I showed him my empty palms. "Chummer," I said quietly, "I haven't got a fragging clue what you're talking about."

"Of course you don't, of course you don't," Quinn said patronizingly, and he laughed again. "And of course you don't know that the game is up," he went on sarcastically. "You don't know that your cover's blown, and that you're wasting your time. I've seen to that, you know. You really should tell your master that." I saw his gaze flick down to my deputy badge, saw his expression change subtly. "Both your masters," he amended.

Before I could speak, he turned away with a final, "Well, good day to you, makkaherinit."

"Hey, just a fragging moment," I called after him.

Or that's what I tried to call after him, at least. I tried to draw breath… and couldn't. I tried to move… and couldn't. I tried to blink my fragging eyes… and couldn't.

Magic, obviously-a powerful paralysis spell. Harlech must have cast it on me to give himself walking-away time. That's what I guessed later, at least. At the moment there was only one thought running through my mind.

I was fragging paralyzed, and I was fragging terrified, Spirits, have you ever been paralyzed? Let me tell you it's not the way you think it'd be… or not the way I thought it'd be, at least. Maybe there are some kinds of paralysis spells that control only voluntary muscles, that leave the involuntary functions alone. Not this one. I couldn't breathe, in or out, and I couldn't even hear my pulse. Every muscle fiber in my body seemed frozen in the position it held when Harlech cast his spell or whatever it was.

I watched him stroll away; then he was out of my field of vision, and 1 couldn't move my eyes to follow him. I was stuck there, staring at some turf and a flowering tree-the tree was slightly out of focus, and I couldn't even focus my eyes-and I started wondering if that was the last sight I was ever going to see. The elf had implied that he didn't want me dead, which meant he'd eventually drop the spell… but soon enough? How good was his estimate of the anoxia-tolerance of a thirty-something erstwhile shadowrunner who's not in the best of fragging shape? By the time he dropped the spell and my cardiovascular system got back on the job, how much of my brain would have suffocated? Not a pleasant thought…

My vision was starting to tunnel down, and little floaty stars were drifting around the dark periphery of my visual field. In growing desperation, I tried once more to draw a breath…

And fragged if it didn't work this time. I filled my lungs, a great whooping inhalation. (Who says orgasm is the best experience in the world? I'm here to tell you, chummer, it's breathing…) My heart kicked in, a triphammer beat in my ears. I fell to my hands and knees and just relished the sensations as my chest and diaphragm did what they were supposed to do. The little floaty stars and the black tunnel receded, and eventually the aftertaste of terror followed them. By the time I could think of anything beyond personal survival, the elf was gone without a trace.

16

I sat in the back of The Bus, morosely watching the assortment of (meta)humanity sharing the vehicle with me. Mostly working-class Hawai'ians, I figured, but mere was a significant minority of younger people I tentatively labeled as the kids of corp vacationers. (Did mummy and daddy suit know their little darlings were riding a fragging bus instead of cruising in a limo? Not that it mattered…) The "recently dead" look seemed to be back in fashion, with bleached skin, black-dyed hair, and makeup to give the eyes a sunken look. Anything that could be pierced was pierced. The only thing that set these pre-suits apart from sprawl guttertrash was the quality-and obvious expense-of their clothes. Oh, sure, they wore the de rigueur biker jackets and weathered jeans. But their jackets were real leather, not synth, and they'd obviously bought their jeans prefaded and preslashed.

And then there were the T-shirts and sweatshirts they wore under their jackets-emblazoned with logos from fashionable corps. I don't know jack about fashion, really, but I do know how much a trendy label adds to the price of something. I sighed. In the grand scheme of things the only difference between cows and some people is that cows don't pay mega-cred to get branded. Maybe it's time to cack us all and give the cockroaches their shot…

It was continuing to be one of those days, all in all. Through no fault of my own, I'd gotten myself mixed up in the affairs of kings, corps, and dracoforms. I'd witnessed an assassination, I'd been shot at repeatedly, and I'd almost asphyxiated under a paralysis spell. And the day wasn't even over.

It was Miller time with a vengeance. Of all the things I could think of, what I most wanted right at that moment was to head back to my doss, flop down on the bed, and watch eyelid movies for twenty-four hours. Maybe by the time I woke up again, things would have started looking a little better.

Problem: I didn't have a doss at the moment. Or, more correctly-I had two dosses, but they were about as compromised as it's possible to get. Maybe I should just head on back to the Iolani Palace, ask for political asylum, and throw myself on the mercy of the Ali'i. Maybe King Kamehameha V needed a haole courtier or a eunuch or some damn thing.

Sitting there in the back of The Bus, I scanned through the memory of my pocket 'puter. I still had a couple of aliases stashed away in the little box's optical chips. They were all on a par with the one I hadn't needed to check into the Ilima Joy: good enough for low-level, routine drek, but certain suicide if I tried to travel on them.

I tried to think back to when I'd snagged the Ilima Joy room. Had I used one of those aliases? I knew that the desk clerk hadn't asked me for ID, but…

But didn't the credstick with which I'd paid have an ident stored on it, just in case? I thought so. Okay, so assume that ident-"Emory Archambault"-was compromised. Quickly, I set myself up another "blind" credstick, this time under the name "Mike Bloemhard." When that was done-a matter of minutes-I started watching The Bus stops and figuring out exactly where I was.

Two transfers and twenty minutes later, I was in a Bus rolling northwest on Highway 99. When I hit Pearl City- older than Ewa, apparently, but better maintained-I swung down off The Bus and started trolling the backstreets for a place to flop. In the west another perfect sunset was burning its way down behind the skyline. Tropical twilight is always short, and maybe ten minutes later the streetlights were coming on to hold back the night.

Maybe Pearl City hadn't been such a good bet, I started thinking after another half hour or so. All the hotels I'd found, even the ones well off the beaten track, were surprisingly high-tone. Sure, they were old, but they'd been seriously gentrified, like the New Ritz Hotel in Seattle, using their age as a selling point instead of a drawback. Typically, places that invested that much cred into the physical facilities wouldn't have scrimped on the electronic side, either. It wouldn't take much in the way of data back-checking to figure out that "Mike Bloemhard" was as much a fiction as "Neil the Ork Barbarian." For a moment I debated hopping The Bus back to Ewa-at least I knew I could find some sleazy flops there-but quickly discarded the idea. If Kat and her little friends had bugged my bike, it just wasn't a reasonable risk to go anywhere near where I'd dumped the Suzuki. So I walked on.

I must have been tired-that's the only excuse I can come up with-tired and emotionally battered. Otherwise, I like to think I'd have noticed the Renault-Fiat Eurovan creeping up on me a little sooner.

The puke green van was no more than ten meters away when my cerebral cortex finally got with the program and tagged it as something to be concerned about. Just in time, too. In my peripheral vision I saw the passenger-side window roll down and spotted the movement inside the cab. Reflexes kicked in, and I flung myself to the sidewalk.