「It’s Ghost! It’s real!」

「Of course they’re real. Stop shooting at them. Lower your weapons.」 The predator’s hackles rise as something different rears its head among the herd. This speaker is the smallest of the prey, sheltered in the center like a precious insect queen. The protectee. 「Listen, Ghost, I don’t know who sent you after me, but whatever they’re paying you I’ll give you more.」

「The Moon? Tempting.」 The hunter’s voice floats down through the shadows, growl-rough and growl-soft.

The protectee does not dare step out of the ring of guards, but at least stands straight, not cowering. 「What about the Moon?」

「Your offer. I have all the world as hunting ground, and all the races of the Earth as my prey, so if you want to up the ante you owe me the Moon.」 The beast strays near the light for a moment, so the prey can make out the contours of face and shoulders as it licks rich meat drippings from its cheeks. 「Or were you not serious?」

「Look, Ghost, we’re not enemies. You’ve done great work for our group in the past. You’re the best hired gun I’ve ever worked with, and I’d love to use your services again in future, but if you hurt me, not only will you destroy our working relationship, but my bash’ and all our allies will hunt you to the ends of the Earth and kill you, even you.」

「I doubt that.」 It vanishes again. 「But I’m not here to hurt you.」

Cloth creaks as hope eases the guards’ tense limbs.

「Then what do you want?」

「A new Canner Device.」

「What for?」

「To kill J.E.D.D. Mason.」

「Not for any price,」 the protectee answers unflinching. 「I love my nation-strat. Right now Tai-kun is the only thing keeping the other Hives from gutting the Mitsubishi, and on the inside no one would be surprised if the Chinese, Koreans, and ex-Greenpeace move to expel Japan from the Hive and let us take all the heat. I respect what O.S. was, but anyone who takes a shot at Tai-kun right now, whether it’s you or Sniper, is my enemy.」

Warm wind at ground level announces that the predator has landed. 「You passed that test fast.」

The chief bodyguard looms bravely between the hunter and her ward. 「Who are you really?」

The monster has a second bone, and sinks its teeth into the rose wet flesh still clinging to it. What was this bone, they wonder. A goat? A stag? A dog? The thought of eating any once-living mammal turns most stomachs in our vat-meat age, but for these cornered six, with the adrenaline of the hunted surging through them, the monster’s supper invokes a more terrifying taboo, conjured inexorably by fear, imagination, and the one name which is our era’s synonym for cannibal. 「I’m Mycroft Canner.」

I smell urine on the wind.