Zero History

“I know another Bollard, plus the man who’s currently producing their music.”
“She knows about Gabriel Hounds?”
“My other Bollard says she knew someone in London, when she was at Cordwainers,
who knew someone involved in Hounds getting started.”
“It started in London?”
“I don’t know. Clammy met her in Melbourne. She was wearing Hounds, he wanted
Hounds. She knew of Hounds locally. Some would be sold at a sort of art fair. He went
with her and bought jeans. Says there was an American man there, selling them.”
“Why do you think she’ll talk to us?”
“I don’t,” she said. “But we can try.”
“Why do people care? Why do you think Bigend does?”
“He thinks someone’s copying some of his weirder marketing strategies,” she said,
“improving on them.”
“And you think people want this brand because they can’t have it?”
“In part.”
“Drugs are valuable because you can’t get them without breaking the law,” Milgrim
said.
“I thought they were valuable because they worked.”
“They have to work,” said Milgrim, “but the market value is about prohibition. Often
they cost next to nothing to make. That’s what it all runs on. They work, you need them,
they’re prohibited.”
“How did you get out of that, Milgrim?”
“They changed my blood. Replaced it. And while they were doing that, they were
reducing the dose. And there was a paradoxical antagonist.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Milgrim. “Another drug. And cognitive therapy.”
“That sounds terrible,” she said.
“I liked the therapy,” Milgrim said. He could feel his passport against his chest, tucked
safely into its Faraday pouch.
Rainy French countryside leapt on the carriage’s windows, hurtling, as if a switch had
been thrown.