“Yeah, but not everybody had one. Let me enjoy this century before it changes and they have us wearing fedoras and eating wheat grass because fast-food places have become outlawed.”
Gem giggled. “You’re so dramatic.”
“You sound like Viktor.”
I jumped at the sound of metal blades slicing together. Instead of katanas, it was Claude holding a pair of scissors, a comb, and a spray bottle.
“I changed my mind,” I blurted out.
Claude winked. “Don’t worry, I have magic fingers.”
Wyatt watched with avid interest while Claude began snipping at the tape. “You know, I bet a blow-dryer would loosen some of that adhesive.”
Gem stood up. “Stay away from my hair dryer.”
She stood beside me and watched pieces of my hair float to the floor. “Isn’t Claude gentle with his hands? You’d never believe he could crush a man’s skull with them.”
He gripped my head and turned it left.
“Oh, I believe you, Gem.”
“Who cut this last?” he asked, the horror in his voice thinly veiled.
“Me.”
He moved in front of me, spritzing and combing. “Using what?”
“One of those pink razors.”
Claude dropped the scissors on the floor.
Gem sputtered with laughter. “Poor Claude is going to have nightmares.”
Wyatt switched on his dual monitors, and a wall of text scrolled up while he clicked on different windows.
I blew a strand of hair out of my eyes before Claude resumed his shearing. “How does a man go from hanging around in cemeteries to computer hacking?”
Wyatt peered over his shoulder. “A misspent thirty years in the arcade.”
“Soyouwere the guy who was always hogging the machines and making kids cry.”
“Gauntlet was an awesome game. And I’m not a hacker. That’s a human subculture that speaks their own language. They sit around playing Magic, watch reruns ofDoctor Who, and wear clever little T-shirts that tell the world that they’re hackers. There’s nothing glamorous about what I do. I’m shut up in this hole for hours, my vision blurring, searching for vulnerabilities in a system. There’s no fancy holographic images beaming onto the wall like you see in the movies. Half the time, I’ve already got access, and I just have to sift through a bunch of records. Like I’m doing now.”
“Can’t you just perform a search?”
He snorted. “You should see how they decided to archive the Breed land titles for the past few centuries.”
Claude shoved my head so my chin was touching my chest. “Keep your head down. I’m a hair genius, not a magician.”
“I thought you had magic fingers?”
He chuckled. “Maybe I do, but they don’t perform miracles.”
Gem circled around him. “I bet I know a few women who would disagree with that,” she said with mischief in her voice.
I peered up and smiled at the remark.
Blue walked gracefully into the room and sat on the edge of the desk, lifting one of the fries and tossing it into the wastebasket. She had on jeans and a pair of black boots that reached her knees. “What’s going on in here, besides a french fry massacre?”
