The Peripheral

30

She could stay with Ash,” Netherton said, glancing at the peripheral in the squidlight. He reminded himself again that she, it, wasn’t sentient.

She didn’t look like an it, though. And she did look sentient, if disinterested, walking between them now, controlled by some sort of AI. Not, he supposed, unlike the period figures that populated tourist attractions he scrupulously avoided.

“Ash doesn’t live here,” Lev said.

“Ossian then.”

“Neither does he.”

“She can stay in Ash’s fortune-telling tent.”

“Sitting upright at the table?”

“Why not?”

“She needs to sleep,” said Lev. “Well, not literally, but she needs to recline, be relaxed. She also needs to exercise.”

“Why can’t you put her upstairs?”

“Dominika wouldn’t have it. Put her in the yacht’s rear cabin,” Lev said. “Cover her with a sheet, if that helps.”

“A sheet?”

“My father had dust covers, for his. Two or three of them on chairs, in a back bedroom, covered with sheets. I pretended they were ghosts.”

“Not remotely human.”

“At the cellular level, as human as we are. Which is fairly approximate, depending on who you’re speaking to.”

The peripheral looked at whichever of them was currently speaking.

“She doesn’t look like Flynne,” said Netherton. “Particularly.”

“Similar enough.” Lev had both served as camera and monitored the call, in the foyer of the house of love. “Ash is having some clothing run up, based on what she wore in the first interview. Familiar.”

Netherton saw, then, as for the first time, imagining how she might see it, the ranks of Lev’s father’s excess vehicle collection, under the arches of their purpose-built cave. The majority were pre-jackpot, fully restored. Chrome, enamel, stainless steel, hex-celled laminates, enough Italian leather to cover a pair of tennis courts. He couldn’t imagine her being impressed.

They were nearing the Gobiwagen now. Beside its gangway, as the arch above brightened, was a treadmill, near which stood, to Netherton’s unease, a white, headless, simian figure, arms at its sides. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Resistance-training exoskeleton. Dominika has one. Take her hand.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going upstairs. She’s staying with you.”

Netherton extended his hand. The peripheral took it. Its hand was warm, entirely handlike.

“Ash will be along to discuss plans, and to see to her.”

“Fine,” said Netherton, indicating that it wasn’t, led the peripheral up the gangway and into the yacht, then into the smallest of the three sleeping cabins, the lighting sensing them as they entered. He studied the fitted hardware in the pale veneer, succeeded in allowing a narrow bunk to lower itself from the wall. “Here,” he said, “sit.” It sat. “Lie down.” It did. “Sleep,” not sure this last would work. It closed its eyes.

Rainey’s sigil appeared, pulsing.

“Hello?” he said, quickly stepping back, out of the cabin, closing its centrally hinged door.

“You haven’t been checking messages.”

“No,” he said, rattled. “Nor reading mail. I understand I’m sacked.” Back through the short narrow passageway, to the master cabin.

“People here didn’t believe me,” Rainey said, “when I told them you prided yourself on not knowing who you worked for. When you were fired, they all looked you up. Couldn’t tell who’d fired you. Where are you?”

“At a friend’s.”

“Can’t you show me?”

He did.

“What are those old screens for?”

“He’s a collector. How are you?”

“I’m a public servant, technically, so it’s different for me. And I blamed you.”

“You did?”

“Of course. You aren’t likely to be spreading résumés around our government, are you?”

“I should hope not.”

“Your friend has odd taste. A very small place?”

“The interior of a large Mercedes.”

“A what?”

“A land-yacht, built to tour a Russian oligarch around the Gobi desert.”

“You’re riding in it?”

“No,” he said, “it’s in a garage. No idea how they brought it in. May have had to take it apart.” He sat down at the desk, facing the black mirrors that must once have shone with the data of Lev’s grandfather’s exponentially expanding empire.

“Claustro,” she said.

“Someone told me your given name is Clarisse,” he said. “Struck me, that I hadn’t known.”

“Only because you’re so utterly self-centered,” she said.

“Rainey,” he said. “That’s a lovely name.”

“What have you got listening in, Wilf? It’s enormous. It’s giving my security the cold grue.”

“That would be the family of the friend I’m staying with.”

“He lives in a garage?”

“He has one. Or rather his father does. It goes down and down. And so does their security, evidently.”

“It profiles like a medium-sized nation.”

“That would be them.”

“Is that a problem?” she asked.

“Not so far.”

“Daedra,” she said, after a pause. “You know she had a sister?”

“Had?”

“There’s chatter,” she said. “Back channel. The patchers. Retaliation.”

“The patchers?” That disgusting recovered plastic. Flynne Fisher’s description of the thing that had scaled Edenmere Mansions, to murder Aelita. “Who’s suggesting that?”

“Chinese whispers. Ghosts of the Commonwealth.”

“New Zealand?” He imagined everything they were saying swirling down a citywide funnel, into whatever unimaginable consciousness Lev’s family’s security module might possess. He was suddenly aware of valuing this pretentious, overvarnished space, finite and dull and comforting.

“Never told you that.”

“Of course not. But they were the last ones left, last we spoke, along with the Americans.”

“Still are,” she said, “in theory. But it’s all back to square one. We, or rather they, as I’m no longer officially involved, need to regroup, rebrand, reassess everything. See who emerges to replace the boss patcher.”

Lowbeer had used a name, too foreign to recall. “Rainey,” he asked, “why are you calling, exactly?”

“Your friend’s family is making me self-conscious.”

“Why don’t we meet, then? Same place.”

“When?”

“I’ll have to see-”

“Hello,” said Ash, from the door. She had a matte aluminum attaché in either hand, trimmed with pale leather.

“Have to go,” he said. “Call you back.” Rainey’s sigil vanished.

“Where is she?” Ash asked.

“Rear cabin. What are those bags?”

“Hermès,” said Ash. “Her factory-original kit.”

“Hermès?”

“Vuitton are always blond,” she said.