And that, of course, left a nice opening in the Cutters hierarchy. Can’t have a gang without a war boss. Not in Seattle, and particularly not in 2054. Blake had to replace Ranger and he had to do it now. No, not now, right now. In an ideal world, I’d have gotten the nod, called up from the ranks to sit on the council of the high and mighty. Yeah, right. I can think of lots of words to describe the world, and "ideal" isn’t one of them.