“Take a seat?”

  “Level with me,” said Martha. “Is that an altar?”

  Zhen rolled her eyes.

  “The archaeologist never says that anything is something. All we can say is ‘May have been used for ritual purposes.’ ”

  “Was one of those ritual purposes possibly sacrificing?”

  Zhen shrugged. “You can write a paper on it? I could probably find you some funding?”

  Martha laughed. Zhen loved that laugh. The throaty fullness of it. It was a laugh she’d like to have in her life.

  “Look, it’s the only place in the room we can stay for more than a moment without damaging the mosaics. And yes, probably an altar. Sit down.”

  Martha sat down. Zhen sat next to her. Their hands touching, their arms touching, their legs pressed against each other. This couldn’t be a coincidence, or at least it felt like one that meant something. For Martha to come here by chance.

  Zhen had loved this place from the moment she saw it—when it was only half-uncovered, overgrown, and smelled of dog shit. She’d loved the grandeur of it, the romance, of course, something saved from the deep past. The sense that human beings from two thousand years ago were doing now what they’d always done, sending a message through the darkness trying to reach—well, in this case, her. She’d volunteered here as an undergraduate, hoping she’d be allowed to use the little brushes to clean away the dirt, but of course she’d mostly been making tea and sifting through the discarded earth pile with a tea strainer to find and carefully label even the tiniest fragment of chipped color or stone. She’d thought of her mother, of what could still be found and preserved, of the way that anything her mother had owned was precious to her now. How it is only time that makes things precious. She hadn’t been responsible for any grand finds. She’d developed a deep relationship with and appreciation of mud: the mud that had covered over these stones had also preserved them. But she had been here for some of the important days. When they found the gold. When they found the hairpin. When they found the single finger-bone. And when they uncovered the girls.

  “Look up,” said Zhen, and Martha obediently looked up at the inlaid ceilings. It was a miracle of mud and chemistry that the inlay had survived. But here it was. “Let me show you a mystery.”

  The ceiling above had crumbled in places, but in places it was clearly visible. There in the center of the curved dome was the dark red open mouth of Orpheus’s wife, Eurydice, screaming as she was dragged into the darkness of Hades. Like bringing a guitar to the apocalypse. There, looking back—as he’d been told not to—was Orpheus, clearly identifiable by his lyre. Imagine bringing a lyre into Hades.

  “Maybe he thought they’d have all the best tunes,” said Martha.

  Zhen put her hand on Martha’s warm thigh. If she was actually interested in a bit of archaeology, then this was… something. Could be something.

  “Look. Over there, behind Orpheus.”

  Half hiding behind dirty-green fronds, there were two damaged figures. No heads, but evidently girls, maybe twelve and thirteen. One pointing. The other with her hand over her heart.

  “Who are those girls?” said Zhen. “That’s a mystery. None of the legends of Orpheus that we know of say he had children. Or traveled with children. That’s evidence of some undiscovered Orphic mythology.”

  Martha looked at the inlaid ceiling. Thinking, puzzling something out.

  “Or it’s a synthesis with another tradition and they’re Lot’s daughters. From the Bible. Lot’s wife who looked back at Sodom when it burned.”

  Zhen pushed her so hard she nearly fell off the altar.

  “GET OUT. Did you just solve an archaeological mystery?”

  “I thought there were no real archaeology answers, just suggestions.” Still, she looked pleased with herself.

  “I mean, you could be right, you know. By this stage there’d been a lot of travel across Europe, soldiers or enslaved people from Judaea ending up in Britain, not unthinkable. Or people they’d spoken to.”

  “We’ll never know, I guess.”

  “That’s how it is,” said Zhen. “Often you never know.”

  “How do you bear it?” asked Martha. And Zhen thought: Oh no, if you understand this about me, you’ve got the whole thing.

  “What are you doing after this?” said Zhen.

  They went back to the flat Zhen was staying in, in Stratford. It was a one-bed over a newsagent next to a bus stop, and outside two girls were singing along too loudly to the music in their shared helix clips. Martha kissed Zhen and the tingle passed right through Zhen from her mouth to her mons. Kiss me here, where I’m normal and maybe my life is going to come out alright.

  Zhen said: “I’ve got to say this, I have to. I really like you.” She told her mouth to stop there but her mouth wouldn’t. “And it’s OK, it’s alright, if you don’t feel it too. I just want to know, OK? If it’s just like… a crazy weekend… that’s alright. Just level with me.”

  Martha licked her bottom lip.

  “I wasn’t looking for this,” she said.

  Zhen’s stomach went hollow. This was it. The end and another long climb back up into the sunlight after giving her heart away again too easily, too quickly.

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” Martha said, “and…” Zhen had the feeling she was choosing her words very carefully. “And I have a project that is kind of… getting to its busy phase. But yes. Yes, this is something. Can you wait for me?”

  “Can I… wait for you?”

  “I might not be able to get in touch for a while.”

  “Oh, because you’re a spy?”

  “Yes, because I’m a spy.”

  “I mean, as long as it’s strictly spy business. Or like… stuff to do with your PA job.”

  “Definitely one of those.”

  “I guess it’s OK,” said Zhen.

  “Because I really like you,” said Martha. “I think I like you more than anyone I’ve liked for a really long time.”

  “Then it’s fine,” said Zhen. “Then it really is fine.”

  And they had more sex, and Zhen made a terrible breakfast, and they had sex again and then Martha had to leave and it had been fine. As Martha’s very fancy car pulled away, as Zhen remembered that she’d forgotten again to ask about “the gift,” it had been fine.

  After that, for a few weeks, it had really been perfectly OK. Zhen had messaged Martha a few times; she’d gotten noncommittal replies. A thumbs-up to a fun news story she’d sent her. Heart eyes and I’m traveling, see you when I’m back? to a photo of a sunset. But as weeks turned into months, Zhen had increasingly come to the conclusion that all that had been kind of a cowardly way of ghosting her.

  And then someone shot at her, in a mall in Singapore.

  9. pretty fruity

  The words ticked gently up the wrist screen as AUGR read them to her in a voice without fear or consolation.

  Zhen said: “Is anyone else coming after me now?”

  AUGR said: “I don’t think so, Zhen. I think you’re safe.”

  Zhen imagined believing she was safe. What would a normal person do at that point? Someone who hadn’t had to flee Hong Kong and who hadn’t spent her life thinking about the apocalypse and how bad things could really get. Someone who’d never been baited on a subway train by a drunk group surrounding her and telling her she looked like a lesbian. Someone whose mother hadn’t died when she was fourteen.

  Maybe some people—people who felt, essentially, safe—would walk out of here right now, find a mall staffer, say there’d been a terrible accident in the air-conditioning ducts and they should send someone to have a look at it. She imagined doing that. Then she imagined sitting in a police station in Singapore, trying to explain why someone had been chasing her, shooting at her. She imagined the cell they’d put her in while they “figured things out.”

  Since her time in a refugee camp, Zhen had been cursed with a vivid imagination. She could always see a thing in her mind right through to the hideous conclusion; her brain would never leave off and haul itself back to the present moment voluntarily. She was always heavy with the future, her inner nets filled with the glittering glut of possibility.

  She projected the screen of her watch onto the metal walls. How the fuck had something that big ended up on her system? Quick search for all the variant spellings of AUGR she could think of. Nothing obvious.

  She said: “AUGR.”

  AUGR said: “Hi.”

  Zhen said: “Show me the log of our conversation.”

  It came up white on black, system font. She scrolled back a few lines.

  You received me as a gift and without proper instruction. There is no time to give you full instruction now. AUGR is a highly flexible algorithm set that monitors current events. It is a piece of predictive, protective software. Its job is to keep you alive.

  Zhen said: “You said you were a gift. Who gave you to me?”

  AUGR said: “Participants in the AUGR program are kept strictly confidential.”

  Zhen’s mind was returning. Now the woman was dead; now she wasn’t actually fleeing for her life. She said: “AUGR. Level with me. Do you have something to do with Martha Einkorn?”

  In the metal tunnel with the cold chunks of frozen flesh thawing on the floor, AUGR said: “I don’t have the name Martha Einkorn, Lai Zhen. I do not have a list of AUGR participants. The only people who are aware of AUGR are participants enrolled in the AUGR program.”

  AUGR program. Participants. Several. Many. Alright. Come on, think. Sketlish. Bywater. Nommik. The night when the door of the mountain opened and they entered and she remained outside. That they’d been there to buy something. And the next morning, when she woke, Martha had left a note saying that she’d given her “a little gift.”

  “AUGR,” said Zhen, “what type of outcome do you predict?”

  AUGR said: “I do not predict outcomes. I can predict when a catastrophic threat is approaching.”

  Zhen said: “Is a catastrophic threat coming now?”

  AUGR said: “Not anymore.”

  “Who was she, please? The… woman with the gun? Why was she following me? Was she an Enochite? Those guys online have been getting pretty… fruity,” and the fact that she’d just used the word “fruity” in conversation with an AI to describe someone she’d just killed made her sinuses ache, like the front of her face knew it should be laughing or crying but didn’t know which.

  AUGR said: “I don’t know that, Lai Zhen. I am not a prophet. I detect and predict threats.”

  “Right. Well, I’m still fucking feeling under threat, so… what the shit do I do now?”

  The map of Seasons Time Mall pinged up again on the tunnel wall. A red dot glowed gently with the rhythm of a sleeping baby’s quiet breath.

  AUGR said: “Lai Zhen, you need to leave the mall via this exit. Go back to your hotel. Gather your things. Leave Singapore. This will be cleaned up after you are gone.”

  Zhen’s whole body was starting to shake. A muscle was twitching in her hand just on the soft ball of tissue at the base of her thumb. She watched it with stunned fascination. She couldn’t have moved that muscle herself if she’d tried. There was a smell in the tunnel, a mineral, faintly acrid chemical aroma, and beneath it the red butcher scent of blood. She wanted to not be there. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep. She knew what this was; this part was in her fucking video. Adrenaline crash, the body nose-diving into rest. It knew it was safe at last. But she wasn’t safe, not yet. Come on, body. Move.

  10. enclosures

  There had been one more thing. In those weeks when Zhen had sent carefully worded texts and waited and hadn’t looked at her messages and then caved and tried to internet-stalk Martha Einkorn and failed because, honestly, if you work for the guy who basically invented social media, then you’re pretty good at not being social-media-stalked. In those heady and fevered days, Lai Zhen received a message from a video-essay maker she had a few mutuals with: the fascinatingly disaffected Badger Bywater.

  At twenty-one, Badger was Ellen Bywater’s youngest child. Their siblings had come of age before their mother was in control of Medlar, had gone to Harvard, Yale, and Oxford—in one case all three—and had become, respectively, a consultant neurologist, the Asia-Pacific director of a pharmaceuticals company, and the chair of an international bank.

  Badger looked upon their lives and said: “I’m not into success as a metric.”

  Badger refused to take money from their mother and funded their life by creating electronic files of miniature personalized sculptures that could be 3D printed at home. Badger’s most popular schtick was to sculpt you, your partner, or your friend as a zombie. Badger’s waiting list for zombie art was more than two years long, and while Badger’s siblings snarled that they only got those commissions because of their famous mom, Badger said: “Fuck you, you think your life would have gone the way it has without Mom?”

  Lai Zhen was in New Zealand in March, about to run a three-day in-person workshop on disaster preparedness, when the message came through.

  Hey, it said, I’m Badger. I think your stuff is cool. I’m in New Zealand too. Wanna meet up?

  This was, as things went, not that unusual. All sorts of crazy people turned out to be fans of Zhen’s work. She’d once had a message from a Baldwin brother asking her to help his daughter with her university essay on apocalypse mythology. Not the most famous Baldwin, one of the others. Zhen hadn’t replied. But Badger was a big deal in their own right and moreover felt connected to Martha. Ellen had been one of the group who went into the mountain. There was something here, something just out of reach. She wanted to know what.

  Zhen had seen Badger’s stuff. Badger’s most famous viral video broke down, in four minutes and forty seconds, what their views were about the giant technology companies that—they agreed—had paid for their expensive education and excellent teeth and whose existence secured their own safety but would destroy everyone else’s. Badger spoke rapidly, their video dense with information and memes. The video was called “Enclosures.”

  Badger said: “My mom’s great-grandparents were Irish immigrants. They came to the US during the potato famine, which was caused by centuries of oppression by the English. The English aristocracy did a thing called ‘enclosures.’ Taking land everyone used to own in common, to graze their cows, sheep, or goats on”—a cartoon cow, sheep, and goat appeared with comical popping noises around Badger’s face—“and putting a fence around it and saying ‘Sucks to be you, this land belongs to me now.’ ”

  An image flashed on the screen of an anime warrior shouting, “All your base are belong to us.”

  Badger said: “The aristocracy justified enclosures in the name of efficiency: take all those little strips of common land and put them together and you could farm them with bigger plows and single crops. You could really achieve something. And they did; they made a lot of money. But they were already rich and powerful, and none of that wealth went back to the poor. They took something that used to belong to everyone and found a way to make it theirs.”

  Badger paused and put their face comically close to the screen. They were dressed as Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange for this moment in the video, their eyelashes a zigzag hieroglyph around a single all-seeing eye.

  They said: “You see where I’m going with this.”

  Malcolm McDowell morphed into Badger dressed very like their mom, in a cream suit with an uncannily accurate short gray wig.

  “That’s what these social media and big technology companies have done. They’ve found a way to siphon off something that no one used to be able to own. They invented a new kind of fence to make a new kind of enclosure. Ellen Bywater and Lenk Sketlish and Zimri Nommik and the rest have taken something that used to belong to each of us, put it together into usable data chunks, and used it to become very, very rich.

  “There never used to be a way to own the contents of everyone’s address book. Or the list of things you bought at the store. Or the words you’d used to talk to your friends. Or the data about where you are. Or the pictures you’d drawn and put in a gallery or on your wall. They’ve taken all that information—scraped the data. They’ve amalgamated that and made it more efficient, but they haven’t used that efficiency to benefit us all; they’ve used it to enrich themselves and keep the rest of us poor.” By this point, Badger was wearing a French eighteenth-century tricoteuse outfit, sitting next to a gallows.

  “If your data belongs to you, then you ought to decide exactly who uses it and how. You should be able to transfer it from place to place as you want, and access it as you like through any service. The reason they don’t let you do these things is not because it’s hard; it’s because it doesn’t make them more money. Translation work, art work, writing work, that belongs to the people who did it even if they put it online, and if we’re using it for translation software or art-making code, we should be paying them for their work. That list of your friends belongs to you. You should be able to get it and see their updates—that they write for free—in any way you want. Not just through services that monetize anger and show you ads.”

  Badger applied a filter to the video so they looked like a mouth and eyes speaking in the middle of a forest.

  “And if you’re asking yourselves… ‘Fine, the data should be used differently, but if that money comes from stuff that belongs to us, shouldn’t we have access to it? Collectively? As a species?’ The answer is yes, my Gaian parts of the divine whole. And here are some things we could do with it.”

  A list flashed across the screen. Badger’s subscribers had to pause the video to see the full list of dozens of recommendations. Zhen only read a small selection of them.