Richard Morgan - Woken Furies

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Also by Richard Morgan in Gollancz

Altered Carbon

Broken Angels

Market Forces

RICHARD

MORGAN

WOKEN FURIES

GOLLANCZ LONDON

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

of this book I just went ahead and made up. In the few places

that wasn't possible, I'm indebted to the following people for

lelp:

Clare provided invaluable climbing advice and expertise, both

; page and on the rock. Kem Nunn's excellent novel Tapping the and Jay

Caselberg's emails both offered valuable insight into

orld of surfing. And Bernard at Diving Fornells taught me to

afely underwater. Anything I got wrong was me, not them.

d thanks also to Simon Spanton and Carolyn Whitaker, who

I with endless patience, and never even hinted at deadlines.

Fury (n):

1a intense, disordered and often destructive rage . . .

2wild, disordered force or activity

3a any of the three avenging deities who in Greek mythology

punished crimes

3b an angry or vengeful woman

The New English Penguin Dictionary 2001

PROLOGUE

The place they woke me in would have been carefully prepared.

The same for the reception chamber where they laid out the deal. The Harlan

family don't do anything by halves and, as anyone -who's been Received can

tell

you, they like to make a good impression. Gold-flecked black decor to match

the

family crests on the walls, ambient subsonics to engender a tear-jerking sense

that

you 're in the presence of nobility. Some Martian artefact in a corner,

quietly

implying the transition of global custody from our long-vanished unhuman

benefactors to the firmly modern hand of the First Families oligarchy. The

inevitable holosculpture of old Konrad Harlan himself in triumphal planetary

discoverer' mode. One hand raised high, the other shading his face against the

glare of an alien sun. Stuff like that.

So here comes Takeshi Kovacs, surfacing from a sunken bath full of tank gel,

sleeved into who knows what new flesh, spluttering into the soft pastel light

and

helped upright by demure court attendants in cutaway swimming costumes. Towels

immense fluffiness to clean off the worst of the gel and a robe of similar

material for

the short walk to the next room. A shower, a mirror -- better get used to that

face,

soldier -- a new set of clothes to go with the new sleeve, and then on to the

audience

chamber for an interview with a member of the Family. A woman, of course.

There

was no way they'd use a man, knowing what they did about my background.

Abandoned by an alcoholic father at age ten, raised alongside two younger

sisters,

a lifetime of sporadically psychotic reaction when presented with patriarchal

authority figures. No, it was a woman. Some urbane executive aunt, a secret

service caretaker for the Harlan family's less public affairs. An understated

beauty

in a custom-grown clone sleeve, probably in its early forties, standard

reckoning.

''Welcome back to Harlan's World, Kovacs-san. Are you comfortable?'

Yeah. You?'

Smug insolence. Envoy training conditions you to absorb and process

environmental

detail at speeds normal humans can only dream about. Looking around,

the Envoy Takeshi Kovacs knows in split seconds, has known since the sunken

bath

awakening, that he's in demand.

'I? You may call me Aiura.' The language is Amanglic, not Japanese, but the

beautifully constructed misunderstanding of the question, the elegant evasion

offence without resorting to outrage, traces a clean line back to the First

Families'

cultural roots. The woman gestures, equally elegantly. 'Though who I am isn 't

very important in this matter. I think it's clear to you who I represent.'

'Yes, it's clear.' Perhaps it's subsonics, perhaps just the woman's sober

response to

my levity that dampens the arrogance in my tone. Envoys soak up what's around

them, and to some extent that's a contaminative process. You often find

yourself

taking to observed behaviour instinctively, especially if your Envoy intuition

grasps

that behaviour as advantageous in the current surroundings. 'So I'm on

secondment.

Aiura coughs, delicately.

In a manner of speaking, yes.'

'Solo deployment?' Not unusual in itself, but not much fun either. Being part

an Envoy team gives you a sense of confidence you can't get from working with

ordinary human beings.

'Yes. That is to say, you will be the only Envoy involved. More conventional

resources are at your disposal in great number.'

'That sounds good.'

'Let us hope so.'

'So what do you want me to do?'

Another delicate throat-clearing. 'In due course. May I ask, once again, if

the

sleeve is comfortable?'

'It seems very.' Sudden realisation. Very smooth, response at impressive

levels

even for someone used to Corps combat custom. A beautiful body, on the inside

least. 'Is this something new from Nakamura?'

'No.' Does the woman's gaze slant upward and left? She's a security exec,

she's

probably wired with retinal datadisplay. 'Harkany Neurosystems, grown under

offworld licence for KhumaloCape.'

Envoys aren't supposed to suffer from surprise. Any frowning I did would have

to be on the inside. 'Khumalo? Never heard of them.'

'No, you wouldn't have.'

'Excuse me?'

'Suffice it to say we have equipped you with the very best biotech available.

ioubt I need to enumerate the sleeve's capacities to someone of your

background.

Should you wish detail, there is a basic manual accessible through the

datadisplay

<n your left field of vision.' A faint smile, maybe the hint of weariness.

'Harkany

were not culturing specifically for Envoy use, and there has not been time to

irrange anything customised.'

'You 'we got a crisis on your hands?'

'Very astute, Kovacs-san. Yes, the situation might fairly be described as

critical.

We would like you to go to work immediately.'

Well, that's what they pay me for.'

'Yes.' Would she broach the matter of exactly who was paying at this point?

°robably not. 'Asyou've no doubt already guessed this will be a covert

deployment.

Very different from Sharya. Though you did have some experience of dealing

with

errorists towards the end of that campaign, I believe.'

'Yeah.' After we smashed their IP fleet, jammed their data transmission

ystems, blew apart their economy and generally killed their capacity for

global

lefiance, there were still a few diehards who didn't get the Protectorate

message.

So we hunted them down. Infiltrate, befriend, subvert, betray. Murder in back

alleys. 7 did that for a while.'

'Good. This work is not dissimilar.'

'You've got terrorist problems? Are the Quellists acting up again?'

She makes a dismissive gesture. No one takes Quellism seriously any more. Not

for a couple of centuries now. The few genuine Quellists still around on the

World

have traded in their revolutionary principles for high-yield crime. Same

risks,

better paid. They're no threat to this woman, or the oligarchy she represents.

It's

the first hint that things are not as they seem.

'This is more in the nature of a manhunt, Kovacs-san. An individual, not a

political issue.'

'And you're calling in Envoy support.' Even through the mask of control, this

has to rate a raised eyebrow. My voice has probably gone up a little as well.

'Must

be a remarkable individual.'

'Yes. He is. An ex-Envoy, in fact. Kovacs-san, before we proceed any further,

think something needs to be made clear to you, a matter that—'

'Something certainly needs to be made clear to my commanding officer. Because

to me this sounds suspiciously like you 're wasting Envoy Corps time. We don't

this kind of work.'

'—may come as something of a shock to you. You, ah, no doubt believe that you

have been re-sleeved shortly after the Sharya campaign. Perhaps even only a

few

days after your needlecast out.'

A shrug. Envoy cool. 'Days or months — it doesn't make much difference to

m—'

'Two centuries.'

'What?'

'As I said. You have been in storage for a little under two hundred years. In

real

terms—'

Envoy cool goes out the window, rapidly. 'What the fuck happened to—'

'Please, Kovacs-san. Hear me out.' A sharp note of command. And then, as the

conditioning shuts me down again, pared back to listen and learn, more

quietly:

'Later I will give you as much detail as you like. For now, let it suffice

that you are

no longer part of the Envoy Corps as such. You can consider yourself privately

retained by the Harlan family.'

Marooned centuries from the last moments of living experience you recall.

Sleeved out of time. A lifetime away from everyone and everything you knew.

Like some fucking criminal. Well, Envoy assimilation technique will by now

have

some of this locked down, but still—

'How did you—'

'Your digitised personality file was acquired for the family some time ago. As

said, I can give you more detail later. You need not concern yourself too much

with

this. The contract I am here to offer you is lucrative and, we feel,

ultimately

rewarding. What's important is for you to understand the extent to which your

Envoy skills will be put to the test. This is not the Harlan's World you

know.'

'I can deal with that.' Impatiently. 'It's what I do.'

'Good. Now, you will of course want to know--'

'Yeah.' Shut down the shock, like a tourniquet on a bleeding limb. Drag up

competence and a drawled lack of concern once more. Grab on to the obvious,

the

salient point in all of this. 'Just who the fuck is this ex-Envoy you so badly

want

me to catch?'

Maybe it went something like that.

Then again, maybe not. I'm inferring from suspicion and fragmented knowledge

after the event. Building it up from what I can guess, using Envoy intuition

to fill in the gaps. But I could be completely wrong.

I wouldn 't know.

I warn't there.

And I never saw his face when they told him where I was. Told him that / was,

and what he 'd have to do about it.

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AlsobyRichardMorganinGollanczAlteredCarbonBrokenAngelsMarketForcesRICHARDMORGANWOKENFURIESGOLLANCZLONDONACKNOWLEDGEMENTSofthisbookIjustwentaheadandmadeup.Inthefewplacesthatwasn'tpossible,I'mindebtedtothefollowingpeopleforlelp:Clareprovidedinvaluableclimbingadviceandexpertise,both;pageandontherock.Ke...

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