“That’s not—”

“Of course I’ve changed, Jack. What kind of emotional cripple would I be if I hadn’t?”

Brasil came down a step towards him, abruptly. “Oh, you think this is better?”

He slung an arm at the filigree poppies. Their latticed roots seemed to quiver with the violence of the gesture.

“You crawl off into this fucking dream world, grow flowers instead of living, and you’re going to accuse me of being emotionally crippled. Get fucked, Nik. You’re the cripple, not me.”

“What are you achieving out there, Jack? What are you doing that’s worth so much more than this?”

“I was standing on a ten-metre wall four days ago.” Brasil made an effort to calm himself. His shout sank to a mutter. “That’s worth all of this virtual shit twice over.”

“Is it?” Natsume shrugged. “If you die under one of those waves out at Vchira, you got it written down somewhere that you don’t want to come back?”

“That isn’t the point, Nik. I’ll come back, but I’ll still have died. It’ll cost me the new sleeve, and I’ll have been through the gate. Out there in the real world you hate so much—”

“I don’t hate—”

“Out there, actions have consequences. If I break something, I’ll know about it because it’ll fucking hurt.”

“Yes, until your sleeve’s enhanced endorphin system kicks in, or until you take something for the pain. I don’t see your point.”

“My point?” Brasil gestured at the poppies again, helplessly. “None of this is fucking real, Nik.”

I caught a flicker of movement at the corner of my eye. Turned and spotted a pair of monks, drawn by the raised voices and hovering at the arched entrance to the quadrangle. One of them, quite literally hovering.

His feet were a clear thirty centimetres off the uneven paving.

“Norikae-san?” asked the other.

I shifted stance minutely, wondering idly if they were real inhabitants of the monastery or not, and if not what operating parameters they might have in circumstances like these. If the Renouncers ran internal security systems, our chances in a fight were zero. You don’t wander into someone else’s virtuality and brawl successfully unless they want you to.

“It’s nothing, Katana-san.” Natsume made a hurried and complicated motion with both hands. “A difference of perspective between friends.”

“My apologies, then, for the intrusion.” Katana bowed over fists gathered one into the other and the two newcomers withdrew into the arched tunnel. I didn’t see whether they walked away in real time or not.

“Perhaps,” began Natsume quietly, then stopped.

“I’m sorry, Nik.”

“No, you are right of course. None of this is real in the way we both used to understand it. But in here, I am more real than I ever was before. I define how I exist, and there is no harder challenge than that, believe me.”

Brasil said something inaudible. Natsume resumed his seat on the wooden steps. He looked back at Brasil, and after a moment the surfer seated himself a couple of steps higher up. Natsume nodded and stared at his garden.

“There is a beach to the east,” he said absently. “Mountains to the south. If I wish, they can be made to meet. I can climb any time I wish, swim any time I wish. Even surf, though I haven’t so far.

“And in all of these things, I have choices to make. Choices of consequence. Bottlebacks in the ocean or not? Coral to scrape myself on and bleed, or not? Blood to bleed with, come to that? These are all matters requiring prior meditation. Full-effect gravity in the mountains? If I fall, will I allow it to kill me? And what will I allow that to mean?” He looked at his hands as if they too were a choice of some sort. “If I break or tear something, will I allow it to hurt? If so, for how long? How long will I wait to heal? Will I allow myself to remember the pain properly afterwards? And then, from these questions, the secondary—some would say the primary—issues raise their heads from the swamp. Why am I really doing this? Do I want the pain? Why would that be? Do I want to fall? Why would that be? Does it matter to me to reach the top or simply to suffer on the way up? Who am I doing these things for? Who was I ever doing them for? Myself? My father? Lara, perhaps?”

He smiled out at the filigree poppies. “What do you think, Jack? Is it because of Lara?”

“That wasn’t your fault, Nik.”

The smile went away. “In here, I study the only thing that scares me any more. Myself. And in that process, I harm no one else.”

“And help no one else,” I pointed out.

“Yes. Axiomatic.” He looked round at me. ”Are you a revolutionary too, then? One of the neoQuellist faithful?”

“Not as such.”

“But you have little sympathy with Renouncing?”

I shrugged. “It’s harmless. As you say. And no one has to play who doesn’t want to. But you kind of assume the rest of us are going to provide the powered infrastructure for your way of life. Seems to me that’s a basic failure in Renouncing, all on its own.”

I got the smile back for that. “Yes, that is something of a test of faith for many of us. Of course, ultimately we believe all of humanity will follow us into virtual. We are merely preparing the way. Learning the path, you might say.”

“Yeah,” snapped Brasil. “And meanwhile, outside the world falls apart on the rest of us.”

“It was always falling apart, Jack. Do you really think what I used to do out there, the little thefts and defiances, do you really think all that made any difference?”

“We’re taking a team into Rila,” said Brasil abruptly, decided. “That’s the difference we’re going to make, Nik. Right there.”

I cleared my throat. “With your help.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, we need the route, Nik.” Brasil got up and wandered off into a corner of the quadrangle, raising his voice as if, now the secret was out, he wanted even the volume of conversation to reflect his decision. “You feel like giving it to us? Say, for old times’ sake?”

Natsume got up and regarded me quizzically.

“Have you climbed a sea cliff before?”

“Not really. But the sleeve I’m wearing knows how to do it.”

For a moment he held my eye. It was as if he was processing what I’d just said and it wouldn’t load. Then, suddenly, he barked a laugh that didn’t belong inside the man we’d been talking to.

“Your sleeve knows how?” The laughter shook out to a more governed chuckling and then a hard-eyed gravity. “You’ll need more than that. You do know there are ripwing colonies on the top third of Rila Crags? Probably more now than there ever were when I went up. You do know there’s an overhanging flange that runs all the way round the lower battlements, and the Buddha alone knows how much updated anti-intrusion tech they’ve built into it since I climbed it. You do know the currents at the base of Rila will carry your broken body halfway up the Reach before they drop you anywhere.”

“Well,” I shrugged. “At least if I fall, I won’t get picked up for interrogation.”

Natsume glanced across at Brasil.

“How old is he?”

“Leave him alone, Nik. He’s wearing Eishundo custom, which he found, he tells me, whilst wandering around New Hokkaido killing mimints for a living. You do know what a mimint is, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Natsume was still looking at me. “We’ve heard the news about Mecsek in here.”

“It’s not exactly news these days, Nik.” Brasil told him, with evident glee.

“You’re really wearing Eishundo?”

I nodded.

“You know what that’s worth?”

“I’ve had it demonstrated to me a couple of times, yeah.”

Brasil shifted impatiently on the stonework of the quadrangle. “Look, Nik, are you going to give us this route or not? Or are you just worried we’re going to beat your record?”

“You’re going to get yourselves killed, stacks irretrievable, both of you. Why should I help you to do that?”

“Hey, Nik—you’ve renounced the world and the flesh, remember. Why should how we end up in the real world bother you in here?”