Follow the evidence. In Gaspery’s years of training, from the night he called Zoey to wish her a happy birthday through the present moment, that mantra had been a compass. Present moment was beginning to seem like a nonsensical term, but every moment can be distilled to a date, so let’s call it November 30, 2203, in Colony Two, this city in the grip of a pandemic that would eventually kill 5 percent of its residents, this place that wasn’t yet Gaspery’s home and not yet the Night City, walking rapidly through the streets with Zoey to evade a lockdown-enforcement patrol. “Here,” Zoey said, and pulled him into a doorway. Gaspery peered through the glass door beside him, into a room of shadowy tables and chairs. This place was a restaurant, or had been. All of the restaurants in Colony Two were closed now.
