Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

“You can tell me what it is or I can cut your
     power.”
    “Y’know, Gentry, I wasn’t around here, you’d have a lot less time for … things.” Slick
     raised his eyebrows meaningfully in the direction of the big projection table. “Fact
     is, I got two people staying with me.…” He saw Gentry stiffen, the pale eyes widen.
     “But you won’t
see
either of ’em, won’t hear ’em, nothing.”
    “No,” Gentry said, his voice tight, as he rounded the end of the table, “because you’re
     going to
get them out of here
, aren’t you?”
    “Two weeks max, Gentry.”
    “Out.
Now
.” Gentry’s face was inches away and Slick smelled the sour breath of exhaustion.
     “Or you go with them.”
    Slick outweighed Gentry by ten kilos, most of it muscle, but that had never intimidated
     Gentry; Gentry didn’t seem to know or care that he could be hurt. That was intimidating
     in its own way. Gentry had slapped him, once, hard, in the face, and Slick had looked
     down at the huge chrome-moly wrench in his own hand and had felt an obscure embarrassment.
    Gentry was holding himself rigid, starting to tremble. Slick had a pretty good idea
     that Gentry didn’t sleep when he went to Boston or New York. He didn’t always sleep
     that much in Factory either. Came back strung and the first day was always the worst.
     “Look,” Slick said, the way somebody might to a child on the verge of tears, and pulled
     the bag from his pocket, the bribe from Kid Afrika. He held up the clear plastic Ziploc
     for Gentry to see: blue derms, pink tablets, a nasty-looking turd of opium in atwist of red cellophane, crystals of wiz like fat yellow throat lozenges, plastic
     inhalers with the Japanese manufacturer’s name scraped off with a knife.… “From Afrika,”
     Slick said, dangling the Ziploc.
    “Africa?” Gentry looked at the bag, at Slick, the bag again. “From Africa?”
    “Kid Afrika. You don’t know him. Left this for you.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he needs me to put up these friends of his for a little while. I owe him
     a favor, Gentry. Told him how you didn’t like anybody around. How it gets in your
     way. So,” Slick lied, “he said he wanted to leave you some stuff to make up for the
     trouble.”
    Gentry took the bag and slid his finger along the seal, opening it. He took out the
     opium and handed that back to Slick. “Won’t need that.” Took out one of the blue derms,
     peeled off the backing, and smoothed it carefully into place on the inside of his
     right wrist. Slick stood there, absently kneading the opium between his thumb and
     forefinger, making the cellophane crackle, while Gentry walked back around the long
     table and opened the pannier. He pulled out a new pair of black leather gloves.
    “I think I’d better … meet these guests of yours, Slick.”
    “Huh?” Slick blinked, astonished. “Yeah … But you don’t really have to, I mean, wouldn’t
     it be—”
    “No,” Gentry said, flicking up his collar, “I
insist
.”
    Going down the stairs, Slick remembered the opium and flung it over the rail, into
     the dark.
    He hated drugs.
    “Cherry?” He felt stupid, with Gentry watching him bang his knuckles on his own door.
     No answer. He opened it. Dim light. He saw how she’d made a shade for one of his bulbs,
     a cone of yellow fax fastened with a twist of wire. She’d unscrewed the other two.
     She wasn’t there.
    The stretcher was there, its occupant bundled in theblue nylon bag.
It’s eating him
, Slick thought, as he looked at the superstructure of support gear, the tubes, the
     sacs of fluid.
No
, he told himself,
it’s keeping him alive, like in a hospital
. But the impression lingered: what if it were draining him, draining him dry? He
     remembered Bird’s vampire talk.
    “Well,” said Gentry, stepping past him to stand at the foot of the stretcher. “Strange
     company you keep, Slick Henry …” Gentry walked around the stretcher, keeping a cautious