Asprin, Robert Lynn – Catwoman – Tiger Hunt (With Lynn Abbey)

Catwoman watched him get into the van. She pounded her fist against the cement until it was numb.

Chapter Fourteen

The Connection watched the procession of digital readouts on the control panel beside him. They were independent of the holograph and transmitted data continuously. Tiger had never guessed their existence. The street brawler always tipped his hand while he stood in the van’s cab, waiting for the holograph to fill the back area. Telemetry couldn’t read thoughts. That was and probably would remain impossible: a man’s thoughts were too idiosyncratic to be worth deciphering, but emotions were simpler and universal. The Connection had been chipping away at the physical code of emotions, and if the telemetry could be believed, his lieutenant was a contradictory mass of dread and hope.

He punched a button that would save the readings for later study, then a second button to initiate the holograph transmission. One of the many monitors facing him flickered to life and filled with a reconstruction of an otherwise anonymous face the Connection had plucked out of a crowd several weeks earlier. Beams of ruby-red light touched the Connection’s face and hands, establishing the feedback loops that controlled the holograph. Speakers hissed to life with engine and street noises, then Tiger stepped into the fluorescent illusion.

The first thing the Connection noticed was that Tiger’s hands were empty, but they were also behind his back, the technological wizard played dumb. “Well, let me see it,” he said amiably.