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And then, grinning and shaking her head, she’s standing there looking down. ‘Jumpy tonight, aren’t we?’ she says.

Spy and Soldier are jumpy indeed, jostling for possession, and it’s all Spy can do to modulate Soldier’s sharp command into a smooth, low-voiced request: ‘Just don’t stand between me and the door.’

The tall woman steps smartly sideways. She looks surprised, but she doesn’t go away.

‘Hi,’ she says. ‘My name’s Tamara. What’s yours?’

Self takes over. She keeps her hand where it is.

‘Dee,’ she says. ‘Dee Model.’

‘Ah,’ says Tamara. ‘I see.’ Her eyes widen slightly as she says it, then look away as if, for the moment, she’s at a loss. ‘Mind if I sit down?’

Dee gestures to her to do just that. She takes the seat to Dee’s right, between her and the bar.

‘What’s that paper you’re selling?’ Dee asks.

Tamara slides a copy across the table. Its masthead says The Abolitionist in quaint irregular lettering with barbed serifs. The articles, which Spy assimilates in about two seconds and which gradually seep through to Self, are an odd mix: news snippets about labour disputes; technical articles about assemblers and reactors and stuff; some columns of a sort of paranoid gossip about the doings of various important people, in which Dee’s owner’s name appears here and there; and long rambling theoretical pieces about machine intelligence.

Dee puts it down, having just given it what looks like the most casual, superficial glance. She wonders for a moment if this is a trap, but Spy thinks it very unlikely: these are exactly the sort of ideas she’d expected to find in this area, and it’s obvious that Tamara’s espousal of them is completely, perhaps resignedly, familiar to those around her. (That those around her might be part of some elaborate set-up doesn’t occur to Dee, or even to Spy: although their background is rich in intrigue and betrayal, they lack the ramifying conspiratorial imagination that would be second nature if they lived in a state.) Dee tries to keep her wild hope out of her voice.

‘Do you really think that human-equivalent machines are, well, equivalent to humans? That they have rights?’

‘Oh, sure,’ Tamara says. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Hmm,’ says Dee. ‘Let me get you a drink.’

When she returns she’s carrying Tamara’s satchel. She swings it under the table and places her pistol back on the top. Tamara waves away the offer of a cigarette. Dee lights up and leans close. Soldier takes over second place from Spy, who doesn’t like what’s going on at all. The most Spy can do is make sure no-one overhears. Another probe into the room’s electronics, and the music’s volume goes up a few decibels.

‘I’m a machine,’ Dee says.

Tamara’s obviously half-suspected this, just from the name, but just as obviously doesn’t quite believe it.

‘You coulda fooled me, girl,’ she says.

Dee shrugs. ‘Most of my body was grown in a vat or something. Most of my brain’s artificial. Technically and legally I’m a decerebrate clone manipulated by a computer. Neither component is anything but an object, but I feel like I’m a person.’

Tamara’s nodding vigorously, the way people do.

‘And I need your help,’ Dee adds. ‘I’ve escaped and my owner’s agents are searching for me along this street.’

Tamara’s head stops moving and her mouth opens.

‘Oh shit,’ she says.

Dee stares at her. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asks. ‘Isn’t this what you want?’ She glances at The Abolitionist. ‘Or is this all –?’

Tamara closes her eyes for a moment and shakes her head slightly. ‘It ain’t like that,’ she says, looking embarrassed. She steeples her fingers to the sides of her nose and talks quietly into this adequate mask. ‘Of course I’ll help you…We’ll help you. It’s just – this isn’t the main thing we do, you know? We’ve persuaded a few people to free machines, but a machine freeing itself doesn’t happen very often. Not that you get to hear about, anyway.’ She’s grinning again, back on track. ‘You into making a fight about this?’

‘I’m ready for any kind of fight,’ Dee says. ‘Who’s this “we”?’

‘Half a