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him up for years, maybe even enough to retire on. He could, if he wanted, buy a bar somewhere with no extradition treaties and live comfortably off the proceeds for the rest of his life. This could be his ticket out of the game. Was that something he could afford to say no to? He might not believe in karma, but he believed in the laws of probability, and a payout as big as this wouldn’t come his way again.
    He looked back up, focussing on the flickering sky above his head, and decided, as a mental exercise, to assume the worst. Everything that could go wrong, would go wrong.
    He assumed Mooney’s mysterious Judge-buddy was going to blackmail them—or worse, was working undercover to trap and cube them. He assumed that the plan Mooney had in mind was a drunken pipe-dream with more holes in it than a bagel factory. He assumed at least three other teams were working on heists of their own at the same time, looking to swoop in on their score—Mooney couldn’t be the only one to have noticed what was under everyone’s nose. He assumed that the Jays had closed off every angle, thought through every possible plan of attack, that he was going to the cubes no matter what he did.
    Strader scowled a little more at that, the mental image too much to take. He changed it to an assumption that he’d come out of this with a bullet in the head, and felt much better—the daydream of his own brains splattered on a pristine stadium wall seemed infinitely preferable. A measure of fatality gripped him—even assuming the worst, assuming that he’d come out of this warming a cube or, preferably, riding the belt... what would he have lost? Not a thing.
    He was headed in the same direction now—a little slower, that was all.
    The thought was bizarrely relaxing, like a weight lifting from him. He looked down from his reverie to see that three juves had wandered into the block park through one of the entry-ways—their spiked leather jackets, a well-worn cliché that was enjoying a brief comeback, were covered with dancing brown homunculi in various sizes, amidst the words TONY HART BLOCK MIGHTY MORPHS. One of the new juve gangs.
    Strader gave them a quick look-over, checking to see if they had any real weapons. They weren’t carrying stutterguns—a bitter smile crossed his face at the thought—but they’d have switchblades on them at the very least. The toughest-looking of the three, a girl of about sixteen with torn-off sleeves, subdermal implants running up her forearms and jet-black eyes—eyeball tattoos, Strader realised, and found himself wincing in sympathetic pain—had the tell-tale bulge of a shoulder holster under one of her lapels. He supposed that made her the leader; the other two, a couple of barely-pubescent boys—one shorter than she was and still covered in a layer of babyfat, the other tall and gangly—seemed like they were just along for the ride, playing entourage.
    Suddenly, the girl turned, looking at Strader with a snarl, revealing that her teeth had been filed down to points. “What you wincin’ at, geeko?” Strader sighed gently, irritated with himself. He’d been caught staring—never a good thing with juves.
    The two boys with her grimaced and postured in turn, trying to one-up each other. “Sorry.” Strader set his face in what he hoped was a smile. “Didn’t mean anything by it.” His eyes flicked over her shoulder holster, and he found himself wondering just how much practice she’d had with it. She was young, but they started early these days.
    “You know that’s our tree, geek?” She spat, hitting the toe of his shoe. The file teeth gave her a slight lisp, which on someone else might have seemed comical. She gave him a hard stare with her jet-black eyes, and he quietly stepped to the side.
    “Sorry. I’ll go somewhere else.” He was smiling, keeping his tone pleasant, ingratiating, but he had a feeling he already knew how this would end. The fingers of his gun hand twitched, and he felt