She looked over at Milgrim, lost in whatever he was doing. Whatever he was, she found she trusted him. He seemed peeled, somehow, transparent, strangely free of underlying motive. Seemed used as well. Bigend had created him, or would feel that he had; had cobbled him up from whatever wreckage he’d initially presented. That was what Bigend did, she thought, putting her head back and closing her eyes. She supposed it was what he was doing with her as well, or would, if he could.
She was asleep before they reached the tunnel.
Milgrim didn’t open Twitter as he settled, opposite Hollis, in their business-class carriage, into what he still thought of as her computer. Instead, he opened the bookmarks menu and selected the URL for the page with the photograph of Foley modeling an olive-drab jacket and a black porn-rectangle.
He scrolled down, past other jackets, modeled by other young men with rectangles, to a shot of black-gloved hands. “Kevlar knit liners,” read the description, “for increased cut-resistance, Velcro closure strap with embossed logo. Superior grip for apprehension and control.”
Having sometimes been an apprehended suspect himself, he blinked. Frowned. Though the gloves actually reminded him more of Fiona, her armor. He saw her pale jawline above the upright belted collar of her black jacket. As if a wing had grazed him.
He glanced guiltily across the table at Hollis, but found her apparently asleep, her eyes swollen. He tried to imagine her boyfriend, jumping off the world’s tallest building, wherever she’d said that was.
He looked back at the specialized apprehender gloves. What would the embossed logo be, exactly? It didn’t say. The whole site was like that. No-name. Sketchy. Half-finished. No contact information. Why was Foley there? How had Winnie known where to find him? He’d heard Bigend refer to “ghost sites,” the sites of defunct businesses or product lines, still sitting there, forgotten, unvisited. Was this one of those, or something unfinished? There was something unconvincing about it, amateurish.
He went to Google, typed in “Winnie Tung Whitaker.” Stopped. Remembering Bigend and Sleight talking about the collection of search terms, about access to that. He imagined Winnie’s PDA alerting her to the fact of someone just having Googled her. Was that possible? On being introduced by Bigend to the current iteration of the internet, Milgrim had decided it was best to assume that anything was possible. Often, he’d been disappointed to learn that something wasn’t. Otherwise, better safe than sorry.
He logged out of Twitter, without checking to see if there was a message from Winnie. He didn’t want to have to see her, not upon arrival in London, anyway. He had his appointment with Bigend. He logged out of his webmail. Stared at Hollis’s interstellar vista. Changed that to a plain medium gray. That was better.
The train entered the tunnel.
He watched as the red dongle launched a window, informing him that the signal was lost.
He couldn’t be reached. Not electronically.
Hollis’s face was scrunched against the side of her headrest now, but her forehead was relaxed. He saw that the Hounds jacket had fallen to the floor. He bent, picking it up. It was heavier than he would have expected, more substantial, stiffer. He buttoned it. Folded it carefully, the way someone in a store would refold a shirt. It lay on his lap, the focus of one of Bigend’s mysteries. A secret.
The rectangular label was made of heavy, stiff, tan leather, branded with some four-legged animal, its head wrong.
He closed his eyes. Put his head back. He was hurtling through a tube, under the English Channel. Did the French call it that? He didn’t know. Why were these giant projects so relatively common in Europe? He’d grown up with the unquestioned assumption that America was the home of heroic infrastructure, but was it, now? He didn’t think so. How did they pay for these things here? Taxes?
He reminded himself to ask Bigend.
›››
“You don’t know where you’re going?” Hollis asked, from the cab, as he lifted her bag in.
“No,” said Milgrim, “I’m supposed to wait here.”
“You’ve got my number,” she said. “And thank you. I wouldn’t have wanted to do that alone.”
“Thank you,” said Milgrim. “And for the laptop. I’m still not-”
“Never mind,” she said. “It’s yours. Be careful.” She smiled and pulled the door shut.
He watched the cab pull away, another taking its place. He stepped back, gesturing for the couple behind him to go ahead. “I’m meeting someone,” he said, to no one in particular, glancing around. As Fiona’s horn pipped, just beyond the cab’s black fender. She gestured, urgently, the yellow helmet jerking, astride a large, dirty, gray bike.
She took his bag as he reached her, and began securing it to the gas tank with elastic cords, shoving a black helmet into his hands. The visor of her helmet was up. “Put that on. I’m not supposed to be in here. Get on behind and hold on.” She flipped the visor down.
He fumbled the helmet over his head. It smelled of something. Hairspray? The transparent visor was scratched and thumb-printed, greasy. He didn’t know how to fasten the under-chin thing. Padding rested uncomfortably on the crown of his head.
“Put your arms around me, lean forward, hold on!”
Milgrim did.
She sounded her horn again as they rolled forward, Milgrim unsure where to put his feet. He shifted, trying to look down. Heard her yell something. Found muddy pegs for passenger feet. Saw a rapidly strolling pigeon framed for an instant in the narrow, smudged field the jiggling helmet allowed his vision.
Fiona felt like a very determined child, encased in layers of ballistic nylon and an indeterminate number of armored plates. Milgrim locked his fingers together, instinctively, and leaned into her back. Hard automotive protrusions, some chromed, were zipping past his knees, either side.
He had no idea where they’d emerged from the station, what street they were on, or which direction they might be going. The hairspray smell was giving him a headache. When she stopped for a light, he kept his feet on the pegs, dubious about finding them again.
Pentonville Road, on a sign, though he didn’t know whether they were on it or near it. Midmorning traffic, though he’d never seen it from a motorcycle. His jacket, unbuttoned, flapped energetically in the wind, making him glad of the Faraday pouch. His money, what was left of it, was in his right front pocket, the memory card with the photographs of Foley tucked down into his right sock.
More signs, blurry through the plastic: King’s Cross Road, Farringdon Road. He thought the hairspray fumes were making his eyes sting now, but no way to rub them. He blinked repeatedly.
Eventually, a bridge, low railings, red and white paint. Blackfriars, he guessed, remembering the colors. Yes, there were the tops of the very formal iron columns that had once supported another bridge, beside it, their red paint slightly faded. He’d come this way once with Sleight, to meet Bigend in an archaic diner, for one of those big greasy breakfasts. He’d asked Sleight about the columns. Sleight hadn’t been interested, but Bigend had told him about the railway bridge that had stood beside Blackfriars. When Bigend talked about London, it felt to Milgrim that he was describing some intricate antique toy he’d bought at auction.
Leaving the bridge, she turned, deftly negotiating smaller streets. Then she slowed, turned again, and they rode up on oil-stained concrete, into a workyard full of motorcycles, big ugly ones, their fairings patched with tape. Almost stopping, she dropped her booted feet to the ground and supported the motorcycle with her legs, walking with it as she crept it forward, between the others, past a man in a filthy one-piece orange suit and a backward baseball cap, a gleaming socket wrench in his hand. Through a wide opening and into an interior littered with tools, disassembled cycles and their engines, white foam cups, crumpled food wrappers.