to quietly decay. There were no cleaners here, no assemblers, no cams, nothing

“From here, we could walk greenways to Richmond Park, Hampstead Heath, and on, from either. Fourteen in all. And the hundred rivers, all recovered

Cleaners, he knew, would have come from their nest beneath the bed, to drag them away, flense them of whatever invisible quanta of sebum,

“Terrorism,” said the rental. “We prefer not to use that term,” said Lowbeer, studying her candle flame with something that looked to Netherton to be regret, “if only because terror should remain the sole prerogative of the state.” She looked up at him. “Someone has made an attempt on your life. It may also have been intended to intimidate any

He looked like Teddy Roosevelt, Madison, and most of what she knew about Teddy Roosevelt was that Madison looked like him. He had a mustache he trimmed but never shaved off, round titanium-wire glasses, and a moth-eaten wool cruiser vest, olive green, complicated breast pockets bristling with pens and little flashlights.

“Scares me, you do that shit.”

Leon tilted his head to one side. “You in the future, Wilf?” “In a sense.” “How’s the weather?” “Less sunny, last I looked.” “You should be a weatherman,” Leon said, “you’re in the future and you know the weather.” “You’re someone who only pretends to be unintelligent,” Netherton said. “It serves you simultaneously as protective coloration and a

“This will install a cognitive bundle that will enable you to sound something like a neoprimitivist curator. If not to another neoprimitivist curator, though I’d imagine that’s debatable.” “It will?” Flynne asked, eyeing the thing. “How?” “Think of it as a disguise. You no more need to operate it than you need to operate a mask. Certain specific

“We’re all poor, except Pickett, who’s maybe dead now, and one or two others.