“Soccer,” Cassique corrected hir.

  “And the ones in yellow,” Chert tried again. “Chile?”

  “Close. Brazil. That’s Pelé, one of the greatest players ever.”

  “Soccer, hockey, Chile, Brazil.” Chert snorted. “All the oily same to me. I don’t know how you keep up with all those details.”

  “It’s not that hard,” Cassique chuckled.

  “I know it’s not,” Chert snorted. “I just don’t know why you bother.”

  “All part of the job,” Cassique said. “Be alert, not inert. One of the first things Father taught us, remember?”

  “Ah, Father’s full of oil,” Chert grinned. Ze could get away with saying things like that because ze so obviously didn’t believe hir words for an instant. Cassique wouldn’t have dared mock Father that way, because he didn’t trust Father as much as Chert did.

  “I hear the Great Fix has been set back again,” Cassique said.

  Chert’s expression darkened. “Don’t talk to me about it,” ze growled. “I heard about it a couple of months ago, Personal Time, and I’ve been synapsing ever since. Sometimes I think Father’s doing this just to annoy us, that it’s all some elaborate joke. First the Fix is set for 2848, then ’53, then… Dos!”

  “It’s not Father’s fault,” Cassique said, defending Father as he was wont to do in most conversations of this nature. He and Chert often argued this way, Chert taking the role of disheartened sceptic, Cassique flying the flag for Father. It was rather ironic, he noted, given his current fragile state of mind, and allowed himself a brief inner smile. “Father’s doing his best,” he went on. “It’s the Fixers who keep slotting things up. Did you hear what the success rates are down to? Seventy percent! I feel sorry for Father. It can’t be easy, watching your best-laid plans go to wreck and ruin all on account of a bunch of useless crash-heads.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Chert yawned and switched channels on the TV. A pornographic show came on and ze watched with mild interest. “Hard to believe people used to get off on these things. How could they be so desperate? Mind you, I suppose it was better than actual bodily contact. I guess if someone put a gun to my head and forced me, I’d opt for the shows too.”

  “They had very dull pubic hair,” Cassique commented. “Women in certain ages used to have some degree of primitive styling, with shaving and waxing, but men rarely bothered, and if they did, they usually only shaved it all off. I’d have thought, since looks mattered so much back then to a mating couple, that was an area where they’d have made advances more swiftly.”

  “Aw, their brains were so scrambled from diseases, they had a hard enough time telling one day of the week from another,” Chert scoffed. “Any man who’d allow his penis any form of contact with another human being, or any woman who’d welcome someone else’s fleshy appendage into her body… They were asking for it, weren’t they? I’m just surprised RUSH took so long getting round to them. Things might have moved forward more smoothly on that front if there’d been more non-binary people before the twenty-first century. You beastly binaries were always rather limited in your thinking.”

  Cassique didn’t argue the point, because he agreed with Chert. People of the past had allowed themselves to simply fall into the patterns demanded of them by the old-world genders. Sex had been a controlling, limiting, physical force, rather than the senses-opening, fantastical, virtual experience that it was in the twenty-ninth century.

  “Anyway, we’re not here to discuss the follies of the past, are we?” Chert said. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you in the middle of your hottest sexual fantasy and pushing the boundaries of where you can go with your libido in the sex spas?”

  “I…” He hesitated. Chert was the closest thing to a friend he had in this world, but he wouldn’t have said they were especially close. They worked together, enjoyed each other’s company, and shared a similar sense of humour, but as far as trust and kinship went… He’d have to be careful. “I’m having problems.”

  If Chert was surprised that Cassique had come to hir with a problem, ze masked it masterfully. “What sort?” ze simply asked.

  “I… I feel… Look, I’ve been on holiday a week now, and I’ve got seven more weeks coming.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Chert groaned. “Lucky hacker!”

  “That’s the point,” Cassique said miserably. “I don’t feel lucky. I don’t feel privileged or delighted or excited. It’s been a boring week, looking for things to do, feeling like I’m on the moon. I spent a few days in a sex spa, and that was nice, but I’d had enough of it by that stage and I’m in no rush to book a return. I don’t get much out of the realities — they’re false, I can never buy into them one hundred percent. And… that’s all there is. That’s all! Look around the world, at all we’ve built and are meant to be so proud of. What’s left to do with your life outside of the sex spas and realities? There are no physical sporting activities. No movies or books or nights out at the cinema or theatre. Nobody has hobbies, apart from a few fortunate souls with deep specialist concerns, but we never see any of those because they’re always locked away somewhere, working hard on their latest project. I tried renewing contact with Nijin and Zune – he was a boy we used to parent when we were a couple – but neither wanted anything to do with me. They thought I was scrambled for even wanting to see them.

  “What’s there to do?” he pleaded. “What the dos exists in this world for someone who simply wants to idly pass away a few hours while on leave? What’s there for me?”

  Chert was silent a minute, considering Cassique’s extraordinary outburst. When ze finally spoke, ze was atypically quiet, steady, compassionate. “You’re not the first Fixer I’ve seen like this. It doesn’t happen to many, but there’s always one or two who catch it.”

  “Catch what?” Cassique gasped, not having truly expected to find any kind of an answer here. He’d merely felt the need to sound off and thought Chert would do nothing more than pat his back and mutter a half-hearted, ‘There, there.’

  “Whatever it is you’ve caught,” Chert shrugged and Cassique deflated. “It’s a disease or a virus or a blown brain fuse. There’s no name for it as far as I’m aware. You’ve been travelling to the past so often, you’ve forgotten what you’re going for, and grown isolated from the present. I don’t know how badly you’re affected – some can never come to terms with it, while others recover in a matter of days – but the fact that you’re able to talk about it, and have acknowledged something’s wrong, bodes well for you. I don’t think you’ll have too much difficulty kicking it. A couple of weeks, a bit of guiding help from Father, and you’ll be back on your feet and raring to go.”

  “But what’s wrong with me?” Cassique asked. “Why do I feel so out of place, so useless, so empty?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Chert said. “I’m no expert in these matters. All I know, from what I’ve seen, is that it involves scrambled perceptions. Some Fixers spend too much time in the past. They begin to think things were better back then. They start getting ideas about changes they could make, new worlds they could build. They see all the human contact there was, and how important people believed it was, and start thinking maybe their ancestors were right, that it’s wrong to have a world where nobody touches anyone else, and sex is purely computer generated. They get the idea that being alone means they must be lonely, and that loneliness is the ugliest condition in the known universe. They feel like they have to combat that loneliness, no matter how extreme a method their sick brain concocts for them.”

  “I haven’t gone that far,” Cassique said softly, wondering if this might be the reason why some Fixers had allegedly been discreetly sidelined by Father in recent times. “I know how harmful physical contact can be, and I know loneliness was a dangerous folly of primitive people’s meagre minds. I’m not a complete crash-head.”

  “I never said you were,” Chert smiled. “I’m just telling you what I’ve seen manifest in some unfortunate others. To be honest, I kind of guessed this might happen to you.”

  Cassique was astonished. “You did?”

  “Yep. It’s usually the earnest types who come down with it. The ones who take their job a little too seriously, who study the past more than they need to, who are always looking to perform more effectively even when they’re already doing a digital plus job. I’m not saying every efficient Fixer goes this way, but some do, and you looked to me like you might be one of them.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” Cassique sniffed.

  “And highlight a problem that might not even present in you?” Chert shook hir head firmly. “It’s no big deal. So long as you regularly remind yourself of the reality of the situation, and stop the rot before it spreads, you’ll be fine. You’re too resilient to let something like this undermine you. You’ll bounce back, I’m certain you will. All you need is to focus and redouble your efforts. Force yourself to embrace the present, concentrate your energies on the here and the now, and you’ll be back to your full mental peak in no time.”

  “You reckon?” Cassique asked meekly.

  “I’d bet every last credit of mine on it,” Chert boomed.

  “I’m not so sure,” Cassique whispered.

  “Try,” Chert said. “You’ll see. You’re stronger than the pull of the past. Give the sex spas and the realities a real go. Keep telling yourself that life is great in the present, that there’s no hunger, disease, or want. There are no ghetto towns, no homeless mothers huddling in damp corners with their squealing children, begging for pennies. No hatred, no bigotry, no wars. It’s the best time ever to be alive. You know that’s true, deep inside, and I bet you won’t have to dig all that deeply to realise it, once you start.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Cassique sighed, managing a weak, grateful smile. “But that still doesn’t answer my primary question. What do I do with myself? I miss work. At least I feel like I have a purpose when I’m on a mission. My mind is fully occupied, and I have a reason to be alive. What can I latch onto while I’m waiting for my brain to heal? What can I do to keep myself ticking over for the next seven weeks?”

  Chert mulled the matter over and chewed hir lip while ze was struggling with it. “You know,” ze said after a full two minutes of heavy thinking, “I believe I have a solution. A tad unorthodox, but it just might work.”

  “What is it?” Cassique asked eagerly.

  “Father might object,” Chert warned. “I can’t see why he would, but you can never be sure with Father. He sees angles the rest of us could never even imagine, the potential for troubled waters where we see only calm.”

  “I’ll try anything,” Cassique vowed.

  “In that case, how about borrowing an Original?”

  Cassique cocked his head uncertainly. “What?”

  “You know what Originals are,” Chert grinned. “The figures we extract from the past when we replace them with Geminis. The Abe Lincolns, Attila the Huns, Leonardo da Vincis, kings, scientists, and the rest. They’re all stored away in the holding pens, right?”

  “Right,” Cassique said slowly, still not sure where Chert was going with this.

  “Most of them stay in the holding pens for the rest of their lives,” Chert went on. “Can’t have them wandering around freely and causing problems, can we? But they don’t all stay locked up, all the time. Some are loaned out occasionally, to various Historians, to assist them with their studies.”

  “I’ve heard that happens,” a baffled Cassique said, “but so what?”

  “Why don’t you request one for yourself?” Chert said. “You’re not a Historian, which is why I said that maybe Father will object, but you could tell him you’re interested in becoming one. After all, the Time Hole’s on its way out, even if the delays mean we’re stuck with it for a few years longer than planned. Every Fixer will be out of a job after that. Most of us will gratefully turn to the sex spas and realities full-time, but I’m sure there’ll be a few who’ll want to broaden their horizons, who’ll feel a certain fondness for the time periods they’ve spent most of their adult lives traversing. Tell Father you’re interested in developing a hobby. Ask for an Original while you’re on holiday, so that you can consider the matter further in light of some first-hand experience.”

  “But what good would that do me?” Cassique frowned. “I don’t want to become a Historian.”

  “You might one day,” Chert said. “But even if you decide it’s not for you, it’ll give you something to focus on for the time being. From what I understand of the loans, you take an Original under your wing, bring them home with you, feed and care for them while you ask them questions and get to know them. It’s a bit like adopting a child, which is something you said you enjoyed. It’ll keep you busy. Plus, when you’ve spent a few weeks listening to them babble on about their petty lives and their ridiculous, out-of-date beliefs, you’ll hopefully grow tired of the past and start to see how vibrant and preferable the present is in comparison.”

  Cassique considered the proposal. “It’s dossing crazy,” he said, “but you might be onto something. I’ve never spent much time with the Originals, just hustled them aboard a sky ship and packed them off for processing. It would be interesting to pull one or two aside, hear what they had to say, learn how they viewed the world. Father’s terminals, I can’t believe I never thought of it before.”

  “That’s the problem with diseased brains,” Chert smirked. “Can’t see the screen for all the pixels.”

  “You really think Father would lend me one?” Cassique asked.

  Chert shrugged. “I don’t see why not. There must be hundreds of thousands of them – maybe more – tucked away in the pens, serving no real purpose. There aren’t enough Historians to deal with more than a few hundred at any given time, I’d imagine. Hey, Father?”

  “Yes, Chert?” The hologrammatic head materialised no quicker than usual, but Cassique jumped guiltily anyway, as if Father had caught him in a mutinous act.

  “How many Historians are there in the world at the moment?” Chert asked.

  “Six hundred and thirty-two,” came the prompt reply.

  “And how many Originals do they have out on loan?”

  “Four hundred and eighteen,” Father said.

  “Thank you,” Chert said, and the head disappeared. “See?” ze said to Cassique. “Why, you and I have brought back near enough that many by ourselves over the years. They’re as plentiful and worthless as those early twenty-second century robots would be if we shipped armies of them forward into the present. He’ll probably give you a dozen Originals if you want.”

  “One will do,” Cassique said. “But who should I choose?”

  “Does it matter?” Chert asked.

  “There’s no point borrowing someone I’ve no interest in,” Cassique said.

  “I didn’t think you were interested in any of them,” Chert laughed.

  “I’m not really,” Cassique said, “but at the same time I’d hate to draw a George Bush when I could have a George Washington, you know what I mean?”

  “One George is much the same as any other,” Chert yawned, then slapped a thigh again and stood. “Look, I’m no expert, it was merely a thought off the top of my head. I imagine there’ll be limits, based on availability and safety measures — for instance, I can’t imagine Father sanctioning the release of a deranged serial killer. But if he’s open to the idea, I’d say there’ll be a wide range of options. Cast your eye over them, try one out. If you don’t like it, take the thing back and trade it for another. Dos, I’m starting to fancy the idea myself now that I think about it. I could interrogate one of Father’s programmers and find out how to wrangle unlimited sex spa credit.”

  Cassique laughed and stood as well. “Trust you to go for the venal every time.”

  “Hey, it’s how I roll,” Chert winked. “Anyway, I’ve got to be scuttling. Reports wait for no Fixer. You feel better now?”

  “Yes,” Cassique said truthfully. “Thanks. You’ve got me out of a real mess. I feel it in my bones. This is exactly what I need. A hobby. It’ll get my mind out of the trench and, after a month or so, I’ll probably be so sick of the past I’ll go mad and hurl myself into the harshest, most testing realities.”

  “You do that,” Chert said. “Let me know how everything goes, OK?”

  “Sure thing. See you later. Have a safe mission.”

  “They’re all safe,” Chert sighed. “That’s why they’re so dull. Take care. And Cassique? Don’t dos around with your mind. If the Originals fail to help lift you out of your hole, go to Father and ask him for help. Pride’s a failing of the past, not the present.”

  “Wilko, captain, over and out,” Cassique beamed.

  “What?” Chert frowned.

  “An old phrase. Heard it in a movie once.”

  “You’re reciting movie lines now?” Chert groaned. “Father help us!”

  “See you soon,” Cassique smiled.

  “Soon for you,” Chert grimaced. “It’ll probably be years or even decades in Personal Time for me. I’ll look you up the next break I get. So long, Cassique.”

  “So long, Chert.”

  And then he was alone in the lounge with the rookies. He sat again and mulled over Chert’s advice. An Original. A genuine, in the flesh Original. It was such a simple yet magnificent idea. Trust a non-binary to come up with it — they really were more inventive than the jaded old male and female genders. Maybe it was time Cassique asked Father to make a few tweaks to his body, to test if some key physical changes might result in some helpful changes to his brain…

  Later that day, in the comfort of his own home, Cassique called for Father and explained about maybe taking up a hobby after the Great Fix, one that involved the use of Originals, and how he’d like to take an Original out for a test run while he had time on his hands.

  Father was glad to see him take such an interest and proved more than amenable to the proposal. “We always need Historians,” he said approvingly. “They help us better understand the many flaws of your ancestors, so that we can eradicate them from our flock as we move forward. We’ll need them even more after the closure of the Time Hole, since they’ll be our only links to the past from then on.”