Pat Cadigan - Dirty Work

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PAT CADIGAN

Deadpan Allie, the pathosfinder, is a character familiar to Pat Cadigan fans, who've followed

Allie's career through several science fiction stories (a few of which appeared in OMNI) and the sf

novel Mindplayers (Bantam). Because of my fondness for the character and because so many of

her "cases" seemed to verge on the subject of vampirism, I asked Pat to write a Deadpan Allie

story for this book.

Com 1879625-JJJDeadpanAllie

TZT-Tijuaoutlie

XQWithheld

NelsonNelson

NelsonNelsonMindplay Agency TZT-Easct.Njyman XQ.2717.06X0661818JL

So, NN, how's the family? Ah, sorry, I mean the agency. Of course. Yes, of course. I'm sending you this

instead of coming back myself. Sorry to cut into your Bolshoi Ballet viewing time like this. I won't be

transmitting a vocal. I haven't spoken for, I'm not sure, days. Lots of days. Something's happened to my

speech center. I'd have to put a socket in my head to vocalize and there doesn't seem to be a surgeon

handy. Anyway, I know how much you hate sockets. Then, too, I don't speak any

Romance language. But just about all the merchants sign, so I make my needs known that way. I used to

sign a lot back at J. Walter Tech when I was getting my almost worthless education and learning to read

Emotional Indexes—Indices?—and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it. You know, NN, I like it so

much, I'm thinking about just letting my speech center go. I haven't sustained complete damage to

language. I can write, and I can read what I've written for as long as my short-term memory cares to hold

it. It's a capricious thing, short-term memory. Where was I? Oh. Ever hear of that kind of damage

before? I don't know if I can understand anything said to me because I haven't heard any English or

Mandarin since I got here. But then, maybe I wouldn't know if I had. I hear them talking here in their own

language and it doesn't sound right, it doesn't sound like language. It sounds like noise. Clang-clang,

clang-clang. Being a mute may be unnecessary in this day, but it's hardly a handicap in my profession.

People talk too goddam much.

You wouldn't see it that way. You talked me into this job. Big bonus, you said. Buy the apartment I've

been scouting, you said. Just a job, where's my professionalism, you said, and you said, and you said.

Nothing wrong with your speech center.

But you know it—you would love me if you could see me now. Because one of the other effects of this

half-assed aphasia I've got is my facial muscles are paralyzed. You'd never ask me again if they called me

Deadpan Allie for nothing.

That's what you asked me when you talked me into this. I can remember. I've got one eye out and I'm

plugged into the memory boost (all the equipment's here, I wouldn't want it to fall into the wrong hands.

Like yours.) Left eye. I tried the other eye but I don't think my left hemisphere wants to talk to you

because I can't type and remember at the same time plugged in on that side. Typing lefthanded, too. I

guess I've got enough language on that side of the brain.

I'm meandering. You'll have to bear with me.

I told you when you talked me into this I don't do dirty work. People like me because I'm clean. I was

clean with the fetishist, I was clean with the mindsuck composer, I was clean with your son-in-law and he

pushed me. But you wanted me to do this one. Do you remember what I said or do you need a boost for

it? I told you anyone who insisted on working with an empath didn't need me.

Fine. It's a silly prejudice. Maybe I wouldn't want anyone to get that close to me without the decency of

a machine between us. It's my right to feel that way. Why did you send me when you knew I felt that

way? Professionalism. I know that. Don't try getting in touch with me to tell me something I already

know. Fine. They asked for me. They asked for me. Fine. They asked for me. They asked for me. Fine.

They asked for—

Excuse. I got a bounce on that, a real ricochet. I'm not myself today. Or maybe I am, for the first time in

a long time.

I'd always thought of the entourage as a thing of the past. Not just entourage, but Entourage, as in the

people who tend to accumulate around someone who happens to be Somebody. Now, I've seen

performance artists who keep an audience on retainer so they can hone work as they go but an

Entourage is a lot more than that, and a lot less, too. Caverty had a whole houseful of Entourage—highly

unusual for a holo artist, I thought—and there was a hell of a lot of house. I'd already been told how it

was with him—hell, I knew about the empath, didn't I?—but that didn't mean I could anticipate the

experience of opening the front door and finding them all there.

Yes, I did open the front door myself. Noisy crowd, they didn't hear me ring so I tried the controls and

the door swung open to the entry hall. All those done-over mansions in the Midwest retained the original

entry halls, complete with chandelier. Yesterday's gentility, today's bright idea. This one was tiled in a

black-and-white compass pattern. When you came in, you could see you were standing just slightly east

of true north, if that sort of thing mattered to you. The Compass hasn't permeated everything the way the

Zodiac has, but then it's a pretty new idea. Personally, I think What's your direction? will always be as

dumb a question as What's your sign? None of the half-dozen people standing around in the entry hall

asked me either question, or anything else, including Need some help? as I unloaded my baggage from

the flyer. The pilot watched from the front seat; she was union and definitely not a baggage handler, as

she'd told me several times on the trip out.

It wasn't until I had all my system components piled up on the center of the compass—excuse, Compass,

I mean (they'd want it that way)—that someone broke loose from the group and came over. To examine

the boxes, as it turned out. She refused to notice me until she heard the whiny hum of the flyer as it lifted

off outside.

"Are these for Caverty?" she asked, putting one hand on top of the pile proprietarily.

I put my own hand atop the pile, even with hers. "Not exactly. I'm the pathosfinder."

The silver-and-gold-weave eyebrows went up. In the middle of the day, they gave her the look of

someone who hasn't yet gone home from last night's party. So did the rest of her outfit, which seemed to

be a collection of swatches from this season's best fabrics or something, predominantly silver and gold

with the textures varying. Some people I know would have tried to buy it right off her back.

"Pathosfinder," she said, tasting the word uncertainly. "I don't think—" she shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't

remember us ordering a pathosfinder." She turned to the other people still clustered over near the foot of

a curving marble-and-ebony staircase. "Anyone put in an order for a pathosfinder?"

"Caverty did," I said before any of them could answer. "You should ask him."

The gray eyes widened; not biogems, I noticed, but eyes that looked like eyes. It seemed kind of out of

character for her. "Oh, no," she said. "Caverty works with an empath, everybody knows that."

"He still works with an empath," I said, "only he's also going to be working with me temporarily."

The woman shrugged again. "I'm sorry, I don't think you understand how things are. If Caverty ordered

some equipment from you, I'm sure he means to use it himself somehow, but I know that he didn't order

you to come with it. You can leave the equipment here and I'll see that he gets it and sends your

company a receipt but—" She was starting to show me the egress when the chandelier said, in a cheery,

female voice, "You're a lousy doorman, Priscilla, you should stick to partying. I'm coming right down."

For several moments, all Priscilla did was gape up at the chandelier with her mouth open. I stole a look at

the little group by the stairs; the Emotional Indices ranged from apprehension to mild indignation to

somewhat malicious satisfaction. I felt myself going over a mental speed bump. The milieu here was going

to be a bitch to get around, and it would no doubt be reproduced in some way in Caverty's mind.

Terrific, I thought. As if the job weren't already hard enough, I had a complicated social structure to

clamber around on. NN, you old bastard,

Then another woman came trotting down the staircase. "Ah, here we are. The pathosfinder. Alexandra

Haas, right? Deadpan Allie?" Somehow her hitting the foot of the stairs shooed everyone, including

Priscilla, away; they flowed off into a room to the left, or west, according to the Compass.

"Sorry about that," said the woman. She was all business, tailored, no frills, brown all over, including her

eyes, which were some kind of artificial gem the color of oak. "Sometimes the Entourage gets a little out

of hand around here. I'm Harmony. At least, Caverty hopes I am." She laughed. "I'm kind of the general

factotum, grand scheduler, traffic director, hall monitor. I try to keep things harmonious. I'm the one who

contacted your agency about you. I've done quite a lot of research on pathosfinders; I'm really happy you

were able to take the job."

I nodded. "Thanks. I need a place to stash my equipment and then I'd like to meet Caverty."

"I've had a room prepared for you upstairs, away from the general foofooraw and infighting—"

"Somewhere close to Caverty, I hope?" I said, as she tried to herd me toward the stairs. "I like to be as

available and accessible to a client as possible."

Harmony's face clouded slightly. "Oh. Well. I, uh, I'd really have to check that out with Caverty. He has

his own section of the house where no one else stays, out of respect to his need for a private working

environment. You're experienced with creative people, so I guess you know how that is."

"I understand completely. However, clients sometimes feel that they have to see me right away, in the

middle of the night or whatever. I need to be easily available."

Harmony smiled with indulgence. "There's nowhere you can go in this house where you would not be

available to Caverty on a moment's notice or less. Everyone here understands that. It is his house, after

all."

I opened my mouth, thought quickly, and shut it again. Trying to explain to her that I was not just another

body added to the general Entourage population wasn't going to penetrate; I could tell. She was sure she

knew the kind of people who stayed in Caverty's house, she was one of them. "My system—" I said,

gesturing at the stack of components still sitting in the center of the Compass.

"I've already taken care of that. It'll be moved up to your room for you."

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Pat Cadigan - Dirty Work

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