Agency

52 Posture and Gait

When Verity used the peripheral, Netherton decided, watching it now, it no longer resembled Flynne. Which was really for the best, though it made him miss Flynne.

He stood at the window, as it followed Rainey into Lowbeer’s car, Lowbeer behind them. Not that he could have pointed to any specific difference in its posture or gait, with Verity using it, but his mind was somehow capable of the distinction. Surveillance programs plucked individuals from crowds, he knew, on just that basis.

Having seen it controlled by Hermès AI, earlier, had reminded him of how few opportunities to see one another he and Flynne now had. He was married, a parent, as was she, and then there was her demanding role in Lowbeer’s ongoing manipulation of the course of her native stub.

He closed his eyes, back into the feed from the drone, to find Verity seated as he’d last seen her, on the pale couch in the San Francisco hotel, eyes shut, beneath the makeshift controller. Stetson Howell, her venture capitalist, wasn’t in sight, nor was his fiancée, the French architect. Virgil, the man who’d met the van in front of the hotel, had pulled up an armchair and now sat facing Verity, engrossed with the screen of his manual phone.

Opening his eyes, Netherton saw a quadcopter descending silently into Alfred Mews, its black rectangular platform the length of Lowbeer’s car. He’d only known her to use this infrequently, and he’d always been her passenger at the time, so had never actually seen the thing before. A few dead leaves whirled frantically, as it secured the car. He regretted Thomas missing this.

Then it smoothly took the car up with it, as a single unit, which he imagined Thomas would have particularly enjoyed.