Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [91]
Three consignments in the past month, all consisting of tens, no, hundreds of metres of fine silk. One order still outstanding: the fabric had just come in by air, and awaited delivery. The order had been placed four days ago, in the morning. When he’d encountered the Black Planner.
Yee-ha!
As he stared at the line of information it began to blink. A message came up.
‘CROSS-REFERENCE ON WOMEN’S PEACE COMMUNITY EXISTS. DISPLAY?’
A big Y to that. The pages rippled as the program followed pointers through the Collective’s databases. Then the scene cleared to display a videophone message that had been waiting in the Pending file since the day before yesterday.
The phone’s flat screen popped up in the middle of the virtual scene. As the picture stabilized Jordan thought, for a startled moment, that he was seeing an interior view in Beulah City itself: a parlour with overelaborate furnishings and drapes; two women in long, likewise overelaborate dresses, all petticoats and pinafores. The woman in the foreground sat primly, hands folded in her lap, facing the camera. The other sat on a sofa behind and to the left, paying no attention to the call; she was concentrating on a piece of needlework, her fair curls falling forward in front of her face.
‘Felix Dzerzhinsky Workers’ Defence Collective?’ the first woman asked, the words sounding incongruous. She nodded at the confirmation. ‘Good. We require professional advice on neighbourhood security, and we understand that you have some experience in this field. Please call us as soon as possible. Thank you.’
She reached forward to sign off, and just as she did so the woman in the background looked up. She looked straight at the camera from across the room, brushing her hair back from her forehead with her wrist.
Jordan jumped at the shock of recognition.
It was Cat.
The picture clicked off.
Jordan passed a note into Mary’s work-space, asking her to take a break. She did, after another strenuous minute. Jordan ran the message for her.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘That’s Cat! At the end there.’
Mary frowned. ‘Let me see that again.’ This time she magnified the last section. ‘Yeah, well it certainly looks like her, but…’
‘You’d never expect to see her dolled up like that?’ Jordan smiled to see he was right. ‘It’s the way she’s pushing her hair back. It’s like the picture in Moh’s room, shows her doing just the same thing. Except in the picture it’s a spanner she’s working with, not a needle.’
‘Well, Jordan, I don’t know how you think we live, but I’ve never been in Moh’s room,’ Mary said with a giggle. ‘You’ll have to show it to Moh.’
Jordan was about to do that when he remembered what the message was actually about, and how he’d found it.
‘Let me just fix something up first,’ he said.
‘Yeah, that’s Catherin all right,’ Moh said. He saved the image from his glades and cleared the view, turning his attention to the Tinkerbell-sized fetches of Jordan and Mary above his hand-phone. ‘Well spotted, Jordan. I might have not have recognized her myself if it weren’t for that thing with the hair. Cat disguised as a lady – that’s a laugh.’
‘I think you were meant to spot it,’ Jordan said. ‘You or one of the comrades. They’re telling you: Cat’s here, come and get her!’
‘So why not call us and say that? Who are these people, anyway?’
‘Feminists – femininists,’ Mary corrected herself. ‘Women’s Peace Community, some kind of sweetness and light outfit—’
‘Yes!’ Moh shouted. ‘The Body Bank!’
Janis, who like him was prone, looking at the phone display, winced as the sound filled the narrow volume they lay in.
‘Sorry, Janis.’
‘What’s that about the Body Bank?’ Mary asked.
‘There’s a teller at the Body Bank at Brunel