Virtual light b-1

by William Gibson

Her eyebrows shot up. 'There,' she said.

  'There what?'

  'Color, Mr. Rydell. Fire. The brooding verbal polychromes of an almost unthinkably advanced decay.'

  Rydell had to think about that. He found himself looking at the jockey-boy bed. 'Don't you ever get any black people in here, complaining about stuff like this?'

  'On the contrary,' she said, a new edge in her tone, 'we do quite a good business with the more affluent residents of South Central. They, at least, have a sense of irony. I suppose they have to.'

  Now he'd have to walk to whatever the nearest station was, take the subway home, and tell Kevin Tarkovsky he hadn't been Southern enough.

  The rentacop was letting him out.

  'Where exactly you from, Ms. Cooper?' he asked her.

  'New Hampshire,' she said.

  He was on the sidewalk, the door closing behind him.

  'Fucking Yankees,' he said to the Porsche roadster. It was what his father would have said, but he had a hard time now connecting it to anything.

  One of those big articulated German cargo-rigs went by, the kind that burned canola oil. Rydell hated those things. The exhaust smelled like fried chicken.

  The courier's dreams are made of hot metal, shadows that scream and run, mountains the color of concrete. They are burying the orphans on a hillside. Plastic coffins, pale blue. Clouds in the sky. The priest's tall hat. They do not see the first shell coming in from the concrete mountains. It punches a hole in everything: the hillside, the sky, a blue coffin, the woman's face.

  A sound too vast to be any sound at all, but through it, somehow, they hear, arriving only now, the distant festive pop-popping of the mortars, tidy little clouds of smoke rising on the gray mountainside.

  He comes upright, alone in the wide bed, trying to scream, and the words are in a language he no longer allows himself to speak.

  His head throbs. He drinks flat water from the stainless carafe on the nightstand. The room sways, blurs, comes back into focus. He forces himself from the bed, pads naked to the tall, old-fashioned windows. Fumbles the heavy drapes aside. San Francisco. Dawn like tarnished silver. It is Tuesday. Not Mexico.

  In the white bathroom, wincing in the sudden light, scrubbing cold water into his numb face. The dream recedes, hut leaves a residue. He shivers, cold tile unpleasant beneath his bare feet. The whores at the party. ~I~his Harwood. I)ecadent. The courier disapproves of decadence. His work brings him into contact with real wealth, genuine power. He meets

  5 Hay problemas

  people of substance. Harwood is wealth without substance. He puts out the bathroom light and gingerly returns to his bed, favoring the ache in his head.

  With the striped duvet drawn up to his chin, he begins to sort through the previous evening. There are gaps. Overindulgence. He disapproves of overindulgence. Harwood's party. The voice on the phone, instructing him to attend. He'd already had several drinks. He sees a young girl's face. Anger, contempt. Her short dark hair twisted up in spikes.

  His eyes feel as if they are too large for their sockets. When he rubs them, bright sick flashes of light surround him. The cold weight of the water moves in his stomach.

  He remembers sitting at the broad mahogany desk, drinking. Before the call, before the party. He remembers the two cases open, in front of him, identical. He keeps her in one. The other is for that with which he has been entrusted. Expensive, but then he has no doubt that the information it contains is very valuable. He folds the thing's graphite earpieces and snaps the case shut. Then he touches the case that holds all her mystery, the white house on the hillside, the release she offers. He puts the cases in the pockets of his jacket-But now he tenses, beneath the duvet, his stomach twisted with a surge of anxiety.

  He wore the jacket to that party, much of which he cannot remember.

  Ignoring the pounding of his head, he claws his way out of the bed and finds the jacket crumpled on the floor beside a chair.

  His heart is pounding.

  Here. That which he must deliver. Zipped into the inner pocket. But the outer pockets are empty.

  She is gone. lie roots through his other clothing. On his hands and knees, a pulsing agony behind his eyes, he peers under the chair. Gone.

  But she, at least, can be replaced, he reminds himself, still on his knees, the jacket in his hands. He will find a dealer in that sort of software. Recently, he now admits, he had started to suspect that she was losing resolution.

  Thinking this, he is watching his hands unzip the inner pocket, drawing out the case that contains his charge, their property, that which must be delivered. He opens it.

  The scuffed black plastic frames, the label on the cassette worn and unreadable, the yellowed translucence of the audio-beads.

  He hears a thin high sound emerge from the back of his throat. Very much as he must have done, years ago, when the first shell arrived.

  Careful to correctly calculate the thirty-percent tip, Yamazaki paid the fare and struggled out of the cab's spavined rear seat. The driver, who knew that all Japanese were wealthy, sullenly counted the torn, filthy bills, then tossed the three five-dollar coins into a cracked Nissan County thermos-mug taped to the faded dashboard. Yamazaki, who was not wealthy, shouldered his bag, turned, and walked toward the bridge. As ever, it stirred his heart to see it there, morning light aslant through all the intricacy of its secondary construction.

  The integrity of its span was rigorous as the modern program itself, yet around this had grown another reality, intent upon its own agenda. This had occurred piecemeal, to no set plan, employing every imaginable technique and material. The result was something amorphous, startlingly organic. At night, illuminated by Christmas bulbs, by recycled neon, by torchlight, it possessed a queer medieval energy. By day, seen from a distance, it reminded him of the ruin of England's Brighton Pier, as though viewed through some cracked kaleidoscope of vernacular style.

  Its steel bones, its stranded tendons, were lost within an accretion of dreams: tattoo parlors, gaming arcades, dimly lit stalls stacked with decaying magazines, sellers of fireworks, of cut bait, betting shops, sushi bars, unlicensed pawnbrokers, herbalists, barbers, bars. Dreams of commerce, their locations generally corresponding with the decks that had once carried vehicular traffic; while above them, rising to the very peaks of

  6 The bridge

  the cable towers, lifted the intrica:ely suspended barrio, with its unnumbered population and its zones of more private fantasy.

  He'd first seen it by night, three weeks before. He'd stood in fog, amid sellers of fruit and ve:~etables, their goods spread out on blankets. He'd stared back into the cavern-mouth, heart pounding. Steam was rising from the pots of soup-vendors, beneath a jagged arc of ;cavenged neon. Everything ran together, blurring, melting in the fog. Telepresence had only hinted at the magic and singularity of the thing, and he'd walked slowly forward, into tha neon maw and all that patchwork carnival of scavenged surfaces, in perfect awe. Fairyland. Rain-silvered plywood, broken marble from the walls of forgotten banks, corrugated plastic, polished brass, sequins, painted canvas, mirrors, chrome gone dull and peeling in the salt air. So many things, too much for his reeling eye, and he'd known that his journey had not been in vain.

  In all the world, surely, there was no more magnificent a Thomasson.

  He entered it now, Tuesday morning, amid a now-familiar stir-the carts of ice and fish, t~e clatter of a machine that made tortillas-and found his ~ay to a coffee shop whose interior had the texture of an ancient ferry, dark dented varnish over plain heavy wood, as if someone had sawn it, entire, from some tired public vessel. Which was entirely possible, he thought, seating himself at the long counter; toward Oakland, past the haunted island, the wingless carcass of a 747 housed the kitchens of nine Thai restaurants.

  The young woman behind the counter wore tattooed bracelets in the form of stylized indigo lizards. He asked for coffee. It arrived in thick heavy porcelain. No two cups here were alike. He took his notebook from
his bag, flicked it on, and jotted down a brief descriptiDn of the cup, of the minute pattern of cracks iii its glazed surface, like a white tile mosaic in miniature. Sipping his coffee, he scrolled hack to the previous day's notes. The man Skinner's mind was remarkably like the bridge. Things had accumulated there, around some armature of original purpose, until a point of crisis had been attained and a new program had emerged. But what was that program?

  He had asked Skinner to explain the mode of accretion resulting in the current state of the secondary structure. What were the motivations of a given builder, an individual builder? His notebook had recorded the man's rambling, oblique response, transcribing and translating it.

  There was this man, fishing. Snagged his tackle. Hauled up a bicycle. All covered in barnacles. Everybody laughed. Took that bike and he built a place to eat. Clam broth, cold cooked mussels, Mexican beer. Hung that bike over the counter. Just three stools in there and he slung his box out about eight feet, used Super Glue and shackles. Covered the walls inside with postcards. Like shingles. Nights, he'd curl up behind the counter. Just gone, one morning. Broken shackle, some splinters still stuck to the wall of a barber shop. You could look down, see the water between your toes. See, he slung it out too far.

  Yamazaki watched steam rise from his coffee, imagining a bicycle covered in barnacles, itself a Thomasson of considerable potency. Skinner had seemed curious about the term, and the notebook had recorded Yamazaki's attempt to explain its origin and the meaning of its current usage.

  Thomasson was an American baseball player, very handsome, very powerful. He went to the Yomiyuri Giants in 1981, for a large sum of money. Then it was discovered that he could not hit the ball. The writer and artisan Gempei Akasegawa appropriated his liame to describe certain useless and inexplicable monuments, pointless yet curiously art-like features of the urban landscape. But the term has subsequently taken on other shades of meaning. If you wish, I can access and translate today's definitions in our Gendai Yogo Kisochishiki, that is, The Basic Knowledge of Modern Terms.

  But Skinner-gray, unshaven, the whites of his blue eyes yellowed, blotched with broken veins, had merely shrugged. Three of the residents who had previously agreed to be interviewed had cited Skinner as an original, one of the first on the bridge.

  The location of his room indicated a certain status as well, though Yamazaki wondered how many would have welcomed a chance to build atop one of the cable towers. Before the electric lift had been installed, the climb would have been daunting for anyone. Today, with his bad hip, the old man was in effect an invalid, relying on his neighbors and the girl. They brought him food, water, kept his chemical toilet in operation. The girl, Yamazaki assumed, received shelter in return, though the relationship struck him as deeper somehow, more complex.

  But if Skinner was difficult to read because of age, personality, or both, the girl who shared his room was opaque in that ordinary, sullen way Yamazaki associated with young Americans. Though perhaps that was only because he, Yamazaki, was a stranger, Japanese, and one who asked too many questions.

  He looked down the counter, taking in the early-morning profiles of the other customers. Americans. The fact that he was actually here, drinking coffee beside these people, still struck a chord of wonder. How extraordinary. He wrote in his notebook, the pen ticking against the screen.

  The apartment is in a tall Victorian house, built of wood and very elaborately painted, in a district where the names of streets honor nineteenth-century American politicians: Clay, Scott, Pierce, Jackson. This morning, Tuesday, leaving the apartment, I noticed, on the side of the topmost newel, indications of a vanished hinge. I suspect that this must once have supported an infant-gate. Going along Scott in search of a cab, I came upon a sodden postcard, face up on the sidewalk. The narrow features of the martyr Shapely, the AIDS saint, blistered with rain. Very melancholy.

  'They shouldn't oughta said that. About Godzilla, I mean.'

  Yamazaki found himself blinking up at the earnest face of the girl behind the counter.

  'I'm sorry?'

  'They shouldn't oughta said that. About Godzilla. They shouldn't oughta laughed. We had our earthquakes here, you didn't laugh at us.'

  7 See you do okay

  Hernandez followed Rydell into the kitchen of the house in Mar Vista. He wore a sleeveless powder-blue jumpsuit and a pair of those creepy German shower-sandals, the kind with about a thousand little nubs to massage the soles of your feet. Rydell had never seen him out of uniform before and it was kind of a shock. He had these big old tattoos on his upper arms; roman numerals; gang stuff. His feet were brown and compact and sort of bearlike.

  It was Tuesday morning. There was nobody else in the house. Kevin was at Just Blow Me, and the others were out doing whatever it was they did. Monica might've been in her place in the garage, but you never saw too much of her anyway.

  Rydell got his bag of cornflakes out of the cupboard and carefully unrolled it. About enough for a bowl. He opened the fridge and took out a plastic, snap-top, liter container with a strip of masking-tape across the side. He'd written MILK EXPERIMENT on the masking-tape with a heavy marker.

  'What's that?' Hernandez asked.

  'Milk.'

  'Why's it say "experiment"?'

  'So nobody'll drink it. I figured it out in the dorm at the Academy.' He dumped the cornflakes in a bowl, covered them with milk, found a spoon, and carried his breakfast to the kitchen table. The table had a trick leg, so you had to eat without putting your elbows down.

  'How's the arm?'

  'Fine.' Rydell forgot about not putting his elbow down. Milk and cornflakes slopped across the scarred white plastic of the tabletop.

  'Here.' Hernandez went to the counter and tore off a fat wad of beige paper towels.

  'Those are whatsisname's,' Rydell said, 'and he seriously doesn't like us to use them.'

  'Towel experiment,' Hernandez said, tossing Rydell the wad.

  Rydell blotted up the milk and most of the flakes. He couldn't imagine what Hernandez was doing here, but then he'd never have imagined that Hernandez drove a white Daihatsu Sneaker with an animated hologram of a waterfall on the hood.

  'That's a nice car out there,' Rydell said, nodding in the direction of the carport and spooning cornflakes into his mouth.

  'My daughter. Rosa's car. Been in the shop, man.'

  Rydell chewed, swallowed. 'Brakes or something?'

  'The fucking waterfall. Supposed to be these little animals, they come out of the bushes and sort of look at it, the waterfall, you know?' Hernandez leaned back against the counter, flexing his toes into the nubby sandals. 'Some kind of, like, Costa Rican animals, you know? Ecology theme. She's real green. Made us take out what was left of the lawn, put in all these ground-cover things look like gray spiders. But the shop can't get those fucking animals to show, man. We got a warranty and everything, but it's, you know, been a pain in the ass.' He shook his head.

  Rydell finished his cornflakes.

  'You ever been to Costa Rica, Rydell?'

  'No.'

  'It's fucking beautiful, mali. Like Switzerland.'

  'Never been there.'

  'No, I mean wh2t they do with data. Like the Swiss, what they did with money.'

  'You mean the kvens?'

  'You got it. Tho~e people smart. No army, navy, air force, just neutral. And they take care of everybody's data.'

  'Regardless whatit is.'

  'Hey, fucking "A" Smart people. And spend that money on ecology, man.'

  Rydell carried the bowl, the spoon, the damp wad of towels, to the sini. He rinsed the bowl and spoon, wiped them with the towels, then stuck the towels as far down as possible behind th rest of the garbage in the bag under the sink. Straightening up, he looked at Hernandez. 'Something I can do for you, sup~r?'

  'Other way arou~d.' Hernandez smiled. Somehow it wasn't reassuring. 'I been thinking about you. Your situation. Not good. Not good, nan. You never get to be a cop now. Now you resign, I c
an't even hire you back on IntenSecure to work gated residential. l4aybe you get on with a regular square-badge outfit, sit it that little pillbox in a liquor store. You wanna do that?'

  'No.'

  'That's good, 'cause you get your ass killed, doing that. Somebody come inthere, take your little pilibox out, man.'

  'Right now I'm l)oking at something in retail sales.'

  'No shit? Sales? 'What you sell?'

  'Bedsteads made out of cast-iron jockey-boys. These pictures made out of hundred-year-old human hair.'

  Hernandez narrwed his eyes and shoved off the counter, headed for the hung room. Rydell thought he might be leaving, hut he wa~ only starting to pace. Rydell had seen him do this a couple ol times in his office at IntenSecure. Now he turned, just as he was about to enter the living room, and paced hack to Rydill.

  'You got this had-assed attitude sometimes, man, I dunno.

  You oughta stop and think maybe I'm trying to help you a little, right?' Back toward the living room again.

  'Just tell me what you want, okay?'

  Hernandez stopped, turned, sighed. 'Never been up to NoCal, right? San Francisco? Anybody know you up there?'

  'No.'

  'IntenSecure's licensed in NoCal, too, right? Different state, different laws, whole different attitude, they might as well be a different fucking country, but we've got our shit up there. More office buildings, lot of hotels. Gated residential's not so big up there, not 'til you get out to the edge-cities. Concord, Hacienda Business Center, like that. We got a good piece of that, too.'

  'But it's the same company. They won't hire me here, they won't hire me there.'

  'Fucking "A." Nobody talking about hiring you. What this is, there's maybe something there for you with a guy. Works freelance. Company has certain kinds of problems, sometime they bring in somebody. But the guy, he's not IntenSecure. Freelance.

  Office up there, they got that kind of situation now.'

  'Wait a second. What are we talking about here? We're talking about freelance armed-response?'