Zendegi

‘An adult liver weighs as much as a new-born baby,’ Martin claimed, fairly sure that this was neither true nor relevant. All he needed now was for Dr Jobrani to walk in while his visitors debated the reasons for the organ’s tardy arrival. ‘Anyway, I’m lucky they can do it at all.’

‘Thanks to God,’ Rana agreed. ‘You’ll be out soon, as healthy as ever. Like Omar’s father with his artificial legs. You should see him, Martin: he’s like a young man again.’ This was clearly intended as a form of encouragement, but Rana seemed to mean it sincerely.

‘Yeah?’ Martin smiled. ‘Well, he waited more than forty years, so I don’t have anything to complain about.’

Rana glanced at the clock on the wall and addressed Javeed. ‘Say good-bye to your father. We’ll go home and have some dinner.’

Javeed approached the side of the bed and Martin kissed him. ‘Thanks for coming, pesaram. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He turned to Rana. ‘Thanks for bringing him. I know he’s a handful.’

‘Khahesh mikonam.’

‘I’m not a handful!’ Javeed protested.

‘No, he’s been good,’ Rana said, almost convincingly. ‘It’s a pleasure to have him.’ She rose from her chair.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Martin said. ‘Khoda hafez.’

‘Khoda hafez.’

When they were gone, Martin took his notepad from the side of the bed and returned to the Zendegi website. He’d narrowed down his list to three scenarios, but he wanted to make a definite choice for the following day so he could fall asleep knowing there’d be one less thing to deal with in the morning.

In Zendegi, a great many people spent a great deal of time pretending to fight and kill each other, and Javeed had shown no signs that he would buck the trend. For all that Martin had tried to steer him away from battle scenes, the chances were that within a few years the attraction would prove irresistible. Martin had gone through that phase of his childhood fencing with sticks and shooting water pistols; there had been no technology around to make his opponents fountain blood and spill viscera. That magic had been confined to the movies, with the most graphic material out of his reach – though at twelve he’d managed to sneak into Jabberwocky and found himself in heaven.

He was hoping there’d be time for several different test runs before the transplant, but with Zendegi’s health looking as precarious as his own, he needed to be prepared to make a judgement as quickly as possible. So if he wanted to see the Proxy jump through hoops, there was no point starting with any but the highest, and no point sparing the flames.

Nasim collected Martin from the hospital and drove him across the city. She seemed nervous, but it was clear from her demeanour that the optimistic verdict she’d given him after her own tests had been genuine. The Proxy had not disappointed her; the only thing she feared was that Martin might not feel the same way.

It was half past seven when they arrived, but despite the chilly morning Shahidi’s supporters were out in force. Martin had only been following the politics sporadically, but he’d heard Zendegi’s side-loads being lumped together with a whole grab-bag of permissive and un-Islamic trends. The respectable conservative line went like this: Nobody wanted the corrupt mullahs back, lining their pockets and throwing their enemies into prison, but the pendulum had swung too far and a correction was desperately needed. A vote to rein in immodesty and blasphemy would be the antidote to extremism, dealing with popular discontent before it exploded into a violent backlash.

In the MRI room, Nasim fitted Martin’s skullcap. Bernard was having a day off; his trainee, Peyman, was operating the scanner. There was no need for contrast agents; they would not be collecting side-loading data today. The only reason Martin was here and not in a ghal’e was that controlling his icon mentally, via the scanner, would spare him from fatigue and allow him to fake a few futuristic tweaks to the system.

Nasim said, ‘Don’t get alarmed if the Proxy doesn’t show up for a few minutes; it’s hard to say in advance how long I’ll be talking to it.’

‘Okay.’

‘Feel free to kill the game any time you want to, or to keep running it for as long as you like. The scanner’s yours for three hours if you need it.’

‘Thank you.’

Nasim flipped down his goggles and fitted the cage over his head. Martin waited for the whirr of the motor that would carry him back into Zendegi.

***