They gathered in the pawn-shop. Meredith watched Gotoda wander the aisles of backstock, humming to himself and smiling placidly. "Is he on drugs?" she asked, looking at them.

"No, he's just weird," said V, feeling a little awkward, standing there in the pawn-shop with Judy beside her and Meredith Stout standing opposite her. Her mind kept backsliding to that night at the No-Tell Motel, to the taped Xs over Meredith's nipples, the smell of sex and skin. Goddamn, she thought, why was she even thinking about that? V cringed at herself.

"You drunk?"

"Little bit," said V, honestly.

"Get to the biz, suit," said Ayako, folding her arms across her chest. "It's been a night. We wanna sleep."

"All right," said Meredith. "To the point. What's going on with Arasaka? Provoking them, claiming Militech's behind you." She narrowed her eyes. Her oculars were blue Kiroshis, the whites webbed with capillaries of nanocircuitry. "Because if you're trying to start shit, V, we'll rub your face in it."

"We ain't provokin' shit," said V. "Someone's settin' this up, Meredith. Usin' us as the axle." She didn't want to tell Meredith about Uncle Sam, for obvious reasons. Stout might even already know about the AI, might want to fish out intel for her superiors. No other reason for her to be in Phoenix. Her tight suit-dress looked more expensive than the one V had last seen her in, and there were fresh rank indicators pinned to the fabric. She'd climbed a few rungs on the corp-ladder, V decided, since that Maelstrom op in Northside.

"Uncle Sam," said Meredith. "My choom, Danny Dean, mentioned you'd asked about it."

V swore under her breath. That motherfucker, she thought. That motherfucker, he'd brought Meredith here.

"You think Militech didn't know about your deckhead?" asked Meredith, and waved in Ayako's direction. "The NUSA, we've been trying to recruit Ayako Yoshida for years—more so now that Songbird's gone. Need fresh talent to replace her, and Yoshida's exactly what the ripperdoc ordered."

"And I keep telling you," said Ayako, bitterly, "I ain't working for the FIA and their chooms in Militech. I'm a contractor. Freelance." She stared at Meredith with her flickering laser-dots. "Fuck NUSA. Fuck the corpos. I ain't for sale."

Meredith nodded, watching Gotoda sort through a box of resistors. "What if I could tell you where to find Uncle Sam's access-point?" She looked at them, smiled like a woman who figured she'd already won the game. "And," she continued, "what if I told you we could get you an audience with the Technomancers? If you agree to work with us, once this mess is over." She raised her hands, pacific. "Just ask for your discretion should you agree to our terms. We don't want to start a war with Arasaka. They might be weak now, especially with Yorinobu at the helm, and we could easily flatten them. But why expend the money and effort when the company will crumble on its own under that gonk?"

"Why the fuck would y'tell us where to find your super AI?" asked Judy, suspicious.

"Uncle Sam was a failed project," said Meredith. "It's an extremely dangerous, unpredictable tool. Any sentient AI is. Why risk unleashing the thing? Militech would go down with everyone else. If the AI didn't kill us first, the people would, once word got out Militech bankrolled the project." She started pacing slowly, crossing her arms, her high-heels clicking a sharp staccato on the hardwood. "Things are good right now for us, especially with Arasaka on the way down," she continued conversationally. "We're dominating the market. We don't have any interest in fucking that up."

"And we just gotta play ball," said V, frowning. She didn't like corpo-shit, because corpo-shit had a way of blowing back in your face.

"Just think about it," said Meredith. She winked, adding, "You still have my number, V."

Judy looked between V and Meredith, scowling.

"Talk later," said Meredith, waving over her shoulder and making her way out of the pawn-shop, an overexaggerated sway in her hips.

"Y'got her number, huh?" said Judy, narrowing her eyes.

"It was just this one-night thing at the No-Tell 'fore we were even together," V blurted out. "I fuckin' swear, Jude. Y'gotta believe me. I'd never cheat on ya."

"If it helps," said Ayako, "her kinesics read that she's tellin' the truth, Judy."

Judy sighed, shook her head. "Well," she said, with a slow smile, "she's hot, so I get it."

V released a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. For a moment, she thought she'd be sleeping on the couch tonight, or worse. She looked at Ayako. "Whaddya think 'bout Stout's offer?"

"Same thing I think 'bout most corpo offers," said Ayako, leaning against a showcase. "Comes with too many strings. Rather just wait to hear from your choom in the Aldecaldos."

"Was thinkin' the same thing," agreed V. "Wouldn't hurt t'keep Militech on the backburner, though. 'Case we hit a dead-end."

"Plannin' to sneak off with the corpo hottie again?" Her tone suggested humor, but V knew Judy was still a little pissed off about it, her thing with Meredith.

"No," said V, "I ain't inta her like that. Was a one-night thing, Jude. A pointless fuck. Promise, I'm all yours."

"She's not lying," said Ayako. Then she added, "Wouldn't mind havin' a night with her myself, anyway."

"Do y'even got any 'ganic parts left t'diddle?" asked V.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Val," said Ayako, and if she could wink, V suspected she would have. She turned to Gotoda. "Yo, Gotoda. Need some coolant."

Gotoda rummaged around in a box underneath the counter, then came up with a coolant injector. He tossed the plastic thing to her, and Ayako caught it, peeled off the sterile wrap. She slid the foam-cap off the induction prong and pushed the long tube-needle into her neck, depressing the plunger with her thumb, draining several milliliters of pale biocoolant into her bloodstream. Grimacing, she tossed the empty injector into a nearby waste-bin marked for hazardous disposal. Gotoda offered her an anodyne patch, and she smoothed it over the injection site.

"Netsuit not enough to keep y'cool?" asked V.

"It's fine if I don't push too hard in realspace," said Ayako, and they made their way upstairs to their apartments. "But me bein' half-jacked all the time and fighting like I was? Easy way to overload myself, pushin' the Sandy like that while half-jacked."

"Was Oiwa lying? You modded the Sandy yourself."

"Modded the stock combat specs to netrunning specs. Total conversion. Had to tweak the code and fiddle the firmware with Mochi's help," said Ayako. "The reflex coprocessors in the Sandy OS help my netrunning. You know much as I do that a good netrunner needs to have sharp reflexes, a sharp mind."

V nodded. "Another thing that's been buggin' me," she said, trailing behind Ayako, pushing her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "The point of the Relic project was to do exactly what they did for Oiwa, right? Download an engram into a body. So what was the fuckin' point is what I'm tryna figure out."

"Degradation," said Ayako. "Yes, Oiwa's engram once belonged to an individual, but whoever that individual was, she's long gone. She's just Oiwa now, an onryō. Relic was meant to completely preserve the individual." She stopped in front of their apartment door, looked at them. "Besides, the bodies the onryō inhabit are just borged-up cadavers. Relic wanted to use 'ganic bodies. Cloned shit. Vat-grown. Something the downloaded engram could modify to their tastes. What onryō are, it's closer to what they were trying to do in those black clinic trials with biointerfaces and neural matrices." She paused, bobbed her head side to side as if it were on a spring. "Think of an onryō as a neural matrix with legs, I guess. Or a walking, talking biochip. They were the precursors to Relic, thus the Yomi isolate. Experimental shit."

She and Judy said good night to Ayako, then stepped into their apartment. "Gonna grab a shower if y'wanna join me," said Judy, suggestively.

"Fuck yeah," said V, trailing her into the bathroom, already undressing.

After going down on Judy in the shower, they took the rest of it to bed, riding each other until they were numb and wet, and V's legs hurt from being pinned to her tits, and her tits hurt from having her knees crushing them into her ribcage. They collapsed onto the gray temperfoam, panting, their orgasms lurching out of them in soft, spasmodic waves. V giggled and rolled, cuddling into Judy's side and laying her head on her chest, her pink nipple sliding across V's cheek. Judy kissed her, her polished black-tipped fingers tracing the faint lines of V's subdermal microcircuitry.

"Y'scared me earlier," said V quietly, watching Judy's face, her features bathed in the languid aquarium glow of the jellyfish lamp. "That cyberninja grabbin' ya like she did."

"Freaked me out too," she said, frowning. "Been shot at, sure. But a fuckin' katana? S'whole 'nother fear, Valerie. Visceral."

"I'm sorry I—"

Judy snuffed the words out with a kiss, practically shoving her tongue down her throat. Then she drew back and said, "Y'got nothin' to apologize for, Valerie. Bitch moved freak-fast. Fuck, she even deflected the shots ya took at her. Ain't nothin' ya coulda done. Should count ourselves lucky she ain't really wanted to kill us." She snorted. "Coulda fooled me, though." Judy looked at her, smiled. "'Sides, y'had to get the train movin'."

V traced the red spiderweb tattooed on Judy's left breast, her nipple at the center of it. "I know," she said, and sighed. "Still, feel bad, y'know? I shoulda done more."

"Y'did enough, ya gonk," said Judy. "Got us outta there. Think Oiwa was gettin' ready t'knock us out and throw us inta that Valgus." She sucked at her teeth, then said, "Probably wake up in Tokyo, at 'Saka HQ, couple of company interrogators hoverin' over us."

"Always wanted t'see Japan," said V. "Just not like that."

"Maybe could get Ayako t'show us 'round someday. Kinda wanna see her 'hood in Chiba."

"From what I've read and been told, Chiba-11's like Heywood on steroids."

"Yikes." Judy went quiet for a few moments, probably, like V, drifting off on a wave of drunken, post-fuck melatonin. "Whaddya think she's gonna do 'bout that Meredith chick's offer? Ayako, I mean."

"Nothin'. Not until she ain't got any options left," said V, yawning. "She hates corpos. Gotta theory."

"Y'gotta lotta theories," said Judy playfully, stroking her hair. "So let's hear it."

"Same reason I'm a merc. Same reason y'turned down all those suits wantin' to recruit your techie talents into the corpo-media biz. We wanna be able t'pick our jobs, do what we want and leave when we wanna." She looked at Judy, expounding, "Corpos always come with stipulations and starched contracts. Get their hooks in ya. No doubt s'what Meredith wants. Said it herself, actually. NUSA's been tryin' t'poach Ayako, make her the new Songbird."

"Bein' a preem netrunner sounds like a pain in the fuckin' ass," said Judy, and closed her eyes. "I'll stick t'techie shit." Her eyes opened, looked at V. "Though I been thinkin'."

"Thinkin' 'bout what?"

"Gettin' my ripperdoc license," she said. "M'good with tech. Good money in ripperdoc stuff, too. And if you're gonna be some hotshot deck-jockey, you're gonna need a ripper y'can rely on."

"Makes y'wanna swap BDs for ripper-work?" asked V.

"Seein' what happened to Juan and knowin' that could be you someday," said Judy, frowning. "I can do BDs as a hobby, a side-gig. Ain't givin' that up." She took V's hand, her palm clammy, and squeezed. "Just kept thinkin' to myself when y'started talkin' all that netrunner scop, 'what the fuck can I do so Valerie don't end up like Juan'. And it hit me. So I thought 'bout it. And thought 'bout it some more. Called Viktor over the neurowire, talked t'him 'bout it while y'were tellin' Ayako 'bout Konpeki in that dive. He said I should go for it, that he'd gimme a recommendation, get me inta a good rip-school. Same one he went to."

"Long as y'ain't givin' up your passion for BDs," said V, and kissed the points of Judy's knuckles. "Don't want y'puttin' aside your love for art to help m'gonk ass, chasin' some job y'don't wanna do."

Judy shook her head. "Nah, I wanna do it," she said. Then, playfully, she added, "Nobody knows your body better'n me, anyway."

"Ain't no truer words ever been spoken," she said, giggling. "Look," she continued, "if that's somethin' you're serious 'bout doin', this ripperdoc stuff? I gotcha, babe. I'll do some gigs, put out the money for the fees, the materials. Whatever y'need to succeed. Fuck, the clan might even stuff some eddies into your pockets. Wouldn't hurt havin' 'nother ripperdoc, 'case somethin' happens to Hutch."

Judy giggled. "Y'don't gotta do all that," she said. "I can hustle BD gigs, make the money myself. Ain't lookin' for handouts."

"Ain't a handout. It'll be a gift," said V.

Eventually, they drifted off to sleep. V was startled awake from a dream about spaceports by the shrill ping of her neurowire. Rolling over to look at the clock on the bedside table, she saw six o'clock in the morning winking back at her. Fumbling with her synaptic protocols, she finally managed to open the neurolink. Meredith Stout appeared in the corner of her Kiroshis, looking, as always, like a woman who'd never known a fun day in her whole life.

"Want to talk. Just you," said Stout, curtly. "Meet me outside. We'll have coffee." The call-window was gone before V could reply, executing some elaborate fold-away effects package, tumbling away into the void of cyberspace.

"Fuckin' waste of RAM," she muttered groggily, practically spilling from the bed, landing in a bare-assed heap on the floor.

She'd managed to kick Judy somewhere between the bed and the floor, and Judy raised herself on her elbows, crawled to the edge of the bed and looked down at her. "What the fuck, Valerie?"

"Stout called," said V, sitting up on her knees. "Sorry, ain't meant t'kick ya."

Judy looked at the clock, still half-asleep. "Fuck does the bitch want at fuck-off-o'-clock in the mornin'?"

"Wants t'talk," said V, and she stood up. "Just me."

"I swear, she fuckin' touches you, gonna rip that mullet off her head and stuff it down her throat."

"Ain't gonna let her touch me, babe. Relax," said V, opening their shared wardrobe. Weather today was supposed to be boiling, so she'd leave the jacket in the apartment. Picked out a cropped black T-shirt, the words Burn Corpo Shit scrawled across it in stylized rage-font, tight dark jeans, boots. "If things start gettin' weird, I'll come right back. Y'know I will."

Judy watched her, naked and pale against the dark duvet. "Goddamn, she couldn'ta waited a couple more hours?" She yawned, folded her arms and buried her face in them. V smacked her ass, and Judy laughed. "Yo, c'mon. Too early, babe."

"Can't help it. Was just there," said V, grinning. Judy gave her ass a retaliatory smack as she turned around, really made that sucker count. V felt the throbbing, hand-shaped sting on her cheek as she sauntered toward the door. "I'll be back soon, promise. Bring ya coffee."

"And a cheese danish," said Judy. "Or no, wait, bring me back a breakfast sandwich. Yeah. Sausage'n egg on a biscuit sounds nova."

V said, "Got it," and closed the door behind her, making her way downstairs. Gotoda was already bustling around the shop, wiping down showcases and rearranging the overstock shelves. "Mornin', Gotoda. How d'ya Japanese say it again? Ohayo?"

"Hai, V-san," said Gotoda, smiling beatifically. He was, as usual, listening to some Us Cracks noise on a small, red plastic radio. "But 'good morning' suffices."

"Y'feelin' better?"

"Much better," said Gotoda, bowing a little. "Thank you."

"Hey, Gotoda," said V, stopping in front of the door. "I been wantin' to ask y'somethin'." She hesitated for a moment, watching the little guy study her intently, his eyebrows raised, from behind a Lexan display of chipware. "Whaddya know 'bout black clinic trials in Chiba and Tokyo? Happened years ago."

His expression collapsed. It was the first time she'd seen him emote anything besides junkie-bliss. He almost looked hurt, sad. "Very bad," said Gotoda, the sad-hurt morphing into something like nervous fear. "I do not know how you heard this thing. But very bad, these trials. Many netrunners died. Many dove too deep, never to resurface. And those who did, they come back different. Changed."

This was the first time he'd said more than a sentence to her since their introduction in Beautiful Lumps. V opened her mouth to respond, but a sharp beep from outside commanded her attention. "Right," she said, awkwardly, "thanks, Gotoda. Sorry. I, uh. I didn't mean to dredge anythin' up." She left the shop, saw him watching her from behind the showcase.

"You took your sweet fucking time." Meredith was smoking inside a rented Herrera, the windows tinted, the chassis painted black. She finished her cigarette and flicked it into the street. "Get in."

V did. Meredith was wearing a tight, black dress with a plunging neckline, and red pumps. "Any reason y'ain't wearin' the uniform?" she asked, suspicious.

"We're not going on a date," Meredith told her, her eyes screened off by designer sunglasses. "Blending in. Running around in a Militech uniform while one of Arasaka's onryō are running around would just draw unnecessary attention. I'm looking out for my own sweet ass."

"Hope you're takin' us somewhere nice, 'cause dressed like that, you're gonna draw attention." Meredith started to drive, and V said, "So y'know 'bout her? The onryō."

"Things have changed since you last saw me, V. I climbed the ladder. Bigshot now. And being a bigshot, I hear things." She glanced at her. "Nobody's seen an onryō for decades. Not since Arasaka's first assassination attempt on Donald Lundee. Pretty sure she's the same one who did it."

"Always circles back t'Lundee," said V. "What's the big deal? He was just some old guy."

"A very powerful old guy," corrected Meredith. "Made Militech into what it is today. Made a lot of enemies, especially in Arasaka."

"Heard he died in 2045," said V.

"He did, but not in the way the media spun it."

"So how'd he actually die?"

"Nobody knows," said Meredith, watching the road. "He disappeared. His son's still with the Board. Doesn't know what happened to his old man either. One of Militech's greatest mysteries."

V wondered if it had something to do with what Buster had told her, about Uncle Sam, about the fusion of meat and AI. Lab accident gone bad, maybe. She didn't float any of that by Meredith, though; the less Meredith knew, V decided, the better. Besides, it didn't hurt to have some informational leverage if V needed to renegotiate down the line. "Weird," was all she said, and shook her head, watching the city blur past, air-conditioning blowing in her face.

They stopped for coffee at an upscale cafe called The Roastery. She and Meredith were sitting at a table beside a window overlooking Commerce Square, the city's banking hub. Meredith took her coffee black; V took hers with too much cream and sugar. She'd gotten herself a sandwich too, on Meredith's eddies. Real bacon and eggs. She'd buy Judy's breakfast on the way out; that way it wouldn't be too cold by the time V got back to the apartment.

"So what didja drag my ass out this early for?" asked V, elbows on the marble table. "Surely not t'relive the good ol' days."

"You mean the No-Tell?" teased Meredith, in a rare display of humanity. "I still think about that night, here and there. Usually when I'm alone."

"Whoah," said V, putting up her hands, "I gotta girl, Meredith."

"I know. That loudmouth Mox girl. It's in your dossier." She sipped her coffee, then said, "Is Yoshida single? I'll be in Phoenix for a while. Could certainly use the company."

"Yeah, she's single. Thinks you're hot, actually. But y'ain't dragged me out here t'talk 'bout this scop, didja?"

"No," said Meredith, "I didn't. I did want to talk about Yoshida, however. Just not in that way." She took another long sip of her steaming coffee, then got right to biz. "Militech wants you to convince Yoshida to take our deal. NUSA wants her. The FIA really wants her. Myers herself put the order out."

"Ain't even surprised," said V, rolling her eyes. She drank her coffee. "Why can't Myers find another 'runner t'replace Songbird? Plenty out there."

"Few are as talented as Yoshida. Except maybe Lucyna Kushinada. We reached out to her. She's a fixer on Luna, the 'Queen of Tycho'. Told us to go fuck ourselves, then charged us for her time, plus the off-planet call-fee. Let me tell you, calls to Luna are very expensive."

"Heard 'bout her," said V. "Preemest fixer around. Even preemer than Rogue."

"And hates corpos more than your choom, Yoshida."

"Considerin' what happened to Lucy's crew? No surprise. Ain't met her myself, 'course. Was in Atlanta when that shit went down. But heard plenty of chatter 'round Night City." V sipped her coffee, then said, "Look, y'should know by now I ain't gonna sell your offer to Ayako. So why bother?"

"Because you might surprise me, V," said Meredith, finishing her coffee and tossing a couple of eddies onto the table for the busser. "Be willing to throw in a nice, fat bonus for you if you can convince Yoshida to join up," she added. Then, "For you, specifically, I can put you into contact with Lucy Kushinada. Those highriders pay enough eddies that you'll be living like a queen, planet-side. You and Alvarez. And Lucyna Kushinada knows people who can fix your problem."

V watched Meredith walk away. If she could get in with Lucy Kushinada, she thought, she could send Judy to the best rip-schools in the Eurotheater or Chiba with the payouts she'd be making off those highrider gigs. They could even afford a bio-kid, maybe two, and would still have enough eddies left to live like corpo fatcats.

Even so, it felt like dirty money. V had scruples now. She wasn't that dirtgirl from Heywood anymore, the street-runt who would have killed someone's grandma for a fistful of eddies.

V stood, went to the counter and ordered Judy's breakfast. She paid and left, staring at the bag, Judy's fake name handwritten on it in precise black marker. The best rip-schools in the world, she thought. Netrunning gigs that could pay for lakeside property somewhere. Bio-kids.

But, she thought, what good would those things be if she died? V shook her head. Ayako was her friend, her choom. She was going to fix V. She didn't need Kushinada and her moon-people.