‘Yes. That is to say, you will be the only Envoy involved. More conventional resources are at your disposal in great number.’
‘That sounds good.’
‘Let us hope so.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’
Another delicate throat-clearing. ‘In due course. May I ask, once again, if the sleeve is comfortable?’
‘It seems very.’ Sudden realisation. Very smooth, response at impressive levels even for someone used to Corps combat custom. A beautiful body, on the inside at least. ‘Is this something new from Nakamura?’
‘No.’ Does the woman’s gaze slant upward and left? She’s a security exec, she’s probably wired with retinal datadisplay. ‘Harkany Neuro-systems, grown under offworld licence for Khumalo-Cape.’
Envoys aren’t supposed to suffer from surprise. Any frowning I did would have to be on the inside. ‘Khumalo? Never heard of them.’
‘No, you wouldn’t have.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Suffice it to say we have equipped you with the very best biotech available. I doubt I need to enumerate the sleeve’s capacities to someone of your background. Should you wish detail, there is a basic manual accessible through the datadisplay in your left field of vision.’ A faint smile, maybe the hint of weariness. ‘Harkany were not culturing specifically for Envoy use, and there has not been time to arrange anything customised.’
‘You’ve got a crisis on your hands?’
‘Very astute, Kovacs-san. Yes, the situation might fairly be described as critical. We would like you to go to work immediately.’
‘Well, that’s what they pay me for.’
‘Yes.’ Would she broach the matter of exactly who was paying at this point? Probably not. ‘As you’ve no doubt already guessed this will be a covert deployment. Very different from Sharya. Though you did have some experience of dealing with terrorists towards the end of that campaign, I believe.’
‘Yeah.’ After we smashed their IP fleet, jammed their data transmission systems, blew apart their economy and generally killed their capacity for global defiance, there were still a few diehards who didn’t get the Protectorate message. So we hunted them down. Infiltrate, befriend, subvert, betray. Murder in back alleys. ‘I did that for a while.’
‘Good. This work is not dissimilar.’
‘You’ve got terrorist problems? Are the Quellists acting up again?’
She makes a dismissive gesture. No one takes Quellism seriously any more. Not for a couple of centuries now. The few genuine Quellists still around on the World have traded in their revolutionary principles for high-yield crime. Same risks, better paid. They’re no threat to this woman, or the oligarchy she represents. It’s the first hint that things are not as they seem.
‘This is more in the nature of a manhunt, Kovacs-san. An individual, not a political issue.’
‘And you’re calling in Envoy support.’ Even through the mask of control, this has to rate a raised eyebrow. My voice has probably gone up a little as well. ‘Must be a remarkable individual.’
‘Yes. He is. An ex-Envoy, in fact. Kovacs-san, before we proceed any further, I think something needs to be made clear to you, a matter that—’
‘Something certainly needs to be made clear to my commanding officer. Because to me this sounds suspiciously like you’re wasting Envoy Corps time. We don’t do this kind of work.’
‘—may come as something of a shock to you. You, ah, no doubt believe that you have been re-sleeved shortly after the Sharya campaign. Perhaps even only a few days after your needlecast out.’
A shrug. Envoy cool. ‘Days or months – it doesn’t make much difference to m—’
‘Two centuries.’
‘What?’
‘As I said. You have been in storage for a little under two hundred years. In real terms—’
Envoy cool goes out the window, rapidly. ‘What the fuck happened to—’
‘Please, Kovacs-san. Hear me out.’ A sharp note of command. And then, as the conditioning shuts me down again, pared back to listen and learn, more quietly: ‘Later I will give you as much detail as you like. For now, let it suffice that you are no longer part of the Envoy Corps as such. You can consider yourself privately retained by the Harlan family.’
Marooned centuries from the last moments of living experience you recall. Sleeved out of time. A lifetime away from everyone and everything you knew. Like some fucking criminal. Well, Envoy assimilation technique will by now have some of this locked down, but still—
‘How did you—’
‘Your digitised personality file was acquired for the family some time ago. As I said, I can give you more detail later. You need not concern yourself too much with this. The contract I am here to offer you is lucrative and, we feel, ultimately rewarding. What’s important is for you to understand the extent to which your Envoy skills will be put to the test. This is not the Harlan’s World you know.’
‘I can deal with that.’ Impatiently. ‘It’s what I do.’
‘Good. Now, you will of course want to know—’
‘Yeah.’ Shut down the shock, like a tourniquet on a bleeding limb. Drag up competence and a drawled lack of concern once more. Grab on to the obvious, the salient point in all of this. ‘Just who the fuck is this ex-Envoy you so badly want me to catch?’
Maybe it went something like that.
Then again, maybe not. I’m inferring from suspicion and fragmented knowledge after the event. Building it up from what I can guess, using Envoy intuition to fill in the gaps. But I could be completely wrong.
I wouldn’t know.
I wasn’t there.
And I never saw his face when they told him where I was. Told him that I was, and what he’d have to do about it.
PART ONE
This Is Who You Are
‘Make it personal…’
CHAPTER ONE
Damage.
The wound stung like fuck, but it wasn’t as bad as some I’d had. The blaster bolt came in blind across my ribs, already weakened by the door plating it had to chew through to get to me. Priests, up against the slammed door and looking for a quick gut-shot. Fucking amateur night. They’d probably caught almost as much pain themselves from the point-blank blowback off the plating. Behind the door, I was already twisting aside. What was left of the charge ploughed a long, shallow gash across my ribcage and went out, smouldering in the folds of my coat. Sudden ice down that side of my body and the abrupt stench of fried skin-sensor components. That curious bone-splinter fizzing that’s almost a taste, where the bolt had ripped through the biolube casing on the floating ribs.
Eighteen minutes later, by the softly glowing display chipped into my upper left field of vision, the same fizzing was still with me as I hurried down the lamp-lit street, trying to ignore the wound. Stealthy seep of fluids beneath my coat. Not much blood. Sleeving synthetic has its advantages.
‘Looking for a good time, sam?’
‘Already had one,’ I told him, veering away from the doorway. He blinked wave-tattooed eyelids in a dismissive flutter that said your loss and leaned his tightly-muscled frame languidly back into the gloom. I crossed the street and took the corner, tacking between a couple more whores, one a woman, the other of indeterminate gender. The woman was an augment, forked dragon tongue flickering out around her overly prehensile lips, maybe tasting my wound on the night air. Her eyes danced a similar passage over me, then slid away. On the other side, the cross-gender pro shifted its stance slightly and gave me a quizzical look but said nothing. Neither were interested. The streets were rain-slick and deserted, and they’d had longer to see me coming than the doorway operator. I’d cleaned up since leaving the citadel, but something about me must have telegraphed the lack of business opportunity.