The Peripheral

36

Anton had one,” Lev said, when Netherton had finished telling him about what had happened in Covent Garden. “He tore its jaw off at a garden party, in a drunken rage.”

They were standing together at the top of the Gobiwagen’s gangway, watching the peripheral run the treadmill. “Impossible to deny that it has a certain beauty,” Netherton said, hoping to change the subject, else it somehow lead to Putney. Though he did find it beautiful. Ash, standing near the treadmill, had the look of someone reading data on a feed, which she likely was.

“Dominika was furious,” Lev said. “Our children might have seen him do it. He sent it back to the factory. Then he shot it. Repeatedly. On the dance floor, at Club Volokh. I wasn’t there. Hushed up, of course. That was the turning point, for our father.”

Netherton saw Ash say something to the peripheral. It began to slow its pace. Running, he saw its beauty differently, the grace it brought to the repetitive act somehow substituting for personality.

“Why did Anton do that?” Netherton asked, as he watched the muscles working, exquisitely, in the thing’s thighs.

“He refused to adjust its level of difficulty. Sparred with it at the highest setting. It always won. And was far the better dancer.”

The peripheral had slowed to a trot. Now it leapt off the treadmill and began jogging in place, in loose black shorts and a sleeveless black top. Two closets in the yacht had now been filled with clothing Ash had had made up for it, which meant quite a lot of black.

It looked up now, seeming to see him.

Lev turned then, going back inside. Netherton followed, unsettled by the peripheral’s gaze. The space felt more inhabited now, or perhaps simply cluttered, with the antique monitor array and the peripheral’s support kit.

“Lager,” said Lev. Netherton blinked. Lev pressed his thumb against a small steel oval set into the bar’s door. The door slid up, out of sight, the counter silently extruding an opened bottle. Lev took it, then noticed Netherton. He passed Netherton the chilled bottle. “Lager,” he repeated. The bar produced another. “That will do,” he said, and the door slid down. Lev clinked the base of his bottle against the base of Netherton’s, raised his, and drank. He lowered it. “What did she have to say, on the way back, after you’d returned your friend’s rental?”

“She told me about Wu.”

“Who?”

“Fitz-David Wu. An actor. She and his mother were friends.”

“Wu,” said Lev. “Hamlet. Grandfather’s favorite still. Forty years ago, at least.”

“How old is she, do you think?”

“A hundred, more,” said Lev. “Is that really all you discussed?”

“She seemed unsettled. Off-task. She’d lit a scented candle.”

“Candles, essences. I’ve seen them do that. Something to do with memory.”

“She said she’s had some muted. Something to do with bombing, I supposed.”

“They go in for that,” said Lev. “Grandfather views it as a sin. Getting on himself, but he’s quite Orthodox. I could do with more of an idea of what she’s up to.”

“You were the one who made a deal with her,” Netherton reminded him. “And you’ve rather pointedly not shared what that was.”

“True,” said Lev, “but it’s not to be shared. If I didn’t adhere to her terms, I imagine she might find out.”

“She might ask you,” said Netherton, “and you might find yourself telling her.”

Lev frowned. “You’re right about that.” He drank off the rest of his lager, put the empty bottle down on the marble desktop. “Meanwhile, though, there’s progress in the stub. The technicals you sourced through the polt’s sister have impressed Ash. They’re readying their best approximation of a neural cutout. And Ash’s quants at the LSE have abundantly solved any in-stub financial worries. Though if they keep it up, we’ll be noticed. More than noticed.”

“What are they doing?” asked Netherton, after finishing his own lager. He wished he had several more.

“Herding trading algorithms, basically. The stub doesn’t quite have the capacity to do that, though they’re aware that it sometimes happens naturally. They would have started to do it soon enough themselves. But we’re definitely funded to deal with contingencies now. Which has already proven necessary.”

“It has?”

“Assassins turned up to fulfill that contract, four of them. Who were disposed of, prior to doing so, by one of the polt’s associates.”

“Requiring money?”

“It was illegal,” said Lev. “He’d been set to watch for anyone who looked as though they might be coming to do that. He didn’t like their look, killed them. Cost something to make it go away. Their immediate political unit is a county. The head of law enforcement is the sheriff. The county’s most viable economy is the molecular synthesis of illicit drugs. The sheriff is in the pay of the most successful local synthesist.”

“How do you know that?”

“Ossian.”

“You had the polt and his sister pay off the police?”

“No,” said Lev, “he paid off the drug manufacturer. Ossian judged that to be the appropriate channel, and the polt agreed. But someone tried to kill you, earlier today. Aren’t you concerned?”

“I haven’t really thought about it,” said Netherton, discovering that this was true. “Lowbeer said that if they had done, it might have been meant to serve as a warning to you.”

Lev looked at him. “I know I don’t seem like a gangster,” he said, “and I’m delighted that I don’t, but I wouldn’t have been frightened. Sad, and I suppose angry, but not frightened.”

Netherton imagined Lev being sad that he was dead, or tried to. It didn’t seem real. But neither did what had happened in Covent Garden. He wished Lev’s grandfather’s bar would give him a cold German lager whenever he asked.