Neon Horizons

Kira Tan kept her professional reputation scrupulously clean and her personal history scrupulously empty, which in the data economy of New Kowloon meant she was either extremely disciplined or extremely dangerous, and her clients tended to hope for the former while planning for the latter. She dealt in information the way surgeons dealt in precision — not indiscriminately, not cheaply, and never without being certain she understood exactly what she was cutting and why.

She had three rules: no wetwork, no children, no public figures within one election cycle of office. Everything else she would consider, and she had considered a great many things in eleven years in the market. She knew the difference between a client who wanted leverage and a client who wanted to destroy someone, and while she worked for both, she charged them differently and gave them different grades of product. She had opinions about the uses of information, and she maintained those opinions the way you maintained a high-security perimeter — constantly, expensively, and with the knowledge that someone was always looking for the gap.

The request that arrived through her most secure channel on a Tuesday morning was unusual for several reasons, the most significant of which was that it was asking her to find information about herself.

Not in a clumsy way — not the amateur move of a client who thought theycould use her own methods against her and had simply asked her to do it for them. This was something different. The request was formatted correctly, came from a verified escrow account, and was asking for information about a Kira Tan whose documented history diverged from Kira Tan's actual history at a specific point nine years ago. The divergence was small — a matter of a few weeks, a few records, a few transactions — but it was precisely located at the period she never discussed and could not afford to have examined.

Someone knew there was a gap. They were asking her, professionally, to fill it in — which meant they already knew what was in it, and were telling her that they knew, without saying so directly. It was, she thought, one of the more elegant threats she had received.