Glasshouse

"Right." I hike my right leg up and put my foot on the table. "Look at this."

"It's a heavy boot."

"A boot from the males-only department. But they sized it for me when I told them it was a gift for a male the same size as me."

"Oh?"

I realize I'm showing the leg with the torn hose and put it back under the table. "We've got some autonomy, however limited. Now we're in here, we can live however we want, can't we?"

Plates of food arrive—synthetic steaks, fake vegetables designed to look as if they'd grown in a muddy corner of a wild biosphere, and cups of brightly colored condiments. For a while I busy myself with my plate. I'm really hungry, and the food is flavorsome, if a bit basic. At least we're not going to starve in here. I fill up quickly.

"I don't know if we can," Sam mumbles around a full mouth. "I mean, the points system—"

"Doesn't stop us doing anything," I interrupt, sliding my plate away. "All we have to do is to agree to ignore it, and we can do whatever we want."

"I suppose so." He forks another piece of steak into his mouth.

"Anyway, we've got no idea what they take to be a violation of the system. I mean, what do I have to do to lose a point? Or to gain points? They haven't actually told us anything, they've just said ‘obey the rules and collect points.' " I stab my fork in his direction. "We've got these reference texts in our tablets, all this stuff about how it's a genetically determinist society and there are all these silly customs, but I don't see how that can affect us unless we let it. All societies have some degree of flexibility, but these guys have just picked the first narrowly normative interpretation that came to hand. If you ask me, they're just plain lazy."

"What will the others think?" he asks.

"What will they think?" I stare at him. "We're here for a hundred megs. Do you really think they'll put a bonus payment at the end of the experiment ahead of, say, having to wear stupid pointy shoes that make your feet hurt for three years?"

"It depends." Sam puts his knife down. "It all depends on how they balance the relative convenience of making other people uncomfortable against their own future wealth." His expression is pensive. "The protocol is . . . interesting."

"Okay." I stand up. "Let's test it." I shrug out of my jacket and lay it over the back of my chair. A couple of the dining zombies look round. "Hey, look at me!" I yell. I unzip my dress and drop it around my ankles. Sam is startled. I watch his face as I reach behind my back and unlatch my breast halter, drop it, then step up onto my chair and push down my hose and G-string. "Look at me!" Sam looks up, and my face feels hot as I see his expression—

Then there's a red flash that blots out my visual field, and a loud chime from my netlink, like the decompression alert we all learn to fear before we can walk. MINUS TEN POINTS FOR PUBLIC NUDITY, says the link.

When my vision clears, I can see waitrons and the maître d' rushing toward me holding up towels and aprons, ready to do something, anything, to cover the horrible sight. Sam is still looking up at me, and I'm not the only one who's blushing. I climb down off the chair and three or four male zombies, all bigger than me, converge and between them pin my arms and carry me bodily into the back. I bite back a scream offright: I can't move! But they take me straight to the females-only lavatory and simply shove me through the door, on my own. A moment later, while I'm still trying to catch my breath, the door whips open and someone throws my discarded clothes at me.

Minus ten points, causing a public nuisance, intones my netlink. Police have been summoned. Help function advises you to correct your dress code infraction and leave.

Oh shit, shit  . . . I scrabble around for a moment, pulling the dress over my head and then shrugging into the jacket. Underwear can wait—I don't know what these "police" are, but they don't sound good. I pull the door open and glance round the corner but there's nobody about, nothing but a short corridor with doors back to the restaurant and one that says FIRE ESCAPE in green letters. I shove it open and find myself standing in a narrow road with lots of wheeled containers. It stinks of decaying food. Shaking slightly, I walk to the end, then turn left, and left again.

Back on the road I walk right into Sam. "Now will you take the protocol seriously?" he hisses in my ear. "They nearly arrested me!"

"Arrested? What's that?"

"The police." He's breathing heavily. "They can take you away, lock you up. Detention, it's called." He's still flushed in the face and clearly concerned. "You could have been hurt."

I shiver. "Let's go home."

"I'll call a taxi," he says grumpily. "You've done enough damage for one day."

SAM has bought a thing called a cell phone—a pocket-sized replacement for the blocky network terminal wired into the wall. He keeps it in a pocket. He speaks to it for a while, and a few cents later a taxi pulls up. We go home, and he stomps into the living room, leaving the suitcase in the front hall, and turns on the television. I tiptoe around for a while before looking in on him to find that he's engrossed in the football, a faintly puzzled expression on his face.

I spend some time in my bedroom, reading from my own tablet. It's got lots of advice about how people lived in the dark ages, none of which makes much sense—most of what they did sounds arbitrary and silly when you strip it of the surrounding social context and the history that explains how their customs developed. The way my experiment in the restaurant backfired still burns me (how can not wearing clothes be so harmful in any rational social context?), but after a while I realize that I didn't get zapped this morning when I went around the house naked. So I take off my new boots, then my dress, which is begi

I'm reading the tablet's explanation of how vocations—excuse me, "work"—worked in dark ages society, boggling slightly, when a bell rings from the low table next to my bed. I look toward it and my tablet flashes: ANSWER THE PHONE.

Oh. I didn't realize I had one. I fumble around for a while then find the chunky gadget on a cord that you're supposed to hold to your face. "Yes?" I say.

"R-Reeve! Is that you?"

"Cass? Kay?" I ask, blanking on names for a moment.

"Reeve! You've got to help me get out of here! He's crazy. If I stay here, I'm sure he's going to end up hitting me again. I need somewhere to go." I've heard panic before, and this is it. Cass (Kay? a little corner of me insists) is desperate. But why?

"Where are you?" I ask. "What's happening? Calm down and tell me everything."

"I need to get away from here," she insists again, her voice breaking. "He's crazy! He's read the manuals and he's insisting he's going to get the completion bonus, and if he has to, he's going to force me to do everything by the book. He went out this morning, locking me in and taking my wallet—he's still got it—and when he got back, he threatened to beat me up if I didn't prepare a meal for him. He says that for maximum points the female must obey the male, and if I don't do what the guidelines say, he'll beat me up—shit, he's coming."

Click.

I'm left holding the receiver, staring at the wall behind the bed in horror. I drop it and rush downstairs to the living room. "Sam! We've got to do something!"