I wish you all luck.

If you couldn’t even meet the same person twice in one lifetime, in one sleeve, what did that say about all the families and friends waiting in Download Central for someone they once knew to peer out through the eyes of a stranger. How could that even be close to the same person?

And where did that leave a woman consumed with passion for a stranger wearing a body she once loved. Was that closer, or further away?

Where, for that matter, did it leave the stranger who responded?

I heard her coming along the rail towards me. She stopped a couple of paces away and cleared her throat quietly. I quelled a smile, and turned round.

“I didn’t tell you how Ryker came to have all this, did I?”

“It didn’t seem the time to ask.”

“No.” A grin that faded as if swept away by the breeze. “He stole it. A few years back, while he was still working Sleeve Theft. Belonged to some big-time clone marketeer from Sydney. Ryker caught the case because this guy was moving broken-down merchandise through the West Coast clinics. He got co-opted into a local taskforce and they tried to take the guy down at his marina. Big firefight, lots of dead people.”

“And lots of spoils.”

She nodded. “They do things differently down there. Most of the police work gets picked up by private contractors. The local government handle it by tying payment to the assets of the criminals you bring down.”

“Interesting incentive,” I said reflectively. “Ought to make for a lot of rich people getting busted.”

“Yeah, they say it works that way. The yacht was Ryker’s piece. He did a lot of the groundwork on the case, and he was wounded in the firefight.” Her voice was curiously undefensive as she related these details, and for once I felt that Ryker was a long way away. “That’s where he got the scar under the eye, that stuff on his arm. Cable gun.”

“Nasty.” Despite myself, I felt a slight twinge in the scarred arm. I’d been up against cable fire before, and not enjoyed the encounter very much.

“Right. Most people reckoned Ryker earned every rivet of this boat. The point is, policy here in Bay City is that officers may not keep gifts, bonuses or anything else awarded for line-of-duty actions.”

“I can see the rationale for that.”

“Yeah, so can I. But Ryker couldn’t. He paid some cut-rate Dipper to lose the ship’s records and reregister her through discreet holding. Claimed he needed a safe house, if he ever had to stash someone.”

I grinned a little. “Thin. But I like his style. Would that be the same Dipper who ratted him out in Seattle?”

“Good memory you’ve got. Yeah, the very same. Nacho the Needle. Bautista tells a well-balanced story, doesn’t he?”

“Saw that too, huh?”

“Yeah. Ordinarily, I’d have ripped Bautista’s fucking head off for that paternal uncle shit. Like I need emotional sheltering, he’s been through two fucking divorces and he’s not even forty yet.” She stared reflectively out to sea. “I haven’t had the time to confront him yet. Too busy being fucked off with you. Look, Kovacs, reason I’m telling you all this is, Ryker stole the boat, he broke West Coast law. I knew.”

“And you didn’t do anything,” I guessed.

“Nothing.” She looked at her hands, palms upturned. “Oh, shit, Kovacs, who are we kidding? I’m no angel myself. I kicked the shit out of Kadmin in police custody. You saw me. I should have busted you for that fight outside Jerry’s and I let you walk.”

“You were too tired for the paperwork, as I recall.”

“Yeah, I remember.” She grimaced, then turned to look me in the eyes, searching Ryker’s face for a sign that she could trust me. “You say you’re going to break the law, but no one gets hurt. That’s right?”

“No one who matters,” I corrected gently.

She nodded slowly to herself, like someone weighing up a convincing argument that may just change their mind for good.

“So what do you need?”

I levered myself off the rail. “A list of whorehouses in the Bay City area, to start with. Places that run virtual stuff. After that, we’d better get back to town. I don’t want to call Kawahara from out here.”

She blinked. “Virtual whorehouses?”

“Yeah. And the mixed ones as well. In fact, make it every place on the West Coast that runs virtual porn. The lower grade the better. I’m going to sell Bancroft a package so filthy he won’t want to look at it close enough to check for cracks. So bad he won’t even want to think about it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Ortega’s list was over two thousand names long, each annotated with a brief surveillance report and any Organic-Damage convictions tied to the operators or clientele. In hardcopy format it ran to about two hundred concertina’d sheets, which started to unravel like a long paper scarf as soon as I got past page one. I tried to scan the list in the cab back to Bay City, but gave up when it threatened to overwhelm us both on the back seat. I wasn’t in the mood anyway. Most of me wished I was still bedded down in the stern cabin of Ryker’s yacht, isolated from the rest of humanity and its problems by hundreds of kilometres of trackless blue.

Back at the Watchtower suite, I put Ortega in the kitchen while I called Kawahara at the number Trepp had given me. It was Trepp that came on screen first, features smeared with sleep. I wondered if she’d been up all night trying to track me.

“Morning.” She yawned and presumably checked an internal timechip. “Afternoon, I mean. Where’ve you been?”

“Out and about.”

Trepp rubbed inelegantly at one eye and yawned again. “Suit yourself. Just making conversation. How’s your head?”

“Better, thanks. I want to talk to Kawahara.”

“Sure.” She reached towards the screen. “Talk to you later.”

The screen dropped into neutral, an unwinding tricoloured helix accompanied by sickly sweet string arrangements. I gritted my teeth.

“Takeshi-san.” As always, Kawahara started in Japanese, as if it established some kind of common ground with me. “This is unlooked-for so early. Do you have good news for me?”

I stayed doggedly in Amanglic. “Is this a secure line?”

“As close as such a thing can be said to exist, yes.”

“I have a shopping list.”

“Go ahead.”

“To begin with, I need access to a military virus. Rawling 4851 for preference, or one of the Condomar variants.”

Kawahara’s intelligent features hardened abruptly. “The Innenin virus?”

“Yeah. It’s over a century out of date now, shouldn’t be too hard to get hold of. Then I need—”

“Kovacs, I think you’d better explain what you’re planning.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I understood this was my play, and you didn’t want to be involved.”

“If I secure you a copy of the Rawling virus, I’d say I’m already involved.” Kawahara offered me a measured smile. “Now what are you planning to do with it?”

“Bancroft killed himself, that’s the result you want, right?”

A slow nod.

“Then there has to be a reason,” I said, warming to the deceit structure I’d come up with, despite myself. I was doing what they’d trained me to do, and it felt good. “Bancroft has remote storage, it doesn’t make sense that he’d light himself up unless he had a very specific reason. A reason unrelated to the actual act of suicide. A reason like self preservation.”

Kawahara’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

“Bancroft uses whorehouses on a regular basis, real and virtual. He told me that himself a couple of days ago. And he’s not too particular about the quality of establishment he uses either. Now, let’s assume that there’s an accident in one of these virtuals while he’s getting his itch scratched. Accidental bleedover from some grimed-up old programs that no one’s bothered to even open for a few decades. Go to a low enough grade of house, there’s no telling what might be lying around.”