"That’s extraordinarily generous of you, sir. I’d be most appreciative." Geraint was curious about the meeting, and amused at the thought of his portly lunch companion blasting away at a bunch of hapless game birds with antique firearms, accompanied by the broomstick-thin and notoriously bad-tempered Earl of Dundee. The Cambridge meeting was of interest because it might yield Geraint some useful contacts. His investigations of the Zeta-ImpChem corporate system hadn’t come to much; their defenses were so fierce and so stacked against deckers sniffing at their forbidding Matrix systems that he didn’t dare risk it. There might be easier ways of finding out what was going on in the pharmaceuticals market. Getting a corporate suit to wax loquacious by plying him with alcohol was still easier than trying to hack one’s way past deadly intrusion countermeasures. Human weaknesses were still more predictable than any technology. Cambridge could be a good opportunity.

Geraint set his glass down on the polished mahogany table just as the first bell sounded calling the nobles into the debating chamber.

The earl rose to his feet with a grunt, the effort accompanied by a thunderous fart, which Geraint pointedly ignored. "Come on my boy, let’s teach those blasted pixies a lesson about the power of the vote. That’s what democracy is all about.”

Francesca hunched over the Fuchi Cyber-6. Decking played such havoc with her shoulder muscles that she’d need a massage afterward, but looking forward to that was part of the buzz. She was traveling light in the Matrix, having loaded a cloak program to mask her operations, analyze and browse programs for quick checks through datastores and structures, and a powerful sleaze program to get past any ID checks en route.