Flynne nodded.
“Colors more normal?”
Flynne hesitated. Took two deep, slow breaths. “They hurt, before. Not now. I’m sweating.”
“You’ve flooded its adrenal system. You won’t find the transition this unsettling again. There was no way we could cushion it for you, as a first-time user, other than have you prone, eyes closed, on an empty stomach.”
Flynne turned, slowly, taking in the room. “I saw you here,” she said to Netherton. “Looked this tacky, but I thought it was bigger. Where’s that atrium?”
“Elsewhere. Take a seat?”
She ignored his suggestion, went to the window instead. He and Ash had argued over whether or not to have the blinds closed. In the end, Ash had ordered Ossian into her workspace in the garage’s corner, leaving the blinds open. With no motion in the garage, the arches had faded to their faintest luminosity. Flynne bent slightly, peering out, but now the nearest arch sensed her movement, pulsed faintly, greenly. “A parking lot?” She must have seen Lev’s father’s cars. “Are we in an RV?”
“A what?” asked Netherton.
“Camper. Recreational vehicle.” She was moving her head, trying to see more. “Your office is in an RV?”
“Yes.” He wasn’t sure how that would strike her.
“Came here from a trailer,” she said.
A short promotional video précis, he recalled. “Pardon me?”
“A caravan,” said Ash. “Please sit down, both of you. We’ll try to answer your questions, Flynne.” She took a seat, leaving Flynne the one nearest the flowers.
Netherton seated himself at the gold-marbled desk, regretting its gangster pomp.
Flynne took a last look out the window, scratching the back of her neck, something he couldn’t imagine the peripheral doing on its own, then went to the remaining chair. She folded herself into it, knees high, wide apart. She leaned forward, raised her hands, studying the nails closely, then shook her head. She looked up at him, lowering her hands. “I used to play in a game,” she said, “for a man who had money. Did it because I needed the money. Man he had us play against was a total shit, but that was just sort of an accident. It wasn’t about making money, for either of them. Not like it was for us. It was a hobby, for them. Rich fucks. They bet on who’d win.” She was staring at him.
All his glibness, all his faithful machinery of convincing language, somehow spun silently against this, finding no traction whatever.
“You say you’re not builders.” She looked to Ash. “Some kind of security, for a game. But if it’s a game, why did someone send those men to kill us? Not just Burton, but all of us. My mother too.” She looked to him again. “How’d you know the winning number in the lottery, Mr. Netherton?”
“Wilf,” he said, thinking it sounded less like a name than an awkward cough.
“We didn’t,” said Ash. “That was why your cousin had to purchase a ticket. Your brother gave us the number of the ticket. We then interfered with the mechanism of selection, making his the winning number. No predictive magic. Superior processing speed, nothing more.”
“You sent that lawyer over from Clanton, with bags full of money? Make him win a lottery too?”
“No,” said Ash, who then looked irritably at Netherton, as if to say that he was supposed to be the one handling this. Which he was.
“This isn’t,” he said, “your world.”
“So what is it?” asked Flynne. “A game?”
“The future,” said Netherton, feeling utterly ridiculous. On impulse, he added the year.
“No way.”
“But it isn’t your future,” he said. “When we made contact, we set your world, your universe, whatever it is—”
“Continuum,” said Ash.
“—on a different course,” he finished. He’d never in his life said anything that sounded more absurd, though it was, as far as he knew, the truth.
“How?”
“We don’t know,” he said.
Flynne rolled her eyes.
“We’re accessing a server,” Ash said. “We know absolutely nothing about it. That sounds ridiculous, or evasive, but what we’re doing is something people do here. Perhaps,” and she looked at Netherton, “not unlike your two rich fucks.”
“Why did you hire my brother?”
“That was Netherton’s idea,” said Ash. “Perhaps he should explain. He’s been curiously silent.”
“I thought it might amuse a friend—” he began.
“Amuse?” Flynne frowned.
“I’d no idea any of this would happen,” he said.
“That’s true, really,” said Ash. “He was in a far messier situation than he imagined. Trying to impress a woman he was involved with, by offering her your brother’s services.”
“But she wasn’t impressed,” Netherton said. “And so she gave him, his services rather, to her sister.” He was in freefall now, all power of persuasion having deserted him.
“You may have witnessed her sister’s murder,” Ash said to Flynne.
The peripheral’s eyes widened. “That was real?”
“‘May’?” asked Netherton.
“She witnessed something,” Ash said to him, “but we’ve no evidence as to what, exactly.”
“Ate her up,” said Flynne. A drop of sweat ran down her forehead, into an eyebrow. She wiped it away with the back of her forearm, something else he couldn’t imagine the peripheral doing.
“If you consider how you’re able to be here now,” Ash said to her, “virtually yet physically, you may begin to understand our inability to know exactly what you saw.”
“You’re confusing her,” Netherton said.
“I’m attempting to acclimatize her, something you’re so far utterly failing to do.”
“Where are we?” Flynne demanded.
“London,” said Netherton.
“The game?” she asked.
“It’s never been a game,” he said. “It was easiest for us to tell your brother that.”
“This thing,” she indicated the cabin, “where is it, exactly?”
“An area called Notting Hill,” said Ash, “in a garage, beneath a house. Beneath several adjacent houses, actually.”
“The London with the towers?”
“Shards,” Netherton said. “They’re called shards.”
She stood, the peripheral unfolding with a slender but suddenly powerful grace from its awkward position in the chair. She pointed. “What’s outside that door?”
“A garage,” said Ash. “Housing a collection of historic vehicles.”
“Door locked?”
“No,” said Ash.
“Anything out there that’ll convince me this is the future?”
“Let me show you this.” Ash stood, the stiff fabric of her suit rumpled. She undid zips, from inner wrist to elbow, on both her sleeves, quickly folding them back. Line drawings fled. “They’re in a panic,” she said. “They don’t know you.” She put her thumb through the central zip’s aluminum ring, at the hollow of her neck, and drew it down, exposing a complexly cantilevered black lace bra, below which swarmed a terrified tangle of extinct species, their black ink milling against her luminous pallor. As if seeing Flynne, they fled again. To her back, Netherton assumed. Ash zipped up her suit, rezipped the sleeves in turn. “Does that help?”
Flynne stared at her. Nodded slightly. “Can I go out now?”
“Of course,” Ash said. “These aren’t contact lenses, by the way.”
Netherton, realizing that he hadn’t moved, possibly hadn’t breathed, since Flynne had stood up, pushed himself up from the desk, palms flat on the gold-veined marble.
“How can I be sure it isn’t a game?” Flynne asked. “At least half the games I’ve ever played were set in some kind of future.”
“Were you paid large sums to play them?” Netherton asked.
“Didn’t do it for free,” Flynne said, stepping to the door, opening it.
He managed t
o beat Ash there, at the cost of bruising his thigh on the corner of the desk. Flynne was at the top of the gangway, looking up at the arch nearest them, as its cells, sensing her there, luminesced.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Engineered from marine animals. Motion activated.”
“My brother used a squidsuit, in the war. Cuttlefish camo. What’s that?” Pointing, down, to the left of the gangway, to the white anthropomorphic bulk of the muscular-resistance exoskeleton.
“That’s yours.”
“Mine?”
“Your peripheral’s. An exercise device. You wear it.”
She turned toward him, placing her palm flat on his chest, pushing slightly, as if to test that he was there. “Don’t know whether to scream or shit,” she said. And smiled.
Breathe, he reminded himself.
43.
’SPLODING
Her mouth was full of pork tenderloin with garlic mayo, on a big crusty white bun. “Don’t choke,” Janice advised, seated beside her on Burton’s bed. “Be a sad end to whatever you’ve been up to. Drink?” She offered Flynne her black Sukhoi Flankers water bottle.
Flynne swallowed tenderloin, then some water, and handed the bottle back. “It’s a body,” she said. “Got a phone built in. Like a Viz, but it’s inside, somewhere. On-off and menus on the roof of your mouth, like a keyboard.”
“You got a lot pointier tongue than me.”
“Really small magnet, just in the tip.” She’d counted back to zero again, just a little wobble then and she’d opened her eyes in the Airstream, her neck stiff, looking up at Burton and Macon and Edward and Janice, hungry as she’d ever been in her life.
“You going back?” Janice asked her, now. “Tonight?”
Flynne bit into the sandwich again, nodded.
“Maybe you don’t want to eat all of that now. They were worried about you puking, before.”
Flynne chewed, swallowed. “That’s a first-time thing. People who use them get used to it. I need food. Need to be able to stay there longer.”
“Why do they call them that, ‘peripherals’?”
“Because they’re extensions? Like accessories?”
“Anatomically correct?”
“Didn’t think to check.”
“Put that in Hefty Mart, there goes the neighborhood. Probably there goes vintage flight sims too, ’cept for old folks and the church people. Could Madison learn to pilot one?”
“Guess he could.”
“Nobody’s going to kick the one they got you out of bed for eating crackers. Macon showed me a screen-grab.” Janice smiled. “Impressed you told Burton and them a lady needed time to collect herself.”
“Lady fucking did,” Flynne said.
“You don’t think that’s really the future, do you?” Janice asked, her best game face, no tells.
“Or am I batshit insane, you mean?”
“I guess, yeah.”
Flynne put what was left of the sandwich down, on the plastic Janice had brought it in. “Might as well be. We went upstairs, in an elevator, and there was this big fancy old house. Then out onto a kind of walled patio in back, at night, with these two Tasmanian tigers.”
“Extinct,” said Janice. “Seen ’em CG’d on Ciencia Loca.”
“These aren’t really them. They tweaked Tasmanian devil DNA. I could smell all the different flowers, dirt, hear birds. It was almost dark. Like the birds were going to sleep. Weird.”
“What was?”
“Hearing birds. Because we were right in the city. Too quiet.”
“Maybe it was too late.”
“Quiet as here, at night.”
“So what do you think it is?”
“If it’s a game, it’s not just another game. Maybe a whole new platform. That would explain the money.”
“Would it explain how they can fix the state lottery?”
“They aren’t telling me it’s a game. They’re telling me it’s a future. Not ours exactly, because now they’ve messed with us, even just first getting in touch, we’re headed somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“Say they can’t tell. That it’s not like time travel in a show. Just information, back and forth. Minute later here is a minute later there. If I waited a week to go back, it would be a week later there.”
“What’s in it for them?”
“Don’t know. Lev, it’s his house, but really it’s his dad’s other house, so doing this is like Dwight gambling on Operation Northwind. Rich man’s hobby. He pays Ash and Wilf and another guy to run it for him, handle the details. But Wilf, he fucked up, over some woman, and somebody else got in here, where we are, and hired those dead guys from Tennessee to kill my family.”
Janice made her eyes wide as she could. “Brain ’splode.”
“Don’t have the luxury of ’sploding,” Flynne said. “Whatever it is, it’s rolling. With a lot of moving parts, and my brother thinks he can steer it. He’s making deals with Corbell Pickett, he’s setting terms with Lev and them, and it’s about me. Not about me, but I’m the one who saw that asshole. I might be the only one who saw him.”
“Then the first order of business,” Janice said, reaching over to squeeze Flynne’s hand, “is you getting a say in what’s going on.”
44.
PERVERSELY DIFFICULT
Minus Flynne, the peripheral seemed to occupy less space. It was seated where she’d sat earlier, looking at Lev, where he leaned on the edge of the desk. “Things went well,” he said, looking from Netherton to Ash, who was seated in the other armchair. “She’s quite something, isn’t she?”
“I’d spoken with Lowbeer earlier,” Netherton said, “and she’d agreed that a little time outside might be a good idea.” Actually this had been Lowbeer’s suggestion, but Flynne’s visit had gone so well that he felt he deserved some credit. Flynne herself had insisted on going out, for that matter, but it had been Netherton, happening to glance in the direction of Ash’s vase of flowers, who’d suggested the garden. Then they’d found Lev in the garden with Gordon and Tyenna, out to distribute their expensively modified DNA among the hostas.
“Yes,” said Lev, giving him a look, “Lowbeer phoned me as you were on the way up.”
“She’ll be back,” said Ash.
“Lowbeer?” Netherton asked.
“Your polt girl. We do have her attention. Though she isn’t going to do just anything we suggest.” She was looking at Netherton.
“Indeed.”
“You’re supposed to be good at manipulating people,” Ash said. “Frankly, I’ve never been able to see it.”
“I have my moments,” said Netherton. “Results aren’t always replicable. Actually, I’ve noticed that you’re rather good at it yourself.”
“Stop it,” said Lev. “Ash is a bit more of a generalist, while you’re highly specialized. I’m quite satisfied with that.”
“My difficulty,” said Netherton, “is a lack of context. Until you tell me what Lowbeer wants done, what she intends to do, I’ve nothing to work with.”
“What did she tell you when she phoned?” asked Lev.
“I told her that I thought it was best to tell Flynne that this isn’t a game. She agreed, that I should begin to explain the stub, to the extent that I understand it. Which, I gather, really isn’t that much less than your own understanding. Is it true, that you’ve no idea what or where this server is?”
“None,” said Lev. “We assume it’s in China, or is in any case Chinese, but that’s assumption only. Someone has a device that sends and receives information, to and from the past. The act of doing so, initially, generates continua. Unless those continua are already there, some literally infinite number of them, but that’s academic. It’s massively encrypted, whatever it is. It took Ash and Ossian months to find their way in, even with the willing help of several experienced enthusiasts.”
“Perversely difficult,” said Ash.
“But,” asked Netherton, with no re
al expectation of a meaningful answer, “what does Lowbeer want?”
“To learn what happened to Aelita, and why,” Lev said, “and who was responsible.”
“If your taste runs to perverse difficulty,” Netherton said, “getting that out of Daedra and her cohort, assuming they know, should provide it. But that’s not something I want any part of.”
Lev looked at him, then, and he didn’t like it.
45.
UP THERE
I’ll talk to Burton,” Flynne said to Janice. “You talk to Macon. Need the head measurement right away, and printed out.”
“What’ll you do when you get him there? Seriously, honey. That’s a lateral move.”
“I won’t be alone. And I need a witness, somebody to confirm my version. Then we can double-team Burton, if we have to.”
“That why you wouldn’t just take Burton in the first place?”
“I guess. I’m winging it, Janice.”
“You are that,” said Janice.
Flynne turned, reaching for the door handle.
“Hold on a sec,” said Janice. “Costume department.” She was flipping through Burton’s hyper-tidy rod of mostly raggedy clothes, across the front of the Airstream, everything facing in one direction, on identical hangers from Hefty Mart. Janice pulled out something long, shiny, coppery brown. A robe he’d won in a mixed martial arts contest in Davisville, last winter. Ripstop nylon with maroon lapels, a screaming American eagle fabbed across the back. Like a boxer’s robe. She was surprised he’d kept it. “Perfect,” said Janice, holding it open for her.
“That?”
“You just went to the future, hon. Or somewhere they say’s the future. Major event.”
“It’s too big,” Flynne protested, shrugging into it.
Janice wrapped it tight, knotted the maroon belt, readjusted the knot. “Like you just skinned you a Marine combat artist. Best we can do.”
“Okay,” Flynne said, “but you get Macon on that, right?”
“I will.”
Flynne turned, squared shoulders that felt lost in Burton’s robe, and opened the door. A burst of applause.