Slow River

Chapter 9

As I walked back to the flat with my sack of flower bulbs, I wondered why autumn sunshine hurt the eyes more than sun in spring or summer. Probably something to do with refraction, with the fact that the October sky was a hard, arcing blue and the air was drier than a good gin. Whatever the reason, the slanting eleven-in-the-morning sunshine was smeared gaudily all over the remains of the night frost on rooftiles and guttering, bouncing off the front windows of passenger slides, even reflecting sharply from the lenses of one shopper’s ski glasses. Everyone was wearing bright colors, their cheeks red and eyes sparkling. I doubted they were as cheerful as they looked.

Despite my hangover, I did feel cheerful, and it was somehow related to last night, my time on the roof. I felt different. Nothing miraculous… more as though something tangled up inside me had begun to resolve itself.

My first thoughts this morning when I woke had not been about how I had nearly fallen to my death, or the various diseases and corruptions of a city, but of the planters. Of how I had painstakingly built them, carried them onto the roof, filled them with good, black dirt. Of how they were empty. That, I had thought as I drank hot tea and got dressed, is something I can fix.

And I felt absurdly pleased with the bulbs I had selected, all locally grown: crocuses and tulips, snowdrops and marigolds, iris and verbena and salvia. Rich, bright colors that would last from the end of January up until midsummer. Maybe the scents and colors would bring bees. I tried to imagine lying on the sun-warmed tiles, smelling flowers, listening to the hum of bees, but I realized I was also hearing imaginary fountains plashing softly and the sough of wind in trees, and under all those the bone-deep vibration of sea against rock: Ratnapida.

I had to stop in the middle of the street for a man with three children who was trying to get on a slide. One of the children was refusing to budge and the man—the father, I assumed—was forced to drag him, wailing. The father shot me an embarrassed smile; I nodded as though I understood he had no other choice, but the truth was, I didn’t know. Had Oster ever taken us three—Tok and Stella and me—out by himself? Even if he had, and even if one of us had had the bad manners to pull a tantrum, the family car would not have been far away to whisk us all off to luxurious privacy. I started walking again. One of these days I would be able to see flowers without thinking of family, or Ratnapida, its grass and fountains and low trees.

Maybe a tree wouldn’t be a bad idea. A sapling wouldn’t need too big a planter to start with, and I could get something that blossomed in spring: apple, maybe, or pear. But the wood, and the dirt, and the tree itself would all cost, and the money I took when I left Spanner was running low. I crossed the road on the ceramic safeway opposite my building, trying to work out how much I would get paid at the end of the week and, if I budgeted properly, whether or not I would have enough extra for a tree.

An old man was dragging a small shopping cart into my doorway. I had seen him before. He lived on the third or fourth floor. The cart looked heavy.

“Can I help you with that?”

He looked at me. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes filmy but his voice was robust. “Bird, isn’t it? Sal Bird?” I nodded. He thought for a moment. “Fifth floor,” he said, evidently satisfied with his knowledge.

I looked at the nameplates in neat rows by the ancient intercom. I had no idea which was his. He laughed at my expression.

“Tom Wilson, third floor. And yes, I’d count it a great favor if you’d help a tired old man with his groceries.”

His suit jacket hung from broad shoulders; he would have been a big man thirty years ago. I wondered what it must be like to get old.

I balanced my sack on top of his groceries, and he talked as I humped the cart, one tread at a time, up the three flights of stairs. “What have you got in here?”

The look on his face was interesting: unsure whether or not it was polite to be offended at this invasion of privacy by a Good Samaritan. In the end, he grinned and said slyly, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

I smiled wryly. He was right. I shouldn’t have asked. “It’s heavy, whatever it is.”

“Do you good;” He held open a door for me and I pulled the cart gratefully onto the landing.

“Can you manage from here?”

“Didn’t think you had to set off for your job for hours yet.” That sly grin again. “I thought you might like to share a cup of tea with a lonely old man.”

I couldn’t think of any reason to refuse him, so I followed him into his flat.

It was bigger than mine, and cozy, filled with Scandinavian furniture, the blond wood and gray-nubbed fabrics of twenty or thirty years ago. Everything was very clean. He watched me take it all in. “Nicer than that tomb of a room the landlord gave you upstairs. Warmer too. How strong do you like it?”

“What?”

“Your tea. I’m partial to strong tea myself.”

“Oh. Whatever you’re having.”

“You won’t ever get what you want unless you know. And unless you tell those who ask. I’ll ask you again: How do you like your tea?”

I closed my eyes, thought back to other times. “Lapsang souchong, no milk, no sugar, no lemon, three heaped teaspoons in a pot big enough for two. And hot, not luke-warm. Served in bone china—the old kind, wafer thin, so you can see the color of the tea through the white—with a silver spoon. Steel spoils the taste.” I opened my eyes. “Well, you asked.”

“I did, I did. And thank you for sharing that with me.” He nodded at me seriously, and disappeared into the kitchen.

He brought out a tray and took it over to the table by the window: two pots, two cups. One of the cups was Wedgwood. It had a tiny chip on the rim. He took it over to the table by the window which, unlike mine, looked out onto the street. “For you,” he said, handing me the Wedgewood cup, and pointing to one of the pots. “Right out of Lapsang souchong and silver teaspoons. But I found some Earl Grey.” I poured for both of us. My tea was that lovely light brown gray of undyed fine tea. His looked like treacle.

He sipped and smacked his lips. “Strong enough to stand a spoon up in.”

I sipped mine. It was delicate and deliciously hot. I smiled and nodded. “Very nice.”

“A simple pleasure, tea. Doesn’t matter how rich or poor a person might be, good tea is good tea.” He looked at me over the rim of his cup. His eyes were gray as a winter sea.

“Lot of simple pleasures are very important. Take that window, now. I can sit by it when I’m too stiff to get up and down the stairs, and watch the world. I know every one of the tenants in this building by sight. I know what time they go to work, or not, as the case may be. I know who visits them, and for how long.”

I know you’re lonely, he seemed to be saying. I am, too. If you talk to me I won’t pry for more, and I won’t tell anyone else. I didn’t say anything.

“For example, I know that Mr. Rachmindi is moving out next month. His place is nicer than yours, and not much more a month.”

“I’m happy where I am.”

“Maybe you are, but think about the weather as the winter gets on. You’ll be mewling with cold come January. And his window looks out onto the trees at the back, if that’s what you’ll miss.”

“It’s not that.” He just waited. “It’s…” I stood up, found my sack of bulbs, brought them back. I rolled one onto my palm. “Jonquil. In April that’ll be a flower the color of hot sun on white sand.” I put it on the table and took out another. “Bluebell. Like soft babies’ eyes. Freesias, violets, crocuses, verbena…” They rolled out of the sack like toy trucks. “I took my flat because I can get onto the roof. I’m going to grow these.” Where the squirrels could not get at them. “It will be a place of wild things, natural things. I need them.” A tear dripped onto the lacy brown and beige wrinkles of the bulb in my palm.

Tom Wilson’s papery hands reached out and folded my fingers over the bulb. “Best keep it dry,” he said, and produced a large white handkerchief from somewhere. He watched silently as I wiped my face, then my nose, and put the bulbs back into the bag.

“This garden of yours… Will you invite me up to see it, when it starts to bloom?”

I opened my mouth to say, I’d love to, but you will you get your old bones out onto the roof? and said, instead, “Yes.” If he wanted to see the flowers, we’d find a way.

I spent two hours with Tom Wilson and afterward climbed the stairs to my flat thoughtfully.

When I got in I called Spanner. She answered immediately. “Did you get those changes made on my PIDA?”

“Last night.”

“All of it?” I needed to feel safe from Magyar.

“Everything. You are now a fully three-dimensional paragon of virtue.” She was still in that expansive, good mood. “I was tempted to add a police record, something along the lines of swimming naked in the docks as a protest for, oh, animal rights or something.” She grinned. “But I decided against it.”

I couldn’t help it—I grinned back. She could be so charming when she wanted. “I’m glad to hear it.” Even more glad to hear that the work was done. Now Magyar could check all she liked.

“About that equipment,” she said. “You available late tonight for a meeting? Good. I’ll see you here after work.”

The screen went blank.

The morning of Spanner’s birthday they stayed in bed all day, eating, drinking, sometimes unbuttoning their shirts to make love, sometimes buttoning them again to sit up and talk. Lore told Spanner about Belize, about the Heliconias with their leaves the size of canoe paddies, the Santa Maria pine and black poisonwood; Spanner told her about forests she had seen on the net. While Spanner talked, Lore wondered if she had ever been outside the city. She thought of her visit on her own to the park yesterday, how she had found a hidden corner where no one seemed to go. She had stepped over a formal border, following a squirrel, and found herself among the dark and secret greenery of a classical Victorian shrubbery—bay and laurel and yew. Under the waxy leaves of a rhododendron she had come across a female mallard, its feathers a ruffled mix of tawny browns and beige and cream, asleep with its head under a wing. In the spring, she suspected the shrubbery would glimmer with pearly snowdrops and crocuses the color of March sunshine. Like lemon drops against the black, bitter dirt.

Spanner paused, wine bottle halfway to her mouth. “Are you listening?”

“Yes.” And she was, sort of.

“Good. We’re the same, you and I. We understand each other.”

All Lore understood about Spanner was that whenever Lore reached for her, she wavered and was gone, like the shimmering reflection on the oily surface of the river.

“You know what it’s like. To have someone kill herself. You know how it feels. Because of your sister, your sister…”

“Stella.” It was hard to say her name aloud. Her sister’s suicide was public property. She supposed it had been all over the net. “Who do you know that killed themselves?”

Spanner ignored her. “You know what that’s like. How hard it is to explain to people. You can say, I saw it coming. You can say, It was only a matter of time. You can say, There was nothing I could do. And they don’t believe you. Did you find that?”

“I didn’t know Stella was going to kill herself.”

Spanner squinted at her. “Yes, you did. She was unhappy, wasn’t she?”

Lore nodded because she couldn’t speak. She tried not to think about Stella and why she killed herself, because then she would have to think about Tok, about her father about herself. “Leave some of that wine for me.”

But Spanner was leaning down out of bed, bottom flashing as her shirt rode up to her waist. She seemed to be tugging on something under the. bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Box.” She heaved, and an ancient cardboard box slid out onto the carpet. She got out of bed and sat cross-legged by it. “There’s a picture of my mother in here, somewhere.” Her mother… Spanner scrabbled about in the box, which Lore could not see. She knew better than to try and look.

“Here.” Spanner handed Lore an old-fashioned CD-ROM disk, poked about some more and came up with a flat gray drive case and some cable. She shoved the box back under the bed and stood up. “Bring the wine.”

Lore followed her into the living room.

“I made the drive when I was fifteen,” Spanner said as she plugged it into her system and ran a couple of tests. “Give me the disk. There.”

The first picture that came up on the screen was a dog, an impossibly elegant whippet with a patch of black fur over one eye. “That’s Anne Bonny. My dog, when I was nine. Looks like a pirate, doesn’t she.”

“What happened to her?”

Spanner ignored that. Several pictures whipped by too fast for Lore to follow. She tried to remember if whippets were expensive, what kind of money Spanner’s family might have had.

“My mother.” She had blond hair, lighter than Spanner’s, and her face was thinner, almost hollow. She looked as though she had bird bones; one hard squeeze would crumple her like paper. Lore could not tell how old she was, but she thought she might have been around forty. She was wearing a dress of some kind of silky material, the kind that had been popular on soap operas fifteen years ago.

Lore wanted to know more about her. She was desperate to learn about Spanner. But she knew what kind of questions Spanner would ignore. “Did you take the photograph? Looks like it might have been a new dress.”

“It was. She got it for her birthday. We all clubbed together for it.” Not rich, then. But who did she mean by we? “She said she loved that dress. I looked for it, after she died. I thought I’d keep it, keep something that had meant a lot to her, you know, something that we had had between us. But it wasn’t hanging in her wardrobe. I had to search the whole house. It was in a bag full of rubbish, old tat that was going to go to charity that Christmas. It was all wrinkled. Smelled like it had been in the bag for months. I threw it away.” Spanner held out her hand for the wine bottle, took a long gulp, then wiped her mouth with her hand. “It was then that I realized that everyone lies. About everything. She must have hated that dress, must have been laughing at us all the time she wore it. And then she just left us. Like that. Didn’t even leave a note.” Spanner ejected the disk and hurled it against the east wall so hard that it chipped away a lump of plaster.

Lore took Spanner’s hand. “I’m not lying. I’m not laughing at you. I want you to have a happy birthday. If you don’t like the cheese plant, you don’t have to pretend. If you buy me presents, I won’t pretend.”

She could not heal all of Spanner’s hurt, she could not even offer the kind of love she thought Spanner might want, but she could offer the beginnings of trust. She hoped Spanner would know what to do with it. She thought about bulbs unfolding in the cold and dark, reaching up through the soil in blind faith.

Winter had come slowly and gently Lore’s first year in the city, but the soft grays of December changed suddenly to an iron frost in January. The sun no longer reached high enough to coat the sandstone of the Polar Bear with gold. In the morning, the light was lemony-gray, like a falsely tinted black and white photograph. People walking stiffly in the cold on their way to the slide poles squinted against the long, slanting sunshine, the occasional glitter of frost on the pavement. A squirrel, its thick winter coat-making it comical, like a furry dumpling, looked up at the ice-slicked cable that ran past the second-floor window, and stayed on the ground. It scrabbled halfheartedly at the frozen dirt around the roots of the tree outside. Lore wondered why it wasn’t hibernating.

Outside, the temperature plummeted. Spanner went out less frequently to do business—“People don’t go out as much in this weather.” And Lore, who had now cleared most of the debris from the back garden and planted her spring bulbs more than a month ago, only went out to leave plates of leftovers for the cat she had seen that once.

They were watching the news and drinking loc—a hot, chocolate liqueur—when they heard about a fire in the warehouse district.

“Get your coat on.”

By the time they got there, the firefighters were gone and all that was left was the stink of charred three-hundred-year-old timbers and bricks cracked open by the heat. The warehouse was still dripping, but icicles were forming, and the lake of hose water was turning to sheet ice. There was no one about; it was too cold for sightseeing. In the orangy street light, Lore’s breath cloud looked like a bizarre special effect.

“Keep your eyes open.”

“What—” But Spanner was already bending down, levering up what looked like a section of pavement but which turned out to be a two-foot-square panel of plastone.

“What are you doing?”

“This is the master switch”—she pointed at a red panel—“but we don’t want them all.” She flipped up the lid of the nearest of a row of squat gray boxes and touched something. Four streetlights went dark. She opened a second box. More lights went out.

“Come on.” She pulled a hand light from her pocket. Its blue-white beam licked at the rubble. She scrambled up over a pile of bricks and pipe. The flashlight whipped around as she turned. “What’s the matter?”

Lore shaded her eyes with her hand, spoke to a silhouette. “It won’t be safe. Why don’t we just wait for the fire-fighters to come back when it’s light and flatten everything. Then we could take our time.”

“Five minutes after the building is safe, there won’t be anything left. And there are some good timbers here.”

There were. There were so many that once Spanner had a pile of what she wanted—which had cost Lore a burned finger and several scares as rafters sagged, suddenly, and floor timbers shifted—she called Billy and Ann, who brought a van. Obviously stolen for the occasion.

“But what do we want wood for?” Lore asked.

“A new front door.”

“What’s wrong with the one we have?”

“Does it matter? Maybe I just want a new one.”

Lore eyed the beams warily. Risking their lives, just because Spanner wanted something to do.

Lore and Spanner spent nine days building a new door from the thick, old timbers they had scavenged. They took down the old door and hung the new one the afternoon the rain turned to a thin gray snow.

Lore stretched her back and kicked the old door, “I don’t relish hauling it about in this weather.”

“We could break it up for firewood.”

“We don’t need a fire. It’s already hot in here.” The flat was stifling. Spanner ran illegal spurs from the power lines and was as profligate with heat as with everything else: food, sex, promises.

But Spanner had disappeared into the hallway and come back with a sledgehammer. She hefted it a couple of times. Lore stepped out of the way and Spanner swung. The old door splintered with a satisfying crack!

“I said, we don’t need a fire. It’s—”

“If you’re hot, open the windows. Fresh air’s good for you.” She swung again.

Lore did not understand Spanner when she got in these moods. She had no point of reference for the frenzy, the constant urge to do, to use, to experience that often lasted for several days at a time. So she tried to remember what she knew about open fires, and peered as best she could up the chimney to see if the flue was clear. There was no ash in the grate. “Have you had a fire here before?”

“I’m sure I must have.” Rip. Splinter.

Lore moved the plants. We’ll need some paper, and kindling. I think.” She rummaged around. “We don’t have any paper.”

Spanner paused, breathing heavily. “Look under the bed.”

Lore trooped into the bedroom. Looked. “There’s only your box.”

“Then we’ll use some of that stuff.”

“No. We can—”

“Bring it,” Spanner yelled. Lore sighed, and did.

“Open it.” Crunch, splinter.

It was full of old photographs and documents. What looked like a birth certificate from the middle of the last century. “I don’t think you’ll want to use this.” She started to put the lid back on, uncomfortable with the idea that she had been wrist-deep in Spanner’s private family history.

Spanner dropped the sledgehammer and squatted down by Lore. She took a random handful of papers from the box, screwed them up, and tossed them on the grate.

“But don’t you want—”

Spanner ignored her and kept taking handfuls from the box, occasionally tearing a large piece into shreds. “Should burn well enough.”

Lore grabbed her hands. “Stop. Stop just a minute. We can go buy some paper if you like. You don’t have to use these.” Spanner shrugged her off hands already moving again. “Or we could use something flammable. Alcohol, maybe.”

“It’s just paper.”

They were Spanner’s memories. “Why are you doing this?” Why now, after all these years of hoarding them, keeping them safe Spanner said nothing, but Lore thought she knew: because now that Spanner had started to talk about them—the memories, the pictures—they were a point of vulnerability for her. Get rid of the pictures, get rid of the memories. No more vulnerability. No more weak points. The armor would be smooth again. “I won’t help you burn them.”

Lore walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Instead of putting it on the burner, she stared outside. Once she could see past her own reflection, she saw there was a squirrel in the garden, digging. Digging up her bulbs, eating them one by one. All that work, gone in an afternoon. She felt bitter. There did not seem to be any point in trying.

Back in the living room Spanner laid the paper in the grate, followed by some of the smaller splinters from the door, then some larger boards. Lore watched as Spanner plugged in her soldering iron and used that to set alight the paper. Watched as a wisp of smoke turned into a river flowing upward, and the paper seemed to disappear.

“It’s not working.” Spanner poked at the burning mess with the sledgehammer handle. The bits of broken door were blackening, but not catching. “Why isn’t it working?” She screwed up more paper, threw it on. A ball of burning paper roared up the chimney, borne on hot air.

Lore plucked a large splinter from the rug, examined it. “It’s not wood,” she said. “I mean, it is, but it’s that pressed stuff. It’s not going to burn.”

“Fuck it!” Spanner threw the sledgehammer into the fire. Burning scraps of paper went everywhere. “Let’s go get a drink.”

They went out and drank too much and came back to hard, sweaty sex and fitful sleep. At least Lore slept. When she woke up, Spanner was pacing around the bed, talking about the projects she wanted to start on: relaying the floor, decorating, maybe rewiring the place. She had obviously been up all night, working herself up to this pitch. Lore let the talk flow over her as she got dressed.

“… and here, I went out and got you some presents.” Spanner dragged three bags into the bedroom. “Open them.”

They were clothes. Some of them the kind she would wear, others not. They were all expensive.

“Pick out something nice for now and then we’ll go out. We’ll go shopping, buy you some other stuff if you don’t like this—”

“This is just fine.”

“—or we could just look around. I want to get out. I need to have some fun.”

She would not stop talking. Could not. Her eyes glittered and she seemed jerky and tense. Lore chose something at random; then, seeing Spanner’s eyes, she remembered her promise and chose a moss-green chenille tunic and matching leggings. “I’ll wear these. They’re lovely.”

“And the black dress? You like the black dress?”

“I don’t wear dresses much but, yes, if I wear a dress soon, this is exactly the kind of thing I would choose.”

“You’re not lying? You like it?”

“I’m not lying. I really like it. It’s too cold to wear it today, though. I’ll wear this.” She lifted her original choices.

“Where are we going?”

At Hedon Road, the mood in the locker room was mixed: face masks had arrived, but the systems were back up.

I pulled on my mask: neoprene and plastex with knobby filters on each side of the mouth gasket. I fit-tested the mask with negative and positive pressure, tightened the strap at the back of my head. It felt strange and primitive to wear a breathing mask again. I was used to either nose filters and automatic, trained nasal breathing, or the full-face mask and air tank of an SCBA. These masks were no good if something splashed on your face, but enough to keep out most vapors and particulates—if the filters were changed every week or so.

I showed Paolo how to pull the seals tight across cheekbones and jaw. It was hard, helping him fit it without touching his hands.

As we walked into the primary sector to relieve the day shift, Kinnis clowned around in his mask, making bug-eyed-monster noises. Lots of people laughed. We were all relieved that the systems were back up. If someone or something slipped now, it was up to the machines to catch it, not us. Not me. And the system was good enough to stop most things, except the unk-unks: the unknown unknowns for which it was impossible to plan.

But Magyar did not give me time to worry about unk-unks.

We’d been on-shift about twenty minutes and one of the rakes had already jammed. Paolo and I had freed it and were just climbing out of the trough when Magyar, mask loose around her neck, walked over.

“It’s against regs to free those by hand, Bird. Could be dangerous. Paolo doesn’t know any better, of course, but consider yourself under verbal warning. Further infractions of Health and Safety regulations will result in a formal written warning. A third infraction will mean dismissal.” Her eyes were hard and pleased.

A few troughs down, Meisener and Kinnis were wrestling with a stalled rake. I didn’t need to be afraid. My records were airtight, now. I looked over at them deliberately, back to Magyar.

“Do you understand, Bird?”

Behind me I could hear the damn rake whining as it caught on something again. I pulled my mask off, jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “What do you want me to do about that?”

“Follow the regs, Bird. And don’t let your productivity drop.”

I think I surprised us both by laughing. “I’m good, Magyar, but not that good. Make up your mind: the regs, or productivity. Your choice. Doesn’t matter much to me.” I looked sideways at Paolo. “Why don’t you go check on that rake while the shift supervisor and I have a little talk.”

He retreated obediently.

Magyar was furious. “I could have you fired!”

“Then why don’t you?” She couldn’t, we both knew that. I was the best worker she had. She looked as though she was going to say more but I was tired of this, and my PIDA was safe. “Go harass someone else. Let me do my job.” I pulled my mask back up and waded out to help Paolo. I just hoped Spanner had not lost any of her skill, or I would be out of a job by midnight.

The rest of the shift was hard, but I felt curiously light. Whatever I had started on the roof last night and continued at Tom Wilson’s was still going on.

At the shift break I left Paolo with Kinnis and Cel, and took my egg rolls into a corner. I wanted to think.

I felt good. I was beginning to stand up for myself. I felt a little nervous, maybe. This was, after all, uncharted territory. Before, I could do or say anything I wanted: I was a van de Oest, with name, power, money, and education behind me. Now, though, it was just me speaking as me. The name didn’t matter.

I listened to the rain that was now pounding down on the glass roof, and smiled. I was finding I was maybe more than who I had thought. It pleased me.

I still felt good as I left the plant, even when a truck pulling into the yard drove right through a puddle and drenched me with cold, muddy water.

The truck pulled up, the window wound down. “Sorry about that!” the driver shouted. We both looked at my dripping coat. I was wet through.

“I thought I’d missed the rain,” I said, and smiled to show I knew it wasn’t his fault. He waved and the truck moved another twenty yards to the unloading bay. The logo read BIOSYSTEMS. I didn’t think anything more of it.

When Spanner opened the door and motioned me in, I was grateful for the stifling heat. My wet clothes began to steam gently.

“I thought it had stopped raining.”

“Careless driver.” I was glad she was still in a good mood.

“Ah. Well, give me your coat. My robe’s in the bathroom if you want to get the rest off.” She saw me hesitate. “Unless you want to freeze to death it’s that or watch me try light a fire.”

“Once was enough.” I headed for the bathroom.

“Hand me your wet things. I’ll dry them while you shower,”

The bathroom hadn’t changed. I stripped, turned on the shower, and climbed into the tub. The hot water was wonderful.

I had forgotten how fine thick, old silk felt on warm, freshly scrubbed skin. I tied the belt, and wiped my hand across the mirror to look at myself.

Spanner’s reflection stared back at me from behind my shoulder. I was proud of myself for not jumping.

“That brown does suit you.” She nodded at my hair, then walked back into the living room. “Lotion and everything is still in the cabinet,” she called.

I stared at the cabinet for nearly two minutes before I had the courage to open it. When I did, the breath hissed between my teeth in a combination of relief and disappointment: no small glass bottle, half full of oily liquid. I closed the door, turned away, and realized the muscles across my belly were tight, my breathing hoarse. Even now, after months, I wanted to feel that oil under my chin, be kissed with its musky scent in my nostrils, surrender to it hungrily. I went into the living room. From the kitchen came the lazy thump and tumble of my clothes in the dryer.

“I’ve made tea.” Spanner was sitting on the rug, near the tin-topped table.

“I don’t want any,” I said brusquely. I was angry, angry that the drug had not been there. That I had wanted it so badly. That I had not been faced, at least, with a choice. I had wanted the drug, I knew that, but now I wouldn’t know whether or not I could also have refused it.

“It’ll warm you up. No? To business, then.” She poured for herself. “I assume you’ve given some thought to how long your clip will have to stand up to scrutiny?”

“A standard thirty-second spot should do it. But most of the money that’s going to be donated will be within the first ten or twelve. I’ve told you about Stella’s friends, the rivalry between them to give as much as they can as fast as they can. Judging by the society and celebrity gossip news, it’s still fashionable to be the first to give to a new charity.”

I remembered Stella at Ratnapida V-handing the screen scanner, laughing at beating out her friends. And the amounts had not been small. “So it all depends on how well the equipment from Hyn and Zimmer will perform—”

“Good for several minutes.”

“—and where and how the money will be moved around.”

That was the sticking point. Now that Ruth would no longer help with false physical ID, the bank accounts would be harder.

But Spanner smiled her narrow-eyed smile. “Since you’ve left I’ve become much more sophisticated. I have this program that will skip credit through the edges of slush funds—the ones no one dares to look at too closely, anyway.”

“Like?”

“Like the accounts the various media use to pay their ‘unofficial sources’ at various levels of government; like the accounts the police use to pay their informants.”

Programs like that were not easy to get. “Where did you get it?”

“A… client. And it’s safe enough.”

If, as I suspected, she had extorted it from a daisy chainer or cajoled it as payment from a sex client, then she was more than likely right. Still… “Have you tested it?”

“Once.”

I could only accept her at her word. “I’ll want my share in debit cards, immediately. The minute we can verify the money in our chosen account.”

“Agreed.”

I decided I wanted some tea, after all. “Hyn and Zimmer still think they can get us the equipment?”

“Any day. They sent me the specs earlier tonight.” She stood, turned on her screen. “Come over here.” I brought my tea. “Take a look. Fabulous stuff. If you could make a clip good enough, I could hold the net for six or seven minutes with these.”

In the glow of the spidery schematics, her face looked softer. I had almost forgotten how appealing she was when she was alight with enthusiasm. I had to fight the urge to touch her cheek. I stepped back a little. “Where are you going to get the money?”

“I’ll get it in time, don’t worry.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the technical specs.

“But I do worry.” She looked so happy, so vulnerable. “Look, Spanner, we could just forget this. I mean, I know I owe you money, but I could pay it gradually. A bit every time I get paid.”

“Are you out of your mind?” The hard lines were back, grooved on each side of her mouth. She stabbed a finger at the screen. “Look at that stuff. It’s hard to get, expensive, and already ordered. We can’t just turn around and say, Oops, sorry boys and girls, we changed our minds! And how much do you earn a month, anyway? Not even enough to pay my expenses for two days! I need money now, not in dribs and drabs over the next few years. No. You heard what Hyn and Zimmer said about these people. There’s no way out now but through.”

I hated her then, for getting herself trapped in such a way that all she could do was dig herself a deeper hole, but then I laughed at myself. Wasn’t that what I was doing? We stared at each other a moment. Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her.

“Now, we still need information about the net nexuses.”

Spanner might be the soul of impatience when it came to other people, but when she was planning something dangerous and illegal she could wait like a cat by a mousehole. I sighed. “All right. We could both name the locations of half a dozen stations without even thinking hard. And you’re good with locks. So tell me why we can’t just break in and use one of those.”

She almost rubbed her hands. She loved displaying her skills. “Because everyone, no matter how security-conscious—in fact, especially those who are security types—adopts patterns of behavior. The systems that check for intrusion or piggybacking will have initially been generated randomly. But those results are subject to human oversight. And people always form habits. Patterns. If we can find someone to tell us the patterns, we find a hole.”