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file:///F|/rah/New%20Folder/All%20Tomorrows%20Parties.txt flecked marble.
Where had Laney found this guy?
Eventually Rydell did manage to kill the music, something vaguely classical
and swelling, but it still seemed to take him three minutes to get to Selwyn
F.X. Tong's doors. Which were tall, very tall, and mapped to resemble some
genenc idea of tropical hardwood
Teak my ass said Rydell
"Welcome," said a breathless, hyper-feminine voice, "to the offices of Selwyn
FX Tong notary public'
The doors swung open Rydell figured that if he hadn t killed the
~ music, it would be peaking about now.
Virtually, the notary's office was about the size of an Olympic pool but
scarce on detail. Rydeli used the rocker-pad on his glasses to scoot his POV
right up to the desk, which was about the size of a pool table, and mapped in
that same ramped-down wood look. There were a cou
-- - pie of nondescript, metallic-looking objects on it and a few pieces of
virtual paper.
"What's the 'F.X.' stand for?" Rydell asked. -
Francis Xavier said Tong who presented as a sort of deadpan car toon of a
small Chinese man in a white shirt black tie black suit His
A
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black hair and the black suit were mapped in the same texture, a weird effect
and one Rydell took to be unintentional.
"1 thought you might be in video" Rydell said, "like it's a nickname:
FX, 'effects,' right?"
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"I am Catholic," Tong said, his tone neutral.
"No offense," Rydell said.
"None taken," said Tong, his plastic-looking face as shiny as his
plastic-looking eyes.
You always forgot, Rydell reflected, just how bad this stuff could look if it
hadn't been handled right.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Rydeil?"
"Laney didn't tell you?"
"Laney?"
"Cohn," Rydell said. "Space. Laney."
"And . . . ?"
"Six," Rydell said. "Zero. Four. Two."
Tong's plastic-looking eyes narrowed.
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"Berry."
Tong pursed his lips. Behind him, through a broad window, at a different rate
of resolution, Rydell could see the skyline of Hong Kong.
"Berry" Rydell repeated.
"Thank you, Mr. Rydell," the notary said. "My client has authorized me to give
you this seven-
digit identification number." A gold fountain pen appeared in Tong's right
hand like a continuity error in a student film. It was a very large pen,
elaborately mapped with swirling dragons, their scales in higher resolution
than anything else in the site. Probably a gift, Rydell decided. Tong wrote
the seven digits on one of the sheets of virtual paper, then reversed it on
the desktop so that Rydell could read it. The pen had vanished, as unnaturally
as it had appeared. "'Please don't repeat this number aloud," Tong said.
Why not?"
"Issues of encryption," Tong said obscurely. "You have as long as you like to
memorize the number."
Rydell looked at the seven digits and began to work out a mnemonic. He finally
arrived at one based on his birthday, the number of states when he was born,
his father's age when he'd died, and a mental image of two cans of 7-
Up. When he was certain that he'd be able to recall the number, he looked up
at Tong. "Where do I
go to get the credit chip?"
"Any automated teller. You have photo identification?"
"Yes," Rydell said. "Then we are finished." "One thing," Rydell said. "What is
that?"
"Tell me how I get out of here without having to go back down that corridor of
yours. I just want a straight exit, right?"
Tong regarded him blandly. "Click on my face."
Rydell did, using the rocker-pad to summon a cursor shaped like a neon green
cartoon hand, pointing. 'Thanks," he said, as Tong's office folded.
He was in the corridor, facing back the way he had come. "Damn," Rydell said.
The music began. He worked the rocker-pad, trying to remember how he'd killed
it before. He wanted to get a GPS fix on the nearest ATM, though, so he didn't
unplug the glasses.
He clicked for the end of the corridor.
- - The click seemed to trigger a metastatic surge of bit rot, every bland
texture map rewritten in some weirder hand: the red carpet went gray-green,
its knap grown strange and unevenly furry, like something at the bottom of a
month-old cup of coffee, while the walls went from whore house marble to a
moist fish belly pallor the sconce lights glowing dim
- - as drowned corpse candles. Tong's fake-classical theme cracked and
hollowed, weird bass notes rumbling in just above the threshold of the
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subsonic.
It all took about a second to happen, and it took Rydell maybe another second
to get the idea that someone wanted his undivided attention.
"Rydell." It was one of those voices that they fake up from found
-" audio: speech cobbled from wind down skyscraper canyons, the creak ing
of Great Lakes ice tree frogs clanging in the Southern night Rydell
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file:///F|/rah/New%20Folder/All%20Tomorrows%20Parties.txt had heard them
before. They grated on the nerves, as they were meant to, and conveniently
disguised the voice of the speaker. Assuming the speaker had a voice in the
first place.
"Hey," Rydell said, "I was just trying to click out."
A virtual screen appeared in front of him, a round-cornered rectangle whose
dimensions were meant to invoke the cultural paradigm of twentieth-century
video screens. On it, an oddly angled, monochromatic view of some vast shadowy
space, dimly lit from above. Nothing there. Impression of decay, great age.
"I have important information for you." The vowel in you suggested a siren
dopplering past, then gone.
"Well," said Rydell, "if your middle name is 'F. X.,'you're sure going to some
trouble."
There was a pause, Rydell staring at the dead, blank space depicted or
recorded on the screen. He was waiting for something to move there; probably
that was the point of it, that nothing did.
"You'd better take this information very seriously, Mr. Rydell."
"I'm serious as cancer," Rydell said. "Shoot."
"Use the ATM at the Lucky Dragon, near the entrance to the bridge. Then
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