“Anyway, we got no way to find these fuckers. Millsport accents and hard faces are plankton standard around here. At a minimum, we’d need to case the beachhead datastack and,” she indicated Sylvie’s foetal form, “we’re in no position to do that.”

“Even with Sylvie online, we’d be pushed,” said Lazlo gloomily. “Way Kurumaya feels about us right now, he’ll jump if we clean our teeth at the wrong voltage. I suppose that thing’s intrusion-proofed.”

He nodded at the personal space resonance scrambler perched on the chair. Kiyoka nodded back, slightly wearily I thought.

“State of the art, Las. Really. Picked it up in Reiko’s Straight-to-Street before we shipped out. Micky, the point is, we’re under virtual lockdown here. You say this Kovacs is coming for us, what do you suggest we do?”

Here we go.

“I suggest I get out of here tonight on the Daikoku Dawn, and I suggest I take Sylvie with me.”

Quiet rocked the room. I tracked glances, gauged emotion, estimated where this was going.

Orr rolled his head on his neck, like a freak fighter warming up.

“You,” he said deliberately, “can go fuck yourself.”

“Orr—” said Kiyoka.

“No fucking way, Ki. No fucking way does he take her anywhere. Not on my watch.”

Jadwiga looked at me narrowly. “What about the rest of us, Micky? What are we supposed to do when Kovacs turns up looking for blood?”

“Hide.” I told her. “Pull some favours, get yourselves out of sight either somewhere in the beachhead or out in the Uncleared with someone else’s crew if you can persuade them. Shit, you could even get Kurumaya to arrest you, if you trust him to keep you locked up safe.”

“Hey, fuckhead, we can do all of that without handing Sylvie over to y—”

“Can you, Orr?” I locked gazes with the giant. “Can you? Can you wade back out into the Uncleared with Sylvie the way she is now? Who’s going to carry her out there? What crew? What crew can afford the dead weight?”

“He’s right, Orr.” Lazlo shrugged. “Even Oishii isn’t going to go back out there with that on his back.”

Orr looked around him, eyes flickering cornered.

“We can hide her here, in the—”

“Orr, you’re not listening to me. Kovacs will tear this place apart to get to us. I know him.”

“Kurumaya—”