Zero History

label you can only buy in one special outlet in Tokyo, but not here, and not on the web.
That’s old-school geographical exclusivity. Gabriel Hounds is something else. There’s
something spectral about it. What did Overton tell you?”
She saw Ajay slipping the little blade into the base of the Blue Ant figurine, back in
Number Four. “She knew someone, in fashion school here, or around it, who knew
someone in Chicago. She believes that that person, in Chicago, then, is the Hounds
designer.”
“You don’t think she knows?”
“She may not. She says she wound up on an e-mail list announcing Hounds drops.”
“We assumed there must be one,” he said. “We’ve put a fair bit of effort into finding it.
Nothing.”
She took one of the books of swatches from where it lay on the shelf nearest her. It
was amazingly heavy, its cover plain heavy brown card, marked with a long number in
chisel-tipped black felt pen. She opened it. Thick, wholly synthetic materials, strangely
buttery to the touch, like samples of the hides of robotic whales. “What is this?”
“They make Zodiacs out of it,” he said. “The inflatable boats.”
She put it back on the shelf, deciding as she did that this was not the time to be bringing
up the bug in the figurine, if in fact she was going to.
“Foley himself,” said Bigend, “may not be that dangerous, though we don’t know. A
fantasist, designing for fantasist consumers. But the person who’s employing him is
another matter. I haven’t been able to find out as much as I’d like. Currently, I’m having
to go outside Blue Ant, bypass Sleight and his architecture, for even basic intelligence.”
“How do you mean, dangerous?”
“Not good to know,” said Bigend, “or to be known by. Not good to be seen as being in
competition with. That little bit of industrial espionage in South Carolina, as it happened,
put Sleight in their camp. Given what I’ve managed to learn so far, we are likely
regarded, now, as the enemy.”
“Who are they?”
“They were, at some point, usually, the people our new demographic imagines being.
What are you looking at?”
“Your suit.”
“It’s by Mr. Fish.”
“It is not. You told me nobody could find him.”
“He may be selling furniture in California. Antiques. That’s one story. But I found his
cutter.”
“You’re really worried about these contracting people? Foley?”
“Contractors, that would be. In that other, more recently newsworthy sense. I have an
unusual amount on my plate now, Hollis. One of my long-term projects, something that
runs in the background, has recently been showing strong signs of possible fruition. It’s
frustrating, to be distracted now, but I’m determined not to drop any balls. Your getting