Zero History

system. Then back, without exiting, having assured himself he wasn’t being followed. He
knew how to do that, but then there were all these cameras, in their smoked acrylic
spheres, like knockoff Courrèges light fixtures. There were cameras literally everywhere,
in London. So far, he’d managed not to think about them. He remembered Bigend saying
they were a symptom of autoimmune disease, the state’s protective mechanisms ’roiding
up into something actively destructive, chronic; watchful eyes, eroding the healthy
function of that which they ostensibly protected.
Did anyone protect him now?
He took himself through what one did in order to determine that one wasn’t being
followed. While he did so, he anticipated his immediate return to this station. Imagined
his ascent in the elevator’s dead air, where a dead voice would repeatedly advise him to
have his ticket or pass ready.
He would be calmer, then.
Then restart the day, as planned. Go to Hackett in King Street, buy pants and a shirt.
Not good, said the other voice, causing his shoulders to narrow, bone and sinew
tightening almost audibly.
Not good.