“Sure you do,” said Joyce. “It says as much in the notice of appointment they sent the Tributary.” She looked at Percy.

“That’s true,” said Percy.

“And if we have that, Heather can go free, whether or not you win. If she wants to.”

“How do I know it will be a fair trial?” said Donny.

“I guarantee you it will be a lot more just than the courts you are used to. The jurors will all have their opinions coming in, but they are honest people and they will listen. And you have all day to review the evidence we have collected, to prepare your case. We have nothing to hide.”

Donny looked over the room.

The ground floor had been taken over by the scriveners of the apocalypse. It looked like a scene from some old office farce, dozens of people at desks buried under mountains of paper, murmuring along to the clickety-clack of manual typewriters and a few beat-up data terminals. Except that they wore T-shirts and fatigues and the intensity of people with a real cause. Hardened veterans of dictatorship and civil war, now fighting a revolution by other means. A war across time, with facts, history, and law as their weapons.

“You want to do that tomorrow?” said Percy, reading between the lines.

“Yes,” said Joyce. “Before the carnival. What do you say, Donny?”

“I’ll take that deal. But I need to meet with my client.”

“She’s not really your client, and that’s up to her, but we can arrange a visit,” said Joyce.

“What about the bank seizures?” said Percy.

“Our customers have us covered,” said Joyce. “Fronting what we need. They know what the real stakes are.”

“Well, then I better get back to the office and get prepared for the morning,” said Percy.

“You do that,” said Joyce. “I’ll make sure your prisoner gets back to his minders.”

“Where did you get all those old machines?” asked Donny as Joyce led him through her typewriter brigade.

“It’s not hard,” she said. “They last forever. Those things were just made better. And they are simpler to start with.”

“No power.”

“No software. Code degrades. Like memory. Like the things you said.”

“Like what things I said?”

“Not ‘you’ you, Donny.”

“Oh,” said Donny, relieved and not relieved, wondering if she really meant it the way he originally understood it. He tried to read her face, but she wasn’t letting him in. Instead, she was proudly looking over her team. “So what are they researching?”

Even as he said it, his mind was busy remembering some of the things he had said. The things they had said.

“A different kind of fossil record,” said Joyce.

“Can you ever just say it straight?”

“Said the best liar I have ever known.”