The Peripheral

113

A Michikoid with a luminous wand waved their ZIL to the curb, behind something more on the order of the six-wheeled silver Bentley steam iron, though the color of Lowbeer’s car when uncloaked. A couple with shaven heads and Maori facial tattoos were briefly visible, between the sleek graphite wedge of the vehicle and a solemn-looking bouncy castle affair that obviously wasn’t a routine architectural feature of Edenmere Mansions or any other shard. The various scanners would be in there, he assumed. The entrance seemed staffed entirely with Michikoids, in identical gray, vaguely quasi-military uniforms. He remembered the one on Daedra’s moby, just before it flung itself over the rail, bristling with weapons, and what Rainey had said about how she’d seen them move like spiders, down on the patchers’ island.

Ash and Conner each opened a door, as if on cue. The ZIL’s doors were so massive that they must be servo-powered, though silently. Simultaneously, Ash on Netherton’s side and Conner on Flynne’s, they opened the passenger doors.

Without thinking, Netherton leaned toward Flynne, squeezed her hand. “We’ll lie like champs,” he said, not knowing where that had come from. She gave him an odd, startled smile, and then they were out, on either side, the air damp, colder than he expected, but fresh. A Michikoid scanned Conner with a nonluminous wand, another doing the same to Ash, and then he and Flynne were waved into the bulging gray inflatable, as between the thighs of some oversized toy elephant.

A field of some kind induced a moderately dissociative state, as they were scanned and prodded, by a variety of unpleasantly robotic portals, for perhaps the next fifteen minutes, and then they were being greeted by an artfully distressed Michikoid in an ancient kimono.

“Thank you for honoring our celebration of the life of Aelita West. Your personal security attendant has been admitted separately. You will find him awaiting you. The elevator is third from the left.”

“Thank you,” said Netherton, taking the peripheral’s hand. The tattooed couple was nowhere in sight. Nor was anyone else, the lobby as welcoming as Daedra’s voice mail, though typical in that.

“Celebration of life?” Flynne asked, as he led her toward the elevator.

“So it said.”

“Byron Burchardt’s parents had one of those.”

“Who?”

“Byron Burchardt. Manager at the Coffee Jones. Got run over by a robot eighteen-wheeler, Valentine’s Day. I felt guilty because I’d been pissed at him, for firing me. But I went anyway.”

“They seem to have accepted that she’s gone.”

“I don’t see how they could be sure she is. But I wish we’d known. Could’ve brought some flowers.”

“Daedra never suggested this. It seems to be a surprise.”

“A surprise funeral? You do that, here?”

“A first, for me.”

“Fifty-sixth floor,” she said, indicating the bank of buttons.

The doors opened as he touched the button. They stepped in. The doors closed behind them. The ascent was perfectly silent, rapid, slightly dizzying. He was sure that drink would be served.