Tea From an Empty Cup (10 page)

‘Uh-huh.’ Konstantin leaned an elbow on the desk and rubbed her eyes. ‘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 hard-hat, because you’re
there
. Not
here
.’

Konstantin finally got it. ‘So you and, uh, your husband, Tom – was that his name when you married him?’

‘Was
what
his name?’ Havelock asked suspiciously.

‘Tom. Tomoyuki Iguchi.’

‘Does it matter?’

Konstantin took a breath. ‘Yes. It matters.’

‘Well, then, no, it wasn’t. But he changed his name once a week.’

‘Once a
week
?’ Konstantin said doubtfully.

‘Sometimes less often, sometimes more often.’ Havelock shrugged. ‘It depended on what he was in, or on, or over. He was Harry Houdini the day he found the out door.’

‘And who was he when you got married?’

Havelock squinted into some vague place over Konstantin’s right shoulder. ‘Spiney Norman?’ She hesitated. ‘That, or Lan Shao Lin.’

‘You don’t remember what your husband’s name was when you married him?’ Konstantin couldn’t keep the agitation out of her voice.

‘What’s in a name?’ Havelock shrugged one shoulder. ‘He used to say that all the time.’

‘Really. While he was named Shakespeare?’ Konstantin said sarcastically.

‘No, I just told you he said it
all the time
. It’s hard for me to remember exactly what name he was using when we got married because he was changing it a lot then.’

‘It should be on your marriage certificate,’ Konstantin said, sighing. ‘You did get one of those, didn’t you?’

‘Well, it was a legal thing so I guess there’s a copy on-line somewhere.’ Havelock echoed Konstantin’s sigh. ‘Is there anything else you have to know right now?’

Konstantin consulted her notes on the archiver. ‘You and Tom were looking for this magic door to the egress. Did you know of anyone else who wanted to –’

‘Egress,’ Havelock said, nodding vigorously. ‘That’s it. Door out, egress. This way to the egress.’ That’s how
she
referred to it.’

‘Who?’ Konstantin asked, and then all but said the answer with her.

‘Body Sativa.’

‘Sun’s gonna come up,’ Guilfoyle Pleshette warned; it sounded like a veiled threat. She looked tired. Even her hair was starting to lose its lift.

Still sitting at the 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 real solid yet. But the probability is running to eighty 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?” 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 customers in the parking lot calling her that. Calling
it
that. I don’t know.’ Taliaferro sounded a bit sheepish. ‘Probably it’s some slicko with a talent for PR. Famous for being famous.’

‘Do you do much AR?’ Konstantin asked him impulsively.

‘Is that a sincere question?’

‘Sorry. Don’t know what got into me. Have any of the people you questioned owned up to seeing anything out here in Dullsville? Anyone see the kid in the waiting room or talk to him, or see him talking to someone else?’

There was a short, wounded pause before Taliaferro answered. ‘You know, I’m a claustrophobe, not an amnesiac.
Or
an idiot. I still know how to do my job.’

‘Sorry, partner, I was just asking. No offense intended, okay?’

Taliaferro clicked off without replying. Konstantin turned to Guilfoyle Pleshette, who was yawning hugely and noisily. ‘Like I told you before,’ the manager said between the end of one yawn and the beginning of the next, ‘he came in alone, and if he talked to anybody besides me or Mezzer, I didn’t notice.’

‘Yes, I remember. What I was going to ask was, do
you
do much AR?’

‘Sure,’ Pleshette said, surprised. ‘The employee discount here’s great.’

‘You spend much time in post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty?’

Now the manager shrugged and looked almost coy. ‘I guess I been known to. You gotta scan rated zones because when you get a virgin in, you have to be able to talk about what you know when they ask you about this zone and that zone. I say that’s the difference between a quality business and a ditch.’

Konstantin nodded absently. Once a place became too popular, no one would admit to wanting to go there, even in AR. ‘And Body Sativa? Do you know about her?’

‘Everybody knows about her, but not as many really seen her as say so.’ Pleshette sounded wary again, as if she thought Konstantin were trying to trap her into admitting something.

‘But
you
have. Haven’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay.’ Konstantin hesitated. ‘Think you could introduce me?’

‘Of course
not
.’ Pleshette drew back, offended.

‘I didn’t think so, but it was worth a try.’

‘Hey, what you got to understand here is 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’re that good right out of the box?’

‘Well, one of your employees offered me some secret insider icons. Whatever those are.’

The manager straightened up, thrusting her head forward. ‘Is that so? Who made this great offer?’

‘The bored one. Mezzer.’

‘Oh, him.’ Pleshette tossed her head. ‘You can find his so-called secret insider icons in the index of any on-line guidebook.
I
got stuff you can really get around with.’

Konstantin smiled tiredly. ‘Ah, but will you loan any to me?’

The funny little face looked doubtful. ‘What’re you gonna do with them if I do?’

Konstantin shrugged. ‘All I want to do is find this Body Sativa and ask her some questions.’

‘What
kinda
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, Tomoyuki Iguchi, whichever you knew him as.’

‘I
told
you,
I
didn’t know him as anybody,’ said Pleshette, looking at Konstantin as if she were an idiot. Konstantin felt like screaming. ‘And there’s no guarantee that Body Sativa did, either. But if that’s all you really want to do – I mean,
all
– 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.’

Konstantin had to take a breath. ‘And what exactly would poaching entail?’

‘Getting stuff you’re not entitled to get, and taking credit for stuff you didn’t do or didn’t know. Shit like that.’

‘Getting stuff? In AR?’ Konstantin felt lost.

‘Yeah. Stuff in AR. In the Sitty. Everyone who goes in regular’s got stuff in AR.’ The night manager folded her arms again. ‘What kinda stuff you think I got out here? This nothing job? I got to put up with blowfish like Miles Mank, I live in a hive over on Sepulveda. But in the Sitty, I got
stuff
. 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 and sweat to get all that and I don’t want it just slipped out from under me when I’m not there to defend it.’ The funny little face puckered unhappily. ‘
You
got stuff out here, you don’t need to go poachin’ my stuff in there. You see what I mean?’

Konstantin saw; it sent a wave of profound melancholy through her. ‘All I want to do is contact Body Sativa if I can,’ she said kindly. ‘I don’t want anything else.
Really
.’

Pleshette held her gaze for a long moment and then shrugged her bony shoulders. ‘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 it all in the bank or anything. But I put a lot of time in. I spent some big sums doin’ it. If I give it all away, then I got
nothing
. It was all for
nothing
. See?’

Konstantin nodded, wondering if this was the sort of thing a person might kill for. It was beginning to sound that way.

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 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 uneasily.

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 just a little less bored. ‘And if you’re not sure which icon to try, ask for advice.’

Konstantin was mystified. ‘Who am I supposed to ask?’

‘The icons,’ he said, looking at her 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 there. You know how it is. What
some
people call help.’

Konstantin thought of the filing system back at headquarters and nearly backed out. After Pleshette loaded her own information, she took Konstantin to one of the deluxe cubicles – deluxe because it was half again as large as the one where the kid had died, and included an easy 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; anyone could come in and do anything to you while you were immobilized with your head as good as buried, and you’d never know it until too late. If then.

The screen lit up with a control panel graphic. She turned on the log, which was an independent operation with only an on-off access, so she’d have her own record that, if necessary, she could prove had not been tampered with. Funny, she thought, how the first thing anyone had to do with taped evidence was prove that it hadn’t been toasted.

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, suddenly uncomfortable with the idea. She hadn’t given that any thought ahead of time and it was too late to do anything about it now. Besides, in a place like this, they were probably all full-coverage ’suits. Full-coverage would be the big attraction. 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, Konstantin thought, 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 service, she thought, unless you tried real, real hard.

The sign came up so suddenly that it took a second 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

Uh-huh
, thought Konstantin. The words faded out; more faded in.

You can choose to be totally anonymous

You can tell the whole truth about yourself

You can tell only lies

The word
lies
lingered as the others disappeared, flashing on and off in different colors before it evaporated.

No real crime is possible In 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 identify with 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, or through special promotions. Consult the rate file in your personal area for more information
.

Konstantin looked around for a speed-scroll option.

No speed-scroll option is available for this portion of your first 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, Konstantin remembered uneasily, especially when used in conjunction with vital signs.