She ignored the crude reference. “Lead on.”

The bodyguard clumped their way noisily up the carbon-concrete stairs and out onto Kingston High Street. The first four out of the station’s automatic door levelled their TIP carbines along the road, which startled the few late-night pedestrians heading home from the district’s grotty clubs. They swept their muzzles round in what they thought was a professional scanning manoeuvre.

“Clear!” the leader barked.

Banneth rolled her eyes as the rest of the bodyguard hurried out around her. Cars had been halted in the street to let them cross. They hurried into the ground floor mall of the Parsonage Heights tower opposite the station. Three more sect members were waiting inside, standing guard beside an open lift. The magus and eight bodyguards crowded in around Banneth. They rode it to the top floor, where it opened out directly into the penthouse vestibule. More sect members were inside, toting their weapons and finishing off the new security sensor array.

“No fucker’s going to sneak up on you while you’re here,” the magus said confidently. “We’ve got every approach covered. There’ll be guards outside, and in all the stairwells. Nobody gets in or out without a secure access code, which you have command authority over.”

Banneth walked into the penthouse, which occupied the whole fortieth floor. The absent owner had chosen its decor straight out of a thirty-year-old catalogue file specialising in unashamed chintz: green leather furniture, Turkish rugs over polished marble tiles, glowing primary-colour sketches hanging on the walls, and a red marble fireplace complete with holographic flames. A glass wall had swing-up slab doors which led out to a roof garden with a swimming pool and hot tub; the sun loungers were sculpted blue plastic frogs.

“The fridge is full,” the magus said. “If you take a fancy to anything, just let us know and we’ll have it sent up. I can get anything you need. My grip on this town is total.”

“I’m sure,” Banneth said. “You, you, and you,” her finger singled out two attractive girls and a teenage boy. “Stay. The rest of you, fuck off. Now.”

The magus blushed heavily. Treating him like a piece of street shit in front of his acolytes would be a serious blow to his authority. She stared right at him, a silent direct challenge.

He snapped his fingers, gesturing everyone out, then stomped through the big blackwood doors without looking back.

“Dump the guns,” Banneth told the three remaining acolytes. “You won’t be needing them in here.”

After a moment’s hesitation they left them beside the kitchen bar. Banneth walked out into the small paved garden. Night fuchsias spilled their sweetness into the air. It had a balcony of high, one-way glass, allowing her to look over the glimmering crater of lights which defined the city. Nobody could see in. A reasonable protection against snipers, she acknowledged.

Did I cause a big enough splash?she asked western europe.

Oh yes. The dear magus is currently screaming at London’s High Magus about how big a shit you are. All the covens will be talking about your arrival by this evening.

Evening.she shook her head irritably. I hate train lag.

Not relevant. I’ll have the little traffic-stopping scene downstairs logged on the police intelligence bulletin as well. The patrol constables will ask their informants for further information about the coven’s new activities. We’ll have the whole arcology covered. Dexter will find you.

“Shit,” Banneth mumbled. She beckoned the nervous acolytes out onto the roof garden. “One, find me a decent glass of Crown whisky; then take your clothes off. I want to watch you swimming.”

“Um, High Magus,” one of the girls said anxiously. “I can’t swim.”

“Then you’d better learn fast. Hadn’t you?”

Banneth ignored their whispering behind her, and looked upwards. Long strips of faintly luminescent cloud curved round the dome, breaking into agitated foam as they hit the surface flow boundary. Patches of night sky were visible through the choppy fringes. Stars and spacecraft shone bright against the blackness. There was the hint of a hazy ark above the northern horizon.

This penthouse is difficult to reach from the ground, but wide open to the sky,she observed. That means an SD strike.

Correct. I have no intention of using a nuke inside the dome. But an X-ray laser can penetrate the crystal with minimal damage. If he can survive that, then frankly there is no hope for us.

There certainly isn’t for me.

You created him.

B7 created me.

We permitted you, there’s a difference. You were convenient for us. Under our patronage you fulfilled most of your ambitions. Without us, you would now either be dead or an Ivet.

If I can take him out . . .

No. I don’t want you fighting back. He must not be made to turn invisible again. I only have one chance at this. It’s quite poetic really: the whole world’s future depending on an individual.

Poetic. Fuck, what the hell are you people?

I believe our original agreement was that B7’s patronage would be provided on a no-questions-asked basis. Despite your predicament, you still don’t qualify to ask that question, and I have no intention of indulging you. When you are dead, then you can observe me from the beyond.

Some people make it past the beyond. That’s what the Edenists claim.

Then I wish you bon voyage.

Banneth glanced out over the preserved city again. The first pale grey photons of dawn were slipping up from the eastern horizon to lap against the bottom of the giant crystal dome. She wondered how many more dawns she was going to see.

Truthful estimate, knowing the way she’d put Dexter together, no more than a week.

The acolytes were splashing about in the pool now, including the non-swimming girl clinging resolutely to the shallow end. Banneth didn’t care, the whole point was just to see their great young bodies glistening wet. Indulging herself with them was definitely one-up on the customary last meal. However, there were files stored in her neural nanonics which had to be edited and prepared. Her lifetime’s work. She could hardly allow it to go to waste, though finding an institution that would accept it might prove difficult. It wasn’t just that she wanted it preserved, she wanted it studied, utilized. An important body of knowledge: human behaviour under the kind of extreme conditions that would forever remain closed to academic medical circles. It was unique, which made it all the more valuable. Perhaps some day it might become a classic reference for psychology students.

She went back into the lounge and settled into one of the dreadful green leather couches, ready to start indexing the files. It would be amusing to see how long the acolytes stayed in the water.

The Lancini had been built at the start of the Twenty-first Century, a huge department store intended to rival London’s best: set on Millbank overlooking the Thames, it had a très chic view which along with its retro-thirties decor was calculated to bring in the affluent and curious alike. As with all outsize endeavours, its decline was never going to be swift. It had limped along for decades with falling customer numbers and negative profits. The image it attempted to foster right from the start was dignity without snobbishness. According to the market survey programs worshiped by its executives, such a policy would attract older shoppers, with their correspondingly larger credit funds. Floor managers, left with no margin for innovation, kept ordering established, unhip, brands to serve their loyal, ageing shoppers. Every year, fewer of them returned.

The execs really should have known that; if they’d just cross-linked their market surveys with the store’s own funeral service department, they would have seen just how far their customer loyalty extended. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite extend to after-burial purchasing. So 2589 saw the very last traditional January sale ending with an undignified auction to dispose of the store’s fittings. Now only the shell of the building remained.