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  disrupted by two factors: the establishment of the North American Union, and the dominance of tropes and other lab-bioactives over organic drugs. The NU had sewn up its borders tighter than a dose of Lipzip. That kept out the nonlocal competitors. And the slimemold spread of legal neurotropins through schools and socially santioned avenues created the young local biobrujos, who proceeded, with their home amino-linkers and chromo-cookers, to brew up the sublegal tropes and strobers. Various sets fell into particular special niches, turf struggles were minimal, the social order was not disrupted, and the authorities looked the other way at most of it.

  Despite such a diffuse network and the impossibility of figuring out a strict hierarchy, there were some sets that had more status than others.

  Those generalists, the Vat Rats, were one of the posses at the pinnacle.

  The V– Rats lived in the labyrinth of abandoned pipes that had once fed sewerage into the formerly toxic harbor. When the whole city was retrofitted with D compoz silicrobe sanitation units, there had been no need for the antique system. Every once in a while someone still raised the topic of digging it all out, but the payback wasn't bottom-line enough, and the metro would just drop the matter.

  Cold water dripped down my neck. It felt like a zombie's caress. I stood in a pool of sludge up to the ankles of my boots. Hamster was shivering, but it wasn't from the cold.

  We were surrounded by Rats, illuminated by my lantern. They all shared the dental moddies that gave them their

  name. Other than that, they were as motley a lot as your average set.

  "Lookin' for some Rat poison, slimjim?"

  "No thanks. Let me see Zuma Puma."

  "The Puma's a busy slagger. He don't see just anyone."

  "He knows me."

  The Rat looked dubious. "What's the log-on, then?"

  I told him.

  "Wait here."

  I waited. The Rats watched. One was gnawing what looked like a human femur. Hamster kept shivering.

  "Calm down. No one's going to hurt you while I'm around."

  "I cannot help it, sir. These are not nice folks."

  The Rats tittered.

  The spokes-Rat returned. "Puma'll see you."

  "Like I said."

  We exited the maze of pipes into a big dry bubble-room littered with personal effects: the Rats' nest. A door led to the Puma's private quarters. Hamster and I went through alone.

  The Zuma Puma reclined on a pile of cushions. He wore flexible piezoplastic armor, its effectors slaved to his own electrochemical biosystem. From out the neck, wrists and ankles of the armor protruded tawny fur. His face was bare. A playpet I recognized as a Green Canary model sat beside him, stroking his fur. When we entered, she let out a brief trill of song.

  "Haven't seen you in a while, slagger," said the Puma.

  "Not since I saved your tail from the Marrow Mothers."

  The Puma laughed. "That's one version of the story."

  "Commonly called 'the truth.' For which I figure you owe me a favor."

  "Depends on the magnitude."

  "You had a client this morning." I described von Bulow. "What did he want?"

  "Sorry, slagger, can't tell you that. You know all our transactions are eyes only. Who'd come to us if they thought we'd, ah, rat on them?"

  "You know it won't get any further than this room."

  The Puma was feeling mean. "Sorry. Anything else?"

  I pulled my shocker off my hip. The Puma laughed.

  "What are you gonna do with that toy, knock me out? When I come to, you still won't know anything."

  I aimed at his chest and pulled the trigger. The dart embedded its microhooks into his armor.

  "Bad shot, slagger. You didn't even connect with the flesh."

  "I know." I sent current down the wire. The Puma stiffened boardlike out on his couch, just like a window shutter.

  "The fuel cell in this is rated for a month of constant output. When I leave by your bolthole with your Canary, your Rats will try breaking in. I don't imagine they'll succeed, given your security. I understand dying of thirst is particularly nasty."

  "I'll sue the cartel that sold me this piece of shit armor!"

  "Only if you tell me what I want to know."

  The Puma gave an exaggerated sigh. "Okay. The guy wouldn't let us unravel his blood. That made us curious, and

  we were gonna try for a sample anyway. But he was launch-on-warning and pulled a flashlight on us. Put a quick end to any fiddle and diddle, and we desisted. He proceeded to describe his prob. Sounded like he needed a high-powered math coprocessor and some grafix wetware. We laid them in, and it seemed to satisfy him.''

  "He say what he intended to do with 'em?"

  "Hey, it's getting hard to breathe in this suit-"

  "It'll only get harder. C'mon. Where was he going?"

  "Well, our fee pretty much wiped him out. He wanted to know where he could get a big stake to gamble with. I told him the casinos' in this town were too conservative to loan him anything. It's true, you know, Boston 's as far out of things as the Oort Cloud. I sent him to Atlantic City."

  "Right." I reeled the dart back in. The Puma relaxed.

  "You make it hard to act friendly," he said.

  "Not my biggest worry. See you around, Zee Pee."

  Back on the streets, I joined a line at a Bank of Boston machine. Flipper's tip had paid off, and I was going to credit the church's account before I headed for Atlantic City.

  The guy in front of me took back his card from the machine. He went to pocket it, then something made him halt. He looked at his card, swore, then drew his gun and fired into the bank machine.

  The machine let out an electronic squeal. It shot out of its wall-alcove on four wheels and tried to race off. It knocked down a salesman. The salesman's sample case hit the ground and broke open. Shards of music filled the air. A woman

  screamed. The guy with the gun fired again. This time he brought the machine down.

  A crowd was collecting around the shattered and smoking bank machine. The smell of frying circuits hung thick in the air. The angry customer bulled through the bystanders. He reached into the machine's guts and retrieved his original card. "Fucking mimics," he said. "Last time my card was stolen, I lost fifteen thousand NU-dollars."

  "It's a hard world," said someone in the crowd, with incomplete sincerity.

  "Bet on it," said the guy, and patted his holstered gun.

  ***

  The Seraphim trip from Boston to Atlantic City was a good ninety minutes plus. Von Bulow was a few hours ahead of me, and there was no way I was going to catch up with him any faster than this. I was just as glad. It gave me a little time to think.

  Hamster sat asleep in the seat beside me. I couldn't say why I was bringing the splice along. It would have been just as happy sitting at home, watching the special transgenic thrid-vid channels, and Papa Legba knows it was absolutely no help on a case. Maybe I needed the company. Maybe I felt Hamster was my good-luck talisman. Maybe my dendrites were tangled. What the hell, though. The little trans rode for half-fare.

  I scratched behind Hamster's ears while I considered the case.

  Von Bulow must be a certifiable monomaniac. Here he was, carrying some codes in his blood Which, if they worked, he could sell to any of a dozen companies for practically a month's GNP from APEC. Instead, he was going to use them to get a few jolts from the casino games. I couldn't decrypt if. Maybe someone had wired his boards this way. For all I knew, he could be creaming in his jox every time the dealer called "vingt-une." I had run into kinkier stim-rep loops.

  After half an hour, I gave up pondering the matter. I couldn't be bothered trying to figure out why people acted the crazy way they did. If I had any talents in that area, I would have been able to tell you why I came home one day to find my apartment packed solid with self-replicating Krazy Foam, and my wife gone. All I can handle is what people actually do, not whatever wordless impulses they might be working from. I
had my assignment, and that was that. Geneva Hippenstiel-Imhausen wanted back what was hers, and I was being paid to get it for her.

  I remembered the feel of her hot love-scar under my thumb and wondered what else she wanted.

  The scenery rushed by the single-crystal windows of the train in a blur like fast-forward video. Eventually, under New York, I dozed off for a few minutes too. It had been a long day.

  We pulled into AC about eight P.M. Hamster and I debarked and made our way to the Boardwalk.

  I hadn't been here since they rebuilt the Boardwalk behind the new dike that kept the rising Atlantic at bay. They had used Bechtel-Kanematsu-Gosho superwood and elevated

  the structure four stories in the air, to wind its way past all the casinos. It was spectacular, in Atlantic City 's usual tawdry style.

  The walk was crowded with citizens and splices. Tourists gawped at the street performers. There was a crowd around a bikini-clad socket who had dosed herself with plenty of Bonemelt. She had put a half-twist in her body before grabbing her feet, turning herself into a human Mobius strip. To prove she was one-sided as she lay on her mat, she had little sucker-footed crawlers walking over her common ventral-dorsal surface. Good trick.

  I stopped to grab a spirulina-dog and an orange soda. If von Bulow was here, he would just be settling down, not moving on, and I could take my time.

  "Want something?" I asked Hamster.

  "Oh, yes, sir, if you please. One of those nice chili-dogs, with extra sauce."

  I made Hamster take its special supplement. One a day, or goodbye world. Sold only to registered human owners. That's why there are no runaway transgenics. Or not so many.

  When we were finished, I crumpled my napkin and threw it on the Boardwalk. A litter-critter snatched it up.

  "Let's go get Mister von Bulow," I said to Hamster.

  "If you say so, then that's what we must do, sir."

  I found him inside the Time-Warner-Sears casino, at the roulette table. His ID card lay on the betting board, flexed to show his eft balance. He kept sliding the card from one red and black number to another, and his balance kept getting bigger and bigger. I watched him for a while. His

  lilac eyes were half-glazed over, his face wore a zoned-out expression. The experimental H-I trope, as modified by the Vat Rats, was plainly a success. Von Bulow was rapt up in the nonlinear dynamics of the wheel, seeing chance and aleatory patterns materialized in intelligible forms that guided his play.

  He never lost a spin. His balance was rising toward geostat orbit. His winning streak had attracted a crowd of ginza-joes and dolly-dears, house playpxets and freelance eft-lifters, not to mention members of the management, who stood around looking like they had swallowed a quart of worms. I doubted if they'd object when I booted von Bulow.

  I worked my way to his side. The management had halted play to check the wheel and scan the crowd for remote interference. I used the opportunity.

  "Jurgen, I've got a message from your wife."

  He jumped. "What? Who are you? How do you know my wife?" He narrowed his eyes, as if to use his new insights to unriddle me. A muscle jerked along his jaw. "That is, if you even do know her."

  "Ask not who the panther roars for, slagger, it roars for you."

  He pushed back his chair. "All right, all right, not here, for Christ's sake. Let's step outside."

  We walked out to a deserted balcony. Overhead the stars glistened like scales on snake. Von Bulow and I stood about four feet apart. I sensed Hamster by my side.

  " Geneva wants her trope back, Jurgen."

  He snorted. "Let her come and get it."

  "She was busy, so she sent me instead." I had the boot concealed in my palm.

  Before I could move, I was facing his flashlight, a Krupp pocket model.

  "Don't complicate things, Jurgen-" I said, then went for him.

  Laserlight lanced past my side, scorching my vest so I could smell burning ripstop. One shot was all he got off before I slapped the boot on his neck.

  The neural shunt burrowed under his skin and fastened itself to his spinal cord in a millie. Von Bulow collapsed to the floor.

  I turned around. Hamster was twitching with a scorched hole through its tunic over its heart. I went over to the splice and picked it up.

  "Not nice, not nice, sir-" it said, then died.

  I went back to von Bulow. First I kicked him a half dozen times in the gut and balls. He didn't say anything, because he couldn't feel anything below his neck, and couldn't see what I was doing. Then I slapped an orange sticker on him to show he was booted. I got an autochair from the casino, put him in it, and headed for the train station.

  As predicted, the management put up no fuss. I left Hamster for them to dispose of. Geneva would find a surcharge on her bill equal to the splice's original cost.

  At the station, I copped a dose of Double-up from a public S amp;M parlor.

  The ninety minutes back to Boston was enough to express my displeasure fully to von Bulow.

  I was going to have to mention to Geneva to block her ears when she had the boot removed.

  Blankie

  The second-floor nursery window had been left open on a temperate summer day.

  That was the fatal invitation.

  No antique wire screen protected the opening into the sensate house. An intelligent invisible air curtain defeated insects, large particulates, and drifting organic debris such as clothtree leaves and airfish spume. Barnacle like microjets around the window frame constantly tracked the incoming intruders in jerky chaotic patterns before emitting their dissuasive blasts. Large intruders over five hundred grams would be anticipated and neutralized by the house's alarm net and its entrained armaments.

  But a small, alert wren-form bird, like the one alighting now upon the window sill, was anticipated by neither system.

  The bird surveyed the nursery interior.

  The walls held embedded silicrobe animated pictures: fairytale characters that capered across the constantly shifting backgrounds. The Big Bad Wolf pursued a cloaked Little Red Riding Hood; the young ballerina in her cursed red slippers danced till exhausted.

  In the middle of the room stood a white biopolymer crib shaped like an egg halved along its long dimension and resting in a bip support base. The Bayer logo blinked orange from portside. In the crib lay a naked baby boy of several months, tummy up. Above him floated a mobile representing the Earth and some of its myriad orbiting artificial satellites. The large globe revolved and its tiny attendants spun in their intricate, never-intersecting orbital dance supported only by shaped magnetic fields emitted from the crib.

  Beneath the baby was a Blankie, its Ixsys brandmark plain in one corner.

  The Blankie was approximately as big as a large bath towel. Its glycoprotein glycolipid paradermal surface was colored a delicate pastel blue and resembled in texture antique eggcrate bedding foam. Except that the individual nubbins of the Blankie were much more closely spaced, and in the shallow dimples of the Blankie gleamed a subtle organic sheen like a piece of raw liver.

  The bird flew from its perch on the sill and landed on the crib's edge, its claws clutching the material of the Bayer halfshell.

  At that point two things happened.

  All of the flat silicrobe characters on the wall stiffened and stopped. The Woodsman, who had just emerged to rescue the swallowed Little Red Riding Hood, was the one exception. He dropped his one-dimensional axe and began to yell.

  "Intruder! Intruder! All security kibes to the nursery!"

  Simultaneous with the alert, the baby began to pee. A fountain of yellow shot up a few centimeters from it.

  When the first drops of pee hit the Blankie, it responded in its trophic instinctive way. The portion of the Blankie between the boy's legs elongated like a pseudopod or flap and reached up to cap and drink the urine for its own metabolic purposes, simultaneously cleaning and drying the infant's wet skin.

  The bird dropped down into the crib while the Blan
kie was preoccupied. It jabbed its beak into the Blankie. Then, in one spastic implosive moment it pumped the contents of its nonbasal nasal sacs into the Blankie.

  In a flash, its load of venom delivered, the bird darted to the rim of the crib and launched itself toward the window.

  Now alert, the window caught it instantly in a flash-extruded web of Ivax Stickum.

  The bird self-destructively exploded, charring the windowframe.

  In the crib the Blankie was writhing and churning like a wounded octopus. Fractal blooms whipped up from it, then fell across the baby, who began to cry.

  Within a second or two, the blooms coalesced into a blue webwork. When a strand fell across the baby's mouth, its cries ceased.

  The door to the nursery flew open and assorted kibernetics appeared.

  But it was too late.

  The Blankie tightened its embrace like a basal anaconda.

  The sounds of snapping bones were registered by the confused and helpless kibes.

  ***

  I popped the silver datapins from the player, abruptly terminating the sounds of little Harry Day-Lewis's death, collected less than a day ago. Although I had watched the tragedy unfold a dozen times since then, I hadn't quite yet gotten used to that fatal, snapping-sticks sound. I doubted I ever would.

  I was sitting in my office in the building that housed the Boston branch of the North American Union's Internal Recon and Security division. Although I had occupied this fiftieth-floor corner room for sixteen months, since my last promotion, it still felt alien to me. All those years operating my own private investigating firm out of increasingly cheaper quarters had left me unused to luxuries such as Organogenesis self-cleaning carpets and Zeneca squirmonomic chairs. Not to mention the steady posting to my eft-account.

  But I had had to get out of the PI biz after the job I had done for Geneva Hippenstiel-Imhausen. That had been my last case before my crackup.