Tails You Lose Read Online Free PDF Page B

raindrops bounce off the roofs of parked cars. The going rate for a bottom-of-the-heap, alpha-grade cyberhand was forty thousand nuyen. The kid's parents had probably scrimped up everything they had to pay for it—and the fraggers who sold it to them never bothered to mention that the kid would outgrow it in a few years' time.
    "Who made the hand?"
    The kid turned the hand over to show her the logo on its inner wrist. A curling tsunami wave hovered over the letters "PCI." Framing the wave in a circle were the words "Pacific Cybernetics Industries—The Wave of the Future."
    Night Owl's eyes narrowed. PCI had a history of dumping its outdated cyberware in third-world countries whose customers didn't have the nuyen to launch lawsuits after the drek glitched or broke down. Some of the obsolete 'ware also showed up in local chop shops, like the one this kid's parents must have taken him to.
    Night Owl reached into a pocket and handed the kid a certified credstick. The kid's eyes widened when he thumbed the stick's balance and saw the one and two zeroes on the miniature screen.
    "Keep an eye on the bike, kid," Night Owl told him. "I wouldn't want one of these parked cars to back into it."
    The kid opened his mouth to thank her, but Night Owl didn't stick around to hear it. She turned and shoved open the door of the restaurant.
    Wazubee's was always packed at this time of night. The restaurant was a favorite hangout for the artists, citizenship activists, performance poets and other chill-folk who inhabited the area around the Drive. Humans and metas of every description jammed the tables, spending their nuyen on realkaf with a water chaser and trying to talk over the rhyth-lmpulse that droned from the speakers overhead. The crowds and noise made Wazubee's the perfect place for a shadow meet—nobody gave a runner a second glance here.
    Night Owl spotted her fixer in the back of the restaurant, sitting at a table under a gigantic chandelier made from welded cutlery. The votive candle on the table in front of him was no match for Hothead's trademark flame hair, which at the moment was blazing with a steady, propane-blue flicker. Filament-thin flames twisted out of pores in the insulated dermal plating that lined his scalp, flaring to a height of nearly five centimeters, then dampening down before flaring again. The tubes that fed propane to the system ran down the back of his neck and disappeared under his shirt collar; he wore a canteen-sized, refillable tank clipped to his belt. He'd gotten the idea from the work of 12 Midnight, a turn-of-the-century artist whose stainless-steel paintings always included propane flames. Hothead figured they looked chill and decided to turn himself into a work of art.
    Night Owl worked her way to Hothead's table and slapped palms with him. He flashed her a brief smile, eyes crinkling around fire-red contact lenses. The color matched the jacket of his cellosuit, which made a crinkling noise as he shifted his weight. Despite the cheerful greeting, he seemed uneasy about Night Owl joining him. He kept glancing toward the door. She wondered if he'd been waiting for a meet with another runner.
    " Ni hao , Hothead," Night Owl said, sliding into the chair on the opposite side of the table. "Sorry about dripping on your table. It's pretty wet out there."
    "Did you see the storm this afternoon?" Hothead asked.
    Night Owl shook her head. "I was sleeping."
    "Street buzz says there were storm crows in the clouds. A Shinto sun shaman once told me that they gather in flocks when an evil deity is about to appear."
    Night Owl laughed. "As long as it's not me he's looking for, I don't care."
    The sleeve of Hothead's suit crinkled as he drained the last of his 'kaf. He set down the cup and pushed back his chair as if he was about to go.
    "Got any biz?" Night Owl asked.
    Hothead's eyes narrowed. "After you screwed up that last job I brokered for you? I don't think so." Night Owl frowned. "What do you mean? The