AUGUST 4, 2033. LAS VEGAS, NEVADA. 7:45 p.m.
It was a boulevard of demons, of giants, of gilded titans who walked the night and beckoned, of goddesses of impossibly lurid proportions, a thousand feet tall, who licked their lips and shimmied, painted breasts barely restrained by brassieres the size of circus tents. Of galloping Lippizaners the size of the Dakotas, of Vesuvius in bloom, of starships alight and descending, of the Savior of the world, resplendent in his robes, beckoning to the faithful to come and render unto Caesars Palace.
It was a boulevard of dreams, of nightmares, an organic outgrowth of some not wholly explicable malaise, something that had taken hold in the 1930s in an obscure corner of the world called Las Vegas, Nevada. It had blossomed unendingly, until now it was a world unto itself, apart from and yet inexorably joined to the world, unique and yet as common as shattered dreams. The ultimate symbol of decadence and greed and yet in some small sad way, a cry for innocence lost.
For what eye but a child’s could remember the feeling of being dwarfed in such a fashion? Adults know the girders and steel, the lights and plastic, the glass and electricity that go into the creation of such glitter. And so no matter how overwhelming, one can reduce it to its constituent flaws, and thus find refuge for sanity.
But a child …
A child still believes in giants, in steamboats that paddle-wheel their way through glittered streets at midnight, luring customers to the never-ending cacophony of spinning dials and wheels, its pasteboard fortunes. A child sees it all, and believes, believes in it more than he believes in the reality of the piece of green paper, or the plastic, or the trademark union scrip that represents hours of toil or promised toil. That child steps into the dream, agog, and awakens hours or days later, poorer but in some terrible sense, wiser.
Long ago, Promise had followed that dream. She had left honor and soul and skin here in this town. She had hoped never to return.
Promise turned away from the window, and back to her host.
“A bitch, isn’t it?” Jeffry said. Moonman was happy today, and for that, she was grateful. He was doing better than the last time she had seen him, four years ago. He had a little more hair, and his chest had filled out. Only mechanics remained below the waist. Or, to quote Moonman more precisely, “There’s nothing down there but eighty kilos of steel and seven inches of love.”
Promise felt no inclination to investigate his claim.
He glided around his suite on the magnetic repulsor coils built into the floor. It played hell with watches and pacemakers, but he really didn’t give a damn.
The suite was the top floor of a four-story communications studio. Virtual, multi-vision, data processing, satellite link, paced feedback, and a library of approximately eleven million films, television and radio shows, books, magazines, and newspapers.
“You seem to be doing very well.”
“Notoriety does that to you,” he said. “When the facts came out about our little to-do in Los Angeles, I became a bit of a poster boy. Some of the turbo-trunk lads and lasses decided to have me come and speak at their monthly gathering. Me being a hero and all.”
“Of course.”
“I went, and told them all about sliding down the line into the Fat Man’s lair—” His little eyes suddenly turned shrewd. “Rumor says that McMartin is still alive, you know.”
Promise felt a little sickened. “He is? Somehow I would have thought …”
“Yeah, well think again. Our wonderful government doesn’t throw anything, or anybody, away. Anyway, I told them about the work I did in saving this great nation of ours, and several of the young ladies expressed … shall we say strong earthy desires?”
“Let’s just leave it at that. It will save me having to eat dinner twice tonight.”
“You wound me. At any rate, I talked to a number of the ladies, and it turned out that they made money running virtsex operations. Tied in statewide. It turns out that ladies who weigh three hundred pounds, and burn victims, and amputees are very popular for virtsex operations, because they can empathize with the needs of the clients. They understand a man who would rather stay home hooked into a sexsuit, phoning in their thrills, than go out and risk a relationship with a real woman.”
Promise shook her head. With the blood-spectrograph equipment available openly, it was virtually impossible to contract a venereal disease without being suicidal or lethally stupid. Birth control was 99.99 percent absolute, with both abortions and fetal transplantation easily available. With the risks and downside of sex having been removed, the sexual revolution had actually begun in earnest
With the explosion of virtual technology, or the easy availability of all services and experiences pumped directly into the home, there were a growing number of people who simply chose not to interact with other human beings. Who stayed sealed into their homes, completely separate. And there they remained. They worked there, ate there, they pumped in their lovers over the fiber optics. And in that womb of apartness, of what others called terrible loneliness, they remained, encapsulated but safe.
“Interesting,” Promise said. “In a straight psychological profile, they are as healthy as any average person. The shrinks are having a fit about it. They don’t hurt anyone … they just don’t interact.”
Moonman looked at her. “And the question is—throughout human history, how many people would rather have had virtsex than the real thing? Less muss, no fuss, and nobody sleeps on the wet spot.”
She smiled wanly. “There was a time I would have thought about it. Hard.”
Moonman squinted at her. “Want to give it a try?”
Promise had a minor plug at the base of her hairline. She didn’t have natural talent, and hadn’t undergone the expensive, invasive neural educations and implantation procedures. But as an Exotic, she had had extensive cosmetic restructuring. It made little sense not to add a tiny input device. “Preset or live?”
“Oh, nothing but the best for you, babe. Preset. You control intensity.” He brushed up her hair and felt around for the little socket, then clipped in a wire.
She dialed two on a scale of ten, and sat back into the chair behind her—
And fell through the leather, onto a bed. Hands were on her, spreading what felt and smelled like honeyed dust, smoothing it warm and soothing across and over her body, evenly and penetratingly. Lips touched her, not sexually, but enough to make her body arch, and one pair of them nipped at her lips, and she—
Punched the button to jump out of that damned thing as fast as possible, and popped back into the office, with Jeffrey laughing at her.
“Well,” she said primly.
“Well, indeed.”
“I … uh … I think we had better get on to business. I need to know about a covert operation mounted against Phillipe Swarna. Involving Aubry.”
“Time frame?”
“Maybe sometime in the next eight weeks?”
“Search strings?”
Promise counted off on her fingers. “Assassination. Close range. Aubry’s past, and his physical capacities. Past efforts. Gorgon. President Harris.”
“That’s a good start.”
“I’m going to try to go direct. Kanagawa, PanAfrican director of public works, once asked the Scavengers to put in a bid on a construction project. We were underbid, but I think I know someone who can get me another appointment. I’m going to Hong Kong. If you need to contact me …”
“We’ll use a triple-X virtsex line. Government snoopers tend to be bluenoses. Blush easy.”
Promise allowed herself a smile, the first real one she had had in days. “I like that.” She leaned down and kissed him, holding his eyes with hers. “I like you. I owe you.”
“Family doesn’t owe,” Jeffry said.