"Tell me where he is and I'll send someone out to get him."

"He's not in here like we are."

"No? Why not?"

"He's not much for indoor sports."

"But he likes spectator sports. Paul Taliaferro, detective and sometimes treatable claustrophobe."

He looked smug again, but now that Konstantin had seen that smug expression on a nine-year-old face, it was hard to take it seriously. Either that, or she was just as insufferably smug herself. She knew which way her ex would have voted. "You have to remember, I called you at his place last night. He was up on the roof, right? I mean, since you were sleeping alone."

"Some people sleep alone because they want to," Konstantin said, smiling at his obvious attempt to bait her. He had to be very young, she thought suddenly. Very, very young and maybe nowhere near as sure of himself as he liked to project. (On the other hand, she thought, who really was?) "If you want, I'll give you the full story on my sleeping habits right after you tell me why you're so interested in me and what sort of investigation you're conducting that you're so worried about. 'Maybe the first of its kind,'

that was the description, wasn't it?"

"'Certainly the largest,'" he added, nodding.

"I remember that part, too, Goku," Konstantin said casually, looking around the conference room.

It was nothing special. They could have been anywhere.

"So, you got that much. Is that my first or last name?" he asked.

"Oh, please," Konstantin said wearily. "All the intrigue is giving me gas. I am a police detective, but not a very important police detective, at least if my boss's constant references to how disposable I am are any indication. But I am the only fool the department could force into becoming the AR technocrime division, although lately I've been able to force two subordinate fools into working for me as well as talking my old partner into working with me. So far, I mostly chase patent thieves, copyright infringers, and product counterfeiters around. But I also take complaints from any cranks smart enough to word their complaints well enough to get them past the crank filter, so I occasionally end up listening to people insist that some evil empire is brainwashing people or that they're being stalked by psychos who have traded places with an intelligent program and become digital. I'm working on one of those right now. Some guy named Hastings Dervish became digital. The Digital Dervish. Now, does it get any better than that, I ask you?"

Her j.a.panese friend blew smoke over the middle of the conference table. Instead of dissipating, itswirled into a silvery cloud. He gestured at a chair.

"I don't know if it gets any better," he said, "but it does get stranger. If you really want to know."

"There have been complaints about lowdown Hong Kong raping people's heads for a long time,"

said the older j.a.panese man in the cloud-monitor still floating over the center of the conference table. He was Chief Inspector Kozo Yoshida and her friend Goku had supposedly zapped a lot of verifiable information about him to Taliaferro, who would be able (they said) to have it all verified by the time he caught up with her or before they finished briefing her, whichever came first. She hoped it was the former.

Not that she was in any real, physical danger, she kept reminding herself. There was no such thing as real, physical danger in AR, unless you had a bad heart or a seizure disorder. They could scare you, but they couldn't kill you. For some reason, however, this knowledge was no protection against being spooked, and at the moment, she was more spooked than she could ever remember being at any other time in AR or, for that matter, outside of it.

Maybe it was because Goku had dropped the I'm-so-cool act, as if someone had cut off his testosterone drip. The older man in the cloud-monitor was supposedly his superior -- was very probably Goku's superior, she corrected herself. Considering Goku had found her outside of AR, and that the DA had obviously had some communication from these people concerning the investigation they were going to tell her about, she had very little reason left to keep on doubting everything. Except, perhaps, the force of habit. Once you started doubting things, it was hard to stop. No matter how compelling the evidence might be, the compulsion to doubt it was stronger. And maybe that was just because she liked being contrary. Challenge authority. Sez who?

"With no legally enforceable contracts possible in AR," Yoshida went on, "you have to find other ways to get to people. It wasn't long before someone figured out that the total immersion of AR was handy for persuading people to believe just about anything. Ever gone to a religious service in here?"

"No," Konstantin said.

Yoshida nodded gravely. "Probably best. Those who have maintain that you can feel the presence of G.o.d, whether you believe or not... regardless of the denomination. Most legitimate churches don't sanction AR services."

"Well, I always said that if I wanted to feel the presence of G.o.d, I'd die. It's the only way to be sure." Konstantin glanced at Goku; she was somewhat satisfied to see that he looked uneasy now rather than smug.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" he said after a moment.

Konstantin shrugged.

"Do you think you're dreaming?"

She didn't answer, thinking that he was probably as delighted over the uneasy expression on her face now as she had been at his a moment before.

"That's a new question," she said after a bit. "I have to say no one's ever asked me that one before. But what it is -- I think -- is this sensation of everything being not quite real. Or not real enough, anyway."

Goku traded looks with Yoshida. "This is something you have to beware of," the older man said.

"You think it's being skeptical, but it's not. It's more along the lines of dissociation. Anything can happen to you in a dissociative state, most of it bad. If you do not have a strong sense of what is real to you, you are without a rudder--"

"What's real to me," Konstantin said impatiently, "is being traced to the mattress I'm sleeping on and interrogated in the middle of the night, like George Orwell's favorite nightmare. I want to know who authorized that invasion of privacy and what it was for." She looked from the cloud-monitor to Goku and back again. "Now, do I get some real answers or are we going to talk in circles about rudders and moralcompa.s.ses until our ears bleed?"

"The real answer -- one of them -- is, I was watching and waiting for the right time to engage casino security when you and your wannabe cyborg friend came stomping into the middle of everything and got yourselves busted," said Goku.

"Just ask me," Konstantin said. "I'll tell you all about it."

"Tell me about what -- how you escaped from a paddy wagon and left the cyborg behind?" Goku shrugged. "Don't bother, I can tell you all about that. I was prepared to go all the way, take the whole ride from start to finish. I had a whole carton of cigarettes and a dead man's switch with a black box, and I was ready to go. And then you and Mr. Machine stole my ride."

"Sorry," said Konstantin. "I was investigating a complaint from the guy about the casino, something about brainwashing. When he claimed we wouldn't be able to get out of the paddy wagon, I figured he was just someone who'd spent himself broke and he was being a sore loser."

"That was your first visit to lowdown Hong Kong casino?" asked Yoshida.

"Yes," Goku said, before she could answer.

Konstantin nodded at him. "OK, I'm impressed already."

"I know because you were able to find your exit prompt," he went on, as if she hadn't spoken.

"The first visit to lowdown Hong Kong is always a normal experience. Your second visit, they've got your data and they can play with you all they want, play little tricks on you. Or big ones."

"Like what?" Konstantin asked.

"Like hiding your exit prompt."

Konstantin was silent for a moment. "And if you come back as somebody else?"

"If you come back often enough, it doesn't matter," Goku said. "Most people -- all of them who show up at lowdown, anyway -- don't really change ident.i.ty when they come as someone else. They might act a little different for the sake of whatever persona they're wearing, but they aren't different people. The same information keeps adding up, pretty soon the casino knows what you're going to do even before you do."

Konstantin shook her head. "We've got similar kinds of identification programs but that sounds pretty farfetched."

"That's because you're not in this just for the sake of it," Goku said, leaning toward her slightly.

"You always come in here as a cop on a case. This isn't your idea of fun. You don't wish it was all for real."

"Oh, I don't know," Konstantin said. "Maybe I've just never found the one set-up I could really dig into. Not that I'm hoping I will."

"Let me know if you ever decide to go on a quest," said Goku. "The task force needs the data."

Konstantin felt a surge of apprehension. "What task force?"

"We're a loose body of law enforcement officers from different parts of the world where substantial percentages of the population use AR for recreation, or other purposes."

"And what laws are you all enforcing?" Konstantin asked, even more suspicious.

"We're not. Yet." Goku produced his cigarette case and slipped out a long, white cigarette, twirling it through five fingers before placing it in his mouth. As usual, it lit itself. "We're still trying to figure out if attempting to protect the average AR citizen is worth the effort."

"Good question. Kind of offensive, but good. Don't blow smoke in my face, I'm warning you. Is this task force the same as East/West Precinct?"

"East/West has membership."

"And who has leadership?"

n.o.body said anything. Konstantin looked from Goku to the cloud-monitor. "Is that one of those members-only secrets?"

Goku shrugged, blowing a stream of smoke into the air.

"Or don't you know?" Konstantin added impulsively.

Now her j.a.panese friend gave her a look. She burst out laughing.

"You don't, do you?" She looked at the older guy in the monitor, but he wasn't giving anythingaway. "You don't, because this is all one more stupid AR charade. What is it, training program? Final exam? Teamwork-building exercise? Or just general intelligence gathering, seeing how much real s.h.i.t you can get people to tell you online?" She got up. "Nice try, vatos, but like they used to say in Compton, I gots to go. If that slang doesn't register on the East/West meter, just check your email. It's probably in there between the Communist Manifesto and the Cyberpunk Manifesto."

Her exit prompt flickered into visibility and disappeared again. She stared at the place where it should have been and activated the confirmation subroutine. The subroutine appeared to remain inert, but she could feel it execute. A heartbeat later, she was in the exit hall among the rest of the ghosts. Another instance, she thought with some amus.e.m.e.nt, of the triumph of faith over mere empiricism. Like the man said, you just gotta believe.

"I can appreciate your desire for complete security," Taliaferro said, "and I concur completely. But I think you're also really beginning to go rooftop. You have to admit, there's something about it." He waved one hand at the broad, flat expanse. There was surprisingly little wind. "If you want, I'll put an extra chaise up on my home roof tonight so you can try out the sleeping part."

"I'll think about it," Konstantin said. "But right now, I want to see what you got on surveillance."

"All right, but you're not going to like this." Konstantin watched herself go through everything again from an ever-changing series of angles as Taliaferro's tap switched vantage points at random. It was like watching a movie directed by a student who had been overexposed to late twentieth century music video -- a bit dizzying but not disastrous and almost good.

The change came after she and Goku left the Empire State Building. She could only sit and stare at the screen, unsure whether to be shocked or merely embarra.s.sed. Next to her, Taliaferro was very pointedly not looking at the screen.

"I wouldn't put a tattoo there," she said after a bit. "But if I did, it wouldn't be that one."

Taliaferro shrugged. "I didn't watch it all the way through the first time, so I don't know what you're referring to."

"Thanks," she said, letting out a deep sigh of relief. "I appreciate that more than I can say."

Dervish had some very slick software. He had grabbed her image during their phone call, no doubt. He had not only cleaned up the resolution but also retouched it to make it more flattering before slipping into the footage with the other people which offended her even more. "Maybe I should file it, in case I ever need an alibi," she said. "Zap a copy to someone so they can dissect it. DiPietro's probably the best expert we've got in video toasting."

"It looks to me like they put it through a regular television filter before sending it on," said Taliaferro. "DiPietro wouldn't find that much in the way of moving parts." Pause. "So I see no reason to put yourself through that kind of embarra.s.sment."

Konstantin nodded absently. "Are you sure I shouldn't look for an even better excuse?"

"Only if you really want to make work for yourself." Without looking, he reached over and blanked the screen. "He's a show-off, with a very nasty sense of humor."

A cartoon icon of an old-fashioned cell phone appeared on Taliaferro's screen and played the opening bars of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Taliaferro looked at her questioningly.

"Yeah, go ahead and answer it," Konstantin said. "Maybe it's Phase 3 Interpol with a lucrative job offer."

The angry virtual face of Susannah Ell appeared on the screen instead. She was calling from her online studio which was littered with ripped cloth and what seemed to be the broken bodies of her a.s.sistants. "Do you have any idea," Ell fumed, "how much billable time it's going to cost me to rebuild my business?"

Konstantin cleared her throat. "When did this happen?"

"Sometime within the last hour, thank you very much for your concern, I'm so sure." Ell's hair coiled menacingly on her shoulders. "He just popped right up like he was supposed to be here. My software certainly thought so. I was on a snipe hunt in Hong Kong. As soon as I realized it was a snipe hunt, I parachuted back here but it was too late. They went crazy and tore the place up before killingeach other."

"What kind of snipe hunt in Hong Kong?" Konstantin asked her.

"Some casino sent for my portfolio and then invited me to interview. I knew I shouldn't have gone.

I hadn't thought I should go at the time but I was curious and they wouldn't give me any details unless I logged in personally. When I got there, someone gave me a pa.s.sword and I walked in on something that -- well. It didn't have anything to do with the kind of designing I do. I didn't know anyone there except one rather familiar face. I had the presence of mind to grab a screen before I left. Would you like to see it?"

Before Konstantin could answer, Ell was replaced by a still from the footage she had just been looking at on Taliaferro's machine. The perspective zoomed in on a face in the center. Konstantin was tempted to tell her they'd both been set up but it wouldn't have enhanced Ell's confidence in the technocrime squad.

"Why are you calling me?" Konstantin asked abruptly. "I thought you were going to throw your lot in with Phase 3 Interpol?"

Ell hesitated. "I couldn't afford to buy a low number on the waiting list."

Billable time, billable justice; it made a sense of its own, Konstantin thought.

"And I figured that if you had so much time that you could play in Hong Kong with your own face on, your caseload must not be overwhelming," Ell went on, acid creeping back into her tone. "Or -- don't tell me -- you do all your undercover work bare-faced?"

"Sometimes," Konstantin said. "There's a quarantine on your dominion now?"

"It's automatic in the case of vandalism. In case it's a viral infection."

"We'll replace the domain provider's with a police cordon and then we'll do a complete crime-scene on it," Konstantin told her. "Have you altered anything?"

Ell sighed. "I tried picking up a few swatches."

"Put them back, and don't touch anything else. It would be better if you watched everything on TV for now."

"Perfect." Ell's sour expression deepened. "When someone asks me where the summer line is, I'll just tell them I was watching TV and I got so caught up in a mini-series that I forgot to work." She broke the connection.

Konstantin sat back and looked at Taliaferro. "Did you manage to grab that still from the casino she showed us?"

Taliaferro put it on the screen for her. The face-matching program was already running on it. "You go have a look at Ell's damage," he said. "I'll let you know who else was there."

Ogada caught up with her as she was walking through the squad room to 'suit up. "Someone sent me a screen capture of you," he told her. "Extremely flattering, but unmistakably you. You want to explain it?"

"No," she told him and walked faster.

"Bitpicking," Celestine said, not bothering to cover her disgust. "I hate bitpicking. This is for Geekforce, not real cops. Please, can I go to auto theft?"

Konstantin ignored her. They were standing at the designated boundary of Susannah Ell's ruined studio, facing in from the spot where the standard entry-point had been. DiPietro was finishing a walk-around of the perimeter to make sure that the area had not grown or shrunk in size, and that no voyeur cams had managed to insinuate themselves. The program he was using manifested as a bloodhound, which Konstantin thought was unnecessarily whimsical. DiPietro had explained to her, at some length, that studies had proved that people worked better with programs that mimicked living creatures. "You can develop a relationship with a dog," he'd said, scratching the program behind the ears. "Maybe you could develop a relationship with a metal detector, but then you'd probably be tooweird to use it right." Left unsaid had been the fact that the police department's supplier made bloodhound programs and not mechanical programs. Konstantin had waved him off before he could give her the bloodhound's complete pedigree.

Maybe it would have been a bit less irritating if the bloodhound had not designated each area as conforming to original coordinates by lifting its leg. Not just irritating but discomfiting -- the program seemed even more canine than a real dog. But DiPietro had volunteered to use it and he was more than happy with it, so she supposed it shouldn't have mattered. And given the fact that Ell's a.s.sistants had been governed by a dog AI, perhaps it was only appropriate.

The a.s.sistants themselves were still scattered over the floor. Spilling out of their torn and broken forms were not blood and gore but springs, gears, cogs, and ball bearings. More whimsy -- Ell had confirmed that these were the standard innards for this model of a.s.sistant. She found it easier to make any program adjustments via a.n.a.log mechanicals than trying to manipulate software. "As a couture engineer," she'd said, "I do almost all of my work with my hands. Or a reasonable facsimile." Artists, thought Konstantin.