William Gibson - Virtual Light

“What is it?”

“Allied Messenger, San Francisco. You wanna sign for this?” Except there was nothing, no tag, to sign.

“San Francisco?”

“What it says.”

The door opened a little more. Dark-haired woman in a long pale terrycloth robe. Chevette saw her check the badges on Skinner’s jacket. “I don’t understand” Karen Medelsohn said. “We do everything via GlobEx.”

“They’re too slow” Chevette said, as Sublett stepped around the plant, wearing this black uniform. Chevette saw herself reflected in his contacts, sort of bent out at the middle.

“Ms. Mendelsohn” he said, “afraid we’ve got us a security emergency, here.”

Karen Mendelsohn was looking at him. “Emergency?”

“Nothing to worry about” Sublett said. He put his hand on Chevette’s shoulder and guided her in, past Karen Mendelsohn. “Situation’s under control. Appreciate your co-operation.”

“Wally Divac, Rydell’s Serbian landlord, hadn’t really wanted to loan Rydell his flashlight, but Rydell had lied and promised he’d get him something a lot better, over at IntenSecure, and bring it along when he brought the flashlight back. Maybe one of those telescoping batons with the wireless taser-tips, he said; something serious, anyway, professional and maybe quasi-illegal. Wally was sort of a cop-groupie. Liked to feel he was in with the force. Like a lot of people, he didn’t much distinguish between the real PD and a company like IntenSecure. He had one of those armed response signs in his front yard, too, but Rydell was glad to see it wasn’t IntenSecure. Wally couldn’t quite afford that kind of service, just like his car was second-hand, though he would’ve told you it was previously owned, like the first guy was just some flunky who’d had the job of breaking it in for him.

But he owned this house, where he lived, with the baby-blue plastic siding that looked sort of like painted wood, and one of those fake lawns that looked realer than AstroTurf. And he had the house in Mar Vista and a couple of others. His sister had come over here in 1994, and then he’d come himself, to get away from all the trouble over there. Never regretted it. Said this was a fine country except they let in too many immigrants.

“What’s that you’re driving?” he’d asked, from the steps of the renovated Craftsman two blocks above Melrose.

“A Montxo” Rydell said. “From Barcelona. Electric.”

You live in America” he’d said, his gray hair plastered neatly back from his pitted forehead. “Why you drive that?” His BMW, immaculate, reposed in the driveway; he’d had to spend five minutes disarming it to get the flashlight out for Rydell. Rydell had remembered the time in Knoxville, Christmas day, when the Narcotics team’s new walkie-talkies had triggered every car-alarm in a ten-mile radius.

“Well” Rydell said, “it’s real good for the environment.”

“It’s bad for your country” Wally said. “Image thing. An American should drive some car to feel proud of. Bavarian car. At least Japanese.”

“I’ll get this back to you, Wally.” Holding up the big black flashlight.

“And something else. You said.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“When you pay rent on Mar Vista?”

“Kevin’ll take care of it.” Getting into the tiny Montxo and starting up the flywheel. It sat there, rocking slightly on its shocks, while the wheel got up to speed.

Wally waved, shrugged, then backed into his house and closed the door. Rydell hadn’t ever seen him not wear that Tyrolean hat before.

Rydell looked at the flashlight, figuring out where the safety was. It wasn’t much, but he felt like he had to have something. And it was nonlethal. Guns weren’t that hard to buy, on the street, but he didn’t really want to have to have one around today. You did a different kind of time, if there was a gun involved.

Then he’d driven back toward the Blob, taking it real easy at intersections and trying to keep to the streets that had designated lanes for electric vehicles. He got Chevette’s phone out and hit redial for the node-number in Utah, the one Godeater had given him, back in Paradise. God-eater was the one who looked like the mountain, or so he said. Rydell had asked him what kind of a name that was. He’d said he was a full-blood Blood Indian. Rydell sort of doubted it.

None of their voices were real, even; it was all digital stuff. God-eater could just as well be a woman, or three different people, or all three of the ones he’d seen there might’ve been just one person. He thought about the woman in the wheelchair in Cognitive Dissidents. It could be her. It could be anybody. That was the spooky thing about these hackers. He heard the node-number ringing, in Utah. God-eater always picked up on five, in mid-ring.

“Yes?”

“Paradise” Rydell said.

“Richard?”

“Nixon.”

“We have your goods in place, Richard. One little whoops and a push.”

“You get me a price yet?” The light changed. Somebody was honking, pissed-off at the Montxo’s inability to do anything like accelerate.

“Fifty” God-eater said.

Fifty thousand dollars. Rydell winced. “Okay” he said, “fair enough.”

“Better be” God-eater said. “We can make you pretty miserable in prison, even. In fact, we can make you really miserable in prison. The baseline starts lower, in there.”

I’ll bet you got lots of friends there, too, Rydell thought. “How long you estimate the response-time, from when I call?”

God-eater burped, long and deliberate. “Quick. Ten, fifteen max. We’ve got it slotted the way we talked about. Your friends’re gonna shit themselves. But really, you don’t wanna be in the way. This’ll be like something you never saw before. This new unit they just got set up.”

“I hope so” Rydell said, and broke the connection.

He gave the parking-attendant Karen’s apartment number. After this, it really wasn’t going to matter much. He had the flashlight stuck down in the back of his jeans, under the denim jacket Buddy had loaned him. It was probably Buddy’s father’s. He’d told Buddy he’d help him find a place when he got to L.A. He sort of hoped Buddy never did try that, because he imagined kids like Buddy made it about a block from the bus station before some really fast urban predator got them, just a blur of wheels and teeth and no more Buddy to speak of. But then again you had to think about what it would be like to be him, Buddy, back there in his three-by six-foot bedroom in that trailer, with those posters of Fallon and Jesus, sneaking that VR when his daddy wasn’t looking. If you didn’t at least try to get out, what would you wind up feeling like? And that was why you had to give it to Sublett, because he’d gotten out of that, allergies and all.

But he was worried about Sublett. Pretty crazy to be worried about anybody, in a situation like this, but Sublett acted like he was already dead or something. Just moving from one thing to the next, like it didn’t matter. The only thing that got any kind of rise out of him was his allergies.

And Chevette, too, Chevette Washington, except what worried him there was the white skin of her back, just above the waist of those black bike-pants, when she was curled on the bed beside him. How he kept wanting to touch it. And how her tits stuck out against her t-shirt when she’d sit up in the morning, and those little dark twists of hair under her arms. And right now, walking up to this terracotta coffee-module near the base of the escalator, the rectangular head of Wally’s pepper-spray flashlight digging into his spine, he knew he might never get another chance. He could be dead, in half an hour, or on his way to prison.