William Gibson: All Tomorrow's Parties

Whir of the platform as Tessa brought it up behind her.

'What is it? Chevette asked.

'Watch the driveway.

Chevette moved closer to the screen. The deck, slung out over the sand…

The space between the house and the next one. The driveway. With Carson's car sitting there.

'Shit, Chevette said, as the Lexus was replaced with the between-houses view on the other side, then a view from a camera under the deck.

'Been there since 3:24.

The deck…

'How'd he find me?

Between houses…

'Web search, probably. Image matching. Someone was uploading Pictures from the party. You were in some of them.

The Lexus in the driveway. Nobody in it.

'Where is he?

Between the houses…

Under the deck…

'No idea, Tessa said.

'Where are you?

Deck again. Watch this and you start to see things that aren't there. She looked down at the mess on the counter and saw a foot-long butcher knife lying in what was left of a chocolate cake, the blade clotted with darkness.

'Upstairs, Tessa said. 'Best you come up.

Chevette felt suddenly cold in her bike shorts and T-shirt. Shivered. Left the kitchen for the living room. Pre-dawn gray through walls of glass. English lain stretched, snoring lightly, on a long leather couch, a red LED on his motion-capture suit winking over his sternum. The lower half of Lain's face never seemed to be in focus to Chevette; teeth uneven, different colors, like he was lightly pixilated. Mad, Tessa said. And never changed the suit he slept in now; kept it laced corset-tight.

Muttered in his sleep, turning his back to her as she passed.

She stood with her face a few inches from the glass, feeling the chill that radiated from it. Nothing on the deck but a ghostly white chair, empty beer cans. Where was he?

The stair to the second floor was a spiral, wedge-shaped sections of very thick wood spun out from an iron shaft. She took that now, the carbon-fiber pedal clips set into the soles of her shoes clicking with each step.

Tessa waited at the top, slim blonde shadow bulked in a puffy coat Chevette knew was burnt-orange in daylight. 'The van's parked next door, she said. 'Let's go.

'Where?

'Up the coast. My grant came through. I was up talking to Mum, telling her that, when the boyfriend arrived.

'Maybe he just wants to talk, Chevette said. She'd told Tessa about him hitting her that time. Now she half regretted it.

'I don't think that's a chance you want to take. We're away, right? See? I'm packed. Bumping her hip against the bulging rectangle of a gear bag slung from her shoulder.

'I'm not, Chevette said.

'You never unpacked, remember? Which was true. 'We'll go out over the deck, go 'round past Barbara's, get in the van: we're gone.

'No, Chevette said, 'let's wake everybody up, turn on the outside lights. What can he do?

'I don't know what he can do. But he can always come back. He knows you're here now. You can't stay.

'I don't know for sure he'd try to hurt me, Tessa.

'Want to be with him?

'Did you invite him here?

'No.

'Want to see him? Hesitation. 'No.

'Then get your bag. Tessa pushed past, leading with the gear bag. 'Now, she said, over her shoulder, descending.

Chevette opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. Turned, felt her way along the corridor, to the door to her room. A closet, this had been, though bigger inside than some houses on the bridge. A frosted dome came on in the ceiling when you opened the door. Someone had cut a thick slab of foam so that it fit the floor, down half the length of the narrow, windowless space, between an elaborate shoe rack of some pale tropical hardwood and a baseboard of the same stuff. Chevette had never seen anything made of wood that was put together that well. The whole house was like that, under the sharehouse dirt, and she'd wondered who'd lived in it before, and how they'd felt about having to leave. Whoever it was, to judge by the rack, had had more shoes than Chevette had owned in her life.

Her knapsack sat at the end of the narrow foam bed. Like Tessa had said, still packed. Open, though. The mesh bag with her toilet stuff and makeup beside it. Skinner's old biker jacket hung above it, shoulders set broad and confident on a fancy wooden hanger. Black once, its horsehide had gone mostly gray with wear and time. Older than she was, he'd said. A pair of new black jeans were draped over the rod beside it. She pulled these down and worked her feet out of the riding shoes. Got the Jeans on over her shorts. A black sweatshirt from the open mouth of the knapsack. Smell of clean cotton as she pulled it over her head; she'd washed everything, at Carson's, when she'd decided she was leaving. She crouched at the foot of the foam, lacing up lug-soled high-tops, no socks. Stood and took Skinner's jacket from the hanger. It was heavy, as if it retained the weight of horses. She felt safer in it. Remembering how she'd always ridden with it in San Francisco, in spite of the weight. Like armor.

'Come on. Tessa, calling softly from the living room.

Tessa had come over to Carson's with another girl, South African, the day they'd first met, to interview him about his work at Real One. Something had clicked; Chevette smiling back at the skinny blonde whose features were all a little too big for her face; who looked great anyway and laughed and was so smart.

Too smart, Chevette thought, stuffing the mesh bag into the knapsack, because now she was on her way to San Francisco with her, and she wasn't sure that was such a good idea.

'Come on.

Bent to stuff the mesh bag into the knapsack, buckle it. Put that over her shoulder. Saw the riding shoes. No time now. Stepped out and closed the closet door.

Found Tessa in the living room, making sure the alarms on the sliding glass doors were deactivated.

Tessa tugged one of the doors open, just wide enough to get out, its frame scraping in the corroded track. Chevette felt cold sea air. Tessa stepped out, reached back through to pull her gear bag out.

Chevette stepped through, knapsack rattling against the frame. Something brushed her hair, Tessa reaching out to capture God's Little Toy there. She handed the inflated platform to Chevette, who took it by one of the propeller cages; it felt weightless and awkward and too easy to break. Then she and Tessa both grabbed the door handle one-handed, and together they pulled it shut against the friction of the track.

She straightened, turned, looked out at the lightening gray that was all she could see of the ocean now, past the black coils of razor wire, and felt a kind of vertigo, as though for just a second she stood at the very edge of the turning world. She'd felt that before, on the bridge, up on the roof of Skinner's place, high up over everything; just standing there in a fog that socketed the bay, throwing every sound back at you from a new and different distance.

Tessa took the four steps down to the beach, and Chevette heard the sand squeak under her shoes. It was that quiet. She shivered. Tessa crouched, checking under the deck. Where was he?

And they never saw him, not there and not then, as they trudged through the sand, past old Barbara's deck, where the wide windows were all blanked with quilted foil and sun-faded cardboard. Barbara was an owner from before the Spill, and not often seen. Tessa had tried to cultivate her, wanted her in her documentary, an interstitial community of one, become a hermit in her house, holed up amid sharehouses. Chevette wondered if Barbara was watching them go, past her house and around between it and the next, back to where Tessa's van waited, almost cubical, its paintwork scoured with windblown sand.

All this more dreamlike somehow with each step she took, and now Tessa was unlocking the van, after checking through the window with a flashlight to see he wasn't waiting there, and when Chevette climbed up the passenger side and settled in the creaking seat, blanket laced over ripped plastic with bungee cord, she knew that she was going.