"I guess it was a short conversation."

Duran plopped down into the easy chair and looked at the dead dwarf. "I got in the final parting shot, you might say."

Skater briefly studied the bullet hole between the dwarf's eyes. "I'd say so."

"I also got the name of the corpgeek he's been supplying. Very high up on the ladder, but I'm learning some things about him. Time comes, there's going to be an opening for a new exec. Every now and then, the nitbrain gets out on his own without his bosses knowing about it. Likes to go without a sec-team knowing either. One night, he'll find me waiting instead."

Skater glanced back at the bushy-haired ork, waiting. His hand was still curled around the butt of the Predator. There'd always been tension between him and Duran, centering around the leadership of the team.

"In the meantime," Duran said, "old Archibald doesn't mind if we use his doss for a meeting place."

"So where does that leave us?" Skater asked. He remained standing, not moving toward the sofa.

'Talking," Duran replied. "Which is good."

"Okay."

"You don't trust me, do you?"

Skater returned the level gaze and answered honestly. "On a run, with profit waiting up ahead, yeah."

"But now?"

"No."

"Good. Keeps us even."

Skater raised his empty cup. "Old Archibald stock soykaf in his place?"

"Sure. Needed something to give color to his brandy." Duran pushed himself up from the easy chair and led the way to the small kitchenette, presenting his back to Skater.

Despite the offered vulnerability. Skater didn't let down his guard. All anyone ever got around Duran was one mistake. And he knew from experience that the ork never put himself into a position where he couldn't handle himself.

It turned out the dwarf kept his soykaf in the refrigerator next to liter bottles of cheap synthbrandy. The freezer unit yielded a half-dozen nuke meals, which stood the test of time better than the moldy cheese and blackened bag of wilted salad on the wire racks.

"Not exactly a cultured palate we're dealing with here," Duran said as he took the frozen dinners out and started chipping the ice from them.

Skater handled the soykaf, scooping it liberally into the electric kaf-maker so it would be strong. "Why were you looking for me?"

Duran slipped the first two dinners out of their wrap and popped them into the microwave. He set the parameters before answering. "We were set up on the Sapphire Seahawk. Doesn't take a gene-splicer to put that together."

The microwave hummed along beneath the timbre of his voice, accompanied by the soykaf-maker juicing the mix. "Shiva got killed. Can't say I really liked her much, but she was a stand-up warrior. I figured if you were the one sold us out, I was going to offer her memory a revenge freebie."

Skater just stared at the ork, out of things to say.

Duran gave him a thin smile. "I'da done the same for you, chummer."

"Glad to hear it."

"Figured it would put your mind right to ease."

Skater opened the cabinets and found two chipped ceramic mugs. After a cursory glance inside them, he washed both in the sink, then filled each one with steaming kaf.

"The dancer set you up, didn't she?" Duran said as he accepted one of the cups. "The one the street doc was talking about when he was turning Shiva to chop?"

Wispy steam rose from the black liquid. Skater blew on it, getting his mind ready to taste and maybe sip. "I don't think she knew she was."

Duran pointed to the lopsided dining table with three chairs around it. The wall beside it held a poster of Slip-Shadow Sara singing at a local nightclub before becoming the megahit she was now. She was belting out the high notes, feeling the good pain. "Let's sit. Then you tell me about it."

"And then?"

The microwave pinged. Duran slipped on a mitt that had been burned in several places and retrieved the dinners. The smell of sirloin tips and applesauce temporarily won against the malaise of odors already in the doss and the new ones emanating from the ripening dwarf. "A lot of people out there seem to want us dead. We need to figure out who they are, who set us up, and what's so fraggin' important they'll spend a mountain of nuyen to put us down."

Skater took the fork the ork handed him. "And you think I know all this?"

"No way, chummer." Duran grinned without mirth as he took his seat across the table. "If you'da known, somebody woulda made sure you turned up geeked, not sitting nice and tidy in a Lone Star cell. My guess is that the elves used some heavy grease-some kinda clout-and got you quietly off the street. If my chummer wasn't tied in so tight to the network, I wouldn't have known about you either. And I fragging sure wouldn't have been able to spring you from the cop shop."

"You could have checked that out without me," Skater replied.

"We tried."

Skater looked at him. "We?"

"We didn't exactly split up the way we said after leaving you." Duran forked a huge mouthful and chewed, juice oozing out between his fangs. "Chummer, when you got your head on straight, there ain't another runner in the biz whose action I'd back over yours. You're sharp and you're smart, and you scan people really well, especially the twisted ones."

Skater sipped the soykaf and considered the ork's words.

"The rest of us have noticed you seemed to have a lot on your mind lately. We figured, frag it, let you sort it out for yourself. But now it's boiled over on the team. Whatever this run was about, whoever's hunting us, if you're fragged then we are too. The only way any of us is going to get our hoop outta this jam is together."

"It gets kind of complicated," Skater said, "and I don't know every angle myself. And I damn sure don't know where to start."

"Start with the woman."

“There's truths and there's lies. I haven't got it all sorted out myself yet."

“That's what you got me for, chummer. You're all caught up with it right now, but you tell me what you know and I see if I notice something you mighta missed."

Skater started talking. It was hard at first, because he was so used to being careful what he said to anyone. No one really knew everything there was to know about him. Larisa had come the closest. But now she was dead.

Skater peered through the peephole and found himself staring out at Elvis.

The troll was nonchalant, standing patiently at the door as if he had all day, not looking around to see if anyone was watching him. He carried a green and white-striped shopping bag in one huge-knuckled hand.

Skater dropped the Predator to his side and opened the door. He announced the troll to Duran, who sat watching the news round-up on the trideo, a pistol sitting on the armrest of his chair.

"Present for you," Elvis rumbled as he stepped into the room. He held the bag out for Skater. "I knew you'd probably still be drekking around in those Lone Star togs."

Skater opened the bag. Inside were several sets of clothing, denim jeans interwoven with Kevlar, a burgundy work shin, a turquoise Seattle Mariners sweatshirt if he wanted to dress down even more, and ultra-thin black driving gloves. At the bottom of the bag was a brown bomber-style jacket. Last but not least were a pair of reinforced Doc Martins that laced up to the knee.

"Clothes make the man," Elvis said. "I thought maybe you'd feel more like yourself dressed right."

"Thanks," Skater said.

"This place always come with a geeked dwarf?" Elvis asked casually as he scanned the corpse in the center of the room.

"Duran threw him in for no extra charge," Skater said. He headed toward the small bedroom in the back.

"Well," the troll said, "I can throw him out for about the same." He fisted the corpse's shirt and lifted it from the floor. "You got a bathroom around here?"