Petrushka smiled. She wiped her thumb through the condensation on her glass. “Not since last week. You heard from yours?”

“Just now.”

“And?” Her glass was empty. She reached across the table for the pitcher’s handle. I glanced around the room. Apart from the barman, we had the place to ourselves.

“And I’ve got a new assignment.”

“About time too.” She poured a drink and sucked the froth from the top of her glass. “Because you suck at this one.”

She said it with a smile but I knew she was right. I had known for eighteen long, uncomfortable months.

I had known the minute I walked into that village.

“I just go where they send me.” Even to my own ears, it sounded lame. She raised an eyebrow.

“And you do what you’re told like a good little soldier?”

I felt my left eye twitch again. My head felt like a thundercloud. I drew myself up in my chair. “I don’t see how I’m any different from you.” As agents, we were both past our prime, and that was one of the commonalities that had drawn us together.

We were both veterans. I had been working for Conglomeration Intelligence for close to twelve years; she had been an Outward agent for ten. The implants I’d had placed in my skull, that had made me feel wired and special at the age of twenty-five, were now, at thirty-seven, an anachronism. Direct connection had become something of an anathema. When I’d first started out, Conglomeration ship captains had been permanently wired into their ships; now, they did everything via vocal commands. Invasive neural upgrades were yesterday’s news, and the integrity of the skull had become, once again, sacrosanct—at least, within the confines of the Generality. Of course, I couldn’t speak for all the factions and species of the Multiplicity, some of whom were more machine than organism.

Most of the hardware in my head was obsolete, but so firmly embedded as to be impossible to remove without fatal complications.

Her eyes darted to the left; her teeth scraped her lower lip. “Things work a little differently in the Outward. We don’t get orders, we bid for assignments.”

“You mean you chose to come here?”

She placed one hand flat on the table, covered it with the other. I could see the beads of sweat on her upper lip. “What can I say? I’m a masochist.”

I knew enough about Laura Petrushka to know that wasn’t true. I’d read her file the same way I’m sure she’d read mine. At university, she’d majored in political theory and economics, excelled in archery, fencing and chess. In her third year, she’d been recruited into Outward Intelligence by one of her lecturers and, upon graduation, had immediately been put to work on the fringes of diplomacy.