She hung up. It was too much. It was not enough.

She cut her father off, mid-sentence. The wind sliced through Vicar Lane as she strode into it, blowing her hair across her face. Her hands were cold; she slid them into her jeans pockets, along with her phone. It was cold enough for snow, though thankfully still dry. The only thing worse than windswept tangled hair was wet windswept tangled hair. Nobody was looking at her, anyway. Unless somebody was watching her on CCTV.

Father had been lecturing her. She did not need another lecture. She needed money. It was as simple as that. He always said how complicated everything was, but some things are simple. She had rent to pay, and no way to pay it. Though she would not admit it, Jen was willing to contemplate many indignities, to make some fast, hard, cold cash. But she would not endure another lecture from her father. It was not worth it. The lecture was bound to be long. By its end, she would still be short of money.

It was funny how quickly the streets emptied, when the shops closed on a Sunday. She had stepped outside for a fag during her lunch break. Jen had watched the shoppers trundling by, whilst Barry watched her smoking his cigarettes. The consumers were laden with bags, each obstructing the other’s quest for the perfect new shirt, the perfect new lipstick. Jen saw where they were headed, and it was not to Topman or Boots. They were on the slow march to death. At 1pm, the streets were full of worshippers, praying to the god of capitalism, preying on every other worker, losing themselves in the contingent divinity of another new purchase. Jen knew where everyone was headed. For the time being, she was going to the place where she lived, if ‘living’ was the right word for it.

Now it was 5.45pm. Within three quarters of an hour, the streets had turned barren, the sky had turned black. Thanks to the perversity of religion, come 5ish on a Sunday, Leeds City Centre might as well have been transported to one of those miserable East European communist countries, circa the 1970’s. This spoke of the limits of capitalism, for more eloquently than the crypto-Marxists on her course ever could. Capitalism might have defeated the Soviets and entranced the Chinese, it might impoverish and enslave people the world over, but even the mighty M&S was powerless to sell knickers come 5.01pm, on a Sunday in Leeds. Jen would have chugged a cigarette whilst waiting for her bus, but she had none, and the tall black man waiting behind her did not look the type that smoked. She looked at her phone again. Father had not called back. Fuck him.

The 51 finally arrived. “Meanwood Road,” she said to the driver, slapping down the correct fare. That fare was half an hour’s work, near enough. She had stopped buying the student passes, though they were cheaper in the long run, because she lacked the funds. The black man paused as he walked down the aisle, looking like he might sit beside her, although there were pairs of empty seats elsewhere. She tried to appear indifferent to the possibility, though inside she recoiled at the thought. It was not that he was black. He was a man. She did not want his thoughts encroaching on the space for her thoughts. She had to think, about what was wrong with the economic order, and about how to pay her rent. Also, men always sat with their legs splayed outwards, as if their bulging crotch must emanate into the surrounding environment, demanding that everybody else make way.

At least father had called. But then, he was unlikely to pass up an opportunity to tell her how to live her life. Jen leaned against the window, as a few telltale drops of water streaked downed its outside. Father always spoke in code. Even his instructions were given in code. ‘Your mother is worried about you,’ meant he was fed up with Jen. ‘There are always other options,’ meant he expected her to move back home. But she liked it in the North. She fancied she increasingly sounded like a Northerner. Her father would not like that, but he could hardly complain. After two decades in the English South, his Scottish accent still proved immune to assimilation. In contrast, her native Bristolian burr was gratefully fading with every passing day.

The black man was getting off at the same stop on Meanwood Road. He rang the bell before she thought to. She stood behind him, waiting for the doors to open, looking at a wart on the back of his neck. As she waited, her phone vibrated in her pocket. She read the message as she clambered off, not forgetting to thank the driver. The message was from Seamus. He was far more tolerable than the other crypto-Marxists. And he had a tight bum, from running around playing football. His crowd of leftist fantasists, plus some housemates, would be down The Skyrack that night. She was welcome to join them. Maybe he would buy the drinks, like last time. His parents were rich enough, but then so were Jen’s, and she was still on the brink of being homeless. Seamus was guaranteed to sub her cigarettes, at the very least. And a night down the pub might get her mind off things. That was hardly a solution to her problems, but no other solutions came to mind.

She called Father, as she walked to the house she shared with four other students. The drizzle was light, but the wind gusted, meaning it would be hard to speak on the phone. Jen would shower, get changed, then go straight out again, so she would not have another opportunity to speak to Father this evening. His phone was engaged, and she was put straight through to voicemail. Bastard. She did not leave a message.

That night, she sucked Seamus’ cock for the first time. He was suitably pleased. Jen never understood why the girls at school had advocated blowjobs over penetration. At least with penetration there was the prospect of enjoying it too. What was the point of ‘saving’ yourself sexually, just to spend more time tasting boy’s willies? Blowjobs were a boring chore. Maybe things would have been different if boys knew what they were doing when they went down on a girl, and did it like-for-like. To be fair to Seamus, he knew what he was doing, from whichever angle he approached his quarry. He retained plenty of energy into the small hours, laying Jen back and holding her ankles in the air, whilst he banged away furiously. That was quite enjoyable, especially as she no longer had to do anything, though she would have preferred to be asleep by then. But Jen needed to butter Seamus up. Jen had found an interim solution for her problems, and it involved moving in with Seamus. She would tell him tomorrow.

In the last chapter, Milton miniaturized and swallowed Bill’s program, hiding it inside him, whilst the Feds banged on the door…

Milton stood in front of the door. If his avatar could have perspired, it would have. He rubbed his hands against the seat of his pants, like he was wiping something sticky from his palms. He repeated the action, over and over, even though there was nothing on his hands, and there was no sensation of touch inside v-space. If anybody had seen it, they would have thought Milton’s avatar had stopped responding to his command, and was stuck in an endless loop.

“Open up, Mr. O’Connor. We know you’re inside.”

Milton knew she was bluffing, of course. There was no way the Internal Revenue’s spy programs could see inside the villa.

“I can see you, Mr. O’Connor. Through the frosted glass.”

Ah, she had a point there. Whilst Milton had underglazed all the plain glass windows, he may have forgotten to protect the narrow strips of frosted glass in the front door. The shorter of the two agents pressed her face against that glass, peering in. Milton waved his hand in front of her. She waved straight back, but not in a nice way.

Forgetting to underglaze the door was a slip by Milton, but not a major one. The entrance hall was always empty, apart from when Milton stood there. Most of the house was empty. He kept rubbing his hands on the seat of his pants. Bill had designed the villa; Milton just worked there. And rested there. If Milton had designed it, he would have designed it as an opaque box, and then used internal screens to simulate the effect of windows. The effect would have looked the same, but the programming would have been totally different.

“Mr. O’Connor! I won’t ask again: let us inside, right this minute, or I will signal my colleagues in the real world to apprehend your body, at your apartment in… where is it?”
The taller woman spoke. “Hrefnugata, Reykjavik, Iceland.”
“Do you have a warrant?” Milton had never seen a warrant, but he knew they had no right to enter, unless they had one.
“Yes.”
“Really?” He had not expected that. “How do I know?” This was a genuine question. Milton had never dealt with government goons who actually had paperwork. Normally they just barged into places, exploiting lax security. Everywhere had lax security, compared to this villa.
“It was emailed to you. Last week.”
“Last week?” Milton had no recollection of receiving an email like that. “Hold on, one moment.” He placed his hands together in front of him, and opened his personal interface. Quickly checking through his spam folders, he found the relevant email.

From: Internal Revenue Federation Special Agent Holly Ryder To: Milton O'Connor
Subject: Notice of a Mandatory Tax Inspection to be Conducted on 24th September 2023

Dear Mr. O'Connor,

It has come to our attention that...

“Mr. O’Connor! Open this door or I’ll be forced to…”
Milton was not fooled, and stopped listening. The ability to tune out and to stop listening was one of Milton’s great strengths, allowing him to keep coding however noisy his flatmates and neighbours had been. But that was in the bad old days. Everything was peaceful, now that he spent all his time in v-space. He just had to be calm, and work out the optimal solution that would not compromise security any more than necessary. If he opened the door, the house would be flooded full of creepy crawly spyware. And if he revealed the passkeys that allowed programs to resolve inside, the villa would be instantly infested. But he had to let the two Feds inside. The email linked to a permit which checked out as authentic government freedom-repressing b/s. He did not like it, but he had to let them in. Or the cops would come, and cart his real body to Hegningarhúsið detention centre, in downtown Reykjavik. It was a very nice jail, compared to others that Milton had been inside. And Milton’s lawyer would get him out in a few days at most. But it still meant spending an extended period in his real body, in the real world. And that was unthinkable.

“What’s your email address?” shouted Milton.
“Mr. O’Connor! Let us in!”
Milton smacked himself on the forehead. The frosted glass was flawed, but the soundproofing still worked. He pulled out his interface and replied to the email from Special Agent Holly Ryder. Meanwhile, the two women had turned away from the door, and looked at each other, as if they were contemplating their next move.

From: Milton O'Connor
To: Internal Revenue Federation Special Agent Holly Ryder Subject: Re: Notice of a Mandatory Tax Inspection to be Conducted on 24th September 2023

Very sorry "" the door is just cosmetic and does not open. Also, you cannot hear me because I like to practice drums and have soundproofed the building. Please use the attached links, one for you, and one for your partner.

Regs,

M

Two encrypted single-use hyperlinks meant Milton could be sure the agent’s programs were allowed inside the villa, but nothing else could follow them through. Milton waited for them on the observation deck. First through was the mob, a six foot tall, supermodel-thin blonde in the figure-hugging black dress. And then came the PC, in grey three-piece trouser suit. She was a five-foot forty-something redhead, stern and severe in appearance. This was unlikely to be fun.

The writer stared at the column of white paper. The paper remained stubbornly blank. It should have become something new, by now: a list, detailing his achievements since last year, somewhat akin to a cosmic progress report. And yet, the list already existed and it was complete. He saw that now. It was what mathematicians sometimes refer to as the null set, because it contains precisely zero members. He put his pencil down.

And then he scratched the back of his head, and realized that his accomplishments had been overstated. Like Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, he had feigned scepticism only to smuggle an assumption under the nose of the reader. He re-read what he had written before, seeing the truth of it. Translated as ‘I think, therefore I am’, Descartes had bungled himself into his philosophy. He had not troubled to establish what was named by the ‘I’. Perhaps it named many things. Perhaps it was constantly changing, so that there was no continuity to it. Or perhaps it winked in and out of existence, whenever a thought started, and ended. An apparently solid argument had been built on the least secure of foundations: the assumption of an identity. If anything had been established, it should be summarized as: “thinking takes place.” And the writer had made the same mistake, giving himself a title he had not earned. All that was known was that writing had taken place, for good or ill, and possibly of no consequence either way.

He returned to the beginning, and read what he had written. By reading it, he confirmed its existence, to the best of his ability. The reading established that there had been writing. Something “” unnamed, but definitely something “” had existed, even if it was the words and nothing else. They had been born into the universe, and it no longer seemed to matter if there was reason or significance beyond that truth.

p therefore p is simultaneously the most robust, and the lightest argument of all. Its short radius of circularity condenses to a single indivisible point, a moment of logical certainty, divorced from all other matters of fact, or belief. He now understood his writing to be a single point of certainty, shining like a star in the void. It was so far away, that the light which came from it travelled in parallel lines, with no criss-cross, or overlap, or interference. The light was pure, and simple, which is what he aspired to be. And it was light enough for him.

And so he became a character in his own story, which pleased him greatly. And it was definitely his story, which pleased him even more.

Previously, we left the ‘Feds’, agents of the Internal Revenue Federation, outside Bill’s safe house. How can Bill and Milton escape them?

Milton continued to crack into the encryption surrounding the two visitors. “Yeah, they’re definitely Feds. It’ll take me a while to overcome their firewalls.”
Bill opened his personal interface and called up his bookmarks. “I’d better leap out of here.”
“No! No, that’s the worst thing you can do. That’s exactly what they’ll be looking for. Then they’ll sniff your data stream and will catch you for sure.”
“Then what should I do?”
“Wait, just wait. Maybe they won’t come in. They resolved outside the safe perimeter but my security programs scan well past the normal horizon. Perhaps they’ll hang around outside. Or maybe I’ll crack their encryption and will be able to terminate their programs. Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh? What’s that mean?”
“They’ve stepped inside the neutral threshold round the house. They’re coming up the garden path, to the front door.”
“So what do I do?”
“Hide.”
Bill grimaced. “Hide where? In the closet?”
“First, get into this.” Milton picked up a transparent glass cube from his desk, as large as a sugar cube, holding it between his thumb and his forefinger.
“You’re joking, surely?”
“I’m sending you the link,” said Milton, typing with his other hand. Bill opened his personal interface, to receive the incoming message.
“I don’t understand,” said Bill, shaking his head.
“In v-space, we’re all composed of vectors, and all vectors are relative. We don’t normally play with the equations, but this box is a mathematical transform. It won’t seem small when you’re inside; it’ll just be that everything else will seem bigger than it really is. More importantly, the box is hermetically, digitally, perfectly, sealed. Nothing you do inside will be able to leak out.”
“And what if they find the cube, and confiscate it?”
The doorbell rang. “Don’t worry about that,” said Milton. “I’m going to hide you somewhere that they’re categorically not allowed to look.”

Bill hit the hyperlink that Milton had just sent him. He vanished, and “” click “” reappeared inside the cube. From Bill’s perspective, he was stuck inside a glass box, barely taller than himself. Milton looked like a 140-foot giant. Milton was ugly at normal size, so magnifying him caused Bill to feel queasy. “Okay, I’m inside,” he shouted, “now what?” Milton did not react. Bill banged on the glass, but realized he was being silly. Milton could not hear, or see him through the one-way material of the cube. Bill reopened his interface, intending to send Milton a message that way. The interface opened. But it had no connection to the rest of v-space. It only connected to his local data. With no connection, Bill could not send a message, nor hyperleap out. He looked aghast. “Milton “” what have you got me into?!”

Milton picked up the cube, and held it to his eye. If his face looked ugly normally, it was repellent when magnified a hundred times. “I guess you’re in there buddy,” said Milton, talking to Bill. “Now hold on…”

From Bill’s perspective, Milton’s giant eye was disturbing. Looking up Milton’s giant nose was disgusting. And looking inside Milton’s giant mouth was horrific. He shouted: “Milton: what are you doing?” But before Bill had finished his own sentence, Milton had tossed the cube into his mouth, and gulped it down. The cube rolled and fell and clattered to a halt inside… a perfectly black void. It was so perfectly black that Bill reopened his interface, just to cast some light on his surroundings. But when he did, he saw there was literally nothing to see, except for the interface itself and his own body, seemingly floating in empty black space. Bill reasoned that the cube was probably in a special compartment built inside Milton’s avatar. So with nothing to do, and with no access to the rest of the world, Bill closed his screen again. He scratched the back of his head, and sat on the floor of the cube. Within a few minutes, he was lying down. And a few minutes later he closed his eyes, because it made no difference if they were open. And before he knew it, Bill was doing something that only he, of all the mobs in v-space, could do. He slept, and dreamed.