Crash Deluxe Read Online Free

.’ She slipped her thumb in her mouth like a kid.
    It reminded me of Mei Sheong, the crazy pink-haired chino-shaman who drove me nuts. The Loyl-me-Daac addict.
    My curiosity stirred. ‘Who?’
    Thumb out. A nervous swallow. ‘Delly. He o-owns a pleasure club called Luxoria on Brightbeach. His clients are top-tier. Media, royals, athletes.’
    ‘Why is he after you?’
    ‘He doesn’t like his employees vanishing. Teece said if I explained that, you’d be sure to look after me,’ she said.
    My fingers spasmed so hard on my holster that I nearly shot my high-heeled toes off. ‘Sure. What about the hack?’
    ‘There’s a guy who works for him called Merv. He’s the bio-hack. A-a genius, in my opinion.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘He can crack anything.’ Honey lowered her voice. ‘Whatever you want to find out, he’s the one.’
    ‘Lots of people say that,’ I said dryly.
    ‘He cracked Militia to get me out of Viva.’
    My interest increased. Militia had as much ice as Prisons. ‘I’m impressed.’
    Her thumb went in and out several times, nervous again. ‘One thing you should know about him . . . he’s got a thing . . . he thinks shadows are taking over the world. He’s fighting a war against them. Sees them when he’s jacked in.’
    Brain-fry. Most bio-hacks got it. It wasn’t the popular, glamorous pastime it had once been. The attrition rate was high - it messed with your brain’s electrical impulses after a while. Most hacks still preferred to work off voice and touch-pad and to avoid vreal. Slow but safe. I squashed a sigh. At least it isn’t parasitic aliens.
    She hurried on. ‘He used to work for the media. Then something happened. Brain-fry is my guess. Most of the best hacks end up with it. Delly found him DJ-ing the screens at a Meathouse and offered him a job. He’s harmless, just weird. If you can convince him to help you . . .’
    What are the chances of that? ‘Let’s talk more,’ I said, as sweetly as I could.
    Turned out that Honey’s ex-boss Delly was a prominent flesh operator in the Inner Gyro. She said he had some rules that she didn’t go for, like insisting that all his people should mainline rough . So she got out.
    According to her he was a grudge-bearer, didn’t like his employees doing runners, He sent bounty after her. Teece had ‘disposed’ of them.
    Honey showed me her stent. It was an exxy number: fine polymer tubes flush with the surface of her skin in the pattern of a star. Très chic.
    ‘The star shape was Merv’s idea. It’s a protective charm. He’s big on superstition, says it’s the twin of intuition. He says we don’t give the psychic thing enough cred.’
    ‘So how do I get close to Merv?’
    She tongued the bow of her top lip. ‘That’s the hard thing. Delly keeps him close so nobody poaches him. Merv’s job is to watch over the girls and keep the hackers out of the club’s system. He doesn’t go out much. Doesn’t like people.’
    Honey’s face fell into an arrangement of pretty thought-creases. I got the feeling the process was hard for her. I’d give her about seventy per cent lucidity; the rest was probably mulch.
    Bitchy? Moi?
    ‘Once a week Delly trolls the lobby of the Globe for new clients. It’s the one regular time he leaves the club. Maybe, if you were there, somehow you could convince him to hire you. He’d rather buy the opposition than have any.’
    I followed the threads of her idea.
    ‘How would I do that?’
    Honey set her feet and crossed her arms as though she’d suddenly got comfortable. ‘The pleasure industry’s different in Viva than it is here. It’s illegal for anyone in the ’burbs to procure Amoratos or pay for physical pleasure. The law says they have to use NS if they don’t have a partner. Delly said the laws changed when the media took over from politicians. Part of the safe-city campaigns. I think they just wanted to keep the whole thing exclusive.’
    I flashed on to Irene. There was no doubt where my