"A younger man then, was he? You were critical for the cryoprep, obviously. Did you have any plans for the other end of things, the revivals?"

She blew out her lips in a short laugh. "At the time, I didn't think we'd go more than a year before we all ended up in jail. I figured it for more of a hopeless protest than anything. Then the street people started coming in, even more desperate than we were, and we found we couldn't quit. Couldn't betray them as everyone else had."

"The world is made by the people who show up for the job," Miles agreed.

Medtech Tanaka eyed Ako, who had finished cleaning up and drifted over to listen in. "That's a true thing. Ako and her great-aunt used to run a cook-shop. The usual-the old woman grew ill, the medical bills bankrupted them, the shop failed, they were evicted…?came in to us. Ako'd never finished school, but she knew how to clean and wasn't afraid of work, so I took her on." Earnest but timid Ako, Miles guessed, would never have gained entry to, let alone graduated from, any medtech academy. This place gave a whole new dimension to the term unlicensed.

"Shouldn't we take Raven-sensei upstairs now?" Jin urged.

They mounted one floor to the corridor directly above, which had apparently once been a fully-equipped cryorevival facility, with half a dozen operating theaters, a recovery room, and some intensive care booths. Most of it was dark and dusty and, indeed, sadly stripped, but Medtech Tanaka apparently maintained one operating room for procedures more demanding than what antibiotic ointment, surgical glue, and bracing advice would cover. She and Raven fell into intense but by no means discouraged tech-speak, medical division, which ended with sending Jin downstairs to bring back Tenbury for more consultation.

"Who is the owner-of-record for this place?" Miles asked the medtech while they were waiting. "If it was legally abandoned, I'd have thought the city would have seized it for back taxes by now."

"There have been a couple of supposed owners, over the years. The city won't seize it for the same reason the current owner, poor slob, can't unload it. Legal liability for two or three thousand destitute cryo-corpses. He was a contractor, who bought it for what he thought was a song and only then discovered what came with it. Suze has him under control for now. We think the biggest current danger is that he'll try to solve his dilemma through a spot of arson, but we keep a watch."

"It doesn't sound like a very stable situation."

"Never has been. We just try to go from day to day. Surprising where you can end up, that way."

Raven, Miles noticed, was listening intently to all this, not in the least appalled. Well, Jacksonian-trained, after all. The Hippocratic Oath, if he'd ever heard of it, was likely only considered a guideline there.

Tenbury came back, and there followed a lot more tech-speak, then visits to other chambers with some alarming thumping and crashing. Miles sent the fretful Jin back to his roof to supervise the loading-up of his menagerie. When the noises of inventory at last died away, Raven returned.

"Well?" said Miles. "Go or no-go?"

"Go," said Raven. "There will have to be some prep, but I find these people are good at improvising. And the physical impediments are made up for by a delightful lack of paperwork."

"How soon will you be ready for me to make my snatch? I'll probably want you along on the insertion, by the way, in case we run into any snags that are medical rather than security-related. How do you feel about risking arrest, by the way?"

Raven shrugged. "I'm sure your brother will extract me if you can't. In any case, you can make your switch any time. Madame Sato can just as well wait here till we're ready."

"My time is not infinitely elastic." Besides his wanting to go home, of course, there was no telling what can of worms would be emptied onto his plate with the revival of Jin's mother. Miles was getting itchy to know.

"You can take that kid back to the consulate. I expect I'll be working late here," Raven went on. "I can get back to my hotel by public transport."

Miles pointed to Raven's consulate-issued wristcom. "Check in first. Secured channel. I'll want a report. And it may be better to send Johannes to pick you up."

"Actually…" Raven hesitated. "I think I will want to stop back at the consulate anyway. Can I use your secured tight-beam links to report in to my boss on Escobar?"

"Lily, or Mark?"

"Both. Though I'm not just sure where Lord Mark is, right now. Do you know?"

Miles shook his head. "His enterprises have become rather far-flung. I don't track him daily. Are you arranging bail in advance?"

"Well, that's a thought, but mainly because I may have found some elements of interest to the Durona group, here."

"If they impinge on my investigation, I want to be fully apprised. Or even if they don't."

"Understood."

Miles waved him back to work, and made his way back down through the basement maze and up to Jin's rooftop.

?

As they unloaded the van, Consul Vorlynkin came out to see what all they were dumping in his back garden. Mina danced ahead of him and pounced on Lucky with an excited cry, rubbing her face in the soft fur. "Lucky! I thought you were dead!" The old gray cat endured the hug, but wriggled free promptly. "Do you still have your ratties, Jin?"

"Yes," said Jin, lifting the cage he was lugging to show them off. "Jinnie and most of her children."

"Handsome," said Vorlynkin, inspecting Gyre, chained to his perch, from a prudent distance. "How do you keep it from eating your chickens?" Galli and Twig, released from their transport box by Lieutenant Johannes, ran past his knees, flapping their wings and squawking, then slowed to stare in apparent amazement at the grass patch before them, warm and green-smelling in the noon sun.

"Well, the big ones sort of defend themselves. I had to keep Gyre chained to his perch when the chicks were littler. I'll have to keep him chained here anyway, till he figures out this is where he belongs." Jin watched as Armsman Roic, with due care, unloaded a stack of terrariums onto the shelf they'd brought from Jin's refuge. Tucked up against the back of the house and sheltered by its eaves, concealed by the house, the tall stone garden walls, and all the trees and bushes, the shelf and its contents would be almost as safe as in his tent-shelter at Suze-san's.

"Cats and mice together as well?" Vorkynkin went on. "What next, lions and lambs?"

"Rats," Jin corrected austerely. "Though I wish I might have a lion…?! Anyway, Lucky's too old and lazy to bother the big ones, and I keep the little ones in cages with tops." He looked around with satisfaction. "Now that I have all my creatures back, you can keep Lady Murasaki," he told Mina generously.

She made a face. "But Lucky's half mine. Because she wasn't yours to start with, you know, even if you did steal her away."

"I saved her from Aunt Lorna," Jin reminded her.

Lucky curled around Vorlynkin's ankles, rubbing her chin to scent-mark him as her new property and leaving a trail of hairs plastered to his formerly-tidy hakama trousers. He bent rather absently to scritch her spine, and she arched shamelessly under his hand.

Mina addressed him anxiously, "Oh sir, can we keep Lucky inside? Till she knows this is home? Cats do get lost, you know!"

Looking down into Mina's upturned face, Vorlynkin said reluctantly, "Is she housebroken?"

Mina nodded vigorously. "I can fix her cat pan in my room!"

"The washroom off the kitchen would likely do as well," he told her. "You and Jin…?well, yes, I expect it will be good for you and your brother to look after her."

Miles-san strolled past. "All shipshape here, Jin? Then I need Johannes back." He added to Consul Vorlynkin, "We'll be in your tight-room for a time. A lot of detail-work still to do." At his gesture, Roic rose and took up what seemed his accustomed place at his shoulder.