The lobby of the old resort was built of granite, like the stones around Helshire—the scree left by ancient glaciers. But the decor had been restored to its 1950s glory.
Everyone was fresh out of their cars, halfway through their second glasses of champagne. We were soon fortified with new friends for the real party, which began after dinner. The milkshake now seemed ill-advised. Food was plentiful.
All the people here were the sorts my family incorporated. A pair of married intellectual property lawyers, working to reclaim the rights of actors who’d been scanned—bodies and faces now owned by movie studios. A cosmetic surgeon who wore a sixty-thousand-dollar watch and specialized in making white teenagers look Korean. A fashionphotographer whose latest work was shot in shipping containers on cargo ships at sea, using only sunlight from holes drilled into the corrugated metal walls. Everyone was successful, connected, and yet somehow rudderless—part of nothing except the machineries of money and of Dr. Lyon’s court.
He was nowhere, and everywhere. People talked about his theories, his parties, and his art collection. Hiromi found herself celebrated. Random people, even a few established artists, knew her name, her robots, her headstones.
She began to glow, her anxiety lifting. She told stories of out-of-control machines, of parts flying off at crucial moments, of the knife-throwing robot arm almost sending a nine-inch Bowie through her foot.
“It wasn’t that close,” I said.
“Hush, Jess. It wasmillimeters.”
She had another of her special drinks—lychee, this time—and regaled the coterie around us with stories of asking rich people for their favorite Martin Luther King quotes. For a moment, I thought she’d forgotten my blunder the day we met. How evil flourishes, when good does nothing.
But then she winked at me across the group.
I smiled back, pretending to slip from my glass of champagne.
“Ms. Anderson,” a voice came softly in my ear. Yet another of the perfectly put-together young women.
“Yes?”
“There’s been a small incident. As a courtesy, we like to make sure the guests’ cars are topped up.”
“Oh shit,” I said. Uncle Orrin, future-proofing against the rickety world beyond the estate, had converted the fleet to biofuels. “That car takes diesel.”
“Everything should be fine. We just need some technical advice.”
“Right.” One drop of unleaded, and Orrin would have my skin.
I put my still-full glass on a passing tray, gave Hiromi an apologetic look, and mouthedten minutes.
She nodded back, her latest story still in full flight—the time she pilfered a set of Thermomix blades from a certain TV chef girlfriend: the rpms, the damages, the recriminations.
Beyond the front doors, the party chatter faded into cicadas and wind in the leaves, the sudden vastness of the dark. A Bentley SUV waited in the turnaround. The still apologetic young woman opened its rear door for me.
There were two men in the front. They weren’t valets or mechanics.
The woman saw my hesitation. “Cabin Sixteen is twenty minutes’ walk from here. Only a few minutes by car.”
She’d been ready with that line.
“Perfect,” I said, getting in. “The party was getting boring anyway.”
38
The men didn’t say much.
No small talk, no reassurances about my vintage engine. I recognized the driver now—one of Lyon’s bodyguards at the Xenakis opening.
My butterfly knife was already at hand, resting on the seat next to me. Still folded, but only a flick away from carnage. I slipped the flash grenade from my boot into a pocket.
I’d started to worry, back at the party, that I wasn’t clever enough to spot weaknesses in the midst of all this opulence. That the cult’s ragged edges would be tucked away this weekend, and I’d have no fresh ideas to present to Garrett and Arabella.
But this was kidnapping. Either his jealousy at work, or he’d had enough of outsiders testing him. Either way, my strategy was the same:
Hold my ground. Make the offer. Punish any slight.
