Chapter 3: Zero-Nine's Unknown Contract

The contract arrived at 03:47:12 by Karrath Prime's submerged municipal clock, which Zero-Nine knew was running eleven seconds fast.

She was belly-flat on the overhang above the Sixteenth Canal, watching a man named Drescher who was very much alive and had been paid a significant sum to remain that way by people who were about to be disappointed. Rain came down in the particular way it always came down in the lower tiers—not falling so much as accumulating, as if the air itself had simply given up on being dry. Neon from the gambling house across the water striped her in alternating red and green. The thermal scope cross-haired on the back of Drescher's neck, right where the third cervical vertebra met the dampening collar he wore to block electronic surveillance, which was charming because it meant he had never heard of acoustic vibration mapping and was about to illustrate that gap in his education.

Her neural interface pinged.