Diamond Age by Stephenson Neal

Author:Stephenson, Neal [Neal, Stephenson,]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-06-22T01:42:13.045000+00:00

Diamond Age

“So each person on the street is like an object?”

“Possibly. But a better analogy is that the objects are people like us, sitting in various buildings that front on the street. Suppose that we want to send a message to someone over in Pudong. We write the message down on a piece of paper, and we go to the door and hand it to the first person who goes by and say, 'Take this to Mr. Gu in Pudong.' And he skates down the street for a while and runs into someone on a bicycle who looks like he might be headed for Pudong, and says, 'Take this to Mr. Gu.' A minute later, that person gets stuck in traffic and hands it off to a pedestrian who can negotiate the snarl a little better, and so on and so on, until eventually it reaches Mr. Gu. When Mr. Gu wants to respond, he sends us a message in the same way.”

“So there's no way to trace the path taken by a message.”

“Right. And the real situation is even more complicated. The media net was designed from the ground up to provide privacy and security, so that people could use it to transfer money. That's one reason the nationstates collapsed-as soon as the media grid was up and running, financial transactions could no longer be monitored by governments, and the tax collection systems got fubared. So if the old IRS, for example, wasn't able to trace these messages, then there's no way that you'll be able to track down Princess Nell.”

“Okay, I guess that answers my question,” Miranda said.

“Good!” Carl said brightly. He was obviously pleased that he'd been able to help Miranda, and so she didn't tell him how his words had really made her feel. She treated it as an acting challenge: Could she fool Carl Hollywood, who was sharper about acting than just about anyone, into thinking that she was fine?

Apparently she did. He escorted her back to her flat, in a hundred story high-rise just across the river in Pudong, and she held it together long enough to bid him good-bye, get out of her clothes, and run a bath. Then she climbed into the hot water and dissolved in awful, wretched, blubbery, self-pitying tears.

Eventually she got it under control. She had to keep this in perspective. She could still interact with Nell and still did, every day. And if she paid attention, sooner or later she would find some way to penetrate the curtain. Barring that, she was beginning to understand that Nell, whoever she was, had been marked out in some way, and that in time she would become a very important person. Within a few years, Miranda expected to be reading about her in the newspaper. Feeling better, she got out of the bath and climbed into bed, getting a good night's sleep so she'd be ready for her next day of taking care of Nell.

General description of life with the Constable;

his

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