The Peripheral

by William Gibson

  Flynne thought of fists stacking up around the handle of a softball bat. The girl passed her another contract, sliding the signed one out of the way, stamping and signing it herself, smacking her seal.

  “I think we’re pretty close to somebody coming after us here,” Macon said. “If it’s unemployed vets, like those last two out at your place, Burton might be able to handle it. If it’s state police, or Homes, some other federal agency, or for that matter the Marines, no use even fighting. Why we’ve got lawyers out the ass.” He looked at the red-haired notary. “Pardon the expression,” he said, but she just kept signing and sealing. “Homes has its funny side,” he said to Flynne. “Look where they are right now.”

  “Pickett’s?”

  “First time, ever. Pickett was building when we were kids. His place hadn’t looked anything like a house for twenty years. Looked like what it was. Took the scale of that explosion to get Homes over there.”

  “Don’t tell me Homes is behind all the drug building. That’s a conspiracy theory.”

  “Not behind, but there can be accommodation. Wait and see who has a quiet word with Tommy, now Jackman’s gone.”

  Flynne had signed three more contracts while he spoke. “My hand’s starting to hurt,” she said to the girl.

  “Only four more,” the girl said. “You might consider simplifying your signature. You’ll be doing a lot of this.”

  Flynne looked over at Conner. Clovis had mounted a Thermos cup on one of the bed’s articulated equipment stands. Conner was sucking black coffee through a transparent tube. Flynne signed the last four contracts and passed them to the girl. Stood up. “Back in a few minutes,” she said. “Macon.” She ducked around a blue tarp, hearing the thump of the notary’s seal, Macon behind her. “Where can we have a private conversation?” she asked him.

  “Fab,” he said, pointing at another tarp.

  Fab’s back room looked the same as ever, aside from a few more printers and the hole sawn in the wall. She looked into the front of the store, saw a girl she didn’t know behind the counter, looking down at her phone. “Where’s Shaylene?”

  “Clanton,” Macon said.

  “Doing what?”

  “More lawyers. She’s opening two new Fabs there.”

  “I just get bits and pieces. What’s been happening here?”

  “All anybody gets.” He took out his Viz, put it in his pocket, rubbed his eye. She saw his tiredness, propped up by the government wakey.

  “Why’s there a fort made out of building supplies, next door?”

  “Coldiron’s global valuation’s billions, now.”

  “Billions?”

  “Lots of ’em, but I don’t want to give you a nosebleed. Kind of try to ignore it, myself. It’ll be more, tomorrow. Shit’s exponential. Not all that obviously, because we need to avoid that, as long as we can. Burton’s getting constant advice from up the line, and having Madison build those walls was their idea.”

  “How come not in here?”

  “They wouldn’t want you over on this side. Wall’s there to protect you from some kind of drive-by. Not that any amount of fort-building would make a difference, if somebody big enough decided to hit us. Smart munitions make any thickness of anything a joke, and the roof here might as well be cardboard. But they must’ve figured it needed doing, in case somebody sees an opportunity to lowball the job, and just sends more assholes from Memphis.”

  “Robot cow up in the pasture, driving in. Janice said Burton put it there.”

  “Part of our system upgrade. I voted for it looking like a zebra, myself.”

  “Tommy still over at Pickett’s?”

  “Burton too. Better them than me.”

  “What do you think’s going to happen?”

  “You and Conner and Burton are doing something soon, right? Up there.”

  “I’m supposed to go to a party with Wilf. See if I recognize anybody. Conner’s going as our bodyguard. Not sure about Burton.”

  “That’ll be it, then.”

  “Be what?”

  “Some kind of move. A gamble. That that’ll change things, whatever it is. Otherwise, what’s happening here’s unsustainable. Something’ll give, blow out. Could be local, could be the national economy, could be the world’s.”

  “If what Wilf told me was right, that could be the least of our worries.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Said everything fucks up here, pretty soon. Goes down the tubes for decades. Most everybody dies.”

  He looked at her. “Why there’s hardly any people, up there?”

  “They get you there yet?”

  “No, but Edward and I read between the lines. In the tech stuff they show us. Kind of inherent history, if you read it right. But they did get themselves some super-fresh tech, whatever else was going on.”

  “Didn’t get it fast enough, according to Wilf.”

  “They want you back. Just about now. You and Conner. Clovis’ll mind you.”

  “What’s she about, anyway?”

  “Carlos might be right. That EMT bag of hers is mainly full of gun. Once you’ve met Griff, she makes more sense. I think he’s the same as her, but management.”

  She looked around at the room. Remembered trimming the afterbirth off Christmas ornaments, toys, smoothing and putting the pieces together, eating takeout from Sushi Barn and bullshitting with Shaylene. It suddenly seemed like all of that had been so easy. When the sun came up, you just got on your bike, rode home, and not past a place where Conner had put bullets into the heads of four men, who’d have killed you and your mother and Burton, probably Leon too, for the money somebody promised them for doing it.

  “Leon saw two boys from Luke 4:5 on Main Street last night, outside the old Farmer’s Bank,” he said.

  “How’d he know? They have signs?”

  “No signs. Said he knows because he’d happened to have a long look at both of them, in Davisville, while Homes had Burton. They were holding up a sign in front of the VA hospital and he was sitting on a bench there, just the other side of the police tape.”

  “They recognize him?”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Why would they be here?”

  “Leon figured they were looking for Burton. Who did cause some sharp discomfort to their boy in Davisville. Why Homes sat him to chill in the middle of the high school track. Why they call it that, anyway, Luke 4:5?”

  “’Cause that’s one spooky-ass Bible verse, probably.”

  “It’s a white people thing, Luke 4:5? Never paid ’em any attention.”

  “‘And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.’”

  “Know scripture?”

  “Know that one. Burton’s prone to recite it if he hears they plan a protest. He’s got some fucked-up thing going about them. Or maybe just an excuse to go and kick somebody’s ass.”

  “We’ve got people keeping an eye out around town,” Macon said, digging in a front jeans pocket for his Viz. He blew on it, put it over his eye. She saw him blink, behind it. “They’re ready for you up the line, about now.”

  84.

  SOHO SQUARE

  By Soho Square, Lowbeer’s car rolled invisibly away. The rain had stopped. As they climbed the wide stairs to the greenway, Lowbeer’s sigil appeared. “Yes?” Netherton asked.

  “They’re ready,” Lowbeer said. “Find a seat for her.”

  Netherton took the peripheral’s hand, guided it to the nearest bench, one facing the forest that led, along what had been a length of Oxford Street, to Hyde Park. He gestured for it to sit. The bench vibrated briefly in anticipation, shedding drops of rain. The peripheral sat. Looked up at him. He was, he realized, waiting for it to drop this elaborate pretext of being an automaton, driven by AI. Not that she’d then be Flynne, but somehow the woman whose face this must be. “Have you learned who it was modeled after?” he asked Lowbeer.

  “Hermès has
a privacy policy, regarding bespoke peripherals. I could bypass that, but in this case I prefer not to. It might tip our hand.”

  The peripheral wore black tights, black walking boots with large silver buckles, and a narrow knee-length cape the color of graphite. “What exactly am I to do, here?” Netherton asked.

  “Have an outing. Stroll to Hyde Park. Then we’ll see. Answer her questions as best you can. I’m not expecting her to be terribly convincing as a neoprimitive curator, but do what you can. She’ll be there to make an identification. Assuming she doesn’t make it on walking in the door, I want the masquerade to remain viable for as long as possible.”

  “I’ve told Daedra that Annie’s very shy in her presence, out of an excess of admiration. That may help.”

  “It may. Please ask the peripheral to close its eyes.”

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  The peripheral did. Watching its face, he thought he actually saw Flynne arrive, a second’s confusion in facial micro-musculature and then the eyes sprang open. “Holy shit,” she said, “is that a house, or trees?”

  He looked over his shoulder, toward the greenway. “A house grown from trees. A sort of playhouse, actually. Public.”

  “Those trees look old.”

  “They aren’t. Their growth was augmented by assemblers. Sped up, then stabilized. They were that size when I was a child.”

  “Doors, windows—”

  “They grew that way, directed by assemblers.”

  She stood, seemed to test the pavement. “Where are we?”

  “Soho. Soho Square. Lowbeer suggests we walk along this greenway, to Hyde Park.”

  “Greenway?”

  “A forest, but linear. Oxford Street was ruined here, variously, in the jackpot. Mainly department stores. The architect had assemblers eat their ruins back. Carved them into what amounts to a very long planter for the trees, with a central pathway elevated above the original level of the street—”

  “Department stores? Like Hefty Mart?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did they want a forest instead?”

  “It wasn’t a very beautiful street to begin with, and hadn’t fared well in the jackpot. The buildings didn’t lend themselves to repurposing. Selfridges had actually been a single private residence, briefly—”

  “Fridges?”

  “A department store. But the vogue for residences on that scale was brief, limited to a final desperate wave of offshore capital. I don’t think we have department stores, actually.”

  “Malls?”

  “What about them?” he asked, puzzled, but then remembered the difference in usage. “You saw Cheapside. That’s one, of sorts. A destination, select associational retail. Portobello, Burlington Arcade . . .”

  She looked around. Kept turning. “We’re in the biggest city in Europe. Aside from you, I haven’t seen one living soul.”

  “There’s a man, right there.” Netherton pointed. “Sitting on a bench. I think he’s brought his dog.”

  “No traffic. Dead quiet.”

  “Prior to regreening, the majority of public transport was via trains, in tunnels.”

  “The tube.”

  “Yes. And that’s all still there, and more, though it’s generally not used for public transport. It can configure a train, should you want one. People generally go to Cheapside by period train.” That had been how he and his mother had gone.

  “Seen a few big trucks.”

  “Moving goods from the underground to where they’re ultimately needed. We’ve fewer private vehicles. Cabs. Otherwise, walking or cycling.”

  “Those are the tallest trees I’ve ever seen.”

  “Come and see. It’s more impressive from the greenway proper.” He led the way, trying to remember when he’d last been here. When they reached the greenway, between the trees, he indicated the direction of Hyde Park.

  “You say they aren’t real, the trees?”

  “They’re real, but their growth was augmented, engineered. A few are quasi-biological megavolume carbon collectors that look like trees.” Something chinged, behind them. A goggled rider shot past, pedaling hard on a black bicycle, a mud-spattered beige trench coat flapping out behind.

  “How did they make this?”

  The trees, many of them taller than the buildings they’d replaced, were still dripping; larger, more widely distributed drops. One went down the back of Netherton’s jacket. Toward Hyde Park, in the high canopy of branches, there was a suggestion of cloud. “I can open a feed for you, and show you, if you like.”

  “WN?” she asked, evidently seeing his sigil as their phones connected. “That’s you?”

  “It is. Let’s go along to Hyde Park, and I’ll show you feeds, how they did it.” Without thinking, having led the peripheral to and from Lowbeer’s car, he took her hand, instantly aware of his mistake.

  Her eyes met his, alarmed perhaps. He felt her hand tense, as if she were about to withdraw it, or perhaps to shake his. “Okay,” she said. “Show me.”

  And then they were walking, hand in hand.

  “You looked ridiculous,” she said, “on the Wheelie Boy.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  85.

  FUTURE PEOPLE

  He said they built all this with what he called assemblers, which she guessed were what she’d seen kill his ex’s sister.

  What he called a feed was a window in her vision, not so big that she couldn’t see to walk, but watching it and looking where she was going could be tricky. Like a Viz would be, she guessed, but without having to wear it.

  Architects had told the assemblers to cut a cross-section, down the length of the original street, in the shape of a big circle, a long central tubular emptiness. The buildings had been ruins to begin with, only partly standing, so the profile the assemblers cut away had mostly been less than the bottom half of that circle. Where the cut had gone through, regardless of the material encountered, the surface it left was slick as glass. What you’d expect with marble, or metal, but weird with old red brick, or wood. Assembler-cut brick looked like fresh-cut liver, assembler-cut wood slick as the paneling in Lev’s RV. Not that you saw much of that now, because the next step had been to overgrow the length of the cut with these fairy-tale trees, trunks too wide to be real, roots running everywhere, down into the ruins behind the edge of the cut, with their canopy so far above that you couldn’t see the highest branches at all.

  Hybrid, Wilf said. Something Amazonian, something Indian, and the assemblers to push it all. The bark was like the skin of elephants, finer-textured on the twisted roots.

  He used his hands when he talked. He’d had to let go of hers to explain the feed of how they built this, but she’d found holding hands comforting, just to touch something alive here, even if it wasn’t her own hand she was doing it with. She had a different feeling about him, since he’d told her about the jackpot. She thought that that was about how she’d seen he was fucked up by the story, how he didn’t know he was. He put a lot of energy into convincing people, and that was his job, or why he had that job, but really he was always convincing himself, maybe just that he was there, whatever he was trying to convince you. “The one whose party we’re going to, she’s your ex?” she asked. The feed had ended, the window had closed, his badge had blinked out.

  “I don’t think of her that way,” he said. “It was quite brief, extremely ill-advised.”

  “Who advised you?”

  “No one.”

  “She some kind of artist?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?”

  “She has herself tattooed,” he said. “But it’s more complicated than that.”

  “Like with rings and things?”

  “No. The tattoos aren’t the product. She herself is the product. Her life.”

  “What they used to call reality shows?”

  “I don’t know. Why did they stop calling them that?”

  “Because it got to be
all there is, except Ciencia Loca and anime, and those Brazilian serials. Old-fashioned, to call it that.”

  He stopped, reading something she couldn’t see. “Yes. She’s descended from that, in a sense. Reality television. It merged with politics. Then with performance art.”

  They walked on. “I think that already happened, back home,” she said. It smelled amazing, in here. The wet trees, she guessed. “Doesn’t she run out of skin?”

  “Each of her pieces is a complete epidermis, toes to the base of the neck. Reflecting her life experience during the period of the work. She has that removed, preserved, and manufactures facsimiles, miniatures, which people subscribe to. Annie Courrèges, who you’ll be pretending to be, has a complete set, though she can’t afford them on her salary.”

  “Why does she?”

  “She doesn’t,” he said. “I made that up, to tell Daedra.”

  “Why?”

  “To get her to put her clothes back on.”

  She side-eyed him. “She has herself skinned?”

  “While having a fresh epidermis grown. Removal and replacement are conterminous, virtually a single operation.”

  “She sore, after?”

  “I’ve not been around her when she’s done that. She’d done it recently, though, before I was hired. Clean epidermal slate. She’d agreed, after meeting with you, or rather with Annie Courrèges and two other neoprimitivist curators, not to be tattooed till completion of our project.”

  “What are they?”

  “Who?”

  “Neoprimitivists.”

  “Neoprimitivist curators. Neoprimitives either survived the jackpot on their own or have opted out of the global system. The ones our project hinged on were volunteers. An ecology cult. Curators study neoprimitives, experience and collect their culture.”

  Three cyclists were approaching from the opposite direction, brightly dressed. Children, she supposed, as they sped past, in what she took to be superhero costumes. “You don’t seem to like it up here,” she said.

  “The greenway?”

  “The future. Neither does Ash.”

  “Ash makes an avocation of not liking it,” he said.