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  He opened his eyes, finding the headless figure, smaller now, arms at its sides, alone on that yellow plane.

  “Grid’s in meters,” Ash said. “Here’s a jump from standing, knees bending backward.” It bent its knees backward, shoulders canting slightly forward, and sprang toward them, a full three squares.

  “Like a bird,” he observed.

  “No. Birds have knees like ours, but we mistake their ankles for their lower legs.”

  Could that be true? he wondered.

  “Regardless,” she said, “each wheel has its own motor. They’re extended now, under power.” It rolled smoothly toward Netherton, legs immobile, turned, circled back. “It can also jump with wheels under power.”

  “How did you learn to do this?”

  “Practice, on this period sim. Easier than you’d think.” She raced it toward the horizon, executing a leap that amounted to flying. To land again, still speeding along. “Stop making those tense little sounds,” she said.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You were subvocalizing.”

  “How will I be controlling it?”

  “It’s not a Wheelie. Nor a peri,” she said, doing something that caused the circular feed to fold seamlessly around his head, a full 360 of vision.

  He stood alone, as if he were the thing itself, upright on the metrically gridded plane. “Neural cut-out’s in effect,” she said. “Raise your right arm. It will do the same, but your right arm won’t actually move.”

  He did. “Like a peri.”

  “It can’t emulate the movements of a human body as accurately, given its form. It somewhat approximates them, within available ranges. What you’re going to be doing now, for the most part, is internalizing those ranges. Advance your right foot.”

  He did.

  “Your left.”

  He did, seeing the perspective change slightly.

  “That’s with your wheels retracted,” she said. “Now repeat, indefinitely, as we learn to walk. Toward the horizon.”

  “Will it all be this tedious?”

  “Jumping at speed is quite euphoric, with a little practice, but first you must learn to walk.”

  “How far?”

  “Until you don’t have to think about it.”

  He got on his way then, toward the horizon that seemed to grow no closer, meter by square yellow meter.

  29

  LEGION

  Joe-Eddy woke her with a stoneware mug of coffee, the product of one or another single-cup device sharing a crowded shelf in his kitchen cabinet. He was wearing the orange plaid shirt-jacket. At least it fit him.

  “McWolven time,” he said, putting the mug down on the café chair, beside the Tulpagenics glasses and the headset. He returned to the kitchen.

  She vacated what he called her larva costume and occupied the bathroom, where her bag now hung, unfolded, on the back of the door. When she was finished there, and trusting in Eunice’s glitch this time, dressed, she went back to the living room and put on the glasses and the headset.

  “We have a Tulpagenics employee on Wolven’s webcam,” Eunice said, showing Verity a thumbnail of a pink-haired girl. “Reading her as coincidental. She’s a receptionist, wasn’t there when you went in to see Gavin. She’s with her sister and three Facebook friends. They all fit my local face-mapping.”

  “The Uber outfit isn’t represented?” Verity asked.

  “What Uber outfit?” asked Joe-Eddy, coming back along the hallway in the white Korean AR goggles, flip-flops now replaced with age-inappropriate fluorescent sneakers.

  “Followrs,” said Eunice, Verity guessing she was showing him something.

  He stood, reading empty air. “Been hoping that whole story was The Onion,” he said.

  “I’ve taken care of them,” Eunice said, “for this morning, anyway. Gavin had a dozen headed for the Mission earlier, so I downloaded the app and paid for each of them to be followed by two more, and each of those by two more, till I’d used up all the Followrs in SF and they were pulling people in from Oakland.”

  “Nice,” said Joe-Eddy, admiringly.

  “Can they tell it was you?” Verity asked.

  “Gavin’s going to have his suspicions,” Joe-Eddy said.

  “You know him?” Verity asked.

  “No, but Eunice, last night, or one of her new parts, left some files for me.”

  “I don’t get this ‘new parts’ part,” Verity said.

  “Say somebody wrote a self-replicating platform,” he said, “then loaded Eunice, whatever we mean by that, as core entity. The platform spawns subagents as it encounters situations that might benefit from attention. They then provide that attention. Recruiting me in Frankfurt, say, or compiling a dossier on Gavin. Then they report back, show their work, and get subsumed into her Borg.”

  “I told her that,” Eunice said.

  “He makes it easier to understand,” Verity said.

  “There’s a school of scenario-spinning,” Joe-Eddy continued, “that sees the most intense AI change drivers as machine-human hybrids. Radical augmentations of human consciousness, not code trying to behave like it. So here’s Eunice, and that’s how she self-describes, experientially. Scenario fits, wear it till you need a new one.”

  “Table for two, coming up in Wolven,” Eunice said. “Verity goes straight to the back, secures it as the tech bros are getting up, while Joe-Eddy orders, brings it to the table. Execute.”

  And Joe-Eddy was out the door, heading down the stairs, Verity not far behind him.

  The stools along the counter at the front window, she saw as she entered, were occupied by soft grunge girls in pastel plaid flannel. Two had pink hair, the cursor going to the one with LATINX crewel-worked in fancy capitals across her shoulders, who Verity assumed was the Tulpagenics employee.

  She headed for the rear, where a pair of Filson-clad, meticulously bearded young men were indeed pushing back their chairs as she arrived to claim their table. Seated, she watched Joe-Eddy paying for and collecting their breakfast.

  Said he knew what you wanted.

  He brought over two McWolvens and two black coffees, on a larger gray tray. As he arrived, phones began to ding and chirp around them, notification tones, bringing an instant cessation of conversation, everyone but Verity looking at their own small screen.

  “What’s that?” Verity asked, as Joe-Eddy put down the tray. She hadn’t had any notifications turned on since she’d split with Stets.

  “Presidential tweet,” said Joe-Eddy, looking at his own phone. “But it just says negotiations are ongoing. ‘We got this,’ basically.”

  Democrats called her tweets “Churchillian,” someone had said, while Republicans called them “Orwellian.”

  Looks like we have Gavin incoming.

  “We do?”

  He has people watching. Doubt it’s anything to do with the Tulpagenics kids over there. But they want me to see him coming, otherwise he wouldn’t be walking the last two blocks. They’d have dropped him at the door. Eat up and get moving, Joe-Eddy.

  “What?” Joe-Eddy asked. “I’m chopped liver?”

  Table for two. ETA in five.

  Joe-Eddy started finishing his McWolven.

  “Why’s he coming here?” Verity asked.

  I shut Cursion out, when you and I met, so he had the cams installed. Now he only gets your half of any conversation we have, when we’re in the apartment, and I’m doctoring that anyway, which I doubt he knows. He’ll use the excuse of having the convo he promised you to try to get more of a sense of what I’m up to.

  Thumbnails opening, on Gavin walking past 3.7, headed their way. One of them framed his face, unsmiling in close-up, the drone evidently flying directly in front of him, unnoticed. First time she’d seen him not smiling. Maybe this was just resting-Gavin-face. “When you first had
them shut out,” Verity asked Eunice, “why didn’t they just come and get their hardware back?”

  Because they need to see what I can do. They just don’t want me doing too much of it.

  The thumbnails closed.

  “I’m out of your way,” Joe-Eddy said. He drank the last of his coffee, stood, picked up the tray, his plate and mug on it, and carried it to the bussing cart.

  Verity got to work on her own McWolven.

  When Gavin entered, she’d nearly finished it.

  He smiled, from beneath the brim of a black bucket hat. He was wearing Tulpagenics’ other option in frames, fake tortoiseshell with fake gold trim, bordering on sexy librarian.

  Gavin, hey.

  “Eunice,” he said, smile widening. “Verity.”

  Only sees what I text to him.

  “Coffee?” Verity asked. “I’m still working on this one.”

  “I will, thanks,” he said, and went to the counter.

  Nothing I’ve been able to see in their comms suggests they’re onto us, but a total lack of supposition that we’re up to anything suggests that they are. Probably passing notes under tables right now, because they don’t know what I might be able to read or overhear.

  “Okay,” Verity said, barely voicing it, watching Gavin’s back at the counter. Thumbnails opened, aerial drone views of Valencia, the cursor darting between individual pedestrians, none of them familiar.

  He has enough backup outside for an abduction, but I think he’s just here to test the waters.

  He brought a mug of coffee, taking the seat Joe-Eddy had vacated, and removed his hat. “It’s Wednesday morning,” he said. “You started with us Monday afternoon. How are you liking it, so far?” He smiled.

  I’m not liking you knowing where I’m having breakfast, Verity considering saying, then decided it would be pointless.

  Keep it vague.

  “It’s been interesting,” Verity said, “as I assume you’d expect.”

  “You’re getting along?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “I ask,” he said, “because, as you may or may not know, Eunice has chosen from the start to exclude us entirely from your interactions.”

  Thinks they got an idea of us together for the first time, last night. They still can’t hear me, on your earbud, and they probably haven’t guessed that I’m spoofing your side of our conversation.

  “I assumed we’d be monitored,” Verity said. “If we weren’t, you’ve missed out on some long discussions of her favorite film.”

  He tilted his head. “Favorite film?”

  “Inception.”

  “Haven’t seen it.”

  “It’s about dreams,” Verity said.

  Eunice opened a thumbnail, angle down, on the back of Gavin’s head, from the wall behind him. Verity resisted glancing up to look for the drone. He had the beginning of a bald spot.

  Like when you said my name, in your office, that first time? I woke up in a dream.

  Gavin brightened, obviously having read this. “Then I’m watching it this evening.” He smiled. “We’ve assumed you’ve needed some quiet time, Eunice, to get to know Verity, and vice versa. Naturally, though, we’ve been curious about how things have been going.” He wore, she now saw, an earpiece identical to hers.

  “When I called you,” Verity said, “after Eunice and I first met, I was having a hard time getting my head around the idea of her. I think she’s mostly gotten me over that, but who built Eunice out?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but my own agreement specifically forbids me discussing that with anyone not named in it.”

  “Here,” said Eunice, abandoning Helvetica as a thumbnail opened, “let’s try it this way.” Her avatar had morphed again, the fade still rising to the curly-topped plateau, but attitude had softened, maybe even bone structure. “That’s my first question too. Who put me together? What for? You didn’t think I’d be curious?”

  “Personally,” he said, “I can understand your asking, but I’m not in a position to discuss it.” Smiling.

  “My second question,” Verity said, “is what steps you imagine would be necessary to bring an initial version to market?” Channeling Virgil wrecking an underprepared pitch.

  He smiled, hitting her personal smiles-per-encounter limit. “Someone suggested, this morning, that you yourself would make an interesting candidate for an in-house user-modeling study. Model the app after the app whisperer.”

  “Do you have the capacity for that?” Verity asked

  “We have Eunice. Think of it as reverse engineering.”

  My ass.

  Verity caught the avatar’s smile. “You’re reverse engineering her?”

  “Would you be interested? I doubt anyone knows what a contract for that would look like. But we’re definitely interested.”

  “I’m definitely not interested.”

  “It’s out of the blue,” he said, “but in the meantime, there’s our inability to document your interactions. An initial period of privacy seems understandable”—he smiled—“at least to me, but in terms of your contract with Tulpagenics, it’s not going to fly.”

  “You guys talking about me like I’m not here,” said Eunice. “You want access, Gavin?” The avatar tilting its head. “To us?”

  “We need to be able to evaluate your interaction, ongoing. That’s why we brought Verity on, after all.”

  “Be my guest.” The avatar grinned.

  “Meaning?” He blinked.

  “It’s done,” the avatar said. “As of now.”

  He can’t specifically ask for my side of it, because that gives away the bug situation, so we just started giving him a spoofed version of my side that matches up with the spoofed version of yours.

  Gavin smiled. “Thank you, Eunice. That makes a big difference. What do the two of you have planned for the rest of the day?”

  “Maybe walk around the Mission,” Eunice said. “See what we can find to talk about.”

  He took his first sip of coffee, then put the mug down. “Wish I could say the same, but I’m needed at the office. Happy campers there, at least, with Eunice having been so understanding. We’ll have you by, later this week. People are excited to meet you both.” Pushing back his chair, he rose.

  Make nice.

  “Good seeing you, Gavin,” Verity said.

  “Same,” said Eunice’s avatar.

  A last smile, putting on his hat. “Later, this week.” He turned. With his back to them, he waited for the soft grunge girls, now exiting as a flock, to clear the entrance. When they had, he followed.

  Verity, now remembering that she’d seen the one with LATINX on her shirt at Tulpagenics, saw the drone duck under the lintel after him. “What the fuck was that about?” she asked.

  “He’s in over his head,” Eunice said. “Scared shitless. Maybe just now getting more of an idea where they got me from.”

  “I don’t want to work for him.”

  “Compared to the people he’s working for, he could be employer of the year. Could be he’s just getting that, too, though I doubt it. But we got other things going on. You know this Guilherme?” Eunice asked, opening a thumbnail, no audio, down on Joe-Eddy in his kitchen, listening to someone she did recognize, though the name was unfamiliar.

  “How do you spell that?”

  Guilherme.

  “Joe-Eddy only ever calls him the Manzilian. Another infosec consultant.”

  “Sure. And the local footprint of a Brazilian hacker family. Joe-Eddy’s negotiating with them.”

  “With frequent-flyer points.”

  “Sevrin’s a big help, that way.”

  The Manzilian finished whatever he was saying. Joe-Eddy replied.

  “What are they talking about?”

  “Buying server farms,” said
Eunice.

  “What’s Cursion hearing them talk about?” Remembering the Robertson-head screws.

  “Soccer.”

  “How do you keep this all sorted?”

  “My ass is legion,” said Eunice.

  30

  TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD

  Walking home, from Hanway Street to Alfred Mews, Netherton imagined himself boldly wheeling, broad-shouldered and headless.

  The various surfaces of pavement would allow it, he judged. He’d never been fond of either athletics or virtual games, but to Ash’s surprise had attempted a number of the drone’s varied modes of locomotion. He’d wound up keeping her at it longer than he’d felt she wanted, and that had been satisfying in itself.

  There was little traffic now. Ahead, the smooth, white, inhumanly slender figure of a Michikoid gracefully strode through a crossing. Were they still a stylishly retro choice for party help? He felt a certain satisfaction in no longer knowing . . .

  Rainey’s sigil pulsed. “Could you bring milk?” she asked. “We’re out.”

  “A liter?”

  “Two. Where are you?”

  “Tottenham Court Road,” he said, “on my way home.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Learning to skate.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “In a sim. With Ash.”

  “Still less so,” she said.

  “She was finding it rather tedious, the extent to which I enjoyed it.”

  “Don’t forget the milk.”

  As her sigil dimmed, a sliding shadow eclipsed the road. Looking up, he saw the segmented ventral surfaces of a particularly large moby, quite low, a flock of gulls wheeling behind it. He stopped, to stand beneath it as it passed, wishing Thomas were here, who might make a sound perhaps, reaching out to touch it, not understanding how high it was.