Getting to Know You (short story)

"Getting to Know You" is a

.

Plot summary

Set the same future (the "Boutique Economy") as Marusek's We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy, the story is about Zoranna – an affluent, attractive

projections of dying patients.

A subplot of the story involves Zoranna's "belt valet", an artificially intelligent accessory that can mentally communicate with its wearer and perform a wide variety of tasks. A representative of the company that gave her the belt valet (which she names "Bug") to field test urges that she return it, due to an unspecified defect; she refuses in spite of her annoyance with it, as she needs it for progressively more tasks.

When she finally visits Nancy, Zoranna finds out that she is living with a man who is using her as a

clinic on her dime are rebuffed, until Bug – having unexpectedly changed into a suave, powerful entity named Nicholas that knows every aspect of her life and personality – tricks Nancy into taking Zoranna to the clinic by making it appear as if she were gravely ill. Angered at first, Zoranna at last comes to terms with the machine.

Zoranna and Nicholas are also minor characters in Marusek's first novel, Counting Heads, while Zoranna herself is mentioned in obliquely in "We Were Out of Our Minds With Joy".

References

Sources

• Dozois, Gardner, and Sheila Williams. Isaac Asimov's Utopias. (New York: Ace Books, 2000), pp. 62–96.

External links

• Getting to Know You title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database