Read Online Zero History by William Gibson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William Gibson
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you totally out. Why?”
“I guess I need the money.”
“How bad did the crash do you?”
“About half.”
Heidi nodded. “Did everybody about half. Unless you had somebody like fuckstick doing your investing for you.”
“And you didn’t?”
“Are you kidding? Separation of church and fucking state. Always. I never thought he had any sense that way anyway. Other people did, though. Know what?”
“What?”
“The salt of the fucking earth never tells you it’s the salt of the fucking earth. People who get scammed, they’re all people who don’t know that.”
“I think I’ll have a whiskey.”
“Be my guest,” said Heidi. Then smiled. “Good to fucking see you.” And started to cry.
10. EIGENBLICH
M ilgrim woke, took his medication, showered, shaved, brushed his teeth, dressed, and left the Neo charging but turned on. The U.K. plug-adaptor was larger than the phone’s charger. Keeping the dressmaker’s dummy out of his field of vision, he left the room.
In the silent Japanese elevator, descending three floors, he considered pausing to Google Hollis Henry on the lobby MacBook, but someone was using it when he got there.
He wasn’t always entirely comfortable with the lobby here, what there was of it. He felt like he might look as though he were here to steal something, though aside from his wrinkled post-flight clothing he was fairly certain he didn’t. And really, he thought, stepping out into Monmouth Street and tentative sunlight, he wouldn’t. Had no reason to. Three hundred pounds in a plain manila envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket, and nothing, today, telling him what he needed to do with it. Still a novel situation, to a man of his history.
Addictions, he thought, turning right, toward Seven Dials’ namesake obelisk, started out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, showed you things you hadn’t seen, were fun. But came, through some gradual dire alchemy, to make decisions for you. Eventually, they were making your most crucial life-decisions. And they were, his therapist in Basel had said, less intelligent than goldfish.
He went to Caffè Nero, a tastier alternate-reality Starbucks, crowded now. He ordered a latte and a croissant, the latter shipped frozen from France, baked here. He approved of that. Saw a small round table being vacated by a woman in a pinstriped suit and swiftly occupied it, looking out at the Vidal Sassoon, across the little roundabout, where young hairdressers were going in to work.
Eating his croissant, he wondered what Bigend might be up to with designer combat pants. He was a good listener, careful to not let people know it, but Bigend’s motives and modus eluded him. They could seem almost aggressively random.
Military contracting was essentially recession-proof, according to Bigend, and particularly so in America. That was a part of it, and perhaps even the core of it. Recession-proofing. And Bigend seemed centered on one area of military contracting, the one in which, Milgrim supposed, Blue Ant’s strategic skill set was most applicable. Blue Ant was learning everything it could, and very quickly, about the contracting, design, and manufacture of military clothing. Which seemed, from what Milgrim had seen so far, to be a very lively business.
And Milgrim, for whatever reason or lack of one, was along for the ride. That was what Myrtle Beach had been about.
Volunteer armies, the French girl had said, the one who’d worn the plaid kilt at yesterday’s meeting, in an earlier PowerPoint presentation that Milgrim had found quite interesting, required volunteers, the bulk of them young men. Who might otherwise be, for instance, skateboarding, or at least wearing clothing suggestive of skateboarding. And male streetwear generally, over the past fifty years or so, she said, had been more heavily influenced by the design of military clothing than by anything else. The bulk of the underlying design code of the
“I guess I need the money.”
“How bad did the crash do you?”
“About half.”
Heidi nodded. “Did everybody about half. Unless you had somebody like fuckstick doing your investing for you.”
“And you didn’t?”
“Are you kidding? Separation of church and fucking state. Always. I never thought he had any sense that way anyway. Other people did, though. Know what?”
“What?”
“The salt of the fucking earth never tells you it’s the salt of the fucking earth. People who get scammed, they’re all people who don’t know that.”
“I think I’ll have a whiskey.”
“Be my guest,” said Heidi. Then smiled. “Good to fucking see you.” And started to cry.
10. EIGENBLICH
M ilgrim woke, took his medication, showered, shaved, brushed his teeth, dressed, and left the Neo charging but turned on. The U.K. plug-adaptor was larger than the phone’s charger. Keeping the dressmaker’s dummy out of his field of vision, he left the room.
In the silent Japanese elevator, descending three floors, he considered pausing to Google Hollis Henry on the lobby MacBook, but someone was using it when he got there.
He wasn’t always entirely comfortable with the lobby here, what there was of it. He felt like he might look as though he were here to steal something, though aside from his wrinkled post-flight clothing he was fairly certain he didn’t. And really, he thought, stepping out into Monmouth Street and tentative sunlight, he wouldn’t. Had no reason to. Three hundred pounds in a plain manila envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket, and nothing, today, telling him what he needed to do with it. Still a novel situation, to a man of his history.
Addictions, he thought, turning right, toward Seven Dials’ namesake obelisk, started out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, showed you things you hadn’t seen, were fun. But came, through some gradual dire alchemy, to make decisions for you. Eventually, they were making your most crucial life-decisions. And they were, his therapist in Basel had said, less intelligent than goldfish.
He went to Caffè Nero, a tastier alternate-reality Starbucks, crowded now. He ordered a latte and a croissant, the latter shipped frozen from France, baked here. He approved of that. Saw a small round table being vacated by a woman in a pinstriped suit and swiftly occupied it, looking out at the Vidal Sassoon, across the little roundabout, where young hairdressers were going in to work.
Eating his croissant, he wondered what Bigend might be up to with designer combat pants. He was a good listener, careful to not let people know it, but Bigend’s motives and modus eluded him. They could seem almost aggressively random.
Military contracting was essentially recession-proof, according to Bigend, and particularly so in America. That was a part of it, and perhaps even the core of it. Recession-proofing. And Bigend seemed centered on one area of military contracting, the one in which, Milgrim supposed, Blue Ant’s strategic skill set was most applicable. Blue Ant was learning everything it could, and very quickly, about the contracting, design, and manufacture of military clothing. Which seemed, from what Milgrim had seen so far, to be a very lively business.
And Milgrim, for whatever reason or lack of one, was along for the ride. That was what Myrtle Beach had been about.
Volunteer armies, the French girl had said, the one who’d worn the plaid kilt at yesterday’s meeting, in an earlier PowerPoint presentation that Milgrim had found quite interesting, required volunteers, the bulk of them young men. Who might otherwise be, for instance, skateboarding, or at least wearing clothing suggestive of skateboarding. And male streetwear generally, over the past fifty years or so, she said, had been more heavily influenced by the design of military clothing than by anything else. The bulk of the underlying design code of the
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