The Peripheral

Flynne goes to Jimmy’s bar once again. She is shaken by what she witnessed in the game, especially by how real it seemed. There is a group of five football players at the bar. Connor arrives on his Tarantula, and things get tense. The drunken football players try to start a fight with Connor, but Flynne intervenes and gets Connor to not retaliate.

Netherton and Ash discuss a want ad that was posted on the darknet, which offered an $8 million reward for an unspecified criminal undertaking. Netherton infers that it is a murder-for-hire plot. Lev then discusses how with each interaction with a stub, future outcomes are altered. He reveals that the ad is targeting Burton Fisher.

Flynne makes her way home from Jimmy’s and is trailed by a drone. Burton and Leon are there waiting when she arrives. Burton informs Flynne that people from the game, Coldiron, have contacted him, and he asks Flynne what she saw. She tells him, and he mentions that they also told him that a hit was taken out on him. Burton then tells Flynne that Coldiron wants to talk with her.

Lev, Netherton, and Ash contact Burton from a land yacht to discuss Burton’s performance as a security agent. The narrator describes Netherton’s perception of Burton, identified as the polt, after the two have their discussion. A polt is someone from the past that can be contacted from the future.

Burton also responds to the information that a hit has been taken out on him by saying he’s not an easy target for something like this, hinting at his secret military background. Seeing that his intimidation of Burton is not working, Lev instead opts to bribe him by offering his cousin Leon winning lottery numbers. In exchange, he requests a discussion with Flynne.

A new character appears at the start of the chapter: a man named Reese, who is a friend of Burton’s and a veteran. Reese and a few others are performing security on Burton’s home. Flynne then asks Burton about the people of Coldiron and what they look like. Flynne is skeptical of the whole operation, and Burton evades her questions as to what the whole thing is about. Finally, she talks with Netherton, who asks her to explain what she witnessed. She begins to do so just as the chapter ends.

Netherton reflects on Flynne, and the narrator once again mentions “the jackpot,” though specifics are once again withheld. The conversation that was interrupted at the end of the previous chapter resumes. Flynne recounts the story in full detail and adds that the man she witnessed in the room seemed to know what was coming.

After the discussion, Flynne feels even more suspicious of the whole enterprise. Flynne then visits her sick mother before returning home as surveillance drones fly overhead. As she drifts off to sleep, she is haunted by images of the woman in the game’s empty clothes fluttering in the wind.

Netherton and Lev discuss their perceptions of the meeting with Flynne. They both indicate, as does Ash, that nobody seems to know exactly what happened to the woman they suspect is Aelita. They discuss the mystery surrounding the hit on Burton, and Ash explains further how stubs operate. These are continuums of time through which information can be passed through different time periods.

Burton arrives at Flynne’s house and asks her if she has seen Connor. She tells him about seeing Connor at Jimmy’s. Burton shows Flynne Leon’s winning lottery ticket. Burton then asks Flynne about her conversation with Netherton. Flynne receives a call from Macon in which he requests a confidential visit. As she rides her bike to Macon’s, she sees Connor fly by on his Tarantula. Flynne arrives at Macon’s, and he is joined by his associate Edward. They discuss Connor and then talk about “builders” (drug manufacturers). All the while, Edward is working on an object virtually. Flynne can see he’s working on it, but what he is making is not yet identified.

Netherton, joined by Lev, Ash, and Ossian, is visited by a law enforcement officer by the name of Ainsley Lowbeer. Immediately, it is apparent that Lowbeer knows quite a lot about these figures with whom she is meeting. Lowbeer is technologically enhanced, especially her memory, which can be used as evidence in court. Lowbeer questions Lev about the continua. Lev explains that each time they connect with the past, a new fork of causality which he refers to as a “stub” is created.

Lowbeer implies that the true reason Lev and others exploit the continua is an act of imperialism. Lowbeer then attempts to piece together the details of the boss patcher’s death, whose name we learn is Hamed al-Habib. She also attempts to gather details on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Aelita’s disappearance and finds out that Flynne was an eyewitness. The reader learns from Ossian that the past world they are communicating with has an economy almost exclusively centered on drug manufacturing.

Flynne is awakened in the night by voices, one of them Burton’s. He is with the deputy sheriff, Tommy Constantine, who is explaining the circumstances surrounding the killing of four men whose bodies were discovered on the road. Flynne interrupts the conversation, and eventually, the three of them head to the crime scene. There is a flurry of activity at the scene which involves robots, AI collecting data, and traditional detectives. One CSI explains that the four men appear to have been prepared to kill someone before being killed themselves. It is implied that the dead bodies are those of the football players Flynne saw at Jimmy’s.

Netherton and Lev are transported to his father’s “love house,” presumably a place for extramarital affairs. While there, Lev informs Netherton that he had a peripheral sent to the home. Lev shows Netherton the peripheral and asks if it looks like Flynne. Lev then explains that he sent files in the stub that will explain to Macon how to get Flynne into the peripheral.

Flynne receives a call from Netherton. He asks her if the company she works at, Fabulous Fab, prints their own drones, to which she answers yes. He then asks where the printing is done and says that they will need to arrange for some to be printed, and they will provide technical support as implied in the previous chapter. Flynne asks him if he and his group are “builders.”

Netherton remarks that while the peripheral looks like a female, it is not sentient. Netherton has been put in charge of watching over it, much to his dismay. Lev informs Netherton that though it is not sentient, at the cellular level, the peripheral is just like a human. After Lev leaves, Rainey’s sigil appears. She informs him that there are suggestions that Aelita’s death was revenge for the patcher’s death.