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

nothing to do now but go see this orientation lecture and “cheese and wine reception.” So I pick up my tablet, open the door, and go.
    THERE’S a wide but narrow room on the far side of the door. I’ve just come out of one of twelve doors that open off three of the walls, which are painted flat white. The floor is tiled in black and white squares of marble. The fourth wall, opposite my door, is paneled in what I recognize after a moment as sheets of wood—your actual dead trees, killed and sliced into planks—with two doors at either side that are propped open. I guess that’s where the lecture is due to be held, although why they can’t do it in netspace is beyond me. I walk over to the nearest open door, annoyed to discover that my shoes make a nasty clacking sound with every step.
    There are seven or eight other people already inside a big room, with several rows of uncomfortable-looking chairs drawn up before a podium that stands before a white-painted wall. We—I’ve got to get used to the idea that I’m a voluntary participant, even if I don’t feel like one right now—are a roughly even mix of orthohuman males and females, all in historical costume. The costume seems to follow an intricate set of rules about who’s allowed to wear what garments, and everybody is wearing a surprising amount of fabric, given that we’re in a controlled hab. Those of us who are female have been given one-piece dresses or skirts that fall to the knee, in combination with tops that cover our upper halves. The men are wearing matching jacket and trouser combinations over shirts with some sort of uncomfortable-looking collar and scarf arrangement at the neck. Most of the clothing is black and white or gray and white, and remarkably drab.
    Apart from the archaic costume there are other anomalies—none of the males have long hair, and none of the females have short hair, at least where I can see it. A couple of heads turn as I walk in, but I don’t feel out of place, even with my long hair yanked back in a ponytail. I’m just another anonymous figure in historic drag. “Is this the venue for the lecture?” I ask the nearest person, a tall male—probably no tallerthan I used to be, but I find myself looking up at him from my new low vantage—with black hair and a neatly trimmed facial mane.
    â€œI think so,” he says slowly, and shrugs, then looks uncomfortable. Not surprising, as his outfit looks as if it’s strangling him slowly. “Did you just come through? I found a READ ME in my room after my last backup—”
    â€œYeah, me, too,” I say. I clutch the tablet under my arm and smile up at him. I can recognize nervous chatter when I hear it and Big Guy looks every bit as uneasy as I feel. “Do you remember signing, or did you do that after your backup, too?”
    â€œI’m not the only one?” He looks relieved. “I was in rehab,” he says hastily. “Coming out of the crazy patch you go through. Then I woke up here—”
    â€œYeah, whatever.” I nod, losing interest. “Me too. When is it starting?”
    A door I hadn’t noticed before opens in the white wall at the back and a plump male ortho walks in. This one is wearing a long white coat held shut with archaic button fasteners up the front, and he waddles as he walks, like a fat, self-satisfied amphibian. His hair is black and falls in lank, greasy-looking locks on either side of his face, longer than that of any of the other males here. He walks to the podium and makes a disgusting throat-clearing noise to get our attention.
    â€œWelcome! I’m glad you agreed to come to our little introductory talk today. I’d like to apologize for requiring you to come in person, but because we’re conducting this research project under rigorous conditions of consistency, we felt we should stay within the functional parameters of the