“I’d like to choose some programs, yes,” Louise said.

“Excellent.” His eyes tracked up and down in a fast sweep, feeding the image into a memory cell. Today she wore a lemon-yellow dress made from a sparkly fabric that was tight around her bottom; and a pair of antique wire rimmed sunglasses. An odd combination, but very stylish. You just had to have considerable poise to carry off the effect. “What can we get you?”

“I need a very powerful questor. You see. I’m trying to find someone, and I’ve got very little information about them. The NAS2600 questor can’t locate them for me.”

Interest in what she was saying actually diverted Andy’s eyes from her cleavage. “Really? It’s usually pretty good. Your friend must be very well hidden.” And pray it’s her loathsome fiancй.

“Could be. Can you help?”

“What I’m here for.” Andy walked back to his counter, working out in his mind what he could do to use the situation. He plain didn’t have the nerve to ask her outright if she’d like to come for a drink with him after work. Especially not with Genevieve at her side. But there had to be some way he could get to see her again, outside Jude’s Eworld.

He was very conscious of Liscard, the general manager, tracking his progress. Liscard had been on edge ever since a couple of Special Branch cops had paid Jude’s Eworld a visit. They’d taken the manager back into her office, and spoken to her for over an hour. Whatever they said, her suppresser programs couldn’t get a grip on her subsequent nerves. She’d certainly given Andy a hard time all day, snarling at him for little or no reason.

Andy had a horrible feeling it might all be connected with Louise. Specifically de-stinging her and Genevieve. If they had been Govcentral bugs, then Jude’s Eworld had probably broken the law removing them. But there’d been no real reprimand. The sellrats had been nibbling on curiosity and rumour ever since. Each of them bragged about their own special shady customer who was the probable cause.

The shop’s inventory flashed up in Andy’s head, and he ran through the specs for questors. “I expect half of your trouble is that the 2600 questor only reviews current file indexes,” he told Louise. “What we need to do is get you one that’ll review entire files and disregard data status, that should help with obscure references.” Andy ducked down below the counter top, and looked at the clutter of fleks stacked up on the shelves below. “Here we go.” He surfaced, holding up a flek case. “Killabyte. It’s almost an AI in its own right. A one shot request that operates on fuzzy breeder intuition, which means it can utilise whatever references it finds to build new associations which you haven’t loaded in, and search through them. It won’t taxi back until it’s found the answer, no matter how long it takes. Tenacious little bugger.”

“That’s good. Thank you, Andy.”

“What I’d really like to give you is the Hyperpeadia, but we haven’t got any fleks of it in stock right now. If it’s used in tandem with Killabyte I’d guarantee you’ll find your friend. They’re the two market leaders right now.”

“I’m sure Killabyte will be fine.”

“I’ll put in an order for Hyperpeadia. The software collective won’t datavise it to us, they’re worried about bootlegs.” He put his elbows on the counter and leaned towards her in a confidential fashion. “Course, the encryption has already been cracked. You can get a pirate clone at any stall in Chelsea market, but it’ll probably have transcription degradation. Best you have an original. It’ll be here tomorrow morning. I can have it delivered straight to wherever you’re staying.”

“I’m at the Ritz.” Louise fished round in her shoulder bag and produced the hotel’s courtesy collection disk.

“Ah.” Andy held up the counter’s delivery log block to accept the Ritz’s code. “Your fiancй hasn’t arrived yet, then?” Genevieve had to bend over and hide her face in her hands to stop the giggles.

“No, not yet,” Louise answered levelly. “But I’m expecting him any day now. He’s already in the solar system. I was wondering if you could help me with something else?”

“Sure. Anything!”

Louise smiled demurely at his enthusiasm. I ought to be firmer with him. But somehow being firm with Andy Behoo would be like drowning kittens. “It’s just in case the questors can’t find what I want. You said some private detectives use the store. Could you recommend one?”

“I can ask,” he said thoughtfully. “Hang on a minute.”

Liscard gave him an alarmed look as he walked over to her. “A private dick?” she mumbled when Andy asked which one he should recommend.

“Yeah,” Andy said. “One that’s good at finding people. Do you know if any of them are?”

“I think so,” Liscard stammered. She waited apprehensively. As soon as the Kavanagh girls had come back into the store, she’d established a sensevise link to the eddress which the Special Branch officers had given her. Her retinas and audio discrimination program had been capturing the scene for whoever was at the other end of the link. She didn’t have the nerve to load any of the tracer programs available to employees of Jude’s Eworld. The software houses who produced them guaranteed they would be completely undetectable, but she wasn’t about to take the risk. Not with the people who claimed they were from Special Branch. When she asked her fixer in the local police about them he’d abruptly told her never to contact him again, and cut the datavise.

“What do you want me to say?” she datavised to the anonymous receiver.

“There’s someone I know who can help the girl,” came the answer.

Liscard datavised the information directly into Andy’s neural nanonics. He took his time walking back across the shop, a measured approach allowed him to savour her shape. The images he’d snatched before were fine as far as they went, but they amounted to little more than photonic dolls in his sensenviron. After conjuring them up he was left craving for more substantial replicants. Now, with his retinas switched to infrared, and feeding through discrimination program, he could trace her abdominal muscle pattern and rib cage through the fabric of her dress. A scan grid overlay revealed the precise three-dimensional measurements of those wonderful breasts. And her skin tone spectrum was already on file; that would be a simple continuation for the sculptor program, extending up from the legs, and down from her bare shoulders. That just left the taste of her as he ran his tongue along her belly and down between her thighs. The correct pitch as she cried out in gratitude, the praise she would moan to him, her greatest ever lover.

Andy hated himself for resorting to sensenviron sprites. It was the final humiliating proof that he was a complete loser. But she was so fantastic. Better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all. Even if that love was purely digital.

“What’s the matter with him?” Genevieve asked loudly. “Why’s he looking at you all funny?”

Andy’s smile was a thin mask over his horror as her piping voice broke through his distracted thoughts. Cool sweat was beading across his flushed skin. His neural nanonics couldn’t help dispel the blush, they were too busy fighting down his erection.

Louise gave him a vaguely suspicious look. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Andy mumbled. He scurried back behind the counter, ignoring Genevieve’s frown. “I think the person you want is Ivanov Robson. He specializes in missing persons, both kinds.”

“Both kinds?”

“Yeah. Some people are genuinely missing; they drop out of life, or haven’t updated their directory entries—like your friend. Then there’s the kind who’re deliberately trying to vanish; debtors, unfaithful partners, criminals. You know.”

“I see. Well thank you, this Mr Robson sounds about right.”

Andy datavised the detective’s address and eddress over. Louise smiled and gave him an uncertain wave as she walked out. Breath whistled out between Andy’s crooked teeth. His hands were shaking again, forcing him to grip the edge of the counter. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot! But she hadn’t stormed out, or made an issue of his stupid erotic daydreaming. There was still a chance.