Altered Carbon

The next morning, Kovacs tells Ortega everything that Kawahara told him. He feels trapped, believing the only way to save Sarah is to do Kawahara’s bidding. Ortega tries to suggest a legal solution, but Kovacs has no confidence that this would be quick or effective enough to save Sarah.

Ortega tells Kovacs how Ryker got this boat. He was working a case in Australia where police can keep the spoils of any criminals they arrest. Ryker confiscated the yacht from criminals, but the same rules do not apply in Bay City, so he had to find a dipper who could wipe the records of the boat and register it as a new one. This dipper was the same one who helped frame him in Seattle.

Ortega asks Kovacs if he has a plan yet, and he admits that he does have a plan, though it is very illegal. He insists that this will not matter if they succeed, as no innocent people will be hurt. Kovacs wants to use a virtual brothel to trap Laurens and convince him that he was not murdered. Ortega agrees to help.

Ortega and Kovacs return to the Hendrix and begin their plotting. Kovacs connects with Kawahara and requests access to the Rawling virus, which is the same virus that killed Jimmy de Soto. He explains that he will convince Laurens that he died by suicide because he was infected by a virus while at a seedy virtual brothel. Kovacs will claim Laurens needed to erase his memory of it and destroy his stack before the virus infected his next sleeve. Kovacs will fabricate evidence of this happening on the night of Laurens’s death. Kawahara loves the idea and agrees to get the virus and its activation code to Kovacs. Kovacs requests that Kawahara download Irene Elliott to do the dipping for him and help facilitate the virus.

After this call, Kovacs sees Ortega wearing a shirt referencing Resolution 653 and his Envoy training starts piecing a story together. He remembers that Trepp was initially bringing him to meet Kawahara somewhere above Bay City, likely at Head in the Clouds, which is a floating, high-end brothel under Kawahara’s control. He also realizes that Ryker was involved in cases related to a dead Catholic girl who fell from the ship and could not be revived to testify.

He combines these revelations with Laurens’s perverted sexual appetites and Kawahara’s mercilessness and concludes that Kawahara must be at the center of the conspiracy. Kovacs concludes that Kawahara must be running a snuff house on her ship, where clients can pay to kill women. These women are Catholics who by law cannot be resleeved. Therefore, the UN officials were at Suntouch House, where Laurens—likely with the support of Kawahara—was working against Resolution 653.

Kovacs shares this with Ortega, saying that if he can prove it, he can clear Ryker’s name and reunite him with his body. She is hesitant, believing that Kovacs is too motivated by the need to get revenge against Kawahara, and she leaves to clear her head. Meanwhile, Kawahara calls back, confirming that she can get the virus and download Irene, though not in her original body.

Kawahara sends Kovacs the virus and a new identity as an employee of JacSol, a subsidiary of Kawahara’s. She tells him that he will be fully funded but warns that this will be the last time they speak until everything is resolved. Kovacs leaves the Hendrix and retrieves the virus’s activation codes from Trepp before going to pick up Irene at Bay City Central. When they meet, Irene is suspicious of Kovacs, not believing his false name and backstory. He admits to not being what he appears to be and shows her the virus, saying he has a job for her.

He brings Irene home, where she reunites with Elliott, and they spend the night together. Kovacs sleeps in his car, though Trepp wakes him up right before dawn. She is tailing him and suggests they get coffee before Irene wakes up, and they have to leave. Later, as Kovacs drives Irene away, with Trepp in tow, Irene accuses Kovacs of knowing about Elizabeth and not caring enough to tell her. She laments her new body as well, complaining that she feels like her sense of self and marriage are now corrupted. Kovacs explains to Irene that he wants to bring down the man who hurt Elizabeth, offering Irene a chance to join him and work toward a future in which they can have Elizabeth resleeved. She agrees to help.

Irene and Kovacs work for three days setting the trap. Kovacs rents them an apartment under his new JacSol account and obtains all of the equipment Irene needs. She is precise and ruthless in her work, and after days of searching, they find a virtual brothel that works with the narrative they want to spin. As they work, Kovacs hears nothing from Ortega, finding her silence strange. It takes 27.5 minutes to infect the brothel with the virus. As Irene breaks the equipment down, Kovacs departs to speak with Laurens.

At Suntouch House, Kovacs meets with Laurens in his study while Miriam works in the yard below. Kovacs shows Laurens fabricated footage of him going into a virtual brothel the day he died and explains that he was infected by a virus while there. That same virus killed the AI running the brothel, and after Laurens left, his personal alert systems warned him of the infection. Laurens then came home and died by suicide to not only erase the memories of what he did in the brothel, but to prevent his infected stack from spreading to his next clone when he was downloaded.

Kovacs and Irene chose this particular brothel because the satellite images of it are limited, and the police are not likely to care what happens to it. Laurens comes to accept that this is what happened and is astounded. As Laurens takes it in, Kovacs looks around the room and again sees the telescope. Though Laurens once said no one has touched the telescope for centuries, Kovacs sees fingerprints and realizes he made a mistake. The fingerprints were there the first night, and now Kovacs can see that it is set to a specific angle. He looks into it and sees Head in the Clouds. This confirms that Kawahara played a role in Laurens’s death.

When Kovacs looks away from the telescope, he realizes that Miriam is watching him from below. He resets the angle of the telescope and leaves. When he runs into Miriam, he tells her that Laurens has her answer, though it is not true. Kovacs also whispers that he hopes she and Kawahara are happy. He registers her shock, though she assures him he is confused.

Kovacs meets with Miller in a virtual reality. Miller thinks he is held by the police and smugly refuses to answer any of Kovacs’s questions. His anxiety grows, however, when Kovacs reveals that everyone thinks Miller is dead and that no one knows he is here. The Wei Clinic would not let the police investigate, and Kovacs made sure that it appeared as though Miller’s head had been destroyed.

Kovacs demands information about the layout of Head in the Clouds as well as ways to access the ship. Miller refuses to give him this information, and Kovacs suspects that he is trained to resist virtual interrogation and torture. He threatens torture, but Miller remains stoic. Suddenly, multiple versions of Miller in scrubs appear and begin surrounding Miller. Miller is terrified, and Kovacs tosses him a phone and tells him to call him when he is ready to talk.

Kovacs wakes up in the Hendrix. The Hendrix informs Kovacs that Miller will lose his sanity after a half hour of torture. The hotel also complains that it could be punished severely for helping Kovacs, but it decides not to change course and work against its only customer.

Miller cracks after 21 minutes. Instead of going back in to interrogate him, Kovacs asks the Hendrix to run a simulation of himself to question Miller. This simulation will have all of his memories up until the moment he left Miller in the virtual reality. Kovacs does this despite a looming sense of anxiety, refusing the Hendrix any agency in shaping this simulated version of himself to prevent it from become self-aware. He feels as though doing so would make him no better than Kawahara or Laurens.

As Kovacs waits for answers, he receives a virtual call request. He hopes it is from Ortega and is shocked to discover it is Kadmin. They meet in a virtual desert, and Kadmin shows Kovacs that he kidnapped Ortega and is outside the Hendrix, waiting for Kovacs to trade himself for Ortega. Kadmin gives Kovacs five minutes before he kills Ortega.

Kovacs rushes out of the hotel and watches as Kadmin dumps Ortega out of his car. He rushes to Ortega, and when he is confident that she is alive, he makes a deal with Kadmin. Kadmin drives down the road so Kovacs can tend to Ortega. Kovacs promises to leave his gun with Ortega and join Kadmin once Ortega is conscious enough to leave. Ortega stirs and Kovacs tells her to talk to the Hendrix and tie up the loose ends of the case. He then approaches Kadmin unarmed.