Woken Furies

Isa took a long, insolent moment to check out Mari, then turned her head and unjacked with an elegant, much practised gesture that showed off the nape of her neck.

“We’re doing well. And we’re doing it silently. Nothing new on the Millsport PD net, and nothing from any of the private security outfits the First Families like to use. They don’t know you’re here.”

I nodded. Gratifying though the news was, it made sense. We’d hit Millsport across the earlier part of the week, split into half a dozen separate groups, arrivals co-ordinated days apart. Fake ID at Little Blue Bug standards of impenetrability and a variety of different transport options ranging from cheap speed-freighters to a Saffron Line luxury cruiser. With people streaming into Millsport from all over the planet for the Harlan’s Day festivities, it would have been either very bad luck or very bad operational management if any of us had been picked up.

But it was still good to know.

“What about security up at the Crags?”

Isa shook her head. “Less noise out of there than a priest’s wife coming. If they knew what you had pla

“Or you haven’t spotted it,” said Mari.

Isa fixed her with another cool stare. “My dear, do you know anything at all about dataflow?”

“I know what levels of encryption we’re dealing with.”

“Yes, so do I. Tell me, how do you think I pay for my studies?”

Mari Ado examined her nails. “With petty crime, I assume.”

“Charming.” Isa shuttled her gaze in my direction. “Where did you get her, Tak? Madame Mi’s?”

“Behave, Isa.”

She gusted a long-suffering teenage sigh. “Alright, Tak. For you. For you, I won’t rip this mouthy bitch’s hair out. And Mari, for your information, I am gainfully employed nights, under a pseudident, as a freelance security software scribe for more corporate names than you’ve probably given back-street blowjobs.”

She waited, tensed. Ado looked back at her with glittery eyes for a moment, then smiled and leaned forward slightly. Her voice rose no higher than a corrosive murmur.

“Listen, you stupid little virgin, if you think you’re going to get a cat fight out of me, you’re badly mistaken. And lucky too. In the unlikely event that you could push my buttons sufficient to piss me off that far, you wouldn’t even see me coming. Now why don’t we discuss the business at hand, and then you can go back to playing at datacrime with your study partners and pretending you know something about the world.”

“You fucking whor—”

“Isa!” I put a snap into my voice and a hand in front of her as she started to rise. “That’s enough. She’s right, she could kill you with her bare hands and not even break a sweat. Now behave, or I’m not going to pay you.”

Isa shot me a look of betrayal and sat back down. Under the harlequin face paint, it was hard to tell, but I thought she was flushing furiously.

Maybe the crack about virginity had touched a nerve. Mari Ado had the good grace not to look pleased.

“I didn’t have to help you,” Isa said in a small voice. “I could have sold you out a week back, Tak. Probably would have made more from that than you’re paying me for this shit. Don’t forget that.”

“We won’t,” I assured her, with a warning glance at Ado. “Now, aside from the fact that no one thinks we’re here, what else have you got?”

What Isa had, all loaded onto i

Millsport PD street deployment and water traffic protocols for the duration of the celebrations. Most of all, she’d brought herself and her bizarre shadow identity at the fringes of the Millsport datacrime elite. She’d agreed to help, and now she was in deep with a role in the proceedings that I suspected was the main source of her current edginess and lost cool.

Taking part in an assault on Harlan family property certainly constituted rather more cause for stress than her standard forays into illicit data brokerage. If I hadn’t more or less dared her into it, I doubted she would have had anything to do with us.

But what fifteen-year-old knows how to refuse a dare?

I certainly didn’t at her age.

If I had, maybe I’d never have ended up in that back alley with the meth dealer and his hook. Maybe—

Yeah, well. Who ever gets a second shot at these things? Sooner or later, we all get in up to our necks. Then it s just a question of keeping your face out of the swamp, one stumbling step at a time.

Isa covered it well enough to deserve applause. Whatever misgivings she had, by the time we’d finished the handover, her ruffled feathers had smoothed and she had her laconic Millsport drawl back in place.

“Did you find Natsume?” I asked her.

“Yeah, as it happens I did. But I’m not convinced you’ll want to talk to him.”

“Why not?”

She gri

“Whaleback? That the Renouncer place?”

“Sure is.” She struck an absurdly solemn, prayerful pose that didn’t match her hair and face. “Brotherhood of the Awoken and Aware. Renounce henceforth all flesh, and the world.”

I felt my mouth twitch. Beside me, Mari Ado sat humourless as a ripwing.

“I got no problem with those guys, Isa. They’re harmless. Way I see it, they’re stupid enough to shun female company, that’s their loss. But I’m surprised someone like Natsume’d buy into something like that.”

“Ah, but you’ve been away. They take women too, these days.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, started way back, nearly a decade ago. What I heard, they found a couple of covert females in their midst. Been there for years. Figures, right? Anyone who’s re-sleeved could lie about their sex.” Isa’s voice picked up a beat as she hit her home turf ru

“Don’t suppose they changed the name too, did they?”

“Don’t suppose they did. Still the Brotherhood. Brother embraces sister, apparently.” A teenage shrug. “Not sure how the sisters feel about all that embracing, but that’s entry-level dues for you.”

“Speaking of which,” said Mari Ado. “Are we permitted entry?”

“Yeah, they take visitors. You may have to wait for Natsume, but not so’s you’d notice. That’s the great thing about Renouncing the flesh, isn’t it.”

Isa gri

“Good work, Issy.”

She blew me a kiss.

But as we were getting up to leave, she frowned slightly and evidently came to a decision. She raised a hand and cupped her fingers to get us back closer.

“Listen, guys. I don’t know exactly what you’re after up at Rila, and to be honest with you, I don’t want to know. But I can tell you this for nothing. Old Harlan won’t be coming out of the pod this time around.”

“No?” On his birthday, that was unusual.

“That’s right. Bit of semi-covert court gossip I dipped yesterday. They lost another heirling down at Amami Sands. Hacked to death with a baling tine, apparently. They’re not making it public, but the MPD are a bit sloppy with their encryption these days. I was cruising for Harlan-related stuff so, like that. Picked it out of the flow. Anyway, with that and old Seichi getting toasted in his skimmer last week, they’re not taking any chances. They’ve called off half the family appearances altogether, and looks like even Mitzi Harlan’s getting a doubled Secret Service detachment. And Old Man Harlan stays unsleeved. That’s for definite. Think they’re pla