So I dressed. Shrugging into the shirt introduced me to a complex spectrum of pain radiating from the region of my left shoulder blade. I breathed in deeply and worked the shoulder… immediately regretting it. The pain was almost enough to knock me flat on my hoop. I tried the deep-breath thing again, a lot more cautiously this time.

Okay, the pain was bad, but more the dull, throbbing kind you get from a major contusion. The light armor I'd been wearing had spread the kinetic energy of the impact over a wide enough area that it hadn't punctured my precious skin. Also, the fact that the pain wasn't knife-sharp stabs told me that my ribs weren't broken. Be thankful for small favors, I told myself.

I'd just finished dressing when the maglock snapped back again. (Yes, I was definitely under observation.) The same elf-slitch appeared in the doorway, backed by me same two barely glimpsed figures in the hallway behind her. "Come with me, please, Mr. Montgomery," she said.

I came. What the hell else was I supposed to do? I followed the corp-biff out from my room into the hallway, hanging a good pace back. The two shadows-elves too, but surprisingly beefy for that metatype-fell in behind me and to the sides. Both had tasers on their belts and held oversized stun batons ready to swing. Chill, brah, I wanted to tell them, I'm not planning anything militant unless you force me into it. But I held my tongue.

Along the corridor we went, the elf-biff walking point, me walking slack, and my two armed side-men picking up the rear. Decor-wise, the place still looked like a hospital, but it didn't take me long to start second-guessing that conclusion. Hospitals-me ones I've visited, at least-have antiseptic-looking people always hurrying to and fro, carrying pocket 'puters and portable scanners. The air's always filled with that hospital smell-equal parts rubbing alcohol, urine, fear, and despair-and PA systems are always telling Dr. So-and-So to do such-and-such stat. Not here. We were alone in the hallway, me and my escorts. The air smelled of nothing whatsoever, and the loudest sound was the tap-tap of the elf biff's stiletto heels on the acrylamide tile floor.

We reached a T-intersection and turned left. An ideal place for a nurses' station if this were a hospital. Here, though, there was just a bank of three elevators. One opened its doors as we approached, and the elf gestured for me to stop.

If I'd wanted to make a break for it, this would have been the time. Something I'd learned early in my training in the Star is that getting into an elevator with a captive is-like getting into a car-an activity that requires good technique if you don't want your captive to take advantage. The three elves had good technique. One of my burly side-men went in first, holding his stun baton ready. Then the biff gestured me in. The second muscleboy followed, his baton lightly touching my kidney. Only once I was inside and secured'-one stun baton at your kidney, another touching your groin is a frag of a disincentive against trying something stupid-did the corp-biff step inside.

Hey, they could have saved themselves the trouble if they'd only asked me. Making a break for it when I didn't know where I was or which way to run just didn't seem to be a reasonable option at the moment

Take, for example, the fact that the "hospital" was apparently two levels underground-judging by the elevator control panel, at least. Frag, if I'd made a break before this, I'd probably have bolted dawn a fire-escape stairway, and found myself running out of options in a real hurry.

The door sighed shut me corp biff touched the UP button, and off we went Moments later, the macroplast doors hissed open again, and our entire entourage stepped out.

Into the reception area of what was obviously a high-tone corporate building. Lots of chrome, lots of polarized mirrorfinish, lots of technoflash. All the trappings you'd normally expect: holos on the wall of suits schmoozing with politicos and other reprobates; waiting-room furniture that costs more than an apartment in downtown Seattle; reception desk, complete with glamour-faced receptionist jacked into the system; big corp logo on the wall behind said reception desk. For a moment I focused on that logo.

TIC, it said in a curlicued, stylized font. And below that, in smaller letters-almost as an afterthought-the expansion: Telestrian Industries Corporation.

Telestrian. Where had I heard that name before?

Memory flashed back. It was a Tir Tairngire corp, wasn't it, with an arcology somewhere in Portland? Not much activity outside the Tir itself-or so I'd thought. This facility seemed to indicate otherwise. I wouldn't have so much as recognized the name if there hadn't been all that hash-up some time back during a highly publicized reorganization of the elven corp.

The receptionist behind the desk-elf, natch-flashed me a fifteen-gigawatt smile as I passed by. It didn't seem to matter one iota that I was being escorted by two muscleboys, each prodding me in the back with a stun baton. It occurred to me that, even if I'd run through the lobby buck-naked and on fire, she'd still have fired off that same practiced smile.

On we went, my friends and I, past the reception desk into the atrium of the TIC building.

That stopped me in my tracks-earning me two painful pokes in the kidneys, but I hardly noticed. I've never been much for typical corp architecture. Too many corps seem to get into the old macho "I've got me biggest architect" kind of drek, forgetting mat people actually have to live and work in their monuments to too much cred and too little taste. Not TIC-at least, not here.

The place was bright and airy, the atrium open to the azure blue sky above. Open-sided corridors looked down onto the atrium from all three stories of the building. People were doing about their corp business along those corridors. As I watched, one slag on the second floor reached over the railing and plucked a blossom from one of the flowering trees-that's right, trees-that grew in the open area. He sniffed the flower appreciatively, then stuck it into his buttonhole before moving on. Birds twittered and cheeped from the boughs above me, and the air was full of perfume.

Under one of the trees was a small conference table. Half a dozen intense-looking corp types were discussing something-discussing it quite heatedly, judging by their body language. I couldn't hear the first word of what they were saying, however; the "conference room" was obviously equipped with white-noise generators.

"All right, already," I said peevishly as my two sideboys poked me in the back, and off we went again. Over to the far comer of the atrium, and up a movator to the second floor, then up another to the third and top.

Top floor-executive suite. I could tell immediately. The pearl gray carpet on the floors was deeper-piled. The art on the walls was more understated, elegant, and obviously expensive. The people passing by in the halls were better-dressed. (Don't get me wrong: Even on the ground floor, people wore suits that would cost as much as a car. The only difference on the third floor was the model of car-Jackrabbit or Westwind.) I could almost smell the cred in the air.

Along one of those open-sided hallways we walked, then turned away from the atrium and into serious suit-land. We approached a big set of double doors mat had to be real mahogany and not wood-grained duraplast. The doors silently swung open before we reached them. The corp-biff jandered on through with me at her heels. The two muscleboys peeled off, though, and stayed outside the doors, which immediately swung shut behind me. Which implied serious security on this side of the doors, of course. Surveillance cameras at the very least, and probably spirits or elementals on a very short leash. Just as well I wasn't planning anything untoward at the moment.