Chapter One

The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed sub-category.  He's got esprit up to here.  Right now he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night.  His uniform is black as activated charcoal, filtering the very light out of the air.  A bullet will bounce off its arachno-fiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door, but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest.  Where his body has bony extremities, the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello, protects like a stack of telephone books.

When they gave him the job, they gave him a gun.  The Deliverator never deals in cash, but someone might come after him anyway-might want his car, or his cargo.  The gun is a tiny, aero-styled, lightweight, the kind of a gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane, and when you get done using it, you have to plug it in to the cigarette lighter, because it runs on electricity.

The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger, or in fear.  He pulled it once in Gila Highlands.  Some punks in Gila Highlands, a fancy Burbclave, wanted themselves a delivery, and they didn't want to pay for it.  Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat.  The Deliverator took out his gun, centered its laser doo-hickey on that poised Louisville Slugger, fired it.  The recoil was immense, as though the weapon had blown up in his hand.  The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in a...