“Any cams here?” she asked.
“Your glasses and the ones in this drone.”
“Didn’t hear you getting up there,” she said, stepping out, sliding the screens shut, going to the gray couch.
“Winched the charger up and you never heard that either.” The feed vanished.
After she’d removed the hoodie and her tweed jacket, she hung them over her bag and sat down, putting her purse on the table, beside the 7-Eleven bag. “Know what’s happening yet?” she asked.
“Eunice’s branch plants are busy,” he said, “doing nobody knows what. Meanwhile, your roommate’s friend from Brazil has been spending the money Eunice makes. A couple of her branch plants are extremely good at stock markets.”
“On what?”
“Tech companies. Nothing very big. Widely distributed, different jurisdictions. Nobody saying what for. Ainsley’s not really all that communicative herself, in case you haven’t noticed. That’s either an English thing or a big stub thing, maybe both.”
“Big stub?”
“What we call their time line. Mostly just to piss ’em off.”
“Why would it?”
“They think they’re the only real continuum, the one original, not a stub. They discovered the so-called server first, whatever anomaly allows all this. But they didn’t invent it, just found it. Anybody knows what it really is, or where, they’re not telling.”
“Nobody knows what it is?”
“Nobody has the least fucking idea, or where the hardware is. Lot of people think China, but China’s just naturally where you’d guess something like that would be.”
“Why?”
“’Cause they opted to mostly go their own way, in the jackpot. They were big enough, the richest country, all set to do it. Just rolled up the carpet and closed the door for a couple decades. Didn’t need to evolve a klept, either.”
“Evolve what?”
“Klept. What runs the world that isn’t China, up the line where Lowbeer is. Hereditary authoritarian government, roots in organized crime. The jackpot seemed to filter that out of what was already happening, made it dominant.”
Verity shifted on the couch, which was a lot less comfortable than the identical one in Oakland, the movement making her aware of the semirigid white filtration mask around her neck, beneath her chin. Getting it off, she discovered that her lips were dry. She found ChapStick in her purse, applied it. “None of this shit’s simple, is it?” She ran her tongue across her lips.
“Here’s something,” he said. “Don’t know if it’ll be simple. Call for you, priority override on the network.”
“Who?”
“If I knew, it wouldn’t be priority.”
“Okay.”
“Bye,” he said.
Can’t do audio. You okay?
White Helvetica, across her open purse.
“Who’s this?” She bit her freshly ChapSticked lower lip.
Me.
“Shit,” said Verity, half in stunned delight, half in fear of disappointment.
Kinda sorta.
“Eunice?”
She waited.
Nothing.
“That was quick,” Conner said.
“She’s gone,” Verity heard herself say.
“Seemed to get broken off.”
“You couldn’t tell where it was from?”
“At all,” he said. “How’s that couch?”
“Hard.”
“Ash had Fang’s friends restuff it. Ten-by-twelve body-armor plates, ceramic, level four.”
“Why?”
“Any shooting starts, flip it on its side, with the upholstery between you and the guns.”
“Shooting,” she repeated, flatly.
“Just in case,” he said.
But had that been Eunice?
90
THE WORK
And this has all come out because Wetmark feared he’d been indiscreet with me, about you, in the Denisovan Embassy, after my meeting with Lev?” Netherton asked, in Shaftesbury Avenue, a few drops of rain beginning to fall.
“Indeed,” said Lowbeer. “Because he’d referred to me as ‘mythical.’”
“Would you say he was overreacting, then?”
“I assume,” Lowbeer said, “that when you had that conversation, which I monitored, he was intoxicated. Subsequent amnesia left him partially unable to recall exactly what he might have said to you. The anxiety for which he habitually self-medicates then drove him to phone me, once he was relatively sober.”
Netherton, just then glancing into the window of a bookshop, saw himself grimace, the scenario she was describing being quite familiar. “But you believe him?”
“I’m assuming, in this one case, that he’s truthfully relating things he’s been told.”
“You don’t think it’s Yu—” He caught himself. “This person we’ve discussed? Disinformation?”
“It would be unwise not to consider the possibility of disinformation,” she said, “but I doubt it, now that I’ve had a closer look at who’s involved. Our person of interest has evidently been quite active lately, but I doubt Westmarch has ever heard his name. Often, when considering the klept, that which seems too conveniently coincidental proves to have been a function of their being essentially a small, highly cohesive group. Though that can also make for cleaner cautery on our part, or even for an element of surprise.”
Netherton shivered, warm as his jacket was keeping him.
91
FOLLOWR
Company,” said Conner, in the earpiece, “incoming.”
Verity was on her back, on the couch, using the folded hoodie as a pillow, mechanically eating kale chips. She’d begun to wonder if she might not actually be more comfortable on the tatami. “Who?” She sat up, still aching from the ride.
“Manuela Montoya,” Ash said, “whom you’ll recognize from the lobby of the hotel.”
“The Followrs girl?”
“The network traced her today,” Ash said, “via Eunice’s facial recognition. Someone was sent to find her, before Cursion did.”
“She’s here?” Resisting the urge to ask Ash about the texts.
“The network wants Conner to protect her, which means having you together. Frankly, we’d prioritize that differently, but the network’s already affording us sufficient agency, here, that we have no choice.”
“Prioritize what?”
“Your safety. We assume Cursion are looking for you as well.”
“She’s here,” Conner said, opening his feed from the roof of the container.
Silhouetted against light from the street, the faceless black figure of what seemed a young woman stood on the sidewalk, apparently looking toward them, Verity reading hesitancy and doubt in her stance. She took a step, halted, then walked toward the container.
“She’s been told you’re there,” Ash said. “Conner’s opening the door.”
“Lights out,” said Conner.
Darkness. Verity felt cool air as the door swung open. “Manuela?”
“Verity?”
“Come in,” Verity said. “It lights up when the door closes. Watch your step.”
The girl from Followrs stepped up, into the dark, the door closing behind her. Verity imagined the drone, on the roof, reaching down to close it.
With the light on, Verity looked up at her from the couch.
“Business class doghouse?” The girl squinted against the light.
“So people can concentrate in open-plan workspaces.”
“In an alley?”
“Someone brought it here.” Verity got to her feet, her body feeling older than the last time she’d gotten up from a couch.
“Sorry I spied on you,” the girl said. “I saw the Followrs ad on Craigslist and next mo
rning I was sitting in 3.7.” She had short dark hair, in need of a trim, didn’t seem to be wearing makeup, and might be wearing the clothes Verity had first seen her in, an olive parka, black sweater, jeans, and sneakers.
“I’m couch-surfing, myself,” Verity said. “How’d you get here, just now?”
“Carsyn. She works for the man I saw with you in the lobby.”
“Virgil.”
“He sent her to find me. We hung out all day, snacking and talking game design. Paid me my hourly rate for game design.” A brief smile.
“Protein bar?” Verity indicated the bag on the table. “Jerky?”
“Carsyn took me for Taiwanese.”
“More company,” said Conner, Verity remembering that Manuela couldn’t hear him. “She was followed. These two,” the feed from the roof of the cube returning. Figures of two men, where she’d last seen Manuela, looking into the alley, one tall and heavy, the other neither. “Lights out.” The feed brighter in the sudden darkness.
“AR?” Manuela asked, interested, leaning forward. Verity could see her face, in light reflected from the feed in the Tulpagenics glasses.
“Two men outside,” Verity whispered, then remembered the soundproofing in the container on Fang’s roof.
“I can see them,” Manuela whispered back, “in your glasses.”
The taller man, approaching, took something from his pocket, revealed as a flashlight when he turned it on, and examining the container’s door.
“No keypad on this one,” Conner said. “Fang faked up a regulation container door, with padlocks.”
Turning off his flashlight, the man walked around the container, out of frame. The feed blurred, then showed a different angle, the tall man’s back as he looked toward the far end of the alley. He looked back, gestured to the shorter man, who joined him. They walked in that direction, the far end.
Conner cut the feed and the ceiling came back on.
92
TENNESSEE STREET
Where’s Verity?” Netherton asked Rainey, as he settled on the couch, the controller in his hands.
“In what someone I haven’t yet met called a ‘business class doghouse,’” she said. She was dressed to go out, coat on, gloves in hand. “Ash just showed me clips of the feed from Verity’s glasses. It looked Japanese.”
“Oakland? On top of Fang’s building?”
“San Francisco, in an alley. Conner’s outside, on top, keeping watch.”
“Who are you meeting?” he asked.
“Mia Blum.”
“Work?”
“No,” she said, “but since I’m on sick leave, it doesn’t hurt to stay caught up.”
“Sick leave?”
“Cross-continual nuclear anxiety,” she said, putting on her gloves. “Keep an ear out for Thomas. Don’t get up.” She blew him a kiss. “Don’t keep Verity waiting. She has a lot on her plate, from what Ash was telling me.”
She went out, her ability to relax with a friend over coffee, regardless of what might be going on, still surprising him. He put on the controller, settled it, and turned it on.
To fly suddenly across an indistinct surface, seemingly inches away, then up and out, the feed a simple frame, not the drone’s display format, over a night street, its architecture semi-industrial, modestly urban.
“Relax,” said Conner, Netherton having made an inadvertent sound of alarm, “I’m your pilot.”
“Of what?” Imagining the drone, its arms extended, as antique cartoon superhero.
“Little quadcopter. Ash had four built, for Eunice.”
“Where are we?”
“Tennessee Street,” Conner said, “other end of the alley.”
They slowed, hovered. Netherton saw a single palm tree, behind a steel mesh fence. The cam’s point of view dipped, rose again, and rotated slightly, to speed on in another direction, quickly arriving at an intersection.
“Figure they think she’s in the cube?” Conner asked, the frame zooming in on two men, standing together on the corner.
“Verity?”
“Montoya. Girl who’d been following Verity before. Virgil sent someone to collect her, have her brought here.”
“Why would these two follow her?”
“Assuming they’re Cursion, because Ash hired her, by coincidence, after they did. She and Verity live near each other, so the app assigned the nearest partner available. She was in the lobby of that hotel, working for us. They noticed. Maybe they think she was a plant to begin with. Probably they’re just spooked by what they can see of us. Looks weird to them.”
“Because it fucking is,” said Verity, startling Netherton, who’d forgotten she could hear them. “Whether they can see it or not.”
A nondescript white van pulled up. The two men got in.
“Doesn’t seem a very sophisticated operation,” Netherton said, as the van drove out of sight.
“Probably those two aren’t,” said Conner, “but Pryor, who hired them, he’s professional. Cursion are scam artists. They knew enough to steal her from the Department of Defense, and keep it from looking like they had, but not enough to play a game like this. Think they’re spooks. Lowbeer and Ash keep getting into Cursion’s comms, but they haven’t been able to get into Pryor’s.”
“Will you follow them?”
“Network’s on it. Here they are.” A scooter with a black-helmeted rider rounded the corner, then sped up, in the direction the car had taken.
“You and Verity can talk,” Conner said, toggling the feed from the aerial drone to one Netherton recognized as Verity’s glasses. She was looking at a younger woman, who seemed to be seated close beside her, as if on the floor.
“Hello, Verity,” Netherton said. “Who’s this?”
“Manuela,” Verity said. “She can’t hear you.”
“What’s happening?” asked the girl.
“Talking with Wilf,” Verity said to her. “On these glasses.”
The girl leaned closer. Looking at Verity’s glasses. “He’s on the roof?”
“In London,” Verity said.
“How long do we have to be here?” the girl asked, looking around.
“I don’t know,” Verity said.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“We’ve got that covered.” Verity leaned forward to use the top of the low wooden table for support, as she got to her feet, stepping over to the wood-and-paper screens and sliding them aside. Everything seemed identical to the cube atop Fang’s. “Flushes itself when you stand up.”
“Thanks.” The girl stood, her longish green coat bunched around her.
“Want to hang your parka?” Verity asked.
“I’m good.” The girl slid the screens shut behind her and Verity stepped back.
“She doesn’t know why she’s here,” Netherton said.
“Bet she doesn’t want to be, either.” She looked up at the glowing ceiling.
“Will you try to explain it to her?” he asked.
She closed her eyes. Opened them. “The future, all that? Maybe Rainey could—”
“Raining?” asked the girl, from behind the paper screens.
“My wife’s name,” Netherton said, “Rainey,” then remembered she couldn’t hear him.
He heard the toilet flush.
“Guess the fake piss didn’t fool ’em,” Conner said.
“Who?” Netherton asked, confused.
“Our gentleman callers. Their van’s coming back.”
Then Netherton was atop the cube, with that handily distorted circular point of view. The drone raised its right arm, pointing with a manipulator. Beyond it, in the lower, thicker half of the display, cars of the era passed on the street nearest them. The arm swung sideways, still extended, to the right, swiveling entirely backward, so that the view down it was now i
n the upper, narrower half, showing the alley behind them. “If I had a rifle, huh? But Ash wants this quiet, nonlethal if possible, but mainly no police presence.”
“Not the rules in Coalinga,” Verity said, surprising Netherton again.
“We weren’t in the middle of San Francisco. Your fingerprints are all over this container, if I kill somebody. Not that that means I won’t have to.”
93
WINCH
What’s going on?” asked Manuela, eyeing the container’s door in a way that looked to Verity as though she was wondering whether or not to open it and run.
“Probably locked,” Verity said, causing Manuela to look up, “but that’s to keep people out, not us in.”
“Is this a cult?” Manuela asked. “Kidnapping people and telling them somebody’s after them?”
“Let me think about it,” Verity said.
“You’re kidnapped too? Let’s fucking escape.”
“Those men outside we’ve been talking about, they’d kidnap us. Conner, on the roof, watching out for us, thinks they would. So do I.”
“They’ll see him up there,” Manuela said. “This box isn’t that big.”
“Neither is he. About this high.” Verity held out her hand, palm down.
Manuela’s eyes narrowed.
“He’s up there telepresently,” Verity said.
“So what you’re doing is some new way to give TED talks? Like theater, with really random props and locations?”
“Those things like an iPad on a Segway, roll around at conferences with somebody’s face on the screen?”
Manuela eyed her narrowly. “They still do that?”
“And those big headless robot dogs, with backpacks, on YouTube? Marching single file through the woods?”
“Yeah?”
“Conner’s using something like the iPads on wheels, but more like one of those dogs, except it’s got arms and two legs.”
“So where is he, physically?”
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