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because of a beatdown on Bridge, tonight’s beating would have just been a preamble to an epic, fatal orchestra of violence lasting weeks. No need to rock that boat. Bridge could handle a beatdown.
    “You bust him, he gets someone to bust me a helluva lot worse. In the grand scheme of things, a little beatdown is a trivial cost of doing business.”
    “What business are you into with Nicky?” she asked, cop curiosity piqued.
    Bridge grinned and wiped the blood from his lips. “Oh, Patrolman Danton, my lips are sealed. I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing. I’m just a…”
    “I know, you’re just a bridge. Spare me, I’ve heard it before. See no, hear no, speak no evil. Next time he comes around looking to polish his knuckles with your face, I might not be around.” ar aroundBridge just shrugged. “The offer’s still open,” she stated matter-of-factly.
    The offer was a death sentence, if not in actuality, in the sense that her deal would end his way of life for good. She had tried to cultivate Bridge as a confidential informant for months, to drop dime for a pittance. CLED paid better than LAPD, but the principle was still the same. A rat was a rat was a rat, no matter how big that rat’s payday.
    He’d have been a gold mine for her, but he wasn’t interested in being anyone’s meal ticket but his own.
    “That’s a non-starter and you know it,” Bridge replied. “I’m no rat.”
    “Then you better get used to those bruises.”
    “Already there.”
    “Maybe you should think about finally paying him enough to be an actual bodyguard,” Danton said as she pointed to Aristotle. “Keep it clean, Bridge.”
    “I always do, Officer Danton.”
    “Patrolman Danton, goddamnit!” She waved behind her as she exited the alley.
    Once out of earshot, Bridge said, “Let’s get moving. I’ve got to find another hacker before Nicky gets his panties in a bunch again. Angela is not going to be happy to hear from me.”
     
    *****
     
    Chapter 3
    August 29, 2028
    1:20 a.m.
     
    Bridge staggered into his apartment after seeing Aristotle off in a cab, figuring he wouldn’t need a faux bodyguard for the walk up to his place. It was the kind of perfect shithole Los Angeles apartment made cliched in so many bad movies, a series of Spanish adobe-style buildings with too little attention paid to maintenance. He lived in a second floor apartment in the back of Celestial Gardens, close enough to the Central City area to hear the nightly gunshots, but far enough away to be out of the firing line. Most of the residents kept to themselves, especially when the police were busting the Trip labs that sprung up throughout the complex like mushrooms, and he liked it that way.
    The apartment was a mess as usual. His neat dress was an agonizingly maintained illusion of impeccable style, but his natural inclination tended towards barely constrained chaos. Though he never kept food and trash and dirty dishes all over, he did tend to stack things in untidy piles, books and news faxes and snail mail all heaped in theithenr own disorderly scheme. He rarely threw these types of things away, regardless of how outdated. Angela had kept the place even messier, as she was the type to just leave food out, like most of the hackers Bridge had ever known.
    The thought of Angela brought his mind back to business. He hesitated to contact her, even though she was the person to call for information thieves. She ran a stable of freelance hackers, brokering their information like a pimp brokers whores. Angela was a damn skilled hacker in her own right, and that skill had gotten her enough money to set up her network. Not that long ago, Bridge had been one of her dogs and more besides.
    They’d met back in ’26 when he was just an arrogant freelancer looking for a job. Angela had already been brokering for a year, and she saw talent in Bridge despite his careless swagger. Within six months of the first job, they’d fell into a GlobalNet