down…”
“Me? I’m not the low-self-esteem-I-can’t-wear-a-sarong-because-people-will-think-I’m-funny-looking guy here.”
He shook his head.
“Okay, so what about Jay?”
“You’re kidding,” Toni said.
Alex shook his head. “Not according to Jay.”
“And how would Jay know?”
“That was my first question, too.” He grinned. “He said a good computer op has to do enough research to know the field.”
“And how does his fiancee feel about this
“I didn’t ask.”
They had moved into the kitchen, Alex still in the sarong. It was very thin cloth, and he looked sexy in it. She glanced at the carrot she was about to slice. She held it up, then used the Japanese chef’s knife to lop the ends off.
“Is that an editorial comment?”
“Make of it what you will.”
He laughed.
She went back to dicing the carrot for their salad. With her mother watching the baby at her hotel, they had the place to themselves. Well, for a couple more hours, at least.
Alex said, “It doesn’t really surprise me, when I stop and think about it. There has always been a certain amount of porn on the net, even back in the very early days. Newsgroups dedicated to various perversions, web pages where you could download pictures or movies, even some chat-room interactive stuff. And with scenarios in VR getting better and better, it was only a matter of time.”
“But fully interactive internet sex? That seems so-so—”
“Weird?”
“That’ll do for a start, yeah. You wouldn’t think it would be possible.”
“Well, according to Jay, it’s been possible since before the turn of the century. In the early days, you could buy things like full-sized silicone dolls, with functional, uh,
“Do I want to hear this?”
“I dunno, do you?”
Toni thought about it for a second. “Sure. Never let it be said that after I got married and had a child I automatically turned into an old stick-in-the-mud.”
“The folks who are really into this call the sex devices McCleans.”
Toni finished the carrot, reached for another, and raised one eyebrow.
“It’s from an old limerick, according to Jay.”
“You don’t need to keep saying, ‘according to Jay.’ I’ll take your word for it.”
“Um. According to — I mean, you know about haptic mice and input pens and such. The McCleans came out of research for blind computer users. The top-of-the-line units have oral/genital/anal plugs or cavities, depending on the users’, ah, physical configurations and desires. The headsets come with Aromajet’s DigiScents modules that can mimic certain body smells. They call these ‘reekers.’ There is a tongue wafer from Taste-the-Real-Thing-dot- com that is electronically controlled to offer various tastes, and naturally, they call these ‘droolers.’ ”
“Reekers and droolers,” she said. “Sounds like some kind of medical condition.”
“Or a law firm,” he said.
“Um. Anyway, the best units include form-fitting memorymesh that can apply pressure in various ways, heat or cooling along any of the mesh ladders, along with vibrations.”
Toni disposed of the second carrot, then went to work on a sweet purple onion. She said, “So you plug into a high-tech vibrator, or one into you, depending on your gender, slip into some mesh thingee that is really comfortable, dial up the taste and smell of warm whatever, and join your unseen loved one on a beach in VR somewhere?”
“That’s what I am given to understand, yes.”
“And how is it compared to the real thing?”
“Well, according to Jay — and I am in no way otherwise knowledgeable about this, believe me — it’s not as good as the real thing, but it’s better than being alone. And in some cases, there are sensations available you can’t get with a real partner. The Electric Tongue can actually deliver enough low-amperage-but-high-voltage to make your hair stand up. Then there is the lifelike vibrating anus…”
“Yuck! This sounds totally disgusting!”
“Well, sure,” he said, “because
That cracked her up, as he knew it would.
“Say, fellow, is that a banana in your sarong, or are you just happy to see me?”
“It’s a banana.”
She laughed, and somehow his sarong fell down again.
8
The night was cool, but not too cold, and the winding and hilly road fairly quiet. The target and his bodyguards were on their way back from visiting some movie people who had a place in Lucas Valley. Santos didn’t know a lot about movies, he did not spend much time in theaters, but this place, a ranch hidden from the road, was apparently pretty famous.
Santos had picked several places along the route where he could make his move, some better than others, but all should be workable if he did what he needed to do.
The limo passed his position, and he waited until it was a half-mile ahead of him before he started the big motorcycle’s engine and pulled out behind the car. There was no worry that he would lose them, for he knew where they were going.
They weren’t going to get there, though.
Thirty minutes later, the limo approached his primary location choice. But there was a car pulled off on the shoulder on the dark stretch of road, a big American sedan, just sitting there. He didn’t see anybody silhouetted in the vehicle, but that did not matter.
It was a complication, and he let the limo drive past.
Five minutes past that, the secondary site loomed, but this time, the traffic was heavier than he’d expected.
The third choice was another six or seven minutes away. If there was a problem there, then he would scrub the mission for tonight and try again tomorrow.
As the road narrowed and curved, however, Santos saw that they were alone. He checked his speedometer. The bodyguard, who liked to drive fast, was going ten miles an hour faster than the posted limit.
Perfect.
A flip of a pair of temporary switches on the handlebar lit the flashing lights and cranked up the siren.
Ahead of him the limo slowed, and pulled off in exactly the place where he hoped it would. It was dark enough so any passersby wouldn’t see anything except the bike’s flashing lights — that’s what they’d be looking at as they went past. And he wouldn’t need more than a couple minutes to do this.
