Geraint gestured with his hands, palms out before him, fingers extended across the table toward the elf. “That’s why the nobles and the moneymen are in there. They’re protecting each other’s inalienable right to scrag the rest of the world. I mean, what else would be freedom, democracy, and the Anglo-American way? Not to forget the Swiss and Japanese, of course. Actually, they’re rather better at it than we are these days."

There was a long silence after that tirade. Serrin had never heard anything like this from Geraint when he’d been a fresh-faced young student in California.

“Spirits, boy, you sound like one of those goldarned Commies.” Serrin made a limp attempt at humor. He wasn’t sure what to make of his friend’s outburst.

"Serrin, you know the other side of the coin. There’s little more decency between these people than they show the rest of the world." Geraint paused, mouth tight. “That’s why you want to hunt the person who killed your parents.”

The blow struck home. The elf’s hands balled into fists and his face contorted with tension. Silence descended heavily between the two men.

“What are you going to do, old friend?" Geraint’s voice was almost tender.

“I don’t know. I’ve been out to Longstanton. I’ll stake the place out to see what opportunity turns up.”

Geraint had known Serrin would try this, and had his reply well-scripted. “You can’t know exactly where Kuranita’s headed. Longstanton isn’t the whole Fuchi complex, but it’s three rakking square miles and that’s a lot of entrances to cover."

“There are only two main gates, and he’s sure to head for the security complex.” The elf twisted his gaze, avoiding Geraint’s eyes.

"Serrin, you don’t have the weapons to hit the guy. You’d need an expert sniper with an MA 2100 or better and every trick you could build into it. You’d need infrared, APDS to get through the ballistic armor, and you’d need smoke, flare, and heaven knows what else to have a cat in hell’s chance of getting out alive. And even if you didn’t care about that, and you got lucky and hit the guy in one chance in a hundred, you know as well as I do that a man like Kuranita will have a couple of doubles running around as safeguards. Sure, he’ll be going for the security complex-almost certainly by an indirect route, while a doppelganger takes the obvious one. Unless he’s going to double-bluff, of course.

“How can you know what someone like that will have planned? You’re no street samurai, friend. You couldn’t even get close to him with what you do have. You know there’ll be corporate mages checking the astral for miles. You wouldn’t even get within range before they fried you.”

Serrin shook his head. "I took precautions against that. Don’t forget, I’ve been earning my nuyen by snooping around here all week. Got a little something to help on the masking front.”

“So that’s what you got from Serena," Geraint blurted. The mage looked astonished. “You been probing my mind, you bastard?" He was angry and threatened by the possibility. Geraint waved away his anger with a smile.

"You should know I don’t have any talent in that department. Much simpler: I got pretty much the same thing from her myself, only yesterday. She said you’d been in. And no, she didn’t say what you’d bought there. She just said it was an interesting coincidence that you’d stopped by just before I did. Nothing more to it than that.”

Serrin relaxed, slowly, but remained slightly on guard. Geraint pounced on his uncertainty with a final warning.

“Fine, so you’re masked and you manage not to get noticed by any of the-five or six?-mages who’ll be there. The lab will have a couple in the security department, I guess, say two more covering the perimeters, and Kuranita’s retinue will include another pair. Call it four. Do you really think they won’t be protecting him with enough sustained spells and spell locks to guard a Swiss banking satellite? Come on, don’t be foolish. Take any kind of shot and we won’t be chewing the fat over breakfast tomorrow. Let it go. You can’t touch this man. Not here, not now.”

It was the truth, and Serrin knew it. “But I have to go."

Geraint nodded sadly. He’d known this was something beyond reason, but he had to try. There was only one thing left to do.

“Of course you do, you dumb sod. But you can’t go alone, and I don’t want you getting us both killed by doing anything silly.”

The elf’s eyes shone brightly as he looked at his friend. When he spoke it was with an almost childlike naivete. "You’ll help me?"

"What are friends for? I have a little more skill these days.” With the fingers of his left hand Geraint drew the skin on his right palm tight. The implant beneath was well-disguised, scarcely visible even now. It was a beautiful job, and Serrin admired the near-perfect concealment of the smartgun link.

“I felt I needed it after what happened. If I’d been a better shot all those years ago we’d both have someone still alive today."

"It wasn’t your fault. It was dark, raining. She should never have run down that-”

“I don’t blame myself. Not now, anyway. But I thought some personal enhancement in that direction wouldn’t be amiss. I got myself a skillwire too. I’m not bad, either. I’ve yet to fire a sniper rifle in real action, but I can bring off a head shot nine times out of ten at eighty yards. I don’t think we’ll get that close, but I’m bound to be a better shot so you should stick to covering my backside. And I hope that bike of yours is bloody quick.”

Geraint drummed his fingers on the table, planning his moves. “Look, I’ve got to get back to the Smoke. We’ll need rather better resources than we’ve got here, and I don’t really fancy getting a two-thousand nuyen Gieves suit covered with fenland muck. I can’t leave until four, but there’s the non-stop express shuttle at four-twelve and I can be back here by, oh, seven. I’ll bring whatever I can lay my hands on. Ideally, we could use a rocket launcher, but it’s probably too short notice.”

The mage was open-mouthed. Geraint’s eyes twinkled back at him. “Only joking. We’d have to raid an Integrated Weapons Systems armory to get one of those, or maybe the Ministry of Defense. Not enough time.” He chuckled, his mind shuffling through the contacts he could chase down, hoping that Haughtree, at least, would be at home. Haughtree was the one man he could be sure of in this kind of situation. Thirty thousand nuyen for the cancer op in Zurich made Haughtree a very trustworthy friend.

"Meanwhile, Serrin, you can go check out those Optical Neotech guys. Got something for you on that one; the senior, Peter McCumber, has an extremely shaky cred balance. File a report stating that your sources inform you that he’s taking bribes from a subsidiary of British Industrial. Tell your employer to check transactions at the Chartered Imperial Bank. That should earn you a nice bonus. Buy me dinner at the Carlton sometime."

Geraint made to leave, but Serrin grabbed his arm and looked hard into his eyes. "Why are you doing all this?” It wasn’t mistrust in his voice, only a little wonderment.

Geraint opted for fatuity. “Because I’m a bored, decadent, minor noble looking for a little excitement in a humdrum life, old friend."

Serrin still looked baffled. Geraint laughed softly and clapped the elf on the shoulder. "Catch you later,” he said.

9

Wasim pored over the map as the ancient British Industrial Midlander rattled along the highway. He was hunched up in the back seat, packed between Sachin with the guns and Aqib with a cylindrical steel tube and a box grenades. “Ten miles, then to the northern zone and the Bar Hill squatzone. It’s on the right.”

The car leaped over one of the ubiquitous bumpy testimonies to the woeful quality of British roads. There was thump as someone’s head struck the roof. “What a pile plazz!" Sachin complained, rubbing his head ruefully. I thought they’d stopped making these buckets ten years ago when they closed down the Birmingham factory. Didn’t close it down soon enough, if you ask me."