Mic's gizmo wanders off towards the bus stop. I use my implant to call a cab. With Blackie on his way to make urgent noises at my client, the best place for me is my office. Too much of a walk. I think again about Becky. Why did she worry about my still having the cube? The cypher idea was lame, and in the end, Semperton dismissed the toy as worthless. Then again, Mic did scramble the letters on it, but hadn't reported anything special about the initial setup, or noted any intrinsic meaning or pattern to them.

Boat engines thrum the docks, the sound rides heavy on the thick, damp air. Place stinks of fish. The chill, gray feel of it all settles over me. I use my time waiting for the cab to order my thoughts.

The office is locked and still in one piece for a change. I put this down to having mollified Semperton. Take a few minutes to clean up, then sort the new mail, separate ads from the bills I can't pay, and check my messages. There is a letter from Marcia.

I hold it for a few minutes, reminisce about my ex-wife, a little scared to open it. Finally manage the courage, and break the seal.

Dear Richard,

I know I really shouldn't be writing, but mother finally passed yesterday. I am left trying to pack and dispose of her things, and make what arrangements I can. Meantime, her old friend, Peter Rubo, is executing her estate. He has been avoiding my calls, which makes some of this more difficult. I am becoming suspicious about his intent, and the law firm he is using, Carlysle and Bent, has also been reticent. I just don't have the time for all this, Richard. I know you got along well with Denise when we were together. I hate to ask, but could you look into this for me?

Marcia

A scratching at the office door interrupts. Blackie. I jot a few notes down on the back of Marcia's letter. I'll stop at probate court, and check to see what's been registered. I try to remember Pete Rubo. Older guy, a breathy, nervous type. Used to come over for tea, and yak with Marcia's mom a lot. The two had some history, but at the time, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to household stuff. Which is why Marcia and I aren't together anymore. My fault.

I let Blackie in. Dog trots to the bowl by the door and noses it. Sits and licks its chops.

"Okay, you earned it and more today." I plop a whole pound of hamburger I bought into the bowl. I don't know if that's a good idea or not. Never owned a dog. Have to look up something on mutt nutrition, I guess. Blackie inhales it like he was starving, chasing the bowl through the office as he nudges it along in a feed frenzy. This takes about eight seconds flat, and then he burps up the news.

"Six O'clock," he husks. "At the Ardmore."

So it was back to the diner. "Anything else?"

Blackie whines. "Six O'clock- Ardmore, shoes smell like pee, pine trees."

The hospital, maybe? Why would she expose herself there? Guess I'll find out at six. Back to Marcia. On a hunch, I look up Carlysle and Bent. Unsurprisingly, the office address is on the third floor of the Ardmore. Half the shyster offices in town rent there. Cheap, and close to the court center. Thought about setting up there myself, once. Good to know. I let Blackie out, close up, and head cross-town.

Probate has an inventory, and documents showing the executor and councils. There's a will registered, and a petition for discovery of additional codicils. Clerk says that means further changes to the will might becoming, that have yet to be tendered, or that a later version has been found. I can't think of anyone except Marcia, the old lady would have wanted in the will. Not me, for a fact. On to the shyster's office.

The cherry wood door is fitted with frosted glass, the kind used in public urinal windows and shyster offices everywhere. Carlysle & Bent, attorneys at law defile it. I don't like lawyers. One reason I live hand to mouth, since law offices supply a load of casework, but everybody has their standards.

The leather chairs are a little scruffy, and the potted palm needs watering. A dark haired girl is finishing a sack lunch behind the small reception desk.

"I need to see one of the associates."

"You could see Mr. Bent," The receptionist checks a desk register hidden under her lunch. "Mr. Carlysle is in traffic court right now."

"It's about the Probate of Denise Shifferen's Will. Her daughter, Marcia Wander, asked me to look into it. She needs a copy of it."

"Oh, maybe I can help you. That would be Mr. Carlysle's case. Let me see what I can do."

She pushes her chair back and consults a bank of file cabinets at the rear, pulling a manila folder from one, and returns to the desk.

"Seems the Will is in discovery. The executor is to file a codicil this week. You will have to talk to Mr. Carlysle when he gets in. I can't mail a copy out to Ms. Wander until that happens. Do you want an appointment?"

"Is this guy Bent available?"

"I can check for you, Mr.-"

"Wander. Ritchie Wander"

"Oh, I see. I'll check for you."

She leaves, going to the door behind the counter, where presumably the lawyers hide. Cheap setups like this one always try to make austerity seem like an asset. There's a phone on the desk, but they made the secretary walk back and petition an audience anyway. Class. Maybe she had to genuflect before the guy. I could care less, because she's left the file with her lunch.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I reach over and snag the file up. I riffle through it, pull out the Will, and record of activity. Scan both with my pocket imager, then throw the sheaf back on the desk. No real reason to wait around, so I leave.

The Will looks complete to me. Everything goes to Marcia. Real straight forward. If they file anything else, they will have to doctor the original. There's no index of codicils or amendments. From the billing time record, it looks suspiciously like that's in the works. There is a fee from a document restoration firm. Recent. Folks that restore old manuscripts, the like. Jot down the address, someplace called Pico and Chase, forward the copies to Marcia from a public text booth one floor down. As an afterthought, put my implant's phone number at the end of it.

It was still a little early, so I go downstairs to the diner, and order a light meal. Just finishing up, when Becky strolls in, all uptown in a silver gray sheath dress, one inch heels and matching clutch. Dame has class, I'll give her that. She sees me, and comes over as I stand up for her.

"What have you found out?"

"I asked around at the hospital. Seems some dockside toughs were taking an interest in your Dad's work. You know anything about that?"

"I...no, I didn't keep track of everyone my father dealt with, of course."

"Know a man named Semperton?"

"No."

"Then, that's a problem, because he knows you, and claims to have had a stake in your father's research."

Becky squirms a bit in the chair.

"Look, Miss Randall. If I am going to be of any help, you have to be square with me. I think your shadows were some of Semperton's crowd. They think you have something they want. Something of your Dad's. Something he promised to them."

The girl stiffens. "You, you talked to this Mr. Semperton?"

"Yeah, after he beaned me and dragged me off to his palace, I did – sort of a command audience. I didn't get the impression he had a hand in your father's death. More to the point, he was waiting for something from him. You know something he might be interested in?"

"My father wasn't in the habit of selling pure research."

My mind grinds away at stuff, til it leaps to the kind of conclusion that gets bills paid. Sometimes this happens when my mouth is still open. "This would be something practical, Becky. Say, something small enough to hide. In a cube, maybe?"

Becky seemed electrified by this.

"You didn't...he doesn't have the cube, does he?"

I'm thinking it's time to clear the air about that cube. I run over what I just said, realize I never looked inside the thing, just at the lettering, like Semperton did. Kick myself for tossing it to Mic. Don't want to spring that just yet, so instead I ask something else.

"One of your listed names, Mr. Davis, showed up at the docks, made off with a truckload of bio-engineering machines. He koshed my partner,and was snooping Semperton's digs. Davis was cozy with your father's research projects, right? Maybe he stole something, decided to shut your father up. Any of this sound reasonable to you? "

"Mitchell? He would have had access to my father's research, but the papers are a matter of hospital record anyway. The cube! Do you have it or not?"

"Your cypher is safe. I had the letters on it scrambled. Why are you still concerned with the puzzle box?"

"I--oh, alright." Frail Becky crosses a bridge between frightened, to just plain cross. "It's important to me. There's a prototype chip glued inside one of the cube segments. I used the cube cypher for a cover. The chip is one of a kind. Not something to be handed over to Semperton, or Davis either. Just keep it safe for me. I didn't know Mitchell had wind of it. I just want to know which one of them killed my father!"

"Your dad scheduled you for surgery, just when he was to begin cutting on a bunch of research animals. You don't cut because you have a schematic. A prototype had to have been made. Davis would know this, since he works right at the hospital. Any chance either of these guys know you've got a head full of proprietary software?"

Becky gasps, "How did you find out? If my father's assassins find out, I am as good as dead!"

"So that's a no. Okay, you keep your head down. I have an agent looking into your Mr. Davis's doings. I take it your father was using some of Semperton's money to forward his research. He promised him something in return. Something of use to a gambling cartel, a spin-off of his medical work. Looks like Davis got wind of it, maybe decided to make it his own. So he had a motive. I really don't care, Miss Randall. You hired me to look into a murder. I'm doing that. Just don't leave me hanging. Works better that way for everybody. Need to refresh the account though. Another 2000Cr. should do it."

"I prepared for that. Here."

The number didn't faze her. She scribbled on an envelope back and passed it to me.

Out loud, it Reads like a racetrack tout sheet. "Ploughboy in the third, Wooden Soldier, in the fourth, Lazy Susan in the fifth. Put fifty on the Tri-fecta to win."

All the bricks fell into place. I thought my intuition was pretty good, but of course, its not a patch on wonder girl's implanted precognition. Time to find out who killed Cock Robin.

So, two chips, two very different applications. Becky got the tin-hat crowd's crystal ball version. No wonder Semperton was interested. Something like that could revolutionize the numbers racket. "So, you were following your precog, when you sent me the cube. Wondered about that. Didn't seem a rational move."

Becky looks defeated. "Dad had prototype chips made. In the end, he couldn't see how animal studies would help, and he couldn't operate on himself, or petition for human subjects, so he came to me. There was no risk, the operation is similar to a phone implant, some of the same technology is used. It's implanted beneath a mastoid, a tissue knitter makes the necessary connections. He was going to run tests with me. I, can sort of see...the paths some actions might take, because of, oh, just everything. Sometimes the true outcomes are really clear. Others remain opaque. I don't know why...that was what the testing was to figure out; why he needed a cognate subject. There was a second form of the prototype. The prophylactic one that funded his research. It's the one in the cube. Dad wanted to see how I would react to the first implant. He was murdered while I was in recovery. I found the other prototype in his office. I recognized it, from the operation. Nobody knows that chip was ever actually made, everyone thinks it's on paper somewhere, the schematics for it, for an untested experimental design. Except maybe Michael Davis. From what you suggest, he may have known one of them was made, maybe the one for precognition. I don't think he connected that with me though. The hospital staff was waiting on the animal trials to start. But the final papers, design level papers, there aren't any. Dad destroyed them after he had the two chips made. I can see why now."

So could I, and I had just sent Mic off to snoop Davis. Oops.

"Look, I need you to do a couple things. First, I need your current address, then, I need you not to be there." I fish out Marcia's address, and scribble a name on it. "This is a name of a guy I know at probate court. Tell the lady at this address, her name's Marcia, to show him the files I sent her. He's the probate clerk." I scribble off a quick note. "Give her this note from me."

Becky looks at me, deeply suspicious. "Why should I do that?"

I'm in a hurry, so my note to Marcia, it's pretty terse for a beg, but I force it on to Becky anyway. "Because I don't think Semperton killed your father, but I know he is going to find you pretty quick, if you don't move. I need some leverage with him. A few hours from now, Semperton's not going to care about you anymore. Trust me. The note asks the lady to keep you off the streets till I call. Marcia owes me that much, and you'll be safe with her until I can get Semperton off your back."