“If? Fucking if?”

“—were mimints as you claim, they would have been vaporised. The two in the tunnel have been found, and seem to corroborate the story you transmitted to us once you were safely removed to the Uncleared. In the meantime, you may also be interested to know that the sweepers you left behind did encounter karakuri nests several hours later and two kilometres further west. In the ensuing suppression, there were twenty-seven deaths. Nine of them real, stack unrecovered.”

“That is a tragedy,” I said evenly. “But we would not have been able to prevent it. Had we returned with our injured and our damaged command systems, we would only have been a burden. Under the circumstances, we looked for ways to return to full operational strength as rapidly as possible instead.”

“Yes. Your report says that.”

He brooded for a few moments. I flickered another look at Lazlo, in case he was about to open his mouth again. Kurumaya’s eyes lifted to meet mine.

“Very well. You are billeted along with Eminescu’s crew for the time being. I will have a software medic examine Oshima, for which you will be billed. Allowing that her condition is stable, there will be a full investigation into the temple incident as soon as the weather clears.”

“What?” Lazlo took a step forward. “You expect us to fucking hang around here while you dig up that mess? No fucking way, man. We’re gone. Back to Tek’to on that rucking ‘loader out there.”

“Las—”

“I do not expect you to stay in Drava, no. I am ordering it. There is a command structure here, whether you like it or not. If you attempt to board the Daikoku Dawn, you will be stopped.” Kurumaya frowned. “I would prefer not to be so direct, but if you force me to, I will have you confined.”

“Confined?” For a couple of seconds, it was as if Lazlo hadn’t heard the word before and was waiting for the command head to explain it to him.

“Fucking confined? We take down five co-ops in the last month, over a dozen autonomous mimints, render safe an entire bunker full of nasty hardware, and this is the fucking thanks we get coming back in?”

Then he yelped and stumbled back, open palm jammed to one eye as if Kurumaya had just poked him in it. The command head got to his feet behind the desk. His voice was sibilant with suddenly uncapped rage.

“No. This is what happens when I can no longer trust the crews I am held responsible for.” He jerked a glance at me. “You. Serendipity. Get him out of here, and convey my instructions to the rest of your companions. I do not expect to have this conversation again. Out, both of you.”

Las was still clutching at his eye. I put a hand on his shoulder to guide him out and he angrily shrugged it away. Muttering, he lifted a trembling finger to point at Kurumaya, then seemed to think better of it and turned on his heel. He made for the door in strides.

I followed him out. At the doorway, I looked back at the command head. It was hard to read anything in the taut face, but I thought I caught a waft of it coming off him nonetheless—rage at disobedience, worse still remorse at the failure to control both situation and self. Disgust at the way things had degenerated, in the command ‘fab right here, right now, and maybe in the market free-for-all of the whole Mecsek Initiative.

Disgust, for all I knew, at the way things were sliding for the entire damned planet.

Old school.

I bought Las a drink in the bar and listened to him curse Kurumaya for a fucking stick-up-the-arse piece of shit, then went to look for the others. I left him in good company—the place was crowded with irritable deComs off the Daikoku Dawn, complaining loudly about the weather and the subsequent lockdown on deployment. Superannuated fastload jazz formed a suitably strident backdrop, mercifully shorn of the DJ dissemination I’d come to associate with it over the past month. Smoke and noise filled the bubblefab to the roof.

I found Jadwiga and Kiyoka sitting in a corner, deep in each other’s eyes and a conversation that looked a little intense to try to join. Jad told me, impatiently, that Orr had stayed with Sylvie in the accommodation ‘fab and that Oishii was around somewhere, at the bar maybe, talking to someone last time she, anyway somewhere over in the direction of her vaguely waving arm. I took the multiple hints and left the two of them to it.

Oishii wasn’t really in the direction Jadwiga had pointed, but he was at the bar and he was talking to a couple of other deComs, only one of whom I recognised as being on his crew. He welcomed me with a grin and a lifted glass. Voice pitched over the noise.

“Get a grilling, did you?”

“Something like that.” I lifted my hand to get attention behind the bar. “I get the impression Sylvie’s Slipins have been pushing the line for a while now. You want a refill?”

Oishii looked judiciously at the level of his drink. “No, I’m okay. Pushing the line, you could say that. Not the most community-minded crew around, for sure. Still, they top the boards a lot of the time. You can live on that for a while, even with a guy like Kurumaya.”

“Nice to have a reputation.”

“Yeah, which reminds me. There’s someone looking for you.”

“Oh?” He was looking into my eyes as he told me. I quelled reaction and raised an eyebrow to go with the elaborately casual interest in my voice.

Ordered a Millsport single malt from the barman and turned back to Oishii. “You get a name?”

“Wasn’t me that spoke to him.” The command head nodded at his non-crew companion. “This is Simi, lead wince for the Interruptors. Simi, that guy was asking around about Sylvie and her new recruit, you get a name?”

Simi squinted sideways for a moment, frowning. Then his face cleared and he snapped his fingers.

“Yeah, got it. Kovacs. Said his name was Kovacs.”

TWELVE

Everything seemed to stop.

It was as if all the noise in the bar had abruptly frozen to arctic sludge in my ears. The smoke stopped moving, the pressure of the people behind me at the bar seemed to recede. It was a shock reaction I hadn’t had from the Eishundo sleeve, even when locked in combat with the mimints. Across the dreamy quiet of the moment, I saw Oishii watching me intently, and I lifted the glass to my lips on autopilot. The single malt went down, burning, and as the warmth hit the pit of my stomach the world started up again just as suddenly as it had stopped. Music, noise, the shifting crush of people around me.

“Kovacs,” I said. “Really?”

“You know him?” asked Simi.

“Heard of him.” There wasn’t much point in going for the deep lie. Not with the way Oishii was watching my face. I sipped at my drink again. “Did he say what he wanted?”

“Nah,” Simi shook his head, clearly not that interested. “He was just asking where you were, if you’d gone out with the Slipins. Was a couple of days back, so I told him, yeah, you were all out in the Uncleared. He—”

“Did he—” I stopped myself. ”Sorry, you were saying?”

“He seemed pretty concerned to talk to you. Persuaded someone, think it was Anton and the Skull Gang, to take him out into the Uncleared for a look. So you know this guy, right? He a problem for you?”

“Of course,” said Oishii quietly. “Might not be the same Kovacs you know. It’s a common enough name.”

“There’s that,” I admitted.

“But you don’t think so?”

I manufactured a shrug. “Seems unlikely. He’s looking for me, I’ve heard of him. Most probable thing is, we’ve got some shared history.”

Oishii’s crew colleague and Simi both nodded dismissive, boozed-up assent. Oishii himself seemed more closely intrigued.

“And what have you heard about him, this Kovacs?”

This time the shrug was easier. “Nothing good.”

“Yeah,” Simi agreed sweepingly. “That’s right. Seemed like a real hardassed psycho motherfucker to me.”