Alex plugged the jack almost all the way into the socket just behind his right ear, enough to give appearance of being dead to the world through the miracle of cyberware, closed his eyes, and thought.

He could really use a drink, but after Dad had bailed him out of the tank last time, and let everyone in the house lecture and shrill at him for two straight days, the thought of drinking to oblivion didn't have quite the same appeal.

Everyone was so happy that Katrina was engaged. About time, too, Alex thought sourly. Alex himself was twenty, fresh out of an early graduation with high marks. (And what did it get him? Nothing.) Katrina was thirty-four and not getting any younger, although Alex had to admit his sister had that Nordic look to her that was all the rage these days.

---"Yes, yes, isn't it wonderful! And Sergei is so handsome, too. Both our families have always gotten along so well. Who? Alex? Oh, he graduated yesterday, I think it was? Or the day before? Well, no matter. I suppose I'll have to ask his father to pull some strings and get him a job--"

He could still hear their words in his head, talking as though he wasn't even there. Yeah, Dad, never mind I could've probably done good on my own. Hell.

The thought of the bottle loomed large. But Mom hadn't been all that thrilled to discover her little boy was an alkie-in-training, and she'd really let him have it last time. No matter what was causing it, hm?

---"All he does with his spare time is plug into his VR games. Maybe we could find something for him at Sotenga... but enough about that. Trinka's colors are going to be pink and sky blue for the bridesmaids, isn't that adorable? But I do wish she'd chosen a white dress--"

Org. He'd heard enough. Couldn't a guy even feel really sorry for himself anymore, without distractions? He detached the unconnected cable from his head and picked up the Game Guy to take it with him. People glanced at him, but continued with their conversation.

Every relative in North America must be here today, Alex mused. And some of the Old Country ones, too. The Wagners had relatives in most of Eastern Europe, though they wouldn't give the time of day to the majority of them. He walked down to the hallway and stopped before the large oval mirror framed with gilt roses.

He stared back at himself. Pale from never getting any sun. The color that was called honey when used in reference to his siblings' hair was here called dirty-blond, and starting to creep over his ears and down his collar. He'd need a haircut if he didn't want to get any of it in his cranial jack. Gray-blue natural-looking eyes -- the Wagners disapproved of most cyberware, but if you had to have it, make it as natural and unobtrusive as possible, was their motto. At least he had perfect vision this way. A long, slightly suspicious face. Skinny shoulders. Ugh. Even Alex couldn't stir up much sympathy for himself, although maybe he was a bit unkind about his physique.

He turned away and continued down the hall. From his brother's room he could hear voices. What was Karl up to? He should be helping plan Sergei's bachelor party. Alex leaned closer to the doorframe and listened.

Karl and Katrina, talking. Planning something. Karl was two years older than Trinka and had never quite known how to act around unplanned-child Alex. The feeling was mutual. Alex pressed a little closer and strained to sort the words. They spoke in German -- ha! he thought. Like that would keep him ignorant? Half the family spoke it, including Alex.

"Karl, this is too much," Katrina was saying, but she sounded pleased. "When's the flight?"

"Tonight. You should have one last fling before your wedding, Trinka." Karl laughed softly. "It's something like a resort. Pamper yourself. Have fun. Then you can still have your parties here, with your girlfriends, but I wanted you to have a special night out to yourself."

"You're such an imp, Karl!" she laughed in return. "I wish I'd thought of something like this for your wedding. It does sound like paradise. I'm sure I'll love it."

"Great! Now it's time for you to make an appearance."

Alex quickly scurried away, turned around, and made as if he was just now walking down the hall, as Karl's door opened.

"Oh," said Karl, with his usual uncertain manner towards his kid brother. "Um, hello, Alex."

"Hi. The folks want you," Alex said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

"Well, that's timing indeed," Trinka smiled. "Off to play your games?"

"What else is there to do around here? Everyone's just talking about you anyway."

He could hear Katrina sigh in exasperation as they walked past each other. "I swear, Karl, what's the point in even being nice to him? He still acts like a child," she said in a whisper, but Alex didn't know if he was intended to hear it or not.

Instead, he waited until his siblings had gone, popped the panel off the door lock, plugged a patch cord from the cranial jack behind his ear into the maintenance jack, sorted through the security codes in a picosecond, and sprung the door open. He'd gotten very fast at it over the years, and had almost unlimited access to the entire house (his parents' quadrant's defenses were still foxing him).

He unplugged himself from the wall. Putting the panel back on, he slipped into Karl's room. Perfectly neat and ordered, of course. Nothing untoward... his eye caught a travel envelope, and he picked it up. Unsealed. He shook his head. Someone was way too trusting in this household. Alex opened the envelope and shook out the contents.

It was tickets, mostly. Air tickets, suborbitals, expensive but fast. And a single ticket to a place called the Palace. Alex's geographical knowledge was rather hazy -- wasn't that some casino down Vegas way? But then, you wouldn't need a suborbital flight, would you?

The air ticket was for tonight. In a couple of hours, in fact.

A resort, Karl had said. Alex tapped the corner of the envelope against his lip. Pampering. Living the good life.

"Why should she have all the fun?" he mused, running the corner between his front teeth absentmindedly. "Hell, she's the one getting married and bagging all those Russian diamonds..."

Back in his room, it was only a few minutes' work to break through the ice defenses of OrbitalAir and change the name from "Wagner/Kristina" to "Wagner/Alexei." Change all the retina and fingerprint scans from hers to his. The Palace ticket, that would be harder; he examined it closely but couldn't see any sign of magnetic coding. It was also specifically made out to K. Wagner. Damn. Looked like it was completely machined or handmade... must be one heck of a place then, he considered. Ultra secure. He couldn't find anything in cyberspace on it either. Well, well... Alex would just have to play it by ear when he got there. Maybe he could be "Karl". He wondered if this Palace place went down on your record.

Within two hours, Wagner/Alexei was plugged into his Game Guy, happily playing Final Fantasy 23 (American version) while taking the suborbital to who-knows-where, while back home Karl panicked and looked everywhere for the tickets...

!Ping!

Alex the blue-haired esper samurai looked up at the clock that appeared in the middle of the sky. Time to go. He dispatched the two madcaps threatening him, saved the game, and jacked out.

After the usual moment of disorientation he looked around the empty passenger cabin. Yep, the suborbital jet was slowly rolling now, presumably toward a gate of some kind. He put the Game Guy into his battered green backpack and waited.

The suborbital finally stopped, and the stewardess came back to him. "Sir, we've arrived."

Alex nodded and stood, slinging the backpack over one shoulder. He followed the woman to the entry, where instead of a jetway corridor was a set of stairs leading down to the ground.

He paused at the top of the stairs to look around. Looked awfully desert-y. Guess it was Vegas after all. Well, even a casino had to be okay to hang out in, for a free vacation. But for all that, he didn't see much in the way of buildings. Just a big white one that might be made of marble. Maybe Vegas was hiding behind it, he grinned to himself. He watched his feet as he went down the stairs, an old habit he'd never been able to break. If he looked up, he was terrified he'd miss the next step and fall.

A young man in white shirt and pants, looking very much like a ship's steward in one of those old twentieth-century movies, was there to greet him. "Welcome, sir. If you will follow me..."

Alex did. He was hoping the guy would say "Walk this way" so he could make a mildly amusing comment, but probably the steward had heard all the jokes by now. Boy, this place was really deserty all right. Nothing but whitish dunes everywhere. He squinted against the brightness. Wait, it's still light. Completely different time zone. For the first time Alex wondered where, exactly, he was. He hoped they had decent satellite linkups, what with the current flare problems from the sun. It would suck bigtime if he couldn't access an inbox this whole trip.

The steward led him into the palace, which seemed rather empty of guests if it was a resort, and then Alex had to surrender the ticket marked "K. Wagner". Well, if it didn't work, at least he'd gotten a free trip out of it all. But he was still nervous as the ticket was inspected by an older woman in conservative suit, behind the counter. She punched up something on her computer. Closed system, Alex realized. That's why he couldn't hack in earlier.

"Well, Mr. Wagner," she finally said. "It all seems to be in order. Here is the key for the room you requested." She handed him a Yale key -- how Luddite, Alex thought -- with a white silk tassel. "Enjoy your stay." She smiled.

"Thanks." All-righty then! Alex was almost tempted to whistle as he looked over the big wall map showing room locations. The "White Room" was down one particular wing. Looked like all the rooms were color coordinated. Neat. He looked down at the key in his hand. White, wedding, presumed innocence, eh? He snickered. He could just picture it now, big lacey canopy bed, probably white doves, or at least holos of them, since real animals were kinda dirty, white furniture. Big white neofur rugs.

Hey, Alex thought, as he strode down the hallway, I could really get to like this. This'll be worth gettin' chewed out by the family. After all, what kinda hotel goes by colors instead of room numbers? And it looked like there was an expansion going on. Keen.

Maybe after this he'd earmark a little of Daddy-O's spare cash for a return visit... heh.

"Okay, here it is," he mused, staring up at the (white) door. He was probably going to go white-blind after a day or so. Well, that's why the Game Guy was along.

He turned the key in the lock; the door swung open surprisingly easy for its apparent mass. Efficient counterweights, or something, Alex guessed. He entered and stared.

And stared some more.

And some more.

Then: "This is so COOL!"

The whole thing was like being underwater. Somehow it was even better than VR, because with VR you always knew it was fake. This was real and so much better for it.

Sand, real sand, the fine stuff from the good beaches Alex had always heard about but never been to, was all over the floor. He wondered how far down it went. Seashells here and there. Occasional tricks of light -- or were they? -- that made him think maybe small fish or crabs or something were moving around, on the sand, under the several inches of water that Alex was willing to bet tasted salty, and probably like the oceans used to before the big oops. It moved in gentle waves.

"Wow."

At first it looked like there were fish in midair, then his cyberware caught the reflection and form of the glass of the tanks. Big tanks, huge, forming the walls and maybe other rooms somewhere else? Hey, maybe that was a pool back there? Oh please! he begged inwardly.

"Oh, wow."

He looked a little closer to himself. Okay, actual furniture too. Looking a little out of place, but then, presumably even merpeople had to have furniture. It was above water, with a small lip of, well, shelf, Alex decided, so you could step out of bed, or get up off the sofa, without stumbling into the water. And where he was, at the door, he was standing on a small ledge, just big enough to stand and get your bearings.

Alex whooped with joy, kicked off his shoes to splash into the water, threw his backpack on the bed and ran headlong down to the other end of the room, trying to make as much noise and splash as possible.

There was a pool down here! A little off to one side from the main room. Great! Still fully clothed, he was about to dive right in, when he remembered something.

"Oh, crap." He waded back to the backpack, managed to grab it without getting too much water on it or the bed, and rummaged round in an outer pocket until he found what he was looking for.

He thumped the rubber safety plug into the jack with the heel of his hand. No sense possibly electrocuting himself. Sure, the manufacturer said it was safe to swim, but still... his eyes, now, they were safe. They were top-of-the-line.

"Okayyy!!!" he yelled again, and this time plunged into the pool.

Some fifteen minutes later he was lazily floating around on his back, observing his own chest rise and fall in the water as he breathed, his nao shirt waving like kelp, gray pants completely waterlogged and heavy but he didn't care.

"This is so cool," he said out loud. "This really is. Ultra touch plus. I can see why Karl wanted to give it to Trinka..." The thought of his family made him a little serious for a moment, but then he brightened. Heck, even if he got hauled out this minute, it was still fun. Might as well enjoy everything while it lasted, ja?

Although, if it was a closed computer system, they couldn't find him, right? Whatever.

He closed his eyes against the sunlight filtering in -- not for any reason, just because. His eyes had both low-light and anti-glare capability, he used to have fun staring at the sun before Mom read him the riot act about causing damage not covered on the warranty.

He drifted, back toward the main room...

...and yawned. "The only way this could be better," he mused to himself, "is if someone could see me here."

"Very well. Here I am."

Alex jerked at the sound of another voice in here, accidentally swallowed some water (fresh, not salty), coughed, splashed, wiped the hair from his eyes, turned to get a fix on the speaker, and finally managed to get his balance in six inches of water.

"Wha'?"

There was someone on his bed!

"Who the hell are you?!" Alex sputtered.

"My name is Liranym," said the boy. Young man? Alex had always been hazy on where the line was. He was dressed in what looked a lot like pajamas, and Alex was willing to guess that if the rest of the place was this expensive, the clothing was probably real silk, too. Yikes. The mere thought put his nao shirt to shame.

The pajamas blended with the rest of the room, a pale sea-green that rippled faintly like gentle ocean waves. Liranym's hair was the same color, Alex noticed. He wondered if it was a dye job or implanted. His eyes were the color of the salt marshes, here red like cypress, here green like ivy, hints of the dark tones of pine flashing now and again. His skin looked pale under this light. It was as though one of the merfolk had come to human form and was now reclining on his bed, cool, aloof, beautiful.

And male.

"What are you doing here?" Alex frowned as he asked the question. He didn't think there'd been another white door anywhere. Scheiss, don't say I'm in the wrong room--

"I am here to serve you," said Liranym. "You requested me." His voice was a low tenor, faintly melodious.

"I did? Oh. Wait." Of course. Karl had reserved this room for Katrina. So... naturally there would be beautiful, young, and above all male servants here for her.

"This bites," he muttered under his breath. It was probably too late to find out if there were any female servants around, especially if Karl had made the arrangements himself. Alex would just have to deal with it.

He stood up and reeled for a moment under the unaccustomed weight of waterlogged garments. "Whoa... Okay, um, Lir--, L, Liranym," he stumbled over the unfamiliar name. "Ack..." Alex began sloshing his way to the bed. "So... what precisely are your duties here? Like, make the bed, play chess, what?"

Liranym had been eyeing him the whole time, no doubt with some reservations, thought Alex. Well, couldn't blame him. At least a woman, even in her thirties, that might not've been too bad, but to have a skinny male-pin instead, must've put him a bit off.

"I am here to serve you in whatever ways you wish," the green-haired young man said. "I have been trained in all the arts, music, singing, conversation, rhetoric, and debate, on many different subjects. I know strategies for all classical games and basic strategies for many modern ones. I know massage, grooming, and accessorizing." His eyes rested on Alex, trying to squelch water out of the sleeves of his shirt. "What kind of material is that?"

"This?... It's a nao shirt. It'll probably go to rust after this, but I can get another one." Alex looked around. "Um... is there, like, a towel around here?"

(Liranym sighed inwardly. He'd been told the first time was always the hardest, but he'd never pictured it quite like this. Somehow the words "long night" could be read all through this scenario.)

"I will fetch it," he said, and rose gracefully from the bed to lightly jump the narrow gap from shelf to shelf, to what Alex would have sworn was just another aquarium, but turned out to be another aquarium covering a small door for a closet of towels and other sundries.

"This is some place. Touch deluxe," Alex commented, looking around. "So... I guess you get paid pretty good, huh? This whole place seems top-of-the-line, y'know? Oh, hold on a minute." He struggled out of the shirt and accepted the towel. "Thanks."

While Alex toweled off, Liranym studied the shirt. Long, supple metal fibers woven inamongst what might have been genuine silk in another time, but here looked to be rayon or neosilk. The whole effect was to reflect and glitter whatever light struck it, yet be comfortable to wear.

Liranym had never seen anything quite like it. It was very appropriate to this room, too, almost like fishscale in the water.

In ordinary light and dried out, it would probably give a rainbow effect.

"That's better."

Liranym looked up at Alex's statement. His master was digging through the old backpack, looking for another shirt. Though the green boy had never yet participated, he had seen others, and gave a critical eye to this new, first master.

At least he was young. There were horror stories told of the old ones and trying to cater to their unresponsive flesh. Liranym had been expecting someone older, in his thirties, but someone closer his own age might be better for a first time.

(For that matter, he could have sworn he was supposed to get a mistress, not a master. Maybe things had changed at the last minute? Then again, mistakes did happen.)

His master's hair, plastered to his skull in some places and askew in others, was light brown from being soaked, but dry it would be paler. A long face, with a mouth too used to bitterness. The eyes were pale too, blue-grey, and in them Liranym could see a wariness of strangers, and also distrust. This one had been burned before, and worse, was accustomed to it.

One of the other things they taught the slaves here was how to read people, their expressions, their bodies. It helped to anticipate their moods.

His master's body, what he could see of it without the shirt and with soaked pants, was all right; thin, but not overly so, a few hints of having spent some time at physical exercise. A light sprinkling of fine blond hairs were scattered across his chest and stomach.

Liranym looked away before his appraisal could be construed as a stare, and found a hanger in the sundries closet to hang the wet shirt on until it dried.

Alex pulled on a fresh crimson-and-blue tunic and shook his arms. "There, that's better. So, um, Lir, can I call you Lir?"

Liranym nodded. Might as well make the best of it.

"Would you mind, uh, turning your back?" Alex made helpful spinning gestures with his hand.

"Why?" Liranym raised an eyebrow.

Alex blinked. "Because I'm going to take my pants off, that's why."

"And?"

Sudden very unpleasant thoughts came to Alex's mind, such as "Karl knows I'm here and he's determined to really screw me over with this."

"Okay, where's the cam?" he said loudly, and looked around the room, lenses zooming to look for any recording devices.

Liranym wondered how his master's eyes could do that. They stayed the same shape, but the pupils were independently changing size, from pinpricks to where there was nearly no iris. It was more than a little terrifying.

"Cam?" he questioned.

"You know." Alex began sloshing around the walls. "Cameras, vid or still. Gonna use this as blackmail, right? I'm wise to ya!" He began thumping his fist on the aquarium glass as he walked past.

"Master, no!" In some alarm, Liranym stepped into the water and ran to gently take his master's arm. "There are no cameras here. Truth! There is only the water, and yourself, and me..." he stood very close, still holding his master's arm with one hand, and placed his other hand on his master's waist.

Alex looked at the boy, who was almost his height, only a few centimeters shorter. "Lir?" he questioned. He sounded confused.

"Come, master," Liranym smiled. "There is no reason to be upset. Let's return to the bed, hm? And I won't watch, if you're modest," he hinted, his smile gentle.

Alex looked at Liranym's eyes up close for the first time. His own eyes zoomed in to look at the detail on max. Fine-grained lines of color...

Yep, he was right. Not artificial, but genetically augmented. Probably meant the hair was augged too. Even the servants were keyed to this place; Alex was willing to bet that if each room had its own theme, the servants were augged, gene or cyber, to be appropriate to the room. Lir here was probably gene-augged because of all the water -- cyber would eventually fritz no matter how careful you were.

He zoomed back out, his pupils returning to an approximate normal size, and waited for the dizziness to pass. Whoa. Way too much zoom there.

Liranym guessed that his master was not completely well after his trip; what else could be causing this? He gently began guiding him to the furniture.

"Someone paid a good piece of change for you to get augged like that," Alex said, as Lir led him back to the bed. "An' all those things you do... you must get one hell of a paycheck."

"There are certain... benefits... yes," Lir agreed. "Medical care, dental, hairdressing," he joked. They'd arrived at the bed. "Now, I'll look away for you," he added, and turned his back.

"'S one weirdass place," Alex muttered as he rummaged through his backpack. No pants. He rummaged again. "Dammit!" He began emptying the contents onto the bed. Spare shirt (the one he was wearing), toothbrush, extra socks, no comb (*#&!), a couple of blank memchips, patch cables, emergency repair kit, movie chip of "Frankencop", game chip of "Red Wings Over Russia". No pants. No extra underwear either.

He growled and placed his hands over his face, staring between the fingers. This was really going to bite bigtime. What was he thinking, not packing extra pants? He couldn't sleep in these, the bed would get soaked. For that matter, damp underwear wasn't all that much fun either.

Alex really wanted to say "Someone a'sides me will rue this here day" after that line in the Swamp Daddy games, but he couldn't think of anyone who would rue it but himself.

Lir kept looking on with polite interest and, Alex thought, the ervant was probably laughing his head off inside.

"Enough of that," he growled at the green-haired boy. "Get me another towel, a big one."

While Lir complied, Alex peeled out of the wet pants. Removing them certainly seemed to shed about twenty pounds. At least he'd had the sense to bring a tunic along instead of one of those crop shirts, a tunic would cover some of the important stuff. Not all, and if he bent over he'd be giving a buffalo shot, but there was some cover.

"Here you are, Master," Lir said, holding out a towel.

"Fine. Thanks. Okay, you can go now." Alex reached for the towel.

Liranym looked at his master in shock. Go? He was dismissed? "Master?" he questioned, drawing the towel back in his surprise.

"Dammit, give me that," Alex reached again, but Lir backed up.

"Master, you're dismissing me? So soon?" Lir's face looked shocked. Alex stopped short.

"Well, what? You mean you're supposed to stay here all night? I don't want you to. Now give me the towel and giddoudda here." Alex lunged this time, but Lir nimbly got out of the way. Dammit, how did this guy move so fast through this wading pool?

"Master, no, you can't mean it," Lir said. "What have I done wrong? Is there something I have done or failed to do?"

Alex stopped and sighed. "Okay, Lir, let's figure something out here. I'm stupid. Okay? Stupid. I don't know what you're doing here and I don't know what your purpose is here. Why don't you tell me and dispel my ignorance." It hurt to denigrate himself, but it was probably true. Certainly no one had ever denied it when he'd said such things before.

A warning sign went off in Liranym's head at his master's words. "You're not stupid, Master," he soothed. "And if anyone is ignorant, perhaps we're both at fault. We barely know each other, and you've probably had a rough journey getting here. I can tell you've had some hard times recently," he guessed, "and you're here to relax. I'm here to help you relax. Command me and I will do as you wish." He bowed his head momentarily. "I was simply surprised that you wished me to leave so soon, before I had begun."

"Begun? Begun what?" Alex looked blank. Then he remembered. "Oh yeah, you do all that stuff -- the massage, debate, singing, that kind of thing. I get it." He sighed in relief. "Okay, Lir, sorry about that. I've been kind of on edge here. Y'see..." he chewed his lip for a moment. "Well, it was kind of a last minute change in plans when I got here--"

Liranym felt some pride at having correctly guessed the situation.

"--and, well, I didn't expect to have a male, um, what would you call a male hetaera? A hetaero? Something like that." Greek had never been Alex's strong point, although he could fake it if nobody else in the room knew it either. "That's all." He spread his hands.

They looked at each other for a moment in awkward silence.

"Um," Alex continued, "Well, I guess as long as you're here..." Hey, he thought. If this guy's what I think he is, he's being paid to be nice to me. The thought appealed to Alex greatly; he'd never successfully bought anyone's friendship before, and earning friends was a lot harder than in VR.

"Okay," he said, and smiled crookedly. "You can stay. But hand me the towel, will you? If I have to wait for the pants and unders to dry, at least let me cover up a bit."

Liranym sighed inwardly. He really hadn't wanted to divulge that slaves dismissed early were investigated. After all, if they'd been specifically chosen and trained, why would their masters be displeased with them? At the same time, even with a change in plans, you'd think his master would have made sure this was what he wanted.

He politely watched his master fumble behind the towel for a moment before lying down on the bed, tunic and towel draped to cover up everything. Liranym had the awful feeling that somehow he would have to make a report on this evening, and it wouldn't be a very good one. Then Liranym was beckoned to sit on the bed himself, as Master pulled out the Game Guy, fiddled with some parts from a repair kit, and hooked up two sets of cables.

"Ever try this, Lir? This could be touch plus, playing with someone else." Alex was happily in his own element. "The kit comes with a headband 'trode adapter, so even a non-jack type like you can join in." He placed the headband on Liranym's head, brushing the hair out of the way of the skin-side contacts. "Heck, I'll let you be whoever you want. Now, you wanna try Red Wings Over Russia or Final Fantasy 23?"

It was going to be a long night indeed.

"I'm so sorry, Lir," Alex whined. He bit his lip. He really was genuinely sorry, just like all the other times, but why should Lir believe him when nobody else did? He wanted to cry.

"s'allright" Liranym mumbled, holding the wet towel on his eyes as he lay on the bed where he'd collapsed shortly after the attempt at double-jacking into Alex's Game Guy.

Alex made a strange little noise in the back of his throat. "It's just, just, most people don't have a reaction that strong to VR," he explained, tentatively patting Lir's arm. "There's some disorientation, some dizziness, but most people don't... um... you know..."

Liranym knew very well. It had felt like his eyeballs exploded, followed very quickly by the sensation of his brain being compacted to the size of a chickpea. After he woke up he was left with a headache that threatened to put him out of commission for weeks. Long night indeed.

Alex didn't know if he should be glad or hateful of the hideously expensive surgery that had left him with functional tear glands. Crybaby Alexei. Stop thinking of yourself all the time, Alex. He rubbed the wetness away with a vicious swipe. *--You want to cry, young man? I'll  give you something to cry about--*

"I'm really sorry, Lir," he repeated in a pathetic voice. The first time someone had tried to be nice to him, even if he was being paid, and Alex somehow felt like it was his fault that it was ruined. "I'm so sorry. Please don't be mad?" Even as he said it the young 'decker knew it was pointless. Of course Lir would be mad at him. Who wasn't? Stop thinking of yourself, Alex. We have plenty of other things to be mad at besides you.

If Liranym's head didn't pulse with pain so much he'd have found it funny -- the master asking the slave for forgiveness. He also knew he didn't dare laugh. Master sounded close to tears already. "I'm not mad, Master," he managed after a false start. "It wasn't anything you could have forseen. You said so yourself. Please, simply give me some time, and I'll be fine." A year, maybe, he added mentally.

"That's all?" Alex couldn't accept it. Nobody was that nice.

"Well... maybe some kitamin..." Liranym tried to smile.

Alex was immensely relieved. Lir wasn't mad at him! Who'da thunkit? "Sure, Lir," he said, hoping this wasn't some ploy, "sure. I'll get you some. Okay?" He nearly ran into the closet and dug around, looking for anything resembling analgesics.

"Second shelf on the left," Liranym mumbled. When Master brought back the bottle, Liranym sat up, scooped some water in his hand, and swallowed one of the tiny, powerful kitamin pills with it. "Kita" would knock out nearly anything, according to reputation. Liranym hoped the pill lived up to it.

"Lir," Alex said, after it looked like the green boy wouldn't pass out again, "I want to try something."

Oh, just touch deluxe, Lir thought. Now he wants to do something. Why me? Couldn't he wait until the kita hits?

"What, Master?" he said instead, looking at his master with polite interest.

"I want to go outside the room. Maybe it's the humidity in here, messed up the contacts. I want to do a diagnostic and I want to do it outside where it's drier."

"Take me with you," Lir said after only a moment's thought.

"Well, okay," Alex blinked. "I thought you had to stay here?..."

"I have to go with you to leave the room," Lir said smoothly. "As long as I'm with you, I may go anywhere in the complex that you may go." Damn, that kita worked fast. It was just a mild throbbing behind his eyeballs now, and even that was fading.

"Um... yeah! This'll work out," Alex mused, worrying a thumbnail between his teeth. "I'll need you to make sure no one messes with me. That's a great idea, Lir," he smiled. Perfect white teeth, evenly spaced, thanks to braces and some serious bonding. Alex had wanted chromed fangs capable of punching through steel, but cyberteeth weren't cool in his parents' budget.

Liranym nodded and smiled. His own reason for leaving was that if he were left behind, he had the uneasy feeling he would be questioned shortly after Master left. He couldn't explain it, but he didn't want to risk it either.

"How about this?" Alex looked around at the small alcove with its single marble bench padded with maroon leather. Off a side corridor, cool, dry, and partly hidden behind a royal blue neosilk curtain. It was a refreshing change. All the green and water motifs were a little wearing after a while.

And most importantly, a tiny access panel, just in case he needed to take just a teeny peek at the innards of the Palace.

"I don't believe anyone comes here often..." Lir guessed, looking around, before he and Master slipped past the curtain.

"I hope not." The pants hadn't dried enough to be worn again. Instead, Alex had taken a big risk and gone out in nothing but his bright, wide-sleeved tunic and a big white towel wrapped around his hips, tucked into itself at the top. Seemed to be okay around here. Probably, Alex thought, for the amount of money you paid to be here, you would walk around wearing nothing but a big smile and they wouldn't care. And passing by some people in the hall, Alex had to say he wasn't far wrong. Already the towel was none too secure, and tended to gap at the left leg, making it kind of like a slit skirt. If he saw a wheat penny on the floor Lir'd have to get it.

With some more water he'd slicked his hair down, but it was already springing back into its incorrigible spiky-pompadoury look. Served him right for forgetting a comb. Maybe Lir knew where one was? He'd have to ask. Come to think of it, maybe they had pants here? But Lir hadn't had so much as an extra pair of pajama bottoms, even. Feh.

For the amount of money this place presumably cost, you'd think they could at least provide extra clothing. Then Alex remembered the people he'd passed earlier. Maybe the Palace was clothing-optional. Maybe he could pretend he was looking for the sauna? After all, his whole room was a pool already, couldn't use that excuse.

Alex sat on the bench and looked around for where the panel was, for reassurement. Pulling up the wide tunic sleeve, he unlooped the cable from around his upper arm and ran one end into the Game Guy. The Game Guy was placed on the seat next to him, where his body would partly block it from view. He then unlooped the emergency, skin-contact jack-in headband a swell, and spliced that into his own cord. Opening the panel, he pried one of the contacts free from the headband and bent it into a shape capable of attachment onto one of the chips inside the panel.

Alex was many things, but one thing he was when it came to his own equipment was practical. Why the hell should he use the Game Guy's batteries when there was a perfectly good energy source right here? He removed the rubber plug from his cranial jack.

"Okay, Lir," he whispered, as he prepared to jack in. "If anyone comes, let me know, okay? I shouldn't be long, but I don't want them finding out what I'm up to." He plugged the cord into his jack.

Liranym opened his mouth to ask precisely how he was supposed to warn Master of anyone arriving, but realized he was too late. Master's body slumped against the wall, but gently. His eyes closed, his lips parted slightly.

Liranym watched Master for a moment, noticing a twitch once in a while but otherwise no movement to show Master was anything but asleep. He settled back, ears open, eyes on Master, enjoying the brief, false sense of freedom from the room.

Alex's avatar, a retro new-wave sort of punk guy with flame-red and flame-shaped hair, dressed in denim, chains, and leather, looked over the icons representing the innards of the Game Guy. It all seemed to be in order.

Alex had taken a semester each in Jerryrigging/Repair and Hardware/Software Modifications. The Game Guy might have started as a Sontenga toy, but the guts of it were definitely no longer factory standard.

He whistled a diagnostic routine, and let the notes float of ftowards the superstructure. While the melody continued, searching for wrongness, Alex called up a mirror to look his own avatar over.

If only I could look like this in real life, he mused... Little more muscular, combat boots, canine teeth able to break bricks, hair like fire instead of piss. Well, no provision in whimpering. Get to work, Alexei.

He got a message from his body that it had been touched... he expanded the mirror to look at his body. Lir had touched him on the knee, apparently testing the defenses. Alex returned enough consciousness to his body long enough to say --

"Okay, Lir, if you really need to warn me, just smack me on the leg, okay?"

--words so sluggish coming out of a mouth of flesh, skinny body like lead, Alex was so glad to return to the artificial world. He could be so much better here. He had friends here, even if they were artificial too. It gave him an artificial self-esteem.

Ah! Back to his flame-haired punk form. The diagnostic reported back; no problems detected. Alex couldn't find any in his avatar either. Next up was the connections...

No, nothing else there either. Hm. Looked like Lir was one of the lucky few who couldn't handle the VR input. Except...

Except it didn't feel right. Nobody had that kind of reaction, even the ones who never were able to handle the really intrusive stuff. Alex had earned his early bachelor's degree by actual study and hard work, not grade alteration, and he remembered what the security classes had said about reactions like that.

Certain people who were deemed high-security were given a partial, well, virus for lack of a better term. Nowadays just swearing you told the truth wasn't enough; cyber could be used to verify accuracy, make sure you told the truth. It was standard in most state courtrooms now. And to fight it -- and the possibility that some punk like Alex would attempt to tinker in someone's head for fun or torture -- some people, those with serious secrets to hide, got the virus.

It was very simple, really. Just enough cyber in the head to keep the virus alive. If you tried to do any kind of VR or interactive cyber at all -- even games -- it would kick in and try to shut you down. If the input wasn't removed, the virus would shut you down permanently. End of story. Spies couldn't tell, criminals couldn't spill. That kind of thing.

So why would Lir have a similar reaction? What could he possibly know that would demand it? Unless the weird tastes of the guests counted.

He scuffed his boot against the virtual floor. Another note: he looked up: this time a breeze had brushed the curtain against his arm. Dammit. He set himself to ignore small things like that and keep open for a smack on the leg.

Well, let's go take a look and see just how much it costs to get here, Alex thought. And maybe we'll get another room once we know how to get the tickets, ja? One with female servants.

He slipped into the grate door that led to the patch cables hooked into the access panel. So easy... he launched himself off his right foot and flew without wings down the tunnel to the gate.

Liranym, frowning, watched Master. It had been perhaps a few seconds since Master had jacked in. Lir had just tapped him on the knee, and Master had opened his left eye, looking maybe drunk, and slurred: "Okay, Lirrrr, if you rreally need t'warnme, jus'zmack me onne leg, 'kay?" And then he'd closed the eye again and his head lolled against the wall, facing away from the curtain, which blew against his master's leg.

It was the creepiest sight he'd ever seen. Like watching a corpse talking. Some of the other slaves said their masters or mistresses were into drugs, though, and Liranym could only guess this was what it was like.

He heard voices. Straining to hear, Liranym thought he could hear one of the supervisors' soft voices. They didn't particularly care what the masters and slaves did together, anywhere in the complex. But the supervisors probably would take a dim view of whatever it was Master was doing.

And for all that, even if he warned Master, he'd seen what Master looked like when detaching. They'd know something was up, even those few seconds would be too long.

The voices were getting closer. Supervisor and someone else, didn't recognize who. Liranym gently pulled the edge of the towel off Master's lap and on top of the torture device Master called a Game Guy. He began kneading Master's exposed thigh, caressing, massaging. Still listening, he glanced down... and smiled. It looked like not all of Master was dead to the world, after all.

Liranym wondered how much he could get away with here. If this was a supervisor coming around, he'd better make it look good. At least Master's head was turned away from the curtain...

The panel hadn't even had any security on it. His avatar laughed. This was too easy... but it was bound to be harder inside. It always was. Challenge, that would be good. What could the real world possibly offer that could compare with the thrill of virtuality?

Alex continued blithely on. This wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, tops, and that was being ultra generous. Ideally he should be back in the real world in less than two, particularly since he wouldn't be disturbed by his body in the meantime, unless Lir hit him and woke him up.

Stranger and stranger, Alex thought. His avatar looked at the assortment of icons in the valley below. They must never have thought an actual 'decker would come in here.

Then again, I never thought I'd be in a place like this, he mused. VR's enough for me. If other deckers are like me -- although that's assuming a lot -- they'd rather do virtual than real. And this place, this "Palace", is based on reality. So maybe I'm right, maybe they never actually thought someone would break in.

He sighed. That was still no reason to be sloppy. The very openness of the place might be to lead the unwary into some serious ice.

He took a reading on his physical body, whistling up a readout screen on current biorhythms and other activity. It was experiencing some weird effects, but nothing downright dangerous, said the program. Maybe a side effect of this place, he thought. All the more reason to get on with it and go.

He skidded down the slope into the smog-choked asphalt valley. Where to go first, payroll, guest records, or library? Library was probably where everything ended up.

In the valley were drones, shaped like old headed mannequins, with plastic hair and wearing breathing masks. Alex wasn't sure what the masks were for. He whistled up a Costa's hummingbird and set it to check out the drones. The hummer icon was for a small, fast, hardly noticeable analysis program.

The hummer blurred back to him with its data. It circled his head in random patterns, occasionally stopping to face him, as he looked over what he had.

Very basic admin programs, that's what the drones were. The masks were part of an identifier program. He studied the ID program and cobbled together a false ID of his own. Strapping the resultant mask onto his avatar, he stepped out into the street, the hummer sitting on his shoulder.

No alarm yet. Moving purposefully but carefully, he walked down the wide yet somehow claustrophobic streets. The mask seemed to be working; he wasn't attracting any attention, anyway. Well, none that he could see. Silent alarms were still a possibility.

A stained stucco building was his goal at the end of the street: a warehouse for all information to be found on this system. He should be able to get whatever he wanted in there. Maybe even a room transfer. Lir was nice and all, but what Alex really wanted was to lounge around and get waited on hand and foot while he watched the latest trids, and that water room looked inhospitable to electronics.

Master's body arched, not much, but enough to be seen. Liranym was grateful for that. Even with his eyes closed, he knew the supervisor and someone else were watching, the curtain had been drawn back.

He continued ministering to his master's cock, slowly taking it all in, gently sucking, then withdrawing and flicking his tongue over the head. He kept his eyes shut; better to pretend they were both so wrapped up in this that neither of them noticed the audience.

This was too easy! Alex would laugh if he dared. Well, okay, for the average person it would be difficult. But he hadn't spent the last several years of his life jacked into an artificial world for nothing.

The system didn't even know he was there. He moved through the icons of files, old records, lists of guests and customers. The mannequins never even saw him, thanks to his ID mask. Good thing this was in VR, because he'd never get away with this in real life.

He nosed around what the Costa's hummer (set loose again) said was a master listing, despite its appearance as a potted hydrangea bush. The data was written on the leaves. Real cute. He wondered why his program decided a plant was an accurate icon of a master list. Oh well.

Kneeling beside one of the larger leaves, he looked it over without touching it. Interesting... he glanced from title to title. Most were dull sounding, along the lines of APR25JBLST and 939SUMM and the like. Accounting stuff, from the sound of it.

Others... well, there were some that could be names.

...TRGN_prp_KS9929
DTRX_blk_GM5050
MARK_bld_GM2631
LRNM_wht_VG3025
SENC_ryl_OP7444
JCHM_dnm_DK8812...

LRNM_wht_VG3025, that could be Lir, well, Liranym, and the white key he'd picked up. So what did VG3025 mean? Very Good something or other? But the other titles didn't match that coding theory.

Alex followed the leaf vein to its end, where he found the number of the subdirectory -- in this case, the filing cabinet icon -- where the LRNM file would be. He looked up. Not too far away, and frankly not that heavily guarded... although it was a busy area. He'd have to get the info quick before some mannequin decided it wanted a look too.

Master's outside hand twitched and the fingers clenched momentarily. Liranym stroked the insides of Master's thighs, kneading, massaging.

He felt the breeze as the curtain fell back, and opened his eyes and listened to the footsteps recede and the quiet voices begin again some way down the hall.

Emergency averted. He circled his fingers around Master's cock and looked up. The mostly dry blond hair fell down in loose spikes and tendrils around Master's face.

He was attractive, in his own way, Liranym thought. Someone like him might easily be assigned to a room here. Remove the cyberware... but keep him tousled like this. Too much polishing and some gems lose their luster. Master wasn't beautiful, but like this, at rest... Liranym felt warm toward him. There were worse masters. Some were cruel, some were into "games". Liranym had already forgiven master for the botched VR attempt, as it wasn't intentional.

Well, then, didn't he owe it to Master to make sure his visit was enjoyable? He smiled, and lowered his head again.

Scheiss scheiss scheiss--- Alex repeated to himself like a mantra.

The file itself was easy. The security here was laughable. What he'd found made him stop laughing. He'd even checked some of the other files, looking for confirmation, or lack of it. Boy, had he gotten confirmation.

No wonder the place was on a closed system. No wonder it cost so much to get a room here.

His avatar raced back to his body, the Costa's hummer already shut down and safely stored.

Stupid, stupid, he changed his mantra. You think you're the hottest 'decker to ever sling wire, don't you? Then how come you couldn't see it earlier?

Although this explained a lot about Lir. Did Lir even know? He had to know something, he didn't look totally ignorant. Especially if he really was a hetaero, he had to have some kind of intelligence.

Alex had ignored the increasingly distressed noises  rom his bio program until now, when he was practically back in his own head anyway. The body was simply a vehicle for the intelligence, he'd never paid it a whole lot of attention when he slung wire. After the facepaint incident he was a lot more careful about having his body guarded, though. What the hell was going on now?

He returned to his body--

Master made a sort of strangled noise in his throat.

Looking up, Lir saw the wide-open gray-blue eyes, staring at nothing, the lips drawn back, mouth half-open in a stunned, confused expression.

Alex had no clue what was happening to him and only a vague idea of what Lir was doing, sitting close like that. All his senses were overwhelmed with the, the feeling, the oh-God-what-is-it-don't-let-it-stop--

He cried out, flashes of explosive color searing his vision even as he closed his eyes, fingers gouging into the maroon leather, shaking as heat rushed over him, parts of his body reacting in ways he'd never quite experienced before.

"Oh God, ohgod, ohgod," he panted, over and over. He suddenly clutched at Lir's head between his legs, tightened his fingers in the green locks, hunched over and waited until he dared open his eyes again.

(Liranym was quietly pleased with himself. It seemed he'd done well in his first actual performance.)

"Oh God," Alex murmured again. His legs felt like jello. Most of him felt like jello. His whole body twitched, once. There was some very thick fog in his brain right now, and he wanted to just fall asleep right here. But this wasn't the best place. Bed. He needed bed.

Something else was bothering him, come to that. He slowly opened one eye and waited for the world to stop spinning, which it did with surprising promptness. He whole-body-twitched again, though not as strongly. He looked down, using both eyes, and then sat up so hard he bonked his head on the alcove wall. The makeshift clip came loose from the access panel.

"Ow! Lir, what're you-- you-- what--"

Lir looked at him as though waiting for the next clue in a game of charades.

Alex looked down at himself. He could no longer be described as wearing the towel.

"Lir," he said in a surprisingly steady voice, he thought, considering what he'd just gone through, "what did you do to me?"

Lir told him.

Alex took a deep breath and tried to make sense of his currently very mixed-up mind.

"Why?" was his next question.

Lir stared at him. He opened and shut his mouth, then tried again. "Someone was coming by, and I knew you didn't want to be caught in your... work. That was the only thing I could do to throw off suspicion, the only reason you would look like that. But also, Master, because I wished to. You have been kind to me," he placed his hands on the tops of Alex's thighs, "and I wished to show my affection and gratitude."

Alex thought Lir was laying it on a bit thick, especially after the brainburn he'd gotten from the Game Guy, but at the same time he, Alex, felt pretty woozy.

"I think I want to go back to the room," he said, and tried to stand up. "Ack--"

It didn't take too much longer to get back to the room than it had to reach the alcove. About the time they got back, Alex's legs felt steady enough to hold him up securely. Typical, Alex thought. Flesh is weak, the body betrays you. Particularly this one, he added with a nasty look at his lower half.

He fell on the bed facedown, setting the 'deck next to him. Must be the jetlag, he told himself. That must be why I'm so muzzy-headed and tired... feel so weird... but it's a good kind of weird...

"Do you want anything, Master?" Lir asked.

Alex winced and heaved himself up enough to unspool the wires from his upper arm. "Yeah. Put these away. I think I'm gonna take a nap, Lir."

He dropped his head on the pillow again. He remembered, for an instant, what he'd wanted to ask Lir about, but then gave in to sleep.

Alex awoke, heard the lapping of water, and for a moment thought he was on the Campari on one of those mystery cruises. He'd been on one, once, when he was very young, and mostly had read a lot of books in his cabin, but the purser was nice and showed him all around the ship. For a few years after that Alex had wanted to work on a ship when he'd grown up.

But -- as he looked around -- it was the room again, in the Palace resort. Okay. He could live with that.

He was lying on his right side, facing out across the shorter end of the room, and watched the light, and amused himself with different filters on his eyes while he went over the day's events. Or was it the previous day? He wasn't sure how long he'd slept.

Lir was nowhere in sight, and Alex decided to just lie still for a moment and get his bearings. There were a few things he needed to think about.

One, he was hungry. The food here was undoubtedly gourmet, which meant it would be stuff he didn't like, but maybe he could get them to just whip up something easy like a meatball sandwich. Or steak. That would go down well -- steak, or perhaps venison, some hydroponic vege, maybe a mature Bordeaux to wash it down. They should be able to handle that. It wasn't like he had a simple meal like that at home every day or anything. His mouth began watering.

Two, he'd found some very interesting files while poking around, and the fact that he was not now in jail or being charged with electronic intrusion meant he (probably) hadn't been caught. But it was stuff he'd have to talk to Lir about. Where was he, anyway?

Three, speaking of Lir, Alex would have to ask him about that little... event right after jackout. That was the most amazing feeling Alex had ever felt in his twenty years. Better than VR porn by a long shot. He'd never been impressed with porn, all the program really did was show you pix while sending an electron stream to certain parts of your pleasure cortex, and after a couple of tries he'd given up on it. If this was what sex was all about, he'd reasoned, it was highly overrated and therefore to be ignored in favor of other cybernetic activities, like slinging wire through someone else's bank account or figuring out how to totally destroy the public image of the popular kids in high school.

But this... Lir had really amazed him. If that was sex, actual sex, that was something else again. Alex wondered if it would feel the same the second time.

Come to that, would there be a second time? No doubt Lir would try it. Alex knew what was up with Lir now. So, did little Alexei take advantage of the situation, or choose the high road and possibly miss out on some more of Lir's attentions?

Oo, tough choice. He frowned.

Four, he really needed to find a lavatory. It had been quite a long time now and the body, fickle thing that it was, was demanding something be done. It was probably what woke him up.

He reset his eye filters back to normal and sat up. Lir had just come back from -- somewhere? -- with Alex's clothes, all dried, pressed and in the case of the nao shirt, proofed out against rust.

"Hello, Master," Lir said, as he set the clothing on the bed. "Did you sleep well?"

Alex realized his lower half was still uncovered, and he drew up his legs lotus-style and pulled the hem of his scarlet and blue tunic down as far as it would go, which wasn't far.

"Y-ess," he said slowly. "Lir, I need to speak to you about something."

"Indeed, Master." Lir sat on the edge of the bed, all attentive.

"But first..." Alex began fidgeting. Now that he was awake, something was demanding attention. "Um, is there, you know..."

There was. It was behind another bank of aquaria. The whole water thing was really beginning to get on Alex's nerves. It was fun for a while, he supposed, but not something he'd want to be in for more than a day or so. After that he'd rather see what else was new.

He got Lir to hand in the pants, and after rolling the cuffs way up to prevent that soggy drenched feeling around his calves, went back out and said down on the bed.

"Lir, why didn't you tell me the truth about you?"

Lir looked puzzled. "The truth?"

"About what you are, who you are. What this place is." Alex waved an arm, the wide sleeve like a small wing. "What your function is here."

"Master, I don't understand. I told you what my function is here. I am yours to command. This place is designed for your comfort, or, at least, the comfort of the one who originally requested the key," he gently reminded.

Alex took a deep breath, counted to five, and let it out again. "Lir, that's not what I mean. What I mean is, how you're here for -- for sex."

"Master!" Lir looked reproachful. "We are not here simply for carnal pleasures, although it could seem that way. I am simply here to pamper you in whatever way you wish. If that includes sexual pleasure..." he let the sentence fade with a half-shrug. "I am here for whatever needs you may require."

"Dammit, Lir... How long have you been here?"

"Eh? All my life, Master. The Palace is my world."

"Uh huh. And how old are you?"

Lir looked blank.

Alex grabbed him by the shoulders, forced his face so close to Lir's that their noses bumped. Liranym began to close his eyes in anticipation of the expected kiss, when Master barked "Eyes open!"

Alex zoomed in as much as possible, maximum magnification, until the cyber warned him it couldn't do much more and tears were beginning to spring to his eyes despite the lack of pain he felt. Down into the artificial, organic, vat-grown eyes. Down deeper, into the basal tissue. Alex knew what he was looking for, the same sort of thing he expected to find here was also in his little finger, the one that had been regrown in an amniotic vat.

There it was.

LRNMVG3025 model s/t s;;ped gpo,,rfo[pdd1/3/5/exe.dot.com/boomroom/prpty Kitsune Palace Prod.

Alex jerked back, snapping his eyes back to normal and detecting a slight whine as he did so. Gotta have them checked soon, he filed in his mental notebook. He looked at Lir with wary eyes.

"It's not just your eyes," he said, as he rubbed his nose and waited for the room to right itself. "Or your hair. It's you. You're entirely artificial. You're vat-grown, a clone, Lir, you're a clone of someone." His voice grew higher.

Liranym digested this. "With... all due respect, Master," he hesitated. "...should that matter?"

"Hell yes!" Alex stared at the, the thing in front of him. A clone!

Of course, he thought. If he'd been grown here, they wouldn't tell him about clones and the outside world. "Lir," Alex's voice trembled. "Don't you see? You were someone else once, you were part of them, and whoever runs this place got hold of some of them -- it's damn easy, we're dropping DNA all over the place all the time --" Alex suddenly realized that it could happen to him, too -- "-- and they cloned you. Him. Whoever. And they gave you a new name, and taught you new things. I mean, you're not him now, but--" He shuddered.

"Master," Lir said in a quiet voice, "Again, should this matter? As you said yourself, I'm a different person. I may be genetically identical to whoever I was cloned from, but mentally, physically, emotionally, I am different. Identical twins are the same genetically, they are organic, naturally-born clones, and nobody complains... to my knowledge," he amended. "Why does this matter to you, that I happen to be, as it were, an artifical twin?"

"Because... Lir, you don't know this, of course they wouldn't tell you, but you're property." Alex rubbed his eye with the palm of his hand. He was getting mild damage reports from that last stunt with the eyes. Nothing serious, but he didn't dare
try anything more strenuous than normal vision until he had a tuneup. Last thing he wanted was to go under the iron again.

"Twins are normal because they're born normal. You're a clone. You're not even a slave. You're property like a piece of furniture, legally. And you probably cost them a fortune to raise, so they have to charge a lot for people to come here and... and fuck the furniture." Alex ran a shaky hand through his hair. "Lir, in the outside world, clones are banned. The only cloning that's allowed is for regrowing accident parts." He held up his left hand. "My finger, here, we were screwing around in shop class and I cut it off with a circular saw. If we weren't rich -- my family,that is -- we  couldn't afford to have a new one grown from a sample of my tissues. God knows I had plenty of blood available at the time," he made a sour face, "they got enough sample that they dumped it in a vat and in a week I had a new finger ready to stick back on. The nerves've never worked right, but I'm whole... kinda." He tried to make a fist; his little finger was noticeably stiffer.  "But, Lir, you were grown entirely in a vat. That's how come you don't know how old you are, I bet. But you were decanted here -- y'can't say 'born' with a clone -- and raised here. And they marked you, Lir. Hell, if these eyes can see it, so can anyone with a decent set of peekers. I saw the data string, you belong to this place. They can legally do anything they want to you, even kill you, because you aren't a person, you're property. And I bet no one will say a thing, because just by existing you're proving someone's broken the law. I bet if the government ever found out about this place all of you would be destroyed rather than used as evidence of illegal cloning." Alex finally ran out of things to say. He dropped his hands in his lap and tugged at the hem again.

There was a long silence.

Liranym wasn't sure what to say about this. He'd always known he was a clone; all the boys and girls in the Palace were. And, as Master said, DNA was taken from the promising guests to help replenish stock. Liranym himself hadn't been given the order to get some from Master yet, but it was possible.

At the same time, it wasn't a bad life, at least not so far. Some of them had terrible masters, and no one said anything. The other clones would comfort the one who was suffering, at least as far as such activity was allowed. The male and female clones weren't allowed together; and they'd all been rendered sterile to put patrons at ease. Some of the clones reportedly had extremely good relationships with their masters, and there were rumors that some masters had offered to buy their assigned servants, but nobody knew if this was true, because no one could remember a clone ever leaving... except by death.

"This is sick," Alex croaked. "Twisted... if they're going to clone you they at least ought to let you know what your status is..."

"Is that the kindest thing, Master?" Lir said. "Some of them are perfectly happy here, I think, without knowing what the outside world is."

"Do you know about outside, Lir? Do you?"

"Ah... some," Lir managed. "It's very hot outside, there's a desert. And outside is very big, because guests come from all over the world. And of course we're taught some things from outside, because we'd be very ignorant otherwise."

"Who's the president then?"

"Eh? The president? Um... I don't know..."

"Wrong answer every which way, Lir," Alex shook his head. "Your question should've been 'which president?' or 'president of what?' " He sighed. "Oh, Lir, what am I gonna do..." He flopped back, arms behind his head.

"What are you going to do?" Lir questioned, then stretched out so he was on his stomach, elbows propping him up, so he could look Alex directly in the face. "I know what we could do..."

"Lir, don't. I don't want to do it, or anything else, if it's something you're required to do." Alex turned his face away. "I don't want you doing it just because of what you are and who my family is."

Lir quirked his mouth into a "uh-huh" kind of face. "And who are they?"

Alex turned back to face him. "The Wagners -- oh yeah, I forgot, you wouldn't know, would you." He arched his back, tretching, and then relaxed again. "We're a big name in the RedSeTac area, but I was born in Portland. Anyway... really stuffy, really rich, well, at least pretty well off, Russo-Germanic, the lot of us. A little bit of other stuff in there too but mostly East Euro. My sister Trinka's getting married soon and you'd think it was the first marriage ever performed. Everyone's making such a fuss over it, and I don't understand why." His voice trembled. "So, because of who we are, sometimes people try to, you know, -- jeez, I'm touch hungry," he interrupted  himself, as his stomach growled loudly, "--sometimes people try to be nice to me just
because of my family."

"If you'd like some food..."

"Yeah, I would. Beouf bourguignonne or Wellington, either's fine, light hydrovege, mature Bourdeaux of at least ten years' vintage, and -- wait, skip the vege, maybe a small salad Nicoise? small enough for one, I mean -- forty-clove-of-garlic soup, and maybe some French bread... we'll see how I feel when dessert comes around. What?" He looked confused at Lir's expression.

Liranym wasn't sure if he should applaud or be appalled. Some very radical tastes there, and lots of them. And he wasn't sure he'd want to kiss Master again after soup like that. "The plant matter's grown here, right? Should be fresh, then."

Alex had chosen the soup on purpose. He wasn't sure if he dared let Lir attempt another kiss. He might like it too much, and he wasn't sure if he should feel that way.

Alex sipped the wine, barely enough to wet his tongue. It had been a mistake to order it. The bottle was tantalizingly close, and the urge was there: to drink the whole thing down, ask for more, or for vodka, keep going until oblivion settled in and when he woke up, his head would hurt, but everything would be settled, Daddy-O'd have greased the right palms to make sure little Alexei Wagner's drunken status or exploits didn't end up public knowledge. Of course, the lectures would come later, but the darkness was calling right now.

No, he thought. I'm stronger than that. I have to keep awake and aware while I'm here... I can get berked back home. I don't need to finish the glass...

He calmed his breathing, set the glass down, and scratched at the corner of his eye with the tip of the vat-grown finger.

Lir was sitting some distance away, and from his reproachful expression and occasional fidgeting, Alex guessed there would be no vampires in the entire wing of the complex tonight after that soup. Alex himself couldn't smell it, but then, his sense of smell seemed to be going downhill in his old age anyway.

What to do, that was the problem, he considered as he attacked the food. This whole thing was very wrong. Clones were wrong, and that was all there was to that. So, that meant the place had to be taken down somehow.

How, then. Alex was smart enough to recognize that his immediate prospects were none and nil. All he had was his deck and his intellect. Since this place was a closed system, he couldn't do any major cyber or computer damage to them. He wasn't big and imposing, and all he had in the way of contacts was a family that probably could care less if he dropped off the face of the earth.

No, that wasn't quite true. They'd at least want to find out what happened, cover it up if it was embarrassing, and try to make it sound good if it wasn't. Given his current status, in a love-slave hotel... well, enough of that.

Any hope from his family? Not likely. Alex tore off a piece of bread and chewed thoughtfully. Karl would be madder than hell. Katrina... well, Trinka'd be upset too, probably, but then, it was a surprise gift, after all. Alex figured he had more to worry about from his brother, who had paid out the cash in the first place. Huh, had Karl ever been here before? Shoulda looked while I was in the system...

Speaking of the system... Alex looked Lir over with a critical eye as he reached for the wineglass. Okay, so he was a clone. And this place did cost quite a bit per visit. It still didn't add up. Literally -- doing the math in his head, Alex determined each clone would have to, uh, "service" one paying guest per day, every day, all year long, for at least ten years, just to recoup the money from the cloning and upbringing. That formula presumed you raised the clone from an infant, and unless this place also went into kiddie porn, started service at around 15 or 16 years. Meanwhile you had an extremely long time to raise and train someone until they were ready for work. It didn't make sense -- why clone someone and wait for decades?

Maybe they didn't wait.

He realized he'd drunk all the wine in the glass. He hurled it with sudden ferocity down the room, where it shattered against the aquaria and the glass fell into the water, nearly invisible. Lir startled; he said nothing, but watched Alex with wary eyes, and drew himself up a little, as though ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

Of course, Alex thought. Cloning just gave you a body, it didn't give you a mind. A clone had to develop just like anyone else, if you wanted it to have a personality: it had to be raised like a natural-born. Most of the original cloning news hadn't taken that into account, and everyone had assumed it meant you could clone someone and instantly have "another you" alive and well, with all your memories. At the time that hadn't been true, and for that matter it still wasn't. There was no way you could copy someone's entire memory and brain pattern. But you could write a program...

What was the word for them? Burukun? Something like that... in his classes they'd been called puppets, or sometimes marionettes, or even carrionettes if someone was in a nasty mood. An artificial personality. Enough to seem real, it had training and knowledge of language, and sometimes some false memories, but no capacity to learn. Puppets were banned too. All you needed was a chipslot to put the puppet program in, and ta-da, the puppet took over. You could write a puppet program that said the sky was purple and the sun was blue and every person was actually a big talking fish, and when it was inserted, the person would walk and talk and seem normal, except they'd believe the sky was purple and the sun was blue and would refer to people as talkative trout.

Puppet programs were banned too, because it helped fuel crime: make a puppet that believed it was a yakuza head, or a puppet that believed it was the latest hot actress, except now of course she was sex-crazy...

So... why not put a puppet into a clone?

Alex shivered. So Lir wasn't even that human. He was a program.

A moment later he considered that. He'd always gotten along better with programs than people... and to be honest, Lir was pretty decent, for being an artificial personality in a vat-grown body. Alex felt comforted, somehow. He knew he wasn't particularly likeable, since it had been repeated to him at an early age, but at least he had Lir to fall back on.

Yeah, right. As soon as he left, Lir's program would be wiped, maybe, or at least put on file. They'd put in a backup of the blank puppet, or maybe a whole new one. Maybe for the next guest, Lir would be Tryton, merman of the room, with a different set of skills and tastes and ideas...

Which was wrong too, providing Alex was right about the puppet thing. The personalities should at least be allowed to grow... except puppets couldn't. It was part of them, that they never learned.

I could make him learn, Alex considered. I could tinker with his program. Give him some heuristic abilities, so he would learn and grow, I --

I am so incredibly selfish.

He dipped a toe in the water. Here he was, about to go on some big crusade against the Palace, and within minutes he was ready to take Lir with him and program him to be forever friends. If he was going to really fight this place, he shouldn't try to take Lir along to the outside world.

But I can't fight this place right now, Alex struggled with himself. I'm too weak. I don't have anything to work with. Oh, God, what do I do?, he prayed. I want to do right, but I also want things to go my way. How can I do both? Help Lir and the others here and survive? If I threaten anything, they'll kill me, or worse yet make me a puppet, and I'd be here until I wore out or they killed me and I'd never know anything again.

He continued his prayer in like manner for some minutes, knowing he wouldn't be directly answered, but getting some comfort from the ritual. He continued to eat.

Afterwards, he proposed playing a game. Lir was calmer now, and proved good at chess, making Alex work for a win.

Alex saw only one move open to him, which made him wonder what he'd missed, and his subconscious finally filed a report on all the information he'd pushed back there.

"That's it," he murmured.

"Hm?" Lir swirled some wine in his glass. Master had said he, Liranym, could have the rest of it, though the green-haired boy could tell it was not entirely freely given.

"I know what I can bargain with," Alex said to himself.

He stood up and collected his things together into the green backpack.

"Master?"

"Lir, I'm going to try something." Alex took a deep breath. "If it works, well, you'll get to stop calling me Master, and at least once in my life I'll have done something right. If not..." He exhaled and stared at the ceiling. "We'll never know it, either of us."

Alex opened the door and left the room. Confused and not a little frightened, Lir followed.

Alex returned to the alcove he'd worked in before, Lir trailing after him.

"Okay, Lir," Alex said, working to hook up again as fast as possible. "Keep an eye out, but don't... you know... do anything to me this time. Okay?" He slotted as many game and movie chips as he could into the deck. "This is gonna be fast, at least it should be, and I'm going to need your help on this, in terms of guarding me. Okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, he jacked in.

Liranym was very, very worried. Obviously Master was doing something against the Palace; something that would mean freedom, at least according to Master, for Liranym and maybe the others.

Liranym couldn't quite comprehend what Master thought he could do. Free all the clones? The green-haired boy shook his head. Master himself had said they were nonpersons, property of whomever commissioned them. And none of them would know how to function in the Outside.

He waited, rocking slightly back and forth. This time he would do nothing to Master, even if a supervisor were to come by.

This was going to be a risky venture, to say the least. Alex had stripped his deck down to the core for this one -- both time and space were of the essence. No games, no movies, no more filter in his deck. It would be interesting to see how the Palace pictured itself under its own filter.

Strip-mining the deck had hurt more than he expected -- one by one reformatting the chips; dispersing who-knew how many hours of his life in games out into the void. Still, this was all that mattered now. He had to rescue Lir, and then, somehow, himself.

It was time. Alex rezzed his persona and cautiously approached the system's representation of the Palace. He brought up his disguise gently -- no need to attract undue attention, just a regular customer inquiry, ja? Presuming there was such a thing... Movement from the Palace caught his eye. Impossibly huge spotlights swiveled on the Palace's towers, pinning him in their actinic glare. His  isguise glimmered and flickered tenuously, but held. Their search programs wouldn't find him now.

Maybe this wouldn't be so difficult after all. Alex hovered through the entryway, which limned red, then green as he passed through. He floated into the antechamber, waiting to make his move. KITSUNE PALACE PRODUCTIONS hovered near the ceiling in dark steel letters, with a stylized fox head logo just underneath. Dodging the watchful eyes of the cameras studding the room, Alex color-cycled his punk persona to pitchblack and melted into the shadows.

He called up his analysis program, which swirled into existence as a crystal ball in his hands. Alex shook his head. He shouldv'e kept the filter; these default settings were too damn bland. He peered intently through the crystal at the wall. It appeared as an imposing mass of reinforced ferroconcrete, at least security rating Delta, and anti-stealthed to boot. If he tried breaking it, every guard in the Palace would hear him. This was going to take some work. Of course, he didn't need to break the wall; he only needed to get through it. Alex rotated the crystal ball and tapped it twice. A system map displayed within. Alex studied the rotating image, pondering his options.

He tapped the crystal again, the current sector magnfiying in response. Yes, that would do it, and very cleanly as well. Alex drew forth a quill and scroll, copying the sector map, with one slight modification. He then collapsed the crystal inward, and readied himself.

He called up his heavy attack program. Instead of an 8-inch assault cannon appearing in his hands, aluminum gauntlets wrapped around his wrists. This... was not good.

Putting that into scale meant the Palace possessed truly black countermeasures which he really didn't want to encounter. No time to falter now, though. He tore his disguise program free and melded it with his gauntlets. His hands flickered and shimmered in and out of existence. Perfect. He  concentrated, summoning forth the scroll, which he juggled from hand to flickering hand. Seconds later, it synchronized with him, phasing in cycles. He counted the interval, and plunged his insubstantial hands into the wall, depositing the altered scroll within. As he drew his hands forth, the wall buckled and shifted, bricks dispersing and dissolving into glass.

Alex climbed through the new system window. Maybe he should've been an architect after all. The core system files stood before him, some thousands of old paper books arrayed in high hardwood shelves. This made a lot more sense than his own filter's hydrangea bush. Alex whistled up his hummingbird again, which sped at a dizzying rate between the maze of shelves.

Unnoticed in the darkness above, a seven-tailed fox sat grinning at what she surveyed.

Kitsune peered down from her perch, smiling at the goings-on. It was interesting watching these free-willed boys, and all of their histrionics, but a line had to be drawn somewhere. After all, this was her domain. Kitsune barked softly, and a shadowy figure detached itself from the wall. This would do nicely, she thought, even it was rather unpleasant to watch. Kitsune smiled, and withdrew from the system as the iron black vampire floated down from the rafters.

The hummingbird squeaked excitedly, and then cut off just as quickly. Alex hadn't expected to find the file this fast. Fortune was certainly with him today. He flew over to where his hummingbird was... had been. In its place, an immense figure towered above him, black as night, with glowing ruby eyes and fangs of surgical steel. In complete silence, it lunged for him, hooked fingers tearing his crystal away from him.

Alex reeled in surprise, backing away from the construct as it engulfed his crystal. The vampire engulfed the sphere, draining it of its energy until it dissolved into flickering shards. And now it was larger yet. With its reach extended, the vampire clawed forth another program as Alex fled. After consuming his quill and scrolls, the vampire loomed higher than the shelves, able to fix its baleful eye on Alex from above.

This was very, very bad. Alex was running out of programs, and the construct wouldn't stop until it had consumed everything active, including his personality. At that point he'd be a puppet just like Lir, and probably the owner of this place would use him like one, too.

The vampire sundered shelves with its unholy strength, tearing a path towards Alex. Alex looked down at his flimsy gauntlets and tried to think. There had to be something he could do. Alex rummaged through his bag of tricks and smiled. The vampire was single-minded at least, and maybe that could be used against it.

Alex pulled out a virus program and dashed it to the floor. The canister shattered, and a little rabbit hopped out. It padded over to a bookshelf and began nibbling on a tasty book.

A second later another rabbit appeared, and then another, and another. Soon the room was awash in rabbits, each chewing at its own book. The vampire hesitated momentarily, and began to feast on the rabbits. Alex took advantage of the distraction to return to the books of Lir's files. He reached for his copy program -- which had been eaten by the vampire! Alex cursed roundly in German and began to pile the books into his bag. There was barely enough room, but somehow Alex managed.

He ran, dodging rabbits underfoot, avoiding their damaging nibbles.

Behind him, the vampire continued feeding. It was truly immense now, and was scattering books, bunnies, and shelves in its wake. The Palace began to shake. Alex ran as fast as he could. The vampire was still gorging on bunnies, and was threatening to overload and collapse the entire system. Flying like a jet, Alex tore through the Palace gates and out of the system and back out...

Master came back to himself after five minutes, which rather startled Liranym. He thought the blond 'decker would have taken less time.

"Lir," Alex said, once the world righted itself, "You've got to check in after all this, don't you?"

Lir nodded, watching Alex carefully. Alex began packing up his equipment, inspecting some of the tiny chips closely before putting them in slot cases on the back of the Game Guy.

"And give some kind of report, right?"

Lir nodded again.

Alex reached out and ran a hand through Lir's hair. "So, you'll have to tell them everything that I told you, and what I did, correct?"

"I'm afraid so, Master," Lir apologized. "I could be punished if I didn't."

Alex sighed in regret. His fingers traced the green-haired boy's ear, and Lir closed his eyes for a moment. They flew open again as the clone felt something in his ear canal. "What--"

"I'm sorry too, Lir," Alex apologized. He grabbed Lir's head with his other hand and jammed his little finger, the one grown in a vat, into Lir's ear until he heard a tiny click.

"Program LRNM white VG3025, report status," Alex said in a quiet, calm voice.

"Program LRNM white VG3025, uninjured, ready for report," Lir said in a monotone very like Alex's.

"Override Kitsune, code lotus black red eight niner ferret," Alex continued.

"Override password accepted. Awaiting orders."

"Program LRNM is to make the following modifications to record of experience in the last--" Alex took a guess how long he'd been here "--forty-eight hours...."

*****Several Hours Later*****

Alex leaned back in the airline seat. First class, all the way. Of course, he shouldn't expect any different. This was how all Wagners were treated, even the black sheep...

He stroked the Game Guy cradled in his arm. There was no way he could fight the Palace right now, and he knew it. He was too weak and unknown; they could come after him in a heartbeat. Blackmail? They'd simply turn him into an accidental smear on a road somewhere. Or worse, he'd disappear ... and maybe end up "working" in the Palace himself, which was more frightening than death in some respects.

But in the future he could do something. It would take a while, maybe even years. And it would take brains, and money, and of course some luck, although one should manufacture luck whenever possible.

He'd have to work hard, Alex knew. But he could do it, with the help of what he was bringing home.

Mm, speaking of home... he'd better start working on a story about where he'd been the past day and a half. Almost two days now, really, when you included travel time.

Using the jet's telsat hookup, he carefully erased records of his own retinaprints, signatures, and other identifiers from the flight records, both inbound and outbound, and created some fairly believable artificial ones. No sense letting his movements be traced.

What else could he do? He thought for a moment, then buzzed for the air steward.

"Yes, sir?"

"Vodka, if you don't mind." Alex would have preferred brandy, but vodka, especially the strong-proof stuff, was a lot more noticeable to his nose.

"Ma'am, we found the trouble."

Kitsune looked up from the reports on her desk. She studied the technician before her. "Yes?"

The technician wasn't fazed. All these types thought they were the biggest badasses ever, but they couldn't do basic system maintenance at all. "You had a virus in there, a big one. Unfortunately one of your defense programs got locked up in it, and there was a lot of damage before we were able to break the whole thing down."

Kitsune had a sinking feeling. "What kind of virus?"

"Basic self-replicator, in our business we like to call it the Bunny Factory, 'cause it breeds like crazy, see?" The tech grinned. He thought it was pretty funny, but the boss lady didn't, so he shrugged it off and continued. "Anyway, there's been some file damage."

"Some?..."

"As in, I think there's been a lot. I'd say you need someone to go in there and see what needs fixing. A lot of files in your library were in the area of effect, if you will. I think maybe 75% or more have some kind of damage, there may be some stuff that's totally gone. I don't know if you ever backed up things like I recommended last time I was here, but--"

Kitsune listened with half her attention. If the puppets' personality files were damaged, each currently operating clone would have to be pulled out of service so a fresh copy could be made from the one in use. She hated that part; there was always a tiny chance that the whole personality would crash. People thought it was easy to create these things, but people were wrong, and her staff of puppet programmers weren't cheap.

She'd have to find out who this bastard was, that dared to break into her Palace and cause this trouble. She doubted they'd be dumb enough to come here under their own name, but it had to be someone who had been here in the last day. Most guests didn't stay longer than a week, tops. It might take time, but she'd get them, somehow, and if they'd done anything to threaten her setup here, they would pay.

*****Three Months Later*****

Alex loosened the tie around his neck. Figured, ties would of course come back into fashion just when he'd begun a career. Typicalla.

"Eya, hello," he called out as the palmswitch-operated door opened. No one answered, which was good. Nobody else should be here.

"I know you want... I know you need," he whisper-sang, gently setting his Sontenga deck on the credenza. The old battered Game Guy cover had been replaced with a newer, glossier beige casing, and the guts of the machine were freshly upgraded, but overall it was still the same machine to Alex. He caressed the keys like a lover.

Shrugging out of his jacket, Alex paused to punch in a dinner code in what was euphemistically called a kitchen, and went back to the Room.

The hum of myriad machines greeted him. It was too much to ask Wagners to turn the lights off when they weren't using them, much less any kind of large machinery. Alex's machines only shut down when he was rewiring or redesigning.

He snaked the patch cord from its drawer, ran one end to the jack behind his ear, hidden by neatly trimmed blond hair, and inserted the other into the appropriate plug in the wall bank.

::Alex?::

*Hey, Lir. How're you doing?*

::It's lonely here, Alex. It seems forever when you go to work, or when you sleep.::

*Well, can't be helped, Lir.* Alex resolved his avatar from the flame-haired punk into something more approximating his current physical form: that of a well-dressed, corporate software-architect wunderkind, in dark suit, gold watch and slicked-back blond hair. *I have to earn money and keep learning.*

::When will I get a body again, Alex?:: Lir's avatar came forward out of the shadows, and turned on the virtual track lighting. Alex had fixed Lir's avatar a bit, too; Lir was leaner, a little more masculine, a little more buff than Alex himself could ever hope to be, but still had shoulder-length hair the color of the sea, and eyes like red cedar. Instead of silk pajamas, he wore a dark green tunic with gold piping, and matching trousers, with knee-high green leather boots. Alex thought it looked tres cool, that paramilitary look an' all.

::You said I had a body once. I don't remember it, but I want to go out into the world with you. I want to see what's going on. I want to be with you in reality.::

*Well,* Alex' avatar scratched the back of his head, *it's not easy to find a cloning facility. I haven't been able to find out where Kitsune gets hers yet.* And, he thought privately, if we get a choice, I'm getting one that looks like your avatar. *It's why I need to keep up with work, and learn all I can... especially about the Palace. I'm going to shut that place down, Lir. You know that.*

::I know.:: Lir frowned. ::I also know Kitsune isn't one to be trifled with. If you're not careful, we'll both be killed.::

*Killed?* Alex laughed. *I doubt that. Made into puppets, maybe. Of course, as long as I live on Wagner property, she'll have to get through our defenses first.*

Lir looked doubtful. ::It's the guest house, Alex, not your parents' bedroom.::

*Yeah, well.* Alex still couldn't crack his parents' personal defense system, and it rankled.

*C'mon,* he moved closer, *It's just a matter of time. Besides, you've gotten too big for me to take in my deck anymore, so I can't exactly bring you to work nowadays.*

This much was true. Lir's original program had taken up nearly all of the deck's memory, and with more programming had soon grown into a fairly complex artificial intelligence. Especially after the limited heuristic subroutines kicked in, and Lir had started not just learning, but remembering, everything he possibly could.

Alex put an arm around Lir's shoulders. *I'll spend all night with you, okay?*

::Okay.:: Lir looked up; so did Alex, but he didn't see what Lir was seeing. ::Your food's ready.::

*Okay. I'll be back in just a moment, okay? And then, maybe we can... find one'a those stimsims... you know?* he leered, none too well.

::I thought maybe we'd go to India first -- they've got some interesting new sites there -- but then... sure,:: Lir smiled back.

*All-righty! Back in a mike,* and Alex winked out.

Katrina Wagner-DeVere put her magazine down and looked idly out the window. Some kind of desert... interesting. Her mind conjured up an image of a desert warrior, with silken black hair, roughly chiseled features and a knowing look in his eye. Just like on the cover of that new romance trid.

Oh, Sergei was all right, but there was something about her husband that just didn't click. He was loving enough, but any man who had a secret doll collection was one to be wary of in Trinka's eyes. And if he could have his dolls, Trinka could have a small vacation for herself.

"This is the captain speaking, we're about to land..."

Trinka tuned out the usual safety warnings. This was her first time here, and she wasn't sure if the half-empty jet was typical or not. Mostly men, but at least she wasn't the only woman.

Karl had been furious after Alex came back, reeking of alcohol and giggling over the fortune he'd made selling the Palace ticket. Trinka hadn't been so sure Alex was drunk -- he'd  seemed awfully clear-thinking.

It had taken three months for her to get enough money and information about the Palace after that. Kitsune, the manager, was apparently very picky; Karl's inability to keep track of his own ticket for 24 hours, even if it was meant for his sister, had debarred him from doing business with the Palace for a while.

It was very strange, however, how fast Alex had settled down. No more drinking, as near as Katrina could tell, less wildness, and he'd finally put the Wagner aggressiveness to use at Sontenga, becoming the newest young turk to break into 'Tenga's inner circle. And when she'd asked him about it, he'd been rather vague. "I've made a new friend." And laughed at some private joke.

Well, enough of that. She followed the group through the hot desert air and into the refreshing cool of the Palace.

After waiting a brief time in line for her turn at the desk, Katrina submitted her ticket and received her room key in return. What a plain thing, she thought, looking at it critically as a young man took her baggage and led her down the wing to her room. And a Yale key to boot. How old-fashioned. She looked up, and out of the corner of her eye thought she saw someone she knew, but when she turned to look, no one was there.

It couldn't have been Alex, she shrugged to herself after a moment. He's never been here. Anyway, I know for a fact he's frying his mind back in the guest house at home.

"Your room, Madam."

"Thank you." She slipped him a fifty for his troubles, and opened the door using the tasselled key.