The Peripheral

45

I’ll talk to Burton,” Flynne said to Janice. “You talk to Macon. Need the head measurement right away, and printed out.”

“What’ll you do when you get him there? Seriously, honey. That’s a lateral move.”

“I won’t be alone. And I need a witness, somebody to confirm my version. Then we can double-team Burton, if we have to.”

“That why you wouldn’t just take Burton in the first place?”

“I guess. I’m winging it, Janice.”

“You are that,” said Janice.

Flynne turned, reaching for the door handle.

“Hold on a sec,” said Janice. “Costume department.” She was flipping through Burton’s hyper-tidy rod of mostly raggedy clothes, across the front of the Airstream, everything facing in one direction, on identical hangers from Hefty Mart. Janice pulled out something long, shiny, coppery brown. A robe he’d won in a mixed martial arts contest in Davisville, last winter. Ripstop nylon with maroon lapels, a screaming American eagle fabbed across the back. Like a boxer’s robe. She was surprised he’d kept it. “Perfect,” said Janice, holding it open for her.

“That?”

“You just went to the future, hon. Or somewhere they say’s the future. Major event.”

“It’s too big,” Flynne protested, shrugging into it.

Janice wrapped it tight, knotted the maroon belt, readjusted the knot. “Like you just skinned you a Marine combat artist. Best we can do.”

“Okay,” Flynne said, “but you get Macon on that, right?”

“I will.”

Flynne turned, squared shoulders that felt lost in Burton’s robe, and opened the door. A burst of applause.

Burton standing there, lit by the open door. Behind him, Macon and Edward, Leon, Carlos. Leon whistled, between two fingers.

“Never much going on around here,” she said, and stepped down.

“That could change,” Macon said. “Remember how I saw you there?”

“They’ve got more for you to do,” she said to him, hearing Janice step down behind her. “Janice, she’ll tell you.” She looked at the others. Realized she had no idea what anybody in particular thought was going on, herself included. “Burton and I,” she said, “we need to talk. Excuse us.” She started up the path, then stopped as he caught up with her.

“You ready now?” he asked, quietly.

“Couldn’t talk, before. Forget talking: Couldn’t think. It did something to my head.”

“Macon says you went somewhere. Says he saw you there on his phone. Where?”

“Not Colombia. They say it’s the future. London. What we saw in the game.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Don’t know.”

“If you were in the trailer, how’d Macon see you somewhere else?”

She looked at him, his face in the moonlight. “Kind of robot body. Macon saw it. But it feels human. Like a drone, but you don’t have to think about operating it. Thing on my head, in the trailer, they call a neural cutout. Keeps your own body from responding when you do something with the peripheral.”

“The what?”

“Peripheral. What they call them. The body things.”

“Who are they?”

“Ash, she’s the first one you talked to, she works for Lev. That’s his name. I think he’s Russian, but English Russian? Grew up there.”

“When do they say they are?”

She told him.

“Just over seventy years? How different does it look?”

“You saw it yourself,” she said. “Different but not that much. Or maybe a lot and it doesn’t all show?”

“You believe them?”

“It’s something.”

“They have a lot of money.” It wasn’t a question, but she could see he didn’t want her to tell him it wasn’t true.

“Metric fuck-tons, for all I know, but there’s no way any of that’s getting here. But they’re figuring out ways to game the markets, here.”

“Because they know what’s going to happen, before it does?”

“Say it doesn’t work that way. They can spend money on their side, pay people there to figure out how they can make money here, then have the Coldiron lawyers do things, here. Information from there affects things here. But they don’t know our future. They don’t need to know our future to kick ass in the market, though, because they can find out whatever they need to know about our present, any day. Their stuff’s all seventy years faster than ours.”

“Okay,” he said, and she wondered if what she was seeing in his eyes was the Corps’ speed, intensity, violence of action, or his right way of seeing. Because he just got it. Ignored the crazy, went tactically forward. And she saw how weird that was, and how much it was who he was, and for just that instant she wondered if she didn’t somehow have it too.

“Follow the money,” he said. “What’s in it for them?”

“That’s where it gets fucked up.”

“You don’t think it’s already fucked up?” His eyes crinkled, like he was about to laugh at her.

“It was like a game, for Lev. We aren’t their past. We go off in some different direction, because they’ve changed things here. Their world’s not affected by what happens here, now or going forward. But shit’s gone sideways on them, some other way. Because I saw that woman killed. Whatever that’s about. I saw the man who knew she was going to be killed. Who got her out on that balcony for that thing to eat her. And now somebody up there’s gotten in here too.”

“Here?”

“Now. Our time.”

“Who?”

“Whoever hired those men from Memphis, to kill us.”

“But why’s this Lev in it now? He’s the man, right? It’s still his show?”

“I don’t know. I’m going back there now, to find out.”

“Now?”

“Soon as I can use myself a flush toilet, I’m back in the Snow White hat. Janice brought me a sandwich and some water, so I won’t starve here, while I’m back up there. Then we’ll have more to work with. I don’t want you doing anything, okay? Things are complicated enough. Just lock everything down, really tight. Don’t let anybody on the property but our closest people. We don’t know enough now to make any kind of move at all.”

He looked at her. “Easy Ice,” he said, and she saw the shiver run through him in the moonlight, the haptic thing, but then it was gone.

“Where’s Conner?” she asked.

“At his place.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Keep him there.”

“Go use that flush toilet,” he said. “Nobody’s stopping you.”