NEAL STEPHENSON

245

“You mean, like, the Raft? The Enterprise Raft? Is that where you guys all came from?”

“I don’t know where we came from,” the woman says. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember stuff. But that’s not important.”

“Where were you before? You didn’t grow up on the Raft, did

“I was a systems programmer for 3verse Systems in Mountain View, California,” the woman says, suddenly whipping off a ;tring of perfect, normal-sounding English.

“Then how did you get to be on the Raft?”

“I don’t know. My old life stopped. My new life started. Now I’m here.” Back to baby talk.

“What’s the last thing you remember before your old life topped?”

“I was working late. My computer was having problems.”

“That’s it? That’s the last normal thing that happened to

“My system crashed,” she said. “I saw static. And then I beame very sick. I went to the hospital. And there in the hospital, [met a man who explained everything to me. He explained that [bad been washed in the blood. That I belonged to the Word now. And suddenly it all made sense. And then I decided to go to the Raft.”

“You decided, or someone decided for you?”

“I just wanted to. That’s where we go.”

“Who else was on the Raft with you?”

“More people like me.”

“Like you how?”

“All programmers. Like me. Who had seen the Word.”

“Seen it on their computers?”

“Yes. Or sometimes on TV.”

“What did you do on the Raft?”

The woman pushes up one sleeve of her raggedy sweatshirt to expose a needle-pocked arm.

“You took drugs?”

“No. We gave blood.”

“They sucked your blood out?”

“Yes. Sometimes we would do a little coding. But only some of us.”

246