Zero History

and reentered the Salon du Vintage. Still scanning for Foley, who for all he knew had
returned.
He took his time, making his way up the stairs, and then stood for a while, looking up
at the blowup of Hollis’s poster. Then he undid his top button again, drew out the pouch,
opened it, and removed the Neo, which rang immediately.
“Hello?” As he tucked the pouch back in with his free hand.
“Were you on an elevator?”
“It was filled with Japanese girls,” Milgrim said, watching one pass. “Only three floors,
here, but I couldn’t get off.”
“Just checking,” said Sleight, neutrally, and hung up.
Milgrim looked at the Neo, Sleight’s extension, wondering for the first time if it was
really off when he turned it off. Perhaps it needed its batteries removed for that. Though,
come to think it, Sleight forbade that. Or its two cards, which Milgrim was also forbidden
to remove.
Sleight had noticed it going into the Faraday pouch. Milgrim had been briefly invisible,
as he’d sometimes gathered he was in elevators, for similar reasons.
Given everything else Sleight had said he could do with the Neo, having it function as a
bug actually seemed like a very modest capacity. And it would help explain why they’d
bothered with the thing at all, cranky as it was. He’d been carrying around a wire. Would
Bigend have known about that? Milgrim wondered.
Sleight had given him the Neo on their flight from Basel to London, at the end of
Milgrim’s treatment. He’d had it with him constantly, since then. Except, he remembered,
yesterday, when Sleight had ordered him to leave it in his room. When Winnie had taken
his picture. When he’d gone to Blue Ant to tell Bigend about that, and Bigend had
suggested he no longer trusted Sleight. When he’d gone to the department store to have
lunch with Hollis, then back to his hotel, where Winnie had been waiting. So Sleight had
missed all of that, missed it because, if he was telling the truth, the company that made the
Neo had gone bankrupt. “Lucky,” said Milgrim, then winced, imagining Sleight,
Bluetoothed, somewhere, hearing him. But if Foley was Sleight’s, which was only one
possibility, how had Foley known to find them at the department store? Perhaps he was
following Hollis instead? But then, he reminded himself, Foley was someone else who
had his picture on Winnie’s wall.
The Neo rang in his hand.
“Yes?”
“Where are you?” Hollis. “I saw you walk past.”
“Can you meet me? By the entrance, downstairs.”
“Are you up here?”
“Downstairs.”
“On my way,” she said.
“Good,” he said, and clicked off. Resisting the impulse to whistle for Sleight’s benefit,