“I would like to go ahead with the extraction.”

“Shush on the E word,” Roe warned with a sly, conspiratorial smile. “Even a public place like this has long ears.”

Her levity annoyed him, but Sam knew she was right. Be should have used some roundabout phrasing that could mean something entirely innocent. The circumlocutions of her business were even more obtuse than corporate slang. But he wanted to stay straightforward and on-track until everything was settled. He was not yet done with business. “Hamae has to go, too.”

Roe’s warm smile vanished instantly. “That makes it a little tougher.”

He swallowed. This was it, time for his gamble. “She goes, or I don’t.”

Roe’s eyes searched his. He felt the intensity of her bronze eyes and fought to keep his face immobile, hoping to mask his worry that she would call off the deal. She must have been satisfied by his resolution.

“You’re lucky I’m a soft touch, chummer. Now listen up. Here’s the plan.”

Sam turned away from the wall screen and looked around the room again. This apartment had been his home for just over a year, but only a few knick-knacks, some bare spots on the carpeting from the dogs, and a handmade bowl from Hanae said anything about the man who had lived there. The rest was company issue, down to the pictures on the walls.

He would leave behind his clothes, too, for a suitcase would be too suspicious. He would have to make do with what was on his back and whatever Roe promised to provide once they had escaped. His scrapbooks lay on the table by the sofa, their pages strewn over the surface. He had spent most of the night culling them, choosing the few photos most important to him. He had narrowed it down to a couple dozen choice items, a miniature history of his family. He and Janice in Kyoto, her graduation from Tokyo University and his from Columbia, several snapshots from the last family outing before he and Janice were orphaned, his father in his old U.S. Navy uniform, his mother hosting one of her regular card parties, scattered selections from his childhood, the wedding pictures of his parents and grandparents, and finally an old tintype of Thaddeus Samuel Helmut Verner, the first of the family to come to the Americas. They would be his lifeline to the past, memories too precious to give up.

He looked at the bookshelf. There were few volumes among the objects and small electronics. He had never been a real book-lover like his sister or his father. The feel of a hard copy didn’t seem to be important. To him, it was always the content that mattered, not the form. The only book he wanted was his Bible. Unfortunately, like a suitcase, it would cause suspicion.

He would not be without its comfort, though. A chip copy was safely snugged into the case in his pocket. Keeping the computerized Bible company were a few other reading chips. Most were references, but he had also taken a copy of his father’s diary and a record of his correspondence. On a whim, he had included the instruction manual for his unfinished flight simulation course. He also had the four gray chips.

Those chips held the persona programs from his cyberterminal. To take them was, technically, a theft, but the programs had been tailored for him and they would be destroyed before someone else took over his terminal. It was actually cheaper to burn a new set for the new man or woman. The chips contained no data, and he was sure his new employer would supply fresh persona chips suited to their own systems. Taking these was symbolic. His Matrix presence would leave along with his physical body.

Maybe that was why he had decided to take the flight manual. Perhaps it was a symbolic statement of his flight from psychological bondage. Or maybe it had to do with the flight he took with those shadowrunners a year ago. He was about to embark on another dangerous experience whose outcome he could not entirely predict.

He checked his watch.

“Almost time,” he called to Hanae, who was still puttering in the bathroom.

“Just a minute.”

He hoped it wasn’t one of her fifteen-minute “minutes.” He paced, unconsciously following the track Kiniru used when waiting for Sam to take her for a walk.

Hanae emerged a few minutes later, dressed far more sensibly than Sam had feared. Though she wore a loose, flowing dress, the material was sturdy and the cut unrestrictive. She had a bulging satchel slung over one shoulder.

“Isn’t that bag a little large for a trip to a club?”

“It is big,” she said hesitantly, “but it should be all right. It’s part of the latest look. Lots of leather, beads, and fringe.”

“I hope it’s not too heavy. We’ll have to cross the club’s landing pad to the aircraft in a hurry.”

“If they cancel out the signal on the screamer, we should be able to stroll out to the plane. After all, people leave that way all the time.”

“Not in DocWagon aerial ambulances.”

She shrugged. “If it’s too heavy, you’ll help me. We’ll be fine.”

He prayed that they would. He didn’t want anything to slow them down now that the time had come.

Despite Sam’s misgivings, they reached the Club Quarter on Level 6 without incident. No one seemed interested in a couple out for a night on the arcology. The halls of the quarter were already crowded, though it was still early. Music of all kinds bled from the sound-insulated clubs to blend into a puddle of unintelligible sound. The revelers didn’t seem to care. Many danced in the halls, moving to music in their heads. Some danced to their imaginations; others wore chipsticks in skull-mounted jacks or carried simsense players that fed the music to their brains.

It wasn’t too difficult to find Rumplestiltskin’s. Roe wasn’t there yet, but hundreds of other hopefuls were already queued up in the vain hope of entry into the fashionable club.

“I had no idea,” Hanae said when she saw the line.

“I wonder if Roe did.”

“If she did, it must be part of the plan.” The quaver in Hanae’s voice didn’t match her confident words.

“I guess we get in line.”

Ten minutes later, Hanae took Sam’s arm and pulled herself close. “Maybe she’s already inside. Maybe she left without us.”

“Don’t worry,” Sam assured her, hiding his own growing doubt. “She’ll keep her part of the deal.”

Thirty minutes later, they were still in line. The club doorway had come into view and they caught their first sight of the doorman. Like many clubs, Rumplestiltskin’s employed a Troll to handle the lines of hopefuls. Too well-dressed to be called a bouncer, his size and demeanor left no doubt that he could fulfill that function. Almost three meters of muscle and thick hide was more than enough to intimidate all but the rowdiest partyboy. They were still ten meters from the front of the line when Roe suddenly appeared.