William Gibson - All Tomorrow's Parties

'Transaction completed, the ATN said. Rydell turned back in time to see a Lucky Dragon credit chip emerge from the chip slot. He shoved it back in, to see the available come up on the screen. Not bad. Not bad at all. He pocketed the chip put his wallet away, and turned toward the GlobEx concession, which also doubled as the local USPO. Like the ATM, this was another purpose-built node or swelling in the same plastic wall. They hadn't had one of these on Sunset, and Praisegod had had to double as GlobEx clerk and/or USPO employee, the litter causing her occasionally to frown, as her parents' sect identified ill things federal as aspects of Satan.

He who hesitates, Rydell's father had taught him, is safe, and Rydell had tried hard, in the course of his life, to practice that sort of benign procrastination. Just about everything that had ever landed him in deep shit he knew, had been the result of not hesitating. There was in him, he wouldn't know why, that which simply went for it, and somehow at the worst possible time.

Look before you leap. Consider consequences. Think about it.

He thought about it. Someone had taken advantage of his brief but unwilling sojourn in Selwyn Tong's VR corridor to convey the suggestion that he should pick up his credit chip from this particular ATM, and then check GlobEx. This could most easily have been Tong himself, speaking as it were through a hack channel, or it might have been someone, anyone, else, hacking into what Rydell supposed was scarcely a world-class secure site. The hook of the change that had been wrought for Rydell's benefit, though, that had hacker written all over it. In Rydell's experience, hackers just couldn't resist showing off, and they tended to get all arty. And, he knew, they could get your ass in trouble and usually did.

He looked at the GlobEx bulge there.

Went for it.

It took him less time than it had to get the credit chip, to show his license and get the hatch open. It was a bigger package than he'd expected, and it was heavy for its size. Really heavy. Expensive-hooking foam-core stuff, very precisely sealed with gray plastic tape, and covered with animated GlobEx Maximum Express holograms, customs stickers. He studied the waybill. It had come from Tokyo, looked like, but the billing was to Paragon-Asia Dataflow, which was on Lygon Street, Melbourne, Australia. Rydell didn't know anybody in Australia, but he did know that it was supposed to be impossible, and definitely was illegal, to ship anything internationally to one of these GlobEx pickups. They needed an address, private or business. These pickup points were only for domestic deliveries.

Damn. Thing was heavy. He got it under his arm, maybe two feet long and six inches on a side, and went back to get his bag.

Which he saw now was open, on the little counter there, and the guard with the pale eyebrows was holding Rydell's pink Lucky Dragon fanny pack.

'What are you doing with my bag?

The guard looked up. 'This is Lucky Dragon property.

'You aren't supposed to open people's bags, Rydell said, 'says so on the notebook.

'I have to treat this as theft. You have Lucky Dragon property here.

Rydell remembered that he'd put the ceramic switchblade in the fanny pack, because he hadn't been able to think what else to do with it. He tried to remember whether or not that was illegal up here. It was in SoCal, he knew, but not in Oregon.

'That's my property, Rydell said, 'and you're going to give it to me right now'

'Sorry, the man said deliberately.

'Hey, Rydell, said a familiar voice, as the door was opened so forcefully that Rydell distinctly heard something snap in the closing mechanism. 'Son of a bitch, how they hangin'?

Rydell was instantly engulfed in a fog of vodka and errant testosterone. He turned and saw Creedmore grinning fiercely, quite visibly free of the human condition. Behind him loomed a larger man, pale and fleshy, his dark eyes set close together.

'You're drunk, snapped the security guard. 'Get out.

'Drunk? Creedmore winced grotesquely, miming some crippling emotional pain. 'Says I'm drunk. Creedmore turned to the man behind him. 'Randy, this motherfucker says I'm drunk.

The corners of the large man's mouth, which was small and strangely delicate in such a heavy stubbled face, turned instantly down, as if he were genuinely and very, very deeply saddened to learn that it was possible for one human being to treat another in so unkind a way. 'So whump his faggot ass, then, the large man suggested softly, as if the prospect held at least some wistful possibility, however distant, of cheer after great disappointment.

'Drunk? Creedmore was facing the security man again. He leaned across the counter, his chin level with the top of Rydell's bag. 'What kinda shit you tryin' to lay off on my buddy here?

Creedmore was radiating an amphetamine-reptile menace now, his anger gone right off the mammalian scale. Rydell saw a little muscle pulsing in Creedmore's cheek, steady and involuntary as some tiny extra heart, Seeing that Creedmore had the guard's undivided attention, Rydell grabbed his bag with one hand, the pink fanny pack with the other.

The guard tried to snatch them back. Which was definitely a mistake, as the attempt occupied both his hands.

'Suck my dick! Creedmore shrieked, striking with far more speed and force than Rydell would've credited him with, and sank his fist wrist-deep into the guard's stomach, just below the sternum. Taken by surprise, the guard doubled forward. Rydell, as Creedmore was winding back to slug the man in the face, managed to tangle Creedmore's wrist in the straps of the fanny pack, almost dropping the bulky parcel in the process.

'Come on, Buell, Rydell said, spinning Creedmore back out the door. Rydell knew someone would've hit a foot button by now.

'Motherfucker says I'm drunk, Creedmore protested.

'Well, you are, Buell, said the heavy man, ponderously, behind them.

Creedmore giggled.

'Let's get out of here, Rydell said, starting for the bridge. As he walked, he was trying to stuff the fanny pack back into his duffel and trying not to lose his precarious underarm grip on the GlobEx package. A twisting gust of wind blew grit into his eyes, and, blinking down to clear them, he noticed for the first time that the waybill was addressed not to him but to 'Cohn Laney.

Cohn space Laney. So why had they let Rydell pick it up?

Then they were in the thick of the crowd, headed up the ramp of the lower level.

'What is this shit? Creedmore asked, peering up.

'San Francisco-Oakland Bay, Rydell said.

'Shit, Creedmore said, squinting at the crowd, 'smells like a fuckin' baitbox. Bet you, you could get you some weird-ass pussy, out here.

'I need a drink, the heavy man with the delicate mouth said softly.

'I think I do too, said Rydell.

FONTAINE has two wives. Not, he will tell you, a condition to aspire to.

They live, these two wives, in uneasy truce, in a single establishment, nearer the Oakland side. Fontaine has for some time now been opting to sleep here, in his shop.

The younger wife (at forty-eight, by some five years) is a Jamaican originally from Brixton, tall and light-skinned, whom Fontaine has come to regard as punishment for all his former sins.

Her name is Clarisse. Incensed, she reverts to the dialect of her childhood: 'You tek de prize, Fonten.

Fontaine has been taking the prize for some years now, and he is taking it again today, Clarisse standing angrily before him with a shopping bag full of what appear to be catatonic Japanese babies.

These are in fact life-sized dolls, manufactured in the closing years of the previous century for the solace of distant grandparents, each one made to resemble photographs of an actual infant. Produced by a firm in Meguro called Another One, they are increasingly collectible, each example being to some degree unique.