Nicola Griffith - Slow River

“Do you understand, Bird?”

Behind me I could hear the damn rake whining as it caught on something again. I pulled my mask off, jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “What do you want me to do about that?”

“Follow the regs, Bird. And don’t let your productivity drop.”

I think I surprised us both by laughing. “I’m good, Magyar, but not that good. Make up your mind: the regs, or productivity. Your choice. Doesn’t matter much to me.” I looked sideways at Paolo. “Why don’t you go check on that rake while the shift supervisor and I have a little talk.”

He retreated obediently.

Magyar was furious. “I could have you fired!”

“Then why don’t you?” She couldn’t, we both knew that. I was the best worker she had. She looked as though she was going to say more but I was tired of this, and my PIDA was safe. “Go harass someone else. Let me do my job.” I pulled my mask back up and waded out to help Paolo. I just hoped Spanner had not lost any of her skill, or I would be out of a job by midnight.

The rest of the shift was hard, but I felt curiously light. Whatever I had started on the roof last night and continued at Tom Wilson’s was still going on.

At the shift break I left Paolo with Kinnis and Cel, and took my egg rolls into a corner. I wanted to think.

I felt good. I was beginning to stand up for myself. I felt a little nervous, maybe. This was, after all, uncharted territory. Before, I could do or say anything I wanted: I was a van de Oest, with name, power, money, and education behind me. Now, though, it was just me speaking as me. The name didn’t matter.

I listened to the rain that was now pounding down on the glass roof, and smiled. I was finding I was maybe more than who I had thought. It pleased me.

I still felt good as I left the plant, even when a truck pulling into the yard drove right through a puddle and drenched me with cold, muddy water.

The truck pulled up, the window wound down. “Sorry about that!” the driver shouted. We both looked at my dripping coat. I was wet through.

“I thought I’d missed the rain,” I said, and smiled to show I knew it wasn’t his fault. He waved and the truck moved another twenty yards to the unloading bay. The logo read BIOSYSTEMS . I didn’t think anything more of it.

When Spanner opened the door and motioned me in, I was grateful for the stifling heat. My wet clothes began to steam gently.

“I thought it had stopped raining.”

“Careless driver.” I was glad she was still in a good mood.

“Ah. Well, give me your coat. My robe’s in the bathroom if you want to get the rest off.” She saw me hesitate. “Unless you want to freeze to death it’s that or watch me try light a fire.”

“Once was enough.” I headed for the bathroom.

“Hand me your wet things. I’ll dry them while you shower,”

The bathroom hadn’t changed. I stripped, turned on the shower, and climbed into the tub. The hot water was wonderful.

I had forgotten how fine thick, old silk felt on warm, freshly scrubbed skin. I tied the belt, and wiped my hand across the mirror to look at myself.

Spanner’s reflection stared back at me from behind my shoulder. I was proud of myself for not jumping.

“That brown does suit you.” She nodded at my hair, then walked back into the living room. “Lotion and everything is still in the cabinet,” she called.

I stared at the cabinet for nearly two minutes before I had the courage to open it. When I did, the breath hissed between my teeth in a combination of relief and disappointment: no small glass bottle, half full of oily liquid. I closed the door, turned away, and realized the muscles across my belly were tight, my breathing hoarse. Even now, after months, I wanted to feel that oil under my chin, be kissed with its musky scent in my nostrils, surrender to it hungrily. I went into the living room. From the kitchen came the lazy thump and tumble of my clothes in the dryer.

“I’ve made tea.” Spanner was sitting on the rug, near the tin-topped table.

“I don’t want any,” I said brusquely. I was angry, angry that the drug had not been there. That I had wanted it so badly. That I had not been faced, at least, with a choice. I had wanted the drug, I knew that, but now I wouldn’t know whether or not I could also have refused it.

“It’ll warm you up. No? To business, then.” She poured for herself. “I assume you’ve given some thought to how long your clip will have to stand up to scrutiny?”

“A standard thirty-second spot should do it. But most of the money that’s going to be donated will be within the first ten or twelve. I’ve told you about Stella’s friends, the rivalry between them to give as much as they can as fast as they can. Judging by the society and celebrity gossip news, it’s still fashionable to be the first to give to a new charity.”

I remembered Stella at Ratnapida V-handing the screen scanner, laughing at beating out her friends. And the amounts had not been small. “So it all depends on how well the equipment from Hyn and Zimmer will perform—”

“Good for several minutes.”

“—and where and how the money will be moved around.”

That was the sticking point. Now that Ruth would no longer help with false physical ID, the bank accounts would be harder.

But Spanner smiled her narrow-eyed smile. “Since you’ve left I’ve become much more sophisticated. I have this program that will skip credit through the edges of slush funds—the ones no one dares to look at too closely, anyway.”

“Like?”

“Like the accounts the various media use to pay their ‘unofficial sources’ at various levels of government; like the accounts the police use to pay their informants.”

Programs like that were not easy to get. “Where did you get it?”

“A… client. And it’s safe enough.”

If, as I suspected, she had extorted it from a daisy chainer or cajoled it as payment from a sex client, then she was more than likely right. Still… “Have you tested it?”

“Once.”

I could only accept her at her word. “I’ll want my share in debit cards, immediately. The minute we can verify the money in our chosen account.”

“Agreed.”

I decided I wanted some tea, after all. “Hyn and Zimmer still think they can get us the equipment?”

“Any day. They sent me the specs earlier tonight.” She stood, turned on her screen. “Come over here.” I brought my tea. “Take a look. Fabulous stuff. If you could make a clip good enough, I could hold the net for six or seven minutes with these.”

In the glow of the spidery schematics, her face looked softer. I had almost forgotten how appealing she was when she was alight with enthusiasm. I had to fight the urge to touch her cheek. I stepped back a little. “Where are you going to get the money?”

“I’ll get it in time, don’t worry.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the technical specs.

“But I do worry.” She looked so happy, so vulnerable. “Look, Spanner, we could just forget this. I mean, I know I owe you money, but I could pay it gradually. A bit every time I get paid.”

“Are you out of your mind?” The hard lines were back, grooved on each side of her mouth. She stabbed a finger at the screen. “Look at that stuff. It’s hard to get, expensive, and already ordered. We can’t just turn around and say, Oops, sorry boys and girls, we changed our minds! And how much do you earn a month, anyway? Not even enough to pay my expenses for two days! I need money now, not in dribs and drabs over the next few years. No. You heard what Hyn and Zimmer said about these people. There’s no way out now but through.”

I hated her then, for getting herself trapped in such a way that all she could do was dig herself a deeper hole, but then I laughed at myself. Wasn’t that what I was doing? We stared at each other a moment. Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her.