Tea From an Empty Cup (11 page)

This concludes the introductory material. The next screen will be your destination menu. Bon voyage, and good luck
.

The screen that came up showed her four doors labeled
Post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty, Pre-Millennial Hong Kong, Post-Quake Ellay
, and
Others
.

A small bright icon appeared at the bottom right corner of her visual field, a graphic of a hand twisting a doorknob. Just below it, on the status line, was the word
Cue!
Feeling awkward, she reached for the Noo Yawk Sitty door and saw a generic white-gloved hand moving toward the knob. As the hand touched the knob, she felt it in her own hand, the sensors delivering a sensation to the palm side of her fingers that surprised her with its intense authenticity. It was more like touching a doorknob than actually touching a doorknob.

The next moment was a flash of chaos, a maelstrom of noise and light, countless touches and textures everywhere at once, over before she could react to any of it. Under her feet, she could hear the scrape of the gritty glitz, the glitzy grit of post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty; she could see the sparkle and glitter of it spread out before her – not Eliot’s etherized patient awaiting dissection but a refulgent feast for her reeling senses.

HINT
: In case of disorientation, amp your ’suit down and wait at least thirty seconds before attempting movement. Closing your eyes could result in vertigo. This message will be repeated as necessary.

She thought she might have made some kind of relieved noise as she stared at the setting marked
decrease
. In a few moments, all the settings on the ’suit had been re-adjusted to a more bearable level. Whoever had had this ’suit on last, she thought, had either been extremely jaded or suffering from some kind of overall sense impairment. Both, maybe.

Now that she could perceive her surroundings without being assaulted by them, Konstantin was dismayed to find that she didn’t seem to be anywhere near where Shantih Love had died. Instead, she was standing at the edge of an open area in the midst of a crowd of tall buildings festooned with enormous neon signs of a sort that had been popular seventy or eighty years before. Except for herself, there were no people, or at least none that she could see, and no sound except for a faint hum that might have come from the signs, or from some distant machine. Or possibly even some loose connection in the headmount, she thought sourly. It would be just her luck.

The buildings were dark, showing the scars of fires, bullets, and explosions, broken-out windows gaping like empty eye-sockets, but the signs were brilliant, impossibly vivid with shifting colors that melted and morphed like living ropes of molten light. There were no words that she could make out, only symbols that fell short of meaning anything to her. Somehow, though, that made the sight all the more captivating; she felt compelled to study every line, every bend and curve of every image, and finally managed to force herself to look away.

She was still feeling half-hypnotized when she saw a silvery figure standing in one of the open doorways. At first, she thought it was someone wearing – pretending to wear, she corrected herself – a skintight bio-suit but then the figure moved forward and she saw that its skin was the same color as the clothes it wore. The figure moved closer and she had to amend her perceptions: the figure was the same color as its clothing.

‘New in town?’ it sang, approaching with careful movements.

‘Maybe,’ she said, taking a step back.

‘Oh, you’re new, all right.’ The figure, which began to look more like it was made of mercury or chrome, gestured at something behind her. Konstantin turned to look.

The sight of the completely hairless and sexless creature in the dark glass made her jump; then she cringed with embarrassment. Since she had not chosen a persona, she was wearing a place holder. Her gaze darted around as she searched for the exit icon.

‘It’s not necessary to leave,’ the silvery figure said in its musical voice. Now that it was right next to her, Konstantin could see it was a sort of animated sculpture of a very tall and very young woman seemingly formed from softened platinum. Or something like it. ‘Pull down Central Stores and choose Wardrobe. Then just follow the directions.’

‘Oh. Thank you so much.’ Feeling awkward, Konstantin stuck out her hand. ‘I’m, uh, Dore. And you’re right. I’m new here.’

The silvery girl seemed unaware of her extended hand. ‘I am a pop-up-help-and-guide subroutine keyed to respond to situations and types of situations most often identified with new users of AR and/or post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty. I am also available on request. Pull down Help and ask for Sylvia.’

Konstantin started to thank her again but the girl pointed at something behind her. She turned around and found herself standing at a shiny white counter. The words TOUCH HERE FOR ASSISTANCE faded in on its surface, going from pale pink to blood red and back to pale pink before disappearing. Konstantin gingerly put a fingertip on the spot where she estimated the middle of the O in FOR had been.

‘Help you?’ said a hard-edged male voice. The short, plump man who appeared on the other side of the counter looked as if he were answering a casting call for a play about bank tellers in 1900. The green visor on his forehead cast a shadow that it made it hard to see anything of his eyes except reflected pinpoints of light.

‘Where’s the rest of your hat?’ Konstantin asked impulsively.

‘This is an eye-shade, not a hat,’ he replied, in that same sharp, almost harsh tone. ‘Its presence connotes items and equipment available to you in AR, some at a surcharge. Do you want to see a list: of items and equipment with their corresponding surcharges? These can also be itemized on the hardcopy printout of your receipt.’

‘I don’t know. Is a persona classified as an item or as equipment?’

‘Neither. A persona is a persona. Did you have someone in particular in mind or were you planning to construct one in here? Morphing services within AR are available for a surcharge. However, there is no extra charge if you have brought your own morphing utility with you. Except, of course, for any extra time that might be consumed by the morphing process.’

Konstantin found herself yawning. So far, her big AR adventure was turning out to be even more tiresome than the reality she was used to. ‘Does anybody really do anything in here besides listen to how much everything is costing them?’

‘First-time users are advised to take the orientation sequence. Usually in some location easier to navigate than a post-Apocalyptic scenario.’ His harsh voice sounded as bored as she felt.

‘I want out,’ she said. ‘Out of the whole thing, I mean. Exit. End it. Good-bye. Stop. Quit. Logging off. Is that enough or do I need a fucking thesaurus utility?’

Abruptly, she was staring at a blank illuminated screen. Her ’suit was in
Suspend
, she saw, but still active. Words began to crawl up the screen in a steady scroll.

Your time in your chosen AR location has been halted. Readings indicate a high level of tension and stress in a low-level situation. Generally this occurs when the user is confused or has not taken proper instruction in the use of AR. You may also be experiencing onset of an illness; you should seek the advice and, if necessary, treatment from a qualified health practitioner. It is also possible that you may be too fatigued to cope with an AR experience; if so, it is advisable that you terminate your on-line session and rest. In rare cases, AR has triggered episodes of psychomotor epilepsy or other seizure disorders in those persons who are susceptible or who may have ingested certain kinds of medications or drugs that put them at risk. Please be advised that although AR does not cause seizure disorders, it can cause the onset of symptoms of a pre-existing yet (until now) hidden disease. See your qualified health practitioner for advice and treatment. Do you wish to continue in AR, or do you wish to terminate the program and exit? Please choose one option and one option only.

She was about to tell it to terminate when she heard what sounded like a telephone ringing.

The words on the screen vanished and a new message appeared quickly, word by word.
Realtime communication with you is being requested. Do you want to talk to the caller? Please answer yes or no
.

‘Who is it?’ she asked automatically.

Secretarial services are extra
.

‘Never mind,’ she groaned. ‘Put them on. I mean,
yes
.’

There was a click and she heard the familiar cartoony tones of Guilfoyle Pleshette. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ Konstantin admitted.

‘Yeah, what I thought. Icons and passwords don’t do you a bit of good if you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s an advanced ’suit I put you in. It doesn’t carry a prefab for you. You got to bring your own.’

‘My own what?’ asked Konstantin, stumbling as she tried to keep up.

‘Your own
persona
. I thought the way you were talking about going on-line to see Body Sativa and all, you had one you wanted.’

‘I do.’

‘You
don’t
You don’t
have
one, you went in there blank. But if you got one
in mind
, I can help you out.’

‘Oh.’ Konstantin felt foolish.

‘So?’ Pleshette snapped after a long moment. ‘
Do
you have one in mind, and if you do, who is it?’

‘Uh, yeah. Shantih Love.’

Konstantin pictured Pleshette not batting an eye back in the real world. Or the outside world, whatever. ‘You want that with or without the cut throat?’

‘With,’ Konstantin said. ‘And I want a copy of the surveillance footage loaded into a subroutine I can run at will.’

‘You’re gonna run a sequence within a sequence?’

‘If it looks like it might get me some answers. I can do that, can’t I?’

‘Yeah, but it’s pretty expensive.’ Pleshette sounded both annoyed and worried. ‘We don’t get the feeds free from the network, you know. Who’s gonna pay for all of this on-line time and fun and games?’

‘You are,’ Konstantin said.

‘
What?
’

‘The good citizens of our fair city. Your tax dollars at work, that is.’

Pleshette’s laugh was low and hearty. ‘Not
my
tax dollars. I don’t pay taxes, not on my salary. You want to impress some taxpayers, catch some criminals in there and drag ’em out with you when you log off.’

Yuki wandered for what felt like hours, looking for a door out of the enormous indefinite place she was in, whatever it was supposed to be. The walls of the place were deceptively far away. Sometimes she thought she was drawing close to one of the tall windows only to find that the floor had somehow stretched under her feet, or rolled like a treadmill, and she was no closer.

Irritated, she looked around the edges of her vision for the exit icon. Time to pull the plug on this stupid excursion. What the hell, Tom was a big boy. Maybe he was even now living it up in some on-line resort. Or in hell, whichever he was in the mood for.

If you’re going, then
go.
Or admit you’re too curious now not to stay. Either way
, commit.
Remember that word? Or is it impossible now that you’re wearing Tom’s face?

‘I should
be
committed,’ she said aloud. She put a hand out to stop one of the vague people moving past her; it went through the vagueness without touching anything solid. ‘Great. How am I supposed to get out of here?’

The pocket at the bottom of the vest on the left side beeped. She unzipped it and found a folded map.
Figures
, she thought, glad there was no one to see her embarrassment. The front panel of the map showed a simple illustration of a rectangle with a stick figure inside. Next to it was a green dot marked
EXIT
. She laughed at herself. Of course – just ask. As Ash would have said,
Some things are just too bone-simple for us
real smart
people
.

The wall encircling the stone courtyard seemed to be infinitely large, with an infinite number of doors leading to various AReas (she groaned at the notation on the map). Yuki knew it was indefinite rather than infinite, but it was theorized that a person could starve to death before looking at every door – and legend had it that someone had, though legend was also hazy on where this had taken place, D.C., maybe (life was so cheap there, a whole different world, don’t you know) – it may as well have been infinite.

She consulted the map again and found that it had, very helpfully, set itself to a new page.

PREVIOUS ROUTE NEW ROUTE HELP & NEWS

Help & News?
Maybe later. She ran a virtual finger across
Previous Route
.

User?
The map wanted to know.

‘Tomoyuki Iguchi,’ she said carefully.

A cartoony yellow arrow appeared with Tom’s name on it; underneath, in smaller letters, was the terse command:
See News
.

She ran her thumb up the panel to the word
News
.

Iguchi, Tomoyuki: reassigned; deceased; occupied
.

Yuki stared. She tried pressing
News
again; the words blinked but did not change, and there was no further information. Out of desperation, she pressed her fingertip on
deceased
. There was a brief pause before the words came up underneath.

‘What does
this
mean?’ Yuki asked the map, tapping the word
transferred
. The map didn’t answer. A cherub head suddenly materialized in front of her, floating just a bit higher than eye level.

‘Help you?’ the head asked cheerfully, wings fluttering. It was blue-eyed and pink-cheeked and looked absolutely thrilled to be there.

‘It says “transferred” here. What does that mean?’

The cherub head pursed its rosy lips thoughtfully. ‘Identity transferred on-line.’