Agency

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.

“I’m just bringing milk for Thomas,” he said, drawing one of the bottles from the carrying bag. Sensing this, the bag crinkled, trying to origami itself into the butterfly it needed to become in order to fly back to the newsagent.

“Sorry. Best join me in the car.”

Netherton, fumbling to return the bottle to the bag, almost dropped both bottles, the bag escaping, fluttering clumsily away.

Climbing into her car, he found it configured, familiarly, as a windowless miniature submarine, austerely carpeted, with buff enamel walls. Four compact but comfortable green leather armchairs were sunken in a conversation pit, around a small oval table of brass-bound mahogany, their coziness offset by a sense of concentrated bureaucratic power. Churchill’s waistcoat pocket, Ash called it.

He took a seat, Lowbeer taking the one opposite. He placed the milk on the table between them, trusting there was no chance of condensation damaging the varnish.

“When did you last see Penske?” Lowbeer asked.

“Over a year ago.”

“He’s eager, of course, to pilot the drone he helped us equip, but isn’t immediately available.”

Netherton remembered Conner Penske attempting to assassinate the local drug lord, on the outskirts of Flynne’s small town. Repurposing, with an improvised explosive device, his own Veterans Administration bipedal prosthesis. Unsuccessfully, as it happened, in spite of the resulting body count. “Why unavailable?” he asked.

“Leon’s had presidential business in Alaska. Penske’s with him. The most extreme elements of the local secessionist movement would like to see Leon assassinated, particularly on Alaskan soil. He’s there to spread oil upon the far calmer waters of the secessionist majority. To distract Conner would endanger Leon. They’re returning soon to Washington. Ash will accompany you, Conner joining you in the drone as soon as Leon’s safely back in the White House. You’ll attempt to contact Eunice in-stub, warn her, win her trust. Should we be unsuccessful in that, and lose her to Cursion, you’ll be contacting Verity Jane instead.”

“Who?”

“The woman we induced Cursion to introduce to Eunice. In Eunice’s absence, she becomes the de facto locus of the network Eunice has been constructing. In that case, you’ll help enlist her as our agent there. She’s not at all the person I’d choose for the job, but there it is. I’m repeatedly placed in the position of choosing which innocent to sacrifice, to whatever current idea of the greater good. I’m weary of that. You’ve no idea how weary.”

How, Netherton wondered, could his wife and child be waiting for him, no more than twenty meters away, as he sat listening to this? He might as well be within the very bowels of the klept, beneath some City guildhall. But then, he supposed, he already was, simply by virtue of sitting here.

“You’ve the controller?” Lowbeer asked.

Netherton ran his hand over the bulge in his jacket’s side pocket, Ash having shown him how the thing folded. “Of course.”

“Very good.” A more accustomed tone now. “Ash will be joining you, by phone. She’s quite adroit, with the drone, from her sim training. I suggest you go up to your flat now and have something to eat. We’ve no idea what sort of evening you have ahead of you.”

Netherton stood, picking up a bottle of milk in either hand. “Thank you,” he said, reflexively, as the door opened behind him.