2

James was unamused. “How did she know?”

“She said everyone knows,” said Sam.

The little garden had a clutch of bamboos, a pond, a tiny stone bridge, and two benches. James took one. Sam and Lucia took the other.

“Two hundred alks.” James yawned. “Remember the Floor of Six? How many were there?”

Sam shuddered. “I don’t…I don’t.”

“Seven. And we did just fine. Pie’s getting big. Seven’s too few now, but two hundred? Too many mouths, too many favours, but it’s not my call and not my problem. Shall we?”

Thirty minutes flew by in a daze. Sam did not know where they were headed, nor did she ask –somewhere on the same Floor, away from the Pillar, but still close to the centre where the streets were swept clean every two hours. Manors grew large until each was a sprawling compound. Patrols of fusiliers nodded at James as they passed through. They all seemed to know him.

Sam thought of the man in the coffin, how he had looked familiar but…not, like she had sketched his face in her mind and then let it rot. Her father’s repose had somehow engraved itself into the back of her right eye, where the migraine lurked, ever ready to bloom.

They were walking down a garden grown wild. Nothing of beauty grew in the native soil of the Floors: twisted vines, weeds, sickening little bundles of what had once been grass a hundred generations ago. They grew like carnivores, deformed and hungry, eating into brick and stone. An effort had been made to keep the path clear, but only just.

The mansion was gargantuan and dishevelled, half-ruined except for the thousands of electric cables running through the walls, the roof, the windows, gaps on the wall. The double doors were solid bronze, studded with what looked like rusted nails. A ceramic nameplate suggested that this was the residence and offices of Joran Guiyu, Encoder and Consultant.

James raised his hand then thought better of it. Lucia knocked.

A woman in lacy underwear opened the door. Her skin was perfect like porcelain, her hips glistening like marble. A veil covered her eyes but her lips were bare and red like fresh roses. She stepped aside to let in her guests, her movement fluid, her hips swaying as if every minute motion was an art piece, and therein hid the lie – no one would sensually open the door to strangers and then close it behind them while thrusting out their hips. This was an ambler – flawless like a doll, but dead.

“I made that,” commented James.

“How much would you –”

“Three million upfront, a hundred thousand a year for basic upkeep. Don’t look at me. The –” James mimed the swaying hips. “– Joran did that.”

A voice yelled from upstairs. “Cowen! You can’t just override my Ring, it’s against your Terms of Service.”

The first floor was one massive workshop. Black paint covered every window. Every light bulb, every candlestick, was caged inside some dark mesh that shifted their hue to a bloody red. Every conceivable surface was covered in black tape. Thousands of spinning copper cylinders sat on shelves, tables, chairs, the floor. Black tape gushed through them in a never-ending conveyance, scratching and buzzing like a hive of crawling insects.

A lumbering pile of a man sat in the middle of it all, crouched behind a desk stacked high with tape. He wore blackout goggles despite the gloom, and the folds of his arm were spread out like counterweights.

“Don’t…you’re stepping on Lionel’s upgrade,” he wheezed. “What are you doing here? We’re not due for another – what day is it?”

“Keeping busy?” asked James.

“Get out of her way!” the encoder yelled. The sexy ambler-thing squeezed past Sam, shoving its breasts in her face. Sam shied away, not so much disgusted as concerned about its pathfinding. “Joy, take them downstairs,” he said, flashing a topaz Command Ring on his little finger.

“No,” said James. The ambler stuttered and did not move.

“Cowen! Stop it! You are breaking my immersion!”

“What were you doing with Robert?”

One by one, the cylinders stopped. The creepy rustling receded until there was only silence…and the encoder’s hyperventilation. “What did you say?”

“I’ve no right to ask, I know, and it’s none of my business, and really I shouldn’t put my nose into your business, that’s rude, obviously, but curiosity overwhelms me.”

“It’s none of your business.”

The Maestro turned to Sam. “Joran and I went to school together. He was the son of a uh…what do you call it?”

“Lingerie.”

“Lingerie conglomerate, and I was just some kid, but we have always respected each other. Me for his uh…rigid mind, and he for my…what do you like me for?”

“Get out of my house.”

“Neither of us would be where we are now if not for the other. I was once a child.” James raised his hand, and the Green effervesced from his fingertips. The ambler went to him and, to Sam’s astonishment, began to pirouette like a ballerina. “I made a mistake. He helped me when no one else could, and it was not a favour I can repay with money or…toys. We shall always be friends, no matter what, because I owe him my life – so to speak.”

The encoder took off his goggles, and Sam started. The man’s eyes glittered in the dark, not of Green but like some reflective metal had been planted in his retina. They were fixed on the ambler, now seemingly floating in the air with one leg raised over its head. “That,” he said, almost salivating. “I need an imprint of that.”

“You can have it for free.”

“They wanted for the Perfect Vessel. I told them it’s impossible, but they keep asking how I made yours,” he jerked a thumb at Lucia. “I told them it’s not the same and they wouldn’t listen, so now they are running prototypes.”

“For what?”

“I just told you, the Perfect Vessel.” Joran looked at Sam as if only now realizing she was there. “You. I saw you on…ahhhh…”

“A happy coincidence,” said James.

“I want thirty thousand a month for the rest of my life. Plus protection.”

“Not possible. One word from him and you will never see another room. One from me and your toy breaks your neck. This is what happens when you play both sides.”

“Play? Play?!” The hyperventilation was gone. So was the slightly panicked what’s-going-on demeanour. The encoder Joran Guiyu squinted at James as if he were a stain. “I just want to live, Cowen! I code! I’m good at it! And if that gets me caught up in your little game of whose-turn-is-it-to-fuck-shit-up then that’s the cost of doing business, I’ve made my peace with that – but I’m not a player. It is you, the both of you, that keep pulling me in! You owe me,” he jabbed at Lucia. “more than you can ever, ever, comprehend.”

“I already said that.”

“So don’t you come to my house and threaten me like I’m some idiot. Every other day some guy shows up and says they’ll hurt me if I don’t do what they say, then they give me wagonloads of money to do five minutes of work. Am I – what am I missing here? Why can’t you just ask nicely? It’s just business, Cowen. It’s only personal to you.”

James stopped. Even in the dim light Sam could tell he was grinning. “Wow,” he said. “You alright?”

“My blood pressure,” Joran grumbled, “but I’m not the one that needs to relax.”

“Joran has a way with words,” James shrugged. “He’s too smart for politics but he can beat us all if he tried.”

“Who are you talking to?” the encoder scoffed, then he turned on Sam and looked at her like she was a rock that had gained sentience. “Does he keep you around so he can talk to himself?”

“I think so,” said Sam.

“You necromancers are all fucked in the head,” Joran declared. He fiddled with a panel of switches on his desk and the copper cylinders around the room began to cycle up. “Are we done? Are you going to leave me alone?”

“The Perfect Vessel –”

“Still working on it. Not gonna stop. They want it finished by the plenum.”

“Is that possible?”

“No,” the encoder cleared his throat and suddenly he was hyperventilating again. “Jack Finley doesn’t want it done.”

“You contradict yourself.”

“No one’s smart when it comes to life and death, Cowen. Look how much you are paying me.” He slipped on his goggles. “Get out of my house. Wait, before that, give me the imprint.”

“For what?”

“For the fucking pep talk.”

James laughed. He picked out a roll of tape and ran his hand along its length. The Green trickled from his fingertips, but instead of fading away it began seeping into the surface like water into a sponge. The cylinders spun to a higher pitch. The entire room seemed to resonate.

“A thing followed me here,” James said softly, casually. “Looked like a butler. Glasses.”

“Prototypes,” said Joran, softly, casually. “They are amalgams, like Lucia.”

“Nothing is like Lucia.”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

“If you finish this thing, this Perfect Vessel, does it…”

“You can’t bring the dead back to life, Cowen. I’ve said it for a decade: give up and enjoy your life.”