Perhaps she might have been more convincing, Sam thought, if she'd told him her own little trade secret: she knew her way around their defenses because her father worked there, and she'd picked up a lot about their operation by simple osmosis. Maybe Keely would have seen the wisdom of backing off, or maybe he'd have just taken up hounding her for tips and hints until he drove her mad. And no matter how she tried, she couldn't get around feeling responsible, in an oblique, neurotic way, for whatever had happened to him. Ridiculous, maybe, but there it was. And here she was, back in L.A.
"… new show, free equipment, absolutely no charge!"
The voice that cut through the tumult in her earphones sounded familiar. She clicked off the chip-player and looked around.
The young guy working his way up from the now-distant end of the line she was standing in could have used a few more pounds to fill out his bodysuit and balance off the absurdly full cascade of golden waves spilling down past his bony shoulders. The holo crown bobbing in the air over his head faded in and out with each step, but he didn't bother adjusting the projector on his belt or, for that matter, the bored look on his face. Sam grinned. It had been quite a while, but she'd have known Beauregard in any guise.
"Free tickets!" he called, holding them up between two fingers. "Preview of an exciting new show!" He was about to pass her when she caught his arm.
"Getting many takers?" she asked.
He looked down at her blankly for a moment and then let out a surprised laugh. "Well, fuck me."
"Is that free, too?"
He gave her a ticket. "For this you get an hour's use of a head-mounted monitor and the chance to kill a new series, which you can brag to the folks back in Kansas City about. You wanna get fucked, call my agent. He'll fuck you four times before you even mention my name."
"Thanks, Beau, but I'll give that a miss. I like to know I'm being fucked while it happens." She looked him up and down. "Love the hotbody. You look like an old-time street mime."
"And you look like an old-time vent-hugger. Some things never change. Where the hell have you been?"
She hesitated, looking from side to side. Beauregard thrust two tickets at the man standing behind her. "Here, hold her place in line, will you?" he said. "You can take those down to Hollywood Boulevard and get an easy hundred for them in front of the Chinese Theatre. They're in short supply, everyone in town wants them."
The man frowned dubiously at the tickets in his hand, and Beauregard pressed two more on him. "Okay, this is all I can let you have. That's a guaranteed two hundred you're holding, that'll pay for the best rental you can get here four times over, thanks a lot, pal, you're a prince." Sam laughed helplessly as Beauregard hustled her away from the line.
"Is that true, what you told him?" she asked.
"Fuck, no. They're free tickets. He'll probably have to pay someone to take them off his hands."
She stared at him in disbelief. "How do you get away with being you?"
"Same way you do, honey." He tapped her chin with his fist. "Where have you been?"
"The Ozarks. They're real pretty. What are you doing wearing the Para-Versal logo?"
He glanced up at the holo still floating over his head. "I got lucky, for a change. I got a part in Tunnels in the Void."
Sam looked at the ticket he'd given her. "This? What is it?"
"A small band of intrepid explorers travel the universe using black holes as a kind of intergalactic subway system, taking you with them as they seek adventure and excitement, sneering in the face of danger and all scientific fact. But hey, it's work. They used me in a bit, on the condition that I hustle passes." He gazed at her evenly as he took the ticket back from her. "Like I said, some things never change."
"I guess not." Sam shook her head. "You know this is probably all that'll come of it. Intergalactic subway system. Stone the fucking crows at home. How stupid do they think people are?"
"You tell me when you see that guy trying to scalp those on the Boulevard. Diversifications did the finish on it, all the commercials are from their clients, and gaming rights are being auctioned right now. Plenty of features have pulled out of a nosedive on gaming rights alone. Or the wannabee trade."
Sam felt her stomach tighten a little at the mention of Diversification^. "Sorry, Beau, but I don't see why you're wasting your time."
"Oh, yah. Hacking programs and dodging watchdogs from a Mimosa squat is so much nobler." He shrugged. "I sold my equipment to Rosa. She's got a use for it."
"You had a use for it, once," she said seriously.
He glanced upward with a labored sigh, making the holo crown jiggle. "Shit, why can't you be like everyone else and refuse to have anything to do with me until I, quote, shake it off, unquote?"
"Beau, if you'd hung in, you could probably be making this stuff yourself. And not garbage like Tunnels in the Void, either, but really good stuff. You know, a lot of people used to think that you were behind the Dr. Fish virus. 'The one that got away.' "
"So that makes two of us that got away." His face was stony now. "You know, it's harder than it ever was now to get a toehold. All the studios want to go to complete simulation, and what the fuck is that? Nobody home, you know? No people."
"They probably will go to complete simulation soon, Beau," Sam said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. "Maybe not tomorrow, but soon enough. Too soon for you and your union and all the other unions. It's gonna be a stone dead end for you, unless you can make the stuff."
"I don't want to make the stuff. I want to be the stuff. If that isn't culturally on-line, then write me off. I don't go around telling people what they're supposed to want."
"Touché, doll." Sam held out her hands. "Peace?"
He curled his fingers around hers briefly, looking momentarily embarrassed. "Well, truce, anyway. I didn't pull you out of line to fight with you. It's good to see you again, Sam."
"Likewise." She paused. "Haven't seen anyone else lately, have you?"
"Ha. Like who."
"Oh, Rosa. Gator." She gave a casual shrug. "Keely?"
Beauregard shook his head, making the holo crown wag in sluggish half circles. "I don't see anyone." He ran a wistful finger down the line of her cheek and then looked around. "Listen, I'm on a schedule-"
She nodded. "See you, Beau."
"If I get really lucky, yah, you probably will." He started his pitch again as she went back to her place in the line, smiling apologetically at the man still holding the preview tickets.
"Excuse me," he said as she was putting on her headphones again. "Do you really think I can get anything for these?"
"Oh. Well," she said, "maybe. I mean, sure. I think you might get something."
"You mean something besides taken?" The look on his face was anything but happy.
"Hey, you got them for nothing," she said coldly. "You'll only get taken if you actually go to the preview. Welcome to Hollywood, mister."
Half an hour later she was sitting in a rental that achieved two-passenger status only by virtue of the fact that it had another seat. Sam would not have taxed it with more than her duffel bag, not that it made a whole lot of difference at the moment. True to form GridLid had failed to transmit up-to-date traffic patterns, and she had driven right into the clog on Sepulveda, where, it seemed, she was going to spend most of the morning, kicking herself for not bringing a radio. Some of the smaller free-lance stations operating outside the amorphous mass of the dataline gave traffic reports from phoned-in tips. She glanced at the receiver hanging from the dash. Hell, she could phone one in herself, except it probably wasn't exactly news anymore.