Free Permutation City by Greg Egan Page A

academic, though; he still had no choice.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    4
     
    (Remit not paucity)
     
    NOVEMBER 2050
     
     
     
    Maria had arranged to meet Aden at the Nadir, an Oxford Street nightclub where he sometimes played and often went to write. He could usually get them both in for free, and the door -- an intimidating, airlock-like contraption of ribbed black anodized steel -- let her pass unchallenged after a brief security scan. Maria had once had a nightmare in which she'd been trapped in that chamber, a knife inexplicably strapped to her right boot -- and, worse, her credit rating canceled. The thing had digested her like an insect in a Venus flytrap, while Aden stood on stage, singing one of his cut-up love songs.
     
    Inside, the place was crowded for a Thursday night, and poorly lit as always; she finally spotted Aden sitting at a table near a side wall, listening to one of the bands and jotting down music, his face catching the glow of his notepad. So far as Maria could tell, he never seemed to be unduly influenced by anything he listened to while composing, but he claimed to be unable to work in silence, and preferred live performances for inspiration -- or catalysis, or whatever it was.
     
    She touched him on the shoulder. He looked up, took off his headset, and stood to kiss her. He tasted of orange juice.
     
    He gestured with the headset. "You should listen. Crooked Buddhist Lawyers on Crack. They're quite good."
     
    Maria glanced at the stage, although there was no way of telling who he meant. A dozen performers -- four bands in all -- stood enclosed in individual soundproof plastic cylinders. Most of the patrons were tuned in, wearing headsets to pick up one band's sound, and liquid crystal shades, flickering in synch with one group of cylinders, to render the other bands invisible. A few people were chatting quietly -- and of the room's five possible soundtracks, Maria decided that this tranquil near-silence best suited her mood. Besides, she never much liked using nerve current inducers; although physically unable to damage the eardrums (sparing the management any risk of litigation), they always seemed to leave her ears -- or her auditory pathways -- ringing, regardless of the volume setting she chose.
     
    "Maybe later."
     
    She sat beside Aden, and felt him tense slightly when their shoulders brushed, then force himself to relax. Or maybe not. Often when she thought she was reading his body language, she was making signals out of noise. She said, "I got some junk mail today that looked just like you."
     
    "How flattering. I think. What was it selling?"
     
    "The Church of the God Who Makes No Difference."
     
    He laughed. "Every time I hear that, I think: they've got to change the name. A God which makes no difference doesn't rate the definite article or the pronoun 'who.'"
     
    "I'll rerun the program, and the two of you can fight it out."
     
    "No thanks." He took a sip of his drink. "Any non-junk mail? Any contracts?"
     
    "No."
     
    "So . . . another day of terminal boredom?"
     
    "Mostly." Maria hesitated. Aden usually only pressed her for news when he had something to announce himself -- and she was curious to find out what it was. But he volunteered nothing, so she went on to describe her encounter with Operation Butterfly.
     
    Aden said, "I remember hearing something about that. But I thought it was decades away."
     
    "The real thing probably is, but the simulations have definitely started. In a big way."
     
    He looked pained. "Weather control? Who do they think they're kidding?"
     
    Maria suppressed her irritation. "The theory must look promising, or they wouldn't have taken it this far. Nobody spends a few million dollars an hour on supercomputer time without a good chance of a payoff."
     
    Aden snickered. "Oh yes they do. And it's usually called Operation something-or-other. Remember Operation Radiant Way?"
     
    "Yes, I remember."
     
    "They were going to seed the