The Peripheral

102

Netherton found Ossian waiting, a narrow rosewood case tucked beneath one arm, beside Ash’s tent, the unpleasant profile of the six-wheeled Bentley nowhere to be seen.

“Is Ash inside?” Netherton asked, Flynne’s peripheral beside him, watching him speak. He’d awakened it, if that was the term, after Ash had phoned, asking him to bring it along to the tent, for a meeting.

“She’s been delayed,” Ossian said. “She’ll be along shortly.”

“What’s that?” Netherton asked, eyeing the rectangular wooden box.

“Case for a pair of Regency dueling pistols, originally. Come in.” The tent smelled, familiarly now, of the dust that wasn’t there. Ash’s displays, the agate spheres, were the sole source of light. Netherton held a chair for the peripheral, which then sat, looking up at Ossian. Ossian put the rosewood box down on the table. Like a shopman, employing a certain constrained drama, he undid two small brass latches, paused briefly for effect, then opened the hinged lid.

“Temporarily deactivated,” he said, “and for the first time since they left the pram factory.” The case was lined with green felt. In identical fitted recesses nested a pair of what Netherton assumed to be guns. Like toys, really, given the glossy candy-cane cream-and-scarlet twisted around their short barrels.

“How is it that they fit the box so perfectly?”

“Rejigged the interior. Wanted something to carry them in. Wouldn’t want one tucked in my pocket, however positive I am that they’re disabled. Took some serious doing, to turn them off, but we managed to only release assemblers the one time, when you were there. Zubov has the Bentley with a specialist now, having five meters of leather cloned, to repair the upholstery.”

“Lowbeer values these things because they’re difficult to trace?”

“Because they’re terror weapons, more likely,” said Ossian. “They aren’t guns in any ballistic sense. Not about the force of a projectile. They’re directed swarm weapons. Flesh-eaters, in the trade.”

“What trade would that be?”

“They project self-limiting, single-purpose assemblers. Range a little under ten meters. Do nothing whatever but disintegrate soft animal tissue, including, apparently, your finer Italian leathers. But more or less instantly, and then they disassemble themselves. That way, they’re of no danger to the user, or rather to the infant, as their only user was intended to be the pram.”

“But they have handles,” Netherton observed. The handles were shaped something like the profile of a parrot’s head. They were the same cream shade as the barrels, minus the scarlet, but matte, bonelike.

“Grips and manual triggers are your Edward’s, to Lowbeer’s specifications. He isn’t bad at all.”

“I don’t understand why a pram would have been equipped with these in the first place.”

“Aren’t Russian then, are you? Effect of one of these on a human body will absolutely get your attention, foremost. Quite the spectacular exit. See a fellow kidnapper go that way, the thinking runs, you’ll flee. Or try to. Self-targeting. Once the system acquires a target, it sends the assemblers where they’re needed.”

“But you’ve entirely disabled them?”

“Not permanently. Lowbeer has the key to that.”

“Why does she want them?”

“Discuss it with her,” said Ash, ducking in, something fleeing cumbrously, on four legs from her cheek, across her neck, as she entered.

“When are we expecting Flynne?” Netherton asked, glancing at the peripheral.

“I’d assumed she’d be here by now,” Ash said, “but we’ve just been told she’s unavailable. And that we’ll wait.” Briefly, she cawed to Ossian, in some coarser birdsong. He lowered the lid over the peppermint pistols. “In the meantime,” Ash said, “we think we’ve solved the problem of Flynne’s lacking the gift of neoprimitivist curatorial gab.”

“How is that?” Netherton asked.

“I suppose you could call it fecal transplant therapy.”

“Really?” Netherton looked at her.

“A synthetic bullshit implant,” Ash said, and smiled. “A procedure I don’t imagine you’ll ever be in need of.”