“Down,” ordered Lowbeer, which Netherton would certainly have obeyed, had their assailant not been literally atop him then, shoving him aside with its massive weapon. Which reeked, Netherton noted, of claret, but by then he’d instinctively poked his stick at the man’s waistcoated midsection, a large gloved hand batting it aside, then seizing the ebony shaft and flinging it away, to clatter hollowly on the wall beside them.
Leaving, Netherton discovered, the stick’s handle still in his hand, with something still protruding from it. As of its own accord, his hand thrust this forward again, producing a bright flash of light, accompanied by a brief but vicious sizzling.
Looking down, he saw his hand around the stick’s handle. From which extended a slim straight blade, into the waistcoat’s fabric, smoking now, scorched, though he saw no blood. Again, the smell of claret. Then the man toppled backward, toward Cheapside, still smiling earnestly, the massive mallet’s head making surprisingly little sound as it struck the cobbles.
“What the actual fuck?” pronounced Fearing, powerfully, behind them, as the passageway and the fallen figure were flooded with mercilessly white light.
Squinting, shading his eyes, Netherton made her out, her pistol now apparently tipped with a small cylindrical floodlight.
“Do you know him?” asked Lowbeer. Who held, Netherton saw, a sort of blunderbuss, its barrel gold, stock of ivory.
“It’s Bertie,” Fearing said, “my neighbor’s coachman. Bot. Seems to have helped himself to a publican’s bung starter.” Which accounted for the claret, Netherton thought, noting that the mallet’s massive head was of wood.
“Something seems to have gotten into him,” Lowbeer said, bending to pluck the upright swordstick from the supine figure. She glanced around, then retrieved the hollow ebony shaft from where it lay nearby, smoothly sheathing the one in the other. She passed it to Netherton, who accepted it gingerly. “That’s really terribly bright, Clovis,” she said. The floodlight was immediately extinguished, though leaving, Netherton noted, a single sharp red dot, centered on the fallen bot’s torso.
“Were you expecting this?” Fearing asked.
“No,” said Lowbeer, “though the aunties were able to give me a last-minute inkling. Step over Bertie.” This last to Netherton.
“Is this an assembler weapon?” Netherton asked, looking at the stick in his hand.
“No,” said Lowbeer. “Ash made it from your clothing, and whatever else was available nearby. You happened to place it in such a way as to instantly fuse Bertie’s power supply. Good night again, Clovis.”
“Watch your back,” Fearing said.
“As ever. Cheapside, Wilf.”
Netherton began to walk.
“Good night, Wilf,” Fearing said, behind him.
“Good night, Mrs. Fearing,” he said, pretending to glance back.
77
Event Horizon
Someone out of frame passed Stets a small glass of what Verity assumed was espresso. “Thanks,” he said, looking up briefly at whoever it was. He took a sip. This feed, Verity assumed, was via a camera in the Airstream aerie’s foldaway screen, which put him on the in-built couch opposite. “Where are you now?” he asked her.
“Not sure,” she said, assuming he couldn’t see her, “being driven somewhere. What have you been up to?”
“Trying to figure out whatever it is that we seem to have agreed to help Eunice’s branch plants do. They aren’t very communicative.”
“I was texting with one, earlier. It got me in touch with Joe-Eddy. Virgil tells me you used to try to think of things for him to do for you, but couldn’t.”
“Do you know Guilherme?” he asked.
Verity blinked. Hearing Stets mention the Manzilian felt like a category error, as if the moon were to inquire after the cantaloupe you’d bought the day before, both being spherical. “Not to speak to. I’ve seen him at the apartment.”
“Eunice’s network consists mainly of the branch plants, so human company can be a relief.”
“I thought it would all be people,” Verity said, “from what she said.”
“You already know most of the people,” he said, “but this, for instance”—and he raised his hand toward the camera—“is due to the network.” He did something that replaced his selfie feed with one from the top of the stairs, overlooking the broad floor below, under sunlight through blue tarps. Cables everywhere, helmeted climbers dangling. More workers than she’d seen here before. Lengths of glittering white fabric were being hauled up by electric winches.
Below this, she saw five identical, red, rectangular machines, each with a small pair of black rubber tires at the nearest end. “What is it?” she asked. “What are those red things?”
“Caitlin’s design. Fabric’s by a company I backed. Those are Honda EM5000 electric-start generators, power in case someone cuts ours tonight when we most need it. The branch plants ordered them. Tricky piping the exhaust out. Hope we don’t need them.”
“What is it you’re doing?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Then how did she design for it?”
“Someone suggested, a few months ago, that we get married here, before the place is finished. That was the impetus for this design. She already had the space entirely modeled for the reno design. Knows where every eye bolt is, up there. The fabric doesn’t need to be edged or hemmed, and she worked with standard lengths from the factory.”
“But you’re not getting married here?”
“Definitely not planning on it.”
“But you don’t know what it’s for?”
“I’m not sure the branch plants know themselves.”
“But aren’t we all looking the end of the world in the mouth, about now? And you’re up here hanging fabric art?”
“Lowbeer’s take is doing this demonstrates trust, and that we can cooperate.”
“How about Caitlin?”
“I’d ask her, but she’s video-conferencing the technical details of an aerial drone display above the building, an extension of the fabric work.”
“What if you do it and nothing happens?”
“A little pre-apocalyptic gathering? Why not enjoy it? Have to go now. I’ll see you there.”
“Is this what happens when Virgil’s not here to tell you shit’s crazy?”
“I don’t need Virgil to tell me that about this.” He grinned as his feed closed.
78
Morning After
Netherton woke in their darkened bedroom, to sounds of Rainey feeding Thomas breakfast in the kitchen.
He remembered the bot, on the reeking cobbles, the laser on Fearing’s pistol pinpointing the singed whipcord waistcoat. He gestured for the bedside lamp, then again, to reduce its brightness, then frowned at the amount of clothing scattered on the floor. All from the night before, none of it Rainey’s, and none of it anything he’d worn to Cheapside.
These were the garments from which the assemblers had made his costume. Now retransformed, he supposed, as he and Rainey had slept. Evidently the swordstick as well, as there was no sign of it. She’d found the pin-striped flannel drawers as risqué as anticipated, but those seemed to be gone as well.
He sat up, unsure whether the myalgia he now noticed was due to his brief struggle with Bertie or the later interlude with Rainey. Getting up and putting on his robe, he set about picking up and tidying away his clothing, hanging some things in the closet and folding others into the bureau.
He hadn’t told Rainey anything about their visit with Fearing, other than that they’d had one, but really she’d only been interested in the flannel drawers. He’d said nothing whatever about Yunevich, of course, whoever that might be, though he kept repeating the name to himself, silently, else he forget it before he could speak with Lev in person. And nothing about inadvertently short-circuiting Bertie, though when he eventually did, he’d lack the stick, for an optimally dramatic demonstration of exactly what had happened.