"Reptiles," Konstantin said, and turned away, heading for the exit.

Darwin seemed to have hit a winning streak. Konstantin wondered if that was why Dervish and his bird-people had moved on. His place was now occupied by a Chinese cyborg that seemed to have been built more for heavy labor than hanging out in casinos. Konstantin could hear the gears and hydraulics as she moved to pick up her cards or put them down. The brushed metal shoulders must have been three feet across, or close to it. But then, they would have to be to support that kind of cleavage. You can take the mammal out of reality, Konstantin thought, but you'll never take the mammal away from anything else.

Konstantin found an empty chair at a nearby table and dragged it over next to Darwin. "I see you survived," she said as he looked over his fan of cards. The game had gone back to one-handed something-or-other.

"No thanks to you," he said airily, rearranging the cards in an order Konstantin couldn't figure out.

"Not just survived but thrived. What do you get when you cash in your chips here -- coupons for free travel? Data-lottery tickets? Free admission to the hottest club of the moment?" She reached over to pick up one of the large yellow poker chips from the stack nearest to her. Darwin slapped her hand away without looking up and went about rearranging his cards again.

"Get your own stake," he said. "This one's mine and I gambled my a.s.s off for it."

Konstantin looked down. Naked metal hip joints dug into the chair cushion; the position of his thigh concealed his groin area, much to her relief. "Looks like you've won enough to buy a better one.

What happened to Mr. Dervish?"

There was a smooth whine of gears as the cyborg across the table leaned forward. "Who wants to know?" she asked in a l.u.s.ty whisper.

Konstantin looked at her. "I do."

The cyborg showed perfect ivory teeth in a smile that, to Konstantin's surprise, was not without a certain amount of charm. Her face had been beautifully designed, complete flesh without even minor metal accents. The long, snow-white hair looked like nylon, though. "Dervish is having a tune-up. He'll be back later."

"Where does he go for these tune-ups?" Konstantin asked.

The other players around the table suddenly came into sharp focus; either that, or she was just now noticing them. "You don't get something for nothing in this joint," said a Moulin Rouge type showgirl. "Put up or shut up."

Konstantin frowned, looking at Darwin for a hint.

The white-haired cyborg across the table leaned forward again. "She means, get yourself some chips and we'll deal you in. Win a hand, and find out what you want to know."

Konstantin was trying to think of a way around it when Taliaferro chimed her. "Put a riverboat gambler suit in the lav for you, with cribs for all the games. Just don't waste any more time with that d.a.m.ned coffee table."

Konstantin nodded at everyone around the table. "Be right back," she said. "Save me a seat."

"That's extra," Darwin called after her without looking up.8.

Gambling for information, Konstantin found, was one of those things that could become as addictive as gambling for money. Thanks to the casino's system, the stakes were whatever you made them. You bought the chips; whatever you cashed them in for was your own business.

Unless, as Konstantin discovered, you decided to buy specific kinds of chips, something it was better not to do. It was like trying to play with a currency different from everyone else's, and an unstable one at that.

The strangest part about it for Konstantin however was discovering the potential of being addicted to something she didn't like. Gambling had never interested her -- at least, not this type of gambling. Life was risky enough, she thought; introducing elements of chance into the leisure-time aspects of existence was overkill. Or maybe her ex had been right about her not wanting to play unless she was sure she could win. Konstantin preferred to believe winning wasn't always the point of playing, but that might have been more or less the same thing.

The card games themselves would have been incomprehensible without Taliaferro's crib notes and, from time to time, active coaching. Even then, she wasn't always sure of what she was doing, which made her feel especially silly all tricked out as a riverboat gambler, or what General Stores thought a riverboat gambler looked like. At least the illusory hat had no weight to it, though the brim was wide enough for her to touch convincingly. The string tie, the brocade coat and the satin pants all had a cheesiness that seemed to contaminate her surroundings for her, giving the glitter of wealth the flat shiny quality of cheap gold paint and nylon.

She had had three modest wins before she realized that the cheesiness she perceived had to do with the level she was now on, which was somehow connected both to the game itself and to the riverboat gambler outfit she was wearing. The change had occurred so subtly and/or gradually that even Taliaferro had not distinguished it right away. Now it was coming through even as part of the transmission. The colors on his monitor, he told her, had gone garish, with overdone contrast; was she getting anything similar?

"Trust me, even the expensive cyborgs look like baking foil," she told him, trying to remember what to do with the seven cards in her hand. "I think it has something to do with this outfit I'm wearing.

Maybe there's a filter on it we didn't notice."

Taliaferro was silent while she took a win from some sort of furred creature in a jeweled tuxedo.

The s.e.x was ambiguous but she was pretty sure that it was based on some sort of vermin. The Moulin Rouge showgirl kept eyeing it as if she were imagining what sort of coat the fur might make. On the other side of the white-haired cyborg, the ghost of a platinum blonde s.e.x G.o.ddess Konstantin didn't recognize but knew she was supposed to pouted with genuine displeasure as she looked around the table. Her gaze stopped on Konstantin.

"What?" she asked the s.e.x G.o.ddess finally.

"Are you the one doing it?" the G.o.ddess asked.

"Doing what?"

"Lowering the property values."

Taliaferro chimed. "Yes, you are. Don't admit or deny it," he added quickly as Konstantin opened her mouth to say something. "I've just figured it out -- Dervish put a curse on you. You're out of phase with the rest of the casino. If you sit there any longer, you're going to end up on the lowest level of lowdown mound."

"How did he know who to curse?" Konstantin asked him.

"He didn't." Taliaferro laughed a little. "He left a curse that would stick to the first person who talked about him specifically."

"Clever little b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Konstantin said with reluctant admiration. "How do I counteract this?"

"I'm still working on that part."

"Maybe I should leave the game." Konstantin folded her cards and pushed back from the table. "So," said the furry creature, "it is you."

"We don't know that," Konstantin said. "I'm running a diagnostic. Maybe it's you. You're the one who showed up here as a rat."

"I was a chinchilla when I started out," the vermin said huffily.

"Weren't we all," said the showgirl, giving the s.e.x G.o.ddess a significant look.

The white-haired cyborg put her elbows on the table; the discreet machinery sound had become a mechanical clunking. "You're going to have to buy our way back up to the old level. It's only fair. We didn't ask to come down here with you." She looked pointedly at the chips sitting in front of Konstantin.

Konstantin sighed. "How did I know?"

"Maybe you're just starting to get smart," Darwin said boredly. He swept all her chips into his pile and Konstantin smacked his arm, wincing at the contact. It may have looked like aluminum foil but it felt like boilerplate.

Taliaferro chimed again. "They'll try to get all your chips. You actually only need to give one to the Chinese cyborg."

"Too late," said Konstantin.

"Just get out. Make a full exit. We'll get you back in another way."

"Can you put a tracer on Dervish?" Konstantin asked.

"If he existed, yes. But he doesn't. Don't ask now, just leave."

Konstantin nodded as if to herself and flipped the white-haired cyborg one of her chips. The cyborg plucked it out of the air and tilted her head questioningly. Konstantin pushed back from the table and stood up. "She's got your re-entry fare," she told the people around the table, gesturing at the cyborg. "Meanwhile, I'll be off now--"

The exit prompt seemed to have disappeared. Annoyed, she transported to the first place she could think of, which happened to be General Stores. The area was more crowded than usual, and far more disorganized than she had ever seen it, with avatars milling around like movie actors on coffee break. A walking red machine that looked like a cross between a toy robot and a motorized mailbox marched up to her and spat a small fluorescent yellow square at her. The square ballooned up to the size of a window in front of her face; there was a number printed on it in dead-serious black type: 107. It hung there for a second before shrinking to the size of a postage stamp and sticking itself to her cuff.

"Hey," she said to the machine, which had started to march away. She tapped one finger on the top, hard, and winced at the feeling. "What's that about?"

"Several software systems are down," the machine told her in a child's voice. "We've had to inst.i.tute sequential waiting. Like, take a number and wait. If you don't know that one, say yes and you'll get a brochure detailing the process."

"So they figure no one's going to smash up a subroutine out of frustration if it has a child's voice?"

Konstantin said sourly.

"Don't ask me," said the machine. "I just work here."

"Taliaferro, tell me you're there."

She heard him give a short laugh. "I'm here, but why are you there? I told you to exit."

"I couldn't find the prompt."

"Why not?"

"I got fl.u.s.tered, I guess."

A man carrying the upper half of a cyborg body moved past her, squeezing behind what looked like a party of gargoyles. "Excuse me, I think I'm next," he said. "Is this true s.h.i.te? I've never seen it this bad."

"Are you still fl.u.s.tered?" Taliaferro demanded.

She felt someone else pa.s.s closely behind her, but when she turned around, there was no one there. "I don't know what I am," she muttered.

"Me, neither," said a featureless placeholder with a musical female voice.

"I did that by accident once," Konstantin said, gesturing at the placeholder body.

"How tragic. Did you get a credit for the mistake?" Konstantin shrugged.

"Was it another one of these absurd brown-outs?"

"This is a brown-out?"

"I don't know what else you'd call it. Bunch of systems go down, stranding everyone in some transition."

"Everyone?"

The placeholder gestured at the crowd around them. "Everyone here, anyway. But why do you think you aren't getting sole, immediate attention from GS? Brown-out, most likely. Or someone's stupid idea of a joke, disabling the programs so we all end up in a waiting room together."

"Konstantin," Taliaferro said patiently, "what are you doing?"

"Investigating," she told him. "I'm an investigator." She paused, looking around the edge of her screen area for the exit prompt. "Still can't see my exit sign. Is there something wrong with my 'suit?"

There was a pause. "I've got your pov on my screen," Taliaferro said slowly, "and I can see your exit prompt."

"Where?" Konstantin demanded.

"Call it four o'clock, about."

Konstantin stared hard at the spot, pulling her video back a step so she could see the entire frame of the headmounted monitor screen. "I still don't see it. Are you sure?"

"You lose somethin', lady?"

She turned to find a dirty face grinning up at her from the level of her shoulder. Her j.a.panese friend, in one of his kid outfits. Of course. Who else? "Nothing you can help me with. Go away. Adults only here." She turned away from him. "Taliaferro, does this have anything to do with the curse Dervish put on me? Obscuring my exit prompt, I mean."

"I don't see how," Taliaferro said.

"Looking for somethin' that oughta be there and ain't?" said the j.a.panese guy, running around to stand in front of her.

"What would you know about it?" Konstantin asked suspiciously.

"How about you come over to our place and we trade some information?"

Konstantin hesitated. "Will I actually learn anything?"

"Go ahead," said Taliaferro. "I'm curious as h.e.l.l myself."

Her j.a.panese friend was apparently lousy with instant transport coupons. He took her first to a platform at the top of the Empire State Building in post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty, where a giant woman in an evening gown was climbing up the side with a toy monkey under her arm. On the ground, a mult.i.tude of people shouted encouragement at her.

"Corny," said the j.a.panese guy, "but the tourists never get tired of it."

"Those are all tourists down there?" Konstantin asked.

"Actually, a lot of them are undercover cops, or they're playing undercover cops, hoping to meet a real one. We can tell the difference."

"How?"

"Sorry, can't tell you that." The kid face smirked at her. He had golden eyes now. "Trade secret."

"Oh, another one of those software packages that measures statistical characteristics," Konstantin said knowingly. "We use those, too, but you have to be careful. Some of those compilers don't screen their sample groups very well. I can tell you which ones to avoid, if you're interested."

The kid face went from smug to defiant, and the look was so authentically childish that Konstantin wondered if her j.a.panese friend weren't one of those people who were powerless to keep from a.s.suming the ident.i.ty of whatever mask he put on. Suave James Bond gambler, bratty delinquent -- compulsive acting born of a dissatisfaction with one's own ident.i.ty, perhaps? Or just a good undercover man trying not to get caught out. One more subject for her parabola to approach on its way to zero, she thought. "Anything we use is custom, and all our samples are--" He caught himself and gave her a look she knew she was supposed to wither under. "Sorry but I have a hard time taking anyone under the age of thirty-five seriously," Konstantin said, not bothering to suppress her laughter.

Now her friend looked shocked. "Is that true?"

"No. Just in here." Konstantin leaned over the safety rail. The giant woman was getting closer. She was a perfect reproduction of a 1930s movie star, but her expression suggested she wasn't having a good time for real. "We should go, if we're going."

They walked around the platform to a vending machine that sold cigarettes. Konstantin made a face as the kid fed some coins into a slot and yanked one of the k.n.o.bs.

"Is this artifice absolutely necessary?" she asked as he made a business out of removing the cellophane from the top of the pack and shaking out a cigarette.

"Nah," he said, holding the cigarette between two fingers as it lit itself. "I just do it." He offered her the pack. "Want one? Oh, sorry, I forgot -- you don't have the right kind of software." He blew a stream of smoke over her head and then they were standing in a conference room.

Right away, she knew she'd lost Taliaferro. She wasn't sure exactly how she knew, except that the absence of his surveillance was suddenly more palpable to her than his presence had been. Like the loss of a tooth, or-- Her j.a.panese friend had reverted to James Bond type, complete with tuxedo. "Missing something?" he asked her.

Konstantin sighed. "My back-up. As a cop, you should be able to relate to that. Let me call my partner."