‘Nasty organic tech.’ Vulture was now—he saw by the display in the bottom corner of his visor—interfaced with his suit and seeing all he was seeing.

‘Looks dead to me.’

‘Even so, decontamination procedures will be advisable when you return.’

‘I know what this is,’ said Salvor, observing the control chairs tangled in woody tentacular growth, the massed circuitry underneath the tilted glass floor and the other systems set in the surrounding walls, also pierced by that growth. ‘It’s the bridge pod.’

‘Yes, I agree. I also advise you to get out of there now—you don’t know what you are dealing with.’

‘Wait a minute. Do you know how much Dreyden would pay for this—or one of the Separatist groups? There’ll be a fortune in high-tech systems here, let alone whatever all this other weird shit is.’

Salvor now noticed the desiccated corpse lying against the back wall, pinned there by growths that had sprouted from the wall. His attention slid back to the captain’s chair and he saw that it was empty. So probably some sort of biotech attack: the ship taken over and made to attack Elysium, while the captain himself lay dead back there.

‘Nothing I can do about all this right now,’ he said. ‘I’ll take recordings and put them out on the net—see who makes the biggest offer for its location.’

He turned to go, then hesitated when something shifted beside him. A wave of shadow revolved around something, and revealed it. A man stood there: a naked man with hideous burns on the side of his face and down one side of his body, burns deep enough to expose the bone around one empty eye socket, the blackened teeth in his jaws, and burnt ribs in his chest. That same strange growth occupying the bridge pod also occupied this man’s body, only in him it was moving like maggots in a corpse. It also cupped the unburnt side of his face and writhed chitinously under his skin. On the opposite side of his head a crystal matrix aug glimmered greenish light, and from it crystal rods speared down into seared flesh around his collarbone.

‘Oh fuck,’ was all Salvor managed before the man’s left hand snapped out and caught him by the throat, and the right hand pressed against his suit’s visor.

‘Salvor! Salv—’ Vulture’s cries cut off.

The suit’s systems went crazy telling him of suit breaches, subversion programs, changes in air mix… Salvor fought against the grip crushing his larynx, but it was like fighting a docking clamp. The suit’s systems died: all the miniature displays it had flung up along the bottom of his visor going out at once. Then his visor was melting and dark woody tendrils were squirming towards his eyes.

He didn’t scream, could not find the breath.

Just outside Bangladesh, bright tropical sunshine bathed the lawns surrounding Cybercorp HQ, and the volume of chatter from the crowd was increasing in direct proportion to the amount of chilled champagne consumed. Many members of the press, bored with waiting for the appearance of the new Golem Twenty-five, were finding diversion by feeding canapés to the resident chipmunks. Someone had brought an elephant kitted out in its red and gold regalia. It stood to one side swinging its trunk at the swarming holocams, its Golem mahout looking embarrassed. No one knew why the creature was there; few of them gave a damn.

Sitting on the plinth of a statue of Ganesh, Solenz Garrick of Earthnet used a tissue to wipe raven shit from his businesswear and, with something approaching hatred, eyed the black birds roosting in the nearby date palm. Glancing towards the conglomeration of geodesic domes nestled around the base of the kilometre-tall Corp tower, he shook his head and said something filthy. The launches of the earlier Golem series had certainly been media events, but now, at number Twenty-five, they were becoming passé, and it told Solenz something of his boss’s regard for him that he had been sent to attend this event. He now turned and looked up at his own holocam.

‘The numbering of Golem is, on the whole, a superfluous distinction now,’ he announced. Then he stood up, eyed the smear on his shoulder, before turning sideways to the cam.

‘The differences between each series are now only small improvements, usually negated when Golem of the earlier series are upgraded by their owners—or, if free, by themselves. Underneath all the hype it can be seen that the prototype Twenty-five only possesses slightly more efficient servomotors and a rather longer-lasting power supply than its predecessor.’

‘I think that crow said all that needs to be said about your narrative, Solenz.’ As he swayed up to stand beside Solenz, Barone of India News grinned unpleasantly. The man then drained his glass and tossed it on the ground, where a chipmunk came to inspect it, sniffed haughtily, then went on after more canapés.

‘It was a raven, actually,’ said Solenz, uncomfortably aware that he was still live on Earthnet, if only on one of the lower channels.

‘Ah, here they come,’ said Barone.

Out of the arched entranceway to the nearest dome issued Corp execs dressed up like a shower of peacocks. In the centre of this group, towering over them all, walked the new Golem.

‘They always build the prototype big for effect—to make up for the lack of any real technical advances,’ said Solenz sniffily.

‘Oh, get with the program, man,’ said Barone. ‘It’s all about primary ownership, and how big my cojones are ‘cause I can afford a Golem from the newest series.’

Even though he was still live, Solenz turned to Barone and said, ‘Why don’t you just fuck off over there somewhere.’

‘Oooh, touchy.’ But Barone moved away.

Like dogs running in to sniff something unmentionable, the press then moved in. Solenz shouldered and elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. The Corp representative—dressed in businesswear superior to his own, Solenz noted—held up his hands and waited for silence, flicking his fingers at the holocams moving in for a closer view of big lanky Golem standing behind him. Solenz prepared himself to be bored, and tried to think of incisive questions to ask once the speechifying was over.

‘It has long been the aim of this corporation to bring you only the best, only the forefront of cyber technology,’ the man said, smilingly superior.

‘Well, waggle my dick with a flag on it,’ someone muttered, and someone else succumbed to a fit of the giggles.

The rep frowned then went on, ‘To that end I have great pleasure in presenting to the Polity—’

Briefly: a nightmare glimpse of a disc of fire exploding from a holocam and cutting the speaker in half, before the shock wave lifted Solenz up off his feet and deposited him on his back. Almost instinctively he tried to connect through his aug, but felt all the aug channels collapsing as he selected each. He glanced up and saw holocams dropping out of the air.

Fuck. Planar load… electronic warfare…

People were yelling—and dispersing in panic. It reminded Solenz of his earlier years reporting wars and terrorist attacks on the Line worlds. He saw Barone staggering along with both arms cut away at the elbow. One of the Corp women, who had waltzed out in some diaphanous rainbow creation, was now on her knees, naked and screaming.

Yes! News!

Despite all external links for his aug being out, Solenz started it recording through his own senses — everything he saw, heard, smelt and tasted. There was grit in his mouth, and the acrid chemical smell of explosives in the air. Then some sort of smoke bomb went off with a dull whoomph. Solenz dragged himself to his feet and staggered through the sudden, choking pall towards where the Golem had stood. All around lay human detritus. He stepped in something soft he was loath to look down and identify, but as he slid on that viscous mess, he glimpsed the Golem flat on its back nearby.