The casually parked military skimmer in Koi’s backyard was emblematic of a tendency that ran the length and breadth of the Strip. The Bugs weren’t the only heavy-heist types to have taken refuge on Vchira Beach. Whatever it was that drew Brasil and his kind to the waves, it was a general tug that manifested itself just as easily in an enthusiasm for lawbreaking of a dozen different stripes. Sourcetown was awash with retired thugs and revolutionaries and it seemed none of them had ever felt like giving up their toys for good. Shake down the Strip and hardware tumbled out of it like vials and sex toys from the sheets of Mitzi Harlan’s bed.

Planning:

Overrated as far as most of Brasil’s crew were concerned. Rila Crags was almost as notorious as the old secret police headquarters on Shimatsu Boulevard, the one Black Brigade member Iphigenia Deme brought down in smoking rubble when they tried to interrogate her in the basement and triggered her implanted enzyme explosives instead. The desire to do the same thing at Rila was a palpable prickle in the air of the house. It took a while to convince the more passionate among the newly reconfigured Bugs that an all-out assault on the Crags would be suicide of an infinitely less productive form than Deme’s.

“Can’t blame them,” said Koi, his Black Brigade past suddenly glinting in the edge on his voice. “They’ve been waiting long enough for the chance to make someone pay.”

“Daniel hasn’t,” I said pointedly. “He’s barely been alive two decades.”

Koi shrugged. “Rage at injustice is a forest fire—it jumps all divides, even those between generations.”

I stopped wading and looked back at him. You could see how he might be getting carried away. We were both sea-giants out of legend now, knee deep in a virtual ocean amidst the islands and reefs of the Millsport Archipelago at 1:2000 scale. Sierra Tres had called in some haiduci favours and got us time in a high-resolution mapping construct belonging to a firm of marine architects whose commercial management techniques wouldn’t bear too much close legal scrutiny. They weren’t overjoyed about the loan, but that’s what happens when you cosy up with the haiduci.

“Have you ever actually seen a forest fire, Koi?”

Because they sure as hell aren’t common on a world that’s ninety five per cent ocean.

“No.” He gestured. “It was a metaphor. But I have seen what happens when injustice finally triggers retribution. And it lasts for a long time.”

“Yes, I know that.”

I stared away towards the waters of the southern Reach. The construct had reproduced the maelstrom there in miniature, gurgling and grinding and tugging at my legs beneath the surface. If the depth of the water had been to the same scale as the rest of the construct, it probably would have dragged me off my feet.