Her mind returned to her work. All afternoon she’d been buzzing over her cyberdeck, a Fuchi 6, installing the smartframe that would operate as a semi-independent intelligence to execute programs that would protect her while she traveled about in the cyberspace of the Matrix. With the new Korean sleaze program, she’d be able to slip past intrusion countermeasures that until now she’d been too wary to confront. She forgot all about her annoying date and stretched out in the back seat. Men were far less sensuous than a hot program.

She was almost asleep when the limo delivered her to her doorstep; six minutes more and her head hit the pillow in her bedroom. In vain did the tortoiseshell cat grumble for his food. Daddy’s little rich girl slept, but that didn’t mean the cat would have long to wait. Not much time passed before Francesca was awake again, screaming in terror. It was the same nightmare and it always woke her at the same place, just as the last scalpel had been cleaned and was being put back in the case.

The Empress. Sitting demurely in her bower, holding flowers, and dressed in blue-green, the serene figure gazes out contentedly over the bounty of the earth. Her curves are sensuous and strong, and she is crowned by the sky above her throne.

Geraint almost slumped with relief. Francesca. Well, we certainly know each other, we three. The hint of a feeling slipped past his control, a momentary sadness, the recollection of a precious opportunity now lost, but the impression faded quickly.

His eyes were drawn against his will to a detail in the bottom left-hand corner of the card: seated below the throne of the woman, beyond her sight, was a pelican feeding her young. It was said that the bird nourished her offspring with her own blood, and, in truth, these fledglings were pecking at their mother’s breast. Geraint saw blood, blood in his mind’s eye and not on the card, and his body almost convulsed. The triangle of tufted hair at the nape of his neck rose and a cold chill ran down his spine. The champagne lay flat in the glass now, having become merely poor, thin wine. Show me help, he begged the cards, show me what I can reach to. Is there anyone there?

Rani was breathing a little heavily as she gave the five-rap signal on the reinforced door. Her brother Imran drew back the bolts, saw her face in what remained of the streetlights, and hurriedly pulled the chains from their pins. He drew her into his arms and half-dragged her inside, fumbling the bolts and heavy steel chains back into place to seal out the harsh night. He brushed back the hair from her forehead, examining her face carefully. Reassured that she was unharmed, he still wanted to know what had happened.

“It was nothing. Just a pair of dweebs in an alley in Shoreditch, up by Den’s chippie, the one who sells that crap cod, you know?" She was talking too fast, unsettled. “One came up behind me and I swivel-kicked him. I don’t think he’ll be having any kids in future. The other one didn’t back off right away, though. Bastard had a meathook with a honed edge. I think he wanted to get some practice barbering." She laughed a little too loudly and tears welled in her large brown eyes. ‘‘Doesn’t matter. Happens all the time.”

Imran hugged her tight again and shushed her, stroking the back of her head. Then he ushered her into the living room with its barred windows, peeling gilt wallpaper, and frayed carpets. She could see Sanjay with his thermometer and glass retorts in the kitchen beyond, the acrid smell of acetone and isopropyl biting through the air. She looked despondently at Imran, then flicked her eyes back toward kitchen, her face almost despairing.

"It’s for a bunch of rakkies in from Essex who think they’re going to have fun slumming in the Smoke," her brother sighed, trying to prevent a scene. “Who cares about white human trash? Sanjay won’t put any rat poison in it. Promise.” His lopsided grin asked for comprehension, but her head was in her hands now, her broad shoulders heaving a little as she fought back the sobs. Her brother knew better than to touch or approach her, giving Rani time to master these powerful emotions with her own strength. This wasn’t the moment for the usual reproaches about her being away from home; for once, the words died on his lips.

She inhaled deeply and brushed away the traces of tears from her face. “Maybe they wanted to kill me because I’m not white. Maybe they wanted to kill me because I’m an ork. I only did what I did because they came at me with blades and hammers. But I killed someone not twenty minutes ago, and I don’t feel good about that. And when I get home I find my brothers cooking up drugs to feed the habits of a bunch of trancers.” She sighed deeply and sank back into the chair, resigned and weary. “Sod it. I’m seventeen years old, and just now I think I’ve had enough of the world. Or at least the East End of bloody London.”

Feeling too hopeless to talk, Rani climbed the stairs to her room. She kicked off her heavy combat boots, pulled off her woolen socks, and looked at the upturned palms of her hands with their flexible immunoneutral pads below the skin. Not many of her kind could afford such a fusion of biology and tech. The twenty-first century had made it possible, but it couldn’t make it cheap. Imran had paid a lot to protect her.

That’s one advantage of being an Indian, she reminded herself; a smartgun link is harder to see on me than on a whiteskin. Makes me a lot harder to kill than most of my cousins. The ones still alive know that. The others found out too late. She pulled the padded jacket over her head and shoulders, making a mental note to repair the tear along the right shoulder in the morning. The edge of the meat hook had made a very precise cut, but a few minutes with the monofilament staplegun and the jacket would be as good as new. She tugged off her baggy ribbed pants and clambered into bed, and within minutes was asleep. Rani was too exhausted to be disturbed by the frequent sounds of shouts and gunfire that came up from the streets through her cracked window to her. Besides, she was used to it.

Strength.

The calm gaze of the woman holding the lion’s mouth open stared back at Geraint from the card. He didn’t know who she was, but he felt a mixture of calm and excitement after the horror and fear of the earlier images, a sense of reassurance and uncertainty at the same time. Well, powerful lady, I hope we meet sooner rather than later. After the soft-bodied creatures of the last few weeks, you should be interesting.

Geraint grinned, put the pack in its silk and in its box, and then poured a fresh glass of champagne. News was coming through fast from Tokyo and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong; something was popping in the pharmaceuticals markets, or so it looked. He reached for the plug and snapped it into the datajack behind his left ear, bringing the electronic chatter of the cyberdeck closer to his consciousness.

Geraint was in the Matrix now, and he felt predatory. At the same moment, his persona icon showed the place where his attention was directed in the Matrix. The icon had no objective reality among the optical chips, data-lines, and computer architecture they called the Matrix, but another operator in the same part of the system would perceive Geraint’s ‘‘persona” as a Celtic knight grasping a longsword, which represented a powerful attack program in cyberspace. Beside him, his sensor utilities took the image of a pack of Irish wolfhounds, eager and snuffling as they loped along beside him.

Let’s go check on the nightlife in Teesprawl, he thought with a smile. Something tells me Zeta-ImpChem might have some interesting data on this. Come on, boys. Time to make money.