The Peripheral

by William Gibson

  “This is truly foul,” said Netherton, impressed.

  “Least repulsive room,” said Lev. “The bedrooms are hideous beyond belief. I gave Lowbeer your conversation with the polt’s sister.”

  “You did?”

  “It was quickest. She needed to make a match, source something locally. How did she do?”

  “Do?”

  “Stand,” ordered Lev, and a young woman Netherton hadn’t noticed rose from one of the bulbous blue armchairs. She wore a pale blouse and a dark skirt, both quite neutral as to period. Her hair and eyes were brown. She looked at Lev, then at Netherton, then back to Lev, her expression one of mild interest. “She said that she found two others who were nearer matches by facial recognition, but that this one felt better, to her.”

  Netherton stared at the girl. “A peripheral?”

  “Ten years old. One owner. Bespoke. Estate sale. From Paris.”

  “Who’s operating it?”

  “No one. Basic AI. Does she look like the polt’s sister?”

  “Not remarkably. Why would it matter?”

  “Lowbeer says it will, the first time she looks in a mirror.” Lev stepped closer to the peripheral, which looked up at him. “We want to minimize the shock, speed her acclimatization.”

  The woman with the laser-etched cheeks appeared with a tray: two highball glasses, bubbles rising in iced tonic. Lev was still looking at the peripheral. Netherton picked up one of the glasses, drank off the contents, returned it quickly to the tray, picked up the other, and turned his back on her.

  “We’ll need to buy specialized printers in the stub,” Lev said. “This will be beyond what they usually work with.”

  “Printers?”

  “We’re sending files for printing an autonomic cutout,” said Lev.

  “Flynne? When?”

  “As soon as possible. This one will do?”

  “I suppose,” said Netherton.

  “She’s coming with us, then. They’ll deliver the support equipment.”

  “Equipment?”

  “She doesn’t have a digestive tract. Neither eats nor excretes. Has to be infused with nutrient every twelve hours. And Dominika wouldn’t like her at all, so she’ll be staying with you, in grandfather’s yacht.”

  “Infused?”

  “Ash can deal with that. She likes outmoded technology.”

  Netherton took a drink of gin, regretting the addition of tonic and ice.

  The peripheral was looking at him.

  29.

  ATRIUM

  Netherton, the man from Milagros Coldiron, looked like he was standing in the back of something’s throat, all pink and shiny.

  She heard plates rattling in the kitchen, from where she’d stepped out on the porch to answer her phone. She’d regretted that Coffee Jones French espresso, trying to get back to sleep, but then she had, for a while.

  Tommy had let them off at the gate, and they’d walked to the house, neither of them wanting to say anything about Conner until Tommy had driven away. “That was him,” she’d said, but Burton had just nodded, told her to get some sleep, and headed down to the trailer.

  Leon woke everybody up at seven thirty, to tell them he’d just won ten million dollars in the state lottery, and now their mother was cooking breakfast. She could hear him now, from back in the kitchen.

  “Drones,” said Wilf Netherton’s little pink-framed face, when she answered her phone.

  “Hey,” she said, “Wilf.”

  “You mentioned having them, when we spoke before.”

  “You asked me if we had any, and I told you we did. What’s all that pink, behind you?”

  “Our atrium,” he said. “Do you print your own? Drones?”

  “Does a bear shit in the woods?”

  He looked blank, then up and to his right. Appeared to read something. “You do. The circuitry as well?”

  “Most of it. Somebody does it for us. The engines are off the shelf.”

  “You contract out the printing?”

  “Yes.”

  “The contractor is reliable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Skilled?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need you to arrange some printing. The work will have to be done quickly, competently, and confidentially. Your contractor may find it challenging, but we’ll provide technical support.”

  “You’d have to talk with my brother.”

  “Of course. This is quite urgent, though, so you and I need to have this conversation now.”

  “You aren’t builders, are you?”

  “Builders?”

  “Making drugs.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Person does our printing won’t work for builders. Neither will I.”

  “It’s nothing to do with drugs. We’re sending you files.”

  “Of what?”

  “A piece of hardware.”

  “What does it do?”

  “I wouldn’t know how to explain it. You’ll be paid handsomely for arranging it.”

  “My cousin just won the lottery. You know that?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, “but we’ll find a better way. It’s being worked on.”

  “You want to talk to my brother now? We’re about to have breakfast.”

  “No, thank you. Please go ahead. We’ll be in touch with him. But contact your contractor. We need to move on this.”

  “I will. That’s one ugly-ass atrium.”

  “It is,” he said, smiling for a second. “Goodbye, then.”

  “Bye.” Her screen went black.

  “Got biscuits,” Leon called from the kitchen, “gravy.”

  She opened the screen door, into the shadowy morning cool of the front hall. A fly buzzed past her head, and she thought of the lights, the white tent, the four dead men she hadn’t seen.

  30.

  HERMÈS

  She could stay with Ash,” Netherton said, glancing at the peripheral in the squidlight. He reminded himself again that she, it, wasn’t sentient.

  She didn’t look like an it, though. And she did look sentient, if disinterested, walking between them now, controlled by some sort of AI. Not, he supposed, unlike the period figures that populated tourist attractions he scrupulously avoided.

  “Ash doesn’t live here,” Lev said.

  “Ossian then.”

  “Neither does he.”

  “She can stay in Ash’s fortune-telling tent.”

  “Sitting upright at the table?”

  “Why not?”

  “She needs to sleep,” said Lev. “Well, not literally, but she needs to recline, be relaxed. She also needs to exercise.”

  “Why can’t you put her upstairs?”

  “Dominika wouldn’t have it. Put her in the yacht’s rear cabin,” Lev said. “Cover her with a sheet, if that helps.”

  “A sheet?”

  “My father had dust covers, for his. Two or three of them on chairs, in a back bedroom, covered with sheets. I pretended they were ghosts.”

  “Not remotely human.”

  “At the cellular level, as human as we are. Which is fairly approximate, depending on who you’re speaking to.”

  The peripheral looked at whichever of them was currently speaking.

  “She doesn’t look like Flynne,” said Netherton. “Particularly.”

  “Similar enough.” Lev had both served as camera and monitored the call, in the foyer of the house of love. “Ash is having some clothing run up, based on what she wore in the first interview. Familiar.”

  Netherton saw, then, as for the first time, imagining how she might see it, the ranks of Lev’s father’s excess vehicle collection, under the arches of their purpose-built cave. The majority were pre-jackpot, fully restored. Chrome, enamel, stainless steel, hex-celled laminates, enough Italian leather to cover a pair of tennis courts. He couldn’t imagine her being impressed.

  They were nearing the Gobiwagen now. Beside its gangway, as the arch above brightened, w
as a treadmill, near which stood, to Netherton’s unease, a white, headless, simian figure, arms at its sides. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Resistance-training exoskeleton. Dominika has one. Take her hand.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going upstairs. She’s staying with you.”

  Netherton extended his hand. The peripheral took it. Its hand was warm, entirely handlike.

  “Ash will be along to discuss plans, and to see to her.”

  “Fine,” said Netherton, indicating that it wasn’t, led the peripheral up the gangway and into the yacht, then into the smallest of the three sleeping cabins, the lighting sensing them as they entered. He studied the fitted hardware in the pale veneer, succeeded in allowing a narrow bunk to lower itself from the wall. “Here,” he said, “sit.” It sat. “Lie down.” It did. “Sleep,” not sure this last would work. It closed its eyes.

  Rainey’s sigil appeared, pulsing.

  “Hello?” he said, quickly stepping back, out of the cabin, closing its centrally hinged door.

  “You haven’t been checking messages.”

  “No,” he said, rattled. “Nor reading mail. I understand I’m sacked.” Back through the short narrow passageway, to the master cabin.

  “People here didn’t believe me,” Rainey said, “when I told them you prided yourself on not knowing who you worked for. When you were fired, they all looked you up. Couldn’t tell who’d fired you. Where are you?”

  “At a friend’s.”

  “Can’t you show me?”

  He did.

  “What are those old screens for?”

  “He’s a collector. How are you?”

  “I’m a public servant, technically, so it’s different for me. And I blamed you.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course. You aren’t likely to be spreading résumés around our government, are you?”

  “I should hope not.”

  “Your friend has odd taste. A very small place?”

  “The interior of a large Mercedes.”

  “A what?”

  “A land-yacht, built to tour a Russian oligarch around the Gobi desert.”

  “You’re riding in it?”

  “No,” he said, “it’s in a garage. No idea how they brought it in. May have had to take it apart.” He sat down at the desk, facing the black mirrors that must once have shone with the data of Lev’s grandfather’s exponentially expanding empire.

  “Claustro,” she said.

  “Someone told me your given name is Clarisse,” he said. “Struck me, that I hadn’t known.”

  “Only because you’re so utterly self-centered,” she said.

  “Rainey,” he said. “That’s a lovely name.”

  “What have you got listening in, Wilf? It’s enormous. It’s giving my security the cold grue.”

  “That would be the family of the friend I’m staying with.”

  “He lives in a garage?”

  “He has one. Or rather his father does. It goes down and down. And so does their security, evidently.”

  “It profiles like a medium-sized nation.”

  “That would be them.”

  “Is that a problem?” she asked.

  “Not so far.”

  “Daedra,” she said, after a pause. “You know she had a sister?”

  “Had?”

  “There’s chatter,” she said. “Back channel. The patchers. Retaliation.”

  “The patchers?” That disgusting recovered plastic. Flynne Fisher’s description of the thing that had scaled Edenmere Mansions, to murder Aelita. “Who’s suggesting that?”

  “Chinese whispers. Ghosts of the Commonwealth.”

  “New Zealand?” He imagined everything they were saying swirling down a citywide funnel, into whatever unimaginable consciousness Lev’s family’s security module might possess. He was suddenly aware of valuing this pretentious, overvarnished space, finite and dull and comforting.

  “Never told you that.”

  “Of course not. But they were the last ones left, last we spoke, along with the Americans.”

  “Still are,” she said, “in theory. But it’s all back to square one. We, or rather they, as I’m no longer officially involved, need to regroup, rebrand, reassess everything. See who emerges to replace the boss patcher.”

  Lowbeer had used a name, too foreign to recall. “Rainey,” he asked, “why are you calling, exactly?”

  “Your friend’s family is making me self-conscious.”

  “Why don’t we meet, then? Same place.”

  “When?”

  “I’ll have to see—”

  “Hello,” said Ash, from the door. She had a matte aluminum attaché in either hand, trimmed with pale leather.

  “Have to go,” he said. “Call you back.” Rainey’s sigil vanished.

  “Where is she?” Ash asked.

  “Rear cabin. What are those bags?”

  “Hermès,” said Ash. “Her factory-original kit.”

  “Hermès?”

  “Vuitton are always blond,” she said.

  31.

  FUNNY

  Shaylene had a box of cronuts for them, the salted caramel ones from Coffee Jones. When Flynne worked there, one of her jobs had been shifting the trays of freshly printed cronuts to the oven. If you didn’t do it right, the lattice of the salted caramel caved in, and you got a flatter, less special cronut, one where the topping might pull your fillings out if you chewed too fast. Still, it was nice of Shaylene to have gotten them for the meeting. She’d also gotten Lithonia, a woman who worked for Macon sometimes, to mind the front counter so they wouldn’t be interrupted.

  “First question,” Shaylene said, looking from Macon to Edward to Flynne, “is how funny is this?” The four of them were sitting around a card table that had been used as a cutting board, its top frayed with repeated scoring.

  “Agreed,” said Macon.

  “And?” Shaylene opened the Coffee Jones box. Flynne smelled warm caramel.

  “We can’t find patents that match up,” said Edward, “let alone products, so we’re not going to be counterfeiting. Looks like the thing we’re printing is for doing something that something a lot more evolved could do a lot better.”

  “How can you tell that?” Flynne asked.

  “Lotta redundancies. Obvious workarounds. We’re being paid to build something they have the real plans for, but we’re building it out of available parts that approximate that, plus other parts we print. Plus some other available parts we modify, print on.” He’d taken his Viz out and put it in his pocket, as had Macon. Professional courtesy.

  Shaylene offered Edward the cronuts. He shook his head. Macon took one. “So?” she asked. “How funny is that? And if it’s not funny, why is somebody willing to buy me a pair of very high-end printers, just to run one off?”

  “Run off four,” Macon corrected. “One and three backups.”

  “Homes,” Shaylene said, “they set people up.” She looked at Flynne.

  “It’s Burton’s deal,” Flynne said, to Shaylene.

  “Then why isn’t he here?”

  “Because Leon went and won the lottery this morning. Needs help dealing with the media.” Which had a top layer of truth to it, but latticed, like the caramel on the cronuts.

  “Heard he did,” said Macon. “Money flooding into the Fisher clan?”

  “Not that much. Ten mil, with taxes on it. This fabbing’s a job, though. These are people Burton’s been working for, on the side. I’ve done a little for them too.”

  “Doing what?” Shaylene asked.

  “Gaming. They won’t say what it is. Like we’re beta testing something.”

  “A gaming company?” Macon asked.

  “Security,” said Flynne, “working for a gaming company.”

  “That would fit,” said Edward. “We’re printing hands-free interface hardware.”

  “Sort of thing the VA might hook Conner up with, if they had the money,�
�� Macon said, looking at Flynne. “Lets you operate things by thinking about it. Closest patent matches are medical, neurological.” He pulled his cronut apart, the caramel stretching, sagging. “Even the haptics Burton used in the Marines.”

  “What’s it look like?” Flynne asked, taking a cronut as Shaylene offered them.

  “Headband with a box on it,” Edward said. “Too heavy for comfort. Have to print a special cable for it. One of the two printers is just for doing that, the cable. That printer’ll only be the thirty-third in this state.”

  “And fully registered,” Shaylene said.

  “If we’re not fabbing funny,” Macon said, “registered is fine. And no way to get one, unregistered. We looked.”

  “Both those machines’ll be here tomorrow,” said Shaylene, “if the goth’s telling the truth.”

  “Goth?” Flynne asked.

  “Wait up,” said Macon. “You agree to the job already?”

  “I figure I’ve still got the option to not take delivery,” said Shaylene. Then, to Flynne, “English woman, dumb-ass contact lenses. You gave her my number.”

  “Burton must have. I deal with a guy.”

  “Said they’re in Colombia,” said Shaylene. “Printer order came out of Panama. Those printers each cost way over what I gross annually, both sides of the business. Once they’re delivered, they’re mine, and she didn’t seem to give a shit about the fee on top of that. Sounds like builders to me.”

  “There’s a game,” said Flynne, “I’ve seen it, and the guy I’ve talked with says they’re security, working for the game company. Asked him if they were builders. Said no. They’ve got money, seem to not mind spending it. I know you’re particular about this, Macon, and so am I, but this isn’t like we’re taking money from people we know are builders.” She wasn’t doing that great a job of convincing herself, so she doubted she was convincing Macon. “That’s Burton’s take on it too.”

  Nobody said anything. Flynne took a first bite of her cronut. They’d gotten the lattice just right.

  “Colombia was a drug place before there were builders,” said Edward. “Now it’s a money place. Like Switzerland.”