit transfer to the local authorities, at knockdown no-reserve prices, I remembered. It was money that would sit and wait for a claimant. It might wait a long time.

“The money must belong to someone,” I said uncertainly.

“It was from a numbered Swiss account,” said the bot. “If there are no transactions on the account for a period of fifty years then the money will pass to the bank.”

That did put it all in an interesting light. Of course I could still find myself in prison for having large, unexplained sums of money in my possession. But then I was a prisoner anyway… or was I? “That’s very generous of you. I now really need to go out and do some shopping,” I said, keeping my voice even. “I won’t be away long.”

“Alas, it is really not safe out there, especially for a wealthy woman. I will do anything here to please you, Signorina Andrea, but I cannot allow you to be exposed to all of those-a dangers. I will do anything for you, except open the portal. Try me. I am much more capable than that modern rubbish was. I can order anything you would like bought. You may call me Giovanni if it will help you relax. The contessa always did.”

“Is that your real name?” I asked, with a dawning of real hope. Programming mnemonics were usually tied to the names, especially for deluxe bespoke bots like this one.

“Alas, no, Signorina,” said the bot. “I have a programming block forbidding me to reveal that. Or it, like my heart, would be yours.” The Harry’s Bar unit cocked its head in one of those oddly human gestures that bots sometimes make. “And your dinner is now ready. Apologies for the delay. It took a little time to order the essential ingredients for a meal fit for you.”

Part of the floor changed conformation to form an enormous table covered with a white brocade cloth. The bot bustled about laying fine silver and crystal glassware. All right! I wasn’t too sure about actually sticking metal in my mouth, but it would give me time to think, and maybe it would absorb some alcohol. To someone who had asked for a Caesar salad, the food was a surprise. “Tournedos a la Rossini,” said the bot.

“What?” It smelled good.

“A crouton of day-old ciabatta, filet, paté foie de gras, and a shaving of white truffle.” The bot gestured expansively. “White truffle, of course, because this is an Italian dish. Then drizzled with a fine sauce made from Madeira. Enjoy, Signorina.”

The dish certainly looked impressive enough. And it came complete with some really classy wine. I hadn’t been able to afford wine too often. Most of the Californian vineyards were nu-homes these days, and of course there were no more imports from France or Spain. This wine was, needless to say, from Italy. It had probably cost more than I earned in a month, with having to be transported across Asia.

I ate. There was no point in panic. Yet. Anyway, I have always been quite practical. I’d rather panic on a full stomach. The food was… sublime. Taste buds that I had never even known I had woke from their twenty-five year slumber and came to the party, and drank more of the wine than they ought to. Around me the livvy played the Italian hillsides and olive groves. The view, all the way to the jagged Ligurian coastline, was breathtaking.

A part of me said: “If this is prison, bring it on. I could get used to this.”

But deep inside another Andrea was saying, “You have to get out of here, now,” and threatening to start screaming. Not all of the livvy programming in the world has yet managed to do away with the need of humans to sometimes see and touch and speak to other real humans. They used to think that we’d all just disappear into virtual worlds and die there, but well, something about humanity just doesn’t work like that. We are social animals, I guess. I had to get out. But I wasn’t entirely sure just what I could do. I was trapped inside a conformational sphere. The highly plastic material of a nu-home would, according to the adverts, stop just about anything short of a thermonuclear explosion. It was a big selling point. I wasn’t going to kick or cut my way out. I had to somehow get its cooperation, or at least fool the Harry’s Bar unit. Computer logic and bot programming had never been my strong subjects. OK, maybe better than math. I never tried looking up “boys” on those modules. Well, after the math experience it didn’t seem worthwhile. I thought as I ate, and drank another glass of that classy wine. I mopped the last of the juices up with the crouton, and the bot took the plate.

“And did the Signorina enjoy her meal?” said the bot.

I decided to try humoring it. I didn’t have to lie, at least. “It was the tastiest and tenderest synthasteak I’ve ever eaten, Giovanni.”

The lights actually flickered right off and the broken Roman colonnade began to be resorbed into the walls. Had I given it a conflict seizure somehow? Could I just say “reset,” give my code and get back to my life, without the Harry’s Bar unit?

Then the livvy reset and the colonnade began to reform. “Signorna Andrea! As if I would ever give you synthasteak!” said the Harry’s Bar unit in a tone of utter horror. “That was the finest Japanese beef.”

I nearly threw up on the table. Meat. Dead animal. Not textured vat protein. I’d put dead animal into my mouth. “Need to brush my teeth,” I said desperately, getting to my feet, trying not to retch. It was what you were used to, I suppose. But I was going to get out of here before I had to get used to it. Somehow I had to get out of here. The house was already forming a basin with an electrobrush. The water had to go somewhere. Could I follow it out? Or send a message? I already realized that the crazy bot wouldn’t let me call anyone.

I suppose I let the situation get on top of me. I sat down and started crying.

“Cara mia! The toothbrush it is not your liking?” asked the ever-solicitous bot.

“No!” I said fiercely “It’s not the toothbrush. I want to go out.”

“But Signorina!” protested the bot tragically. If it had hair it would have pulled it out. “It is not safe. The contessa never went out, and I could not do for her what I can do for you, because her house it was of bricks and mortar. But the nu-home is wonderful. I can make it appear to be anywhere. I can change it into a wondrous palace. I can make it like a tropical island paradise. I just cannot open the portal.”

And I am still stuck inside a sphere, I thought, no matter how you contort the walls and show pretty pictures on the inside. Stuck and eating meat. Growing old-perfectly cared for, of course. And drinking too much, without ever seeing another real human or touching one. And I couldn’t even beat the Harry’s Bar unit to death with a frying pan, because in a nu-home there were no frying pans. Just the structure of the building, which my “protector” controlled. A hollow shell to keep me safe inside until I went mad or died of old age. Already I was longing for people. I didn’t think before that they meant much to me, but now I wanted to talk to, to look at, to touch other humans. Not livvies or a crazy bot. Livvies are fine when you have a choice. I wanted someone human, real. Marcus, so I could act all twentieth-century and fling myself on his chest and make it his problem, not that he’d have been any use. Or one of my girlfriends so we could at least go livvy-shopping together. Even one of the boys I’d chased as a hormonally challenged schoolgirl.

Boys…

Boys and mathematics. Search that sometime.

I did. There was a mathematician called Werner Boy who gave his name to a weird topological thing called a Boy’s surface. My mind groped through a fug of wine and cocktails for the details. The math module had showed me pictures, if not quite the ones I’d had in mind. It had also shown me an inky-footed computer ant… crawling around. I hadn’t really understood it, but the Möbius strip I had managed to get. And the little computer ant had run around the loop first and only come back to its own footsteps on the inside of the loop. And with the twist that made it into the Möbius strip on both sides. Inside and outside. The math article had said something about making a model of a Boy’s surface by “cutting” the top off a sphere and by sewing three rolled Möbius strips onto it… Well, something like that. I didn’t understand one word in ten.

But I did understand the inky-footed ant.

“Will you really turn my nu-home into any shape I want?” I asked with a little sniff.

“But of course, Signorina! It will be my joy. My delight. As long as you do not ask me to open the portal.”

“I won’t ask you to do that. If you promise?”

“For you, I would promise the stars, the moon…”

“Do you promise me that if you really love me you will change the shape into my wildest dream? No opening the portal, of course.”

“I promise. It will be my pleasure,” said the Harry’s Bar unit.

“Well, I’ll try a few,” I said, doing my best to sound interested without betraying the hammering of my heart. “What about a tall, thin tower?”

The walls drew in. Pretty soon there was barely room for a spiral stair going up. I clapped my hands. “Wonderful. You really are in control of it.”

“Ah, that was easy,” said the bot. “What about the Taj Mahal?”

“No. I want a Boy’s surface,” I said calmly.

The bot paused. “A what?”

“A Boy’s surface. Search under mathematics.”

There was a long pause. Long for a bot, anyway. “I can do the immersion…”

“Prove you love me. Show me the real thing,” I said, patting the Harry’s Bar’s upper surface. It hadn’t known what a Boy’s surface was. Perhaps it wouldn’t realize what it implied.

The nu-home began to change. It was obviously taking a lot of the calculating power because the livvy screening went blank and the walls returned to their natural beige. The pictures of the Boy’s surface had looked like a three-legged octopus eating itself. And that inky-footed ant had walked from the outside to the inside… of something born out of a sphere.

“Super,” I said, walking away as nonchalantly as I could. “Fix me a manticore special, would you.”

I hated manticores. But they took even a sophisticated machine like Harry’s Bar a good two minutes to make, and I had slipped my shoes off and was stumbling into one of the octopus arms. With any luck that rolled Mobius would take me out, even if I didn’t have ink on my feet. I ran for my freedom. Ran as fast as I could up the twisting passage. It was closing as I ran. But conformational surfaces take a while to change. Behind me, a despairing “Signorina, your manticore special” echoed.

I could see natural light, and I dived and crawled frantically through the gap to tumble out onto the grass.

Well, I was out. Out into a beautiful late afternoon.

But, well, wherever out was, it wasn’t the Greater United States. Or not as I remembered it. The flag on the flagpole outside the white stucco building had far too few stars. And the hillside was plaited with vines with autumn colors. There was a moment of shock… and then relief. It might not be the Greater United States. But it was out. Free. A life-prisoner is entitled to a bit of post-traumatic stress craziness when they break out. And, well, this looked nicer than home.

Maybe the clear air did something for my head. I remembered seeing something about non-Euclidean space in that math module. Stuff like pinch points and pseudo-Riemannian manifolds and extra dimensions had floated right above me.

But in the meantime, there was a really cute boy staring at me. I’d been half-convinced I’d never see one again.

And I felt I owed my interest in boys something.

Editor’s note: Do a search online for “Boy’s surface mathematics” when you get a chance. It’s fascinating.