The Joint Council had declared all active psionics property of the SSF, and the System Pigs kidnapped anyone they heard about. Gatz was the only psionic I knew of who wasn’t chained up in some SSF training course or research lab, learning how to keep the System spinning.

I kind of liked that about him, too. When he wasn’t kicking me in the balls, at least.

I gave him one good knee in his balls, just enough to make him cry out in pain, and then I was off him. “Fuck you, Kev. Keep those shades on, or I swear I’ll make you regret it.”

Desperation came off me in waves. I hoped Kev, with his fucked-up senses, might mistake it for anger, or danger.

“Jesus, Avery,” he complained, rubbing his neck. “You could have snapped my windpipe, you know? There’s no need for this shit.”

I took a deep breath and retrieved my burning cigarette from the floor, where it had charred a small black circle in the cheap, sagging floorboards. “Sorry, Kev. I’m on edge.” I’d re-established the natural order between Kev Gatz and me, and now we were friendly again.

“Yeah.” He stared at the ground for a moment. “So, what do you need?”

“Aside from those googly eyes of yours, I think your friend Marcel would come in handy right now. I need to get the fuck out of town and come back as someone else. Someone new.”

He turned his head back to me and pulled a stained shirt from the floor. “Augments? Avery, I would never have thought you’d-”

“Desperate times, mi amigo,” I said, and I meant it: I wasn’t one to be a hardass for no reason. I was exhausted by the performance. “You’ll arrange things with Marcel for me?”

He nodded. “Okay, Avery. I’ll meet up with you tonight.”

And we shook on it, because we were old friends, the Pusher and me.

I didn’t make it five feet out of Gatz’s building before I noticed a pair of cops on my trail, not Crushers but the elite plainclothes officers, arrogant and worrisome. The System Pigs could be invisible if they wanted, if there was a tactical reason to blend, but many times they didn’t give a shit, because what rat was going to go after the mighty officers of the SSF? These two might as well have had signs on their chests that said police, with their dark long coats and their suits, their shiny shoes and their smug faces. They looked prosperous, men with jobs, the vanishing species. Besides, I recognized one of them, a blond with the blank look of a sociopath: I’d seen him outside a raid on the East Side, a while ago, and while he’d never seen my face, he’d come pretty close to killing me.

I marked them and kept walking, steady, slow, because it was always best to know where the fucking cops were. I went over my options: I didn’t have any. They would come, and I would have to take it. Every fiber of me wanted to run, and I stopped myself with effort. It would take a while, because the System Pigs were careful, and cruel.

Half an hour later I was walking, head down, and somehow they were ahead of me, a wall of cop suddenly rising up in the middle of a street that was quickly becoming deserted, the soft breeze of fleeing people ruffling my hair. I actually stopped short and blinked up at them, confused.

“Avery Cates,” the tall, blond one said. “The famous Gunner. Got a minute?”

I shrugged. “Always, for the SSF, officer.” It pissed them all off to be called officer.

The blond grinned. His eyes danced, jittery, not really moving but not really focusing either, and were a bright, electric blue that made me wonder if his parents had had a little illegal augmentation done. His partner was fat and shorter, a lazy man’s scum of beard on his face. He stared at me with steady, dead eyes.

“Captain Barnaby Dawson,” the blond snapped. “This is my partner Jack Hallier.”

I looked at Hallier. He didn’t twitch a muscle. We were on Eighth Avenue, a section of Old New York that was still populated. Every other building was emptied and ruined, a scar from the Riots, but others sported gangs of people hanging out the windows, idle, bored, poor. The street had once been used for vehicles, I remembered, but had been narrowed by enterprising squatters who’d built junk shelters up against the old buildings, some used for selling scavenged shit. When the SSF wasn’t around, it was packed tight with people, but we had two blocks all to ourselves, trash swirling around our feet. Even the Crushers had beat it.

I nodded pleasantly. “Officers.”

Hallier whipped his hand out and slapped me across the face. My vision swam, my head jerked around, and I felt my teeth dig into my cheek, bringing out coppery blood. When I got my head back around, Dawson’s finger-immaculately manicured-was under my nose.

“Watch your fucking attitude, Mr. Cates,” he said, his face still as stone except for his dancing eyes. Great, I thought, a psycho. Just my luck.

I didn’t say anything.

“You know a guy named Nad Muller? Lowlife piece of shit with sticky fingers?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, sure. He’s fucking dead. They found him down on Prince Street, popped.”

Dawson nodded, his eyebrows raised. “Yeah, sure, you were there, shithead.”

I kept my bruised face blank. “No, sir,” I said, and braced for another slap.

It didn’t come. Dawson looked at Hallier in apparent amusement, but Hallier was still just staring at me, dead eyes, mouth slightly open, like he was trying to use his mental powers to lift me off the ground.

“Huh,” Dawson continued, turning back to me. “Avery Cates, aged twenty-seven, born in Old Brooklyn, twelve years of education, suspect in fifteen unresolved homicides, two dozen lesser offenses. Arrested six times, never convicted. Known as a more-than-competent Gunner, good for kills or bodyguarding or other related jobs. Good reputation on the streets as a straight shooter, trustworthy, always does the job and never reneges, reasonable pricing. Well-known even outside New York.” The fucking Pigs and the fucking Monks. They thought having a wireless linkup to huge databases plugged into their ears made them special, and they loved to play mindreader. “Wanna know your shoe size, asshole?”

I shook my head. I wasn’t enjoying this.

Dawson pushed his finger into my chest. “You were there, Cates. We know you were there.” Hallier’s hand was suddenly on my arm, shoving me. “So let’s take a walk and you can tell us all about how you watched an SSF officer get killed.”

“Ah, fuck,” I muttered. I knew how this was going to end, with me kneeling in an alleyway with a gun pressed against my head. Fucking System Pigs. They didn’t fuck around. I tried to think, but the fat cop was pushing me hard and Dawson’s dancing eyes were hard and unhappy.

“Officers!”

We all paused, and I glanced up to see Kev Gatz running toward us. My odds had just improved immensely. Dawson and Hallier stopped and watched the skinny freak approach, and I looked down at my shoes.

“What is it?” Dawson snapped. If Gatz didn’t have something useful to say in a second or two, they’d probably drag him into the alley with me and put one in his head just for slowing them down.

“I have information,” I heard Gatz begin, and then there was silence. Hallier’s hand loosened on my arm, and I looked up at the two cops, who were standing slackly, mouths slightly open. I risked a quick glance at Gatz; his sunglasses were back on.

“They’re Pushed,” he said breathlessly. “What should we do with them?”

I took a moment to collect myself, cold sweat dripping down my back. The two cops were just standing there, vacant. It took a lot out of him; even getting people to do minor stuff left him exhausted, but fuck if it wasn’t a useful little talent.

I looked around. “We gotta get them off the street. Come on.”

He nodded. “Follow us,” he said to the cops. They nodded and lurched after us, heavy and sleepy. I scanned the block for a good location and chose an abandoned building nearby, crumbling old-world mortar and dusty air. With the System Cops, I knew no one was watching us too closely, or would think twice about them apparently dragging us off the street-that was standard procedure for SSF summary executions. A wide doorway had been boarded up in more optimistic times; I kicked the rotted boards out and we herded the piggies into the dark maw of the building. Gatz had our cops sit down on the floor, and I began to pace.