Zero History

41. GEAR-QUEER
He’ll be right down,” said Jacob, smiling and luxuriantly bearded as ever, when he met
her at Blue Ant’s entrance. “How was Paris? Would you like coffee?”
“Fine, thanks. No coffee.” She felt ragged, and assumed she looked it, but also better,
since Heidi had forced her to make the call. Looking up at the lobby’s used-eyeglasses
chandelier, she welcomed whatever distraction or annoyance Bigend might be able to
provide.
And here he suddenly came, the optically challenging blue suit muted, if that could be
the word for it, by a black polo shirt. Behind him, silent and alert, his two umbrellabearing
minders. Leaving Jacob behind, he took Hollis’s arm and steered her back out the
door, followed by the minders. “Not good, Jacob,” he said to her, quietly. “Sleight’s.”
“Really?”
“Not entirely positive yet,” he said, leading her left, then left again at the corner. “But it
looks likely.”
“Where are we going?”
“Not far. I’m no longer conducting important conversations on Blue Ant premises.”
“What’s happening?”
“I should have the whole phenomenon modeled. Have some good CG visualizations
done. It’s not clockwork, of course, but it’s familiar. I’d guess it takes a good five or six
years to cycle through.”
“Milgrim made it sound like a palace coup, some kind of takeover.”
“Overly dramatic. A few of my brightest employees are quitting. Those who haven’t
gotten where they’d hoped to, with Blue Ant. So few do, really. Someone like Sleight
tries to quit with optimal benefits, of course. Builds his own golden parachute. Robs me
blind, if he can. Information flows out, before these parties depart, to the highest bidders.
Always more than one golden parachutist.” He took her arm again and crossed the narrow
street, in the wake of a passing Mercedes. “Too many moving parts for a solo operator.
Sleight, probably Jacob, two or three more.”
“You don’t seem that alarmed.”
“I expect it. It’s always interesting. It can shake other things out. Reveal things. When
you want to know how things really work, study them when they’re coming apart.”
“What does that mean?”
“Increased risk. Increased opportunity. This one comes at an inopportune time, but
then they do seem to. Here we are.” He’d stopped in front of a narrow Soho shopfront,
one whose austerely minimalist signage announced TANKY & TOJO in brushed aluminum
capitals. She looked in the window. An antique tailor’s dummy, kitted out in waxed
cotton, tweed, corduroy, harness leather.