Glasshouse

About fifty megs after the official end of hostilities, I receive a summons to the Polity of the Jade Sunrise. It's a strictly tech-limiting polity, and I'm in ortho drag, my cover being a walkabout sword-fighting instructor. I've got access to enough gray-market military wetware that I can walk the walk as well as slice the floating hair, and my second-level cover is as a demilitarized fugitive from summary justice somewhere that isn't tech-limited—which sets me up for the Odessa Introduction if I see a target of opportunity and need to run a Spanish Prisoner scam on them. I've been doing a lot of that kind of job lately, but I'm not sure what this particular one is about.

The designated rendezvous is the public bathhouse on the Street of Orange Leaves. It's a narrow, cobbled, mountainside road, ru

I've been here long enough to know what I'm doing, more or less. I spot a boy who's hanging back on the sidelines and snap my fingers. He comes over, not so much walking as slithering so that his friends don't see him. Grubby, half-starved, his clothes faded and patched: perfect. A coin appears between two of my fingers. "Want another?" I ask.

He nods. "I don't do thex," he lisps. I look closer and realize he's got a cleft palate.

"Not asking you to." I make another coin appear, this time out of reach. "The teahouse. I want you to look round the back alley and see if there are any men waiting there. If there are, come and tell me. If not, go in and find Mistress Sa

"Two coin." He holds up a couple of fingers.

"Okay, two coin." I glare at him, and he does the disappearing trick again. The kid's got talent, I realize, he does that like a pro. Sharp doubts intrude: Maybe he is a pro? We rounded up the easy targets a long time ago—the ones who're still ru

I don't have long to wait. A cent or so passes, then lisp-boy is back. "Mithreth Tha

The honeypot is overflowing: doesn't sound good. I pass him the two coins. "Okay, which way?"

He does a quick fade in front of me, but not too fast for me to follow. We're round the back of a dubious alleyway, then into a maze of anonymous backyards in a matter of seconds. Then he goes over a rickety wooden fence and along another alley—this one full of compost, the stink unbelievable—and up to an anonymous-looking back door. "The'th here."

My hand goes to my sword hilt. "Really?" I stare at the kid, then at the two dead thugs leaning against each other beside the back step. The kid flashes a lightning grin at me.

"You did thay to check the back alley for muggerth, Robin."

"Sa

He sketches a bow, urchin-cool. I raise an eyebrow. The muggers look as if they're sleeping, if you ignore the blood leaking from their noses. Very good work, for an intel type who isn't a wet ops specialist. "We don't have long. Authenticate me."

We do the routine, something shared, something do, something secret, something you—all the stuff the Republic of Is used to do for us. "Okay, boss, why did you call me?" Sa

"The honeypot is leaking." He drops the lisp and stands tall, Sa

I lean against the wall. "The glasshouse ?"

Sa

"Shit and pig-fucking shit." I glare at the dead muggers as if it's their fault.

The glasshouse is a rehab center for prisoners of war. The setup is designed to encourage resocialization, to help integrate them back into something vaguely resembling postwar society; it's a former MASucker configured as a compact polity with with just one T-gate in or out. Bad guys go in, civilians come out. At least, that was the original theory.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"I think someone's broken our operational security," says Sa

"I'm the wrong person, and in the wrong place. Can't you send Magnus? Or the Synthesist? Do an uplevel callback to descendant coordination and the veterans' association and see if anybody—"

"I don't exist anymore," Sa

"But." I lick my lips, my heart pounding with shock. "Won't they simply kill me, too?"

"Not if you're identity-dead first." Sa

18. Co

I am me. Joints creak, heart pumps. It's warm and dark, and I'm sleepy. It slowly comes to me that I'm squatting with my arms wrapped around my knees and my chin—oh. So I'm not passing as Fiore? Right. That's satisfying to know. One more fact to add to the pile. Roll the dice, see what comes up on top.

I've been in two places at once for most of the past two weeks. I've been in hospital, recovering at home. Talking to Dr. Hanta, being horrified in the bell tower, trying to tell the Reverend about Janis. And another me has been living in the library, sleeping in the staff room, cautiously exploring off-limits sections of the habitat, and latterly conspiring with Janis. Sa