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regret waking up this morning. A red alert flashed in his HUD: one man registered several expensive bio enhancers, the kind only used in military special operations or high-tech Rend-Vs.  
    Definitely antagonist principals, Hark considered, as he forced his energy carapace to expand. These guys are players.
    He stepped back a few yards.
    The three men appeared and faced into the alley.
    “Give us the woman,” one said.  
    The speaker was on the left. Short, clean-shaven, professional. The one on the right was the dangerous one. Taller, thicker. Looked Russian or Eastern European with a wide face and a nose as flat as could be. Broken before. More than once. The middle guy was jumpy, looked like extra help.  
    “What woman?”
    The one on the right dropped the smile. His hand moved inside his jacket.  
    No patience . He’ll attack without provocation. He goes first.
    Before the man could withdraw his weapon, Hark stepped forward and blasted a three-foot energy spear from his right hand. It felt like living fire summoned from the depths of the Earth to funnel out in glorious carnage from his fingertips. The heat line caught Flat Nose in the neck, punching a three-centimeter hole straight through. The cauterized wound was clean enough to poke a pool stick inside. For a moment, the man stood at attention. Then he began to gargle as his blood leaked through the carbonized flesh. He used his fingers to try to keep it from gushing out. He crumpled to the floor. The other two reached for their weapons.
    Hark moved between them with such speed they both fumbled their draws. He felt the caress of the heat vents in his back splitting his skin, the thermal sinks venting air hot enough to burn. He hit them both with simple jabs augmented with six-inch spikes. One fell with an imploded heart. The other with a ruptured carotid.  
    He wished Magdalena was here to witness this. She always played the role of avid observer. She’d have had something witty to say about his performance.
    A few strollers stopped in their tracks. They gaped at the bloody bodies on the ground. Only a few seconds to get moving before they realized what had happened.  
    Down the alley, Hark’s asset stood, both hands at her mouth. She was shaking her head in apposite disbelief.
    “I told you,” he said. She was looking at the pools of congealing blood and a nickel-plated gun that flashed in the sunlight as it fell from Flat Nose’s bloody fingers. “Don’t pass out.” He reached her before her knees buckled. He led her out of the alley. He waved a taxi at a red light. He jumped in as the light changed. “Let’s go.”  
    3
    The ride downtown consisted of Hark staring out the back window while Celia Preston tried not to hyperventilate. She gripped the armrest on the door and a handle attached to the front seat as if her life depended on it. Neither said a word. The cabby was a turbaned Punjabi Sikh with a greased handle-bar mustache who listened to a Championship League match between Arsenal and Barcelona that sounded, truth be told, as if it were actually playing. He kept talking to the radio in his native language, as if that would help.
    Hark ignored him, each minute passing without Magdalena’s calm voice making him curse all the techno gods and their sycophantic Voxyprog lackeys who made the rules about Rend-V immersions. Celia’s name had come to him in a flash, which was helpful, but he had nothing else on her. For the first time he noticed what nice breasts she had. Her shirt was unbuttoned so that a hint of cleavage showed. He found himself staring at it, moving down to her tiny waist and hips that were meant for dancing and … all kinds of other things.
    He looked away before she caught him.  
    “We … uhm … we,” she tried to catch her breath. “We should go to my apartment …”
    As intriguing as that normally would be for Hark, he shook his head. “That’s the last place we should go.” He watched her bottom lip quiver, a