After a year of coffins, the room on the twenty-fifth floor of the Chiba Hilton seemed enormous. It was ten meters by eight, half of a suite. A white Braun coffee maker steamed on a low table by the sliding glass panels that opened onto a narrow balcony. “Get some coffee in you. Look like you need it.” She took off her black jacket, the fletcher hung beneath her arm in a black nylon shoulder rig. She wore a sleeveless gray pullover with plain steel zips across each shoulder. Bulletproof, Case decided, slopping coffee into a bright red mug. His arms and legs felt like they were made out of wood. “Case.” He looked up, seeing the man for the first time. “My name is Armitage.” The dark robe was open to the waist, the broad chest hairless and muscular, the stomach flat and hard. Blue eyes so pale they made Case think of bleach. “Sun’s up, Case. This is your lucky day, boy.” Case whipped his arm sideways and the man easily ducked the scalding coffee. Brown stain running down the imitation
rice paper wall. He saw the angular gold ring through the left lobe. Special Forces. The man smiled. “Get your coffee, Case,” Molly said. “You’re okay, but you’re not going anywhere ’til Armitage has his say.” She sat cross legged on a silk futon and began to fieldstrip the fletcher without bothering to look at it. Twin mirrors tracking as he crossed to the table and refilled his cup. “Too young to remember the war, aren’t you, Case?” Armitage ran a large hand back through his cropped brown hair. A heavy gold bracelet flashed on his wrist. “Leningrad, Kiev, Siberia. We invented you in Siberia, Case.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Screaming Fist, Case. You’ve heard the name.” “Some kind of run, wasn’t it? Tried to burn this Russian nexus with virus programs. Yeah, I heard about it. And nobody got out.” He sensed abrupt tension. Armitage walked to the window and looked out over Tokyo Bay. “That isn’t true. One unit made it back to Helsinki, Case.” Case shrugged, sipped coffee. “You’re a console cowboy. The prototypes of the programs you use to crack industrial banks were developed for Screaming Fist. For the assault on the Kirensk computer nexus. Basic module was a Nightwing micro light, a pilot, a matrix deck, a jockey. We were running a virus called Mole. The Mole series was the first generation of real intrusion programs.” “Icebreakers,” Case said, over the rim of the red mug. “Ice from ICE, intrusion countermeasures electronics.” “Problem is, mister, I’m no jockey now, so I think I’ll just be going….” “I was there, Case; I was there when they invented your kind.” “You got zip to do with me and my kind, buddy. You’re rich enough to hire expensive razor girls to haul my ass up here, is all. I’m never gonna punch any deck again, not for you or anybody else.” He crossed to the window and looked down. “That’s where I live now.” “Our profile says you’re trying to con the street into killing you when you’re not looking.” “Profile?” “We’ve built up a detailed model. Bought a go-to for each of your aliases and ran the skim through some military software. You’re suicidal, Case. The model gives you a month on the outside. And our medical projection says you’ll need a new pancreas inside a year.” “We.” He met the faded blue eyes. “We who?” “What would you say if I told you we could correct your neural damage, Case’?” Armitage suddenly looked to Case as if he were carved from a block of metal; inert, enormously heavy. A statue. He knew now that this was a dream, and that soon he’d wake. Armitage wouldn’t speak again. Case’s dreams always ended in these freeze frames, and now this one was over. “What would you say, Case?” Case looked out over the Bay and shivered. “I’d say you were full of shit.” Armitage nodded. “Then I’d ask what your terms were.” “Not very different than what you’re used to, Case.” “Let the man get some sleep, Armitage,” Molly said from her futon, the components of the fletcher spread on the silk like some expensive puzzle. “He’s coming apart at the seams.” “Terms,” Case said, “and now. Right now.” He was still shivering. He couldn’t stop shivering.