Part 11 (2/2)
”I said, if you want a beatin', I can help you out.”
”Gotta catch me first.”
He lunged for her and she dived between his legs, the persona taking over again. Great reflexes, she thought as she rolled over once, sprang to her feet and kept going out the door to the secret pa.s.sage without missing a beat, while her would-be captor was still in the process of turning around. Still, she thought as her legs carried her along, a persona with preprogrammed responses was hard to get used to.
It was like being inside a hotsuit that had suddenly developed a mind and an agenda of its own.
She reached the end of the hallway and took a left. Or rather, the persona took a left -- she'd have gone the other way if she'd had any control, but she was just along for the ride now. New Blue Rose apparently knew plenty she didn't. She gasped as she felt herself leap forward suddenly in the dark hallway, her feet kicking nothing but air. She landed heavily on all fours at the bottom of a short flight of stairs, staggered sideways, and found a railing bolted to the wall. There was just enough room for her to plant her b.u.t.t on it and slide the rest of the way down before tumbling off and rolling over and over again, recovering her feet in front of a pair of swinging doors. Momentum carried her through them and then she was in the middle of a room full of bored-looking casino croupiers and dealers, some of them sitting at small round tables, others sprawled in easy chairs or on the one sofa, and one who looked like a werewolf standing at a table off to the side, demonstrating something with an oversized deck of cards.Next to the table was a door open just wide enough to show that it was an entrance to the casino.
Konstantin sprinted for it, managing to grab a card out of the werewolf's hand without stopping.
Then she was skidding into yet another overly mammalian reptile-woman, this one a gilded cobra.
”Brat,” the cobra woman said mildly, and tapped Konstantin lightly on the top of her head with a fan. Konstantin grabbed for it but the woman held it high up out of her reach. ”Now, now, don't let's get any ideas above ourselves, shall we?” She grabbed Konstantin by one skinny bicep.
Konstantin howled in surprise and pain. She could feel each of the woman's fingers digging into her arm.
”Oh, what a performance,” said the cobra woman and bent her head as if to strike. Konstantin jumped to one side and the fingers dug in so hard she yelled. ”Hold still, you little brat. Do you know what most people would pay for--”
There was a new hand gripping Konstantin's wrist; one by one, the cobra woman's fingers were pried off her arm. ”I believe this one's for me.”
”You believe?” The cobra woman batted her eyes at the man who had spoken; considering her eyelids rose up from below lizard-style, it was about the strangest thing Konstantin had ever seen in her life, if also the least important. ”And what's made you into such a believer?”
”O ye of little faith.” The hand gripping Konstantin's wrist lifted her up and she found herself nearly nose-to-nose with Hastings Dervish. An enormous smile spread slowly over his heavily-painted face.
”Yes, this does have my name on it. Or rather, it will when I get done with it.”
Konstantin had time only to think about pus.h.i.+ng her panic b.u.t.ton for a quick disconnect.
”I see you've never had the experience of being jammed before.”
The voice seemed to be coming through water, something that gave it a kind of auditory s.h.i.+mmer.
Or maybe it was her brain s.h.i.+mmering and shaking in her head like jelly.
”You are conscious, by the way. It's just taking a little while for the words to make sense because of the jamming.”
Must be jelly, 'cause jamming don't shake like that...
”It's a little surprising that you didn't think of this long ago. It tends to make a subject so tractable.
But then, this really isn't your medium, is it.”
Konstantin could see nothing. I'm blind, she thought. Not what I imagined blindness would be, seeing nothing. It's not dark and it's not light... it's nothing. But she didn't panic until she realized she couldn't feel her body at all.
”There, there, child. Quiet now. You don't want to give yourself a heart attack, do you?”
Child? Images flashed through her mind, all out of order, elements misplaced -- an elevator leading to a fitting room, with a Dragon Lady -- no, a cobra -- and a big man, s.h.i.+rtless but wearing a suit.
”A shame you can't feel anything. This would calm you.” Pause. ”Maybe. Or it might, um, stimulate you.” The nothing around Konstantin shook with laughter. ”After all, that's what you kids come in here like this for, isn't it, all those thrills. You little perverts.” More laughter. Konstantin tried to concentrate on being able to feel herself breathe. Breathe and the world breathes with you, stop, and you die alone-- Except you couldn't die in Artificial Reality. Not for real.
”Oh, but what if this is an alternative reality rather than something fake, the way so many people seem to think? What happens then? If you were to die for real, but you weren't in your home reality, so to speak, would you be just as dead?”
If she shut everything out, the voice, the nothingness, even the sensation of nothingness, she thought, maybe she would be able to feel her lungs inflating and deflating. If she could feel that, she should be able to feel her chest, rising and falling, even just very shallowly.
”Now, don't clam up on me, we were communicating so well. Some people would say it doesn'tcount if you don't know you're talking out loud, but I say communication justifies the means. Life isn't fair, so why should we be?”
The voice didn't fall silent so much as grey out; it was the only description Konstantin could think of for the gradually increasing onslaught of nothingness. This must be what it was like to be a ghost, she thought, to be disembodied. The old out-of-body experience reinvented by technology.
No. She thought the word as hard as she could, trying to will substance into it. No out-of-body. If you can think, then you have something to think with. I think; therefore-- ”You are--”
in a small room in police headquarters, wearing a hotsuit with transcutaneous nerve ”--stimulation. Do you find this stimulating?”
Someone was holding her hands and stroking them. She willed herself not to flinch or pull away, but to let the return of sensation spread to her wrists and up her arms. No hurry, just let it happen, she told herself. Let it-- Her eyes were closed, the lids very heavy, but she made herself open them.
Dervish's face filled her vision. His own; he was a barefaced liar. That figured, though. His ego would insist on his wearing his own face. At this angle, he was distorted, a grotesque, stylized clown-gargoyle.
”A child is an acquired taste.” He let one of her hands fall and held the other up so she could see him lace his fingers through hers. ”You'd be surprised at how many acquire it in here. People it would never have occurred to out there in meat world -- in here, their desires become more rarified. Because, you see, they've done everything they can do in here, and that's everything.” He began to move his fingers up and down in the s.p.a.ces between hers. The sensation was too smooth, practically greasy.
”Intelligent, sentient creatures, when presented with the complete range of experience, graduate from testing what is possible to testing what they're capable of.”
Konstantin could feel her body again but she still couldn't move anything. It was as if she were trying to flex a muscle that wasn't actually there.
”People -- humans -- are capable of... so much. There are things that are technically forbidden even here. But what if they happen and no one -- no human -- knows, outside of the one who indulged in it?”
Dervish bent her hand back and let his fingers dance on her palm, a sensation that was even more revolting.
”It's the feeling, isn't it. It's the feeling that makes the experience.” He leaned over and blew on her open hand, his eyes watching her reaction. ”Right, I'm not supposed to be able to do that. But in this world, there's no supposed to. There is only what is possible, and what I'm capable of. What I'm capable of.”
He licked his lips. Konstantin would have thought he'd have indulged in something long and pointy and too red, but it was just a normal tongue, sliding around very human, very normal lips. ”By now, you must realize I'm capable of things that they would call... outre... even in here. Outre, and very, very big.
And that ain't you, little girl. Never broke a sweat, even in the act of jamming you.”
The heavy, paralyzed feeling lifted as he pulled back from her, dropping her hand. Konstantin looked around. She was sitting on the floor in what looked like a warehouse, full of shelving and boxes, none of which was quite distinct enough for her to see. But then, Dervish wouldn't have wanted her looking at anything but him anyway.
”Now, take this sad, ill-fitting rig back to the hack shack you got it from.” Dervish stood over her, bent at the waist with his arms folded. ”Tell them to give you a refund. Because it's pointless to try to put one over on me, Officer Konstantin. I'll know you no matter what you show up in. And I can do whatever I like with you.” He reached down and put his hands on her shoulders. ”And I will.”
He pushed her over backwards. Instead of hitting the floor with her back, she found herself on her feet in the exit hall, among the usual crowd of ghosts. None of them were on her frequency.
”Don't take my word for it,” Taliaferro said, gesturing at the monitor without looking at it. ”I don't want to take your machine's word for it, either,” Konstantin told him snappishly. ”And I wouldn't, except Celestine's got the same data.” She slid her fingers into her hair and ma.s.saged her scalp. ”So does my 'suit log. For all I know, so does every TV channel in the hemisphere..”
”Only the dedicated p.o.r.n channels. They're the only ones who keep cams in the offline s.e.x clubs.
Look on the bright side.” Taliaferro patted her shoulder with one big, gentle hand. ”You've uncovered a potentially criminal piece of software detectable out here as well as in AR. If it gets into circulation, service providers could face losses in the skintillions from falsified records of billable time. When you clamp Hastings Dervish for this one, you'll be a hero.”
”That'll be swell,” Konstantin agreed. The wind on the roof picked up slightly, blowing a piece of grit into her eye. Sometimes, she reflected, holding her lower eyelid down while Taliaferro dabbed at her with the corner of a tissue, even the little things went against you. ”All I have to do is prove that Dervish's jamming program was created with intent to defraud by fooling the AR interface into registering the user as being off line while actually still being on line. Maybe that will draw attention away from my new alleged hobby of frequenting s.e.x clubs in and out of AR. Ow,” she added.
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