William Gibson: Zero history

Gracie sat up, clawing at his neck, then gave the invisible string a vicious yank, blurring the image again.

And then the penguin was rising, slowly, away from him. Milgrim’s thumbs went to the wings. Nothing happened. He tried the tail, tried auto-swim. Nothing. Still rising. He saw Gracie stagger to his feet, sway, then run, out of frame, as the penguin, freed of its unaccustomed ballast of Taser, ascended of its own accord into the calm predawn air of the Thames Valley.

He thought he glimpsed the wheel of the London Eye, just as Fiona thrust her own iPhone in front of his.

What was that?” she asked.

“Milgrim,” he said, shaking his head, “Tasered Gracie. It’s a good thing I’m retiring. Milgrim just saved our bacon.”

“ Milgrim had the Taser?”

“On his balloon. Hello? Darling?” To the headset now. “Get us over the car, please. And hurry, you’re running on fumes.”

“Who was Gracie trying to shoot?”

“Chombo first, I imagine. Do Big End the most harm that way. Either when he saw that we weren’t dealing in good faith, or because he’d planned to all along. Initially, I thought he might just play it straight, local rules, get Milgrim, make his point. Hoping he wouldn’t go the full American on us, in London, in a public place, dead of night. Mad, really. But Milgrim’s secret agent thinks it’s a midlife crisis. If he’d fired, the area would be knee-deep in police in another minute, and entirely the wrong kind. Which would actually put him where we want him, though then they’d likely have us too.”

“He’s an arms dealer. Didn’t you think he might have a gun?”

“Arms dealers are businessmen. Mild old gents, some of them. I knew there was cowboy potential”-he shrugged-“but hadn’t much way to cover it. Just a bodged-up little exploit.” He grinned. “But Milgrim jolted him, sufficient that he left without the gun. Imagine he wants space between it and himself now.” He raised a hand, head tilting, listening. “You didn’t. You did . Bugger .”

“What?”

“Ajay’s sprained his ankle. In a sandbox. Chombo’s run away.” He drew a deep breath, blew it slowly out. “You’re not seeing my machinations at their genius best, are you?”

Something slammed against the back of the truck. “Stay the fuck still!” commanded Heidi, her voice muffled but fully audible through the steel door and two canvas scrims.

Garreth looked back at Hollis. “She’s outside ,” he said.

“I know. I didn’t want to interrupt you. Hoped she was just going for a pee.”

The long zip went up then, and Bobby Chombo was almost simultaneously injected through the fly, his face slick with tears. He fell on the aubergine floor, sobbing. Heidi’s head appeared near the top of the fly. “He’s the one, right?”

“I’ve never told you how very beautiful I find you, have I, Heidi?” said Garreth.

“Pissed his pants,” said Heidi.

“In good company, believe me,” said Garreth, shaking his head.

“Where’s Ajay?” Heidi asked, frowning.

“About to get a Ghurka-ride. Piggyback. He’s been wanting to get to know Charlie better.” He turned back to his screens.

Milgrim’s, Hollis saw, was blank, or rather, dimly Turneresque, faintest pink behind steel gray, the greenish hue gone now. But Fiona’s was very busy. Figures climbing into the black car.

“Go,” said Garreth to the car on the screen, with a little chivying gesture. “ Please go.”

The car drove out of frame.

“I’m going to have to ask you all to step outside for a moment,” Garreth said.

“Why?” asked Heidi’s disembodied head.

“Because I need to do something very dirty,” he said, producing a phone like the one he’d used to take the American agent’s call, “and because I don’t want him”-with a nod in Chombo’s direction-“weeping in the background. Gives the wrong impression.”

Hollis knelt beside Chombo. “Bobby? Hollis Henry. We met in Los Angeles. Do you remember?”

Chombo flinched, his eyes screwed shut.

She sang the opening line of “Hard to Be One,” probably for the first time in a decade. Then sang it again, getting it right, or in any case closer.

He fell silent, shuddered, opened his eyes. “Do you happen to have anything like a fucking cigarette?” he asked Hollis.

“I’m sorry,” she said “I-”

“I do,” said Heidi. “Outside.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Hollis.

“You can have the pack,” said Heidi, spreading the black fly with her white, black-nailed hands.

Chombo was already on his feet, tugging his thin knit coat around him. He glared at Hollis, then stepped gingerly through the zip-toothed vertical gap.

She followed him.

Fiona’s drone’s batteries had died, and it dropped like a stone, almost as soon as Foley and the others had left in the black car. Milgrim had helped her fold the tarp, which was now stuffed into one of the side pockets of his riding jacket, and then had been the one to find the drone, though he’d done so by stepping on it, cracking a rotor housing. She hadn’t seemed to care, tucking it under her arm like an empty drinks tray and quickly leading him to where she’d left her Kawasaki. “We’ll FedEx it back to Iowa and they’ll rebuild it,” she’d said, he’d guessed to stop him apologizing.

Now Milgrim held it as she dug in the eyeball-carrier Benny had mounted over the pillion seat. He shook it gingerly. Heard something rattle.

“Here,” she said, producing a very shiny black helmet, sealed in plastic. She ripped the plastic, pulled it off, took the drone, and handed him the helmet. She put the drone in the carrier, snapped it shut. “You were getting tired of Mrs. Benny’s.”

Milgrim was unable to resist turning it over, raising it, sniffing the interior. It smelled of new plastic, nothing else. “Thanks,” he said. He looked at the Kawasaki. “Where can I sit?”

“I’ll be on your lap, basically.” She reached out, took the strap of his bag, lifted it over his head so that it was on the other shoulder, diagonal across his chest, then kissed him, hard but briefly, on the mouth. “Get on the bike,” she said. “He wants us away from here.”

“Okay,” said Milgrim, breathily, out of hyperventilation and joy, as he put on his new helmet.

Cornwall’s okay,” said Heidi, on Hollis’s iPhone. “Haven’t found a place to spread Mom ’n’ Jimmy yet, but it’s a good excuse for driving.”

“How’s Ajay’s ankle?” Hollis was watching Garreth, on his back on the bed, exercising Frank with a bright yellow rubber bungee. They had the windows open, admitting occasional breezes and the sound of afternoon traffic. It was a larger room than the one she’d had the week before, a double, but it had the same blood-red walls and faux Chinese nonideograms.

“Fine,” said Heidi, “but he’s still using that trick cane your boyfriend gave him. It’s a miracle he’s washed his hands.”

“Has he gotten over the rest of it?”

Ajay had been embarrassed over losing Chombo, and frustrated that he hadn’t gotten a chance to go up against the man with the mullet. Hollis herself, he’d said, could have taken Foley, who’d looked like he belonged in hospital to begin with. And Milgrim, to cap things for Ajay, had taken down Gracie, who’d turned up with not just a gun but an assault rifle. On the upside, Ajay seemed to have bonded with Charlie, and on his return from Cornwall intended to try to learn to make skilled opponents repeatedly fall down, seemingly without touching them. Garreth, Hollis gathered, doubted much would come of this, but didn’t tell Ajay.