He did as she said and waited in the open door for her to catch up with him. He saw that the Ghetto Chef line had gotten longer, if anything.
“No,” she said, behind him, “up here.” He turned and saw her hauling on a length of orange nylon rope, which brought down a counter-weighted aluminum ladder. “Go on up,” she said. “I’ll send your bags.”
Rydell put down his duffel and the GlobEx box and stepped up onto the ladder.
“Go on,” she said.
Rydell climbed the ladder to discover an incredibly tiny space he was clearly expected to sleep in. His first thought was that someone had decided to build one of those Japanese coffin hotels out of offcuts from all the cheapest stuff at a discount building supply. The walls were some kind of light-colored wood-look sheathing that imitated bad imitations of some other product that had probably imitated some now-forgotten original. The tiny square of floor nearest him, the only part that wasn’t taken up by wall-to-wall bed, was carpeted with some kind of ultra-low- 115 pile itility stuff in a weird pale green with orange highlights. There was dayli1ht coming in from the far end, by what he supposed was the head of tIe bed, but he’d have had to kneel down to make out how that was possble.
Do you want to take it?” the woman called up.
‘Sure do,” Rydell said.
Then pull up your bags.”
lIe looked over and saw her loading his duffel and the GlobEx box into rusty wire hamper she’d hung on the ladder.
Breakfast at nine, sharp,” she said, without looking up, and then she vas gone.
~ydell hauled the ladder, with his luggage, up on its orange rope. When he got his stuff out, the ladder stayed up, held by its hidden counterwright. -le got down on his hands and knees and crawled into his bedroom, over the foam slab made up with one of those micro-furry foam-core blanets, to where some sort of multi-paned, semi-hemispherical plastic bibble, probably part of an airplane, had been epoxied into the outer wall, It was thick with salt, outside, looked like; a crust of dried spray. It lel light in, but just a featureless gray brightness. It looked as though you lept with your head right up in there. Okay by him. It smelled funny but ~ot bad. He should’ve asked her what she charged, but he could do that later.
-le sat down on the foot of the bed and took off his shoes. There were holes in the toes of both his black socks. Have to buy more.
lie pulled the glasses out of his jacket, put them on, and speeddiakd Laney. He listened to a phone ringing somewhere in Tokyo and imaiined the room it was ringing in, some expensive hotel, or maybe it was ringing on a desk the size of Tong’s, but real. Laney answered, nine ring~ in. ‘Bad Sector,” Laney said.
‘What?”
‘The cable. They have it.”
‘What cable?”
‘The one you need for the projector.” 116 Rydell was looking at the GlobEx box. “What projector?”
“The one you picked up from GlobEx today.”
“Wait a minute,” Rydell said, “how do you know about that?”
There was a pause. “It’s what I do, Rydell.”
“Listen,” Rydell said, “there was trouble, a fight. Not me, another guy, but I was there, involved. They’ll check the GlobEx security recordings and they’ll know I signed for you, and they’ll have footage of me.”
“They don’t,” Laney said.
“Of course they do,” protested Rydell, “I was there.”
“No,” Laney said, “they’ve got footage of me.”
“What are you talking about, Laney?”
“The infinite plasticity of the digital.”
“But I signed for it, My name, not yours.”
“On a screen, right?”
“Oh.” Rydell thought about it. “Who can get into GlobEx and alter that stuff?”
“Not me,” said Laney. “But I can see it’s been altered.”
“So who did it?”
“That’s academic at this point.”
“What’s that mean?” Rydell asked.
“It means don’t ask. Where are you?”
“In a bed-and-breakfast on the bridge. Your cough sounds better.”
“This blue stuff,” Laney said. Rydell had no idea what he meant. “Where’s the projector?”