Lately Pig has experienced

something that resonates like

discontent if discontent hadn't

been truncated from his

personality as detestation was.

   But the experience

   is hardly one at all:

   it is a murmur;

   a ripple.

   He feels implanted

   in his pedestal at

   some molecular

   level, like strands

   of himself were

   intertwined with

   strands of the cube

   itself. Something

   tells him he should

   not be like this,

   that this is not the way.

   Pig sighs for the

   solace of the Quilt,

   where he will re-enter

   flattime and escape

   this feeling

   that is not a feeling.

Once tied onto the thread,

Pig Iron settles in for e.3's

opening run, his favorite.

Anticipation ripples through

the cube, through him.

He scans the cortex-menu

and selects the ingredients

for e.3's recipe. Pig marvels

that someone has never

successfully reconciled the

quilting metaphor with the

cooking metaphor, but he is

nontheless content and

confident they are working

on it. New enhancements

abound: three new crowd

simulators have been patched

in, berserker Visigoths, a

pre-M nursing home of

octogenarians in full victim

mode, and Pharaoh's army

from Cecil B. DeMille's silent

version of The Ten

Commandments (retina-

enhanced, of course, for post-

celluloid receptors), adreno-

stimulation has doubled, and

eight new personality grids

have entered the stage. Pig

meshes the grids, a new Level

-6 psychotic grid with a

molecular biologist grid, and,

just for fun, sets the visual

for a pan-gender dwarf. Pig uses

the e.3 defaults on vehicles,

motivations, language, and

fashions. He sets the venue and

crowd sims to random, and hits GO.

The stim level is high, but

manageable. Pig wants this run

to last. The new threads are

wonderful as always. He scans

the word wonderful and wonders

how exactly it entered his thoughts.

Pig indexes the lexicognative

humor implications of wondering

about wonderful, when he suddenly

feels a knot in the thread.

He hesitates.

    A figment pops hi-res in his

    cortextural periphery. This is not

    the first time Pig has witnessed

    the phenomenon, but he registers

    a startle-stim just the same.

    This figment appears to be a

    misshapen, cigar-smoking

    sideshow barker that Pig thinks

    <thinks!> he recognizes as being

    held over from the b.64 "Circus"

    scenario. It is about four feet

    tall, unshaven, haloed with the

    smell of fry grease, diesel oil

    and sawdust. The fig's soft glow

    illuminates the ceiling and walls

    of Pig's cube. Pig melts into the

    light which envelops him like

    warm metal. Pig Iron knows that

    four delightful new colors were

    recently developed for e.3, and

    would be incorporated in the next

    patch. He wonders about the word

    delightful. He looks at the fig.

    The fig smirks, waves his cigar

    as if to usher Pig in,

    and begins the thread. 

flattime.