Stig called Keely McSobel, who was on duty in the room above the Halkin Ironmongery store. “Anything near us?” he asked.

“No, you’re cool, the Scottish quarter’s pretty quiet. But they’re really pouring their people into 3F Plaza. It’s not just troops, either. Some tech types are in the gateway control building.”

“Damn, that’s not good. Can you snoop around inside?”

“That’s the second problem. The city net’s links to CST’s center are being eliminated. I think they’re physically cutting them.”

“Dreaming heavens, are we going to be able to get our calls through?”

“I’m not sure. I managed to get a scrutineer inside CST’s arrays. It can’t send much back without being detected now they’ve cut the bandwidth, but from what I can make out the Institute is setting up censor programs on all the Half Way channels. Any call going out through the link to the Commonwealth unisphere will be examined, same for anything coming in.”

“Bloody hell.” Stig finished his orange juice and pulled out a pure-nicotine cigarette. “Good job, Keely. We’re going to scout around 3F Plaza.”

“Be careful.”

They collected the sandwiches and coffee, and he started to tell Olwen about the Institute’s latest accomplishment as they walked along toward Mantana Avenue, which was the quickest route to 3F Plaza.

“That’s very provocative,” she said carefully. “Especially on top of everything else this city is putting up with.”

“Yeah.” He lit the cigarette. “They’ve already armor-plated the route from the gateway to Highway One, now this. It can only mean one thing.”

“The Starflyer’s coming,” she said it with a knowing gleam in her eyes. It was the moment every Guardian dreamed of. The showdown with their enemy. The planet’s revenge.

“Yeah.”

They were very visible going down Mantana Avenue, the broad thoroughfare that linked First Foot Fall Plaza with the main government district. With a little uncharacteristic flourish of ambition, city planners had laid out a three-lane road as a transport centerpiece between the biggest commercial market and storage zone in the city and the civil servants who sought to regulate it. Then a wealthy Russian émigré had gifted the city with a thousand saplings of newly sequenced GM maple fur poplars. The trees were all planted along Mantana, growing fifty meters tall, with leaves that resembled woolly magenta catkins. For nearly a century the arboreal avenue had been one of the city’s grandest sights, with the thick tall trees screening the road from the pavement.

Now, over half of the trees had withered and died from a native fungal virus that had reestablished itself in the southern hemisphere and swept through the city a couple of decades back, spoiling the beautiful wall of drooping leaves that separated traffic from pedestrians. The Barsoomians had provided resistant saplings as replacements, but the uniformity of the avenue would never be regained now, and a lot of the saplings had been vandalized. It left long segments of the pavement exposed.

Stig assumed an innocent, absorbed expression as yet another convoy of six-wheeled Land Rover Cruisers roared along the road toward 3F Plaza, hooting crossly at any other vehicle impertinent enough to be on the same route. The buildings set back from the avenue were three or four stories high, their elaborate faux-Napoleonic façades making them the most sought after addresses in Armstrong City. Their ground floors were individual shops, as exclusive as anything could be on Far Away; the offices above were mostly inhabited by lawyers and the local headquarters of big Commonwealth corporations, the only organizations that could afford the rent.

“Where in the dreaming heavens is everyone else?” Olwen complained as the Cruisers disappeared ahead of them. Even for early morning, there were remarkably few pedestrians abroad; the traffic was reduced as well. Normally there would be a stream of vans and trucks and carts going in and out of 3F Plaza in preparation of the day’s commerce.

“Bad news travels fast,” Stig told her.

Half a kilometer from the Enfield entrance to 3F Plaza they took a side road off the avenue, and made their way through the clutter of secondary streets to Market Wall.

“Stig,” Keely called. “Muriden says he’s seen a couple of guys loitering around the end of Gallstal Street; it’s the third time they’ve walked past.”

“Damnit,” Stig exclaimed. Gallstal Street was only a few hundred meters away from the Halkin Ironmongery store. He and Olwen were now fifty meters from the base of Market Wall. The merchants in the archways were starting to open for business. Everyone seemed a lot more meek and restrained than usual. “Tell him to keep watching them; I want to know what they do next, if they’re just on a loop. And tell the other sentries to scan around.”

“Aye, will do.”

“And, Keely, prep for a crash evacuation.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, do it.”

“What’s up?” Olwen asked as he scowled.

“Possible reconnaissance on the store.” He was angry that he wasn’t there to make a proper evaluation. I ought to trust the others by now.

“It was only a matter of time,” she said.

“Right.”

They reached the bottom of Market Wall, and started up one of the broad stone stairs that led to the raised souk. On the top, the stalls with their canopies of solarcloth and worn canvas shared the subdued air that infected the vendors at the base. He and Olwen did their best to blend in, but this hour was given over to chefs and owners of cafés and restaurants buying fresh food from bulk suppliers. It was like a massive extended family, with everybody knowing each other. So they wove through the ramshackle layout of tables and counters, ignoring the welcome smiles and promised bargains, trying not to be too obvious. When they reached the thick stone parapet, it was lined with cautiously curious people staring at events below. Stig edged through and glanced over. “Bloody hell.”

It was as if an occupying army had landed in the middle of Armstrong City. A curving line of Range Rover Cruisers was parked in front of the gateway, their mounted kinetic weapons deployed and sweeping from side to side to protect the shimmering force field. More Cruisers were parked to block every entrance, except Enfield, where barriers and concrete cubes turned away all civilian traffic. The wide expanse of the Plaza was empty, something Stig had never seen before. The three big fountains were actually audible from the top of Market Wall as they pumped their white plumes into the air. Squads of Institute troops in flexarmor were going around the base of Market Wall, ordering the stallholders in the archways to shut up and go home. There were a few loud protestations, swiftly followed by the sounds of a brutal beating, screams, sobbing. The Institute was now in complete control here.

“Keely, give me status on the link to Half Way, please,” Stig asked.

“There are no links. They’ve cut every cable into the CST control center except two, and those both have monitor programs that I wouldn’t know how to circumvent. I’m sorry, Stig, there’s no direct line back to the Commonwealth anymore.”

Stig clenched his jaw as he stared down at the dark armored figures strutting across the dusty plaza below. “What about Muriden?”

“His two observers have gone, but Felix reports a possible in his zone.”

“Okay, get out now, that’s an order. We’ll regroup our headquarters at fallback location three. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

The connection ended. Stig waited a few moments, and told his e-butler to connect him to the Halkin Ironmongery store. The address was inoperative. He smiled in grim satisfaction. Keely and the others were acting professionally.

“Let’s go,” he told Olwen.

They retraced their path through the stalls, and started back down the broad stairs. “What do we do now?” Olwen asked.