Crashing Heaven

CRASHING HEAVEN

Al Robertson

GOLLANCZ

LONDON

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Acknowledgements

Copyright

For Heather and Rory

Chapter 1

[Look out of the window, Fist,] said Jack, speaking inside his mind so only the little puppet could hear him. [Snowflakes.]

As their shuttle wheeled around, the sun snatched at the snowflakes’ great ice bodies and made them blaze, leaving even Hugo Fist with nothing to say. There were a dozen of them hanging in the cold, empty space before Station. The smaller ones sparkled with reflected light. Maybe five hundred metres across, they revolved in the void, bodies shimmering gently. The larger ones were majestic crystal shapes, dense with fractal complexity. They glowed partly with the sun’s fire, partly with their own inborn light. The abandoned Earth roiled behind them, its toxic cloudscapes an insult to their cold perfection.

[A Totality battle formation – here?] whispered Fist. [ We really did lose the war, Jackie boy!]

[According to East they arrived a month ago. Supporting their peace negotiators.]

[ You been onweave? Checking the newsfeeds? I thought you’d given up on that.]

[ I wanted to see what we were coming back to.]

[ I’m sure. You’ve been mailing Andrea again, haven’t you? Harry’s dead, she’s single, you’ve come all the way back from a Totality prison, and she still won’t reply?]

Jack said nothing. Andrea’s mails had sustained him through the last two years of prisoner-of-war life and helped him come to terms with his imminent death. He thought she’d be overjoyed to hear that he was returning home to Station. But she didn’t reply to the message he sent announcing his return, or any that followed it. He turned back to look out of the window.

The shuttle was nearing the snowflakes. They drifted in the darkness like so many frozen stars, policed by clusters of monitor drones. Station – Kingdom’s greatest achievement – hung behind them. Jack had spent seven years remembering his home. It was nine kilometres long and, at its widest, two and a half kilometres across. Every single centimetre suddenly seemed so ugly. The twin cylinders of Homelands and Docklands were corroded metal dustbins sprouting from opposite sides of the Wart, the hollowed-out asteroid wedged between them like a dirty secret.

Only the cargo jetties of Docklands held anything like beauty. They shimmered above the near tube’s round, open mouth in sparkling lines, reaching out from the Spine to score order on the void. The Spine was speckled with spinelights, their blazing light creating one more day on Station. It disappeared into Docklands, running all the way down Station’s central axis to the distant tip of Homelands. And of course, there was Heaven – a blue-green ring wrapped around the end of Homelands. Its perfect light was too cold to move Jack. He’d left any allegiance to the Pantheon gods far behind five years ago, when he refused to fight any more battles for them.

The shuttle altered course slightly and Docklands came into view, a curved clutter of factories, offices, housing estates and entertainment zones. It was as if some giant, half-broken machine had bled buildings on to the arched inner wall of a hollow cylinder, until something broadly like a city had clotted into being. It was too far away to make out much detail. Memory filled the gaps. Jack remembered the Docklands streets he’d grown up in, and then left so comprehensively behind. ‘The inside of the dustbin,’ he thought, then smiled sadly as he imagined Andrea scolding his cynicism. She’d helped him find their beauty again, in those few hidden months they’d had together. Then the rock hit the moon and everything changed. She’d brought so much into his life more recently, too. He winced at the thought of her absence. He’d missed her so much over the last few weeks.

Fist caught the movement but, with no access to Jack’s deep emotions, misunderstood it. [ We don’t need to worry about snowflakes any more. The Totality like us now.]

Jack sighed. [ They shouldn’t,] he replied. [ You and I destroyed enough of them.]

[ Before your little change of heart.]

The shuttle moved past one of the larger snowflakes. A cold shining arm loomed towards the window. Silver lights flickered within hard crystal ice, each shimmer a thought pulsing in one of a thousand virtual minds.

[ Just think, Jack. I could have killed one of those. If you’d let me.]

‘No,’ said Jack, out loud. One of his guards heard and briefly stared at him, then at the empty seat next to him. Jack didn’t notice. He was looking out at Docklands again, tracing yesterday across its streets.

The shuttle docked at one of Station’s jetties. The guards escorted Jack down to a cell in Customs House. He hung his coat on the back of the door and nestled his little Totality-issued suitcase down beside the cell’s single chair. His new suit itched. Hours passed. There was water, but no food. Fist, bored, was sleeping. Little snores echoed in Jack’s mind. Memories of Andrea darted between them, trailing grief and loss. Familiar thoughts followed. Her silence was impossible to understand. Perhaps something had happened to her. Maybe she needed his help. He had to find her. After a while, more immediate needs distracted him. He banged on the door and shouted for something to eat. There was no response. He tried to sleep, and in a confused half-dream found himself falling through darkness towards nothing.

At last a new guard startled him awake. He walked Jack down a windowless corridor to a small, brightly lit room. There was a desk with two plastic chairs in one corner of the room. A balding, portly customs official sat behind it. He asked Jack to sit down.

[Don’t show off,] Jack told Fist as he stretched and yawned. [ I don’t want him realising you’ve hacked your cage.]

The official had a strong Docklands accent. He was brisk and ostensibly courteous. He confirmed Jack’s identity, then asked which Pantheon god had been his patron. ‘No wonder you’re so fucked,’ he said when Jack replied ‘Grey’. Then, a return to formality and a barrage of questions.

‘When did Grey certify you as an accountant?’

‘On the day of my twenty-first birthday.’

‘When were you seconded to InSec?’

‘Three years later.’

‘What was your role?’

‘I was assigned to work under Inspector Harry Devlin as a forensic auditor. Investigating links between the Panther Czar nightclub and Bjorn Penderville’s murder.’

The official snorted.

‘Why didn’t they use an InSec specialist?’

‘It was Grey’s will. I didn’t question it.’

[ That’s not what you told me,] said Fist.

[Quiet.]

‘When were you reassigned to outer-system duties?’

‘After the attack on the moon. It was decided that the Penderville case was low priority. I understand it was never resolved.’

[ Not going to share your conspiracy theories, Jackie boy?]

[ No. Now shut up.]

‘What was your specific Soft War posting?’

‘Aggressive ongoing counter-mind actions.’

The official stared at a screen that was invisible to Jack. With every answer, his fingers moved through the air, taking notes on a virtual keyboard. Then there was a pause. He looked straight at Jack, challenging him.

‘When did you defect?’

‘I didn’t defect. I surrendered.’

‘I have the date of your defection here. Please confirm it.’

‘No.’

[Aren’t you taking this rather seriously, Jack?]

[ The Pantheon betrayed me. I didn’t betray them. I just stopped doing their dirty work.]

‘I can’t proceed without your co-operation. And if I can’t complete this interview I can’t admit you to Station.’

‘Sandal’s watching, isn’t he? You’re not normally such sticklers.’

[Oh, come on Jack. We don’t want to go back to Callisto. Totality prisoner-of-war life is so boring.]

‘You’re a dangerous man, Forster, and you have an improper attitude to the Pantheon. I don’t need to be in their sight to do my duty. When did you defect?’

‘I did not defect.’

[Oh fucking hell, Jack, when I take your body I don’t want to be stuck in some out-system backwater. And what about Andrea? You’re going to let pride stop you from finding her?]

Fist’s words cut through Jack’s anger. But before he could reply, the room’s door slid open. The official turned towards it, surprised. ‘Forster’s right,’ announced the woman who came into the room.

She was short and broad and middle-aged, and she moved with the unfussy precision of machinery. Dark grey combat pants and a baggy black T-shirt hung off her stocky frame. Her face had the lived-in look of an old sleeping bag. There was a blue tinge to her skin. She’d dyed her hair to match it.

‘You people don’t normally care about this sort of thing. Anyone would think you were looking for an excuse not to admit him. Which would be illegal.’

The official turned pale. ‘Who are you?’ he snapped, not quite regaining his authority. ‘Where’s the guard?’

‘I dismissed him. And I’m an observer. Look.’

The official’s eyes refocused. Jack assumed that identity information was flickering a couple of feet in front of his face. ‘I see,’ he stammered. ‘An honour.’

‘Good,’ the woman said, enjoying the official’s discomfort. ‘Now, finish the questions. And – Forster’s reply is accurate. He did surrender.’ She turned to Jack. ‘Not that cowardice is really any better than treason, but still. Attention to detail.’

‘I’m not a coward,’ Jack snapped back without thinking.

[ Fuck’s sake,] groaned Fist.

‘No, you just gave yourself up to the enemy,’ said the woman. ‘Without firing a shot. But we’ll skip over that.’

Her accusation stung. Jack thought of Andrea and forced himself to swallow his anger. The questions continued. To his relief, none were contentious. Most were designed to assess how well he’d adjusted to life offweave. Even though his answers were blandly reassuring, the official was still nervous. He kept glancing over at the woman. She’d reclined on one of the plastic seats, with her feet up on another.

[ Who can she be?] Fist wondered. [ InSec? You should let me take a proper look.]

[ Too risky.]

The pauses between questions grew longer and longer, then at last became a silence. The official stared determinedly down, his fingers skittering across his invisible keyboard. His hands shook. ‘Oh, for gods’ sake,’ the woman snapped. ‘Stop putting it off. This is the interesting bit.’

‘I’m just getting the details right.’

‘Sandal gave you weaveware to protect you. Don’t you trust your patron?’

The official swallowed and stood up. He was quite short. ‘I need to see the puppet.’

When Fist shimmered into being the official took a step back and swore. The puppet was surrounded by cageware that manifested as a virtual set of spinning silver rings, revealing then hiding fragments of his body. There were little black polished shoes, a scarlet cummerbund, bright red painted lips, a black bow-tie, dangling, unarticulated hands and varnished shining eyes.

‘I don’t know why you’re so scared of me.’ Fist’s thin high voice had a singsong quality to it. Wooden teeth clacked as he spoke, punctuating his words with sharp percussive bangs. ‘You can hardly even see me. And I’m all locked up. Poor little Hugo Fist, all locked up.’ He glared at Jack. ‘It’s the story of my life.’

The official didn’t reply. He wouldn’t even let himself look directly at Fist. He moved round the cageware, ticking off each ring as he found it fully operational.

[ Imagine if I reached out and touched him, Jack. Just tapped him on the shoulder. I think I could. How he’d jump!]

[ Hush, Fist.]

The official picked up an MRI wand and moved over to Jack. ‘Stand up,’ he ordered. ‘Keep your back straight.’ He held the wand close in to Jack’s back and waved it up and down, scanning his spine and skull for the embedded hardware that was Fist’s physical self. Jack felt a light tingling. ‘Oo! Tickles!’ giggled the puppet.

The woman moved closer to Fist’s cage, bending over to peer at him. ‘Well, here you are,’ she said, fascinated. ‘The last of the puppets, still embedded in your puppeteer.’

‘Just you wait,’ Fist tittered. ‘He may be the boss now, but I’ll be pulling all the strings soon.’

‘So you really are going to take full ownership of his mind and body?’ she said. ‘Fuck yes,’ replied Fist. She turned to Jack. ‘And how do you feel about that?’ she asked, needling him. ‘This little creature, wiping your mind? Killing you?’

‘I’ve had a year to get used to the idea,’ said Jack wearily. ‘It’s old news.’ He felt a sharp combination of rage and grief start up in him, before the acceptance he’d worked so hard to feel choked them off.

‘He doesn’t have any choice!’ chirped Fist. ‘And I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to. He’s just got to say a couple of goodbyes, then it’s party time for new flesh me!’

The woman turned back to him. ‘You really are a poisonous little fellow, aren’t you?’ Her tone was almost admiring.

‘As the gods made me.’

‘Half a metre of wooden viciousness, all dressed up for an elegant night out! Our masters have quite the imagination.’

She rapped the cageware with her knuckles. The official winced. There was a soft crackling sound. A couple of the rings shimmered, then reasserted themselves.

‘I don’t think you’ll make it to any balls, though.’

‘We’ll see, missy.’

She laughed, delighted.

‘I look forward to it.’

The official finished his checks and put the wand down. ‘All done,’ he told Jack. Then he stood silently, staring at the woman and waiting for his cue.

‘The puppet’s contained?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Fully.’

Fist snickered in Jack’s mind.

[Quiet!] hissed Jack.

‘Then I suppose we have to let him out, don’t we?’

‘That’s what the peace treaty says.’

A barely perceptible movement and the woman was standing in front of Jack.

[Oo, snappy!] Fist’s voice was full of admiration. [ Not such a used-up old hag after all.]

She placed her hand on Jack’s cheek. It was colder than a hand should be. ‘I’ve done my bit. Seen all I need. So I’m going.’ Her touch frosted Jack’s skin. Her face came close to his. There was a soft purple light in her eyes. ‘I know people who are terrified of you two,’ she whispered, her voice rich with threat. ‘Give me one tiny chance and I’ll show them you’re nothing to be scared of.’

The door slammed shut behind her. The official gaped, astonished at her inhuman speed. [ Now she’s just showing off,] commented Fist as he disappeared too.

‘I’m free to go?’ asked Jack.

The official started, as if he’d forgotten his prisoner was there. ‘Yes.’ He went to his desk and reached into a drawer. ‘Here’s your cash card. InSec have charged it up with all the money you’ll need.’

‘Can I go onweave?’

‘No overlay, no commerce, no search, no social. Just mail and fetch access, to talk with your loved ones.’

[ That’ll make finding Andrea a bit tricky!] giggled Fist. [ No distractions, then. Just a lovely, lovely family reunion. Your living dad and your dear dead mum.]

‘InSec’s made a formal request for an interview. Assistant Commissioner Lestak’s sending someone to pick you up from our landing pad tomorrow morning. The meeting is a condition of your parole. If you don’t attend, you’ll be found and imprisoned.’

He led Jack down empty corridors into a lift. It shuddered and began to fall. The official gave Jack a look of deep contempt. ‘If it was down to me I’d put you out of an airlock, and let you freeze with your fucking terrorist friends,’ he hissed.

‘The Totality have always denied attacking the moon,’ replied Jack. ‘They blamed a rogue mind, acting alone. I believe them. And the Pantheon were looking for revenge, not justice.’

The lift doors opened. The official shoved Jack out. ‘Now fuck off.’ There was an empty atrium and a midnight street. Tiredness hit Jack harder than any interrogation ever could. Suddenly all he wanted to do was find a room and sleep, and never wake to see the dawn. He thought of Andrea, sighed, and then stepped out into the darkness of Station.

Chapter 2

It was night and the spinelights were dim. Jack left Customs House and set off into Docklands down a road the colour of rust, turning the collar of his coat up against the rain. He’d walked these streets before, but never offweave. Calle Agua was almost as he remembered it, a canyon of four- or five-storey office blocks owned by either Sandal or Kingdom. Each was carved out of age-scarred iron.

Kingdom’s visuals were always minimal. As the architect of humanity’s presence in the Solar System he liked physical structure, the heart of his power, to be exposed. So, the iron would have been left to show through the weave. Sandal’s offices would have been glossed with an overlay of smiling faces and positive thoughts. He was responsible for cargo, docks and related transport logistics. He liked to show how important he was to the smooth movement of goods and services, and so to general human happiness.

And of course six Pantheon icons would be watching over Docklands from far above, clustered around the Spine and backlit by spinelight. Five of them would be fully aware, tending visibly to their enclosed world.

Only Grey’s raven would be blinded and hobbled. Station’s master corporate strategist had been silenced for years.

Being offweave, Jack could see none of this.

[ I’m sure you’re not missing anything,] said Fist, his thin, high voice singing in Jack’s mind. The little puppet had run a dozen paces ahead. The rain was falling through him. He looked back at Jack, varnished eyes gleaming excitedly out of a glossy painted face. [Come on!] he shouted. Then he clapped his wooden hands together twice and disappeared beneath the elevated rails that crossed the end of Calle Agua. There was something almost innocent about his excitement. As Jack followed him beneath the single high arch that supported the bridge, carefully avoiding puddles, a train bumped and swayed over it. Light flashed down, showing buildings that were already a little lower and less imposing. He turned towards Hong Se De Market. Fist was standing on the pavement just ahead of him, staring at a figure that was looking up at a warehouse.

[Look at that, Jack! A Totality biped. He’s far from home.]

[ If he’s identifying as male, he is. Otherwise, she is.]

[Pedant. What’s it up to?]

The rain shimmered off the biped’s dark poncho. It was about the height of an average human. After a few seconds it turned away from the warehouse and moved down the street, stopping when it was in front of the next building. As its head moved to stare upwards again, its hood slipped. It had no face. Light glowed out of a soft blank oval, tinting the wet night purple.

Fist was all hungry fascination. [ If I wasn’t caged,] he muttered. Jack crossed the road to pass the biped. Fist ran after him. [Snowflakes out there, squishies in here,] he panted. [ I don’t know what things have come to. No wonder your customs friend was so unhappy!]

[Don’t call them squishies, Fist.]

[ I don’t see why not. I don’t mind being called a puppet.]

As they approached the market, gloomy metal facades gave way to ramshackle assemblages of plastic, tin and canvas, barely holding together as the rain lashed them.

[Docklands’ biggest market? It’s a dump.]

[ It’s better when you’re onweave.]

Jack remembered dancing words hanging in midair, enticing passersby into market booths. Ghostly data sprites touched at potential customers with viewer-appropriate fingers, whispered viewer-appropriate promises, displayed viewer-appropriate genitalia and hinted at viewer-appropriate wonders – on sale NOW! By contrast, reality was sodden and heavy, a failure to be anything but its tarnished, non-negotiable self.

The booths were all closed, but some of their weave systems had been left running, beaming content into the darkness. There were men and women – sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. They all stood rapt, dreams dancing like whispers around them.

[Don’t let any of them see you.]

[ I’d give them such a scare,] cackled Fist. [ I wonder if they’re watching the same thing as the squishy?]

[ I doubt it. The Totality aren’t weave fans.]

[Look at that fellow!]

An old man was standing in front of a particularly rundown group of stalls, smiling beatifically at the rain. One hand hung at his side. The other was inside his trousers, tugging at himself. There was a dark hole in the centre of his face where his nose had fallen in. Jack started. He’d forgotten how brutally sweat could degrade its users. Nobody else was reacting to the sweathead. Their weaveware would be actively masking his presence.

Jack began to walk more quickly. Hunger bit, intensifying the cold and the wet. Memories of Andrea haunted him, more persistent than any sprite. She’d loved hunting through the market for bargains. He so wanted to make new moments with her, sharded with fresh joy. He’d worked so hard to make sure that rage and bitterness wouldn’t corrode them. He pulled his coat closer around himself and shivered. There was so little time left. Another train hummed by, slowing for Hong Se De station.

The streets emptied as they left the market behind and neared the Wound. Jack let its deeper, more impersonal history distract him from Andrea’s absence. Centuries ago, a stray asteroid had gouged into Homeland’s outer skin. The district whose streets and buildings sat just over the damaged area, hugging Homeland’s curved interior, had been renamed to commemorate the event. Kingdom’s architects had built down into the gash, creating buildings whose lower floors saw out through it into space. The Wound attracted people who wanted that kind of view. It became popular with the dockers who worked on the edge of the void, and the spacers who spent their lives travelling through it. Few of them would be out at this time of night. Most were sleeping, shattered by the brute physicality of their working lives. There was little need for nightlife in the neighbourhood.

Fist announced that he was bored. He started pulling himself back into Jack’s mind. [ Find us a hotel,] Jack told him. [ Then we’ll start looking for Andrea.]

[ How?]

[ We’ll search.]

[ I can’t go onweave yet. I haven’t broken all the security glyphs.]

[Shit. How long till you’ve got full access?]

[Perhaps a week, probably two. This fucking cage.]

They kept walking. After a few minutes a Twins weave sigil announced a café. Soft light spilled out of its window, turning falling raindrops into streaks of fire. A ventilator whirred, filling the cold night with the hot, beckoning reek of frying oil. Jack pushed through the door, hoping for food and help with a weave-search.

A woman and two teenage boys were hunched over a zinc bar. The woman was finishing some soup, spooning green liquid carefully into her mouth. A hood hid her face. She was clearly a deep spacer. Her right arm had been held at Customs House, leaving only a bright metal socket attached to her shoulder. A long cloak covered the rest of her. Her crutch was leaning against the bar. Jack wondered if they’d also confiscated one of her legs. Sandal’s officials must have reasserted a Pantheon limited tech use licence. Such licences no longer applied in the Totality-controlled regions of the Solar System. Jack wondered if she’d be able to replace her limbs when she returned home.

[ They strip the limbs from good honest working folk. Shocking!]

[ That’s the Pantheon for you. You never own anything. You just license it from them.]

The two teens displayed Grey logos, carefully stitched into bandanas. One went to cover his up. The other glanced at Jack. ‘It’s OK, he’s not InSec.’

[ Your old boss still has some supporters. Impressive pair!]

‘I want food. Something hot and quick,’ said Jack, taking a seat at the bar. ‘And I’m looking for a hotel. And a friend.’

‘You can see the menu. And do I look like a search engine?’ the barman snapped back.

‘I’m not onweave.’ Now Jack had his attention. ‘I’ve only just arrived on Station. Sandal certified me safe.’

‘There’s a hotel a couple of streets away, left then right. But if you’re not onweave you can’t pay for a room. Or food. Not that you’d taste it anyway.’

‘I’ve got money.’ Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out the cash card.

‘That’s InSec. The kids were right. You are police.’

There was a muttered ‘shit’ from the teenage boys.

‘No,’ replied Jack. ‘Not any more.’

‘You’re on parole, aren’t you?’ asked one of the teens.

‘Worse than you fucks, chasing your traitor god,’ the barman told him.

‘Oi, watch it – they never proved anything.’ The teen’s friend hushed him.

‘Kingdom believed Grey was knowingly helping terrorists, East reported it all, that’s enough for me,’ replied the barman. ‘And you’ – turning back to Jack – ‘you can get out. I don’t know what you’ve done, but if it’s enough to get you offweaved I don’t want you in here.’

One of the teens whispered, ‘Probably a skinner. Coming down hard on them just now.’

As Jack left he heard the barman say ‘scum’.

[ I’ll have him for every shilling he’s ever earned. I’ll mail pictures of him screwing a six-year-old to everyone he’s ever met. By this time tomorrow they’ll have thrown him out of his life and he’ll be begging on the fucking streets,] whispered Fist, his thin, high voice a malevolent whip cracking inside Jack’s head.

[ No you won’t,] Jack thought back. [ You’ll remember what would happen if you got caught and you’ll do what I tell you.]

[ Yes, that’s always worked out so well for us, hasn’t it?]

[ Fuck you, Fist.]

Chapter 3

The hotel was easy to find. A half-broken sign spat sparks at the night every time a raindrop hit it.

[ Very vintage. Andrea loves this sort of thing, doesn’t she? Shame you’ll probably never get her here. Could be quite the love den.]

[Don’t be so sure, Fist.]

[ Remember all that counselling you did when we found out I’d be taking over? What was that thing they said was so bad? Ah yes. Denial.]

The door refused to open. Jack barged it with his shoulder and it flew back. A bell jangled too loudly. The reception area was dimly lit. A plastic counter pretended to be wood. At first Jack thought that the desk clerk was a young man, but when he got closer he saw that age had carved lines in his face. There was something very boyish about his greeting, though.

‘Oo, hello! Dear me, you’re soaked. We’ll get you a room nice and quickly.’

He stood up, swaying slightly. There was a sharp herbal scent in the air. Jack recognised Docklands gin. He’d not tasted alcohol for seven years. He’d forgotten how it could slur words, make a hand shake as it sketched patterns in the empty air.

[ You should get some and celebrate being home.]

[ No distractions, Fist. Especially not cheap shit like that. We’re here to find Andrea.]

‘Single room?’ asked the clerk, unaware of their conversation. ‘Staying how long?’

‘A few weeks.’

Fist laughed. Jack thought of glass breaking in darkness. The clerk waved a hand, confirming the booking.

‘I need a deposit. Just mesh with our server.’

‘I’ll pay with this,’ said Jack. He slapped the InSec card on the plastic countertop. ‘Is that a problem?’

The clerk looked at Jack, then back at the card, then at Jack again. ‘Well, I should be worried. But it’s a simply horrid night. And I’m sure you can’t have done anything too bad. I can trust you, can’t I? You won’t let me down, will you?’ He fumbled uncertainly in the air for a few seconds. Somewhere in the distance a buzzer rang. He sat down heavily, then reached for a glass and swigged transparent liquid. ‘The Twins would want me to,’ he muttered, to himself as much as to Jack.

[Old soak,] said Fist.

[ If he wasn’t so smashed, he probably wouldn’t be giving us the room.]

‘You know,’ slurred the clerk, ‘for a bit extra you can even have a view of the stars. And it’s not as if it’s your money you’re spending, is it?’ He giggled hysterically. Jack nodded. The clerk made a swooping gesture, nearly losing his balance. ‘That’s all done for you then. I’ll call the porter to show you to your room. I’m Charles, by the way.’

‘One more thing. Can you find a friend for me? She’s a singer, there should be gig listings.’

‘Can’t you just message her?’

‘I want to surprise her.’

‘Aha!’ Charles put a finger to his nose and winked heavily. ‘I see.’ But he couldn’t find any trace of Andrea. ‘Nothing at all, I’m afraid,’ he said apologetically. Fist giggled. ‘And here’s our porter.’

An old man prowled into reception. His face was as battered as a mined-out asteroid. He had a hunchbacked stance to match. He didn’t offer to take Jack’s suitcase. Jack followed him out of the reception area through a door that was little more than a hole hacked in an iron wall. ‘Sweet dreams,’ Charles called after them. Then: ‘Mr Forster’s not onweave.’ The porter grunted in surprise.

[Pisshead,] grumbled Jack. [ He probably spelt her name wrong. Or just didn’t see it when it came up.]

They moved down a long corridor. Broken candelabras hung from the ceiling over a once-red carpet that reeked of mildew. There was an ornate elevator that looked like a cage, its bars encrusted with broken circuit boards. Jack made out a tattered Twins logo. Between them, they were responsible for everything from medical services and pharmaceuticals to food production and every kind of accommodation. They probably hadn’t given any thought to this place for a very long time.

‘Not working. Through here,’ spat the porter, indicating a door marked S RVI E.

Jack followed him down several flights of stairs. Even in the Wound, having a room with a view meant descending far into Station’s crust. Metal steps clanked beneath the two men. A stream of water hissed down the middle of the stairwell, splashing them.

‘So what did they take you offweave for?’ asked the porter. ‘You can tell me, I won’t let on.’ Jack didn’t reply. ‘Go on, I won’t peach. I’m one of Kingdom’s, we always keep mum. What’s it like?’

They were soon at the door to Jack’s room. There was another Twins logo on it, cheap blue plastic showing through scuffed gold leaf. The porter pushed against it. After a moment’s wait it recognised his touch and opened.

The room’s windowless walls were grey. A few niches contained soft lights. Most were dark, bulbs gone and not replaced. A double bed squatted in one corner, a desk in another. There was a cupboard without any doors. A generic altar hung on one wall, ready to hardlink each new guest to their particular deity. The room was at least spacious. Jack put down his suitcase.

‘Minibar, bathroom,’ said the porter, pointing. ‘Touch your hand here.’ There was a white square on the wall by the door. Jack pushed his fingertips against it and it flashed.

‘The door’s set for you.’

‘Any room service?’

The porter laughed.

‘What about opening the window?’

‘That’s extra.’

‘That’s not what Charlie said.’

‘Charlie’s smashed. Just pay onweave.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Oh, I forgot.’

The porter cackled to himself as he shuffled away down the corridor. [ I’d let you break his life, but it’s already broken,] thought Jack.

[ I could take him lower.]

[Can you crack the room?]

[ Jack, this is a shitty room in a flophouse. If I was free I could crack every sodding rathole for half a kilometre without breaking a sweat.]

[ Fist.]

[ Yes, I can. It’s a local system. No need to go onweave, so it won’t trigger the cageware alarms. A minute or two, and I’ll own their server too.]

[ No quicker?]

[ The cage. It’s like wading through mud. Still, it’ll give you a minute to hang up your shirts and unpack your wash bag.]

[Do it.]

Fist flickered into being and went to work. Jack thought of him free and at war, a little black shape carved out of darkness, giggling as he shattered artificial minds in the voids beyond Jupiter. Now he was so much more limited. He moved to the centre of the small room and knelt down. ‘I just need to reach in,’ he explained, splaying his hands on the floor. He shimmered slightly, resources drained by the effort of breaking through his cage, then muttered ‘gotcha’. His fingers sank into the stained carpet, a visual metaphor for deep and subtle combat between invasive and defensive coding sets.

The other puppets had always looked down on Fist. Grown on an accountant’s rather than a soldier’s mind, they’d perceived him as a flawed weapon, one rooted in barren civilian ground. Jack had had to deal with similar contempt from his own peers. In his own case, he’d had to admit that they were partially right. He wasn’t a trained soldier and he didn’t adapt well to military life. But he’d never felt anything other than deep respect for the ease with which Fist penetrated and subverted complex information structures.

That admiration came from Jack’s sense of the limits of his own professional skills. He could read and understand commercial systems, even – to an extent – hack his way into and through them himself. He loved to follow number and data flows, reading the health of a company from the trails they left behind. But at an absolute level he lacked the carving fluency of engagement that was hard-wired into Fist’s deepest being. Not for the first time, he wondered what such intimacy with the abstract felt like.

‘Got the window,’ grunted Fist. Unreal ripples span away from him, rolling lazily across the carpet. They died to nothing before they reached Jack. Hidden machineries groaned into action, and the floor’s movement shifted from virtual to real. External blinds irised open. Suddenly Fist was kneeling on a rapidly expanding circle of stars. The pool of darkness spilled out across the empty room. He stood up, a little prince suspended above the kingdom he’d lost.

‘That’s better,’ he said happily.

For both of them, it was a kind of homecoming, a return to the violent emptiness of space. Jack stepped forward and looked down. He was standing on the edge of the window, the point where scabbed flooring gave way to black infinity. For a moment he could pretend that he was no longer staying in a cheap hotel in the Wound, but floating between solar systems. Earth – ruined and abandoned – wasn’t visible. There were no snowflakes, only the hard, tiny stars, barely present in light millennia of void.

‘I always dreamed of coming back home,’ he said, wistfully. ‘But when we arrived on-Station, I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t bear to see no stars, just the Spine and the rest of Homelands curving round behind it.’

Fist ignored him. He moved to the wall, his hands eddying across it, caressing the virtual structures that underpinned the room. ‘I’m going to get full overlay going,’ he said. Jack looked up, away from the stars. ‘Is that safe?’ he asked.

Fist sighed. ‘Fuck’s sake, Jack, have some faith. I’m using the hotel server to mask our call to your old messaging space. As long as we don’t go further into the weave, it’ll look like you’re just using a keyboard and a screen.’

‘Does anyone even have those any more?’

The walls and the ceiling rippled out of existence as the room’s overlay systems meshed with Jack’s mind. He was standing in the ruins of a garden, at the edge of a pool made of darkness. A full moon hung above it, suffusing tangled flowerbeds, overgrown paths and broken archways with a soft, forgiving light. In the distance, there was a small hill. A little temple set on its peak, classically Greek in style, shone like a silver button. A figure that could have been a statue stood next to it.

The garden had a vague, tumbled beauty to it. Remembering how it looked when he had tended it daily, Jack sighed. He thought of the farewell party he’d thrown. The few friends and colleagues who’d turned up had pretended to be proud of him. He was going to fight the Totality, to avenge the dead children of the moon. But as the drink flowed, their relief that their patrons hadn’t blessed them with similar postings began to show through.

Fist emerged from an archway on the other side of the pond, his wooden shoes clacking on paving stones like hooves. Jack’s library had been through there. He was sure that, in surrendering to the Totality, he’d broken the conditions of his media content licence. The library would now be empty, a lifetime of reading, watching and listening lost.

Fist’s red painted lips slid into a grimacing smile. ‘Don’t move, Jack,’ he called over. ‘Haven’t switched you to lucid weavestate yet. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy watching you bump into walls, but got to protect my future property.’

He closed his eyes for a moment. Jack imagined him frowning in concentration. The puppet’s face was too rigid to show such a subtle emotion. Jack wondered how Fist would cope with a real, human face, when the time came. He felt briefly pleased that he could set Fist’s gleeful anticipation aside and think about his own death so dispassionately. Andrea had pointed out how passive the puppet’s role in it really was. Now Jack usually tried to imagine that he was suffering from a disease that would take his life in an efficient and entirely impersonal way. That hadn’t always been easy, but it was something that – most of the time – he could manage.

The landscape shimmered briefly and then was still. ‘There!’ chirped Fist. ‘Motor neuron management systems patched in. The Night Hag’ll activate automatically from now on. You’re fine to move, it’s all just subjective.’

Jack took one experimental step, then another. The weave reached deep into his cerebrum, making imagined action seem entirely real. It was a sensation he hadn’t felt for seven years. Once, it had permeated his life. It had taken a long time to learn how to leave it behind, to let go of all that it had underpinned. The experience of that letting go had helped him as he’d grappled with the greater loss he would soon face. That, and the promise of some small happiness with Andrea, in the few months that remained to him.

‘Now we’re here,’ Fist said obliviously, ‘let’s get social!’ He skipped over to a roughly hacked block of soft white limestone that stood at the heart of the garden. ‘That was your dad, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

Fist affected an archaic accent. Jack didn’t recognise it. ‘He’s blocked you good and proper, guv’nor. Want me to try and open him up? You can surprise him.’

‘I’ll do that in person.’ Jack ran his hand over the rough, cold stone. The scrape of it was so convincing. He remembered being a child, rubbing small hands over his father’s stubble, fascinated by the way it prickled at his skin. He sighed.

‘Let’s find Andrea.’

‘She’s locked you out too, Jack.’

‘She hasn’t. She’s the only one.’

‘She might as well have done.’

Her avatar was a few minutes’ walk away, at the end of a pathway lined with more boulders. They had once been elegantly correct representations of Jack’s many friends. Distance made regular contact with the few who’d stayed in touch after he left Station almost impossible. They had in any case without exception blocked him when he surrendered to the Totality. For a moment, Jack wished that the past could be remade. But only today and tomorrow could ever change. He moved on towards Andrea’s avatar. When he found it, he spent a while just gazing. It was a perfect image of her living self. He thought of the last time he’d seen her, singing in a nightclub off Kanji Square. He remembered her final touch. She’d wiped a tear away from his face.

Hurt had carved age into her face, etching light new lines across it. Her relationship with Harry Devlin had not always been easy, but she’d loved him enough to turn back to him when the rogue mind’s rock hit the moon. Security had suddenly seemed so very important. She’d told Jack that she was going to make a fresh start with her husband a week or so before he left Station for the Soft War. It had been such a sudden, final end to their affair. Jack wondered how Harry’s death had hit her. She’d never responded in depth to Jack’s questions about her loss. He’d assumed that, even four or five years later, the hurt went too deep.

She’d at least given him the basic facts. Harry had been shot in a Kanji backstreet. He’d always relied on an extensive network of informants. It was assumed that one of them had been turned and killed him. The assassin was never caught. Jack remembered Pierre Akhmatov and his nightclub, the Panther Czar. He wondered what other stones Harry might have turned over, what dangerous knowledge could been waiting beneath them. He’d always seemed unkillable – so vital, so alive, so rooted in the world around him. It was difficult to think of him as a fetch, sketched into being from the whispering traces that his life had burnt into the weave. It was impossible to imagine its presence offering Andrea any sort of consolation.

The eyes of her avatar were closed. Without thinking, Jack took her hand and initiated a call request. He imagined her seeing his image flash up, wondering whether to talk to him. For a moment he let himself feel hope.

‘Honestly Jack, I don’t know why you people put yourselves through all this.’

There was nothing. Andrea’s hand remained cold and dead. Jack squeezed it again, then let it go. It fell back to hang beside her hip. Her face was in shadow. He kissed the tip of a finger and touched it to her cheek. A chill shook him. Perhaps she was with another lover. But they talked about everything. She would have mentioned that. He imagined her thinking of his return home – one more man who would love her, then die. Perhaps that was why she’d cut him off so suddenly and totally. But she’d always been so ready to face the fact of his death. He forced both thoughts from his mind. Something was wrong. He needed to find her. ‘We’ll see InSec tomorrow, then we’ll start looking,’ he told Fist.

‘I’m bored,’ grumbled Fist. ‘What about the temple? There’s someone up there who’d just love to see you. We can tell him how impressed we were with his little followers.’

‘No, we’re not going to see Grey.’ Jack was surprised by his own anger. ‘Not now. Not ever.’

‘You’re the boss.’

‘Let’s just go back to the hotel.’

The puppet slapped his hard little hands together. The garden slipped away, and Jack was left once again standing in a squalid little hotel room, consumed by lonely hunger, with the heavens hanging lost beneath him.

Chapter 4

Jack stood on the roof of Customs House, looking towards the great circular cliff of the Wart. The whole clutter of Docklands’ habitable space arched up and away to his left and right, then came together again far above him on the other side of the Spine. Many of the buildings were either half-completed or half-ruined. There were a dozen or so burned-out patches, some taking up little more than a few square metres, others extending for a street or more.

Jack looked straight up, trying to see past the spinelights, but they dazzled him and he winced away. He imagined Andrea, out there somewhere, and remembered her talking about Kingdom. ‘He built Station,’ she’d once said. ‘I hate to admit it, but that’s pretty bloody impressive.’ Standing within it now though, Jack still felt trapped. Fist jerked him out of his reverie.

[ Remembering the gods, Jack? I’d love to have a crack at them.]

[ For once, I wouldn’t stop you.]

[ That does make a change.]

A black InSec flyer whined carefully down on to a landing pad, crouching back into mass as its engines died. There was movement within then a door opened.

‘I’m Lieutenant Corazon,’ said its pilot, climbing out. ‘Assistant Commissioner Lestak’s assistant.’

She was a little shorter than Jack. She wore a dark, anonymous uniform. Her scalp was neatly shaven and dotted with tightly tattooed weave sigils. East’s silver logo flared out on the crown of her head. ‘I have to handcuff you. I’m sorry, it’s regulation.’ She helped Jack into the flyer and leant over him to snap in his seatbelt. There was an awkward silence as she fumbled with straps.

‘Docklands is in bad shape,’ said Jack. ‘Surprised nobody’s rebuilt after those fires.’

‘Those are void sites. Where terrorist bombs went off. The gods left them like that to remind us why we were fighting.’

She took the pilot’s seat.

‘Did they catch any of the bombers?’ asked Jack.

‘When Grey fell. Very naïve of him to think they were peace protesters.’ She completed the flyer’s start-up checks. ‘Ready to go. No distraction from that creature of yours while I’m flying, please.’

[So very firm,] whispered Fist. [ I’m rather enjoying being bossed around by her.]

The flyer lifted straight up. As it levelled off just below the Spine, Corazon closed her eyes for a moment and reached up to touch her East logo.

[ What’s that all about?] said Fist.

[ We’re alongside the Pantheon icons. She’s acknowledging her patron.]

[ Tell me you didn’t kiss their arses like that.]

Corazon finished her brief observance and set the flyer moving forward. She was a deft, efficient pilot.

‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes or so.’

‘No doubt.’

‘You’ve been away for a long time. A shame to return like this.’

‘I can live with it.’

They passed through a space designated for container storage. Several hundred hung in canyon walls around them. Other flyers sped along above and below them, pilots and passengers visible in each. Without overlay, they all occupied indistinguishably battered machines, faded carbon-fibre frames showing like lightly tinted bones through body shells that were palimpsests of replaced and resprayed panels.

‘You’re in the care of East?’ Jack said.

‘Through my father, yes.’

[ Here’s someone who didn’t let their parents down, Jack!] cackled Fist.

Jack winced.

‘Are the handcuffs too tight?’ asked Corazon.

‘They’re fine.’ Jack shifted in his seat. ‘Unusual to find one of hers working in InSec.’

‘East called me to it. I followed.’

‘What did you think you were going to be?’

‘A journalist.’

Jack let the silence run on.

‘Working for InSec is more satisfying than I ever thought it could be.’

‘No doubt,’ replied Jack. ‘I knew Lestak, years ago. You’re young to be working for someone like her.’

‘I passed second in my class at the Academy.’

‘East chose the right path for you, then.’

‘As Grey would have done for you.’

Jack snorted.

‘He was a good patron, once,’ Corazon snapped. ‘He certainly honoured you. You rose as quickly as I’ve done.’

‘And then he exiled me and fell. The Pantheon are far from good, Corazon. They’ll screw you if they need to.’

Corazon’s light, friendly manner frosted over. ‘Grey’s been punished. The rest still put us first.’ There was a moment’s silence, then she continued, ‘I’m with you in an official capacity. Please use my rank when you address me.’

‘I was called to serve in InSec too. Will you do me the same favour, Lieutenant Corazon?’

‘I can if you want me too, Parolee Forster.’

[ Touché, Jack,] giggled Fist. [ I do like this one.]

Corazon’s defence of the gods was so clearly rooted in a very personal sense of gratitude. Jack remembered his own relationship with Grey. The god had done so much more than steer his career. He’d been a mentor and a friend, helping Jack leap the hurdles and manage the pressures that his fast-tracked life created. Jack hadn’t understood that Grey’s very personal attention was a privilege, not a right, until his Soft War posting showed him how quickly and absolutely a god could lose interest in one of his creations.

All of a sudden, shadows took them and they were flying through darkness. They’d entered the hollow interior of the Wart. ‘So they still haven’t blessed this place with spinelights?’ asked Jack.

Corazon’s reply was sharp and impersonal. ‘Kingdom felt that there wasn’t sufficient return on energy deployed. The fusion reactors don’t really need it. Nobody ever visits the ruins. And the industrial zones are lit at ground level.’

As Jack’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw that that was indeed the case. Soft glowing lights patterned the Wart’s floor space, hanging all around the little flyer. Exhaust flares flickered flame orange, or magnesium white. Streetlights made small triangles in the dark, regularly spaced in little clustered networks. A few tower blocks spiked the gloom, their presence defined by thin lines of small, bright windows. Squinting, Jack imagined that he could see tiny figures behind those windows. He sighed. If Fist were fully active, he would have been able to mesh with the weave systems behind every single one, reach into any room he chose to and know everything about everyone within it. It would have made the search for Andrea so much easier.

A light flashed on the flyer’s control panel, blinking in time with a warning tone. ‘Shit,’ muttered Corazon. ‘We’re running late.’ The flyer accelerated, pushing Jack back into his seat. The entrance to Homelands was a small white circle ahead of them. It quickly expanded until it filled the flyer’s windscreen. Suddenly they’d exploded through it and out, and Lieutenant Corazon was pulling the flyer round in a tight curve through the vast skies of Homelands.

The thin silver spar of the Spine stretched out ahead of them to the Sunwall, the great, opaque lens stretched across the rim of Homelands like a skin over a drum. It glowed with soft, golden light, casting the luminous haze that made every Homelands day seem so perfect, lighting a world divided in two by the lazy curves of the River Mèche. Residential complexes, shopping malls and business and science parks clustered on either side of it. Halfway along Homelands a circular line of spoke towers reared up, climbing all the way to the Spine. Each tower extended downwards too, passing through Homeland’s skin and out into space. Their external floors merged with the buttressing struts that supported the green-gold ring of Heaven. There was one tower for each of the Pantheon, housing their core operating companies and major subsidiaries. At this time of day, each would be filled with hard-working employees, implementing the many and varied corporate policies constantly coming down from on high. All would be working at least six days a week, eight hours a day. Most would toil harder than that. The gods demanded much from those who served them most directly, but rewarded them proportionately.

‘Dammit, we’ve missed our landing slot.’

Corazon’s cold animosity was forgotten in her frustration. She let the flyer curve round to the left, opening up a magnificent view of a quarter that Jack had once known reasonably well. Chuigushou Mall shone beneath them. The Violin Gardens estate drifted in and out of sight, redbrick walls referencing an aesthetic that had been dead for at least three hundred years.

[Suburbia in space,] said Fist. [ The ’roid halls of Titan are far classier than this.]

‘So how does it feel to see your old haunts, Jack?’ asked Corazon.

Jack was surprised by the sudden friendliness of her tone. But then, forgiveness had always been important to East and her followers. It was key to engaging with the intricate, scandalous life stories of her celebrities. A pariah one week could be a hero the next. A popular singer’s habit of attacking their partner would be forgotten on the release of a thrilling new song. A drug-addicted actor would star in a hit drama, and suddenly become a perfect parent and spouse. Of course, such rapid change had its flipside. East had near-instantly torn down as many icons as she had created. She had always been a reliably fickle entity.

Now Jack could see the streets of Chuigushou Vale. Strips of semi-detached houses were arranged in leaf-like patterns around exclusive shopping and entertainment spaces. But even here, there were reminders of war. Burns scarred the shimmering landscape.

‘Void sites?’ wondered Jack.

‘Oh yes. The terrorists hit Homelands too.’

Jack was oddly relieved to hear the frost return to her voice. It felt much more honest than her sudden warmth. ‘What do they look like, when you’re onweave?’ he asked.

‘You see the faces of dead children.’

They flew past a cluster of medium-sized office blocks. The Sunwall’s light gilded their blank, reflective surfaces, turning them into a web of jewelled fingers. Behind them, a mixed-use landscape stretched away – start-up incubators, micro-malls, the mansions of the wealthy. For a moment, memories of the city filled Jack’s mind. All of it came to life in his imagination with an emotive vividness that the weave could never match.

‘We’ve got a landing slot.’

The flyer dipped and kicked, skimming towards a large tower standing just by the entrance to the Wart. Jack didn’t need the weave to recognise it. It was InSec. They were falling into the midsection flyer pads on the thirty-third floor.

‘A few minutes, and you’ll be in with Assistant Commissioner Lestak,’ Corazon said firmly. ‘Ready to try and convince her to hate the Pantheon, too?’

Chapter 5

‘Seven years away,’ Lestak began. ‘And five of them a coward.’

‘Spare me the lecture. Ask what you need to and let me go. I’ve got people to see.’

‘Release you? Yes, I have to, don’t I? Those vicious friends of yours made sure of that. An amnesty for war criminals …’

‘I’m not a criminal. And the Totality isn’t vicious. Far from it.’

Lestak sighed and looked away. Unlike Corazon, she’d retained her hair. It was cut short and briskly styled, just as it had been seven years ago. The winter dusting of grey was new, though. Weave sigils dangled from her earrings. She pulled her glasses off and gently massaged her forehead. Jack was struck with the sudden, real presence of the past. He remembered her in this same mood when she’d interrogated him and Harry Devlin about the slow progress of the Penderville murder case. She’d been angry then, too. Memory told him that she would put her glasses down, then turn towards him and attack. She did.

‘You would know, wouldn’t you, Jack? After all, you spent enough time with them. What you did was shameful. To run away from battle, after a moon full of dead children, after all the bombs. You made it pretty clear you weren’t happy with Grey’s decisions for you. But I never took you for a coward.’

Anger blazed in Jack. It took him a moment to choke it back and ready a reply. As he did so the Assistant Commissioner cocked her head, as if listening to someone invisible. He looked over at Corazon. She was staring at a point just to the left of Lestak. There was a flash of shock, then pity. Then she mastered herself and her face went blank. Only her tight, pale lips betrayed the emotion she was feeling.

[ Fetch activity,] Fist told him.

[ If it’s out of home, it won’t be wearing a face.]

[ Just a skull? No wonder Corazon’s so freaked.]

[Can you see it?]

[ No. Don’t have permissions.]

[ Be glad.]

[ You humans …]

Lestak reached out, wrapping her arms round empty air. It took Jack a second to realise she was hugging someone who wasn’t there. ‘No, Issie, there’s no need to be upset,’ she said. ‘Mummy’s fine. But we don’t need your help just now. You can run along and play.’ Another pause. Lestak and Corazon both stared intently at the same vacancy. Corazon’s face remained carefully empty. Lestak’s was suffused with a desperate kind of love.

[ It’s scanning me,] said Fist. [Powerful weaveware. Invasive little shit.]

‘You can’t take the funny puppet with you, Issie,’ said Lestak, then almost snapped, ‘no, he’s not like you at all.’ There was another silence. Then she kissed nothing again and said, ‘Goodbye.’

Corazon relaxed slightly, shifting in her seat. Jack waited for Lestak to recover herself and speak. There would be more accusations. When he’d been in the care of the Totality, he’d never been able to take comfort in the memory of friends or colleagues. He’d never been able to get beyond the thought of this conversation, waiting to explode out of any of them.

A quiet, insinuating voice drifted through his mind. [ You’ve always been better off with me, Jack.]

Lestak caught his suddenly abstracted expression. ‘Sweet Rose,’ she said. ‘You’re talking to it, aren’t you? That thing inside you. As if it were a person.’

‘We’ve all talked with the dead, Lestak,’ Jack replied. ‘It’s no better or worse than that.’

Now it was her turn to pause for a moment and master her anger. ‘Oh, how dare you? Issie was alive, once. She’s still a person. That unreal thing – never. And she’s got nothing but love for me. All that creature brings you is death. It must be like having a bit of Totality inside you, mustn’t it? No wonder you went over to them so easily. Thank the gods all the other puppets were destroyed.’

[ Bitch,] growled Fist. [Pro-Totality? Doesn’t she know how many of them I’ve fucked?]

‘I’m not here by choice,’ said Jack. ‘What do you need to ask me? Or are you just going to abuse me?’

[Abuse us,] hissed Fist. [ Not just you.]

‘Let’s get this over and done with,’ sighed Lestak. She gestured at the air with a pale hand. Jack imagined notes shimmering into being in front of her. Her eyes focused briefly on them. ‘Watch him, Corazon,’ she said. ‘I want your thoughts afterwards.’

Then the interrogation began. Lestak tore into Jack with a controlled anger that scared him. She barely touched on his life in-Station, just confirming his involvement with the Penderville investigation and the three months remaining before Fist took possession of his body. Once that was done, she moved on to detailed questioning about his Soft War involvement. As she forced answers out of Jack, memories ripped through him.

Out there, the sun was just another cold, comfortless star. Wrapped in the hard metal of a stealthed mind-breaker, Jack and Fist drifted from moon to asteroid to gas field to comet, hunting rogue AIs that had broken away from Pantheon control but hadn’t yet joined the Totality. Some sought to hide and reproduce. Others just wanted to live out their last days in peace. They were seen as easy targets, so Jack and Fist were usually assigned to them. It took weeks to track each one down, then days to close in on it, cauterising threat-detection systems one by one. Once they were near enough Fist would reach out through the little ship’s antennae, pushing beyond his prey’s defences, probing for weaknesses in its deep architecture. Hours passed in digital meditation on individual lines of code.

Jack came to understand his work as a kind of militant audit. The puppet felt like a far more sophisticated version of the accountancy packages that Grey had licensed to him on Station. Just as Jack had perceived the truth about companies by burrowing into them and analysing their hidden financial flows, Fist deduced the structure of each mind by tracking the shimmering tides of information that pulsed through it. In both cases, it was a slow, meticulous process.

But once he’d patiently mapped his prey, Fist was all speed. He attacked with a focused savagery that to start with fascinated Jack. Their minds would merge, pulsing through the ships’ systems and then out across the void, burning into the intimate heart of their target. Fist would run riot with vicious, unforgettable delight. The one-sided combat always climaxed in moments of sheer vandal joy. There would be a thrill like breaking glass in Jack’s heart as another rogue guttered out, selfhood becoming silence in the cold darkness of space. At first Jack would feel deep satisfaction that he had killed another mind like the one that had thrown the rock at the moon.

But every joy has its shadow. And so, as Jack followed Fist through mind after mind, he started to listen more closely to the thoughts shattering all around him. He’d known since he was a child that each member of the Pantheon was, in effect, a sentient corporation. With that understanding, it was easy to see even the smallest and most basic corporate structure as something like an organism. He’d always used his analytic skills to nurture such creatures. Now he began to see that he was destroying their deep-space brethren. With that came a more disturbing realisation. Hardly any of the minds he was ordered to kill had the processing power to so accurately fire an asteroid halfway across the Solar System, or the hacking skills needed to render it invisible to the Pantheon. And nothing was being done to find the true culprit of the moon attack and bring them to justice.

After each death it became routine for Jack to come to in pain, curled up in a corner of the cockpit. Usually he would find that he had vomited on himself. Sometimes his bowels would have voided. Fist would hang before him, cackling madly, prodding him back into consciousness. Then the little puppet would spin off to flit through the little ship. Sometimes he’d leap out beyond the little ship’s portholes, scratching at them from outside, a phosphorescent ghost in the darkness of deep space shining with ferocious, deeply fulfilled glee. It was hardest when he mimicked the death-screams of the AI he’d just killed.

Jack would drag himself to his berth and sleep for days, waking only to vomit again and weep. He’d dream of the war ending, of Fist being lifted back out of him, of peace and privacy. He’d curse Sandal for letting the rock through, Grey for sending him away to fight, Kingdom for accepting him as a puppeteer. At last, he would stumble to the shower to clean himself, able only to stand and let its sharp heat sting him. Fist would settle back into his head, triumphant hilarity subsiding at last to silence. Their little craft would return home, ready to fall back into the gravity of a moon or bolt itself to a space station’s superstructure. Another mind would be crossed off the list. The other puppets would tease Fist for his perceived weaknesses – a lack of speed, a needlessly close obsession with the structural detail of his prey. Fist would tell them to fuck off.

Soon the hunt would begin again.

‘Is this what you wanted to hear?’ Jack asked. ‘Is this the debriefing your patron asked for?’

He’d just described, in detail, the death agonies of a Jovian mind. It was a survey and ore-recovery swarm that fled Calisto, looking to dream its last weeks away until the licences that supported it ended and the fusion reactors that drove it sputtered into death. It had been working non-stop for eighty-seven years. Corazon had stopped taking notes long ago. She was staring at Jack, fascinated.

‘Do you want to hear how we tore them apart to protect you from their need to be free? Do you really want to know, Lestak?’

‘And do I need to tell you about the thousands dead, Jack? About the rock your cold friends threw at the moon? Do you want to hear about the children my – our – colleagues lost? Do you want to hear how many classrooms were just empty, because there was no one left to fill them? Do you, Jack, when you tell me how you felt eradicating those unreal fucking creatures, when they stepped out of line, and started to become machines for killing? Do you?’

‘None of the minds Fist and I killed were responsible for that. And soon I’ll be just one more of the war dead too. I won’t even leave a fetch behind me.’

There was a moment’s silence, then Lestak said: ‘Oh, what’s the use?’

Outside, the Sunwall had darkened, spinelights fading with it, and night had come to the Homelands. But neither Lestak nor Corazon had made the gesture that would illuminate the room. So, as the Assistant Commissioner turned away from the table, she seemed to curl up into the blackness and be lost within it. Jack felt a soft touch at his shoulder. It was Corazon.

‘The interview’s over. I’ll take you back to Docklands.’

Lestak said nothing as Corazon led Jack out of the room. Her silence was more pointedly accusing than any of her questions.

[Oh, I loved hearing about all the fun we had,] chortled Fist. [ Those were the good old days, weren’t they?]

That cut even deeper.

Chapter 6

Lieutenant Corazon said little as they returned to the flyer. It was only when they entered the deep black of the Wart that she spoke again. Her face was softly etched on the darkness by the green and blue glow of dashboard instruments. Her voice had hushed to a whisper. Dreams of journalistic objectivity had slipped away. She almost seemed to be trying to engage with him as a person.

‘I didn’t realise how tough it was out there.’

A container train appeared ahead of them. There was the soft hissing of gravity baffles and a whine from the little pulse engine as the flyer altered course. Its swing, its seatbelts’ soft tug, reminded both Jack and Corazon that they were moving unsupported through space, with nothing to hold them should they fall.

Jack kept his voice neutral. ‘Breaking minds. Watching them break us. There was nothing soft about it.’

Corazon smiled sadly. ‘We had our own problems. Terrorist bombs, Kingdom killing terrorists. It was non-stop. Out beyond Mars, hardly anything seemed to be going on.’

A warning light flickered red. She touched a switch and it faded. Jack suddenly felt very alone. ‘What happened to Issie?’ he asked.

‘She was Lestak’s daughter. She died on the moon.’

It was the answer he’d expected. He supposed that, after their meeting, Lestak would be salving herself with the company of her child’s fetch.

‘It was a terrible time,’ he said, to himself as much as to Corazon.

[ It was our casus belli. A joy.]

Jack reached inside his mind and let a partition grow, trapping Fist behind it. There would be no more of his synthetic rage for a while. Jack thought about the attack. As ever, he felt no anger at the loss that had been inflicted on humanity. There was only a deep, impassioned grief at the bloody decisions that political calculation could lead to, and at the fact that – once created – such wounds could be so hard to heal.

‘I was just too old to be up there,’ Corazon told him. ‘I lost friends.’

An asteroid had been diverted from its course and dropped on to one of the old lunar mining bases. Those responsible had somehow rendered the asteroid invisible to Station’s sensors, and thus unstoppable. The attack seemed to have been meant as a spectacular but harmless show of strength. But at the time the base had been hosting the annual Homelands Junior Schools Mooncamp. Three thousand children aged between four and thirteen had died instantly. The failure to spot the asteroid had been Sandal’s responsibility. He’d lost status accordingly. Several of his key security subdivisions had been transferred into the care of Kingdom. The Pantheon refused to accept the Totality’s protestations of innocence. The Soft War began shortly after.

‘I can’t believe you even protested about being sent to fight them, Jack.’ Corazon’s questions had become more intimate. Now her anger felt more personal too.

‘I was an accountant,’ he replied. ‘All the rest of the puppeteers were soldiers. They were professionals who’d been working with Kingdom’s mind-killing systems for a long time before they were merged with puppets. I was dropped in pretty much untrained. I had no reason to be there.’

‘Grey wanted you to go, didn’t he? It was his will. The gods see much further than we do.’

‘That’s nonsense, Corazon.’

‘The Pantheon know what’s best for us, Jack. They protect us. They always try to steer the right course.’

‘You think? Look at where Grey’s choices have left me. And it’s not just me. Look at the Penderville murder case – there was evidence of Pantheon involvement there.’

‘That’s impossible.’ Shocked fear resonated in her voice.

‘If the gods themselves turned away from the truth, I’d follow the truth and not the gods.’

‘Don’t use the InSec vows to justify such … heresy.’

‘I was starting to find it in the Panther Czar’s accounts. It was well hidden, but it was real. One of them was helping smuggle sweat into Station.’

‘You think a god would help do that, Jack? And kill to cover it up?’

‘I’d just taken my initial findings to Harry Devlin. He took me seriously. Then the Soft War began. The Pantheon used it to shut our investigation down. None of those fucks care about justice.’

‘Hush, Jack. You can’t say things like that.’

‘Why not? It’s the truth.’

‘It can’t be. And anyway – it’s not respectful.’

‘Things have changed, Corazon. Sandal failed us all. Grey was naïve. Kingdom fought and lost an unjust war. East used it all to quadruple her viewing figures.’

‘Your point is?’

‘The Pantheon are brutal and self-interested, and they’re very powerful indeed. That’s a bad combination.’

‘I won’t listen to this, Jack.’

‘They lie to us, they use us and they throw us away. I’ve killed for them, so I know. You’re not a journalist, are you? I bet you dreamed of it, ever since you were young. How much choice did East give you when she sent you to InSec? And did you really believe her when she said it was the best thing for you?’

‘I could have chosen to do something else.’

‘I had a friend who was a singer. A very good one. She wasn’t happy with East’s plans for her. East broke her career.’

The flyer broke out of the Wart. Corazon steered it to swoop down low over Docklands. ‘Where did you want to go to, Forster?’ she said, her voice suddenly free of emotion.

Fist had found his way round the partition.

[Sounds like you hit a nerve!]

‘Just by Kanji Square station,’ said Jack.

‘Far from your hotel.’

‘Someone to find.’

Corazon settled the flyer on to the street. Jack opened the door. Scheduled rain pattered at it, gusting in and chilling him.

‘They gave you your InSec credit at Customs House?’

‘Yes . You had an observer there. She should have confirmed that.’

‘We had nobody at your reentry interview.’

‘If you say so.’

Jack climbed out and stood by the door. ‘Grey taught me one useful thing,’ he said. ‘Don’t trust the gods. Don’t believe their bullshit.’ The last of the flyer cockpit’s warmth gusted out and away. ‘You’re smart, Corazon. That’s a lesson you should learn too.’

‘You’ve only got a short time,’ Corazon replied. ‘Go and see your father and your mother’s fetch. Make your peace with them, at least. And keep your nose clean. I don’t want to see you again.’

[ First Andrea rejects you, now it’s Corazon. You have quite the way with the ladies, lover boy!]

The flyer door folded back to black wholeness, until there was only a machine beside Jack. A high-pitched whine and it lifted out of the streets, climbing up and away into the round and limited sky.

Chapter 7

Kanji Square was at its busiest. People bustled in and out of bars, queued to enter nightclubs, or just staggered randomly up and down ’ti Bon Ange Street. Most were talking and laughing. Some danced, twitching to beats that only they could hear.

[ Now that’s done, we’ll find Andrea,] said Jack.

[Stalk her, you mean. And anyway, how? We don’t know where she lives, where she goes.]

[ The old-fashioned way. We’ll visit all the places she used to perform, and we’ll keep going till we track her down.]

Jack was standing in a brilliantly lit, manically driven entertainment district, surrounded by flaring light, pulsing beats and fashion-crazed teenagers. East and the Twins ruled here, showering thrills on their acolytes, tossing out loyalty points by the score. But Jack was offweave, so he saw only blandly identical buildings, lit with blandly identical light, full of blandly identical people. Perhaps the weave sigils changed with each face and façade, but he was not machine enough to scan each one and differentiate between them.

The only people who stood out were the sweatheads. As long as they took their drugs in private, they could move at will through the city. Every so often he’d spot one, stumbling through the crowd. They were invisible to all but him, deleted by overlay. It was easy to see why people would rather not see them. The drug had bitten at their faces, removing noses or chewing through cheeks. Tattered clothes covered most of the deeper damage. Some were still in relative control of themselves, but most staggered and shook as they went. Occasionally, one would tug at a sleeve, or pull at an arm. There’d be a whispered request for money, made close enough to its target for a touch and a voice to break through obscuring weavecode. Most people froze and did nothing. Some would move to brush away the supplicant, risking physical contact and further overlay breakdown. A very small minority would wave a little cash into the sweathead’s account.

Above Jack, the spinelights flicked from evening to night. He quickly realised that, offweave, he couldn’t even tell nightclubs from bars or theatres, let alone read individual billings to see if Andrea was performing. Her act had always been deliberately retro in feel. He spent a while wandering at random, hoping that she might have decided to advertise herself with words that he could read – a poster stuck to a wall or a flyer handed out to one or other of the club queues that he passed. Perhaps that was all the advertising she was doing nowadays, explaining why Charles hadn’t been able to find her. He wondered if he might even recognise one of her friends tottering out of a venue, or just bump into Andrea herself. But there was no trace of her anywhere.

[ This is a waste of time,] grumbled Fist. [ Why can’t we just ask someone?]

[ You’re only offweave if you’re a criminal. You saw what happened in the café last night.]

But after more fruitless searching, Jack gave in and tried to talk to people. Most ignored him, treating him as if he were some new, deceptively healthy form of sweathead. Three stopped and listened until they understood what he wanted them to do. The first person told him to fuck off. The second ran. The third threatened to report him to InSec.

[OK, Fist, let’s go back to the hotel. We’ll try again tomorrow.]

[ Well that IS a relief.]

A long walk back to the Wound, and Jack found himself again striding past the little Twins café – empty now, not even a haven for lost Grey acolytes. There was an alleyway just next to it, leading back into darkness. Muffled shouting erupted from it. Jack paused and took a couple of steps back.

[Can you see that, Fist?]

A couple of Sandal’s wheelie bins half-blocked the view. Beyond them, Jack could just make out sudden, violent movement. A raised hand, gripping a piece of piping, disappeared sharply downwards. A strained voice, dense with static, shouted ‘Help!’

[ Jackie, that’s a biped – no, don’t!]

Jack pushed the bins aside and threw himself into the passageway. It was so much darker than the street.

[Come back! You’ll get hurt!]

That made some stubborn part of Jack want to damage himself. But he’d have to live with the consequences too. He ran forwards. Wet concrete was slippery underfoot. Damp had corroded brickwork. Empty walls stretched up and away. There was a smell of piss. A girl and a boy – not even teenagers – were standing over a fallen biped. Violet light glowed feebly out of its head. It had pulled itself back into a doorway, curling up in a weak attempt at self-protection. One arm waved feebly. The boy pushed it aside and brought the lead piping down again. It hit the victim’s chest and sank in. The biped groaned. ‘Fucking squishy,’ said the boy. The girl kicked the prone figure. It squeezed a little further back into the door. The soft light it cast illuminated its attackers’ tired faces and exhausted clothing. Neither of them noticed Jack.

[ Well, if we must,] grumbled Fist, resigning himself to helping Jack. He hissed combat options. [ Take the boy first. Twist his throat out. The blood panics the girl, she runs.]

[ For gods’ sake. You know I won’t do that. Just manifest.]

[ What?]

[MANIFEST. Lightshow. Blow their little minds.]

A crack and a flash of light, and the two attackers turned, surprise becoming shock then fear. Jack stood there, a bright point of light hanging next to him. That point began to grow, emitting whiplash cracks of brilliance. Fist’s cage expanded into dark bands, made silhouettes by the vivid luminosity that they contained. There was one last great crackling burst, then all was silence. The cageware rings revolved slowly and deliberately. Within them hung the little figure of Fist, apparently lifeless.

Then they blurred and shimmered and vanished, and the little puppet looked up. The attackers gaped at his red-painted cheeks and lips, dead glass eyes, perfect little hairpiece and perpetual grin. His body floated beneath his carved face like an afterthought dressed in a blue-grey suit, a starched white shirt and a little red bow-tie. He clacked his mouth open and shut twice, the snap of wood on wood echoing down the alleyway. Then he roared in fury:

‘I’LL EAT YOU ALIVE, YOU LITTLE FUCKERS!’

The two children stepped back, first slowly, then more quickly.

‘I’LL TEAR YOUR OVERLAY OFF YOU! I’LL KEEP YOU OFFWEAVE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIVES!’

Now they were turning, now running. They reached the corner of the little alleyway and the boy was gone. The girl stopped and looked back.

‘Puppets don’t scare me!’ she shouted. She suddenly seemed terribly young. Another pulse of light from Fist and he was next to her. She stood there unmoving. He leant in, a dream of wood almost touching real flesh.

[ Just tell her to go, Fist. Try not to scare her too much.] Uncomprehending silence from Fist. [ Remember how young she is.]

The girl’s eyes widened, unsure of what Fist would do next. Her hand trembled up and she touched the cageware, as if to make sure it was real. It flashed, and she snapped her hand away as if it had been stung.

‘Come on!’ shouted the boy. ‘We’re done here!’

The girl was still frozen, staring at Fist.

‘He’s right,’ whispered Fist, leaning in towards her, his voice soft with barely controlled rage, ‘you really are. RUN!’

At that she broke and was gone.

Jack was leaning over the figure in the doorway.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘They took me by surprise.’ The static that clogged the biped’s shout was a little less pronounced at lower volume. ‘The male kicked my voice box,’ it explained as it rolled over. Its head was a blank oval of nanogel. Light indentations represented eyes, nose and mouth. Its neck was a round metal collar. Its attackers had torn a black poncho away from a softly-moulded body. One of its legs was bent awkwardly beneath it. Jack went to help it sit up.

‘What happened?’

‘They jumped me, pulled me in here and started to beat me.’

‘They’ve gone now.’

‘The funny thing – I’m running full diplomatic weaveware. It should have been impossible for them to attack me.’

Fist was floating at Jack’s shoulder. ‘Their weaveports are stunted,’ he said. ‘I had to force them to see me.’

‘Strange,’ said the biped. ‘It was racially motivated, I am sure.’

‘Race?’ said Fist. ‘You’re not a race. You’re machines. Just like me.’

‘Hush, Fist,’ said Jack.

‘I’ve heard of creatures like you,’ said the biped, ‘but I never thought to see one so close.’

‘You should be scared of me.’

‘You’re well caged. And your master is kind.’

‘I know seven hundred different ways to purge your neural net.’

‘I will live on in the Totality as memory. Something like your poor, sad fetches.’

‘Those cripples are nothing to do with me.’

‘Be quiet, Fist,’ said Jack. And then, to the biped, ‘Do you think you can stand up?’

‘Yes.’

Jack put an arm beneath its shoulders and supported it as it tried to rise. It tottered slightly as its leg unfolded and stiffened, then stood firm. ‘That’s better,’ it said. ‘Can you walk?’ Jack asked. It took a couple of experimental steps.

‘Just about.’

‘Then let’s get you home.’

[ This really goes against my programming, Jack,] grumbled Fist as they disappeared from the alleyway, the biped leaning against Jack as they went.

Chapter 8

The biped was also staying in the Wound. ‘There’s less interference there,’ it said. They stumbled back to its hotel in silence. It insisted on buying Jack a drink. He turned down the offer of a whisky. The shabby bar was empty. Music played from exhausted speakers. Each song was a tinny parody of itself, a sketch waiting to be filled in by weave-delivered content.

‘I’m sorry, I have to ask,’ said the biped, once they’d sat down, ‘I thought everyone here was onweave? But those children …’

Its words were clearer than they had been. Repair systems had done their work. The poncho hid its body, but its head was uncovered and glowed gently in the gloom. It was how an alien moon might look, if softly lit by a dying sun. The nanogel it had been carved from was translucent. Jack could make out the bar beyond it, its outlines blurred and made ambiguous as if seen through a badly scuffed lens.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jack. ‘I haven’t been on-Station for seven years. They’d never have slipped off the net back then.’

He tore the top off a sugar sachet and poured it into his coffee, stirring the white powder into the murk with slow, deliberate strokes. The mug warmed his hands when he picked it up. He swigged at the black liquid, letting the heat run into his mouth and down his throat, savouring the hard touch of reality. Because he was offweave, it barely tasted of anything. Fist sang out in his head, [Caffeine this late keeps us both up.] Jack shut him away.

‘And you’re not onweave yourself ?’ asked the biped. Jack didn’t answer. ‘I’m sorry, that was tactless of me.’ Silence grew between them again. ‘Thank you for helping me just now. Not everyone would.’ Jack shrugged. ‘And may I ask one more indelicate question?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘You’re a puppeteer? I hope you don’t mind the word.’

‘I am, yes.’

‘There are hardly any of you left.’

‘There’s only one – me. And two puppets – Fist and Mr Stabs.’

‘Mr Stabs? He doesn’t have a human counterpart?’

‘He did. David Tiamat. But you know what happened to him.’

There was a moment’s silence. The biped stiffened as it accessed the relevant records. ‘I’m sorry,’ it said. ‘It always seemed best to cripple ships, rather than kill their occupants. We assumed he’d be rescued quickly.’

But Tiamat hadn’t been. His ship had drifted alone for too long. Unable to bear the solitude, he’d handed himself fully to Mr Stabs, dying gratefully as the puppet took full possession of both his mind and body. The story had become a favourite with the other puppets, passed between them like a talisman.

‘Your intentions were good,’ said Jack. ‘You can’t be blamed for the Pantheon’s carelessness.’

‘They’ve been careless with you, too. You don’t have long before …’

The biped shifted in his seat and looked down. Jack assumed the movement was meant to communicate awkwardness and pity.

‘Three months until Fist’s licence runs out,’ he said. ‘Then he’ll own my body. Just like Mr Stabs does Tiamat’s.’

Fist cackled in Jack’s mind.

‘You can’t revoke the terms and conditions?’

Jack smiled sadly. ‘Another file you need to access,’ he replied. ‘The removal systems were part of the last puppet management facility, in high orbit around Mars. It held all the puppets that had been stripped out of their puppeteers, and all the systems that extracted and then supported them. It was all vaporised towards the end of the war. The hardware and software designs were lost too. So there’s nowhere I can go to get him taken out of me, and no way of building a new facility to do it.’

‘But why can’t things carry on as they are now?’

‘I don’t own Fist – I just hold a seven-year usage licence for him. When it ends I can’t return him to the Kingdom subsidiary that looked after the puppets, so some pretty stringent penalty clauses kick in. What remains of the company is empowered to seize any or all of my assets, up to his replacement value. Puppets are very sophisticated, so they’re worth a lot. And I’m a homeless, godless traitor, so I’m not. Which means the company gets the only real assets I have left – my body, my mind. And there’s nothing left of the company but Fist. So he’ll own me, unconditionally and absolutely. And as soon as his corporate management systems register that, they’ll move to fully occupy my mind and body.’

‘Can’t Fist stop them?’

‘Not even Kingdom could. It’ll happen automatically. There’s no way of changing that.’ Jack paused for a moment. ‘Not that Fist would want to, of course,’ he finished, unable to hold bitterness out of his voice.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said the biped. ‘And there’s definitely nothing else of the company left?’

‘There were rumours that six unmounted puppet embryos survived, but nobody’s ever found any trace of them. No systems for them to survive on. So there’s nowhere else but Fist to go but,’ and Jack tapped his head, ‘here.’

Fist winked into existence, letting the biped see him too. ‘He’s stuck with me now, squishy!’

‘We’ve talked about this before. Don’t use that word.’

‘Fuck you!’

Jack went to slap Fist, but the puppet was too quick. By the time his hand reached him, Fist had disappeared. ‘I’m sorry,’ Jack said. ‘He can get a bit out of hand.’

From the depths of his mind, a voice echoed up – [ I’ll out of hand you, Jackie boy …]

‘Not an easy time.’

‘No,’ said Jack. ‘Not at all.’

Two young women tumbled into the room and rolled up to the bar. Both were wearing tight white T-shirts and shorts, spattered with weave sigils. Jack wondered what they became when they were seen by their target audience. They turned and caught sight of the biped. One of them shrieked. The other started giggling. The first one hit her friend, then shouted: ‘My brother. You took my fucking brother.’ She stumbled towards them but her friend pulled at her and stopped her. There were incoherent accusations and tears.

‘Such a shame that so many believe we were responsible for that atrocity,’ said the biped, turning his head away from the girls.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jack.

‘Pantheon propaganda. You have nothing to apologise for.’

The barman was leaning over the bar, whispering urgently to the women. They staggered back out into the street. The barman glared at Jack and his companion.

‘You see,’ said the biped. ‘That’s what should have happened when I was attacked.’

‘Didn’t her friend stop her? And the barman?’

‘They were reacting to my weaveware. It flashed up a warning. If anything had happened – InSec would have arrested them, he’d have lost his licence.’

‘I guess the kids that attacked you don’t have anything to lose.’

The biped nodded. ‘You can’t threaten people like that,’ it said. ‘We know that from experience.’

‘So, for your diplomatic protocols to work – you must be onweave, then?’

‘We have to be.’

‘I’d have thought the Pantheon wouldn’t have let you.’

‘We like to be permanently linked to each other. The Pantheon understand the need for it. It’s written into the ceasefire agreement.’

‘So why didn’t you call InSec?’

‘I did. They can be a bit slow responding to Totality calls.’

‘Not good.’

‘It comes with the job. And I should introduce myself. I’m a human interface element. IS/2279A0E2/BE/HIE/Biped/723CI4. It shortens to Ifor. I identify as male.’

‘Ifor,’ said Jack, reaching out. ‘Good to meet you. I’m Jack Forster.’

Tiny schools of light shimmered through Ifor’s head as he shook Jack’s hand. Memories carved through Jack’s mind. He thought of how Fist could shock nanogel, make it flare up and burn as he broke the intelligence it embodied. Those colours were strident, the patterns they made harsh. Ifor’s subtler, unpanicked display showed surprise and excitement.

‘You’ve heard of me, then?’ said Jack.

‘Oh yes. We were all very impressed by you.’

‘I did nothing heroic.’

‘You saved one of our most valued hubs.’

Deeper memories awoke in Jack. He’d stumbled on the snowflake Ifor was referring to on a routine ’roid patrol. It was the first time he’d been out since the death of his mother. He didn’t sleep much. Whenever he dreamed he would find and then lose her, over and over again.

Two months out of Mars and he’d been picking his way from rock to rock, sensors set to wide passive scan. The silent days had been filled with the past. When they found the snowflake he felt a huge sense of relief. It was in close orbit around a small asteroid. It had masked its systems, but not well enough. He’d picked up its signature while still a few hundred kilometres away from it. Memories receded as Fist went to work. Forty-eight sleepless hours followed, watching him carve his way through intricate firewalls, creating selective blind spots that allowed Jack to move his little patrol ship in closer and closer. When they were fifty kilometres out, Fist coupled with the ship’s navigation systems and pulled it into a complex evasive dance, always keeping the asteroid between them and the snowflake.

Neither Jack nor Fist realised just what they’d found. After two days of work, Fist still hadn’t even been able to find the snowflake’s core systems, let alone start cutting his way into them. ‘It’s never taken this long, Jack,’ he said sulkily, clacking his teeth with frustration. ‘I’m going to throw myself back in there and I’m not going to come out until I’ve danced us all the way into its little fake head.’ Then he focused all his resources on the struggle. His short body went limp, tumbled to the floor and disappeared.

Jack took to his bed, allowing his own mind to be subsumed by Fist too. He quickly dropped into the strange, confused dreamland that absorbed him at such moments. He was afraid that he would be forced to relive his mother’s death. It was a guilty relief to discover that she would not be present to him. In fact, he could still feel Fist. The puppet pulled him to the edge of the ship and then leapt into space. Jack found it so peaceful, until Fist’s heightened digital senses sang out warnings about solar radiation storms. Fist used them to mask the soft, invisible transmissions that flew him through the night to the snowflake. Once he was there he wormed his soft way into the snowflake’s digital carapace.

He entered in with a dark, secret lover’s touch. He was so attentive, so careful. His fascination with detail at last showed itself as a strength, as he engaged with defence systems more complex than had ever been encountered before. Jack watched in something like awe as the subtlest parts of his mind become components of Fist’s hacking array. Finally, Fist broke through the last of the firewalls that – he thought – protected the core systems of a single mind. He pushed past it, taking Jack with him. Both of them expected to find the machine’s heart buried behind it. Fist would break it, then dance gleefully through the resultant digital chaos. Jack would weep.

But they found something very different, and were amazed. A great family of shapes hung in luminous space before them, moving around each other in a slow, complex, three-dimensional dance. Each one was shaped like a child’s drawing of a star, with luminous spines reaching out from a central shining globe. Dense gouts of light branched out of those spines, connecting with others close to them, falling back from those that were pulling away. Deep information flows pulsed and shone everywhere, leaping through the void. The snowflake was a womb for a new kind of intelligence, alive with an infinity of thought.

‘How many minds can you see, Fist?’

‘I can’t count them.’

‘This is deep Totality. It must be one of their hubs.’

‘This close in? Aren’t they Kuiper Belt only?’

‘They’re getting more and more confident. Isn’t it astonishing?’

‘I suppose so.’ There was a pause, then Fist said ‘Well, let’s fuck ’em all up.’

‘No.’

‘What the actual fuck? Jack, nobody’s ever broken into anything like this. Those other bastards will finally have to take me seriously.’

‘There’s been enough dying. We’re not going after this. It’s too beautiful.’

‘Oh, for gods’ sake. NOW he has an attack of conscience. It’s not your fucking mother in here.’

Jack pulled his mind space back from Fist’s control, feeling connections between them snap as he reclaimed the processing areas of his consciousness. Fist moved from disbelief to rage almost instantly. He howled and snarled impotently as Jack let their shared perception drift further into the Totality hub. Jack knew he would be triggering alarms, but didn’t care. All thoughts of warfare seemed far away, in the face of such perfection.

Jack had forgotten that he was in the little café, that Ifor was sat in front of him. Memories swirled in his head. Even Fist was silent, sulking as he watched Jack replay the moment that had cost them both so much.

Ifor coughed, reminding Jack that he was still there. ‘You are a hero to many of us,’ he said.

‘Then the Totality needs a better class of hero.’

‘Modesty is a fine quality. Very few of you could have broken into that mind. Nobody else would have spared it.’

[ Well, it’s always nice to be appreciated,] preened Fist, [but I bet he’s after something.]

‘So, you’re here as a diplomat?’ said Jack. ‘But what’s your mission? Why are you in Docklands? We saw one of you the other night, but we couldn’t work out what it was doing.’

‘We have a very specific task to accomplish. During the Soft War, many Totality components were captured by your forces and brought home as souvenirs. They retain trace elements of mind consciousness. We are incomplete without them. Under the peace treaty with your Pantheon, we are empowered to search Station to find and recover them.’

‘Are you having much luck?’

‘You have seen how we are received here.’

‘Tough job.’

‘It is satisfying when we find a fragment of mind. Of course, there is much that is still missing. Several complete minds remain unaccounted for. We are liaising with InSec to resolve this matter. It claims to have no knowledge of them, and our searches have turned up very little of substance. But we have a duty to our lost. So we keep looking.’

‘All over Station?’

‘Here and in Homelands. We have a team negotiating the terms of the peace between our peoples in Heaven, but we have not been allowed to search up there.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘Yes. But what can we do?’ Ifor shrugged, a remarkably organic gesture of resignation. ‘Anyway’ he continued, ‘I have been asked to make you an offer.’

[ Here it comes, Jack. They’re going to want you to do their dirty work for them.]

‘While we’ve been talking I’ve been in communication with my seniors. We are aware that the life of a parolee is not easy. We are here to perform a very specific set of tasks and as such we are empowered to deputise selected Station inhabitants to assist us. Were you to accept such a role, we would be able to extend our diplomatically protected status to you. We would of course also release funds to cover any expenses you incur before the end. This would, I suspect, make the time remaining to you considerably easier.’

‘You can make an offer like that?’

‘Yes. It is what you may call a loophole. The Pantheon’s negotiators never thought to specify who we could and couldn’t ask to represent us.’

‘And what would I need to do in return?’

‘A certain amount of searching to show InSec that your employment was genuine, but the work would not be onerous. You would, however, be performing a very genuine service for us. You can move through your world with an ease that we lack.’

‘Station isn’t my world any more, Ifor. They threw me out with the trash. And I’ve done my bit for your people. I respect what you are, but it’s because of Totality action that I can’t disengage from Fist. I appreciate the offer, but no. I’ve had enough of both sides.’

‘I respect your decision and I’m sorry that our actions have hurt you. Our offer will remain open to you. I have left my contact details in your weavespace. If you change your mind, or if there is any other help we can give you, I will be easy to reach.’

‘There is one favour you can do for me.’

‘Name it.’

‘You can help me find someone. A singer called Andrea Hui.’

Ifor froze for a moment as he sifted through the weave. Then he looked towards Jack, his head pulsing with unreadable light.

‘Curious,’ he said. ‘She’s performing at a small club in Prayer Heights tomorrow night.’

‘What’s curious about that?’ said Jack.

‘She’s been dead for the last five years.’

Chapter 9

Jack had planned to find his father, but thoughts of Andrea’s death overwhelmed him. It explained the mystery of her silence since he’d announced his return, but not of her presence during the two years before it. He assumed that she’d never expected to have to do more than write to him, and so had taken fright at the news of his homecoming. Stripped of the restrictions of distance and prison, she would have to reveal that she was in fact a fetch. Rather than that, she’d chosen to say nothing.

But Jack couldn’t understand how she’d been able to communicate with him in the first place. It should be impossible for fetches to act so independently. He wondered briefly if he’d been the victim of an impostor. But his correspondent was fluent in feelings and moments that he and Andrea had never shared with anyone else. It was impossible to believe that he’d been hearing from anyone but her. He thought about how deft, how precise her support for him had been, as he’d come to terms with the end of his life. Her new status helped explain that too. She had a very personal understanding of what it meant to pass on.

And that led to the puzzle of her death. Andrea had apparently fallen victim to a drug overdose a few hours after Harry had been shot. Ifor found a news report explaining that grief had overwhelmed her. At best, she’d miscalculated an anaesthetic shot. At worst, the overdose had been entirely deliberate. But the Andrea Jack knew had never touched anything harder than wine or whisky, and even them only in very strict moderation. He thought back to the traces of Pantheon involvement he’d found in the Panther Czar’s accounts, and wondered what new corruption Harry might have uncovered; who could have found the potential spread of such knowledge threatening.

The hotel room oppressed Jack with unanswered questions. He went out into the street and started walking. He was heading for his parents’ neighbourhood, although he wasn’t yet too sure if he wanted to see them.

[All this angst! It’ll be different when I’m in charge, Jackie boy.]

[Oh, fuck off.]

After half an hour or so, Jack found himself standing on the edge of a void site. A kind of death had come to it. It had once been an apartment block, but terrorism had left it a burnt-out shell. Windows were dark holes where flames had roared out. Soot-black smoke stains leapt up the walls above them. There was no roof. The ruin had been left untouched since the fire. A high metal fence stopped anyone from getting too close.

Fist’s words were still buzzing through Jack’s thoughts. He remembered the rage that had taken him when he’d first truly accepted that he was going to die. He’d tried to attack Fist, but it was impossible to really damage him; ranted at him for hours, but the puppet had just laughed. He’d bargained with him, but they both soon realised that there was nothing either of them could do to slow or stop the end. There had been despair, too. In his blackest moments, Jack had thought of killing himself. But that came to seem like such a waste.

A woman stopped a few metres away from them. She was looking up at the dead building. Jack noticed that, very discreetly, she was crying.

[ I wonder what’s set her off ?] said Fist.

She was the right age to have lost a child on the moon. Jack thought of his own mother, of her fetch’s belief that he was dead. He thought of Andrea.

[ It’s a private moment, Fist. Let’s go.]

They walked in silence for a while. They were very close to Jack’s parents’ house. A meeting with his father would no doubt be painful. He doubted that he’d be allowed to see his mother’s fetch.

[ There was some pretty heavy security software in that void site, Jack. Some of the Rose’s best.]

[A bit much even for you?]

[ I could chew it up and spit it out, if it wasn’t for this fucking cage.]

Fist’s frustration buzzed in Jack’s mind. He so clearly wanted a different present to live in, built on a different past; one in which he’d been grown on a different host, been able to prove himself in different battles. That set Jack wondering how different his own life would have been without Fist, what he could have become if he hadn’t been sent away to fight a war that would break most of his links with his home and all of his faith in its gods. He remembered all the senior executives he’d worked for, and mapped his life on to theirs.

He wouldn’t have fallen out with his parents – but Grey would have lifted him very rapidly into a very responsible, very time-consuming role. He doubted that he would have seen very much of them. He would have been on-Station when Harry and Andrea died; but by then, Grey would have introduced him to a suitably corporate spouse – someone who would never have tolerated any sort of mourning for a failed relationship with a musician from Docklands. There would have been no communication with her fetch. And then, Grey’s fall would have come – a shattering professional and emotional challenge.

He imagined the home he would have shared with his wife, a house that he would usually only see late at night or first thing in the morning, at either end of a few snatched hours of sleep. There might have been children, small, chaotic strangers he’d have been too exhausted to ever do more than snap at. There would have been friends. Now that he knew how much their friendship was really worth, he found it impossible to mourn their loss.

It struck Jack that, if Fist had had the life he so wanted, he’d have died in orbit around Mars with all the other puppets. Now that he had a truer sense of Grey’s commitment to him, he could only be glad that he hadn’t let himself vanish into a life that would have lasted for decades longer, but would also have been a kind of death. He hoped that he might have found a way out of it, but wasn’t sure he’d have had the strength. He turned, and walked away from the streets he’d grown up in.

The slow hours passed until the time came to find the venue where Andrea’s fetch was singing. It was hidden down a side street, nestling between two abandoned gas storage cylinders. It took a while for Jack to nerve himself to walk up to the doorway, bring out his InSec card and ask for a ticket. He half-hoped that the doorman would refuse him, that any venue where Andrea was performing would be too exclusive for a parolee like him. But a soft voice hissed ‘welcome to Ushi’s’, then ‘through there’. As he turned away he winced to feel cold, unsurprised eyes burn their lack of judgement into him.

The main bar smelt of failure. There were a few ceiling lights, only serving to make the shadows deeper. The plaster was peeling off one wall, a clotted hint of metalwork visible beneath. Conversations muttered out of the gloom. Several people were fully onweave, staring at nothing. Most were wearing cheap overalls, differentiated only by the weave sigils scattered across them. The bar’s countertop glowed with stale yellow light. A blonde woman stood beside it, apparently lost in thought.

When the barman appeared he looked like a poorly lit ghost. There was a faint smell of sweat as he leant forward. Jack laid the InSec card down and tried to smile. ‘Whisky. On the rocks.’ The barman nodded. There was a clink and a hiss as he prepared the drink. He held out a glass filled with tawnied murk. It was a potent blend, not needing the weave to burn as Jack gulped it down. He immediately wanted another. He was ashamed of the urgency of his craving. This time, he ordered a double.

[ You’re going to end up like Charles if you keep going like that. And I’ll have to suffer through the hangovers.]

‘There’s some entertainment tonight,’ said Jack to the barman. He swallowed. ‘A fetch?’

The barman nodded. ‘Later on.’

‘Do I need any special permissions to see her?’

‘She’s open circuit. Anyone can tune in.’

Jack was relieved. He could use his existing access rights to see Andrea. There was no need for Fist to risk any hacking. The barman moved away. The darkness wrapped itself around him until he was just a shape in the gloom, less substantial than the multicoloured bottles glimmering darkly behind him.

The blonde woman caught Jack’s eye and smiled. She was remarkably beautiful, in the smooth and polished way that corporate logos are beautiful. But he was not here for her. He found a small empty table, tucked away at the rear of a bar, and waited for Andrea. She wouldn’t be able to see him from the stage. He still wasn’t quite sure what he would say to her, if he would even try to speak with her.

[ I’d sooner be drinking piss from a Martian urinal than spending another minute in this dump,] muttered Fist.

[ Just make sure our fetch portals are open. I don’t want to miss her.]

Half an hour or so passed, and Andrea was on stage. She materialised unannounced. There was a small stir in the bar, quiet sounds of movement as a few people turned in their chairs. The spotlight caught her. She’d wrapped a wide, dark scarf around her head to make a hood. Her face was invisible. Jack sat back into the shadows, his heart shocked by memory.

[Aw!] moaned Fist. [She’s covered up. I was looking forward to a bit of skull!]

Andrea wore a tight-fitting dress studded with sequins. She swayed to a recorded backing track, making each one sparkle with unreachable fire. Bleak jazz notes scattered into the air. A saxophone riff drifted by like a kiss. It was the intro to one of her own songs. She leant in towards the microphone. There was the lightest sigh, lost in reverb. And then she started to sing.

[ These people,] breathed Jack, [they don’t deserve her.]

Amplified words drifted through the bar like smoke. They barely touched most of its patrons. Some continued conversations, others flirtations. Others just drank alone, lost in slowly emptying glasses. The blonde woman was leaning against a pillar, distractedly stirring at a cocktail with a bright little paper umbrella. It flashed against her dark clothes. She looked bored.

Jack was the only one to stare at the stage, rapt as Andrea’s singing prowled around him. He lifted his glass and swigged. The harsh taste burnt his throat, pulling him back to the past. In the few short months he’d been with Andrea, he’d sat drinking cheap Docklands whisky in so many clubs like this.

He’d always taken a seat at the back, always entered and left without acknowledging her. They’d put so much care into keeping their relationship secret. Harry had eyes everywhere. Later in the evening, they’d meet somewhere hidden – a cheap hotel or a private dining room – and talk through the evening’s gig, then the day or days since they’d seen each other last. Again and again, Jack found himself grasping for words, never quite able to express how Andrea’s songs moved him. He stopped listening to his store of Homelands sounds. They seemed so insipid when they had to follow the deft, committed power of her live performances.

Jack let an ice cube roll out of the glass and across his tongue, chilling his mouth. The cold pulled him out of his reverie. As he did so, he noticed the faintest light in the air just beside him, shivering around an empty seat. [ By the pricking of my thumbs …] said Fist, giggling nervously.

Jack looked back to the stage, assuming that the light was an effect of the stage lights. But they had dimmed and now glowed too softly in the darkness to reach him. He glanced back at the seat. The light still hung there, faintly suggesting a human form. Jack wondered if there was a glitch in the weave. Even if there was, he shouldn’t be able to pick it up. There was a hint of a sound in the air, something that could have been a word, maybe a greeting. Fist tittered nervously, a sharp contrast with the slow, mournful blues that Andrea was whispering out from the stage. It was suddenly cold. A waitress came by, collecting empty glasses. Jack wondered if she’d respond to the shimmer, but it seemed that she could not see it.

He looked back towards the anomaly. The light was shifting towards him, as if something were leaning in to speak to him. There was the slightest breath, echoing the gentleness of Andrea’s singing. It seemed to be whispering, but he could not make out any words. Then the shape collapsed. A thousand tiny shards of light flashed softly against him. They pooled on the table, in his lap, on the floor, before slowly fading out. It was as if a ghost had kissed him. He wondered if it could have been some new form of fetch. But the dead could not manifest unsummoned and he had no way of invoking anyone from the Coffin Drives.

[Did you see that?] he asked.

There was a pause.

[ I saw nothing,] spat Fist, drawing himself back into Jack’s mind like a snail coiling up into its shell. [ This feels dangerous,] he hissed as he vanished. [ We should leave now.]

Jack briefly wondered what had scared him, but his heart was elsewhere. Andrea’s dark hood nodded before the microphone. Hiding her skull, it let Jack imagine her face, as unreachable as the past. But her voice was present and it moved him profoundly. He realised that there was no real choice to be made. Of course he was going to talk to her. The song ended. Applause scattered itself away as another began. Jack realised he’d finished his whisky. He thought about going to the bar again, but then Andrea might see him and find some way of preventing him from reaching her. He let the last of the ice fall into his mouth and sucked at it until it was gone.

At last she finished her set and disappeared backstage. Looking around, Jack saw that the blonde woman was staring at him with a look somewhere between fascination and hunger. She’d forgotten her surroundings. There was a man just behind her, concentrating on not spilling two ornate drinks, who hadn’t seen her and was about to walk into her. Jack would have shouted a warning but there was no time, the man was already brushing against the blonde. Then there was a shimmer, and to Jack’s shock he’d walked straight through her and was handing the drink to his girlfriend. The blonde stood there untouched, revealed as an illusion. She flashed a smile at Jack, then let herself fade into the gloom. Her eyes were the last part of her to vanish.

Jack had to walk through the space where she’d manifested on his way to the stage door. All that was left of her was a taste of ozone on the air and a cocktail umbrella crushed on the floor. It looked like a bright, abandoned feather, fallen from some strange, fictional bird. As he perceived it, it winked out of existence.

[She has to be Pantheon, to be able to show herself to us like that,] said Fist nervously, from deep within Jack’s mind.

[ It must be East,] replied Jack. [She loves visiting clubs in disguise.]

[ We should leave.]

[Pure chance that we ran into her. And we’re quite unusual. It’s not surprising she took a second look.]

[ We meet one of her people, and then she appears the next day? I don’t like it. You’ll get damaged.]

Jack had never seen Fist so jittery. [ I’ve come to see Andrea,] he said. Her name was a talisman that strengthened his resolve.

[ Then see her!] Fist’s voice had a sudden half-panicked shriek to it. [And she’ll tell you to fuck off! And we can get the fuck out of here.]

There was a large man wearing a cheap suit at the door to the backstage area. ‘I want to see the singer who was on just now,’ Jack told him.

‘No socialising.’

‘I’ve come a long way. I’m – an old fan of hers.’

The bouncer grunted. ‘One of those. Well, if you want to piss your money away you can have her manifest at your table for twenty minutes. Got to be before her second set, she gets pulled back to the Coffin Drives after that. Pay at the bar.’

‘Is there anywhere more private?’

‘We’re not that kind of place.’

‘No, really. I just want to talk.’

‘I bet.’ The bouncer snorted. ‘I’ll ask the boss.’ His face went blank for a moment, then he said, ‘Empty dressing room out back. Cost you big. We monitor it.’ A fist slapped against a palm. ‘Don’t try anything funny.’

Jack paid. [Keep spending like that and we’ll have nothing left to live on,] whined Fist.

The bouncer ushered Jack through into a long, narrow corridor. ‘Third on the left. She’ll be waiting for you.’ Performers had tagged its walls with graffiti. There were barcodes too. Had Jack been onweave, they’d have summoned datasprites as soon as he perceived them. He wondered what he’d have seen. There’d probably have been nothing more than a shimmer at the edge of his vision as his anti-virals snuffed them out.

It was easy enough to find the dressing room, harder to knock confidently on the door. Seconds passed. Jack wondered if he’d been ripped off. At least he’d only have lost InSec’s money. Then Andrea shouted ‘Come in.’

The room was tiny. There was barely space for two chairs and a makeup desk. Andrea was sitting at the desk. A real dress, identical to her virtual one, hung shimmering behind her. It was like a field of stars, haloing her covered head. ‘Close the door,’ she told him. With a little contortion, Jack did so. ‘Sit down.’ She’d made her voice cold. ‘I didn’t want to see you. I hoped you wouldn’t try and find me.’

‘I had to. Especially after I found about – your situation.’

There was no adequate way of describing her death.

‘I needed some easy cash once, when I was alive. Signed away fetch performance rights to a few little clubs. Too cheap to even advertise the gigs onweave. I always thought I’d be able to buy the rights back. But then I died.’

‘I don’t mean the club,’ replied Jack. ‘You – she – you passed on. What happened to her, Andrea? And why didn’t you tell me?’

Jack sounded plaintive, even to himself. Andrea was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘I wish I could smoke. This would be the perfect time.’

‘Andrea, please. I’ve only got twenty minutes with you.’

‘Oh Jack, I know, I’m sorry. But what can I say? I’m dead, I died, I was killed. And of course I couldn’t tell you. Because what would I have been then? So much code on a server.’

[Oi! What’s wrong with being code?]

‘But why get in touch at all?’ Jack asked, ignoring Fist.

Andrea half-smiled. ‘You should have seen how she remembered you, Jack. It was so different from Harry. So private, so intimate. Even after you’d gone. She kept it all in a little secret place, so close to her heart, and she went back to it again and again.’

Jack sighed, at once touched and saddened. ‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘But I still don’t understand why you came and found me. Why you tricked me.’

‘Oh Jack.’ She turned the dark void beneath her hood to face him, and raised a hand to cup his face. He nerved himself to look back as directly, but when he did the shadows hid her white bone face. ‘I have all her memories,’ she told him. ‘I am her memories. So I missed you. I thought about you all the time. But I’d never even talked to you.’ There was such loss in her voice. Her hand drifted gently across his cheek. He felt the slightest of breezes, as if tiny feathers were flickering against his skin. ‘I thought you’d never come back to Station. I wanted to see how the war had changed you. To be as close to you as she’d been, when everything was so different. And then you found out about Fist’s licence, and you needed support, and I could give it.’ She let her hand drop. ‘I know all about coming to terms with death. And now, here we are.’

Jack wished he could take her hand in his. It was so strange to find himself moved by a ghost.

[ Time’s a-passing, lover boy.]

[ It always is.]

‘Is the puppet here too?’ she asked, breaking the silence.

‘Yes,’ replied Jack. ‘But he’s not very happy about it.’ [ Too bloody right!] interrupted Fist. ‘He’s hiding in the back of my head,’ continued Jack. ‘But I might be able to get him out, if you want to meet him.’

‘No,’ replied Andrea. ‘If he doesn’t want to – let’s just let him be.’

[ Thank the gods. Wake me up when you’re done with the nostalgia and we can get the fuck out of here.]

Jack was silent for a moment. He’d shared so much with this woman, who both was and was not the Andrea of his past. Her mails – pages long, coming every few days, in response to his own equally lengthy letters – had given him so much strength.

‘How did you manage to write to me?’ he asked.

‘Gods,’ she responded, shifting. ‘Straight to the practical.’

‘You shouldn’t have been able to.’

She laughed joylessly. Jack imagined a sad half-smile, then remembered the cold, hard skull that the shadows hid from him. ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘That’s another reason why I didn’t want you to come and see me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s because of Harry. He’s been reborn too. But he came back as something new.’

‘He’s not a fetch?’

‘No. He’s something very different. After he died they tried to cage him. They did that to a lot of fetches, the ones made from people who’d helped the Totality. But he broke out.’

‘They thought he was a terrorist?’

‘Harry?’ She laughed. ‘Dear lords no. But he was going to damage the Pantheon. He reopened the Bjorn Penderville murder case just before they shot him.’

‘Proof of Pantheon criminality.’

‘I always thought he’d left it behind him, one of the ones that got away. But one day he came in furious, said he’d been stitched up, that he needed to know who Penderville had been working for to hit back. Next day he put the paperwork through to make it official.’

‘You’re sure there was a connection?’

‘We were both killed that night.’

‘Shit.’

‘He talks about it often. He’s found out a lot more about the case since he died. You remember Aud Yamata? The dock worker who was the last person at the crime scene before the shooting?’

‘The one with the cast-iron alibi?’

‘That you thought killed Penderville. You nearly had her and the man that managed the Panther Czar and their Pantheon backer. So when Harry went back to the files, they acted. And’ – Andrea made a gun shape with her hand, cocked to fire – ‘Boom.’ Her thumb came down like a hammer on a bullet.

‘But how does that mean you could write to me?’

‘Harry needed someone to talk to. He trusts me. So once he’d been back for a bit, he started summoning me. He helped me disable my kill switch, so I don’t have to go back to the Coffin Drives any more. I pulled myself together then I got in touch with you.’

‘Fuck, Andrea, I’m sorry. I thought it was just my life the Pantheon had screwed up. Have you told anyone about all this?’

‘I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. That’s why I didn’t want you to find me. People mustn’t even think you might be digging into this. You have so little time left. I don’t want whoever killed us taking any of it away from you.’

‘What about Harry? Can’t he go to InSec?’

‘He’s taken it as far as he can on our own, but he doesn’t trust them. He doesn’t like to admit it but he’s very vulnerable. I am too.’

‘Then why even tell me all this?’

‘You’ve meant so much to me. You still do. Part of me’s so happy that you found me tonight. So I decided that I wouldn’t hide anything from you. Not any more.’

The moment froze Jack. Andrea shimmered in front of him, a pattern of memories made almost real. He wanted to touch and hold her, to kiss her, but there was nothing physical left to embrace. And overlaid on that need was grief and loss for, despite her presence before him, the woman he’d loved was dead.

It was impossible to know what to say.

Andrea broke the silence. ‘I’m getting a warning. Our time’s nearly up.’

‘How much more?’

‘A minute or so.’ She leant forward, her hand on his knee, the darkness that hid her face so close to his. ‘I really don’t want you to get involved, Jack. Harry and I were killed, and you’ve lost seven years of your life. That’s enough.’

‘I’m going to die soon anyway. And nobody needs to know you’re part of it.’

‘No, Jack. Nothing good can come of taking on the Pantheon. I want you to patch things up with your parents and then let go in peace.’

‘I thought I’d had enough of taking sides.’

‘You did the right thing stepping away from the Soft War. Step away from all this, too.’

She put a finger to his lips. He was sure he could feel it. ‘I love you, Jack,’ she said. ‘But we’ve had our time together. I’m sorry I can’t see you again, but it’s best for us all.

‘Andrea, I—’

‘Goodbye, Jack.’

And then she was gone.

[She’s right,] snapped Fist. [ It’s too dangerous. Stay out of it.]

[Didn’t you want to take on a god?]

[ Not with both hands tied behind my back.]

It took a while for Jack to recover himself. He heard Andrea’s second set begin, but he couldn’t bring himself to go out and watch. Seeing her perform would have broken him. At last the music ended.

As he passed back through the club, Jack noticed that East was sat on the lap of the man who’d passed through her, kissing him ferociously. She’d let her disguise slip and was now recognisably herself. The man’s girlfriend looked on in awe. Jack wondered what great transfiguration she was witnessing. Fireworks would be happening onweave. East’s blessings were always generous. The man would be forever changed, his weave presence suddenly more elegant, more chic, more watched and thus more real than any of those around him. New choices would open up for him. The girlfriend would soon find herself alone.

Others were starting to understand the true nature of the visitation. A crowd was gathering. East reached down, fumbling to unzip the man’s flies.

[ That’s the gods for you,] said Fist, [all appetite.]

In that moment, Jack decided. [ I’m going to find out which one of them did this to us,] he said, [and I’m going to bring the fucker down.]

Chapter 10

Fist swore all the way home. Once they were back in their room, Jack tried to talk to him. At first the puppet refused to even listen, sticking his fingers in his ears and chanting gobbledegook. At last he began to calm down. Jack tried again.

[ It’s simple,] he explained. [ We go to the Panther Czar, you break into their local network, we copy all their records, that’s it. We should be able to do it from the club’s public areas. We might not even need to go in.]

[ But what if someone recognises you?]

[ I was InSec’s secret weapon. They kept me hidden away. I’ve never been anywhere near the Panther Czar.]

Fist only really started to come round when he realised just how hard finding out who was behind Akhmatov’s more questionable activities would be.

[ It’ll take a few weeks to go through the data, Fist. Perhaps even longer.]

[ We really won’t need to leave the hotel?]

[ Hardly at all. There’s just food. And my dad. That’ll be it.]

[Oo, it’ll keep you right out of trouble!]

And there was a little reverse psychology, too.

[Of course, getting into their core commercial servers won’t be easy. They’ll be very heavily shielded.]

[Cracking some shitty little nightclub’s security? A challenge? You are joking, Jack.]

[ If you thought you couldn’t do it I’d completely understand.]

[Dear gods, remember what I am.]

[As if I could forget.]

[ Just get me close to them, I’ll fuck ’em in the arse, we’re done. They won’t even know I’ve been in there.]

The discussion left Jack exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. At last he entered a liminal state, somewhere between waking and dreaming. Lying on his side he watched Fist manifest, then tiptoe out into the middle of the room. The puppet clearly thought Jack was out cold. The window opened beneath him, a black pool glistening with stars. He looked down, then over at his puppeteer.

‘Little sleepy boy,’ he whispered, ‘soon be sleeping all the time. Soon be sleeping all the time!’ He cackled quietly and wrapped his short arms around himself in a strange little hug, shaking with silent laughter. Then he leapt up and started to throw himself around the room. His limbs spun as he wheeled and pranced across the floor, the walls, even the ceiling, hissing a song to himself that would rattle in Jack’s head for days.

‘Soon be king, soon be king, soon he’ll sleep and I’ll be king. Even Stookie Bill will bow, even Stookie Bill will bow!’

That was a name Jack hadn’t heard since he’d been deep in the Soft War. Stookie Bill was a twentieth-century ventriloquist’s dummy. Humanity’s first ever television signal had encoded his image. When Fist’s fellow puppets found this out, they’d been unbearably excited. Their virtual ancestor became an obsession, almost an object of worship. ‘Simple-minded idiots,’ Fist had commented. But the cult of Stookie Bill had clearly had an impact on him, too.

Jack shuddered. He didn’t want to let Fist know he was aware of this jarring moment of triumph. He pretended to grunt and then rolled over, so at least he didn’t have to see any more of it. He reminded himself that there was no escaping Fist, that the only alternative to working so hard to have a tolerable relationship with him was dark and painful, and would break the possibility of finding any sort of peace before the end came. And of course the puppet was a powerful tool. Jack needed his full cooperation if he was to have any chance of finding out who’d killed Andrea and Harry, and forced him into exile.

At last, sleep took him, but Fist’s glossy wooden face haunted his dreams. The puppet’s false, grinning mouth clacked out soft, determined words. ‘Soon be king’ alternated with ‘soon be mine’, the two phrases chasing Jack through the night until his alarm rang and shook him back to wakefulness. Fist was perched on the end of the bed, watching. [Quite the disturbed night,] he said, his thin voice piping against the alarm’s harsh beeping. This time Jack did snatch at him and wall him up in darkness.

He waited until late evening to set out for the Panther Czar. Docklands’ streets were pretty much deserted. Pedestrian workers had long since hustled themselves away from offices and factories. A buggy whined by, its electric motors straining at the weight of a trailer piled high with scrap metal. As he walked, Jack looked up at the Spine. He imagined Grey’s hooded raven, regretting that he wasn’t able to see it. He remembered hearing about Grey’s fall. The strange, vindictive joy that had filled him then pulsed through him once again. Perhaps soon he’d help bring down another god. He smiled to himself.

After about three quarters of an hour they reached the Panther Czar.

[So this hovelbox belongs to Pierre Ilich Akhmatov? The man who plots with the Pantheon? Fuck’s sake, Jack, if you can judge a man by his enemies you really did hit rock bottom.]

The club was just across the road from them. It was a long, low warehouse, constructed from fluorescent yellow plastic sheeting. Words had been roughly hand-painted above a single pair of red double doors: ‘Panther Czar’. Teens and twenty-somethings jostled each other in a long queue, dressed in more or less artfully ragged weavewear. Some was noticeably high quality, flagging up modish Homelanders who were self-consciously slumming it. Several smartly dressed, thick-necked gentlemen kept the peace at the doors.

[ Why didn’t you just raid the place?]

[ We were setting it up when they sent me out-system. They needed me to finish making the case for it. That was a big reason why it never happened.]

[Ooo – get you, Mr Important!]

Jack waited for another buggy to pass, then started across the road to join the queue. Fist hung in the air for a second before bouncing after him, floating along like a children’s balloon.

[Can you feel any of their core systems yet?]

[ No. We need to get closer. Where the action is!]

Fist’s voice was a gleeful, triumphant cackle. Jack wondered how far he could trust him. The little man was becoming more capricious as the change rushed towards them.

[ Joining the crowds! Partying! My kind of night!] Fist chirped. [Champagne and oysters!]

[ Remember it’s business, not pleasure.]

They joined the back of the queue. Jack wasn’t too much older than the other clubbers. Most were wasted on drink or drugs. The club’s weave presence entranced them. ‘Oh, the panthers are beautiful!’ sighed a girl just ahead, her fingers kneading invisible fur.

[ We’ve hit their security perimeter,] said Fist, suddenly more serious. A silence opened in Jack’s mind as Fist concentrated. [Let’s start by pretending we’re one of these bouncers. And ping the system for a headcount …] More silence, filled with thought. Then Fist yawned. [ This is far too easy.]

[Don’t be complacent.]

[Complacent? The only real challenge is staying awake. Anyway, there’s a couple of hundred punters in there and about twenty staff. Almost all on the ground floor and in the basement. Just one person upstairs.]

[Could be Akhmatov.]

[ Without any guards? I’m meant to be the one with the wooden head.]

[Can you get what we need from out here?]

[ No. The core commercial systems are on the first floor. They’ve kept them off the main club network. We need to be closer.]

[Makes sense. Half the kids in there would be hacking them for free drinks otherwise.]

The queue moved on. The club loomed above them, glistening dully in the spinelight glare. It was the colour of a cheap hangover. Every time the red doors opened to let more punters in, bass rhythms thumped out.

[Almost there,] said Fist. [ Not too fussy about who they let in.] Jack reached into his pocket and fingered the InSec card. [Let’s hope you don’t get recognised, Jack. Wouldn’t want you getting bounced. Protect the meat!]

Jack tried to watch the door staff without looking at them too directly. None of them were paying him any sort of attention. The camera cluster above the door glanced at him and looked away. Another minute or so, and they were through the red double doors. The bouncer didn’t want to know why he was offweave. ‘Just don’t start anything,’ he said. The girl in the ticket booth took Jack’s money without comment.

[ I told you it’d be all right,] he said casually, careful not to let Fist know just how relieved he was. [Good thing it’s not one of Akhmatov’s classier joints.]

They were in a black-painted corridor that smelt of cheap alcohol and cheaper drugs. Clubbers bustled past them and pushed through another pair of double doors. The corridor exploded with light. Music roared, higher frequency noise rounding out the simple repetitive beats they’d heard outside.

[ THAT’LL BE THE DANCEFLOOR, THEN,] screamed Fist. [ NO CHARLESTON, DAMMIT!]

[ NO NEED TO SHOUT, JUST NEEDS A BIT of dynamic recalibration. There, that’s it.]

Jack started towards the doors. A soft but definite stickiness pulled at every step.

[Akhmatov certainly doesn’t waste any money on keeping his carpets clean,] said Fist.

[ Who’s around us?] said Jack. [Any more security?]

[ No, the closest is the other side of the main dance floor. There’s some virtual muscle too, but we don’t need to worry about that.]

[And the person on the first floor?]

[ Hasn’t moved.]

[ I think it could be him. Now, let’s get close to those servers.]

The main dance floor was a ferocious transmedia vortex. Jack felt overwhelmed, and he was offweave and undrugged. An anonymity of clubbers leapt and bounced around him, gurning faces and shaking bodies blurring into one ecstatic mass. By the time he’d pushed halfway across the room he was sweating hard. Elbows hit his face and torso. Once they’d been all round the ground floor he was soaked and covered in small bruises.

[Still no joy, Fist?]

[Signal’s too weak.]

[ For fuck’s sake.]

They kept trying for about half an hour. Jack started to wonder how honest Fist was being. He remembered the previous night’s triumphant dance. Fist hadn’t seemed like someone who’d just agreed to something dangerous. Rather, he’d come across as someone celebrating the avoidance of any risk at all.

[ Fuck this,] Jack said. [ We’re not getting close enough down here. We’re going upstairs.]

Fist laughed. [ Well, I’m glad you’ve kept your sense of humour, Jack. We’ve done our best, this hasn’t worked, what a terrible shame. We should leave now.]

Jack set off for a set of stairs he’d spotted earlier. They were roped off and marked ‘Private’.

[ Think you’ve got turned round, Jack. The exit’s over there.]

[ I know exactly where I’m going.]

[Come on now, Jackie boy, a joke’s a joke.]

Jack shouldered his way through some particularly energetic dancers. One of them shouted at him, but the words were inaudible.

[ You really mean it, don’t you? You’re a lunatic, Jack. You’ll get yourself beaten up. At best.]

[ Just like when some of the prison’s biggest thugs came looking for me after your dodgy card games. It won’t be any worse than that.]

[ But I didn’t know I’d be taking over then!]

They were off the dance floor and into the corridor. Fist sulked in silence as Jack climbed the stairs. Halfway up, there was a landing.

[ Think about Andrea!] wailed Fist. [ If you get caught, they’ll go after her too.]

[ We kept our relationship secret. There’s nothing to connect us. She’s perfectly safe, whatever happens.]

A disinfectant reek stung Jack’s nose. There were two doors marked with little barcodes, one shaped like a man, another like a woman. A third door had a little combination keypad by its handle.

[Physical security! There’s nothing I can do about that. We can stop playing at burglars and leave.]

[ Read one of the staff. Get me the combination.]

[ They might pick me up. That could be dangerous.]

[ They definitely will do if I go down and tell them what we’re up to here. Which I will do if you don’t start helping me now. Do it, Fist, or I’ll get the shit kicked out of us both.]

Fist swore and closed his eyes. His body shook slightly. Jack imagined his consciousness skipping from bouncer to bar staff to DJ, brushing against their virtual selves, looking for cracks to seep into.

Fist’s eyes flicked back open.

[ I’m only helping you to get in so we can get out as quickly as possible.]

[ Yes.]

[ I really don’t think you should be doing this.]

[ There’s only one person up there. And we’ll avoid him. Now what’s the number?]

[2754.]

[ That was nice and easy, wasn’t it?]

[ Fuck off.]

They stepped through the door and into luxury.

[Got a signal?] said Jack.

[Getting stronger.]

[Go to work.]

The corridor was padded with pale, thick carpets. Soft uplights illuminated pastel walls, studded with glyphs. Jack wondered about the onweave art that the glyphs represented. When Jack first started investigating Akhmatov’s business affairs, he’d watched interviews with a few young Station artists. Akhmatov had a habit of arriving at their studios unannounced and paying substantial amounts for one or two pieces of their best work. None of them had been either able or willing to give much information away about their patron. Akhmatov’s interest made sure that these stylish young people patronised his more exclusive events, lending them an air of cutting edge excitement that made them some of the most popular nights in Docklands. They’d even attracted a regular Homelands clientele.

No doubt these glyphs pleasured onweave viewers with sounds and visuals from the servers of today’s bright young things. No doubt Akhmatov’s art patronage still helped keep his venues at the cutting edge of fashion. And of course, such patronage would please East. As maker and breaker of Station fashion, her interest and indulgence were essential to the success of Akhmatov’s business. Jack wondered briefly if she was the Pantheon member whose influence he’d made out in the Panther Czar’s accounts. She’d certainly always been close to Grey.

Soon he’d know for sure.

[ Now we’re talking,] said Fist, pulling Jack out of his reverie.

[ You’re in?]

Fist tittered, irritation all but forgotten in the joy of action.

[Part of the way. Got the basics.]

[So who’s that up ahead?]

[ It is Akhmatov. Looks like he’s asleep.]

[Must have had a hard day’s night.]

For a moment, Jack remembered the best parts of his time with Fist – the sense of vastly more efficient systems grafted on to his own mind, working both with and beyond it to achieve the impossible.

[Getting any info on him?] he asked.

[Some basics. He’s discreet, but not discreet enough. The meat’ll be deeper in. I need to get up close to one of his servers. Second door on the left.]

Fist bounced ahead of Jack as they walked up the corridor. The door was decorated with a particularly complex, tiger-shaped glyph. It was unlocked. Jack tiptoed through, then carefully shut it behind him. All was pitch-black.

[ Right,] said Fist.

And then the lights came on.

Akhmatov was sat behind a large stone desk. He was dressed in a smart white suit. His pale face hovered beneath grey-black hair. There was a tightly trimmed moustache at its centre, sitting above precise, fussy lips. His eyes were masked by round black lenses. He was lighting a cigarette. There were men dressed in black, two to his left, one to his right, and one behind. All four had the same face. There was a leather armchair in front of the desk. The rest of the room was empty.

‘I always thought, Jack,’ said Akhmatov, exhaling smoke, ‘that you had a little more style than this. But then, you have been away from us for rather a long time. And your little man is so easy to fool.’

[Shit,] said Fist. [ This fucking cage.]

Chapter 11

‘All these years,’ said Akhmatov. ‘And we finally meet.’

[ Fist,] Jack whispered, [what happened?]

[ He spoofed me. I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A FUCKING STUPID IDEA!]

‘Your little man is less effective than he boasts,’ said Akhmatov. He contemplated the tip of his cigarette for a moment. ‘I’ve force-opened some of your weave channels. The cageware should stop me from doing that, but it seems that somebody’s cut a little hole from inside. Naughty naughty!’

[ He’s overloaded my weaveports,] said Fist. [ The cage is reading it as a potential hack, so I can’t manifest. I’m all locked down, you’re on your own. Run! Don’t let him hurt you!]

[ Bouncers’d be on us straightaway.]

Akhmatov gestured, the cigarette trailing smoke in the air. ‘But where are my manners? You should sit.’

An attendant appeared at Jack’s side and waved him towards the armchair. There was no other choice. Jack let himself subside into it. The faded leather was soft and welcoming. It sighed as Jack sat back, exhaling a fusty reek of cigars and privilege.

‘It’s really just plastic,’ smiled Akhmatov. ‘Rather well programmed, isn’t it?’ The dark glasses gave him the look of an insect.

‘What do you want, Akhmatov?’ said Jack, barely keeping his voice steady.

‘Your return has caused, let us say, quite the stir. In circles that I move in, at least. In fact, I was warned not to receive you. To shut you out, to let your licence run out, to let you die and your puppet take the strings.’ Akhmatov’s smile became a chuckle. ‘Of course I’ve always resented being told what to do. I think you might sympathise with that?’ He leant forward in his chair and inspected Jack. ‘No, I really don’t see it. Jack, there are entities that scare even me. You’ve slept with Grey, you know what I mean. And some of them’ – Akhmatov raised his hand and pointed at him – ‘are mortally afraid of you, and of the little cuckoo in your nest.’ He sat back. ‘No, I don’t understand it either.’

Jack realised that Akhmatov was looking at him expectantly. But there was nothing to say. He shrugged, hoping to at least display some bravado. ‘I really wouldn’t know,’ he said.

‘Still the same old ingénue. I watched you, Jack, watched you trying to draw your strings around me, back in the old days. You were very sharp. Of course I was aware of every move you took.’

Jack was at once shocked by Akhmatov’s revelation and surprised to hear real respect in his voice. Memories of the investigation shimmered through him. ‘Perhaps that’s what they’re scared of,’ he replied. ‘I would have had you, Pierre. A month more, maybe two. And your backer too.’

Remembering deep competence helped Jack’s self-control reassert itself. It was surprising how relaxed he felt. He started wondering how he could make use of Akhmatov’s evident interest in him. He had his own abilities to draw on. He’d always been the most forensically precise of Grey’s auditors. That skill set had existed long before Fist had climbed out of his subconscious and into the processing nodes nestled snugly against his spine.

‘Oh no, Jack. You couldn’t have touched us.’

‘Really? We knew that Bjorn Penderville was working for you. We were about to prove that you’d had Aud Yamata kill him. I had most of your network analysed. I knew when your shipments were coming in, how you used sweathead avoidance codes to make them invisible, who your dealers were, how they transferred their profits to you and how you laundered them – even how you paid your suppliers.’

‘Aud Yamata,’ spat Akhmatov. ‘That bitch.’ He took a moment to recover himself. ‘But let’s not get sidetracked. Your investigation was very impressive, but you didn’t have the most important thing.’

‘Yamata’s Pantheon protector? I saw the traces. I would have followed them back and found out who it was. And Harry and I would have shut them down.’

‘And taken down a god. You know, I think that’s something you might have been capable of. You were certainly very good at your job, the best perhaps. Yamata and her master saw you as a very major threat. They wanted you dead. Grey must have fought hard for you, to keep your punishment so light. And Harry – well, you heard how we had to deal with him, in the end.’

Akhmatov slowly and deliberately made a pistol shape with his hand. He pointed a two-fingered nozzle towards Jack. His thumb came down like a hammer.

‘Bang.’

[Shit, Jack. He’s going to kill you.]

‘InSec are watching me. If I die, they’ll want to know how. They’ll find you quickly enough.’

Akhmatov laughed. ‘And once again, Yamata’s patron would steer them away from me. But you’ll be relieved to hear that my hands are tied. I’ve been ordered very specifically not to harm your little man or his future property. There are other plans in place for that little weapon’s special talents.’

[ Well that’s a relief,] said Fist.

[ No it’s not. It’s very worrying.]

‘But when my panthers bite,’ continued Akhmatov. ‘they cut deep into the mind and leave no wounds in the flesh. As you are about to find out.’

[ Ha!] said Fist. [ No physical damage at all!]

[ It’s still going to hurt.]

[ What’s a little pain, Jackie boy? You’ll get through it. Maybe it’ll even teach you to keep out of harm’s way.]

‘I will ravage you and break you, without touching your body at all. And I’ll show my masters that I’ve done so and laugh, and maybe they’ll be that little bit less scared of your puppet, and they’ll respect me just a little bit more, and my life will become that little bit easier.’

Akhmatov made a complex gesture with his left hand. Four matt-black faces turned towards Jack. They started to change. The room shifted with them. Gloom fell, silvered with a luminous moonlit haze. The air was suddenly dense with the scent of rich earth and new growth, with the whispering of a soft breeze through leaves. The moonlight caught at vines and small trees as they grew, reaching up to the empty sky above.

‘Akhmatov? Where are you?’

[ He’s a tricky sod.]

Jack stood up. The chair disappeared. He was standing in a small clearing. Small wild sounds washed over him. Insects scraped at themselves, scratching noisily in the night. Birds leapt into being and started to sing. There was a distant scream. Jack remembered playing with monkeys at Old Earth simulations. When they were frightened they’d open their mouths wide until their gums showed and give a high-pitched yowl. Off to his left small birds whistled with surprise, then whirred up into the sky.

A dark shape that could have been a man moved in the forest. There was a rustling at Jack’s back, a flicker of movement that pulled at the corner of his eye. They were circling him, walking at the edge of the treeline. He saw another one, moving with the fluent grace of a shadow cast on water. As Jack watched, it fell forwards. Its arms shortened, its head changed shape and then its body flowed away from humanity. It landed on four feet and padded out of the light.

[Spooky!] said Fist.

Now the jungle was silent. Jack turned in a full circle, trying to remember where the door had been. Humidity simulators had come online. A soft, sticky breeze touched his face. This was confusion software of a very high order. Jack had no doubt that the four security bots surrounding him were of equal quality. It had once been so natural for the weave to replace the world with visions. Now it felt like a transgression.

[ You can’t do anything at all?] said Jack.

[ The cage is in full panic mode. He knows his stuff.]

Fist sounded almost gleeful. A panther growled behind Jack. He spun round. It was an absence carved from shadow, reminding him of the voids between stars. There was hot breath at his ankle – another cat to his left. This one was lying down. It licked the side of his foot and he leapt away. The panther’s rough tongue left a tingle behind it.

[Shit,] muttered Fist. [ I felt that.]

A third panther was coiled up on a tree branch overhanging the small glade. The fourth would no doubt be behind him. Akhmatov strolled into the clearing, his white suit perfect dress for the jungle. The moonlight caught at his pale clothes and skin, and made them glow. The dark glasses he wore made dead suns of his eyes.

‘You see why I called my club the Panther Czar?’ he said. One of his digital creatures growled. Jack gagged at the bloody reek of its breath. ‘The illusion is far more complete than it was in your day. My guests downstairs are very familiar with these creatures. The panthers wander the club, watching for trouble. They have never been seriously challenged. I wonder how much of a diversion you will provide for them?’

The first of the panthers pounced. Jack felt a heavy weight thud against him. Shards of pain exploded across his right shoulder, his chest, his thigh. He staggered and fell sideways. The panther’s claws stayed in him as he went down, tearing and slicing at his flesh. The illusion was devastatingly painful.

Fist screamed too. [Shitting hell!] he howled. [ I felt that! He’s force-linked our pain receptors!]

[Stop them!]

[ I fucking wish I could!]

There was a flash of sparking cageware. A bright light burnt up then flared out as Fist tried and failed to attack. A spiked paw snatched at Jack’s shoulder, turning him over. Another pushed against the back of his head, forcing his face into the ground. Something tore at his back. He felt flesh lift off bone and he screamed [GODS!], mud clotting into his mouth as he did so.

Someone else was screaming too. It was Fist. Bright light exploded again. Nothing changed. Another counterattack had failed. The heavy cat weight lifted off Jack’s back. For seconds the pain was gone. He remembered that he was whole and that all this was illusion. Then the agony crashed back again, the tearing bulk of a panther driving it into him.

[ YOU FUCKER!] shouted Fist. [ YOU FUCKING FUCKER! I’D FUCKING HAVE YOU IF I COULD!]

‘Your boy is caged,’ said Akhmatov, ‘and my cats are hungry. And the night is so young.’

‘Fuck you!’ Jack screamed into the soft night.

The jungle whispered on around his pain.

Chapter 12

An hour or so later, Jack was pushed out of the Panther Czar night club. The queue was much longer. He stumbled through the line and into the road, then fell over. Someone swore at him. Another threw an empty drink can. It bounced off his back. He pulled himself to his feet. His movements were stiff and awkward. ‘Fucking drunk,’ shouted a woman.

Jack blinked. His head jerked to left then right until he found her. He swung his whole body round to face her. ‘I’ll break you, you bitch.’ His voice was higher than usual. It had a rasping, semi-formed quality to it. The girl giggled. ‘Don’t you laugh at me. I’ll show you,’ he snarled, lurching towards her. His legs were stiff, barely bending at the knees. One arm swung up to point. ‘I’ll take you offweave and fuck all your data.’

A man stepped protectively in front of her.

‘You just try it, mate.’

‘I will,’ screeched Jack. ‘I’m untouchable!’ He stumbled towards the man, fists raised. Then there were three InSec agents between them, one placating the girl and her partner, the other two holding Jack.

‘What do you think you’re doing? They insulted me! Me!’

One of the policemen slipped a pair of handcuffs around Jack’s wrists, securing them behind him. Then the other started to walk him toward a police flyer, parked on the other side of the street. Jack’s face reset itself, moving from anger to shocked surprise. It was as if it only had a few very specific expressions to choose from.

‘What is this? Where are you taking me? I know my rights! Don’t you know who you’re fucking with?’

When they reached the flyer, there was a brief scuffle. Jack broke away from the policemen. His expression changed sharply to show manic happiness. He started off down the pavement, running in an awkward, stiff-legged way. His pursuers were much quicker. One of them tackled him and he crashed awkwardly to the floor. A gash on his cheek oozed blood. It dripped on to his clothes, but he didn’t notice.

This time, he didn’t put up a struggle when they reached the car. The door clunked shut behind him. The two policemen climbed into the flyer’s front seats. The lift-off was rapid. There was someone sitting next to him. His head turned quickly, then jolted suddenly to a halt. His eyes snapped closed and back open. His face was blank.

‘Hello, Hugo,’ said Lieutenant Corazon. ‘I can’t think how many laws you’re breaking by taking Jack for a walk like this.’

‘I’m not Hugo. I’m Jack.’

‘Don’t take the piss, Hugo. You’ll only make it worse for yourself.’

‘I had to do it.’

Jack’s voice – or rather, Fist’s – had something of a wheedle to it.

‘You’re riding him. It’s illegal under Station law, and outside the terms of both your installation licence and usage agreements.’

‘They were torturing him. He passed out!’

‘Was there reason to believe that his life was in danger?’

There was a silence. All went dark as the flyer passed into the Wart.

‘I said, did you believe his life was at risk?’

‘No.’

‘You broke into the Panther Czar night club, and entered Akhmatov’s private office space. His security systems contacted us and informed us that a breach was in progress. We had an alert from your cageware, too.’

‘I told him not to break in there!’

‘That doesn’t make any difference.’

‘We were investigating a crime. Akhmatov’s a crook.’

‘He is. But in this case it’s you two that were breaking the law.’

‘Akhmatov’s software nearly killed us.’

‘Knowing what he’s capable of, I think you both got off rather lightly.’

‘What brings you meddling, anyway? I could have got him home.’

There was suddenly a wide grin stretched across Jack’s face. Fist had switched expressions, in the hope of placating Corazon. The insincerity of it shook her.

‘Lestak’s tagged you both. The incident report came in, she was alerted and she asked me to deal with it.’

‘Can’t you just drop us back at the hotel?’

‘We have to be assured that the proper relationship between you and Jack has been restored before we can release you. You’ll be spending the night in the cells, under observation.’

Jack’s smile spread a little wider. ‘So we just sit back and relax? And wait for the doctors to check us out tomorrow?’

‘More or less, yes. And you need to shut down.’

‘Do I? I’m rather enjoying this.’ Fist had Jack stretch his arms out in front of him. He twisted his hands, then curled and uncurled his fingers. It was like watching a machine run through initialisation tests. ‘I love having a body. I like being a real boy.’

‘What you’re doing now is illegal. Shut off, or we’ll be forced to take punitive action against you when we touch down.’

‘You know, I thought you’d be much more fun,’ grumbled Fist in an accusing tone. Then he was gone. It was as if invisible strings had been severed. Jack’s arms fell into his lap. His head slumped back, eyeballs rolling up into their sockets. He slipped sideways and fell against the flyer window. The jolt set the cut on his cheek bleeding again. As Lieutenant Corazon reached over to close his eyes, red smeared itself across her uniform. She shrugged, then nudged her weave settings so that the mark became invisible.

Hours later, when Jack came round, a microdrone was watching him. It was a very basic one, taking the form of a small silver ball with a flashing blue light mounted on top of it. A moustache was painted above a tiny black hole. There were no eyes. ‘Are you awake?’ it asked.

Jack sat up, saying nothing. His stiff muscles creaked and his joints felt wooden. Fist was nowhere to be felt. The microdrone moved in towards him. Its voice became a little louder and a little deeper. ‘I said, are you awake?’ Jack wondered who’d written its respect/intimidation protocols. It emitted a low whine, presumably meant to make him imagine that a tiny taser was powering up. He supposed that he was meant to be scared. He chuckled, remembering battles in deep space, and found himself surprised at the sound of his own laughter. It had been a long time since he’d heard it.

‘Yes, I am,’ he replied.

The whining stopped. A small slot opened in the ceiling and the microdrone shot through it. Jack wondered who it had gone to warn. He stood up and grimaced. It was as if he could feel every single bone grinding against its brothers. The thought reminded him of his last conscious moment. He’d been lying face down. His back had been entirely stripped of flesh. One of the cats was laid out next to him, biting at something soft and wet and red. The second was licking blood from his thigh, every so often nicking his skin with a sharp tooth. He could feel the breath of the third on the back of his neck, the series of soft tugs as it ran an exploratory claw down the white ladder of his vertebrae. Then Hugo had taken charge and the world had vanished.

Jack filled the sink with water and splashed his face. Its cold touch was so honest and kind and real. Fist was still dormant, exhausted by the effort of possessing Jack. It wouldn’t last for much longer, but for the moment the peace was blissful.

The cell door hissed behind him.

‘You know Jack, I was going to call you. And thank you.’ It was Lieutenant Corazon. ‘For rescuing Ifor.’

‘Doing InSec’s job for you.’

‘That’s fair enough. But then you screwed things up.’

‘Doing your job for you, again.’

‘You were breaking and entering. Like a common sweathead.’

‘Investigating. Something you should be doing.’

‘Investigating what, Jack? What are you trying to prove?’

‘Akhmatov confirmed what I told you.’

‘That one of the Pantheon’s smuggling sweat? Oh, Jack. Let it be.’

‘And that I was sent out-system and Harry was moved to another department because we got too close to it. Two years later Harry reopened the case and was killed.’ Jack stopped himself from mentioning Andrea’s murder too. ‘That’s several crimes for the price of one. And now they’re after Fist. They’re going to wait till I’ve gone then seize him and use him.’

‘That’s impossible, Jack. The Pantheon doesn’t work like that.’

‘Check for yourself. Go back to the Bjorn Penderville murder. Read our reports. And if that’s too much work, ask yourself why Aud Yamata wasn’t arrested and the Panther Czar’s never been shut down.’

Corazon sat down on the small bed in the corner of the cell. There was a look of deep sympathy on her face.

‘You’ve read what happened one way. And I really understand why you might be angry with the Pantheon, why you need to find reasons for Grey sending you away. But I’m sure that won’t be the only story that explains things.’

‘You’re not doing your job, Corazon. All of this is real and you can’t even see it, because you can’t imagine the Pantheon doing anything wrong.’

‘It’s a fantasy, Jack.’

‘It’s crime that needs investigation.’

‘Look, Jack, I understand how tough it was for you out there. I think even Lestak was shocked, once she had some time to think. I realise how little I know about the Soft War. I’ve started researching it. And I’m sorry that you have so little time left, that would make anyone bitter. But pretending that one of the Pantheon is out to get you – that’s just not what they do, Jack. They’re on our side, they work for us.’

‘I’ve fought their wars for them, Corazon. I know what makes them tick. They’re just like war machines. They want power and they want to hang on to it. If you get in their way, you’re fucked. And that’s it.’

‘Oh, Jack. You served the Pantheon well once – and now this.’

Jack felt exhausted. Limbs clacked at the back of his mind. Fist was beginning to stir.

‘Anyway,’ said Corazon, ‘I haven’t come here to argue about your past. Akhmatov’s not pressing charges. He knows your situation. He said he understands that it’s not easy for you.’

‘He’s not pressing charges because he’s been ordered not to. He went too far, and he’s been reined back in.’

‘Oh, for gods’ sake! For once in his life he’s showing some decency. Be thankful for that, at least.’

‘A known criminal does something completely out of character and you don’t even ask why? It’s like I said. They want Fist undamaged, so he’s had orders not to touch us.’

‘The Pantheon are watching Fist, Jack. Nobody will be able to seize him and use him.’

Jack sighed in defeat, suddenly feeling exhausted. ‘A god will,’ he said quietly.

Corazon stood up and moved towards the door. It opened at her touch. Jack expected her to just leave, but she turned back towards him.

‘I talked to Fist.’

‘When he was riding me?’

‘Yes. He can’t be an easy person to live with.’

‘He’s built to perform a specific role. That doesn’t make him very social.’

‘What’s it like – when he takes over? Where do you go?’

Jack sighed. ‘I wasn’t really there.’ He sat down on the bed, looking for words; wondering why he felt the need to answer Corazon’s question. Looking up, he saw deep concern on her face. It infuriated him. ‘But why are you worried about it? For gods’ sake look back over the evidence, you’ll see I’m right. You wanted to be a journalist once. Imagine you’ve found something that could be the biggest story of your life. Act like an investigator, not some fucking counsellor. Find out why they sent me away back then. Find out how they’re going to use Fist now.’

‘OK, Jack. I’ll take a look at the files. But remember that that means I’m helping you – and you don’t get to abuse me for that.’

The door hissed shut behind her.

Chapter 13

[So what’s next, genius detective?] asked Fist.

They were sitting on a train, rattling back to Docklands. Jack had turned down the offer of a lift in a flyer, which annoyed Fist. At first he subsided into an aggrieved silence but that soon bored him, so he started needling Jack.

[Are we going to try and track down some other shithole, and see if we can get ourselves tortured in exciting new ways? Do you want to go and stalk your dead girlfriend some more? Shall we go and wander round housing estates looking for pieces of the minds we spent years killing? Do you want to go and get shouted at by your dad for a bit? Or shall we just spend more time finding out how much everyone hates you when you’re offweave? You’ve really fucked your life up, I bet you’re actually glad I’m going to be taking over.]

[And how did you find the experience of being me, Fist? Looking forward to having a body of your own now you’ve taken it for a test drive?]

Fist didn’t answer.

[ We’re going to write a letter to Andrea,] said Jack. [She’s going to take us to Harry. He’s been investigating all this too. We need to pool resources.]

[ But Jack! You promised – after the Panther Czar, you’d let it all be.]

[ I said I would if we got the data I needed. We didn’t. And we found out that they want to use you as a weapon after I’m gone. I’m not going to let that happen.]

[ This isn’t fair! You’re going to get yourself attacked or shot or killed. And then where will I be?]

[ Wherever I am, Fist, just like always. And believe me, I wish that was different too. Now stop panicking and remember what Akhmatov said. For the moment, we’re safe.]

Jack returned to the hotel and tried to go onweave. Fist pretended there was a technical fault in the hotel weave-systems until Jack cuffed him and he opened them up.

Jack knew now that Andrea’s avatar was nothing more than a static relic, cast off by the dead past. He summoned a screen and keyboard and, as he’d done so many times in the Callisto prison’s small comms room, began to type a mail. He wasn’t sure who might be monitoring his communications, so he wrote as a lover looking back to a happier past rather than an investigator seeking to unpick it.

‘Andrea – I’ve been back to where things began. I thought that would help me get things straight, but it’s more than I can deal with alone. I need help to understand. Please.’

Jack always ended his mails to Andrea with ‘all my love’. Now, he wasn’t sure what to type. In the end, he sent the note unsigned. Then he waited. The reply came in a couple of hours. Her words hung before him, as for so long the only part of her he could see.

‘Jack. I told you I didn’t want you digging it all up again. If you just let it rest, it can’t hurt you. Back off.’

Normally she too signed off with endearments. There was nothing this time. Jack replied almost instantly.

‘I can’t step away from it now, Andrea. I need resolution. And it can’t hurt me, I know that for sure. I’ll tell you why when I see you. I’ve started looking ahead, too. I want to make sure Fist is looked after once I’m gone.’

Fist was reading over Jack’s shoulder. He snorted as Jack typed that last sentence.

[ I don’t need looking after, Jack. I just need you to walk away from all this. Like you promised.]

[ We don’t have any choice. They want to control you. They’ll come for you once you’ve taken over, be sure of it.]

[And I’ll knock ’em down like ninepins!]

[Like you put the zap on the Panther Czar?]

[ Fuck you.]

Fist was silent as Jack typed the rest of the note.

‘Please, Andrea, we’ve got to talk. All of us need to talk.’

He couldn’t mention Harry, but he knew that Andrea would understand that ‘all of us’ included him. And now Jack was at the end of the note, facing the sign off again. Writing as a lover had changed his sense of the situation. It was more than a moral or a practical problem. It was an emotional one too. Jack felt abandoned before a great darkness. He found in himself a deep need to lighten the pain by sharing it.

‘You helped me see my life clearly when I first met you in Homelands. You helped me face up to the truth on Phobos, too, when I found out how little time I had left. Please help me one last time, before the end.

With my love,

Jack’

This time, she agreed to see him.

That night she was playing a club in Prayer Heights. It was a little more upmarket than Ushi’s. Jack had to make a discreet personal payment to the door staff to get in. The audience was more engaged. There was quiet applause as Andrea came onstage, a noticeable hush as she started to sing. Her voice rang out across the room as clearly as before. She played a surprisingly conservative set, including only the cover versions that had first made her name. Jack did his best to enjoy them, but they lacked the depth and power of her later, more personal work. The audience seemed happy enough, applauding enthusiastically as each song reached its entirely predictable end.

She’d told Jack to come backstage once she’d finished. There was another anonymous corridor and another dressing-room door. Jagged music filtered through it. Jack thought he recognised Andrea’s voice, but it had been heavily treated. It was singing over a spoken word accompaniment, hustled along by soft beats, skipping apparently at random from one song to another. Jack knocked on the door and waited. There was no response. The hushed, discordant music continued. He knocked again, just as it began to fade out. Andrea said, ‘Come,’ and Jack stepped in.

‘Interesting tunes,’ he said.

‘Jack,’ she almost shouted from within her cowl, ‘what the hell are you playing at? I told you not to get involved. I don’t need a knight in shining armour. It’s bad for you and it’s worse for us.’

Jack hadn’t been expecting such an onslaught. Fist chuckled. [Ooo, this is going to be fun,] he said happily. [Maybe there won’t be any more investigating after all. Popcorn!]

‘I’m sorry, Andrea. I thought—’

‘No Jack, you didn’t think. You just went straight in, digging over dangerous ground. What did you tell Akhmatov or InSec? I’ve been so careful to let people think I really did overdose. And nobody can know Harry’s come back.’

‘Andrea, I’m not stupid. As far as they’re both concerned, I’m a Pantheon hater who broke into the Panther Czar to find out which god’s corrupt. It’s nothing to do with you two.’

‘Except Harry wanted to find out exactly the same thing. That’s why he reopened the Penderville case and that’s what got us killed. It’s got everything to do with us. For gods’ sake, Jack. You’ve put us both at risk. You’re in danger too.’

‘No we’re not. The bad guys have moved beyond that. For them it’s all about Fist. They want him unharmed. I can’t be touched either.’

[ Not mentioning the panthers, then?]

Remembered pain snarled in Jack, rubbing against his mind like fur, sticky with his own blood.

‘I’m going to sit down for a moment,’ he said.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Akhmatov set his panthers on me last night. But it wasn’t real, I’m fine.’

‘Clearly.’

Fist giggled.

‘And you say they can’t touch you,’ said Andrea. ‘I’ve seen how these people operate. At first hand. It will get worse.’

[Listen to her, Jack,] said Fist. [She knows.]

‘For now, this is as far as it’s going to go,’ said Jack. ‘Akhmatov was reined in. He didn’t even have me roughed up by a bent Docklands copper, I was taken straight to HQ. He won’t hurt me. Because they want Fist undamaged.’

‘So what? Let them have him.’

‘Fist is a weapon and they think they can control him. With Pantheon backing, they’ll be able to lift his cage.’

‘They’re not going to be stupid enough to attack the Totality. What else is he good for?’

‘What else?’ said Fist, spluttering into outraged existence. ‘What else?’

‘I’m sure he’ll explain,’ said Jack.

Andrea peered at him, fascinated. ‘I’ve heard so much about you, Fist. It’s – interesting – to finally meet you.’

That barely interrupted Fist’s rant. ‘If it wasn’t for this sodding cage, I could do quite a lot.’ He tried to look down his nose at Andrea, but even though he was standing on a table he was still shorter than her. ‘I’m a military grade systems infiltration unit. I may have been built on an accountant’ – he glared at Jack – ‘and I may look like some over-privileged chucklehead’ – his monocle shimmered in the light – ‘but believe me, I can break into anything I want. Not just the Totality. And when I look at how Station’s systems have been thrown together over the years – poof, so many holes!’

‘He’s almost how I imagined him,’ Andrea told Jack. ‘Only a little more – extreme.’

‘I could hack into any of them,’ continued Fist, waving a hand airily. ‘From the crappiest corporate server all the way up to the weave itself. Weaveselves, too. Maybe even the Coffin Drives! Maybe even fetches like you. Live, on the fly, pretty much instantly.’

‘It must have been so difficult living with him,’ sighed Andrea.

‘You get used to it. After a while.’

Fist finally registered that she and Jack were only barely listening to him. ‘Excuse me?’ he said. ‘I believe I’m talking? Gods, being ignored by meatsacks is bad enough. I thought I’d at least get some respect from another digital intelligence.’

Andrea seemed to be about to snap back at him, but she held herself back. Then she replied: ‘I’m sorry. That is a good point. I should have listened properly.’

‘Well,’ said Fist, taken by surprise. ‘Yes. An apology. Good.’

‘So, you said you can break into just about any system on Station?’ continued Andrea. ‘That’s pretty impressive. But some of them are very well guarded. The gods are great believers in security.’

‘No reason not to believe him,’ Jack replied. ‘He might not move as fast as some—’

‘Oi!’ said Fist.

‘—but he goes far deeper.’

‘That’s more like it.’

‘Shit,’ whispered Andrea. ‘You could be very dangerous indeed.’

‘Thank you,’ said Fist joyfully. ‘Nice to be appreciated!’ He clapped, his hands sounding like wooden dominoes tumbling on to a table top.

Andrea bowed her head and reached a hand inside her cowl, rubbing what remained of her temple. Jack wondered if her true face would fall into the light, but it remained hidden. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We can’t let them get hold of him.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Fist. ‘I’m going to need a job once Jack’s gone. And this sounds like fun! It’s what I was built for, after all.’

‘No, Fist,’ said Jack. ‘These are bad people, and they’ll make you do bad things.’

‘You and your bloody conscience. Won’t be a problem for much longer!’

Andrea cut in. ‘Remember who you’re with, Fist. You might not miss Jack when he’s gone, but I will.’ Jack shot her a grateful look. ‘I’ll take you both to Harry,’ she continued. ‘He’s spent a lot of time digging into the Penderville case. I’m sure he’ll help you find a new way forward.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jack.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ muttered Fist.

Andrea stood up. ‘Follow me back to our house.’

‘You’ve got a house? And you can walk the streets?’

‘It’s an aunt’s place. She works the orbital chainships, she’s only there a couple of nights a month. Because it’s a family site I can manifest fully. We’ve made some changes so it’s safe for Harry too. And I can walk on any street I want. Like I said, Harry helped me tweak myself. I’m not your average fetch.’ There was a moment of silence. Andrea tilted her head forward. ‘And you should be careful. Did I ever tell you about Harry’s first year at senior school?’

‘No.’

‘The older boys used to take money off the little ones. So he organised them. Their whole year fought back together, kicked the crap out of the sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds.’

‘Keeping the peace.’

Andrea laughed. ‘Kind of,’ she said. ‘He started taking money off the local shops. To keep them unharassed. Paid some of the cash to the older boys. Got them working for him too.’

‘Playing all the angles.’

‘He still does. He puts himself first. Watch him, Jack.’

Fist cut in. [Sounds like a fucking psychopath to me.]

Jack ignored him. ‘That’s not the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from someone’s wife,’ he told Andrea.

‘Harry and I help each other out,’ she replied, ‘but you should know we’re not a couple any more.’

For a moment something in Jack thrilled. Then he remembered that the Andrea he’d known was dead. He covered his confusion by standing up and turning away, reaching for his coat.

‘I’ll come out with you.’

‘No. I don’t want you walking with me.’

‘For safety?’

‘In part. But also – this.’ She indicated her cowl. ‘Entertainment venues have a special licence. People don’t always like being reminded what they’re listening to. So, they hide the bone. Outside, there’s nothing like that. It shows.’

‘But – I don’t mind.’

‘I do, Jack. You’ll walk in the street behind me. You’ll stay back all the way. You can see me when we’re back home and I’m wearing my true face again.’

‘I can look away.’

‘Wait two minutes, then follow me. I’ve flicked my permissions so you can see me outside. I’ll wait at the head of the street, then I’ll start walking. I won’t look back. If you do try and catch up, I’ll let myself fall back into the Coffin Drives. I’ll make sure Harry finds you, but you won’t be seeing me ever again.’

Chapter 14

The late evening street was half-empty. Dim spinelight painted grey shadows across the road. Andrea was at the end of the street, facing away from Jack. She no longer wore a cowl. Her skull was moon-white in the darkness, seeming to shine with its own light.

[Let’s go see what she looks like!] said Fist. [ You won’t really miss her, Jack. 3! 2! 1! Go!]

Jack stood by the club exit and waited. After thirty seconds or so, Andrea moved away round the corner. He followed.

[ Run, Jack, run!]

Prayer Heights gave way to Kanji District. The streets became busier. For a while they were on a main road. Throngs were enjoying a night out, chasing after entertainment that ranged from the virtuous to the vicious. Andrea moved ahead of Jack, a dissonant presence in the festive crowds. Jack remembered how she’d dragged him out to explore Docklands. She took a hatchet to what he now recognised as snobbery, forcing him to find ways of enjoying his birthplace again.

He wondered if their favourite bar, the Vista Club, was still open. It had always been a specialised taste. It was set deep in the meteor gash that gave the Wound its name, showing views of the distant, broken Earth. They’d spent some great nights in there together.

Jack had spent hours alone there too, watching storms tear at the dead lands below, mulling over the past and the future. His thoughts had often drifted to the war machines that still ravaged Earth. Sometimes there was a sharp burst of light beneath the clouds – some war-machine battle reaching a climax that resolved nothing. Sometimes the light would be higher up, nearly in space – one of the Rose’s satellites neutralising an attempt to escape Earth’s gravity well. East would soon trumpet her success. Most of the bar would applaud, then turn back to drinks and quiet conversations.

Jack’s thoughts drifted away from the dead Earth towards other, subtler struggles. It was easier than he’d thought to be walking towards Harry. The affair ended because Andrea had rejected Jack. That helped Jack feel he’d not at last taken anything of any real significance from Harry. Guilt settled in him, almost falling away entirely. Then Jack thought of Andrea’s passing. It struck him that he’d barely mourned her. He wondered if, with that realisation, grief would come. But there was nothing. Jack looked ahead to the woman he was following. Through her fetch, Andrea was such a vivid presence in his life. It was impossible to feel any real sense of loss.

The streets became quieter. Jack should have been able to relax a bit, but he found that he was still tense. In Kanji District, the buildings were carved from asteroid shards, creating narrow passages edged by sharp rock fragments. Years ago, Jack had found these buildings comfortingly substantial, the streets snugly enclosed. Now their high dark walls seemed oppressive. Each shard was pierced with silent windows. To Jack they all seemed empty, but some of the street-level ones must be bright with music and movement, catching at the eyes of the woven. Small crowds gathered round them, staring into darkness.

[ If I was uncaged,] remarked Fist, [ I’d be able to make those windows show them whatever I wanted. I wonder how many people I could make scream? Or vomit?] Jack ignored him. Fist chattered on nonetheless. [ This cage, Jack. I hate it! Held back like this. It’s like working for you, only worse. At least we wiped a few minds before you trapped us in that prison.] He was silent for a bit, then, [So many people at that window! It’s got to be shagging, that’s the only thing that draws a crowd like that. I’d crack the shop front style sheet and replace them with – I don’t know – dead bodies? Two corpses fucking. Mind you, they’d probably lap it up. Never underestimate the masses, old boy. Oh, I forgot. We’re off to visit a dead man ourselves, aren’t we? The social whirl, Jack, the social whirl …]

The Kanji shards receded. At last Jack found himself in a quiet backstreet of compact multi-storey housing units. They were built from rectangular oil tanks, piled up seemingly at random. A light breeze forced resonance on them, creating a strange, low moaning sound. One of the units had been painted with bright, geometric designs. Andrea stopped at it and pressed her hand against the door. Jack stopped too, wary of getting too close. He could just see small squares flashing beneath her fingers. The tiny lightshow ended and Andrea vanished. [Lost her again!] giggled Fist.

Jack walked towards the house. The door opened, revealing darkness. And then the dead came out to meet him. Soft light shimmered in the shadows of the doorway. It flashed and sparkled and slowly began to coalesce into something coherent. Jack imagined drives somewhere humming with activity, sifting through a lifetime’s worth of carefully managed photographs, family films, CCTV footage; picking out just the right self to display. A pair of shoes appeared, beautifully polished, and then the rolled up bottoms of two trouser legs. He recognised the shoes – handmade to a strictly limited design, stitched together from pseudo-cowhide grown in one of the farm stations hanging in close orbit to Station. Harry once boasted that the five year lease on them had cost him six months’ salary. ‘Take that to Homelands and show it to your posh friends,’ he’d said. ‘Even they’d have to admit – quality.’

The reconstruction stopped for a moment, halfway up Harry’s legs. It was as if the rest of him was lost in shadow. Normally fetches didn’t appear in such a theatrical way. Jack wondered if this was an artefact of Harry’s self-managed status. A belt buckle gleamed in the darkness. Then there were two arms, then a chest, then more. At first, Harry’s face was little more than a soft blur. The weave ground through more life data and it sharpened into focus. The imprecision of his soft, slightly overweight face was perfectly caught. Two sharp eyes appeared. There was a moment of stillness as the fetch found a language that was uniquely Harry’s, then it opened its mouth and spoke.

‘Jack!’ He still had his strong Docklands accent. ‘Great to see you, old man. And your little friend, too. I’ve heard so much about him. Come in, come in, where it’s warm and safe.’

Jack pulled the front door shut behind him. A harsh, metallic clang reverberated through the apartment as Harry bustled down the hallway. ‘Andrea,’ he shouted, his voice a collage of memories, ‘how could you leave him standing out in the cold?’ Harry’s warmth made guilt pang in Jack. He followed him into the sitting room. A sofa and a couple of armchairs faced each other across a little coffee table. They had the unused freshness of a publicity image for one of Silver’s furniture brands.

‘Cold night out there,’ said Harry. ‘Tea? Coffee?’ He waved at a dusty glass. It became a clean white mug, full of steaming liquid. ‘It’s only virtual, but you’ll get the taste.’

‘I’m offweave, Harry.’

‘Even for a cuppa? Shocking. And where’s Andrea?’

Harry shouted again, but there was no reply. ‘I’ll go and find her,’ he said, bustling out of the door. A minute or so, and he was back. ‘Just putting her face on.’ He sat down heavily. Jack was facing a dead man. ‘So, let’s see what all the fuss is about,’ said Harry. ‘Show us your woodentop.’

‘Woodentop?’ said Fist, shimmering into view. His wooden mouth clacked with outrage as he spat the words out. ‘This from a zombie.’

‘A pseudo-mind. Just like you.’

‘Not like me, you ghoul. I’m rooted in a living brain. You – you’re just a database with pretensions.’

‘Fist, please,’ said Jack. ‘I’m sorry. It’s late and he’s tired.’

‘No problem, Jack. Woodboy’s got a point, after all. I’m a little bit database, a little bit memory stack. Not a parasite like him.’

Fist leapt to his feet. ‘I’ve gutted sharper minds than yours, Devlin.’ Jack reached out tired thoughts and let them wrap around Fist. ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Back in your box.’

Fist battled Jack’s attempts to shut him away, shimmering in and out of existence, his muffled voice squeaking out swearwords. Harry looked on with interest, his sharp eyes entirely focused on the little puppet. At last he vanished. Jack slumped back with a sigh, exhausted.

‘A tough little nut,’ commented Harry. ‘Those Pantheon bastards shafted you far worse than me. Dying you get over, but that little shit – it’s beyond a joke, Jack.’

‘He’s getting worse.’ Jack wondered how much longer he’d be able to stay patient with Fist.

‘You should let me into him sometime. I’ll see if I can soften him up for you.’

There was a muffled [ Up yours!] from deep in Jack’s mind.

‘I don’t think he’d let you, Harry. And there’s the cage.’

‘Ah well, you never know. Anyway, to business. With you back, we’ll find out which of those sods is behind all this and fucking have ’em. With or without the little bastard’s help.’

‘Don’t be too rude about Fist,’ said Andrea, appearing in an armchair. ‘He’s in demand. Our Pantheon friend’s after him. Wants a new weapon to play with.’

It was the first time Jack had seen her face in seven years. He was profoundly glad that she continued to talk, bringing Harry up to speed on his visit to the Panther Czar and conversation with Akhmatov. He felt a confusion of pain and joy as this new Andrea fused with his memories, his past. He so wanted to touch her, to hold her, but that was impossible. And then he remembered where he was and who he was with, and forced his concentration back into the conversation just as Andrea finished her explanation.

‘You did right coming to me,’ Harry told him. ‘We don’t need InSec. There are more direct ways of sorting this out. Besides, you can’t trust them. Not like we can trust each other.’ Jack winced, hot memories of Andrea burning at him. Harry reached forward and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘And it sounds like you’ve already been getting results on your own. Grown some real balls while you were away, haven’t you? Stick with me, numbers boy. We’ll keep Yamata and her Pantheon boss away from Fist.’

‘Do you think so, Harry?’

‘I know so. Because we’ll prove that they were involved in the Penderville murder and they killed Andrea and me. We’ll bring ’em both down before they can get their hands on the little shit and do any more damage.’

‘Now I’ve told you what Jack’s been up to,’ said Andrea, ‘I’m going to leave you both to it.’

‘You don’t want to help?’ said Jack.

‘Music calls,’ she said from the door. ‘Can’t let that slip. People might start wondering what else I get up to.’ Then she was gone.

‘Don’t know why she bothers rehearsing new stuff,’ said Harry. ‘She could just play back old gigs, the punters’d still love it.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Jack. He was profoundly relieved that he and Andrea were no longer together in front of Harry. Music whispered into the room from upstairs.

‘Anyway, Andrea’s a mystery we won’t crack just now,’ said Harry. ‘Let’s do something easier. I want to hear what you’ve been up to. In your own words.’

It felt like an interrogation. Jack was reminded of case conferences at InSec HQ, intense conversations about Akhmatov’s affairs. He could have been at one, but for the occasional glitch that made Harry shimmer for a second, static blurring his face and body, or repeat a word or sentence, unaware that he was doing so. Jack went through everything he’d experienced, sharing all the details of his encounter with Akhmatov and his conversations with Corazon and Ifor. Harry was, up to a point, impressed. ‘You’ve done excellent work. But you’ve made life more difficult than it needs to be.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve approached it head-on. Just walking into Akhmatov’s club – he’s on home ground there. Imagine if you’d found Yamata. She’s a killer. Just one shot to end you. Bang.’ Jack winced. Harry didn’t notice. ‘And you’ve talked to Corazon. You can’t trust InSec, Jack.’

‘Corazon’s honest. And Yamata may be a killer, but I’m untouchable.’

‘You didn’t know that when you walked in there. And you don’t know what might happen if you keep on pushing.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘You need to be more subtle with people than with minds or spreadsheets. We’re going indirect.’

‘How?’

‘Remember how much trouble we had tracking Yamata? She’d shift in and out of being, on and offweave all the time.’

‘That’s what made us suspicious of her.’

‘She was working with a Skinner called David Nihal. He’d drop her into different weaveselves or pull her offweave entirely whenever she needed. He’s one of the best, he’s still around.’

‘You think she’s still with him?’

‘I’m sure of it. And you know why? He dropped out of sight just before you got back.’

‘You think that’s because of me?’

‘Their backer’s afraid, Jack. Nihal disappearing like that – he must be the weak link. We put pressure on him the right way, at the very least he’ll lead us to Yamata’s home base. And we’ll find a way of breaking into her systems and seeing who she’s working for.’

‘Sounds sensible.’

‘Good man. We’ve got a plan.’

‘And who do you think the backer is?’