"Fuck!" Tom, the second one, said. "Les, you stupid cunt! Now they got our
names, too!" The hand he'd put in his pocket came out, holding a tazer that
sparked and hummed. "Gotta get rid of 'em now."
Art smiled, and reached very slowly into his pocket. He pulled out his comm,
dislodging Les's wallet so that it fell to the street. Les, Tom and Tony stared
at the glowing comm in his hand. "Could you repeat that, Tom? I don't think the
999 operator heard you clearly."
Tom stared dumbfounded at the comm, watching it as though it were a snake. The
numbers "999" were clearly visible on its display, along with the position data
that pinpointed its location to the meter. Les turned abruptly and began walking
briskly towards the tube station. In a moment, Tony followed, leaving Tom alone,
the tazer still hissing and spitting. His face contorted with frustrated anger,
and he feinted with the tazer, barking a laugh when Art and Linda cringed back,
then he took off at a good run after his mates.
Art clamped the comm to his head. "They've gone away," he announced, prideful.
"Did you get that exchange? There were three of them and they've gone away."
From the comm came a tight, efficient voice, a male emergency operator. The
speech was accented, and it took a moment to place it. Then Art remembered that
the overnight emergency call-centers had been outsourced by the English
government to low-cost cube-farms in Manila. "Yes, Mr. Berry." His comm had
already transmitted his name, immigration status and location, creating a degree
of customization more typical of fast-food delivery than governmental
bureaucracies. That was bad, Art thought, professionally. GMT polezeidom was
meant to be a solid wall of oatmeal-thick bureaucracy, courtesy of some crafty,
anonymous PDTalist. "Please, stay at your current location. The police will be
on the scene shortly. Very well done, sir."
Art turned to Linda, triumphant, ready for the traditional, postrhetorical
accolades that witnesses of his verbal acrobatics were wont to dole out, and
found her in an attitude of abject terror. Her eyes were crazily wide, the
whites visible around the irises -- something he'd read about but never seen
firsthand. She was breathing shallowly and had gone ashen.
Though they were not an actual couple yet, Art tried to gather her into his arms
for some manly comforting, but she was stiff in his embrace, and after a moment,
planted her palms on his chest and pushed him back firmly, even aggressively.
"Are you all right?" he asked. He was adrenalized, flushed.
"*What if they'd decided to kill us*?" she said, spittle flying from her lips.
"Oh, they weren't going to hurt us," he said. "No guts at all."
"God*dammit*, you didn't know that! Where do you get off playing around with
*my* safety? Why the hell didn't you just hand over your wallet, call the cops
and be done with it? Macho fucking horseshit!"
The triumph was fading, fast replaced by anger. "What's wrong with you? Do you
always have to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? I just beat off those
three assholes without raising a hand, and all you want to do is criticize?
Christ, OK, next time we can hand over our wallets. Maybe they'll want a little
rape, too -- should I go along with that? You just tell me what the rules are,
and I'll be sure and obey them."
"You fucking *pig*! Where the fuck do you get off raising your voice to me? And
don't you *ever* joke about rape. It's not even slightly funny, you arrogant
fucking prick."
Art's triumph deflated. "Jesus," he said, "Jesus, Linda, I'm sorry. I didn't
realize how scared you must have been --"
"You don't know what you're talking about. I've been mugged a dozen times. I
hand over my wallet, cancel my cards, go to my insurer. No one's ever hurt me. I
wasn't the least bit scared until you opened up your big goddamned mouth."
"Sorry, sorry. Sorry about the rape crack. I was just trying to make a point. I
didn't know --" He wanted to say, *I didn't know you'd been raped*, but thought
better of it -- "it was so...*personal* for you --"
"Oh, Christ. Just because I don't want to joke about rape, you think I'm some
kind of *victim*, that *I've* been raped" -- Art grimaced -- "well, I haven't,
shithead. But it's not something you should be using as a goddamned example in
one of your stupid points. Rape is serious."
The cops arrived then, two of them on scooters, looking like meter maids. Art
and Linda glared at each other for a moment, then forced smiles at the cops, who
had dismounted and shed their helmets. They were young men, in their twenties,
and to Art, they looked like kids playing dress up.
"Evening sir, miss," one said. "I'm PC McGivens and this is PC DeMoss. You
called emergency services?" McGivens had his comm out and it was pointed at
them, slurping in their identity on police override.
"Yes," Art said. "But it's OK now. They took off. One of them left his wallet
behind." He bent and picked it up and made to hand it to PC DeMoss, who was
closer. The cop ignored it.
"Please sir, put that down. We'll gather the evidence."
Art lowered it to the ground, felt himself blushing. His hands were shaking now,
whether from embarrassment, triumph or hurt he couldn't say. He held up his
now-empty palms in a gesture of surrender.
"Step over here, please, sir," PC McGivens said, and led him off a short ways,
while PC Blaylock closed on Linda.
"Now, sir," McGivens said, in a businesslike way, "please tell me exactly what
happened."
So Art did, tastefully omitting the meat-parlor where the evening's festivities
had begun. He started to get into it, to evangelize his fast-thinking bravery
with the phone. McGivens obliged him with a little grin.
"Very good. Now, again, please, sir?"
"I'm sorry?" Art said.
"Can you repeat it, please? Procedure."
"Why?"
"Can't really say, sir. It's procedure."
Art thought about arguing, but managed to control the impulse. The man was a
cop, he was a foreigner -- albeit a thoroughly documented one -- and what would
it cost? He'd probably left something out anyway.
He retold the story from the top, speaking slowly and clearly. PC McGivens aimed
his comm Artwards, and tapped out the occasional note as Art spoke.
"Thank you sir. Now, once more, please?"
Art blew out an exasperated sigh. His feet hurt, and his bladder was swollen
with drink. "You're joking."
"No sir, I'm afraid not. Procedure."
"But it's stupid! The guys who tried to mug us are long gone, I've given you
their descriptions, you have their *identification* --" But they didn't, not
yet. The wallet still lay where Art had dropped it.
PC McGivens shook his head slowly, as though marveling at the previously
unsuspected inanity of his daily round. "All very true, sir, but it's procedure.
Worked out by some clever lad using statistics. All this, it increases our
success rate. 'Sproven."
Here it was. Some busy tribalist provocateur, some compatriot of Fede, had
stirred the oats into Her Majesty's Royal Constabulary. Art snuck a look at
Linda, who was no doubt being subjected to the same procedure by PC DeMoss.
She'd lost her rigid, angry posture, and was seemingly -- amazingly -- enjoying
herself, chatting up the constable like an old pal.
"How many more times have we got to do this, officer?"
"This is the last time you'll have to repeat it to me."
Art's professional instincts perked up at the weasel words in the sentence. "To
you? Who else do I need to go over this with?"
The officer shook his head, caught out. "Well, you'll have to repeat it three
times to PC DeMoss, once he's done with your friend, sir. Procedure."
"How about this," Art says, "how about I record this last statement to you with
my comm, and then I can *play it back* three times for PC DeMoss?"
"Oh, I'm sure that won't do, sir. Not really the spirit of the thing, is it?"
"And what *is* the spirit of the thing? Humiliation? Boredom? An exercise in raw
power?"
PC McGivens lost his faint smile. "I really couldn't say, sir. Now, again if you
please?"
"What if I don't please? I haven't been assaulted. I haven't been robbed. It's
none of my business. What if I walk away right now?"
"Not really allowed, sir. It's expected that everyone in England -- HM's
subjects *and her guests* -- will assist the police with their inquiries.
Required, actually."
Reminded of his precarious immigration status, Art lost his attitude. "Once more
for you, three more times for your partner, and we're done, right? I want to get
home."
"We'll see, sir."
Art recited the facts a third time, and they waited while Linda finished her
third recounting.
He switched over to PC DeMoss, who pointed his comm expectantly. "Is all this
just to make people reluctant to call the cops? I mean, this whole procedure
seems like a hell of a disincentive."
"Just the way we do things, sir," PC DeMoss said without rancor. "Now, let's
have it, if you please?"
From a few yards away, Linda laughed at something PC McGivens said, which just
escalated Art's frustration. He spat out the description three times fast. "Now,
I need to find a toilet. Are we done yet?"
"'Fraid not, sir. Going to have to come by the Station House to look through
some photos. There's a toilet there."
"It can't wait that long, officer."
PC DeMoss gave him a reproachful look.
"I'm sorry, all right?" Art said. "I lack the foresight to empty my bladder
before being accosted in the street. That being said, can we arrive at some kind
of solution?" In his head, Art was already writing an angry letter to the
*Times*, dripping with sarcasm.
"Just a moment, sir," PC DeMoss said. He conferred briefly with his partner,
leaving Art to stare ruefully at their backs and avoid Linda's gaze. When he
finally met it, she gave him a sunny smile. It seemed that she -- at least --
wasn't angry any more.
"Come this way, please, sir," PC DeMoss said, striking off for the High Street.
"There's a pub 'round the corner where you can use the facilities."
9.
It was nearly dawn before they finally made their way out of the police station
and back into the street. After identifying Les from an online rogues' gallery,
Art had spent the next six hours sitting on a hard bench, chording desultorily
on his thigh, doing some housekeeping.
This business of being an agent-provocateur was complicated in the extreme,
though it had sounded like a good idea when he was living in San Francisco and
hating every inch of the city, from the alleged pizza to the fucking! drivers!
-- in New York, the theory went, drivers used their horns by way of shouting
"Ole!" as in, "Ole! You changed lanes!" "Ole! You cut me off!" "Ole! You're
driving on the sidewalk!" while in San Francisco, a honking horn meant, "I wish
you were dead. Have a nice day. Dude."
And the body language was all screwed up out west. Art believed that your entire
unconscious affect was determined by your upbringing. You learned how to stand,
how to hold your face in repose, how to gesture, from the adults around you
while you were growing up. The Pacific Standard Tribe always seemed a little
bovine to him, their facial muscles long conditioned to relax into a kind of
spacey, gullible senescence.
Beauty, too. Your local definition of attractive and ugly was conditioned by the
people around you at puberty. There was a Pacific "look" that was indefinably
off. Hard to say what it was, just that when he went out to a bar or got stuck
on a crowded train, the girls just didn't seem all that attractive to him.
Objectively, he could recognize their prettiness, but it didn't stir him the way
the girls cruising the Chelsea Antiques Market or lounging around Harvard Square
could.
He'd always felt at a slight angle to reality in California, something that was
reinforced by his continuous efforts in the Tribe, from chatting and gaming
until the sun rose, dragging his caffeine-deficient ass around to his clients in
a kind of fog before going home, catching a nap and hopping back online at 3 or
4 when the high-octane NYC early risers were practicing work-avoidance and
clattering around with their comms.
Gradually, he penetrated deeper into the Tribe, getting invites into private
channels, intimate environments where he found himself spilling the most private
details of his life. The Tribe stuck together, finding work for each other,
offering advice, and it was only a matter of time before someone offered him a
gig.
That was Fede, who practically invented Tribal agent-provocateurs. He'd been
working for McKinsey, systematically undermining their GMT-based clients with
plausibly terrible advice, creating Achilles' heels that their East-coast
competitors could exploit. The entire European trust-architecture for relay
networks had been ceded by Virgin/Deutsche Telekom to a scrappy band of AT&T
Labs refugees whose New Jersey headquarters hosted all the cellular reputation
data that Euros' comms consulted when they were routing their calls. The Jersey
clients had funneled a nice chunk of the proceeds to Fede's account in the form
of rigged winnings from an offshore casino that the Tribe used to launder its
money.
Now V/DT was striking back, angling for a government contract in Massachusetts,
a fat bit of pork for managing payments to rightsholders whose media was
assessed at the MassPike's tollbooths. Rights-societies were a fabulous
opportunity to skim and launder and spindle money in plenty, and Virgin's
massive repertoire combined with Deutsche Telekom's Teutonic attention to detail
was a tough combination to beat. Needless to say, the Route 128-based Tribalists
who had the existing contract needed an edge, and would pay handsomely for it.
London nights seemed like a step up from San Francisco mornings to Art --
instead of getting up at 4AM to get NYC, he could sleep in and chat them up
through the night. The Euro sensibility, with its many nap-breaks, statutory
holidays and extended vacations seemed ideally suited to a double agent's life.
But Art hadn't counted on the Tribalists' hands-on approach to his work. They
obsessively grepped his daily feed of spreadsheets, whiteboard-output, memos and
conversation reports for any of ten thousand hot keywords, querying him for
deeper detail on trivial, half-remembered bullshit sessions with the V/DT's user
experience engineers. His comm buzzed and blipped at all hours, and his payoff
was dependent on his prompt response. They were running him ragged.
Four hours in the police station gave Art ample opportunity to catch up on the
backlog of finicky queries. Since the accident, he'd been distracted and tardy,
and had begun to invent his responses, since it all seemed so trivial to him
anyway.
Fede had sent him about a thousand nagging notes reminding him to generate a new
key and phone with the fingerprint. Christ. Fede had been with McKinsey for most
of his adult life, and he was superparanoid about being exposed and disgraced in
their ranks. Art's experience with the other McKinsey people around the office
suggested that the notion of any of those overpaid buzzword-slingers sniffing
their traffic was about as likely as a lightning strike. Heaving a dramatic sigh
for his own benefit, he began the lengthy process of generating enough
randomness to seed the key, mashing the keyboard, whispering nonsense syllables,
and pointing the comm's camera lens at arbitrary corners of the police station.
After ten minutes of crypto-Tourette's, the comm announced that he'd been
sufficiently random and prompted him for a passphrase. Jesus. What a pain in the
ass. He struggled to recall all the words to the theme song from a CBC sitcom
he'd watched as a kid, and then his comm went into a full-on churn as it
laboriously re-ciphered all of his stored files with the new key, leaving Art to
login while he waited.
Trepan: Afternoon!
Colonelonic: Hey, Trepan. How's it going?
Trepan: Foul. I'm stuck at a copshop in London with my thumb up my ass. I got
mugged.
Colonelonic: Yikes! You OK?
Ballgravy: Shit!
Trepan: Oh, I'm fine -- just bored. They didn't hurt me. I commed 999 while they
were running their game and showed it to them when they got ready to do the
deed, so they took off.
##Colonelonic laughs
Ballgravy: Britain==ass. Lon-dong.
Colonelonic: Sweet!
Trepan: Thanks. Now if the cops would only finish the paperwork...
Colonelonic: What are you doing in London, anyway?