“Mmm.”
“How do you track them?”
“By their thoughtmitters, of course.”
You only stare.
Kollberg’s lower lip bulges. “I’m sorry-was this a mystery?”
Again you can’t quite manage a deep breath. “They’re all Actors? All of them? The porters-everybody?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Pretornio?”
“Livia Murphy, out of New York.” Kollberg manipulates his control, and the screen flares with a view of the Black Knife camp seen through a veil of blue-white flame, while hidden speakers burst to life with the crackle and spit of burning fat and the bone-conducted distortion of Pretornio’s voice, chanting her Old High Lipkan.
Another twist of the control cancels the audio, and Kollberg sighs. “Quite the pity, actually. Had any of her own Studio’s Administrators a hint she was capable of such power, she may have had a more. . extensive career.”
“Holy crap. .” You lie motionless on the bed, cold and once again numb. “It is a snuffer. .”
“Oh, please.” Kollberg looks disgusted. “Grow up, Michaelson. The Studio doesn’t produce snuffers. That’s an urban legend.”
“All Actors,” you murmur. “Every one of them. .”
“Of course. How do you think your bloody expedition was organized? You think it’s easy to place Actors on real treasure hunts?”
“Why didn’t-but we didn’t know-”
“Because you’re Actors.” Kollberg flicks a piece of imaginary lint off the sleeve of his Administrator’s chlamys. “Even with unbreakable conditioning-blocks and the most expensive training in the history of Earth, you just can’t stay in bloody character. Look at you and Bergmann-the instant you’re alone together, you’re reminiscing about your damned school days. I mean, really.
Do you have any idea how much editing we’ll have to do in that sequence?”
“Bergmann? You mean Marade?”
He nods. “Olga Bergmann, out of Vienna. By the way, the sex was superb; we’re keeping that. Very nicely played, on your part; you have an eye for neurotic weakness. If she lives through the rescue-and you do, of course-we’ll slot you for some team-up Adventures. Banging the big Nordic blondes always goes down well. Oh, and speaking of going down-next time, make sure she gives you head. I’ll speak to Vienna about it. You can sixty-nine if you want, but really it’s better if she just does you. You’ve heard of the sexual position sixty-eight? ‘Give me a blowjob, and I’ll owe you one.’ Ha-hrm. Especially if she’s on her knees. That’s nuclear when it’s a powerful woman; the more submissive, the-”
“Administrator, for Christ’s sake-”
“Entertainer.” Kollberg leans on the word. His little piggy eyes have receded into his face. “The proper response to a direct order is ‘Yes, Administrator,’ or, informally, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”
He waits.
Vomit burns the back of your throat.
Kollberg says, “Let’s give a try, shall we? Entertainer?”
Your jaw locks down so hard your teeth ache. Your throat clamps shut. You manage to say, “Yes, Administrator,” anyway.
You’ve done harder things. Can you remember any right now?
Your gaze goes from the spike through your wrist to the fleshy curve of Kollberg’s cheek and back again. *The real difference between him and Crow-mane ,* you monologue, *is he’s too fucking smart to give me a free shot.*
And, of course, that Kollberg has offered you something to lose. “Yes, Administrator.” It’s easier the second time. It gets easier every time. “All right, Administrator.”
“Now. Let’s start again.”
You grind words out between your teeth. “I still need to talk to Marc Vilo.
Please, sir.”
Kollberg shakes his head. “I thought I explained-”
“You did. But you don’t understand, Administrator. I’m not trying to get out of this. I’m not trying to get out of anything.”
Kollberg settles back into his chair and folds his hands over the soft curve of his belly. “I’m listening.”
“We’re on the same side here, Administrator. You want Caine to be a star. I want Caine to be a star. More than anything. More than being alive. Being an Actor-that’s all I’ve lived for since I was ten years old. And you-well, I don’t know you. But you’re what, forty? And you’re still putting together crapass straight-to-cube Adventures with packs of no-names? Your career’s not going exactly the way you hoped either, I bet.”
Kollberg’s only response is a squint that seems to suck his eyeballs all the way to the back of his skull.
“I’m guessing this Adventure’s the biggest you’ve ever done. It is, isn’t it? And sometime before we all got bagged-maybe back when I went walking out that gate-you saw a whole new future open up in front of you.”
You can’t get your teeth to come apart, but you can unleash a facsimile of Caine’s grin. “I’m reading your fucking mind, aren’t I?”
Kollberg’s lips squeeze themselves into a liver-colored asshole.
“Pulling me was the biggest chance you’ve ever taken. That’s why you’re down here. That’s why you’re bullying me into this horseshit escape thing. You bet that brand-new future on me.”
Words squirt through those lips like a fart. “If I did?”
“You’re gonna lose.”
Kollberg lurches forward, red flush climbing his face. “The difference between us, Michaelson, is that I can lose and live. Remember I can put you back right where I found you.”
And this, My Love, is where you become My Love. This is where I know you are truly Mine. When you let the grin fade. When you let your eyes go soft, and you let your voice drop like a lover’s. When you say, “That’s what I want.”
“Eh?”
“Administrator, you’re not a real Studio man. Not really.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m not trying to be impertinent, please, Administrator, but-where did you come from? What branch of Service?”
“Health care,” Kollberg admits reluctantly. “I ran St. Luke’s Ecumenical, in Chicago. But I’ve always enjoyed-”
“Yeah. Everybody does. But listen: popping in a cube now and then isn’t the same. It doesn’t mean shit. Adventures Unlimited is my whole life, Administrator. I have breathed Adventures in and breathed them out since I was old enough to work secondhander gear. Before I was an Actor, I was a student of Acting. Before I was a student, I was a fan. A real fan. Do you have any idea what that means? What it is to be a fan?”
“Well, I hardly think-”
“Fan is short for fanatic. You get it? This isn’t just a hobby for me. Or a career path. This is my fucking religion.”
“Religion.” That liver-colored asshole drops the echo like a soft turd.
You let passion rise in your voice: the iron band that had unfastened within your chest goes red, then white, then melts and burns away. “When you’re a fan, it eats your life. There’s nothing else for you, you get it? Administrator, everything I know came from Adventures-shit, the only reason I learned to read was that there just aren’t enough good real Adventures, so I started reading ones people just made up-then I started reading the shit they based those Adventures on, and-well, I just never stopped. It’s all I ever thought about. It’s still all I think about.”
You turned your face up toward the joining where the ivory ceiling meets the green wall, but you are looking at something I cannot see with your eyes.
“When I was twelve I got in a knife fight with an older kid. All we had were homemade shanks, all point, y’know? I wasn’t even scared; I’d cubed White Fire, Black Steel maybe twenty times, so I let him slash me over the ribs because I knew it’d only hurt but wouldn’t kill me, and I stabbed him in the thigh-just like Jonathan Mkembe, get it? And he ran away. Jesus Christ, Administrator, when I lost my goddamn virginity, you know what I was thinking? I was thinking we were both decent fucks, doing pretty good, considering neither one of us were, y’know, Actors, and I was using pro technique, y’know, because I’d already fucked maybe seventy or eighty women secondhand-and she’d done more than that. . The biggest thing that ever happened to me? When I was maybe ten or eleven years old, I met Nathan Mast. You know who he was?”