From another angle, an iron giant on top of six articulated legs lumbered down Piccadilly.

“Enough,” said Oshicora. “I have seen enough.”

37

They were back in the bar, sitting opposite each other.

“Perhaps,” said Oshicora, “I should have another drink.”

Petrovitch poured him more, a generous portion that nearly filled the lacquer box too. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re the first truly sentient AI ever, and this happens. You couldn’t have predicted it.”

“That does not excuse what I have done. I am to blame.” He picked up his sake and sipped carefully. “I cannot explain why, though. I am not a man given to reckless impulses, senseless murder or mass destruction. I am,” he frowned, “in control of my emotions. It is something I take pride in: every decision weighed and judged.”

“Yeah. To be fair, Oshicora-san, you always struck me as that sort of man, but you still made your money out of extortion, prostitution, drugs, and guns. Traditional pursuits for a yakuza.” Petrovitch blinked. Something was happening to him, and he looked again at his medical card. “Oh. Okay.”

“You should go, Petrovitch-san. We can conclude this conversation later.”

“No, I don’t think we can, or even if we could, I don’t think we ought.” He laid the card face down on the table, even though Oshicora had to know what was written on it. “You’re a violent, ruthless crime lord. No matter how cultured or civilized you are, you still send people to their deaths with a simple hai. For all I know they deserve it; pimps, pushers, thieves, thugs, whatever. But it leaves scars, scars inside. I know about that. I know what happens when I close my eyes, the nightmares I have, the ones I’m going to have because of what I’ve done this last week. They’re the kind of thing you’d never tell anyone, let alone allow them to see.”

“And here are mine, played out in front of a whole city.” Oshicora gripped his cup with white fingers. “It would be humiliating in any circumstance, but now it is lethal.”

“So,” said Petrovitch, “what are you going to do?”

“The project has failed, Samuil Petrovitch. It is self-evident that we cannot have both a VirtualJapan and a real London Metrozone. One of them will have to go.” Oshicora put his sake cup down and placed his palms down on the table. “It is also obvious that it is I who should depart, and the Metrozone remain.”

“I bow to your wisdom.” Petrovitch pulled a face. “There’s an additional complication, Oshicora-san, in that I promised Sonja I’d save you.”

“Then it seems you made one promise too far. A man’s destruction should always ultimately lie in his own hands. Sonja will understand.”

“Yeah. I didn’t say it to make myself look good. I said it because I can do it. I can save you, after a fashion.” Petrovitch shrugged. “At least hear me out.”

“Very well.” He folded his arms. “I will listen to your proposal.”

“I have a server. It’s in Tuvalu, though I may have to do something about that before the sea swallows it up. It’s nowhere near big enough to contain even part of VirtualJapan. It’s not big enough to contain you. But there should be enough to hold a template of what you started as, like a seed. Or an egg: it’s going to be like an eggy-seedy thing, anyway.”

Oshicora folded his arms and looked supremely sceptical.

Petrovitch growled his frustration. “Look, I’m trying to help. I’m trying to salvage something out of this pizdets that’s worth saving. We export a blueprint of your command processes to the Tuvalu server. Nothing else. Just, just the genetic code.” He slapped the table as he finally found an analogy that would fit.

“And using this code, you can grow a new AI. But without the memories. Without the dreams.” Now Oshicora was engaged, animated. “Not just a new intelligence, but my twin.”

“Your good twin. A clean start. How many of us have wanted that? How many of us ever have the opportunity?”

Oshicora stroked his chin, and rumbled deep in his chest. “It is also a risk. What if I did not become bad, influenced by everything I ever saw or did or thought? What if I was born that way? The menace I represent would just rise again, elsewhere. What if you were not there to stop it?”

“Why not let me worry about that?” Petrovitch said. “I appreciate that since the fall of Japan you’ve been carrying around the weight of a whole nation on your back, and that it’s a hard thing to give up. But it’s time to pass on the burden to someone else. What do you say? Will you let me keep my promise to your daughter?”

“It seems almost a dishonorable act, when I have caused so much pain. I,” and Oshicora looked up, “regret much.”

“One more thing to tempt you, then. You showed an interest in my colleague’s work, when you came to call on me at the university. We’ve moved on from that. I helped some, she did the rest. We seem to have a working model of the universe, a copy of which is in my… in Madeleine’s hands; if I’d had it with me, I’d show it to you.”

“Would you?” Oshicora smiled.

“Probably not. But I will.”

“To my future self.”

“Yeah. I’d trust him with it. I wonder what dreams he’ll have?”

“Very well, Petrovitch-san. You will not break your promise.” He pursed his lips. “You do know you are technically dead?”

“It’s what the card says. I’m relying on the fact that I haven’t disappeared in a puff of logic to keep me going.” He shrugged again. “I die all the time. It’s never stopped me before.”

“We should still make haste.” Oshicora transported them to the Akiba electronics shop in an eyeblink.

Petrovitch found the Oshicora Tower communications, and started searching for a satellite. “I bought a Remote Access Terminal, paid good money for it too. Harry Chain stole it from me, then he allowed Sonja to steal it from him after he’d bugged it, then Sorenson took it from her after they’d escaped from Hijo. When I killed Sorenson, I took it from him, then Chain drove off with both it and Sonja. Then he lost it when Hijo ambushed him. The first thing I’m going to do when I get out of here—if I live—is buy another one, because if this whole situation has taught me anything it’s this: never rely on a piece of cable for your datastream.”

Oshicora started to laugh.

“What?” He hacked a satellite channel, working quickly before it slipped back over the horizon.

“I cannot believe many people taking that as their chief lesson. But I can believe it of you.”

“It’s important! Too many things have gone wrong for the want of a network connection.” Petrovitch dabbed and tapped. “We have an open channel. Press send.”

“It is done,” said Oshicora simply, “but it will take a finite time for the data to transfer. Time for you to leave me, I think.”

“I’ll stick around, if that’s Okay. Make sure there are no last minute problems.”

“Even though it costs you your life?”

“I owe the city at least that much.”

“Very well. While we wait, we will have one last look.”

They were walking side by side down a wide gravel path. Cherry trees in full, heavy-petaled blossom, swayed on either side of the path, with delicate pink snow spinning gently to the ground. The air was sweet with perfume, live with the rustle of dipping branches.

“All this will be lost, Petrovitch-san. Lost for a second time, lost forever. My beloved wife, my precious boys. All gone.” Oshicora breathed deeply, and sighed. “So be it. Good luck, Samuil.”

They bowed to each other.

“We’ll meet again, Oshicora-san. In better circumstances. And thank you for not forcing me to use Plan B.”

“There was a Plan B?”

“Yeah. Something involving low-yield nuclear weapons. Hopefully we’ve avoided that.” He bowed again, lower, deeper. “Now I have to watch you go.”