“You got promoted?” Her brief smile died as she realized why. “Oh.”
“You have to go somewhere. And, believe me, this B&B is cheap.”
Mellanie bowed her head. “One night. That’s all. Just one.”
“Sure. Let’s go and pack a bag.”
She peered at the door. “They said I couldn’t take anything that was mine. They said Morty paid for it all, so it belonged to the bank now. That’s why I… Well, you know.”
“Sure. I’ll sort it out.” He guided Mellanie out into the living room. “The young lady is packing a bag of clothes and leaving,” he told the suits.
“We cannot allow any bank property—”
“I’ve just told you what’s happening,” Hoshe said. “You want to make an issue of it? You want to call me a liar?”
They looked at each other. “No, Officer.”
“Thank you.”
Hoshe had to laugh when they went into the master bedroom. Not at the cliché playboy decor of circular bed and black sheets, complete with mirror portal behind the pillows. It was the poor GPbot, lying on the floor with a sharp dint in its bodywork where someone had kicked it; two of its electromuscle limbs were severed clean at the base, and the remaining three knotted together around its legs. It took a lot of strength to do that to electromuscle.
Mellanie took a modest shoulder bag from one of the walk-in closets.
“I can’t really let you take any jewelry,” Hoshe said. “And I suppose some of the dresses cost a lot.” He was looking past her shoulder at the rack that had every slot taken by some garment; it was moving slowly, rotating the rest of the selection from a hidden storage space behind the closet. There must have been hundreds of clothes there altogether. When he checked, the other closet had as many suits and jackets, and nearly the same number of shoes and boots.
“Don’t worry,” Mellanie said. “One thing I did learn was that expensive doesn’t equal practical.” She was folding a pair of jeans into the bag. The pile on the bed was mostly T-shirts.
“I was thinking,” he said. “It’s kind of a last resort as far as earning money goes, but your life has been interesting to say the least, although it’s for all the wrong reasons. There are media companies who would pay for that story.”
“I know. There’s hundreds of them stored in my e-butler’s hold file. I stopped accessing them, then my cybersphere account was closed.”
“Why is your account closed?”
“I told you. I don’t have any money. I wasn’t joking.” She held up a trim, dark handheld array, giving him a questioning look.
“Sure.” He’d never heard of an account being closed before, everyone had access to the cybersphere.
The array was put in the bag’s side pocket. She sat on the side of the bed, and started lacing up some sports shoes.
“I’ll have the account reactivated,” he said. “Just data and messages for a month. Not an entertainment feed. It’ll only cost me a couple of dollars.”
Mellanie gave him a curious look. “Do you want to sleep with me, Hoshe?”
“No! Er, I mean, no, that’s not… I don’t… That’s not what this is about.”
“People always want to sleep with me. I know that. I’m beautiful and first-life young. And I adore sex. Morty was a very experienced teacher; he encouraged me to experiment. What I can do with my body isn’t shameful, Hoshe. Pleasure is never a sin. And I wouldn’t mind you enjoying me.”
Hoshe just knew his face was turning hot red. Having her talk about it so clinically was like enduring his father’s one attempt to explain the birds and bees. “I’m married. Thank you.” Which was about as lame as you could get.
“I don’t understand. If it’s not to have sex with me, why are you doing this?”
“He killed two people, ruined two lives,” Hoshe said quietly. “I don’t want him to claim a third victim. Not now.”
She picked up a brush from the dressing table and began working it through her hair. “Morty didn’t kill anybody. You and Paula Myo were wrong about that.”
“I don’t think so.”
“The criminal gang could have gone through her memories and found out what was hers, that or tortured it out of her. It wasn’t Morty.”
There were no signs of torture in the pathologist’s report, she was in the bath, and her memorycell was ruined.But all he said was: “We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that.”
“You’re far too nice to be a police officer, do you know that?”
Hoshe waited until she’d cleaned herself up, then took her to the B&B. He paid for a week in advance, and drove off, managing to avoid her attempt to kiss him good-bye. He wasn’t sure he was strong enough to resist actual physical contact.
Five days later, a taxi dropped Mellanie outside a big warehouselike building in Darklake’s Thurnby district, a shabby and badly run-down old industrial precinct. Every plot was protected by high fencing, although half of the factories and retail depots were abandoned. Rubbish had blown up along the wire-mesh fences, forming little dunes of paper and plastic; standing high above them were realtor signs proclaiming various sites available for redevelopment. The single track railway that ran alongside the main road had tall weeds growing from the shingle between the sleepers and its rails were rusting over.
Mellanie glanced around nervously. Not that there was anywhere for muggers to hide. A purple plaque on the door in front of her read: Wayside Productions. She took a breath and walked through.
True to his word, Hoshe Finn had got her cybersphere account activated again. The number of noncommercial messages in her e-butler’s hold file was over seventy thousand. She’d wiped them all and changed her personal interface code. Then she called Rishon, a reporter she’d known from her time with Morton. He’d been very pleased to hear from her, and immediately arranged a meeting. Her story was enormously valuable, he assured her, and people would access the drama from all over the Commonwealth. That was when she hit him with her real big idea, that she should play herself. To her surprise, he’d been delighted by the suggestion, claiming it would bring in even more money.
She sat with him for two days, pouring her heart out, telling him everything about those golden days, from the moment they met at a sponsorship gala dinner, what it had been like, the wonder and thrill of the love affair, her parents’ hostility, the parties, the luxurious hedonistic life, the members of Oaktier’s high society with whom she mingled freely, then the terrible trial with its tragic wrong verdict. Rishon recorded it all, and transformed it into a spectacular script for an eight-part drama that would play for days. He’d sold it within twenty-four hours.
There was a tiny reception area on the other side of Wayside Productions’s front door, composite panel walls and roofing boxing in a couple of ancient couches with flaking chrome tube arms and legs. A girl was sitting on one of them, her jaw working hard on gum as she studied a paperscreen. She had a very short leather skirt, and a white blouse with a low cut front showing off a huge cleavage. Her makeup was dreadful: mascara like panda circles and lips that were glossy lavender. Too-stiff white-blond hair that was mostly bad extensions curled down below her shoulders like overstretched springs. She looked up and smiled broadly at Mellanie. “Oh, hi there, you’re Mellanie; I recognize you from the court case.” Her voice was high and squeaky. Somehow, Mellanie couldn’t imagine it being anything else.
“That’s me.”
“I’m Tiger Pansy. Jaycee told me to look out for you. He said to bring you right on over to the set.” She got up from the couch, standing a couple of centimeters taller than Mellanie. Fifteen-centimeter silver glitter heels made that possible.
“Tiger Pansy?” Mellanie worked hard at keeping herself from spluttering.
“Yeah, honey, you like that? I just started using it. My agent wanted Slippy Trixie, but I nixed that.”
“Tiger Pansy is fine. Sure.”
“Why thanks. You’re gorgeous, you know that? Real young; all sweet and everything. They’re going to love you out there in access land.”
“Er, thanks.” Mellanie hurried after Tiger Pansy.
It was an old warehouse. Wayside Productions had simply partitioned it off into squares to keep the sets separate. Corridors ran between them, with high composite panel walls and no ceiling. High overhead, the building’s metal rafters supported an aging solar collector roof that rattled faintly at every light gust of wind. People were moving along the corridors. She had to flatten herself against a wall as a couple of stagehands came past carrying big hologram portals. They gave Mellanie lingering looks, smiling suggestively. She ignored them as she followed Tiger Pansy. Her body itched just about everywhere from her new OCtattoos. They’d taken three days to etch on they were so extensive, and it was hell trying not to scratch them, but if she did she knew her skin would be red and blotchy all over. That would never do for an actress, especially not at the start of recording that involved sensorium output. Today she knew the other actors would be skeptical about her ability; she was going to have to work hard to impress everyone.
They went past one set door where a whole troupe of actresses were filing in, dressed in schoolgirl uniforms. Even with cellular reprofiling some of them still looked well into their thirties. Mellanie gave them a long look. Surely they weren’t…
“Here we are,” Tiger Pansy said with a hint of pride. “They spent a lot of money on this set. You’re a real big deal around here.” She pointed to the polyphoto notice beside the door. Its glowing letters spelt out: Murderous Seduction. “Cute name, huh?”
“Right.”