We discovered that Cortez’s source of information about Dawn McGrath had. in fact, been the decker who first stole Nadia’s file from Natural Vat. He'd passed the information to Cortez before Valerie had a chance to warn him off. In return for a phase loop recourser, he was content to forget everything he knew about Dawn. Shortly thereafter, Valerie told me, Mycroft heard about what had gone down. He was so impressed with the kid who cracked his file that he began to funnel work to Jack, making him too busy to worry about the secrets of some vice president at Natural Vat.