By Melissa Scott
First Published: 1997
“When entertainer & illusionist Celinde Fortune takes her act a planet racked by class struggle and accidentally creates artificial intelligence, she finds her life threatened by the planet’s radicals.”

Persephone is a planet racked by class struggle and economic and political upheaval. Celinde Fortune is an entertainer – an illusionist who makes good money but plays the Empire Theatre, a venue that also books socially controversial bands who attract bomb threats. When she combines two advanced computer chips in a new way in order to sophisticate her act, the resulting form of computer life seems awfully like a true artificial intelligence. And this is beyond controversial – it could get her killed.