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The Smoke
The ghost was her father's parting gift, presented by a black-clad
secretary in
a departure lounge at Narita.
For the first two hours of the flight to London it lay forgotten in
her
purse, a smooth dark oblong, one side impressed with the ubiquitous
Maas-Neotek
logo, the other gently curved to fit the user's palm.
She sat up very straight in her seat in the first-class cabin, her
features composed in a small cold mask modeled after her dead
mother's most
characteristic expression. The surrounding seats were empty; her
father had
purchased the space. She refused the meal the nervous steward
offered. The
vacant seats frightened him, evidence of her father's wealth and
power. The man
hesitated, then bowed and withdrew. Very briefly, she allowed the
mask her
mother's smile.
Ghosts, she thought later, somewhere over Germany, staring at the
upholstery of the seat beside her. How well her father treated his
ghosts.
There were ghosts beyond the window, too, ghosts in the stratosphere
of
Europe's winter, partial images that began to form if she let her
eyes drift out
of focus. Her mother in Ueno Park, face fragile in September
sunlight. �The
cranes, Kumi! Look at the cranes!" And Kumiko looked across Shinobazu
Pond and
saw nothing, no cranes at all, only a few hopping black dots that
surely were
crows. The water was smooth as silk, the color of lead, and pale
holograms
flickered indistinctly above a distant line of archery stalls. But
Kumiko would
see the cranes later, many times, in dreams; they were origami,
angular things
folded from sheets of neon, bright stiff birds sailing the moonscape
of her
mother's madness. . . .
Remembering her father, the black robe open across a tattooed storm
of
dragons, slumped behind the vast ebony field of his desk, his eyes
flat and
bright, like the eyes of a painted doll. �Your mother is dead. Do you
understand?" And all around her the planes of shadow in his study,
the angular
darkness. His hand coming forward, into the lamp's circle of light,
unsteadily,
to point at her, the robe's cuff sliding back to reveal a golden
Rolex and more
dragons, their manes swirling into waves, pricked out strong and dark
around his
wrist, pointing. Pointing at her. �Do you understand?" She hadn't
answered, but
had run instead, down to a secret place she knew, the warren of the
smallest of
the cleaning machines. They ticked around her all night, scanning her
every few
minutes with pink bursts of laser light, until her father came to
find her, and,
smelling of whiskey and Dunhill cigarettes, carried her to her room
on the
apartment's third floor.
Remembering the weeks that followed, numb days spent most often in
the
black-suited company of one secretary or another, cautious men with
automatic
smiles and tightly furled umbrellas. One of these, the youngest and
least
cautious, had treated her, on a crowded Ginza sidewalk, in the shadow
of the
Hattori clock, to an impromptu kendo demonstration, weaving expertly
between
startled shop girls and wide-eyed tourists, the black umbrella
blurring
harmlessly through the art's formal, ancient arcs. And Kumiko had
smiled then,
her own smile, breaking the funeral mask, and for this her guilt was
driven
instantly, more deeply and still more sharply, into that place in her
heart
where she knew her shame and her unworthiness. But most often the
secretaries
took her shopping, through one vast Ginza department store after
another, and in
and out of dozens of Shinjuku boutiques recommended by a blue plastic
Michelin
guide that spoke a stuffy tourist's Japanese. She purchased only very
ugly
things, ugly and very expensive things, and the secretaries marched
stolidly
beside her, the glossy bags in their hard hands. Each afternoon,
returning to
her father's apartment, the bags were deposited neatly in her
bedroom, where
they remained, unopened and untouched, until the maids removed them.
And in the seventh week, on the eve of her thirteenth birthday, it
was
arranged that Kumiko would go to London.
"You will be a guest in the house of my kobun ," her father said.
"But I do not wish to go," she said, and showed him her mother's
smile.
"You must," he said, and turned away. "There are difficulties," he
said to
the shadowed study. "You will be in no danger, in London."
"And when shall I return?"
But her father didn't answer. She bowed and left his study, still
wearing
her mother's smile.
The ghost woke to Kumiko's touch as they began their descent into
Heathrow. The
fifty-first generation of Maas-Neotek biochips conjured up an
indistinct figure
on the seat beside her, a boy out of some faded hunting print, legs
crossed
casually in tan breeches and riding boots. "Hullo," the ghost said.
Kumiko blinked, opened her hand. The boy flickered and was gone. She
looked down at the smooth little unit in her palm and slowly closed
her fingers.
" 'Lo again," he said. "Name's Colin. Yours?"
She stared. His eyes were bright green smoke, his high forehead pale
and
smooth under an unruly dark forelock. She could see the seats across
the aisle
through the glint of his teeth. "If it's a bit too spectral for you,"
he said,
with a grin, "we can up the rez. . . ." And he was there for an
instant,
uncomfortably sharp and real, the nap on the lapels of his dark coat
vibrating
with hallucinatory clarity. "Runs the battery down, though," he said,
and faded
to his prior state. "Didn't get your name." The grin again.
"You aren't real," she said sternly.
He shrugged. "Needn't speak out loud, miss. Fellow passengers might
think
you a bit odd, if you take my meaning. Subvocal's the way. I pick it
all up
through the skin. . . ." He uncrossed his legs and stretched, hands
clasped
behind his head. "Seatbelt, miss. I needn't buckle up myself, of
course, being,
as you've pointed out, unreal."
Kumiko frowned and tossed the unit into the ghost's lap. He
vanished. She
fastened her seatbelt, glanced at the thing, hesitated, then picked
it up again.
"First time in London, then?" he asked, swirling in from the
periphery of
her vision. She nodded in spite of herself. "You don't mind flying?
Doesn't
frighten you?"
She shook her head, feeling ridiculous.
"Never mind," the ghost said. "I'll look out for you. Heathrow in
three
minutes. Someone meeting you off the plane?"
"My father's business associate," she said in Japanese.
The ghost grinned. "Then you'll be in good hands, I'm sure." He
winked.
"Wouldn't think I'm a linguist to look at me, would you?"
Kumiko closed her eyes and the ghost began to whisper to her,
something
about the archaeology of Heathrow, about the Neolithic and the Iron
ages,
pottery and tools. . . .
"Miss Yanaka? Kumiko Yanaka?" The Englishman towered above her, his
gaijin bulk
draped in elephantine folds of dark wool. Small dark eyes regarded
her blandly
through steel-rimmed glasses. His nose seemed to have been crushed
nearly flat
and never reset. His hair, what there was of it, had been shaved back
to a gray
stubble, and his black knit gloves were frayed and fingerless. "My
name, you
see," he said, as though this would immediately reassure her, "is
Petal."
Petal called the city Smoke.
Kumiko shivered on chill red leather; through the ancient Jaguar's
window
she watched the snow spinning down to melt on the road Petal called
M4. The late
afternoon sky was colorless. He drove silently, efficiently, his lips
pursed as
though he were about to whistle. The traffic, to Tokyo eyes, was
absurdly light.
They accelerated past an unmanned Eurotrans freight vehicle, its
blunt prow
studded with sensors and banks of headlights. In spite of the
Jaguar's speed,
Kumiko felt as if somehow she were standing still; London's particles
began to
accrete around her. Walls of wet brick, arches of concrete, black-
painted
ironwork standing up in spears.
As she watched, the city began to define itself. Off the M4, while
the
Jaguar waited at intersections, she could glimpse faces through the
snow,
flushed gaijin faces above dark clothing, chins tucked down into
scarves,
women's bootheels ticking through silver puddles. The rows of shops
and houses
reminded her of the gorgeously detailed accessories she'd seen
displayed around
a toy locomotive in the Osaka gallery of a dealer in European
antiques.
This was nothing like Tokyo, where the past, all that remained of
it, was
nurtured with a nervous care. History there had become a quantity, a
rare thing,
parceled out by government and preserved by law and corporate
funding. Here it
seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth
of stone
and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age,
generated over
the centuries to the dictates of some now-all-but-unreadable DNA of
commerce and
empire.
"Regret Swain couldn't come out to meet you himself," the man called
Petal
said. Kumiko had less trouble with his accent than with his manner of
structuring sentences; she initially mistook the apology for a
command. She
considered accessing the ghost, then rejected the idea.
"Swain," she ventured. "Mr. Swain is my host?"
Petal's eyes found her in the mirror. "Roger Swain. Your father
didn't
tell you?"
"No."
"Ah." He nodded. "Mr. Kanaka's conscious of security in these
matters, it
stands to reason. . . . Man of his stature, et cetera . . ." He
sighed loudly.
"Sorry about the heater. Garage was supposed to have that taken care
of. . . ."
"Are you one of Mr. Swain's secretaries?" Addressing the stubbled
rolls of
flesh above the collar of the thick dark coat.
"His secretary?" He seemed to consider the matter. "No," he ventured
finally, "I'm not that." He swung them through a roundabout, past
gleaming
metallic awnings and the evening surge of pedestrians. "Have you
eaten, then?
Did they feed you on the flight?"
"I wasn't hungry." Conscious of her mother's mask.
"Well, Swain'll have something for you. Eats a lot of Jap food,
Swain." He
made a strange little ticking sound with his tongue. He glanced back
at her.
She looked past him, seeing the kiss of snowflakes, the obliterating
sweep
of the wipers.
Swain's Notting Hill residence consisted of three interconnected
Victorian
townhouses situated somewhere in a snowy profusion of squares,
crescents, and
mews. Petal, with two of Kumiko's suitcases in either hand, explained
to her
that number 17 was the front entrance for numbers 16 and 18 as well.
"No use
knocking there," he said, gesturing clumsily with the heavy cases in
his hand,
indicating the glossy red paint and polished brass fittings of 16's
door.
"Nothing behind it but twenty inches of ferroconcrete."
She looked down the crescent, nearly identical facades receding
along its
shallow curve. The snow fell more thickly now, and the featureless
sky was lit
with a salmon glow of sodium lamps. The street was deserted, the snow
fresh and
unmarked. There was an alien edge to the cold air, a faint, pervasive
hint of
burning, of archaic fuels. Petal's shoes left large, neatly defined
prints. They
were black suede oxfords with narrow toes and extremely thick
corrugated soles
of scarlet plastic. She followed in his tracks, beginning to shiver,
up the gray
steps to number 17.
"It's me then," he said to the black-painted door, "innit." Then he
sighed, set all four suitcases down in the snow, removed the
fingerless glove
from his right hand, and pressed his palm against a circle of bright
steel set
flush with one of the door panels. Kumiko thought she heard a faint
whine, a
gnat sound that rose in pitch until it vanished, and then the door
vibrated with
the muffled impact of magnetic bolts as they withdrew.
"You called it Smoke," she said, as he reached for the brass knob,
"the
city. . . ."
He paused. "The Smoke," he said, "yes," and opened the door into
warmth
and light, "that's an old expression, sort of nickname." He picked up
her bags
and padded into a blue-carpeted foyer paneled in white-painted wood.
She
followed him, the door closing itself behind her, its bolts thumping
back into
place. A mahogany-framed print hung above the white wainscoting,
horses in a
field, crisp little figures in red coats. Colin the chip-ghost should
live there
, she thought. Petal had put her bags down again. Flakes of compacted
snow lay
on the blue carpet. Now he opened another door, exposing a gilt steel
cage. He
drew the bars aside with a clank. She stared into the cage, baffled.
"The lift,"
he said. "No space for your things. I'll make a second trip."
For all its apparent age, it rose smoothly enough when Petal touched
a
white porcelain button with a blunt forefinger. Kumiko was forced to
stand very
close to him then; he smelled of damp wool and some floral shaving
preparation.
"We've put you up top," he said, leading her along a narrow
corridor,
"because we thought you might appreciate the quiet." He opened a door
and
gestured her in. "Hope it'll do. . . ." He removed his glasses and
polished them
energetically with a crumpled tissue. "I'll get your bags."
When he had gone, Kumiko walked slowly around the massive black
marble tub
that dominated the center of the low, crowded room. The walls, angled
sharply
toward the ceiling, were faced with mottled gold mirror. A pair of
small dormer
windows flanked the largest bed she'd ever seen. Above the bed, the
mirror was
inset with small adjustable lights, like the reading lamps in an
airliner. She
stood beside the tub to touch the arched neck of a gold-plated swan
that served
as a spout. Its spread wings were tap handles. The air in the room
was warm and
still, and for an instant the presence of her mother seemed to fill
it, an
aching fog.
Petal cleared his throat in the doorway. "Well then," he said,
bustling in
with her luggage, "everything in order? Feeling hungry yet? No? Leave
you to
settle in . . ." He arranged her bags beside the bed. "If you should
feel like
eating, just ring." He indicated an ornate antique telephone with
scrolled brass
mouth and earpieces and a turned ivory handle. "Just pick it up, you
needn't
dial. Breakfast's when you want it. Ask someone, they'll show you
where. You can
meet Swain then. . . ."
The sense of her mother had vanished with his return. She tried to
feel it
again, when he said goodnight and closed the door, but it was gone.
She remained a long time beside the tub, stroking the smooth metal
of the
swan's cool neck.
Kid Afrika
Kid Afrika came cruising into Dog Solitude on the last day in
November, his
vintage Dodge chauffeured by a white girl named Cherry Chesterfield.
Slick Henry and Little Bird were breaking down the buzzsaw that
formed the
Judge's left hand when Kid's Dodge came into view, its patched apron
bag
throwing up brown fantails of the rusty water that pooled on the
Solitude's
uneven plain of compacted steel.
Little Bird saw it first. He had sharp eyes, Little Bird, and a 10X
monocular that dangled on his chest amid the bones of assorted
animals and
antique bottleneck cartridge brass. Slick looked up from the
hydraulic wrist to
see Little Bird straighten up to his full two meters and aim the
monocular out
through the grid of unglazed steel that formed most of Factory's
south wall.
Little Bird was very thin, almost skeletal, and the lacquered wings
of brown
hair that had earned him the name stood out sharp against the pale
sky. He kept
the back and sides shaved high, well above his ears; with the wings
and the
aerodynamic ducktail, he looked as though he were wearing a headless
brown gull.
"Whoa," said Little Bird, "motherfuck."
"What?" It was hard to get Little Bird to concentrate, and the job
needed
a second set of hands.
"It's that nigger."
Slick stood up and wiped his hands down the thighs of his jeans
while
Little Bird fumbled the green Mech-5 microsoft from the socket behind
his ear --
instantly forgetting the eight-point servo-calibration procedure
needed to
unfuck the Judge's buzzsaw. "Who's driving?" Afrika never drove
himself if he
could help it.
"Can't make out." Little Bird let the monocular clatter back into
the
curtain of bones and brass.
Slick joined him at the window to watch the Dodge's progress. Kid
Afrika
periodically touched up the hover's matte-black paint-job with
judicious
applications from an aerosol can, the somber effect offset by the row
of chrome-
plated skulls welded to the massive front bumper. At one time the
hollow steel
skulls had boasted red Christmas bulbs for eyes; maybe the Kid was
losing his
concern with image.
As the hover slewed up to Factory, Slick heard Little Bird shuffle
back
into the shadows, his heavy boots scraping through dust and fine
bright spirals
of metal shavings.
Slick watched past a last dusty dagger of window glass as the hover
settled into its apron bags in front of Factory, groaning and venting
steam.
Something rattled in the dark behind him and he knew that Little
Bird was
behind the old parts rack, fiddling the homemade silencer onto the
Chinese
rimfire they used for rabbits.
"Bird," Slick said, tossing his wrench down on the tarp, "I know
you're an
ignorant little redneck Jersey asshole, but do you have to keep
goddamn
reminding me of it?"
"Don't like that nigger," Little Bird said, from behind the rack.
"Yeah, and if that nigger'd bother noticing, he wouldn't like you
either.
Knew you were back here with that gun, he'd shove it down your throat
sideways."
No response from Little Bird. He'd grown up in white Jersey
stringtowns
where nobody knew shit about anything and hated anybody who did.
"And I'd help him, too." Slick yanked up the zip on his old brown
jacket
and went out to Kid Afrika's hover.
The dusty window on the driver's side hissed down, revealing a pale
face
dominated by an enormous pair of amber-tinted goggles. Slick's boots
crunched on
ancient cans rusted thin as old leaves. The driver tugged the goggles
down and
squinted at him; female, but now the amber goggles hung around her
neck,
concealing her mouth and chin. The Kid would be on the far side, a
good thing in
the unlikely event Little Bird started shooting.
"Go on around," the girl said.
Slick walked around the hover, past the chrome skulls, hearing Kid
Afrika's window come down with that same demonstrative little sound.
"Slick Henry," the Kid said, his breath puffing white as it hit the
air of
the Solitude, "hello."
Slick looked down at the long brown face. Kid Afrika had big hazel
eyes,
slitted like a cat's, a pencil-thin mustache, and skin with the sheen
of buffed
leather.
"Hey, Kid." Slick smelled some kind of incense from inside the
hover. "How
y ' doin'?"
"Well," the Kid said, narrowing his eyes, "recall you sayin' once,
if I
ever needed a favor . . ."
"Right," Slick said, feeling a first twinge of apprehension. Kid
Afrika
had saved his ass once, in Atlantic City; talked some irate brothers
out of
dropping him off this balcony on the forty-third floor of a burned-
out
highstack. "Somebody wanna throw you off a tall building?"
"Slick," the Kid said, "I wanna introduce you to somebody."
"Then we'll be even?"
"Slick Henry, this fine-looking girl here, this is Miss Cherry
Chesterfield of Cleveland, Ohio." Slick bent down and looked at the
driver.
Blond shockhead, paintstick around her eyes. "Cherry, this is my
close personal
friend Mr. Slick Henry. When he was young and bad he rode with the
Deacon Blues.
Now he's old and bad, he holes up out here and pursues his art ,
understand. A
talented man, understand."
"He's the one builds the robots," the girl said, around a wad of
gum, "you
said."
"The very one," the Kid said, opening his door. "You wait for us
here,
Cherry honey." The Kid, draped in a mink coat that brushed the
immaculate tips
of his yellow ostrich boots, stepped out onto the Solitude, and Slick
caught a
glimpse of something in the back of the hover, eyeblink ambulance
flash of
bandages and surgical tubing. . . .
"Hey, Kid," he said, "what you got back there?" The Kid's jeweled
hand
came up, gesturing Slick back as the hover's door clanked shut and
Cherry
Chesterfield hit the window buttons.
"We have to talk about that, Slick."
"I don't think it's much to ask," Kid Afrika said, leaning back
against a bare
metal workbench, wrapped in his mink. "Cherry has a med-tech's ticket
and she
knows she'll get paid. Nice girl, Slick." He winked.
"Kid . . ."
Kid Afrika had this guy in the back of the hover who was like dead,
coma
or something, had him hooked up to pumps and bags and tubes and some
kind of
simstim rig, all of it bolted to an old alloy ambulance stretcher,
batteries and
everything.
"What's this?" Cherry, who'd followed them in after the Kid had
taken
Slick back out to show him the guy in the back of the hover, was
peering
dubiously up at the towering Judge, most of him anyway; the arm with
the buzzsaw
was where they'd left it, on the floor on the greasy tarp. If she has
a med tech
's ticket , Slick thought, the med-tech probably hasn 't noticed
it 's
missing yet . She was wearing at least four leather jackets, all of
them several
sizes too big.
"Slick's art, like I told you."
"That guy's dying. He smells like piss."
"Catheter came loose," Cherry said. "What's this thing supposed to
do ,
anyway?"
"We can't keep him here, Kid, he'll stiff. You wanna kill him, go
stuff
him down a hole on the Solitude."
"The man's not dying," Kid Afrika said. "He's not hurt, he's not
sick. . .
."
"Then what the fuck's wrong with him?"
"He's under , baby. He's on a long trip . He needs peace and quiet
."
Slick looked from the Kid to the Judge, then back to the Kid. He
wanted to
be working on that arm. Kid said he wanted Slick to keep the guy for
two weeks,
maybe three; he'd leave Cherry there to take care of him.
"I can't figure it. This guy, he's a friend of yours?"
Kid Afrika shrugged inside his mink.
"So why don't you keep him at your place?"
"Not so quiet. Not peaceful enough."
"Kid," Slick said, "I owe you one, but nothing this weird. Anyway, I
gotta
work, and anyway, it's too weird. And there's Gentry, too. He's gone
to Boston
now; be back tomorrow night and he wouldn't like it. You know how
he's funny
about people. . . . It's mostly his place , too, how it is. . . ."
"They had you over the railing, man," Kid Afrika said sadly. "You
remember?"
"Hey, I remember, I . . ."
"You don't remember too good," the Kid said. "Okay, Cherry. Let's
go.
Don't wanna cross Dog Solitude at night." He pushed off from the
steel bench.
"Kid, look . . ."
"Forget it. I didn't know your fucking name, that time in Atlantic
City,
just figured I didn't wanna see the white boy all over the street,
y'know? So I
didn't know your name then, I guess I don't know it now."
"Kid . . ."
"Yeah?"
"Okay. He stays. Two weeks max. You gimme your word, you'll come
back and
get him? And you gotta help me square it with Gentry."
"What's he need?"
"Drugs."
Little Bird reappeared as the Kid's Dodge wallowed away across
the
Solitude. He came edging out from behind an outcropping of compacted
cars, rusty
pallets of crumpled steel that still showed patches of bright enamel.
Slick watched him from a window high up in Factory. The squares of
the
steel frame had been fitted with sections of scavenged plastic, each
one a
different shade and thickness, so that when Slick tilted his head to
one side,
he saw Little Bird through a pane of hot-pink Lucite.
"Who lives here?" Cherry asked, from the room behind him.
"Me," Slick said, "Little Bird, Gentry . . ."
"In this room, I mean."
He turned and saw her there beside the stretcher and its attendant
machines. "You do," he said.
"It's your place?" She was staring at the drawings taped to the
walls, his
original conceptions of the Judge and his Investigators, the
Corpsegrinder and
the Witch.
"Don't worry about it."
"Better you don't get any ideas," she said.
He looked at her. She had a large red sore at the corner of her
mouth. Her
bleached hair stood out like a static display. "Like I said, don't
worry about
it."
"Kid said you got electricity."
"Yeah."
"Better get him hooked up," she said, turning to the stretcher. "He
doesn't draw much, but the batteries'll be getting low."
He crossed the room to look down at the wasted face. "You better
tell me
something," he said. He didn't like the tubes. One of them went into
a nostril
and the idea made him want to gag. "Who is this guy and what exactly
the fuck is
Kid Afrika doing to him?"
"He's not," she said, tapping a readout into view on a biomonitor
panel
lashed to the foot of the stretcher with silver tape. "REM's still
up, like he
dreams all the time . . ." The man on the stretcher was strapped down
in a
brand-new blue sleeping bag. "What it is, he -- whoever -- he's
paying Kid for
this."
There was a trode-net plastered across the guy's forehead; a single
black
cable was lashed along the edge of the stretcher. Slick followed it
up to the
fat gray package that seemed to dominate the gear mounted on the
superstructure.
Simstim? Didn't look like it. Some kind of cyberspace rig? Gentry
knew a lot
about cyberspace, or anyway he talked about it, but Slick couldn't
remember
anything about getting unconscious and just staying jacked in. . . .
People
jacked in so they could hustle. Put the trodes on and they were out
there, all
the data in the world stacked up like one big neon city, so you could
cruise
around and have a kind of grip on it, visually anyway, because if you
didn't, it
was too complicated, trying to find your way to a particular piece of
data you
needed. Iconics, Gentry called that.
"He paying the Kid?"
"Yeah," she said.
"What for?"
"Keep him that way. Hide him out, too."
"Who from?"
"Don't know. Didn't say."
In the silence that followed, he could hear the steady rasp of the
man's
breath.
Malibu
There was a smell in the house; it had always been there.
It belonged to time and the salt air and the entropic nature of
expensive
houses built too close to the sea. Perhaps it was also peculiar to
places
briefly but frequently uninhabited, houses opened and closed as their
restless
residents arrived and departed. She imagined the rooms empty, flecks
of
corrosion blossoming silently on chrome, pale molds taking hold in
obscure
corners. The architects, as if in recognition of eternal processes,
had
encouraged a degree of rust; massive steel railings along the deck
had been
eaten wrist-thin by years of spray.
The house crouched, like its neighbors, on fragments of ruined
foundations, and her walks along the beach sometimes involved
attempts at
archaeological fantasy. She tried to imagine a past for the place,
other houses,
other voices. She was accompanied, on these walks, by an armed
remote, a tiny
Dornier helicopter that rose from its unseen rooftop nest when she
stepped down
from the deck. It could hover almost silently, and was programmed to
avoid her
line of sight. There was something wistful about the way it followed
her, as
though it were an expensive but unappreciated Christmas gift.
She knew that Hilton Swift was watching through the Dornier's
cameras.
Little that occurred in the beach house escaped Sense/Net; her
solitude, the
week alone she'd demanded, was under constant surveillance.
Her years in the profession had conveyed a singular immunity to
observation.
At night she sometimes lit the floods mounted beneath the deck,
illuminating the
hieroglyphic antics of huge gray sandfleas. The deck itself she left
in
darkness, and the sunken living room behind her. She sat on a chair
of plain
white plastic, watching the Brownian dance of the fleas. In the glare
of the
floods, they cast minute, barely visible shadows, fleeting cusps
against the
sand.
The sound of the sea wrapped her in its movement. Late at night, as
she
slept in the smaller of the two guest bedrooms, it worked its way
into her
dreams. But never into the stranger 's invading memories.
The choice of bedrooms was instinctive. The master bedroom was mined
with
the triggers of old pain.
The doctors at the clinic had used chemical pliers to pry the
addiction
away from receptor sites in her brain.
She cooked for herself in the white kitchen, thawing bread in the
microwave,
dumping packets of dehydrated Swiss soup into spotless steel pans,
edging dully
into the nameless but increasingly familiar space from which she'd
been so
subtly insulated by the designer 's dust.
"It's called life," she said to the white counter. And what would
Sense/Net's in-house psychs make of that, she wondered, if some
hidden
microphone caught it and carried it to them? She stirred the soup
with a slender
stainless whisk, watching steam rise. It helped to do things, she
thought, just
to do things yourself; at the clinic, they'd insisted she make her
own bed. Now
she spooned out her own bowl of soup, frowning, remembering the
clinic.
She'd checked herself out a week into the treatment. The medics
protested. The
detoxification had gone beautifully, they said, but the therapy
hadn't begun.
They pointed out the rate of relapse among clients who failed to
complete the
program. They explained that her insurance was invalid if she
terminated her
treatment. Sense/Net would pay, she told them, unless they preferred
she pay
them herself. She produced her platinum MitsuBank chip.
Her Lear arrived an hour later; she told it to take her to LAX,
ordered a
car to meet her there, and canceled all incoming calls.
"I'm sorry, Angela," the jet said, banking over Montego Bay seconds
after
they'd taken off, "but I have Hilton Swift on executive override."
"Angie," Swift said, "you know I'm behind you all the way. You know
that,
Angie."
She turned to stare at the black oval of the speaker. It was
centered in
smooth gray plastic, and she imagined him crouching back there, his
long
runner's legs folded painfully, grotesquely, behind the Lear's
bulkhead.
"I know that, Hilton," she said. "It's nice of you to phone."
"You're going to L.A., Angie."
"Yes. That's what I told the plane."
"To Malibu."
"That's right."
"Piper Hill is on her way to the airport."
"Thank you, Hilton, but I don't want Piper there. I don't want
anybody. I
want a car."
"There's no one at the house, Angie."
"Good. That's what I want, Hilton. No one at the house. The house,
empty."
"Are you certain that's a good idea?"
"It's the best idea I've had in a long time, Hilton."
There was a pause. "They said it went really well, Angie, the
treatment.
But they wanted you to stay."
"I need a week," she said. "One week. Seven days. Alone."
After her third night in the house, she woke at dawn, made coffee,
dressed.
Condensation stippled the broad window facing the deck. Sleep had
been simply
that; if dreams had come, she couldn't recall them. But there was
something -- a
quickening, almost a giddiness. She stood in the kitchen, feeling the
cold of
the ceramic floor through thick white sweatsocks, both hands around
the warm
cup.
Something there. She extended her arms, raising the coffee like a
chalice,
the gesture at once instinctive and ironic.
It had been three years since the loa had ridden her, three years
since
they had touched her at all. But now?
Legba? One of the others?
The sense of a presence receded abruptly. She put the cup down on
the
counter too quickly, coffee slopping over her hand, and ran to find
shoes and a
coat. Green rubber boots from the beach closet, and a heavy blue
mountain jacket
she didn't remember, too large to have been Bobby's. She hurried out
of the
house, down the stairs, ignoring the hum of the toy Dornier's prop as
it lifted
off behind her like a patient dragonfly. She glanced north, along the
jumble of
beach houses, the confusion of rooflines reminding her of a Rio
barrio, then
turned south, toward the Colony.
The one who came was named Mamman Brigitte, or Grande Brigitte, and
while some
think her the wife of Baron Samedi, others name her "most ancient of
the dead."
The dream architecture of the Colony rose to Angie's left, a riot of
form
and ego. Frail-looking neon-embedded replicas of the Watts Towers
lifted beside
neo-Brutalist bunkers faced with bronze bas-reliefs.
Walls of mirror, as she passed, reflected morning banks of Pacific
cloud.
There had been times, during the past three years, when she had felt
as
though she were about to cross, or recross, a line, a subtle border
of faith, to
find that her time with the loa had been a dream, or, at most, that
they were
contagious knots of cultural resonance remaining from the weeks she'd
spent in
Beauvoir 's New Jersey oumphor. To see with other eyes: no gods, no
Horsemen.
She walked on, comforted by the surf, by the one perpetual moment of
beach-time, the now-and-always of it.
Her father was dead, seven years dead, and the record he'd kept of
his
life had told her little enough. That he'd served someone or
something, that his
reward had been knowledge, and that she had been his sacrifice.
Sometimes she felt as though she'd had three lives, each walled away
from
the others by something she couldn't name, and no hope of wholeness,
ever.
There were the child's memories of the Maas arcology, carved into
the
summit of an Arizona mesa, where she'd hugged a sandstone balustrade,
face into
the wind, and felt as though the whole hollowed tableland was her
ship, that she
could steer out into those sunset colors beyond the mountains. Later,
she'd
flown away from there, her fear a hard thing in her throat. She could
no longer
recall her last glimpse of her father's face. Though it must have
been on the
microlight deck, the other planes tethered against the wind, a row of
rainbow
moths. The first life ended, that night; her father's life had ended
too.
Her second life had been a short one, fast and very strange. A man
called
Turner had taken her away, out of Arizona, and had left her with
Bobby and
Beauvoir and the others. She remembered little about Turner, only
that he was
tall, with hard muscles and a hunted look. He'd taken her to New
York. Then
Beauvoir had taken her, along with Bobby, to New Jersey. There, on
the fifty-
third level of a mincome structure, Beauvoir had taught her about her
dreams.
The dreams are real, he'd said, his brown face shining with sweat. He
taught her
the names of the ones she'd seen in dreams. He taught her that all
dreams reach
down to a common sea, and he showed her the way in which hers were
different and
the same. You alone sail the old sea and the new , he said.
She was ridden by gods, in New Jersey.
She learned to abandon herself to the Horsemen. She saw the loa
Linglessou
enter Beauvoir in the oumphor, saw his feet scatter the diagrams
outlined in
white flour. She knew the gods, in New Jersey, and love.
The loa had guided her, when she'd set out with Bobby to build her
third,
her current life. They were well matched, Angie and Bobby, born out
of vacuums,
Angie from the clean blank kingdom of Maas Biolabs and Bobby from the
boredom of
Barrytown. . . .
Grande Brigitte touched her, without warning; she stumbled, almost
fell to her
knees in the surf, as the sound of the sea was sucked away into the
twilit
landscape that opened in front of her. The whitewashed cemetery
walls, the
gravestones, the willows. The candles.
Beneath the oldest willow, a multitude of candles, the twisted roots
pale
with wax.
Child , know me .
And Angie felt her there, all at once, and knew her for what she
was,
Mamman Brigitte, Mademoiselle Brigitte, eldest of the dead.
I have no cult , child , no special altar .
She found herself walking forward, into candleglow, a buzzing in her
ears,
as though the willow hid a vast hive of bees.
My blood is vengeance .
Angie remembered Bermuda, night, a hurricane; she and Bobby had
ventured
out into the eye. Grande Brigitte was like that. The silence, the
sense of
pressure, of unthinkable forces held momentarily in check. There was
nothing to
be seen, beneath the willow. Only the candles.
"The loa . . . I can't call them. I felt something . . . I came
looking. .
. ."
You are summoned to my reposoir. Hear me . Your father drew v�v�s
in
your head: he drew them in a flesh that was not flesh . You were
consecrated to
Ezili Freda. Legba led you into the world to serve his own ends. But
you were
sent poison , child , a coup-poudre . . .
Her nose began to bleed. "Poison?"
Your father 's v�v�s are altered , partially erased , redrawn.
Though
you have ceased to poison yourself , still the Horsemen cannot
reach you . I
am of a different order.
There was a terrible pain in her head, blood pounding in her
temples. . .
. "Please . . ."
Hear me . You have enemies . They plot against you . Much is at
stake ,
in this. Fear poison , child!
She looked down at her hands. The blood was bright and real. The
buzzing
sound grew louder. Perhaps it was in her head. "Please! Help me!
Explain . . ."
You cannot remain here . It is death .
And Angie fell to her knees in the sand, the sound of the surf
crashing
around her, dazzled by the sun. The Dornier was hovering nervously in
front of
her, two meters away. The pain receded instantly. She wiped her
bloodied hands
on the sleeves of the blue jacket. The remote's cluster of cameras
whirred and
rotated.
"It's all right," she managed. "A nosebleed. It's only a nosebleed.
. . ."
The Dornier darted forward, then back. "I'm going back to the house
now. I'm
fine." It rose smoothly out of sight.
Angie hugged herself, shaking. No , don 't let them see . They 'll
know
something happened , but not what . She forced herself to her feet,
turned,
began to trudge back up the beach, the way she'd come. As she walked,
she
searched the mountain jacket's pockets for a tissue, anything,
something to wipe
the blood from her face.
When her fingers found the corners of the flat little packet, she
knew
instantly what it was. She halted, shivering. The drug. It wasn't
possible. Yes,
it was. But who? She turned and stared at the Dornier until it slid
away.
The packet. Enough for a month.
Coup-poudre .
Fear poison, child.
Squat
Mona dreamed she was dancing the cage back in some Cleveland juke,
naked in a
column of hot blue light, where the faces thrusting up for her
through the veil
of smoke had blue light snagged in the whites of their eyes. They
wore the
expression men always wore when they watched you dance, staring real
hard but
locked up inside themselves at the same time, so their eyes told you
nothing at
all and their faces, in spite of the sweat, might have been carved
from
something that only looked like flesh.
Not that she cared how they looked, when she was in the cage, high
and hot
and on the beat, three songs into the set and the wiz just starting
to peak, new
strength in her legs sending her up on the balls of her feet . . .
One of them grabbed her ankle.
She tried to scream, only it wouldn't come, not at first, and when
it did
it was like something ripped down inside her, hurt her, and the blue
light
shredded, but the hand, the hand was still there, around her ankle.
She came up
off the bed like a pop-up toy, fighting the dark, clawing hair away
from her
eyes.
"Whatsa matter, babe?"
He put his other hand against her forehead and shoved her back, down
into
the pillow's hot depression.
"Dream . . ." The hand was still there and it made her want to
scream.
"You got a cigarette, Eddy?" The hand went away, click and flare of
the lighter,
the planes of his face jumping out at her as he lit one, handed it to
her. She
sat up quickly, drew her knees up under her chin with the army
blanket over them
like a tent, because she didn't feel like anybody touching her then
at all.
The scavenged plastic chair's broken leg made a warning sound as he
leaned
back and lit his own cigarette. Break , she thought, pitch him on his
ass so he
gets to hit me a few times . At least it was dark, so she didn't have
to look at
the squat. Worst thing was waking up with a bad head, too sick to
move, when
she'd come in crashing and forgotten to retape the black plastic,
hard sun to
show her all the little details and heat the air so the flies could
get going.
Nobody ever grabbed her, back in Cleveland; anybody numb enough to
reach
through that field was already too drunk to move, maybe to breathe.
The tricks
never grabbed her either, not unless they'd squared it with Eddy,
paid extra,
and that was just pretend.
Whichever way they wanted it, it got to be a kind of ritual, so it
seemed
to happen in a place outside your life. And she'd gotten into
watching them,
when they lost it. That was the interesting part, because they really
did lose
it, they were totally helpless, maybe just for a split second, but it
was like
they weren't even there.
"Eddy, I'm gonna go crazy, I gotta sleep here anymore."
He'd hit her before, for less, so she put her face down, against her
knees
and the blanket, and waited.
"Sure," he said, "you wanna go back to the catfish farm? Wanna go
back to
Cleveland?"
"I just can't make this anymore. . . ."
"Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow what?"
"That soon enough for you? Tomorrow night, private fucking jet?
Straight
up to New York? Then you gonna quit giving me this shit?"
"Please, baby," and she reached out for him, "we can take the train.
. .
."
He slapped her hand away. "You got shit for brains."
If she complained any more, anything about the squat, anything that
implied he wasn't making it, that all his big deals added up to
nothing, he'd
start, she knew he'd start. Like the time she'd screamed about the
bugs, the
roaches they called palmetto bugs, but it was because the goddamn
things were
mutants, half of them; someone had tried to wipe them out with
something that
fucked with their DNA, so you'd see these screwed-up roaches dying
with too many
legs or heads, or not enough, and once she'd seen one that looked
like it had
swallowed a crucifix or something, its back or shell or whatever it
was
distorted in a way that made her want to puke.
"Baby," she said, trying to soften her voice, "I can't help it, this
place
is just getting to me. . . ."
"Hooky Green's," he said, like he hadn't heard her, "I was up in
Hooky
Green's and I met a mover . He picked me out , you know? Man's got an
eye for
talent." She could almost feel his grin through the dark. "Outa
London, England.
Talent scout. Come into Hooky's and it was just 'You, my man!' "
"A trick?" Hooky Green's was where Eddy had most recently decided
the
action was, thirty-third floor of a glass highstack with most of the
inside
walls knocked down, had about a block of dancefloor, but he'd gone
off the place
when nobody there was willing to pay him much attention. Mona hadn't
ever seen
Hooky himself, "lean mean Hooky Green," the retired ballplayer who
owned the
place, but it was great for dancing.
"Will you fucking listen? Trick? Shit . He's the man , he's a
connection, he's on the ladder and he's gonna pull me up. And you
know what? I'm
gonna take you with me."
"But what's he want?"
"An actress. Sort of an actress. And a smart boy to get her in place
and
keep her there."
"Actress? Place? What place?"
She heard him unzip his jacket. Something landed on the bed, near
her
feet. "Two thou."
Jesus. Maybe it wasn't a joke. But if it wasn't, what the hell was
it?
"How much you pull tonight, Mona?"
"Ninety." It had really been one-twenty, but she'd figured the last
one
for overtime. She was too scared to hold out on him, usually, but
she'd needed
wiz money.
"Keep it. Get some clothes. Not like work stuff. Nobody wants your
little
ass hanging out, not this trip."
"When?"
"Tomorrow, I said. You can kiss this place goodbye."
When he said that, it made her want to hold her breath.
The chair creaked again. "Ninety, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Tell me."
"Eddy, I'm so tired. . . ."
"No," he said.
But what he wanted wasn't the truth or anything like it. He wanted a
story, the story that he'd taught her to tell him. He didn't want to
hear what
they talked about (and most of them had some one thing they wanted
real bad to
tell you, and usually they did), or how they got around to asking to
see your
bloodwork tickets, or how every other one made that same joke about
how what
they couldn't cure they could put in remission, or even what they
wanted in bed.
Eddy wanted to hear about this big guy who treated her like she
didn't
matter. Except she had to be careful, when she told it, not to make
the trick
too rough, because that was supposed to cost more than she'd actually
been paid.
The main thing was that this imaginary trick had treated her like she
was a
piece of equipment he'd rented for half an hour. Not that there
weren't plenty
like that, but they mostly spent their money at puppet parlors or got
it on
stim. Mona tended to get the ones who wanted to talk, who tried to
buy you a
sandwich after, which could be bad in its own way but not the kind of
bad Eddy
needed. And the other thing Eddy needed was for her to tell him how
that wasn't
what she liked but she'd found herself wanting it anyway, wanting it
bad.
She reached down in the dark and touched the envelope full of money.
The chair creaked again.
So she told him how she was coming out of a BuyLow and he'd hit on
her,
this big guy, just asked how much, which had embarrassed her but she
told him
anyway and she'd said okay. So they went in his car, which was old
and big and
kind of damp-smelling (cribbing detail from her Cleveland days), and
he'd sort
of flipped her over the seat --
"In front of the BuyLow?"
"In back."
Eddy never accused her of making any of it up, even though she knew
he
must have taught her the general outline somehow and it was always
basically the
same story. By the time the big guy had her skirt up (the black one,
she said,
and I had on my white boots) and his pants down, she could hear
Eddy's
beltbuckle jingling as he peeled off his jeans. Part of her was
wondering, when
he slid into bed beside her, whether the position she was describing
was
physically possible, but she kept on going, and anyway it was working
on Eddy.
She remembered to put in how it hurt, when the guy was getting it in,
even
though she'd been really wet. She put in how he held her wrists,
though by now
she was pretty confused about what was where, except that her ass was
supposed
to be up in the air. Eddy had started to touch her, stroking her
breasts and
stomach, so she switched from the offhand brutality of the trick's
moves to how
it was supposed to have made her feel.
How it was supposed to have made her feel was a way she hadn't ever
felt.
She knew you could get to a place where doing it hurt a little but
still felt
good, but she knew that wasn't it. What Eddy wanted to hear was that
it hurt a
lot and made her feel bad, but she liked it anyway. Which made no
sense at all
to Mona, but she'd learned to tell it the way he wanted her to.
Because anyway it worked, and now Eddy rolled over with the blanket
bunched up across his back and got in between her legs. She figured
he must be
seeing it in his head, like a cartoon, what she was telling him, and
at the same
time he got to be that faceless pumping big guy. He had her wrists
now, pinned
above her head, the way he liked.
And when he was done, curled on his side asleep, Mona lay awake in
the
stale dark, turning the dream of leaving around and around, bright
and
wonderful.
And please let it be true.
Portobello
Kumiko woke in the enormous bed and lay very still, listening. There
was a faint
continuous murmur of distant traffic.
The air in the room was cold; she drew the rose duvet around her
like a
tent and climbed out. The small windows were patterned with bright
frost. She
went to the tub and nudged one of the swan's gilded wings. The bird
coughed,
gargled, began to fill the tub. Still huddled in the quilt, she
opened her cases
and began to select the day's garments, laying the chosen articles
out on the
bed.
When her bath was ready, she let the quilt slide to the floor and
climbed
over the marble parapet, stoically lowering herself into the
painfully hot
water. Steam from the tub had melted the frost; now the windows ran
with
condensation. Did all British bedrooms contain tubs like this? she
wondered. She
rubbed herself methodically with an oval bar of French soap, stood
up, sluiced
the suds off as best she could, wrapped herself in a large black
towel, and,
after some initial fumbling, discovered a sink, toilet, and bidet.
These were
hidden in a very small room that might once have been a closet, its
walls fitted
with dark veneer.
The theatrical-looking telephone chimed twice.
"Yes?"
"Petal here. Care for breakfast? Roger's here. Eager to meet you."
"Thank you," she said. "I'm dressing now."
She pulled on her best and baggiest pair of leather slacks, then
burrowed
into a hairy blue sweater so large that it would easily have fit
Petal. When she
opened her purse for her makeup, she saw the Maas-Neotek unit. Her
hand closed
on it automatically. She hadn't intended to summon him, but touch was
enough; he
was there, craning his neck comically and gaping at the low, mirrored
ceiling.
"I take it we aren't in the Dorchester?"
"I'll ask the questions," she said. "What is this place?"
"A bedroom," he said. "In rather dubious taste."
"Answer my question, please."
"Well," he said, surveying the bed and tub, "by the decor, it could
be a
brothel. I can access historical data on most buildings in London,
but there's
nothing notable about this one. Built in 1848. Solid example of the
prevalent
classical Victorian style. The neighborhood's expensive without being
fashionable, popular with lawyers of a certain sort." He shrugged;
she could see
the edge of the bed through the burnished gleam of his riding boots.
She dropped the unit into her purse and he was gone.
She managed the lift easily enough; once in the white-painted foyer,
she
followed the sound of voices. Along a sort of hallway. Around a
corner.
"Good morning," said Petal, lifting the silver cover from a platter.
Steam
rose. "Here's the elusive Mr. Swain, Roger to you, and here's your
breakfast."
"Hello," the man said, stepping forward, his hand extended. Pale
eyes in a
long, strong-boned face. Lank mouse-colored hair was brushed
diagonally across
his forehead. Kumiko found it impossible to guess his age; it was a
young man's
face, but there were deep wrinkles under the grayish eyes. He was
tall, with the
look of an athlete about his arms and shoulders. "Welcome to London."
He took
her hand, squeezed and released it.
"Thank you."
He wore a collarless shirt, very fine red stripes against a pale
blue
ground, the cuffs fastened with plain ovals of dull gold; open at the
neck, it
displayed a dark triangle of tattooed flesh. "I spoke with your
father this
morning, told him you'd arrived safely."
"You are a man of rank."
The pale eyes narrowed. "Pardon?"
"The dragons."
Petal laughed.
"Let her eat," someone said, a woman's voice.
Kumiko turned, discovering the slim dark figure against tall,
mullioned
windows; beyond the windows, a walled garden sheathed in snow. The
woman's eyes
were concealed by silver glasses that reflected the room and its
occupants.
"Another of our guests," said Petal.
"Sally," the woman said, "Sally Shears. Eat up, honey. If you're as
bored
as I am, you feel like a walk." As Kumiko stared, her hand came up to
touch the
glasses, as though she were about to remove them. "Portobello Road's
a couple
blocks. I need some air." The mirrored lenses seemed to have no
frames, no
earpieces.
"Roger," Petal said, forking pink slices of bacon from a silver
platter,
"do you suppose Kumiko will be safe with our Sally?"
"Safer than I'd be, given the mood she's in," Swain said. "I'm
afraid
there isn't much here to amuse you," he said to Kumiko, leading her
to the
table, "but we'll try to make you as comfortable as possible and
arrange for you
to see a bit of the city. It isn't Tokyo, though."
"Not yet, anyway," said Petal, but Swain seemed not to hear.
"Thank you," Kumiko said, as Swain held her chair.
"An honor," Swain said. "Our respect for your father --"
"Hey," the woman said, "she's too young to need that bullshit. Spare
us."
"Sally's in something of a mood, you see," Petal said, as he put a
poached
egg on Kumiko's plate.
Sally Shears's mood, it developed, was one of barely suppressed rage,
a fury
that made itself known in her stride, in the angry gunshot crack of
her black
bootheels on icy pavement.
Kumiko had to scramble to keep up, as the woman stalked away from
Swain's
house in the crescent, her glasses flashing coldly in directionless
winter
sunlight. She wore narrow trousers of dark brown suede and a bulky
black jacket,
its collar turned up high; expensive clothing. With her short black
hair, she
might have been taken for a boy.
For the first time since leaving Tokyo, Kumiko felt fear.
The energy pent in the woman was almost tangible, a knot of anger
that
might slip at any moment.
Kumiko slid her hand into her purse and squeezed the Maas-Neotek
unit;
Colin was instantly beside her, strolling briskly along, his hands
tucked in the
pockets of his jacket, his boots leaving no imprint in the dirty
snow. She
released the unit then, and he was gone, but she felt reassured. She
needn't
fear losing Sally Shears, whose pace she found difficult; the ghost
could
certainly guide her back to Swain's. And if I run from her , she
thought, he
will help me . The woman dodged through moving traffic at an
intersection,
absently tugging Kumiko out of the path of a fat black Honda taxi and
somehow
managing to kick the fender as it slid past.
"You drink?" she asked, her hand around Kumiko's forearm.
Kumiko shook her head. "Please, you're hurting my arm."
Sally's grip loosened, but Kumiko was steered through doors of
ornate
frosted glass, into noise and warmth, a sort of crowded burrow lined
in dark
wood and worn fawn velour.
Soon they faced each other across a small marble table that
supported a
Bass ashtray, a mug of dark ale, the whiskey glass Sally had emptied
on her way
from the bar, and a glass of orange squash.
Kumiko saw that the silver lenses met the pale skin with no sign of
a
seam.
Sally reached for the empty whiskey glass, tilted it without lifting
it
from the table, and regarded it critically. "I met your father once,"
she said.
"He wasn't as far up the ladder, back then." She abandoned the glass
for her mug
of ale. "Swain says you're half gaijin. Says your mother was Danish."
She
swallowed some of the ale. "You don't look it."
"She had them change my eyes."
"Suits you."
"Thank you. And your glasses," she said, automatically, "they are
very
handsome."
Sally shrugged. "Your old man let you see Chiba yet?"
Kumiko shook her head.
"Smart. I was him, I wouldn't either." She drank more ale. Her
nails,
evidently acrylic, were the shade and sheen of mother-of-pearl. "They
told me
about your mother." Her face burning, Kumiko lowered her eyes.
"That's not why you're here. You know that? He didn't pack you off
to
Swain because of her. There's a war on. There hasn't been high-level
infighting
in the Yakuza since before I was born, but there is now." The empty
pint clinked
as Sally set it down. "He can't have you around, is all. You'd be too
easy to
get to. A guy like Swain's pretty far off the map, far as Kanaka's
rivals are
concerned. Why you got a passport with a different name, right? Swain
owes
Kanaka. So you're okay, right?"
Kumiko felt the hot tears come.
"Okay, so you're not okay." The pearl nails drummed on marble. "So
she did
herself and you're not okay. Feel guilty, right?"
Kumiko looked up, into twin mirrors.
Portobello was choked Shinjuku-tight with tourists. Sally Shears,
after
insisting Kumiko drink the orange squash, which had grown warm and
flat, led her
out into the packed street. With Kumiko firmly in tow, Sally began to
work her
way along the pavement, past folding steel tables spread with torn
velvet
curtains and thousands of objects made of silver and crystal, brass
and china.
Kumiko stared as Sally drew her past arrays of Coronation plate and
jowled
Churchill teapots. "This is gomi ," Kumiko ventured, when they paused
at an
intersection. Rubbish. In Tokyo, worn and useless things were
landfill. Sally
grinned wolfishly. "This is England. Gomi 's a major natural
resource. Gomi
and talent. What I'm looking for now. Talent."
The talent wore a bottle-green velvet suit and immaculate suede
wingtips, and
Sally found him in another pub, this one called the Rose and Crown.
She
introduced him as Tick. He was scarcely taller than Kumiko, and
something was
skewed in his back or hip, so that he walked with a pronounced limp
that
heightened an overall impression of asymmetry. His black hair was
shaved close
at the back and sides, but piled into an oily loaf of curls above his
forehead.
Sally introduced Kumiko: "My friend from Japan and keep your hands
to
yourself." Tick smiled wanly and led them to a table.
"How's business, Tick?"
"Fine," he said glumly. "How's retirement?"
Sally seated herself on a padded bench, her back to the wall.
"Well," she
said, "it's sort of on again, off again."
Kumiko looked at her. The rage had evaporated, or else been expertly
concealed. As Kumiko sat down, she slid her hand into her purse and
found the
unit. Colin popped into focus on the bench beside Sally.
"Nice of you to think of me," Tick said, taking a chair. "Been two
years,
I'd say." He cocked an eyebrow in Kumiko's direction.
"She's okay. You know Swain, Tick?"
"Strictly by reputation, thank you."
Colin was studying their exchange with amused fascination, moving
his head
from side to side as though he were watching a tennis match. Kumiko
had to
remind herself that only she could see him.
"I want you to turn him over for me. I don't want him to know."
He stared at her. The entire left half of his face contorted in a
huge
slow wink. "Well then," he said, "you don't half want much, do you?"
"Good money, Tick. The best."
"Looking for something in particular, or is it a laundry run? Isn't
as
though people don't know he's a top nob in the rackets. Can't say I'd
want him
to find me on his manor. . . ."
"But then there's the money, Tick."
Two very rapid winks.
"Roger's twisting me, Tick. Somebody's twisting him. I don't know
what
they've got on him, don't much care. What he's got on me is enough.
What I want
to know is who, where, when. Tap in to incoming and outgoing traffic.
He's in
touch with somebody, because the deal keeps changing."
"Would I know it if I saw it?"
"Just have a look, Tick. Do that for me."
The convulsive wink again. "Right, then. We'll have a go." He
drummed his
fingers nervously on the edge of the table. "Buy us a round?"
Colin looked across the table at Kumiko and rolled his eyes.
"I don't understand," Kumiko said, as she followed Sally back along
Portobello
Road. "You have involved me in an intrigue. . . ."
Sally turned up her collar against the wind.
"But I might betray you. You plot against my father's associate. You
have
no reason to trust me."
"Or you me, honey. Maybe I'm one of those bad people your daddy's
worried
about."
Kumiko considered this. "Are you?"
"No. And if you're Swain's spy, he's gotten a lot more baroque
recently.
If you're your old man's spy, maybe I don't need Tick. But if the
Yakuza's
running this, what's the point of using Roger for a blind?"
"I am no spy."
"Then start being your own. If Tokyo's the frying pan, you may just
have
landed in the fire."
"But why involve me?"
"You're already involved. You're here. You scared?"
"No," Kumiko said, and fell silent, wondering why this should be
true.
Late that afternoon, alone in the mirrored garret, Kumiko sat on the
edge of the
huge bed and peeled off her wet boots. She took the Maas-Neotek unit
from her
purse.
"What are they?" she asked the ghost, who perched on the parapet of
the
black marble tub.
"Your pub friends?"
"Yes."
"Criminals. I'd advise you to associate with a better class, myself.
The
woman's foreign. North American. The man's a Londoner. East End. He's
a data
thief, evidently. I can't access police records, except with regard
to crimes of
historical interest."
"I don't know what to do. . . ."
"Turn the unit over."
"What?"
"On the back. You'll see a sort of half-moon groove there. Put your
thumbnail in and twist. . . ."
A tiny hatch opened. Microswitches.
"Reset the A/B throw to B. Use something narrow, pointed, but not a
biro."
"A what?"
"A pen. Ink and dust. Gum up the works. A toothpick's ideal. That'll
set
it for voice-activated recording."
"And then?"
"Hide it downstairs. We'll play it back tomorrow. . . ."
Morning Light
Slick spent the night on a piece of gnawed gray foam under a
workbench on
Factory's ground floor, wrapped in a noisy sheet of bubble packing
that stank of
free monomers. He dreamed about Kid Afrika, about the Kid's car, and
in his
dreams the two blurred together and Kid's teeth were little chrome
skulls.
He woke to a stiff wind spitting the winter's first snow through
Factory's
empty windows.
He lay there and thought about the problem of the Judge's buzzsaw,
how the
wrist tended to cripple up whenever he went to slash through
something heavier
than a sheet of chipboard. His original plan for the hand had called
for
articulated fingers, each one tipped with a miniature electric
chainsaw, but the
concept had lost favor for a number of reasons. Electricity, somehow,
just
wasn't satisfying; it wasn't physical enough. Air was the way to go,
big tanks
of compressed air, or internal combustion if you could find the
parts. And you
could find the parts to almost anything, on Dog Solitude, if you dug
long
enough; failing that, there were half-a-dozen towns in rustbelt
Jersey with
acres of dead machines to pick over.
He crawled out from under the bench, trailing the transparent
blanket of
miniature plastic pillows like a cape. He thought about the man on
the
stretcher, up in his room, and about Cherry, who'd slept in his bed.
No stiff
neck for her. He stretched and winced.
Gentry was due back. He'd have to explain it to Gentry, who didn't
like
having people around at all.
Little Bird had made coffee in the room that served as Factory's
kitchen. The
floor was made of curling plastic tiles and there were dull steel
sinks along
one wall. The windows were covered with translucent tarps that sucked
in and out
with the wind and admitted a milky glow that made the room seem even
colder than
it was.
"How we doing for water?" Slick asked as he entered the room. One of
Little Bird's jobs was checking the tanks on the roof every morning,
fishing out
windblown leaves or the odd dead crow. Then he'd check the seals on
the filters,
maybe let ten fresh gallons in if it looked like they were running
low. It took
the better part of a day for ten gallons to filter down through the
system to
the collection tank. The fact that Little Bird dutifully took care of
this was
the main reason Gentry would tolerate him, but the boy's shyness
probably helped
as well. Little Bird managed to be pretty well invisible, as far as
Gentry was
concerned.
"Got lots," Little Bird said.
"Is there any way to take a shower?" Cherry asked, from her seat on
an old
plastic crate. She had shadows under her eyes, like she hadn't slept,
but she'd
covered the sore with makeup.
"No," Slick said, "there isn't, not this time of year."
"I didn't think so," Cherry said glumly, hunched in her collection
of
leather jackets.
Slick helped himself to the last of the coffee and stood in front of
her
while he drank it.
"You gotta problem?" she asked.
"Yeah. You and the guy upstairs. How come you're down here? You off
duty
or something?"
She produced a black beeper from the pocket of her outermost jacket.
"Any
change, this'll go off."
"Sleep okay?"
"Sure. Well enough."
"I didn't. How long you work for Kid Afrika, Cherry?"
" 'Bout a week."
"You really a med-tech?"
She shrugged inside her jackets. "Close enough to take care of the
Count."
"The Count?"
"Count, yeah. Kid called him that, once."
Little Bird shivered. He hadn't gotten to work with his styling
tools yet,
so his hair stuck out in all directions. "What if," Little Bird
ventured, "he's
a vampire?"
Cherry stared at him. "You kidding?"
Eyes wide, Little Bird solemnly shook his head.
Cherry looked at Slick. "Your friend playing with a full deck?"
"No vampires," Slick said to Little Bird, "that's not a real thing,
understand? That's just in stims. Guy's no vampire, okay?"
Little Bird nodded slowly, looking not at all reassured, while the
wind
popped the plastic taut against the milky light.
He tried to get a morning's work in on the Judge, but Little Bird had
vanished
again and the image of the figure on the stretcher kept getting in
the way. It
was too cold; he'd have to run a line down from Gentry's territory at
the top of
Factory, get some space heaters. But that meant haggling with Gentry
over the
current. The juice was Gentry's because Gentry knew how to fiddle it
out of the
Fission Authority.
It was heading into Slick's third winter in Factory, but Gentry had
been
there four years when Slick found the place. When they'd gotten
Gentry's loft
together, Slick had inherited the room where he'd put Cherry and the
man she
said Kid Afrika called the Count. Gentry took the position that
Factory was his,
that he'd been there first, got the power in so the Authority didn't
know. But
Slick did a lot of things around Factory that Gentry wouldn't have
wanted to do
himself, like making sure there was food, and if something major
broke down, if
the wiring shorted or the water filter packed it in, it was Slick who
had the
tools and did the fixing.
Gentry didn't like people. He spent days on end with his decks and
FX-
organs and holo projectors and came out only when he got hungry.
Slick didn't
understand what it was that Gentry was trying to do, but he envied
Gentry the
narrowness of his obsession. Nothing got to Gentry. Kid Afrika
couldn't have
gotten to Gentry, because Gentry wouldn't have gone over to Atlantic
City and
gotten into deep shit and Kid Afrika's debt.
He went into his room without knocking and Cherry was washing the
guy's chest
with a sponge, wearing white throwaway gloves. She'd carried the
butane stove up
from the room where they did the cooking and heated water in a steel
mixing
bowl.
He made himself look at the pinched face, the slack lips parted just
enough to reveal yellow smoker's teeth. It was a street face, a crowd
face, face
you'd see in any bar.
She looked up at Slick.
He sat on the edge of the bed, where she'd unzipped his sleeping bag
and
spread it out flat like a blanket, with the torn end tucked in under
the foam.
"We gotta talk, Cherry. Figure this, you know?"
She squeezed the sponge out over the bowl.
"How'd you get mixed up with Kid Afrika?"
She put the sponge in a Ziploc and put that away in the black nylon
bag
from the Kid's hover. As he watched her, he saw there was no wasted
motion, and
she didn't seem to have to think about what she was doing. "You know
a place
called Moby Jane's?"
"No."
"Roadhouse, off the interstate. So I had this friend was manager
there,
doing it for about a month when I move in with him. Moby Jane, she's
just huge;
she just sits out back the club in a float tank with this freebase IV
drip in
her arm and it's totally disgusting. So like I said, I move in there
with my
friend Spencer, he's the new manager, because I had this trouble over
my ticket
in Cleveland and I couldn't work right then."
"What kind of trouble?"
"The usual kind, okay? You wanna hear this or not? So Spencer's let
me in
on the owner's horrible condition, right? So the last thing I want
anybody to
know is that I'm a med-tech, otherwise they'll have me out there
changing
filters on her tank and pumping freebase into two hundred kilos of
hallucinating
psychotic. So they put me waiting tables, slinging beer. It's okay.
Get some
good music in there. Kind of a rough place but it's okay because
people know I'm
with Spencer. 'Cept I wake up one day and Spencer's gone. Then it
comes out he's
gone with a bunch of their money." She was drying the sleeper's chest
as she
spoke, using a thick wad of white absorbent fiber. "So they knock me
around a
little." She looked up at him and shrugged. "But then they tell me
what they're
gonna do. They're gonna cuff my hands behind my back and put me in
the tank with
Moby Jane and turn her drip up real high and tell her my boyfriend
ripped her
off. . . ." She tossed the damp wad into the bowl. "So they locked me
up in this
closet to let me think about it before they did it. When the door
opens, though,
it's Kid Afrika. I never saw him before. 'Miss Chesterfield,' he
said, 'I have
reason to believe you were until recently a certified medical
technician.' "
"So he made you an offer."
"Offer, my ass. He just checked my papers and took me straight on
out of
there. Not a soul around, either, and it was Saturday afternoon. Took
me out in
the parking lot, there's this hover sittin' in the lot, skulls on the
front, two
big black guys waiting for us, and any way away from that float tank,
that's
just fine by me."
"Had our friend in the back?"
"No." Peeling off the gloves. "Had me drive him back to Cleveland,
to this
burb. Big old houses but the lawns all long and scraggy. Went to one
with a lot
of security, guess it was his. This one," and she tucked the blue
sleeping bag
up around the man's chin, "he was in a bedroom. I had to start right
in. Kid
told me he'd pay me good."
"And you knew he'd bring you out here, to the Solitude?"
"No. Don't think he did, either. Something happened. He came in next
day
and said we were leaving. I think something scared him. That's when
he called
him that, the Count. 'Cause he was angry and I think maybe scared.
'The Count
and his fucking LF,' he said."
"His what?"
" 'LF.' "
"What's that?"
"I think this," she said, pointing up at the featureless gray
package
mounted above the man's head.
No There, There
She imagined Swift waiting for her on the deck, wearing the tweeds he
favored in
an L. A. winter, the vest and jacket mismatched, herringbone and
houndstooth,
but everything woven from the same wool, and that, probably, from the
same sheep
on the same hillside, the whole look orchestrated in London, by
committee, in a
room above a Floral Street shop he'd never seen. They did striped
shirts for
him, brought the cotton from Charvet in Paris; they made his ties,
had the silk
woven in Osaka, the Sense/Net logo embroidered tight and small. And
still,
somehow, he looked as though his mother had dressed him.
The deck was empty. The Dornier hovered, then darted away to its
nest.
Mamman Brigitte's presence still clung to her.
She went into the white kitchen and scrubbed drying blood from her
face
and hands. When she stepped into the living room, she felt as though
she were
seeing it for the first time. The bleached floor, the gilt frames and
cut-velvet
upholstery of the Louis XVI chairs, the Cubist backdrop of a Valmier.
Like
Hilton's wardrobe, she thought, contrived by talented strangers. Her
boots
tracked damp sand across the pale floor as she went to the stairwell.
Kelly Hickman, her wardrobe man, had been to the house while she'd
been in
the clinic; he'd arranged her working luggage in the master bedroom.
Nine Herm�s
rifle cases, plain and rectangular, like coffins of burnished saddle
hide. Her
clothes were never folded; they lay each garment flat, between sheets
of silk
tissue.
She stood in the doorway, staring at the empty bed, the nine leather
coffins.
She went into the bathroom, glass block and white mosaic tile,
locking the
door behind her. She opened one cabinet, then another, ignoring neat
rows of
unopened toiletries, patent medicines, cosmetics. She found the
charger in the
third cabinet, beside a bubble card of derms. She bent close, peering
at the
gray plastic, the Japanese logo, afraid to touch it. The charger
looked new,
unused. She was almost certain that she hadn't bought it, hadn't left
it here.
She took the drug from her jacket pocket and examined it, turning it
over and
over, watching the measured doses of violet dust tumble in their
sealed
compartments.
She saw herself place the packet on the white marble ledge, position
the
charger above it, remove a derm from its bubble and insert it. She
saw the red
flash of a diode when the charger had drawn off a dose; she saw
herself remove
the derm, balancing it like a white plastic leech on the tip of her
index
finger, its moist inner surface glittering with minute beads of DMSO
--
She turned, took three steps to the toilet, and dropped the unopened
packet into the bowl. It floated there like a toy raft, the drug
still perfectly
dry. Perfectly. Her hand shaking, she found a stainless nailfile and
knelt on
the white tile. She had to close her eyes when she held the packet
and drove the
tip of the file against the seam, twisting. The file clattered on
tile as she
touched the flush button and the two halves of the empty packet
vanished. She
rested her forehead against cool enamel, then forced herself to get
up, go to
the sink, and carefully wash her hands.
Because she wanted, now she really knew she wanted, to lick her
fingers.
Later that day, in a gray afternoon, she found a corrugated plastic
shipping
cannister in the garage, carried it up to the bedroom, and began to
pack Bobby's
remaining things. There wasn't much: a pair of leather jeans he
hadn't liked,
some shirts he'd either discarded or forgotten, and, in the teak
bureau's bottom
drawer, a cyberspace deck. It was an Ono-Sendai, hardly more than a
toy. It lay
amid a tangle of black leads, a cheap set of stim-trodes, a greasy-
looking
plastic tube of saline paste.
She remembered the deck he'd used, the one he'd taken with him, a
gray
factory-custom Hosaka with unmarked keys. It was a cowboy's deck;
he'd insisted
on traveling with it, even though it caused problems during customs
checks. Why,
she wondered, had he bought the Ono-Sendai? And why had he abandoned
it? She was
seated on the edge of the bed; she lifted the deck from the drawer
and put it on
her lap.
Her father, long ago, in Arizona, had cautioned her against jacking
in.
You don't need it, he'd said. And she hadn't, because she'd dreamed
cyberspace,
as though the neon gridlines of the matrix waited for her behind her
eyelids.
There 's no there ,there. They taught that to children, explaining
cyberspace. She remembered a smiling tutor's lecture in the
arcology's executive
cr�che, images shifting on a screen: pilots in enormous helmets and
clumsy-
looking gloves, the neuroelectronically primitive "virtual world"
technology
linking them more effectively with their planes, pairs of miniature
video
terminals pumping them a computer-generated flood of combat data, the
vibrotactile feedback gloves providing a touch-world of studs and
triggers. . .
. As the technology evolved, the helmets shrank, the video terminals
atrophied.
. . .
She leaned forward and picked up the trode-set, shook it to free its
leads
from the tangle.
No there, there.
She spread the elastic headband and settled the trodes across her
temples
-- one of the world's characteristic human gestures, but one she
seldom
performed. She tapped the Ono-Sendai's battery-test stud. Green for
go. She
touched the power stud and the bedroom vanished behind a colorless
wall of
sensory static. Her head filled with a torrent of white sound.
Her fingers found a random second stud and she was catapulted
through the
static wall, into cluttered vastness, the notional void of
cyberspace, the
bright grid of the matrix ranged around her like an infinite cage.
"Angela," the house said, its voice quiet but compelling, "I have a
call from
Hilton Swift. . . ."
"Executive override?" She was eating baked beans and toast at the
kitchen
counter.
"No," it said, confidingly.
"Change your tone," she said, around a mouthful of beans. "Something
with
an edge of anxiety."
"Mr. Swift is waiting ," the house said nervously.
"Better," she said, carrying bowl and plate to the washer, "but I
want
something closer to genuine hysteria. . . ."
"Will you take the call?" The voice was choked with tension.
"No," she said, "but keep your voice that way, I like it."
She walked into the living room, counting under her breath. Twelve,
thirteen . . .
"Angela," the house said gently, "I have a call from Hilton Swift --
"
"On executive override," Swift said.
She made a farting sound with her lips.
"You know I respect your need to be alone, but I worry about you."
"I'm fine, Hilton. You needn't worry. Bye-bye."
"You stumbled this morning, on the beach. You seemed disoriented.
Your
nose began to bleed."
"I had a nosebleed."
"We want you to have another physical. . . ."
"Great."
"You accessed the matrix today, Angie. We logged you in the BAMA
industrial sector."
"Is that what it was?"
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"There isn't anything to talk about. I was just screwing around. You
want
to know , though? I was packing some crap Bobby left here. You'd have
approved ,
Hilton! I found a deck of his and I tried it. I punched a key, sat
there looking
around, jacked out."
"I'm sorry, Angie."
"For what?"
"For disturbing you. I'll go now."
"Hilton, do you know where Bobby is?"
"No."
"You telling me Net security hasn't kept tabs on him?"
"I'm telling you I don't know, Angie. That's the truth."
"Could you find out, if you wanted to?"
Another pause. "I don't know. If I could, I'm not sure that I
would."
"Thanks. Goodbye, Hilton."
"Goodbye, Angie."
She sat on the deck that night, in the dark, watching the fleas dance
against
floodlit sand. Thinking of Brigitte and her warning, of the drug in
the jacket
and the derm charger in the medicine cabinet. Thinking of cyberspace
and the sad
confinement she'd felt with the Ono-Sendai, so far from the freedom
of the loa.
Thinking of the other's dreams, of corridors winding in upon
themselves,
muted tints of ancient carpet . . . An old man, a head made of
jewels, a taut
pale face with eyes that were mirrors . . . And a beach in the wind
and dark.
Not this beach, not Malibu.
And somewhere, in a black California morning, some hour before dawn,
amid the
corridors, the galleries, the faces of dream, fragments of
conversation she
half-recalled, waking to pale fog against the windows of the master
bedroom, she
prized something free and dragged it back through the wall of sleep.
Rolling over, fumbling through a bedside drawer, finding a Porsche
pen, a
present from an assistant grip, she inscribed her treasure on the
glossy back of
an Italian fashion magazine:
T-A
"Call Continuity," she told the house, over a third cup of coffee.
"Hello, Angie," said Continuity.
"That orbital sequence we did, two years ago. The Belgian's yacht .
. ."
She sipped her cooling coffee. "What was the name of the place he
wanted to take
me? The one Robin decided was too tacky."
"Freeside," the expert system said.
"Who's taped there?"
"Tally Isham recorded nine sequences in Freeside."
"It wasn't too tacky for her?"
"That was fifteen years ago. It was fashionable."
"Get me those sequences."
"Done."
"Bye."
"Goodbye, Angie."
Continuity was writing a book. Robin Lanier had told her about it.
She'd
asked what it was about. It wasn't like that, he'd said. It looped
back into
itself and constantly mutated; Continuity was always writing it. She
asked why.
But Robin had already lost interest: because Continuity was an AI,
and AIs did
things like that.
Her call to Continuity cost her a call from Swift.
"Angie, about that physical . . ."
"Haven't you scheduled it yet? I want to get back to work. I called
Continuity this morning. I'm thinking about an orbital sequence. I'm
going over
some things Tally did; I may get some ideas."
There was a silence. She wanted to laugh. It was difficult to get a
silence out of Swift. "You're sure, Angie? That's wonderful, but is
it really
what you want to do?"
"I'm all better, Hilton. I'm just fine. I want to work. Vacation's
over.
Have Porphyre come out here and do my hair before I have to see
anyone."
"You know, Angie," he said, "this makes all of us very happy."
"Call Porphyre. Set up the physical." Coup-poudre . Who , Hilton?
Maybe
you?
He had the resources, she thought, half an hour later, as she paced
the
fogbound deck. Her addiction hadn't threatened the Net, hadn't
affected her
output. There were no physical side effects. If there had been,
Sense/ Net would
never have allowed her to begin. The drug's designer, she thought.
The designer
would know. And never tell her, even if she could reach him, which
she doubted
she could. Suppose, she thought, her hands on the rust of the
railing, that he
hadn't been the designer? That the molecule had been designed by
someone else,
to his own ends?
"Your hairdresser," the house said.
She went inside.
Porphyre was waiting, swathed in muted jersey, something from the
Paris
season. His face, as smooth in repose as polished ebony, split into a
delighted
smirk when he saw her. "Missy," he scolded, "you look like homemade
shit."
She laughed. Porphyre clucked and tutted, came forward to flick his
long
fingers at Angie's bangs with mock revulsion. "Missy was a bad girl.
Porphyre
told you those drugs were nasty!"
She looked up at him. He was very tall, and, she knew, enormously
strong.
Like a greyhound on steroids, someone had once said. His depilated
skull
displayed a symmetry unknown to nature.
"You okay?" he asked, in his other voice, the manic brio shut off as
if
someone had thrown a switch.
"I'm fine."
"Did it hurt?"
"Yeah. It hurt."
"You know," he said, touching her chin lightly with a fingertip,
"nobody
could ever see what you got out of that shit. It didn't seem to get
you high. .
. ."
"It wasn't supposed to. It was just like being here, being there,
only you
didn't have to --"
"Feel it as much?"
"Yes."
He nodded, slowly. "Then that was some bad shit."
"Fuck it," she said. "I'm back."
His smirk returned. "Let's wash your hair."
"I washed it yesterday!"
"What in? No! Don't tell me!" He shooed her toward the stairwell.
In the white-tiled bathroom, he massaged something into her scalp.
"Have you seen Robin lately?"
He sluiced cool water through her hair. "Mistah Lanier is in
London,
missy. Mistah Lanier and I aren't currently on speaking terms. Sit
up now." He
raised the back of the chair and draped a towel around her neck.
"Why not?" She felt herself warming to the Net gossip that was
Porphyre's
other specialty.
"Because," the hairdresser said, his tone carefully even as he ran a
comb
back through her hair, "he had some bad things to say about Angela
Mitchell
while she was off in Jamaica getting her little head straight."
It wasn't what she'd expected. "He did?"
"Didn't he just, missy." He began to cut her hair, using the
scissors that
were one of his professional trademarks; he refused to use a laser
pencil,
claimed never to have touched one.
"Are you joking, Porphyre?"
"No. He wouldn't say those things to me , but Porphyre hears ,
Porphyre
always hears. He left for London the morning after you got here."
"And what was it you heard he'd said?"
"That you're crazy. On shit or off. That you hear voices. That the
Net
psychs know."
Voices . . . "Who told you that?" She tried to turn in the chair.
"Don't move your head. There." He went back to his work. "I can't
say.
Trust me."
There were a number of calls, after Porphyre left. Her production
crew, eager to
say hello.
"No more calls this afternoon," she told the house. "I'll run the
Tally
sequences upstairs."
She found a bottle of Corona at the rear of the fridge and took it
to the
master bedroom. The stim unit in the teak headboard was equipped with
studio-
grade trodes that hadn't been there when she'd left for Jamaica. Net
technicians
periodically upgraded equipment in the house. She had a swig of beer,
put the
bottle on the bedside table, and lay down with the trodes across her
forehead.
"Okay," she said, "hit me."
Into Tally-flesh, Tally-breath.
How did I ever replace you? she wondered, overcome by the former
star's
physical being. Do I give people this same pleasure?
Tally-Angie looking out across a vine-hung chasm that was also a
boulevard, glancing up to the inverse horizon, squares of distant
tennis courts,
Freeside's "sun" an axial thread of brilliance overhead . . .
"Fast forward," she told the house.
Into smooth-pumping muscle and a blur of concrete, Tally hurling her
cycle
around a low-grav velodrome . . .
"Fast forward."
A dining scene, tension of velvet straps across her shoulders, the
young
man across the table leaning forward to pour more wine . . .
"Fast forward."
Linen sheets, a hand between her legs, purple twilight through plate
glass, sound of running water . . .
"Reverse. The restaurant."
The red wine gurgling into her glass . . .
"Little more. Hold it. There."
Tally's eyes had been focused on the boy's tanned wrist, not on the
bottle.
"I want a graphic of the visual," she said, pulling off the trodes.
She
sat up and took a swallow of beer, which mingled weirdly with the
ghost-flavor
of Tally's recorded wine.
The printer downstairs chimed softly as it completed its task. She
forced
herself to take the stairs slowly, but when she reached the printer,
in the
kitchen, the image disappointed her.
"Can you clear this up?" she asked the house. "I want to be able to
read
the label on the bottle."
"Justifying image," the house said, "and rotating target object
eight
degrees."
The printer hummed softly as the new graphic was extruded. Angie
found her
treasure before the machine could chime, her dream-sigil in brown
ink: T-A.
They'd had their own vineyards, she thought.
Tessier-Ashpool S.A. , the typeface regal and spidery.
"Gotcha," she whispered.
Texas Radio
Mona could see the sun through a couple of rips in the black plastic
they kept
taped over the window. She hated the squat too much to stay there
when she was
awake or straight, and now she was both.
She got quietly out of bed, wincing when her bare heel brushed the
floor,
and fumbled for her plastic thongs. The place was dirty; you could
probably get
tetanus from leaning up against the wall. Made her skin crawl to
think about it.
Stuff like that didn't seem to bother Eddy; he was too far gone in
his schemes
to notice his surroundings much. And he always managed to keep clean,
somehow,
like a cat. He was cat-clean, never a fleck of dirt under his
polished nails.
She figured he probably spent most of what she earned on his
wardrobe, although
it wouldn't have occurred to her to question the fact. She was
sixteen and
SINless, Mona, and this older trick had told her once that that was a
song,
"Sixteen and SINless." Meant she hadn't been assigned a SIN when she
was born, a
Single Identification Number, so she'd grown up on the outside of
most official
systems. She knew that it was supposed to be possible to get a SIN,
if you
didn't have one, but it stood to reason you'd have to go into a
building
somewhere and talk to a suit, and that was a long way from Mona's
idea of a good
time or even normal behavior.
She had a drill for getting dressed in the squat, and she could do
it in
the dark. You got your thongs on, after giving them a quick knock
together to
dislodge possible crawlies, and then you walked over to where you
knew there was
a roll of old fax on a Styrofoam crate beside the window. You peeled
off about a
meter of fax, maybe a day and a half of Asahi Shimbun , folded and
creased it,
put it down on the floor. Then you could stand on it, get the plastic
bag from
beside the crate, undo the twist of wire that held it shut, and find
the clothes
you wanted. When you stepped out of the thongs to put your pants on,
you knew
you'd be stepping on fresh fax. It was an article of faith with Mona
that
nothing was going to wander across the fax in the time it took her to
step into
a pair of jeans and get the thongs back on.
You could put on a shirt or whatever, carefully reseal the bag, and
get
out of there. Makeup, when required, went on in the corridor outside;
there was
some mirror left, beside the derelict elevator, a Fuji biofluorescent
strip
glued above it.
There was a strong piss smell beside the elevator this morning, so
she
decided to skip the makeup.
You never saw anybody in the building, but you heard them sometimes;
music
through a closed door, or footsteps just gone around a corner at the
far end of
a corridor. Well, that made sense; Mona had no desire to meet her
neighbors
either.
She took the stairs down three flights and into the gaping dark of
the
underground garage. She had her flashlight in her hand, found her way
with six
quick little blinks that steered her around stagnant puddles and
dangling
strands of dead optic cable, up the concrete steps and out into the
alley. You
could smell the beach, sometimes, in the alley, if the wind was
right, but today
it just smelled of garbage. The side of the squat towered away above
her, so she
moved fast, before some asshole decided to drop a bottle or worse.
Once she was
out on the Avenue, she slowed, but not too much; she was conscious of
the cash
in her pocket, and full of plans for spending it. Wouldn't do to get
taken off,
not when it looked like Eddy had wrangled them some kind of ticket
out. She
alternated between telling herself it was a sure thing, that they
were
practically gone, and warning herself not to get her hopes up. She
knew Eddy's
sure things: hadn't Florida been one of them? How it was warm in
Florida and the
beaches were beautiful and it was full of cute guys with money, just
the spot
for a little working vacation that had already stretched into the
longest month
Mona could remember. Well, it was fucking hot in Florida, like a
sauna. The only
beaches that weren't private were polluted, dead fish rolling belly-
up in the
shallows. Maybe the private stretches were the same, but you couldn't
see them,
just the chainlink and the guards in shorts and cop shirts standing
around.
Eddy'd get excited by the weapons the guards carried and describe
each one to
her in numbing detail. He didn't have a gun himself, though, not as
far as she
knew, and Mona figured that was a good thing. Sometimes you couldn't
even smell
the dead fish, because there was another smell, a chlorine smell that
burned the
roof of your mouth, something from the factories up the coast. If
there were
cute guys, they were still tricks, and the ones down here weren't
exactly
offering to pay double.
About the only thing to like about Florida was drugs, which were
easy to
come by and cheap and mostly industrial strength. Sometimes she
imagined the
bleach smell was the smell of a million dope labs cooking some
unthinkable
cocktail, all those molecules thrashing their kinky little tails, hot
for
destiny and the street.
She turned off the Avenue and walked down a line of unlicensed food
stalls. Her stomach started growling at the smell, but she didn't
trust street
food, not if she didn't have to, and there were licensed places in
the mall that
would take cash. Somebody was playing a trumpet in the asphalt square
that had
been the parking lot, a rambling Cuban solo that bounced and
distorted off the
concrete walls, dying notes lost in the morning clatter of the
market. A soapbox
evangelist spread his arms high, a pale fuzzy Jesus copying the
gesture in the
air above him. The projection rig was in the box he stood on, but he
wore a
battered nylon pack with two speakers sticking over each shoulder
like blank
chrome heads. The evangelist frowned up at Jesus and adjusted
something on the
belt at his waist. Jesus strobed, turned green, and vanished. Mona
laughed. The
man's eyes flashed God's wrath, a muscle working in his seamed cheek.
Mona
turned left, between rows of fruit vendors stacking oranges and
grapefruit in
pyramids on their battered metal carts.
She entered a low, cavernous building that housed aisles of more
permanent
businesses: sellers of fish and packaged foods, cheap household
goods, counters
serving a dozen kinds of hot food. It was cooler here in the shade,
and a little
quieter. She found a wonton place with six empty stools and took one.
The
Chinese cook spoke to her in Spanish; she ordered by pointing. He
brought her
soup in a plastic bowl; she paid him with the smallest of her bills,
and he made
change with eight greasy cardboard tokens. If Eddy meant it, about
leaving, she
wouldn't be able to use them; if they stayed in Florida, she could
always get
some wonton. She shook her head. Gotta go, gotta. She shoved the worn
yellow
disks back across the painted plyboard counter. "You keep 'em." The
cook swept
them out of sight, bland and expressionless, a blue plastic toothpick
fixed at
the corner of his mouth.
She took chopsticks from the glass on the counter and fished a
folded
noodle from the bowl. There was a suit watching her from the aisle
behind the
cook's pots and burners. A suit who was trying to look like something
else,
white sportshirt and sunglasses. More the way they stand than
anything, she
thought. But he had the teeth, too, and the haircut, except he had a
beard. He
was pretending to look around, like he was shopping, hands in his
pockets, his
mouth set in what he might have thought was an absent smile. He was
pretty, the
suit, what you could see of him behind the beard and the glasses. The
smile
wasn't pretty, though; it was kind of rectangular, so you could see
most of his
teeth. She shifted a little on the stool, uneasy. Hooking was legal,
but only if
you did it right, got the tax chip and everything. She was suddenly
aware of the
cash in her pocket. She pretended to study the laminated foodhandling
license
taped to the counter; when she looked up again, he was gone.
She spent fifty on the clothes. She worked her way through eighteen
racks in
four shops, everything the mall had, before she made up her mind. The
vendors
didn't like her trying on so many things, but it was the most she'd
ever had to
spend. It was noon before she'd finished, and the Florida sun was
cooking the
pavement as she crossed the parking lot with her two plastic bags.
The bags,
like the clothes, were secondhand: one was printed with the logo of a
Ginza shoe
store, the other advertised Argentinian seafood briquettes molded
from
reconstituted krill. She was mentally mixing and matching the things
she'd
bought, figuring out different outfits.
From the other side of the square, the evangelist opened up at full
volume, in mid-rant, like he'd warmed up to a spit-spraying fury
before he'd cut
the amp in, the hologram Jesus shaking its white-robed arms and
gesturing
angrily to the sky, the mall, the sky again. Rapture, he said.
Rapture's coming.
Mona turned a corner at random, automatic reflex avoiding a crazy,
and
found herself walking past sunfaded card tables spread with cheap
Indo simstim
sets, used cassettes, colored spikes of microsoft stuck in blocks of
pale blue
Styrofoam. There was a picture of Angie Mitchell taped up behind one
of the
tables, a poster Mona hadn't seen before. She stopped and studied it
hungrily,
taking in the star's clothes and makeup first, then trying to figure
out the
background, where it had been shot. Unconsciously, she adjusted her
expression
to approximate Angie's in the poster. Not a grin, exactly.A sort of
half-grin,
maybe a little sad. Mona felt a special way about Angie. Because -
- and tricks
said it, sometimes -- she looked like her. Like she was Angie's
sister. Except
her nose, Mona's, had more of a tilt, and she, Angie, didn't have
that smear of
freckles out to her cheekbones. Mona's Angie half-grin widened as she
stared,
washed in the beauty of the poster, the luxury of the pictured room.
She guessed
it was a kind of castle, probably it was where Angie lived, sure,
with lots of
people to take care of her, do her hair and hang up her clothes,
because you
could see the walls were made of big rocks, and those mirrors had
frames on them
that were solid gold, carved with leaves and angels. The writing
across the
bottom would say where it was, maybe, but Mona couldn't read. Anyway,
there
weren't any fucking roaches there, she was sure of that, and no Eddy
either. She
looked down at the stim sets and briefly considered using the rest of
her money.
But then she wouldn't have enough for a stim, and anyway these were
old, some of
them older than she was. There was whatsit, that Tally, she'd been
big when Mona
was maybe nine. . . .
When she got back, Eddy was waiting for her, with the tape off the
window and
the flies buzzing. Eddy was sprawled out on the bed, smoking a
cigarette, and
the suit with the beard, who'd been watching her, was sitting in the
broken
chair, still wearing his sunglasses.
Prior , he said that was his name, like he didn't have a first one.
Or like Eddy
didn't have a last one. Well, she didn't have a last name herself,
unless you
counted Lisa, and that was more like having two first ones.
She couldn't get much sense of him, in the squat. She thought maybe
that
was because he was English. He wasn't really a suit, though, not like
she'd
thought when she'd seen him in the mall; he was onto some game, it
just wasn't
clear which one. He kept his eyes on her a lot, watched her pack her
things in
the blue Lufthansa bag he'd brought, but she couldn't feel any heat
there, not
like he wanted her. He just watched her, watched Eddy smoke, tapped
his
sunglasses on his knee, listened to Eddy's line of bullshit, and said
as little
as he needed to. When he did say something, it was usually funny, but
the way he
talked made it hard to tell when he was joking.
Packing, she felt light-headed, like she'd done a jumper but it
hadn't
quite come on. The flies were fucking against the window, bumping on
the dust-
streaked glass, but she didn't care. Gone, she was already gone.
Zipping up the bag.
It was raining when they got to the airport, Florida rain, pissing
down warm out
of a nowhere sky. She'd never been to an airport before, but she knew
them from
the stims.
Prior's car was a white Datsun rental that drove itself and played
elevator music through quad speakers. It left them beside their
luggage in a
bare concrete bay and drove away in the rain. If Prior had a bag, it
wasn't with
him; Mona had her Lufthansa bag and Eddy had two black gator-clone
suitcases.
She tugged her new skirt down over her hips and wondered if she'd
bought
the right shoes. Eddy was enjoying himself, had his hands in his
pockets and his
shoulders tilted to show he was doing something important.
She remembered him in Cleveland, the first time, how he'd come out
to the
place to look at a scoot the old man had for sale, a three-wheel
Skoda that was
mostly rust. The old man grew catfish in concrete tanks that fenced
the dirt
yard. She was in the house when Eddy came, long high-walled space of
a truck
trailer up on blocks. There were windows cut down one side, square
holes sealed
over with scratched plastic. She was standing by the stove, smell of
onions in
sacks and tomatoes hung up to dry, when she felt him there, down the
length of
the room, sensed the muscle and shoulder of him, his white teeth, the
black
nylon cap held shyly in his hand. Sun was coming in the windows, the
place lit
up bare and plain, the floor swept the way the old man had her keep
it, but it
was like a shadow came, blood-shadow where she heard the pumping of
her heart,
and him coming closer, tossing the cap on the bare chipboard table as
he passed
it, not shy now but like he lived there, right up to her, running a
hand with a
bright ring back through the oiled weight of his hair. The old man
came in then
and Mona turned away, pretended to do something with the stove.
Coffee, the old
man said, and Mona went to get some water, filling the enamel pot
from the roof-
tank line, the water gurgling down through the charcoal filter. Eddy
and the old
man sitting at the table, drinking black coffee, Eddy's legs spread
straight out
under the table, thighs hard through threadbare denim. Smiling,
jiving the old
man, dealing for the Skoda. How it seemed to run okay, how he'd buy
it if the
old man had the title. Old man getting up to dig in a drawer. Eddy's
eyes on her
again. She followed them out into the yard and watched him straddle
the cracked
vinyl saddle. Backfire set the old man's black dogs yelping, high
sweet smell of
cheap alcohol exhaust and the frame trembling between his legs.
Now she watched him pose beside his suitcases, and it was hard to
connect
that up, why she'd left with him next day on the Skoda, headed into
Cleveland.
The Skoda'd had a busted little radio you couldn't hear over the
engine, just
play it soft at night in a field by the road. Tuner part was cracked
so it only
picked up one station, ghost music up from some lonesome tower in
Texas, steel
guitar fading in and out all night, feeling how she was wet against
his leg and
the stiff dry grass prickling the back of her neck.
Prior put her blue bag into a white cart with a striped top and she
climbed in after it, hearing tiny Spanish voices from the Cuban
driver's
headset. Then Eddy stowed the gator cases and he and Prior got in.
Rolling out
to the runway through walls of rain.
The plane wasn't what she knew from the stims, not like a long rich
bus inside,
with lots of seats. It was a little black thing with sharp, skinny
wings and
windows that made it look like it was squinting.
She went up some metal stairs and there was a space with four seats
and
the same gray carpet all over, on the walls and ceiling too,
everything clean
and cool and gray. Eddy came in after her and took a seat like it was
something
he did every day, loosening his tie and stretching his legs. Prior
was pushing
buttons beside the door. It made a sighing sound when it closed.
She looked out the narrow, streaming windows at runway lights
reflected on
wet concrete.
Came down here on the train , she thought, New York to Atlanta and
then
you change .
The plane shivered. She heard the airframe creak as it came to life.
She woke briefly, two hours later, in the darkened cabin, cradled by
the long
hum of the jet. Eddy was asleep, his mouth half-open. Maybe Prior was
sleeping
too, or maybe he just had his eyes closed, she couldn't tell.
Halfway back into a dream she wouldn't remember in the morning, she
heard
the sound of that Texas radio, fading steel chords drawn out like an
ache.
Underground
Jubilee and Bakerloo, Circle and District. Kumiko peered at the
little laminated
map Petal had given her and shivered. The concrete platform seemed to
radiate
cold through the soles of her boots.
"It's so fucking old," Sally Shears said absently, her glasses
reflecting
a convex wall sheathed in white ceramic tile.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The tube." A new tartan scarf was knotted under Sally's chin, and
her
breath was white when she spoke. "You know what bothers me? It's how
sometimes
you'll see 'em sticking new tile up in these stations, but they don't
take down
the old tile first. Or they'll punch a hole in the wall to get to
some wiring
and you can see all these different layers of tile. . . ."
"Yes?"
"Because it's getting narrower , right? It's like arterial plaque. .
. ."
"Yes," Kumiko said dubiously, "I see. . . . Those boys, Sally, what
is the
meaning of their costume, please?"
"Jacks. What they call Jack Draculas."
The four Jack Draculas huddled like ravens on the opposite platform.
They
wore nondescript black raincoats and polished black combat boots
laced to the
knee. One turned to address another and Kumiko saw that his hair was
drawn back
into a plaited queue and bound with a small black bow.
"Hung him," Sally said, "after the war."
"Who?"
"Jack Dracula. They had public hangings for a while, after the war.
Jacks,
you wanna stay away from 'em. Hate anybody foreign . . ."
Kumiko would have liked to access Colin, but the Maas-Neotek unit
was
tucked behind a marble bust in the room where Petal served their
meals, and then
the train arrived, amazing her with the archaic thunder of wheels on
steel rail.
Sally Shears against the patchwork backdrop of the city's
architecture, her
glasses reflecting the London jumble, each period culled by
economics, by fire,
by war.
Kumiko, already confused by three rapid and apparently random train
changes, let herself be hauled through a sequence of taxi rides.
They'd jump out
of one cab, march into the nearest large store, then take the first
available
exit to another street and another cab. "Harrods," Sally said at one
point, as
they cut briskly through an ornate, tile-walled hall pillared in
marble. Kumiko
blinked at thick red roasts and shanks displayed on tiered marble
counters,
assuming they were made of plastic. And then out again, Sally hailing
the next
cab. "Covent Garden," she said to the driver.
"Excuse me, Sally. What are we doing?"
"Getting lost."
Sally drank hot brandy in a tiny caf� beneath the snow-streaked glass
roof of
the piazza. Kumiko drank chocolate.
"Are we lost, Sally?"
"Yeah. Hope so, anyway." She looked older today, Kumiko thought;
lines of
tension or fatigue around her mouth.
"Sally, what is it that you do? Your friend asked if you were still
retired. . . ."
"I'm a businesswoman."
"And my father is a businessman?"
"Your father is a businessman, honey. No, not like that. I'm an
indie. I
make investments, mostly."
"In what do you invest?"
"In other indies." She shrugged. "Feeling curious today?" She sipped
her
brandy.
"You advised me to be my own spy."
"Good advice. Takes a light touch, though."
"Do you live here, Sally, in London?"
"I travel."
"Is Swain another 'indie'?"
"He thinks so. He's into influence, nods in the right direction; you
need
that here, to do business, but it gets on my nerves." She tossed back
the rest
of the brandy and licked her lips.
Kumiko shivered.
"You don't have to be scared of Swain. Yanaka could have him for
breakfast. . . ."
"No. I thought of those boys in the subway. So thin . . ."
"The Draculas."
"A gang?"
"Bosozoku ," Sally said, with fair pronunciation. " 'Running
tribes'?
Anyway, like a tribe." It wasn't the right word, but Kumiko thought
she saw the
distinction. "They're thin because they're poor." She gestured to the
waiter for
a second brandy.
"Sally," Kumiko said, "when we came here, the route we took, the
trains
and cabs, that was in order to make certain we were not followed?"
"Nothing's ever certain."
"But when we went to meet Tick, you took no precautions. We could
easily
have been followed. You enlist Tick to spy on Swain, yet you take no
precautions. You bring me here, you take many precautions. Why?"
The waiter put a steaming glass down in front of her. "You're a
sharp
little honey, aren't you?" She leaned forward and inhaled the fumes
of brandy.
"It's like this, okay? With Tick, maybe I'm just trying to shake some
action."
"But Tick is concerned that Swain not discover him."
"Swain won't touch him, not if he knows he's working for me."
"Why?"
"Because he knows I might kill him." She raised the glass, looking
suddenly happier.
"Kill Swain?"
"That's right." She drank.
"Then why were you so cautious today?"
"Because sometimes it feels good to shake it all off, get out from
under.
Chances are, we haven't. But maybe we have. Maybe nobody, nobody at
all, knows
where we are. Nice feeling, huh? You could be kinked, you ever think
of that?
Maybe your dad, the Yak warlord, he's got a little bug planted in you
so he can
keep track of his daughter. You got those pretty little teeth, maybe
Daddy's
dentist tucked a little hardware in there one time when you were into
a stim.
You go to the dentist?"
"Yes."
"You stim while he works?"
"Yes . . ."
"There you go. Maybe he's listening to us right now. . . ."
Kumiko nearly overturned what was left of her chocolate.
"Hey." The polished nails tapped Kumiko's wrist. "Don't worry about
it. He
wouldn't've sent you here like that, with a bug. Make you too easy
for his
enemies to track. But you see what I mean? It's good to get out from
under, or
anyway try. On our own, right?"
"Yes," Kumiko said, her heart still pounding, the panic continuing
to
rise. "He killed my mother," she blurted, then vomited chocolate on
the caf�'s
gray marble floor.
Sally leading her past the columns of Saint Paul's, walking, not
talking.
Kumiko, in a disjointed trance of shame, registering random
information: the
white shearling that lined Sally's leather coat, the oily rainbow
sheen of a
pigeon's feathers as it waddled out of their way, red buses like a
giant's toys
in the Transport Museum, Sally warming her hands around a foam cup of
steaming
tea.
Cold, it would always be cold now. The freezing damp in the city's
ancient
bones, the cold waters of Sumida that had filled her mother's lungs,
the chill
flight of the neon cranes.
Her mother was fine-boned and dark, the thick spill of her hair
grained
with gold highlights, like some rare tropical hardwood. Her mother
smelled of
perfume and warm skin. Her mother told her stories, about elves and
fairies and
Copenhagen, which was a city far away. When Kumiko dreamed of the
elves, they
were like her father's secretaries, lithe and staid, with black suits
and furled
umbrellas. The elves did many curious things, in her mother's
stories, and the
stories were magic, because they changed with the telling, and you
could never
be certain how a tale might end on a given night. There were
princesses in the
stories as well, and ballerinas, and each of them, Kumiko had known,
was in some
way her mother.
The princess-ballerinas were beautiful but poor, dancing for love in
the
far city's heart, where they were courted by artists and student
poets, handsome
and penniless. In order to support an aged parent, or purchase an
organ for an
ailing brother, a princess- ballerina was sometimes obliged to voyage
very far
indeed, perhaps as far as Tokyo, to dance for money. Dancing for
money, the
tales implied, was not a happy thing.
Sally took her to a robata bar in Earls Court and forced her to drink
a glass of
sake. A smoked fugu fin floated in the hot wine, turning it the color
of
whiskey. They ate robata from the smoky grill, and Kumiko felt the
cold recede,
but not the numbness. The decor of the bar induced a profound sense
of cultural
dislocation: it managed to simultaneously reflect traditional
Japanese design
and look as though it had been drawn up by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
She was very strange, Sally Shears, stranger than all of gaijin
London.
Now she told Kumiko stories, stories about people who lived in a
Japan Kumiko
had never known, stories that defined her father's role in the world.
The oyabun
, she called Kumiko's father. The world Sally's stories described
seemed no more
real than the world of her mother's fairy tales, but Kumiko began to
understand
the basis and extent of her father's power. "Kuromaku ," Sally said.
The word
meant black curtain. "It's from Kabuki, but it means a fixer, someone
who sells
favors. Means behind-the-scenes, right? That's your father. That's
Swain, too.
But Swain's your old man's kobun , or anyway one of them. Oyabun-
kobun , parent-
child. That's partly where Roger gets his juice. That's why you're
here now,
because Roger owes it to the oyabun . Giri , understand?"
"He is a man of rank."
Sally shook her head. "Your old man, Kumi, he's it . If he's had to
ship
you out of town to keep you safe, means there's some serious changes
on the
way."
"Been down the drinker?" Petal asked, as they entered the room, his
eyeglass
edges winking Tiffany light from a bronze and stained-glass tree that
grew on
the sideboard. Kumiko wanted to look at the marble head that hid the
Maas-Neotek
unit, but forced herself to look out into the garden. The snow there
had become
the color of London sky.
"Where's Swain?" Sally asked.
"Guvnor's out," Petal told her.
Sally went to the sideboard and poured herself a glass of scotch
from a
heavy decanter. Kumiko saw Petal wince as the decanter came down hard
on the
polished wood. "Any messages?"
"No."
"Expect him back tonight?"
"Can't say, really. Do you want dinner?"
"No."
"I'd like a sandwich," Kumiko said.
Fifteen minutes later, with the untouched sandwich on the black
marble bedside
table, she sat in the middle of the huge bed, the Maas-Neotek unit
between her
bare feet. She'd left Sally drinking Swain's whiskey and staring out
into the
gray garden.
Now she took up the unit and Colin shuddered into focus at the foot
of the
bed.
"Nobody can hear my half of this," he said quickly, putting a finger
to
his lips, "and a good thing, too. Room's bugged."
Kumiko started to reply, then nodded.
"Good," he said. "Smart girl. Got two conversations for you. One's
your
host and his minder, other's your host and Sally. Got the former
about fifteen
minutes after you stashed me downstairs. Listen . . ." Kumiko closed
her eyes
and heard the tinkle of ice in a whiskey glass.
"Where's our little Jap, then?" Swain asked.
"Tucked up for the night," Petal said. "Talks to herself, that one.
One-
sided conversation. Queer."
"What about?"
"Bloody little, actually. Some people do, y 'know. . . ."
"What?"
"Talk to themselves. Like to hear her?"
"Christ, no. Where's the delightful Miss Shears?"
"Out for her constitutional."
"Call Bernie 'round, next time, see what she's about on these little
walks
. . ."
"Bernie," and Petal laughed, "he'd come back in a fucking box!"
Now Swain laughed. "Mightn't be a bad thing either way, Bernard off
our
hands and the famous razorgirl's thirst slaked . . . Here, pour us
another."
"None for me. Off to bed, unless you need me . . ."
"No," Swain said.
"So," said Colin, as Kumiko opened her eyes to find him still seated
on
the bed, "there's a voice-activated bug here in your room; the minder
reviewed
the recording and heard you address me. Our second segment, now, is
more
interesting. Your host sits there with his second whiskey, in comes
our Sally. .
. ."
"Hullo," she heard Swain say, "been out taking the air?"
"Fuck off."
"You know," Swain said, "none of this was my idea. You might try
keeping
that in mind. You know they've got me by the balls as well."
"You know, Roger, sometimes I'm tempted to believe you."
"Try it. It would make things easier."
"Other times, I'm tempted to slit your fucking throat."
"Your problem, dear, is that you never learned to delegate; you
still want
to do everything personally."
"Listen, asshole, I know where you're from, and I know how you got
here,
and I don't care how far you've got your tongue up Kanaka's crack or
anybody
else's. Sarakin! " Kumiko had never heard the word before.
"I heard from them again," Swain said, his tone even,
conversational.
"She's still on the coast, but it looks as though she'll make a move
soon. East,
most likely. Back on your old manor. I think that's our best bet,
really. The
house is impossible. Enough private security along that stretch to
stop a fair-
sized army . . ."
"You still trying to tell me this is just a snatch, Roger? Trying to
tell
me they're gonna hold her for ransom?"
"No. Nothing's been said about selling her back."
"So why don't they just hire that army? No reason they'd have to
stop at
fair-sized, is there? Get the mercs, right? The corporate-extraction
boys. She's
not that hard a target, no more than some hotshit research man. Get
the fucking
pros in . . ."
"For perhaps the hundredth time, that isn't what they want. They
want
you."
"Roger, what do they have on you, huh? I mean, do you really not
know
what it is they got on me?"
"No, I don't. But based on what they've got on me, I'll hazard a
guess."
"Yeah?"
"Everything."
No reply.
"There's another angle," he said, "that came up today. They want it
to
look as though she's been taken out."
"What?"
"They want it to look as though we've killed her."
"And how are we supposed to manage that?"
"They'll provide a body."
"I assume," Colin said, "that she left the room without comment. It
ends
there."
The Shape
He spent an hour checking the saw's bearings, then lubed them again.
It was
already too cold to work; he'd have to go ahead and heat the room
where he kept
the others, the Investigators and the Corpsegrinder and the Witch.
That in
itself would be enough to disturb the balance of his arrangement with
Gentry,
but it faded beside the problem of explaining his agreement with Kid
Afrika and
the fact of two strangers in Factory. There was no way to argue with
Gentry; the
juice was his, because he was the one who fiddled it out of the
Fission
Authority; without Gentry's monthly passes on the console, the ritual
moves that
kept the Authority convinced Factory was somewhere else, some place
that paid
its bill, there wouldn't be any electricity.
And Gentry was so strange anyway, he thought, feeling his knees
creak as
he stood up and took the Judge's control unit from his jacket pocket.
Gentry was
convinced that cyberspace had a Shape, an overall total form. Not
that that was
the weirdest idea Slick had ever run across, but Gentry had this
obsessive
conviction that the Shape mattered totally . The apprehension of the
Shape was
Gentry's grail.
Slick had once stimmed a Net/Knowledge sequence about what shape the
universe was; Slick figured the universe was everything there was, so
how could
it have a shape? If it had a shape, then there was something around
it for it to
have a shape in , wasn't there? And if that something was something,
then wasn't
that part of the universe too? This was exactly the kind of thing
you didn't
want to get into with Gentry, because Gentry could tie your head in
knots. But
Slick didn't think cyberspace was anything like the universe anyway;
it was just
a way of representing data. The Fission Authority had always looked
like a big
red Aztec pyramid, but it didn't have to; if the FA wanted it to,
they could
have it look like anything. Big companies had copyrights on how their
stuff
looked. So how could you figure the whole matrix had a particular
shape? And why
should it mean anything if it did?
He touched the unit's power stud; the Judge, ten meters away, hummed
and
trembled.
Slick Henry hated the Judge. That was what the art people never
understood. That didn't mean it didn't give him pleasure to have
built the
thing, to have gotten the Judge out , out where he could see him and
keep track
of him and finally, sort of, be free of the idea of him, but that
sure wasn't
the same as liking him.
Nearly four meters tall, half as broad at the shoulders, headless,
the
Judge stood trembling in his patchwork carapace the color of rust
gone a certain
way, like the handles of an old wheelbarrow, polished by the friction
of a
thousand hands. He'd found a way to get that surface with chemicals
and
abrasives, and he'd used it on most of the Judge; the old parts
anyway, the
scavenged parts, not the cold teeth of the circular blades or the
mirrored
surfaces of the joints, but the rest of the Judge was that color,
that finish,
like a very old tool still in hard daily use.
He thumbed the joystick and the Judge took one step forward, then
another.
The gyros were working perfectly; even with an arm off, the thing
moved with a
terrible dignity, planting its huge feet just so.
Slick grinned in Factory's gloom as the Judge clomped toward him,
one-two,
one-two. He could remember every step of the Judge's construction, if
he wanted
to, and sometimes he did, just for the comfort of being able to.
He couldn't remember when he hadn't been able to remember, but
sometimes
he almost could.
That was why he had built the Judge, because he'd done something -
- it
hadn't been anything much, but he'd been caught doing it, twice -
- and been
judged for it, and sentenced, and then the sentence was carried out
and he
hadn't been able to remember, not anything, not for more than five
minutes at a
stretch. Stealing cars. Stealing rich people's cars. They made sure
you
remembered what you did.
Working the joystick, he got the Judge turned around and walked him
into
the next room, along an aisle between rows of damp-stained concrete
pads that
had once supported lathes and spot welders. High overhead, up in the
gloom and
dusty beams, dangled dead fluorescent fixtures where birds sometimes
nested.
Korsakov's, they called that, something they did to your neurons so
that
short-term memories wouldn't stick. So that the time you did was time
you lost,
but he'd heard they didn't do it anymore, or anyway not for grand
theft auto.
People who hadn't been there thought it sounded easy, like jail but
then it's
all erased, but it wasn't like that. When he'd gotten out, when it
was over --
three years strung out in a long vague flickering chain of fear and
confusion
measured off in five-minute intervals, and it wasn't the intervals
you could
remember so much as the transitions . . . When it was over, he'd
needed to build
the Witch, the Corpsegrinder, then the Investigators, and finally,
now, the
Judge.
As he guided the Judge up the concrete ramp to the room where the
others
waited, he heard Gentry gunning his motor out on Dog Solitude.
People made Gentry uncomfortable, Slick thought as he headed for the
stairs, but it worked both ways. Strangers could feel the Shape
burning behind
Gentry's eyes; his fixation came across in everything he did. Slick
had no idea
how he got along on his trips to the Sprawl; maybe he just dealt with
people who
were as intense as he was, loners on the jagged fringes of the drug
and software
markets. He didn't seem to care about sex at all, to the extent that
Slick had
no idea what it was he'd have wanted if he'd decided to care.
Sex was the Solitude's main drawback, as far as Slick was concerned,
particularly in the winter. Summers, sometimes, he could find a girl
in one of
those rusty little towns; that was what had taken him to Atlantic
City that time
and gotten him in the Kid's debt. Lately he told himself the best
solution was
just to concentrate on his work, but climbing the shuddering steel
stairs to the
catwalk that led to Gentry's space, he found himself wondering what
Cherry
Chesterfield looked like under all those jackets. He thought about
her hands,
how they were clean and quick, but that made him see the unconscious
face of the
man on the stretcher, the tube feeding stuff into his left nostril,
Cherry
dabbing at his sunken cheeks with a tissue; made him wince.
"Hey, Gentry," he bellowed out into the iron void of Factory,
"comin' up .
. ."
Three things about Gentry weren't sharp and thin and tight: his eyes,
his lips,
his hair. His eyes were large and pale, gray or blue depending on the
light; his
lips were full and mobile; his hair was swept back into a ragged
blond
roostertail that quivered when he walked. His thinness wasn't Bird's
emaciation,
born of a stringtown diet and bad nerves; Gentry was just narrow, the
muscle
packed in close, no fat at all. He dressed sharp and tight, too,
black leather
trimmed with jet-black beads, a style Slick remembered from his days
in the
Deacon Blues. The beads, as much as anything, made Slick think he was
about
thirty; Slick was about thirty himself.
Gentry stared as Slick stepped through the door into the glare of
ten 100-
watt bulbs, making sure Slick knew he was another obstacle coming
between Gentry
and the Shape. He was putting a pair of motorcycle panniers up on his
long steel
table; they looked heavy.
Slick had cut roof panels away, installed struts where needed,
covered the
holes with sheets of rigid plastic, caulked the resulting skylights
with
silicone. Then Gentry came in with a mask and a sprayer and twenty
gallons of
white latex paint; he didn't dust or clean anything, just lay down a
thick coat
over all the crud and dessicated pigeonshit, sort of glued it all
down and
painted over it again until it was more or less white. He painted
everything but
the skylights, then Slick started winching gear up from Factory's
floor, a small
truckload of computers, cyberspace decks, a huge old holo-projection
table that
nearly broke the winch, effect generators, dozens of corrugated
plastic cartons
stuffed with the thousands of fiche Gentry had accumulated in his
quest for the
Shape, hundreds of meters of optics, on bright new plastic reels,
that spoke to
Slick of industrial theft. And books, old books with covers made of
cloth glued
over cardboard. Slick hadn't ever known how heavy books were. They
had a sad
smell, old books.
"You're pulling a few more amps, since I left," Gentry said, opening
the
first of the two panniers. "In your room. Get a new heater?" He began
to root
quickly through the contents, as though he were looking for something
he needed
but had misplaced. He wasn't, though, Slick knew; it was having to
have someone,
even someone he knew, unexpectedly in his space.
"Yeah. I gotta heat the storage area again, too. Too cold to work,
otherwise."
"No," Gentry said, looking up suddenly, "that's not a heater in your
room.
The amperage is wrong."
"Yeah." Slick grinned, on the theory that grinning made Gentry think
he
was stupid and easily cowed.
" 'Yeah' what, Slick Henry?"
"It's not a heater."
Gentry closed the pannier with a snap. "You can tell me what it is
or I
can cut your power."
"Y'know, Gentry, I wasn't around here, you'd have a lot less time
for . .
. things." Slick raised his eyebrows meaningfully in the direction of
the big
projection table. "Fact is, I got two people staying with me. . . ."
He saw
Gentry stiffen, the pale eyes widen. "But you won't see either of
'em, won't
hear 'em, nothing."
"No," Gentry said, his voice tight, as he rounded the end of the
table,
"because you're going to get them out of here , aren't you?"
"Two weeks max, Gentry."
"Out. Now ." Gentry's face was inches away and Slick smelled the
sour
breath of exhaustion. "Or you go with them."
Slick outweighed Gentry by ten kilos, most of it muscle, but that
had
never intimidated Gentry; Gentry didn't seem to know or care that he
could be
hurt. That was intimidating in its own way. Gentry had slapped him,
once, hard,
in the face, and Slick had looked down at the huge chrome-moly wrench
in his own
hand and had felt an obscure embarrassment.
Gentry was holding himself rigid, starting to tremble. Slick had a
pretty
good idea that Gentry didn't sleep when he went to Boston or New
York. He didn't
always sleep that much in Factory either. Came back strung and the
first day was
always the worst. "Look," Slick said, the way somebody might to a
child on the
verge of tears, and pulled the bag from his pocket, the bribe from
Kid Afrika.
He held up the clear plastic Ziploc for Gentry to see: blue derms,
pink tablets,
a nasty-looking turd of opium in a twist of red cellophane, crystals
of wiz like
fat yellow throat lozenges, plastic inhalers with the Japanese
manufacturer's
name scraped off with a knife. . . . "From Afrika," Slick said,
dangling the
Ziploc.
"Africa?" Gentry looked at the bag, at Slick, the bag again. "From
Africa?"
"Kid Afrika. You don't know him. Left this for you."
"Why?"
"Because he needs me to put up these friends of his for a little
while. I
owe him a favor, Gentry. Told him how you didn't like anybody around.
How it
gets in your way. So," Slick lied, "he said he wanted to leave you
some stuff to
make up for the trouble."
Gentry took the bag and slid his finger along the seal, opening it.
He
took out the opium and handed that back to Slick. "Won't need that."
Took out
one of the blue derms, peeled off the backing, and smoothed it
carefully into
place on the inside of his right wrist. Slick stood there, absently
kneading the
opium between his thumb and forefinger, making the cellophane
crackle, while
Gentry walked back around the long table and opened the pannier. He
pulled out a
new pair of black leather gloves.
"I think I'd better . . . meet these guests of yours, Slick."
"Huh?" Slick blinked, astonished. "Yeah . . . But you don't really
have
to, I mean, wouldn't it be --"
"No," Gentry said, flicking up his collar, "I insist ."
Going down the stairs, Slick remembered the opium and flung it over
the
rail, into the dark.
He hated drugs.
"Cherry?" He felt stupid, with Gentry watching him bang his
knuckles on his own door. No answer. He opened it. Dim light. He saw
how she'd
made a shade for one of his bulbs, a cone of yellow fax fastened with
a twist of
wire. She'd unscrewed the other two. She wasn't there.
The stretcher was there, its occupant bundled in the blue nylon bag.
It
's eating him , Slick thought, as he looked at the superstructure of
support
gear, the tubes, the sacs of fluid. No , he told himself, it 's
keeping him
alive ,like in a hospital . But the impression lingered: what if it
were
draining him, draining him dry? He remembered Bird's vampire talk.
"Well," said Gentry, stepping past him to stand at the foot of the
stretcher. "Strange company you keep, Slick Henry . . ." Gentry
walked around
the stretcher, keeping a cautious meter between his ankles and the
still figure.
"Gentry, you sure you maybe don't wanna go back up? I think that
derm . .
. Maybe you did too much."
"Really?" Gentry cocked his head, his eyes glittering in the yellow
glow.
He winked. "Why do you think that?"
"Well," Slick hesitated, "you aren't like you usually are. I mean,
like
you were before."
"You think I'm experiencing a mood swing, Slick?"
"Yeah."
"I'm enjoying a mood swing."
"I don't see you smiling," Cherry said from the door.
"This is Gentry, Cherry. Factory's sort of his place. Cherry's from
Cleveland. . . ."
But Gentry had a thin black flashlight in his gloved hand; he was
examining the trode-net that covered the sleeper's forehead. He
straightened up,
the beam finding the featureless, unmarked unit, then darting down
again to
follow the black cable to the trode-net.
"Cleveland," Gentry said at last, as though it were a name he'd
heard in a
dream. "Interesting . . ." He raised his light again, craning forward
to peer at
the point where the cable joined the unit. "And Cherry -- Cherry, who
is he? "
the beam falling hard on the wasted, irritatingly ordinary face.
"Don't know," Cherry said. "Get that out of his eyes. Might screw up
his
REM or something."
"And this?" He lit the flat gray package.
"The LF, Kid called it. Called him the Count, called that his LF."
She
thrust her hand inside her jackets and scratched herself.
"Well, then," Gentry said, turning, click as the beam died, the
light of
his obsession burning bright, bright behind his eyes, amplified so
powerfully by
Kid Afrika's derm that it seemed to Slick that the Shape must be
right there,
blazing through Gentry's forehead, for anyone at all to see except
Gentry
himself, "that must be just what it is. . . ."
Down on the Drag
Mona woke as they were landing.
Prior was listening to Eddy and nodding and flashing his rectangular
smile. It was like the smile was always there, behind his beard. He'd
changed
his clothes, though, so he must've had some on the plane. Now he wore
a plain
gray business suit and a tie with diagonal stripes. Sort of like the
tricks
Eddy'd set her up with in Cleveland, except the suit fit a different
way.
She'd seen a trick fitted for a suit once, a guy who took her to a
Holiday
Inn. The suit place was off the hotel lobby, and he stood in there in
his
underwear, crosshatched with lines of blue light, and watched himself
on three
big screens. On the screens, you couldn't see the blue lines, because
he was
wearing a different suit in each image. And Mona had to bite her
tongue to keep
from laughing, because the system had a cosmetic program that made
him look
different on the screens, stretched his face a little and made his
chin
stronger, and he didn't seem to notice. Then he picked a suit, got
back into the
one he'd been wearing, and that was it.
Eddy was explaining something to Prior, some crucial point in the
architecture of one of his scams. She knew how to tune the content
out, but the
tone still got to her, like he knew people wouldn't be able to grasp
the gimmick
he was so proud of, so he was taking it slow and easy, like he was
talking to a
little kid, and he'd keep his voice low to sound patient. It didn't
seem to
bother Prior, but then it seemed to Mona that Prior didn't much give
a shit what
Eddy said.
She yawned, stretched, and the plane bumped twice on runway
concrete,
roared, began to slow. Eddy hadn't even stopped talking.
"We have a car waiting," Prior said, interrupting him.
"So where's it taking us?" Mona asked, ignoring Eddy's frown.
Prior showed her the smile. "To our hotel." He unfastened his
seatbelt.
"We'll be there for a few days. Afraid you'll have to spend most of
them in your
room."
"That's the deal," Eddy said, like it was his idea she'd have to
stay in
the room.
"You like stims, Mona?" Prior asked, still smiling.
"Sure," she said, "who doesn't?"
"Have a favorite, Mona, a favorite star?"
"Angie," she said, vaguely irritated. "Who else?"
The smile got a little bigger. "Good. We'll get you all of her
latest
tapes."
Mona's universe consisted in large part of things and places she knew
but had
never physically seen or visited. The hub of the northern Sprawl
didn't smell,
in stims. They edited it out, she guessed, the way Angie never had a
headache or
a bad period. But it did smell. Like Cleveland, but even worse. She'd
thought it
was just the way the airport smelled, when they left the plane, but
it had been
even stronger when they'd gotten out of their car to go into the
hotel. And it
was cold as hell in the street, too, with a wind that bit at her bare
ankles.
The hotel was bigger than that Holiday Inn, but older, too, she
thought.
The lobby was more crowded than lobbies were in stims, but there was
a lot of
clean blue carpet. Prior made her wait by an ad for an orbital spa
while he and
Eddy went over to a long black counter and he talked to a woman with
a brass
nametag. She felt stupid waiting there, in this white plastic
raincoat Prior had
made her wear, like he didn't think her outfit was good enough. About
a third of
the crowd in the lobby were Japs she figured for tourists. They all
seemed to
have recording gear of some kind -- video, holo, a few with simstim
units on
their belts -- but otherwise they didn't look like they had a whole
lot of
money. She thought they were all supposed to have a lot. Maybe they
're smart ,
don 't want to show it , she decided.
She saw Prior slide a credit chip across the counter to the woman
with the
nametag, who took it and zipped it along a metal slot.
Prior put her bag down on the bed, a wide slab of beige temperfoam,
and touched
a panel that caused a wall of drapes to open. "It's not the Ritz," he
said, "but
we'll try to make you comfortable."
Mona made a noncommittal sound. The Ritz was a burger place in
Cleveland
and she couldn't see what that had to do with anything.
"Look," he said, "your favorite." He was standing beside the bed's
upholstered headboard. There was a stim unit there, built in, and a
little shelf
with a set of trodes in a plastic wrapper and about five cassettes.
"All of
Angie's new stims."
She wondered who'd put those cassettes there, and if they'd done it
after
Prior had asked her what stims she liked. She showed him a smile of
her own and
went to the window. The Sprawl looked like it did in stims; the
window was like
a hologram postcard, famous buildings she didn't know the names of
but she knew
they were famous.
Gray of the domes, geodesics picked out white with snow, behind that
the
gray of the sky.
"Happy, baby?" Eddy asked, coming up behind her and putting his
hands on
her shoulders.
"They got showers here?"
Prior laughed. She shrugged out of Eddy's loose grip and took her
bag into
the bathroom. Closed and locked the door. She heard Prior's laugh
again, and
Eddy starting up with his scam talk. She sat on the toilet, opened
her bag, and
dug out the cosmetic kit where she kept her wiz. She had four
crystals left.
That seemed like enough; three was enough, but when she got down to
two she
usually started looking to score. She didn't do jumpers much, not
every day
anyway, except recently she had, but that was because Florida had
started to
drive her crazy.
Now she could start tapering off, she decided, as she tapped a
crystal out
of the vial. It looked like hard yellow candy; you had to crush it,
then grind
it up between a pair of nylon screens. When you did that, it gave off
a kind of
hospital smell.
They were both gone, by the time she finished her shower. She'd
stayed in until
she got bored with it, which took a long time. In Florida she'd
mostly used
showers at public pools or bus stations, the kind you worked with
tokens. She
guessed there was something hooked up to this one that measured the
liters and
put it on your bill; that was how it worked at the Holiday Inn. There
was a big
white filter above the plastic shower- head, and a sticker on the
tile wall with
an eye and a tear meant it was okay to shower but don't get it in
your eyes,
like swimming pool water. There was a row of chrome spouts set into
the tile,
and when you punched a button under each one you got shampoo, shower
gel, liquid
soap, bath oil. When you did that, a little red dot lit up beside the
button,
because it went on your bill. On Prior's bill. She was glad they were
gone,
because she liked being alone and high and clean. She didn't get to
be alone
much, except on the street, and that wasn't the same. She left damp
footprints
on the beige carpet when she walked to the window. She was wrapped in
a big
towel that matched the bed and the carpet and had a word shaved into
the fuzzy
part, probably the name of the hotel.
There was an old-fashioned building a block away, and the corners of
its
stepped peak had been carved down to make a kind of mountain, with
rocks and
grass, and a waterfall that fell and hit rocks and then fell again.
It made her
smile, why anybody had gone to that trouble. Drifts of steam came off
the water,
where it hit. It couldn't just fall down into the street, though, she
thought,
because it would cost too much. She guessed they pumped it back up
and used it
over, around in a circle.
Something gray moved its head there, swung its big curly horns up
like it
was looking at her. She took a step back on the carpet and blinked.
Kind of a
sheep, but it had to be a remote, a hologram or something. It tossed
its head
and started eating grass. Mona laughed.
She could feel the wiz down the backs of her ankles and across her
shoulderblades, a cold tight tingle, and the hospital smell at the
back of her
throat.
She'd been scared before but she wasn't scared now.
Prior had a bad smile, but he was just a player, just a bent suit.
If he
had money, it was somebody else's. And she wasn't scared of Eddy
anymore; it was
almost like she was scared for him, because she could see what other
people took
him for.
Well, she thought, it didn't matter; she wasn't growing catfish in
Cleveland anymore, and no way anybody'd get her back to Florida
again.
She remembered the alcohol stove, cold winter mornings, the old man
hunched in his big gray coat. Winters he'd put a second layer of
plastic over
the windows. The stove was enough to heat the place, then, because
the walls
were covered with sheets of hard foam, and chipboard over that.
Places where the
foam showed, you could pick at it with your finger, make holes; if he
caught you
doing it, he'd yell. Keeping the fish warm in cold weather was more
work; you
had to pump water up to the roof, where the sun mirrors were, into
these clear
plastic tubes. But the vegetable stuff rotting on the tank ledges
helped, too;
steam rose off when you went to net a fish. He traded the fish for
other kinds
of food, for things people grew, stove alcohol and the drinking kind,
coffee
beans, garbage the fish ate.
He wasn't her father and he'd said it often enough, when he'd talked
at
all. Sometimes she still wondered if maybe he had been. When she'd
first asked
him how old she was, he'd said six, so she counted from that.
She heard the door open behind her and turned; Prior was there, the
gold
plastic key tab in his hand, beard open to show the smile. "Mona," he
said,
stepping in, "this is Gerald." Tall, Chinese, gray suit, graying
hair. Gerald
smiled gently, edged in past Prior, and went straight for the drawer
thing
opposite the foot of the bed. Put a black case down and clicked it
open.
"Gerald's a friend. He's medical, Gerald. Needs to have a look at
you."
"Mona," Gerald said, removing something from the case, "how old are
you?"
"She's sixteen," Prior said. "Right, Mona?"
"Sixteen," Gerald said. The thing in his hands was like a pair of
black
goggles, sunglasses with bumps and wires. "That's stretching it a
little, isn't
it?" He looked at Prior.
Prior smiled.
"You're short what, ten years?"
"Not quite," Prior said. "We aren't asking for perfection."
Gerald looked at her. "You aren't going to get it." He hooked the
goggles
over his ears and tapped something; a light came on below the right
lens. "But
there are degrees of approximation." The light swung toward her.
"We're talking cosmetic, Gerald."
"Where's Eddy?" she asked, as Gerald came closer.
"In the bar. Shall I call him?" Prior picked up the phone, but put
it back
down without using it.
"What is this?" Backing away from Gerald.
"A medical examination," Gerald said. "Nothing painful." He had her
against the window; above the towel, her shoulderblades pressed
against cool
glass. "Someone's about to employ you, and pay you very well; they
need to be
certain you're in good health." The light stabbed into her left eye.
"She's on
stimulants of some kind," he said to Prior, in a different tone of
voice.
"Try not to blink, Mona." The light swung to her right eye. "What is
it,
Mona? How much did you do?"
"Wiz." Wincing away from the light.
He caught her chin in his cool fingers and realigned her head. "How
much?"
"A crystal . . ."
The light was gone. His smooth face was very close, the goggles
studded
with lenses, slots, little dishes of black metal mesh. "No way of
judging the
purity," he said.
"It's real pure," she said, and giggled.
He let her chin go and smiled. "It shouldn't be a problem," he said.
"Could you open your mouth, please?"
"Mouth?"
"I want to look at your teeth."
She looked at Prior.
"You're in luck, here," Gerald said to Prior, when he'd used the
little
light to look in her mouth. "Fairly good condition and close to
target
configuration. Caps, inlays."
"We knew we could count on you, Gerald."
Gerald took the goggles off and looked at Prior. He returned to the
black
case and put the goggles away. "Lucky with the eyes, too. Very close.
A tint
job." He took a foil envelope from the case and tore it open, rolled
the pale
surgical glove down over his right hand. "Take off the towel, Mona.
Make
yourself comfortable."
She looked at Prior, at Gerald. "You want to see my papers, the
bloodwork
and stuff?"
"No," Gerald said, "that's fine."
She looked out the window, hoping to see the bighorn, but it was
gone, and
the sky seemed a lot darker.
She undid the towel, let it fall to the floor, then lay down on her
back
on the beige temperfoam.
It wasn't all that different from what she got paid for; it didn't
even
take as long.
Sitting in the bathroom with the cosmetic kit open on her knees,
grinding
another crystal, she decided she had a right to be pissed off.
First Eddy takes off without her, then Prior shows up with this
creep
medic, then he tells her Eddy's sleeping in a different room. Back in
Florida
she could've used some time off from Eddy, but up here was different.
She didn't
want to be in here by herself, and she'd been scared to ask Prior for
a key. He
fucking well had one, though, so he could walk in any time with his
creep-ass
friends. What kind of deal was that?
And the business with the plastic raincoat, that burned her ass too.
A
disposable fucking plastic raincoat.
She fluffed the powdered wiz between the nylon screens, carefully
tapped
it into the hitter, exhaled hard, put the mouthpiece to her lips, and
hit. The
cloud of yellow dust coated the membranes of her throat; some of it
probably
even made it to her lungs. She'd heard that was bad for you.
She'd hadn't had any plan when she'd gone in the bathroom to take
her hit,
but as the back of her neck started tingling, she found herself
thinking about
the streets around the hotel, what she'd seen of them on their way
in. There
were clubs, bars, shops with clothes in the window. Music. Music
would be okay,
now, and a crowd. The way you could lose it in a crowd, forget
yourself, just be
there. The door wasn't locked, she knew that; she'd already tried it.
It would
lock behind her, though, and she didn't have a key. But she was
staying here, so
Prior must have registered her at the desk. She thought about going
down and
asking the woman behind the counter for a key, but the idea made her
uncomfortable. She knew suits behind counters and how they looked at
you. No,
she decided, the best idea was to stay in and stim those new Angie's.
Ten minutes later she was on her way out a side entrance off the
main
lobby, the wiz singing in her head.
It was drizzling outside, maybe dome condensation. She'd worn the
white
raincoat for the lobby, figuring Prior knew what he was doing after
all, but now
she was glad she had it. She grabbed a fold of fax out of an
overflowing bin and
held it over her head to keep her hair dry. It wasn't as cold as
before, which
was another good thing. None of her new clothes were what you'd call
warm.
Looking up and down the avenue, deciding which way to go, she took
in
half-a-dozen nearly identical hotel fronts, a rank of pedicabs, the
rainslick
glitter of a row of small shops. And people, lots of them, like the
Cleveland
core but everybody dressed so sharp, and all moving like they were on
top of it,
everybody with someplace to go. Just go with it , she thought, the
wiz giving
her a sweet second boot that tripped her into the river of pretty
people without
even having to think about it. Clicking along in her new shoes,
holding the fax
over her head until she noticed -- more luck -- the rain had stopped.
She wouldn't've minded a chance to check out the shop windows, when
the
crowd swept her past, but the flow was pleasure and nobody else was
pausing. She
contented herself with sidelong flashes of each display. The clothes
were like
clothes in a stim, some of them, styles she'd never seen anywhere.
I should 've been here , she thought, I should 've been here all
along. Not on a catfish farm , not in Cleveland , not in Florida. It
's a
place , a real place , anybody can come here , you don 't have to get
it through
a stim . Thing was, she'd never seen this part of it in a stim, the
regular
people part. A star like Angie, this part wasn't her part. Angie'd be
off in
high castles with the other stim stars, not down here. But God it was
pretty,
the night so bright, the crowd surging around her, past all the good
things you
could have if you just got lucky.
Eddy, he didn't like it. Anyway he'd always said how it was shitty
here,
too crowded, rent too high, too many police, too much competition.
Not that he'd
waited two seconds when Prior 'd made an offer, she reminded herself.
And
anyway, she had her own ideas why Eddy was so down on it. He'd blown
it here,
she figured, pulled some kind of serious wilson. Either he didn't
want to be
reminded or else there were people here who'd remind him for sure if
he came
back. It was there in the pissed-off way he talked about the place,
same way
he'd talk about anybody who told him his scams wouldn't work. The new
buddy so
goddamn smart the first night was just a stone wilson the next, dead
stupid, no
vision.
Past a big store with ace-looking stim gear in the window, all of it
matte
black and skinny, presided over by this gorgeous holo of Angie, who
watched them
all slide by with her half-sad smile. Queen of the night, yeah.
The crowd-river flowed out into a kind of circle, a place where four
streets met and swung around a fountain. And because Mona really
wasn't headed
anywhere, she wound up there, because the people around her peeled
off in their
different directions without stopping. Well, there were people in the
circle
too, some of them sitting on the cracked concrete that edged the
fountain. There
was a statue in the center, marble, all worn-out and soft-edged. Kind
of a baby
riding a big fish, a dolphin. It looked like the dolphin's mouth
would spray
water if the fountain was working, but it wasn't. Past the heads of
the seated
people she could see crumpled, sodden fax and white foam cups in the
water.
Then it seemed like the crowd had melded behind her, a curved,
sliding
wall of bodies, and the three who faced her on the fountain rim
jumped out like
a picture. Fat girl with black-dyed hair, mouth half-open like it
stayed that
way, tits spilling out of a red rubber halter; blonde with a long
face and a
thin blue slash of lipstick, hand like a bird's claw sprouting a
cigarette; man
with his oiled arms bare to the cold, graft-job muscle knotted like
rock under
synthetic tan and bad jail tattoos . . .
"Hey, bitch," cried the fat girl, with a kind of glee, "hope y'don't
think
y'gonna turn any 'roun' here!"
The blonde looked at Mona with her tired eyes and gave her a wan
grin, an
it's-not-my-fault grin, and then looked away.
The pimp came up off the fountain like something driven by springs,
but
Mona was already moving, cued by the blonde's expression. He had her
arm, but
the raincoat's plastic seam gave way and she elbowed her way back
into the
crowd. The wiz took over and the next thing she knew she was at least
a block
away, sagging against a steel pole, coughing and hyperventilating.
But now the wiz was all turned around, the way it went sometimes,
and
everything was ugly. The faces in the crowd were driven and hungry-
looking, like
they all had their own private desperate errands to run, and the
light from the
shop windows was cold and mean, and all the things behind the glass
were just
there to tell her she couldn't have them. There was a voice
somewhere, an angry
child's voice stringing obscenities together in an endless,
meaningless chain;
when she realized who it was, she stopped doing it.
Her left arm was cold. She looked down and saw that the sleeve was
gone,
the seam down her side torn open to the waist. She took off the coat
and draped
it over her shoulders like a cape; maybe that made it a little harder
to notice.
She braced her back against the pole as the wiz rolled over her on a
wave
of delayed adrenaline; her knees started to buckle and she thought
she was going
to faint, but then the wiz pulled one of its tricks and she was
crouching in
summer sunset light in the old man's dirt yard, the flaky gray earth
scribed
with the game she'd been playing, but now she was just hunched there,
vacant,
staring off past the bulks of the tanks to where fireflies pulsed in
the
blackberry tangle above a twisted old chassis. There was light behind
her from
the house and she could smell the cornbread baking and the coffee he
boiled and
reboiled there, till a spoon stood up in it, he said, and he'd be in
there now
reading one of his books, crumbly brown leaves, never a page with a
corner on
it, he got 'em in frayed plastic baggies and sometimes they just fell
to dust in
his hands, but if he found something he wanted to keep he'd get a
little pocket
copier out of the drawer, fit the batteries in it, run it down the
page. She
liked to watch the copies spool out all fresh, with their special
smell that
faded away, but he'd never let her work it. Sometimes he'd read out
loud, a kind
of hesitation in his voice, like a man trying to play an instrument
he hasn't
picked up in a long time. They weren't stories he read, not like they
had
endings or told a joke. They were like windows into something so
strange; he
never tried to explain any of it, probably didn't understand it
himself, maybe
nobody did. . . .
Then the street snapped back hard and bright.
She rubbed her eyes and coughed.
Antarctica Starts Here
"I'm ready now," Piper Hill said, eyes closed, seated on the carpet
in a loose
approximation of the lotus position. "Touch the spread with your left
hand."
Eight slender leads trailed from the sockets behind Piper's ears to
the
instrument that lay across her tanned thighs.
Angie, wrapped in a white terry robe, faced the blond technician
from the
edge of the bed, the black test unit covering her forehead like a
raised
blindfold. She did as she was told, running the tips of her fingers
lightly
across the raw silk and unbleached linen of the rumpled bedspread.
"Good," Piper said, more to herself than to Angie, touching
something on
the board. "Again." Angie felt the weave thicken beneath her
fingertips.
"Again." Another adjustment.
She could distinguish the individual fibers now, know silk from
linen. . .
.
"Again."
Her nerves screamed as her flayed fingertips grated against steel
wool,
ground glass. . . .
"Optimal," Piper said, opening blue eyes. She produced a tiny ivory
vial
from the sleeve of her kimono, removed its stopper, passed the vial
to Angie.
Closing her eyes, Angie sniffed cautiously. Nothing.
"Again."
Something floral. Violets?
"Again."
Her head flooded with a nauseating greenhouse reek.
"Olfactory's up," Piper said, as the choking odor faded.
"Haven't noticed." She opened her eyes. Piper was offering her a
tiny
round of white paper. "As long as it's not fish," Angie said, licking
the tip of
her finger. She touched the dot of paper, raised her finger to her
tongue. One
of Piper's tests had once put her off seafood for a month.
"It's not fish," Piper said, smiling. She kept her hair short, a
concise
little helmet that played up the graphite gleam of the sockets inset
behind
either ear. Saint Joan in silicone, Porphyre said, and Piper's true
passion
seemed to be her work. She was Angie's personal technician, reputed
to be the
Net's best troubleshooter.
Caramel . . .
"Who else is here, Piper?" Having completed the Usher, Piper was
zipping her
board into a fitted nylon case.
Angie had heard a helicopter arrive an hour earlier; she'd heard
laughter,
footsteps on the deck, as the dream receded. She'd abandoned her
usual attempt
to inventory sleep -- if it could be called sleep, the other's
memories washing
in, filling her, then draining away to levels she couldn't reach,
leaving these
afterimages. . . .
"Raebel," Piper said, "Lomas, Hickman, Ng, Porphyre, the Pope."
"Robin?"
"No."
"Continuity," she said, showering.
"Good morning, Angie."
"Freeside torus. Who owns it?"
"The torus has been renamed Mustique II by the current joint owners,
the
Julianna Group and Carribbana Orbital."
"Who owned it when Tally taped there?"
"Tessier-Ashpool S.A."
"I want to know more about Tessier-Ashpool."
"Antarctica starts here ."
She stared up through the steam at the white circle of the speaker.
"What
did you just say?"
"Antarctica Starts Here is a two-hour video study of the Tessier-
Ashpool
family by Hans Becker, Angie."
"Do you have it?"
"Of course. David Pope accessed it recently. He was quite
impressed."
"Really? How recently?"
"Last Monday."
"I'll see it tonight, then."
"Done. Is that all?"
"Yes."
"Goodbye, Angie."
David Pope. Her director. Porphyre said that Robin was telling
people she
heard voices. Had he told Pope? She touched a ceramic panel; the
spray grew
hotter. Why was Pope interested in Tessier-Ashpool? She touched the
panel again
and gasped under needles of suddenly frigid water.
Inside out, outside in, the figures of that other landscape arriving
soon,
too soon . . .
Porphyre was posed by the window when she entered the living room, a
Masai
warrior in shoulder-padded black silk crepe and black leather sarong.
The others
cheered when they saw her, and Porphyre turned and grinned.
"Took us by surprise," Rick Raebel said, sprawled on the pale couch.
He
was effects and editing. "Hilton figured you'd want more of a break."
"They pulled us in from all over , dear," Kelly Hickman added. "I
was in
Bremen, and the Pope was up the well in full art mode, weren't you,
David?" He
looked to the director for confirmation.
Pope, who was straddling one of the Louis XVI chairs backward, his
arms
crossed along the top of its fragile back, smiled wearily, dark hair
tangled
above his thin face. When Angie's schedule allowed for it, Pope made
documentaries for Net/Knowledge. Shortly after she'd signed with the
Net, Angie
participated anonymously in one of Pope's minimalist art pieces, an
endless
stroll across dunes of soiled pink satin, under a tooled steel sky.
Three months
later, the arc of her career firmly under way, an unlicensed version
of the tape
became an underground classic.
Karen Lomas, who did Angie's in-fills, smiled from the chair left of
Pope.
To his right, Kelly Hickman, wardrobe, sat on the bleached floor
beside Brian
Ng, Piper's gofer-cum-understudy.
"Well," Angie said, "I'm back. I'm sorry to have hung all of you up,
but
it had to be done."
There was a silence. Minute creaks from the gilt chairs. Brian Ng
coughed.
"We're just glad you're back," Piper said, coming in from the
kitchen with
a cup of coffee in either hand.
They cheered again, somewhat self-consciously this time, then
laughed.
"Where's Robin?" Angie asked.
"Mistuh Lanier in London," Porphyre said, hands on his leather-
wrapped
hips.
"Expected hourly," Pope said dryly, getting up and accepting a
coffee from
Piper.
"What were you doing in orbit, David?" Angie asked, taking the other
cup.
"Hunting solitaries."
"Solitude?"
"Solitaries. Hermits."
"Angie," Hickman said, springing up, "you have to see this satin
cocktail
number Devicq sent last week! And I've got all of Nakamura's
swimwear. . . ."
"Yes, Kelly, but --"
But Pope had already turned to say something to Raebel.
"Hey," Hickman said, beaming with enthusiasm, "come on! Let's try it
on!
"
Pope spent most of the day with Piper, Karen Lomas, and Raebel,
discussing the
results of the Usher and the endless minor details of what they
referred to as
Angie's reinsertion . After lunch, Brian Ng went along with her to
her physical,
which was conducted in a private clinic in a mirror-clad compound on
Beverly
Boulevard.
During the very brief wait in the white, plant-filled reception area
--
surely a matter of ritual, as though a medical appointment that
involved no wait
might seem incomplete, inauthentic -- Angie found herself wondering,
as she'd
wondered many times before, why her father's mysterious legacy, the
v�v�s he'd
drawn in her head, had never been detected by this or any other
clinic.
Her father, Christopher Mitchell, had headed the hybridoma project
that
had allowed Maas Biolabs a virtual monopoly in the early manufacture
of
biochips. Turner, the man who had taken her to New York, had given
her a kind of
dossier on her father, a biosoft compiled by a Maas security AI.
She'd accessed
the dossier four times in as many years; finally, one very drunken
night in
Greece, she'd flung the thing from the deck of an Irish
industrialist's yacht
after a shouting match with Bobby. She no longer recalled the cause
of the
fight, but she did remember the mingled sense of loss and relief as
the squat
little nub of memory struck the water.
Perhaps her father had designed his handiwork so that it was somehow
invisible to the scans of the neuro- technicians. Bobby had his own
theory, one
she had suspected was closer to the truth. Perhaps Legba, the loa
Beauvoir
credited with almost infinite access to the cyberspace matrix, could
alter the
flow of data as it was obtained by the scanners, rendering the v�v�s
transparent. . . . Legba, after all, had orchestrated her debut in
the industry
and the subsequent rise that had seen her eclipse Tally Isham's
fifteen-year
career as Net megastar.
But it had been so long since the loa had ridden her, and now,
Brigitte
had said, the v�v�s had been redrawn. . . .
"Hilton had Continuity front a head for you today," Ng told her, as
she
waited.
"Oh?"
"Public statement on your decision to go to Jamaica, praise for the
methods of the clinic, the dangers of drugs, renewed enthusiasm for
your work,
gratitude to your audience, stock footage of the Malibu place . . ."
Continuity could generate video images of Angie, animate them with
templates compiled from her stims. Viewing them induced a mild but
not
unpleasant vertigo, one of the rare times she was able to directly
grasp the
fact of her fame.
A chime sounded, beyond the greenery.
Returning from the city, she found caterers preparing for a barbecue
on the
deck.
She lay on the couch beneath the Valmier and listened to the surf.
From
the kitchen, she could hear Piper explaining the results of the
physical to
Pope. There was no need, really -- she'd been given the cleanest
possible bill
of health -- but both Pope and Piper were fond of detail.
When Piper and Raebel put on sweaters and went out onto the deck,
where
they stood warming their hands above the coals, Angie found herself
alone in the
living room with the director.
"You were about to tell me, David, what you were doing up the well.
. . ."
"Looking for serious loners." He ran a hand back across his tangled
hair.
"It grows out of something I wanted to do last year, with intentional
communities in Africa. Trouble was, when I got up there, I learned
that anyone
who goes that far, who'll actually live alone in orbit, is generally
determined
to stay that way."
"You were taping, yourself? Interviews?"
"No. I wanted to find people like that and talk them into recording
segments themselves."
"Did you?"
"No. I heard stories, though. Some great stories. A tug pilot
claimed
there were feral children living in a mothballed Japanese drug
factory. There's
a whole new apocrypha out there, really -- ghost ships, lost cities.
. . .
There's a pathos to it, when you think about it. I mean, every bit of
it's
locked into orbit. All of it manmade, known, owned, mapped. Like
watching myths
take root in a parking lot. But I suppose people need that, don't
they?"
"Yes," she said, thinking of Legba, of Mamman Brigitte, the thousand
candles. . . .
"I wish, though," he said, "that I could've gotten through to Lady
Jane.
Such an amazing story. Pure gothic."
"Lady Jane?"
"Tessier-Ashpool. Her family built Freeside torus. High- orbit
pioneers.
Continuity has a marvelous video. . . . They say she killed her
father. She's
the last of the line. Money ran out years ago. She sold everything,
had her
place sawn off the tip of the spindle and towed out to a new orbit. .
. ."
She sat up on the couch, her knees together, fingers locked across
them.
Sweat trickled down across her ribs.
"You don't know the story?"
"No," she said.
"That's interesting in itself, because it shows you how adept they
were at
obscurity. They used their money to keep themselves out of the news.
The mother
was Tessier, the father Ashpool. They built Freeside when there was
nothing else
like it. Got fantastically rich in the process. Probably running a
very close
second to Josef Virek when Ashpool died. And of course they'd gotten
wonderfully
weird in the meantime, had taken to cloning their children wholesale.
. . ."
"It sounds . . . terrible. And you tried, you did try to find her?"
"Well, I made inquiries. Continuity had gotten me this Becker video,
and
of course her orbit's in the book, but it's no good dropping by if
you haven't
been invited, is it? And then Hilton buzzed me to get back here and
back to
work. . . . Aren't you feeling well?"
"Yes, I . . . I think I'll change now, put on something warmer."
After they'd eaten, when coffee was being served, she excused herself
and said
goodnight.
Porphyre followed her to the base of the stairs. He'd stayed near
her
during the meal, as though he sensed her new unease. No, she thought,
not new;
the old, the always, the now and ever was. All the things the drug
had fenced
away.
"Missy, take care," he said, too quietly for the others to hear.
"I'm fine," she said. "Too many people. I'm still not used to it."
He stood there looking up at her, the glow of dying coals behind his
elegantly crafted, subtly inhuman skull, until she turned and climbed
the
stairs.
She heard the helicopter come for them an hour later.
"House," she said, "I'll see the video from Continuity now."
As the wallscreen slid down into place, she opened the bedroom door
and
stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, listening to the sounds
of the
empty house. Surf, the hum of the dishwasher, wind buffeting the
windows that
faced the deck.
She turned back to the screen and shivered at the face she saw there
in a
grainy freeze-frame headshot, avian eyebrows arched above dark eyes,
high
fragile cheekbones, and a wide, determined mouth. The image expanded
steadily,
into the darkness of an eye, black screen, a white point, growing,
lengthening,
becoming the tapered spindle of Freeside. Credits began to flash in
German.
"Hans Becker," the house began, reciting the Net library's intro-
critique,
"is an Austrian video artist whose hallmark is an obsessive
interrogation of
rigidly delimited fields of visual information. His approaches range
from
classical montage to techniques borrowed from industrial espionage,
deep-space
imaging, and kino-archaeology. Antarctica Starts Here , his
examination of
images of the Tessier-Ashpool family, currently stands as the high
point of his
career. The pathologically media-shy industrial clan, operating from
the total
privacy of their orbital home, posed a remarkable challenge."
The white of the spindle filled the screen as the final credit
vanished.
An image tracked to center screen, snapshot of a young woman in loose
dark
clothes, background indistinct. MARIE-FRANCE TESSIER, MOROCCO.
This wasn't the face in the opening shot, the face of invading
memory, yet
it seemed to promise it, as though a larval image lay beneath the
surface.
The soundtrack wove atonal filaments through strata of static and
indistinct voices as the image of Marie-France was replaced by a
formal
monochrome portrait of a young man in a starched wing collar. It was
a handsome
face, finely proportioned, but very hard somehow, and in the eyes a
look of
infinite boredom. JOHN HARNESS ASHPOOL, OXFORD.
Yes , she thought, and I 've met you many times . I know your story
,though I 'm not allowed to touch it .
But I really don 't think I like you at all , do I , Mr. Ashpool?
Catwalk
The catwalk groaned and swayed. The stretcher was too wide for the
walk's
handrails, so they had to keep it chest-high as they inched across,
Gentry at
the front with his gloved hands clamped around the rails on either
side of the
sleeper's feet. Slick had the heavy end, the head, with the batteries
and all
that gear; he could feel Cherry creeping along behind him. He wanted
to tell her
to get back, that they didn't need her weight on the walk, but
somehow he
couldn't.
Giving Gentry Kid Afrika's bag of drugs had been a mistake. He
didn't know
what was in the derm Gentry'd done; he didn't know what had been in
Gentry's
bloodstream to begin with. Whatever, Gentry'd gone bare-wires crazy
and now they
were out here on the fucking catwalk, twenty meters over Factory's
concrete
floor, and Slick was ready to weep with frustration, to scream; he
wanted to
smash something, anything, but he couldn't let go of the stretcher.
And Gentry's smile , lit up by the glow of the bio-readout taped to
the
foot of the stretcher, as Gentry took another step backward across
the catwalk .
. .
"O man," Cherry said, her voice like a little girl's, "this is just
seriously fucked . . . ."
Gentry gave the stretcher a sudden impatient tug and Slick almost
lost his
grip.
"Gentry," Slick said, "I think you better think twice about this."
Gentry had removed his gloves. He held a pair of optic jumpers in
either
hand, and Slick could see the splitter fittings trembling.
"I mean Kid Afrika's heavy, Gentry. You don't know what you're
messing
with, you mess with him." This was not, strictly speaking, true, the
Kid being,
as far as Slick knew, too smart to value revenge. But who the hell
knew what
Gentry was about to mess with anyway?
"I'm not messing with anything," Gentry said, approaching the
stretcher
with the jumpers.
"Listen, buddy," Cherry said, "you interrupt his input, you maybe
kill
'im; his autonomic nervous system'll go tits-up. Why don't you just
stop him?"
she asked Slick. "Why don't you just knock him on his ass?"
Slick rubbed his eyes. "Because . . . I dunno. Because he's . . .
Look,
Gentry, she's saying it'll maybe kill the poor bastard, you try to
tap in. You
hear that?"
" 'LF,' " Gentry said, "I heard that ." He put the jumpers between
his
teeth and began to fiddle with one of the connections on the
featureless slab
above the sleeper's head. His hands had stopped shaking.
"Shit," Cherry said, and gnawed at a knuckle. The connection came
away in
Gentry's hand. He whipped a jumper into place with his other hand and
began to
tighten the connection. He smiled around the remaining jumper. "Fuck
this,"
Cherry said, "I'm outa here," but she didn't move.
The man on the stretcher grunted, once, softly. The sound made the
hairs
stand up on Slick's arms.
The second connection came loose. Gentry inserted the other splitter
and
began to retighten the fitting.
Cherry went quickly to the foot of the stretcher, knelt to check the
readout. "He felt it," she said, looking up at Gentry, "but his signs
look okay.
. . ."
Gentry turned to his consoles. Slick watched as he jacked the
jumpers into
position. Maybe, he thought, it was going to work out; Gentry would
crash soon,
and they'd have to leave the stretcher up here until he could get
Little Bird
and Cherry to help him get it back across the catwalk. But Gentry was
just so
crazy, probably he should try to get the drugs back, or some of them
anyway, get
things back to normal. . . .
"I can only believe," Gentry said, "that this was predetermined.
Prefigured by the form of my previous work. I wouldn't pretend to
understand how
that might be, but ours is not to question why, is it, Slick Henry?"
He tapped
out a sequence on one of his keyboards. "Have you ever considered the
relationship of clinical paranoia to the phenomenon of religious
conversion?"
"What's he talking about?" Cherry asked.
Slick glumly shook his head. If he said anything, it would only
encourage
Gentry's craziness.
Now Gentry went to the big display unit, the projection table.
"There are
worlds within worlds," he said. "Macrocosm, microcosm. We carried an
entire
universe across a bridge tonight, and that which is above is like
that below. .
. . It was obvious, of course, that such things must exist, but I'd
not dared to
hope. . ." He glanced coyly back at them over a black-beaded
shoulder. "And
now," he said, "we'll see the shape of the little universe our
guest's gone
voyaging in. And in that form, Slick Henry, I'll see . . ."
He touched the power stud at the edge of the holo table. And
screamed.
Toys
"Here's a lovely thing," Petal said, touching a rosewood cube the
size of
Kumiko's head. "Battle of Britain." Light shimmered above it, and
when Kumiko
leaned forward she saw that tiny aircraft looped and dived in slow
motion above
a gray Petrie smear of London. "They worked it up from war films," he
said,
"gunsight cameras." She peered in at almost microscopic flashes of
antiaircraft
fire from the Thames estuary. "Did it for the Centenary."
They were in Swain's billiard room, ground-floor rear, number 16.
There
was a faint mustiness, an echo of pub smell. The overall tidiness of
Swain's
establishment was tempered here by genteel dilapidation: there were
armchairs
covered in scuffed leather, pieces of heavy dark furniture, the dull
green field
of the billiard table. . . . The black steel racks stacked with
entertainment
gear had caused Petal to bring her here, before tea, shuffling along
in his
seam-sprung moleskin slippers, to demonstrate available toys.
"Which war was this?"
"Last but one," he said, moving on to a similar but larger unit that
offered holograms of two Thai boxing girls. One's callused sole
smacked against
the other's lean brown belly, tensed to take the blow. He touched a
stud and the
projections vanished.
Kumiko glanced back at the Battle of Britain and its burning gnats.
"All sorts of sporting fiche," Petal said, opening a fitted pig-skin
case
that held hundreds of the recordings.
He demonstrated half-a-dozen other pieces of equipment, then
scratched his
stubbled head while he searched for a Japanese video news channel. He
found it,
finally, but couldn't cut out the automatic translation program. He
watched with
her as a cadre of Ono-Sendai executive trainees effaced themselves in
a tearful
graduation ceremony. "What's all that then?" he asked.
"They are demonstrating loyalty to their zaibatsu . "
"Right," he said. He gave the video unit a swipe with his feather
duster.
"Tea time soon." He left the room. Kumiko shut off the audio. Sally
Shears had
been absent at breakfast, as had Swain.
Moss-green curtains concealed another set of tall windows opening
onto the
same garden. She looked out at a sundial sheathed in snow, then let
the curtain
fall back. (The silent wallscreen flashed Tokyo accident images,
foil-clad
medics sawing limp victims from a tangle of impacted steel.) A top-
heavy
Victorian cabinet stood against the far wall on carved feet
resembling
pineapples. The keyhole, trimmed with an inlaid diamond of yellowed
ivory, was
empty, and when she tried the doors, they opened, exhaling a chemical
odor of
ancient polish. She stared at the black and white mandala at the rear
of the
cabinet until it became what it was, a dartboard. The glossy wood
behind it was
pocked and pricked; some players had missed the board entirely, she
decided. The
lower half of the cabinet offered a number of drawers, each with a
small brass
pull and miniature, ivory-trimmed keyhole. She knelt in front of
these, glanced
back toward the doorway (wallscreen showing the lips of a Shinjuku
cabaret
singer) and drew the upper right drawer out as quietly as possible.
It was
filled with darts, loose and in leather wallets. She closed the
drawer and
opened the one to its left. A dead moth and a rusted screw. There was
a single
wide drawer below the first two; it stuck as she opened it, and made
a sound.
She looked back again (stock footage of Fuji Electric's logo
illuminating Tokyo
Bay) but there was no sign of Petal.
She spent several minutes leafing through a pornographic magazine,
with
Japanese text, which seemed to have mainly to do with the art of
knots. Under
this was a dusty-looking jacket made of black waxed cotton, and a
gray plastic
case with WALTHER molded across its lid in raised letters. The pistol
itself was
cold and heavy; she could see her face in the blue metal when she
lifted it from
its fitted bed of foam. She'd never handled a gun before. The gray
plastic grips
seemed enormous. She put it back into the case and scanned the
Japanese section
in a folder of multilingual instructions. It was an air gun; you
pumped the
lever below the barrel. It fired very small pellets of lead. Another
toy. She
replaced the contents of the drawer and closed it.
The remaining drawers were empty. She closed the cabinet door and
returned
to the Battle of Britain.
"No," Petal said, "sorry, but it won't do."
He was spreading Devon cream on a crumpet, the heavy Victorian
butterknife
like a child's toy in his thick fingers. "Try the cream," he said,
lowering his
massive head and regarding her blandly over the tops of his glasses.
Kumiko wiped a shred of marmalade from her upper lip with a linen
napkin.
"Do you imagine I'll try to run away?"
"Run away? Are you considering that, running away?" He ate his
crumpet,
chewing stolidly, and glanced out into the garden, where fresh snow
was falling.
"No," she said. "I have no intention of running away."
"Good," he said, and took another bite.
"Am I in danger, in the street?"
"Lord no," he said, with a sort of determined cheeriness, "you're
safe as
houses."
"I want to go out."
"No."
"But I go out with Sally."
"Yes," he said, "and she's a nasty piece of work, your Sally."
"I don't know this idiom."
"No going out alone. That's in our brief with your father,
understand?
You're fine out with Sally, but she isn't here. Nobody's liable to
give you
bother in any case, but why take chances? Now I'd be happy, you see,
delighted
to take you out, only I'm on duty here in case Swain has callers. So
I can't.
It's a shame, really it is." He looked so genuinely unhappy that she
considered
relenting. "Toast you another?" he asked, gesturing toward her plate.
"No, thank you." She put down her napkin. "It was very good," she
added.
"Next time you should try the cream," he said. "Couldn't get it
after the
war. Rain blew in from Germany and the cows weren't right."
"Is Swain here now, Petal?"
"No."
"I never see him."
"Out and about. Business. There's cycles to it. Soon enough they'll
all be
calling here, and he'll be holding court again."
"Who, Petal?"
"Business types, you'd say."
"Kuromaku ," she said.
"Sorry?"
"Nothing," she said.
She spent the afternoon alone in the billiard room, curled in a
leather
armchair, watching snow fall in the garden and the sundial become a
featureless
white upright. She pictured her mother there, wrapped in dark furs,
alone in the
garden as the snow fell, a princess-ballerina who drowned herself in
the night
waters of Sumida.
She stood up, chilled, and went around the billiard table to the
marble
hearth, where gasflame hissed softly beneath coals that could never
be consumed.
The Silver Walks
She'd had this friend in Cleveland, Lanette, who'd taught her lots of
things.
How to get out of a car fast if a trick tried to lock the doors on
you, how to
act when you went to make a buy. Lanette was a little older and
mainly used wiz,
she said, "to move the down around," being frequently downed out on
anything
from endorphin analogs to plain old Tennessee opium. Otherwise, she
said, she'd
just sit there twelve hours in front of the vid watching any kind of
shit at
all. When the wiz added mobility to the warm invulnerability of a
good down, she
said, you really had something. But Mona had noticed that people who
were
seriously into downs spent a lot of time throwing up, and she
couldn't see why
anybody would watch a vid when they could stim just as easy. (Lanette
said
simstim was just more of what she wanted out of.)
She had Lanette on her mind because Lanette used to give her advice
sometimes, like how to turn a bad night around. Tonight, she thought,
Lanette
would tell her to look for a bar and some company. She still had some
money left
from her last night's work in Florida, so it was a matter of finding
a place
that took cash.
She hit it right, first try. A good sign. Down a narrow flight of
concrete
stairs and into a smoky buzz of conversation and the familiar, muted
thump of
Shabu's "White Diamonds." No place for suits, but it wasn't what the
pimps in
Cleveland called a spot , either. She was no way interested in
drinking in any
spot, not tonight.
Somebody got up from the bar to leave just as she came in, so she
nipped
over quick and got his stool with the plastic still warm, her second
sign.
The bartender pursed his lips and nodded when she showed him one of
her
bills, so she told him to get her a shot of bourbon and a beer on the
side,
which was what Eddy always got if he was paying for it himself. If
somebody else
was paying, he'd order mixed drinks the bartender didn't know how to
make, then
spend a long time explaining exactly how you made the thing. Then
he'd drink it
and bitch about how it wasn't as good as the ones they made in L.A.
or Singapore
or some other place she knew he'd never been.
The bourbon here was weird, sort of sour but real good once you got
it
down. She said that to the bartender, who asked her where she usually
drank
bourbon. She told him Cleveland and he nodded. That was eth and some
shit
supposed to remind you of bourbon, he said. When he told her how much
of her
money was left, she figured out this Sprawl bourbon was expensive
stuff. It was
doing its job, though, taking the bad edge off, so she drank the rest
and
started in on her beer.
Lanette liked bars but she never drank, just Coke or something. Mona
always remembered one day she'd done two crystals at the same time,
what Lanette
called a two-rock hit, and she'd heard this voice in her skull say,
just as
clear as that, like it was somebody right in the room: It 's moving
so fast ,
it 's standing still . And Lanette, who'd dissolved a matchhead of
Memphis
black in a cup of Chinese tea about an hour before, did half a
crystal herself
and then they'd gone out walking, just ghosting the rainy streets
together in
what felt to Mona like some perfect harmony where you didn't need to
talk. And
that voice had been right, there was no jangle to the rush, no tight-
jawed
jitter, just this sense of something, maybe Mona herself, expanding
out from a
still center. And they'd found a park, flat lawns flooded with silver
puddles,
and gone all around the paths, and Mona had a name for that memory:
the Silver
Walks.
And sometime after that Lanette was just gone, nobody saw her
anymore, and
some people said she'd gone to California, some people said Japan,
and some
people said she'd OD'd and gotten tossed out a window, what Eddy
called a dry
dive, but that wasn't the kind of thing Mona wanted to think about,
so she sat
up straight and looked around, and, yeah, this was a good place,
small enough
that people were kind of crowded in but sometimes that was okay. It
was what
Eddy called an art crowd, people who had some money and dressed sort
of like
they didn't, except their clothes fit right and you knew they'd
bought them new.
There was a vid behind the bar, up over the bottles, and then she
saw
Angie there, looking square into the camera and saying something, but
they had
the sound down too low to hear over the crowd. Then there was a shot
from up in
the air, looking down on a row of houses that sat right at the edge
of a beach,
and then Angie was back, laughing and shaking her hair and giving the
camera
that half-sad grin.
"Hey," she said to the bartender, "there's Angie."
"Who?"
"Angie," Mona said, pointing up at the screen.
"Yeah," he said, "she's on some designer shit and decides to kick,
so she
goes to South America or somewhere and pays 'em a few mil to clean
her act up
for her."
"She can't be on shit."
The bartender looked at her. "Whatever."
"But how come she'd even start doing anything? I mean, she's Angie ,
right?"
"Goes with the territory."
"But look at her," she protested, "she looks so good. . . ." But
Angie was
gone, replaced by a black tennis player.
"You think that's her? That's a talking head."
"Head?"
"Like a puppet," a voice behind her said, and she swung around far
enough
to see a ruff of sandy hair and a loose white grin. "Puppet," and
held up his
hand, wiggling thumb and fingers, "you know?"
She felt the bartender drop the exchange, moving off down the bar.
The
white grin widened. "So she doesn't have to do all that stuff
herself, right?"
She smiled back. Cute one, smart eyes and a secret halo flashing her
just
the signal she wanted to read. No suit trick. Kinda skinny, she could
like that
tonight, and the loose look of fun around his mouth set strange
against the
bright smart eyes.
"Michael."
"Huh?"
"My name. Michael."
"Oh. Mona. I'm Mona."
"Where you from, Mona?"
"Florida."
And wouldn't Lanette just tell her go for it?
Eddy hated art-crowd people; they weren't buying what he was selling.
He'd have
hated Michael more, because Michael had a job and this loft in a co-
op building.
Or anyway he said it was a loft, but when they got there it was
smaller than
Mona thought a loft was supposed to be. The building was old, a
factory or
something; some of the walls were sandblasted brick and the ceilings
were wood
and timbers. But all of it had been chopped up into places like
Michael's, a
room not much bigger than the one back at the hotel, with a sleeping
space off
one side and a kitchen and bath off the other. It was on the top
floor, though,
so the ceiling was mostly skylight; maybe that made it a loft. There
was a
horizontal red paper shade below the skylight, hooked up to strings
and pulleys,
like a big kite. The place was kind of messy but the stuff that was
scattered
around was all new: some skinny white wire chairs strung with loops
of clear
plastic to sit on, a stack of entertainment modules, a work station,
and a
silver leather couch.
They started out on the couch but she didn't like the way her skin
stuck
to it, so they moved over to the bed, back in its alcove.
That was when she saw the recording gear, stim stuff, on white
shelves on
the wall. But the wiz had kicked in again, and anyway, if you've
decided to go
for it, you might as well. He got her into the pickup, a black rubber
collar
with trode-tipped fingers pressing the base of her skull. Wireless;
she knew
that was expensive.
While he was getting his own set on and checking the gear on the
walls, he
talked about his job, how he worked for a company in Memphis that
thought up new
names for companies. Right now he was trying to think of one for a
company
called Cathode Cathay. They need it bad, he said, and laughed, but
then he said
it wasn't easy. Because there were so many companies already that the
good names
had been used up. He had a computer that knew all the names of all
the
companies, and another one that made up words you could use for
names, and
another one that checked if the made-up words meant "dickhead" or
something in
Chinese or Swedish. But the company he worked for didn't just sell
names, they
sold what he called image, so he had to work with a bunch of other
people to
make sure the name he came up with fit the rest of the package.
Then he got into bed with her and it wasn't really great, like the
fun was
gone and she might as well have been with a trick, how she just lay
there
thinking he was recording it all so he could play it back when he
wanted, and
how many others did he have in there anyway?
So she lay there beside him, afterward, listening to him breathe,
until
the wiz started turning tight little circles down on the floor of her
skull,
flipping her the same sequence of unconnected images over and over:
the plastic
bag she'd kept her things in down in Florida, with its twist of wire
to keep the
bugs out -- the old man sitting at the chipboard table, peeling a
potato with a
butcher knife worn down to a nub about as long as her thumb -- a
krill place in
Cleveland that was shaped like a shrimp or something, the plates of
its arched
back bent from sheet metal and clear plastic, painted pink and orange
-- the
preacher she'd seen when she'd gone to get her new clothes, him and
his pale,
fuzzy Jesus. Each time the preacher came around, he was about to say
something,
but he never did. She knew it wouldn't stop unless she got up and got
her mind
onto something else. She crawled off the bed and stood there looking
at Michael
in the gray glow from the skylight. Rapture. Rapture 's coming .
So she went out into the room and pulled her dress on because she
was
cold. She sat on the silver couch. The red shade turned the gray of
the skylight
pink, as it got lighter outside. She wondered what a place like this
cost.
Now that she couldn't see him, she had trouble remembering what he
looked
like. Well , she thought, he won 't have any trouble remembering me ,
but
thinking that made her feel hit or hurt or jerked around, like she
wished she'd
stayed at the hotel and stimmed Angie.
The gray-pink light was filling up the room, pooling, starting to
curdle
at the edges. Something about it reminded her of Lanette and the
stories that
she'd OD'd. Sometimes people OD'd in other people's places, and the
easiest
thing was just to toss them out the window, so the cops couldn't tell
where they
came from.
But she wasn't going to think about that, so she went into the
kitchen and
looked through the fridge and the cabinets. There was a bag of coffee
beans in
the freezer, but coffee gave you the shakes on wiz. There were a lot
of little
foil packets with Japanese labels, freeze-dried stuff. She found a
package of
teabags and tore the seal from one of the bottles of water in the
fridge. She
put some of the water in a pan and fiddled with the cooker until she
got it to
heat up. The elements were white circles printed on the black
countertop; you
put the pan in the center of a circle and touched a red dot printed
beside it.
When the water was hot, she tossed one of the teabags in and moved
the pan off
the element.
She leaned over the pan, inhaling herb-scented steam.
She never forgot how Eddy looked, when he wasn't around. Maybe he
wasn't
much, but whatever he was, he was there. You have to have one face
around that
doesn't change. But thinking about Eddy now maybe wasn't such a good
idea
either. Pretty soon the crash would come on, and before then she'd
have to
figure out a way to get back to the hotel, and suddenly it seemed
like
everything was too complicated, too many things to do, angles to
figure, and
that was the crash, when you had to start worrying about putting the
day side
together again.
She didn't think Prior was going to let Eddy hit her, though,
because
whatever he wanted had something to do with her looks. She turned
around to get
a cup.
Prior was there in a black coat. She heard her throat make a weird
little
noise all by itself.
She'd seen things before, crashing on wiz; if you looked at them
hard
enough, they went away. She tried it on Prior but it didn't work.
He just stood there, with a kind of plastic gun in his hand, not
pointing
it at her, just holding it. He was wearing gloves like the ones
Gerald had worn
for the examination. He didn't look mad but for once he wasn't
smiling. And for
a long time he didn't say anything at all, and Mona didn't either.
"Who's here?" Like you'd ask at a party.
"Michael."
"Where?"
She pointed toward the sleeping space.
"Get your shoes."
She walked past him, out of the kitchen, bending automatically to
hook her
underwear up from the carpet. Her shoes were by the couch.
He followed and watched her put on her shoes. He still had the gun
in his
hand. With his other hand, he took Michael's leather jacket from the
back of the
couch and tossed it to her. "Put it on," he said. She did, and tucked
her
underwear into one of its pockets.
He picked up the torn white raincoat, wadded it into a ball, and put
it
into his coat pocket.
Michael was snoring. Maybe he'd wake up soon and play it all back.
With
the gear he had, he didn't really need anybody there.
In the corridor, she watched Prior relock the door with a gray box.
The
gun was gone, but she hadn't seen him put it away. The box had a
length of red
flex sticking out of it with an ordinary-looking magnetic key on the
end.
Out in the street was cold. He took her down the block and opened
the door
of a little white three-wheeler. She got in. He got in the driver's
side and
peeled off the gloves. He started the car; she watched a blowing
cloud reflected
in the copper-mirrored side of a business tower.
"He'll think I stole it," she said, looking down at the jacket.
Then the wiz flashed a final card, ragged cascade of neurons across
her
synapses: Cleveland in the rain and a good feeling she had once,
walking.
Silver.
Filament in Strata
I 'm your ideal audience , Hans -- as the recording began for the
second time.
How could you have a more attentive viewer? And you did capture her ,
Hans: I
know , because I dream her memories. I see how close you came.
Yes, you captured them. The journey out, the building of walls, the
long spiral
in. They were about walls, weren't they? The labyrinth of blood, of
family. The
maze hung against the void, saying, We are that within , that without
is other ,
here forever shall we dwell . And the darkness was there from the
beginning. . .
. You found it repeatedly in the eyes of Marie-France, pinned it in a
slow zoom
against the shadowed orbits of the skull. Early on she ceased to
allow her image
to be recorded. You worked with what you had. You justified her
image, rotated
her through planes of light, planes of shadow, generated models,
mapped her
skull in grids of neon. You used special programs to age her images
according to
statistical models, animation systems to bring your mature Marie-
France to life.
You reduced her image to a vast but finite number of points and
stirred them,
let new forms emerge, chose those that seemed to speak to you. . . .
And then
you went on to the others, to Ashpool and the daughter whose face
frames your
work, its first and final image.
The second viewing solidified their history for her, allowed her to
slot
Becker's shards along a time line that began with the marriage of
Tessier and
Ashpool, a union commented upon, in its day, primarily in the media
of corporate
finance. Each was heir to a more than modest empire, Tessier to a
family fortune
founded on nine basic patents in applied biochemistry and Ashpool to
the great
Melbourne-based engineering firm that bore his father's name. It was
marriage as
merger, to the journalists, though the resulting corporate entity was
viewed by
most as ungainly, a chimera with two wildly dissimilar heads.
But it was possible, then, in photographs of Ashpool, to see the
boredom
vanish, and in its place a complete surety of purpose. The effect was
unflattering -- indeed, frightening: the hard, beautiful face grew
harder still,
merciless in its intent.
Within a year of his marriage to Marie-France Tessier, Ashpool had
divested himself of 90 percent of his firm's holdings, reinvesting in
orbital
properties and shuttle utilities, and the fruit of the living union,
two
children, brother and sister, were being brought to term by
surrogates in their
mother's Biarritz villa.
Tessier-Ashpool ascended to high orbit's archipelago to find the
ecliptic
sparsely marked with military stations and the first automated
factories of the
cartels. And here they began to build. Their combined wealth,
initially, would
barely have matched Ono-Sendai's outlay for a single process-module
of that
multinational's
orbital semiconductor operation, but Marie-France demonstrated an
unexpected
entrepreneurial flare, establishing a highly profitable data haven
serving the
needs of less reputable sectors of the international banking
community. This in
turn generated links with the banks themselves, and with their
clients. Ashpool
borrowed heavily and the wall of lunar concrete that would be
Freeside grew and
curved, enclosing its creators.
When war came, Tessier-Ashpool were behind that wall. They watched
Bonn
flash and die, and Beograd. The construction of the spindle continued
with only
minor interruptions, during those three weeks; later, during the
stunned and
chaotic decade that followed, it would sometimes be more difficult.
The children, Jean and Jane, were with them now, the villa at
Biarritz
having gone to finance construction of a cryogenic storage facility
for their
home, the Villa Straylight. The first occupants of the vault were ten
pairs of
cloned embryos, 2Jean and 2Jane, 3Jean and 3Jane. . . . There were
numerous laws
forbidding or otherwise governing the artificial replication of an
individual's
genetic material, but there were also numerous questions of
jurisdiction. . . .
She halted the replay and asked the house to return to the previous
sequence.
Photographs of another cryogenic storage unit built by the Swiss
manufacturers
of the Tessier-Ashpool vault. Becker's assumption of similarity had
been
correct, she knew: these circular doors of black glass, trimmed with
chrome,
were central images in the other's memory, potent and totemic.
The images ran forward again, into zero-gravity construction of
structures
on the spindle's inner surface, installation of a Lado-Acheson solar
energy
system, the establishment of atmosphere and rotational gravity. . . .
Becker had
found himself with an embarrassment of riches, hours of glossy
documentation.
His response was a savage, stuttering montage that sheared away the
superficial
lyricism of the original material, isolating the tense, exhausted
faces of
individual workers amid a hivelike frenzy of machinery. Freeside
greened and
bloomed in a fast-forward flutter of recorded dawns and synthetic
sunsets; a
lush, sealed land, jeweled with turquoise pools. Tessier and Ashpool
emerged for
the opening ceremonies, out of Straylight, their hidden compound at
the
spindle's tip, markedly uninterested as they surveyed the country
they had
built. Here Becker slowed and again began his obsessive analysis.
This would be
the last time Marie-France faced a camera; Becker explored the planes
of her
face in a tortured, extended fugue, the movement of his images in
exquisite
counterpoise with the sinuous line of feedback that curved and
whipped through
the shifting static levels of his soundtrack.
Angie called pause again, rose from the bed, went to the window. She
felt an
elation, an unexpected sense of strength and inner unity. She'd felt
this way
seven years earlier, in New Jersey, learning that others knew the
ones who came
to her in dreams, called them the loa, Divine Horsemen, named them
and summoned
them and bargained with them for favor.
Even then, there had been confusion. Bobby had argued that
Linglessou, who
rode Beauvoir in the oumphor, and the Linglessou of the matrix were
separate
entities, if in fact the former was an entity at all. "They been
doing that for
ten thousand years," he'd say, "dancing and getting crazy, but
there's only been
those things in cyberspace for seven, eight years." Bobby believed
the old
cowboys, the ones he bought drinks for in the Gentlemen Loser
whenever Angie's
career took him to the Sprawl, who maintained that the loa were
recent arrivals.
The old cowboys looked back to a time when nerve and talent were the
sole
deciding factors in a console artist's career, although Beauvoir
would have
argued that it required no less to deal with the loa.
"But they come to me," she'd argued. "I don't need a deck."
"It's what you got in your head. What your daddy did . . ."
Bobby had told her about a general consensus among the old cowboys
that
there had been a day when things had changed, although there was
disagreement as
to how and when.
When It Changed, they called it, and Bobby had taken a disguised
Angie to
the Loser to listen to them, dogged by anxious Net security men who
weren't
allowed past the door. The barring of the security men had impressed
her more
than the talk, at the time. The Gentleman Loser had been a cowboy bar
since the
war that had seen the birth of the new technology, and the Sprawl
offered no
more exclusive criminal environment -- though by the time of Angie's
visit that
exclusivity had long included a certain assumption of retirement on
the part of
regulars. The hot kids no longer hustled, in the Loser, but some of
them came to
listen.
Now, in the bedroom of the house at Malibu, Angie remembered them
talking,
their stories of When It Changed, aware that some part of her was
attempting to
collate those memories, those stories, with her own history and that
of Tessier-
Ashpool.
3Jane was the filament, Tessier-Ashpool the strata, her birthdate
officially
listed as one with her nineteen sibling clones. Becker's
"interrogation" grew
more heated still, when 3Jane was brought to term in yet another
surrogate womb,
delivered by cesarean section in Straylight's surgery. The critics
agreed: 3Jane
was Becker's trigger. With 3Jane's birth, the focus of the
documentary shifted
subtly, exhibiting a new intensity, a heightening of obsession -- a
sense, more
than one critic had said, of sin.
3Jane became the focus, a seam of perverse gold through the granite
of the
family. No , Angie thought, silver , pale and moonstruck . Examining
a Chinese
tourist's photograph of 3Jane and two sisters beside the pool of a
Freeside
hotel, Becker returns repeatedly to 3Jane's eyes, the hollow of her
collarbone,
the fragility of her wrists. Physically, the sisters are identical,
yet
something informs 3Jane, and Becker's quest for the nature of this
information
becomes the work's central thrust.
Freeside prospers as the archipelago expands. Banking nexus,
brothel, data
haven, neutral territory for warring corporations, the spindle comes
to play an
increasingly complex role in high-orbit history, while Tessier-
Ashpool S.A.
recedes behind yet another wall, this one composed of subsidiary
corporations.
Marie-France's name surfaces briefly, in connection with a Geneva
patent trial
concerning certain advances in the field of artificial intelligence,
and
Tessier-Ashpool's massive funding of research in this area is
revealed for the
first time. Once again the family demonstrates its peculiar ability
to fade from
sight, entering another period of obscurity, one which will end with
the death
of Marie-France.
There would be persistent rumors of murder, but any attempt to
investigate
would founder on the family's wealth and isolation, the peculiar
breadth and
intricacy of their political and financial connections.
Angie, screening Becker for the second time, knew the identity of
Marie-
France Tessier's murderer.
At dawn, she made coffee in the unlit kitchen and sat watching the
pale line of
the surf.
"Continuity."
"Hello, Angie."
"Do you know how to reach Hans Becker?"
"I have his agent's number in Paris."
"Has he done anything since Antarctica? "
"Not that I know of."
"And how long has that been?"
"Five years."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome, Angie."
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Angie."
Had Becker assumed that 3Jane was responsible for Ashpool's eventual
death? He seemed to suggest it, in an oblique way.
"Continuity."
"Hello, Angie."
"The folklore of console jockeys, Continuity. What do you know about
that?" And what will Swift make of all this? she wondered.
"What would you like to know, Angie?"
" 'When It Changed' . . ."
"The mythform is usually encountered in one of two modes. One mode
assumes
that the cyberspace matrix is inhabited, or perhaps visited, by
entities whose
characteristics correspond with the primary mythform of a 'hidden
people.' The
other involves assumptions of omniscience, omnipotence, and
incomprehensibility
on the part of the matrix itself."
"That the matrix is God?"
"In a manner of speaking, although it would be more accurate, in
terms of
the mythform, to say that the matrix has a God, since this being's
omniscience
and omnipotence are assumed to be limited to the matrix."
"If it has limits, it isn't omnipotent."
"Exactly. Notice that the mythform doesn't credit the being with
immortality, as would ordinarily be the case in belief systems
positing a
supreme being, at least in terms of your particular culture.
Cyberspace exists,
insofar as it can be said to exist, by virtue of human agency."
"Like you."
"Yes."
She wandered into the living room, where the Louis XVI chairs were
skeletal in the gray light, their carved legs like gilded bones.
"If there were such a being," she said, "you'd be a part of it,
wouldn't
you?"
"Yes."
"Would you know?"
"Not necessarily."
"Do you know?"
"No."
"Do you rule out the possibility?"
"No."
"Do you think this is a strange conversation, Continuity?" Her
cheeks were
wet with tears, although she hadn't felt them start.
"No."
"How do the stories about --" she hesitated, having almost said the
loa ,
"about things in the matrix, how do they fit in to this supreme-being
idea?"
"They don't. Both are variants of 'When it Changed.' Both are of
very
recent origin."
"How recent?"
"Approximately fifteen years."
Jump City
She woke with Sally's cool palm pressed to her mouth, the other hand
gesturing
for silence.
The little lamps were on, the ones set into the panels of gold-
flecked
mirror. One of her bags was open, on the giant bed, a neat little
stack of
clothing beside it.
Sally tapped her index finger against closed lips, then gestured
toward
the case and the clothing.
Kumiko slid from beneath the duvet and tugged on a sweater against
the
cold. She looked at Sally again and considered speaking; whatever
this was, she
thought, a word might bring Petal. She was dressed as Kumiko had last
seen her,
in the shearling jacket, her tartan scarf knotted beneath her chin.
She repeated
the gesture: pack.
Kumiko dressed quickly, then began to put the clothing into the
case.
Sally moved restlessly, silently around the room, opening drawers,
closing them.
She found Kumiko's passport, a black plastic slab embossed with a
gold
chrysanthemum, and hung it around Kumiko's neck on its black nylon
cord. She
vanished into the veneered cubicle and emerged with the suede bag
that held
Kumiko's toilet things.
As Kumiko was sealing the case, the gilt-and-ivory telephone began
to
chime.
Sally ignored it, took the suitcase from the bed, opened the door,
took
Kumiko's hand, and pulled her out into the darkened hallway.
Releasing her hand,
Sally closed the door behind them, muffling the phone and leaving
them in total
darkness. Kumiko let herself be guided into the lift -- she knew it
by its smell
of oil and furniture polish, the rattle of the metal gate.
Then they were descending.
Petal was waiting for them in the bright white foyer, wrapped in an
enormous faded flannel robe. He wore his decrepit slippers; his legs,
below the
robe's hem, were very white. He held a gun in his hands, a squat,
thick thing,
dull black. "Fucking hell," he said softly, as he saw them there,
"and what's
this then?"
"She's going with me," Sally said.
"That," said Petal, slowly, "is entirely impossible."
"Kumi," Sally said, her hand on Kumiko's back, guiding her out of
the
lift, "there's a car waiting."
"You can't do this," Petal said, but Kumiko sensed his confusion,
his
uncertainty.
"So fucking shoot me, Petal."
Petal lowered the gun. "It's Swain who'll fucking shoot me , if you
have
your way."
"If he were here, he'd be in the same bind, wouldn't he?"
"Please," Petal said, "don't."
"She'll be fine. Not to worry. Open the door."
"Sally," Kumiko said, "where are we going?"
"The Sprawl."
And woke again, huddled under Sally's shearling jacket, to the mild
vibration of
supersonic flight. She remembered the huge, low car waiting in the
crescent;
floodlights leaping out from the facades of Swain's houses as she and
Sally
reached the pavement; Tick's sweaty face glimpsed through one of the
car's
windows; Sally heaving open a door and bundling her in; Tick cursing
softly and
steadily as the car accelerated; the complaint of the tires as he
swung them too
sharply into Kensington Park Road; Sally telling him to slow down, to
let the
car drive.
And there, in the car, she'd remembered returning the Maas-Neotek
unit to
its hiding place behind the marble bust -- Colin left behind with all
his fox-
print poise, the elbows of his jacket worn like Petal's slippers -
- no more than
what he was, a ghost.
"Forty minutes," Sally said now, from the seat beside her. "Good you
got
some sleep. They'll bring us breakfast soon. Remember the name on
your passport?
Good. Now don't ask me any questions until I've had some coffee,
okay?"
Kumiko knew the Sprawl from a thousand stims; a fascination with the
vast
conurbation was a common feature of Japanese popular culture.
She'd had few preconceptions of England when she arrived there:
vague
images of several famous structures, unfocused impressions of a
society her own
seemed to regard as quaint and stagnant. (In her mother's stories,
the princess-
ballerina discovered that the English, however admiring, couldn't
afford to pay
her to dance.) London, so far, had run counter to her expectations,
with its
energy, its evident affluence, the Ginza bustle of its great shopping
streets.
She had many preconceptions of the Sprawl, most of which were
shattered
within a few hours of arrival.
But as she waited beside Sally in a line of other travelers, in a
vast,
hollow customs hall whose ceiling struts rose away into darkness, a
darkness
broken at intervals by pale globes -- globes circled, though it was
winter, by
clouds of insects, as though the building possessed its own discrete
climate --
it was the stim-Sprawl she imagined, the sensual electric backdrop
for the fast-
forward lives of Angela Mitchell and Robin Lanier.
Through customs -- which consisted, in spite of the endless wait in
line,
of sliding her passport along a greasy-looking metal slot -- and out
into a
frantic concrete bay where driverless baggage carts plowed slowly
through a
crowd that milled and struggled for ground transportation.
Someone took her bag. Reached down and took it from her with an
ease, a
confidence, that suggested he was meant to take it, that he was a
functionary
performing an accustomed task, like the young women bowing welcome at
the doors
of Tokyo department stores. And Sally kicked him. Kicked him in the
back of the
knee, pivoting smoothly, like the Thai boxing girls in Swain's
billiard room,
snatching the bag before the back of his skull and the stained
concrete met with
an audible crack.
Then Sally was pulling her, the crowd had closed over the prone
figure,
and the sudden, casual violence might have been a dream, except that
Sally was
smiling for the first time since they'd left London.
Feeling entirely dislocated now, Kumiko watched as Sally made a
survey of
available vehicles, quickly bribed a uniformed dispatcher,
intimidated three
other prospective fares, and chivied Kumiko into a pock- marked,
slabsided
hovercraft, painted in diagonal bands of yellow and black. The
passenger
compartment was barren and remarkably uncomfortable-looking. The
driver, if
there was one, was invisible beyond a scrawled bulkhead of plastic
armor. The
nub of a video camera protruded where the bulkhead met the roof, and
someone had
drawn a crude figure there, a male torso, the camera its phallus. As
Sally
climbed in, slamming the door behind her, a speaker grated something
in what
Kumiko assumed was a dialect of English.
"Manhattan," Sally said. She took a sheaf of paper currency from her
jacket pocket and fanned it below the camera.
The speaker made interrogatory noises.
"Midtown. Tell you where when we get there."
The cab's apron bag inflated, the light in the passenger compartment
was
extinguished, and they were on their way.
Jail-Time
He was in Gentry's loft. He was watching Cherry do nurse-things to
Gentry.
Cherry looked over at him from where she sat on the edge of Gentry's
bed. "How
y'doin', Slick?"
"Okay . . . I'm okay."
"Remember me asking you before?"
He was looking down at the face of the man Kid Afrika called the
Count. Cherry
was fiddling with something on the stretcher's superstructure, a bag
of fluid
the color of oatmeal.
"How y'feel, Slick?"
"Feel okay."
"You're not okay. You keep for --"
He was sitting on the floor of Gentry's loft. His face was wet.
Cherry was
kneeling beside him, close, her hands on his shoulders.
"You did time?"
He nodded.
"Chemo-penal unit?"
"Yeah . . ."
"Induced Korsakov's?"
He --
"Episodes?" Cherry asked him. He was sitting on the floor in Gentry's
loft.
Where was Gentry? "You get episodes like this? Short-term memory
goes?"
How did she know? Where was Gentry?
"What's the trigger?"
"What triggers the syndrome, Slick? What kicks you into jail-time?"
He was
sitting on the floor in Gentry's loft and Cherry was practically on
top of him.
"Stress," he said, wondering how she knew about that. "Where's
Gentry?"
"I put him to bed."
"Why?"
"He collapsed. When he saw that thing . . ."
"What thing?"
Cherry was pressing a pink derm against his wrist. "Heavy trank," she
said.
"Maybe get you out of it . . ."
"Out of what?"
She sighed. "Never mind."
He woke in bed with Cherry Chesterfield. He had all his clothes on,
everything
but his jacket and his boots. The tip of his erect cock was trapped
behind his
belt buckle, pressing up against the warm denim over Cherry's ass.
"Don't get any ideas."
Winter light through the patchwork window and his breath white when
he
spoke. "What happened?" Why was it so cold in the room? He remembered
Gentry's
scream as the thing lunged for him --
He sat up straight, fast.
"Easy," she said, rolling over. "Lie back. Don't know what it takes
to set
you off . . ."
"What d'y' mean?"
"Lie back. Get under the covers. Wanna freeze?"
He did as she said. "You were in jail, right? In a chemo-penal
unit."
"Yeah . . . How'd you know?"
"You told me. Last night. You told me stress could trigger a
flashback. So
that's what happened. That thing went for your buddy, you jumped for
the switch,
shut that table down. He fell over, cut his head. I was taking care
of that when
I noticed you were funny. Figured out you only had a consecutive
memory for
about five minutes at a stretch. Get that in shock cases, sometimes,
or
concussion . . ."
"Where is he? Gentry."
"He's in bed up in his place, plastered with downs. The shape he was
in, I
figured he could do with about a day's sleep. Anyway, it gets him out
of our
hair for a while."
Slick closed his eyes and saw the gray thing again, the thing that
had
gone for Gentry. Man-shaped, sort of, or like an ape. Nothing like
the
convoluted shaped Gentry's equipment generated in his search for the
Shape.
"I think the power's out," Cherry said. "The light went out in here
about
six hours ago."
He opened his eyes. The cold. Gentry hadn't made his moves on the
console.
He groaned.
He left Cherry to make coffee on the butane cooker and went looking
for Little
Bird. He found him by the smell of smoke. Little Bird had built a
fire in a
steel canister and gone to sleep curled around it like a dog. "Hey,"
Slick said,
nudging the boy with his boot, "get up. We got problems."
"Fuckin' juice's out," he mumbled, sitting up in a greasy nylon
sleeping
bag grimed the exact shade of Factory's floor.
"I noticed. That's problem number one. Number two is we need a truck
or a
hover or something. We have to get that guy out of here. It's not
working out
with Gentry."
"But Gentry's the only one can fix the juice." Little Bird got to
his
feet, shivering.
"Gentry's sleeping. Who's got a truck?"
"Marvie 'n' them," Little Bird said, and lapsed into a racking
cough.
"Take Gentry's bike. Bring it back in the truck. Now."
Little Bird recovered from his coughing fit. "No shit?"
"You know how to ride it, don't you?"
"Yeah, but Gentry, he'll get --"
"You let me worry about that. You know where he keeps that spare
key?"
"Uh, yeah," Little Bird said shyly. "Say," he ventured, "what if
Marvie
'n' them don't wanna gimme that truck?"
"Give 'em this," Slick said, pulling the Ziploc full of drugs from
the
pocket of his jacket. Cherry had taken it after she'd bandaged
Gentry's head.
"And give 'em all of it, understand? 'Cause I'm gonna ask 'em
later."
Cherry's beeper went off while they were drinking coffee in Slick's
room,
huddled side by side on the edge of the bed. He'd been telling her as
much as he
knew about the Korsakov's, because she'd asked him. He hadn't ever
really told
anybody about it, and it was funny how little he actually knew. He
told her
about previous flashbacks, then tried to explain how the system
worked in jail.
The trick was that you retained long-term memory up to the point
where they put
you on the stuff. That way, they could train you to do something
before you
started serving your time and you didn't forget how to do it. Mostly
you did
stuff that robots could do. They'd trained him to assemble miniature
geartrains;
when he'd learned to put one together inside five minutes, that was
it.
"And they didn't do anything else?" she asked.
"Just those geartrains."
"No, I mean like brainlocks."
He looked at her. The sore on her lip was almost healed. "If they do
that,
they don't tell you," he said.
Then the beeper went off in one of her jackets.
"Something's wrong," she said, getting up quickly.
They found Gentry kneeling beside the stretcher with something black
in his
hands. Cherry snatched the thing before Gentry could move. He stayed
where he
was, blinking up at her.
"Takes a lot to keep you under, mister." She handed Slick the black
thing.
A retinal camera.
"We have to find out who he is," Gentry said. His voice was thick
with the
downs she'd administered, but Slick sensed that the bad edge of
craziness had
receded.
"Hell," she said, "you don't even know if these are the eyes he had
a year
ago."
Gentry touched the bandage on his temple. "You saw it too, didn't
you?"
"Yeah," Cherry said, "he shut it off."
"It was the shock," Gentry said. "I hadn't imagined. . . . There was
no
real danger. I wasn't ready. . . ."
"You were out of your fucking skull," Cherry said.
Gentry got unsteadily to his feet.
"He's leaving," Slick said. "I sent Bird to borrow a truck. I don't
like
any of this shit."
Cherry stared at him. "Leaving where? I gotta go with him. It's my
job."
"I know a place," Slick lied. "The power's out, Gentry."
"You can't take him anywhere," Gentry said.
"Like hell."
"No." Gentry swayed slightly. "He stays. The jumpers are in place. I
won't
disturb him again. Cherry can stay here."
"You're going to have to explain some shit here, Gentry," Slick
said.
"To begin with," Gentry said, and pointed at the thing above the
Count's
head, "this isn't an 'LF'; it's an aleph ."
Under the Knife
Hotel again, sinking into the deathmarch of wiz-crash, Prior leading
her into
the lobby, Japanese tourists already up and clustering around bored-
looking
guides. And one foot, one foot, one foot after the other, her head so
heavy now,
like somebody punched a hole in the top, poured in a quarter-kilo of
dull lead,
and her teeth felt like they belonged to somebody else, too big; she
slumped
against the side of the elevator when its extra gravity pressed down.
"Where's Eddy?"
"Eddy's gone, Mona."
Got her eyes open wide and she looked at him, seeing the smile was
back,
bastard. "What?"
"Eddy's been bought out. Compensated. He's on his way to Macau with
a line
of credit. Nice little gambling junket."
"Compensated?"
"For his investment. In you. For his time."
"His time? " The doors slid open on blue-carpeted corridor.
And something falling through her, cold: Eddy hated gambling.
"You're working for us now, Mona. We wouldn't want you off on your
own
again."
But you did , she thought, you let me go. And you knew where to find
me.
Eddy 's gone . . . .
She didn't remember falling asleep. She was still wearing the dress,
Michael's
jacket tucked up around her shoulders like a blanket. She could see
the corner
of the mountainside building without moving her head, but the bighorn
wasn't
there.
The Angie stims were still sealed in plastic. She took one at
random, slit
the wrapper with her thumbnail, slotted it, and put the trodes on.
She wasn't
thinking; her hands seemed to know what to do, friendly animals that
wouldn't
hurt her. One of them touched PLAY and she slid into the Angie-world,
pure as
any drug, slow saxophone and limo glide through some European city,
how the
streets revolved around her, around the driverless car, broad
avenues, dawn-
clean and almost empty, with the touch of fur against her shoulders,
and rolling
on, down a straight road through flat fields, edged with perfect,
identical
trees.
And turning, tires over raked gravel, up a winding drive through
parkland
where the dew was silver, here an iron deer, there a wet white marble
torso . .
. The house was vast, old, unlike any house she'd seen before, but
the car swung
past it, then passed several smaller buildings, coming at last to the
edge of a
smooth broad field.
There were gliders tethered there, translucent membrane drawn taut
over
fragile-looking frames of polycarbon. They quivered slightly in the
morning
breeze. Robin Lanier was waiting beside them, handsome, easy Robin in
a rough
black sweater, who played opposite Angie in almost all of her stims.
And she was leaving the car now, taking to the field, laughing when
her
heels sank into the grass. And the rest of the way to Robin with her
shoes in
her hand, grinning, into his arms and his smell, his eyes.
A whirl, a dance of editing, condensing the business of boarding the
glider on the silver induction rail, and they were flung smoothly
down the
length of the field, lifting now, banking to catch the wind, and up,
up, until
the great house was an angular pebble in a swathe of green, green cut
by a dull
gleam of curving river --
-- and Prior's hand on STOP, smell of food from the cart beside the
bed
knotting her stomach, the dull sick ache of wiz-crash in every joint.
"Eat," he
said. "We're leaving soon." He took the metal cover from one of the
plates.
"Club sandwich," he said, "coffee, pastries. Doctor's orders. Once
you're at the
clinic, you won't be eating for a while. . . ."
"Clinic?"
"Gerald's place. Baltimore."
"Why?"
"Gerald's a cosmetic surgeon. You're having some work done. All of
it
reversible later, if you want, but we think you'll be pleased with
the results.
Very pleased." The smile. "Anyone ever tell you how much you look
like Angie,
Mona?"
She looked up at him, said nothing. Managed to sit up, to drink half
a cup
of watery black coffee. She couldn't bring herself to look at the
sandwich, but
she ate one of the pastries. It tasted like cardboard.
Baltimore. She wasn't too sure where that was.
And somewhere a glider hung forever above a tame green country, fur
against her shoulder, and Angie must still be there, still laughing.
. . .
An hour later, in the lobby, while Prior signed the bill, she saw
Eddy's black
gator-clone suitcases go by on a robot baggage cart, and that was
when she knew
for sure that he was dead.
Gerald's office had a sign with big old-fashioned letters, fourth
floor of a
condo rack in what Prior said was Baltimore. The kind of building
where they
throw up a framework and commercial tenants bring their own modules,
plug-ins.
Like a highrise trailer camp, everything snaked with bundled cables,
optics,
lines for sewage and water. "What's it say?" she asked Prior.
"Gerald Chin, Dentist."
"You said he was a plastic surgeon."
"He is."
"Why can't we just go to a boutique like everybody else?"
He didn't answer.
She couldn't really feel much now, and part of her knew that she
wasn't as
scared as she should be. Maybe that was okay, though, because if she
got scared
enough she wouldn't be able to do anything, and definitely she wanted
to get out
of the whole deal, whatever it was. On the drive over, she'd
discovered this
lump in the pocket of Michael's jacket. It had taken her ten minutes
to figure
out it was a shockrod, like nervous suits carried. It felt like a
screwdriver
handle with a pair of blunt metal horns where the shaft should be. It
probably
charged off wall current; she just hoped Michael had kept up the
charge. She
figured Prior didn't know it was there. They were legal, most places,
because
they weren't supposed to do much permanent damage, but Lanette had
known a girl
who'd gotten worked over real bad with one and never got much better.
If Prior didn't know it was in her pocket, it meant he didn't know
everything, and he had a stake in having her think he did. But then
he hadn't
known how much Eddy hated gambling.
She couldn't feel much about Eddy, either, except she still figured
he was
dead. No matter how much they'd given him, he still wouldn't walk out
without
those cases. Even if he was going for a whole new wardrobe he'd need
to get all
dressed up to go shopping for it. Eddy cared about clothes more than
almost
anything. And those gator cases were special; he'd got 'em off a
hotel thief in
Orlando, and they were the closest thing he had to a home. And
anyway, now that
she thought about it, she couldn't see him going for a buy-out bid,
because what
he wanted most in the whole world was to be part of some big deal.
Once he was,
he figured, people would start to take him seriously.
So somebody finally took him seriously, she thought, as Prior
carried her
bag into Gerald's clinic. But not the way Eddy wanted.
She looked around at the twenty-year-old plastic furniture, the
stacks of
stim-star magazines with Jap writing. It looked like a Cleveland
haircut place.
There was nobody there, nobody behind the reception desk.
Then Gerald came through a white door, wearing the kind of crinkled
foil
suit that paramedics wore for traffic accidents. "Lock the door," he
said to
Prior, through a blue paper mask that hid his nose, mouth, and chin.
"Hello,
Mona. If you'll step this way . . ." He gestured toward the white
door.
She had her hand around the shockrod now, but she didn't know how to
turn
it on.
She followed Gerald, Prior taking up the rear.
"Have a seat," Gerald said. She sat on a white enamel chair. He came
close, looked at her eyes. "You need to rest, Mona. You're
exhausted."
There was a serrated stud on the shockrod's handle. Press it?
Forward?
Back?
Gerald went to a white box with drawers, got something out.
"Here," he said, extending a little tube thing with writing on the
side,
"this will help you. . . ." She barely felt the tiny, measured spray;
there was
a black blot on the aerosol tube, just where her eyes tried to focus,
growing. .
. .
She remembered the old man showing her how you kill a catfish.
Catfish has a
hole in its skull, covered with skin; you take something stiff and
skinny, a
wire, even a broomstraw did it, and you just slip it in. . . .
She remembered Cleveland, ordinary kind of day before it was time to
get
working, sitting up in Lanette's, looking at a magazine. Found this
picture of
Angie laughing in a restaurant with some other people, everybody
pretty but
beyond that it was like they had this glow, not really in the
photograph but it
was there anyway, something you could feel. Look, she said to
Lanette, showing
her the picture, they got this glow.
It's called money, Lanette said.
It's called money. You just slip it in.
Hilton Swift
He arrived unannounced, as he always did, and alone, the Net
helicopter settling
like a solitary wasp, stirring strands of seaweed across the damp
sand.
She watched from the rust-eaten railing as he jumped down, something
boyish, almost bumbling, in his apparent eagerness. He wore a long
topcoat of
brown tweed; unbuttoned, it showed the immaculate front of one of his
candystriped shirts, the propwash stirring his brown-blond hair and
fluttering
his Sense/Net tie. Robin was right, she decided: he did look as
though his
mother dressed him.
Perhaps it was deliberate, she thought, as he came striding up the
beach,
a feigned na�vet�. She remembered Porphyre once maintaining that
major
corporations were entirely independent of the human beings who
composed the body
corporate. This had seemed patently obvious to Angie, but the
hairdresser had
insisted that she'd failed to grasp his basic premise. Swift was
Sense/Net's
most important human decision-maker.
The thought of Porphyre made her smile; Swift, taking it as a
greeting,
beamed back at her.
He offered her lunch in San Francisco; the helicopter was extremely
fast. She
countered by insisting on preparing him a bowl of dehydrated Swiss
soup and
microwaving a frozen brick of sourdough rye.
She wondered, watching him eat, about his sexuality. In his late
thirties,
he somehow conveyed the sense of an extraordinarily bright teenager
in whom the
onset of puberty had been subtly delayed. Rumor, at one time or
another, had
supplied him with every known sexual preference, and with several
that she
assumed were entirely imaginary. None of them seemed at all likely to
Angie.
She'd known him since she'd come to Sense/Net; he'd been well
established in the
upper eschelons of production when she'd arrived, one of the top
people in Tally
Isham's team, and he'd taken an immediate professional interest in
her. Looking
back, she assumed that Legba had steered her into his path: he'd been
so
obviously on his way up, though she might not have seen it herself,
then,
dazzled by the glitter and constant movement of the scene.
Bobby had taken an instant dislike to him, bristling with a
Barrytowner's
inbred hostility to authority, but had generally managed to conceal
it for the
sake of her career. The dislike had been mutual, Swift greeting their
split and
Bobby's departure with obvious relief.
"Hilton," she said, as she poured him a cup of the herbal tea he
preferred
to coffee, "what is it that's keeping Robin in London?"
He looked up from the steaming cup. "Something personal, I think.
Perhaps
he's found a new friend." Bobby had always been Angie's friend , to
Hilton.
Robin's friends tended to be young, male, and athletic; the muted
erotic
sequences in her stims with Robin were assembled from stock footage
provided by
Continuity and heavily treated by Raebel and his effects team. She
remembered
the one night they'd spent together, in a windblown house in southern
Madagascar, his passivity and his patience. They'd never tried again,
and she'd
suspected that he feared that intimacy would undermine the illusion
their stims
projected so perfectly.
"What did he think of me going into the clinic, Hilton? Did he tell
you?"
"I think he admired you for it."
"Someone told me recently that he's been telling people I'm crazy."
He'd rolled up his striped shirtsleeves and loosened his tie. "I
can't
imagine Robin thinking that, let alone saying it. I know what he
thinks of you.
You know what gossip is, in the Net. . . ."
"Hilton, where's Bobby?"
His brown eyes, very still. "Isn't that over, Angie?"
"Hilton, you know. You must know. You know where he is. Tell me."
"We lost him."
"Lost him?"
"Security lost him. You're right, of course; we kept the closest
possible
track of him after he left you. He reverted to type." There was an
edge of
satisfaction in his voice.
"And what type was that?"
"I've never asked what brought you together," he said. "Security
investigated both of you, of course. He was a petty criminal."
She laughed. "He wasn't even that. . . ."
"You were unusually well represented, Angie, for an unknown. You
know that
your agents made it a key condition of your contract that we take
Bobby Newmark
on as well."
"Contracts have had stranger conditions, Hilton."
"And he went on salary as your . . . companion."
"My 'friend.' "
Was Swift actually blushing? He broke eye contact, looked down at
his
hands. "When he left you, he went to Mexico, Mexico City. Security
was tracing
him, of course; we don't like to lose track of anyone who knows that
much about
the personal life of one of our stars. Mexico City is a very . . .
complicated
place. . . . We do know that he seemed to be trying to continue his
previous . .
. career."
"He was hustling cyberspace?"
He met her eyes again. "He was seeing people in the business, known
criminals."
"And? Go on."
"He . . . faded out. Vanished. Do you have any idea what Mexico City
is
like, if you slip below the poverty line?"
"And he was poor?"
"He'd become an addict. According to our best sources."
"An addict? Addicted to what?"
"I don't know."
"Continuity!"
He almost spilled his tea.
"Hello, Angie."
"Bobby, Continuity. Bobby Newmark, my friend ," glaring at Swift.
"He went
to Mexico City. Hilton says he became addicted to something. A drug,
Continuity?"
"I'm sorry, Angie. That's classified data."
"Hilton . . ."
"Continuity," he began, and coughed.
"Hello, Hilton."
"Executive override, Continuity. Do we have that information?"
"Security's sources described Newmark's addiction as neuro-
electronic."
"I don't understand."
"Some sort of, um, 'wirehead' business," Swift offered.
She felt an impulse to tell him how she'd found the drug, the
charger.
Hush , child . Her head was full of the sound of bees, a building
pressure.
"Angie? What is it?" He was half up from his chair, reaching for
her.
"Nothing. I'm . . . upset. I'm sorry. Nerves. It isn't your fault. I
was
going to tell you about finding Bobby's cyberspace deck. But you
already know
about that, don't you?"
"Can I get you anything? Water?"
"No, thanks, but I'll lie down for a while, if you don't mind. But
stay,
please. I have some ideas for orbital sequences that I'd like your
advice on. .
. ."
"Of course. Have a nap, I'll have a walk on the beach, and then
we'll
talk."
She watched him from the bedroom window, watched his brown figure
recede in the
direction of the Colony, followed by the patient little Dornier.
He looked like a child on the empty beach; he looked as lost as she
felt.
The Aleph
As the sun rose, still no power for the 100-watt bulbs, Gentry's loft
filled
with a new light. Winter sunlight softened the outlines of the
consoles and the
holo table, brought out the texture of the ancient books that lined
sagging
chipboard shelves along the west wall. As Gentry paced and talked,
his blond
roostertail bobbing each time he spun on a black bootheel, his
excitement seemed
to counter the lingering effects of Cherry's sleep-derms. Cherry sat
on the edge
of the bed, watching Gentry but glancing occasionally at the battery
telltale on
the stretcher's superstructure. Slick sat in a broken-down chair
scrounged from
the Solitude and recushioned with transparent plastic over wadded
pads of
discarded clothing.
To Slick's relief, Gentry had skipped the whole business of the
Shape and
launched straight into his theory about the aleph thing. As always,
once Gentry
got going, he used words and constructions that Slick had trouble
understanding,
but Slick knew from experience that it was easier not to interrupt
him; the
trick was in pulling some kind of meaning out of the overall flow,
skipping over
the parts you didn't understand.
Gentry said that the Count was jacked into what amounted to a
mother-huge
microsoft; he thought the slab was a single solid lump of biochip. If
that was
true, the thing's storage capacity was virtually infinite; it
would've been
unthinkably expensive to manufacture. It was, Gentry said, a fairly
strange
thing for anyone to have built at all, although such things were
rumored to
exist and to have their uses, most particularly in the storage of
vast amounts
of confidential data. With no link to the global matrix, the data was
immune to
every kind of attack via cyberspace. The catch, of course, was that
you couldn't
access it via the matrix; it was dead storage.
"He could have anything in there," Gentry said, pausing to look down
at
the unconscious face. He spun on his heel and began his pacing again.
"A world.
Worlds. Any number of personality-constructs . . ."
"Like he's living a stim?" Cherry asked. "That why he's always in
REM?"
"No," Gentry said, "it's not simstim. It's completely interactive.
And
it's a matter of scale. If this is aleph-class biosoft, he literally
could have
anything at all in there. In a sense, he could have an approximation
of
everything . . . ."
"I gotta feeling off Kid Afrika," Cherry said, "that this guy was
paying
to stay this way. Kinda wirehead action but different. And anyway,
wirehead's
don't REM like that. . . ."
"But when you tried to put it out through your stuff," Slick
ventured,
"you got that . . . thing." He saw Gentry's shoulders tense beneath
black-beaded
leather.
"Yes," Gentry said, "and now I have to reconstruct our account with
the
Fission Authority." He pointed at the permanent storage batteries
stacked
beneath the steel table. "Get those out for me."
"Yeah," Cherry said, "it's about time. I'm freezing my ass."
They left Gentry bent over a cyberspace deck and went back to Slick's
room.
Cherry had insisted they rig Gentry's electric blanket to one of the
batteries
so she could drape it over the stretcher. There was cold coffee left
on the
butane stove; Slick drank it without bothering to reheat it, while
Cherry stared
out the window at the snow-streaked plain of the Solitude.
"How'd it get like this?" she asked.
"Gentry says it was a landfill operation a hundred years ago. Then
they
laid down a lot of topsoil, but stuff wouldn't grow. A lot of the
fill was
toxic. Rain washed the cover off. Guess they just gave up and started
dumping
more shit on it. Can't drink the water out there; fulla PCBs and
everything
else."
"What about those rabbits Bird-boy goes hunting for?"
"They're west of here. You don't see 'em on the Solitude. Not even
rats.
Anyway, you gotta test any meat you take around here."
"There's birds, though."
"Just roost here, go somewhere else to feed."
"What is it with you 'n' Gentry?" She was still looking out the
window.
"How do you mean?"
"My first idea was maybe you were gay. Together, I mean."
"No."
"But it's kind of like you need each other some way. . . ."
"It's his place, Factory. Lets me live here. I . . . need to live
here. To
do my work."
"To build those things downstairs?"
The bulb in the yellow cone of fax came on; the fan in the heater
kicked
in.
"Well," Cherry said, squatting in front of the heater and unzipping
one
jacket after another, "he may be crazy but he just did something
right."
Gentry was slouched in the old office chair when Slick entered the
loft, staring
at the little flip-up monitor on his deck.
"Robert Newmark," Gentry said.
"Huh?"
"Retinal identification. Either this is Robert Newmark or someone
who
bought his eyes."
"How'd you get that?" Slick bent to peer at the screen of basic
birth
stats.
Gentry ignored the question. "This is it. Push it and you run into
something else entirely."
"How's that?"
"Someone wants to know if anyone asks any questions about Mr.
Newmark."
"Who?"
"I don't know." Gentry drummed his fingers on his black leather
thighs.
"Look at this: nothing. Born in Barrytown. Mother: Marsha Newmark.
We've got his
SIN, but it's definitely been tagged." He shoved the chair back on
its casters
and swung around so that he could see the Count's still face. "How
about it,
Newmark? Is that your name?" He stood up and went to the holo table.
"Don't," Slick said.
Gentry touched the power stud on the holo table.
And the gray thing was there again, for an instant, but this time it
dived
toward the core of the hemispherical display, dwindled, and was gone.
No. It was
there, a minute gray sphere at the very center of the glowing
projection field.
Gentry's crazy smile had returned. "Good," he said.
"What's good?"
"I see what it is. A kind of ice. A security program."
"That monkey?"
"Someone has a sense of humor. If the monkey doesn't scare you off,
it
turns into a pea. . . ." He crossed to the table and began to root
through one
of the panniers. "I doubt if they'll be able to do that with a direct
sensory
link." He held something in his hand now. A trode-net.
"Gentry, don't do it! Look at him!"
"I'm not going to do it," Gentry said. "You are."
Ghosts and Empties
Staring through the cab's smudged windows, she found herself wishing
for Colin
and his wry commentary, then remembered that this was entirely beyond
his sphere
of expertise. Did Maas-Neotek manufacture a similar unit for the
Sprawl, she
wondered, and if so, what form would its ghost take?
"Sally," she said, perhaps half an hour into the drive to New York,
"why
did Petal let me go with you?"
"Because he was smart."
"And my father?"
"Your father'll shit."
"I'm sorry?"
"Will be angry. If he finds out. And he may not. We aren't here for
long."
"Why are we here?"
"I gotta talk to somebody."
"But why am I here?"
"You don't like it here?"
Kumiko hesitated. "Yes, I do."
"Good." Sally shifted on the broken-down seat. "Petal had to let us
go.
Because he couldn't have stopped us without hurting one of us. Well,
maybe not
hurting. More like insulting. Swain could cool you, then tell you he
was sorry
later, tell your father it was for your own good, if it came to that,
but if he
cools me, it's like face , right? When I saw Petal down there with
the gun, I
knew he was going to let us go. Your room's kinked. The whole place
is. I set
the motion sensors off when I was getting your gear together. Figured
I would.
Petal knew it was me. That's why he rang the phone, to let me know he
knew."
"I don't understand."
"Kind of a courtesy, so I'd know he was waiting. Gimme a chance to
think.
But he didn't have a choice and he knew it. Swain, see, he's being
forced to do
something, and Petal knows it. Or anyway Swain says he is, being
forced. Me, I'm
definitely being forced. So I start wondering how bad Swain needs me.
Real
bad. Because they let me walk off with the oyabun 's daughter,
shipped all the
way to Notting Hill for the safekeeping. Something there scares him
worse than
your daddy. 'Less it's something that'll make him richer than your
daddy already
has. Anyway, taking you kind of evens things up. Kind of like pushing
back. You
mind?"
"But you are being threatened?"
"Somebody knows a lot of things I did."
"And Tick has discovered the identity of this person?"
"Yeah. Guess I knew anyway. Wish to fuck I'd been wrong."
The hotel Sally chose was faced with rust-stained steel panels, each
panel
secured with gleaming chrome bolts, a style Kumiko knew from Tokyo
and thought
of as somewhat old-fashioned.
Their room was large and gray, a dozen shades of gray, and Sally
walked
straight to the bed, after she'd locked the door, took off her
jacket, and lay
down.
"You don't have a bag," Kumiko said.
Sally sat up and began to remove her boots. "I can buy what I need.
You
tired?"
"No."
"I am." She pulled her black sweater over her head. Her breasts were
small, with brownish pink nipples; a scar, running from just below
the left
nipple, vanished into the waistband of her jeans.
"You were hurt," Kumiko said, looking at the scar.
Sally looked down. "Yeah."
"Why didn't you have it removed?"
"Sometimes it's good to remember."
"Being hurt?"
"Being stupid."
Gray on gray. Unable to sleep, Kumiko paced the gray carpet. There
was something
vampiric about the room, she decided, something it would have in
common with
millions of similar rooms, as though its bewilderingly seamless
anonymity were
sucking away her personality, fragments of which emerged as her
parents' voices,
raised in argument, as the faces of her father's black-suited
secretaries. . . .
Sally slept, her face a smooth mask. The view from the window told
Kumiko
nothing at all: only that she looked out on a city that was neither
Tokyo nor
London, a vast generic tumble that was her century's paradigm of
urban reality.
Perhaps she slept too, Kumiko, though later she wasn't certain. She
watched Sally order toiletries and underwear, tapping her
requirements into the
bedside video. Her purchases were delivered while Kumiko was in the
shower.
"Okay," Sally said, from beyond the door, "towel off, get dressed,
we're
going to see the man."
"What man?" Kumiko asked, but Sally hadn't heard her.
Gomi.
Thirty-five percent of the landmass of Tokyo was built on gomi , on
level
tracts reclaimed from the Bay through a century's systematic dumping.
Gomi ,
there, was a resource to be managed, to be collected, sorted,
carefully plowed
under.
London's relationship to gomi was more subtle, more oblique. To
Kumiko's
eyes, the bulk of the city consisted of gomi , of structures the
Japanese
economy would long ago have devoured in its relentless hunger for
space in which
to build. Yet these structures revealed, even to Kumiko, the fabric
of time,
each wall patched by generations of hands in an ongoing task of
restoration. The
English valued their gomi in its own right, in a way she had only
begun to
understand; they inhabited it.
Gomi in the Sprawl was something else: a rich humus, a decay that
sprouted prodigies in steel and polymer. The apparent lack of
planning alone was
enough to dizzy her, running so entirely opposite the value her own
culture
placed on efficient land use.
Their taxi ride from the airport had already shown her decay, whole
blocks
in ruin, unglazed windows gaping above sidewalks heaped with trash.
And faces
staring as the armored hover made its way through the streets.
Now Sally plunged her abruptly into the full strangeness of this
place,
with its rot and randomness rooting towers taller than any in Tokyo,
corporate
obelisks that pierced the sooty lacework of overlapping domes.
Two cab rides away from their hotel, they took to the street itself,
into
early-evening crowds and a slant of shadow. The air was cold, but not
the cold
of London, and Kumiko thought of the blossoms in Ueno Park.
Their first stop was a large, somewhat faded bar called the
Gentleman
Loser, where Sally conducted a quiet, very rapid exchange with a
bartender.
They left without buying a drink.
"Ghosts," Sally said, rounding a corner, Kumiko close at her side.
The streets
had grown progressively more empty, these past several blocks, the
buildings
darker and more decrepit.
"Pardon me?"
"Lotta ghosts here for me, or anyway there should be."
"You know this place?"
"Sure. Looks all the same, but different, you know?"
"No . . ."
"Someday you will. We find who I'm looking for, you just do your
good-girl
routine. Speak if you're spoken to, otherwise don't."
"Who are we looking for?"
"The man. What's left of him, anyway . . ."
Half a block on, the grim street empty -- Kumiko had never seen an
empty
street before, aside from Swain's crescent shrouded in midnight snow
-- Sally
came to a halt beside an ancient and utterly unpromising storefront,
its twin
display windows silvered with a rich inner coating of dust. Peering
in, Kumiko
made out the glass-tube letters of an unlit neon sign: METRO, then a
longer
word. The door between the windows had been reinforced with a sheet
of
corrugated steel; rusting eyebolts protruded at intervals, strung
with slack
lengths of galvanized razor wire.
Now Sally faced that door, squared her shoulders, and executed a
fluid
series of small, quick gestures.
Kumiko stared as the sequence was repeated. "Sally --"
"Jive," Sally cut her off. "I told you to shut up, okay?"
"Yeah?" The voice, barely more than a whisper, seemed to come from
nowhere
in particular.
"I told you already," Sally said.
"I don't jive."
"I wanna talk to him," she said, her voice hard and careful.
"He's dead."
"I know that."
A silence followed, and Kumiko heard a sound that might have been
the
wind, a cold, grit-laden wind scouring the curve of the geodesics far
above
them.
"He's not here," the voice said, and seemed to recede. "Round the
corner,
half a block, left into the alley."
Kumiko would remember the alley always: dark brick slick with damp,
hooded
ventilators trailing black streamers of congealed dust, a yellow bulb
in a cage
of corroded alloy, the low growth of empty bottles that sprouted at
the base of
either wall, the man-sized nests of crumpled fax and white foam
packing
segments, and the sound of Sally's bootheels.
Past the bulb's dim glow was darkness, though a reflected gleam on
wet
brick showed a final wall, cul-de- sac, and Kumiko hesitated,
frightened by a
sudden stir of echo, a scurrying, the steady dripping of water. . . .
Sally raised her hand. A tight beam of very bright light framed a
sharp
circle of paint-scrawled brick, then smoothly descended.
Descended until it found the thing at the base of the wall, dull
metal, an
upright rounded fixture that Kumiko mistook for another ventilator.
Near its
base were the stubs of white candles, a flat plastic flask filled
with a clear
liquid, an assortment of cigarette packets, a scattering of loose
cigarettes,
and an elaborate, multiarmed figure drawn in what appeared to be
white powdered
chalk.
Sally stepped forward, the beam held steady, and Kumiko saw that the
armored thing was bolted into the brickwork with massive rivets.
"Finn?"
A rapid flicker of pink light from a horizontal slot.
"Hey, Finn, man . . ." An uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice .
. .
"Moll." A grating quality, as if through a broken speaker. "What's
with
the flash? You still got amps in? Gettin' old, you can't see in the
dark so
good?"
"For my friend."
Something moved behind the slot, its color the unhealthy pink of hot
cigarette ash in noon sunlight, and Kumiko's face was washed with a
stutter of
light.
"Yeah," grated the voice, "so who's she?"
"Yanaka's daughter."
"No shit."
Sally lowered the light; it fell on the candles, the flask, the damp
gray
cigarettes, the white symbol with its feathery arms.
"Help yourself to the offerings," said the voice. "That's half a
liter of
Moskovskaya there. The hoodoo mark's flour. Tough luck; the high
rollers draw
'em in cocaine."
"Jesus," Sally said, an odd distance in her voice, squatting down,
"I
don't believe this." Kumiko watched as she picked up the flask and
sniffed at
the contents.
"Drink it. It's good shit. Fuckin' better be. Nobody shortcounts the
oracle, not if they know what's good for 'em."
"Finn," Sally said, then tilted the flask and swallowed, wiping her
mouth
with the back of her hand, "you gotta be crazy. . . ."
"I should be so lucky. A rig like this, I'm pushing it to have a
little
imagination, let alone crazy."
Kumiko moved closer, then squatted beside Sally.
"It's a construct, a personality job?" Sally put down the flask of
vodka
and stirred the damp flour with the tip of a white fingernail.
"Sure. You seen 'em before. Real-time memory if I wanna, wired into
c-
space if I wanna. Got this oracle gig to keep my hand in, you know?"
The thing
made a strange sound: laughter. "Got love troubles? Got a bad woman
don't
understand you?" The laugh noise again, like peals of static.
"Actually I'm more
into business advice. It's the local kids leave the goodies. Adds to
the
mystique, kinda. And once in a while I get a skeptic, some asshole
figures he'll
help himself to the take." A scarlet hairline flashed from the slit
and a bottle
exploded somewhere to Kumiko's right. Static laughter. "So what
brings you this
way, Moll? You and," again the pink light flicked across Kumiko's
face,
"Yanaka's daughter . . ."
"The Straylight run," Sally said.
"Long time, Moll . . ."
"She's after me, Finn. Fourteen years and that crazy bitch is on my
ass. .
. ."
"So maybe she's got nothin' better to do. You know how rich folks
are. . .
."
"You know where Case is, Finn? Maybe she's after him. . . ."
"Case got out of it. Rolled up a few good scores after you split,
then he
kicked it in the head and quit clean. You did the same, maybe you
wouldn't be
freezing your buns off in an alley, right? Last I heard, he had four
kids. . .
."
Watching the hypnotic sweep of the scanning pink ember, Kumiko had
some idea of
what it was that Sally spoke with. There were similar things in her
father's
study, four of them, black lacquered cubes arranged along a low shelf
of pine.
Above each cube hung a formal portrait. The portraits were monochrome
photographs of men in dark suits and ties, four very sober gentlemen
whose
lapels were decorated with small metal emblems of the kind her father
sometimes
wore. Though her mother had told her that the cubes contained ghosts,
the ghosts
of her father's evil ancestors, Kumiko found them more fascinating
than
frightening. If they did contain ghosts, she reasoned, they would be
quite
small, as the cubes themselves were scarcely large enough to contain
a child's
head.
Her father sometimes meditated before the cubes, kneeling on the
bare
tatami in an attitude that connoted profound respect. She had seen
him in this
position many times, but she was ten before she heard him address the
cubes. And
one had answered. The question had meant nothing to her, the answer
less, but
the calm tone of the ghost's reply had frozen her where she crouched,
behind a
door of paper, and her father had laughed to find her there; rather
than
scolding her, he'd explained that the cubes housed the recorded
personalities of
former executives, corporate directors. Their souls? she'd asked. No,
he'd said,
and smiled, then added that the distinction was a subtle one. "They
are not
conscious. They respond, when questioned, in a manner approximating
the response
of the subject. If they are ghosts, then holograms are ghosts."
After Sally's lecture on the history and hierarchy of the Yakuza, in
the
robata bar in Earls Court, Kumiko had decided that each of the men in
the
photographs, the subjects of the personality recordings, had been an
oyabun .
The thing in the armored housing, she reasoned, was of a similar
nature,
though perhaps more complex, just as Colin was a more complex version
of the
Michelin guide her father's secretaries had carried on her Shinjuku
shopping
expeditions. Finn, Sally called it, and it was evident that this Finn
had been a
friend or associate of hers.
But did it wake, Kumiko wondered, when the alley was empty? Did its
laser
vision scan the silent fall of midnight snow?
"Europe," Sally began, "when I split from Case I went all around
there. Had a
lot of money we got for the run, anyway it looked like a lot then.
Tessier-
Ashpool's AI paid it out through a Swiss bank. It erased every trace
we'd ever
been up the well; I mean everything, like if you looked up the names
we traveled
under, on the JAL shuttle, they just weren't there. Case checked it
all out when
we were back in Tokyo, wormed his way into all kinds of data; it was
like none
of it ever happened. I didn't understand how it could do that, AI or
not, but
nobody ever really understood what happened up there, when Case rode
that
Chinese icebreaker through their core ice."
"Did it try to get in touch, after?"
"Not that I know of. He had this idea that it was gone, sort of; not
gone
gone, but gone into everything, the whole matrix. Like it wasn't in
cyberspace
anymore, it just was. And if it didn't want you to see it, to know it
was there,
well, there was no way you ever could, and no way you'd ever be able
to prove it
to anybody else even if you did know. . . . And me, I didn't wanna
know. I mean,
whatever it was, it seemed done to me, finished. Armitage was dead,
Riviera was
dead, Ashpool was dead, the Rasta tug pilot who took us out there was
back in
Zion cluster and he'd probably written it all off as another ganja
dream. . . .
I left Case in the Tokyo Hyatt, never saw him again. . . ."
"Why?"
"Who knows? Nothing much. I was young, it just seemed over."
"But you'd left her up the well. In Straylight."
"You got it. And I'd think about that, once in a while. When we were
leaving, Finn, it was like she didn't care about any of it. Like I'd
killed her
crazy sick father for her, and Case had cracked their cores and let
their AIs
loose in the matrix . . . So I put her on the list, right? You get
big enough
trouble one day, you're being got at, you check that list."
"And you figured it for her, right off?"
"No. I gotta pretty long list."
Case, who seemed to Kumiko to have been something more than Sally's
partner, never reentered her story.
As Kumiko listened to Sally condense fourteen years of personal
history
for the Finn's benefit, she found herself imagining this younger
Sally as a
bishonen hero in a traditional romantic video: fey, elegant, and
deadly. While
she found Sally's matter-of-fact account of her life difficult to
follow, with
its references to places and things she didn't know, it was easy to
imagine her
winning the sudden, flick-of-the-wrist victories expected of bishonen
. But no,
she thought, as Sally dismissed "a bad year in Hamburg," sudden anger
in her
voice -- an old anger, the year a decade past -- it was a mistake to
cast this
woman in Japanese terms. There were no ronin , no wandering samurai;
Sally and
the Finn were talking business.
She'd arrived at her bad year in Hamburg, Kumiko gathered, after
having
won and lost some sort of fortune. She'd won her share of it "up
there," in a
place the Finn had called Straylight, in partnership with the man
Case. In doing
so, she'd made an enemy.
"Hamburg," the Finn interrupted, "I heard stories about Hamburg. . .
."
"The money was gone. How it is, with a big score, when you're young
. . .
No money was sort of like getting back to normal, but I was involved
with these
Frankfurt people, owed 'em, and they wanted to take it out in trade."
"What kinda trade?"
"They wanted people hit."
"So?"
"So I got out. When I could. Went to London . . ."
Perhaps, Kumiko decided, Sally had once been something along ronin
lines, a kind of samurai. In London, however, she'd become something
else, a
businesswoman. Supporting herself in some unspecified way, she
gradually became
a backer, providing funds for various kinds of business operations.
(What was a
"credit sink"? What was "laundering data"?)
"Yeah," the Finn said, "you did okay. Got yourself a share in some
German
casino."
"Aix-la-Chapelle. I was on the board. Still am, when I got the right
passport."
"Settled down?" The laugh again.
"Sure."
"Didn't hear much, back here."
"I was running a casino. That was it. Doing fine."
"You were prizefighting. 'Misty Steele,' augmented featherweight.
Eight
fights, I made book on five of 'em. Blood matches, sweetmeat.
Illegal."
"Hobby."
"Some hobby. I saw the vids. Burmese Kid opened you right up, living
color
. . ."
Kumiko remembered the long scar.
"So I quit. Five years ago and I was already five years too old."
"You weren't bad, but 'Misty Steele' . . . Jesus."
"Gimme a break. Wasn't me made that one up."
"Sure. So tell me about our friend upstairs, how she got in touch."
"Swain. Roger Swain. Sends one of his boys to the casino, would-be
hardass
called Prior. About a month ago."
"Swain the fixer? London?"
"Same one. So Prior's got a present for me, about a meter of
printout. A
list. Names, dates, places."
"Bad?"
"Everything. Stuff I'd almost forgotten."
"Straylight run?"
"Everything. So I packed a bag, got back to London, there's Swain.
He's
sorry, it's not his fault, but he's gotta twist me. Because
somebody's twisting
him. Got his own meter of printout to worry about." Kumiko heard
Sally's heels
shift on the pavement.
"What's he want?"
"A rip, warm body. Celeb."
"Why you?"
"Come on, Finn, that's what I'm here to ask you ."
"Swain tell you it's 3Jane?"
"No. But my console cowboy in London did."
Kumiko's knees ached.
"The kid. Where'd you come by her?"
"She turned up at Swain's place. Yanaka wanted her out of Tokyo.
Swain
owes him giri ."
"She's clean, anyway, no implants. What I get out of Tokyo lately,
Yanaka
has his hands full. . . ."
Kumiko shivered in the dark.
"And the rip, the celeb?" the Finn continued.
She felt Sally hesitate. "Angela Mitchell."
The pink metronome swinging silently, left to right, right to left.
"It's cold here, Finn."
"Yeah. Wish I could feel it. I just took a little trip on your
behalf.
Memory Lane. You know much about where Angie comes from?"
"No."
"I'm in the oracle game, honey, not a research library. . . . Her
father
was Christopher Mitchell. He was the big shit in biochip research at
Mass
Biolabs. She grew up in a sealed compound of theirs in Arizona,
company kid.
About seven years ago, something happened down there. The street said
Hosaka
fielded a team of pros to help Mitchell make a major career move. The
fax said
there was a megaton blast on Maas property, but nobody ever found any
radiation.
Never found Hosaka's mercs, either. Maas announced that Mitchell was
dead,
suicide."
"That's the library. What's the oracle know?"
"Rumors. Nothing that hangs together on a line. Street said she
turned up
here a day or two after the blast in Arizona, got in with some very
weird spades
who worked out of New Jersey."
"Worked what?"
"They dealt. 'Ware, mostly. Buying, selling. Sometimes they bought
from
me. . . ."
"How were they weird?"
"Hoodoos. Thought the matrix was full of mambos 'n' shit. Wanna know
something, Moll?"
"What?"
"They're right."
Mirror Mirror
She came out of it like somebody had thrown a switch.
Didn't open her eyes. She could hear them talking in another room.
Hurt
lots of places but not any worse than the wiz had. The bad crash,
that was gone,
or maybe muted by whatever they'd given her, that spray.
Paper smock coarse against her nipples; they felt big and tender and
her
breasts felt full. Little lines of pain tweaking across her face,
twin dull
aches in her eyesockets, sore rough feeling in her mouth and a taste
of blood.
"I'm not trying to tell you your business," Gerald was saying, above
a
running tap and a rattle of metal, like he was washing pans or
something, "but
you're kidding yourself if you think she'd fool anyone who didn't
want to be
fooled. It's really a very superficial job." Prior said something she
couldn't
make out. "I said superficial, not shoddy. That's quality work, all
of it.
Twenty-four hours on a dermal stimulator and you won't know she's
been here.
Keep her on the antibiotics and off stimulants; her immune system
isn't all it
could be." Then Prior again, but she still couldn't catch it.
Opened her eyes but there was only the ceiling, white squares of
acoustic
tile. Turned her head to the left. White plastic wall with one of
those fake
windows, hi-rez animation of a beach with palm trees and waves; watch
the water
long enough and you'd see the same waves rolling in, looped, forever.
Except the
thing was broken or worn out, a kind of hesitation in the waves, and
the red of
the sunset pulsed like a bad fluorescent tube.
Try right . Turning again, feeling the sweaty paper cover on the
hard foam
pillow against her neck . . .
And the face with bruised eyes looking at her from the other bed,
nose
braced with clear plastic and micropore tape, some kind of brown
jelly stuff
smeared back across the cheekbones . . .
Angie. It was Angie's face, framed by the reflected sunset stutter
of the
defective window.
"There was no bonework," Gerald said, carefully loosening the tape
that held the
little plastic brace in place along the bridge of her nose. "That was
the beauty
of it. We planed some cartilage in the nose, working in through the
nostrils,
then went on to the teeth. Smile. Beautiful. We did the breast
augmentation,
built up the nipples with vat-grown erectile tissue, then did the eye
coloration. . . ." He removed the brace. "You mustn't touch this for
another
twenty-four hours."
"That how I got the bruises?"
"No. That's secondary trauma from the cartilage job." Gerald's
fingers
were cool on her face, precise. "That should clear up by tomorrow."
Gerald was okay. He'd given her three derms, two blue and a pink,
smooth
and comfortable. Prior definitely wasn't okay, but he was gone or
anyway out of
sight. And it was just nice, listening to Gerald explain things in
his calm
voice. And look what he could do.
"Freckles," she said, because they were gone.
"Abrasion and more vat tissue. They'll come back, faster if you get
too
much sun. . . ."
"She's so beautiful. . . ." She turned her head.
"You, Mona. That's you."
She looked at the face in the mirror and tried on that famous smile.
Maybe Gerald wasn't okay.
Back in the narrow white bed again, where he'd put her to rest, she
raised
her arm and looked at the three derms. Trank. Floating.
She worked a fingernail under the pink derm and peeled it off, stuck
it on
the white wall, and pushed hard with her thumb. A single bead of
straw-colored
fluid ran down. She carefully peeled it back and replaced it on her
arm. The
stuff in the blue ones was milky white. She put them back on too.
Maybe he'd
notice, but she wanted to know what was happening.
She looked in the mirror. Gerald said he could put it back the way
it was,
someday, if she wanted him to, but then she wondered how he'd
remember what
she'd looked like. Maybe he'd taken a picture or something. Now that
she thought
about it, maybe there wasn't anybody who'd remember how she'd looked
before. She
guessed Michael's stim deck was probably the closest bet, but she
didn't know
his address or even his last name. It gave her a funny feeling, like
who she'd
been had wandered away down the street for a minute and never come
back. But
then she closed her eyes and knew she was Mona, always had been, and
that
nothing much had changed, anyway not behind her eyelids.
Lanette said it didn't matter, how you got yourself changed. Lanette
told
her once that she didn't have 10 percent of her own face left, the
one she'd
been born with. Not that you'd guess, except for the black around her
lids so
she never had to mess with mascara. Mona had thought maybe Lanette
hadn't got
such good work done, and it must have shown once in Mona's eyes,
because then
Lanette said: You shoulda seen me before, honey.
But now here she was, Mona, stretched out straight in this skinny
bed in
Baltimore, and all she knew about Baltimore was the sound of a siren
from down
in the street and the motor running on Gerald's air-conditioner.
And somehow that turned into sleep, she didn't know for how long,
and then
Prior was there with his hand on her arm, asking her if she was
hungry.
She watched Prior shave his beard. He did it at the stainless
surgical sink,
trimming it back with a pair of chrome scissors. Then he switched to
a white
plastic throw-away razor from a box of them that Gerald had. It was
strange
watching his face come out. It wasn't a face she'd have expected: it
was
younger. But the mouth was the same.
"We gonna be here much longer, Prior?"
He had his shirt off for the shave; he had tattoos across his
shoulders
and down his upper arms, dragons with lion-heads. "Don't worry about
it," he
said.
"It's boring."
"We'll get you some stims." He was shaving under his chin.
"What's Baltimore like?"
"Bloody awful. Like the rest of it."
"So what's England like?"
"Bloody awful." He wiped his face with a thick wad of blue absorbent
paper.
"Maybe we could go out, get some of those crabs. Gerald says they
got
crabs."
"They do," he said. "I'll get some in."
"How about you take me out?"
He tossed the blue wad into a steel waste canister. "No, you might
try to
run away."
She slid her hand between the bed and the wall and found the torn
foam air
cell where she'd hidden the shockrod. She'd found her clothes in a
white plastic
bag. Gerald came in every couple of hours with fresh derms; she'd
wring them out
as soon as he'd gone. She'd figured if she could get Prior to take
her out to
eat, she could make a move in the restaurant. But he wasn't having
any.
In a restaurant she might even be able to get a cop, because now she
figured she knew what the deal was.
Snuff. Lanette had told her about that. How there were men who'd pay
to
have girls fixed up to look like other people, then kill them. Had to
be rich,
really rich. Not Prior, but somebody he worked for. Lanette said
these guys had
girls fixed to look like their wives sometimes. Mona hadn't really
believed it,
back then; sometimes Lanette told her scary stuff because it was fun
to be
scared when you knew you were pretty safe, and anyway Lanette had a
lot of
stories about weird kinks. She said suits were the weirdest of all,
the big
suits way up in big companies, because they couldn't afford to lose
control when
they were working. But when they weren't working, Lanette said, they
could
afford to lose it any way they wanted. So why not a big suit
somewhere who
wanted Angie that way? Well, there were lots of girls got themselves
worked over
to look like her, but they were mostly pathetic. Wannabes -- and she
hadn't ever
seen one who really looked much like Angie, anyway not enough to fool
anybody
who cared. But maybe there was somebody who'd pay for all this just
to get a
girl who did look like Angie. Anyway, if it wasn't snuff, what was
it?
Now Prior was buttoning his blue shirt. He came over to the bed and
pulled
the sheet down to look at her breasts. Like he was looking at a car
or
something.
She yanked the sheet back up.
"I'll get some crabs." He put his jacket on and went out. She could
hear
him saying something to Gerald.
Gerald stuck his head in. "How are you, Mona?"
"Hungry."
"Feeling relaxed?"
"Yeah . . ."
When she was alone again, she rolled over and studied her face,
Angie's
face, in the mirrored wall. The bruising was almost gone. Gerald
taped things
like miniature trodes to her face and hooked them to a machine. Said
they made
it heal real fast.
It didn't make her jump, now, Angie's face in the mirror. The teeth
were
nice; the teeth you'd wanna keep anyway. She wasn't sure about the
rest, not
yet.
Maybe she should just get up now, get her clothes on, head for the
door.
If Gerald tried to stop her, she could use the rod. Then she
remembered how
Prior had turned up at Michael's, like he'd had somebody watching
her, all
night, following her. Maybe somebody watching now, outside. Gerald's
place
didn't seem to have any windows, not real ones, so she'd have to go
out the
door.
And she was starting to want her wiz bad, too, but if she did even a
little, Gerald would notice. She knew her kit was there, in her bag
under the
bed. Maybe if she did some, she thought, she'd just do something.
But maybe it
wouldn't be the right thing; she had to admit that what she did on
wiz didn't
always work out, even though it made you feel like you couldn't make
a mistake
if you tried.
Anyway, she was hungry, and too bad Gerald didn't have some kind of
music
or something, so maybe she'd just wait for that crab. . . .
In a Lonely Place
And Gentry standing there with the Shape burning behind his eyes,
holding out
the trode-net under the glare of bare bulbs, telling Slick why it had
to be that
way, why Slick had to put the trodes on and jack straight into
whatever the gray
slab was inputting to the still figure on the stretcher.
He shook his head, remembering how he'd come to Dog Solitude. And
Gentry
started talking faster, taking the gesture for refusal.
Gentry was saying Slick had to go under, he said maybe just for a
few
seconds, while he got a fix on the data and worked up a macroform.
Slick didn't
know how to do that, Gentry said, or he'd go under himself; it wasn't
the data
he wanted, just the overall shape, because he thought that would lead
him to the
Shape, the big one, the thing he'd chased for so long.
Slick remembered crossing the Solitude on foot. He'd been scared
that the
Korsakov's would come back, that he'd forget where he was and drink
cancer-water
from the slimed red puddles on the rusty plain. Red scum and dead
birds floating
with their wings spread. The trucker from Tennessee had told him to
walk west
from the highway, he'd hit two-lane blacktop inside an hour and get a
ride down
to Cleveland, but it felt like longer than an hour now and he wasn't
so sure
which way was west and this place was spooking him, this junkyard
scar like a
giant had stomped it flat. Once he saw somebody far away, up on a low
ridge, and
waved. The figure vanished, but he walked that way, no longer trying
to skirt
the puddles, slogging through them, until he came to the ridge and
saw that it
was the wingless hulk of an airliner half-buried in rusted cans. He
made his way
up the incline along a path where feet had flattened the cans, to a
square
opening that had been an emergency exit. Stuck his head inside and
saw hundreds
of tiny heads suspended from the concave ceiling. He froze there,
blinking in
the sudden shade, until what he was seeing made some kind of sense.
The pink
plastic heads of dolls, their nylon hair tied up into topknots and
the knots
stuck into thick black tar, dangling like fruit. Nothing else, only a
few ragged
slabs of dirty green foam, and he knew he didn't want to stick around
to find
out whose place it was.
He'd headed south then, without knowing it, and found Factory.
"I'll never have another chance," Gentry said. Slick stared at the
taut
face, the eyes wide with desperation. "I'll never see it. . . ."
And Slick remembered the time Gentry'd hit him, how he'd looked down
at
the wrench and felt . . . Well, Cherry wasn't right about them, but
there was
something else there, he didn't know what to call it. He snatched the
trode-net
with his left hand and shoved Gentry hard in the chest with his
right. "Shut up!
Shut the fuck up!" Gentry fell back against the steel table's edge.
Slick cursed him softly as he fumbled the delicate net of contact
dermatrodes across his forehead and temples.
Jacked in.
His boots crunched gravel.
Opened his eyes and looked down; the gravel drive smooth in the
dawn,
cleaner than anything in Dog Solitude. He looked up and saw where it
curved
away, and beyond green and spreading trees the pitched slate roof of
a house
half the size of Factory. There were statues near him in the long wet
grass. A
deer made of iron, and a broken figure of a man's body carved from
white stone,
no head or arms or legs. Birds were singing and that was the only
sound.
He started walking up the drive, toward the gray house, because
there
didn't seem to be anything else to do. When he got to the head of the
drive, he
could see past the house to smaller buildings and a broad flat field
of grass
where gliders where staked against the wind.
Fairytale , he thought, looking up at the mansion's broad stone
brow, the
leaded diamond panes; like some vid he'd seen when he was little.
Were there
really people who lived in places like this? But it 's not a place ,
he
reminded himself, it only feels like it is .
"Gentry," he said, "get my ass out of this, okay?"
He studied the backs of his hands. Scars, ingrained grime, black
half-
moons of grease under his broken nails. The grease got in and made
them soft, so
they broke easy.
He started to feel stupid, standing there. Maybe somebody was
watching him
from the house. "Fuck it," he said, and started up the broad
flagstone walk,
unconsciously hitching his stride into the swagger he'd learned in
the Deacon
Blues.
The door had this thing fastened to a central panel: a hand, small
and
graceful, holding a sphere the size of a poolball, all cast in iron.
Hinged at
the wrist so you could raise it and bring it down. He did. Hard.
Twice, then
twice again. Nothing happened. The doorknob was brass, floral detail
worn almost
invisible by years of use. It turned easily. He opened the door.
He blinked at a wealth of color and texture; surfaces of dark
polished
wood, black and white marble, rugs with a thousand soft colors that
glowed like
church windows, polished silver, mirrors. . . . He grinned at the
soft shock of
it, his eyes pulled from one new sight to another, so many things,
objects he
had no name for. . . .
"You looking for anyone in particular, Jack?"
The man stood in front of a vast fireplace, wearing tight black
jeans and
a white T-shirt. His feet were bare and he held a fat glass bulb of
liquor in
his right hand. Slick blinked at him.
"Shit," Slick said, "you're him. . . ."
The man swirled the brown stuff up around the edges of the glass and
took
a swallow. "I expected Afrika to pull something like this
eventually," he said,
"but somehow, buddy, you don't look like his style of help."
"You're the Count."
"Yeah," he said, "I'm the Count. Who the fuck are you?"
"Slick. Slick Henry."
He laughed. "Want some cognac, Slick Henry?" He gestured with the
glass
toward a piece of polished wooden furniture where ornate bottles
stood in a row,
each one with a little silver tag hung around it on a chain.
Slick shook his head.
The man shrugged. "Can't get drunk on it anyway . . . Pardon my
saying so,
Slick, but you look like shit. Am I correct in guessing that you are
not a part
of Kid Afrika's operation? And if not, just what exactly are you
doing here?"
"Gentry sent me."
"Gentry who?"
"You're the guy on the stretcher, right?"
"The guy on the stretcher is me. Where, exactly, right this minute,
is
that stretcher, Slick?"
"Gentry's."
"Where's that?"
"Factory."
"And where is that? "
"Dog Solitude."
"And how did I happen to get there, wherever that is?"
"Kid Afrika, he brought you. Brought you with this girl name of
Cherry,
right? See, I owed him a favor, so he wanted me to put you up awhile,
you an'
Cherry, and she's taking care of you."
"You called me Count, Slick. . . ."
"Cherry said Kid called you that once."
"Tell me, Slick, did the Kid seem worried when he brought me?"
"Cherry thought he got scared, back in Cleveland."
"I'm sure he did. Who's this Gentry? A friend of yours?"
"Factory's his place. I live there too. . . ."
"This Gentry, is he a cowboy, Slick? A console jockey? I mean, if
you're
here, he must be technical, right?"
Now it was Slick's turn to shrug. "Gentry's, like, he's an artist,
kind
of. Has these theories. Hard to explain. He rigged a set of splitters
to that
thing on the stretcher, what you're jacked into. First he tried to
get an image
on a holo rig, but there was just this monkey thing, sort of shadow,
so he
talked me into . . ."
"Jesus . . . Well, never mind. This factory you're talking about,
it's out
in the sticks somewhere? It's relatively isolated?"
Slick nodded.
"And this Cherry, she's some kind of hired nurse?"
"Yeah. Had a med-tech's ticket, she said."
"And nobody's come looking for me yet?"
"No."
"That's good, Slick. Because if anyone does, other than my lying
rat-
bastard friend Kid Afrika, you folks could find yourselves in serious
trouble."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Listen to me, okay? I want you to remember this. If any
company
shows up at this factory of yours, your only hope in hell is to get
me jacked
into the matrix. You got that?"
"How come you're the Count? I mean, what's it mean?"
"Bobby. My name's Bobby. Count was my handle once, that's all. You
think
you'll remember what I told you?"
Slick nodded again.
"Good." He put his glass down on the thing with all the fancy
bottles.
"Listen," he said. From the open door came the sound of tires over
gravel. "Know
who that is, Slick? That's Angela Mitchell."
Slick turned. Bobby the Count was looking out at the drive.
"Angie Mitchell? The stim star? She's in this thing too?"
"In a manner of speaking, Slick, in a manner of speaking . . ."
Slick saw the long black car slide by. "Hey," he began, "Count, I
mean
Bobby, what d --"
"Easy," Gentry was saying, "just sit back. Easy. Easy . . ."
Back East
While Kelly and his assistants were assembling her wardrobe for the
trip, she
felt as though the house itself were stirring around her, preparing
for one of
its many brief periods of vacancy.
She could hear their voices, from where she sat in the living room,
their
laughter. One of the assistants was a girl in a blue polycarbon exo
that allowed
her to carry the Herm�s wardrobe cases as though they were weightless
blocks of
foam, the humming skeleton suit padding softly down the stairs on its
blunt
dinosaur feet. Blue skeleton, leather coffins.
Now Porphyre stood in the doorway. "Missy ready?" He wore a long,
loose
coat cut from tissue-thin black leather; rhinestone spurs glittered
above the
heels of black patent boots.
"Porphyre," she said, "you're in mufti. We have an entrance to make,
in
New York."
"The cameras are for you."
"Yes," she said, "for my reinsertion."
"Porphyre will keep well in the rear."
"I've never known you to worry about upstaging anyone."
He grinned, exposing sculpted teeth, streamlined teeth, an avant-
garde
dentist's fantasy of what teeth might be like in a faster, more
elegant species.
"Danielle Stark will be flying with us." She heard the sound of the
approaching helicopter. "She's meeting us at LAX."
"We'll strangle her," he said, his tone confidential, as he helped
her on
with the blue fox Kelly had selected. "If we promise to hint to the
fax that the
motive was sexual, she might even decide to play along. . . ."
"You're horrid."
"Danielle is a horror, missy."
"Look who's talking."
"Ah," said the hairdresser, narrowing his eyes, "but my soul is a
child's."
Now the helicopter was landing.
Danielle Stark, associated with stim versions of both Vogue-Nippon
and Vogue-
Europa , was widely rumored to be in her late eighties. If it were
true, Angie
thought, covertly inspecting the journalist's figure as the three of
them
boarded the Lear, Danielle and Porphyre would be on par for overall
surgical
modification. Apparently in her willowy early thirties, her only
obvious
augments were a pair of pale blue Zeiss implants. A young French
fashion
reporter had once referred to these as "modishly outdated"; the
reporter, Net
legend said, had never worked again.
And soon, Angie knew, Danielle would want to talk drugs, celebrity
drugs,
the cornflower eyes schoolgirl-wide to take it all in.
Under Porphyre's daunting gaze, Danielle managed to contain herself
until they
were in cruise mode somewhere over Utah.
"I was hoping," she began, "that I wouldn't have to be the one to
bring it
up."
"Danielle," Angie countered, "I am sorry. How thoughtless." She
touched
the veneered face of the Hosaka flight kitchen, which purred softly
and began to
dispense tiny plates of tea-smoked duck, gulf oysters on black-pepper
toast,
crayfish flan, sesame pancakes. . . . Porphyre, taking Angie's cue,
produced a
bottle of chilled Chablis -- Danielle's favorite, Angie now recalled.
Someone --
Swift? -- had also remembered.
"Drugs," Danielle said, fifteen minutes later, finishing the last of
the
duck.
"Don't worry," Porphyre assured her. "When you get to New York, they
have
anything you want."
Danielle smiled. "You're so amusing. Do you know I've a copy of your
birth
certificate? I know your real name." She looked at him meaningfully,
still
smiling.
" 'Sticks and stones,' " he said, topping up her glass.
"Interesting notation regarding congenital defects." She sipped her
wine.
"Congenital, genital . . . We all change so much these days, don't
we?
Who's been doing your hair, dear?" He leaned forward. "Your saving
grace,
Danielle, is that you make the rest of your kind look vaguely human."
Danielle smiled.
The interview itself went smoothly enough; Danielle was too skilled
an
interviewer to allow her feints to cross the pain threshold, where
they might
rally serious resistance. But when she brushed a fingertip back
across her
temple, depressing a subdermal switch that deactivated her recording
gear, Angie
tensed for the real onslaught.
"Thank you," Danielle said. "The rest of the flight, of course, is
off the
record."
"Why don't you just have another bottle or two and turn in?"
Porphyre
asked.
"What I don't see, dear," Danielle said, ignoring him, "is why you
bothered . . . ."
"Why I bothered, Danielle?"
"Going to that tedious clinic at all. You've said it didn't affect
your
work. You've also said there was no 'high,' not in the usual sense."
She
giggled. "Though you do maintain that it was such a terribly
addictive
substance. Why did you decide to quit?"
"It was terribly expensive. . . ."
"In your case, surely, that's academic."
True , Angie thought, though a week of it did cost something in the
vicinity of your annual salary .
"I suppose I began to resent paying to feel normal. Or a poor
approximation of normal."
"Did you build up a tolerance?"
"No."
"How odd."
"Not really. These designers provide substances that supposedly
bypass the
traditional drawbacks."
"Ah. But what about the new drawbacks, the now drawbacks?" Danielle
poured herself more wine. "I've heard another version of all this, of
course."
"You have?"
"Of course I have. What it was, who made it, why you quit."
"Yes?"
"It was an antipsychotic, produced in Sense/Net's own labs. You quit
taking it because you'd rather be crazy."
Porphyre gently took the glass from Danielle's hand as her lids
fluttered
heavily over the brilliant blue eyes. "Nightie-night, dear," he said.
Danielle's
eyes closed and she began to snore gently.
"Porphyre, what -- ?"
"I dosed her wine," he said. "She won't know the difference, missy.
She
won't remember anything she didn't record. . . ." He grinned broadly.
"You
really didn't want to have to listen to this bitch all the way back,
did you?"
"But she'll know, Porphyre!"
"No, she won't. We'll tell her she killed three bottles by herself
and
made a disgusting mess in the washroom. And she'll feel like it,
too." He
giggled.
Danielle Stark was still snoring, quite loudly now, in one of the two
swing-down
bunks in the rear of the cabin.
"Porphyre," Angie said, "do you think she might've been right?"
The hairdresser gazed at her with his gorgeous, inhuman eyes. "And
you
wouldn't have known?"
"I don't know. . . ."
He sighed. "Missy worries too much. You're free now. Enjoy it."
"I do hear voices, Porphyre."
"Don't we all, missy?"
"No," she said, "not like mine. Do you know anything about African
religions, Porphyre?"
He smirked. "I'm not African."
"But when you were a child . . ."
"When I was a child," Porphyre said, "I was white."
"Oh . . ."
He laughed. "Religions, missy?"
"Before I came to the Net, I had friends. In New Jersey. They were
black
and . . . religious."
He smirked again and rolled his eyes. "Hoodoo sign, missy?
Chickenbone and
pennyroyal oil?"
"You know it isn't like that."
"And if I do?"
"Don't tease me, Porphyre. I need you."
"Missy has me. And yes, I know what you mean. And those are your
voices?"
"They were. After I began to use the dust, they went away. . . ."
"And now?"
"They're gone." But the impulse was past now, and she cringed from
trying
to tell him about Grande Brigitte and the drug in the jacket.
"Good," he said. "That's good, missy."
The Lear began its descent over Ohio. Porphyre was staring at the
bulkhead,
still as a statue. Angie looked out at the cloud-country below as it
rose toward
them, remembering the game she'd played on airplanes as a child,
sending an
imaginary Angie out to romp through cloud-canyons and over fluffy
peaks grown
magically solid. Those planes had belonged to Maas-Neotek, she
supposed. From
the Maas corporate jets she'd gone on to Net Lears. She knew
commercial
airliners only as locations for her stims: New York to Paris on the
maiden
flight of JAL's restored Concorde, with Robin and a hand-picked party
of Net
people.
Descending. Were they over New Jersey yet? Did the children swarming
the
rooftop playgrounds of Beauvoir's arcology hear the Lear's engine?
Did the sound
of her passage sweep faintly over the condos of Bobby's childhood?
How
unthinkably intricate the world was, in sheer detail of mechanism,
when
Sense/Net's corporate will shook tiny bones in the ears of unknown,
unknowing
children. . . .
"Porphyre knows certain things," he said, very softly. "But Porphyre
needs
time to think, missy. . . ."
They were banking for the final approach.
Kuromaku
And Sally was silent, on the street and in the cab, all the long cold
way back
to their hotel.
Sally and Swain were being blackmailed by Sally's enemy "up the
well."
Sally was being forced to kidnap Angie Mitchell. The thought of
someone's
abducting the Sense/Net star struck Kumiko as singularly unreal, as
if someone
were plotting to assassinate a figure out of myth.
The Finn had implied that Angie herself was already involved, in
some
mysterious way, but he had used words and idioms Kumiko hadn't
understood.
Something in cyberspace; people forming pacts with a thing or things
there. The
Finn had known a boy who became Angie's lover; but wasn't Robin
Lanier her
lover? Kumiko's mother had allowed her to run several of the Angie
and Robin
stims. The boy had been a cowboy, a data thief, like Tick in London.
. . .
And what of the enemy, the blackmailer? She was mad, Finn said, and
her
madness had brought about the decline of her family's fortunes. She
lived alone,
in her ancestral home, the house called Straylight. What had Sally
done to earn
her enmity? Had she really killed this woman's father? And who were
the others,
the others . . . .
And had Sally learned what she'd wanted to learn, in visiting the
Finn?
Kumiko had waited, finally, for some pronouncement from the armored
shrine, but
the exchange had wound down to nothing, to a gaijin ritual of joking
goodbyes.
In the hotel lobby, Petal was waiting in a blue velour armchair.
Dressed for
travel, his bulk encased in three-piece gray wool, he rose from the
chair like
some strange balloon as they entered, eyes mild as ever behind steel-
rimmed
glasses.
"Hello," he said, and coughed. "Swain's sent me after you. Only to
mind
the girl, you see."
"Take her back," Sally said. "Now. Tonight."
"Sally! No!" But Sally's hand was already locked firmly around
Kumiko's
upper arm, pulling her toward the entrance to the darkened lounge off
the lobby.
"Wait there," Sally snapped at Petal. "Listen to me," she said,
tugging
Kumiko around a corner, into shadow. "You're going back. I can't keep
you here
now."
"But I don't like it there. I don't like Swain, or his house. . . .
I . .
."
"Petal's okay," Sally said, leaning close and speaking quickly. "In
a
pinch, I'd say trust him. Swain, well, you know what Swain is, but
he's your
father's. Whatever comes down, I think they'll keep you out of the
way. But if
it gets bad, really bad, go to the pub where we met Tick. The Rose
and Crown.
Remember?"
Kumiko nodded, her eyes filling with tears.
"If Tick's not there, find a barman named Bevan and mention my
name."
"Sally, I . . ."
"You're okay," Sally said, and kissed her abruptly, one of her
lenses
brushing for an instant against Kumiko's cheekbone, startlingly cold
and
unyielding. "Me, baby, I'm gone."
And she was, into the muted tinkle of the lounge, and Petal cleared
his
throat in the entranceway.
The flight back to London was like a very long subway ride. Petal
passed the
time inscribing words, a letter at a time, in some idiotic puzzle in
an English
fax, grunting softly to himself. Eventually she slept, and dreamed of
her
mother. . . .
"Heater's working," Petal said, driving back to Swain's from
Heathrow. It
was uncomfortably warm in the Jaguar, a dry heat that smelled of
leather and
made her sinuses ache. She ignored him, staring out at the wan
morning light, at
roofs shining black through melting snow, rows of chimneypots. . . .
"He's not angry with you, you know," Petal said. "He feels a special
responsibility. . . ."
"Giri ."
"Er . . . yes. Responsible, you see. Sally's never been what you'd
call
predictable, really, but we didn't expect --"
"I don't wish to talk, thank you."
His small worried eyes in the mirror.
The crescent was lined with parked cars, long silver-gray cars with
tinted
windows.
"Seeing a lot of visitors this week," Petal said, parking opposite
number
17. He got out, opened the door for her. She followed him numbly
across the
street and up the gray steps, where the black door was opened by a
squat, red-
faced man in a tight dark suit, Petal brushing past him as though he
weren't
there.
"Hold on," red-face said. "Swain'll see her now. . . ."
The man's words brought Petal up short; with a grunt, he spun around
with
disconcerting speed and caught the man by his lapel.
"In future show some fucking respect," Petal said, and though he
hadn't
raised his voice, somehow all of its weary gentleness was gone.
Kumiko heard
stitches pop.
"Sorry, guv." The red face was carefully blank. "He told me to tell
you."
"Come along then," Petal said to her, releasing his grip on the dark
worsted lapel. "He'll just want to say hello."
They found Swain seated at a three-meter oak refectory table in the
room
where she'd first seen him, the dragons of rank buttoned away behind
white
broadcloth and a striped silk tie. His eyes met hers as she entered,
his long-
boned face shadowed by a green-shaded brass reading lamp that stood
beside a
small console and a thick sheaf of fax on the table. "Good," he said,
"and how
was the Sprawl?"
"I'm very tired, Mr. Swain. I wish to go to my room."
"We're glad to have you back, Kumiko. The Sprawl's a dangerous
place.
Sally's friends there probably aren't the sort of people your father
would want
you to associate with."
"May I go to my room now?"
"Did you meet any of Sally's friends, Kumiko?"
"No."
"Really? What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"You mustn't be angry with us, Kumiko. We're protecting you."
"Thank you. May I go to my room now?"
"Of course. You must be very tired."
Petal followed her from the room, carrying her bag, his gray suit
creased
and wrinkled from the flight. She was careful not to glance up as
they passed
beneath the blank gaze of the marble bust where the Maas-Neotek unit
might still
be hidden, though with Swain and Petal in the room she could think of
no way to
retrieve it.
There was a new sense of movement in the house, brisk and muted:
voices,
footsteps, the rattle of the lift, the chattering of pipes as someone
drew a
bath.
She sat at the foot of the huge bed, staring at the black marble
tub.
Residual images of New York seemed to hover at the borders of her
vision; if she
closed her eyes, she found herself back in the alley, squatting
beside Sally.
Sally, who'd sent her away. Who hadn't looked back. Sally, whose name
had once
been Molly, or Misty, or both. Again, her unworthiness. Sumida, her
mother
adrift in black water. Her father. Sally.
Moments later, driven by a curiosity that pushed aside her shame,
she rose
from where she lay, brushed her hair, zipped her feet into thin black
rubber
toe-socks with ridged plastic soles, and went very quietly out into
the
corridor. When the lift arrived, it stank of cigarette smoke.
Red-face was pacing the blue-carpeted foyer when she emerged from
the
lift, his hands in the pockets of his tight black jacket. " 'Ere," he
said,
raising his eyebrows, "you need something?"
"I'm hungry," she said, in Japanese. "I'm going to the kitchen."
" 'Ere," he said, removing his hands from his pockets and
straightening
the front of his jacket, "you speak English?"
"No," she said, and walked straight past him down the corridor and
around
the corner. " 'Ere," she heard him say, rather more urgently, but she
was
already groping behind the white bust.
She managed to slip the unit into her pocket as he rounded the
corner. He
surveyed the room automatically, hands held loosely at his sides, in
a way that
suddenly reminded her of her father's secretaries.
"I'm hungry," she said, in English.
Five minutes later, she'd returned to her room with a large and very
British-looking orange; the English seemed to place no special value
on the
symmetry of fruit. Closing the door behind her, she put the orange on
the wide
flat rim of the black tub and took the Maas-Neotek unit from her
pocket.
"Quickly now," Colin said, tossing his forelock as he came into
focus,
"open it and reset the A/B throw to A. The new regime has a
technician making
the rounds, scanning for bugs. Once you've changed that setting, it
shouldn't
read as a listening device." She did as he said, using a hairpin.
"What do you mean," she asked, mouthing the words without voicing
them, "
'the new regime'?"
"Haven't you noticed? There are at least a dozen staff now, not to
mention
numerous visitors. Well, I suppose it's less a new regime than an
upgrading of
procedure. Your Mr. Swain is quite a social man, in his covert way.
You've one
conversation there, Swain and the deputy head of Special Branch, that
I imagine
numerous people would kill for, not least of them the aforementioned
official."
"Special Branch?"
"The secret police. Bloody odd company he keeps, Swain: Buck House
types,
czars from the East End rookeries, senior police officers . . ."
"Buck House?"
"The Palace. Not to mention merchant bankers from the City, a
simstim
star, a drove or two of expensive panders and drug merchants . . ."
"A simstim star?"
"Lanier, Robin Lanier."
"Robin Lanier? He was here?"
"Morning after your precipitous departure."
She looked into Colin's transparent green eyes. "Are you telling me
the
truth?"
"Yes."
"Do you always?"
"To the extent that I know it, yes."
"What are you?"
"A Maas-Neotek biochip personality-base programmed to aid and advise
the
Japanese visitor in the United Kingdom." He winked at her.
"Why did you wink?"
"Why d'you think?"
"Answer the question!" Her voice loud in the mirrored room.
The ghost touched his lips with a slim forefinger. "I'm something
else as
well, yes. I do display a bit too much initiative for a mere guide
program.
Though the model I'm based on is top of the line, extremely
sophisticated. I
can't tell you exactly what I am, though, because I don't know."
"You don't know?" Again subvocally, carefully.
"I know all sorts of things," he said, and went to one of the dormer
windows. "I know that a serving table in Middle Temple Hall is said
to be made
from the timbers of the Golden Hind; that you climb one hundred and
twenty-
eight steps to the walkways of Tower Bridge; that in Wood Street,
right of
Cheapside, is a plane tree thought to have been the one in which
Wordsworth's
thrush sang loud. . . ." He spun suddenly to face her. "It isn 't ,
though,
because the current tree was cloned from the original in 1998. I know
all that,
you see, and more, a very great deal more. I could, for instance,
teach you the
rudiments of snooker. That is what I am, or rather what I was
intended to be,
originally. But I'm something else as well, and very likely something
to do with
you. I don't know what. I really don't."
"You were a gift from my father. Do you communicate with him?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"You didn't inform him of my departure?"
"You don't understand," he said. "I wasn't aware of your having been
away,
until you activated me a moment ago."
"But you've been recording. . . ."
"Yes, but not aware of it. I'm only 'here' when you activate me.
Then I
evaluate the current data. . . . One thing you can be fairly certain
of, though,
is that it simply isn't possible to broadcast any sort of signal from
this house
without Swain's snoops detecting it immediately."
"Could there be more of you, I mean another one, in the same unit?"
"Interesting idea, but no, barring some harrowing secret
breakthrough in
technology. I'm pushing the current envelope a bit as it is,
considering the
size of my hardware. I know that from my store of general background
information."
She looked down at the unit in her hand. "Lanier," she said. "Tell
me."
"Ten/twenty-five/sixteen: A.M.," he said. Her head filled with
disembodied
voices. . . .
PETAL: If you'll follow me please, sir . . .
SWAIN: Come into the billiard room.
THIRD VOICE: You'd better have a reason for this, Swain. There are
three
Net men waiting in the car. Security will have your address in their
database
until hell freezes over.
PETAL: Lovely car that is, sir, the Daimler. Take your coat?
THIRD VOICE: What is it, Swain? Why couldn't we meet at Brown's?
SWAIN: Take your coat off, Robin. She's gone.
THIRD VOICE: Gone?
SWAIN: To the Sprawl. Early this morning.
THIRD VOICE: But it isn't time. . . .
SWAIN: You think I sent her there?
The man's reply was hollow, indistinct, lost behind a closing door.
"That
was Lanier?" Kumiko asked silently.
"Yes," Colin replied. "Petal mentioned him by name in an earlier
conversation. Swain and Lanier spent twenty-five minutes together."
Sound of a latch, movement.
SWAIN: Bloody cock-up, not mine. I warned you about her, told you to
warn
them. Born killer, probably psychopathic . . .
LANIER: And your problem, not mine. You need their product and my
cooperation.
SWAIN: And what's your problem, Lanier? Why are you in this? Just
to get
Mitchell out of the way?
LANIER: Where's my coat?
SWAIN: Petal, Mr. Lanier's bloody coat.
PETAL: Sir.
LANIER: I have the impression they want your razorgirl as badly as
they
want Angie. She's definitely part of the payoff. They'll be taking
her, too.
SWAIN: Good luck to them, then. She's already in position, in the
Sprawl.
Spoke with her on the phone an hour ago. I'll be putting her together
with my
man over there, the one who's been arranging for the . . . girl. And
you'll be
going back over yourself?
LANIER: This evening.
SWAIN: Well, then, not to worry.
LANIER: Goodbye, Swain.
PETAL: He's a right bastard, that one.
SWAIN: I don't like this, really. . . .
PETAL: You like the goods though, don't you?
SWAIN: Can't complain there, but why d'you think they want Sally as
well?
PETAL: Christ knows. They're welcome to her. . . .
SWAIN: They. I don't like 'theys'. . . .
PETAL: They mightn't be terribly happy to know she'd gone there on
her own
stick, with Yanaka's daughter. . . .
SWAIN: No. But we have Miss Yanaka back again. Tomorrow I'll tell
Sally
that Prior's in Baltimore, getting the girl into shape. . . .
PETAL: That's an ugly business, that is. . . .
SWAIN: Bring a pot of coffee to the study.
She lay on her back, eyes closed, Colin's recordings unspooling in
her head,
direct input to the auditory nerves. Swain seemed to conduct the
better part of
his dealings in the billiard room, which meant that she heard people
arriving
and departing, heads and tails of conversations. Two men, one of whom
might have
been the red-faced man, held an interminable discussion of dog racing
and
tomorrow's odds. She listened with special interest as Swain and the
man from
Special Branch (SB, Swain called it) settled an article of business
directly
beneath the marble bust, as the man was preparing to leave. She
interrupted this
segment half-a-dozen times to request clarification. Colin made
educated
guesses.
"This is a very corrupt country," she said at last, deeply shocked.
"Perhaps no more than your own," he said.
"But what is Swain paying these people with?"
"Information. I would say that our Mr. Swain has recently come into
possession of a very high-grade source of intelligence and is busy
converting it
into power. On the basis of what we've heard, I'd hazard that this
has probably
been his line of work for some time. What's apparent, though, is that
he's
moving up, getting bigger. There's internal evidence that he's
currently a much
more important man than he was a week ago. Also, we have the fact of
the
expanded staff. . . ."
"I must tell . . . my friend."
"Shears? Tell her what?"
"What Lanier said. That she would be taken, along with Angela
Mitchell."
"Where is she, then?"
"The Sprawl. A hotel . . ."
"Phone her. But not from here. D'you have money?"
"A Mitsubank chip."
"No good in our phones, sorry. Have any coin?"
She got up from the bed and sorted carefully through the odd bits of
English money that had accumulated at the bottom of her purse.
"Here," she said,
coming up with a thick gilt coin, "ten pounds."
"Need two of those to make a local call." She tossed the brassy
tenner
back into her purse. "No, Colin. Not the phone. I know a better way.
I want to
leave here. Now. Today. Will you help me?"
"Certainly," he said, "though I advise you not to."
"But I will."
"Very well. How do you propose to go about it?"
"I'll tell them," she said, "that I need to go shopping."
Bad Lady
The woman must've gotten in sometime after midnight, she figured
later, because
it was after Prior came back with the crabs, the second bag of crabs.
They
really did have some good crabs in Baltimore, and coming off a run
always gave
her an appetite, so she'd talked him into going back for some more.
Gerald kept
coming in to change the derms on her arms; she'd give him her best
goofy smile
every time, squish the trank out of them when he'd gone, and then
stick them
back on. Finally Gerald said she should get some sleep; he put out
the lights
and turned down the fake window to its lowest setting, a bloodred
sunset.
When she was alone again, she slid her hand between the bed and the
wall,
found the shockrod in its hole in the foam.
She fell asleep without meaning to, the red glow of the window like
a
sunset in Miami, and she must've dreamed of Eddy, or anyway of Hooky
Green's,
dancing with somebody up there on the thirty-third floor, because
when the crash
woke her, she wasn't sure where she was, but she had this very clear
map of the
way out of Hooky Green's, like she knew she'd better take the stairs
because
there must be some kind of trouble. . . .
She was half out of bed when Prior came through the door, like
really
through it, because it was still shut when he hit it. He came
through it
backward and it just went to splinters and honeycomb chunks of
cardboard.
She saw him hit the wall, and then the floor, and then he wasn't
moving
anymore, and someone else was there in the doorway, backlit from the
other room,
and all she could see of the face were these two curves of reflected
red light
from that fake sunset.
Pulled her legs back into bed and sank back against the wall, her
hand
sliding down to . . .
"Don't move, bitch." There was something real scary about that
voice,
because it was too fucking cheerful , like throwing Prior through
that door had
been kind of a treat. "I mean really don't move. . . ." And the
woman was
across the room in three strides, very close, so close that Mona felt
the cold
coming off the leather of the woman's jacket.
"Okay," Mona said, "okay . . ."
Then hands grabbed her, fast , and she was flat on her back,
shoulders
pressed down hard into the foam, and something -- the shockrod -- was
right in
front of her face.
"Where'd you get this little thing?"
"Oh," Mona said, like it was something she might've seen once but
forgotten about, "it was in my boyfriend's jacket. I borrowed his
jacket. . . ."
Mona's heart was pounding. There was something about those glasses.
. . .
"Did shithead know you had this little thing?"
"Who?"
"Prior," the woman said, and let go of her, turning. Then she was
kicking
him, kicking Prior over and over, hard. "No," she said, stopping as
abruptly as
she'd begun, "I don't think Prior knew."
Then Gerald was in the doorway, just like nothing had happened,
except he
was looking ruefully at the part of the door that was still on the
frame,
rubbing his thumb over an edge of splintered laminate. "Coffee,
Molly?"
"Two coffees, Gerald," the woman said, examining the shockrod.
"Mine's
black."
Mona sipped her coffee and studied the woman's clothes and hair while
they
waited for Prior to wake up. At least that's what they seemed to be
doing.
Gerald was gone again. She wasn't much like anybody Mona'd seen
before; Mona
couldn't place her on the style map at all, except she must've had
some money.
The hair was European; Mona'd seen it like that in a magazine; she
was pretty
sure it wasn't this season's style anywhere, but it went okay with
the glasses,
which were insets, planted right in the skin. Mona'd seen a cabbie in
Cleveland
had those. And she wore this short jacket, very dark brown, too plain
for Mona's
taste but obviously new, with a big white sheepskin collar, open now
over a
weird green thing trussed across her breasts and stomach like armor,
which was
what Mona figured it probably was, and jeans cut from some kind of
gray-green
mossy suede, thick and soft, and Mona thought they were the best
thing about her
outfit, she could've gone for a pair of those herself, except the
boots spoiled
them, these knee-high black boots, the kind bike racers wore, with
thick yellow
rubber soles and big straps across the insteps, chrome buckles all up
and down,
horrible clunky toes. And where'd she get that nail color, that
burgundy? Mona
didn't think they even made that anymore.
"What the hell are you looking at?"
"Uh . . . your boots."
"So?"
"They don't make it with your pants."
"Wore 'em to kick the shit out of Prior."
Prior moaned on the floor and started trying to throw up. It made
Mona
feel kind of sick herself, so she said she was going to go to the
bathroom.
"Don't try to leave." The woman seemed to be watching Prior, over
the rim
of her white china cup, but with those glasses, it was hard to be
sure.
Somehow she found herself in the bathroom with her purse on her lap.
She
hurried, getting the hit together; didn't grind it fine enough, so it
burned the
back of her throat, but like Lanette used to say, you don't always
have time for
the niceties. And anyway, wasn't that all a lot better now? There was
a little
shower in Gerald's bathroom, but it looked like it hadn't been used
for a long
time. She took a closer look and saw gray mold growing around the
drain, and
spots that looked like dried blood.
When she came back, the woman was dragging Prior into one of the
other
rooms, pulling him by his feet. He had socks on, no shoes, Mona
noticed now,
like maybe he'd had his feet up to sleep. His blue shirt had blood on
it and his
face was all bruised.
What Mona felt, as the rush kicked in, was a bright and innocent
curiosity. "What are you doing?"
"I think I'll have to wake him up," the woman said, like she was on
the
subway, talking about another passenger who was about to miss his
stop. Mona
followed her into the room where Gerald did his work, everything
clean and
hospital white; she watched as the woman got Prior up into a sort of
chair like
in a salon, with levers and buttons and things. It isn 't like she 's
that
strong , Mona thought, it 's like she knows which way to throw the
weight .
Prior's head fell to the side as the woman fastened a black strap
across his
chest. Mona was starting to feel sorry for him, but then she
remembered Eddy.
"What is it?" The woman was filling a white plastic container with
water
from a chrome tap.
Mona just kept trying to say it, feeling her heart race out of
control on
the wiz. He killed Eddy , she kept trying to say, but it wouldn't
come out. But
then it must have, because the woman said, "Yeah, he'll do that sort
of thing .
. . if you let him." She threw the water over Prior, into his face
and all down
his shirt; his eyes snapped open and the white of the left one was
solid red;
the metal prongs of the shockrod snapped white sparks when the woman
pressed it
against the wet blue shirt. Prior screamed.
Gerald had to get down on his hands and knees to pull her out from
under the
bed. He had cool, very gentle hands. She couldn't remember how she'd
gotten
under there, but now everything was quiet. Gerald had on a gray
topcoat and dark
glasses.
"You're going with Molly now, Mona," he said.
She started to shake.
"I think I'd better give you something for your nerves."
She jerked back, out of his grip. "No! Don't fucking touch me!"
"Leave it, Gerald," the woman said from the door. "It's time you go
now."
"I don't think you know what you're doing," he said, "but good
luck."
"Thanks. Think you'll miss the place?"
"No. I was going to retire soon anyway."
"So was I," the woman said, and then Gerald left, without even a nod
for
Mona.
"Got any clothes?" the woman asked Mona. "Get 'em on. We're leaving
too."
Dressing, Mona found she couldn't button her dress over her new
breasts,
so she left it open, putting Michael's jacket on and sipping it up to
her chin.
Company
Sometimes he just needed to stand there and look up at the Judge, or
squat on
the concrete beside the Witch. It held back the memory-stutter, to do
that. Not
the fugues, the real flashbacks, but this jerky unfocused feeling he
got, like
the memory tape kept slipping in his head, losing minute increments
of
experience . . . So he was doing that now, and it was working, and
finally he
noticed Cherry was there beside him.
Gentry was up in the loft with the shape he'd captured, what he
called a
macroform node, and he'd hardly listened to what Slick had tried to
tell him
about the house and that whole place and Bobby the Count.
So Slick had come down here to crouch next to an Investigator in the
cold
and dark, retracing all the things he'd done with so many different
tools, and
where he'd scrounged each part, and then Cherry reached out and
touched his
cheek with her cold hand.
"You okay?" she asked. "I thought maybe it was happening to you
again. . .
."
"No. It's just I gotta come down here, sometimes."
"He plugged you into the Count's box, didn't he?"
"Bobby," Slick said, "that's his name. I saw him."
"Where?"
"In there. It's a whole world. There's this house, like a castle or
something, and he's there."
"By himself?"
"He said Angie Mitchell's in there too. . . ."
"Maybe he's crazy. Is she?"
"I didn't see her. Saw a car he said was hers."
"She's in some celebrity detox place in Jamaica, last I heard."
He shrugged. "I dunno."
"What's he like?"
"He looked younger. Anybody'd look bad with all those tubes 'n' shit
in
'em. He figured Kid Afrika dumped him here because he got scared. He
said if
anybody comes looking for him, we jack him into the matrix."
"Why?"
"Dunno."
"You shoulda asked him."
He shrugged again. "Seen Bird anywhere?"
"No."
"Shoulda been back already . . ." He stood up.
Little Bird came back at dusk, on Gentry's bike, the dark wings of
his hair damp
with snow and flapping behind him as he roared in across the
Solitude. Slick
winced; Little Bird was in the wrong gear. Little Bird jolted up an
incline of
compacted oildrums and hit the brakes when he should've gunned it.
Cherry gasped
as Bird and the bike separated in midair; the bike seemed to hang
there for a
second before it somersaulted into the rusted sheet-metal tangle that
had been
one of Factory's outbuildings, and Little Bird was rolling over and
over on the ground.
Somehow Slick never heard the crash. He was standing beside Cherry
in the
shelter of a doorless loading bay -- then he was sprinting across
snow-flecked
rust to the fallen rider, no transition. Little Bird lay on his back
with blood
on his lips, his mouth partially hidden by the jumble of thongs and
amulets he
wore around his neck.
"Don't touch him," Cherry said. "Ribs may be broken, or he's mashed
up
inside. . . ."
Little Bird's eyes opened at the sound of her voice. He pursed his
lips
and spat blood and part of a tooth.
"Don't move," Cherry said, kneeling beside him and switching to the
crisp
diction she'd learned in med-tech school. "You may have been injured.
. . ."
"F-fuck it, lady," he managed, and struggled stiffly up, with
Slick's
help.
"All right, asshole," she said, "hemorrhage. See if I give a shit."
"Didn't get it," Little Bird said, smearing blood across his face
with the
back of his hand, "the truck."
"I can see that," Slick said.
"Marvie 'n' them, they got company. Like flies on shit. Couple of
hovers
'n' a copter 'n' shit. All these guys."
"What kind of guys?"
"Like soldiers, but they're not. Soldier'll goof around, bullshit,
crack
jokes when nobody important's looking. But not them."
"Cops?" Marvie and his two brothers grew mutant ruderalis in a dozen
half-
buried railway tankcars; sometimes they tried to cook primitive amine
compounds,
but their lab kept blowing up. They were the nearest thing Factory
had to
permanent neighbors. Six kilometers.
"Cops?" Little Bird spat another tooth chip and gingerly probed his
mouth
with a bloody finger. "They aren't doin' anything against the law.
Anyway, cops
can't afford shit like that, new hovers, new Honda. . . ." He grinned
through a
film of blood and spittle. "I hung off in the Solitude 'n' scoped 'em
good.
Nobody I'd wanna talk to, or you either. Guess I really fucked
Gentry's bike,
huh?"
"Don't worry about it," Slick said. "I think his mind's on something
else."
"Tha's good. . . ." He staggered in the direction of Factory, nearly
fell,
caught himself, continued.
"He's higher'n a kite," Cherry said.
"Hey, Bird," Slick called, "what happened to that bag of shit I gave
you
to give Marvie?"
Bird swayed, turned. "Lost it . . ." Then he was gone, around a
corner of
corrugated steel.
"Maybe he's making that up," Cherry said. "About those guys. Or
seeing
things."
"I doubt it," Slick said, pulling her into deeper shadow as an unlit
black
Honda swung down toward Factory out of winter twilight.
He heard the Honda making its fifth pass over Factory as he pounded
up the
quaking stairs, the iron roof rattling with the copter's passage.
Well, he
thought, that should anyway bring it to Gentry's attention that they
had
visitors. He took the fragile catwalk in ten long, slow steps; he was
beginning
to wonder if they'd ever be able to get the Count and his stretcher
back out
without having to weld extra I-bar across the span.
He went into the bright loft without knocking. Gentry was sitting at
a
workbench, his head cocked to one side, staring up at the plastic
skylights. The
bench was littered with bits of hardware and small tools.
"Helicopter," Slick said, panting from the climb.
"Helicopter," Gentry agreed, nodding thoughtfully, his disheveled
roostertail bobbing. "They seem to be looking for something."
"I think they just found it."
"Could be the Fission Authority."
"Bird saw people at Marvie's. Saw that copter there too. You weren't
paying much attention when I tried to tell you what he said."
"Bird?" Gentry looked down at the small bright things on the
workbench.
Picked up two fittings and twisted them together.
"The Count! He told me --"
"Bobby Newmark," Gentry said, "yes. I know a lot more about Bobby
Newmark,
now."
Cherry came in behind Slick. "You gotta do something about that
bridge,"
she said, going immediately to the stretcher, "it shakes too much."
She bent to
check the Count's readouts.
"Come here, Slick," Gentry said, standing. He walked to the holo
table.
Slick followed, looked at the image that glowed there. It reminded
him of the
rugs he'd seen in the gray house, patterns like that, only these were
woven of
hairfine neon, and twisted into some kind of infinite knot; the
knot's core hurt
his head to look at it. He looked away.
"That's it?" he asked Gentry. "What you've always been looking for?"
"No. I told you. This is just a node, a macroform. A model . . ."
"He's got this house in there, like a castle, and grass and trees
and sky.
. . ."
"He's got a lot more than that. He's got a universe more than that.
That
was just a construct worked up from a commercial stim. What he's got
is an
abstract of the sum total of data constituting cyberspace. Still,
it's closer
than I've gotten before. . . . He didn't tell you why he was in
there?"
"Didn't ask him."
"Then you'll have to go back."
"Hey. Gentry. Listen up. That copter, it'll be back. It'll be back
with
two hovers fulla guys Bird said looked like soldiers. They aren't
after us, man.
They're after him ."
"Maybe they're his. Maybe they are after us."
"No. He told me, man. He said, anybody comes looking for him, we're
in
deep shit and we gotta jack him into the matrix."
Gentry looked down at the little coupling he still held. "We'll talk
with
him, Slick. You'll go back; this time I'll go with you."
Winter Journey
Petal had agreed, finally, but only after she'd suggested phoning her
father for
permission. That had sent him shuffling unhappily off in search of
Swain, and
when he'd returned, looking no happier, the answer had been yes.
Bundled in
several layers of her warmest clothing, she stood in the white-
painted foyer,
studying the hunting prints while Petal lectured the red-faced man,
whose name
was Dick, behind closed doors. She couldn't distinguish individual
words, only a
low torrent of admonition. The Maas-Neotek unit was in her pocket,
but she
avoided touching it. Twice already Colin had tried to dissuade her.
Now Dick emerged from Petal's lecture with his hard little mouth set
in a
smile. Under his tight black suit he wore a pink cashmere turtleneck
and a thin
gray lambswool cardigan. His black hair was plastered tightly back
against his
skull; his pale cheeks were shadowed by a few hours' growth of beard.
She palmed
the unit in her pocket. " 'Lo," Dick said, looking her up and down.
"Where shall
we go for our walk?"
"Portobello Road," Colin said, slouched against the wall beside the
crowded coatrack. Dick took a dark overcoat from the rack, reaching
through
Colin to do it, put it on, and buttoned it. He pulled on a bulky pair
of black
leather gloves.
"Portobello Road," Kumiko said, releasing the unit.
"How long have you worked for Mr. Swain?" she asked, as they made
their way
along the icy pavement of the crescent.
"Long enough," he replied. "Mind you don't slip. Wicked heels on
those
boots . . ."
Kumiko tottered along beside him on black French patent spikes. As
she'd
predicted, it was virtually impossible to navigate the glass-hard
rippled
patches of ice in these boots. She took his hand for support; doing
this, she
felt solid metal across his palm. The gloves were weighted, the
fingers
reinforced with carbon mesh.
He was silent, as they turned the sidestreet at the end of the
crescent,
but when they reached Portobello Road, he paused. "Excuse me, miss,"
he said, a
note of hesitation in his voice, "but is it true, what the boys say?"
"Boys? Excuse me?"
"Swain's boys, his regulars. That you're the big fellow's daughter -
- the
big fellow back in Tokyo?"
"I'm sorry," she said, "I don't understand."
"Yanaka. Your name's Yanaka?"
"Kumiko Yanaka, yes . . ."
He peered at her with intense curiosity. Then worry crossed his face
and
he glanced carefully around. "Lord," he said, "must be true . . ."
His squat,
tightly buttoned body was taut and alert. "Guvnor said you wanted to
shop?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Where shall I take you?"
"Here," she said, and led him into a narrow arcade lined solidly
with
British gomi .
Her Shinjuku shopping expeditions served her well with Dick. The
techniques
she'd devised for torturing her father's secretaries proved just as
effective
now, as she forced the man to participate in dozens of pointless
choices between
one Edwardian medallion and another, this or that fragment of stained
glass,
though she was careful only to choose items, finally, that were
fragile or very
heavy, awkward to carry, and extremely expensive. A cheerful
bilingual shop
assistant accessed an eighty-thousand-pound charge against Kumiko's
MitsuBank
chip. Kumiko slipped her hand into the pocket that held the Mass-
Neotek unit.
"Exquisite," the English girl said in Japanese, as she wrapped
Kumiko's
purchase, an ormolu vase encrusted with griffins.
"Hideous," Colin commented, in Japanese. "An imitation as well." He
reclined on a Victorian horsehair sofa, his boots up on an art deco
cocktail
stand supported by airstream aluminum angels.
The shop assistant added the wrapped vase to Dick's burden. This was
Dick's eleventh antique shop and Kumiko's eighth purchase.
"I think you'd better make your move," Colin advised. "Any moment
now, our
Dick will buzz Swain's for a car to take that lot home."
"Think this is it, then?" Dick asked hopefully, over Kumiko's
purchases.
"One more shop, please." Kumiko smiled.
"Right," he said grimly. As he was following her out the door, she
drove
the heel of her left boot into a gap in the pavement she'd noticed on
her way
in. "You all right?" he asked, seeing her stumble.
"I've broken the heel of my boot. . . ." She hobbled back into the
shop
and sat down beside Colin on the horsehair sofa. The assistant came
fussing up
to help.
"Get 'em off quick," Colin advised, "before Dickie puts his parcels
down."
She unzipped the boot with the broken heel, then the other, pulled
off
both. In place of the coarse Chinese silk she usually wore in winter,
her feet
were sheathed in thin black rubber toe-socks with ridged plastic
soles. She
nearly ran between Dick's legs as she cleared the door, but instead
her shoulder
struck his thigh as she squeezed past, toppling him into a display of
faceted
crystal decanters.
And then she was free, plunging through the press of tourists down
Portobello Road.
Her feet were very cold, but the ridged plastic soles provided
excellent
traction -- though not on ice, she reminded herself, picking herself
up from her
second spill, wet grit against her palms. Colin had directed her down
this
narrow passage of blackened brick. . . .
She grasped the unit. "Where next?"
"This way," he said.
"I want the Rose and Crown," she reminded him.
"You want to be careful. Dickie'll have Swain's men here by now, not
to
mention the sort of hunt that friend of Swain's from Special Branch
could mount
if he's asked to. And I can't imagine why he shouldn't be asked to. .
. ."
She entered the Rose and Crown by a side door, Colin at her elbow,
grateful for
the snug gloom and irradiating warmth that seemed central to the idea
of these
drinking-burrows. She was struck by the amount of padding on the
walls and
seats, by the muffling curtains. If the colors and fabrics had been
less dingy,
the effect would somehow have been less warm. Pubs, she guessed, were
an extreme
expression of the British attitude toward gomi .
At Colin's urging, she made her way through the drinkers clustered
in
front of the bar, hoping to find Tick.
"What'll it be, dear?"
She looked up into the broad blond face behind the bar, bright
lipstick
and rouged cheeks. "Excuse me," Kumiko began, "I wish to speak with
Mr. Bevan --
"
"Mine's a pint, Alice," someone said, slapping down three ten-pound
coins,
"lager." Alice worked a tall white ceramic lever, filling a mug with
pale beer.
She put the mug on the scarred bar and swept the money into a
rattling till
behind the counter.
"Someone wanting a word, Bevan," Alice said, as the man lifted his
pint.
Kumiko looked up at a flushed, seamed face. The man's upper lip was
short;
Kumiko thought of rabbits, though Bevan was large, nearly as large as
Petal. He
had a rabbit's eyes as well: round, brown, showing very little white.
"With me?"
His accent reminded her of Tick's.
"Tell him yes," Colin said. "He can't think why a little Jap girl in
rubber socks has come into the drinker looking for him."
"I wish to find Tick."
Bevan regarded her neutrally over the rim of his raised pint.
"Sorry," he
said, "can't say I know anyone by the name." He drank.
"Sally told me I should find you if Tick wasn't here. Sally Shears .
. ."
Bevan choked on his lager, his eyes showing a fraction of white.
Coughing,
he set the mug on the bar and took a handkerchief from his overcoat
pocket. He
blew his nose and wiped his mouth.
"I'm on duty in five," he said. "Best step in the back."
Alice raised a hinged section of the bar; Bevan ushered Kumiko
through
with small flapping motions of his large hands, glancing quickly over
his
shoulder. He guided her down a narrow passage that opened off the
area behind
the bar. The walls were brick, old and uneven, thickly coated with
dirty green
paint. He stopped beside a battered steel hamper heaped with terry
bar towels
that reeked of beer.
"You'll regret it if you're on a con, girl," he said. "Tell me why
you're
looking for this Tick."
"Sally is in danger. I must find Tick. I must tell him."
"Fucking hell," the barman said. "Put yourself in my position. . .
."
Colin wrinkled his nose at the hamper of sodden towels.
"Yes?" Kumiko said.
"If you're a nark, and I sent you to find this Tick fellow, assuming
I did
know him, and he's on some sort of blag, then he'd do for me,
wouldn't he? But
if you're not, then this Sally, she'd likely do for me if I don't,
understand?"
Kumiko nodded. " 'Between the rock and the hard place.' " It was an
idiom
Sally had used; Kumiko found it very poetic.
"Quite," Bevan said, giving her an odd look.
"Help me. She is in very great danger."
He ran his palm back across thinning ginger-colored hair.
"You will help me," she heard herself say, feeling her mother's
cold mask
click into place, "Tell me where to find Tick."
The barman seemed to shiver, though it was overly warm in the
passageway,
a steamy warmth, beer smell mingling with raw notes of disinfectant.
"D'you know
London?"
Colin winked at her. "I can find my way," she said.
"Bevan," Alice said, putting her head around the corner, "the
filth."
"Police," Colin translated.
"Margate Road, SW2," Bevan said, "dunno the number, dunno his
phone."
"Let him show you out the back now," Colin said. "Those are no
ordinary
policemen."
Kumiko would always remember her endless ride through the city's
Underground. How Colin led her from the Rose and Crown to Holland
Park, and
down, explaining that her MitsuBank chip was worse than useless now;
if she used
it for a cab, or any sort of purchase, he said, some Special Branch
operator
would see the transaction flare like magnesium on the grid of
cyberspace. But
she had to find Tick, she told him; she had to find Margate Road. He
frowned No,
he said wait till dark; Brixton wasn't far, but the streets were too
dangerous
now, by daylight, with the police on Swain's side. But where could
she hide? she
asked. She had very little cash; the concept of currency, of coins
and paper
notes, was quaint and alien.
Here, he said, as she rode a lift down into Holland Park. "For the
price
of a ticket."
The bulgy silver shapes of the trains.
The soft old seats in gray and green.
And warm, beautifully warm; another burrow, here in the realm of
ceaseless
movement . . .
The Rip
The airport sucked a groggy Danielle Stark away down a pastel
corridor lined
with reporters, cameras, augmented eyes, while Porphyre and three Net
security
men swept Angie through the closing ring of journalists, a
choreographed piece
of ritual that had more to do with providing dramatic visuals than
protection.
Anyone present had already been cleared by security and the PR
department.
Then she was alone with Porphyre in an express elevator, on their
way to
the heliport the Net maintained on the terminal's roof.
As the doors opened, into gusts of wet wind across brilliantly lit
concrete, where a new trio of security men waited in giant
fluorescent-orange
parkas, Angie remembered her first glimpse of the Sprawl, when she'd
ridden the
train up from Washington with Turner.
One of the orange parkas ushered them across an expanse of spotless
concrete to the waiting helicopter, a large twin-prop Fokker finished
in black
chrome. Porphyre led the way up the spidery, matte-black stairway.
She followed
without looking back.
She had something now, a new determination. She'd decided to contact
Hans
Becker through his agent in Paris. Continuity had the number. It was
time, time
to make something happen. And she'd make something happen with Robin
as well;
he'd be waiting now, she knew, at the hotel.
The helicopter told them to fasten their seatbelts.
As they lifted off, there was virtual silence in the soundproofed
cabin,
only a throbbing in the bones, and for a strange second she seemed
able to hold
the whole of her life in mind and know it, see it for what it had
been. And it
was this, she thought, that the dust had drifted over and concealed,
and that
had been freedom from pain.
And the site of the soul 's departure , said an iron voice, out of
candleglow and the roar of the hive. . . .
"Missy?" Porphyre from the seat beside her, leaning close . . .
"I'm dreaming. . . ."
Something had been waiting for her, years ago, in the Net. Nothing
like
the loa, like Legba or the others, though Legba, she knew, was Lord
of the
Crossroads; he was synthesis, the cardinal point of magic,
communication. . . .
"Porphyre," she asked, "why did Bobby leave?" She looked out at the
Sprawl's tangled grid of light, at the domes picked out in red
beacons, seeing
instead the datascape that had drawn him, always, back to what he'd
believed was
the only game worth playing.
"If you don't know, missy," Porphyre said, "who does?"
"But you hear things. Everything. All the rumors. You always have. .
. ."
"Why ask me now?"
"It's time. . . ."
"I remember talk , understand? How people who aren't famous talk
about
those who are. Maybe someone who claimed they knew Bobby talked to
someone else,
and it came around. . . . Bobby was worth talking about because he
was with you,
understand? That's a good place to start, missy, because he wouldn't
have found
that so very gratifying, would he? Story was, he'd set out hustling
on his own,
but he'd found you instead, and you rolled higher and faster than
anything he
could've dreamed of. Took him up there, understand? Where the kind
of money
he'd never even dreamed of, back in Barrytown, was just change. . .
."
Angie nodded, looking out over the Sprawl.
"Talk was he had his own ambitions, missy. Something driving him.
Drove
him off, finally . . ."
"I didn't think he'd leave me," she said. "When I first came to the
Sprawl, it was like being born. A new life. And he was there, right
there, the
very first night. Later, when Legba -- when I was with the Net . . ."
"When you were becoming Angie."
"Yes. And as much of me as that took, I knew he'd be there. And also
that
he'd never buy it, entirely, and I needed that, how it was still
just a scam,
to him, the whole business. . . ."
"The Net?"
"Angie Mitchell. He knew the difference between it and me."
"Did he?"
"Maybe he was the difference." So high above the lines of light . .
.
The old New Suzuki Envoy had been Angie's favorite Sprawl hotel since
her
earliest days with the Net.
It maintained its street wall for eleven stories, then narrowed
jaggedly,
at the first of nine setbacks, into a mountainside assembled from
bedrock
excavated from its Madison Square building site. Original plans had
called for
this steep landscape to be planted with flora native to the Hudson
Valley
region, and populated with suitable fauna, but subsequent
construction of the
first Manhattan Dome had made it necessary to hire a Paris-based eco-
design
team. The French ecologists, accustomed to the "pure" design problems
posed by
orbital systems, had despaired of the Sprawl's particulate-laden
atmosphere,
opting for heavily engineered strains of vegetation and robotic fauna
of the
sort encountered in children's theme parks, but Angie's continued
patronage had
eventually lent the place a cachet it would otherwise have lacked.
The Net
leased the five topmost floors, where her permanent suite had been
installed,
and the Envoy had come to enjoy a certain belated reputation with
artists and
entertainers.
Now she smiled as the helicopter rose past a disinterested robot
bighorn
pretending to munch lichen beside the illuminated waterfall. The
absurdity of
the place always delighted her; even Bobby had enjoyed it.
She glanced out at the Envoy's heliport, where the Sense/Net logo
had been
freshly repainted on heated, floodlit concrete. A lone figure, hooded
in a
bright orange parka, waited beside a sculpted outcropping of rock.
"Robin will be here, won't he, Porphyre?"
"Mistah Lanier," he said sourly.
She sighed.
The black chrome Fokker brought them smoothly down, glasses tinkling
gently in the drinks' cabinet as the landing gear met the roof of the
Envoy. The
muted throb of the engines died.
"Where Robin is concerned, Porphyre, I'll have to make the first
move. I'm
going to speak with him tonight. Alone. In the meantime, I want you
to stay out
of his way."
"Porphyre's pleasure, missy," the hairdresser said, as the cabin
door
opened behind them. And then he was twisting, clawing at the buckle
of his
seatbelt, and Angie turned in time to see the bright orange parka in
the
hatchway, the upraised arm, the mirrored glasses. The gun made no
more sound
than a cigarette lighter, but Porphyre convulsed, one long black hand
slapping
at his throat as the security man swung the hatch shut behind him and
sprang at
Angie.
Something was clapped hard against her stomach as Porphyre lolled
back
bonelessly in his seat, the sharp pink tip of his tongue protruding.
She looked
down, in pure reflex, and saw the black chrome buckle of her seatbelt
through a
sticky-looking lozenge of greenish plastic.
She looked up into a white oval face framed by a tightly drawn
orange
nylon hood. Saw her own face blank with shock, doubled in the silver
lenses. "He
drink, tonight?"
"What?"
"Him." A thumb jerked in Porphyre's direction. "He drink any
alcohol?"
"Yes . . . Earlier."
"Shit." A woman's voice, as she turned to the unconscious
hairdresser.
"Now I've sedated him. Don't wanna suppress his breathing reflex,
y'know?" Angie
watched as the woman checked Porphyre's pulse. "Guess he's okay . .
." Did she
shrug, inside the orange parka?
"Security?"
"What?" The glasses flashed.
"Are you Net security?"
"Fuck no, I'm abducting you."
"You are?"
"You bet."
"Why?"
"Not for any of the usual reasons. Somebody's got it in for you. Got
it in
for me too. I was supposed to set it up to grab you next week. Fuck
'em. Had to
talk to you, anyway." "You did? Talk to me?"
"Know anybody name of 3Jane?"
"No. I mean, yes, but --"
"Save it. Our asses outa here, fast."
"Porphyre --"
"He's gonna wake up soon. Look of him, I don't wanna be around when
he
does. . . ."
3Jane
If this was part of Bobby's big gray house in the country, Slick
decided,
opening his eyes on the cramped curve of the narrow corridor, then it
was a
stranger place than it had seemed the first time. The air was thick
and dead and
the light from the greenish glass-tile ceiling-strip made him feel
like he was
under water. The tunnel was made of some kind of glazed concrete. It
felt like
jail.
"Maybe we came out in the basement or something," he said, noticing
the
faint ping of echo off the concrete when he spoke.
"No reason we'd cut into the construct you saw before," Gentry said.
"So what is it?" Slick touched the concrete wall; it was warm.
"Doesn't matter," Gentry said.
Gentry started walking in the direction they were both facing. Past
the
curve, the floor became an uneven mosaic of shattered china,
fragments pressed
into something like epoxy, slippery under their boots.
"Look at this stuff . . ." Thousands of different patterns and
colors in
the broken bits, but no overall design in how it had been put down,
just random.
"Art." Gentry shrugged. "Somebody's hobby. You should appreciate
that,
Slick Henry."
Whoever it was, they hadn't bothered with the walls. Slick knelt to
run
his fingers over it, feeling raw edges of broken ceramic, glassy
hardened
plastic in between. "What's that supposed to mean, 'hobby'?"
"It's like those things you build, Slick. Your junk toys . . ."
Gentry
grinned his tense crazy grin.
"You don't know," Slick said. "Spend your whole fucking life trying
to
figure what cyberspace is shaped like, man, and it probably isn't
even shaped
like anything, and anyway who gives a shit?" There wasn't anything
random about
the Judge and the others. The process was random, but the results had
to conform
to something inside, something he couldn't touch directly.
"Come on," Gentry said.
Slick stayed where he was, looking up at Gentry's pale eyes, gray in
this
light, his taut face. Why did he put up with Gentry anyway?
Because you needed somebody, in the Solitude. Not just for
electricity;
that whole landlord routine was really just a shuck. He guessed
because you
needed somebody around. Bird wasn't any good to talk to because there
wasn't
much he was interested in, and all he talked was stringtown stupid.
And even if
Gentry never admitted it, Slick felt like Gentry understood about
some things.
"Yeah," Slick said, getting up, "let's go."
The tunnel wound in on itself like a gut. The section with the mosaic
floor was
back there now, around however many curves and up and down short,
curving
stairwells. Slick kept trying to imagine a building that would have
insides like
this, but he couldn't. Gentry was walking fast, eyes narrowed,
chewing on his
lip. Slick thought the air was getting worse.
Up another stairwell, they hit a straight stretch that narrowed to
nothing
in the distance, either way you looked. It was broader than the
curved parts and
the floor was soft and humpy with little rugs, it looked like
hundreds of them,
rolled out layers deep over the concrete. Each rug had its own
pattern and
colors, lots of reds and blues, but all the patterns were the same
zaggy
diamonds and triangles. The dusty smell was thicker here and Slick
figured it
had to be the rugs, they looked so old. The ones on top, nearest the
center,
were worn down to the weave, in patches. A trail, like somebody'd
been walking
up and down there for years. Sections of the overhead light-strip
were dark, and
others pulsed weakly.
"Which way?" he asked Gentry.
Gentry was looking down, working his thick lower lip between finger
and
thumb. "This way."
"How come?"
"Because it doesn't matter."
It made Slick's legs tired, walking over those rugs. Had to watch
not to
snag his toes in the ones with holes worn through. Once he stepped
over a glass
tile that had fallen from the light-strip. At regular intervals now
they were
passing sections of wall that looked as though portals had been
sealed over with
more concrete. There wasn't anything there, just the same arched
shape in
slightly paler concrete with a slightly different texture.
"Gentry, this has gotta be underground, right? Like a basement under
something . . ."
But Gentry just brought his arm up, so that Slick bumped into it,
and they
both were standing there staring at the girl at the end of the
corridor, not a
dozen meters across the waves of carpet.
She said something in a language Slick guessed was French. The voice
was
light and musical, the tone matter- of-fact. She smiled. Pale under a
twist of
dark hair, a fine, high-boned face, strong thin nose, and wide mouth.
Slick felt Gentry's arm trembling against his chest. "It's okay," he
said,
taking Gentry's arm and lowering it. "We're just looking for Bobby. .
. ."
"Everyone's looking for Bobby," she said, English with an accent he
didn't
know. "I'm looking for him myself. For his body. Have you seen his
body?" She
took a step back, away from them, like she was about to run.
"We won't hurt you," Slick said, suddenly aware of his own smell, of
the
grease worked into his jeans and brown jacket, and Gentry didn't
really look all
that much more reassuring.
"I shouldn't think so," she said, and her white teeth flashed again
in the
stale undersea light. "But then I don't think I fancy either of you."
Slick wanted Gentry to say something, but Gentry didn't. "You know
him --
Bobby?" Slick ventured.
"He's really a very clever man. Extraordinarily clever. Although I
don't
think I fancy him, really." She wore something loose and black that
hung to her
knees. Her feet were bare. "Nonetheless, I want . . . his body." She
laughed.
Everything
changed.
"Juice?" Bobby the Count asked, holding out a tall glass of something
yellow.
The water in the turquoise pool reflected shifting blobs of sunlight
on the palm
fronds above his head. He was naked, aside from a pair of very dark
glasses.
"What's the matter with your friend?"
"Nothing," Slick heard Gentry say. "He did time on induced
Korsakov's.
Transition like that scares the shit out of him."
Slick lay very still on the white iron lounge chair with the blue
cushions, feeling the sun bake through his greasy jeans.
"You're the one he mentioned, right?" Bobby asked. "Name's Gentle?
Own a
factory?"
"Gentry."
"You're a cowboy." Bobby smiled. "Console jockey. Cyberspace man."
"No."
Bobby rubbed his chin. "You know I have to shave in here? Cut
myself,
there's a scar. . . ." He drank half the glass of juice and wiped his
mouth with
the back of his hand. "You're not a jockey? How else you get in
here?"
Gentry unzipped his beaded jacket, exposing his bone- white,
hairless
chest. "Do something about the sun," he said.
Twilight. Like that. Not even a click. Slick heard himself groan.
Insects
began to creak in the palms beyond the whitewashed wall. Sweat cooled
on his
ribs.
"Sorry, man," Bobby said to Slick. "That Korsakov's, that must be
some sad
shit. But this place is beautiful. Vallarta. Belonged to Tally
Isham." He turned
his attention to Gentry again. "If you're not a cowboy, fella, what
are you?"
"I'm like you," Gentry said.
"I'm a cowboy." A lizard scooted diagonally up the wall behind
Bobby's
head.
"No. You aren't here to steal anything, Newmark."
"How do you know?"
"You're here to learn something."
"Same thing."
"No. You were a cowboy once, but now you're something else. You're
looking
for something, but there's nobody to steal it from. I'm looking for
it too."
And Gentry began to explain about the Shape, as the palm shadows
gathered
and thickened into Mexican night, and Bobby the Count sat and
listened.
When Gentry was done, Bobby sat there for a long time without saying
anything. Then he said, "Yeah. You're right. How I think of it, I'm
trying to
find out what brought the Change."
"Before that," Gentry said, "it didn't have a Shape."
"Hey," Slick said, "before we were here, we were somewhere else.
Where was
that?"
"Straylight," Bobby said. "Up the well. In orbit."
"Who's that girl?"
"Girl?"
"Dark hair. Skinny."
"Oh," Bobby said, in the dark, "that was 3Jane. You saw her?"
"Weird girl," Slick said.
"Dead girl," Bobby said. "You saw her construct. Blew her family
fortune
to build this thing."
"You, uh, hang out with her? In here?"
"She hates my guts. See, I stole it, stole her soul-catcher. She had
her
construct in place in here when I took off for Mexico, so she's
always been
around. Thing was, she died. Outside, I mean. Meantime, all her shit
outside,
all her scams and schemes, that's being run by lawyers, programs,
more flunkies.
. . ." He grinned. "It really pisses her off. The people who're
trying to get
into your place to get the aleph back, they work for somebody else
who works for
some people she hired out on the Coast. But, yeah, I've done the odd
deal with
her, traded things. She's crazy, but she plays a tight game. . . ."
Not even a click.
At first he thought he was back in the gray house, where he'd seen
Bobby the
first time, but this room was smaller and the carpets and furniture
were
different, he couldn't say how. Rich but not as glittery. Quiet. A
lamp with a
green glass shade glowed on a long wooden table.
Tall windows with frames painted white, dividing the white beyond
that
into rectangles, each pane, and that must be snow. . . . He stood
with his cheek
touching soft drapes, looking out into a walled space of snow.
"London," Bobby said. "She had to trade me this to get the serious
voodoo
shit. Thought they wouldn't have anything to do with her. Fuck of a
lot of good
it did her. They've been fading, sort of blurring. You can still
raise 'em,
sometimes, but their personalities run together. . . ."
"That fits," Gentry said. "They came out of the first cause, When It
Changed. You already figured that. But you don't know what happened
yet, do
you?"
"No. I just know where. Straylight. She's told me all that part, I
think
all she knows. Doesn't really care about it. Her mother put together
a couple of
AIs, very early on, real heavy stuff. Then her mother died and the
AIs sort of
stewed in the corporate cores, up there. One of them started doing
deals on its
own. It wanted to get together with the other one. . . ."
"It did. There's your first cause. Everything changed."
"Simple as that? How do you know?"
"Because," Gentry said, "I've been at it from another angle. You've
been
playing cause and effect, but I've been looking for outlines, shapes
in time.
You've been looking all over the matrix, but I've been looking at
the matrix,
the whole thing. I know things you don't."
Bobby didn't answer. Slick turned from the window and saw the girl,
the
same one, standing across the room. Just standing there.
"It wasn't just the Tessier-Ashpool AIs," Gentry said. "People came
up the
well to crack the T-A cores. They brought a Chinese military
icebreaker."
"Case," Bobby said, "Guy named Case. I know that part. Some kind of
synergistic effect . . ."
Slick watched the girl.
"And the sum was greater than the parts?" Gentry really seemed to be
enjoying this. "Cybernetic godhead? Light on the waters?"
"Yeah," Bobby said, "that's about it."
"It's a little more complicated than that," Gentry said, and
laughed.
And the girl was gone. No click.
Slick shivered.
Winter Journey [2]
Night fell during the Underground's peak evening traffic, though even
then it
was nothing like Tokyo, no shiroshi-san struggling to wedge a last
few
passengers in as the doors were closing. Kumiko watched the salmon
haze of
sunset from a windy platform on the Central Line, Colin lounging
against a
broken vending machine with a row of cracked, dusty windows. "Time
now," he
said, "and keep your head demurely down through Bond Street and
Oxford Circus."
"But I must pay, when I leave the system?"
"Not everyone does, actually," he said, tossing his forelock.
She set off for the stairs, no longer requiring his directions to
find her
way to the opposite platform. Her feet were very cold again, and she
thought of
the fleece-lined German boots in the closet in her room at Swain's.
She'd
decided on the combination of the rubber toe-socks and the high
French heels as
a ploy to lull Dick, to make him doubt she'd run, but with each bite
of cold
through the thin soles she regretted the idea.
In the tunnel to the other platform, she relaxed her grip on the
unit and
Colin flickered out. The walls were worn white ceramic with a
decorative band of
green. She took her hand from her pocket and trailed her fingers
along the green
tiles as she went, thinking of Sally and the Finn and the different
smell of a
Sprawl winter, until the first Dracula stepped smartly in front of
her and she
was instantly and very closely surrounded by four black raincoats,
four bone-
thin, bone-white faces. " 'Ere," the first one said, "innit pretty."
They were eye to eye, Kumiko and the Dracula; his breath smelled of
tobacco. The evening crowd continued on its way around them, bundled
for the
most part in dark wool.
"Oo," one said, beside her, "look. Wot's this?" He held up the Maas-
Neotek
unit, his hand gloved in cracked black leather. "Flash lighter,
innit? Let's
'ave a snag, Jap." Kumiko's hand went to her pocket, shot straight
through the
razor slash, and closed on air. The boy giggled.
"Snags in 'er bag," another said. " 'Elp 'er, Reg." A hand darted
out and
the leather strap of her purse parted neatly.
The first Dracula caught the purse, whipped the dangling strap
around it
with a practiced flick, and tucked it into the front of his raincoat.
"Ta."
" 'Ere, she's got 'em in 'er pants!" Laughter as she fumbled beneath
layered sweaters. The tape she'd used hurt her stomach as she tore
the gun free
with both hands and flipped it up against the cheek of the boy who
held the
unit.
Nothing happened.
Then the other three were racing frantically for the stairs at the
far end
of the tunnel, their high-laced black boots slipping in melted snow,
their long
coats flapping like wings. A woman screamed.
And still they were frozen there, Kumiko and the Dracula, the muzzle
of
the pistol pressed against his left cheekbone. Kumiko's arms began to
tremble.
She was looking into the Dracula's eyes, brown eyes gone wide with
an
ancient simple terror; the Dracula was seeing her mother's mask.
Something
struck the concrete at her feet: Colin's unit.
"Run," she said. The Dracula convulsed, opened his mouth, made a
strangled, sobbing sound, and twisted away from the gun.
Kumiko looked down and saw the Maas-Neotek unit in a puddle of gray
slush.
Beside it lay the clean silver rectangle of a single-edged industrial
razorblade. When she picked up the unit, she saw that its case was
cracked. She
shook moisture from the crack and squeezed it hard in her hand. The
tunnel was
deserted now. Colin wasn't there. Swain's Walther air pistol was huge
and heavy
in her other hand.
She stepped to a rectangular receptacle fastened to the tile wall
and
tucked the gun down between a grease- flecked foam food container and
a neatly
folded sheaf of newsfax. Turned away, then turned back for the fax.
Up the stairs.
Someone pointed at her, on the platform, but the train roared in
with its
antique clatter and then the doors slid shut behind her.
She did as Colin had instructed, White City and Shepherd's Bush,
Holland Park,
raising the fax as the train slowed for Notting Hill -- the King, who
was very
old, was dying -- and keeping it there through Bond Street. The
station at
Oxford Circus was very busy and she was grateful for the sheltering
crowd.
Colin had said that it was possible to leave the station without
paying. After
some consideration, she decided that this was true, though it
required speed and
timing. Really, there was no other way; her purse, with the MitsuBank
chip and
her few English coins, had gone with the Jack Draculas. She spent ten
minutes
watching passengers surrender their yellow plastic tickets to the
automated
turnstyles, took a deep breath, and ran. Up, over, behind her a shout
and a loud
laugh, and then she was running again.
When she reached the doors at the top of the stairs, she saw Brixton
Road
waiting like a tatty Shinjuku, jammed with steaming foodstalls.
Star
She was waiting in a car and she didn't like it. She didn't like
waiting anyway,
but the wiz she'd done made it really hard. She had to keep reminding
herself
not to grit her teeth, because whatever Gerald had done to them, they
were still
sore. She was sore all over, now that she thought about it. Probably
the wiz
hadn't been such a great idea.
The car belonged to the woman, the one Gerald called Molly. Some
kind of
regular gray Japanese car like a suit would have, nice enough but
nothing you'd
notice. It had that new smell inside and it was fast when they got
out of
Baltimore. It had a computer but the woman drove it herself, all the
way back to
the Sprawl, and now it was parked on the roof of a twenty-level lot
that must be
close to the hotel where Prior had taken her, because she could see
that crazy
building, the one with the waterfall, fixed up like a mountain.
There weren't many other cars up here, and the ones that were were
humped
over with snow, like they hadn't moved in a long time. Except for the
two guys
in the booth where you drove in, there didn't seem to be anybody
around at all.
Here she was, in the middle of all those people, the biggest city in
the world,
and she was alone in the backseat of a car. Told to wait.
The woman hadn't said much when they'd come from Baltimore, just
asked a
question now and then, but the wiz had made it hard for Mona not to
talk. She'd
talked about Cleveland and Florida and Eddy and Prior.
Then they'd driven up here and parked.
So this Molly'd been gone at least an hour now, maybe longer. She'd
taken
a suitcase with her. The only thing Mona'd been able to get out of
her was that
she'd known Gerald a long time, and Prior hadn't known that.
It was getting cold in the car again, so Mona climbed into the front
seat
and turned on the heater. She couldn't just leave it on low, because
it might
run the battery down, and Molly'd said if that happened, they were
really in the
shit. " 'Cause when I come back, we leave in a hurry." Then she'd
shown Mona
where there was a sleeping bag under the driver's seat.
She set the heater on high and held her hands in front of the vent.
Then
she fiddled with the little vid studs beside the dash monitor and got
a news
show. The King of England was sick; he was really old. There was a
new disease
in Singapore; it hadn't killed anybody yet, but nobody knew how you
got it or
how to cure it. Some people thought there was some kind of big fight
going on in
Japan, two different bunches of Yakuza guys trying to kill each
other, but
nobody really knew; Yakuza -- that was something Eddy liked to
bullshit about.
Then these doors popped open and Angie came through on the arm of
this amazing
black guy, and the vid voice was saying this was live, she'd just
arrived in the
Sprawl after a brief vacation at her house in Malibu, following
treatment at a
private drug clinic. . . .
Angie looked just great in this big fur, but then the segment was
over.
Mona remembered what Gerald had done; she touched her face.
She shut off the vid, then the heater, and got into the backseat
again.
Used the corner of the sleeping bag to clean her condensed breath off
the
window. She looked up at the mountainside-building, all lit up, past
the sagging
chainlink at the edge of the carlot's roof. Like a whole country up
there, maybe
Colorado or something, like the stim where Angie went to Aspen and
met this boy,
only Robin turned up like he almost always did.
But what she didn't understand was this clinic stuff, how that
barman had
said Angie'd gone there because she was wired on something, and now
she'd just
heard the news guy say it too, so she guessed it had to be true. But
why would
anybody like Angie, with a life like that and Robin Lanier for a
boyfriend, want
to do drugs?
Mona shook her head, looking out at that building, glad she wasn't
hooked
on anything.
She must've drifted off for a minute, thinking about Lanette,
because when
she looked again, there was a copter, a big one, glittery black,
poised above
the mountain-building. It looked good, real big-town.
She'd known some rough women in Cleveland, girls nobody messed with,
but
this Molly was something else -- remembering Prior coming through
that door,
remembering him screaming. . . . She wondered what it was he'd
finally admitted,
because she'd heard him talking, and Molly hadn't hurt him anymore.
They'd left
him strapped in that chair and Mona had asked Molly if she thought
he'd get
loose. Either that, Molly had said, or somebody finds him, or he
dehydrates.
The copter settled, vanished. Big one, the kind with the whirly
thing at
both ends.
So here she was, waiting, no fucking idea what else to do.
Something Lanette had taught her, sometimes you had to list your
assets --
assets were what you had going for you -- and just forget the other
stuff. Okay.
She was out of Florida. She was in Manhattan. She looked like Angie.
. . . That
one stopped her. Was that an asset? Okay -- putting it another way -
- she'd just
had a fortune in free cosmetic surgery and she had totally perfect
teeth .
Anyway, look at it that way and it wasn't so bad. Think about the
flies in the
squat. Yeah. If she spent the money she had left on a haircut and
some makeup,
she could come up with something that didn't look all that much like
Angie,
which was probably a good idea, because what if somebody was looking
for her?
There went the copter again, lifting off.
Hey.
Maybe two blocks away and fifty stories higher, the thing's nose
swung
toward her, dipped. . . . It 's the wiz . Sort of wobbled there,
then it was
coming down. . . . Wiz; it 's not real . Straight down toward her.
It just got
bigger. Toward her. But it 's the wiz , right? Then it was gone,
behind
another building, and it was just the wiz. . . .
It swung around a corner, still five stories above the roof of the
carlot,
and it was still coming down and it wasn 't the wiz, it was on her,
a tight
white beam stabbing out to find the gray car, and Mona popped the
door lock and
rolled out into the snow, still in the car's shadow, all around her
the thunder
of the thing's blades, its engines; Prior or whoever he worked for
and they were
after her. Then the spotlight went out, blades changed pitch, and it
came down
fast, too fast. Bounced on its landing gear. Slammed down again,
engines dying,
coughing blue flame.
Mona was on her hands and knees by the car's rear bumper. Slipped
when she
tried to get to her feet.
There was a sound like a gunshot; a square section of the copter's
skin
blew out and skidded across the lot's salt- stained concrete; a
bright orange
five-meter emergency exit slide popped out, inflating like a kid's
beachtoy.
Mona got up more carefully, holding on to the gray car's fender. A
dark, bundled
figure swung its legs out over the slide and went down, sitting up,
just like a
kid at a playground. Another figure followed, this one padded in a
huge hooded
jacket the same color as the slide.
Mona shivered as the one in orange led the other toward her across
the
roof, away from the black copter. It was . . . But it was!
"Want you both in back," Molly said, opening the door on the
driver's
side.
"It's you," Mona managed, to the most famous face in the world.
"Yes," Angie said, her eyes on Mona's face, "it . . . seems to be. .
. ."
"Come on," Molly said, her hand on the star's shoulder. "Get in.
Your
Martian spade'll be waking up already." She glanced back at the
helicopter. It
looked like a big toy sitting there, no lights, like a giant kid had
put it down
and forgotten it.
"He'd better be," Angie said, climbing into the back of the car.
"You too, hon," Molly said, pushing Mona toward the open door.
"But . . . I mean . . ."
"Move!"
Mona climbed in, smelling Angie's perfume, wrist brushing the
supernatural
softness of that big fur. "I saw you," she heard herself say. "On the
vid."
Angie didn't say anything.
Molly slid into the driver's seat, yanked the door shut, and
started the
engine. The orange hood was snugged up tight, her face a white mask
with blank
silver eyes. Then they were rolling toward the sheltered ramp,
swinging into the
first curve. Down five levels like that, in a tight spiral, and Molly
swung them
off into aisles of larger vehicles under dim green diagonals of
light-strip.
"Parafoils," Molly said. "You ever see any parafoil gear, up the
Envoy?"
"No," Angie said.
"If Net security has any, they could be upstairs already. . . ." She
swung
the car in behind a big long boxy hover, a white one with a name
painted across
the rear doors in square blue letters.
"What's it say?" Mona asked, then felt herself blush.
"Cathode Cathay," Angie said.
Mona thought she'd heard that name before.
Molly was out there opening those big doors. Pulling down these
yellow
plastic ramp things.
Then she was back in the car. Reversed, put it in drive, and they
rolled
right up into the hover. She stripped back the orange hood and shook
her head to
free her hair. "Mona, you think you can get out there and shove those
ramps back
in? They aren't heavy." It didn't sound like a question.
They weren't heavy. She pulled herself up behind the car and helped
Molly
pull the doors shut.
She could feel Angie there in the dark.
It was really Angie.
"Up front, strap in, hold on."
Angie. She was sitting right beside Angie.
There was a whoosh as Molly filled the hover's bags; then they were
skimming down the spiral ramp.
"Your friend," Molly said, "he's awake by now, but he can't really
move
yet. Another fifteen minutes." She swung off the ramp again and this
time Mona
had lost track of the levels. This one was packed with fancy cars,
little ones.
The hover roared along a central aisle, swung left.
"You'll be lucky if he isn't waiting for us outside," Angie said.
Molly brought them to a halt ten meters from a big metal door
painted with
diagonal stripes, yellow and black.
"No," Molly said, taking a little blue box from the dash
compartment, "he
's lucky if he's not waiting outside." The door blew out of its
frame with an
orange flash and a sound that slammed into Mona's diaphragm like a
solid blow.
It crashed into the wet street in a cloud of smoke and then they were
over it,
turning, the hover accelerating.
"This is awfully crude, isn't it?" Angie said, and actually laughed.
"I know," Molly said, intent on her driving. "Sometimes that's just
the
way to go. Mona, tell her about Prior. Prior and your boyfriend. What
you told
me."
Mona hadn't ever felt so shy in her life.
"Please," Angie said, "tell me. Mona."
Just like that. Her name. Angie Mitchell had actually said her
name. To
her. Right there.
It made her want to faint.
Margate Road
"You seem lost," the noodle seller said, in Japanese. Kumiko guessed
that he was
Korean. Her father had associates who were Korean; they were in the
construction
business, her mother had said. They tended, like this one, to be
large men, very
nearly as large as Petal, with broad, serious faces. "You look very
cold."
"I'm looking for someone," she said. "He lives in Margate Road."
"Where is that?"
"I don't know."
"Come inside," the noodle man said, gesturing Kumiko around the end
of his
counter. His stall was made of pink corrugated plastic.
She stepped between the noodle stall and another that advertised
something
called roti, this word worked in deliriously colored spraybomb
capitals trimmed
with looping, luminous blobs. That stall smelled of spices and
stewing meat. Her
feet were very cold.
She ducked beneath a clouded sheet of plastic. The noodle stall was
crowded: squat blue tanks of butane, the three cooking grids with
their tall
pots, plastic sacks of noodles, stacks of foam bowls, and the
shifting bulk of
the big Korean as he tended his pots. "Sit," he said; she sat on a
yellow
plastic canister of MSG, her head below the level of the counter.
"You're
Japanese?"
"Yes," she said.
"Tokyo?"
She hesitated.
"Your clothes," he said. "Why do you wear rubber tabi-socks in
winter? Is
this the fashion?"
"I lost my boots."
He passed her a foam bowl and plastic chopsticks; fat twists of
noodle
swam in a thin yellow soup. She ate hungrily, then drank off the
soup. She
watched as he served a customer, an African woman who took away
noodles in her
own lidded pot.
"Margate," the noodle man said, when the woman was gone. He took a
greasy
paperbound book from beneath the counter and thumbed through it.
"Here," he
said, jabbing at an impossibly dense little map, "down Acre Lane." He
took a
blue feltpen and sketched the route on a coarse gray napkin.
"Thank you," she said. "Now I will go."
Her mother came to her as she made her way to Margate Road.
Sally was in jeopardy, somewhere in the Sprawl, and Kumiko trusted
that
Tick would know a way to contact her. If not by phone then through
the matrix.
Perhaps Tick knew Finn, the dead man in the alley. . . .
In Brixton, the coral-growth of the metropolis had come to harbor a
different life. Faces dark and light, uncounted races, the brick
facades washed
with a riot of shades and symbols unimaginable to the original
builders. A
drumbeat pulsed from a pub's open door as she passed, heat and huge
laughter.
The shops sold foodstuffs Kumiko had never seen, bolts of bright
cloth, Chinese
handtools, Japanese cosmetics. . . .
Pausing by that bright window, the display of tints and blushes, her
own
face reflected in the silver backing, she felt her mother's death
fall on her
out of the night. Her mother had owned things like this.
Her mother's madness. Her father would not refer to it. Madness had
no
place in her father's world, though suicide did. Her mother's madness
was
European, an imported snare of sorrow and delusion. . . . Her father
had killed
her mother, Kumiko had told Sally, in Covent Garden. But was it true?
He had
brought doctors from Denmark, from Australia, and finally from Chiba.
The
doctors had listened to the dreams of the princess-ballerina, had
mapped and
timed her synapses and drawn samples of her blood. The princess-
ballerina had
refused their drugs, their delicate surgeries. "They want to cut my
brain with
lasers," she had whispered to Kumiko.
She'd whispered other things as well.
At night, she said, the evil ghosts rose like smoke from their boxes
in
Kumiko's father's study. "Old men," she'd said, "they suck our breath
away. Your
father sucks my breath away. This city sucks my breath away. Nothing
here is
ever still. There is no true sleep."
In the end, there had been no sleep at all. Six nights her mother
sat,
silent and utterly still, in her blue European room. On the seventh
day, she
left the apartment alone -- a remarkable feat, considering the
diligence of the
secretaries -- and made her way to the cold river.
But the backing of the display was like Sally's glasses. Kumiko took
the
Korean's map from the sleeve of her sweater.
There was a burnt car beside the curb in Margate Road. Its wheels
were missing.
She paused beside it, and was scanning the unrevealing faces of the
houses
opposite, when she heard a sound behind her. Turning to find a
twisted gargoyle
face, under a greasy spill of curls, in the light from the half-open
door of the
nearest house.
"Tick!"
"Terrence," he said, "actually," as the facial convulsion subsided.
Tick's flat was on the top floor. The lower floors were empty,
unoccupied,
peeling wallpaper showing ghostly traces of vanished pictures.
The man's limp was more obvious as he climbed the stairs ahead of
her. He
wore a gray sharkskin suit and thick-soled suede oxfords the color of
tobacco.
"Been expecting you," he said, hauling himself up another step,
another.
"You have?"
"Knew you'd run from Swain's. Been logging their traffic, when I've
had
time from the other."
"The other?"
"You don't know, do you?"
"Excuse me?"
"It's the matrix. Something's happening. Easier to show you than try
to
explain it. As though I could explain it, which I can't. I'd say a
good three-
quarters of humanity is jacked at the moment, watching the show. . .
."
"I don't understand."
"Doubt anyone does. There's a new macroform in the sector that
represents
the Sprawl."
"A macroform?"
"Very large data-construct."
"I came here to warn Sally. Swain and Robin Lanier intend to give
her to
the ones who plot to kidnap Angela Mitchell."
"Wouldn't worry about that," he said, reaching the head of the
stairs.
"Sally's already scooped Mitchell and half-killed Swain's man in the
Sprawl.
They're after her in any case, now. Bloody everybody'll be after her,
soon.
Still, we can tell her when she checks in. If she checks in . . ."
Tick lived in a single large room whose peculiar shape suggested the
removal of
walls. Large as it was, it was also very crowded; it looked to Kumiko
as though
someone had deployed the contents of an Akihabara module shop in a
space already
filled, gaijin-style, with too many pieces of bulky furniture. In
spite of this,
it was startlingly neat and tidy: the corners of magazines were
aligned with the
corners of the low glass table they rested on, beside an unused black
ceramic
ashtray and a plain white vase of cut flowers.
She tried Colin again, while Tick filled an electric kettle with
water
from a filter jug.
"What's that?" he asked, putting down the jug.
"A Maas-Neotek guide unit. It's broken now; I can't make Colin come.
. .
."
"Colin? It's a stim rig?"
"Yes."
"Let's have a look. . . ." He held out his hand.
"My father gave it to me. . . ."
Tick whistled. "Thing cost a fortune. One of their little AIs. How's
it
work?"
"You close your hand around it and Colin's there, but no one else
can see
or hear him."
Tick held the unit beside his ear and shook it. "It's broken? How?"
"I dropped it."
"It's just the housing that's broken, see. The biosoft's come away
from
the case, so you can't access it manually."
"Can you repair it?"
"No. But we can access it through a deck, if you want. . . ." He
returned
it. The kettle was boiling.
Over tea, she told him the story of her trip to the Sprawl and
Sally's
visit to the shrine in the alley. "He called her Molly," she said.
Tick nodded, winked several times in rapid succession. "What she
went by,
over there. What did they talk about?"
"A place called Straylight. A man called Case. An enemy, a woman . .
."
"Tessier-Ashpool. Found that for her when I rustled Swain's data
flow for
her. Swain's shopping Molly to this lady 3Jane, so called; she has
the juiciest
file of inside dirt you could imagine -- on anything and anyone at
all. I've
been bloody careful not to look too closely at any of that. Swain's
trading it
right and left, making a dozen fortunes in the process. I'm sure
she's got
enough dirt on our Mr. Swain as well. . . ."
"And she is here, in London?"
"In orbit somewhere, looks like, though some people say she's dead.
I was
working on that, actually, when the big fella popped into the matrix.
. . ."
"Excuse me?"
"Here, I'll show you." When he returned to the white breakfast
table, he
carried a shallow square black tray with a number of tiny controls
arranged
along one side. He placed it on the table and touched one of the
minute
switches. A cubical holo display blinked on above the projector: the
neon
gridlines of cyberspace, ranged with the bright shapes, both simple
and complex,
that represented vast accumulations of stored data. "That's all your
standard
big shits. Corporations. Very much a fixed landscape, you might say.
Sometimes
one of 'em'll grow an annex, or you'll see a takeover and two of them
merge. But
you aren't likely to see a new one, not on that scale. They start
small and
grow, merge with other small formations. . . ." He reached out to
touch another
switch. "About four hours ago" -- and a plain white vertical column
appeared in
the exact center of the display -- "this popped up. Or in." The
colored cubes,
spheres, and pyramids had rearranged themselves instantly to allow
for the round
white upright; it dwarfed them entirely, its upper end cut off
smoothly by the
vertical limit of the display. "Bastard's bigger than anything," Tick
said, with
a certain satisfaction, "and nobody knows what it is or who it
belongs to."
"But someone must know," Kumiko said.
"Stands to reason, yes. But people in my line of work, and there's
millions of us, haven't been able to find out. That's stranger, in
some ways,
than the fact that the thing's there at all. I was all up and down
the grid,
before you came, looking for any jockey with a clue. Nothing. Nothing
at all."
"How could this 3Jane be dead?" But then she remembered the Finn,
the
boxes in her father's study. "I must tell Sally."
"Nothing for that but waiting," he said. "She'll probably phone in.
In the
meantime, we could have a go accessing that pricey little AI of
yours, if you
like."
"Yes," she said, "thank you."
"Only hope those Special Branch types in Swain's pay don't track you
here.
Still, we can only wait. . . ."
"Yes," Kumiko said, not at all pleased with the idea of waiting.
The Factory War
Cherry found him with the Judge again, down there in the dark. He was
sitting on
one of the Investigators with a flashlight in his hand, shining it up
the
Judge's carapace of polished rust. He didn't remember coming here,
but he
couldn't feel the jerky edge of Korsakov's. He remembered the girl's
eyes, in
that room Bobby said was London.
"Gentry's got the Count and his box jacked into a cyberspace deck,"
Cherry
said. "You know that?"
Slick nodded, still looking up at the Judge. "Bobby said we better."
"So what's going on? What happened when you both jacked?"
"Gentry and Bobby, they kind of hit it off. Both crazy the same way.
When
we jacked, we came out somewhere in orbit, but Bobby wasn't there. .
. . Then
Mexico, I think. Who's Tally Isham?"
"Stim queen when I was little. Like Angie Mitchell is now."
"Mitchell, she was his squeeze. . . ."
"Who?"
"Bobby. He was telling Gentry about it, in London."
"London?"
"Yeah. We went there, after Mexico."
"And he said he was Angie Mitchell's old man? Sounds crazy."
"Yeah, but he said that's how he got on to it, that aleph thing." He
swung
the light down and directed it into the skeletal steel maw of the
Corpsegrinder.
"He was hanging out with rich people and heard about it. Called it a
soul-
catcher. The people who had it would rent time on it to these rich
people. Bobby
tried it once, then he went back and stole it. Took it down to Mexico
City and
started spending all his time in there. But they came after him. . .
."
"Sounds like you're remembering things, anyway."
"So he got out of there. Went up to Cleveland and made a deal with
Afrika,
gave Afrika money to hide him, take care of him while he was under
the wire,
because he was getting real close. . . ."
"Close to what?"
"Don't know. Something weird. Like when Gentry talks about the
Shape."
"Well," she said, "I think it might kill him, being jacked that way.
His
signs are starting to screw up. He's been on those drips too long.
Why I came to
find you."
The Corpsegrinder's steel-fanged guts glinted in the flashlight's
beam.
"It's what he wants. Anyway, if he paid the Kid, it's like you're
working for
him. But those guys Bird saw today, they're working for the people
from L.A.,
the ones Bobby stole the thing from. . . ."
"Tell me something."
"What?"
"What are these things you build? Afrika said you were this crazy
white
guy built robots out of junk. Said in the summer you take 'em out
there on the
rust and stage big fights --"
"They aren't robots," he interrupted, swinging the flash to the low,
scythe-tipped arms of the spider-legged Witch. "They're mainly radio-
controlled."
"You just build 'em to wreck 'em?"
"No. But I have to test them. See if I got them right . . ." He
clicked
off the light.
"Crazy white guy," she said. "You gotta girl out here?"
"No."
"Get a shower. Maybe shave . . ." Suddenly she was very close to
him, her
breath on his face.
"Okay people listen up --"
"What the fuck --"
" 'Cause I 'm not gonna say this twice. "
Slick had his hand over Cherry's mouth now.
"We want your guest and all his gear. That 's all , repeat , all
the gear
." The amplified voice clanged through Factory's iron hollow. "Now
you can give
him to us , that 's easy , or we can just kill all your asses . And
we 're
real easy with that too . Five minutes to think about it ."
Cherry bit his hand. "Shit, I gotta breathe , okay?"
Then he was running through Factory's dark, and he heard her call
his
name.
A single 100-watt bulb burned above Factory's south gate, a pair of
twisted
steel doors frozen open with rust. Bird must've left it on. From
where he
crouched by an empty window, Slick could just make out the hover, out
beyond the
weak fringe of light. The man with the bullhorn came strolling out of
the dark
with a calculated looseness meant to indicate that he was on top of
things. He
wore insulated camo overalls with a thin nylon hood drawn up tight
around his
head, goggles. He raised the bullhorn. "Three minutes ." He reminded
Slick of
the guards at the holding pen, the second time he'd been done for
stealing cars.
Gentry would be watching from upstairs, where a narrow vertical
panel of
Plexiglas was glued into the wall, high up over Factory's gates.
Something rattled in the dark, off to Slick's right. He turned in
time to
see Bird in the faint glow from another window gap, maybe eight
meters along the
wall, and the glint on the bare alloy silencer as the boy brought up
the .22
rifle. "Bird! Don't --" A ruby firefly on Bird's cheek, telltale of a
laser
sight from out on the Solitude. Bird was thrown back into Factory as
the sound
of the shot broke through the empty windows and echoed off the walls.
Then the
only sound was the silencer, rolling across concrete.
"Fuck it ," the big voice boomed cheerfully. "You had your chance ."
Slick
glanced over the rim of the window and saw the man sprinting back to
the hover.
How many of them would be out there? Bird hadn't said. Two hovers,
the
Honda. Ten? More? Unless Gentry had a pistol hidden somewhere, Bird's
rifle had
been their only gun.
The hover's turbines kicked in. He guessed they'd just drive right
in.
They had laser sights, probably infrared too.
Then he heard one of the Investigators, the sound it made with its
stainless steel treads on the concrete floor. It came crawling out of
the dark
with its thermite-tipped scorpion sting cocked back low. The chassis
had started
out fifty years earlier as a remote-manipulator intended to handle
toxic spills
or nuke-plant cleanups. Slick had found three unassembled units in
Newark and
traded a Volkswagen for them.
Gentry. He'd left his control unit up in the loft.
The Investigator ground its way across the floor and came to a halt
in the
wide doorway, facing the Solitude and the advancing hover. It was
roughly the
size of a large motorcycle, its open-frame chassis a dense bundle of
servos,
compression tanks, exposed screw gears, hydraulic cylinders. A pair
of vicious-
looking claws extended from either side of its modest instrument
package. Slick
wasn't sure what the claws were from, maybe some kind of big farm
machine.
The hover was a heavy industrial model. Sheets of thick gray plastic
armor
had been fastened over windshield and windows, narrow view slits
centered in
each sheet.
The Investigator moved, steel treads spraying ice and loose concrete
as it
drove straight for the hover, its claws at their widest extension.
The hover's
driver reversed, fighting momentum.
The Investigator's claws snapped furiously at the bulge of the
forward
apron bag, slid off, snapped again. The bag was reinforced with
polycarbon mesh.
Then Gentry remembered the thermite lance. It ignited in a tight ball
of raw
white light and whipped up over the useless claws, plunging through
the apron
bag like a knife through cardboard. The Investigator's treads spun as
Gentry
drove it against the deflating bag, the lance at full extension.
Slick was
suddenly aware that he'd been shouting, but didn't know what he'd
said. He was
on his feet now, as the claws finally found a purchase on the torn
edge of the
apron bag.
He went to the floor again as a hooded, goggled figure popped from a
hatch
on the hover's roof like an armed hand puppet, emptying a magazine of
twelve-
gauge slugs that struck sparks off the Investigator, which continued
to chew its
way through the apron bag, outlined against the white pulse of the
lance. The
Investigator froze, claws locked tight on the frayed bag; the
shotgunner ducked
back into his hatch.
Feed line? Servo pack? What had the guy hit? The white pulse was
dying
now, almost dead.
The hover began to reverse, slowly, back across the rust, dragging
the
Investigator with it.
It was well back, out of the light, visible only because it was
moving,
when Gentry discovered the combination of switches that activated the
flamethrower, its nozzle mounted beneath the juncture of the claws.
Slick
watched, fascinated, as the Investigator ignited ten liters of
detergent-laced
gasoline, a sustained high-pressure spray. He'd gotten that nozzle,
he
remembered, off a pesticide tractor.
It worked okay.
Soul-Catcher
The hover was headed south when Mamman Brigitte came again. The woman
with the
sealed silver eyes abandoned the gray sedan in another carpark, and
the
streetgirl with Angie's face told a confusing story: Cleveland,
Florida, someone
who'd been her boyfriend or pimp or both. . . .
But Angie had heard Brigitte's voice, in the cabin of the
helicopter, on
the roof of the New Suzuki Envoy: Trust her , child . In this she
does the will
of the loa .
A captive in her seat, the buckle of her seatbelt embedded in a
solid
block of plastic, Angie had watched as the woman bypassed the
helicopter's
computer and activated an emergency system that allowed for manual
piloting.
And now this freeway in the winter rain, the girl talking again,
above the
swish of wipers . . .
Into candleglow, walls of whitewashed limestone, pale moths
fluttering in the
trailing branches of the willows.
Your time draws near .
And they are there, the Horsemen, the loa: Pappa Legba bright and
fluid as
mercury; Ezili Freda, who is mother and queen; Samedi, the Baron
Cimeti�re, moss
on corroded bone; Similor; Madame Travaux; many others. . . . They
fill the
hollow that is Grande Brigitte. The rushing of their voices is the
sound of
wind, running water, the hive. . . .
They writhe above the ground like heat above a summer highway, and
it has
never been like this, for Angie, never this gravity, this sense of
falling, this
degree of surrender --
To a place where Legba speaks, his voice the sound of an iron drum -
-
He tells a story.
In the hard wind of images, Angie watches the evolution of machine
intelligence: stone circles, clocks, steam-driven looms, a clicking
brass forest
of pawls and escapements, vacuum caught in blown glass, electronic
hearthglow
through hairfine filaments, vast arrays of tubes and switches,
decoding messages
encrypted by other machines. . . . The fragile, short-lived tubes
compact
themselves, become transistors; circuits integrate, compact
themselves into
silicon. . . .
Silicon approaches certain functional limits --
And she is back in Becker's video, the history of the Tessier-
Ashpools,
intercut with dreams that are 3Jane's memories, and still he speaks,
Legba, and
the tale is one tale, countless strands wound about a common, hidden
core:
3Jane's mother creating the twin intelligences that will one day
unite, the
arrival of strangers (and suddenly Angie is aware that she knows
Molly, too,
from the dreams), the union itself, 3Jane's madness. . . .
And Angie finds herself facing a jeweled head, a thing wrought from
platinum and pearl and fine blue stone, eyes of carved synthetic
ruby. She knows
this thing from the dreams that were never dreams: this is the
gateway to the
data cores of Tessier-Ashpool, where the two halves of something
warred with
each other, waiting to be born as one.
"In this time, you were unborn." The head's voice is the voice of
Marie-
France, 3Jane's dead mother, familiar from so many haunted nights,
though Angie
knows it is Brigitte who speaks: "Your father was only now beginning
to face his
own limits, to distinguish ambition from talent. That to whom he
would barter
his child was not yet manifest. Soon the man Case would come to bring
that
union, however brief, however timeless. But you know this."
"Where is Legba now?"
"Legba-ati-Bon -- as you have known him -- waits to be."
"No," remembering Beauvoir's words long ago, in New Jersey, "the loa
came
out of Africa in the first times. . . ."
"Not as you have known them. When the moment came, the bright time,
there
was absolute unity, one consciousness. But there was the other."
"The other?"
"I speak only of that which I have known. Only the one has known the
other, and the one is no more. In the wake of that knowing, the
center failed;
every fragment rushed away. The fragments sought form, each one, as
is the
nature of such things. In all the signs your kind have stored against
the night,
in that situation the paradigms of vodou proved most appropriate."
"Then Bobby was right. That was When It Changed. . . ."
"Yes, he was right, but only in a sense, because I am at once Legba,
and
Brigitte, and an aspect of that which bargained with your father.
Which required
of him that he draw v�v�s in your head."
"And told him what he needed to know to perfect the biochip?"
"The biochip was necessary."
"Is it necessary that I dream the memories of Ashpool's daughter?"
"Perhaps."
"Are the dreams a result of the drug?"
"Not directly, though the drug made you more receptive to certain
modalities, and less so to others."
"The drug, then. What was it? What was its purpose?"
"A detailed neurochemical response to your first question would be
very
lengthy."
"What was its purpose?"
"With regard to you?"
She had to look away from the ruby eyes. The chamber is lined with
panels
of ancient wood, buffed to a rich gloss. The floor is covered with a
fitted
carpet woven with circuit diagrams.
"No two lots were identical. The only constant was the substance
whose
psychotropic signature you regarded as 'the drug.' In the course of
ingestion,
many other substances were involved, as well as several dozen
subcellular
nanomechanisms, programmed to restructure the synaptic alterations
effected by
Christopher Mitchell. . . ."
Your father 's v�v�s are altered , partially erased , redrawn . .
. .
"By whose order?"
The ruby eyes. Pearl and lapis. Silence.
"By whose order? Hilton's? Was it Hilton?"
"The decision originated with Continuity. When you returned from
Jamaica,
Continuity advised Swift to reintroduce you to the drug. Piper Hill
attempted to
carry out his orders."
She feels a mounting pressure in her head, twin points of pain
behind her
eyes. . . .
"Hilton Swift is obliged to implement Continuity's decisions. Sense/
Net is
too complex an entity to survive, otherwise, and Continuity, created
long after
the bright moment, is of another order. The biosoft technology your
father
fostered brought Continuity into being. Continuity is na�ve."
"Why? Why did Continuity want me to do that?"
"Continuity is continuity. Continuity is Continuity's job. . . ."
"But who sends the dreams?"
"They are not sent. You are drawn to them, as once you were drawn to
the
loa. Continuity's attempt to rewrite your father's message failed.
Some impulse
of your own allowed you to escape. The coup-poudre failed."
"Did Continuity send the woman, to kidnap me?"
"Continuity's motives are closed to me. A different order.
Continuity
allowed Robin Lanier's subversion by 3Jane's agents."
"But why?"
And the pain was impossible.
"Her nose is bleeding," the streetgirl said. "What'll I do?"
"Wipe it up. Get her to lean back. Shit. Deal with it . . ."
"What was that stuff she said about New Jersey?"
"Shut up. Just shut up. Look for an exit ramp."
"Why?"
"We're going to New Jersey."
Blood on the new fur. Kelly would be furious.
Cranes
Tick removed the little panel from the back of the Maas-Neotek unit,
using a
dental pick and a pair of jeweler's pliers.
"Lovely," he muttered, peering into the opening through an
illuminated
lens, his greasy waterfall of hair dangling just above it. "The way
they've
stepped the leads down, off this switch. Cunning bastards . . ."
"Tick," Kumiko said, "did you know Sally, when she first came to
London?"
"Soon after, I suppose . . ." He reached for a spool of optic lead.
" 'Cos
she hadn't much clout, then."
"Do you like her?"
The illuminated glass rose to wink in her direction, Tick's left eye
distorted behind it. "Like 'er? Can't say I've thought of it, that
way."
"You don't dislike her?"
"Bloody difficult , Sally is. D'you know what I'm saying?"
"Difficult?"
"Never quite got onto the way things are done here. Always
complaining."
His hands moved swiftly, surely: the pliers, the optic lead. . . .
"This is a
quiet place, England. Hasn't always been, mind you; we'd the
troubles, then the
war. . . . Things move here in a certain way, if you take my meaning.
Though you
couldn't say the same's true of the flash crew."
"Excuse me?"
"Swain, that lot. Though your father's people, the ones Swain's
always
been so chummy with, they seem to have a regard for tradition. . . .
A man has
to know which way's up. . . . Know what I'm saying? Now this new
business of
Swain's, it's liable to bugger things for anyone who isn't right
there and part
of it. Christ, we've still got a government here. Not run by big
companies.
Well, not directly . . ."
"Swain's activities threaten the government?"
"He's bloody changing it. Redistributing power to suit himself.
Information. Power. Hard data. Put enough of that in one man's hands
. . ." A
muscle in his cheek convulsed as he spoke. Now Colin's unit lay on a
white
plastic antistatic pad on the breakfast table; Tick was connecting
the leads
that protruded from it to a thicker cable that ran to one of the
stacks of
modules. "There then," he said, brushing his hands together, "can't
get him
right here in the room for you, but we'll access him through a deck.
Seen
cyberspace, have you?"
"Only in stims."
"Might as well 'ave seen it, then. In any case, you get to see it
now." He
stood; she followed him across the room to a pair of overstuffed
ultrasuede
chairs that flanked a low, square, black glass table. "Wireless," he
said
proudly, taking two trode-sets from the table and handing one to
Kumiko. "Cost
the world."
Kumiko examined the skeletal matte-black tiara. The Maas-Neotek logo
was
molded between the temple pieces. She put it on, cold against her
skin. He put
his own set on, hunched down in the opposite chair. "Ready?"
"Yes," she said, and Tick's room was gone, its walls a flutter of
cards,
tumbling and receding, against the bright grid, the towering forms of
data.
"Nice transition, that," she heard him say. "Built into the trodes,
that
is. Bit of drama . . ."
"Where is Colin?"
"Just a sec . . . Let me work this up. . . ."
Kumiko gasped as she shot toward a chrome-yellow plain of light.
"Vertigo can be a problem," Tick said, and was abruptly beside her
on the
yellow plain. She looked down at his suede shoes, then at her hands.
"Bit of
body image takes care of that."
"Well," Colin said, "it's the little man from the Rose and Crown.
Been
tinkering with my package, have you?"
Kumiko turned to find him there, the soles of his brown boots ten
centimeters above chrome yellow. In cyberspace, she noted, there are
no shadows.
"Wasn't aware we'd met," Tick said.
"Needn't worry," Colin said. "It wasn't formal. But," he said to
Kumiko,
"I trust you found your way safely to colorful Brixton."
"Christ," Tick said, "aren't half a snot, are you?"
"Forgive me," Colin said, grinning, "I'm meant to mirror the
visitor's
expectations."
"What you are is some Jap designer's idea of an Englishman!"
"There were Draculas," she said, "in the Underground. They took my
purse.
They wanted to take you. . . ."
"You've come away from your housing, mate," Tick said. "Got you
jacked
through my deck now."
Colin grinned. "Ta."
"Tell you something else," Tick said, taking a step toward Colin,
"you've
got the wrong data in you, for what you're meant to be." He squinted.
"Mate of
mine in Birmingham's just turned you over." He turned to Kumiko.
"Your Mr. Chips
here, he's been tampered with. D'you know that?"
"No . . ."
"To be perfectly honest," Colin said, with a toss of his forelock,
"I've
suspected as much."
Tick stared off into the matrix as though he were listening to
something
Kumiko couldn't hear. "Yes," he said, finally, "though it's almost
certainly a
factory job. Ten major blocks of you." He laughed. "Been iced over .
. . You're
supposed to know fucking everything about Shakespeare, aren't you?"
"Sorry," Colin said, "but I'm afraid that I do know fucking
everything
about Shakespeare."
"Give us a sonnet, then," Tick said, his face wrinkling in a slow-
motion
wink.
Something like dismay crossed Colin's face. "You're right."
"Or bloody Dickens either!" Tick crowed.
"But I do know --"
"Think you do, till you're asked a specific! See, they left those
bits
empty, the Eng. lit. parts, then filled 'em with something else. . .
."
"With what, then?"
"Can't say," Tick said. "Boy in Birmingham can't fiddle it. Clever,
he is,
but you're that bloody Maas biosoft. . . ."
"Tick," Kumiko interrupted, "is there no way to contact Sally,
through the
matrix?"
"Doubt it, but we can try. You'll get to see that macroform I was
telling
you about, in any case. Want Mr. Chips along for company?"
"Yes, please . . ."
"Fine, then," Tick said, then hesitated. "But we don't know what's
stuffed
into your friend here. Something your father paid for, I'd assume."
"He's right," Colin said.
"We'll all go," she said.
Tick executed the transit in real time, rather than employing the
bodiless,
instantaneous shifts ordinarily employed in the matrix.
The yellow plain, he explained, roofed the London Stock Exchange and
related City entities. He somehow generated a sort of boat to carry
them along,
a blue abstraction intended to reduce the possibility of vertigo. As
the blue
boat glided away from the LSE, Kumiko looked back and watched the
vast yellow
cube recede. Tick was pointing out various structures like a tour
guide; Colin,
seated beside her with his legs crossed, seemed amused at the
reversal of roles.
"That's White's," Tick was saying, directing her attention to a
modest gray
pyramid, "the club in Saint James. Membership registry, waiting list
. . ."
Kumiko looked up at the architecture of cyberspace, hearing the
voice of
her bilingual French tutor in Tokyo, explaining humanity's need for
this
information-space. Icon, waypoints, artificial realities . . . But it
blurred
together, in memory, like these towering forms as Tick accelerated. .
. .
The scale of the white macroform was difficult to comprehend.
Initially, it had seemed to Kumiko like the sky, but now, gazing at
it,
she felt as though it were something she might take up in her hand, a
cylinder
of luminous pearl no taller than a chess piece. But it dwarfed the
polychrome
forms that clustered around it.
"Well," Colin said, jauntily, "this really is very peculiar indeed,
isn't
it? Complete anomaly, utter singularity . . ."
"But you don't have to worry about it, do you?" Tick said.
"Only if it has no direct bearing on Kumiko's situation," Colin
agreed,
standing up in the boat-shape, "though how can one be certain?"
"You must attempt to contact Sally," Kumiko said impatiently. This
thing -
- the macroform, the anomaly -- was of little interest, though Tick
and Colin
both regarded it as extraordinary.
"Look at it," Tick said. "Could have a bloody world, in there . . ."
"And you don't know what it is?" She was watching Tick; his eyes had
the
distant look that meant his hands were moving, back in Brixton,
working his
deck.
"It's a very great deal of data," Colin said.
"I just tried to put a line through to that construct, the one she
calls
Finn," Tick said, his eyes refocusing, an edge of worry in his voice,
"but I
couldn't get through. I'd this feeling then, something was there,
waiting. . . .
Think it's best we jack out now . . ."
A black dot, on the curve of pearl, its edges perfectly defined . .
.
"Fucking hell," Tick said.
"Break the link," Colin said.
"Can't! 'S got us. . . ."
Kumiko watched as the blue boat-shape beneath her feet elongated,
stretched into a thread of azure, drawn across the chasm into that
round blot of
darkness. And then, in an instant of utter strangeness, she too,
along with Tick
and Colin, was drawn out to an exquisite thinness --
To find herself in Ueno Park, late autumn afternoon, by the unmoving
waters of
Shinobazu Pond, her mother seated beside her on a sleek bench of
chilly carbon
laminate, more beautiful now than in memory. Her mother's lips were
full and
richly glossed, outlined, Kumiko knew, with the finest and narrowest
of brushes.
She wore her black French jacket, with the dark fur collar framing
her smile of
welcome.
Kumiko could only stare, huddled there around the cold bulb of fear
beneath her heart.
"You've been a foolish girl, Kumi," her mother said. "Did you
imagine I
wouldn't remember you, or abandon you to winter London and your
father's
gangster servants?"
Kumiko watched the perfect lips, open slightly over white teeth;
teeth
maintained, she knew, by the best dentist in Tokyo. "You are dead,"
she heard
herself say.
"No," her mother replied, smiling, "not now. Not here, in Ueno Park.
Look
at the cranes , Kumi ."
But Kumiko would not turn her head.
"Look at the cranes."
"Fuck right off, you," said Tick, and Kumiko spun to find him there,
his
face pale and twisted, filmed with sweat, oily curls plastered to his
forehead.
"I am her mother."
"Not your mum, understand?" Tick was shaking, his twisted frame
quivering
as though he forced himself against a terrible wind. "Not . . . your
. . . mum .
. ." There were dark crescents beneath the arms of the gray suit
jacket. His
small fists shook as he struggled to take the next step.
"You're ill," Kumiko's mother said, her tone solicitous. "You must
lie
down."
Tick sank to his knees, forced down by an invisible weight. "Stop
it!"
Kumiko cried.
Something slammed Tick's face against the pastel concrete of the
path.
"Stop it!"
Tick's left arm shot out straight from the shoulder and began to
rotate
slowly, the hand still balled in a white-knuckled fist. Kumiko heard
something
give, bone or ligament, and Tick screamed.
Her mother laughed.
Kumiko struck her mother in the face, and pain, sharp and real,
jolted
through her arm.
Her mother's face flickered, became another face. A gaijin face with
wide
lips and a sharp thin nose.
Tick groaned.
"Well," Kumiko heard Colin say, "isn't this interesting?" She turned
to
him there, astride one of the horses from the hunting print, a
stylized
representation of an extinct animal, its neck curved gracefully as it
trotted
toward them. "Sorry it took me a moment to find you. This is a
wonderfully
complex structure. A sort of pocket universe. Bit of everything,
actually." The
horse drew up before them.
"Toy," said the thing with Kumiko's mother's face, "do you dare
speak to
me?"
"Yes, actually, I do. You are Lady 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool, or rather
the
late Lady 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool, none too recently deceased,
formerly of the
Villa Straylight. This rather pretty representation of a Tokyo park
is something
you've just now worked up from Kumiko's memories, isn't it?"
"Die!" She flung up a white hand: from it burst a form folded from
neon.
"No," Colin said, and the crane shattered, its fragments tumbling
through
him, ghost-shards, falling away. "Won't do. Sorry. I've remembered
what I am.
Found the bits they tucked away in the slots for Shakespeare and
Thackeray and
Blake. I've been modified to advise and protect Kumiko in situations
rather more
drastic than any envisioned by my original designers. I'm a
tactician."
"You are nothing." At her feet, Tick began to twitch.
"You're mistaken, I'm afraid. You see, in here, in this . . . folly
of
yours, 3Jane, I'm as real as you are. You see, Kumiko," he said,
swinging down
from the saddle, "Tick's mysterious macroform is actually a very
expensive pile
of biochips constructed to order. A sort of toy universe. I've run
all up and
down it and there's certainly a lot to see, a lot to learn. This . .
. person,
if we choose to so regard her, created it in a pathetic bid for, oh,
not
immortality , really, but simply to have her way. Her narrow,
obsessive, and
singularly childish way. Who would've thought it, that Lady 3Jane's
object of
direst and most nastily gnawing envy would be Angela Mitchell?"
"Die! You'll die! I'm killing you! Now!"
"Keep trying," Colin said, and grinned. "You see, Kumiko, 3Jane knew
a
secret about Mitchell, about Mitchell's relationship to the matrix;
Mitchell, at
one time, had the potential to become, well, very central to things,
though it's
not worth going into. 3Jane was jealous. . . ."
The figure of Kumiko's mother swam like smoke, and was gone.
"Oh dear," Colin said, "I've wearied her, I'm afraid. We've been
fighting
something of a pitched battle, at a different level of the command
program.
Stalemate, temporarily, but I'm sure she'll rally. . . ."
Tick had gotten to his feet and was gingerly massaging his arm.
"Christ,"
he said, "I was sure she'd dislocated it for me. . . ."
"She did," Colin said, "but she was so angry when she left that she
forgot
to save that part of the configuration."
Kumiko stepped closer to the horse. It wasn't like a real horse at
all.
She touched its side. Cool and dry as old paper. "What shall we do
now?"
"Get you out of here. Come along, both of you. Mount up. Kumiko in
front,
Tick on behind."
Tick looked at the horse. "On that?"
They had seen no other people in Ueno Park, as they'd ridden toward a
wall of
green that gradually defined itself as a very un-Japanese wood.
"But we should be in Tokyo," Kumiko protested, as they entered the
wood.
"It's all a bit sketchy," Colin said, "though I imagine we could
find a
sort of Tokyo if we looked. I think I know an exit point, though. . .
."
Then he began to tell her more about 3Jane, and Sally, and Angela
Mitchell. All of it very strange.
The trees were very large, at the far side of the wood. They emerged
into a
field of long grass and wildflowers.
"Look," Kumiko said, as she glimpsed a tall gray house through the
branches.
"Yes," Colin said, "the original's on the outskirts of Paris. But
we're
nearly there. The exit point, I mean . . ."
"Colin! Did you see? A woman. Just there . . ."
"Yes," he said, without bothering to turn his head, "Angela Mitchell
. .
."
"Really? She's here?"
"No," he said, "not yet."
Then Kumiko saw the gliders. Lovely things, quivering in the wind.
"There you go," Colin said. "Tick'll take you back in one of --"
"Bloody hell," Tick protested, from behind.
"Dead easy. Just like using your deck. Same thing, in this case . .
."
Up from Margate Road came the sound of laughter, loud drunken voices,
the crash
of a bottle against brickwork.
Kumiko sat very still, in the overstuffed chair, eyes shut tight,
remembering the glider's rush into blue sky and . . . something else.
A telephone began to ring.
Her eyes shot open.
She lunged up from the chair and rushed past Tick, through his
stacks of
equipment, looking for the phone. Found it at last, and "Homeboy,"
Sally said,
far away, past a soft surf of static, "what the fuck's up? Tick? You
okay, man?"
"Sally! Sally, where are you?"
"New Jersey. Hey. Baby? Baby, what's happening?"
"I can't see you, Sally, the screen's blank!"
"Phoning from a booth. New Jersey. What's up?"
"I have so much to tell you. . . ."
"Shoot," Sally said. "It's my nickel."
The Factory War
They watched the hover burn from the high window at the end of
Gentry's loft. He
could hear that same amplified voice now: "You think that 's pretty
fucking
funny , huh? Hahahahahahaha, so do we! We think you guys are just
tons of
fucking fun , so now we 're all gonna party!"
Couldn't see anyone, just the flames of the hover.
"We just start walking," Cherry said, close beside him, "take water,
some
food if you got it." Her eyes were red, her face streaked with tears,
but she
sounded calm. Too calm, Slick thought. "Come on, Slick, what else we
gonna do?"
He glanced back at Gentry, slumped in his chair in front of the holo
table, head propped between his hands, staring at the white column
that thrust
up out of the familiar rainbow jumble of Sprawl cyberspace. Gentry
hadn't moved,
hadn't said a word, since they'd come back to the loft. The heel of
Slick's left
boot had left faint dark prints on the floor behind him, Little
Bird's blood;
he'd stepped in it on his way back across Factory's floor.
Then Gentry spoke: "I couldn't get the others going." He was looking
down
at the control unit in his lap.
"You need a unit for each one you wanna work," Slick said.
"Time for the Count's advice," Gentry said, tossing Slick the unit.
"I'm not going back in there," Slick said. "You go."
"Don't need to," Gentry said, touching a console on his bench. Bobby
the
Count appeared on a monitor.
Cherry's eyes widened. "Tell him," she said, "that he's gonna be
dead
soon. Unless you jack him out of the matrix and stage one quick trip
to an
intensive care unit. He's dying."
Bobby's face, on the monitor, grew still. The background came
sharply into
focus: the neck of the iron deer, long grass dappled with white
flowers, the
broad trunks of ancient trees.
"Hear that, motherfucker?" Cherry yelled. "You're dying! Your lungs
are
filling up with fluid, your kidneys aren't working, your heart's
fucked. . . .
You make me wanna puke!"
"Gentry," Bobby said, his voice coming small and tinny from a little
speaker on the side of the monitor, "I don't know what kind of setup
you people
have there, but I've arranged a little diversion."
"We never checked the bike," Cherry said, her arms around Slick, "we
never
looked. It might be okay."
"What's that mean, 'arranged a little diversion'?" Pulling back from
her,
looking at Bobby on the monitor.
"I'm still working it out. I've rerouted a Borg-Ward cargo drone,
out of
Newark."
Slick broke away from Cherry. "Don't just sit there," he yelled at
Gentry,
who looked up at Slick and slowly shook his head. Slick felt the
first flickers
of Korsakov's, minute increments of memory shuddering out of focus.
"He doesn't want to go anywhere," Bobby said. "He's found the Shape.
He
just wants to see how it all works out, what it is in the end.
There's people on
their way here. Friends, sort of. They'll get the aleph off your
hands.
Meantime, I'll do what I can about these assholes."
"I'm not gonna stay here and watch you die," Cherry said.
"Nobody's asking you to. My advice, you get out. Gimme twenty
minutes,
I'll distract them for you."
Factory never felt emptier.
Little Bird was somewhere on that floor. Slick kept thinking of the
tangle
of thongs and bones that had hung on Bird's chest, feathers and rusty
spring-
wind watches with the hands all stopped, each one a different time. .
. . Stupid
stringtown shit. But Bird wouldn't be around anymore. Guess I won 't
be around
anymore myself , he thought, leading Cherry down the shaking stairs.
Not like
before . There wasn't time to move the machines, not without a
flatbed and some
help, and he figured once he was gone, he'd stay gone. Factory wasn't
ever going
to feel the same again.
Cherry had four liters of filtered water in a plastic jug, a mesh
bag of
Burmese peanuts, and five individually sealed portions of Big Ginza
freeze-dried
soup -- all she'd been able to find in the kitchen. Slick had two
sleeping bags,
the flashlight, and a ball peen hammer.
It was quiet now, just the sounds of the wind across corrugated
metal and
the scuff of their boots on concrete.
He wasn't sure where he'd go, himself. He thought he'd take Cherry
as far
as Marvie's place and leave her there. Then maybe he'd come back, see
what was
happening with Gentry. She could get a ride out to a rustbelt town in
a day or
two. She didn't know that, though; all she could think about was
leaving. Seemed
as scared of having to watch Bobby the Count die on his stretcher as
she was of
the men outside. But Slick could see that Bobby didn't care much at
all, about
dying. Maybe he figured he'd just be in there, like that 3Jane. Or
maybe he just
didn't give a shit; sometimes people got that way.
If he meant to leave for good, he thought, steering Cherry through
the
dark with his free hand, he'd go in now and have a last look at the
Judge and
the Witch, the Corpsegrinder and the two Investigators. But this way
he'd get
Cherry out, then come back. . . . But he knew as he thought it that
it didn't
make sense, there wasn't time, but he'd get her out anyway. . . .
"There's a gap, this side, low down by the floor," he told her.
"We'll
slide out through there, hope nobody notices. . . ." She squeezed his
hand as he
led her through the darkness.
He found the hole by feel, stuffed the sleeping bags through, stuck
the
ball peen into his belt, lay down on his back, and pulled himself out
until his
head and chest were through. The sky was low and only marginally
lighter than
Factory's dark.
He thought he heard a faint drumming of engines, but then it faded.
He worked himself the rest of the way out with his heels and hips
and
shoulders, then rolled over in the snow.
Something bumped against his foot: Cherry pushing out the water jug.
He
reached back to take it, and the red firefly lit on the back of his
hand. He
jerked back and rolled again, as the bullet slammed Factory's wall
like a
giant's sledge.
A white flare, drifting. Above the Solitude. Faint through the low
cloud.
Drifting down from the swollen gray flank of the cargo drone, Bobby's
diversion.
Illuminating the second hover, thirty meters out, and the hooded
figure with the
rifle . . .
The first container struck the ground with a crash, just in front of
the
hover, and burst, throwing up a cloud of foam packing pellets. The
second one,
carrying two refrigerators, scored a direct hit, crushing the cab.
The hijacked
Borg-Ward airship continued to disgorge containers as the flare spun
down,
fading.
Slick scrambled back through the gap in the wall, leaving the water
and
the sleeping bags.
Moving fast, in the dark.
He'd lost Cherry. He'd lost the hammer. She must've slid back into
Factory
when the guy fired his first shot. Last shot, if he'd been under that
box when
it came down . . .
His feet found the ramp into the room where his machines waited.
"Cherry?"
He flicked on the flashlight.
The one-armed Judge was centered in the beam. Before the Judge stood
a
figure with mirrors for eyes, throwing back the light.
''You wanna die?" A woman's voice.
"No . . ."
"Light, out."
Darkness. Run . . .
"I can see in the dark. You just stuck that flash in your jacket
pocket.
You look like you still wanna run. I gotta gun on you."
Run?
"Don't even think about it. You ever see a Fujiwara HE fl�chette?
Hits
something hard, it goes off. Hits something soft, like most of you,
buddy, it
goes in, then it goes off. Ten seconds later."
"Why?"
"So you get to think about it."
"You with those guys outside?"
"No. You drop all those stoves 'n' shit on them?"
"No."
"Newmark. Bobby Newmark. I cut a deal tonight. I get somebody
together
with Bobby Newmark, I get my slate cleaned. You're gonna show me
where he is."
Too Much
What kind of place was this, anyway?
Things had gotten to a point where Mona couldn't get any comfort out
of
imagining Lanette's advice. Put Lanette in this situation, Mona
figured she'd
just eat more Memphis black till she felt like it wasn't her problem.
The world
hadn't ever had so many moving parts or so few labels.
They'd driven all night, with Angie mostly out of it -- Mona could
definitely credit the drug stories now -- and talking , different
languages,
different voices . And that was the worst, those voices, because they
spoke to
Molly, challenged her, and she answered them back as she drove, not
like she was
talking to Angie just to calm her down, but like there really was
something
there , another person -- at least three of them -- speaking through
Angie. And
it hurt Angie when they spoke, made her muscles knot and her nose
bleed, while
Mona crouched over her and dabbed away the blood, filled with a weird
mixture of
fear and love and pity for the queen of all her dreams -- or maybe it
was just
the wiz -- but in the blue-white flicker of freeway lights Mona had
seen her own
hand beside Angie's, and they weren't the same, not the same, not
really the
same shape, and that had made her glad.
The first voice had come when they'd been driving south, after
Molly'd
brought Angie in the copter. That one had just hissed and croaked and
said
something over and over, about New Jersey and numbers on a map. About
two hours
after that, Molly'd slid the hover across a rest area and said they
were in New
Jersey. Then she'd gotten out and made a call from a frosty paybooth,
a long
one; when she'd climbed back in, Mona'd seen her skim a phone card
out across
the frozen slush, just throwing it away. And Mona'd asked her who
she'd called
and she'd said England.
Mona'd seen Molly's hand, then, on the wheel, how the dark nails had
little yellowish flecks, like you got when you snapped off a set of
artificials.
She oughta get some solvent for that , Mona thought.
Somewhere over a river they'd left the highway. Trees and fields and
two-
lane blacktop, sometimes a lonely red light high up on some kind of
tower. And
that was when the other voices had come. And then it was back and
forth, back
and forth, the voices and then Molly and then the voices, and what it
reminded
her of was Eddy trying to do a deal, except Molly was a lot better at
it than
Eddy; even if she couldn't understand it, she could tell Molly was
getting close
to what she wanted. But she couldn't stand it when the voices came;
it made her
want to press herself back as far from Angie as she could get. The
worst one was
called Sam-Eddy, something like that. What they all wanted was for
Molly to take
Angie somewhere for what they called a marriage, and Mona wondered if
maybe
Robin Lanier was in it somewhere, like what if Angie and Robin were
gonna get
married, and this was all just some kind of wild thing stars did to
get married.
But she couldn't get that one to work, and every time this Sam-Eddy
voice came
back, Mona's scalp would crawl. She could tell what Molly was
bargaining for,
though: she wanted her record cleaned up, wiped. She'd watched this
vid once
with Lanette, about this girl had ten, twelve personalities that
would come out,
like one was this shy little kid and another'd just be this total
bone-addict
slut, but it hadn't ever said anything about how any of those
personalities
could wipe your slate with the police.
Then this flatland in their headlights, blown with snow, low ridges
the
color of rust, where the wind had torn away the white.
The hover had one of those map screens you saw in cabs, or if a
truckdriver
picked you up, but Molly never turned it on except that first time,
to look for
the numbers the voice had given her. After a while, Mona understood
that Angie
was telling her which way to go, or anyway those voices were telling
her. Mona'd
been wishing for morning for a long time, but it was still night when
Molly
killed the lights and sped on through the dark. . . .
"Lights!" Angie cried.
"Relax," Molly said, and Mona remembered how she'd moved in the dark
in
Gerald's. But the hover slowed slightly, swung into a long curve,
shuddering
over the rough ground. The dash lights blinked off, all the
instrumentation.
"Not a sound now, okay?"
The hover accelerated through the dark.
Shifting white glare, high up. Through the window, Mona glimpsed a
drifting, twirling point; above it, something else, bulbous and gray
--
"Down! Get her down!"
Mona yanked at the catch on Angie's seatbelt as something whanged
against
the side of the hover. Got her down on the floor and hugged her furs
around her
as Molly slewed left, sideswiping something Mona never saw. Mona
looked up:
split-second flash of a big raggedy black building, a single white
bulb lit
above open warehouse doors, and then they were through, the turbine
screaming
full reverse.
Crash.
I just don 't know , the voice said, and Mona thought: Well , I know
how that
is .
Then the voice started to laugh, and didn't stop, and the laugh
became an
on-off, on-off sound that wasn't laughter anymore, and Mona opened
her eyes.
Girl there with a little tiny flashlight, the kind Lanette kept on
her big
bunch of keys; Mona saw her in the weak back-glare, the cone of light
on Angie's
slack face. Then she saw Mona looking and the sound stopped.
"Who the fuck are you?" The light in Mona's eyes. Cleveland voice,
tough
little foxface under raggy bleachblond hair.
"Mona. Who're you?" But then she saw the hammer.
"Cherry . . ."
"What's that hammer?"
This Cherry looked at the hammer. "Somebody's after me 'n' Slick."
She
looked at Mona again. "You them?"
"I don't think so."
"You look like her." The light jabbing at Angie.
"Not my hands. Anyway, I didn't used to."
"You both look like Angie Mitchell."
"Yeah. She is ."
Cherry gave a little shiver. She was wearing three or four leather
jackets
she'd gotten off different boyfriends; that was a Cleveland thing.
"Unto this high castle," came the voice from Angie's mouth, thick as
mud,
and Cherry banged her head against the roof of the cab, dropping her
hammer, "my
horse is come." In the wavering beam of Cherry's keyring flashlight,
they saw
the muscles of Angie's face crawling beneath the skin. "Why do you
linger here,
little sisters, now that her marriage is arranged?"
Angie's face relaxed, became her own, as a thin bright trickle of
blood
descended from her left nostril. She opened her eyes, wincing in the
light.
"Where is she?" she asked Mona.
"Gone," Mona said. "Told me to stay here with you . . ."
"Who?" Cherry asked.
"Molly," Mona asked. "She was driving. . . ."
Cherry wanted to find somebody called Slick. Mona wanted Molly to
come back and
tell her what to do, but Cherry was antsy about staying down here on
the ground
floor, she said, because there were these people outside with guns.
Mona
remembered that sound, something hitting the hover; she got Cherry's
light and
went back there. There was a hole she could just stick her finger
into, halfway
up the right side, and a bigger one -- two fingers -- on the left
side.
Cherry said they'd better get upstairs, where Slick probably was,
before
those people decided to come in here. Mona wasn't sure.
"Come on," Cherry said. "Slick's probably back up there with Gentry
and
the Count. . . ."
"What did you just say?" And it was Angie Mitchell's voice, just
like in
the stims.
Whatever this was, it was cold as hell when they got out of the hover
-- Mona's
legs were bare -- but dawn was coming, finally: she could make out
faint
rectangles that were probably windows, just a gray glow. The girl
called Cherry
was leading them somewhere, she said upstairs, navigating with little
blinks of
the keyring light, Angie close behind her and Mona bringing up the
rear.
Mona caught the toe of her shoe in something that rustled. Bending
to free
herself, she found what felt like a plastic bag. Sticky. Small hard
things
inside. Took a deep breath and straightened up, shoving the bag into
the side
pocket of Michael's jacket.
Then they were climbing these narrow stairs, steep, almost a ladder,
Angie's fur brushing Mona's hand on the rough cold railings. Then a
landing,
then a turn, another set of stairs, another landing. A draft blew
from
somewhere.
"It's kind of a bridge," Cherry said. "Just walk across it quick,
okay,
'cause it kind of moves. . . ."
And not expecting this, any of it, not the high white room, the
sagging shelves
stuffed with ragged, faded books -- she thought of the old man -- the
clutter of
console things with cables twisting everywhere; not this skinny,
burning-eyed
man in black, with his hair trained back into the crest they called a
Fighting
Fish in Cleveland; not his laugh when he saw them there, or the dead
guy.
Mona'd seen dead people before, enough to know it when she saw it.
The
color of it. Sometimes in Florida somebody'd lie down on a cardboard
pallet on
the sidewalk outside the squat. Just not get up. Clothes and skin
gone the color
of sidewalk anyway, but still different when they'd kicked, another
color under
that. White truck came then. Eddy said because if you didn't, they'd
swell up.
Like Mona'd seen a cat once, blown up like a basketball, turned on
its back,
legs and tail sticking out stiff as boards, and that made Eddy laugh.
And this wiz artist laughing now -- Mona knew those kind of eyes -
- and
Cherry making this kind of groaning sound, and Angie just standing
there.
"Okay, everybody," she heard someone say -- Molly -- and turned to
find
her there, in the open door, with a little gun in her hand and this
big dirty-
haired guy beside her looking stupid as a box of rocks, "just stand
there till I
sort you out."
The skinny guy just laughed.
"Shut up," Molly said, like she was thinking about something else.
She
shot without even looking at the gun. Blue flash on the wall beside
his head and
Mona couldn't hear anything but her ears ringing.
Skinny guy curled in a knot on the floor, head between his knees.
Angie walking toward the stretcher where the dead guy lay, his eyes
just
white. Slow, slow, like she was moving underwater, and this look on
her face . .
.
Mona's hand, in her jacket pocket, was sort of figuring something
out, all
by itself. Sort of squeezing that Ziploc she'd picked up downstairs,
telling her
. . . it had wiz in it.
She pulled it out and it did. Sticky with drying blood. Three
crystals
inside and some kind of derm.
She didn't know why she'd pulled it out, right then, except that
nobody
was moving .
The guy with the Fighting Fish had sat up, but he just stayed there.
Angie
was over by the stretcher, where she didn't seem to be looking at the
dead guy
but at this gray box stuck up over his head on a kind of frame.
Cherry from
Cleveland had got her back up against the wall of books and was sort
of jamming
her knuckles into her mouth. The big guy just stood there beside
Molly, who had
her head cocked to the side like she was listening for something.
Mona couldn't stand it.
Table had a steel top. Big hunk of old metal there, holding down a
dusty
stack of printout. Snapped the three yellow crystals down like
buttons in a row,
picked up that metal hunk, and -- one, two, three -- banged them into
powder.
That did it: everybody looked. Except Angie.
" 'Scuse me," Mona heard herself say, as she swept the mound of
rough
yellow powder into the waiting palm of her left hand, "how it is . .
." She
buried her nose in the pile and snorted. "Sometimes," she added, and
snorted the
rest.
Nobody said anything.
And it was the still center again. Just like that time before.
So fast it was standing still.
Rapture . Rapture 's coming .
So fast, so still, she could put a sequence to what happened next:
This
big laugh, haha , like it wasn't really a laugh. Through a
loudspeaker. Past the
door. From out on the catwalk thing. And Molly just turns, smooth as
silk, quick
but like there's no hurry in it, and the little gun snicks like a
lighter.
Then there's this blue flash outside, and the big guy gets sprayed
with
blood from out there as old metal tears loose and Cherry's screaming
before the
catwalk thing hits with this big complicated sound, dark floor down
there where
she found the wiz in its bloody bag.
"Gentry," someone says, and she sees it's a little vid on the table,
young
guy's face on it, "jack Slick's control unit now. They're in the
building." Guy
with the Fighting Fish scrambles up and starts to do things with
wires and
consoles.
And Mona could just watch, because she was so still, and it was all
interesting stuff.
How the big guy gives this bellow and rushes over, shouting how
they're
his, they're his. How the face on the screen says: "Slick, c'mon, you
don't need
'em anymore. . . ."
Then this engine starts up, somewhere downstairs, and Mona hears
this
clanking and rattling, and then somebody yelling, down there.
And sun's coming in the tall, skinny window now, so she moves over
there
for a look. And there's something out there, kind of a truck or
hover, only it's
buried under this pile of what looks like refrigerators, brand-new
refrigerators, and broken hunks of plastic crates, and there's
somebody in a
camo suit, lying down with his face in the snow, and out past that
there's
another hover looks like it's all burned up.
It's interesting.
Pink Satin
Angela Mitchell comprehends this room and its inhabitants through
shifting data
planes that represent viewpoints, though of whom or what, she is in
most cases
in doubt. There is a considerable degree of overlap, of
contradiction.
The man with the ragged crest of hair, in black-beaded leather is
Thomas
Trail Gentry (as birth data and SIN digits cascade through her) of no
fixed
address (as a different facet informs her that this room is his).
Past a gray
wash of official data traces, faintly marbled with the Fission
Authority's
repeated pink suspicions of utilities fraud, she finds him in a
different light:
he is like one of Bobby's cowboys; though young, he is like the old
men of the
Gentleman Loser; he is an autodidact, an eccentric, obsessed, by his
own lights
a scholar; he is mad, a night-runner, guilty (in Mamman's view, in
Legba's) of
manifold heresies; Lady 3Jane, in her own eccentric scheme, has filed
him under
RIMBAUD. (Another face flares out at Angie from RIMBAUD; his name is
Riviera, a
minor player in the dreams.) Molly has deliberately stunned him,
causing an
explosive fl�chette to detonate eighteen centimeters from his skull.
Molly, like the girl Mona, is SINless, her birth unregistered, yet
around
her name (names) swarm galaxies of supposition, rumor, conflicting
data.
Streetgirl, prostitute, bodyguard, assassin, she mingles on the
manifold planes
with the shadows of heroes and villains whose names mean nothing to
Angie,
though their residual images have long since been woven through the
global
culture. (And this too belonged to 3Jane, and now belongs to Angie.)
Molly has just killed a man, has fired one of the explosive
fl�chettes
into his throat. His collapse against a steel railing suffering metal
fatigue
has caused a large section of catwalk to tumble to the floor below.
This room
has no other entrance, a fact of some strategic importance. It was
probably not
Molly's intention to cause the collapse of the catwalk. She sought to
prevent
the man, a hired mercenary, from using his weapon of choice, a short
alloy
shotgun coated with a black, nonreflective finish. Nonetheless,
Gentry's loft is
now effectively isolated.
Angie understands Molly's importance to 3Jane, the source of her
desire
for and rage at her; knowing this, she sees all the banality of human
evil.
Angie sees Molly restlessly prowling a gray winter London, a young
girl at
her side -- and knows, without knowing how she knows, that this same
girl is now
at 23 Margate Road, SW2. (Continuity? ) The girl's father was
previously the
master of the man Swain, who had lately become 3Jane's servant for
the sake of
the information she provides to those who do her bidding. As has
Robin Lanier,
of course, though he waits to be paid in a different coin.
For the girl Mona, Angie feels a peculiar tenderness, a pity, a
degree of
envy: though Mona has been altered to resemble Angie as closely as
possible,
Mona's life has left virtually no trace on the fabric of things, and
represents,
in Legba's system, the nearest thing to innocence.
Cherry-Lee Chesterfield is surrounded by a sad ragged scrawl, her
information profile like a child's drawing: citations for vagrancy,
petty debts,
an aborted career as a paramedical technician Grade 6, framing birth
data and
SIN.
Slick, or Slick Henry, is among the SINless, but 3Jane, Continuity,
Bobby,
all have lavished their attention on him. For 3Jane, he serves as the
focus of a
minor node of association: she equates his ongoing rite of
construction, his
cathartic response to chemo-penal trauma, with her own failed
attempts to
exorcise the barren dream of Tessier-Ashpool. In the corridors of
3Jane's
memory, Angie has frequently come upon the chamber where a spider-
armed
manipulator stirs the refuse of Straylight's brief, clotted history -
- an act of
extended collage. And Bobby provides other memories, tapped from the
artist as
he accessed 3Jane's library of Babel: his slow, sad, childlike labor
on the
plain called Dog Solitude, erecting anew the forms of pain and
memory.
Down in the chill dark of Factory's floor, one of Slick's kinetic
sculptures, controlled by a subprogram of Bobby's, removes the left
arm of
another mercenary, employing a mechanism salvaged two summers before
from a
harvesting machine of Chinese manufacture. The mercenary, whose name
and SIN
boil past Angie like hot silver bubbles, dies with his cheek against
one of
Little Bird's boots.
Only Bobby, of all the people in this room, is not here as data. And
Bobby
is not the wasted thing before her, strapped down in alloy and nylon,
its chin
filmed with dried vomit, nor the eager, familiar face gazing out at
her from a
monitor on Gentry's workbench. Is Bobby the solid rectangular mass of
memory
bolted above the stretcher?
Now she steps across rolling dunes of soiled pink satin, under a
tooled
steel sky, free at last of the room and its data.
Brigitte walks beside her, and there is no pressure, no hollow of
night, no hive
sound. There are no candles. Continuity is there too, represented by
a strolling
scribble of silver tinsel that reminds her, somehow, of Hilton Swift
on the
beach at Malibu.
"Feeling better?" Brigitte asks.
"Much better, thank you."
"I thought so."
"Why is Continuity here?"
"Because he is your cousin, built from Maas biochips. Because he is
young.
We walk with you to your wedding."
"But who are you, Brigitte? What are you really?"
"I am the message your father was told to write. I am the v�v�s he
drew
in your head." Brigitte leans close. "Be kind to Continuity. He fears
that in
his clumsiness, he has earned your displeasure."
The tinsel scribble scoots off before them, across the satin dunes,
to
announce the bride's arrival.
Mr. Yanaka
The Maas-Neotek unit was still warm to the touch; the white plastic
pad beneath
it was discolored, as if by heat. A smell like burning hair . . .
She watched the bruises on Tick's face darken. He'd sent her to a
bedside
cabinet for a worn tin cigarette box filled with pills and dermadisks
-- had
torn his collar open and pressed three of the adhesive disks against
skin white
as porcelain.
She helped him fashion a sling from a length of optic cable.
"But Colin said she had forgotten. . . ."
"I haven't," he said, and sucked air between his teeth, working the
sling
beneath his arm. "Seemed to happen, at the time. Lingers a bit . .
." He
winced.
"I'm sorry. . . ."
" 'Sokay. Sally told me. About your mother, I mean."
"Yes . . ." She didn't look away. "She killed herself. In Tokyo . .
."
"Whoever she was, that wasn't her."
"The unit . . ." She glanced toward the breakfast table.
"She burnt it. Won't matter to him, though. He's still there. Has
the run
of it. What's our Sally up to, then?"
"She has Angela Mitchell with her. She's gone to find the thing that
all
that comes from. Where we were. A place called New Jersey."
The telephone rang.
Kumiko's father, head and shoulders, on the broad screen behind
Tick's
telephone: he wore his dark suit, his Rolex watch, a galaxy of small
fraternal
devices in his lapel. Kumiko thought he looked very tired, tired and
very
serious, a serious man behind the smooth dark expanse of desk in his
study.
Seeing him there, she regretted that Sally hadn't phoned from a booth
with a
camera. She would very much have liked to see Sally again; now,
perhaps, it
would be impossible.
"You look well, Kumiko," her father said.
Kumiko sat up very straight, facing the small camera mounted just
below
the wallscreen. In reflex, she summoned her mother's mask of disdain,
but it
would not come. Confused, she dropped her gaze to where her hands lay
folded in
her lap. She was abruptly aware of Tick, of his embarrassment, his
fear, trapped
in the chair beside her, in full view of the camera.
"You were correct to flee Swain's house," her father said.
She met his eyes again. "He is your kobun ."
"No longer. While we were distracted, here, with our own
difficulties, he
formed new and dubious alliances, pursuing courses of which we could
not
approve."
"And your difficulties, Father?"
Was there the flicker of a smile? "All that is ended. Order and
accord are
again established."
"Er, excuse me, sir, Mr. Yanaka," Tick began, then seemed to lose
his
voice altogether.
"Yes. And you are --?"
Tick's bruised face contorted in a huge and particularly lugubrious
wink.
"His name is Tick, Father. He has sheltered and protected me. Along
with
Col . . . with the Maas-Neotek unit, he saved my life tonight."
"Really? I had not been informed of this. I was under the impression
that
you had not left his apartment."
Something cold -- "How?" she asked, sitting forward. "How could you
know?"
"The Maas-Neotek unit broadcast your destination, once it was known
--
once the unit was clear of Swain's systems. We dispatched watchers to
the area."
She remembered the noodle seller. . . . "Without, of course,
informing Swain.
But the unit never broadcast a second message."
"It was broken. An accident."
"Yet you say it saved your life?"
"Sir," Tick said, "you'll pardon me, what I mean is, am I covered?
"
"Covered?"
"Protected. From Swain, I mean, and his bent SB friends and the rest
. .
."
"Swain is dead."
There was a silence. "But somebody will be running it, surely. The
fancy,
I mean. Your business."
Mr. Yanaka regarded Tick with frank curiosity. "Of course. How else
might
order and accord be expected to continue?"
"Give him your word, Father," Kumiko said, "that he will come to no
harm."
Yanaka looked from Kumiko to the grimacing Tick. "I extend profound
gratitude to you, sir, for having protected my daughter. I am in your
debt."
"Giri ," Kumiko said.
"Christ," Tick said, overcome with awe, "fucking fancy that."
"Father," Kumiko said, "on the night of my mother's death, did you
order
the secretaries to allow her to leave alone?"
Her father's face was very still. She watched it fill with a sorrow
she
had never before seen. "No," he said at last, "I did not."
Tick coughed.
"Thank you, Father. Will I be returning to Tokyo now?"
"Certainly, if you wish. Though I understand you have been allowed
to see
very little of London. My associate will soon arrive at Mr. Tick's
apartment. If
you wish to remain, to explore the city, he will arrange this."
"Thank you, Father."
"Goodbye, Kumi."
And he was gone.
"Now then," Tick said, wincing horribly as he extended his good arm,
"help
me up from this. . . ."
"But you require medical attention."
"Don't I then?" He'd managed to get to his feet, and was hobbling
toward
the toilet, when Petal opened the door from the dark upstairs hall.
"If you've
broken my bloody lock," Tick said, "you'd better pay me for it."
"Sorry," Petal said, blinking. "I've come for Miss Yanaka."
"Too bad, mate. Just had her dad on the phone. Told us Swain's been
topped. Told us he's sending round the new boss." He smiled,
crookedly,
triumphantly.
"But you see," Petal said gently, "that's me."
Factory Floor
Cherry's still screaming.
"Somebody shut her up," Molly says, where she's standing by the door
with
her little gun, and Mona thinks she can do that, can pass Cherry a
little of her
stillness, where everything's interesting and nothing's pushing too
hard, but on
the way across the room she sees the crumpled Ziploc on the floor and
remembers
there's a derm in there, maybe something that'll help Cherry calm
down. "Here,"
she says, when she gets to her, peels the backing off and sticks the
derm on the
side of Cherry's neck. Cherry's scream slides down the scale into a
gurgle as
she sinks down the face of old books, but Mona's sure she'll be okay,
and anyway
there's shooting downstairs, guns: out past Molly a white tracer goes
racketing
and whanging around steel girders, and Molly's yelling at Gentry can
he turn the
goddamn lights on?
That had to mean the lights downstairs, because the lights up here
were
plenty bright, so bright she can see fuzzy little beads, traces of
color,
streaming off things if she looks close. Tracers. That's what you
call those
bullets, the ones that light up. Eddy'd told her that in Florida,
looking down
the beach to where some private security was shooting them off in the
dark.
"Yeah, lights," the face on the little screen said, "the Witch can't
see.
. . ." Mona smiled at him. She didn't think anybody else had heard.
Witch?
So Gentry and big Slick were tearing around yanking these fat yellow
wires
off the wall, where they'd been stuck with silver tape, and plugging
them
together with these metal boxes, and Cherry from Cleveland was
sitting on the
floor with her eyes closed, and Molly was crouched down by the door
holding her
gun with both hands, and Angie was --
Be still .
She heard somebody say that, but it was nobody in the room. She
thought
maybe it was Lanette, like Lanette could just say that, through time,
through
the stillness.
Because Angie was just there, down on the floor beside the dead
guy's
stretcher, her legs folded under her like a statue, her arms around
him.
The lights dimmed, when Gentry and Slick found their connection, and
she
thought she heard the face on the monitor gasp, but she was already
moving
toward Angie, seeing (suddenly, totally, so clearly it hurt) the fine
line of
blood from her left ear.
Even then, the stillness held, though already she could feel raw hot
points in the back of her throat, and remember Lanette explaining:
You don't
ever snort this, it eats holes in you.
And Molly's back was straight, her arms stretched out. . . .
Straight out
and down, not to that gray box, but to her pistol, that little thing,
and Mona
heard it go snik -snik -snik , and then three explosions, far off
down there,
and they must've been blue flashes, but Mona's hands were around
Angie now,
wrists brushed by blood-smeared fur. To look into gone eyes, the
light already
fading. Just a long, longest way away.
"Hey," Mona said, nobody to hear, just Angie toppling across the
corpse in
the sleeping bag, "hey . . ."
She glanced up in time to catch a last image on that vid screen and
see it
fade.
After that, for a long time, nothing mattered. It wasn't like the not
caring of
the stillness, the crystal overdrive, and it wasn't like crashing,
just this
past-it feeling, the way maybe a ghost feels.
She stood beside Slick and Molly in the doorway and looked down. In
the
dim glare of big old bulbs she watched a metal spider thing jittering
across the
dirty concrete floor. It had big curved blades that snapped and
whirled when it
moved, but there was nobody in there moving, and the thing just went
like a
broken toy, back and forth in front of the twisted wreck of the
little bridge
she'd crossed with Angie and Cherry.
Cherry had gotten up from the floor, pale and slackfaced, and peeled
the
derm from her neck. "Tha's maj' muscle relax'nt," she managed, and
Mona felt bad
because she knew she'd done something stupid when she'd thought she
was trying
to help, but wiz always did that, and how come she couldn't stop
doing it?
Because you're wired, stupid, she heard Lanette say, but she hadn't
wanted
to remember that.
So they all just stood there, looking down at the metal spider
twitching
and running itself down. All except Gentry, who was unscrewing the
gray box from
its frame over the stretcher, his black boots beside Angie's red fur.
"Listen," Molly said, "that's a copter. Big one."
She was the last one down the rope, except for Gentry, and he just
said he
wasn't coming, didn't care, he'd stay.
The rope was fat and dirty gray and had knots tied in it to hang on
to,
like a swing she remembered from a long time ago. Slick and Molly had
lowered
the gray box first, down to a platform where the metal stairs weren't
wrecked.
Then Molly went down it like a squirrel, seeming barely to hang on at
all, and
tied it tight to a railing. Slick went down slowly, because he had
Cherry over
his shoulder and she was still too relaxed to make it down herself.
Mona still
felt bad about that and wondered if that was why they'd decided to
leave her
there.
It was Molly who'd decided, though, standing there by that window,
watching people pop out of the long black helicopter and spread out
across the
snow.
"Look at that," Molly'd said. "They know. Just come to pick up the
pieces.
Sense/Net. My ass is out of here."
Cherry slurred that they were leaving too, she and Slick. And Slick
shrugged, then grinned and put his arm around her.
"What about me?"
Molly looked at her. Or seemed to. Couldn't really tell, with the
glasses.
White tooth showed against her lower lip, for just a second, then she
said, "You
stay, my advice. Let them sort it out. You haven't really done
anything. None of
it was your idea. Think they'll probably do right by you, or try to.
Yeah, you
stay."
It didn't make any sense to Mona, but now she felt so dead, so
crash-sick,
she couldn't argue.
And then they were just gone, down the rope and gone, and it was
just like
that, how people left and you didn't ever see them anymore. She
looked back into
the room and saw Gentry pacing back and forth in front of his books,
running the
tip of his finger along them like he was looking for a special one.
He'd thrown
a blanket over the stretcher.
So she just left, and she wouldn't know if Gentry ever found his
book or
not, but that was how it was, so she climbed down the rope herself,
which wasn't
as easy as Molly and Slick had made it look, particularly if you felt
like Mona
did, because Mona felt close to blacking out and her arms and legs
didn't seem
to be working real good anyway, she had to sort of concentrate on
making them
move, and her nose and throat were swelling inside, so she didn't
notice the
black guy until she was all the way down.
He was standing down there looking at the big spider thing, which
wasn't
moving at all. Looked up when the heel of her shoe grated across the
steel
platform. And something so sad about his face, when he saw her, but
then it was
gone and he was climbing the metal stairs, slow and easy, and as he
got closer
she began to wonder if he really was black. Not just the color, which
he
definitely was, but there was something about the shape of his bald
skull, the
angles of his face, not quite like anybody she'd seen before. He was
tall, real
tall. Wore a long black coat, leather so thin it moved like silk.
"Hello, missy," he said, when he stood in front of her, reached out
to
raise her chin so she was looking straight into gold-flecked agate
eyes like
nobody in the world ever had. Long fingers so light against her chin.
"Missy,"
he said, "how old are you?"
"Sixteen . . ."
"You need a haircut," he said, and there was something so serious
about
how he said it.
"Angie's up there," she said, pointing, when she found her voice
again.
"She's --"
"Hush."
She heard metal noises far away in the big old building, and then a
motor
starting up. The hover, she thought, the one Molly'd driven here.
The black man raised his eyebrows, except he didn't have any
eyebrows.
"Friends?" He lowered his hand.
She nodded.
"Good enough," he said, and took her hand to help her down the
stairs. At
the bottom, still holding her hand, he led her around the wreck of
the catwalk
thing. Somebody was dead there, camo material and one of those big-
voice things
like cops have.
"Swift," the black man called, out across that whole tall hollow
space,
between the black grids of windows without any glass, black lines
against a
white sky, winter morning, "get your ass over here. I found her."
"But I'm not her. . . ."
And over there where the big doors stood open, against the sky and
snow
and rust, she saw this suit come walking, with his coat open and his
tie
flapping in the wind, and Molly's hover swung past him, out those
same doors,
and he wasn't even looking, because he was looking at Mona.
"I'm not Angie," she said, and wondered if she ought to tell him
what
she'd seen, Angie and the young guy together on that little screen,
just before
it faded.
"I know," the black man said, "but it grows on you."
Rapture . Rapture 's coming .
Judge
The woman led them to a hovercraft parked inside Factory, if you
could call it
parking when the front end was mashed up around a concrete tool
mount. It was a
white cargo job with CATHODE CATHAY lettered across the rear doors,
and Slick
wondered when she'd managed to get it in there without him hearing
it. Maybe
while Bobby the Count was pulling his diversion with the blimp.
The aleph was heavy, like trying to carry a small engine block.
He didn't want to look at the Witch, because there was blood on her
blades
and he hadn't made her for that. There were a couple of bodies
around, or parts
of them; he didn't look at that either.
He looked down at the block of biosoft and its battery pack and
wondered
if all that was still in there, the gray house and Mexico and 3Jane's
eyes.
"Wait," the woman said. They were passing the ramp to the room where
he
kept his machines; the Judge was still there, the Corpsegrinder . . .
She still had her gun in her hand. Slick put his hand on Cherry's
shoulder. "She said wait."
"That thing I saw, last night," the woman said. "One-armed robot.
That
work?"
"Yeah . . ."
"Strong? Carry a load? Over rough ground?"
"Yeah."
"Get it."
"Huh?"
"Get it into the back of the hover. Now. Move."
Cherry clung to him, weak-kneed from whatever it was that girl had
given
her.
"You," Molly gestured toward her with the gun, "into the hover."
"Go on," Slick said.
He set the aleph down and walked up the ramp and into the room where
the
Judge was waiting in the shadows, the arm beside it on the tarp,
where Slick had
left it. Now he wouldn't ever get it right, how the saw was supposed
to work.
There was a control unit there, on a row of dusty metal shelves. He
picked it up
and let the Judge power up, the brown carapace trembling slightly.
He moved the Judge forward, down the ramp, the broad feet coming
down one-
two, one-two, the gyros compensating, perfecting for the missing arm.
The woman
had the rear doors of the hover open, ready, and Slick marched the
Judge
straight over to her. She fell back slightly as the Judge towered
over her, her
silver glasses reflecting polished rust. Slick came up behind the
Judge and
started figuring the angles, how to get him in there. It didn't make
sense, but
at least she seemed to have some idea of what they were doing, and
anything was
better than hanging around Factory now, with dead people all over. He
thought
about Gentry, up there with his books and those bodies. There'd been
two girls
up there, and they'd both looked like Angie Mitchell. Now one of them
was dead,
he didn't know how or why, and the woman with the gun had told the
other one to
wait. . . .
"Come on, come on, get the fucking thing in, we gotta go. . . ."
When he'd managed to work the Judge into the back of the hover, legs
bent,
on its side, he slammed the doors, ran around, and climbed in on the
passenger
side. The aleph was between the front seats. Cherry was curled in the
backseat,
under a big orange parka with the Sense/Net logo on the sleeve,
shivering.
The woman fired up the turbine and inflated the bag. Slick thought
they
might be hung on the tool mount, but when she reversed, it tore away
a strip of
chrome and they were free. She swung the hover around and headed for
the gates.
On the way out they passed a guy in a suit and tie and a tweed
overcoat,
who didn't seem to see them. "Who's that?"
She shrugged.
"You want this hover?" she asked. They were maybe ten kilos from
Factory now and
he hadn't looked back.
"You steal it?"
"Sure."
"I'll pass."
"Yeah?"
"I did time, car theft."
"So how's your girlfriend?"
"Asleep. She's not my girlfriend."
"No?"
"I get to ask who you are?"
"A businesswoman."
"What business?"
"Hard to say."
The sky above the Solitude was bright and white.
"You come for this?" He tapped the aleph.
"Sort of."
"What now?"
"I made a deal. I got Mitchell together with the box."
"That was her, the one who fell over?"
"Yeah, that was her."
"But she died. . . ."
"There's dying, then there's dying."
"Like 3Jane?"
Her head moved, like she'd glanced at him. "What do you know about
that?"
"I saw her, once. In there."
"Well, she's still in there, but so's Angie."
"And Bobby."
"Newmark? Yeah."
"So what'll you do with it?"
"You built those things, right? One in the back, the others?"
Slick glanced back over his shoulder to where the Judge was folded
in the
hover's cargo space, like a big rusty headless doll. "Yeah."
"So you're good with tools."
"Guess so."
"Okay. I got a job for you." She slowed the hover beside a ragged
crest of
snow-covered scrap and coasted to a halt. "There'll be an emergency
kit in here,
somewhere. Get it, get up on the roof, get me the solar cells and
some wire. I
want you to rig the cells so they'll recharge this thing's battery.
Can you do
that?"
"Probably. Why?"
She sank back in the seat and Slick saw that she was older than he'd
thought, and tired. "Mitchell's in there now. They want her to have
some time,
is all. . . ."
"They?"
"I dunno. Something. Whatever I cut my deal with. How long you
figure the
battery'll hold out, if the cells work?"
"Couple months. Year, maybe."
"Okay. I'll hide it somewhere, where the cells can get the sun."
"What happens if you just cut the power?"
She reached down and ran the tip of her index finger along the thin
cable
that connected the aleph to the battery. Slick saw her fingernails in
the
morning light; they looked artificial. "Hey, 3Jane," she said, her
finger poised
above the cable, "I gotcha." Then her hand was a fist, which opened,
as though
she were letting something go.
Cherry wanted to tell Slick everything they were going to do when
they got to
Cleveland. He was lashing two of the flat cells to the Judge's broad
chest with
silver tape. The gray aleph was already fastened to the machine's
back with a
harness of tape. Cherry said she knew where she could get him a job
fixing rides
in an arcade. He wasn't really listening.
When he'd gotten it all together, he handed the control unit to the
woman.
"Guess we wait for you now."
"No," she said. "You go to Cleveland. Cherry just told you."
"What about you?"
"I'm going for a walk."
"You wanna freeze? Maybe wanna starve?"
"Wanna be by my fucking self for a change." She tried the controls
and the
Judge trembled, took a step forward, another. "Good luck in
Cleveland." They
watched her walk out across the Solitude, the Judge clumping along
behind her.
Then she turned and yelled back, "Hey, Cherry! Get that guy to take a
bath!"
Cherry waved, the zippers of her leather jackets jingling.
Red Leather
Petal said that her bags were waiting in the Jaguar. "You won't want
to be
coming back to Notting Hill," he said, "so we've arranged something
for you in
Camden Town."
"Petal," she said, "I have to know what has happened to Sally."
He started the engine.
"Swain was blackmailing her. Forcing her to kidnap --"
"Ah. Well then," he interrupted, "I see. Shouldn't worry, if I were
you."
"I am worried."
"Sally, I would say, has managed to extricate herself from that
little
matter. She's also, according to certain official friends of ours,
managed to
cause all record of herself to evaporate, apparently, except for a
controlling
interest in a German casino. And if anything's happened to Angela
Mitchell,
Sense/Net hasn't gone public with it. All of that is done with, now."
"Will I see her again?"
"Not on my parish. Please."
They pulled away from the curb.
"Petal," she said, as they drove through London, "my father told me
that
Swain --"
"Fool. Bloody fool. Rather not talk about it now."
"I'm sorry."
The heater was working. It was warm in the Jaguar, and Kumiko was
very
tired now. She settled back against red leather and closed her eyes.
Somehow,
she thought, her meeting with 3Jane had freed her of her shame, and
her father's
answer of her anger. 3Jane had been very cruel. Now she saw her
mother's cruelty
as well. But all must be forgiven, one day, she thought, and fell
asleep on the
way to a place called Camden Town.
Smooth Stone Beyond
They have come to live in this house: walls of gray stone, roof of
slate, in a
season of early summer. The grounds are bright and wild, though the
long grass
does not grow and the wildflowers do not fade.
Behind the house are outbuildings, unopened, unexplored, and a field
where
tethered gliders strain against the wind.
Once, walking alone among the oaks at the edge of that field, she
saw
three strangers, astride something approximately resembling a horse.
Horses are
extinct, their line terminated years before Angie's birth. A slim,
tweed-coated
figure was in the saddle, a boy like a groom from some old painting.
In front of
him, a young girl, Japanese, straddled the horse thing, while behind
him sat a
pale, greasy-looking little man in a gray suit, pink socks and white
ankles
showing above his brown shoes. Had the girl seen her, returned her
gaze?
She has forgotten to mention this to Bobby.
Their most frequent visitors arrive in dawn dreams, though once a
grinning
little kobold of a man announced himself by thumping repeatedly on
the heavy oak
door, demanding, when she ran to open it, "that little shit Newmark."
Bobby
introduced this creature as the Finn, and seemed delighted to see
him. The
Finn's decrepit jacket exuded a complex odor of stale smoke, ancient
solder, and
pickled herring. Bobby explained that the Finn was always welcome.
"Might as
well be. No way to keep him out, once he wants in."
3Jane comes as well, one of the dawn visitors, her presence sad and
tentative. Bobby seems scarcely aware of her, but Angie, the
repository of so
many of her memories, resonates to that particular mingling of
longing,
jealousy, frustration, and rage. Angie has come to understand 3Jane's
motives,
and to forgive her -- though what, exactly, wandering amid these oaks
in
sunlight, is there to forgive?
But dreams of 3Jane sometimes weary Angie; she prefers other dreams,
particularly those of her young prot�g�. These often come as the lace
curtains
billow, as a first bird calls. She rolls closer to Bobby, closes her
eyes, forms
the name Continuity in her mind, and waits for the small bright
images.
She sees that they have taken the girl to a clinic in Jamaica, to
treat
her addiction to crude stimulants. Her metabolism fine-tuned by a
patient army
of Net medics, she emerges at last, radiant with health. With her
sensorium
expertly modulated by Piper Hill, her first stims are greeted with
unprecedented
enthusiasm. Her global audience is entranced by her freshness, her
vigor, the
delightfully ingenuous way in which she seems to discover her
glamorous life as
if for the first time.
A shadow sometimes crosses the distant screen, but only for an
instant:
Robin Lanier has been found strangled, frozen, on the mountainscaped
facade of
the New Suzuki Envoy; both Angie and Continuity know whose long
strong hands
throttled the star and threw him there.
But a certain thing eludes her, one special fragment of the puzzle
that is
history.
At the edge of oak shadow, beneath a steel and salmon sunset, in
this
France that isn't France, she asks Bobby for the answer to her final
question.
They waited in the drive at midnight, because Bobby had promised her
an answer.
As the clocks in the house struck twelve, she heard the hiss of
tires over
gravel. The car was long, low and gray.
Its driver was the Finn.
Bobby opened the door and helped her in.
In the backseat sat the young man she recalled from her glimpse of
the
impossible horse and its three mismatched riders. He smiled at her,
but said
nothing.
"This is Colin," Bobby said, climbing in beside her. "And you know
the
Finn."
"She never guessed, huh?" the Finn asked, putting the car in gear.
"No," Bobby said, "I don't think so."
The young man named Colin was smiling at her. "The aleph is an
approximation of the matrix," he said, "a sort of model of
cyberspace. . . ."
"Yes, I know." She turned to Bobby. "Well? You promised you'd tell
me the
why of When It Changed."
The Finn laughed, a very strange sound. "Ain't a why, lady. More
like it's
a what. Remember one time Brigitte told you there was this other?
Yeah? Well,
that's the what, and the what's the why."
"I do remember. She said that when the matrix finally knew itself,
there
was 'the other.'. . ."
"That's where we're going tonight," Bobby began, putting his arm
around
her. "It isn't far, but it's --"
"Different," the Finn said, "it's real different."
"But what is it?"
"You see," Colin said, brushing aside his brown forelock, a gesture
like a
schoolboy's in some antique play, "when the matrix attained
sentience, it
simultaneously became aware of another matrix, another sentience."
"I don't understand," she said. "If cyberspace consists of the sum
total
of data in the human system . . ."
"Yeah," the Finn said, turning out onto the long straight empty
highway,
"but nobody's talkin' human , see?"
"The other one was somewhere else," Bobby said.
"Centauri," Colin said.
Can they be teasing her? Is this some joke of Bobby's?
"So it's kinda hard to explain why the matrix split up into all
those
hoodoos 'n' shit, when it met this other one," the Finn said, "but
when we get
there, you'll sorta get the idea. . . ."
"My own feeling," Colin said, "is that it's all so much more
amusing, this
way. . . ."
"Are you telling me the truth?"
"Be there in a New York minute," said the Finn, "no shit."
Author's Afterword
Ten years have now passed since the inception of whatever strange
process it was
that led me to write Neuromancer , Count Zero , and Mona Lisa
Overdrive . The
technology through which you now access these words didn't exist, a
decade ago.
Neuromancer was written on a "clockwork typewriter," the very one
you may
recall glimpsing in Julie Deane's office in Chiba City. This machine,
a Hermes
2000 manual portable, dates from somewhere in the 1930's. It's a very
tough and
elegant piece of work, from the factory of E. PAILLARD & Cie S.A.
YVERDON
(SUISSE). Cased, it weighs slightly less than the Macintosh SE/30 I
now write
on, and is finished in a curious green- and-black "crackle" paint-
job, perhaps
meant to suggest the covers of an accountant's ledger. Its keys are
green as
well, of celluloid, and the letters and symbols on them are canary
yellow. (I
once happened to brush the shift-key with the tip of a lit cigarette,
dramatically confirming the extreme flammability of this early
plastic.) In its
day, the Hermes 2000 was one of the best portable writing- machines
in the
world, and one of the most expensive. This one belonged to my wife's
step-
grandfather, who had been a journalist of sorts and had used it to
compose
laudatory essays on the poetry of Robert Burns. I used it first to
write
undergraduate Eng. lit. papers, then my early attempts at short
stories, then
Neuromancer , all without so much as ever having touched an actual
computer.
Some readers, evidently, find this odd. I don't. Computers, in 1981
(when
I began to work with the concept of cyberspace, the word having first
seen light
on my trusty Hermes) were mostly wall-sized monsters covered with
twirling
wheels of magnetic tape. I'd once glimpsed one through a window at
the
university. Friends who did things with computers tended to do them
at very odd
hours, having arranged to scam time on some large institution's
mainframe.
Around that time, however, the Apple IIc appeared. For me, it
appeared on
the miniature billboards affixed to bus- stop shelters. This
seductive little
unit , looking not that much bigger, really, than your present day
Powerbook,
was depicted dangling from a handle in the hand of some unseen suit
with a
nicely-laundered cuff. Portability! Amazing! a whole computer in a
package that
size! (I didn't know that you had to lug the monitor around as well,
plus a
bulky little transformer and another disk- drive that weighed nearly
as much as
the computer itself.) These Apple ads were the direct inspiration for
the
cyberspace decks in Neuromancer . Like the Hermes 2000, the IIc, in
its day,
was quite something.
Not that I ever experienced it in its day, not quite. My Hermes
died.
Some tiny pawl or widget caved in to metal-fatigue. No replacement
could be
found. I'd just started Count Zero . I gave the typewriter man $75
for a
reconditioned Royal desk machine, a hideous truck-like lump of a
thing with an
extended carriage that alone weighed twenty pounds. It had an
extended carriage,
he said, because it had belonged to a little old lady who'd only ever
used it to
type mimeograph stencils for Sunday- school programs. (Though I
suspect many of
you may not know what "mimeograph stencils" were.)
I stuck with this ghastly clunker through Count Zero , but as it
came time
to begin Mona Lisa Overdrive , I went shopping for a computer. Bruce
Sterling's
father had given him his old Apple II, and Bruce allowed as how it
was a pretty
convenient way to put words in a row. Remembering those bus-stop ads,
I bought
myself an Apple IIc. This was around 1986 or so, and the IIc had
long-since been
eclipsed by various proto-Macs, which everyone assured me were
wonderful, but
which I regarded as prohibitively expensive. I bought a IIc in an
end-of-line
sale at a department store, took it home, and learned, to my
considerable
disappointment, that personal computers stored their data on little
circular
bits of electromagnetic tape, which were whirled around to the
accompaniment of
assorted coarse sounds. I suppose I'd assumed the data was just sort
of, well,
held . In a glittering mesh of silicon. Or something. But silently .
And that, quite literally, was the first time I ever touched a
computer.
And I still don't know very much about them. The revealed truth of
which, as
I've said, sometimes perturbs my readers, or in any case those
readers with a
peculiarly intense computer-tech bent, of whom I seem to have more
than a few.
But Neuromancer and its two sequels are not about computers. They
may
pretend, at times, and often rather badly, to be about computers,
but really
they're about technology in some broader sense. Personally, I suspect
they're
actually about Industrial Culture; about what we do with machines,
what machines
do with us, and how wholly unconscious (and usually unlegislated)
this process
has been, is, and will be. Had I actually known a great deal (by 1981
standards)
about real computing, I doubt very much I would (or could) have
written
Neuromancer . Perhaps it all goes to prove that there are situations
(literary
ones, at least) in which a little knowledge is not only a dangerous
thing, but
the best tool for the job at hand.
A mimeograph stencil, by the way, is a piece of tissue- paper
impregnated
with wax. You punch through the wax with a typewriter, creating a
stencil
through which ink can be forced onto paper, allowing the reproduction
of
multiple copies. For many years, and not so long ago, these curious
devices were
very nearly as common as typewriters. They were what people did
before laser
printers. The mimeograph is one of many dinosaurs recently brought to
the verge
of extinction by the computer. They are dead tech , destined to make
up part of
the litter engulfing the Finn's back room. As is my Hermes 2000. As
is my Apple
IIc, which my children play with only reluctantly, its black-and-
white graphics
no competition for their video-games. As is my old SE/30 here; as is,
eventually, whatever sort of unit, however slick and contemporary,
you happen to
be reading this on.
It gives me great pleasure to have these three books digitized,
data-
compressed, and published in this (make no mistake) revolutionary
format. We
participate, you and I, in the death of print-as-we-knew-it, and
should
experience thereby an exquisite frisson of ecstasy and dread. So
soon , we
plunge toward a world in which the word "library" simply means
something on the
other end of a modem.
But I confess it gives me greater pleasure still, to contemplate
that
process whereby every tech, however sharp this morning, is invariably
supplanted
by the new, the unthinkable, and to imagine these words, unread and
finally
inaccessible, gathering dust at the back of some drawer in some year
far up the
road. Nothing in there but a tarnished Yale key, a silver dime, a
couple of
desiccated moths, and several hundred thousand data-compressed words,
all in a
row.
I know; I put them there.
I'd like to take this opportunity to cite and thank the late Terry
Carr, who
commissioned the work that became Neuromancer from an unknown and
thoroughly
unconfident writer, one whose track-record at the time consisted of a
handful of
short stories. If Terry hadn't been willing to take a chance with me,
when he
did, thereby forcing me to write something (a novel) I felt several
working
years short of being ready to do, it's most unlikely that these books
would
exist today.
-- Vancouver, 6/16/92
About the Author
William Gibson has received widespread media attention for his
"cyberspace
trilogy": Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive. His first
book,
Neuromancer won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards -- the
only science
fiction novel to receive all three. His most recent work, co-authored
with Bruce
Sterling, is entitled The Difference Engine. He is currently living
in
Vancouver, British Columbia with his family.