aAre you feeling comfortable?a I ask hesitantly. aI mean, with this?a He thinks for a moment. aIam comfortable with you.a aButa"a He kisses the back of my head. aItas you. That makes it easier.a Thereas nothing left to divide us: We know exactly how f.u.c.ked up we are. Weave had such disastrous misunderstandings already that thereas nothing left to come. Sam freaks at the idea of being human and male and large? Yes. I have problems with the idea of pregnancy, and thereare no contraceptives in YFH-Polity? Sure. Weare past all that. Itas all going to be very simple from now on.

So we towel each other dry and I take his hand and together we go to the bedroom, where presently we make love again, tenderly and slowly.

THE next morning, I stumble downstairs late, disheveled and happy, to find there is a letter waiting for me on the front hall carpet. Itas like a bucket of cold water in the face. I pick it up and carry the piece of paper into the kitchen and read it while the coffee machine gurgles and chugs to itself.

To: Mrs. Reeve Brown From: The Polity Administration Committee Dear Mrs. Brown It is now four months since your arrival in YFH-Polity. In this time, numerous changes have taken place in our little community, and we will shortly be commencing Phase Two of the experiment in which you agreed to partic.i.p.ate.

Accordingly, may I extend to you an invitation to our first Town Meeting, to be held at City Hall on Sunday morning in place of the regularly scheduled Sunday Service. The meeting will explain the forthcoming Phase Two changes, and will be followed by a service of thanksgiving, to be conducted by the Very Reverend Dr. H. Yourdon in the cathedral.

Yours truly . . .

This puts a new perspective on things, doesnat it? I shake my head, then take the two coffee mugs back upstairs. On my way I snag the identical-looking letter with Samas name on it.

aWhat do you think?a he asks, when heas had time to read it.

aI think itas exactly what it sounds like.a I shrug. aThings are getting bigger, new faces, new scenerya"this acathedrala theyare opening! You canat run a town the way you run a parish of a couple of hundred people, can you? No way can everybody know each other. So theyall need a different intergroup score mechanism to keep people behaving themselves. To account for the anonymity of cities, the sight of familiar strangers.a His cheek twitches. aIam not sure I like the sound of that.a aOh, it canat be that bad,a I a.s.sure him, rolling my eyes.

aCanat it?a I nod. aNo.a A thought strikes me. aListen, can you get away from the office for lunch?a aWhat, you mean . . . ?a aYes. Drop by the library about one oaclock, and weall go eat together.a I smile at him. aHow does that sound?a aYou want me toa"a He works it out. aYes, I can do that.a aGood.a I lean close and kiss him on the cheek. aBe seeing you.a I arrive at work fifteen minutes early, clutching my baga"not, in and of itself, an unusual variationa"but the place is unlocked because Janis is already in. aJanis?a I poke my head round the office door.

Sheas not there. I sigh and head for the depository.

Down in the bas.e.m.e.nt I find Janis loading magazines into box files. aGive me a hand,a she says tensely. aIf Fiore or Yourdon turns up while weare here . . .a aCheck.a The magazines are vaguely banana-shaped and donat fit very well, but I can get four or five in each file box before I put them back on the shelf. Janis has six machine pistols lined up before her on a chair, still in their synthesis gel capsules. aDid you get the letter?a I ask.

aYes. So did Norm.a Her husbanda"I donat know much about him. aTheyare pulling things forward. Once they inst.i.tutionalize the police and stop relying on isolation to do their work for them, weare in trouble.a aAgreed.a I pause. aLadiesa sewing club?a That was my idea, when I was Robin, but Janis fronted it, and after my one meeting with them while I was being Reeve, I guess sheas going to have to sort them out.

aI invited them here for lunch. Hurry up!a Sheas very twitchy this morning.

aOkay, Iam hurrying.a I get the last of the magazines stashed in box files on the shelves, for all the world looking like innocent hard copy files of Curious Yellow. aI invited Sam round. I think heas on message.a aOh, good. I was hoping you two would sort things out.a A brief smile. aNow letas go upstairs. Weave got a library to open before we can overthrow the government.a

19.

Longjump.

SUBTLETY isnat going to get us very far at this point, so Janis orders up a delivery of sandwiches from a catering outfit working from the back of a cafe, and when the ladiesa sewing circle and revolutionary command committee shows up, we lock the front door, hang out the CLOSED sign, and pile downstairs.

aWeave got one day to organize this,a says Janis. aReeve, you want to summarize the situation?a Heads turn. From their expressions, I donat think they were expecting me to be here. I smile. aThis placea"this politya"was originally designed as a gla.s.shouse, a military prison. It works too well; the YFH cabal figured that a prison doesnat just keep people in, it keeps other people out. So they set it up as a research lab, what weare now seeing.a She gestures at the shelves of box files on the back wall. aTheyare working on developing a new type of cognitive dictatorship, one spread via Curious Yellow, and theyare breeding up a population of carriers for it. When we get to the end of the aexperimenta time-scale theyare planning on reintegrating everyone into general societya"and using your children to spread it.a I see Janisas hand move unconsciously to her stomach. aDo you want to help them?a A mutter goes round the room, growing quickly: aNo!a aIam glad to hear that,a Janis says drily. aNow, this raises the questiona"what is to be done? Reeve and I have been working on an answer. Anyone want to guess?a Sam sticks his hand up. aYouare going to blow the longjump gate anchor frame,a he says calmly, astranding us teraklicks from the nearest other human polity. And then youare going to hunt the cabal down and shoot them, find their backup networks and offline them, then jump up and down on the smoking wreckage.a Janis smiles. aNot bad! Anyone else?a El sticks her hand up. aHold elections?a Janis looks taken aback. aSomething like that, I guess.a She shrugs. aBut thatas getting a little ahead of ourselves, isnat it? What havenat I mentioned?a I clear my throat. aWe know where the longjump gate is. Which is good news and bad news.a aWhy?a asks Helen. Theyare beginning to get involved, which is good, but could turn bad if Janis and I donat present them with a reasonable picture. Theyare not idiots, they must know that we wouldnat have brought them in on the cellar if the situation wasnat desperate.

aReeve?a prompts Janis.

aOkay, hereas the frame: Weare on a MASucker that somehow got de-crewed during the censorship wars. At a guess, CY broke out during a scheduled crew shift change or something. Anyway, the polity weare in is actually a quilted patchwork of sectors spliced together by shortjump gates in all those road tunnels, but theyare all in a single physical manifold aboard one ship rather than scattered across separate habs. Thatas why it was possible to turn it into a prison. Thereas only one longjump gate in or out of the MASucker, and itas stashed at one end of an armored pod on the outside of the hull with a shortjump gate at the other end of the tunnela"this is standard MASucker security, you understand. Someone outside could throw a nuke through at the ship and it would be expended outside the hull. Anyway, we first need to take and hold the shortjump gate leading to the longjump pod, then we need to trash the longjump pod.

aWe need to sever communications between us and their base of operations in the surgeon-confessorsa hall, then make sure everybody knows. Yourdon and Fiore have gotten away with running this existential dictatorship unopposed because theyave got a sufficient proportion of us convinced that weare in line for a payback if we play along. Hanta gives them an ace in their hole. They donat need to worry about the payback; eventually sheall have time to just adjust everyone who drifts out of line. Once weare cut off from the outside, the cabal lose their backup and their social leverage, and weave got a straight fight. But if we donat succeed, they can just block the gates between parish sectors and mop us up in detail, one sector at a time.a I pause to lick my lips. aI spent some time on a MASucker before the war. The door to the longjump pod was stashed near the bridge, uh, the administrative blocka"which would correspond to either the cathedral or City Hall in the new structure Yourdon is a.s.sembling. I did some snooping around last week, and I found where Yourdon lives. Heas got a suite up on the top floor of City Hall, with security up to the eyeb.a.l.l.sa"I didnat get in, but I poked around the lower levelsa"and it turns out that City Hall bears a remarkable resemblance to the Captainas Lodge on the MASucker I was aboard. In which case, the T-gate to the longjump pod will be on the top floor, in a secure suite adjacent to the captainas quarters.a I stop.

Janis stands up. aThere youave got it, folks, so letas keep this simple. We all have invitations to the ceremony at City Hall the day after tomorrow. I propose that we go there. Iave had the fab hereaa"she waves at the a.s.semblera"aturning out kits with shielded bags so you can carry them away without fear of surveillance. Reeve?a I clear my throat. aPlan is, we take our kit along and cut loose as soon as Yourdon steps up to the front to address everyone. Team Greenas job is to secure the hall, drop any armed support the bad guys have, and kill as many copies of Yourdon, Fiore, and Hanta as we can find. Theyall have backups or multiples running live, but if we do everything fast, we can stop the instances in City Hall getting word out. Meanwhile, Team Yellow will go up to the captainasa"the Bishopasa"quarters and blow the longjump pod right off the side of the ship. Any questions?a Hands go up.

aOkay, hereas what weall do. El, Bernice, Helen, Priss, Morgaine, Jill, youare all on Team Green with Janis, whoas in overall charge. Sam, Greg, Martin, and Liz are Team Yellow with me. Iam in charge. Team Yellow, hang around, and Iall brief you. Team Green, eat your lunch, then go back to worka"come back to the library individually this afternoon or tomorrow, and Janis will sort you out, back you up, and brief you.a Thereas more muttering from the back. Janis clears her throat. aOne more thing. Operational security is paramount. If anyone says anything, we are all . . . not dead. Worse. Dr. Hanta has a full-capability brainf.u.c.k clinic running in the hospital. If you give any sign outside of this bas.e.m.e.nt that youare involved in this plan, theyall shut down the shortjump gates, isolating you, and flood us with zombies until we run out of bullets and knives. Then theyall cart us away and turn us into happy, smiling slaves. Some of you may figure thatas better than dyinga"all right, thatas your personal choice. But if I think any of you is going to try to impose that choice on me by going to the priests, you will find that my personal choice is to shoot you dead first.

aIf you donat want to be in on this, say so right nowa"or hang around upstairs and tell me when everyone else has gone. Weave got an A-gate; we can just back you up and keep you on ice for the duration. Thereas no reason to be part of this if youare frightened. But if you donat explicitly opt out, then youare accepting my command, and I will expect total obedience on pain of death, until weave secured the ship.a Janis looks round at everyone, and her expression is harsh. For a moment Sanni is back, shining through her skin like a bright lamp through camouflage netting, frightening and feral. aDo you all understand?a Thereas a chorus of yesses from around the room. Then one of the pregnant women at the back pipes up. aWhat are we waiting for? Letas roll!a TIME rushes by, counting down to a point of tension that lies ahead.

Weave got logistic problems. Having the A-gate in the library bas.e.m.e.nt is wonderfula"itas almost indispensable to what weare attempting to doa"but there are limits on what it can churn out. No rare isotopes, so we canat simply nuke the longjump pod. Nor do we have the design templates for a tankbody or combat drones or much of anything beyond personal sidearms. You canat manufacture T-gates in an A-gate, so weave got to work without wormhole techa"that rules out Vorpal blades. Given time or immunity from surveillance we could probably work around those restrictions, but Janis says weave got a maximum feedstock ma.s.s flow of a hundred kilograms per hour. I suspect Fiore, or whoever decided to plant this thing in the library bas.e.m.e.nt, throttled it deliberately to stop someone like me from turning it into an invasion platform. Their operational security is patchy after the manner of many overhasty and understaffed projects, but itas far from nonexistent.

In the end Janis tells me, aIam going to leave it on overnight, building a brick of plasticized RDX along with detonators and some extra gun cartridges. We can put together about ten kilos over a six-hour run. That much high explosive is probably about as much energy as we can risk sucking without triggering an alarm somewhere. Do you think you can do the job on the longjump gate frame with that much?a aTen kilos?a I shake my head. aThatas disappointing. Thatas really not good.a She shrugs. aYou want to risk going technical on Yourdon, be my guest.a Sheas got a point. Thereas a very good chance that the bad guys will have planted trojans in some of the design templates for more complex weaponsa"anything much more sophisticated than handguns and raw chemical explosive will have interlocks and sensor systems that might slip past our vetting. The machine pistols sheas run up are crude things, iron sights and mechanical triggers and no heads-up capability. They donat even have biometric interlocks to stop someone taking your own gun and shooting you with it. Theyare a step up from my crossbow project, but not a very high step. On the other hand, theyave got no telltale electronics that Yourdon or Fiore might subvert.

aDid you test the gun cartridges? Just in case?a Janis nods. aThunder stick go bang. No fear on that account.a aWell, at least somethingas going to work, then.a Iad be happier if we could lay in a brace of stunguns, but since Iam not wearing Fiore anymore, that would be kind of difficult to arrange.

Janis looks at me. aMake or break time.a I breathe deeply. aWhen has it been any other way?a aAh, but. We had backups, didnat we?a Her shoulders are set defensively. aThis time itas our last show. It isnat how I expected things to turn out.a aMe neither.a I finish packing my bag and straighten up. aDo you think anyone will crack?a aI hope not.a She stares at the wall, eyes focused on some inner s.p.a.ce. aI hope not.a Her hand goes to her belly again. aThereas a reason I recruited gravid females. It does things to your outlook. Iave learned that much.a Her eyes glisten. aIt can go either waya"peeps wh.o.a.re still role-playing their way through YFH in their head get angry and frightened, and those whoave internalized it, wh.o.a.re getting ready to be mothers, get even angrier about what those brainf.u.c.kers are going to do to their children. Once you get through the fear and disbelief, you get to the anger. I donat think any of the pregnant females will crack, and youall notice the males who were along all have partners who are involved.a aTrue.a Janisa"no, Sannia"is sharp as a knife. She knows what sheas doing when it comes to organizing a covert operation cell. But if sheas a knife, sheas one with a brittle edge. aSanni, can I ask you a question?a aSure.a Her tone is relaxed but I see the little signs of tension, the wrinkles around her eyes. She knows why I used that name.

aWhat do you want to do after this?a I grasp for the right words: aWeare about to lock ourselves down in this little bubble-polity like something out of the stone age, a generation ship . . . weare not going to be getting out of here for gigasecs, tens of gigs, at a minimum! I mean, not unless we go into suspension afterward. And I thought you, youad be wanting to escape, to get out and warn everybody off. Break YFH from the outside. Instead, well, weave come up with a case for pulling down the escape tunnel on top of ourselves. What do you want to do afterward once weave cut ourselves off?a Sanni looks at me as if Iave sprouted a second head. aI want to retire.a She glances round at the bas.e.m.e.nt nervously. aThis place is giving me the creeps; we ought to go home soon. Look, Reevea"Robina"this is where we belong. This is the gla.s.shouse. Itas where they sent the damaged ones after the war. The ones who need reprogramming, rehabilitation. Yourdon and Hanta and Fiore belong herea"but donat you think maybe we belong here, too?a She looks haunted.

I think for a minute. aNo, I donat think so.a Then I force myself to add, aBut I think I could grow to like it here if only we werenat under pressure from . . . them.a aThatas what it was designed for. A rest home, a seductive retirement, balm for the tortured brow. Go on home to Sam.a She walks toward the stairs without looking at me. aThink about what youave done, or what he did. Iave got blood on my hands, and I know it.a Sheas halfway up the stairs, and I have to move to keep up with her. aDonat you think that the world outside ought to be protected from people like us?a At the top of the staircase I think of a reply. aPerhaps. And perhaps youare right, we did terrible things. But there was a war on, and it was necessary.a She takes a deep breath. aI wish I had your self-confidence.a I blink at her. My self-confidence? Until I found her frightened and alone here, Iad always thought Sanni was the confident one. But now the other conspirators have gone, she looks confused and a bit lost. aI canat afford doubts,a I admit. aBecause if I start doubting, Iall probably fall apart.a She produces a radiant smile, like first light over a test range. aDonat do that, Robin. Iam counting on you. Youare all the army I need.a aOkay,a I say. And then we go our separate ways.

I walk home, my mesh-lined bag slung over one shoulder. Today is not a day for a taxi ride, especially now that thereas some risk of running into Ike. Everything seems particularly vivid for some reason, the gra.s.s greener and the sky bluer, and the scent of the flower beds outside the munic.i.p.al buildings overwhelmingly sweet and strange. My skin feels as if Iave picked up a ma.s.sive electrostatic charge, hair follicles standing erect. I am alive, I realize. By this time tomorrow I might be dead, dead and gone forever because if we fail, the YFH cabal will still have the T-gate, and their coconspirators wonat hesitate to delete whatever copies of us they have on file. I might be part of history, dry as dust, an object of study if there ever is another generation of historians.

And if do somehow manage to survive, Iall be a prisoner here for the next three unenhanced lifetimes.

I have mixed emotions. When I went into combat beforea"what I remember of ita"I didnat worry about dying. But I wasnat human, then. I was a regiment of tanks. The only way I could die would be if our side lost the entire war.

But Iave got Sam, now. The thought of Samas being in danger makes me cringe. The thought of both of us being at the mercy of the YFH cabal makes me a different kind of uneasy. Bend the neck, surrender, and it will be fine: Thatas the echo of her personal choice coming back to haunt me. I rejected her, didnat I? But sheas part of me. Indivisible, inescapable. I can never escape from the knowledge that I surrendereda"

Sanni has surrendered, I realize. Not to Yourdon and Fiore, but to the end of the war. She doesnat want to fight anymore; she wants to settle down and raise a family and be a small-town librarian. Janis is the real Sanni now, as real as she gets. The gla.s.shouse may have been subverted and perverted by the plotters, but itas still working its psychological alchemy on us. Maybe thatas what Sanni was talking about. Weare none of us who or what we used to be, although our history remains indelible. I try to imagine what I must have looked like to the civilians aboard the habs we conquered through coup de main, and I find a blind spot. I know I must have terrified them, but inside the armor and behind the guns I was just me, wasnat I? But how were they to know? No matter. Itas over, now. Iave got to live with it, just the way we had to do it. It seemed necessary at the time: If you didnat want your memories to be censored by feral software, or worse, by unscrupulous opportunists whoad trojaned the worm, you had to fight. And once you take the decision to fight, you have to live with the consequences. Thatas the difference between us and Yourdon, Fiore, and Hanta. Weare willing to harbor doubts, to let go; but theyare still fighting to bring the war back to their enemies. To us.

These arenat good thoughts to be thinking. Theyare downright morbid, and I can live without thema"but they wonat leave me alone, so as I walk I try to fight back by swinging my bag and whistling a jolly tune. And I try to look at myself from the outside as I go. Hereas a jolly librarian, outwardly a young woman in a summer dress, shoulder bag in hand, whistling as she walks home from a day at work. Invert the picture, though, and you see a dream-haunted ex-soldier, clutching a kitbag containing a machine pistol, slinking back to her billet for a final time before thea"

Look, just stop, why donat you?

Thatas better.

When I get home, I stash the bag in the kitchen. The TV is going in the living room, so I shed my shoes and pad through.

aSam.a Heas on the sofa, curled up opposite the flickering screen as usual. Heas holding a metal canister of beer. He glances at me as I come in.

aSam.a I join him on the sofa. After a moment I realize that heas not really watching the TV. Instead, his eyes are on the patio outside the gla.s.s doors at the end of the room. He breathes slowly, evenly, his chest rising and falling steadily. aSam.a His eyes flicker toward me, and a moment later the corners of his mouth edge upward. aBeen working late?a aI walked.a I pull my feet up. The soft cushions of the sofa swallow them. I lean sideways against him, letting my head fall against his shoulder. aI wanted to feel . . .a aConnected.a aYes, thatas it, exactly.a I can feel his pulse, and his breathing is profound, a stirring in the roots of my world. aI missed you.a aI missed you, too.a A hand touches my cheek, moves up to brush hair back from my forehead.

At moments like this I hate being an unreconstructed humana"an island of thinking jelly trapped in a bony carapace, endless milliseconds away from its lovers, forced to squeeze every meaning through a low-bandwidth speech channel. All men are islands, surrounded by the bottomless oceans of unthinking night. If I were half of who I used to be, and had my resources to handa"and if Sam, if Kay, wanted toa"we could multiplex, and know each other a thousand times as deeply as this awkward serial humanity permits. Thereas a poignancy to knowing what weave lost, what we might have had together, which only makes me want him more strongly. I move uneasily and clutch at his waist. aWhat took you so long?a aIam running away.a He finally turns his head to look at me sidelong. aFrom myself.a aMe too,a Throwing caution to the wind: aIs that part of your problem? With being . . . this?a aItas too close.a He swallows. aTo what they wanted me to be.a I donat ask who atheya were. aDo you want to escape? To leave the polity?a Heas silent for a long while. aI donat think so,a he says eventually. aBecause Iad have to go back to being what I want not to be, if that makes sense to you. Kay was a disguise, Reeve, a mask. A hollow woman. Not a real person.a I snuggle closer to him. aI know you wanted to grow into her.a aDo you?a He raises an eyebrow.

aLook, why do you think Iam here?a aPoint.a He looks momentarily rueful. aDo you want to leave?a Weare not really talking about staying or leaving, this is understood, but what he really means by thata"aI thought I did,a I admit, toying with the b.u.t.tons on the front of his shirt. aThen Dr. Hanta sorted me out, and I realized that what I really wanted was somewhere to heal, somewhere to be me. Community. Peace.a I get my hand inside his shirt, and his breath acquires a little hoa.r.s.e edge that makes me squeeze my thighs together. aLove.a I pause. aNot necessarily her way, mind you.a His hand is stroking my hair. His other handa"aDo that some more.a aIam afraid, Reeve.a aThat makes two of us.a Later: aI want what you described.a I gasp. aMakes two. Of us. Oh.a aLove.a And we continue our conversation without words, using a language that no abhuman watcher AI can interpreta"a language of touch and caress, as old as the human species. What we tell each other is simple. Donat be afraid, I love you. We say it urgently and emphatically, bodies shouting our mute encouragement. And in the dark of the night, when we reach for each other, I dare myself to admit that it might work out all right in the end.

We arenat bound to fail.

Are we?

BREAKFAST is an affair of quiet desperation. Over the coffee and toast I clear my throat and begin a carefully planned speech. aI need to go to the library before Church, Sam, I forgot my gloves.a aReally?a He looks up, worry lines crisscrossing his forehead.

I nod vigorously. aI canat go to Church without them, it wouldnat be decent.a Decent is one of those keywords the watchers monitor. Gloves arenat actually a dress code infraction, but theyare a good excuse.

aOkay, I suppose Iall have to come with you,a he says, with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man facing the airlock. aWe need to leave soon, donat we?a aYes, Iad better get my bag,a I say.

aI have a new waistcoat to wear.a I raise an eyebrow. His clothing sense is even more artificial than my own. aItas upstairs,a he explains. For a moment I think heas going to say something more, something compromising, but he manages to bottle it up in time. My stomach squirms queasily. aTake care, darling.a aNothing can possibly go wrong,a he says with studied irony. He rises and heads for the staircase to our bedroom. (Our bedroom. No more lonely nights.) My heart seems to catch an extra beat. Then itas time to clear up the detritus, put the plates in the dishwasher, and get my shoes on.

When Sam comes downstairs, heas dressed for Churcha"with a many-pocketed vest under his suit jacket, and, in his hand, the briefcase we packed yesterday. aLetas, uh, go,a he says, and casts me a wan grin.

aYup,a I say, then check the clock and pick up my extra-large handbag. aLetas roll.a We arrive at the library around ten oaclock, and I let us in. The door to the cellar is already open. I reach into my bag as I go down the steps, conscious that if someoneas blown the operation, then the bad guys could be waiting for me. But when I get to the bottom I find Janis.

aHi, Janis,a I say slightly nervously.

aHi yourself.a She lowers her gun. aJust checking.a aIndeed. Sam? Come on down.a I turn back to Janis. aStill waiting for Greg, Martin, and Liz.a aRight.a Janis gestures at a pile of grayish plastic bricks sitting on one of the chairs. aSam? I think itall work better if you carry these.a aSure.a Sam ambles over and picks up a brick. Squeezes it experimentally, then sniffs it. aHmm, smells like success. Detonators?a aOn the sofa.a I spot the stack of spare magazines and take a couple, then check theyare loaded properly. aWhere are the cogsets?a I ask.

aComing.a Janis waves at the A-gate. aWe need to synchronize our watches, too.a aOkay.a This isnat going to work too well without headsets and cognitive radio transceivers, but theyare last on our list of items to a.s.semble because theyare too obvious. Theyare easier to sabotage than metal plumbing and chemical explosives, and a lot likelier to tripwire the alarms in the A-gate than a collection of antiques. If the radios donat work, our fallback is crudea"mechanical wrist.w.a.tches and a prearranged time to start shooting.

Sam stuffs bricks of Composition-C into his vest pockets, squeezing them to fit. The vest bulges around his waist, as if heas suddenly put on weight, and when he pulls his jacket on it hangs open. What heas doing reminds me of something I once knew, something alarming, but I canat quite remember what. So I shake my head and go upstairs to wait behind the front desk.

A few minutes later Martin and Liz arrive together. I send them down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Iam getting worried when Greg appears. Weare running short of time. Itas 10:42 and the meeting is due to start in just a kilosec or so. aWhat kept you?a I ask.

aI feel rough,a he admits. I think heas been drinking. aCouldnat sleep properly. Letas get this over with, huh?a aYeah.a I point him at the cellar. aGangas down there.a T minus ten minutes. The door opens, and Janis comes out. aOkay, Iam off to start the show in the auditorium,a she tells me. A fey smile. aGood luck.a aYou too.a She leans forward, and I hug her briefly, then sheas off, walking down the library path toward City Hall.

aWhereas Sam?a I ask.

aOh, he had something extra to do down there,a Liz says, a trifle sniffily. aLast-minute nerves.a A moment later he comes up the stairs. aCome on, Sam, want to miss the show?a I open my mouth. aTime to move!a Fragments of memory converge on a point in time: Five of us, three males and two females, walking along the front of Main Street toward City Hall. All in our Church outfits, with subtle changesa"Samas vest, my shoes, Martinas bag. Discreet earbuds adding their hum to our left ears, flesh-toned pickups parallel to our jawlines. Businesslike.

aMerge with the crowd, then when they head for the auditorium doors, break left under the door labeled FIRE EXIT. Meet me on the other side.a Purpose. Tension. Beating heart, nervousness. A faint aroma of mineral oil on my fingertips. The usual heightened awareness.

Cohorts and parishes of regular citizensa"inmatesa"are gathering on the front steps and in the open reception hall of the biggest building on Main Street. Some I recognize; most are anonymous.

Jen looms out of the crowd, smiling, converging on me. My guts freeze. aReeve! Isnat it wonderful?a aYes, it is,a I say, slightly too coldly because she stares at me, and her eyes narrow.

aWell, excuse me,a she says, and turns on her heel as if to walk away, then pauses. aIad have thought youad be celebrating.a aI am.a I raise an eyebrow at her. aAre you?a aHah!a And with a contemptuous smirk, she wheels away and latches on to Chrisas arm.

A cold sweat p.r.i.c.kles up and down my spinea"sheer relief, mostlya"and I head toward the FIRE EXIT sign, which is conveniently close to the rest rooms. I pause for a second to glance around and check my watch (T minus three minutes) then lean on the emergency bar. The door sc.r.a.pes open, and I step through into a concrete-lined stairwell.

Click. I glance round. Liz lowers her gun. Iam too slow today, I think hopelessly. I mute my mike. aTwo minutes,a I say, backing into the corner opposite her niche. She nods. I reach into my bag, pull out my gun, stuff the spare magazines into my pockets, and drop the bag. Click. Thatas me.

One minute. Sam and Greg and Martin, the latter looking slightly harried. I key my mike. aFollow me.a A couple of weeks ago, wearing Fioreas stolen flesh, I explored this complexa"extremely cautiously, taking pains to be certain that Yourdon was occupied elsewhere at the time. The first floor contains the lobby and a big auditorium, plus a couple of things described on the building map as acourtrooms.a The second floor, which we pa.s.s without stopping, is wall-to-wall office s.p.a.ce. The third floor . . . well, I didnat spend much time there.

We reach the door and pause. aZero,a I say, tracking the sweep of my watch hand.

A second later thereas a chime in my headset. aGo!a says Janis.

aNow.a Greg opens the door fast, and Martin and Liz duck through, then p.r.o.nounce the bare-floored corridor clear. I lead us along it, then thereas another door, and Greg forces the exit bar from our side. Carpet. A short, narrow pa.s.sage. Yourdon must have left by now, surely? I rush forward and find myself in a boringly mundane living room, furnished in dark age fashion except for the smooth white bulge of an A-gate in one corner. aHere,a I say. aSpread out.a Weare not experts at house searches. Doubtless if there was armed resistance waiting for us, wead be easy prey. But the house is empty. Three bedrooms, a living room, an officea"thereas a desk and an ancient computer terminal, and booksa"and a kitchen and bathroom and another room full of boxes. Itas empty. Empty of personality as well as anachronisms like a longjump gate.

aWhat now?a asks Sam.

aWe check out front.a I walk up to the front door of the apartment, then Greg squeezes past me and unlocks it. He pulls it open and steps out, then I follow to see where we are, and the ground leaps up and whacks me across the knees with a concussive jolt too deep to call a noise.

aPanic one,a Janis says in my ear, a prearranged code for Team Green. That was a bomb, I think dizzily.

Thereas a click behind me, then a scream of pain. I whip round and that saves my life because the short burst of gunfire hammers past me and catches Liz instead, bullets slapping into her body as she spins round. I keep turning and drop to one knee, then fire a continuous burst that empties the magazine and nearly sprains my wrists.

a* * *,a says Janis, in my ringing ears.

aRepeat.a Iam staring at Greg. What used to be Greg. Someone behind me is making horrible sounds. I think itas Liz. aWe have a code red, two down.a aI said, Panic two,a says Janis. aTheyave got a Vorpala"a Pink noise fills my ears, and her voice breaks up: cognitive radios meet heuristic jamming. aCome on!a I yell at Sam, whoas bending over Liz. aFollow me!a Weare on a landing at the top of the stairs. Yourdonas apartment covers one side of the building, but on the other sidea"thereas a door. I dash toward it, reloading on the go. Greg tried to kill me, I realize. Which means he warned them. So . . .

I pause at one side of the door and wave Sam to the other. Then I brace myself and unload the entire clip through it at waist height.

While my ears are ringing, and Iam fumbling the next magazine into place, Sam kicks the door in and quickly shoots the police zombie slumped against the side of the corridor in the head. (That one was still moving, hand creeping toward the shotgun lying in the floor; the two bodies behind it arenat even twitching.) Seeing how efficiently Sam steps in gives me a momentary chill of recognition. No hesitation. Behind us, Liz is still moaning, and Martin wonat be good for anything. aWhat is this place?a I ask aloud.

aMore offices.a Sam kicks a door open and duck-walks through it. aModern offices.a I follow him. The next door is more substantial, opening onto a gla.s.s-fronted balcony above a room with open floor s.p.a.ce, an office-sized a.s.sembler at one side, and a row of gla.s.sy doors . . . aIs that what I think it is?a Bingo. aGates,a I say. aA switch hub. How do we get downa"a ah.e.l.lo, Reeve,a says my earpiece, in a voice that sets my teeth on edge. aThis isnat going to work, you know.a Where did Fiore get a headset from? Greg? Or have they captured one of Team Green?

Sam looks as if someoneas poleaxed him. His jaw is literally gaping. Too late I realize heas on the same chatline.

aYouave lost, Reeve,a Fiore adds conversationally. I can hear noises in the background. aWe know about your plot. There are guards outside the switch chamber, and if you get past them and make it to the longjump pod, youall diea"thereas an active laser fence in there. Iam most disappointed in you, but we can still work something out if you put down your popguns and surrender.a I touch my index finger to my lips and wait until Sam nods at me, to show heas got the message. Then I walk toward the door onto the staircase leading down into the switch chamber and its bank of shortjump gates.

I donat want Sam to see how sick I feel.

aYou donat know s.h.i.t, Fiore,a I say lightly.

aYes I do.a He sounds smug. aGregas unfortunate death makes further concealment irrelevant. Bluntly, youave failed. You canata"a I rip my earbud out and throw it away, frantically miming at Sam to do likewise. He pulls it out of his ear and stares at it. As heas about to toss it thereas a dual bang. He doubles over as a thin reddish mist sprays from his left finger and thumb, retching with pain.

aSam!a I yell at him. He cradles his damaged hand, panting. aSam! Weave only got a few seconds! Fiore canat stop us, or head already be up here! Sannias got him pinned down! Weave got to blow the longjump pod before he gets away! Give me your jacket!a aNo choicea"a He takes a shuddering breath and shakes his head. aReeve.a I place my gun at my feet and take him by the shoulders. aWhat is it, love?a A moment of awful tenderness, as I see the pain in his eyes. aIam sorry,a he says brokenly. aI couldnat be what you wanted.a aWhata"a And his good fist, still wrapped around the b.u.t.t of his gun, whacks me across the back of my head, propelling me straight into a pit of darkness from which I only emerge when itas far too late.

Epilogue.

TO cut a long story short, we won.

IT feels very different when you watch a replay of a body tumbling off a cliff, in free fall toward the harsh ground so far below, and itas not your body, and there are no second chances.

In the years since Sanni and Ia"and the rest of our ragtag resistance networka"kicked the door shut and overturned Yourdonas pocket dictatorship, Iave watched the video take of Samas death many times. How he sapped me, then gently laid me out on the floor, grunting with effort as he rolled me into the recovery position so I wouldnat choke on my own vomit. How he straightened up painfully afterward and put his gun down. How he walked along the row of shortjump doors, looking for the one opening on the short metal corridor with the handrail and the ring of support nodes halfway along it. How he paused, and went back to move me so that I wasnat lined up with it. And then how he stepped through.

What does it take to step into a corridor, knowing that your enemy said thereas a laser fence halfway along it? And as if that isnat enough, to do so wearing a waistcoat with ten kilos of plastic explosives weighing down its pockets?

Sam gets halfway along the corridor. Thereas a momentary flash, then the door bulges and turns black as the T-gate does a scram shutdown and ejects its wormhole endpoint through the side of the pod. Itas not very dramatic.

And thatas how we reach the foot of the cliff.

While I was unconscious, Janis and her team did what was expected of them. I think that she was expecting betrayal all along, because she had a few surprises of her own. Yourdon, at the front of the hall, chopped her in half with his Vorpal blade: I can only imagine his shock when another Janis stepped out from behind the fire escape and blew a hole through his chest. I should have realized she was playing a tricky gamea"her excuse about taking all night to run off ten kilos of high explosives was far too convenienta"but in hindsight, she didnat trust anyone by that point. Even me.

While I was unconscious, Fiorea"desperate, trapped in the police station down the road by a squad of murderous Sannisa"patched through his netlink and got onto our command circuit which was, as expected, compromised by design. But Sanni was one jump ahead of him all the way. Greg had told him what was going on that morning. Fiore thought that a laser fence and extra security guards would suffice. These psywar types, they donat think like a tank, or a fighting cat. Two of mea"despite being seriously p.i.s.sed at Sanni for making them live in the library attic and stay away from Sama"took him out with a rocket-propelled grenade, while three other squads fanned out and combed the parish churches for cowering revenants. As Janis later explained, aWhen the only soldier you can rely on is Reeve, you make the most of her.a But I wonat bear a grudge, even though two of me died.