21 – Bad Luck

  Addie lay on the queen-sized bed, pillows propped behind her head, watching Glitch tap away at her crystal-glass. The pipes thumped and rattled in the wall—evidence of Beef’s use of the little shower. She’d never been in a hotel so seedy; it was worse than the place she and Tony had infiltrated to spy on that suit back in the day, and that was saying a lot. There were two beds—neither comfortable—so at least they wouldn’t have to sleep in shifts. It didn’t matter at the moment, though; none of them were feeling particularly sleepy.

  “Still can’t believe we pulled this off,” Glitch said, her expression hard to read behind her pink visor with its metallic lenses. At the comment, Addie glanced at their prize—a duffel bag tucked under the table where Glitch was working. “The trick is going to be moving that stuff without getting iced in the process.”

  Addie stretched, wriggling her toes in their mismatched black and blue socks. “Thought Beef knew a guy.”

  “Sure, he does, but his guy hasn’t ever moved something like this. I can promise you that. Thinking it might be smart only to give him part of the haul. I was wondering if I couldn’t make a direct trade for gear with some of the rest of it.”

  Addie punched one of the lumpy pillows under her head, grunting, “Whatever works.” After she settled again, she added, “First, we need to make it out of District Seven with that stuff.” She wanted to complain about her situation again. She wanted to say she was sorry they were holed up in a sleazy hotel—the kind of place that didn’t track customers. She didn’t want to think about how her fading was becoming synonymous with nightmare, though.

  Glitch politely ignored the elephant in the room, looking up from her crystal-glass and shifting her visor onto her forehead. “I’ve been reading the chatter about the checkpoints and how they’re scanning for the Dust. I guess they called in some big portable units on lease from BannerTech. Nobody’s leaked how long they’ll have them, but some people are saying they’ll have to get things back to normal soon. I guess the long queues are starting to impact profits for the district.”

  Addie sucked her teeth, shaking her head—an imitation of one of Tony’s mannerisms. “Hah. Isn’t that always how it goes? Nothing gets done until it starts to impact the suits’ bit-vaults.”

  “Too true, sis.” Glitch jerked her thumb at the bathroom door. “When he gets done, one of us should step out to get some food. There’s a market on the corner.”

  Addie’s mini-map flashed as JJ highlighted the location of the mentioned market. “I’ll go,” she said.

  “Why you?”

  Addie shrugged. “Because I can defend myself better than you, and Beef will leave a lasting impression on anyone he meets.”

  Glitch chuckled, nodding and wincing as she acknowledged her boyfriend’s tendency to make an impact. “I’ll go with you then. No rule that says only one of us can go out.”

  Addie stared at the map, zooming in on the destination until an image of the store appeared. The sign was easily legible: Anton’s Corner Store. “No,” she said, trying one more time to fluff her lumpy pillow into some sort of comfortable shape. “That’s one of the things Tony covered with me recently. When a team is laying low, as he puts it, there’s a chance that the people looking for them have intel on one or more of the members. So, you want to limit people going out, just to reduce the odds of that.”

  Glitch tapped her chin, considering, and after a moment, she nodded. “I mean, we’ve got scramblers, but I guess having a bunch of people with scramblers in a small area is also a clue. Won’t cover our whole image, either.”

  Addie closed her eyes, focusing on the rattle of the pipes playing percussion to the hiss of the room’s heater. “So, yeah. I’ll just go out, but you guys can track me. I’ll have JJ check in along the way.” As she spoke, the water rattling the pipes stopped, and she heard Beef shifting around in the bathroom.

  “Sheesh!” Glitch’s voice went up an octave in amusement. “Hope he doesn’t break anything—he’s like livestock.”

  Addie snickered. “I’m sure that’s the point of his street name.”

  “Well, honestly, it had to be something like that. His size, I mean. Do you know how old he was when he started using it?”

  Addie opened her eyes, not wanting to picture Beef when he was young; it made her melancholy. “Back when he was a wannabe for the Helldogs—so already bigger than most full-grown men.”

  Glitch nodded, pulling her visor back down, turning her attention to her crystal-glass. As her fingers began to dance, she asked, “Can you get me something without dairy? I mean, if you get sandwiches or something.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  She started getting her shoes back on, and by the time she was done, Beef was out of the shower, flopping onto the bed he’d claimed in his jeans and a tank top, the seams of which looked about ready to give up the ghost. “Where we going?” he asked as Addie put on her coat.

  “I’m going to the corner store for food.”

  “Gimme a minute to put on my shoes.”

  “Just me, Beef. It’s for security and to make sure nobody connects us with this place. We don’t know how many drones and whatnot our corpo-sec friend has out looking for us.”

  Beef grunted, falling back onto his pillows. “Fine with me. You’re probably right anyway—that little corpo-rat was pretty pissed. Probably found a way to get the whole security force out looking for us.”

  Addie didn’t argue. She opened the door but paused before stepping out. “Any special requests?”

  “I can eat anything.”

  “Any special drink?”

  Beef closed his eyes, yawning. “Just water.”

  Addie tilted her head, wondering if she ought to ask him if something was wrong; Beef wasn’t a “just water” kind of guy. She decided maybe he was just trying to be “professional” and decided not to pester him about it. When she closed the door, she made sure JJ engaged the lock, then she hurried down the stained gray-carpeted hallway to the stairwell at the end. They’d learned upon arrival that the elevator was out, but their room was only on the second floor, so Addie wasn’t particularly bothered.

  The stairwell was cold, and when she reached the first floor, she saw why: an exterior door was propped open by a broken cinderblock. Addie lifted the hem of her coat over the top of her pistol grip and, with one hand on it, approached the open door. A voice in her head asked what the heck she was doing, and she decided it was a simple matter of security. They couldn’t have random people slipping into the hotel while they were sitting in their room with a million bits’ worth of stolen goods.

  Standing before the door in the icy winter draft, Addie picked up a strangely familiar scent. It took her brain a couple of seconds to make the connection before an image danced across her memory, and she gasped a soft, “Ah!”

  “Don’t lock me out,” a man’s voice said, and another waft of the…tobacco smoke came her way. Addie’s mom had had a friend who smoked old-school cigs. She remembered how they’d talked and laughed—her parents and that man—back before her mom had died and everything had changed.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  With the memory still distracting her, she peered into the frigid night, her breath blooming out in a white cloud as she turned her head toward the voice. A man wearing a black suit, tie loose around his collar, stood there. He lifted the offending object, its cherry tip emanating a thin curl of smoke into the night. “Just having a smoke.”

  Maybe she wanted to defy the voice in her head telling her to turn around and run, but Addie smiled and pushed the door open, stepping over the cinderblock to join him in the side alley of the hotel. She rationalized the act, telling herself she could see the snowy street just ten or twelve meters away, and she was avoiding other potential encounters in the lobby by going out the side exit. “Don’t let me interrupt,” she said, tucking her chin into her collar and stepping toward the alley mouth.

  “Hey, just a minute,” the man said, and when Addie turned toward him, she didn’t try to hide her hand drifting toward the pistol’s grip.

  “What?”

  “Nothing creepy”—he nodded toward her pistol—“just curious if you’re staying here because of the storm, too.” He peered past her toward the street, and Addie followed his gaze, noting the high snowdrift and the lack of traffic.

  “Um, yeah.”

  He snorted softly, then lifted his cigarette to his lips. He was a slick-looking guy, and if the suit hadn’t given it away, Addie would have guessed from his clean-cut, reddish-blond hair that he was a corpo. He confirmed her suspicion, saying, “Yeah, didn’t take you for the usual customer in a place like this.”

  She shrugged, lowering her hand a little. “You neither.”

  “Nah.” He chuckled. “My partner and I work for a corp in the area—got called in.” He shrugged, taking another drag and then blowing the smoke over his shoulder to the left. “All hands on deck kinda thing, but I guess the plows can’t keep up with the weather. Not a surprise considering the shitty job Leyman’s been doing.”

  Addie nodded along with him, but she wasn’t sure what or who Leyman was. “Couldn’t get to a nicer place, huh?”

  “Nah. Shitty place to sleep, but at least I’m getting paid. Already clocked in, and our boss thinks we’re out looking for suspects.”

  “Suspects?”

  “Oh, right. I said I work for a corp, but not what I do. I’m an investigator. Normally wouldn’t be called in like this, but one of the watch commanders is in a tizzy.” He shrugged, flicked his still-glowing cigarette onto the blacktop, then fished around in his pocket for another.

  Addie had almost immediately decided that he was talking about Rise Corp and that he was looking for whoever had just robbed Basil Denny—in other words, her. She tried to steer the conversation into safer waters, even though her mind was already racing. She wanted to break off the conversation, but she wasn’t sure if she should act normal or hurry back to Beef and Glitch. “Um, not many people smoke old-school cigs these days.”

  “Yeah. It’s a lousy habit I picked up from my dad. Something about the smell I just love, you know? I mean the actual smoke. I hate the way it makes everything else stink, so, yeah, I smoke outside. Been doing it so long, I can’t really enjoy doing it inside, even if I’m staying in a dump like this.” He chuckled, looking at Addie’s face. She wasn’t sure what he saw there, but apparently, he took it for judgment. “Don’t get started on me, all right?” He smirked, taking another drag. “I already have a daughter, a sister, and a mother doing that for me. You know we can get cybernetic lungs now, right? Hell, my company plan will even pay for eighty percent.”

  Addie would never know what possessed her, but she asked, “Not a wife?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your list of women worried about your health didn’t include one.”

  “Aw, Jesus. Sold myself out, didn’t I? Okay, fine, I’m hard to live with, okay?” He laughed, then switched his cigarette to his left hand and held out the right one. As Addie took it, he said, “Gabe. Gabe Hughes.”

  She returned his firm grip, and as they let go, she replied, “Katie.” Again, her mind had acted automatically for her; she had no idea where the fake name had come from, but it rolled right off her tongue.

  “Just Katie, huh? Guess I wouldn’t want to give my whole name to a creep in an alley, either.” He winked, and Addie wondered how much older he was than he looked. She would have guessed thirty, but he had a dad way of speaking. As he lifted the cigarette to his lips, Addie noted the grip of a bulky, all-business, matte-black pistol under his coat. She supposed it wasn’t anything to worry about. He worked security, and even if he didn’t, plenty of people had a good reason to be armed in the metro sprawl.

  Addie nodded toward the alley opening. “Well, I need to—”

  “In this weather? Won’t get far.”

  “Just heading up to the corner.” Again, Addie started to turn, already taking that first step, and again he interrupted her.

  “Just a second, Katie.”

  She turned back, careful to keep her right hand ready, but not too close to her pistol. “Yeah?”

  “Who’d you say you were here with?”

  “I didn’t,” Addie said aloud, then, desperate to be quick and not to be noticed, she focused on her comms and said subvocalized, “Glitch! I’ve got company. Watch the net!”

  “What? Huh?” Glitch’s reply was immediate, but her voice sounded almost sleepy.

  “Watch the net.” Addie tried to stress her voice, even though she was subvocalizing.

  Meanwhile, Gabe spoke again, and his smooth conversational tone felt a little forced to Addie: “I mean, I thought you did say, ‘we,’ though, didn’t you? About staying here?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Pretty sure I didn’t. That’d be weird, wouldn’t it? Considering I’m all alone here, I mean.”

  “Are you?” He frowned, flicked his cig, then made a show of stretching, flinging his coat wide as he pressed both his hands into his lower back, coincidentally freeing up his shoulder holster. He yawned, then said, “My partner said you came in a van with two others.”

  Addie didn’t try to outdraw him. Not when he’d so obviously exposed his pistol and turned himself sideways to her. He was ready for a gunslinging competition, banking on Addie being slow to get her needler out of her waistband holster—at least slower than he would be to snatch his big pistol out of its perfectly placed shoulder sling.

  She’d practiced drawing her pistol hundreds of times, and she was reasonably quick, but her current holster wasn’t meant for a fast draw, especially when she was wearing her bomber jacket. So, instead, she did something she’d practiced thousands of times, just as her sensei—of-a-sort—had taught her. Without so much as twitching her body, she let her dust flow, then instantly wrapped it into the correct pattern, looped it around Gabe’s wrists, and hoisted them into the air.

  He gasped, yelped a startled, “Fuck!” and then Addie’s needler went pfft-pfft, and he fell limp, held aloft by her Dust ability.

  “Beef,” Addie subvocalized, “get to the stairwell. Ground level. Exterior door.”

  “Coming.” He’d been ready, no doubt alerted when Addie contacted Glitch.

  She jogged over to her paralyzed prisoner and got behind him, reaching for his PAI. “Glitch, do you still have the local net? Do I need to pull this PAI?”

  “Pull it, Ads,” Beef grunted, his breath heaving—he was already on the stairs.

  “I have it, but pull it, Ember,” Glitch said. “There are PAIs that broadcast on multiple networks, and I don’t have a honeypot set up.”

  “Damn.” Addie gripped the chip, said, “Sorry, Gabe. Hope this doesn’t hurt you,” then she pulled the chip. At the same time, Beef burst through the door, eyes wide, shotgun held ready. “Grab him!” she said, pointing to her prisoner.

  “Shit.” His eyes widened in surprise, but he was surprisingly no-nonsense as he moved close and shrugged the limp figure onto his shoulder.

  “Thanks,” Addie said, stuffing the PAI chip and its glistening tendrils into her pocket. “Can you take him to the room?”

  “Ours?”

  “For now.” Addie held the door for him, then followed him up to their room, and when they stepped inside, Glitch pushed the door shut, locked it, and then grabbed Addie’s shoulder.

  “What the hell?”

  Addie’s brows drew together as hot frustration made her clench her teeth. “I didn’t go looking for this!” She gestured to where Beef was plopping Gabe into the chair, turning it so he faced the corner. He looked around with a frown, then bent to start rifling through the prisoner’s pockets.

  Glitch watched him for a moment, too. “We have shrink-cords in the van.”

  “So does this guy,” Beef said. He held up four of the plastic strips, chuckling.

  “Sorry, I grabbed you.” Glitch said, her brow wrinkled in concern, but not for her. “I mean, it just feels like this is spiraling like crazy. We’re a long way from home, and now we’re—we’re deep! Was this guy alone?”

  “Can’t you check the local net? He mentioned a partner.”

  “Shit!” Glitch pulled her visor down, and tiny flickering lights escaped the top edge of it, throwing strange fractal-like designs onto the pale skin of her forehead.

  Addie stared at the display for a few seconds, wondering why she’d never noticed it before. Maybe too many lights around or—

  Beef grunted, and she jerked her gaze away from Glitch to watch as the big man secured their prisoner to the chair and put a pillowcase over his head. “All good?” she asked as Beef straightened, face red from the exertion.

  He nodded. “Fine. How’d he get onto you?”

  “Just bad luck, I think. I mean, and I was stupid.” Addie heaved a sigh, squeezing her hand into a fist, trying to let out some of the frustrated energy. “I should have avoided him or called him a creep and not spoken to him—”

  “Eh, forget it. At least you took him out quiet-like. I probably would’ve had a dozen drones on top of me.” Addie found Beef’s words comforting, as she always did when he went out of his way to be nice, something that was not natural for him.

  She felt the pressure of Glitch’s grip on her shoulder again, this time much gentler. “He was staying in room 31. He has a partner, and we’re going to need to take her out.”