When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that the guys pounding on my brain seemed to have downgraded to tack hammers. The second was that Jack had moved during the night, and was now curled up in a ball at the opposite end of the couch. I started to stretch, then decided that that was a mistake. Every muscle in my body was sore, as if I'd just fought in armor for a week or so. There was a knot in my lower back where I'd been lying on my scabbarded sword. I groaned and got up, knowing that moving around would help. As I did so, I quietly cursed whoever it was who'd invented cybernetic biofeedback systems, while unfastening my sword and letting it drop to the floor with a thud.

I staggered into the kitchen. Max was there, supervising the microwave as it cooked something that resembled food. He turned to look at me as I came in. "About time you got up," he said. "I was beginning to wonder if you were dead."

"The way I feel, I may be," I retorted. "Is that breakfast?"

"No," Max replied. "It's lunch. I've been up for hours. If you want breakfast, the refrigerator is full now. Joe had time to go grocery shopping."

"What time is it?" I asked, gathering that I'd slept longer than I'd thought.

"About one-thirty." Max's lunch beeped at him, and he took it out of the oven. "Is Jack awake yet?"

"No, not yet," I replied.

"Yes, I am," Jack's sleepy voice said, from the doorway.

"Oh," I said, turning to face her. "Morning." She looked like I felt - a mess. Her braid was half-undone, her eyes were bloodshot, and she had dried blood on her upper lip. "How are you feeling?"

"Oh, you heartless bastard, to remind me," Jack complained. "Better. My headache's gone; I just feel like I've been stretched on the rack."

"Me too." I began rummaging around in the cupboards for breakfast. I couldn't find any, so I settled on lunch. It's amazing how Joe can go shopping and still not have anything to eat. Breakfast especially - Joe eats weird things like grits, which I won't touch, primarily because I haven't figured out yet what they're supposed to be. I put together a stack of things that looked edible and chucked them in the microwave.

Meanwhile, Max was saying to Jack, "You've spent a night here, now. That makes you a resident. As such, you have the privilege of getting your own food. If you can't find something, look around. Don't bother asking, we probably don't know where it is either. Joe organizes everything, but seldom bothers telling us what his method is."

Jack shrugged and stuck her head in the fridge. She came out with a couple of food-like things, which she tossed into the microwave after I was done nuking my lunch. When we all had our lunches ready, we sat down at the kitchen table.

"So, what's the plan for today?" Max asked.

"Tonight," I said, "I think we need to check out our friend the suit's apartment. Before then... well, I plan on eating lunch in hopes that food will make my headache go away, and putting on some clean clothes."

"An excellent plan," Jack agreed, raising her glass of milk in toast. I raised my glass of red stuff, and we drank to my plan.

"You've both got a chip loose," Max observed. "Have you thought about what you're going to do about the police? They're after you for that homicide in the garage, and they're also looking for Tom, at least, in connection with the bomb in his room."

"Oh," Jack said. "I'd forgotten about the cops. We are going to have to deal with them, aren't we?"

"Eventually," I said. "The way Burlington Security works, we shouldn't have to worry about that for a while. We can take care of them when we don't have people tracking Jack's deck."

"You plan on pulling a dataraid on them, then?" Max asked.

"Yeah," I replied. "Get in quick, alter the evidence... they'll probably never even notice."

"You aren't much impressed by your cops, are you?" Jack asked.

I snorted. "They aren't very impressive."

Jack looked mildly puzzled. "I've always heard that Burlington was one of the safest cities of its size in the country." Max and I nodded, and she continued, "Well, if the cops are so pathetic, who makes it safe?"

"Vermonters," I replied. "We like our guns, and we like being safe."

"Local vigilantes deal with far more criminals than the cops ever get their hands on," Max agreed.

I suddenly had an idea. "VRA!" I exclaimed.

"What?" Jack said, just as Max asked, "What do they have to do with this?"

"Well," I answered Max, "you said yourself that they deal with more criminals than the cops do. I doubt that that snatch attempt was that suit's first shadowrun. VRA must know something about him."

"What is VRA?" Jack asked.

"Reasonable," Max agreed. "Shall we ask them?"

"I think so," I replied.

"Will someone please tell me what VRA is?" Jack pleaded.

"They're the Vermont Republican Army," Max told her.

"Oh," Jack responded. "What's that?"

"Strange. And typically Vermont," I told her. "They're sort of a combination vigilante group, gang, policlub, and revolutionary group. They tell people that someday they're going to secede from UCAS and restore the old Republic of Vermont, but in the meantime, they help out the oppressed, protect the innocent, and all that good stuff. Sort of like an ACCLU with guns."

"Oh," Jack replied. "They don't sound sane. We're going to go for them for help?"

"Yup," I affirmed. "They're trustworthy. They may not be sane, but as Max said, we're not exactly stable ourselves."

"Um. That's true," Jack acceded.

I got up, groaning at the twinges that that sent through my stiff muscles, and tossed my empty dishes into the dishwasher. "I'd suggest that we get cleaned up, then... where's Joe, anyway?"

"Out in the garage working on the Tank," Max replied. "Of course."

"Of course," I echoed. "Then, when Joe's done torturing the poor Suburban, we can go visit VRA headquarters. Any objections?"

"Sounds good to me," Jack agreed, as she put her dishes away. "You're going to have to run to beat me to the shower."

"We could just shower together," I suggested, deadpan.

Jack raised an eyebrow and glared at me, not saying a word.

"Okay, okay," I capitulated. "Ladies first, then."

"I guess chivalry isn't dead," Max observed.

"It will be if it makes another comment like that," Jack replied.

I wisely kept my mouth shut.

Jack's mood was much improved after she'd gotten cleaned up. She emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, looking cheerful, with a clean face and neat, if wet, hair. She was wearing faded jeans, perhaps the same pair she'd had on when we met, and a t-shirt that had a smiley-face with a bullet hole in its forehead on it. The caption read, "Frag your nice day."

"Hey, Tom," she called, as I scooped up my bag and headed for the shower. I stopped and turned to face her. "There's something I was going to ask you."

"Oh?" I inquired.

"Last night, when you were holding off those ice..."

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't you shift into combat mode?"

"Oh. Because I wasn't trying to kill them; I was trying to keep them busy."

"Yeah, so?"

"So combat mode lets me react a little faster, but it also lets anything I've got in my field of vision react a little faster - not as much faster, but slightly. They don't have to spend the time to send out responses to my imaging queries, you see. Since I was just trying to delay the ice, I figured that I could accept them having a little more of an edge to make the entire fight go a little slower."

"I see," Jack said. She sounded skeptical.

I ran a hand through my hair. "Perhaps it wasn't the brightest decision, especially going up against black ice, but..."

Jack patted my cheek. "You really do have a chip loose," she said.

"Um... thank you?"

Jack laughed, and I turned and went into the bathroom.

A shower and clean clothes (jeans and my Pennsic LXXXI shirt) made me feel much better. My headache was gone, and my sore muscles were, at least, less sore. I emerged into the living room at more or less the same time that Joe came in from the garage, dressed in greasy coveralls and a John Deere cap.

"Mornin', Tom, Jack," he greeted us. "Max tells me ya wanna go see VRA."

"Yeah," I replied, still toweling my hair.

"Well, th' Tank's ready when you are."

I didn't bother asking what he'd been doing to her - I probably wouldn't understand the answer. "I'll be ready in a minute. Just let me get my stuff. Where's Max?"

"I'm right here," Max answered me, as he emerged from the hallway that led to Joe and Max's bedrooms.

He was wearing a purple silk shirt and a white sports coat over dress pants. I knew that his coat had been tailored to cover the bulge caused by the shotgun in his shoulder holster. I glanced back over at Joe and noted that there was a revolver- shaped lump in one of his pockets. Jack had her wand tucked into her belt. I picked up my sword and strapped it onto my back just so I wouldn't feel so unarmed. I pulled on my coat, checked my pockets for my deck and my little Walther, and pronounced myself ready.

I noticed, as I stepped out the door, Joe had either removed the improvements he'd made to the paint job the previous day, or he'd painted over them. The Tank was plain green again, except for that left front fender, which was still red. It didn't seem like that should have taken Joe all morning, so I walked around the Suburban to see if there were any other visible modifications. There were. Joe had fastened a heavy steel framework to her front bumper to protect her grille and headlights.

"Cute," I commented. "Planning on ramming something?" There was also a small spotlight on what looked to be an automated mount above the driver's side window, I noticed.

Joe shrugged and said, "Could happen," as he climbed into the vehicle. The rest of us all piled (or squeezed, in Max's case) into the Tank as well, taking the positions we'd had on the trip home the night before. Joe tossed his John Deere cap on the seat and attached the rigger jacks.

As the garage door opened at his command and we began to back out into the street, I noticed that Joe had installed a sort of gun rack behind the Tank's rear seat. It held his double- barreled Winchester 12-gauge and Max's massive Enfield AS7 - with the 50-round drum magazine. I shuddered. The very concept of a fully automatic shotgun scares me. My broadsword was also there. I hadn't realized until then that it hadn't been lying on top of my bag where I'd left it the day before. There was a crate bolted to the Suburban's floor just in front of the wheel well that contained cases of ammo. I decided that we were tolerably well armed.

As we rolled out into the street, it began to rain out of a clear sky. By the time we got to downtown Burlington, low grey clouds had rolled in - and the rain had stopped. We left the Tank in the parking garage on South Winooski Avenue, across the street from the small brick building that served as VRA headquarters for Chittenden County.

The VRA building, on the inside, was somewhat run down. The off-white walls were water stained and the linoleum tiles on the floor were scuffed and marked. A large map of Vermont with the word "FREE" printed at the top hung on the right wall. On the opposite wall was a Vermont flag. On the back wall was mounted a stuffed cow head (Holstein) with a pair of antlers fastened to it. The human behind the counter (well, really, it was more of a high desk) looked like Elvis Costello.

When we entered, he was talking on the telecom. "That's not what I heard from Randolph... Oh. Sorry, gotta go - I've got visitors. I'll recheck and get back to you later." He looked up at us. "Welcome to the Chittenden Regional Headquarters of the Vermont Republican Army. I'm Warren. What can we do for you?"

We all glanced at each other. Jack discreetly nudged me forwards. I took that as a hint and said, "I'm Tom. We're looking for some information."

"Information, hmm? On what, pray tell?" he asked, looking suddenly wary.

"On whom," I corrected. "No one that's part of your group, I think."

"Ah. Then why come here?"

"Because of our deep respect for VRA's intelligence gathering."

Warren eyed me for a moment, as if trying to decide whether or not my comment was sincere. Finally, he asked, "Are you a Vermonter?"

"Born and bred," I replied.

He glanced around at my friends. Joe and Max nodded, Jack remained impassive. Warren looked at her for a moment longer. She looked back. "Who do you want to know about?" he asked, at last.

"Two nights ago, there was a man killed in the garage of the Complex. Who was he, and who was he working for before he died?"

Warren sat back in his chair. "I won't ask why you're interested in him. I don't think I want to know, and I doubt you'd tell me, anyway." He shuffled through the sloppy piles of hardcopy on his desk. Eventually he found one sheet and pulled it out. "He was a flatlander - showed up here maybe three years ago, we're not certain where from. Boston, maybe. He had a number of aliases - I can give you a list of the ones we've discovered, if you want - but he was usually called the Chameleon, because of his ability to blend into a crowd. He was a freelancer, did mostly shadowing and snatches. He usually worked alone. We don't know who he was working for when he died. Previous employers include Hartford InfoSystems, Aztechnology of UCAS, Northeastern Aerospace... a couple of dozen others, too - those were the most recent. He'd work for anyone who had the money."

"You don't have any idea who his last employer was?" I asked.

Warren shook his head. "I've told you all we know about that. Maybe he had some records in his house... but that's one place the cops have an advantage over us. Breaking and entering's legal if you've got a search warrant."

"Well," I said, "I don't know if you've helped, but thanks anyway."

"We're always ready to help our fellow Vermonters," Warren answered, extending his hand to be shaken. I obliged, noticing as I did so that he had sparse hair on his palms. I revised my estimate of his humanity. As we turned to leave, Warren said, "Oh, Tom, I've an extra word of advice for you and the lady... I didn't catch her name."

"I'm Jack," Jack informed him, looking curious.

"There's a detective with B-town Security by the name of Edgar Burroughs," Warren told us, quietly. "Stay clear of him, if you can."

"Um... okay. Why?" I asked, confused.

"As far as I know, he's the only one of my people who does work for the cops. Tom - there was a steel bar lying near the corpse that had your scent all over it. And, Jack - the corpse stank of magic, the exact same brand of magic I can smell on you."

"If you... if you thought we had something to do with that killing, why did you give us all that information?" Jack demanded. She sounded slightly scared.

Warren grinned. "You smell like decent chummers - even if the lady is a flatlander." As we paused to digest that information, he added, "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me... on the condition that you stop by and let me know the circumstances, when you think it's safe to talk about."

I eyed him for a minute, then realized that, given what he knew, we didn't have a choice. "Sounds fair," I told Warren. "You told us what you know. One of these days we'll tell you what we know."

Warren nodded and handed me the sheet of hardcopy he'd been consulting. "See you one of these days, then."

"Right. Thanks," I said, as I took the sheet.

Once back out on the street, I turned to Jack and said, "I think we have to change our methods. Half the city seems to know we were involved in that dust-up in the garage."

Jack looked at me for a long moment, then burst out laughing. "Next time I get attacked, I'll try to do it more discreetly," she promised.

On our way back to the garage, Max said, "I have a question. What did Warren mean by `his people'? And what was all that about scents?"

"Shapeshifter," Joe and Jack answered in unison, at the same moment I said, "Werewolf."

"Werewolf?" Jack questioned, giving me an inquiring look.

"Hairy palms," I explained.

"Ah." She nodded, satisfied.

"Oh," Max commented. "Oh, I understand."

We reentered the parking garage and began walking back to where the Tank was parked. Halfway there, Joe stopped and asked, "Where are we goin' now? King Street?"

"I think I'd rather wait until dark to try my hand at breaking and entering," Max observed.

"Sounds like we have an afternoon to kill, then," I agreed.

"I know just th' place," Joe offered. "Down on Church Street. They won't ask questions, won't admit we've been there, if anyone asks. Not unless we say it's okay."

He turned and led the way out the other side of the garage and out into the alley that connected it to the Marketplace. It was about then that the rain began in earnest, heavy drops splashing individual spots on the almost-dried pavement. I looked around as we followed Joe towards his "place". The usual Marketplace crowds had thinned because of the rain. The air smelled of wet concrete. We passed the entrance to the Underground Complex, and to ThoughtWorks, where I'd first met Jack. The crowd of loiterers in front of the 'plex was smaller than usual. Those that were there seemed to be engaged in giving a hard time to a B-Town Security bicycle cop, who'd taken cover from the rain in the entryway of the 'plex. I found that more understandable than most of that batch's activities. It's hard to take seriously a cop on a bike, dressed in spandex shorts.

One of the wanna-be gangers noticed us - or noticed Jack, rather, and took a step towards us, his head swiveling to follow Jack's progress as if his nose was riveted to her torso. (Which I suspect he wished it was.) Jack noted him and dropped a hand to brush her wand, an automatic unspoken warning. Scum-boy stopped and turned away. My opinion of his IQ rose a notch or two (which left it still not very high). At least he was bright enough to recognize a mage, and realize that his attentions weren't wanted.

We continued on, keeping mostly under the awnings to avoid the rain. "There are cities," Jack suddenly observed, "in the sidewalk."

I glanced down and noted the granite block engraved "DJAKARTA" embedded in the bricks. "Yes," I agreed. "They've got them arranged by latitude. The north end of the street is supposed to be the North Pole, and the south end is the South Pole, or something like that."

"Why?" Jack asked. "That's weird."

"Dunno," I replied, just as Joe said, "T'make flatlanders ask silly questions."

Jack opened her mouth to reply, stopped, and after consideration, decided not to take offense. She shrugged and continued on in silence.

Joe led us to a stairwell near the south end of the Marketplace which led down into a basement. The place, a bar or cafe, smelled strongly of tobacco smoke, though none of the sparse clientele seemed to be smoking. I suppose that over time, the smoke had become ingrained into the plastic of the benches and tables. There were no windows. The dim lights recessed into the ceiling and the neon "Black Troll Beer" sign on one otherwise barren wall provided barely enough illumination to see by. The bartender, I saw, when we got close enough to the bar to see through the gloom, was a dwarf. A beardless dwarf. Well, almost beardless, anyway. He had a bad case of five-o'clock shadow.

"Hey, more customers," the bartender said, to no one in particular, upon seeing us. He glanced around at the four or five people already in the place. "Busy afternoon. Can I get ya something?"

"How 'bout a mugga Black Troll?" Joe asked.

"Coming right up," the bartender replied. "Anyone else?"

"Yeah, get me a beer," I replied. "Something less lethal than Black Troll, though."

"Red Wolf?" he inquired.

"Works for me," I said.

"I'm with him," Jack agreed.

"And you... sir?" the bartender asked Max. The last word was added as he tipped his head back to look up at Max's face, visibly measuring the amount of troll between his eye level and Max's.

"A Coke, if you please," Max replied.

"I wouldn't've pegged you for a soda man," the bartender observed as he began to pour. "Sure you don't want something stronger?"

"Alcohol dulls the reflexes," Max explained.

"Of course. We wouldn't want that," the bartender agreed, with just a touch of sarcasm.

"Of course not," Max replied, apparently oblivious to the sarcasm.

Drinks in hand, we followed Joe over to a booth in the corner, well away from any of the other patrons who were sparsely scattered about the room. "I thought," he said, quietly, as he took a seat, "that we might like a little privacy if we need t' discuss anythin'."

As I went to choose a seat, a series of thoughts reeled up from the depths of my consciousness. The first was a somewhat irrational desire to sit next to Jack. It was counterbalanced by a nervous fear that she might not want to sit next to me. I attempted to appease these thoughts with the hypothesis that she wouldn't care, normal people didn't worry about things like that, but the thoughts nagged at me anyway. All this took far less time to think that it does to explain, and I took a seat across from Joe, effectively passing the decision off to Jack. She slid in next to me, which gave me some mild satisfaction and set those rogue thoughts in the basement of my brain squabbling about whether she meant anything by it. I let them squabble.

As Max squeezed himself into the booth beside Joe, Joe inquired, "Anyone got anythin' to present t' th' committee?" He drained half the beer from his mug, grinned, and wiped the froth from his beard.

I snorted. "Yes, Mr. Chairman... Chairdwarf, I mean." Joe gave me a dirty look, and I added in a more serious tone, "I've got this thing Warren gave me." I pulled the sheet of hardcopy out of my pocket and dropped it on the table. There were two pictures of the Chameleon at the top. Beneath them was line after line of information in tiny print. "There's more information here than he read to us."

"Oh?" Jack asked, leaning forward to get a better look at the paper. "Like what?"

I traced my finger down over the subject headings. "Name, rank, SIN, et cetera... politics, rep, known and suspected runs, known and suspected employers..." I flipped the sheet over, and discovered that the back was covered with small print as well. "Cyberware..." I continued. "Hey, whaddya know - the guy was wired."

"And you took him on hand-to-hand?" Max inquired. "I am impressed. With your ability or your stupidity, or possibly both."

"It wasn't stupid; it worked," Jack objected, coming to my defense.

"Murphy was lookin' th' other way," Joe replied, taking another swig of beer.

I continued reading, not dignifying their comments with a reply. "Skills, M.O., known and suspected contacts..." I stopped, backed up, and read that again. "Known and suspected contacts." I looked up, meeting a pair of suddenly interested brown dwarf eyes, a pair of slightly confused yellow troll eyes, and a pair of excited blue elf eyes. "You suppose any of our buddy the Chameleon's friends know who he was working for?"

"It might be possible," Jack affirmed, her eyes gleaming.

"It remains, then, to find them and ask," Max observed, poking around in the bottom of his empty glass with his straw. "I need more Coke. Anyone else want a refill?"

Joe and Jack slid their mugs over to him. I checked mine, discovered that it was empty, and shoved it over to him as well. Max gathered up all the glasses in the palm of one hand, stood, and headed over to the bar.

I slid the datasheet over to Joe. "You know any of these people," I asked, pointing to the list of contacts, "especially the ones marked `professional contact'?"

Joe scanned the list, then stabbed a finger at one name. "Him. He's a fixer, a little greaseball operates outa the 'plex. Specializes in guns with no trail. I've... uh... had occasion t'use his services."

"You? Dealing in unregistered guns? I don't believe it," I said, in mock surprise.

"Y'know, people want a little pertection fer their wheels... I just mount 'em, don't ask questions."

"Ah. Big guns," I acknowledged.

Max came back and set our drinks down on the table. Joe picked up his beer, easily distinguishable from Jack's and mine by the fact that it was pretty near the same color as the Coke.

"You want me t' set up a meet with Hank th' greaseball fixer?" Joe asked.

"Sounds like a good idea," I replied.

"Well, hang on, then, an' I'll go call him," Joe told us. He drained his beer in one swig, slid across the bench, and hopped to the ground. He took his mug with him when he crossed the room, stopping at the bar for a refill before heading to the 'com booths. Max sat down on the bench just vacated by Joe and began sipping his Coke.

"Max, do you recognize any of these names?" I asked, showing him the list of contacts.

He scanned down through the list, occasionally wrinkling his brow in thought. Finally, he said, "I believe that this `Paul Roberts, alias Spawn' is the leader of the Black Nagas."

I nodded, recognizing the reference (as well as the name, now that Max mentioned it), but Jack inquired, "Who're the Black Nagas?"

"Gang," I replied. "They run the area around here. Mostly not very nice chummers."

"Doesn't that kind of go without saying?" she asked.

"Not necessarily," I replied. "Some gangs are just out for the blood and the money. The Nagas are one of those. Some gangs are more like tribes or clans... they watch out for each other and leave everyone else alone."

"Unless one should cross them," Max added. "Even the less aggressive groups make dangerous enemies." Max sipped from his Coke again, ending by draining it completely. He looked at it with a disappointed expression. "They don't make these glasses big enough for trolls," he sighed. He got up and headed back over to the bar.

Jack watched him go, then turned to me. "Um... Tom," she began, hesitantly, "I..." She glanced down at the table, then back up at me. "I'm sorry about last night."

That threw me completely. "What?" I asked, baffled. "Sorry about what?"

"Well, about falling asleep on you," she explained. As she spoke, a blush spread across her normally pale face. "You can't have had a very comfortable night, sleeping sitting up like that, but I wasn't really awake, and I just thought that I ought... to... apologize." She trailed off, blushing furiously.

"You really don't need to apologize," I responded. "I could've moved you if I'd really wanted to. I wasn't much more coherent than you were by that point, though." I realized that I wasn't really going anywhere with my statements, so I decided to wrap them up. "Besides, I don't mind having you sleep in my lap," I finished, then, as I thought back over what I'd just said, I felt the blood rising in my own cheeks.

Just then Joe and Max returned, saving us both from having to die of embarrassment. Joe had another mug of Black Troll in his hand. I swear I don't know how he can drink that stuff. I can't handle even one glass of it. For all his heavier build, Joe masses less than I do; even with a dwarf's resistance to toxins, you'd think that four would put him under the table. He wasn't affected at all, at least not that I could see.

"Well," Joe said, "Hank wasn't answerin' th' 'com. Might not be home. More likely, he's just passed out. Think we oughta pay him a visit?"

"It's most certainly safer than confronting Spawn," Max added.

"Agreed," I agreed. "Anyone got any reason to delay?" I glanced around at the others. If anyone had a reason, they weren't speaking up. Jack was already beginning to get up. I drained my beer and stood up as well.

"I'll get th' bill," Joe offered.

"The Chameleon can get it," I proposed, pulling one of the certified credsticks out of my pocket.

"That might not be a good idea," Jack objected. "There may be traces out on those. On your credstick and mine as well," she added. "Better let Joe handle it."

"Um... there is that," I conceded.

Joe took care of it, slotting his credstick at the register.

"Come on back," the bartender called after us. "The Hobbit Hole is always open."

"Sure, Bill," Joe replied as we went out the door.

"The `Hobbit Hole'?" I inquired, as we climbed the stairs.

"That's what it's called," Joe answered. "Bartender calls himself `Bilbo'. Th' mornin' shift guy's a human, goes by `Gandalf'."

"Mage?" Jack asked.

"That's th' rumor. Dunno if I believe it."

"They must not have read the books very well," I observed.

"Why's that?" Joe asked.

"The original hobbit-hole was a comfortable, luxurious burrow, not a barren concrete basement."

Joe shrugged. We headed up the street through rain which fell from the increasingly dark sky. We'd had just enough time to get disagreeably wet without getting thoroughly soaked when we came to the Complex entrance. The bike cop had gone, probably tired of the abuse. The lowlife clustered more closely than usual about the doors - it was drier there. Max unobtrusively moved into the lead as we neared the doors. His impressively large form cleared a path; the rest of us followed in his wake. (No one argues right-of-way with a troll.)

Inside the 'plex it was busier than I had expected from the number of people on the street. The Marketplace was nearly deserted, probably because of the rain, but the 'plex hummed with people. We took the escalators down to the fifth floor, where they ended. From there, we took the stairs down to sixth level, the last of the commercial levels. Sixth level wasn't nearly as crowded as first had been. The neighborhood went from nice to rough as you went down levels, and there was a corresponding drop in the number of shoppers who dared to frequent the area. Sixth was primarily an assortment of seedy bars, cutlery shops (Switchblades and shuriken, not butter knives. Heavier weaponry when PlexSec wasn't looking.), questionable talismongers and simsense rentajoints. Most of the shops were fronts for semi- legal stuff.

The real illegal stuff operated out of the residential levels - seven and eight. That's where we were going.

At the far west end of level six was a heavy steel door marked "Residents Only". There was a heavy-duty maglock with a credstick reader on it.

Joe growled. "When'd they put that fraggin' thing in?"

No one answered. I bent over the lock, examining it. "Well, one good sign," I observed. "It's self-contained. No line out for calling the cops. Max, you think you could stand so no one can see me? Look casual."

Max looked at me for a second, puzzled, then grinned. "But of course, my friend," he agreed.

I turned back to the lock and pulled Joe's electronics kit out of my pocket. It took a little doing to get the front off, but, having done so, I discovered that the insides weren't as impressive as the bullet-proof, shock-resistant exterior. I cross-wired a few things, and was rewarded with the thud of bolts dropping back. Jack, who had been watching me closely, pulled the door open.

"Should I fix the thing now that the door's open?" I asked.

"Lemme fix the fraggin' thing," a strange voice came from behind us. We all turned. There was an ork standing there, looking as if he'd been patiently waiting for me to get the door. He was dressed in a tattered black trenchcoat over what looked like third-hand jeans and shirt. The bright silver of a cyber-eye gleamed from one eye socket, and a scar from the middle of his forehead, across the eye, and down across the cheek was evidence that the replacement eye hadn't been elective surgery.

He stepped forward, a stun-stick dropping into his hand. Jack and I both began to go for weapons, operating, I think, from the same bad memories. The ork, however, simply thrust the end of his stick into the maglock cavity. There were sparks and the distinct smell of smoked chips drifted out. The bolts thudded back into place. The ork tucked his stun-stick back up into his sleeve, and, muttering, "Maybe they won't fix the fraggin' thing this time. It's a fraggin' pain in the fraggin' ass. Gotta slot m'fraggin' credstick every fraggin' time I wanna go in or out," he stepped through the open door.

We all looked at each other, then Jack shrugged and stepped through the door. The rest of us filed after her. The door swung shut behind Max, clanking to a halt against the bolts. Joe led us down the stairs beyond the door and out onto seventh level.

The residential levels looked like a cross between an aqueduct and my dormitory. The construction was concrete, designed with practical considerations in mind, not aesthetic ones. There were metal doors set at regular intervals in the corridor walls. The once-bright red and white paint had faded and chipped. Most of the doors were dented, and several bore marks that looked like bullet hits. Maybe half of the already dim lights mounted high on the walls were burned out. Those remaining had little chance of chasing back the shadows.

We followed Joe down the dark corridor, skirting the occasional puddle of water on the floor. Joe stopped in front of a door marked "17". He banged on it with a fist. When that produced no results, he banged again and yelled, "Hey, Hank! Y'got a customer!"

A voice from inside said, "Who? Whaddya want?"

"It's me, Joe," Joe called back. "We gotta talk!"

"'Bout what?"

"I'm not about t'yell that through th' door fer everyone t'hear!"

There was a moment of silence, then the door slid open. Framed in the doorway was a human figure, maybe a head shorter than me and scrawny, clad in tortured jeans and t-shirt and an obviously fake leather jacket. Paranoid eyes peered from underneath his greasy black bangs. When he saw us, his eyes got wider and more paranoid.

"Man, Joe," he whined, "y'ain't supposed to bring nobody down here."

Joe stepped into the doorway and moved into the room, herding Hank before him.

"C'mon, Joe," Hank pleaded, "ain't we friends? Gotta maintain my privacy. Can't have everyone and his fraggin' brother knowin' where I is."

"My friends, here," Joe said, firmly, "have some questions t' ask ya."

"I don't know nothin', I ain't done nothin', an' you can't prove nothin'!"

"That's a rather broad denial," Max observed. "Especially when you haven't been accused of anything."

Hank looked up at the troll, who was just stooping his head to fit through the door. Once in the room, Max straightened up to his full height, head nearly brushing the ceiling. Hank's eyes darted rapidly from side to side, and he swallowed, hard.

Jack and I slipped into the room around Max. I palmed the close button as I stepped past. The door ground closed, leaving the room almost dark, lit only by the bluish glow of a cheap telecom in the corner. I briefly considered trying to find a light, but discarded the idea. If the darkness handicapped me, it handicapped Hank equally, and my three friends, with their superior metahuman vision, would hardly be bothered at all.

"You haven't been accused of anything yet," I said, conversationally. "And if you answer all of our questions honestly, maybe you won't be."

"I toldja, I don't know nothin'!" Hank protested.

"We haven't even said what we want to know about yet," Max said.

Hank shut up.

"What do you know about the Chameleon?" I asked.

"Nothin'! I don't know nothin'," Hank replied, too quickly.

"John Clark? Jason Smith?" I asked.

"Never heard of 'em," Hank maintained.

Jack suddenly stepped forward, grabbing Hank's shirt and slamming him up against the stained waffleboard that covered the wall. Because she'd been standing in Max's shadow, I hadn't seen her move until she was right in Hank's face. To judge from Hank's expression, he hadn't either.

"Look, greaseball," she growled, "I haven't got time for this drek." Her right hand came out from under her jacket, holding the Chameleon's flechette pistol. She waved it under Hank's nose. "You sold him this, didn't you? That jog your memory?"

"Yeah, yeah," Hank agreed. "I remember now. That Chameleon! Didn't know who you meant. Really didn't. What ya wanna know?"

"His employer. Who'd he work for?" Jack demanded.

"I don' know, honest I don't," Hank avowed. "Worked for anyone paid him. You know, Mr. Johnson'd give him the money, he'd do th' job."

"Did he talk about any of them?"

Hank opened his mouth, glanced down at the gun in Jack's hand, and closed it again. Then he said, "Um... yeah, sometimes. Bragged a little, you know."

"So who'd he brag about recently? Did he tell you anything Friday night?"

"I don't remember! Really don't. Didn't see him Friday. Haven't seen him since last Tuesday."

Max spoke up. "How about his records? He must have kept records. Where?"

Hank swallowed. "Got a computer. In his apartment. I found it for him."

"What system address?" I asked.

"Ain't got none," Hank said. "Private system. Not on the Grid."

"Where's his apartment?" Jack demanded.

"King Street. Don' know where, 'zactly."

Jack let go of Hank's shirt. He slumped into a heap on the dirty mattress at Jack's feet. "Well, I guess that's what we wanted to know," she said. "We'll be going now." She paused, then continued with a hard edge on her voice. "But if you've lied to us, or you tell anyone we were here, I'll come back here and cut your tongue out with my own hand." She tucked the slivergun back into her jacket, turned, and headed for the door. Max hit the open button and we all filed out.

After the door had groaned shut behind us, Jack turned to the rest of us and asked, "Well, was I convincing?"

"Very," I assured her.

"Good," she said. "I wasn't sure. That's not really my style, but it didn't look like calm, logical questioning was going to work."

We headed for the end of the hall and the stairwell out. As we climbed the stairs, Joe asked, "Where're we goin' now? King Street, this time?"

"That's where all our leads seem to point to," I agreed.

"What time is it?" Max asked.

Jack scrounged around in one of her pockets and pulled out an old-fashioned gold pocketwatch. Analog, if you can believe it. "'Bout half past four," she said. She held the thing to her ear, then wound it and put it back in her pocket.

"Most likely it isn't dark enough, then," Max remarked.

"It might be, if it's still raining," I observed.

"Rain or no, it's gonna be too busy 'round there this time'a day," Joe said.

"Maybe we should check it out first, so we know what we're getting into," Jack suggested.

"Nah. Takes all the fun out of it," I commented, jokingly.

"No, Tom, she does have a point," Max said.

"I was joking, Max," I replied, dryly.

"Oh. Well."

"Drive-by?" Jack suggested. "Walking wouldn't be any fun in the rain."

"Let's go get th' Tank, then," Joe said.

By then we were back on sixth floor and maybe halfway back to the stairs. We finished the walk, taking the escalators up to the ground floor, then headed out into the rain. The rain had slacked off some - it was no longer a hard rain, but a steady drizzle that looked as if it intended to keep up for a while. The parking garage was comfortably dry after the quick walk across the Marketplace and down the alley in the rain. We ransomed the Tank and cruised down South Winooski to King Street, where we turned and headed down the hill towards the docks. Max and I were both scanning the house numbers, the evens being on our side of the vehicle. I saw number 42 first and pointed it out to the others - a two-story building, red brick in the front and white wood in the back.

Joe drove the rest of the way down to Battery Street, looped around a block, and went back up King Street the other way.

"It looks like there are lights on in all the sections but the back of the lower floor," Jack observed.

"Can we assume that that's where the Chameleon lived, then?" I asked, peering around Jack to get a good look at the house.

"It seems reasonable," Max agreed. "However, the other lights disturb me. We're going to have to be extremely careful not to attract the attention of the other residents."

"Another pass?" Joe asked.

"One more," Jack replied.

Joe obliged, swinging the Tank around another block to make another pass, heading west again. This time Jack had to peer around me to see. None of us commented on the way by. Joe took the Tank down to Battery Street again, then onto Main through increasingly thick traffic.

"Whose bright ideer was it t'do this at rush hour? And where're we goin' now, anyhow?" Joe asked, swerving around a little Chrysler-Nissan. It sometimes amazes me how many people are willing to cut off a two thousand kilo Suburban with a four hundred kilo econobox.

"It is Sunday, fortunately, and not a weekday," Max observed.

Joe grunted. "I don't come here at rush hour on weekdays. Anyone got any suggestions 'bout where we're goin' now?"

"How about supper?" Jack asked.

"Good ideer," Joe answered. "Where? 'Plex food court's handy."

"Tom says it's expensive," Jack said, grinning.

"Expensive for grease, I said," I corrected, drawn from thoughts of lights, neighbors, and infiltration by the sound of my name.

"Well, I can't say's th' food's great," Joe said. "But ya get more food fer yer money than y'do at the joints at th' south enda th' Marketplace."

"Well, where's the cheap grease, then?" Jack asked.

"Mickey Dee's," I replied.

"Ugh. That's not even real nutrasoy. Let's go with the food court," she shuddered.

Joe herded the Tank back up into the parking garage. He parked her on the first floor - there were plenty of empty spaces now that most of the day-shoppers had left. As we headed across the garage, I caught sight of a human figure lounging against the wall, smoking a cigarette. He was dressed in torn jeans and a black leather jacket with a snaky shape outlined in red on each shoulder. His hair, at least the part that hadn't been shaved off, was green and spiky. I could see our reflection in his shades.

I nudged Jack. "Black Naga," I whispered to her.

She eyed the ganger. "Probably a little tougher to intimidate than rat-boy was," she whispered back.

As we filed out into the wet alleyway, the Naga flicked his cigarette into a puddle and threw a leg over a bike that waited nearby. He started it, cranked the throttle, and sped away.

As we crossed Church Street in the rain, the thought that had been nagging at the back of my brain pushed its way to the front. I turned it over once more in my head, then brought it out into the open. "I've been thinking," I said, "about the little task we've got ahead of us."

"Oh? Have you a suggestion?" Max asked.

"Maybe," I replied. "We want to avoid being spotted and avoid attracting the neighbors' attention. I don't know about you, Jack, but the rest of us aren't exactly cat burglars. We're bound to make some sort of noise."

"I have to admit, breaking and entering isn't one of my talents," Jack responded. "Are you saying you think it's too risky?"

I shrugged. "It seems to be necessary. But there's no point in taking unnecessary risks."

Max looked confused. "You just said it was necessary," he pointed out.

"The deed is necessary, all of the risks aren't," I attempted to clarify, then, seeing that Max still didn't quite follow, I skipped the matter. We slipped through the crowd by the Complex doors and headed down to the second level.

"Anyway," I said, as we climbed onto the escalator, "if we were to wait until everyone in the house goes to bed, there won't be much risk of them spotting us, and minimal risk of people going by."

"Well, obviously," Joe drawled.

"No, let me finish. If we do it just after they've gone to bed, they may just think that some of their neighbors are still up and about, if we do make any noise."

A slow smile spread across Jack's face. "That's devious," she said. "Where'd you come up with that?"

I blushed and shrugged.

"Sounds like a plan," Joe observed. "We wait outside 'til all th' lights go out, then make our move?"

I nodded. We reached the food court level of the Complex and spread out to the various booths to get our dinners.