Tock.

Tock.

Every screen around him went blank.

Gravity switched off for an instant. Sam’s heart rate spiked skyward and peaked at over 110. For a terrifying second he thought the chest pains he usually put down to too much caffeine and junk food were going to fulfill their grisly promise early. He was still young enough, and therefore stupid enough, to labor under the illusion of immortality that is the province of the youthfully immature. A sharp stab of pain radiating into his diaphragm gave him an intimation of approaching middle age. Next to him, Radev was jacked into the Excalibur on the desk, his teeth bared and his eyes wide like he was ready for a bloody fight.

God, just get me through this night alive and I’m out of here, Sam prayed. I’ll jack out of this damn job and retire with Judith and the kids. Live on a remote Scottish island or in a beach hut in Polynesia, anywhere, just get me through this night still alive. Please.

By the time the stabbing pain had dulled and he was reaching for the analgesic shot in the bottom desk drawer, the screens were no longer blank but filled with static. Radev was absolutely still, blood wholly drained from his face. He didn’t look quite like he’d seen a ghost lie looked more like he was actually shaking hands with one.

Sam had the flocculated hydrocodeine-methoxymorphine complex into the cannula and into his bloodstream by the time the image appeared on the screen. His pulse had just managed to return to double digits by then. When he looked, open-mouthed, at the extraordinary picture appearing before him, his heart skipped a few beats. The image was less than six centuries old, but it had more than two and a half thousand years of lies and history bound into it, and though he didn’t fully understand it or its significance, its presence right here, right now, filled him with fear and dread.

There was a short text message accompanying the image. He didn’t bother to take in the contingency clauses. It would all be recorded; he could review the details at his leisure. The part he did notice was the demand.

Twenty billion nuyen to be delivered by midday on the second of May 2057, or else every system Renraku possessed would be wiped and destroyed utterly, rendered completely useless.

Very slowly, hand flat over his heart to reassure himself he was still alive, Sam used his other hand to tap a key on his telecom.

“Get me Yukiano Watanabe,” he spluttered in Japanese even before the image of the impassive Japanese secretary deliquesced onto the screen.

“I’m sorry, but Ms. Watanabe is-”

“This is Sam Kryzinski, Coordinator of Chiba Matrix Security,” he said, deathly calm. “This has absolute priority. This is a Red-10 crisis. Now get me the lady, or the value of her stock will collapse to zero by morning. If the London Stock Exchange gets hold of this, it might be even earlier. Do it now.”

The screen flickered and a holding pattern appeared, an incongruously tasteful and peaceful Oriental garden. Seventeenth century, but Sam wasn’t into history at the moment.

Beside him, the Bulgarian had jacked out and his shaking hands were struggling to light another cigarette.

1

The Englishman was surprised to find himself in Chiba. He'd worked for Renraku before, of course-he numbered virtually all the megacorporations among his clients-but it was the first time he’d been obliged to travel from his Manhattan base to talk to a Johnson. Luxury suborbital was what he’d expected, but why did they want him in Chiba? The limo they sent to meet him had the usual darkened windows and armored paneling, even a life-support system built into its formidable carapace. He was met at the airport by four troll samurai, including the chauffeur, and even that seemed excessive. They know something I don’t, he told himself.

Though almost thirty, Michael James Sutherland still enjoyed a reputation as one of the finest freelance deckers on the planet. Diplomatic and discreet, he got paid not just for what he could do, but for how he could do it and how he could keep his mouth shut afterward. A tall, blond, elegant man, he levered himself carefully into the passenger compartment of the limo, but it had more to do with an injury to his back than any show of dignity. Two years before Michael had taken a bullet to the spine that just missed paralyzing him for life, and he now had to wear a special corset for support. He’d briefly considered a silver-topped cane to ease the pain of walking. It would, certainly, have enhanced his carefully fostered image and his perfect Saville Row suit, but he’d eventually decided against it as just a little too over the top somehow.

Marveling at the absolute silence of the Phaeton’s ride, Michael arrived fifteen minutes late, at the door of a restaurant that must surely cost the better part of five million a year in rent just to keep the door open, given Chiba’s overcrowding and the prodigiously wasteful use of space within. Each table was cocooned in its own curved walled partition complete with cunningly designed acoustic shielding and sliding plastic and alloy doors.

I don’t know what it costs to eat here, Michael thought, but it must be a few hundred just to draw breath.

“Sam Kryzinski,” the balding man said to him as he entered the swishing doors of Space 17. “Coordinator of Matrix Security. Pleased to meet you.” The handshake was a little limp and definitely sweaty. Michael put aside his dislike of the man. It wasn’t relevant to the matter at hand. Whatever that would turn out to be.

“We have a minor problem,” the American began, mopping his brow with a silk square as he perused the menu. Gleaming crystal glasses of absolutely pure water already decorated the crystal-topped, lacquered table. Orchids nestled in tiny, exquisitely decorated ceramic bowls.

“I assume so or else I wouldn’t be here,” Michael said evenly, sipping at the cool water and casually flipping open the menu. There were no prices. He hadn’t expected to find any. If you had to ask, et cetera.

“Best sushi in Japan,” Kryzinski informed him. “The seven-spiced seaweeds are something else, too.”

“I’ll take your advice” the Englishman said smoothly. “Now why don’t we have a look at the contract?”

“There’s a disclaimer and a confidentiality agreement,” the American replied defensively.

Michael gave him a look that verged on the pitying. “If you really needed me to sign those, I wouldn’t be here,” he pointed out. “You know what I’m going to cost you, more or less. You know what you’re getting for your money, more or less. Can we please dispense with the formalities?”

“It’ll make me feel better,” Kryzinski said fervently.

“If you wish,” Michael said with a very slightly affected sigh. Accepting the documents, he plucked a silver fountain pen from his inside jacket pocket, initialed each page with his delicate, calligraphic hand, and signed the last page. Kryzinski was about to take them when Michael jerked the documents our of his grasp with a mildly theatrical gesture.

“Now I’ve signed them, I think I’ll read the small print, old boy,” he said mildly. “I’ve worked for Renraku before and I trust them, but it never hurts to know that one’s trust is well placed.”

For the first time, the American smiled a little and relaxed slightly. The doors swished quietly open and a Japanese waiter, clothed in incongruous and almost-perfect English butler’s attire, silently appeared to deposit a tray of appetizers. Tiny portions, mostly seafood, perfectly arranged and with exactly the right array of microscopic bowls of dips and sauces; three types of chili, ginger, plum, two strengths of soy, and a creamed tarragon for those not wholly reconciled to Oriental tastes. Chilled saki and miniatures of Dom Perignon, with linen squares to swath the corks and silvered stoppers to preserve the aeration for the slower drinker, completed the service.