...

One day Luke arrived at home and encountered Richard on the stairs, looking troubled. As they entered, Dawn sat on the settee, distraught, tears streaking her face. "Oh, Richard. It's Esmee. She's in trouble, and now they've put her in jail."

Apparently, their mutual friend Esmee had tried to reach Richard, who was in a meeting and had then called Dawn. Once out of his session, Richard had heard the urgent messages from Esmee and Dawn but had been unable to contact Esmee, so he went to Dawn. Dawn said that Esmee was now in custody and couldn't be reached anymore.

They contacted Esmee's lawyer, who indicated that he was getting more information from the police at that very moment and that he would contact them when he knew anything.

Dawn was still distraught, and Luke talked with Richard. "It's a friend of ours. Very sad, really. She has more money to her name than all people I call my friends put together, but she lives as Dawn, more or less. One room and more jobs than she can handle. You'll appreciate her. You have something in common already. Apart from you, she's the only person I know who has someone in stasis without any commitment. Although her situation is truly sad. Her relative in stasis is, in fact, her great great great great great grandfather, or something. He's been in stasis for over two hundred years, and he has no relative in the Universe except Esmee. No relative, no one he knows, nothing he would understand perhaps. He is one of the first people to have been put in stasis. Esmee, like her mother and her grandfather before her, devotes her life to trying to collect enough money to get him out. At the rate they are going, they will get there, though not in Esmee's life. But she continues to try. She doesn't spend a dime on anything but food, clothes, and the smallest room I've ever seen. But, she is really ok. She helps people where she can, and she is good company. She doesn't like us buying her drinks, so she doesn't get out much. But she has a clear mind when it comes to operations and assertive action. I'll tell you later."

"Not that it's any of my business, but what kind of money are we talking about to get her grandfather, great grandfather, well, her relative out?"

"Oh, I believe it's more than two and a half million dollars by now. And she's now worth something like three hundred thousand, which I could live off for the rest of my life, but it's not enough. At the rate she is earning money, it will be two or three hundred years still. She's lucky that she doesn't have to pay interest when she's in arrears. That's why she can keep her money and at least get some leverage.

"But still, I think she's hoping for a miracle. If you ask me, there are much better ways to use that money. I can think of twenty people just like that who could be gotten out of stasis, but she is working only for her granddad. She wants to get him out while she lives. She can't stand the thought of him getting out of stasis in a world he doesn't know where lives no one that he knows or has any connection with, and she most certainly doesn't want to put children in this world of ours.

"The saddest part perhaps is that if she were to die, Brodin Medical would confiscate the lot and would get him out of stasis immediately. They only keep people if they can squeeze someone."

"Why was he put into stasis in the first place."

"His liver is damaged. At the time, in the earlier days of colonization, they didn't have facilities to fix that. Now, they can just implant an artificial liver, which would cost something like $3000. It could be they already did that for him to avoid the risk of complications. It's their one worry. If they lose a patient, they won't get a dime when there's no commitment."

"How is it possible that they can just put someone in stasis for more than two centuries? I mean. Doesn't that person have any rights?"

"It depends on the contract. All rights go to the guardian in contracts such as hers and yours, except bodily integrity. In some ways, the person ceases to exist for the law, and the guardianship becomes part of the guardian's estate. Only when a guardian dies without heirs does guardianship return to the state, and the Mediacorp can recover some of their losses from the remainder of the estate. Or else they get some nominal fee from the state. I think it happened regularly about a century ago. Now, it's very rare. Guardianship started out as a protection mechanism, but it isn't anymore. In current contracts, the commitment usually appoints a lawyer as a legal representative, but there is no guardianship."

...

Dawn had recovered a bit. When the lawyer called, she washed her face and dried it quickly. Richard took the call and patched in Dawn and Luke.

"Esmee Hallipirii is now in custody with the police on an indictment with 37 counts, the most serious being grievous bodily harm and attempted murder. I do not yet have access to her, pending the investigation, but I've read the statements taken by police investigators, and I am somewhat mystified. There doesn't seem to be much of a case. There are quite some discrepancies between Ms. Hallipirii's statement and that of the alleged victim, which is not uncommon in cases like this, but also between the statements of the alleged victim and a material witness, who is also an employee of Brodin Medical. I have certified copies of these statements for our use.

"It appears that two Brodin Medical officials visited Ms. Hallipirii in her apartment, and after a brief conversation, a fight allegedly broke out. Ms. Hallipirii has stated that she was bullied into a corner and felt threatened, at which point she pushed one of the officials away from her in self-preservation. A Mr. Jonathan of Brodin Medical states that he visited Brodin Medical's client Ms. Hallipirii to discuss particular business aspects when Ms. Hallipirii suddenly and without any provocation lashed out at him with a sharp object in an attempt to injure or kill him. The second Brodin Medical official, a Mr. Dunnwood, does not mention any object and, in fact, confirms that her hands were empty at the time. He does state that Ms. Hallipirii lashed out at his colleague.

"Apparently, Mr. Jonathan didn't undergo a medical examination, as would be expected in a case like this. None of the reports of the witnesses and of the inspectors mentions an injury.

"In addition to the People's indictment, Brodin Medical and Mr. Jonathan are independently suing Ms. Hallipirii for all her assets towards damages.

"It is my opinion that their cases are very weak. To say the least, any judge would regard Mr. Dunnwood as a biased witness. Although for our case, it is almost irrelevant. Should this witness be found inadmissible, the case folds by default. Without a medical examination, it's just Mr. Jonathan's word, which doesn't constitute sufficient grounds for anything. And should the witness be heard, the contradiction will cast considerable doubt. All the more so if this witness remains uncontested by us. There is a slight chance Mr. Dunwood might alter his statement at a later point in time, but I expect any judge to rule in our favor should that occur. Without a medical examination, they are bound to lose.

"The fact that Brodin Medical is entailed in many legal disputes with Ms. Hallipirii and the fact that both gentlemen are employed by Brodin Medical makes the entire situation suspect. Ms. Hallipirii's statement most certainly has merit. What were they doing there?

"In this regard, I am suing Brodin Medical for harassment yet again. That case will be strengthened by the very fact that Brodin Medical is suing us concerning this alleged bodily harm; they imply their involvement. I doubt suing Mr. Jonathan for harassment would help much at this moment. We can do that later when their case is lost, and Ms. Hallipirii is out.

"Speaking of which. I have tried to arrange bail, but Brodin Medical is throwing in everything they can, and so far, they have been able to postpone judgment on this. I will continue trying.

"At the moment, there is one slight concern. Ms. Hallipirii mentions a document that the two gentlemen produced during the conversation, but no mention of it occurs in the statements of the two gentlemen or of the officers that inspected the apartment. Note, however, that the contents of any document would normally be outside the mandate of an officer in a case like this. If the document wasn't physically connected or implicated in the alleged crime, it would be ignored by a robot officer.

"However, that document may very well prove to contain material that supports our claim of harassment, in which case it must be filed with the court as soon as possible. On the other hand, the document might conceivably support their claim of an unprovoked attack, in which case it is not relevant for us. I propose that one of you go to Ms. Hallipirii's apartment and check whether such a document can be found. If the document exists and if it might help Ms. Hallipirii, I should like to be informed forthwith. If no such document exists or you feel it has no bearing on our case, I am fully prepared to go to court with what we have. For all clarity, I would like to put forth that this or any conversation may be scrutinized by a judge hearing this case.

...

Dawn had to meet someone where she hoped to find a new job, so Richard and Luke decided to go to the apartment together.

As they sat on the train, -- two stops only, -- Luke asked what Richard thought of the matter.

"Oh, it's probably all a misunderstanding. Esmee would never be violent to anyone. I can't imagine any circumstances where she would. Well, I mean, anyone can be pushed over the edge, of course. But that takes some directed effort, and the medicorps don't work that way. Mostly. I mean, Esmee isn't that important to them. Probably they were harassing her, and something went wrong. They don't harass her on purpose, mind you. It's just that these big organizations can be extremely callous and single-minded. They can spit in your face and truly believe they are helping you. It's ... oh. One second."

Richard's eyes turned vacant as he was taking a call. It took only a few minutes.

"Sorry about that. Another crisis and this is really urgent. What I propose is that you go there alone. By now, you know all there is to know, really. I've left a code in your 'partout that will get you in the building. Esmee never locks her apartment, so you can walk right in. Third floor, the door on your right. I can stay on this train and take another one three stops down. You have to get out there. Take the Welding Avenue exit, turn right when you get out of the elevator, take the second left, which is 415th street, and take the smallest and oldest building there. Number 4019. You have to get out here."

...

The place was a mess, but judging by the clothes, books, papers, newspapers and magazines, printouts and hundreds of clippings, and a fair number of empty plates and glasses stacked everywhere in the room, this was its usual appearance. The room was three by three and contained a bed, two chairs, two tables, a washbasin, and a bookcase. One table had a tiny stove and implements to make coffee and the simplest of meals. There were only a small frying pan and a small saucepan. In addition, there was an open bag of bread and two jars, with peanut butter and honey, apparently both natural, and a stack of clean plates and cutlery.

The other table was stacked high with papers, magazines, folders, notebooks, books, and clippings, as was the bookcase. Clothes were strewn here and there, and two substantial plastic bags held stacks of clean clothing.

Luke looked at the room and felt his heart sink. Finding any document with unspecified but relevant contents in this mess was ludicrous. Documents were everywhere.

Since he could hardly inspect all documents in the room, he approached his problem differently by trying to imagine what had happened from the description the lawyer had given. Esmee must have been working, reading, or perhaps sleeping in her room when the two men came, -- there was nothing else to do here. The bed didn't look as if anyone had just been sleeping there, though, being strewn with magazines and books, so she probably had been working.

He imagined the two men entering the room. What little he knew of Esmee suggested that she would not have offered them a chair, or indeed to sit on her bed. They would have stood, more or less, in the middle of the room.

He couldn't imagine them giving her a book or a magazine. It would have been an office printout, possibly inside a folder. Odd that they hadn't given it to her electronically, but the lawyer had been specific. The lawyer had described how Esmee had been pushed into a corner and had, apparently, lashed out. Would she then have held on to a document? Probably not. But Luke couldn't imagine her neatly putting the document away before the incident. That didn't fit the description either. There was no open folder or printout lying about.

Looking closely, he saw that his first impression of a mess wasn't entirely accurate. There were documents everywhere, but they were piled into neat stacks, mainly in and around the bookcase and on the larger table. He could imagine someone making sense of this. There was no loose document on the floor.

He went to the table. She had been working there on a notebook that lay open on the table. He took the notebook over to the window to have better light. As he leafed through it, he saw clippings and printouts on every page and short notes written next to them. Odd. He couldn't imagine anyone not putting this into a node. The only documents on the table not on one of the neat stacks were the notebook, two paper magazines, a printed newspaper, and a printout. He took the printout to the window, but it appeared to be the minutes of a local council meeting, taken from the net. Not something Brodin Medical would bring.

He walked over to the bed. Pillows were stacked against the wall as if Esmee had been sitting there, reading. There was a small reading lamp suspended from the wall. Some magazines lay on the bed, and two books. Novels. No document from Brodin Medical. Could the two men have taken the document with them again?

He sat on the bed against the pillows, somewhat comfortably. One of the magazines was lying within easy reach. It was too dark to read, so he switched on the light. An old-fashioned switch, not controlled by the net. Quaint. The magazine wasn't a magazine at all. It was made of memox, programmable paper. Expensive stuff, often used for subscription art magazines. High-quality images with the tactile experience of paper. But this was different. Hardly any attention had been given to the layout, and there were no images. Just text. A report on a council meeting on zoning laws, apparently.

This was getting him nowhere.

He went to the table again to look at the last pages of the notebook. As he walked over to the window for better light, it hit him. This room was so dark that you had to walk to the window to read. The window was small, perhaps two feet wide by three feet high, and let in little light even in broad daylight due to the buildings opposite. There was no lamp on the ceiling, just a desk lamp on each of the tables and the reading lamp next to the bed.

The bed had its long side against the outside wall and its short side against the second wall, pillows stacked in the corner. There was less than a yard between the foot of the bed and the third wall and between the bookcase and the window, leaving only a small space in front of the window.

Maybe they'd just tried to point something out on the document. If there was a document. He could imagine standing there reading something with two people moving towards you. It would be mildly threatening in any event, being, literally, cornered.

The shelves in the bookcase were open on all sides, being mounted between four posts, with a fifth post at the back center. He looked in the bookcase to see if he could see something that could be used as a weapon. But that wasn't likely in any event. Grabbing something out of the bookcase would have been very awkward from where he stood; you had to reach between two posts and retract whatever object you took. She hadn't taken something from the shelves in sudden self-defense.

He imagined her standing there and someone coming too close. All one could do was to push them away. As he pushed an imaginary foe away with his right hand, he quite naturally dropped the notebook he'd been holding on the bed. The document should be on the bed. He went on his knees and looked under the bed, but it was too dark. The bed didn't appear very heavy, so he lifted the foot and moved the bed away from the wall.

There it was. A single sheaf of paper had fallen between the bed and the wall. A bedspread was hanging over both sides of the bed, reaching to the floor, so the paper would have been invisible even if one had been able to look under the bed.

He looked at the paper. It appeared to be the outline of an agreement between Esmee and Brodin Medical. He read through it quickly and then more closely. Then he decided that he couldn't determine what this meant. He'd have to talk to Richard.

He put back the bed, switched off the light, and went back to Dawn's studio. As he sat on the train, he reread the document in every detail, but he couldn't see anything obviously wrong. It appeared to be a genuine offer, albeit one he'd never accept in a million years.

...

"Yes. I agree. It is just their latest proposal. In the last seven years, they have been making offers and retracting them regularly. I don't think they are intentionally harassing Esmee with the express purpose of harassing her. I think they just don't know what they are doing. It's one of the biggest organizations in Brodin, and really on Daimando, and different departments have different priorities and different tactics and strategies. They come with an offer and then retract it or add condition after condition.

"This offer essentially requires Esmee to hand over everything she's got and to keep quiet for three years, after which time Brodin Medical might decide to get her relative from stasis under the express condition that Esmee gives up any assets except the clothes on her back, and that she and her grandpa leave the planet without any contact with the press.

"It's typical. Hidden inside is a genuine offer, which Esmee might even accept, but then it's watered down by various departments in BM until it's no longer a real offer. They want all her money now, but then someone worries that she might win a lottery or something, so they also want her money in three years. They want to release her relative in three years, but then someone worries that in three years, the powers that be may disapprove retrospectively, so they offer only to consider release in three years, which is nothing, of course, in a practical sense.

"All in all, it is similar to earlier proposals, and Esmee would have dismissed it more or less immediately. It wouldn't have angered her very much. Not after all these years. It does support the claim of harassment, of course. It wouldn't be difficult to convince a judge that this isn't a genuine offer. It's way too one-sided. Sending two people to her apartment is also over the edge, but they will claim that Esmee can't be reached otherwise. She doesn't have an AI secretary or a majordomo, so you can only communicate with her if she is willing to allow you access via her node. She's peculiar about that."

Luke said: "I've been meaning to ask you about that. It's very peculiar. All these notebooks with clippings and printouts. Why doesn't she just get an AI or even a computer to put it all in."

"Oh. It's partly a legal matter, partly security, and perhaps even paranoia. She has been arrested before, without ever having been convicted of anything. Still, any computer or AI might turn up as evidence. Under our law, but I imagine under yours as well, an implant can not be subpoenaed as evidence and can only be interrogated in capital crimes by a detached judge with specific questions. So she only trusts her node. She doesn't make backups, and the paper files are a last resort backup, should her node ever fail.

"All they could do now is break in and make copies, but it's all more or less public information. Her notes are cryptic at best. They're just there to jog her biological memory, should the need arise."

"I've also seen a memox ..., pamphlet, really. Why on earth would she use memox."

"Well. As I said. Paranoia. Not Esmee's, though. She's loosely involved with some radical activists. They distribute their investigative journalism like this to keep track of all copies. The memox continuously tells the net where it's at. In addition, each copy is encoded: photocopies are traceable to an individual. A load of bull if you ask me. Any truly sensitive intelligence shouldn't be put there in the first place.

"But Esmee isn't part of them. She just knows them, and they share information, sometimes."

"So what do we do with their proposal?"

"Let's inform the lawyer. I can't see this could harm her case."

Richard contacted the lawyer. Since Dawn didn't have any video in the studio, he read the document out loud. The lawyer agreed that it did support their harassment claims and, as such, had a bearing on the current situation. But that it wouldn't get Esmee out immediately. He expected Brodin Medical to be rather fierce. If the grounds for Esmee's incarceration were found to be trumped up, Esmee could sue for considerable damages. That BM was going in full throttle was already apparent: the lawyer had not yet been able to contact Esmee, which was very unusual.

Finally, the lawyer handed them all material on the case so far and asked them if they could offer any new insight.

...

"Do you know what that is, Rengakorut?"

"Nope. Never heard of. Why?"

"Apparently, she had it with her when she was taken into custody. I just wondered what it was. The net doesn't help. It could be a mistake, of course, but that's kind of weird."

They had spent most of the day going over everything. They hadn't found much that could help them, but they did have a list of questions, which the lawyer would put to Esmee.

Fortunately, the lawyer had now had contact with Esmee once. She was mad as anything but otherwise ok. Apparently, Brodin Medical had attempted to make the police apply the new stasis laws, which allowed them to put a suspect in stasis. Attempted but failed.

Richard explained that it was a helpful law allowing people unwilling or unable to post bail to spend as much time as they wanted in stasis. That way, they could prepare for their trial but would otherwise not be punished until they were found guilty of anything. The essence was that it was entirely voluntary, but apparently, the medicorps were trying to 'stretch' the concept into, certainly in Esmee's eyes, psychological warfare. She would never go into stasis willingly.

...

Dawn's 'job interview' had gone very well. A small wine merchant sold natural wine to restaurants and individuals who could afford it. Each bottle came in a genuine wooden box, and the lid was to be hand-painted. They had given her several designs, but deviation was welcome, as long as it was in taste, according to unspecified criteria. The mechanism was simple. They had some painters, and their customers were free to choose their lid. The more one's designs were chosen, the more one would sell.

Dawn would get twelve and a half cents for each lid, and they claimed that was based on four lids an hour, on average. Not much, but Dawn imagined she could speed up significantly. The first hun, they would buy on faith; after that, there was some drop-out system: if you didn't sell, they would stop buying lids.

The first batch she would do at their place. After that, if they decided to go on, she could make batches of one or two hundred lids at home. All in all, she was tremendously happy with the job. It would be about as much as she had made in the bar but much more pleasant, she said.

...

To celebrate, they went to have dinner: Dawn, Luke, Richard, and Fiona, a lady friend of Richard's, apparently involved with Esmee 'and her activists', as Richard put it. To get away from the black mood, they decided to splurge, moderately. They went for seafood, each paying their own, and Dawn paying for the wine. They briefly discussed natural wine, but that was really beyond the budget. They settled for an excellent artificial Chablis, and in truth, the best Luke had ever had.

Fiona was a nurse. Having worked with people coming out of stasis a lot and having observed the suffering that would on occasion cause, she had decided it wasn't worth it just for financial gain.

She described how one day something had snapped inside her when she looked after a man who had just been cured of a very rare form of cancer they had only recently been able to handle. The third day after he came from stasis, when all tests showed that his treatment was entirely successful, an elderly lady came to visit him. Since they had the same last name, Fiona had taken her to be his mother, but she was, in fact, his wife. After bringing her to his bed, Fiona had run away and had cried for an hour. When she felt better, she returned, but it only became worse. She deeply felt the horrible dilemma these people had been in. Of course, they were happy the man had been saved and had the best part of his life, his youth almost ahead of him. But his wife was an old woman, almost old enough to be his grandmother. And she hadn't had a choice. Even if they had had money to put her in stasis as well, they had children relatives. In retrospect, the woman had said, they should have gone into stasis as well. In retrospect.

The one thing that made this situation understandable was that the man would have died if not for stasis. And that night, in bed, Fiona realized the same thing must also be happening to the people that were kept in stasis just to squeeze their kin. Literally, tens of thousands of lives were being destroyed day by day. She couldn't live with that, so she decided to do something. She sought contact with Esmee, the one person she happened to know who was actively doing something about it all.

Since then, she had helped set up an independent organization that informed people about the consequences of stasis that she had witnessed. To help them make the terrible choices if a longer-lasting stasis was likely. Several of her co-workers had helped, and many of them had joined the organization full-time, terminating their jobs or being sacked because of their activities. So far, Fiona had avoided being sacked. She felt she could do more in her current position, helping people and making her colleagues aware of the potentially terrible consequences.

...

During their desert of dates and cream cheese with a quite acceptable dessert wine, the lawyer called. Its disembodied voice managed to convey some of Esmee's excitement. She had looked through their list of questions, amongst which were Dawn's admonition to think back carefully what one of the Brodin Medical employees might have mistaken for a weapon and Luke's query about Rengakorut.

Her Rengakorut was a piece of jewelry she had inherited from her mother. It had its roots in ancient times when ancestors of her culture were woodcarvers on old earth. Then, it was a piece of leather strapped between wrist and fingers to allow women to push a chisel into hardwood. Now it was ornamental and consisted of a silver bracelet, a silver ring worn about the middle finger, and a triangle of mail between the two on the palm of the hand, wrought of minute silver rings.

Esmee described how she had walked to the window to read the document and how one of the Brodin Medical employees had walked towards her to point something out. She had disliked the way he was pushing his finger in her face, as she put it, and had shoved him back, politely, using only two fingers. She imagined it possible that he had mistaken the Rengakorut for something being held in her hand. The mail being present only in the palm of her hand would have made it invisible for the other Brodin Medical employee.

Because she wore it almost always, she hadn't thought of it at all, but the two questions triggered her.

The lawyer had submitted the Rengakorut, which was among Esmee's personal possessions being held at the police station, as evidence, and had respectfully requested for a human judge to go over the statements, AI judges being notoriously unsuitable in cases where there was no actual threat, but where perceived threats needed to be balanced.

Just in case that request was denied, he had also issued a writ to hold an interview with Mr. Jonathan of Brodin Medical concerning the alleged weapon. This might very well be granted pre-trial because many of the indictments, and therefore in a sense, the entire case, hinged on his entirely uncorroborated testimonial.

...

The following few weeks were hectic and frustrating. The lawyer's petitions were being denied or altered so as to be useless. Brodin Medical was digging in and making every inch worth a battle. Richard and Dawn contacted the lawyer first every few hours, and then two or three times a day, and every time the situation was different, but the result was the same: Esmee remained in prison, but their legal position was getting stronger and stronger.

Then, one day, Esmee called. Luke was doing some regular bookkeeping for a theatre company he had once helped, and Dawn was painting, apparently. Esmee called Richard, who plugged in Luke and Dawn immediately. Esmee's lawyer was also connected. Esmee didn't know Luke, of course, but Richard introduced him quickly. "He's been helping out, so when you get out of there, you owe him a beer, at least. So. How are you, and how can you call us?"

"They've made me an offer. Before agreeing, I demanded to be able to talk to you. Which they agreed to on condition that we don't go to the media with this."

"Well. It's a small token of goodwill, I imagine."

"Do you now, Richard? Anyway. Their proposal is this. They pay $4500, and they make sure I am released immediately without any prejudice if we don't go to the media, if we drop all harassment claims that arose after that incident, and if we do not use the incident in any of our ongoing harassment claims."

"That sounds rather mild. I'm sorry to say this, Esmee, but why don't they ask you to drop all harassment suits?"

"This isn't their first offer. It's their last. At first, they wanted me to drop all current claims and never to take one up again. I started out rather graphic in my refusal, but you can be proud of me, Richard. I managed to make clear that I would be willing to discuss any reasonable proposal, but just not that one, as you taught me."

"Yeah. Well. So what's the alternative."

"The lawyer says our case is very strong, but they are putting in a lot of effort. At the rate we are going, it might take months, if not years. The thing is, as long as any criminal indictment exists, we can't very well go for harassment, so they will do everything to keep me here. If we could prove that they keep me here for that reason, we could sue them successfully for a hundred thousand dollars in punitive damages, or even a million, if I'm stuck here long enough. But it's impossible to prove that. They will claim they did it all with the best intentions to protect their employee. If there is no intent, a judge will just look at my normal pay and double it if I'm lucky. The lawyer reckons I might get one or two thousand by the end of the year."

"So. Take their offer."

"Yeah. But think of it. A million dollars."

"But that's fools gold. You know them. They are never going to give you a million. Not ever. It doesn't happen. They'd rather spend ten times that in legal fees than give you a million. What do you think, Dawn?"

"I would die in prison. I would agree to anything just to get out."

Luke added: "My father once told me that big corporations are not dissimilar from psychopaths: they have no moral feelings. Our feeling of righteousness is as futile with big organizations as it is with a psychopath. They are not going to see the error of their ways, they are not going to feel the suffering they have caused, and they are not going to change their attitude towards the world. They only get smarter at avoiding being held responsible."

"Hm."

"His point, or rather, my point, is that you shouldn't focus on changing them or making them pay in any normal sense. You shouldn't even expect to get out of this any better than you went in. You were put in jail for no good reason, and they are incapable of admitting they were wrong. Their offer isn't an admission of guilt in any way. It is an admission of their incapability to feel guilt. That is never going to happen. So. Take the money and learn to live with what they did. Use the money to continue to fight them as you do. Use the money to bring other cases to the press. Publish a book about your relative. They are not only giving you $4500, but also the time that you would otherwise spend useless in jail."

"Yeah, Esmee. I agree. Get this behind you as quickly as possible, or they will eat you alive."

"Ok, guys. That's what I wanted to hear, really. We'll take them up on it, and I should be out this afternoon."

"Call us when you know anything. We could pick you up."

...

The small room was crowded, with the three of them arriving and four people already there. Luke entered last.

...

His breathing stopped.

...

His heart stopped.

...

No. A single beat.

...

And again.

...

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her hair was slightly curly, the most luxurious reddish-brown, just over shoulder length. Her eyes were the palest shade of green. Her skin freckled alabaster and her nose competed with the finest ever cut by artist's hand from stone. Her delicate mouth drooped slightly, but the corners turned up constantly as she spoke. She wore a patterned, brightly colored robe reaching halfway her thighs, and beneath it a sweater and slacks. Her fingers were finely carved and what else he could guess of her figure was delicately shaped.

The room was still darkish, even with all lights on, but as she turned towards them, she appeared to him brightly lit with an indefinable glow.

"Feel free to gawp and goggle for a bit there, Luke. We're all friends here."

Not a single word did reach him. Esmee looked at him briefly, the corners of her mouth twitching gaily, and embraced Dawn and then Richard. She looked Richard in his eyes and said: "Thanks. Again. Whenever you need anything. Well. You know."

She looked at Luke again, and his heart skipped another beat.

"He seemed more talkative on the phone." She embraced him and said: "Thanks nonetheless." Then she went to talk to Dawn and Richard.

"Why didn't you call?"

"I wanted to take a shower first. Get dressed. Be in my room. I've slept a lot over there, but still, I'm tired. I called when I felt like myself again."

"Of course. Hi Fiona, Michael. And you're ..., Jean, right? This is Luke. I would say, 'Meet Luke,' but he seems preoccupied at the moment. Best to meet him some other time."

"Yeah yeah yeah."

"Ok. Michael. Jean. They are active in the struggle. Activists, one might say. Oh, don't fuss, Michael. Luke just shipped in off-world, and besides, he's holding the wrong end of the stick. He is the guardian of his alien friend, and he didn't know he was supposed to get a commitment. So they seized the lot, and he is struggling to ..., well, not struggling. He's doing alright. Did a lot of good."

"Activists for what?"

"Better laws to avoid stasis being used as a milk cow. The medicorps make billions a year selling something that is as cheap as a light bulb and merely helps them to solve their logistic problems, at the expense of the quality of our lives, at best. Did you know that a majority of people who are aware of how stasis is being misused are against it? It's just that most people are totally unaware. Take Fiona, for example. She'd been in the thick of it for ..., how many years? And she came to understand what it really meant only by accident. So what we do is try to make people see."

"And what do you do? I mean, how do you go about it? I mean, you're not throwing bombs or anything."

"We have a brochure informing people about the risks and legal aspects. We hand out leaflets near the bigger hospitals to inform people. We try to get in the news and in the papers regularly. About once a year, we do 'a project'. Last year we suspended a stasis capsule from monofilament halfway between Brodin Municipal and the Borough Morgue. Got the six o'clock news, but only two papers saw the poetic truth: stasis being halfway death. They might even have used that one: stasis as the sole barrier between hospital and death or something. That would have been ok as well. But most papers ignored it. The usual self-censure of the status quo."

"And now? Are you planning anything new?"

"Nope. Right out of ideas."

"Sorry?"

Richard interjected: "Don't tease him, Michael. He's new to this. It's one of the ground rules, Luke: you never talk about what you will do. They want to reach the news, and if they tell, it isn't news anymore. And besides, there is Intelligence. They would simply prevent it."

"Intelligence? You mean like the FIS?"

"No. No. The MIB, the Medical Intelligence Bureau. The bastard offspring of the medicorps and the Justiciary, some say. They are there to prevent radical action. People like Michael and Jean, well, Fiona as well, try to inform people directly or by appearing in the news. They stay within the law, but on occasion, they traverse the edges, so to speak. In order to suspend that monofilament between Brodin Medical and the morgue, they had to trespass and cause some damage to the buildings. They were fined $250, and they had to pay for the damage, of course. They had bought the capsule themselves, which was a total loss. People like us aren't explicit targets of the MIB. They know who we are, and if they knew what we are going to do, they would probably prevent it, but I don't think we get much attention. If they would, there is a risk for the MIB as well. If we could prove it, we would most certainly reach the news. The MIB can only work if they remain in shadows. They aren't entirely legal. At least, their operations aren't.

"What they do is keep track of real radicals. Two years ago, there was a hit on The Vault. It's where they keep most people in stasis here in Brodin. When people are expected to stay there for a while, that is. Your friend might be there. Some radical network sabotaged three power stations simultaneously, and the first backup system proved to have been sabotaged earlier. The second system was off-line for maintenance. They had to reroute power from the backup system of a nearby hospital to prevent people from coming out of stasis. It was a miracle no patient got hurt or even got out of stasis. The capsules can sustain stasis only for half an hour or so. Personally, I don't believe nobody got out of stasis, but they wouldn't tell, of course. All in all, there was only a single published casualty: an electrical engineer who electrocuted himself while rerouting the power.

"On balance, I would say they brought the cause forward. Most people were outraged, of course, but at least they were thinking about stasis. Which isn't to say I condone such methods, or Michael, I dare say. I shudder to think what would have happened if the power hadn't been online in time. There are more than a hundred thousand people in stasis in The Vault. But that's the radicals' point, of course.

"Anyway, it was probably one of the biggest failures of MIB, and they are sore losers. Word is all people involved have disappeared since. I doubt there has been a trial, which the medicorps most certainly don't want. But frankly, I don't actually know anything. It's just gossip. The MIB is real, though. I've been interviewed by them twice. I guess they want to make sure I don't stray too far, which I wouldn't anyway. You've met them, haven't you, Michael."

"Oh yeah. After the suspended capsule. They wanted to make attempted murder, and criminal negligence out of it on the grounds that should the monofilament have broken, people might very well have been killed. The thing is, we had an engineer compute the stresses, and their Christmas display over on Final Frontier Avenue turned out to be way more dangerous. In the end, they dropped the matter because a trial would have given us more exposure. Pity.

"I was also interrogated after the Vault thing, but that was stupid. I'm also pretty sure Jean had their attention for a while, some time ago. Small things. A face I happened to see twice, in a crowd. But it's probably passed now. We aren't doing anything of great interest to them, eh Jean?"

It was the first time she spoke. She was a petite, nervous woman. Maybe thirty-five or something. Neither attractive nor unattractive, though when she spoke, her nervousness increased, which worked on Luke's nerves. He looked at Esmee instead and missed what Jean said.

In all, the evening was pleasant but brief. They had a glass of wine and some peanuts, but the tiny room was crowded, and they weren't really comfortable. When Fiona got up because she needed to get to work, they all got ready to leave. Luke would have stayed but couldn't think of any good reason. When they stood and said goodbye, he said to Esmee, only just managing not to stammer: "I'd like to see you again. Would that be ok with you?"

Esmee looked into Luke's eyes as she said to Richard: "Richard, can you think of any reason why I would want to see Luke again?"

"Funny you should ask, Esmee, because as a matter of fact, I can. I've been telling you for ages you should do more with your money than keep it in a bank. Now Luke here knows about money, and you know you can trust him. Well. Maybe not with your money, but you share the same motives. And best of all, you don't have to worry about undue risks or adventures. He's an accountant and not a broker. So why don't you ask him to think about how to make more out of it without any risk of losing it."

"What do you think, Luke? Can you make me rich without any risk whatsoever?"

"I'd certainly like to try. I'd have to look at your situation first, of course. And we'd have to talk about what you would like to do. Can I call you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. In the afternoon somewhere. First, I have to salvage what's left of my job, so at the end of the afternoon would be ok."

Richard took his leave in the station, so Dawn and Luke sat on the train together.

"I know that look. You're in love."

"Hm. It's, ... She's... I don't know."

"What you should do is get out here and run home. Enjoy this on your own, and get some exercise. Otherwise, you won't be able to sleep. See ya."