Read Online Glasshouse by Charles Stross - Free Book Online Page A

core sentient rights, they’re not allowed to torture or brainwash me—and I can’t be discharged from my obligation without the consent of the experimenters.
    I find myself hyperventilating, as I oscillate between weak-kneed relief that I’m not a victim of identity theft and apprehension at the magnitude of what I’ve signed up for. They have the right to unilaterally expel me (Well, that’s all right, then, I just have to piss them off if I decide I want out) , and they have the right to dictate what body I can live in! It’s a ghastly picture, and in among the draconian provisions I see that I also agreed to let them monitor my every action. Ubiquitous surveillance. I’ve just checked into a dark ages panopticon theme hotel! What can possibly have possessed me to—oh. Buried in the small print is a rider titled “Compensatory Benefits.”
    Aha.
    Firstly, the Scholastium itself guarantees the experimenters against all indemnities and will back any claims. So if they violate the limited rights they’ve granted me, I can sue them, and they’ve got nearly infinitely deep pockets. Secondly, the remuneration is very satisfactory. I do a brief calculation and work out that what they’ve promised to pay me for three Urth years in the rat run is probably enough to see me in comfort for at least thrice that long once I get out.
    I begin to calm down. I haven’t been hacked; I did this to myself ofmy own free will, and there are some good sides to the picture. My other self hasn’t completely taken leave of his senses. It occurs to me that it’s going to be very hard for the bad guys, whoever they are, to get at me inside an experimental polity that’s only accessible via a single T-gate guarded by a firewall and the Scholastium’s shock troops.
    I’m supposed to act in character for the historical period we’re pretending to live in, wearing a body that doesn’t resemble me, using an alias and a fake background identity, and not discussing the outside world with anyone else in the study. That means any assassin who comes after me is going to start with huge handicaps, like not knowing what I look like, not being allowed to ask, and not being able to take any weapons along. If I’m lucky, the me who isn’t in here will be able to take care of business within the next hundred megs, and when I come out and we merge our deltas I’ll be home free and rich. And if he doesn’t succeed, well, I can see if they’ll let me keep this assumed identity when I leave . . .
    I pull the carton of clothes out from under the bed and wrinkle my nose. They don’t smell bad or anything, but they’re a bit odd—historically accurate, the tablet said. There’s a strange black tunic, very plain, that leaves my arms and lower legs bare, and a black jacket to wear over it. For footwear there’s a pair of shiny black pumps, implying a strongish grav zone, but with weird, pointed toes and heels that converge to a spike three or four centimeters long. The underwear is simple enough, but I take a while to figure out that the filmy gray hose go on my legs. Which, I notice, are hairless—in fact, I’ve got no hair except on my head. So my body’s ortho, but not undomesticated. I shake my head.
    The weirdest thing of all is that the fabric is dumb—too stupid to repel dirt or eat skin bacteria, much less respond to style updates or carry on a conversation. And the costume comes with no pockets, not even an inconspicuous T-gate concealed in the jacket lining. When did they invent them? I wonder. I’ll have to find an outfit with more brains later. I put everything on and check myself out in the bathroom mirror. My hair is going to be a problem—I search the place, but all I can find is an elastic loop to pull it through. It’ll have to do until I can cut it back to a sensible length.
    Which leaves me with