“In a minute.” She rolled across him, lingered, and slid onto her feet. His eyes followed her as she disappeared into the bathroom. He could hear her humming as she activated the shower.

He’d been wondering if all those tattoos had numbed her nerves. They hadn’t.

Rising, he fumbled in the closet until he found his robe. Not that he felt the need to hide himself; it was just a mite chilly in the room. The biogeered silk was slick against his skin, and he enjoyed the feel as he eyed the drink dispenser.

After a moment’s thought, he drew forth a glass of cold grapefruit juice. The tartness smarted against his palate but helped to keep him alert. As he sipped, he wondered how he was going to hit Gemmel for the quarter mil. It shouldn’t be a serious problem. Drop in the well for Braun-Ives. They could reroute some of the preferred reward money. The ticket would be no trouble either, but depending on the woman’s background, the passport could be tricky to arrange. Maybe Hafas could help with that.

Embedded within the watery echo of the flushing john was a slight click. He frowned at the distinct sound. Two seconds later the room was rocked by an eruption of volcanic magnitude. Propelled by a gout of orange flame, wall insulation and shards of plastic exploded into the bedroom. Displaced air lifted him off the floor, threw him across the sheets, and slammed him into the padded headboard. He bounced once and tumbled to the floor on the far side of the bed, which had been skewed sideways by the force of the detonation.

With Vyra at his back, Moses tried the lockseal on the door from the workroom.

“Seeth the formalities! Get in there!” she ordered him.

“I comply.” A cutting torch emerged from the tip of one limb, and the humaniform proceeded to slice the lockseal down the middle. Without waiting for his assistance, Vyra slammed the freed door back on its guide and stepped into the ruins of Manz’s bedroom.

Dissipating, dust-laden smoke continued to issue from the demolished bathroom. She spared it a glance before hurriedly searching the rest of the room.

“Broddy! Don’t vape on me now, man. We haven’t even had time to talk.” A coughing sound drew her around the foot of the bed.

Manz lay on the far side, trying to sit up. Blood trickled from small cuts all over his face, and his robe had been turned into an expensive rag. She helped him to his feet and he sat down heavily on the ruined bedsheets. A sticky-sweet smell issued from the mangled drink dispenser as colorful fluids pooled and mixed on the debris-strewn floor. None of the lights were functional, but illumination poured through the open workroom door. Moses supplied supplementary light of his own.

“How you doing?” she inquired solicitously.

He coughed again, reaching up to pluck a piece of twisted, melted construction plastic out of his hair. “Been better. Where’s my Minder?”

“Here.” The globe lay on the floor behind him, next to his dirty but undamaged jacket. “I was knocked from my resting place.”

“You weren’t the only one. Status?”

“I am fine. No damage sustained. Which is more than can be said for you.”

“I’ll be all right. How’s the suspension unit in my coat?” He indicated the crumpled jacket lying on the floor.

“Fully functional.”

“Good. Stick with it. And stay on-line.”

“I am always on-line, unless you direct otherwise.”

“I’m glad I didn’t hang you behind the bathroom door. Any idea what happened? Specifics, I mean.”

“Before responding, I would be glad of the opportunity to make a detailed scan of the explosion site.”

“You’ll get your chance. You and Moses both.” Favoring his left leg he rose, heedless of his nakedness, and limped toward the bathroom. Pain made him wince, and Vyra did her best to help. He spat grit and blood from inside his mouth.

“Shit,” he mumbled. “I told her it was safe, damn it.”

‘Told who what was safe?” Vyra eyed him questioningly.

He halted. “When I came in, there was a lady waiting for me. On the bed. Naked except for some genuinely elegant head-to-toe tattooing. Said she had some information for me on the drug jackings.”

“Was there any more to her than talk and tattoos? Or did you get the chance to find out?”

“She knew my name, knew that I worked for Braun-Ives, and knew what she wanted. I was skeptical at first, but I think now she knew what she was talking about. We struck a deal.”

“So what did she tell you?”

He looked away. “She didn’t get the chance to talk. I think she would’ve waited to see some good-faith money before disclosing anything useful anyway.”

Vyra’s gaze narrowed. “Then what were you doing in here? Moses was recording everything, you know. I caught him at it.”

He glanced sharply at the mechanical. “More research?”

The device replied. “Naturally. Everything has been saved to sphere.”

“It better stay there. I know people to whom the sum of your parts would be a lot more valuable than the whole.”

“My research is intended to allow me to better do my work by enabling me to better interact with humans. It is not for wider dissemination.”

“Good. Don’t forget that.” He turned back to Vyra. “We were conducting ongoing negotiations when everything went to hell. I heard her flush the john, there was a funny noise, and the next thing I know I’m making like Peter Pan running with pixie dust on empty.” Someone was pounding on the door.

“Moses, go inform hotel management that we’re all right in here, but don’t let them in just yet. Tell them we’re not respectable and that we’ll let them and the fire marshal in in a couple of minutes.”

“I comply.” The humaniform pivoted and headed for the anteroom.

Manz picked his way through the debris until he was standing in the damaged portal to the bathroom. The door had disintegrated when it had been blown off its track. Vyra pressed close behind him, peering over his shoulder.

You’re wondering what they’re seeing, aren’t you? I’m not. Mechanicals don’t share your ghoulish delight in the lurid details of dismemberment and destruction. I’m endlessly fascinated by your visceral attraction to viscera, by your inability to turn away from scenes that you know are going to disgust you. It’s as if you enjoy upsetting yourselves.

What do you think you’re going to see? Parts are parts, whether organic or otherwise. Tendons or wires, brains or concentric storage drives, what’s the difference? If you’d learn to think of yourselves as machines, it would go easier on your digestion.

You’d rather peer and puke, wouldn’t you? I can empathize with human thoughts, but not human obsessions. You can bet your ancestors didn’t do this. They were too busy trying to secure a square meal while not becoming one for something else themselves.

Evolved, are you? An advanced life form? Higher than the animals? Don’t make me laugh. (I can do that, you know, and appreciate the logical structure behind it as well.) I’ve observed too many humans at too many accident scenes.

Right now there’s a fire in the residence down the street from you. Tell me you’re not going to go and look.

Nothing in the bathroom retained its original shape, including its single former inhabitant. “Not real pretty,” Manz muttered. “One minute she was totally uninhibited, the next she was acting like a scared little kid. Overall not a bad sort. Not bad enough to deserve this. Not based on what little I got to know about her, anyway.” He waved at the total destruction. “This was meant for me, of course.”

“If so, it missed. Give thanks to your bladder.” She stepped past him and nudged a chunk of shattered toilet with a foot. “Wonder how they installed it? Got a lot of bang for their efforts. Whoever it was doesn’t care much about subtlety.”

Hotel security was making life unpleasant until Hafas finally arrived. He was openly concerned and unabashedly curious, but held off pressing the adjuster for details.

They were conversing in low tones when an officer beckoned them toward the ruined bathroom. Vyra and Moses were conducting their own studies elsewhere.

A young woman in a blue lab coat was kneeling next to the gaping crater in the floor, holding a few bits of silicon. “Fairly simple device, really. Except that it had to be watertight. The explosive and its attached trigger mechanism were inserted in the cistern below the waterline and then hand-activated. The first time flushing dropped the water level, it set off the airsensitive trigger.”

Hafas’s expression didn’t change. “What kind of explosive?”