“A bit,” said Odette. “Mainly I’ve been working.”
“Oh, too bad,” said Saskia sympathetically. “I really do love this city. So much culture, things I never thought I’d get to see with my own eyes. Of course, I’ve done a lot of shopping too. All the lovely brands, and I got some marvelous cloth from Joel and Son. But also the museums and the galleries. I got that print on the wall just for you. Pim and I spent two days going through Kew Gardens, and then we went in at night and took samples from at least a hundred plants.”
“You’ve been busy,” said Odette. It was jarring. Her thoughts of the Antagonists had been muddled, her memories of who they were overlaid by visions of them plotting in a smoke-filled room or surreptitiously laying explosives. The Checquy should have been staking out the tourist spots and boutiques, she thought. “How long have I been under?”
“Not long,” said Saskia. “An hour, maybe?”
“From the hotel?”
“We moved quickly,” said Saskia. “We had to, since we have one more thing to do, and we don’t want the circumstances to change.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Odette, dreading the answer.
“We need to have a talk,” said Saskia seriously. “All of us. Can you stand up?” Odette swung her legs over the side of the bed and shakily stood up. Her leg trembled a little under her. “We took your scalpels out,” said Saskia delicately. “The muscles are still probably a bit wobbly. Let me help you.” Odette braced herself against the wall as Saskia brought her a skirt and put it on her. It was knee-length, black, well cut.
“Thanks,” said Odette. “Let’s go.” The floor was carpeted, and they both remained barefoot as Saskia took her arm and led her out the door into a hallway with more of those dividing walls. The carpet looked as if it had been freshly laid. It was all very sterile.
“So, where are we?”
“In the City,” said Saskia carelessly. “We rented a floor in one of those dull office buildings. We were lucky to find it; real estate in this town is insane.”
“You’re in an office building?” asked Odette incredulously.
“You actually can’t do much better,” said a voice behind them. Odette shuffled around awkwardly to see him. He wasn’t wearing the face he’d sported during the Blinding. Instead, he was just as Felicity had described him: shiny white skin, nodules along his head. At least he’s wearing clothes.
“Simon,” said Odette. She reached out and took his hand.
“’Dette. We finally got you.” He leaned forward and kissed her on both cheeks. His lips felt strange on her skin. But his eyes were the same, with so much merriment and genuine delight that it made her want to cry.
“It’s good to see you too, although...” She trailed off awkwardly.
“I know, not ideal circumstances,” he said, grinning.
“You replaced your eye.”
“Twenty minutes’ work.” He shrugged. “Anyway, let’s keep moving, I expect the others are waiting.”
“You were saying this was such a good location,” Odette said.
“Right, yes,” said Simon. “Very convenient. It’s got all the space one could need, air-conditioning, lots of power outlets, easy access to public transport, reserved parking, and Claudia got the owner to set us up with good Internet connections.”
“You’ve gone corporate.”
“Actually, we do have a little company,” said Simon. “Registered and everything. Of course, it doesn’t really do anything, but the corporate credit cards are handy, and I’ve set up an account with a furniture rental place that has proven very useful.”
“And there’s a nice Indian restaurant downstairs that delivers,” said Saskia.
“I understand you’ve stayed in some other London places too,” said Odette.
“We were in a hotel for the first couple of nights,” said Simon, “and then Claudia moved in here and got set up. The rest of us rented a house by Hyde Park that was rather pleasant, although we had to abandon it and come here after the Chimerae tracked us down.”
“I was thinking more of the other place, the one that burned down.”
“Ah yes, that was insane. I actually took on a team of Checquy! Can you imagine?” Odette didn’t point out that it had been half a team. Or that he had apparently been turning civilians into human bombs there.
“You have a surgical suite here?”
“Our last one,” said Saskia. “There’s another one gestating in a house in Madrid.”
“Let’s move into the conference room,” said Simon, and he opened a door at the end of the hallway. The conference room was large — it appeared to take up half the floor — and mostly dark, with dim pools of light dotted about. A narrow band of windows looked out onto the city, but thick blinds cut out almost all the light, showing just silhouettes of the buildings around them.
A long conference table covered with familiar detritus stood before the windows. Odette recognized the laptops that Simon used and Saskia’s sketchpads. Pim’s tablet computer sat on a pile of newspapers. A deep plastic tray filled with pink jelly marked the place where Mariette must have been accustomed to sitting — her father had created a biological computer for her. A figure was hunched over at one end of the table. The person was seated in darkness, but cords of light glowed on the head. As they approached, the figure sat up and turned toward them, and Odette recognized the face.
“Mijn God, Claudia!” Her friend’s eyes were gone. Instead, many clear plastic tubes poured from her sockets. They spread out and back, draping over her head and hanging down over her shoulders to trail away into the shadows. Odette saw, inside the plastic, the white and black strings that made up synthetic nerves, as well as some copper wires. “What in God’s name have you done to yourself?”
“Odette,” said Claudia, and her voice chimed oddly. “It’s good to see you.”
Odette refrained from stating the obvious. It took all her strength, but she managed it.
“No, I actually can see you,” said Claudia. “I’m looking through Saskia’s and Simon’s eyes.” Odette turned to look at the other two. They nodded. “I really wish you wouldn’t nod,” said Claudia peevishly. “It’s like watching that damn movie with all the little handheld cameras. If you could all just sit, that would be great. Odette, sit next to me. Saskia, could you please sit across from her?” Odette sat automatically, her back to the window, and Claudia fumbled for her hand, found it, and squeezed it. “I’d hug you, but moving around like this is a pain in the ass. And the eyes.”
“What is this?” asked Odette.
“Communications,” said Claudia simply. “Surveillance. We had access to a couple of agents within the Checquy, but to stay abreast of all the developments we’ve had to turn to other, more direct means of observation.”
“You hacked into the brotherhood’s communication structure,” said Odette tiredly. “I saw what you did to Ernst’s secretary.”
Claudia nodded slightly, and the wires shifted on her shoulders. She put a hand up to her face. “Ow! Damn it, I have got to remember not to move my head,” she said. “Honestly, I can’t wait until I get all this stuff removed and my eyes are out of the refrigerator and back in my head. Anyway, yes, Odette, I did that.”
“All this, just for that one trick?” said Odette. Which was pretty juvenile anyway. “After that, you know the brotherhood stopped using internal telephones.”
“They thought they did,” said Claudia. “But actually, I’ve been looking through a lot of people’s eyes. It’s not easy, but I can activate anyone’s communications implants without their knowing. I can see what they see and hear what they hear. Mainly it’s been secretaries, but the secretaries learn all the important things anyway.” Odette thanked her lucky stars that she’d never had the phone implants put into her. “Plus, I can surf the Net with this, which makes up for the inconvenience a little bit. I’ve been watching a lot of movies.”