Agency

72 Don’t Dawdle

Assemblers not only produced perfect bespoke replicas of period costume, Netherton was reminded, putting on the black knee-length frock coat, but made them look as though the wearer had previously worn them, a subtlety of cosplay he knew he hadn’t matched with his knotting of this somber silk necktie. Fortunately it was the most problematically fastened garment of the lot, both the frock coat and the calf-length topcoat having, as Rainey had promised, period-accurate but perfectly manageable buttons. The shirt and trousers, and the high black shoes, though they appeared to button quite elaborately, employed invisible contemporary fasteners. He wouldn’t have bothered changing into the period-accurate underpants, but for Rainey having slyly mentioned wanting to see him in them later.

And no topper, to his great relief, Lowbeer having evidently recalled his dislike of them. Not that he particularly liked derbies either, he thought, as he put on this black one and considered the result in the bedroom mirror.

It did nothing for him, he decided, aside from definitively not being a top hat. He briefly tried imagining himself with a mustache, sideburns, or both. He’d never been interested in fancy dress, even as a child.

About to close the closet door, having tried to determine which garments of his the assemblers had made all this from, he noticed something unfamiliar propped inside, below his clothing. A walking stick, this proved to be, of what he assumed was ebony. Hexagonal in cross-section, with a round, complexly turned head of the same material, its top was inset with a well-worn sterling roundel, “W. Netherton” engraved across it in cursive. Lowbeer’s assemblers could have made this from his shoes, he decided, then noticed that several pairs of them were in fact missing. He must remember to insist on everything being returned to its original state, as much as he disliked the idea of that being accomplished in their bedroom closet.

A nicely balanced object, though, this stick. Pleasant in the hand. He opened the bedroom door, stepping out to show Rainey.

She whooped in delight, jumping up and running over, kissing him on the mouth, then took the derby and tried it on, tilting it quite far down over one eye. “You’ve found your winter look.” She grinned, and put it back on his head.

“Not a topper, at least. Forced to wear one last time I was coerced into going there. A City function in a guildhall, keeping Lev company. Reception afterward at a grillroom. You were still in Toronto.”

“You complained about it, I remember. But she called again, just now, while you were changing. Car waiting in the mews, gone helicopter again. Better get going.” She gave him an appraising look. “Are there garters?”

“Yes. Socks are wool, no elastic.”

“Whew,” she said, pretending to fan her face with her hand. “Can’t wait.” She kissed him on the cheek.

“I love you,” he said.

“Socks on the brain right now, but fond of you myself.”

Remembering the gesture from some ancient video, he saluted her by lightly tapping the derby’s brim with the shaft of the stick. “Phone if you need me.”

“I will,” she said.

He saw his breath as he stepped out into the mews, the night being colder than he’d expected. He stroked the topcoat’s sleeve seam, before remembering it wasn’t a heated garment. Continuing down the mews with the stick over his shoulder, he saw the car’s door decloaking. It opened, the step descending.

“Come in,” said Lowbeer, from inside.

He did. She wasn’t there. “I’m in Cheapside,” she said, as the door closed behind him, her voice omnidirectional. “Please have a seat.”

He did, choosing the one to the rear, in order to be facing forward. As he was becoming aware of the faint residual scent of one of her candles, he felt the car rise smoothly, in perfect silence, up out of Alfred Mews.

“Care for a view?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” he said, preferring the buff walls. The walking stick lay diagonally across the oval table, the derby beside it.

The car was no longer rising now, and he was only faintly aware of forward momentum, though he knew this could be highly deceptive, as the attached quadcopter could be as fast as it was silent.

And so, shortly, descent, his sole awareness of landing one of cessation of movement. He stood, stick and derby in hand, to step up, out of the upholstered and carpeted pit. The door opened. He heard horses’ hooves, wheels rattling across cobbles, the distant chugging of a steam train.

Stepping down from the car, he noticed two crinolined women staring blankly at him, or rather, he assumed, at what they might be able to see of the car’s decloaked door. He took them to be visitors. The bots who made the place look populous ignored anomalies, while the relative few who chose to live here tended to scowl at breaks in continuity.

The sky was his favorite thing about the place, day or night, some effect removing the shards entirely, along with whatever other tokens of the present would otherwise have been distantly visible. The hour now, he saw, was late enough for the street to be slightly less crowded, but with no suggestion of that Lowbeerian depopulation he expected when meeting her in a public place. Gentlemen were strolling after dinner with cigars, ladies of the night were abroad, and a veritable museum of antique criminality was afoot, this last being one of the most popular attractions.

“Thank you for coming,” said Lowbeer, at his elbow, causing him to start.

“Rainey mentioned Fearing,” he said.

“Indeed,” said Lowbeer. The top hat altered the look of her features, he thought, due mainly to concealing the white quiff, which ordinarily lent her face animation. Without it, she looked studious, and a bit owlish. Like his own costume, hers suggested mourning, perhaps in deference to Fearing’s perpetual bereavement. “This way, please.” Ushering him in the direction of St. Paul’s. “Have you attended the commemoration, here, of the Second Great Fire? December twenty-ninth and thirtieth.”

“I haven’t,” Netherton said. “What do they do?” He stepped around a beggar boy, a bitter-looking double amputee on a wheeled pallet, almost certainly a bot.

“Gobshite,” he heard it call harshly after him.

“They use the system that conceals the shards to reenact the fire,” Lowbeer continued, “the result of German incendiary bombs in 1940. Sunset on the second evening is particularly memorable. This way, please.” She turned left, down a narrow passageway, the two of them unable to quite walk abreast. Here the odors of the cosplay zone, artificial though he knew them to be, strongly reminded him of how much he disliked them generally. Somewhat away from the fresh manure of the street now, there was an eye-stingingly ammoniac reek of urine. This lessened as they continued, but not entirely.

“Here we are, then,” said Lowbeer, stopping unexpectedly, a thick wooden door, previously unnoticed, partially opening to Netherton’s immediate left. Fearing, dimly backlit by candlelight, squinted ferociously at him over something thrust forward in both hands, her arms outstretched from the shoulders. A pistol, Netherton saw, of the county’s era, and exactly the sort he knew her younger self to favor.

“Good evening, Clovis,” said Lowbeer, removing her top hat.

“Don’t dawdle,” Fearing said, taking a step back and partially lowering the pistol.

Lowbeer promptly stepped in, opening the door further. Netherton followed, remembering to remove his derby.

Fearing, her gun now in one hand, a brass candelabra in the other, its half-consumed white tapers flickering, nodded toward a dark narrow gap behind her. “Go ahead,” she said, “it’s straight back.”