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slovenliness and has an extra dash of under-my-thumb officiousness. Pritch or Britch was what he said his name was. Officer Fatty might be merited with some kind of rank, but Wire pegs him as unequivocally bush league. With a slight swerve of her eyeball she records the man’s butterball features on her ocular imbed for future reference. Pulling this intimidation garbage and wasting her valuable time—it’s a small world, buddy. Given half the chance down the line, Wire would gladly take a measure out of her busy schedule to quietly choke the fat man to death.
    “So, if you can’t keep me, when do I get released?”
    A measured pause. “In a little.”
    “In a little? Like, in a little what? A few hours? Days? By my count you’ve had me locked up in this cell for almost three hours straight, and that’s after I woke up. Look, pal, you obviously know why I came to The Sixty so let’s quit dicking around. I know my rights.”
    “No doubt you do,” the holographic officer coos. “As a bounty agent, I’d think knowing the variances of your rights would be a priority for you in most parts of the world. But see, the Custom Pleasure Bureau and The Sixty have deemed your detention appropriate as you’re in breach of your reservation agreement.”
    “My reservation agreement?”
    “Yes, the one you authorized upon your arrival.”
    “You can’t impede someone from engaging in her chosen field of commerce.”
    “I’m sorry, but I think we can. ‘All commercial activities or business transactions by patrons within The Sixty must be disclosed and have prior CPB approval.’ Neat trick having a subaqueous spider-bot deliver your contraband weapons ahead of your arrival. Very proactive.”
    Wire hocks back a long draw of phlegm, swallows it, and lets her eyes roam over the pressure cell’s barren walls. It’s not the first pressure cell she’s been in, but this one seems to be a new-fangled model, its atmospheric stresses specifically designed to inflict significant discomfort. Typically for someone of fewer physical attributes, such measures would keep a person sapped of strength and whimpering on the floor. Of course it took Wire some work to get her five-foot frame upright, and even more effort to fold her powerful arms, but she wants Mister Third Helping of Carbohydrates to know she’s not a pushover.
    The holographic officer buzzes on insufferably. “You stated you entered the host establishment with the intent of terminating Koko Martstellar, to collect on an outstanding Ultimate Sanction elimination warrant. While the initiators of this contract are no longer with the CPB—or living, for that matter—I understand these sort of bids are irrevocable and rewarded with accrued interest.”
    “So what’s it to you?”
    “Well, by now the payout on this bounty must be quite substantial. Perhaps you should have exercised discretion and waited until your intended target was off The Sixty.”
    Wire hangs her head and concentrates on the space between her spread feet. Sweat drips from her body as she replays how the whole debacle with Martstellar went down.
    After pursuing Martstellar on a residential barge in the lower firmamental orbits of the Second Free Zone with two other bounty operatives (both of whom Martstellar killed), Wire cut her losses and hightailed it out of SFZ altogether. Called it a day and chalked up the anomaly of missing her target to a loss. Sometimes, at least in her profession, you had to play the self-preservation card. The feed publicity surrounding the Second Free Zone fiasco had pretty much iced pursuing Martstellar for a little while anyway, so to keep herself occupied after abandoning her assignment Wire reprioritized. She took a secondary recovery job in the Rhodope mountain region with a follow-up elimination stint in nearby Bucharest. It was a safe enough play. Keep working while the heat surrounding Martstellar cooled down. Both job assignments ate up months of her time, and