"Angleton"—I swallow—"when he sent me to Cosford he forgot to give me the backgrounder first. But he gave me a reading list."

"Oh fucking hell." She looks annoyed, which is a good sign. But then her eyes track sideways and I realize I'm not off the hook yet. "What's that?"

"That?" I ask brightly, suppressing the impulse to squawk oh shit. "It appears to be a cardboard box."

"A cardboard box with a picture of an iPhone on it," she says slowly.

"It's empty," I hurry to reassure her.

"Right." She picks up her coffee and takes a mouthful. "Would I be right in thinking it's empty because it used to contain an iPhone? Which is now, oh, I dunno, in your pocket?"

"Um. Yes."

"Oh, Bob. Don't you know any better?"

"It was at least a class four glamour," I say defensively, resisting the urge to hunch my shoulders and hiss preciousss. "And I needed a new phone anyway."

She sighs. "Why, Bob? Has your old phone started to smell or something?"

"I left my PDA in Hangar Six at Cosford," I point out. "It's slightly scorched around the edges and I don't have room for half my contacts on my mobile."

"So you bought an iPhone, rather than bugging Iris to sign off on a replacement PDA."

"If you must put it that way . . . yes."

Mo rolls her eyes. "Bob loses saving throw vs. shiny with a penalty of [?]5. Bob takes 2d8 damage to the credit card—just how much did it cost? Will you take it back if I guilt-trip you hard enough? Do pigs fly?"

"I was considering it," I admit. "But then Brains came round and installed something."

"Brains installed—"

"He's working on a port of OFCUT to the iPhone platform at work. I think he thought mine was an official phone . . . I've got to take it into the office and get it scrubbed before I even think about trading it in, or the Auditors will string us both up by the giblets." I shudder faintly, but Mo is visibly distracted.

"Hang on. They've ported OFCUT to the iPhone? What does it look like?"

"I'll show you . . ."

Fifteen minutes later I am on my way to the office, sans shiny. Mo is still sitting at the kitchen table with a cold mug of coffee, in thrall to the JesusPhone's reality distortion field, prodding at the jelly-bean icons with an expression of hapless fascination on her face. I've got a horrible feeling that the only way I'm going to earn forgiveness is to buy her one for her birthday. Such is life, in a geek household.

ACTUALLY, I HAVE A MOTIVE FOR GOING IN TO WORK THAT I don't feel like telling Mo about.