I get a text from a teenager on Saturday night and immediately know two things: one, this is going to be either very profitable or very expensive, and two, I need to show this to Monkey Business immediately.

  I'm at the Camden safehouse when it comes through, sprawled on the communal couch nursing a beer and watching Jackpot lose spectacularly at Mario Kart against Dead Drop, who plays with the grim determination of someone who takes video games way too seriously. The burner phone buzzes in my pocket and I fish it out, expecting a supply chain update or maybe another contractor asking for an advance.

  Instead: kingdom evidence disposal roxborough memorial hospital back lot. dumped 9:47pm saturday. probably watching for whoever shows up.

  Followed immediately by: this isnt a courtesy. this is shit on your plate. eat it.

  I laugh so hard Jackpot crashes into a wall.

  "What's so funny?" Dead Drop asks without taking her eyes off the screen, her chains clinking softly as she leans forward in concentration.

  "Business opportunity," I say, already standing and heading for the stairs. "Boss needs to see this."

  Monkey Business has claimed the second floor office as his domain, and when I knock and enter he's exactly where I expect him to be: behind the desk, half-mask in place despite being alone, multiple laptops open in front of him displaying what looks like financial projections and social media analytics. He looks up when I enter, and even behind the mask I can tell he's evaluating whether this interruption is worth his time.

  I hold up the burner phone. "Got a text from our favorite teenage vigilante."

  That gets his attention. He closes one of the laptops and gestures for me to continue.

  I read him the messages, watching his body language shift from curious to interested to something that might be satisfaction if he were the kind of person who showed satisfaction openly.

  "Roxborough Memorial," he repeats, and I can hear the mental calculations happening. "That's interesting timing."

  "Right?" I drop into the chair across from his desk, ignoring his slight wince at my casual posture. "I heard through the grapevine that some lunatic attacked a historic building in Tacony last week. The Music Hall. Hurt some teenage girls, then vanished."

  "Garbage Day," Monkey Business says immediately.

  "Excuse you?" I ask.

  "Legbreaker-for-hire. Probably one of the few people who'd do that. And he loves smashing shit," he explains. He steeples his fingers, a gesture I've learned means he's working through implications. "She's connecting the dots."

  "A to B," I agree. "Kingdom hurts her and her friends, she gets back at Kingdom by siccing us on them. Clean, simple, mutually beneficial commerce."

  "She's using us."

  "We're using her," I counter. "It's anarcho-capitalism in action. Nobody's getting exploited here - we're all pursuing our rational self-interest. I respect it, honestly. Kid's got instincts."

  Monkey Business is quiet for a moment, and I know better than to interrupt his thinking process. His fingers tap against the desk in a pattern that suggests he's running probability calculations.

  "Mr. Polygraph," he finally says. "If Kingdom is disposing of evidence at a hospital, they'd want someone who can identify threats. Someone who can tell truth from lies, separate curious civilians from actual investigators."

  "Which means if we send someone to poke around-"

  "They bring their lie detector to sort wheat from chaff." He stands, moving to the window that overlooks the safehouse's small backyard. "It's a gamble."

  "Best kind," I say, grinning even though he can't see it. "We gamble Mr. Polygraph shows up, we win that bet, we get exactly what we asked for when we told the kid we'd need her help 'arranging a meeting.' If we lose that bet, we grab whoever Kingdom sends and negotiate a hostage trade for our friendly chat. Either way, we get what we want."

  "And the girl gets revenge for her friend." Monkey Business turns back to me. "Elegant. Almost suspiciously elegant."

  "You think it's a trap?"

  "I think a sixteen-year-old didn't come up with this plan alone. I have to wonder who's coaching her." He returns to his desk, pulling up a new window on one of the laptops.

  "Maybe that Belle chick from beyond the grave?" I ask, chuckling.

  "You believe in ghosts?" he asks.

  "No, but I believe in ideology. And Richard Dawkins," I add.

  "Contemptible. Either way, whoever coached her doesn't make it any less useful. The question is whether we can execute before Kingdom realizes they're exposed," he replies.

  "How long do we have?"

  "She sent this at-" he checks the timestamp, "-approximately two hours ago. Kingdom's probably been watching the location since they dumped the evidence. If we move fast, we can set the bait tonight, execute tomorrow. Or set the bait... whenever, and pull whenever they grab."

  I lean forward, all joking aside for the moment because this is the part where details matter. "What's the play?"

  "Remember the private investigator we geased six months ago? The one who does insurance fraud work?"

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Vaguely scuzzy guy with the comb-over?"

  "That's the one. His contract includes the usual clauses. We send him to investigate suspicious activity at the hospital parking lot. He's legitimately licensed, legitimately employed, just doing his job. Kingdom sees him, they react, we see how they react."

  "And if they bring Polygraph?"

  "Then we bring our combat team and extract him in the confusion." Monkey Business starts typing, presumably sending out mobilization orders. "Birthday Suit, yourself, and Dead Drop. The others are too valuable to risk on an operation like this."

  I pretend to be offended. "I'm not valuable? You saying you're more valuable than me?"

  "Yes," he says without looking up, but there's something almost affectionate in the dry delivery.

  "Wow. Really feeling the love here," I grumble, but there's no heat, like a bell pepper.

  "You're also excellent at improvisation and you won't panic if things go sideways." He finally looks up from the laptop. "Which is why you're going and Elias isn't. Now go brief the others while I finalize the contracts."

  I stand, heading for the door, but pause with my hand on the handle. "What about the girl? She's going to know we used her tip."

  "She already knows," Monkey Business says. "That's why she sent it. She's not naive enough to think we're doing this as a favor. She wants Kingdom weakened, we want Kingdom weakened, the fact that our methods align is just good business."

  "What if she's triple crossing us? Setting up a sting, or some shit?"

  "Then we adapt." He returns to his typing. "Go. Get your shit in order."

  I head back downstairs where Dead Drop has apparently won the entire tournament because she's doing what might generously be called a victory dance - mostly just swaying slightly with her chains clinking - while Jackpot scrolls through his phone looking defeated. I can tell she won, also, because winner controls the stereo, and right now Tool of all things is playing. Ugh. I fucking hate Tool.

  "Meeting," I announce. "Boss wants combat team upstairs in five. Where's Birthday Suit?"

  "Gym," Dead Drop says, immediately abandoning her celebration. "I'll get her."

  She leaves, chains trailing behind her, and I drop back onto the couch next to Jackpot.

  "What's happening?" he asks.

  "Opportunity." I grin at him. "The fun kind."

  "The kind where you get shot?"

  "God, I hope not," I mumble.

  "You got shot by a suburban dad."

  "A suburban dad protecting a teenage vigilante from excessive force," I correct. "Which was actually perfect for the narrative, so I consider it a win."

  "You had to get seventeen stitches."

  "Yeah, and?" I shoot back.

  By the time Dead Drop returns with Birthday Suit - who's still in gym clothes and radiating that particular energy of someone whose workout got interrupted - Snake Oil and Elias have also materialized from wherever they were doing their chemistry thing. Monkey Business descends from his office and we gather around the kitchen island while he lays out the plan.

  "Roxborough Memorial Hospital," he begins, pulling up a map on his tablet. "Kingdom disposed of evidence here approximately two hours ago. We received actionable intelligence from a reliable source. Our objective: confirm Kingdom presence, identify high-value targets, and execute extraction if opportunity presents."

  "Who's the reliable source?" Birthday Suit asks, arms crossed.

  "Bloodhound," I say, and watch Snake Oil's expression sour immediately.

  "The teenage vigilante," he says, somehow making it sound like an insult. "Wonderful. We're taking operational orders from a high schooler."

  "We're accepting mutually beneficial intelligence from a strategic partner," Monkey Business corrects, his voice sharpening just slightly. "She identified an opportunity and brought it to our attention. That's professional behavior."

  "She's sixteen."

  "She's competent," I interject. "I've fought her. Kid took a beating that would've put most adults in traction and kept coming. She's smart, she's got instincts, and right now her interests align with ours. That's all that matters."

  Snake Oil makes a dismissive sound but doesn't argue further, which is as close to agreement as he gets.

  "The target," Monkey Business continues, "is Mr. Polygraph. Kingdom lieutenant, lie detection powers, high-value asset. If he shows up to investigate our bait, we extract him. If he doesn't show, we grab whoever does and negotiate a trade."

  "What's the bait?" Birthday Suit asks.

  "Licensed private investigator, currently under contract." Monkey Business sets down the tablet. "Standard geas terms - he follows our instructions, gets his regular Jump supply, everyone's happy. We send him to investigate suspicious activity at the hospital. Kingdom reacts, we observe, we adapt."

  "And the combat team?"

  "Birthday Suit, Rush Order, Dead Drop." He nods to each of us in turn. "Plus any other contracted operators under geas I can rustle up on short notice. Just keeping them in the neighborhood for when the hook gets pulled. They understand the mission parameters and compensation structure."

  I catch the implication immediately. "They know some of them might get arrested."

  "They do," Monkey Business confirms. "That's the price you pay for superpowers in a pill. I'll try to get anyone I can out, legally, but, well... I don't know, I'm gambling that the PDP has worse things to worry about than a street brawl." There's that almost-smile in his voice again. "We're not sending anyone in under false pretenses. If you get caught, you stay caught until the heat dies down. I know they don't have a choice, but I'll compensate them handsomely with extra Jump, just because I'm a mensch."

  Fair enough. I've worked with organizations that treat foot soldiers as expendable in the bad way - don't tell them the risks, don't compensate them properly, just throw bodies at problems and hope something sticks. Monkey Business might be a lot of things, but he honors contracts. If you sign up knowing the score and something goes wrong, you get taken care of. That's why people keep working with us.

  "You've been using a lot of Yiddish lately, boss," Birthday Suit mumbles.

  "Just a habit I'm picking up from a friend," he says, which confuses me enough that for a moment I'm at a legitimate loss for words. From who? He has friends?

  "Timeline?" Birthday Suit asks, a little louder.

  "Bait deploys at noon tomorrow. Kingdom will likely wait until evening to investigate. Maybe even a couple of days, just in case it's a one-off. We might have to sit on our hands for a bit. Get our guy to dust for fingerprints, you know. Make it look real. You know Mr. Polygraph's name, so, if he starts moving in your weird pigeon sense, just give us a heads up. We'll maintain normal operations but focus on Jump distribution in that neighborhood until we're clear." He looks at each of us. "Questions?"

  "What if the DVDs show up? Or Argus Corps." Elias asks quietly from his wheelchair.

  Good question. I hadn't thought of that, but of course Monkey Business has.

  "Then we have chaos, which favors extraction," he says calmly. "Kingdom focuses on the authorities, we focus on the target. If anything, police presence makes this easier - they'll want to avoid arrest as much as we do. Grab him and go. The snack that smiles back."

  "And if Bloodhound tipped them off too?" I ask, because I'm genuinely curious.

  "Then she's even smarter than I thought," Monkey Business says, "and we adapt accordingly. Multiple parties in play means more confusion, more opportunities. We're not planning a surgical strike here - we're creating conditions for extraction and trusting our team to execute when the moment presents itself."

  He closes the tablet with a decisive click.

  "Gear up. Brief your contractors. And someone make sure Rush Order doesn't do anything unnecessarily theatrical tomorrow."

  "No promises," I say cheerfully, already thinking about all the theatrical things I could absolutely do.

  "Dean."

  "Fine, fine. Professional and restrained. I'll be a model of operational discipline."

  Birthday Suit snorts. Snake Oil rolls his eyes. Dead Drop just looks at me with that flat expression that suggests she's already planning contingencies for my inevitable bullshit.

  But Monkey Business just nods, dismissing us with a gesture, and as I head upstairs to prep my gear I'm thinking about that text message again.

  This isn't a courtesy. This is shit on your plate. Eat it.

  She's got bite. I like that.