I’ve never been to a full-on Cutters council of war before, and it’s got Ranger totally bent to see me at this one. I’m nominally one of his boys, a mere lieutenant whose only job should be to liase between the street monsters of the Cutters’ rank and file, and him and the other rarefied upper echelons of the gang. But lately I’ve been ... moonlighting, you could call it, working with other high-ups in the hierarchy, generally making myself as indispensable as possible. I started off slow with the social chameleon drek, something that always came easy even before my extensive training. Whenever you meet someone important, the general idea is to feed back exactly what that person wants to see or hear. If the cobber likes people who show they’ve got big brass ones, I lay on the bravado and the machismo. If he likes people who think before they act, I hit him with a well- thought-out plan for avoiding Lone Star entanglements on certain operations. Etcetera etcetera drekcetera. From there it’s just a matter of doing gofer work for them when they need it—no job too large, no job too small—until they come to trust me and eventually depend on me as a kind of unofficial advisor. That’s how I worked my way up to become one of Ranger’s lieutenants. Once there, and at least partially secure in my position, I was free to branch out.