The man had blood on both fists again. Each strike lit the barrier in a soft violet sheet, a brief membrane of color stretched across the invisible wall, and each brief sheet showed him back to himself: thirty-six years old, unshaven, bare feet on gray laminate, standing between a beige sofa and a recliner that had once occupied some flipped rental on a humid little planet orbiting an ordinary star. He slammed the field again. Purple. Again. Purple. Again. A spray of red. Within the watching volume, several hundred thousand subminds adjusted their attention cones toward the exhibit. What is it doing? asked one. The Shard of the Overmind turned a fraction of itself toward the habitat. It had once spanned light-hours. This current conversational facet was a mere convenience, a wearable finger of godhood. It is vocalizing and striking the boundary, said the Shard. A paired display. Common among hive-organisms with limited transmission bandwidth. The impacts serve no purpose. They serve several purposes. None of them are useful. Below, the man staggered back from the barrier, chest heaving. He looked around the room as if the answer might be hiding in the seam where the laminate met the wall. There was a television. There were blank windows that gave onto a false evening. There was a kitchen with no knives and cabinets fixed shut. There was a bathroom, a bed, climate control, regulated nutrition, microbial correction, injury repair, endocrine smoothing, and no exit. He raised both fists again. Wait, said another submind. Process the sound. The Shard slowed a local pocket around the exhibit and underclocked a problem-swarm around the creature’s emissions. Several subminds flinched. You are spending serious thought on that? It will not feel slow to me, said the Shard. That is not how thinking works. But why bother?
