"How would you like to pay?"
"Cash."
Vickers could have sworn that the flat, synthetic voice sounded disgusted.
"I have no facility for handling cash. The only machines capable of handling cash in this location are at the far end of the line, nearest to the book stall."
Vickers hurried down the row of blue spheres. Fortunately, the one at the end was empty. He fed a ten dollar bill into a slot and stretched out on the plastic recliner. The lights dimmed and the computer became electronically soothing.
"Why don't you describe the anxieties that you are experiencing."
"Every time I get into one of these things I have an overwhelming urge to blow up the machine and myself with it. The only thing that's consistently saved me is that I've never had any explosives with me."
"How long have you been experiencing these hostilities?"
"Since I was weaned."
"Go on."
"Listen, would you please just leave me alone? I ducked in here to stay out of the way until my plane boards."
"Why are you so fearful? Why don't you tell me about the things that scare you."
Vickers sat up straight, aware that he was getting mad with a machine. The knowledge only made him madder.
"I'm a professional assassin with a price on my head and my picture's been splashed all over TV. I've got a right to be scared."
The only advantage of a cash-operated machine was that, if there really was someone recording the session, without a credit card there was no record of his identity.
The 1009 eased its bulk into level flight, and the warning lights went out. The passengers started to relax. Back in smoking they were turning the air blue. Vickers flicked on the tiny TV screen in the back panel on the seat in front of him. The cabin attendants were breaking out the booze carts. The woman next to him was looking around as though she needed a drink. He read her as an out-of-towner who thought that she was cute and slick but had altogether overdone it. The elaborate ringlet coif was draped too heavily onto her right shoulder. The neckline of the black, tailored exec suit plunged just a little too deep. The skirt was fractionally too tight and the slit up the side was fractionally too long, or maybe she just intended to have a good time in Las Vegas. Vickers had given her a look of polite interest when she'd first sat down but there'd been no response and from then on he'd minded his own business.
Amjet prided itself on being a sensible airline. Apart from cramming its cabin attendants, man and women alike, into ludicrously brief shorts and halters, it had resisted the trend toward increasing the in-flight fun. It had no swing flights with people fucking in every toilet, no dip movies, no lasers and no audio pressure. All you got on Amjet was food, booze and seat television. Vickers flicked channels on the TV until he got to what looked like newsreel tape of ragged, wild-eyed soldiers ravaging some bleak, snowbound steppe village. It was undoubtedly supposed to be Russia. He slipped on the headphones. Sure enough, a smug commentary was describing how breakaway units of the disintegrating and half-starved Red Army were preying on the civilian population of the eastern Soviet Union but all the time moving west toward richer European picking. The commentator's concern over the human suffering involved was thoroughly
swamped by his obvious glee at how this was final proof of the failure of the Marxist system. The woman next to him was pointing her index finger at the screen. The nail polish was black with a tiny red dragon decal on each finger. Vickers hadn't seen such attention to detail in a long time. Maybe she really did want to have a good time in Las Vegas. He pulled off the headphones.
"I'm sorry, were you speaking to me?"
"They mass produce those things in northern Canada. All that Russian atrocity stuff. I work for KJHJY back in Trenton. We buy it by the mile."
"Should you be telling me this?"
"Sure, why not? Nobody believes what they see on TV. They know anything goes. All the news shows use simufilm. The corps are too cheap to send crews all over the world. Mind you, I doubt you'd be able to find a cameraman willing to point a lens at the Red Army. I figure we're probably doing the Reds a favor. The real thing's probably ten times worse."
"You sound cynical."
"Sure I'm cynical, I'm going for a weekend in Vegas on my own."
Vickers took another look at her. She was running just a tad toward overblown but there was somthing quite attractive about the severe way she kept it in check. Vickers smiled despite the fact that he didn't feel in any condition for conversation. The arrival of the booze cart gave him a little more time to put off the effort. The woman ordered a martini and Vickers asked for a scotch. She half raised her glass.
"Are you on vacation?"
Vickers shook his head. "Just looking for a change of scene." He realized that he'd delayed too long in the matter of assuming an identity. He didn't know who he was and what he did. He could see that, at any moment, she'd be asking him exactly those questions. Already she had halfway confided in him and was certainly looking for some kind of reciprocation. He got in with the first question.