V knocked on Ayako's apartment door, and Buster let them in. "Deckhead's finishing up her diags," he informed them, and they saw Ayako in the living-room, squatting beside a huge polycarbonate briefcase, her personal link jacked into its dataport.

"Should you really be doin' that, all that sporeware in your chrome?" asked V.

"Relax," said Ayako, without looking up. "Mochi prevents it from infectin' wider systems. She's like a sluice-gate. Only person gotta problem with the sporeware is me." Her laser-pupils had morphed into throbbers, pulsing steadily in the polished black glass of her insets. "Need to make sure the temperature is right, and the chip's neuroenviro is good. Don't want another Konpeki happenin'."

"Look, Ayako," said V, "I got somethin' tell you 'bout Gotoda."

"Tell me in a sec," replied Ayako, and after a few minutes, she jacked out of the case, smoothly sliding her personal link back into its housing. "Okay," she said, and looked at V, the throbbers contracting into pupils, "hit me with whatever you were gonna hit me with."

V flicked a copy of the recording to Ayako's neurodrive. "That cube y'found in cyberspace, the one made of ICE? Was Gotoda's neurodrive, that."

"Well, shit," said Ayako, when the recording ended, "should've figured there was a little more to him than just bein' gonked." She frowned. "Saw him with it in the recordin'."

"Wait, what?" said V.

"That cube he was playin' with, that was his neurodrive. Crazy fucker must've removed it. Usin' it as an external now." She paused, running a hand back through her hair. "Shit, Kami-sama. That's what that was. Fuckin' Sam."

V blinked. "How the fuck," she began, "does someone just remove their fuckin' neurodrive from a Jellyfish?"

"Very carefully," said Ayako, shaking her head. "Must've been desperate to get Sam outta his head, but it's too late."

"It ain't worked? He took out his own goddamn neurodrive . How the fuck's the AI still talkin' to him?"

"Gotoda's still gotta brain," said Ayako. "Sporeware infected his cortical microprocessors, bet your ass. The neurodrive was just for storin' soft too big for his skullsponge."

"So he took a chunk of the AI outta him," said V.

Ayako nodded. "But Sam can still communicate with his corticals, like I said. Gotoda's gotta wireless connection like me."

Buster looked at Ayako, thumbing toward the door. "You ready to smack some Moderno ass?"

Ayako hefted the polycarbonate case, cutting a smile. "Yeah," she said, "let's go."

The ride over to the spaceport was tense. Not out of fear, V decided, but out of a sense of anxiety knowing that it was all almost over. She'd been living so long on a razor's edge that it was hard to imagine her life as anything else. It was hard to imagine that she'd be cured, that Ayako, maybe even Buster, would be gone soon. V didn't want to think about that, losing her friends; she'd gotten so close to them, closer than she'd ever meant to, that the absence of them nearly outweighed her desire to live. But V thought about Judy, about Panam and the Aldecaldos…. She couldn't let them down.

"So I am curious about something," said Panam suddenly, breaking the silence. She was talking to Ayako, who was driving the Quadra. "How the hell does the Us Cracks drown out an artificial intelligence?"

"Earworms," said Ayako. "Every Us Cracks song has an earworm virus built into it that makes that shit appealin' to as wide an audience as possible. Why somethin' like Pon Pon Shit or Doki Doki Tokyo gets stuck in your head, makes it hard to think or focus." She glanced at Panam in the rear-view cam, adding, "But not everyone's susceptible."

Buster had somehow squeezed into the passenger seat, looking like a gorilla who'd been stuffed into a shoebox. "Why I don't listen to anything older than the 2020s," grunted Buster, hunched over in his seat and staring out the window. "That earworm shit came around in the 2030s."

"You okay up there, old man?" asked Judy.

"My back is killing me," said Buster. "But I'm fine. Mind your business, Alvarez."

"Touchy," giggled Judy. She looked at V, then said, "How 'bout you, Valerie? Feelin' okay?"

"Kinda," said V.

"Don't get cold feet on us now," said Ayako.

"Ain't that," said V, shaking her head. "Don't worry 'bout it. Anyway," and she looked at Ayako, "what's our plan?"

"Technomancers are gonna meet us at the spaceport, help us push our way inside—"

"The Aldecaldos are also joining us," interrupted Panam. "I spoke to Carol. The clan is willing to help—for Valerie's sake."

V looked at Panam, furiously shaking her head. "No, c'mon, Pan. Y'can't," she pleaded. "Not after that shitshow at the 'Saka Tower."

"Too late," said Panam, smiling. "Already done."

"More the merrier," said Buster. "Nomads know how to handle themselves in a fight."

She opened her mouth, closed it. Arguing with Panam, V knew, was pointless once she'd set her mind on something. Had a Zen-like focus on things that mattered to her, to the point of tunnel-vision. "Good," said Panam, knowing she'd won the argument, "we are agreed."

"When we make it inside," continued Ayako, switching lanes, the Quadra smoothly insinuating itself between a battered Archer and a truck hauling PVC pipes, "you'll need to jack into the spaceport's mainframe, Valerie. I can't do it. It's… gettin' harder for me to do things like that."

V said nothing, knowing exactly what she meant.

"When you get into the subnet, you need to take out Gotoda's engram," said Ayako. "Once that's gone, his body's just meat. Meat we can dispose of. Won't be a threat anymore."

"Same thing happened t'Alt," said V, solemnly.

Ayako nodded. "Johnny told me. You know, back when we were in Mikoshi," she told her. "He asked me to help him find Alt. I tried, but nothin' to find. She avoided the place."

They rendezvoused with the Aldecaldos and Technomancers in the battered, rain-slick parking lot of a shuttered Taco Ted's, just one mile away from the spaceport near the border of the PMA and the Trash Pan, on the northernmost fringe of The Flues. Floods bathed the tarmac in greasy jack-o-lantern light, the desert a black liminal space beyond the pools of sodium vapor.

Mitch and Cassidy approached them. "Gang's all here," said Mitch, grinning around a cigarette. V could see the massive shuttle-trailers on the far side of the parking lot, glittering in the streetlights. "Shuttle's kinda tiny compared to the commercial ones, but I guess that's expected. 'Mancers are just runnin' some tests, preppin' the systems."

"Damn fine piece of machinery," said Cassidy, tipping back the brim of his cattleman hat and dragging the back of his wrist across his forehead. "Asked 'em how the Aldecaldos could go about gettin' one of those shuttles. Those folks just laughed."

Panam snorted. "Don't think the Aldecaldos really need a shuttle, Cassidy."

"You're not thinkin', Panam," said Mitch, tapping the side of his head. "Smugglin' luxury goods from the orbitals to Earth? We'd be richer than StormTech." He finished his cigarette and tossed it to the tarmac, grinding it under his boot. "Hell, we'd be able to buy StormTech."

"Even so, let the Highriders have space," said Panam, shrugging. "I am fine right here, feet firmly planted on Earth where they belong."

"You ain't even a little excited about goin' up there?" asked Cassidy, pointing at the sky.

"Never really cared about the Crystal Palace," said Panam. "Or space. I am going up there for Valerie, not to sight-see and gamble."

"Personally," said Judy, "I'm kinda excited 'bout this. Peeps like us, we ain't s'posed to see the Palace. And honestly, sounds pretty fuckin' nova up there."

"We're not going up there to party, Alvarez," said Buster.

"Not even a little? C'mon, stop bein' such a gonk."

"Kid, I'm a hundred-thirty-years-old. My partying days are long behind me."

"Aw, c'mon. Can just get a little lubricant for those old joints," said Judy, grinning. "Have you bustin' moves in no time, abuelo. Can show us how they did it back in the Stone Age."

Buster sighed.

"He's right," said Ayako. "Not goin' up there to party, but," and she grinned, "I'm sure we can fit somethin' in before the run. I gotta meet with Lucy anyway. We'll have a little downtime."

V looked at her. "The Queen of Tycho's meetin' us up there?"

"She's gettin' me the station's blueprints," said Ayako. "Lucy's also sponsorin' our stay on the station. Real well-connected, and she's got eddies on eddies these days."

"Jesus," said Judy, "how'd you manage gettin' her in your pocket?"

"I got my ways," said Ayako, grinning. "Also got her somethin' she wanted that V ain't needed."

V asked, "I gotta do with this?"

"Told El Capitán you didn't want the jacket," said Ayako, shrugging.

She heard the crunch of gravel behind her. V turned, saw cars pulling into the parking lot, screwing her eyes against the glare of the headlights. A door opened and thunked shut, shoes scraping against old tarmac. A group of Digitales hoods were standing there in their scroll-jackets, colorful swirls of lights and shapes crawling over the holomaterial fabric.

Trevor was with them, came jogging toward V. "V," he said, and it surprised her, him knowing her name. "We're here to help you crack the spaceport's system." He stopped a few paces away. Grinning skulls and bats swirled across his netsuit as though suspended in a lava lamp. "The Modernos are gonna have netrunners waitin' to zero you. We're gonna help."

"When the hell did you join the Digis, kid?" asked V.

"Been part of 'em. You just never asked," said Trevor, grinning.

"Thought y'were a baby 'runner," said V, smiling. "Bought that Paraline like you'd never punched deck in your life."

"'Cause I'm broke. Anyway, I modded the fuck outta that deck," said Trevor, laughing. "Yako and Juan, they taught me how to netrun. And I ain't a kid, by the way. I'm twenty."