“VirtualJapan is within the Oshicora system, as I understand it, which has its own security.” Oshicora peered over Petrovitch’s shoulder. “Do you feel any different yet?”

“Not dead yet, if that’s what you mean.” His fingers typed rapidly. “Log me on in God mode. Let’s see if we can change some settings.”

Numbers flowed across the screen, and Petrovitch scanned them as they flew by.

“Prime number encryption keys,” said Oshicora. “I had to allow—my creator had to allow—for the presence of very many otaku who would attempt to hack the fabric of this reality for their own perverse obsessions.”

“No animé cat-girls? Though I do see your point.” He made a gesture, dragged and pointed at an icon, which bloomed into life. “Okay, so here’s the firewall controls, and I can’t move them without another password. Any ideas?”

“This is kinshino. Forbidden.”

“Oshicora-san, can I remind you that not only are you dead, but you’re also a quantum computer? You could crack this in a second if you wanted to, and your subconscious mind has already done so. It’s shoveling out a stream of commands and receiving vast oceans of data in return. You just don’t know it.” He tapped his finger in the air. “See?”

A graph appeared, measuring data transfer over time. He expanded the axis to read in days rather than seconds, and showed Oshicora the past week.

“You died on Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, and there’s a rise in activity. Information is starting to seep out. This spike here, that’s when you helped Sorenson and Sonja escape Hijo, then you killed all your employees, and it just climbs from there. More and more until you’re running in the terabyte range. For something which is forbidden, it’s happening an awful lot. Take the firewall down for five minutes, have a look around outside. Slap it back up and leave me to die if I’m not telling the truth.”

“You are very sure of yourself, Petrovitch-san. Very well.” Oshicora touched the screen and filled in the missing characters. “You have your access.”

The screen filled with a dense mat of icons, all overlapping each other in unreadable density. Petrovitch ran his finger over them, letting each one expand so he could sense their purpose before discarding them and moving on.

“Climate control, power consumption, physical access, data access. Hang on, physical access. When was I able to read Japanese?”

“When I altered your configuration. A harmless modification.”

“Thanks. Access, security, closed-circuit cameras.” A map of the building and the surrounding area unfolded. “Garden. Garden one, garden two. There.”