“Smell that?” Jimmy asks, lifting his man face to the chilly air around us. “They’re changing it.”

“What?” But even as I snap the retort, I can smell it as well. A fresh, invigorating scent, not unlike the incense back at the Hendrix, but subtly different, not quite the heady decadence of the original odour I fell asleep to only …

“Got to go,” says Jimmy, and I’m about to ask him where when I realise he means me and I’m

Awake.

My eyes snapped open on one of the psychedelic murals of the hotel room. Slim, waif-like figures in kaftans dotted across a field of green grass and yellow and white flowers. I frowned and clutched at the hardened scar tissue on my forearm. No blood. With the realisation, I carne fully awake and sat up in the big crimson bed. The shift in the smell of incense that had originally nudged me towards consciousness was fully resolved into that of coffee and fresh bread. The Hendrix’s olfactory wake-up call. Light was pouring into the dimmed room through a flaw in the polarised glass of the window.

“You have a visitor,” said the voice of the Hendrix briskly.

“What time is it?” I croaked. The back of my throat seemed to have been liberally painted with supercooled glue.

“Ten-sixteen, locally. You have slept for seven hours and forty-two minutes.”

“And my visitor?”

“Oumou Prescott,” said the hotel. “Do you require breakfast?”

I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. “Yes. Coffee with milk, white meat, well-cooked, and fruit juice of some kind. You can send Prescott up.”

By the time the door chimed at me, I was out of the shower and padding around in an iridescent blue bathrobe trimmed with gold braid. I collected my breakfast from the service hatch and balanced the tray on one hand while I opened the door.

Oumou Prescott was a tall, impressive-looking African woman, topping my sleeve by a couple of centimetres, her hair braided back with dozens of oval glass beads in seven or eight of my favourite colours and her cheekbones lined with some sort of abstract tattooing. She stood on the threshold in a pale grey suit and a long black coat turned up at the collar, and looked at me doubtfully.

“Mr. Kovacs.”

“Yes, come in. Would you like some breakfast?” I laid the tray on the unmade bed.

“No, thank you. Mr. Kovacs, I am Laurens Bancroft’s principal legal representative via the firm of Prescott, Forbes and Hernandez. Mr. Bancroft informed me—”

“Yes, I know.” I picked up a piece of grilled chicken from the tray.

“The point is, Mr. Kovacs, we have an appointment with Dennis Nyman at PsychaSec in…” Her eyes flicked briefly upward to consult a retinal watch. ”Thirty minutes.”

“I see,” I said, chewing slowly. “I didn’t know that.”

“I’ve been calling since eight this morning, but the hotel refused to put me through. I didn’t realise you would sleep so late.”

I grinned at her through a mouthful of chicken. “Faulty research, then. I was only sleeved yesterday.”

She stiffened a little at that, but then a professional calm asserted itself. She crossed the room and took a seat on the window shelf.

“We’ll be late, then,” she said. “I guess you need breakfast.”

It was cold in the middle of the Bay.

I climbed out of the autocab into watery sunshine and a buffeting wind. It had rained during the night, and there were still a few piles of grey cumulus skulking around inland, sullenly resisting the attempts of a stiff sea breeze to sweep them away. I turned up the collar of my summer suit and made a mental note to buy a coat. Nothing serious, something coming to mid thigh with a collar and pockets big enough to stuff your hands in.

Beside me, Prescott was looking unbearably snug inside her coat. She paid off the cab with a swipe of her thumb and we both stood back as it rose. A welcome rush of warm air from the lift turbines washed over my hands and face. I blinked my eyes against the small storm of grit and dust and saw how Prescott raised one slender arm to do the same. Then the cab was gone, droning away to join the beehive activity in the sky above the mainland. Prescott turned to the building behind us and gestured with one laconic thumb.

“This way.”

I pushed my hands into the inadequate pockets of my suit and followed her lead. Bent slightly into the wind, we picked our way up the long, winding steps to PsychaSec Alcatraz.

I’d expected a high-security installation, and I wasn’t disappointed. PsychaSec was laid out in a series of long, low double-storey modules with deeply recessed windows reminiscent of a military command bunker. The only break in this pattern was a single dome at the western end which I guessed had to house the satellite uplink gear. The whole complex was a pale granite grey and the windows a smoky reflectant orange. There was no holodisplay, or broadcast publicity, in fact nothing to announce we’d got the right place except a sober plaque laser-engraved into the sloping stone wall of the entrance block:

Above the plaque was a small black sentry eye flanked by heavily grilled speakers. Oumou Prescott raised her arm and waved at it.

“Welcome to PsychaSec Alcatraz,” said a construct voice briskly. “Please identify yourself within the fifteen-second security time limit.”

“Oumou Prescott and Takeshi Kovacs to see Director Nyman. We have an appointment.”

A thin, green scanning laser flickered over us both from head to foot and then a section of the wall hinged smoothly back and down forming a passage inside. Glad to get out of the wind, I stepped nimbly into the niche and followed orange runway lights down a short corridor into a reception area, leaving Prescott to bring up the rear. As soon as we stepped off the walkway and into reception, the massive door slab rumbled upright and closed again. Solid security.

Reception was a circular, warmly lit area with banks of seats and low tables set at the cardinal compass points. There were small groups of people seated north and east, conversing in low tones. In the centre was a circular desk where a receptionist sat behind a battery of secretarial equipment. No artificial constructs here; this was a real human being, a slim young man barely out of his teens who looked up with intelligent eyes as we approached.

“You can go right through, Ms. Prescott. The Director’s office is up the stairs and third door on your right.”

“Thank you.” Prescott took the lead again, turning back briefly to mutter as soon as we were out of earshot of the receptionist, “Nyman’s a bit impressed with himself since this place was built, but he’s basically a good person. Try not to let him irritate you.”

“Sure.”

We followed the receptionist’s instructions until, outside the aforementioned door I had to stop and suppress a snigger. Nyman’s door, no doubt in the best possible Earth taste, was pure mirrorwood from top to bottom. After the high-profile security system and flesh and blood reception, it seemed about as subtle as the vaginal spittoons at Madame Mi’s Wharfwhore Warehouse. My amusement must have been evident because Prescott gave me a frown as she knocked on the door.

“Come.”

Sleep had done wonders for the interface between my mind and my new sleeve. Composing my rented features, I followed Prescott into the room.

Nyman was at his desk, ostensibly working at a grey and green coloured holodisplay. He was a thin, serious-looking man who affected steel-rimmed external eyelenses to go with his expensively cut black suit and short, tidy hair. His expression, behind the lenses, was slightly resentful. He’d not been happy when Prescott phoned him from the cab to say we would be delayed, but Bancroft had obviously been in touch with him because he accepted the later appointment time with the stiff acquiescence of a disciplined child.