'I dunno. You'd have to ask him. You can get cities for computers now, can't you?'
'Cities? What do you mean, you get them for computers?'
SENSH
'On disk, 1 think. Or you can download them, if you know how to do it. You get the whole thing, and just use it. Add it on, somehow. 1 mean, Vic's got all sorts of places he uses as locations. He's into cowboys and that, and so a lot of the programs he does take place out there in the West. you know that set we were just filming in? Well, if you go out the other way, the door at the back, it isn't London at all! It's somewhere in America ... you know, you've seen it on the movies. Where they filmed all those westerns. A lot of desert, and all them rocky mountains with flat tops sticking straight up.'
'Not Monument Valley?'
'Yeah, that's it!' said Shandy. 'Arizona, someplace. He's barmy, is Vic. He just bolts on bits of software as he feels like it. Like, there's one he's got which is Finland. 1 mean, the whole of Finland! 1 play an air hostess on an aircraft, and me and the guy get down to it in a row of seats. Not very comfortable, but we put the armrests up. Anyway, if you look out of the window there's hundreds of miles of trees and lakes. You can make the plane go anywhere you like, but it's always flying over Finland. Can't see the point, myself, because the people who come in, they just want to join in with the shagging, and they're not interested in where we're doing it, right? But Vic must have bootlegged the software from somewhere, so that's what he uses. There's another one he's got, in'
* * * SENSH * * *
'Shandy, do you mind if we go somewhere to talk?' They had been walking along Coventry Street, weaving their way through the crowds, but even in this state of acknowledged unreality, Teresa was acutely conscious of the way she must appear to be talking to herself
'Could we go to your apartment?'
'No, can't do that.' Teresa felt an awkward resistance rising in the young woman's mind. 'I'm only supposed to be in the West End, and that.'
'But you must go home sometimes.'
'Yeah.'
'Then can't we go now?'
'No. 1 don't think so.'
Shandy started fretting with the strap of her shoulderbag.
Teresa realized that there must be a limiting wall in Shandy's mind, like one at the bottom of a flight of steps that should lead to the Underground.
'Is there somewhere else we could go?'
'No, we have to stay around here. Or we could go back to where we were filming. Would you like to go back to the studio and see Monument Valley? I'll take you for a drive. That's another of my jobs. We go to some great places'
* * * SENSH * * *
'Where's the studio from here?'
'Back there.' Shandy indicated a narrow sidestreet called Shaver's Place.
'And that's all there is?' Teresa asked.
'Well ... there's the whole of London! You can do a lot in London. I could take you to the clubs 1 know. I do a live show in one of them. You could help me out in that, now you know what to do. One of the guys is a bit . . . you know, but the other's a real good mate of mine. He's better at it than Willem, not as big, but he really knows how to get me going! And there's another girl, Janey. You'd like Janey. I do a lesbian act with her. She went to America last year on her holiday, and told me all about it.'
'No, 1 don't think so.'
Teresa retreated from the forefront of Shandy's mind, allowing the young woman to assert her own life, so to speak. Shandy promptly changed direction, and walked back towards the pub where they had left Willem. She said hello to several men they passed in the street. She seemed to know everyone around here.
Teresa decided to retreat again, further, abort the scenario at last, but before she did so she reached up awkwardly and felt the back of Shandy's neck.
As she expected, there was
no ExEx valve in place.
This was 1990. ExEx hadn't been available. There was only software set in that period. Teresa recalled the LIVER mnemonic.
You have been flying SENSH Y'ALL
Fanta
She snapped it off before she had to listen to the music again.
Later, as she checked out at the ExEx reception desk, Teresa was presented with a charge to her credit card that was so huge it momentarily dazed her. She was about to protest, when she noticed that her realtime usage had been carefully logged. She glanced at the clock on the wall. She had spent nearly the whole day in virtual reality, and as a result had been charged for six and a half hours of premium time. Night had fallen while she was there.
Teresa signed, thinking of the slug of insurance money she had received after Andy's death, which had remained more or less untouched until her trip to Britain. Her phone calls to the credit-card hotlines in the US had sorted out her billing problems, and increased the credit limit at the same time, but even so she made a mental resolve to use her ExEx time more carefully.
Walking back down through Bulverton's rows of postwar council-built houses, Teresa kept her gaze low, avoiding the dreary
