»Angela,« the house said, its voice quiet but compelling, »I have a call from Hilton Swift. . . .« »Executive override?« She was eating baked beans and toast at the kitchen counter. »No,« it said, confidingly. »Change your tone,« she said, around a mouthful of beans. »Something with an edge of anxiety.« »Mr. Swift is waiting ,« the house said nervously. »Better,« she said, carrying bowl and plate to the washer, »but I want something closer to genuine hysteria. . . .« »Will you take the call?« The voice was choked with tension. »No,« she said, »but keep your voice that way, I like it.« She walked into the living room, counting under her breath. Twelve, thirteen . . . »Angela,« the house said gently, »I have a call from Hilton Swift –« »On executive override,« Swift said. She made a farting sound with her lips. »You know I respect your need to be alone, but I worry about you.« »I’m fine, Hilton. You needn’t worry. Bye-bye.« »You stumbled this morning, on the beach. You seemed disoriented. Your nose began to bleed.« »I had a nosebleed.« »We want you to have another physical. . . .« »Great.« »You accessed the matrix today, Angie. We logged you in the BAMA industrial sector.« »Is that what it was?« »Do you want to talk about it?« »There isn’t anything to talk about. I was just screwing around. You want to know , though? I was packing some crap Bobby left here. You’d have approved , Hilton! I found a deck of his and I tried it. I punched a key, sat there looking around, jacked out.« »I’m sorry, Angie.« »For what?« »For disturbing you. I’ll go now.« »Hilton, do you know where Bobby is?« »No.« »You telling me Net security hasn’t kept tabs on him?« »I’m telling you I don’t know, Angie. That’s the truth.« »Could you find out, if you wanted to?« Another pause. »I don’t know. If I could, I’m not sure that I would.« »Thanks. Goodbye, Hilton.« »Goodbye, Angie.«
She sat on the deck that night, in the dark, watching the fleas dance against floodlit sand. Thinking of Brigitte and her warning, of the drug in the jacket and the derm charger in the medicine cabinet. Thinking of cyberspace and the sad confinement she’d felt with the Ono-Sendai, so far from the freedom of the loa. Thinking of the other’s dreams, of corridors winding in upon themselves, muted tints of ancient carpet . . . An old man, a head made of jewels, a taut pale face with eyes that were mirrors . . . And a beach in the wind and dark. Not this beach, not Malibu.
And somewhere, in a black California morning, some hour before dawn, amid the corridors, the galleries, the faces of dream, fragments of conversation she half-recalled, waking to pale fog against the windows of the master bedroom, she prized something free and dragged it back through the wall of sleep. Rolling over, fumbling through a bedside drawer, finding a Porsche pen, a present from an assistant grip, she inscribed her treasure on the glossy back of an Italian fashion magazine: T-A
»Call Continuity,« she told the house, over a third cup of coffee. »Hello, Angie,« said Continuity. »That orbital sequence we did, two years ago. The Belgian’s yacht . . .« She sipped her cooling coffee. »What was the name of the place he wanted to take me? The one Robin decided was too tacky.« »Freeside,« the expert system said. »Who’s taped there?« »Tally Isham recorded nine sequences in Freeside.« »It wasn’t too tacky for her?« »That was fifteen years ago. It was fashionable.« »Get me those sequences.« »Done.« »Bye.« »Goodbye, Angie.« Continuity was writing a book. Robin Lanier had told her about it. She’d asked what it was about. It wasn’t like that, he’d said. It looped back into itself and constantly mutated; Continuity was always writing it. She asked why. But Robin had already lost interest: because Continuity was an AI, and AIs did things like that. Her call to Continuity cost her a call from Swift. »Angie, about that physical . . .« »Haven’t you scheduled it yet? I want to get back to work. I called Continuity this morning. I’m thinking about an orbital sequence. I’m going over some things Tally did; I may get some ideas.« There was a silence. She wanted to laugh. It was difficult to get a silence out of Swift. »You’re sure, Angie? That’s wonderful, but is it really what you want to do?« »I’m all better, Hilton. I’m just fine. I want to work. Vacation’s over. Have Porphyre come out here and do my hair before I have to see anyone.« »You know, Angie,« he said, »this makes all of us very happy.« »Call Porphyre. Set up the physical.« Coup-poudre . Who , Hilton? Maybe you? He had the resources, she thought, half an hour later, as she paced the fogbound deck. Her addiction hadn’t threatened the Net, hadn’t affected her output. There were no physical side effects. If there had been, Sense/ Net would never have allowed her to begin. The drug’s designer, she thought. The designer would know. And never tell her, even if she could reach him, which she doubted she could. Suppose, she thought, her hands on the rust of the railing, that he hadn’t been the designer? That the molecule had been designed by someone else, to his own ends? »Your hairdresser,« the house said. She went inside. Porphyre was waiting, swathed in muted jersey, something from the Paris season. His face, as smooth in repose as polished ebony, split into a delighted smirk when he saw her. »Missy,« he scolded, »you look like homemade shit.« She laughed. Porphyre clucked and tutted, came forward to flick his long fingers at Angie’s bangs with mock revulsion. »Missy was a bad girl. Porphyre told you those drugs were nasty!« She looked up at him. He was very tall, and, she knew, enormously strong. Like a greyhound on steroids, someone had once said. His depilated skull displayed a symmetry unknown to nature. »You okay?« he asked, in his other voice, the manic brio shut off as if someone had thrown a switch. »I’m fine.« »Did it hurt?« »Yeah. It hurt.« »You know,« he said, touching her chin lightly with a fingertip, »nobody could ever see what you got out of that shit. It didn’t seem to get you high. . . .« »It wasn’t supposed to. It was just like being here, being there, only you didn’t have to –« »Feel it as much?« »Yes.« He nodded, slowly. »Then that was some bad shit.« »Fuck it,« she said. »I’m back.« His smirk returned. »Let’s wash your hair.« »I washed it yesterday!« »What in? No! Don’t tell me!« He shooed her toward the stairwell. In the white-tiled bathroom, he massaged something into her scalp. »Have you seen Robin lately?« He sluiced cool water through her hair. »Mistah Lanier is in London, missy. Mistah Lanier and I aren’t currently on speaking terms. Sit up now.« He raised the back of the chair and draped a towel around her neck. »Why not?« She felt herself warming to the Net gossip that was Porphyre’s other specialty. »Because,« the hairdresser said, his tone carefully even as he ran a comb back through her hair, »he had some bad things to say about Angela Mitchell while she was off in Jamaica getting her little head straight.« It wasn’t what she’d expected. »He did?« »Didn’t he just, missy.« He began to cut her hair, using the scissors that were one of his professional trademarks; he refused to use a laser pencil, claimed never to have touched one. »Are you joking, Porphyre?« »No. He wouldn’t say those things to me , but Porphyre hears , Porphyre always hears. He left for London the morning after you got here.« »And what was it you heard he’d said?« »That you’re crazy. On shit or off. That you hear voices. That the Net psychs know.« Voices . . . »Who told you that?« She tried to turn in the chair. »Don’t move your head. There.« He went back to his work. »I can’t say. Trust me.«