Wakefulness came in darkness, with a green light blinking somewhere out of his range of vision. As before he was tied or clamped, or something, to a chair or gurney or some such cushioned support. He couldn't move his head, or his arms, legs or torso.

But he was alive, and the whole weird business of the virt heaven and God was over. He'd told them where to shove that. So he doubted they'd be sending him on any more visits to the pearly gates.

And they wanted Plesur. That much he'd absorbed. But why? Because she knew something about the murder of Sangacha? Couldn't be, she was locked up downstairs in the big dog-cage. She didn't know anything. In fact, if she'd been in the apartment they'd have killed her too.

But they wanted her now.

Why?

And they couldn't find her.

Good.

But what were they going to do with him?

Not good.

But he was still alive. Wherever this was. They hadn't terminated him and dumped him into some recycling sump. So that was good too, if only temporarily.

Unfortunately it quickly became pretty boring just lying there, wide awake, unable to move. Rook was tired of this shit. He didn't know how long he'd been kept like this, but he had a feeling that he'd spent a lot of time out of circulation, asleep or turned off or whatever the hell it was they did to him.

He wondered if they'd fed him. He didn't feel hungry, or thirsty, and he assumed that even if he'd been switched off and warehoused, they'd had to feed him and keep him hydrated. Or else he'd have died, right?

Of course it didn't matter. Because they were gonna kill him soon now. He was sure of that. Now that he'd told them to fuck off with their fake God stuff. Except that they wanted to find Plesur, and he seemed to be their only source of info. Except that he didn't know jack about where she might be.

Time passed. He thought a lot about his daughter, about the choices he'd made. Regrets were all too numerous. Why hadn't he bit the bullet and gone out to LA? He could have started over. Okay, he would have lost seniority, would have started out at the bottom again. But he was smart. He could've learned spanish.

Okay, Aliss would have gone after him in the courts. She'd threatened him with all sorts of stuff if he'd followed her out there. But the courts were reasonable, surely? Why shouldn't a father, who hadn't actually committed adultery, have some contact with his daughter?

But, he sighed inwardly, he hadn't gone out there. One reason or another, his career, the way he'd felt about Aliss and her betrayal, just entropy, his inability to do anything much in the period right after the divorce. He'd been just so down, so depressed that it was all he could do to show up for the job.

And then somehow, weeks became months, and then months had turned into years and he'd grown used to being single, with a kid growing up on the other side of the continent.

And there'd been the affair with Lisa Artoli. He didn't like to think about that. But it was there, and he couldn't forget it. For several months they'd been seeing each other three times a week. They were horny and somewhat desperate. She was getting a divorce, he was already divorced, they needed sex. They wanted comfort. They had the one, but ultimately they only got comfort from the job. Ultimately she was picked for promotion and he wasn't. The reasons for that decision had been complex, even murky, and Rook still didn't know for sure why he'd been passed over then.

But he had been and almost immediately, Artoli had ceased calling him or returning his calls, except for those related to the job. Whether she'd just tired of him, or she saw their relationship as threatening to her new position, or whether there was more to it, like something she'd said or done that'd ensured her promotion over him, was simply a mystery. She was liked in Albany, and she'd soon moved up the ladder, going from Captain to Supervisor in less than two years.

Rook Venner had not made Captain, and had grown resigned to the thought that someone up there didn't like him and that he would end his days at HudVal PD as an SIO, with the rank of Lieutenant.

But while he'd been sleeping regularly with Artoli he'd neglected his daughter, hardly calling her at all in that period. He'd been divorced. His thing with Artoli wasn't adultery. He needed some emotional comfort. He had to have sex, surely? But while he was seeing Lisa, correction while he and Lisa were coupling every other night for hot and heavy sex, he had hardly even spoken to his daughter.

And he still felt guilty about that. Strange. But guilt was like that, not necessarily rational.

It would be so nice to hear his daughter's voice again. Pity that it wasn't gonna happen. Pity, pity, pity, goddamned pitiful. Rook raged for a while, if only he could get out of this goddamned chair. And find a gun. That would be a good thing, though not for some of these people here, in this place, wherever it was.

He hungered for a gun. The feel of his own piece in his hand, as familiar as the steering wheel in his car. His piece, twelve rounds, and someone would suffer. And they deserved to, no question in his mind about that.

A door opened somewhere nearby, but outside his range of vision. Some light flooded in, and by it he saw he was in a small alcove, with grey foam walls and a low ceiling of deep-set acoustic tile.

He heard footsteps behind him, at least two sets.

"Okay, he's awake. We can get started."

A man appeared from the right side, carrying a chair, which he set down close to Rook. The man sat. He was in middle-age, solidly built, with cold looking eyes in a square head, top shaved down to a slight stubble, the whole face dominated by a huge nose that had been broken more than once.

Someone else was working on the machinery right behind Rook's head.

"Gonna make this easy for you," said the blocky, square headed man. "Gonna give you a chance to cut this short."

Rook would have said something in response, but he couldn't. He had no control of his body.

"Hang on," said another voice, higher in pitch, from behind him. "They didn't leave him with any motor at all."

"Christ, he's just a blob? What are we supposed to do with that?"

"No, we can get his motor back. Just let me run through the protocols here, okay?"

"Don't have all day."

"Yeah, you wanna tell Vosky that?"

The square headed fellow shook his head angrily, but said nothing.

Rook heard keys clack briefly.

"Raise vector to level three," said the voice behind his head. "Open phase controls."

And suddenly, with a stinging sensation through his hands and feet, Rook regained control of his limbs. He licked his lips. They were dry, his mouth was like leather. The stinging changed into something like pins and needles, with a fiery element that made him writhe in the chair.

"Okay, he's back. He should be able to talk now."

Rook was incredibly thirsty. Water was all he could think of.

"Right." Square head turned to Rook again. "You heard me, I think. So we can make this go fast. We are tasked with getting some important information from you. Okay? You wanna cooperate?"

"Wa....aaa..." he was too dried out to talk.

"What's wrong with him?" said square head.

"How should I know. They just told me, hook up with Gaines, go down to room 404 and wake up the subject."

"Wataaa..." Rook managed at last.

"He needs a drink."

"Heh," said squarehead with a grin. "Don't we all. Get some water."

"Why me?"

"Because I will kick your fucking ass if you don't, you little prick."

"Jeezus...."

Footsteps receded. Squarehead turned away and spoke into his phone link.

"I'm working. This has to wait. No. No. No. No. No. Look, you fucked it up before, why wouldn't you fuck it up again?"

Rook felt like his tongue was as big as a foot. It filled his whole mouth and it was getting bigger. He was gonna choke to death on the fucking thing if they didn't get him some water soon.

"No. Listen to me you dumb cunt. You do what I tell you. You can't just fuck around like that. This is serious. I paid for it. No. No. You better listen to me."

Squarehead waved an arm in air in anger. Whoever he was speaking to had cut him off. "Fucking bitch," he muttered under his breath.

Footsteps were returning. A hand appeared in front of him holding a recyclobottle full of water. He drank. It was astonishing. It was the best water he'd ever had. He never wanted this to end. He drank more.

"Enough." The hand pulled the bottle away. "You'll be sick."

"Why the fuck didn't they prep him properly?" grumbled squarehead.

"You're asking me?"

"You're here aren't you?"

"How the fuck should I know. Nobody around here seems to do their job properly."

"Fuckin' idiots. Alright, just get him ready to answer the questions."

"Can you talk now?" A younger man, with a thin face, big brown eyes and black hair grown long and a bit floppy, was crouching down, peering into Rook's face.

"May-be. Uh, yes." His tongue had stopped feeling like a gigantic intruder in his mouth. He could actually speak.

"Okay," said the younger man. "Fire away."

"Good. You can answer questions now?"

"Yes. I think so." Rook's mouth and lips were still a little bit rubbery. It was weird, like the tingling in his toes that switched back and forth from itching to burning every couple of minutes.

"Let's go over the basics, shall we?" Square head settled himself, looked down at a handheld for a moment..

"On the night of the 14th, you brought a pleasure model home with you, after said pleasure model had been entered as evidence in the case of the homicide of Manuel Sangacha, correct?"

This struck Rook as all wrong. Had someone leaked this out of Kingston?

"I don't understand. That's police business and you sure ain't cops."

The square headed guy grunted, stood up and slapped Rook across the face, very hard.

Rook's head rang, he blinked, shook his head, his left cheek was stinging.

"Answer the questions or I will seriously fuck you up, got it?"

Rook stared at the man. So this was where the gloves came off. He took his time, eyes locked with Mr. Squarehead.

"Okay, you know all that, so why are you asking?"

"Just answer the questions."

Rook smiled, even though the left side of his face was still tender. "This turns into a game, right? You beat up on me and I keep silent. Eventually they fire your ass. And then they kill me. So why should I do anything for you?"

Squarehead was unhappy. There was unpleasant stuff going on in those eyes.

"Because I will pull your fingers off, one by one, and make you eat them."

"Hey, asshole, I already been to Hell. You have no fuckin' idea."

Squarehead jumped out of the chair and started hitting him. The blows were heavy, there was no dodging them, and Rook lost consciousness after about a minute of it.

He was brought back some time later. He was used to being turned on and off, but this was different, since he had serious aches and pains from all over his face. He was on a bed, or a gurney now. Strapped down, of course. Squarehead was there, but so was another man, older, thinner, with a weirdly friendly smile.

"Welcome back, SIO Venner," said Mr Friendly. "I'm afraid that my colleague here lost his temper. We can't have that, so I've taken charge of this interrogation."

Rook could feel bandages on his face. His left eye was almost closed.

"Well, welcome to the party," he said, discovering that his lips were twice as thick as they ought to be, and some teeth were loose too.

Mr Friendly smiled some more, before getting started. "So, we know you took the pleasure model home. That was naughty of you, wasn't it?"

"What?"

"I guess the temptation was too much, yeah?"

Rook sniffed. You had to expect this, he assumed, but still it bugged him. Finally he got his mouth working again. "You ever met one?" he said. "A pleasure model?"

"Uh, no. Unfortunately, I've heard they're better than the real thing."

"Yeah? Well, truth is they're little kids. They're children, got it? Emotionally about six years old. I don't fuck little kids, okay?"

This seemed to surprise Mr Friendly. "You didn't take the opportunity, then?"

"I guess this is hard for you folks to grasp, but she's a human being. They all are, and she's just a kid. Maybe you like to fuck kids, but me, I think that's disgusting."

Mr Friendly wasn't letting this get to him. "Very sensitive of you, SIO Venner."

Rook grinned, though it hurt.

"And then," Mr Friendly continued as if he hadn't just been called a child molester. "You were taken from your home and escorted to New York, by Freddy Marion."

"Marion? I thought he was Frederick Beckman."

"He was a Marion family member. They don't tend to use any other name."

"I had no idea."

"Yes, of course, we wouldn't expect a hard working SIO in a regional force to know these kinds of things. But he brought you to the city, with the pleasure model."

"Yeah."

"And somewhere along the way you lost all your tags, including your police ID."

"Yeah."

"That's illegal, SIO."

"You're not telling me anything I don't know. Freddy insisted. He said it was for my own safety. My house had just been destroyed with a missile. You left that bit out."

Mr Friendly's eyebrows did a bob.

"They didn't tell you that?" Rook pressed.

Mr Friendly wasn't going there. After a brief glance in squarehead's direction he resumed the smooth delivery. "While in the city, you visited a late night spot, called Nancy's, correct?"

"Yeah, Mr. Beckman, ur, Marion, was well known there. As I'm sure you know."

Mr Friendly consulted a tiny float screen. "Okay, you were at Nancy's for an hour or two and then you went to the house of Mr. Herbert Greal. There you spent the night, or what was left of it."

"Yeah." Herbert Greal, huh? Freddy had never supplied Herb's last name, nor had Herb, himself.

"And in the morning you found that Mr. Marion was dead."

"Murdered. By your people. As were Mr. Greal and his housekeeper."

Again there was the weird little bob up and down of the eyebrows, as if this was shocking news to Mr. Friendly.

"Ah, well, is there evidence to support that charge?"

"I'm here, aren't I? What more do we need?"

"I see. Of course your presence here could be due to some other cause altogether, don't you think?"

"How would I know that?"

Mr Friendly grew a little bit smug. "Well, of course, you wouldn't. But, never mind, indulge me. We need to get your input here."

Mr Friendly studied the little float screen again, it glittered on the end of a fish-wire attached to an anchoring clip worn over the right ear. Rook thought it was a bit weird. Float screens had gone out of fashion a decade back, they were a bit clumsy, especially compared to direct chip systems wired into your optic nerves.

Maybe these people were wary of chip implants. He sympathised. His own experience of BIM-sickness had been pretty terrifying.

"After finding Mr. Beckman's body, you left the house, accompanied by the pleasure model and Mr. Beckman's bodyguard."

"Yeah." Odd. They didn't seem to know about Pipo, nor about Rabbit. That left him wondering where their info came from.

"And you went to General Sangacha's apartment?"

"Yeah."

"How did you know about the apartment?"

Interesting question. They really didn't know about Pipo. Rook suddenly felt he was in the game now. He had a hand to play again and he knew the stakes. Or at least some of them, and with that knowledge he could play.

"Mr. Beckman told me about it, and took me to see it." A bold lie, uttered without a moment's consideration. The only way to keep it from showing up on a brainscan.

Mr Friendly's eyebrows did the bob up and down again.

Rook knew they were monitoring him, but he also knew that if you told a lie without thinking about it, you could fool lie detection, even sophisticated shit.

"This was, uh, during your visit to Nancy's?"

"Unh huh." Again he didn't think about the answer. Remote control, no emotional content, that was the way to fool them.

"And you knew how to gain entry?"

"Oakes had a key."

There was a longer pause. Squarehead was staring at him like an angry guard dog, obviously itching for the chance to resume beating on him.

"But the bodyguard was wounded. There was a blood trail."

"Yeah."

"And later, you went back to Mr. Greal's house. Why?"

"To get Freddy's phone. Had to call the Ranch. They're following all this. They must be looking for me."

Mr Friendly's face went opaque. He wasn't going to talk about the Ranch.

"And you left the pleasure model at the apartment, correct?"

"Yeah."

"With Mr Oakes, who was badly wounded?"

"Yeah."

Mr Friendly consulted his little screen, then conferred briefly with Squarehead, in whispers that Rook could not decipher.

"We have to assume that you had a plan?"

"Plan?"

"For what to do in the event that you didn't come back."

Rook grinned again. "You know, we did, but they don't seem to have stayed with it."

Mr Friendly was looking less amused, less friendly in fact.

"Yeah? So what was it?"

"That they stay where they were. Oakes couldn't move. Only barely made it to the apartment. So I thought they should stay put, and wait for the Ranch to figure out where they were."

Oh, that was clever, he thought. The Ranch, they didn't like hearing that name. Mr Friendly conferred with Squarehead again for a while, then they got up and went farther away, then they left the room. Wow, just two words and they got up and left. He should remember that.

Rook twisted his head around as much as the restraints would let him. There was a bank of machinery behind him, with a small data input station on the right side. Sitting there was Dr Lisa Berryman. For some reason this wasn't as surprising as it might have been.

"Hello, Doctor Lisa Berryman," said Rook through his thick, battered lips.

Dr Berryman didn't meet his eyes. Turned her head away from his gaze, in fact. Rook wasn't amused.

"Hey, c'mon, you've been screwing with my brain. You've been through my memories. You know everything there is to know about me that's worth knowing. You could at least say hello."

Dr Berryman kept her eyes averted from his. He heard the keyboard spitter-spat and waited to be shut down again. But, getting beaten up by squarehead had knocked the passivity out of him. The whole thing had left him angry.

"I guess you don't want to have to talk to someone you've been doing all this stuff too. But you should. For the sake of your soul, if nothing else."

Dr Berryman shook her head as if to clear it of what he'd said, then she spun on her chair and walked away, out of his range of view.

"Coward!" he said loudly.

A door slammed. He was alone and he was awake These people were a tad strange. Having conducted an almost infinite number of interrogations himself, he knew this one had been about as ineffective as it possibly could have been, even though they had their subject wired up to some kind of really sophisticated brain scan device.

What was that old saying? The lunatics have taken over the asylum, yeah that was it. But the problem with lunatics was that they weren't very good at running things, once they'd taken over.