He booked in to room 225, using a third identity certificate and an untraceable cash coin to prepay for a ten-day stay. It took four minutes to infiltrate the room’s cybersphere node, where he installed various routines to make it appear as though the room were occupied. A nice professional touch, he felt. The small culinary unit would produce meals, which the maidbot would then empty down the toilet in the morning when it made the daily housekeeping visit. The spore shower would be used, as would various other gadgets and fittings; the air-conditioning temperature would be changed, and the node would place a few calls across the unisphere. Power consumption would vary.

He slid both cases into the solitary closet just for the sake of appearance and activated their defense mechanisms. Whatever was inside them, he didn’t want to know, though he guessed at some pretty aggressive hardware. Once he’d confirmed that they were operating properly, he left the room and called a cab down to the front of the hotel’s lobby. It wouldn’t be he who came back to collect the cases-that would set a pattern. He was grateful for that operational protocol. After Justine’s last dream, all he wanted to do was get back to his family. He’d already decided he would be turning down any more Conservative Faction requests over the next couple of weeks, no matter how much warning they gave him and how politely they asked. Events were building to a climax, and there was only one place a true father should be.

The lobby’s glass curtain doors parted to let him through. The taxicab hovered a couple of centimeters above the concrete pad outside, waiting for him. He hadn’t quite reached it when the Conservative Faction called.

I’m going to tell them no, he promised himself. Whatever it is.

He settled in the cab’s curving seat, told its smartnet to take him to the downtown area, and then accepted the call. “Yes?”