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The past was a yawning maw and every waking moment, Miss Songdog was acutely aware of it. Sometimes she sat in her chair for hours, or days, until someone came to disturb her. She sat in a heap, her form held up only by its own rigidity, and stared at nothing, lost completely in her own thoughts. She looked like an forsaken puppet or an obsolete doll. Blank, languid, she did this until she felt like she was drowning and she had to gasp for air. No air ever came.

The bulky digital billboard outside her window changed from time to time, but she stopped looking at it. It didn't mean anything to her. It fell aside like an abstraction, like when an insomniac stared at their digital clock until the numbers changed to letters and changed into alien runes. She didn't pay attention to it anymore.

She read every book in her apartment five times each with her big, dead, hungry eyes. She was starved for touch, sensation, for taste and smell. Anything, even malodorous, would make her happy. She longed for a decade and a half for the smell of cigarettes and the taste of coffee and liquor and the feeling of being drunk and the sensation of needles slipping into her own flesh. Sometimes, when she snapped out of her restless introspection, she'd feel the licking flame touching her skin again and taste her own burnt tongue again. She'd feel like she felt when she was strapped into the hospital bed for some unimaginably long time, staring at the ceiling, feeling and smelling nothing but pain and fire, bereft of any and all agency in the world. It took forever for the funds to kick into effect, for her illicit living will to make it through the channels that were quickly damming up. Without Mister Bartell, and without Maggie, there was no one to keep the remnants of the family together, and so Verne, her most trusted lieutenant, had very few places to turn.

I tried to pretend I could sympathize, but there was no way I could. Whenever I came into the room, she would usually snap out of it, with a gruesome sound of synthesized gasping. I didn't want to see her like that. I tried to look away often as I could. There were reasons very few people moved over to being simulated on hardware. There were reasons I'd decided that I wouldn't be, if I had any choice.

I didn't want to muse on the philosophical quandaries. Plenty of much more intelligent men before me has spent decades debating on whether or not people copied over to computers were still people. There were still plenty of intelligent and unintelligent people on both sides duking it out in the courts and on the streets. I had nothing to do with it. I kept my head turned the other way. Even when I was in the force, the department's official stance was to give the benefit of the doubt and keep our heads down at protests until one side got violent.

Did I truly believe that Miss Songdog was Maggie? I didn't have a choice. Seeing her miserable on her chair made me think of how I must've looked when I was coming down. When her eyes rolled up to look at me I couldn't help but fall on my knees at her side. I grabbed her limp hand.

"Maggie." I knew she hated being called that. She told me not to call her that. Right now, I didn't care.

"Fran." Her mouth didn't move. Her voice was only a little muffled by the fact.

We stared at each other for ages. Slowly, she picked herself up, put herself back together, took on a living stance. It was like she was re-entering her own body. Eventually, she was sitting up straight. I was kneeling in front of her, still holding her hand. I kissed it.

She pushed her snout into my messy hair and I closed my eyes. I let her stay there as long as she wanted. Then, she got up slowly, and shook herself off. I pushed myself from the floor with a groan and a loud pop.

"Sometimes," she told me, "I feel young. I feel like I can conquer the entire world. Sometimes, though, I just..." She let it trail off.

"I know, Miss Songdog."

She laughed a sharp synthesized laugh. "Oh, Fran." Her arms went around me. I held her tight. It was awfully cold in here. The weather was closing in outside. Snow abraded against the window like sand in the cold wind.

I wished the moment could last forever. I wished I could feel her heartbeat, and her breath. I held her as tight as I could and I never wanted to let go. Eventually, though, we had to go back to reality.

"We have business today, Mister Van Grantze."

I had to pry myself off her and straighten my tie.

"Yes, yes we do, Miss Songdog."

We left quickly, but before I could pull the door closed, I had to take one last look at the grey, steely light casting dusty rays on the ground, and the dreamlike haze and gentle, dim quality of the scene. In the hallway it was colder and harsher, and the sickly yellow overhead light buzzed. Verne was at the bottom of the stairs, waiting. He lead us to Miss Songdog's waiting vehicle; a monolithic black SUV with limo tinted windows.

Of all the scummiest places and forums of vice in Grey Anchor, I didn't expect to end up at this one on this day. A charity dinner and auction in the name of one Mr. Mondano, formerly Joey Monday, being hosted in one of the old high rise banquet halls. I remembered him from my days in the force. A former mob underboss turned politician. His tune the last ten years had been that he'd been going straight, and he had. The city was desperate for any injection of capital they could get.

Everyone in the crowd, or at least everyone I recognized, were allegedly retired kingpins of one kind or another. There were also some guys I'd only recognized from seeing their pictures posted up in the news before, usually in unflattering columns full of conspiracy.

I was still choking down my discomfort from the car ride and this tux I'd hastily changed into was rubbing my fur the wrong way. Miss Songdog may have been holding onto my arm, but she was the one leading me through the floor. Verne had wandered off somewhere. I was here to be arm candy. She introduced me as her very, very good friend to the wrinkled faces she talked to, and I was just trying to figure out what her game was. People knew her, here. Hell, some of them would've been my old bosses. My only saving grace was that when they were, I was too low in rank to warrant any real, personal attention.

The way she talked, she was setting off alarms. One old dog she ran into, she chatted up like she knew the man, but he just returned blank stares and hurried, halfhearted answers. She was rapid fire about it, too- How are the grandkids, how's your wife, oh, so sorry, I hadn't heard, how's Tony, oh, sorry, I hadn't heard, how's your pacemaker been treating you? Then, when she'd thoroughly shaken up this old man and locked eyes on another familiar target, she'd excuse herself and pull me away.

"Most of these people are on my list," she casually mentioned as we moved through the crowd.

"You're making yourself known."

"You're right."

"If you're going to do something big and flashy..."

"No, I'm not. This is politics."

I looked behind me, at some whispering men. I was starting to pick out bodyguards along the fringes of the crowd, cats and dogs and foxes and a weasel in plain tuxes with dark glasses and earpieces on. "Some of them are starting to figure out who you are. You're not planning on killing anyone here, are you?"

She looked up at me with what I knew would've been a smirk if her face had any articulation of the sort. "Why? Do you want to? You want me to just, I don't know, whip out a machinegun from under my miniskirt and quote Scarface? No, love. I only have one target tonight."

It wasn't very confidence-inspiring. She was planning something, and it wasn't to annihilate the hors d'oeuvres. That was my plan, but my stomach had been all in knots for days. I was barely eating enough to keep on my feet, and now with her dragging me around, I was feeling a little lightheaded.

She made a way to a table. There was a scent in the air that made me sick. Cologne. Vincy's cologne. Sure enough, the fox was there, grinning, laughing, his right hand clasping the host's, his left on the host's shoulder. Miss Songdog seemed unconcerned, at least on her countenance. I wasn't so graceful. I was sure my snout was wrinkling into a snarl.

"Mister Getavo," she crooned. Her left hand grasped my right, as if she could tell without looking that I was aching to grab my piece. "Mister Mondano. How's the wife? How're the grandkids?"

She tapped an empty chair at the table and I snapped out of it and pulled it out for her to sit at. Awkwardly, I took my own. The small four-seating table wasn't quite big enough. I was too close. Was Vincy the target? It would've been good for her to warn me.

Mister Mondano, a greying but still mostly blonde retriever of some kind, looked up, almost startled, but quickly regained composure. "Ah, Missus, uh?" He looked at me, hinting that he assumed us married.

"Songdog, please. Miss Songdog. And this is my very good friend, Mister Van Grantze."

"Charmed, Miss Songdog." He offered his hand to her, then to me. "Your names are familiar, to what do I owe the honor?"

"I'm a local business owner, and my friend here had a long career in law enforcement. I see you've met one of my, ahem, former associates, Mister Getavo."

He tilted his muzzle down and flicked one of his ears. His fluffed-up tail was twitching. I could tell by the way he was sitting and the way his jacket was heavier on one side that he was, of course, carrying. I could tell by the stiffness of the front of his shirt that he had a slick-front plate carrier on underneath it. I could tell by his sharp eyes he was planning something. I'd never seen him so sober, so cold.

"We were just discussing you, Miss Songdog." He clicked his teeth. "I put in a good word for you, even though we might've parted on less than amicable terms."

An auged-up server approached and brought Vincy and Mister Mondano small cups of wine. She asked if I needed anything, I asked for two cups of wine. I was planning on drinking them both.

Vincy turned his head while I was talking, and whispered something to the host. I couldn't hear it, but whatever it was, it made Miss Songdog laugh and straighten up in her chair. Then, the fox looked over at me, and I could see the wrinkles under his eyes for the first time.

"Sorry if we're disturbing any of your business, Vincy," Miss Songdog said.

"Not at all. I was just about to maul the confections. I'm positively ravenous." He stood up, and looked at Mister Mondano with a toothy smile. "I look forward to our business." Then he looked at me. "I'll see you around, Fran."

"Not if I see you first," I vowed.

He left. His cologne went with him. The room didn't seem to lighten up, however, as Miss Songdog then leaned over the table and rested her elbow on it.

"So, to what do I owe the honor?" Mister Mondano began.

"You never answered my questions, Joey. How's Alicia doing? How're Benny and Geordie?"

He looked taken aback. "Alicia? She's, uh. She's good. They're good."

"I'm glad to hear it. I'm responsible in part for that."

The wine arrived. One glass was placed by me, and Miss Songdog took the other. Mister Mondano sipped at his.

"I'm not sure I follow, Miss, uh, Songdog. Have we had business dealing before?"

"We sure have, but it abruptly stopped fifteen years ago. What was it we used to call you back then? Oh." She leaned in close. "Joey Monday."

He looked around. No one had noticed. Here he was, in a banquet hall, surrounded by security, other kingpins, and he was at the mercy of this mechanical chanteuse he couldn't recognize. For my part, I kept my eyes out. No one seemed to be making a move towards us. Vincy was nowhere to be seen. He must've left.

"I've gone legit. I don't answer to that name anymore. Joey Monday's dead. It's Joseph Mondano." He pointed a single claw at her. "And you're going to leave Alicia, Benny, and Geordie out of this."

"I am, but not because of you, because I have these things, Joey, they're called morals, they're called Loyalty."

"Don't pull that holier than thou bullshit on me. You think I went legit because you lot had any morals, had any loyalty? You know what happened to that Vincy guy's parents?"

"I know, because I was there. I raised him, you know."

"What?"

She leaned in. She put her nose to his ear. His eyes went wide. I knew what she whispered to him. She whispered two words, "Maggie Bartell."

I'd never seen a retriever go pale as a ghost like that. He instantly gained five years.

"No." It was a feeble denial.

"Who gave the go for the bomb, Joey? I know it was one of the capos."

"What are you talking about? Mister Bartell was killed in the street, by Koreans."

"It wasn't Koreans. All anyone knows is they rode motorcycles. You think only Koreans ride motorcycles, Joey? I ride a motorcycle. I'm not Korean. Who gave the go for the bomb?"

Something clicked. It was a look I knew well. When something clicks in the suspect's head, when someone finally puts two and two together.

"You forgot? They tried to kill me with a car bomb. A shoddy one, too. All it did was set a car fire. I burned, Joey. I burned and the bucket seat melted to my back and my fur was all gone. The door didn't open because the electric locks jammed when the battery boiled over."

"Maggie, no one knows who did that to you, we were being pinched!"

"What do you think of the cyberbody, Joey?" She rolled her hand, curled her fingers one by one. "It's no match for the real thing. I can't feel anything, Joey. I can't taste. I can't smell. This was top of the line about twenty years back. Here's the good part; I'm much, much harder to kill now, so don't press that panic button, and don't make a scene. I'm not going to kill you in public. I have morals."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Put both your hands on the table. Let's make this easy."

He glanced at me. I leaned forward, and tried to look mean. My face was slack, more than anything. I must've looked some kind of dead, myself, because he put both his hands on the table.

"I just want to know who killed me, and then I'll kill them. It's simple. Otherwise, I'm going to work my way up the list, and kill every person my husband so much as sent for coffee."

"I don't know who did it, Maggie. If I did, don't you think I would've had them whacked? I'm legit now, Maggie. I left that all behind. It's taken me years to get out of the business, you know that? Everybody wants a piece of the damn pie!"

"I know, Joey. I know."

"Wait, that means... When they found Jerry burnt to a crisp?"

"What can I say? He couldn't take the heat."

"Tony? Jim? Vera?"

"Vera? No, Vincy killed Vera. He's been my right hand all this time, until, well, he hit me with my own car and drove off with it."

"The shootout at the cannery?"

"What, do you want a play-by-play?"

He looked around the room like he'd had way too many shots and was about to fall on the floor and drown in vomit. Honestly, I sort of wished I could, as well. I had no idea Miss Songdog had been doing, well, this. I had no idea how many people she'd killed. I had no idea what she'd pulled me into, and all because I wanted revenge for Jeff Decouier.

"Anyways! That's all beside the point. I just wanted to make myself known to you, give you some time to think about it. I'm not going to kill you right now. I just wanted to see what sort of big soiree you were going to put on. I even donated a thousand or so, myself."

"Well, uhm, thank you."

"Indeed. Though, my friend here, Mister Van Grantze, he's been so patient. He has something to ask you about, too."

He looked at me. I put my wine glass down.

"Jeff," I said. "Jeff Decouier. Ex-cop. Who killed him?"

"That was a suicide."

"Don't play with me."

He sighed. "Okay, listen. I relied on Jeff's intel as much as anybody else in the business. I haven't talked to him in ten years, though. Like I said, I've gone legit." He looked me in the eyes for once. "I can tell you, whoever killed him, killed him for his intel. It was someone who was planning something big. It could've been..."

He glanced at Miss Songdog, and abruptly stood up. "It was nice catching up, but I have a speech to prepare for."

He left. We kept our seats. Miss Songdog rolled her eyes over to me. I felt my heart rate picking up. Time was running out.

"He knows," she said flatly, "He thinks that not talking is going to buy him some time."

"You gave him a real fright."

"He's trying to run. Look, up there."

I glanced up. The walkway around the second floor, behind the pillars in the middle of the hall, was swarming with suits. They were touching their ears. Radio communications.

"Where's Verne?"

"I sent him in the back. He has a radio."

"You were planning something."

"Let's go, stand near the edge."

We got up and pushed through the crowd. Three suits approached the table we'd just been at. A man came out and tested the microphone. Joey Monday, shaken and panting, nervous as hell, came out some minutes later and began to stammer over his cue cards.

By the time his speech was over, and he bid everyone enjoy the banquet, we'd made our way around the crowd to one of the doors to the back. As soon as he stepped off stage, Miss Songdog pushed through it.

A guard on the other side said "Excuse me, ma'am, this isn't the guest area."

Miss Songdog, however, wasn't planning on playing nice. She grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the wall. She held him there for an excruciating amount of time, strangling him just inside the door, until he finally stopped struggling. It hurt to watch the tabby's eyes bug out as he clawed helplessly at her arm.

I watched her back, but no one else was in this particular hall. Finally he stopped moving, and she stood up and straightened her dress.

"Unfortunate," she said. She fished the gun out of the dead cat's jacket and I tried not to look at the horrified look that was rested on his face, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head, his mouth slack, tongue hanging out.

Miss Songdog checked the chamber, then the mag. I loosened the bowtie around my neck.

"Where are we going?" I asked while I unbuttoned my jacket for a little more breathing room.

"If I know Joey, he's fetching his things. Let's take the elevator. Verne's waiting upstairs. Oh, and, be a dear and give me your jacket."

I wasn't terribly attached to it, so I handed it off to her and she draped it over her arm and hid the pistol in it. Quickly, we made our way down the hallways lined with wood wainscoting and soft lights.

Backstage here was as nice as the ballroom, and we didn't happen to run into security the rest of the way. However, I did not the cameras here and along. I grit my teeth. I would've liked Cheri's pink LED cap right about now.

"Get to the security room."

"What?"

"Not you, Fran. Verne. He's on radio."

"Good. Last thing I need is my face plastered on every newspaper in Grey Anchor. 'Hero cop kills senator', it'll be a great headline."

"You're full of yourself if you think they'll call you a hero."

We pressed the button into the elevator. There was a camera, plain as day, in the corner. Synth pressed the penthouse suite button, and the doors began to close.

"Verne's almost there," she said, looking straight ahead.

I didn't like having to rely on him, but he'd been Miss Songdog's right hand man for the last fifteen years, and Maggie Bartell's before that. If I trusted her, I had to trust him. At the very least, he'd never worked against me. I hadn't seen a whole lot of him since I started working for her, and it was probably best that way. But now, with Vincy on the loose, Verne and I had to pick up the slack on these operations.

Miss Songdog looked at me, and I looked back at her. Her wig was a little tussled, but still in good condition. My fur was brushed out and styled, and I felt like a big poofy prick in this outfit. Those shiny shoes were far from comfortable and those pants sure didn't fit right. I wasn't used to those stiff leather suspenders, either. Trying to get this all on in the back of an SUV didn't help with it being properly adjusted, either.

The elevator jolted to a stop where the floor indicator was nowhere near the top. Instead we were one third of the way up the tower. The doors started to open.

"We've been made." I drew the revolver and pressed myself into the corner next to the door. Miss Songdog simply stood in the middle, at the back, my jacket draper over her arm with the pistol under it.

The door slid open all the way and a squad of armored Security spooks began shouting commands. One of them stepped into the narrow doorway, leading with his submachine gun. They hadn't seen me yet.

I grabbed the barrel of his gun and slammed the butt of my revolver against his head. A spray of nine millimeter took out the overhead lights. Immediately Miss Songdog discarded the jacket and drew the pistol and fired past me into the squad while I dealt with the one operator I was beating into the opposite corner.

He let go of his situationally useless long gun and went for his pistol, so I bucked and shoved him harder into the wall. My hand was around his neck and his teeth were gnashing air, his big wide eyes were quivering. He was afraid but I was steely, and he was strong but I had leverage. He drew his pistol but couldn't bring it to bear as I shuffled around his body and his bullets hit the elevator wall to the left of Miss Songdog.

She walked forward with the pistol aloft in one hand, firing steadily, each round hitting the mark. Blood poured out of one gunshot wound after another. Even if these guys were wearing plate carriers, there was only so much it could cover. She was a full-body aug, and though she caught a few bullets that staggered her, there was little damage that could actually stop her.

I finally strained my revolver against my opponent's head. He whimpered as he felt the warm metal press against the inside of his ear and his eye spun to look at me. I jerked the trigger and the hammer fell and struck the primer. The powder ignited, shoving a 150 grain jacketed hollowpoint down the two inch barrel. Blood poured out of the hole in his ear and splashed against the veneer behind his head, his eyes bugged out from the pressure and stopped their twitching. I let his limp mass fall to the floor. All his expensive gear and tailored suit was for nothing.

I was panting, I had to catch up for Synth. Three other dead security guys lay outside the elevator. She'd picked up one of their guns and I shoved my revolver back in its holster and took another.

That elevator had been emergency braked. The security team must've seen us and stopped it. Our only way up was the stairs, and we had to make it down the hallway between abandoned office spaces and other suites, while being pursued.

"Verne, why aren't you at Security yet?"

In the reply, I heard the gunchatter marking his excuse. Miss Songdog looked at me, then raised her hand and aimed it at a camera. A short burst marked the camera's expiration.

"He's going to be late." She approached the stairs, and as she did, I noticed a bullet hole straight through her plastic chassis and dress.

"Are you going to be okay?"

She looked at me with a janky twist. I nodded. She pointed to my chest pocket.

"Take them if you've got them."

I smiled, even as my stomach dropped. She was right. I was panting, my joints were on fire, my chest was heaving. I hadn't even noticed until she reminded me of the chems nestled safely in their tin, waiting. My secret fire that got me through all sorts of tough times like this. The edge that made me react just a bit faster, just a bit cooler. The overclock button for my brain was in a weighty polymer one-use syringe. I leaned on the wall while Miss Songdog kept lookout. She didn't need this stuff. She was a computer in there, after all.

The needle stung as I pushed it through my fur into that familiar place in my thigh. I realized that, really, she and I weren't so different, but she was clocked into this all the time, without the rush, without the coolness, without the quieting down of emotion and without the invincible feeling.

Fire ran through my veins. It was too familiar as it spread out from the injection sight. My heart was beating. Colors became vivid. I noticed the way her eyes scanned and twitched in a way I'd never been able to follow, before. I straightened up. Pain? Still there, but now I had the will and the sheer mindfulness to work through it as if it wasn't there at all.

"Stairs," she said. I nodded. Walking over to them felt like I was walking on air. I could feel the breath running through my nostrils. I swung the door open, expecting a fight. No one was there.

We started walking up the stairs. Me first, of course. Miss Songdog was able to make it, despite me noticing several more holes through her chest that apparently hadn't exited the other side. Whatever she was made of must have been tough stuff.

It was quiet, but I was tense. The stairs were a good choke point, why wasn't the private security on us? Had they finally lost their eyes in the surveillance room?

A spray of bullets hit the wall behind me, and I didn't even flinch. Instantly, Songdog and I looked down, maybe three or four floors, a team dressed in SWAT gear with no emblems was opening fire. I turned and held the submachine gun over the edge and felt it sputter out bullets like a rickety sewing machine.

I'd feel it in the morning, as Miss Songdog and I played cat and mouse up the stairs, firing back down at them, taking strings of increasingly inaccurate fire as we tired them out. I was tired, too, and I'd feel this for the next week. I hadn't ran up so many stairs in more than a decade, but the stims kept me going through the burn, and the floating feeling was only getting stronger as we got hire up. Finally, we reached a door that Miss Songdog pushed through with no warning, and I had to backtrack to slip in behind her. I was met with a wall of bullets that slung straight into my plate, knocking the wind out of me.

I pushed myself into an alcove, across from where Miss Songdog had taken momentary cover, herself. There wasn't any time. She looked at me and I took a deep breath. We had to push forward or get pinched between two teams.

I let the gun lead the way and swept the legs out from under the advancing team. When the bucking, chattering machine ran empty I threw it forward and leapt against the closest man I could see. He recoiled in slow motion but I couldn't see him behind his mask and glasses. I reached in and drew my revolver while he was trying to separate enough to bring his gun to bear, and I didn't stop. In slow motion he reached for my hand but it slipped through his grasp and I shoved the barrel up under his short feline muzzle and pulled the trigger twice.

There was a loud bang behind me and smoke was starting to fill up the room. A stray bullet rent the overhead light apart and the whole place began to flicker and the blood spattered on the white walls like some kind of grim abstract art.

There were no more security men in front of me. I turned around to see Miss Songdog slam some poor weasel's head through the wall before letting his long, limp body fall to the floor. We had to keep going, those six bodies weren't cool yet and their friends weren't far behind.

She seemed laser-guided, even as her left arm was twitching involuntarily, her head was bent over. She was slouching like she had a hard time staying up. She was getting terribly beat up. I noticed a cool wet feeling, and ran my hand over my face. I was bleeding, it must've been from lead spalling off the cheap replacement plate. At least it hadn't stuck lead in my nose, but it'd given me a close shave. I quickly dumped my revolver's cylinder and loaded off a spare strip I'd kept in my pocket.

She kicked down a door without waiting for me, and I went in right after her, gun lifted. A cat, bleached blond hair, red skirt and heeled boots, had a pistol leveled right at Miss Songdog, who, obviously, held her submachinegun aloft at her.

I grabbed Miss Songdog's arm and shoved myself between them, and the wind was knocked out of me as I caught another pair of rounds in my plate. It was enough to stop the scene for a minute, as Miss Songdog caught me and Cheri realized something wasn't right.

"Fuck!" I growled, getting back onto my feet and leaning on the wall. "Jesus, fuck, don't kill eachother."

"Fran?" she didn't seem surprised, or concerned. Miss Songdog didn't seem convinced.

"Fuck, god damn! What's in that fucking thing?"

"Plus P Plus."

"You're really fucking killing me, Cheri!"

"We don't have time for this," Miss Songdog cut in. She stepped around me and Cheri raised her gun again. I balked.

"For fuck's sake wait a minute! Fuck!" I wheezed a moment. "We're just here for Joey."

"Funny. I'm here for Joey, too. Well, he hired me for some recreation. Too bad all this is happening."

Miss Songdog had this look in her eyes. She was staring down another total conversion and she knew it, just, this one was newer. The fact that I knew her, and she knew me, only complicated the issues.

"What game are you playing? No whore's going to blast someone for her client," Miss Songdog asserted. She hadn't lowered her gun all the way.

"Just.. Cheri, I know you're here for the solid state drive," I pleaded, recalling the informal job I'd done with her at the chop shop. "Right? We don't want it. We just want Monday."

The feline seemed to think a minute. She lowered her gun and stepped back. "You're lucky you're cute, Fran. You remind me of my dad."

She strode over to a closet beside the bed and tore it open. Joey Monday made a feeble sound as she pulled him out and threw him onto the ground, while she hopped up onto the bed and walked across it to get to a laptop on a table by the window.

Miss Songdog strode forward to claim her prize. She wrapped her hand in the collar of his shirt and hefted him up into the air. Cheri looked at the scene, then at me. A smirk crossed her face. She walked out with the laptop cradled in her arm, and threw the gun on the floor. She walked out just like that, like nothing had ever happened.

Meanwhile, Joey was slammed against the wall by a nightmarish robot inhabited by the vengeful ghost of Maggie Bartell.

"I thought you said you wasn't going to kill me!" he pleaded.

"Not in public, Joey, but now we're here, in your private suite, and even your whore walked out on you. See how little you're worth?"

"I didn't have anything to do with the bomb, Maggie, you gots to believe me!"

He yapped as she jammed the harsh, hot barrel of the gun in his jowls, and I heard the crunch of teeth. His eyes screwed shut and he whimpered like a puppy. Miss Songdog made that horrible, screeching synthesized gasp again. Her eyes were wide open, so far I'd see veins if they were real, but it was all perfect polished ivory plastic.

She hardly looked real at about this time. In slow motion, I watched the trigger inch back in her twitching hand. Her jaw was open slightly. She looked like a demented doll inhabited by a gnashing animal, as she audibly breathed, as the glitching noise got worse and worse, as pretenses of her being a living woman all faded away in this moment of revenge.

That's why she'd asked me to step out that day in the restaurant.

I cringed and turned away. I heard her gun go off, followed by a wet slop on the floor, then a heavier, duller wet thump, then the clatter of an empty gun hitting the floor.

I left the room. The hallway here was clear, now. I felt, then heard the building rumble deep down below us. Seconds later, the fire alarms went off and sprinklers began to soften the bloodstains on my shirt.

Miss Songdog left the room and joined me, beginning to walk toward a different elevator than the one we'd initially tried.

"What was that?"

"That should've been Verne taking care of the evidence."

"How's he going to get out?"

"He'll find a way." The elevator doors opened. We stepped in. She pressed the Lobby button, and the doors slid closed, and we made our way down.