Agency

91 Followr

Company,” said Conner, in the earpiece, “incoming.”

Verity was on her back, on the couch, using the folded hoodie as a pillow, mechanically eating kale chips. She’d begun to wonder if she might not actually be more comfortable on the tatami. “Who?” She sat up, still aching from the ride.

“Manuela Montoya,” Ash said, “whom you’ll recognize from the lobby of the hotel.”

“The Followrs girl?”

“The network traced her today,” Ash said, “via Eunice’s facial recognition. Someone was sent to find her, before Cursion did.”

“She’s here?” Resisting the urge to ask Ash about the texts.

“The network wants Conner to protect her, which means having you together. Frankly, we’d prioritize that differently, but the network’s already affording us sufficient agency, here, that we have no choice.”

“Prioritize what?”

“Your safety. We assume Cursion are looking for you as well.”

“She’s here,” Conner said, opening his feed from the roof of the container.

Silhouetted against light from the street, the faceless black figure of what seemed a young woman stood on the sidewalk, apparently looking toward them, Verity reading hesitancy and doubt in her stance. She took a step, halted, then walked toward the container.

“She’s been told you’re there,” Ash said. “Conner’s opening the door.”

“Lights out,” said Conner.

Darkness. Verity felt cool air as the door swung open. “Manuela?”

“Verity?”

“Come in,” Verity said. “It lights up when the door closes. Watch your step.”

The girl from Followrs stepped up, into the dark, the door closing behind her. Verity imagined the drone, on the roof, reaching down to close it.

With the light on, Verity looked up at her from the couch.

“Business class doghouse?” The girl squinted against the light.

“So people can concentrate in open-plan workspaces.”

“In an alley?”

“Someone brought it here.” Verity got to her feet, her body feeling older than the last time she’d gotten up from a couch.

“Sorry I spied on you,” the girl said. “I saw the Followrs ad on Craigslist and next morning I was sitting in 3.7.” She had short dark hair, in need of a trim, didn’t seem to be wearing makeup, and might be wearing the clothes Verity had first seen her in, an olive parka, black sweater, jeans, and sneakers.

“I’m couch-surfing, myself,” Verity said. “How’d you get here, just now?”

“Carsyn. She works for the man I saw with you in the lobby.”

“Virgil.”

“He sent her to find me. We hung out all day, snacking and talking game design. Paid me my hourly rate for game design.” A brief smile.

“Protein bar?” Verity indicated the bag on the table. “Jerky?”

“Carsyn took me for Taiwanese.”

“More company,” said Conner, Verity remembering that Manuela couldn’t hear him. “She was followed. These two,” the feed from the roof of the cube returning. Figures of two men, where she’d last seen Manuela, looking into the alley, one tall and heavy, the other neither. “Lights out.” The feed brighter in the sudden darkness.

“AR?” Manuela asked, interested, leaning forward. Verity could see her face, in light reflected from the feed in the Tulpagenics glasses.

“Two men outside,” Verity whispered, then remembered the soundproofing in the container on Fang’s roof.

“I can see them,” Manuela whispered back, “in your glasses.”

The taller man, approaching, took something from his pocket, revealed as a flashlight when he turned it on, and examining the container’s door.

“No keypad on this one,” Conner said. “Fang faked up a regulation container door, with padlocks.”

Turning off his flashlight, the man walked around the container, out of frame. The feed blurred, then showed a different angle, the tall man’s back as he looked toward the far end of the alley. He looked back, gestured to the shorter man, who joined him. They walked in that direction, the far end.

Conner cut the feed and the ceiling came back on.