Zero History

78. EL LISSITZKY
Care for mineral water,” asked the driver, “or fruit? The basket’s right there.”
Milgrim, seated on the floor behind the passenger seat, noticed the small basket for the
first time. He’d been watching the penguin joggle against the moonroof, and wondering
what would happen if the Taser went off. “Is there a croissant?” he asked, leaning toward
the basket.
“Sorry, no. Apple, banana. Prawn crackers.”
“Thank you,” said Milgrim, and pocketed a banana. He wanted to ask what the driver
thought they were doing, actually, out in the night with a dazzle-painted robotic penguin,
filled with helium, but he didn’t. He suspected that the driver had no idea; that he was
someone who drove, who drove and rather specifically had no idea, and was pleasant,
unobtrusive, an extremely good driver, someone who knew the city very well. So
Milgrim opted to ask nothing at all. Wherever they were going was where Garreth wanted
them, and perhaps Fiona would be there too.
The penguin rolled slightly as they executed a roundabout. Milgrim sensed the
scrupulousness of the boy’s driving; he’d be doing nothing at all in violation, probably
driving a steady two kilometers below the speed limit. Milgrim had seen people,
sometimes quite unlikely people, drive this way on their way to drug deals. Transactional,
he thought of it. Really the whole evening felt extremely transactional, though he’d never
been offered mineral water or fruit, doing that.
The boy wore one of those headsets designed to look as much as possible, it seemed to
Milgrim, like a pinball flipper had been pounded into his ear, the flipper part being the
microphone. He periodically spoke softly to this, though mainly to answer yes or no, or to
repeat the names of streets Milgrim promptly forgot. Milgrim gathered, though, that the
boy now knew where they were going.
And suddenly, no prior announcement, it seemed that they were there.
“Where are we?” asked Milgrim.
“Wormwood Scrubs.”
“The prison?”
“Little Wormwood Scrubs,” said the driver. “You’ll cross the road, straight in from
here, keep going straight, into the grass. He said to tell you she’s under a sheet of
camouflage and may be difficult to see.”
“Fiona?”
“He didn’t say,” the boy said primly, as though unwilling to be further involved. He got
out, closed the door, walked quickly around to the rear, and opened that door.
Milgrim kept the penguin low, away from the moonroof, as he edged crabwise back to
the open rear door. There was something inherently cheerful about the buoyancy of a