Mona Lisa Overdrive

"You're pulling a few more amps, since I left," Gentry said, opening the first of the two pa

"Yeah. I gotta heat the storage area again, too. Too cold to work, otherwise."

"No," Gentry said, looking up suddenly, "that's not a heater in your room. The amperage is wrong."

"Yeah." Slick gri

" 'Yeah' what, Slick Henry?"

"It's not a heater."

Gentry closed the pa

"Y'know, Gentry, I wasn't around here, you'd have a lot less time for ... things." Slick raised his eyebrows meaningfully in the direction of the big projection table. "Fact is, I got two people staying with me ... " He saw Gentry stiffen, the pale eyes widen. "But you won't see either of 'em, won't hear 'em, nothing."

"No," Gentry said, his voice tight, as he rounded the end of the table, "because you're going to get them out of here, aren't you?"

"Two weeks max, Gentry."

"Out. Now." Gentry's face was inches away and Slick smelled the sour breath of exhaustion. "Or you go with them."

Slick outweighed Gentry by ten kilos, most of it muscle, but that had never intimidated Gentry; Gentry didn't seem to know or care that he could be hurt. That was intimidating in its own way. Gentry had slapped him, once, hard, in the face, and Slick had looked down at the huge chrome-moly wrench in his own hand and had felt an obscure embarrassment.

Gentry was holding himself rigid, starting to tremble. Slick had a pretty good idea that Gentry didn't sleep when he went to Boston or New York. He didn't always sleep that much in Factory either. Came back strung and the first day was always the worst. "Look," Slick said, the way somebody might to a child on the verge of tears, and pulled the bag from his pocket, the bribe from Kid Afrika. He held up the clear plastic Ziploc for Gentry to see: blue derms, pink tablets, a nasty-looking turd of opium in a twist of red cellophane, crystals of wiz like fat yellow throat lozenges, plastic inhalers with the Japanese manufacturer's name scraped off with a knife ... "From Afrika," Slick said, dangling the Ziploc.

"Africa?" Gentry looked at the bag, at Slick, the bag again. "From Africa?"

"Kid Afrika. You don't know him. Left this for you."

"Why?"

"Because he needs me to put up these friends of his for a little while. I owe him a favor, Gentry. Told him how you didn't like anybody around. How it gets in your way. So," Slick lied, "he said he wanted to leave you some stuff to make up for the trouble."

Gentry took the bag and slid his finger along the seal, opening it. He took out the opium and handed that back to Slick. "Won't need that." Took out one of the blue derms, peeled off the backing, and smoothed it carefully into place on the inside of his right wrist. Slick stood there, absently kneading the opium between his thumb and forefinger, making the cellophane crackle, while Gentry walked back around the long table and opened the pa

"I think I'd better ... meet these guests of yours, Slick."

"Huh?" Slick blinked, astonished. "Yeah ... But you don't really have to, I mean, wouldn't it be -- "

"No," Gentry said, flicking up his collar, "I insist."

Going down the stairs, Slick remembered the opium and flung it over the rail, into the dark.

He hated drugs.

"Cherry?" He felt stupid, with Gentry watching him bang his knuckles on his own door. No answer. He opened it. Dim light. He saw how she'd made a shade for one of his bulbs, a cone of yellow fax fastened with a twist of wire. She'd unscrewed the other two. She wasn't there.

The stretcher was there, its occupant bundled in the blue nylon bag. It 's eating him, Slick thought, as he looked at the superstructure of support gear, the tubes, the sacs of fluid. No, he told himself, it 's keeping him alive, like in a hospital. But the impression lingered: what if it were draining him, draining him dry? He remembered Bird's vampire talk.

"Well," said Gentry, stepping past him to stand at the foot of the stretcher. "Strange company you keep, Slick Henry ... " Gentry walked around the stretcher, keeping a cautious meter between his ankles and the still figure.

"Gentry, you sure you maybe don't wa

"Really?" Gentry cocked his head, his eyes glittering in the yellow glow. He winked. "Why do you think that?"

"Well," Slick hesitated, "you aren't like you usually are. I mean, like you were before."

"You think I'm experiencing a mood swing, Slick?"

"Yeah."

"I'm enjoying a mood swing."

"I don't see you smiling," Cherry said from the door.

"This is Gentry, Cherry. Factory's sort of his place. Cherry's from Cleveland ... "

But Gentry had a thin black flashlight in his gloved hand; he was examining the trode-net that covered the sleeper's forehead. He straightened up, the beam finding the featureless, unmarked unit, then darting down again to follow the black cable to the trode-net.

"Cleveland," Gentry said at last, as though it were a name he'd heard in a dream. "Interesting ... " He raised his light again, craning forward to peer at the point where the cable joined the unit. "And Cherry -- Cherry, who is he? " the beam falling hard on the wasted, irritatingly ordinary face.

"Don't know," Cherry said. "Get that out of his eyes. Might screw up his REM or something."

"And this?" He lit the flat gray package.

"The LF, Kid called it. Called him the Count, called that his LF." She thrust her hand inside her jackets and scratched herself.

"Well, then," Gentry said, turning, click as the beam died, the light of his obsession burning bright, bright behind his eyes, amplified so powerfully by Kid Afrika's derm that it seemed to Slick that the Shape must be right there, blazing through Gentry's forehead, for anyone at all to see except Gentry himself, "that must be just what it is ... "

11 - Down on the Drag

Mona woke as they were landing.

Prior was listening to Eddy and nodding and flashing his rectangular smile. It was like the smile was always there, behind his beard. He'd changed his clothes, though, so he must've had some on the plane. Now he wore a plain gray business suit and a tie with diagonal stripes. Sort of like the tricks Eddy'd set her up with in Cleveland, except the suit fit a different way.

She'd seen a trick fitted for a suit once, a guy who took her to a Holiday I

Eddy was explaining something to Prior, some crucial point in the architecture of one of his scams. She knew how to tune the content out, but the tone still got to her, like he knew people wouldn't be able to grasp the gimmick he was so proud of, so he was taking it slow and easy, like he was talking to a little kid, and he'd keep his voice low to sound patient. It didn't seem to bother Prior, but then it seemed to Mona that Prior didn't much give a shit what Eddy said.