He kicked a stack of old laser viewscreens aside and I dropped the crate with a sigh, puffing loose strands from my face. “That where you want it?”“Good enough.” He put down his end and eyed me warily, wiping his dusty hands on his coat. I watched him back, awkward, wanting to bite my lip. He wasn’t stupid. He knew I’d seen what the crate contained, and I waited for him to shrug, offer some excuse, make up some story about why he needed sixty-four sub-band detonators to fix some guy’s alphaspace array.The cat scooted in, tail sparking, and wrapped around his ankles in a puff of orange fur.“So … want to help me with this?” he said.I swallowed. “What?”He tossed his golden hyperchip into the air and caught it, flipping it over his knuckles. “I’ve still got data to sort, a game space to build.” His eyes twinkled, betraying that inner puzzle obsessive I’d connected with on Ladrona. “We’ll make a mocha and some churros, sit up all night, invent a few new vector geometries.
