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  I rushed that evil Weevil then, cracking his carapace with a kick and a grin. Gun in hand, I was now topman.

  Down to the waterside I sped, looking for one familiar head.

  "Cor– by," said Big Eater. "This is what we need pro-tec-tion from?"

  "Not any more, Big Guy. More like the other way 'round."

  Well, of course it was Krazy Kat himself whom I had talked to in the dark of Captain Ozturk's office. Poor Ozzie-or his corpse anyhow-had been at the interview too. The bad splice had picked me on purpose. You see:

  He knew I couldn't handle a glove, Thought I'd be sloppy when push came to shove. Didn't know I took pride in my work– Made that Kat look like a yotta jerk!

  Not many humans can claim they've been in a room with the notorious Kat and walked away, and for a while I was the metamedium darling of the hour. It seemed only natural for the EC to reward me with the Khan's job.

  And as for Charmaine-well, she was naturally pretty soured on the Roaches, and the Eater Corps was now one Cadet short, and I was head of the Corps-

  And you know what kind of town Chicago is.

  The Boot

  I was sitting in my office, feeling as bored as the caretaker of a New Mexico solar farm on a cloudy day and wishing for a client. After two months of inactivity, I didn't much care what kind. Any client would do. A socket looking for her runaway plug. A gerry wanting a line to the hottest new semi-illegal, demi-sanctioned golden-age dreamscene. (This year, the hundredth anniversary of Woodstock made that particular nostalgia-ware top of the bops, especially for the original attendees who still survived.) A ten-year-old hoping to silicone slide his way through the legal thicket that blocked the path to full franchise. (The NU Parliament had just lowered the age to twelve, but even that envelope was being pushed by the newest tropes.) Even a grieved and angry spouse itching to get the burst on the mate she suspected of weekly sex-change flings with maffs. I had had them all before, at one time or another, and would no doubt get them all again someday. And when I did, I would take their eft and do what they wanted, no questions asked. Someone with finances as precarious as mine can't afford the same scruples as your average trumps and forbeses. It's an augie-doggie eat augie-doggie world, after all.

  But right now it looked like I wouldn't have to worry too much about exercising my ethics. Already noon, and the day was shaping up as dull as a debate between the Green and Conservative candidates for governor of Cuba. In other words, an instant-replay of the past sixty. Outside my self-cleaning windows (one of the nice features of this new building; but I was starting to wonder how much longer I could afford the rent), sunlight glinted off the Charles River. On the far bank bulked the black silicrobe-built bubble the authorities had hastily erected around MIT ten years ago, during the Grey Goo Boo-boo. The hemisphere visible aboveground continued below, forming a completely enclosed sphere. It had gone up in less than twenty-four hours, but it had seemed like as many days. I remember watching, from my front-row seat, along with the rest of the world, as divisions of NU militia, guided by the top cricks and watsons, kept the mocklife tendrils and feelers at bay with water-cannons pumping enzymatic lysing fluid, until the silicrobes could complete the container. No one knew what, if anything, was now going on inside the shell. There hadn't been time to engineer any sensors in. The dome was still patrolled around the clock, by guards in liftcages. It was just another thing you lived with.

  I was thinking about popping open a cheer-beer and rastering some thrid-vid (I had become addicted to daytime gameshows, particularly Your Life's on the Line), when I heard footsteps in the hall outside my door. I hastily took my feet down off my desk and tried to project the image that I was busier than a four-armed bartender at happy hour.

  The footsteps didn't go past my door, as so many had before. Instead, there came a knock.

  I checked the security screen, liked what I saw, and said, "Come in." The door unlatched itself and swung open.

  She had on a stylish suit in acidic purple and orange. The jacket had asymmetrical lapels trimmed with blue vat-grown mink; on the larger one was pinned an orchidenia that I could smell from six feet away. Her skirt hung down to her ankles on the left side, but revealed her whole right leg. She wore chrome chopines that added four inches to her height. Her black curly hair was piled high, with a blonde curl dangling down over her forehead. She had canary yellow irises and a small tight mouth. On one cheek she wore a small love cicatrix shaped like the astrological symbol for Venus.

  "Please," she said, "could you cover the windows."

  "Lady, we're on the fortieth floor-"

  "You can't tell what optics are out there. Nanocams are everywhere these days. Please, do it."

  I shrugged and spoke. "Shutters."

  Sheets of opaque piezoplastic that had been curled up at the top of the windows stiffened down like tongues across the glass, under the impulse of a mild electric current. I boosted the lights.

  "Have a seat," I offered. "Can I get you something to drink?"

  She sat and crossed bare right leg over left. I saw the tattoon of a panther she wore on her outer upper thigh. Every thirty seconds it opened its mouth in a silent snarl.

  "Yes, thank you. I'll have a Foma Froth, if you've got it."

  I kicked the splice sleeping at my feet. "Hamster, wake up, we've got a visitor."

  Hamster opened its eyes and blinked. It preened its whiskers and said, "Yes, sir, my help is needed now?"

  "Damn right, you dumb trans. Get a cheer-beer for me, and a Foma Froth for the lady."

  Hamster got up and adjusted its short tunic. It walked to the small magnetic fridge, got the drinks, served them, then asked, "Will that be all that is needful, sir?"

  "Yeah, go back to sleep."

  Hamster did just that.

  "Cheapest transgenic they make," I apologized.

  She waved her hand negligently. "No matter. My name is Geneva Hippenstiel Imhausen. May I see your licenses?"

  I passed my ID card over. Showing topmost was my Massachusetts PI license. She repeatedly flexed the card to reveal my North American Union, EuroComm, IME, Brazilian, and orbital credentials. She flexed it one final time, and a naked pinup of the thrid-vid-star Siouxsie Sexcrime in one of her more notorious poses was revealed. I had to admire Geneva 's composure. No expression, just a faint reddening of her cicatrix. She handed the card back. "It seems to reveal everything I need to know about you."

  "That puts you a leg up on me," I said, eyeing the leg in question. "Could I ask what you're here for?"

  She leaned forward. "I want you to put a boot on someone."

  Well. That took me by surprise. I wouldn't have guessed that was what she needed.

  "You do do boots, don't you?" she asked, lifting one neatly scribed eyebrow.

  "Oh, sure, but they're tricky. It'll cost more than my average rates."

  "That's no matter. There's much at stake."

  I mentally raised my rates by half. "I'll need to know more before I can definitely take the case. Who are you booting, and what does he have that's not his?"

  She sighed. "It's my husband. Jurgen von Bulow. He's made off with the latest trope from the company I own. Perhaps you've heard of Hippenstiel-Imhausen? We're a German firm, specializing in bioactives. Our most recent product is still in the experimental stages. It's an explosive new neurotropin. Even to speak of it now is rather risky. That's why I wanted the shutters down. And I assume your office is recently swept… "

  I nodded. She continued, rather reluctantly.

  "What my husband took is a trope that allows stochastic reasoning, insight into the dynamics of chaos. We were hoping to have it perfected before word of it reached our competitors. But my husband absconded with some doses of a test batch and plans to use them, I'm certain. He'll ruin our secrecy. And, if anyone ever got to him and unwound the codes from his bloodstream-there go our patents."

  "Why'd your husband steal from his own company? Doesn't he stand to gain from your eventual pr
ofits?"

  Geneva looked both disgusted and embarrassed. "My husband married into the company. I control it. He's something of a wastrel, and I've had to keep him on a short

  leash. Apparently it was too galling, and he's finally slipped it.''

  "I don't understand enough about this new trope. How's he going to use it? What makes you so sure he won't just sell it to one of your rivals?"

  "No, no, that's not his plan. You see, he loves to gamble. And this trope-"

  "You're not claiming it'll let him beat the odds-"

  She nodded. "Exactly right. Insight into the underlying patterns of apparently random events."

  Mother of mutants, this was big. I redoubled my fees.

  "The regular authorities-"

  "Too many leaks. I need a single man."

  I stood up then and walked around to her side. I raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch. I lightly dragged my roughened thumb over her cicatrix. The love-scar was packed with more pleasure 'ceptors and nervepaths than a tenth generation biochip. When she climaxed, her panther reared up on its hind legs.

  After she opened her eyes, I said, "I'll bet you do."

  ***

  I don't talk to anyone on a personal level much anymore since my wife left me. Mostly it's just hard raps with the perps and the bad numbers and the dirty harrys and the clients and the streetlife I encounter in my investigations. And when I don't have a case going, there's just Hamster to talk to.

  I still can't say why I bought the little transgenic. It wasn't a deadly model like some guys packed. The most it could do in that line was give you a bite that might get infected in a week or two if you didn't wash regularly. It wasn't particularly smart. Every command had to be phrased with a minimum of ambiguity, or you'd run the risk of a major quench. Like the time I told it to "fill the car up with methane… " It couldn't play any games more complicated than checkers, and it lost every time. And Lord knows it wasn't a playpet. Sterile, technically female, Hamster had as much sex appeal as a cold mackerel. It was essentially shapeless, and its special diet made it smell like wet hay. Not offensive, but hardly sexy. Now, if I had been able to afford a Golden Colt or a Snakehips, that would have been another story…

  Still and all, I was used to the splice. It was sort of like a pair of old slippers, or a chair worn to my shape, except that it could nuke supper and clean the office and nod when I bounced ideas off it.

  That's why I was talking to it, now that Geneva had left.

  "I guess the first thing we'll have to do is head out to Logan and see if we can pick up von Bulow's trail from there. His flight arrived three days ago, but I've had colder starts."

  "Yes, you have, sir. I am certain you have, although I cannot remember exactly when. I am trying to think now. This is hard work, sir, just give me a moment. There was one time, I am sure I will think of it in a minute-"

  "Hamster– "

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Cut the crap and get me my gun."

  I don't pack deadly force. No flashlights or splat-pistols or pellet-throwers for me. In most tense situations, I prefer the cool, calm voice of reason, or flight. If I have to take someone out, I do it temporarily, with a shocker. All you need is an inch of bare skin to deliver a patterned jolt of current that overloads the higher neural functions, such as making the decision to kill a harmless PI.

  I slapped the gun Hamster passed me to my hip, where its biopoly barrel mated to the holster-patch on my pants. It would be there when I needed it, coming free at the touch of my hand alone, thanks to onboard sweat-vetters. I opened a desk drawer and took out my boot unit and a pad of fluorescent-orange adhesive stickers. I slipped them into an outer pocket on my vest, where I could reach them easily. Then I headed for the airport, Hamster tagging along. In my mind, I was already spending the EC money Geneva was going to pay me.

  Once at Logan, I headed straight for the cab stand. I was betting that a plug with von Bulow's tastes wouldn't have taken mass transit.

  Sure enough, the third cab I questioned was the one he had ridden in. It was a Turing Level Two and had all the quirks of its kind, including a high redundancy factor.

  "I must see authorization first. If you have authorization, I must see it. Please show your authorization."

  I fed my credentials into a slot. The cab seemed satisfied and spat them out. "Yes, sir, I picked up the human you describe. Here is his picture."

  The cab flashed a view of von Bulow that matched the digitals Geneva had shown me: dirty blonde hair atop a craggy profile and dangerous lilac eyes. Handsome the way a purebred basal dog like a Borzoi is and likely just as neurotic and skittish. Some of those frigging European aristocrats are so inbred, especially now that they can fix up any little congenital trouble like leukemia or hemophilia, that they make the king of England look like a mongrel. This was not going to be an easy boot, I could feel it all the way down to my mitochondria.

  "Here is his pedigree, as read by my chromosniffers, sir." Wave after wave of numbers and metagrafix rolled across the screen.

  "Okay, give me a hardcopy of both." The pedigree would be handy if von Bulow changed his looks. But I wasn't betting on that, as he seemed a self-satisified type, too obsessed and complacent to imagine anyone might be after him.

  "Where'd you drop him?"

  "Drop, sir? I am not allowed to injure humans-"

  "What was his destination?"

  "The Copley Plaza."

  I should have guessed. It figured he'd vector for the biggest casino in town.

  I drove so fast back into the city that my car's shell could barely keep up with the aerodynamic changes, shifting shape a dozen times a second. A metro dirty-harry in his fan-lifter buzzed me, but I transmitted a priority code that made him veer off. This case looked like it was going to be wrapped up sooner than I could have hoped.

  At the Copley I went straight to the registration console. It was actually being manned by a human, but that's just the Copley's policy: no splices on their staff, and all the ones owned by guests kept discreetly out of sight (except, of course, for bodyguards). I had to check Hamster at the stable.

  The clerk was a piebald black man wearing a topknot laced with gold wire. I flashed him my card. "Mass Pee Eye." He blinked twice, without expression. I looked at my own ID. The stupid cab had left Siouxsie Sexcrime uppermost when it had read the card. I flexed the plaz back to the right creds.

  "Yes, sir, how may I help you?"

  Slipping my left hand into my vest pocket, I palmed the boot. "Do you have a guest named Jurgen von Bulow?"

  The clerk ran a mental eidetic. "He just checked out this morning, sir."

  Bugshit! "Let me guess. He broke the bank, wired his winnings to Paraguay, and caught a suborb south."

  "No sir, not quite. Mister von Bulow lost heavily. In fact, had we not taken the precaution of pre-debiting his proxy-as we do with anyone who intends to play the games-he would not have had enough to pay his bill. As it was, he left here very much down on his luck. As I might phrase it, were I off-duty, 'His lily-white ass was dragging.' "

  That didn't make sense. Either the casino games were rigged worse than a Fourth-World election, or the stolen trope was junkbond. Neither alternative seemed likely.

  "Did he happen to mention his plans?"

  "No, sir, he did not."

  Dead end. I turned ruefully away.

  Something bumped my ankles.

  I looked down.

  It was Flipper.

  Flipper was a fishboy I knew from around town. He was a Fuser, a member of a sect that sought personally to atone for the extermination of the dolphins. (They claimed humanity's guilt was not diminished by the subsequent restocking of the seas.) Flipper's arms had been melded to his torso, his legs fused shut from toes to crotch. He wore a slick grey suit that handled bodily functions and made him look like a sleek torpedo. He rode a little wheeled dolly that ran on fuel cells.

  "Hey, Flip, what's metabolizing?"

  "Not much.
But I heard what you were asking the clerk just now."

  "Why don't we go outside?"

  I walked– and Flipper rolled-out the Copley. On the busy sidewalk, no one paid any attention to us.

  "So, whatcha know, Flip?"

  "I was hanging around the casino all day yesterday, hoping to hit a big winner up for a donation to the church. I saw the plug you're looking for. He was really off the far-end of the spectrum. After a while, when he began zero summing worse than ever, he started talking to himself. 'Turbulence,' he said. 'It's all turbulence, noise, and strange attractors. I can't ride the flow.'"

  Sounded to me like the tropes hadn't quite kicked in yet, or von Bulow was having a tough time coordinating the new dataflux.

  "Yeah, go on."

  "When he was wiped out, he came up to me. 'Fishboy, I need some black meds. Who's on top in this town?' "

  "And you sent him to-"

  "Who else? The Vat Rats."

  I nodded. It was a solid lead.

  "Thanks, Flip. I'd shake your hand if it were possible."

  "Screw that human chauvinism. Just make sure the church gets credited with a good-sized chunk of eft."

  "Will do. Catch you later."

  "Swim free."

  I went back and got Hamster out of the stable, tipping the splice-check girl.

  "Thank you, sir, it is good to see you again, sir, I was waiting most patiently, sir."

  "Hamster, shut the fuck up."

  "Immediately, sir."

  We went looking for the Vat Rats.

  ***

  Over the past half century Boston had been hit by a dozen gang invasions. First it was the Bloods and the Crips, out of LA, back in the eighties and nineties. Then it was the Hong Kong Tongs, when that entrepot went red. They segued into the Cambodians, Hispanics, Camspanics, Colombians, Novascots, Brazzes, Jamaicans… Each had ruled the metro for a brief period that always ended in a bloody dustup, with the victors setting up exclusive shop. Finally, though, the pattern of foreign invasions had been