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little late checking in: I'm going to a gang war.'
    'Oh wow. Well, have a good time. I'll let her know.'
    I looked for the Furt, but couldn't see any sign of it in all the mess. The food had all disappeared - it's set to do that, an hour after cooking - but there was furniture, books, all kinds of crap all over the place, and the Furt is a small weapon. My apartment is equipped with a Search function: you have a little unit into which you type what you're looking for, and it electronically searches the place and tells you where it is. Unfortunately I've lost the unit, so I'm pretty well fucked. Where I was going one little Furt wasn't going to make much of a difference, so I forgot about it and ran for the mono instead.
    I told you things would start happening.
    Two of Ji's bodyguards met me at Fuck Station Zero, dressed in formal evening wear with black tie. They were very polite and deferential. Being a personal friend of a ganglord is kind of cool.
    We walked quickly to BarJi, a hulk on either side of me. The street life got out of the way very rapidly when they saw us coming. One the the things you learn quickly in Red is that if you see men dressed mainly in black heading down the street you get the hell out of the way, before extreme violence breaks out all around you.
    Ji was also in black tie, and seemed calm and collected.
    'We're going to have to be quick,' he muttered, 'word is that the fuckers have heard we're coming.'
    I found this worrying, and voiced my concern.
    'So they're going to be waiting for us?' I said, wondering if my afternoon might be better spent tidying up the apartment.
    'No, so they're getting the hell out. There's going to be no one left to kill if we don't get a fucking move on.'
    In tight formation we strode out of the bar. The armoured cars outside took the signal and wheelspun away, thundering down the street in front of us towards Hu. Ji and I walked down the street behind them, flanked by bodyguards, two more cars rolling along behind us. Like the strippers, the bodyguards in Red are bred specifically for what they do: they're all over seven feet tall and built to withstand a direct hit by a meteor. In particular they're selected for the size of their torsos. Ji, of course, had the very best, and the six guards around us all had upper bodies that were about two feet thick. A top bodyguard reckons on being able to shield his owner from about thirty bullets or two small shells. I'm only six feet tall and couldn't see where the hell we were going, but I felt pretty safe.
    Red is closed to the sky, and it's always night-time there. The streets were dark but studded on all sides by the neon glare of lights in the Dopaz bars and Fuckshops. The pavements we passed were deserted, but lots of faces peered out at us through the windows. A couple of the bars had hand-made signs saying, 'Go for it, sir,' strung outside.
    A derelict staggered into sight from round a corner and I winced in anticipation. Ji has no time for derelicts. It's not just that they aren't consumers and so they're no good to him, it's mainly that he can't stand people with no drive. I've often thought that Ji would make a pretty fearsome Actioneer, though the Centre would have to massively expand its ideas of what were acceptable Things to be Doing. Sure enough, without breaking his stride Ji squeezed off a shot and the derelict's head found itself spread along ten feet of wall.. There was a small cheer from one of the bars.
    Hu is a small sub-section pretty much at the centre of Red, bordering on the West side of Ji's territory. It's one of the oldest parts of Red Neighbourhood, and bad as Red is in general, Hu is worse. Hu is where the really bad things happen. You never see anyone on the streets in Hu, and there are no bars. There's no commercial interest in Hu, because in Hu everyone stays indoors. Hu is where you go if you're a serial killer and you want somewhere to slice up your victims in peace. Hu is where you go to