The ghost woke to Kumiko’s touch as they began their descent into Heathrow. The fifty-first generation of Maas-Neotek biochips conjured up an indistinct figure on the seat beside her, a boy out of some faded hunting print, legs crossed casually in tan breeches and riding boots. »Hullo,« the ghost said. Kumiko blinked, opened her hand. The boy flickered and was gone. She looked down at the smooth little unit in her palm and slowly closed her fingers. » ‘Lo again,« he said. »Name’s Colin. Yours?« She stared. His eyes were bright green smoke, his high forehead pale and smooth under an unruly dark forelock. She could see the seats across the aisle through the glint of his teeth. »If it’s a bit too spectral for you,« he said, with a grin, »we can up the rez. . . .« And he was there for an instant, uncomfortably sharp and real, the nap on the lapels of his dark coat vibrating with hallucinatory clarity. »Runs the battery down, though,« he said, and faded to his prior state. »Didn’t get your name.« The grin again. »You aren’t real,« she said sternly. He shrugged. »Needn’t speak out loud, miss. Fellow passengers might think you a bit odd, if you take my meaning. Subvocal’s the way. I pick it all up through the skin. . . .« He uncrossed his legs and stretched, hands clasped behind his head. »Seatbelt, miss. I needn’t buckle up myself, of course, being, as you’ve pointed out, unreal.« Kumiko frowned and tossed the unit into the ghost’s lap. He vanished. She fastened her seatbelt, glanced at the thing, hesitated, then picked it up again. »First time in London, then?« he asked, swirling in from the periphery of her vision. She nodded in spite of herself. »You don’t mind flying? Doesn’t frighten you?« She shook her head, feeling ridiculous. »Never mind,« the ghost said. »I’ll look out for you. Heathrow in three minutes. Someone meeting you off the plane?« »My father’s business associate,« she said in Japanese. The ghost grinned. »Then you’ll be in good hands, I’m sure.« He winked. »Wouldn’t think I’m a linguist to look at me, would you?« Kumiko closed her eyes and the ghost began to whisper to her, something about the archaeology of Heathrow, about the Neolithic and the Iron ages, pottery and tools. . . .
»Miss Yanaka? Kumiko Yanaka?« The Englishman towered above her, his gaijin bulk draped in elephantine folds of dark wool. Small dark eyes regarded her blandly through steel-rimmed glasses. His nose seemed to have been crushed nearly flat and never reset. His hair, what there was of it, had been shaved back to a gray stubble, and his black knit gloves were frayed and fingerless. »My name, you see,« he said, as though this would immediately reassure her, »is Petal.«
Petal called the city Smoke. Kumiko shivered on chill red leather; through the ancient Jaguar’s window she watched the snow spinning down to melt on the road Petal called M4. The late afternoon sky was colorless. He drove silently, efficiently, his lips pursed as though he were about to whistle. The traffic, to Tokyo eyes, was absurdly light. They accelerated past an unmanned Eurotrans freight vehicle, its blunt prow studded with sensors and banks of headlights. In spite of the Jaguar’s speed, Kumiko felt as if somehow she were standing still; London’s particles began to accrete around her. Walls of wet brick, arches of concrete, black-painted ironwork standing up in spears. As she watched, the city began to define itself. Off the M4, while the Jaguar waited at intersections, she could glimpse faces through the snow, flushed gaijin faces above dark clothing, chins tucked down into scarves, women’s bootheels ticking through silver puddles. The rows of shops and houses reminded her of the gorgeously detailed accessories she’d seen displayed around a toy locomotive in the Osaka gallery of a dealer in European antiques. This was nothing like Tokyo, where the past, all that remained of it, was nurtured with a nervous care. History there had become a quantity, a rare thing, parceled out by government and preserved by law and corporate funding. Here it seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now-all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire. »Regret Swain couldn’t come out to meet you himself,« the man called Petal said. Kumiko had less trouble with his accent than with his manner of structuring sentences; she initially mistook the apology for a command. She considered accessing the ghost, then rejected the idea. »Swain,« she ventured. »Mr. Swain is my host?« Petal’s eyes found her in the mirror. »Roger Swain. Your father didn’t tell you?« »No.« »Ah.« He nodded. »Mr. Kanaka’s conscious of security in these matters, it stands to reason. . . . Man of his stature, et cetera . . .« He sighed loudly. »Sorry about the heater. Garage was supposed to have that taken care of. . . .« »Are you one of Mr. Swain’s secretaries?« Addressing the stubbled rolls of flesh above the collar of the thick dark coat. »His secretary?« He seemed to consider the matter. »No,« he ventured finally, »I’m not that.« He swung them through a roundabout, past gleaming metallic awnings and the evening surge of pedestrians. »Have you eaten, then? Did they feed you on the flight?« »I wasn’t hungry.« Conscious of her mother’s mask. »Well, Swain’ll have something for you. Eats a lot of Jap food, Swain.« He made a strange little ticking sound with his tongue. He glanced back at her. She looked past him, seeing the kiss of snowflakes, the obliterating sweep of the wipers.