“See, now that makes sense—as soon as you ran, he had to act. You probably made him jump the gun, too. Which means he’s doing two things at once: rushing to get his project off the ground and searching for you.”

The transport merged onto the access road that encircled Rio II and cruised next to all manner of long, unwieldy commercial vessels heading for the topside dock. Ambrose watched as the transports in line ahead of them were boarded and searched by helmeted canopy cops on black scoots. When one of them pulled alongside the cover vehicle, the driver palmed down the window and said a few words to the cop, who saluted once and left them alone.

“Huh,” Ambrose said. “Red Squirrel Tea.”

Len gave a hearty thumbs-up. “People love it.”

* * *

The interior of the transport lit up when they reached the surface as Len and the security team externalized their personal Inboxes. Ambrose unraveled his bandages and winced. One small, neat hole marked the center of each palm, where Ivor had rebooted his hardcoded ID. The wounds were still raw but no longer bloody. Ambrose had always healed quickly: scrapes and bruises often faded in less than a day. Vitamin-rich synth-food saw to that. Or maybe Martin and the lab Associates had simply made him that way? He wondered if he had vast reserves of untapped power. If regular human beings used only a fraction of their brain, how much of his was left to explore?

He flipped his palm and externalized the standard welcome page, something he hadn’t seen in years. His heart sank as he realized that all of his settings had been wiped clean. Well, what did it matter? Ambrose Truax had been a sort of fake ID, too. Mistletoe had the right idea, he thought. At least she’d chosen her own name. He wondered where she was, and for a few seconds his mind drifted out over topside Eastern Seaboard City. He pictured her darting between atmoscrapers, snagging a BetterPear from a synth-cart, wandering shell-shocked into one of the vast indoor shimmerdomes, where people enjoyed their Unison experience from the comfort of recliners and beds, their motionless fleshbound bodies protected by guards who patrolled the mile-long aisles.

But that was all crazy; she couldn’t even go topside. Wherever she was, he hoped she was safe. And as much as he wanted to find her, part of him knew that she was better off staying far away.

“We’re here,” Len said, tense and serious.

Ambrose vapored away the pleasant green welcome page. One of the Security Associates tossed him a clean piece of gauze, which he ripped in half and wrapped twice around each palm.

“I’ll get you a new suit up in the lab,” Len said.

Ambrose realized his skinsuit had been torn in several places, resulting in a faint, fragmented projection of the sharp blue holo-suit he’d worn to the procedure, a lifetime ago.

“I don’t want to wear suits anymore,” he decided suddenly.