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a pulse grenade at a dozen Council officers-and taken a shock baton to Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee himself. With the help
of MultiReal and the crackling energy of the baton, he had given Lee
a blow that might have split another man in two. But at the last possible instant, her words had come bubbling to the front of Quell's
mind: All of us are looking for a way to deflect our own suffering. Words she
had spoken to him decades ago when he was a stubborn student and
she was merely a sheltered rich girl.

    He had wondered if killing Magan Kai Lee would be the deliberate
act of a rational mind, or a decision made cowering under the aegis of
searing pain. Did he really want Magan dead-or was he just deflecting his own suffering?
    No. Quell would prove her wrong. He would not deflect; he would
absorb.
    So Quell had pulled the blow at the last instant, and Magan had
lived. He had let the officers of the Defense and Wellness Council take
his weapon away and yank the thin copper collar off his neck, severing
his Islander lifeline to the multi network. He hadn't protested the
kicks to the stomach and groin that had followed in the elevator, or the
blow with the gun butt that had broken his knee in the courtyard. He
had known that he could use the quantum prestidigitation of MultiReal to escape the Council's clutches at any minute. He had known
that he could kill every single one of those motherfuckers if he wanted
to, dartguns or no dartguns. But he would not. He would not.
    The Council officers had shoved the Islander into a waiting hoverbird and lined up for one last beating. It had suddenly occurred to
Quell that this might be his last opportunity for escape. Rumor had it
that the hulls of these government 'birds could even block subaether
transmissions, a feat that seemingly violated the universal law of
physics. No subaether meant no access to the Data Sea meant no access
to MultiReal-possibly forever.
    All of us are looking for a way to deflect our own suffering.
    He had let it happen. The door had slammed shut.

    There had been a long interregnum of blackness, pain, and silence.
Three hoverbird transfers with no food or water. More beatings.
    So much for a trial by jury, Quell had thought.
    When he had come to, Quell was kneeling on the icy floor of an
airlock with his wrists shackled, surrounded by dispassionate guards
wearing the white robe and the yellow star. Outside the airlock, he had
heard the metal din of ships coupling. He had waited for the taunts
and excoriations to resume, but instead the guards had simply stood
there, for two hours. Quell had been torn. On the one hand, he had
wanted to give his OCHREs time to prepare for another battering. On
the other, he had just wanted to fucking arrive wherever he was going
to arrive already.
    And then, in quick succession, as if they'd been rehearsing for days,
the door had opened, the guards had lifted Quell by his elbows and
knees, they had flung him out onto his face, and the door had
whooshed shut behind him.
    At which point the chaos had begun.
    A black code dart had zipped by Quell's ear, missing by centimeters. Someone had kicked him in the stomach, then someone else had
smashed the kicker in the back with a metal pipe. The Islander had
soon found himself ducking and bobbing through the middle of an
epic melee, goal unknown, strategy uncertain, clutching onto that
primal instinct to just stay alive for another few seconds. There had
been three dozen people in the corridor hell-bent on pummeling each
other to pieces. A man had stepped in front of him swinging some
crude variety of welding tool. Quell had formed a cudgel with his
cuffed fists and delivered an uppercut to the man's chin, lifting him a
few centimeters off the ground before relieving him of consciousness.
    The Islander had been trying to pick up the man's dropped weapon
when a voice had come streaking through the maelstrom: "Remember
the Band of