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Henry Garrick could have had had a full body replica of his wife. But robot technology still had not perfected limb and muscle movement, so FBRs - as full body replicas were known - tended to move with a clumsy articulation that made them look like retards. He had opted instead for a hologram - the standard PostDeanimation program hologram model PermaLife-7.

Susan-2 as he had called her, was connected through a cordless digital satellite link to an online brain download databank, named ARCHIVE 4, and a network of lasers concealed in the walls gave her the ability to move freely around much of the apartment, though not of course beyond. The entire transformation of Susan from a wetware (flesh and blood) mortal, into a hardware (digitised silicon) virtual mortal had been handled by the undertakers.

Death was a taboo word these days. Deanimation; or Suspended Animation; or Altered Sentient Condition or even Metabolically Challenged, were more accurate descriptions - at least, for anyone who took the consciousness download option offered by most leading funeral directors these days as a pre-death service. Struth, Henry thought, the array of options was bewildering for both the living and the downloaded. Options in everything: Static Books; Interactive books; Virtual Reality; Alternative Reality. And, of course, good old Television still had its following.

No one knew how many channels there were now. His MinuteManager trawled the airwaves around the clock for programmes fitting Henry's taste parameters. It then divided them into two categories - those Henry would actually watch and those it would load straight into Henry's brain via his silicon interface, so that he would simply have the memory of having watched them.

'There's some good legal retro from the last century on tonight,' the MinuteManager announced. 'LA Law, Kramer v Kramer, Perry Mason, Ironside, The Firm, Lawman, Rumpole of the Bailey. Would you care to watch any in real time or compressed time?'

For some moments Henry Garrick did not answer. He was still wondering why his wife had got up so early. Perhaps there was a problem with one of her modules - maybe he should call an engineer and get her looked at under the maintenance contract - if he could remember who the hell it was with. Then her voice startled him.

'Goodbye darling, have a nice day,' Susan-2 said.

She was going out! She wasn't supposed to go out... There wasn't any way she could go out! 'Hey!' he shouted. 'Hey, where the hell are you going?'

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