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suspicious. No one stood out. Sweat trickled down her brow. She blinked.
    “LAW ENFORCEMENT PROXIES WILL ARRIVE IN ONE MINUTE.”
    As people scrambled to flee the café, Angel darted forward and slid behind a low wall for cover. She peeked over the top at the exiting crowd. Ducking back down, she caught sight of Jessica sprawling lifeless over the table. Her expensive drink had spilled and dripped a golden puddle on the floor.
    “THIS IS A COMMUNITY SAFETY MESSAGE.”
    Angel flashed an emergency code to Viktor. Heart thumping in her chest, she stood and weaved her way toward the front of the café.
    “CALMLY EXIT THE BUILDING IN AN ORDERLY FASHION.”
    Back against a plascrete pillar, she breathed a sigh of relief at the relative safety it afforded her. Now empty of patrons, the café had the air of an abandoned ship. Plates, bowls, and glasses lay scattered across tables and the floor. Several cleaning automatons scurried about, righting chairs and vacuuming up spills.
    “THIS IS NOW A CRIME SCENE.”
    One of the cleaning automatons approached Jessica’s table and extended its vacuum hose toward the pool of blood.
    “Shit,” Angel heard herself say. “Stupid machines.” She fired at the automaton. It jerked backward then fell to the floor. Sparks jumped from the hole in its side.
    “CALMLY EXIT, PLEASE.”
    “Come on,” she breathed, exasperated. Viktor still hadn’t responded. Clattering metal alerted her to the arrival of the Law Enforcement Proxies. She ducked her head around the pillar to make sure.
    Two LEPs entered the café, while another took up a position outside. She flashed them her ID so they would know she was a friendly. Confirmation returned.
    Lowering her weapon, she returned to Jessica’s lifeless body. It didn’t make sense. Why execute the wife of the dead scientist? Unless they suspected she knew Harry’s secret project and had been about to tell Angel.
    Jessica had been killed because she might have known something. But it had been rushed. Harry’s murder had been planned meticulously.
    Gripping her unfinished drink, she took a long sip of the heady liquid and waited for the local authorities to do their job. The glass shook in her hand, and she tried to control the tremor. Even after her wayward years on the frontier as a mercenary, her stomach still turned at the bloody scene.
     

Chapter 3
    Angel made her way through the crowded street, surrounded by a roiling ring of strangers. A moment of fury passed through her, bubbling back down to a steady anger. Viktor hadn’t responded to her emergency signal. He’d better have a good excuse, or he’d be up on disciplinary charges. It was early, but the district Viktor had chosen to stay in was still bustling from the night before. She should have a word to him about that. If he was out partying at night, he wouldn’t be at his best on the job—and that could get them both killed. She knew that from bitter experience. He hadn’t responded to her calls this morning, and he had better not have overdone it last night and overslept. If he had, she’d put a note in his file. When she’d been a mercenary, she’d been known to sleep a little late after a night of celebration. But never while she had a job.
    Couples, singles, and groups walked or swayed or danced. Most were heading home, or possibly to imbibe some stimulants and return to their work for the day. The edges of the street were lined with shops catering to the overstimulated and hungover crowd, and pop-up vendors jammed the intersections. Quick and simple food changed hands for credits. Breakfast for some, post and current intoxicated cravings for others. Steamed buns and fried dumplings, containers of noodles, and rolls filled with spicy meat, cold and hot drinks, and plenty of pharmaceutical vials and tablets.
    Angel sloshed through an inch-deep puddle caused by a blocked drain as she neared Viktor’s building. It was a nice enough hotel overlooking a river. When the