The Peripheral (17 page)

’SPLODING

H
er mouth was full of pork tenderloin with garlic mayo, on a big crusty white bun. “Don’t choke,” Janice advised, seated beside her on Burton’s bed. “Be a sad end to whatever you’ve been up to. Drink?” She offered Flynne her black Sukhoi Flankers water bottle.

Flynne swallowed tenderloin, then some water, and handed the bottle back. “It’s a body,” she said. “Got a phone built in. Like a Viz, but it’s inside, somewhere. On-off and menus on the roof of your mouth, like a keyboard.”

“You got a lot pointier tongue than me.”

“Really small magnet, just in the tip.” She’d counted back to zero again, just a little wobble then and she’d opened her eyes in the Airstream, her neck stiff, looking up at Burton and Macon and Edward and Janice, hungry as she’d ever been in her life.

“You going back?” Janice asked her, now. “Tonight?”

Flynne bit into the sandwich again, nodded.

“Maybe you don’t want to eat all of that now. They were worried about you puking, before.”

Flynne chewed, swallowed. “That’s a first-time thing. People who use them get used to it. I need food. Need to be able to stay there longer.”

“Why do they call them that, ‘peripherals’?”

“Because they’re extensions? Like accessories?”

“Anatomically correct?”

“Didn’t think to check.”

“Put that in Hefty Mart, there goes the neighborhood. Probably
there goes vintage flight sims too, ’cept for old folks and the church people. Could Madison learn to pilot one?”

“Guess he could.”

“Nobody’s going to kick the one they got you out of bed for eating crackers. Macon showed me a screen-grab.” Janice smiled. “Impressed you told Burton and them a lady needed time to collect herself.”

“Lady fucking did,” Flynne said.

“You don’t think that’s really the future, do you?” Janice asked, her best game face, no tells.

“Or am I batshit insane, you mean?”

“I guess, yeah.”

Flynne put what was left of the sandwich down, on the plastic Janice had brought it in. “Might as well be. We went upstairs, in an elevator, and there was this big fancy old house. Then out onto a kind of walled patio in back, at night, with these two Tasmanian tigers.”

“Extinct,” said Janice. “Seen ’em CG’d on
Ciencia Loca
.”

“These aren’t really them. They tweaked Tasmanian devil DNA. I could smell all the different flowers, dirt, hear birds. It was almost dark. Like the birds were going to sleep. Weird.”

“What was?”

“Hearing birds. Because we were right in the city. Too quiet.”

“Maybe it was too late.”

“Quiet as here, at night.”

“So what do you think it is?”

“If it’s a game, it’s not just another game. Maybe a whole new platform. That would explain the money.”

“Would it explain how they can fix the state lottery?”

“They aren’t telling me it’s a game. They’re telling me it’s a future. Not ours exactly, because now they’ve messed with us, even just first getting in touch, we’re headed somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Say they can’t tell. That it’s not like time travel in a show. Just
information, back and forth. Minute later here is a minute later there. If I waited a week to go back, it would be a week later there.”

“What’s in it for them?”

“Don’t know. Lev, it’s his house, but really it’s his dad’s other house, so doing this is like Dwight gambling on Operation Northwind. Rich man’s hobby. He pays Ash and Wilf and another guy to run it for him, handle the details. But Wilf, he fucked up, over some woman, and somebody else got in here, where we are, and hired those dead guys from Tennessee to kill my family.”

Janice made her eyes wide as she could. “Brain ’splode.”

“Don’t have the luxury of ’sploding,” Flynne said. “Whatever it is, it’s rolling. With a lot of moving parts, and my brother thinks he can steer it. He’s making deals with Corbell Pickett, he’s setting terms with Lev and them, and it’s about me. Not about me, but I’m the one who saw that asshole. I might be the only one who saw him.”

“Then the first order of business,” Janice said, reaching over to squeeze Flynne’s hand, “is you getting a say in what’s going on.”

PERVERSELY DIFFICULT

M
inus Flynne, the peripheral seemed to occupy less space. It was seated where she’d sat earlier, looking at Lev, where he leaned on the edge of the desk. “Things went well,” he said, looking from Netherton to Ash, who was seated in the other armchair. “She’s quite something, isn’t she?”

“I’d spoken with Lowbeer earlier,” Netherton said, “and she’d agreed that a little time outside might be a good idea.” Actually this had been Lowbeer’s suggestion, but Flynne’s visit had gone so well that he felt he deserved some credit. Flynne herself had insisted on going out, for that matter, but it had been Netherton, happening to glance in the direction of Ash’s vase of flowers, who’d suggested the garden. Then they’d found Lev in the garden with Gordon and Tyenna, out to distribute their expensively modified DNA among the hostas.

“Yes,” said Lev, giving him a look, “Lowbeer phoned me as you were on the way up.”

“She’ll be back,” said Ash.

“Lowbeer?” Netherton asked.

“Your polt girl. We do have her attention. Though she isn’t going to do just anything we suggest.” She was looking at Netherton.

“Indeed.”

“You’re supposed to be good at manipulating people,” Ash said. “Frankly, I’ve never been able to see it.”

“I have my moments,” said Netherton. “Results aren’t always replicable. Actually, I’ve noticed that you’re rather good at it yourself.”

“Stop it,” said Lev. “Ash is a bit more of a generalist, while you’re highly specialized. I’m quite satisfied with that.”

“My difficulty,” said Netherton, “is a lack of context. Until you tell me what Lowbeer wants done, what she intends to do, I’ve nothing to work with.”

“What did she tell you when she phoned?” asked Lev.

“I told her that I thought it was best to tell Flynne that this isn’t a game. She agreed, that I should begin to explain the stub, to the extent that I understand it. Which, I gather, really isn’t that much less than your own understanding. Is it true, that you’ve no idea what or where this server is?”

“None,” said Lev. “We assume it’s in China, or is in any case Chinese, but that’s assumption only. Someone has a device that sends and receives information, to and from the past. The act of doing so, initially, generates continua. Unless those continua are already there, some literally infinite number of them, but that’s academic. It’s massively encrypted, whatever it is. It took Ash and Ossian months to find their way in, even with the willing help of several experienced enthusiasts.”

“Perversely difficult,” said Ash.

“But,” asked Netherton, with no real expectation of a meaningful answer, “what does Lowbeer want?”

“To learn what happened to Aelita, and why,” Lev said, “and who was responsible.”

“If your taste runs to perverse difficulty,” Netherton said, “getting that out of Daedra and her cohort, assuming they know, should provide it. But that’s not something I want any part of.”

Lev looked at him, then, and he didn’t like it.

UP THERE

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.”

THE SIGHTS

N
etherton watched as the peripheral opened its eyes. Ash had had it recline again on the bunk in the back cabin, had readjusted the lights.

“Okay,” Flynne said, tentatively. Then: “Not bad.”

“Welcome back,” said Lev, over Netherton’s shoulder.

“How’s the tetrachromia?” asked Ash.

“I can’t remember what it was like,” Flynne said, “except I didn’t like it.”

“Try sitting up,” suggested Ash.

Flynne sat up, shook her hair to the side, then touched it, froze. “My haircut. Saw it before, in the mirror here, but I couldn’t think. You did that?”

“The stylist was impressed,” said Ash. “I imagine he’ll be copying it.”

“That’s Carlota,” said Flynne. “She’s the best. She’s in the Marianas, has a bot chair in our Hefty Clips. Keeps up with the styles.”

“You’re used to telepresence, then,” Lev said.

“We call it getting a haircut,” Flynne said, giving him a look as she got to her feet, “back in frontier days.”

“We have something you might like to see,” said Lev. He turned, behind Netherton, and walked back along the corridor. Netherton smiled at her, self-consciously, and followed Lev, Ash behind him.

“Where’s your dogs?” Flynne asked, behind them, loud in the veneered narrowness.

“Upstairs,” Lev said, turning, as she emerged.

Netherton watched her touching things. Running a finger across
the glassy veneer. Lightly tapping a knuckle on a steel handle. Testing the peripheral’s sensoria, he guessed.

“I liked them,” she said. “I could see how they weren’t dogs, but in a dog ballpark.” She touched her black trousers. “Why do these clothes all feel like yoga pants?”

“They have no seams,” said Ash. “The seams on the outside are decorative, traditional. They were made for you by assemblers. All of a piece.”

“Fabbed,” said Flynne. “Don’t mean to be rude, but if you aren’t wearing contacts, like you said, is that some kind of condition?”

“A modification,” said Ash. “A species of visual pun, on a likely mythical condition called pupula duplex. Which is usually depicted as dual irises, but I chose to make it literal.”

“How do things look?”

“I seldom use the lower pair. They register infrared, which can be interesting in the dark.”

“You don’t mind if I ask questions? I’m not sure what anything is, here. You could’ve been born that way. Or have a religion or something. How would I know? But tattoos that run around, I sort of get that.”

“Please,” Ash said, “ask questions.”

“Where’s the phone, in this?” Flynne asked, holding up her hands. “I was trying to tell my friend about it.”

“I could check with Hermès,” said Lev. “The components are very small, though, and distributed. Some are biological. I couldn’t tell you where my own are, without accessing medical history. Part of my cousin’s became inflamed, had to be replaced. Base of the skull. But they can put them anywhere.” He propped himself against the edge of the desk. “May we show you London now? We’ve a helicopter above the house, like the one you flew for us. You’ll want to take a seat.”

“Can I fly it?”

“Let us show you the sights,” said Lev. He smiled.

She looked from Lev to Ash, then to Netherton. “Okay,” she said, and sat.

Ash took the other chair. Netherton joined Lev on the edge of the desk, glad to not be behind it, so less associated with its psychological functions of hierarchy and intimidation. “It wasn’t such a shock for you, this time,” he said to Flynne.

“I couldn’t wait to get back here,” she said. “But I’m not necessarily going to believe you about any of this, okay?”

“Of course,” said Lev.

Netherton was suddenly aware of smiling in a particularly stupid fashion, while Ash smirked at him, her gray eyes doubly gimleted. But then she turned, and spoke to Flynne. “You’re seeing my sigil now,” she said, and Flynne nodded, Netherton seeing it too. Now Lev’s was there, and Flynne’s, which was featureless. “Now I’ll open a feed,” Ash said, “full binocular.”

The room vanished, replaced by a foggy midmorning aerial vista of London, the angular uprights of the shards set regularly out across the city’s compacted intricacy, a density relieved by greenways he’d hiked as a child, by systematic erasures of alleged mediocrities, by new forests grown thick and deep. The glass roofing some of the cleansed and excavated rivers dully reflected what sun there was, and in the Thames he saw the floating islands, rearranged yet again, the revolving blades beneath them better positioned to gather the river’s strength.

“Damn,” said Flynne, evidently impressed.

Ash piloted them toward Hampstead, where Netherton’s parents had taken him to a schoolmate’s party, when he was ten, to spend the afternoon within a length of clay drainpipe, buried under a cast-iron bench, a space strung with tiny colored lanterns, where costumed mice had sung and danced and staged mock duels. The hands of his homunculus had been crude and translucent, not unlike those of the patchers. As he remembered this, Ash was telling Flynne of the waterwheels turned by the rescued rivers, but nothing of any preceding history, times prior, darkness.

He crossed the roof of his mouth with his tongue tip, blanking the feed, returning to the Gobiwagen, preferring to watch Flynne’s face.

“But where is everybody?” she asked. “There’s no people.”

“That’s complicated,” said Ash, evenly, “but at this altitude you wouldn’t notice anyone.”

“Hardly any traffic, either,” Flynne said. “Noticed that before.”

“We’re almost in the City now,” said Ash. “Cheapside. Here’s your crowd.”

But those aren’t people, thought Netherton, watching Flynne’s expression as she took it all in.

“Cosplay zone,” said Lev, “Eighteen sixty-seven. We’d be fined for the helicopter, if it didn’t have cloaking, or if it made a sound.”

Netherton tapped the requisite quadrant of palate, returning to Ash’s feed, to find them stationary over morning traffic, already so thick as to be almost unmoving. Cabs, carts, drays, all drawn by horses. Lev’s father and grandfather owned actual horses, apparently. Were said to sometimes ride them, though certainly never in Cheapside. His mother had shown him the shops here as a child. Silver-plated tableware, perfumes, fringed shawls, implements for ingesting tobacco, fat watches cased in silver or gold, men’s hats. He’d been amazed at how copiously the horses shat in the street, their droppings swept up by darting children, younger than he was, who he’d understood were no more real than the horses, but who seemed as real, entirely real, and terrifying in the desperation of their employment, cursing vividly as they dodged with crude short brooms between the legs of the animals, as men his mother said were bankers, solicitors, merchants, brokers, or rather their simulacra, hurried along beneath tall hats, past handpainted signs for boots, china, lace, insurance, plate glass. He’d loved those signs, had captured as many as he could while holding his mother’s hand, uncomfortable in his stiff and requisite clothing. He’d kept a lookout for fierce-eyed boys hurtling handcarts along, or running, shouting, back into dark courts stinking, he supposed, as realistically as the green dung of the horses. His mother had worn broad dark skirts for such visits, swelling from a narrow waist to brush the pavement, below a very fitted sort of
matching jacket, some unlikely hat perched on the side of her head. She hadn’t cared for any of it. Had brought him here because she felt she should, and perhaps he’d elaborated on that, later, developing his own sharp distaste for anything of the sort.

“Look at it,” Flynne said.

“It isn’t real,” he said. “Worked up from period media. Scarcely anyone you see is human, and those who are, are tourists, or schoolchildren being taught history. Better at night, the illusion.” Less annoying, in any case.

“The horses aren’t real?” Flynne asked.

“No,” said Ash, “horses are rare now. We’ve generally done better, with domestic animals.”

Please, thought Netherton, don’t start. Lev might have thought the same thing, because now he said, “We’ve brought you here to meet someone. Just to say hello, this time.”

They began to descend.

Netherton saw Lowbeer then, looking up, in skirts and a jacket very like the ones his mother had worn.