Ash’s sigil pulsed when he was nearing Hanway Place, the walk having been uneventful.
“Yes?”
“Rainey says you’re out.”
“Meeting Lev,” he said. “Where we were earlier.” She’d been Lev’s employee, his resident technician, when Netherton had first met her. “Have you seen him since the divorce?” he asked.
“Not since I left to work with Lowbeer.”
He was passing the shop where he’d gotten Thomas’s milk. He glimpsed the natty figure of the bot salesclerk. Michael something, he thought, certain that was the given name of the twentieth-century actor he thought it resembled. Surname still escaping him. “How are we doing, then, generally?” he asked Ash.
“Doing?”
“With our attempted rescue, or perhaps I should say takeover, of Verity’s stub.”
“They needn’t be mutually exclusive categories, as you know. The aunties’ odds are still for imminent use of nuclear weapons. Verity’s agreed to work with us, hopefully giving us all the entrée we need to Eunice’s network.”
He turned into Hanway Street. “I’m here,” he said, spotting the narrow, stalactite-festooned façade. “Give Lev your best, then?”
“Do, please,” she said, surprising him. “Far from the worst employer I’ve had.”
“I will, then.”
Her sigil faded.
As Netherton descended the spiral stone staircase, Lev’s sigil reappeared, thylacines pulsing. “Just arriving,” Netherton said.
“They’ll bring you to me,” said Lev, the sigil dimming but not disappearing.
“You’re Wilf?” asked the freckle-dusted redhead at the foot of the stairs, draped in a floor-length gossamer cloak, spangled with sequins reflecting mobile light-sources that clearly weren’t present.
“I am,” he said.
“Follow me, please.”
He did, noting late evening’s breakfasters seemed little different from the afternoon’s. More tipsy, perhaps, but that evident mainly in an increased decibel count. The girl’s cloak reminded him of a Japanese film Lowbeer was fond of, Mothra, which she sometimes screened in her car. He’d assumed it was silent, but Ash insisted that it had originally had a soundtrack, Lowbeer preferring it without. Now a similarly draped young woman joined them, identically redheaded and, Netherton immediately suspected, identically freckled, down to the very last spot. Then another, equally indistinguishable, confirming his suspicion that they were bots. All in restlessly luminescent cloaks, accompanying him back into those darker, red-lit reaches, beyond the breakfasters. When they reached Lev, finally, there were half a dozen red-haired girls, seemingly identical.
He hoped Lev had arranged for chairs, rather than stalagmite stumps. He’d no idea what the six bot-girls were about. They struck him as very un-Lev.
“Hello,” said Lev, glumly extending his hand, from where he sat upon a stalagmite stump far too short for his long legs. Netherton briefly took it. “Have a seat there.” Indicating the nearest stump. Netherton settled himself on this, as uncomfortably as expected.
The bot-girls surrounded them, arms outstretched and palm to palm, smoothly adjusting distances from one to another, to press hands again and raise them toward the rough low ceiling. The sequins began to swirl, spiraling up, from one cloak to the next, to form a low dome of flitting light. “What’s this?” Netherton asked Lev.
“Privacy,” said Lev, “of an unusual but necessary order.”
“Provided by the bots?” Looking at their upraised cloaks.
“They’ve no connectivity whatever,” Lev said. “Like the robots in old films. Limited functionality, but what there is is provided exclusively by onboard AI. The cloaks, combined this way, comprise something akin to a Faraday cage, but blocking many more sorts of signal. Limited duration, though, operating at full spectrum, so I’ll be quick.”
“Do.”
“My father,” Lev said, “less than two hours ago, learned from an uncle of his, more highly placed, that your Lowbeer’s role is being reconsidered.”
“‘My’ Lowbeer, is she? You introduced us.”
“And you’ve since become her employee. Which is why I’m alerting you, now, to the possibility of that becoming unsafe.”
“Has it occurred to your father,” asked Netherton, taking a page from Lowbeer’s book, “that conspiring to hinder her in her work may be one of the least safe things anyone can possibly do?”
“Certainly,” said Lev. “As the klept’s resident antibody, she expects to be conspired against. My father, however, says he’s never before seen her regarded, at his uncle’s level, as other than the most necessary of evils.” He glanced up at the sequin swirl, then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “It’s to do with her manipulation of stubs.”
Netherton’s pet fear executed a squeamish rollover, seemingly atop his entire consciousness, bringing him a flashback of the Thames chimera he’d seen with Lowbeer. “It does?”
“She’s altering stubs to produce worlds in which the klept enjoy less power,” Lev said, absolutely confirming it for Netherton.
“It’s art, Lev,” Netherton protested, taking a second page from Lowbeer, “poetry. What happens in a stub stays there.”
“My father takes this very seriously, Wilf.”
Netherton looked up at the zero-connectivity redheads, serenely steepled, as far down the ladder from Flynne’s vintage Hermès mystery woman as was possible to go, short of simply being a statue. The sole tasty bit of their tech would be whatever provided the supposed privacy. “Where did you find these?”
“My father ordered me to use them,” Lev said. “He used them when he was told this, and again when he told me.”
“Would you be able to give me any more information, about this supposed threat?”
“Only that her role is being critically reconsidered.”
“Reconsidered?”
“As to whether it needs to exist.”
Netherton considered this. “Thank you. I assume I’ve your permission to tell her? Not that I’d be able to do otherwise, of course.”
“Of course. That’s why we’re telling you. But absolutely no one else. Your wife, for instance.”
“And that’s all you know?”
“It is,” said Lev.
“You look quite down,” said Netherton, “if you don’t mind my saying. Is it over this?”
“Hardly,” said Lev. “It’s my responsibility to tell you. Not least because you yourself might be in danger, as her employee. Otherwise, I’m really not up to much. Cheyne Walk’s definitely not agreeing with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Meanwhile, please inform Lowbeer, and no one other than Lowbeer, and then only in circumstances she herself deems entirely secure. She’ll have something far superior to these bots, but until you find yourself within her version of this charmed circle”—and he winced, the bot-girls being obviously not to his taste—“say nothing to anyone.”
“Time, sir,” said one of the bots, its voice identical to that of the one that had greeted Netherton at the foot of the stairs. “Two minutes remain.”
“We’re done,” Lev replied. As one, the six lowered their cloaks, sequins ceasing to whirl. Without looking back, they turned and walked toward the dining area, Netherton watching them go.