“You betrayed me.” She was furious. “And now you’re trying to humiliate me?”

“It just looks like that at the moment. If I have to do this myself, then it won’t work as well, and it won’t end how it should. Call in favors, promise them the world, resort to blind nationalistic rhetoric—I don’t care. I need them, and you can get them for me.” It wasn’t working, and he wondered what would. “Do you remember? When you said we should run away together?”

“It was only the day before yesterday.”

“I just realized we don’t have to run anywhere. All we have to do is plant our flag right here in the Metrozone, and see who stands up to salute it.”

“Stop,” she shouted, and she held up her shaking hands as a physical barrier to his altered visage. “Just… stop. What are you saying? That we take control of the whole city?”

“Yobany stos, Sonya! No: just the half the MEA have abandoned.”

“But.” She realized she had no objections left, though she felt she should try. “But what about the Outies?”

“What about them? Defeating them is the cost of still having somewhere to live when the sun goes down. Now,” he said, “yes or no?”

She gave up arguing. “We’ll never win,” she sighed.

“Three words say we will.” Petrovitch sorted the Metrozone database for Japanese refugees: a simple place-of-birth search, nothing complicated once he’d hacked his way into the system. He bundled up the information and threw it down the wire to Sonja.

She waited, for longer than he anticipated. He thought maybe he was losing his touch, but then she relented and asked:

“Which three words?”

“These ones: New, Machine, Jihad.” He grinned. “See you.”

22

Petrovitch opened first one eye, then the other. He stood swaying slightly for a moment, then tried to walk forward a couple of steps.

They were tentative, a questioning toe pressed against the sharp ballast before he committed his whole weight.

“Weird,” he said, and even as he said it, it felt like he was writing a line of code and sending it to his vocal cords.

Miyamoto had his sword in his hand, watching him from a safe distance, poised to strike him down.

When Petrovitch turned his head, he could feel the cable drag: an unnatural connection from skull to computer was one thing, but it was more than that. He felt full to bursting. Ripe.

He focused on the samurai, and was aware of the embedded electronics in the man’s clothing—nothing more complicated than a phone searching for a signal, but he could see it as an icon he could touch, open, alter and activate if he knew the right commands.

“This is going to take some getting used to.”

“You should not have done this,” said Miyamoto. “There are too many unknowns involved.”

Petrovitch looked over the top of his glasses. The shine off the sword blurred, then sharpened as the rat processed the raw data and fed it back. The resulting image wasn’t perfect, but it was close. “We can argue about it later. Right now, I’m looking for a bus.”

He slid one sleeve of his coat off, and threaded the rat over his shoulder, then back around to his front. He slipped the rat into his inside coat pocket, coiling up the excess cable, and put his arm back in. The connector was mostly hidden by his hair. When he turned his collar up, it was all but invisible.

His simultaneous search of the satellite images found him several buses, which he matched with a picture gallery to discard all the ones without automatic navigation. He could have used cars, of which there were many more, and closer—but a big modern coach with tall sides would offer more protection to its occupants.

There were two that fitted his requirements, both in the depot of a private hire firm up at Highgate, near the cemetery. He was going to have to free them from behind the locked gates.

“Are you ready?”

“For what?”

“Revolution. I suppose they all start like this, with one person thinking that things could be different. Then it grows. They persuade others to join in, and it gains a momentum all of its own. It either overwhelms the old order, or gets crushed.” Petrovitch pushed his glasses back up his nose, and felt his eyesight compensate again. He took the info shades off and pocketed them: he’d probably never need them again. “This is my revolution. This is where we sweep away the past and the future breaks in. This is what the New Machine Jihad should have been.”

“The Jihad killed hundreds of thousands,” said Miyamoto.

“It’s going to do it again, too. Back then, when it was stupid, ignorant, and no more than an urge, it attacked us. But now it’s got smarts. It knows everything. It’s guided. It can make amends for the wrong things it did. It’s going to take back the city for us.”

“It is a weapon, and it is in your hands alone.” Miyamoto flexed his fingers around his sword hilt. “No one man should have so much power.”

“Before you try and stop me, why don’t you talk to Miss Sonja? I have and, despite her misgivings, she’s with me. Which reminds me.”

Petrovitch turned away from Miyamoto, and searched for Valentina. As well as talk to her, he could see her, see all around her: her phone pinpointed her location on the approaches to Tower Bridge.

The EDF had done the smart thing, the thing they should have done much earlier: they’d stopped the traffic, and made people get out and walk with only what they could carry. Cars were crushed in all around her, abandoned, some still with their motors running. She was with a gaggle of Olgas, pushing ahead through the slowly moving crowds with Marchenkho in their wake. He didn’t look happy.

“I see you,” he said in Valentina’s ear.

“Petrovitch. Where are you?” Her neck craned and tried to spot him.

“Look up, to your left. There’s a lamp-post with a camera.” He waggled the camera’s housing to attract her attention. “Though I’m pretty much everywhere now.”

“We did not find Daniels,” she said. “Is madness here, and Outies are not far behind.”

“I know. I can see them, too. Listen: when you said you would help me, did you mean it? Rather, how much did you mean it?”

Without hesitating, she replied, “What is it you need me to do?”

“I need Waterloo Bridge. I need it clear for northbound traffic. I can help, but I’m not there.”

He zoomed in so he could try and read her face. She nodded. “Hmm. Is done,” she said. “Should I talk to Marchenkho?”

“I’ve delegated this to you. If you want him, fine. If not, fine. I need to make one thing clear, though. He works for you, and you work for me. If he can’t handle that, then cut him loose.”

“Da,” she said. “How long before you need bridge?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

She raised her sculpted eyebrows.

Petrovitch shrugged to no one in particular. “Yeah. I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”

“Then I had better hurry. Good hunting.” She cut the connection, and he followed her for a few moments more as she glanced at her watch and made a little head-jiggle as she weighed up matters in her mind. Then she started to climb on top of a car.

Waterloo Bridge was as good as his, so he returned his attention to where his body was. He’d walked to the end of the tunnel on automatic: he’d have to watch for that by writing some sort of script, though he barely knew where to start. He could hack into his own heart if he wanted to.

The avatar was again waiting for him, but he was looking out over a landscape that had been strangely changed. The layers of information he’d seen on Miyamoto were replicated everywhere. Most of the electronics was locked, rendered inert by the Outies destroying the power grid as they advanced.

But some were not. Battery-powered devices glowed green, almost begging to be used. Discarded phones on standby, handheld computers, solar-powered street furniture, and best of all, the cars.