The police found him dead in his apartment, hanging from a light fixture, suicide cord wrapped around his neck. There was no note, nothing to say why he did it, no one really to wonder why; that might be the reason. His face was ugly and purple with blood; I would have preferred it if he had slashed his wrists.

He was still warm when they got to him; Body let them know he was dead as soon as it happened. Funny, though, it didn't call them in time to stop him.

Even now the few people who knew him try to reason it out. What could have gotten into him, we ask each other, what problem was so big? Some of use are resigned to never knowing, but at least one is still investigating.

I can't say I added to his problems, but I can't say I helped relieve them, either. He was a strange kid, introverted, bright, but somehow lost in his loneliness. There were stories going around about him, about how his gay lover ran off with another man or somesuch; about how he belonged to a peyote-eating baby-killing satanic cult; about his abusive father putting his younger sister in the hospital; but these were only rumors. His father died when Halivand (Li, we called him, because of his almost-oriental eyes) was four, he never had a sister, he was as straight as they come, and the boy didn't know what dope smelled like. So much for rumors.

Let me tell you what I know about him:

He was an efficient worker. His only responsibility was keeping Body alive, and he handled it well. The lungs pumped air to four hundred thousand people, the eyes watched as people worked, traveled, talked, slept, shit, had sex... The mouth regurgitated food so people could eat. The veins carried food, water, fertilizer, goods, people, whatever. If anything went anywhere, Body carried them; and if Body hurt, Li took care of it.

Really, Body mostly cared for itself, but sometimes a person was still needed, sometimes; a bright person, someone who can handle tough problems creatively. Li was bright.

I only knew Li passingly, just an associate. We worked together. I was a programmer for Mind; I did for Mind what Li did for Body. We worked out of the same building, the State Office Complex, 1114 Spargo. We often met in the lounge during slack time, which was actually most of the time. Like I said, Body took care of itself. Usually he was busy with paper, folding it into shapes, animals mostly; animals with long necks, animals with wings, some long and thin, others short and fat, four legs, two legs, one leg. They were delicate things, like the fingers that folded them, fragile: fragile wings for the birds and the bugs, fragile legs for the others. You could crush them easily, just take them in your hands and squeeze.

Li was proud of his paper folding. I pressed him once for a reason he did it. "Li," and he looked at me, "why do you do that?" I asked, waving at the bug he was creating, tiny folds on tiny wings, antennae, mandibles. He called it a cicada.

Without stopping, he answered. "Don't you ever feel lost here?" He was quiet for a moment. He looked down again at his model so all I could see was his black black hair, and I didn't reply. "I mean, Body, Mind, everything machine. Automatic this, automatic that. Isn't there any beauty anymore?"

He was from earth.

Just so any flatlanders don't get the wrong idea, we do have our artists here. There's a cultural revolution going on above your heads while you squabble among yourselves, scratch your flea-bites, cuss your neighbors, starve to death, shoot one another; a revolution sometimes compared to the old renaissance, with etched stone and statues, paintings, music... But people are entitled to an opinion, and Li had his.

Here it is:

"Look around you. What song gets the most airtime? Tracking the Sun. Go down to the gallery, and you'll see mountains of moving metal, lights flashing, things whirling, and god! you could go crazy! Damnit! We used to be creative, we used to think for ourselves, we used to build for ourselves. Now we sit back in our cubbies and listen to soothe or just watch the tube and get fat." He jumped to his feet, coming off the floor for an instant like some stupid newbee, and tore the cicada in half. "Just like that, poof! and it's gone."

I wasn't sure what "it" was at first. In fact, I'm not sure even now, but I do know it has something to do with idea, creativity, something that has nothing to do at all with beauty, just imagination. Li had strange ideas.

The disbelief must have shown on my face, it must have. He straightened himself, pulled at his clothing, wiped his forehead, other anal-retentive motions like that, then sat down again. "Oh, it wasn't going right," he said, misinterpreting my expression as disbelief for his action, tearing the cicada; really I was amazed that quiet Li could hold so much emotion and conviction; mild, honest, boring Li. "Just too complicated, I guess. Too many folds through too much paper." He started again to build his cicada, and four days later he would never be able to finish it.

That was all he ever said about the folding. I understood after that it was an act of anger, defiance, and not soothing at all. He folded lovingly, yes, but there was always the tension, too, the inability not to fold. His animals were always constructed with a little frustration.

Maybe a little hatred.

Mind has only addressed me directly twice. Sure, it gives me orders and I often hear its voice, but it always treats me like another automaton, another robot. It has never called me by name.

Except...

Once I came in to work, looked over the hards from the night before, dug around for things to do. After the first hour, I wandered into the lounge and waited for Li to show up. We'd been discussing the contributions of Lunar philosophers to the body of human knowledge as a whole. Li's opinion, phrased in his Earthside-American way, was, "They don't amount to shit." I'd reread my Shilington after getting back to my dorm the night before and was ready to refute him. And I waited.

I noticed an elephant on the table. I recognized it as an elephant by the trunk and the tusks. The head was the only completed part of the model; the body was there, but needed fleshed out.

It looked almost exactly like the elephant some entertainment group brought up from Earth once. They pumped more resources into getting it flown up than they ever made back; they'd hoped to keep it on display, "The largest land animal on earth, now on the moon!," but the poor beast died. It beat itself to death against the ceiling and walls of its display. It could never get used to the gravity.

That's how I recognized the model.

I was just about to pick the elephant up when something amazing happened. "Vernon," Mind said, "could you please go to Jolson Tunnel? Please walk to the end of Little G from there."

This was the first time Mind had ever addressed me by my name. It was also the first, as well as I remember, Mind had ever said "please." To anyone. Amazing.

I did exactly what Mind had asked me to do. Asked. Amazing.

I tubed down to Jolson, then walked past the little open plaza shops that seem to have taken over just about all of the underside of town. Someone once told me you could get anything, anything at all, at one of the tables in Jolson Tunnel. Walking casually through the stalls, I believed her. Some sold clothes, some sold meats from endangered animals, some could custom make drugs right at the table. I think you can even buy little boys or girls if that's your taste, but I can't prove it. Neither can the police.

In case you've never been to Spargo, Jolson Tunnel has been carved from dead rock. Unlike the volcanic tunnels near the surface of Spargo, Jolson was totally man-made. In fact, 'g' Tunnel, where Mind had sent me, was still under construction. At least, it would be under construction if the city could afford more expansion. Mind predicts it will be at least another year before the city is solvent again and construction can start back up.

This gives Jolson a very polished, tooled feel that I'm particularly fond of. In spite of my urging curiosity, I slowed and enjoyed the atmosphere.

The crowd was rather thick, so I almost walked past 'g' Tunnel. I caught a glimpse of a construction lock, just big enough for three men to walk in together, with a stenciled "g".

Mind opened the outer door and let me in the lock, then opened the inner door into the tunnel. There was nothing there; the tunnel was only about four meters wide, nowhere near large enough yet to do anything. During the second phase of construction, they would expand it out to about twenty meters. It was well-lit, though, with panels along the curved ceiling. I walked quietly down the empty corridor, wondering when I would get more instruction.

I never did. I didn't need any.

I heard him before I saw him; nice quiet shy Li was hoarse from yelling, but still very loud. I couldn't tell what he was shouting. Feeling like a voyeur, I flattened against the wall and shuffled up to a side tunnel and peeked around the corner. He was there.

He was pounding the walls with his fists, turning around and around to strike both walls, almost slamming his whole body against the cold smooth rock. Tears would make lenses in his eyes until he blinked them out, then they would slowly creep down his face and slip off every time he'd attack a wall. I could finally hear what he was shouting.

"I hate you," he screamed over and over, keeping rhythm with the pounding of his fists, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you..."

I don't know why I was sent there. Mind had to know what Li was doing; did it think I could do something for him? Did it think I could see Li's suicide coming, maybe stop him?

Mind, too, is strange.

Sometimes I suspect it has a sick sense of humor.

The second time Mind addressed me directly it wasn't a request, it was a command. I was home then, in my room,listening to some video show. I had the picture turned off. There was a laugh-track.

"Vernon," Mind said, "go to Li's dorm. Now." It was polite in tone. You know the words. I went. It took me five minutes to get there.

The police were there when I arrived. He'd been dead about ten minutes, they said.

It could have told me fifteen minutes earlier. You hear that, Mind? You could have told me earlier!

They took his body away, like I said, face all twisted and purple. They came for his things, but I don't think they'll miss a few little animals. I wish he'd have finished the cicada, but I guess he never got it quite right. Too many little appendages or something: sometimes I think that's what killed him, too many folds, too complicated a pattern. Body and Mind know what I took, but they'll never tell. Body just hums as the lungs pump air and the veins move people, and Mind is too busy planning next week's Festival, or thinking about background cosmic radiation, or maybe arbiting peasant cases on land disputes or whatever it is people fight about these days. I really don't care anymore.

I visited the gallery recently, the one in Mare Imbrium. There were hundreds of shiny stainless-steel constructions, blinking lights, things. There were more Lunar-scape paintings than darkside has craters. They played soothe in the background. Altogether uninspiring. Spiritless. As soon as I returned to Spargo, I wandered down to Jolson again. I even went to Li's spot in 'g' Tunnel. I think I'll ask Mind to name it after him when it's finished, Halivand Tunnel. I'll put a plaque there where he attacked to moon: "Li's Anger Spot," it will say, or "Li's Anguish Spot." I don't know which it is.

I've never seen a giraffe, but Li folded one. Birds all look alike to me, but I really think this one here is a dove.