"This counter was there. They did use our logo and brochures." Gorman tapped his right index finger and mall security Vids showed the counter with the walk-in implantation booth. "It's gone now. These Vid playbacks are a month old."

The corporate lawyer was always the last to speak, Harold Harrison, "Simple fraud . . . A police issue . . . No corporate culpability . . . Next . . . "

"I wish it were so simple. The implanted transponders are a prototype ECC design." There were two "What's" but nothing from Harrison. "They even have ECC part and SKU numbers" Gorman tapped up an archived marketing picture of the unit. "We manufactured one hundred of this series and design. After initial testing, they proved to have frequency modulation problems and we thought they were all destroyed."

"They weren't, obviously." A legal rhetorical comment from Harrison.

"All but twenty-seven have been accounted for. All others were verified destroyed except for those twenty-seven." Gorman tapped up a graph on to the Vid screen.

"Well, shit," said Stens. "There goes any profit, but still for the corporate image, let's just swap them out and replace them with our best model. Good will and all."

"Also to overcome any product liability issues." Harrison again.

"Gentlemen, if I could have done that you wouldn't be in the room right now." Gorman tapped off the Vid.

"Quite right." Style looked at Gorman. He had brought Gorman into the company just to get things done. It had been a good decision, so far.

"These prototype personal interactive transponder units were of a radical design that we have definitely abandoned. Partly, because the differences in shape of the prototype, it made it difficult to swap them out with our installed base." Gorman sighed. "Normally, as you know, when a hardware upgrade is required, we use our proprietary Component Teleportation protocol."

"An expensive protocol, at that!" said Style. "We lose money each time we use it."

"Well, outside of the expense, the teleporter has calibration issues. It really can only exchange the places of two identical objects . . ." Gorman shook his head.

"Something about insufficient processing power . . . Something like that." Stens was becoming annoyed.

"To the point, we can't use the teleporter to "swap out" the prototype with any of our existing models because of the differing configuration of the prototype unit." Gorman nodded his head.