"I was out of my head with reaction and a hangover and hunger," he said, looking away from her, embarrassed. "And probably from all the shit Rivera put in me, probably fucked me forever. Maybe I can plead brain damage."
"Shut up," Sam said impatiently. "If anyone's to blame, it's probably Rivera, or that Dr. Whoever, the one from Eye-Traxx.
"Someday I'll tell you how Rivera connected up with her," he said darkly.
"I'm not interested," Sam said. "It doesn't matter anymore." She took him back to her work island in the ballroom and sat him in front of her laptop.
"Remember the specs on this?" she said, taking the pump unit out of her pocket. He nodded. "I built it while I was on sabbatical, so to say, in the Ozarks."
"You actually run that on… yourself?" he asked as she connected the unit to the laptop feed.
She nodded, grinning at him. "A battery just isn't personal enough." The identification screen Art had shown her came up, sans Art's image. "This is as far into it as I can get. Even Art can't crack it. Maybe you'll have better luck. I don't know what the partial room is supposed to signify, if anything. But I'd love to know what that word means." She ran her finger along it on the screen. "Zamiatin. Any ideas?"
"Zamiatin," said a low, gravelly voice behind her, "is Visual Mark's last name."
She turned around. Gina was standing a few feet behind her, staring impassively at the screen.
"It's him," Keely said wonderingly, looking from the screen to Gina and back again. "That fucker didn't eat him, he's alive. Or… well… something."
"Stone the fucking crows at home," Sam said, "Are you sure? Maybe it's part of the-"
Keely shook his head. "No, it's really him. I recognize the screen. I saw it every time he cracked me in the penthouse."
"But we still can't get to him. We don't have the access code or the password," Sam said, frustrated.
Keely gave a short, incredulous laugh. "Shit, I've got the fucking access code and password! The access code's VM, and the password is-" He looked at Gina, who had come over to squat down between them. "The password is Gina."
Gina's gaze didn't move from the screen. Sam wondered for a moment if the woman had been hypnotized by the convolutions of the rushing clouds in the background.
"Are you gonna use those fucking codes?" Gina said suddenly, glancing at Keely.
"I thought maybe you'd like to," he said.
"Fuck." She stood up, folding her arms. "I'm done bringing that bastard around every time he passes out. You do it."
Sam looked after her as she stalked over to where Gabe and Fez were talking and said something to them. Keely jumped up and ran after her.
"Can you see and hear okay?" Keely asked, standing in front of the extra cam Percy had set up.
The man on the chaise looked confused. "Wait. I'm not…" The screen flickered a few times and then snapped into sharp focus. "Well, now. This is what I call stone-home high quality. Who's there? You, the kid from the penthouse. You got out okay."
"Yah. Thanks for fixing the door for me." Keely sounded so shy and polite that Sam had to stifle a laugh.
"Christ-the Beater? You look like shit."
No lie, Sam thought, looking at the man. Several hours of rest seemed not to have helped him at all; he looked even more tired than when he'd arrived. And the sight of Mark obviously wasn't making him feel any better.
"You!" Mark said. "Move in toward the cam a little more, I can't pan this thing-"
"Yes, you can," came Art's voice from the speakers on the framework. "Feel around behind your focus."
Now Sam did laugh. If she hadn't known for certain, she would have sworn that Rosa and Percy were scamming them with a simulation. But they were among the group gathered around her work island, looking as boggled as anyone else. Except Gina Aiesi, who hung back, well out of cam range for the moment. Sam kept sneaking glances at her while she sat on the floor gripping the pump unit tightly to keep it still. Occasionally she pressed a hand to her stomach, to make sure the needles were secure.
"Yah, it is you," Mark said as the cam on the tripod gave a short jerk to the left, aiming direcdy at Gabe. "Hey, some stone-home change for the machines, ain't it?"
Sam thought her father looked as if he weren't sure whether to laugh, cry, or run like hell. "How does he do that?" he asked Keely. "Make a picture?"
"Good question," Keely said. "How do you do it?"
"By visualizing," Gina said quietly. The cam swung to her immediately.
"You're here." On-screen the pov zoomed to medium close-up.
"Yah, I survived," she said indifferently. "No thanks to you."
"Hey, anyone can have a stroke."
"But only you could release it into general circulation."
"On-line brain illness," Fez said. He was standing next to Gator. "If that's possible, then on-line therapy must be possible, too."
"Don't look at me," said Gina. "It wasn't my fucking idea."
"Mine, either," Gabe added in a small voice.
"But you are the only people here who have undergone the procedure." Fez looked at each of them. "And the only two we know for sure that haven't been infected."
"We don't know that at all," said Gabe.
"I never hurt either of you," Mark said solemnly. "I was just there, I never hurt you."
"My fucking ass." Gina pushed between Adrian and Jasm to stand directly in front of the cam. "Get a little higher up in the stupidsphere. You don't know that for sure, you don't know shit. And even if you think you do, I fucking don't. And neither does he." She jerked her head at Gabe.
"We could find out," Fez said slowly, "if we had the right hardware. Some direct interface connections and a sample of what Art calls the spike, which a diagnostic program could use to compare normal function against function that's been virally altered. The diagnostic wouldn't be too hard to devise. Ideally, we'd also have an uninfected brain as the control for comparison, though we could do without one. But we'd have to have interface connections."
The little gold woman, Flavia, let out a short, hard laugh. "Never get back to 'fax now. Push luck over a cliff."
"We don't have to." Gina went to Gator's work island, where Keely had stashed the bundle he'd brought with him and picked up the large piece of cloth he'd been using as a carryall. "We got connections, we got all kinds of toys and programs, and we got a sample right here." She took it to Fez. "It's a cape. Look in the collar."
"But it's been turned off," Gabe said.
"It's never turned off, it's just in nondisplay mode. Got solar collectors all around the edge of the hem. The program's still alive, and it's still infected. You want an uninfected brain, ask the woman who's got one." She pointed at Flavia.
"Not me," Flavia said. "Know you once, know you always. Knew you the night before. Remember?" The gold face took on a hard look. "Thanks for the memories."
Gina spread her hands. "I said don't do it. Didn't I?"
"We could use a simulation to stand in for the brain," Fez said after a moment. "That'll help me figure how to adapt the diagnostic-"
"I can do that," Mark said. "If Gina will let me. She might not want me to."
"Oh, cut the shit," Gina said irritably. "This is all your fucking fault, you better do everything you fucking know how."