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  It wasn’t a system she seemed to admire.

  “We learned about it when I was a kid,” Kinji said at one point. “It always seemed so unfair.”

  He tried to explain how it wasn’t unfair at all, that “it’s about the energy you bring to the table,” and that “you work hard, you win,” but she wasn’t converted.

  Another stall displayed ceramics — bowls and pottery and other similar knickknacks. A holo-and-fire artist worked a circle of his own. Everywhere Bexie looked people were trying things or bickering amongst themselves. It was like nothing he’d ever seen. The vibe here was comfortable, but strange. No, the vibe here was so strange simply because it was so comfortable.

  The people here were having fun.

  A pharmaceutical outlet was built in a ring toward the middle of the space, then came a travel planning zone, which — as far as Bexie could tell — was a physical manifestation of a variety of links into Think Space, each operated by attendants talking about their favorite places.

  “Do you travel a lot?” Bexie asked.

  “Sure. Lots of people do.”

  “Where have you been?”

  Kinji shrugged. “I live in London now. But I’ve spent a lot of crazy days in Spain and Italy. I love the mountains in northern Italy. I get to the Americas several times a year. Chicago and Toronto a lot, and I’ve had probably fifteen or twenty trips to other cities here. I was in Auzzietown last year — what used to be Melbourne, I think. A full rundown would need a much longer conversation.”

  He scratched his head and stopped before a travel stand.

  As soon as he showed interest, a holo greeter arrived before him.

  “Welcome to Besters Travel Planning. You can call me Marie. How can I help you?”

  “I want to go to Antarctica.”

  “Stop it,” Kinji said.

  “That sounds terribly invigorating! We have a tram leaving for Sao Paulo Central at five-thirty this evening, and a connecting flier that leaves SPC an hour later. Would you like me to let the ports know when you will arrive?”

  “He’s not going anywhere, Marie. I apologize for wasting your time.”

  Marie laughed. “No reason to apologize. I love having browsers. The last time I was in Antarctica the penguins were amazing.”

  Kinji pulled him away and the holo disappeared.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I wanted to know what would happen. No one pays for my flight if I go, right?”

  She pulled him harder by the elbow, while he looked over his shoulder to take in a holo of a surfer outside of Sydney somewhere. “Maybe you try that when they’ve let you out of the memory palace, eh?”

  “Memory palace,” he said. “I like that.”

  She made a goofy expression with her eyes wide.

  His sigh was heavier and probably sounded more miserable than he intended, but he suddenly found himself unable to think about anything other than surfing with Kinji. When she pulled him away, the pressure she put on his arm felt good, and the smile in her voice was quite lovely. Yes, she was quite lovely, but that was only part of his impression of her. The rest was something he couldn’t explain but was tied up in the fact that she was even willing to come here in the first place.

  Technically, merely agreeing to accompany him outside was probably taking a risk — security escorts or not. The medical center seemed intent on keeping him under surveillance. If something happened, he wondered what kind of shit she might find herself in.

  “I’ve never gone surfing,” he said as Kinji led him through the crowd.

  “Maybe this summer,” she replied.

  As they left the travel zone, Bexie felt two of his escorts draw closer, a realization that made him tense up, which, in turn, made him realize how good he’d been feeling until then — exactly how good it felt to be outside now and to walk in this open space full of energetic people engaging in what, to his eyes, suddenly did seem like a utopian free-for-all where everyone got whatever they wanted. After building his entire life around consumerism, this felt so weird he could hardly get his brain around it, but at the same time, being here was as close to his “home ground” as he had felt since the moment he’d become Awake. The act of shopping as safari struck him. The hunt for the right thing at the right time was ingrained in what it meant to be a human being, after all. What a person does defines that person, and while his own culture revolved around work, this one had grown around something else instead.

  Contribution.

  Expression.

  Enjoying who you were.

  Whatever it was, this act of hunting what you enjoyed or what you needed was what made life what it was.

  The fact that these things were shared among each other was something he had to get used to, but thought he liked.

  Glancing at the nearest escort, however, brought him back to Earth. He didn’t like the scrutiny.

  Finally, they entered a fashion pod — one which would be using Kinji’s system. It was an actual room in the outer edge of the plaza’s ground floor, a large section of the northernmost wall of “shops” with a collection of platforms configured around the floorplan, most of which had customers standing on them.

  “Simulators,” Bexie mumbled as she took his hand and led him through the crowd.

  “Exactly,” Kinji said, pointing to the platform. “You get to enjoy trying things on here, and if you like something, it will be requested and delivered.”

  “No money, of course?” he quipped.

  Her eyes became shaded with fake anger, and she shook her head sullenly while mouthing a silent “no.”

  A moment later they came to one of the simulators.

  A young woman stood on the platform wearing a jumpsuit with holes cut from the midriff and the knees. The image of a panther’s head was designed into the right shoulder, its eyes gleaming green.

  A friend leaned over and laughed at her, hand cupped over her mouth. “You should wear that to Junu’s!” she yelled.

  The model rolled her eyes and paged to the next design.

  “Do you design clothes?” Bexie asked.

  Kinji nodded. “Not often, but it’s fun sometimes.”

  They left that platform and went to an alcove off the main area that was labeled as “Hanshu’s” — clearly an upscale boutique. They passed a collection of physical scarves and lingerie hung on sections that marked the circumference of the space, and continued through displays that focused on midcalf coats and dresses that seemed fine enough to be made of air.

  “What do you think of these, Bexie?” she asked, running her fingers over a scarf.

  “Reminds me of Miyake — Japanese haute couture,” he replied.

  “I love that period,” she said.

  The expression on her face said she knew what he was talking about.

  “Maybe some Russian, too,” Bexie added, letting his mind adjust to the idea of Miyake being that period. “From the nineteen fifties, anyway. Russian fashion changes as often as its politics.” He couldn’t remember where that line originated, but it hung in his memory.

  “Interesting,” Kinji said. “This designer has strong Russian lines in her heritage.”

  They stopped at a rounded simulation platform with a man and a woman modeling together.

  “Try to pull my TS here,” Kinji said. “You’ll get a better fidelity.”

  “How do I do that?” he said.

  “Concentrate. Feel for the closest one. Until you get a little more used to it, you might feel two or three. But usually you can figure out the right one.”

  He tried and got the line of a candy maker.

  He tried again and found himself seeing things from both her viewpoint and his. It was so disorienting at first that he had to grab Kinji’s bicep to keep from falling over, but after a moment, his mind seemed to figure it out. Focusing mostly on Kinji’s experience, he watched.

  “Let’s try the first,” the woman said.

  Her original clothes — a sle
eveless top and a black skirt with silvered hose — dissolved into a flowing golden gown that luminesced with her movement. She was not a particularly noticeable woman, but Bexie had to admit she would be hard to miss in that dress.

  “Darker eyes,” the man said.

  The woman’s eyes grew into coaled circles that made the blue of her eyes stand out.

  “Make the dress titanium rather than gold?” she asked.

  “Amazing!” Kinji said from afar. “But darken the detail.”

  The dress adjusted to those specifications.

  “Red lips,” the woman added. “Cherry.”

  “Darker,” Bexie said. “A mixture of wild cherry and raspberry.”

  The woman giggled.

  “It’s smashing,” she said. “Don’t you think, honey?”

  “It is.”

  “Will Jinny think so, too?”

  “Jinny will love anything you put on, Suze.” His expression formed into a lighthearted leer. “Or take off, for that matter.”

  “Why, yes,” the woman said, fanning herself, and using the singsong tone of a diva. “She will, won’t she?”

  Kinji stepped away, Bexie following, the pair leaving the shoppers alone.

  “We’ll make a designer out of you, yet, Mr. Montgomery.”

  The feel that came through her TS as he dropped it was one of respect.

  “I do my best. Are you going to show me your soup stand?”

  “Yes,” Kinji said. “But first—” she pointed to an empty platform. “Get up there and show me some fashion.”

  Bexie gave a guffaw. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Kinji got wide eyes again and shook her head to the negative.

  “I’m not a model,” he argued.

  He sensed something specific to that head shake, something of a challenge in her gaze. Was Kinji Hall testing him?

  “Don’t be shy, now,” she said. “You want to know how this shit works — get up there and show me some fashion.”

  He looked at people milling about, smiling and having a good enough time. Why not?

  The pathway up was three steps. He took them briskly.

  The platform was maybe three meters across, and ringed at the edge with something that glittered darkly. It was a projection ring, he figured. A key element of a holo simulator.

  “What do I do?”

  “Stand back,” Kinji said, waving a throng of shoppers away. “The first one’s mine!” Then she stepped back and gave a contemplative scan as she assessed his physique.

  “Show me a Trava,” she called out. “Black top, something blue as a pant.” She smiled savagely. “And dragon boots.”

  The ring lit up, and he saw himself in a suit. Lifting his feet, he found the boots came to his knees and had laces up the side. The leatherwork of each boot was etched with the body of a dragon — the left having the dragon’s head with its toothy maw at the toes, the right with the tail looping down the foot and the head nestled on the inside of the knee.

  “Very sharp,” he said.

  “Indeed,” Kinji replied. “Turn around, let me see the back.”

  He turned, and felt the way the suit fit, how the fabric moved against his body.

  Kinji gave a clicking sound that he took as appreciation. “Okay,” she said. “Now let’s see a Mackenzie Sheffer suit with a pair of screens.”

  The holo changed, and Bexie was wearing something different. He didn’t like it as well, though the “screens” were apparently a set of squared eyeglasses of multiple hues. He noticed two shoppers had stopped and were watching.

  “Make it more to the red,” one of them said, and Bexie’s entire outfit changed from a yellow base to a shade of burnt orange. The cuffs were black, then blue, then a darker orange.

  “Nice,” Kinji said to the man. “But I think he needs something stronger at the shoulder, don’t you?”

  The man shrugged. “If you like that in a man.”

  She scowled and raised her eyebrow.

  One shoulder of Bexie’s outfit darkened, and he felt a pad grow that added a sharper edge to his profile.

  “Turn that ass around!” another spectator said.

  Bexie stood there, then turned and did something awkward that approached a shimmy.

  Another whoop came from the gathering, this one tinged in sarcasm.

  “That is not going to get the job done,” Kinji yelled above the din, rotating her finger in the air to indicate he should move even more. “Let yourself go up there, baby! Have some fun! Turn your ass around and do your century proud!”

  The crowd voiced approval for the idea.

  This was a different situation, but he’d dealt with groups in the past.

  His smile was awkward, but he dug down into the performer in him, steeled himself, and threw himself into the role.

  He took a superhero pose, legs spread comfortably, chest extended, hands balled at the waist. People gathered around, and light flashed. Cheers rose. It reminded him of paparazzi, but without the aggressiveness.

  Raised on the platform, he had a good view of the shop’s layout.

  He saw niches he hadn’t seen before — rooms and nooks where, as the idea struck more firmly, maybe he could hide if he could slip away.

  He saw how people flowed through the place, optimal paths consultants used to call them in the old days. Paths that most shoppers took, which then commanded premium advertisement rates.

  He took a serene pose and, while the audience tweaked the fit of his shirt, took notice of where the three security escorts were — one to each side of the platform, the third wandering in the free flow of patrons around the floor. He could almost hear them chattering about him across unseen networks. Could he lose them?

  He took another pose, scanning for other monitors. They had to be out there, didn’t they? Then another pose, more outrageous than the last.

  Kinji applauded along with the rest, her long, graceful fingers almost wrapping around her hands with each clap.

  “You’re a natural,” she said.

  Okay,” he finally said. “It’s time for someone else to get up here.”

  “Only after you choose which ones you want,” Kinji said.

  “Awesome,” he said, nearly giggling. “I don’t know. Which did you like best?”

  “Maybe the blue Messer, and a pair of thin slacks.”

  “Done.”

  “And the dragon boots, of course.”

  Bexie grinned. The boots were ludicrous, but he wasn’t going to spoil her fun, and screw it, they’d been a blast to show off in. “And the dragon boots. So, how do I take it all to my palatial estate?”

  “Just tell Think Space this is the outfit you want.”

  He nodded. “I’ll take this,” he said, finding an open channel.

  “Where should it be delivered?” Think Space’s voice was neutral.

  He didn’t have anywhere else to suggest, so he said, “How about the memory palace!”

  “I don’t have record of such a place,” the voice said.

  “Of course not,” Bexie replied. “How could you?”

  Kinji gave the wry expression he was hoping for.

  “The Geo-Span Medical Center,” he finally said. “Mark it for Beckingham Montgomery.”

  This would work better anyway, he thought. If nothing else it would send the message that he was coming back, but Bexie was certain of one thing and one thing only. If he could manage it, he was not going back into that prison again. And if he did have to go back, he was getting the hell out of Dodge as soon as possible.

  “Your delivery will be made by the end of the day.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Yes, Kinji decided, there was something to Bexie Montgomery.

  Along with the rest of the crowd, Kinji applauded again as he came off the stage. She’d seen performance highs before, but Bexie’s was an intense wave of giddiness that spooled together to put him on the edge of control. A man shoulder-bumped him, and Bexie burst into laughter. An
androgynous fan offered him half a sandwich and a trip into a quiet nook, which made him blush and made Kinji take more control.

  “Looks like you had fun.”

  “It beat the hell out of being locked up in the medical ward.”

  “Well, we’ll have to break you out more often.”

  “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

  Kinji gave him a sideways glance that was half double take.

  His voice had been lighthearted, but there had been another layer to it, and the intensity of his glance made her step back a notch. Not everyone would have seen it, but Kinji noticed then how he scanned the area like he was looking for a weakness or a path, and she saw how he constantly cycled through the crowd to note exactly where the medical center’s escorts were.

  Tania, for example, would have plowed right along, oblivious even to the comment.

  But Kinji felt a feral hint of despair, or was it hope, in his comment, just a touch, a spice, like the jasmine that had been in her coffee earlier in the day.

  Indeed, Bexie Montgomery was even more interesting than she had considered possible. For a moment, she wondered if the CIO would let her take him to Acapulco tonight, then dropped the idea. But another came in its place, one she wasn’t so sure about.

  If she was right, Bexie Montgomery was going to bolt. Maybe not now, but soon.

  Could she help him?

  Or, rather, was she willing to take that kind of chance?

  If he was successful and the CIO found her helping him it could get ugly.

  “So,” Bexie said, “are we ever going to get to see how your soup stand works or is this really just you deciding you wanted to take a joyride with a dinosaur?”

  “Well, I do like dinosaurs, but let’s do it,” she replied.

  She stepped past a group of people who were now admiring another young woman modeling rain gear. After a short walk, Kinji and Bexie arrived at a pear-shaped station lined with seats, mostly full of people spooning soups of various kinds, mostly chatting together, but two clearly linked into something in Think Space. A hole in the middle of the thick part of the station was large enough that equipment could be seen to run underneath the stand.

  “Link into my feed,” she said, sending him an invitation.