She swallowed. She definitely wasn’t going to tell him there was a soft-cyber chip in her own head. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I truly am who I say I am! We must rescue my tutor.”
From his perch on her shoulder the galago supported her. “She is, señor. Is absolutely true. Ask her about Pygmalion House if you do not believe.”
“I wouldn’t know what that looked like,” said Chip. “So she could tell me anything. Good try, little one.”
Dejectedly, she said: “It’s true, Fluff. I don’t look like a Shareholder, do I? I could tell him about Pygmalion House, or Maxims or Chez Henri-Pierre . . .”
“Ha! Tell me about that. If you can tell me about that I might believe you, indeed.” His tone was again derisive.
She decided to ignore the tone and give him the answer. She had to do something. “Well, it has mirrors everywhere, these delicate little tables and spindly little bentwood chairs with velvet cushions.”
He looked startled. “What color?”
“The cushions?” He nodded. She thought a moment. “Sort of red-pink. I didn’t like it much.”
“Cerise,” Chip growled. “Hated it myself.”
That was startling too. He should have no idea . . . “How would you know? Vats didn’t . . . I mean . . .”
He gave a wry, bitter grin. “You mean Henri-Pierre had a ‘no dogs or Vats’ policy. I worked there. Tell me about the food.”
She’d swear she’d never seen him before. He couldn’t have been one of the waiters or he would surely have recognized her. Her heart fell at the mention of the food. It was always so . . . fussy. Besides it reminded her just how hungry and thirsty she was. “You haven’t anything to drink, have you?”
He slapped his forehead. “I should have thought. Here.”
The water in his issue-waterbottle was tepid and silty. She’d never tasted anything so wonderful. “The food all had those long French names. I had the duck breast with mango slices, sometimes. The breasts were cut into this fan. Somehow, some of the slices were slid out to make a butterfly. The mango was cut into a flower around it. It was always so pretty it seemed a shame to eat it.”
It was his turn to stop. “I used to do the cutting . . . my God, you really must be . . . I heard about it on the radio.” He stepped back, away from her. “Hey, Bronstein. Guess who we just rescued.”
The bat gave an impatient flutter. “To be sure, some stupid human who wants be caught again. Keep the noise down and keep moving, Connolly.”
“It’s the arch-enemy, Bronstein. The Company in person. The Goddamn managing director’s daughter!” Chip edged away from her.
The bat snorted. “Stop fooling, Connolly. We don’t have time,” she said impatiently.
Chip shook his head. “I’m not fooling, Bronstein. It’s true. She knows Chez Henri-Pierre. And who else would have a fancy talking pet? Think about it.”
Virginia had had enough. “When you’ve quite finished insulting me, can we go and rescue my tutor? NOW!”
The bat spat on the tunnel floor. “Come on, Connolly. Let’s get moving.”
“Are you going to do what I ordered you to!?” she shouted.
“No. I wouldn’t do anything for you even if you asked me nicely. And if you shout again I’ll kill you,” added the ugly bat, in deadly earnest.
To Virginia’s shame, she started to cry.
* * *
If she hadn’t started to cry, thought Chip savagely to himself, they wouldn’t be having a confab in one of the alcoves. A whispered one-way argument instead of running. He should never have comforted her. Let her have her drizzle and get on with it. It was all very well her claiming that she had nothing to do with the Company’s policies. That was true, he supposed. Like her claim that the Company had been set up to build a new and better world for humans. That was true, in concept, even if as far as he was concerned, the practice was flawed to hell. But the idea that they couldn’t abandon her precious tutor was going to drive him to drink.