COUNT ZERO

“Are you, now?” The Fi

Lucas withdrew the cane. Its polished ferrule flashed in the lantern glare.

“So,” the Fi

“You know,” the Fi

Bobby was staring down at the upturned face of the dead man, at the eyes gone dull. There was something wrong with the shape of the torso, wrong with the way it lay there in the black clothes. Japanese face, no expression, dead eyes.

“And all that time,” the Fi

“He looks kind of lopsided,” Bobby said still staring at the first corpse.

“That’s ‘cause he’s dog food, inside “ The Fi

“The Fi

“Yeah. Pain in the butt. Hadda carry ‘em downstairs to the back room. Nothing. other than what you’d expect. They’re just a hit team.” He sucked his teeth noisily. “Why’s any-body wa

“Maybe you sold them a very expensive product that wouldn’t do its job,” Lucas volunteered.

“I hope you aren’t sayin’ you sent ‘em, Lucas,” the Fi

“Did I say you’d sold us something that doesn’t work?”

Experiencing difficulties,’ you said. And what else have you guys bought from me recently?”

“Sorry, Fi

“Yeah, I guess I do So what the fuck’s got you down here, Lucas? You know that stuff you bought wasn’t covered by the usual guarantees...”

“You know,” said the Fi

They were seated around a square white table in a white room on the ground floor, behind the junk-clogged storefront. The floor was scuffed hospital tile, molded in a nonslip pattern, and the walls broad slabs of dingy white plastic concealing dense layers of antibugging circuitry. Compared to the storefront, the white room seemed surgically clean. Several alloy tripods bristling with sensors and sca

“Know what?” Bobby asked. With each retelling of his story, he felt less like a wilson. Important. It made him feel Important.

“Not you, pisshead,” the Fi

“Lucas knows, yeah. The last seven, eight years, there’s been fu

Lucas took his gold toothpick out of his pocket and began to work on a rear molar, his face dark and serious.

“Thrones and dominions,” the Fi

Sure, it’s just a tailored hallucination we all agreed to have, cyberspace, but anybody who jacks in knows, fucking knows it’s a whole universe. And every year it gets a little more crowded, sounds like...”

“For us,” Lucas said, “the world has always worked that way.”

“Yeah” the Fi

“Divine Horsemen...”

“Sure. Maybe you believe it. But I’m old enough to remember when it wasn’t like that. Ten years ago, you went in the Gentleman Loser and tried telling any of the top jocks you talked with ghosts in the matrix, they’d have figured you were crazy.”

“A wilson,” Bobby put in. feeling left out and no longer as Important.

The Fi

“A wilson A fuck-up. It’s hotdogger talk, I guess...” Did it again. Shit.

The Fi

“Who?”

“Bodine Wilson,” he said. ‘First guy I ever knew wound up as a figure of speech.”

“Was he stupid?” Bobby asked, immediately regretting it

“Stupid? Shit, no, he was smart as hell.” The Fi

“Fi

The Fi

Lucas nodded. “I take your point. But at the same time, I put one to you.” He held the toothpick out toward the Fi

The Fi

“Somebody’s got you on their list, Fi

The red-rimmed yellow eyes blinked. “They were all tooled up,” he said, “ready for a hit, but one of ‘em had some other things. Things for asking questions “ His nicotine-stained fingers, almost the color of cockroach wings, came up to slowly massage his short upper lip. “I got it off Wigan Ludgate,” he said, “the Wig.”

“Never heard of him,” Lucas said.

“Crazy little motherfucker,” the Fi

How it was, the Fi