Zero History

by William Gibson

  There weren’t enough towels in Bigend’s toilet, though what there were were Swiss, and white, and very nice, and had probably never been used before. He finished brushing, rinsed, washed toothpaste from his mouth with cold water, and dried his face. The hydraulic driver whooped three times in rapid succession, as though recognizing one of its kind across a clearing.

  He opened the bifold door, stepped out, closed it behind him. You could barely see where it was, at the edge of its white wall.

  He put his toothbrush and shaving things away in his bag. Fiona had collected everything when she’d checked him out of the Holiday Inn. He tried to tidy the cube, straightening chairs around the table, spreading the sleeping bag on the foam in case Fiona felt like another nap, but it didn’t seem to help. The cube wasn’t very large, and now there were too many things in it. The weird-looking rectangular helicopter-drone on the table, his Air, the cartons and elaborate packing she’d removed the various segments of the drone from, his bag, her armored jacket and his tweed from Tanky & Tojo on the backs of chairs. The way this kind of space suddenly looked so much less special if you had to live in it, even for a few hours.

  His eye went back to the Air. He sat down, logged on to Twitter. There was a message from Winnie: “Got my leave call me.”

  “No phone,” he typed, then wondered how to describe where he was, what he was doing, “I think B has me on ice. Something’s happening.” It looked stupid, but he sent it anyway.

  Refreshed twice. Then: “Get phone.”

  “Okay.” Sent. Or tweeted, whatever it was. Still, he was glad she had leave. Was still here. He scratched his chest, stood up, put his shirt on, buttoned the front and a few of the cuff buttons on either sleeve, left it untucked, put on his new shoes. His old ones were more comfortable, but they wouldn’t go with whipcord. He went to the door, tried it. Not locked. He hadn’t thought it was. The driver whooped, twice.

  He opened the door, stepped out, amazed to find the day gone. The filthiness of Benny’s garage, under bright fluorescent light, instantly made the cube seem surgically clean. Fiona and Benny were looking at Fiona’s bike, which now had a shiny white box with slightly inward-slanting sides fastened where Milgrim had sat, behind her. It looked solid, expensive, but sort of like a beer cooler. There was something on the side, in black, neatly lettered.

  “Red crosses?” Fiona asked Benny.

  Benny had a yellow power wrench in his hand, a red rubber hose trailing away from it. “Punters would be flagging you down for first aid. This is bog standard for hauling fresh eyeballs. Copied from one that does just that, by the look of it.”

  “The name and numbers?”

  “You see it as received. Truck was from a prop house, Soho.” He removed the cigarette tucked behind his ear, lit it. “Film and telly. That’s the plan, then? You’re doing telly?”

  “Pornos,” said Fiona. “Saad’ll like that.”

  “Won’t he just,” said Benny.

  Fiona, noticing Milgrim, turned. “Hullo.”

  “May I borrow your phone? Have to call someone.”

  She fished in her slouchy armored pants, came up with an iPhone, not the one Milgrim had used with the Festo ray, and passed it to him. “Hungry? We can have doner sent in.”

  “Dinner?”

  “Doner. Kebab.”

  “Ready for a curry, myself,” said Benny, studying the lit tip of his cigarette intently, as though it might suddenly offer curry reviews.

  “I’ll just make this call—” He froze.

  “Yes?”

  “Is this … a Blue Ant phone?”

  “No,” said Fiona. “Brand-new. So’s Benny’s. We’ve all been freshly resupplied, and the old ones taken away.”

  “Thanks,” said Milgrim, and went back into the Vegas cube. He found Winnie’s card, on which he’d added the dialing prefixes, and dialed.

  She answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

  “It’s me,” said Milgrim.

  “Where are you?”

  “Suth-uk. Over the river.”

  “Doing?”

  “We had a nap.”

  “Did you have story time first?”

  “No.”

  “You think something’s happening? You tweeted.”

  The verb sounded off, the more particularly because he knew it wasn’t part of a nursery theme. “Something is. I don’t know what. He’s hired someone called Wilson, and delegated.” He was glad he’d remembered the word.

  “Threat management,” she said. “He’s outsourcing. Shows he’s taking it seriously. Have you met Wilson?”

  “No.”

  “What’s Wilson telling them to do?”

  “They put a box on the back of Fiona’s bike. The kind they haul eyeballs in.”

  There was a perfect digital silence, then: “Who’s Fiona?”

  “She drives. For Bigend. Motorcycles.”

  “Okay,” said Winnie. “We’ll just start again. Tasking.”

  “Tasking?”

  “I want you to meet Wilson. I want to know about Wilson. Most importantly, the name of the firm he’s working for.”

  “Isn’t he working for Bigend?”

  “He works for one of the security firms. Bigend is the client. Don’t ask him. Just find out. Sneaky-ass, though. You can do sneaky-ass. Instinct tells me. Whose phone are you using?”

  “Fiona’s.”

  “I just e-mailed the number to someone, and they’re telling me the GPS is very amusing. Unless you’ve taken up marathon randomized teleportation.”

  “It’s new. She just got it from Bigend.”

  “That might be Wilson, the threat management consultant. Earning his keep, if that’s the case. Okay. You’re tasked. Go for it. Call, tweet.” She was gone.

  The room filled with that weird chicken-scratch sub-Hendrix chord. He rushed out the door, tripped on part of an engine, and nearly fell, but managed to thrust the phone into Fiona’s hand. As he did so, he wondered whether or not it might be Winnie.

  “Hullo? Yes. It’s on. Very convincing. Having my dampers replaced next. They’re a bit rough. You would? Certainly. I’ll borrow a bike. Fast? My pleasure.” She smiled. “What he was wearing yesterday?” She looked at Milgrim. “I’ll tell him.” She put the phone in her pants pocket.

  Milgrim raised his eyebrows.

  “Wilson,” Fiona said. “You’re required soonest, over the river. Wants to meet you. And you’re to bring what you were wearing yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “Thinks kit from Tanky & Tojo doesn’t suit you.”

  Milgrim winced.

  “Taking the piss,” she said, bumping his arm with her fist. “You’re very smart. I’m borrowing a fast bike for the job while Saad does my dampers. Benny’s.”

  “Feck,” said Benny softly, a small sound but filled with resignation, as to immemorial hardship. “Don’t bugger it again, can you?”

  65. LEOPARD SKIN IN MINIATURE

  She stood on Cabinet’s steps, looking at unexpected lights, beyond trees, in the privacy of Portman Square, Robert hovering watchfully behind her, after the tall Slow Foods van pulled away, driven by a young blonde with a cap worryingly like Foley’s.

  Sounds of tennis. There was a court in there. Someone had decided to play a night game. She thought the court would be too wet.

  When she went back in, Inchmale and Heidi were in the lobby, Inchmale strapping himself into his Japanese Gore-Tex. “We’re going to the studio to listen to some mixes. Come with us.”

  “Thanks, but I’m needed.”

  “Either offer stands, Tucson or Hampstead. You could stay with Angelina.”

  “I appreciate it, Reg. I do.”

  “Quietly stubborn,” he said, then looked at Heidi. “Beats violently obstreperous.” Back to her. “Consistent, anyway. Keep in touch.”

  “I will.” She headed for the elevator. For the ferret, in its vitrine. Silently offering prayer: that Garreth’s scheme, whatever it was, be as ferret
y as it needed to be, or that whatever had happened to this particular ferret, to earn it its timeless somnambulistic residence here, not happen to Garreth, to Milgrim, or to anyone else she cared for.

  Its teeth looked bigger, though she knew that couldn’t be possible. She pressed the button, heard distant clanks from above, sounds from the Tesla machinery.

  She hadn’t been aware of caring for Milgrim, really, until it became apparent that Bigend would so easily feed him to Foley and company, if that meant getting Bobby Chombo back. And it wouldn’t be Chombo Bigend needed, she knew, but something Chombo knew, or knew how to do. That was what bothered her, that and the fact of Milgrim having been reborn, or perhaps born, on a whim of Bigend’s, simply to see whether or not it was possible. To do that, and then to trade the resulting person, possibly to trade his life, for something you wanted, no matter how badly, was wrong.

  When the lift arrived, she hauled the gate aside, opened the door, stepped in. Ascended.

  On her way through the corridors to Number Four, she noticed that one of the landscapes now contained two follies, identical, one further back, on a distant hillside. Surely it had always been there, the second folly, unnoticed. She’d give it no further thought, she decided firmly.

  She knocked, in case Garreth and Pep were still deep into stays. “It’s me.”

  “Come in,” he called.

  He was propped up in the Piblokto Madness bed, the black bandage of the cold-pumping machine around his leg again, the black laptop open on his stomach, headset on.

  “Busy?”

  “No. Just got off a call with Big End.” He looked tired.

  “How was that?”

  “He’s had the call. Gracie. They wanted Milgrim tonight.”

  “You aren’t ready, are you?”

  “No, but I knew I wouldn’t be. I’d rehearsed it with him. Milgrim’s done a runner, he told them, but it’s fortunately now been sorted. Going to collect him. Careful not to say where, exactly, but still in the U.K. In case Gracie has a way of checking U.S. passport movement. I think it went well, but your Big End …” He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “There’s something he wants. Needs. But that’s not it, exactly … It feels to me like he’s been winning, forever, and now, suddenly, there’s a chance he might lose, really lose. If he can’t get Chombo back, in working condition. And that makes Big End really very dangerous.” He looked at her.

  “What do you think he might do?”

  “Anything. Literally. To get Chombo back. I’ve never done this before.”

  “Done what?”

  “Exploit on behalf of a client. Concerned I’ve drawn the client from hell.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed, put her hand on the leg that was like they both had been, before Dubai.

  “The old man says he’s got a very peculiar smell about him now, Big End. Says it’s different, recently, stronger. Can’t get a handle on it.”

  “Reg says the same. He’s been hearing it from his wife, who’s in public relations here. Says it’s like dogs before an earthquake. They don’t know what it is, but it’s him, somehow. But I’m worried about you. You look exhausted.” He did, now. The lines deeper in his cheeks. “Those five neurosurgeons didn’t expect you to be doing this, did they?”

  He pointed at the sweating black wrap. “Frank’s chilling. You should too.”

  “I’d say I wish I hadn’t called you, but it would be a lie. But I’m worried about you. Not just Frank.” She touched his face. “Sorry I left like that.”

  He kissed her hand. Smiled. “I was glad you did. Didn’t like the way Pep was looking at you.”

  “Neither did I. Didn’t like Pep.”

  “Did me a good one in the Barrio Gótico once, Pep. Saved my bacon. Didn’t have to.”

  “Pep is good, then.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. But if it has wheels and locked doors, he can open it faster than the owner ever did, and close and lock it as quickly. How’s my grocery van?”

  “Upscale vegan. Shiny new.”

  “Rental through a specialist agency in Shepperton, vehicles for film and television. Slow Foods haven’t taken delivery yet. Happy to let it for an art shoot, for a very handsome hourly fee.”

  There was something on the bedside table. Part of the fuselage of a model plane: curved, streamlined, its upper surface yellow, dotted with brown. She bent for a closer look, saw a miniature leopard print, on plastic.

  “Don’t touch. Stings.”

  “What is it?”

  “Taser.”

  “A Taser?”

  “Heidi’s. Brought it from Los Angeles by accident, in her bag of Airfix parts. Swept it blindly up with her model-building bumf, when she was well pissed.”

  “TSA didn’t notice it?”

  “I hate to break this to you,” he said, feigning grave seriousness, “but that’s actually been known to happen. TSA not noticing the odd thing. Shocking, I know …”

  “But where would she even get it?”

  “America? But contrary to the saying, what happens in Vegas evidently doesn’t always stay there. Someone in Las Vegas gave this to her husband. As a present for her, actually. Hence the leopard print. Lady’s model, you see. TSA didn’t spot it, Her Majesty’s Customs didn’t, but Ajay certainly did, this morning. She had no idea she had it. Packed it by mistake when drunk. Which is no defense, but has been known to get the odd thing handily across a border, now and again.”

  “What do you want with it?”

  “Not sure yet. ‘Follow the accident. Fear the set plan.’ ”

  “I thought you loved plans.”

  “Love planning. That’s different. But the right bit of improv makes the piece.”

  “It shocks people?”

  “Capacitor inside, enough juice to knock you on your handsome. Two barbed darts, from that, on fifteen feet of fine insulated cable. Propelled by captive gas.”

  “Horrible.”

  “Prefer it to being shot, any evening at all. Not that it’s nice.” He leaned over, picked the thing up, sat back against the pillows. Held it up between thumb and forefinger.

  “Put it down. I don’t like it. I think you need to sleep.”

  “Milgrim’s on his way. And a makeup artist hairdresser person. We’re getting together with Ajay. Makeover party.”

  “Makeover?”

  “Whiteface.” He flew the Taser behind the screen of his laptop. Up again. Pause at apogee. “We don’t want to leave Milgrim in Big End’s hands, once this starts.” He looked at her. “We want him with us, regardless of what Big End wants. I’ll need something for him to do, some excuse for keeping him with us.”

  “Why?”

  “If my scheme should fuck up, as you say in your country, and that’s always a possibility, your man will very badly want to pass Milgrim to Gracie, posthaste. Very badly. Excuses for our behavior. Impossibility of getting decent help these days. But here’s Milgrim, so we’ll take Chombo, thank you, and sorry again for the trouble. Or if Gracie should fuck up, for that matter …” The Taser swept down slowly, over the keyboard, in a silent strafing run.

  “Fuck up how?”

  “My little op’s bodged together with off-the-shelf parts. Basically I’ve had to build it as though Gracie’s going to play nice, do the prisoner exchange, then take Milgrim off for a nice waterboarding or toe-subtraction—”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “Sorry. But that would be playing by the rules as far as Big End is concerned. We know that nobody’s getting Milgrim, but Gracie doesn’t, yet. If things go according to my play, Gracie and company will have sufficient weight on them to not bother anyone. But if Gracie should decide not to play by the rules, I haven’t much in the way of extra fun to throw at him.” He held the Taser up again, squinted. “Wish she’d brought a few more, actually.”

  66. ZIP

  Benny’s civilian bike, Milgrim now knew, was a 2006 Yamaha FZR1000, black and red. It was low
ered, Fiona said, whatever that meant, and had something called a Spondon swing arm, allowing the wheelbase to be lengthened at the drag strip. “Quick off a light,” she said approvingly.

  She was fully armored again, zipped and Velcro’d, the yellow helmet under her arm. Milgrim was armored too, in borrowed nylon and Kevlar, stiff and unfamiliar, over tweed and whipcord. The toes of Jun’s bright brown brogues looked wrong, below the black Cordura overpants. His bag, containing his laptop and the clothing he’d worn the night before, was strapped atop the Yahama’s tank, which looked as though it had been gathered to spring from between a rider’s thighs. A striking image, now, with those thighs about to be Fiona’s.

  “Voytek is here, to fuck penguin.”

  They turned, at the sound of his voice. He was walking toward them through the deserted bike yard. He carried a black Pelican case in either hand, and these, Milgrim saw, unlike his screening cases, looked heavy.

  “ ‘With,’ ” corrected Fiona, “ ‘fuck with.’ ”

  “ ‘I the pity poor immigrant.’ You do not. Is Bob Dylan.”

  “Why are you bothering, then?” demanded Fiona. “The one in Paris was fine, and we’ve just gotten this one on the iPhone.”

  “Order of Wilson. Commissar of all fuckings with.”

  He brushed past them, into the Vegas cube, closing the door behind him.

  “Is there another helmet?” asked Milgrim, eyeing Mrs. Benny’s black one, which sat on the Yamaha’s pillion seat.

  “Sorry,” said Fiona, “no. And I’ll have to adjust the chinstrap. Had a safety lecture.”

  “You did?”

  “Wilson.” She put the black helmet on Milgrim’s head, adroitly adjusted and fastened his chinstrap. The hairspray seemed even stronger now, as if Mrs. Benny had been wearing it in the meantime. He wondered if he was developing an allergy.