Raven

Ghosts of the Federation is a work in progress and a slash story. Main pairing is C/B, but the story is rated R for explicit violence. There is no sex in it (yet!). It is here presented in five parts. This is a temporary loading of an as yet unfinished work.

This story is set in a far future which owes a debt of inspiration to Joss Whedon's Firefly, and to a variety of other cyberpunk and SF stories. It is not, however, a crossover with any of them.

And if you are desperate for translations of the Chinese stuff (and no, they aren't saying anything important -- mostly swearing *g*), there is a glossary of the terms used so far here. Please note I don't speak, read or write Chinese, I just have access to some good online dictionaries. My apologies therefore to all those who are genuine speakers of Mandarin.

If you are interested in the continuation of the story, or more about the story, visit my blog, where the whole thing so far is linked.

*~^~*~^~*

"Honored, I assure you, there is no way for this game to be rigged in any way whatsoever!" Ezra Standish contrived to look shocked that anyone could even consider making such an imputation.

"Table could be fixed--"

"But I am new in town -- as new as your good self, judging by the dusty apparel you chose to grace us with." He coughed faintly, and smiled. "I neither know the proprietor of this establishment, nor, in fact, do I wish to. Now," he ran his hand over the chips, smiling as each one glinted briefly in sync with his wrist LED then disappeared, "if you would please excuse me?" He nodded to the two others sitting with them at the gaming table and rode to his feet as the last chip registered with his credbank. "Thank you."

He'd barely gone three meters away from the table when he heard quick steps behind him. A hand on his wrist stopped him, turning him roughly to face his accuser. She growled into his face, "I don't know how the hell you cheated, you thieving quim, but I want my money back!"

"My dear," he smiled wider than ever, holding her eyes, peripherally well aware of the silent room and the eyes fixed on them, "Accusing the proprietor of malfeasance is a dangerous game."

"I ain't accusing him." She hooked his arm, and stepped well into his personal space. "I'm accusing *you**."

His eyebrows rose. "Why, are you suggesting that *I** would be able to circumvent softs that even our fine federal government endorses? I am shocked." He restrained his amusement firmly. The strip embedded in his wrist had a number of modifications that would upset the federal government, including a piece of soft that happily circumvented the security that the state required all gambling establishments use -- and charged a premium rate for.

She let go of his arm, clearly confused. "You gotta of been done *something**. I ain't never lost that bad."

"Maybe you had never met a player of my caliber," he suggested, and then muttered, "or indeed of any ability whatsoever."

She'd almost gone for it, turning back to her table and walking away, and then she heard his last remark. Her ears pricked up, and Ezra swore silently, and stepped hastily back.

"You callin' me a bad player?"

He blew caution to the winds, and smiled sweetly. "No, madam. I believe to achieve *bad** you would have to considerably supplement what God and Nature saw fit to give you." He eyed her bare neck, with no tech enhancements at all, and the winking wrist strip with only two charms hanging off it. "Perhaps you should consider that anyway."

"Why, you--" She launched herself at him, and froze, her hands around his throat.

"Now," he said very softly. "Just let go, nice and easy, and perhaps we won't find out what happens to human flesh when a point-S weapon discharges right up close." He shoved the gun, made all from organic plastics and thus not screened out when he walked into the saloon, deeper into her rounded belly.

She looked down between then and swallowed.

A chair scraped and his second hand snapped out behind him, unerringly targeting the robed man rising to his feet.

"You fire it'll kill you too," she snarled, but a tremor as her eyes flickered down and to the left gave her away. Fear of something in her past would make her give in. He smiled.

"My body armor is fully up to date. How's yours?" he whispered into her ear, his lips brushing over her dark skin. He licked lightly at her throat and then stepped back.

No one moved.

"Put the gun down, son," the priest said softly, and straightened to his full height. Ezra blinked. The man had sharp, hard features, and his hands were folded into his sleeves.

"I think not, father," he said sarcastically. "Anyone could put on a robe."

"Could they?" he asked mildly. Abruptly both hands were visible and full, a palm sized silver disc in each with that tell tale hazing that spoke of energy buildup. "Could anyone do that?"

"Illusion," Ezra said. He'd never seen anyone so fast. But the presence of the weapons at all--

The man smiled. It was not a pleasant expression. "Checked your ident lately?"

Ezra nudged at the display that flickered in the corner of his vision. He blinked as it confirmed the rank, and looked away.

"A priest has no place in a gamin' house."

The man simply shook his head, then turned, the black cloak flaring as he moved. His left hand blurred, and someone who Ezra hadn't even noticed shrieked, then burned up into nothing. Ezra swallowed.

"I'm not just a priest, son."

Ezra finally put a name to the face, his uplink finally coming up with a match. Larabee. Priest-inquisitor. Not good. Oh, so not good. It had been a long time since he'd misjudged someone this badly.

A chill ran down his back, and he decided to play this out, perhaps the man would forgive innocent ignorance. Perhaps. He squinted, trying to spot the last indicator, and Larabee stepped closer, and pulled his collar down. Ezra nodded, and ducked his head, his eyes locked on Larabee's, watching his every move. There it was, the ridged double circle. Burned into place, and white with age.

He holstered his guns and held his hands slightly away from his sides, ostentatiously empty.

"My apologies, fisher."

The noise slowly resumed in the room, and Ezra breathed slowly out. It wasn't every day you called a P-I a liar and lived.

"Next time, son," Larabee said softly, "don't replace the lock codes with photon bridges." No one else paid them any attention. No one else *wanted** any part of Larabee's attention.

Ezra smiled cockily. The man didn't seem interested in running him in for his infraction. "I merely adjusted the house odds away from favoring the proprietor. That it affected others also is more a testament to their own skill. I am a gambler, sir, not a thief."

Larabee's eyebrow twitched upwards. "So you reduced the odds against you."

Ezra's grin widened. "I said that I am a gambler. I never said I was mentally deficient." He bowed, and hastened for the exit.

He made it all the way back to his landing pad before he stopped. "Good *Lord**," he said with considerable feeling, and sat on the stubby wing of his transport. "Good *Lord**." He mopped his face, and sighed.

-----------------------

"Josiah, that wasn't fair."

"Jedediah, my son, things are rarely fair. Did you, or did you not claim you could break it?"

"Not so loud, jiao shi! I did -- and I *can**, I just." JD Dunne scratched his neck, absently reseating his chips, half of them illegal, all of them hidden under his straggly black hair.

"Don't worry about disturbing the sanctified dead. I'm told on good authority the day is coming when they shall riiiiiiise from their graves." Josiah chuckled happily. "Yes, indeed."

"You sure?" JD frowned at the screen invisible to anyone but him, currently being projected onto his retina.

"*Dead** sure!"

"You ain't half as funny as you think y'are, Jo-siah."

"Well, you're twice as funny as you think you are, son!"

"Oh, hey, did I tell you this one?"

"Yep."

"I didn't even start!"

"It was... the one about the man and the three melons and the dinner date."

"Ha! Nope!"

"Darn." Josiah slumped, "I could never remember the punch line to that one."

"Got it!" JD blurted.

"The punch line?"

JD grinned. "Give me an uplink and watch me fly."

"No, I don't think that was it."

"Oh, fer cryin' out loud, preach, I broke it."

"Then mend it, son, mend it, before Dear Henry gets a hold of you."

"You're weird, you know that?" JD swiftly downloaded the data he'd been asked to find. "Sliced, diced, and dumped." He shut the link down, and smiled. The beater-bots were still trundling back and forth in the planetary loop he'd trapped them in nearly three star systems away. Nothing like having personal *legal** access to a CoH wormhole.

"You have all of it?" Sanchez sounded completely serious and completely sane for once, and JD smirked.

"You betya." He rummaged in a pocket and pulled out a sliver of glass. "Gimme a sec and you'll have it too." He plunged the splinter into his wrist and sighed happily as it darkened from clear to blood red. "There ya go." He tugged it out and handed it over, sucking at the blood dripping from his wrist as he did so.

"Written in blood," Sanchez murmured, and shook his head. "An ill omen."

"Sheesh. Subdermal wristband, Josiah." JD shook his head and licked his bloody lips. "Finest money can buy."

"Or purloin?"

"Oh no, this one's totally legit. Paid for in pure enphidium strips." He turned his bare wrist back and forth. Not a sign, not even a scar remained to show the band welded to his bones. Worth every penny of the eight E-strips -- more cash than most people saw in any four lifetimes. "The fastest, most accurate, coolest band on the block."

"And invisible."

JD grinned. "With my record? Bonus!"

"Son, have you ever considered a career in the priesthood?" Josiah asked thoughtfully.

"Ha! Me? No way."

"Then you might want to lose yourself in the sea of humanity that is Delivery. Immediately."

JD turned around . It only took a moment for his quick eyes to pick out the guy in black. "Priest?"

"Priest-inquisitor, I hear."

"Which one?" JD squinted trying to get a line on the face or pick up the ident chip every human carried, implanted at birth and locked to their deenay.

"Larabee?"

"For real?" JD squinted closer. "Psi?"

Sanchez shrugged and sighed. He might get older but he didn't get wiser. "Son?"

"Yeah?"

"Get out of here. Right now."

"Aw, J'siah, it's just getting interesting." JD flinched at Josiah's glare and sighed. "Sheesh, alright, alright, I'm gone."

And he was.

The stiff silence that had surrounded them while the kid worked fell away. Josiah smiled, rolling the tiny glass splinter between his fingers. JD had all the newest gadgets. He didn't always make the best use of them, but he had a good heart, and, following his recent eighteenth birthday, a clean adult record -- the juvie one automatically expunged by computers everywhere. He snorted. Yeah. Because the Church really locked access to *all** records on minors when they reached majority.

The sounds of the city drifted up, filling the peace and quiet, and he sighed, and slipped the splinter-drive into a pouch. He would examine the files later, when Chris Larabee wasn't stalking towards him like Death himself.

-----------------------

Larabee settled back into his chair, sharply aware of the frightened eyes on him, and the wide berth that everyone was giving him. No one messed with a P-I. He smiled grimly. The joke went that they answered only to God -- and God was too afraid to ask any questions...

Perhaps that was what had attracted him into the Church of Humanity.

He snorted softly to himself. Perhaps nothing. The comment came in his mind in another's voice, and he shook himself. Forget it. That one was long gone.

He sighed, and stood again. Maybe he should find somewhere to stay, just until the week was out. There was nothing on this poxy little planet worth finding. Just sand, dust and the dregs of humanity.

Aw, now, Chris, there's *always** something worth the finding. Hell, where'd I find *you**?

Chris's face softened momentarily, a change in expression so brief that a mere blink would have missed it altogether. Then his face closed off entirely. The owner of that voice was long gone, he insisted, and held very still when a soft chuckle ran through his mind, and whispered, "You keep tellin' yourself that, darlin'."

"Buck?" he whispered in disbelief. He turned, sweeping the hall with his eyes, trying to find the body to match that voice. "Buck?"

The only reply was a ghost of a chuckle, and he shoved his way outside, looking up and then down the street. In the distance he saw a man with dark hair, and ran, robes flying to spin him around but a stranger's face greeted him.

"What the-- can I help you, padre?" the man went from irritation to obsequy fast enough to turn Chris's stomach. He shoved him, and walked away.

He walked all the way out to Delivery, the city landing pad, named for the only excitement that ever happened near it. Nothing.

He stared blindly at the dozens of unfamiliar vehicles, and turned away. "Buck!" he screamed, but nothing stirred, not even the dust.

Nothing. And he still had nowhere to stay for the night. "But if you're very good, you might have someone to spend it with..."

"When I catch you--"

"You'll let me do whatever I want with you, darlin'."

The voice seemed so real that he had to bury the tears in anger. "You're *dead**, Buck. Leave me alone!"

"Ain't no crows on his grave," a deep voice rumbled and he whirled.

"Who the fuck are you?"

The man was huge, clad in a motley collection of gaily colored, wildly patched clothes. Somewhere in there was a shawl, a shirt, a wrap around pair of trews... He shook his head.

"Josiah Sanchez, at your service, padre." He bowed, and Chris scowled.

"You don't need to drop your shoulder to me."

"Death is here."

Chris laughed. "Death is my stalking horse."

Josiah chuckled softly. "You are Death's stalking horse."

Chris blinked. Maybe so.

"Find a door, and all the rest will follow," Sanchez said cheerfully, and spun on the spot. "Circles in circles in circles in circles in..." He whirled round and around, a dervish with mantra.

A madman.

"A man in search of the truth." Sanchez stopped with a stagger and crooked a finger at Chris, "A secret?"

Despite himself Chris leaned forward. Sanchez kissed his ear, and laughed raucously.

"The door and the circle and the serpent and the crow. And your stalking horse, oh yes." He winked, and laughed. He turned and addressed the busy landing field. "And you, too, fortune's bitch. Would you care for some tea?"

Chris shook his head. Sometimes it went like that. Humanity's minds couldn't always cope with the cyborg implants that made life so much easier. Sometimes they rejected them straight off. Sometimes it took a while. If he wanted to, he could even find out this man's history, discover what went wrong. Maybe get him placed somewhere safe. Perhaps the Sisters would be able to bring him back from the brink he had tumbled from. Maybe.

He wouldn't do it. That was Buck talking. Buck would have cared. He would have cared once too. But he didn't care any more. Not about anything. A small smile pulled at his lips. Perhaps now was a good time to go drown himself in Oblivion.

He headed back into the city, through the main thoroughfares, intent on getting back to his drugs.

-----------------------

Vin Tanner groaned and straightened his back. He wasn't designed for clean-up duty.

"How's it going there?"

"Not too bad, Mr. Watson," he said politely pushing his hat back so the man towering above him could see his face. "Just stretching out a couple of kinks before wiring it all back together."

"You sure you're comfortable down there?" Watson looked anxious, and Vin dredged up a smile.

"Knees ache a bit, but I'll be up again in no time." He sighed and looked around at the sand quietly sifting into the machine trap, heaping against his knees and blowing through into the store. "If you want to shut things up for another ten minutes the dust screen should be back up."

"Okay." Virgil Watson trotted trustingly back into the store, and Vin stared after him for a moment before bending his head to the delicate mechanism under his fingers. He moved a wire and swore sharply as it fizzled against his bare fingers. "Stupid damn box," he muttered, kicking it viciously. There was a hum, and the dust screen flickered into serene life. He stared at it for a long moment, only long familiarity with the perversity of the inanimate keeping his jaw from dropping and his mouth from swearing. "Percussive maintenance," he muttered, "Works every frigging time." He suctioned out the dirt and sand from the box, and closed it all up, then stood, his knees and back protesting vigorously.

"All done, Mr. Watson," he called into the store, and the store front blinked from shuttered to open, the hologram changing in the blink of an eye. It settled for a moment, then churned. Great. The holo had a flicker. Vin looked at it grimly, and sighed. Either the cycles were off, or the fuel cell was dying. Or both. Great.

"Can you just suction off the front here, Vin?" Watson tottered out hauling the industrial sized cleaner that he used inside the shop.

"Sure, Mr. Watson. Let me get that." There *had** to be better ways to keep a low profile than this. He took the machine and started cleaning. There just *had** to be. Shouting at the far end of the street caught his attention and he paused, leaning on the long pole of the suction pump. What the hell?

-----------------------

Nathaniel Jackson shook his head. "If you brought him in a week ago, then maybe, *maybe** I could have saved him." He gestured behind him at the patient the sand bandits had brought him. "But that? That's a breathing corpse! I'm amazed he's even alive, and there's *nothing** I can do. He's got a systemic bacterial infection, a serious problem with necrotizing faciitis, and a kicillin allergy! I'm amazed he's even alive, and there's *nothing** I can do 'cepting make him comfortable for's long's he's got."

"That's my *brother*, you're calling a corpse, Doc," one of the sand bandits growled, loosening his guns in his holster.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he kept one eye on the gun, "*Real** sorry, but there just ain't nothing I could do!"

A shrill whistle came from behind him, and he groaned inwardly.

"What's that?"

Nathan shook his head, his eyes downcast. That's the sound of your breathing corpse of a brother finally giving in on the breathing thing, he thought, but didn't say.

"You *killed** him!"

Aw, hell. He grabbed at the defense charm on his wrist band and sighed as the forcefield shimmered into being. It wouldn't last long, but merely activating it called the feds. Or it *should**.

"Shinies are going to be here in less than five," he said mildly. "If you were thinking of doing anything but taking your brother's corpse to the undertakers, then best you do it fast."

"Sure, Doc," the brother said and smiled cruelly. "Y'ever heard of a little problem with them personal defense shields, Doc?"

"No..." He backed away.

"Bounces off weapons. Holds off fists and feet. But rope... rope ain't been programmed in. Bit of a bug, you might say." The man displayed a mouthful of rotting teeth.

"You're bluffing."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. It all depends on the rope." A length of split optic-rope coiled around his arm and he grinned.

Nathan struggled madly, but the shield had limitations, and even with it, although they didn't actually manage to connect any blows, they could still move him. They dragged him up the street, the rope wrapped around his neck and chest. For now, it was as though he was cushioned. He watched the field flicker with increasing anxiety, and strained for the first wail of sirens.

"Did I mention how optic rope has a bit of a dampening effect, Doc? Your precious feds ain't heard a thing."

Nathan stared in horror as one of them produced another length of optic-rope and started fashioning it into something that looked startlingly like a noose.

"Leave him alone, you bastards!"

Nathan looked up and groaned inwardly at the woman confronting the gang.

"Mary! Get back!" he shouted.

Mary shook her head. "Let Doctor Jackson go or I'll shoot!" She raised the tangle rifle to her shoulder and keyed the base unit. Nathan watched the charge glimmer into life in seconds -- seconds she didn't have.

"Next time," the leader of the pack stalked up close and sneered in her face before simply pushing the gun out of his chest, and twisting it from her grip, "fire it up before you start something, sister." He threw the weapon away as it died and shoved her to the ground. "I've got a brother to avenge. Come on, boys!"

Nathan closed his eyes momentarily as they started moving again. She'd been lucky. Ms Travis had had the weapon locked to her DNA to stop her boy getting at it -- but he'd had to deal with more than one involuntary amputation where the criminals had taken the hand along with the gun to keep it usable...

They reached the graveyard, and he looked around, hoping against hope that old Sanchez might be there. Though even if he was it was more than fifty fifty that he would be out of his mind and no use to man or beast.

He swallowed hard as the defense shield shuddered and died, with no sign of the police. He looked up at the tree as they threw the rope over it and dragged him towards the noose. Jeshu. He really was going to die.

-----------------------

Chris Larabee didn't allow himself to show his emotions in expression, word or body language as he watched the local doctor being murdered. The blonde woman who had tried to stop them nearly galvanized him into action, and he quirked a half smile at her impassioned yells at the apathetic populace.

His back prickled and he turned, to meet a steady blue gaze. Light blue eyes, he noted, and disappointed, took in the rest of the man. Scruffy clothing made from animal hide. He raised an eyebrow, wondering if the man knew that animal hide blocked his sensors. Without really realizing he was doing it he walked slowly towards the man, who nodded fractionally, then turned and vanished into the store he had been cleaning.

Chris felt a jolt of keen disappointment, not for him being the wrong person, but, and to his surprise, because he had expected more of the man. A moment later the young man reappeared, a tangle rifle in his hands, and the store owner scolding him. He smiled grimly.

"You can't take that, Vin! I won't let you! I won't give you the key for it--"

Vin shrugged slightly and ran a loving hand over the security pad at the butt of the rifle. Chris repressed a smirk as the security crumbled happily and rolled over for this Vin boy.

"If you go after those hoodlums, and end up dead don't come crying to me for a job! I'm not having no murderers and gangers in my shop!"

Chris walked to the middle of the street and smiled as the man joined him.

"Hell, now I'm out a job *and** dead," he said cheerfully, and they matched pace as they walked in long easy strides up the street to the cemetery.

-----------------------

Vin hit the charge button on the rifle. No good having something like this and using it as a club. Not that he'd hit someone with this beauty. He'd spend the next year wishing he'd left well alone if the entangler backfired. He hefted the gun and smiled faintly. That was the fun of quantum tangle weapons. Every now and again, one of them blew back into someone's face, disentangled half their atoms, and left 'em dead, dyin' or wishing they was.

He couldn't see weapons on the stranger in priest's robes, and that would normally have worried him. Going into some white hat job with unknown backup was what landed him in Last Chance in the first place. He wasn't worried. Not even deep down, where his gut would whisper, yes or no, good or bad sometimes. Right now, this was right. The rest was details that'd get fixed sooner or later. They didn't matter for now.

He heard the priest breathe in and raised his rifle to his shoulder as the man began to speak.

"Cut him down," he said mildly to the rowdies, and Vin grinned at the looks on the faces of the gangers as they turned, ready to take on whoever was telling them their business, and saw the robes.

"Happen you'd live longer," Vin added, finding his shot by eye. The rope glinted dully in the sunlight, and he knew he had to make the shot fast, or lose his lock.

"None of your business, travelers! Back off, or you can dance with the murdering bastard that killed my brother." Guns were raised and Vin shrugged mentally. Five low energy weapons, one singularity weapon, and a bunch of drunks. Easy.

Gently, he slid his finger over the switch, and smiled, finding another target before the black guy had finished tumbling to the ground, clawing at the broken rope wrapped around his throat.

Beside him he was aware of the sub-audible thud of a pulse weapon. The sound shook his bones, but before the last vibration had ended a second, then third and fourth shots thudded dully. He ignored them, aware peripherally of the man in black, guns in hands, taking down target after target. He calmly lined up and took another shot, then lowered his weapon.

No one was left standing, the last of the men were running down the street, shoving past the crowd, and Vin pursed his lips, rapidly weighing the danger of killing an innocent against taking the escapees down, and shrugged. He hurried towards the doctor.

Jackson was tugging at the rope around his throat, his face darkening from lack of air and circulation. Vin's face hardened, and he reached into his pocket. Split optic. Barely legal, and strangling the man. His solution wasn't much better, but it was quick -- and right now that was more important than playing by the rules.

"Hold still," he said, and lightly pressed a loop of monofilament wire to the thin cable. The molecular wire slid straight through the fibrous glass and dipped into the skin below despite Vin's slow and careful touch. He quickly pulled away, but Nathan held his breath until the wire was safely reeled back into its box, and Vin couldn't blame him. There wasn't much that could stand up to mono-wire, and human flesh wasn't one of those things. More than one person had lost tips of fingers, or worse, to careless use of the stuff.

Jackson nodded at him. There was a look in his eyes that suggested that he wanted to demand answers -- why save him? Why did Vin own something as murderous as mono-wire? But he said nothing more than a muttered thank you as he rolled to his feet. Vin froze for a second as a dull thud reverberated through his ribs again, and half turned, only to see the flash of a blade spinning past his face, and slamming squarely through flesh, bone, and exploding out the other side of the woman's body in a welter of red and fragmented white. Vin blinked. Looked like good ol' Doctor Jackson had his own reasons for not asking about illegal weapons.

"Thanks," he dipped his head, and Jackson shrugged.

"Least I c'd do for a man who put his neck out to save mine."

He held out a hand and Vin hesitated then held out his own, letting their tags touch briefly, palm to palm. Wasn't much the good doctor could do before the end of the week, when he'd be heading out anyway.

Jackson's dark eyes dropped to Vin's wrist, taking in the tracery of silver wires and strips showing grey under his skin before snapping his gaze back up. The doctor knew. Vin gritted his teeth and jammed his hand back in his pocket. Well, it wasn't like he had been planning on settling in. Cybes never did. And if the good doctor had words to say, well, he had some words too, starting with anti-matter blades.

"Doctor Jackson!" The blonde who had challenged the lynch mob in the street rushed up. She glanced at Vin and dismissed him instantly, "Are you all right?" She gripped the man's arms and peered anxiously up into his face.

"I'm fine, Ms Travis," he said easily. "Thanks to these gentlemen." He nodded to Vin and the priest who had appeared at Tanner's shoulder, silently watching the scene.

Travis shone a bright smile on them, and again, dismissed Tanner to focus all her attention on the blond man. Vin wiped a hand over his grin. He wasn't any great shakes at women -- or men for that matter -- but even he could spot a woman turning on the charm -- and a man summing her up and shrugging it off without even trying. "Then we owe you a debt of thanks," she said sincerely, smiling up into the man's eyes. He looked at her like she'd spoken in Martian, and shrugged faintly. Without a word they turned on their heels and headed back down the street.

"Where did you come from?" She hurried after them, and Jackson sighed as he walked alongside them.

"Local logger," he said under his breath, just loud enough for Vin and the stranger to hear, and Vin had to consciously relax the tension that snapped into his back and neck. A fucking journo. That was all he needed. He looked at the man in black to gauge his reaction and found himself staring straight into grey eyes. The man quirked a tiny smile and said without looking back, but just loud enough for her to hear; "Saloon."

Her feet hurried after them and Vin grinned to himself, none of them so much as hesitated as she called, "Who are you? Where are you going?"

He didn't even need to look at the other two to know the answer. "Saloon," they all said, and slid smiles at each other, walking away from the woman without breaking step.

Vin couldn't resist a quick glance up the street as they stepped into the bar, and spotted her talking busily into a wrist-comm. Lovely.

-----------------------

Nathan rubbed at his neck absently. The welt around his neck was almost invisible now. The tissue rep had easily leeched out the blood that had seeped from broken capillaries; there wouldn't even be a bruise. Not that a bruise would have shown, but even so. He rubbed at it again. He could feel it, tightening, choking.

He'd thought as his trachea closed up, the light wire crushing into his larynx, well, this is a fucking stupid way to go. He'd survived being indentured. He'd survived being on the wrong side of a Corp coup, helping the target shareholders when they were shot, mugged, attacked, beaten up, raped. Murdered. He'd been the only one in the city who had helped. And he'd been indentured to ExCorp for doing it. Treason, they'd called it.

He closed his eyes and shook the memory away. DeeGee four-ten had split the company up, broken the board, and freed the slaves. Sorry, the 'indentured workers'. he snorted and opened his eyes. Well, they could call it what they liked, but he'd been a slave, like the books claimed the ancients had been, once.

And then. He slid a glance left and then right, then poured himself another glass of the unlabelled rotgut. Rezinta, called after the rezin that they made it from. Larabee and Tanner. He wondered briefly if those were even their right names. They were two of the most silent men he'd ever met. He snatched another look at Larabee. The man knocked back his shot, and the double circle flashed briefly from under his collar, burned into the hollow of his neck. It made Nathan feel faintly queasy to see. Scars like that could be healed, eradicated. That Larabee had chosen this -- that the Church allowed it -- said everything about the man's state of mind.

Sanity was optional for the Inquisitors.

DeeGee four-ten had had one on temporary assignment. He shuddered and threw the clear, thick drink down his throat. No. No more.

Not that he wasn't grateful. He was. He was just feeling like being grateful at a bigger distance. Like, maybe a couple of solar systems worth of distance.

Maybe it was time to move on. He could practice anywhere. His credentials were good through the galaxy.

He wondered about Tanner too. Tanner was staring at Larabee again, and Nathan scowled faintly. The man seemed pleasant enough. Polite, hard working. Not everyone who ended up here decided to get a job. Mostly they fetched up with the bandits, or the whores. He was pretty enough to earn his keep on his back, he thought cynically, and found himself wondering if that was why Tanner kept staring at Larabee. Was he trying to pick the man up? Maybe he ought to tell him that PIs only married but once, and by the looks of things, Larabee had done that already.

Or maybe he wasn't interested in marriage. Concubinage wasn't unknown, and you couldn't get a better protector -- *if** you could get him. Especially this far out from the ancient worlds. He sighed. Wasn't none of his business anyway. He looked up and found grey eyes staring at him.

"No," Larabee said in a rough voice, and Nathan nodded, in no doubt that the man knew what he'd been thinking.

"No," he agreed, and waited to let Larabee break the gaze, telling him without words that he had nothing to hide.

Tanner glanced at him, and then back at Larabee, then shrugged. "I'm gonna get some air," he slanted a lopsided smile at the world, "maybe find out if I've still got a job."

Larabee nodded silently, and on a whim -- or possibly the sudden, urgent desire not to be on his own with the man, Nathan stood as Tanner did. "I reckon I'll go see if those boys managed to scare off all my patients."

Larabee smirked at him, but nodded, and Nathan was left wondering if he'd been mocked or approved. Either way, he thought as he walked briskly out of the saloon. There was very little chance he would see the man again. After all, what the hell would someone like that want with a dead end hole like Last Chance?

-----------------------

JD bounced happily as the documents opened up in front of his eager eyes. Well, not eyes, exactly, but close enough. Those guys were *so** toast when he was done. He copied and assimilated the data and then bailed out of the Travis woman's net. If she wasn't smart enough to lock down her peripherals, then who was he to tell an eld what to do? Especially a journo eld, whose sept father was a system Axe.

JD shivered. He'd met Travis a couple of times -- the Axeman, not the journo, he was keeping well out of her way, and had a healthy respect for the man. Travis had had him pegged the first time they'd met, and had given him a chance anyway.

He grinned. Okay, well, maybe 'gave' wasn't the word. More like 'gave in' when there weren't no other volunteers to watch the fed grid no matter how much cred he offered. Not that he'd offered a lot. JD's grin faded. So he'd had a juvie record. That crap was meant to be sealed now. Not used for blackmail.

"Fed Dunne?"

JD froze, and pulled a face. He hadn't known she'd known his name, let alone was going to take this stupid job seriously. So much for keeping out of her way. Maybe if he made like he didn't know about her he'd be safe.

"Fed Dunne?"

JD froze, and pulled a face. He hadn't known she'd known his name, let alone was going to take this stupid job seriously. So much for keeping out of her way. Maybe if he made like he didn't know about her he'd be safe.

"Yes, ma'am?" He turned and smiled. "Can I help?"

Mary Travis smiled sweetly at him, and even as he felt his spine straighten and his shoulders go back and an urge to check his hair was straight and his fasteners were all closed, he knew that she was after something -- and nothing that he was going to want to give her.

"I hope so." She glanced demurely down. "I think I may have a bit of a problem."

"Yes?"

"I think someone's been accessing my grid illegally." she said blandly, and JD scowled.

"That's terrible, ma'am."

"I can't think who'd want to do such a thing."

JD shook his head sadly, "What were they looking at, Ms. ?"

"Travis, Mary Travis," she emphasized delicately, telling him -- like he needed the reminder -- of her contract sept. "I can't imagine," she said in bland -- and lying -- answer to his question.

"Well, if you'd like me to have a look?" he offered, as though reluctant, and she wasn't quite smart enough to damp her bio filters, and he caught the slight pickup in her heart rate. She actually thought she'd caught him.

She held out a hand-held datawand, and JD carefully ran his own diagnostics over it. "Hmm."

"Yes?"

JD held the chip out to her. "Here, I'll download the raw files, let you have a look, but basically, it looks like you've picked up a couple of freeloaders." He smiled happily at her. "If you want I can wall down your net."

"Does it say who?" she asked urgently, and JD shrugged.

"There's a couple of deenay tags, but I'm betting they're false. Grave ringers." Her heart beat picked up again and JD frowned. What was she getting all worked up about?

"Can you run them? Please?"

JD looked at her, really looked, and abruptly felt ashamed of himself. "Yeah, no problem." She looked scared. "Miss, do you have any idea--"

"Not here," she said urgently, before he could finish the sentence. JD's mouth hung open for a moment as he tried to get his head around the idea that Travis wasn't trying to play mind games with him because he had been hacking her net. She was really frightened. It wasn't about him, it was about someone else trying to hack a journo's files. Someone trying to hack the files of someone in the System Axe's sept, whose contract partner had been another journo. Operative, 'had been'.

"Well, I guess it was probably just some scriddies, you know?" He struggled to sound natural. "If I come over and, you know, fix that wall for you? If you want? It should help some, and I can put word out on the fed grid--"

"Discreetly!" she said quickly, and JD blinked. "I might just be panicking over nothing -- I'd hate the Axe to be bothered by this."

"Sure," he said slowly. "I'll ask a couple of people I know." And maybe have a think about why you don't want your sept-chief to know. Or any other Feds than me.

"Thank you. If you could fix wherever it was they got in, I'd be so grateful."

JD reddened. He didn't deserve her thanks, and his mind kept heading off to all the wrong places about how that gratitude could be expressed and it *wasn't** going to happen, he told himself firmly. Another thought occurred to him that killed all his libido. Damn. He was going to have to do the job properly, and that meant no more hack trips into her net.

"I can come over now," he offered weakly and she smiled. His blush darkened for quite another reason, and he could feel himself starting to babble. "It'll only take half an hour or so, I can do that right now if you want? So yes, I'll, I'll do that now, and, I'll be right there."

He backed away and turned, wincing at his ineptitude. "I've just gotta -- uh, you know, get, get, my tools!" He finally found a way to end the sentence and breathed a sigh of relief. "Be there in five minutes." He didn't look back. Damn. He mentally kicked himself as he headed to his tiny office/apartment. Axe Travis had *told** him about his son. Had *told** him that no one had ever proven the connection to the Hou-Corp. If she thought someone was hacking her, she would be terrified. He was a fucking *moron**.

Maybe he should tell her it was him.

He automatically dumped out all the new stuff into his private net as he walked through the door. He sighed, his whole body relaxing as his net slipped snugly into place around him, protocols meshing seamlessly with his hards and softs. Even made this ugly, boxy little hole feel like home. He headed to the main terminal, intending to pull some sort of security program for her, maybe even give her a version of his own, when the net tugged back at him. Curiously he checked the tagged file, and stumbled, almost missing the chair as his knees gave.

Oh god.

This was bad.

This was *way** bad.

-----------------------

Mary -Travis watched the young Fed as he communed silently with her network. She'd been worried enough when he'd stammered and stuttered at her, clearly torn between dismissal of her fears, and a juvenile hormone attack. She'd half expected him to turn up after having a clean up and change of clothes. Instead he appeared four hours later than the promised five minutes, looking more disheveled than before, and had plugged himself into her net without much more than a vague request for passwords.

And now he was staring vacantly into space, and she was watching him. Waiting. She shook herself. She could make the boy a decent meal at least. She tried to ignore the steady brush of foreign commands against her net. He was just doing his job. She headed into the kitchen, and started on pulling out plates and cutlery. There had to be something in the freezer -- the inventory list presented itself silently and she gasped. A soft voice murmured, "Sorry," into her mind and drifted away again.

She stared at the door of the freezer, her heart pounding. No one should be able to access that far in to her without her direct permission. Sudden anger built. He had no business going that deep!

She turned and stalked back into the main room, and was horrified to find the boy slumped, his nose bleeding, blood trickling from his ears and a thin red trail running down from where he'd bitten through his lip.

"Mr. Dunne?" She hurried across, putting a call to Nathan at the same time. "JD? Are you okay?" She carefully dabbed at the blood with a tissue, and frowned as a sticky, red thread seemed to willfully slide over her fingers until she hastily wiped them clean.

"Oh, he's fine, Ms. Travis," a soft voice said, and she whirled. No one was there. "Boy just bit off more'n he can chew." JD jerked sideways, and the voice chuckled. "Wake up, kid."

"Ain't a kid, Buck," JD said petulantly, still only half conscious by the look of him. "I know what I'm doing."

"Who's Buck?" Mary asked, and JD blinked at her, glanced around the room, opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"Good kid," a ghost of a whisper said. "Now shut it down."

"Who's Buck?" Mary scowled at a knock on the door. Nathan. "JD? What's wrong? What happened?"

JD shook his head. "Spread the net too wide," he said hoarsely. "Fixed that rat problem of yours though."

The knocking got louder. "In a minute!" she called. "JD, did someone attack you inside the net? Inside *my** net?"

That caught the boy's attention and his dazed eyes focused, not on her but over her shoulder. "Not -- no."

He moved awkwardly to his feet just as the door flew open and Nathan marched in looking thoroughly pissed off. "Mary? You all right?" His eyes were on JD, and he scowled. "That blood yours? Did the boy try to attack you?" His hand slid towards his knife belt and Mary shook her head.

This was getting out of control, and she wasn't going to get any answers if Nathan didn't go away. "No, no, JD was looking for a problem on my net, and--" she turned to look at the federal officer. JD was trying to wipe away the blood from under his nose with indifferent success, simply smearing it in drying lines across his pale skin. "I don't know what happened next."

Nathan looked at her as if assessing her sincerity. "Better wash that blood off then," he said neutrally. "What happened, son?"

JD shrugged. "I'm fine, Doctor Jackson," he said, carefully formal. He'd probably picked up on Jackson's nervy reactions, which was more perceptive than she'd given him credit for -- or -- her eyes narrowed. The little bastard was probably tracking bio changes. For a moment she was furious, then remembered again he was a fed and was supposed to access that sort of thing. Okay then. She pushed her anger down. Okay. Plus Nathan's reaction might have been a clue. She took a deep breath.

Nathan was there anyway, running a quick sweep over the kid, and then frowning faintly as he processed the data. "Sugar's down. Drink some fluids. And you're going to have hearing problems unless you let me fix your right tympanum."

JD promptly poked his finger at his ear, and Mary shook her head. Boys. Billy would have done exactly the same. Tell him not to touch and sure enough, there he was, touching. She wrenched her thoughts away from her son with an effort, and added, "Let Doctor Jackson help, Federale Dunne."

JD peered at the flakes of blood on his finger and sighed. "I'm fine." But he didn't protest as Jackson carefully probed his ear. JD flinched and Mary moved to hold his head still.

"All done," Jackson said after a couple of seconds. "Next time, pull out before you overload your neural net," he chided. JD shifted, and Mary let go of him quickly and backed away. It was all very well helping the sick, but the kid's face had been a little too close to her breasts for comfort. And by the red blush spreading up his neck, he thought so too.

"Yeah, okay." JD promised. He sounded distracted and Mary wondered if he'd actually heard a word the doctor had said. "Ms Travis, can you try something for me?"

"Yes?"

"Go into the net and ask it to run ext bio chk pt/5531." He yawned as he spelled out the commands, and she frowned.

"What will that do?"

"That's the question," he said, and at her irritated look, added, "It's checking on one of the parameters that let your rats in before. Make sure the wall's fixed the hole."

She nodded and ran it. The probe ran out, and then slapped her back. "Ow!"

JD smiled with satisfaction. "That's fixed then." He yawned again, "I think I'm gonna go home and sleep for a month now," he said slowly, and pushed himself to his feet.

"JD, what happened in there? Did you have to fight something? And who's Buck?"

JD shrugged. "Don't really 'member," he said through another yawn. "Tell you 'bout it when 'm 'wake." His eyes drooped, and Nathan grinned.

"I think our brave little Fed is asleep on his feet. Time for bye-byes," he singsonged softly, and even half asleep Dunne scowled. Nathan supported him with an arm, and nodded to Mary. "I'll just get him home, ma'am, if that's all right?"

"Of course, Nathan," she said easily, already thinking about how she could find out what had happened. She didn't really even notice the door shutting behind them.

-----------------------

Vin Tanner watched the town silently from the roof of the Watson's store. It was quiet up there, and it gave him line of sight on pretty much every flash point in the main street. There wasn't much to Last Chance. Just Delivery, the landing base, and a collection of shops whose economy relied on no one ever getting too far ahead or too far behind. No one would ever get rich here. Mineral strikes were a fairy tale that happened to other places, other planets. No one would ever get out. It was the last stop on a downwards spiral.

He sighed, letting flesh and bone relax and creak loose of the tensions of the day. He leaned one elbow against the low wall that edged the roof, staring up at the sky. There weren't any light ordinances here. He didn't much care. He'd spent enough time in space that the claustrophobia of the lights reflected off the clouds was comforting. Here there was no chance that a single wrong move could lead to the fatal breach, the soft hiss of venting atmosphere.

He breathed in deeply, filling his lungs and breathed out again. You only took air for granted until the day you lost it. He breathed in deep again. Yes. He didn't regret the stars, or the open spaces of the galaxy. Here at least he wasn't trapped and beholden.

He clenched a fist, and felt the ripple of cybernetics in his skin. It took more than mere willpower to relax these muscles of woven alu-glass. He'd torn his own skin more than once, misjudging the relative strengths of the implants and his natural born flesh and bone. He'd learned care the hard way. The same way he'd learned grace, and total kinetic awareness. If he didn't know what was going on around him he would break chairs by tripping into them, clutching too hard at them.

The stars didn't care. They shone on their own solar systems, those that had 'em. Those that didn't circled in great swinging loops, dancing between galaxies, sometimes a tight pas de deux with a barely seen partner, sometimes arcing through empty spaces on a line destined to one day rip open some other star in a blaze of glory. Nothing mattered to them. They hung there, unmoving in his eyes, drifting in fractional increments that he could chart to the micron, but didn't. Just human eyes. Just human processing.

Just a man, small and empty, watching the stars.

The world slowly slipped away, and he sighed, then tipped his hat over his face. He could sleep now.

-----------------------

Chris Larabee slammed his glass down and jerked his chair back. The room tilted unpleasantly, but long experience held his body rock steady. "You're drunk. Get out of my face," he said very quietly. The bar was raucous around him, but the table of card players was a pool of silence. Heads started to turn, the silence and the man in black catching attention in the spreading uneasy quiet.

"Gentlemen, surely there is no need for--" The man fell silent.

"I thought you already got run out of here once," Larabee asked, never moving his gaze to the dealer, still watching the drunk who'd accused him of cheating.

"I'm just saying ain't right f'a Judas t'be playin' carss," the man slurred.

"I don't care if he's a fuckin' ladyboy out of Hashon, his money's good. Put up or shurrup," another of the players snapped.

Larabee shook his head as the dealer tried to tug him back to his seat. "Sir, sir, please, a small misunderstanding, we have no quarrel--"

"Did you just call me a Judas?"

"No sir, I'm sure he didn't, now if you'd like to ante up, next round boys and girls, don't be shy--"

"I said, did you just call me a fucking *Judas*?"

He reached across the table and grabbed the man by the collar, and dragged him across the table.

"I'll tell you what a Judas is," he whispered. Around him chairs scraped on the floor, he could feel the change in air pressure as people backed away. "It's taking a man into your life, giving him everything you ever loved, and watched him destroy it all. It's listening to people telling you it was an *accident**, when you can taste the lies in the air they breath. It's standing here, talking to a piece of crap like you, when I could be hunting."

He flung the man away, and looked up, calm again. "Bar! Another bottle. And keep 'em coming." He gathered the cards and tapped them into a neat square, then looked up, gathering the former players with one swift, comprehensive sweep of the bar. "So, that next round?"

-----------------------

JD moaned in his sleep, and nearly woke. He wished he could wake. His net had gone insane around him. Everywhere he looked people were watching him, eyes on him, judging him, finding him unworthy and then watching his every move.

He tried running, tried to control the net, but he couldn't, and that made him more afraid than anything else. He hadn't been out of control of his world since he'd gotten his first neural net embedded as a toddler. Learning to control it was as automatic as breathing. If he couldn't control the net, he was as good as dead.

Words poured through him, and he whirled trying to grasp them, but they made no sense, just whispering through and in and around, but never lingering long enough to be heard.

He tried running, tried to control the net, but he couldn't, and that made him more afraid than anything else. He hadn't been out of control of his world since he'd gotten his first neural net embedded as a toddler. Learning to control it was as automatic as breathing. If he couldn't control the net, he was as good as dead.

Words poured through him, and he whirled trying to grasp them, but they made no sense, just whispering through and in and around, but never lingering long enough to be heard.

The eyes were on him were blue, dark and knowing. Scary.

He moaned could hear himself and couldn't wake, couldn't, god he was trapped, he was going to burn his mind out lost inside his own hyper wired skull and with that he jerked awake, sitting up in his bed, gasping for air.

He was drenched with sweat, his limbs trembling as though he really had been running for hours, for parsecs over rough ground, trying to escape the man who kept following him, kept just *being** there when he couldn't possibly be. The deeper JD went, the further into his own space he got, the safer and more secret he thought he was, the more easily he seemed to find --

"Stop it!" he hissed to himself. He held still, blanking his mind out, breathing slow and deep. Just a bad dream.

Just a bad dream.

Those hackers had freaked him, that was all. Not the usual scriddies, with bought code and drones, but full on rogue programmers, rewriting on the fly burrowing into a net and ripping through the paths. But they couldn't get in here. And they couldn't get into Ms Travis's net any more. He was sure of that. But he'd been so careless.

He groaned and pressed the heel of his hand into his eyes. What if they'd been there already when he'd gone in? What if they'd been waiting for him, and had downloaded into his brain, and were just waiting to burn out his cortex and overwrite him into a drone, a cyborg with only the genetic material of a human being. The brain would be all machine. His breath shivered out of him.

Too many horror movies. That's all it was. The hackers, and horror movies, and --

"Hey kid, do you ever shut up in here?"

JD scrambled out of his bed, jamming his shoulders against the wall. No. This wasn't possible. He shut his eyes tightly shaking his head slowly.

"No, no, no, nonononononononono..."

The man just sighed, staring at him from the inside of his eyelids. "You're gonna have a heart attack before you're, uh, huh, twenty, at this rate, kid."

JD squinted one eye open, and then shut it again. It didn't help. He opened both eyes, and somehow it was easier to deal with a tall black haired guy sitting perched on his office chair, than it was to stare at the same man in the same pose with no visible means of support floating in his mind's eye.

"That's it, good kid. Just breathe, nice and easy," the man grinned at him. "There, see. Not so bad, huh?"

"Not so bad?" JD said incredulously. "Not so bad! I've got a fucking virus! I've picked up some goddamned freaking qingwa cào de liúmáng, and you wanna tell me it's not so bad?!"

The man stuck out a hand. "Buck Wilmington. Pleased ta meet you. Ain't humped any frogs lately, but I'll be sure and let you know, seein's ya got an interest an' all."

"Gah!" JD clutched at his head. "Wipe and reboot. That's it. If I go down to core and rebuild from yesterday's files I'll only lose today, and most of that's still gonna be in soft."

"Ah, now, you don't wanna do that, xiâo dì dì," Buck cajoled. "Why, you ain't barely got to know me yet."

"Gah!" JD scowled at him. "I don't wanna know you. You're some viral sprite that some hundan has gone and mined my net with. I don't want you around."

He straightened his back and nodded firmly. That was more like it. It was a computer generated illusion, and the sooner he got rid of it, the better. He strode over to the manual interface set into his desk, walking straight through the illusion. "Five minutes and you're gone," he said smugly. He wasn't entirely sure that was going to be the case but no point giving a sprite any more ground than it already had.

JD scowled at him. "I told you." The image inverted without turning around, a trick that made JD's stomach lurch. "I ain't a sprite, I ain't a virus, and you ain't getting rid of me."

"Yes, I fucking am getting rid of you. Why am I even talking to you? You're a construct, a cybernetic responder with no intelligence of its own."

"Aw, that's just harsh, xiâo dì dì," Wilmington said firmly. "You know better'n that."

The scary thing was, JD thought that maybe the sprite had a point. He'd never met a auto-responder that was quite as smart on the uptake as this one. His eyes widened as and idea struck him. His hands moved faster on the table. "Freaking government ghost!"

"Whoa, no, absolutely not! Kid? Kid! I'm no gov-drone. Ah, now, kid, stop that--" The man's image fuzzed out, then coalesced again. "Come *on*, do I *look** like a Fed?"

JD kept his hands moving, his eyes slid shut as he sank into the subware of his net, racing through the connections, sealing himself off from the outside, then shutting down the whole thing, line by line. You're going *down**, he thought viciously, and drove the program further and further away from his main net until he had it trapped in a loop that he could, and promptly did, snap out of the main link.

"Jeshu," he muttered. He looked carefully around the room, and his shoulders slumped with relief. It was just him and his tiny three room apartment. And the big black haired man bouncing on his bed.

"Hey!"

"Kid, you need a better job. The perks on this one are for shit."

"You can feel that?"

Wilmington grinned at him. "Biofeedback."

"You're locked out!" JD said plaintively. He looked at his net, and there was the bug, churring quietly in its locked off loop. And there was Wilmington, grinning at him. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

"Well, that's an interesting story, kid. Glad you asked me."

"Shut up! You're not here! I can't see you! Shut up!" JD yelled.

There was a knock on the door. "Fed Dunne?"

"What?" he yelled back, rapidly losing the last shreds of control on his temper.

"Are you okay?"

JD stalked to the door and flung it open. "Do I *look** okay?" he snapped. He waved inside the room. "Does that look normal to you?"

Casey stared at him for a long moment, then peered inside his room. "Uh. Yeah. Why were you yellin', JD? It got Aunt Nettie all worked up. You know she hates being woken up."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'll come shut her down in a minute. He hesitated again. "Look, Case -- seriously. Do you, uh, see anything strange in there?"

Casey looked inside carefully. "Well, that pile of laundry's gone from the floor. That's pretty strange right there," she observed, and JD gritted his teeth.

"Without the personal commentary?"

She slanted a smirk at him, "But the commentary's the most fun I get most days."

"Casey!" He didn't get her, he really, really didn't.

"Well, I could help you with that."

"Shut up, you!" he snapped, and then realized what he'd just said. "Not you, xiao mei-mei," he said quickly, but Casey was glaring at him.

"Well, fuck you too. I only came up to see what all the yellin' and stuff was. Next time you can fry in your own brain fat."

"Casey -- Case-- ah hell." JD slammed the door shut behind her. "Well, *hell**," he muttered again. The only girl in town who was remotely interested in him and he'd pissed her off. Again.

"Whooee! Real little firecracker you've got there, xiao di di." Wilmington observed. "Now, you want my advice--"

"I don't! Thank you! I'm absolutely *fine*! Just let me be! Please?" He didn't mean the last bit to come out quite so plaintive, and Wilmington frowned.

"Hey, kid, don't take it so hard. See, thing is, for girls that kinda slamming and flouncing is just courtship rituals. You know, making sure you don't take 'em for granted."

"Yeah? No!" JD stopped himself before he could ask any further. "You're not even here. You're not real. And once I've debugged this place, you'll be gone." he snapped his fingers. "Poof!"

Wilmington smirked. "Sure, kid. You go ahead and think that if it makes you happier." He settled himself on the bed, which didn't move under him no matter how much the man squirmed to get himself comfortable. "I'll be right here when you're done." He closed his eyes and then opened one again. "Don't forget to shut down Aunt Nettie."

"Gah!"

-----------------------

Ezra sat back into the main pilot's seat. The *only** pilot's seat, some bitter edged whisper reminded him, one that sounded only too like his dear, late Mama. The seat had once been covered with memory-hide, soft as silk, conforming to the owner's posture while calculating on a second by second basis, the most supportive position for him. Now it was faded, torn and parts of the electronics dug into his back if he moved incautiously.

None of this was any better than the rest of the ship. Indeed, in many ways it was better off. The seat at least had once been classy and beautiful. Now it was merely utilitarian, holding him in approximately the right position to pilot his craft. This of course pre-supposed that the craft in question was capable of flight of any description whatsoever...

He was not a man who spat, but he could understand the sudden urge to do so, no matter how uncouth.

Instead he drew a deep breath. "There is always another choice, Ezra," he said firmly, and swung out of the seat. A piece of metal snagged on his jacket and ripped a couple of centimeters open before he caught himself and unhooked it. "I am meant for greater things than this. I will not allow this to in any way --" His foot slipped on a patch of oil and he crashed to the floor. "That's it. I am getting rid of this hunk of misbegotten machinery, and finding myself a new means of transportation off this filthy little dirtbowl of a planet." He stalked out of the ship, and glared around the field. He paused, staring at a Gerrun Three. Small. Old. Fast. Extremely well built.

Rare.

If he owned one of those he'd be able to do as he pleased. On planet. Off planet. He could feel himself start to salivate, and sighed happily. A goal. Mother had always said, first set your goals. Then find out how many rules you're going to have to break getting there. He patted the pocket in his left breast where a small picture of Maud Standish the 23rd lay hidden under a microdot in one of his business cards. No point advertising of course.

First, find out who owns it. Second, find out what their weak point is. Third, apply crowbar.

Or the nearest reasonable approximation.

He smiled happily and there was an actual bounce in his step as he walked across the field. He walked right around the beautiful ship. Oh, the outside was battered. Micro-meteors would do that to all but the ships of the line. But inside. Ah, *inside**.

"I wouldn't."

Ezra didn't even turn around. "I am merely wondering exactly what one might call this particular craft."

"Mine," the voice said flatly, and Ezra turned around. Oh dear.

"Padre. What a delightful surprise. And you say this ship is yours?" He frowned a little. "Well, I heard that the Church encourages poverty and abstinence--"

Larabee smiled faintly at him, and Ezra nodded as though he'd meant to shut up at that point all along. "I'll just be on my way. Into town. Getting supplies."

"Standish?"

"Yes, padre?"

"Make me a decent offer, and we'll see."

From the way Larabee's eyes slid indifferently over him, Ezra wasn't sure if Larabee was after an offer on the ship, or an offer of his body.

"I'm not quite sure I follow--"

Larabee tilted his head, and Ezra found himself unaccountably falling into silence once more. "I have a ship. You have a burning need for a ship to get off this " -- the sharp planes of the man's face slackened for a second -- "Yeah, this filthy little dirtbowl of a planet."

Ezra kept his face still by long practice and custom. Nonetheless he was shaken. "I believe it is contrary to the ethics of your good brotherhood to rummage around in the minds of random strangers."

"Why, Ezra, I'm hurt," Larabee said softly. "Y'ain't random at all."

"Brothers!"

Ezra jerked, startled by the roared greeting. Two enormous arms wrapped around him and lifted him in an entirely unwelcome hug.

"Sir, please unhand me at once!"

Larabee, to his acute annoyance, was laughing silently. The behemoth put him down and he whirled. "I would thank you to leave me alone in future, laotou."

"Xiao di di, that's no way to speak of your elders and betters."

Ezra looked the old man up and down, and then from side to side, taking in the full glory of the kilt and serape. He allowed his incredulity to show, and stepped back. "My mother had but one child, and I am he. So unless you have information about illegal cloning activities, I strongly suggest you leave me alone."

He glanced at Larabee, the man's face gave nothing away, and he wished he knew how to play his cards here. He'd already had one run in, and nothing would persuade him that he had come off entirely in his best light on that occasion.

"Osanchez," Larabee said with a slanted smile at Standish, "Let's talk."

The two men walked away, and Ezra stood watching them, his brain working furiously. He *had** to know more about Larabee. If he was ever going to get off this dirtball, then Larabee was his ticket out. He didn't question the certainty, accepted it, incorporated it into his future decision sets, and moved on. Now, who would be the best place to find information about the newly arrived priest.

Did this backwater hole even *have** a Church of Humanity consulate? He weighed options, and then reluctantly decided to go for the easiest one. The coffee shop at the end of the main street had a publicly accessible news term. He should be able to download anything he wanted to see there. He walked quickly, purposefully. It was just asking for trouble to look like a man who didn't know exactly where he was going at all times. And sometimes, trouble came asking without so much as a by your leave.

"Hey, Mister!"

A hand gripped his sleeve. He twisted easily out from under it, recognizing the voice of the woman who had lost to him the night before. He kept going. "Hey!" He picked up his pace a little hoping that the public location would prevent her from going too far.

"*Hey*! You! Gamblin' man!"

Ezra stopped, glared momentarily at the sky for the benefit of the interested bystanders, and turned in a manner as indicative of contempt and third degree boredom as he could usefully manage. "Were you by any chance referring to me?" he asked mildly.

She glared at him. "I'm calling you out. You stole my money, and then you lied about it, and you called me a lousy player." That last seemed to rankle the most, and Ezra twisted his mouth regretfully. Maybe he should have refrained from that last comment.

On the other hand --

"Madam, I believe I did not ever refer to you as lousy. Execrable, possibly. Atrocious, I admit that in the silence of my own thoughts I may have used the word atrocious. Abysmal may also have sprung to mind. But in fact the word I used, madam, was 'bad'. You are a bad player. And a bad loser." He looked her up and down, "And if you will forgive a man for commenting on such a thing, a bad dresser. Lilac is not your color."

"I ain't givin' you no other warning!" She flipped open the peace catch on her side arm, and Ezra swore mentally. The last thing he needed was a run in with the local law. He flicked a quick glance around. If there even *was** any local law. No sign of it yet. And that interfering P-I had stopped him last time. Hmm.

Still, no point being too trigger happy.

"Madam, I have no argument with you--"

"Well, I sure have an argument with you! Draw!"

"Madam, surely we can settle this dispute amicably, rather than by a crude trial of arms in the public gaze."

"You a coward?"

The crowd murmured, opinion swaying away from him to the woman again. Cowardice was not a charge to be ignored lightly.

"I am no coward, madam. As you please." He stepped down into the street and waited for her. They faced each other, then turned sharply.

"On ten, madam."

"Whatever."

And that was very nearly the last thing he ever heard, and he knew it as the gun thudded dully as she spoke, blending with someone yelling "Down! Federales! Everybody down! On the ground or I shoot the next person standing!"

It was a young voice, with an edge to it that spoke of uncertainty, and the possibility that law or no law, he might just shoot -- and his hands might be shaking a little too hard to be certain he wouldn't hit you.

Ezra was already on the ground, and he stayed there as brisk hands removed every last one of his weapons.

"Case? You got anything?" the young man again. He was closer, and Ezra could just see him brusquely running a scanner over his assailant then taking the weapons he found away from her.

"Three guns, couple of knives, something that the scanner says is weapons grade and looks like string," a girl's voice said remarkably close by, and Ezra groaned. Today could surely not get any worse. "Come on, git up!" she added, toeing his ribs ungently.

Ezra rolled cautiously to his feet.

"Hands on your head. That's it. You been arrested before?" the girl asked pugnaciously as she wound memory cuffs around first one wrist and then the other. She turned him around and he closed his eyes in pain. Not ten feet away his aggressor was being similarly treated, by another child. Their combined ages quite possibly did not accumulate enough to pay for a decent meal. And both were in federal uniform, a full blown First and his Second.

The perfect ending to a wretched day. A wretched week.

All it lacked was to have his past catch up with him. He regarded the fiasco in progress, and decided that he might, just might, successfully evade the full weight of the retribution awaiting him in federal hands. What could those kids know?

"Why no, miss -- I must admit I do not understand why I am being incarcerated. I did not so much as pull my weapon on this good citizen when she approached me."

"Save it for the Axe," the girl said tersely, and slid a look at her boss. "JD?"

"Lockup," the kid said, and then added, "better make it separate cells."

'Case' rolled her eyes. "I'm not stupid, JD."

"I know, I was just saying."

"Well, you didn't need to. I thought of it already."

"Fine, okay, that's great." JD looked at Ezra, clearly trying to think of a way to ask if she needed any help which wouldn't result in getting his head bitten off. "How about you take him in first? If that's okay? If you don't need a hand or anything?"

"And what are you going to do with her if ya come and help me?" she demanded impatiently. "Come on, you, *move*." She aimed a kick at Ezra's ankles.

JD visibly gritted his teeth. "Activate the immobilizer field for starters."

"Oh."

"And Case? Don't hit the prisoners. The Axe'll want to see the files on the incident, and the cameras are still rolling."

Ezra carefully didn't show any sign that he was amused by her infuriated expression.

"Ah, shut up," she muttered under her breath. "Off planet know-it-all. Just got the job cuz ya schmoozed the Axe. Know-nothing pig-ignorant halfbreed."

Ezra walked into his cell and settled himself comfortably on the chair there. A moment later the cuffs fell off and dissolved into the floor. Well now. Young Miss Casey looked like someone worth cultivating. All that lovely resentment...

Before he could start the cell next door opened, and the woman stumbled inside, a more reluctant prisoner than himself he rather suspected.

-----------------------

"Doctor?"

Nathan Jackson looked up, a smooth smile slipping into place. "Good morning, Federale Dunne."

"Doc, can I ask you something?"

Nathan looked at his half packed up workshop. Most people would have figured out that the closed door, and the clutter, and half filled boxes would be a clue. Not this fed. He let out a carefully controlled breath that was *not** a sigh, and said, "Yes?" as shortly as he could. He didn't want the boy hanging around. he had managed to get a flight off this hole. By the time he hit Celaeno he should have a stack of planets lining up to hire him on. God knew that after the Scatter, no one could afford to lose medical talent. His lips pursed briefly as he remembered Ex-Corp, and their approach to staff retention.

"Um, if it's a problem..." The fed stopped and looked helplessly at him, and Nathan sighed.

"No. No problem. How can I be of assistance?"

"I, er, last night? When you -- and you said I'd overloaded my neural net?"

Nathan's eyebrows bounced briefly. He had had no idea the kid had been awake enough to hear that. "Yes," he said cautiously. Was he going to regret his teasing comments from the night before?

Dunne looked at him, anxiety on his face, and Nathan frowned. "Have you had more problems?"

Dunne slid a look sideways very briefly, so fast that Nathan wondered a second later if he had really seen it. "I had another nose bleed this morning."

"Could you taste blood at the back of your throat?"

JD shook his head. "No." He looked anxiously up as Nathan hmm'd thoughtfully. "That's good?"

"Not tasting blood is pretty much always good, yes," Nathan said dryly.

Another quick sidelong glance away from Nathan, and the young man's lips moved. It looked like he was muttering 'shut up', and Nathan turned to look at whatever the fed kept looking at. His half empty book shelves and the clutter of his packing. He shook his head, abandoning the mystery.

"Did you injure your head at all? Jar it?"

"No."

"Did you maybe do it while you were sleeping?"

"I was just sitting eating breakfast, on my own, and it started again. Shut up, it's your fault." At Nathan's startled look, he added swiftly, "Just talking to, uh, myself." He smiled weakly. "Don't mind me. Bad habit. Net thing. Just--" he snapped his mouth closed on what Nathan strongly suspected was another request to shut up. Another of those sidelong looks, this one venomous.

"Federale Dunne -- JD --" he leaned forwards a little, "is the nosebleed really the problem?"

JD visibly swallowed. "Do, do you know anything about blood nanites?"

He wouldn't meet Nathan's eyes, and Nathan could hardly blame him. He had the sudden urge to go and wash his hands again. Maybe burn the clothes he'd been wearing when he wiped up the kid's blood last night.

"Not much," he said slowly. "Everyone knows the stories. The blood music."

The kid was staring at his hands folded tightly on his knees. He looked very young, like he wished he could pull his knees up to his chest and hide.

"It's not like that. Not really." He looked up, eyes anxious and wide. "People forget they're coded to deenay. They would just die if I -- if they, when they, well." He ducked his head, stumbling to a halt in the face of Nathan's silent disapproval. It was the kid's body, but *why** would you do something like that?

"You have blood nanites?" he asked flatly, and the kid looked sideways away from him, and then back, and straightened his back.

"Yeah." His head dropped, and he muttered, "It wasn't entirely my idea, okay?"

"I'm not saying a word," Nathan said, wondering if this was the problem. "Is -- JD, did someone do this to you against your will? Recently?" He stumbled over the sentence, trying to wrap his head around the idea that this wasn't theoretical. Nanites so small, so complex that they could be used to replace actual blood cells. He swallowed. It would explain the nose bleeds, and the ear bleed. Maybe the nanites were going rogue. Trying to break out. He felt sick, and cursed that he had left his personal force field to charge. He glanced across the room to the small pack plugged into the mains.

"No, no, that's not it. Uh." JD hesitated, and said, "Do you know if there's any way that a neural net could interact with them?"

Nathan frowned. "I'm a doctor, not a technician," he said slowly, "but aren't they two different things? The net is wired in the brain, and the nanites are simply in the blood stream. They shouldn't affect each other."

"Oh. Okay." The kid stared at the floor as he spoke quickly, "Have, have you ever heard of, um, after-images."

"From net time?"

JD nodded.

Nathan shrugged. "Momentary ones. Mild hallucinations sometimes occur, especially in new users. The insertion surgery affects every part of the sensorium, so you sometimes get tactile, labile and auditory phenomena too. But most people learn to filter them out or adapt for them."

"Oh."

"JD -- are you hallucinating something?" He didn't mistake the snatched glance left. "JD?"

"No. No, it was just, just a glitch. Probably."

"JD, if your neural insertion is glitching, that's extremely serious." Nathan hesitated a fraction of a second, and lied. "I'm not qualified to go in and investigate." He ignored the 'brain' brain sitting on the shelf with a dozen other chips loaded with surgical and medical data. "I'd have to recommend you find a neurological specialist. Urgently."

"Urgently?" Another quick look to the side. "Doc -- "

"Yes?"

"You don't see anyone sitting on that big box in the middle, do you?" he asked, in a very small voice.

"No, son," he said gently. Options ran through his brain madly. Neural net failure, psychotic break (in a fed! Jeshu, they were lucky he had sedatives that would take down a bull elephant), nanite break out, comms failure-- he breathed in sharply and the kid's head came up.

"What?"

"Have you checked no one's broadcasting to your net frequency?" he asked, abruptly relieved at such a simple solution.

"I--" He stopped, looked sideways for a long moment, then nodded. "I didn't think of that," he said flatly. "I'll, go away and check it." He stood and offered his hand to Nathan, who smiled pleasantly and held up his filthy hands in refusal.

"I'm covered in dirt. I was just clearing up in here," he said, deeply grateful that he wouldn't have to touch the fed. DNA imprinting or no DNA imprinting, those things were dangerous.

"Right," Dunne said quietly. There was an old look in his eyes, and he added slowly, "I'm sorry to have troubled you, sir. I'll let myself out."

"Come back if it turns out not to be that," Nathan said, feeling vaguely guilty. "I've got a couple of diagnostic tools that might be able to help." If I'm still here, he thought. What if he is having a psychotic break? What if I send him back on duty, and he's carrying and he thinks he hears voices and starts shooting? What if I leave and he kills someone?

What if he kills someone because I was too scared of a medical myth to do my job properly?

He held out his hand. "Wai, wait a minute. Look, give me a minute and I'll find that diagnostic. I'll double check. Since you're here."

The fed shifted from one foot to the other, and said, "You don't have to--"

Nathan smiled. "Actually I do. Part of my medical oath you might say. Wait here."

Dunne waited, not taking a seat.

"Okay, put your hand in here," he said easily. He held out a bio-mol scanner. Strictly, it wouldn't tell him anything about Dunne's mental health, but it *would** tell him about the nanites and the kid's genetic disposition to mental illness. His patient stuck his hand into the small space between the fixed jaws of the scanner, and after a couple of seconds it beeped. "Keep perfectly still," Nathan said. It beeped again, and he nodded. "Okay." Dunne withdrew his hand, and cocked his head curiously.

"Just a couple of minutes, and we'll just have a look at what's going on in there," he said, and tapped his own head. The device chirped, and he keyed it to download to his terminal and run against standard diagnostics for bio and bio-mech.

He twisted and reset the scanner to fit around a skull. The plates slid out smoothly, like a spatial fold toy he'd had years ago. He smiled faintly. This one didn't fold out into a small spaceship of course. "If you could stand here." The tool had a stabilizing hook, and he carefully guided Dunne into the scanner space. "Hold still." It bleeped, and a few seconds later bleeped again. "That's it. Now I just wait for the --"

His terminal chimed softly. The first diagnosis was ready. He read through it and smiled. No bio anomalies. No mech anomalies. A series of figures footed the report, but he gave them only a cursory glance. The second set of data were running, and he watched the report build up. No genes for mental instability. No indication of drugs; stress hormones within acceptable limits. No anomalous brain stem activity. Whatever the kid was seeing, it had an external source. Probably.

He frowned at the seventy-three per cent probability rating. He hadn't seen something that low in a while. But no psychotic break. And he had to pack.

He hesitated a fraction of a second, wondering if the nanites could affect the scanner's function, then dismissed the thought. They were just tools. Like his own immune boosters, they gave their owner a biological advantage that was, if not necessary, then very useful in a universe that had not been designed to accommodate human beings. He might as well be afraid of touching a sick person with a non-communicable illness.

"All's well," he smiled. "It's probably someone's entertainment system broadcasting on your frequency."

Dunne nodded slowly. "Yeah. Thanks, Doc," he said, but didn't offer his hand again. "Bill me privately would you?"

Nathan blinked, and then nodded. Understandable. "Have a good day, Federale Dunne."

"Yeah. Yeah, you too." The fed looked around briefly, then left, his shoulders slumped.

Nathan sprayed the scanner and the seat with disinfectant.

-----------------------

Chris didn't open his eyes. He tried not to move at all, but breathing in and out was putting painful pressure on his stomach, and he turned his head a little, just far enough to not choke as he threw up.

By the smell, it wasn't the first time.

He half wished he could have the comfort of closing his eyes, but he could feel light on his skin; even through his eyelids the world intruded. He drifted. He'd learned not to question this. It was quiet inside his head. He couldn't think, didn't remember. Nothing mattered except the bitter taste at the back of his throat that warned that he was going to try to turn his stomach inside out again. And the lassitude, and the quiet emptiness.

A headache stretched at the edges of his bones; he was so dehydrated that he thought he could feel his brain shrinking away from the sides of his skull, rattling inside, a desiccated husk of everything it once was. Maybe the memories escaped with the water.

A small smile pulled at his face. Maybe that was the solution -- the smile widened. Yes, dissolve the memories, pour them out with the piss and the puke. let them drain away until it didn't matter any more that

He stopped. The memories were there still; dark and reaching out for him, and he refused to look. No, this was just him, and his hangover, and the calm before the storm.

"Hey, mister!"

Chris winced, and scowled.

"That glare'd be killer if yer eyes were open," she added, and Chris levered one eye open to take a look at this foolhardy female. "You can't stay here, sir, you gotta a place to go?"

Chris blinked and his pleasant lassitude fell away, leaving the growing weight of his past pressing in on his chest. He blinked again, trying to clear his eyes, and took in the grey uniform of a fed. A single stripe indicated a acting second, and he wondered where the first was, and if she would be easier to deal with.

"Sir?" A strong pair of hands gripped at his shirt and tugged until he had to either stand or be dragged.

"Get your hands off of me!" he snarled, and slammed his hands up and apart sharply, breaking her grip and almost certainly leaving bruises on the insides of her wrists.

"Shit."

Maybe that wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. "Stay right where you are, mister!" He winced at her yell, and squinted against the strong sunlight to see exactly what he expected. She'd backed off about two meters and was holding her sidearm on him. As he watched she lifted her wrist towards her face, "Federale Dunne, come in! Wannerate."

"Where are you?" A man's voice came through loud and clear and Chris grimaced.

"Beecher an' Main."

"Right with you."

Chris wiped at his mouth, and then froze as her gun hand twitched.

"Stay right where you are, sir," the woman said.

"Fed Wells, I really don't think you want to do this--"

"Sir, I really don't think you wanted to strike an officer of the law, either, but you did. So if you'd like to just wait there, my boss'll be along in a minute, and you and he can have a nice little chat down at the house."

Chris was torn between laughing in the girl's face, and swearing. a moment later he was definitely opting for the swearing.

"Hey, zhàngfu, what you got yourself into -- oh, now that's bad," Buck Wilmington's voice seared through his world. He looked up and found the man smiling at him from maybe ten meters distance, long legs eating up the ground as the young man beside him -- also in federal uniform -- loped towards Wells.

"Buck," he said softly, and lunged for the man. This was it, this was the moment he had been waiting for; three years of waiting and looking, and guns were too quick, too easy, and he reached for his throat, already anticipating with grim pleasure the sight of that fine face blackened and bloating grotesquely under his hands. "I've been waiting for a long time to do this, you murdering bastard!"

But Buck wasn't there.

Too many things happened at once to really register. The kid by Buck was yelling, the girl was too; both of them had their weapons up, and he felt the pressure change as they both fired; but he was already falling though Buck; his body seized up, and he measured his full length on the ground, unable to reach out and save himself. He hit the ground painfully, immobile, not even breathing, desperately waiting for the neutralizer to kick in and allow his heart to beat again. A second later there was a soft feeling running through him that he knew from experience -- on both sides of its use-- was that weapon releasing his autonomic systems from the grip of the cell-stopper. He drew a deep breath and coughed helplessly as grit and dust were blew in, but he couldn't close his mouth, or move anything.

The pure visceral panic of having every bodily system except his brain stopped faded as sluggish blood started to circulate. He concentrated on breathing, the feeling of being winded gone as though it had never been. Each breath should have calmed him, pushed him deeper into a proper mindset for dealing with some snot nosed little fed and her barely out of diapers boss. Instead they rode his rage up, cycling higher. He was raging against the block, straining every thought towards moving, towards getting to Wilmington and wringing the life out of his filthy little neck.

"Sir, sir, please calm down!" The young man was crouched beside him. He was frowning as he looked at him with that half-abstracted gaze of those listening to voices in their heads. Probably watching bio-phys readouts, and afraid he was going to infarct right in front of him. "Do you have any medication you require?" The neutralizer ran over his lower face briefly, softened his jaw muscles. He felt his muscles slacken, and worked at his jaw cautiously, checking he hadn't loosened anything when he'd hit.

Buck was crouched next to the kid, overlapping with him slightly, and Chris stared, wondering if the fed knew he was sharing body space with a ghost. From the irritated little looks he kept throwing at the ghost he figured the answer was yes.

"Chris? Chris? What is it?" he was asking anxiously against the fed, who was biting his lip, and asking his question about medication again.

He waited a couple of seconds to be sure his larynx and tongue had been included before saying softly, "Get the fuck away from me," staring into the dark blue eyes that he'd once thought he would give anything in this life for.

The fed glanced at Wilmington, and Chris felt a momentary puzzlement. Did the girl see him too? Why was a fed seeing one of his ghosts? And then a pang tore at him. If Buck was a ghost, he was dead too --

He groaned and breathed in deeply again.

"That's it, sir, and another one," The kid was patting his shoulder. Each touch brought his surface thoughts bubbling through, clear as day; disjointed and fragmented as any human mind.

He wanted to push in deeper, and reached to do just that, but the kid jerked back as a warning squeal erupted from his wrist. "God! I *hate** that," the kid muttered. "Sets my teeth on edge."

"What happened?" A pair of booted feet appeared in Chris's line of sight, walking thorough Buck, much to the man's bemused disgruntlement by the look on his face. A second later he recognized Wells' voice. "Did he attack you again?"

"Got a red light on eleven." The kid sounded like he really didn't want to share the information, and a minute later, Chris understood why.

"I *said** he was a rogue! I said he was a psi rogue!"

"Case!" The man sounded irritated, "Not in the street, okay? Look, you want to do something useful, get your gloves on and pick up his feet. I'll get his arms."

It wasn't the first time he'd been removed from a street like so much unwanted trash. But it quite possibly was the single most embarrassing.

-----------------------

"I assure you, Federale Wells," Ezra said, leaning forward from his seat on his cellbed, his head tilted up a little to emphasize that she was taller, in control, more powerful, "I had nothing to do with the altercation in the street."

Casey looked doubtfully at him. "I ain't the federale around here."

Ezra let his eyes widen a little, "But as second you are entitled to all the respect of a first when the first is not--" he looked ostentatiously round the jailhouse, "-- around."

"Huh." She fidgeted with the unit at her belt, the charms on her wristband clacking softly together as she twisted it to and fro. "The Axe said we was both his representatives," she agreed, clearly thinking aloud, "So I guess I've a right to it."

"Of course you do!"

She wandered back to the desk at the front of the cell area and sat down, swinging idly to and fro. "Where's that accent from?"

Ezra blinked. The conversation wasn't going quite as planned, but, no matter. "Borealis Ultra."

"Really?" The girl's head came up. "It always sounded so romantic--"

"Until the recent unpleasantness it *was** romantic. An idyllic world, filled with beautiful ladies and dashing young men--"

"And a poverty line forty percent below galactic standard, and a pair of mono-corps that owned everything that wasn't protected," a harsh voice croaked and Ezra couldn't stop himself shooting a glare at the man who had interrupted him, then snapped his mouth shut again.

Him. Larabee. "I am sure that a man like yourself would approve of Four Ten and their ilk," he said recklessly, and was thrown by the near silent chuff of laughter.

"Yeah, Four-Ten. Sure I approve; hell, I love all the Dee-Gees and their corps." He looked at Wells, and shook his head. "You're too young, child, and he's playin' ya. Concentrate on your job, and forget about cities in the sky, and cloud dancing."

The girl's face hardened. "I ain't as young as all that, Mister Larabee. Maybe I just wanted to pass the time of day with a friend. No law 'gainst that, is there?" She tapped at her screen and then smirked at Ezra. "That'll shut him up." She jerked her head towards Larabee's cage, and when Ezra frowned added, "Noise filter on his cage. We use it for drunks mostly."

Ezra slanted a look at the raddled face the dull eyes and vomit stained robes and smirked. "Well, I would say that is an entirely appropriate response, my dear."

"So..." she asked, biting nervously at her lip, then looking up through her lashes in a move that no Daleesian princess could have bettered, "What was it like? Before the Hegemony broke it up and --"

"Before they stopped the dancing and the music?" he asked softly, as though half lost in a memory already, and she nodded eagerly. "Ahhh, well."

This was going to be too damn easy.

"There were days where you could see forever. The skies were the richest, most delicate green, and the clouds were blue with rain, the oceans were emerald below us and we would dance in the clouds. The House Lady was always first, the last time I saw her she wore red and orange, her skin like night against the flames of her robes. The girls wore blues and yellows and pinks and reds, bright against the sky, long streamers trailing from wrists and elbows and ankles, the hems too low, long split skirts that trailed too far to ever walk in, but skydancing, well, that didn't matter. And the boys were beautiful too," he couldn't help a brief flicker of his eyes towards Larabee, whose noise filter was clearly one way only, and who was rolling his eyes in disbelief. He snatched his gaze back before Casey looked and the spell was broken. "With their great iridescent sleeves, and the skin fitting suits that showed every muscle as they danced as though the air was a platform, and the clouds themselves nothing but comfortable feather beds and chairs."

Casey was smiling, "It sounds beautiful," she said softly. "It must have been hard--"

"Let's not dwell on that, my dear. The Dee Gee had their reasons, and they were not entirely bad reasons," although we might have taken then a little more seriously if they'd protested our monopoly on the mining worlds *before** we received the offer of Saffra's management, and all her enphidium plants...

"Did you go to dances?"

That threw him for a moment, and he smiled, "Why, of course, child. No one who was anyone failed to go." For a few precious seconds he was there again, the wind in his face, the hard pressure of antigrav at knees and shoulders supporting him as he took part in a display as lavish and erotic as any birds of paradise could give. All gone. Perhaps the dances would come again, but with the power of the Ex-Corp monopoly broken, it would never be the same.

"I'm sorry," Casey whispered, her eyes soft, "I didn't mean to--"

"No," he smiled, perhaps not with as much difficulty as he pretended -- though possibly more genuine pain than he wanted to admit even to himself. "No, it is always worth remembering beautiful things."

There was a long silence, and he wondered how exactly he had managed to dredge up foolish, sentimental memories of Borealis Ultra in its last days, with shining girls, and gallant boys, and the sound of music playing and playing until the ships came.

"So, how long have you worked with Mr. Dunne?" he asked, and her face darkened. Much better. Miss Wells, it seemed, could hold forth on the subject of Mr. Dunne, and his employment as First Federale at some length.

Eventually, he grew to envy Larabee his noise filter.

-----------------------

JD Dunne was having a bad day. So far he'd arrested two men, both of whom he was going to have to release, and a woman who was going to have to be held until the Axe got back to Last Chance.

One of the men was a PI. He ran a hand over his face again and groaned. He'd arrested a PI.

So much for a new career going straight.

"Aw, it ain't that bad, kid."

And then there was him. Buck.

He looked at the man. Avatars didn't tend to be quite like their real life counterparts, but even if Buck Wilmington was a little less good looking and gregarious, the charm and the friendly assumption of big brotherhood was unfiltered. He sighed.

He'd seen prettier. But not by much. He shook himself and tried to concentrate.

"Who are you?"

Wilmington shrugged. For someone who seemed to have more than enough to say the rest of the time, he sure picked a funny time to shut up. "Do you know padre Sanchez? Josiah Sanchez?"

Wilmington shook his head. "He the one put you in the way of finding me?"

JD nodded, then shook his head. "I don't know if he was expecting you--" except he knew that Josiah had been expecting exactly this. 'A favor owed' he'd called it. And he'd given this mad grin and promised JD it was a nice surprise. He was never quite sure if Sanchez was crazy, or crazy like a fox.

"You called Larabee 'zhàngfu'."

"You heard that?" Wilmington said, the ready humor fled from his face.

"You mean it?" JD asked, scanning Wilmington for any sign or symbol--

Buck's mouth pulled in a sad smile. "More than anything in the world."

"What happened?"

Buck shook his head. "You're gonna have to find that."

"Why can't you? You're in my net?"

"Nope."

JD blinked. "You must be. It's the only way I could -- unless. But. They've crossed the endothelial barrier?"

"What?"

JD shook his head. "Never mind." Then he ran the conversation back. "How do you know you're not in my net?"

Buck shrugged. "Tried to check some data -- catch up on the news. Couldn't break out -- tried the other way around and couldn't break in either."

And as easy as that, the nose bleeds made sense. Break outs. *Nanite** breakouts.

"Fuuuuck," he whispered, and stared at his wrist. There was a tiny mark on it where he'd pulled the data from his subdermal wristband into the thin alu-glass drive for Sanchez. Blood nanites swarmed the data into the splinter, packing it more efficiently than DNA, each one holding teraflops of data in quaternary code.

And he'd licked up the blood from his wrist.

He laughed hysterically. Buck was in his blood. Buck had crossed the blood brain barrier, and was projecting directly into his sensorium. If the man decided to abuse it, he would be dead, or a zombie, before he so much as had a chance to slit his own throat.

"Kid, kid, *kid**!" Buck was yelling at him, up close and personal. He looked like he wanted to shake him or something, and JD flinched back before he remembered what Buck already knew -- or had just rediscovered. No touching. A ghost in the blood. "We don't have time for this," he said more quietly now that JD was paying attention. "Calm down. We're gonna get this fixed."

"How?"

Wilmington smiled jauntily, "We'll figure something out. Your brawn, my brains--"

They looked at each other, and suddenly they were both laughing helplessly.

"Oh, we're so fucked," JD spluttered.

"I'll have you know I have the finest brain on five planets," Buck said haughtily.

"Yeah, and it's *mine**!" JD dodged back away from a friendly swat that sailed right through his head. "Wow that's weird," he added, blinking a little as the hand re-merged.

"Who'd you say told you where to pick up the file?"

"Josiah Sanchez." JD said, sobering.

"The old dervish?"

"Dervish?"

"Uh--whirligig man."

JD nodded, it was a good description of Josiah on one of his mad days.

"Then maybe we start with him."

JD looked dubiously at Buck. "He doesn't make a whole lot of sense some days."

"You listened to him, he made enough sense then."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess he did at that," he conceded.

"JD?"

"Dunne speaking," he answered the net call automatically, then backtracked, "Hey, Aunt Nettie."

"Got an incoming message from Church of Humanity about your newest arrest."

"Larabee?"

"The same," the Net coalesced into its preferred avatar, a skinny old woman, and put its hands on its hips. "You really done it this time, boy," she said with a smirk.

JD sighed. "Yes, Nettie."

"The Southron is gonna be trouble too. Got an outstanding on him," she added, and then idly offered, "Plus he's trying to sweet talk Casey into staging a coup and becoming First."

JD groaned. "Any more bad news?"

"Yeah." She looked him right in the eye. "You're talking to yourself."

"Most intelligent conversation around here," he smirked. "What's the outstanding?"

"Notation on the warrant says Ex-Corp want a word."

JD's eyebrows lifted. "Ex-Corp? Recently?"

Nettie looked thoughtful for a second, "About five years."

"Can I just release it?"

"It's a proper warrant. Signed by a System Axe too."

"Yeah, betcha ten cred it was Granot of Borealis," Wilmington said cynically, and JD nodded slowly, resisting the urge to look at the man.

"Granot of Borealis?" he asked casually, and Nettie nodded, her face impassive. "And it wasn't reviewed after his arrest and indictment?"

"No sign of it."

"You sure it's legal?"

"It'll take time to find out," Nettie said.

"Can you do it?"

"I *can**, have you thought whether I *should**?"

JD opened his mouth and then stopped. Legal warrants had to be executed. If he handed the man over to Travis, he'd end up either auto-sentenced, or shipped back to Borealis. If it was illegal, he risked sending an innocent man into the headless hydra that was Ex-Corp, probably to his death.

If it was illegal, and he started asking questions about the man, the hydra might come here.

"When's Travis due?"

Nettie smiled at him, like he'd gotten the answer right and she was surprised but pleased. "Two weeks."

"Huh." He stared into space, drumming his fingers. "It say what for?"

"Crimes against the state."

JD winced. "Can I think about it?"

"You might want to put him on silence too," Nettie offered, and grinned, a wicked expression on that hard old face. "Like the other one."

"The other one?"

"Yeah. The one the Church is coming to check up on."

JD froze. "On Larabee? But he was shot! She can't do that!"

"Already done, boy," Nettie said, but it was to an empty room. "My, that boy can move when he wants to," she said idly, and vanished.

-----------------------

"Surely you understand, cy-brother," the man said urgently to Tanner. Vin looked at him impassively. "You understand our plight--" he held out a gloved hand, and between the glove and the cuff of his leather jacket silver glinted.

"I'm sorry, I think you've got the wrong man," Vin shrugged, and poured himself another shot.

"I know who you are!" the other whispered, and Vin froze, just his eyes moving to meet the old man's coldly.

"I hope for your sake you don't really mean that." He tilted his head to take a thorough inventory of the man. "I really hope you don't mean that."

The man tugged at his own leather jacket, and looked significantly at Vin's. "Hide," a bitter smile crossed his face at the pun. "Animal skin to conceal --"

Vin shook his head slowly, "I just like wearing it," he said easily, and finished his glass.

"Cyborg," the man said, so quietly that no human ear could hear it -- that no human throat could have shaped the sound and had it be meaningful -- and Vin ignored it.

"Brother, you *must** help us," the man leaned in conspiratorially, apparently under the impression that his whispered accusation was a clincher in the battle for Vin's aid. "They want to take our only resource, force us even further out of human civilization --pah -- " he spat, "what a galaxy, where the seekers of peace and prosperity are driven half to Galactic Rim, and the murderers and monopolists sit in ease on Central."

"That's sad, but it ain't my problem." He eyed the bottle, then tipped the dregs into his glass and emptied it at a gulp. He stood and tipped his hat to the man, "I'm sorry, old man, I'm not the savior you're looking for."

He walked away in long easy strides, the middle of his back itching as he wondered how many people had been watching them talk. How many people were staring at the filthy cybes.

He couldn't do it.

"How many did you say?" he asked.

The miner nodded at him solemnly, doing him the courtesy of not gloating. "If I said twenty, would that scare you?"

Vin shrugged. "Twenty, huh. Need more'n me for that."

The man flipped something that glinted dully as it turned, and Vin reflexively caught it. He turned the narrow metal tube curiously and then slid it into his pocket. "That won't buy much man power."

The cyborg smiled at him. "I have faith, Mr. Tanner."

The man walked away, and Tanner pulled a rueful face. How exactly had that happened again? Oh yeah, that altruistic streak of his that Mom had always said would get him into trouble. She wasn't wrong. He hefted the little capsule, and wondered if the contents would even pay for one mercenary, much less the ten or twenty that this sort of operation would probably need. The capsule shone, light glinting from the metal, the noon sun reflecting in the small window into its contents. Maybe it would be enough.

Maybe that Larabee guy would feel like going for another crazyass tilt at a windmill.

-----------------------

Chris stared at the ceiling, and started counting backwards from ten thousand. A million was too high, although he'd made it into the seven hundred thousands while on trial back at Aquilae Secundus that one time. And he really didn't expect to get to talk to anyone in anything under a thousand. So ten thou was a decent compromise. As anger management strategies went it was primitive, and tended to get rolled eyes from the counselors assigned to him.

On the other hand, it worked.

He tucked his hands under his head and watched the sky. The cells were comfortable, and the sky-ceiling was state of the art, the sort of programming that always made him deeply suspicious of the motives of whoever installed it.

His dinner had appeared a couple of hours before, and he had tried to talk to the Fed, but she'd backed away swiftly, fear on her face, fumbling desperately at her utility belt. The chances were good she was even now reporting him as a psi rogue.

He smiled. He was kind of looking forward to the moment when High Command told her in no uncertain terms to release their Priest Inquisitor. There weren't too many opportunities for entertainment out on the far side of Scorpio belt, but this one boded pretty well.

Two other moments of entertainment presented himself and he tried to shove them both away. That Tanner man. Cyborg. Whatever he was. Saving the local medic.

Well, finally a good deed to chalk up on the positive scale. The negative seemed to weigh a little less heavy until he remembered the five dead men who had had no quarrel with him. He'd been on edge, true.

Hearing the voice of your family's killer would do that to a man. He held very still, watching the clouds drifting in the ceiling. Maybe they thought that the illusion of freedom would calm prisoners down.

He closed his eyes. He'd spent so long hating Buck; it felt like he'd hated him since before he'd known him. It bled backwards, staining even the best days with blood and ash. He consciously unclenched his jaw, waiting for the vein to stop throbbing at his temple. When he'd come back to their homestead and found nothing but smoking ashes and the deenay remnants of their wife and son, and no trace of Buck he had thought he'd lost all of them.

Something twisted in him. He'd never thought past hunting him down and killing him in revenge for Sarah and Adam. And now, he was cheated of even that. All he had left was Buck's ghost, and all he could feel was cold emptiness. This was the end then. They were truly all gone. And now he didn't know whether to grieve, or scream with rage that he'd been denied his kill.

-----------------------

Nathan scowled. Did no one in this town understand the meaning of 'I'm sorry, I'm moving to another planet'?

"I can pay," Tanner said hopefully, and waved a half filled xenobia cartridge.

"Is that genuine?" Nathan asked dubiously. A half share of it would pay for a couple of days living expenses on ship, but only if it was uncut.

"Mostly," Tanner said. The man at least had the decency to look uncomfortable. "But they're miners, maybe there's more where this came from?"

"Huh." And maybe those are real live fish I'm seeing flying by now, he thought.

"Course," Tanner looked away down the street, "we'll have to split it some."

"Some?"

"Well, I figured, Joche said twenty of them. Five of us should do it."

"Five." He looked from the ten gram cartridge to the strong profile staring determinedly in any direction but his. "Four to one odds, for something that won't pay my power bill for a day?"

Tanner nodded deprecatingly. "I know it ain't a lot." He stopped and Nathan waited for him to fill in the 'but' he could almost hear.

He slid a look at the man. He *had** saved his neck. He'd never so much as passed the time of day with the cyborg, and yet he and that priest fella had risked their necks for him. His hand rose to his throat and rubbed at the vanished bruises.

And maybe he did owe them something. Those miners were part of the reason this town existed. Part of the reason that he'd had a place to live and a job to do the last two years. So half of them were more metal than man, but sometimes he wondered if there was anyone who wasn't.

"The law involved in this?" he asked abruptly. If the feds were in it then the odds would be better.

"No." The word came out too fast, and Nathan's eyes jerked back to Tanner's face. He saw the wide shoulders lift and settle as though the man had carefully regulated some sudden urge to move or strike, or do something. "No. No feds," Tanner said more quietly. "You in?"

Nathan looked around his small room. He was never going to get packed. And if it wasn't over in seventy two hours he'd miss his flight. But-- "Yeah." He waited for Tanner to say something, and was vaguely annoyed to just get a nod.

"Okay then."

"Okay."

"You got your other three men lined up?" he asked.

A smile pulled at Tanner's mouth for the first time. "I'm working on that," he said, and Nathan gaped at him. "You got any friends?"

Nathan started to laugh helplessly. "There's a man I can ask. No promises mind, but he's not a fed, and he doesn't mind violence." Tanner nodded again.

"Meet back here in five hours?"

"Sure." Nathan couldn't stop himself, "Who are you going to get to help?"

Tanner grinned wickedly. "Oh, I've got a couple of straight shooters on ice." Nathan followed the man's gaze and discovered his attention locked on the jailhouse. The high security federal jailhouse.

"You ain't gonna-- you can't--"

Tanner turned his head to smile lazily at Nathan. "Oh, you got no idea what I can do." He looked back down the street. "No idea at all."

-----------------------

Josiah moved bricks rhythmically. The steady movement was settling, as good as meditating, and less likely to result in him running screaming down the high street. Although, he allowed with strict honesty, it had been known to happen even so.

He had all of them just about. The serpent was going to try to leave; he'd have to do something about that. The door was breaking open wider every minute. The pieces of the broken circle were nearly together. It shouldn't take too much to get them all into place together, and then, well, Ezra Standish wasn't destiny's only bitch.

And he was hungry. He put down the teetering stack and walked back to the small cubby hole and his MREs. He popped one, waited for it to finish heating and ate it. It smelled delicious, and he shook his head. Somewhere, if there was any justice, there was a food aromarologist who had trouble sleeping nights, when every fragrant mouthful was a lie on the tongue. He chewed thoroughly, and took another bite. These things took forever to finish, purely because it took an effort of will extended over several seconds to actually swallow the stuff. Eat, but don't eat too much. Food as penance.

Whatever it was he couldn't help feeling that there was no justice, and that someone, somewhere, was laughing. Probably at him.

He wondered how the boy was doing. He hadn't thought that he was part of it until the dreams this last sennight.

He rose to his feet and arched his back, enjoying the sharp series of cracks as muscles and bones alike realigned and settled themselves. That was good. He set back to moving bricks. Eventually, there would be neat stacks at the walls, and he could begin with the rebuilding. But first, he had to lay the groundwork, bring order out of chaos, and other such over worn metaphors for his life of penance. He growled under his breath.

"Am I interrupting, Josiah?"

Josiah blinked. "Brother Nathan." Well, if the man would sneak around he was bound to get growled at occasionally. He should warn a body.

"I was wondering if you had a few minutes to spare?"

"Minutes are plenteous, my friend."

"Yeah, except you wouldn't believe how much stuff I suddenly have to cram into a finite number of minutes. It's like, put a time stamp on you availability and suddenly it's the last hot toy on the shelf at solsfest. Everyone wants it, and no one's asking you if you want to be wanted. You know?"

"I believe I can smell herring," of the red variety, my friend.

Nathan threw him a look that said with beautiful clarity that Nathan was humoring the lunatic. "Yeah. Uh. Josiah. I've got this guy, friend, saved my neck yesterday, don't know if you heard about that, up here with the bricks."

"And the crows," Josiah interjected happily.

"Crows. Right. So we're riding out to take care of a little problem over at Camp Hugo and we were, I mean I was wondering--"

"Harbingers, Nathan. Today is not a good day to die."

Nathan looked blank, and Josiah sighed. Nobody watched the classics any more. It was all direct input and neural feeds, "And see where that gets you," he said towards the federal jailhouse in the distant town.

"No day is a good day to die, Josiah," Nathan said, sounding irritated, although the emotion didn't appear anywhere but the slight edge to his voice.

"Contrariwise, Nathan," Josiah said happily. "Some days are better than others. When were you planning to die?"

"Day after forever."

"There! A good day to die!" he smiled, genuinely amused, until Nathan reluctantly smiled back at him.

"So, will you help?" Nathan persisted, and Josiah cocked his head thoughtfully, considered the question carefully, and slowly nodded, coming to a decision..

"No. Absolutely not." He looked earnestly into Nathan's disappointed brown eyes. "I couldn't leave my bricks."

-----------------------

JD was out of breath as he swung the corner through the front door of the federal building. The house was quiet, which always worried him -- usually Casey had music blaring, or was happily chatting to the prisoners out the back. He picked up his pace again, ignoring the burn in his lungs. He really hoped she wasn't off in a chatroom again. He grimaced at the memory of trying to find a way to tell her that anyone else would have written her up -- and not in a good way, for being in a VR chamber during working hours.

Travis hadn't said anything about having to manage a bad tempered self willed, independent cuss who thought *she** was going to be First when he'd handed him the town.

Damn Travis and all his sept.

He burst into the cell area and ran through to the cages. The woman was snoring on her bed -- he downloaded her arrest record automatically: Juliet MacKenzie. Pretty name. Shame about the owner. He checked over her biostats and logged them, as he went past, realizing as he did so that Casey had forgotten to do a baseline report.

"Case?" He called, and moved to the next cell, where there seemed to be some confusion about the occupant's name. "So which is it," he asked. "I've got Ephraim P Standish, Eric P Simone, Ezra P Standish, Elena P Samson..." he kept reading the file. "About the only common thing is EPS. Should I run a search for you, EPS?"

EPS looked suitably shocked, "Why I am Ezra Standish, sir, as my ident will clearly indicate."

JD nodded dubiously. "Uhuh. And you have no idea who all these other idents are that have gotten mysteriously attached to your deenay. It's like nothing I've ever seen before."

JD caught the widening of Ezra's eyes, and nodded, "What, I wasn't supposed to be able to see 'em?" He straightened up a little. "Take a smarter 'grammer than you found to lock that sort of thing down," he said cockily, and checked the man's bio stats. Hmm. Baseline, and half hourly updates. Manually entered at that. Nettie had said they was talking.

"Take someone with some interesting skills," Standish said pointedly, and JD knew that guilt shone in his eyes when Standish smirked.

"You been chatting with Miss Wells?" he asked, changing the subject as fast as he could. Too much to hope that the man would forget.

"Just passing the time of day," EPS smiled and settled comfortably into a lazy sprawl. "No law against passin' the time of day with a pretty young lady." He slid a look at JD and JD had to bite back a retort.

"Whatever," he said, and moved on to his original objective. Larabee seemed to be asleep, but the cage lights were flashing orange -- how had Casey not seen the damn alert? He slapped his hand onto the door lock and was through, dropping to his knees by the bed and the still figure on it before the door had swung fully open. The man was barely breathing, there was no baseline in the file, no biostats, and worse yet, the noise filter had been turned on, contrary to regs.

"Casey!" he yelled. He pulled the arm away from the man's pale face, and looked around, trying to decide what to do. The doctor. He sent out an emergency call and swore when the call bounced. "Fuck, *fuck*, *Casey*!" He carefully shook the man's shoulder, "Sir? Mr. Larabee? Ah, lao tian yeh!"

"*What*!" she snapped as she wandered into the cell area. JD didn't even look at her.

"Did you deliberately ignore every single rule on the books about care of prisoners after using a cell stopper, or did you just think it would be funny to kill a PI?" He rolled Larabee carefully onto his side, and into the recovery position. Casey was staring, her hand over her mouth and he gritted his teeth. "Don't just stand there, idiot, get me the fucking stim shot! And call Doctor Jackson!"

He heard her stumbling towards the emergency med kit, scrabbling through to find the epinephrine, and then running back. He held his hand out imperiously.

"Give me the hypo," he said, and looked up in time to see her tight, angry face. "Casey, I don't have time -- *he** doesn't have time! Give me the goddamn hypo." She slapped the pen into his palm and he jabbed it hard against the man's chest. The trigger set and a moment later the drug was hissing into the prisoner.

"You never said anything about the baseline! I thought you'd done them. You're *First** aren't you? An' no one said anything about the noise filter being bad--"

"You call the Doc?" JD asked first, brushing aside her protests for now.

"Yes, I called him! It bounced, okay? I guess he's on a call or something. I left a message -- I expect he'll come over..."

JD looked at her steadily until she stopped talking. "Well, that's one thing you've done right," he said finally. "You have any idea how many things you did wrong yet? Regulations are that baseline is taken on arrival. Well, that's my fault, I trusted you to do it, and didn't check." He ignored her thinning lips and narrowed eyes. "And I thought, being's your Second an' all, and you know so much, that you knew about procedure post cellstop." He glanced up and then away again, "My fault again. I issued you with the damn thing. You better check it back in and we'll find you something else to use."

"You can't do that! I've got a license!"

Larabee mumbled something, his head moving restlessly, and JD sighed with relief. As he watched the diagnostic readouts were slowly climbing back into acceptable levels. Jackson would have to look him over of course, but the man should be fine.

"So," he looked up at her with mild curiosity, "You have a license, which means you've taken the safety tests, so, you're telling me you knew the regs and couldn't be bothered to follow them?"

"What? No!" Casey spluttered.

"Well, either you don't know the proper procedure, or you do." He felt old, somehow. He and Casey had been friendly enough up to this point, for all their friendly rivalry over the job that he had and she thought she should have gotten. He didn't much care for being the boss, and now she was standing across the room from him and he knew with cold certainty he was going to have to fire her. "Same applies to MacKenzie as Larabee, though at least she hasn't been stopped. The only prisoner you checked on was pretty-boy over there." He jerked his head towards Standish. "And then you put up the noise filter and didn't bother with reg checks on someone we used the stoppers on." He shook his head. A small sound came from the man in the bed, and JD looked away, concentrating on the bio readouts and the rough and ready federal diagnostics and the churning in his stomach.

"I -- JD, I meant to, I just got to talking with him, and--"

"It's his fault?"

"No, no. JD, you're putting words in my mouth. I thought you'd done the baselines."

JD sighed. "Yeah, I know." Larabee was slowly easing back up to consciousness. If they were very, very lucky no one would know. It would take him minutes at the most to wipe all hints of this from the records -- delete the alarms, edit the event logs, airbrush the visual record invisibly enough that no one would ever know.

It was tempting.

He looked at the man. Dark blond strands were plastered to his skull, sweat beaded on his forehead. He was pale, his heart slowly calming as his breathing eased into a normal pattern, the touchy alveoli exchanging blood gases happily instead of simply failing to work. Larabee would never know. He'd probably chalk it up to a bad reaction, and a medical intervention. Reactions happened. He hadn't died. It wouldn't be lying exactly. Just -- editing reality a little.

Would it really matter if no one ever knew?

"We both made mistakes," he said. He stood up and watched. Wilmington was sitting by Larabee's head, and JD hesitated. "Are you gonna stay with him?"

Wilmington nodded, "If I can," even as Casey said, "If you want me to, sir," in a voice held steady by force of will.

"Casey, you come with me for now." He switched off the filter in Larabee's cage, and walked to his office out the front of the building. He settled into his chair, and Casey stood the other side of his desk, parade ground stiff.

"Sit down, Case," he told her. What to do, what to do?

She settled onto the very edge of the chair beside his desk, facing him directly. "You want me to resign?"

"What? No? If I asked you to resign, I'd have to do it too," he said instantly, and knew a momentary flash of something that felt like pride in himself. He wasn't going to take the easy path after all. Maybe this straight and narrow thing was going to work out. "I'm gonna write it up and dock us both a week's pay, okay?"

She looked suspiciously at him. "Both of us?"

He nodded resolutely. "It's my fault too. I'll send the files for Travis to assess and pronounce if you'd rather? It's gonna have to go to him anyway, but we'll have to wait until he gets around to us-- "

"No, no. Docking is good," she said quickly.

He shrugged one shouldered. "Well, you better go get some lunch for them. I'll watch Larabee. Make sure he doesn't have any other reactions."

"Okay." She relaxed, but didn't leave, twisting her hands together nervously.

"Go on, say it."

"JD -- I really didn't know about stoppers. No one ever told me."

She wasn't lying. He looked down at his hands, and then back at her.

"Then it really is my fault." he said. "Okay. And Case? I forgot too. Nettie told me."

Her face cleared and then her eyes narrowed angrily. "You let me think you--" She glared and turned on her heel. "Men!" he heard, quite distinctly, as she stalked out of the building.

"That went well," he told himself ruefully. He looked around, and realized that his ever present blood ghost was looking faded and fuzzy. It seemed to be sitting on something JD couldn't see. "Buck?" he said doubtfully.

The image firmed up a little, then hazed out again, like a bad signal. "What are you doing?" he asked, but got no answer.

-----------------------

"You know the worst thing about this all?" Chris frowned, or tried to. Somehow he was asleep and awake at the same time. He tried to open his eyes, but nothing worked. "I been figuring it out, and the kid tells me it's 3782. You know how long it's been since I got any? Three years! Three damn years! And Jeshu knows when the dry spell's gonna end." Buck made a whistling sound between his teeth, and Chris could just about see the look on his face even with his eyes closed.

"Think... a... all ... them... poor folks... 'prived..." he whispered, in time to Buck's

"Just think a all them poor deprived folks, who've missed the chance for a little Bucklin lovin'--Chris?"

"Kill ya, cheat on's..." he whispered through a smile. Buck didn't change. He talked a good game, but nothing would make him cheat on his partners.

"Chris?" Buck's voice sounded ragged, as though Chris had shocked him.

"'N feel so good," he whispered, and tried again to open his eyes.

"I know, zhàngfu, I know." Chris expected a gentle touch to go with the soft croon, and was disappointed when didn't come.

"Y'all righ'?" he asked, anxious. Nothing normally kept Buck away from him. Touch was practically another form of language for him. "Where' Sar?"

The long silence worried him more, and then an unfamiliar voice was there. "Mr. Larabee? Mr. Larabee?"

"He's definitely awake, kid," Buck's voice was somber. "Seems to have lost a smidge of time, is all."

"Are you okay?" the other man asked, and Chris nodded gratefully, yes, ask Buck if he's okay.

"Yeah," Buck said in a quiet voice that suggested he was anything but.

"What's the last thing you remember, sir?"

Chris frowned. The man sounded vaguely familiar, and he wondered where he knew him from.

"Sir?"

"Dunne." With a wrench he opened his eyes, and his memory came flooding back. Buck was watching him, crouched beside him. He lifted a hand and waved it through Buck's insubstantial form. A ghost. Huh. "You're Dunne?"

"That's me, sir." the kid smiled, and Chris wondered why he was so damned happy. "JD Dunne, First Fed for Last Chance." He ducked his head. "I'm real sorry about what happened, sir, me'n' Casey shoulda paid more attention to you."

He nodded, carefully, his head felt like it might fall off. His hangover didn't care that he was recovering from a cellstop blast but just kept on pounding happily at his skull. "I still under arrest?"

Dunne fidgeted, "Um, not exactly sir. But I got a message from Inquisitor General Culpepper to ask you not to leave."

"If I ain't under arrest, I'm going." He tried to sit up and fell back, his head spinning.

"Your blood pressure's a little low, sir," the fed said earnestly. "An' your blood sugar. And your electrolytes and just about everything. Casey's bringing some dinner, if you want it?"

"You should rest, Chris," Buck said.

Chris looked from one to the other and rubbed at his eyes with a hand that felt almost too heavy to move. "Buck?"

"Yeah, pard?" Buck smiled at him and he frowned, shaking his head slowly.

"You dead?"

Buck shrugged, and the fed snorted. "Dunno. Maybe. Maybe not."

"You kill 'em?"

"Who?" Dunne asked, looking between them, and it finally registered. "Who got killed?"

"You c'n see him?" Chris slurred. "How come?"

Dunne nodded. "I'm more interested in why *you** can see him."

Chris smiled thinly. "Mine."

"That's all very well, pard," Buck said gently, "but the kid has a point. He sees me because of-- well, it don't matter none right now, but believe me, you shouldn't be seeing me. No one else does."

Chris hand drifted to his collar and he tugged at it. "This might have some to do with it," he said, and yawned.

"Shit... Chris, what did you do?"

Chris was going to answer but Dunne stood abruptly. "I'm gonna see where that food's got to, and you should sleep. You're welcome to stay here, if you want, or I'll help you to your rooms, if you've got any."

"Sleeping on ship," he said. His eyes closed and he forced them open. "Di' you kill--"

"No." Buck sounded infinitely sorrowful, "No, zhàngfu. I don't know what happened that made you think I could ever hurt 'em, but no. I swear."

"Cou'n un'stan'--" he whispered, and Buck's voice followed him into sleep.

"We'll figure it out, Chris, I promise you, we're gonna figure it out."

Next

---

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the fandoms listed herein. I am certainly making no money off of these creative fan tributes to a wonderful, fun show.