Zero History

10. EIGENBLICH
Milgrim woke, took his medication, showered, shaved, brushed his teeth, dressed, and
left the Neo charging but turned on. The U.K. plug-adaptor was larger than the phone’s
charger. Keeping the dressmaker’s dummy out of his field of vision, he left the room.
In the silent Japanese elevator, descending three floors, he considered pausing to
Google Hollis Henry on the lobby MacBook, but someone was using it when he got there.
He wasn’t always entirely comfortable with the lobby here, what there was of it. He felt
like he might look as though he were here to steal something, though aside from his
wrinkled post-flight clothing he was fairly certain he didn’t. And really, he thought,
stepping out into Monmouth Street and tentative sunlight, he wouldn’t. Had no reason to.
Three hundred pounds in a plain manila envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket, and
nothing, today, telling him what he needed to do with it. Still a novel situation, to a man
of his history.
Addictions, he thought, turning right, toward Seven Dials’ namesake obelisk, started
out like magical pets, pocket monsters. They did extraordinary tricks, showed you things
you hadn’t seen, were fun. But came, through some gradual dire alchemy, to make
decisions for you. Eventually, they were making your most crucial life-decisions. And
they were, his therapist in Basel had said, less intelligent than goldfish.
He went to Caffè Nero, a tastier alternate-reality Starbucks, crowded now. He ordered a
latte and a croissant, the latter shipped frozen from France, baked here. He approved of
that. Saw a small round table being vacated by a woman in a pinstriped suit and swiftly
occupied it, looking out at the Vidal Sassoon, across the little roundabout, where young
hairdressers were going in to work.
Eating his croissant, he wondered what Bigend might be up to with designer combat
pants. He was a good listener, careful to not let people know it, but Bigend’s motives and
modus eluded him. They could seem almost aggressively random.
Military contracting was essentially recession-proof, according to Bigend, and
particularly so in America. That was a part of it, and perhaps even the core of it.
Recession-proofing. And Bigend seemed centered on one area of military contracting, the
one in which, Milgrim supposed, Blue Ant’s strategic skill set was most applicable. Blue
Ant was learning everything it could, and very quickly, about the contracting, design, and
manufacture of military clothing. Which seemed, from what Milgrim had seen so far, to
be a very lively business.
And Milgrim, for whatever reason or lack of one, was along for the ride. That was what
Myrtle Beach had been about.
Volunteer armies, the French girl had said, the one who’d worn the plaid kilt at
yesterday’s meeting, in an earlier PowerPoint presentation that Milgrim had found quite