His spiritual quest having alienated the few remaining business connections from his pre-African days, he sank without a trace.
But then he turned up one day, the Finn said, crazy as a shithouse rat. He was a pale little fucker anyway, but now he wore all this African shit, beads and bones and every-thing. Bobby let go of the Finns narrative long enough to wonder how anyone who looked like the Finn could describe somebody as a pale little fucker, then glanced over at Lucas, whose face was dead grim. Then it occurred to Bobby that Lucas might take the Africa stuff personally, sort of. But the Finn was continuing his story.
He had a lot of stuff he wanted to sell. Decks, peripherals, software. It was all a couple of years old, but it was top gear, so I gave him a price on it. I noticed hed had a socket implant, and he kept this one sliver of microsoft jacked behind his ear. Whats the soft? Its blank, he says. Hes sitting right where you are now, kid, and he says to me, its blank and its the voice of God, and I live forever in His white hum, or some shit like that. So I think, Christ, the Wigs gone but good now, and there he is counting up the money Id given him for about the fifth time. Wig, I said, times money but tell me what you intend to do now? Because I was curious. Known the guy years, in a business way Finn, he says, I gotta get up the gravity well, Gods up there. I mean, he says, Hes everywhere but theres too much static down here, it obscures His face. Right, I say... you got it. So I show him the door and thats it. Never saw him again.
Bobby blinked, waited, squirmed a little on the hard seat of the folding chair.
Except, about a year later, a guy turns up, high-orbit rigger down the well on a leave, and hes got some good software for sale. Not great, but interesting. He says its from the Wig. Well, maybe the Wigs a freak, and long out of the game, but he can still spot the good shit. So I buy it. That was maybe ten years ago, right? And every year or so, some guy would turn up with something. The Wig told me I should offer you this. And usually Id buy it. It was never anything special, but it was okay. Never the same guy bring-ing it, either.
Was that it, Finn, just software? Lucas asked
Yeah, mainly, except for these weird sculpture things. Id forgotten that. I figured the Wig made em. First time a guy came in with one of those, I bought the ware he had, then said what the fuck do you call that? Wig said you might be interested, the guy said. Tell him hes crazy, I said. The guy laughed. Well, you keep it, he says Im not carrying the Goddamn thing back up with me. I mean, it was about the size of a deck, this thing, just a bunch of garbage and shit, stuck together in a box... So I pushed it behind this Coke crate fulla scrap iron, and forgot it, except old Smith hes a colleague of mine in those days, dealt mostly art and collectibles she sees it and wants it. So we do some dipshit deal. Any more of these, Finn, he says, get em. Theres assholes uptown go for this kind of shit. So the next time a guy turned up from the Wig, I bought the sculpture thing, too, and traded it to Smith. But it was never much money for any of it . . The Finn shrugged. Not until last month, anyway. Some kid came in with what you bought. It was from the Wig. Listen. he says, this is biosoft and its a breaker. Wig says its worth a lot. I put a scan on it and it looked right. I thought it looked interesting, you know? Your partner Beauvoir thought it looked pretty interesting, too. I bought it. Beauvoir bought it off me. End of story. The Finn dragged out a cigarette, this one broken, bent double. Shit, he said He pulled a faded pack of cigarette papers from the same pocket and extracted one of the fragile pink leaves, rolling it tightly around the broken cigarette, a sort of splint. When he licked the glue, Bobby caught a glimpse of a very pointed gray-pink tongue.
And where, Finn, does Mr. Wig reside? Lucas asked, his thumbs beneath his chin, his large fingers forming a steeple in front of his face.
Lucas, I havent got the slightest fucking clue. In orbit somewhere. And modestly, if the kind of money he was getting out of me meant anything to him. You know, I hear theres places up there where you dont need money, if you fit into the economy, so maybe a little goes a long way. Dont ask me, though, Im agoraphobic. He smiled nastily at Bobby, who was trying to get the image of that tongue out of his mind. You know, he said, squinting at Lucas, it was about that time that I started hearing about weird shit happening in the matrix.
Like what? Bobby asked.
Keep the fuck out of this, the Finn said, still looking at Lucas. That was before you guys turned up, the new hoodoo team. I knew this street samurai got a job working for a Special Forces type made the Wig look flat fucking normal. Her and this cowboy theyd scraped up out of Chiba, they were on to something like that. Maybe they found it. Istanbul was the last I saw of em. Heard she lived in London, once, a few years ago. Who the fuck knows? Seven, eight years. The Finn suddenly seemed tired, and old, very old. He looked to Bobby like a big, mummified rat animated by springs and hidden wires. He took a wristwatch with a cracked face and a single greasy leather strap from his pocket and consulted it. Jesus. Well, thats all you get from me. Lucas. Ive got some friends from an organ bank coming by in twenty minutes to talk a little biz.
Bobby thought of the bodies upstairs. Theyd been there all day.
Hey, the Finn said, reading the expression on his face, organ banks are great for getting rid of things. Im paying them. Those motherless assholes upstairs, they dont have too much left in the way of organs... And the Finn laughed
You said he was close to... Legba? And Legbas the one you and Beauvoir said gave me luck when I hit that black ice?
Beyond the honeycomb edge of the geodesics, the sky was lightening.
Yes, Lucas said. He seemed lost in thought.
But he doesnt seem to trust that stuff at all.
It doesnt matter, Lucas said as the Rolls came into view. Hes always been close to the spirit of the thing.
17 THE SQUIRREL WOOD
THE PLANE HAD GONE to ground near the sound of running water. Turner could hear it, turning in the g-web in his fever or sleep, water down stone, one of the oldest songs The plane was smart, smart as any dog, with hard-wired instincts of concealment. He felt it sway on its landing gear, some-where in the sick night, and creep forward, branches brushing and scraping against the dark canopy. The plane crept into deep green shadow and sank down on its knees, its airframe whining and creaking as it flattened itself, belly down, into loam and granite like a manta ray into sand. The mimetic polycarbon coating its wings and fuselage mottled and darkened, taking on the colors and patterns of moon-dappled stone and forest soil. Finally it was silent, and the only sound was the sound of water over a creekbed.
He came awake like a machine, eyes opening, vision plugged in, empty, remembering the red flash of Lynchs death out beyond the fixed sights of the Smith & Wesson. The arc of the canopy above him was laced with mimetic approximations of leaves and branches Pale dawn and the sound of running water He was still wearing Oakeys blue work shirt It smelled of sour sweat now, and hed ripped the sleeves out the day before. The gun lay between his legs, pointing at the jets black joystick. The g-web was a limp tangle around his hips and shoulders. He twisted around and saw the girl, oval face and a brown dried trickle of blood beneath a nostril She was still out, sweating, her lips slightly parted, like a dolls.