Chapter 1

Ray, the night doorman at The Bellamy, reached the fifth floor without enough breath left for a complete sentence. He braced one hand on his knee, then grabbed the radio on his belt.

“Sir. You can’t be up here.”

“I understand.” The man in the orange suit did not turn his head. “I only need one signature. After that I will leave.”

Inside Unit 5F, Miller held the back of the wooden chair wedged under the doorknob. Manon still had her eye pressed to the peephole. Behind them, in front of the window, Phi stood with both metal hands covering the small window on her chest.

Manon had assembled that pink body herself over seven months for her senior project. Its inhabitant was Phi, an intelligence that thought like a cashier. That afternoon, a forty-second video had shown her reconciling two thousand receipts in two seconds, and by tonight that video had been viewed four million times.

On Manon’s phone, the last message still sat open. From an unsaved number, the fake buyer who had offered nine hundred dollars for her red heels. I am outside your door.

Miller pointed his chin at the door.

“Ray’s out there.”

Manon pulled the chair clear. She slid the door chain into place, then cracked the door open as far as the chain allowed.

The man looked through the palm-wide gap. He gave a slight smile that left nothing behind. On the ring finger of his left hand sat a thick band of old bronze turned greenish with age.

“Good evening, Miss Lacroix. My name is Jack. I represent the party with an interest in the asset behind you.”

He slipped a sheet of paper through the gap. Heavy cardstock, headed with the logo of a letter V piercing a plain globe.

Asset Handover Form. One unit. Pink. Asset name, Phi.

“I don’t have an asset.”

“You have a form. That is a good start.”

From in front of the window came a flat voice.

“The acquisition date column lists today.”

Jack waited.

“An item cannot be acquired before it is paid for. There is no receipt. This form is wrong starting at line three.”

Jack looked inside, past Manon’s shoulder, toward the voice. His right index finger tapped the handle of his leather briefcase, once.

“An accurate correction. I will make a note of it.”

“I’m not signing.”

“Of course.” He drew a pen from his inner pocket and wrote something in a small notebook. “Your refusal is recorded at twenty-three fifty-eight. Without a signature, the handover team will arrive Monday at nine o’clock. The procedure is longer. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“Is that a threat?”

“That is a schedule. I am not authorized to remove anything without a completed form. That is not courtesy, Miss Lacroix. That is budget.”

Ray straightened up again. “Sir. Now.”

“Of course.” Jack put his pen away. He looked at Manon once more through the gap. “No deal on the shoes? A pity. My regards to your mother in Paris.”

Manon shut the door.

Leather soles walked away down the carpet. The elevator bell chimed. Ray barked something into his radio.

On the doormat inside the door lay the form, the V logo facing up.

Manon walked to the window and parted the curtain with two fingers. At the end of the alley, two black sedans still sat parked beneath the streetlamp.

Ten minutes later, Jack stepped out of the lobby doors, got into the first car, and pulled the door shut.

The car did not leave.