When I was a kid, my mom was all about language. She’d teach me a new word every day and tell me to use it in a sentence. Some of them stuck. Calumny stuck. There’s something about the way it rolls off your tongue. cal-ummmm-neee. I liked it. I didn’t entirely understand what it meant until the 5th grade at shitty corporate academy #3 when a kid tried to roll me for my backpack and when I beat him back he told everyone I’d jumped him in the bathroom and wanted to touch his wee. Bullies can be really irritating when they lose. By shitty corporate academy #4 I fully understood the word and how to use it to my advantage. I didn’t have to fight another bully again until, well, tonight I suppose.
I spent the back half of the evening casing the Executive Body Enhancements storefront where Choi was scheduled to have surgery the following morning. I was on the list too. Tojiro Suziki. Deeply unoriginal cover, but they provided a deep enough set of paperwork that it would pass inspection with a Delta level cyber clinic. That was almost payment enough itself.