“One big man, one mid-sized woman. My man said he reckoned she could handle herself but it was probably the bloke who did the heavy work. Our team tried to follow them, but…they vanished. We got some photos, though.”

“I’ve seen.” And Rove wasn’t angry, or not at May. “What of your surveillance of the variable?”

“Sir?” Because that hardly seemed relevant now. “She…spent the evening in some hipster coffee place. Just played with her tablet for most of it. Whoever she was waiting for stood her up, obviously. Looked like she was going to leave early on, and I thought she’d made me. But then she sat back down and stayed there, pretty much until the White mess kicked off. I…let that monopolize my attention then, sir. I thought it was more important.”

Rove reached out and made a couple of precise, insectile motions in the air, which May knew by now was some advanced VR rig he used. “Her.”

An image of the young woman he’d been watching earlier popped up, to the left of Rove’s face, and May nodded.

“Her file’s being couriered over to you now. Along with…”

Another picture popped up: a pale girl with white spiky hair. May stared at it for a moment, thinking, Is it? Isn’t it? But he’d had plenty of experience in disregarding changes of hair and make-up, imagining thinner, fatter. All the things that could happen to a human face without touching the precise alignment of features which triggered recognition in the brain.

“It’s her.” The girl leaving Khan’s place with her bruiser friend had looked a hell of a lot tougher, and years older, but there was no mistaking her.

“The variable is that one’s contact,” Rove said. “But it looks like they didn’t get to meet. I think it’s most likely that the variable’s clueless so far. Which means you can trump up some reason to approach her.”

May nodded, already piecing something together. Turning up at people’s doors claiming to be someone legitimate, all part of his stock in trade. And mostly it was to have a look around or gather a bit of intelligence. Occasionally, it was to plant a bug or incriminating evidence. Or, more rarely, he might stage a break-in turned homicide. Because there were always people prying into the affairs of Daniel Rove, and he was a private man with very little patience for impertinent questions.

“What do you need doing with her, sir?” he asked.

“Bring her in.”

Interlude: The Warmongers

Excerpt from Other Edens: Speculative Evolution and Intelligence by Professor Ruth Emerson of the University of California

This is not your world, though some twists of its fate may seem familiar.

The great orthocones rose and fell, here as in your own past. They never attained sentience, instead gliding gracefully into biological obsolescence, overtaken by fleeter, more vigorous life.