I apologize to everyone for my outburst. I was hurt and angry. In the process of talking it over with Lizzie and Ume, I've learned that my experience and reaction are not unique. I have not completely recovered, but I am working on it.

I'm sorry, Benny, that I cannot yet explain my feelings and reaction to you. Perhaps we can discuss it again when I understand both my emotions and the situation better. Will you forgive me?

Ignore everything in that sentence but that first word. Getting people to tell the truth is nearly impossible, Amalie. Give me the truth every time.

As for the rest of your sentence, let's ask the oracle of truth. Benny, what assumption has Amalie made in that sentence?

She assumes you have feelings to hurt. You don't. As for her feelings being hurt, my guess is that her parents passed on to her what society teaches us about being polite to one another and minding one another's feelings. However, society's rules don't apply to you. When conversing with Jill Price, only one rule applies: tell the truth, regardless of whether you believe she's telling the truth or not.

Benny's right and so are you, Jill. Suddenly, I no longer feel guilty and terrible.

Lizzie, you said, "All of us have experienced rage against this woman. It's like a purging we go through—a rite of passage." Whom did you mean by all of us?

Thank you, Benny. I'll try again.

Jill, when you hunt, how can you know which of all the stimuli? . . . I'm sorry. I meant, which of all the signs in the environment will bring you and your prey together?

Come on, Amalie, focus. When has Jill hunted a man so that she could have another man kill him? Remember that she must be close enough to feel him. Besides, she does not intend to kill—only to teach him a devastating lesson and send a clear message to others like him.

Damn but this is difficult. Thank you, Carlo.

What do you mean by bringing you and your prey together, Jill? Do you mean physically together?

Yes, I have, Doug, although I have never claimed to be a genius, but thank you anyway.

What do you think of Doug's thought, Jill? Can you close with your prey over the phone?

Look at the series of questions she asks Jill during this chat. We had to help her several times. She jumped to wrong conclusions. She acts like a young woman who enjoyed repeated orgasms with her new lover.

Hello, everyone. If you guys have finished making asses of yourselves, I'll ask a few questions of Avani regarding the makeup of the nomadic tribes if the future as Pere sees it does indeed come to pass. Does your analysis of the data provided by Pere indicate any centralized government among the tribes, Avani?

The neural network is female because women not only designed and developed it but also women continue its maintenance and development into the future. In addition, the network integrates itself into the women of the advisory council in every tribe across the planet.

You're wrong about only women accessing the neural network, Avani. One need not be female to access the network, but one must possess the complexity of thought necessary to initialize and maintain access. Most women do and most men do not; however, exceptions exist among both men and women. For example, Jill must use a console interface to this day but her godson, KMark, has used the network without effort since the moment Ume introduced him to it.

You're also wrong about centralized leadership. The network integrates with three women worldwide. These three women form a global advisory council. When any woman joins the global advisory council, she selects a replacement and begins the gradual process of stepping aside as her little sister takes her place. The data don't reveal the existence of this global advisory council because the women in the council exhibit no observable behavior as they communicate with one another. In fact, no one but the three of them knows who they are unless one of them reveals her identity.

All human experience, knowledge, research and history as well as the experience of all living things appear to comprise the data on this network. As for size, I have no idea. I've read in Wikipedia that in 2006 the world's computers held almost 300 exabytes. The size of this network's data store far exceeds zettabytes or yottabytes.

Much more amazing than the data store size, however, are the query and analytical tools. They are so fast and intuitive that they feel like an extension of my abilities, intuition and imagination. As I begin to frame a query, the system anticipates "a rainbow of responses," as Benny wrote in another context a while ago. All I do is select some and eliminate others to see even more responses. Within seconds, even after eliminating anything irrelevant, I have more data than I can possibly analyze in a lifetime—all of it directly relevant to my query. At this point, I begin forming summary points in priority order. The system again anticipates my wish and forms a rainbow of summaries from which I can select or eliminate.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the more I use the system, the better it becomes at anticipating my wishes. I can go on but you get the idea. Using the system has become so addictive that I don't know if I can live without access to it.

Well, I use several interfaces—display, keyboard, mouse, foot pedals and a headset—simultaneously at my console. I use a keyboard and mouse at first because I'm trying to frame my query correctly but I don't yet know what I'm asking. However, as I begin to focus in on what I'm after, I begin muttering or even whispering so the system responds, which speeds the process immensely. A few seconds later, I realize that my hands have left the keyboard and mouse and I'm simply whispering. Meanwhile, the display and headset are responding with what I want to see and hear. For example, I shake my head as I look at or hear a response set and that set disappears. I nod and similar sets appear. I don't like black on white displays so the system displays muted colors in high contrast. Sometimes, I stamp my foot or tap it right or left and the system responds to my wishes.

To tell you the truth, Suze, I haven't thought much of it but now that I read my own description, it scares me a little because I realize how impossible this sounds. I've begun wearing the headset, which is wireless and quite unobtrusive, around with a pair of slightly shaded glasses that provides mini-displays at my left and right peripheries because I can continue working while I move around. Does this sound weird to you?

I'm sorry, Jules. I'll answer your questions by telling you about everyday life in the future. Individualists are rare but do serve a purpose. First, I should say that the future can be a dangerous place because nature rules. Except for the rare coastal library and research facilities, earth is a wild place ruled by dominant predators, which look upon humans as part of the local food supply if they can find them. Several times each day, the tribal leadership and advisory councils meet informally to discuss if, where and when they will move the tribe; stop to rest, eat or camp for the night; or stop for several days to tend domesticated crops or herds.

Women of the tribe, with their connection to the neural network, know where the tribe is, where other tribes are and where to find food and water. If possibilities exist, the women present the options to the leadership council, which decides.

As I mentioned, tribal people are rugged and hardy, tall and wiry, and quick and strong by today's standards. They live about 110 to 120 years with the last 10 or 20 years at a coastal, subterranean or underwater research facility. In addition, living at these facilities are men and women who do not care for nomadic life and prefer to settle where they can care for facilities, crops, herds or the elderly.

For a couple hundred years after the cities disappear, numerous individualists, usually males, leave the tribes. They prefer to wander on their own or with a small group, which they form. This type of male usually has a strong ego and cannot bear the conformity of living within a tribe. These loners or small groups invariably die by age 30 or 40 from predatory attacks and other dangers. Between five and ten centuries into the future, the data become sparse, but analysis of available data indicates that these individualistic, egoistic tendencies breed out of the human species. People become increasingly social. They tend to prefer and enjoy nomadic tribal life, but become uncomfortable after 2-3 days at tribal gatherings because of too many people—several hundred—in one place. Remember, tribes are about a hundred individuals.

People create, record and share music and play-acting. They discuss and debate new research, technology and evolutionary developments among other species. Couples or other combinations split up, have sex, switch tribes and so on, as people do. People also love playing. They organize competitive or non-competitive games of intellectual, social and athletic nature.

For example, an activity that becomes popular several hundred years in the future is to adopt a culture. For several years as they wander, tribes live as Bedouins in the desert, North American Indians in the plains or mountains, Tartars on the steppes and so on. Perhaps they adopt the dress, culture and mores of African or island tribes. Perhaps they dress up as cowboys and Indians of the North American West and conduct cattle drives and mock raids on one another. Data analysis indicates that the tribes capture horses, dress up and gather for mock battles, which can become quite realistic and fierce—all in good fun, of course. Even so, many injuries occur. By then, medical technology has advanced sufficiently so that such injuries are serious but not life threatening. Afterward, the tribes celebrate with a feast or banquet. The only reason I bring this up is to illustrate how sophisticated humans become at play. This play-acting can occupy ten or twenty years, create huge transfers of allegiance among various tribes and so on.

Yes, I have found data but whether people consider a behavior simply unusual, peculiar or crazy depends upon how far into the future we look. For example, immediately after the cities and gangs die, half the tribal people cling to what they increasingly consider the old ways: religion, race and even family. Not surprisingly, young people see no purpose in clinging to the old ways and so begin forming new ways. During this time some people, especially couples, cling to one another, and some parents cling to children. However, raising and protecting children is difficult in nomadic life, so the tribe helps raise the children. Women of the global advisory council strictly control conception and the birth rate.

Within a couple generations—250 years or so—old social structures fade. The entire tribe raises children, couples form and drift apart more casually, and adherence to religious functions dissipates. Tribes, races and religions mix readily. Life-long monogamy becomes rare, as do family ties. Tribal population stabilizes. A tribe usually has 25% youngsters: 5 infants, 5 toddlers, 5 pre-adolescents, 5 adolescents and 5 young adults. Half the population is under 50 and half is over 50. The ratio of men to women holds at 1:1.

Several hundred years into the future, clinging to one person becomes aberrant behavior. Any effort by one person to control or cling to another becomes peculiar, even irritating. The global population stabilizes at ~100 million people and ~1 million tribes. The data also indicate that young people, specifically pre-adolescents, begin relating to non-domesticated animals of all varieties or species, especially great apes, wolves and dolphins. At first, adults, even adolescents and young adults, consider this behavior peculiar and scary but the women report that this is happening all over the planet so people accept it with trepidation.

With these broad brushstrokes, I'm trying to portray human society of the future according to the data Pere provides me. Since personal property is nearly non-existent, limited to a hand-made keepsake or two, theft is also nearly non-existent. Lying is rare but tribal society considers it serious. The entire tribe watches for the symptoms and consistently tries to bring the full consequences upon a person who lies. Society considers far more grievous any attempt to control or force individuals against their will.

Ten centuries into the future, the global population grows slowly toward 150 million. Society tolerates effective behavior that benefits the tribe, even if that behavior is peculiar, risky or even moderately harmful at times. However, society defines as a capital crime any behavior primarily for personal benefit that puts others at risk or causes them harm. The advisory council forbids procreation for any such individual and imposes banishment—a death sentence.