Except for me.
My gloved fingertips toy with my throat for a second before I realize what I’m doing. I force my hand back to my side. Swallowing my doubts, I approach an emergency kiosk. Not everyone in the Terrestrial District can afford the subdermal implants that make life under glass worth living. Thankfully it’s still functional – not always a guarantee down here.
“Hello. I’d like to report an attack. I heard screams at the 100 block of the Bower. I saw a man with a knife.”
“Who am I speaking–”
“Please hurry!”
I end the call before things go any further. Hopefully that’ll be enough to bring the police. If not, there’s still me.
The next block over, I catch up to them. Breck’s yet to touch the girl, but she’s picked up her pace, throwing nervous glances over her shoulder. By now she’ll be trying to use her implant to send synch requests to friends or family members. Maybe even the cops. But Breck’s close enough for the implant-blocking device he no doubt has in his pack to put an end to that.
I want to tell her not to run, to stand her ground, to fight back, but she yelps instead. Her grocery bag rips as she takes a turn too hard, scattering day-old produce across the ground. Running scared.
Breck’s there in two strides, his painful grip on her arm propelling her toward the dark alley alongside the empty construction site. We’re on the outer edge of this sector’s police coverage, something he no doubt factored in. What if they don’t come in time?
Stealing myself, I follow. The arcade sessions are supposed to psych me up, file off the edges of my anger so I don’t do something foolish, thoughtless, reactive, whenever I’m down here. But instead of calm poise, I sound like I’ve run a marathon. I try to get control of my breathing as I reach into my messenger bag. All those arcade scenarios I’ve thrown myself into over the years won’t matter if I don’t get this right.
The taser’s awkward in my hands, slippery on account of my gloves. I should’ve practiced this part more. The construction site rears up in front of me, skeletal I-beams and rebar. It disappears overhead into the underside of a concourse that links it to another building.
A shout pierces the air, then it’s quickly muffled, but it’s enough to guide my feet. I find Breck crouched over the girl, a hand clamped over her mouth.
Before I make a conscious decision, the taser recoils, and a jolt of blue slams into his back. He seizes up, eyes rolled back in his head. He never even saw me.
With a sob, the girl pushes him off her. Tears track down her cheeks, the pale skin of her neck rubbed red where he put his hands on her. “Thanks. How did you–”
“The cops are on their way,” I say as I help her to her feet.
“My implant–” Her hand reflexively covers the small square on the back of her neck where the device lives under the skin.
“Don’t worry. It’s temporary.”
“No, I mean I thought he wanted…” She trails off with what’s better left unsaid, and gestures to his pack and the surgical tools and miscellaneous tech from the clinic that have spilled out of it. “But he was after my implant, wasn’t he?”
I nod, not trusting my voice. A scrapper dealing in black-market, gently used implants taken from people he could easily overpower. Some of the Disconnects down here are so desperate for the implant tech they could never afford legally, scum like Breck have turned that desperation into a lucrative cottage industry.
He moans. Oh no. What if he wakes up before the police get here? The taser needs more time before it’ll be able to discharge another blast.
The girl ducks behind me. “What do we do?”
I hand the taser off to her. I’m moving before I even register the action. As though he’s just another thug I need to end in an arcade scenario, I snatch up a discarded brick and slam it into his head. The impact rattles up my arm, buzzes into my shoulder. Definitely not a simulation. But that doesn’t stop me from doing it again.
“Hey.” The girl grabs my arm, gives it a shake, and I drop the bloodied brick. “Pretty sure he’s out after that, if you didn’t kill him outright.”
Hands shaking, I take a step back, trying to look anywhere except for the trickle of blood oozing from his scalp. The alley presses closer, moldering brick and old flyers, the stench from a nearby dumpster wreaking havoc on my stomach. This isn’t what I planned. I thought–
Police sirens peal, and I practically jump. Get it together. I turn to the girl. She’s stopped crying. That’s good. “I was never here, OK?”
She nods slowly, then gives me a look that bruises. “I get it.”
Some of it perhaps, but not all. Not enough. I don’t bother correcting her. She’ll have enough to worry about when the police arrive.
“But tell me, how did you know?”
I squeeze her forearm, as if by touch alone I can impart as much fortifying sympathy as possible before I bail. “Doesn’t matter after today.”
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The Sensation Page 32
