Idoru

30. The Etruscan

Chia worked the tips back on, regoggled, let Masahiko take her to his room. That same instant transition, the virtual Venice icon strobing… Gomi Boy was there, and someone else, though at first she couldn’t see him. Just this glass tumbler on the work-surface that hadn’t been there before, mapped to a higher resolution than the rest of the room: filthy, chipped at the rim, something crusted at the bottom.

“That woman,” Gomi Boy began, but someone coughed. A strange dry rattle.

“You arean interesting young woman,” said a voice unlike any Chia had heard, a weird, attenuated rasp that might have been compiled from a library of faint, dry, random sounds. So that a word’s long vowel might be wires in the wind, or the click of a consonant the rattle of a dead leaf against a window. “Youngwoman,” it said again, and then there was something indescribable, which she guessed was meant as laughter.

“This is the Etruscan,” Masahiko said. “The Etruscan accessed your father’s expense account for us. He is most skilled.”

Something there for a second. Skull-like. Above the dirty glass. The mouth drawn and petulant. “It was nothing, really…”

She told herself it was all presentation. Like when Zona presented, you could never quite focus on her. This was like that, but more extreme. And a lot of work put into the audio. But she didn’t like it.

“You brought me here to meet him?” she asked Masahiko.

“Oh, no,” said the Etruscan, the Oha polyphonic chorale, “I just wanted a look, dear.” The thing like laughter.

“The woman,” Gomi Boy said. “Did you arrange for her to meet you, at Hotel Di?”

“No,” Chia said. “She checked the taxi cabs, so you aren’t as smart as you think.”

“Well put.” The putthe sound of a single pebble falling into a dry marble fountain. Chia focused on the glass. A huge centipede lay curled at its bottom, a thing the color of dead cuticle. She saw that it had tiny, pink hands—

The glass was gone.

“Sorry,” Masahiko said. “He wished only to meet you.”

“Who is the woman in Hotel Di?” Gomi Boy’s anime eyes were bright and eager, but his tone was hard.

“Maryalice,” Chia said. “Her boyfriend’s with those Russians. The thing they’re after’s in my bag there.”

“What thing?”

“Maryalice says it’s a nano-assembler.”

“Unlikely,” Gomi Boy said,

“Tell it to the Russians.”

“But you have contraband? In the room?”

“I’ve got something they want.”

Gomi Boy grimaced, vanished.

“Where’d he go?”

“This changes the situation,” Masahiko said. “You did not tell us you have contraband.”

“You didn’t ask! You didn’t ask why they were looking for me…”

Masahiko shrugged, calm as ever. “We were not certain that it was you they were interested in. The Kombinat would be very eager for the skills of someone like the Etruscan, for instance. Many people know of Hak Nam, but few know how to enter. We reacted to protect the integrity of the city.”

“But your computer’s in the hotel room. They can just come there and get it.”

“It no longer matters,” he said. “I am no longer engaged in processing. My duties are assumed by others. Gomi Boy is concerned now for his safety outside, you understand? Penalties for possession of contraband are harsh. He is particularly vulnerable, because he deals in second-hand equipment.”

“I don’t think it’s the police you want to worry about, right now. I think we want to callthe police. Maryalice says those Russians’ll kill us, if they find us.”

“The police would not be a good idea. The Etruscan has accessed your father’s account in Singapore. That is a crime.”

“I think I’d rather get arrested than killed.”

Masahiko considered that. “Come with me,” he said. “Your visitor is waiting.”

“Not the centipede,” Chia said. “Forget it.”

“No,” he said, “not the Etruscan. Come.”

And they were out of his room, fast-forward through the maze of Hak Nam, up twisted stairwells and through corridors, the strange, compacted world flickering past… “What isthis place? A communal site, right? But what are you so worried about? Why’s it all a secret?”

“Walled City is of the net, but not on it. There are no laws here, only agreements.”

“You can’t be on the net and notbe on the net,” Chia said, as they shot up a final flight of stairs.

“Distributed processing,” he said. “Interstitial. It began with a shared killfile—”

“Zona!” There across this uneven roofscape, overgrown with strangeness.

“Touch nothing. Some are traps. I come to you.” Zona, presenting in that quick, fragmentary way, moved forward.

To Chia’s right, a kind of ancient car lay tilted in a drift of random textures, something like a Christmas tree growing from its unbroken windshield. Beyond that…

She guessed that the rooftops of the Walled City were its dumping ground, but the things abandoned there were like objects out of a dream, bit-mapped fantasies discarded by their creators, their jumbled shapes and textures baffling the eye, the attempt to sort and decipher them inducing a kind of vertigo. Some were moving.

Then a movement high in the gasoline sky caught her eye. Zona’s bird-things?

“I went to your site,” Chia said. “You weren’t there, something—”

“I know. Did you see it?” As Zona passed the Christmas tree, its round, silver ornaments displayed black eye-holes, each pair turning to follow her.

“No. I thought I heard it.”

“I do not know what it is.” Zona’s presentation was even quicker and more jumpy than usual. “I came here for advice. They told me that you had been to my site, and that now you were here .

“You know this place?”

“Someone here helped me establish my site. It is impossible to come here without an invitation, you understand? My name is on a list. Although I cannot go below, into the city itself, unaccompanied.”

“Zona, I’m in so much trouble now! We’re hiding in this horrible hotel, and Maryalice is there—”

“This bitch who made you her mule, yes? She is where?”

“In the room at this hotel. She said she broke up with her boyfriend, and it’s his, the nano-thing—”

“The what?”

“She says it’s some kind of nano-assembler thing.”

Zona Rosa’s features snapped into focus as her heavy eyebrows shot up. “Nanotechnology?”

“This is in your bag?” Masahiko asked.

“Wrapped in plastic.”

“One moment.” He vanished.

“Who is that?” Zona asked.

“Masahiko. Mitsuko’s brother. He lives here.”

“Where did he go?”

“Back to the hotel we’re porting from,”

“This shit you are in, it is crazy,” Zona said.

“Please, Zona, help me! I don’t think I’ll ever get home!”

Masahiko reappeared, the thing in his hand minus the duty-free bag. “I scanned it,” he said. “Immediate identification as Rodel-van Erp primary biomolecular programming module C-slash-7A. This is a lab prototype. We are unable to determine its exact legal status, but the production model, C-slash-9E, is Class 1 nanotechnology, proscribed under international law. Japanese law, conviction of illegal possession of Class 1 device carries automatic life sentence.”

“Life?” Chia said.

“Same for thermonuclear device,” he said, apologetically, “poison gas, biological weapon” He held up the scanned object for Zona’s inspection.

Zona looked at it. “Fuck your mother,” she said, her tone one of somber respect.