But the strange optimism stuck with me as I darted back into the shadows and headed for home, my streets where I knew people, where I knew the Safe Rooms and where I had allies-not many, but better than nothing. I felt lucky. I felt like maybe my fortunes were about to change, and maybe I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life being chased by people who wanted to kill me.

“First, they remove the brain.”

I wasn’t really listening to Nad. I never listened to Nad, actually. We were standing in a shadowy doorway on Bleecker-just a doorway, a rectangle of ancient brick melting away to dusty rubble on either side-watching the gray faces flow by, waiting for one in particular so we could kill him. Well, so I could kill him. Nad wasn’t a Gunner. He wasn’t even much of a criminal; he was possibly the worst pickpocket that had ever lived, and over the years had been pinched by the Pigs so often, with the mandatory accompanying beatings, that he’d started to go a little crazy in his middle age. He was all about conspiracy theories, always telling anyone who’d listen about the sinister forces that ruled the world. For me, it was a lot simpler: Hostile assholes with badges ruled the world, case closed.

Nad was pretty much useless, but I felt sorry for him. I paid him a pittance to work lookout for me on these shithole jobs I picked up, murdering small-fry criminals who’d overstepped their bounds or owed too much yen for too long. Of course, he was pretty useless as a lookout, too.

“You can’t digitize the brain,” he continued after a lazy pause, “I mean, you can, but it doesn’t work. What you get on the other end is bullshit. It sounds okay at first, but when you get into it, the thought process is fried.”

“Uh-huh.” I’d spotted a cigarette butt on the street a few feet away, only half-smoked. I wondered what the odds were that in the five seconds it would take to claim it, my job would walk by and I’d spend the next five hours listening to Nad while tonight’s dinner drifted away. I licked my lips and scanned the crowd.

“So the Monks, they remove the brain. They slice open your head like a fucking can, remove the brain, and put it in one of the Monk bodies. They hook it up, thousands of threads, so thin you can’t see ’em. Some of ’em are data transfer lines, some of ’em are electrical, to stimulate the organ. Then they fill the head up with a nutrient solution, to preserve it.

“Fucking bam! You’ve got a Monk.”

I sighed. “Nad, everyone knows this. It’s on the fucking Vids.” There were more and more “Special Reports” on the Electric Church showing up on the huge fifty-foot public video screens every day, reporters with perfect skin cheerfully telling us that the fucking Monks were everywhere, in case we hadn’t noticed.

“Yeah, but Ave, think about it: Who’s volunteering for this shit? Who’s walking up to one of the Tin Men and saying, hell yeah, cut my head off and vacuum out my brains! Fuck that. The Monks are hunting people. I know a guy-”

I winced. Every bullshit story on the street started with I know a guy. It was the international code for bullshit.

“-Kitlar Muan-you know him, shylock outta the Bronx. Or knew him. He was telling me a few weeks ago how one of these Monks was like following him. Always around, always holding up walls or some shit wherever Kit went. Then, one day, Kit’s gone, out of touch, and the next day, he’s a fucking Monk. You know how the Monks go around and say hello to all their old friends, tell them how they converted? So there I was, and here comes this Tin Man, all vinyl smiles and brand-new black robes, and it walks right up to me and sez, ‘Good morning, Nad, you used to know me as Kit Muan, now I’m Brother Muan of the Delta-”

I let Nad’s chatter wash over me, bored. If Nad thought the Monks were shooting people in the back and cutting off their heads, it was a good reason to believe otherwise. I kept my eyes roaming over the good citizens of what was left of downtown Manhattan, angry, yellow faces, but I didn’t see my mark. I stamped my feet in frustration, cold and tired. It was a low moment. Things had gone downhill at a furious pace since my near-death experience on the East Side; the Pigs were still circulating my description and going hammer and tongs at trying to track down who had murdered Colonel Janet Hense, and I’d exhausted my credit spreading the fog thick to keep my name out of it. Not only was I broke as a result, but being so blatantly connected with an ongoing cop-killing investigation made me a hot property, and business was not good. So Avery Cates the Gweat and Tewwible was reduced to pulling street work for low-rent dipshits. A man needed to pay his bills. If you didn’t pay your bills, people like me stood in shadows waiting for you and slit your throat, and I had a lot of bills coming due. Street Work paid shit, but it paid.

There were, in fact, a trio of Monks across the street from us, and I wasted a moment staring at them. It was a typical scene for them: two standing on either side of a third who stood on a box, preaching. And preaching. And preaching. Walk by in the morning, and this freaky thing with corpse-white skin, dressed all in black and wearing mirrored sunglasses, would be making a speech about salvation. Come back at lunch, the same freak was making the same speech. At night, it was still there. At first we all thought they were fucking Droids. It was a joke: The same Droid that took your job last year was now putting God out of business.

As I stared, one of them turned its pasty white head and looked back at me. I fought the immediate urge to look away, get interested in the near distance suddenly. I just kept staring-you had to keep the act up. I was Avery Cates, toughest bastard in the System, and I would stare at creepy Monks if I wanted.

The Monks all looked alike. Their plastic faces were capable of expression, in weird, programmed contortions that never looked natural, but their faces were identical. At first you saw them here and there, heard rumor of them. Now they’re everywhere. You see Monks in the street, on the trains. The Electric Church was a registered religion. It was all very legal-they claimed to have paperwork on every member, showing voluntary submission to the conversion into a Monk. So far the System Pigs bought it, and left them alone.

After a moment, with extreme casualness, I looked back for the cigarette butt and licked my lips. It was almost half a cigarette, and looked to be of good vintage: Pre-Unification. Stale as hell, but still better than the shit you got these days, even if you could afford them. Which I manifestly could not. I stared transfixed at it, and wondered if anyone I knew would see me kneel to get it. You had to keep up the rep all the time.

Nad nudged me gently with one elbow. “That’s our man.”

I looked up, flushing, angry at myself. Staring at a fucking cigarette butt while tonight’s meal ticket strolled by, my ass saved by a dried-up burnout like Nad Fucking Muller. I made fists with both hands and resisted the sudden urge to punch Nad in the face.

I recognized my mark from the grainy files I’d seen: a short, heavyset guy in an ancient leather overcoat about a foot too long for him, worn like a half-rate royal robe, dragging along the street. He was flanked by two huge men who couldn’t bend their arms, muscles on muscles twitching. I kept my eyes on the mark, who bustled, walking fast. The Little Prince. His name was Rudjer something; it didn’t matter. He was low on the food chain and was trying to rise from the depths, and he was about to explode.

I studied the trio. Their eyes were straight ahead, faces set in the usual hardassed grimace-we all had it engraved on our faces-acting like the rest of the poor fucks on the street would just naturally get out of the way. Which they did, because even though the Little Prince was a nobody who didn’t realize his button had been pushed, he still had more juice than most of the people around him. He had some yen, some muscle, and that snazzy overcoat.