Glasshouse by Charles Stross

before.
    It’s a touchy moment, but then he shakes his head, breaking the tension: “Yes.” He yawns. “Can I go to the bathroom first?”
    â€œSure.” I step aside and he shambles past me. I turn to watch him. I don’t know how I feel about this, about sharing a “house” with a stranger who is stronger and bigger than I am and who has a self-confessed history of impulsive violent episodes. But . . . who am I to criticize? By the time I’d known Kay this long, we’d gone to a wild orgy together and fucked each other raw, and if that isn’t impulsive behavior, I don’t know . . . maybe Sam’s right. Sex is an unpleasant complication here, especially before we know what the rules are. If there are rules. Vague memories are trying to surface: I’ve got a feeling I was involved withboth males and females back before my excision. Possibly poly, possibly bi—I can’t quite remember. I shake my head, frustrated, and go back to my room to get into costume.
    While I’m getting ready, I pick up my tablet. It tells me to look in the closet in the conservatory. I go downstairs and find the conservatory is chilly—don’t these people have proper life support?—and inside the cupboard that held a T-gate yesterday there’s now a blank wall and a couple of shelves. One of the shelves holds a couple of small bags made of dumb fabric. They’ve got lots of pockets, and when I open one I find it’s full of rectangles of plastic with names and numbers on them. My tablet tells me that these are “credit cards,” and we can use them to obtain “cash” or to pay for goods and services. It seems crude and clumsy, but I pick up the wallets all the same. I’m turning away from the door when my netlink chimes.
    â€œHuh?” I look round. As I glance at the wallets in my hand a bright blue cursor lights up over them, and my netlink says, TWO POINTS . “What the—” I stop dead. My tablet chimes.
Tutorial: social credits are awarded and rescinded for behavior that complies with or violates public norms. This is an example. Your social credits may also rise or fall depending on your cohort’s collective score. After termination of the simulation all individuals will receive a payment bonus proportional to their score; the highest-scoring cohort will receive a further bonus of 100% on their final payment.
    â€œOkay.” I hurry back inside to give Sam his wallet.
    Sam is coming downstairs as I go inside. “Here,” I say, holding both the wallets out to him, “this one is yours. Can you put these in a pocket for me until I buy one of those shoulder bags? I’ve got nowhere to put mine.”
    â€œSure.” He takes my stuff. “Did you read the tutorial?”
    â€œI started to—I needed something to help me get to sleep. Let’s . . . how do we get downtown?”
    â€œI called a taxi. It’ll be here to pick us up in a short while.”
    â€œOkay.” I look him up and down. He’s back in costume again. Itstill looks awkward. I can’t help tapping my toes with impatience. “Clothing, first. For both of us. Where do we go? Do you know how the stuff is sold?”
    â€œThere’s something called a department store, the tutorial said to start there. We might run into some of the others.”
    â€œHmm.” A thought strikes me. “I’m hungry. Think there’ll be somewhere to eat?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    Something large and yellow appears outside the door. “Is that it?” I ask.
    â€œWho knows?” He looks twitchy. “Let’s go see.”
    The yellow thing is a taxi, a kind of automobile you hire by the centisecond. There’s a human operator up front, and something like a padded bench seat in the rear. We get in, and Sam leans forward. “Can you take us to the nearest department store?”