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another. In the richer blocks, the effect was seamless, but in Tony Hart the borders between the screens were clearly visible, and several weren’t working at all. The results gave the place a distinctly eerie air, like being trapped in some old movie about machine intelligences run amok. The grass underfoot was cheap, too—plastic blades of astroturf that shone unhealthily in the artificial light. A lone plastic tree, sticking out of the acre-and-a-half of fake green like an afterthought, completed the lack of illusion.
    Not many people came to Tony Hart Block Park. Which was the way Strader liked it—he needed somewhere to be alone and think, after the impromptu meeting with Bud Mooney.
    After the revelation about the Judge, Strader had pressed Mooney for more details, but Mooney had clammed up. If Strader was in, he’d said, he was in—no compromises. His Judge friend, he’d hinted darkly, was going to make sure nobody went back on their word.
    “I mean, right now, we’re just talking, y’know?” He’d said, eyes darting this way and that. “I’m talking about a possible score, you’re listening. I ain’t named any names. You walk away now? Well, it’d be a shame to lose you, Paulie. You’re one of the best, or you were last time I checked. But if I tell you all the details... if I tell you who I’m with in this... I can’t let you walk, Paulie. I mean, he can’t.” Mooney’d lowered his voice further, looking uncomfortable in a way Strader hadn’t seen before. “He’s dangerous, y’know? The kind of dangerous that gets you paid, sure, but... you do not want to cross the man.”
    Strader had finished his rotgut—regretting it even as it hit his throat—and stood, meaning to say he was out. This situation broke two of his rules. For one thing—never, ever have anything to do with the Judges. Even the corrupt ones—they were either double-bluffing you, waiting to reel you in on a sting, or they were genuinely crooked, in which case they were unpredictable and hard to work with. The whole point of Judges was that they weren’t part of the real world—they were on the monk trip, celibate, almost completely removed from society. A corrupt one wasn’t fully part of their world or yours—which made them dangerous. And not the kind of dangerous that gets you paid.
    Not to mention that Mooney having a friend on the force was confirmation of all the whispers that had done the rounds, the ones that said he wasn’t to be trusted. So there was that.
    The other rule—once upon a time he’d had them all written down—was never to say yes to a job before you know all the details. Ideally, you can massage any flaws in the details yourself, but some plans were just unworkable, and you didn’t want to be locked in to an unworkable plan. Especially with the kind of people who might decide not to let you out again. Like, for instance, bent Judges who ran protection rackets on operators like him.
    He’d stood, looked Mooney in the eye, and...
    “I’ll think about it.”
    And now, here he was, in an empty plastic park. Thinking about it. He leaned against the artificial tree and looked up at the fizzing screens. As long as you didn’t try to pretend they were a sky, they were pretty soothing.
    He was locked in, that was the problem. Within days, he was going to be either dead or cubed—unless he had enough money in his pocket, in cash, to pay off his debts and get out of the city before the net closed in. And now this opportunity had fallen into his lap, as if karma was paying him back somehow for the mess in Texas City.
    He scowled, looking down at the sickly grass, squashing the superstition before it took root in his mind. In his experience, the day you started using words like karma and believe that there was any kind of balance in the universe was the day you booked your trip on the Resyk belt.
    Still, a score like this would net him a cool ten million share at the absolute lowest—enough to set