“You little—” A hiss of exasperation escaped from her lips, and she made an effort to calm down. Mother Mary, it’s just a goddamn cat. Get a grip. “Come on.” She bent down fast and scooped him up. Her finger tickled him under his jaw as she carried him through into the kitchen’s small utility room. There was contented purring as she filled his bowl one-handed. Then as she put him down, an extended claw snagged on her Lycra running top. “Hell!”

Kandara glared at the fraying strands he’d tugged from the tight black fabric, now more annoyed with herself for the anger. The whole incident was like a feedback loop. Ridiculous! “Give me a status update on my neurochemistry and skull peripherals,” she told Zapata.

Standing in the middle of the long living room with its tall houseplants and Mexican rug wall hangings. Hands on hips. Impatient for the scan results. Sweat from the run glinting on legs and torso as the sun began to shine sharp gold rays through the big balcony windows.

“Neurochemistry stable,” Zapata announced. “Gland functionality one hundred percent.”

She snarled. It would have been easy to blame the little gland. It was a complex, delicate piece of medical bioware, secreting a carefully regulated dose of dopamine antagonist, helping keep the schizophrenia locked away in the darkness at the bottom of her thoughts like a slumbering beast. So she couldn’t blame her frustration on that. Maybe it was the run, pumping her up. Or the lack of work—over two months now. And it was no good calling around to her contacts. Work came to her, not the other way around.

She walked down the short hallway and opened Gustavo’s door. Gustavo had about the same status in the apartment as King Jaspar; he was certainly equally dependent—her houseguest, her charity case, her work in progress, her release. She’d found him in an alley behind a swish club seven weeks ago, beaten badly by a furious husband’s security team. He was nineteen and male-model handsome, so he explained, which was why he’d come to Rio in the first place, loaded up with excitement and hope. Except the modeling work had never arrived, despite his being on the books of three local agencies. Instead the agency bookers suggested he escort aging fashionistas to parties, to be seen, darling, so the right people know your name—a flesh accessory with far less value than their glittering jewelry and this-week couture. The fashionistas, colder and more calculating than any street pimp, began to pass him around their wealthy clients. He partied with them, smiled at their nonsensical jokes, then fucked them for half the night like only a virile teenager could. And when that stamina began to falter from the excesses, he took the right drugs to carry on regardless.