William Gibson - Zero history

“I asked Bigend. He said they didn’t have anyone watching us.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Depends how much it matters to him. But we’ve got bad history, that way, between us. If he bullshits me again, and I find out about it, I’m gone. He understands that.” She looked Milgrim in the eye. “You aren’t high on anything, are you?”

“No.”

“You seem different. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m in recovery,” said Milgrim. “I’m supposed to be different. If I were high, I wouldn’t be different.”

“You seem angry.”

“Not with you.”

“But you weren’t angry, before.”

“It wasn’t allowed,” he said, and she heard his amazement, as if in saying this he’d discovered something about himself he’d never known before. He swallowed. “I want to find out if Sleight’s telling him where I am. I think I know how to do that.”

“What did Bigend say about Sleight?”

“He warned me to be careful of the Neo.”

“What’s that?”

“My phone. The brand. They’re bankrupt now.”

“Who is?”

“The company who made it. Sleight always knows where I am. The phone tells him. But I’ve known that.”

“You have?”

“I thought Bigend wanted him to. Did want him to, probably. It wasn’t a secret.”

“You think he listens through it?”

“He made me leave it in the hotel, yesterday. Charging. He does that when he wants to reprogram it, add or subtract applications.”

“I thought he was in New York.”

“He programs it from wherever he is.”

“Is he listening now?”

“It’s in my jacket. Over there.” He pointed at the bag check. “I shouldn’t leave it there for long.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Did Blue Ant make the hotel reservations?”

“I did.”

“By phone?”

“Through the hotel’s website. I didn’t tell anyone where we’d be. What do you want to do?”

“We’ll get a cab. You get in first, tell the driver Galeries Lafayette. Sleight won’t hear. Then I’ll get in. Don’t say anything about Galeries Lafayette, or about the hotel. Then I’ll block the GPS.”

“How?”

“I have a way. I’ve already tried it. He thought I was in an elevator.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll get out at Galeries Lafayette, you’ll go on, I’ll unblock my phone. And see if Foley comes to find me.”

“Who’s Foley?”

“Foliage green pants.”

“But what if someone’s here, and they just follow the cab?”

“That’s a lot of people. If they have a lot of people, there’s nothing we can do. They’ll follow you too.” He shrugged. “Where are we staying?”

“It’s called the Odeon. So is the street. And it’s by Odeon Metro. Easy to remember. Your room is on my credit card, and I’ve paid for one night. We have an eight o’clock dinner reservation, near the hotel. In my name.”

“We do?”

“With Meredith and George. I learned something, upstairs, but I think we might learn more, tonight.”

Milgrim blinked. “You want me there?”

“We’re working together, aren’t we?”

He nodded.

“Place called Les Editeurs. George says you can see it from the hotel.”

“Eight,” said Milgrim. “When I get my jacket, don’t forget the phone’s in it. Sleight. Listening. When we get a cab, you get in first, tell the driver Galeries Lafayette.”

“Why there?”

“It’s big. Department stores are good.”

“They are?”

“For losing people.” He was at the counter now, giving the girl his ticket. She passed him his jacket and his black bag. Hollis presented hers and the girl wheeled her roll-aboard out.

“Merci,” said Hollis.

Milgrim had put his jacket on and was already headed out the door.

Kleenex?” Milgrim asked as the cab turned right, into what he recognized as the Rue du Temple. “My sinuses are bothering me,” he added, for Sleight’s benefit.

Hollis, seated to his left, behind the driver, produced a pack from her purse.

“Thanks.” He removed three tissues, handed the pack back, unfolded one, spread it across his knees, and took the Neo from his pocket. He showed it to her, presenting it from different angles, which made him feel something like a conjurer, though he was none too certain about what his trick might be.

The cab turned left, into another street, one that doubled back at a sharp angle. He imagined Sleight watching a cursor represent this on a screen. It seemed unlikely, though he couldn’t understand why that should be. He knew that Sleight did things like that, constantly. Sleight could be watching on the screen of his own Neo.

Milgrim lay the Neo on the Kleenex, resting it in the valley between his knees, opened the other two sheets, and began to carefully polish it. When he was finished, he remembered having idly removed the back, on the flight to Atlanta. Now he opened it again, rubbing down the inside of the battery cover and the exposed face of the battery, then replacing it. When he’d finished rubbing down the outside, he carefully folded the first tissue around it and slipped it into his pocket. He crumpled the other two and wiped his palms with them.

“Have you been in Paris before?” Hollis asked.

She seemed relaxed, her purse on her lap, the dark collar of the denim jacket turned up. “Once,” he said, “when I was just out of Columbia. For a month, with another graduate. We sublet an apartment.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“It was nice, to be here with someone.”

She looked out the window, as if remembering something, then looked back at him. “Were you in love?”

“No.”

“A couple?”

“Yes,” he said, though it seemed strange to say it.

“It didn’t work, for you?”

“I wasn’t available,” he said. “I didn’t know that, but I wasn’t, really. I learned that in Basel.” He remembered Sleight, their hypothetical listener. He pointed at the pocket that held his tissue-wrapped Neo.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

They took a right, then left again, at an intersection where he glimpsed a sign for the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis Metro, and into heavier traffic.

They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then he undid the top button of his shirt and drew out the Faraday pouch.

“What’s that?”

“Metro station,” he said, for Sleight, then touched his index finger to his lips.

She nodded.

He opened the pouch, inserted the Neo, then closed it. “It blocks radio signals. Like when you’re in an elevator. If he was listening, he can’t hear us now. And he just lost track of where we are.”

“Why do you have it?”

“He gave it to me,” he said. “It’s for my passport. He’s worried someone will read the microchip.”

“Do they do that?”

“People like Sleight do.”

“How does it work?”

“It has metallic fibers. When I tested it, before, he lost me. Thought I was in an elevator.”

“But if it’s that easy,” she said, “why did he give it to you?”

“He insisted on it,” said Milgrim. “I think he really does worry about the chip-reading thing. It’s something he’s done himself.”

“But he gave you your means of avoiding surveillance, right there.”

“When I put it in the pouch, before, that was the first time I did something that I knew he wouldn’t want me to do. I wasn’t well, when I met him. He worked for Bigend and I did what I was told.”

She looked at him. Then nodded. “I understand.”

“But Sleight,” he said, “really liked it, having someone who’d do exactly what he said.”