The Peripheral

32

Lev’s sigil appeared, strobing, as Netherton was getting out of the cab in Henrietta Street. “Yes?” Netherton asked.

“How long is this going to take, do you think?”

“I have no idea,” said Netherton. “I don’t know what we’ll be discussing. I told you that.”

“I’ll send Ossian, when you’re done.”

“I don’t need Ossian, thank you. No Ossian.”

“I haven’t done this since I was a teenager,” said a slender young man, stopping on the pavement beside Netherton. Pale, with paler hair. A fairy prince in a flat tweed cap. Netherton dismissed Lev’s sigil with a tongue-tap. The young man’s eyes were a startling green.

“I beg your pardon?” said Netherton.

“Opera again. The rental place is busy. They had the little girl, but I thought I’d give you a break. Be more fun if they’d had something really strapping.”

“Rainey?” Her sigil appeared, then faded.

“Hello,” the young man said. “Shall we?”

“You lead the way,” said Netherton.

“Cautious of you,” observed the rental, its tone unimpressed. It adjusted the angle of its cap. “Look,” it said, pointing across Henrietta Street, “that’s where George Orwell had his first publisher.” That annoying thing that tourists did, opening a feed into London’s sea of blue plaques.

Netherton ignored the otherwise unremarkable building, dismissing the text with another tongue-tap. “Let’s go,” he said. The rental started for Covent Garden. Netherton wondered if it had been infused with nutrients from a matte aluminum case.

The streets here were busy, or relatively so. Couples going to the opera, he supposed. He wondered how many were peripherals, rented or otherwise. A light rain began to fall. He turned up the collar of his jacket. He’d asked the rental to lead because he had no way, really, of knowing that it was Rainey. Sigils, he knew, could be spoofed. For that matter, he supposed, he had no way of knowing that this was a peripheral. On the other hand, it sounded like her. Not the voice, of course, but it had her manner.

Streetlights were coming on. Goods were on offer, in the windows of shops staffed by automata, by homunculi, by the odd person either present or peripheral. He’d known a girl who’d worked in a shop near here, though he couldn’t recall the street, or her name. “I’ve been worried about you,” said the rental. “Things are getting strange, here.” They were passing a shop in which a Michikoid in riding habit was folding scarves. “How do you stand having a beard?” the rental asked, running fingertips up its pale cheek.

“I don’t,” said Netherton.

“After it’s been shaved, I mean. It makes me want to scream.”

“I take it that’s not what you’re worried about, on my behalf,” Netherton said. The rental said nothing, walked on. It wore brown demiboots with elastic side gores.

Then they were entering the market proper, the building itself. Netherton saw that it was leading them toward stairs to the lower level. He decided that it was her, not that he’d ever seriously doubted that.

“We’ll have a little privacy, even if it’s purely symbolic,” it said. They’d reached the bottom of the stairs. He saw the Maenads’ Crush in its narrow archway, devoid of clientele, its Michikoid behind the bar, polishing glasses.

“Very good,” said Netherton, taking the lead. “We’ll have the snug,” he told the Michikoid. “Double whiskey. House. My friend isn’t drinking.”

“Yes, sir.”

The burgundy drapes reminded him of Ash’s fortune-telling booth. As soon as the Michikoid brought his whiskey, he drew them closed.

“They’re saying you did it,” the rental said.

“Did what?” The whiskey was halfway to his mouth.

“Killed Aelita.”

“Who is?”

“Americans, I’m assuming.”

“Does anyone have any proof that she’s dead? Missing, evidently, but dead?” He drank some of his whiskey.

“It’s that fuzzy sort of malignant publicity. You’re starting to surface in gossip feeds. Highly orchestrated.”

“You really don’t know who?”

“Daedra? Maybe she’s mad at you.”

“Us. Mad at us.”

“This is serious, Wilf.”

“It’s also ridiculous. Daedra ruined everything. Deliberately. You were there. You saw what happened. She killed him.”

“And please, don’t get drunk.”

“Actually,” he said, “I’ve been drinking considerably less. Why would Daedra be angry with me?”

“I’ve no idea. But it’s the sort of ongoing complication I was hoping to avoid.”

“Pardon me, sir,” said the Michikoid, from beyond the curtain, “but there’s someone here for you.”

“You told someone we were meeting?” The green eyes widening.

“No,” said Netherton.

“Sir?” said the Michikoid.

“If someone puts a hole in this thing,” the rental tapped its chest through the waxed-cotton jacket, “I wake up on the sofa. You aren’t in that position.”

Netherton took a preparatory drink and pushed the curtain aside.

“Forgive my interruption,” said Lowbeer, “but I’m afraid I’ve no choice.” She wore a hairy tweed jacket and matching skirt. It occurred to Netherton that that went quite well with Rainey’s peripheral’s outfit. “Please allow me to join you.” The Michikoid, Netherton saw, was bringing a chair. “Miss Rainey,” said Lowbeer, “I am Inspector Ainsley Lowbeer, of the Metropolitan Police. You do understand that you are present here, legally, under the Android Avatar Act?”

“I do,” said the rental, unenthusiastically.

“Canadian law makes certain distinctions, around physically manifested telepresence, which we do not.” Lowbeer took her seat. “Still water,” she said, to the Michikoid. “Best we keep the curtain open,” she said to Netherton, glancing out into the lower level of the market.

“Why?” asked Netherton.

“Someone may wish you harm, Mr. Netherton.”

The rental raised its eyebrows.

“Who?” asked Netherton, wishing he’d ordered a treble.

“We’ve no idea,” said Lowbeer. “Our attention has been drawn to the recent rental of a peripheral, one with potential as a weapon. The public isn’t aware of how closely such transactions are monitored. We know it to be nearby, and we believe you to be its target.”

“Told you,” said the rental, to Netherton.

“And why would you assume Mr. Netherton to be in danger, may I ask?” asked Lowbeer, as the Michikoid placed her glass of water on the table.

“You may, obviously,” said the rental, quite effectively managing to convey Rainey’s unhappiness. “The police, Wilf. You didn’t tell me.”

“I was about to.”

“You were Mr. Netherton’s colleague, in the business with the Garbage Patch,” said Lowbeer. “Have you been let go as well?” She took a drink of water.

“I was permitted to resign,” the rental said. “But merely from the project. I’m a career bureaucrat.”

“As am I,” said Lowbeer. “At the moment, on official business. Would that be true of you?”

The green eyes considered Lowbeer. “No,” it said, “I’m here privately.”

“Are you now involved,” Lowbeer asked, “in what the former project may be becoming?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” the rental said.

“But here you are, meeting privately with Mr. Netherton. Expressing concerns over his safety.”

“She says,” said Netherton, surprising himself, “that the Americans are spreading a rumor that I had Aelita killed.”

“No,” said the rental. “I said that they seemed the most likely suspects, in spreading it.”

“You said you thought it might be Daedra,” said Netherton, and finished his whiskey. He looked around for the Michikoid.

“We are aware of a whispering campaign,” said Lowbeer, “while uncertain as to its origins.” She glanced out again. “Oh dear,” she said, and rose, reaching under the flap of her brown satchel. “I’m afraid we’ll have to be going now.” She drew out a business card, passing it to the Michikoid, which had just then arrived, as if summoned. It accepted the card with two hands, bowed, smartly retreated. Lowbeer reached back into her satchel, producing what at first appeared to be a fussily ornate, gold-and-ivory lipstick, or perhaps atomizer, but which promptly morphed into a short, ceremonial-looking baton, its staff of fluted ivory topped with a gilt coronet. A tipstaff, evidently. Netherton had never actually seen one before. “Come with me, please,” she said.

Rainey’s peripheral stood. Netherton looked down at his empty glass, started to stand, saw the tipstaff morph again, becoming a baroque, long-barreled gilt pistol, with fluted ivory grips, which Lowbeer lifted, aimed, and fired. There was an explosion, painfully loud, but from somewhere across the lower level, the pistol having made no sound at all. Then a ringing silence, in which could be heard an apparent rain of small objects, striking walls and flagstones. Someone began to scream.

“Bloody hell,” said Lowbeer, her tone one of concerned surprise, the pistol having become the tipstaff again. “Come along, then.”

She shooed them out of the Maenads’ Crush, as the screaming continued.