slowly and carefully, turned it over, switched it on. Wrote on it, queried it, turned it off. She handed it back. “It’s an ordinary slate.”
“Exactly. A slate stuffed with information. What do you use your slate for?”
Lore thought about it. “Making memos. Sending messages. Net codes and addresses. Ordering specialty merchandise. Appointments. Receiving messages. Keeping a balance of accounts. . .” She began to see where this was leading. “But it’s all protected by my security code.”“That’s what most people think. But it’s not difficult to break it. It just takes time and a good program. Nothing glamorous. This one . . .” Spanner smiled. “Well, let’s see.” She sat down at her bench, connected the slate to a couple of jacks, flipped some switches. “Can you see from down there?” Lore nodded. On a readout facing Spanner numbers began to flicker faster than Lore could read them. “Depending on the complexity of the code, it takes anywhere from half a minute to an hour.” Lore watched, mesmerized. “I’ve yet to come across one that—” The numbers stopped. “Ah. An easy one.” She touched another button and the red feed light on the slate lit up. “It’s downloading everything: account numbers, the net numbers of people called in the last few months, name, address, occupation, DNA codes of the owner . . . everything.” She was smiling to herself.
“What do you use it for?”
“Depends. Some slates are useless to us. We just ransom them back to their owners for a modest fee. No one gets hurt. Often we couch things in terms of a reward for the finder. No police involvement. Nothing to worry about.”
“And other times?”
Someone banged on the door, two short, two long taps.
“That’s the medic.” But Spanner did not get up to let him in. “Better make up your mind.”
“What?”
“Do you want to work with me or not? Even if I don’t let him in, there’ll be a small fee for call-out, nothing you couldn’t repay when you’re able. But if he comes in here and works on you, then you’ll owe me.”
The medic banged on the door again, faster this time.
“Sounds like he’s getting impatient.”
Lore had no clothes and no ID; she doubted she could stand. “I’ll do it.”
Spanner went to the door.
The medic was not what Lore had expected. He was middle-aged, well dressed and very gentle. And fast. He ran a scanner down her back. “Some infection. It’ll need cleaning.” He pulled out a wand-sized subcutaneous injector.
“No,” Lore said. “I’m allergic.”
“Patches, too?”
She nodded. He sighed. “Well, that’s an inconvenience.” He rummaged in his bag. Lore heard a light hiss, felt a cool mist on her back, tasted a faint antiseptic tang. The pain disappeared in a vast numbness. She knew he was swabbing out her wound but all she felt was a vague tugging. “Clean enough for now.” This time he took a roll of some white material from his bag. She shuddered, remembering the plasthene. He paused a moment, then unwrapped a couple of feet and cut it. It glinted. Some kind of metallic threads.
“What’s that?”
“You’ve never seen this before?” Spanner asked. Lore shook her head. The numbness was wearing off. “Here.” Spanner passed her a hand mirror. “Watch. It’s interesting.”
The medic, who did not seem to resent being cast as entertainment, was smearing the edges of her wound with a cold jelly and carefully laying the light material over it. Then he unwrapped a few feet of electrical wire, attached it with crocodile clips to the material.
“What—”
“Stretch as much as you can.”
“It hurts.”
“Do the best you can. When this sets, it sets.”
She did.
He plugged in the wires. Lore felt a quick, tingling shock around her wound, and the gauzy material leapt up from her back and formed a flexible, rigid cage over the gash, still attached to her skin where the medic had applied the cold jelly. He put away the roll and the wires, took something else out of his bag. She watched him carefully in the mirror. He held it up. “Plaskin.” This time the spray was throat ier, lasted longer. When he was done, the raised white material, the jelly, and a two-inch strip of skin around the wound were all that pinkish bandage color that marketers called “flesh.” She looked as though she had a fat pink snake lying diagonally along her spine. He tapped it experimentally, nodded in satisfaction. “You won’t be able to lie down on it or lean against it, but you should be able