“Four years, near enough. That’s me and Mallory. We came in before the others. We bagged Vlad a couple of years ago, been watching him for a while. Then Mallory brought the others in as new recruits.”

“Must have been awkward. Stepping into Vlad’s shoes like that.”

“Not really.” Murakami sat back on his heels in the gentle rain. He seemed to have all the time in the world to talk. “They’re not overly perceptive, these meth-head guys, and they don’t really forge meaningful relationships. There were only a couple of them really close enough to Vlad to be a problem when Mallory stepped in, and I took them out ahead of time. Sniperscope and plasmafrag.” He mimed the act of tracking and shooting. “Bye bye head, bye bye stack. We tumbled Vlad the week after.

Mallory’d been sitting on him for the best part of two years, playing pirate groupie, sucking his dick, sharing pipes and bottles with him. Then, one deep dark night in Sourcetown, bop!” Murakami slapped fist into palm.

“That portable Tseng stuff is beautiful. You can do a de- and re-sleeve in a hotel bathroom.”

Sourcetown.

“You’ve been watching Brasil all this time?”

“Among others.” Another shrug. “The whole Strip, really. It’s the only place on the World there’s any serious insurgency spirit left. Up north, even in most of Newpest, it’s just crime, and you know how conservative criminals are.”

“Hence Tanaseda.”

“Hence Tanaseda. We like the yakuza, they just want to snuggle up to the powers that be. And the haiduci, well, despite their much-vaunted populist roots, they’re really just a cut-rate no-table-manners version of the same disease. By the way, did you get your pal Segesvar? Forgot to ask before I dented you out there.”

“Yeah, I did. Swamp panther ate him.”

Murakami chuckled. “Outstanding. Why the hell did you ever quit, Tak?”

I closed my eyes. The stunblast hangover seemed to be getting worse.

“What about you? Did you solve my double-sleeving problem for me?”

“Ah—no, not yet.”

I opened my eyes again, surprised.

“He’s still walking around somewhere?”

Murakami made an embarrassed gesture. “Apparently. Looks like you were hard to kill, even at that age. We’ll get him, though.”

“Will you,” I said sombrely.

“Yeah, we will. With Aiura down, he’s got no handler, nowhere to run. And sure as fucking lightspeed no one else in the First Families is going to want to pick up where she left off. Not if they want the Protectorate to stay home and let them keep their oligarch toys.”

“Or,” I said casually, “you could just kill me now you’ve got me, then let him come in and cut a deal.”

Murakami frowned. “That’s not funny, Tak.”

“Wasn’t meant to be. He’s still calling himself an Envoy, you know. He’d probably jump at the chance to get back in the Corps if you offered.”