Agency

44 A Money Launderer

Who’s that?” Netherton asked Ash, having muted.

“Sevrin,” she said, “Moldovan money launderer, on Eunice’s payroll. Verity met him earlier. Kathy and Dixon know him as Miguel.”

“Why is he there?” Netherton asked, charmed by this archaic job description.

“Either Eunice scripted scenarios for various situations, and he’s working from one, or one or more of her laminae are still active, or he’s gone rogue.”

“It always makes me uncomfortable,” Netherton said, “to see them learn they’re in a stub. And then they all immediately assume we’re from their future.”

“Not as uncomfortable as it makes them,” Ash said. “I’ve seen two psychotic breaks, since you’ve been on leave.”

Now the man called Sevrin was unfolding something black. He wore a short jacket and matching narrow trousers, dark gray, with highly reflective black shoes. His black hair was so short that it might have been sprayed on, his goatee equally minimal. Money launderers, in Netherton’s experience of Flynne’s stub, were the sort of people least destabilized by discovering that their world was a branch of someone else’s. They immediately looked for advantage in the knowledge. Netherton unmuted. “What’s this all about?” he asked.

The money launderer looked up from what he was doing.

“That’s Wilf,” said Verity. “He’s in London.”

“The crew,” Kathy Fang announced, appearing behind Sevrin, “are back on the fabrication floor. They’ve left plenty of food. From a friend’s craft service kitchen, a few blocks from here. Anybody hungry?”