The Peripheral

by William Gibson

  “But otherwise,” said the rental, “it would have killed Wilf.”

  “Indeed,” said Lowbeer. “The use of explosives is unusual, and we prefer to keep it so. Too much like asymmetric warfare.”

  “Terrorism,” said the rental.

  “We prefer not to use that term,” said Lowbeer, studying her candle flame with something that looked to Netherton to be regret, “if only because terror should remain the sole prerogative of the state.” She looked up at him. “Someone has made an attempt on your life. It may also have been intended to intimidate any associates who might survive you.”

  “Wilf and I are only former associates,” the rental said.

  “I was thinking of Mr. Zubov, actually,” said Lowbeer. “Though anyone intending to intimidate him must either be singularly unfamiliar with his family, extremely powerful, or entirely reckless.”

  “How did you know,” Netherton asked, “that it would be on its way here?”

  “The aunties,” said Lowbeer.

  “Aunties?”

  “We call them that. Algorithms. We have a great many, built up over decades. I doubt anyone today knows quite how they work, in any given instance.” She looked at the rental now, her expression changing. “Someone modeled that peripheral, rather romantically, after Fitz-David Wu. I doubt you’d know him. Arguably the best Shakespearean actor of his day. His mother was quite a good friend of mine. Those eyes were an afterthought, of course, later regretted. Not so easily reversible, in those days.”

  Netherton, wishing he had another whiskey, wondered if she felt that way about her own periwinkle blues.

  35.

  THE STUFF IN HIS YARD

  Conner lived on Gravely Road, off Porter past Jimmy’s. A gravel road, so growing up there’d been jokes about that, even though you pronounced it like grave, not gravel. Gravely had been a make-out spot in high school, somewhere to park on a date. As Leon pulled into what she supposed was Conner’s driveway, she wondered if she’d ever had any cause to come this far out Gravely before. The last stretch hadn’t felt familiar, though there was nothing about it that she would have particularly remembered. But she didn’t think she’d known that there were any houses out this far. Mostly it was posted woods here, or subdivided lots, overgrown now, that nobody had built on.

  Conner’s house wasn’t as old as theirs, but it was in worse shape. It hadn’t been painted for a long time, so the wood had turned gray where the paint had come off. Its single story sat back from the road on what had once been a lawn, but now was a collection of junk overgrown with morning glory. A tall old tractor, all rust, not a fleck of paint left on it, a trailer smaller than Burton’s, down on its axle on flat tires, the standard history lesson of stoves and refrigerators, and a big old Army quadcopter, the size of Conner’s Tarantula, up on four concrete blocks. You’d need a license to fly that, if they’d let you fly it at all.

  The Tarantula was at the far end of the driveway, beside the house, with Macon and Edward busy at the back of it, by the big lone slick. They had a pale blue tarp spread beside it, with their toolkits lined up on that.

  She got out, as soon as Leon had stopped, and walked over to them. She wanted to see what was on the spiny tentacle arm she’d seen at Jimmy’s.

  “Afternoon,” said Macon, straightening up. Like Edward, he wore blue latex gloves. Neither he nor Edward had a Viz in.

  “What’s up?” Looking at the arm. It ended in some random-looking mechanism, moving parts but she had no idea what for.

  “Troubleshooting for Conner,” said Macon. “This,” and he pointed at the thing, “is a grapple, for a fueling nozzle. Big help for him, at a gas station.”

  “You’re just now putting it on?”

  “No,” said Macon, giving her a look. “We put it on back when we mounted the arm. He’s been having trouble with it.”

  “Should be okay now,” said Edward, neutrally.

  They both knew she knew this was bullshit, but she guessed that was the way it went, when somebody you knew killed some people and you didn’t want them to get caught for it. They were teaching her the story as it needed to be told, and telling it to her in a way that wouldn’t require her to tell anything but the truth about what they’d told her. “What’s that black stuff on it?” The grapple lacked it, whatever it was, but she bet they’d fix that.

  “Looks like bed liner,” said Edward, “rubber truck-paint.”

  They’d removed the gun, or whatever had held the gun, and replaced it with this thing. Maybe it was in one of the toolkits, or maybe one of Burton’s boys had already taken it away.

  “Hope it works for him,” she said. “Burton here?”

  “Inside,” said Macon. “Actually we need to get a scan of your head. With a laser.”

  “Do what?”

  “Measure your head,” said Edward. “Headpiece we’re printing isn’t flexible. Contact’s critical. Depends on fit.”

  “Comfort too,” added Macon, encouragingly.

  “Me?”

  “It’s for you,” Macon said. “Ask Ash.”

  “Who’s Ash?”

  “Lady at Coldiron. Tech liaison. Keeps calling us up. She’s a details person.”

  “So are you,” said Flynne.

  “We get along.”

  “Okay,” she said, not feeling that anything particularly was.

  “Leon,” Macon said, as Leon joined them, “congratulations. We hearin’ you a multimillionaire.”

  “Admire you not showing how impressed you are.” Leon dragged a sun-bleached wooden box out of a tangle of morning glory. Faded black lettering on the side read DITCHING DYNAMITE and more. “Oughta put this on eBay,” he said, considering its markings before sitting on it. “Collectible. I like to watch working men.”

  “Why do you?” Macon asked.

  “It’s your work ethic,” said Leon. “Beautiful thing.”

  She went up the steps and into the house, through a screened side door with wooden trim older than the dynamite box. Into the kitchen, cleaner than she expected but she guessed it wasn’t used for much. Went into the living room and found Burton, sitting on a broken-down sofa with brown-and-beige floral slipcovers, and Conner, who was sitting up very straight in a chair. Then Conner stood, and she saw there’d been no chair.

  He was Velcro’d into a prosthetic the VA bought for him. Made him look like a character from an old anime, its ankles wider than its thighs. Dynamic, until he moved, and then she saw why he didn’t like wearing it.

  “Little sister,” he said, grinning at her, freshly shaved and remarkably uncrazy looking.

  “Hey, Conner,” she said, then looked at Burton, wondering whether this was going to be like her conversation with Macon and Edward. “Saw Macon in the driveway,” she said.

  “Got them over to fix the bike,” Burton said. “Conner’s been having trouble fueling up.”

  “You weren’t so happy,” she said to Conner, “last time I saw you.”

  Conner’s grin sharpened. “Worried Homes might keep your bro in Davisville. Beer?” Gestured toward the kitchen, left arm and two remaining fingers. “Red Bull?”

  “I’m good, thanks.” VA would have transplanted a toe, she knew, to use as a thumb, if he’d had a few. He could still get a donor thumb, if he’d just sign up and be ready to give it the time. Maybe a right foot that way, too. But there wouldn’t be any transplants for his right arm or left leg, because the stumps weren’t long enough. Something about needing a certain minimum length of the transplantee’s own nerves to splice. But whatever had happened to his mind, she suddenly knew in some different way, had been the worst. Because right now he seemed all smoothed out, could even pass for happy, and she guessed it was because he’d just killed four total strangers. She felt tears starting. Sat down fast, on the opposite end of the sofa from Burton.

  “They’re seriously good for the money,” Burton said.

  “I know,” she said. “Came over here with a lottery winner.”

&
nbsp; “Not just that. They put something better together.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sent a man over from Clanton today, with cash.”

  “How do you know they aren’t builders, Burton?”

  “He’s a lawyer.”

  “Builders all have lawyers.”

  “I’ll have a beer,” Burton said.

  Conner’s prosthetic locomoted him into the kitchen and up to the fridge, which was new and shiny. When she saw him snag the door handle with his two fingers, she heard the quick gnat-whine of a small servo. The prosthetic, she now saw, had its own thumb. He opened the door, fished out a beer, swung the prosthetic’s shoulder enough to nudge the door shut, and clumped back out to Burton. It was like the thing had only the one gait. Then he stuck the bottle cap against what would have been the front of the bicep of his right arm, if he’d had one, and popped it off. She saw he had a rusty old opener glued there, on the black plastic. The cap bounced on the bare vinyl floor, rolled under the sofa. He grinned at her, handed Burton the beer.

  “It’s okay,” Burton said, and took a swallow from the bottle. “I don’t think they’re builders and I don’t think they’re Homes. I think it’s about their game. And they want to get you back in their game. They want them some Easy Ice. That’s why they’ve got Macon building some kind of interface gear.”

  “Fuck their game,” she said.

  “Your gaming assets have gotten very expensive. That’s what brought that man over from Clanton.” He drank some more, looked at the level of beer in the bottle, seemed about to say something more, but didn’t.

  “So you agreed on my behalf?”

  “Deal breaker, otherwise. Has to be you.”

  “You could’ve asked me, Burton.”

  “We need the money for Pharma Jon. Whatever this is, we don’t know how long the money’ll last. So we do the work, stack up what we can, and see. I figured you’d agree to that.”

  “I guess,” she said.

  Conner’s prosthetic squatted down again, becoming a chair for him. “Scoot the sofa. Sit with me,” he said.

  “Ready to measure your head,” said Macon, from the kitchen door. He held up something in flu orange, complicated, skinny sticks and a ring. It looked more like some Hefty Mart bow-hunting accessory than a laser. “You want to sit on the couch?”

  “Let’s do it on the front porch,” she said to Macon. She’d seen there was a faded red plastic chair out there, as Leon had driven in, and she needed to get away. “I’ll sit with you sometime, Conner, but right now my brother’s being a dickhead.”

  Conner grinned.

  She went out the front door, onto the porch, swept a dry brown mulch of last year’s leaves out of the butt-shaped depression molded into the seat of the chair, and sat down, looking out at the tall rusty tractor. Macon handed her something, like the funny eye protector they gave you in a tanning joint, but made of polished stainless. “How strong’s this laser?” she asked.

  “Not strong enough to need that, but we’ll play it safe.”

  “How long’ll this take?”

  “A minute or so, once we get it adjusted. Put ’em on.”

  The protector had a thin white elastic cord. She pulled it on, settled the eye-shaped steel cups over her eyes, and sat in pitch darkness, while Macon positioned the soft tips of the thing’s legs on her shoulders. “When do you start printing?” she asked him.

  “Printing the circuitry already. Do this headset stuff tonight. We pitch an all-nighter, might have it together tomorrow. Now hold really still. Don’t talk.”

  Something began to tick around the ring-shaped track, headed to the right. She pictured the stuff in Conner’s yard, humped over with morning glory vines, and imagined him never joining the Marines. Failing the medical, for something harmless but never noticed before. So that he’d stayed here, found some unfunny way to make a living, met a girl, gotten married. Not to her, definitely, or to Shaylene either, but somebody. Maybe from Clanton. Had kids. And his wife getting all the morning glory cleared away, and everything hauled off, and planting grass for a real front yard. But she couldn’t make it stick, couldn’t quite believe it, and she wished she could.

  And then the laser was right behind her head, still softly clicking, and then beside her left ear, and when it was back around the front, it quit clicking. Macon lifted it away and removed the eye shield.

  The stuff in his yard was still there.

  36.

  IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING

  Anton had one,” Lev said, when Netherton had finished telling him about what had happened in Covent Garden. “He tore its jaw off at a garden party, in a drunken rage.”

  They were standing together at the top of the Gobiwagen’s gangway, watching the peripheral run the treadmill. “Impossible to deny that it has a certain beauty,” Netherton said, hoping to change the subject, else it somehow lead to Putney. Though he did find it beautiful. Ash, standing near the treadmill, had the look of someone reading data on a feed, which she likely was.

  “Dominika was furious,” Lev said. “Our children might have seen him do it. He sent it back to the factory. Then he shot it. Repeatedly. On the dance floor, at Club Volokh. I wasn’t there. Hushed up, of course. That was the turning point, for our father.”

  Netherton saw Ash say something to the peripheral. It began to slow its pace. Running, he saw its beauty differently, the grace it brought to the repetitive act somehow substituting for personality.

  “Why did Anton do that?” Netherton asked, as he watched the muscles working, exquisitely, in the thing’s thighs.

  “He refused to adjust its level of difficulty. Sparred with it at the highest setting. It always won. And was far the better dancer.”

  The peripheral had slowed to a trot. Now it leapt off the treadmill and began jogging in place, in loose black shorts and a sleeveless black top. Two closets in the yacht had now been filled with clothing Ash had had made up for it, which meant quite a lot of black.

  It looked up now, seeming to see him.

  Lev turned then, going back inside. Netherton followed, unsettled by the peripheral’s gaze. The space felt more inhabited now, or perhaps simply cluttered, with the antique monitor array and the peripheral’s support kit.

  “Lager,” said Lev. Netherton blinked. Lev pressed his thumb against a small steel oval set into the bar’s door. The door slid up, out of sight, the counter silently extruding an opened bottle. Lev took it, then noticed Netherton. He passed Netherton the chilled bottle. “Lager,” he repeated. The bar produced another. “That will do,” he said, and the door slid down. Lev clinked the base of his bottle against the base of Netherton’s, raised his, and drank. He lowered it. “What did she have to say, on the way back, after you’d returned your friend’s rental?”

  “She told me about Wu.”

  “Who?”

  “Fitz-David Wu. An actor. She and his mother were friends.”

  “Wu,” said Lev. “Hamlet. Grandfather’s favorite still. Forty years ago, at least.”

  “How old is she, do you think?”

  “A hundred, more,” said Lev. “Is that really all you discussed?”

  “She seemed unsettled. Off-task. She’d lit a scented candle.”

  “Candles, essences. I’ve seen them do that. Something to do with memory.”

  “She said she’s had some muted. Something to do with bombing, I supposed.”

  “They go in for that,” said Lev. “Grandfather views it as a sin. Getting on himself, but he’s quite Orthodox. I could do with more of an idea of what she’s up to.”

  “You were the one who made a deal with her,” Netherton reminded him. “And you’ve rather pointedly not shared what that was.”

  “True,” said Lev, “but it’s not to be shared. If I didn’t adhere to her terms, I imagine she might find out.”

  “She might ask you,” said Netherton, “and you might find yourself telling her.”

  Lev frowned. “You’re righ
t about that.” He drank off the rest of his lager, put the empty bottle down on the marble desktop. “Meanwhile, though, there’s progress in the stub. The technicals you sourced through the polt’s sister have impressed Ash. They’re readying their best approximation of a neural cutout. And Ash’s quants at the LSE have abundantly solved any in-stub financial worries. Though if they keep it up, we’ll be noticed. More than noticed.”

  “What are they doing?” asked Netherton, after finishing his own lager. He wished he had several more.

  “Herding trading algorithms, basically. The stub doesn’t quite have the capacity to do that, though they’re aware that it sometimes happens naturally. They would have started to do it soon enough themselves. But we’re definitely funded to deal with contingencies now. Which has already proven necessary.”

  “It has?”

  “Assassins turned up to fulfill that contract, four of them. Who were disposed of, prior to doing so, by one of the polt’s associates.”

  “Requiring money?”

  “It was illegal,” said Lev. “He’d been set to watch for anyone who looked as though they might be coming to do that. He didn’t like their look, killed them. Cost something to make it go away. Their immediate political unit is a county. The head of law enforcement is the sheriff. The county’s most viable economy is the molecular synthesis of illicit drugs. The sheriff is in the pay of the most successful local synthesist.”