As one we all stared at him. Vaughn was smiling. Hallett remained calm as the implications of what he had said filtered along.
“I rest my case,” Klein said and gave Vaughn a dismissive glance of contempt.
“Well, what does that mean?” Astrode said into the thickened silence following.
“It means,” I told her, “that OptiNet is so big, and the understanding of 901 so limited, that the Company can do what the hell it likes and still maintain moderately good relations with all our happy customers. Only freaks like Roy will give a toss one way or the other if they switch off 901, as long as the phones still work.” I looked over at Klein and raised my eyebrows, to which she replied with a slow nod and then a minimalist shake of the head which told me I was crazy to have taken sides like this, and no good would come of it.
The miserable thing dragged on for another three hours with an increasing gaiety in the Company hacks, measured grim determination in the List faces, and quiet resignation in the two or three people left who didn't find amorality all that much of a thrill.
When we finally got out, Maria was there waiting with Hallett's long-toed Spadi loafers in her hand, all polished. Behind her Peaches and Lula were lingering near the buffet and looking edgy. I was touched that they had come to meet me.
The three of us avoided Maria's attempt at a quick follow-on and returned to Lula's apartment.
When we got inside we stopped. The place looked like an explosion in a high-tech workshop. Tools, empty packing boxes, circuitry blocks, wire, insulation, metal plates of various shapes, sprockets and sprangs and all kinds of unidentifiable and fiendishly clever doodads were scattered over everything. We could hardly even stand in the doorway without crushing tiny chips or plastic whatnots under our feet.
“Oh no, you've had a break-in,” Peaches said, eyeing the devastation.
“No,” Lula said slowly, “I was working on something and I forgot the time, so I didn't manage to pack up…” She walked on her toes, and began to clear a path towards the sofabed with careful sweeps of her feet and occasional heron-like pickings with her hands.
“What were you working on?” I asked as we followed and sat where she pointed, hands in our pockets. We both had come to know the sharper end of her tongue, for inadvertently touching the wrong parts of components in the past.
“Since we haven't got access to the Core Ops any more, and neither Peaches nor I have any implants, we needed to be able to run the same work through the domestics,” Lula said, carefully rolling up some jellylike circuit boards in a sweatshirt and putting them under her chair, “so I was changing things in the lounge here to do that.” She looked up, grinning. “Just a few bits—nothing complicated.”
Behind her I saw she had removed several wall panels. Wire and other things hung out like guts. I made myself think of another analogy. Like vines. Okay with vines.
“Anyway,” Peaches sighed, “this is one big goddamn mess.” She turned to me. “And how are you?”
“I'm not very good,” I admitted, and told them about the meeting and throwing up on Hallett's shoes, “And I got shot at,” I added.
“We heard,” Lula said and leant forward to pat my knee. She left her hand there. It was warm and solid, a capable hand with strong small joints, short clean nails, and pale skin on the top, which seemed oddly fine compared to the robust grooves of the whirls on her palm and fingers. I'd often wished I had hands like Lula's, with such a certain grip.
“You can stop all of this, you know,” Peaches said firmly. “Make them use Klein as the witness, and start searching the job agencies. You ought to think about it very carefully, if you ask me.”
“No, I've decided,” I said. “I'm going to see it through. But if you want to do something else, then that's OK.” I looked at her face close. She had obviously thought hard about it. Her brows hung heavily over her eyes and I could see that she was torn. She pursed her lips carefully.
“Well, I don't know,” she said with unease. “I hate to think of leaving you to the wolves, but I can't say I want to go any further. I need to work. None of my brothers has a job right now. If they find out we're doing this, we won't get work elsewhere…” She trailed off with uncharacteristic doubt in her voice. “I just don't know.”
“Actually,” I said, “I'd feel better if you were both out of it. It's getting silly. I can't see any of it getting concluded without someone being hurt, probably quite a lot of someones. Don't feel bad. Anyway—” I made an attempt to raise the atmosphere “—you can help out by finding us some other jobs outside the comms industry for when we get sacked.”
Peaches sighed through her nose and shook her head. “OK, I'm out, then.”
“Not me,” Lula said, and pressed my kneecap before letting go. “I'm not as bright as Peaches and I'm stubborn. I stay.”
We chewed over the situation for a while, getting used to it. It was sad to realize that Peaches was going. I liked her and I would miss her. Probably we'd never work together again, perhaps never see each other again. Now the time had come for it, I found I couldn't say just how much I'd come to enjoy her company. I'm bad at showing feelings, and bad at receiving them, too. In the end we did what we'd always done, and shared food. We got champagne and ate Sole Véronique at Fiore's, the little café with the balcony, and then decamped for coffee to Peaches' rooms. She opened a box of chocolate-coated ginger and we ate our way through them. We laughed a lot and reminisced, and didn't mention anything of recent days at all.
The coffee didn't do much to revive me and the extra sugar turned my blood to sludge. Lula woke me up at one in the morning, peeled my face off the chair cushion, and hauled me back to my apartment, a journey I have only the haziest recollection of, and one of the few missing hours in the catalogue of my life. I do remember seeing her hands, clutching my overalls as she marshalled me along, and thinking it would be good if she could put me back together some more efficient way. When we arrived, I passed out on the bed and did not wake up for sixteen hours.
When I woke up there was sunlight glaring in through the window. It was shining on my face and I could feel its warmth. My cheek twitched.
“Shit!” I sat up. “My meetings! Augustine! What time is it?”
“Oh, hello,” Lula said and appeared in the doorway. “I thought the sun would get you around now.”
“What time is it?”
“It's ten after five in the afternoon.”
“Oh my God.”
“It's all right. I postponed your meetings until later tonight. You've got hours.”
“But I was supposed to call Augustine.”
“I called him. He's glad to know that you're all right and said it was more important you got the sleep. He's working on a plan for the raid, and he will call back later. Meanwhile I've fixed my room and this one as temporary base camps, and 901 has agreed to reroute any tracking Core Teams as much as possible.”
“Oh.” Everything seemed very under control. It was a relief and a bit unsettling. Central to the drama but superfluous nonetheless, that was me. Give me a gun and let me shoot something, I thought, but had to stop that line of self-pitying, machismoid crap as Lula continued, undeterred.
“Klein called, Hallett called, and Ajay called to let you know that your mother has decided to come home on a visit over Christmas. He didn't know about the train thing, so I told him. I didn't want him to hear it from the news.”
“Thanks.”
“Your tea is on the table.” She pointed to a large mug, steam rising in the golden light, and went out. I heard her sit down on the sofa in the other room and start noises of metallic tinkering with something.
I supposed—not having a clue—that this is what prizefighters felt like the day of the big match. All this special treatment could only mean that later there would be hard work and trouble to deal with. Still, it was very nice. It lasted all of thirty seconds or so before I started thinking about Peterborough station, cold and windy, the gentle surge of the tra
in as it lifted and was hit by a magnetic storm running down the rail.
Wishing it away was no good.
I would have to cheat it.
Although I had spent the majority of my brief professional career working solely with Artificial Intelligences, I had first to take full qualifications with human subjects, including myself. There were a number of techniques useful in this instance, which would postpone the shock trauma now starting to surface with all the subtlety of a week-dead fish. If I dealt with it properly, I should be able to get through the next couple of weeks with a relatively clear head and ordinary emotions. Shortly afterwards I would have to go through the whole misery, and by then it would have probably festered and maybe got itself added to whatever happened in the meantime, but for now it had to go.
The theory was easy enough; in sport they call it blackboxing. Simply summon into full Technicolor everything that bothers you, then remove it from your conscious mind by placing it somewhere else and locking it up. A household object would do, or a mental object with no real-world analog. The important part was to promise the discarded thoughts and feelings—a composite experiential structure now commonly referred to in psycho-lingo as an enna, after the ancient Greek word for “one”—that you would come back for them at a specific time in the future. Because I wanted the delay to be relatively long, I would have to place the fishy ennae somewhere explicit and datestamp them with real conviction. By the time this mess was dealt with I was certain that I would be going home, so I decided I would put them into my mother's Kali box (named after the cat—it was painted and shaped like our own tabby), which rested on the top shelf of the dresser in the living room. She used to keep the bills in it, so it was appropriate.
I sat and studied the Earth, looking for Britain, and when I had it clearly in my mind I shut my eyes and summoned a mental piece of paper and a pencil. I wrote out a list of all the ennae and then folded it up and took it home, where I lifted the box down, opened it against the sprung force of its lacquered lid, and put the paper inside, the date of my return written on the back. I let the cat's head snap shut, and put it back on the shelf and opened my eyes. The sun was warm on my face, but my cheek felt smooth and clean.
Now for matters closer at hand. Before the final hearing I had to find the diary—and the key. When it was over, even if they didn't fire me, I had no desire to stay. It was only 901, Roy, and the team I would miss. That and the happy illusion that I worked in a good place.
Since everything else had been so kindly postponed by Lula, the Shoal seemed the best bet. Once I'd made my mind up, I got a burst of energy and took myself to shower and dress. We'd have real bacon for breakfast, or tea—whatever time it was—and over that and some good coffee we'd plan what to do.
When I emerged into the living area, fresh and bright, Lula was gone. Instead, Manda Klein was sitting on my sofa, nervously reading something on her personal handpad.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Just come to see how you are,” she said, sounding offended. “Lula let me in.”
“And where is she?”
“I think she went to the cafeteria to get milk,” Klein said.
“Well, you can see I'm fine.” I must have absorbed some of Jane Croft's talent for acid remarks. The trouble was that whilst being defensive was very satisfying, it wouldn't do me much good in the long run to alienate Klein. I turned away and began to clatter the cupboards, getting out the pan and plates. It would at least give her an opportunity to make one more try.
“You know about Vaughn, don't you?” was what she actually came out with. “I saw the way you were looking at him yesterday. And Goldmann.”
I stood up sharply and banged my head on the overhang of the stovetop extractor unit. Rubbing it, I stared at her through involuntary tears. For once I was glad of my idiot decision to synch up with Augustine's suit. Instead of my usual “What?” or “Huh?” I realized very quickly that I didn't know Klein's own persuasion. She might have been testing me, as their spy. Or she might be attempting to become my ally. I really didn't want her as either.
“What about them?” I said.
Dr. Klein watched me closely. Against the dark purples of my living room her blondeness was pasty, dry as an old bone lying on a beach. I saw then that she was older than I had assumed. Beneath the colour her hair was grey. And the tautness of her cheeks?…she had had a nip and tuck or two. I thought very clearly to myself right at that moment, Well, bloody hell if I'm not noticing things, and wondered what other great vats of information were constantly staring me in the face. Then I realized that she had angled the ceiling light and sat there to show this, and that her stillness was patience, not the lack of a good answer.
“You think I'm their agent, don't you?” she asked. “Because of the report into Roy's death. You don't want to trust me.”
How long was it likely to be before Lula returned? Five minutes? Ten? And if she didn't return?
“No, I don't trust you,” I said to her, leaning on my elbows on the breakfast bar and looking down at her. “Even if Roy wasn't murdered by them, you covered up what happened to him just the same.”
“Roy's death took us all by surprise,” she said. Her voice was quiet and conversational. We might have been discussing the weather. “And the important thing about it was that it did not lead to a murder investigation. If it had, then the police would have looked into the extent of his traffic with the Shoal. They would have eventually discovered that he was assisting it, and that 901 sheltered it all across the network.”
“I was always surprised,” I began, trying a new tack since she seemed to be in a mood for revelations, “that the Company kept Roy on as long as they did.”
“They kept him because I kept signing his certifications,” Klein said. “He took monthly tests for signs of psychosis. I'm sure I hardly need list to you the many varieties of plague memes that took hold of him.”
“I don't know, sometimes I think I didn't know him at all.” I didn't know if I was lying or not as I spoke. It sounded likely, but then it wasn't true. Somehow this didn't seem to add up to a lie. The trouble was I didn't know my own mind. But as I puzzled over this, the conversation flowed on its original course.
“Well, if I hadn't forged his tests, then he would never have got an offworld job,” she said. “And the tests he was doing three and four months ago should have sent him to a psychiatric unit. Superficially, he didn't undergo much change, but I can assure you that underneath he was sliding right back into the bad old days. I was the one who should have realized he might do what he did, but I stopped testing him after June. It was easier just to fake the tests myself.” She moved into a more comfortable position and relaxed slightly. “His attempt to write himself into network memory wasn't a complete surprise to me. But it was more extreme than I would have anticipated. It had a definite final outcome, which he's never really tried to achieve before in any of his mutilations or submersions. This time, he seemed sure. But I think that you are in a better position to judge that than I am. I know very little about the Shoal. Perhaps it was not the certain ending that it seems to be? That would not surprise me either. In fact, the only thing that would surprise me about him is if he had committed suicide.” She smiled gently at me, to let me know that she didn't care what the real outcome was, and didn't intend to pursue it as long as it had no effect on her.
I rubbed my face and my sore head. This was well outside any of my expectations, although she seemed astute where Roy was concerned. “Why are you telling me this?”
“At the moment I am the head of the Mental Health unit on station. I am the director of Psychiatric Resource for the European Division, and I am executive director on the Memetic Verification Board.” She smoothed down the ironed front of her overalls and composed her hands loosely in her lap. “One more step up and I will be head of Company Mental Health worldwide.” She smiled and inclined her head modestly. “Yes, I don't broadcast the news with letters and t
itles after my name. And I lick Vaughn's shoes for a time because he is weak and making him think he is powerful is the fastest way to get rid of him. I don't like him,” she said in an aside, as if that was a good enough reason for her to move against him. Often that was all the reason anybody ever needed. “But he's clearly quite sane, in his way. Until I have finished collecting evidence on the infiltration of his group into the Company, however, I have to leave him alone.”
“You know about the Masons?”
“Masons?” She cocked her head at me.
“Oh, our name for them, I suppose,” I said. “We found them out by accident.”
“Really?” She seemed impressed. “I should have kept a closer watch on you. Anyway, my ‘discovery’ and subsequent removal of them as a central threat to the Company well-being should be enough of a scandal to have Daniel Vasco take early retirement, leaving my way clear.”
A great surge of relief, almost physically cold, washed through me and I sagged down more heavily on the counter. She was doing it for herself, not part of the other plots. I could take her out of the equation.
“And you just want me to stay out of your way?” I suggested.
“I would appreciate that very much. I am aware, as is Mr. Vaughn, that you are involved with Roy's work, his unofficial work, somehow. But he is not sure what is going on and neither am I. I don't care what you do, so long as you do not give the game away and warn them.” She shrugged gently. “But, as I've mentioned before, I don't think you realize what you're dealing with. They have made a few petty threats but they are deadly serious, as you have already witnessed at firsthand on your return journey here. They will expect you to testify as a biased witness, not an impartial one. They really believe that 901 threatens human safety, and they are prepared—more prepared than you are. Be careful.”
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