"A delightful concept both medieval and modern. I'll let Mr. Nightwine explain this to you. It's a rather delicate topic for me to address."
I watched his gray ears (he was a walking symphony in tones of black, white, and all the shades in-between) tinge faintly darker. Red reads as black in black-and-white formats.
"Are we talking about something like the birds and the bees, Godfrey?"
"As it relates to my kind, yes, Miss. Now, let us repair to the master's quarters. I believe there has been sufficient time for him to have detected your arrival."
Nightwine and his spy cameras! I was sure we were bugged too, which may be why Godfrey had shut up about his exact, er, composition. He seemed totally physically present, just a bit monochromatic around the gills.
The double doors leading to Nightwine's office opened at our approach. The man seemed to have a remote control for everything, including his CinSims.
Godfrey paused at the threshold to announce me. " Miss Street, sir."
"Come in. Well, that is a fetching ensemble, despite being in the rough-and-ready mode favored by today's youth. Denim. Ugh. It should have stayed at Nimes in France, but at least it seems to be shrinking nicely this century."
I'd forgotten that Nightwine was even more eager to ogle me than Ric, and wished I'd changed out of the low-rise jeans back into denim coveralls.
"I will reluctantly invite you to sit down."
I happily complied, since that put my bare midsection out of view behind the massive desktop.
"You noticed the gambling chip the police took from the grave across the street?" I asked.
"Of course. Most provocative. From the Inferno. My cameras also recorded the mass of old silver dollars. Thirty, I presume?"
I nodded.
"Something old, something new. Do tell me there was something blue, for then we would have a wedded couple."
In fact my vision had revealed that the dead woman had worn a blue dress when she was killed, although time and decomposition had destroyed any but a psychic shred of it.
Odd how fast I was accepting that I must be psychic. But then I'd accepted a mutual attraction with Ric lickety-split too. More had happened to me in Las Vegas in a few days than in a quarter century in Kansas. Call it the Dorothy Syndrome, only Las Vegas was my Oz, Quicksilver my Toto. So who was my wizard, or my wicked witch? Maybe Nightwine won the first part. He always looked like he had something worth hiding behind a curtain.
"I hear the Inferno has an evil reputation," I went on.
"You've been talking to government men again." Nightwine lifted his bushy eyebrows.
"Ex-government man, singular, like I'm an ex-reporter."
"The Cadaver Kid is almost as interesting to me as you. Together, you're irresistible. He's going away, to judge by that parting peck in the park. Tsk. So soon infatuation over inconvenient corpses turns into…old hat."
When I didn't answer he lifted one eyebrow even higher. "Or are you two cheating my cameras?"
"You and your voyeuristic toys are pathetic, Nightwine."
"Hector, please. So few know me well enough to insult me. It's a good idea to follow the Inferno connection, though. The operation is owned by a muy misterioso fellow named Christophe."
Hector's lapse into Spanish made me think he was still eavesdropping on Ric and me, but that name he mentioned rang a whole carillon of bells in my head. "Christophe is a French name."
"Christopher in French, in fact. It can serve either as a given name or a surname. This particular Christophe doesn’t indicate which it is in his case. He's just 'Christophe' and quite the enigma. He appeared out of the blue, with money enough to erect a multi-billion-dollar mega-bed hotel and casino that is rumored to have even more spacious private club levels underground. The place is crawling with CinSims, and you know how I feel about their commercial use. He has been ruthless in their acquisition, and in offering the best odds in Vegas, which of course gives him droves of customers. The man is simply not greedy enough for this town. Very suspicious. Of course the Inferno offers every variation of vice, including some I'd not heard of before, which is impressive. Keep your eyes wide open when you visit. It should be an intriguing experience and I'd be interested in your opinion of the operation. Do be careful that you aren't kidnapped by a white slave ring, though."
I wasn’t worried. My modest scouting expedition would never bring me into contact with Mr. Big, anyway.
"Could you fill me in more on CinSims?"
"It's short for Cinema Simulacrums, which won't mean anything unless you know what a simulacrum is. Do you?"
I happily pled ignorance and got the full lecture.
"In occult writings, the word simulacrum designates some object meant to represent a whole for magical purposes. In voodoo, a fingernail or a hair can represent the whole person it belongs to and is believed to trap part of that individual's essence. Simulacra like hair or fingernails can be inserted into a doll representing the person to cast spells upon."
"I've heard of voodoo dolls, but not that fancy name for the body parts used."
"Science fiction, of course, has eagerly embraced the concept of simulacra as artificial creatures intended to impersonate a human being. Although imperfect imitations, they're based on idealized forms of humans. The authors imagine that such creatures wish to become human or replace their human model. Hence such literary immortals as Pinocchio and Commander Data from Star Trek."
"I've heard of those guys too. But I thought Data was an android?"
"Time and usage have blurred the meaning of 'android,' but technically an android is an anthropomorphic robot-mechanical. Broadly denned, simulcra can be robotic, but in this context the term applies to a non-mechanical imitation."
"Right," I said, although as far as I knew he could be wrong.
"Then there is the simulacrum that is a copy of a copy, a thing so…dissipated…in relation to the original that it can stand on its own. Consider the cartoon character of Betty Boop."
"The baby-voiced twenties flapper with the huge eyes and the spit curls…boop-boop-a-doop?"
"The cartoon was based on a singer named Helen Kane, but Kane grabbed her share of glory by imitating another singer, Annette Hanshaw. Both Kane and Hanshaw are pop culture footnotes today, almost a hundred years later, but Betty Boop has become a commercial icon of the flapper and lives on in cheesy merchandise everywhere."
"You're saying the resurrection or animation, whatever you want to call it, of film images here in Las Vegas is that last type. They have a life that their originals never did."
"No one but I would say so, but, yes, I think they do, Miss Street, or could. A lot of soul went into creating those on-screen characters. Souls never die. No one knows precisely how CinSims are created-perhaps by pure science implemented by a touch of magic. The Millennium Revelation showed us that what scientists used to call superstition and magic do work in some cases. And if that is indeed provably true, the mob of immortality industries that have sprung up will never admit it, because it's a gold mine. Their process and products are trade secrets.
"It's nothing to me if a rich old fart decides to live on in one of the Sunset Cities as a well-preserved shadow of himself. I might try it myself some day. But the CinSims are far more than the crude animatrons of the late twentieth century! They are a synthesis of two delicate forms: film and the actor's art of breathing life into fictional characters. That's why I deplore their careless use to enrich greedy pockets. If you find anything to tie the Inferno and Christophe to the murder victims in the park, I will broadcast it to the world and bring the bastard down. And I will acquire his stable of CinSims with a view to freeing them, or at least employing them in manners to their liking."
Wow. Ric was out to break the zombie-slave trade. Nightwine wanted to liberate the CinSims. I was working with both of them. What did that make me? Supergirl?