Prologue

In 2096 a badly maintained aircar travelling far faster than was wise, was thrown into a quick turn by its reckless young driver and flipped right over. This manoeuvre quickly turned into a power dive, and from 2000 feet it dropped between the buildings below on to a public corridor. The driver was killed instantly, of course; so were two people who were hit by the body of the aircar after it bounced. About twenty other people were injured, but a little girl, Jacqui Mountjoy, escaped unhurt from the very middle of the wreckage.

As the injured were treated and the two corpses removed, it quickly became apparent that Jacqui had become that very rare phenomenon at the end of the twenty-first century, a child orphan. Since nobody quite knew what to do the medibots gathered her with the injured and she was taken to hospital.

Infant orphans were rare because the passing of the various Family Health Acts in the 2050s and their subsequent implementation by ever-stricter measures, culminated in the so-called Planning Virus which meant that conception was only possible by taking a fertility pill, the distribution of which was strictly controlled by the United World Government. Thus there were no unwanted children, and virtually no defective children, who had been the main reason for orphanages. Now there were so few parentless infants that there really was no organised system for caring for them when the rare occasion arose.

Anyone who wanted a child applied for a licence and was given a battery of tests; those considered suitable, genetically and socially, could have children. Those who failed were not considered suitable to look after children and so could not foster. Jacqui's only hope of a new home was to be matched into a family which had lost their child to a similarly rare accident; meanwhile she lived in the hospital, although it was quickly established that she was not injured or ill.

She was an embarrassment to the staff, who didn't want to get emotionally involved their patients. Unfortunately Jacqui didn't go home or die, so they became very defensive. Similarly, because most of the children stayed only a short time in hospital, Jacqui grew up without friends of her own age and her education in the hospital school was somewhat sketchy. The school really only catered for short stay patients who were sent work from their own schools.

It was not surprising that Jacqui started to misbehave, largely through boredom, and one day, when she was about eight years old, she was having a midnight snack when Night Nurse Gormley caught her raiding the fridge and Jacqui was very surprised to be slapped on the leg and bundled back to bed.

This was the first and only sign that anyone was in the least interested in her behaviour. Like all children she craved attention from adults above all else, so she quickly adopted a subconscious attitude of defiance against this one night nurse, who responded by ever more severe spankings. This all finished abruptly when another nurse saw Jacqui being given a totally illegal spanking. Her only "friend" was immediately moved away and nobody else took much interest in her. Jacqui experimented when she could with smacking other patients, but the resulting noise brought the nurses running and only caused her to be segregated in a room of her own.

As the years went by, it became obvious that she would not find a home and sure enough, on her eighteenth birthday, she was told an address where she would be one of three people sharing a tiny room, sleeping in shifts, and all previously strangers. She was also given a wristphone, and told to pack her few belongings and to go there that day, as she was now eighteen and legally adult.

When she found her new home and walked in, one of her roomshares, who hoped she would not be too much of a nuisance, and who certainly didn't want to have a child around, was there and showed her how everything worked. Then she received her first ever letter.

As the 3V screen scrolled it for her, she was startled to discover that she had a job, starting the next morning, in a Call Centre where customers' questions were answered about 3V technical problems. Her first reaction was that she knew nothing about 3V except how to switch it on and off, but somebody else would have to sort that out.