William Gibson - Spook Country

The doors of the containers were locked with hinged, vertical steel rods, sealed with tags of metal and colored plastic. He drew the plastic rectangle from the front of his jeans, pulled its paracord over his hard hat, and climbed up the three door-rods, the soles of his Adidas GSG9 boots easily gripping the painted steel of the doors. He climbed, as Ochun suggested, as though he were delighted to do so, with no more purpose in mind than proving that he could.

His breath was loud, in the black respirator. He ignored it. Reaching the damp-slick top of the turquoise container, he climbed up and moved in, away from the edge.

He crouched there, suddenly aware of something he couldn’t name. The goddess, the noise of the port, the old man, the ten painted disks slung around his neck like blank sigils. Something was about to change. In the world, in his life, he didn’t know. He closed his eyes. Saw the blue vase glowing softly, where he’d hidden it, on the roof of his building.

Accept this.

I do, he told her.

Crouching, he moved to the far end of the container. At each corner, as Garreth had explained, there was a bracket, a sort of loop, with which these boxes could be fastened together. He threaded one end of his rope through the bracket on the side furthest from the ocean he could not see. He moved to the opposite end, playing out his rope, and knotted its other end. The black rope slid off the side of the container’s roof, fastened at either end. He looked down at the slack rope, where it hung against the side of the blue container. He hoped he’d judged the give of the nylon correctly. It was good rope, climbing rope.

I do, he said to Ochun, and slid down the rope, slowing himself with the sides of his Adidas.

Slowly, gloved palms against the painted steel, he stood upright on the rope, knees slightly bent. Between the toes of his black shoes, concrete. Directly in front of his face was the first of Garreth’s bullet holes. The steel around it was bare, edges bright. He pulled the first of his magnets from its plastic pocket and placed it over the hole. It bonded with the container with a sharp click, trapping a fold of his latex glove. He carefully tore his hand free, picking off the dangling bit. He moved his left foot, his left hand, his right foot, his right hand. He covered the second hole, careful this time not to catch his glove. A forklift rolled past, beneath him.

He remembered bringing the old man the first of the iPods, in Washington Square, by the chess tables. Snow. He saw now how that had changed things, had brought him here. He covered the third hole. Moved on. He remembered having soup with Alejandro. The fourth disk clicked in place. He moved. Five. Three men walked past, beneath him, their hard hats round buttons of plastic, two red, one blue. He stood with his palms flat against the cold steel. Six. He remembered running with the Guerreros through Union Square. Seven and eight were within a foot of one another. Click, and click. Nine.

He climbed back up, feet against the blue wall. He undid the knot at that end and let the rope go. He walked to the other end, where it hung straight, coiling on the concrete below, and slid down. He pulled down the hot respirator, gulped cool unfiltered air, and flicked the second knot free. The rope fell into his arms and he quickly coiled it, then walked away.

Out of sight of the old man’s container, he tossed the rope, the respirator, and the bag it had come in into a dumpster. He left his shredded gloves on the fender of a forklift. The green jacket went into an empty cement bag, and into another dumpster.

He pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt up and put his hard hat on. Ochun was gone. Now he must get out of this place.

He saw a diesel train-engine rumble slowly past, a hundred yards in front of him, painted with black and white diagonals. It was pulling a train of flatcars, each one carrying a container.

He walked on.

HE WAS ALMOST OUT, when the helicopter came, out of nowhere, sweeping the tracks with its bubble of insanely bright light. He’d just taken ten minutes, trying to find a path through brambles, after jumping off his train. He’d thought he was well clear, that he had plenty of time. Now here he was, jeans caught on wire, on top of this six-foot fence, like a child, no systema at all. He saw the helicopter swing up, then out, toward where the sea must be. Still turning. Coming back. He threw himself off the fence, feeling his jeans tear.

“Dude,” someone said, “you gotta know they got motion detectors in there.”

“Coming back,” another boy said, pointing.

Tito got to his feet, prepared to run. Suddenly the narrow park leapt into shivering, seemingly shadowless incandescence, the helicopter somewhere high above the new green leaves of the trees. Tito and three others, at the core of the beam. Two of them were resting a full-sized electric piano across the back of a bench, giving the helicopter the finger with their free hands. The other, grinning, had a white, wolf-shouldered dog on a red nylon lead. “I’m Igor, man.”

“Ramone.” As the light went out.

“You want to help us move, man? We got a new practice space. Beer.”

“Sure,” said Tito, knowing he needed to get off the street. “You play anything?” asked Igor. “Keyboards.”

The white dog licked Tito’s hand. “Awesome,” said Igor.

M y purse,” she said, as they drove back to Bobby’s. “It’s not in back.” Craning around the seat.

“Sure you didn’t give it to our dustmen?”

“No. It was right there, beside the tripod.” Garreth wanted to give the tripod to the friend who’d arranged the studio for them. It was a good one, he’d said, and his friend was a photographer. Everything else had been passed to his “dustmen,” who’d been waiting in the parking lot, two men in a concrete-spattered pickup, who were being paid to see that it became part of a warehouse foundation they were pouring that morning.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we really can’t go back.”

She thought of Bigend’s scrambler, which she didn’t mind losing at all. But then she remembered the money from Jimmy. “Shit.” But then, strangely, she found she was glad to be done with that as well. Something oppressive about it, wrong. Otherwise, aside from her phone, the scrambler, the keys to the Phaeton and the flat, her license and her single credit card, there was only some makeup, a flashlight, and some mints. Her passport, she remembered now, was back at Bigend’s.

“They must’ve taken it by mistake,” he said. “But that was strictly a one-way transaction. Sorry.”

She considered telling him about the GPS tracker, but decided not to. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Were your car keys in your purse?” he asked, as they turned off Clark.

“Yes. It’s parked up the street and around the corner, here, behind a dumpster, just before you get to your…alley.” She’d just seen a tall figure in black, getting out of a small blue car parked behind the opalescent bulk of the Blue Ant Phaeton.

“Who’s that?”

“Heidi,” she said. As he drove past the blue car and the Phaeton, she saw Inchmale straighten up on the other side, bearded and more balding than she remembered him. “And Inchmale.”

“Reg Inchmale? Seriously?”

“Past the alley,” she said, “pull over here.”

He did. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but I’d better get them out of here. I don’t know what you still have to do, but I’ll bet there’s something. I’ll get them to rescue me. I think that’s probably what they’re here for.”

“Actually,” he said, “that’s a good idea.”

“How do I get back in touch with you?”