And so I became a musician.

  ***

  The ballroom is a hemisphere in the center of the airship. It is filled to capacity. Innumerable quickbeings shimmer in the air like living candles, and the suits of the fleshed ones are no less exotic. A woman clad in nothing but autumn leaves smiles at me. Tinkerbell clones surround the cat. Our bodyguards, armed obsidian giants, open a way for us to the stage where the gramophones wait. A rustle moves through the crowd. The air around us is pregnant with ghosts, the avatars of a million fleshless fans. I wag my tail. The scentspace is intoxicating: perfume, fleshbodies, the unsmells of moravec bodies. And the fallen god smell of the wrong master, hiding somewhere within.

  We get on the stage on our hindlegs, supported by prosthesis shoes. The gramophone forest looms behind us, their horns like flowers of brass and gold. We cheat, of course: the music is analog and the gramophones are genuine, but the grooves in the black discs are barely a nanometer thick, and the needles are tipped with quantum dots.

  We take our bows and the storm of handclaps begins.

  “Thank you,” I say when the thunder of it finally dies. “We have kept quiet about the purpose of this concert as long as possible. But I am finally in a position to tell you that this is a charity show.”

  I smell the tension in the air, copper and iron.

  “We miss someone,” I say. “He was called Shimoda Takeshi, and now he’s gone.”

  The cat lifts the conductor’s baton and turns to face the gramophones. I follow, and step into the soundspace we’ve built, the place where music is smells and sounds.

  The master is in the music.

  ***

  It took five human years to get to the top. I learned to love the audiences: I could smell their emotions and create a mix of music for them that was just right. And soon I was no longer a giant dog DJ among lilliputs, but a little terrier in a forest of dancing human legs. The cat’s gladiator career lasted a while, but soon it joined me as a performer in the virtual dramas I designed. We performed for rich fleshies in the Fast City, Tokyo and New York. I loved it. I howled at Earth in the sky in the Sea of Tranquility.

  But I always knew that it was just the first phase of the Plan.

  ***

  We turn him into music. VecTech owns his brain, his memories, his mind. But we own the music.

  Law is code. A billion people listening to our master’s voice. Billion minds downloading the Law At Home packets embedded in it, bombarding the quantum judges until they give him back.

  It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever made. The cat stalks the genetic algorithm jungle, lets the themes grow and then pounces them, devours them. I just chase them for the joy of the chase alone, not caring whether or not I catch them.

  It’s our best show ever.

  Only when it’s over, I realise that no one is listening. The audience is frozen. The fairies and the fastpeople float in the air like flies trapped in amber. The moravecs are silent statues. Time stands still.

  The sound of one pair of hands, clapping.

  “I’m proud of you, ” says the wrong master.

  I fix my bow tie and smile a dog’s smile, a cold snake coiling in my belly. The godsmell comes and tells me that I should throw myself onto the floor, wag my tail, bare my throat to the divine being standing before me.

  But I don’t.

  “Hello, Nipper,” the wrong master says.

  I clamp down the low growl rising in my throat and turn it into words.

  “What did you do?”

  “We suspended them. Back doors in the hardware. Digital rights management.”

  His mahogany face is still smooth: he does not look a day older, wearing a dark suit with a VecTech tie pin. But his eyes are tired.

  “Really, I’m impressed. You covered your tracks admirably. We thought you were furries. Until I realised—”

  A distant thunder interrupts him.

  “I promised him I’d look after you. That’s why you are still alive. You don’t have to do this. You don’t owe him anything. Look at yourselves: who would have thought you could come this far? Are you going to throw that all away because of some atavistic sense of animal loyalty?”

  “Not that you have a choice, of course. The plan didn’t work.”

  The cat lets out a steam pipe hiss.

  “You misunderstand,” I say. “The concert was just a diversion.”

  The cat moves like a black-and-yellow flame. Its claws flash, and the wrong master’s head comes off. I whimper at the aroma of blood polluting the godsmell. The cat licks its lips. There is a crimson stain on its white shirt.

  The zeppelin shakes, pseudomatter armor sparkling. The dark sky around the Marquis is full of fire-breathing beetles. We rush past the human statues in the ballroom and into the laboratory.

  The cat does the dirty work, granting me a brief escape into virtual abstraction. I don’t know how the Master did it, years ago, broke VecTech’s copy protection watermarks. I can’t do the same, no matter how much the Small Animal taught me. So I have to cheat, recover the marked parts from somewhere else.

  The wrong master’s brain.

  The part of me that was born on the Small Animal’s island takes over and fits the two patterns together, like pieces of a puzzle. They fit, and for a brief moment, the master’s voice is in my mind, for real this time.

  The cat is waiting, already in its clawed battlesuit, and I don my own. The Marquis of Carabas is dying around us. To send the master on his way, we have to disengage the armor.

  The cat meows faintly and hands me something red. An old plastic ball with toothmarks, smelling of the sun and the sea, with few grains of sand rattling inside.

  “Thanks,” I say. The cat says nothing, just opens a door into the zeppelin’s skin. I whisper a command, and the Master is underway in a neutrino stream, shooting up towards an island in a blue sea. Where the gods and big dogs live forever.

  We dive through the door together, down into the light and flame.

  * * *

  Hannu Rajaniemi was born in Finland, obtained his PhD in string theory at the University of Edinburgh and now works as a co-founder and CTO of Helix Nanotechologies, a biotech startup based in California. He is the author of four novels including The Quantum Thief trilogy and the forthcoming Summerland, and several short stories.

  “His Master’s Voice” was previously published in Interzone 218 (2008).

  Hive Mind Man

  by Rudy Rucker and Eileen Gunn

  Diane met Jeff at a karate dojo behind a Wienerschnitzel hot-dog stand in San Bernardino. Jeff was lithe and lightly muscled, with an ingratiating smile. Diane thought he was an instructor.

  Jeff spent thirty minutes teaching Diane how to tilt, pivot, and kick a hypothetical assailant in the side—which was exactly what she’d wanted to learn how to do. She worked in a strip mall in Cucamonga, and she’d been noticing some mellow but edging-to-scary guys in the parking lot where she worked. The dividing line between mellow and scary in Cucamonga had a lot to do with the line between flush and broke, and Diane wanted to be ready when they crossed that line.

  Diane was now feeling that she had a few skills that would at least surprise someone who thought she was a little dipshit office worker who couldn’t fight her way out of a paper bag.

  “I bet I could just add these to my yoga routine,” she said, smiling gratefully at Jeff.

  “Bam,” said Jeff. “You’ve got it, Diane. You’re safe now. Why don’t you and I go out to eat?” He drew out his silvery smartphone and called up a map, then peered at Diane. “I’m visualizing you digging into some…falafel. With gelato for dessert. Yes? You know you want it. You gotta refuel after those killer kicks.”

  “Sounds nice,” said Diane. “But don’t you have to stay here at the dojo?” This Jeff was cute, but maybe too needy and eager to please. And there was something else about him….

  “I don’t actually work here,” said Jeff. “The boss lets me hang out if I work out with the clients. It’s like I work here, but I have my freedom, y’know? You go shower off, and I’ll meet you outside.”

  Well, that was the something else. Did she want to get involved with another loser guy—a cute guy, okay?—but someone who had a smartphone, a lot of smooth talk, and still couldn’t even get hired by a dojo to chat up new customers?

  “Oh, all right,” said Diane. It wasn’t like she had much of anything to do tonight. She’d broken up with her jerk of a boyfriend a couple days before.

  Jeff was waiting in a slant of shade, tapping on his smartphone. It was the end of June, and the days were hot and long. Jeff looked at Diane and made a mystic pass with his hand. “You broke up with your boyfriend last week.”

  She gave him a blank stare.

  “And you’re pretty sure it was the right thing to do. The bastard.”

  “You’re googling me?” said Diane. “And that stuff about Roger is public?”

  “There are steps you could take to make your posts more private,” said Jeff. “I can help you finesse your web presence if you like. I live in the web.”

  “What’s your actual job?” asked Diane.

  “I surf the trends,” said Jeff, cracking a wily smile. “Public relations, advertising, social networking, investing, like that.”

  “Do you have a web site?”

  “I keep a low profile,” said Jeff.

  “And you get paid?”

  “Sometimes. Like—today I bought three hundred vintage Goob Dolls. They’re dropping in price, but slower than before. It’s what we call a second-order trend? I figure the dolls are bottoming out, and in a couple of days I’ll flip them for a tidy profit.”

  “I always hated Goob Dolls when I was a kid,” said Diane. “Their noses are too snub, and I don’t like the way they look at me. Or their cozy little voices.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But they’re big-time retro for kids under ten. Seven-year-old girls are going to be mad for them next week. Their parents will be desperate.”

  “You’re gonna store three hundred of them and ship them back out? Won’t that eat up most of your profit?”

  “I’m not a flea-market vendor, Diane,” said Jeff, taking a lofty tone. “I’m buying and selling Goob Doll options.”

  Diane giggled. “The perfect gift for a loved one. A Goob Doll option. So where’s your car anyway?”

  “Virtual as well,” said Jeff smoothly. “I’m riding with you. Lead the way.” He flung his arm forward dramatically. “You’re gonna love this falafel place, it’s Egyptian style. My phone says they use fava beans instead of garbanzos. And they have hieroglyphics on their walls. Don’t even ask about the gelato place next door to it. Om Mane Padme Yum #7. Camphor-flavored buffalo-milk junket. But, hey, tell me more about yourself. Where do you work?”

  “You didn’t look that up yet? And my salary?”

  “Let’s say I didn’t. Let’s say I’m a gentleman. Hey, nice wheels!”

  “I’m a claim manager for an insurance company,” said Diane, unlocking her sporty coupe. “I ask people how they whiplashed their necks.” She made a face. “Bo-ring. I’m counting on you to be interesting, Jeff.”

  “Woof.”

  It turned out to be a fun evening indeed. After falafel, guided by Jeff’s smartphone, they watched two fire trucks hosing down a tenement, cruised a chanting mob of service-industry picketers, caught part of a graffiti bombing contest on a freeway ramp wall, got in on some outdoor bowling featuring frozen turkeys and two-liter soda-bottles, and ended up at a wee hours geek couture show hosted by the wetware designer Rawna Roller and her assistant Sid. Rawna was a heavily tanned woman with all the right cosmetic surgery. She had a hoarse, throaty laugh—very Vogue magazine. Sid was an amusing mixture of space-cadet and NYC sharpie. Rawna’s goth-zombie models were wearing mottled shirts made of—

  “Squidskin?” said Diane. “From animals?”

  “Yeah,” marveled Jeff. “These shirts are still alive, in a way. And they act like supercomputer web displays.” He pointed at a dorky-looking male model in a dumb hat. “Look at that one guy in the shiny hat, you can see people’s posts on his back. He’s got the shirt filtered down to show one particular kind of thing.”

  “Motorcycles with dragon heads?” said Diane. “Wow.” She controlled her enthusiasm. “I wonder how much a Rawna Roller squidskin shirt costs?”

  “Too much for me,” said Jeff. “I think you have to, like, lease them.” He turned his smile on Diane. “But the best things in life are free. Ready to go home?”

  The evening had felt like several days worth of activity, and it seemed natural for Diane to let Jeff spend the night at her apartment. Jeff proved to be an amazingly responsive and empathetic lover. It felt like they were merging into one.

  And he was very nice to Diane over breakfast, and didn’t give her a hard time because she didn’t have any eggs or bacon, what her ex-boyfriend Roger had called “real food.”

  “Are you a vegetarian?” asked Jeff, but he didn’t say it mean.

  Diane shrugged. She didn’t want to be labeled by what she ate. “I don’t like to eat things that can feel pain,” she said. “I’m not woo-woo about it. It just makes me feel better.” And then she had to go off to work.

  ***

  “Stay in touch,” she told Jeff, kissing him goodbye as she dropped him off downtown, near the JetTram.

  “You bet,” Jeff said.

  And he did. He messaged her at work three or four times that day, called her that evening, messaged her two more times the next day, and the day after that, when Diane came home from work, Jeff was sitting on a duffel bag outside her apartment complex.

  “What’s up?” asked Diane, unable to suppress a happy smile.

  “I’ve been sharing an apartment with three other guys—and I decided it was time to move on,” said Jeff. He patted his bag. “Got my clothes and gadgets in here. Can I bunk with you for awhile?”

  The main reason Diane had dropped Roger was that he didn’t want them to live together. He said he wasn’t ready for that level of intimacy. So she wasn’t averse to Jeff’s request, especially since he seemed pretty good at the higher levels of intimacy. But she couldn’t let him just waltz in like that.

  “Can’t you find somewhere else to live?”

  “There’s always the Daily Couch,” said Jeff, tapping his smartphone. “It’s a site where people auction off spare slots by the night. You use GPS to find the nearest crash pad. But—Diane, I’d rather just stay here and be with you.”

  “Did your friends make you move? Did you do something skeevy?”

  “No,” said Jeff. “I’m just tired of them nickel-and-diming me. I’m bound for the big time. And I’m totally on my biz thing.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I sold my Goob Doll options yesterday, and I used the profit to upgrade my access rights in the data cloud. I’ve got a cloud-based virtual growbox where I can raise my own simmie-bots. Little programs that live in the net and act just like people. I’m gonna grow more simmies than anyone’s ever seen.”

  “Were your roommates impressed?” said Diane.

  “You can’t reason with those guys,” said Jeff dismissively. “They’re musicians. They have a band called Kenny Lately and the Newcomers? I went to high-school with Kenny, which is why we were rooming together in the first place. I could have been in the Newcomers too, of course, but…” Jeff trailed off with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  “What instrument do you play?” asked Diane.

  “Anything,” said Jeff. “Nothing in particular. I’ve got great beats. I could be doing the Newcomers’ backup vocals. My voice is like Kenny’s, only sweeter.” He dropped to one knee, extended his arms, and burst into song. “Diane, I’ll be your man, we’ll make a plan, walk in the sand, hand in hand, our future’s grand, please take a stand.” He beat a tattoo on his duffel bag. “Kruger rand.”

  “Cute,” said Diane, and she meant it. “But—really, you don’t have any kind of job?”

  “I’m going to be doing promo for Kenny’s band,” said Jeff. “They said they’d miss my energy. So there’s no hard feelings between us at all.”

  “Are Kenny Lately and the Newcomers that popular?” Diane had never heard of them.

  “They will be. I have seven of their songs online for download,” said Jeff. “We’re looking to build the fan base. Kenny let me make a Chirp account in his name.” Jeff looked proud. “I’m Kenny Lately’s chirper now. Yeah.”

  “You’ll be posting messages and links?”

  “Pictures too,” said Jeff. “Multimedia. It’s like I’m famous myself. I’m the go-to guy for Kenny Lately. My simmies can answer Kenny’s email, but a good chirp needs a creative touch—by me. The more real followers Kenny gets, the better the sales. And Kenny’s cutting me in for ten percent, just like a band member.” Jeff looked earnest, sincere, helpless. Diane’s heart melted.

  “Oh, come on in,” said Diane. If it was a mistake, she figured, it wouldn’t be the only one she’d ever made. Jeff was a lot nicer than Roger, in bed and out of it.

  ***

  In many ways, Jeff was a good live-in boyfriend. Lately Diane had been ordering food online, and printing it out in the fab box that sat on the kitchen counter next to the microwave. It tasted okay, mostly, and it was easy. But Jeff cooked tasty meals from real vegetables. And kept the place clean, and gave Diane backrubs when she came home from working her cubicle at the insurance company. And, above all, he was a gentle, considerate lover, remarkably sensitive to Diane’s thoughts and moods.

  He really only had two flaws, Diane thought —at least that she’d discovered so far.

  The first was totally trivial: he doted on talk shows and ghastly video news feeds of all sorts, often spinning out crackpot theories about what he watched. His favorite show was something called “Who Wants to Mock a Millionaire?” in which bankers, realty developers, and hi-tech entrepreneurs were pelted with eggs—and worse—by ill-tempered representatives of the common man.

  “They purge their guilt this way,” Jeff explained. “Then they can enjoy their money. I love these guys.”