She walked down the street and passed a tree-lined park. Discarded WAI-pets roamed the fenced area and whimpered as they searched for their owners. Assholes. Too cowardly to turn them off, and too paranoid to keep them. She turned onto a less maintained street lined with old-style storefronts selling goods to people who weren’t networked.

Welga concentrated on placing her feet. Between the homeless people and bot wreckage, the sidewalks were an obstacle course. In her current condition, that presented a serious challenge. She hugged herself as she walked to reduce the pain and trembling in her arms. Her problem would attract the right attention, though dealers would charge a premium, taking advantage of her apparent withdrawal symptoms.

The sun’s disk shone wanly through the thinning marine layer. Warm, humid air surrounded Welga, carrying the odor of stale urine. Sweat gathered at her armpits and under her breasts.

A plump figure mumbled from an alley, “Happiness, joyrides, pretties, wisdom.”

Welga stepped into the shadowed space and gagged on the stench of shit and piss. “Joyrides—quads—and pretties,” she gasped.

The dealer squinted at her. “Quads? Got none of those. Generic duos I can do. For pretties, I got wounds, antibac, and antiviral.”

“Five each of the pretties. How many duos you got?”

“How many you want?”

“Fifty.”

“Fuck! You lookin’ to sell?”

Welga shook her head.

“You think you can pay for all that?”

She held her breath and moved close to the dealer, showing four microcard fifties in a cupped, trembling hand. She stuck her hand back in her pocket and stepped away.

“You can have thirty duos for those. That’s my whole stash. Pretties gonna cost two more fifties.”

A teenager made of skin and bones and wearing nothing but a static-cloth shift stumbled past them. Welga added two micros to her handful and gave them to the smirking dealer. They counted out the juvers and the zips into a pillbox and held it out on a broad, pale palm. Welga grabbed the box and walked out, extracting a zip and a pain reducer as she threaded her way back to the truck.

“Fucking pillheads!” someone screamed from a balcony above her. “This is all your fault!”

A low-profile mop-bot smacked Welga’s shoulder as it fell. It crashed onto the sidewalk, wheels facing the sky and spinning. A turtle on its back—Welga flipped it over, and it rolled forward, cleaning the cement and weaving past obstacles better than her unreliable legs. At least it hadn’t hit the back of her head. She’d be another junkie lying on the street.