I nodded. Wondered what it might take to break out of that kind of prison. What kind of person—or thing—you might have to be.

Ghosts of things.

“Yeah, it makes sense.” And then, before I could stop myself. “So is that where you come in, Nadia? You something she caught?”

A brief look of horror flitted across the gaunt features.

“Grigori,” she whispered. “There’s something that sounds like Grigori down there.”

“Grigori who?”

“Grigori Ishii.” It was still a whisper. Then the inward-looking horror was gone, wiped away, and she was staring hard at me. “You don’t think I’m real, do you, Micky Serendipity?”

A flicker of unease in the back of my head. The name Grigori Ishii chimed somewhere in the pre-Envoy depths of my memory. I stared back at the woman in the bed.

Go easy on her.

Fuck that.

I stood up. “I don’t know what you are. But I’ll tell you this for nothing, you’re not Nadia Makita. Nadia Makita is dead.”

“Yes,” she said thinly. “I’d rather gathered that. But evidently she was backed up and stored before she died, because here I am.”

I shook my head.

“No, you’re not. You’re not here at all in any guaranteed sense. Nadia Makita is gone, vaporised. And there’s no evidence that a copy was made. No technical explanation for how a copy could have got into Sylvie Oshima’s command software, even if it did exist. In fact, no evidence that you’re anything other than a faked personality casing.”

“I think that’s enough, Tak.” Brasil stepped suddenly into the cabin. His face wasn’t friendly. “We can leave it here.”

I swung on him, skinning teeth in a tight grin. “That’s your considered medical opinion is it, Jack? Or just a Quellist revolutionary tenet? Truth in small and controlled doses. Nothing the patient won’t be able to handle.”

“No, Tak,” he said quietly. “It’s a warning. Time for you to come out of the water.”

My hands flexed gently.

“Don’t try me, Jack.”

“You’re not the only one with neurachem, Tak.”

The moment hung, then pivoted and died as the ridiculous dynamics of it caught up with me. Sierra Tres was right. It wasn’t this fractured woman’s fault Isa was dead, and nor was it Brasil’s. And besides, any damage I’d wanted to do to the ghost of Nadia Makita was now done. I nodded and dropped the combat tension like a coat. I brushed past Brasil and reached the door behind him. Turned briefly back to the woman in the bunk.