The Peripheral

83

Macon had been kidding, about the three hundred signatures, but she’d quit counting after about thirty. She was almost through the stack now, the red-haired girl notarizing each one, with a stamp and a signature of her own and a spring-loaded seal, after Flynne had signed.

They’d set up a card table for her in the space with the beds. Janice and Clovis were propped on the edge of the bed nearest Conner’s, facing him, legs out straight, and Macon was seated beside Flynne on a folding chair.

“I should be reading these,” Flynne said, “but I wouldn’t understand them anyway.”

“The way things are going,” Macon said, “you don’t have a lot of choice.”

“How are they going?”

“Well,” leaning back to briefly consult something in his Viz, “there haven’t been any catastrophic market imbalances yet, but it’s early days. It’s a race to the top, and the way we’re doing it, the way our competitor’s doing it, is seriously stressing the system.”

“What’s the top?”

“Won’t know until we get there, and if we aren’t on it, we’ll likely be dead.”

“Who’s the competitor?”

“They don’t have a name. More the numbered account school of funny. Shells within shells. That’s us too, mainly, but if you get through all of our shells, there’s Milagros Coldiron. Just a name, and nobody knows what it means, but at least we got one. With Pickett gone, we lost our governor for a while, but then Griff went back to D.C. and fixed that up from there, so in a way we’re already up to federal.”

Flynne thought of fists stacking up around the handle of a softball bat. The girl passed her another contract, sliding the signed one out of the way, stamping and signing it herself, smacking her seal.

“I think we’re pretty close to somebody coming after us here,” Macon said. “If it’s unemployed vets, like those last two out at your place, Burton might be able to handle it. If it’s state police, or Homes, some other federal agency, or for that matter the Marines, no use even fighting. Why we’ve got lawyers out the ass.” He looked at the red-haired notary. “Pardon the expression,” he said, but she just kept signing and sealing. “Homes has its funny side,” he said to Flynne. “Look where they are right now.”

“Pickett’s?”

“First time, ever. Pickett was building when we were kids. His place hadn’t looked anything like a house for twenty years. Looked like what it was. Took the scale of that explosion to get Homes over there.”

“Don’t tell me Homes is behind all the drug building. That’s a conspiracy theory.”

“Not behind, but there can be accommodation. Wait and see who has a quiet word with Tommy, now Jackman’s gone.”

Flynne had signed three more contracts while he spoke. “My hand’s starting to hurt,” she said to the girl.

“Only four more,” the girl said. “You might consider simplifying your signature. You’ll be doing a lot of this.”

Flynne looked over at Conner. Clovis had mounted a Thermos cup on one of the bed’s articulated equipment stands. Conner was sucking black coffee through a transparent tube. Flynne signed the last four contracts and passed them to the girl. Stood up. “Back in a few minutes,” she said. “Macon.” She ducked around a blue tarp, hearing the thump of the notary’s seal, Macon behind her. “Where can we have a private conversation?” she asked him.

“Fab,” he said, pointing at another tarp.

Fab’s back room looked the same as ever, aside from a few more printers and the hole sawn in the wall. She looked into the front of the store, saw a girl she didn’t know behind the counter, looking down at her phone. “Where’s Shaylene?”

“Clanton,” Macon said.

“Doing what?”

“More lawyers. She’s opening two new Fabs there.”

“I just get bits and pieces. What’s been happening here?”

“All anybody gets.” He took out his Viz, put it in his pocket, rubbed his eye. She saw his tiredness, propped up by the government wakey.

“Why’s there a fort made out of building supplies, next door?”

“Coldiron’s global valuation’s billions, now.”

“Billions?”

“Lots of ’em, but I don’t want to give you a nosebleed. Kind of try to ignore it, myself. It’ll be more, tomorrow. Shit’s exponential. Not all that obviously, because we need to avoid that, as long as we can. Burton’s getting constant advice from up the line, and having Madison build those walls was their idea.”

“How come not in here?”

“They wouldn’t want you over on this side. Wall’s there to protect you from some kind of drive-by. Not that any amount of fort-building would make a difference, if somebody big enough decided to hit us. Smart munitions make any thickness of anything a joke, and the roof here might as well be cardboard. But they must’ve figured it needed doing, in case somebody sees an opportunity to lowball the job, and just sends more assholes from Memphis.”

“Robot cow up in the pasture, driving in. Janice said Burton put it there.”

“Part of our system upgrade. I voted for it looking like a zebra, myself.”

“Tommy still over at Pickett’s?”

“Burton too. Better them than me.”

“What do you think’s going to happen?”

“You and Conner and Burton are doing something soon, right? Up there.”

“I’m supposed to go to a party with Wilf. See if I recognize anybody. Conner’s going as our bodyguard. Not sure about Burton.”

“That’ll be it, then.”

“Be what?”

“Some kind of move. A gamble. That that’ll change things, whatever it is. Otherwise, what’s happening here’s unsustainable. Something’ll give, blow out. Could be local, could be the national economy, could be the world’s.”

“If what Wilf told me was right, that could be the least of our worries.”

“What’s that?”

“Said everything fucks up here, pretty soon. Goes down the tubes for decades. Most everybody dies.”

He looked at her. “Why there’s hardly any people, up there?”

“They get you there yet?”

“No, but Edward and I read between the lines. In the tech stuff they show us. Kind of inherent history, if you read it right. But they did get themselves some super-fresh tech, whatever else was going on.”

“Didn’t get it fast enough, according to Wilf.”

“They want you back. Just about now. You and Conner. Clovis’ll mind you.”

“What’s she about, anyway?”

“Carlos might be right. That EMT bag of hers is mainly full of gun. Once you’ve met Griff, she makes more sense. I think he’s the same as her, but management.”

She looked around at the room. Remembered trimming the afterbirth off Christmas ornaments, toys, smoothing and putting the pieces together, eating takeout from Sushi Barn and bullshitting with Shaylene. It suddenly seemed like all of that had been so easy. When the sun came up, you just got on your bike, rode home, and not past a place where Conner had put bullets into the heads of four men, who’d have killed you and your mother and Burton, probably Leon too, for the money somebody promised them for doing it.

“Leon saw two boys from Luke 4:5 on Main Street last night, outside the old Farmer’s Bank,” he said.

“How’d he know? They have signs?”

“No signs. Said he knows because he’d happened to have a long look at both of them, in Davisville, while Homes had Burton. They were holding up a sign in front of the VA hospital and he was sitting on a bench there, just the other side of the police tape.”

“They recognize him?”

“Didn’t think so.”

“Why would they be here?”

“Leon figured they were looking for Burton. Who did cause some sharp discomfort to their boy in Davisville. Why Homes sat him to chill in the middle of the high school track. Why they call it that, anyway, Luke 4:5?”

“’Cause that’s one spooky-ass Bible verse, probably.”

“It’s a white people thing, Luke 4:5? Never paid ’em any attention.”

“‘And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.’”

“Know scripture?”

“Know that one. Burton’s prone to recite it if he hears they plan a protest. He’s got some fucked-up thing going about them. Or maybe just an excuse to go and kick somebody’s ass.”

“We’ve got people keeping an eye out around town,” Macon said, digging in a front jeans pocket for his Viz. He blew on it, put it over his eye. She saw him blink, behind it. “They’re ready for you up the line, about now.”