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Woken Furies

Richard Morgan




Fury (n):

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

2 wild, 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 of 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 тАФ better get used to that face,
soldier тАФ 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.