The Bridge Trilogy Part 73

"I observed, as we ate, that you avoided looking directly at the idoru."

"Right."

"I surmise that density of information is sufficient to allow nodal apprehension

"You got it."

Yamazaki nodded. "Ah. But this would not be the case with one of her videos, or even with a 'live'

performance."

"Why not?" Laney had started back in the direction of their table.

"Bandwidth," Yamazaki said, "The version here tonight is high-bandwidth prototype."

"Are we compensated for beta-testing?"

"Can you describe the nature of nodal apprehension, please?" "Like memories," Laney said, "or clips from a movie. But something the drummer said made me think I was just seeing her latest video."

Someone shoved Laney out of the way, from behind, and he fell across the nearest table, breaking a gla.s.s. He felt the gla.s.s shatter under him and found himself staring straight down, for a second, into

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the taut gray latex lap of a woman who screamed explosively just before the table gave way.

Something, probably her knee, clipped him hard in the side of the head.

He managed to get to his knees, holding his head, and found himself recalling an experiment they'd done in Science, back in Gainesville. Surface tension. You sprinkled pepper over the water in a gla.s.s. Brought the tip of a needle close to the film of pepper. Watched it spring back from the needle like a live thing. And he saw that happening here, his head ringing, but instead of pepper it was the crowd in the Western World, and he knew that the needle must be pointed at Rez's table.

The back of a white leather evening jacket. . . . But then he saw the Sherman tank come unmoored on the shoulders of the recoiling crowd, spinning toward him, huge and weightless, and the lights went out.

The crowd had been screaming anyway, but the dark twisted the communal pitch up into something that had Laney covering his ears. Or trying to, because someone stumbled into him and he went over, backward, instinctively curling into a tight fetal knot and clamping his hands across the back of his neck.

"Hey," said a voice, very close to his ear, "get on up. You gonna get stepped on." It was w.i.l.l.y Jude, "I can see." A hand around his wrist. "Got infrared."

Laney let the drummer pull him to his feet. "What is it? What's happening?"

"Dunno, but come on. Gonna get worse-" As if on cue, a terrible squeal of raw animal pain cut through the frenzied crowd-noise. "Blackwell got one," w.i.l.l.y Jude said, and Laney felt the drummer's hand grip his belt. He stumbled as he was pulled along. Someone ran into him, shouted in j.a.panese. After that he kept his hands up, trying to protect his face, and went where the drummer pulled him,

Suddenly they were in a cove or pocket of relative quiet. "Where are we?" Laney asked.

"This way Something clipped Laney across the s.h.i.+ns.

192 WiIIi~in. Gibson "Stool," w.i.l.l.y Jude said. "Sorry." Gla.s.s snapped beneath Laney's shoes.

A curve of greenish light, broken cursive hanging in the dark. Another few steps and he saw the Grotto. w.i.l.l.y Jude let go of his belt. "You can see here, right? That bioluminescent stuff?"

"Yeah," Laney said. "Thanks,"

"It doesn't register on my gla.s.ses. I get infrared off warm bodies, but I can't make out the steps. Walk me down." He took Laney's hand. They started down the stairs together. A black-clad trio of j.a.panese shot past them, leaving a high-heeled pump on the encrusted stairs, and vanished around the landing. Laney kicked the shoe out of w.i.l.l.y Jude's way and kept going.

When they rounded the corner at the landing, Arleigh was there, a green champagne bottle c.o.c.ked over her shoulder. There was a smear of blood at the corner of her mouth, darker than her lipstick. When she saw Laney, she lowered the bottle. "Where were you?" she said.

"The Men's," Laney said.

"You missed the show."

"What happened?"

"d.a.m.n it," she said, "my coat's up there."

"Keep moving, keep moving," w.i.l.l.y Jude said, More stairs, more landings, the rippling walls of the Grotto giving way to concrete. People kept rus.h.i.+ng down, past them, knots and singles, taking the stairs too fast. Laney rubbed his ribs where he'd come down on the gla.s.s. It hurt, but somehow he hadn't been cut.

"They looked like Kombinat," Arleigh said. "Big ugly guys, bad outfits. I couldn't tell if they were after Rez or the idoru. Like they just thought they could walk in and do it."

"Do what?"

"Don't know," she said. "Kuwayama had at least a dozen of his own security people at the two closest tables. And Blackwell probably prays for a scene like that every night before he goes to bed. He reached into hi~ jacket, then the lights went out." 0

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"He put 'em out," w.i.l.l.y Jude said. "Some kinda remote. He can see better in the dark than I can with these infrareds. Dunno how that is, but he can."

"How'd you get out?" Laney asked Arleigh.

"Flashlight. In my purse."

"Laney-san

Looking back to see Yamazaki, one sleeve of his green plaid coat pulled free at the shoulder, his gla.s.ses missing a lens. Arleigh had taken a phone from her purse and was cursing softly as she tried to get it to work.

Yamazaki caught up with them at the next landing. The four of them continued down togerher, Laney still holding the blind drummer's hand.

When they reached the street, the Western World's sullen crew of doorpeople were nowhere in sight.

A single policeman with a plastic rain-cover on his cap was muttering frantically into a microphone clipped to the front of his rain-cape. He was walking in tight circles as he did this, gesturing dramatically with a white baton at nothing in particular. Several kinds of alien siren were converging on the Western World, and Laney thought he could hear a helicopter.

w.i.l.l.y Jude dropped Laney's hand and adjusted his video-goggles to the street's light-level.

"Where's my car?"

Arleigh lowered her phone, which apparently was working now. "You'd better come with us, w.i.l.l.y.

Some kind of tactical unit is on the way.

"Nothing like it," Rez said, and Laney turned, to see the singer emerging from the Western World, brus.h.i.+ng something white from his dark jacket. "That physical thing. Too much time in the virtual, we forget that, don't we? You're Leyner?" Extending his hand.

"Laney," Laney said, as Arleigh's dark green van pulled up beside them.

194 William Gibson