Cyberpunk

surveillance mod of my iView. While my idle flops was doing facial recog on everyone within visual range, I had nothing else to do but wander around the RPC Sophie had sent me and try not to look too conspicuous.
    B-R had a nasty habit of enforcing their Minimum Transaction Requirement. I couldn’t keep buying ice cream if I was going to stay on-site; I’d have to upgrade to something a little pricier if I was going to be here long.
    “Do you have a favorite color?” I asked the void in my head, hoping—contrary to what it felt like—that she was still listening. I looked at a row of earrings, most of which were single-stone settings and astronomically priced. “Orange, perhaps,” I tried.
    “Vermilion,” she corrected, her voice rising out of the vacuum.
    “Okay, vermilion. That’s a start.” I cast about for something that matched the color shard I summoned in my internal display. “Like your shoes,” I remembered. “From when we met at Starbucks.”
    “I’m not wearing them right now,” she said, using the other voice, the one I liked.
    “No, I don’t suppose—”
    “I’m not wearing anything.”
    “Oh,” I said. I wet my lips. “I’d like objective verification of that data point, please.” I wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this, so I thought I’d proceed cautiously.
    My mail icon chimed, and then irised into an image. We were fuzzy, but the pair of octopi getting it on in the background were digitally sharp.
    I sighed and blinked the image away. She was gone again, leaving me with just the fuzzy suggestion of the two of us together.
    Still mad , I figured.
    I was spared further attempts to get her attention as well as getting squeezed by the Emporium 31 MTR by a different tone in my iView.
    Facial recog had a hit.
    Hammurabi Kip Sandeesh waited for me at the uprise to his domicile. We rode up silently, both staring out at the cluttered landscape. The surface of the planet above us was still dark, the weak light of cycleflip just starting to crease the distant curve.
    “Tea?” he asked as we entered the austere family chamber. Unlike Sophie’s place (or mine, for that matter), Hammurabi had two rooms, and I didn’t disguise my interest in the second room.
    “Sure,” I said as I wandered over to the portal and glanced inside. Worktable with a few exploded tools on it. Couple of antique-looking terminals and a few holograms of exotic plant life projected into the corners. I didn’t have a chance to look at the terminals more closely before he returned from the iToaster station.
    “Soy?” he asked. He was carrying a tray with two small cups—also antiques—and a conDispenser.
    “Black is fine,” I said.
    He set the tray down on the low table between the two lacquered chairs and indicated I should sit. I did so, and watched him as he modded his tea. Pure-looking kid, no outward signs of plugs or rips. Kind face too, with quick and restless eyes. Not like he was chemical, but rather that he found everything interesting.
    He lifted his teacup in a tiny salute. “I’m glad you found me, Person Semper Dimialos,” he said.
    “It wasn’t terribly hard once I thought about it,” I said. “Please, Max,” I added.
    Hammurabi nodded. “My grandfather said that the best way to get a Theorist’s attention was to make him think. He would have liked you, I think, had things been different.”
    “I’m sorry for your loss.” With nothing else to add, I sipped from my tea. It was real leaf, and I savored the flavor for a few fractions, waiting for Hammurabi to tell me why I was here.
    He got to it eventually. “How many boxes did you receive?” he asked.
    “Three, but I know there are more coming.”
    “A dozen more,” he said. “The rest are to distract your Enforcement Directorate and to confound your CEO.”
    “I’m sure they will,” I said. “But to what end?”
    He picked up a small plate that had a tiny dark square on it. “Try the sweetmeat.”
    “No, thank you,” I said. “The tea is plenty.”
    “Please.” He gave me a look that was so earnest it almost broke my heart, and would have if theory-brain hadn’t latched onto the intensity of his gaze. Something familiar there.
    I picked up the small piece of candy and popped it in my mouth. Its data payload was enormous, and I gasped as the upload threatened to overwhelm my buffers. After a few fractions, I could crest the data stream and skim the header waves.
    “Oh, my,” I said as an