Fury (n):

1 a intense, disordered and often destructive rage …

2 wild, disordered force or activity

3a any of the three avenging deities who in Greek mythology punished crimes

3b an angry or vengeful woman

The New English Penguin Dictionary 2001

The place they woke me in would have been carefully prepared.

The same for the reception chamber where they laid out the deal. The Harlan family don’t do anything by halves and, as anyone who’s been Received can tell you, they like to make a good impression. Gold-flecked black décor to match the family crests on the walls, ambient subsonics to engender a tear-jerking sense that you’re in the presence of nobility. Some Martian artefact in a corner, quietly implying the transition of global custody from our long-vanished unhuman benefactors to the firmly modern hand of the First Families oligarchy. The inevitable holosculpture of old Konrad Harlan himself in triumphal planetary discoverer mode. One hand raised high, the other shading his face against the glare of an alien sun. Stuff like that.

So here comes Takeshi Kovacs, surfacing from a sunken bath full of tank gel, sleeved into who knows what new flesh, spluttering into the soft pastel light and helped upright by demure court attendants in cutaway swimming costumes. Towels of immense fluffiness to clean off the worst of the gel and a robe of similar material for the short walk to the next room. A shower, a mirror—better get used to that face, soldier—a new set of clothes to go with the new sleeve, and then on to the audience chamber for an interview with a member of the Family. A woman, of course. There was no way they’d use a man, knowing what they did about my background.

Abandoned by an alcoholic father at age ten, raised alongside two younger sisters, a lifetime of sporadically psychotic reaction when presented with patriarchal authority figures. No, it was a woman. Some urbane executive aunt, a secret service caretaker for the Harlan family’s less public affairs. An understated beauty in a custom-grown clone sleeve, probably in its early forties, standard reckoning.

“Welcome back to Harlan’s World, Kovacs-san. Are you comfortable?”

“Yeah. You?”

Smug insolence. Envoy training conditions you to absorb and process environmental detail at speeds normal humans can only dream about. Looking around, the Envoy Takeshi Kovacs knows in split seconds, has known since the sunken bath awakening, that he’s in demand.

“I? You may call me Aiura.” The language is Amanglic, not Japanese, but the beautifully constructed misunderstanding of the question, the elegant evasion of offence without resorting to outrage, traces a clean line back to the First Families’ cultural roots. The woman gestures, equally elegantly. “Though who I am isn’t very important in this matter. I think it’s clear to you who I represent.”

“Yes, it’s clear.” Perhaps it’s subsonics, perhaps just the woman’s sober response to my levity that dampens the arrogance in my tone. Envoys soak up what’s around them, and to some extent that’s a contaminative process. You often find yourself taking to observed behaviour instinctively, especially if your Envoy intuition grasps that behaviour as advantageous in the current surroundings. “So I’m on secondment.”

Aiura coughs, delicately.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Solo deployment?” Not unusual in itself, but not much fun either. Being part of an Envoy team gives you a sense of confidence you can’t get from working with ordinary human beings.

“Yes. That is to say, you will be the only Envoy involved. More conventional resources are at your disposal in great number.”

“That sounds good.”

“Let us hope so.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

Another delicate throat-clearing. “In due course. May I ask, once again, if the sleeve is comfortable?”

“It seems very.” Sudden realisation. Very smooth, response at impressive levels even for someone used to Corps combat custom. A beautiful body, on the inside at least. “Is this something new from Nakamura?”

“No.” Does the woman’s gaze slant upward and left? She’s a security exec, she’s probably wired with retinal datadisplay. “Harkany Neurosystems, grown under offworld licence for KhumaloCape.”

Envoys aren’t supposed to suffer from surprise. Any frowning I did would have to be on the inside. “Khumalo? Never heard of them.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“Excuse me?”

“Suffice it to say we have equipped you with the very best biotech available. I doubt I need to enumerate the sleeve’s capacities to someone of your background. Should you wish detail, there is a basic manual accessible through the datadisplay in your left field of vision.” A faint smile, maybe the hint of weariness. “Harkany were not culturing specifically for Envoy use, and there has not been time to arrange anything customised.”

“You’ve got a crisis on your hands?”

“Very astute, Kovacs-san. Yes, the situation might fairly be described as critical. We would like you to go to work immediately.”

“Well, that’s what they pay me for.”

“Yes.” Would she broach the matter of exactly who was paying at this point?

“Probably not. As you’ve no doubt already guessed this will be a covert deployment. Very different from Sharya. Though you did have some experience of dealing with terrorists towards the end of that campaign, I believe.”

“Yeah.” After we smashed their IP fleet, jammed their data transmission systems, blew apart their economy and generally killed their capacity for global defiance, there were still a few diehards who didn’t get the Protectorate message. So we hunted them down. Infiltrate, befriend, subvert, betray. Murder in back alleys. “I did that for a while.”

“Good. This work is not dissimilar.”

“You’ve got terrorist problems? Are the Quellists acting up again?”

She makes a dismissive gesture. No one takes Quellism seriously any more. Not for a couple of centuries now. The few genuine Quellists still around on the World have traded in their revolutionary principles for high-yield crime. Same risks, better paid. They’re no threat to this woman, or the oligarchy she represents. It’s the first hint that things are not as they seem.

“This is more in the nature of a manhunt, Kovacs-san. An individual, not a political issue.”

“And you’re calling in Envoy support.” Even through the mask of control, this has to rate a raised eyebrow. My voice has probably gone up a little as well. “Must be a remarkable individual.”

“Yes. He is. An ex-Envoy, in fact. Kovacs-san, before we proceed any further, I think something needs to be made clear to you, a matter that—”

“Something certainly needs to be made clear to my commanding officer. Because to me this sounds suspiciously like you’re wasting Envoy Corps time. We don’t do this kind of work.”

“—may come as something of a shock to you. You, ah, no doubt believe that you have been re-sleeved shortly after the Sharya campaign. Perhaps even only a few days after your needlecast out.”

A shrug. Envoy cool. “Days or months—it doesn’t make much difference to m—”

“Two centuries.”

“What?”

“As I said. You have been in storage for a little under two hundred years. In real terms—”

Envoy cool goes out the window, rapidly. “What the fuck happened to—”

“Please, Kovacs-san. Hear me out.” A sharp note of command. And then, as the conditioning shuts me down again, pared back to listen and learn, more quietly: “Later I will give you as much detail as you like. For now, let it suffice that you are no longer part of the Envoy Corps as such. You can consider yourself privately retained by the Harlan family.”