Agency

by William Gibson

  “Wilf?” Which came out sounding, in this voice, like an interrogative yip.

  “Yes,” he said, smiling unconvincingly, “and this is Rainey.”

  A woman, familiar from the clip he’d shown her in the van, stepped from behind the couch. “Not everyone has the dysmorphia,” the woman said, “and for some reason they seem to exaggerate the likelihood of nausea. I’ve never had either. But I’ve heard they both tend to be most noticeable when you first stand up.”

  Which Verity did then, her head instantly swimming. She quickly sat, hands that weren’t her own gripping someone else’s gray-trousered knees.

  “Thereby proving me wrong,” Rainey said. “I’d offer you water, but she mentioned to me that she was hydrated.”

  Verity spread the fingers of the hands. The nails, better cared for than her own had ever been, were cut short, rounded, polished. “Who did?”

  “Your peripheral,” Wilf said. “It runs on Hermès AI, when it’s without a user.”

  “Whose AI?” Verity looked up at him.

  “The manufacturer’s,” said Ash, her unexpected voice causing Verity to glance around the room, then into what she could see of a small adjacent kitchen, equally bright. A feed appeared.

  “You’re Ash?” Verity asked the woman in the feed, the wall behind her as white as her face, alive with animated drawings of what might be gazelles. Her eyes were large and gray.

  “I am.”

  “How am I getting this feed?”

  “By phone,” Wilf said. “The peri has one built in.”

  “Perry?” Verity asked.

  “Peripheral,” said Wilf. “A quasibiological telepresence avatar.”

  Verity looked around the room. Gray walls, pale wood floor, Scandinavian-looking furniture. “Trying this again,” she said, and got to her feet, slowly this time, feeling only slight dizziness.

  “Hello, Verity,” Rainey said, stepping forward and taking her hand.

  “I can feel your hand,” Verity said, surprised.

  “This is new for me too,” Rainey said, releasing Verity’s hand, “but not in the same way. This peri’s only used by a friend of ours, ordinarily, who doesn’t live in London either. It isn’t modeled after her, but since I’ve mainly gotten to know her here, and this is the way we most frequently visit, I keep feeling like you’re her.”

  “Where’s Thomas?” Verity asked.

  “In the nursery, with the nanny.”

  “I’ll be available if you need me,” Ash said. The feed closed.

  Verity looked at Rainey. “How new is this technology?”

  “Not very. I’m not sure, exactly.”

  “Stets would have known about it, and told me. Unless this is a prototype from the past year.”

  “Actually,” said Rainey, “you’re right.”

  “I am?”

  “How familiar are you with London?”

  “Half a dozen times? Last was just before some people here wanted to vote you out of the EU.”

  “I’d thought we might take Thomas for a stroll,” Rainey said, “to help you acclimatize to the peri, and get a look at London. But it seems we have Wilf’s boss parked in our mews. Wants us to join her. She can explain the unexpected nature of technology. I can fill in as needed, try to help. Wilf can be part of that from here, while he minds Thomas. Ash as well.” She was looking at the man in the matte silver headpiece, causing Verity to wonder if he were wearing it to amuse their child. “Are there mirrors in her car?” Rainey asked him.

  “Not if it’s still in Winston’s waistcoat mode,” he said.

  Rainey pulled on a dark jacket. “There are mirrors in the lift, all three walls, waist up,” she said to Verity. “Look at the floor, or you might trigger the dysmorphia, if that isn’t another fable about peris. Save mirrors for when we’re back up here.”

  And out the door then, Verity exchanging a look with the man who was Wilf, before following Rainey, the back of whose head she asked, “Where did you say this is?”

  “Fitzrovia.”

  “Don’t know it.”

  “Adjacent to Bloomsbury,” Rainey said. An elevator door opened. “Remember, eyes on the floor,” stepping back to allow Verity in, then getting in behind her before the door closed. “No mirrors in the lobby.”

  During the brief descent, Verity focused on the black-and-white toes of the peripheral’s shoes.

  The door opened.

  The lobby was small, roughly the size of Fabricant Fang’s foyer, though any resemblance ended there. “How long have you lived here?” Verity asked, feeling the need to say something.

  “Since I was a month pregnant. Wilf lived in hotels, when we first knew one another as colleagues, and on into our getting together.”

  “Your job’s in Canada?”

  “Toronto. I moved here to be with Wilf. My firm wants a peripheral of me there, to interact with clients, but I’d quit before I’d do that.” She raised her hand, which caused the blue-painted, glass-paned entrance door to open, admitting cold, damp air.

  “Of you?”

  “One that looks and sounds like me. I won’t have it, though. As a parent.”

  “Why?”

  “Fear of it surviving me, after an accident or something.” She turned up her jacket’s collar. “The effect on Thomas. Terrible for children. Not as though it hasn’t happened, unfortunately, so the risk’s not hypothetical.”

  With no idea of how to respond, Verity looked down again, discovering her borrowed body’s jacket was something martial-artsy, in a thin dark fabric.

  “Don’t worry,” Rainey said, seeing Verity notice the jacket, “it’s already heating up.” They stepped out together. “If I were gone, and there was something that looked exactly the way Thomas recalled me, but didn’t age—”

  “Didn’t age?”

  “They do, of course,” Rainey said, “but much more slowly.”

  Rainey’s white-painted building, Verity saw, looking around, sealed the end of an alley, one that narrowed, oddly, toward what she took to be a brightly lit major artery. “What street’s that?”

  “Tottenham Court Road,” said Rainey, her back to it.

  “You said ‘full sensorium’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t smell it.”

  “Smell what?”

  “London. I don’t hear it, either. No traffic. And nothing’s passed by, on the street, since we stepped out.” Beyond Rainey, a third of the way to what she’d said was Tottenham Court Road, a vehicle pixelated into apparent existence, looking something like the wingless fuselage of a vintage aircraft. “What’s that?”

  “Her car.”

  “Whose?”

  “Lowbeer’s.”

  “A hologram of it?”

  “No,” said Rainey, “you saw it decloak.”

  The term reminded Verity of Stets being pitched digital camouflage schemes. Rainey started toward it, so Verity followed, catching up. And still nothing passed by, out on Tottenham Court Road, not even a pedestrian. The air was fresher than the Mission’s, but colder. The peripheral’s jacket, though, did seem to have warmed up.

  Now a door was opening, in the windowless side of the black car, van, whatever it was. A figure emerged, featureless against light within. Slender, broad-shouldered, in an elegantly mannish tailored suit. “Welcome to London,” said the woman, who Verity now saw was older, her face pink in the light from the car’s interior. Her white hair was quite short, except for a steeply upswept bouffant forelock. “How’s arrival treating you?”

  “I’m told it could be worse,” Verity said. She looked back to Rainey’s building, seeing Wilf outlined in their third-floor living room window.

  “Come in, please,” the woman said, indicating the car. “I’m Detective Inspector Ainsley Lowbeer, by the way, Metropol
itan Police.”

  “Police?” Verity asked.

  “After a fashion.” Moving aside to allow Rainey to step up, into the vehicle. “Please.” Verity followed Rainey, finding a single folding step extended for the purpose. “Any seat at the table,” from behind them, “thank you.”

  The concave interior walls were a glossy beige. No wheel, no driver’s seat, no evident controls, or, for that matter, windows or windshield. The table, oval dark wood the size of a large platter, level with the floor, was centered, surrounded by four small green leather armchairs that seemed to have partially sunken into the floor, in a carpeted nest. A serious-looking arrangement, oddly cozy yet somehow military.

  As they seated themselves, the door closed.

  “Welcome.” The white-haired woman, who had unusually blue eyes, was seated opposite Verity. “Please accept my apologies for having been largely responsible for the stressful week you’ve been having.”

  “Responsible?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “How?”

  “Ash and I were instrumental in Cursion having Tulpagenics hire you. Do you mind heights, particularly?”

  “Heights?”

  “I’d like to take us up now.”

  “Up?” As something seemed to press down, however silently, on the roof of the vehicle, reminding her of the delivery of her Muji bag to Kathy Fang’s rooftop nap-cube, but silent, and lacking this sense of substantial yet very precise contact.

  52

  POSTURE AND GAIT

  When Verity used the peripheral, Netherton decided, watching it now, it no longer resembled Flynne. Which was really for the best, though it made him miss Flynne.

  He stood at the window, as it followed Rainey into Lowbeer’s car, Lowbeer behind them. Not that he could have pointed to any specific difference in its posture or gait, with Verity using it, but his mind was somehow capable of the distinction. Surveillance programs plucked individuals from crowds, he knew, on just that basis.

  Having seen it controlled by Hermès AI, earlier, had reminded him of how few opportunities to see one another he and Flynne now had. He was married, a parent, as was she, and then there was her demanding role in Lowbeer’s ongoing manipulation of the course of her native stub.

  He closed his eyes, back into the feed from the drone, to find Verity seated as he’d last seen her, on the pale couch in the San Francisco hotel, eyes shut, beneath the makeshift controller. Stetson Howell, her venture capitalist, wasn’t in sight, nor was his fiancée, the French architect. Virgil, the man who’d met the van in front of the hotel, had pulled up an armchair and now sat facing Verity, engrossed with the screen of his manual phone.

  Opening his eyes, Netherton saw a quadcopter descending silently into Alfred Mews, its black rectangular platform the length of Lowbeer’s car. He’d only known her to use this infrequently, and he’d always been her passenger at the time, so had never actually seen the thing before. A few dead leaves whirled frantically, as it secured the car. He regretted Thomas missing this.

  Then it smoothly took the car up with it, as a single unit, which he imagined Thomas would have particularly enjoyed.

  53

  OVER LONDON

  My apologies for our abruptness,” said the white-haired woman, the vehicle coming to a dreamlike, jolt-free halt, having somehow, just then, pretended to be a perfectly silent high-speed elevator. “If the situation were less urgent, we could introduce you to various concepts more gradually, but I’m afraid that’s not the case.”

  “No dysmorphia, right?” asked Rainey, looking at Verity.

  “No,” said Verity. “Urgent?” she asked the white-haired woman.

  Concave screens appeared, down both sides of the vehicle, replacing beige blankness. On them, what seemed a single panorama of urban night sky.

  “Have a closer look,” Rainey said, getting up from her chair and out of the carpeted pit. She offered Verity her hand. Taking it, Verity rose, feeling a slight dizziness. Rainey released her hand and stepped toward the screens, Verity following.

  “Three hundred and fifty meters,” the woman said, still seated.

  “Shit,” said Verity, reaching the edge of the carpeted floor. Beyond it, to the horizon, stretched a regularly spaced array of towers, roughly similar in height. Through which, she saw, lowering her gaze, wound a river’s serpentine curves.

  “There,” said Rainey, pointing out something Verity couldn’t distinguish. “London Eye. Only tall thing, aside from the original Shard, that you’ll have seen before. They took down what was left of the rest. These are called shards too, after the first one. Relatively few are habitations.”

  “What are they?” Windows were lit, a few, if the lights she saw were windows.

  “They scrub the air,” the woman said, behind them, now standing.

  An older, lower city, at the feet of the towers, like lichen in comparison. There were forests too, she saw, with greenways between them. “That’s the Thames?”

  “Of course,” said Rainey.

  But with more bridges, at least two of them planted with what looked like forests of their own. And tributaries, none of which Verity remembered. Some of them appeared to have been roofed with glass, illuminated.

  “CG,” Verity said. “VR, AR. A game.”

  “That’s the commonest initial assumption,” the woman said, “on first seeing it. Though I suppose natives of eras earlier than yours might assume dream, hallucination, visit to a supernatural realm.”

  “You’re saying it’s the future?”

  “Entertain the idea. To one side, so to speak. A mere possibility.”

  “It’s not your future, though,” said Rainey. “Your 2017 forks away from our 2016.”

  “Slightly earlier, actually,” said the woman. “2015.”

  “When’s this supposed to be?” Verity asked.

  “2136.”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Lowbeer,” the woman said

  Verity turned back to the window, noting how few headlights moved below. “Not that I believe you,” she said, “at all, but this doesn’t look anywhere near as seriously fucked as we’ve been led to expect the future will be. What about global warming?”

  “The shards,” said Ash, no feed of her appearing, “are units in a compensatory system. Attempting, with some success, to stabilize climate.”

  “This is supposed to account for Eunice?” Verity asked. “That she’s from the future?”

  “No,” the woman called Lowbeer said, “Eunice is of your era. The result of a military research project in our common past. She was with Cursion, when we found her, or rather the programs that produced her were, surreptitiously acquired from a military research project.”

  “We’ve explained this sort of thing before,” said Wilf, likewise only a voice, “to people in your situation. What they usually have the most difficulty with is that this isn’t their future. And that we’ve no idea what the future of their stub will be. Or of our own, for that matter.”

  “Stub?”

  “Regrettable expression,” Lowbeer said, “regrettably common usage, here. Inaccurate as well, since your continuum won’t remain short. It appears so to us, but only since it’s just diverged from our shared past. Its birth, as it were. But it also reflects an undeniably imperial aspect of what we’re doing, because we assume our continuum to be that from which so-called stubs branch. The mechanism that permits us to do that appears to be located here, however mysteriously. Stubs, lacking that agency, are unable to initiate stubs of their own.”

  Verity blinked, feeling lost. “What are those three-armed things, out in the Thames”—she pointed—“with lighthouses at their tips?”

  “The Trefoils,” Rainey said. “A tidal power-generation system. They navigate the river, optimizing their efficiency. The islands are a part
of it as well, and move with them.”

  “Cursion’s not the first gaming company I’ve worked for,” Verity said. “The last one could have built all of this. I’ll give you points for a sense of depth, and a lack of conventional clutter, but why should I assume it’s real?”

  “As good a way as any, for you to initially organize the experience,” Lowbeer said.

  “What about that urgency you mentioned?” Verity asked.

  “Qamishli,” Ash said. “We don’t have that situation, in our past. We can’t know where nuclear conflict would take you, but any prognosis whatever is dire.”

  “Why do you care?” Verity asked. “You’re not there.”

  “Because you and everyone else in your world are as real as we are,” Lowbeer said. “And because we do care, we need your help.”

  “Me?”

  “Eunice generated a network,” Lowbeer said, “employing admirable tradecraft. You’re its focus, apparently. It exists primarily to protect you. Our access to your stub is limited. If you join forces with us, so will the network.”

  “And if they do?”

  “If they do,” Ash said, “we’ll share their agency in your stub.”

  Verity looked from Lowbeer to Rainey, then back to Lowbeer. “If I were to go along with this, what exactly would it look like?”

  “You’d need to disappear,” Lowbeer said, “but then you already have, as far as Cursion’s concerned. As of this afternoon.”

  54

  SYSTEMS CHECKS

  Checking on Thomas, Netherton found him asleep within the auroral display, the nanny curled, triply pandaform, on the floor around his crib.

  As he returned to the kitchen, an unfamiliar sigil began to pulse, something officious-looking, American. “Yes?”

  “Wilf,” someone male greeted him, in a county accent, as the pulsing ceased.

  “Hello?”

  “Conner, man. Penske. Been a while. You good?”

  No feed appeared. Netherton remembered when he’d last seen Conner, in footage of cousin Leon’s inauguration. Wearing a deeply uncharacteristic dark gray suit, bespoke, from a Philadelphia firm chosen by Lowbeer’s much younger stub-self, himself a monument to Jermyn Street, though given in the county to waxed cotton jackets and suede desert boots. The suit had made Conner look more like a junior American diplomat than one of the dissident Secret Service men he’d at that point been charged with protecting Leon from. “Well, thanks. Yourself?”