Zero History

“How so?”
“Are they serious about that, Hackett?”
“Exactly what I value in you. You go effortlessly to the core.”
“But are they?”
“Some would maintain that a double negative amounts to a positive. Where did this
person take your picture?”
“Coffee place near the hotel. Seven Dials.”
“And you have informed—?”
“You.”
“Don’t mention this to anyone else. Except Pamela. I’ll inform her.”
“Not Oliver?”
“No,” said Bigend, “definitely not Oliver. Have you spoken with him today?”
“He had me leave my phone in the room, charging and turned on. He said that he
needed to reprogram it. I haven’t gone back there yet.”
Bigend stared at the pink shotgun.
“Why is it that pink?” asked Milgrim.
“Output from a 3-D printer. I don’t know why they use pink. Seems to be the default
shade. Those phones are an Oliver project. When you use one, you aren’t to consider it
secure, whether for voice, text, or e-mail. But since this is England, really, you aren’t to
consider any phone secure. Understood?”
“You don’t trust Oliver?”
“I don’t,” said Bigend. “What I want you to do, now, is to go about your business, as
though you hadn’t noticed being photographed. Simply that.”
“What is my business?” asked Milgrim.
“Did you like Hollis Henry?”
“She seemed … familiar?”
“She was a singer. In a band. The Curfew.”
Milgrim remembered a large silvery black-and-white photograph. A poster. A younger
Hollis Henry with her knee up, her foot on something. A tweed miniskirt, that seemed
mostly to have unraveled, drawn taut. Where had he seen that?
“You’ll be working with her,” said Bigend. “A different project.”
“Translating?”
“I doubt it. This one is apparel-based as well.”
“Back in Vancouver,” Milgrim began, then stopped.
“Yes?”
“I found a woman’s purse. There was quite a lot of money in it. A phone. A wallet with
cards. Keys. I put the purse and the wallet and the cards and the keys in a mailbox. I kept
the money and the phone. You started phoning. I didn’t know you. We started talking.”
“Yes,” said Bigend.
“That’s why I’m here today, isn’t it?