Very slowly she lowered her eyelids, with their inch-long, heavily-mascaraed eyelashes, and the flow of information through the forebrain diminished just slightly. The screens in the room dimmed.
“Ah, one of my people. An elf come to see me.” The voice was utterly flat and devoid of expression, so Serrin couldn’t tell if it was mockery or an honest expression of welcome. The face gave nothing away because it did not move; the vocal synthesizer was in sensurround, so it couldn’t be localized either. Between Her Ladyship’s lifeless arms appeared a little green and blue hologram of Serrin, dancing a jerky, mannequin-like round. Spiraling about the figure was a four-colored double helix, his DNA code, and to one side of that a continuously scrolling update on his vital signs and physical parameters. To the other side the output of a quarkspin tomographic brain scan throbbed in vivid color. He felt very frightened now, completely in the power of this obscene creature. The DNA helix was seriously spooky; someone could use that for ritual sorcery against him. He wondered where she’d gotten the code.
“Serrin Shamandar. This will substantially add to my file on you, little elf mage.” The hint of a smile seemed to play around those white lips. The eyes were unblinking, taking in his discomfort and enjoying it.
“You have a file on me?’
“I have a file, a pretty little file, on everything and everyone. We are all information. Look at you sparkle and shine.”
The DNA helix sparked into a fireworks display of crackling energy. It had a peculiar beauty, with the blue and silver and radiant purple of the bondings. “Oh, you are a pretty one. Look at your Power,” the voice said, as a stretch of the scrolling helix began to glow golden before his face. The figure before him began a slow, smooth. almost peristaltic rocking movement, to and fro. The eyes never left him.
“It is an honor, your Ladyship,” Serrin said, beginning to feel that this creature was quite insane. He needed to tread very carefully.
“So you come to learn something, my pretty little mage. Why come to me? Not many do. Or many do and few are allowed within. Your scans amused me. You are damaged. pretty one. I like that.”
“I was given your name by a friend. He told me you might know something about a corporation I am trying to investigate.”
The screens blazed into life again. “You come for something as boring as that? A runner come for information on a corporation? You waste my time. I only dispense information, just a tiny little tidbit perhaps. if I am asked something interesting. Look!”
The sensory overload was impossible. The screens ran riot with fast strobing, and the sensurround amplification assaulted his mind. He was forced to his knees with the pain of it, desperately trying to shut it out. The avalanche subsided.
“It is interesting. Lady. Please hear me,” he managed to force out between clamped teeth. He began to explain, telling her of the murders and the coincidences between lives drawn apart for many years, She liked that, and the voxsynth purred at him.
“Oh yes, oh yes, pretty one. Your friend was right. Years ago, little one, BTL chips. Jack the Ripper, oh yes. I so enjoyed that.”
Better-than-life chips; someone had chipped up a version of the killer. Of course.
But they didn’t get it right, no, no.” She created a dancing hologram of her images, putting his imagery behind her where it continued to dance in silence. “Pretty Little whores, slash! slash! slash! Hee hee hee hee…”
The voice trailed into psychotic laughter, and then, most horribly, into a song, a child’s lullaby.
Serrin didn’t think even the word madness was adequate here. Not even schizophrenic could have fulfilled the task of describing this one. He didn’t even want to Look at the hologram, with its mutilated bodies in lace and chiffon.
“So he’s back, he’s back! Jack's back! Hee hee hee!” Again the high-pitched laughter reverberated around him. “Well, little one, is it pretty now? Have they done it well this time?”
Serrin nodded grimly. He wanted desperately to find out who had made a Ripper BTL chip, and he decided to risk her ire by asking outright.
“Oh, well,” she sounded fussy and mildly irritated. “Little people with big money in the shadows. Global Technologies made the chips. Little people used them. Hollywood people. Never know what they’re doing. Hollywood people, always so self-absorbed, never attend to details. We’re not stylish and we’re not pretty,” she half-sang in mockery.
For a split-second the withered form seemed to rock just a little further forward toward him. She gazed right though him with eyes the frequency of lasers. “Hollywood Simsense, little mage.’ she said simply. ‘Corporate warfare. But who was behind the Hollywood people? Who’s bigger than all of the Global world?”
“Go now.” The voice changed very abruptly. “I am bored now. I think I shall have a soiree.” Abruptly the screens as one flipped channels to show an endless array of celebrities. Politicians, artists, simsense stars, religious leaders, writers, sportsmen and women; Serrin recognized almost all of them. Almost all were silent, but to Serrin’s amazement the Russian president began reciting an old and especially obscene joke about a New York mayor and an actress. He looked quizzically at the expressionless elf.”
“They shall say what it pleases me to have them say. You will go now. But, oh, before you go, pretty one, you shall dance for us all. We shall applaud most politely. Dance for us.”
It felt as if he were being pushed and pulled throughout his body, and he lost all voluntary control. His mind went spinning across the possibilities; low-wave EM. quarkspin modulators, subliminals, photic driving… they couldn’t do this to him. But he had no choice as he skipped and swayed across the nightmarish room.
Afterward, though, Serrin did not remember anything of that nightmare dance. When the troll dumped him outside the door, he had a mechanism and some names. Better-than-life chips. Global Technologies continued for him, and Hollywood Simsense. It was far more than he’d hoped for. Walking dazedly along the sidewalk, he realized that he hadn’t had to part with a single nuyen, and he smiled. He even skipped a few steps, until his leg hurt him and he settled for an ordinary walking pace.
Thank you, Lady.
It was after midnight when he got back to the Hyatt. He just couldn’t resist the home-grown taste of some snacks from the Stuffer Shack on the way back. Real synthetics. He had eaten too much good food back at Geraint’s in London and it had begun to upset his system.
There was only one message on the telecom. It was one of his New York contacts getting back to him for a meet at eight the following evening. Of all the people he knew in this town, this was the one he’d hoped would come through. If anyone could tell him who might be the brains behind the BTL scene at Global Technologies and Hollywood Simsense, it was Shrapenter.
Serrin made his return flight arrangements. What he’d gotten was more than enough to take back with him.
26
Heading northeast, the Saab purred along the expressway. It had been a good morning. While waiting for Francesca to finish her software shopping and bag-packing, Geraint happened on a glitch in currency transactions across the major banking centers of three continents that netted him four thousand nuyen for about fifty seconds’ work. He’d learned that he could usually put one over on the Swiss satellite banking system by keeping his eyes on the South American and smaller Far Eastern markets. Even a gain no bigger than small change gave him that glorious feeling of bucking the system.