Уильям Гибсон - Agency

“Under the circumstances,” Stets said, “yes.”

Virgil looked from Stets to Caitlin, then to Verity, then knelt beside the drone. Verity heard hook and loop fasteners being separated. Soon the black case was folded out flat around it on the carpet.

Legs extruding, it rose, spidery arms still crossed, to step forward, surprising Verity with its steadiness. Now it executed a bow toward Caitlin and Verity. Upright again, it stepped briskly to the orange acrylic coffee table, reaching for a Bay Area lifestyle magazine, small white tongs snicking out from the tips of its arms. Picking the magazine up, it flicked rapidly through, stopping at a page it then displayed to them. A black-and-white portrait of Caitlin. “Design documents Fang originally worked from hadn’t specified manipulators,” Ash said. “We had help with that from a veteran who piloted similar drones in combat.”

It flipped the magazine shut, returning it to the table.

“You introduced Eunice to whoever built this?” Stets asked.

“We put them in her way,” Ash said. “She formed her own relationship with them. Our communication with Eunice was limited.”

“Why was that?” Stets asked.

“That’s complicated,” Ash said. “Perhaps it could wait.”

“Would it have to do with her having had me fabricate something myself?” he asked.

Verity, Caitlin, and Virgil all looked at him. Then back to the drone.

“Which would be?” asked Ash.

“An interface device,” Stets said, producing from behind the lilac couch a large carrying case, in rigid black foam, which he placed on the minibar, beside the drone’s charger. It hadn’t looked very heavy. He unfastened latches that reminded Verity of the drones’ Pelican case, and lifted top and sides away as one, revealing a white, featurelessly feminine foam head in a black cycling helmet. Studded with a variety of black components, it looked like a not-very-enthusiastic cyberpunk cosplay accessory.

“A neural cut-out controller,” Wilf said. “I’m wearing one now. Ash is controlling the drone through it.”

“I thought she wasn’t with you,” Verity said.

“By phone,” Wilf said, “via my controller.”

“Could I do that?”

“No,” said Wilf.

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated,” he said.

“You all say that.”

“Would you like something more to eat?” Caitlin asked her. “We keep forgetting that you’ve had an extremely long day.” With a look for Stets and Virgil.

“I’d like my own phone back,” Verity said. “Short of that, I need to use the bathroom.” She got up.

“I’ll show you where things are,” Caitlin said, standing.

Verity picked up her bag and followed Caitlin into the larger room.

“Is this business,” Caitlin asked, closing the door behind them, “or something else?”

“Business seemed to be how Eunice made things happen,” Verity said, putting her bag down on the bed, “but she didn’t seem to me to be about it.”

“You could say the same of Stets, but I’m sure you know that,” Caitlin said.

“I do, but they’re different.”

“I agree,” said Caitlin. “I gather you knew her better than the others.”

“Yes, but that was from Monday, till this afternoon.”

“Stets doesn’t think of her as human,” Caitlin said, “but speaks of her as though she was.”

“I keep feeling like she was,” Verity said, a tear suddenly sliding down her left cheek.

Caitlin plucked tissues from a dispenser in the bathroom, brought them to her. “You’ll be safe here with Virgil. Stets and I will return to Fremont. You must be exhausted. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“The trailer?”

“Yes. And your Londoners will stay with you as well, because Eunice told Stets that she didn’t want you out of the drone’s sight. You seem to be at the center of something extraordinary. It’s captured Stets’ imagination in a way I haven’t seen before. Where this goes will affect me, unquestionably. But everyone I’ve come to admire, in Stets’ crew, liked you very much.”

Verity looked at her. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome. Get some sleep,” And then she was gone, back through the door, closing it behind her.

Verity turned, taking in the room.

Larger, with a larger bed, a larger television. A square lilac mega-hassock at its center, six feet on a side, atop it a tray with an ice bucket and glasses.

She picked up her bag and took it into the bright bathroom, unzipped and unfolded it, hanging it behind the door, which she then closed. Pulling down the central interior zipper, she found it seemed like everything she’d had at Joe-Eddy’s was there, including, she saw, neatly rolled at the bottom, her mummy-bag liner. Cosmetics in the horizontally zipped pocket to the right, oral hygiene and hair products to the left. Behind the toothpaste, as she’d noted on Fabricant Fang’s roof, her passport. She checked its unsmiling photograph of a visibly younger self, one who hadn’t yet met Stets. Flipping pages, she read her time with him in stamps from places she might never otherwise have visited. Closing it, she tucked it back where she’d found it, brushed her teeth, used the toilet, washed her face and hands, and returned to the first room.

To find Virgil standing with the cosplay helmet in his hands, Caitlin and Stets beside him. “They want you to try it,” he said, with a nod in the direction of the drone.

“London,” said Ash. “Come and see.”

“There’s something I can use there?” Verity asked. “Like the drone?”

“Nothing like the drone,” Ash said. “You’ll see.”

“What would I need to do?”

“Sit on the couch. Virgil will help you with fit and conductivity. You might get a bit of saline paste in your hair, but it washes out. Close your eyes when we tell you to. Open them.”

She looked from the drone to Virgil, then to the lilac leather of the couch, then to Stets and Caitlin, beside Virgil.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” said Caitlin.

“Would you?” Verity asked her.

“I would,” said Caitlin. “Out of curiosity, if nothing else.”

“I’ll do it,” said Verity, “but it can’t be that simple.”

“It’s slightly more complicated,” said Ash.

Verity went to the couch and sat down.

They’ve a controller,” Netherton said to Rainey, having muted himself before he opened his eyes. She sat at the far end of the couch, legs drawn up beneath her chin, feet bare.

Lowbeer’s sigil appeared. “I underestimated Howell’s resources,” she said. “Eunice’s as well. She seems to have proactively copied circuity in the drone. She’d likely no more in mind than Verity being able to control the drone in her stub, should that prove necessary, but you’re about to have a visitor.”

“We are?” Netherton asked.

“Flynne’s peripheral, arriving at your flat shortly,” Lowbeer said.

“Verity, in Flynne’s peripheral?” he asked.

“Excellent!” said Rainey, overhearing.

“Where’s it kept,” Netherton asked, not having thought of this before, “when Flynne isn’t using it?”

“A peri spa, in Floral Street,” said Lowbeer.

“What does it do there?”

“It sleeps,” Lowbeer said, “receives nutrition, does aerobics and yoga, and is cosmetically maintained.”

Had she added sex and recreational drugs, it occurred to him, she might have been describing the lifestyles of any number of acquaintances from his bachelor days.

“She’s entering the mews,” Lowbeer said, her sigil fading.

“Entering the mews now,” Netherton repeated, for Rainey’s benefit. She got up, to walk around and behind the couch, to the window.