“Where are you?”
“The White House. Basement of the West Wing.”
“Why?”
“Different stub. A ways up the line from you, except there’s no line. Headed in a different direction, from them and from you.”
“Your name’s Conner?”
“Conner Penske,” he said.
“Drones that people pitched Stets,” she said, “ones that looked anything like that one, made a lot more noise.”
“We upgraded. Had the people who fabbed it use the most bleeding-edge components they could find.”
“I’m so tired I can barely stand up,” she said.
“Bed,” Virgil said, pointing to the other room. “In there. Sleep. That’s the plan. Conner and I’ll be out here.”
“And charging this unit, while we’re at it,” Conner said. “That’s one thing Ash couldn’t get upgraded to anywhere near our standards. Batteries.”
“Good night,” said Verity, reflexively, already headed for the door to the adjoining room.
58
CHARMED CIRCLE
The peripheral was watching Netherton from the couch, in that curiously nonintrusive way that meant it was once again under the control of its manufacturer’s AI.
“I like her,” said Rainey, Thomas on her hip. Netherton assumed she meant Verity. She didn’t always like clients, though in that case she wouldn’t mention it.
A sigil appeared, pulsing, unfamiliar at first. Then he recognized it as Lev Zubov’s, featuring the faces of his two pet thylacines. “Phone,” he said to Rainey, “sorry.” She nodded, turning back to Thomas in his high chair at the table. “Lev,” he said, “how are you?”
“Reasonably well,” said Lev, not sounding it. He’d been unhappy with the divorce, Netherton knew, which had been his wife Dominika’s idea, and with its outcome, which had seen her remain in the house in Notting Hill, along with their child. He’d since taken up residence in another Zubov family property, in Cheyne Walk, which Netherton hadn’t yet seen, reportedly even more redolent of old klept than the Notting Hill place. He doubted Lev was happy with that either, he and his cohort preferring to treat their klepthood as something of a joke, not that anyone else could afford to.
“I need to see you,” Lev said, sounding no happier about that. “Tonight?”
Urgency wasn’t something Netherton associated with Lev, but this was sounding like a sadder man than he’d known before, and he felt a pang of guilt for not having kept in touch recently. Lev had been instrumental in helping Netherton finally address his problem with drink, without which there might now be no Rainey in his life, nor any Thomas.
Lowbeer’s sigil pulsed urgently.
“Excuse me,” he said to Lev, “just a moment.” Muted him. “Yes?”
“See him tonight,” said Lowbeer. Her sigil vanished.
“Sorry,” he said, unmuting Lev. “Where shall we meet?”
“Not there,” said Lev, “this requires privacy.”
Not Cheyne Walk either, thought Netherton, then remembered the Denisovan Embassy. “One from your list of the interrupted, then? Under Hanway Street? Twenty minutes?”
“On my way,” said Lev, his thylacines vanishing.
“What’s that?” asked Rainey.
“Lev.”
“I gathered. What about?”
“Needs to get something off his chest, apparently. Lowbeer interrupted to say I should meet him. Hanway Street.” He removed the controller and placed it on the couch. “Don’t sit on this.”
“What’s there?”
“The Denisovan Embassy.”
“The sex club?” Up went the eyebrow.
“Formerly, yes,” he said. “I’m surprised you know of it.”
“I’d a client whose career crisis was brought on by a single particularly ill-starred visit there.” She regarded him narrowly. “A Canadian abroad.”
“It’s only round-the-clock breakfasts now,” he said. “I suggested it because it’s close, and on a list of his.”
“What list?”
“Of places that were one thing, but are now another, yet still have the same distinctive name. Fancies himself artistic, that way. If you need me, phone. I’ll try not to be long. Hope I won’t be.” He kissed her cheek.
He went into the bedroom for his jacket, put it on, setting it to medium warmth. By the time he’d stepped out into the mews, it felt exactly right. As he approached where he judged Lowbeer’s cloaked car to be, he hoped she wouldn’t stop him for a chat. It decloaked, but only partially, when he was three meters away, faintly revealing its outline in ghostly, washed-out pixels. He walked between it and the wall, not slowing, his eyes on what little was visible of Tottenham Court Road.
Ash’s sigil pulsed when he was nearing Hanway Place, the walk having been uneventful.
“Yes?”
“Rainey says you’re out.”
“Meeting Lev,” he said. “Where we were earlier.” She’d been Lev’s employee, his resident technician, when Netherton had first met her. “Have you seen him since the divorce?” he asked.
“Not since I left to work with Lowbeer.”
He was passing the shop where he’d gotten Thomas’s milk. He glimpsed the natty figure of the bot salesclerk. Michael something, he thought, certain that was the given name of the twentieth-century actor he thought it resembled. Surname still escaping him. “How are we doing, then, generally?” he asked Ash.
“Doing?”
“With our attempted rescue, or perhaps I should say takeover, of Verity’s stub.”
“They needn’t be mutually exclusive categories, as you know. The aunties’ odds are still for imminent use of nuclear weapons. Verity’s agreed to work with us, hopefully giving us all the entrée we need to Eunice’s network.”
He turned into Hanway Street. “I’m here,” he said, spotting the narrow, stalactite-festooned façade. “Give Lev your best, then?”
“Do, please,” she said, surprising him. “Far from the worst employer I’ve had.”
“I will, then.”
Her sigil faded.
As Netherton descended the spiral stone staircase, Lev’s sigil reappeared, thylacines pulsing. “Just arriving,” Netherton said.
“They’ll bring you to me,” said Lev, the sigil dimming but not disappearing.
“You’re Wilf?” asked the freckle-dusted redhead at the foot of the stairs, draped in a floor-length gossamer cloak, spangled with sequins reflecting mobile light-sources that clearly weren’t present.
“I am,” he said.
“Follow me, please.”
He did, noting late evening’s breakfasters seemed little different from the afternoon’s. More tipsy, perhaps, but that evident mainly in an increased decibel count. The girl’s cloak reminded him of a Japanese film Lowbeer was fond of, Mothra, which she sometimes screened in her car. He’d assumed it was silent, but Ash insisted that it had originally had a soundtrack, Lowbeer preferring it without. Now a similarly draped young woman joined them, identically redheaded and, Netherton immediately suspected, identically freckled, down to the very last spot. Then another, equally indistinguishable, confirming his suspicion that they were bots. All in restlessly luminescent cloaks, accompanying him back into those darker, red-lit reaches, beyond the breakfasters. When they reached Lev, finally, there were half a dozen red-haired girls, seemingly identical.
He hoped Lev had arranged for chairs, rather than stalagmite stumps. He’d no idea what the six bot-girls were about. They struck him as very un-Lev.
“Hello,” said Lev, glumly extending his hand, from where he sat upon a stalagmite stump far too short for his long legs. Netherton briefly took it. “Have a seat there.” Indicating the nearest stump. Netherton settled himself on this, as uncomfortably as expected.
The bot-girls surrounded
them, arms outstretched and palm to palm, smoothly adjusting distances from one to another, to press hands again and raise them toward the rough low ceiling. The sequins began to swirl, spiraling up, from one cloak to the next, to form a low dome of flitting light. “What’s this?” Netherton asked Lev.
“Privacy,” said Lev, “of an unusual but necessary order.”
“Provided by the bots?” Looking at their upraised cloaks.
“They’ve no connectivity whatever,” Lev said. “Like the robots in old films. Limited functionality, but what there is is provided exclusively by onboard AI. The cloaks, combined this way, comprise something akin to a Faraday cage, but blocking many more sorts of signal. Limited duration, though, operating at full spectrum, so I’ll be quick.”
“Do.”
“My father,” Lev said, “less than two hours ago, learned from an uncle of his, more highly placed, that your Lowbeer’s role is being reconsidered.”
“‘My’ Lowbeer, is she? You introduced us.”
“And you’ve since become her employee. Which is why I’m alerting you, now, to the possibility of that becoming unsafe.”
“Has it occurred to your father,” asked Netherton, taking a page from Lowbeer’s book, “that conspiring to hinder her in her work may be one of the least safe things anyone can possibly do?”
“Certainly,” said Lev. “As the klept’s resident antibody, she expects to be conspired against. My father, however, says he’s never before seen her regarded, at his uncle’s level, as other than the most necessary of evils.” He glanced up at the sequin swirl, then leaned forward, lowering his voice. “It’s to do with her manipulation of stubs.”
Netherton’s pet fear executed a squeamish rollover, seemingly atop his entire consciousness, bringing him a flashback of the Thames chimera he’d seen with Lowbeer. “It does?”
“She’s altering stubs to produce worlds in which the klept enjoy less power,” Lev said, absolutely confirming it for Netherton.
“It’s art, Lev,” Netherton protested, taking a second page from Lowbeer, “poetry. What happens in a stub stays there.”
“My father takes this very seriously, Wilf.”
Netherton looked up at the zero-connectivity redheads, serenely steepled, as far down the ladder from Flynne’s vintage Hermès mystery woman as was possible to go, short of simply being a statue. The sole tasty bit of their tech would be whatever provided the supposed privacy. “Where did you find these?”
“My father ordered me to use them,” Lev said. “He used them when he was told this, and again when he told me.”
“Would you be able to give me any more information, about this supposed threat?”
“Only that her role is being critically reconsidered.”
“Reconsidered?”
“As to whether it needs to exist.”
Netherton considered this. “Thank you. I assume I’ve your permission to tell her? Not that I’d be able to do otherwise, of course.”
“Of course. That’s why we’re telling you. But absolutely no one else. Your wife, for instance.”
“And that’s all you know?”
“It is,” said Lev.
“You look quite down,” said Netherton, “if you don’t mind my saying. Is it over this?”
“Hardly,” said Lev. “It’s my responsibility to tell you. Not least because you yourself might be in danger, as her employee. Otherwise, I’m really not up to much. Cheyne Walk’s definitely not agreeing with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Meanwhile, please inform Lowbeer, and no one other than Lowbeer, and then only in circumstances she herself deems entirely secure. She’ll have something far superior to these bots, but until you find yourself within her version of this charmed circle”—and he winced, the bot-girls being obviously not to his taste—“say nothing to anyone.”
“Time, sir,” said one of the bots, its voice identical to that of the one that had greeted Netherton at the foot of the stairs. “Two minutes remain.”
“We’re done,” Lev replied. As one, the six lowered their cloaks, sequins ceasing to whirl. Without looking back, they turned and walked toward the dining area, Netherton watching them go.
“You don’t like Cheyne Walk, then?” Netherton asked.
“It’s entirely uncles of mine,” Lev said, standing up. “You can’t imagine. My best to Rainey and your boy.” Turning, he walked toward the sound of popping champagne corks.
59
NONE OF ME KNOWS
Verity came awake, startled semi-upright by a dream she immediately forgot, in a bed strangely wide, in a room wider still.
“You okay?” Virgil asked quietly, from behind the closed door to the other room.
“Yeah,” she managed. “Dream.”
“Sounded like it,” he said. “I’m up, if you need anything.”
“Thanks. I’m okay.”
Realizing she was in her mummy-bag liner, though she didn’t remember getting it before she’d crawled into bed. Still dark outside, to judge by the lack of light at the edges of the curtains. Groping gingerly around on the nearest bedside table for the glass of water she now remembered leaving there. Finding it, she drank half and lay back in the liner, under the Clift’s duvet. The traffic was quieter now. Don’t think about any of it, she advised herself, then decided that wasn’t working.
Getting up on an elbow, she propped herself with pillows and found the remote. The screen, opposite the foot of the bed, was as wide. She flipped through news channels, volume down. Fox seemed to still be mainly devoted to the president’s pre-election e-mails, but CNN and MSNBC looked as though they’d both been straight Qamishli for long enough to see it under the presenters’ eyes. She stopped when she saw the president, speaking from yet another podium. Reminding her of everything she’d just advised herself not to think about, so she turned off the television, shoved the pillows around, curled up in the familiarity of the mummy-bag liner, and fell asleep.
60
REGARD OF THE ADJUSTOR
Turning into Alfred Mews, Netherton glanced down its length to the windows of their flat. He walked toward them, waiting for Lowbeer’s car to partially decloak. When it did, he stepped past and turned, to face what he hoped was where he’d last seen its door. “May I come in?”
“Certainly,” said Lowbeer, the door appearing just to the left of where he’d expected it, along with a surrounding hand’s-width of glossy black bodywork, the decloaked segment unevenly pixelated along its edges. The door opened, its step folding down. He stepped forward, up, and into the glow of a single stout white candle, centered on the table in the carpeted pit. Behind him, the door quietly closed.
“White iris and vetiver,” Lowbeer said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Very nice,” said Netherton, having learned to take a degree of comfort in her candles, not for their scents but for the touch of dotty old lady they lent her, however deceptively. “I’ve a question.”
She was in shirtsleeves, a rare circumstance but not unheard of, her necktie undone. “Yes?”
“How private is this?”
“Security was the central goal, in the design of every aspect of this vehicle,” she said, “but you’ve no reason to be concerned when you’re with me in any case, wherever we are.”
“This concerns your deeper state function.”
“Which we’ve certainly touched on before. Would you like a seat?”
“I’ll stand,” Netherton said, glancing at the candlelit conversation pit, which suggested a séance. “Lev Zubov’s father’s uncle says that unnamed figures in the klept are questioning the continued need for your office.”
She glanced to one side, appearing to watch something. “He told you this in the Denisovan Embassy?”
“Were you listening?” Netherton asked, one of his core fears
being that Lowbeer eavesdropped on literally everything, constantly, though she denied that ability.
“I wasn’t, no,” she said. “I was able to hear him greet you, and ask you to take a seat. Then nothing, until you asked him about not liking Cheyne Walk. The zero-connectivity bots would explain the sizable ellipsis, as well as guarantee his father’s involvement.”
“It’s to do with the stubs,” Netherton said, “exactly as I’ve feared. That you steer them away from the klept becoming as powerful in them as it is here.”
“He expects you to tell me this?”
“He insisted. But only you.”
“Once again, then,” she said, “the divide between the ambitions of conspirators and the desire, among those bringing us word of those ambitions, to preserve whatever aspect of the status quo they themselves hold dear.” The blank buff walls had become windows now, the car itself, Netherton assumed from experience, remaining cloaked. “That’s often how this sort of thing comes to my attention.”
“He warned that I might be in danger as well.”
“It’s possible, certainly,” she said, “but these conspiracies have so far always been successfully neutralized. The only novel thing about this one is my tinkering with stubs offering a fresh rationale for my removal.”
“I’ve worried about them reacting this way.”
“This is a routine if infrequent aspect of my work,” she said. “They should only react to me with terror, but need occasionally to be reminded. Who knows of this so far, that you’re aware of?”
“Lev, his father, the unnamed uncle who supposedly informed his father, myself, and you.”
“Keep it that way, please,” she said, making intensely blue eye-contact. “Don’t mention it to Rainey until it’s been resolved.”
“My mother told me about you,” Netherton said, surprising himself, “when I was a small child. Not you specifically, but a figure in a story, benevolent but frightening. She called that figure the Adjustor. Adjustor of destinies, she said, for those who threatened the stability of the klept. When I was older, I came to understand that you, or rather someone in your role, actually existed.”
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