Agency

54 Systems Checks

Checking on Thomas, Netherton found him asleep within the auroral display, the nanny curled, triply pandaform, on the floor around his crib.

As he returned to the kitchen, an unfamiliar sigil began to pulse, something officious-looking, American. “Yes?”

“Wilf,” someone male greeted him, in a county accent, as the pulsing ceased.

“Hello?”

“Conner, man. Penske. Been a while. You good?”

No feed appeared. Netherton remembered when he’d last seen Conner, in footage of cousin Leon’s inauguration. Wearing a deeply uncharacteristic dark gray suit, bespoke, from a Philadelphia firm chosen by Lowbeer’s much younger stub-self, himself a monument to Jermyn Street, though given in the county to waxed cotton jackets and suede desert boots. The suit had made Conner look more like a junior American diplomat than one of the dissident Secret Service men he’d at that point been charged with protecting Leon from. “Well, thanks. Yourself?”

“Can’t complain,” Conner said. “Tired of the weather here.”

“You’re in Alaska, with Leon?”

“Back in D.C., now he’s done his secessionist-soothing for a while. Ainsley says you’ve got a new stub going.”

“New to me,” Netherton said.

“Says she stumbled on a lost effort of Vespasian’s,” Conner said. “Who’s the black guy nodding out in the armchair?”

Realizing that Conner must be accessing the drone, Netherton closed his eyes.

Just as Virgil jerked his head upright, blinking. Netherton muted his link to the drone’s speaker. Virgil peered at the drone. “That’s Virgil,” Netherton said to Conner. “He works for Stetson Howell, who formerly was in a relationship with Verity Jane. She’s the woman on the couch, the current locus of our efforts there, our agent having apparently been taken offline.”

“Hey, Virgil,” Conner said, raising his voice. “Name’s Conner. Sorry to startle you.”

“She just sits there.” Virgil squinted at Verity, then back at the drone. “She okay?”

“She’s fine,” Conner said. “If they meant to keep her here for much longer, they’d have had her on her back.”

The drone’s camera angles shifted, as if it were elevating. Virgil’s eyes, attracted by movement, widened further.

“What are you doing with the drone, Conner?” Netherton asked.

“Balancing on its wrist-tips,” Conner said, “feet off the floor.”

“Conner was in the military, Virgil,” Netherton said. “He trained for this.”

“Marines,” said Conner. “Haptic Recon.” The camera angle changed again, suddenly, Netherton guessing the drone had tilted forward on its extended arms, to land on its feet ahead of where it had been standing. Now one of the room’s windows, curtains drawn, was centered in its display. It rolled toward this and stopped. A thin black rod flexed into view, tentacle-like, then quickly out of sight, behind the nearest drape. A new feed opened, encompassing most of the display. Looking down, into as much of the street below as could be seen from the window. A yellow vehicle Netherton assumed to be a taxi was passing beneath them. A crisp white circle and crosshairs appeared, centered on its roof, tracking it out of the feed.

“What are you doing?” Netherton asked, reminded of how Conner made him uneasy.

“Running systems checks,” Conner said. “This is a fabbed-up repro of something at least six generations behind the oldest I ever piloted, but the software looks like it’s either ours or we’ve rewritten it. Seriously fucked up.”

“And that’s the best Ash could come up with?” Netherton asked.

“Guess so,” said Conner, the crosshairs picking up a truck as it drove into the feed from the right, “but I meant fucked up like I can’t fucking wait to use it.”

Not liking the sound of that either, Netherton said nothing.

“Hey,” said Conner, “you come and sit in a room in the basement of the West Wing, doing sweet fuck-all. Rest of the time, it’s the wit and wisdom of President Leon. Back when we still weren’t sure about the Secret Service, I had something to tend to. Now they’re all loving his hick philosopher ass. You people have run some weird ops here, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, considering, but this, with Leon? I mean, come on.”

“Not my idea,” Netherton said, “I can assure you.”

“It was them,” said Conner, “Ainsley and that goth with the figure-eight pupils. That’s what Flynne said.” The crosshairs were tracking the roof of a passing police car now. “Anyway, you can’t blame me wanting to get this thing kinetic.”