T he bells of St. Mark's were ringing changes up on the mountain when Bud 
skated over to the mod parlor to upgrade his skull gun. Bud had a nice new pair 
of blades with a top speed of anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and fifty 
kilometers, depending on how fat you were and whether or not you wore aero. Bud 
liked wearing skin-tight leather, to show off his muscles. On a previous visit 
to the mod parlor, two years ago, he had paid to have a bunch of 'sites 
implanted in his muscles—little critters, too small to see or feel, that 
twitched Bud's muscle fibers electrically according to a program that was 
supposed to maximize bulk. Combined with the testosterone pump embedded in his 
forearm, it was like working out in a gym night and day, except you didn't have 
to actually do anything and you never got sweaty. The only drawback was that 
all the little twitches made him kind of tense and jerky. He'd gotten used to 
it, but it still made
him a little hinky on those skates, especially when he was doing a hundred 
clicks an hour through a crowded street. But few people hassled Bud, even when 
he knocked them down in the street, and after today no one would 
hassle him ever again.