I twisted and stretched out one trembling arm for the manhole cover. Almost… almost… with sweat running into my eyes, I gathered myself for one final effort when there was a scrape from above. I froze, swiveling just my eyeballs up to look. The manhole shifted, then tore away, revealing the dark blue night sky. A pale and ridiculously genial face, hidden behind fashionable sunglasses, appeared over the rim. I stared in complete speechless shock.

“Come on,” Dick Marin said. “I’ll pull you up. I don’t have all day; I’m about to deliver a speech to A-Level SSF chiefs in Sydney.”

XV

CONSIDER THIS YOUR HEALTH PROGRAM

I stared up at Marin, my whole body quivering with effort. His pale face disappeared, and a sturdy-looking rope slithered down toward me.

“Come on. I’ll pull you up.”

The splashing and shouting of Moje and his Stormers straightened itself out-they were on my trail again and getting closer. Probably using heat-tracking goggles: I only had a few seconds. I stared at Marin’s rope in disbelief. What the fuck is the King Worm doing in Newark? How does he think he’s going to pull me up?

“Cates! Come on! I don’t have time for your existential bullshit.”

I shivered, shaking off inaction. I reached up with my free hand and took hold of the rope. It felt oddly slippery and surprisingly strong. I looked back the way I’d come, Moje and his men so loud I couldn’t believe they hadn’t arrived yet, the acoustics of the sewers making them sound much closer than they were. I wrapped the rope around my forearm a few times and gripped it, giving it a strong pull to judge it, and looked back up at the director of SSF Internal Affairs.

“Whatever you’ve got up your-”

Marin pulled with a grunt, lifting me off my feet. To my amazement, I rose steadily upward. Within seconds I flopped on the damp, ruined streets of Newark again. I looked up at Marin. He stood grinning in an ObFu Kit; my eyes ached looking at him. The ObFu shimmered in the night, his head seeming to float disembodied in the air.

He had a length of cable wrapped around his waist. My eyes moved beyond him, where a shining, unmarked SSF hover sat on the street, running lights still on. The cable led to a winch on the rear of the hover. The motherfucker had simply used the winch to pull himself-and by extension, me-away from the manhole.

I released my grip on the cable as he untied himself with a quick motion, and the cable snapped back as the winch collected the slack. “Come on, Mr. Cates. Your friends won’t get out of the sewers for a few moments, and I’d rather not be seen here. I’ll give you a lift.”

Without waiting for a response, Marin turned smartly and marched back to the hover. I lay panting in the mud and rocks, wet up to my shoulders, bowels loose and legs shaky. Without exaggeration, I figured if I hadn’t been able to push up the manhole and pull myself up, I’d been about fifteen seconds away from death. I might have gotten one of the Stormers, maybe even two in an incredible burst of luck. But I’d never have gotten two Stormers and Moje.

“What about Moje?” I gasped, pushing myself up to my knees.

“I do not personally worry too much about Colonel Moje. Get in. It’s better for me politically if I’m not seen here, and it’ll enhance your reputation.”

I struggled to my feet and walked shakily to the hover, betting on Moje’s not having an easy way up out of the sewers. It was a small vehicle, big enough for two or three people and some gear. I climbed into the cockpit next to Marin and the doors sealed behind me. The inside was spotless, painfully clean.I sat dripping and reeking and felt angry at myself for soiling something so perfect, so beautiful.

Marin put the hover into motion and we rose into the air like a bubble. I barely felt anything. The SSF always had the best tech. Kieth might sneer at it for being two years out of date, but the endless supply of spotless, perfectly working tech the SSF had was awesome, beautiful in its perfection after the rusty, cobbled-together shit I had to make do with. Looking at the hover was like squinting into the sun of power and wealth.

“Where to, Cates? Anywhere in the general area. This unit won’t take us cross-country or over large bodies of water, but within reason I can take you anywhere.”

I looked at him. Marin cocked his head as if listening to someone in the rear seat, and then smiled, one of his sudden grins. One second he was squinting into space, the next he was beaming.

“Cates, you’re an employee of mine, more or less. I told you I’d be keeping tabs and helping out where I could. That arrogant fuck Moje is lazy, and he uses SSF channels to organize his team for his superlegal adventures. I happened to be within a hop skip and a jump of here, so I thought I’d glance in on things. And down there your heat signature was like a bright light moving underground, so I just tracked you until you were underfoot. No mystery. Besides, several of the other assets I’ve put in play on this project have already been terminated. Sloppy work, mostly.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye for a second, and I got the message: Getting trapped in the goddamn sewers of Newark, of all places, was pretty sloppy, too. “So I thought I’d preserve you to fight another day.”

I gritted my teeth. “I was seconds away from extricating myself without assistance.”

Marin grinned. “You’re welcome.” Without warning his face became grave again. “Two Stormers, huh? Not bad.”

“Lucky shots,” I said tiredly. “ObFu doesn’t help if you’re splashing around.”

Inside the hover it was easier to make out the outlines of Marin’s body, though a casual glance made it look like his head and hands were floating.

“Where to, then?”

I thought about it. I was on my own until I could get the team back together in London-assuming they made it that far-and I had no prospects or contacts in Newark. “Back to New York, I guess,” I said slowly. “Moje is here and will probably spend at least a few hours making sure I’m not around. Plus all my best contacts are in New York.”

A few more seconds than I thought natural went by before he nodded in stages, curtly and jerkily. “New York it is,” he stuttered, as if everything were coming to him in waves. I wondered if Marin were having a stroke, and eyed the controls of the hover nervously.

I swallowed. “Thank you.”

After a moment, he snorted. “Like I said, you’re an employee. Consider this your Health Program.”

I stared dumbly out the side window, watching what was left of Newark drift by. Health Program. You couldn’t even get near a hospital without one. If you were rich enough or lucky enough or something enough to get enrolled in one, they surgically implanted a chip under your scalp. Every hospital and doctor scanned for chips on a constant basis, and if you didn’t scan with one, you didn’t get near. Some of the best-defended places in New York were hospitals, with private armies keeping people like me away. Gutshot by some asshole junkie, sliced by our psychotic, alcoholic wife, or just slipped and fell, shattering a shoulder, it didn’t matter. No chip, no service.

There was, of course, a thriving black market for the chips. The real pros kept the true owner of the chip prisoner, hidden, alive or-better-dead, in order to prolong the life of the chip, which was naturally red-flagged when its registered owner turned up dead, or was found by the SSF with a cracked skull and a surgical scar. Even so, you could make a lot of money with nonguaranteed chips whose legit owners were still alive and on the loose. Desperate times, and all that.

“I have some news for you, Cates,” Marin said suddenly.

“News?”