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“Don’t worry, wife,” Black said in a lower voice. “Honestly, I think she deeply regrets involving me in any of this. I suspect she dangled The Lion Hunters Club because she thought I might be a member. Idefinitelythink she assumed I was ‘in the club’ with Rucker and those other fucks, and that I wouldn’t ask uncomfortable questions, or do anything to rock the boat. All this bluster is because she’s realizing I couldn’t give two shits about protecting my fellow billionaires, and I’d happily burn Rucker’s empire to the fucking ground.”

“Does Gorren know about the girl?” I asked.

Black combed long fingers through his black hair.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I would guess not, based on things she’s said. I suspect she more thought we were tearing the place apart, looking for Rucker’s tech secrets, and maybe for blackmail material. But that’s only a guess. TheI can’t fucking read herthing is still incredibly irritating. It forces me to guess much more than I’d like.”

Of course. I’d forgotten that.

I carefully poured the milk I’d steamed into my two shots of espresso.

“Any more insight around the implant you found?” I asked.

Black’s scowl deepened.

“No,” he said. “That’s part of why I need Jem to get his ass back here.” He gave me a serious look. “Did Holo ever figure out what Rucker put in the girl?”

I inclined my head in a noncommittal way. “Sort of. I’m sure you bringing him the prototype will help. He says hers is located at the base of her skull and neck, right where sight-restraint collars normally attached on Old Earth. He couldn’t find anything else on her that explained why her sight is blocked.”

“Can he get it out?”

I took the first sip of my cappuccino and hesitated.

“Probably,” I said carefully. “He obviouslywantsto remove it, but he’d like a second opinion from Jem first, and he’dreallylike information we can probably only get from the science team at Prometharis. He’s leery about doing anything until he knows he won’t accidentally kill her trying to remove it. He also says it definitely has some kind of organic component… at least an interface, if not organics in the primary tech. It emits a field of some kind, and he thinks that’s what strangles and controls heraleimi…but he can’t tell for certain what will happen if he takes it out. It’s unlikely they have booby-traps like they did on Old Earth, but it could have unintended consequences.”

I paused, watching Black think about this.

“Can we get Holo access to the science team on Oyster Point, do you think?” I asked. “It would mean a much more aggressive approach than last time.”

Black scowled. “It sounds like we’ll have to.”

“So we should put off calling the cops then,” I ventured cautiously. “At least another day. We don’t want to be in there, pushing and reading scientists, not with cops all over the building investigating a murder case.”

Black nodded slowly.

Like me, he wasn’t happy about that, but he knew I was right.

“What do you think this is really about?” I asked. “With the shooter, I mean? Is it really about the tech? Or is it just revenge?”

Black visibly pulled himself out of his thoughts.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, sounding tired. “There’s still some chance it isn’t about the girl at all. Or the tech. In addition to the implants and the sex-trafficking, Rucker was into some really weird shit. He was a big believer in a tech religion called ‘Longtermism.’ He’s a fanatic, from what I know… wouldn’tfucking shut up about it if he thought he was around ‘like-minded’ types, or possible converts. Including me on a few occasions.”

I nodded, brows knitted as I sipped my coffee.

“That would track with the implants,” I said.

Black nodded. “It would. He wants to upload human consciousness into machines. He’s obsessed with immortality. He was also big on large-scale genocide so a handful of the “chosen” can live out their lives… forever, basically… on a pristine, nanotech-repaired Earth that’s like a huge resort for rich fucks like him. The chum of the masses, of course, don’t get to play. They’re slotted to be slave labor, mostly on off-planet colonies, mining interests, etc., all for the “greater good” of accumulating resources for those chosen few. Robots and A.I. will do all the rest.”

“Lovely,” I muttered.

The idea wasn’t entirely foreign to me, of course.

I’d read about the ideology Black was talking about. It was big in certain circles of high-tech, as Black said. It even came up with my clients a few times.

“It’s modern day eugenics,” Black said. “And he was one of its biggest evangelicals. So yeah, I’m sure there were a number of people who wanted Lucian dead.”

He gave me a grim look.