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Ax has been given the task of watching the news, and following the court case when it starts. Meanwhile Wilde, the old man in the robot’s mind, has harnessed all the resources of its mind and hers to crack the problem – as he puts it – independently of the outcome. He and Meg, and the spectral shapes of Dee’s separate selves, are running about like ants at a fire.

And Dee is up here, on the hillside, all by her Self.

Tamara caught Wilde’s elbow. His fists were clenched, his heels were off the ground. He was leaning forward, staring after Reid and Reid’s companions.

‘You can always kill him afterwards,’ she said. ‘If it comes to a fight.’

Wilde relaxed somewhat. Slowly his hands uncurled. He gave Tamara a smile to set her at her ease, and looked down at the cigarette Reid had given him. It was still smouldering, the filter tip flattened between his fingers. He took a last long drag of it, and threw it away.

‘He said I was a puppet, and Wilde was dead.’ He shook his head, then shivered. ‘If Jonathan Wilde is dead, who killed him, eh?’

‘NOT ADMISSIBLE,’ the MacKenzie adviser told him.

Wilde snorted, blinked away a floating footnote about rules of evidence, and sat down on one of the seats. He crushed his paper cup and stuffed it into the mug that Reid had left. He reached for Tamara’s hand and drew her to a seat. She sat down on it sidelong, facing him.

‘What was all that –’ her voice dropped ‘– about the fast folk?’

Wilde glanced around. Seats around them were filling up, as people settled down to await the beginning of the case: Reid’s supporters and theirs, as well as an increasing number of people who didn’t fit in either camp, and who were drifting in from the main gate. These visitors, as distinct from the litigant alliances, made a colourful showing, with their hacked genes, elective implants or biomech symbionts. News remotes prowled about, some on the ground, some – supported by small balloons or tiny haloes of rotor-blades – drifting or hovering overhead. Up at the front someone tested microphones, generating howls of feedback.

‘There’s no time,’ Wilde said. He sighed and repeated, as if to himself, ‘There’s no time.’ Then he clasped Tamara’s hand and said urgently, ‘Look, you’ve seen something of what Reid really thinks. I don’t know if he’ll try that in court – he can’t very well claim I’m human, and Jay-Dub’s owner, and then turn around and say what he just said. But there’s a lot more at issue than the matters before the court. If the outcome goes against him, there’s no way Reid will go along with it. And if it goes against us, there’s no way we can go along with it!’

‘We could challenge him to single combat,’ Tamara said, as if it were a good idea. Wilde laughed at her.

‘Do you really fancy my chances?’

Tamara thought it over, eyed him critically. ‘Nah. Not really. You’re bigger, but he’s faster.’ She brightened. ‘But I’d have a chance, or I could call on an ally. Shit. Wish Ax was with us.’

‘Forget it,’ Wilde said. ‘You’re fighting no battles for me.’

‘Battles…’ Tamara sat up straight. ‘You said there might be big trouble. I can tell the comrades to get ready. In Circle Square we’ve got a few good fighters, and people who’ve studied all the great anarchist battles – Paris, Kronstadt, Ukraine, Barcelona, Seoul, Norlonto…’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Wilde. ‘Well, I hate to break this to you at such a late date and all, but there’s one vital thing all the great anarchist battles of history have in common.’

‘Yes?’

Wilde stood up and got ready to move down to the front row. He grinned at Tamara’s eager enquiry.

‘They were all defeats,’ he said.

Wilde took his seat, with Tamara at his right and Ethan Miller at his left. The others who’d come with him filled the other seats on either side. Farther to the left, across a passage between the files of seats, Reid and his immediate supporters had positioned themselves. The rest of the hundred or so seats were occupied, and twice as many more people – human or otherwise – made shift to stand or