Back in the warehouse, Lucio and Rousseau are lying where they fell, clutching their wounds and sobbing quietly. No threat.

I look around, the container Montreta was opening is the real point of interest here. Inside are stacks of blue barrels. I draw my knife and slice through the bindings on the lid. The serrations make short work of the plastic.

Kamakura Bladeworks tanto. Not even a scratch on the black blade. A good knife.

Flipping back the lid of the barrel, I let out a low whistle.

Inside the barrel are piles of vacuum pack bags. All containing the same thing. Hundreds of small, off white pills.

I look around, there's at least twelve other containers in the warehouse. Safe to assume they're all loaded like this one.

Citroxytine. C. Trox. Troxy. Sparkle. Whatever you want to call it, it's all the same. APD's been seeing a huge increase of it on the streets and, as yet, they have no idea where it's coming from. Citroxytine is a drug designed for parties. Apparently, it makes the user feel euphoric. Lighter and happier. Unfortunately, prolonged use leads to a slow deterioration of the internal organs, especially the brain. Eventually, the body just completely fails. The results are usually extremely messy. But the biggest danger is the heightened aggression that goes with it. Usually, the easiest way to tell where there was a Citroxytine rave is by the number of badly beaten bodies lying around. Occasionally, if you're lucky, you might even find one or two of them alive.

This is a huge shipment. It should be more than enough to help APD get a handle on the situation. Plus there's two foot soldiers clinging to life in the corner. Time to call it in.

Cassandra Haneda is the friend I'm doing this favour for. She and I were partners back when we were just regular beat cops. Then I transferred to SWAT after three years and she got headhunted for undercover work. We didn't see much of each other after that, but we kept in touch. Now, she's the lead detective in APD's Emergency Response Unit. Big time stuff.

Me? I got booted out of SWAT five years after I transferred in. I still hold the record for the shortest term as commander in the 23rd Precinct. They gave me a whole list of official reasons why, and most of them boiled down to the same thing: I was a loose cannon. But the real reason, the unofficial reason was a lot more complicated.

I fire up my CommLink and Cass appears in the corner of my retinal display. She looks spectacular as always. Dressed in a grey suit and blue shirt. Her honey blond hair in a neat ponytail. Her father was Japanese and her mother was from the American Federation. Cass grew up in New Santa Barbara but moved to Atoyama when she was in college. She's got this whole athletic surfer girl vibe going on. Whenever she had a day off, she'd be down at the Deeps, trying to catch the perfect wave. her biggest complaint was that apparently the surf on Edo was nowhere near as good as back home. Not that I knew anything about it.

"Genji, what have you got?"

"Massive shipment of Citroxytine. Plus two foot soldiers. Vincenzo Lucio and John Rousseau. You should be able to squeeze something out of them. If you can get here in time.

I shoot a quick glance over at the two of them.

They're both pale and shaking. Going into shock.

"They're not looking so good."

She nods.

"On it. I'm dispatching units now. They should be there in a few minutes. More than enough time for you to get away."

"Roger that."

"Thanks Genji. I owe you one."

"More than one."