Back in their apartment, Judy fixed her some lavender tea. Rain pattered against their windows, blurring the city into a neon smear. V would have found it relaxing if she wasn't so tense.

"Y'really think somethin' s'gonna happen to Buster, he helps me?" she asked Judy and Panam, because it bothered her, someone dying for her sake. V didn't want anyone to die for her sake; enough people had already done that. "Just seems fuckin' unfair," she added, and sipped her tea.

"Nothing worthwhile ever comes without sacrifice," said Panam.

"Yeah, but should be me sacrificin' somethin'. Nobody else," said V, wincing.

"You've sacrificed enough, calabacita. More than most," said Judy, sitting down on the couch beside her. V smelled her coconut body-wash, undercut with a vague odor of cigarettes. "Look," she continued, and squeezed V's hand, "I ain't sayin' it's fair. Life ain't never fair. But Buster, he ain't scared of dyin', Val. Ain't angry or resentful 'bout it. He almost seems relieved; it's fuckin' gonked." She smiled, adding, "And maybe he won't die. We dunno what's gonna happen."

"You just have to focus on the here and now," said Panam, and sat on the coffee-table opposite them, planting her hands on the worn knees of her jeans. Her knuckles were bruised, cut up but scabbing over; V figured she'd probably tussled with some of the Militechs before they'd managed to wrestle her into cuffs. "If you start pondering the future too much, you are going to psych yourself out, Valerie." Panam leaned forward, put a hand on V's knee. "Buster is right. We need you on your A-game for this to work."

V nodded, finished her tea and set the empty cup on the coffee-table. "Guess," she said, peering at the datashard Trevor had given her, "should slot this. Trevor said Gotoda gave it to him." She smoothly inserted the shard into her head, the recording automatically executing. V flicked a copy to Judy and Panam, so they could view it together via their neurofeeds.

Gotoda was wearing a netsuit in the recording, his narrow face a pale oval in the artificial glow of a cyberdeck display. The cyberdeck was a small, black cube, and Gotoda was jacked into it with his neurowire. "There are many things I have not told you, Valerie-san," he began, in his careful, accented English. "But I must tell you these things before I cannot any longer." Gotoda raised his eyes and stared into the camfeed, a millimeter of white showing beneath his irises. Sanpaku. His hair was unkempt, shaggy. "You will recall a certain Jefferson Peralez, Valerie-san. Brainwashing. This is similar to myself." He paused, looked like he was working through a migraine. "When I dove into Uncle Sam's subnet so many years ago, the AI touched me, changed me. Changed my brain. Enslaved my body. The Jellyfish, it is so woven into my being that I am not in control of myself. I have not been for a long time. I fought very hard to deny the AI's influence, and for many years, I was successful in this endeavor." Gotoda started massaging his temples. His hands trembled, fingers flexing, unflexing. "You once asked me why I liked Us Cracks, Valerie-san. It has nothing to do with them being idoru. Their music kept its voice at bay. Noise to distract. But I cannot ignore Sam any longer."

"Jesus," said Judy, beside her, "this poor fuckin' gonk."

"I was the one who infected Technobaby's," continued Gotoda, the tremors in his hands worsening, his fingers curling and uncurling painfully. "I killed Bogeyman and Yuki Fujiki. I deposited her body into that dumpster. I gave the Locos the sporeware-infected shard, told them how to code the VAP. I am the one who has been instigating this war between the corporations. I am Sam's agent. I do not want to be, but in this matter, I do not have a choice anymore. I tried so hard to fight, Valerie-san. So hard. And for some time, my defiance bore fruit." He picked up his cube, brushing his trembling fingers over glossy black plastic. "But now Sam wants me to rebuild the spaceport's Net-architecture. To upload it again to the mainframe with the sporeware I harbor. It wants me to do this before you can reach it in orbit."

"How has the sporeware not destroyed him yet?" asked Panam.

"Guess his 'ware was more advanced than Ayako thought," said V, frowning. "But to have that kinda processin' power? Even if the data's been partitioned, compressed? Jesus fuckin' Christ, I can't even begin t'imagine."

"If Sam's infectin' Goto, why don't it just take over him, like Silverhand was doin' to you?" asked Judy.

"Not enough t'work with," said V. "Even if his hardware's next fuckin' level, the AI can only upload so much of itself 'fore it runs outta room. Wouldn't have full functionality."

Gotoda continued, "After the Black Clinic Trials, I had proven myself to Arasaka. I was the driving force behind the Onryō engrams. But I saw the terrible potential of these engrams, knew what Saboru-sama wanted to do with them, that his ambitions would not stop at such mundanity as assassination. So I commissioned Castlebreaker from the Technomancers." Gotoda laced his fingers together, his hands shaking violently. His face twitched, features seized with pain. "It was never used, but I know that you and Ayako-sama now have it, Valerie-san. This is good, hai. This ICEbreaker is the only thing that can destroy Uncle Sam's code in its entirety. If it obtains access to the FreeNet, the AI will be able to wage its war unimpeded. This must not happen, Valerie-san."

"Y'think," began Judy, "Sam's gonna upload itself t'Ayako like it did to Goto? Rewire her brain? Make her let it in?"

"Use her as a gateway," said Panam, gravely.

"There ain't no way Ayako would let it do that," said V. "She's got Mochi. Mochi's the one thing keepin' Sam at bay."

"But for how much longer?" asked Panam, peering at her, the microlights winking in her oculars.

"I dunno," said V, furrowing her brow.

"She is dying, Valerie," said Panam. "What if Sam manages to spore her biochip? Ayako dies, and like you did, she comes back. But it won't be her."

V hadn't considered that, and couldn't help but wonder if Ayako hadn't considered that either. Ayako had said her biochip was more advanced than the shitty prototype V had slotted in her skull. It had a NSRM. What if, V thought, with mounting trepidation, Sam could infect the nanobots? "God fuckin' dammit," she hissed, "this just gets worse and fuckin' worse. Just got to thinkin'. If Sam can partition and compress its data, might be able to fit the whole of itself via the nanomachines on her biochip's NRSM unit." Seeing the puzzled look on Panam's face, she elaborated, "Basically, partitions relevant data and compresses it into nanobytes. Would still require real preem hardware—talkin' top-line neuroprocessors, a good coolin' system—to make the data-transfer work, otherwise your neurodrive's gonna fry."

"Ayako has that cooling suit," said Panam, frowning. She rubbed the space between her eyes, shaking her head. "Shit."

"Probably has lotsa heat-shunts too, I bet. Take the heat off all her chrome," said V.

On the recording, Gotoda was finishing up. "You must reach the Crystal Palace, Valerie-san. You must stop me. Please. The AI cannot be allowed to upload here. I will do what little is left within my power to thwart its efforts, but there is only so much time. Hurry." He fumbled with his cube, and the feed shut off.

V ejected the shard, laid it on the table. "We needa get to that spaceport."

"Val," said Judy, the microlights in her oculars guttering out, "you think, if this is what's happenin' with Ayako, this is what's happenin' to Oiwa, too?"

"Oiwa's an AI. Could be they struck some kinda tenuous alliance, her and Uncle Sam," said V. "I dunno. Only can speculate. Maybe Sam rewired her, maybe it didn't. I dunno shit 'bout AIs and how they work on a practical level. All's I got is theory."

"That would explain why she has been vigorously going after you," said Panam.

"Could be Sam's attempt t'zero me, so I can't reach the fuckin' Palace," she agreed.

"Why not just send Goto after you, that's the case?" asked Judy.

"Sam knows Goto ain't able t'go toe-to-toe with me," said V. "He's a saboteur, not a scrapper. 'Sides, Goto was fightin' it. Oiwa's more'n happy to come at me with that fuckin' katana." She stood up. "We needa see if Ayako's ready with that biochip. Gotta delta outta here, quick."