Petrovitch flexed the fingers of his left hand. He watched them curl and uncurl like thin white tube worms extending from their nest. “Yeah, well. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. It would, I guess, be quite easy for me. Rally the troops, depose the leader, seize power. Shame it’s not going to happen.”

“Nyet?”

“Definitely nyet. And of course the Freezone is a good idea. It was my idea. That’s why I’ve been a loyal servant of it, and why I’ll stay one for the next week and a bit.”

“What of future? Your future?” She looked pensive for the briefest of moments. “Mine?”

“Leave it with me. I don’t intend to disappoint either my friends or my enemies.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “That is good.”

And that was it; the matter was concluded to her satisfaction. He’d deflected an attempted coup simply by saying no. He hoped that if Sonja ever found out, she’d be appropriately grateful.

Meanwhile, Tabletop was circling one machine that looked like a skeletal robot cut off at the waist. Her fingers were manipulating the two outriggers, bending them and twisting them, and feeling the way the joints moved in relationship with one another.

“This is it.” She beckoned Petrovitch over, and he allowed himself to be wheeled into position.

When he looked up, the thing towered over him. He had a flashback to the New Machine Jihad, of a construct of steel and hydraulics bending down to inspect him minutely.

“Nothing to be nervous of,” said Tabletop.

“You’re not sitting where I am.” He took a deep breath. “What do I have to do?”

“Just hold your arm out. I’ll do the rest.”

He raised his arm awkwardly, and she moved quickly and carefully, with unearned ease. She lowered the machine over him and clamped Petrovitch’s titanium rings to the metal skeleton until it provided all the support and he could just hang off it.

“Comfortable?”

It wasn’t, but he’d expected nothing else. “It’s fine.”

There was more: a harness that clicked into place around his shoulders and down his back. It was more than just like an exoskeleton: it was an exoskeleton, and he got the point of what she was trying to do.

“We’ll need to lose the right arm—not mine, the machine’s. And doesn’t this work off the mains?”

“The servos are twelve volts. You should be able to rig something up.” Tabletop opened several drawers in a nearby desk, searching for something. “Hex wrench. Five mil.”

“Madeleine should have mine.”

“I’ll keep looking,” she said, and spread her net wider.

“She doesn’t hate you, you know.”

“Uh huh.” Her voice was muffled by the cupboard she was in. “Did she tell you that?”

Petrovitch scratched his nose with his free hand. “Good point, well made.”

She looked over the top of the steel bench. “Her last act as head of security was to release this suit to me. She took the opportunity to make her opinion of me crystal clear.” Tabletop ducked back down again, eventually emerging with a flat plastic case. “Let’s get this done.”

With Valentina taking the weight of the spare machine arm, Tabletop unwound the bolts that held it in place, then disconnected the cables from the motors at the shoulders, elbow and wrist.

The door banged open. A man in a white coat stood framed in the doorway.

“What… are you doing?”

After months of being used to scanning a face, running it through his software, coming up with an identity, Petrovitch was lost. The personal touch, the calling someone by their own name, was his signature move. It was his only move. And no matter how hard he tried, nothing would come.

So he gave up. “Ah, chyort voz’mi. We’re taking hospital property apart and modifying it so I can regain some basic function in my shattered left arm, which should allow me to at least attempt to drag ourselves out of the pizdets we’re in before we all die horribly. If I can find the podonok who did this to me on the way, it’ll be a bonus.” He smiled unpleasantly. “Any questions?”

“Doctor Petrovitch?” asked the man.

“If that was your question, may whichever god you believe in help us all. Who the huy did you think I was?”

He could see the mental calculations whirr behind his eyes. If that was Petrovitch, that must mean the one in the black form-fitting all-in-one was the CIA assassin, and the other one in the brown jacket cinched in at the waist and with the Kalashnikov across her back was the Russian gangster, hero of Waterloo Bridge.

“I’ll be going,” he said.

“Good choice,” said Petrovitch, and waited for the door to close. “Mudak.”

“Right.” Tabletop tightened the straps and checked the retaining bolts. “Can you stand?”

“With help, probably.”

Valentina stopped playing with the spare mechanical arm long enough to grip the spine rod and neck harness. The women heaved him up. Petrovitch leaned to the left, overcorrected, and eventually found upright.

“Heavy. Unbalanced.” The straps bit into his pale skin.

“You’ll feel the difference when I turn it on.”

Tabletop took up the little hand controller and powered it up. Immediately, the servos whirred and strained, taking the effort out of holding his arm up. He moved his shoulder slowly, and the sensors felt his tentative efforts, translating it into a smooth, steady arc.

“Yobany stos.” He looked down at his arm. “This might actually work.”

“I’m just going to loosen the elbow joint. Tell me if it hurts.”

“Yeah. It’s going to hurt anyway, so just do it.”

She applied the wrench to the appropriate screws. “Okay. Bend your arm. Just a little.”

It moved. Almost gracefully. The supporting rings of his cast and the metal spars of the physio machine made it look both ungainly and unlikely, but there was both power and speed hiding behind its appearance.

“We’re going to need some hard-core battery packs. And lots of them. Rechargables.” Petrovitch turned his wrist one way, then the other. “A very long extension lead’s going to come in handy, too.”

Valentina drew out her phone. “I will tell Lucy. She will find something appropriate.”

“Tell her to meet us here, and we’ll go to the art college together.” He tutted. “We still need my tools, and Madeleine has most of them.”

“We’ll have to get them from her. You are not cutting your arm off just yet, so she should be grateful.” Valentina walked to the far side of the room to carry on her conversation, and Petrovitch looked down at the rest of his body.

“I’m going to need my trousers. And boots. And I’m not certain I can tie my own laces anymore.” He sighed, and motors whirred in sympathy. “We’re going to have to wreck my greatcoat too. No way I’m getting this thing down the sleeve. Transport. You’ve got transport, right?”

Tabletop transferred her weight to one hip and handed him the controller. “Just because you hadn’t thought of it until now doesn’t mean it hasn’t been thought of. Everything’s in hand, Sam.”

“I have issues. So sue me.” He tried to bring his left hand close enough to his face to scratch at the bridge of his nose. Not quite. He growled. “Why are we still here? We need to be doing something.”

“Then sit back down in the chair and I’ll unplug you. Clothes, tools, car, college. Something will not happen unless we do everything in order. Focus, clarity, purpose.”

“Is that what they taught you in the CIA?” Petrovitch eased himself into the wheelchair.

“It’s what I remember, so it must have been. Put your arm across your lap. When I turn off the power, it’ll become so much dead weight again.”

He did as he was told, and railed against being ordered around at the same time. Tabletop pulled the plug: his arm went stiff and tried to fall across his knees. He hauled it up and balanced it across the sides of the chair.

Tabletop wheeled him back out into the corridor, Valentina, phone still glued to her ear, following.