Agency

89 Kinda Sorta

The last familiar landmark Verity had seen, blocks and turns behind her now, had been a sliver of SoMa’s iconic Coca-Cola sign, its top partially cut off by the helmet. Back in Dogpatch now, on what she assumed was Third Street, Grim Tim, not bothering with a turn signal, swung them abruptly left, into a wide alley between low, industrial-looking buildings.

Then they were stationary, vibration ended, her ears ringing in the engine’s absence. Immediately behind her, past her doubly folded Muji bag and Dixon’s 3D-printed plastic addition to the Harley’s luggage rack, she sensed movement.

“Can you get off okay?” Conner asked, in the Tulpagenics phone’s earpiece. She looked down, startled to discover the drone beside her, its legs now as short as she remembered them from Fabricant Fang, its torso tilted back as if looking up at her.

She removed the gloves Grim Tim had given her, raised the visor, unfastened and removed the helmet, and pulled her mask down. “I’ll know when I try.”

He lowered the centerstand, which reminded her that she needed to dismount first, so he could get the bike up on it. She discovered just how stiff she was, then, and in how many places.

As he rolled the bike up, onto the stand, she took a step back. Her knees nearly buckled.

“Careful,” said Conner, behind her, as she realized she was being supported, very solidly, by a manipulator at either elbow. Coated with something soft and looking nothing at all like hands.

Cautiously, she tried a step forward, her knees functioning normally.

Grim Tim had dismounted in the meantime, still helmeted and visored.

“You good?” Conner asked her.

“Stiff,” she said.

The manipulators released her. “I’ll get your bag.” The drone turned to the rear of the bike, its two protruding suitcase casters surprising her, where its butt would have been if it had one. Now it used a different set of manipulators to adroitly unstrap the bag from Dixon’s backrest.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We’re here,” he said, unfolding the bag atop the bike’s gas tank. She gave it a glance for squashed bugs, not seeing any. Then noticed much bug-wreckage on the forearms of the borrowed down jacket. She unzipped and removed it, gingerly.

Grim Tim turned, passing the drone’s charger to Conner, then taking the helmet and jacket from Verity. After stowing them in the saddlebag, he removed the glove from his right hand, and reached to take hers and grip it firmly.

“Thanks for getting us here,” she said, “and for the gloves.”

Releasing her hand and passing her the bag, he quickly mounted, rolled the bike off its stand, then walked it back to where he could turn it toward the street. Ignition.

She stuffed the gloves into one of the hoodie’s side pockets and put the strap over her shoulder. “I’m getting tired,” she said, “of nobody telling me where I’m going.”

“Soon as I know,” Conner said, the charger held in front of the drone, “you will. Meantime, this way.”

She followed the drone.

“Fang’s friends who make these brought this one over,” he said. She didn’t know what he was talking about. “Delivered half an hour ago, not that you could tell. Had set decorators make it look like it’s not brand-new. Fake pee stains on the side, always look wet.”

She made out the ten-foot cubical container, farther along the alley, in shadow, flush with the wall to her left, looking like it had been there awhile.

“Rented parking space,” Conner said, the drone bending to lower the charger to the pavement. “Won’t get hauled. Ash showed it to me on our way here.” Quiet sounds of manipulators, manipulating in relative shadow. “Lights go off when I open this door, stay off till I close it. Like a fridge, but backward.” He opened its door, on darkness. “I’ll be out here, on the roof. There’s a socket up there, so I can use the charger to top up.”

“Why is this here?”

“To keep you off the street. A place to put your feet up.”

She stepped up into it, though not as much as she’d had to step up into Fang’s. This one seemed to be sitting directly on the pavement, no pallets. He closed the door behind her. The translucent ceiling came on.

Same interior, but with the tatami equivalent of new car smell. Same low-backed, nearly legless couch, equally low wooden table in front of it, a white plastic 7-Eleven bag on that, the red plastic caps of two one-liter bottles of drinking water peeking out. She craned her neck, to see what else might be in it: a fistful of protein bars, a couple of packs of gas station jerky, a bag of kale chips.

Hanging her bag from the familiar aluminum hook, she removed her shoes and put them on the plastic tray.

Going into the restroom, she closed the sliding paper doors and used the toilet. No political graffiti. The wall looked as if it might never have been touched by human hands, which she supposed was literally possible. She closed her eyes, seeing gridlock again. When she stood, the toilet flushed as expected.

“I’m up here,” Conner said, as she was washing her hands. “On top.” A feed appeared, looking, she assumed, toward what might be Third, from the cube’s flat roof. A police car passed, followed by a UPS truck.

“Any cams here?” she asked.

“Your glasses and the ones in this drone.”

“Didn’t hear you getting up there,” she said, stepping out, sliding the screens shut, going to the gray couch.

“Winched the charger up and you never heard that either.” The feed vanished.

After she’d removed the hoodie and her tweed jacket, she hung them over her bag and sat down, putting her purse on the table, beside the 7-Eleven bag. “Know what’s happening yet?” she asked.

“Eunice’s branch plants are busy,” he said, “doing nobody knows what. Meanwhile, your roommate’s friend from Brazil has been spending the money Eunice makes. A couple of her branch plants are extremely good at stock markets.”

“On what?”

“Tech companies. Nothing very big. Widely distributed, different jurisdictions. Nobody saying what for. Ainsley’s not really all that communicative herself, in case you haven’t noticed. That’s either an English thing or a big stub thing, maybe both.”

“Big stub?”

“What we call their time line. Mostly just to piss ’em off.”

“Why would it?”

“They think they’re the only real continuum, the one original, not a stub. They discovered the so-called server first, whatever anomaly allows all this. But they didn’t invent it, just found it. Anybody knows what it really is, or where, they’re not telling.”

“Nobody knows what it is?”

“Nobody has the least fucking idea, or where the hardware is. Lot of people think China, but China’s just naturally where you’d guess something like that would be.”

“Why?”

“’Cause they opted to mostly go their own way, in the jackpot. They were big enough, the richest country, all set to do it. Just rolled up the carpet and closed the door for a couple decades. Didn’t need to evolve a klept, either.”

“Evolve what?”

“Klept. What runs the world that isn’t China, up the line where Lowbeer is. Hereditary authoritarian government, roots in organized crime. The jackpot seemed to filter that out of what was already happening, made it dominant.”

Verity shifted on the couch, which was a lot less comfortable than the identical one in Oakland, the movement making her aware of the semirigid white filtration mask around her neck, beneath her chin. Getting it off, she discovered that her lips were dry. She found ChapStick in her purse, applied it. “None of this shit’s simple, is it?” She ran her tongue across her lips.

“Here’s something,” he said. “Don’t know if it’ll be simple. Call for you, priority override on the network.”

“Who?”

“If I knew, it wouldn’t be priority.”

“Okay.”

“Bye,” he said.

Can’t do audio. You okay?

White Helvetica, across her open purse.

“Who’s this?” She bit her freshly ChapSticked lower lip.

Me.

“Shit,” said Verity, half in stunned delight, half in fear of disappointment.

Kinda sorta.

“Eunice?”

She waited.

Nothing.

“That was quick,” Conner said.

“She’s gone,” Verity heard herself say.

“Seemed to get broken off.”

“You couldn’t tell where it was from?”

“At all,” he said. “How’s that couch?”

“Hard.”

“Ash had Fang’s friends restuff it. Ten-by-twelve body-armor plates, ceramic, level four.”

“Why?”

“Any shooting starts, flip it on its side, with the upholstery between you and the guns.”

“Shooting,” she repeated, flatly.

“Just in case,” he said.

But had that been Eunice?