“What is it?” asked Wilf.
“Make you easy to move,” Sevrin said. “Nobody sees you walk.”
“We can’t have the drone’s mobility compromised,” said Ash, “particularly not its ability to use its arms.”
“No problem,” Sevrin said, kneeling in front of it. “Holes for legs. Arms fold inside, so”—he wiggled a black flap at the drone—“can move when you need.”
“Nice,” Kathy Fang said, behind him. “Who built it?”
“Leather shop in Castro,” said Sevrin.
“Maybe a first for them,” Kathy Fang said, “unless Cordura’s somebody’s thing.”
“Fold arms,” Severin said, spreading the case open on the floor.
The drone stepped promptly into the openings and folded its arms, making Verity suspect that Ash was in control. Sevrin pulled the case up around its torso, fastening Velcro as he went, as if putting a strange romper on an even stranger toddler. Now it had a pair of black casters where its ass should have been.
“Pull up legs,” Sevrin said. The torso settled onto the casters. He stood, hooked his hand into a handle on the case’s back, and raised it, on a black, telescoping rod. He tilted the drone back and rolled it a few feet, toward the snack table, and stood it upright, Verity following. “Put this on,” he said to her, taking a folded black garment she hadn’t seen before from the table. She put her snacks down, took it from him, and shook it out. A multiply oversized black hoodie, which she then zipped on over her jacket. “And these,” passing her a pair of black sunglasses. “Bring the charger,” he said to Dixon.
Verity, remembering her food, wrapped the pizza in two paper napkins, the macro-canapé in two more, and put them in the hoodie’s pockets.
In the elevator, she put on the sunglasses and pulled up the hood. A media-avoidance costume cliché, all too familiar from when she’d been recently post-Stets.
When they reached the foyer, Dixon held one of the two glass doors, as Sevrin, followed by Kathy Fang, wheeled the drone out of the building, Verity behind them.
The Chinese fruit wholesaler’s floodlit signs, across the street, helped dispel the darkness of the sunglasses.
“Is ours,” Sevrin said, indicating a dark Mercedes van set up as a minibus, passenger windows darker still.
In its wheeled carrier, handless insectile arms folded mummy-style across its torso, the drone suggested the larval stage of something much more intimidating, headed off to a nursery for robot monsters.
Now Dixon bent to help Sevrin boost it down, over the two entrance steps, to asphalt.
Kathy Fang, beside her, raised the upper edge of the black hood slightly, with the tip of an index finger, to look Verity in the eye. “Be careful. Hope we see you again.”
“Thanks,” Verity said. “And for pizza.” Heard the passenger door of the van power itself open.
“Did you meet her in person?” Kathy Fang asked, her tone suggesting she hadn’t.
“I think you met her as in-person as it got,” Verity said.
“Ready,” said Dixon. “Here’s the charger,” indicating where he’d left it. He stepped down from the passenger door.
“She was appreciative of our work,” Kathy Fang said, “and made me less worried about who we might be selling to. Thing’s formidable, in the right hands.”
“I liked her too,” said Verity, feeling tears start.
“Time to go,” Sevrin said, from the van.
She couldn’t see him, but turned and headed in that direction, her bag over her shoulder. The van’s engine started, headlights coming on.
Into an unlit interior, the door closing behind her.
Between the sunglasses, her almost-tears, and the van’s limo-grade tint, she couldn’t see. Pulling glasses off and hood back, she saw the drone seatbelted into the far end of the upholstered bench, directly behind Sevrin.
“Sit next to it,” he said, from the driver’s seat.
“I wouldn’t want it behind me,” she said. Stepping over the charger, she seated herself beside the drone.
“Fasten belt,” said Sevrin, pulling out of the space in front of Fabricant Fang.
She did, as he turned left at the corner, toward Jack London Square, away from the beach. Then another left. She remembered what he’d said about protocol.
“Verity? I’m Rainey,” said an unfamiliar voice, tone softer than Ash’s. “Like ‘rainy’ but with an e before the y. Wilf’s wife.”
Verity side-eyed the drone, her vision of Mrs. Drone in a flowered hat returning.
“If I were you,” this new voice said, “I’d think this was pushy, but I wanted to introduce myself. Wilf’s working from home, so I’ve had a chance to get an idea of your situation.”
“You don’t sound English.”
“Canadian.”
Verity looked at the top of the drone’s headless torso, noticing the outline of the hatch from which the periscopic projector had emerged. “You’re in London?”
“We live here, but my work’s in Toronto.”
“Doing what?”
“Public relations.”
“You and Wilf?”
“No. We met when we were working together, but I moved on to crisis management. You must have had professional advice, leaving Stets?”
Virgil, among others, had suggested that, but it hadn’t been something she’d wanted. “No. That felt like more of what I wanted out of. How do you know about that?”
“I’ve been reading about you.”
Sevrin, adjusting his earpiece, said something monosyllabic, then something else, slightly longer.
“What language is that?” Verity asked.
“Moldovan,” he said, taking another left.
It was almost impossible to see anything through the tinted side windows, the view ahead nearly as unhelpful.
“How many of you in there?” she asked the drone.
“Three,” said the Canadian, Rainey. “Wilf has a controller. Ash and I are patched into it by phone. We can each look around on our own, with the drone’s camera array. Wilf’s told me about Eunice.”
“She’s gone. Dead, I guess, except that she wasn’t alive to begin with.”
“Why not?”
“AI.”
“I wouldn’t assume she wasn’t alive,” Rainey said.
“She said she was layers of software.” Verity looked from the drone to Sevrin, wondering what he was making of this, and then ahead, finding they now seemed to be back on Nimitz, heading for the bridge. “What’s a controller?”
“It keeps your body from moving as you move your device. This isn’t full neural cut-out, as the drone has no nervous system. But with Wilf just learning to walk, his legs still move a little. When he walks in the drone, he’s sitting here on the couch, twitching his legs.”
“He’s learning to walk?”
“I am,” said Wilf, “thank you.”
“Ash,” Verity asked, “you there?”
“Yes,” said Ash.
“Regular party in a backpack,” Verity said.
46
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
Lowbeer’s sigil pulsed. Netherton tongued mute. “Yes?”
“Providing emotional support to distraught clients is a major aspect of Rainey’s work now, I gather.”
Netherton looked at the back of the vehicle’s driver’s almost shaven skull, the antique motorway ahead of them, Verity herself seated to the drone’s right, semi-opaque windows to either side. “It is.”
“Let’s consider her a part of this, then, going forward. I imagine the two of them might get along. I’ll discuss it with her, arrange compensation.”
“I doubt compensation would be a factor,” Netherton said. Opening his eyes again, not seeing Rainey, he stood, went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of pomegrana
te juice, and drank.
“I agree,” said Lowbeer. “That’s why I think she might be helpful.”
Netherton watched the coronet-emblazoned sigil fade, feeling vaguely demoted but nonetheless proud of Rainey, for being who she was.
47
PHONELESSNESS
Rainey?” Verity asked. “You still there?” Sevrin had driven them out of Treasure Island’s Kubrickian tunnel, back onto the old span, so there was no mystery about this part of their route to wherever they were ultimately headed.
“She’s with Thomas,” Wilf answered.
“Thomas who?”
“Our son.”
“How old?”
“Eleven months.”
The drone’s hatch opening again, periscope extruding, to project a feed on the back of Sevrin’s seat. A baby, in a navy-and-white horizontally striped playsuit, sitting up on a pale wooden floor, enthusiastically patty-caking a craftsy-looking fabric ball with both hands. A similar ball rolled slowly past, in front of the baby, then out of frame.
“Cute,” Verity said, and he was, but then another ball, not the one she’d just seen, rolled back into frame, behind him. “Who’s rolling the balls?”
“They roll themselves, all six of them,” Wilf said. “Our nanny.”
“Your nanny what?”
“Thomas likes her well enough, configured this way, but most of all as three pandas,” he said, Verity thinking London had some seriously next-level parenting gear, then baby and balls were replaced by a young woman, brown hair lighter and curlier than Verity’s, seated at a red table. “Rainey,” he said, “last week.” Who stood, in jeans and a long-sleeved black t-shirt, smiled at the camera, and walked out of frame, the feed closing. The periscope descended, the drone’s hatch shutting behind it. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“We’re on the Bay Bridge, to San Francisco,” Verity said.
Sevrin, touching his earpiece, briefly spoke Moldovan.
Then they were off the bridge, into the city’s traffic.
“Like Lev’s grandfather’s garage,” said Rainey, “minus the tanks.”
“Tanks?” asked Verity.
“A friend’s grandfather collects antique vehicles,” Wilf said, “some military.”
She peered through the inky tint of the window to her right. Union Square? A pang of phonelessness struck her, mainly for Google Maps. “Geary?” she asked Sevrin.
“Yes. Close now. Be ready.”
“What about this?” She indicated the drone, beside her.
“You’ll have help. Here,” said Sevrin, pulling to the left, stopping.
“Where?” she asked, spotting a Walgreens sign on the corner diagonally opposite.
“Geary and Taylor,” he said, as the passenger door opened.
Virgil climbed in, wearing a black all-weather running outfit with reflective silver highlights. “Where’s our other customer?” he asked.
“This,” Verity said, leaning back to give him a better view of the drone. “Wasn’t expecting you.”
He grinned. “I’m supposed to get that out for you.”
“It’s on wheels,” she said. “There’s a handle on top, pulls out. Don’t trip on the charger there.” She pointed.
Sevrin opened the driver-side door, got out. He closed it, starting around the front of the van. She undid her own seatbelt, scooting along the seat toward the open passenger door, then getting her legs up, out of Virgil’s way. Sevrin appeared at the passenger door, a cab passing behind him. “Stay until he has it out,” he said to Verity.
“What’s here?” she asked. Virgil, having squeezed past her, was pulling up the handle, unfastening the drone’s seatbelt.
“The Clift,” said Sevrin.
Virgil edged the drone forward, until it cleared the front of the seat. One hand on the handle, the other near its feet, he lowered it to the carpeted floor. “Wouldn’t want this in an overhead bin,” he said, swinging it around by the handle. He started to back it out, past her.
He and Sevrin lowered it to the street.
“Don’t forget bag,” Sevrin said.
“Hood up,” said Virgil.
She picked up the charger, which he and Sevrin seemed to have forgotten, pulled her hood up, put on the sunglasses, grabbed her bag, and got out. Virgil was pulling the drone around the back of the van.
She and Sevrin followed. “See you,” he said. He headed for the driver-side door.
Virgil rolled the drone up the side of the curb and made for the entrance. She caught up. His hand lightly on her shoulder as they passed hotel security.
In the lobby, various shades of twilit lilac, Virgil immediately cut left, avoiding reception, toward a curtained corridor leading to the elevators, Verity glancing back to see the iconic Big Chair, on which she’d been photographed shortly after meeting Stets. “Virgil,” she said, “here’s a question. Answer me, straight up, or I might kill you.”
He side-eyed her. “Long day?”
“Longest ever. Where are you taking me?”
“Suite,” he said, “eighth floor.”
“Who’s there?”
“Stets.” They’d rounded a corner, reaching the elevators, the lilac gloaming having grown deeper. “And Caitlin.”
“Shit . . .” She pulled the sunglasses off.
“Back from New York on the Honda.” The elevator door opened, revealing a dramatically lit maw of russet mirror.
“She’s up there?”
The door began to close. He blocked it with his free hand, the other supporting the drone’s handle. “I know her. Trust me. It’ll be okay.”
“Here.” She thrust the cable-wrapped charger at the hand holding the door. “I’m done.”
He reached for it, causing the door to start to close, but again stopped it, this time with his upper arm. “Please.”
“Forget it.” She turned, discovering a couple young enough to be in the hotel’s prime demographic, observing them with a uniform blankness of expression. “Or just,” she said, turning back and pushing past him, “fuck it,” the elevator door closed behind her.
48
CORRIDOR
Who’s Caitlin?” Netherton asked Rainey, still muted, looking up at Verity and this Virgil, as she’d just called him. With the drone parked in the elevator now, between Verity and the stranger in black, all he could really see of them were the bottoms of their chins.
“Stetson Howell’s fiancée,” Rainey answered. “He and Verity split up a year ago. Amicably, though I doubt she’s met Caitlin before.”
“Whose idea was it, to bring me here?” Netherton heard Verity ask, the elevator ascending.
“Stets’,” the man called Virgil said, “and because I know people here, staff.”
“Why’s she here?” Verity asked him.
“She wants to be. Only reason there is, with her.”
“You say she’ll be okay,” Verity said.
“She’s a grown-up,” Virgil said. “The media attention’s something she was used to before she met him. Considering she’s the hot new flavor in global architecture, at least as far as the media are concerned, not to mention a looker, she’s easy to get along with. We all like her.”
“Who’s Virgil?” Netherton asked Rainey.
“Howell’s so-called assistant,” she said, “though he’s actually a key advisor, which is evidently how he likes it. Virgil, I mean.”
The elevator stopped, its door opening.
And then the drone was out, canted sharply back on the corset’s wheels, Virgil towing it, giving Netherton a view of passing ceiling fixtures. Along a wide pale lilac corridor, past doors painted palest daffodil.
Virgil briskly setting the pace, Netherton guessed, lest Verity change her mind.
49
SUITE
Verity stop
ped Virgil with a hand on his wrist, beside a shallow alcove, its rear wall hung with a floor-to-ceiling oval of unframed mirror. A rest area, she supposed, if your idea of rest involved a ghostly acrylic occasional chair, beneath a precariously tall, worryingly anamorphic floor lamp.
She propped her bag on the phantom chair, put the charger down on it, then unzipped and removed the black hoodie, draping it across bag and chairback. Turning to the mirror, she straightened her jacket. To little effect, she thought.
“Caitlin’s casual,” Virgil says. “Has sweaters so old the elbows are out, but old-school cashmere. How they do.”
“How who do?”
“Old Franco-Irish money and shit,” he said.
She checked her makeup in the mirror. Or lack of it, she decided, what she saw being what they’d get. Then took ChapStick from her purse and used it anyway.
“I’ll carry your stuff,” he said, leaning the drone’s handle against the chair and picking up the charger. “You can make an entrance, shake hands if you need to.”
“Food in either pocket of the hoodie,” she said. “Don’t squash it. I’ll keep my bag.”
He gingerly draped the hoodie over the charger. “This for that?” he asked, indicating first the charger, then the drone.
“Yeah.”
“What is it?” he asked, meaning the drone itself.
“Those headless military robot dog-things on YouTube? It’s like that,” she said.
“Legless, though?”
“They’re retracted.”
“Keep ’em that way,” he said, reaching for its handle. She shouldered her bag and they started along the corridor.
He stopped, only a few doors along, and passed her the handle, taking his phone from a trouser pocket. Thumb to the screen. She heard a door-chain rattle.
Stets opened the door nearest them, smiling, gesturing her in. “Hey.”
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