Damo claps her hands, "Isn't it perfect? I mean, I do have a machine brain so it was easy to analyse every Bionic Capital employee's face in their public database to find the best matches, but finding someone the same height as Gray?"

"Fuck you."

"It's as if they were designed to have their identities stolen."

Zef is only just catching up. He feels stupid trying to follow and process the implications of this master plan. Meanwhile, Gray and Damo are like two tumbleweeds caught in the tangled theatre of one another's ideas.

"My voice," says Gray.

"I've got an implant that can fix that if we get a good sample."

"They ain't American, why would they be here?"

"Scheduled for an international meeting at Neorleans HQ in about a week," Damo fires back.

"And how do we fool any of the biometric scans and security we have to go through? You can beat our faces to look like 'em, but we don't have their implants."

"Would you chill? Put your wadded panties in the wash and watch the spin cycle for a calming second? I've got all that figured out."

Zef finally finds his voice. "You want us to invade HQ dressed in drag, disguised as two international caps, in one week? Isn't that—"

"Batshit," Gray supplies.

"One flew over the cuckoo's nest?" Damo offers.

Zef says, "Suicidal."

"It's not without its risks," Damo admits. "But insofar as mission 'Destroy Rylan' is concerned, there's no risk-free option. This may be the convoluted approach, but it's better than punching her in the face."

"You don't gotta come." Gray, barely having eaten his pancakes, chews a toothpick contemplatively. "Better you don't."

Zef bristles. They've done this song and dance before. Both of them trying to keep the other out of danger in an argument that never amounts to more than posturing and slapping at each other like two snot-nosed middle schoolers. He's not sure about the plan, but he's sure he won't leave Gray to take it on alone.

"Screw that. Tell me how we're stealing some identities."

Damo gives them the rundown, complete with a slideshow featuring memes from a century ago. Every piece of the plan, laid out in extravagant detail only a machine mind could come up with so quickly.

Phase One: steal the identities of two Bionic Capital executives and attend an international conference in their stead.

Phase Two: infiltrate HQ under the false identities, destroy the data fort, retrieve Project Serenity, then cover their tracks by making it look like a CyberSuite hack.

Phase Three: attend a virtual masquerade where all the hotshot caps will be in attendance, and assassinate Rylan before she finds out her data fort's been fried.

Zef doesn't voice his opposition to the last, but it scrapes under the surface between them. A quiet faultline ready to quake.

~ * * * ~

Phase one of the heist takes them into a glittering shard of a hotel in the neon district of Neorleans on a hot, Friday afternoon. The lobby revolves around a six-story tiered fountain, the bottom filled with obsolete coins of copper and silver flashing like fish scales.

Zef and Gray's marks arrived early, clearly keen to treat the weekend before their conference as a holiday on the company's dime. Here, they'll eat, sleep and decompress from the jetlag of their cross-Atlantic flights.

The goal was simple. Lina Dietrich and Katarina Kostra had checked into the hotel thirty minutes ago. During their stay, they'd be given a complimentary meal in the business lounge, where a synthetic food CEO would be holding his birthday party. Live entertainment, plenty of people. Equipped with false identities and disguises courtesy of Damo's elaborate 'communication network,' they should be able to blend in.

Once they find their marks, they'll just have to record voice samples.

Easy peasy. Theoretically.

They head past the fountain to the elevator. It's a long ride up seventy-something floors.

Gray says under his breath, "Nervous?"

"Not really." To Zef's surprise, the answer's true.

"Tch." Gray chews his lip in place of a toothpick. "Anything looks squirrely, we hightail out of there."

"So you're nervous."

"Just think you coming's a god awful idea, is all." He casts Zef a scathing side-eye. "Don't want you to mess this up."

Zef chooses not to take offence. Under the disguise, Gray looked like a feral stray who could hardly handle solid food. Hard to take his attitude personally when Zef feared the smoke coming out Gray's ears hinted at a hidden fire under the hood.

The elevator doors swish open for them. Inside, each mirrored wall confronts Zef with the strangeness of his own reflection.

The disguises involve sharp suits, wigs, theatre beards, and—in Gray's case—a few gallons of heavyweight concealer to hide his tattoos. Zef's waistcoat of silk brocade in iridescent colours makes him feel like an exotic bird. Gray—with eye contacts, glasses, a navy blue wig and fake implants—looks unrecognisable, too. In a freshly pressed charcoal suit with pops of gold, he could be an oil baron or a cynical film critic.

They're still masculine, cis-passing, but transformed. Richer, oilier versions of themselves. The sight gives Zef something approaching dysphoria.

That's not him staring back.

That discomfiture swiftly flits toward gender bliss when he realises the only reason he dislikes his reflection now is because he'd started to love and appreciate his body as it is. In a way he never thought possible pre-T.

It crystallises into a pearl of confidence he holds tight as they exit the elevator into the dinner hall.

A server—human instead of the robotic kind found in most restaurants and fast food joints—addresses them by their false names and leads them to their table. As she hands them menus, Zef scans the crowd, his implant searching for their marks. One sits at the bar, chatting animatedly with the barman. The other sips a cocktail, listening to the live music—a harpist doing a whimsical rendition of a KPop song. At the same time, several booths at one end of the restaurant overflow with men and women in sharp attire, one of whom stands on a table chugging wine straight from a glass pitcher shaped like a swan.

Truly, it looks like a reality TV episode. Scandalous Secret Lives of the Obscenely Rich and Famous.

Gray says, "Hate this bit. Striking up a conversation with strangers is psychopath behaviour."

"Then you should come by it naturally," Zef teases.

Gray's grumpy face nearly cracks. "Ain't like you're no Casablanca yourself, Mr. Got-No-Game."

"Casanova," Zef corrects.

"Right. One day you'll have to show me all your retro films so I can be as culturally relevant to the nineteen-fifties as you are."

Zef eyes Gray. "Are you stalling?"

"Naw." But a vein in his temple throbs.

It occurs to Zef he's never seen Gray interact with total strangers aside from when they first met.

"Are you shy?"

A server flows by with a plate of champagne. Gray takes one and downs it. "Let's get this show on the road."

He marches off towards the tables closest to the harpist, leaving Zef thinking, Why do I gotta think he's cute even when he's a grouchy asshole.

Finishing his own champagne, a taste Zef can't decide whether he likes in spite of the ritzy reputation it holds, he heads toward the bar. Katarina sits on a stool, ankles crossed. Zef leans a respectful foot and a half away. In his periphery, he catches her glance his way. The barman, a prettily coiffed man in a deep v-neck with an unsubtle tattoo of a rainbow stiletto on his bicep, asks what Zef's drinking.

Zef forgot to ask Gray what caps order. His experience with alcohol is limited to the night they got plastered at a Western bar then blew up Rylan's mansion. With only a library of old movies to refer to, he panics and defaults to the Bond approach.

"Martini. Shaken, not stirred."

The barman's eyebrows rise. "Classic but old-fashioned. I like it." He pours the drink, winks, and hands it to Zef.

Katarina watches from the corner of her eye. Zef, summoning smooth bravado from vintage film caricatures, gives her a respectful nod 'hello' and asks, "Can I get you anything, as well?"

Katarina says, "I have not tried this drink you have. I'll have one, too."

Zef orders her one and, while adjusting his glasses, hits the button to start recording voice samples. He points to the barstool beside her. "Mind if I join you?"

She pats the stool and Zef sits.

"Visiting for business or pleasure?"

"Why not both?" she says. "Business, really, but this city has much to see. I need recommendations from a local, maybe. You were born here, yes?"

"Mhm," he lies. In truth, the bayou would never be considered Neorleans proper by anyone born and raised within the city limits, but today he's not trailer trash. "It's a big place. What sort of things do you want to see?"

"Hmm," she muses. "I like all things. Museums, art gallery, parks."

Zef disguises his apprehension by taking his first sip of the martini, which—turns out—is gross. He hopes his face doesn't reveal too much, but panic rises in his chest. Museums? Art galleries?! Parks?!?!

Damo's voice filters into his ear through his implant, coming to his rescue. "The Museum of French Creole Art and History," he says. "It's in the old French quarter."

Thank fuck for Damo and his spyware, seventy-million-thoughts-a-second brain. Zef repeats Damo's suggestion.

"Ah, yes, very good," Katarina says.

Zef's HUD readings indicate he still needs several minutes of voice sample before it can replicate her. He has to keep her talking. While searching for a new topic, he sees movement in his periphery. On the dance floor, several of the partygoers shimmy around, arhythmic but not lacking for enthusiasm. Amongst them, Gray leads his mark by the hand. In that barest contact, Zef sees ripcord tight resistance, ready to snap. Gray's smile bares too many teeth. He tolerates the touch of a stranger only barely, and only for the sake of the mission. Lina takes Gray's hands and sets them firmly around her waist. Zef's palate tastes sour. Nothing to do with the martini. He resists the protective urge to intervene.

Forcing his attention back to Lina, "So, where are you from?"

"Slovakia."

"I've never been, what's it like?"

"Oh, very different. Much, mm, please not to take offence, but cleaner. And I would say, more trees, more cold. And I have not been here that long, but these hotels. They have spa treatments, and did you know? They are not good."

Her bluntness nearly makes Zef choke on his martini. "They're —not?"

"No, not at all. In Slovakia, we have everything. Salt treatment, seventeen types of massage, the snail facial, the bath with the little fishies. You know the one?"

Zef nods. He doesn't have a fucking clue. "I hear the little fishies are good."

"Excellent for exfoliating the feet," she agrees. "I got simple massage, though. This, it is not difficult. But this girl, you would think I am made of tissue paper. I get better massage from my husband. I say, what am I paying you for?"

This conversation, under normal circumstances, would be hilarious. Unfortunately, Zef just caught sight of the German executive running a finger down the lapel of Gray's suit. Gray feigns a reciprocative smile, but his cheeks don't dimple. A caged animal twenty seconds before it starts gnawing the bars.

Zef isn't sure whether to cut in or keep to his own mark.

With feigned interest, Zef continues pressing Katarina for more information about her home country, what sort of business she's here for, feeding her question after question while the metre on his HUD slowly fills. Luckily, she speaks freely, an oddball for a cap, but Zef can't completely ignore the pair spinning in his periphery.

Finally, the voice sampling metre hits one-hundred percent. Zef carries on the conversation to a natural pause, then excuses himself to go to the bathroom. As he circles around the bar though, a hand grabs him by the elbow.

Fear thrills through him. Had he done something suspect? When he turns, it's only the barman, smiling with teeth that probably cost him ten thousand credits in tips. He hands Zef a napkin. Zef accepts it automatically, brow wrinkling in confusion.

The barman says, "In case you're free tonight." Then he winks and walks away.

Zef stares, dumbfounded, at the napkin. Scrawled in a tidy hand is the barman's number, signed off with xoxo.