The book stopped reading. They had arrived at the Centre. A final gust of wind had knocked the car slightly off its course as it entered the storm lock, and the bump diverted Fred’s attention from the story, so it stopped reading.

   The car glided gently now along the underground tracks for about a hundred metres. It stopped at an ascent ramp and opened its door for Fred to step out. He watched as it slid into a nearby bay and plugged in its solar re-charge plug and connected up to the alcohol supply to be ready for Fred’s journey home. He cocked his head at it, making a clicking sound of approval and admiration. The wonders of modern clean technology gave him constant gratification. It was a great time to be alive, he sincerely believed, and was always telling his children so.

   Fred strode up the ramp which spiralled towards the subterranean ceiling and emerged in a corridor above ground level. A small, smiling female figure was hurrying along the corridor towards him, her progress impeded by the tight skirt of her plum-coloured suit and her absurdly high-heeled shoes.

   ‘Dr Drakely, hello there. Excuse me.’ And she stopped in front of him breathless, and patted her panting chest before holding out her hand.

   Fred cringed inwardly at the ‘Dr’ title. Academic achievement was not something one wanted acknowledged. Its prestige had vanished now that intuitive innovation had made nonsense of any search for theoretical truths. Fred had collected his two degrees on the leisure learning credits system, aquaculture for his first degree, then algal mutagenics for his PhD. He had once had hopes of gaining advancement in his job from these qualifications, but not now. Now they were an embarrassment. Should he suggest she call him ‘Fred’? But that could sound over-familiar at a first meeting; he had no idea who this woman was. Better say nothing about it.

   ‘I am a little early,’ he apologised, shaking her extended hand. ‘I was worried there’d be a hold up on the motorway train – with the storm alert, you know. Actually I was surprised not to be re-scheduled for a leisure day.’

   ‘Obviously you are needed here,’ she smiled. ‘The others haven’t arrived yet. I’ll show you to your office and you can relax for a bit. Oh, yes, sorry, I didn’t say did I, my name’s Anne. I’m secretary to your jot.’ Her smiling face still fixed on Fred, she turned her body and started to teeter back the way she had come. She lost her balance and he caught her by the elbow. Safely side by side they walked along the softly carpeted corridor. Fred looked down at her neat cap of red hair and smiled: secretary, what a quaint job title, he mused, what use could we possibly have for a secretary?

   The path of the corridor curved to the right. The left-hand wall arched smoothly from floor level to above their heads and was evidently the exterior wall of the unit, glowing with natural light, which its cells would store to continue glowing if needed after dark and to supply solar-sourced energy to the rest of the building. The right-hand wall was perpendicular, and contained a series of doorways. Fred counted three closed doors before they reached their destination, which was an open door into a short corridor terminating in an opaque daylight panel, and just before that an open doorway on either side.

   ‘Here we are,’ said Anne, leading Fred through the right hand doorway. ‘Make yourself at home. Would you like some coffee? It’s dome-grown, not nova. With or without?’

   ‘Thank you, yes please. No caffeine, thank you,’ he said primly. No drugs or stimulants for him; he did not need such things.

   With four or five paces Fred reached the recliner, the only piece of furniture in the small room, and climbed into its orthopaedically-contoured, novaskin-covered comfort. ‘You’d love this, Tim,’ he said inwardly to his young son, to give himself permission to play with the chair’s control pad, tipping himself forwards and back, and sliding the chair around the floor. Then he swung it around to survey his new office. ‘Nice,’ he observed.

   In plan, the room was a section of a thick ring. The shorter convex curve was a full height sliding glass door to a domed garden with a ring of citrus trees, bright with shining leaves and yellow, green and orange fruit, and in the centre a pool and a fountain; he could hear the splash and trickle of the water. Between the trees and the pool was a circle of pink marble benches. The garden was surprisingly sunny for an autumn morning, an effect Fred guessed was contrived by the thickness of the glass of the domed roof being graded to bend the sunlight downwards.

   Both straight walls of the office contained doors. Through the one he had come in by he could see Anne’s cubbyhole beyond, and inside it a portion of her plum coloured back as she bent over the coffee-making things. The opposite door was open, and he could see that it led to a little bedroom, necessary in case one was stranded at work by the storms. Not that it happened very often – only five times in Fred’s fifteen years of employment; curiously though, two of those had been in the previous year, and he had quite often been rescheduled due to others doing extra days.

   He wondered if someone could be stranded for so many days that he got the rest of the year allocated to leisure. If that happened, people would begin to give up the idea of years like they had weeks and months. Fred remembered his little girl, Louise, saying, ‘What’s a week, Daddy?’ He had got in an amazing maze trying to explain it to her. It had made him recall why there were always seven people in a job-share team: tradition, originally one day’s work a week. Now weeks had disappeared, but there were still seven men in a jot – interesting. With less and less travelling, more ‘conference’ work, ‘conference’ school and ‘conference’ shopping, with ‘windows’ being into the system rather than to the outdoors – and even mirrors were windows these days – all contact with oneself, others and the world would be through the system. So things like months and years, even days – weeks of course had been people’s invention anyway – would cease to have any independent reality.

   Fred’s mind switched back to his survey of the new office. Off the bedroom would be a shower cubical and a chute. Good idea. He struggled out of the recliner’s embrace and made for the door. Inside and to the right were two other doors as he had expected. He slid the nearer one open to reveal the chute: a bio-digester device on a flexible, pressure sensitive stem so that it could serve either as a urinal or shitting bowl. Fred dropped his trousers and pulled the chute to his bottom. The stem stiffened as the smart material felt his weight. He had a wee and a crap and smiled as the device released a swirl of warm soapy water to wash his bottom, sucked the water down the chute with the waste and sent warm air to blow him dry.

   Fred’s daughter, Louise, had been one of the first generation of babies to benefit from portable ‘chute-aways’, as they were called, which provided nappies for the incontinent of all ages and for menstrual blood disposal. He had heard they were now being used in protective clothing, into which the wearer was locked, so preventing the smuggling of materials in body cavities. On a daily basis, the chute-away was emptied and cleaned by coupling it to a chute, which re-used the same small quantity of water; no paper, or other ‘disposable’ material was used once and thrown away, and the tiny amount of concentrated solid waste was routed into fertiliser production. Brilliant! It really added to the pleasure of your crap, thought Fred, as he pulled up his trousers. Then he returned to the recliner and turned it to face the longer, concave curved wall opposite the garden.

   The wall was one big system screen. As soon as Fred looked at it the screen began to display for him a promotional sequence for the global corporation which owned the Centre and employed Fred. A subtle background of optimistic music accompanied the vision. He sat back in the recliner and watched, his expression indicating a slightly supercilious pride.

   A giant algae harvester was steadily steaming over a wide expanse of ocean towards a gorgeous orange and pink sunset. The setting sun was reflected in all its glory in the ocean waves on the left-hand side of the screen, and it illumined to a lurid green the area of algal field yet to be scooped into the vessel’s bowels, which stretched to the right-hand wall. As the harvester was about to disappear into the sinking orb, a block of gold letters zoomed out declaring, ‘Salt Water Industries – Harvesting the Sun – Unlimited Clean Energy for Sustainable Economic Growth’. Then a composite picture grew from the four corners: a twenty lane motorway with car-trains and truck-trains snaking along, breaking up and re-forming as they passed a junction; a huge de-salinization plant; an equally enormous recycling plant; and a great plantation-scape boasting the latest in landscaping art, fractal geometric patterns produced by a free coloration DNA sequence in the genetically engineered agricultural raw material crop.

   ‘New one,’ observed Fred of the promotional sequence. ‘Could do with some of those patterned G-ARMs around here,’ he mused, recalling the unrelieved green of the prairies he had passed on his way to the Centre. ‘No one cares though, they all look inwards.’ He pressed the control pad of the recliner to swing himself round and look again at the pretty garden, and wondered when he would meet the people who presumably shared it with him.

   ‘Here we are,’ said Anne, coming through the door with his coffee, its delicious fresh aroma wafting towards him. She carried a small cafetiere, a china cup and saucer, cream jug and sugar basin on a novateak tray, which she put on the left arm of his recliner to which it clung.

   ‘Lovely, thanks,’ he smiled. He watched her turn and walk out of the room, her plum skirt stretched tantalisingly across her decidedly plum-shaped bottom. He adjusted his underpants to accommodate his uncontrollable response, and mentally sent an apology to his beloved wife, Min, who would be at home consoling little Louise over the cancellation of her first school attendance day. Louise had been so looking forward to going to ‘real school’, as she called it, dismissing conference school as ‘boring’. Her big brother Tim told her she soon would not know the difference, but when Fred left, surprised that his trip was not cancelled too, Louise was clearly all set for a whole day of tantrums.

   When he had finished his second cup of coffee, Fred wondered what he should do. Anne had mentioned colleagues being due to arrive. Was a meeting scheduled? he wondered.

   ‘Anne!’ he called out. Her smiling face appeared, not in the flesh this time, but in subtle holo-relief in a window on his wall screen. He scowled and tutted audibly at the pale pink vanity frame which surrounded her face.

   ‘What’s the matter, Dr Drakely?’ she asked, her smile falling away at his obvious disapproval.

   ‘Oh, sorry, Anne. I didn’t mean to, er…,’ he tailed off. ‘It’s just that I don’t like van-frames – it’s to do with the work I’ve been doing.’

   ‘But everybody uses van-frames. I mean, it’s part of people’s privacy isn’t it. After all you could be doing anything when the phone goes,’ she giggled briefly and then put her hurt look back on.

   ‘I don’t know why people need privacy. As far as I’m concerned privacy is the same as secrecy and conspiracy and they’re against the law, and quite right too. Anyway I’d really appreciate it if you’d take yours off in the office.’

   The pink blur cleared, revealing the plum suit again. In her hands in her lap was some craft work, crochet he thought it was. Well no harm in that, no need to hide it.

   ‘Thank you. I really appreciate that,’ he said smiling, working hard to put back the friendly smile on her face, but she was looking at him stolidly, her lips slightly pursed.

   ‘I was just wondering,’ he went on, ‘what I should be doing. Is there a briefing meeting set up, or should I ask for instructions through the system?’

   ‘Oh yes, sorry, I should have told you,’ she said, her smile beginning to return. (She did say ‘sorry’ a lot, Fred thought.) ‘There’s a big meeting this afternoon. All the jot members for the whole task group are coming. Meanwhile you’re to carry on with the work you were doing at Greenwich. You did look at the prep pack?’ she asked. ‘With your family?’ He nodded twice. ‘Well, you’re to think about that again before the meeting, but you shouldn’t look at it from here. Actually it’s probably wiped off now. Oh and I was told to tell you that your probe has been cleared for release by the Tech Board. What does it do, your probe?’ she asked.

   ‘It traces hidden messages in van-frames,’ Fred replied.

   ‘Oh, I see,’ she said, and vanished.

   Fred was beginning to feel just a little bit uneasy about his new job. There did seem to be some slightly irregular things happening. For a start, having a meeting, actually in the flesh, of all the jot members for the whole task group: that was never done. The whole idea of job-share teams was to divide the work up so that everyone had a job to do, and earned his, and his family’s, living. The job share team members were parts of one worker, not seven workers. If they ever worked together the whole system broke down, and there could be unemployment and poverty all over again like back in necrotech. It was not as if there could ever be full-time jobs for everyone now that production was completely automated and financial dealings banned.

   Another strange thing was being told to do some work at home, viewing that prep pack. That was time over and above his jot slot, the same thing again really. And then to be told he must not view the prep pack from the office and that it would have been wiped off: it was not supposed to be possible to wipe anything off, it was against the anti-secrecy laws. And as for telling him not to look at something, that was not right either.

   Fred was proud of the way things were done, he liked to see everyone conforming to the conventions, so that everything stayed free, fair and open. So he felt uneasy at what he saw as contraventions. But then his usual trust and optimism took over again. After all, starting a new job was perhaps a special situation. This was only his second job in fifteen years so he did not know the drill. Once the regular routine was established, things like this would not happen. Then a happy thought banished his worries: he had permission to use his probe. Wonderful! Curious how quickly it had been passed though. Oh stop it Fred, you’re getting paranoid, he rebuked himself. Better get on.

   He looked at the screen and it began to show its promotional sequence again. ‘Clear!’ Fred commanded, and it did. ‘This is Fred Drakely checking in to resume Project Seed Security, previously located at SWI Greenwich.’

   Two large windows opened on the wall screen showing still holo-images of the faces of two women, frozen in mid-conversation. Both women were of late middle age, grey-haired and unusually weather-beaten for members of an indoor society, and both looked very gloomy, one had tears glistening in her eyes. They were surrounded by the cheap standard van-frames which turned the background into little shimmering squares.

   ‘Confirm release-for-use of my van-frame scanning probe.’

   ‘Release confirmed,’ said ‘Silver’, the system link voice.

   ‘Load and run the probe on these frames here,’ Fred commanded. There was a negligible pause before Silver replied, ‘Nothing there, Fred.’

   ‘Hmm, pity. Did you scan the whole of the recording sequence?’

   ‘Yes, Fred. Nothing there at all,’ the voice responded, Fred imagined a little huffily.

   ‘I’ll want to know who else uses the probe and for what, now it’s released. Add that to my profile.’

   ‘The probe is released for your use alone,’ said Silver.

   ‘My personal use!’ Fred exclaimed. ‘What about my co-jos?’

   ‘At Greenwich or Taunton?’ it asked.

   ‘Oh I see,’ said Fred, relieved, ‘this is just a transitional situation, then?’

   ‘Perhaps,’ said the link voice, which made it sound almost human, but ‘perhaps’ was one of the standard responses to voice patterns which suggested hypothetical questions.

   ‘May I remind you, Fred, that these two subjects have put in a joint request for information on why you have been tapping their calls,’ said Silver.

   ‘Oh right. I’d better deal with that. Run through that last recording for me will you.’

   Fred’s job at SWI in Greenwich had been to track down seed smuggling rackets. Now that opportunities for smuggling had been virtually eliminated – thanks, in some small part, to Fred’s jot’s efforts – the work had switched focus slightly to keeping an eye on potential saboteurs. The jot had received a tip-off about an old seeds network still in communication. These two women seemed to be part of it: one, named Nell Dowthwaite, had been Professor of Hydroponics Genetics at the University of East Anglia, before it was closed down; the other, Mildred Phipps, was the wife of a retired DNA matching home worker; the couple lived in Perth in Western Australia. One of Fred’s co-jos had intercepted a videphone call between these two subjects.

   The two women on the screen were now talking animatedly, not anything directly to do with seeds, they were organising what they called ‘The “Farewell to Permaculture” Convergence’. Fred knew about permaculture. The practitioners of this home food growing methodology had been amongst the most tenacious seed smugglers, until hands-on gardening was improved out of existence.

   ‘Silly ideas! self sufficiency and nature worship,’ Fred said aloud, as if to the women on the wall. Goodness knows what harm they could do, he thought. Don’t know why they didn’t realise that, there’s no lack of information. The shame of it though, having to have their daft organisation actually de-recognised and its history put in the off-profile archives.

   Most people of Fred’s generation condemned non-conformity, and they took pride in the human achievements of the century of post-necrotech recovery. A great deal of ‘public education’ helped to cultivate and reinforce such attitudes. His reaction to the recording reminded Fred of part of the prep pack he had been given to study at home, which was very largely public education material. Anne had said he was to think about the prep pack again before the meeting so he tipped back the recliner, shut his eyes and tried to cast his mind back to two days earlier when he had viewed the very first sequence in the pack, which was about New Way economics. Very little of the pack was new to him, but Fred intended to talk the children through it all carefully to make sure they appreciated the wonderful world they were so fortunate to be growing up in. So both children were with him, at least at the beginning.

   Little Louise was immediately fascinated by the huge dark eyes of the female presenter – none other than the brilliant Arabian economist Fatma al-Ankari, peering alluringly over the veil of her traditional Muslim costume as she narrated the first part of the sequence. Al-Ankari’s liquid voice intoned, ‘The persistent failure of the necrotech economy had several causes including financial speculation, protectionism disguised as free trade, corruption at all levels, but particularly amongst the wealthy, and a general abandonment of morality in business dealings.’

   At this point there was an animated cartoon showing a globe turning slowly around; on its surface a crazy mad rush of skinny little ants worked machinery, packed tiny boxes and pushed miniature carts around; and there were various dubious characters: a great spotty toad behind his big desk counting gold coins, a slit-eyed lizard slithering around corners with documents marked ‘secret’, and a rat gnawing a hole in a money bag; they grew fatter and fatter as the ants rushed faster and faster and got thinner and thinner. Louise giggled and Tim and Fred smiled just a little.

   Al-Ankari’s voice over the cartoon said, ‘Our solution has been to remove the opportunities for cheating. We have banned usury and the hoarding of money.’ A fairy appeared, waved her wand, and the toad’s desk and coins vanished. ‘We have a single global currency, used only to facilitate the exchange of real goods and socially useful labour.’ The rat’s money bag vanished. ‘We have established a completely open global information system which now accommodates all business dealings, records, accounts and transactions.’ The lizard’s documents vanished. ‘We have introduced job sharing, so that everyone has a source of income to exchange for, at the very least, their basic needs.’ The ants stopped rushing and got fatter, the other creatures shrunk smaller and started to join in the work.

   Then Al-Ankari’s veiled face re-appeared. ‘But our greatest achievement is our new agriculture,’ she went on. ‘By replacing fossil fuels with new solar energy captured by growing plants, we have averted the threat of “Global Warming” from the build-up of carbon dioxide due to the combustion of fossil fuels, and helped to eliminate the pollution and waste from industries based on petroleum-derived chemicals.’ Behind Al-Ankari’s head appeared old film sequences of smoking industrial stacks, waste dumps, victims of pollution-caused diseases, power stations, dead trees and crumbling stonework. Then she waved a wand just like the fairy’s in the cartoon – ‘Look Daddy, the fairy’s wand,’ said Louise – and the grim pictures vanished, to be replaced by a glorious dawn sequence and Al-Ankari spread her arms in welcome. ‘Here is Tim Harbright to tell us all about the new agriculture’, and a handsome middle-aged man strode in from the side and bowed to her as she bowed off.

   Fred had named his son after this famous man, one of the foremost trailblazers in the quest for clean technology. It was Harbright who had ‘done the sums’ which showed that fossil fuels could be superseded by new solar, without any curtailment of economic growth, material prosperity, or loss of mobility for people or goods. And here was the great man himself elucidating his theory, with charts and diagrams and illustrative film sequences.

   ‘Necrotech agriculture,’ said Harbright, ‘was highly mechanised and chemical-dependent. It required, simply for the raw material “at the farm gate”, let alone transportation and processing, something like ten times as many calories of fossil fuel-generated energy as the calories of solar energy taken up in the crop.’

   Young Tim, Fred saw approvingly, was full of attention, leaning forward, his head propped on his hands, his elbows on his knees.

   Harbright explained that the same level of automation, or better, could be employed without fossil fuels, but that since the agriculture had to provide for its own, and industry’s, energy needs as well as food and petrochemical substitutes, about twenty times the previous global cultivation area was required, which meant that all dry land, plus ocean and lake surfaces, had to be used. Dramatic land-clearance shots were shown at this point in his talk, and the subsequent installation of irrigation and agrochemical treatment systems. Fossil fuels had been used for the last time in the years of preparation for the new agricultural revolution. An old news item was shown of Harbright himself ceremonially closing the last oil well.

   ‘Pause,’ ordered Tim, and turned to his father. ‘Are they still alive, that woman and Tim Harbright?’ he asked.

   ‘Oh I don’t think they can be,’ said Fred.

   ‘So was all that stuff recordings of what they really said, or were they just puppets?’ Tim asked. ‘I mean, apart from that last bit about him closing the oil well.’

   ‘Don’t ask me, you’re the expert on virtual reality,’ Fred said, rather proud of his son’s perceptive question. ‘Talking of which, is Mummy still in the cubicle?’

   The family had recently acquired a system cubicle, which allowed the user to experience being inside the system world without putting on headgear which Min had never liked. Min had promptly given up going on real shopping expeditions or using the catalogue system, and was spending a lot of time going ‘conference’ shopping. She had already worn out or broken several touch-pads feeling her way around dozens of different hypermarkets, shops and street stalls. Young Tim had pointed out to his father that Mummy was now quite happy with no touch-pad, just rubbing her fingers, with no tactile input from the system: as Tim said, for most people sight and sound were so dominant they imagined or disregarded the minor senses.

   As the sole income earner in the family, Fred was permitted to scan Min’s shopping orders before they were processed, otherwise they would have been put on compulsory budget control, and they would have been ashamed to look anyone they knew in the face. Everyone who looked them up would know, of course, because there would be a ‘don’t trade’ brand shown on all their foreheads.

   ‘We can look,’ said Tim. ‘Where’s Mummy?’ he demanded of the system. The prep pack was replaced by an image of his mother examining melons piled on a barrow. As if the system would send along unripe ones, Fred thought. Funny how old habits persisted.

   ‘Oh well,’ said Fred, ‘supper’ll be a while then. Time to play a game. Load the Life Energy Game,’ Fred ordered the system. The start screen appeared, a picture of the earth in space, one side bathed in sunlight. The game was a clever simulation of how solar energy was distributed in New Way agriculture, production and transportation. It provided interesting exercises in mathematics, as well as helping children to see how cleverly the New Way worked.

   ‘Oh not one of those!’ groaned Tim. ‘We do that sort of stuff all day in conference school.’

   ‘All right then, let’s look at the next section of my pack. It’s about G-ARMs I think.’

   ‘Oh that’s really boring! You look at it. I’m going to my room to look up Tim Harbright.’

   The system does isolate people, Fred thought, watching Tim’s retreating back, even though it brings the whole world and its history into your home.

   ‘Oh well, it’s just you and me, baby,’ said Fred to Louise, patting his lap. She climbed on and made herself comfortable. ‘Resume prep pack,’ he ordered the system.

   In the next sequence, an anonymous background voice talked over film sequences. There was no veiled woman or cartoons to hold Louise’s attention, and she dozed off, leaving Fred watching on his own. But that was all wrong. He had been explicitly told to have the family watch it too.

   ‘Tim, come back here!’ he called. ‘This is for my new job now. It’s really important, they said, that my family should see it too. Mum’s in the cubicle, Louise is asleep. Come and help me out, there’s a pal.’

   ‘Okay, I’ll watch it from here,’ said Tim, his face appearing on the screen.

   ‘All right then,’ Fred sighed. ‘Resume,’ he ordered the system.

   ‘Most plants growing on the planet are now genetically engineered agricultural raw materials, commonly called “G-ARMs”’, said the presenter. ‘They are produced on an industrial scale for biofuels and biochemicals as well as for the food industry. Conditions “in the field” have to be as close as possible to the experimental conditions in which the G-ARMs were developed. Any uncontrolled garden plot or wild patch nearby could pass across weeds, pests and diseases, with unpredictable, even disastrous, results.’

   Now, lying back in the recliner in his new office remembering it all, it occurred to Fred that this was just what the two permaculture women and their friends needed to be told. When he talked to them, he would be able to have the facts and arguments fresh in his mind. So he sat up and addressed the system.

   ‘See if you can get these two women on for me,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll talk to them together.’ Then he lay back to remember the rest of that G-ARM section.

   ‘All the wild areas and plots of traditional crops, which we call “biodiversity reserves”, are now confined inside novaglass domes,’ said the presenter. He then suggested the donning of headgear – Fred complied – and took the viewer on a tour through reserves around the world: tropical rainforests and deserts; temperate woodland, meadows and wetlands; and gardens and little fields from various regions in different climate zones; all of them under novaglass in controlled conditions. Then the viewer was led into the basket of a hot air balloon, and lifted high in the sky to look down on the patterns of G-ARM plantations, with the occasional dome or cluster of domes, and lines connecting them which from that height could not be identified, but which would either be surface roads or the new infrastructure channels.

   ‘This system of protection is proving particularly valuable,’ said the presenter, ‘because, as well as preventing biocontamination on the plantations, the domes protect the reserves from the damaging high winds people call “the flatteners”. Trees and bushes for fruits and nuts are now being grown under domes because the flatteners can tear out any plant more than a metre high.’ Fred was surprised and a little disapproving to hear the presenter using the popular slang for the high winds. He was one of those who preferred to call the winds ‘storms’ because it made them sound transient, and did not emphasise their damaging effects.

   At this point Tim interrupted the sequence to put himself on Fred’s screen. ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘Miss Jakes, my conference school teacher, says the flatteners are getting worse, and that’s why there’s now more conference school and hardly any attendance school. She says it’s because they cut down all the trees in the world for the new farming.’ Tim threw this last remark at his father as a challenge.

   ‘That’s nonsense. They don’t know what’s causing the storms,’ Fred replied, emphasising his preferred word. Some people say it’s the left-over effect of fossil fuels combustion, and that it’ll settle down once the G-ARMs have mopped up the excess CO 2. Some say it’s part of a natural climate change. And anyway, most of the trees were cut down long before the new farming.’

   ‘Why doesn’t the system know?’ Tim demanded.

   ‘Well, weather is terribly complicated – “chaotic” it’s sometimes called: little things you can’t measure accurately enough can have big effects later on. There are old models on the system from necrotech which were supposed to show how the climate works, but their predictions have been wrong as often as not; it’s just too complicated to model.’

   ‘Why not use intuitive innovation?’ asked Louise, who was wide awake, now that something interesting was going on.

   Fred was surprised at this coming from his six-year-old daughter. ‘Do they teach you intuitive innovation at school?’ he asked.

   ‘Don’t be silly!’ she said, with her child’s scorn. ‘You can’t teach intuitive innovation. You just switch off your working-out mind and let in your dreaming mind.’

   ‘Is that what they told you at school?’ Fred persisted.

   ‘No. I just know that,’ she boasted, with her small snub nose in the air. ‘Obviously if you don’t try so hard it’s easier.’

   ‘Hmm, you could be right about dreams,’ said Fred. ‘I seem to remember hearing somewhere that many of the old scientists made their discoveries in their dreams; or anyway, when they weren’t really thinking about whatever it was they were trying to understand.’

   ‘Miss Jakes says that scientists didn’t discover anything; they made it all up,’ said Tim. ‘It only got to be real when things were made which worked like they said.’

   ‘That’s right,’ said Louise. ‘Only things people make have works in them. Everything else in the whole universe does what it does because it knows what it does. And your dream mind knows too. Anyway, I’m going to make myself a van-frame like Fatma’s,’ she said, and she wriggled off Fred’s lap and went to her room. Fred grimaced.

   ‘She is a funny old mixture, your sister,’ he said. ‘She comes out with something that really makes you think, and then goes all silly and feminine over van-frames.’

   ‘What did she say that made you think?’ asked Tim.

   ‘Well, about intuitive innovation being able to predict climate change when even the biggest computer models couldn’t do it.’

   ‘Nothing very clever about that,’ Tim scoffed. ‘That’s the whole point of intuitive innovation: you don’t get very far by analysing life and looking at the bits as if they’re some machine someone built – all you get is G-ARMs and stuff. You have to forget about the laws of science, use your imagination, and help the impossible to happen, and it will, or it might. Anyway, I don’t know why you go on about van-frames. I think that’s what it’s about for everyone: the system’s one big van-frame kit.’

   Fred frowned. ‘What an awful thought! Well anyway, fancy van-frames take a lot of system time and that has to be paid for, so I have to think about my new job and this prep pack. It’s cultured materials next – are you interested?’

   Tim shrugged and said, ‘Maybe.’

   Fred had to be content with that, so he said, ‘Resume,’ and it was off again.

   First there was an old film of a necrotech yeast factory. The narrator took the viewer around and pointed out all the gleaming steel pipes everywhere, the huge containers of molasses the yeast fed on, the computer room from which the valves to let in trace chemicals were controlled, the robots wrapping and packing the blocks of yeast.

   The voice then explained that similar methods were now used to make a vast range of cultured materials, such as novateak and other timber substitutes, novasteel and other metal substitutes and, of course novaglass; all the factories being powered by biofuel energy.

   Fred noted that the cultured production of animal product substitutes, such as meat, leather and wool, was not described. Some people were squeamish about the idea; that was probably why.

   At this point he was interrupted by Louise dashing in to complain that the system would not accept her new van-frame. Fred went to her room to look at the image in her ‘mirror’. Louise had painted a black veil all over her face apart from around her eyes, which she had coloured brown. She had then called up a friend from school to show it to, but the system had told her it was an invalid van-frame and could not be sent.

   ‘It’s invalid because it covers too much of your face for people to know who you are,’ explained Fred.

   ‘Why could Fatma have one like that then?’ Louise challenged.

   ‘Well, I suppose because her veils are part of her religion,’ Fred answered.

   ‘What’s religion?’ Louise asked, in a sulky voice which said she did not really want to know, for which Fred was grateful.

   ‘Anyway, the system can probably see through her veil, but not through yours.’

   ‘Like with system surgery?’ asked Louise.

   ‘Yes, I suppose so. As long as someone’s “face lift” just makes her look younger it’s allowed. But I think it’s all very silly. Why people can’t just be themselves is a mystery to me.’

   ‘Well I expect they’re young and beautiful to themselves, so they want to be seen that way,’ said Louise.

   ‘Hmm,’ said Fred, impressed with her wisdom, in spite of his own opinion. ‘Anyway, why do you want to cover over your pretty little face?’

   ‘Well perhaps I’m really an eastern princess,’ she said.

   Fred smiled at the little dark creature in the ‘mirror’. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘you ask your brother how to copy Fatma Al-Ankari’s veil from my prep pack sequence into your van-frame, and lighten it up enough for the system to accept it. It would be prettier anyway if your face showed through a bit, and then your friends could tell it’s you being an eastern princess.’

   ‘Ooo, yes! Thanks Daddy. I want to speak to Tim,’ she demanded of her system screen. Tim’s face duly appeared. ‘What d’you want, siss?’ it said.

   ‘Why couldn’t you just go into the next room,’ Fred sighed, but she did not hear him. He went back to the living room, and the cultured materials.

   The next part was about in situ cultured production. This was new to Fred, and he was very impressed. The old way was for the component parts of roads, buildings etc. to be made from cultured materials in the factory, then transported, and assembled by robots on site. The new way was for an outline to be traced on site – again by robots, since people no longer worked outside – and then the outline fleshed itself out, drawing the material needed from a piped source. The method was being used for the new infrastructure channels, which would ‘grow’ for miles along the path it ‘knew’ to take; and to start it off, all that was needed was the channel outline at the start. The channel would draw its own food with it. The innovators had recently achieved a breakthrough in incorporating photosynthesis and other cell metabolism into the feeding systems: the channel branches were covered with green fins and scales which converted solar energy into sugars. They were calling this new technology ‘Intos’, which stood for ‘intelligent organic structures’.

   Always willing to be impressed as Fred was, he was beginning to wonder what on earth the great green channels could be for. Water? Possibly for transporting newly desalinised water to plantations: that might require big pipes. Other water was recycled locally in quite narrow pipes, so that would not be what the Intos channels were for. Then the recording enlightened him: he found himself inside one of the channels, pale green light diffusing through its walls. Throughout the height and width of the channel were moving belts carrying what looked like the makings or the leftovers of a host of grand banquets. Side branches of the belt moved into and out of holes in the channel’s sides. Fred was then being carried along one of the main belts – one of those carrying the debris from a feast – and he arrived in an enormous kitchen.

   The belts were now passing slowly in front of work benches. The attendant workers, Fred now saw, were disembodied human-like hands on long, flexible arms. The hands were preparing elaborate dishes of food with the concentrated attention of trained chefs. As Fred stared, bemused, at the dedicated culinary creativity, he noticed that the middle fingers of the hands bore eyes at their tips.

   ‘Dr Drakely! Dr Drakely!’

   ‘What? Oh, er, … Anne. Sorry, I was thinking about the prep pack and I must have dropped off. This recliner’s too comfy.’

   ‘No wonder! The prep pack’s not exactly a thrill a minute, is it? I’ve brought you some more coffee.’ She put the tray onto the recliner arm. ‘Careful, don’t knock it,’ she said as Fred struggled up.

   ‘I thought the pack was really good,’ he protested earnestly. ‘We all need to be reminded —’

   ‘Oh, I suppose so.’

   ‘And that new Intos stuff, that was interesting surely?’

   ‘Sshh. That’s the hush, hush part,’ she whispered, and glanced at the screen. ‘You mustn’t talk about that, not here anyway.’ She swung Fred’s recliner around to face the garden – he grabbed the coffee pot.

   ‘What do you mean “hush, hush”? I don’t hold with secrecy and I’m not going to start now, new job or no new job.’

   ‘Oh, you scientists! You’re so naive,’ Anne muttered at him. ‘Anyway, I don’t think they’ll be able to hold it up for long; and I don’t think anyone’s going to buy those creepy kitchen hands, or pay for that food; personally I don’t care what I’m eating once I’m in the system.’

   ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Fred.

   ‘The Intos, the green dragon. They,’ she breathed in Fred’s ear, nodding in the direction of the domed garden – Fred followed her glance, but there was no one in the garden – ‘They,’ she whispered again, ‘want to stop it, because there’s no profits in it – can’t be – it’s all sunshine, you can’t charge people for sunshine, can you? I did economics in leisure learning, I know what I’m talking about. They think they can use Tech Release to hold it up. But they won’t stop it for long – you’ll see. The green dragon’s the only way we’ll survive the flatteners.’ Fred stared at her, completely bewildered.

   ‘Anyway,’ she said, more loudly, ‘the reason I woke you up is that there are two ugly old women on my wall. They say you returned their call, and they’re insisting on holding. Oh, sorry, they’re not friends of yours, are they? They don’t sound friendly.’

   ‘Oh, yes, right,’ said Fred, relieved at something he could handle. ‘You’d better put them on.’

   ‘Switch callers to this screen,’ Anne ordered. The two women from the recording were now on Fred’s wall. Anne smiled at them. ‘We’re sorry to have kept you waiting; here is Dr Drakely now.’ And she teetered off.

   ‘Good morning, Dr Dowthwaite and Mrs Phipps. Thank you both for returning my call,’ Fred smiled ingratiatingly. ‘I really do apologise for the delay. Actually, I’ve just started in a new jot and things are a bit hectic at the moment. So, what can I do for you?’

   ‘You called us,’ Nell Dowthwaite snapped. Her friend’s approving nod and look at Fred suggested that she was going to be keeping the score.

   ‘In response to a request from you,’ said Fred, still smiling.

   ‘Well, we may have complained about being spied on – but we didn’t actually expect anyone to get back to us,’ Nell said. Mildred reflected disgruntled resignation and looked at Fred.

   ‘We really don’t want to upset people, so we’re always happy to explain why the surveillance is necessary,’ said Fred smoothly.

   ‘What are we supposed to have done to have people like you spying on us?’ Nell demanded. Mildred nodded twice this time and her look at Fred was defiant.

   Fred was used to this sort of complaint. Some people, especially older ones, had not yet accepted that openness was best for everyone, and that there was no point in openness unless there were jots like his looking in on what people were up to.

   ‘It’s the function of my jot to monitor the communications of anyone in this region who might possibly be a threat to bio-security,’ Fred replied, trying to sound firm and official but amiable. ‘My understanding is that you, Dr Dowthwaite, have been talking to members of a former seed smuggling network. The call we picked up between the two of you involved permaculture, which has also been involved in seed smuggling. So I don’t really feel that our interest was unjustified.’

   ‘What do you suppose we’re going to smuggle seeds for? Nobody’s got any private land any more. You can’t even have a window box. As for permaculture, that’s been banned. All we were doing was organising a farewell – a conference one, since we can’t even have a real meeting, in case we swap seeds, I suppose. What’s the harm in that?’

   ‘No harm at all, I’m sure,’ replied Fred soothingly. ‘We just have to keep an eye on former gardeners – for a while, until we’re sure they’re not finding some way to carry out domestic cultivation.’

   Fred had almost forgotten Mildred Phipps, who now spoke for the first time in a keening voice and with tears in her eyes. ‘All we ever wanted, Harvey and I, was to work in our little garden. We had a lovely little garden before they moved us to a sector; now we don’t even have a balcony, not even a real window to the outside. You’ve taken away all our pleasure and you still won’t leave us alone.’

   ‘You’ve got a sector!’ exclaimed Fred. ‘Well I don’t know what you’ve got to complain about then. My family’s been on the list for a sector for five years now. We’re still in an old-fashioned house and the noise from the storm baffles is terrible. We’re hoping that with the new jot being out here … I suppose you’ve got a sector too?’ he asked Nell Dowthwaite.

   ‘Yes, a single person’s sector, nasty little cell with all system walls. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about the housing lists. You still haven’t said what you think we might do. As I just said, it can’t be smuggling seeds, surely?’

   ‘Because you wouldn’t or couldn’t?’ Fred countered in a jovial, bantering tone. ‘You, Dr Dowthwaite, used to have access to genetic material in your work. Are you going to tell me that you’ve severed all links with the facilities at Norwich. There are still biodiversity reserve domes there, I understand.’

   ‘Yes, there are bloody domes at Norwich. Your SWI lot took them over, as you well know – not very intelligent that, Mr Spy.’ Fred smiled indulgently at her word play. ‘And I’ve been round them since I left, like any other member of the general public. Togged up in a nappy and space suit. You couldn’t put a seed up your bloody nostril!’

   Fred disapproved of women using bad language, so he made sure he was extra polite back to her. ‘Well you see, Dr Dowthwaite, that’s only part of the point of the protective clothing. It’s also to protect visitors against biting insects and so on: it works both ways. I prefer to visit via the system myself. I’ve been into several of the domes: tropical rainforests and all sorts. And even home gardens – from all round the world – you’d be interested in those,’ he said, turning to Mildred, who responded with a choked sob.

   ‘You stop upsetting my friend,’ said Nell, looking as if she was going to cry too in sympathy.

   Fred would have preferred her to stay rude and angry. If there was one thing he could not cope with it was women crying – he never knew what to do or say. ‘Oh dear, sorry, really, I didn’t mean to upset Mrs Phipps, not at all – or you, Dr Dowthwaite. I just thought she could visit those gardens from her sector, with system walls all round she wouldn’t need headgear. She could design her own garden too.’ Fred knew he was rambling on, but it seemed to be all he could do. ‘There are leisure learning courses on garden design and implementation. My son Tim says that soon people won’t know the difference. She could dig the soil and sow seeds and watch them grow, just like in a real garden, without the backache! Well, anyway, you could try it – give it a chance – you never know …’ he tailed off. Both women were now crying noisily.

   Nell blew her nose on a grubby handkerchief. Probably does her own laundry, Fred thought. She looked at him soulful and red-eyed, and said in a choked up voice, ‘You’ve turned the whole planet to desert, utterly destroyed nature, and you’re actually proud of it. We gardeners, for years, generations even, our mission has been to save a little bit of nature here and there. Do you remember the robins, Mildred?’ Her friend nodded and smiled through her tears. Nell went on, ‘Sometimes I dream I’m back in our little garden and the robin is on the apple tree chattering away. And my husband Bill and I, we’re both planting out seedlings – him on his side of the garden, me on mine – we had different ways of gardening you know – he used to dig the soil two spits deep all over – he loved to dig, my poor Bill did – and he liked everything in neat rows. Then me on my side of the garden with my mulch beds, all in whirly patterns, plants which are best friends next to each other. “Call yourself a scientist!” Bill’d say – but we never tried to work out whose way was the best – we weren’t competitive. But we grew so much food! Do you know, I think we could have fed the whole street from our garden – if they’d been content with what could be grown in our climate, that is. If only the world had gone that way instead of all this G-ARM ghastliness.’ The two women smiled sadly at each other.

   Fred felt a bit more confident now the tears seemed to have stopped. He wondered how someone who rambled on with such nonsense had got to be a professor in a science faculty. ‘Oh come on now,’ he said, ‘you’re just not making sense. Let’s just consider what you’ve been saying. One,’ he said, holding his hand up with four fingers extended and pointing to his little finger, ‘One: the New Way agriculture is highly productive – you can hardly call the plantations desert – and it has saved the planet from pollution – as you must know. Two: there have been no species extinctions since the biodiversity domes were constructed – I’m sure you’d find there are robins and all the other garden birds living happily in some dome somewhere – just ask the system. Three: you couldn’t feed everyone in the world from home gardens – what about your grains and your sugar and your meat – oh, I suppose you’re vegetarian – your dairy produce then; and anyway, most people just don’t want to do all that labouring work in their gardens. And it would make their food more expensive, with having to buy seeds and fertiliser and everything —’

   Nell interrupted him. ‘We never bought seeds; we collected seeds each year and replanted, or swapped with neighbours, or things seeded themselves – on my side especially.’

   ‘And you wonder why your calls are tapped! That’s illegal; it’s stealing. All genetic material belongs to the corporations.’

   ‘They stole it from the people,’ Nell replied.

   ‘I’d say they stole it from the planet; from the plants and animals themselves,’ corrected Mildred.

   ‘That’s right, you’re absolutely right, Mildred,’ said Nell. ‘Anyway, it’s daft to say it’s stealing to let plants seed themselves.’

   ‘But the law is the law. Just because it’s easily done doesn’t make it right. It’s like years ago, before the system, when people made illegal copies of computer games and software, and recordings of films and music. It was easy to do, but it was wrong because it put the companies who had the rights to the stuff out of business.’

   ‘So we could put the corporations out of business? The chance would be a fine thing!’ said Nell. Her friend laughed.

   Fred ignored this. He was still holding his hand up, so he came to his fourth point. ‘I was also going to say, number four: if you believed in self-sufficiency, how come you were working in hydroponics?’ He put on a ‘got you there’ expression.

   ‘You think that’s inconsistent? No, the way I saw it was this: on a small local scale, the community could produce fresh produce out of season using hydroponics. I was working on tomatoes; we had very good results. I’m not totally against new methods; I just think it’s crazy to turn over the whole planet to unnatural species – if you can call these monsters species that is.’

   ‘But we have to feed the whole world. Before the New Way people used to starve and many children were stunted.’

   ‘So you take over the whole planet just to feed one species. What about all the other species?’

   ‘I told you, we haven’t lost a single species since the domes were constructed.’

   ‘We haven’t lost – you make it sound as if other species are our property. You wouldn’t do that to human beings – say to them, we’ve got a representative genetic sample, the rest of you can just die.’

   ‘Of course not. People matter as individuals.’

   ‘Well some of us think other species matter for themselves, for their own sake, regardless of what we might use them for, or whether we like them.’

   ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t say that about garden pests and disease organisms – moths and fungus and aphids and so on.’

   ‘Yes we would. We’d make sure there were natural controls in the garden, to get a balance so we’re not destroying anything.’

   ‘Natural controls are still controls. Nice ladybirds kill nasty aphids. I don’t see that it’s any different, essentially. But the point is, you couldn’t feed everybody in messy ways like that. It’s just not productive enough.’

   ‘It depends what you mean by productive. Garden production produces more food per acre than industrial food production – ten times as much, it’s been proved time and again. But those Ghastly-ARMs, they’ve taken up every square inch of the planet practically.’

   ‘But it’s not just food: we also have to provide energy and raw materials, remember. Tim Harbright —’

   ‘Don’t talk to me about Tim Harbright,’ snapped Nell. ‘When I was a child we lived in a lovely part of the north-west of England called the Lake District. People used to visit from all round the country, the world even, though I don’t believe in all that tourism. Anyway, they cleared off all the trees and the sheep and everything, and they planted biofuels everywhere, even on the lakes. It was just solid green everywhere; that awful lurid green that hurts your eyes. They called it “harblighting”, didn’t they – you heard it called that?’

   ‘I expect people called it something like blight when the sheep were introduced hundreds of years ago,’ Fred retorted. ‘You talk about the area if it were untouched wilderness. The G-ARMs’re just another phase of development.’

   ‘Well there was real wilderness where I lived,’ sighed Mildred. ‘They harblighted all the heathlands and deserts in Western Australia.’

   ‘Oh come on now, surely that was a good thing in every way. It was useless desert and now it’s productive.’

   ‘It wasn’t useless to the wildlife. And it was beautiful: a deeply spiritual place. The New Way has destroyed the planet’s soul.’

   At this point both women suddenly disappeared. Fred stared at the blank screen wall for some moments and it began to display the SWI promotion. ‘Anne!’ he called. ‘What’s happened to my callers?’

   Anne hurried into the office in person. ‘Sorry, Dr Drakely. I had to close you down, the meeting’s starting.’

   ‘You interrupted us?’ Fred was annoyed. ‘Don’t you think that was discourteous?’

   ‘Oh, I did switch them to my wall and explain. I don’t think you were getting anywhere with them, were you?’

   ‘You were listening?’

   ‘Yes, why not?’

   ‘No, no reason.’

   ‘Anyway, we must go. Come on, follow me.’

   Anne walked towards the domed garden and through the open sliding doorway. But then she was not in the garden: the garden still looked and sounded just as before, but Fred could see no sign of the plum suit amongst the trees. How strange! He took some moments to extricate himself from the recliner. He walked towards the garden, but he found the way through blocked by an apparently transparent and non-reflecting surface. It was not glassy hard, but slightly yielding like a firm pillow as Fred’s head and hands reached it. Then, as he continued to move towards it, he felt himself drawn through rather suddenly.

   On the other side, instead of the garden, was a circular room full of people, and the buzz of conversation. Fred looked back at the surface he had come through. Now it appeared to be a mirror. His own startled face looked back at him. His brown eyes stared, his finely drawn dark eyebrows were raised below a wavy row of wrinkles; and above them – surely further back than usual – was his neatly combed straight dark hair, greying at the receding temples: but surely he wasn’t going grey! And his ears stuck out. And that silly moustache which always looked rather dashing. The truth dawned. It’s a true mirror, he thought, and all that stuff I’ve said about system surgery, and I’ve been doing it too, or the system has for me. Well, well! And then a realisation came: this is not a system wall, the system cannot see in here. We’re hidden from the system! Fred’s earlier uneasiness returned: what is going on? he wondered.

   Fred saw in the mirror that someone had come up behind him: a plump, rather pink man, with a sparse crew cut. ‘Hello there. Just got here? Saul,’ and he offered his hand. Seeing Fred still looking at the mirror wall he remarked, ‘Amazing stuff, smart materials.’

   Fred turned around, managed a smile, and held out his hand, which Saul squeezed damply. ‘Hello Saul, good to meet you, I’m Fred Drakely. Any idea what all this is about?’ he waved at the room. ‘It’s unusual isn’t it, getting co-jos all together in a – um – private meeting?’ He detected a slightly patronising look from Saul before the man took him by the arm saying, ‘Come and get yourself a drink and a few nibbles, Fred. Round this way.’

   By weaving this way and that, pushing, and ‘Excuse me, sorry,’ Saul led Fred between the men standing in the aisle between rows of seats occupying half the room. At one side of the area in front of the seats were tables laid with food and drinks. Behind the tables were several young women, all rather similar to Anne, and Fred spotted her neat red head amongst them and waved.

   ‘Your bird, that one? She worked for me for a while, called Anne isn’t she?’ asked Saul. ‘Come on then.’ He squeezed through the crush around the drinks tables until they were opposite Anne. ‘Your boss needs a drink, love,’ Saul grinned at her.

   ‘Hello, Mr Sarney,’ she nodded at Saul, who winked back. ‘Dr Drakely, what can I get you?’ she smiled at Fred.

   Fred looked at the bottles of all shapes and sizes, green, brown and clear. ‘A soft drink, please,’ he muttered.

   Anne looked along the bottles. ‘I’m not sure … Ah, tonic do you?’ Fred nodded. ‘Ice and lemon?’ He nodded again.

   ‘Come on now,’ said Saul. ‘I think we need a drop of gin in that, don’t you?’ He clapped Fred on the shoulder, and Fred thought perhaps he did and shrugged acceptance. ‘And the same for me, thanks love, and make it a big one, save coming back too quick.’

   There was less of a crush around the food table. Fred followed Saul, took a plate, and put on it a few little biscuits with pink or yellow stuff twirled on top. Now fully equipped they mingled. A seemingly endless round ensued of exchanges of names, and pleasantries about previous jots, home localities and families. Saul stayed with Fred throughout like a jovial pink shadow, and kept his tonics topped up.

   At last there was a signal that the formal part of the meeting was to start shortly: the young women came round with trays to collect glasses and plates and to wave encouragingly in the direction of the seating. Saul now drifted away from Fred’s side, but once everyone was settled, Fred saw him seated on the low plinth facing the audience with a small group of other men, one of whom then stood and walked to a lectern at the front of the plinth. To Fred’s astonishment, the man held a sheaf of paper, which he laid on the lectern. Fred had seen paper aplenty on recordings of the old days on the system, but never the real stuff, which he had understood was no longer made. Fred was sitting near the back and he noticed quite a few of the men sharing surprise with their neighbours. Perhaps he was not the only one feeling that there was something strange about this meeting. But presumably they were now to be told what it was all about. And anyway, all the unaccustomed alcohol was making him feel mellow and unconcerned.

   The man at the lectern had an air of authority about him. He was quite a bit older than Fred, but still in good shape: slim, well-built, upright, his crinkly grey to white hair cropped short and his clean-shaven face lined but firm, and with strong, regular features. He glanced through the papers, then looked up with a calm expression which commanded attention.

   ‘Welcome, gentlemen, to this briefing meeting. My name is Howard Meredith.’ Fred thought he recognised the name, but could not place it. ‘I hope that some of you are beginning to get to know each other. We have an interesting bunch in this room today: researchers, tech-release people and bio-security agents. Each one of you has an impeccable track-record in your area of work and some specialist expertise of an innovative nature which is particularly appropriate to the project we are embarking on today.’ My van-frame probe, Fred thought.

   ‘First of all, I’m aware there are some worried men in here today, and I must try to reassure you. You all know what an important advance for world society has been achieved by making all dealings and transactions completely open and accessible through the system, and recorded for all time in the archives. Those of you engaged in surveillance work have handled the disquiet this sometimes provokes in certain quarters with admirable courtesy and diplomacy. You all, I know, believe in the value and fairness of the principle of openness.

   ‘But —’ He paused and scanned the walls. ‘It cannot have escaped your notice that our meeting today is not open: the system is not able to see or record us here. We meet in secret.’ A soft hiss of drawn breath rose and then died down. ‘Some of the research and tech-release men here today know that very occasionally some work has to be kept under wraps for a while. I have with me on the platform the jot which heads up Secrecy Control, which comes under the World President jot itself. You will have the opportunity afterwards to direct any concerns you are still feeling about secrecy to them. The one thing I will say now is that all of us up here are reassured about any concerns we may have had by the knowledge that all – I emphasise: all – such work is initiated and closely supervised by the Prejot. The system is in fact not completely unaware of these few projects – it cannot be if you think about it. It knows we’re all here, breaking the jot rules.’ He smiled. ‘It sees some of us appearing suddenly from the garden when we go to use the chute, and then disappearing again.’ There was a titter of amusement. ‘It ignores suspicious circumstances like that only when they are associated with a Prejot project under Seccon.’

   Fred felt his disquiet melt away. He joined the collective sigh of relief from around the room. He smiled and nodded at his neighbours. He felt rather important and sat up straighter in his seat.

   Meredith shuffled a page of his notes to the back and continued. ‘As you know, you’ve been brought together for a new job of work. We have about twenty jots here, all members being present because of the off-system briefing this project requires. This is a Tech Release Board project, which again comes directly under the Prejot. Projects like this are part of the process by which the release criteria of the Board are determined. Some of the criteria for deciding whether to release or refuse some development or invention are obvious: things like compatibility, standardisation, avoiding rapid obsolescence and waste. But one lesson we have learnt from the disasters of necrotech is not to assume that clever innovation is bound to be beneficial.

   ‘The project has been set up by the Prejot in order to undertake a global benefits check for the whole class of new developments called “intelligent organic structures” or Intos. You jots here will cover European Region. The official name of the project is “Intos Implications Investigation” or I3, but it has been dubbed the “Green Dragon Task Force”.’ Fred joined in the ripple of laughter. ‘I hope you all managed to look at the prep pack section on Intos?’ He looked up and Fred nodded. ‘Well, I expect you get the reference to green dragons then – they’re actually part plant and part animal in their metabolism. This technology is a long way from tech release, largely because the Prejot is very unclear about what effect it would have on society. But before we get down to that, for the benefit of the people here not involved in the research, we’ll give you a short run-down on how Intos came about.’ Fred did a little shuffle to attention; some other men did the same, whilst others slumped back. Meredith turned another page, cleared his throat and sipped from a glass of water.

   ‘You’ve all used smart materials – chute stems, of course, furniture such as the new system cubicle recliners, and now this new method of dividing living space.’ Meredith nodded towards the glassy wall. ‘As far as the interested public is concerned, the basis is nanotechnology, which means it’s designed right down at the molecular level to produce the desired effect at the macro level. But the implementations I’ve mentioned are not actually nanotechnology at all – because nanotechnology doesn’t work.’ Meredith raised his eyebrows at the surprised faces, Fred’s amongst them. Then he glanced behind him at the group on the platform and nodded. One of the men stepped forward: a tall, thin man in a crumpled grey suit.

   ‘Allow me to introduce Tom Hammond, who can tell you about this better than I can. And of course you can collar him later if you want to know more. Tom.’ Meredith passed his sheaf of notes to the other man, who turned to the next page, ran his finger down and nodded.

   ‘Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. As Meredith’s just said, research into nanotech hit serious problems – some time ago now. There were unpredictable effects at the macro level – a phenomenon the lab jots called “wildness”. We kept that quiet, of course: no sense in frightening everyone! “Emergent properties” is the official term. Anyway, efforts to stop wildness occurring came to nothing. We spent years trying to figure out what was wrong with the molecular construction to cause this random unreliability. Then intuitive innovation caught on as the best approach to problem solving and invention. We gave that a go, and ended up incorporating the problem into an invention – we harnessed the wildness using intelligence – hence Intos: artificially intelligent artificial life. Like natural life, it’s carbon-based. The intuitive innovation people say it taps into a reservoir of memories of organic strategies. But that’s not my area at all.

   ‘Oh, yes, I should tell you, we now use the term “holotech” rather than “nanotech”, because what this harnessed wildness consists of is a holarchy of holons – a holarchy being a hierarchy without the power from the top. A holon is an entity which is simultaneously a whole, with its particular capabilities, and a part of one or more other holons. Each level of a holarchy gets on with what it knows how to do independently of the levels above or below, and influence flows both ways.

   ‘Anyway, to move on, there is a second side to Intos, something quite unconnected with nanotech and its problems. The other aspect of Intos came out of a refinement of voice recognition by the existing system. It arose spontaneously, out of the system’s learning capabilities, and then we spotted it and called it “flicker choice”. It’s a very interesting feature. The system – the old kind and the Intos-based – can recognise the needs and desires of a user without any vocal command or conversational speech interpretation. We assume it was taking in visual data on user responses during oral exchanges, and discovered various patterns of facial expression which enabled it to anticipate users’ oral responses. Now what we see happening is, the system runs a series of choices in front of the user’s eyes and interprets the facial responses. Sound and hearing can come into it too, of course. When it’s got the preference, it refines that down to a series of choices within that, and so on, and then it delivers what’s needed or wanted.

   ‘We’ve done a controlled trial of Intos interacting with users. In spite of not being connected to the old system, it very quickly cottoned on to flicker choice and, being holotech-based, it then began to acquire emergent properties. At present it’s only used in a very restricted way – just for constructing channels. What worries Tech Release is the question of what we’d be releasing if we let Intos loose, because we wouldn’t know what it was going to be capable of next. There are economic implications too, I believe, but that’s not my area. I’ll hand you back now to Meredith.’

   ‘Thanks, Tom,’ Meredith said, and took the stand again He scanned the raised faces, some of which, including Fred’s, were tense with concentration. ‘As I said earlier, if you haven’t understood all of that, and I’d be surprised if you did if you haven’t met it before, don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to consult Tom, or one of his colleagues, later today, or some other time. I’m coming to the actual job now, you’ll be glad to know. The reason we need the Green Dragon Task Force is that the quite astonishing potential benefits of Intos have likely consequences which worry us a great deal. When the Prejot first heard of these developments, they were seen as having great employment generating possibilities. There was talk of bringing job sharing down from seven to four, or even three. But now we’ve realised that Intos could have the opposite effect. It could eliminate the need for jobs – work – almost entirely.’ Meredith nodded to acknowledge the stir that created. ‘Because, you see, this new generation of system can identify what people want, learn how to provide that, evolve new ways of providing, and grow as big as necessary to accommodate the needs and desires of an expanding population – all by itself, without any human assistance – at least, none of the kind we normally think of as work.’ Meredith had evidently reached the end of his notes and, putting them down, he stepped down from the lectern and stepped into the gangway between the two sections of seats. He continued talking as he walked slowly between the rows of men.

   ‘We just do not know what effect the introduction of this new generation of system would have. What will people do without jobs of any kind? They spend more time at leisure than at work now, of course. But many men’s identity is tied up with their job, however little time they spend on it. Women have less of a problem, of course, since they have been encouraged to concentrate on home-making. But men, they don’t seem to take to that; it doesn’t satisfy them. So, before we let this innovation out, we want to try it out on a very special sample of men and their families. That’s where you come in.’ Meredith had reached the end of the room. All the heads were craned backwards towards him. He walked slowly back to the front.

   ‘The plan is this. You will all be re-housed in sector accommodation at this Centre, with the latest personal system cubicles, which have touch-sensitive exercise recliners, so you can be kept fit. There will be no travelling for your families – no attendance school, for the children. The families will take turns in the small Intos facility we’ve set up, again on this site. It’s pretty similar to the old system, except the cubicles are Intos cells, which feel different: I’ve tried one myself and you can tell they’re alive. There’s no physical connection between the system dome and the Intos dome, and you would have to walk from one to the other: I hope it won’t be too blowy; the baffles here are pretty good. You men will walk to this office here to report – on paper – and you’ll have secretaries to help you with that.

   ‘I am sure you’ll take great care that no harm comes to the subjects of this experiment! But remember about the holonic approach: the whole as well as the parts. We want you and your families to regard this testing phase in the context of the whole of the New Way, hence the prep pack, which you will have access to in the Intos facility, and which will have more information added about the Intos as and when we’re getting to know it. There are some people working on these developments who say that Intos will bring about the real Biotechnology Age. Current technology still uses thermal energy, from burning biofuels, what we’ve had is only bio-necro-technology! I don’t know about that; we’ve done our best and achieved a great deal. Anyway, it’s possible we’ll have to go for Intos sooner rather than later because of communication problems with the existing set-up. Your brief could change at that stage to a wider social surveillance role: what we’re calling “Phase 2” of the project. Until that occurs, your families’ outgoing system communications will be filtered to ensure they don’t let anything out too soon.’

   Meredith was now back at the front, and he sipped from his water glass. Then he nodded towards the group on the platform. Saul stood up and came forward to join him.

   ‘Let me introduce you to Saul Sarney now. He’s going to talk to you about the sort of problem we want you to look out for once we get to Phase 2’

   ‘Thanks Howard. Right, guys,’ Saul grinned down at them. ‘Phase 2 proper is when these new developments are out in the public domain, which is going to happen; this is too big for Tech Release to hold on to indefinitely. However, the way I look at it, Phase 2 needs to begin right away. Howard and I don’t see eye to eye on this one, so he’s very kindly letting me have my say. I’m a surveillance man, so I guess I tend to look at it that way from the start. It seems to me that what’s happening is happening, regardless of the technology. It’s happening with the existing system anyway – flicker choice is just one example – and we need to keep an eye on the way it’s going. I don’t propose to tell you how to do this job. Letting your own families have a go with Intos is one thing, but we’ve got to make sure society doesn’t break down with the kind of way of life Intos could bring about. One area that concerns me personally is transport. All through history major economic changes and expansion have been associated with improvements in transportation. We now have a potential technological revolution which could make transport completely unnecessary. Think about it: no one needs to travel; everything you need is piped to you, including all your information, entertainment and human interaction. That’s already possible, and increasingly necessary. But what about not being able to travel? It’s one thing not needing to; it’s another being actually locked in. How is that going to affect people? Will they have to be provided with illusions they’re still going places? If they need illusions – travel won’t be the only area – will they be convincing enough?

   ‘Howard’s mentioned the work implications. Leisure is already a vital area, and well provided for. That’s fine while people can still see leisure occupations as what they do when they’re not working. But when there is no work, entertainment has to become a major source of personal identity. Maybe, again, they’ll have to be provided with illusions they’ve got work to do. Some say we need an extension to the vanity frame idea, so that people can make something of themselves. In fact, providing entertainment through the system, particularly interactive rather than passive entertainment – virtual reality, that sort of thing – is almost certainly going to be the only type of work people can do for each other in the future.’ My Tim! Fred thought proudly, trust him to get that right.

   ‘Some of the effects we’re concerned about are not new to the Intos generation of system: that’s just going to compound problems concerned with a knowledge orientated system by extending it to the physical side. We’ve had to keep an eye on the existing system which, of course, learns and changes all the time. I’ll give you an example of the sort of thing we’ve had to do. The system has no central intelligence function, as you know, but bits of it “get ideas”. A year or so ago it was deciding all over the place that children shouldn’t engage in sport any more. It identified sport as the major means by which people, especially the young, are socialised into accepting competition – in the interests of the market system of course. It decided – on the basis that there are no longer any material shortages – that competition was not in the human interest, and set about removing the conditioning. It stopped offering children any information about sport: what sport is, where they can participate, VR simulations involving the experience of sport, the lot. Now one of the Tech Board surveillance teams spotted this and reported it. And it was decided, partly on the basis of the possible introduction of Intos, that sport, and the attitudes and activities of necrotech generally, would be essential material for public amusement. So a system direction flush was circulated to tell the system to drop those ideas. That episode shook us up a fair bit, I can tell you. Soon after that the Prejot began to consider setting up this project to look at the implications of implementing Intos.’ Saul glanced at Meredith, who gestured ‘Carry on.’ ‘Right,’ said Saul, ‘that seems to be enough from us. They’ll be a short break, coffee or tea or whatever, and then divide into small groups so that the expertise we’ve got assembled here today gets spread around a bit. Then we’ll gather together to report back. We’ll leave questions until then if you don’t mind. Thank you, gentlemen, for your attention. And best of luck to you all!’ He grinned broadly, waved and walked back to the group on the platform.

   Fred got up then a little too suddenly and felt his head spin. He steadied himself on the back of the chair in front and then made for the wall. He pushed through to one of the offices, perhaps the one he had occupied that morning, he could not tell. He made for the recliner, got into it and lay back. He shut his eyes, and he could hear the splash and trickle of the fountain in the garden that wasn’t there.

   It was not only the gin that had put Fred in a whirl; he felt worried. At one level he was meant to be worried – that was the job, worrying about Intos. But he was also still worried about the secrecy. And what Tim said about the system being one big van-frame kit. And Mildred Phipps crying for her garden and Tim saying we wouldn’t know the difference and Min feeling the melons and not knowing she was just rubbing her fingers together and little Louise being really an eastern princess …

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