DERVISH IS DIGITAL.

by PAT CADIGAN.

For Mic Cheetham, Konstantin's best friend Human being extraordinaire, Role model, defender of the faith Not to mention timeless beauty With admiration and love.

Thank You: Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois and Susan Casper, Merrilee Heifetz (tomorrow's agent today), John and Judith Clute, Oisin Murphy-Lawless, Sweet Potato Queen Jeannie Hund, Lisa Tallarico-Robertson, and Kathy Griffin (I still can't believe it was twins), and the Indispensable Friday Lunch Gang, including but not necessarily limited to Paul McAuley, Kim Newman, Russ Schechter, Jon Courtney Grimwood, not to mention the occasional Barry Forshaw.

A round of applause to gamesmaster and debonair man about town Bob Fenner, whom I would like a lot even if he weren't the son I love, and bouquets to my mother Helen S. Kearney for her encouragement, patience, and understanding. And cooking.

Big thanks to inhouse good guy Jael Denny, for making our home an even more pleasant place to be.

Beth Meacham and Peter Lavery are two of the best editors on the planet -- boy, did I get lucky.

A very special thank-you to our good friend Kypros, and to all our friends at Haringey Cars, for looking after my mother so well, and taking us everywhere we need to go.

And big thanks to Chris Fowler, muse, confidant, soul-mate, other half, and the love of my life.

(You know, I always did like you.) Sitting on the fake leather chair in the cheesy hotel room, Konstantin thought, This will be a very serious weapon.

"Now, this," said the slim, angular woman sitting on the bed, "this is a very serious weapon."

Konstantin could see that she was a very serious arms dealer, meticulously well-dressed, the tasteful, cla.s.sic lines of her jacket and pleated skirt suggesting a high-ranking officer of a yacht club that would not, for one moment, consider admitting Konstantin or anyone like her. Especially not in those leggings with that tunic. The one detail that said otherwise, the detail you had to watch for so you could tell the difference between the president of the yacht club membership committee and a very serious arms dealer was the little finger on her left hand. It was artificial, stainless steel with a brushed surface and a rectangular-cut sapphire where the nail would have been. That was as close as she came to wearing jewelry -- no earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, studs, or pins. The stainless steel finger seemed to impart even more grace to her gestures as she caressed the weapon lying across her thighs in a way thatmade Konstantin think of game show prizes you couldn't possibly win.

The weapon itself looked like a cross between a micro-missile launcher with onboard laser targeting and a giant hypodermic syringe, also with onboard laser targeting, but designed by some fetishist psycho who insisted every line on the thing have a curve so full as to be practically lascivious. No question that it was deadlier than average -- you could tell by the shine as well as the curves. The deadlier the weapon, the higher the shine, and this one could have been made out of blue-black chrome.

As if it had been produced for a specific catalog entry: This year's look is all full curves and hot shine -- and don't forget that ammo! Probably the only way it could have been more lethal would have been if it had simultaneously killed both shooter and target. Dore Konstantin had seen stranger things. "What's it do?" she asked.

"What's it do?" The woman tilted her head, letting the shoulder length blue-black hair fall to one side like a curtain. The cool light blue of her eyes matched the blue tones in both her hair and the weapon, Konstantin realized. Don't just arm yourself -- accessorize! Konstantin swallowed hard, ordering herself not to corpse unless she wanted to be one. Weapons dealers weren't renowned for their great sense of humor. "It looks good and it kills s.h.i.t."

"What kind of s.h.i.t?"

"All kinds of s.h.i.t." The woman's face was so narrow that her smile was almost V-shaped. "Your choice. Your weapon, your s.h.i.t. Any s.h.i.t you want to shoot, you shoot." She lifted the weapon up and held it out to Konstantin. "Go ahead. Touch it. You know you want to. It's light but solid."

"I can see that," Konstantin said, keeping her hands to herself.

"Light. But solid," the woman repeated carefully, as if she thought Konstantin might find this hard to remember. "If you want to carry something heavy, pick up a brick. You want to get the job done--"

she balanced the weapon on two fingers. "Get real."

Konstantin felt her amus.e.m.e.nt souring to boredom. Did they all go to some kind of school, these people, that taught them the same kind of sales patter, facial expressions, mannerisms? All the arms dealers she'd seen this week seemed to have been stamped from the same mold. If she got any more bored, she would start confusing them with each other. Maybe they had to take a seminar before they were allowed to deal weapons. Angularity and Specularity: Twin Keys to Success in the Arms Trade.

Her ex would have told her she was doing it again, although exactly which it that would be -- oversimplifying, ridiculing, avoidance, or something else she couldn't remember at the moment -- it was hard to say. Maybe, Konstantin thought, she could take her pick and be glad of the choice.

"I'm not keeping you awake, am I?" The dealer's amused tone had a sharpness to it and Konstantin knew she'd have to straighten up and keep her focus or plead a migraine and flash on out of there, queering the deal for good. Arms dealers weren't much for the old not-now-I've-got-a-killer-migraine routine. She was about to say something neutral when the woman suddenly grinned and launched the weapon at her as if she were playing volleyball.

Konstantin caught the weapon in mid-air. It was like catching an unexpectedly st.u.r.dy soap bubble.

People are always throwing things at me, she thought. Why are people always throwing things at me?

"Nice and light, right?" the woman said. "But substantial. Go ahead. Handle it. Feel it. Feel it all over."

Konstantin went ahead and did just that, fingering the weapon as thoroughly as any weapons fetishist would have, focusing her gaze on the shiny, lethal lines and curves. She wanted to hurry, to get it over with so she could flash out of this highly seedy hotel room. But fetishists generally liked highly seedy hotel rooms, and they didn't like hurrying. The worst part, she thought as she watched her fingers move along the trigger before going onto the stock, was that she was beginning to understand the fetishist point of view.

"Hot, isn't it," the dealer purred. "Hot as I told you."

"The very furnace of cool," said Konstantin, and winced inwardly, wondering where the h.e.l.l that had come from. On the edge of her vision, she saw the dealer frown for a moment as she tried to figure itout.

"Well, obviously you're a connoisseur," she said at last.

"Thank you," Konstantin answered, dismayed by the purr in her own voice. Caught between the absurd and the ba.n.a.l, she thought. Behold, I am the epitome of the human condition. Before she could come out with any more conversational gems, she found the thing she had actually been searching for, etched into the outside flat of the stock, near the end. "Well, well, well." She tapped the stock with one finger.

"Put it to your shoulder," said the dealer. "It'll feel like it grew there. I'm telling you, a weapon like that can get you on TV."

"For what?" Konstantin said. "Shopping at the same hypermart as Wile E. Coyote?"

Now the dealer was offended. "That does not say Acme."

"Might as well," Konstantin told her loftily. "Next, I suppose you're going to try to sell me a drop-box address in a town called Springfield and sign me up with an answering service on the 555 exchange." Konstantin tapped the logo with an impatient finger again. "Even a virgin would know this is pure fiction. 'LockNLoad, RockNRoll'? You can say that with a straight face? Only some slave-waged, tin-eared, moonlighting greeting card copywriter would come up with something like that. Looks good, kills s.h.i.t -- what else is new? Everything looks good and kills s.h.i.t." She tossed the weapon back at the woman and made as if to gather herself up and leave.

"Come on, pal," the woman said, hefting the weapon and caressing it. "Where do you think you are, Malaysia? This weapon looks better than good. You know it, I know you know it. You want to quibble about a trademark? What are you really after, a superior weapon or a brand name?"

Konstantin did her best to look inscrutable. "Do you really have to ask?"

The woman put the weapon aside, folded her arms and stared hard at Konstantin. They sat like that for a while, Konstantin knowing that the woman was as aware of the time clicking away as she was.

This is my life, Konstantin thought. Watching other people being conscious of their time pa.s.sing.

"You think you can wait me out, do you?" the woman said finally.

"I know I can," Konstantin told her. "But only for so long. I have to compensate for the time like anyone else would, though, so the price goes down as the clock goes 'round. When we get to zero, I flash outa here and leave you to it."

"But then it was all for nothing. What good does that do you or anyone else?"

"It's not my nothing, it's your nothing."

The woman's wary expression made her face look even narrower. "You've got a key to the city?

Is that it? Or someone else's key to the city?"

Konstantin made a movement that could have been taken for yes, no, or anything in between.

"Of course, everybody lies about that," the woman added, confidence creeping back into her voice.

"Everybody lies about everything," said Konstantin carelessly. "Even when they're telling the truth."

The woman laughed at her. "Just get your degree in media studies, did you? Semi-idiotics, maybe?"

Konstantin got up. "I don't bother waiting out anyone who bores me." She moved toward the door, slowly enough so that the woman could reach out and grab her forearm. The thing was, Konstantin thought, feeling the hand close on her, the woman knew she was moving slowly enough to be stopped, and she could see by the woman's expression that the woman knew that she knew. Nonetheless, neither of them would drop the charade, under any circ.u.mstances. Violate not the kayfabe, shall be the whole of the law.

"Nice muscles," the woman said, giving Konstantin's arm a squeeze. "You must work out a lot.

Do you have a key to the city? Yes or no."

Konstantin disengaged the woman's hand with a practiced easy twist. "If I say yes, I'm lying. If I say no, I'm lying. What can you do?"

"I can ask to see it." "You can. And I can say no."

The woman nodded, her hair swinging back and forth flirtatiously. "Well, I'm open to suggestions."

"And I've made my suggestions. If the best you can do is a second-rate Acme trademark--"

"All right, all right, all right." The woman picked up the weapon, showed the stock where the brand name was, and peeled it off. Underneath, it said, Smith & Wesson. She flipped the weapon around expertly, made several more adjustments too quickly for Konstantin's eye to follow, and then offered it again. Konstantin took it from her, impressed. It looked different now. Konstantin's silent pop-up reference verified the authenticity.

"You got one of these inside every Acme, like a prize?" Konstantin asked.

The woman smiled back at her. "If you have the right source-codes, you can put anything inside of anything else. Like a prize. Or a b.o.o.by-trap. So now you got a weapon four times as expensive as it was, and not quite as good. Happy?"

"You bet, Konstantin said, shocked at the intensity of the lascivious note in her voice. Her hands traveled over the weapon again. It was indeed a pure S&W product, a perfect reproduction of a prototype built under a military contract and still in development. And, according to the pop-up, supposedly still cla.s.sified. Somebody, either S&W or the military, had sprung a leak.

Konstantin raised the weapon to her shoulder and aimed at a stain high on the far wall. "This feels like it grew into my shoulder, too. Why didn't you show me this right off?"

The woman leaned back on her hands and crossed her long legs, still flirting. "Because the design you had first is superior."

"You really think so?"

"I know so. Because it was my design." The woman nodded, her smile turning sour. "Yeah, that's right, I'm the 'slave-waged, tin-eared, moonlighting greeting card copywriter' who thought up 'LockNLoad, RockNRoll.' Maybe I got a tin ear for brand names, but I'm the best d.a.m.ned weapons designer there is. You give me fifteen minutes with any weapon, any weapon you can think of, and I can make you a better one."

Konstantin shrugged. "I wouldn't know, I'm not an expert. I just want the right brand of weapon that looks good and kills s.h.i.t."

"What if I put the S&W trademark on the better weapon?" suggested the woman. "It'll still cost you, since you want to buy the logo, not the real thing."

"No," Konstantin said firmly. "I pay for S&W, I get S&W."

"c.r.a.p. What the f.u.c.k do you want S&W for when I just showed you a superior weapon? What is it with them, no matter how s.h.i.tty they are, people got this brand-loyalty dogma. The up-and-coming armourer these days is just f.u.c.ked over before you even get out to the drawing board."

"That's what you are -- an armourer?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I am," the woman said, sitting up straight and forgetting to flirt. "I spent a h.e.l.l of a lot of time paying my dues on target ranges and in themelands. So, then I finally get an appointment with a really big supplier and they decide they'll go with the goliath just because S&W can churn the stuff out with cookie-cutters." Her hands had balled into white-knuckled fists. "Because they say individual craftsmanship is just too slow. You believe that? Too slow. So there's a hot flash for artisans everywhere -- doesn't matter how brilliant you are, in the end you're just too slow." She stood up and s.n.a.t.c.hed the weapon away from Konstantin. "I'd tell you how f.u.c.king lousy that is, but it wouldn't mean s.h.i.t to you."

Looking into that fierce, narrow face, Konstantin had the sudden sensation of seeing all the way through the woman to the angry real person manipulating the image from someplace far removed from sleazy hotel rooms and the intrigues of glamorous arms dealers or anything exotic, exciting or significant.

A weapons designer for jaded gamesters, who had thought the high demand for hot weaponry among the aficionados would mean work that was not just steady but demanding as well, something that would call for imagination, for innovation, for an inventiveness that would surpa.s.s the mere need to kill. And instead, the jaded gamesters and cloyed chimeras took a quick look at her offering and turned up their virtual noses, saying Is that all? and That the best you got? and Where's the designer label? "I can see it makes you upset," Konstantin said. "For real."

"Oh, yeah. d.a.m.n right for real. This s.h.i.t gets real real, real fast." The woman began to take the weapon apart, thrusting the pieces into a padded container shaped like a violin case. Konstantin had to suppress a smile at the hommage. It was unlikely that a real customer would catch the reference to old gangster dramas. "I might as well go back to making broadswords and battle-axes for the sad b.a.s.t.a.r.ds at Renaissance Festivals."

"I like Renaissance Festivals," Konstantin said, telling the truth with impunity.

"You would. Maybe that's where you oughta be, in somebody's lower forty, talkin' trash to varlets."

"You're not gonna do business with me?"

"Can't sneak one past you, can I?" The woman slammed the lid of the violin case down and latched it. "I'm goin' home, see what's on TV. There's gotta be something better than this."

"A second ago, you were fussing about it all being for nothing. Now you don't even want to see if I have anything you want," said Konstantin in her most innocently reasonable voice. "I'm just having trouble keeping up with the way the wind's blowing around here is all."

The woman paused and looked at her tiredly. "Do you or do you not have a key to the city?"

Konstantin produced a thick portfolio about the size of a box of her ex's favorite chocolates. "This is my life's savings. You could probably make a key out of what I've got here, or d.a.m.n near. Or trade it for something almost as good."

The woman straightened up, the light blue eyes cloudy with skepticism. "Even a virgin would know you weren't offering me the whole thing." Pause. "Right?"

"Well." Konstantin looked sheepish. "I thought we could talk about what you might be interested in for the S&W. I got all kinds of stuff. All kinds."

The woman's gaze traveled from the violin case on the bed to the portfolio. It was a gorgeous portfolio, deep blood-colored leather with feathery designs hand-tooled all over it. Konstantin had created it herself. "And now we come to that old billion Euro, all-singing, all-dancing, all-season question," she said, hands on her hips. "Are you a cop?"

Konstantin sighed. "If I say yes, I'm lying. If I say no, I'm lying. It's so hard to give anyone a straight answer in this joint. But I'll tell you what -- you, I will cut a break. Yes. I'm a cop."

The woman looked genuinely taken aback by Konstantin's admission. It was probably the only answer she hadn't been expecting. "Yeah, well. What I thought all along." She sounded both superior and nervous at the same time. "n.o.body, but n.o.body saves up that much."

"You're right," Konstantin said. "Most of this stuff I strong-armed off people in shakedowns, or in return for favors. Bribes, in other worlds. I mean, words." She grinned and the woman allowed her a smile. "All works just like it's supposed to. In the words of the prophet, 'It doesn't matter where it comes from, just as long as it comes.'"

They both laughed as the woman sat down again on the bed. "So," she said, one hand on the violin case. "What now? We fight? I gotta kill you to get out of here, or do you still want to deal?"

"I'm crooked, so we deal, of course." Konstantin shrugged. "Unless you want to die. You don't, do you?"

The woman shook her head. "I'm having too much fun. You?"

"Likewise," Konstantin said. "Too much fun."

"OK. We deal." The woman's smile was satisfied. "And then what? And before you answer, you should know that I'm speaking strictly hypothetical here. It's not a done deal us dealing. Not yet."

"We can talk about it."

The woman's expression went flat again. "We've already done a s.h.i.tload of talking, my sister.

What kind of deal are you wanting to make. One weapon? Several stashes? Regular upgrades, personal service? I do it all."

"How about a partner?"

The flat expression held for a moment longer before the woman burst out laughing. "I don't do partners. There's matchmaking bureaus for that s.h.i.t." "I was thinking of you and me," Konstantin said. "Business. Nothing personal."

"Yeah? Well, nothing personal here, either, but I'm not allowed to take on partners."

"Not allowed? I thought you were self-employed."