As it was, the Kohei family had left its post-Unsettlement generations nothing but the keys to ten streets of empty warehouses and a decayed aristo charm that, in Plex’s own self-deprecating words, made it easier than you’d think to get laid when broke. Pipe-blasted, he told me the whole shabby story on less than three days’ acquaintance. He seemed to need to tell someone, and Envoys are good listeners. You listen, you file under local colour, you soak it up. Later, the recalled detail maybe saves your life.

Driven by the terror of a single lifespan and no re-sleeve, Plex’s newly impoverished ancestors learnt to work for a living, but most of them weren’t very good at it. Debt piled up, the vultures moved in. By the time Plex came along, his family were in so deep with the yakuza that low-grade criminality was just a fact of life. He’d probably grown up around aggressively slouched suits like this one. Probably learnt that embarrassed, giveup-the-ground smile at his father’s knee.

The last thing he wanted to do was upset his patrons.

The last thing I wanted to do was ride a hoverloader back to Millsport in this sleeve.

“Plex, I’m booked out of here on the Saffron Queen. That’s four hours away. Going to refund me my ticket?”

“We’ll flicker it, Tak.” His voice was pleading. “There’s another ‘loader out to EmPee tomorrow evening. I’ve got stuff, I mean Yukio’s guys—”

“—use my fucking name, man,” yelped the yakuza.

“They can flicker you to the evening ride, no one’s ever going to know.” The pleading gaze turned on Yukio. “Right? You’ll do that, right?”

I added a stare of my own. “Right? Seeing as how you’re fucking up my exit plans currently?”

“You already fucked up your exit, Kovacs.” The yakuza was frowning, head-shaking. Playing at sempai with mannerisms and a clip-on solemnity he’d probably copied directly from his own sempai not too far back in his apprenticeship. “Do you know how much heat you’ve got out there looking for you right now? The cops have put in sniffer squads all over uptown, and my guess is they’ll be all over the ‘loader dock inside an hour. The whole TPD is out to play. Not to mention our bearded stormtrooper friends from the citadel. Fuck, man, you think you could have left a little more blood up there.”