After the luxury of the hallway, the office on the other side of the door was almost utilitarian. A metal desk dominated by screens for a variety of network decks and terminals, a wall screen with an ocean view pretending to be a window, and a big rubber ball instead of an office chair.

Erich always had been twitchy sitting still too long.

“Timmy,” Erich said, standing behind the desk like it was a barricade. The two guards moved off to flank the door.

“People call me Amos now.”

Erich laughed. “Guess I knew that, right?”

“Guess you did,” Amos said. Erich looked good. Healthy in a way he’d never looked as a kid. He even had a middle-aged man’s spare tire around the gut. He still had the small, shriveled left arm. And from the way he was standing, he looked like he’d still walk with a limp. But now, surrounded by his success and his well-fed chubbiness, they looked like trophies of a past life instead of disabilities in the current one.

“So,” Erich said, “kind of wondering what you’re doing in town.”

“He beat up Troy,” one of the guards said. “And Laci says he manhandled her some too.”

“Did he kill anyone?” Erich asked. When neither guard answered, he said, “Then he’s still being polite.”

“That’s right,” Amos agreed with an amiable nod. “Not here to mess up your shit, just here to chat.”

“So,” Erich said, sitting back down on his rubber ball chair, “let’s chat.”

Chapter Eleven: Alex

Three days after he’d seen Talissa – for what he had to think now was the last time – and gone afterward to eat with Bobbie Draper, Alex knew it was time to go home. He’d had dinners with family and a couple old friends; he’d seen the ways his old hometown had changed and the ways it hadn’t. And he’d determined once again that sometimes a broken thing couldn’t be fixed. That was the closest he was going to get to having it be okay.

But before he left, there was one more person he was going to disappoint.

The express tube to Londres Nova hummed to itself, the advertisements above the seats promising to make the lives of the riders better in a hundred different ways: technical certifications, improved undergarments, tooth whitening. The facial-recognition software didn’t seem to know what to make of him. None of the ads spoke to him. The closest was a thin lawyer in an olive-green suit offering to help people find passages to the new systems beyond the Ring. Start a new life in the off-world colonies! We can help!