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confirmed that funds were available, and transferred them to the taxi company's account. It all happened so fast that Corvan barely had time to say thank you before the credit card was back in his hand and he was climbing out of the aircraft.
    The lobby was only steps away and wonderfully cool after the rooftop heat. Like most lobbies, this one had been designed to intimidate the casual visitor. It was huge with a soaring cathedral ceiling and the latest in electronic tile work. The tiles were computer controlled and programmed to display thousands of different patterns in sympathy with the canned music which seemed to float downward from some celestial source.
    At the moment the tiles were mimicking the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, an effect which would have been much more impressive if a major subprocessor hadn't failed and blanked out the prophet Isaiah.
    This did nothing to dampen the spirits of the young man who sat behind the fortress of green marble, however. The reception desk was slightly raised, which allowed him to look down on the reop with the expression of a nobleman receiving one of his serfs. In spite of the fact that any voice-interactive computer could have handled the job just as well, a human receptionist is a sign of class, and therefore required by all but the most utilitarian buildings. This one had spiky red hair, a gold ring in his nose, and a temple plug surrounded by a circle of flashing lights.
    The receptionist was a chip head, one of the thousands of men and women who added to their slender incomes by accepting a low-order auto-implant and allowing it to record everything they saw and heard.
    The experts estimated that most people were exposed to around two thousand, four hundred advertising impressions each day, counting everything from commercial graffiti to T-shirts to television. So with that many messages vying for attention, it was essential to know which were effective, to what extent, with whom, and for how long.
    With that in mind the three major ratings services each maintained a small army of demographicalfy selected chip heads. Each chip head recorded what they saw, fed it back via a weekly data dump, and collected a check. The information thus gained was analyzed by powerful computers, tabulated, and made available in the form of ratings, not just for radio and television, but for every other form of advertising as well.
    The potential for abuse had always bothered Corvan, who abhorred the idea of someone sifting through other people's lives for information, but knew it wasn't much different from what he did for a living. Besides, the rating services swore that they had elaborate protections in place to protect everyone's privacy, and so far that seemed to be the case.
    The chip head wore a name tag which read "LOUIS PLATERO," and spoke with a calculated insolence. His voice was slightly hoarse. "Yes?"
    Corvan said, "My name's Rex Corvan. I'm here to see an editor named Kim Kio. Where would I find her?"
    Platero looked thoughtful, waiting to see if Corvan would jog his memory with a tip, but thought better of it when the eye cam whirred and the reop zoomed in on his face.
    "She's in the third sub-basement. The elevators are over there."
    Corvan smiled. "Thanks, Lou, I know that was a big strain. Take the rest of the day off."
    The intercom jerked Kim from a deep sleep. There was a terrible taste in her mouth and her bladder was full. "Yeah?"
    The receptionist was a friend of hers, a guy named Louie, and while she'd never said anything about sleeping on prem, he knew. Louie was addicted to his aerosol nicotine dispenser and it caused his voice to sound hoarse. "Rise and shine, sweetcakes. Company's on the way."
    "Company? Who?"
    "Why, none other than the one-eyed monster himself, that paragon of journalistic virtue, the Clops."
    "The Clops? You mean Corvan? What for?" As Kim spoke, she rolled off the futon and busied herself stuffing it into a storage cabinet.
    "How the hell would I