But he had his escort: Hijo in front of him and two more armored men behind. Their presence didn’t make him feel any more safe than he did on the streets, and he knew they had orders to protect him.

One set of lift doors were being held open for him. Hijo marched straight in, turned, and waited.

Petrovitch hovered, and pushed at the bridge of his glasses. “Can I just say something here?”

“Of course, Petrovitch-san.”

“My turning up here is in no way to be taken as a sign of loyalty or joining sides or looking for favors. I’d very much like to keep everything informal, no contract implied or offered, that sort of thing. All I’d like is a quick word with your boss and ask his help in clearing up a little misunderstanding, then I’ll be out of here never to bother you again.”

Hijo smiled, and gave a little bow. “Oshicora-san is eager to meet you, too.”

Petrovitch screwed his eyes up and joined Hijo in the lift. “That’s not quite what I meant, but never mind.”

The two guards stayed outside, and bowed as the lift doors closed. Hijo spoke up—“toppu yuka”—and the car started smoothly. Lights indicating the floor number turned over, kanji characters all.

Petrovitch scratched his chin. The thought that had occurred to him while he listened to Chain crystallized in perfect form: this tower wasn’t just Japanese owned, Japanese staffed, but was actually Japan. It went beyond a yearning for what was lost; it was no pale recreation of a Tokyo office block, but the real deal, vibrant and alive with industry.

Chain saw Oshicora’s neo-yakuza as a new model of crime syndication, but he’d missed the truth of the matter. Petrovitch had misspent his youth playing strategy games: he recognized the plan for what it was. Each franchise was a colony, and they were growing.

The lift chimed, and the doors opened on another world.

The light was blinding and, for the first time in his life, Petrovitch realized he’d lived in the dark. He could hear water, birdsong, feel a cool breeze on his face. As his eyes adjusted, he began to see how all this was created at the top of a building in the middle of a city.

The glass skin of the tower soared up over his head. Fans at the apex stirred the air, sucking in the heat and pushing out a frigid wind. Trees, planted in real soil, waved their leaves over streams of moving water that sometimes narrowed to run babbling over cobbles, sometimes widened to become slow pools dotted with lilies.

Gravel paths, carefully raked and rolled, wound across the rooftop until they arrived at graceful arched bridges. Birds—real birds—gave flashes of movement and color.