“You like this stuff, huh?” Kiyoka asked me through a mouthful of rice.

“Stuff like it. I don’t recognise—”

“Dizzy Csango and Great Laughing Mushroom,” said Orr unexpectedly. “Down the Ecliptic. But it’s a cover of a Blackman Taku float, originally. Taku never would have let the violin in the front door.”

I shot the giant a strange look.

“Don’t listen to him.” Sylvie told me, scratching idly under her hair.

“You go back to early Taku and Ide stuff, they’ve got that gypsy twang scribbled all over the place. They only phased it out for the Millsport sessions.”

“That isn’t—”

“Hey, Sylvie!” A youngish-looking command head with hair static stacked straight up paused at the table. There was a tray of coffees balanced on his left hand and a thick coil of livecable slung over his right shoulder, twitching restlessly. “You guys back already?”

Sylvie grinned. “Hey Oishii. Miss me?”

Oishii made a mock-bow. The tray on his splayed fingers never shifted.

“As ever. More than can be said for Kurumaya-san. You plan on seeing him today?”

“You don’t?”

“Nah, we’re not going out. Kasha caught some counterint splash last night, it’ll be a couple of days before she’s up and about. We’re kicking back.” Oishii shrugged. “It’s paid for. Contingency funding.”

“Fucking contingency fund?” Orr sat up. “What happened here yesterday?”

“You guys don’t know?” Oishii looked around the table, eyes wide. “About last night. You didn’t hear?”

“No,” said Sylvie patiently. “Which is why we’re asking you.”

“Oh, okay. I thought everyone would know by now. We’ve got a coop cluster on the prowl. Inside the Cleared Zone. Last night it started putting together artillery. Self-propelled gun, a big one. Scorpion chassis. Kurumaya had to scramble everybody before we got shelled.”

“Is there anything left?” asked Orr.

“They don’t know. We took down the primary assemblers along with the gun, but a lot of the smaller stuff scattered. Drones, secondaries, shit like that. Someone said they saw karakuri.”

“Oh crabshit,” Kiyoka snorted.

Oishii shrugged again. “Just what I heard.”

“Mech puppets? No fucking way.” Kiyoka was warming to her theme.

“There haven’t been any karakuri in the CZ for better than a year.”

“Haven’t been any co-op machines either,” pointed out Sylvie. “Shit happens. Oishii, you think there’s any chance we’ll get assigned today?”

“You guys?” Oishii’s grin reappeared. “No way, Sylvie. Not after last time.”

Sylvie nodded glumly. “That’s what I thought.”

The jazz track faded out on a lifting note. A voice surged into place behind it, throaty, female, insistent. There was an archaic lilt to the words it used.