“We’ll need to buy specialized printers in the stub,” Lev said. “This will be beyond what they usually work with.”
“Printers?”
“We’re sending files for printing an autonomic cutout,” said Lev.
“Flynne? When?”
“As soon as possible. This one will do?”
“I suppose,” said Netherton.
“She’s coming with us, then. They’ll deliver the support equipment.”
“Equipment?”
“She doesn’t have a digestive tract. Neither eats nor excretes. Has to be infused with nutrient every twelve hours. And Dominika wouldn’t like her at all, so she’ll be staying with you, in grandfather’s yacht.”
“Infused?”
“Ash can deal with that. She likes outmoded technology.”
Netherton took a drink of gin, regretting the addition of tonic and ice.
The peripheral was looking at him.
29
Netherton, the man from Milagros Coldiron, looked like he was standing in the back of something’s throat, all pink and shiny.
She heard plates rattling in the kitchen, from where she’d stepped out on the porch to answer her phone. She’d regretted that Coffee Jones French espresso, trying to get back to sleep, but then she had, for a while.
Tommy had let them off at the gate, and they’d walked to the house, neither of them wanting to say anything about Conner until Tommy had driven away. “That was him,” she’d said, but Burton had just nodded, told her to get some sleep, and headed down to the trailer.
Leon woke everybody up at seven thirty, to tell them he’d just won ten million dollars in the state lottery, and now their mother was cooking breakfast. She could hear him now, from back in the kitchen.
“Drones,” said Wilf Netherton’s little pink-framed face, when she answered her phone.
“Hey,” she said, “Wilf.”
“You mentioned having them, when we spoke before.”
“You asked me if we had any, and I told you we did. What’s all that pink, behind you?”
“Our atrium,” he said. “Do you print your own? Drones?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?”
He looked blank, then up and to his right. Appeared to read something. “You do. The circuitry as well?”
“Most of it. Somebody does it for us. The engines are off the shelf.”
“You contract out the printing?”
“Yes.”
“The contractor is reliable?”
“Yes.”
“Skilled?”
“Yes.”
“We need you to arrange some printing. The work will have to be done quickly, competently, and confidentially. Your contractor may find it challenging, but we’ll provide technical support.”
“You’d have to talk with my brother.”
“Of course. This is quite urgent, though, so you and I need to have this conversation now.”
“You aren’t builders, are you?”
“Builders?”
“Making drugs.”
“No,” he said.
“Person does our printing won’t work for builders. Neither will I.”
“It’s nothing to do with drugs. We’re sending you files.”
“Of what?”
“A piece of hardware.”
“What does it do?”
“I wouldn’t know how to explain it. You’ll be paid handsomely for arranging it.”
“My cousin just won the lottery. You know that?”
“I didn’t,” he said, “but we’ll find a better way. It’s being worked on.”
“You want to talk to my brother now? We’re about to have breakfast.”
“No, thank you. Please go ahead. We’ll be in touch with him. But contact your contractor. We need to move on this.”
“I will. That’s one ugly-ass atrium.”
“It is,” he said, smiling for a second. “Goodbye, then.”
“Bye.” Her screen went black.
“Got biscuits,” Leon called from the kitchen, “gravy.”
She opened the screen door, into the shadowy morning cool of the front hall. A fly buzzed past her head, and she thought of the lights, the white tent, the four dead men she hadn’t seen.
30
She could stay with Ash,” Netherton said, glancing at the peripheral in the squidlight. He reminded himself again that she, it, wasn’t sentient.
She didn’t look like an it, though. And she did look sentient, if disinterested, walking between them now, controlled by some sort of AI. Not, he supposed, unlike the period figures that populated tourist attractions he scrupulously avoided.
“Ash doesn’t live here,” Lev said.
“Ossian then.”
“Neither does he.”
“She can stay in Ash’s fortune-telling tent.”
“Sitting upright at the table?”
“Why not?”
“She needs to sleep,” said Lev. “Well, not literally, but she needs to recline, be relaxed. She also needs to exercise.”
“Why can’t you put her upstairs?”
“Dominika wouldn’t have it. Put her in the yacht’s rear cabin,” Lev said. “Cover her with a sheet, if that helps.”
“A sheet?”
“My father had dust covers, for his. Two or three of them on chairs, in a back bedroom, covered with sheets. I pretended they were ghosts.”
“Not remotely human.”
“At the cellular level, as human as we are. Which is fairly approximate, depending on who you’re speaking to.”
The peripheral looked at whichever of them was currently speaking.
“She doesn’t look like Flynne,” said Netherton. “Particularly.”
“Similar enough.” Lev had both served as camera and monitored the call, in the foyer of the house of love. “Ash is having some clothing run up, based on what she wore in the first interview. Familiar.”
Netherton saw, then, as for the first time, imagining how she might see it, the ranks of Lev’s father’s excess vehicle collection, under the arches of their purpose-built cave. The majority were pre-jackpot, fully restored. Chrome, enamel, stainless steel, hex-celled laminates, enough Italian leather to cover a pair of tennis courts. He couldn’t imagine her being impressed.
They were nearing the Gobiwagen now. Beside its gangway, as the arch above brightened, was a treadmill, near which stood, to Netherton’s unease, a white, headless, simian figure, arms at its sides. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Resistance-training exoskeleton. Dominika has one. Take her hand.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going upstairs. She’s staying with you.”
Netherton extended his hand. The peripheral took it. Its hand was warm, entirely handlike.
“Ash will be along to discuss plans, and to see to her.”
“Fine,” said Netherton, indicating that it wasn’t, led the peripheral up the gangway and into the yacht, then into the smallest of the three sleeping cabins, the lighting sensing them as they entered. He studied the fitted hardware in the pale veneer, succeeded in allowing a narrow bunk to lower itself from the wall. “Here,” he said, “sit.” It sat. “Lie down.” It did. “Sleep,” not sure this last would work. It closed its eyes.
Rainey’s sigil appeared, pulsing.
“Hello?” he said, quickly stepping back, out of the cabin, closing its centrally hinged door.
“You haven’t been checking messages.”
“No,” he said, rattled. “Nor reading mail. I understand I’m sacked.” Back through the short narrow passageway, to the master cabin.
“People here didn’t believe me,” Rainey said, “when I told them you prided yourself on not knowing who you worked for. When you were fired, they all looked you up. Couldn’t tell who’d fired you. Where are you?”
“At a friend’s.”
“Can’t you show me?”
He did.
“What are those old screens for?”
“He’s a collector. How are you?”
“I’m a public servant, technically, so it’s different for me. And I blamed you.”