Chapters (56)
- PROLOGUE
- PART 1
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- PART 2
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART 3
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- PART 4
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- PART 5
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- EPILOGUE
“Been there, man.”
Jeering from the top of the ramp. I heard the shouted word abomination, then the sound of electrical discharge. Probably power knuckles.
“Think they’ve reeled in more than they can stow up there,” said the steward, peering past us. “Should have come heavy, they’re going to mouth off like that to a dock full of deCom. Okay, that’s us. You can go through.”
We made it through the hatch without further stumbling from anybody, and went down metal-echoing corridors in search of the cabins. At my back, Jad’s corpse kept mechanical pace. The rest of the team acted like nothing had happened.
“So what the fuck was that?”
I finally got round to asking the question about half an hour later.
Sylvie’s crew stood around in her cabin, looking uncomfortable. Orr had to stoop below the reinforcing joists of the ceiling. Kiyoka stared out of the tiny one-way porthole, finding something of great interest in the water outside. Jadwiga lay face down on a bunk. Still no sign of Lazlo.
“It was a glitch,” said Sylvie.
“A glitch.” I nodded. “Does this kind of glitch happen often?”
“No. Not often.”
“But it has happened before.”
Orr ducked under a joist to loom over me. “Why don’t you give it a rest, Micky. No one forced you to come along. You don’t like the terms, you can just fuck off, can’t you.”
“I’m just curious to know what we do if Sylvie drops out of the loop and starts spouting Quellisms in the middle of a mimint encounter, that’s all.”
“Let us worry about the mimints,” said Kiyoka tonelessly.
“Yeah, Micky.” Orr sneered. “It’s what we do for a living. You just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
“All I want to—”
“You shut the fuck up if you—”
“Look.” She said it very quietly, but Orr and Kiyoka both hooked round towards the sound of her voice. “Why don’t you two leave me and Micky alone to talk about this?”
“Ah, Sylvie, he’s just—”
“He’s got a right to know, Orr. Now you want to give us some space?”
She watched them out, waited for the cabin door to fold, then went past me back to her seat.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Look.” It took me a moment to realise she meant it literally this time.
She reached into the mass of her hair and lifted the centre cord. “You know how this works. There’s more processing capacity in this than in most city databases. Has to be.”