Zero History

64. THREAT MANAGEMENT
The toilet in Bigend’s cube was like the coach toilet on a plane, but nicer: Scandinavian
stainless, tiny round corner sink to match, bead-blasted faucet-handles. The plumbing
under the sink reminded Milgrim of aquarium tubing.
He was brushing his teeth, after shaving. Fiona was with Benny, supervising the
mounting of something on her bike. Periodically, above the buzz of his toothbrush, he
could hear, from the garage, the brief but enthusiastic whoop of what he assumed was a
hydraulic driver of some kind.
Something was happening. He didn’t know what, and didn’t want to ask Fiona, else he
destabilize whatever it was that had allowed her thigh and calf to find themselves across
his thighs. And not be, he checked his memory again, immediately withdrawn, upon her
waking. And she hadn’t volunteered anything, other than that Bigend had delegated
something to someone named Wilson, whose orders she now followed. She seemed
quietly excited, though, and not unhappy to be. Focused.
There weren’t enough towels in Bigend’s toilet, though what there were were Swiss,
and white, and very nice, and had probably never been used before. He finished
brushing, rinsed, washed toothpaste from his mouth with cold water, and dried his face.
The hydraulic driver whooped three times in rapid succession, as though recognizing one
of its kind across a clearing.
He opened the bifold door, stepped out, closed it behind him. You could barely see
where it was, at the edge of its white wall.
He put his toothbrush and shaving things away in his bag. Fiona had collected
everything when she’d checked him out of the Holiday Inn. He tried to tidy the cube,
straightening chairs around the table, spreading the sleeping bag on the foam in case
Fiona felt like another nap, but it didn’t seem to help. The cube wasn’t very large, and
now there were too many things in it. The weird-looking rectangular helicopter-drone on
the table, his Air, the cartons and elaborate packing she’d removed the various segments
of the drone from, his bag, her armored jacket and his tweed from Tanky & Tojo on the
backs of chairs. The way this kind of space suddenly looked so much less special if you
had to live in it, even for a few hours.
His eye went back to the Air. He sat down, logged on to Twitter. There was a message
from Winnie: “Got my leave call me.”
“No phone,” he typed, then wondered how to describe where he was, what he was
doing, “I think B has me on ice. Something’s happening.” It looked stupid, but he sent it
anyway.
Refreshed twice. Then: “Get phone.”
“Okay.” Sent. Or tweeted, whatever it was. Still, he was glad she had leave. Was still