'Yamazaki has explained what you are attempting with the data from the Lo/Rez fan archives," Kuwayama said. "But that data says nothing, or very little, about Rei. We propose the addition of a third level of information: we will add Rei to the mix, and the pattern that emerges will be a portrait of their union."

But you're just information yourself, Laney thought, looking at her. Lots of it, running through G.o.d knows how many machines. But the dark eyes looked back at him, filled with something for all the world like hope. "Will you do it, Mr. Laney? Will you help us?"

"Look," Laney said, "I only work here. I'll do it if Yamazaki tells me to. If he takes the responsibility. But I want you to tell me something, okay?"

"What is it that you wish to know?" asked Kuwayama.

"What is all this about?" The question surprised Laney, who hadn't quite known what it was he was about to ask.

Kuwayama's mild eyes regarded him through the rimless lenses. "It is about fliturity, Mr. Lane>'."

"Futurity?"

"Do you know that our word for 'nature' is of quite recent coinage? It is scarcely a hundred years old. We have never developed a sinister view of technology, Mr. Laney. It is an aspect of the natural, of oneness. Through our efforts, oneness perfects itself" Kuwayama smiled. "And popular culture," he said, "is the testbed of our futurity."

Arleigh made a better espresso than Shannon. Laney, squatting in the back of the green van, on popping shreds of bubble-pack, watched Yamazaki over the rim of a foam cup with a fresh double shot. "What do you think you're doing, Yamazaki? You want us both to wind up wearing smaller shoes, or what? Blackwell likes to nail people's hands to tables, and you're making deals with the idoru and her 238 boss?" Laney had insisted that they climb in back here for privacy. Yamazaki squatted opposite him, blinking.

"I am not the one making deals," Yamazaki said. "Rez and Rei Toei are in almost constant contact now, and recent improvements allow her new degrees of freedom. Rez let her into the data, all that you first tried to access. He did this without informing Blackwell." He shrugged. "Now she accesses the fan data as well. And what they propose may well allow us to bring this to a conclusion. Blackwell is more than ever convinced there is some conspiracy. The attack in the nightclub.

"Which was about?"

"1 do not know. An attempted kidnapping? They wished to harm Rez? To abduct the idoru's peripheral? It was handled with amazing clumsiness, but Blackwell says that is the earmark of the Kombinat. . . . Is that the word, 'earmark'?"

"I don't know," Laney said.

"Hallmark'?"

"You don't think Blackwell's going to cut our toes off, if we do this?"

"No. We are employed by a Lo/Rez sh.e.l.l corporation-"

"Paragon-Asia?"

"--but Blackwell is employed by the Lo/Rez Partnership. If Rez tells us to do something, we must do it,"

"Even if Blackwell thinks it endangers Rez's security?"

Yamazaki shrugged. Past his shoulder, through the van's rear window, Lane>' could see Shannon trundling the gray module they'd unloaded from the rear of Kuwayama's Land-Rover. It was twice the size of the black ones that Arleigh used.

He watched Shannon push it past the orange barricades.

.239.

36.Maryalice "Not yelling, please," said the one who held her, and then he took his hand away from her mouth.

"Where is it?" Eddie's pale eyes.

"There," Chia said, pointing. She could see the ragged edge of blue and yellow plastic sticking up out of her open bag. Then she saw that Maryalice was asleep on the pink bed, cLirled up with her high-heeled shoes still on, clutching a pillow to her face. The top of the little fridge was covered with empty, miniature bottles.

Eddie took a black-and-gold pen from his coat pocket and went

to the bag. He bent over it and used his pen as a probe, moving the

plastic aside so he could see. "It's here," he said.

"Is there?" The other hand was still holding Chia's shoulder

down, where she sat on the carpet.

"This is it," Eddie said.

'Stay putting." The hand left her shoulder and the man, who must've been kneeling behind her, got up and joined Eddie, peering into Chia's bag. He was taller, and wore a tan suit and fancy Western boots. Big bones in his face, his hair a lighter blond than Eddie's, a reddish, crescent-shaped birthmark high on his right cheekbone. ~'How you are being sure?"

"Jesus, Yevgeni . .

The man in the tan suit straightened up, looked at Maryalice,

bent to pull the pillow away from her face. "How is your woman sleeping on bed in this room, Eddie?"

241.

Eddie saw that it was Maryalice. "f.u.c.k," he said.

'You are telling us girl and your woman, is 'incidental.' You are telling us they meet on plane, is only accident. Is accident your woman is here? We do not like accident.'

Eddie looked from Maryalice to the man-he must be Russian- to Chia. "What the flick is this b.i.t.c.h doing here?" Like it had to be Chia's fault.

'She found us," Chia said. She said she knew somebody at the cab company."

"No,' said the Russian, "we know somebody at cab company. Is too much incident."

"We've got it, okay?" Eddie said. 'Why do you want to complicate things?"

The Russian rubbed his cheek, as though the birthmark might come off on his hand. "Please consider," he said. "We are giving you isotope. You want to know is isotope, you can test. You are giving us this." He poked the sharp toe of his cowboy boot into the side of Chia's bag. "How are we sure?"

"Yevgeni," Eddie said, very calmly, "you must know that deals like this require a certain basis of trust.'

The Russian considered that. "No," he said, "basis not good. Our people trace this girl to big rocker band. What is she working for, Eddie? Tonight we send people to talk to them, they fall on us like f.u.c.king wolfs. One man I am still losing."

"I don't work for Lo/Rez!" Chia said. "I'm just in the club! Maryalice put that thing in my bag when I was asleep on the plane!"

Masahiko groaned, sighed, and seemed to go back under. Eddie still had the stungun in his hand. "You ready for another jolt?" he asked Masahiko, super-tense and angry.

"Eddie,' Maryalice said from the bed, "you ungrateful piece of s.h.i.t Sitting up on the edge of the bed with her cigarette lighter held in both hands, pointing it straight at Eddie.

Eddie stiffened. You could see something run through him, freezing him there.

242 J.

"Some basis," said the Russian.

"Jesus, Maryalice," Eddie said. "Whered you get that? You got any idea how illegal that is, here?'

"Off a Russian boy," she said. "Exit-holes the size of grapefruit Maryalice didn't sound drunk, exactly, but something about the look in her reddened eyes told Chia she was. Some very scary kind of drunk. "You think you can just use people up, Eddie? Use 'em up and throw 'em away?" She used the toe of one shoe to get the other off, then used her toe to get the first shoe off. She stood up in her stocking feet, swaying just a little bit, but the gun-shaped lighter stayed straight out from her shoulders, the way cops did it on television.