Watching

 Lucky and I had been brought close together by Wade's mini dampener amp, so my recall of scene: Mr. Starr's response to the question: who exactly was spying on him, is vivid, timeless.  "A couple of years after the Ivy infestation, I got smart and took M-corp to court for loss of livelihood.  Was going well when, bang, the police action started, M-corp dropped all the formalities of acting within the legal frame work, of course, and left me and P5 out of fair bit of change.  almost the minute the treaty was signed I began receiving messages, bills, that is, for their legal fees.  At first, if I got any payment, over any kind of network connection, almost instantaneously they'd bill me for exact the same amount.  So naturally I switched to cash only, and made the transactions here at home, at this table; a few got by, but soon I'd get a bill the instant I received payment; many time's the person paying me would still be here.  I tried an experiment, I made arrangements to sell some crushed soy to a person that habitually tries to short ya, does it every time, a compulsion or something, you have'ta go through a sorta dance with him; offer a second cup a tea, count the money, apologize to him, 'but I think your sum is short' and he say's 'oh yes, you're right, my error' and then he pays the rest.  So ya see my trap, right?  He pays me the wrong amount as he always does, and instantly I get a bill from M-corp for that same amount.  We do the dance and he pays the rest: about fifteen minutes later I get a bill for the second amount.  Ha! got em... bastards" peers at the screen on the wall.