Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Nell was fairly certain that she was being followed, unobtrusively, by at least three young men who had locked on to her during her initial passage in from the coast, and who were waiting to find out whether she really had somewhere to go or was just faking it. She had already made her way from one end of the waterfront to the other, pretending to be a tourist who just wanted to take in a view of the Bund across the river. She was now heading back into the heart of downtown Pudong, where she had better look as if she were doing something.

Passing by the grand entrance to one of the skyscrapers-a Coastal Republic edifice, not barbarian turf-she recognized its mediaglyphic logo from one of the signs she had seen on the way into town.

Nell could at least fill out an application without committing herself. It would allow her to kill an hour in relatively safe and clean surroundings. The important thing, as Dojo had taught her long ago in a different context, was not to stop; without movement she could do nothing.

Alas, Madame Ping's office suite was closed. A few lights were on in the back, but the doors were locked and no receptionist was on duty. Nell did not know whether to be amused or annoyed; whoever heard of a brothel that closed down after dark? But then these were only the administrative offices.

She loitered in the lobby for a few minutes, then caught a down elevator. Just as the doors were closing, someone jumped into the lobby and slammed the button, opening them back up again. A young Chinese man with a small, slender body, large head, neatly dressed, carrying some papers. "Pardon me," he said. "Did you require something?"

"I'm here to apply for a job," Nell said.

The man's eyes traveled up and down her body in a coolly professional fashion, almost completely devoid of prurience, starting and stopping on her face. "As a performer," he said. The intonation was somewhere between a question and a declaration.

"As a scriptwriter," she said.

Unexpectedly, he broke into a grin.

"I have qualifications that I will explain in detail."

"We have writers. We contract for them on the network."

"I'm surprised. How can a contract writer in Minnesota possibly provide your clients with the personalized service they require?"

"You could almost certainly get a job as a performer," said the young man. "You would start tonight. Good pay."

"Just by looking at the billboards on the way in, I could see that your customers aren't paying for bodies. They are paying for ideas. That's your value added, right?"

"Pardon me?" said the young man, grinning again.

"Your value added. The reason you can charge more than a whorehouse, pardon my language, is that you provide a scripted fantasy scenario tailored to the client's requirements. I can do that for you," Nell said. "I know these people, and I can make you a lot of money."

"You know what people?"

"The Vickys. I know them inside and out," Nell said.

"Please come inside," said the young man, gesturing toward the diamondoid door with MADAME PING'S written on it in red letters. "Would you care for tea?"

. . .

"There are only two industries. This has always been true," said Madame Ping, enfolding a lovely porcelain teacup in her withered fingers, the two-inch fingernails interleaving neatly like the pinions of a raptor folding its wings after a long hard day of cruising the thermals. "There is the industry of things, and the industry of entertainment. The industry of things comes first. It keeps us alive. But making things is easy now that we have the Feed. This is not a very interesting business anymore.

"After people have the things they need to live, everything else is entertainment. Everything. This is Madame Ping's business."

Madame Ping had an office on the hundred-and-eleventh floor with a nice unobstructed view across the Huang Pu and into downtown Shanghai. When it wasn't foggy, she could even see the facade of her theatre, which was on a side street a couple of blocks in from the Bund, its mediatronic marquee glowing patchily through the dun limbs of an old sycamore tree. She had a telescope mounted in one of her windows, fixed upon the theatre's entrance, and noting Nell's curiosity, she encouraged her to look through it.