Torval sat with the driver up front, where there were dashboard computer screens and a night-vision display on the lower windshield, a product of the infrared camera situated in the grille.

Shiner was waiting inside the car, his chief of technology, small and boy-faced. He did not look at Shiner anymore. He hadn't looked in three years. Once you'd looked, there was nothing else to know.

You'd know his bone marrow in a beaker. He wore his faded shirt and jeans and sat in his

masturbatory crouch.

"What have we learned then?"

"Our system's secure. We're impenetrable. There's no rogue program," Shiner said.

"It would seem, however."

"Eric, no. We ran every test. Nobody's overloading the system or manipulating our sites."

"When did we do all this?"

"Yesterday. At the complex. Our rapid-response team. There's no vulnerable point of entry. Our insurer did a threat analysis. We're buffered from attack."

"Everywhere."

"Yes."

"Including the car."

"Including, absolutely, yes."

"My car. This car."

"Eric, yes, please."

"We've been together, you and I, since the little bitty start-up. I want you to tell me that you still have the stamina to do this job. The single-mindedness."

"This car. Your car."

"The relentless will. Because I keep hearing about our legend. We're all young and smart and were raised by wolves. But the phenomenon of reputation is a delicate thing. A person rises on a word and falls on a syllable. I know I'm asking the wrong man."

"What?"

"Where was the car last night after we ran our tests?"

"I don't know"

"Where do all these limos go at night?"

Shiner slumped hopelessly into the depths of this question.

"I know I'm changing the subject. I haven't been sleeping much. I look at books and drink brandy. But what happens to all the stretch limousines that prowl the throbbing city all day long? Where do they spend the night?"