“The project has failed, Samuil Petrovitch. It is self-evident that we cannot have both a VirtualJapan and a real London Metrozone. One of them will have to go.” Oshicora put his sake cup down and placed his palms down on the table. “It is also obvious that it is I who should depart, and the Metrozone remain.”

“I bow to your wisdom.” Petrovitch pulled a face. “There’s an additional complication, Oshicora-san, in that I promised Sonja I’d save you.”

“Then it seems you made one promise too far. A man’s destruction should always ultimately lie in his own hands. Sonja will understand.”

“Yeah. I didn’t say it to make myself look good. I said it because I can do it. I can save you, after a fashion.” Petrovitch shrugged. “At least hear me out.”

“Very well.” He folded his arms. “I will listen to your proposal.”

“I have a server. It’s in Tuvalu, though I may have to do something about that before the sea swallows it up. It’s nowhere near big enough to contain even part of VirtualJapan. It’s not big enough to contain you. But there should be enough to hold a template of what you started as, like a seed. Or an egg: it’s going to be like an eggy-seedy thing, anyway.”

Oshicora folded his arms and looked supremely sceptical.

Petrovitch growled his frustration. “Look, I’m trying to help. I’m trying to salvage something out of this pizdets that’s worth saving. We export a blueprint of your command processes to the Tuvalu server. Nothing else. Just, just the genetic code.” He slapped the table as he finally found an analogy that would fit.

“And using this code, you can grow a new AI. But without the memories. Without the dreams.” Now Oshicora was engaged, animated. “Not just a new intelligence, but my twin.”

“Your good twin. A clean start. How many of us have wanted that? How many of us ever have the opportunity?”

Oshicora stroked his chin, and rumbled deep in his chest. “It is also a risk. What if I did not become bad, influenced by everything I ever saw or did or thought? What if I was born that way? The menace I represent would just rise again, elsewhere. What if you were not there to stop it?”

“Why not let me worry about that?” Petrovitch said. “I appreciate that since the fall of Japan you’ve been carrying around the weight of a whole nation on your back, and that it’s a hard thing to give up. But it’s time to pass on the burden to someone else. What do you say? Will you let me keep my promise to your daughter?”

“It seems almost a dishonorable act, when I have caused so much pain. I,” and Oshicora looked up, “regret much.”