in a fifty-mile radius of Dream Park, or a thousand others in southern California that catered to the very special needs of jaded flesh.
There was one difference, a difference known to only a select clientele. In addition to the usual mechanical accoutrements and procurement services, the Mate 'N' Switch offered a commodity increasingly rare in a high- security world: anonymity. They guaranteed it. Pay with cash, and they were notably lax about records, recalled no faces, and routed all phone messages through a cutoff satellite service subscribed to by a select high-security clientele worldwide.
The blocky stucco building was sleazily unassuming, but its customers had included some of the most powerful men and women in the world by their own very private admissions. The Mate 'N' Switch would never comment. Managers paid their fines for noncooperation, or served their time for contempt. When the place was eventually closed down, the shell corporation owning it would dissolve. Weeks or months later the owners would form a new shell and open a new hot-sheet special. Once again the word would spread along the grapevine that privacy was available.
Bishop flicked his cigarette away. It spun, striking sparks against the rain-slick pavement. He cinched his trench coat and crossed the street with studied casualness. His door lay in a shadowed alcove, away from street lamps.
He fed bills into a slot, carefully keeping his back to passing cars. The door opened into an elevator. He punched in a room number. The lift capsule shuttled him up a wall and around the edge of the building, finally coming to rest in a corner slot.
No Mate 'N' Switch guest ever needed to encounter another. Undoubtedly there were entrances even Bishop knew nothing about.
The door opened on an otherworldly garden, reeking with hot citrus. Glimpsed between flowering trees, fertile fields and green-speckled hills stretched off into the horizon. Flocks grazed. Birds cawed in looped melody.
The Garden of Eden? How declasse.
He whispered, 'Scan,' and the room's genuine dimensions appeared, banishing the phantasms.
It was a mere cubbyhole, an area marked off by the shadow of a single towering fig tree. Beneath it was spread a blanket.
And on the blanket sat Sharon Crayne. Her face was as expressionless as a waxwork.
'Bishop.'
His gaze slid past her, examining the room, ignoring the illusion. Bathroom. Wet bar. A closet of possibilities. It opened for him, and he brushed the hanging garments with the back of his hand.
'Sharon. Delightful to see you again.' He slid his hand into a long glove that felt like fur-lined silk. It breathed into his hand, tickling and caressing.
He lost the sensation of his arm. His hand felt long and graceful and fragile… feminine.
'This is really rather decadent,' he said, smiling. 'Shall I slip into something comfortable? And then you can be Adam, and slip into me. I'm certain that all of the anatomical bits are quite clever.'
He pulled it free from the closet, holding it in front of him. It was some kind of stretch material. Breasts, now flaccid, would doubtless grow firm if he donned it. Was there a menu of shapes?
Her smile was mirthless, meaningless, tacked on like a doll's glass eyes. 'Let's stick to business, shall we?'
'You're just no fun anymore.' He slid the woman suit back into the closet and let the door shut and disappear.
Back in the garden.
Sharon spread a series of slender packets out on the blanket. 'This is what you want,' she said flatly.
He sat cross-legged. 'That,' he said, slitting one open with his thumbnail, 'remains to be seen.'
He doffed his sunglasses and slipped a projector-viewer from his trench-coat pocket. He inserted one of the flat crystals. A six-inch model of MIMIC appeared and revolved on the table before them.
'These are the most recent updates?'
'I got you the entire map of ScanNet emplacements. It's only forty percent operational now. In a month, you'd never be able to beat it.'
'Yes,' he agreed merrily. 'But then in a month I'll be in Acapulco earning seventeen percent, darling.'
'I don't teach strategy to Nigel Bishop. You can see where the improvements have been made-foundations shored up, new support struts. Where the floors have been lifted or lowered. And where you'll be entering the structure on
Thursday moming. I think that I've lived up to our bargain, don't you?' The emotionless mask had started to crack.
'Umm-hmm,' he answered. He fished something from an inside pocket and tossed it to her. 'Indeed you have. Yes, I think that this will just about do.'
Her hands shook as she opened the packet. There were pictures of a small girl with a sweet, sad smile. The girl might have been six years old. Accompanying it was an official geneticcode scan, and the confidential file marked Embryadopt identifying the donor mother. 'What is her name?' She was unable to control the tears now, and they streaked both cheeks.
'It's all there.' Bishop rotated MIMIC this way and that, humming to himself. 'Tricia, I think. Should be twelve by now. Supposed to be a bright kid. Living in Kalamazoo, Michigan.'
'I've got to get her,' she said, as if to herself.
'Indeed.' He nodded, not really paying attention. 'How fortuitous was our meeting, dear girl.'
She seemed lost in bitter memory. 'I was twelve.' Her voice went venomous. 'I hope his balls rot off.'
'Such a mouth. Hmmm. Eighth level…'
She seemed to be trying to justify something, talking even though Bishop wasn't really listening. 'I didn't have an option,' she said. 'Fetal adoption was the only choice.'
'And a child always yearns for Mommy.' He grinned and hummed as he worked, almost ignoring her. 'Tricia's foster parents are going to have paperwork problems. Terrible for them. Lucky for you. I always keep my bargains- see that you keep yours.'
'How did you get this?' she asked, confused, slipping back out of her trance. 'I tried every connection I had. I tried money-'
'It's love, not money, makes the world go.' Bishop was sliding the crystals back into their envelopes and starting to turn when his world went red and blue, and the illusions vanished completely.
Sharon flinched as the whites of Bishop's eyes turned dark blue.
'What the hell…'
His hand snapped up in command. 'Shut the fuck up,' he spaded. 'This room is being scanned.'
To Nigel Bishop, the walls had become blue glass. He saw and evaluated holographic projection equipment, finer optics, electrical and plumbing, communications…
Cows.
He turned, quiet and deadly. 'One can't even rely upon mother love anymore. You don't want her, do you?'
More than the question had taken her by surprise. 'How did you…' She was confused, startled, but questions and possible answers were formulating at breakneck speed. She went into a crouch and moved back, away from him.
His eyes no longer resembled human eyes. And all of the slightly arid amusement had disappeared from Nigel Bishop's demeanor. He had become, in a moment, something not entirely human, and not at all sane.
'Scleral lenses?' she asked. 'You've got DreamTime technology in contact lenses? That's not available to the public! How-'
He raged about the room, ignoring her implied question. 'Morals? Attack of fucking ethics? Enchanted with the single life?'
Toilet, sunken bath, floor mat. Walls. Yes. A triangle of light pulsed next to the bathroom door.
A monitor. Recording, not transmitting.
Sharon's face slackened, sick with sudden understanding. 'You're not a Gamer at all, are you?'
Suddenly he relaxed. Totally. Shoulders. Arms. Face. Sharon, watching, attuned to him, felt her own body
