“Yes. I think you may. And if it should turn out that you see Jack Price—if he is alive—do be so kind as to tell him to get out of my country or I will put him beyond the opportunity to practice his skills. All of them.”

Agent Hannah turns and walks away into the Bern evening and the flunkies go with her.

Well shit.

—

The next morning is golden in Bern and the natural world sings in the trees and although the anarchists have done their thing the cycle of life continues because in the pits on the far side of the river the bears are fornicating as bears do. They are not real discreet about it.

GNARR! GNARRK HRONK! WHUF WHUF WHUF HRONK!

Go at it bear fuckers. Raise the roof.

The world turns and no doubt that is nice but I am working. I am working with my modern butchered consumer electronics and my anarcho-socialist ice kobold security to do crimes.

There are places on the interwebs where good children do not go. One of these places is called G-Bread. Do not ask me why it is called G-Bread. It is because of the witch’s cottage in the fairy tale. These people are deep into their dark-fantasy-lifestyle choices much of their technological security revolves around magic circles and naked chanting. Mr. Friday and Mr. Dory look at this place the way a consultant ENT guy looks at you putting a paper clip in your ear to scrape the wax out.

No but seriously do not put that shit in your ear it is not okay.

So in consequences of some poor admin decisions and a lack of basic competence, G-Bread is where you commission bored Chinese kids to run DNS attacks on your neighbor’s email and then because the whole place leaks like a slug’s asshole you go to jail. No sensible criminal person would ever go to G-Bread but I guess not every terrorist is a fucking ghost mastermind like in the movies so maybe they do.

Never do crimes on G-Bread.

But just like a nude masterpiece hidden under a crappy picture of a vase, so there is something under G-Bread. If you enter the wrong password three times and you remove the numbers from the end of the resultant URL you get sent to another place and if you enter the right password there you’re in Halcyon, and Halcyon is the place where your ENT guy goes to get laid with ophthalmologists.

Dirty dirty dirty ophthalmologists.

Not literally but that could also be arranged on Halcyon.

On Halcyon I have posted an offer: If you commit any serious crime anywhere in the world and publicly identify yourself as Jack Price you can claim an extra ten thousand dollars.

If someone is arrested in the commission of such a crime and you free them with violence you can claim one hundred thousand dollars.