NEAL STEPHENSON

401

“Just a little namshub I whipped up,” she says. “They’ll be fine.”

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi. It’s good to see you, Hiro. I’m going to give you a hug now-watch out for the antenna.”

She does. He hugs her back. The antenna is upside his nose, but that’s okay.

“Once we get this thing taken off, all the hair and stuff should grow back,” she whisperL Finally, she lets him go. “That hug was really more for me than for you. It’s been a lonely time here. Lonely and scary.”

This is typically paradoxical behavior for Juanita-getting touchy-feely at a time like this.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Hiro says, “but aren’t you one of the bad guys now?”

“Oh, you mean this?”

“Yeah. Don’t you work for them?”

“If so, I’m not doing a very good job.” She laughs, gesturing at the ring of motionless wireheads. “No. This doesn’t work on me. It sort of did, for a while, but there are ways to fight it.”

“Why? Why doesn’t it work on you?”

“I’ve spent the last several years hanging around with Jesuits,” she says. “Look. Your brain has an immune system, just like your body. The more you use it-the more viruses you get exposed to-the better your immune system becomes. And I’ve got a hell of an immune system. Remember, I was an atheist for a while, and then I came back to religion the hard way.”

“Why didn’t they screw you up the way they did Da5id?”

“I came here voluntarily.”

“Like Inanna.”

“Yes.”

“Why would anyone come here voluntarily?”

“Hiro, don’t you realize? This is it. This is the nerve center of a religion that is at once brand new and very ancient. Being here is like following Jesus or Mohammed around, getting to observe the birth of a new faith.”

“But it’s terrible. Rife is the Antichrist.”

“Of course he is. But it’s still interesting. And Rife has got something else going for him: Eridu.”

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