Fugu

Marty fingered the software module in the left pocket of his Mao jacket and felt like the luckiest guy in the world. It was hardloaded with the hottest bootleg headware in town. He had the money and the connection, but the factors hadn't come together until tonight. He grinned. In a way, he was lucky.

He barreled through the first set of doors into the needle skyscraper. Sporting studded boots and a low slung, lime green fauxhawk, he looked like any other street hood, but the security sensors registered an above average student from the forty-eighth floor with an R&D department head for a mother and an accomplished jingle writer for a father.

He passed through the second set of doors and thumbed the elevator button several times in an atavistic attempt to make it hurry.

The elevator opened into a Friday night cocktail party. Judging from the boisterous atmosphere and all of the suits, it was not his father's wine and philosophy crowd. He looked for a seam in the throng like an all-star fullback and tried to push through.

A tipsy hand fell on his shoulder. Glasses teetered on the drunk's nose and a clip-on tie flopped outside the confines of the cheap suit like an untended dog leash.

He might be any of his mother's middle-aged whiz kids or one of their dates from accounting, Marty couldn't tell the difference. He retreated a step just in case this guy got too gropey or tried that "Atta boy!", ruffle-the-hair nonsense.

"Martin, my boy, you're certainly growing up."

"Yeah, kids tend to do that." Marty replied.

The drunk shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to another while he wrestled with the riddle. "Do what?"

Marty capitalized on the confusion and exploited another break between unstable drink holders chattering about office politics. He slanted toward the edge of the room and slid past Japanese vases perched on mahogany coffee tables.

He neared the edge of the party and picked up the pace into the hallway. He willed the bathroom door to stay closed. The last thing he needed was some corporate lackey staggering out. Someone without enough faculty to tuck their shirt in all the way, but enough wherewithal to figure out who his mother was and subject Marty to a slurred bout of second-hand schmoozing for a promotion.

The hallway stayed dark and unoccupied. He slapped the ID pad for his room and bolted inside. The door slid closed and severed the muffled party sounds drifting down the hallway. Marty pulled off his jacket and sighed. He retrieved the headware module from his pocket and tossed the jacket on the floor.

He rummaged through the drawers in his night stand and pulled out a headware rig. A practiced motion inserted the slender metallic plug into a spiking jack just aft of his right temple. The other end of the lead went into the playing case. The world rippled and slid while the jack slithered into contact.

Marty loaded the software module into the player and fidgeted into a mound of blankets trying to get comfortable. The recessed lighting in the room retreated into a dull glow. His right thumb found the "Play" button, and after a few moments of quiet static, his leg jerked in a myoclonic twitch. That happened with the best headware programs, but not so early in the routine. This one had to be good.

His whole body clenched. Hands clutched at the nap of the flannel blanket. The tendons in his neck protruded like tension wires. Neurotransmitters commingled through synapses, and the odor of burnt toast gusted through his skull. He went limp for a moment and then convulsed again. His lungs were full of air, but his brain commanded "Breathe." Spasms wracked his body and images blurred before his eyes. His body drooped into the blankets.

Outside, people stumbled and laughed. The party deflated, and guests trickled out, leaving assurances of the soiree's success behind. Marty's parents giggled and began picking up the trash while electronic reggae thumped from hidden speakers. They abandoned the task for some sloppy lovemaking almost in time to the island beat and then teetered off to bed.

Later that morning, Marty didn't come out for breakfast. They used parental overrides to access the door. His mother screamed. His father called the building manager. Field detectives recorded the scene. Paramedics carried Marty out in a bag.

"Hey Eddy, you here to analyze the crime scene? The goggles are right over there," Essie said.

Duarte searched her face for signs of mischief, but she was earnestly evaluating a half-dissembled piece of gear strewn over the tech bench. He ran this thumb along the lip of the bulky goggles and examined the black residue. He shook his head and pulled a rag out of one of the piles.

"Yeah, just looking at the crime scene," he said while wiping away the carbon powder. Last time she offered him goggles, he spent half a day looking like a weird raccoon. He slid the restraining band over his black, wiry hair and brought up the file for "Feldman, Martin aka, Marty."

Duarte scanned the virtual display and selected "Domicile. Personal habitation." Empty food wrappers strewn along a shelf. An overturned shoe lay on the floor.

Essie's disembodied voice wove through. "You really ought to get spiked so you don't need goggles, the precinct will pay for it."

He panned across a bed covered with a teenager's mess and scanned the corpse nestled in the middle of it. "You aren't spiked."

"Yes, but I don't have to look at virtual crime scenes."

Duarte never figured out where their conversations were headed, but he found himself on the short end of most of them. He flipped the view into a reverse angle and studied the walls. Flyers for local bands, pictures of friends and girls in a jumbled collage, an academic award partially obscured by the poster of a mouse holding up an obscene gesture to a swooping eagle. The caption read, "DEFIANCE."

Duarte pried off the goggles and broke the sweaty seal formed when flesh meets rubber. A rush of cool air brushed across his face. The tech lab swum back into focus, and Duarte found himself staring at the top of Essie's spiky, blonde flattop. She was way too close. He stepped back, and the edge of the workbench collided with his back right around the kidneys.

Her face shot up in practiced surprise. "Did I startle you?"

Duarte reached around and rubbed the impending bruise. "Got anything good?"

She whipped around, and a blonde rattail spun with centripetal force before settling down between her shoulder blades as she walked away. "I always have something good for you, Eddy." She fanned through a stack of printouts and handed a sheaf of them over.

Duarte browsed the information. Building entries, exits, transactions, attendance records. There. At 22:38, Marty bought lithium batteries, neon mascara, and jars of salmon at the mall. Everything was easy to carry - and easy to trade on the black market.

Later, the lobby registered an arrival at 23:17, a twenty minute walk that took forty-nine minutes. None of the items were scanned by the sensors or turned up on the apartment inventory.

A grin twinkled across Essie's face. "Is that what you were looking for?"

Duarte did not like the way she flirted. She was ten years younger and teasing him. But he didn't hate it either. "Close enough."

"Oh, then you are going to love this." The white lab coat billowed behind her as she navigated through the tech benches.

"This was his deck, and this was the headware he was running."

She slid the module into the deck and hit "Play." Thin red lines jagged across the screen, and she tickled the controls until they reconciled into four distinct lines. She punched several buttons, and a faint green band appeared behind each one.

Duarte pointed towards the scarlet lines undulating across the display, "Are you saying that killed him?"

She bit her lower lip. "Um, no. The signal stays within parameter the whole way. You can see here and here," her finger danced across the scope, "where it spikes a little, but it is basically a nominal signal." Essie turned and shrugged her shoulders. "I have run it eight times. I used his rig to run lab software, and a lab deck to run his software. No significant change."

"Do you have a match on the glancer who made the program?"

The bridge of her nose crinkled, and her mouth curled into a small frown. "I have a partial for Elvin Bowles, an old time hotshot out of Core-Teks, but he hasn't put anything out for years. Rumor had it he was either completing his neural masterpiece on the beaches of Fiji, or he lost his mind."

Duarte arched an eyebrow. "Well?"

"He shares a current address on the West Side with Martha Bowles - his mother."

"So, we're going with insane?"

"Oh Eddy, you are so clever." Essie treated him to an outrageous display of batting eyelashes. "That must be why they made you detective."

"They said it was for my people skills." Duarte paused. "Is that all you have?"

Essie cocked her head to the side. "Are you asking for more?"

Duarte shook his head. "Well?"

"The module casing indicates manufacture in either Malaysia or Israel. Stock. But the compression algorithms for the data are distinct, also Core-Teks."

Essie popped open the headware rig and pulled out a matte black module. "Look, Eddy." She slowly rocked it between her fingers. When the angle was just right, the barely recessed lettering, "FUGU", appeared.

Marty made eleven, eleven kids from suburban skyscrapers messing with bootleg software and ending up DOA, but the first in his jurisdiction. He had coincidence in one hand and nothing in the other, might as well put a call in to Core-Teks.

"I don't know why you are sniffing around here, wasn't it bootleg software?" Gwen Jensen's brisk demeanor befitted an up-and-coming Core-Teks executive. From the mint green business suit to her practiced handshake, she was a thorough pain in the ass.

Between a stint in the lobby and ten minutes in her office, Duarte had waited almost forty-five minutes for the appointment to commence. The guest chair squatted close to the ground. The top of her face was barely visible over a nameplate with gilded lettering. "Director of Purchasing." She towered above him in her leather, high backed throne.

Her bodyguard had hovered over him during the entire wait. When Duarte got comfortable, the bodyguard would urge him to "Relax, it will only be a few more minutes." The fabric of his designer suit rippled between ivory and dark tangerine like whole milk and orange juice slowly stirring together in a vat. He moved naturally enough, but the slight hesitation and overshoot at the end of his gestures gave him away. This professional thug was jacked to the gills with bionic enhancements. Between his wraparound sunglasses and smug grin, he was an ass too.

"I only have a few routine questions-"

Gwen cut him off. "Do you realize how much money could be lost while I am sitting here answering your routine questions?"

Duarte glanced at the bodyguard and then back at Gwen. "Enough to buy him some decent clothes?"

"I don't appreciate your humor, and technically you work for me."

Duarte worked for the police, and his precinct worked for the corporations. Corporations are made of people, and she seemed to be a person. Technically, she was right, but the conversation was going nowhere. "Does Elvin Bowles or fugu mean anything to you?"

Gwen flinched and lifted an ornate pen off the desk. She fumbled with it before thrusting the pen into its holder. "If you have a point, please make it."

"Aren't you in charge of purchasing the blank software modules used in fabricating headware?"

"I am in charge of purchasing a lot of things." She leaned forward and tapped the title placard. She leaned back and relaxed into her chair. "I haven't done anything wrong." Gwen looked over Duarte's shoulder.

The bodyguard steered the back of the guest chair until Duarte was facing the door. The sleeve of a designer suit extended and pointed towards the exit.

Duarte stood up and took his cue. In his line of work, when people made a point of saying they hadn't done anything, they often had. The direct approach hadn't worked. He needed an oblique opening to get to the bottom of this.

Muted grays and deep reds sped past the windows of the monorail. After a few minutes, the colors of the city gave way to the vibrant greens and natural yellows of the suburban enclaves. It seemed odd to Duarte, stacking people into supercities and reclaiming a pastoral countryside most of them would never enjoy. He had marveled at the lush rain forests of Guatemala, the quiet desert of Oman, and dozens of other places. But he had always seen them through the sights of a rifle or immediately prior to radioing in an air strike. Now, he preferred the city.

Gwen hadn't give Duarte the answers he was looking for. That was generous. She hadn't given him any answers at all. Goddard was a sister company of Core-Teks, and they used the modules too.

The monorail hummed along the track until the fertile continuity of an alderwood forest revealed an enormous tan block. Long black shutters stretched across the length of the bio-production facility. They maximized energy collection and tracked across the sky like sunflowers during the course of the day. The monorail stopped and spilled out lab techs in color coded overcoats and minor executives with briefcases wearing overly expensive shoes.

Light fixtures lined the stone walkway like an honor guard. Everyone bustled towards expansive glass doors on their way to assessment meetings and strategic briefs. Monolithic letters spelling out "Goddard Tissue Fabrication" broke up the utilitarian luxury of the building's massive facade.

Duarte went inside.

An engineer in a teal overcoat loped across the foyer with a clumsy exuberance most people left behind a few years after puberty. He flipped through a clipboard and stuck out an eager hand. "Are you Officer Duarte Rollins?"

Duarte subjected his hand to an animated handshake. "Are you Timothy Horn?"

"Timothy?" He turned and beckoned towards a set of restricted double doors. "Call me Tim."

Mezzanine walkways ringed a manufacturing floor filled with transparent, upright cases. Behind the plexi-glass, hundreds of chicken hindquarters were skewered by metallic rods. Plastic tubing pumped nutrients and plasma to the disembodied limbs or carried toxins away. On some unseen cue, the legs flexed and relaxed.

"They have to be exercised. Otherwise the meat turns out spongy," Tim said.

Duarte nodded in comprehension. When you picked up a glistening piece of "Jeb Burkett's Down Home Fried Chicken", this is where it all began. The legs jerked again, and Duarte's stomach followed suit. "Where do you get the software modules controlling all of this?"

"Manufacturing rejects, throwaways from other processes in our sister corporations."

"You use rejects?"

Tim nodded. "As long as the circuitry is usable, we don't worry about defective casings. Everything is shielded in the control room."

Duarte followed Tim past more twitching legs and fluttering, featherless wings. Tim stopped and checked off items on the clipboard. Lumps of muscles the size of both a man's fists contracted on themselves and then released.

"Those are Jersey Giants. Like most commercial breeds, they were going extinct until we discovered a local farmer in Nova Scotia." Tim continued to the end of the walkway and went up a few metal steps. He swept his arm across several rows of cases lining the wall. "That is my masterpiece, Banaba, from the Philippines."

Tim continued up the stairway. "With traditional tissue generation, everyone raised Cornish Cross because they matured quickly. Packed wing-to-wing in mesh cages. Pumped full of hormones and claw deep in their own feces. Unthinkable."

It made sense to Duarte. When an enterprise started with both feet in feces, there would be crappy footprints all the way to the end product.

Tim swiped a passcard for the control room. "But now we can dismiss factors like growth speeds or cannibalism, and offer our customers true variety." He held the door open and Duarte walked inside. Three walls were white and featureless. The fourth held computers and control displays hunched under a bay window.

A shelf of plastic canisters contained a jumble of modules with the organization of a fishbowl lottery. Handwritten tags were taped to each case. "R.I. Red", "Cubalaya", "Wyandotte."

"What are you doing with these?" Duarte asked.

"Reprogramming the routines. We ran out of spares."

Duarte fished through a canister and noticed a predominance of Core-Teks logos in the upper left hand corner of the modules.

"When?"

"We started running out of spares a couple of months ago, but I think the shipments slowed down four or five months ago."

Duarte pushed the canister aside. "Is 'Fugu' a chicken breed?"

Timothy snorted, "I'm sorry, but fugu isn't even a type of bird," and broke into a huge grin, "It's sushi."

Essie swiveled an oversized chair away from a desk piled high with wiring, circuit boards and dog-eared paperbacks until she faced the doorway of the tech lab. The chair dwarfed her diminutive frame, but she was regent of this technological domain.

"I called, and you came." She raised her hands off of stuffing which jutted from the armrests and steepled fingers before her. "How charming."

Duarte shook his head. "Your message said you had something important."

She raised her eyebrows in lordly recognition and rose. Two module decks sat beside each other on the tech bench. Leads snaked to the corresponding displays. Essie spread her arms wide open. "Everything looks good, right?" The lines bumped and fluttered within the confines of the green parameters behind them. "On the screen, of course."

"Where did you get the other module?" Duarte asked.

"I am spending Thursday night at a poetry jam with some geek from precinct three-oh-two." Her eyebrows came together, and she locked Duarte's gaze with her own. "You owe me."

Duarte shrugged and looked away.

She held a rechargeable razor next to one of the decks and directed his attention to the display. When she flicked it on, the lines writhed, contorting across and off the scope. She wielded the razor over the decks like a conductor's baton, and the displays chimed in accordingly.

"I really don't want to know why you have one of those in the lab." Duarte said.

"A girl has to look her best for poetry jams." Essie used two fingers to massage Duarte just above the ear. "The spiking jack is typically here, for easy access to the optical nerve." She moved closer. Fingertips ran through his hair and all the way to the back of Duarte's head. "But the visual cortices for processing are back here." Her touch lingered just above the hairline.

The tech bench reminded Duarte of his bruise as he backed against it.

She smiled. "That is an awful lot of cerebral real estate to be agitating with a signal like that."

Duarte pulled her forearm down. "Why do you always do this?"

She cocked her head to one side. "Didn't you keep your couple's housing even after the divorce?"

"It is statistically cheaper. The precinct won't move me."

"One man," she pulled her forearm through his grasp, and softly gripped his hand, "living all alone, in a space built for two."

"Essie, I don't even know you that well."

Her eyebrows flew up. She stepped back. Her hand jerked away and rose to cover a dropping jaw.

"I just wanted to ask for some storage space."

"Uh, I, I didn't mean..."

She pulled a paper with Core-Teks letterhead from her lab jacket. She proffered it at arm's length to Duarte.

He fumbled with the paper. Damp splotches formed on the printout under his fingertips. "Really, Essie I..."

She grabbed her waist with both hands, stared at Duarte and waited for an explanation.

Duarte faltered and watched her march away. A few steps into it, she halted. An indignant jaw swiveled across her shoulder.

She winked.

According to the paper Essie had given him, this was the room. Six three, seven three. It was supposed to be an old storage space, but it had registered dozens of swipes over the last month. Gwen Jensen's security badge accounted for six of them.

Duarte fished out a visitor's card and hoped security had gotten the access right. The red diode on the swipe disappeared. The green diode winked on. The door clicked, and he stepped inside.

A glancer's chair reclined in the center of the room. Recording controls and mixing boards hung from overhead bars. Toggle switches and slide buttons sprung up from the armrests. The chair was jammed with gleaming, state-of-art attachments and definitely wasn't an old cast off.

The shelves were lined with software modules and dozens of prescription drug bottles. Several bottles had spilled over, and colored pills radiated from the point of impact. That much pharmaceutical help, mixed together in one system, might actually be hurting.

A pudgy figure hovered over the chair and nudged one control after another. The ragged edge of burgundy carpenter pants, complete with multiple loops and pockets, hung around his knees. Old stains appeared on a t-shirt when his dreadlocks swayed. Not really dreadlocks. Dreadlocks implied effort and care. This hair looked like it had once been collected into a ponytail and since forgotten. The man turned. A t-shirt stopped just above a hairy navel. A doe-eyed, vaguely marsupial creature held up its paws in supplication under the slogan "Save the Rennets".

The man goggled the badge on Duarte's uniform. "I am in trouble."

"No, I just wanted to ask some questions."

"This has nothing to do with you." The man shook his head three times and spit.

"Elvin?"

He stretched his neck and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "My mother calls me Elvin."

"Can I call you Elvin?"

Elvin scurried to the benches and selected one of the prescriptions. "Do you want to be my mother?" He tossed a pill in his mouth and chewed it with a grimace.

"Can you tell me about 'fugu', Elvin?"

His eyes lit up, and he clapped. "Yes, of course! Fugu is the room, and the room makes fugu. But I told her not to use it."

Duarte moved a bit closer, hoping to stay in Elvin's attention. "She, who? Gwen Jensen?"

"Oh yes, 'Don't use it'" I said. Karma makes the universe parallel, but she wouldn't listen." Elvin dropped his chin and lolled it from side-to-side. He popped back up and dashed over to Duarte. Elvin grabbed fistfuls Duarte's Kevlar jacket and thrust his face in close. "Twenty one is as good as three - if you break down the three. And six-twenty one, seven-twenty one makes for a delightful cipher." Elvin leaned closer. The Roman nose and fleshy lips at this proximity made Elvin look walleyed. Breath the odor of antiseptic and rotten bananas billowed out of his mouth. "And that cipher is why we are doomed."

Elvin released his hold and strode over to the glancer's chair. "No one can resist. Mitsugaro couldn't, and now he is dead." Hands flew over the controls and made adjustments.

Elvin stopped and folded his arms over his chest. His hand reached up and thoughtfully tapped his chin. Deft fingers adjusted slide switches on the Hando equalizer into perfect position. He grinned and nodded his head. "I think it is ready to go."

"Elvin, what is fugu?"

Elvin slowly turned his head and recognized Duarte. "It's pufferfish. People love it, but if prepared the wrong way - it can kill you." He sidled into the chair and made himself comfortable. "Is my FUGU killing people?"

Duarte nodded his head.

Elvin inserted plugs into the multiple jacks hidden beneath his greasy hair. "I told the greedy bitch not to use defective casings." He shook his head, and the wiring shuddered like a spider web. "But no one listens to me when I am not on medication."

He leaned back and closed his eyes. Muscle memory recalled the controls for fine tuning the process. Readouts flickered alive in response to input. The recording module softly hummed.

The door behind Duarte clicked open.

Gwen Jensen's voice caught him as turned. "You aren't supposed to be here."

Duarte turned and held up the visitor's badge. "It let me in."

"You aren't authorized."

"Technically, neither is he." Duarte jerked his thumb towards Elvin. "And you certainly aren't authorized to have a madman on the payroll pumping out bootleg headware."

"I was alerted to possible misuse of company assets. I came to investigate."

"I'll bet the signature on the checks will say different, if I can get Elvin to remember where they are."

Gwen's lips pursed. She hesitated for a moment and then snapped her fingers. "Radcliffe."

The bodyguard bounded in from the hallway and took up position in front of Gwen.

Duarte dropped back. He extended a fist in front of him and brought the other next to his cheek. Radcliffe? He was about to be pummeled by a Radcliffe?

Combat subroutines popped Radcliffe's arms and legs in the best kata for counterattack. His nostrils rhythmically flared, checking for prey.

A Phineas. The neural path through the pre-frontal cortex is longer than the one to the amygdala. A hand jerks off the stove before the brain acknowledges the pain. Circumventing the thinking part of the brain speeds up reflexes and awakens old predatory habits. The bodyguard could not smell any better, but he could not refrain from checking either. With his flight-or-fight response wired directly to a motor cortex full of combat software, he could thoughtlessly kill opponents in an instant.

But there were advantages in fighting an opponent who literally did not know what he was doing.

Duarte waited for the first punch. A punch Radcliffe would have to throw himself - without assistance from his software. He watched Radcliffe's eyes dart over the weak points on his body and telegraph his first strike.

Duarte ducked, and the punch went sailing high and right over his shoulder. His left hand clamped Radcliffe's wrist, and his right arm snaked around the elbow for leverage.

Radcliffe grunted in surprise, and beads of sweat popped up on his forehead when Duarte applied pressure.

A fist jabbed Duarte just above the waist. Duarte pushed down harder, but the joint refused to give.

Radcliffe yelped. The combat subroutines forced his legs into solid footing against the insistence of the arm lock. The yelp became an extended squeal when his free hand rose and drove into Duarte's side. Then again.

Duarte felt something crack, probably a rib, but the pain wasn't exactly localized. His grip on the submission hold loosened, and the captive arm wriggled free. He spun and backed up. He lifted his arms for protection, and each breath exacerbated the pain.

He feinted several times with his left, and watched Radcliffe suck wind through a frown while the damaged arm reflexively parried. He threw a few more jabs and smiled, kind of funny in a sadistic puppeteer sort of way.

A blistering left smacked Duarte in the cheekbone. Obviously, Radcliffe's combat software didn't get the joke.

Duarte retreated a few steps and lowered his arms to waist level. He faded a little to the left. He faced away from Radcliffe and towards Gwen.

Radcliffe's crisp stance softened.

"You killed people, Gwen."

She shook her head. "Unintentional manslaughter at best. The lawyers will drag it out for years."

"Not when the company freezes your assets over gross negligence and embezzlement."

Radcliffe massaged his elbow and glared at Duarte.

Gwen thrust out her chin. "I never stole-"

Duarte offhandedly jacked his arm and brought the back edge of his hand across the bridge of Radcliffe's nose. The meat of his palm connected with a soggy crack.

Blood sputtered from bodyguard's nostrils as he stooped over.

Duarte waited for the subroutines to kick in and override the natural reflexes.

Within moments, Radcliffe's hands left the bloody nose, and the bodyguard straightened up into a defensive posture. The instant before he settled in, Duarte rammed the base of his hand against the bodyguard's solar plexus. The designer suit was more than pretty, it was bulletproof, and Duarte felt the fabric stiffen upon impact. But it was designed to stop sharp projectiles - Duarte's blow hit him like the flat side of a shovel.

Air flushed out of Radliffe's lungs, and he bent over a second time.

Duarte spread this thumb and forefinger into a "V" and placed it on the back of Radcliffe's neck.

Pain, blood, and the pressure on the back of Radcliffe's neck flooded the artificial pathways to his motor cortex and assaulted primeval regions of his brain. The urge to submit to the alpha male drowned out software impulses.

"Call off your dog, Gwen." Duarte struggled to keep his hand in place. "Don't add murder to the list."

Her mouth tightened into a small pout. "The charges will disappear with your body."

Duarte shuffled back a little and drove the heel of his boot into Radcliffe's knee. The leg wobbled, but did not give. Carbon polymer reinforcements? Didn't matter, even augmented, the knee was still a weak point. Duarte kicked again and was rewarded with a splintering sound muffled by a scream. Radcliffe collapsed, and Duarte pinned both elbows under his knees, then wrapped a choke hold around the bodyguard's neck.

Gwen protested. "I can make you rich beyond your dreams."

Duarte tightened his grip, sealing off the flow of blood through the carotid arteries. "I dream of patrolling naked. I don't even have a wallet."

"We can make a deal." Gwen edged forward. "The modules were shipped before we even knew."

Duarte felt saliva dribbling down his arm and heard the sputters of the struggling bodyguard. Finally, Radcliffe's went limp.

Duarte studied the executive sitting on the other side of the booth. He was clean and shiny in his new suit and power tie.

His hair gave off a greasy sheen from the mousse.

Duarte broke the silence. "So, you aren't going to do anything to Gwen?"

"No, no. Her career is over, that I can assure you."

"But the homicides just go away." Duarte sipped his tea. It was hot and bitter.

"We won't stop you from prosecuting, after all, crimes have been committed. We just don't see the margin in it."

"You mean you can see the negative publicity from fraud and mismanagement. Especially when Core-Teks could be held liable for the lapses in security and internal controls that allowed it go on in the first place."

The executive straightened his tie and brushed the front on his suit with both hands. "So, you do see my point."

"Do you have any bio production facilities in South America?"

"I believe we are developing faunal tissue from goats in Belize."

Duarte thought about disembodied goat legs exercising in the tropical heat. He could almost see the perspiration stains on Gwen's mint green suit. He slid the paperwork across the table towards himself and looked for where the case officer was supposed to sign off. "Can I borrow your pen?"

D.H. Lei is a civil servant who resides in the Pacific Northwest. He lives with hiswife, daughter and two Shar Peis. He enjoys reading, writing, watching documentaries and playing pool.