Agency

57 And Back

The car was gone, when Verity looked over her shoulder, but then she remembered its camouflage. “Still there?”

“Cloaked itself,” Rainey said, not bothering to look. “Wilf wonders whether she lives in it.”

“She’s a cop,” Verity said. The way this dead-end alley widened, from Tottenham Court Road back to the front of Wilf’s building, made the perspective feel off. “Told me she was.”

“Officially, yes, though her real job would take longer to explain.”

“Wilf says you’ve explained all of this before, to other people.”

“He has,” Rainey said. “I’m in crisis management, myself. Lowbeer tries to improve things in orphaned stubs. To do that she manipulates the course of their future history, or tries to. It’s all surreptitious, in the stubs themselves, which suits her. It’s how she’s always worked. Wilf’s job is to assist her.”

“People do that here, as a job?”

“Most who do it, do it as a hobby. And not always with the best interests of the stubs they initiate in mind.”

“So what’s her real job?”

“Haven’t time to explain that now, but her avocation is the making of better worlds. Out of yours, for instance.”

Verity looked up at the white-painted brick façade, the dark blue frames and mullions. “This one doesn’t look too bad to me.”

“There’s over a century,” Rainey said, pausing before the door, “between the year you’re from and this one. Most of those years were ugly. Lots of things still are. Not that it looks it, here, to you. Come upstairs.” She showed the door her upraised palm and it swung open.

“What does this body do,” Verity asked, as they stepped inside, “when your friend isn’t using it?”

“She hasn’t used it for months. It lives in a spa for peripherals, near Covent Garden. Its maker’s AI maintains its activities. Exercise, esthetics, nutrition, sleep.”

“Is it conscious?”

The elevator door opened.

Verity stepped in, to be confronted by tripled reflections of the peripheral.

“She,” Rainey corrected, stepping in behind her. “That’s a very political question, here. Personally, I assume she’s sentient, regardless of degree, though I’ve yet to convince Wilf.”

“Whoa,” said Verity, looking from one mirror to the next.

“Sorry,” said Rainey, as the door closed, “forgot about the mirrors. But yes, that’s her, and yes, that’s you, looking out of her.” They were ascending. “How was that, for you, the mirror?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nausea?”

“No.”

“There you go, then. Your transitions here should be progressively easier. The returns are nothing anyway; neurologically, you’re going home.

The door opened. A baby was crying.

“Thomas,” said Rainey. “I’m just in time.” She stepped out, Verity behind her, and took a red-faced Thomas from Wilf.

“Virgil’s concerned about you,” he said to Verity. “Best you go now and reassure him.”

Rainey was in the kitchen with Thomas now, Verity saw, who’d stopped crying. She held an aerodynamic-looking feeding bottle in one hand.

“What do I do, to go back?” she asked Wilf.

“Sit on the couch,” said Wilf. “Close your eyes.”

“And?”

“Open them,” said Rainey, giving Thomas the bottle’s honey-colored nipple. “Transition’s instant, returning. Then have yourself a good stretch. Your body’s scarcely moved, during the time you’ve been here. And remember to hydrate, before you sleep.”

Verity looked at the brown couch. Then back to Wilf. “Looks like I’m in. Lowbeer’s disappearance plan.”

“I know,” he said.

“Will I come back here?”

“I certainly hope so,” said Rainey, looking up from Thomas. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“Thanks,” said Verity, and sat on the couch, arranging the borrowed body in what she hoped would be a comfortable position for it. She took a quick glance around the room, then closed her eyes.

Background sounds of San Francisco traffic, as if a switch had been thrown.

Her back ached slightly. She opened her eyes.

Virgil was peering at her. “You okay?”

She raised her hands from her lap, looking at them, then at him. “Guess so.”

“Where were you?”

She looked at him. “Was I talking?”

“No. You’ve been still the whole time, since I pressed the button on the helmet,” he said. “I was getting worried.”

“They say it’s London, but they also say it’s the future.”

“The future.”

“2136, they said.”

Virgil pursed his lips.

“I know,” she said. “Except it’s not our future.”

“Glad you’re back,” he said.

“You think I’m crazy?”

“A day or two ago, my idea of crazy would have been your digital assistant blowing us out of the Singapore deal. Stets still hasn’t found the time to explain that one to me, but heads would be rolling if we were a different kind of shop. And now he’s all over this, with you and your PA, whatever she is. So you just saw the future? Then look at this thing.” Pointing at the drone. It stood facing the window, its front very close to the drawn drapes, as if it should be wearing a dunce’s hat. “Was the future you saw like that?”

“There’s an apartment,” she said.

“Okay.”

“And a helicopter. But they call it a car.”

“A flying car?”

“It’s invisible.”

“Right.”

“I know. But from up there, it looked like the future. Big towers, the size of the Shard, set out in a grid, either side of the Thames.”

“CG,” he said, “or maybe that helmet you’re wearing, doing something directly to your head? We’ve never been pitched time travel before, though. Free energy, a couple of times, but that’s a genre unto itself.”

“They tell me it’s more like alternate time-tracks. Get this off.” Indicating the helmet. He did. She got to her feet, stretching her arms above her head, and bent to touch her toes.

“We were talking,” a man’s voice said, “then you were gone. Conner, remember?”

Verity straightened, blinking, and looked at the drone, which she saw had rotated to face her. “Why were you up against the curtains, that way?”

“Watching the traffic,” the man said, from the drone’s speaker. “It’s all vintage.”

“Where are you?”

“The White House. Basement of the West Wing.”

“Why?”

“Different stub. A ways up the line from you, except there’s no line. Headed in a different direction, from them and from you.”

“Your name’s Conner?”

“Conner Penske,” he said.

“Drones that people pitched Stets,” she said, “ones that looked anything like that one, made a lot more noise.”

“We upgraded. Had the people who fabbed it use the most bleeding-edge components they could find.”

“I’m so tired I can barely stand up,” she said.

“Bed,” Virgil said, pointing to the other room. “In there. Sleep. That’s the plan. Conner and I’ll be out here.”

“And charging this unit, while we’re at it,” Conner said. “That’s one thing Ash couldn’t get upgraded to anywhere near our standards. Batteries.”

“Good night,” said Verity, reflexively, already headed for the door to the adjoining room.