Konstantin checked quickly; as she had thought, the kid was the only – or the first – married victim. “Bring her down here,” she told them. “Fast.”
“Tommie was looking for the out door,” said Pine Havelock. “Anybody was gonna find it, it would be him. And now look what’s gone and happened.” Tomoyuki Iguchi’s self-proclaimed wife was sitting in a plastic bucket of a chair hugging her folded legs tightly and staring at Konstantin over the bony humps of her knees with a half-afraid, half-accusing expression. Dressed in what looked like surplus hospital pajamas, she seemed to be completely hairless, without even eyelashes. Her eyes weren’t really large enough to carry it off; she made Konstantin think of a mental patient who had fallen into a giant vat of depilatory cream.
“What out door would that be?” Konstantin asked her after a long moment of silence. “The one to the secret Japanese area?”
Havelock raised her head, staring oddly. “Get off.”
“What out door?” Konstantin asked patiently, suppressing several inappropriate responses.
“Out. Out. Where you go and you’ll stay. So you don’t come back to something like this.” She looked around Guilfoyle Pleshette’s office.
“Uh-huh.” Konstantin leaned an elbow on the desk and rubbed her forehead. “Where would you end up?”
“Out.” The woman’s forehead puckered in spots; Konstantin realized she was frowning. Without eyebrows, all of her expressions were odd. “You know – out. Where you don’t need the suit or the top hat, because you’re there. Not here.”
Konstantin finally got it. “So you and Iguchi were looking for the magic door to the egress. Did you know of anyone else—”
“Egress,” Havelock said, nodding vigorously. “That’s it. Door out – egress. That’s what she called it.”
“Who?” Konstantin asked, and then almost said the answer with her.
“Body Sativa.”
“Sun’s gonna come up,” Guilfoyle Pleshette said threateningly. She looked tired. Even her hair was starting to lose its lift.
Still sitting at her desk in the minuscule office, Konstantin waved at her impatiently. “Sorry, Taliaferro,” she said into the phone while she scrawled notes in the archiver one-handed. “I didn’t get the last thing you said. Repeat.”
Taliaferro was surprisingly patient. Perhaps lack of sleep had simply made a zombie out of him. “I said, they’re still running data on the other seven so we don’t have anything solid yet. But the probability is running to 80 percent that anyone who frequented the Sitty as often as any of them would, at some point, have had AR contact with the persona or entity known as Body Sativa.”
“ ‘Entity’?” said Konstantin incredulously. “Who’s calling this thing an entity? The probability program or someone who’s in a position to know?”
“Actually, I heard some of the clientele in the parking lot calling it that. Or her. Whatever.” Taliaferro sounded a bit sheepish. “Probably it’s some slicko with a lot of good PR. Famous for being famous, you know.”
“You do much AR?” Konstantin asked him suddenly.
There was a moment of loud silence. “Is that a sincere question?”
“Sorry,” Konstantin said. “Don’t know what got into me.”
Taliaferro hung up without replying. She turned to Guilfoyle Pleshette, who was yawning hugely and noisily. “Doyou do much AR?”
“Yeah, sure. Employee discount here’s pretty good.”
“Do you spend much time in post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty?”
Now the manager shrugged and looked at the ceiling almost coyly. “I guess I been known to. You gotta scan rated zone because when you get a virgin in, you gotta talk about what you know. I say that’s the difference between a quality business and a ditch.”
Konstantin nodded absently. Once a place got too popular, nobody would admit to going voluntarily, even in AR. “And Body Sativa?”
Pleshette shrugged one shoulder. “Everybody knows about her, but not as many really seen her as say so.”
“But you have,” Konstantin said.
“Of course.”
Of course. Konstantin managed not to smile. “You think you could introduce me?”
“Of course not.” The woman was almost offended.
Now Konstantin shrugged. “It was worth a try.”
“You got to understand here that anyone who knows Body and drags along every prole that wants to see her, won’t know her for too long.”
“I guess I can understand that. Suppose I go in and find her myself?”
Pleshette stared at her. “You think you can?”
“One of your employees offered me some secret insider icons. Whatever those are.”
The manager straightened up. “Yeah? Who?” she asked sharply.
“The bored one. Mezzer. Tim.”
“Oh, him.” Pleshette waved one hand. “You can find his socalled secret insider icons in the index of any online guidebook. I got stuff you can get around with.”
“But will you loan any to me?”
The funny little face looked doubtful. “What’re you gonna do with it?”
Konstantin took a breath. “All I want to do is ask this Body Sativa some questions.”
“What kind of questions?” the night manager asked suspiciously.
Now Konstantin felt as if she had fallen through a rabbit hole in time that had sent her back to the beginning of the situation, which she would have to explain all over again. “Questions having to do with the kid who died here tonight – Shantih Love, or Tomoyuki Iguchi, whichever you knew him as.”
“I didn’t know him at all,” said Pleshette. Konstantin felt like screaming. “And there’s no insurance that Body Sativa did, either. But if that’s all you really want to do, I can load some stuff for you. But you got to promise me, you won’t misuse any of it.”
“Misuse it how?” Konstantin asked.
“Poaching.”
“And what would that entail?”
“Getting stuff you’re not entitled to get.”
“ ‘Stuff? In AR?” Konstantin felt completely lost now.
The night manager folded her arms again. “Yeah. Stuff in AR. In the Sitty. Everybody who goes in regular’s got stuff in AR. So I got this nothing job. I got to put up with blowfish like Miles Mank. I live in a hive on Sepulveda. But I got stuff in AR. I got a good place for myself, I’m in the game with the name and the fame. I even got myself a few passwords. I put in plenty of time to get all that. I don’t want it just slipped out from under me when I’m not there to defend it.” The funny little face started to pucker unhappily. “You got stuff out here, you don’t need to go poachin’ my stuff in there. If you see what I mean.”
Konstantin saw; it sent a wave of melancholy through her. “All I want to do is contact Body Sativa if I can. I don’t want to do anything else.”
Pleshette held her gaze for a long moment and then shrugged her bony shoulders hugely. “Yeah. Well, you know, it’s not like I can’t tell the difference between in there and out here, it’s not like I think I can put that stuff in a bank or anything. But I put a lot of time in; I spent some big sums doin’ it. If I give it away, then I got nothing. You see that?”
Konstantin saw. She couldn’t decide, however, if it was the sort of thing a person might kill for.
Guilfoyle Pleshette found a clean hotsuit in Konstantin’s size and helped her put it on, giving her a flurry of instructions in her little cartoony voice. Konstantin felt silly, even though she knew this was really just like any other information gathering operation, except it was more like using the telephone. Unless what happened to the kid happened to her, she thought unhappily.
Tim Mezzer made good on his promise to supply icons and loaded the file into the headmount for her. “All you have to do is ask for your icon cat,” he said, sounding less bored. “And if you’re not sure which icon to try, ask for advice.”
“Ask who?”
“The icons,” he said, looking at he
r as if she should have known this. “They all have their own help files attached. But I gotta tell you, they’re all pretty idiosyncratic, too. You know how it is, what some people call help.”
Konstantin was mildly alarmed to find that she actually understood what he was telling her. After loading her own information into the headmount, Pleshette took her to one of the deluxe cubicles – deluxe meaning it was half again as large and included an extra chair. She helped Konstantin get comfortable in it, fastened the straps just tightly enough to keep her from falling if she got overly energetic, and fitted her headmount for her. Konstantin tried to thank her, but the headmount muffled her too well. She felt more than heard the woman leave the room. Fear rippled through her, briefly but intensely, making her dizzy.
Then the screen lit up with a control panel graphic and she immediately regained her balance. She turned on the log. The log was an independent, outside operation with only an on-off access, so she’d have her own record that she could prove hadn’t been tampered with later, if necessary. Funny how the first thing anyone had to do with taped evidence was prove that it hadn’t been toasted, she thought.
The control panel graphic disappeared and the screen showed her the configuration menu. She made her choices – sighting graphic and help line on request – while the ‘suit warmed up. This was a full-coverage ‘suit, she realized, uncomfortable. Somehow, she hadn’t given it any thought when she was putting it on and it was too late to do anything about it now. Besides, they were probably all full-coverage ‘suits; full-coverage would be the big attraction in a place like this. As if to confirm her thoughts, a hotsuit ad replaced the configuration menu.
Because if you’re not going to feel it all over, murmured a congenial female voice while a hotsuit, transparent to show all the sensors, revolved on the screen, why bother} Which, when you thought about it, wasn’t such an unreasonable question.
The headmounted monitor adjusted the fine-tuning for her focal length by showing her the standard introduction in block letters on a background of shifting colors. Konstantin sighed impatiently. So much introductory material with the meter running – she could see the clock icon tagging along at the upper edge of her peripheral vision on the right side. You probably couldn’t go broke operating a video parlor, she thought, unless you tried real, real hard.
The sign came up so suddenly that it took at least three seconds to register on her, and even then she wasn’t sure right away whether she was really seeing it, or imagining it. Seeing in AR felt strangely too close to thinking.
WELCOME TO THE LAND OF ANYTHING GOES
HERE THERE ARE NO RULES
EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED
Ha, thought Konstantin.
You can choose to be totally anonymous.
You can tell the whole truth about yourself.
You can tell only lies.
The word lies flashed on and off in different colors before it evaporated.
No real crime is possible here. If you do something Out There as a result of events In Here, you are on your own. In the event of your persona’s virtual death, you can request to be directed to central stores, where you can choose another. The time used in choosing a new persona or performing any reference or maintenance task is not free, though a reduced rate may be available through your parlor operator. Consult the rate file in your personal area for more information.
Konstantin looked around for a speed-scroll option.
There is no speed-scroll option for this portion of your session. State and federal law specifically declare that all users must be advised of conditions in the gaming area. By reading this, you agree that you understand the structure and accept any charges, standard and] or extra, that you will incur at your point of origin. Closing your eyes will only result in a full rescroll of the introductory material, at your own expense.
Blink-rate and eye-movements could reveal a great deal about a person’s thoughts, especially when used in conjunction with vital signs, Konstantin remembered, feeling even more uneasy.
This concludes the introductory material. The next screen will be your destination menu. Bon voyage, and good luck.
The screen that came up showed her four doors labeled Post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty, Post-Apocalyptic Ellay, Post-Apocalyptic Hong Kong, and Others.
A small bright icon appeared at the bottom right corner of her visual field, a graphic of a hand twisting a doorknob. Just below it, on the status line, was the word Cue! Feeling awkward, she reached for the Noo Yawk Sitty door and saw a generic whitegloved hand moving toward the knob. As the hand touched the knob, she felt it in her own hand, the sensors delivering a sensation to the palm side of her fingers that surprised her with its intense authenticity – it was more like touching a doorknob than actually touching a doorknob.
The next moment was a flash of chaos, a maelstrom of noise and light, countless touches and textures everywhere at once, over before she could react to any of it. Under her feet, she could hear the scrape of the gritty glitz, the glitzy grit of post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty; she could see the sparkle and glitter of it spread out before her – not Eliot’s etherized patient awaiting dissection but a refulgent feast for her reeling senses.
HINT: In case of disorientation, amp your ‘suit down and wait at least thirty seconds before attempting movement. Closing your eyes could result in vertigo. This message will be repeated.
She thought she heard herself make some kind of relieved noise as she stared at the setting marked decrease. In a few moments, all the settings on the suit had been re-adjusted to a more bearable level. Whoever had had this ‘suit on last, she thought, had either been extremely jaded or suffering from some kind of overall senses-impairment disorder. Or – not so amazing in the era of the more-real-than-real experience – both.
Now that she could perceive her surroundings without being assaulted by them, Konstantin was dismayed to find that she didn’t seem to be anywhere near where Shantih Love had died. Instead, she was standing at the edge of an open area in the midst of a crowd of tall buildings festooned with enormous neon signs of a sort that had been popular seventy or eighty years before. Except for herself, there were no people, or at least none that she could see, and no sound except for a faint hum that might have come from the signs, or from some distant machine. Or possibly even from some loose connection in the headmount, she thought sourly. It would be just her luck.
The buildings were dark, showing the scars of fires, bullets, and bomb blasts, broken-out windows gaping like empty eye sockets, but the signs were brilliant, impossibly vivid with shifting colors that melted and morphed like living ropes of molten light. She had to look away or be hypnotized.
Her gaze locked onto a silvery figure standing in an open doorway. At first, she thought it was someone wearing a skintight bio-suit but then the figure moved forward and she saw that its skin was the same color as the clothes it wore. The figure moved closer and she amended her perception: it was the same material as the clothes it wore.
“New in town?” it sang, approaching carefully.
“Maybe,” she said, taking a step back.
“Oh, you’re new.” The figure, which began to look more like it was made of mercury or chrome, gestured at something behind her. Konstantin turned to look.
The sight of the completely hairless and sexless creature in the dark glass made her jump; then embarrassment made her cringe. She had completely forgotten to choose a persona and the hotsuit, rather than choosing one for her, had let her enter AR wearing a placeholder. Her gaze darted around as she searched for the exit icon.
“It’s not necessary to leave,” the silvery figure said in its musical voice. Now that it was right next to her, Konstantin could see it was a sort of animated metal sculpture of a tall young girl, though she couldn’t quite identify the metal. Chrome, mercury, or possibly platinum? “Pull down Central Stores and choose Wardrobe. Then just follow the directions.”
“Oh. Thank you so much.” Feeling awkward
, Konstantin stuck out her hand. “I’m, uh, Dore. And you’re right, I’m new here.”
The silver girl seemed unaware of her extended hand. “I am a pop-up help-and-guide subroutine keyed to respond to situations and types of situations most often identified with new users of AR and/or post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty. I am also available on request. Pull down Help and ask for Sylvia.”
Konstantin started to thank her again but the girl made a fast gesture at eye-level and she found herself standing at a shiny white counter. The words TOUCH HERE FOR ASSISTANCE faded in on its surface, going from pale pink to blood red and back to pale pink before disappearing. Konstantin gingerly put a fingertip on the spot where she estimated the middle of the O in FOR had been.
“Help you,” said a hard-edged male voice; the short, plump man who appeared on the other side of the counter looked as if he were answering a casting call for a play about bank tellers in 1900. The green visor on his forehead cast a shadow that made it hard to see anything of his eyes but reflected pinpoints of light.
“Where’s the rest of your hat?” Konstantin asked impulsively.
“This is an eyeshade, not a hat,” he replied in that same sharp, almost harsh tone. “Its presence connotes items and equipment available to you in AR, some at a surcharge. Do you want to see a list of items and equipment with their corresponding surcharges? These can also be itemized on the hardcopy printout of your receipt.”
“I don’t know. Is a persona classified as an item or as equipment?”
“Neither. A persona is a persona. Did you have someone in particular in mind or were you planning construction here? Morphing services within AR are available for a surcharge; however, there is no extra charge if you have brought your own morphing utility with you. Except, of course, for any extra time that might be consumed by the morphing process.”
The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction Page 19
