“Need I remind you,” I sputtered uselessly, “that I am a taxi driver? I fly aircars. I don’t do extractions, I don’t do intelligence, and mostly I don’t do Underlevel.”

Underlevel was thirty miles deep at its deepest, a reeking dank pit where our vaunted civilization went to die. It smelled like desperation and paranoia most of the time, and most of its citizens had never seen natural daylight in their lives.

I’d been there. Once. And I still had the scar on my shoulder to prove it.

Smith turned what he clearly thought was a winning smile on me. “I think you have hidden depths.”

“Depths. Har. Underlevel. Funny.”

Boss’s chair squeaked as he adjusted his considerable weight and leaned back. “Look, Brenner, we’ve been playing nice, but the fact is, you were picked for this by the Corporation. So you can go and have a job to come back to, or go and not have a job to come back to. Now I’d love to have you back after this is over, but . . .” He shrugged.

“Give me that coffee,” I growled at Smith.