Zero History

under her majorette jacket. “Look about the same, to me.”
“What did Milgrim do last night?” Hollis asked. “Bigend says he hurt someone.”
“Milgrim? Couldn’t hurt himself, if he had to. Fucker from that car was behind us. I’d
known it for blocks.” She raised her hand and made a concise little dart-throwing gesture.
“Rhenium. Screamed like a bitch.”
“A great honor,” said Ajay, from behind Heidi, his eyes wide with excitement. Heidi put
her arm around him, shoved him forward.
“Ajay,” said Heidi. “Fastest sparring partner I’ve ever had. We went over to Hackney
this morning and beat the living shit out of each other.”
“Hello, Ajay,” said Garreth, offering his hand.
“Can’t believe this, really,” said Ajay, pumping Garreth’s hand. “Blinding, to see you’re
not as badly off as we’d heard. Download all your videos. Fantastic.” Hollis half expected
him to ask for an autograph, his waterfall bobbing with excited delight.
“What flavor, the sparring?” asked Garreth.
“Bit of everything, really,” said Ajay, modestly.
“Really,” said Garreth. “We should talk. As it happens, I need someone fast, in just that
way.”
“Well, then,” said Ajay, running his hand through his waterfall. “Well, then.” Like a
child who’d just been told, in July, that it was actually, now, officially, absolutely,
Christmas morning.
>>>
“You aren’t sorry you didn’t quit before the shit hit?” Heidi asked. They were back in her
room, where Hollis saw that the Breast Chaser had been partially painted, though wasn’t
yet under construction. There was a faint smell of aerosol enamel.
Hollis shook her head.
Ajay was pacing excitedly by the window.
“Calm the fuck down,” Heidi snapped at him. “Elvis isn’t leaving the building. Get used
to it.” Garreth had asked to be taken to Number Four, in order to make some calls and
use his laptop. To get him there, in the chair, they’d had to go along a hallway, to the rear
of the building, and take a service elevator that Hollis had never seen before. Utterly
devoid of Tesla charm, being German, nearly silent, and highly efficient, it got them to
their floor quickly, but then Hollis became confused about the route to the room. The
hallways were mazelike. Garreth, however, had remembered the way exactly.
“So who are these people, supposed to be fucking with us?” asked Heidi. “The dipshit
with the bandage. How scary is that?”
“He’s a clothing designer,” said Hollis.
“If they aren’t all pussies,” said Heidi, “who is?”
“It’s the man he works for,” Hollis said. “A retired Special Forces major named