Zero History

by William Gibson

  Fiona pulled on gauntlets, straddled the shiny Yamaha. Milgrim got on behind her. The engine came to life. She walked them off Benny’s yard, and then the bike seemed to take over, a very different creature than Fiona’s big gray one. A tight but intricate circuit of Southwark streets, feeling, Milgrim assumed, for possible followers, and then over Blackfriars in a surge, working the gears, the red and white railings strobing past. He immediately lost track of direction, once they were on the other side, and when she finally stopped and parked, he hadn’t expected it.

  He fumbled with the fastenings under his chin, got Mrs. Benny’s helmet off as quickly as possible. Looking up at this unfamiliar building. “Where are we?”

  She removed the yellow helmet. “Cabinet. The rear.”

  They were in a cobble-paved garden drive, behind a stone wall. She dismounted, Milgrim intrigued as always by the smooth flexibility this demonstrated. He got off as well, with no particular demonstration of grace, and watched as she hauled thick, snakelike anchor chains from the Yahama’s panniers, to secure it.

  He followed her up the tidy cobbles to a porte cochere. Pinstripes was waiting, behind a very modern glass door. He admitted them without Fiona having to buzz.

  “This way, please,” he said, and led them to a brushed stainless elevator door. Milgrim found that the armored oversuit made him feel strangely solid, larger. In the elevator, he felt he took up more space. Stood up straighter, holding Mrs. Benny’s helmet in front of him with a certain formality.

  “Follow me, please.” Pinstripes leading them through one self-closing, very heavy door after another. Dark green walls, brief corridors, gloomy watercolor landscapes in ornate gilt frames. Until they reached one particular door, painted a darker green even than the walls, nearly black. A large, italic brass numeral 4, secured with two brass slot-head screws. Pinstripes used a brass knocker on the door frame: a woman’s hand, holding an oblate spheroid of brass. A single respectful tap.

  “Yes?” Hollis’s voice.

  “Robert, Miss Henry. They’re here.”

  Milgrim heard a chain rattle. Hollis opened the door. “Hello, Milgrim, Fiona. Come in. Thank you, Robert.”

  “You’re welcome, Miss Henry. Good night.”

  They stepped in, Fiona’s ungauntleted hand brushing his.

  Milgrim blinked. Hollis was chaining the door behind them. He’d never seen a hotel room like this, and Hollis wasn’t alone in it. There was a man on the bed (the very strange bed) with short but unkempt dark hair, and he was looking at Milgrim with a seriousness, a sort of quiet focus, that almost triggered the cop-sensing mechanisms Winnie had last touched off in Seven Dials. Almost.

  “You’re Milgrim, then. Been hearing a lot about you. I’m Garreth. Wilson. Forgive my not getting up. Leg’s buggered. Keeping it elevated.” He was propped against pillows and the wall, between what Milgrim at first took to be the tusks of a mammoth, twin weathered gray church-window parentheses. An open laptop beside him. One of his black-trousered legs up on three additional pillows. Above him, suspended, the largest birdcage Milgrim had ever seen, filled, it seemed, with stacked books and fairy floodlights.

  “This is Fiona, Garreth,” Hollis said. “She rescued me from the City.”

  “Good job,” said the man. “And our drone pilot as well.”

  Fiona smiled. “Hullo.”

  “I’ve just sent Voytek over to mod one of them.”

  “We saw him,” Fiona said.

  “He wouldn’t have gotten the Taser, but he’ll have it now.”

  “Taser?”

  “Arming the balloon.” He shrugged, grinned. “Had one handy.”

  “How much weight?”

  “Seven ounces.”

  “I think that will affect elevation,” Fiona said.

  “Almost certainly. Speed as well. But the penguin’s maker tells me it will still fly. Though not as high. It’s silver, is it? Mylar?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think a bit of dazzle paint’s in order. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I do,” said Fiona, though Milgrim didn’t. “But you know I’m to fly a different sort of drone?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “The box is on the bike?”

  “It is. And I should have new dampers by now.”

  “What are dampers?” Milgrim asked.

  “Shock absorbers,” Fiona said.

  “Let me take your coats,” Hollis said, taking Mrs. Benny’s helmet, then Fiona’s. “I like your jacket,” she said, noticing Milgrim’s tweed, when he’d shucked out of the stiff nylon coat.

  “Thank you.”

  “Please,” Hollis said, “take a seat.”

  There were two tall, striped armchairs, arranged to face the man on the bed. Milgrim took one, Fiona the other, and Hollis sat on the bed. Milgrim saw her take the man’s hand. He remembered their morning in Paris. “You jumped off the tallest building in the world,” he said.

  “I did. Though unfortunately not from the very top.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” said Milgrim, and saw Hollis smile at him.

  “Thanks,” said the man, Garreth, and Milgrim saw him squeeze Hollis’s hand.

  Someone rapped on the door twice, lightly, not the brass lady-hand. Knuckles. “Me, innit,” said a voice.

  Hollis swung her feet to the floor, got up, crossed to the door, and admitted a very pretty young man and a less pretty girl. The girl carried an old-fashioned black leatherette case. They both looked Indian, to Milgrim, though he was vague about South Asians generally, but the girl was a goth. Milgrim couldn’t remember having seen an Indian-looking goth before, but if you were going to see one, he thought, you’d see one in London.

  “My cousin Chandra,” said the young man. He wore complexly distressed, very narrow black jeans, a black polo, and an oversized, ancient-looking motorcycle jacket.

  “Hello, Chandra,” Hollis said.

  Chandra smiled shyly. She had perfectly straight black hair, enormous dark eyes, and complexly pierced ears and nose. Her lipstick was black, and she appeared to be wearing a sort of Edwardian nurse’s outfit, though it too was black.

  “Hello, Chandra,” Hollis said. “Chandra and Ajay, Fiona and Milgrim. And Garreth, Chandra.”

  Ajay was looking at Milgrim. “Bit of a stretch,” he said, dubiously.

  “Spray you on the sides,” said Chandra, to Ajay. “That fiber stuff, from a can. For covering bald spots. Have some here.” Now she looked at Milgrim. “He could do with a haircut. So that’s in our favor, really.”

  Ajay ran his hand back through his hair, military-short on the sides but a silky black mop on top. He looked worried.

  “It grows back,” said Garreth, from the bed. “Milgrim, would you mind taking your pants off?”

  Milgrim looked to Fiona, then back to Garreth, remembering Jun in the back of Tanky & Tojo.

  “The waterproofs,” Garreth said. “Ajay needs to get a sense of how you move.”

  “Move,” said Milgrim, and stood up. Then sat down again, bending to untie his shoes.

  “No, no,” said Fiona, getting up. “Zips for that.” She knelt in front of him, undid foot-long zips on the inner seams of the armored pants. “Stand up.” He did. Fiona reached up, drew the massive plastic fly-zipper down, loudly ripped Velcro, and tugged the pants to the floor. Milgrim felt himself blush, explosively.

  “Come on,” said Fiona, “step out of them.”

  67. A CRUSHED MOUSE

  Ajay, looking pained but stoic, was seated on what Milgrim said was a Biedermeier vanity stool, in the bright tile cave of Number Four’s vast bathroom, towels spread beneath him, while Chandra went carefully at his waterfall with a pair of scissors. Milgrim was in there with them, “moving around” as instructed, while Ajay, when he remembered to, studied him. Chandra too would periodically pause, observe Milgrim, then start clipping again. Hollis found herself waiting for dialog.

  “What is this?” Milgrim asked, apparently noticing the shower
for the first time.

  “The shower,” Hollis said.

  “Keep moving,” ordered Ajay.

  Milgrim put his hands in the pockets of his peculiar new pants.

  “But would you do that?” asked Ajay.

  “Quit moving,” ordered Chandra, who’d stopped clipping.

  “Me?” asked Milgrim.

  “Ajay,” said Chandra, brushing a wet black bit of stray waterfall from her black tunic. Her black lips looked particularly dramatic, in this light.

  Hollis glanced back at Fiona, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, listening intently to Garreth, asking occasional questions, taking notes in a sticker-covered Moleskine.

  Garreth had just had to break off, taking a call from the man who was building Pep’s electric bicycle. This had resulted in Pep losing his curly-stays frame, as it would have to be “cold-bent,” to accommodate the engine hubs, something both the builder and Garreth clearly regarded as sacrilege. Garreth had opted for carbon fiber instead, but had then had to phone Pep and tell him, which had resulted in an agreement to go with dual engines.

  Hollis was reminded of watching a director prep for a music video, something the Curfew had been largely able to avoid. She’d seen it later, though, via Inchmale and the various bands he’d produced, and she’d invariably found it far more interesting, more entertaining, than any final product.

  In this case, she still had very little idea of what Garreth intended to shoot.

  “You go out now,” she heard Chandra say, “and close the door. This is smelly.” She turned and saw Milgrim headed in her direction, Chandra starting to shake an aerosol can of product. “Keep your eyes closed,” Chandra said to Ajay.

  Milgrim closed the door behind him.

  “Are you okay?” Hollis asked. “Where have you been?”

  “Southwark. With Fiona.” He sounded, she thought, like someone describing a spa weekend. An unaccustomed little smile.

  “I’m sorry about Heidi,” she said.

  He winced. “Is something wrong?”

  “She’s fine. I meant I’m sorry that she hurt Foley, made more trouble for you.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “Otherwise, they would have gotten us. Gotten me, anyway.” And suddenly he was weirdly and entirely present, a single entity, the sharp looker-around-corners merged seamlessly with his spacey, dissociated self. “I wouldn’t have gotten to go to Southwark.” For those few seconds, he was someone she hadn’t met. But then he was Milgrim again. “That’s a scary shower,” he said.

  “I like it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything decorated this way.” He looked around at the contents of Number Four.

  “Me neither.”

  “Is it all real?”

  “Yes, though there are some period reproductions. There’s a catalog for each room.”

  “May I see that?”

  Her iPhone rang. “Yes?”

  “Meredith. I’m in the lobby. I need to see you.”

  “I have guests—”

  “Alone,” said Meredith. “Bring a jacket. She wants to meet you.”

  “I—”

  “Not my idea,” interrupted Meredith. “Hers. When I told her what you said.”

  Hollis looked at Garreth, who was deep into it with Fiona.

  The bathroom door opened. Ajay stood there, the sides of his head sparsely covered with some kind of synthetic nonhair, randomly directional. “Not very good, is it?”

  “It’s like the pubic hair of some huge, anatomically correct toy animal,” said Garreth, delighted.

  “It’s the wrong texture, but I have another that should do,” said Chandra. “And I’ll do a better job of application, next time.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” said Hollis, to the iPhone. “Meredith,” she said to Garreth. “I’m going down to see her.”

  “Don’t leave the hotel,” Garreth said, and went back to whatever he was explaining to Fiona.

  Hollis opened her mouth, shut it, found Number Four’s leather-bound curiosity catalog for Milgrim, then collected the Hounds jacket, her purse, and left, closing the door behind her.

  Avoiding the watercolors, she made her way through the green maze, and found the lift waiting, clicking softly to itself. As it descended the black cage, she tried to make sense of what Meredith had said. The logical “she” was the Hounds designer, but if that was the case, had Meredith been lying to her, yesterday?

  Passing the ferret, she emerged into the sound of the lounge, evidently in full route now, that bounced so effectively down the marble stairs. Meredith was waiting near the door, where Robert ordinarily stood, though he was nowhere in sight. She wore a translucently ancient waxed cotton jacket over the tweed Hollis remembered from yesterday, more holes than fabric, the platonic opposite of Inchmale’s Japanese Gore-Tex.

  “You told me you didn’t know how to contact her,” Hollis said. “And you certainly didn’t indicate that she was in London.”

  “I didn’t know, either one,” Meredith said. “Inchmale. Clammy was giving me the gears, at the studio, because you’d promised to get him fresh kit if he helped you find her.”

  Hollis had forgotten about that. “I did,” she said.

  “Inchmale was working on one of those charts he makes, the ones around the bottom of a paper coffee cup, for each song. Is that simply more of his rubbish, or is it real?”

  “Real.”

  “And of course he was concentrating, or pretending to. And suddenly he said, ‘I know her husband.’ Said he was another producer, very good, based in Chicago. He’d worked with him. Said a name.”

  “What name?”

  Meredith looked her even more firmly in the eye. “I’d have to let her tell you that.”

  “What else did Reg say?”

  “Nothing. Not a word. Went back to his colored felts and his paper cup. But as soon as I got my hands on a computer, I Googled the name. There he was. Image search, three pages in, there she was, with him. That was only a few hours after I saw you, here.”

  “That turned into quite an evening,” said Hollis.

  “Did you quit?”

  “I didn’t get a chance, but my position on quitting remains the same. Stronger, if anything. I’m right off Bigend, if you could say I was ever on him. A lot’s happened.”

  “I’ve mostly been on the phone, myself. Trying to reach her, through her husband. Couldn’t reach him. Threw myself on Inchmale’s mercy. Had George put it to him, actually.”

  “And?”

  “She called me. She’s here. She’s been here for a few weeks. East Midlands, Northampton, looking at shoe factories. Doing a boot,” and suddenly Meredith was smiling, then not. “On her way back now.”

  Hollis was about to ask where to, but didn’t.

  “I can take you to her now,” Meredith said. “That’s what she wants.”

  “Why would—”

  “Better she tells you. Are you coming or not? She’s leaving tomorrow.”

  “Is it far?”

  “Soho. Clammy has a car.”

  >>>

  Which was Japanese, minute, and appeared to have been fathered by a Citroën Deux Chevaux, its mother of less distinctive lineage but obviously having attended design school. It had virtually no rear seat, so Hollis was folded in sideways now, behind Meredith and Clammy, watching a determined little rear wiper squeegee rain. Nothing could have been less like the Hilux. A tiny retro-wagon, devoid of armor. Everything, in traffic, was larger than they were, including motorcycles. Clammy had bought it used, through a broker in Japan, and imported it, the only way to get one here. It was the dark glossy gray of an old-fashioned electric fan, a shade Inchmale liked to refer to as “a crushed mouse,” which meant a gray with some red in it. She hoped other drivers could see them. Though not if they were Foley’s crew, whom she’d started to worry about when Clammy was turning into Oxford Street. Garreth’s instruction to not leave the hotel had suddenly made a different sort of sense. She hadn’t been t
aking all that very seriously. She’d felt like an observer, a helper, or a woefully unskilled nurse. But now, she realized, in this new economy of kidnapping, she herself could probably be quite valuable. If they had her, they’d have Garreth. Though they didn’t, as far as she knew, know about Garreth. Though that depended, she imagined, on everyone in Bigend’s tiny immediate crew remaining loyal. Who was Fiona? She knew nothing about Fiona, really. Except that she kept an eye on Milgrim, an oddly personal one, Hollis thought. Actually, now that Hollis thought about it, as though she fancied him.

  “Is it much further?” she asked.

  68. HAND-EYE

  Now it was Milgrim’s turn, on the Biedermeier vanity stool, the remains of Ajay’s luxuriant top-curls darkly littering the spread towels. Ajay himself was in Hollis’s huge scary shower, ridding himself of the aerosol product Chandra had applied to the sides of his head. Staunchly unwilling to see her cousin naked, she faced away from the shower as she used an electric clipper on Milgrim’s back and sides. Milgrim, seeing Ajay naked, thought he looked like a professional dancer. He was all muscles, but none of the bulgy kind.

  The idea, now that Chandra had had a good look at Milgrim, and at his hair as it had been the day before, was to give him a different cut. He found himself imagining a Milgrim wig for Ajay, something he was sure he’d never imagined before.

  It was getting steamy, but he heard Ajay crank the shower down, then off. Soon he appeared beside Milgrim in a white robe with corded trim, carefully knotting its belt. The top of his head was now Chandra’s initial approximation of Milgrim’s previous look, though it was black, and damp. Milgrim’s own indeterminately brownish hair was falling on the towels.

  “I’ll have to trust,” Ajay said to Chandra, “that that wasn’t a joke.”

  “For the sort of retainer your friend has me on,” Chandra said, over the burr of the clipper, “you’ll get no jokes at all. I’d never tried it before. Seen an instructional video. I’ll do better next time. Keep your chin down.” This last to Milgrim. “Really it’s to cover bald spots. Up top. Going that heavy on the sides may be pushing the envelope a bit.” She shut the clipper off.