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the show we’re putting on is guaranteed to have everyone looking away uncomfortably.
    “Fragging ice-maiden, aren’t you, slitch?” I snarl. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
    “I’d rather jam with a devil rat,” she hisses back. Nice line.
    “Could be arranged,” I tell her, which draws from her the faintest hint of a wink. Interesting. I’d like to pursue the matter, but now’s not the time, here’s not the place. Which is too fragging bad. I swing off the chair and jander away. I see the counterman trying to get up the juice to tell me I owe him money, so I shoot back over my shoulder, “It’s on her tab,” and I’m out onto the street. A Lone Star bike cop cruises by slowly, giving me the once-over. I grin at him, pull back the sides of my jacket to show I’m not carrying heat. He scowls and rides on.
    Surprise, surprise, it’s not raining, and there’s even a patch of blue sky about the size of my thumbnail. All in all, this day’s not shaping up so bad.

5
    By the time I’ve got my bike out of hock from the Washington Athletic Club parkade and ridden to my doss on Northeast Sixtieth Street in Ravenna—a convenient few blocks from the Cutters’ safe house—I've slotted the chip Cat passed me, downloaded the contents, and scanned them. Didn’t take me long. Predictably, my orders are: “Keep your head down and keep reporting.” (Am I psychic or what?) There’s nothing specific the Star wants me to watch for, and if they know about anything strange coming up, they don’t see fit to warn me. I mentally trigger the utility that tripleoverwrites and wipes the chip, and I eject it from my jack. I don’t even bother to use the chip carrier, just let it fall out onto the road as I ride.
    In contrast, my report—the one that got to nestle between Cat’s cushions, lucky fragging chip—should give whoever’s authorized to read it something to think about. First there’s a rundown on the Sioux assault rifle scam. (Paco came through with the background on that, and was slotted off that it wasn’t anything deep and dark I could use against Ranger. It turns out the war boss had loaned money and assets to Musen to swing the deal. Why didn’t the biz honcho have his own assets to invest? Well, there hangs a tale, priyatei, but one that doesn’t matter much to me or my superiors.) Then there’s an update on the decision to approach the Ancients for restitution. If the Star has an agent as high up in the Ancients as I am in the Cutters, they can manipulate this situation in whatever nasty direction their little hearts desire.
    And then there’s a warning about raids on the Eighty-Eights, and ditto if the Star’s got a deep-cover agent there.
    Then comes the fun stuff, basically a two-megapulse rant about bureaucracies and communication breakdowns and how they can frag up the best policies and strategies. All “for the good of the force,” of course, but mainly driven by my own crankiness at almost getting geeked by my “brothers in arms” in the FRT squads. Eminently understandable, I figure.
    And that about covers the level of communication I have with my superiors. Sometimes I feel kind of like a fire-and-forget weapon. The Star went to a frag of a lot of trouble setting up my background when they transferred me from Milwaukee. (Oh, sure, I’d done undercover work before— lots of undercover work—and I’m fragging good at it, but I’d never done anything this long-term and deep. Frag, joining the ruling cadre of a major first-tier gang. It still loosens my bowels to think about it.)
    I still don’t know how they built my story so deep and so impenetrable. All I know is that the first couple of months I was scared drekless that some underpaid, overworked, under-motivated, hung-over Lone Star clerk had missed something vital that would end up getting me scragged—I couldn’t help remembering that the Star’s computer system had once sent me three statements for overdue