Agency

58 Charmed Circle

The peripheral was watching Netherton from the couch, in that curiously nonintrusive way that meant it was once again under the control of its manufacturer’s AI.

“I like her,” said Rainey, Thomas on her hip. Netherton assumed she meant Verity. She didn’t always like clients, though in that case she wouldn’t mention it.

A sigil appeared, pulsing, unfamiliar at first. Then he recognized it as Lev Zubov’s, featuring the faces of his two pet thylacines. “Phone,” he said to Rainey, “sorry.” She nodded, turning back to Thomas in his high chair at the table. “Lev,” he said, “how are you?”

“Reasonably well,” said Lev, not sounding it. He’d been unhappy with the divorce, Netherton knew, which had been his wife Dominika’s idea, and with its outcome, which had seen her remain in the house in Notting Hill, along with their child. He’d since taken up residence in another Zubov family property, in Cheyne Walk, which Netherton hadn’t yet seen, reportedly even more redolent of old klept than the Notting Hill place. He doubted Lev was happy with that either, he and his cohort preferring to treat their klepthood as something of a joke, not that anyone else could afford to.

“I need to see you,” Lev said, sounding no happier about that. “Tonight?”

Urgency wasn’t something Netherton associated with Lev, but this was sounding like a sadder man than he’d known before, and he felt a pang of guilt for not having kept in touch recently. Lev had been instrumental in helping Netherton finally address his problem with drink, without which there might now be no Rainey in his life, nor any Thomas.

Lowbeer’s sigil pulsed urgently.

“Excuse me,” he said to Lev, “just a moment.” Muted him. “Yes?”

“See him tonight,” said Lowbeer. Her sigil vanished.

“Sorry,” he said, unmuting Lev. “Where shall we meet?”

“Not there,” said Lev, “this requires privacy.”

Not Cheyne Walk either, thought Netherton, then remembered the Denisovan Embassy. “One from your list of the interrupted, then? Under Hanway Street? Twenty minutes?”

“On my way,” said Lev, his thylacines vanishing.

“What’s that?” asked Rainey.

“Lev.”

“I gathered. What about?”

“Needs to get something off his chest, apparently. Lowbeer interrupted to say I should meet him. Hanway Street.” He removed the controller and placed it on the couch. “Don’t sit on this.”

“What’s there?”

“The Denisovan Embassy.”

“The sex club?” Up went the eyebrow.

“Formerly, yes,” he said. “I’m surprised you know of it.”

“I’d a client whose career crisis was brought on by a single particularly ill-starred visit there.” She regarded him narrowly. “A Canadian abroad.”

“It’s only round-the-clock breakfasts now,” he said. “I suggested it because it’s close, and on a list of his.”

“What list?”

“Of places that were one thing, but are now another, yet still have the same distinctive name. Fancies himself artistic, that way. If you need me, phone. I’ll try not to be long. Hope I won’t be.” He kissed her cheek.

He went into the bedroom for his jacket, put it on, setting it to medium warmth. By the time he’d stepped out into the mews, it felt exactly right. As he approached where he judged Lowbeer’s cloaked car to be, he hoped she wouldn’t stop him for a chat. It decloaked, but only partially, when he was three meters away, faintly revealing its outline in ghostly, washed-out pixels. He walked between it and the wall, not slowing, his eyes on what little was visible of Tottenham Court Road.

Ash’s sigil pulsed when he was nearing Hanway Place, the walk having been uneventful.

“Yes?”

“Rainey says you’re out.”

“Meeting Lev,” he said. “Where we were earlier.” She’d been Lev’s employee, his resident technician, when Netherton had first met her. “Have you seen him since the divorce?” he asked.

“Not since I left to work with Lowbeer.”

He was passing the shop where he’d gotten Thomas’s milk. He glimpsed the natty figure of the bot salesclerk. Michael something, he thought, certain that was the given name of the twentieth-century actor he thought it resembled. Surname still escaping him. “How are we doing, then, generally?” he asked Ash.

“Doing?”

“With our attempted rescue, or perhaps I should say takeover, of Verity’s stub.”

“They needn’t be mutually exclusive categories, as you know. The aunties’ odds are still for imminent use of nuclear weapons. Verity’s agreed to work with us, hopefully giving us all the entrée we need to Eunice’s network.”

He turned into Hanway Street. “I’m here,” he said, spotting the narrow, stalactite-festooned façade. “Give Lev your best, then?”

“Do, please,” she said, surprising him. “Far from the worst employer I’ve had.”

“I will, then.”

Her sigil faded.

As Netherton descended the spiral stone staircase, Lev’s sigil reappeared, thylacines pulsing. “Just arriving,” Netherton said.

“They’ll bring you to me,” said Lev, the sigil dimming but not disappearing.

“You’re Wilf?” asked the freckle-dusted redhead at the foot of the stairs, draped in a floor-length gossamer cloak, spangled with sequins reflecting mobile light-sources that clearly weren’t present.

“I am,” he said.

“Follow me, please.”

He did, noting late evening’s breakfasters seemed little different from the afternoon’s. More tipsy, perhaps, but that evident mainly in an increased decibel count. The girl’s cloak reminded him of a Japanese film Lowbeer was fond of, Mothra, which she sometimes screened in her car. He’d assumed it was silent, but Ash insisted that it had originally had a soundtrack, Lowbeer preferring it without. Now a similarly draped young woman joined them, identically redheaded and, Netherton immediately suspected, identically freckled, down to the very last spot. Then another, equally indistinguishable, confirming his suspicion that they were bots. All in restlessly luminescent cloaks, accompanying him back into those darker, red-lit reaches, beyond the breakfasters. When they reached Lev, finally, there were half a dozen red-haired girls, seemingly identical.

He hoped Lev had arranged for chairs, rather than stalagmite stumps. He’d no idea what the six bot-girls were about. They struck him as very un-Lev.

“Hello,” said Lev, glumly extending his hand, from where he sat upon a stalagmite stump far too short for his long legs. Netherton briefly took it. “Have a seat there.” Indicating the nearest stump. Netherton settled himself on this, as uncomfortably as expected.

The bot-girls surrounded them, arms outstretched and palm to palm, smoothly adjusting distances from one to another, to press hands again and raise them toward the rough low ceiling. The sequins began to swirl, spiraling up, from one cloak to the next, to form a low dome of flitting light. “What’s this?” Netherton asked Lev.

“Privacy,” said Lev, “of an unusual but necessary order.”

“Provided by the bots?” Looking at their upraised cloaks.

“They’ve no connectivity whatever,” Lev said. “Like the robots in old films. Limited functionality, but what there is is provided exclusively by onboard AI. The cloaks, combined this way, comprise something akin to a Faraday cage, but blocking many more sorts of signal. Limited duration, though, operating at full spectrum, so I’ll be quick.”

“Do.”

“My father,” Lev said, “less than two hours ago, learned from an uncle of his, more highly placed, that your Lowbeer’s role is being reconsidered.”

“‘My’ Lowbeer, is she? You introduced us.”

“And you’ve since become her employee. Which is why I’m alerting you, now, to the possibility of that becoming unsafe.”

“Has it occurred to your father,” asked Netherton, taking a page from Lowbeer’s book, “that conspiring to hinder her in her work may be one of the least safe things anyone can possibly do?”

“Certainly,” said Lev. “As the klept’s resident antibody, she expects to be conspired against. My father, however, says he’s never before seen her regarded, at his uncle’s level, as other than the most necessary of evils.” He glanced up at the sequin swirl, then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “It’s to do with her manipulation of stubs.”

Netherton’s pet fear executed a squeamish rollover, seemingly atop his entire consciousness, bringing him a flashback of the Thames chimera he’d seen with Lowbeer. “It does?”

“She’s altering stubs to produce worlds in which the klept enjoy less power,” Lev said, absolutely confirming it for Netherton.

“It’s art, Lev,” Netherton protested, taking a second page from Lowbeer, “poetry. What happens in a stub stays there.”

“My father takes this very seriously, Wilf.”

Netherton looked up at the zero-connectivity redheads, serenely steepled, as far down the ladder from Flynne’s vintage Hermès mystery woman as was possible to go, short of simply being a statue. The sole tasty bit of their tech would be whatever provided the supposed privacy. “Where did you find these?”

“My father ordered me to use them,” Lev said. “He used them when he was told this, and again when he told me.”

“Would you be able to give me any more information, about this supposed threat?”

“Only that her role is being critically reconsidered.”

“Reconsidered?”

“As to whether it needs to exist.”

Netherton considered this. “Thank you. I assume I’ve your permission to tell her? Not that I’d be able to do otherwise, of course.”

“Of course. That’s why we’re telling you. But absolutely no one else. Your wife, for instance.”

“And that’s all you know?”

“It is,” said Lev.

“You look quite down,” said Netherton, “if you don’t mind my saying. Is it over this?”

“Hardly,” said Lev. “It’s my responsibility to tell you. Not least because you yourself might be in danger, as her employee. Otherwise, I’m really not up to much. Cheyne Walk’s definitely not agreeing with me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Meanwhile, please inform Lowbeer, and no one other than Lowbeer, and then only in circumstances she herself deems entirely secure. She’ll have something far superior to these bots, but until you find yourself within her version of this charmed circle”—and he winced, the bot-girls being obviously not to his taste—“say nothing to anyone.”

“Time, sir,” said one of the bots, its voice identical to that of the one that had greeted Netherton at the foot of the stairs. “Two minutes remain.”

“We’re done,” Lev replied. As one, the six lowered their cloaks, sequins ceasing to whirl. Without looking back, they turned and walked toward the dining area, Netherton watching them go.

“You don’t like Cheyne Walk, then?” Netherton asked.

“It’s entirely uncles of mine,” Lev said, standing up. “You can’t imagine. My best to Rainey and your boy.” Turning, he walked toward the sound of popping champagne corks.