Free Acts of Conscience by William Barton Page A

water running down my body, splashing around my feet, swirling down the drain, through the filter, back up the pipe and down on my shoulders again. Got dressed. Went out. Don’t know where the hell I intended to go. Sometimes you just have to get the fuck out.
    Down in the lobby I was headed for the entrance to the common tunnel to which all these buildings were docked, hostels and shopping malls and whatnot, when someone came out of the business office, a young woman, maybe someone I’ve noticed from time to time, name unknown: “Mr. du Cheyne?”
    I stopped, turned, not even wondering, and waited for her to come over.
    She said, “Mr. du Cheyne, we’ve been informed that you are presently... unemployed.” Her gray-green eyes rather bleak under neatly trimmed reddish-brown bangs.
    I said, “So?”
    “Well...” fidgeting a bit. “Mr. du Cheyne, this is a worker hostel, you understand?”
    “So what?”
    “Well. We cater to a worker clientele, employees of L1(SE) industrial concerns, mostly ERSIE. Not unemployed transients. You understand?”
    I stared at her. “No. I don’t think I do.”
    Exasperation in her eyes then. Why are you making this so difficult, Mr. du Cheyne ? She said, “I’m sorry. We’ll have to terminate your lease at the end of this month. Six days.”
    I think by then my mouth was hanging open. “But I can pay my rent.”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. du Cheyne. Management regulations. You understand.”
    A sizzle of anger starting up. “How about if I pay my rent for a full year in advance?” A full year? Hell, that’s only a hundred-twenty fucking livres.
    A startled look in her eyes. “I... I don’t think so, but... I’ll check for you.” She said, “Look, if you’re retired ... there’s a very nice retirement hostel just down the tube. Mostly people who’ve retired from ERSIE, I think. I could have your things transferred this afternoon and...”
    Eyes nonplused. “I’m sorry, Mr. du Cheyne. Look, if you have a new job by next Tuesday, let us know. Otherwise...”
    Great. Fucking great. I turned away and headed out, heading down the tube, blending in with a light crowd of industrious walkers, folks with places to go, people to see, and found myself, eventually, at the bus terminal.
    No places to go. No people to see. Nothing to do. That’s me.
    o0o
    Back in my apartment with four days to go, spacesuit hanging silently in the closet, tools stirring softly in their box. House AI flashing things on the wall, stock ticker clamoring for my attention, let’s do this, let’s do that.
    When I move, the house AI stays here, part of the appliance operating system, an extension of the hostel’s net segment. Will you miss me, apartment mine? Nothing. Silence. Can’t answer that. Don’t know how. But I know it’ll miss the stock ticker software, which belongs to me and will have to be moved off the local node. And, of course, it’ll miss its new friend the spacesuit.
    Drink mixer rattled forlornly from the kitchen. Ah, yes. What if the new occupant is some kind of tea totaler? What then? I told it to mix me... what? What do I feel like? The drink mixer whined and, when I got the drink, it was a Manhattan, rather on the sweet side.
    Funny to think of someone else coming and living here after all these years. Sitting in my chair, drinking from my spigot, eating from my stove and refrigerator, fucking in my bed or even just sleeping there... I never gave a thought to all the people who lived here before me. This hostel is two, maybe three hundred years old. I never thought to ask.
    Sitting there, as always, sipping my drink, watching the vidnet wall, logged onto a pornode, offered a menu of choices, as if the house AI couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted. My standard selections? Why do I always like to watch women masturbating, all by themselves? I hardly ever call up things with two women together, much less long, luxurious scenes of heterosexual couples doing the old Adam delved/Eve