Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Carl Hollywood was approaching, striding across the middle of the banquet hall like he owned the place, resplendent in hand-tooled cowboy boots made of many supple and exotic bird and reptile skins, wearing a vast raiment, sort of a cross between a cape and a Western duster, that nearly brushed the floor, and that made him look seven feet tall rather than a mere six and a half. His long blond hair was brushed back away from his forehead, his King Tut beard was sharp and straight as a hoe. He was gorgeous and he knew it, and his blue eyes were piercing right through Miranda, holding her there in front of the open elevator doors, through which she'd almost escaped.

He gave her a big hug and whirled her around. She shrank against him, shielded from the crowd in the banquet hall by his enveloping cloak. "I look like shit," she said. "Why didn't you tell me it was going to be this kind of a party?"

"Why didn't you know?" Carl said. As a director, one of his talents was to ask the most difficult imaginable questions.

"I would have worn something different. I look like-"

"You look like a young bohemian artiste," Carl said, stepping back to examine her typically form-fitting black bodysuit, "who doesn't give a shit about pretentious clothes, who makes everyone else in the room feel overdressed, and who can get away with it because she's got that special something."

"You silver-tongued dog," she said, "you know that's bullshit."

"A few years ago you would have sailed into that room with that lovely chin of yours held up like a battering ram, and everyone would have stepped back to look at you. Why not now?"

"I don't know," Miranda said. "I think with this Nell thing, I've incurred all the disadvantages of parenthood without actually getting to have a child."

Carl relaxed and softened, and Miranda knew she'd spoken the words he was looking for. "C'mere," he said. "I want you to meet someone."

"If you're going to try to fix me up with some wealthy son of a bitch-"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"I'm not going to become a housewife who acts in her spare time."

"I realize that," Carl said. "Now calm yourself for a minute." Miranda was forcibly ignoring the fact that they were walking through the middle of the room now. Carl Hollywood was drawing all of the attention, which suited her. She exchanged smiles with a couple of ractors who had appeared in the interactive invitation that had summoned her here; both of them were having what looked like very enjoyable conversations with fine-looking people, probably investors.

"Who are you taking me to meet?"

"A guy named Beck. An old acquaintance of mine."

"But not a friend?"

Carl adopted an uncomfortable grin and shrugged. "We've been friends sometimes. We've also been collaborators. Business partners. This is how life works, Miranda: After a while, you build up a network of people. You pass them bits of data they might be interested in and vice versa. To me, he's one of those guys."

"I can't help wondering why you want me to meet him."

"I believe," Carl said very quietly, but using some actor's trick so that she could hear every word, "that this gentleman can help you find Nell. And that you can help him find something he wants." And he stepped aside with a swirl of cloak, pulling out a chair for her. They were in the corner of the banquet hall. Sitting on the opposite side of the table, his back to a large marble-silled window, the illuminated Bund and the mediatronic cacophony of Pudong spilling bloody light across the glossy shoulder-pads of his suit, was a young African man in dreadlocks, wearing dark glasses with minuscule circular lenses held in some kind of ostentatiously complex metallic space grid. Sitting next to him, but hardly noticed by Miranda, was a Nipponese businessman wearing a dark formal kimono and smoking what smelled like an old-fashioned, fully carcinogenic cigar.

"Miranda, this is Mr. Beck and Mr. Oda, both privateers. Gentlemen, Ms. Miranda Redpath."

Both men nodded in a pathetic vestige of a bow, but neither made a move to shake hands, which was just as well– nowadays some amazing things could be transferred through skin-to-skin contact. Miranda didn't even nod back to them; she just sat down and let Carl scoot her in. She didn't like people who described themselves as privateers. It was just a pretentious word for a thete– someone who didn't have a tribe.

Either that, or they really did belong to tribes-from the looks of them, probably some weird synthetic phyle she'd never heard of-and, for some reason, were pretending not to.

Carl said, "I have explained to the gentlemen, without getting into any details, that you would like to do the impossible. Can I get you something to drink, Miranda?"