“How do you spell that?”
Guilherme.
“Joe-Eddy only ever calls him the Manzilian. Another infosec consultant.”
“Sure. And the local footprint of a Brazilian hacker family. Joe-Eddy’s negotiating with them.”
“With frequent-flyer points.”
“Sevrin’s a big help, that way.”
The Manzilian finished whatever he was saying. Joe-Eddy replied.
“What are they talking about?”
“Buying server farms,” said Eunice.
“What’s Cursion hearing them talk about?” Remembering the Robertson-head screws.
“Soccer.”
“How do you keep this all sorted?”
“My ass is legion,” said Eunice.
30
Tottenham Court Road
Walking home, from Hanway Street to Alfred Mews, Netherton imagined himself boldly wheeling, broad-shouldered and headless.
The various surfaces of pavement would allow it, he judged. He’d never been fond of either athletics or virtual games, but to Ash’s surprise had attempted a number of the drone’s varied modes of locomotion. He’d wound up keeping her at it longer than he’d felt she wanted, and that had been satisfying in itself.
There was little traffic now. Ahead, the smooth, white, inhumanly slender figure of a Michikoid gracefully strode through a crossing. Were they still a stylishly retro choice for party help? He felt a certain satisfaction in no longer knowing…
Rainey’s sigil pulsed. “Could you bring milk?” she asked. “We’re out.”
“A liter?”
“Two. Where are you?”
“Tottenham Court Road,” he said, “on my way home.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Learning to skate.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“In a sim. With Ash.”
“Still less so,” she said.
“She was finding it rather tedious, the extent to which I enjoyed it.”
“Don’t forget the milk.”
As her sigil dimmed, a sliding shadow eclipsed the road. Looking up, he saw the segmented ventral surfaces of a particularly large moby, quite low, a flock of gulls wheeling behind it. He stopped, to stand beneath it as it passed, wishing Thomas were here, who might make a sound perhaps, reaching out to touch it, not understanding how high it was.
The city so quiet, in that moment, that he could hear the gulls.
Then a car passed, an antique Rolls, unoccupied, its driver a dash-top homunculus, in what he took to be a tiny chauffeur’s uniform.
He walked on, intent on milk, his dreams of skating forgotten.
31
Why Would You Be Gone?
The Manzilian was gone when they got upstairs. Joe-Eddy saw him occasionally on what seemed to be business, not that Verity had ever had any idea what that might consist of.
He was seated at his workbench now, the living room smelling of the resin of vanished summers, as he said of de-soldering antique Heathkits. He did this, she knew, when he was working something out, the pointless labor a manual counterpoint, a benign form of distraction. So she walked past, saying nothing, and down the hallway, into the kitchen.
“I was thinking of scrubbing this,” she said to Eunice, looking down at the floor, “but you turned up.”
“Looks like it’s been a while.” Cursor on the floor.
“Last year, when I’d first split with Stets. Media was so thick around my place that I couldn’t stand it. Snuck over here. Nothing better to do, so I washed it. What was that Gavin said about another contract?”
“He was suggesting they upload themselves a taste of the app whisperer in every unit.”
“Uh-uh.”
“They can’t do that yet,” Eunice said, “not even close.”
“Then why did he say it?”
“Looking for a reaction. Hoping one of us would say something that might give them a better idea of how much we know about where I’m from.”
“He said they’d reverse engineer it. Out of you.”
“Not a chance.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s like having hunches. Like I’m all hunches, now, but they tend to be right. Just got one to ask you.”
“What?”
“Say you turn around one day and I’m gone. What do you do?”
“Gone how?”
“Just gone. Permanently, say. Then Gavin comes by. To collect the hardware, debrief you, like that. But I’m gone, right? You can’t call me. I won’t be back. What do you do?”
Verity looked over at the Pikachu-shaped filtration unit on the sink, its little smile. “What should I?”
“Whatever they say’s happened to me, act like you buy it. Meantime, you’re getting ready to get as far away from them as you can.”
Verity went to the sink, ran cold through the Pikachu, filled a glass. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“I know you don’t. That’s why I’ve got people you haven’t met yet. And money. Like they’ll build you your own private witness protection program.”
“Why would you be gone?”
“’Cause Cursion’s decided to take me down, on the basis of our coffee with Gavin.”
“Why?”
“They think my ass is trouble. They’re right.”
“I don’t see it. You’re something next-level. They found you somewhere. You weren’t coded in the back of a gaming start-up. So why their alpha build?”
“If they feel sufficiently endangered by their shit-hot prototype? Believe it. And if they’re in a position to see me as just one iteration, not the thing itself? First iteration goes sideways on you, you can erase it. But it’s still hypothetical, whether or not they can. Nobody knows till they try.”
Verity put the glass down. “I don’t like it.”
“Lighten up,” Eunice said.
“Lighten up?”
“Let’s check out the Mission. Like I told Gavin, the sun’s out.”
“But is the world still ending?”
“Not looking any better,” Eunice said.
32
Churchill’s Waistcoat Pocket
He’d purchased the milk from the newsagent’s, the counter manned by a briskly amiable figure he suspected of being a repurposed Jermyn Street fitting-bot. It reminded him of a pre-jackpot actor his mother had enjoyed, though the name escaped him.
The milk, as Rainey had specified, was from actual cows, but optimized by assemblers for a human baby. He had it in a colorful carrier bag, something papery, which he imagined would interest Thomas. He’d take it in and show him, before allowing it to return to the shop. But when he turned into Alfred Mews he saw Lowbeer there, more than midway to their building, which stood across the very end. Grimly upright in her shooting cape, she no longer looked cheerful.
He quickened his pace. “Something wrong?” he asked, reaching her, unable to not glance anxiously up at the flat’s windows.
“Ash has detected preparations by Cursion for a move against Eunice. She’s unable to determine exactly what, or when, and we’ve no way to contact Eunice directly. If we had you there, in the drone, with Ash to assist, you might be able to speak with her. It’s worth trying.”
“When?”
“Now,” said Lowbeer.
“I’m only just learning to walk—”
“Ash thought you did extremely well in the simulation,” Lowbeer said, “and there is such a thing as training on the job.”
Her car decloaked behind her. It was patterned, someone had told him, on something called a Dymaxion, though he’d never bothered to look the term up.