Plex, who was moving towards a low interior-lit hospitality module set against the side wall. His movements were a curious mix of languid and nervous, take and situational jitters fighting it out in his blood. He reached into the glow of the module’s upper shelf, hands clumsy among ornate crystal vials and delicate paper parcels.

“Uh, you want a pipe, man?”

“Plex.” I played the last twist of the bluff for all it was worth. “Just what the fuck is going on?”

He flinched. Stuttered.

“I, uh, I thought Tanaseda would have—”

“Fuck that, Plex. Talk to me.”

“Look, man, it’s not my fault.” His tone worked towards aggrieved. “Didn’t I tell you guys right from the beginning she was fucked in the head? All that kaikyo shit she was spouting. Did any of you fucking listen? I know bio tech, man, and I know when it’s fucked up. And that cable-headed bitch was fucked up.”

My mind whipped back two months to the first night outside the warehouse, sleeved synthetic, hands stained with priests’ blood and a blaster bolt across the ribs, eavesdropping idly on Plex and Yukio. Kaikyo—a strait, a stolen goods manager, a financial consultant, a sewage outlet. And a holy man possessed by spirits. Or a woman maybe, possessed by the ghost of a revolution three centuries past. Sylvie, carrying Nadia. Carrying Quell.

“Where’d they take her?” I asked quietly.

It wasn’t Yukio’s tone any more but I wasn’t going to get much further as Yukio anyway. I didn’t know enough to sustain the lie in the face of Plex’s lifelong acquaintance.

“Took her to Millsport, I guess.” He was building himself a pipe, maybe to balance out the take blur. “I mean, Yukio, has Tanaseda really not—”

“Where in Millsport?”

Then he got it. I saw the knowledge soak through him, and he reached suddenly under the module’s upper shelf. Maybe he had some neurachem wiring somewhere in that pale, aristocratic body he wore, but for him it would have been little more than an accessory. And the chemicals slowed him down so much it was laughable.

I let him get a hand on the gun, let him get it halfway clear of the shelf it was webbed under. Then I kicked his hand away, knocked him back onto the automould with a backfist and stamped down on the shelf. Ornate glassware splintered, the paper parcels flew and the shelf cracked across.

The gun fell out on the floor. Looked like a compact shard blaster, big brother to the GS Rapsodia under my coat. I scooped it up and turned in time to catch Plex scrambling for some kind of wall alarm.

“Don’t.”

He froze, staring hypnotised at the gun.

“Sit down. Over there.”