Luna: New Moon

Heitor Pereira opens the ceremonial case. The light of the sunline flashes from Carlinhos Corta’s lunar steel blades. A squad of Corta Hélio security arrive breathless; unequipped, confused, too few.

‘You, you, with Rafa and Lucas. Heitor, take five escoltas and fall back.’ Carlinhos can’t afford five escoltas. But he’s seen the bodies among the flying debris of the exploded offices. The Mackenzies are destroying Corta Hélio substance and soul. ‘Put a general call out: every Corta Hélio employee musters with you. Get them to the East Sebastião refuge. The Mackenzies won’t touch them there.’

‘You think?’

‘Refuges are sacred. Not even the MacKenzies would blow a refuge. Go.’

Heitor Pereira beckons his troops to him. They lope up Kondakova Prospekt, hands on hilts. They are a brave sight and a hopeless one. João de Deus is too big, too diverse, spread across too many timezones and the Mackenzies are already all through it. João de Deus is lost.

‘Rafa!’

Lucas is already a level up, climbing steep ladders with his two bodyguards against the downpour of refugees. For the schemer, the man is handy.

‘Get out of here!’

‘Carlo!’

Lucas calls down from two levels up. The streets and prospekt are emptying now; abandoned motos crowd the refuge locks, purposeless bots scurry back and forth.

‘I can burn them. The Mackenzies. Robert, Jade, Duncan, Bryce: all of them. I can burn them all.’

‘We’re not like them, Luca.’

Lucas nods, then he is swooping hand over hand up the ladders. Rafa takes a last look and ducks down a cross-street. Carlinhos straps on his impact armour. He slides the knives into magnetic scabbards.

‘We buy time,’ Carlinhos tells his squad. Eight escoltas. The Mackenzie blades are twenty abreast, sweeping up Kondakova Prospekt. ‘A fighting withdrawal. Buy that time dear. Okay, with me.’ He breaks into a jog. His fighters form a wedge. Carlinhos cries a howl of defiance and his voice rings from the walls of empty São Sebastião Quadra.

Rafa runs. His jacket and tie flap. His shoes are all wrong. Emergency lights pulse-rotate yellow. The floor of the orbital tunnel is littered with discarded water bottles and drums and tassels in the colours of the orixas. The Long Run has finally come to an end.

Before they leave the apartment Ariel stuffs her and Marina’s bags with cash.

‘Lucas said the accounts were locked,’ Ariel says. ‘This works anywhere.’

‘On the train?’

‘I booked the tickets ten minutes ago.’

Corta Hélio is collapsing. João de Deus is under attack. Carlinhos is fighting, Rafa is trying to get to Boa Vista. No one knows where Lucas is. Wagner is in Meridian, Lucasinho in Twé. Ariel and Marina are going to join him there and seek sanctuary. Marina can’t believe how fast it all came apart.

Twenty levels, one kilometre to Meridian Station. A hundred deaths could be waiting out there. Motos are fast but motos can be hacked. Elevators and escalators can hide a dozen blades. Any or all of the hundreds on the street could be hired knives. Right now, drones could be targeting this apartment, assassin bots and neurotoxic insects climbing up the ductwork.

‘Get your legs,’ Marina says. ‘We walk.’

Ariel freezes halfway to the ladeira.

‘Come on,’ Marina shouts.

‘I can’t,’ Ariel says. ‘My legs won’t work.’

Marina had covered every threat and hack except the most personal and debilitating.

‘Get them off.’ The very next hack could command the legs to walk Ariel straight into a ring of blades.

‘I can’t disconnect them.’ Ariel hisses with effort and fear. Marina pulls her knife.

‘Sorry about this.’

The first cut sends the skirt to the ground. The second and third sever the flex cables to the power supply. Servos unpowered, the legs buckle. Ariel flails, falls, Marina catches her.

‘Get them off me, get them off me,’ Ariel cries, fumbling at the dead prostheses.

‘I don’t want to cut you.’ Marina works carefully, quickly with the point of the knife, nicking plastic locks and catches. The concentration is furious. ‘Keep still!’ Two connectors to go. Ariel’s apartment is off a quiet side alley but it can only be a matter of moments before those who hacked the bot legs come looking to see why their plan has not succeeded. And this is a blind alley. ‘Got you.’ Marina prises the legs open. Ariel drags herself clear.

‘Can you climb?’ Marina asks.

‘I can try,’ Ariel says. ‘Why?’

Marina nods at the service ladder at the back of the access alley.

‘I don’t know if I could make it all the way down,’ Ariel says.

‘We’re not going down. There’ll be a Mackenzie a metre all the way to the station. We’re going up.’ Up into the poor places, the high places, the Bairro Alto. The city of the unregarded. Where the moon’s greatest matrimonial lawyer and her bodyguard can disappear into the roof of the world. ‘I’ll help you. First though …’ Marina touches a forefinger between her eyes. Familiars off. Beijaflor vanishes an instant after Hetty. ‘You go first.’