the drugs you take to calm you down as you make the
hit?"

"At least they wear off after a few minutes." I walk past the shelf
and look out the window at the scenic view of the city, taking a moment
to watch the clouds drift along in the summer breeze. The trees are
such a vibrant green this time of year, they look somehow unreal, set
against the pale grey concrete blocks that people waste their lives in.
I quickly inspect all the nearby rooftops, making sure nobody's on any
of them. Old habits. "You know, I've been thinking a lot lately, and
between the implants and the drugs, I'm beginning to feel less and less
like a real woman and more and more like some kind of machine, just
efficiently fulfilling her job role and nothing else."

"Efficiently?" I hear Mike practically choking on his drink.

I turn back around to face him. "Is there something wrong with my
performance?"

"I've been running over the encrypted video feed of the hit that your
eyes sent me."

It wasn't exactly a secret he kept from me that when I was on the job,
my eyes sent an encrypted live broadcast straight to the office, hidden
in the Mesh's entropy. Talk about your body betraying you. I had to
take Vegas's word for it that he couldn't spy on me when I was off
duty. It was something I tried hard not to think about every time I had
a shower. Just the thought gave me the shivers.

"You stalled. Your heartrate had slowed down just fine, you were as
calm as a cow, and yet you didn't fire until almost five seconds later.
Why the pause?"

"He was drinking a cup of coffee at a table. I could tell he was going
to be there for at least another two minutes. It made no difference."

"I didn't ask you if you thought it would make a difference. I asked
you why you paused. I hire you because you're the sort of woman who
knows better than to take unnecessary risks. Why did you wait so long?"

I let myself sigh. "OK, so I felt a _little_ empathy towards the
target. He'd never hurt anybody. I mean, I read his profile. He was
essentially a good man."

"Which is exactly what I'm talking about. We can't afford to let your
personal opinions and morals slow you down when you're at work. Those
profiles are there to help you to better understand the targets, to
better predict them, not to make you feel an emotional attachment
towards them. You can do whatever you want at home, donate your wage
to charity, I don't care, but when you're ou