“This is fantastic, Dad!” Sure, he had absolutely no need for a watch, what with the precise, satellite-tuned chronometer in his brain that measured time down to one two-thousandths of a second. . . . It was one of the many perks of having a computer in his head. Getting a present was still awesome, though.

Neil clasped his shoulder. “Come on, let’s grab some steak.”

Steak. That was even more awesome.

Tom leaped up and followed Neil through the bustling crowd in the casino. They brushed past the vanquished banker, who greedily eyed the watch in Tom’s hand. Tom had no scruples about fastening it on in front of the guy, but it might’ve been a mistake being so brazen about it, because he swore he saw the banker’s face tighten into a mask of hostility—and Tom saw the banker wave over some large man who looked suspiciously like some sort of bodyguard or thug.

Tom darted a last glimpse over his shoulder before he and Neil swept around the corner. Then they plunged through the door into the enveloping, dry heat of the Nevada evening, the startling neon lights of the Las Vegas strip bombarding them from all sides.

Neil surveyed the casino they’d left. “Think the banker’s going to send his manservant after us?”

So he’d noticed the ominous gesture, too. Tom shook his head. “I dunno yet.”

“Walk fast.”

Tom didn’t need Neil to tell him that; Tom did still have some survival instincts from the first fourteen years of his life he’d spent following his dad from one casino to another. As soon as Neil got money, on the rare occasions when he won, keeping that money became the biggest task.

The question was, how alert was Neil right now? Tom threw a careful glance down at Neil’s legs, and he saw that his dad was moving steadily, no swaying or shuffling. Good. Sober. Or at least, as close to it as he ever got.

Tom turned his watch to and fro as they threaded through the crowd, the gleaming lights of the Las Vegas skyboards playing over its surface. The mile-wide screens in near-Earth orbit bombarded ads down at anyone within a hundred-mile radius below them—but their reflections in the watch shrank to tiny slivers of light. Then in the shiny surface, he spotted a figure weaving through the crowd behind them. One glance back confirmed it: the banker’s manservant was tailing them.

Great.

Tom’s eyes snapped back to the front. “Yeah, Dad. We’re being followed. Your banker’s a leecher.”

Neil gave a disgusted snort. “Figures. It’s always the Wall Street guys.”