Gentry was slouched in the old office chair when Slick entered the loft, staring at the little flip-up monitor on his deck. »Robert Newmark,« Gentry said. »Huh?« »Retinal identification. Either this is Robert Newmark or someone who bought his eyes.« »How’d you get that?« Slick bent to peer at the screen of basic birth stats. Gentry ignored the question. »This is it. Push it and you run into something else entirely.« »How’s that?« »Someone wants to know if anyone asks any questions about Mr. Newmark.« »Who?« »I don’t know.« Gentry drummed his fingers on his black leather thighs. »Look at this: nothing. Born in Barrytown. Mother: Marsha Newmark. We’ve got his SIN, but it’s definitely been tagged.« He shoved the chair back on its casters and swung around so that he could see the Count’s still face. »How about it, Newmark? Is that your name?« He stood up and went to the holo table. »Don’t,« Slick said. Gentry touched the power stud on the holo table. And the gray thing was there again, for an instant, but this time it dived toward the core of the hemispherical display, dwindled, and was gone. No. It was there, a minute gray sphere at the very center of the glowing projection field. Gentry’s crazy smile had returned. »Good,« he said. »What’s good?« »I see what it is. A kind of ice. A security program.« »That monkey?« »Someone has a sense of humor. If the monkey doesn’t scare you off, it turns into a pea. . . .« He crossed to the table and began to root through one of the panniers. »I doubt if they’ll be able to do that with a direct sensory link.« He held something in his hand now. A trode-net. »Gentry, don’t do it! Look at him!« »I’m not going to do it,« Gentry said. »You are.«
Ghosts and Empties
Staring through the cab’s smudged windows, she found herself wishing for Colin and his wry commentary, then remembered that this was entirely beyond his sphere of expertise. Did Maas-Neotek manufacture a similar unit for the Sprawl, she wondered, and if so, what form would its ghost take? »Sally,« she said, perhaps half an hour into the drive to New York, »why did Petal let me go with you?« »Because he was smart.« »And my father?« »Your father’ll shit.« »I’m sorry?« »Will be angry. If he finds out. And he may not. We aren’t here for long.« »Why are we here?« »I gotta talk to somebody.« »But why am I here?« »You don’t like it here?« Kumiko hesitated. »Yes, I do.« »Good.« Sally shifted on the broken-down seat. »Petal had to let us go. Because he couldn’t have stopped us without hurting one of us. Well, maybe not hurting. More like insulting. Swain could cool you, then tell you he was sorry later, tell your father it was for your own good, if it came to that, but if he cools me, it’s like face , right? When I saw Petal down there with the gun, I knew he was going to let us go. Your room’s kinked. The whole place is. I set the motion sensors off when I was getting your gear together. Figured I would. Petal knew it was me. That’s why he rang the phone, to let me know he knew.« »I don’t understand.« »Kind of a courtesy, so I’d know he was waiting. Gimme a chance to think. But he didn’t have a choice and he knew it. Swain, see, he’s being forced to do something, and Petal knows it. Or anyway Swain says he is, being forced. Me, I’m definitely being forced. So I start wondering how bad Swain needs me. Real bad. Because they let me walk off with the oyabun ‘s daughter, shipped all the way to Notting Hill for the safekeeping. Something there scares him worse than your daddy. ‘Less it’s something that’ll make him richer than your daddy already has. Anyway, taking you kind of evens things up. Kind of like pushing back. You mind?« »But you are being threatened?« »Somebody knows a lot of things I did.« »And Tick has discovered the identity of this person?« »Yeah. Guess I knew anyway. Wish to fuck I’d been wrong.«