But he'd known it wouldn't come cheap. So he started dabbling in afew alternative vocations on the side to augment his income. Smuggling, mainly,under an alias: G.M. Shue. So witty. And with the credits heaccumulated, he started making connections, the kind money could buy andreputation could keep. He delivered what he promised and expected the same inreturn, and he always got what he paid for.
After placing the highest bid in a live Link auction, he wasfinally connected with the Peddler, someone he'd only heard of—by reputation,of course. Muldoon had presented himself as the middleman, representing a verywealthy investor. Word couldn't get around that a private investigator wasamassing so many credits, after all. The government would want a piece of thepie, and then Muldoon would never be able to afford the prize. The Peddler hadagreed to meet in HellTown for the exchange, and the rest, as they say, washistory.
Muldoon frowned at the watch. An eccentric inventor's clever disguisefor the greatest invention of all time? Or the Peddler's idea of a joke?
"Destination," the computer droned.
Muldoon glanced out the window. There it was, in all itsindustrial splendor: the Hancock Building, one hundred twenty floors straightup. A tribute to function over form.
"Park or idle?"
"You figure it out." Muldoon unbuckled his harness andducked out under the rising door.
"Invalid command."
"Deal with it, Oscar."
Had the new name stuck? Maybe. An image of Madame Mystery's eyesdrifted back through his mind. "Oscar and I go way back," she'd said.
I was your wife—in another life...
He shook his head as he entered the lobby.
"Good morning, Mr. Muldoon." The SYN security guardraised its hand awkwardly and forced a fake smile. Everything about thesecreatures was fake. Genetically engineered life. Sacrilege taken to a whole newlevel, in the eyes of some. Synthetics created by synners.
But Muldoon returned the gesture. SYNs were almost human, more orless.
He passed the lifts and headed straight for the stairwell. Heneeded to get his blood pumping, and this was the best way he knew how. Itusually took him a little over two minutes on a good day. Today, it took himthree.
A bit winded as he shoved open the door to the twelfth floor, heentered the silent hallway and glanced at the watch again. Almost six in themorning. Nobody else would be in yet—except for Jeannie, of course. His AIassistant was nothing if not punctual.
He passed the doors of his neighboring offices, each with frostedglass painted in bold lettering below their logos. An insurance company sporteda winding road. A travel agent had hot air balloons. Muldoon kept it simple:HAROLD MULDOON, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.
But the door wasn't how he'd left it. It stood slightly ajar.
He slowed his approach and reached into his coat, performingmental math. Three shots fired at the white samurai. That leftthree pulse rounds in the chambers of his revolver. He gripped it as he nudgedthe door open the rest of the way and looked inside. No signs of forced entry.
"Jeannie?" Silence dampened his voice. He waited,listening. Had he just forgotten to lock up? In too much of a hurry to meet thePeddler out in HellTown? "Jeannie, lights on."
Nothing. It remained dark—
So dark he didn't see the flash of white or the steel blade plungeinto his chest and out through the middle of his back, withdrawing just asquickly. He fell to his hands and knees as if replaying the scene at the trainstation. Only now he stared mutely as blood gushed forth onto the industrialcarpet.
The white samurai wiped his blade clean across the floor andtucked it into a drooping sleeve of his robe, its chest marred by the blackburn of a pulse round.
TWO
Now: 2176
White rain cascaded onto black streets and shimmered in themoonlight, collecting in pools to reflect hundreds of square windows fromskyscrapers above. Curvaceous sedans and sleek coupes splashed throughintermittently, but any disruption in the rippled mirror below them was hardlynoticed. Black umbrellas bobbed along slick sidewalks and hid grey faces,protecting well-kept hair from the elements as quick, sure steps carried thosewho looked like real men and women along their way.
Pairs gestured and waved at taxicabs that splashed past, and onoccasion, one would pull to the curb, cutting off the automobile behind it witha blaring horn. Gratefully, the pair would enter the cab and shake umbrellasoutside before shutting the side door. And the cab would reenter traffic withanother splash and another honking horn from another impatient automobilebehind it. AI drivers could display irritation almost as well as humans.
He watched.
The pattern repeated itself with very little variation.Differences were minute, few and far between. At some moments in time, the rainfell harder, heavier, making its presence known. At others, more automobilescongest the street. But the umbrellas came and went without regard to theseslight variations, along with the pairs of well-dressed couples and taxicabsthat carried them to their common destination:
The Pearl.
The most popular spot in all of NewCity, a club where drinking anddancing were an evening ritual that extended all through the night. The ownerwanted everyone who entered to check their problems at the door with theircoats and enjoy all that The Pearl had to offer.
It was a place to savor life. A place to feel human.
The boy standing in the shadows across the street blinked away therain as he watched his stoop-shouldered father dodge automobiles and ignoreirritable horns. The old man charged headlong onto the sidewalk without an umbrella and stood there fora moment, swaying, facing the bright lights of The Pearl.
Curious frowns were cast his way by those who passed, bumping intohim. They ambled toward the long line waiting to enter the nightclub. Theywere the regulars. This was their home away from home. Their umbrellasprotected him briefly, and as
