Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Hackworth noted that the lowest and innermost part of the house floor was not occupied. He motored down the slope and was shocked to realize that he was suddenly up to his waist in painfully chilly water. He threw the chair into reverse, but it did not respond to the controls. "Dead in the water!" cried the Clown triumphantly, sounding as if he were standing right there, though Hackworth couldn't see him. He found a way to release the chair's built-in restraints and struggled up the raked floor, his legs stiff from the cold and reeking of seawater. Evidently the central third of the floor actually plunged beneath the waterline and was open to the sea– another fact that Hackworth's spectacles had not bothered to reveal.

Again, dozens of lights were on him. The audience was laughing, and there was even some sarcastic applause. Come on in,

folks, the water 's fine! suggested the spectacles, but once again Hackworth declined to read the line. Apparently these were nothing more than suggestions tossed out by Dramatis Personae's writers, which faded from the display as they lost their currency.

The events of the last few minutes-the phenomenoscopes that couldn't be taken off, the unexpected bungee jump, the plunge into cold seawater-had left Hackworth in a state of shock. He felt a strong need to hole up somewhere and shake off the disorientation.

He clambered up toward the perimeter of the house, dodging the occasional moving chair, and tracked by a few spotlight beams from fellow audience members who had taken a particular interest in his personal story. An aperture was above him, glowing with warm light, and passing through it, Hackworth found himself in a cozy little bar with a curving window that afforded an excellent view of the theatre. It was a refuge in more ways than one; he could see normally through the spectacles here, they seemed to be giving him an untampered view of reality. He ordered a pint of stout from the barman and took a seat at the counter along the window.

Somewhere around his third or fourth gulp of stout, he realized that he had already submitted to the Clown's imperative. The plunge into the water had taught him that he had no choice but to believe in what the spectades showed his eyes and ears– even though he knew it to be false– and to accept the consequences. A pint of stout went some distance toward warming up his legs, and toward relaxing his mind. He had come here for a show, and he was getting one, and there was no reason to fight it; Dramatis Personae might have a dodgy reputation, but no one had ever accused them of killing a member of the audience.

The chandeliers dimmed. The torch-wielding audience went into motion like sparks stirred by a gust of wind, some motoring toward the high ground and others preferring the water's edge. As the house lights faded to black, they amused themselves playing their torches back and forth across the walls and the curtain, creating an apocalyptic sky torn by hundreds of comets. A tongue of clammy, algae-colored light shone beneath the water, resolving itself into a long narrow thrust stage as it rose toward the surface, like Atlantis resurgent. The audience noticed it and bounced their spotlights off the surface, catching a few dark motes in the crossfire: the heads of a dozen or so performers, slowly rising out of the water. They began to speak in something like unison, and Hackworth realized that they were the chorus of lunatics he had seen earlier.

"Set me up, Nick," said a woman's voice behind him.

"Tucked 'em in, did you?" said the barkeep.

"Ninnies."

Hackworth turned and saw that it was the young woman in the devil costume who had acted as tour guide for the Heartlanders. She was very petite, dressed in a long black skirt slit all the way to the hipbone, and she had nice hair, very thick and black and glossy. She carried a glass of wheat beer over to the counter, primly swept her devil's tail out of the way in a gesture that Hackworth found hopelessly fetching, and took a seat. Then she let out an explosive sigh and put her head down on her arms for a few moments, her blinking red horns reflecting in the curved window like the taillights of a full-laner. Hackworth laced his fingers together around his pint and smelled her perfume. Down below, the chorus had gotten out of hand and was trying to pull off a rather ambitious Busby Berkeley dance number. They showed an uncanny ability to act in unison– something to do with the 'sites that had burrowed into their brains– but their bodies were stiff, weak, and badly coordinated. What they did, they did with absolute conviction, which made it good anyway.

"Did they buy it?" Hackworth said.

"Pardon me?" said the woman, looking up alertly like a bird, as if she hadn't known Hackworth was here.

"Do those Heartlanders really believe that story about the drunken pilot?"

"Oh. Who cares?" the woman said.