"Some kind of jam-up in the net—I haven't got a thing but a see-you."

"Wonderful, both of us in the dark." The escalator let off on the lower level, down with the fast foods and the arcades and a bunch of ju-vies all antics and ass. "Get out of here," he snarled on Address, and ju-vies scattered through the cartoonscape. "Get upstairs!" he yelled, and some of them must have figured shooting was imminent, because they scattered doubletime, squealing and shoving. Bright blue down here with the pepperoni pizza and the beer and the popcorn, but that single red thread was still showing.

"Our boy's sweating hard," Ross said in one ear; and Sheila in the other: "We got a sudden flash in a security door, right down your way."

"Come on." Dave started to run. Ross matched him, a clatter of Cy-loprene soles on tile, godawful racket. The exit in question was flashing yellow ahead. A janitor gawked, pressed himself against the wall in a try at invisibility; but his presence was blue, neutral to the area.

"You see anybody go through?"

"Yeah, yeah, I saw him, young guy, took to the exit, I said he wasn't—" Supposed totrailed into the amped mike as they banged through the doors and into a concrete service hall.

"Sheila, you in with Ross?"

"Yeah. Both of you guys. I got a b&w following you, he's not meched, best I could do . . ." Red light strobed across his visor. WEAPONS ON, it said.

"Shit," he said, "Ross—" He stopped for a breath against the corridor wall, drew his gun and plugged it in. Ross must have an order too: she was plugging in. Somebody Downtown had got a fire warrant. Somebody had decided on a fire warrant next to a mall full of kids. Maybe because of the kids. "What's our make on this guy, Sheila? Tell me we got a make, please God, I don't like this, we got too many john-juniors out there."

"He's not in files."

"Off-worlder," Ross said.

"You know that?"

"If he's not in your files, he's from off-world. The Company is searching. They've got your readout."

"Shit, somebody get us info." The corridor was a moving, jolting wire-frame in the black. Nobody. Not a sign.

But the red was there, bright and clear. Sheila compressed several sections ahead on the wire-schema, folded things up close where he could get a look. There was a corner; he transviewed it, saw it heading to a service area. AIR SYSTEMS, the readout line said. "We got an air-conditioning unit up there, feed for the whole damn mall as best I guess . . . he's got cover."

"Yeah," Ross said. "I copy that."

"We're not getting any damn data," Sheila said in his other ear. "I'm asking again on that make, and we're not getting it. Delay. Delay. Delay. Ask if herkeyman's getting data."

"My keyman asks," he relayed, "if you've got data yet."

"Nothing new. I'm telling you, we're not priority, it's some little lovers' spat—"

"That what they're telling you?"

"Uh-uh. I don't know a thing more than you. But a male presence, female body up there . . . that's how it's going to wash out. It always does."

"Dave." Sheila's voice again, while their steps rang out of time on the concrete and the red track ran in front of them. She had a tone when there was trouble. "Butterflies, you hear?"

"Yeah. Copy." Sheila wasn't liking something. She wasn't liking it a lot. They reached the corner. The trail kept going, skirled in the currents from air ducts, glowing fainter in the gust from the dark. He folded the view tighter, looked ahead of them, didn't like the amount of cover ahead where they were going to come down stairs and across a catwalk. Something banged, echoed, and the lights went out.

Didn't bother a mech. Maybe it made the quarry feel better, but they were still seeing, all wire-display. He was right on Ross, Ross standing there like a haze in the ambience. Her rig scattered stuff you used in the dark. It was like standing next to a ghost. The Dallas PD couldn't afford rigs like that. Governments did. Some MarsCorp bigwig got shot and the Company lent a mech with this stuff?

Ross said. "IR. Don't trust the wire. Stay here."

"The hell."

Infrared blurred the wire-schema. But he brought his sensors up high-gain.

"No sonar," Ross said. "Cut it, dammit!"

"What the hell are we after?"

"There he is!"

He didn't half see. Just a blur, far across the dark. Ross burst ahead of him, onto the steps; he dived after, in a thunder the audios didn't damp fast enough.

"Dave." Sheila's voice again, very solemn. His ears were still ringing when they got to the bottom.

"Department's still got nothing. I never saw a jam this long . . . I never saw a rig like that." They kept moving, fast, not running, not walking. The mech beside him was Company or some government's issue, a MarsCorp exec was stone dead, and you could count the organized crazies that might have pulled that trigger. A random crazy, a lover—a secessionist. . .

"Lab's on it," Sheila said. "Dave, Dave, I want you to listen to me." He was moving forward. Sheila stopped talking as Ross moved around a bundle of conduits and motioned him to go down the other aisle, past the blowers. Listen, Sheila said, and said nothing. The link was feeding to Ross. He was sure of it. He could hear Sheila breathing, hard.

"Mustard," Sheila muttered. "Dave, was it mustard you wanted on that burger?" They'd never been in a situation like this, not knowing what was feeding elsewhere, not knowing whether Downtown was still secure with them on the line. "Yeah," he breathed. He hated the stuff. "Yeah. With onions."

Sheila said, "You got it." Ross started to move. He followed. The com was compromised. She'd asked was he worried, that was the mustard query. He stayed beside that ghost-glow, held to the catwalk rail with one hand, the other with the gun. The city gave you a fire warrant; and your finger had a button. But theirs overrode, some guy Downtown. Or Sheila did. You didn't know. You were a weapon, with a double safety, and you didn't know whether the damn thing was live, ever.

"Dave," Sheila said, totally different tone. "Dave. This Ross doesn't have a keyman. She's backpacked. Total. She's a security guy."

Total mech. You heard about it, up on Sol, up in the Stations, where everything was computers. Elite of the elite. Independent operator with a computer for a backpack and neuros right into the station's high-tech walls.

He evened his breath, smelled the cold air, saw the thermal pattern that was Ross gliding ahead of him. A flash of infrared out of the dark. A door opened on light. Ross started running. He did. A live-in lover? Somebody the exec would open the door to?

A mech could walk through a crime scene. A mech on internal air didn't leave a presence—nothing a sniffer would recognize.

A Company mech had been damned close to the scene—showed up to help the city cops . . .

"Sheila," he panted, trying to stay with Ross. "Lots of mustard." Infrared glow ahead of them. A shot flashed out, from the Company mech. It explored in the dark, leaving tracers in his vision. Ross wasn't blinded. Hisfoot went off a step, and he grabbed wildly for the rail, caught himself and slid two more before he had his feet under him on flat catwalk mesh—it shook as Ross ran; and he ran too.

"She's not remoted!" he panted. As if his keyman couldn't tell. Nobody outside was authorizing those shots. Ross was. A cartoon door boomed open, and he ran after a ghost whose fire wasn't routed through a whole damn city legal department. "Fold it!" he gasped, because he was busy keeping up; and the corner ahead compacted and swung into view, red and green wire, with nobody in it but the ghost ahead of him.