The café was run by a Turk who hinted at having been exiled from the Republic of Istanbul for a heinous crime. He held court on the ground floor, in the steam of a gigantic gleaming brass multisamovar that served out a hundred cups of black tea an hour. He made Turkish coffee so thick a water buffalo would float in it. And he had hired a Kazakh to barbecue sturgeon the Turk alleged was pilfered from the Caspian. This claim of illegality added to the taste of the sturgeon—an illicit spice—though everyone knew the sturgeon was vat-grown: the last Caspian sturgeon was either out there stealthily avoiding its destruction in the silence of the Caspian’s abyssal reaches, or had long since been consumed.

The Turk would take messages, and tip you off with a ping to your terminal if a person you didn’t want to see was looking for you—this last service offered free of charge to regulars.

Rustem had been a regular for nearly a year now, since the first day he had come to the Republic of Astrakhan. He took up residence early most days, in a curtained alcove on the third floor, starting his day with the café’s kahvalti of olives, feta, hard-boiled egg, flatbread, and fig jam. On many days, he did not leave his nook until the sun had set.

Business was good. The Republic of Astrakhan, always on the lookout for citizens with interesting skill sets, was on the cusp of granting him a passport and its dubious protection.

As he came in today, the Turk gave him a nod. “There’s a woman waiting for you in your alcove. Abglanz-shielded. Asked for you by name. Just so you know.”

Rustem considered whether he should run.

No, this wasn’t the way Moscow would go about killing him. He wasn’t worth a personal visit. The level of irritation he had caused them was worth, at the most, a wasp-sized suicide drone that would blow half his face off in an alleyway. Either that, or nothing at all. After a year of not having his face blown off, it appeared to be the latter.

“Thanks.”

She was in his alcove when he got there, a plate of barbecued sturgeon on the table, the abglanz cycling through a face every half second or so, so quickly that the eye could not settle on a feature before it had changed again. Men, women, ephemeral and compelling non-binary concoctions. Some beautiful, others average, some horrid. Were they real people? Randomly generated constructs?

Her hands were small. Her nails were glazed in gold, fingers dyed platinum-white past the second knuckle, shiny with sturgeon fat. The plate of sturgeon was half-eaten. She was chewing as he came into the room, half a dozen mouths and sets of teeth enjoying each bite.

This one likes to eat.