“In the chair, right?” Petrovitch could feel his courage failing. His legs were buckling, his fingers numb, his insides cold.

He shucked his coat off and climbed into the chair before he could collapse to the floor. The headrest had been altered: there was a gap which exposed the nape of his neck.

Something cold touched the back of his head. It trickled down his back.

“Iodine,” she said.

“It’s a little late for that.” He shook with fear, and his teeth chattered as he spoke. “It’s a little late for everything.”

Sonja hefted the dispenser, and walked around behind him. The cold open mouth pressed against the back of his skull. “Ready?”

“No.”

“Just don’t flinch.”

“Yobany stos, Sonja! Just do it before I change my mind.”

The whine started high and got higher. As it reached the limit of his hearing, he heard the b of bang. Everything went black.

36

Petrovitch woke up in another place: an empty, echoing hall paved with white tiles. The walls were a series of backlit adverts and brightly lit booths, punctuated by escalators that clicked and hummed to the space above. Kanji signs and pictograms hovered holographically over his head.

He was inside the machine.

He had hands that were marble, forearms of glossy white, a torso that was as featureless as the space between his legs. He was a model, a primitive shape which needed to be overlain with skin and clothes, morphed to his height and weight and color, meshed with his features.

Unfinished as he was, he could feel. The coldness of the stone, the movement of the air. He reached out and pressed his fingertips against the plastic cover of one of the advertising panels: it gave slightly to his touch, and popped out when he released it.

He caught sight of his reflection. His face, smooth and indistinct: pits for eyes, a ridge for a nose, a slit for a mouth. The bumps on the side of his head were ears. He stared closely at himself, in awe, in wonder.

Then, for pleasure: something he hadn’t been able to do since his first heart attack. He ran without guilt or shame or hesitation. He held nothing back. He tore through the underground corridors, his feet eating up the distance, and nothing could stop him.

He turned right for the information bureau, left down the escalators, taking two, three steps at a time. Vaulting the ticket barriers, he ran through the concourse and up the stairs again to street level where it was a brilliant day.

The sun had just risen into a baby-blue sky, and the towers of lost Tokyo basked in its heat.

Petrovitch paused. Nothing ached. He wasn’t out of breath. He wasn’t breathing at all. So he ran again, down the center of the wide, tree-lined boulevard that led directly to an expanse of parkland that extravagantly covered several city blocks.

It was perfect. Too perfect, for certain: not enough inconsistency for reality. Each blade of grass was straight and green, each leaf fluttering in the wind intact. Paint was even, every light worked, and no doubt litter would vanish where it lay.

Not VirtualJapan, then. NeoJapan, Japan made new.

Its architect was waiting for him in front of the Imperial Palace. He stood facing the green-roofed buildings across the deep moat, hands clasped behind his back. No default texture for his avatar. He looked like he did in life; blue jacket with a turned-up collar, matching trousers, close-cropped hair with a short queue.

Petrovitch slowed to a walk and admired the view with him.

“Well, Petrovitch-san, what do you think?”

“I am speechless, Oshicora-san.”

“In a good way, I trust.” He smiled to himself. “There are a few minor details to fix, but do you think the nikkeijin would come as it is?”

“If they were able, they’d come.” Petrovitch hesitated. “Oshicora-san, I’m afraid that there’s been… well. Do you know what pizdets means?”

Oshicora pursed his thin lips. “Something has gone wrong?”

“Yeah. Look, there’s no easy way to say this.”

“Then,” said Oshicora, “we should drink sake and talk. Yes?”

Petrovitch nodded. “I have no idea how this is going to work, but sake sounds good.”

There was no sense of motion or the passage of time. They both stood next to a booth in a bar. On the table stood a swan-necked bottle of rice wine, and two shallow lacquered boxes which each contained a squat porcelain cup.

“Please, sit,” said Oshicora, and bent himself to slide along the red leather seat.

Petrovitch found himself better rendered. He wore a crisp white T-shirt under a battle smock, and his combat trousers tucked into the top of his black lace-up boots. He had skin tone, and fingernails, and glasses, which he instinctively pushed farther up the bridge of his nose.

He sat down opposite Oshicora, who poured sake into Petrovitch’s cup until some of it overflowed into the box. He put the bottle down and allowed Petrovitch to serve him.

“Kanpai!” Oshicora lifted his dripping cup and drank deeply.

“Za vashe zdorovye,” said Petrovitch, and did the same. He swallowed and waited for any after-effects. “This is so completely believable, I’m having all kinds of problems. I can taste it, yet I can’t get drunk on it.”

“If we ordered food, you would never eat your fill.” Oshicora topped up Petrovitch’s cup again. “That will have to wait for another day, I believe. Now, tell me about pizdets. Has that old goat Marchenkho been bothering you again?”

“Can we just go back one step?” Petrovitch took the bottle. It had weight. The liquid sloshed around as he moved it to refill Oshicora’s cup. “Do you know who you are?”

“I am a facsimile of Hamano Oshicora, set up in the VirtualJapan as the administrator function for the entire system. God, if you like.” He watched Petrovitch’s expression with amusement. “There are moments when I forget that I exist within a machine. I had not thought that possible, but they are there all the same. I look around and wonder where everyone is, and only then do I remember.”

Petrovitch took a long pull at his sake. He scratched at his chin and pulled at his earlobe. “This,” he started, then changed his mind. “Look, Oshicora-san. You’re dead. Hijo shot you. I had hoped you knew all this.”

Oshicora pushed his drink aside and leaned his elbows on the tabletop. “He killed me? My original? Interesting.”

Petrovitch sat back. “How can you be unaware of everything that’s happened? Helping Sonja escape, killing almost your entire workforce in the process? Taking over the Metrozone’s communications? Driving cars and flying drones? You phoned me up! Now half the city’s under water and the other half is being demolished by giant wrecking machines that you control. I’m here in a last-ditch effort to stop you, and all you can say is ‘Interesting?’ Yobany stos, man: there are millions dead and dying because of you.”

“I do not see how that can be true. I have been here, all this time.”

It was Petrovitch’s turn to look completely blank. He covered his confusion by draining every last drop of sake in his cup. “So if I said the words New Machine Jihad to you, it would mean nothing?”

“How did you hear of that?” Again, he looked amused, as if it were a matter of no consequence.

“The New Machine Jihad is the name of the… thing that’s destroying the Metrozone. But when I called it Oshicora-san, it answered. The New Machine Jihad is you.”

Oshicora shook his head. “No. That is simply not possible, and I will explain to you why. There is no connection between VirtualJapan and the wider network. This world is a bubble, sealed off for the moment. No data will get in or out until it is completely ready.”