“We’d hoped to find out what her building says happened,” Lev said.
“I hadn’t,” Ash said, “rumor having it that it doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t what?” Netherton asked.
“Say,” said Ash. “Or know.”
“How could her building not know?” Netherton asked.
“In the sense that this house doesn’t know,” said Lev. “That can also be arranged on a temporary basis, but it requires. .” He made a small, quick, multifingered, pianist-like, iconically Russian gesture: klept, but of some degree not to be spoken of.
“I see,” said Netherton, who didn’t.
“We’re going to need capital, in the stub,” said Ash. “Ossian is reaching the end of what he can improvise. If you wish to maintain a presence-”
“Not a presence,” said Lev. “It’s mine.”
“Not exclusively,” said Ash. “Our visitors didn’t hesitate to book themselves an assassination, on coming through the door. If they outcapitalize us, we’ll be helpless. Your family’s quants, however. .” Netherton decided that she’d donned the felt suit before attempting to convince Lev to allow his family’s financial modules access to the stub. He looked at Lev. It was not, he decided, going to be easy.
“Ossian,” Lev said, “can optimize manipulation of virtual currencies in their online games. He’s working on it.”
“If our visitors were to buy a politician,” said Ash, “or the head of an American federal agency, we’d find ourselves playing catch-up. And possibly losing.”
“I’m not interested in creating a mess more baroque than the one they’re historically in,” said Lev. “That’s what happens, with too much interference. As it is, I’ve let Wilf talk me into letting someone use polts like some ludicrous form of artisanal AI.”
“Best get used to it, Lev.” Ash almost never used his name. “Someone else has access. It stands to reason that whoever it is is better connected than we are, since we’ve absolutely no idea how to get into anyone else’s stub.”
“Can’t you,” asked Netherton, “just jump forward and see what happens? Look in on them a year later, then correct for that?”
“No,” said Ash. “That’s time travel. This is real. When we sent our first e-mail to their Panama, we entered into a fixed ratio of duration with their continuum: one to one. A given interval in the stub is the same interval here, from first instant of contact. We can no more know their future than we can know our own, except to assume that it ultimately isn’t going to be history as we know it. And, no, we don’t know why. It’s simply the way the server works, as far as we know.”
“The idea of bringing in family resources,” said Lev, “is anathema.”
“My middle name,” Ash was unable to resist pointing out.
“I know that,” said Lev.
“I suppose,” Netherton said to Lev, putting his empty cup down on its saucer, “that it’s been one of a very few places in your life where there’ve been none. Family resources.”
“Exactly.”
“In that case,” Ash said, “plan B.”
“Which is?” Lev asked.
“We feed a combination of historical, social, and market data to freelance quants, plus information we obtain in the stub, and they game us a share of the economy there. They won’t grind as finely, as powerfully, as quickly, as your family’s finance operation, but it may be enough. And you’ll have to pay them. Here, with real money.”
“Do it,” said Lev.
“Formal notice, then,” she said, “that my first recommendation was use of your family’s quants. These children at the LSE are bright, but they aren’t that.”
“Children?” asked Netherton.
“If we find ourselves undercapitalized,” Ash said to Lev, “you won’t be able to blame me.”
Netherton decided then that really she’d wanted Lev to do what he’d just agreed to, which surprised him. He hadn’t thought of her as that effectively manipulative. Probably it had been Ossian’s idea. “Well, then,” he said, “this has been fascinating. I hope you’ll remember to keep me up-to-date. Delighted to have been able to help.”
They both stared at him.
“Sorry,” he said, “I have a lunch date.”
“Where?” asked Ash.
“Bermondsey.”
She raised an eyebrow. A drawing of a chameleon flicked its head up, out of her collar band of stiff gray felt, and withdrew as quickly, as if seeing them there.
“Wilf,” said Lev, “we need you here.”
“You can always reach me.”
“We need you,” said Lev, “because we’ve called the police.”
“The Met,” said Ash.
“On the basis of the polt’s sister’s story,” said Lev, “and given what we know of the situation here, we’d no choice but to alert legal.” That would be his family’s solicitors, whom Netherton assumed would constitute something of an industry unto themselves. “They’ve arranged a meeting. Of course you’ll have to be there.”
“Detective Inspector Lowbeer will be expecting you,” said Ash. “Very senior. You wouldn’t want to disappoint her.”
“If Anathema’s your middle name,” Netherton asked her, “is Ash your first?”
“That would be Maria,” she said. “Ash is my surname. There was a final e, but my mother had it amputated.”
25
From between her bedroom curtains she saw Burton come around the corner of the house, walking fast in bright sunlight, swinging the handle of the tomahawk. He held it as if the head were the T-shaped top of a walking stick, which meant its edges were clipped into a Kydex minisheath he or one of the others had made. Making thermoplastic sheaths and holsters was a hobby of theirs, like macramé or quilting. Leon teased them about merit badges.
One of those big retro-looking Russian motorcycles, shiny and red, with matching sidecar, was waiting by the front gate. Rider and passenger wore round black helmets. The passenger was Leon, she saw, the jacket unmistakable.
She’d slept through again. Remembered no dreams. Angle of sun said early afternoon. Leon removed his helmet as Burton came up to the red motorcycle, but stayed put in the sidecar. Took something from a jacket pocket, passed it up to Burton, who glanced at it, then put it in his back pocket.
She stepped back from the curtains, put on her bathrobe, gathered up clothes for after the shower.
But first she needed to tell Burton about Conner. She headed downstairs, in robe and flip-flops, clothes under her arm in a towel. Heard the Russian bike heading out.
Burton was on the porch. She saw that the sheath on the tomahawk was that flesh tone, like orthopedic devices. That was the shade they all preferred, black being considered too dressy. Maybe if somebody saw that orthopedic shade, under the hem of your shirt, they’d just think you’d had an operation. “Seen Conner lately?” she asked him.
“No. Just pinged him, though.”
“What for?”
“See if he wants to help us out.”
“I saw him last night,” she said, “in the parking lot at Jimmy’s. Seriously not good. Like he was that close to doing something to a couple of football players. Right in front of everybody.”
“Need somebody to watch the road, nights. He’d stay straight for that. He’s getting fucked up out of boredom.”
“What was that,” she asked, “on the back of the trike?”
“Probably just a.22.”
“Shouldn’t somebody be trying to help him, he gets that fucked up?”
“Way less fucked up than he has every right to be. And I’m trying. The VA isn’t going to.”
“I was scared.”
“He’d never hurt you.”
“Scared for him. What was Leon here for?”
“This.” He pulled a state lottery ticket, bright and stiff, out of his back pocket, showed it to her.
Leon stared at her out of a blurry foil hologram, to the left of a retinal scan. “Looks like it should have his genome on it,” she said. It had been a while since she’d seen one, their mother having taught them both never to pay what she called the stupidity tax. “You think he’ll win ten million?”