COUNT ZERO

“B– Count Zero.”

“Sure. Your name!”

“Bobby, Bobby Newmark.”

Silence. Then: “Well. Hey. Does make a little sense, then. That was your mother’s place I watched those Maas spooks use the rocket on, wasn’t it? But I guess you weren’t there, or you wouldn’t be here Hold on a sec...”

A square of cyberspace directly in front of him flipped sickeningly and he found himself in a pale blue graphic that seemed to represent a very spacious apartment, low shapes of furniture sketched in hair-fine lines of blue neon. A woman stood in front of him, a sort of glowing cartoon squiggle of a woman, the face a brown smudge. “I’m Slide,” the figure said, hands on its hips, “Jaylene. You don’t fuck with me. Nobody in L.A. “ – she gestured, a window suddenly snapping into existence behind her – “fucks with me. You got that?”

“Right,” Bobby said. “What is this? I mean, if you could sort of explain...” He still couldn’t move The “window” showed a blue-gray video view of palm trees and old buildings.

“How do you mean?”

“This sort of drawing. And you. And that old picture...”

“Hey, man, I paid a designer an arm and a leg to punch this up for me. This is my space, my construct. This is L.A., boy. People here don’t do anything without jacking. This is where I entertain!”

“Oh,” Bobby said, still baffled.

“Your turn. Who’s back there, in that sleaze-ass dancehall?”

“Jammer’s? Me, Jackie, Beauvoir, Jammer.”

“And where were you headed when I grabbed you?”

Bobby hesitated. “The Yakuza. Jammer has a code -”

“What for?” The figure moved forward, an animated sensuous brush-sketch.”

“Help.”

“Shit You’re probably telling the truth...”

“I am, I am, swear to God.”

“Well, you ain’t what I need, Bobby Zero. I been out cruising cyberspace, all up and down, trying to find out who killed my man. I thought it was Maas, because we were taking one of theirs for Hosaka, so I hunted up a spook team of theirs. First thing I saw was what they did to your mom-ma’s condo. Then I saw three of them drop in on a man they call the Fi

“Fi

“You did? Well, then, could be we do have things to talk about. After that, I watched the other three use that same launcher on a pimpmobile...”

“That was Lucas,” he said.

“But no sooner had they done it than a copter overflew ‘em and fried all three with a laser. You know anything about that?”

“No.”

“You think you can tell me your story. Bobby Zero? Make it quick!”

“I was go

When he finished, she was silent. The slinky cartoon figure stood by the window, as though she were studying the television trees.

“I got an idea,” he ventured. “Maybe you can help us -”

“No,” she said.

“But maybe it’ll help you find out what you want...”

“No. I just want to kill the motherfucker who killed Ramirez.”

“But we’re trapped in there, they’re go

“That’s not Maas,” she said “That’s a bunch of Euros over on Park Avenue. Ice on ‘em a mile deep.”

Bobby took that in “They the ones in the copter, the ones killed the other Maas guys?”

“No. I couldn’t get a fix on that copter, and they flew south. Lost ‘em. I have a hunch, though... Anyway, I’m sending you back. You want to try that Yak code, go ahead.”

“But, lady, we need help.”

“No percentage in help, Bobby Zero,” she said, and then he was sitting in front of Jammer’s deck, the muscles in his neck and back aching. It took him a while before he could get his eyes to focus, so it was nearly a minute before he saw that there were strangers in the room.

The man was tall, maybe taller than Lucas, but rangier, narrower at the hips. He wore a kind of baggy combat jacket that hung around him in folds, with giant pockets, and his chest was bare except for a horizontal black strap. His eyes looked bruised and feverish, and he held the biggest handgun Bobby had ever seen, a kind of distended revolver with some weird fixture molded under the barrel, a thing like a cobra’s head. Beside him, swaying, stood a girl who might have been Bobby’s age, with the same bruised eyes – though hers were dark – and lank brown hair that needed to be washed. She wore a black sweatshirt, several sizes too large, and jeans. The man reached out with his left hand and steadied her.

Bobby stared, then gaped as the memory hit him

Girlvoice, brownhair, darkeyes, the ice eating into him, his teeth burring, her voice, the big thing leaning in...”

“Viv la Vyéj,” Jackie said, beside him, rapt, her hand gripping his shoulder hard, “the Virgin of Miracles. She’s come, Bobby. Danbala has sent her!”

“You were under a while, kid,” the tall man said to Bobby. “What happened?”

Bobby blinked, glanced frantically around, found Jammer’s eyes, glazed with drugs and pain.

“Tell him,” Jammer said.

“I couldn’t get to the Yak. Somebody grabbed me, I don’t know how.”

“Who?” The tall man had his arm around the girl now.

“She said her name was Slide, From Los Angeles.”

“Jaylene,” the man said

The phone on Jammer’s desk began to chime.

“Answer it,” the man said.

Bobby turned as Jackie reached over and tapped the call-bar below the square screen. The screen lit, flickered, and showed them a man’s face, broad and very pale, the eyes hooded and sleepy-looking. His hair was bleached nearly white, and brushed straight back. He had the meanest mouth Bobby had ever seen.

“Turner.” the man said, “we’d better talk now. You haven’t got a lot of time left. I think you should get those people out of the room, for starts.”

29 BOXMAKER

THE KNOTTED LINE stretched on and on. At times they came to angles, forks of the tu

The air was as stale, but colder. When they stopped to rest in a cylindrical chamber, where the shaft widened before a triple branching, Marly asked Jones for the flat little work light he wore across his forehead on a gray elastic strap. Holding it in one of the red suit’s gauntlets, she played it over the chamber’s wail. The surface was etched with patterns, microscopically fine lines.”

“Put your helmet on,” Jones advised, “you’ve got a better light than mine...”

Marly shuddered. “No.” She passed him the light. “Can you help me out of this, please?” She tapped a gauntlet against the suit’s hard chest. The mirror-domed helmet was fastened to the suit’s waist with a chrome snap-hook.

“You’d best keep it,” Jones said. “It’s the only one in the Place. I’ve got one, where I sleep, but no air for it. Wig’s bottles won’t fit my transpirator, and his suit’s all holes. He shrugged.

“No, please,” she said, struggling with the catch at the suit’s waist, where she’d seen Rez twist something. “I can’t stand it...”

Jones pulled himself half over the line and did something she couldn’t see. There was a click. “Stretch your arms, over your head,” he said. It was awkward, but finally she floated free, still in the black jeans and white silk blouse she’d worn to that final encounter with Alain. Jones fastened the empty red suit to the line with another of the snap-rings mounted around its waist, and then undid her bulging purse. “You want this? To take with you, I mean? We could leave it here, get it on our way back.”

“No,” she said, “I’ll take it. Give it to me.” She hooked an elbow around the line and fumbled the purse open. Her jacket came out, but so did one of her boots. She managed to get the boot back into the purse, then twisted herself into the jacket.