THURSDAY
July 16, 2028

“We have got the little German Boy here who plays upon the Harpsichord like Handel, & composes with the same facility. He really is a most extraordinary effort of Nature, but our Professors in Physick don’t think he will be long lived.” — Joseph Yorke about the young Mozart (1765)

I

Mozart walked into the sex-change clinic on a cold, snowy July morning, intending to have his sprouter snipped off.

It rarely snowed in Ipolis; the Crystal Mountains were covered with the deep, somewhat dappled stuff year-round, but the city itself? The metropolis almost never permitted it. This morning, though, the snow had dispensation. Mozart brushed a few flakes off his Mylar trench coat, and stepped up to the receptionist.

It had been easier for Mozart than for many people only a quarter of his age to adjust to the idea of talking intelligently to robots. In many ways, robots were more pleasant to converse with than humans: they actually took an interest in what one had to say without mentally drawing up their grocery lists or thinking about what they were going to say next, or whatever distracted their tiny minds. Robots were just another impossible technology to get used to, in a long life of acclimating to it. That was the thing about Mozart—one of the things—he accepted change as it came, though it didn’t mean he had to like it.

“I’ve got a ten o’clock appointment with Dr. So,” he informed the robot politely, which was not a standard bolt-’em-to-the-desk model but a fully functional com-robot, complete with legs and even its own wardrobe. (Though doubtless it had no credits of its own to buy the latest fashions, nor did it have the self-awareness to know when it needed to.) This specific model wore a pair of slacks and a pleasant-looking sweater, both designed for an asexual demeanor. Its face was a mélange of features designed to look either male or female, depending on your preference. Mozart naturally thought of it as a “she,” all the way down to the device’s slender fingers and delicate wrists. It scanned his face, and chirped happily: “Of course, Mr. Armstrong, please go to our guest lounge, and a nurse will be with you as soon as possible. We have