She'd never shared an address with Aden -- but no doubt the data analysis agencies correlated credit card use in restaurants, or whatever, to pick up relationships which didn't involve cohabitation. Mapping useful connections between consumers had been going on for decades -- but employing the data in this way, as a reality test, was a new twist.

The junk mail, now rightly convinced that it was talking to a human being, began the spiel it had refused to waste on her digital proxy. "Maria, I know your time is valuable, but I hope you can spare a few seconds to hear me out." It paused for a moment, to make her feel that her silence was some kind of assent. "I also know that you're a highly intelligent, discerning woman, with no interest whatsoever in the muddled, irrational superstitions of the past, the fairy tales that comforted humanity in its infancy." Maria guessed what was coming next; the interactive saw it on her face -- she hadn't bothered to hide behind any kind of filter -- and it rushed to get a hook in. "No truly intelligent person, though, ever dismisses an idea without taking the trouble to evaluate it -- skeptically, but fairly -- and here at the Church of the God Who Makes No Difference -- "

Maria pointed two fingers at the interactive, and it died. She wondered if it was her mother who'd set the Church onto her, but that was unlikely. They must have targeted their new member's family automatically; if consulted, Francesca would have told them that they'd be wasting their time.

Maria invoked Camel's Eye and told it, "Update my mask so it reacts as I did in that exchange."

A brief silence followed. Maria imagined the synaptic weighting parameters being juggled in the mask's neural net, as the training algorithm hunted for values which would guarantee the required response.