The Peripheral

34

Would you mind my lighting a scented candle?” Lowbeer asked. “I’ve an unfortunate reaction to bombings.” She looked from Netherton to the rental. “I’ve had memories muted, but certain things continue to be triggers. Pure beeswax, essential oils, low-soot wick. Nothing at all toxic.”

“This unit doesn’t seem to have a sense of smell,” said Rainey. “Not that high end.”

Ash, Netherton thought, might make a point here, about beeswax in a world devoid of bees. “Please do,” he said, unable to stop seeing the tall, exceptionally graceful man’s shaven black head explode, repeatedly, in slow motion, from all those different angles and distances. It had happened as he’d descended the stairs, in front of the Maenads’ Crush. Where he still lay, for all Netherton knew, sprawled back, entirely headless. Lowbeer had shown them feeds from a variety of cams, and he wished she hadn’t.

There were four small, bulbous, swivel-mounted leather armchairs in the seemingly windowless passenger compartment of Lowbeer’s car, arranged around a low round table. Netherton and the rental had the two rearmost, facing forward, with Lowbeer seated facing them. The upholstery was slightly worn, scuffed at the beading along its edges, oddly cozy.

“It was rented as a sparring partner, from a martial arts studio in Shoreditch,” Lowbeer said, taking a short, wax-filled glass tumbler from her purse. It lit as she placed it on the table. “Rented the moment you told your cab to take you to Covent Garden, Mr. Netherton. When I targeted it, I assumed you were about to be physically assaulted. A matter of blows, likely, with hands or feet, but easily fatal, as it was optimized for unarmed combat.”

Netherton looked from Lowbeer to the candle flame and back. They had emerged from the Maenads’ Crush to find the air thick, relatively speaking, with a variety of aerial devices. Four yellow-and-black diagonally striped Met units, each with two brightly blinking blue lights, had been hovering, unmoving, above the decapitated figure, on its back, on the stairs he and Rainey had themselves so recently descended. Many smaller units had darted, buzzing, some no bigger than houseflies.

What blood there was had seemed localized on the stonework adjacent the stairway. The screaming had turned to racking sobs, emanating from a woman seated, knees up, on the flagstones at the foot of the stairs. “See to her,” he’d heard Lowbeer say, to someone unseen, “immediately.” Lowbeer had lifted the tipstaff briefly then, shoulder high, and turned, displaying it. Netherton had seen people glance away, fearing to be marked by the sight of it, though of course they already were.

Bystanders had continued to avert their gaze, as Lowbeer led Netherton and the rental to the opposite end of the building, and up another open flight of stairs. Her car uncloaked before them as they’d emerged, its passenger door open. He had no idea, now, of where they were parked. Not far from Covent Garden. In the direction of Shaftesbury Avenue, perhaps.

“That poor woman,” Lowbeer said.

“Didn’t appear to have been physically injured,” said the rental, slouched in its club chair, tweed cap low on its forehead.

“Traumatized,” Lowbeer said, and looked at her candle. “Neroli. Girly, but I’ve always loved it.”

“You blew its head off,” Netherton said.

“Not intentionally,” said Lowbeer. “It left Shoreditch in a car leased by the martial arts studio. Alone, supposedly. But it can’t have been alone, because someone opened its cranium.”

“Its cranium?”

“The skulls are modular. Printed bone, assembled with biological adhesives. The structural strength of an average skull, but capable of disassembly.”

“Why is that?” asked Netherton, who just then found peripherals steadily less pleasant the more he learned of them.

“The brainpan of a sparring model ordinarily contains a printed cellular replica of a brain. A trainer, nothing cognitively functional. Registers levels of concussion, indicates less subtle trauma. The user can determine the exact efficiency of blows delivered. But the trainer, and for that matter the modular cranium, aren’t user-serviceable. A person or persons unknown voided the studio’s warranty, on the drive from Shoreditch. They removed the trainer, replacing it with an explosive charge. It would have approached you, then detonated. Unaware of that, I called in flashbots. The four nearest responded when my request cleared. They positioned themselves around its head and simultaneously detonated. A mere fraction of a gram of explosive each, but correctly distanced, precisely spaced, sufficient to immobilize virtually anything. Instead, we’re very fortunate my actions didn’t result in at least one death.”

“But otherwise,” said the rental, “it would have killed Wilf.”

“Indeed,” said Lowbeer. “The use of explosives is unusual, and we prefer to keep it so. Too much like asymmetric warfare.”

“Terrorism,” said the rental.

“We prefer not to use that term,” said Lowbeer, studying her candle flame with something that looked to Netherton to be regret, “if only because terror should remain the sole prerogative of the state.” She looked up at him. “Someone has made an attempt on your life. It may also have been intended to intimidate any associates who might survive you.”

“Wilf and I are only former associates,” the rental said.

“I was thinking of Mr. Zubov, actually,” said Lowbeer. “Though anyone intending to intimidate him must either be singularly unfamiliar with his family, extremely powerful, or entirely reckless.”

“How did you know,” Netherton asked, “that it would be on its way here?”

“The aunties,” said Lowbeer.

“Aunties?”

“We call them that. Algorithms. We have a great many, built up over decades. I doubt anyone today knows quite how they work, in any given instance.” She looked at the rental now, her expression changing. “Someone modeled that peripheral, rather romantically, after Fitz-David Wu. I doubt you’d know him. Arguably the best Shakespearean actor of his day. His mother was quite a good friend of mine. Those eyes were an afterthought, of course, later regretted. Not so easily reversible, in those days.”

Netherton, wishing he had another whiskey, wondered if she felt that way about her own periwinkle blues.