"You sure this is okay?" Rico said.

"I'm sure," Piper replied. "The slag who lived here caught big-time feedback. The rent's paid till the end of the month."

"Who's the slag?"

"Someone I know from the Irons."

Farris and Surikov took seats at opposite ends of the couch. Shank paused, watching them. Bandit stepped into the bedroom.

The air smelled of incense. The walls had been painted to look like a forest. A few plants, dried and nearly withered, sat in colored pots. Figurines and shiny trinkets decorated the chest of drawers, the bureau, and the small table in one corner, along with a few animal pelts and bones, vials of crystals, and a small drum. A pair of sleeping bags lay on the floor under a veil of mosquito netting. Beneath the pillows at the head-end of the sleeping bags lay a small cache of drugs, feel-good stuff, illegal, and a book, The Shamanic Tradition, by Arthur Garrett, Department of Occult Studies, U.C.L.A.

None of this had any real value. Bandit flipped through the book by Garrett, just curious, then dropped it onto the sleeping bags. The character of the room suggested a medicine lodge, where a shaman might do long magic, but that impression was apparently a lie.

The book by Garrett as much as proved it.

Fluffy stuff, very philosophical.

The real surprise came from the closet. Bandit a.s.sensed something there, something hinting of power.

He found an open black plastic case that was just under a meter long. Inside was a flute, a big one, apparently carved out of wood and ornamented with shamanic symbols. Bandit ran his fingers lightly over the wood. On the astral plane the flute was a living ent.i.ty-visible and real-alive. Softly radiant with energy.

Like a focus, a weak one, only recently made.

Odd ...

The flute seemed to call to him, as if from across a great distance, faintly, so faintly, like some part ofhimself that he had forgotten long ago.

He wondered ...

He considered the sword hanging from his belt. He had carried it a long time. When he was younger and less skilled in the ways of Racc.o.o.n, he had sometimes needed the sword to defend himself, but he had not used it in years. He would probably never use it again. He had come to understand that such violence as a sword might do was not compatible with the ways of Racc.o.o.n. Maybe it was time he gave up this part of himself completely. Maybe he should leave the sword in exchange for this flute, which somehow seemed representative of an older part of himself, his life, his being, and a part more important now.

No question it would be a fair exchange.

"You're making a mistake," Farris said.

"Naturally, you would say that," Surikov replied.

"This won't work out as you think."

"Why should that bother you?"

"Ansell, you know I have only your best interests in mind. I still care about what happens to you."

"I should believe that? After all that's happened?"

"Yes, yes, you should. I was wrong, I know that now. I'm sorry. I was afraid, deathly afraid. I know that's no excuse, but can you really hold it against me? What would you have thought in my position? I'd been taken from my room in the middle of. the night by people I didn't even know. People with guns. I knew you were angry with me. I knew you blamed me. What else could I have thought?"

"You really thought I wanted you killed?"

"I know that's not very rational. I wasn't thinking very rationally at the time. Maybe I wasn't thinking at all. I don't know. I'm just afraid that you're making the same mistake, that you aren't thinking. You feel you've been betrayed, not just by me. You're full of anger. Maybe you feel that going to Prometheus Engineering will be a kind of revenge ..."

Surikov shook his head. "That's not it at all."

"Darling, how can you be so sure? You've been with Fuchi all your life. I know you haven't always gotten everything you wanted, but you were happy. For a time, you were very happy. If you could just put aside your anger, you'd see that you weren't happy at Maas Intertech for the same reasons that you won't be happy at Prometheus Engineering."

"So I should return with you to Fuchi? You must be mad."

Shank grunted and took a seat on the floor, then leaned back against the wall beside the hallway leading in from the alley door. Marena Farris didn't miss much. Ever since trying to waste Surikov, the exotic-looking biff had spent every available minute trying to persuade the slag to go back to Fuchi. She had a one-track mind, and she was smart. No matter what Surikov said, she found some way to twist it around and turn it into a reason why Surikov should return to the Black Towers. This far along, it was starting to grate. Shank had heard enough of Fuchi already.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He'd been slightly more than a day without any sleep.

No big deal. He'd gone a lot longer than that in Bogota and Panama City, some years ago. The smart soldier knew to grab a few zees any time he had the chance.

Not enough furniture to go around, but Shank didn't mind the floor. A carpeted floor was a lot better than a bug-infested hole in the ground ...

Now if Marena Farris would just shut up ...

The worst of it was that their situation would probably improve if Farris got things her way. Thorvin had spotted the Executive Action Brigade coming after their a.s.ses in North Caldwell, Sector 20, and Rico suspected that the E.A.B. had been hired as their backup and that Fuchi had done the hiring, maybe through L. Kahn. If Fuchi got what they wanted, they might be content to let bygones go by, call off the backup, and forget it.

If not... Well...

There'd be plenty of time to catch up on sleep when it ended, whichever way things ended.

"I want you to stay with Farris."

Piper ran her hands up over Rico's chest to his shoulders, then leaned her head against his chin, his neck. "What if something goes wrong?" she said, softly. "You might need help."

"You're a decker. Not a cutter."

"I can shoot."

"If things go that wrong, one more gun won't make any difference. And I need you to watch Farris anyway."

"She's not going anywhere.""That's the point. She's our responsibility."

Of course he would feel that way. Piper decided not to argue. She knew less about guns and fighting and had less experience with either than anyone on the team. That made her the obvious choice to keep watch on Marena Farris.

Rico and the rest of the team were ready within an hour, suited up, weapons checked, and heading out to the van. Rico put a pair of cuffs on Marena Farris' wrists and another pair on her ankles. "That's so you don't get into any trouble," he explained.

"Please don't go through with this," Farris said. "This meet. It won't work."

Rico hesitated a moment, then said, "It's already done."

Piper followed him to the alley door, there for one last embrace. "Be careful, jefe," she murmured.

"Always," Rico replied.

Once he had gone, Piper had nothing to do but sit in one of the armchairs and wait and worry. She held an Ares Special Service, but doubted she would need it. In all likelihood, no one would be coming to rescue Marena Farris, and Farris didn't seem like the type to try and break free on her own. This only emphasized Piper's feelings of uselessness. Tonight's meet had no need for a decker. She could jack in and monitor police activity, but the police, as usual, would probably prove to be irrelevant. She could try and infiltrate the Prometheus mainframes, in case Prometheus tried a double-cross, but the chances of her learning about that from the matrix seemed close to nil. Corps kept records on almost every aspect of existence, but doc.u.ments on any illegal or quasi-legal operations were likely to be hidden away in Code Red datastores, or in some node isolated from the corporation's mainframes.

About the only thing she could do was pray, ask the kami to be kind. Before she could decide where to start, Marena Farris said, "I know you must mistrust me, but I want you to know that I'm grateful for the way you've treated me."

Piper felt a twinge or irritation. It was hard to look at Farris and not feel something like that. The woman appeared every bit the sw.a.n.k corporate wh.o.r.e, sophisticated and yet s.l.u.tty. Impossibly over-developed. "I don't need your grat.i.tude."

"I've often heard stories that make runners seem like wanton criminals," Farris said. "I know that some are brutal killers. That's obviously not the case with you and your people."

"Why are you talking like we've done you some big favor?"

"I'm still alive, aren't I?"

"What does that matter to me?"

"It could matter a great deal, depending on how things go."

"What things?"

"The meeting tonight with Prometheus."

"What do you know about it?"

"Probably more than you suspect." Farris paused to shake back her hair, then met Piper's gaze with an intimate look, an expression that pleaded to bridge the distance between them. Piper did not believe that look, not for an instant. Nor did she believe the sudden change in Farris' voice, which grew shockingly soft.

"It's easy enough to see what you think of me. I know you probably don't trust me. That's why I haven't said much concerning what I know. I'm not just some little psychologist or some cosmed-sculptured biff.

I've had access to some very proprietary data. I'm worth a lot more alive than dead."

Piper sneered. "No one's planning to kill you."

"Your man told me that already."

"Then it's true."

"He's a good man."

"The best."

"Good people are hard to find. Their beliefs put them at a disadvantage. They have to be very good at what they do, and they have to be well-informed, or bad things happen."

"Why are you telling me this? Corporate."

Farris hesitated, smiling, but managed to make the smile look reluctant, almost painful. "You're right,"

she said. "I am a corporate woman. Through and through. But if this meeting with Prometheus doesn't go right, I want you to remember that I warned you. I warned your man."

"So?"

"If I were you, I'd be afraid."

Piper briefly considered the gun held casually in her lands, then looked at Farris, and said, "Why should I be afraid?"

"How much do you really know about Prometheus Engineering?""You tell me. What should I know?"

"You may not know enough. That's my point."

Piper lifted the gun and pointed it at Farris. The Ares was loaded with soft ammo, but Farris could not know that. Like most guns, the Ares could fire either soft or hard ammunition. "I want you to tell me everything you think I should know. Everything that's pertinent."

An anxious look came over Farris' face. Her lips faintly quivered. She swallowed, and said tentatively, "Are you going to shoot me if I don't?"

Farris described herself as a "corporate woman." She was employed by one of the most unprincipled despoilers of the Earth that humanity had yet created. Answering her question took hardly any thought at all. "Give me an excuse."

"Your man won't like that."

"My man doesn't like many of the things I do. That's my problem. Your problem is what happens between now and when he comes back."

"Yes," Farris replied, "I can see that."

"Good. Now talk."

Farris talked.

In the van, Shank looked at the flute, frowned and said, "Hoi, Bandit. Where's your sword?"

Bandit said, simply, "It's not my sword anymore."

"Huh?" Shank said. "What'd you mean?"

Bandit replied, "It's not my sword anymore."

Shank wondered about that.

27.

The Willow Brook Mall lay just across the Pa.s.saic River, putting it just beyond the border where Sector 20 of the Newark plex met the western extent of the Patterson-Pa.s.saic sprawl.

The mall had three strategic aspects: it attracted slags from the plex as well as burbies from the corporate out-lands, it straddled the confluence of several transitways and limited-access highways, and its parking fields went on forever.

At two a.m., Field 17D in the northwest quad was deserted but for a few scattered sedans and one black Toyota Elite limousine. Rico scanned the limo from a distance, checking the registration tags. Elites were as common as water, even in the Newark plex, but this wasn't L. Kahn's limo. Same model, different year.

"Think we'll make it?" Shank asked.

The time for worrying was over. "Ask me later."

"Nice answer, boss."