Aiura muttered something to my younger self. Then she took a phone from her jacket and glanced up at me.

“You’ll forgive me,” she said politely, “if I don’t take this on trust.”

I nodded. “Please confirm anything you need to. But please hurry.”

It didn’t take long for the security exec to get the answers she needed.

She’d barely spoken two words into the phone when a torrent of panicked gibbering washed back out at her. Even without neurachem, I could hear the voice at the other end. Her face hardened. She snapped a handful of orders in Japanese, cut off the speaker, then killed the line and replaced the phone in her jacket.

“How do you plan to leave?” she asked me.

“Oh, we’ll need a helicopter. I understand you maintain a half dozen or so here. Nothing fancy, a single pilot. If he behaves, we’ll send him back to you unharmed.”

“Yeah, if you’re not shot out of the sky by a twitchy orbital,” drawled Kovacs. “Not a good time to be flying, tonight.”

I stared back at him with dislike. “I’ll take the risk. It won’t be the most stupid thing I’ve ever done.”

“And Mitzi Harlan?” The Harlan security exec was watching me like a predator now. “What assurances do I have of her safety?”

Brasil stirred at my side, for the first time since the confrontation began.

“We are not murderers.”

“No?” Aiura switched her gaze across to him like an audio-response sentry gun. “Then this must be some new breed of Quellism I was unaware of.”

For the first time, I thought I detected a crack in Brasil’s voice. “Fuck you, enforcer. With the blood of generations on your hands, you want to point a moral finger at us? The First Families have—”

“I think we’ll have this discussion some other time,” I said loudly. “Aiura-san, your thirty minutes are burning up. Slaughtering Mitzi Harlan can only make the Quellists unpopular, and I think you know they’ll avoid that if they can. If that’s insufficient, I give you a personal undertaking. Comply with our demands, I will see Harlan’s granddaughter returned unharmed.”

Aiura glanced sideways at the other me. He shrugged. Maybe he nodded fractionally. Or maybe it was just the thought of facing Konrad Harlan with Mitzi’s bloodied corpse.

I saw the decision take root in her.

“Very well,” she said briskly. “You will be held to your promise, Kovacs-san. I don’t need to tell you what that means. When the reckoning comes, your conduct in this matter may be all that saves you from the full wrath of the Harlan family.”