Agency

50 From Floral Street

They’ve a controller,” Netherton said to Rainey, having muted himself before he opened his eyes. She sat at the far end of the couch, legs drawn up beneath her chin, feet bare.

Lowbeer’s sigil appeared. “I underestimated Howell’s resources,” she said. “Eunice’s as well. She seems to have proactively copied circuity in the drone. She’d likely no more in mind than Verity being able to control the drone in her stub, should that prove necessary, but you’re about to have a visitor.”

“We are?” Netherton asked.

“Flynne’s peripheral, arriving at your flat shortly,” Lowbeer said.

“Verity, in Flynne’s peripheral?” he asked.

“Excellent!” said Rainey, overhearing.

“Where’s it kept,” Netherton asked, not having thought of this before, “when Flynne isn’t using it?”

“A peri spa, in Floral Street,” said Lowbeer.

“What does it do there?”

“It sleeps,” Lowbeer said, “receives nutrition, does aerobics and yoga, and is cosmetically maintained.”

Had she added sex and recreational drugs, it occurred to him, she might have been describing the lifestyles of any number of acquaintances from his bachelor days.

“She’s entering the mews,” Lowbeer said, her sigil fading.

“Entering the mews now,” Netherton repeated, for Rainey’s benefit. She got up, to walk around and behind the couch, to the window.

Eyes open, Netherton joined her.

An approaching figure crossed a patch of lamplit pavement.

“Go down and bring her up,” said Rainey.

“It’s not Flynne,” he said.

“Don’t make her have to ring.”

Starting to remove the controller, he thought better of it. The peri would be on its manufacturer’s AI. No one in it to see him, let alone think his headgear ridiculous.

As he descended the two flights Rainey insisted were healthier than the lift, he remembered having first seen it, before it had become Flynne’s, in the lurid blue dusk of an upper parlor of what Lev archly termed his father’s house of love, a monstrosity of erotic kitsch in Kensington Gore. It had noted him, he recalled, with a benign disinterest, as though he’d attracted the attention, such as it was, of a giant semisentient orchid.

It had, Lev had explained, no digestive tract, hence neither ate nor defecated, so required twelve-hourly infusions of a concentrated nutrient as well as regular hydration.

It waited now, he saw, beyond the foyer’s steel-mullioned door, with that same expression, brown eyes regarding him from beneath brown hair. Someone, Lowbeer perhaps, had told him, after he’d first encountered it, that it was ten years old, though appearing to be in its early thirties. It seemed no older now.

“Come in,” he said, the door opening in response to his invitation. “This way,” indicating the lift, which opened at their approach.

It wore black trainers with bright white soles, loose gray trousers cinched at the ankles, and a black kimono-cut jacket. And looked, in the confusing way of situations like this, like Flynne. Not that it actually bore any more than a passing resemblance to her, but that he was so accustomed now to experiencing it as her physical avatar.