Three blocks up, Gaby crossed the street abruptly and let herself into a single-story prefab. Carl saw her dig the matte-gray rectangle of a keycard out of her jeans and swipe it in the lock. The door opened, and she disappeared inside. Too far off to make out a number or name panel, but the place had hanging baskets of yellow-flowered cactus out front. Carl loped up to the near end of the ’fab, slipped into the alley between the building and its neighbor, and circled to the back. He found a bathroom window left open, levered it up, and heaved himself over the sill. Vague pain from the stab wound, sliced muscle moving against itself in a way it shouldn’t. He narrowly missed stepping into the toilet bowl, hopped sideways instead and crouched by the door, grimacing.

Voices came through the finger-thin wall, bassy with resonance but otherwise clear. Soundproofing on ’fab shells was pretty good these days, but if you wanted the same for interior partitioning, it cost. Not the sort of thing GH were going to provide at base; you’d have to buy the upgrade, and whoever lived here, Gaby or Gray, obviously hadn’t. Carl heard the woman’s accented English again, and then another voice he knew from filed audio playback.

“You stupid fucking bitch, why’d you come here?”

“I, you,” Her voice stumbled with hurt. “To warn you.”

“Yeah, and he’ll be right fucking behind you!”

A flat crack, open hand across her face. Carl caught the sudden jump of her breath through the wall, nothing more. She was tough, or used to this, or both. He eased down the door handle, cracked the door, and peered through. A big form jerked across his sliver of vision. An upthrown arm, gesturing, there and gone too fast to see if there was a weapon in the hand or not. Carl reached under his jacket for the Haag pistol. Something weighty went over with a thump in the next room.

“He’s probably tracking you right now, probably let you go so he could do it. You empty-headed cunt, you’ve—”