Tom got up to stretch his legs. The little chair was giving him a hard time.

"Mathilde, can I have a word with you? Privately, I mean," he said gently. He thought he heard the sound of a safety catch being released.

She looked at him and waved a dismissive hand to the samurai. "Sure. But no tricks. You hear any bad noises, boys, smoke him."

She led the troll into the front room of the rundown building. The ceiling had a gaping hole in it, and water trickled down from upstairs, dropping onto the floor from a light fixture with a carbonized bulb fused into it. Crouched slightly against the far wall in the fading light from outside, she waited for him to speak his piece. Mathilde really did look feline in the shadows.

"I know the story sounds crazy, but now you can get into my mind. I'd be surprised if you didn't see a mark on me," he said to her. She crouched a little further; he knew she'd registered whatever Shakala had laid on him.

"I'll try to relive it. Try to daydream it. Try to let you enter into it," he said. She nodded and waited. The troll sat on the wet floor and closed his eyes.

Anger started to rise in him as he pictured the way the Cheetah shaman had taunted him. He tried to vision it clearly, and then the memory of the cuts and wounds came back for real. He half-panicked as the anger rose, wondering whether his own imaginings were going to send him beserk. He forced his will down on the emotion, stifling it, but then it just took him over.

He was lying face down again, the cheetah ready to sever the vertebrae of his neck. But he let himself go totally empty, everything flooding out of him, leaving only calm and serenity. He saw himself talking to Shakala afterward, as if floating above and looking down at himself in conversation.

Then something new took over. He was standing at the site of the ruined, burned-out, defoliated research plant. The zombies shuffled up to him, arms outstretched, faces blank and agonized in the same paradoxial instant. As they approached, a wave of emotion rolled over him from the smoking buildings like a slow-motion tidal wave. Rooted to the spot, he couldn't turn and run.

Emanating from some kind of cold presence he couldn't identify came contempt, cold hatred, a bleak nihilism so engulfing that for a dreadful instant he thought he was going to die. What made it so awful was the absolute impersonality of it. It didn't give a speck of dust for him. It didn't even notice him. It just rolled on its way, bleaching and razing the life and soul out of anything in its path.

He vomited then, shaking in a cold sweat. He hugged himself, wrapping his arms desperately around his own chest, then forcing himself back against the wall to reassure himself that he was really in this room, that he could feel the dampness of the floor, that blood still flowed in his body, that he was still alive. Across the room,

Mathilda's face was a mask. She didn't move for a full minute while he continued to hug himself in an effort to control the violent shaking.

"You found something bad," she said, voice almost a whisper. "I'm not saying I believe the story. But I know you're for real. I think we can make a deal."

She got to her feet and came over to Tom, who wasn't able to get up. She opened the door and called in some of her orks.

"I think we got work tonight," she told them as they helped Tom to his feet, supporting him until he could stand on his own.

"Can I make that call now?" Serrin pleaded.

"Yes," Mathlilde agreed. "But keep it short."

Maybe he believed her and maybe he didn't. But talking by telecom let her actually show him the money.

"Okay, lady, maybe we can cut it. I heard about the shooting on the trid. Seventy-five was what we agreed," the man said. "He paid me thirty down, forty-five to come. I got the full inventory. Now, you want some basics to go with it. We're talking another deal here."

"Sure," she said. She'd planned this out, with nearly two hours to do it. All told, in money and credit there was a hundred and forty in Michael's room. Subtract the forty-five, allow an extra seventy for Serrin to pay the samurai, and that left only twenty-five thousand to spare. She'd spent a moment wondrously contemplating such a huge amount. A week ago, she'd never seen even a fraction of that in her whole life. Now she had to act like she handled such sums every day. But at least she knew the actual figure Michael had agreed to and that the dealer was lying about the price. He was squeezing an extra ten grand out of her, but she was keeping the knowledge as an ace up her sleeve.

"Run me through the full details of the inventory again," she said.

"My dear lady, is this some kind of trap? If it is

"Come on. you got your deposit, didn't you?" He looked mollified; her heart had begun to race the moment

it looked like he might call off the deal. She gulped down her relief.

She was amazed that she could remember so much from the small talk of the few samurai she'd met in Cape Town. Not that she'd ever have expected to put it to use like this.

"We'll need pistols and ammo, obviously. And full armor jackets," she said, waiting for his response, trying to sound as convincing as possible.

"I got Ares Viper Silver, madam," he grinned. "The very best. Only a thousand per a full clip."

"Discount for bulk."

"How much muscle are we talking about?" he shot back.

"Say fifteen," she said. Serrin and Michael had said they'd try for at least a dozen samurai. Just as well to add a few extra. Fifteen thousand she couldn't afford. She had to haggle him down.

"Thirteen."

"Twelve. Throw in four spare clips for each one and we'll call it thirteen."

"Four each? You're crazy, lady, that would be fifteen hundred alone."

"Thirteen five, max."

"Fourteen, lady. Maybe call it thirteen five if you want to be real nice to me when we meet? Depends how good you are," he leered. Kristen thought this slag didn't sound anything like the smooth operator Michael had described. The bastard thinks he can talk to me like that 'cause I'm black, or maybe 'cause I'm young, she thought. Or maybe he's just another woman-hater.

It's like being back home, she thought, repelled by the man's expression. She said she'd give him fourteen if he performed an anatomically impossible act she described in loving detail. He laughed.

"Lady, I like you. You got a good attitude. Let's say thirteen five for fifteen Ares Vipers with four spare clips apiece. Now, for the armor jackets amp; "

After the haggling was done, they fixed a meeting time of ten-fifteen. The problem was that Kristen was overdrawn, with a total bill of thirty grand. She couldn't get him down any lower.

"There's one last thing," she said. "You lied about the deal. It was sixty-five; thirty up front and thirty-five to come. You shouldn't make the mistake of underestimating someone just because of appearances."

The gulp was audible. She loved every instant of his pause for breath.

"Okay, lady. Apologies. Let's say I refund nine of the ten I bulled you about and keep one for the sake of my reputation. Now, where do we want this stuff delivered to?"

Frag it, she thought. I can hardly have a band of samurai wheeling in crates of grenades and ammo into the hotel lobby. What do I do? Only one idea came to her.

"The Meld In. That's where. Let's make it for ten-thirty. That gives me a little time to finalize all the details."

"You better be there, dear lady. That's sixty-six grand you owe me."

Kristen punched the Disconnect key and fumbled for one of Serrin's cigarettes from a new pack. I've got to get down to that place and find someone, she thought. Otherwise, I'll be alone, sitting on over a hundred thousand nuyen worth of heat.

Anyone with an eye to the main chance is going to slit my throat and take the whole slotting heap. Serrin, where are you?