Sliding Void by Stephen Hunt

your brain with that A. is for Android, H. is for Hyperspace crap. Too much of that’ll give you brain cancer, which would take a bucket full of medical nanotech to fix.’
    ‘I don’t think that Matobo’s spell of language is working. I can’t understand a word of what you’re saying.’
    ‘Baby, that’s because you’re living in the dark ages and short of about thirty thousand years of context. But don’t worry. Doctor Zeno’s got himself an alternative to a neural rewrite in his medicine bag.’ He reached back to a workbench cluttered with unfamiliar machines and tools, turning around with a black skull cap made of some shiny dark material ‘I know you’ve got theatres and actors on your world; picked up that much from the primer that Matobo broadcast to us before we landed.’ He held up the cap and fitted it over Calder’s head.
    ‘Is this more of your sorcery?’
    ‘Sorcery, no, but a spell, yes. Old school sorcery, and I should know. I used to be in the business. Acting, that is. Think of what you’re going to watch as a piece of theatre. You’ll see a play, but you’ll watch it through the eyes of one of the actors, experience what they feel. Hate. Love. Fear. So real it’s beyond real. And that’s shit you can trademark.’
    ‘You wish to amuse me?’
    ‘Edutainment, man. Normally you’d get to interact, take part in the play, but I’ve turned that function off. You’re a couch potato for your first ride.’
    ‘What can I learn from seeing a play?’
    ‘It’s a cop show, one of the best, a series called Hard TAP . Most relevant episode I could think of. There are two heroes, right, cops, and they’re going to this world settled by Amish types. Spaceport is a sealed city with minimal contact with the rest of the world. Whole thing is about the mores of modernity as they interact with a pre-fusion age civilisation. Personally speaking, I think the whole thing’s a rip-off of Harrison Ford in Witness . But the cops get to explain shit to the Amish like the existence of modern dental care and how you flush a toilet and you’ll be picking up on those basics too. As introductions to the modern age go, this one is as gentle as I can make it for you. One thing.’ He bent in and adjusted the headset. ‘You’ll be in the sim for six months, relative. Out here, it’ll be more like ten minutes.’
    ‘I am not sure about this.’ The cap starting to itch as Zeno fiddled with the strange black length of—
    MotherfuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRR!
    — impact-retardant plastic, the sim controls still clutched in Zeno’s hands after all this time.
    ‘You son of a bitch!’ Calder tugged the cap off his head. ‘Sticking me with a sim when my brain’s still hot from some half-price neural rewrite.’
    Zeno pushed Calder back. ‘Down, your highness. That’s the trouble with these damn things. You going to be pimp-rolling down the ship like police rather than crew.’ He clicked a button on the side of the remote, advancing through the titles he had on the ship’s archive. He stopped when the words, Hell Fleet : Episode Twelve were flashing on the remote’s tiny green screen. ‘This show is a lot more relevant to business on board the Gravity Rose . Six months as an ensign in a TAFC jump carrier. But let’s wait until this afternoon to make a spacer out of you. Otherwise you’d be kicking down doors and maybe hit an airlock release by mistake. Too much too soon is going to fry your mind – but I’ve got to warn you, soon enough your barbarian butt’s going to be gagging for another episode.’
    ‘I’m no sim addict,’ protested Calder. ‘And you are a... robot, an android.’
    ‘Good guess. Wasn’t any robots starring in that cop show, is how I remember it. Amish don’t allow robots on their world, not even in the spaceport. ’Cept you didn’t want to call me a robot, did you? Go on man, use the old cop slur…’
    ‘Oiler.’
    ‘See, ten minutes as a