Serrin drained the coffee pot, adding just a little of the slightly yellowed cream from the jug, which spilled some of its contents over the starched linen tablecloth each time it was used.

This was too easy. The fixer had agreed too readily to a fifty percent increase; the credstick had already been cut on that basis. They knew him, they knew watchers were his specialty. Serrin had the feeling that somehow he was being used. But for fifteen hundred nuyen and for a job that couldn’t possibly present any danger, he couldn’t imagine that it was a sucker deal.

Could he?

Jones rubbed his chin as he leaned back in the passenger seat of the Toyota Elite. He looked over at the fat man hurriedly tapping the scrambling code into the portacom link, holding his thumb tightly over the scanner as it checked his thumbprint ID. Smith jacked in the electrodes from the link so the portacom could make the backup brainwave-scan ID check, then fumbled the telecom code into the pad. The screen flickered and registered entry of the code.

With a grunt, Smith checked off the portacom and reached for the ignition. As the car began to purr gently, Jones reached into an inside pocket and drew out a small plastic case.

“They got the confirming code, so we’re done with work for the day. A little boost?"

“Don’t mind if I do,” Smith smirked as a bead of sweat ran down from his pallid forehead. His bulbous nose twitched slightly in anticipation, emphasizing the tiny broken red veins. He took the tiny chip greedily, turning it over and over in his hand. "Morpheus hallmark. That’s what I like, a little class."

Back in the hotel, Serrin wrapped a muffler around his throat and buttoned up the baggy woolen coat he always brought with him to London, even in what the Brits laughably termed summer. Striding through the hotel lobby, he hailed one of the voluminous black trollcabs, London’s finest, yanking open the passenger door as the grinning driver screeched the vehicle to a halt.