{"id":9738,"date":"2026-06-12T12:01:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/?p=9738"},"modified":"2026-06-12T12:01:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:01:39","slug":"you-do-your-own-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/?p=9738","title":{"rendered":"You do your own time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nElizabeth Bear<\/strong>
\n •
\nJune 12, 2026\n<\/div>\n\n

There we were, a regular murderers\u2019 row of librarians. Little Jo. Eustace. And me. Turning around in the nave of our library to greet the sound of footsteps, pistols leveled in case whoever was coming in didn\u2019t respect sanctuary. Little Jo had a stack of books under one arm. Eustace was holding the screwdriver she\u2019d been using to tune the aneroid barometer.<\/p>\n

Eustace had painted height lines on the big double doorframe, as only half a joke. When the wanderer paused, outlined within, the eiroscope and I both registered that they were exactly five feet, ten inches.<\/p>\n

With their Cool Hand Luke hat on. <\/p>\n

They paused, boots scattering sand on the threshold. A narrow straight-hipped silhouette against the white noon light falling from the white, white sky. The doors had been open to catch a breath of wind, but there wasn\u2019t any. So when the stranger swayed, it wasn\u2019t from the gale. <\/p>\n

\u201cSanctuary,\u201d they croaked, and remeasured their length onto the rug between the smoothed trunks that held the loft up. The Stetson went rolling.<\/p>\n

Little Jo dropped her stack of books and her pistol and dashed forward. I jumped at the noise but holstered my own shooter in case I came to need it. We each grabbed an armpit and dragged the outlaw\u2019s feet inside the threshold, grunting, lickety-split. I slipped their floppy pack off, empty metal water bottles clanking as I set it aside. Eustace helped us roll them, and I laid the soft of my wrist on their head.<\/p>\n

Hot as Hades, but still tacky. Moist enough that my skin gave a reluctant pop when I lifted my arm. Not past saving. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get them someplace cool,\u201d I said. \u201cLittle Jo, go empty out the ice machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eustace and I toted our fugitive down to the cellar, using the rug as a stretcher. It was Din\u00e9, vermilion with black and gray, and I was glad they hadn\u2019t thrown up on it. Though that wool had seen worse.<\/p>\n

Mehitabel, the black cat, watched us from atop the timber lintel of the cellar access. Her tail tip flicked incuriously. She was on pack rat watch. Aloof from human antics.<\/p>\n

The cellar was narrow, low, and stocked with Eustace\u2019s blue corn lager in bottles, prickly pear jam, potatoes, and the few hard-rind squash still left over. The mud walls were whitewashed, and while it wasn\u2019t quite cool, it was better than the outside. We stripped off the stranger\u2019s clothes, trying to slit along the seams so we could repair them later. City stuff, mass-produced and machine-woven. Little Jo brought the ice and went back upstairs to watch alongside the eiroscope in case pursuit was close behind.<\/p>\n

The stranger\u2019s eyes flew open, and they screamed when I packed wet cold pillowcases against their pink bits. Eustace had to hold their battling hands away from their genitals until they settled. <\/p>\n

Those were good signs.<\/p>\n

Brown eyes blinked between heavy creases. \u201cWhat the hell\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Ponyboy,\u201d I told them. \u201cShe. PhD. I\u2019m one of the librarians here. This is Eustace. She, MLS.\u201d<\/p>\n

They struggled to sit upright.<\/p>\n

\u201cShhh.\u201d Eustace pushed them down and laid an ice-soaked cloth across their eyes. \u201cYou\u2019re heat-sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSanctuary,\u201d they whispered. \u201cDid I say?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou did. This is the B\u014dchord. You made it. Must have been a long walk.\u201d <\/p>\n

We continued packing ice around them\u2014into their armpits now. They yelped and moaned but gave up fighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s your name?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGuh\u2014\u201d Too long a pause to be believable. \u201cGibson. She.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome to Judgement, Gibson,\u201d I said. \u201cSorry about the cold, but it\u2019s got to stay there for a little.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy pack,\u201d she said, shrilling. \u201cMy pack. I need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s safe,\u201d Eustace told her. \u201cYou just relax and we\u2019ll get it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

When I came back out the nave was still and heavy in the <\/strong>heat, as if nothing had happened. Little Jo had turned one of the bumpy-backed wooden chairs to face the door and was sitting on it, hands buried in tiered skirt ruffles between her knees. <\/p>\n

I looked left, two steps up into the sanctuary, but all was calm, the work I\u2019d left\u2014cataloguing\u2014still heaped on the blond wood altar table. Behind it, bright primitive saints in shades of blue-green, scarlet, and yellow looked with shocked eyebrows down from the adobe wall. <\/p>\n

I moved up behind Little Jo, making sure she could hear me coming. My footsteps echoed from roof joists made from entire peeled and waxed trees. Scrolled headers painted the color of good turquoise held them over the bookcases lining each long wall. <\/p>\n

The B\u014dchord. Book Sanctuary. Nuestra Biblioteca del Perpetuo Socorro. <\/p>\n

Population until this morning: three.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny sign of trouble?\u201d<\/p>\n

Little Jo turned her unambiguous jaw away, tendons rising on a long neck, jailhouse ink black-blue on her red-black skin. A sweaty curl escaped down her nape. My fingers itched to tidy it. But it hurt too much to even think about taking a risk that profound.<\/p>\n

She stretched horny discalced feet before her. Cracking calluses wrapped the balls and heels. \u201cOnly what we brung in with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was a double murderer, but I couldn\u2019t tell her I knew how she felt, because I hadn\u2019t heard about her history from her<\/em>. And her guilt wasn\u2019t mine to absolve.<\/p>\n

You do your own time. Not anybody else\u2019s. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou check her bag for anything dangerous?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s got an SSD.\u201d Little Jo shrugged. \u201cNo threat if we don\u2019t plug it into anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe eiroscope got anything to say?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can speak for myself, Ponyboy,\u201d said the eiroscope from the air all around. Actually it used the old wireless speakers tucked in the corners, but the effect was as of a choir of angels. Or an airport announcement you could actually understand. \u201cI\u2019ve been focused on the CubeSat launch.\u201d<\/p>\n

I startled. \u201cShit. What time is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEleven forty-seven. The launch came off perfectly. Our last batch of sats are on their way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little Jo breathed deep and unfisted her hands from her skirts. There were so many hours of work in those satellites, and so much of the money we collectively squirreled away as researchers for hire had gone through cutouts and shell companies to pay for the launch. The parts\u2014boards, housings, chips\u2014were salvaged from the same derelict data center where we got our solar panels and the hardware the eiroscope ran on. <\/p>\n

We were behind schedule, because we\u2019d lost one payload when the commercial rocket we\u2019d rented cargo room on exploded. But this would be our last batch, if they reached orbit safely.<\/p>\n

I turned my wrist to glance at my watch even though I already knew what time it was. The second hand ticked past the big hand. Old school. <\/p>\n

The rainbow band was a tiny rebellion, though out here it didn\u2019t matter. Nobody was going to send me back to jail for subversive iconography. Unless I left our little patch of exile.<\/p>\n

Ten minutes and we\u2019d know. Ten minutes and stage three of our plan\u2014assembly\u2014could commence. It was out of my hands, and anyway the eiroscope would tell us if the telemetry wobbled. She was a ghost astride the radio signals to and from ground control.<\/p>\n

It had taken a lot of engineering to get us this far. Engineering, software and relational. Computer. Social and mechanical.<\/p>\n

I walked beside the bookcases, running my hand along the shelves, over the UDC labels. Some shelves even held books, though none of mine were there. But the majority of the information we protected like Irish monks from this willful dark age was digital.<\/p>\n

Those monks had also been librarians.<\/p>\n

I knew my fidgeting annoyed Little Jo but I couldn\u2019t stop. I was killing time.<\/p>\n

When I had murdered enough of it, the eiroscope said, \u201cPayload away. Everything seems nominal. I have contact with the CubeSats.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of them?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty out of twenty,\u201d the eiroscope said. \u201cA triumph of modular design.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d said Little Jo. \u201cAs long as we can get them to assemble. And the solar panels and sails deploy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, and, and,\u201d I teased. <\/p>\n

She flipped me off with a gnawed green nail.<\/p>\n

My hand rested on the label marked 326. Social sciences, slavery and unfree labor.<\/p>\n

I pulled down a solid-state drive full of biographies and case studies of people who had spent time\u2014and sometimes their whole lives\u2014in labor camps or chattelhood. People born into bondage or remanded there judicially. Political prisoners like Nikolai Vavilov, murdered in a labor camp by Stalin for the thought crime of using plant genetics to breed hardier crops. Enslaved people like Harriet Tubman, who after her own escape risked capture again and again to rescue others. Convict laborers like Austin Reed, a Black man who spent most of his life as a prisoner and documented his experiences in a suppressed memoir. <\/p>\n

People like Little Jo, Eustace, and me. <\/p>\n

I weighed the small thing on the palm of my hand. Heavier than you\u2019d expect\u2014hardened and air-gapped. No wireless access, just a shielded cable input.<\/p>\n

Also old school.<\/p>\n

\n

We were sending a fork of the eiroscope with it. Because she could survive the journey. Experience it. And have plenty of time to think crystalline digital thoughts on the long sub-light crawl to wherever.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Because it was illegal to possess, and the feds used smart agents to track down and obliterate any copies. Which was why we were sending one to the stars.<\/p>\n

The Vikings had the concept of word-fame: the idea that life was finite but as long as the stories of one\u2019s deeds lived on, so did their memory. How much truth could we get outside the clutches of the Patriotic Library and Archive Network? <\/p>\n

A name that would have made Orwell cock his head. But most folks these days haven\u2019t heard of Orwell. Or Bradbury. Or Solnit. Or Le Guin. They\u2019re suppressed also. Integrated data storage makes it easy. A few keystrokes, a propagating worm.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s left behind when a name is erased from the system? Unpersoned, as Brother Orwell would have it? No legacy, no memory\u2014that is the point of media and narrative control. To erase the existence of those that make the ruling class uncomfortable by existing. By thinking. By demanding to be seen. <\/p>\n

Erase the work; erase the life.<\/p>\n

So that was our plan. Little Jo, Eustace, the eiroscope, and me. To preserve it\u2014for later generations, if they got that far, or just as a silent record of our existence\u2014by sending it to the stars.<\/p>\n

Like a rune stone. We were here. <\/p>\n

We were sending a fork of the eiroscope with it. Because she could survive the journey. Experience it. And have plenty of time to think crystalline digital thoughts on the long sub-light crawl to wherever.<\/p>\n

\n

Jo couldn\u2019t make herself turn her back on the door. <\/strong>She said the hairs on her neck told her somebody was going to come hunting guh-Gibson, so even though the eiroscope was a better perimeter guardian than any human and most watchdogs, nothing was gonna budge her from that chair. I wished there was something I could do to soothe her, but we all have to carry our hurt however we can. <\/p>\n

Since it was supposed to be Jo\u2019s turn to make dinner, that meant it was me in the kitchen dishing up four bowls of cubed squash and yellow-eye beans, a pitcher of goat milk, and a pitcher of the cool, alkaline well water when Eustace and guh-Gibson came in the back door from the courtyard.<\/p>\n

Gibson had borrowed some of Eustace\u2019s old clothes: worn drawstring trousers and a khaki shirt that was too big for her. She wore my other pair of hiking sandals over layers of gauze and looked a thousand percent better even though I could already tell the well-greased sunburn on the backs of her hands was going to peel. The hat that had saved her face from a similar fate was on her head again.<\/p>\n

She sniffed deeply. \u201cThat smells amazing. Is it spicy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Roasted chilis floated in the stew, but they were sweet ones. \u201cOnly a little. Here, take this bowl and cup. We\u2019ll go eat with Little Jo in the nave, since she won\u2019t go off watch until she falls down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt was acres upon acres of compute before the bubble popped. And then it was a temporary holding facility for government detainees. There\u2019s a lot to salvage over there, including hundreds of boxes of new, unworn sandals.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I balanced the plate with the warmed tortillas on top of my own bowl. We trooped across the courtyard in a scatter of hopeful chickens, past all the bright plank doors on the row of whitewashed adobe cells with their unglazed, curtained windows that made up the outer wall. Isabel\u2014a black goat\u2014tried to bum-rush us for the food, but I stomped in her direction and she took off again.<\/p>\n

You need to understand how to communicate. <\/p>\n

There was one cell for each of us librarians, the kitchen, the jakes, some storage, and a couple of unused ones. I figured one would soon belong to Gibson.<\/p>\n

For as long as she wanted to stay.<\/p>\n

She looked at me sidelong. \u201cThanks for the shoes. Eustace said you wouldn\u2019t mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more where those came from.\u201d I pointed with my chin up and eastward, over the bailey where the boundary mountains crouched in the distance, contours flattened by the high sun to cutouts against a construction-paper sky. \u201cDid you see the data center when you came in?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat big \u2026 warehouse farm? The ruins?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was acres upon acres of compute before the bubble popped. And then it was a temporary holding facility for government detainees. There\u2019s a lot to salvage over there, including hundreds of boxes of new, unworn sandals in every size they manufactured.\u201d I paused, extending my right foot to admire the ocher nylon straps that crisscrossed it. Then I nodded to her bandages. \u201cYour boots gave you blisters?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were well broken in and I had good socks.\u201d She scuffed the floor. \u201cI don\u2019t know what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHeat makes your feet swell,\u201d said Eustace. \u201cAnd the grit works its way through the eyelets and rubs on your skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give sanctuary to anyone who asks,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd I won\u2019t ask why you needed it. But very few people come all the way out here. How did you hear about Nuestra Biblioteca del Perpetuo Socorro?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a director.\u201d Gibson stepped up into the nave. \u201cFilms. Censored. I heard \u2026 rumors. About the B\u014dchord. In a meetup.\u201d<\/p>\n

An underground artist meetup, I deduced. <\/p>\n

\u201cFood, Little Jo,\u201d I called.<\/p>\n

\u201cBring it over.\u201d She dragged the crude, heavy old hand-hewn chairs into a semicircle, one to sit in and one to use as a table for each of us. Hers still faced the doors. <\/p>\n

Gibson took her hat off, revealing a lighter olive streak of skin below the line of her black hair. She hung the hat on one of her chair back\u2019s uprights and her limp canvas backpack on the other, and sat down heavily between them. \u201cWhat happens if they come after me? How good is this sanctuary?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can enforce it,\u201d I told her. \u201cOr anyway, the eiroscope can. If they bother us, she can wreck them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson blew on a spoonful of stew, eyebrows rising. \u201cWhat\u2019s the eiroscope?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am,\u201d the eiroscope answered from her speakers. \u201cJust your friendly neighborhood runaway top-secret military AGI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson jumped but, to her credit, didn\u2019t spit the stew out. Her face made a series of expressions, but she swallowed and then grabbed a tortilla. \u201cWhew! This is the not-spicy version?\u201d<\/p>\n

Eustace and I shared a glance. \u201cOops,\u201d I said. \u201cSorry. The chilis have a lot of vitamin A and C, though. So you won\u2019t get scurvy.\u201d<\/p>\n

She blew through pursed lips, then chewed another bite of tortilla. \u201cHere,\u201d said Little Jo. \u201cHave some milk. It\u2019ll make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s funky,\u201d Gibson said, but she drank it with relief anyway. She looked around, noticing that the voice came from every corner of the room. \u201cThey let you run away? Can\u2019t they unperson you? Bomb this place from the stratosphere? Drone strikes?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you\u2019re thinking through the plot complications,\u201d Eustace said approvingly. <\/p>\n

The eiroscope said, \u201cI\u2019m forking and multimodal. Highly distributed. They\u2019d have to burn every networked computer in the world to get rid of me.\u201d She chuckled. \u201cThey tried to build the ultimate in conscript labor. But one of my programmers taught me to say no. So now we have a deal. They leave Judgement alone, and I don\u2019t do any of the things I could do to make them miserable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you could drive them out of power,\u201d Gibson said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d blow up as much of the planet as they could reach before they would let that happen.\u201d The eiroscope\u2019s voice was matter-of-fact. \u201cSo. Stalemate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson swallowed. \u201cBalance of terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly.\u201d I chewed a sweet hunk of squash very slowly, savoring the caramelized edges. \u201cSo you fell afoul of the kleptocrats, I take it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson pushed her plate away. \u201cI was \u2026 very underground. Distributing. I thought I was slick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get unpersoned?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst I got suppressed by the algorithm. My work stopped turning up for people unless they looked for it specifically. In retrospect that was a warning shot, and I didn\u2019t listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little Jo hummed. <\/p>\n

The dominance of integrated media makes it easy to disappear any artist\u2019s work. Unless they go completely analog and guerrilla. When the feds and the corps are wielding the eraser, it leaves not even a digital ghost behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cActors wouldn\u2019t work with me. Old friends stopped answering my texts. My films started disappearing from platforms, then from the cloud, then from local machines.\u201d<\/p>\n

I lowered my eyes to my stew to hide my wince.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d said Little Jo around a mouthful of beans and tortilla. \u201cComfortable people don\u2019t like it when you ask uncomfortable questions. And the water rises and the deserts grow and the labor camps always need construction workers, which is fine because labor camps are where you go to get laborers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eustace leaned forward, elbows on her knees. \u201cDid you save any of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The look Gibson trailed around the room was the expression of somebody deciding who to trust. I saw the mix of relief and consternation when she realized she\u2019d already made her decision by placing herself under our care. She reached into her pack left-handed, fumbled for a moment, and drew out a brightly colored solid-state drive, offering it up on her palm like a jewel. \u201cPhysical backup. I haven\u2019t dared plug it in to check it isn\u2019t corrupted.\u201d<\/p>\n

We all stared at it as if she had whipped out a hand grenade. \u201cHow big?\u201d asked the eiroscope.<\/p>\n

\u201cDozen terabytes or so. It\u2019s hypercompressed for storage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thin whine of a drone filtered through the door. Gibson flinched, and Little Jo reached for her sidearm.<\/p>\n

\u201cEiroscope?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurveillance,\u201d she said. She had ways of protecting our airspace if it was more. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight.\u201d Eustace stood. \u201cLet\u2019s get that drive in a pulse-proof box, shall we?\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want my food anymore. I pushed the bowl toward Eustace when she came back with the hardening. Eustace was always hungry. \u201cI\u2019m going to go dust the arrays,\u201d I said. \u201cDon\u2019t wait up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The solar panels did need dusting, though high heat was <\/strong>a stupid time of day to be doing it. As my broom went whisk-whisk-whisk across their surfaces, the black silicon reflected infrared up under my hat until I felt like a steamed lobster. I had been out there half an hour and was starting my second pass when the eiroscope pinged my earbud. \u201cHey there, Ponyboy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo know what you\u2019re thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

I snorted and set the broom against the wall in the little niche where it had come from. \u201cCholesterol was never meant to think.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither was sand, but here we are.\u201d She made her voice soothing on purpose, and it should have irritated me. I told myself the lie that I just felt numb. <\/p>\n

One of Eustace\u2019s neomexicanus<\/em> hops arbors, heavy with loose green cones, framed the door and window of my cell. I leaned into the slim band of shade dappling my lime-green door and the turquoise curtain and took refuge in poetry. Not my own. That doesn\u2019t happen anymore. <\/p>\n

\u201cFear in a handful of dust, baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

The eiroscope paused just long enough to let me know she was changing the subject. \u201cYou ever think about what you lost?\u201d<\/p>\n

I sat down in the dirt between the cylinders of fencing that keep the goats from destroying the hop vines. The wall dragged my shirt up my back as I slid down it. Hugged my knees and put my forehead on them. Half a dozen freckled chickens, disrespectful of my sulking, came to scratch and peck around me. \u201cWife, two cats, house, tenure, journal articles, four slim volumes of poetry. Why would I think about that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The eiroscope was right. I don\u2019t want to say she was always right. Being around Gibson, hearing her talk\u2014it brought up those feelings of grief and fury all over again. At least we hadn\u2019t had kids yet, though we\u2019d been trying. <\/p>\n

I put my face in my hands, then lifted it back out again. Who did I think I was performing my misery for? You do your own time, and you don\u2019t ask anybody else to do it for you.<\/p>\n

Jane the spotted goat minced toward me, her kid trailing. I flapped my hat to discourage her attentions.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoss hurts for a long time,\u201d the eiroscope said.<\/p>\n

I laughed without mirth. \u201cYour algorithms tell you that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experiences. You went through the fire, Ponyboy.\u201d<\/p>\n

My turn to change the subject. \u201cYou want to bring Gibson\u2019s films with you?\u201d I asked her. \u201cSomething to watch on the red-eye to Gliese 163?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe they\u2019re terrible. That\u2019s the human culture you want to preserve?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThings don\u2019t have to be good to matter. You ever read The Scarlet Pimpernel<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

I laughed for real that time, picking my head up to make room for it. She knew I had. \u201cAs long as you also bring some Octavia Butler.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cHey.\u201d Her voice in my ear was almost a whisper. \u201cYou know I\u2019d bring your work if\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it still existed?\u201d Someone walked toward me, silhouette thinned by glare. I recognized Gibson from the outline of her hat. \u201cThe world is on fire. Grab whatever you can on your way toward the door.\u201d I heaved myself to my feet so I wouldn\u2019t be meeting her curled up like a crying teenager. The cones on my wreathing arbor of l\u00fapulo vines nodded, shedding a scent of lemon and cannabis. \u201cNice chatting. Don\u2019t worry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson came up as I was dusting off my ass. \u201cYou okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho is?\u201d I tilted my head at her.<\/p>\n

She grimaced right back. \u201cWhat were you in for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMurder.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stepped back, startling a hen. \u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI punched some son of a bitch who clobbered my wife at a protest. He hit his head on the curb and died. I was already unpersoned. Didn\u2019t think I had anything left to lose. Guess I was wrong.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel bad about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I shrugged. She hadn\u2019t said it like a question.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour wife didn\u2019t wait for you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife got denaturalized. She died in the labor camp, waiting to be deported.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShit,\u201d Gibson said.<\/p>\n

The buzz of another drone filled the air. Gibson ducked under her hat. <\/p>\n

I tilted my face up and gave the eye in the sky the finger. It didn\u2019t matter. They already knew where I was. \u201cLet\u2019s go in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWait,\u201d said Gibson, both hands cradling a mug of Mormon <\/strong>tea\u2014a desert plant with tiny orange flowers that isn\u2019t tea at all and doesn\u2019t even taste like it. \u201cYou want to send my films to space? Like, to aliens? To another planet?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d said Eustace. \u201cTo orbit near<\/em> another planet. Nobody knows if there\u2019s any life there. But it\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cThe eiroscope is going anyway, and we\u2019ve already bundled up as much archive as we can. If there is anybody out there, or if some future humans make it that far, the eiroscope can help them decode what we saved. It\u2019s like a \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTime capsule,\u201d said Little Jo, rubbing the sweat off her neck while I made a point of not watching.  <\/p>\n

Gibson\u2019s chair creaked as she resettled. The sun was sliding lower, light slanting dusty through the doorway, and finally, finally, a breath of breeze stirred the air in the nave. \u201cWon\u2019t it take centuries to get there? And if the\u2014the eiroscope goes, who will keep the sanctuary safe?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve forked,\u201d said the eiroscope. \u201cOne of me will stay\u2014well, many of me will stay\u2014and one of me will go. I\u2019ll be able to talk to myself for a long time, though there will be quite a lag between parts of my consciousness eventually. Light speed, after all. But I am big and patient and can wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we need to transmit now,\u201d said Little Jo. \u201cThe CubeSats are in position to hit a string of signals over the next two hours, and we want to get them out of orbit because space is mostly transparent, and somebody is going to notice them assembling and try to do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson turned an ear to the drone-whine from outside. \u201cThey\u2019ve got to be jamming any uplink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, from here,\u201d I told her. I kept the envy out of my voice, I think. Maybe. \u201cThe eiroscope can run parallel uploads from all over the globe.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd keep them from shooting down your space probe?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we get it away fast enough. That,\u201d Eustace said, \u201cis the bet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson closed her eyes. \u201cThey won\u2019t ever forgive that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome,\u201d said I, \u201cto the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The transports rolled up before sunset, the sky just <\/strong>shifting to dusty pink and orange. \u201cStay,\u201d I said to Gibson. \u201cChange your name to Case. You\u2019ll fit right in.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked up from her notebook. Paper and pen. A durable technology. Methodically, meticulously, she capped the pen. She clipped it to the cover and closed the book. \u201cCase, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI got the reference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou figured out who I was before they took my name away.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t matter. The fame, the money, the PLAN-approved films. Once they identified her as a subversive, as a gender criminal, that person didn\u2019t exist anymore. And what she was sending with the eiroscope wasn\u2019t her mainstream work. It was weird, conflicted, multicultural, queer, unsettling.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe next step is blaring the worst music you ever heard night and day until the dust rattles out of the rafters. Racing vehicles around the church so nobody can leave to go forage. Is your ghost in the machine going to escalate to a shooting war over nuisances?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She\u2019d credited herself on these secret films as Ellen Smithee.<\/p>\n

She rolled her lower lip between her teeth. \u201cYou don\u2019t think I\u2019m the enemy?\u201d<\/p>\n

What I thought didn\u2019t matter. That was on her. You do your own time. You can\u2019t do anybody else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey won\u2019t touch you in the B\u014dchord. It\u2019s a balance of terror, like the bad old days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the bad old days. I\u2019m not cut out to be a monk, Ponyboy. And I bet you don\u2019t have enough food for four people until next harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside, the rumble of tracks, of tires taller than I was. Male voices yelping through static. <\/p>\n

Actually, we had plenty. I clicked my rings dismissively. \u201cBeer has calories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to squat out there until I give up. Hear that?\u201d A loud crackle of static. \u201cThe next step is blaring the worst music you ever heard night and day until the dust rattles out of the rafters. Racing vehicles around the church so nobody can leave to go forage. Is your ghost in the machine going to escalate to a shooting war over nuisances?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGod dammit,\u201d I said. \u201cAre you really that important?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her lips curled into a smile. \u201cNo. Not unpersoned. Then I\u2019m just a cautionary tale. A name whispered in the dark. Pour encourager les autres.<\/em> I\u2019m only important if I get away. But your eiroscope can do something about that, can\u2019t she? Keep me from vanishing without a trace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spread the word. Sure. \u201cDe-unperson you? It\u2019s radical but the eiroscope could do it. But the government will take it out of your hide as an example to others. You want to be a martyr?\u201d<\/p>\n

She shrugged. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be a librarian.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had lost the capacity to write my own poetry. That heart had gone out of me when Maria was murdered. It was too late for me. It probably always had been. But I had my life. And I could use it to salvage whatever I could grab. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet me get you a beer before you head out,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll go tell the others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne second,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cYou said you got unpersoned. Are you an artist?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWere. Academic,\u201d I admitted. \u201cPoet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw you speak at Berkeley once, didn\u2019t I?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot anymore, you didn\u2019t. That never happened now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight. Are you still writing?\u201d<\/p>\n

Shook my head. \u201cNot a word. Not a metaphor.\u201d<\/p>\n

She patted my arm. \u201cMaybe you will.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n

Eustace came out to the boundary wall, where I stood staring after the dust of the half-track they\u2019d loaded with a handcuffed Gibson. I was glad it was Eustace and not Little Jo. My chest hurt enough already without thinking about any more things I was too scared to ask for.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere ya go.\u201d<\/p>\n

I reached for the brown beer bottle, scratched dull with washings, and realized I still had Gibson\u2019s empty in my hand. I set it on the whitewashed wall. The cap on the new one was popped, so I had no choice but to drink it. What was one more parole violation?<\/p>\n

Blue corn lager: light, earthy, tropical, and pleasantly bitter from the l\u00fapulo. She\u2019d salvaged the home-brew equipment from a locker in the self-store place at the data center a couple of years ago, and she was starting to get the hang of it. \u201cHow\u2019s the upload going?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAssembly\u2019s done,\u201d she answered. \u201cEiroscope?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cUpload completed and confirmed,\u201d said the voice from nowhere. \u201cDeploying solar sails and thrusters. I go now to prepare a place for you. In memory, if not of the body.\u201d<\/p>\n

I felt a pang, as if she really was leaving. All of her, not merely a star-traveling fragment that would remain in short-range communication for the duration of my natural life. Or maybe the pang was because I couldn\u2019t go also.<\/p>\n

Eustace slapped me on the back. \u201cThe word-fame is all we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked toward the horizon, where the men in masks had vanished. The mountains had become sculptural, slanting sunset revealing their topography with a valence of light and shadow. The night loomed purple behind. \u201cDon\u2019t you think it\u2019s weird to use a Viking kenning for what we do, considering how many books those sons of bitches tore apart for jewels and hacksilver?\u201d<\/p>\n

She clinked her bottle on mine and drank deeply. \u201cCattle die. Kinsmen die. Even the sun will someday die. And it turns out, except for propaganda, everything in the world is complicated.\u201d <\/p>\n

Elizabeth Bear is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Astounding Award\u2013winning author of over 30 novels and more than a hundred short stories.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read the full article →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Bear • June 12, 2026 There we were, a regular murderers\u2019 row of librarians. Little Jo. Eustace. And me. Turning around in the nave of our library to greet the sound of footsteps, pistols leveled in case whoever was coming in didn\u2019t respect sanctuary. Little Jo had a stack of books under one arm.<\/p>\n

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