The Peripheral

92

He was down in the well beneath Lev’s grandfather’s desk, looking for the Wheelie Boy headband. Flynne’s blank sigil seemed to be wherever he looked. “Positive it’s here,” he said, noticing a few pale flattened blobs of gum on the bottom of the marble desktop, near the chair. He imagined Lev pressing them there as a child. His fingers brushed something on the well’s carpeted floor. It moved. He fumbled for it. “Here it is.” He crawled up from beneath the desk, prize in hand.

“Fiddle with the cam,” she said. “You had it too close to your nose, last time.”

He sat in the chair, put the band on, tried to center the cam, and tongued the roof of his mouth. The sigil of the Wheelie Boy emulation app appeared, the feed opened, her blank sigil disappearing. She was seated at a table, against a backdrop of dull blue. The unit seemed to be on the table in front of her, but he didn’t try to move it, or change the angle or direction of its cam. “Hello?”

“Get it a little higher, more in line with your eyes.”

He tried to do that.

“Better,” she said. “Your nose is smaller.” She looked tired, he thought.

“How are you?”

“They fucking shot my brother.”

“Who did?”

“Guys in squidsuits. Clovis and Carlos killed ’em.”

“And your brother?”

“He’s asleep. They gave him something. Government drone gave him a long-distance operation. Got the bullet out, patched a hole in his artery, cleaned everything, stitched him up.”

“Were you hurt?”

“No. Feel fucked, but that’s not the problem.”

“What problem?”

“Lowbeer’s English boy. Back here. Griff. Gryffyd. Holdsworth. Tommy thinks Griff’s what he calls an intelligence liaison. Has diplomatic cover or some shit, out of their embassy in Washington. Lots of connections, government stuff. Our government, I mean. He got squidsuits and a micro-drone for Burton, to get me out of Pickett’s. Got the pill bug they used on Burton-”

“Pill bug?”

“No time. Just listen.”

“Griff is the problem?”

“Lowbeer. Griff’s setting up to do something here, to Luke 4:5-”

“Who?”

“They’re just assholes. You listen to me, okay?”

He nodded, then imagined that on the Wheelie Boy’s tablet.

“The competition’s using them to embarrass us, and probably hoping to get Burton out there so somebody can shoot him. He doesn’t like ’em to begin with, so they’re good bait. But Griff’s got this chemical weapon, called party time. Like every really bad builder drug rolled into one, but worse. If what it makes you do doesn’t kill you in the process, you’re liable to commit suicide from remembering what you did. Tommy says builders can’t find a survivable recreational dose. Go homeopathic on it, it monsters you out just as bad. Clovis already put me on the antidote. Griff’s planning to use it on Luke 4:5, and I’d bet tonight.”

“Then how is Lowbeer your problem?”

“She calls the shots. Either it’s her idea or his, but if it’s his, she signed off on it. Using that shit on anybody is just too crazy. Too mean. It’s your world.”

“My world?”

“Different way of doing things. Stone cold. But I’m not letting it happen, neither is Tommy, and if Burton were conscious, neither would he.”

“How would you stop it?”

“By letting her know I’m not going to the party with you, if they do that. They use it, we smash up the crowns, print new phones with different numbers, and pretend you guys don’t exist. Whatever shit comes down, we deal with it. And fuck you. Not you personally. You guys.”

“Seriously?”

“Shit yes.”

He looked at her.

“So?” she asked.

“So what?”

“You in?”

“In?”

“You tell her. She wants to talk to me, I’m right here. But they put any party time on those sorry assholes across the road, you’re going to that party alone. Me and my family, we’ll be out of the future business.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

“Call her,” she said. “I’m going to go talk to Griff.”

“Why would you do this? Without her, you’ll be in a desperate position. So might we, for that matter. And you’re doing it for the sake of. . assholes?”

“They’re assholes. We’re not. But we’re only not assholes if we won’t do shit like that. You calling her?”

“Yes. But I don’t know why.”

“Because you’re not an asshole.”

“I wish I believed that.”

“Everybody’s got one. And an opinion to go with it, my mother says. It’s how you behave makes the difference. Now I’m going to turn you off and go tell Griff.” And she did.