William Gibson - Pattern Recognition

She sees the cabbie glance at her in his mirror.

Aeroflot flight SU244, departing Heathrow at ten-thirty in the evening, proves to be a Boeing 737, not the Tupolev she'd been hoping for. She's never been to Russia before, and thinks of it primarily in the light of childhood stories of Win's; the world beyond the perimeters of the world he'd been dedicated to protecting; a world of toilet-navigating spy devices and ceaseless duplicity. In her childhood's Russia it's always snowing. Men wear dark furry hats.

She wonders, finding her aisle seat in coach, whether Aeroflot had had to compete to retain the hammer and sickle as its logo, and how exclusive that is. Massive recognition factor. It's a winged version, rendered with considerable delicacy, and she finds it curiously difficult to date: a sort of Victorian Futurist look. She has a neutral reaction to it, she finds, which is a great relief.

National icons are always neutral for her, with the exception of Nazi Germany's, and this not so much from a sense of historical evil (though she certainly has that) as from an awareness of a scary excess of design talent. Hitler had had entirely too brilliant a graphics department, and had understood the power of branding all too well. Heinzi would have done just fine, back then, but she doubts that even he could have managed a better job of it.

Swastikas, and particularly the fact that there had been that custom type-slug for “SS,” induce a violent reaction, akin to her Tommy-phobia but in an even worse direction. She'd once worked for a month in Austria, where these symbols are not suppressed by law, as they are in Germany, and had learned to cross the street if she realized she was approaching the window of an antique shop.

The national symbols of her homeland don't trigger her, or so far haven't. And over the past year, in New York, she's been deeply grateful for this. An allergy to flags or eagles would have reduced her to shut-in status: a species of semiotic agoraphobia.

She stows her Rickson's in the overhead bin, takes her seat, and slides the bag with the iBook beneath the seat in front of her. The legroom isn't bad, and thinking this she experiences a kind of pseudo-nostalgia for Win's version of Aeroflot: vicious flight attendants flinging stale sandwiches at you, and small plastic bags provided in which to place pens, a thoughtful precaution against frequent depressurizations. He'd told her that Poland, from the air, looked like Kansas as farmed by elves; the patchwork fields so much smaller, the land as flat and vast.

Soon they are taxiing toward takeoff, the seats beside her empty, and it strikes her that, through luck, and for little more than she'd paid earlier for express service on a visa, she'll have almost as much space and privacy as she'd had to and from Tokyo.

Magda, who'd turned up in Voytek's stead to get the keys, knows where she's going, and her mother, on whom she's finally taken mercy with an e-mail, and Parkaboy. These three know she's going, but someone else, she doesn't know who, knows she's coming.

The Boeing's turbines shift pitch.

Hi Mom,

I hope you'll forgive my silence, or anyway not take it personally. I've completed the job I came here for, and have been hired by the man who runs/owns the company to do something more directly on his behalf — cultural investigation, not to sound so mysterious about it, around some new ideas about film distribution and how films can be structured. Sounds dull but actually I've been completely fascinated by it, which is largely why you haven't heard from me. Also, I think it's been good for me to get out of New York and stop thinking so much about Dad, which may also be why I haven't been writing. I know we've agreed to disagree about the EVP thing, but those clips you sent really creep me out. Can't think of a more honest way to put it. But, for all of that, I dreamed of him recently and he seemed to give me a very specific piece of advice, which I acted on, and which proved correct, so maybe there's a point where we don't entirely disagree on that stuff. I don't know. I just know that I'm finally coming to terms with the idea that he really is gone, and the insurance stuff and the pension and all of that just feels like red tape. I wish that was over but sometimes I wonder if it ever will be. Anyway, I'm also writing to say that I'm headed for Moscow tonight, on that same business I mentioned. It's strange to finally be going to the place that Dad was always going off to when I was a kid. It's never seemed like a real place, to me, more a fairy tale; wherever it was that he'd come back from with those painted wooden eggs and his stories. I remember him telling me that it was just a matter of keeping them more or less in check until the food riots started, and when it all just changed, no food riots, I remember I reminded him of that. He said they'd been done in by the Beatles, so the food riots hadn't had to happen. The Beatles and losing their own Vietnam. Have to go now, I'm in departure at Heathrow. I'm glad you're at Rose of the World because I know you like those people. Thanks for keeping in touch and I'll try to do a better job of that myself.

Love, Cayce

I never really imagined writing to tell you this, but I may have found him. Actually I may have had an e-mail from him, to which I am about to reply. I'm at Heathrow, waiting to get on the red-eye to Moscow, arr 5:30 A.M. tomorrow. That's where he says he is. I found somebody who was able to do something with that number of Taki's, don't ask me how (actually much better we don't know) and got me an email address. I did something weird. Sitting in a park and started writing him a letter, not one I was ever going to send. Kind of like writing a letter to God, except I had the address, and I put it in and then I guess I sent it. I didn't mean to, or even, actually, see myself do it, but it sent. Less than half an hour, reply come. Said he was in Moscow. Look, I know you want to know EVERYTHING but there's not much else, not much content in the reply, and I don't want to copy you on that, not this way. Actually the way I got that address has left me feeling that none of what we do here is ever really private, and the last thing I want, right now, is to attract any attention. So bear with me, Parkaboy; hang in; more will be revealed. Maybe even all. Whatever, there's a chance I'll know more tomorrow, and then I'll call you. Need to info-dump bigtime. Am I excited? I guess so; it's funny but I can't even tell. It's like I don't know whether to scream or shit.

Hello! Thank you for replying. I don't really know what to say, but I'm happy you answered, and excited. You're in Moscow? I am going to be in Moscow tomorrow, on business. My name is Cayce Pollard. I will be at The President Hotel, if you'd like to call me there. But you can also e-mail me. I hope you will. Regards, CayceP

Reviewing these on the iBook, when they've reached cruising altitude, she doesn't want to think what she'll feel like, tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, if she receives no reply to this last one. Which she supposes is a real possibility.

Russia. Russia serves Pepsi. She sips some.

Dorotea's handler from Cyprus, who is also the registrant of armaz.ru. She wonders what other Russian elements may have come up on F:F:F, during consideration of the footage.

Slotting the F:F:F CD-ROM, which she still hasn't had copied for Ivy, she goes to its search function.

What comes up, to her surprise, is a very early post of her own, well down a thread that begins with someone entertaining the possibility that the maker is an established cineast working in anonymous secrecy.

This doesn't work for me. Not just because we can't seem to agree on who, if that's the case, it might be, but because it's too obvious, too right in front of our noses. Why couldn't it, say, be some Russian mafia kingpin, with a bent for self-expression, a previously undiscovered talent, and the wherewithal to generate and disseminate the footage? That's deliberately farfetched, but it's not utterly impossible. What I'm saying is that I don't think we're getting lateral enough, here.