Dervish Is Digital Part 15

You're on the clock or it's all off."

They were sitting in the stern of a cla.s.sic junk, bobbing up and down as they crossed the bay.

Only the two of them; the arms dealer had made it clear that Celestine wasn't invited. Just as well in Konstantin's view -- the arms dealer would believe they were alone and Celestine could keep busy tracing the kid's shirt material.

Konstantin kept closing her eyes periodically to fight her incipient seasickness, but the old trick wasn't working as well as it had in the past. The boost she'd gotten from the narcs seemed to have made her credible body even more credible. She probably would end up having to have her blood changed and it wasn't something she was looking forward to. "I don't understand how someone spending more money on billable time is some kind of show of good faith or intent. It's not like you're on their clock -- the money goes to the service provider."

The arms dealer folded her hands and rested them on her knees, with the metallic pinky stuck straight out. Info dump, Konstantin thought. It was getting so she could always see one coming. Function of AR, perhaps?

"You have to show you're willing to go as far as anyone," the arms dealer said, the patient tone in her voice only slightly exaggerated. "They're on billable time, too, it's not like they get theirs free but you have to pay. You got to ante up like everybody else. Once they see you're willing to go the distance, there's something to talk about."

Konstantin sighed against her incipient nausea. "But wouldn't they -- whoever they are -- prefer you spent your money with them, instead of giving it to some AR provider service?"

The arms dealer stared into the middle distance thoughtfully for a bit before turning back to Konstantin. "You're in here," she said, "but you're not really in here, are you? It's all the ground floor for you, isn't it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Konstantin asked, trying not to gulp.

"It's all in the way you think. You think of money as something you have. You ever seen any?

Outside of a museum, I mean."

"You can still get currency if you want it," said Konstantin disdainfully.

The arms dealer laughed. "There's nothing that would make me believe you had a money fetish.

You're a good citizen, you don't waste time digging in your pockets for coins." Pause. "Do you? Or are you one of those kindly souls that keep a few coins for the street beggars? Most of the good citizens I know are just as glad not to have anything for the beggars. If you make it impossible to live by begging, people won't beg, right? End of that street problem, isn't that what they say?"

Konstantin made a pained face. "I had no idea you were so in line with the current administration."

The arms dealer laughed again. "That's all just ground floor thinking -- OK for those who want to spend their lives on the ground. Some of us have a better idea. You can waste time digging in your pockets for coins if you want. I'll just go straight to the good part."

The good part? she whispered to Taliaferro.

You're soaking in it, he replied.

Fog was descending on Kowloon. By the time the junk docked, they might have sailed into a cloud. Her heart was starting to beat faster now, the boost taking effect, giving her a strange false feeling of antic.i.p.ation, mixed with very real anxiety. The fog wasn't helping. Konstantin found if she looked closely enough, she could distinguish tiny individual beads of moisture floating in the air. That was AR, she thought -- extreme in detail, no matter how impossible. "This here," said the arms dealer, gesturing at the narrow alley they were walking through, "this is all window-dressing for the marks."

"You don't say." The fog had barely penetrated here. Konstantin watched two small children watching her from a fire escape landing, where they sat with their legs dangling over empty s.p.a.ce, their faces solemn and composed. Letting the pa.s.sers-by know they'd been seen. Konstantin nodded at them.

I've seen you, too. Her mouth was dry and she wished she'd had the foresight to put a stash of hard candy in her headmount.

The arms dealer had followed her gaze and was grinning up at the kids. "What pa.s.s for surveillance cameras around these parts. Marks find it unnerving." She gave Konstantin a sly look. "Not marking out and finding it unnerving yourself, are you?"

"Is it still okay to register dislike at an image that doesn't appeal to you, or is all unsimulated emotion uncool now?" Konstantin replied evenly.

The arms dealer's smile was knowing. "What's it to you?"

"Just trying to keep up on the local customs."

Something that looked like a cross between a manhole cover and an airlock was embedded in the pavement just ahead of them. The arms dealer came to a stop beside it and gave the small wheel in the center a nudge with her foot. "Care to do the honors?"

Konstantin didn't move. "Now I have to show I'm willing to get blown up so they'll know I'm sincere?"

"You're really not as dumb as you look, are you?" said the arms dealer as she resumed walking.

"I'm not even as dumb as you look," Konstantin retorted and felt pleased with herself, while the arms dealer pretended she hadn't heard.

"It wouldn't have actually blown you up," said the arms dealer. "You'd have just gotten lost and then maybe been booted out a side exit to nowhere. And had to start over." She shrugged. "It's like an intelligence test, I guess." She looked back and then up. Konstantin followed her gaze and saw that the fog was now making its way down the alley as well as descending on them from the narrow band of white sky overhead. The arms dealer hesitated and then walked to the filthy brick wall behind Konstantin. Konstantin followed.

The arms dealer stared steadily at the wall as the mist acc.u.mulated around their feet and began to rise, deliberately enveloping the arms dealer in a way that reminded Konstantin of Susannah Ell's hair. It was around her, too, but in no particular pattern.

After a while, she could see that the mist was following some kind of line from the arms dealer's eyes to the wall, where it began sketching a triangle about the size of a human head, and then filling it in with billowing lines. When the lines had merged into a single roiling ma.s.s, the arms dealer beckoned to Konstantin to stand next to her.

It was like looking through a window at restless clouds, either high above or far below.

"And?" Konstantin said finally, turning to the other woman.

"And you stick your head through, and you're there. Only room for one head at a time. You want to go first, or you want me to show you the way?"

Irritated, Konstantin grabbed the arms dealer by the back of her neck and pushed her face into the mist. There was no feeling of resistance; plumes of mist blew back and disintegrated. Konstantin wedged her hand into the left side of the triangle and pulled; the wall tore away like layered cardboard. Still holding the arms dealer by her hair, she managed to tramp down a s.p.a.ce big enough for both of them to go through.

She was mildly surprised to find the arms dealer staring at her admiringly. "I have to say, for someone with the cops, you sure don't much like playing by the rules, do you?"

Konstantin shrugged, not really wanting the woman to think they were bonding.

"Someone like you could carve out a nice territory in here for herself," the other woman went on as they stepped through the wall together. "You could be big. The Pope of Dope. Mean Queen of the Mean Scene."

"Empress of Ice Cream," said Konstantin, waving one arm to scatter the remaining mist. Theywere in the entry lobby of what they were supposed to believe, or at least not disbelieve, was a very fancy hotel of the art deco persuasion. Original art deco, or perhaps the original first art deco revival, Konstantin wasn't sure. It was a decor that appealed to her, which meant she had to try not to let herself be influenced by any positive feelings she had about it. This is my life, she thought as she marched the arms dealer up to the front desk. Watching other people watch their time pa.s.s, and trying not to like anything too much.

Abruptly, she found herself facing the Dragon Lady on the other side of the polished counter. She was so surprised, she almost let go of the arms dealer. The Dragon Lady showed no sign of recognition, only boredom. "If you got in here, you should know the rules," she said in a low, Dragon Lady voice.

"Come back when you're... up to it."

"I'm up to it," said the arms dealer. "Or I will be. My friend needs some help."

The Dragon Lady shrugged. "Why tell me?" Today's outfit was pure white silk brocade; her lips were as glossy and unapologetically black as her hair. Konstantin was suddenly possessed by the idea of laminated lips. Now she couldn't stop staring at the Dragon Lady's mouth. I'm all wrong for this job, she thought, wishing that that realization alone were enough to quash the urge to laugh.

"Because we seek your advice," said the arms dealer respectfully.

The Dragon Lady leaned her hands on the counter. Her long nails were painted black as well.

"Advice is all I can give you here. And any advice I do give is, you understand, all lies."

"We're depending on it," Konstantin said.

The Dragon Lady's expression became a frozen mask of disgust. The arms dealer looked at Konstantin as if she were crazy. Konstantin sighed.

"You can tell the overeager peasant she is too low to be recognized as human, or even a well-trained primate," said the Dragon Lady after a bit. "But she is not too low to be part of the food chain."

"You're too low to be recognized as human," the arms dealer said to Konstantin. "And if you try to talk to her again, we'll never get in."

Konstantin opened her mouth to give the arms dealer a message of her own.

"It would be a mistake to talk at all at this point," the arms dealer added quickly.

Konstantin nodded and kept her mouth shut.

The Dragon Lady was silent for several moments, either composing herself or trying to make Konstantin squirm; Konstantin suspected the latter.

"Have you prayed?" the woman asked finally. "And... fasted?"

Konstantin felt herself biting the inside of her lower lip and made herself stop.

"We are doing so now," said the arms dealer. She reached over and put Konstantin's right hand on the desk, positioning her own beside it. "We offer our vital signs as proof."

The Dragon Lady looked at the arms dealer's hand, and then at Konstantin's before moving to an-old fashioned pigeonhole unit behind her and pulling a bra.s.s key ring out of a spot near the top. She turned the arms dealer's hand over and put the key ring on her palm. "Elevators to the left. No loitering,"

she said, and made elegant shooing motions with her fingers.

909 said the number on the thick, slightly tarnished rectangle of bra.s.s. Konstantin took it from the arms dealer and turned it upside down so that it read 606. The feeling of upward acceleration in the elevator was giving her gooseb.u.mps. The way the boost enhanced sensation was, in Konstantin's mind, too pleasurable not to be followed by something equally unpleasant. It struck her as being a rather fatalistic way to have a good time.

The arms dealer was obviously relishing her own experience. "I don't get to do this often enough,"

she sighed, stretching one arm and then the other. "But doing it on pharmaceutical grade boost sanctioned by the cops gives it that extra bit of perversity to enjoy."

"Perhaps it'll sweeten the crash later," Konstantin suggested.

The arms dealer was unperturbed. "You really got to learn how to live in the moment you're in.

Thinking ahead is OK for planning your pension, but that's not what you're doing now." Then shefrowned at Konstantin. "Oh, wait -- maybe you are. My mistake."

Konstantin shrugged, wondering how far up the elevator was going to go.

"Makes me wonder what you guys do to have a good time."

"I'd tell you," Konstantin said, "but--"

"--but then you'd have to kill me. Heard it. I'm serious, though. You ever have a good time, or do you have to go around being a white hat without a break?"

"Maybe I don't see myself that way," Konstantin said.

"What, like a white hat?"

"Like someone who has to avoid doing anything that might be remotely enjoyable." Konstantin let out a put-upon breath. "Why am I having this conversation with you?"

The arms dealer grinned. "Boost makes you want to talk."

The elevator began to slow and Konstantin sighed again, this time with relief. "G.o.d, it seems like all I've done in here is ride in elevators. As if I couldn't do that anywhere."

"You don't enjoy carnival rides, either?" The arms dealer shook her head pityingly. "Jesus, warn me if we're about to do anything you do like, so I don't faint with shock."

The elevator took such a long time to come to a complete stop that Konstantin's nerves had turned to Holy Rollers by the time the doors slid open. The arms dealer led her through what felt like several city blocks' worth of plush, red-carpeted hallway complete with candle-shaped sconce lighting and flocked red and gold wall-paper before they came to room 909. Room 606 was right next door.

"Whenever you're ready," said the arms dealer after a bit. "Just remember the rule: no loitering."

Konstantin was frowning at the doors. "Funny, I thought it would be something more like 101 and 110." The arms dealer looked at her blankly. "Binary," she clarified.

The arms dealer still looked mystified for a few moments and then shook her head. "The cyberweenie revival isn't due to hit for another couple of months yet, at least according to the Popular Culture Index," she said. "Come on, pick a room while we're still on the way up."

"Does being on the way up call for a lower number or a higher number?" Konstantin asked.

"Best thing to do is always go with the number you saw first," the arms dealer said. "Did you see 909 or 606?"

Konstantin didn't hesitate. She unlocked the door marked 909 and pushed it open with her foot, holding onto the jamb. The arms dealer crowded up behind her and Konstantin twisted around slightly to give her a look.

"Do you know what the word 'loitering' means?" the arms dealer asked her, hair swinging impatiently.

"She knows," said a familiar voice. Konstantin jumped as she felt Darwin's hand close like a steel cuff on her arm. "She just keeps forgetting to take it personally." He yanked her forward and she was overwhelmed with the sensation of either falling or flying, she wasn't sure which. One more thrill ride, she told herself firmly as tingles of fear struck sparks in her. It's just roller-coaster heaven for people who can't face the real thing.

Something hard and firm smacked the soles of her feet and clung there while she tumbled weightlessly end over end. Then the vertigo was gone and she was standing on the surface of the lake of fire in the casino.

"Yeah, she's dosed," said Darwin cheerfully. He was on the sh.o.r.e with the arms dealer.

Konstantin thought absently that she should have looked out of place in her yacht-club president outfit, especially next to the cyborg, who had upgraded some of his parts, but somehow she didn't. She looked at home.

Taliaferro, start recording this if you're not already, she whispered to him. I'm so speedy and disoriented, I can barely find the edge of my screen. I think there's been some kind of side effecthaving to do with my eyes, or my pupils, or something, I feel like I'm trying to open my eyes in a dream.

He didn't answer. It wasn't practical to, she told herself, watching Darwin and the arms dealer on the sh.o.r.e. Two chefs pa.s.sed over their heads on an air bridge, bearing a giant roast goose on a platter and she was suddenly filled with the superst.i.tious dread that if she dared to look around she would see herself as she had been when she had first come to lowdown Hong Kong casino, investigating Darwin's complaints of brainwashing.

Darwin made a throwing motion with his arms; she found them coiled around her waist. He reeled her in, dragging her across the opals without letting her fall. It was like skating bladeless on lumpy ice, not unpleasant but very, very strange. He stood her up next to the arms dealer and then retracted the arms.

Little puffs of steam came out of the shoulder and elbow joints in a way that made Konstantin think of punctuation. Or maybe emotion lines in a cartoon might have been closer to the mark.

Closer to the mark? h.e.l.l, she was the mark. Couldn't get much closer than that.

Her mind was racing. She concentrated, trying to slow it down but it was already getting away from her again. She couldn't stop staring at Darwin's new arms. If they really were Celestine's, it just meant that he'd stolen some data from her or made an unauthorized copy. It didn't mean anything had happened to Celestine. And even if something had, nothing could really happen to her. The idea is to give you the creeps. So have them, they're monitoring your vitals, they want to know it's working.

But make your mind remember the truth, even if your gut won't. She meant to whisper aloud for Taliaferro's benefit as much as her own but her lips felt strange, almost numb. Speaking aloud at normal volume was no problem but she couldn't feel whether she was whispering for real or not.

Of course, she realized; the fillers that Thorpe and Co. used in their drug processing. But why a dental anesthetic? Just because it was cheap, or did they think it lessened the discomfort of the dry mouth side-effect or-- She gave herself a long, painful pinch on the side of one thigh to divert her racing thoughts. It didn't matter what or why, not at the moment. Later she could file a consumer complaint, maybe directly to Thorpe's face with her fist if she thought she could get away with it by claiming the crash was-- The arms dealer's face filled her vision. "How much did you take?"

"Enough to keep up with you," Konstantin said defiantly. "So show me something."

"What do you want to see?"

"You know what I want to see." Konstantin pulled her a short distance away. Darwin didn't try to follow, but Konstantin gave him a warning glare anyway. "You agreed to help me obtain the program that would protect me from Hastings Dervish's jamming. It would also provide hard evidence that Dervish was in possession of and actively using a program meant to defraud AR service providers by supplying false data, which is the only way I can touch him in Key West. If you no longer feel like doing that, we can just log out right now and you'll never see me again. You'll be so busy raising the money for all your fines and legal bills that by the time you can afford to get back into AR, I'll have retired."

"I keep forgetting how irritable the boost can make someone who isn't used to it," said the arms dealer mildly. "Not to mention the paranoia factor. Plus some people just don't like that speedy feeling. I told you we got to put in the time. Do I also have to remind you about the kayfabe element here? Did you forget you're not in an air strike? You try to rush any of this and you're gonna tip your hand. Now do you want to do this undercover or do you just want to stage some kind of raid and f.u.c.k the whole thing sideways?"