He didn’t need the glasses to know that the inflatable’s passenger would be Conroy, the pilot one of Hosaka’s ninjas. He sat down cross-legged in the cooling sand and opened his last can of Mexican beer.

He looked back at the line of white hotels, his hands inert on one of Tsushima’s teak railings Behind the hotels, the little town’s three holograms glowed: Banamex, Aeronaves, and the cathedral’s six-meter Virgin.

Conroy stood beside him. “Crash job,” Conroy said. “You know how it is.” Conroy’s voice was flat and uninflected, as though he’d modeled it after a cheap voice chip. His face was broad and white, dead white. His eyes were dark-ringed and hooded, beneath a peroxide thatch combed back from a wide forehead. He wore a black polo shirt and black slacks. “In-side,” he said, turning. Turner followed, ducking to enter the cabin door. White screens, pale flawless pine; Tokyo’s austere corporate chic.

Conroy settled himself on a low, rectangular cushion of slate-gray ultrasuede. Turner stood, his hands slack at his sides. Conroy took a knurled silver inhaler from the low enamel table between them. “Choline enhancer?”

“No.”

Conroy jammed the inhaler into one nostril and snorted.

“You want some sushi?” He put the inhaler back on the table. “We caught a couple of red snapper about an hour ago”

Turner stood where he was, staring at Conroy.

“Christopher Mitchell,” Conroy said. “Maas Biolabs. Their head hybridoma man. He’s coming over to Hosaka.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Bullshit. How about a drink?”

Turner shook his head. Silicon’s on the way out, Turner. Mitchell’s the man who made biochips work, and Maas is sitting on the major patents. You know that. He’s the man for monoclonals. He wants out YOU and me, Turner, we’re going to shift him.”