"The bakeware." "The big worm." A pretty decent description of Ryumyo, neh? Which implied, if I took it at face value, that Kat and her little friends…

… Were ALOHA. And suddenly a bunch of other puzzling little elements fell into place. Zack the ork's reaction at hearing about Scott's death-his interpretation of death by belly-bomb as "doing it up right." That certainly fit in with the idea of ideologically driven terrorists, didn't it? Add to that the fact-which I'd almost forgotten-that Kat and the rest, who claimed they were helping me merely because I was a friend of Te Purewa, didn't seem to know much about Te Purewa at all. They called him "Marky," not the new Polynesian name he'd taken for himself. If they were really his close chummers, as they'd implied, wouldn't they respect his rather earnest wishes and call him Te Purewa (and maybe stick their tongues out at him from time to time)?

You're reaching, Montgomery, I told myself firmly, really reaching. There wasn't one tiling I could point to and say "proof." Intriguing hints, maybe. Totally circumstantial evidence-well, not even that. Who the frag knew-maybe Te Purewa only did his more-Maori-then-the-Maoris trip with new acquaintances, and didn't mind close chummers calling him the familiar Marky. And even if the phrase Beta had used was "the big worm"-and not "the bakeware"- was I justified in making the logical leap and implicating Ryumyo? Got me, chummer.

Still, it was a possibility, and I had to take it into consideration. No more contact with Kat and crew, then. And, a sudden chilling thought, I had to get the frag out of this doss and find somewhere else to flop. Kat had told Zack to "get my bike ready." What if that preparation had included the addition of a homing beacon of some kind? So frag it, I had to ditch this doss, and I had to ditch the Suzuki while I was at it. With a general curse at corporations, yaks, terrorists, kings, and the whole fragging Kingdom of Hawai'i, I forced myself to my feet and headed for the door.

Thanks be to chummer Quincy, again. Another one of the wizzer little features with which he'd juiced my pocket 'puter was the software that allowed me to make the next best thing to certified credsticks at a moment's notice. Slip a real credstick-the kind that has personal identification datawork and all that drek, on it-into one slot; slide a credstick "blank" into the other. The software smoothly transfers cred from the ident stick to the blank. (Okay, hold the phone, I know any 'puter can do that. The feature that sets Quincy's code apart from the usual 'puter facility is that it erases all "audit trails" in the process. Normally, when you transfer cred from stick to stick, both "donor" and "recipient" sticks archive details of the transaction. Anyone with the right toys-cops, mainly-can backtrack this kind of transfer without breaking any skull-sweat. With Quincy's toys, both sticks think they're archiving the appropriate data… but neither is. Try to trace the audit trail later, and you'll come up empty. And no, the software isn't good enough to slam a credit balance onto a blank stick without taking that sum from a legitimate stick. Quincy's a technomancer, not a miracle worker.)

So that's what I did, sheltering like a squatter in the entry alcove of a boarded-up building. I transferred a couple of hundred nuyen from "Brian Tozer's" credstick to a virgin blank. Reassured that I wouldn't be leaving a great, glowing electronic trail that yaks and ALOHAs and other assorted reprobates could follow, I got to work on finding a new squat.

First order of biz was to get out of Ewa. I'd have loved to have taken the little Suzuki Custom-I'd actually come to like it-but I couldn't be totally certain I'd cleared it of any homing beacons. So I hopped The Bus-that's what it had emblazoned on the side in bright yellow, The Bus, in case anyone mistook it for, say, The Art Gallery, or something- and cruised north into Waipahu. Apparently, this used to be another distinct city, like Ewa, recently absorbed into the sprawling mass that was Honolulu.

If I hadn't been paying attention to the street signs and pestered The Bus driver with idiotic questions, it would have felt like I'd never left Ewa. Waipahu felt much the same, kind of like Renton on a good-air day, and that made me feel at home.

I checked into a hotel called the Dima Joy. The sign out front advertised rates by the day, week, or month, but judging by the scantily clad individuals who amorously accosted me on the way in, the place could probably have done good trade charging by the hour. I got myself a "convenience suite"-in other words, with its own drekker, telecom, and hot plate-and slotted my "blind" stick to pay a week in advance (a bargain at 350 nuyen). In most parts of the world, it's a legal requirement that hotel guests provide some kind of ident. I was all ready with one of my secondary aliases- not good enough to get a credstick or to travel, but certainly good enough to register at the Ilima Joy. I needn't have bothered. The bored-looking clerk just handed me a stylus and told me to sign in on the touchscreen of the battered registration computer. I overcame the urge to sign in as 'T.M.N. Alias" or something similar, but made sure my signature was absolutely illegible, even after computer enhancement. Taking the grimy key-card the clerk handed me, I walked up the two flights of stairs and found room 301.

If this was a convenience suite, I wondered at once, whose convenience was it supposed to enhance? Not mine, chummer, that's for damn sure. The drekker was private- probably because nobody else would want one that didn't work-and the door to its alcove was distinctly missing. The hot plate apparently did work, judging by the scorch marks on the wall and the countertop; I couldn't imagine myself trying it out. And the telecom was also functional, if limited to outgoing calls only (no doubt monitored, and charged for, at the front desk). Still, it was all I really needed at the moment.

The first order of business was to check out me legitimate approaches to the Ali'i…

No, the first order of business was to get some sleep. Being hunted takes it out of you, chummer, trust me on that one. It wasn't so much my body that was tired as my mind, my emotions. Sleep is a weapon-somebody (Argent, maybe?) had told me that once-and I figured it was time to bring that weapon to bear.

The sun was just rising over the skyrakers of downtown Honolulu-or I guessed it was, at least; the view from my convenience suite at the Ilima Joy didn't give me much of a view, apart from a noisome alley and the back of another decrepit rooming house.

Now it was time to check out the legitimate approaches to the Ali'i… if nothing else, to eliminate them. I had it in the back of my mind that some monarchies-I don't know where I'd picked this up-have always allowed the populace to contact their ruler directly-to "cry Harold," or whatever the frag the term was. Who knew, maybe King Kamehameha V had something similar in place. I fired up the telecom and started browsing through the online directory.

It didn't take me long to track down the number of the information desk at the Iolani Palace. I placed the call, and then had to sit through a recorded message telling me about the availability of tours and other such useless drek. Only when that chip had played out did I have the option of speaking to a flesh-and-blood receptionist.

Well, what do you know-there was a simple procedure through which citizens of the Kingdom of Hawai'i could arrange for an audience with the Ali'i. So the plastic-faced receptionist told me, at least, through his fashion-model smile. All that was necessary was for me to give my name and SIN and make an appointment. There even happened to be a slot open in the king's schedule… in early spring of '57. If I wanted to take it, all I'd have to do was to arrange for the requisite security and background check… I hung up, of course.