Okay, looking on the bright side, I did have a much better feel for the tavern's clientele. Take those two, for instance. Over in a darkened corner was an overweight, middle-aged man wearing a thick toupee… oops, sorry, I guess the socially acceptable term is "alternative hair," isn't it? He was making a long, drawn-out-and probably pointless-attempt to hit on a bored-looking biff who I reckoned sported a pair of "alternative breasts." And over there were two kids, obviously underage but trying to look mature, while they almost avoided staring at the dancer giving herself a gynecological exam on the stage. And there, nearer the door, was an older native woman-bird-thin, fragile-looking in the same way as Tokudaiji-ignoring the drink on the table in front of her as she stared off into space. (Well, from this angle, it looked as if she were staring right into the camera lens, as a matter of fact. Coincidence, of course, but still creepy.)

The front door of the tavern swung open. The light level wasn't enough for any details to show on the security system, but I could make out three relatively large silhouettes. Te Purewa and his chummers? The three figures moved forward into the light, and I was seriously glad I'd invested in this vantage point.

Japanese, they were. Humans, all of them, but any one of them could have applied for promotion to troll at any point. They wore conservative business suits. Their augmented eyes glinted unnaturally on the screen as they looked around the barroom.

Frag, couldn't these guys have tried for at least some local color? The closest thing to conservative business fashion around the Cheeseburger in Paradise was a tailored black leather armored jacket. Still, I shouldn't really be complaining, should I? If the yak soldiers-what the frag else could they be?-had bothered with camouflage, I might not have seen them coming. I congratulated myself for my foresight in setting myself up back here. If the yaks even thought to check the back room, I'd have plenty of warning. I'd be able to bail out the back door, hop on my Suzuki and lay rubber before they'd even talked their way past the bartender. Perfect, right?

If it was so goddamn perfect, how come the door behind me burst open, and somebody yelled, "Ice, hoal" at me?

I spun in my chair, trying to haul out the Manhunter Te Purewa had provided. But I was staring into the muzzles of two large-caliber weapons, and instantly gave up on that pursuit. I showed empty hands and tried a tentative, "Okay, let's chill here, huh?"

It took me a long second or two to notice the slags behind the big guns. They weren't yak hitters as I'd expected… or if they were, then the Hawai'i yakuza has gotten a lot more behind affirmative action with regard to women and kawaruhito then their mainland cousins. The figure on the left was an ork with even bigger shoulders man Scott. He wore jeans and a sleeveless black learner vest a few sizes too small for his armored-and-bodysculpted torso. To his right was a woman-ork too, but whip-slender, with steel cord muscles. She wore dark pants and an aloha shirt, but the shirt's pattern was a pretty fragging good approximation of urban camo, I noticed. Both had their pistols-nasty big fraggers-Savalettes with a gleaming chrome-steel finish- leveled at my head.

"Clear your weapon," the woman snapped. "Two fingers. Do it!"

I did it-what the frag else was I supposed to do?- pulling out the Manhunter between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. I dropped it to the floor and kicked it toward the two gillettes.

To my amazement, they relaxed visibly the moment I did, safing their own weapons and holstering them. I felt my mouth gape open, and the man chuckled as he scooped up my pistol. "Hey, shaka, brah, we just didn't want you doing nothing hasty, you scan?"

"We're chummers of Marky," the woman added. It took me a moment to twig to who "Marky" was-Mark Harrop, aka Te Purewa.

With a sharp inclination of her head she indicated the security screen-and, by implication, the yak soldiers. "You want to come with us, or wait for them?"

"Lead on, hoa," said I in heartfelt tones. As I rose to my feet, I glanced back at the screen. The older woman in the barroom was still staring into the camera, and for a disturbing moment I felt as though she was staring right into my skull.

As soon as we were out of the office, into the narrow hallway that led to the alley, the woman indicted her companion and said, "He's Moko. I'm Kat."

"I'm-" I began.

But she cut me off sharply. "Ice that, hoa. Know all I need to know. You're a chummer of Marky, that's good enough, huh?" She glanced at Moko and got a nod of acknowledgment. Suitably chastened-one of these days I've really got to get myself a street handle-I nodded, too.

As if an afterthought, Moko tossed me back my Manhunter, I felt the way a kid must when getting his security blanket back from the laundry. I shoved it back into my waistband.

Out into the alley we went. There were two new bikes there, parked next to mine. A Yamaha Twin-Turbine Rapier II-one of the newest rice-rockets. Driven by two contra-rotating gas turbines, it looked as lean and sharp and downright lethal as… well, as a rapier, I suppose. Next to it was a big, brutal Honda Viking mega-hog painted a nasty matte black with blood-red trim. Instinctively, I played "match the bike," pairing Moko with the Viking, Kat with the Rapier.

And got it totally back-assward. Moko swung aboard the lean-lined Rapier and fired up the engine with a high-pitched whine. Kat, meanwhile, was pulling on a full-face helmet and a riding jacket angular with body armor. (Moko's sole concession to riding safety was to button his sleeveless vest shut across his bulging pecs.) A moment later, Kat was astride the Viking-not so much "astride," actually, as "nestled in the guts of"-and she hit the starter. The big 1800cc engine roared, then settled down to a contented purr as if the bike had just eaten a Suzuki Custom.

"Mount up and follow us," Kat told me.

Obediently I mounted up, and when they took off down the alley, I followed along. Considerately, they kept the speed at something my little Suzuki could handle without blowing a gasket. We kept to the alleys for a few blocks, then swung out onto a main road.

We rode for ten, maybe fifteen minutes… after the first five of which 1 was hopelessly lost. We were still in the heart of Ewa, I figured, but where precisely? Well, I suppose it didn't really matter. Eventually, Moko, who was riding directly ahead of me, flicked on his right-turn signal-the first time in the ride that he'd bothered with such niceties-and I slowed for the turn. The two lead bikes leaned way over, the Viking's pipes almost scraping the asphalt and headed directly for the closed up-and-over door of a warehouse…

Which opened just in time for them to cruise through. I'd hung back too far, and the door had already started to close again as I scooted under. The metal roof echoed back the thudding of the Viking's engine until it sounded like a.50-cal machine gun on full-auto. Slowly, the lead bikes rolled across the open warehouse floor and into what looked like a low alcove in the far wall. I followed and cut my engine as Kat gave me a slash across the throat kill signal. For a few seconds my ears still rang with the concussion of the Honda's big engine.

The floor jolted under me, and I almost lost the Suzuki, whose kick-stand wasn't down yet, as the "alcove" started to rise. A freight elevator. As the elevator continued up, the two orks dismounted, and Kat stripped off her riding gear. The floor eventually stopped moving, and the two shadowrunners-what else could they be, neh?-led me out into the low-ceilinged second floor of the warehouse.

It was set up as a large ops room, I saw at once. Over against one wall was a weapons area-a fragging arsenal with various and assorted implements of mayhem mounted on hooks. In one corner was a sophisticated-looking commo suite; in another, a collection of computers and miscellaneous other tech-toys connected by a medusa's-head of wiring harnesses. Moko led me over toward a briefing table-the high-tech kind with a complex array of flatscreen display panels built into the tabletop-and slumped down in a swivel chair.