COUNT ZERO by William Gibson

Andrea’s phone rang sixteen times before Marly remem- bered the special program. It would still be in place, and this expensive little Brussels hotel would not be listed. She leaned out to replace the handset on the marble-topped table and it chimed once, softly. “A courier has delivered a parcel, from the Galerie Duperey.” When the bellmana younger man this time, dark and possibly Spanishhad gone, she took the package to the window and turned it over in her hands It was wrapped in a single sheet of handmade paper, dark gray, folded and tucked in that mysterious Japanese way that required neither glue nor string, but she knew that once she’d opened it, she’d never get it folded again. The name and address of the Galerie were embossed in one corner, and her name and the name of her hotel were handwritten across the center in perfect italic script. She unfolded the paper and found herself holding a new Braun holoprojector and a flat envelope of clear plastic. The envelope contained seven numbered tabs of holofiche. Beyond the miniature iron balcony, the sun was going down, painting the Old Town gold. She heard car horns and the cries of children. She closed the window and crossed to a writing desk. The Braun was a smooth black rectangle powered by solar cells. She checked the charge, then took the first holo- fiche from the envelope and slotted it. The box she’d seen in Virek’s simulation of the Guell Park blossomed above the Braun, glowing with the crystal resolu- tion of the finest museum-grade holograms. Bone and circuit- gold, dead lace, and a dull white marble rolled from clay. Marly shook her head. How could anyone have arranged these bits, this garbage, in such a way that it caught at the heart, snagged in the soul like a fishhook? But then she nodded. It could be done, she knew; it had been done many years ago by a man named Cornell, who’d also made boxes. Then she glanced to the left, where the elegant gray paper lay on the desktop. She’d chosen this hotel at random, when she’d grown tired of shopping. She’d told no one she was here, and certainly no one from the Galerie Duperey.

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HE STAYED OUT FOR something like eight hours, by the clock on his mother’s Hitachi. Came to staring at Its dusty face, some hard thing wedged under his thigh. The Ono-Sendai. He rolled over. Stale puke smell. Then he was in the shower, not sure quite how he’d gotten there, spinning the taps with his clothes still on. He clawed and dug and pulled at his face. It felt like a rubber mask. “Something happened.” Something bad, big, he wasn’t sure what. His wet clothes gradually mounded up on the tile floor of the shower. Finally he stepped out, went to the sink and flicked wet hair back from his eyes, peered at the face in the mirror. Bobby Newmark, no problem. “No, Bobby, problem. Gotta problem . Towel around his shoulders, dripping water, he followed the narrow hallway to his bedroom, a tiny, wedge-shaped space at the very back of the condo. His holoporn unit lit as he stepped in, half a dozen girls grinning, eyeing him with evident delight. They seemed to be standing beyond the walls of the room, in hazy vistas of powder-blue space, their white smiles and taut young bodies bright as neon. Two of them edged forward and began to touch themselves. “Stop it,” he said. The projection unit shut itself down at his command; the dreamgirls vanished. The thing had originally belonged to Ling Warren’s older brother; the girls’ hair and clothes were dated and vaguely ridiculous. You could talk with them and get them to do things with themselves and each other. Bobby remembered being thirteen and in love with Brandi, the one with the blue rubber pants. Now he valued the projections mainly for the illusion of space they could provide in the makeshift bedroom. “Something fucking happened,” he said, pulling on black jeans and an almost-clean shirt. He shook his head. “What? Fucking what?” Some kind of power surge on the line? Some flukey action down at the Fission Authority? Maybe the base he’d tried to invade had suffered some strange breakdown, or been attacked from another qu~er… But he was left with the sense of having met someone, someone who . . . He’d unconsciously extended his right hand, fingers spread, be- seechingly. “Fuck,” he said. The fingers balled into a fist. Then it came back: first, the sense of the big thing, the really big thing, reaching for him across cyberspace, and then the girl-impression. Someone brown, slender, crouching some- where in a strange bright dark full of stars and wind. But it slid away as his mind went for it. Hungry, he got into sandals and headed back toward the kitchen, rubbing at his hair with a damp towel. On his way through the living room, he noticed the ON telltale of the Ono-Sendai glaring at him from the carpet. “0 shit.” He stood there and sucked at his teeth. It was still jacked in. Was it possible that it was still linked with the base he’d tried to run? Could they tell he wasn’t dead? He had no idea. One thing he did know, though, was that they’d have his number and good. He hadn’t bothered with the cutouts and frills that would’ve kept them from running a backtrack. They had his address. Hunger forgotten, he spun into the bathroom and rooted through the soggy clothing until he found his credit chip.

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