by Cadigan, Pat
The girl only continued to stare up at her in silence.
‘Okay. How about Shantih Love?’
The girl frowned. ‘I have something at home that might help you.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘It’s just a few blocks away. If you take me home, I can show it to you,’ the girl promised, her voice faintly hopeful.
Konstantin nodded resignedly.
‘Home’ turned out to be a tiny basement efficiency in what seemed to be an otherwise abandoned building, although the girl assured Konstantin that it was not. When Konstantin asked her who else lived there, however, she only shrugged. ‘It depends, I guess,’ she said, working four big locks with a well-practiced hand before crossing the room to plant herself in the middle of the double bed that dominated the room. Except for a television sitting on a crate, it was the only furniture in the place. It was covered with a red-and-black plaid blanket; between the two pillows, a stuffed penguin stood like a tuxedoed sentry. The girl unselfconsciously folded her legs into a half-lotus and hugged the penguin to her chest. ‘This is Fairbanks. He keeps an eye on things for me.’
‘If you’re safe here, why do you leave and go to the park?’ Konstantin asked her.
‘I don’t. The park is where I get logged in all the time, and I have to figure out how to get home safely. Sometimes I can’t and I just stay there, because nobody really likes to go there. But I have to be careful when the saucer comes around.’ She rested her chin on the penguin’s head. ‘Have you ever been taken up by the saucer?’
Konstantin shook her head. ‘Have you?’
‘That depends on what you mean. And what you believe. And if it’s the same saucer every time. I don’t know if it is.’
‘Good point,’ Konstantin said, more to herself than to the girl. ‘What is it that you said you had that could help me?’
‘What kind of help do you want? Refresh my memory.’
Konstantin sighed. ‘Okay. To refresh your memory, I asked you about Body Sativa and Shantih Love –’
‘That’s right.’ She turned the penguin around to face her. ‘Fairbanks, do you know anything about Body Sativa and Shantih Love?’ Konstantin had to force herself not to make a face as the girl put the penguin’s bright orange beak to her ear. Every so often she nodded slightly.
‘So does the bird know anything?’ Konstantin asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
‘Shh,’ the girl told her.
Bored, Konstantin looked around. The walls had been bare when they had come in, but now posters were fading into existence on them, arty things with lots of nudes. No doubt the girl would tell her that they had been there when she had first come here and she couldn’t get rid of them for some reason.
‘Okay,’ the girl announced. ‘Now I know.’
Konstantin turned to her and was startled to see she was now dressed in a frilly little nightie, too obviously over nothing. Understanding swept through her immediately. ‘Oh, Christ,’ she said, standing up and backing away.
‘What’s the matter?’ the girl said, putting a finger to her mouth cutely. ‘You don’t have a dirty mind, do you?’
Konstantin attacked the locks but they wouldn’t budge for her. Frustrated and furious with herself for allowing the girl to lead her wide-eyed and innocent into the setup, she leaned against the door and took a long careful breath. It didn’t help. ‘All right. What do you want?’
‘What’ve you got?’ the girl asked cheerfully.
‘Precious little, and I need every bit of it.’
‘Do you also need everyone to know that you’re a paedophile?’ The girl giggled. ‘Kinky for the kiddies?’
‘I’m logging all this,’ Konstantin said, hoping she was. ‘That’ll prove –’
‘Nothing,’ the girl said, smiling sunnily. ‘My log will look as real as yours.’ She drew her knees up, reached around her bent legs and grabbed her toes. It was such a child’s posture, Konstantin could have laughed and cried. ‘Of course, maybe you’re of a more liberated sort of mind. Maybe you feel that if there’s no such thing as paedophilia in here – and there isn’t – then there’s no such thing as an unthinkable thought, and it’s okay to contemplate anything. Even if it makes you look like the wretched refuse you secretly are.’
Konstantin sagged a bit in relief. ‘You’re not a child.’
‘I could be a precocious child,’ said the girl. ‘I could also be an undercover cop disguised as a chicken dinner.’
‘If you’re a cop, I want your badge number,’ Konstantin said briskly.
‘I could give you a number, but if it’s a fake, there’s nothing you can do about it,’ the girl said. ‘You couldn’t prosecute me for being a bad cop, or being a bad impersonator. Or didn’t you read your –’
‘I read it, I read it a billion times.’ Konstantin jerked a thumb at the locks. ‘Just let me out of here, or you’ll be a battered precocious child chicken cop dinner impersonator.’
‘What kind of batter – original recipe or something on the extra spicy side?’ The girl grinned. ‘Either way, I bet you can’t do it.’
‘Well, let’s see about that.’ Konstantin strode over to the bed, grabbed the girl by the front of her nightie and lifted her up, drawing her other fist back. The girl smiled up into her face as if Konstantin were offering her a piece of candy. Konstantin squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. It’s not a kid. It’s some kind of lowlife, probably some banana slug who gets his kicks by tormenting lost souls too shattered to defend themselves. She drew her fist back a little further and opened her eyes.
The girl’s face was practically beatific with happiness. Konstantin imagined what it would be like to let fly at this point, what the girl would look like. Would there be blood? Or would her fist suddenly smash into an invisible shield inches from the girl’s face, and instead of blood there’d be a thundering pain that went all the way up her arm to her shoulder while the girl laughed at her and said something like, I told you you couldn’t do it, why didn’t you listen to exactly what I said? Yeah, that wasn’t too hard to imagine. That, or maybe the girl turning into an alligator at the last minute and chomping down on her arm.
But what if there was no shield, no trick; what if her punch sent the girl ass-over-teakettle and what if she turned out to be real child after all? It wasn’t impossible. Maybe not the kid-forced-into-the-hotsuit scenario the girl had given her, but maybe an older kid, just starting puberty, say, out to blow off some steam with some mean-spirited fun?
And regardless, was she ready for the sight of what an unrestrained punch could do to a child’s face, especially an unrestrained punch that she herself delivered? Even if it wasn’t real?
Konstantin let go and lowered her fist. ‘Let me out of here,’ she said heavily.
The girl’s smile never wavered; she said nothing.
‘Please,’ Konstantin said, sickened by the begging note she could hear in her voice.
The girl held her hand out, palm up.
‘I don’t have anything you’d really want,’ insisted Konstantin.
The girl’s smile became an irritated sneer; she snapped her fingers twice rapidly and jabbed the air with her hand, palm up again.
Konstantin shrugged and sat down on the bed, leaning back on one elbow as if she were making herself comfortable. ‘I told you, I don’t have anything you’d want. Now, if you waste all your billable time trying to get me to cough up what I don’t have, I don’t care. I slipped in here on somebody else’s credit and I’m not watching the clock.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said the girl, but Konstantin could tell by her tone that she wasn’t as certain of herself now.
‘That’s the one lie you can’t tell in here, isn’t it – billable time. Can’t fake that billable time, can you.’
The girl tried to stare her down. Konstantin laughed in her face and lay back with her arms folded behind her head, hoping she looked far more casual than she felt. Her midsection was tense; she expected the girl
to hit her or jump on her. But nothing happened for close to half a minute. When she sat up again, the girl was gone, and the door was wide open.
Maybe, Konstantin thought, satisfied, she should take up poker.
It may have been a coincidence that there was a cab parked at the curb outside. Behind the wheel, the driver was browsing the news on an in-dash screen and listening to music with lots of syrupy violins.
‘You must be the cab I was going to call,’ Konstantin said.
The driver turned to look at her. He was Japanese, perhaps in his early thirties. ‘Actually, I’m a coincidence,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘Statistics indicate the average player experiences between one and three coincidences per five billable hours. Of course, statistics breed coincidences.’
Konstantin considered this with her hand on the door. ‘Is that anything like familiarity breeding contempt?’
‘If it is, that’s a coincidence, too. Where to, sir or madam, as the case may be?’
‘Body Sativa. Wherever she is.’
The cabdriver frowned slightly. ‘You got that kind of cab fare?’
‘So I’ve been told.’
‘Then get in.’ He jerked his thumb at the backseat.
The people lining either side of the street exuded such a sense of danger that Konstantin knew to read just the settings on her ’suit.
‘Better?’ the cabbie asked her, a hint of amusement in his voice.
She met his gaze in the rearview mirror and was startled to see that his eyes looked far more tense than he sounded. ‘Much better, thanks. Maybe you’d regard that as cheating –’
‘I don’t regard it as anything, sir or madam as the case may be. I’m a cabbie. It’s my job to drive a cab, not to regard.’
‘Oh. Well, good.’ Konstantin laughed a little nervously. ‘What’s going on out there, anyway?’
‘Someone’s left a tribal warfare module going. It’s most likely a promo by a new parlor, trolling for customers. Extra Sitty-based module for no extra charge, that sort of thing.’
‘At this hour of the morning?’ Konstantin said, yawning.
‘It isn’t this hour of the morning everywhere, sir or madam as the case may be.’
‘Touché.’
‘And even where it is, it isn’t for some people. The time zone can be a thing of personal preference.’
Pretty forthcoming for a cabbie, Konstantin thought, trying to catch the driver’s gaze in the rearview mirror again. ‘Have you ever had Body Sativa as a fare?’ she asked.
‘Not that I know of. She’s not my speed.’
‘Whatever that means,’ Konstantin muttered, barely realizing she was speaking aloud.
‘You’ll find out. She’s not your speed, either.’
He made a sharp right, drove up some stone steps and across a piazza, negotiating a route around and through enormous fragments of broken statuary and wrecked machines to the base of a skyscraper. Where the entrance had been was only a huge, gaping hole, guarded by what seemed to be a couple of werewolves.
‘Well, their hair is perfect,’ said the cabbie.
‘What?’ Konstantin said, bewildered.
‘Nothing. Don’t worry about them. Show them your pass and they’ll let you go in.’
‘How do you know I’ve got a pass?’
‘You’d have to. Otherwise you wouldn’t have known to tell me to take you directly to Body Sativa.’
‘Oh.’ Konstantin found her cab fare and handed it over the front seat. ‘If I find you again, will that be a coincidence?’
‘Chance favors the prepared mind.’
She found herself standing on the cracked stone of the piazza, watching the cab drive away to disappear around the side of the building. Steeling herself, she turned to the werewolves guarding the entrance. Their hair really was perfect, she realized; they seemed to be closer to were-lions than wolves, gracefully muscular in artful tatters of clothing, and definitely the sort of creatures that Shantih Love had found attractive, according to the ’suit. They looked at her with large-pupiled eyes rimmed in amber and she had the feeling they were amused. No more amused than she was, Konstantin thought. Who would pay to be a night watchman? Or watchwolf, as the case may be.
‘I’m here to see Body Sativa,’ she told them, sounding a bit more defiant than she had meant to.
‘What you can see, you will see,’ said the wolf on her left.
‘Well, then, I’m going in.’ Konstantin looked from him to the other one on her right. The other one was female, she realized, as the wolf licked its chops. ‘Tell me, is this what you both like to do? Spend your time here guarding a hole in a building?’
‘Nosy, aren’t you,’ said the female, but in a genial way.
‘Yes, I am nosy. I figure – why not.’ Konstantin smiled. ‘Now, really. Is this how you two spend your time?’
‘Stay alert and maybe you can barter, too,’ said the first werewolf. He waved her into the building.
At first, she could only stand in total darkness, confused. Then she felt the cat in her arms, and a moment later, two beams of light were playing around the lobby. Twin flashlights – they came from the cat’s eyes, which made her laugh, but more with relief than amusement. The cat looked around the ruined, dirty lobby until it found the elevator for her, staring at the call button until she pressed it. She had some reservations about climbing into an elevator in a building like this, but when it arrived, it was fully lit and functional. Considering that the alternative would have been to hike up a few hundred flights of stairs in the dark, she decided that it was a risk she could tolerate.
The elevator opened right onto a waiting room. It was brightly lit, filled with oddly-shaped furniture that suggested both antiquity and unknown origin. The texture seemed to be wood, but also gave the impression that it had been made liquid at some point, to be pulled and tortured into twisted, bizarre framework before hardening permanently. Tortured furniture? Konstantin shook her head. Either she was getting more imaginative in her old age, or she was extremely tired. Her ex would have voted for tired.
She looked around. There was no one else in the room, not even at the contorted table that could very well have been a receptionist’s desk. Konstantin sighed, absently petting the cat in her arms. The cat jumped onto the surface of the table/receptionist’s desk, lay down and became a book again, open to a page with a large exclamation mark on it. Konstantin went around the other side to have a look.
The exclam vanished and words appeared on the page. So you’re here to see Body Sativa and no one seems to be in.
Konstantin stepped back and looked around. ‘Hello?’ she asked warily.
The book turned a page with an attention-getting flapping noise. You have entered an area normally reserved for those who access at a higher speed.
She blew out a disgusted breath. Figured. Sex, drugs, blood and guts. When did humanity last have an original thought, she wondered. Probably never. Everything we thought we needed to know we learned from chimpanzees.
There will be a short wait before anyone can see you, but you will be seen. Do you want to wait? Please touch one: – YES – NO.
Konstantin touched the YES square.
Thank you. Please have a seat.
Konstantin picked up the book and tucked it away inside her robe, before finding a piece of furniture that seemed to be remotely like a couch, and sitting down. The walls in this room were blank, as far as she could tell. Sometimes she thought she saw a shadow flicker but nothing appeared and she decided it was some kind of glitch in the transmission. Either that, or the simulated fluorescent lights were flickering in the interest of authenticity.
‘Cat,’ she said, and there it was in her lap again, giving her a glimpse of a puzzled feline face before it became a book. She stared down at the page of icons Tim Mezzer had given her. Several were question marks, presumably to provide her with relatively simple answers. Or so she surmised. She touched one of the question marks and it became a small card in
her hand.
‘Is it me,’ she said to the card, ‘or is this really boring?’
‘It’s you.’
She looked up. A large TV screen had come into existence directly in front of her without her noticing; she might have taken the image on the screen for another androgyne, except that everyone had referred to Body Sativa as she. Male or female or both, Body Sativa would have been beautiful, although her face should have been too wide and too round and her eyes too small to allow that description of her. Perhaps it was the full, wide, sensuous mouth that did it, or the chaotic, multi-colored hair. Or maybe it was all just a special effect on a TV screen, as seen on a second TV screen.
‘I don’t get to meet you in person, I have to watch you on a monitor?’ Konstantin said. ‘And I’m already actually watching you on a monitor to begin with. Don’t you think that’s excessive?’
Body Sativa’s smile was appreciative. ‘It’s always wise to take anything in AR with a grain of salt at least. Grains of salt are a valuable commodity here. But an even more valuable commodity is speed.’
‘So I hear. Tell me, what is there for the, uh, unaccelerated, so to speak?’
‘There’s plenty of keep-busy junk in the world out there. One could beg the question of why anyone would even bother to come in here unaccelerated, as you put it.’
‘If one doesn’t have a good illicit drug connection and one doesn’t know to begin with,’ Konstantin snapped, losing her patience. ‘Look, I’m tired, I’ve had a bad night. I’m wearing this outfit to investigate a murder that occurred out there, in a video parlor. The person who normally wears this appearance, or who was wearing it earlier tonight anyway, got his throat cut. The name is Shantih Love, which he wore over the name Tom Iguchi, which according to his wife wasn’t his name to begin with, since he was known to change his name regularly. During questioning of possible witnesses, you were mentioned several times as someone who would know something more about Shantih Love than the average paying customer. I’m sick of chasing around in here –’ Konstantin sighed. Suddenly she felt weak and very, very tired. ‘I almost got molested by a child, for chrissakes.’