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watch someone’s back,’ I said.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Actually’ - I grinned - ‘there are a few of them.’
    I gave her names and a short version of what she was watching out for.
    She looked more scared than I liked. ‘I’ve heard stuff, but I didn’t believe it. What you’re telling me - shape-changers - it could be anyone any time.’
    ‘You got it.’
    ‘I can’t promise nothing on a deal like that.’
    ‘Do your best. And I’ll do my best to forget you ran a contract on me.’
    She frowned and sighed. ‘You gonna use this for ever? I’m just a grrl trying to earn a living. Can’t you dig that? ’
    ‘You keep these people safe while I’m outta town and I’m off your case for good. Deal?’
    She held the back of her hand to the screen, Tertstyle.
    I returned the gesture and cut the line before she could ask ‘How long?’
    I ran my checklist one last time. I wouldn’t be coming back to get something with Daac dogging me. Reluctantly I locked the Cabal dagger into my gun safe. Then I slipped Ike’s wetware onto a chain alongside a good-luck charm Honey had told me would convince Merv that I was kosher.
    Knickers, some dress-ups and the address for my Net repository with my fake identity. On impulse I snapped the lid on Merry 3# and bundled her into my pocket as well. She wasn’t gonna do me much good here and her scream was damn near a nuclear weapon.
    I velcroed the strap on my borrowed luggage closed, slung it over my shoulder and spared a glance in the reflect.
    New clothes.
    New hair.
    Same old grudges.
    Time to move.

Chapter Five
     
     
     
     
    I wiggled my toes to stop myself squirming as the laser sculpted my face and wondered about the ridge of scale along my cheekbone.
    Dr Yan Drastic, Plastique’s best cosmetic man, told me flat out he couldn’t do anything about it - it wouldn’t come off. He didn’t even know what it was. When he tested the edges my reaction became violent.
    We compromised on a paint job. He said he’d make it look like a beauty spot.
    After the face-sculpt came an iris-tint - all done in a quickie package. Money really could buy almost anything in Plastique.
    As I waited for fake skin to set over my scars and the nanos to gobble my blemishes, it occurred to me how ironic it was to be having a physical make-over when all I had to do was stop fighting the parasite and I’d be able to shape-change.
    When the face-over was finished, I bought a language infusion from Leong Shu’s Smart Shit stall. He hit me up with it right then and there. When I asked him about the warranty he threw in an extended dictionary to shut me up.
    ‘How long?’
    ‘Three months if you don’t overuse it,’ he said in his perfectly snobby way.
    Breaking my own rules, I flagged a Pet to get me to the Trans station. If Loyl Daac was out looking for me, I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
    My mind ran another list as the Pet trundled me out to the Pomme de Tuyeau depot.
    Get a job in the Flesh Industry.
    Use it to get close to Merv.
    Convince him to crack the Jinberra impartial.
    Track down who was Ike del Morte’s sponsor.
    Deal with them.
    Find Wombebe.
    Leave.
    Easy.
    I slipped Ike’s wetware out and fingered the delicate webbing. Maybe along the way I would finally learn what the Eskaalim was.
    Most of the time I believed it to be alien. But occasionally I got a reality shift, especially when people like Loyl Daac practised their mind games on me.
    I mean, if anyone had told me that they were infected with an alien parasite who lived off the epinephrine in their body I’d have thought they were nuts.
    On the other hand, I was the one living with hallucinations and a voice in my head. Although the hallucinations had got less since Dis, the inner voice was there like breathing.
    I wanted to believe it was a parasite, and that was the dangerous thing. There’s no tragic glamour in being just stone-cold crazy.
    Or paranoid.
    And I was having a tankload of trouble trusting