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  "You can get me out of here?"

  "Yes, Falk. Were you not listening?"

  "What about Bloom?" Falk asked. "Will he be cushioned by the damper too? If he isn't, the trauma's likely to fuck him up completely."

  She didn't answer.

  "Cleesh? Can you still hear me?"

  "Yeah. Yes, Falk. I'm here."

  "What's the answer, Cleesh? Will Bloom be cushioned or not?"

  "We have to get you out of there, Falk. Bari knows it. The GEO lawyers accept it. We can't risk you any longer."

  "So what? Bloom gets screwed?"

  "Listen, Falk. It's not pretty. It's not ideal. We both know that. We also both knew this gig came with unassessed risks attached to it. Bloom knew it too."

  Falk sighed. "But the bottom line is if you save me and pull me out, Bloom dies of the resulting bioshock."

  "The bottom line," said Cleesh, "is that Bloom is dead anyway. I'm sorry. He's only still ticking because you're there. There's nothing left. Even if we could slide you out with zero trauma, he would fade and die without you keeping his autonomics working."

  Falk lay in silence. He opened his eyes, and stared up at the pale grey ceiling of the bedroom, the running shadow blur of the rain streaming down the window. He closed his eyes again, re-entered the darkness and the salty warm suspension of the Jung tank.

  "If I quit this life," he said quietly, "this body dies. Without me onboard to run it, Bloom is gone."

  "Falk–"

  "I'm keeping him alive. Theoretically, I could keep him alive until I find a medical station to treat him and support him, and you find a painless way to disconnect me."

  "Neither of those things is especially likely, Falk," said Cleesh, "particularly in the time frame available to us. Yes, hypothetically, if Bloom was on full and systemic life support, and we figured out how to unplug you without traumatic feedback, then he might stand a chance. But that's a gigantic might. We have to play the odds, Falk. We have to exit you."

  "No," he said.

  "Falk?"

  "You do not disconnect me unless you have my specific instruction, do you hear me, Cleesh?"

  "Don't do this, Falk–"

  "Do not fucking unplug me unless I tell you to! Okay? Okay? I'm counting on you, Cleesh! I am counting on you! Do not let them do it, not Ayoob, not Bari fucking Apfel! Do you understand?"

  "Please, Falk–"

  "Do you fucking understand me?"

  "I'll talk to them, Falk."

  "Do better than that. Do what I tell you to do."

  The bedroom door thumped open. Falk opened his eyes and sat up fast. Preben was standing in the doorway, Rash beside him.

  "Who were you talking to?" Preben asked.

  "No one."

  "Then start talking to us," said Rash, stepping past Preben into the cold bedroom. "And make it good. Really good."

  "There's been an unfortunate misunderstanding," said Falk.

  "Yeah, how's that?" asked Rash.

  "I got ling patched."

  Rash shrugged.

  "So?"

  "He did," said Preben quietly. "He got one of those language censorship things. We all took the piss because of it."

  Rash kept staring.

  "He's cussing pretty good as far as I see," he said.

  "Head shot," said Falk. "I think it fucked the patching up."

  "You're going to keep playing that card, huh?" asked Rash.

  "Only when it's true," replied Falk.

  "Fine. Explain the Russian."

  "Seriously, Rash, I understand why that did a number on you. It came as a surprise to me too."

  "Yeah, right."

  Falk rose to his feet.

  "In the wind-up to this, we all heard the gossip. We all heard the talk that the Bloc might be involved. No shit this time. So I went and got patched because I figured there would be a lot of media coverage, and I didn't want to shame my mother by turning up on a newsfeed, potty mouth. Our brave boys at war. SOMD covered the patching fee. You all saw the notices. Free patching."

  "Most of us can mind our own language," said Rash.

  "The guy who patched me," said Falk. "He said if I stuck my hand in my pocket, he could patch anything I wanted. Said I could get a basic Russian and Chinese language starter. For the price of a few beer-effects. So I took the Russian. Thought it might be useful. Hoped it wouldn't have to be. Swear to God, you guys, I'd forgotten it was even there. I'd never used it. No one had ever spoken Russian at me. I just answered. I didn't even realise what was happening until I saw your reaction."

  Preben shot a look at Rash.

  "Sounds pretty convincing," he said.

  Rash scowled.

  "Yeah. And it sounds exactly what some Bloc spy would say too," Rash replied. "We know they were deep inside us before this shit went down. We know they were in place and ready to move. Stands to reason they would've been in amongst us too."

  "Oh, come on, Rash," said Falk. "Think about it."

  "You're looking me in the eye and telling me you're not a Bloc insert?"

  "Yes, Rash. That's what I'm doing."

  "You're not a spy?"

  Harder to answer. Much harder. No way to control affect.

  "I'm not a spy," said Falk.

  "You can't even lie to me properly," said Rash. "You bastard, I can see it in you. You can't even lie."

  "Rash, don't be a dumb fuck about this," said Falk. "If I'm what you say, why would I have done any of the shit I've done this last day or so?"

  Rash didn't answer.

  "Would I have brought Kilo in shooting at the hortiplex? Would I have gone for Masry's whole insane hopter plan to get us out? If I was a Bloc insert, I'd have walked you into a hot pocket trap, or just sat on you and brought trouble your way."

  Rash stared at him, then walked out of the room. Falk looked at Preben.

  "What do you think?" Falk asked. "Is he just stepping out to get a long run up?"

  Preben grinned. He dropped the Koba onto the end of the bed. The weight of it wobbled the mattress. Then he handed Falk his PDW and utility knife.

  "You scared genuine crap out of me talking Bloc like that," he said quietly.

  "Scared the crap out of me," Falk smiled. "What did you do with those girls?"

They were in the walk-in closet, hunched in the far corner.

  "Come on," Falk said. "Come on out. We'll talk."

  They looked at him, sullen and unwilling.

  "It's okay," he nodded.

  They got up.

  "It's okay," he said again.

  "That's fucking freaky," Preben whispered to him. "The way you're saying that stuff."

  "I know," Falk whispered back.

  "Where do you want to take them?" asked Rash.

  "Where are Valdes and Mouse?"

  "In the main room. The lounge."

  "Let's take them back down to the annexe," said Falk. "That's where they were living. Let's offer them some food, something to drink, and make some for ourselves too. Maybe they'll talk more if they're more comfortable."

  Rash nodded. They led the three women down the hall and descended by the back staircase. The blonde was clearly the boss. She was keeping the others together, one strong lean arm locked around the shoulders of the smallest, a redhead, like she was a baby sister. The other girl, a tall, too-thin brunette, was about the same age as the blonde, and kept in her shadow, head down. The redhead still carried a little adolescent weight in her face and body. The brunette would have been a catwalk waif if she only stepped out and put her head back. The blonde just had a dense power, like a fighter.

  "What are your names?" Falk asked. There was a little fusion ring in the kitchen space of the annexe, and Preben boiled some water in a glass jug. On the counter, there was an open catering drum of coffee-effect. The girls sat on a little bench seat under the window and stared at him.

  "Names?" he repeated.

  "Ask them if they have any papers," said Rash. "IDs, brooches, documents, anything like that."

  Falk repeated the question in Russian.

  "They took them," the blonde answered, tilting her chin up to release the words, like her mouth had recoil.

  "Who did? Who took them?"

  "Popa," she said, more quietly. "Popa and the men."

  "So you had papers, but they were taken from you? And these papers showed you all to be citizens of the Central Bloc?"

  A nod.

  "With travel permits to Eighty-Six via where? One of the polar fiefs?"

  Another nod.

  "But no visa, I'm guessing, or entry waiver for the US Northern Territories? The places where the good work and the real money is?"

  She shook her head.

  "What's your name?" he asked.

  "Tal," she said.

  "Hello, Tal. Someone, this Popa maybe? They promised they could get you into US territory, didn't they? They said they could get you and your friends over the border, line you up with some work, cash in hand. In return, you had to give them your IDs."

  "Yes."

  "How much?"

  "Six hundred each. Well, four and half for Lenka, because she's younger." She indicated the redhead.

  "They said we'd make twenty times that back in a couple of months."

  "What kind of work did they describe?" asked Falk.

  "Bar work. Waitressing in a small town. ProFood, you know. Maybe farm working."

  "And what did it actually turn out to be?"

  "You know what it turned out to be," she said.

  Preben was pouring the hot water into mugs, stirring in the powder. The clink-clink of the spoon was somehow prosaic and irritating. Falk looked at Rash.

  "They were trafficked," he said. "Brought in over the border in the north, maybe down through Antrim on the highway run. A promise of summer work. But it was forced sex labour."

  Rash thought about it.

  "Here?" he asked.

  "This happen here?" Falk asked the blonde.

  "We were at another place first for a few weeks, down in the valley by the highway, a farm. Then they brought us here."

  "How long ago?"

  "Four months."

  "Why didn't they leave?" asked Rash. "Ask them that."

  "Why didn't you leave?"

  "We had no papers," said the blonde. "They didn't give us no money. We had no clothes for outdoors. We didn't know where we were. They also threaten us and beat us. Popa or one of his men were here all the time."

  "Is Popa Russian?"

  She shook her head.

  "No, he is US, like you."

  "Where is the guard now? Why are you here alone?"

  "Four days ago, the man who was here got a celf message. He left in a hurry. He said he would be back in three hours, he said we had to stay here and there would be big trouble if we didn't stay here. He said Popa would find us, and cut our faces. But he never came back, and no one ever came back. And we didn't know what to do."

  "So you hid?"

  She nodded.

  Falk told Preben and Rash what she'd said.

  "I've seen this kind of thing before," said Rash. "On Eighty. Migrants looking for work, trying to stay off the grid. No one misses them. I haven't seen it with Bloc nationals before, but it doesn't surprise me. They answer an ad, talk to some guy in a bar, next thing they know, they're a prisoner somewhere."

  "Come on, they could just walk out. Run away," said Preben.

  "Out here?" asked Rash. "This kind of edge is perfect. No one around for miles. Through traffic, mostly men. No questions. The drivers who come to the depot, the seasonal field workers? They want a beer-effect, a bed and a fuck. It's economics. Supply and demand."

  "That old frontier spirit," said Falk. "Sweat and toil and rough justice. Good old-fashioned values."

  "You don't think this is about girls, do you?" asked Preben.

  "Think what is about girls?" asked Falk.

  "This war," he replied. "You don't think the Bloc has come in mob-handed because a bunch of settlementeer farmers have got hold of some girls?"

  "You're a fucktard sometimes, Preben," said Falk. "This is just normal shit that happens. The Bloc doesn't care about these women any more than the US does. They're victim statistics."

  "There is a connection, though," said Rash. "The frontier between us and the fief is clearly pretty porous, at least in terms of the black market. It suggests pipeline routes that could be used to get other people over the line. The inserts. The Bloc forces were embedded in the region, waiting to go live. It's probably how they got in."

  Falk nodded.

  They established that the girls were called Milla, Lenka and Tal. Milla was the tall brunette. Lenka, the baby sister, didn't seem to want to do anything except cry without making a sound.

  Falk took a coffee-effect and sat talking to Tal in the kitchenette for a while.

  "Do you know what this place is?"

  "Popa said it was going to be a house for an important man. This man, he had put a claim in for the whole area, for the land, and had gone ahead and started building. But the claim had been turned down, or something. So the building was left. The man was very cross."

  "Do you know the man's name?"

  She shook her head.

  "I was never told, but we saw some documents when we first came here, and they had a name on that was Seberg."

  "They used the house because it was empty?"

  "Because it was empty, and it had some class. Popa said he could get more money bringing men to a better venue. I think the man who owned this house, he had been in business with Popa, and with the men on our side who had sold us over. They all worked in mining, and in shipping."

  "So the men who came here, they were drivers? From the highway? Farmers?"

  "Some, but most were miners. Mining engineers. You know? Prospectors. They were working in the area. They came in for a month or two at a time."

  "Bloc citizens?"

  "Yes, and also US. From both sides."

  Falk listened to the rain on the skylights.

  "They bring in other girls with you?"

  "I've seen some," she said. "Some brought in at other times. They didn't keep us all together."