William Gibson - Zero history

“Not really,” he’d said. “The rest of it, the reconstruction, physiotherapy, that’s less fun. Do you know I’ve a rattan thighbone?” He grinned at her, evilly, sitting more upright.

“What’s that?”

“Rattan. The stuff they weave baskets and furniture out of. They’ve found a way to turn it into a perfect analog of human bone.”

“You’re making that up.”

“They’re just starting to test it on humans. On me, in fact. Works a charm, on sheep.”

“They can’t. Turn that into bone.”

“They put it in ovens. With calcium, other things. Under pressure. For a long time. Turns to bone, near enough.”

“No way.”

“If I’d thought of it, I’d have had them make you a basket. Brilliant thing about it, you can build exactly the bone you need, out of rattan. Work it as rattan. Then ossify it. Perfect replacement. Actually a bit stronger than the original. Microscopic structure allows the blood vessels to grow through it.”

“Don’t mess with me.”

“Tell me more about what this Milgrim said, to Mr. Big End,” he’d said. He always pronounced it that way, as though it were two words.

She found the receiver, feeling more absurdly massive in the dark than ever, lifted it. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” said Bigend. “Be in the sitting room.”

“What time is it?”

“Eight-fifteen.”

“I’m asleep. Was.”

“I need to see you.”

“Where’s Milgrim? And Heidi-”

“We’ll be discussing him shortly. Heidi’s no part of it.” He hung up.

She squinted at the glow around the edges of the curtains. Returned the receiver as quietly as she could to its cradle. Garreth’s breathing continued, unchanged.

She sat up, carefully. Made out the dark horizontals of his legs. He’d insisted on sleeping in his trousers and stocking feet. On his bare chest, she now knew, were new scars, healed but still livid, next to older ones she could have sketched from memory. She stood, padded into the bathroom, closed the door behind her, and turned on the light.

Ferguson,” said Winnie Tung Whitaker, “the one with the mullet. He was on Gracie’s Heathrow flight, from Geneva.”

In the glow of the Air’s screen and backlit keyboard, Milgrim was huddled at the desk, cowled in the MontBell sleeping bag. He’d tried sleeping, but had kept getting up to check Twitter. On the sixth or seventh try, her response had been this number in the United States. On checking her card, he’d seen that it was her cell number. Some research in the paper telephone directory under the swatch books had provided the necessary dialing prefixes. “The one with the pants?” he asked, hoping he was wrong.

“ Mike Ferguson. See? I told you.”

“When are you going back?”

“Actually, this story of yours might call for leave en route.”

“What’s that?”

“The one scam still permitted federal employees, we like to call it. I’m TDY now. Temporary duty, business travel. If I can get permission, I can take two days’ vacation. Sixteen hours of annual leave. When I saw your tweet, I e-mailed my boss. It’ll be on my own nickel, though.” She didn’t sound happy about that. “On the other hand, this is getting really interesting. Not that my boss would find it interesting enough to keep me here on per diem. That trick you played in Paris, though, I wouldn’t have expected that from you. What’s up?”

“I don’t know.” It was true.

“That was the Parsons grad, the designer, the wannabe SpecOps boy. And that dumbfuck attempt on your boss’s truck would be him too.”

“It was,” said Milgrim. “I saw him.”

“I mean it wasn’t Gracie or Ferguson. They were still going through immigration at Heathrow. Once they got through, though, they’d be apprised of what he’d done, and what had happened. The interesting thing, then, becomes how Gracie might react to that. If he were smart, he’d let it go, fire the designer. Who’s clearly worse than clueless. And it isn’t that Gracie’s not intelligent. He’s highly intelligent. Just not smart. Did you tell Bigend?”

“Yes,” said Milgrim. “I think I told him everything you wanted me to.”

“Did you tell him about me?”

“I showed him your card,” Milgrim said. It was on the desk now, in front of him.

“Describe his reaction.”

“He didn’t seem worried. But he never does. He said that he’d had some experience with U.S. federal agents.”

“He might have just a little under five hundred pounds of very highly trained Mike on his hands soon, between the two of them. You’ll need to keep me informed. Got a phone?”

“No,” said Milgrim, “I left it in Paris.”

“Tweet me. Or call this number.”

“I’m glad about your leave.”

“Not a done deal yet. Let’s hope it works out. Watch out for yourself.” She hung up.

Milgrim replaced the weightless plastic handset in its recess on top of the phone, causing a backlit white panel to go out.

He looked at the clock in the upper right corner of the screen. Jun was supposed to arrive in a few hours. It wouldn’t yet be light out now. Wrapped in the MontBell, he went back to the foam.

There were few guests for breakfast.

The Italian boy and another waiter were arranging screens, to the west of the narwhale rack. She’d seen these deployed here before, for the heightened privacy of business breakfasts. The screens were made of what she’d assumed to be extremely old tapestries, faded to no particular color, a sort of variegated khaki, but now she noticed that they depicted scenes from Disney’s Snow White . At least they didn’t appear to be pornographic. She was about to take her accustomed seat, beneath the spiral tusks, when the Italian boy noticed her. “You’ll be here, Miss Henry,” indicating the newly screened table.

Then Bigend appeared at the head of the stairs, moving quickly, trench coat over his arm, the aura of his blue suit almost painful.

“It’s Milgrim,” he said, when he reached her. “Bring coffee,” he ordered the Italian boy.

“Certainly, sir.” He was gone.

“Has something happened to Milgrim?”

“Nothing’s happened to Milgrim. Milgrim has happened to me.” He tossed his trench coat over the back of his chair.

“What do you mean?”

“He tried to blind Foley, so-called, outside Bank Station. Last night.”

“ Milgrim? ”

“Not that he told me about it,” said Bigend, sitting down.

“Tell me what’s happened.” She sat opposite him.

“They came to Voytek’s flat this morning. They took Bobby.”

“Bobby?”

“Chombo.”

The name, once heard, recalling the man. Encountered first in Los Angeles, and then, under very different circumstances, in Vancouver. “He’s here, in London? Who came?”

“Primrose Hill. Or was, until this morning.” Bigend glared at the Italian girl, arriving with the coffee. She poured for Hollis, then for him.

“Coffee will be fine for now, thanks,” Hollis told her, hoping to give her a chance to escape.

“Of course,” said the girl, and ducked smoothly behind the apparently four-hundred-year-old Disney screen.

“He was a mathematician,” Hollis said. “Programmer? I’d forgotten him.” Perhaps partly because Bobby, a markedly unpleasant personality in his own right, had been so deeply embedded in that first experience of Bigend being, in many ways, so bad to know. “I remember that I thought you seemed to be courting him, in Vancouver. As I was leaving.”

“Extraordinary talent. Terrifically narrow ,” he said, with evident relish. “Focused, utterly.”