Hunt had been finishing his MBA at St. Thomas when Lucas started looking for somebody to take over the company. For ten years, Lucas had run it out of his study, writing war and role-playing games, selling the games to three different companies. Almost against his will, he got involved in the shift to computer gaming. At the same time, he'd been forced out of the department; he wound up working full-time, writing emergency scenarios for what became a line of police-training software. The software sold, and everything began to move too quickly: he didn't know about payroll, taxes, social security, royalties, worker's comp, operator training.

Elle had met Hunt in one of her psych classes and recommended him. Hunt took over the company operations and had done well, for both of them. But Hunt and Lucas were not especially compatible, and Lucas was no longer certain that Hunt was happy to see him drop by.

"Barry, I need to talk to the software guys for a minute," Lucas said. "I've got a problem. It's this Manette thing."

Hunt shrugged. "Sure. Go ahead. I think everybody's here."

"I swear, just a minute."

"Great…"

The back two-thirds of the office suite was a single bay, cut up into small cubicles by shoulder-high dividers, exactly the kind used in the Homicide office. Seven men and two women, all young, were at work: six at individual monitors, three clustered around a large screen, running a search-trainer simulation. Another man and a heavy-set young woman, both with Coke-bottle glasses, were drinking coffee by a window. When Lucas walked in with Hunt, the room went quiet.

"Hey, everybody," Lucas said.

"Lucas," somebody said. Faces turned toward him.

"You've all probably heard about the Manette kidnapping case. The guy who took her is a gamer. I've got a composite sketch, and I'd like you all to look at it, see if you recognize him. And I'd appreciate it if you'd fax it or ship it to everybody you can think of, here in the Cities. We really need the help."

He passed out copies of the composite: nobody knew the face.

"He's a big guy?" asked one of the programmers, a woman named Ice.

"Yeah. Tall, muscular, thin," Lucas said. "Crazy, apparently. Maybe medically crazy."

"Sounds like my last date," Ice said.

"Will you put it on the 'Net?" Lucas asked.

"No problem," Ice said. She was a throwback to the days of punk, with short-cropped hair, bright red lipstick that somewhat flowed out of the lines of her lips, and nose rings. Hunt said she wrote more code than anyone in the place. An idea began to tickle the back of Lucas's head, but he pushed it away for the moment.

"Good," he said. "Let's do it."

On the way out, Hunt said, "Lucas, we need to get together."

"Trouble?" Lucas feared the day that the IRS would knock on the door and ask for his records. Records? We don't got no steenking records.

"We need a loan," Hunt said. "I've talked to Norwest, and there won't be any problem getting it. You'd have to approve."

"A loan? I thought we were…"

"We need to buy Probleco," Hunt said. "They've got a half-dozen hardware products that would fit with ours like the last pieces in a puzzle. And they're for sale. Jim Duncan wants to go back to engineering."

"How much do you want to borrow? Maybe I could…"

"Eight mil," Hunt said.

Lucas was startled. "Jesus, Barry, eight million dollars?"

"Eight million would buy us dominance in the field, Lucas. Nobody else would be close. Nobody else could get close."

"But, my God, that's a lot of money," Lucas said, flustered. "What if we fall on our butts?"

"You hired me to keep us off our butts, and we are," Hunt said. "We'll stay that way. But that's why we've got to meet, so I can explain it all."

"All right; but we'll have to wait until after this Manette thing. And I'd like you maybe to come up with a couple of other options."

"I can think of one big one, right off the top of my head."

"What?"

"Take the company public. It's a little early for that, but if you wanted out, well… we could take the company public and probably get you, I don't know, something between eight and ten mil."

"Holy cats," Lucas said.

He'd never said that before, in public or private, but now it bleated out and Hunt jerked out a quick smile. "If we borrow the eight mil, and hang on for another five years, it'll be thirty mil. I promise."

"All right, all right, we'll talk," Lucas said, starting down the hall. "Give me a week. Thirty mil. Holy cats."

"Say hello to Weather," Hunt said. He seemed about to say something else but stopped. Lucas was halfway out the door before he realized what it was, and walked back. Hunt had just sat down in his office, and Lucas stuck his head in. "This Manette thing can't last for more than a couple of weeks, so set a meeting with the bank. And lay out the stock thing we talked about-the share plan."

Hunt nodded. "I've been meaning to bring it up."

Lucas said, "Now's the time. I told you if it worked, you'd get a piece of it. It seems to be working."

Weather.

Lucas toyed with the engagement ring: he should ask her. He could feel her waiting. But the advice was rolling in, unsolicited, from everywhere, and somehow, it slowed him down.

Women suggested a romantic proposal: a short preface, declaring that he loved her, with a more or less elaborate description of what their life together would be like, and then a suggestion that they marry; most of the men suggested a plain, straight-forward question: Hey babe, how about it? A few thought he was crazy for tying up with a woman at all. A park cop suggested that golf would be a complete replacement for any woman, and cheaper.

"Fuck golf," Lucas said. "I like women."

"Well, that's the other half of the equation," the guy admitted. "Women are also a complete replacement for golf."

"Anything?" Weather asked as soon as he came in the door. He could feel the ring in his pocket, against his thigh. "With the Manettes?"

"Bizarre bullshit," he said, and he told her about the oil barrel. "Elle's coming over at six-thirty; I promised her steak."

"Excellent," Weather said. "I'll do the salad."

Lucas went to start the charcoal and touched the ring in his pocket. What if she said no, not yet…? Would that change everything? Would she feel like she had to move out?

Weather was bustling around the kitchen, bumping into him as he got the barbecue sauce out of the refrigerator. She asked with elaborate, chatty unconcern, "Do you think you and Elle would have gotten married, if…"

"If she'd hadn't become a nun?" Lucas laughed. "No. We grew up together. We were too close, too young. Romancing her just wouldn't have seemed… right. Too much like incest."

"Does she think the same way?"

Lucas shrugged. "I don't know. I never know what women think."

"You wouldn't rule it out, though."

"Weather?"

"What?"

"Shut the fuck up."

Sister Mary Joseph-Elle Kruger-still wore the traditional black habit with a long rosary swaying by her side. Lucas had asked her about it, and she'd said, "I like it. The other dress… it looks dowdy. I don't feel dowdy."

"Do you feel like a penguin?"

"Not in the slightest."

Elle had been a beautiful child, and still ran through Lucas's dreams, an eleven-year-old blonde touched by grace and merriment: and later scarred by acne so foul that she'd retreated from life, to emerge ten years later as Sister Joseph. She'd told him that her choice was not brought by her face, that she had a vocation. He wasn't certain; he never quite bought it.

Elle arrived in a black Chevrolet as Lucas was putting the first of the steaks on the grill. Weather gave her a beer.

"What's the status?" Elle asked.

"One's dead, maybe; the others aren't yet," Lucas said. "But the guy is cracking open and all the gunk is oozing out of his head. He's gonna kill them soon."