The Peripheral

96

As he left the rear cabin, the Wheelie window vanished, taking the sigil of the emulation software with it. She’d gone to phone about her mother, and perhaps to sleep. He’d heard it in her voice, that she needed that. The attack, her brother’s wound, the business with the party time. But still she had that way of simply going forward.

He pictured the peripheral’s upturned face, eyes closed. It wasn’t sleeping, but where was it, within itself? But then it didn’t, as he understood it, possess a self to be within. Not sentient, yet as Lowbeer had pointed out, effortlessly anthropomorphized. An anthropomorph, really, to be disanthropomorphized. Though when she was present in it, or perhaps through it, was it not some version of her?

He saw the two glasses on the desk before he realized that the bar was still open. Enrobed in a sudden ponderous nonchalance, he moved to pick them up, returning as casually to the open bar, a glass in either hand. As he put them down, the bar’s door slid down. Lev’s sigil appeared. He fought the urge to block the door with his arms, palms flat on the gold-veined marble, fingers spread. Surely it wouldn’t crush his hands.

“What are you doing?” asked Lev, as Netherton heard the door’s lock click.

“I was with Flynne,” he said, “in that toy peripheral. But she had to phone her mother.” He pressed both hands against pale glassy veneer, feeling the German solidity, the complete lack of movement.

“I’m grilling sandwiches,” Lev said. “Sardines on Italian bread, pickled jalapeño. Looking tasty.”

“Is Lowbeer there?”

“She suggested the sardines.”

“I’ll be right up.”

As he was going out the door, he remembered that he was still wearing the headband, with its vaguely Egyptianate, milkily translucent giant sperm of a cam. He took it off and put it in his jacket pocket.

When he’d crossed the garage, taken the bronze elevator, and made his way to the kitchen, he saw through the mullioned doors that Conner was in the garden, on hands and knees, snarling at Gordon and Tyenna. The peripheral’s features lent themselves terrifyingly to this, seeming to expose more teeth than the two creatures possessed between them, in spite of their peculiarly long jaws. They were facing him, side by side, as if ready to spring, their musculature looking even less canine than usual, their stiff tails in particular. Carnivorous kangaroos, in wolf outfits with Cubist stripes. Netherton felt an oddly intense gratitude, just then, for their not having, as the drop bears had, hands.

The kitchen smelled smokily of grilled sardines. “What’s he doing out there?” Netherton asked.

“I don’t know,” said Lev, at the stove, “but they love it.”

Now the two creatures lunged at Conner simultaneously. He fell between them, flailing, wrestling with them. They were making a high-pitched, repetitious coughing sound.

“Dominika’s gone to Richmond Hill, with the children,” Lev said, checking flattened panini in a sandwich press.

“How is she?” Netherton asked, as unable as ever to read the domestic temperature of Chez Lev.

“Rather annoyed with the time I’ve been devoting to all of this, but her taking the children there was my idea. And Lowbeer’s.” He nodded in her direction.

“Lev’s father’s house,” Lowbeer said, seated at the pine table, “is literally untouchable. Should we earn the enmity of anyone of genuine consequence, in the next forty-eight hours or so, Lev’s family will be secure.”

“Whom would you expect to anger?” Netherton asked.

“Americans, primarily, though I wouldn’t be so worried about them. They are likely, though, to currently have allies in the City. It’s beginning to look as though my assumption was correct, that the motive in Aelita’s death will prove to have been sadly quotidian.”

“Why is that?”

“The aunties, continually mulling it over. A process akin to repetitious dreaming, or the protracted spinning of a given fiction. Not that they’re invariably correct, but over a sufficient course they do tend to find the likely suspects.”

Conner was on his feet now, walking toward them, Gordon and Tyenna hopping in unison after him on their hind legs. He entered, closing the door behind him. Outside, still upright, they followed him with their eyes.

“Infatuated with you,” said Lev, taking the first of the sandwiches from the press.

“Like you crossed possums with coyotes,” Conner said. “Smell a little like possums. They get TB?”

“Get what?” Lev asked.

“Tuberculosis,” Lowbeer said.

“No,” Lev said, looking up from the press. “Why should they?”

“Possums mostly do,” said Conner. “Not many left. People like ’em even less, they get TB. Sandwich smells good. Why don’t you build these things so they can eat?”

“We do,” Lev said, “but it’s much more expensive. Unnecessary in a martial arts instructor.”

“Sit with us,” said Lowbeer. “You do rather loom.”

Conner pulled out the chair opposite her, reversed it, and sat, forearms crossed atop its back.

“Is Flynne sleeping now?” Netherton asked, taking the chair beside Conner. To be seated with Lowbeer and not face her, he thought, wouldn’t have occurred to him.

“She is,” said Lowbeer, “after speaking with her mother’s caregiver. She’ll visit, tomorrow. There’s an increasing risk involved, but we want her able to give her full attention to her evening with you and Daedra. And whoever else may be present.” Lev placed a white plate with her sandwich in front of her. “That looks absolutely delicious, Lev. Thank you.”