She punched him in the face. A brief struggle flared and guttered out as weight of numbers squashed her speed reflexes. Sheets torn away, efficient disabling blows administered to thigh and solar plexus. While she wheezed on the floor, one grinning thug grabbed at a breast, groped between her legs and made pumped-hip rutting motions over her. A couple of his companions laughed.

I was seeing it for the second time. Still, the rage leapt up through me like flames. In my palms, the gekko spines sweated awake.

A second enforcer appeared in the doorway, saw what was going on and bellowed in furious Japanese. The thug leapt away from the woman on the floor. He made a nervous bow, a stammered apology. The newcomer stepped in close and backhanded the man three times with shattering force. The thug cowered against the wall. More yelling from the newcomer.

Amidst some of the more colourful insults I’d ever heard in Japanese, he was telling someone to bring clothes for the captive.

By the time Kovacs got back from overseeing the hunt for himself, they had her dressed and seated on a chair in the centre of the cabin’s main living space. Her hands rested in her lap, wrists bound neatly, one over the other with a restraint patch you couldn’t see. The yakuza stood at a careful distance from her, weapons still out. The would-be romantic sulked in a corner, disarmed, one side of his mouth swollen, upper lip split. Kovacs’ eyes flickered over the damage and he turned to the enforcer at his side. A muttered exchange the microcams were not amped to pick up. He nodded, looked again at the woman before him. I read a curious hesitation in his stance.

Then he turned back to the cabin door.

“Anton, you want to come in here?”

The Skull Gang command head stepped into the room. When the woman saw him, her mouth twisted.

“You fucking sellout piece of shit.”

Anton’s lip curled, but he said nothing.

“You know each other, I believe.” But there was a faint question in Kovacs’ voice and he was still watching the woman before him.

Sylvie tipped her gaze at him. “Yeah, I know this asshole. And? Got something to do with you, has it, fuckhead?”

He stared at her, and I tensed in my chair. This segment was first time through for me, and I didn’t know what he’d do. What would I have done at that age? No, scratch that. What was I about to do at that age? My mind fled back through the silted-up decades of violence and rage, trying to anticipate.

But he only smiled.

“No, Mistress Oshima. It has nothing to do with me any more. You are a package I have to deliver in good condition, that’s all.”