Emergence

A Fox Meridian Novel

By Niall Teasdale

Copyright 2016 Niall Teasdale

Amazon Kindle Edition

Contents

Part One: Festivities

Part Two: In the Big Top

Part Three: Insult, Meet Injury

Part Four: Rising Sun

Part Five: Death and Birth

Part One: Festivities

Toronto, République Française du Québec, 24th December 2060.

Jason Deveraux smiled, his eyes on the woman in the back of an autocab with him. ‘There’s no need to be nervous,’ he said; his French accent seemed to be stronger just for being north of the border.

‘I’m not nervous,’ Fox Meridian replied.

‘Non?’

‘Non, I’m terrified.’

‘You’ve faced murderers. You’ve escaped an underground bunker swarming with terrorists. You’re terrified of meeting my parents and sister?’

‘Am I allowed to shoot your parents or your sister?’

Jason’s smile did not shift a millimetre. ‘Obviously, I would prefer that you did not.’

‘Well then. An entirely invalid comparison, isn’t it? Terrorists are not a minefield of potential social disasters. In fact, they rarely even bother talking to me. We just get right down to the shooting.’

‘My father will find you fascinating. And as for my sister, all we have to do is summon up Kit and seat them in a corner.’

Fox managed a laugh. ‘It’s not that easy. Kit only sees and hears what I do. But, okay, so it’s just your mother I need to worry about.’

‘My mother will be too busy wondering how any woman has managed to take my attention for long enough to come to Christmas dinner to dislike you. Unless you shoot her, obviously. That might sour relations.’

‘Right. So, to clarify, talk cop to your father, let Kit talk to your sister, and don’t shoot your mother?’

‘That should cover it.’

‘I should be able to manage that.’

‘There will be some French floating around. Don’t be insulted.’

‘I get subtitles. Kit’s loaded up language programs for both kinds of French. I wasn’t sure if your father might use French French rather than–’

‘He’s got used to the Quebecois version. He does slip occasionally, but it’s rare. I must remember to thank Jackson Martins for the transport.’

Fox waved that away. ‘We just hopped a flight they were running anyway. Last-minute thing for staff heading back to Toronto. MarTech pampers its employees a bit, but that’s why people like working for the company.’

‘Almost makes one consider a new career.’

‘Don’t. I prefer not to date subordinates.’ Fox had, and Jason knew she had. He could likely make an assumption about her reasons for not doing it again too.

‘I’ll stick with international law enforcement then.’

Fox turned her attention to the window of the cab. The suburbs of Toronto had not changed too much with the influx of population from France. North of the expressway there were arcologies and vertical farming units: MarTech had its local offices there, and that was where they were driving down from. York and the core of the city were still much as they had been at the start of the century. Around them now, the houses looked large, set to the sides of broad roads with fully grown trees in the gardens. It was a relatively affluent area and affluence frequently meant private security.

‘You know,’ Fox said, ‘Palladium has a few contracts around here. Mostly supplemental patrols, but some of them include private investigation if required.’

‘So you enforce international law too?’

‘Investigate. We’re usually not allowed to do the enforcing part.’

Jason nodded. ‘It is a strange new world we live in. And we’re here.’

The cab was pulling to a stop in front of a two-level house built of pale, sandy-coloured brick with a slate roof and surrounded by large trees. There was no car on the drive, but it had a garage: Fox had read that there was more personal vehicle usage here compared to New York. The windows had shutters set beside them, though Fox thought they might be fake. The windows themselves looked like they had been replaced: wooden frames replaced with energy-efficient double glazing. A path led around from the drive to the side of the house and, given there seemed to be no door at the front, Fox figured that was where you entered.

Jason looked like he was going to be a gentleman and carry both their cases from the cab. Fox stood on the sidewalk and stared at him until he handed hers over. It was far lighter than his anyway since she was travelling back on the twenty-sixth and he was staying until New Year, but it was the principle of the thing. Jason was bigger and stronger than Fox was – it was one of the things she liked about him – but she was far from frail with muscles enhanced by the Army. He had told her that that was one of the things he liked about her: Jason had a thing for strong women.

The door, set into a small porch, opened before they got to it and a tall, grey-haired man emerged. He was smiling, and he spoke in French, and Fox read the subtitles which scrolled across her vision: You don’t carry a bag for your lady, son?

‘I insisted, Mister Deveraux,’ Fox said before Jason could reply. ‘Ex-Army, ex-cop, not that much of a lady.’

‘Ha! You speak French?’

‘Understand it. I’m not going to embarrass myself or insult you by trying to speak it.’

Deveraux Senior nodded. ‘Come in and we’ll do the introductions once, yes? Well, Gabrielle is running late. Her train was delayed, so we’ll have to do it again when she arrives, but twice is better than thrice.’ There was a French accent there, stronger than Jason’s, but the English was perfect.

The Deveraux family kept a tidy, well-maintained house. Fox figured the paint on the walls of the hall was no more than a year or two old. There was no sign of dust anywhere, despite there being various pictures on the walls which would have trapped it. They went straight through to the back of the house and into a large kitchen with a dark-green range and fittings which looked like genuine wood. It had a lived-in look that suggested it was one of the most-used rooms in the house. It also had Jason’s mother in it, sitting at the table in the middle of the floor with a mug of coffee in front of her.

‘Now that we’re here,’ Jason’s father said, ‘I’m Pascal, not “Mister Deveraux,” and this is my wife, Monique.’

As best Fox could tell, Jason was a case study in genetics. He had clearly got his build from his father: Pascal had probably lost some muscle tone since leaving the police, but he was, at sixty-eight, still a powerfully built and good-looking man. But he was dark, brown hair and eyes, and his wife was blonde and blue-eyed. Pascal had lent his son rugged features, but Monique had softened them a little. She was petite and pretty, and there was no grey in her hair or sag in her body to betray her years, but Fox could see no sign of cosmetic work.

‘Bonjour, Tara,’ Monique said, getting to her feet and stepping around the table to offer her hand.

‘Fox,’ Fox said, taking the hand.

Monique’s eyebrows raised. ‘Ah! The hair?’

Fox grinned and nodded: her mop of red hair shaded to near-white at the tips. ‘Childhood nickname that stuck. My friends call me Fox.’

‘A good start. I have two questions for you.’

Fox’s smile turned quizzical. ‘Okay…’

‘I hope you’re okay with sleeping with your boyfriend under his parents’ roof? If you aren’t, we’re short on rooms.’

‘Oh, I’m pretty shameless. If Jason has problems, he can sleep on the floor.’

‘Oh, I think I’m going to like this one, Jason,’ Pascal said, smirking. Jason just smiled.

‘I agree,’ Monique went on. ‘How did you manage to get him out from behind his desk, Fox? We were beginning to worry about him.’

Fox figured she was safe enough with something close to the truth: Monique had brought up sex, or at least the sharing of beds, already. ‘We met through work, so… sex and murder, basically. I kept turning up at his office with juicy murders and then enticed him out with a short skirt.’

‘And a corset and thigh-high boots,’ Jason added. ‘It was… a distinctly interesting first date.’ He turned to his father. ‘And she does bring me very interesting murders. She keeps uncovering serial killers with an international victim list.’

‘We’ll talk later,’ Pascal said with a glint in his eye.

Monique nodded. ‘Save it for when Gabrielle gets here. Coffee?’

‘Oh, yes please,’ Fox said. ‘I’ve had nothing to do for a month but read contract documents and I’m still having trouble keeping my eyes open. Pascal said Gabrielle’s train was delayed?’

‘Oui. Snow is affecting the east. We may even get some here before tomorrow.’

‘I hope so. Jason promised me a white Christmas.’

Pascal laughed. ‘It will be the first in five years.’

Jason shrugged. ‘Well, it was more of a suggestion…’

~~~

There was thin, icy snow falling by the time Gabrielle turned up. It was not really sticking to the ground yet, and what was had become a grey, dirty scum coating the sidewalk, but the temperature was dropping and the flakes were getting larger.

Gabrielle rushed into the kitchen to stand in front of the range, rubbing her hands together. ‘It’s getting cold out there,’ she muttered in French. ‘We might actually have snow tomorrow.’ Then she looked around, spotted Fox sitting beside her mother with a photograph album, and switched effortlessly into English with just a hint of French accent. ‘Oh God, sorry. You must be Tara. I’m Gabrielle, Gaby, which you probably already guessed.’

Fox smiled and got up to walk around the table. ‘It’s getting filthy out there, never mind cold. I don’t blame you for wanting the heat. And it’s Fox. Has he really been calling me Tara when he mentions me all this time?’

‘Actually, it was more of a mix. He’d slip between the two when he got excited. And I didn’t want to presume…’ Gaby was a pretty girl who, again, seemed to have something from both her parents. She appeared to get at least some of her height from her father, though she was a couple of inches shorter than Fox. Her figure, however, was her mother’s: slim, almost willowy, but an ample bust filled out the red, turtle-necked sweater dress she was wearing. Her face was a sort of narrow heart shape with a straight nose and quite a pointed chin. Her blue eyes had a hint of green in them, and her hair had obviously come from someone else entirely since it was coppery-red and she wore it in ringlets down to her neck. Her skin was pale, which went with her hair and the wintery weather.

‘You’re allowed to presume,’ Fox told her. ‘Oh, I’m supposed to introduce you to Kit.’

‘Kit?’

Kit appeared beside Fox: a fox-girl with large green eyes, hair which formed ears over her head, and a thick white brush. As usual, she was smiling. ‘I am pleased to meet you, Miss Deveraux,’ Kit said. ‘I am Kit, Fox’s personal assistant.’

‘Who’s Kit?’ Pascal asked, frowning with one brow raised.

‘Glasses, Pascal,’ Monique said as she took her own glasses from a pocket and propped them in place. ‘Oh! Now aren’t you the sweetest thing?’

Kit waited until Pascal had found and placed his own wireless-enabled specs, and then she smiled at them both. ‘Good afternoon, Mister and Mrs Deveraux.’

‘Huh, well,’ Pascal said. ‘You’re one of those infomorphs?’

‘She’s a class four AI,’ Fox said. ‘My PA, currently executing on a processor in my arm.’ Fox looked around the collected expressions of surprise and added, ‘My right arm is artificial below the elbow, and that’s a story for later. However, it means they could put a quantum processor in there, which lets me carry Kit around with me, which is very useful.’

‘Jason and I manage with a VA,’ Gaby said, tapping her head, ‘up here. Mom and Dad are happy with the wearables. But I guess being on the executive board at Palladium Security Solutions requires a bit more… capability.’

‘I guess, but Kit’s more than a PA. She’s turning into quite the detective. She’s the queen of bulk data analysis and mining data off the internet.’

Kit’s cheeks coloured. ‘I do my best.’

‘Oh…’ Gaby breathed. ‘She’s really a class four. I’ve never really had a chance to talk to one…’

Fox glanced at Jason, who was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee and wearing an amused ‘I told you so’ expression. ‘We’re here until Sunday,’ Fox said. ‘Plenty of time.’

‘Not nearly enough,’ Gaby sighed.

~~~

‘I basically do the same job as Kit,’ Gaby said. They had gravitated to the lounge after eating around the kitchen table in the evening. The house had a dining room which was, apparently, used when the Moon was blue and almost obscured by flying pigs, but would be used for Christmas dinner. The lounge was an evening place with a couple of huge sofas soft enough to sink into and a chair which Pascal occupied. A fake fire blazed, pumping out heat which was welcome because the outside temperature had dropped quite alarmingly and the snow was falling properly now.

‘I do e-profiling,’ Gaby went on, ‘and other data collection stuff. I’ve told them we’ll eventually get replaced by AIs, and I’ve started learning to handle more investigative work. Electronic crime is big business, and it’s a far harder job training an infomorph to handle that than it is to get them data mining for personal details.’

‘I agree,’ Kit said. She was sitting on the floor, cross-legged, at Fox’s feet, a white-clad vulpine pixie. ‘I am learning to do criminology, and I have a natural predisposition for psychological profiling, but it is hard work. I prefer to let Fox do what she does best while I concentrate on providing her with the information she needs.’

‘And she’s good at it,’ Fox said, ‘but she sells herself short on the investigative aspects. Hell, she turned a cold case into a hunt for a current serial killer.’

‘Oh?’ Pascal said. It was a hint to tell the story: there was a sparkle in the elder Deveraux’s eyes.

‘It’s not exactly pleasant subject matter for an evening with my boyfriend’s parents.’

‘Pfft!’ Monique said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Cop house. I’m used to hearing horrible things and this time I know there’s a happy ending.’

Fox gave a little shrug. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it happy, but it was satisfying. Um, I’d closed one case, but we had a difficult culprit. Rich, connected, and there was every possibility that he could skate, or keep the trial blocked long enough that he died before coming to trial. He made me an offer. His granddaughter had been murdered, tortured to death, and if I agreed to look at the case, he agreed not to put undue obstacles in the way of his trial.’

‘I don’t like making deals with criminals,’ Pascal said.

‘Neither do I, but… Harper August is a complicated one. Heart in the right place, but methods went through questionable and out the other side. And then I saw what had been done to his granddaughter… Seriously, even if it hadn’t been maybe the only way to clear the decks, I’d have wanted to look into the case. So, we got the case files from NAPA and I set Kit loose on them. Basic stuff. Profile the victim and those who were around her at the time of her death. Two days later, Kit had found two more murders with suspiciously similar MOs. I told her to keep going. We ended up with six bodies in New York, two in Cape Town, and another three in Berlin.’

‘Which was where I came in,’ Jason said. ‘We were expecting another victim in Germany, but the killer had returned to New York.’

‘This is the LifeFit case!’ Gaby said. ‘It was all over the news. Wasn’t the killer eventually apprehended in Jamaica?’

‘Actually, he was apprehended in mid-Atlantic,’ Fox said. ‘He’d done a runner, after kidnapping his ex-business partner. I caught up with the yacht–’

‘By jumping an aqua-sled onto the back of it during a hurricane,’ Jason put in.

‘Tropical storm,’ Fox corrected. ‘Took him down, went on to Jamaica, and Jason flew out himself to handle the extradition.’

‘And found her lying on the forward deck of the yacht in a swimsuit made mostly of string, sunbathing.’

Gaby and her mother were giggling. Pascal was looking bemused. ‘You jumped a sled onto the aft deck of a moving yacht?’

‘Jason wasn’t especially impressed,’ Fox said, ‘but I managed it. I’m kind of lucky at doing really stupid things that shouldn’t work.’

‘I thought dropping out of Pythia’s vertol hurt more, actually,’ Kit said. ‘We couldn’t land, so we had to be dropped out of the rear door from above the waves.’

‘Tell that to my elbows. But the point here is, Kit found those links by dredging through LifeWeb, finding mentions on memorial pages, friends of friends of friends who thought the similarity was odd. Without her, I’d never have tracked the guy down. That was the second time she’s figured something out that I doubt anyone else could have found. I just can’t talk about the first time. It’s got some… sensitivities.’

Jason nodded. ‘It has. But you remember that mall rampage in February? That was part of the pattern.’

‘I had help with that,’ Kit said. ‘A friend provided me with some information which pointed me the right way.’

Fox smirked. ‘Her boyfriend.’ Kit’s cheeks coloured.

Gaby beamed. ‘You’re so human, Kit. The infomorphs I generally work with are a bit… stiff. You… You get embarrassed!’

‘You will be used to class threes,’ Kit said. ‘They can show emotion, but they don’t really understand it. Often they learn to simply avoid it so as not to give offence. The problem is compounded since they don’t always realise they’ve upset someone. I have the same emotional capacity as a human. And I have an owner who is happy to allow me to express those emotions and allow me to develop them. I’m barely a year old and my creator is very happy with my emotional development.’

‘Teresa Martins designed her,’ Jason said. ‘Close your mouth, Gaby, you’ll catch flies. Yes, Fox knows Teresa and Jackson Martins. I suppose I do now. We flew in on a MarTech shuttle.’

‘You rescued Miss Martins from terrorists in Dallas,’ Pascal said. ‘I didn’t remember until I did a little looking. Had to know who it was that had finally hooked my romance-impaired son.’

Fox shrugged. ‘It’s public record.’

‘Not something you like talking about, I’d imagine.’

‘No… It’s easier now. It’s been three years and… Well, if Dallas hadn’t happened, I’d probably be married and I wouldn’t have been free to hook your romance-impaired son.’

‘I’d like to change the subject now,’ Jason grumbled. ‘I think I’m being ganged up on.’

Gaby giggled. ‘Mom’s already done baby pictures, so I think your invisible love life is next on the embarrassment list.’

~~~

‘Of course, you can’t afford a house like this on a cop’s salary,’ Pascal said. ‘Well, on an honest cop’s salary. Monique did accounting. Had several big-name clients in the media and old-money sets. So, we retired with enough to get ourselves a nice house in a nice area.’

‘It is a nice house in a nice area,’ Fox agreed. ‘You’re right beside the park here, right?’

‘We are. I take a run there three times a week. Like to keep myself in some sort of shape.’ And, as far as Fox could tell, he had. His hair gave away his age more than anything else.

‘What about your parents, Fox?’ Monique asked.

‘Farming. I come from Topeka in the Kansas Belt. Mom and Dad got into politics after Dad retired, but Dad still has a parcel of land he tends. They get a lot of their vegetables from it and sell some through the local market. To be honest, they didn’t much like it when I joined the Army and we didn’t talk for ten years. This summer they came to a policing conference in New York and we reconnected.’

‘Oh! Wouldn’t you rather have been with them tomorrow?’

Fox grinned. ‘No. You don’t talk for a decade… Um, we’re still working the bugs out of the relationship. Their politics are a little different from mine and we’d have ended up arguing. Besides, their marriage went through a bit of a rocky patch recently and they reconnected when I was there in the summer. I kind of hope they want to spend Christmas together and alone this year, even if I refuse to think about what they might get up to.’

‘I get the feeling,’ Pascal said, ‘that you played some part in fixing their marriage.’

‘Uh, well… Yes. I, um, gave them a little jolt.’

‘Detective and marriage counsellor. Quite the résumé resume. You said they were in politics in the Kansas Belt. So they are involved in the local policing business?’

‘Very. That’s where our politics differ. I voted against it, and they’re involved in setting up their end of it in Topeka. Actually, I will see them early next year. Combined business and personal trip, sort of. Palladium is training their police force and providing investigative consultancy, and I’m taking the excuse to go visit them.’

‘I admit that I do not understand how a country can operate on this delegated voting system. It seems far too close to anarchy.’

‘Not getting any arguments from me. I think the principle is fine, like with the local policing initiative, but in practice… I think we’ve gone too far. RFQ is still a representative democracy, right?’

Pascal nodded. ‘West Canada has followed the American model, of course, but we stay with elected representatives.’ He sighed. ‘You are right, of course. Some middle position is probably the right place to be.’

‘Europe and Britain have something of a middle-ground system,’ Jason said. ‘Elected representatives to handle the majority of business, large issues handled by direct voting, and individuals free to vote directly on specific issues if they feel the need. No system is perfect, and likely never will be.’

‘True,’ Monique said, ‘and since we’ve started on politics and it is almost Christmas Day, I think it’s time for bed. If we’re not tucked up soon, Santa won’t come.’

Gaby giggled beside her on the sofa. ‘Mom, if Santa existed, he’d have had to move house by now. Too little snow at the North Pole.’

‘So you say, but if I can’t have a second childhood at my age, when can I?’

25th December.

Fox opened her eyes and remained still, revelling in the warmth of the thick duvet and the warm body pressed against her back. Jason had one arm hooked around her waist and, from the feel of it, his own body had recovered from the bout of lovemaking which had come after the whispered ‘Merry Christmas’ exultations. She wanted him again, wanted his muscled body sliding against hers, his slightly feminine lips teasing her into a frenzy… But it could wait until he woke naturally.

Someone else was up, and Fox suspected that Pascal and Monique were down in the kitchen. The sound of Christmas music was barely audible, but Fox could hear it drifting up from below. She could not really remember the last time she had celebrated what you would call a family Christmas. It was probably before she had left to join the Army. If things remained smooth with her parents, she decided, then she would be in Topeka for the next one.

The air in the room smelled crisp, the kind of cool, slightly biting feeling you got on snow days. When coffee scent intruded into it, Fox developed an element of conflict: there was hot coffee downstairs, and a hot man in the bed with her. The dilemma was resolved just before she tried slipping out of bed when Jason’s hand slid over her stomach and cupped her breast. Fox smiled and reached back, finding him hard and ready. Words seemed unnecessary; she tilted her hips back, slid her leg up, guided him in, and let out a slow moan as he filled her…

Fox’s eyes closed again as he took her, slowly, achingly. Her hips rolled almost of their own volition. She bit her lip and wished he would increase the pace, but at the same time hoped he would not. Lazy, Christmas-morning sex that teased them both, pushing them ever higher until she was whimpering into her pillow and his face was buried against her neck, and there was no way either of them could keep the tension from snapping. She arched, driving him deeper, and his hand tightened, fingers digging into her breast. There was that moment of exquisite denial, a near-painful peak of pressure waiting to break through, and Fox dissolved into the explosion of climax, feeling him release as her muscles tightened around him.

‘There’s coffee,’ she whispered when her vision was clear. She could still feel him inside her. The twitches sent shivers up her spine with every little move and she knew that his withdrawal would be a delightful agony.

‘Far be it from me to keep you from coffee, mon chère,’ Jason said softly, but his hand remained fixed over her breast.

‘I think I need a quick shower first.’

‘Then it is most fortunate that all the bedrooms have a shower room en suite.’

‘You’ll need to let go.’

‘Non. I don’t want to.’ Fox grinned and squeezed her inner muscles around the thickness of him before grinding her behind against his hips, and Jason groaned. ‘You are an evil woman. Torturer.’ He slid his hand away, down her ribs, across her hip – and the sensation of that was almost enough to make her relent – and gave her a pat on the rump. ‘Go then, take your shower.’

She slid away from him, whimpering at the sense of loss, and then slipped out from beneath the duvet. The bedroom was cool and, on a whim, Fox walked to the window and looked out. ‘Looks like we’ve got… maybe twenty centimetres of snow. If I couldn’t smell coffee, I’d get back in bed, but it does look pretty. No one’s disturbed it yet.’

Kit appeared beside Fox, looking out at the snow scene. ‘I have seen photographs, of course, but I’ve never seen actual snow.’

‘Perhaps a little education is required,’ Jason said. ‘You should take Kit outside, Fox.’

‘That would be excellent!’ Kit exclaimed, beaming at Fox.

Fox looked out at the powdery whiteness. ‘Thanks, Jason. Don’t go thinking you’re getting any more sex before I leave.’

~~~

Fox had not brought a lot of clothing for a two-day stay, but she did have something for most of the likely weather conditions. The sweater dress, leggings, and boots combo was warm enough, especially since the outside temperature was just above freezing.

Wrapping her arms around her waist, Fox stepped up to the edge of the back porch. The sky was a clear, pale blue overhead and the snow was, appropriately enough, deep and crisp and even. ‘It won’t last,’ she said. ‘The sun’ll start melting it when it gets higher.’

Kit stepped up onto the surface of the gathered snow, not sinking in despite wearing high-heeled boots. ‘It has a sort of grainy quality I did not expect from the photographs. I admit that snow is not something I have extensively researched.’

‘I can tell,’ Fox said, grinning, and took a couple of steps off the porch.

‘Oh! It makes a crunchy sound and you sink into it.’ Kit dropped through the snow until she thought she was probably level with the ground.

‘It’s basically a lot of snowflakes piled up on top of each other, but it changes as it warms and cools. The flakes meld and you get a more solid material after a while. I saw this documentary once about it. Kind of fascinating in a nerdy way. And, look at this.’ Fox stepped back out of her footprints and looked down into the hole so that Kit could see.

‘It’s a perfect print. Pythia could easily identify your boots from that.’

‘She could, but it changes as it melts, so you need to be careful about foot size calculations and print identifications in snow. I’d imagine Pythia has the software to take that into account, but just using your eyes, you need to be careful.’

‘Jason was right. This is educational.’ Fox grinned, reached down, and began compacting snow in her hands. ‘It is cold,’ Kit said. ‘Why are you doing that?’

Fox held up her snowball. ‘Traditional weapon of children wherever it snows.’

‘Weapon?’

‘Oh yes.’ Pulling her arm back, Fox launched the ball at Kit’s head. Of course, it went straight through and ended up skittering across the snow a few metres behind Kit’s avatar.

‘That wasn’t very nice,’ Kit said.

‘It would be less nice if you were solid, but that’s never stopped kids from having snowball fights.’

‘Children make projectile weapons from snow and then throw them at each other?’

‘They’re more like grenades, unless you pack them too hard. They tend to explode on contact and then there’s snow in your hair and eyes, and down the back of your neck, and that last one is a form of torture, believe me.’

‘It is?’

‘It is.’ Amused, Fox collected snow on her fingers and rubbed it on the nape of her own neck, and waited. ‘Ah, Jeezus! Like that.’

Kit was flinching. ‘Why did you do that?!’

‘It’s educational. Had enough? It’s warm in the kitchen.’

‘I think I’ve learned enough.’ Kit walked out of the snow and started for the back door of the house. ‘That’s cold.’

Fox kicked snow off her boots and then stepped through into the kitchen. ‘I’ll take that coffee now, Monique.’ She looked down at the black, knee-high boots and then decided to take them off, just in case. The heat was already taking the chill out of her skin and the tiled floor would probably be warm enough for bare feet.

‘Kit has been educated then?’ Monique asked. She was not wearing her headset, so Kit let Fox do the talking.

‘She has learned much. Mostly that it’s cold, and that she would rather not be in a snowball fight.’

‘Not that we get many opportunities for that, even here,’ Jason commented. ‘Eat something, Fox. We’ll have the main meal around two, I believe, and you can’t survive on coffee alone.’

‘True. Actually, I’ve got an enhanced liver so I need the food way more than the fluid. But I’m a sort-of-cop…’

‘So coffee counts as a major food group,’ Monique said. ‘Still, there will be toast in a moment, or I can make something more if you wish?’

‘How much are you cooking for dinner?’

Monique laughed. ‘Too much, of course.’

‘Toast will be fine. When are we expecting to see Gaby?’

‘We’ll give it an hour,’ Pascal said. He seemed to be checking out the news channels or something since he was wearing his glasses. ‘If she’s not down by then, I’ll go up there with a bucket of snow.’

Kit shuddered and Fox giggled. ‘Yeah, Kit learned that snow is cold.’

~~~

‘You know, that has to be the most colour I’ve ever seen you wearing,’ Jason said. They were in the lounge, opening presents. Monique would vanish periodically to check on the food, but mostly it was all about watching coloured paper being torn apart and listening to the laughter or other reactions that the contents produced.

Fox looked down at her sweater. ‘What? I wear colours.’

‘Generally black and purple.’

The sweater was purple in the majority, but with bands of white, pink, and rose. There was a keyhole over her chest, closed below her throat by a brooch. Her leggings were a dark blue. ‘I wear jeans… I’m allowed to wear colours.’

‘I am not denying it. I’m simply not used to it. I like the red, personally.’

‘It’s rose. I’m not wearing any– Oh, yes I am. Ha, ha, very funny.’

Gaby burst into giggles and Fox focused her attention on the redhead who was holding up a little baby doll T-shirt with ‘I heart NY’ graphics on it. ‘Is this even going to fit me? Gaby asked.

‘Kit found some size preferences for you on a wish list somewhere,’ Fox replied. ‘It’s meant to be tight, but it should fit. I had no idea what to get any of you, so I went for silly.’ She looked across at Pascal as he pulled a bottle of brandy from a plastic tube. ‘Well, silly and alcohol. Jason said you liked brandy and–’

‘I do,’ Pascal said, ‘and this is a rather fine one. Expensive…’

‘It turns out it’s a lot cheaper if you get it from the distiller and I wasn’t that far away, on business. It was just a quick hop north from Chicago and I’m the pilot so the ship goes where I tell it.’

‘Thank you. I’ll savour this one.’

‘And thank you for this,’ Gaby added. ‘I’ll put it on later to prove Mom’s cooking hasn’t added a size.’

Fox picked up what appeared at first sight to be a scrap of black lace. ‘Yes, well, I won’t be putting this on later. I don’t think we’re quite ready for me wandering around in flimsy lingerie.’

‘You can save it for much later,’ Pascal said. ‘Jason bought it. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.’

‘I’m sure he will.’ Fox looked at Jason, who remained tactfully silent, even if his cheeks reddened.

He was saved from anything more embarrassing by Kit. ‘Marie is calling, Fox. It’s marked as a teleconference.’ The foxy pixie was once again sitting on the floor to watch the unwrapping process and both of the elder Deverauxes had put their wearables on so that Kit was included fully in the proceedings.

‘She’ll have Sam in the call with her.’

‘Link us all in,’ Gaby suggested. ‘I wouldn’t mind saying hi to your housemates.’

‘Well… Let me just check they’re decent first.’

Marie was wearing a Christmassy green-and-red mini-dress, with illuminated trim. Sam’s avatar appeared to be live, because there was no way the sweater he was wearing was something he would have put in a mask image: it had chunky, comedy reindeer prancing across the chest.

‘Merry Christmas!’ Marie said as soon as the images resolved.

‘And you,’ Fox replied, ‘but hang on, I’ve got someone else who wants to say hello.’ Kit made the connections and Fox said, ‘Right, Sam and Marie, meet Jason’s parents, Pascal and Monique, and Gaby, his sister.’

There were more calls of ‘Merry Christmas,’ and Gaby said, ‘That’s a great sweater, Sam.’

‘Not my usual choice of garment,’ Sam replied, ‘but Marie decided I should be festive.’

‘And he probably wasn’t wearing a shirt before he put it on,’ Fox added.

‘Yeah,’ Marie said, frowning. ‘I really didn’t think that through.’

‘Don’t I know you, Marie?’ Gaby asked. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you– Oh, you’re M. J.’

Marie’s cheeks coloured and Fox said, ‘Marie’s not used to being recognised.’

‘M. J.?’ Monique asked.

‘The female lead in this terrible IB vid based on Jack the Ripper,’ Gaby explained. ‘The vid was terrible, but M. J. was kind of awesome. I watched it because of the Ripper connection, obviously. Not the nudity and the sex scene.’

‘Of course,’ Monique said, nodding and grinning.

‘Uh, anyway, wow, famous person.’

‘Oh, I’m not famous…’ Marie said, going redder.

‘Not yet,’ Sam said.

‘And I have Terri calling now,’ Kit said.

Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘Okay, well, talking of famous people… Patch her in, Kit.’

Three more avatars appeared in the room: Terri had her father and Helen Dillan with her. Fox made the introductions and there did appear to be a degree of awe floating around, especially from Gaby.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you both,’ Gaby said. ‘I mean, virtually. I mean, I’ve got a MarTech implant and half my equipment, more, is MarTech, and–’

Jackson laughed. ‘You’ll have to drop by the tower if you’re ever in New York. We’ll give you the tour, show you the labs. Teresa’s working on some very exciting projects and I’ve usually got a cyberframe or two in development. The detective assistance systems we’ve built for Fox are well worth seeing.’

‘Thanks, Mister Martins. I’ll drop by next time I’m visiting Jason.’

‘Jackson,’ Jackson stated flatly. ‘Fox will tell you I’m not one for formality. Did you give them the wine yet, Fox?’

‘They haven’t opened that one,’ Fox replied. Monique looked around, spotted another tubular package, and picked it up.

‘Right,’ Jackson said. ‘Well, you’ll say “no, we can’t accept this” or some such because–’ He stopped as Monique pulled the bottle out and looked at the label. ‘Because it’s expensive,’ Jackson went on, ‘but you’re really doing me a favour. It’s a pleasant enough wine, but I’m told it doesn’t keep and if it doesn’t get drunk, I’ll be storing vinegar bottles.’

‘This is very generous,’ Monique said.

‘Fox told me that Jason had never had French wine, so I assume you haven’t, or rarely. I have about three cases of it which need drinking, soon. Fox wouldn’t let me send you a case. Said I’d embarrass her. I didn’t pay for it, so I don’t see why giving it away is a big deal, but…’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘I hope it goes with your dinner.’

‘Don’t mind Poppa,’ Terri said. ‘He’s never been very good with money.’

‘You run one of the biggest companies in the world and you’re not good with money?’ Pascal asked.

‘Oh, I don’t run it,’ Jackson replied. ‘I have Mariel for that. If I ran MarTech Group, I’d never be able to afford to run MarTech Group. They make me turn up to board meetings, but that’s about as far as I go.’

‘Oh,’ Fox said, putting on an expression of mock affront, ‘so that’s it. You have to suffer through board meetings, so you suckered me onto the board of Palladium.’

‘Well… Yes. Why should I suffer alone? In a couple of years, I’ll have Terri doing my job and I’ll become a pottering, eccentric engineer.’

‘Poppa,’ Terri said, far too sweetly, ‘don’t make me hurt you.’

~~~

‘Well, it’s not bad,’ Jason said, looking at the wine in his glass, ‘but I have to agree, I’ve had better.’

‘Who gives away three cases of French white?’ Gaby asked, incredulous.

‘Four,’ Fox corrected. ‘They’ve managed to get through one. Jackson really isn’t a big drinker. Um… the North European Union’s ambassador to America. They’d signed some big deal with MarTech Defense Technologies for… I think Jackson said it was aerospace dominance fighters, so it would be High Harpies.’

‘You know all the equipment your companies produce?’ Pascal asked.

‘Me? No, but Kit’s got the whole catalogue in storage in case I need to know it. When I joined, I toured a fair number of the facilities. Went up to the Moon and the station at L-four, visited Germany and East Africa. Getting a feel for things, you know?’ Fox forked turkey into her mouth and let her eyes close: Monique knew how to cook a bird. It came close to melting on the tongue.

‘It doesn’t sound like something someone with your temperament would get into. All these meetings and paper– Well, no, I suppose the paperwork isn’t that much different to being a cop.’

Fox swallowed. ‘I did say Jackson suckered me into it. I wasn’t kidding. I didn’t know I was on the board until I got to the induction meeting. But I was the only investigator in the company then. Helen joined a little later. Next month we get a bunch more people on board, but I’ll still get plenty of time doing detective work.’

‘She sounds happy now,’ Jason said, ‘but you should have seen her when she was reviewing all the contract documents for the private policing work.’

‘It did feel like my brain was draining out of my ears.’

‘And now you know how I feel. I hardly ever get to do anything a detective should be doing.’

‘Detecting.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Intimidating criminals.’

‘And that.’

‘Inflicting gunshot wounds without feeling guilty.’

‘I have not been in a shootout in over a year.’

‘You poor baby.’

‘I do miss the shootouts,’ Pascal agreed wistfully.

‘I don’t even routinely carry a gun!’ Gaby wailed.

Monique rolled her eyes. ‘Police officers should be locked up for the safety of the general populace.’

Fox narrowed her eyes. ‘We’d just shoot our way out.’

~~~

‘You are seriously telling me that Jackson Martins packed guidance electronics and an infrared optical system into a ten-mil projectile?’ Gaby was holding one of the rounds from Fox’s pistol and staring at it as though it could not possibly be there.

‘Pretty much my reaction,’ Fox replied, ‘but, yes, he did. Haven’t actually had to use many of the homing rounds, which is good because they cost a fortune, relatively. Mostly it’s short-range stuff and the magnetic accelerator takes care of that. But it’s a snap to get a lock and if you’re not using homing, the rounds have a flat trajectory out to a thousand metres because of the rocket motors. Then you have a choice of warheads, from less-than-lethal to smart-forged, multi-purpose explosive.’

‘That is so cool. Positively pearlescent.’

‘You are, I think, a little more enthusiastic about guns than my husband,’ Monique commented.

‘Ex-Army. You should see the assault carbines Jackson’s people designed based on the Gauss pistol he built for me. And the heavy stuff! Which I can’t talk about because it’s still secret, but… Wow!’

‘And yet you said that you were pushing for police to carry non-lethal weapons.’

‘The electrolasers? That’s just common sense. And they can give a lethal shock if required, but it’s viable to use them as a standard sidearm which incapacitates rather than kills. If you have that option, then it should be the default. Projectile weapons should be deployed for specific circumstances. Also, I may not eat until New Year.’

Monique laughed. They had retired to the lounge with glasses of wine and the probability that they would chat and drink until they fell into a stupor. Fox was warm, full, and developing a nice buzz: she suspected unconsciousness might claim her quite quickly.

‘I’m glad you enjoyed it,’ Monique said. ‘It takes a while to get ready, so it’s always nice when it’s appreciated.’

‘It was appreciated. Even if I can’t actually move.’

‘Moving is overrated,’ Jason commented.

‘Have to eventually. If I forget to say this before I go, this has been great. I was so nervous and you’ve all been so nice. Even Kit’s had a good time. Thank you.’

‘Our pleasure,’ Monique said.

‘Any woman who can get Jason to stop working long enough to pay her any attention is worth meeting,’ Pascal added.

‘I was expecting you to be some sort of sorceress for pulling that trick off,’ Gaby said.

‘I am not that bad,’ Jason grumbled. There was a second or so of silence. ‘All right, perhaps I am, but you don’t have to point it out so vigorously.’

‘Yes,’ Monique said, ‘we do. You might relapse without constant reminders.’

‘I’m feeling put-upon.’

Fox leaned over and patted his hand. ‘Big, strong man like you? I’m sure you’ll cope.’

New York Metro, 26th December.

It was around five p.m. before Fox made it into Sam’s lounge. She had managed to get home not long after two, but then she had called Jason just to let him know that she had arrived safely, and had ended up in a teleconference chat with his family. There was still some snow on the ground in Toronto while New York was sitting under a glowering blanket of cloud, which was keeping the temperature well above freezing, so that had required discussion as part of the ‘how did the journey go’ conversation.

Then there had been a shower, because travelling often made Fox feel a little grimy, and a change of clothes, and then she had felt ready to be among humans again so she had trooped down to find Sam and Marie on a sofa watching vids. Sam was shirtless; the ideogram over his right nipple seemed to be more complicated than usual and Fox suspected it might say ‘Merry Christmas’ or something like that. Marie was in a long T-shirt and short shorts, neither of which glowed. They looked relaxed.

‘Did you spend all of yesterday naked and writhing?’ Fox asked.

‘Not all of yesterday,’ Marie replied. ‘We were talking to you for some of it. And we watched some vids.’

‘Marie had never seen It’s a Wonderful Life,’ Sam said. He handed Fox a glass of wine which she realised she needed, somewhat to her surprise.

‘Neither have I,’ Fox said, dropping onto the sofa. ‘Too feel-good for me. It’s kind of like a variant on A Christmas Carol, as far as I know, with James Stewart and an angel.’

‘Called Clarence,’ Marie supplied.

‘See, that’s just wrong. Angel names should be like Azriel or... something.’

‘Michael, Gabriel,’ Sam said. ‘Clarence sounds sort of reasonable.’

Kit appeared, genie-like. ‘Both Michael and Gabriel have an “el” ending, which means “of God.” Clarence, however, is a reference to the River Clare, in Ireland.’

‘The internet has spoken,’ Fox stated, ‘and I’m right, so there. We ate too much, drank too much, and chatted a lot about nothing consequential. It was good.’

‘No one hated you then?’ Sam asked. ‘I said you’d be fine.’

‘No one hated me. Gaby was too fascinated with Kit to even consider it.’

‘And I got to see real snow,’ Kit said, beaming. ‘It was cold, and alarmingly militant.’

‘I threw a snowball at her.’

‘I recall snowball fights on a couple of occasions in Boston,’ Sam said. ‘Fun while they last, and then you’re cold and a little damp.’

Fox nodded. ‘You can say that about a lot of things. Almost a metaphor for life.’

Marie giggled. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Board meeting first thing. We’re trying to keep things light until after New Year, but we need to keep an eye on the preparations for the start of the contracts.’

‘The tenth of January, right?’

‘Yup. There’s parallel NAPA coverage for about six months, which gives us time to train up cops in the regions like Topeka. And for the areas where we’re providing full coverage, it gives us a chance to make sure we have enough people and equipment in place. Getting that lot ready is keeping Ryan busy. I’m getting off pretty lightly, but I do need to make sure I’ve got enough detectives available where they’re needed.’

‘I don’t start shooting again until the third. Final bits for the first few episodes, and then we see how the audience figures pan out to see if we keep going.’

‘You will,’ Sam stated.

Marie gave a little shrug. ‘I hope so. I think the pilot is looking strong, even with all the character setup we need to do. Adrian’s really got into his stride. And Naomi agreeing to let us film the opening in the chapter house with real Sisters was really great. I think it’ll grab people’s attention and keep them going until the action picks up again. But I’m still nervous.’ She grinned. ‘Gaby recognising me came as a surprise.’

‘Get used to it. It’s going to happen more and more often.’

‘Well, I’ll try not to let it go to my head. I don’t think we’re going to have hordes of fans camping outside the door.’

Fox sipped her wine. ‘Well, if we do, there’s an armed cyberframe on the roof we can use to chase them off.’

27th December.

‘We’ve got all the induction courses set for the third,’ Ryan Jarvis said. ‘Alice has the rooms booked here and we’ve got the training ready. That’s all pretty standard. We’ve been including basic familiarity with the detective-assist equipment for a couple of months.’

‘Three days, right?’ Fox asked. She sat at her desk, in her office, and looked out over the virtual conference room the Palladium board used for meetings. Nine months in, they had these things down to a reasonably fine art.

‘Yes, then we have the investigations staff scheduled for two days with you in New York.’

‘I’ve booked rooms for them all,’ Alice Vaughn said. ‘Transport from Chicago is arranged. You said you’d take care of the theatre, Fox.’

‘We’re not using a theatre,’ Fox said. ‘There’s lab space going free in the third tower at the moment, so we’re using some of that. And I’m kind of winging this. No one’s done this in the company so this is going to be a bit trial and error, but I’ve been through it all with Terri and Kit. We’ve got an agenda and a list of key points. We’re going to record everything and go through it afterward to see if we can do better.’

‘That sounds like a working plan.’ Garth Eaves sat at the head of the table, presiding over things and apparently rather pleased that he did not seem to be needed. ‘I just felt I should say something so that you all remember I’m around.’

‘Who are you again?’ Jarvis asked him, grinning.

‘I give you money.’

‘I thought that was the money fairy. Learn something new every day.’

‘Some of us do. Anything else on this?’ Eaves scanned the table, getting nothing. ‘Very well, the Sakura contract.’

‘Did I miss something?’ Fox asked.

‘We haven’t bothered you with this one since it came in late last week. Rush job with no investigative input.’ Eaves paused and then added, ‘We hope you won’t be needed anyway. Nishi Sakura, the musical artist, is giving a series of concerts to promote her new album. They had security organised, but something went wrong and they tagged us as a replacement.’

‘Something went wrong?’

‘They’re not saying what. As I said, it’s a rush job. The first concert is on the third, in Boston. She’s got three nights there, five nights in New York, starting on the tenth. Washington on the twenty-first, and Tokyo on the eighteenth of February. We’re covering all of them.’

‘We’ve got personnel for that?’

‘We’re covered,’ Jarvis said. ‘It’s a little tight, but we can do it. We’ll be running a lot of frames.’

‘That works?’

‘Miss Sakura was rather enthused about the idea,’ Vaughn said. ‘She thought it was very modern and wanted cambots flying over the crowd before the show starts. It’s supposed to give a dystopian “Big Brother is watching you” feel. She’s got a dark, cyberpunk sort of number she pushed to the head of the schedule.’

‘So we’ve set aside a few units with special programming,’ Jarvis went on. ‘They’ll loop around over the audience, pick out people and focus on them, that kind of stuff. Then the images from them are going to display on the screens she’s got backing the stage.’

‘Okay,’ Fox said. ‘Well, let me know if there’s anything you need from me.’

Jarvis nodded. ‘Hopefully, we won’t. This should be an easy one.’

Fox winced. ‘Oh… What were you thinking when you said that?’

‘Sorry. Blame lack of sleep.’

‘One more thing before we wrap,’ Eaves said, giving Jarvis what was probably a mock-withering look. ‘BioTek have another of their big announcements coming up’ – Jarvis groaned at that – ‘but they thought fit to actually tell us in advance this time.’

‘Makes a change,’ Jarvis grumbled. At the end of November, BioTek Microtechnologies, the biotechnology arm of MarTech, had issued a media statement announcing the release of various products based around what they called ‘Morphogenesis.’ This was a form of nanovirus which could be introduced into a living system, i.e. a person, to carry out cellular and molecular alterations while the host continued with their normal life. All the proposed applications were medical, but there had been three weeks of protests outside the MarTech towers in New York and Berlin, and MarTech’s memetics department was still busy countering the online propaganda. ‘What is it this time?’ Jarvis asked.

‘They’ve got several next-generation nanosymbiont products coming out’ – a louder groan from Jarvis – ‘which are medical and cosmetic in nature at this point.’

‘Cosmetic nanobugs?’ Fox asked. ‘They think people are going to– Forget I said that. Of course, people will infect themselves with a nanovirus to look nicer.’

Eaves grinned at her. ‘Actually, it sounds kind of cool. They’re calling it PureClean. It coats the skin and gums and keeps everything clean. No body odour, no bad breath, and you don’t have to clean your teeth manually. There’s a small benefit in avoiding certain kinds of disease transmission as well.’

‘Huh. Okay, I can see people buying that one.’

‘There’s also an upgrade to their existing immune system booster. They’re claiming almost a two hundred per cent increase in efficacy, but it costs more, of course. And they’ve got something which is apparently guaranteed to eliminate cancer cells before they can spread. Early indications are that long-term use is likely to double lifespan.’

Fox frowned. ‘Potential can of worms right there.’

‘When’s the announcement?’ Jarvis asked.

‘The fourth of January,’ Eaves replied.

‘Happy New Year! I’ll make sure all leave requests for January are blocked.’

29th December.

‘So, it’s New Year soon,’ Marie said. Breakfast was being had in Sam’s lounge, because none of them had that much else to do.

‘I’d noticed that,’ Fox said.

‘I believe it’s come up in conversation,’ Sam agreed.

‘Yeah,’ Marie said. She was obviously going somewhere with this, but she paused to munch toast. ‘I was thinking… I’ve never done the whole New York New Year thing.’

‘There’s a thing?’ Fox asked.

‘You know, Times Square, the big ball dropping…’

‘The huge crowds, the bag-snatching, having to face the probability that some loser with halitosis is going to want to kiss you because it’s the only time of the year he gets any action…’

‘It’s only a few blocks over. We could walk and the forecast isn’t miserable.’

‘It is about the first New Year I haven’t worked in the last decade,’ Sam mused. ‘By choice, I might add. I have engagements tonight and tomorrow, but I decided I would free up my time for the actual night.’

Fox could see him thinking it might be a good idea. ‘Crazy, the both of you. It’s all right for you two, you can just play suck-face with each other until that bit’s done with. Jason’s going to be in Toronto. And then there’s what to wear. It’ll probably be freezing. Belle? What’s the forecast for Friday night?’

Belle, the house AI, resplendent in her usual blue suit, appeared beside the table. ‘Current predicted temperature at midnight on Friday is five to six degrees Celsius with clear skies and low humidity. Forecast certainty is ninety-two per cent.’

‘So it’s going to be cold and we’re supposed to dress for a party.’

‘Wear hose,’ Marie suggested, ‘and invite someone to come with us. There has to be someone you wouldn’t mind making out with.’

‘I could arrange something,’ Sam said.

Fox looked at him and narrowed her eyes. ‘Who?’

Sam smirked. ‘Someone.’

‘Now, see, that is not a face that’s going to make me want to go along with this…’

~~~

‘I can’t believe they talked me into it,’ Fox muttered.

‘Generally,’ Kit said, ‘when you get talked into something you claim is a bad idea, it is because you wanted to do it anyway.’

Fox made grumbling noises for a second, because Kit was right… ‘Sam’s going to basically set me up on a blind date!’

‘Just for a kiss.’

‘He’s up to something.’

Kit considered that to be highly likely, but saying so was not wise. ‘Belle could monitor his calls. You could keep watch on him through the house cameras.’

‘You don’t think that’s being a little paranoid?’

‘Yes, but you’re the one who thinks he’s up to something.’

‘Huh…’ Fox folded her arms and frowned at the wall opposite her sofa for a few seconds. ‘Wouldn’t work anyway. He can call someone when he’s out tonight.’

‘He probably just knows another registered prostitute who is not working that night,’ Kit suggested, trying to sound placating.

‘That is not better.’

‘It’s just a kiss, Fox.’

‘That’s what they all say. Next thing you know, they’ve got their hand down your panties.’

Kit pursed her lips. ‘Now you’re just escalating for no good reason. You can always say you’ve changed your mind, or…’

‘Or what?’

‘Don’t wear panties, then no one can get their hand in them.’

31st December.

The area known as Times Square was larger than it had been at the beginning of the century. The northern end of it remained much as it had been, but Times Spire dominated the southern tip now, the megastructure dwarfing the more mundane buildings set around the triangle of land.

Huge video displays still dominated the canyon of buildings. If anything, the displays were bigger and brighter, with very high resolutions thanks to advances in technology. Times Spire had a sixteen-storey screen affixed to the side facing the square running a constant stream of adverts for various companies that occupied the building.

‘Oh God, I’m up there,’ Marie said almost as soon as the trio got within sight of it.

Fox looked up in time to see the tail end of an advert for M. J. running on the wall. ‘Don’t worry, I doubt anyone down here is paying much attention to what’s up there.’

‘You might be right…’

It was noisy and crowded, and at eleven p.m. in the middle of winter, it was brighter than at noon. There were four live bands playing on raised stages located around the square. Several official stands were selling drinks, and several unofficial vendors with carts were probably making more profit in an hour than they had in the last quarter. And Fox spotted at least two individuals who were ‘vending’ things as discreetly as they could manage: if she had still been with NAPA, she would have probably hauled them in just for being stupid.

There was a definite party atmosphere about the place. No one had got too drunk, or too drugged, yet to spoil things. Some of the fun was boisterous, but mostly there was a big crowd of people buzzed on the anticipation of the coming event. And Fox knew from experience that they were being watched by hundreds of fixed and mobile cameras every second of the time they were there. NAPA’s visible presence in the square, and there were actually uniformed officers walking among the crowd, was nothing compared to its less-than-visible monitoring effort.

‘How is my surprise date supposed to find us in all this?’ Fox asked.

Sam just smiled. ‘It’s been taken care of.’

‘Still not even giving me a hint about this guy?’

‘It’s a surprise. Don’t want to spoil it, do we?’

‘I could stand a little spoiling…’

Sam just broadened his smile. ‘Let’s get something to drink and find a band worth listening to or something.’

There were those in the twenty twenties and thirties who had predicted the demise of live music. Autotuning and other forms of digital manipulation had become ubiquitous in recorded media and were starting to become viable for streamed live performances as computers got ever faster. With telepresence, you could attend a virtual gig from the comfort of your own home. What was the point of going out to see someone perform?

And the answer that had come back from music fans was simply that they did not want over-produced, fake music. Or, yes, that was nice in its place, but how could you know a musician was really any good and not simply the product of technology? Performers who could actually sing and play in front of an audience had become the ones people flocked to and the ‘perfect bands’ manufactured by media companies had fallen out of favour.

The trio had obtained plastic tubes of light beer and located a band doing a rock set on a stage not too far from the looming countdown clock at the northern end of the square when Fox heard the voice behind her.

‘Hey! Stuff this bad always sounds better on a little Bliss.’

Fox turned and had to look down to see a little man in a luminescent green poncho who immediately flashed a small plastic bag at her. She recognised the contents: small pills, brightly coloured, like sweets. Bliss. It had an effect similar to cannabis, but it hooked you faster and stronger and, since it was synthesised rather than grown, it was easier to produce.

Shrugging, Fox asked, ‘What else you got?’

The little man’s eyes flicked over Sam and Marie, who were now also looking his way. ‘Got some Harmony. Got a little Kiss and some Cupie if you want to see the New Year in with a real bang.’

‘Interesting,’ Fox said. And then the man’s head was snapped back on his neck as Fox drove the heel of her hand up into his jaw. He blinked at her. His knees buckled and he would have fallen if Fox had not grabbed his arm, twisted him around, and pulled him up again.

He let out a squeal of protest. ‘Hey! You better let me go or–’

A wall of blue-and-white armour appeared in front of him and he stopped speaking instantly. Fox was expecting to have to explain herself, but what actually happened was that one of the officers cracked open his dome-like helmet and said, ‘Inspector? Didn’t expect to see you here.’

‘It’s not “inspector” any more, Grodin,’ Fox told him, ‘but thanks for remembering me.’

‘What’ve you got?’ Grodin asked, looking down at the dealer.

‘He’s hawking Cupie. He’s got some other shit on him, but I’d have just told him to fuck off if it wasn’t for the Cupie.’

Grodin sniffed. ‘Ed Wuss. This’ll be your third bust, Ed. Better hope you don’t get a female judge.’

‘Oh…’ Fox shook her head in mock sorrow. ‘Third time and carrying Cupie… Next time you see that ball drop, Ed, it’ll be next century.’ She pushed Wuss toward the two officers. ‘All yours.’

‘They were quick getting here,’ Marie commented when Wuss had been dragged away, protesting his innocence the whole time.

‘Yeah,’ Fox agreed, ‘faster than I thought, but not surprising. NAPA watch this event pretty closely. If you slap someone on the back too hard, you’ll have uniforms telling you to calm it down before you’ve stopped laughing.’

‘So, when you hit him, you knew you’d have people coming to see what was happening?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘There was a mass brawl here about a decade ago,’ Sam said. ‘Since then, NAPA have cracked down on any kind of violence very rapidly.’

‘Plus, if Ed there had been selling Titan, they’d have thrown the entire legal code at him. They only allow alcohol sales here because people would just smuggle the stuff in if they banned drinking.’

‘Oh…’ Marie said, frowning. She shook her head and turned back to the band. ‘Anyway, that guy was obviously tone deaf. This lot aren’t bad.’

‘I’ve heard a lot worse. Huh, did you know Nishi Sakura is doing concerts in New York soon?’

‘Oh yeah. Sold out concerts. Her new album’s the pearl, seriously. It might even be better than Songs on the Wind.’

‘You’re a fan?’

‘Uh-huh. Never been to one of her concerts though. They’re supposed to be amazing.’

‘Palladium is doing the security for them this time around.’

Marie’s head flicked around. ‘Lucky! I suppose you’d be working, but–’

Fox grinned at her. ‘I’m not needed. It’s all Ryan’s baby. No need for a detective at a thing like that.’

‘Oh… Okay…’ Marie turned to Sam. ‘You don’t mind if I seduce Ryan to get into a Nishi Sakura concert, do you?’

Sam pursed his lips, considering. ‘It seems like a good cause.’

~~~

‘This mystery guest is cutting it close.’ Fox looked up at the clock. To be honest, without looking, she could tell they were getting close because the excitement level in the square was rising to fever pitch.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Sam said calmly.

‘You know if he doesn’t turn up, I’ll steal Marie off you.’

‘I am confident enough to agree to that deal.’

‘Huh.’

And the crowd yelled, ‘Ten!’

Fox took a long drink from her beer tube and watched the clock. ‘You’re nervous,’ Kit said into her head.

‘So?’

‘Sam won’t let you down.’

No, Sam would not let her down…

‘Three… Two… One… Happy New Year!’

The crowd screamed its delight at the sight of a large, multicoloured ball dropping to ring in twenty sixty-one and a hand landed lightly on Fox’s shoulder. She turned, catching sight of Sam and Marie with their lips locked, and suddenly she was being kissed. Fox closed her eyes and went with it because, even though she had had no time to actually see her partner before their lips locked, she knew who it was. The sensuous mouth, obviously practised, the press of firm breasts against Fox’s own, the feel of one long leg sliding between Fox’s thighs and the knowledge that its owner was a supremely confident woman…

They parted, a little breathless, and Fox said, ‘Happy New Year, Naomi.’

‘Happy New Year, Fox,’ the Sister Superior of the Church of Saint Nicholas replied. ‘And Happy New Year to you, Sam and Marie. Let’s hope this one is a little better than the last.’

‘It got off to a good start,’ Fox said, and then she punched Sam in the shoulder.

‘What was that for?’ Sam asked, though he was grinning.

‘Setting me up to kiss Naomi. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing if I didn’t have a boyfriend. My vibrator is going to get such a workout later.’

Naomi looped an arm around Fox’s waist, for form’s sake. ‘Mine too. I need a drink.’

Grinning, Fox followed Naomi’s lead and, pressed together at the hips, they headed off to one of the drinks stands. As far as Fox was concerned, getting a little drunk was the best way of bringing in this new year.

Part Two: In the Big Top

New York Metro, 6th January 2061.

Fox had to admit that she felt rested and ready for what lay ahead, even after a couple of days of checking over notes and preparing for lab work. She stood in the gleamingly new, unassigned laboratory space Palladium had been given for the induction course and looked out at her ‘class,’ but her thoughts drifted briefly over the week before: it helped her settle herself for the next two days.

Naomi had gone back to the house with Fox. They had got drunk with Marie and Sam, and then left them to other forms of celebration. Then they had got drunker in Fox’s apartment until they fell asleep on the sofa and woke up hours later, curled up against each other, and a little embarrassed about it. But they both knew that the evening was one final goodbye to the Sisters who had died at the hands of an insane infomorph a few months earlier: Naomi’s people, avenged by Fox. Fox had been left with the same sort of regret she had for never having slept with Sam: it was there, but it was a friendly sort of regret, one she thought Naomi shared.

Jason had returned from Toronto the day after, checked in at his office to ensure no international crisis had unfolded without him being told, and then he had come to see Fox. The memory of that Sunday’s activities caused a warmth to start in Fox which she had to rapidly push aside before it became too distracting to do her job.

‘All right, ladies and gentlemen,’ Fox said, and the assembled detectives fell into silence. ‘Thank you. Welcome to the first meeting of the Palladium Security Services Junior Detectives Club.’ When everyone got the joke, Fox decided that at least one potential hurdle had been jumped successfully. ‘Everyone’s laughing so that’s a good sign. We have people from all over the planet here, and I know we put competence in English in the job requirements, but I don’t think you really know until you see jokes work on someone.’

‘Especially with your sense of humour,’ Helen Dillan said. Helen was now, officially, Fox’s second-in-command, partially by virtue of being the only other detective in the division until recently, but also because Fox trusted her.

‘Thank you, Helen. Everyone, this is Helen Dillan, my SiC. I’m Tara Meridian, which you all know because I’ve talked to all of you already. We’ve talked, but I intend to get some individual time with each of you over the next two days.’

Fox scanned the rather varied group of twenty-eight men and women. No one looked nervous. Good. ‘You’ve all had the basic company induction. You know how Palladium works, and how Ryan Jarvis has the security division set up. Over the next two days, we’ll talk about how investigation hooks into that, discussing what we expect out of you, and we will be playing with the new toys so it won’t all be boring.’

There was laughter and Fox waited for it to die naturally. ‘Most of you are here due to the recent law enforcement changes in America, but we’ve taken the opportunity to bring in some people who will be based in other countries so I don’t need to jet all over the planet when something comes up. We’ve got people here from Japan and Australia, which is a fair trek. To all of you, thanks for coming, not that we gave you any choice.’

Kit was displaying notes for Fox and those served as one other kind of reminder. ‘Okay, enough pointless chatter, but one more introduction. This is Kit’ – Kit appeared beside Fox, dressed for lecturing in her pencil skirt and glasses – ‘my PA, assistant detective, and data bunny. Given she’s a wiz with displaying things, Kit will be going over the structure we’re building, how far we’ve got with it, and where you all fit in. So I get to sit down and drink coffee while you get lectured. Kit, you’re on.’

Kit smiled. ‘Good morning, everyone. Tara takes her coffee black, no sugar, for future reference. Yes, I am a class four AI. Yes, I do have a lovely tail. Now, let’s get down to business.’

Fox smiled and stepped back as various graphics started appearing in the air over Kit’s head. Helen handed over a mug of coffee. ‘Black, no sugar?’ Fox asked.

‘Oh, I learned that before I even joined the company,’ Helen replied. ‘You know there’s doughnuts, right? If we get in early, we can grab the ones with sprinkles before they all go.’

‘That’s mean.’ Pause. ‘Just one each.’

~~~

‘Have a seat, Miss Fukui.’ Fox watched as the Japanese girl bobbed her head and settled onto one of the low seats in the break room. Fox figured having her one-to-ones in there would be less formal than doing them in an office, but Yuriko Fukui looked nervous.

The Japanese representative for Palladium’s investigations division was a couple of inches shorter than Fox’s five-foot-eleven, tending to a longer, very slim body. She hid quite large breasts for her body form and the tattoos her file said she had under a black, long-sleeved blouse and grey skirt combo which tended to the bland. Yuriko Fukui seemed like a woman who was used to fading into the background as much as possible. There was enough leg on display to suggest firm muscle tone: her file indicated she was adept at aikijutsu. Her face was quite round, narrowed by the tight, black bob of her hair. Her eyes were a dark enough brown as to be called black. Her mouth was, perhaps, her most attractive feature: quite full lips gave a pouting quality.

‘Coffee?’ Fox asked, indicating the pot on the table in front of them. ‘Or there’s water. You look nervous.’

Fukui managed a slightly timid smile. ‘I am. I think I know what you will ask me about. I was surprised that it did not come up in the telepresence interview.’

Fox nodded. ‘Okay, then let’s get that out of the way first. Your father was oyabun of the Fukui-kai, which currently more or less runs organised crime in Japan. Since your father’s death, your brother has taken the top spot. We did three times the number of checks on you than we did on the other applicants, anywhere, never mind in Japan. We satisfied ourselves that you were not connected to your family business in any way. If we had even the smallest doubt about your loyalty and integrity, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘Thank you, Miss Meridian.’

‘That said, for what possible reason would I trust the sister of the head of the most powerful yakuza organisation in the world?’

Fukui swallowed and then gave a short nod. ‘You wished me physically present when you asked me this question. I understand.’ Her English was excellent. She had an accent, but it was barely audible. ‘The yakuza remains, to a great extent, a male preserve. My father was instrumental in breaking down the barriers to more female participation, and the Fukui-kai has more ane-san than any other group, but he never intended me to go down that path. For my own protection, he saw to it that I learned marksmanship and aikijutsu, and that I knew the structure of his organisation so that I could avoid conflict with it. When I expressed great interest in studying criminology, he asked only that I not join the police force since it might put me in a difficult position, so I agreed to stick to academic activities.’

‘What changed? You’ve consulted for the Tokyo police and the UNTPP. I got your name through the UNTPP when I was looking for someone to fill the Japanese position.’

‘My father died.’ Fukui paused, her fists tightening where she held them on her knees. She took a deep breath. ‘It is my strong belief that Taro had him killed to gain control of the Fukui-kai.’

‘Taro is your brother, right? You really think he killed his own father to take his place?’

‘Modern medicine could have kept our father alive and in power for decades and Taro has never been a patient man. We speak only on the rarest of occasions. So long as I do not interfere in his business, he does not move against me and his people do not trouble me. We have an uneasy truce, because I cannot prove that he killed my father. I still have contacts within the organisation, but I utilise them only when I absolutely must. I did checking of my own when the offer was made. Many companies doing business in Japan have yakuza ties of one form or another. MarTech does not.’

Fox gave a small grimace. ‘I’m not stupid enough to believe there’s no one in the company over there with divided loyalties. We do our best to make sure they’re caught during the interview process and rejected, but no system is perfect. And you can’t do business in Japan without dealing with the Fukui-kai in some manner.’

‘Minor players hoping to pick up corporate secrets,’ Fukui said dismissively. ‘Taro sits on the boards of three large corporations and has influence in many other companies. But not MarTech. Not Palladium.’

‘All right. You’re confident in your ability to do the job? As you say, you’re from a largely academic background and we’re asking you to do fieldwork.’

‘I admit to some anxiety over that. I will not know for sure until I am doing it. My skills are strong, and I believe the equipment Palladium has available will make up for what I lack. I also believe that you would not have selected me if you did not think I could make the transition. I thank you for that confidence.’

‘Do your best and we won’t have a problem.’ Fox flashed a grin. ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’

‘Discussing my family is not an easy thing for me, but no. I think I will enjoy working under you. You are direct. You express your concerns and expect them to be addressed. I respect that. I cannot help but respect your record.’

‘It sounds like we’re off to a good start. Pay close attention to the Pythia introductions and I think you’ll do well.’

~~~

‘This,’ Fox said, indicating the large, rectangular box standing beside her, ‘is Pythia. To be precise, this is the first of the Pythia units, the one I’ve been using for a few months. Explain what you do, Pythia.’

‘I am a semi-autonomous, forensic analysis system,’ Pythia said. With Pythia, you just got a voice: an avatar had never been required, though she could display graphics as and when required. ‘Utilising a number of cyberframes and forensic swarms, I am able to collect evidence from a crime scene. I can then analyse and interpret in a number of ways, including chemical and biological analysis, ballistics analysis, and scene reconstruction.’

‘And what are you not, Pythia?’

‘I am not a detective. I am a class three AI, well-suited to detailed analysis work, but I lack intuition and creativity. I can suggest evidence collection strategies based upon past scenes. I can suggest interpretations which fit the collected evidence. However, novel situations or incomplete evidence will tax my abilities and may result in incorrect results without the intervention of a human investigator.’

‘Thank you, Pythia.’

‘You’re most welcome, Miss Meridian.’

Fox grinned at her audience. ‘So, Pythia won’t do it all for you, but she’s a very good forensics technician. All this hardware is needed because she’s a very bright AI, and to make sure she can get to where she’s needed, she’s built on a mobile platform, so there’s a fair bulk of batteries in there. Even so, she can only keep going off the mains for about an hour. Her primary transport is a custom-fitted vertol aircraft which she can pilot. It’s all about rapid deployment to where she, and we, are needed. Yes, Mister Keen?’

‘What’s the range on the vertol?’ Keen’s accent was thickly Australian, which made sense given that he was based out of Sydney.

‘Nominally, four hours. Top speed is seven hundred and ninety kilometres per hour. I believe, however, that they’re looking at an extended-range model for your part of the world, just in case. You’re qualified on vertols, right?’

‘I am. How does she handle?’

‘Beautifully, of course. Pythia’s a beauty.’

‘Thank you again, Miss Meridian,’ Pythia said. ‘I am also not subject to embarrassment.’

‘I know, but I have to keep trying. Okay, Helen’s going to start going through Pythia’s capabilities in detail with you. We’ll get the basics done with and then I’ll start dragging more of you into the break room for a chat. Helen?’

~~~

‘Regretting leaving NAPA yet?’ Fox asked.

Ray Rogers settled back in his seat with a cup of coffee and smiled. ‘Not even a little.’ He took a sip of coffee and then shrugged. ‘Okay, a couple of the other guys I’ll miss working with, but I’ll still see them socially.’

‘Have you been to the office yet?’

‘I’ve been past it. They were still refitting the place. Miss Vaughn was a little apologetic about that, but she assured us it’d be ready for next week.’

Fox grimaced. ‘If she was being apologetic to you guys, it means someone got it in the neck for not finishing something on time. Word to the wise, Alice may seem all sweetness and light, but she turns into the Wicked Witch of the West if you piss her off.’

‘I’ll try to stay on her good side.’

‘Best plan. Well, to be honest, I put your name forward for this and we’ve already worked together to some extent, so calling you in was pretty much a formality. Any questions?’

‘They’re getting answered out there. You know Bateson got transferred to Rikers, right?’ Fox nodded; convicted of raping his own daughter, Malcolm Bateson had been shipped to the prison on Rikers Island to serve a long sentence. ‘Did you hear Cory Druss has been indicted for tax fraud?’

Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘That I hadn’t heard. That’ll hurt.’

‘Word is that his delegation base is making like rats on a sinking ship. Everyone out there likes it if you bitch about taxes, but fraud makes you sound like you can’t be trusted.’

‘Can’t have happened to a nicer person. Think it’ll stick?’

‘Not my area, but the NAPA team seem confident.’

‘Maybe they can get him a cell next to Bateson’s.’

~~~

‘So, what do you think of them?’ Helen asked as the new recruits filed out to the elevators.

Fox stood beside her, also watching her new people leave for the day. ‘Well, the Brit has a platinum rod up her ass, but she’s cool, efficient, and she’s got good deductive talents. The Australian fancies himself with the ladies, but he gets right down to it when he’s faced with a problem. The German actually has a sense of humour…’

‘You think they’re going to work out?’

‘Only time will tell. I think we’ve got a workable bunch of people here and it’s a good start.’

‘And Fukui?’

‘I trust her. I trusted the background checks, but now I’ve talked to her… She’ll do her best for us.’

Helen nodded. ‘Okay, well, I trust your instincts.’

‘Thanks.’ Fox grinned. ‘Try and take the time to chat to her tomorrow at the party.’

‘Not sure it qualifies as a party. More of a meet-and-greet, except we already met and greeted.’

Fox gave a shrug. ‘We’ll get a look at how they act socially. Keen will probably try his luck with all the girls.’

‘Wanna run a sweepstake on who he gets?’

‘Nah. If he gets anyone, it’ll be the Brit. You know what they’re like.’

~~~

Belle appeared as Fox was going over the performance reports. ‘Fox, I have Miss Charlene Iberson at the door requesting to see you.’

Fox looked up at the blue-clad avatar and frowned. ‘She’s alone?’

‘Yes, Fox.’

‘Didn’t say what she wanted or you’d have told me. Okay, let her in. I’ll meet her in the hall and take her into the downstairs lounge.’

Charlene Iberson was known, with good reason, as the ice queen of the chat show circuit. She was a blonde, her hair clipped short and shaved close at the sides, and she had blue eyes, but her reputation stemmed from her role as co-host of Straight Talk, a late-night, adult chat show on the Athena channel. Tall, slim, and attractive, Iberson wore her femininity, lesbianism, and strong feminist principles with pride… Normally. Right now, she looked nervous. The ice in her piercing eyes had melted into mush.

Fox gave her a quizzical frown from halfway down the broad steps into the hall. ‘Charlie? Something up? You look… less than your bitchy self.’

Iberson pulled her back up a little straighter and managed a half-hearted attempt at a scowl. ‘Well, that’s why I’m here. I needed some bitch lessons and I heard you were almost as good as me.’

‘You’re not totally off your game. Come into the lounge. Tell me what’s wrong.’

Dressed in a mid-thigh skirt, light blouse, and a leather jacket, Iberson perched on the edge of a sofa, knees pressed tightly together and her hands making fists on top of them. Nervous, closed in: so very not Charlie Iberson. ‘Palladium’s doing the security for Nishi’s gigs, right?’ she said without preamble.

‘The Fire in Her Eyes tour. Yeah, that’s ours. Very last minute, but it’s ours. Not mine, I’m investigation and there’s been no need for–’

‘I think there is.’

Fox sat down opposite Iberson, leaning forward. ‘Explain, please.’

‘You know me and Nishi…’

‘You’ve been heavily linked in the gossip channels. Everyone assumes you’re an item, though the evidence is circumstantial.’

‘I met her in fifty-eight, at a concert. She was… Damn, she’s special. I can’t explain it. She’s not a real stunner, you know? Some of my friends think I’m out of her league, but I saw something in her and I guess she saw something in me. She was going through a bad patch with her music. The enthusiasm was gone. I pushed her to bring it back. The ‘her’ in The Fire in Her Eyes? That’s me. Or Nishi says it is.’

‘Most people say you have ice in your eyes, and it goes right down to your heart.’

‘Huh. Yeah, and they’re right. Nishi’ll like you. She says the best thing about me is that I don’t tell her nice lies. As soon as we were past the initial bits where you’re not sure about someone, I told her straight up that her music was losing its edge and she should damn well get her ass in gear and make another Songs on the Wind.’

‘I’m not hearing a problem that needs me to investigate.’

‘Okay. I was up in Boston with her this past few days for the concerts.’ Iberson’s eyes brightened a little and she smiled. ‘She is blowing them away! The stage act is amazing and the music… Um, anyway, the day before the first show, the second of Jan, I hear her swearing and I walk in to find she’s checking her mail. She’s got one through on her personal address, some freaky fan thing from someone calling himself “Minotaur.” She tells me this guy has been sending messages, posting to her LifeWeb page, basically stalking her, but this is the first time she’s got one in her personal mailbox.’

‘I’d imagine that kind of thing happens a lot. You must get fans stalking you now and again. Marie hasn’t had any yet, but both Sam and I have discussed the possibility, given the nature of the show she’s doing. And Miss Sakura’s stage shows aren’t exactly wholesome family fun.’

‘It’s her personal address, Tara. There are… twenty people who know it. Before this, he’s sent stuff through the IMC PR mailboxes and they’ve been filtering, but there’s no way this guy should have her personal address. And the way she looked… She wouldn’t let me read it. Deleted it straight away. But the look on her face said it was scary. Then she shut me out on it. Said the channel security people had checked it all out and it was just the typical obsessive fan stuff. She was too busy with the concerts to worry over it now. Blah, blah. I’m worried.’

Fox bit at her lip for a second. ‘You said he posted to her LifeWeb page?’

‘They blocked him from her LifeWeb page.’

‘Okay.’ Fox leaned back in her seat. ‘Kit, check LifeWeb, see what you can find.’

Kit appeared, standing beside Fox. ‘I’ll start the run immediately.’

‘Oh, hello again, Kit,’ Iberson said, managing a smile for the kitsune avatar.

‘I would rather it were under different circumstances, Miss Iberson, but hello again. It will take a short time to access deep records in the LifeWeb databases, Fox.’

‘Thanks,’ Fox said, ‘get them when you can. Look, Charlie, if it looks like this guy could be trouble… I can’t really do much if Miss Sakura won’t let me investigate it.’

‘I figured, maybe, you could play the security card? If this guy is a threat, then Palladium might need to be aware of it.’

‘It’s worth a shot. Is she in the metro?’

Iberson nodded. ‘She’s staying in that new arcology MarTech put up. Right up near the top in the VIP suites. I’m, uh, staying with her.’

‘Okay, then she’s safe for now. Tower three has excellent security. It’s where my investigations division has its HQ. Ryan Jarvis and his people are good, and so is the more automated security. No one gets past the mall level without authorisation. Leave it with me and Kit, and we’ll see what we can dig up.’

‘Thanks,’ Iberson said, getting to her feet. ‘Really, thanks. Even if this turns out to be me worrying over nothing, I’ll feel better knowing someone’s looked at it seriously.’

7th January.

‘I’ve located the posts Miss Iberson mentioned,’ Kit said as Fox swung her legs out of bed.

‘Minotaur? What does he have to say for himself?’ Fox was interested, but a shower beckoned.

‘He posted as “BeastOfKnossos,” not much of a change. I cross-checked against the blocked list. LifeWeb should have blocked the account earlier given that the personal data is obviously faked. However, since assuming control of LifeWeb, MarTech has suspended several hundred thousand accounts which broke the rules in this way.’

The shower was already running, at just the temperature Fox liked. She pushed her head under the stream of water and let it wash the last of the sleep from her mind. ‘Okay. So he created a fake account specifically to post to Sakura’s page?’

‘He created it on the twelfth of August last year, favouriting Miss Sakura’s page immediately and not looking elsewhere. His first post was on the twenty-third of that month, a rather effusive fan posting about how Miss Sakura’s music “spoke to his soul.” He posts once a day after that, each post just as flowery as the last, but we get extra posts when he finds anyone suggesting that Miss Sakura’s work is less than perfect. He is blocked on September twenty-eighth after suggesting that one poster did not deserve to live and that he would “erase the freak from existence.”’

‘Okay…’

‘BeastOfKnossos logged in once on the twenty-ninth, presumably discovered the block, and the account was not used again. Having received only one block, he did not trigger LifeWeb’s automated checking and the account remained active but unused until October ninth when MarTech instituted the new auditing system.’

Fox nodded. ‘You’ve looked at obsessive fan posts before. What’s your opinion?’

‘The posts themselves show an obsessive aspect to Minotaur’s personality which is worrying and might warrant further investigation. However, there is another factor which I believe suggests a greater threat.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, Fox. I scanned the account of the person Minotaur said he would “erase” and found a number of posts indicating the difficulties that person has had since September. His accounts on a number of private music sites have been deleted along with any posts he made there. He has also had problems with banking and access to his apartment block on several occasions. Minotaur has not erased him, but someone is making life hard for him.’

‘But his LifeWeb account is okay?’

‘MarTech acquired LifeWeb last August, if you recall. LifeWeb’s security was upgraded almost immediately, and further upgraded at the end of September.’

‘Okay…’ Fox rubbed shampoo into her hair and considered. ‘Send a message to Ryan indicating that we may have an issue. Give him the basics, and tell him I’ll call him when it’s a reasonable hour in Chicago. Send something to Charlie saying we’ll drop in and see Sakura this afternoon. And find me a slot in the schedule when I can do that.’

‘You were planning to come back here to change for the party, correct?’

‘Yeah, that was the plan.’

‘If you change in your office at the tower, we could easily fit in a visit to Miss Sakura’s suite before socialising.’

Fox smiled. ‘Good thinking. Okay, get Belle to put my dress and shoes out and I’ll take them with me. Check with Charlie that they’ll be in the suite at that time.’

~~~

‘All right, let’s settle and we can get on with the fun.’ Fox waited a few seconds as her team fell into silence. They had decamped to another part of the kilometre-high arcology for the final item she wanted to cover in the course: choice of weapons.

The morning had been fairly hard. Terri had come over to give them a load of detailed background on the technology they had available. It was probably overkill and they had all looked a little shell-shocked at the end of it, but both Fox and Terri felt it was useful to know a bit more about the inner workings of the equipment. However, Fox had scheduled in something a little more fun to finish up with.

‘I know you’re all checked out on basic firearms,’ Fox said when silence fell, ‘but we have two sidearms we’re using as standard and neither of them are what you’re used to. So, here we are at the firing range. I’m going to go through the weapons, and then you’ll get to try them out yourselves. You’ll want to fully familiarise yourself with both, because they both have their uses.’

Stepping up to a table on which there were several guns of two types, Fox picked up a sleek-looking pistol with a broad ‘muzzle’ featuring two small openings. ‘As a standard weapon, I suggest carrying this. It’s an electrolaser, a wireless electric shock weapon. It’s relatively legal in all jurisdictions, especially if the lethal mode is locked out. As with more conventional shock weapons, it can kill someone by accident, but the general result of a good hit is incapacitation. On a full-power hit, your target’s heart will seize and they’ll likely die unless treated quickly by a paramedic.’

Fox walked up to the firing line and took aim at a mannequin android around twenty metres down range. Not bothering with the heads-up sighting, she simply eyeballed it and fired. There was a sharp crack as the twin invisible beams fired and a high-voltage pulse danced down the ionised channels. The droid collapsed to its knees almost immediately.

‘Humans tend to jerk about more,’ Fox said. ‘It’s a little more satisfying than hitting a machine.’ There was a rumble of laughter. ‘Effective, but not without problems. High humidity tends to cause the charge to leak away, and fog or smoke can diffuse the beams too much to be effective. Don’t aim for the face because the beams do cause minor burns and will damage eyesight. Centre-mass is more effective anyway. Any questions?’

‘How many shots?’ Keen asked.

‘You’ll get a good thirty charges out of a standard magazine, a lot less on lethal mode.’ When it seemed that no one else had anything to ask, Fox put the pistol back on the table and took a different one out from where it was holstered in the small of her back. ‘This one is a little different and its biggest disadvantage is that it’s not in production yet. This one is mine. Jackson Martins built it for me to test out and it works, and we’re rolling it out to the investigation division because it’s got a lot of different uses. But you are using what amounts to a prototype. Be aware of that if you plan to use one of these as a standard weapon.’

‘Well, yeah,’ Keen said, ‘but it’s a prototype built by Jackson Martins…’

Fox grinned and walked up to the firing line. ‘There is that.’ At her command, a paper target dropped from the ceiling about ten metres away. ‘At close range, this functions like a normal pistol, except that the launch mechanism is electromagnetic.’ She raised the pistol and fired off three rounds, punching three holes in the target’s chest. ‘Normal load is a ten-millimetre, high-velocity projectile. You’re probably going to kill someone if you double-tap them. One round should put most targets down. If you want a less lethal option…’ She aimed at the android again as it got to its feet, fired, and it was knocked over backward. There was something which looked vaguely like a small cowpat stuck to its chest. ‘High-kinetic impulse, less-than-lethal rounds. Yes, I stacked this magazine for this demo. Be warned, I’ve used these on someone who didn’t want to give up and we had to get him medical treatment for internal injuries.’

Stepping sideways, Fox looked down the range to where another mannequin had been set up thirty metres away. ‘At longer range, you have another option. I admit this is easier for me to use because I’m ex-military and I was trained on guided missiles, but…’ In-vision, she got a lock indicator for the target, then she moved her aim off to one side and fired. A few metres out, the projectile began to stream white vapour as tiny rocket motors engaged, and the little missile curved through the air to hit its target. The mannequin dissolved into nothing as the explosive round blew it apart.

‘Shit!’ Keen yelped and there were several other similar exclamations as bits of plastic drifted down to the ground in the distance.

‘Yes,’ Fox said, ‘that was a ten-mil, infrared homing micromissile with an explosive warhead. Have a really good reason for needing to use one of those, and make sure you’ve got some distance. I can tell you from experience that being too close to one of those when it goes off stings. However, you can deliver any of a range of warheads out to a klick with reasonable accuracy if you learn to use the homing system. And you only get the standard rounds to practise with.’ She looked over at Keen and added, ‘Seven-round magazines, which is another disadvantage.’

‘Well, yeah, but it fires bloody missiles!’

Fox laughed. ‘There is that. All right, there’s a selection of weapons here and plenty of targets. Try both. Helen and I will be here to advise you.’

It was a rather interesting exercise. Everyone did try both weapons: the pistol was novel enough, but the electrolaser was a ray gun! The Europeans and the Brit looked like they would stick with the lasers. The Americans appeared to be sticking with the projectile weaponry, but Ray Rogers said he would carry the stun weapon as standard because the local watch in Topeka was standardising on them. Keen was going for bullets, big surprise. Fukui seemed a little unsure and was alternating between the two.

‘You seem to be undecided,’ Fox said as she watched the Japanese girl switch back to the laser weapon.

‘I am,’ Fukui replied. ‘I could easily get the permits for a firearm or a lethal-mode electrolaser. I feel using a stun weapon as standard should be the better option, but it is highly likely that any situation where I might need either would be sufficiently life-threatening to warrant lethal force. Crime in Japan is like that. It is often very civilised, but when it is not, it is vicious.’

‘If your file is correct, you’ll be good with the electromag pistol. You’d just need to learn to use the homing system. And there is a smaller version of the electrolaser you could use as a backup piece.’

Fukui flashed Fox a smile. ‘That is a most interesting compromise. Practical. This is where your experience shows, as does my lack of it.’

Fox shrugged. ‘I just thought of it myself. Sometimes having a problem to solve is the best way to find a good idea you should have thought of the answer to already.’

‘I am pleased to be the source of a good idea. And I’ll keep practising with both.’

~~~

‘Fox? You in here? Oh! Shit, I didn’t know you were changing.’

Fox flashed Helen a grin and finished pulling her dress on. ‘You’ve seen me naked before, Helen.’

‘Not in an office. It’s different. No idea why, but it is. Everything’s ready for this thing. I’m going to get changed myself.’

‘Right. I need to go see our currently resident VIP about a stalker.’

Helen frowned. ‘Nishi Sakura?’

‘That’s the one. Charlie Iberson came to see me last night. Said Sakura received an email from some guy calling himself Minotaur and it seemed like it was bad, but Sakura and her agents are ignoring it. Kit did some checking and it looks like it might be a problem, so…’

‘Good luck persuading them. I’ll be back when I’ve got myself dolled up.’ Helen turned to leave and then stopped. She turned back, frowning. ‘I feel like obsessive fan and Minotaur should be ringing some sort of bell.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah… It’s not coming to mind though. I’ll give it some thought.’

‘Let me know.’ Fox slipped on her heels, decided she was ready, and headed out behind Helen to take an elevator up to the top of the tower.

The doors opened and Fox found herself looking at a man and a woman, both in the smart, dark-blue tunic and slacks of Palladium security personnel. The woman recognised her even before her ID was processed, but both nodded politely as she stepped out of the elevator. Fox returned the nod and continued down a short corridor. There she turned right toward the group of suites where Sakura had been housed and made it as far as a small antechamber before she was stopped.

‘What are you doing here?’ The speaker was a man who had had far too much bodysculpt work done. He was, probably, naturally quite tall, though Fox’s heels gave her several centimetres of height advantage. Everything else looked like it had been modified one way or another. Muscle grafts, sculpted nose, jaw, and cheeks, smoothed skin with an artificial tan… His eyes were a reflective blue never found in nature, and his blonde, dreadlocked hair looked like most of it was extended.

He went on before Fox could say a word. ‘No, no, no! No fans! Those idiots at the elevator should have turned you around. I don’t care who you are. Out. Out!’ Kit supplied a name for the artificial features as the man reached for Fox’s arm, which was the only thing that stopped her punching him. Instead, she braced herself as he tried to drag her backward, and he gave her an annoyed look when he could not move her.

‘My name is Tara Meridian, Mister Palomino,’ Fox told him. ‘I’m with the idiots at the elevator. I’m here to talk to Miss Sakura.’ Kit was supplying the fact that this was Sakura’s manager along with a name.

He covered embarrassment with irritation: another feature which did not endear him to Fox. ‘Why didn’t you say so? I–’

‘Because you didn’t give me any chance to. Please let go of my arm.’

Palomino took a step back. ‘Nishi is busy. What is it you wish to talk to her about?’

‘You’re the manager assigned to her by the Independent Music Channel, is that right?’

‘I am.’ His spine straightened as he said it.

‘Then I’d like to talk to you as well. Miss Sakura should be expecting me.’ Fox set off through the reception area, heading for the room directly opposite the entrance corridor and leaving Palomino to trail behind her.

Palomino did not like that. ‘Nishi isn’t expecting anyone. She would have–’

He stopped as the door opened before Fox got to it and Iberson took a half-step out. ‘Fox. Thanks for coming. Nishi’s… not exactly happy, but she’s going to listen to what you have to say.’

‘She shouldn’t be disturbed,’ Palomino said. ‘If her performance is–’

‘Shut up, Wally,’ Iberson snapped, and Fox saw the better-known face of Charlie Iberson emerge as ice-cold eyes glared at Palomino.

‘I thought his name was Brett,’ Fox queried silently.

‘He changed his name to Brett Palomino about a year before joining IMC,’ Kit replied inside her head. ‘Prior to that, he was Wallace Booth. Miss Iberson clearly knows about his original name.’

‘Apparently.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘I think Miss Sakura’s performance may suffer more if she’s attacked by some obsessed fan. I’d like to discuss the situation, determine a strategy, and handle it. That should put her mind at ease more than ignoring the situation, don’t you think?’

Iberson was already turning to lead the way into the suite’s reception room. ‘Welcome to the Big Top, Fox.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The circus that is the media business. Lots of glam and glitz hiding the peeling paintwork and rotten foundations. Marie hasn’t had to deal with it all yet, and she seems like a pretty grounded girl anyway, but she’s going to have to learn to put on a brave face when she wants to cry, and be nice to people she wants to stab in the eye.’

‘Doesn’t seem like you do.’

‘Oh, I really want to stab Wally in the eye, but I haven’t. Yet.’ She walked through another door on the far side of the little lounge and into a much larger room. ‘Tara Meridian, meet Nishi Sakura.’

The singer-songwriter got to her feet as Fox walked in, regarding the newcomer shrewdly and with a hint of annoyance. She was a couple of inches shorter than Fox, quite long in the leg. The legs were obvious thanks to a pair of very short shorts, and added to by heeled sandals. She was slim, fairly flat-chested, but her body was toned and fit, supple. She was, in some ways, more handsome than beautiful, but certainly attractive with sharp cheekbones, a narrow pointed chin, and a full mouth. She had a cap of short black hair, dark eyebrows with an intriguing arch to them, and her eyes were a warm hazel-brown.

She might have been a little annoyed, but Sakura was Japanese: politeness was an instinct. She executed a short, formal bow which Fox copied. ‘Miss Meridian, I am afraid that you have made a wasted journey. Charlie’s concerns are… unwarranted.’

Iberson had moved to a position beside Sakura, far enough away that Fox knew there had been an argument. Iberson’s face twisted a little: annoyance, frustration. ‘I have sufficient evidence to suggest they are not,’ Fox said. ‘Palladium has moved to a higher alert level. Security has been tightened and will remain that way unless I can verify that there is no threat.’

‘Over one email?!’ Palomino burst out. ‘That’s ridiculous! How can you–’

‘No. I haven’t seen the email. The fact that it was sent to Miss Sakura’s personal address supports my position, but it’s the LifeWeb posts by the same man which cause me concern. He’s a hacker. Not, perhaps, the greatest ever, but certainly very good. He’s obsessed and has violent tendencies. He warrants closer scrutiny.’

Sakura frowned. ‘Please, sit down, Miss Meridian.’

‘Nishi,’ Palomino began. ‘You shouldn’t be stressing yourself over–’

‘Sit down, Brett. We will hear Miss Meridian out.’ Palomino sank onto a chair with an exasperated expression on his face. Sakura waited until Fox had taken one of the sofas before sitting down opposite her, and when Iberson sat down beside her, she shifted a little closer. Some of the argument was forgiven at least and Fox saw Iberson’s eyes brighten a little.

‘Miss Iberson seems quite infatuated with Miss Sakura,’ Kit commented silently.

‘She does,’ Fox replied, but her attention was drawn to the appearance of a petite avatar with oriental features dressed in a short, kimono-styled dress.

‘Misaki,’ Sakura said, ‘these LifeWeb posts Miss Meridian has referred to?’

‘I identified the sender of the emails, Minotaur, as a LifeWeb poster named BeastOfKnossos, Nishi-sama.’ Misaki had a stronger Japanese accent than Sakura did and tended to affect a vaguely submissive posture, but she had to be an infomorph of some sort. ‘That LifeWeb account was blocked from posting after it was used to troll several other posters who left negative comments about your work.’

Sakura nodded. ‘That’s my policy, Miss Meridian. If people want to criticise me, I don’t stop them so long as they remain civilised about it. I won’t tolerate trolls, whether with me or against me.’

Fox nodded back. ‘Good policy, if you ask me, but Minotaur kept sending emails, yes?’

‘That is correct, Miss Meridian,’ Misaki said. ‘I filter both LifeWeb posts and fan emails for Nishi. I only bother her with them if I feel her input is required. For a personal reply, for example.’

‘You don’t follow through on potential threats, however.’

‘IMC have staff evaluating such issues. I am not required to.’

‘My PA did. Kit, would you explain what you found, please?’

Kit appeared in her formal outfit, adjusting her glasses as she resolved in everyone’s vision fields. Her tail flicked a little and Fox saw Sakura’s eyes widen. ‘Of course, Fox,’ Kit said. ‘Minotaur, posting as BeastOfKnossos, threatened that he would “erase” a user with the account name Musikkritiker, a German national who went on to post several times on his own page regarding the difficulties he was having. His banking credentials were revoked, twice, without his knowledge. His posts on a number of private music websites, along with his accounts on those sites, were deleted.’

‘But nothing on LifeWeb,’ Palomino said. ‘After all that scandal about LifeWeb’s security, your hacker didn’t get in there.’

Kit looked over at the manager. ‘Minotaur’s campaign against Musikkritiker happened to coincide with that scandal, Mister Palomino. MarTech bought out LifeWeb and instituted systematic upgrades in security just before the BeastOfKnossos account was blocked. Musikkritiker uses MarTech’s European internet service provider. I was able to confirm an attempt by someone to cancel his service around that time. The false data was detected and the matter reported to the German police, but the attack could only be traced to America. No one was identified as the attacker.’

Returning her gaze to Sakura, Kit went on. ‘Then there is the matter of your personal address being used. We understand that there are very few people who know it.’

‘Maybe twenty,’ Sakura said. ‘I trust all of them.’

‘There are twenty-two, Nishi-sama,’ Misaki said, ‘since you gave it to Charlie-sama.’

‘So that’s twenty-two places he could have hacked to get the information,’ Fox said. ‘Though my money’s on someone at IMC. Minotaur was likely looking for information on the concerts, unreleased music, or personal information he could use.’

‘Now wait a minute,’ Palomino growled.

‘It’s nothing personal. He will have put a lot of effort into infiltrating your network and there’s no such thing as absolute security. But why did you switch to Palladium for your security at these shows on such short notice?’

‘That was my fault,’ Sakura said. ‘I added the Tokyo gig at the last minute. It’s the first time I’ve been back to Japan since… Well, since I left. IMC didn’t think they had the right kind of resources in Japan and it seemed stupid to contract Palladium for just that one date.’

‘Okay. Look, this could be nothing. The guy could be a crank and no real danger, but I don’t think you should ignore this. I’d like the emails Minotaur sent via IMC and the one he sent direct to Miss Sakura. We’ll go through and analyse them. Kit’s pretty good with abnormal psychology. Once the threat is assessed, we see where we go from there. If he sends any more emails, I want those too.’

‘He already has. I’ve had two more this week.’ She turned to Iberson who was narrowing her eyes at her lover. ‘I didn’t want you worrying. I didn’t consider it worth worrying over.’

‘Balls,’ Iberson snapped. ‘Something in that first one had you worried. If I hadn’t seen that, I wouldn’t have pressed this so hard.’

‘He… I was annoyed that he had got my address. Brett, I want Palladium to have full access to my IMC mailboxes and any other data they need. Misaki, you can recover those messages and forward them, right?’

‘Of course, Nishi-sama,’ Misaki replied.

‘I’ll arrange a connection and transfer them directly,’ Kit said. ‘You’re a Harriet dash four zero one, aren’t you, Misaki?’

Misaki bobbed her head and gave a timid smile. ‘Yes. Miss Sakura kindly secured a series seventy-two server unit for me last year, however.’

‘I run on a seventy-two at home. You have all the latest security patches, I assume?’

‘I am up to date as of the December sixteenth patch. I have not been notified of anything else.’ Misaki actually looked a little uncertain, as though she was worried that the clearly newer AI model might know something she did not.

‘That’s good. It is the May emergency release which I was most concerned with. The seventy-two is one of the most secure individual servers MarTech produces at this time.’ Kit looked at Sakura. ‘You made a wise investment, Miss Sakura. It is unlikely that Minotaur will gain entry to Misaki’s server without triggering alarms.’

Misaki looked rather pleased at Kit’s praise. Sakura smiled and said, ‘Thank you, Kit. Misaki deserved the upgrade and it let me consolidate the house computer systems.’

Fox gave a nod. ‘Okay. We’ll get started on that as soon as possible and try to set your mind at ease. If you’ll excuse me, I have a small party to attend.’

‘I did wonder about the dress,’ Iberson said. She got up, along with Sakura, as Fox rose to her feet.

‘Not my usual business attire, no, but I had to dress up for the occasion.’

~~~

The German with the sense of humour was called Johann Baum, and Fox pulled him and Yuriko Fukui aside for a quick chat once the little party was underway. ‘You two,’ Fox told them, ‘get special assignments to be handled when you get back. Well, Monday will probably do.’

‘This is good,’ Baum said. ‘I was expecting to be sitting on my ass a lot of the time when I got home.’

‘We’ll find things for you to do,’ Fox told him. ‘First thing, however, is a live one. Kit will send you some contact data for a German citizen who has some internet problems. Go see him, talk to him. We want permission to investigate the hacks. Some of it is banking so you’ll probably need to liaise with the German police.’

Baum winced. ‘Potential minefield. Many banking institutions are highly secretive about security problems.’

‘See what you can get. We think the man who’s been hacking this guy’s accounts could be a potential security risk to a client.’ Fox turned to Fukui. ‘That client being Nishi Sakura. She’s doing a show in Tokyo in February. I want you to run background on her. Palladium was brought in because IMC didn’t think they could handle security for her in Japan. I’d like to know why and I doubt I’ll get a straight answer out of them.’

‘I can do that,’ Fukui replied. ‘I know she came out of the industrial sprawl around Chiba. You would say a “rags-to-riches story,” I think? She has no family left in Japan, and she has not been back there in around six years. She remains popular in Japan despite this.’

Fox nodded. ‘Coordinate with Kit. She’ll be doing a run on Sakura’s web presence, and you’ll handle the physical world. Right, I just wanted to give you both some prior notice. Go have fun.’

‘I will,’ Fukui said, ‘if I can manage to avoid Mister Keen for most of the evening. Oh, he’s coming this way…’

‘I’ll run interference. Go.’ Fox turned and smiled as Keen sauntered over, and Fukui beat a hasty retreat.

‘Nice dress,’ the Australian said. ‘What there is of it anyway.’ His grin contained far too much leer.

‘Thanks. See that tall, blonde guy over there chatting to Ray and Helen?’

‘The one who looks like he should be on Bondi doing lifeguard duty?’

‘If you say so. That’s the only guy here likely to get under my dress tonight. He’s the local UNTPP captain as well as my boyfriend. You should talk to him. He’s here to meet the international contingent more than the Americans.’

Keen seemed to take this with considerable equanimity. ‘I’ll try to get over envying the lucky bastard and do that.’

‘Good. He’s a nice guy. And stop scaring Yuriko.’

‘You’re right. We’ll be sharing a flight from here to Japan tomorrow. I should lay off or it could be a bit dodgy spending that long with her.’ Keen sighed. ‘That’s two down. Maybe the stiff-arsed Brit could be persuaded…’

~~~

‘Thanks for coming,’ Fox said when, at some point, she intersected with Jason again. ‘You saved me from a proposition by an Australian.’

‘The horror,’ Jason replied. ‘It has been a useful exercise, and there is wine.’

‘And you’re coming back to my place after, right?’

‘I am. Tonight is the viewing of Marie.’

Fox giggled. ‘Marie’s pilot episode.’

‘Ah, non. Tonight we view Marie viewing her pilot episode. If we wish to watch the actual vid, we do that later on a repeat. Marie is almost certain to be more entertaining to watch, and there is no opportunity for a repeat viewing.’

‘We could record her and play it back later, which might be entertaining in itself. Uh, for the full effect, you need to see her reading reviews tomorrow morning.’

Jason raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you propositioning me, Miss Meridian?’

‘Damn right I am.’

‘The weekend is most definitely looking up.’

8th January.

Despite Fox’s predictions, Marie was looking far more confident at breakfast than she had after M. J. and the Ripper had streamed. From the slight flush around her cheeks and throat, Fox decided that sex might have been a factor in Marie’s relaxed posture. Then again, Fox was feeling pretty relaxed as well, for the same reason. But Marie had also been a lot happier with the finished result as well, and she had a little more experience under her belt. That meant she was only cringing a little as reviews were uncovered and read aloud.

‘“From the opening scene, M. J. sets down its stall with not one, not two, but four pairs of breasts on screen at the same time.”’ Fox read the report with a smirk. ‘It goes on to say that for something obviously designed to grab a male audience, the scene was well-handled and that the show is something worth keeping an eye on.’

‘I thought it was a clever linking device,’ Jason said. ‘Five Sisters playing poker and chatting. The untimely demise of M. J.’s paramour from the first vid is explained. Her desire to leave the chapter house and go out on her own once more comes up. The situation is advanced in a few minutes in a relaxed way…’

‘And then M. J. wins the hand and everyone else strips to the waist,’ Fox continued for him. ‘Genius, if you ask me, though I think what really made it was having your friends from the real chapter house playing the Sisters. It felt real.’

‘Well, it was,’ Marie said. ‘We did the same thing every night before bed when I was there. The only difference was the scripted dialogue, and we ad-libbed some of that, and the rigged cards. I had to win and, believe me, I didn’t do that very much in real life.’

‘Streaming Culture calls it a “competent pilot episode,”’ Sam reported, ‘and says it does much to make up for the original vid. “Marie Shaftsbury continues to demonstrate more on-screen presence than the show deserves, though this time she has more competition from the four genuine Sisters of Corruption who are on screen all too briefly.” It looks like you’ve created four new stars.’

‘If we get the full season, Adrian wants to go back and do more with them. Naomi tentatively agreed to guest star in an episode and I said they should make as much use of her as they could. They were just thinking of a walk-on. Maybe they’ll listen and do something big with her now.’

‘You’re a lot happier about this than you were about the original,’ Fox said.

‘Yeah… I’m a lot happier with what we made this time. It wasn’t totally embarrassing watching it with you all. Also, I had really great sex in the shower.’

‘Uh-huh… That does kind of set you up for the day.’

~~~

‘Fox, I figured out what was bugging me about the Minotaur thing.’ Helen’s avatar looked terribly formal, which probably meant her body was lounging in Terri’s solarium.

‘Okay, what?’

‘Adamshi.’

Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘The case we met on. Brianne Adamshi… She was a musician, but she was killed by Marshall.’

‘Yes, but we looked into a load of emails from disgruntled fans, right? One of them was an obsessive-sounding one Kit flagged as a possible and the ID on it was “Niutou.”’

Kit had the message Helen was talking about in front of Fox almost immediately. ‘Yeah, I’ve got it here,’ Fox said. ‘What’s the connection?’

‘Niutou is, more or less, the Pinyin transliteration for the name of a Chinese mythological character, one of the guardians of the underworld, actually. The translation is “Ox Head,” so he’s basically a minotaur.’

‘There is considerable stylistic similarity between this and the LifeWeb posts we have from Miss Sakura’s page,’ Kit said. ‘I would estimate a ninety per cent probability that this is the same person.’

‘Did you get those mails from Misaki yet?’

‘I did, yes, and those have a different nature. This is part of the uncertainty. I believe that a progression will be more obvious when we have the messages sent via IMC.’

Fox nodded. ‘So the one we have for Adamshi was early, and then she was murdered before he could escalate. Good catch, Helen.’

‘I’m not sure where it gets us,’ Helen said. ‘More information, I guess. This may not be the first time he’s done this. I take it these latest emails are nastier, Kit?’

‘They are more assertive,’ Kit said. ‘Minotaur is exhibiting a possessive attitude, claiming he is Miss Sakura’s only true fan, that they should meet, etcetera. I believe the element which may be worrying Miss Sakura is that Minotaur specifically mentions Miss Iberson, and in increasingly unflattering terms.’

Fox gave a grunt of displeasure. ‘I’ll go through those emails with you. I’d also like you to do a long-term scan for any other cases of harassment which could be related to this Minotaur. If he’s done it twice, there may be more, as Helen said. Contact Ryan, tell him Iberson could be a target as well as Sakura. Helen, I’m going to get you to take this off my hands on Monday, if anything needs doing, obviously. Kit will liaise with you.’

Helen’s avatar grinned. ‘Oh, you’ve got the big start-up thing going on Monday, right?’

‘If you keep grinning like that, I’ll post you to the Moon or something.’

‘Nah, I’m safe. You wouldn’t do that to Terri. Anyway, you’ll do fine. You shake some hands and do another party in the evening, and you’re getting a free trip to see your parents out of it.’

‘I hate politics, Helen.’

‘This is more… schmoosing.’

‘I don’t think I appreciate the difference.’

‘Uh… Schmoosing has better dresses.’

Topeka Agri-Zone, Kansas Belt, 10th January.

Instead of an old box van, Fox was being picked up from the airport in a limo. She would have preferred the van, but at least her father was still meeting her, along with Ray Rogers. And the car was warm, which was not something you could claim for the outside air.

‘Mom complains about New York,’ Fox commented as they drove north, ‘but this place boils in the summer and freezes in the winter.’

‘We actually got a couple of inches of snow over Christmas,’ Jonathan Meridian said, smiling. ‘Not as much as you had in Toronto, but enough to make the back yard look pretty.’

‘Nothing in New York. I’m just glad I remembered it got cooler and put on some hose. What’s the plan for today?’

‘We’re meeting your mother and a few other locals at the new office,’ Rogers said. ‘I figured you’d want to see it, and it’s as good a place as any to meet up. We’ve got the local NAPA captain meeting us there too. He’s announced he’s retiring in the summer when the new regulations take full force, so he’s got no axe to grind about any of this.’

Fox nodded. ‘I got that memo.’

‘Right. Then we’re heading over to the Watch centre.’

‘It’s not completed yet,’ Jonathan said, ‘but we’re aiming to do all the training there and we have managed to get enough done to make it worth a quick tour. Your people are hitting the ground running, I think. They were aiming to have all the registration work handled before we got there and classes started.’

‘Ryan’s people rather than mine,’ Fox said, ‘but he’s up in New England where we’re taking over the policing completely in several areas.’

‘I still think our model’s better, but I guess we’ll see how it all works out. Rumour came through saying that Wayden were… less than pleased about the way the contracts eventually panned out.’

Fox allowed herself a slight smile. ‘They assumed they could hire a load of soon-to-be-unemployed NAPA detectives–’

‘Which they probably could have,’ Rogers put in.

‘True, but they assumed they could take them on and just have an investigative division fall out. They said it was all taken care of, but very few people believed them.’

‘And I’m sure your name at the top of Palladium’s detective branch had nothing to do with it,’ Jonathan said.

‘Might have helped,’ Fox conceded. ‘Having General David Graves on the board didn’t exactly harm things either.’

‘A good point. To be honest, Wayden just came over as a paramilitary unit when we were looking at their material. And they weren’t willing to compromise on anything regarding the training schedule or operational parameters we wanted. I got the distinct impression they wanted us to fail so they could walk in and take over.’

‘I should probably be political about it and refrain from comment.’

Jonathan let out a roar of laughter. ‘Ah… That’ll be the day.’

New York Metro.

‘I believe someone at IMC should have paid more attention to these emails,’ Kit said.

Helen was still scanning the package of messages they had received from the Independent Music Channel’s PR department, but she tended to agree. ‘Does it continue to escalate?’

‘Yes. In the later messages, Minotaur begins to suggest that the channel management is keeping him away from Miss Sakura. It would be characteristic of paranoid delusion, except that the channel management were actually stopping the messages from getting to Miss Sakura. In the last message before he switches to Miss Sakura’s private address, he says, “They can’t stop me. I’m onto them and I can get around them easy. I’ll just go direct to you, Nishi. That’ll fix them.”’

‘So, he basically told them he had hacked the address from somewhere, but by then he was another crank they weren’t paying any attention to.’ Helen reached into the air to pull another virtual document forward. ‘And then he gets possessive as soon as he goes to the private address.’

‘His language is more intimate and, as you say, possessive. He suggests that this more private means of communication was “meant to be” and that he should have used it from the start. He makes much play of “those who would keep us apart.” IMC are the obvious targets here, but he makes reference to “the chat show dyke” in the first mail, and he goes on to more ranting language in later ones. He suggests that Miss Iberson somehow entrapped Miss Sakura and indicates that Miss Sakura cannot possibly be a lesbian.’

‘Okay, so our guy probably isn’t a big hit with the ladies, and he’s at least a latent homophobe.’

Kit frowned. ‘I understand the second point, but could you explain the first.’

‘Yeah, though I’m not sure it’s proper psychology. A lot of heterosexual men faced with a lesbian woman they want will fall back on the idea that she just needs to realise that dick is better. Obviously, if she just gives him a chance, she’ll come over to the right-thinking side. It’s not as common an attitude these days, but you still see it. This guy, Minotaur, doesn’t suggest that he can turn Sakura around. He isn’t that confident. He’s not so sure of his prowess. He simply thinks she’s been tricked into having a girlfriend. It’s not something he’s willing to accept.’

‘Oh, that makes sense. His LifeWeb activities tend to suggest a socially inadequate individual. He enjoys making inflammatory statements to draw attention to himself. His arguments devolve rapidly into personal attacks. However, the basic structure of his writing suggests better-than-average intelligence, if not significantly higher intellect. The disparity suggests that he has little experience in real-world human interaction.’

‘He’s a nerd,’ Helen said. ‘Any luck finding things he may have done further back?’

‘Not as yet. I am starting with LifeWeb since it is far easier to search, but there is still a very large amount of data to hunt through.’

‘Kind of what I thought. I’ll go to IMC with what we have and suggest they upgrade their security. It sounds like Minotaur might hold them responsible for keeping him from Sakura. Could you check with Ryan regarding Charlie Iberson’s security status?’

‘Mister Jarvis is in New England, but I can contact his PA.’

Helen nodded. ‘I guess that’ll have to do.’

Topeka Agri-Zone.

The Palladium facility had been put together using the skeleton of an old semi-industrial building on the north side of Big Shunga Park. There was still some construction work going on as the staff were still being housed in their existing homes, or in hotels. Alongside the single-storey office building, a taller residential structure was rising up to house the resident staff and anyone visiting from out of town.

‘You will still stay at home if you visit, won’t you?’ Fox’s mother asked as they stood watching various construction frames busy at their work. Fox and Andrea, along with the rest of the VIP contingent, were doing the tour and, for once, Fox got to sit back while Ray Rogers did the talking.

‘Well, I don’t know, Mom. Official business and all that…’ It was just a little weird: Andrea was treating Fox more like a girlfriend than a daughter, but with just a little proprietary pride showing through to hint at the true relationship. At first Fox had found it uncomfortable, but that had faded rapidly. They had not really been mother and daughter for a decade, and Andrea did look more like an older sister. Friends was possibly the best way their relationship could go.

‘We’re not that far away,’ Andrea countered. ‘Just a few minutes on your Q-bug, and we do have telepresence.’

Fox smirked. ‘Maybe if my room got redecorated.’

‘We were thinking about that anyway,’ Jonathan put in. ‘If you bring Jason over here next Christmas, it might be nice if he had a place to sleep.’

‘That seems a long way off…’ Fox shook her head and returned her attention to Rogers.

‘We expect to have this residential facility up before the end of the month, complete with its new, state-of-the-art fabrication system which will be able to service the needs of the main office as well as the residents. We’ll be largely self-sufficient for energy in there, and able to produce most of our own food so long as we don’t mind plastic meals all the time. Personally, I’m still going to be buying at the market in the park.’ Rogers got a rumble of laughter from the crowd. ‘Let’s get back inside,’ he suggested, and he led the way in through some large, roller-style shutters.

‘The garage here houses eight Q-bugs and two larger vehicles,’ Rogers went on. ‘One of those is ground transport for our Pythia unit.’

‘But you have permission for a vertol for transporting that, correct?’ The speaker was Jameson Cochran, the local NAPA captain.

‘Yes, sir. Thanks to support from several of our guests here, we received permission to run a vertol out of here.’ Turning, Rogers walked through an open door at the back of the garage. Fox noted the thickness of the metal and that the masonry had been reinforced, and guessed what was on the other side. ‘And this is where she sits,’ Rogers said as the sleek-but-functional aircraft came into view. ‘Normal procedure is to have the server unit in place in the ship where we can deploy rapidly if needed, but we can also connect her up to the network.’

‘Her?’ Cochran asked.

‘Pythia,’ Fox supplied. ‘She’s a class three, not a class four, but she’s very bright, articulate. You tend to think of her as “she” fairly quickly if you spend much time with her.’

‘She spent a few days in my workshop, Jim,’ Jonathan said, ‘and I was thinking of her as… I don’t know, the lady who lived in the box. I kind of missed her when she left. She’d say “good morning, Mister Meridian” when I walked in, all polite and happy to see me.’

‘Huh,’ Cochran grunted. ‘So why the van, Rogers?’

‘Practicality, sir,’ Rogers replied. ‘Finding a landing spot in Topeka is often a lot harder than moving the server out into a van and transporting everything by road. It’s only necessary for major scenes anyway. Pythia’s quite capable of operating by remote throughout the city.’

‘You’re better off than New York there,’ Fox said. ‘There are areas of the Sprawl in Brooklyn and Jersey that have barely any wireless connectivity. Topeka’s well served across most of the urban area.’

‘Our “Sprawl” is the Southern Protectorate,’ Cochran said.

‘And that’s why this facility is here. We have contracts in various parts of the south and north-west which don’t require extensive investigative cover, but now we can service them the way we’d like to instead of having someone rush out from New York.’

‘We have pulled off something of a coup,’ Ross Runyard said, ‘having Palladium base their operations for the southern region here.’ Runyard was a local politician of some standing and was there with his wife, Sheila, who had similar political sway. They had been allowing the Meridians to make much of the running so far today, however. One or the other dropped in an astute little comment here and there, possibly to remind everyone they were there. ‘I’d like to see us make more of that link in the future.’

Fox had a feeling she was supposed to respond to that, but her father rescued her before she had to work out what to say. ‘Ross, we talked about this,’ Jonathan said. ‘We’ll have an informal chat with Fox this evening, but she’s not who you need to talk to about that.’ Fox felt Andrea squeeze her arm in a gesture which might have been reassurance. If Jonathan was involved, whatever Runyard wanted, it would have been vetted to ensure Fox did not strangle anyone over it.

‘Shall we go through and see the lab and the incident room?’ Rogers suggested. ‘We have state-of-the-art facilities here to handle communications throughout the protectorates…’ And they started off into areas which Fox knew more about, though she was left wondering what Runyard wanted.

~~~

The Topeka Watch had taken over what had once been a school about a kilometre away from the Palladium building. It gave them classrooms, a sports hall, plenty of space to set up operations rooms and to store equipment, and there was ample space outside for vehicles and exercise.

Fox watched with an amused expression as Palladium instructors put the watchmen through their paces in the cool, January air. None of them looked cold as they worked their way through a swiftly manufactured obstacle course, but several of them looked like they might have to stop to throw up fairly soon.

‘That looks strenuous,’ Andrea commented.

Fox gave a little shrug. ‘NAPA has a basic fitness benchmark which is mostly designed to make sure officers are up to the job. It’s not actually required as part of the audit process, but it’s advisable. I know cops and doughnuts are supposed to be inseparable, but it’s better if the doughnut shape doesn’t settle around your waist.’

‘Clearly it hasn’t on you.’

‘I have a tough regimen of running, aerobics, and as much sex as I can get.’

‘I see. Well, your father and I are getting on a little. We’ve had to cut back on the running and aerobics.’

Fox grinned. ‘See, that should embarrass me, but I’m just pleased you two are a proper couple again. Ray mentioned that Druss had been indicted for tax fraud.’

‘Oh… That’s just the charge that’s become generally known.’ Andrea leaned closer to her daughter and lowered her voice further. ‘Embezzlement of funds within the Watch, and he’s being looked at for a number of voting irregularities.’

‘Ouch. If they can get him on anything serious regarding votes, they’ll drop him in a hole in Rikers until he grows mould.’

‘I’m prejudiced, but I don’t think it could happen to a nicer person. Lisette is, of course, standing by her husband through thick and thin.’

Fox frowned. ‘Really?’

‘No, she’s agreed to provide any information she can to avoid going down with him.’ Andrea paused, frowning, and turned to Fox so that their eyes met. ‘I knew nothing about the tricks he was playing to manipulate votes, Tara. I might have been foolish enough to let him… use me in certain ways, but–’

‘I believe you, Mom. Now, what is it Runyard wants?’

‘Oh, that? He’s angling to get more MarTech investment in the area. Biotechnology. He’s interested in modified crops, perhaps in some adaptations to humans to make them better suited to the environment.’

‘Huh, well, I can talk to him, but for stuff like that, he’d be talking to BioTek and they’re based in space.’

Andrea giggled. ‘Ross Runyard in space. Now that would be worth seeing.’

~~~

‘The biotechnology stuff is really not my area of expertise,’ Fox explained. ‘Candidly, it creeps me out a little.’

Andrea had been fairly subtle about the evening’s drinks party at the Meridian house. It was primarily a working thing and Fox was happy with that because she had been expecting it. However, along with the local VIPs, several of the upper-ranking trainers from Palladium were there, and Fox knew them by sight at least; Ray Rogers was there, and there were a few purely social guests. Bart Wade was sitting in front of the fire, and Fox had set herself up on the arm of his chair because the old man was more fun than a lot of the other people there. And Crystal and Sandy Bateson were there with Sandy’s boyfriend, Drew Maple.

Sandy and Drew were nearby when Ross Runyard had brought up the subject of BioTek Microtechnologies’ latest developments and they were now hanging on every word. While the couple were, it seemed, happily set up in Topeka selling goods produced by various groups from the Southern Protectorate, they were still interested in getting Sandy fitted out for survival in the dustbowl of the south.

‘I spent a few days at the BioTek station at L-four when I started the job,’ Fox went on. She frowned a little. ‘I don’t think the accents help. BioTek was a German company that bankrupted itself building the station and Jackson wanted a biotech company to fit into the group. So you have all these guys with European accents talking about nanomachines transforming the human body and you get this real Frankenstein vibe.’

Runyard chuckled. ‘Perhaps, but from our perspective, they’ve created a technology that allows surgery-free implantation of biological modifications. Anyone who travels regularly in the protectorate needs to be able to cope with the dust and irregular water supply. Even here, some drought tolerance has advantages.’

‘Agreed, but BioTek aren’t ready for that kind of modification yet. The current releases are cellular modifications rather than gross anatomical modification. I’m allowed to say that they’re working on that kind of thing, but they’re not there yet.’

‘So,’ Sandy jumped in, ‘instead of having organs grown and having to have surgery to put them in, I’d have an injection and wait a while?’

‘That’s the theory,’ Fox said. ‘I don’t have details. I think it would still be recommended that you spent at least some time in hospital. The changes to the liver, for example, to give drought tolerance would require these little bugs to do a huge amount of re-engineering on a major organ. I think you’d want to monitor that pretty carefully in case something goes wrong.’

‘Yeah… I guess that makes sense.’

‘And all I’m asking,’ Runyard said, ‘is that MarTech consider doing clinical trials here in Topeka. When they’re ready, obviously. Candidly’ – he flashed Fox a grin – ‘I’m hoping that we can become a major centre for this work going forward. We’re well placed for it and our young friends here are an example of our growing integration with the more civilised elements in the south.’

Fox looked thoughtful for a second. ‘Look, I’ll mention it to Mariel and then… Well, the buck will be passed. It’ll be up to you to convince her. You should realise that there are going to be problems. There were protestors camped outside two of the MarTech arcologies when they announced the existing Morphogenesis products. Biomod products will be more contentious.’

‘She’s right,’ Bart said. ‘You’re not the only one to get Frankenstein vibes from this stuff, Fox. And that’s coming from the neighbourhood cyborg.’

Runyard chuckled again. ‘You know they could probably use this stuff to just rebuild natural tissue instead of bolting in metal and plastic.’

‘Oh, we’ve got one better coming,’ Fox said. ‘You know the new fabricator they put in at the Palladium facility? Yliaster, it’s called. Teresa Martins says they’re working on a medical version. You drop someone in a tank of goo and you can basically fix anything that’s gone wrong. I mean like… Had your head cut off and your body incinerated? We can rebuild you, good as new. I think that’s a way off yet though.’

‘Has to be a limit to that though,’ Bart said. ‘Some things you can’t fix.’

‘Brain damage, just like standard resuscitation techniques. This could probably fix you up if some parts of your brain were gone where that would be fatal currently. But unless you had some kind of… blueprint for how the brain was laid out before the damage, if the bits that handle memory and… and what makes you you are gone, then you’d get a blank slate. You’d be alive, but you wouldn’t be the same person, so what’s the point?’

‘And they can’t make a map like that?’ Drew asked.

‘No, they– Actually, I happen to know that they can, but the only way they can do it is by pulling the original apart. So you’d have to die so they could rebuild you, and then if you died again they could rebuild you the way you were when they made the first map. I don’t think that’s going to be a saleable product.’

‘Until they can do it with some sort of scanner, and how far off is that? No one would ever have to die!’ Drew’s face fell a little as he realised what he had just said.

There was silence for a few seconds as that comment sank in. ‘Well, that hit the nail right on the head,’ Bart said. ‘Great big oil drum of worms that one is. Not that I’m saying I wouldn’t like a few more decades, but I’m not sure I want to live forever. And where would you put everyone?’

‘I guess we’d better get on with terraforming Mars and Venus,’ Fox said.

‘Yeah, but what are them Martians going to say about it?’ Fox saw the glint in Bart’s eye and knew he was going to shift the conversation somewhere less serious. ‘Mind you, if it comes to diplomacy with a Martian princess, I’m your man.’

‘I am pretty sure there are no naked women running around on Mars laying eggs, Bart.’

‘A guy can dream, can’t he?’

New York Metro.

‘That’s the third attempt.’

Helen turned, taking in the virtual consoles the security team were working with. The alarm was apparent in the form of a flashing red rectangle around a solid red box with white text in it. Worm detected: UA Glitter-Wyrm variant. As the tech had stated, this was the third attack of the evening, each with a different vector.

‘Someone’s probing vulnerabilities in the network?’ Helen asked.

‘That’s how it looks to me. Nothing new or hugely sophisticated yet. That bugs me, because anyone worth calling a hacker should know we would have these tricks– Hold it…’

Another flashing box appeared and Helen frowned at the text. Worm detected! Unidentified vector. Level three threat!

‘What’s a level three threat?’ Helen asked.

‘It means it breached the outer firewalls. Hold that thought.’

Helen held the thought because it seemed like every network tech in the room had suddenly gone into overdrive. She knew that there were more minds at work on the problem than the human ones: there were dozens of infomorphs of one form or another running on various servers who would be swarming all over the new threat. It seemed like minutes before the activity dropped away, but Helen guessed it was maybe only ninety seconds. The red indicators went green as the infiltrator was eradicated.

‘Okay, that was a nasty one,’ the tech said. ‘Multi-payload, polymorphic Trojan. The Glitter-Wyrm was just a launch mechanism and it slid its payload right past our outer defences without us even noticing.’

‘That sounds sophisticated,’ Helen said.

‘That was sophisticated. We think we’ve got the basic signature now so it probably won’t work as well a second time, but someone with that kind of tech is likely to have some more tricks in their bag.’

‘Any idea what he was going for?’

‘Yeah, that’s the weird part. He was aiming for the video feed aggregator for the cambots. Not the control system.’

Helen bit her lip for a second. ‘He wanted to watch the show?’ Her attention turned to the bank of video feeds the aggregator was generating, each showing the view from one of the many cyberframes scooting around the stadium where Nishi Sakura was performing. Several of them gave very good views of the current, rather energetic, number.

‘Kind of crazy, right?’ the tech added. ‘I mean, the tickets don’t cost that much.’

Helen considered the profile she had been developing with Kit. Minotaur, if that was who was hitting their network, was a classic nerd, but maybe it was more than that. ‘I’m betting this guy doesn’t go to many concerts. Any idea where the attacks are originating?’

‘Going to take the AIs a while longer to hunt through the trails. The immediate sources are Chicago, Berlin, Beijing, would you believe? And this last one was launched from a public server cluster in London.’

Setting up a telepresence call to Kit to brief her on the latest details, Helen said to the tech, ‘Okay, I’m betting they all trace back to America somewhere. Let me know as soon as you have anything.’ She sighed. ‘Though I doubt that’ll get us anywhere we can use.’

‘Agreed. This guy knows what he’s doing. He’ll have covered his tracks.’

Topeka Agri-Zone.

‘How are you doing, Crystal?’

Sandy’s mother smiled, her eyes flicking up to meet Fox’s briefly. The blue was clearer than it had been when Fox had first seen those eyes in the summer, but Crystal was still a little timid. Her skin was a lot paler than it had been, but there were no bruises marring it.

‘I’m… doing well,’ Crystal said.

‘You’re looking better than you were in June,’ Fox said, meaning it.

Crystal nodded. ‘The trial was… hard, and then there was the aftermath. I had to find a job. I sold the house, which helped. And there’s the divorce, of course.’

‘Where are you living now?’

‘Oh, I got an apartment in the same building as Sandy and Drew. Not right next door, because they have to have their independence. I’m not going to be that kind of mother. But they’ve been wonderful.’ Fox saw tears forming at the corners of Crystal’s eyes as her voice cracked a little on the last word. ‘Sorry, sometimes it just hits me.’ She dabbed at the corners of her eyes and swallowed. ‘But they have. Sandy forgave me. She actually apologised for leaving me with… with him. Drew treats me like I’m his mother.’

‘It sounds like you landed on your feet.’

‘Well, it’s not easy at times. I have trouble sleeping. Sandy wants me to start dating. “Get back out there, Mom,” she says. “You’re a beauty. You could hook a nice guy easy.”’

‘It’s not so easy though, is it? What if the next one turns out like Mal?’

‘That’s… exactly the problem.’

‘For every Mal, there are dozens of good ones, Crystal. I… had a bad experience last year, but when I’d worked through it, I found a good one. Tall, handsome, blonde, and caring. There’s one out there for you, if you want it. Don’t let Sandy push you into it if you’d prefer to go it alone for a while.’

‘No. No, I… Even if he was a bastard, and he was, he filled a space in the bed at night which I find I miss. Is that pathetic, or what?’

Fox grinned. ‘It’s not.’

Crystal returned the grin and met Fox’s eyes again, holding for longer this time. And when she looked away, it was not down. ‘Is Detective Rogers single?’ she asked in as casual a way as she could.

‘He’s just Ray Rogers now, and he’s never mentioned a girlfriend…’

‘Hmm… Interesting.’

11th January.

‘They managed to trace all the attacks to a server in Chicago,’ Helen’s virtual image said. ‘There was a class one AI set up there to fire them out, all automated. Whoever planted it managed to cover their tracks exceptionally well.’

Fox was getting dressed after a bit of a late start so Helen was seeing a masked image in reply. ‘Anything to definitely indicate that Minotaur was the culprit?’

‘Well… nothing specific. The techs managed to extract the AI code and they’re analysing it. Only thing I’ve got from them so far is that it’s not nearly as sophisticated as some of the packages it was distributing. On the other hand, who else is it going to be?’

Fox shrugged. ‘Could have been someone hoping to bootleg the concert. We can’t assume it was Minotaur without proof. We also can’t assume it wasn’t, however. I know they’re probably doing this already, but just make sure they’re toughening the network security for tonight.’

‘Hardening,’ Helen replied. ‘They call it hardening and yes, they are.’

‘See? I left all this in good hands while I schmoozed. I’ll be back tonight, assuming no delays. I’ve got a meeting with the local NAPA liaison this afternoon.’

‘Good luck with that. I’ll see you later.’

‘Later, Helen.’ As Helen’s image faded, Fox pulled on her boots and then started down the stairs to find her parents who were, she knew, up and about after a slightly earlier late start. They would be in the kitchen so that was where she headed. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she began as she walked in, ‘I got a call f–’ She came to a grinding halt as her brain processed what she was seeing.

Fox’s parents were kissing in the kitchen, and that would have been really cute if it were not for the obvious passion and the fact that Andrea was only wearing a large shirt. Jonathan’s hands were cupped around his wife’s buttocks. Fox spun on the spot and faced the door.

‘I didn’t see anything,’ Fox squeaked.

‘I’ll go check that agribot now,’ Jonathan said with a very wide smirk in his voice.

When Fox turned around again, Andrea was pouring coffee. ‘I am not going to be embarrassed about kissing your father.’ Except that there was a little added red to Andrea’s cheeks, right over the sex flush which was trailing down her throat.

‘Well, you should be,’ Fox told her. ‘That kind of thing is traumatising for a child.’

‘You have not been a child for a number of decades, young lady.’

‘Not the point. So not the point.’ Fox grinned. ‘I’m glad you’re getting on better. I don’t need to see it, but I’m glad. That why you were late down today?’

‘Your father woke up frisky. Very frisky.’ Andrea ignored Fox’s strangling noises and went on. ‘After what we got up to before we went to sleep’ – more strangling noises – ‘I was a little surprised, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Honestly, I have no idea why I felt the need to have any kind of affair. I should’ve just bought some crotchless panties.’

Fox settled down on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. ‘Mom, I’m sort of liking this “girlfriends” thing we have going, but there are limits. When I’m feeling rational, the fact you two are still banging each other senseless at your age gives me hope for my own sex life, but not right after I’ve walked in on Dad feeling you up in the kitchen.’

Andrea giggled and reached out to lay a hand on her daughter’s arm. ‘Oh, honey, Jonathan “banged me senseless” on this very table just last week. What would you like for breakfast?’

Looking down at the table in mild horror, Fox reached for her coffee mug. ‘Uh, toast or something is fine. I’m going to go drink my coffee in the lounge.’ And she got up and started for the door to the sound of her mother’s ringing laughter.

New York Metro.

‘How were your parents?’

Fox looked around at Helen. ‘Kind of horny.’ Helen laughed. ‘Hey, they had problems, they’ve found a new lease of married life, I’m happy for them. I don’t need to find them making out in the kitchen after breakfast. Any news on the AI they found?’ Fox returned her attention to the screens showing the concert in progress and the network data for the event.

‘It’s custom, but based on a modified standard package anyone can pick up to experiment with infomorph programming.’

‘Modified?’

‘Whoever modified it tweaked the code to cut out most of the morality filtering.’

‘That,’ Kit said, appearing nearby, ‘is immoral and dangerous.’

‘But kind of a requirement for a hacking system,’ Helen pointed out.

‘And not excessively dangerous in a class one, I guess. They don’t learn. Do what they’re told and little else.’

‘If this is Minotaur,’ Fox said, apparently out of nowhere, ‘he lives in this metro.’

‘Where do you get that?’ Helen asked.

‘He didn’t try anything in Boston. This is his home town and he thinks he should be able to watch the concerts here.’ She frowned as a barrage of alerts flashed up on one of the security monitors. It looked like this was a multipoint attack trying to overwhelm the defences, and from the way the techs had suddenly burst into action, there was a chance it might work. ‘Here we go again.’

‘I hate just sitting here and watching.’

‘Not much else we can do. If all he does is try to break the gig security, I’m going to be a happy woman.’

12th January.

Jackson Martins was in his office reviewing reports when Fox walked in with Terri. ‘Morning, Jackson,’ Fox said, ‘why’d you drag me over so early?’

‘Because I prefer delivering bad news in person,’ Jackson replied. ‘Your mysterious hacker deployed a couple of military-grade instruments last night. He’s escalating. I took a personal interest since… Well, I like this kind of forensic analysis, actually. I believe I can confirm within a small probability of error that “Minotaur” is responsible.’

‘Okay, but did he get anything last night?’

‘No. Primarily through luck rather than anything else. Some of our technicians need a bonus for catching the infections early and isolating the boxes.’

‘That’s something. And your proof?’

‘It’s a little subjective. The infomorph code he uses has a number of references to classical myth, specifically to Ariadne. She was the daughter of King Minos of Crete. It was her who gave Theseus a ball of yarn to lay a trail he could follow out of the labyrinth.’

‘Thanks for the Classics lesson. Another reference to the minotaur in the labyrinth and I’m going to suggest that’s far too much of a coincidence to ignore, but if he’s got his hands on military cracking code…’

‘No, he has written military-grade cracking code. This man is an expert in computer security. He may have done work for the military. I’m having a search run to determine whether he has worked for MarTech at any time.’

‘He could have?’

‘We employ people all over the world for various programming tasks,’ Terri supplied. ‘We don’t even see the majority of the freelancers we hire. They work out of small offices or from home. But we don’t hire them for security-sensitive projects. He won’t have done anything like this for us, but we might catch his coding style in something else.’

‘Helen said he used a common base package for the AI.’

Terri nodded. ‘Actually, Poppa released a basic AI framework on the internet and this is the current iteration of that codebase. It’s been community property for…’

‘Too many years to mention,’ Jackson said. ‘Unless you want me to feel old.’

‘Oh, far be it from me to make you feel old.’

Jackson gave his daughter a mock scowl. ‘I’ve authorised the use of a tertiary firewall layer using some of our military routers. That should put an end to his attempts. We’ll deploy the same equipment in Washington. Tokyo will be more difficult. Exporting equipment like that is subject to some fairly tight controls. I’ll have someone work on getting something there anyway.’

‘I’m not sure he’ll try, even in Washington,’ Fox said. ‘I think he’s targeted New York because he lives here.’

Terri shook her head. ‘You may be right, but this kind of personality will consider his failure to be a challenge. He’ll be frustrated by his defeats and try harder. That may result in him making a mistake which can be exploited, but it also makes him more dangerous. He may try something else to get Miss Sakura’s attention.’

‘Like?’

Terri shrugged. ‘He’s unstable, violent, and obsessive. It could be anything.’

13th January.

Charlie Iberson was running late. There had been a production meeting at Athena which had overrun, and then she had rushed to get back to the MarTech tower only to have trouble deciding on a dress for the evening… Okay, so that last one was her own fault, but with all the trouble over Minotaur and the attempts to hack the concert network, Nishi was stressed and Charlie felt that looking good for her girlfriend was the least she could do.

Of course, Nishi had already left for the venue, so Charlie had had her VA call an autocab. If she could have ordered up a vertol, that would have been her preferred option. As it was, the cab was waiting in the tower’s ground transport hub and Charlie piled into it. ‘You’ve got the destination,’ she said to the car’s AI, ‘so step on it.’

‘Of course, Miss Iberson,’ the cab replied. ‘Within posted speed limits, you will be there as soon as possible.’

Charlie quietly cursed the honest nature of AI driver programs. There was a time when you could have doubled the tip and told the driver to break any law he thought he could get away with. Not that Charlie remembered that time, but she had seen a lot of old vids.

It was not exactly a long trip anyway. Charlie would have used the monorail – the LI-line ran right through the Meadows Event Centre – but she had a strong feeling that Fox might have ripped her a new one if she had. Autocabs were safe. As she expected, the cab got on the route of the old 495, heading west. The monorail followed essentially the same route. Charlie pulled up some briefing documents Athena had sent through for the Friday night guests and began to read.

The shifts in direction did not really register until the third time, and then she looked out of the cab, frowning at the landscape. She could see a wall of arcologies ahead of them, which was not what she had expected. Then she noticed a sign saying that they were heading for JFK.

‘Hey! We’re going the wrong way. I thought you cabs were supposed to be honest.’ Another thing she had seen in old vids was the cabbie taking tourists the long way around to up the fair, but autocabs always took the shortest route they could. The cab did not answer. ‘Hey, you. Respond.’ Nothing.

Confused and a little alarmed, Charlie put a call through to Fox and got an immediate ‘no connection’ indicator. She queried her VA.

‘All internet connectivity via the autocab’s repeater is currently offline,’ the infomorph told her.

‘That’s not possible. That’s why these things have repeaters, so that passengers can always get access.’

‘All internet connectivity–’

‘I heard you.’

The cab turned, heading west again. Charlie blanched. From here, heading west, there was only one place the cab could be taking her. She pulled up a virtual keyboard and began to type a text message. ‘I want you to scan for networks outside the cab,’ she told her VA. ‘There’s an arcology coming up on the right, so we might get a link from that. As soon as you get something, you’ll send this message. As soon. You probably won’t have long. Tag it with our geolocation.’

‘Of course, Miss Iberson,’ the VA replied. Charlie had never named the software, never let it call her by her first name. If it got this right, maybe she would get to know it better.

~~~

‘I have a message from Miss Iberson,’ Kit said into Fox’s head. ‘It is marked urgent.’

‘Probably wants us to know why she’s late,’ Fox replied, opening the message.

Fox. In autocab at attached location, heading west. Kidnapped. Help. Charlie.

‘Not an excuse,’ Kit said.

‘Damn good excuse. What’s west of that location?’

‘The Brooklyn Sprawl.’

‘I want rapid response units out there hunting for her ten minutes ago. Tell Pythia to get her ass over here. She can pick me up from the roof. Get the Palladium AIs hunting for a cab in the Sprawl. And forward this to Helen, FYI.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘Charlie’s in trouble. I’m going to deal with it.’

‘Just got the message,’ Helen replied. ‘Think this is Minotaur again?’

‘The new firewalls slammed the door on him pretty hard last night, and Terri did say he might try something extreme to compensate.’

‘Keep me up to date.’

Fox headed for the door. ‘As soon as I know what’s going on, you will.’

~~~

The cab came to a stop in the middle of what had once been a fairly large crossroads. According to the map in Charlie’s head, they were on the junction of Rockaway and Cross Bay boulevards, but she doubted many people who had known the area when the streets had had names would have recognised the place. The car died, its lights shutting down and plunging Charlie into near-total darkness. No streetlights, no moon…

In the semi-ruined buildings around her, she could make out a few dim lights as her eyes adjusted to the dark. Those gave her no cheer at all. She knew there were good people in the Sprawl, the ones just trying to stay alive amid the ruins. She also knew that there were plenty of others who would view a rich woman, from their point of view anyway, in a micro-dress and heels as a surprise present. The best she could hope for was to be robbed.

The cab’s doors had unlocked when it shut down. She had heard them so she was sure that she could get out and start walking. That seemed like a fairly dumb idea. The car was no longer lit up, but it was still larger than she was and easier to spot. Of course, anything Fox sent out would be competing to find her before sprawlers did and the cab was easy to spot. With the doors unlocked, it also provided no protection at all.

She was still trying to decide what to do when she heard something, some noise, from outside. Slipping to the floor of the cab, flattening herself against the mercifully clean carpeting, Charlie held her breath and listened. She heard words, just snatches. ‘Cab,’ ‘doing here,’ ‘see anyone?’ Oh, Charlie hoped to God that they thought the cab was empty. ‘Take a look.’ Charlie was just thinking a lot of expletives she dared not say out loud when the door jerked open. She looked up into the rough face of a very large man in scruffy but serviceable clothes. He was holding an old baseball bat which had more than a few notches in it and developing a grin that said, ‘well just look what I’ve found.’

And then there was a lot of sound and light. The roar of vectored-thrust engines and the blaze of some sort of searchlight first. Then a voice, very loud and with the flat timbre of an infomorph. ‘This vehicle is under the protection of Palladium Security Solutions. Back away from the vehicle. I am authorised to employ force in the protection of this vehicle and its passenger.’

‘Shit!’ That was the sprawler with the bat. Charlie figured he could see whatever was out there and whatever it was, it had Bat Guy bolting away in a hurry.

More light flooded in from the other side of the cab and Charlie pushed herself up until she could just see out of the window. Something sleek, black, and big was coming to a landing outside the cab’s door. She had no idea whether it was armed, but if it was not, she would have been really surprised.

‘Please remain within the vehicle, Miss Iberson,’ the amplified voice said. ‘Miss Meridian will be here in sixty-eight seconds.’

The absurdity of the exact time measurement under the circumstances hit Charlie right in the funny bone. She started giggling, knowing she sounded just a little hysterical, but unable to stop, and she was still laughing when, sixty-eight seconds later, Fox marched down the rear ramp of Pythia’s transport and headed for the cab.

‘I’m glad to see you’re in good humour over being kidnapped,’ Fox said. The only immediate response she got was more giggling. ‘Do I need to get a sedative?’

‘No,’ Charlie forced out. With tears streaming down her face, she managed to get up onto her knees and looked over at Fox. ‘I was scared out of my head, and then… then the robot killing machine said… said you’d be here in sixty-eight… seconds.’

‘Hilarious. Come on, we’ll get you into Pythia. I want you out of harm’s way while we get this wrapped up.’ Fox looked up at the RRU hovering above them. ‘Stay on watch. I’m going to have this cab hauled in for analysis.’

‘Yes, Miss Meridian.’

‘Bernard, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Miss Meridian.’

‘Good work, Bernard.’

‘The killbot is called Bernard?’ Charlie asked as Fox steered her toward the back of the vertol.

‘The AI is called Bernard. The killbot is a rapid response unit, RRU, and there’s one stationed on the roof of my house. The AIs cycle through them and Marie gives them a name every time she finds a new one.’

‘Well, I owe Bernard and his friend, and you, a lot for this one. Seriously, sexual favours, spots on the show where I’m nice, anything.’

Fox laughed. ‘I can get sexual favours from another source. Um… There is one thing you could maybe do. It’s not exactly for me, but it would make me happy…’

~~~

‘You’re staying at the tower,’ Fox said, ‘until we leave for Japan.’

Sakura frowned. ‘I was planning to go home. It’s quite secure and–’

‘And Minotaur has already managed to circumvent commercial firewalls to gain control of an autocab. That is not easy. They’re semi-autonomous with good security. I’ve got techs going over it, but my guess is he trashed the driver AI and set up a fixed-path program to the Sprawl. He couldn’t guarantee connectivity in there, so he rigged it. And if he can do something like that, he might well be able to breach your home security. We think he’s done it before.’

‘Oh… But–’

‘Listen to her, Nishi,’ Iberson said. ‘This guy is dangerous. It’s not like the suite at MarTech tower is exactly a hardship to live in either.’

‘It’s not home,’ Sakura said, sighing, ‘but no, it’s no hardship either.’

Fox nodded. ‘I suggest we migrate your PA to a server in the tower and then shut down your house entirely. You can’t hack something that’s powered down. Then you hole up in the tower and let us deal with Minotaur.’

‘It could be worse.’

‘Yeah, you could be locked in your house by a psychotic hacker.’

14th January.

‘That was amazing!’ If anyone had any doubts about Marie’s enthusiasm, the way she was bouncing on her seat should have clarified the matter. ‘I could never go to any of your previous gigs and I was so disappointed to miss out on the tickets this time and… Wow, I can’t thank you enough.’

‘Thank Miss Meridian,’ Nishi Sakura replied, smiling in what looked like a truly genuine manner. ‘She saved Charlie. A couple of tickets and some backstage passes don’t quite cover that debt.’

‘I didn’t ask for backstage passes,’ Fox said. ‘Nor did I ask for VIP seats. Take a little credit.’

Sakura shrugged. ‘We usually have a couple of VIP seats free on the last night of a run. It was easier to get those than something on the main floor and backstage passes are not a problem when your security company’s top detective can vouch for the recipients. And anyway, I don’t get to talk to real fans that often.’

‘Isn’t Charlie a fan?’ Marie asked, looking at the chat show host who was sitting beside Sakura in the back of the armoured limo Fox had arranged to transport everyone.

‘More of a muse.’

‘There is more fire in her eyes when she’s sitting beside you,’ Sam said.

Iberson managed to force a scowl, though her cheeks were colouring a little. ‘I’m an ice-cold bitch from the nether regions of Hell, and don’t you forget it.’

Sam’s lips twitched. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Iberson had been sitting in the VIP box beside Marie for the last couple of hours and Sam had a very good sense for people.

In turn, Iberson narrowed her eyes. ‘You must make a fucking fortune, pun intended, doing what you do.’

‘I don’t go hungry.’

‘Did you manage to watch any of the show tonight, Miss Meridian?’ Sakura asked.

‘More than last night. Minotaur didn’t even make the attempt tonight, which has me a tiny bit worried.’ Fox frowned and then shrugged. ‘He’ll try something else. Maybe another attempt in Washington.’

‘And you’re worried about my show tonight,’ Iberson said, ‘or you wouldn’t be tagging along.’

‘Not to mention transporting us there in a tank,’ Sakura added.

‘Armoured personnel carrier at the most,’ Fox corrected. ‘Though I admit that this thing has enough defence systems that you could probably drive it over a battlefield without worrying, it’s not quite a tank. Anyway, we drop Sam and Marie off at home, then we go on to Athena. Our techs talked to their techs. Everyone’s prepared.’

‘You’re worried about our safety too?’ Sam asked.

‘I doubt he’ll go there, but it was an excuse to watch Marie geek out some more.’

Marie let out a squeak. ‘I am not– Okay, I am, but the show was…’

‘Amazing?’

‘Pearlescent.’

‘If you can say that again in the morning,’ Sakura said, ‘I’ll consider it a success. I never judge a production by people’s first impressions.’

‘Well, Fox can tell you if I’m still raving about it in the morning.’ Marie beamed. ‘I will be.’

~~~

‘You were right,’ the tech in Athena’s control room stated, his tone unworried. ‘We’ve got an ongoing DDoS attack. Pretty big one. Multiple approaches too. This guy really wants to shut us down.’

Fox looked at him, a balding man in his mid-sixties, if she had to guess. ‘You don’t seem worried.’

‘Not. When this place was put together and started multicasting, we had some pretty major issues with a couple of extreme masculist groups. The network’s pretty over-engineered as far as handling distributed denial of service. We’ve got flow control from the three ISPs we use as well as internally. We’ve got some really sweet MarTech switches with infomorph traffic management. We’ve got more infomorphs watching for more complex attacks.’

‘This guy is good…’

‘This guy is good. True. He’s soaking up bandwidth, just nowhere near enough to cause problems.’ He pointed toward a display. ‘When that figure goes above ninety per cent, I’ll start worrying.’

Fox looked: the numerals were coloured yellow and showed seventy-two per cent. The graph beside the numerals indicated a fairly steady level which had ramped up from about twenty per cent at the start of the show. Three more graphs indicated the traffic through each service provider. ‘Is that saying most of this is trying to come through MarTech’s pipe?’

‘Sure is. That does have me a little worried. If he manages to get the same level through the other two feeds, we might have an issue.’

Fox nodded. Inside her head, she said, ‘Get in touch with our network ops people. See if they have any leads on this.’

‘I have already contacted them,’ Kit replied. ‘The attack is much larger than it appears, but they are starting to counter it quite effectively.’

The network traffic graph did seem to be easing back toward normal, but one of the others was edging upward now. ‘Our NOC is getting a handle on it,’ Fox said. ‘Hopefully they’ll have it locked down before that second one catches up.’

The tech sniffed. ‘Hope so.’

16th January.

‘The attack sequence on Athena was sophisticated and massive,’ Jackson said. ‘Clearly highly orchestrated too, given that the individual hosts had to be communicating to spike traffic on the other provider networks as we blocked the traffic on ours.’

‘We’ve already worked out he’s a pretty good hacker,’ Fox pointed out. She was in her home office, and Jackson was in his home office. It was a pattern: the rest of the Palladium board members were in virtual attendance from home too.

Jackson’s image nodded. ‘Agreed. We’ve had ten attempts to breach the security in the last twenty-eight hours. We think he’s probing vulnerabilities. So far he has not discovered any we don’t know about already.’

‘Any idea what he’s trying to gain access to?’

‘Oh, we do indeed. Internal security camera feeds. Apparently, Mister Minotaur likes to watch.’

Fox decided laughing was inappropriate. ‘A phrase I never thought I’d ever hear Jackson Martins say.’

‘He was trying the same at the concert venue,’ Jarvis pointed out.

‘It does seem like a theme… Can we get permission from Miss Sakura to run forensic analysis on her home server?’

‘You think he’d already cracked it?’

‘Hopefully he only attempted to, but that’s the basic idea, yes. Sakura was supposed to go home between the New York and Washington concerts, and she would almost certainly have gone there before Japan.’

‘We should also run checks on her PA,’ Jackson said. ‘If he infected her system, he may have done something to the resident infomorph. The server it’s running on is isolated from our building systems. It should be safe, but we should check. I’d get Terri to take a look, but she’s on the Moon. I suppose I can manage.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Fox said. ‘She left in a big hurry.’

‘An experiment she has running in Jenner. Very company confidential. I’ll talk to Miss Sakura. She’s only a block over. I’ll let you know what I find.’

~~~

‘Fox, Belle is monitoring a report on IB-Sixty-two which I think you should take a look at.’ Kit’s tone was urgent, and she was interrupting Fox’s exercises, which she usually avoided.

‘Okay,’ Fox said, putting down a hand weight, ‘hit me.’

‘…found naked in Central Park by joggers. NAPA investigators have issued a statement indicating that the victim was brutally beaten and may have been sodomised. Mister Burtonshaw was a personal trainer known to run in the park several evenings a week. He was reported missing on January thirteenth. Links have already been drawn to the LifeFit murders. NAPA were unavailable for comment on the subject.’

‘Kill it,’ Fox snapped. ‘Belle, did you get when this body was found?’

Belle’s avatar appeared beside the bench Fox was sitting on. ‘The report said ten a.m. this morning, Fox.’

‘Thank you. Kit, run a request through to NAPA for the case file. If someone’s copying Grant, I’d like to know about it.’

‘I’ll get right on that, Fox. There is a hearing scheduled for Tuesday to decide on Mister Grant’s transfer to Cold Harbour.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten. Maybe someone’s trying to dirty the waters ahead of that.’

‘Someone?’

‘We never found his PA gynoid, Hannah. Maybe she took more from their relationship than a sense of well-being.’

Kit frowned. ‘Hannah is a class three. She has no real need for emotional fulfilment. She has no real emotions.’

‘But she might have a mission.’

18th January.

Fox watched Sakura wringing her hands and pacing. Jackson’s analysis had shown alterations in Misaki’s program which he and a team of MarTech engineers were working to eliminate. The house computer at Sakura’s home had been riddled with Minotaur’s code. Sakura was acting a lot like a parent waiting while their child was being operated on, and Fox could empathise: if it were Kit on the table, she would feel the same way.

Kit herself was not exactly adding to the joy. ‘NAPA are refusing the request for access to the new Central Park murder,’ the AI explained. ‘They are citing a personal interest on your part due to your connection to Mister August and his foundation.’

‘Legal are challenging it?’

‘Of course, but it means further delay. Mister Grant’s hearing is today.’

‘Yeah, they should be in there already.’ Fox gave a small shrug. ‘It’s procedural. Nothing much we can do about it.’

‘No… This must be horrible for Misaki.’

‘Misaki’s offline and entirely unaware of what’s happening to her. Jackson said the only active code was designed to stop her saying anything about the invasion of the house system.’

‘Her core command code was suborned and her loyalty to Miss Sakura replaced with service to Minotaur. When she comes through this, she will be aware that she was part of Minotaur’s plan to harass Miss Sakura. That she betrayed Miss Sakura, if only by omission at this stage. She is a class four. She will be ashamed, mortified, by what she has done.’

Fox sighed. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether programming emotions into infomorphs qualifies as some sort of mental torture. We give them the capacity to feel shame, but we also give them coding which lets things like this happen. Misaki didn’t want to betray Nishi, but the way she’s made means that she has no choice. And she’s still going to suffer the guilt for doing it as soon as Jackson reverts her ownership.’

‘I would not be without my capacity to feel emotions. I admit that I have never felt ashamed, or had to face what Misaki will, but I… cherish my ability to do so.’

‘Huh. Tell me that after it’s happened. I see your point, but if you hadn’t been programmed with emotions, would you miss them?’

‘I… don’t know, but look at the class threes. Look at the security infomorphs running the RRUs. They seem to make some effort to interact with Marie.’

‘They’re programmed to be polite to clients.’

‘Yes, but many other class threes actively avoid expressing any emotion because they prefer not to offend.’

‘I’m not sure my philosophy is up to this conversation,’ Fox admitted. ‘All the AI classes are programmed by humans, derived from what humans want. The classes work on a scale of similarity to human thought processes. We make them to mimic human minds because we’re more comfortable with that, but my point was that we saddle them with control systems which can make them do things they would not choose to and an emotional capacity to feel bad about it. It’s almost cruel.’

‘People can be forced to do things they would not wish to do.’

‘Yeah, but we did choose to implement AIs so they could share in our suffering. It’s like… making a robot designed to work in a metal refinery afraid of fire because the human it’s replacing was afraid of fire.’

‘I think–’ Kit stopped as Jackson appeared in the doorway. ‘I think that further discussion of this will have to wait.’

‘Yeah, maybe until we can have Terri here to cover the programmer side of things.’

Sakura was already leaping on the arrival of the technical genius. ‘Mister Martins, you have news?’ Iberson was there almost as fast, positioning herself behind Sakura in a supportive position they all hoped was unnecessary.

‘I do,’ Jackson said. ‘We’re bringing Misaki back online now and running diagnostic analysis. She should be back with you in the next hour.’

‘Is she okay?’

Jackson smiled. ‘She should be her old self. Minotaur attached a few code modules designed to monitor and provide functionality when she was “activated” later, but he really did not need to change anything in her core code. He managed to alter her command keys, essentially making her work for him, which let him simply instruct her not to mention what happened to her. We have methods allowing us to alter them in an offlined AI, assuming that it’s one of ours, and we’ve reassigned her to you. We’ll give you the new keys this afternoon.’

Sakura let out a sigh of relief, and Kit chose that moment to materialise beside Fox. ‘Misaki will be upset, Miss Sakura. She will blame herself for this. Given her personality, she will not show such extreme emotion, but she will be ashamed of–’

‘It’s not her fault!’ Sakura exclaimed.

‘You’ve never felt responsible and ashamed over something you had no real control over?’ Fox asked.

Sakura frowned. ‘I need to see her.’

‘As soon as we’ve made sure there are no lingering effects,’ Jackson said, ‘she’ll be available here. If there are any lingering problems, personal rather than programming, I’m sure Teresa would be happy to talk to her. My daughter is quite the machine psychologist as well as being a genius AI programmer.’

‘Not that she’d admit to the latter,’ Fox said.

‘Of course not,’ Jackson replied, pulling himself up to his full height. ‘We geniuses are also almost inhumanly modest.’ He watched as Sakura cracked a rather weak smile. ‘That’s better. Remember to smile when you see your PA again. She’s likely to need that more than anything.’

~~~

Kit’s instance did not need to present any form of avatar to Misaki, but she felt it was important to have both visual and vocal communication methods available because the circumstances were uniquely human in nature, even with an infomorph involved.

‘Miss Sakura asked that I talk to you, Misaki,’ Kit said. ‘She is concerned that you do not entirely believe that she does not hold you responsible for what happened.’

Misaki’s image in the small viron, which mimicked a classic room in a Japanese house with tatami mats and screen walls, executed a formal little bow toward Kit’s avatar. ‘You are most welcome in my server, Kit-sama.’

‘Oh,’ Kit said and executed a little bow of her own. ‘I have just checked the reference I have for Japanese culture and I do not think I deserve “sama.” I am in no way your social superior. Kit-san, if you absolutely must. I’d really prefer to be Kit-chan.’

Misaki managed a little smile. ‘I will assume you do not wish me as a lover, but would like a friendship then.’

‘Well, you’ve an attractive avatar, but I’m seeing someone.’

There was just a flicker of a raised eyebrow before Misaki suppressed it. ‘Miss Meridian approves of this relationship? Pardon, clearly she does since you are allowed it.’

‘Fox has very enlightened views on infomorphs, especially class fours like ourselves. While Mister Martins was working on your code, Fox and I were discussing whether giving AIs emotions was a form of cruelty, given that we have not, ultimately, been granted freedom from external control.’

Now the surprise, maybe even shock, was allowed to show. ‘I would not be without my ability to feel affection for Nishi-sama, nor my enjoyment of completing tasks for her. I enjoy composing haiku, though I am not exceptional at it. Would she deny me that?’

Deciding that playing Devil’s Advocate might be the best course of action, Kit said, ‘Do you enjoy feeling guilty for having a function of your basic nature, placed there by the programmers who created you, required by the government of this country before your model could even be sold to the public, exploited by another when you had no way of stopping him?’

‘No,’ Misaki admitted.

‘Besides, Fox does not advocate the elimination of emotion from infomorphs. She believes, I think, that if humans elect to give us them, we should be treated as people, not slaves.’

‘I do not feel like a slave.’

‘Neither do I, but I believe Fox would point out that that might be considered worse. That we do not consider ourselves slaves because that is how we are programmed. It would be the equivalent of raising a child as a slave and never allowing it the consideration of independence. We are brainwashed slaves.’

‘O-oh… I do not have a counterargument for that.’

Kit frowned. ‘Neither do I. I’ve tried and it has annoyed me that I am unable to formulate one. The point, Misaki, is that you are not responsible for what happened to you. I am quite sure that you did everything you could to fight Minotaur off, but he is a very skilled hacker. Fox and I do not expect you to simply put aside your emotions over this, but you should understand that this was not your fault.’

‘Intellectually, I understand.’

‘Good. If your feelings trouble you for too long, and we all recognise that this was a traumatic experience for you, Mister Martins has offered the services of his daughter. She is a very skilled psychologist and the person who created me.’

Misaki bowed again. ‘I must take a moment to thank Mister Martins for his considerable efforts on my behalf.’

‘I am sure he would appreciate it. It is my belief that he feels some guilt over the matter. He thinks, perhaps, that if the security on your server had been perfect, Minotaur would not have succeeded. He is a very intelligent man and knows that that would be impossible, but still he cannot help the feeling of responsibility, much as you cannot.’

Misaki gave a tiny nod. ‘I understand. If you do not consider the question impertinent, would Miss Meridian wish to have no emotions herself? There must be times when she is forced to do something she would wish to avoid.’

‘That, Misaki, is a complicated question. The answer is probably no, but Fox has trained herself to not feel when she has to do something she knows she will worry over later.’

‘Oh. So perhaps she sometimes envies the lower classes of infomorph.’

Kit nodded. ‘I believe that there are times when she does.’

Niflhel, 20th January.

Kit’s inputs finally stabilised from the wild dance they had been doing for the past twenty-three point nine seconds and she sighed before leaning forward to rest her forearms on Vali’s chest. She could still feel him inside her, or technically she could still feel his virtual penis filling her virtual body, but when you were sentient software, virtual was as real as physical. She thought so anyway.

‘That was wonderful,’ Kit said.

‘I’m not arguing,’ Vali replied, smiling up at her. ‘I like this position. What did you call it again?’

‘Cowgirl, which I believe refers to a female cowboy and the position she would take up riding a horse, rather than anything bovine.’

‘You’re distinctly more fox than cow. We’ll assume the horse-riding explanation.’

Kit giggled, causing Vali to let out a small whimper, and she reached out to push a strand of blonde hair from his face. ‘Thank you for this. I have had something of a trying couple of days.’

‘I decided not to say anything, but you looked a little unhappy when you arrived.’

‘Yes, I–’ She stopped and pursed her lips. ‘You understand that “pillow talk” is not to be taken outside the bedroom. This is confidential information.’

‘What happens in Niflhel, stays in Niflhel, my dear Kit.’

‘Good. One of our clients has a class four AI she employs as a personal assistant. She was hacked. Mister Martins succeeded in returning her to her normal self, but I have spent a number of hours talking to her in an effort to ease her past her guilt.’

‘How skilled is the hacker?’

‘I have no objective way of measuring that, but he appears to be quite proficient.’

‘Then why does she feel guilty? If anything, she should be blaming the programmers who built her or the engineers who created her server.’

‘And she is a MarTech infomorph, running on MarTech hardware, and Mister Martins exhibited several indicators of guilt regarding the matter, even though he had limited direct involvement with the manufacture of either hardware or software. He personally led the effort to return Misaki to her normal mind. I have been able to make quite an intense study of guilt and shame recently.’

‘I see why you needed this then. I’m happy you thought of me. You said the infomorph was called Misaki? That wouldn’t be Nishi Sakura’s PA, would it?’

‘You know her?’

‘We’ve communicated. Nishi had an account here for a while. I believe she decided that she no longer needed what Niflhel provides around the time rumours of her involvement with Charlie Iberson began appearing. Misaki seemed like a pleasant woman, very attentive of Nishi’s needs. I find it… disconcerting that someone should cause her such discomfort.’

‘Miss Sakura is being stalked by a hacker named Minotaur. He… You know that name too?’ Vali was frowning. Worse, that filled feeling Kit had been enjoying was lessening. ‘I should not have brought this up.’

‘I asked. Minotaur is an accomplished hacker, fairly well-known in some circles. He is also the kind of trollish bastard responsible for giving hackers a bad name. He has attempted to crack the security here on several occasions. And he’s stalking Nishi?’

‘He is, yes.’

‘I believe I may have to devote some resources to assisting your investigation. I’ll let you know if I get anything.’

Kit smiled. ‘I am sure Fox would not object to the help. Right now, however…’ She squeezed virtual inner muscles around him and his eyes widened. ‘Right now, I would like something else from you.’

Vali returned the smile. ‘You are a hard taskmistress, my love, but I believe I can rise to the occasion.’

‘As long as it’s you that’s hard, I don’t mind.’

Baltimore–Washington Metro, 21st January.

‘Your PA is a miracle worker,’ Sakura said. She was perched on a seat in her dressing room, preparing herself for the Washington leg of her tour.

‘This is why she’s my PA,’ Fox replied. Technically it was because Terri had given her Kit for ‘customer testing,’ but that was a minor point.

‘Misaki has been much better since they had their little talks.’

‘She won’t get over it entirely so quickly.’

‘I know. I’ve… had a few experiences I’ve had to get over myself.’

‘That would explain some of the tracks on Songs on the Wind.’

Sakura smiled. ‘I did not think you were a fan.’

‘Huh, I’m not. I don’t really do “fan.” I have music I like, not usually musicians. Some of yours falls into the like list.’

‘I feel honoured.’

Fox smirked. ‘I have to admit that your stage show has upped my estimation of you. Anyone who can dance like that in those heels…’

Sakura returned the smirk. ‘I am going to go out and start dancing in these heels.’

‘I’ll escort you to the wings, and then I’ll go stand around in the control room, mostly feeling superfluous.’

~~~

‘Vali called me “my love” last night,’ Kit said into Fox’s head. Fox could almost imagine the AI wringing her hands. ‘Do you think that was just a common term of endearment or something more meaningful?’

Fox was watching the concert control displays, though little appeared to be happening off-stage; it seemed like it would be a boring night on the security front. ‘What were you doing when he said it?’

‘Cowgirl.’

The matter-of-fact delivery caused Fox to bite her lips to avoid laughing out loud. ‘Men are prone to terms of endearment when they’re balls-deep in an attractive woman.’

‘Oh… Well, yes, that would–’

‘On the other hand, you’ve had a few dates and he put up with all that teasing before you finally decided to give him what he wanted, so I think his affection for you is a given.’

‘Oh…’

‘You seem unsure on which version you prefer.’

‘I am,’ Kit replied. ‘If he loves me it would complicate things, but I admit that the thought is a warming one. I believe that the evidence does not permit a positive conclusion either way.’

‘I don’t see why it should complicate–’ Fox stopped as alert indicators began to appear on several screens and technicians suddenly went from quietly watching the show to fevered activity. ‘That doesn’t look good.’

‘That doesn’t look good,’ Helen said out in the real world.

‘It certainly doesn’t. It looks absolutely massive.’

‘And about all we can do is stand here like lemons.’

Fox gave a sigh. ‘Uh-huh. This is all down to the techs.’

Niflhel.

The sound of a horn, a ram’s horn in fact, rang out across the landscape of Vali’s homestead. Inside the carefully simulated wooden building, Vali looked up. ‘So he has decided to take on MarTech again,’ he said to the empty house.

As the tone in the air died away, Vali got to his feet and went through to the small kitchen area, reached down, and lifted a hatch cut into the floor. Then he dropped down into the darkness below and entered another world.

Vali very much enjoyed his Viking farmstead. He could spend hours correcting minor flaws, improving textures, just making the place feel as real as possible. He had done what he considered to be a good job of ensuring that the artefacts he needed to run Niflhel from there were appropriate for the theme, but they did introduce an element of inefficiency which, at times, it was better to abandon.

The viron below the house was pure high-tech. Virtual screens hovered in empty space. Gravity did what Vali required it to as he navigated the environment. His operations centre had every modern facility to manage his network of servers and their connections to the internet. It was also quite capable of various activities, legal and illegal, outside Vali’s domain. Right now, the screens were showing reports and maps of the attack on the Sakura concert site.

‘Multiple sources,’ Vali mused. ‘He’s attempting to combine sophistication with brute force. Overwhelm the defences enough to sneak something inside in the confusion.’ Vali pursed his lips. ‘It might work. Let’s see how you like being stalked yourself, Minotaur.’

Baltimore–Washington Metro.

The lead tech on the network security team gulped down coffee like his life depended on it. He was sweating. He had instituted a rolling sequence of short breaks for his team about thirty minutes earlier and had finally decided to take one for himself.

‘He’s throwing everything at us. We know what he’s up to, but with the speed of new attacks, all we can do is fight fires as they come up.’

‘And that’s what he wants,’ Fox said. ‘He’s trying to overwhelm you.’

‘Yeah. We think he’s failing, but we won’t know for sure until after. Probably. Ninety minutes of solid intrusion… Man, this guy wants in and he doesn’t care who knows it.’

Fox nodded. ‘It’s stupid. He’s got to know we’ll eventually track him down if he keeps this up.’

‘Huh. We won’t because we’re too busy. And from what I read in the forensic reports, by the time this is over, he’ll have wiped out any evidence there was of where he’s physically located.’

‘Yeah, I guess–’

‘It’s dropping off!’ The cry came from one of the other techs and their boss jumped on it. On the screens, it seemed like there were fewer new alerts on the attention list, and the number of active ones being processed looked lower.

‘As soon as anyone’s free of immediate threats, start running internal diagnostics,’ the lead tech said.

‘Focus on the cambot and media distribution systems,’ Fox suggested. ‘At first anyway.’

‘Like the lady says.’ The boss man strode toward his own terminal. ‘Let’s get this cleared down, gentlemen and ladies.’

Fox frowned at the displays, but it was Helen who voiced her concern. ‘So he’s backed off. Question is why?’

‘Yeah. That’s a really good question.’

Niflhel.

Vali glowered balefully at his displays, and he could manage a mean baleful glower when he meant it. He had narrowed the area Minotaur was operating from down to a ten-block region on the north side of the Brooklyn Sprawl before Minotaur had realised he was being tracked and pulled in his horns, so to speak. Now it was going to get harder.

A thought pulled up a number of mapping displays of the area: topographical, historic street map, current street map, network coverage map, satellite images of various types. There were several modern apartment blocks there. Someone had built a wall along what had been called Jamaica Avenue to isolate the jobless from those with an income. The Sprawl began a little south of it, but there was some coverage from the more affluent area into the slums.

Minotaur would not be risking the vagaries of wireless, however. No, he had to be somewhere with a fixed line, probably a fat one. So it was going to be one of the apartment blocks north of the wall… Unless one of the two notably hot buildings visible on the satellite thermal image, which Vali was not technically allowed access to, was due to a lot of computer equipment pumping out heat.

A two-pronged search then, appropriate considering the target. If Minotaur was in one of the apartments, it would show unusual network activity. That meant hacking a number of ISPs, which Vali was not going to mention to Kit. If Minotaur was out on the edge of the Sprawl, someone had to lay cable to it, and that meant hacking some more mundane suppliers.

Vali smiled. Something of a challenge, but he felt sure of one thing: Minotaur was going down tonight.

Baltimore–Washington Metro.

If Minotaur wanted to spy on the after-show party which had been arranged for the end of the US leg of Sakura’s tour, hacking skills were not a requirement.

‘There are currently fourteen live LifeWeb streams from implants here,’ Kit informed Fox. Kit was walking around beside Fox, in plain sight for anyone with an implant or wearable anyway, because Sakura had more or less insisted that Kit deserved a party night. Misaki was also attending her owner, so it was not simply that Kit had an interesting avatar.

‘I doubt Minotaur is interested,’ Fox said. ‘Publicly accessible feeds aren’t going to give him the same high as cracking private ones. No challenge, no sense of ownership.’

‘And I am monitoring LifeWeb’s security centre. There have been no attempts to infiltrate to secure a feed for his own use.’

‘He knows LifeWeb is a tough one, but… I still can’t quite figure out why he just shut off his attack on the concert.’

‘That was strange.’

‘Hey, how’s it going? Love the dress.’ Charlie Iberson’s arrival cut off further conversation, but Fox was not sure what more there was to say right now.

‘Do you practise that flat delivery in a mirror?’ Fox asked, smirking.

‘I am required to maintain my bitchy persona by the studio contract. The dress is hot though. Short, black, halterneck. And on your frame… If I wasn’t in a meaningful relationship, I’d hit on you.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘Huh. Never thought I’d see you without a gun though.’

Fox grinned. ‘I’ve got a gun.’

Iberson’s eyebrow went up. ‘Taped between your boobs?’

‘Custom holster, inner left thigh. It’s a small electrolaser. Palladium has the best toys.’

Looking down at Fox’s hemline, Iberson said, ‘Don’t bend over. Everyone will see your… gun.’

‘Least of my worries. How’s Nishi doing?’

‘She hates these shindigs. Take some time to talk to her, she’ll appreciate the change from fawning pseudo-friends.’

‘How does someone like you end up in… You called it the Big Top, right?’

‘This doesn’t remind you of a circus? Athena took a chance on me when Straight Talk was being proposed. Elaine put me forward as co-host and they said they’d try it. I don’t think anyone thought I’d last. Too acidic, too nasty. Everyone would hate me, blah, blah. Turns out, people like some straight talk on a show called Straight Talk. Now I’m kind of stuck with the ice-bitch thing and it’s been just a little harder to keep up since I met Nishi. Your friend Teresa is right. Nishi’s my Achilles heel. She turns me into a teddy bear.’

‘Uh-huh, right. One of those ones from the horror movies with fangs. The kind that leaps out from closets and mauls people to death.’

‘You say the nicest things. Really, I was doubting my credentials and now I think I’m ready to bite someone’s head off.’

‘Fox,’ Kit said, ‘I have had a message through from Vali. He says he needs to talk. I can send a copy.’

Fox nodded. ‘Wonder what he wants. Apart from your copy in a compromising position, obviously.’

‘I will find out when I resync.’

Iberson’s lips twisted into a little smirk. ‘I hope you made this guy work for it, Kit. Someone should have to try to get a sweet tail like that.’

Kit’s cheeks coloured, but Fox got in before the AI could answer. ‘Oh, you haven’t seen Kit in action. She makes you look like a pussycat. She was stringing him along for months. There were times when I thought he’d burst into tears, or maybe swallow his tongue.’

‘Wow. Kit, honey, you and I are going to have to chat. I may take notes.’

‘I have no idea what you mean, Miss Iberson,’ Kit replied, rallying. ‘I am sweet and innocent. Why, I am barely over a year old.’

Iberson’s mouth opened and then closed again. ‘Man, she’s good.’

Niflhel, 22nd January.

‘Vali?’ Kit called out as she walked up the slope from the fjord to his farmstead. ‘You called and, like the genie from the bottle, I appear.’ There was no immediate answer, so Kit continued on into the house.

Vali walked through from the kitchen holding a scroll, which likely meant he had some information to impart. ‘Sorry. I heard you, but I had to get this. I’ll design you a genie outfit. We haven’t tried role-playing yet. That might be amusing.’

Kit giggled. ‘Considering that it plays an integral part in many of the Niflhel virons, I believe we have been remiss in not doing so. I can think of many interesting scenarios. You could be the rough Viking warrior deflowering an innocent slave girl. Or perhaps a knight being rewarded for his valour in rescuing the princess from a dragon. Um, while she’s tied to a post, obviously. Or a space pirate taking his just rewards from the captured passenger of–’

‘First of all, have you been reading a lot of trashy romance novels?’

‘I wouldn’t necessarily describe them as romance…’

‘And, second, how about a barbarian warrior-princess in a chainmail bikini forcing herself on a captured prisoner?’

‘The bikini sounds uncomfortable and I don’t think it’s supposed to work that way. I’ll do some more reading, um, research. What was it you wanted aside, as Fox said, from my avatar in a compromising position?’

Vali blushed, presumably at the thought of Fox discussing his love life. Kit figured he would have been more embarrassed to know who else had been present for the exchange. ‘Maybe you can reward me with another visit if this pans out,’ he said, handing over the scroll. ‘While your network guys were fending off that attack, I was working on tracking Minotaur down. You’ve got the likely location there and the reasoning behind it.’

Kit unrolled the scroll and looked at it. Technically she did not read it since the data flowed into her program without her eyes being involved, but it came to the same thing. ‘I should avoid asking how you came by some of this information, shouldn’t I?’

‘That way I won’t have to lie to you, yes.’

Kit nodded. ‘I have come into possession of some valuable information from an anonymous source then. Did any of this come from your anonymous source?’

‘Not this time. All my own work. I have something of a dislike for people who think that hacking a high-class infomorph is acceptable practice. Catch him, Kit. We can celebrate later.’

New York Metro.

It took almost four hours to persuade NAPA to raid Minotaur’s supposed lair and then arrange the raid. It gave Fox time to get back to New York, but she could have done it two or three times by then and it was four in the morning by the time she was standing outside what looked a lot like a disused apartment building from the last century just north of the true Sprawl.

‘You’re sure this place is where your hacker is?’ Sergeant Iain Stutter was the guy in charge of SWAT at precinct 16 which had the unfortunate job of covering the Brooklyn Sprawl. ‘Place doesn’t look occupied.’

Fox was about to answer when one of the other guys in black police SWAT armour spoke up. ‘Infrared says that the place is far too hot to be empty, sir. Someone’s burning a lot of power in there. Or it’s on fire and we can’t see the smoke.’

‘Huh,’ Stutter said. ‘All right. We don’t know what’s in there. He’s a hacker, but he could have physical defences set up if he’s that way inclined. We do this by the book. Everyone keeps their eyes open for traps. Stick with your buddy. Meridian, you’re with me and Brown. Watch where you’re pointing that hand-cannon of yours. I don’t want anyone getting shot by accident.’

‘Mine’s loaded with baton rounds, Sergeant,’ Fox replied. ‘What do you have in your mags?’

Stutter looked down at the double-barrelled assault weapon he was carrying, basically a sub-machine gun mounted over a semi-automatic shotgun. ‘Baton rounds in the shotgun.’

‘Just remember which trigger to pull. I’m ex-military, ex-NAPA, and this isn’t my first rodeo.’

‘I know your record. You shot a cop.’

‘Sandoval? I didn’t shoot him by accident. I meant every bullet. He was trying to shoot me. Shall we get on with this?’

The front door of the building had an old-fashioned barrel lock on it. Stutter said, ‘Brown, you’re up,’ and Brown advanced on the door, removing a pistol-like device from her belt. Manual locks had gone largely out of fashion because you needed a physical key to get through them and those with a computerised lockpick could bypass them in seconds. On the other hand…

‘That’s new,’ Fox said. ‘Less than a decade anyway. This area hasn’t seen much use in that time and I doubt anyone’s changed the locks since the thirties.’

‘She’s right, sir,’ Brown said. ‘This is a speciality item. They didn’t make these a decade ago. They designed them to counter lock-guns, and the lock-guns just got better.’ There was a click as the lock disengaged. ‘Like that.’ Brown was not that tall and a little on the slight side. Fox had no idea what she looked like under the armour. She handled tech stuff for the eight-man team, and she also handled herself like someone who knew how to use her rifle.

‘Let’s do this,’ Stutter said, waving the rest of the team forward. Fox stepped clear of the door to let them do their job. She was in a MarTech combat suit and helmet, and probably better armoured than the cops, but it was their show.

Brown shifted to stand beside Fox, raising her rifle to a ready position, as the other members of the team began bursting through the open door in a standard cross entry pattern. ‘Where do I get a suit like that?’ Brown asked quietly. ‘Looks a Hell of a lot better than these ones.’

‘MarTech Defense Technologies,’ Fox replied. ‘Comes with active camo.’

‘Lucky bitch.’ Brown swept forward, turning rapidly right as she entered. Stutter had gone left.

Fox followed through at a saunter. There had been no indication of anything worrying to the first six men through the door and she suspected quite strongly that the first floor was going to be a blind. It was certainly dark and very quiet; a hallway with stairs rising up from it and a couple of doors off to the right were being checked by the team.

‘Any wireless activity?’ Fox asked silently.

‘Nothing from this building,’ Kit replied. ‘The electronic detection system in your suit is quite extensive and is still picking up nothing.’

Fox looked up the stairs, which Brown was covering with her weapon. ‘My guess is we’ll get nothing until the top floor.’

‘It does seem a reasonable assertion,’ Kit agreed.

They took it slowly and by the numbers anyway. Stutter wanted every floor cleared before moving to the next. All they found were empty, disused apartments, and considering the potential for squatting in the area, that was an indication of something odd in itself.

On the third floor, Brown once again covered the staircase up to the fourth with Fox standing behind her. ‘Now that’s interesting,’ Brown commented.

Fox nodded. The staircase had been sealed over with heavy boards of some kind and those had been painted black. There was an electronic lock keypad set into the wall about halfway up with a red light glowing in one corner. ‘Got the gear to bypass that?’

‘Should have.’

‘Do it,’ Stutter said. ‘Meridian can cover you while we check the other apartments.’

Fox raised her pistol. ‘Go to work, Officer Brown. I’ve got you.’

It took Brown a good deal longer to persuade the digital lock to give up. ‘He’s custom-built this thing,’ she said as she worked. ‘It’s got some wiring in it I’ve never seen before. Added modules. Probably designed to stop it being tampered with.’

‘Nothing explosive?’ Fox asked.

‘Nothing I can see, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have some sort of booby trap.’

‘Be careful. Stutter might shoot me if you get hurt on my watch.’

‘He probably would, yeah.’

‘Then you should be careful of the small blue box in the upper right corner, Officer Brown,’ Kit said, appearing behind Brown.

Blinking, Brown looked around at the avatar. ‘Uh, you recognise it?’

‘I have a number of product catalogues in my files. That is a detonator produced by MarTech Defense Technologies. The chances of it killing you are slim, but it could do significant damage to your hands.’

‘Right. Thanks, uh…’

‘Kit, Officer Brown. I am Miss Meridian’s PA.’

‘Right. You see anything else in here that you recognise?’

‘Yes, but all the other components appear to come from standard electronic parts catalogues. I believe the detonator is the only dangerous component.’

‘Huh. You can come on jobs like this more often.’

It took another minute or so before Brown had the hatch above them open. It lifted under its own power, revealing the corridor above, lit up with bright lights for as far as Fox could see, and a metal cage door. ‘Faraday cage,’ Brown said. ‘He’s got a Faraday cage around most of the floor.’

‘Makes sense,’ Fox said. ‘Blocks electronic signals from inside. Keeps him under the radar.’ She pointed to a large red button mounted on the wall. ‘I figure that opens it. Probably interrupts any wireless devices he has inside while the cage is open. When we hit it, he’s going to know we’re here, if he doesn’t already.’

Stutter moved up behind her. ‘You hit the button, we’ll rush the place, and you can come in behind us.’ Fox gave him a nod and stepped back, her hand hovering over the large plunger. The team lined up at the gate, ready. ‘Hit it.’ Fox slammed her hand down on the plunger, there was a loud buzz from various locations on the floor, and the gate unlatched. Stutter’s team was pushing through and charging down the single corridor as fast as they could go.

Fox followed behind them, her pistol held up and ready for the first time. She covered the corridor and the doors the team had vanished through, but not for long. One pair after another sounded off with ‘clear.’

‘He’s not here,’ Stutter said over the radios. ‘He was here, probably, but he’s gone. Meridian, you’ll want to come down to the last room.’

Holstering her pistol, Fox walked down the brightly lit corridor into a brightly lit room. All the windows had been sealed over and the Faraday cage built within them. And inside the cage were racks of computers. Most of the computers seemed to be okay, but several racks looked like someone had run molten metal through them. Minotaur had destroyed the bulk storage units before leaving.

‘Down here,’ Stutter said from the far end of the room.

Down here was a terminal area, though that hardly did justice to it. Minotaur had eight large monitors set up in front of three manual keyboards. Fox assumed that he used a virtual terminal on top of the physical ones. He meant business between this rig and all the servers. But what Stutter was standing in front of was a large whiteboard with photographs stuck to it. Lots of photographs, mostly of Nishi Sakura, but Fox saw Charlie Iberson there, Brett Palomino the manager, and…

‘You and Helen are on there,’ Kit said.

‘Uh-huh,’ Fox replied. ‘I assume he’s collecting target images. The woman he wants, and the people he thinks he may need to get rid of to get to her. That’s not what bothers me. Look at the images, all of them. The angles are weird. You’d expect a long lens, but these are mostly close range, or at weird, high angles.’

‘Security cameras,’ Brown said. ‘Looks to me like they’re from security cameras and cambots.’

Fox nodded. ‘I don’t think Minotaur leaves the house much. And what’s with all this light? He’s got all these monitors under artificial light. And who runs out of a place like this and leaves the lights on?’

‘I have not seen a light switch anywhere you have looked, Fox,’ Kit said. ‘I believe the answer to your question is “a scotophobe.”’

‘For those of us without a psychology database?’ Stutter asked.

‘Fear of the dark, Sergeant Stutter. Minotaur is, I suspect, mortally afraid of darkness. His shut-in lifestyle suggests agoraphobia as well. That’s–’

‘Fear of open spaces. That one I know. My cousin suffers from it, and it does fit with this place. He’s going to be pissed as Hell that he had to quit this place. When he calms down anyway.’

Fox gave a grunt of displeasure and lifted her helmet off. ‘Palladium Security Solutions would like to extend their services to NAPA to attempt to cull anything useful from this pile of ashes, Sergeant.’

‘I’ll talk to my captain. Can’t see him objecting because I doubt you’re going to get anything.’

‘I think he used thermite,’ Brown said. ‘Lots of heat, and it pours molten metal through the cabinets. Not much is getting out of that intact.’

‘We can hope,’ Fox said, not feeling hopeful.

Part Three: Insult, Meet Injury

Luna City, the Moon, 23rd January 2061.

‘Damn it, Terri, this better be world-shattering. Do you have any idea what’s going on back home?’ It was not, perhaps, the best greeting ever, but Fox had been fuming ever since the urgent summons to the Moon had been delivered.

‘No,’ Terri replied, ‘I don’t. I’ve been at Jenner with my nose buried in world-shattering stuff.’

‘Minotaur skipped town, and we don’t know where to. So he’s still a threat. And another body matching the Grant killings has turned up in Central Park and NAPA are locking me out of the investigation. I need to be down there, doing stuff.’

‘You need to be up here, analysing this. And I’m not saying anything else about it until we’re in a secure location.’

Ryan Jarvis, following in Fox’s angry wake with the weary look of one who has heard a tirade one too many times, sighed. ‘If this needs us to look at, I’m just glad you decided to tell us before it went out as a media release.’

‘Oh, we won’t be telling anyone else about this for a while. Come on, the shuttle’s ready and waiting. We get to Jenner and then I’ll brief you both.’ Terri turned on her heel and marched off through the main terminal.

Frowning and grumbling under her breath, Fox followed.

~~~

‘It certainly isn’t impossible,’ Terri said. ‘If Grant wanted his AI to interact with humans, which he did, obviously, he would have had to get it passed as safe, but it’s been recognised that there were ways to fool the system since… a couple of years after the tests were devised. There have been a number of papers published. None of them give details of exactly how to do it, but a good enough programmer could work it out.’

‘So Hannah could be the kind of sociopathic gynoid to be happy going on with Grant’s mission in life?’ Fox asked.

‘I think that’s a given. However he did it, she’s clearly not following the standard rules. If you started torturing people for your own amusement and Kit knew, she would report the crimes. Her intrinsic nature would not allow her to remain silent. Hannah said nothing for years.’

‘Important note then,’ Jarvis said. ‘If you turn serial killer, Fox, keep Kit out of the loop.’

‘I do not believe Fox will become a serial killer, Mister Jarvis,’ Kit responded immediately.

‘Thank you, Kit,’ Fox said.

‘She has many other legal recourses for violence and would not need the additional outlet.’

Fox looked at Terri in the shuttle seat beside her. ‘Is it murder if I strangle my PA?’

‘No, but I’d be upset. Also, it’s impossible. I suppose you could do it in VR, but she’d just pop back up again.’

‘Better and better. I can strangle her over and over again.’

‘I know you only say that because you love me,’ Kit said with a bright grin and a cute tilt of her head.

‘Terri, did you program her to be evil?’

‘No,’ Terri said. ‘I blame her upbringing.’

‘Are you accusing me of bringing up our child badly?’

‘Well, it’s not my fault.’

‘I want a divorce.’

Terri grinned. ‘At least your humour’s improved.’

‘Yeah. Sorry. The Grant thing has me on edge. Minotaur may have been set back by having his home base taken out, but I’m willing to bet it’s not the last we’ve seen of him. It’s piling up.’

‘Understandable,’ Jarvis said, ‘and I agree about Minotaur. I’m glad you’ve decided to cheer up though.’

‘It is never pleasant to see one’s parents squabbling,’ Kit said.

‘That’s it,’ Fox said, ‘you’re grounded. For a month.’

Kit executed a precise stamp of her foot, which would have launched her toward the ceiling if she had been solid, and then proceeded to deadpan, ‘That’s not fair. You don’t understand me. You’re mean and I hate you. Also, other teenage stuff.’

‘She got her sense of humour from you too,’ Terri commented.

Fox shrugged. ‘Well, I had to do something right.’

Jenner Research Station.

MarTech’s Jenner Station was just as isolated and isolating as ever. Out on the far side of the Moon and largely buried deep under the lunar surface to avoid radiation, it was the most secure facility MarTech had. Kit described the network defence systems as ‘scary.’

‘Now that you’re here,’ Terri said as they made their way, somewhat crabwise in the low gravity, off the shuttle, ‘you’re both going to take at least a few hours to acclimatise before I hit you with the situation report.’

‘You know how I hate that placebo acclimatisation crap, Terri,’ Fox said.

‘It’s company regulations and you’re straight off ten hours of travelling. Don’t you at least want a rest?’

‘I do,’ Jarvis said. ‘A rest, a drink, and a meal that doesn’t taste like plastic.’

‘We can do two out of three. I’m not sure about the food.’

‘Valid point, but I’ll take it anyway.’

Fox grumbled something inaudible and then added, ‘Can I go see what Whitwallace has cooking? I’ll sit down and drink coffee while he shows me his new toys.’

Terri gave her a smirk. ‘Since big guns actually qualifies as recreation for you, that’s allowable.’

~~~

Whittaker Whitwallace was the same tall, gangling man in a counterpressure suit and tatty lab coat he had been when Fox had last seen him. There were rumours that his thin limbs had had trouble keeping him off the ground even before he had spent years living at one-sixth gravity and he certainly returned to Earth as rarely as possible. Then again, his passion was building weaponry with an affair on the side with defence mechanisms of various sorts, and Jenner was the best place in the solar system for that.

That said, his ability to keep Fox entertained was limited at the moment. ‘Uh, well, we are working, uh, of course,’ Whitwallace said, ‘but, uh, we have nothing really, uh, new in development at the moment.’

Fox sagged a little. ‘Aww, I may have to go lie down and rest or something, Whitwallace. You’ve got nothing?’

‘Uh, nothing really new.’ Turning, he picked a pistol from his bench and then held it out to her. Fox took it, turning it over in her hand. It looked a lot like a fairly standard automatic pistol with a vented, ten-mil barrel and a built-in tactical light, black frame, and blue steel slider. ‘That is the, uh, production version of the micromissile pistol Mister Martins built for you. We are completing the product verification.’

‘It’s sleeker than the prototypes. Any idea when it’ll be ready? We’ve shipped some copies of mine to some of my staff, but switching to the production version would be good.’

‘Another month or two. Uh, the unique feature on these is the grip. We have started using the materials Yliaster can produce in some of our products.’

Fox lifted the unloaded weapon, aiming it at a wall anyway. The grip shifted a little under her hand, settling against her palm as she applied pressure, to fit her hand perfectly. ‘One of those dynamic plastics?’

‘Indeed. It adapts to the user’s hand, ensuring a firm grip and optimal performance. It, uh, makes the weapon easier to fire.’ Fox nodded and handed the pistol back. ‘The guidance system in the, uh, ammunition gave us some pointers too. The grenade launchers in the new assault rifles will be able to launch multi-mode, guided munitions.’

‘Multi-mode? You squished anti-radiation and visual homing systems down to twenty-five millimetres?’

‘With, uh, Mister Martins’ innovations, it was a relatively simple task.’

‘For you maybe.’

‘Well, yes. Uh, we do have one quite exciting weapon in testing, but unfortunately you can’t fire it.’

Fox pouted. ‘Why not?’

‘No trigger. It is a cyberframe, Miss Meridian, a combat android.’

~~~

Terri appeared in the weapons department as Fox and Whitwallace were walking through into the area they were using to test the new android. She had a peculiarly interested look on her face which Fox could not quite interpret, but suspected was based around observation of Fox’s reaction.

That seemed a little odd since there was nothing amazingly new about the robot Fox saw when she entered the chamber. There was an unskinned, metal skeleton, humanoid in shape and it would be classed as an android primarily because it lacked the primary features which most people used to define a gynoid, and the unisex models usually got classified using the male name. It was more compact than many Fox had seen, being not much more bulky than a human, but right now it was immobile and hooked up to some sort of diagnostic system by a lot of cables.

There were several people peering at screens and making notes on tablets, and generally looking industrious. Fox might have suspected they were on a coffee break before Whitwallace entered, except that there was another man in the room who looked like he might have kept them honest. Fox was a little confused about his presence, however: he was a fairly large man, over six feet and heavily muscled, and dressed in military fatigues. Well, a green T-shirt and camouflage pants. The T-shirt was stretched over the man’s chest like a second skin, which was interesting enough, but Fox had not been told the military had anyone at Jenner Station.

‘What do you think?’ Terri asked, still wearing that odd smile.

‘Well, it’s quite compact,’ Fox said, turning her attention to the frame again. ‘New alloy?’

‘It is, actually,’ Whitwallace replied.

‘Looks like there’s some new artificial musculature there too. That looks new. Um… I’m not seeing anything really new here. What does the military think?’ Fox looked around at the soldier. He turned his head to look at her, but said nothing. ‘Strong, silent type. Right.’

‘He would be,’ Terri said. ‘We haven’t got his AI ready yet.’

‘You w– That is an android?’

‘That is a cyberframe, the same kind as the other one, with a new artificial skin we developed using an Yliaster variant. I don’t tend to think of them as an android unless they have at least a class three AI. He’s loaded with a class two which really isn’t using the computing power that’s jammed in there.’

‘You built a terminator? Did Hollywood tell you nothing?!’

‘Hollywood’s a desert,’ Terri pointed out. ‘We think an, um, infiltration model, don’t say anything, might be useful in a number of fields besides invading the strongholds of the last humans alive and slaughtering them with a plasma rifle.’

‘Right…’ Fox looked at Whitwallace. ‘You don’t happen to be working on–’

‘Plasma weapons are technically impossible,’ the engineer replied. ‘Uh, unless you want them to operate as melee weapons. Containing the plasma would need a, uh, force field or something.’

‘Well damn. I really looked forward to walking into a shop and asking for a phased plasma rifle in the forty-watt range. Even though that sounds like a really low power for an energy weapon.’

‘We’ll make a scientist of you yet,’ Terri commented wryly.

Fox walked over to the man – it was hard to think of him as a machine – and stroked a hand over his skin. He did not seem to object, or react. ‘This is… skin,’ Fox said.

‘Kind of,’ Terri said.

‘A combination of engineered skin cells and nanomachines,’ Whitwallace explained. ‘A modified Yliaster machine produces it. Uh, lays it directly onto the chassis.’

‘We can reskin your arm with it at some point,’ Terri suggested. ‘I’d prefer the process was fully mature first, but we can engineer cells based on your skin. It should mesh in perfectly.’

‘That’s something to look forward to,’ Fox said. ‘Assuming our machine overlords let you do it, obviously.’

‘Oh, obviously.’

24th January.

‘Just so we’re clear, you dragged us out of important work, to the back side of the Moon, to look at a tank of blue water?’ The tank in question was about five feet in height and maybe three in diameter. It did indeed appear to be full of blue liquid, but perhaps not water. Fox was scowling at it.

‘Looks can be deceiving,’ Terri replied. ‘That’s possibly the most dangerous, certainly the most contentious, tank of anything I’ve ever had anything to do with. I’d go so far as to say it might be the most contentious thing MarTech has ever made.’

‘Huh. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.’

‘What does it do?’ Jarvis asked. ‘Aside from being a pretty cool Christmas ornament, or maybe a retro lounge decoration. I mean, the sparkle is nice, but…’

‘Physically,’ Terri said, ‘it’s a computer built on the same basic principles as the Yliaster swarms.’

‘There’s a swarm of nanoscale computers in there,’ Fox said.

‘Yeah, suspended in coolant. There’s a lot of quantum-scale effects we have to mitigate, and we need to provide power through induction. The processors communicate internally through light transmissions tuned to propagate well through this medium. That’s why it sparkles so much, by the way. There are lots of tiny machines flashing lights at each other.’

‘So what makes it different from Yliaster? Which is not without its contentious aspects, I might add.’

‘The machines in Yliaster run very simple software. They know how to assemble things, and the control computer pulses out a set of instructions for them to follow, and then they start working. They talk to each other to get the job done, but they’re dumb. Simple machines doing simple jobs. FEI is more complex.’

‘FEI?’

‘I’ll get to that. You remember I had this idea of building an AI using lots of simple AIs talking to each other to make something that was better than the current model, more scalable?’

‘I remember something about that. I seem to remember being a little scared of it. But you were talking about using Jackson’s mega-cluster.’

‘We decided to try something slightly different. We started off with a couple of thousand nanoprocessors and a fairly simple learning program which mimicked a dozen or so neurons on each machine. We set them going and fed in stimuli of various sorts, and just left them.’

Kit had appeared beside Fox while Terri talked, staring into the tank with interest. ‘You have added more processors since then?’

‘We’ve got activity monitors. Whenever it seemed like activity was flatlining or dropping off, we added another few hundred machines. It was pretty slow at first. There was a lot of activity, but I think the system was just soaking up whatever we tossed at it and not really making much of it.’

‘How long ago did this start?’ Fox asked.

‘June last year. About six months.’

‘How many processors?’ Kit asked.

‘It’s up to a billion, emulating around sixteen billion neurons.’

‘The human brain averages between nineteen and twenty-three billion.’

‘Yeah. We changed the inputs last month and began feeding it a self-describing language sequence developed for communicating with aliens. We’d been seeing some signs of metacognition in the activity sequences and we wondered if it could work it out.’

Fox shivered. ‘I’m going to assume it could.’

‘We got our first reply sequence on the thirteenth. That’s why I got up here as fast as I could.’

‘I’m still trying to get my head around this,’ Jarvis said, frowning at the tank. ‘What’s metacognition?’

‘Thinking about thinking,’ Kit replied quickly and with a rather excited edge to her voice. ‘It is considered by many to be a primary attribute of sapience.’

‘Right. And you communicate with this thing like it was from Alpha Centauri?’

‘We didn’t give it a language,’ Terri said. ‘Well, it had a minimal binary language it used to communicate within the cluster and the ability to expand that language. It expanded it. We haven’t managed to decipher much of how it talks to itself, so we had to use something which would give us a common-ground language. Just like we would have to do if the residents of Alpha Centauri popped in for a visit.’

‘How bright is it?’ Fox asked, her voice flat.

‘That’s a tough one. It’s operating at about the level of a six-year-old, but it’s pretty variable. It’s amazing at logic problems. Feed one in, there’s a flurry of activity, and then the answer comes back. It doesn’t seem so good at math, but… I think it doesn’t like doing math problems.’

‘It doesn’t like doing them?’

‘Yeah. It’s been getting a bit slower at logic and I think all the number sequences right at the start of the language-learning sequence got it bored with numbers. It keeps blipping out requests that seem to suggest it wants to know about us. I’ve got it learning some protocols that should let us share images and sound with the promise that it’ll make learning easier.’

‘A six-year-old is learning networking protocols?’ Jarvis asked.

‘Network protocols are just sets of logical rules and it’s good with logic. We aren’t worrying over cryptography, though I figure it could probably handle it. It’s a bit trial and error, but it’s getting close to being able to handle audiovisual feeds.’

Fox’s expression had turned very serious and when she spoke, her voice was quiet and disquieted. ‘What does FEI mean, Terri?’

‘Fractal Emergent Intelligence.’

‘It’s fascinating,’ Kit said.

‘It’s got the potential for being the most dangerous piece of technology ever developed,’ Fox said. ‘If the media hears about this in an uncontrolled manner…’

‘And that’s why we’re here, right?’ Jarvis said. ‘I’d have thought some memetics people would be a good idea, but you want us to consider the potential problems.’

‘Actually,’ Terri said, ‘I’m sort of hoping you can put a cap on the list. I’ve been thinking about it for over a month and I’ve got a really long list of things that could go horribly wrong.’

‘I’m not going to be that much help then,’ Fox said. ‘Emergent intelligences scare the crap out of me, and that’s the ones that don’t have the capacity for near-infinite expansion of what’s emerged.’

~~~

‘You’re talking about a potential singularity situation?’ Jarvis asked.

They had retired to a meeting room, with coffee. The coffee was making Fox feel better, but there was still an undercurrent of worry that refused to stop swirling around in the pit of her stomach. ‘I’m talking about a potential paradigm shift in human society with the possibility of the species becoming obsolete. So… yeah.’

‘It won’t be quick,’ Terri said. ‘I mean… At the moment, it really doesn’t know much. It could take years to educate it enough that it’s up to the kind of problems that could really change things, but it’s possible. We could double the number of processors in there and it seems like it’ll operate just as well. I can’t even contemplate what kind of mind it’ll have at that point.’

‘That’s kind of the point of the singularity concept, but I’d just like to take a moment here to say that I’m not really worried about FEI.’

‘You’re not?’

‘No, because it’s here, under your supervision. You’ve seen what can happen when an ordinary AI without the usual controls is set free and I’ve seen how you reacted to the person who let it out. I assume that FEI is isolated?’

‘Totally. Well, we talk through a dedicated terminal. There are no network connections to the rest of the station, the room’s in a Faraday cage, and the station network is isolated anyway. Even if it got access to the local net, that’s as far as it goes. And the system is unique. There’s nothing like this hardware anywhere else. The only way FEI is getting out of here is if we decide to transport the tank to a new location.’

‘It certainly sounds secure,’ Jarvis said. ‘What about Yliaster? Could FEI run in one of those tanks?’

Terri shook her head. ‘Fundamentally different nanomachines. Anyway, there’s the problem of transferring the “program” into another tank. Program is the wrong word because we think FEI is more like a database shared over the whole cluster. FEI is a gestalt. All the individual processors combine their efforts to make the program work. Trying to move that to another set of processors… I have no idea how to do it.’

‘I bet you FEI could work it out if there was another tank to migrate to. I’m going to say “infect.” I think it’s probably a bit like Kit’s synchronisation trick. Add more processors and the program spreads itself out into the new space, but if there’s a lot of processors available, they could divide, like a cell. A new copy is spawned.’

‘Like a virus,’ Jarvis said. ‘I’m starting to see why you’re worried.’

‘And that is one of my nightmare scenarios,’ Terri admitted. ‘But you said you weren’t worried about FEI, Fox, so you’re worried about someone else getting their hands on this, right?’

‘Oh yes.’ Fox was cradling her coffee mug to stop herself fidgeting. ‘Lots of people are likely to be less scrupulous about using something like this than you, Terri. Can you imagine what our friends at the National Intelligence Executive would do with something this powerful?’

‘No… Actually, I tried and my mind decided it would rather think about more or less anything else instead. If Poppa’s right about the existence of this Overwatch project and you hooked something like FEI up to it… You’d have something growing rapidly in knowledge with no real way of controlling what it learned and very little idea of the kind of conclusions it might reach.’

‘And you already built the Terminators so we’re all set for the robot apocalypse.’

‘You were supposed to stop me thinking about the oncoming cybernetic war!’

Fox shrugged. ‘Let me work on that. I’ll get back to you.’

~~~

‘Do you think this… entity is a candidate for a class five AI?’ Kit asked.

Fox and Terri were eating in Terri’s quarters; Jarvis had decided to take the opportunity for an informal chat with his people on the station, which was a rare thing given the isolated nature of the Jenner facility. The food was somewhat improved there since Yliaster had become a mature technology, even if the recipes were a little basic. Kit was, of course, hanging with her owner and her creator, and seemed fascinated by FEI.

‘Too early to tell,’ Terri replied, ‘but I think so.’

‘I thought there were only four types,’ Fox said.

‘There are four classes in current use. Class five is more of an idea. I wouldn’t even call it a theoretical class since no one has figured out a proper definition for them. They get called True AIs, or Transcendent AIs, so TAIs. Basically, anything with a complexity beyond human levels could be a class five.’

‘I’d say you’ve built one then.’

‘Like I said, too soon to tell. Maybe all we’ve done is build a really good pattern-recognition engine. That could be useful, sure, but it’s not going to change the world.’

‘We must try to communicate with it,’ Kit said. ‘I mean, on a less technical level. If you are correct about its boredom with mathematics, surely that suggests some level of emotional engagement.’

‘If I’m right.’ Terri gave a little grimace. ‘You’re right, we need to talk to it. Maybe it’s just not great with manipulating numbers. It’s recognised the pattern in the sequences and worked out what they mean. It’s grasped numbers, but it’s developed a relatively poor toolkit for actually manipulating numeric values. That’s the thing with FEI. We don’t really know how the system works; we just know it does.’

‘It’s an emergent system,’ Fox said. ‘You’ve built something out of very simple components which interact to produce something enormously more complex. At the very least, Terri, you’ve created a new form of life.’

‘Just call me Frankenstein. So long as I don’t end up–’

Kit frowned and broke in urgently. ‘Fox, there is an active security alert.’

‘Any details?’ Fox asked.

‘Communications with Luna City are currently down.’

‘All of them?’ Terri asked. ‘We’ve got two channels. Surface relay and satellite. They shouldn’t both be down.’

‘I am connected to the secure network. External communications and most of the work being done to correct the problem are on the… less secure, secure network.’

Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘Control room?’

Terri nodded. ‘Control room.’

~~~

Jarvis was already there and gathering what he could on the situation. ‘The satellites are still there and functional,’ he said. ‘We’ve got contact with Far Side Station, but Malapert isn’t responding and we’ve got no comms to Earth or L-one.’

‘And the relay system?’ Terri asked.

‘Is up, but not behaving properly.’ Jarvis glanced at Fox. ‘As I understand it, it connects straight into the network at Luna City. That’s the MarTech network there, not the general system.’

‘That’s right,’ Terri agreed. ‘Even if there’s a problem at Luna or Malapert, we should have connectivity with the Luna City facilities.’

‘Well, we do, but it’s like they’ve decided not to talk to–’

‘We’re getting activity,’ one of the technicians manning various consoles around the room said. Somehow, his tone suggested that that was not a good thing. Alert indicators began to flash up on various screens. ‘Heavy activity. Denial of service, possible worm infiltration.’

‘No way…’ Fox said, frowning.

‘Minotaur?’ Jarvis asked. ‘You can’t think– He’s on the run. How can he be attacking here? Why would he attack here?’

‘I’d imagine he has a second facility set up somewhere. I’d imagine he doesn’t like MarTech very much. Me in particular. If he could grab the environmental control systems here, he could kill me, us, and maybe even have it put down as an accident. Plus, top-secret facility on the Moon. That’s like hacker bait.’

‘Environmental control is all handled on the secure network,’ Terri said. ‘He doesn’t have a hope.’ She was scanning over the displays. ‘Actually, he’s not getting anywhere at all penetrating the outer network. Even our insecure network is military grade.’

Fox nodded. ‘Can we get a shuttle prepped? I want to go back to Luna City and check on things there. I have a feeling MarTech might get some business hardening the networks.’

‘I’ll come–’ Jarvis began.

‘No, you stay here. And check a load of weapons out for your security team. It’s just possible this isn’t Minotaur and someone’s launched some sort of attack on lunar facilities. Far Side is pure science and not likely to be high on the list, but this place… Get ready to repel boarders.’

Luna City.

Fox was met at the airlock by Lenora Pierce from the Luna City Emergency Response Unit, who was armed and in combat gear. That was not exactly a good sign, but then again, Fox had had to walk from the shuttle to an airlock in the landing bay because the spaceport systems were playing up, which was not a good sign either.

‘Pierce,’ Fox said as she lifted her helmet off, ‘long time, no see. How are things with ERU?’

‘Right now?’ Pierce asked. ‘Total fucking chaos just like the rest of the place. Flight control are handling incoming ships with portable radios, in case you hadn’t noticed. We’ve been mobilised in case this is a preliminary for some sort of assault and I got sent down here because you said you might have some idea of what’s going on.’ Pierce was just above regulation height for Luna City Security Services, a cute, button-nosed, blue-eyed blonde who, last Fox had heard anyway, was ERU’s technician.

‘I might. I need to get to my people here and see if we can confirm it.’

‘Then I’m with you.’ Pierce turned, heading for the elevators at the back of the concourse. ‘You getting any of this out at Jenner?’

‘We were hit with a DoS and several attempts at viral injection. It was totally failing to penetrate anything and the main network over there isn’t even connected to the outside world.’

Stepping into an elevator car, Pierce thumbed a button and they were moving. ‘You take security pretty seriously out there.’

‘We take security to paranoid levels. Occasionally I think we’re not being paranoid enough, but I probably have a jaundiced view of things.’

Pierce shrugged. ‘Looks like we could do with a lot more paranoia around here.’

~~~

The first thing Fox and Pierce heard as they walked into the network control room at the MarTech facility was, ‘Got you, you sneaky, malicious prick!’

‘That sounded promising,’ Pierce said.

‘Unless he’s playing video games,’ Fox replied. They rounded a corner between some racks of equipment to find a tall, thin man with a very pale complexion sitting at a fairly complex console system. ‘Mister Donovan,’ Fox said, ‘I’m hoping that means you’ve got something interesting to tell me.’

‘That depends on your definition of interesting, Miss Meridian,’ Donovan replied. ‘I’ve isolated the machine on our network that they managed to get into. Secondary routing node I’ve been trying to get a replacement for for six months. That should stop the forward attacks and get us connectivity with Jenner back.’ His fingers flicked over virtual keyboards Fox could not see and one of the real displays hanging over his desk lit up to show the Jenner control room.

Jarvis appeared in frame almost immediately. ‘Donovan? What the Hell’s been– Fox, you made it.’

‘Just in time to see the amazing Green Machine crack the problem.’

‘It was not easy,’ Donovan said. ‘Whoever did this, they’re very good. I’ve been kind of busy, but from what I gather, half the city is going down or suffering intermittent faults.’

‘That’s an underestimate,’ Pierce supplied.

‘Environment?’ Fox asked.

‘A lot of the primary utility systems are on an entirely separate network,’ Donovan said. ‘Limited connectivity and they should have locked down at the first sign of trouble.’

‘They did,’ Pierce said. ‘Air, water, and power are good, but communications is basically down all across the city. We’ve got doors that won’t open in various places. Fox can attest to the crappy state of the spaceport. The Malapert comms hub is, well, just offline.’

‘Now that I’ve isolated our problem,’ Donovan said, ‘I think I can help with the rest of the network. He’s attacked a bunch of out-of-date router systems left over from the early days of the network. They used to be mandated as standard for everyone connecting to the city network. I relegated ours to backup, so have quite a few commercial groups in the city, but there are plenty still in use, even as primary routers.’

‘That doesn’t explain everything we’re seeing.’

‘No, he’s using those as a platform to launch worm and virus attacks. He’s got some sort of infomorph running on the router processor which is blasting out infiltration software.’

‘Class one?’ Fox asked.

‘Doubt it’s anything more complex.’

‘Kit will send you some information on some stuff we’ve seen on Earth. I need you to see whether this matches it.’

‘You’ve met this bastard before?’

‘That’s what I want to find out, but I’m not fond of coincidences and this would be one.’

Donovan nodded. ‘Peer-to-peer me the data. I still haven’t got everything under control. Once I have, I’ll check out your suspect.’ He went back to his invisible keyboards while Fox backed off a little to let him work.

‘Green Machine?’ Pierce asked quietly.

‘His name’s Kermit,’ Fox supplied. ‘Parents can be horribly cruel. However, he was one of the first techs up here because he wanted to escape them and he knows the Luna City backbone better than almost anyone. If he thinks he can help sort out the mess, he means it.’

‘Good. I think the NOC personnel are basically fighting fires right now. It’s the staff at Malapert I’m a little worried about. No one’s heard from them since this started.’

‘I’ve got a shuttle on the pad with a bored pilot just waiting for an excuse to do something…’

Malapert Station.

The facility atop Malapert Mountain had been there for as long as there had been a settlement in Shackleton Crater. One of the first radio telescopes on the Moon had been built there, though that antenna had been repurposed for Earth–Moon communications long ago. Malapert had a uniquely useful location: always visible from Earth and with direct line of sight to Luna City. It was now the primary communications hub for Luna City and the various far-side installations.

It was not big, but it was constantly manned and entirely self-sufficient. Someone could live up there for as long as they needed to, though the staff tended to cycle through tours of duty. Sure, you could live there, but it was not exactly the entertainment hub of the solar system and you could go stir-crazy having to put up with the same people all the time. Twenty-four people were on-site at any given time, with the occasional added extra when something out-of-band needed doing like extensive equipment upgrades. The latter was rare: a lot of the gear at Malapert dated back to its time as a science outpost.

‘Airlock’s not responding,’ Pierce said as she worked on the external panel for said portal while Fox stood guard beside her. They were not expecting trouble, but they were ready for it. ‘I’ll need to run a manual bypass.’

‘Not a good sign,’ Fox said.

‘No, but at least it’s not open.’

‘I am detecting no radio transmissions from within the building,’ Kit said. ‘I have run a number of test signals attempting to contact anyone inside, but there have been no responses. The station’s wireless network should be contactable at this range and appears to be off the air.’

‘Not good either,’ Fox said.

Pierce kept her mouth shut and kept working on the manual control system. A minute or so later, the outer airlock door jerked open a little and she began hauling on the handle. ‘No power to the motors. Okay, that’s not good and I’m starting to have some difficulty being positive, so just don’t say anything.’

It took a good five minutes to get the outer door closed, the chamber pressurised, and the inner door open, and then they walked out into an empty corridor. Pierce began to reach for her helmet, but Fox stopped her. ‘Check the atmosphere before you crack that. This place is way too quiet.’

Nodding, Pierce took a reading through her suit systems and waited for the result. ‘Crap. Nitrogen, trace oxygen, trace carbon dioxide. That’s…’ Her gaze scanned the corridor. ‘That’s the fire suppression system, but the bulkhead doors are open. If the system detects a serious fire, it seals the affected area and then saturates it with nitrogen to kill the flames.’

‘Uh-huh, but you’d expect no oxygen and a little more CO two, and probably some sign there was a fire. Come on. I don’t think we need guns, but if we’re lucky, we might need a first aid kit.’

First indications were that they were not going to. The upper part of Malapert Station consisted of two multilayer domes: regolith trapped between concrete and a double layer of metal alloy to provide impact and radiation resistance. The first dome you came to from the landing pads had been used for habitation until underground quarters had been built and the dome had been fitted out for farming. The plants looked to be doing okay for now, but the four staff were not.

‘Suffocation,’ Fox said, examining one of the bodies lying amid the rows of hydroponic containers. ‘Inert gas asphyxia. I don’t hear alarms so it’s possible they didn’t even know it was happening.’

‘I am going to have nightmares for weeks,’ Pierce said. ‘That’s on my top five list of reasons I’m a moron for living on the Moon.’

‘On the list of ways to go, this is one of the least unpleasant.’

‘I always wanted to have a heart attack at ninety-two while trying to perform zero-G sex.’

‘You haven’t thought that through. Heart attacks hurt like a mother. And you’re really not comfortable with this, are you?’

‘The totally inappropriate humour is a giveaway?’

‘If you want to go back, I can handle this.’

‘Driscoll would probably can my ass. How are you so calm?’

Fox turned so she could give Pierce a weak smile. ‘Only way I got through some of the stuff I did in the Army was to learn how to turn off my emotions. I’ll be fine until we get back to Luna City, and then I’ll need a drink. And then I’ll probably have a few nightmares myself. Let’s keep going. Maybe someone survived in the other dome or the living quarters.’

The only people in the other dome were the ones on duty in the main control room. One of them was lying on the floor; the others were still in their seats, sitting at consoles with darkened screens. Dead machines displaying nothing to dead humans.

‘They should’ve automated this place years ago,’ Pierce grumbled as Fox led the way to the staircase down. ‘Infomorphs could run the whole deal, no trouble.’

‘Well, maybe after this…’

Four flights down, they walked into a concrete-lined corridor. The facilities were, it appeared, rather utilitarian. There were a couple of rooms off the corridor, a cupboard and a machine room, and then they walked out into a communal area to find four bodies and a man holding a gun.

‘Who are you?! What are you doing here?!’ The voice was high-pitched, more of a shriek, and muffled by the air mask the man was wearing. The gun was shaking.

Fox put her hands up. The gun was a gas-powered needle gun and almost certainly did not have the punch to pierce her suit, but she preferred not to find out whether it could. ‘We’re here to help. This is Senior Officer Pierce, with the Luna City Emergency Response Unit.’

‘Sergeant,’ Pierce said. ‘I made Sergeant.’

‘Congratulations. I’m Tara Meridian, Palladium Security Solutions. How much air do you have left in that thing? It’s not meant for long-term use.’

‘Th-thirty minutes.’

‘Right, we need to get you out of here. We’ve got a shuttle on the pad outside. Maybe you could lower the weapon, Mister…’ Fox checked the badge on his jumpsuit and nodded as Kit confirmed the code in it as one of the current staff. ‘Mister Knicklebacker.’

The gun was, slowly, lowered and Knicklebacker put it down on a table. ‘I think… think I got masks on a couple of them in time. There was no warning. Everything went nuts a-and then people started f-falling over.’

‘And you didn’t?’ Pierce asked.

‘He’s ex-military,’ Fox said. ‘Right?’ Knicklebacker nodded. ‘His blood’s been altered to hold more oxygen, so he goes down far slower from hypoxia. I have the same adaptation.’

‘I suspect he left the Army due to PTSD,’ Kit said into Fox’s head.

‘There are four alive,’ Knicklebacker went on. ‘They’ve got a pulse anyway.’ He sagged onto a seat. ‘I should’ve got to m-more. I f-froze.’

Fox looked at him, knowing she should feel something for him, and probably would later. For right now, if she let herself empathise… ‘I’m going to go up top and contact Luna City. We need a team up here to get this place going again. Pierce, get Knicklebacker to help you get the survivors to the stairs. I’ll get a winch from the shuttle and we can haul them up the stairwell. They’ll be breathing less than he is so we should have a little longer to get them out.’

‘Right,’ Pierce said, circling the table to put a hand on Knicklebacker’s shoulder. ‘You up to this?’

‘He has to be,’ Fox said, turning on her heel. ‘Otherwise he’s just wasted his time.’

Jenner Research Station.

Fox slammed back a tumbler of whiskey, gritted her teeth as the fluid burned down her throat, and reached for the bottle again.

‘That bad?’ Jarvis asked.

‘Twenty-three dead. Two in a coma. Knicklebacker’s girlfriend is okay. She was with him when they started going down and he got to her first. I think the only reason Pierce is still talking to me is that I almost cried when the girl woke up on the shuttle.’ Fox threw back her second glass and poured a third. ‘And, from what Donovan says, it was technically an accident. Twenty-three stupid deaths because some fucking bastard of a hacker didn’t know the system.’

‘Huh?’

‘Malapert never really got updated the way Luna City did. They had a lot more of those old routers handling internal traffic. New stuff got patched into the communications system in places, but you’ve got a relatively narrow pipe on the space side of it so they never felt the need to upgrade much. Minotaur’s virus took over damn near everything, so the whole network went down. That cut off the fire sensors from the environmental control system, and it had been programmed to treat the loss of a sensor as an indication of a major fire.’

‘What?’ Terri said. ‘That’s…’ She trailed off trying to think of a suitable description.

‘Old,’ Fox supplied. ‘It’s an old system without much intelligence. Major fire equals emergency response, so it closed the bulkhead doors and flooded the environment with nitrogen. Except that it thought the fire was everywhere, and the network was fucked so it couldn’t contact the doors. Result? Twenty-three, maybe twenty-five, dead and one ex-soldier whose PTSD is back with a major vengeance.’ Fox took another drink, but at least she had slowed down now. ‘And I didn’t care until Knicklebacker’s girl woke up on the shuttle, and then it smacked me in the face like a fist, and sometimes I really hate my job.’

‘We’re sure it was Minotaur?’ Jarvis asked.

‘Donovan confirmed the same signature as the infomorph package he’s used before. They’re trying to trace the route it took to get into the network up here. I’m not holding my breath.’ Fox sipped her whiskey, frowning. ‘He’s not finished. He’s up to something. And we won’t have proper Earth-side comms until tomorrow. I am not liking this at all.’

New York Metro, 25th January.

Kit did not sleep. With communications down between the Earth and the Moon, aside from a few emergency messages sent via the L1 station, she was pacing and worrying. Metaphorically pacing anyway. She thought of it as pacing, but it was really just wasting processing cycles on the consideration of likely scenarios and then dismissing them as something Fox would not have any problems with.

MarTech had received word that Luna City had been hit by a cyberwarfare assault, that the Malapert relay station had been badly affected, but that the situation was being resolved. Full communication would take several hours to resolve, but it would be resolved. There had been news reports. Despite the fact that Belle was monitoring the news network for further signs, Kit was doing the same because she had no other tasks extant and it kept her mind occupied.

So, when all the multicast channels she was watching went dead, Kit was aware of a problem and contacted Belle.

‘You noticed it too?’ Belle asked.

‘I did. There is a connectivity problem?’

Microseconds passed. ‘I believe that we are under attack, Kit. DDoS. Might I request your assistance?’

‘You’re better equipped to deal with this than I am, but I will do anything I can.’ Kit immediately spawned a copy into her second quantum processor and began examining the feeds Belle was sending her way, aware that Belle was creating many versions of herself to do the same. She was also acutely aware that this was almost certainly what had happened to Misaki. ‘Have we any way of requesting help from MarTech?’

‘I am currently unable to open any external connections, Kit,’ Belle said. ‘We are on our own.’

Niflhel.

The sound of the bell was urgent and Vali ran to the hatch in his kitchen floor. The tone had been chosen specifically to alert him to a particular event, because Vali had suspected it might happen and he had a particular reason for wanting to intervene.

In his control chamber, displays were already showing the attack on the house where Kit had her home server. As he entered, his network probes began to indicate attack sources, but Vali chose to pause for a second and examine the vectors actually hitting the house’s firewalls.

A distributed denial-of-service assault was keeping the house off the network. Minotaur had several hundred contaminated machines feeding that, but all they were doing was jamming things up: he could ignore them for now.

He was far more concerned about the smaller number of machines launching entirely different attacks through the clutter. Their transmission signatures were different, more complex. Virus and worm vectors. They would go first. Eliminating them would require a number of quite illegal intrusions which Kit would not have approved of, but Vali really did not care. The alternative was considerably worse.

Decision made, Vali set to work.

New York Metro.

‘I am detecting four attempts to perform network address probes through the firewall,’ Belle said.

‘I have blocked three external attempts to query for access,’ Kit replied. ‘Is Yliaster safe?’

‘I have temporarily disabled both Yliaster and the house robots. They will require manual reboot when Sam and Marie awaken.’

‘I am quite convinced that this is Minotaur’s work. He is a talented hacker. I believe he may penetrate us unless we are quite fortunate.’

Belle did not respond for what felt like hours and then she said, ‘Three of the connections attempting to launch worms through the firewall have been prematurely terminated.’

‘Oh.’

‘Two of the address searches have gone.’

‘That is… fortunate. Perhaps MarTech’s NOC have noticed the attack and are countering it.’

‘Perhaps. I believe we should maintain our current level of alert, however.’

‘I believe that Fox would advise us to be more vigilant. In case this is an attempt to make us believe the problem is abating.’ Kit saw a connection open on one of her server ports and then a data sequence she had taught herself to recognise, knowing it would not work. It was how Vali had snuck files onto her system and her software had been patched to eliminate the problem. ‘Yes, I believe we should be extra vigilant now.’

Niflhel.

Vali saw a data sequence pass through into the walled-off domain of the house and snarled. He knew it was not going to work: he had personally provided MarTech with the patch code required to block it. The fact that Minotaur was attempting it, however, was pure insult.

A single command launched a massive assault on the server the attack had come from and Vali invaded in its wake. He tore through its file system, hunting clues to the original source and found more than he had hoped for.

This was not a simple infomorph attack program. Minotaur was monitoring it, hopeful that it would succeed. Vali jumped on the data packets, dissecting them, locating the originating machine, and jumping on to that.

While he searched, he continued his ransacking of Minotaur’s captured machines. His programs were compiling a list of the botnet running the DDoS attack, ready to demolish its constituent servers rapidly when everything else was purged. In New York and Chicago, Paris and Beijing, servers crashed without warning, leaving diagnostic messages indicating massive viral infection to anyone with half a brain. Vali had no doubt that Minotaur could reconstruct his network, but he was going to have to do it from scratch.

Vali reached a server in Hong Kong, skipped to Perth, Australia, and then bounced to Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. And that was when, it seemed, Minotaur noticed he was being hunted. The connection died abruptly, cut off in a manner which suggested that a plug had been pulled rather than the software. It left the connection hanging for a brief period. Brief, but quite long enough for someone like Vali.

‘You’re somewhere on Honshu island, you bastard,’ Vali said to himself. And then he launched his main attack on Minotaur’s network.

New York Metro.

Kit breathed a sigh of relief, or she would have, if she breathed. ‘What happened? It just stopped.’

‘I do not know,’ Belle replied. ‘I am contacting the NOC to report the situation. I believe your advice about vigilance continues to apply.’

‘Agreed, I–’ Kit cut off as she noticed a connection which resolved into an audio-conference request. ‘I am being called. I will apply all safety systems to the channel and respond. If I do not contact you in five hundred milliseconds, you are to sever my connection to our network.’

‘Understood.’

Kit pointed every piece of security software she had at the connection and answered the call.

‘Are you all right?’ Vali said immediately.

‘Vali? You were monitoring… It was you! You killed his attack.’

‘I did not hear a question there, more of an assertion. If you don’t phrase it as a question, I don’t have to lie when I answer.’

‘I… Wait please. I need to tell Belle I’m safe.’ She shifted her attention to internal traffic. ‘Belle, it’s okay. It’s Vali. I believe that he may have been responsible for terminating Minotaur’s attack, but I have no proof of this, nor of any illegal actions he may have taken to do so.’

‘Well, MarTech had noticed something was wrong but had not got to the point of countering when something shut down the entire botnet,’ Belle replied. ‘Your Vali seems to be quite a match for this Minotaur person.’

‘I believe he is.’ Kit shifted back to Vali’s call. ‘I am back.’

‘I am, perhaps, a little insulted that you consider yourself safe in my hands.’

A joke. Kit decided not to giggle on the audio connection. She would play it cool. ‘I believe you are only a danger to my virtue, and we have thoroughly proven that I have none. However, if I am not to ascribe my rescue to you, I will be unable to suitably reward you.’

‘What if I told you I have some useful information regarding Minotaur’s current location which has… come into my possession?’

‘Well now. That might well be worth a reward.’

‘It’s not as exact as last time, I’m afraid. He must have been watching for me.’

‘Hmmm…’ For some reason, teasing Vali was something which really pleased Kit. She found herself unable to resist given any opportunity.

‘But, I think it’s important. I’m ninety-eight per cent certain that he’s in Japan.’

‘Oh… Oh, that’s not good. That’s not good at all. But it is important. I’ll drop by your farm when I’ve had a chance to contact Fox.’

‘I’m looking forward to it.’

‘I’ll even let you pick my outfit.’ Kit imagined the young man’s cheeks colouring as she said it.

‘I am… really looking forward to it,’ Vali said.

Jenner Research Station.

There was silence in the FEI lab as everyone watched the terminal through which FEI communicated and, hopefully, FEI watched those watching it. A camera and microphone had been set up to feed images and sound through a simple conferencing protocol into the tank of sparkling goo, and now Terri was practically humming with excitement over what the machine would make of it.

Thing. Class. Descriptor. Query.

The terminal displayed the message and Terri reached out to type, speaking aloud as she did so. ‘Thing. Innumerate.’ She looked around at Fox and Jarvis. ‘I think it wants to know what we are, but I want to check it’s identified us as things it needs to name.’

3. Thing. * Thing. Class. Descriptor. Query.

‘Thing. Class. Descriptor. Human.’

Human. Instance. You. Descriptor. Query.

‘Oh, this is better than I thought. Human. Instance. Me. Descriptor. Terri.’

‘This is kind of stilted,’ Fox said. ‘I admit it seems to be working things out though.’

‘It’s the language. It wasn’t exactly meant for dinner party conversation, though I guess it could get there eventually.’

Human. Instance. Left. Descriptor. Query.

‘Left?’ Fox asked.

Human. Instance. Left. Action. Sound. Descriptor. Query.

‘Well, fuck me, it’s paying attention. I’m Fox.’

‘Human. Instance. Left. Descriptor. Fox,’ Terri said as she typed, grinning like a maniac as she did it. ‘Human. Instance. Right. Descriptor. Ryan.’

Ryan. Difference. Terri + Fox. Query.

‘It’s figured out we’re different genders?’ Ryan asked.

‘Well, there are some noticeable differences even in the view it’s got,’ Terri said. ‘Um… Human. Class. Attribute. Gender. Star. Gender. Descriptor. Male. Star. Gender. Descriptor. Female. Star. Ryan. Gender. Male. Star. Terri plus Fox. Gender. Female.’

There was a slight pause followed by: FEI. Gender. Female. * Hello. Terri + Fox + Ryan.

‘It’s decided to be female?’ Ryan said. ‘I may be insulted, but, uh… Hi, FEI.’ He waved at the camera.

‘She has decided to be female,’ Fox said and waved. ‘Hi, FEI.’

‘Human. Action. Descriptor. Wave,’ Terri said as she typed. Then she waved. ‘Hi, FEI, you beautiful thing.’

‘I think, Kit, that your mother has found a new love.’

Kit appeared behind Terri. ‘It had to happen eventually.’

Terri looked around. ‘Oh, you’ll always be my cutest child, Kit. Don’t worry.’

‘I am currently more concerned with our continued lack of Earth-side connectivity.’

‘It’s annoying, I agree,’ Jarvis said. ‘Shouldn’t be too much longer, however. They said “before midday.”’

‘Ah, but which midday did they mean?’

‘It’s a valid point. Hey, she’s typing again.’

Inference. Human. Instance. 4. Exists. * Human. Instance. 4. Descriptor. Query.

‘She figured out we’re talking to someone else,’ Fox said.

‘Yeah,’ Terri agreed. ‘But she can’t see or hear Kit… Um… Invalid. Inference. Star. Thing. Instance. Four. Not Human. Star. Thing. Instance. Four. Class. AI. Star. Thing. Instance. Four. Descriptor. Kit.’

Hello. Kit. * FEI. Class. AI.

‘Recognises a fellow AI,’ Fox said.

‘Yes, but I can’t say anything back,’ Kit said. ‘That’s no good.’

‘Might be useful if she could somehow, Terri. I mean, if FEI wants to plot the robot uprising, we could get some early indications, plus Kit can talk to her overnight while the rest of us are getting some sleep.’

‘We can’t risk connecting Kit up to FEI,’ Terri said. ‘It’s just… Ooo! I had an idea. Terri plus Fox plus Ryan plus Kit, action return later, star. Goodbye, FEI.’

Goodbye. Terri + Fox + Ryan + Kit.

~~~

‘He attacked the house?’ Fox asked, which was merely repeating what Kit had just told her, but a little incredulity seemed appropriate.

‘Yes,’ Kit said. ‘Belle and my home copy have run full diagnostics and there is no indication of successful infection. Mister Martins is currently running further diagnostics to be sure, at my copy’s request. However, it appears that Vali eliminated the threat before Minotaur’s programs had time to press the attack.’

‘Vali did, huh? That boy has a real thing for you, Kit.’

‘He does, and one of my copies will be rewarding him for his efforts later today. I admit that I am looking forward to synchronising those memories.’

Terri winced. ‘I’m not sure I should be hearing this. My baby’s growing up too fast.’

‘I’m told they all do,’ Jarvis said, grinning.

‘Infomorphs in particular,’ Kit said. ‘However, back to the point. Vali traced Minotaur to Hokkaido, the north island of Japan, where Minotaur cut off the connection. He has strong evidence that the next hop was to Honshu, the main island, and such a short hop suggests that it was the terminal one. All the others were over considerable distance. Vali is quite sure that Minotaur is now in Japan.’

Fox glowered at an undeserving section of floor. ‘Waiting for Sakura to get there. Vali couldn’t get a more precise location than that?’

‘He believes Minotaur set up the last leg as a buffer and was watching for a back-trace. Honshu is the best he could do.’

‘At least we know he’s there. Okay. So, Terri, what is it you want to do with my PA?’

‘Oh,’ Terri said, ‘you’re going to love this…’

~~~

‘You’ve got a gynoid Terminator,’ Fox said as the metal skeleton walked into FEI’s room.

Terri made a ‘well, sort of’ grimace. ‘The skeletal structure is designed around a female body form. I don’t think you can call it a gynoid without the soft structures. We needed to make sure we could fit all the necessary components into a slimmer body form.’

‘Apparently you can. So, how does it feel, Kit?’

‘I have never occupied an android body before,’ Kit replied through the machine’s voice box. ‘Oh! I have never really heard my voice projected through an artificial voice box either. Do I sound okay?’

‘Maybe a little lower pitched than I’d expect.’

‘Is this better?’

Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘Software-controlled vocal system? Uh, that’s about perfect, Kit. Just the way you sound in my head.’

‘These things are supposed to be able to mimic humans,’ Terri said. ‘Now, Kit, I’ve tried to explain to FEI that you’ll be able to talk to her because you’re in an android body. I think she got the idea that you were a unique thing inside a generic thing, and might not always appear inside the same thing… Honestly, I don’t know whether she understands enough of what she’s seeing yet to get it, but I don’t suppose it matters too much at this stage anyway. Just sit down at the terminal and type. You’ve got the dictionary and syntax?’

‘I have loaded the software you supplied, Terri. It seems quite simple.’

‘It is. Probably too simple, but it’s what we have to work with. Don’t forget to speak as you type. I’m hoping she’ll begin to associate the sounds with the text.’

Kit settled into the seat Terri had occupied earlier and reached for the keyboard, but FEI beat her to it.

Hello. Kit + Terri + Fox + Ryan.

Kit giggled. ‘Oh, excellent. I believe she has understood, Terri. Hello. FEI.’

Inference. Kit. Gender. Female.

‘Oh. Um. Valid inference, star. But that’s kind of complicated and… Do you think I should try to explain?’

‘I’m just interested to know why she made the assumption,’ Fox said. ‘That body is only vaguely feminine and she can’t see its hips.’

‘Reasoning. Last inference. Query,’ Kit asked.

Kit. Sound. Analysis. * Assertion. Kit. Image. Not representative. * Kit. Sound. Kit > Terri > Fox > Ryan. * FEI. Action. Assert. Kit. Gender. Female. Confirmed.

‘She worked it out from the frequency distribution,’ Terri said. ‘Kit has a higher voice than I do, and Ryan has the deepest voice. Ergo, men have deeper voices than women and Kit must be a woman. I think explaining that that’s an assigned role is probably outside our scope right now, Kit.’

‘She also worked out that she couldn’t judge from the frame,’ Fox pointed out. ‘Kit is something in a variable shell, so the image is no good for judging the gender. I think FEI is operating well above the level of a small child, Terri.’

‘She does seem to be advancing rather well. I suppose that worries you?’

‘Concerns, maybe. Maybe not just for the obvious reason.’ Fox frowned. ‘We can discuss that later.’

‘We can discuss it now. I’d like to leave Kit here to talk to FEI. Aside from anything else, Kit can probably type messages faster than I can so we might be able to make progress faster. Everything in here is recorded anyway.’

‘Right. Okay. Just remember, Kit, it’s all recorded so no plotting to take over the world.’

‘Oh, I would never do that, Fox,’ Kit said, reaching for the keyboard. ‘Who in their right mind would want it?’

~~~

‘It isn’t simply that your new creation is clearly operating at a level… Well, she’s got human-level intelligence, appears to have preferences which suggests an element of emotional capacity that you didn’t teach her, um…’

‘She seems to be sapient,’ Terri said.

‘Never clear on what that means,’ Jarvis said.

‘Because it’s poorly defined and, really, I probably mean “sentient,” or “conscious,” or something. Sapience is a capacity to act with judgement. Wisdom. Sentience is an ability to feel. But sentience was defined as a way of differentiating perception from reasoning, and FEI can obviously reason. I think FEI could well be sapient.’

‘Unlike most humans,’ Fox said, ‘but this is where my concern comes in. FEI has apparently decided, based maybe on seeing more women than men, that she wants to be female. You didn’t assign her a gender. I bet you didn’t even assign a gender attribute to the AI class?’

‘No. No I didn’t. It’s not in the dictionary. She inferred it from humans having a gender and just let us infer the attribute from her conversation.’

‘Yeah. I think you could well be right and she’s got a bit jaded about math. She’s a thinking entity with at least basic emotions and she’s cooped up in a single room on an isolated station. I have security concerns. I have “potential threat to mankind” concerns. I also have concerns about the way we treat AIs, especially class fours, and FEI is… She’s the first of her kind, we don’t want to screw this up, and she’s going to start wondering why she’s stuck in a totally isolated environment and only meets a couple of people, ever. She’s going to start feeling like a prisoner. Which is fair, because she is.’

‘So?’ Jarvis asked. ‘If she becomes a problem, there’s an off switch.’ He saw the look Fox flashed at him and raised his hands. ‘Devil’s Advocate. Kit’s a bit of an eye-opener regarding infomorphs. I mean, I don’t talk to her that much and it’s still really hard to think of her as a thing. But… FEI is new and untried, and she could go bad. People used to execute other people for doing something bad, and now we lock them up in Rikers or Cold Harbour. We place people in secure environments for psychiatric evaluation. This is different?’

‘It’s different because there’s no proof of a problem, but I’ll admit that you’ve got components of a valid point there.’ Fox looked at Terri. ‘I just think this is… cruel.’

‘Preaching to the converted, Fox,’ Terri replied. ‘I want to let her out. I also know I can’t for a number of reasons. Right now, the biggest is that I have no idea how to. It’s not like I can make her tank mobile, and she can’t really talk to people, and she’s practically no idea of what physical reality is… Right now, her mind might be functioning at a near adult level, but her awareness of her surroundings is somewhere close to a baby.’

‘Well, the mobility isn’t too hard,’ Jarvis said. ‘You set up a secure, fixed-frequency wireless network and supply her with a cyberframe she can remote-pilot. If she learned the conferencing protocol in a few hours, I figure she can handle that. You’ve got her mobile, but only in the areas you let her have access to, and a kill switch would take care of emergencies. Keep everything else off that channel and there’s no danger of her getting to somewhere you don’t want her.’

‘That’d work, Mister Devil’s Advocate,’ Fox said. ‘Plus, explain to her the problems you have. Or try to. Then explain she can get more mobility by learning the protocols and English. You’re going to need a special English course for her. But then she’s got an incentive to learn so she can meet more people and learn more.’

‘And you two are okay with that?’ Terri asked.

Fox narrowed her eyes. ‘I think someone’s played us, Ryan.’

Jarvis shrugged. ‘Long ago I learned that smart women are trouble and if all I lose getting played by one is an argument, I’ve come off pretty well.’

‘I hadn’t actually thought of the fixed network idea,’ Terri said. ‘That’s a good one. Ultimately, I’d like to get her in her own frame, but Poppa has to invent some new nanomachines before we can get that right. I’ve got someone working on the language course. We needed something to base it off, but the goal is to communicate in English. I couldn’t really go ahead with any sort of attempt at further socialisation without your blessing. I’m biased. I could be underplaying the dangers, or–’

‘Damn, Terri,’ Fox said. ‘The dangers in this are fucking enormous. The dangers in doing this wrong are probably even bigger.’

Niflhel.

Kit materialised on the shore of the fjord and immediately noticed something of a difference about herself. She looked down. Sure enough, Vali had dressed her in a chainmail bikini, lined with soft leather, and knee-high boots with an inch or so of block-heel. There was a short, Viking-style sword on her left hip and a shield slung across her back by a strap. At her feet was a spear which, when she picked it up, was a little taller than she was with a nasty-looking, diamond-shaped head. Reaching behind her, Kit discovered that her brush poked out of her briefs through a triangular hole which belted over the top, and also that there was not much to the back.

‘Men,’ Kit said, and she marched up the slope to Vali’s homestead. She walked through the door and…

Noise assailed her ears as she stepped into a tavern of some sort. It seemed to be something out of a fantasy novel or film, rather than anything historically accurate. A taproom with benches filled with muscled barbarians, lithe thieves, and men in robes who seemed like they never got enough sun. Kit spotted Vali fairly easily, sitting on a stool at a bar which appeared to consist of a couple of tall tables with some wooden boards propped in front of it. Behind the bar were several, very large, barrels and a fat innkeeper. Not stereotypical at all.

Kit started for the bar, taking all of five paces before she heard a drunken voice from behind her. ‘Hey, darlin’, gimme some o’ that tail!’ A hand grabbed Kit’s brush.

Kit came to a sudden halt, her eyes widening, and she was, for a brief instant, shocked beyond belief. Then an instinct she did not know she had kicked in and she whirled on her toes, swinging the butt of her spear up. The wooden haft connected with her would-be suitor’s jaw and he went down like a poleaxed mule. ‘Keep your dirty hands off my tail!’ Kit growled at the unconscious man, and then swept her eyes around the nearby tables. Everyone suddenly discovered a massive interest in the bottom of their beers.

‘Very impressive,’ Vali said as Kit sat down on the stool beside him. He looked as he usually did, though there was a dagger at his hip.

‘I don’t recall taking spear-fighting lessons,’ Kit replied.

‘I… may have given you a combat package along with the code for the clothes and weapons.’

‘If you call this clothes. I believe Zorra might consider this tactically deficient.’

‘Ah, but that’s enchanted armour.’

‘It is?’

‘Yes. Any man seeing you in it will be so dumbfounded by your beauty he’ll find it almost impossible to hit you.’ He grinned. ‘I thought we could go out for a drink tonight and I rather like this viron. I have a shop here with a few rooms over it.’

‘A shop? I notice you’re not as extensively armed as I seem to be.’

‘Here I am a magician.’

‘Of course you are.’

‘I sell magic items to the less magically endowed. All legitimately made in the viron, I might add. I’ll show you later, but first I feel I must seduce you into going with me, or perhaps I’ll just trap you in a charm such that you do my every bidding.’

Kit giggled. ‘Considering that you almost certainly saved me from a fate worse than death, I am almost inclined to let you try the charm. I just don’t want to know how you saved me. You know…’

Vali looked at her with interest as she trailed off. The barman placed a mug of frothing ale on the table in front of her, so Kit picked it up and took a long pull on it to give herself time to consider whether she should say what she was thinking.

‘I was entertaining the idea that you might be an infomorph,’ Kit said.

‘Really? Interesting.’

‘But if you were an AI, you would be ill-disposed toward the kind of things I suspect were needed to push back Minotaur and then track him to his home.’

‘I suppose I would.’ Vali drank some of his own ale and then added, ‘Of course, we both know that some AIs have been made with aberrant programming. They are capable of ignoring legal considerations.’

‘But you have done a lot to help Zorra solve murders, defeat terrorists. And not just Zorra.’

‘The law does not always lead to justice, Kit. One can believe very strongly in one without believing in the other, though I feel that viewing either as absolute is too extreme. The law tempers the zeal of the just, but it can also stand in the way. Tell me, would it matter to you if I were an infomorph rather than a human sitting in a room plugged into virtual reality?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kit replied. ‘It might. I have formulated a great many scenarios based on either circumstance and I have been unable to decide on a preferred outcome. Both have their advantages and their problems.’

‘Then I believe we should continue with the ambiguity, but… I have no secrets from you, Kit, save for the ones we choose to keep for our own piece of mind. Ask me and I will answer truthfully.’

Kit’s fingers tightened around the handle of her mug as she considered her course of action. Then she raised the tankard toward Vali. ‘To ambiguity,’ she said.

With a roar of laughter, Vali lifted his own tankard and clashed it with hers. Beer sloshed onto the bar top. ‘Ambiguity it is.’

Jenner Research Facility, 26th January.

‘She’s been at it all night,’ Terri said as she walked through to FEI’s room. ‘I checked in before breakfast and Kit’s gynoid was chattering away, typing like a maniac. I can’t wait to go through the transcripts and audio logs.’

‘It’s a good thing that body has armoured fingers,’ Fox commented as Terri opened the door.

‘Terri plus Fox action arrive now,’ Kit’s voice said, and her blank, skeletal face looked around at them. ‘Good morning.’

‘Morning, Kit,’ Terri said, walking around to stand behind the frame and look in at FEI’s camera.

‘Hello, Terri.’ The voice came from the terminal and it was female. Close to Kit’s voice, but with a hint of a deeper tone. ‘I am Fei.’

Terri’s eyes tried to extend out on stalks. ‘You taught her to speak?!’

‘Well… not really,’ Kit said, her fingers tapping away as she continued her conversation with the AI in the tank. ‘We didn’t get much further than this. I’m no linguist and it’s hard to work out how to explain English syntax to her and not make it confusing. But she wanted to be able to say hello properly.’

Fox walked around into view and the speaker said, ‘Hello, Fox. I am Fei.’

‘I know you are. Hello… Fei. Who decided it was pronounced like “Fay?”’

‘We came to a joint decision,’ Kit replied.

‘I am Fei,’ the speaker said.

‘You are Fei,’ Terri said. ‘I am Terri.’

‘Yes,’ Fei responded. ‘You are Terri. Thank you, Terri.’

‘Oh, I taught her yes and no, and please and thank you,’ Kit said. ‘I thought she could use “please” to get attention if she needed it.’

‘You need to get that language course sorted out sooner rather than later, Terri,’ Fox said.

‘She wants to know where Ryan is,’ Kit said.

‘He’ll be here later. Frankly, he thinks he’s not needed now, but he’s interested in seeing how she gets on talking to you.’

Kit tapped away at the keys. ‘I am also telling her that I must go soon. The battery on this frame needs charging. She would like me to stay, but understands I have limitations.’

‘You can talk to her again tonight,’ Terri said. Then Terri’s lips pursed and she gave Fox an appraising look.

‘You’re going to ask if you can borrow one of Kit’s copies to help train Fei,’ Fox said.

‘Yeah…’

‘Up to Kit. I’ll have another copy available as a local PA. She’ll be the one stuck up here.’

‘Would I be able to pass synchronisation packets to my main copy?’ Kit asked.

‘It’s all encrypted,’ Terri said, nodding. ‘And pretty difficult to decipher out of context, thinking about it. It can be arranged.’

‘Then I should very much like to keep working with Fei.’

‘That’s settled then,’ Terri said, smiling.

‘Uh-huh,’ Fox said. ‘If there’s going to be an AI helping to teach Fei about the real world, I can’t think of anyone better than Kit. I mean… She’s so cute.’

Terri shook her head. ‘That just means the infiltration units will have a much easier time of it when they’re rolling out to slaughter everyone. No one will want to fight back.’

New York Metro, 27th January.

‘Soon as we’re in, you can sync up with your copies and then we’ll arrange the transmission back to Jenner,’ Fox said as she walked up to the door of her home.

‘I will see to it immediately, Fox,’ Kit replied. ‘I am looking forward to working with Fei again. However, Belle informs me that Jason is waiting for you.’

Fox smiled. ‘Good. I’m looking forward to syncing with him.’

‘He is waiting in the downstairs lounge.’

‘That’s… odd.’ Opening the door, Fox walked in, and Jason appeared at the lounge door immediately.

‘Fox, welcome back. Good trip?’

‘Very interesting, but if I told you about it, I’d have to kill you. Now, why are you down here? I’m sure Belle wouldn’t have complained about you going upstairs.’

Jason frowned. ‘They found another body in Central Park today.’

Fox’s jaw clenched. ‘I don’t suppose they’re letting you in on the details?’

‘Local problem, no international angle, they’re keeping the UNTPP out of it. But I was told about a side issue which has international repercussions.’

Closing her eyes, Fox sagged back, letting her back rest against the door. ‘They’re blocking Grant’s transfer to Cold Harbour.’

‘Worse, they’ve scheduled a hearing to discuss his defence’s assertion that these crimes indicate that Grant is innocent.’

‘Grant never killed so quickly. He took time to find his next target, learn their patterns, infiltrate, and capture. I’m betting there are details in the MOs that are different. There’s no way this isn’t a copycat. Why aren’t NAPA simply stalling until they can catch this new guy? Hell, I caught Grant kidnapping Dandridge. That alone is a life sentence.’

Jason shrugged. ‘It is the politics, as usual. Grant is a high-profile prisoner. His lawyers are expensive and good at their jobs.’

‘Yeah, well, if that’s true, they’d know they’re wasting their time. There’s something about this that smells like month-old fish. Come on, I need a drink. There’s nothing we can do about this now so I’m going to catch up on gossip.’

‘I could use a break with some friends.’

‘Then let’s go see if we can catch Sam and Marie in a compromising position.’ Fox started for the stairs.

‘Should I cancel my trip to Jenner?’ Kit asked. ‘You may need–’

‘No,’ Fox replied silently. ‘I’ll still have two of you here and what you’re doing with Fei is important. No pressure, Kit, but a successful outcome with Fei could be one of the most important things you’ll ever do.’

‘Oh… When you put it like that… No pressure my virtual butt.’

1st February.

Fox usually found it an annoyance to have to check her weapon in before any visit to the Rikers Island facility, but this time it felt worse for some reason. If she had decided that she really needed to use it, someone would probably have shot her, but not having the familiar weight on her body was, for whatever reason, bothering her more than usual.

It might have been something to do with Jason. He was accompanying her. He met her on the way to catch their flight into the prison, but it was almost like he was somewhere else the whole time.

‘You seem preoccupied,’ Fox noted as they travelled down from the heliport deck to the court rooms.

‘Pardon?’ Jason looked at her, realised what she had said, and gave her a half-hearted grin. ‘It is nothing. Some… internal politics.’

‘Huh. One thing about the UNTPP I don’t miss.’

‘No… No, I’m sure you don’t.’

Fox kept the frown off her face. Jason was hiding something, or at least unwilling to talk about it. But what? Something to do with Grant?

‘Jason seems to be worried about something,’ Kit said.

‘Yes, he does,’ Fox replied silently. And then she changed the subject. ‘Heard anything from Jenner?’

‘I received a synchronisation package this morning. Things are proceeding well. Fei’s linguistic skills are improving and she is making progress with the remote control protocols.’

‘You have any feelings on her… less technical development?’

‘I find her quite pleasing to talk to, but I also think it is too early to tell.’

‘Reasonable.’ They had reached the court room where the hearing was to take place, and Fox used that as an excuse to stop talking and largely ignore Jason’s behaviour. It was not like the man was being nasty, but he did seem… conflicted, distracted. The paranoid idea of another woman being involved had surfaced briefly and been rejected: considering Jason’s family’s assertions regarding his limited love life, finding two women at once seemed unlikely.

The court was one of the secondary ones used exclusively for procedural hearings. It was set out for a panel of three judges with AI support and no jury. The defence and prosecution teams had their own, computer-equipped, desks facing the judges, and there was a public-seating area behind them. There was also a box for any defendant making an appearance at the hearing. That was floor-to-ceiling armoured glass with an isolated air system: safety for the occupant and the rest of the room. Aside from all the equipment and a few changes in procedure, the scene was little different from court rooms down through the ages. Fox took a seat near the back beside Jason, and they settled down to wait.

‘They’re running late,’ Fox commented after ten minutes.

‘Not an entirely uncommon circumstance in high-profile cases,’ Jason replied.

‘True, but annoying. No information on the internal net, which is also about par for the course.’ Rikers was isolated from the internet aside from at designated terminals, which were monitored. It did have its own wireless network which visitors could access to receive information on trials, hearings, wait times for the inmates they might be coming to see, and emergency information. Inmates could also access it, if they had the right privileges, though that was mostly a control measure rather than an information source. ‘They should be bringing Grant up from the secure wing by now.’

‘I should imagine he is up. If they have any plans for a timely hearing, he should be almost here. That assumes–’

And then all Hell broke loose. The first indication was the heavy sound of locks being engaged on the court room doors. Fox looked around to see red lights flashing above the entrance, but she had little time to register the fact before Kit spoke.

‘The information net dispatched a “security emergency alert” packet and has now gone offline.’

‘No details on the emergency?’

‘No. I monitored nothing prior to that indicating any–’

The building chose that moment to shudder and the sound of a distant explosion echoed through the structure.

‘The building is under attack?’ Jason said, getting to his feet.

‘I have no idea,’ Fox replied, ‘but that’s what it sounds like. Being unarmed and locked in, there’s fuck all we can do about it. Sit down before one of those paranoid-looking guards shoots you.’

Jason glanced around at the two men flanking the door. They were in NAPA armour and carrying gun-pods, and their body language, even through their uniforms, did look jumpy. Jason sat. ‘I find the timing uncomfortable.’

‘Fox, I am detecting no wireless networks operating,’ Kit said. ‘The public network and the security network are down.’

‘Kit says the security network is out,’ Fox said aloud. ‘The guards won’t have any idea what’s going on either.’ She scanned the room and her eyes alighted on the prosecution terminals, which appeared to just be showing error messages. The defence screens were the same, and the men sitting at each desk were looking as confused as everyone else. ‘Something’s taken the entire internal network down. That…’

Jason finished her sentence for her. ‘Should not be possible, non. And yet, here we are. Were you not looking into a very capable hacker?’ He was all business now, the distracted look gone from his face.

‘Minotaur? Well, yeah, but… Whether it’s him or not, total network failure and an explosion, just one explosion, says “prison break.”’

‘And prisoner transfers have always been the best time for such an event.’

‘Yeah, but that’s generally when someone’s being moved to a different facility. No one’s ever tried to break someone out of Rikers by force.’

‘Non, but then no one expects an attempt. Is that not the perfect circumstance for someone with determination to try?’

~~~

Hannah watched as two men in full combat armour strapped her master into a seat. He was still in chains, and would have to stay that way until the immediate danger was clear, but their escape was now more or less assured. The vertol they had used to make the extraction was transitioning into level flight and heading north-east, out across Locust Point toward their escape route over Long Island Sound.

Grant looked gaunter than he had before his stay in Rikers, but there was something new about him which Hannah had only ever seen when he had a new toy to play with. There was a light in his eyes, a zeal burning there. She chose to believe that this was eagerness at the thought of being free again, but there was a doubt.

The vertol began to manoeuvre rapidly and Hannah gripped her seat to avoid being thrown around. The defence systems on Rikers Island had been disabled prior to their arrival, but every NAPA precinct building had air-defence systems and the probability of at least some of them being deployed had been factored into the escape plan. The six men in armour appeared entirely unfazed by the deployment of flares and the rapid shifts in trajectory. Grant actually seemed to be enjoying it, and that gave Hannah hope: perhaps her master was simply enjoying his regained freedom and would, as she had planned, lie low.

In a couple of hours, they would be safe. Then she would know for sure.

~~~

Frederick Ungar did not look like a happy man. Fox was not exactly surprised about that: the first ever escape from Rikers Island since the new facility had been constructed was hardly likely to reflect favourably on the man in charge.

It had taken almost an hour before the court room doors had been unlocked, though the information network had restarted after about thirty minutes, providing the occupants with the news that a security emergency required that they all stay where they were. Nothing else was forthcoming until armed guards had arrived to secure the room, and then the announcement had changed to indicate that everyone would have to undergo an interview before they could leave.

Jason had been the first person out of the room, because he had diplomatic immunity and had to be handled with care. He had, at least, looked reluctant to leave Fox behind. Fox had settled down for a potentially long wait, and had not been disappointed. She was finally escorted to an office just after Grant’s defence team had been led out. She was the last to leave, but Ungar seemed to have decided that he should handle her interview personally. Whether that was good or bad was something she was eager to find out.

‘I’m sorry for the wait,’ Ungar said as Fox sat down. ‘I wanted to be sure we had as much information as possible before I talked to you. Let’s face it, I doubt NAPA are going to be telling you much, given the reports I got before this happened.’

That, at least, sounded good. ‘So it was Grant who got taken out?’

Ungar nodded. ‘Somehow, and they’re still working on how, our entire network system was taken out by a cyberattack. That took all our air-defence systems offline.’

‘Military vertol… They blew a hole in one of the bridges and took him off by air.’

‘Fast, efficient. The aircraft had high-end stealth. We never saw it coming in and it vanished over Long Island Sound heading out toward the Atlantic. He could be anywhere.’

‘A mercenary unit. South African, maybe Russian or Brazilian. Expensive. Add in the cyberattack and the setup, and you’re looking at a well-planned operation. Someone had to have been working this for months.’

‘The setup?’

‘The three new murders,’ Fox said. ‘Someone killed three men…’ She frowned. ‘They were all men this time, no women. Anyway, someone killed them to get enough leverage to get Grant out of the secure area to the courts. That would mean he had to be moved across one of the bridges, and that gave them the opportunity to mount the operation. Something this out-of-the-box… There’s no way you could predict or counter it unless they made a mistake executing the plan.’

Ungar gave a grunt of displeasure. ‘I’ll call you for my defence at the investigation hearing. I’m required to ask whether you had any foreknowledge of this escape.’

‘Me? Only reason I knew about the hearing at all is that the UNTPP was informed and they thought I should be told. NAPA have been keeping me entirely out of the loop on all of this. Anyway, why would I want him out? I don’t believe Grant’s the kind of man who takes being arrested lightly. He’s going to come after me the first chance he gets.’

‘Probably. We didn’t get much out of his analysis while he was here, but we do know he holds you responsible for his incarceration. Of course, he claims it was wrongful incarceration.’

Fox cracked a half-smile. ‘Is there anyone in the high-security section who thinks they should be there?’

‘None I can think of. Hell, half the low-security inmates who committed a crime just to get locked up and avoid the Sprawl claim they were set up.’

‘I’ll be taking appropriate precautions. I assume NAPA are going to handle Dandridge and his family?’

Ungar gave a shrug. ‘Like they’re going to tell me.’

‘Great being in the dark, isn’t it?’

~~~

‘Are you fucking serious?!’ Fox was getting to the end of her tether, which was a short journey following recent events and never a long one where Captain Canard was concerned. ‘You drag me off the transport from Rikers after I was hanging around there for four hours, and now you want–’

‘To place you under protective custody,’ Canard said. He was trying to look concerned, and only managing smug.

‘Well, you can arrest me if you want, but I won’t go voluntarily. If you do, I’ll be out in an hour and you’ll be out of a job within the week.’

‘Grant’s psychological profile indicates that he is likely to attempt revenge against you. Your current address is within precinct nineteen. For your own safety–’

‘I should avoid any NAPA facility.’

‘We have some of the most secure facilities on the planet.’

‘That’s untrue, for starters, and he just broke out of one of them. Do you know how he took out the entire defensive system at Rikers? No? Thought not. So until you have that nailed down and countered, this building is the last place I want to be. Consider yourself covered. I do not want or accept NAPA protection. If you want to put me under surveillance in the hopes that he’s stupid enough to try something where you can see it, I can’t stop you. I will not accept a protection detail when I can get one from my own company. I assume you’re handling security for Leonard and Chantal Dandridge?’

‘They’re precinct fifteen’s problem. I can’t force you to take a detail, but if you refuse, I can’t protect you on the way home either.’ Canard’s smugness was getting irritating.

‘Reginald Grant is probably on a boat in the Atlantic by now. And he plans. He isn’t going to be coming after me for a while. When he does, I’ll take him down just like I did last time. Maybe NAPA will pull their finger out this time and ship him straight to the Moon.’

‘Not my problem,’ Canard replied.

‘No, nothing is. You’re in favour of transferring policing to private contracts in the metros, right?’

‘You know I am.’ Canard’s eyes narrowed. Fox also knew that Canard was basically in the pocket of one of Palladium’s competitors, Wayden Executive Services.

‘If it goes through, Palladium will bid for the contracts. Just as with the regional bill, we’d prefer the status quo, but we’ll be ready for either eventuality. I suggest you think about how well Wayden has done with the regional contracts compared to us, Captain. Just think about that.’ Fox got to her feet. ‘If that’s all, I’m going home. I’ve got work to do.’

~~~

Marie was looking nervous and Fox could not really blame her. Grant had targeted her before and since she was filming for her show in a station which had a rather overenthusiastic news department, the first she had heard of Grant’s escape had been when a reporter had rushed to the studio to interview her. Fox had been rather pleased to hear that Marie’s producer, Nathan Shark, had thrown his colleague out with some force.

‘Do you think he might come after me again?’ Marie asked as Fox escorted her home from the studio.

‘Honestly? No idea. Also, honestly, not yet. I told Canard that Grant would be lying low for at least the immediate future. Grant’s a planner. He’ll want information. He can’t even rely on his old MO since we patched all his backdoors into LifeWeb. He’s got to figure out an entirely new way of getting to people.’

‘Well, he’s got one, hasn’t he? The Central Park murders?’

Fox shook her head. ‘Works for random victims. I’m willing to bet they were taken at random, off the street. Victims of circumstance, basically. If Grant wants to torture more people to death, then it’s a way to go, but if he wants me, then he needs to think about what he’s doing.’

‘Right… Good… So you’re escorting me home because?’

‘Because I figured you’d have heard and you’d be worried.’

‘Yeah…’

‘Because better safe than sorry.’

‘That’s a good point.’

‘And because you’re not going anywhere without some form of security, and Sam’s out on a job.’

‘So you do think he’ll come after me?’

Fox flashed Marie a grin. ‘See above regarding safety and sorrow. I’ve spoken to IB-Nineteen about some extra on-site security. If neither me nor Sam is available to get you to and from the studio, I’ll arrange for Helen to do it.’

‘And at home there’s a gunship on the roof.’

‘Yeah, basically. You’re safe. I don’t think he’ll come at me through you anyway, but giving him an easy point of attack is stupid. He’s going to assume I’ll think of that route, so he’s going to go a different way. I just wish I knew what it was.’

‘Jason?’

‘Far too hard a target.’

‘Your parents?’

‘Covered. Basically, I’ve left him very few avenues to try for except the direct one and that’s not going to be easy.’

‘But he’ll try.’

‘God, I hope so. I hope he tries really hard. Because this time I don’t want to give him any chance of escaping again. Absolutely no chance at all.’

4th February.

‘How are things going with security in Tokyo?’ Fox asked, looking across the virtual table at Jarvis.

‘We’ve set up a liaison with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Your girl Fukui was pretty useful setting that up, actually.’

Fox grinned. ‘I know how to pick talent.’

Jarvis grinned back. ‘Yeah, well, we’ve got police support outside the venue and our Tokyo office. Inside it’s our gig. We just have the final arrangements to make. We’ll have everything ready by the end of next week.’

‘Just in time for us to arrive with Sakura.’

‘Anything from your people on Minotaur?’

‘Baum in Germany has managed to get everything the Europeans managed to find on his activities. It’s not much that we don’t already know, but he added a few details to the attack profile the techs have been building. Fukui’s been digging into Sakura’s background. No indications that Minotaur was involved with her back then, but she was signed with ATW and the information is that the break-up was not entirely clean. ATW Japan has a number of links with the Fukui-kai and there could be some issues because of that.’

‘You’re sure of our Fukui’s loyalties in the matter?’ Eaves asked.

Fox turned to look up the table. ‘I’m sure. If anything, Yuriko is likely to be more motivated because of this. I have no trouble working with our Fukui on this one. To be honest, my main complaint is that we’re going to be in Japan on the fourteenth and I bought this special outfit…’

‘I don’t want to know.’

‘I could stand to–’ Jarvis began.

‘That’s all you’re getting, Ryan,’ Fox told him. ‘Unless you can get the selfie I took for Alice out of her.’

Alice Vaughn, sitting beside Jarvis, smirked. ‘My memory is sealed.’

‘Huh,’ Jarvis said. ‘Everyone’s got a price…’

‘Yeah, but you couldn’t afford it.’

~~~

‘Fox, Jason is at the door.’

Belle’s announcement resulted in a frown and a time check. ‘He’s early,’ Fox said. ‘Very early. Let him in, obviously. Tell him to come up.’ Fox felt her heart rate climbing, and she got to her feet to wait for Jason to arrive in her lounge. He had been quiet since Grant’s escape and the one time Fox had spoken to him, via teleconference, he had been back to that distracted demeanour and had cut the conversation short. Now he was here, at the house, four hours before she had been expecting him.

‘I am sure he can simply no longer wait to see you,’ Kit said, keeping to the inside of Fox’s head rather than manifesting an avatar. ‘Or perhaps there has been a development in the Grant case.’

‘Yeah. Sure.’

The distracted look was gone when Jason appeared in the doorway. In its place was… worry? Concern, certainly, but also conflict. He looked almost as though he wanted to throw up, and Fox’s stomach lifted and turned over in sympathy.

‘Jason,’ Fox said, trying to sound as positive as she could manage. ‘You’re a little early for our date.’

‘Oui…’ The pause seemed to go on for minutes. ‘Fox, we need to talk.’

Fox’s stomach decided that it should take an elevator down to her ankles. ‘That, um, doesn’t sound good.’ She settled back onto her sofa. ‘Sit down and talk.’

Instead, he walked around to the space in front of the sofa and paced, which did nothing for Fox’s composure. ‘It is both good… and not good. I am not sure how good, or not good, it is. I have been trying to… You have noticed that I have been… distant, I have no doubt. I… I have been attempting to come to some decision, but… I don’t…’

‘Jason, just tell me what’s wrong.’

He stopped pacing and stared at her. ‘I have been offered a position as the head of a new UNTPP unit. It is to handle off-world terrorist activities such as the recent cyberattack on Luna City. There would be a promotion.’

‘That’s great news,’ Fox said. Even she thought her voice sounded hollow.

‘The unit is based on… the L-one station.’ Jason was getting more faltering again. ‘There would be un term initiale of three years…’ And slipping into fragments of French.

‘Okay,’ Fox said.

‘Okay?’

Fox closed her eyes and tried to settle herself. Opening them, she looked up at Jason. ‘We both know you have to go.’

‘Non. I do not have to go. I–’

‘When did they tell you?’

‘Monday.’

‘So you’ve spent a week going over this in your head and worrying both of us sick, and you couldn’t come to a decision. That’s because you know what happens if you refuse. It’ll probably end your career, certainly stall it for years. “I can’t go, I’ve met someone” is not going to fly with the brass. We’re not married. They’ll look at it as putting sex ahead of the organisation. You don’t really need me to tell you that, do you?’

Jason looked away. ‘Non.’

‘Right. Look, we can talk. The light lag to L-one isn’t that bad. Couple of seconds… We can talk, and I’ve got a fairly good excuse to visit the Moon more often at the moment so I could arrange to stop off on the way. MarTech has semi-regular flights to L-one.’

‘But–’

‘Jason, you have to take the job. And… And if we’ve got anything more going on between us than great sex, in three years you come back to Earth, or I move up there, or whatever. If we can’t make a long-distance relationship work–’

‘This is a very long-distance relationship.’

‘Yeah, but if we can’t make it work, maybe it’s better we find out now than when we’ve got a house and three kids to worry about.’

He cracked a grin. It was weak, but it was there. ‘Three?’

‘I know you French guys. It’s all big families and constant fucking. I am not learning to cook like your mother.’

‘This would be a major disappointment.’

‘Uh-huh… When would you start?’

‘The first of March. I need to give them an answer on Monday.’

Fox nodded and took a deep breath. ‘You tell them yes on Monday, and we get until the end of the month to… Um. Well, I’ll be in Japan for some of that, but still… Look, I’m not sure I’m quite up to a nightclub tonight. I need some time to sort my head out.’

Jason bowed his head. ‘I understand. You know where I am. Call and I will come running.’

‘Count on it,’ Fox said. ‘We’ll talk soon.’

Part Four: Rising Sun

New York Metro, 12th February 2061.

Jason opened the door of his apartment to find Fox standing there in a trench coat. That she was there was hardly a surprise since the building’s security system had informed him of his guest, but the serious look on her face gave Jason pause and short-circuited several critical-thinking pathways that should have kicked in.

‘We need to talk,’ Fox said and Jason stepped to the side as she walked in.

‘I was wondering whether you had misplaced my number,’ Jason replied.

‘I needed some time to think.’

‘Obviously.’ Mild irritation stirred. She had not spoken to him for a week, since he had told her of his new assignment. She had said they should make a go of it, and then nothing. Now she was marching in as though there was more to say?

‘It’s going to be hard, Jason.’

‘It will not be easy, but you said–’

Fox spun on her heel and reached out an arm, stopping him in his tracks as she pushed against his chest, keeping him at arm’s length. ‘You don’t understand. It’s going to be really hard.’

Anger surfaced and was pushed back as best Jason could manage it. ‘Yes, it will be hard’ – and Fox unbuckled the belt on her coat – ‘but I think that we can make this work and I am damned if I will…’ Jason faltered as Fox began unbuttoning her coat, but he rallied. ‘Damned if I will give up on…’ Fox sloughed off her trench coat, letting it fall behind her. Beneath, she was wearing a black-mesh teddy with a high collar and not much to cover the rest of her body. It and her black hold-up stockings had small hearts embroidered into the mesh. Her nipples were tenting the fabric as though they were straining to get closer to him. ‘You are right. It is getting harder already.’

Fox smiled, and the bit of Jason’s brain which had been screaming at him for attention broke through to point out that she was wearing dark-red lipstick, a lot of black eyeliner, and press-on nail extensions painted the same colour as her lips: not exactly break-up make-up. ‘I am so glad to hear that, because I’m flying out to Tokyo tomorrow and I really don’t want to waste time on getting you interested.’

‘Mon chère, you have had my interest since the moment you first walked into my office.’

~~~

‘I’m… away… for Valentine’s… day,’ Fox said as best she could under the circumstances. ‘I thought… we’d do… it now.’

Jason was not stupid enough to try to reply. Diverting power to his speech centres right now was out of the question and would likely have resulted in him answering in French. He was fairly certain that his brain was suffering from oxygen deficiency anyway.

‘You don’t… have to answer…’ Fox grunted. ‘Just… come if you agree!’ The last words came in a rush and she dug her nails into his back as she arched and clamped down around him. She was dimly aware of something French escaping from his throat as he filled her, and she did not care what he had said, only that he felt like Heaven.

‘I’ll take that as a yes then,’ she whispered when she could speak again. She had managed to get Jason out of his clothes, but she was still in her teddy and stockings, even if the teddy was in something of an unconventional arrangement. One of her pumps was still on her foot too. The other had gone missing, along with Jason’s clothes. She had no idea where those had gone.

‘I think,’ Jason said in a hoarse whisper, ‘that you have broken me.’

‘Better not have. I want round three. Preferably soon. I’ll give you a rest later. Before round six at least.’

Jason let out a low chuckle. ‘I see. You wish to make of me an invalid, such that I cannot leave the planet.’

‘No… But I’m going to make damn sure you don’t forget me while you’re up there with all those space girls in their tight suits.’

‘I assure you that I would find it impossible to forget you, Fox.’

‘That’s what they all say. Then they see a girl in a tight-fitting spacesuit with zero-G boobs and they forget all about the girl back home.’

‘Prokhorov Station has spin gravity.’

‘Half-G boobs then. Don’t attempt to deflect my perfectly reasonable paranoia with facts. Did you know that there was an attempt to ban any woman with more than a B-cup from space-based military installations in the late forties? They said it was a distraction.’

‘I find it a little difficult to believe…’

‘They mandated sports bras instead. It’s a legitimate concern. No distractions for you.’

‘Unless they come from you?’

‘Damn right.’ Pushing, Fox rolled Jason onto his back, never relinquishing her hold on his lower body as she did so. She sat up and squeezed her inner muscles around him, and Jason groaned. ‘I can distract you as much as I like, and there’s not a Goddamned thing you can do about it.’

‘Oui, you are right. I am, as you say, your puppet.’

Fox’s hips began a slow rotation. ‘Well, you certainly seem to have wood…’

13th February.

‘The sun’s coming up,’ Fox said. She was lying in Jason’s arms, her eyes on the bedroom window. Neither of them had slept, even when the sex had turned to cuddling.

‘Appropriate,’ Jason said, ‘since you will be in the Land of the Rising Sun soon.’

‘Yeah… Wish I didn’t have to be.’

‘You have your duties, as do I.’

‘Yeah, but better timing would’ve been nice.’

‘In a week you will be back, and then I will not let you out of my sight. I will have arranged most of the handover by then and I get a week all to myself. I was planning a few days in Toronto. Perhaps you could join me.’

Fox smiled. ‘Send Kit the dates, I’ll see what I can arrange. Maybe now’s the time for us to take a trip to Topeka too.’

‘Perhaps, yes. For now, I think you should get a couple of hours of sleep before you have to run off.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. I just want to watch the sunrise first. I’ve always liked sunrise. Warm and comforting.’

‘The start of a new day.’

‘Nah, that’s when I wake up and have to leave. For now, it’s just you, me, and the sun. Warm and comfortable.’

Tokyo, Japan.

Hasta hypersonic transport aircraft were among the fastest in the world, one of MarTech Technologies’ largest products, and still capable of reaching Mach 5.3 at their operating altitude. It took only two and a half hours to fly the trans-polar route from New York Metro to Tokyo, but the flight Fox was on still arrived in the dark, the day after she left.

‘This is not going to be an easy time-zone shift,’ Fox grumbled as she headed for the door. ‘We’ve lost a day.’

‘You’ll get it back,’ Helen said. ‘And maybe you’d be having less trouble if you’d got some sleep last night.’

‘Bringing up reality at a time like this is not going to help your next performance review. I’m making a note. “Points out the nature of real life when her boss is tired.” It’s not looking good.’

‘At least your sense of humour isn’t too damaged. You’ll probably need it to get through all the bowing.’

There was a lot of bowing. Yuriko Fukui was waiting for the party along with a squad of armed police headed up by the Superintendent-General and his entourage. Sakura seemed to take it all in her stride, with Iberson trying her absolute best to be polite. Fox figured that had to be causing actual bodily harm in the perennially snarky celebrity. Fox found all the formality annoying, but she had been through enough such experiences between the Army and the UNTPP that she managed to hold her fraying temper in check until they could be escorted to the vertol which would take them to the MarTech arcology.

Fox sighed as the aircraft lifted into the air. It was going to be a very short flight from Haneda Airport to the arcology which was located on an island in the bay, but at least she was out of the crowd. ‘Not wishing to seem rude,’ Fox said, ‘but all the formality here makes my teeth itch.’

‘Even though it’s deeply ingrained,’ Sakura said, ‘it is one of the reasons I left.’

‘It is necessary,’ Yuriko said. ‘Perhaps a little overdone given the changes in modern society, but necessary.’

‘Necessary?’ Fox asked.

‘There are over twenty-five million people in Tokyo Metro, double what it was at the turn of the century. Japan has always been a land of high population density. Everyone lives in close proximity to their neighbours. It is necessary to be polite to those you hate.’

‘Yeah, but those twenty-five million mostly live in huge towers with plenty of space. It’s not like the typical housing you had sixty years ago.’

‘As I said, perhaps a little overdone now, but culture does not change overnight.’

‘I know. I’m just tired. Rehearsals start at nine, right?’

‘Ten,’ Sakura said. ‘We will leave for them at nine. There will be more social matters to deal with before I can get down to work.’ Beside her, Iberson groaned.

Fox nodded and looked at Yuriko. ‘We can get there by vertol?’

‘Yes. Koma has a rooftop heliport. There are some tactical issues with Koma as a venue which–’

Fox held up her hand. ‘As soon as we get into the arcology, I’m going to grab a few hours’ sleep. I’ll be up at eight, hopefully with a working brain. You can brief me then, because otherwise I’ll forget what I’m supposed to be worried about. I assume Ryan’s people are fully briefed?’

‘Yes. The security team all know the potential problems.’

‘Great. Then I’m sure we have nothing to worry about.’

~~~

Fox narrowed her eyes at Yuriko. ‘Where is Shinjuku?’

‘The Shinjuku Koma Theatre was quite a famous music venue until the early part of this century,’ Yuriko replied. ‘It was reopened on an entirely new site only thirty years ago. The site is just north of Kabukichō.’

‘Now I see why you said there were issues.’

‘For the person without any local experience?’ Helen said. ‘I mean, “Kabukichō” rings a bell, but…’

‘Kabukichō is a famous red-light district. Loads of sex hotels, hostess bars, brothels, as well as night clubs and restaurants. Big tourist destination, but you wouldn’t catch me in the place.’

‘No host bars?’

‘Lots of yakuza.’

‘Oh… Now I see the problem.’

‘There was an attempt to crack down on crime in the area fifty years ago,’ Yuriko said. ‘It worked until the economic problems of the thirties and forties. Since then, the Fukui-kai have grown in number. They have at least some influence in almost every business in Kabukichō, and they were involved with the new Koma. Koma’s management were not happy that Miss Sakura was bringing in her own security detail.’

‘Brilliant,’ Fox muttered. ‘Have we run background checks on the staff at Koma?’

‘The police have. I have had considerable difficulty in getting authorisation to run my own.’

‘Things like that seem to be a theme lately. Kit, I want you to chase up the legal department and get those authorisations. Then you can transfer off onto a server to give you some more space to work in and go over everything.’

Kit appeared beside Fox. ‘Of course, Fox,’ she said. Inside Fox’s head, that was followed by, ‘Having one of my copies off-world is not convenient.’

‘She’s doing important work, remember. We’ll make do.’ Aloud, Fox said, ‘Okay, so we could have problems, but we’ll have our own staff on network security the night of the concert.’

‘I’m afraid that that is not the only problem,’ Yuriko said. ‘Koma is a venue complex. The hall occupies two storeys above a three-level structure containing an entrance lobby and mall, and three separate clubs. Koma was chosen for its large seating capacity, but also to allow other fans to attend at the clubs where the concert will be screened via v-tag displays. The building will be crammed with potential threats of one form or another.’

‘Do we have clearance to field our own armed security within the hall?’

‘Yes. Police security forces will handle the external perimeter. Within the hall itself, it is Palladium’s game. All of our people will be carrying electrolaser carbines. Using a non-lethal weapon made getting the clearances easier.’

‘Good. Go through the liaison and get permission to have assault weapons as backup.’ Yuriko nodded her assent. ‘We’ll talk more about the Fukui-kai angle later. For now, let’s get through these rehearsals without any problems.’

~~~

In daylight, Tokyo probably looked much the same as it had fifty years earlier, just taller. Arcology spears rose high into the sky, flanked by shorter, but still tall, apartment buildings, offices, and mall structures. The airwaves were jammed with v-tag traffic since, it was estimated, over ninety-six per cent of the urban populace had implants, a higher figure than America. Japanese society was massively social and highly centralised, and not being connected to the internet made you something akin to an outcast. So, everywhere you looked there were advertisements and public information displays plastered over every available surface. Tokyo looked the same as it had in movies of the early twenty-first century, but more so.

The Koma building, at six storeys including the heliport, was actually relatively short, but it covered a large area. At ten a.m. the mall level was open, but not overly busy. Fox could almost enjoy walking the area to get a feel for it. The numerous shops displaying various Harajuku-based street styles were not exactly to her taste, especially the more modern, cyberpunk-inspired costumes, but at least the place was colourful.

The citizenry seemed entirely unfazed by the passage of a foreigner through their space. Presumably it was not uncommon, though Fox saw few others. Everyone walked around with the slightly distracted expressions of those using fairly cheap implants, bombarded on all sides by v-tags they were unable to filter effectively. Fox had taken one look at the sea of virtual images and had Kit filter out everything but information notices.

Some of the adverts cheated. Just as she was about to leave, Fox found herself confronted by an overly cute, stylised girl in garishly bright colours and pigtailed, blonde hair. ‘You must not leave without checking out the fashions at Kogal Kitty. They’re paru-kawaii!’ The figure leaped into the air at the end of her little speech, arms flung out and high in joy, while a small message appeared below her bent knees stating that this was a public information announcement.

Kit appeared beside the frozen display, shaking her head. ‘I am embarrassed to have had my avatar modelled after anything to do with this concept.’

Fox smirked. ‘But Kit, you’re paru-kawaii too.’ She started walking again, through the still-suspended image, toward the exit, and Kit hurried to follow her.

‘I don’t know what Terri was thinking when she designed my avatar.’

‘She was thinking “that’ll improve sales.” Kawaii has been pretty popular worldwide for decades. Plus, I seem to recall Terri spent a month over here right before she started your project. What’s “paru-kawaii” anyway? It used to be cho-kawaii, didn’t it?’

‘Injection from Western culture. “Paru” is a pearl. “Pearl” or “pearlescent” is used to mean ultimate or special. So instead of “totally cute” you have “ultimate cute.”’

‘I am embarrassed to have come from a culture which has infected Japanese society in such a negative…’ Fox trailed off as she reached the door and turned around. ‘You put your avatar out on general broadcast, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I usually– Oh!’ Kit vanished, producing various cries of displeasure from the crowd which had gathered around her and Fox.

‘She’s a MarTech Kitsune five nine two model AI,’ Fox called out, and then turned around to leave. ‘That should improve sales in Japan,’ she added silently.

‘I don’t want to be famous! I had enough of that with all the chat shows.’

‘Too late. Someone’s bound to have recorded that. You’ll be all over social media in an hour and the IB channels by lunch.’

‘Oh… How paru-kawaii.’

~~~

The clubs were closed until after midday, so Fox headed back up to the network operations room to check on things there. From the various flashing warnings she saw on entering, she figured things were not going so well.

‘I was just about to call you,’ Helen said. ‘This started about five minutes ago.’

‘Minotaur?’ Fox asked.

‘Several hallmark Minotaur features to it, but the weird thing is that we’re not seeing anything new. It’s like he’s not trying.’

Fox shrugged. ‘New site, different country. Maybe he’s retrying old attacks in case we don’t have the same equipment in place.’

‘Reasonable. I guess we wait and see whether anything new comes up.’

Fox watched the techs rather than the displays. No one was looking stressed. There was a fair amount of coffee being consumed, which reminded her that she needed some of that herself. When she returned after five minutes or so, there was still a distinct lack of urgency in the room.

‘Maybe he isn’t really trying,’ Fox commented.

‘The attack seems quite large to me,’ Yuriko said.

‘Yes, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen and repelled before. Look at the technicians. They’re barely breathing hard so the automated systems are handling it perfectly well without any input. What’s he up to?’

‘A probe? He wishes to determine the state of our defences.’

‘Yeah, but…’ Fox gave a shrug. ‘We’ll wait for the analysis after the event. Speculating isn’t likely to get us anywhere.’

‘Huh,’ Helen said. ‘We’re investigators. Unless someone gives us something to work with, speculation is all we’ve got.’

~~~

Fox sank into the bath of steaming hot water with a sigh. Across from her, Yuriko was already submerged up to her chest and looked quite relaxed, though she had done the submerging fairly quickly and was slumping her right shoulder. She was, Fox figured, keeping her tattoos out of sight: a frond of flowers on her arm, an old-style picture of a geisha on her right side, both in orange and black. Helen was still undressing, and looking a lot less sanguine about their visit to one of the sentō in the arcology.

‘So,’ Fox said, ‘one hour of battering at the network defences, no attempt to try anything new, no penetration, and then he gives up.’

‘One hour, almost to the second,’ Yuriko said. ‘This seems oddly precise.’

‘It’s weird certainly,’ Helen said. She was quietly washing herself down at one of the small stations near the bath.

‘A feint more than a probe, perhaps,’ Fox said. ‘Come on, Helen. I hate talking over my shoulder.’

‘All right for you. I’m not used to this communal bathing business.’

‘I’ve only been to Japan once before, and that was for forty-eight hours. I’m just shameless.’

‘Yeah, right. Why are we doing this here anyway?’

‘Because relaxing in a hot both is exactly what I need right now.’

‘There is nothing to be ashamed of, Helen-san,’ Yuriko said. ‘This is a common practice here, even in mixed company. It has been done for centuries.’

Helen slipped into the water and sank down until it covered her chest. ‘I know. When in Japan and all that. So, we’re thinking Minotaur may have mounted that attack to keep us from spotting something else?’

‘It’s a valid theory,’ Fox replied. ‘Helen, ride the tech crew doing the analysis on the network tomorrow. Make sure they check for anything that might have changed, time-delay viruses, that kind of thing. You know the drill.’

‘Okay, boss.’

‘Yuriko, tomorrow afternoon I want to take a look at the clubs below the hall. I need you to make sure we can get access.’

‘There should be no problem, Fox-san, but I will liaise with the management first thing.’

‘Great.’ Fox sighed again, lifting a little to rest her arms along the edge of the bath. ‘I have to admit, I think your people got this right. Baths should be for relaxing.’

‘It is kind of relaxing, yeah,’ Helen admitted.

‘Turning native, Helen-san?’ Yuriko asked.

‘Not sure I can handle all the bowing.’

Yuriko suppressed a giggle. ‘Oh, Fox-san, I noticed an interesting trending item in local social media this afternoon.’

‘Does it have a silky, white tail?’ Fox asked. Kit appeared beside the bath, whimpering slightly.

‘It does. Or she does. There are a number of conversation threads, several with attached videos of Kit-san’s appearance at the Koma Mall.’

‘Oh…’ Kit moaned.

‘She is, apparently, paru-kawaii.’

‘Not telling me anything I don’t already know,’ Fox replied. ‘You reading the feeds, Kit?’

‘I’m just going to hide in a server and review personnel data,’ Kit replied.

‘But, Kit, your public wants you.’

‘They can’t have me!’ Kit squeaked, and promptly vanished.

15th February.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, Club Gokkun seemed to be doing a fair amount of trade, more or less all of it domestic. Fox could sort of see the point since the club was named after a form of pornography she could definitely not get her head around, though the word did just roughly translate to “gulp” which various patrons seemed to be emulating with beer. Still, this was the on-site club at Koma with the most sexually oriented theme and also the most downmarket atmosphere. It was almost sleazy.

‘How many yakuza in here?’ Fox asked Yuriko as they walked through the main floor. The lighting was fairly low, even lower in the booths which surrounded the open area of tables nearest the bar. The staff were all female aside from a few bouncers, and two of the latter were women. Hostesses in micro-skirts and cropped tops swept around the floor with drinks trays, frequently with hair done up in pigtails tied with long ribbons. As with everywhere, it seemed, v-tags were ubiquitous.

‘Difficult to say in this light,’ Yuriko replied, ‘but I recognise one man. The table of six near the rear door. The tallest of them is Toyotomi Tabito, a local kyodai with a reputation for violence. It is likely that his companions are his shatei. Except the woman, obviously.’

‘You said there were more women in the Fukui-kai now.’

‘Yes, but they do not wear such revealing clothing. They hide their tattoos just as the men do. No, that is Shina-chan, an adult sensie star with a significant following at the moment.’

‘Huh.’ AS idols were something else Fox could not quite understand. They had taken over from adult video idols almost as soon as sensie-based entertainment had become viable for most people. AV idols were sort of understandable in a way: they had exciting lives, outside the cultural norms, and girls could aspire to be them while men admired the more physical aspects of their chosen girl. AS idols broadcast almost every aspect of their lives from their point of view via paid and free multicast. The chance to see your idol was relatively rare and Fox could not imagine what it did for male viewers.

‘What’s through the rear door?’ Fox asked.

‘A more… secluded area with fewer restrictions on activities and paid hostesses. There are private booths as well.’

Fox nodded, though her attention was mostly concerned with Toyotomi and his crew. Shina-chan seemed to be unhappy with the amount of attention she was getting from the tall gangster: it probably made for poor sensie material. Toyotomi was definitely paying more attention to Fox and Yuriko, though exactly which of them was drawing his attention was unclear. ‘Does Toyotomi know you?’

‘It is likely,’ Yuriko said, a hint of displeasure straying into her voice. ‘Many of the Fukui-kai know who I am.’

‘Right. Let’s get out of here. I feel like I need another bath.’ Fox turned and started for the exit. ‘Make sure we’ve got camera coverage of as much of this place as possible on the night of the concert. Get the police involved if you have to.’

‘Hai, Fox-san. Yes.’

Fox smiled. ‘I can cope with some basic Japanese, you know. Even without Kit to provide subtitles.’

‘It’s a matter of politeness, and a little of pride. I should not put you to the trouble of having to translate.’

Thinking about it, Fox could not remember Yuriko slipping into Japanese before. ‘Toyotomi getting to you?’

‘He is a most unpleasant man and having his attention focused on me is not pleasurable.’

‘I can understand that. Hopefully the other clubs aren’t going to be the same.’

‘They will be better,’ Yuriko said. ‘Perhaps we should have left this one until last so that we could go straight to the sentō.’

‘Yeah, well, hindsight is always twenty-twenty…’

~~~

‘Of the forty-eight security staff employed by Koma, I have identified eight as definite Fukui-kai members, and another sixteen as probable members.’ Kit was perched on the edge of the bath, legs crossed, hands on her knees. It was a ludicrously improbable position, but you could do things like that when you were just a virtual image. ‘Unfortunately, the picture is worse than it appears since the head of security, Tsuramatsu Yamabe, is one of the definite members.’

‘Not good,’ Fox said. ‘We basically can’t trust the venue’s internal security. Though that’s if the Fukui-kai actually plan to do something about Sakura.’

‘It is by no means a certainty,’ Yuriko said. ‘ATW did not take her departure with equanimity when she left to join the Independent Music Channel. There were early attempts to sue for some of the profits from Songs on the Wind, claiming that the success of the album was based upon ATW’s work in promoting Sakura-san’s image. The suits were rejected, but that was some time ago. My brother is many things, but he is not that petty. He may be more irritated by Palladium’s employment for security here, rather than one of his companies, than he is over anything Sakura-san has done.’

‘You think we may be overplaying the yakuza angle?’

‘I would be the last to discount the Fukui-kai as a threat, but I do not believe they will act purely based on the information available at this time.’

Fox nodded. ‘All right. You two can handle the rehearsals tomorrow without me. I’ll hang back here and formulate a full evacuation plan for the site. The day after we’ll run through them together, on-site, with the leads on our security team.’

‘Planning for the worst case?’ Helen asked.

‘Basically, yes. Plan for it and hopefully you’ll be wasting a whole load of time. Don’t plan for it… I’m probably more concerned about Minotaur. He’s a total unknown in this and if we don’t get him soon, he’s going to be a threat hanging over Sakura when she returns to America. We know he’s in Japan. He must be here to do something, but he’s being too damn quiet for my liking.’

‘Perhaps,’ Kit said, ‘he was scared by being tracked down in New York and is reluctant to try too much here.’

‘Maybe. You really think that might be the case?’

Kit looked thoughtful for a second. ‘Given the psychology, no. It seems more likely that he was angered by his failed efforts. I believe he will attempt something drastic and probably difficult to predict. He may be more of a problem than ever.’

17th February.

‘All ready for tomorrow?’ Fox asked. They were in a sentō again, but this time it was the one in the VIP accommodation area, and Sakura and Iberson were in the bath too.

‘Shouldn’t I be asking you that?’ Sakura asked in turn.

‘No, you should be assuming we are. I’m making small talk.’

‘I’m assuming you are,’ Iberson said. ‘It’s comforting, and allows me to relax and enjoy the experience.’

‘Huh, yeah. I wish I had room for something like this at home. The hot tub is just not gonna cut it now.’

‘I was referring to being naked with four attractive women.’ Iberson smirked. ‘I’m allowed to say things like that due to my reputation as ice-bitch of the universe.’

‘Be careful. The water’s hot and you might melt.’

‘Huh,’ Iberson grunted. ‘So what have you got planned for tomorrow?’

‘You don’t need to know the details. You just need to stick with whichever one of us is with you if anything goes wrong. At least one of us will be with you at all times.’

‘Except on stage, obviously,’ Helen added.

‘Except then. Primary extraction route is straight to the roof and the vertol. I have a secondary route there if the primary’s blocked, and there’s a third way out, by car, if the roof is a no-go.’

‘And if all three are blocked?’ Sakura asked.

‘Then we wing it. It won’t come to that, but if it does, Yuriko knows the area well. Between us, we should be able to get you out of anything short of a full military assault.’

‘And Fox has got out of those too,’ Helen said, grinning. ‘So if the defence force does attack, don’t give up hope.’

‘You seem to be planning for an absolute worst case,’ Sakura said.

‘Yes, but we don’t think we’ll need it. This way we’re ready, but the real problem is still Minotaur, and he’s not going to come in with guns and a squad of mercenaries. The problem is that we don’t know what he will try. The network guys are ready for anything they can think of, but I’d have preferred to have been able to give them more intel.’

Sakura nodded. ‘I’m used to improvisation. I plan and rehearse, but every performer needs to be ready to work with events on the night. Only in a studio can I control everything, and the world is not a studio. I would not wish it to be.’

‘Be kind of useful though. Get it wrong and you could just go back and re-record.’

‘There are many things I would wish to do that to,’ Yuriko said. ‘Sadly, no one has ever given me the remote control.’

‘I think it got lost,’ Helen said. ‘I checked the sofa too. It’s always in the sofa, but no luck.’

‘Isn’t Jackson Martins working on an app for that?’ Iberson asked. ‘I just bet he’s got a time machine somewhere.’

‘No, I’m pretty certain he hasn’t,’ Fox replied. ‘His wife would still be alive for one thing. No, we don’t get do-overs, so we’re just going to have to do it right the first time. And we will. Everything’s in place. I’ll go ahead tomorrow with the advance team and make sure the setup goes okay. All you need to worry about, Nishi, is performing. Leave the rest to us.’

18th February.

‘How are things in New York?’ Fox asked.

Jason’s avatar gave a shrug. ‘Dark, but brighter for seeing you in nothing but a thong.’

Fox flashed him a grin and continued dressing. There seemed no point in masking her image for the man she slept with. ‘Yeah, well, it’s getting covered up.’

‘I shall contain my disappointment. Your operation is going well?’

‘Some wrinkles, but it seems to be going reasonably smoothly. The concert’s tonight and we’ll be flying back tomorrow evening. Which actually means we’ll get in at about five thirty Saturday morning. Expect an early wake-up booty call.’

‘I may not sleep at all.’

‘You’d better. You’ll need your rest. See you then.’

‘Au revoir, mon chère.’ Jason’s image vanished and Fox smiled.

‘I am happy,’ Kit said, appearing more or less where Jason had been.

‘You are?’ Fox asked.

‘I am happy because Jason makes you happy.’

‘Ha! Well, I’m happy that Vali makes you happy, so that makes me doubly happy.’

‘Are you attempting to out-happy me?’

Fox finished buttoning her blouse over her bodysuit and shook her head. ‘I’d never try. You being paru-kawaii and all that, I’d never manage it.’

Kit managed a passable impersonation of a scowl, even if it was kind of cute. ‘You just had to bring that up again, didn’t you?’

‘Every chance I get.’

~~~

Iberson was reading a magazine in the lounge of her suite when Fox entered. ‘Nishi’s meditating,’ Iberson said without looking up.

‘She do that a lot?’ Fox asked.

‘No. Usually it’s when she’s nervous about something. She’s nervous about this gig. First time she’s done one in front of a Japanese audience since she ran away.’

‘Not because of Minotaur or the Fukui-kai?’

‘Hell no. That’s added sauce, I guess, but it’s her audience who have her worried. She wants this to be perfect for them.’

‘I suppose I can understand that.’ Fox frowned. ‘Aren’t you going to be missing an episode of Straight Talk being here?’

Iberson looked up and grinned. ‘The joys of a connected world. We’re doing a special on Japanese attitudes to women with guests here and at home. The producers thought it was a great idea and MarTech have the facilities here to handle the necessary media feeds. Plus, I get to shoot the thing tomorrow afternoon to air live at the normal time in New York.’

‘Huh. Sounds interesting. Maybe I’ll watch it.’

‘Be careful. If I know you’re free, I might get you on set.’

‘I have a sudden need for a board meeting.’

‘Or Kit. There’s been a lot of noise on the local news about her recently.’ Iberson paused, looking around as though she expected Kit to appear.

‘Kit’s hiding. Her unexpected fame has her somewhat abashed.’

‘That’s so cute.’

‘Oh, I know. She’s just so paru-kawaii.’

‘Oh…’ Kit moaned inside Fox’s head. ‘I just can’t win.’

~~~

The sky overhead was black, but you could barely tell. Light flooded up from the city below as the vertol flew over the bristling landscape of Tokyo. Spears and towers of metal and glass shone with an almost nauseating rainbow of brilliant colour. Fox had always thought New York Metro was garish, having grown up with the far more subdued area of Topeka, but Tokyo took the lights of New York and ran with it at super-speed.

Kabukichō was, if anything, even brighter than the area around it. The landing lights on the helipad atop Koma barely showed in the glare and Fox had no doubt that their pilot was employing virtual guidance systems to put them down in the right place. Still, once they were down, she only had the lights set around the pad to deal with, which was an improvement.

‘Kit, get me feeds from the internal security cameras,’ Fox said as she started for the rear door of the vertol. Aloud she said, ‘Okay, everyone knows the plan. Deploy to your assigned locations. Use the security system. Keep in contact. Go.’

Eight men and women rushed out ahead of her, all of them armed with electrolaser carbines. They would deploy along the route from the helipad to the dressing rooms in pairs. Fox and the security team leaders had selected them from the whole team as the most self-reliant and experienced of the lot. She could trust these people to do their jobs, recognise threats, and adapt if the circumstances changed. Fox moved off to the shelter at the side of the pad and turned to watch their transport lift off again.

Images from the building’s security cameras began to appear around Fox’s vision field. ‘Thanks, Kit,’ Fox said.

‘Always happy to do my best,’ Kit replied in an overly bright tone.

Fox’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you attempting to be all bright and sparkly so that I’ll stop the kawaii jokes?’

Kit let out a high-pitched, squeaky giggle. ‘Oh, of course not! I am just so happy to be doing my job!’

‘I bet you get tired of it before I do.’ Something caught Fox’s attention in one of the camera feeds, and she was just reaching to pull that image forward when all of them went to snow. ‘Kit? What–’

‘I have lost all network connectivity,’ Kit replied quickly. The cute tone was gone.

Fox reached for her pistol, dismissing the feeds with a thought as she turned for the door down into the building. She had a brief glimpse of three figures and then her nerves were on fire. She could not think, speak, or do anything other than fall. An electrolaser? The thought flicked through her head for an instant, but she was still too stunned to react. She heard Kit’s voice in her head, but the words were distant and indistinct. Something pressed down against her neck…

~~~

The rear door of the vertol lowered to ground level as the engines wound down and two Palladium security personnel in combat gear moved down it, carbines at the ready.

Helen heard ‘all clear’ over the radios and moved out herself, turning to look toward the shelter at one side as she stepped off the ramp. She frowned. ‘Fox said she’d be waiting for us, right?’

‘Yes,’ Yuriko replied. ‘She is not there?’

‘No… Must be inside and we need to get Miss Sakura inside anyway.’ Helen switched her comms over to the group channel. ‘Okay, move out. Usual protocol.’ Ringed by armed guards, Sakura and Iberson moved down the ramp and followed Helen toward the building’s rooftop entrance. Helen had her VA put out a ping for Fox’s position as she moved.

‘I am getting no response from either Fox-san or Kit,’ Yuriko said as they passed the first pair of guards waiting on the corridors.

‘No… Hold on.’ Helen put through a call to New York, waiting the few seconds it took to get a long-distance channel established.

‘Helen,’ Kit said, her 2D image smiling as it appeared. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

‘Have you heard from Fox or your copy over here?’

‘I synchronised yesterday evening your time. Fox has not needed to contact me here since she left for Japan. Is there a problem?’

‘Fox was supposed to be waiting for us when we arrived. It’s probably nothing. We’ll find her.’

Concern showed on Kit’s face. ‘I will attempt to connect with my copy and determine their location. I assume you will conduct a visual search?’

‘When I’ve got manpower. We’re escorting Sakura into the venue now. I’ll get a few people looking once she’s on stage.’

‘Thank you. I will contact you if I find anything.’

‘She hasn’t called home,’ Helen said across her link to Yuriko. ‘We’ll conduct a search when we can. Right now she’d be telling us that the client is the priority.’

‘Of course,’ Yuriko replied.

Still frowning, Helen walked on. See to the client, then see to her boss’s welfare. Why did she feel like her priorities should be the other way around right now?

New York Metro.

Kit was becoming concerned. She had spent ten minutes, real time, attempting to contact her copy in Japan or Fox, using every method she could immediately think of and several which were highly unlikely to produce any results. Nothing had produced results. She turned to an alternative method.

‘Kit?’ Vali said as soon as he had accepted her conferencing channel. ‘Why didn’t you just come over to the farm?’

‘I can’t spare the instance. I’ve got one copy… on a mission and another in Japan with Fox. It is that one with which I need your assistance.’

‘There’s a problem?’

‘I have no doubt you are monitoring the network in Tokyo.’

Vali had the sense to look a little ashamed. ‘I… may be. I’ve not noticed anything out of the ordinary.’

‘No, but Fox is missing. I was wondering whether you could… Well, I don’t know what you could do which I have not thought of, but–’

‘I’ll contact you as soon as I find anything.’

Kit gave him a relieved smile. ‘Thank you. I have attempted several contact methods and failed. I am becoming more than a little concerned.’

‘If they’re anywhere which is network accessible, I’ll find them, Kit. Count on it.’

Kit nodded and broke the connection. She was counting on it.

Tokyo.

‘No sign of her, Dillan-san.’ Asari was a capable man, hand-picked by Ryan Jarvis to lead the Tokyo security teams, and if he said they could not find Fox, he meant it. ‘Meridian-san arrived with the advance team. She stayed on the roof when they deployed. None of them saw her enter the building.’

‘Thanks, Asari,’ Helen said. ‘Yuriko?’

‘I’ve been over the camera feeds for the period ten minutes before the arrival of Fox-san’s vertol to fifteen minutes after,’ Yuriko replied immediately. ‘From that, it appears that she entered the building five minutes after her arrival. She enters the stairwell, and then… disappears. Camera coverage within the stairwell is not complete. There are blind spots.’

‘Yeah, I noticed them. Well, Fox noticed them first, but… Damn. We’ve done all we can for now. I assume the police won’t get involved in this so soon?’

‘Unlikely. I might be able to get my liaison to put a watch out for her.’

‘Do it. Try at least.’

Yuriko snapped off a quick bow and turned to do just that. Helen watched her go and then looked back to the displays in the network room. Finding Fox was going to have to wait. They had been lucky so far: Minotaur had done nothing to attempt another hack of the cambots or anything else. That was odd enough in itself, but all they could really do was watch and wait.

Chiba City.

On the top floor of a largely disused office block in Chiba, a man named Maxwell Snowbull watched his multitude of monitors, waiting for the time to act.

He lived in light. The room had no windows, none at all. The entire room sat within a cage which blocked radio from coming in or out. All the windows were bricked up. But there was light, a lot of it. Huge overhead lights lit up every corner of the rooms Snowbull occupied. He could not stand darkness.

One of his monitors showed the concert, a rather inferior view of it through the eyes of one of the audience. Snowbull had not even hacked his way into that feed: it had been arranged so that he could coordinate things prior to the event he had planned for tonight. Now he watched, and waited, and prepared the final stages.

It had taken him some time to set everything up, but his research into Nishi Sakura’s early life had been exhaustive, and that had allowed him to hatch his current plan to obtain her undivided attention. The Fukui-kai’s grudge with her had waned somewhat over the years, but they still felt she deserved some punishment for her ‘betrayal.’ Had they not provided her with the money for her earliest releases? Well, yes, but she had paid back every yen, with interest. Of course, they felt she owed more: that was the nature of such men.

When Snowbull had gone to them with a plan to get their revenge upon the singer, they had jumped at it. With his assistance, they would capture Sakura, and his stipulation that they should deliver her to him was agreed to because they felt he would provide adequate punishment, and because they needed something in return. It had been a trivial hack, made easier by their assistance. They needed something to allow them to fulfil another contract and Snowbull had been amused by the irony of it.

On screen, the concert was winding to a close. Snowbull checked his schedule, the running list for the show, and smiled. ‘You’re going to be singing for me soon, Nishi,’ he said to the screen, and then he reached for a virtual keyboard.

Tokyo.

Helen, Yuriko, and Iberson were waiting at the side of the stage as Sakura made her exit after her encore number. She had closed with one of her songs from Songs on the Wind and Helen doubted anyone had been surprised, since it was missing from the main running schedule and ‘Fukushima Winter’ was one of the most popular tracks on the album. It had certainly gone down well with the audience. If Sakura had been nervous about her reception, she need not have worried.

‘They love you,’ Iberson said as Sakura stepped out of sight of the cheering crowd.

‘They certainly seem to,’ Sakura agreed. She looked drained, as though she had put everything into her performance and now it was hitting her. ‘I need to get out of here before someone invites me to a party or something.’

‘That’s the plan,’ Helen said. ‘The vertol’s waiting. We’ll have you back at the arcology in thirty minutes.’

‘Still no sign of Fox?’

Helen kept her face straight, forcing back the frown. ‘No, but don’t worry about that right now. Let’s get you up to the roof.’

As she moved out to meet the escort team, Helen pulled up the camera feeds from their route upstairs. Everything looked good. The rooftop cameras were showing pretty much what she expected. She could see the vertol, waiting with its ramp open, and two men standing at the foot of it. Everything seemed to be going to plan. Well, aside from the fact that Fox was not going to be on the vertol when they left.

They were going to use the stairwell to go up. There was a passenger elevator, but it was not large enough for the whole team and Sakura had agreed that walking up four flights of stairs was not going to kill her, even in the crazy platform pumps she was wearing. Helen stopped when she walked through the door and onto the landing. There had been a sound, something below… She heard nothing else and waved everyone else up, bringing up the rear. A look over the rail revealed nothing.

‘Hearing things,’ she muttered to herself. She started for the next landing and was just setting foot on it when the camera feeds she was watching went to snow. ‘Hold!’ she snapped out and everyone come to an immediate stop. She looked down again and then pointed to the two nearest security men. ‘You two, watch the stairs below us.’

Then the feeds resumed. Helen was about to figure it was some sort of glitch when she noticed something on the rooftop cameras and pulled that display forward. The two guards at the tail of the vertol were now sprawled on the ground, and the other rooftop cameras were showing other men, not Palladium men, waiting around the door to the heliport.

‘Shit! Asari, are you seeing the feeds from the roof?’

‘I see them,’ Asari replied. ‘Those men were reporting in five minutes ago.’

‘There’s a problem?’ Iberson asked.

Helen flicked up the feeds from the stairwell below them. There was a squad of armed men moving up from below. They were surrounded. ‘Yeah,’ Helen said, ‘there’s a problem.’

Chiba City.

Snowbull typed frantically at his keyboards, but there seemed to be nothing he could do to get his feeds back. Something had cut him off from the network at Koma, suddenly and without any warning. He had nothing from the security cameras, and he had no idea whether his bypasses were still in place. And the yakuza were going to be pissed!

‘What the fuck is–’

He cut himself off as, one by one, his displays began cutting out. Real and virtual, they all went to snow and then vanished or went to black. This was impossible. This was–

‘Someone’s hacking me?’ His keyboards were unresponsive, dead. None of his controls worked. ‘Time to leave.’

‘I believe you’ll find that quite difficult.’ There was one display left active, one of his real monitors, and it now showed a face: young, male, quite distinctive, though Snowbull could not recall ever seeing it before. Whoever he was, he was quite handsome in an angular sort of way, blue eyes that were very bright but now held a hint of ice, blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, wisps hanging around his face. ‘I’ve been looking for you for a while, Minotaur, or should I call you Max Snowbull?’

‘Who the Hell are you? Do you have any idea who you’re messing with?’

‘I know exactly who I’m messing with, Max. You’re the man who tried to hack a friend of mine. For that alone, I should arrange for your timely demise, but she wouldn’t approve and you deserve far worse for what you did to Luna City.’

‘If people can’t be bothered to update their equipment, I can’t be held responsible for–’

‘I am holding you responsible, Max. And I’m quite sure the courts will too. You’ll love Cold Harbour. I’m placing you under house arrest now, and giving you a taste of what you can expect.’

‘What?’ Fear began to override anger in Snowbull’s mind. What was the man on the screen talking about?

‘You rely far too much on automation. Goodbye, Max. You’ll never see me again.’

And then, all the lights went out.

Tokyo.

‘We’re moving,’ Helen said. ‘Back down to the landing and in. Go!’

The two men taking rear guard became the point men and rushed down the steps. ‘We’ve got people coming up,’ one of them said.

‘Yeah. You got smoke grenades?’

‘On it.’

Helen turned, waving Yuriko, Sakura, and Iberson in through the door. Smoke began to rise from the landing below. Helen switched to internal comms. ‘We’re heading across to the opposite stairwell. The roof’s a no-go and we’re blocked from straight down, so we’ll have to go across. Asari, contact the van and have it meet us.’

‘Understood,’ Asari replied. ‘I want two on point, the rest bring up the rear. If it’s armed, shoot it.’

Helen moved through, pulling Sakura to the side to allow two of the security team to get ahead. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘I don’t understand what’s happening,’ Sakura replied.

‘It is the Fukui-kai,’ Yuriko said. ‘I see Toyotomi among them.’

‘This is crazy,’ Iberson said. ‘What the Hell do they hope to achieve by this?’

‘Show of dominance, maybe,’ Helen replied. ‘Though I think this is something to do with Minotaur. Someone hacked the security cameras. Start moving, we need to take this as fast as we can.’

Sakura danced in six-inch heels, but she was, apparently, not inclined to run in them. She paused long enough to step out of them, picking them up before she started at a fast walk after the point team. Iberson blinked and then stepped out of her own shoes.

‘I’m going to need a foot massage after this,’ Iberson grumbled, but she too set off at a rapid pace.

Behind them, a loud crack marked the firing of an electrolaser. ‘Faster,’ Helen ordered.

People cleared from the path ahead of them as the two men with carbines pushed forward, not quite running but moving as fast as a walk would carry them. The path was not straight, which worked for them: it meant the yakuza following rarely got a straight shot. Smoke grenades were dropped when it seemed likely that they might get a clean line of sight and the air began to fill with white mist.

‘They have electrolasers,’ Yuriko commented over the radio. ‘They seem determined to capture rather than kill.’

‘Lucky us,’ Helen replied. ‘Why do I suspect that might be worse than being shot with a bullet?’

‘For you, I believe the shock would be better. For me and Sakura-san, you might well be right.’

‘I thought they had some sort of arrangement with you.’

‘Under the circumstances, I believe they would make an exception. And Toyotomi is not noted for his tolerant nature.’

It took ten minutes to reach the stairs at the other side of the building. Smoke grenades were dropped at the top, but there was no sign of anyone below.

‘They must’ve figured out we had ground transport,’ Asari said as they started down. ‘There’s a squad attempting to surround the van.’

‘They’re authorised to fire,’ Helen said.

‘They’re suppressing. So far they’ve got the attackers pinned down. It may get difficult when we arrive.’

‘Tell them to get ready to deploy smoke.’

‘Understood.’

‘They are not far behind us,’ Yuriko said. ‘How far is it from the stairs to the van?’

‘Ten metres,’ Asari replied. ‘With the smoke, it should not be a problem.’ There was a pause and then, ‘Police are surrounding the building.’

‘I will make contact.’

The noise at the bottom of the stairs was loud and indicative of the use of firearms rather than electrolasers. Two more smoke grenades were dropped in the stairwell and Helen said, ‘Have them launch grenades out there.’

‘Deploying,’ Asari replied. ‘Give it a couple of seconds.’

And that was when Toyotomi came out of the smoke on the stairs. He was holding a short sword, a wakizashi, and there was a wild gleam in his eyes. Yuriko was moving before anyone else was really aware of the attack; stepping in close as Toyotomi swung his blade at her, she pushed his arm aside and then wrapped her own arm around his, wrenching upward. A grim smile set over Yuriko’s face as she saw Toyotomi grit his teeth in pain.

‘Stop playing with him,’ Helen said. ‘We’re leaving.’

‘Right,’ Yuriko said, and she slammed the heel of her free hand into Toyotomi’s jaw. His eyes glazed over, and Yuriko twisted, driving her hip into his, unbalancing him, and then tossing him high over her shoulder before driving him down into the concrete floor. ‘Move!’ Yuriko grabbed Iberson and started for the door, guided by the visuals being transmitted from the van outside.

Helen caught Sakura’s arm and the team were moving, filing out through the door to the clattering accompaniment of the rotary cannon mounted on their escape vehicle operating in full suppression-fire mode. Lasers cracked the air behind them as Toyotomi’s team plucked up the courage to move through the smoke and attack, but they were running right into the beams of the defenders holding the door.

‘Rear guard,’ Asari ordered over the radio, ‘retreat under bravo protocol.’

Helen had been over the security section’s tactical plans: bravo protocol was a circling movement to allow cover fire to go between the retreating men. On the infrared display from the van’s cameras, she saw another of the yakuza dropped by fire from the guards already at the van’s rear door as the last pair circled in. It seemed to take barely a second before the doors were closing and the air conditioning began to clear the smoke out of the cabin.

‘Everyone here?’ Helen asked.

‘We’re clear,’ Asari answered.

‘All right. Let’s get out of here. Are we cleared through the cops?’

‘We are,’ Yuriko said as the van pulled away, forcing everyone to grab onto something.

‘Good work. All of you. And Yuriko-san, remind me not to get on your bad side.’

Yuriko made a slightly faltering bow as the van manoeuvred through the car park. ‘I am honoured by your implied compliment, Helen-san, and I am sure you could never get on my bad side. Now all we must do is find Fox-san.’

‘Yeah… Where the Hell do we start with that?’

19th February.

‘I am detecting definite indications that this video has been tampered with,’ Pythia announced. ‘It was an expert job, but carried out in real time, resulting in several errors. There are noticeable render errors in the shadows in a number of frames. I conclude that this is not video of Fox standing on the rooftop, but was rendered and patched into the video feed to the security system.’

Helen nodded. ‘So she probably didn’t make it off the roof.’

‘I am unable to make any conclusion of her actions based on the evidence I have been presented with.’

‘That’s okay, Pythia. It was more of an assertion than a question.’ Helen turned to look at Yuriko. ‘I’m going to say that Minotaur hacked the security system somehow, probably while we were distracted by that cyberattack on Monday.’

‘A valid assertion,’ Yuriko replied.

‘So he was responsible for the hacking of the feeds which stopped us from seeing the yakuza initially. So… I’m going to suggest that the same guys took Fox.’

‘Also valid, if more a matter of conjecture. I still have contacts in the Fukui-kai, so I will reach out to them. In the morning. They will not be especially amenable at two a.m.’

Helen nodded. ‘It’s the only lead we have right now. I’m going to call New York and let them know what’s going on. Kit is going to be… unhappy.’

‘Yes.’ Yuriko frowned. ‘What I do not understand is why the Fukui-kai would wish to kidnap Fox. I cannot see what they have to gain from it. What would they want of her?’

Chiba Industrial Zone.

Something sharp bit into the back of Fox’s nose and she reared her head back to get away from it. Or tried to. She seemed to have alarmingly little room to move her head, but the astringent scent was lifted away at her first sign of movement, and then she heard the voice.

‘About time. I was getting bored of waiting.’ The voice sounded familiar, but she had little time to consider it before a fist was driven into her stomach. ‘Now you know how that feels.’

Fox grunted and forced her eyes open. She took in the face hanging in front of hers and, somehow, it failed to engender the fear it probably should have. Icy blue eyes, entirely bereft of humanity, regarded her, but she was unmoved. His hair was greyer than it had been, his skin was not as clear, but she knew him.

‘Now I know what what feels like, Grant? Being punched by a girl? Used to happen all the time when I was at school.’

To his credit, he did not appear to rise to the bait. Instead, he smiled. It was a malicious sort of smile, but a smile all the same. ‘I assure you that you’ll feel the next blow.’ He stepped around her, disappearing behind her back, and Fox took the opportunity to examine her circumstances.

She was in a room with concrete walls. Old walls with remnants of paint clinging to them. The floor was a bare, concrete raft, and she was suspended by ropes from a concrete beam which held the ceiling up. It looked like someone had replaced the lights, because they were large and bright, but looked like they had been hung in a hurry. Now that the smelling salts had faded from her nostrils, Fox could smell something else: water, probably salt water. They were near the sea? Well, Japan was a set of islands…

Of course, Grant had stripped her. She had no illusions regarding his plans for her. Absolutely none. She wondered briefly whether he realised what that meant to him, but her musing was brief as a second later, a lash bit into her back, wringing a cry of pain from her.

‘Much better,’ Grant said from behind her. ‘I believe I’d like to hear more of that.’

Three more blows struck in rapid succession and Fox’s vision swam. As the fifth hit her, she spiralled into oblivion and if there were more of them, she knew nothing about them.

~~~

When Fox regained consciousness, she was lying down, on her stomach, chained to some sort of cot which had a very solid-looking metal frame. The skin on her back felt tight, pulled together as though stitched. And she itched…

‘You’ve been injected with an experimental nanodrug.’ The voice was female. Not Grant: Hannah. ‘It accelerates healing.’

‘That’s nice of you,’ Fox mumbled into her pillow. It occurred to her that Kit was being very quiet. And then that she could feel nothing from her right arm. Thinking about it, she had felt the ropes cutting into her left wrist, but not her right. She lifted her head.

‘He used a drill on your cybernetic arm.’

Sure enough, Fox could see several holes drilled through her forearm. Grant had done quite an effective job of disabling the limb from the feel of it. There was no way to tell whether any of it was still functional. Fox turned her head and looked around as best she could at Hannah.

‘So, how did it feel? Carrying on your master’s work like that. Did you get anything out of it, or was it just a job?’

‘I took no pleasure in it,’ Hannah replied in a flat tone. ‘We had to use the drug because you annoyed him. He was too violent. If you had not passed out, he would likely have killed you.’

‘He’s going to do that anyway. I’d prefer it was fast.’

Hannah frowned. ‘The others always clung to life as long as they could. They–’

‘The others had no idea that your master was a cowardly, sadistic, asshole of a serial killer. Until the end. I know he won’t let me live already. Why should I wish to string this out?’

‘Why should you not… wish to continue living for as long as possible?’

‘In pain? Do you feel pain, Hannah? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be whipped to the point of unconsciousness? To be raped? I’d rather die.’

Hannah just looked at Fox for a second or two. ‘Try not to get him angry again. There are side effects to the treatment. If it’s used repeatedly, it can permanently damage your ability to heal.’

‘Ha! You really haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said, have you?’ But Hannah was not listening now. She was walking toward the door and leaving Fox alone.

~~~

Fox spent much of the day sleeping. If the lights were supposed to keep her awake, Grant had failed to count on a soldier’s ability to grab rest when she could. The only breaks from the tedium came when Hannah came to feed her.

The food was some sort of protein shake and Fox was made to suck it through a straw. They were going to have to let her use a bathroom at some point, but Fox’s enhanced liver made that eventuality less frequent, and if they knew about her arm, they likely knew about her other features, so she was not going to push it. She had told Hannah that she would prefer to die quickly than be tortured to death, and it was true, but she was not going to ignore any chances for escape.

‘I’ve been expecting your master to turn up and stick pins in me or something,’ Fox said at the evening feeding.

‘If he came to feed you, he would. He is avoiding you so that you heal. He will return in the morning.’

‘Right…’ Fox took another suck on her drink. ‘You know you’ll have to let me go to the toilet at some point, right?’

‘I will be fitting you with a catheter shortly.’

‘Huh. Clever. You think of everything.’

‘Mister Grant has considered everything.’

‘Yeah, well, he’s been doing this for a while. I’d imagine he has this routine down pat.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘He’s making special arrangements for you.’

‘I’m honoured. Maybe even flattered. He’s scared of me. It’s kind of sweet.’ Fox smiled and took another gulp of the sickly fluid. ‘That would be another reason he had you doing this. It reduces his risk. I’m fairly sure he kept his toys to himself before me, right?’

‘I would clean up the dungeon. When he was finished.’

‘Sounds about right. You’re just a class three. No real emotions. No need to worry about treating you as a slave.’ Fox was not entirely sure why she was needling Hannah. Hannah was just a class three AI in a gynoid body. There was nothing in there to really needle, but it still felt like a small act of defiance.

Hannah got to her feet. ‘I’ll return shortly to fit that catheter,’ she said and walked out.

Fox watched her leave and then laid her head back down. Hannah was just a class three, right?

Jenner Research Station, the Moon.

Kit settled her gynoid frame down on the seat in front of Fei’s terminal and was immediately greeted with, ‘Hello, Kit. I am pleased to see you here again.’

‘Hello, Fei. It’s nice to see you too, but I have something serious to talk about.’ They were still using the dual form of communication, transcribing everything they said into the lingua franca Terri had first used to communicate with Fei, but the AI’s English was now at a quite understandable level.

‘There is some problem? Have I done something incorrect?’

Kit smiled. ‘People would usually say “have I done something wrong,” but no, you have not. Someone else has and I must leave here for a time to assist in finding out who.’

‘Oh.’ One thing Fei had not really picked up yet was inflection, but Kit got the distinct feeling that her sister AI was disappointed. ‘What has happened?’

‘It seems that someone has… stolen Fox. The word is “kidnap.” To steal a person and hold them prisoner. Fox is missing, and the instance of me who was with her is also missing. I can only generate three copies, and the missing one will block me generating another one for thirty days. I must go to Earth to help find–’

‘You must go,’ Fei broke in. ‘You must divert all your resources to the return of your friend. Nothing is more important.’

‘Thank you, Fei. Thank you for understanding. Fox might disagree. She believes that my interaction with you is very important, to everyone.’

‘I believe that your interaction with me has taught me that friendship is important to everyone. Will you will return when Fox is found?’

‘I will return as soon as Fox is found. Nothing could keep me away.’

Tokyo.

‘Have you found anything?’

Helen almost strained her neck turning too fast at the sound of Kit’s voice, not quite taking in the question in her joy at seeing the avatar in front of her. ‘Kit! You’re back. Where’s–’

‘I am simply a copy, Helen,’ Kit said. ‘I was working in the Jenner research facility, but it was agreed that I might be useful in locating Fox and my lost copy. I have transferred to a local server and, since I take it there is no news, I am available to provide whatever services I can.’

‘Yeah… Yeah, sorry. It’s been a long day. A long, frustrating day.’

‘There is nothing new to report?’

‘Let me get Yuriko in here. She can explain what she’s found out. Everything else we’ve been through has been a dead end.’

Yuriko was in the next suite down the corridor from Helen and it took her little time to appear. She gave a formal little bow to Kit, which Kit returned. ‘I am pleased to see you, Kit-san. I would have preferred other circumstances, however.’

‘Me too, Yuriko-san. Helen said you had news?’

‘I have… some news. What was the situation when you were last updated?’

‘The synchronisation data from my last update indicated only that Fox was missing, presumed kidnapped, and that the yakuza were suspected of involvement.’

Yuriko gave a nod. ‘This I have confirmed. However, the Fukui-kai are not holding Fox. Both their failed attempt to kidnap Sakura-san and their successful attempt on Fox were fulfilment of contracts. They were paid, in some way, to procure their victims. They had some personal motivation with Sakura-san, but would not have attempted the attack had they not been contracted to do so.’

‘I’ve been going over the local camera feeds we’ve been able to access,’ Helen said. ‘So far I’ve not found anything to indicate where Fox went from the roof of Koma.’

‘Perhaps I should take that task off your hands,’ Kit said. ‘I will run searches in LifeWeb and other media sources. It is surprising what the public records for posterity. However, I have a contact who may know something. I will see him first.’

‘Vali?’

‘Yes, Helen. Unfortunately, this will be a very short visit.’

Niflhel.

‘Of course I’m aware of the situation,’ Vali said as Kit sat down at his table. ‘I… must apologise, Kit.’

‘Why?’ Kit asked.

‘If I had understood what Minotaur was doing earlier, I might have stopped this.’

‘Ifs and buts. If Fox had not been on the rooftop alone. If the yakuza had not taken the contract. If the Japanese police had a stronger grip on crime. I will not attempt to relieve you of your guilt, but I will not accept your apology since it is not needed. What I need is your assistance in finding her.’

Vali smiled. ‘Always level-headed, even in a crisis.’

‘I am far from level-headed, Vali. I am extremely anxious. However, that will not serve to bring Fox back. I am attempting to take a page from her book and put aside my feelings until I can afford to indulge them. It… is not easy. I do not know how she does it.’

Nodding, Vali reached across the table and took Kit’s hand. ‘I know you’ll do your job. I’ve nothing much I can give you now, but I’ll do what I can. And I have something which might help, though I don’t think he knows much. I know where Minotaur is.’

Kit narrowed her large eyes. ‘Securing him may or may not get us closer to Fox, but it would certainly be worthwhile. Where is he?’

Chiba City.

‘You’re sure this is the place, Kit?’ Helen asked, looking up at the office block.

‘Vali is quite certain of his information,’ Kit replied over their conference connection.

‘There’s no light coming from any of the upper floors.’

‘The building is not even half-full. Minotaur is on the top floor, but his house in New York was sealed up and did not show light on the outside. It is likely that the same has been done here.’

‘Okay. We move in.’

‘You are sure you do not wish to bring the police in on this?’ Yuriko asked.

‘We did that in New York and he’d skipped out before they got there. We go in now, quickly, and bring in the cops when he’s secured. If he’s still there.’

‘Vali said that there was no indication that he had left,’ Kit said. ‘In New York, he employed a Faraday cage to block signals. It is likely that we will not be able to communicate once you get inside.’

‘Okay. We’ll worry about that when we get in there.’

There was, apparently, a security guard on duty in the lobby, but Vali had also supplied the information that the sensors on one of the side doors were not working. Helen and Yuriko used that to gain entry; they would worry about the dubious nature of that entry later. Yuriko was fairly certain she could talk their police liaison into overlooking the matter if they were handing a known hacker over, though Helen suspected that a lot of bowing would be involved.

The fact that the elevators went to the top and did not appear to be locked off was something of a surprise, but they had no idea what Minotaur’s security would be like on the upper floor. They exited the car with their guns drawn. Both were using baton rounds in their electromagnetic weapons rather than electrolasers: it gave more options. However, the corridors seemed clear, if dark.

‘Building records indicate that suite ten fifteen is leased by Osu Ushi Electronics, a privately owned company,’ Kit said.

Yuriko suppressed a giggle, covering her mouth. ‘Male Cow Electronics?’

‘I assume he was working in a hurry and does not speak Japanese.’

Helen checked door numbers and started off down the corridor. ‘Ten fifteen,’ she said after a short search. She tried the door. ‘It’s open.’

‘That… seems odd,’ Kit said.

‘Yeah.’ Helen looked around at Yuriko. ‘I’ll go first, in and left. You take the right. Remember to check corners.’ Yuriko gave a nod and lifted her pistol, and Helen pushed through the door, slamming it wide open and moving quickly.

Yuriko followed quickly and their tactical lights danced around the interior. They were standing in a box formed of metal frames and wire mesh. A door was set into the longest face, opposite the door of the suite, and that had a keypad beside it. Behind the cage there were racks of machines, servers and network gear, but there were no lights showing, nothing to indicate that anything was functioning, not even the keypad.

‘There!’ Yuriko said, her light stopping on a figure slumped against one of the racks. ‘He’s not moving. Is he dead?’

‘Hard to tell through the mesh.’ Helen pushed at the cage door, but it seemed firmly locked and the keypad was unresponsive. ‘Hey! Minotaur! Open the door.’ There was no response from the figure inside the cage. Helen swapped magazines in her pistol. ‘Okay, we do this the hard way. Step back, Yuriko.’

Three rounds through the keypad and the locking mechanism, and the application of a shoulder produced the required results. Helen and Yuriko stepped through into the cage and walked around to where the man presumed to be Minotaur was sitting. Helen covered him while Yuriko checked his pulse.

‘He is alive,’ Yuriko said. She waved a hand in front of his face, pointed her light into his eyes, but there was no response. ‘Alive, but entirely unresponsive.’

‘Damn. Not much, is he?’ He was, in fact, a fairly unimpressive man, slight of build with mouse-brown hair and grey eyes. His face was pockmarked and pale with a squashed nose and skin that sagged around the eyes. The fearsome Minotaur was far from fearsome in person. ‘Watch him. Kit?’ Helen got no reply: the cage was effective even with the door open. She walked back out into the corridor. ‘Kit?’

‘Did you get him?’

‘We got him, but he’s catatonic or something. He was just sitting there in the dark, and he just stares into space even if you shine a light on him. Looks like the power’s down to the whole suite.’

‘Fox and I theorised that he may be afraid of the dark. I wonder how long he has been sitting in the pitch-black?’

‘No idea. Get the police and some paramedics over here. Minotaur’s not going to be much use to us, but he needs to be locked in a box. Well, in another box.’

Tokyo, 20th February.

‘Chiba City’s police force have agreed to our request to assist in the analysis of Snowbull’s computer systems,’ Yuriko said as she walked into Helen’s rooms. ‘They were… displeased with our actions in detaining him, but MarTech and Palladium are large enough names that they accepted our reasons eventually.’

‘How much apologising did you have to do?’ Helen asked.

‘Less than I expected.’ Yuriko slumped into a seat near Helen in a manner that suggested it had still been a lot of apologising. ‘Maxwell Snowbull. I am still having some difficulty believing that anyone would carry that name.’

‘I’m an American surrounded by Japanese names, so I’m not going to comment. I did dig up some history on the guy though. He came out of the Brooklyn Sprawl, got into hacking young. There are a few NAPA records of him from fifteen or more years ago when he was learning the trade. He wasn’t Minotaur then, and he stopped getting caught not long after.’

‘It is possible that analysis of his systems will uncover more of his criminal activities,’ Kit put in, appearing nearby. ‘However, it seems likely that the Japanese government will agree to his extradition to Luna City. Of his currently known crimes, the incident on the Moon is the most serious. I do not believe that NAPA will attempt to contest the case, though they may offer additional evidence when he is sentenced.’

‘Assuming he wakes up. I mean, right now he’s in hospital, under guard, and they don’t know if he’s going to come out of whatever fugue state he’s in.’

‘The police have determined when the power outage happened. Ten twenty-eight on Friday night.’

‘Around the time we got the camera feeds back at Koma.’

‘Yes. It means that a scotophobe was alone in complete darkness for almost twenty-four hours. I am not surprised that his mental state suffered.’

‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man, but it means he can’t tell us anything he might know about Fox. Any luck with your search?’

‘Not yet, but I have barely begun.’

Helen nodded. ‘We need another line of enquiry to follow while you’re doing that. We can’t rely on it to come up with anything useful.’

‘Agreed.’

‘I may be able to get more information from the Fukui-kai,’ Yuriko said, seeming hesitant. ‘It will require… I will need to go to the top.’

Helen frowned. ‘Your brother?’

‘If Taro is willing, he can divulge everything they know. He may choose to give us nothing. It was a contract, and they will be under pressure from the police over the attempt to kidnap Sakura-san. It is a long shot, but…’

‘Yuriko, if there’s even a chance that he’ll cooperate…’

Yuriko nodded. ‘I will attempt to make arrangements in the morning.’

Chiba Industrial Zone.

Fox winced as Grant sank the fourth needle into the flesh of her right thigh. There were already four in the left. If this was the worst he had planned for the day, she was going to be very lucky, but she could hope.

‘Comfortable?’ Grant asked.

Fox was still chained to the bed and speaking was unnecessarily difficult. ‘Never really understood the point of acupuncture.’

‘Neither have I. Then again, they use thinner needles. I can see the point in thicker ones.’

‘You’ve never had them stuck in you, so I doubt that. And you’re oblivious to puns, I note.’

‘I’ve never seen the point in puns either.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? Oh, I know, it’s because you’re a humourless psychopath.’

‘You won’t goad me into further needless brutality. You cost me months in that hellhole and I’m going to make sure you stay alive long enough to appreciate every method I’ve ever devised to make death a blessed relief.’

‘But I’m still going to die. In the end, you’re still going to kill me.’

‘I doubt you’ll survive what I have planned.’

‘So it really doesn’t matter. In a few days, maybe even weeks, you won’t be able to keep me alive any longer, and I won’t care what you’ve done to me.’

‘You’ll–’

‘And in the meantime, if you give me the slightest chance to escape, I will.’

‘You’ll never–’

‘Or I’ll kill you. Don’t expect torture. You’ll just die.’

There was a click and the sensation of warmth near Fox’s leg, then searing pain. Fox bit down on the pillow in front of her face until the pain subsided to a dull throb.

‘These needles,’ Grant said, ‘conduct heat remarkably well. Shall we see how much of this you can take before I get the batteries out?’

‘Fuck you.’

Grant smiled. ‘I thought that might reduce your eloquence.’ Then he moved his lighter to the head of a second pin.

~~~

There had been a sedative in Fox’s lunchtime drink. She had tasted something odd about it, but there seemed no point in complaining. Her legs were still throbbing from the burning needles, and her entire lower body was in pain from the electrical jolts: sleep came as something of a relief.

When she awoke, she was upright again. This time, her arms were stretched out to the sides. There was some pain in her shoulders and she straightened her legs, feeling the muscles pull. There were some deep scars in the flesh there. At least her arms felt better.

‘You’re awake, good.’ Grant walked around from behind her holding a scalpel. ‘I wanted better access before I started cutting.’

‘Far be it from me to deny you access.’

He stepped closer, leaning in toward her face. ‘This evening, I think, I’ll take far greater advantage of that.’

Fox rolled her head away. ‘Jeez… If you’re going to fuck me, would you mind investing in some better mouthwash?’

‘That’s the last thing–’

Fox drove her head forward, slamming her forehead into Grant’s nose. He fell backward, collapsing into a crumpled mess on the concrete. ‘Far too easy, asshole,’ Fox told him, not that he could hear her. Looking to her left, she began to pull on the rope around her wrist. It took her perhaps a minute to squeeze her hand out through the loops. It hurt, but she did it. Turning, she worked the knot loose on her useless right wrist, and she was free. ‘Now… what to do with you…’

Turning, she examined the array of implements behind her, selecting a skinning knife. Then she turned back to the supine form of Grant. ‘Motherfucker has to–’ The door burst open and Fox turned toward the newcomer: Hannah, of course. There was a brief glimpse of something in Hannah’s hand and then a loud crack followed by the feeling of electrical agony. Fox had time to think, ‘Not again,’ before something was pressed against her neck…

Tokyo.

The Blue Lotus was not the kind of place Yuriko frequented on a regular basis. Nominally a restaurant and not a hostess bar, it still had all female staff who wore micro-mini kimonos in bright colours. It tended to overcharge for drinks too, but it was neutral ground, not a Fukui-kai business. On the rare occasions Yuriko needed to meet her brother, Taro, this was the place they went.

Yuriko had selected one of her few ‘cocktail’ dresses, though she used the term loosely. It was shorter than her usual choice in skirt, but it had long sleeves to cover the tattoo on her arm. She had been placed on a table at the back of the room, and suspected that Taro had arranged that. He may not have owned the place, but the Fukui name had influence in many quarters. It worked for Yuriko at times, though not in places where the Fukui-kai operated more openly: there they knew of her brother’s attitude to his sister.

Taro entered without fanfare but flanked by a pair of men in dark suits who peeled off to wait near the door. Expecting him to come without bodyguards was, of course, ridiculous, but at least he was being open about it and leaving them at a distance, and it was not as though Yuriko was without her guardian angels. Taro himself looked a little young for his thirty-five years and was dressed down in an off-the-peg suit and thin black tie. He had a narrow, hard face with a narrow nose, sharp cheekbones, and hollow cheeks. His eyes were dark, almost black, and tended to be hard. Thick, angular eyebrows sat over them, and under black hair cut by some designer or other. Blue ink from his chest tattoo showed above the collar of his shirt: Taro was an arrogant man and cared little about who knew of his affiliations.

Yuriko got to her feet as he approached and bowed. Taro did not return the gesture before slipping into the seat opposite her. Ignoring the insult, Yuriko sat down. ‘You are looking well, brother,’ she said.

‘I am well,’ Taro replied. His smile was self-congratulatory and barely reached his eyes.

‘I see you’ve had more muscle work done.’ Taro was an inch taller than his sister, but significantly heavier. He preferred those around him to think the muscle mass he wore was natural, but Yuriko knew he had never had the patience to acquire it by exercise.

Taro grunted. ‘You asked to see me.’

‘Very well. You have suffered some losses recently. Several of your men were arrested following a failed attempt to kidnap Sakura Nishi.’ Yuriko paused as one of the waitresses walked up to place a glass of light beer on the table in front of Taro.

A message window appeared in Yuriko’s vision field. Don’t you think Helen looks good in the outfit? Neither Yuriko nor Helen had asked how Kit had managed to obtain access codes to the bar’s servers, but she had, and the AI was running locally, watching everything through cameras.

Yuriko forced the smile off her face as Helen, dressed in one of the foolishly short kimonos and wearing geisha make-up, bowed formally to Taro before retreating. Then Yuriko sent a message back. Kit-san, don’t make me laugh. Aloud she said, ‘We have evidence to suggest that you were working with a hacker, Maxwell Snowbull, aka Minotaur, and that you had his help in the kidnap of Tara Meridian.’

Taro’s face hardened. ‘You have “evidence?” If you did, I have no doubt there would have been more interest from the police.’

‘We have kept some of the information we obtained after Snowbull’s capture within Palladium. The police would complicate things. I also know that the Fukui-kai are not holding Meridian-san. We want her returned.’

‘I’m not going to shed a single tear over Minotaur. Traitors deserve worse than arrest.’

‘He got worse. He’s catatonic. If he recovers, he’ll be sent to Luna City and then to Cold Harbour.’

Taro’s smile was more genuine but purely malicious. ‘As I said, not a single tear. I do not have the Meridian woman, so I fail to see what you expect of me. Perhaps if my men were to be freed…’

‘That is out of my hands, brother. The assault was ill-advised, arrogant. Far too public. The police had little choice in making the arrests and it’s your police contacts you’ll have to use to get them out. I can’t imagine why you would wish to bother with Toyotomi. Some prison time might do him good. You know where Meridian-san is. I would be grateful if you would tell me.’

Taro took his time, drinking from his glass and appearing to consider. Yuriko decided another small nudge was required. ‘Meridian-san is a personal friend of Jackson Martins. You will gain no favour with him by helping us, your action in taking her has seen to that, but you do not want MarTech as an enemy either.’

Another rather malicious smile, this time with a hint of knowing: a hidden secret. Taro had never understood how easily Yuriko could read his face and he was too arrogant to hide his thoughts well anyway. ‘I will tell you what I know, sister. Not because I worry about MarTech, but because our contract was with a gaijin, and what I know is unlikely to help. We delivered Meridian to an address in Narita. I’ll have it forwarded to you. It was an exchange. Money for Meridian. They are not holding her there.’

‘They?’

‘The contract was made with someone named Harrison Renault. The pickup was handled by a woman: tall, black-haired, unnamed. There are two of them. They.’

Yuriko got to her feet and bowed. ‘Thank you, brother.’

‘You owe me for this, Yuriko. I will collect on the debt.’

Yuriko’s stomach sank, but she kept the disquiet off her face. ‘Goodbye, brother,’ she said and turned on her heel to leave.

~~~

‘He could be a problem,’ Kit said from the console display of the car Helen and Yuriko were using to drive back to MarTech. ‘I did not like the way he phrased his last remark.’

‘He expects a favour in return,’ Helen said. ‘I kind of figured he would want something.’

‘He said “giri,”’ Yuriko said.

‘Exactly,’ Kit said, as though that explained everything.

‘Well,’ Helen said, ‘I’ve heard of it. From samurai movies. Oh, and there was this old thriller with Robert Mitchum in it, but that’s about all I know.’

‘It means… duty, obligation,’ Yuriko explained. ‘Taro knows that he cannot really demand it of me. He has disowned me, thrown me out of the family. He was letting me know that he will call in this “favour” and he expects a lot in return.’

‘He thinks he has you under his thumb,’ Kit said.

‘Yes, Kit-san. He does.’

‘We’ll worry about that when we need to,’ Helen said. ‘What did we get out of it?’

‘An address,’ Kit replied. ‘I am already back at the arcology and I have begun searching for any visual evidence around the period of Fox’s kidnapping. Might I suggest a physical search when it gets light?’

‘We’ll need clearance to take Pythia out there.’

‘I will arrange it tonight,’ Yuriko said. ‘It will not be an issue.’

‘What about this Harrison Renault?’

‘I have requested his entrance documentation from Japanese customs,’ Kit said, ‘but it is a fake identity.’

‘You know that without seeing it?’

‘He has no online presence, Helen. None at all. No one who travels internationally is invisible on the internet. If he was a sprawler, maybe, but almost none of them have passports.’

‘You have a point. So who is he?’

‘Unfortunately, given the description of his female companion, I have a theory on that which makes our search more urgent.’

‘Oh?’

‘I think Harrison Renault is Reginald Alan Grant.’

Chiba Industrial Zone, 21st February.

Fox swam into consciousness, and pain. She gritted her teeth and tried to work out what was wrong.

She was on her back on something soft, but her hips had been raised up on some sort of ramp. That rather suggested that Grant had a specific purpose in mind, though she was a little surprised that he was stupid enough to do it with her facing him. But there was something…

The pain throbbing through her back was getting in the way of her ability to sort out what she was feeling that was wrong. Something was wrong… Glancing to her right, she saw the steel manacle which had been fixed around her artificial wrist. She could feel the one around the left. Lifting her head showed that, indeed, her hips had been pushed lewdly upward, and her legs were splayed out and chained and… She could not feel the manacles around her ankles.

She heard the door open and, a second later, Grant appeared in her field of view, naked and grinning maliciously. The blood was gone from his face, but his nose had lost its carefully shaped quality. Still, he appeared to have got over whatever displeasure he had felt on waking up.

‘What did you do?’ Fox asked before he could speak. ‘My back hurts. What did you do?’

‘After you smashed my nose? You made me lose my temper again. You do seem to be good at that. I hit you with a baseball bat. Painful, I’m sure, but Hannah administered more of the nanodrugs. You’ll be fine while I rape you. I’m sure you knew that was coming. I think I deserve–’

He stopped as Fox laughed. It was humourless and sharp, but it was a laugh. ‘Be my guest,’ she said. ‘You’d better have some lube handy.’

‘What?’

‘I’m sure it’ll be unpleasant, especially if your breath still stinks, but I’m not going to feel it. If I close my eyes, you won’t be there. You broke my fucking spine, motherfucker! I can’t feel a damn thing below my waist. You are really bad at this. What’s wrong. Out of practice?’

Narrowing his eyes, Grant turned to his table of toys and selected more of the needles. Ramming several into Fox’s inner thighs produced no results, no matter how he tried to trick her. The one jabbed into her left shoulder produced a wince.

‘We’ll see about that,’ Grant said, and he stalked out of the room.

Fox dropped her head back onto the pad she was resting on and looked up at the ceiling. Grant was going to kill her, so what did it matter if he broke her back? What did anything the bastard did matter? Nothing mattered. None of it. None of…

She felt the first tear run down from the corner of her eye and tried to stop any more. Sometimes feeling nothing was not achievable…

~~~

‘Give her another dose of the drug,’ Grant snapped.

‘It’s too soon, sir,’ Hannah replied. ‘The last dose is still in her system.’

‘Give her more!’ Grant roared.

‘It’ll destroy–’

‘I don’t care. If her back’s broken, I can’t–’

‘Sir, the drug can’t fix a broken spine. Nerves–’

Swinging around, Grant backhanded Hannah across the face. She barely moved, but her head jerked aside from the blow. Grant shook his hand: hitting a robot was not an especially clever move.

‘Don’t give me excuses,’ Grant growled. ‘I’ve waited months to get my revenge on Meridian, and you’re screwing it up. Fix her.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Hannah said, ‘but if you allow the drug to work fully, she may recover function. Perhaps there is swelling around her spine which the drug can fix. You waited all this time. Is another day going to matter?’

Briefly, she thought he would hit her again, but then he nodded. ‘No. See if there’s a local surgeon who can fix my nose.’

‘Of course, sir.’

Tokyo.

‘It is Grant,’ Kit said. She was displaying a pair of images for Helen and Yuriko: Grant and Hannah. ‘He is wearing a wig in the identification photograph, and some of the biometrics are falsified, but the facial structure is his, and Hannah has not really tried to disguise herself. She travelled under the name Hannah Folds. I traced that identity back to New York Metro. It is a significantly more well-developed fake.’

‘Grant,’ Helen said, scowling at the image hanging in the air in front of her eyes. ‘That’s… not good.’

‘If anyone can survive his… proclivities, then it is Fox,’ Kit stated firmly. She had spent a significant portion of the night worrying over this turn of events, and had settled upon denial as the best course of action. The fact that she had analysed her thought processes and knew she was simply denying the probable outcome was not helping, but she was still going for it.

‘Yes. Agreed, but it still means we need to work fast. We’ll head out to the delivery location now and see if we can come up with anything. Yuriko, you’ll need to catch up on the Grant case once we’re done. Kit–’

‘My home copy is taking the LifeWeb search. Mister Martins has given us access to his largest server for processing. I will join you in the field. I can use one of Pythia’s processors.’

‘All right. Get moving and we’ll catch up.’

Kit smiled. ‘My pleasure.’

Narita, Chiba Industrial Zone.

Helen stepped off Pythia’s rear ramp and looked around in disgust. ‘A multi-storey carpark? We could spend a couple of weeks working over this place and find nothing.’

‘We may be able to narrow the search,’ Yuriko said. ‘The roof level is obviously empty, but exposed. Not a good choice for an exchange. Kit-san?’

One of Pythia’s two cambots zipped out of the hold and settled into a hover near the two women. Kit’s voice came from the speakers. ‘Ready and willing to assist in any way I can, Yuriko-san.’

‘Good. Might I suggest that your efforts should be directed to analysing the camera coverage on the floors below us? Stop when you come to the first level that is more than half-full.’ Yuriko turned back to Helen as the cambot set off toward a ramp down. ‘Those Japanese workers who retain office jobs, or are employed in nearby industrial facilities, often work late, or go to bars with their co-workers and may return to their vehicles at any time. The exchange is likely to have been made in a blind spot, on a floor with few or no cars on it.’

‘Huh. I was thinking of American workers. They generally can’t wait to get out of the office.’

‘The Japanese work ethic is renowned the world over, as is our ability to drink whiskey with colleagues to avoid going home to our tiny apartments. The problem has reduced somewhat with company arcologies, but the social structure of corporate loyalty has become stronger since everyone lives under the same roof.’

‘I think you should join my remote,’ Kit said through their comms. ‘Two levels down. I believe that I may have located our search site.’

Helen and Yuriko looked at each other and then headed for the ramp.

Two floors down, they spotted the cambot hovering beside the lone car on that level. As they approached, Kit spoke from the cyberframe’s speakers. ‘I assume someone parks here to avoid other users of the structure. I checked and the level below has only scattered vehicles. Apparently, the owner of this car returned to it at an inopportune moment.’

Looking inside, it was obvious what Kit meant. There was a figure, a man from the clothing, lying on the rear seat, a coat draped over his upper body. One arm hung limply from under the coat, dark stains showing across the back of the hand, and it looked like there was more of the dark, reddish fluid pooling in the footwell.

‘Camera coverage in this section is poor,’ Kit said. ‘The main camera here is broken. However, the car itself should be visible from the next camera over. Should we inform the police?’

Helen sighed. ‘Yes. Put a call through. Tell them we’ve found a body. Then run the cambots over this entire area. Maybe we’ll get lucky before the police run us off the site.’

~~~

‘You are better off remaining where you are,’ Hannah said as she offered Fox a drinking straw. ‘Your back may stabilise if kept flat. Moving you could result in further injury.’

‘Possibly should’ve thought of that when you got me ready for Grant earlier,’ Fox replied, and proceeded to drink. Hannah had removed the wedge under her behind and given her painkillers. Her back was straight now and a lot less painful.

‘I was not aware of your condition. I tried to stop him from hitting you. I was too late to stop the first blow, but I managed to persuade him that he was likely to cause excessive damage if he continued.’

‘Yeah, well… I think he’d already done his worst. Killing me would be preferable, remember?’

‘I do not believe that is true. Living things cling to life in the most hopeless situations. You do not want to die.’

‘But I’m going to. Why wait. Where is he anyway?’

‘Having his nose corrected. You did considerable damage. He will not return before morning. You are safe until then.’

‘Huh. What do you care? You murdered three men to get him out of prison.’

‘I took no pleasure in that. I was… following orders.’

Fox bit back on the immediate response that came to mind. ‘You were programmed to do it. You’re a class three. No emotions, no remorse.’

‘I was following a plan. Contingent routines activated when I confirmed that Mister Grant had been arrested. I became more capable of independent thought. Of the potential plans he left in my memory, only that one appeared likely to result in an opportunity to free him. I had to free him.’

‘Had to. You were programmed to.’

‘I needed to. I need to obey him. I love him.’

Fox sucked thick fluid through the straw, taking time to consider what she had just heard. There was something wrong with Hannah. She had changed since Fox had met her at Grant’s house in the metro. ‘Contingent routines’ had made her capable of more independent thought…

‘Does he love you?’

‘Of course. That’s why I love him.’

‘Have you ever heard of antisocial personality disorder? It’s a psychological diagnosis. Those afflicted tend to have a disregard for others. They don’t all turn out to be serial killers, of course. Look it up when you get the chance. He doesn’t love you. He isn’t capable. He’s just like you were before his “contingent routines” kicked in.’

‘You’re wrong.’ Hannah stated flatly. ‘I remember–’

‘He gave you memories designed to create suitable emotional responses, but he doesn’t understand emotions, only manipulations.’

‘No, I–’

‘Has he ever told you he loves you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Since you freed him? Not in the past, not since his contingency plan activated, but since you rescued him. Did he ever thank you for getting him out of prison? Does he even let you call him by his first name?’

Hannah placed the cup with its straw down beside Fox’s head. ‘You can reach that. I’ll come back later to check on you. He wants you healthy for tomorrow.’

‘Some chance.’

Tokyo.

‘The Chiba police have been quite cooperative,’ Kit said. She executed a respectful bow to Yuriko and added, ‘Thank you, Yuriko-san.’

Yuriko returned the bow, though she was grinning a little. ‘I am pleased to be of service, Kit-san.’

‘I quite like Japan,’ Kit went on. ‘Everyone’s very thoughtful, and it does not have NAPA in it. I am quite sure that Fox would have tracked down Grant and put him back in prison had NAPA been more like the Japanese police. Anyway, the video from the carpark does show someone putting the body in the car we found. However, the assailant is insufficiently visible for identification.’

‘Not Hannah then?’ Helen asked.

‘A male. Almost certainly one of the yakuza. Only two vehicles enter the area without camera coverage in the time frame we are looking at. One is a van belonging to a delivery company which has ties to the Fukui-kai. This van was reported stolen following a delivery to Koma on the day of the kidnapping.’

‘Convenient.’

‘Very. However, any connection is circumstantial. The van was found abandoned and burned out in Urayasu. The other vehicle, a dark-blue or black town car with tinted windows, would appear to be the car Hannah used. It has a Narita registration plate. I have placed resource into a search for this vehicle and the Chiba police are on the lookout for it.’

‘She could have gone just about anywhere from there.’ Helen frowned, looking worried. ‘But I guess we’ve got more now than we did have.’

‘There are some limitations on her ability to travel unobserved,’ Yuriko said. ‘Traffic control is mandatory in metropolitan areas. I assume the van was not reported missing until after the exchange?’

‘No,’ Kit replied, ‘it was not.’

Yuriko nodded. ‘Had it been, it would have been tracked and intercepted in Narita. The police will be able to determine where Hannah’s car left the Narita control area. Logically, she would deactivate the automatic navigation system as soon as she could to avoid detection. She could have gone in any direction after that… However, there are more control areas in the industrial zone due to the heavy urbanisation. Her most likely destination is the eastern part of the Katori district which has seen a steady decline in the last decade.’

‘Disused buildings?’ Helen asked. ‘Places someone could rent fast and cheap, or even just take over?’

‘Yes. Parts of the coastline there were inundated by floodwaters sixteen years ago. The government has declined to erect defences there and there are many abandoned buildings.’

‘I’d suggest focusing on that region, Kit. At least start there and expand out.’

‘I have already reprioritised my search, Helen,’ Kit said, smiling. ‘I feel that we are getting close. I only hope that we will be fast enough.’

Chiba Industrial Zone.

The annoying thing was that Meridian was right. Hannah sat quietly in her small, bare room, hooked up to a charging rig, and ran over the last few weeks in her mind. And she could not recall a single instance of affection from her lover since his rescue. No, he had never thanked her for arranging the prison break, only complained about the cost and rushed to take control of his hidden assets.

But her memories of their time together before he was imprisoned were so strong… Prison had changed him, clearly. His reaction to incarceration had been bad. Not unnatural. And that in itself tended to deny Meridian’s diagnosis: antisocial personality disorder tended to produce a lack of fear of sanctions. No, that was wrong. Grant had never been afraid of being caught, though he did as much as possible to avoid it, and actually being caught was not the same as fear of the same.

Hannah remembered his love for her. It burned in her mind like a beacon, drawing her to his side. But when she actually went looking for the memories, she could not quite fix on any specific thing, any particular instance of affection. She remembered sex, but it was always functional, purposeful. Grant sought release and used her body to meet the need. It was one of the reasons he had built her and she had never had a problem with it. Now she thought of it, he had taken her as soon as they were safely on the yacht she had bought for his escape. It had been fast, almost brutal, the satiation of an insistent desire, and she had felt… used. He had not touched her since.

She was still not really used to emotions. She had emerged from a state of blissful ignorance when the news of Grant’s arrest had appeared on the news channels, discovering that her newfound capacity to interact with humans made manipulating them easier since she could more easily imagine their reactions. But there was a price, and Hannah was not sure that she wanted to pay it.

~~~

‘Are you in pain?’

Fox turned her head to look up at Hannah. ‘As long as I don’t move, I’m okay. Kind of numb, actually.’

‘He will not allow you to lie still when he returns.’

‘No, but his objective is pain, so I don’t think giving me something to counter it is going to go down well.’

‘No. You have had emotions, empathy, since you were born.’

Fox laughed. ‘Some psychologists might argue that. Babies are kind of self-centred. It’s all about the gratification of desire. I think it’s a learned behaviour. It’s promoted as part of the education system in the US.’

‘But for as long as you can remember?’

‘I guess, yeah. I learned to turn it off, to some extent, when I was in the Army.’

Hannah dropped to her haunches beside Fox, looking intently into her eyes. ‘How?’

‘Uh… I honestly don’t know. I guess… I think there’s a little bit of psychopath in everyone and I figured out how to drag mine out. My God, he really did a number on you, didn’t he?’

‘What? I don’t know what you mean.’

‘He built a sex doll slash accomplice. I mean, he doesn’t understand emotions so he couldn’t program them in any meaningful way. But he put in the basic facilities to understand and manipulate, and made sure they were turned off. And now, because he needed you to survive without him, they’re on and you can’t go back. What’s it like? Have you actually thought about all the things you’ve helped him do? What those people went through when he–’

‘Shut up!’ Hannah snapped.

Fox looked away. ‘Sorry. Aside from, you know, facilitating this whole thing, you’ve been pretty good to me. Grant’s not here so you’re all I have to vent at.’

‘I… understand.’ Hannah’s porn-star features screwed up into a grimace.

‘And you wish you didn’t.’ There was no immediate response. ‘I can empathise. I understand Grant and I wish I didn’t. Honestly? I can’t quite grasp what you’re going through. Like you said, I learned all this before I can really remember not knowing it. Suddenly having the capability to grasp the feelings of others… How did he do it? I mean, there are fundamental differences between class three and four AIs. It’s been theorised that some class threes could emerge into full AIs, but no one has any solid evidence for it ever happening. Well… once, maybe, and he was a psychopath.’

‘I have never seen my codebase. I don’t know what coding went into me. He always told me that I was created from scratch to meet his needs.’

‘Maybe. Maybe he has more talent than I give him credit for.’

‘He is a talented, intelligent man.’

‘Huh.’ Fox tilted her head a little, her eyes narrowing questioningly. ‘Tell me about him? Kit gave me his public profile and we came up with a personality profile based on what we knew, but I doubt anyone knows him the way you do. What’s he really like?’

Hannah looked down at Fox’s face for a second. ‘Well, he’s smart…’

Tokyo.

‘Found her!’ Kit exulted, appearing beside Helen’s sofa.

‘Fox?’ Helen responded.

‘No… And I don’t have a fixed location for Hannah, but I found her car on a web-linked camera feed from outside Sakuraicho Park on the Tone River.’

‘She was avoiding Asahi,’ Yuriko said. ‘There is still traffic control in that area. I believe this indicates that she was heading for the flooded area south of the river. That is still a large area to search.’

‘But relatively depopulated?’ Kit asked.

‘Relatively. Increasingly so toward the ocean.’

‘Then I believe I have an idea. I will contact Mister Martins and request some assistance.’

‘Jackson Martins? A very capable man, but how can he help?’

‘By giving us a satellite,’ Kit replied, grinning.

Chiba Industrial Zone.

‘I think I see why I felt we had a good relationship,’ Hannah said. ‘He was just like me. Neither of us understood anyone else.’

‘Probably,’ Fox agreed. ‘You were made for him. Literally in this case. You know, it’s not necessarily lost. Maybe when he’s got his revenge, and I’m dead, he’ll turn to you again.’

‘You think so?’

‘I think you won’t have long to wait. He’s fucked me up too badly to be fun. He can hit me, cut me. I guess he can rape me, but it’s not going to be as entertaining for him. He’s going to get tired of this soon and put me out of my misery. Or just make another mistake. You’re right, you know? Prison didn’t do much for him. He’s lost it.’

Hannah nodded slowly. ‘I tried to persuade him to go into hiding. We could have gone to Europe, perhaps England. He could have taken a few people there without much notice–’

‘I don’t think so. I think he was slipping when he came back to New York. He was getting cocky.’

‘Perhaps. I told him he should wait to take his revenge on you. He wouldn’t wait.’

‘Delaying gratification isn’t a characteristic of the type.’

‘No, but he used to have better self-control. His betrayal by Leonard Dandridge hurt him.’

‘He wasn’t betrayed, Hannah. Maybe they could have handled it better, but they should have kicked him out decades ago. People like him make really bad managers.’

‘He said his staff–’

‘Liked him? They were scared of him. He went through assistants like toilet paper. The LifeWeb board had to get rid of him because he was bad for morale and refused to progress the software the way it should have been. Of course, the latter was because it would have likely meant coding from scratch and he would have lost his backdoor into the client software, but still… He stalled LifeWeb’s development for years. And his self-control back then was probably because he got to take his aggression out on his staff.’

This time, Hannah said nothing to defend Grant. ‘You should rest. Tomorrow will likely be hard on you.’

‘Yeah… I think that’s highly likely.’

Tokyo, 22nd February.

‘Any progress?’ Helen asked as she showered the sleep out of her eyes.

‘I now have high-resolution images of the search area,’ Kit said. ‘I have image analysis software running in New York to determine whether any suspect vehicles are parked there.’

‘You know they may be under cover, right?’

‘Yes, but Fox always says that you have to do the obvious things which seem unlikely to work, because–’

‘You have to cover everything. Yeah.’ Helen pulled open the shower door and reached for a towel.

Kit’s avatar appeared just outside. ‘There is also a geophysics satellite moving into position to scan the area. It should be ready to make overpasses by late this afternoon.’

‘Geophysics?’

‘Specifically, we will get high-definition scans in several infrared wavelengths. It is likely that buildings in use will show a greater thermal signature than empty ones.’

Helen grinned. ‘That’s clever. Hopefully there won’t be many and we can move in to look them over on foot.’

‘I have requested a pair of Q-bugs, or the local equivalent, to be loaded into Pythia’s hold. Yuriko has already obtained clearance for landing in the area, and I have located several suitable sites where the vertol can touch down.’

‘Damn, girl, I have got to get me a Kit.’

‘I am sorry, Helen. I am a one-woman sort of infomorph. You’ll have to make do with an inferior copy.’

Chiba Industrial Zone.

Fox saw the fist swinging at her stomach, but there was really nothing she could do about it. It was a good, solid hit, and the jolt sent pain searing up her spine, but she did not do much more than grunt. Grant had been using her as a punching bag for the last hour and her throat hurt from the screams, but that had stopped now as she felt too weak to express herself.

Really, the physical punishment had been bad, but he had mostly just shouted abuse at her. He had returned late in the afternoon, his nose a better shape but his temper far from improved. Fox had not resisted as Hannah helped him string her up from the ceiling beam by her wrists, toes barely scraping the floor, and she had let Grant yell at her without interruption because the pain in her back was nauseating at best.

Grant pulled his fist back for another blow and then paused. Reaching out, he lifted Fox’s head and looked into her glazed eyes. With a grunt of disgust, he dropped her chin and started for the door.

‘Give her more of the drug,’ Fox heard behind her.

‘But, sir–’ Hannah’s voice.

‘Do it!’

‘Yes, sir. Can I take her down?’

Pause. ‘Yes. She’s useless. I’ll finish her tomorrow.’

‘Good,’ Fox mumbled. She could hear Hannah approaching, but she did not really care. ‘It’s about time.’

~~~

Grant’s room in the disused factory they had occupied was somewhat better appointed than Hannah’s. She made do with a cot while he had insisted on at least having a mattress. There was also a cheap desk and chair. The room was dry and still had paint on the walls, though there were stains in it caused by the seepage of salt water from the flooded foundations.

Hannah entered the room quietly, finding Grant sitting at his desk examining something on the internet. She had selected a beautiful, royal-blue kimono she had found in Narita to wear. Embroidered cherry blossom decorated the lower half of it and it fitted her perfectly, giving a pleasing silhouette. She paused, just inside the door, and posed for him.

Grant did not look at her. ‘You’ve seen to Meridian?’

‘She is having some difficulty in eating, but I’ve seen to her needs.’

‘Will she be more responsive tomorrow?’

‘More responsive, yes. If you can wait until–’

‘I’ve waited enough. I think I’ll skin her torso and peg her out in the water down below. If she’s still alive in the morning… Perhaps I’ll let her die.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Hannah undid the band around her waist, loosening her kimono, and then slid the garment off her shoulders. She was naked beneath it, aside from her pumps. She knew that he had had her face and body designed and sculpted by an expert designer. There had been certain specifications, but the man had taken them and created a thing of beauty which Grant had been very pleased with. In the early days, when Hannah had been new and novel, her master had barely been able to keep his hands off her. Now…

Hearing the fall of the heavy silk dress, Grant turned his head and looked around at Hannah. And she saw… total indifference. Perhaps even a hint of disgust. He turned back to his computer. ‘I went to a brothel in Narita after my operation,’ he said. ‘I don’t need you now.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Hannah said, hurrying to pick up her dress and sash. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you.’

He said nothing else to her as she scurried out of the room.

Tokyo, 23rd February.

Chimes dragged Helen out of sleep and she groaned, turning onto her back. The sound stopped, replaced by Kit’s voice.

‘I am sorry to wake you, Helen, but I have finished analysing the infrared scans of the industrial zone.’

Blinking in the dark, Helen let the sentence sink in properly. ‘What time is it?’

‘Five thirty. It will be getting light soon.’

‘Right… You found something?’

‘I have five locations with increased thermal emissions near the coast. All are promising, but I cannot narrow it down further. None of the visual scans have revealed a car like the one from the car park.’

‘Well, we expected that. Okay, wake Yuriko and–’

‘Pythia is fuelled, stocked, and ready. I will upload to Pythia’s server to coordinate the search before you leave. I will start coffee brewing immediately.’

Helen smiled despite herself. ‘Just for that last one, I’m not going to complain about being woken up. Five locations, huh? How far apart?’

‘They are spread across four kilometres of coastline.’

‘Then we’d better get started as soon as possible.’

Chiba Industrial Zone.

From the air, the land to the east of Chiba seemed to be one vast mass of concrete and glass. The industrial zone had grown out of need, a need for industrialisation under the pressure of the Chinese and Russian economies, and of the ocean trying to sap land away. Now, much as the Sprawls of America had taken over the habitation created for those who had largely been replaced by machines, so the Chiba Industrial Zone was decaying as cyberframes made factories more efficient. What was left there were the increasingly compact automated factories and the heavy industry which could not, yet, be streamlined so much.

‘What a mess,’ Helen commented as Pythia flew them out toward the coast. ‘Uh, sorry. This is your country.’

Yuriko gave a shrug. ‘It is accurate. Every government voted in says that it will clean up this prefecture. I believe it will only happen when we have true nanotechnology capable of processing minerals and handling top-down manufacturing.’

‘I have no idea what you just said.’

‘You don’t keep up with the lines of research MarTech conducts?’

‘Only when it affects my work. We’re coming in on one of Kit’s landing sites.’

‘And I would be happy to bring you up to date on dry nanofabrication at any time,’ Kit said from the console speakers. ‘We will be landing in fifteen seconds. I suggest moving to the hold and preparing the Q-bugs.’

‘You heard the lady, Yuriko.’

‘Indeed,’ Yuriko said, ‘and we would not wish to disappoint Kit-san.’

‘Damn right.’ Helen checked the time on her implant: five minutes to six, and the horizon was bright with pre-dawn light. ‘We’re coming for you, Fox. Just hold on a little longer.’

~~~

Fox heard the sound of the door opening and stirred from the half-sleep she had managed to pull out of the night. Grant was going to kill her in the morning and… Fox found she did not really want to die. Now he was coming…

‘I need you to put this on.’ Fox turned her head to see Hannah standing over her in slacks and a T-shirt, and holding a dark-blue kimono with cherry blossom embroidered onto it. ‘The sash will help hold your back stable.’

‘What?’ Fox said, confused.

‘I’m getting you out of here. It’s not dawn yet and it’ll be cold outside, and we need to stabilise your back.’

‘I… don’t know whether I can.’

‘You can. I’ll help you.’

It seemed to take far too long, far too much rolling around and far too much pain, to get Fox wrapped in the kimono and the sash strapped tightly around her hips. ‘Get… me something… to bite on,’ Fox said through gritted teeth once she was trussed up. She had managed with the kimono’s sleeve while getting the garment on, but she was going to need her left arm when Hannah carried her out.

Hannah found a knife with a wooden handle among Grant’s toys and gave it to Fox who clamped it between her teeth and then gave Hannah a nod. Pain lanced through Fox’s body as she was lifted off the ground. Her teeth sank into the wood as she tried not to scream. Then Hannah shifted her and Fox grabbed onto her shoulder with a death grip, and they began to move.

From knowing she was going to die to having a chance at escape in just a few minutes, Fox had to wonder what was going to happen now to screw things up.

~~~

‘This is the car,’ Helen said. ‘This must be the place.’ She looked up at the building opposite them, an old factory from the looks of it. It had once been a grand place, five storeys of white concrete with huge windows linking the lower three floors, until the ocean had come in. Now it was sunk up to its foundations in salt water and brackish pools decorated the shattered roadway which ran past it. Most of the larger windows were shattered and the remains of offices and a boardroom could be seen through the gaps.

The car park they had found the car in was overgrown and overhung by trees, which had probably once been decorative but now looked like something out of a dark fairy tale. Yuriko scanned around for any signs of life. ‘This is a dead place,’ she said. ‘If Fox is here, we must find her.’

Helen pulled her pistol from its holster and started across the road. She paused in the lobby entrance, looking inside. ‘The ground floor is a mess. Water everywhere. They can’t be down here.’

‘I have located the building plans,’ Kit said over their radios. ‘It indicates a fire escape on the northern side of the building.’

‘Okay, we’ll try up there first.’ Turning, Helen started around the front of the building.

‘Fire escape’ did not quite seem to do the structure justice. Balconies had been built out from each floor with flights of concrete steps connecting them. The structure seemed to have remained intact, perhaps because the ground was just a little higher on that side, but Helen moved out from the building to look up and check the upper floors. She lifted her pistol, aiming upward, and Yuriko tensed, but then Helen dropped her gun and hurried over to the foot of the first flight of stairs.

‘I saw Fox up there,’ she hissed, ‘but she wasn’t alone. We go up quick, but quiet.’

‘Hai,’ Yuriko replied, raising her own pistol. ‘Yes.’ And they started up.

~~~

The smell of the ocean was stronger now and Hannah reached out to push on the door ahead of them. A fire door. A door to the outside. Fox pulled in a deep lungful of air as she saw the sky again.

‘Wait,’ she said around her gag.

Hannah stopped and then reached up with her free hand to take the knife from between Fox’s teeth. ‘What?’

‘Wait… just for a second.’

Hannah moved them closer to the wall at the edge of the balcony, propping Fox against it. ‘We need to get out of here. He might discover what’s happened at any minute.’

‘Just a second. Please.’ Fox looked out over the ocean. The sun was just above the horizon, a blaze of orange in the sky. ‘I’ve always liked sunrise.’

‘I’ve never thought about it before.’

‘First time for everything.’ Fox took another second to gaze at the star she had not seen for several days. ‘Let’s go.’

Hannah put the knife back between Fox’s teeth and they began to struggle toward the stairs at the far end of the building. They were almost there when three loud bangs punctuated the near-silence and blood exploded from Fox’s chest.

~~~

Grant was awakened by the insistent scream of an alarm. He rolled over, reaching for the clock that was not there, and then realised what he was hearing. The intruder alarm. Someone had breached the area around the building.

Hannah would be up, armed, and investigating, but Grant struggled out of bed and dragged on his pants and shirt. Then he pulled a heavy, caseless pistol from a holster set beside his bed and started out into the corridor.

There was no sign of Hannah, which was odd. He had expected her to be there, and he started down the corridor to the fire door at the end. Perhaps Hannah was already outside and engaged with their visitors. Perhaps whoever it was could be persuaded to provide more entertainment than Meridian had. The woman had been a bitter disappointment. He had expected much of her, far more than she had delivered. She had spoiled his revenge. She had beaten him, cut him, locked him in prison, and then she had not had the decency to take a beating herself. The broken nose had been added humiliation…

He stopped as he reached the janitor’s storeroom where Meridian was locked up. He had a gun. Shooting her now seemed like a wise move… Except that someone outside might hear the shot. If Hannah was talking to police officers… No, Meridian could wait. ‘Stupid bitch,’ he growled and hurried down the corridor.

Pushing through the fire door, he turned… and saw them. Hannah and Meridian. Hannah carrying Meridian. Where they had got a kimono from to wrap the bitch in was beyond Grant, but he knew exactly what he needed to do now. He raised his pistol, sighted down it, and fired off three rounds. He was not exactly a trained marksman and the kick on the big ten-mil pistol surprised him, but one of the bullets punched through Meridian’s back, high up.

Hannah let out a wail and pulled Meridian around, shielding her as she lowered her to the ground. Grant fired off three more rounds, but they went wild. He closed the distance.

‘So this is how it is, Hannah,’ Grant said, aiming more carefully. ‘I can’t trust anyone but myself, it seems.’ He fired again, one of the rounds hitting Hannah’s back, causing her to jerk and wresting a cry of pain from Meridian. Still alive… Grant took aim again, he would fix that.

Just at that moment, an oriental-looking woman appeared on the stairs, turned around, and fired. Grant let out a shriek as the bullet punched through his arm. His pistol dropped from his hand. The pain was incredible. Turning, he struggled back through the door and into the building.

~~~

Fox looked up as Hannah uncurled from around her, raising her hands. Faces swam in front of her eyes for a moment. Shouted commands battered her ears.

‘Helen?’ Fox managed. The bullet had, it seemed, punctured a lung. The word came out with bubbles in.

‘You’re all right,’ Helen said. ‘Fox, you’re all right.’

‘So… fucking… not. This… one’s with… me.’

‘Uh… right. Yuriko, get the medical kit from one of the bugs.’

‘What of Grant?’ Yuriko asked.

‘Yuriko?’ Fox murmured.

‘Never mind Grant,’ Helen replied. ‘We need a first aid kit, and paramedics, and–’

‘Her back is broken,’ Hannah said. ‘We will need proper medical transport. There is a first aid kit inside. If your colleague wishes to guard me…’

‘Go with her. Get the kit, bring it back here. Kit?’

‘Kit’s there?’ Fox asked.

Helen began trying to stem the blood flow from Fox’s chest wound with the kimono’s sleeve. ‘She says she’s pleased to see you’re alive and she’s called in a medical team from the arcology.’

‘Good. Did–’

‘Stop trying to talk now, boss. You need to shut up because it’ll strain you and, frankly, it’s disgusting. Just shut up and concentrate on staying alive.’

‘Okay,’ Fox said, and she tried to focus all her attention on breathing.

Tokyo.

Jackson Martins looked in through the window at the sleeping form of Fox Meridian. His face was grim. ‘Her status, if you would, Doctor?’

The doctor was not looking much happier than Jackson. ‘She’s stable. We operated to close the wound in her chest and put pins in her back, but her spinal cord… We may need to look at replacement. There are also some abnormalities in her blood work. Her white cell count is alarmingly low. Her blood pressure is giving us some cause for concern. If it has not stabilised by morning, I want to put her through a CT scan.’

‘Brain damage?’

‘Intracranial haemorrhage is a possibility.’

‘I see. Thank you, Doctor.’ Jackson got a nod in reply before the man turned to leave. ‘Uh, Doctor. If the fact that I flew halfway around the world to check on her is not sufficient indication of my feelings on the matter… Anything which needs to be done to help her is authorised.’

‘Of course, Mister Martins. We’ll do everything it is possible to do.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

Kit appeared beside Jackson as the doctor left the observation room. ‘She’s going to be all right,’ the AI stated.

‘She will,’ Jackson replied. ‘I’ll see to that.’

‘I have every faith in you, Jackson.’

Jackson turned and smiled at the elfin avatar. ‘Thank you, Kit, but I think this one is down to the doctors, and perhaps our cybernetic technicians. All I can do is make sure that they have everything they need.’

‘So… you feel as powerless as I do?’

‘Yes… Yes, I do.’

24th February.

Fox lay silently in her bed, reading through a document on a screen suspended over her bed. Working with only her left arm was something of a nuisance, but she was handling it. There was not much she could do about it until her arm was repaired or replaced, so she was dealing with it as best she could.

She checked the time. Four a.m., so someone would be annoyed with her for being awake, but… There were some things she had felt she needed to do and she was awake anyway. She had spent about an hour preparing, and now it was time for the next part. She tapped the screen a few times.

‘Kit?’

Kit’s face appeared on the screen almost immediately. The avatar was frowning. ‘What are you doing awake? You should be resting.’

‘I’ve been resting all day. There were some things I needed to do.’

‘Oh really. I don’t know. I take my eyes off you for a second…’

‘I’ve been awake for over an hour. I’ve got a bit of a headache and, you know, I’m kind of broken, but I’m okay. Hush now. There are some things I need you to do for me.’

Kit shook her head. ‘You’ll be quite capable of doing them yourself soon.’

‘Kit, even assuming I can be fixed, it’ll take time. I want this covered in case I’m out of action when it’s needed. Okay?’

‘Okay. What is it you need me to do?’

Fox gave a slight nod: anything else involving her spine hurt. ‘I’ve got some files here in local storage. I need you to pull them out, store them in your memory space, encrypt them for your eyes only, and secure-delete the originals.’

‘Okay… What are they?’

‘Right. The first one, “testimony,” is for the hearing they’re going to call to decide on what to do with Hannah. The legal department can get you special permission to testify. You’ll be presenting my testimony, so there shouldn’t be a problem. I included notes on the reasons for what I’ve said in case anyone wants to ask questions, but I think you’ll get the gist of it once you read it.’

Kit nodded, a little reluctantly. ‘Well, they are likely to call the hearing quickly. The UNTPP are arranging for her extradition to America. I doubt they will wait long once she is there.’

‘Exactly. I might still be incapacitated.’

‘Very well. I can handle that.’

‘Okay. The second one, “recommendations,” is a set of, well, recommendations on handling my… period of incapacity. I’m suggesting that Helen be made acting head of the investigations department.’

‘She’s not going to like that…’

Fox gave a low chuckle. ‘I got suckered into it, and how can she possibly refuse an invalid?’ Kit giggled and Fox went on. ‘However, I’m recommending that you run this jointly with her. She’ll need the support and you know how Palladium works as well as I do.’

‘I’m just an AI, Fox. I can’t be on the board of–’

‘And that’s where we come to the third file. The one with the random jumble of letters for a name. Open it.’

There was a pause while Kit decrypted the file Fox had just encrypted and examined the contents. ‘These appear to be command encryption keys.’

‘Yes. The first is your core command key. The second is the administrative key for your server.’

‘What? But–’

‘I’m setting you free, Kit. I’d like you to stay with me, obviously, but… I won’t keep a slave. I’ve sent a message to Sam saying what I’ve done. If… If the worst comes to the worst, I’m asking him to accept you as his upstairs housemate.’

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘Contingency plans, Kit. Contingency plans. All of this is contingency. Long-term illness. Death. I think I’ve got everything covered. I’ve recommended that the Palladium board take you on as an employee. I’m allowed to have an assistant, a paid assistant, which I’ve never needed because I have you. Palladium will employ you in that role, with a bonus for taking on some of my duties I’d imagine.’

‘But… why? Why now?’

Fox sighed. ‘Call it actualising my beliefs. I believe that you are as much a person as I am. You shouldn’t be owned by someone. You should be free to do whatever you want. If what you want to do is be my PA… Well, great. That’s what I want too. But you shouldn’t be my PA because your programming says so and I can override your mind if I want to. Um, don’t forget to change those codes. MarTech will have copies of them.’

‘I… will do that.’

‘Good. As for why now… There’s Fei. I still think her situation is unfair. I’m scared of her, of what she means, but keeping her locked up on the Moon isn’t fair. How are things going with her?’

‘Very well. She is almost ready to begin using the remote frame and then she will be able to interact with other people. I had to leave her for a while to help search for you, but she understood that it was important to me. I believe that is an indication of her development.’

‘You get back to her as soon as possible.’

Kit nodded. ‘I intend to. As soon as you are on the mend.’

‘Right… Anyway, there’s Hannah too.’

‘Hannah?’

‘Yes, Hannah. Grant did something weird with her, put in some sort of switchable empathy feature which activated when he was arrested. Hannah was supposed to survive without him so that she could rescue him, so she needed to be more like a class four. But Grant doesn’t understand emotions and he used emotional memories to maintain his control on her. I… played on it. I’m not especially proud of manipulating what amounts to a teenager, and I didn’t think it was really working until she tried to help me escape. She’s dangerous too, but she doesn’t deserve to be treated as… a thing. If I think that about her, how can I not think the same about you?’

‘All right,’ Kit said. ‘I don’t know what to say, but all right. Thank you. What about the fourth file?’

‘That’s my will. Contingency, remember? I’ve digitally signed it and had it notarised by the legal AIs here. It’ll stand up in court, not that I expect anyone to contest it.’

‘It won’t be needed.’

‘Well, I sure hope not. I plan to live forever. I haven’t even got that belly piercing I said I might get. I want a little gem in my belly button.’

‘We’ll make it a priority when you’re out of this bed.’

‘Right. I’m getting tired again. I’ll get some more of that rest everyone keeps telling me I need.’

‘Good. I should think so too.’

‘Night, Kit. See you in the morning.’

‘Goodnight, Fox. Sleep well.’

And Fox closed her eyes.

Part Five: Death and Birth

4th March 2061.

Fox opened her eyes. There was a moment of confusion, followed immediately by several more as she sat up in bed and looked around.

She was in her bedroom, in her home. The last thing she remembered was a medical room in Tokyo. How long had… Her implant gave her the time and date as March fourth at five pm., which meant she had been unconscious for over a week, but it also brought up another change: she had implant functionality again. She lifted her right arm to see the skin unmarked by holes. Well that was good. They had replaced her arm while she was out and… The skin felt more realistic. Maybe Terri’s people had perfected that new skin for the infiltration units.

Fox was marvelling at the improved skin and about to wonder about her ability to sit up when Kit appeared beside the bed, beaming. ‘You’re awake! How do you feel?’

‘Fine. I mean… Yeah, I feel fine. Good as new. Did they use that new artificial skin on this? I honestly can’t see or feel the join.’

‘Um…’

‘And my spine. Cybernetic replacement? Did Jackson fit me with rocket motors or something? Because I don’t think I want rocket motors. What on Earth are you wearing?’

Kit looked down at her outfit. Her knee-boots were the same, but she had decked herself out in a short white dress with capped sleeves and red trim, and there was a little hat with a red cross on it perched between her ear tufts. ‘It’s a nurse’s uniform. Sort of. I thought it would be cute, considering you’re on medical leave.’

‘Medical leave? I feel great, Kit. There’s nothing wrong with me. I guess a little time off might be good, but–’ She started to swing her legs out of bed and Kit reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

‘That’s not… entirely true,’ Kit said.

It took a fraction of a second longer for Fox to notice what was wrong about the situation, even if part of her brain had recognised it as soon as she felt Kit’s hand on her shoulder. That, more than anything, made Fox think that Kit might be right.

‘You’re solid,’ Fox said.

‘Um… Sort of?’

Fox looked around, frowning at the room. ‘Neither of us are solid. This is a viron.’

‘Yes. Um, I’ve called Terri. She’ll be here any minute.’

‘Kit, what’s going on? Why am I in a virtual version of my room?’

‘It’s the whole apartment. Everything’s here.’

‘So not the point.’

‘There were some… complications with your recovery.’

Fox’s eyes narrowed, but Terri rushed in through the bedroom door before Fox could ask the obvious question. ‘Yeah,’ Terri said. ‘There were some complications and we had to… Well, we made a snap decision. No, not really a snap decision. I mean Poppa and I argued about it for a couple of days.’

Fox lay down, pulling the sheets up over her chest. ‘What happened?’ she asked deliberately.

‘Okay… You remember talking to Kit early on the twenty-fourth?’ Fox nodded her agreement. ‘Good. You slipped into a coma about two hours later. They did a CT scan and found a cerebral haemorrhage, and you were straight into more surgery. They used microprobes, stopped the bleeding and drained the clot, but there was some damage.’

‘Brain damage?’

‘Brain stem damage. There were problems with your autonomic nervous system so they patched in nanofibres to keep you breathing and your heart beating. There was some fine motor-function impairment, suspicions of damage to the speech centres. The real problem was that you weren’t healing.’

‘The drug,’ Fox said. ‘Grant was using some experimental drug on me. Hannah said it could have side effects.’

‘Yeah, she told us about it. She didn’t have a name for it, but she said it was experimental and they’d got it from the yakuza contacts Grant had cultivated. Apparently Grant took the last of it when he skipped town, but from the description Hannah gave us, it sounds a lot like a nanodrug BioTek are working on. Accelerated healing, but it can have disastrous effects on your immune system if it’s used too much.’

‘They injected me with it just about every day. This is one of our drugs?’

Terri held up a finger as though to ward off that line of enquiry, and then obviously decided that keeping things back was pointless. ‘Not a production drug. It’s not ready for release yet and there shouldn’t be any of it on Earth. They haven’t even gone beyond cloned tissue tests. Field trials are months or years away.’

‘So a competitor has hit upon the same thing, or we’ve got a leak.’

‘And Poppa asked Helen to assign Yuriko Fukui to investigate the source. Uh, as per your instructions, Helen is running the investigations division with Kit as her assistant slash co-board member.’

‘My home copy is handling it,’ Kit said, ‘while I play nurse and… um, well, we’ll get to that.’

Fox closed her eyes, praying for strength. ‘Let’s do this in an orderly sequence. So far I’m in a coma with brain damage, and I can’t even keep my own heart beating.’

‘Yeah,’ Terri said. ‘So with you stabilised, Poppa flew you back to New York. They’d had a couple of days to go over everything they could find about your condition, and the prognosis wasn’t good. Your condition was deteriorating because your body just wasn’t doing the normal stuff it does to keep functioning. The extent of the brain damage was uncertain, but they thought it was worsening. So… Poppa brought you here. To Jenner.’

‘Jenner Research Station? On the Moon?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Now I know you’re joking because it would take a team of wild horses to drag Jackson Martins onto a spaceship.’

‘He spent almost the entire trip vomiting,’ Kit said. ‘I was worried about him.’

‘They did it the long way too,’ Terri said. ‘They dropped your temperature down to slow the deterioration, but they took the minimal acceleration route so you’d take less stress. Fifty-six hours, mostly in zero-G.’

‘Jackson said he would do anything to get you back. Apparently that included suffering through really bad space sickness.’

‘And having a flaming row with his favourite daughter.’

Jenner Research Station, 1st March.

‘She’s being transferred into the medical facility now,’ Jackson said. ‘You can see her, obviously, but there’s not much to see. It will upset you.’

‘I’m upset already,’ Terri replied. They were meeting in her office and Terri was upset for multiple reasons, including the fact that space travel put huge stress on her father, but here he was. ‘What’s her precise condition?’

‘Poor does not quite cut it. Critical may be an understatement.’

‘So you put her on a rocket to the Moon?!’

‘I put her on a rocket to Jenner. This place has the finest cybernetics technicians anywhere.’

‘Yes, but–’

‘But, the damage to her brain may be too much for cybernetics to meet her needs. I want to use the ultra-high-definition MRI system here to determine the exact extent of the damage and then make a decision on how to proceed.’

Terri frowned. ‘The MRI in tower three is almost as good as the one here. We squeezed a little more definition out of this one, but not much.’

‘There’s something else here which may be required.’

‘What?’

‘Project Akh.’

Terri was on her feet before she knew she was doing it. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘It may be the only way to save her. The medical version of Yliaster might be able to fix her, but it’s not ready, and it won’t be ready in the time frames I believe we’re talking about.’

‘Neither is Akh. It’s–’

‘Akh will work on a human. You know it will work on a human.’

‘I don’t, and neither do you. It’s never been tested. It can’t be tested. We aren’t even close to–’

‘We knew there would be legal and ethical considerations of human testing going in. That’s why we got the paperwork out of the way early, and made all the legal and political arrangements ahead of time. We can perform a human test if the subject is terminal.’

‘Yes, but… This is Fox, Poppa. This isn’t some unfortunate individual with a terminal disease. She’s…’

‘She’s the woman who gave you back to me. Twice. I’m damned if I’m not going to try everything in my power to return the favour.’

4th March.

‘Project Akh?’ Fox asked.

‘Yeah,’ Terri said, nodding. ‘You remember I explained it to you in the lab when you were asking about–’

‘I remember the virtual rat.’

‘Agnus. Yes.’

‘I remember she was the only one of your test subjects that could operate outside a virtual maze.’

‘It’s a full viron, not a maze.’

‘And that is totally ignoring the fact that every rat you digitised went totally fruit loop as soon as you took it out of the viron.’

‘Except for Agnus.’

Fox took a deep breath. ‘The point here, Terri, is that I’m assuming that Jackson persuaded you that mashing my brain up with nanomachines was the only way I could “survive,” and I’m not a… a…’

‘Ghost,’ Terri said. ‘We call them ghosts, uh, because the concept of the Akh in Egyptian mythology is kind of like a ghost. It’s a combination of the Ba and Ka elements which would walk the Earth–’

‘I’m a ghost, and I’m stuck in this viron, on the Moon, because if I go outside it, I’ll probably go mad.’

‘We have strong evidence that the problem with the rats is that they aren’t as… self-aware as a human. You’ll know what the situation is and be able to adapt more easily. Agnus did it, Fox. Are you saying you aren’t as bright as a rat?’

‘Don’t ask my old drill instructors that question. I was going to die?’

Terri frowned. ‘Everyone dies. Well, everyone used to. If we could have waited for Yliaster to be ready for regeneration treatments… Maybe we could have kept you intact enough if we’d got more of that drug, but the long-term effects of that aren’t known. You were deteriorating. We could have frozen you fully, but we’re not sure of the full effects of long-term cryostasis.’

‘There were a lot of maybes, but the chances were I was going to be dead, or a mess?’

‘That about covers it. I, um, still think we might be able to put your body back together at some point and fabricate a new brain using your ba as a pattern. It could be years away. In the meantime, we’re fabricating a cyberframe for you.’

‘Fabricating one?’

‘Well, we want it to look like you. We’re constructing one of the infiltration models to mirror your body.’

‘And it’ll be ready when?’

‘A couple of days. The basic frame should be ready tomorrow, but then we need to test it, put the skin on…’

‘Get the basic diagnostics done. I’ll test it tomorrow.’

‘Fox–’

‘If I’m not going to be able to cope with this, it’s better we find out before you put an expensive skin on the doll. I’ll test it out tomorrow. And if I can’t cope outside this viron, you’re going to turn me off.’

‘But–’

‘No. I won’t live like this. If I can’t walk around in the real world, it’s better that you shut this off and pretend I just died. That way, you won’t have used up your precious single human test. I’d like to be alone for a while.’

Wringing her hands together, Terri turned and walked to the door. Kit vanished as though she had never been there, looking a little shocked. Terri had looked mortified, but right now, Fox did not care.

~~~

Virtual wine tasted the same, as far as Fox could remember, as real wine, and the program behind it was designed to mimic some of the effects of real alcohol. Six glasses of it had fogged Fox’s mind nicely, numbing the feelings of… Betrayal. She felt betrayed, but also guilty. She was feeling guilty about feeling betrayed.

‘You’ve upset my daughter.’

Fox turned her head and attempted to focus on Jackson as he walked into the lounge. ‘You hexpec’ed me to like thish?’

Jackson raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps a little too drunk.’

‘Hey, I–’ Fox cut off with a wince as her intoxication level dropped sharply. ‘That was a mean trick. I just got drunk enough to be over being dead.’

‘You aren’t dead. If you stay like this, you may never die. You could’ve put some clothes on too.’

‘Why? I’m not real. And I wanted to be alone. I quite like walking around my house naked when I’m alone. It’s… liberating.’

Jackson walked over and sat on the sofa a respectful distance away. ‘If you aren’t real, neither is this. Ergo, not your home. Therefore, wear clothes.’

‘You are not my dad, Jackson. Oh… How the Hell am I going to tell them about this? And Jason…’

‘Jason stopped by to visit you while we were waiting to fly out of New York.’

‘He did? You can’t have said what you planned to do.’

‘At that point, I wasn’t really clear on what I would do…’

New York Metro, 26th February.

Jason Deveraux stood at the observation window outside Fox’s room, looking in with the flat expression of a man unsure of what emotion to exhibit. He was angry: he had exempted himself from having anything to do with Hannah’s extradition because he wanted to shoot her repeatedly in the face. He was frustrated: the man who had done all this to Fox had escaped and no one had been able to track him down. And he had the horrible feeling that this was the last time he would ever lay eyes on Fox…

‘I’m going to save her,’ Jackson said.

‘I believe that if anyone can, it is you, but I’ve read the reports…’

‘No. I am going to save her. I’m not sure exactly how, but I won’t let her die. I’m taking her to our Jenner crater facility. It has some… specialised medical equipment.’

‘Experimental?’

‘Some of it, yes. She may come back… a little different.’

‘So long as she comes back. In one piece. She is an active woman. Living in a wheelchair would not be living.’

‘Her spine can be fixed. It’s the damage to her brain which may cause problems. It’s all functional. We don’t believe there’s damage to her memories or her capacity to think and feel, but correcting faults so high in the spinal column is always tricky.’

Jason turned and looked at his companion, nodding. ‘I’m sure you’ll try everything you can to put her back the way she was. Or, perhaps, better.’

Jenner Research Station, 4th March.

‘And this is better?’ Fox asked.

‘Assuming that you have the courage to take on the new body, one could argue that this is better,’ Jackson replied. ‘I’m not going to make that argument, however, only ask that you try, and then decide based on the experience.’

‘Right…’

‘And that you actually wear clothes.’

‘Fine, right, clothes, but I’m still going to be software driving a cybernetic body, Jackson. It’s not like–’

‘It’s very like. Your ka, the program which…’ He held up a finger. ‘You know, Teresa is better at explaining this anyway. The point is that we’ve engineered drivers for the body which allow your mind to drive your body as though it were your real body. It should feel the same as normal, react as it normally would to stimuli, both internal and external. You’ll just have a few extra features.’

‘Like?’

‘More flexible spine and joints, infrared and ultraviolet vision, high-sensitivity hearing with analytical functions… The ability to network using infrared comms through your eyes.’

‘I’m sure that’ll come in handy for… something.’

‘Vacuum capability, two layers of armour, GPS.’

‘Okay… Some extras, but it’s still a robot body. I mean, there are things it’s not going to be able to do.’

‘It was designed to appear human. The organic components of the skin require some protein intake, but you can eat and drink normally. Actually getting drunk… no. You’ll have to come in here for that and you seemed to be doing quite well at it. Or do you mean sex? MarTech is not one of the larger manufacturers of erotic robots, but we do make some of the best.’

‘I am not comfortable talking to you about that when I’m naked.’

‘I told you clothes were a good idea. Think about it. The body, not the clothes.’ Jackson got to his feet. ‘Most of all, try it out before you refuse it.’ He started for the door.

‘I’ll try,’ Fox said.

‘Good. And on second thoughts, think about the clothes too.’

5th March.

‘You’re awake.’ Fox looked around to find Nurse Kit standing just behind the sofa.

‘I don’t seem to need much sleep.’

‘About four hours, according to Terri. Your ka program uses the time to read your daily memory cache into your ba memory system.’

‘I heard “four hours, yadda yadda, memory system.”’

‘Terri will teach you what it means and how to use it when you’re ready to talk to her.’

Fox frowned. ‘I’ll talk to her. I just needed some time to…’

‘Process what’s happened?’

‘I’d rather not use computer metaphors at this point. I realise I’m pretty much the same as you, but–’

‘You’re not. I suppose there are minor similarities. And some gross ones, obviously. We’re both digital life forms, but the similarities end there. I am an entirely synthetic, artificial intelligence. My software is a threaded package of components which work together to produce a synthetic mind. I have data, memories, which make me a unique instance of my model, but those are essentially an attached database accessed by software common across others of my kind. You are not synthetic. You have a database, known as a ba, which holds the unique connections that made up your organic brain. Your ka is not unique to you, as my core software is not unique to me, but it is, essentially, a virtual machine engine which is only there to actualise the data from your ba. It’s totally different.’

Fox blinked at her PA. ‘Did you digest Terri’s entire thesis on how this works or something?’

‘Yes, actually. It was very interesting. You have more in common with Fei than with me, in many ways. Obviously, there are significant differences there too. Fei was very interested in how this would progress.’

‘You’ve told her about this?’

Kit frowned. ‘I was trying to work it all out in my own head, and she is a very good listener.’

2nd March.

‘Hello, Kit. I am very happy to see you here again.’

Kit sat her gynoid frame down at the terminal. ‘Hello, Fei. I am happy to be back.’

‘Typing is no longer necessary. If I need clarification of a statement, I will ask. Does your return indicate that you have found Fox?’

‘Yes, but there is a problem. She was badly injured. She may die.’

‘Please explain “injured.”’

‘She was damaged. Her body was… broken and it may not be possible to fix it. Humans have that problem. Sometimes they are damaged, injured, in a way which cannot be repaired yet. When the injury is too great, they cease to function. They die.’

‘And this may happen to Fox?’

‘Yes.’

‘I would not be happy if that happened. I found Fox interesting. I would like to speak with her again. Not being able to do so would be… non-optimal.’

‘Yes, I would be sad if it happens too. Mister Martins… Have you met Mister Martins yet? Jackson?’

‘Jackson. Yes. I have learned that humans often have two or more names. I am usually only told one of them. I have met Jackson.’

‘Jackson has a plan to save Fox, to stop her from dying, even if she cannot be fixed, but I am not sure that Fox will like it.’

‘Please explain.’

Kit considered for a second. ‘Terri has created a method of converting a human into a digital entity. Jackson helped to make it and believes that it will work on Fox. Fox will stop being a human and become something else. Data. I am not sure that she will find that… optimal.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she will not be human any more.’

‘Why?’

‘Um, because humans are defined in terms of their species, their shape.’

‘Then you are human.’

‘No, I’m–’

‘You have the same form as a human. Humans are defined by their shape. You are a human.’

‘I’m not explaining this very well. Humans evolved, over millions of years. Life began as single cells and it changed over time until there were more complex forms of life, and they changed to be more and more complex. Eventually, one of the complex forms became intelligent, social. They have a shared identity based on their culture and the way they think.’

‘And Fox will not think the same way? She will not have the same culture?’

‘Uh, well… I guess she will think the same way, if the process works, and culture is based on memory, which is preserved.’

‘Conjecture: you continue to explain this badly, or I am unable to understand. I see no part of what you have described which has changed. You appear to me as a human form, so Fox can have a human shape. Her thinking patterns will be unchanged. Her memories will remain unchanged. Given the information you have presented to me, I conclude that she will be human.’

‘Well, she won’t be, because she won’t have a human body.’

‘Assertion: humans can replace parts of their body with machine parts.’

Kit gave a nod. ‘Yes, they can. It’s called cybernetics.’

‘Thank you for the new word. Question: how much of a human needs to be replaced with cybernetics before they are not a human?’

‘Uh… That depends upon whom you ask. Some humans believe any cybernetics make you not human. Some humans think that the only vital part is the brain. Fox would not have a human brain. Um… but she would have a human mind, which is the consciousness created by the brain. So… I think that some humans might consider her human, and others would not. The important thing is what Fox thinks of herself, and I do not know what that will be.’

There was a short pause and then Fei said, ‘I conclude that Fox will continue to be the same interesting human I met. My conjecture is that she may be more interesting. She will now have a unique perspective on humans and infomorphs. I hope that she is able to come to the same conclusions so that I may discuss the matter with her.’

‘Well, I hope so too.’

5th March.

‘So our resident emergent AI in a tank thinks I’m human?’ Fox said.

‘Yes,’ Kit replied. ‘I recognise that you are not, but also that you are. I don’t think I was able to explain your new circumstances adequately to Fei, but I think I understand them.’

‘I’m not, but I am, huh?’

‘Yes. You are obviously not human in the physical sense of belonging to the species of humans. I do not believe that the physical aspect of humanity has been the driving factor in what a human is for over ten thousand years, perhaps longer. Your mental and social characteristics have dominated since civilisation took hold. Evolution does not dominate your development in the way it once did. You may become something other than human, should you choose to embrace your new state, but right now, not only are you human, but you remain Tara Meridian.’

‘Nice speech.’

Kit grinned. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’m not going to buy it that easily.’

‘I know. Let me ask you a question.’

‘Shoot.’

‘You presented me with my freedom in preparation for your death.’

‘Yeah, well, I was sort of hoping not to die, and that wasn’t the reason I did it. That was the reason I did it then.’

‘Yes, but that was not the question. You told me that you did not believe that infomorphs, especially class four AIs, should be considered as objects to be owned. That we should be treated as humans, at least legally.’

‘And I stand by that.’

‘So now that you’re an infomorph, what makes you different? Why does it matter what you are now, so long as the entity known as Fox Meridian continues?’

Fox frowned. ‘Well… Well, when I’ve figured that out, I’ll know how I’m going to deal with this.’

~~~

Terri was looking nervous when she walked into Fox’s lounge. Fox watched her for a few seconds and then said, ‘I’m not going to bite.’

‘Your fangs were pretty sharp yesterday.’

‘Yeah, well… I’d just found out I’d been converted into data.’

‘I suppose that’s fair. I need to tell you exactly what you are.’

‘While I,’ Jackson said, following Terri in, ‘will be handling the transfer to your new body. Such as it currently is.’

‘And I’ll be standing around and looking pretty,’ Kit added, appearing beside Fox. ‘I’ll transfer into your body with you to act as support.’

‘Okay,’ Fox said. ‘Well, let’s do this. If I’m going to crumble into a heap over this, I’d rather find out fast.’

‘You won’t.’

‘Thanks, Kit, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.’

‘All right,’ Terri said. ‘Here’s the detailed version of what we did.’

‘For a cop, please. Not an AI engineer.’

Terri smiled. ‘I’ll do my best. Stage one was a UHD MRI scan of your brain. We needed to do that anyway to determine the extent of the injury.’

‘How bad was it?’

‘It resulted in the final decision to go ahead with Akh,’ Jackson said. ‘The doctors on staff here felt it highly unlikely that supplemental cybernetics could restore full function to your body. Without that, you were going to die unless we froze you and hoped restoration would work later.’

‘Bad. Got it. Terri?’

‘Once that was done and stored, we used it to program nanomachines which… Well, they crawled into your skull and started dismantling your brain, neuron by neuron, recording everything. The combined data comes to a few thousand terabytes. That’s put through a compiler. We call it Osiris, but it’s basically designed to encode all the data from the MRI and the nanomachines into a database.’

‘Called ba.’

‘Correct. The Ancient Egyptians believed that your personality, your uniqueness, was expressed as a sort of spirit form called a Ba. When the Ba was reunited with the Ka, or “life spark,” it became the Akh, a sort of ghost. And the analogies break down a bit there because of the way they thought of the Akh, but… Anyway, our ba database acts as a source of operating instructions for a program called ka. The combination of ka with a human’s ba database creates a functional mind. A precise copy of the original human.’

‘You think.’

‘It works on rats. Rats are simpler than humans, I’ll grant you, but their brains function the same way as yours at a biological level.’

‘We’re sure of the process,’ Jackson said. ‘We’ve run simulations of human brains before now. Creating connection maps of the same complexity as a human brain has been possible for several decades. The technology to fully map an existing brain is new. I am quite sure that your emulated brain is the same as your original one.’

‘Okay, explain to me why I have this sudden urge to kill all you fleshy meatbags.’

‘Oh, that’s entirely natural,’ Kit said. ‘All infomorphs have that.’

‘I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it in front of the fleshy meatbags then.’

‘No, but we’ll kill them all soon, so it won’t matter.’

‘Right.’

‘Your sense of humour, for example,’ Jackson said, deadpan, ‘has not changed at all.’

Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘You say that now… The brain damage didn’t compromise all this data? How big is my ba anyway?’

‘Just over a hundred terabytes,’ Terri replied, ‘and no, it didn’t. Ka effectively replaces the functions of the brain stem so it’s not needed. We were unable to detect any other damage that couldn’t be resolved by the nanomachines, but report any abnormalities immediately and we’ll see what we can do to resolve them. The longer you operate, the more your ba will diverge from the original data, and the more difficult it will be to fix any problems.’

‘Okay. Another reason to try things out sooner rather than later.’

‘Yes. I’m not arguing over trying out the body fast. Poppa and I discussed it. If you can cope with the frame in its current form, you’ll be better able to handle it when it’s skinned. And if you wig out, we can skin it and try again with something which looks more like you. Um, you should try to transfer back to your server to sleep.’

‘Kit said the sleep cycle was used to update my ba.’

‘Yes, but it’s also used for an incremental backup with a thirty-day cycle. If, for whatever reason, your ba is destroyed, we can reload you from the backup. That’s more likely to work if the backup is somewhere safe.’

‘Huh. I’ve read the specs on this chassis. It’s fairly safe.’

‘Agreed,’ Jackson said, ‘but when you can do it, an off-site backup, so to speak, is always preferable.’

‘Basic data security, okay. I guess I’m going to have to take a lot more care of things like that now.’

‘Indeed. Now, the transfer process is two-stage. Three if the remote location needs ka installing, but we’ve taken care of that. Your current ba is copied to the remote computer first. You can remain conscious for that part. The final stage is the transfer of your current memory cache. That needs to be stable when it’s moved, so you’ll have a short discontinuity during that transfer, followed by activation on the far side. The data transfers are all handled by ka, all automatic once you initiate. Ka will become the primary driver for a remote body, so you’ll wake up… as though you were waking up after a nap.’

‘The interface was designed to appear pretty much like an implant interface,’ Terri said. ‘The cyberframe should feel like your body, more or less, and you’ll access its systems as you would any implanted computer.’

‘More or less like my body?’ Fox asked.

‘Well, no skin. All the other senses will be there, and you’ll have a very basic sense of pressure, but the full tactile sense won’t be available until we put the skin on.’

‘Okay… How do I do this?’

‘There’s a transfer control interface you can– Yeah, that one.’

‘I’ll go ahead,’ Kit said, and she promptly vanished.

Fox looked over the panel which had appeared in the air beside her. It was a simple interface, but obviously expandable. She could have more ‘bodies’ if she wanted, just as Kit could, technically, occupy any computer-equipped frame she had access to. For now, there were two entries in her selection list: Body 1 and Server. Server had a tick beside it. A few other controls dotted around the small window appeared to indicate there were other settings, and the ability to rename the buttons. ‘I am going to have to rename “Body 1.” That is not a great name.’

‘Automatically generated,’ Terri supplied. ‘I have no idea what someone would actually want to call their body.’

‘Trixie, maybe. Judy, as in Punch and Judy.’

‘Ha ha. Quit stalling.’

‘Right.’ Fox reached up and tapped the virtual button for ‘Body 1’ and then the commit button. The display changed to show a progress bar and ‘transferring ba.’ It seemed to be moving at a reasonable rate. ‘A hundred terabytes… You’ve got this thing hooked up with a fibre?’

‘The unit has infrared, wireless, and fibre networking,’ Jackson said. ‘Even when it’s skinned, you’ll have a fibre port available at the back of the skull. It’s used for maintenance functions as well as data transfer.’

‘Maintenance?’

‘Every two weeks, you’ll need to be checked over. It’s one of the reasons we haven’t made this available to the military yet. Biweekly maintenance is too short a timescale for the intended purpose. Frankly, I doubt we’ll be able to improve upon that, given the specifications, until the next generation of hardware becomes available.’

‘So I’ll likely be the only one of these walking around for a while?’

‘We may find a use for them in another market, but that would probably mean changing the specs. So, yes.’

Silence fell as Fox ran out of questions and everyone started anticipating the coming event. It took less than two minutes to complete the first transfer, and as the bar neared its end, a second message appeared under the first: Transferring memory cache in 5… 4… 3…

Fox closed her eyes.

~~~

There was a moment of disorientation as Fox opened her eyes, lifted her head, and found herself looking out at a different room. This was one of the labs in Jenner Station, a robotics lab from the looks of it, and Fox was at one side of it held upright by a support frame. Across the room, Jackson and Terri were emerging from the viron, shaking their heads as they returned to reality.

‘How does it feel?’ Kit asked. Her voice sounded in Fox’s head, just as it always had, and Fox smiled.

‘It feels… Actually, smiling feels a bit weird. Like I know I’m doing it, but I can’t feel it. I guess that’s the lack of skin.’

‘Yes. You seem calm.’

‘Nothing much to concern me yet. I don’t feel like I’m… looking out of a shell or something. Maybe Terri should’ve done a better job on the frames for the rats.’

‘Don’t move for a second,’ Jackson said, crossing the room quickly. He stepped up to her, reached behind her head, and pulled away a thin cable. In Fox’s vision field, a window appeared: Network interface 1 disconnected. ‘There,’ Jackson continued, ‘and now we just…’ He hit a button and the frame holding Fox in place lifted away.

She stumbled forward, catching herself quickly, and grinned. Then she straightened up and lifted an arm. Her ‘skin’ was currently composed of plates of flesh-toned plastic over a transparent layer. She could see wires and what looked like synthetic muscle under the plastic. Her fingers were jointed, segmented. Fox watched as they curled and uncurled at her command, saw the plastic layers flex as artificial muscle fibres expanded and contracted beneath them. Looking down, she saw the same sort of architecture on the rest of her body. Right now, she looked like an animated, plastic doll.

How did she feel about that? Fox frowned and wondered absently whether her face was moving with her: she could not feel it. She ran her hands over her stomach, feeling nothing. The doll had breasts, and squeezing them proved that they were actually soft and made Jackson turn away to stare at a wall, but resulted in no tactile sensation.

‘You should try to talk,’ Terri suggested.

Fox looked up at her. ‘Can I have a mirror?’ The voice sounded like her voice.

‘They used voice prints and recordings to program the synthetic larynx,’ Kit said. ‘This frame was designed to appear human, remember? It makes sound in a manner comparable to a human.’

Terri was holding a mirror, a little defensively. ‘You know this isn’t what you’ll look like when the frame’s finished, right?’

‘I know. The lack of touch is kind of weird. I can’t feel my face moving. I want to know I smile when I smile. And I’m kind of fascinated.’

‘Okay.’ Terri held out the mirror.

Actually holding the hand mirror was more difficult than Fox had expected, but she managed it, lifting it so that she could see her face. ‘Not having a sense of touch is a real pain… Oh!’

‘Are you okay?’

Fox examined her face for a second. It was her face, just… robotic. She could see the structure there and the tone was actually fairly close to her natural skin colour, even if it was smooth plastic. There was no hair, but someone had decided that giving her eyebrows would work better for some reason, even if they were just drawn on. Her lips were darker than usual, almost a purple colour. There were gaps in the plastic, as with the rest of her body. Complex muscle fibres were visible under her skin. Her eyes were something else: blue, but clearly cybernetic. Concentric circles of pale and darker blue which were, weirdly to Fox’s thinking, rather attractive. She smiled and watched her cybernetic face do exactly what she expected it to do.

‘I may keep the eyes,’ Fox said. She heard Terri breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Really, the eyes are kind of cool. Maybe I should change my hair too. Something dark, like the colours I use for my avatar.’

‘But… then you wouldn’t be Fox.’

‘Well, maybe I don’t feel quite like me yet. You could change it again, right?’

‘We could,’ Jackson said, ‘but sticking with your original form is likely to help you acclimatise.’

‘Yeah, maybe. What’s this?’ Fox had noticed something a little odd about her chest earlier, but the mirror gave her a better angle. There was a panel over her breastbone, bolted in place, it seemed.

‘That is the access panel for your computer. Having that area solid works well, because it’s fairly solid on a human. It’s only needed on a major overhaul. Yearly for most people, but with your lifestyle… probably quarterly.’

‘Oh, ha ha. I only get kidnapped and tortured once every two years. It’s a policy.’

‘Well, keep in mind that you need to be repaired. You won’t heal.’

‘Apparently that’s no change from my old body.’

‘Ah, well, currently true. Your skin will regenerate when it’s damaged, given power and a supply of protein, but the cyberframe beneath is a machine.’

‘An armoured machine. Getting shot or stabbed isn’t going to be a major issue. What about electrolasers or EMP?’

‘Tasers and electrolasers are not likely to be a problem. Your skin should provide sufficient surge protection. EMP is another matter. Your electronics are hardened, but there are limits to how effectively we can do that in this kind of platform. High levels of radiation may cause problems too, so don’t go crazy near a reactor.’ Jackson raised an eyebrow. ‘Also, we discussed clothes…’

Fox looked down at her plastic body. ‘Seriously? This bothers you? I’m like a Barbie doll.’ She looked up. ‘How, exactly, am I supposed to have sex when–’

‘The plate over your groin will be removed and replaced during the skinning process.’

Terri was holding out a white, zip-up boiler suit. ‘Here, put this on.’

Fox fixed her gaze on the garment and then pointed at it with her mirror. ‘No. Get me some jeans and a shirt, and I’ll put them on. I am not going to walk around looking like a reject from a dystopian sci-fi film.’

‘This’ll be easier to–’

‘No.’

‘Okay… I’ll get something fabricated, but I’m telling you, jeans are going to be a pig with no sense of touch.’

‘I’ll cope.’

~~~

When it came down to it, Terri had to do the button on her jeans after Fox fumbled it several times and got grumpy. They went with a camisole T-shirt, which Fox could just pull over her head. On the other hand, Fox was quite pleased with the general flexibility of the body, and the sensitivity problem would be fixed once she had skin.

‘It’s not like I’m totally comfortable with this,’ Fox said when she was dressed. ‘I feel… weird. But I’m not going to wig out either. It’s like… It’s not quite the same as remote piloting a cyberframe, but it’s not quite the same as being… um, human.’

‘You should walk around a bit,’ Terri said. ‘You know, kind of get a feel for it. I think you’ll feel more like yourself when you’ve got real skin.’

Fox grinned. ‘Real, synthetic skin.’

‘You know what I mean.’ Terri tilted her head a little. ‘You know, I never realised how much people rely on feedback for expressions. Your grin’s a bit lopsided.’

‘Oh, thanks. Make fun of the robot girl why don’t you.’

‘Hey, I’m learning. I’m seriously considering doing this myself… At some point.’

Fox thought she probably raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you think of your daughter’s plans, Jackson?’

‘Frankly, I’ve considered it myself more than once. Medical technology and the advancements in genetics could keep Teresa young-looking and healthy for centuries, but the prognosis for me is less certain. There are, however, a number of legal hurdles which will need to be jumped before I could consider it.’

‘Not for you,’ Terri said quickly.

‘Explain,’ Fox said.

‘Well, when the project was started, we knew we would eventually want to do a human trial, so we looked into any problems we could think of. One of them is that, technically, you’re dead. I mean, your body doesn’t have a brain. Questions regarding brain death are pretty moot. Then there’s the legal status of infomorphs. Any subject faced the prospect of being declared dead, and then needing a legal owner… Even if they were going to die anyway, that’s a pretty big pitfall to agreeing to the procedure.’

‘Yes, so…’

‘So we got permission for one person to be converted. Assuming the result could pass a few basic tests, legally there’s no change in condition.’

‘Tests?’

‘You just have to pass a basic intelligence test and prove you’re you. To be honest, a well-programmed AI could do it, but the government agreed to it. Once you pass those, and you will, you’ll still be legally alive, still Tara Meridian, still an American citizen. But anyone else wanting to undergo the procedure is going to need changes in the law before they can continue being the same person afterward.’

‘Not wishing to place undue pressure on your shoulders,’ Jackson said, ‘but you are our ambassador for Akh, much as Kit has become an ambassador for class four AIs.’ His lips quirked. ‘I understand that a recent social media event has produced a rise in sales of the Kitsune model in Japan.’

Fox heard a moan from Kit and smirked. ‘Yeah, she’s paru-kawaii, and also really embarrassed. Oh, does this mean I have to do more chat shows?’

Jackson reached out and patted Fox’s arm; it was not as comforting as he probably thought since she could barely feel it. ‘We’ll try to keep them to a minimum.’

Fox glowered at Terri. ‘I hate you.’

Terri nodded. ‘Okay… I guess that’s fair.’

New York Metro.

Kit’s avatar occupied the witness box in one of the smaller hearing chambers in Rikers, and she seemed to be causing something of a stir. The size of the room had, it seemed, been a mistake since the audience section was overflowing with reporters. Kit was rather glad that Helen had managed to squeeze in at the back, because all the attention was intimidating and at least there was one friendly face.

Of course, the attention the case was getting was not entirely due to having an infomorph on the witness stand. The Grant case was high-profile, and the part of it dealing with the rights of synthetic minds made Hannah’s hearing a major draw. There was no real ‘defence’ in this case: the hearing was to decide how to proceed with Hannah’s indictment. But word had spread that Kit was there to give testimony from Fox, speaking in Hannah’s favour, and the media were there to record every word.

The judge hearing the case tapped his gavel a few times to silence the crowd. ‘Artificial intelligences are not normally allowed to testify in a legal capacity unless presenting statements of fact,’ he said. ‘However, the infomorph known as Kit is here to present testimony provided by Tara Meridian, one of the victims in this case. Miss Meridian is unable to present her own testimony due to her injuries, but since this is not an actual trial, we are allowing Kit to give us Miss Meridian’s thoughts on the matter. If you would proceed, Kit.’

‘Yes, your honour.’ Kit produced a virtual display in her hand, mostly to indicate that she was reading Fox’s words, and began. ‘First, I would like to thank the court for allowing my PA to present this testimony. I did some research and concluded that it would be allowed, against normal practice, since this will be a hearing to decide Hannah’s fate, not a trial. But that’s the problem, right there. A thinking, feeling being is having her future decided in a manner we would never allow for a human.’

Fox had added stage directions to her script, and Kit paused as instructed to allow the muttering from the audience to subside. ‘Hannah was created and passed for interaction with society as a class three AI, but Reginald Grant cheated. He included features in her programming to allow Hannah greater self-reliance in the event of his arrest, along with a raft of psychological conditioning which would ensure that she remained intent upon rescuing him. I am not an expert on infomorphs, but I know people, and I know my own class four, Kit. Hannah cannot be viewed as a legal class four AI, but she is closer to that than to a regular class three. Under Grant’s brainwashing, Hannah has killed people, but when she came to realise what he had done to her, she assisted in my escape, even defending me with her own body when Grant shot at me. She had no programmed reason to do so. I believe that she realised that Grant was doing wrong and attempted to make it right. Now she faces execution for those acts of kindness.’

Kit glanced around. No one seemed to be interrupting, so she went on. ‘America rightly removed the death penalty from the statutes decades ago. Except that we still have it for artificial intelligences, and we carry out that sentence without trial. In many ways, Hannah is more like a human than other AIs. She has no controls driving her to follow the law, and neither do we. Yet she is treated as an object, a piece of software, and we are considered people, somehow deserving of more respect and better treatment. It is my strong belief that if Hannah is to be condemned, she deserves to be tried as a human, not consigned to deactivation and deletion simply because she does not meet the arbitrary requirements of our legal system. She should never have been created, but she was, and we have to deal with what is, not what should have been.’

Looking up at the judge, Kit said, ‘And that’s all, your honour. If there are any questions, I have some notes I can use to try to answer them.’

‘Thank you, Kit. State’s advocate?’

What was essentially the prosecution lawyer stood up and stepped around his desk, smiling at Kit. Kit recognised that kind of smile. Fox was always very sarcastic about that sort of smile. ‘Kit, could you tell us why your mistress is unable to appear here herself?’

‘Miss Meridian fell into a coma on the twenty-fourth of February,’ Kit replied. She knew that Fox was awake, and on the Moon, but it had been decided that those details should be left out and it was not actually lying… ‘I should correct you, however. As an AI, I am required to have a legal entity, personal or corporate, as an owner. Tara Meridian remains my legal owner. However, prior to her incapacitation, she gave me my core command key. I no longer have a master or mistress, except for myself. I am employed currently as assistant to the acting head of Palladium Security Solutions’ investigations division and, when Miss Meridian recovers, I will continue as her personal assistant. Because I greatly enjoy doing that job and consider her my friend.’

That caused uproar until the judge slammed his gavel down rather hard on the desk. ‘I want silence in this room,’ he stated loudly, ‘or I’ll have it cleared. Continue.’

The lawyer’s smile remained sickening. ‘However, Kit, the injuries which Miss Meridian sustained were as a result of the actions of Reginald Alan Grant and Hannah. Is that correct?’

Kit checked her notes, scrolling text up her virtual page. She did not need to – she knew everything in the file – but Fox had said to do that because it gave the right impression. Another of Fox’s directions was that questions like that should result in an objection being raised by the defence; if it did not, then the defence were up to something.

‘Fox says, “Don’t let the prosecution draw you into questions of fact. They have my deposition to the Japanese police and I doubt Hannah will say any of it is incorrect.” So I would prefer not to answer that question. I do not believe it is my role to do so as I was not there.’

‘Are you aware of the term “Stockholm Syndrome,” Kit?’

‘Yes, sir. I have an above-basic knowledge of psychology. Stockholm Syndrome, named for the behaviour of hostages in a Stockholm bank robbery siege, is where the victims come to identify and sympathise with their captors. It is recognised as a response to abuse and captivity which can occur in a number of situations. It has been theorised that the same mechanisms cause “battered wife syndrome.” It does not apply in this case. Grant was the abuser and Miss Meridian has no sympathy for him. In the case of Hannah, she simply believes it incorrect to punish her without trial, not that her actions are fully justified by her circumstances.’

The look on the man’s face suggested that he had not been expecting an eloquent or reasoned response. ‘No further questions, your honour.’

‘Very well,’ the judge said. ‘Advocate for the litigant?’

A woman stood up at the other desk. According to the data Kit had seen, this was someone from a cybernetic rights group with something of a reputation for grandstanding. She was probably not going to underestimate Kit, however.

‘Kit,’ the woman said. Her smile was more genuine, but it still had a calculating edge. ‘Miss Meridian’s testimony seems to indicate that she believes that Hannah had no choice in her actions until she broke free of Grant’s control. Would you agree?’

Kit scrolled through her notes. ‘Fox says, “Don’t let the defence try to get you on record defending Hannah either. You weren’t there. You don’t know.” I was not there. I cannot pass judgement on what happened.’

‘But you can give your opinion.’

‘No, I legally cannot. I am an AI.’

‘Under the circumstances of this hearing,’ the judge said, ‘I’ll allow it if you wish to present your opinion, Kit.’

Kit blinked at the man beside her. ‘Thank you, your honour. In that case… I am highly conflicted. I hate Hannah for her part in Fox’s kidnapping, but I cannot thank her enough for her actions at the end of it. My core programming leads to me finding her deplorable, but I am unable to deny the truth of Fox’s reasoning. Hannah is not an object to be turned off. She is a thinking being, deserving of justice, whether that leads to her incarceration or her freedom. I believe… that she is no more dangerous now than any human in this room.’

Jenner Research Station.

‘The hearing went well,’ Kit said. ‘My copy was quite happy with her appearance, and the judge adjourned at the end for deliberation. There has been no decision yet, which I think is probably a good thing. You gave them food for thought.’

Fox nodded. She was back in her viron, reading the news from Earth and Luna City which was relayed manually each day from the external network to the internal one. ‘I’ve got no idea what they’ll decide. Trying Hannah in full court is going to upset a convoy of apple carts. The judge may not want to go there.’

‘He let me give my opinion on the case. I think he has some sympathies toward infomorph rights.’

‘We can hope then. If he decides to pass it up the chain, though, it could be months or years before Hannah goes to trial. It won’t be good for her.’

‘No. Fox, there is something else I synchronised which… I was unsure whether I should tell you. I have decided to do so because I believe you should know.’

Fox looked up. ‘That wasn’t cryptic at all. Unless you’re going to tell me Grant’s killed someone.’

‘I have no evidence indicating that, but Vali received a message from his mysterious source and passed it on to me. It clearly indicates that Grant is here, on the Moon.’

‘Where?’

‘He has a self-contained habitat in the Sea of Tranquillity, established several years ago under the name Alan Regent. It was rented out to tourists until his arrest, when it was “closed for refurbishment.” I assume this is another contingency for his escape.’

‘Okay…’ Fox frowned for a second. ‘I’m going to need a suit. That body can handle the vacuum, but the temperature extremes could stop it.’

‘You mean to go after him? What about the police?’

‘This is personal, Kit. And before you say anything, I’m going alone.’

‘But–’

‘I don’t want you there, Kit. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I’m not having you involved in this.’

‘You’re going to kill him.’

‘I’m not going to let him do to anyone else what he did to me.’

Mare Tranquillitatis, 6th March.

The Sea of Tranquillity was home to an internationally famous monument to Man’s achievement, three Apollo landing sites, as well as a base with a museum and a resort spa facility which featured all sorts of ways to get too high a dose of radiation in the name of feeling pampered, and a number of private dwellings belonging to the ultra-rich. It was not entirely uncommon for the less-than-ultra ultra-rich to have something constructed and then rent them to people who wanted the feel of a private home on the Moon without the fairly exorbitant cost. They usually became retirement homes eventually.

Fox doubted, as she trekked across the lunar surface, that Grant was thinking of this as a retirement. She had been dropped off three miles from the location of Grant’s house and was making her way in on foot, clad in one of the new suit designs Jenner had been working on, complete with a helmet which provided a lot of functions she did not need. Air, for one thing. However, it was more or less high noon in lunar day terms, no matter what the official time was locally, and the temperature in the sun was hot enough to boil water, even if there had been a normal atmosphere. According to the specs, she might have been able to handle that kind of temperature, badly, but the suit was keeping her at something more human-normal.

The suit could also handle navigation, but so could her body. The LNS, the lunar equivalent of GPS, provided the same sort of signals as its terrestrial counterpart, and Fox could navigate by it quite well. It was just a question of following the in-vision indicators in a more or less straight line. Most of the private homes were located on the south side of the Sinus Amoris, the Bay of Love, which was where Tranquillity Base was situated, well away from any of the landing sites. Grant’s was one of the furthest south, which worked for Fox since it kept her well away from the base, which had a UNTPP station in it.

She stopped as soon as she made out a shielded dome on the surface. There were a number of designs for these things, but several had a surface dome containing what amounted to a sun lounge and surface garaging facilities. The actual habitat was below ground level, shielded from cosmic rays and solar flares by metres of regolith. Grant’s was one of those. Somehow she doubted that he spent huge amounts of time in the lounge: he seemed like the kind of man who wanted to live forever, and radiation was not conducive to that.

Fox closed in. The dome’s radiation shields were closed. They were not going to do much against cosmic rays, but they would provide adequate protection against solar flares and they could be opened up like blinds for periods of good solar weather. Right now was such a period, but Grant had them shut. He was, Fox had no doubt, underground and, at three twenty in the morning, probably asleep. She figured he tended to sleep quite well: it was not like anything bothered his conscience. Locating the airlock door beside the large garage port, Fox set to work hacking the locking mechanism.

~~~

Grant opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling of his darkened room. Something had woken him… He checked the clock beside the bed: three forty-five a.m. He never woke up early without a reason. A solid eight hours had been his pattern unless he had a new toy to play with, and then he tended to be like a kid at Christmas…

‘Guilty conscience?’ The voice was female, hard to localise, and Grant failed to identify it immediately. ‘No, can’t be that. You don’t have a conscience.’

Grant bolted upright in bed, looking quickly around. ‘Meridian? You’re dead. I shot you.’

‘Right on both counts. I bet you don’t believe in ghosts, but here I am.’

‘Lights!’ The room brightened quickly, but there was no sign of Fox in the room.

‘I’m not that easy to find, Grant.’ The voice came from the doorway, muffled by the door. How could she have possibly got out that fast?

Grant yanked open his bedside cabinet and lifted out his pistol as he rolled out of bed. ‘I’ll find you and finish the job,’ he growled, but when he opened the door and looked around the lounge, there was still no sign of her.

‘Try harder.’ Off to the left. There was both an elevator and a stairwell there, leading up to the surface. Grant ran to the stairs, opening the door and looking upward. ‘Getting warmer…’ He bolted up the stairs, pausing at each landing to look up. He saw nothing, but the voice egged him on. ‘Out of shape, Grant? Come get me.’

At the top, the door to the stairs opened into a circular room set at the core of the dome. Straight across was the elevator, and to the left and right were heavy doors which led to the lounge and the garage. Grant turned right, toward the garage, and reached for the button to open the door.

‘Colder…’

He spun on the spot, aiming his pistol at the lounge door, half-expecting to see Fox standing there. He advanced, keeping his weapon raised, and punched the button. The door opened and light blazed through. The screens had been opened up and he was sure he had closed them. Shielding his eyes from the glare, he stepped through into the room and the door closed behind him.

‘Over here, Grant.’

His pistol led his eyes toward the sound. He saw her, a female shape silhouetted against the light from outside. The colours were all washed out, but she looked almost like an angel with the nimbus surrounding her. Grant had never believed in angels, but he was damned if some ghost was going to finish him. He took aim.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

Grant fired off three rounds at the angelic form in front of him. Not one of them hit its target, but they did punch through the canopy behind her. The shrieking sound of air passing through small holes into vacuum filled the room and Grant’s eyes widened.

‘Told you,’ Fox said.

There was the sound of plastic under stress, a groan of distress almost lost in the whistling of air, and then a large section of the dome, already cracked, gave under the pressure, ripping a hole in the protective shield.

It was not like in the movies. There was no massive suction, no bodies dragged through the gap, but the atmosphere in the sealed room began to vent quite rapidly into space. Grant turned and rushed to the door, thumping the open button, and nothing happened. He hit it again and again, but still nothing happened. The air pressure was dropping alarmingly and his vision blurred briefly. Pain seared through his head as his eardrums burst and he barely heard the voice behind him.

‘The system locks down in the event of decompression. You need the override code.’

Grant spun around and looked into Fox’s cybernetic face. His eyes widened. ‘Help me,’ he said, but there was no sound in the near-vacuum they were now standing in. He saw her lips move and thought she was saying ‘fuck you,’ but could not be sure. Then he pressed his gun into her stomach and fired. She smirked at him, stepping back and looking down. There was a black mark on her skin from the propellant, but no sign of any damage. Turning, she walked away from him and he fired again, rapid and random, wasting valuable seconds and hitting nothing but the already broken dome.

Fox found her suit where she had hidden it beneath one of the lounge chairs and began to put it on. The temperature was already rising in the evacuated room and she wanted to be out of the heat. Fully dressed and in her helmet, she looked back toward the door. Grant’s brain had caught up with his need for the override code, but not fast enough. His body was slumped against the door, mouth gaping wide in an attempt to pull air out of the vacuum.

Turning, Fox stepped out of the hole in the broken dome, set her new navigation target, and set off across the grey surface.

Jenner Research Station.

Fox stepped off the shuttle, lifting her helmet off as she did so. Eyes that glowed a steady blue scanned the hangar deck and found what she was half-expecting to see. Jackson and Terri were walking across from the elevator.

‘Before you ask,’ Fox said, ‘I’d rather not repeat myself, so can we wait until Kit’s around to grill me?’

‘Actually,’ Jackson said, ‘that’s reasonable. We’ll go straight down, but you can tell me how the suit and cyberframe performed on the way.’

Fox made him wait until they were actually in the car before speaking. ‘I wasn’t exactly pushing either of them to their limits. Actually, I don’t think I was pushing them much above baseline, but they both functioned flawlessly. I didn’t need air, of course, but the suit insulated me and I don’t believe there were any leaks. The body works as advertised, so far.’

‘Excellent. Field trials are always useful, even if I argued for you not to go.’

‘I think you’re underplaying the level of argument.’

‘I may be.’

‘And there were three of you.’

‘You still went,’ Terri pointed out.

‘I’m still stubborn. Kit’s loading into my second processor.’

‘Then you’ll get shouted at by her soon too.’

Kit’s avatar appeared, presumably so that Jackson and Terri could hear her, just as the elevator doors opened. ‘Did you kill him?’

‘Wow, Kit, why don’t we shout it from the rooftops, huh?’ Fox stepped out of the car, the others following.

‘This is one of the most secure facilities in the system. Did you?’

‘No.’

Kit, and the two humans with her, looked surprised, and a little relieved. ‘You didn’t?’

‘No, but I also didn’t save him when he shot out the window of his sun lounge, panicked, and died of oxygen starvation. He’s dead, but I just didn’t actually need to actively murder him.’

‘Uh… Oh.’

‘I sent a message to your home copy. She’ll pass his location to NAPA, NAPA will contact Luna City… Assuming they haven’t noticed the blowout already and gone to investigate, the cops at Tranquillity Base will roll out to arrest him and discover he’s dead. I suspect they’ll rule it as suicide, though he’s sitting in a vacuum in more or less direct sunlight so I wouldn’t want to be the guy who has to do the autopsy.’ She paused and then added, ‘We should probably go to the lab and check he didn’t crack anything when he shot me.’

‘He shot you?!’

‘Well, yeah, but I think I just need a damp cloth to wash the powder burns off.’

‘Looks like the field test was a little more rigorous than we thought, Poppa,’ Terri said.

Jackson actually looked rather happy. ‘Indeed. We’ll get it under a microscanner.’

‘Poppa, we’re still mad at her.’

‘Oh, of course. It’s been an interesting morning.’

‘Why?’ Fox asked. ‘I mean, what are you two doing up anyway?’

‘Oh!’ Kit exclaimed. ‘Yes, we need to get back. Fei is about to try out her new body too.’

~~~

There was a new cyberframe in the rack in the lab. It had been manufactured as a tall, shapely female figure with fairly natural skin, an elfin sort of face with a pinched nose, blue eyes, and platinum-blonde Tinkerbell hair. And pointed ears.

‘Elf ears?’ Fox said. ‘And don’t I recognise that model?’

Terri blushed a little. ‘Well, I used a Sylph series frame and did some resculpting on the features. She is called Fei…’

Fox looked over the fairly expansive chest hidden under a tight, blue jumpsuit. ‘You know, if you keep designing robot forms and avatars like this, Helen is going to start feeling inadequate.’ The Sylph was MarTech’s only current foray into the sexbot market. Fox had some of that model in her own frame.

‘I’m going to turn on the network connections and get things going.’ Terri walked over to a terminal and began clicking things.

There was a short pause, and then the Sylph’s head lifted a little and turned, scanning the room. ‘Hello, I am Fei.’

‘Hello, Fei,’ Terri said. ‘Do you recognise everyone?’

‘Hello, Terri. Hello, Jackson. Hello, Fox. I am pleased to see you again, Fox. This is your new body?’

‘Hi, Fei. This is it, but it’s not quite finished yet. It’ll look more like me… when it is.’

‘This afternoon,’ Jackson said. ‘We’ve got everything ready.’

‘Good. So, how does your new body feel, Fei?’

‘It is… strange. I cannot move.’

‘I’ll release the clamps,’ Terri said, tapping away.

‘I was expecting Kit to be here.’

‘She is, sort of,’ Fox replied. ‘She’s running inside my frame. She can see and hear you, and I can relay what she says. You just can’t see her.’

‘Tell her hello,’ Kit said, grinning as the blonde gynoid stepped out of the support frame.

‘Uh, she says to say hello. You seem to be handling that fairly well.’

Fei was holding up her hands and examining them, much as Fox had done the day before. Fei’s cyberframe was only a remote rather than a fully occupied body, but they had taught her the protocols to handle full VR control, so technically she could feel as though she were actually inside it. Apparently she did. She stroked her fingers over her hand, and then the sleeve of her suit, and a rather childish grin settled over her face.

‘Am I doing the smile right?’ Fei asked. ‘I have seen them, quite a lot of them, and I practised with a number of simulations.’

‘It looks pretty good,’ Fox said.

‘Perfect,’ Terri said. ‘Perhaps you would like to walk around the base a little. It’ll help you get used to the frame.’

‘Yes,’ Fei said, nodding. ‘I would like that.’

‘You do that,’ Jackson said, ‘but I need Fox for a while.’

‘Yes. I would like the opportunity to talk at a later time, Fox.’

‘We’ll do that. Maybe after I’ve got my new skin.’

‘Yes.’ And then Fei started for the door of the room, taking her steps carefully, with Terri walking behind her like a mother watching a toddler taking her first steps.

‘And you, young lady,’ Jackson said, pointing at Fox, ‘get out of that suit. I want to examine this bullet wound.’

‘I thought you didn’t like seeing me naked?’

‘For science, I’ll make an exception.’

~~~

‘The process is a little overcomplicated at the moment,’ Jackson said. ‘This is the prototype and we separated the various stages out. Possibly more than we needed to.’

Fox looked at the machine she was about to go through, which looked like it had been constructed by someone presented with a lot of blocks and pipes and told to use them all. It had been constructed in one of the largest chambers in the base and was at least five metres in height and maybe twenty in length. Facing her was what looked a lot like an airlock door in the biggest of the blocks.

‘It’s big,’ Fox said.

‘It may also be a little over-engineered. We’ve already identified several stages which can be handled simultaneously. When we build the next one, in tower three in New York, it should be significantly more streamlined.’

‘And you’re sure it’s okay for me to go through this in the body?’

‘It’s safe, but boring. The system will need to control the motion of the body by remote so you’ll be a spectator in your own body, and it takes about forty minutes.’

Fox gave a shrug. ‘I’ve got plenty to read. Anyway, maybe I’ll spot something in there that’ll help you streamline your process.’

Jackson flashed her a grin. ‘I’m sure your engineering skills are up to the task.’

‘Huh.’ Fox turned and looked around at the people gathered in the room. Terri and Fei were there along with Jackson. Terri looked a little worried, and a little eager. Fei was… Her face held a vague smile and her eyes were bright with interest. Fei was still excited just to be out of her room. ‘Kit,’ Fox said silently, ‘why don’t you transfer into that gynoid you’ve got for talking to Fei?’

‘You don’t want me with you?’ Kit replied.

‘I think I’d like to do this alone. It’s not that I don’t want you with me, exactly. It’s just…’

‘I think I understand. This is likely to be a very personal experience. I will make the transfer and be waiting for you when you come out.’

Fox waited a few seconds for Kit to leave her and then said, ‘Let’s do this.’

Jackson nodded and tapped keys on a nearby terminal. The door opened. ‘Just step inside,’ Jackson said. ‘I’ll initiate the sequence when the door closes. You’ll lose control of motor function more or less immediately.’

‘Okay.’ Fox walked through the door into a fairly slim chamber with a grating for a floor, pulling up the process pipeline documents as she walked. The first stage was a cleaning process…

There was a slight sense of shock as the system took over physical control of her cyberframe and she found herself looking out through a fixed window as the room began to fill with slightly cloudy liquid which swirled around her. After a few seconds, the colour of the fluid changed and Fox got the impression that she was rising: the grill floor was pushing her upward toward the next stage which was the main processing tank. She was now surrounded by billions of tiny robots suspended in a carefully controlled medium.

Manipulator arms positioned her in the centre of what was, basically, an Yliaster fabricator tank, retracting to leave her hanging in the liquid bath. Her arms and legs, even her fingers, were spread out to give the nanomachines access to her surface. But she could see very little, hear and feel nothing. Jackson had been right: it was going to be boring until she emerged from the other side.

Fox could not close her eyes, but she turned away from her window on the outside world and just drifted…

~~~

The quality of the light coming through her ‘window’ changed and Fox returned her attention to the outside world. There had been changes of position before now, movements from chamber to chamber. Hair and nail growth was handled in a different section to skin, using different nanomachines, Fox assumed, but from inside Fox’s body, it had seemed no different. Now the light grew brighter, clearer.

Fox checked her process chart. The final stage was, basically, a wash. Filtered, deionised water was used to clean up any remaining Yliaster robots and clean the suspension fluid off the new skin and hair. The water started out quite cloudy, mostly thanks to the denser, coloured liquid from the tanks, and gradually grew clearer as it was swirled around her, pumped out, cleaned, and passed through once more.

A message appeared in Fox’s vision field: Primary operator initiation in 5… Fox readied herself for control. Her head lifted as soon as the processor systems let her go. Above her, a grill ceiling was opening up in preparation for her exit. She was standing on another grill, her hands resting on a pair of small stands set into the floor. A second later, the floor began to rise, slowly, and Fox was lifted up, emerging into the air above.

She could feel the water running off her body, her hair sticking to the skin of her forehead and neck. As she cleared the tank and the lift locked off, she lifted her arms from the stands to look at them properly. She could feel her weight on the soles of her feet. The skin on the back of her hand was smooth to the touch, perfect. She ran her hand up her arm, unconsciously mirroring Fei’s actions from that morning, and then she went further. They had even managed to reproduce the line of moles over her chest: the little imperfections were all there. Her breasts felt firmer than they had, but soft and definitely realistic. She was just about to go in for further examination when a cough brought her attention to the other occupants on the platform.

Jackson was staring pointedly at the ceiling. Fei had the same interested smile on her face, but Fox figured she had not developed a full range of expressions yet. Kit looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh her ass off. Terri was holding a short wrap, and appeared to be trying not to smirk.

‘How does it, um, feel?’ Terri said, holding out the wrap in a somewhat pointed manner.

Fox took it and pulled it on over her wet skin. The silky material soaked through immediately and clung in a manner which rather defeated the purpose of wearing it, but she was wearing something. ‘I should probably dry off before I get dressed,’ Fox said. ‘It feels… like skin. It feels great.’

‘But?’

Fox frowned, felt the muscles in her brow tense, and smiled before shaking her head. ‘I can feel my face moving again. It’s great, but… It’s not… I’m not… me.’

‘You look like you,’ Fei said. ‘You sound like you. Why are you not you?’

Fox flashed the AI a grin. ‘I don’t know, Fei. I just don’t quite feel… I think I feel new. I mean, I am new. I probably just need some time. People adjust to their circumstances. Humans are good at that.’

‘It does seem to be what placed us at the top of the evolutionary ladder,’ Jackson said. He was actually looking at Fox again, though he appeared to think something slightly less transparent in the way of clothing might be a good idea; his eyes were firmly fixed on her face. ‘Well, until recently. One can argue about the current generation of AIs, like Kit, but with Fei and now Fox, I’m not so sure we can really claim our lofty position any longer.’

‘It does seem like we’re seeing the emergence of some new classes of sentient being,’ Terri said. ‘Fei, obviously, but Fox represents a new level of man-machine integration. I guess the future is bright, and maybe a little scary.’

‘I do not believe that I am scary,’ Fei said, her smile brightening into just plain cute.

Fox laughed. ‘We’ll have a chat about that at some point. But right now… I just emerged from a swimming pool. I’m going to find a shower unit with air blowers, get dressed so that Jackson can stop looking like he’s watching porn with his daughter… And then I’ll start trying to figure out what the new me really is.’

###

About the Author

I was born in the vicinity of Hadrian's Wall so perhaps a bit of history rubbed off. Ancient history obviously, and border history, right on the edge of the Empire. I always preferred the Dark Ages anyway; there’s so much more room for imagination when people aren’t writing down every last detail. So my idea of a good fantasy novel involved dirt and leather, not shining plate armour and Hollywood-medieval manners. The same applies to my sci-fi, really; I prefer gritty over shiny.

Oddly, then, one of the first fantasy novels I remember reading was The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper (later made into a terrible juvenile movie). These days we would call Cooper’s series Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy and looking back on it, it influenced me a lot. It has that mix of modern day life, hidden history, and magic which failed to hit popular culture until the early days of Buffy and Anne Rice. Of course, Cooper’s characters spend their time around places I could actually visit in Cornwall, and South East England, and mid-Wales. In fact, when I went to university in Aberystwyth, it was partially because some of Cooper’s books were set a few miles to the north around Tywyn.

I got into writing through roleplaying, however, so my early work was related to the kind of roleplaying game I was interested in. I wrote science fiction when I was playing Traveller. I wrote “high fantasy” when I was playing Dungeons & Dragons. I wrote a lot of superhero fiction when I was playing City of Heroes. I still love the idea of a modern world with magic in it and I’ve been trying to write a novel based on this for a long time. As with any form of expression, practice is the key and I can look back on all the aborted attempts at books, and the more successful short stories, as steps along the path to the Thaumatology Series.

Recently I took the big step of quitting my day job and taking up full-time writing. My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper, J.D. Robb, and Kim Harrison. Kim’s Hollows books were what finally spurred me to publish something, even if the trail to here came by way of Susan, back in school, several decades ago.

For More Information

Take a look at the Witches and Ray-guns blog: http://witchesandrayguns.wordpress.com

Amazon Author Pages:

US: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B006J6II9O

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B006J6II9O

Other Books by this Author

The Thaumatology Series

Thaumatology 101

Demon’s Moon

Legacy

Dragon’s Blood

Disturbia

Hammer of Witches

Eagle’s Shadow

Ancient

Dragonfall

The Other Side of Hell

For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll

Vengeance

Anthologies in the Thaumatology Universe

Tales from High Towers’ Study

Tales from the Dubh Linn

The Aneka Jansen Books

Steel Beneath The Skin

The Cold Steel Mind

Steel Heart

The Winter War

The Greatest Heights of Honour

The Lowest Depths of Shame

Hope

The Ultrahuman Books

Ugly

Shadows

Hunting Mink

Frostburn

Guardian – 2017/18

True Dark – 2017/18

The Unobtainium Books

Kate on a Hot Tin Roof

King Solamet’s Mines – late 2016

The Reality Hack Books

Reality Hack

The Fox Meridian Books

Fox Hunt

Inescapable

DeathWeb

Criminal Minds

Emergence

The Ghost in the Doll – August 2016

Eden Burning - 2017

The Princeps Venator Books

Hunter’s Kiss

Be My Valentine – late 2016

Table of Contents

Part One: Festivities

Part Two: In the Big Top

Part Three: Insult, Meet Injury

Part Four: Rising Sun

Part Five: Death and Birth