“Fine. Great. You let me know how that turns out. Jack, Sierra. Let’s leave these idiots to kill themselves and get the fuck out of here.”

We abandoned the two of them in the transfer room. The last I saw of either was the male attendant laying himself on one of the couches, staring straight up while the woman attached the trodes. His face was shiny with sweat, but it was rapt too, locked in a paroxysm of will and emotion.

Out on Whaleback and Ninth, soft afternoon light was painting the blank eyed walls of the monastery warm and orange, and the sounds of traffic hooting in the Reach drifted up with the smell of the sea. A light westerly breeze stirred dust and dried-out spindrizzle spores in the gutters. Up ahead, a couple of children ran across the street, making shooting noises and chasing a miniature robot toy made to resemble a karakuri. There was no one else about, and nothing in the scene to suggest the battle now raging back in the machine heart of the Renouncers’ construct. You could have been forgiven for thinking the whole thing was a dream.

But down at the lower limits of my neurachem hearing as we walked away, I could just make out the cry of ancient sirens, like a warning, feeble and faint, of the stirring forces and the chaos to come.

THIRTY

Harlan’s Day.

More correctly, Harlan’s Eve—technically, the festivities wouldn’t commence until midnight rolled around, and that was a solid four hours away. But even this early in the evening, with the last of the day’s light still high in the western sky, the proceedings had kicked off long since. Over in New Kanagawa and Danchi the downtown areas would already be a lurid parade of holodisplay and masked dance, and the bars would all be serving at state-subsidised birthday prices. Part of running a successful tyranny is knowing when and how to let your subjects off the leash, and at this the

First Families were accomplished masters. Even those who hated them most would have had to admit that you couldn’t fault Harlan and his kind when it came to throwing a street party.

Down by the water in Tadaimako, the mood was more genteel but festive still. Work had ceased in the commercial harbour around lunchtime, and now small groups of dock workers sat on the high sides of real keel freighters, sharing pipes and bottles and looking expectantly at the sky. In the marina, small parties were in progress on most of the yachts, one or two larger ones spilling out from vessels onto the jetties. A confused mish-mash of music splashed out everywhere, and as the evening light thickened you could see where decks and masts had been sprayed with illuminum powder in green and pink. Excess powder glimmered scummily in the water between hulls.