by Sam A. Patel
“I have a load to pick up,” she blurts suddenly. “You can find your way to the drop-off point from here.”
“But if I’m just the decoy runner then do I even have to make the delivery?”
“Always. Most of the time you won’t even know when you’re a decoy runner, but even if you do, you always have to make the delivery. That’s the job. Remember, people hire us when security is the only option. We can’t mess around with that. Even when you’re the red herring, you have to keep going until the cargo is secure.”
Before she goes, Red Tail gives my arm a squeeze. Not just my arm but my wing. “Don’t worry, Carrion. You’ll do fine. Your powers of observation are good, they just need to be retrained. Just remember, the people to watch out for are the ones who don’t want to be seen. Learn to filter everything else out until all that remains is the thing hiding in plain sight.” She starts back the other way. “And stay off the trains! You’ll live longer.”
“Wait,” I call after her. “What if I need to get in touch with you?”
She thinks about it for maybe half a second before she begins spitting numbers at me. “5 2 6 5 6 4…”
“Whoa, hold on a second.” I can memorize twenty digits without even batting an eye, but I have to know in advance that that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.
“…2 0 5 4 6 1…”
“There’s no way I’m going to remember all that.”
“…6 9 6 c.” She smiles. That much I see even in the faint light of the tunnel. That and the blue of her eyes. “You must be something special, Carrion. I don’t give out my digits to just anyone.”
The c at the end gives it away. “What is that, hexadecimal?”
She makes a tiny gun with her hand and fires it with a click of her tongue. That is exactly what it is. “Just code Red Tail in base 16. Upload it into your cortex chip and scan it into the aggrenet. The Birdwatcher will find me, and I’ll find you.”
Run Like Hell
11
These disruptors aren’t afraid to get their suits dirty. They’re on my tail the entire run. Then I feel it for the very first time, about ten yards behind me in the main tunnel.
Pop. FLASH. BOOM.
The whiz of a bullet through the tunnel.
And by the way, having a gun fired at you inside a tunnel is nothing like having one fired at you up on the surface. The echo alone makes it different—a dislocated sound that toys with your senses and plays with your mind. Suddenly it isn’t just the space that feels tighter. Everything feels tight. Everything is cramped. Everything carries a different weight down here. Even the twisting trail of wind zipping behind the bullet with my name on it, even that adheres to a different law of physics down here. The only thing I can do now is run. Leave it behind. Run faster. Run until the dim light of the tunnel can no longer illuminate the distance between us. The only thing I can do now is run like hell, and that is exactly what I do.
By now it’s easy to see what Red Tail meant about disruptors and retrievers. Data retrievers can’t fire their guns blindly into a dark tunnel. Most of the time they can’t fire their guns at all. With them it’s like a game of tag; they actually have to lay their hands on me. But these guys trying to stop delivery on my load from Wexler Pharmaceuticals, they have no interest in recovering the cargo stored in my wing, they just want to shoot it down. And even though I’m just the data runner who’s not supposed to know what he’s carrying in his wing, I know why.
I was told a lot of thing about running the sneakernet, given a lot of tips. But the one thing I figured out on my own is how invaluable it is for my trade to follow the news closely, particularly the business news. I know that these interceptors have to be from Applied Microgenetics. Two days ago the Journal reported that Wexler Pharmaceuticals was within hours of filing a long-awaited patent application for a brand new type of molecular gene therapy that could be worth billions right out of the gate. This was a very big deal in the biotechnology world. Apparently, for the past ten years, Wexler had been in direct competition with Applied Microgenetics to see who would bring their molecule to market first; and whoever did would essentially wipe out the other guy.
That’s how I know, even without seeing the load, exactly what Wexler Pharmaceuticals has tasked me with when they load me up and give me the address for the Free City branch of the patent office. This is the final lap in a very long race—ten years long to be exact—and I am the one they are trusting with the baton. It’s a pretty big run for someone who has been on the job less than a month. Probably the biggest I’ve been given so far. But I can handle it.
Whatever reticence I had on my first couple of runs is gone. Now I don’t think twice about switching over to an active track and running straight for the headlamp of an oncoming train. The interceptors from Applied Microgenetics dig their heels into the dirt and slide to a halt. They have no idea what I’m doing. And because they have no idea what I’m doing, they have no idea what to do themselves. With a train coming straight at me, there is no way out of this passage. No way out…but over. But surely I’m not about to leap over an entire train, am I? Not quite.
As the train bears down I wall-run up the side of the tunnel until my toes find footing. It’s just a tiny little nub, but that’s all I need to push off. I use everything I have to pop vault up to the overhead beams and hang on for dear life as the train roars past beneath me. And just as my pursuers dive for cover, I drop onto it and sail past. At moments like these, the tunnel wind in my hair feels good. Like victory. I don’t even care that the air down here smells like urine and is so thick with grime that I can taste its gritty chalkiness in my mouth. I don’t care because I’ve earned my wings. As a bird, I can fly.
It’s all about adaptation. Adaptation is the key to success when you’re running data. And in that sense, it’s like I’ve been training for it all along. Parkour is all about adaptation. Adapting to one’s environment. Only the unskilled barbarian hulks his way through life’s barricades and leaves a wake of disaster in his trail. The traceur doesn’t do this. The traceur doesn’t knock an obstacle out of the way unless it’s absolutely necessary. He meanders his way past it. Over. Under. Through. Around. He gets past not by moving the obstacle but by moving himself. That is parkour, and working this job I use every technique I know just to get it done.
People on the platform look at me like I’m crazy when I throw down my backpack and slide off the top of the train before it even stops, catch the ground with both hands, and roll out. My body armor rocks across the tiles and springs me back up. I pick up my bag and keep moving. I’m downtown now, and the patent office is just—
Interceptor. Somewhere. I can’t see him, but I can sense him. I look.
One by one the crowd around me disappears as I filter it all out. Just like Red Tail advised, I disregard everyone who does not register as a threat until all I see is the sneakernet. Just like the undernet is a network hidden beneath the aggregate Internet, the sneakernet is a world hidden in plain sight among the commuters and trains. But people act differently on the sneakernet, and that’s what you learn to spot.
The guy with the newspaper. You know why? I can smell it on him. But it’s more than that. I think he wants me to smell it on him. I mean, come on, sitting out in the open like that with his comm shades on, it’s almost like he’s trying to be obvious about it. Until I realize, that’s exactly what he’s doing. He wants me to spot him.
There are two sets of stairs leading to the upper deck. The guy with the newspaper is covering the left side. There doesn’t appear to be anyone covering the right, which is how I know they’re there, lying in wait. It’s a bottleneck. The guy with the newspaper thinks I’ll see him and go for the other stairs, whereupon the others will come out of nowhere and have me trapped. So which way do I go? Easy. I don’t go for either stairs. Rather, I head for the guy with the newspaper. Why? Because I’ve already spotted him, and I know his position, and I can see his hands,
and it’s exactly what he won’t expect.
“Hey, disruptor!” I yell and run straight at him until he has no choice but to stand and drop his paper. But it’s too late for him to do anything else. I leap through the air with a flying kick that knocks him off his feet, step off the tile and vault over the railing to the stairs behind him. From the corner of my eye I see three more disruptors come racing down the opposite stairwell. But before they hit the bottom, I’m already at the top.
The turnstiles are backed up with people trying to get out. I head for the gate. Leap. Kick the release button with my toe and fly straight into the wrought iron gate that swings open with my momentum and lets me out. One more set of stairs and I emerge from the underground.
To a clear blue sky and the bright of day.
And just across the street, the building housing the Free City branch of the patent office.
Dexter meets me outside afterwards. It’s not even noon and we’ve completed one run apiece. I look around. “Where’s Pace?”
Dex doesn’t even have to say it. I can tell by the look on his face.
“Still?”
“I don’t think he’s cut out for it,” he says.
“It hasn’t been that long. Give him time.”
“Time has nothing to do with it. This is a sink-or-swim profession. Look at you. They threw you straight into the deep end, and you stayed afloat.”
“I had help from Red Tail.”
“Are you saying I haven’t been helping Pace?”
“No, of course not.”
“Because I’ve helped him out as much as I can. But I can’t keep holding his hand. I do have my own loads to carry, you know.”
“I know.”
“I dropped two loads a week to run with him, but I can’t afford to do that anymore. If Pace can’t do it on his own, he’s going to have to find another gig.
“Yeah, I hear you.” That’s when I see Pace coming up the street, jittery as hell and sweating bullets like he’s having a nervous breakdown, looking in every direction at once but nowhere in particular. It reminds me of Snake’s warning about not letting the hypervigilance take you over because that is exactly what’s happened. Pace has let the fear take control. “Pace!”
He jumps like a frightened cat as he jerks his attention in our direction. This is bad, I think. Dex and I are barely ten feet away, and he didn’t even see us. He’s looking everywhere but not processing any of it, and he’s not seeing what’s right in front of his face.
“Hey guys. Hey, Jack. Hey, Dex.” Pace spins around like he’s checking the environment. Like he’s actually trying to take in every single variable at a downtown Free City intersection at the busiest time of day. “Hey, Jack,” he repeats, not even realizing it.
I grab an energy bar from my bag and offer it to Pace even though I don’t think he’s in any condition to eat. Dex declines as well. I keep forgetting that they’re using regular old silicon chips with a built-in power source. Theirs don’t use metabolic energy like the cortex chip from Arcadian. Oh well, more for me. I tear it open and wolf it down, even though the three of us have met for lunch. There’s always room for more.
A bit of construction noise from somewhere down the street causes Pace to grab his arm. Dex looks at him confused. “You’re loaded up right now?”
Pace frantically scans the buildings around us like he’s looking for snipers. “I couldn’t make the drop.”
“I left you five blocks from the drop-off point,” says Dexter. “What happened?”
“They were waiting for me,” he says. “They were waiting for me on the platform so I ran back into the tunnel.”
Dex doesn’t say it but he’s obviously peeved.
“It was two against one,” says Pace. “What was I supposed to do?”
Improvise, I think. Adapt.
“So you’re overdue,” says Dex. “Again.”
“I thought you could come back with me and help me suss it out,” says Pace. “Just this once.”
“Can’t do it this time,” says Dex. “If I’m even one minute late for my pickup this afternoon, they’ll abort the entire run. I can’t afford to lose that paycheck.”
“Sure, sure,” says Pace. “I understand.”
There’s no question about it, Pace is a mess. I can’t let him go back to the sneakernet in this condition. He is after all a Dragon. And if nothing else, Dragons always look out for one another. “Don’t worry, Pace. I’ve got your back.”
“Yeah?”
I nod.
“You sure?” Dex asks.
“Yeah, I got it.” We pound fists. “By the way…” I pull out my thin screen to check the balance in my account after the Wexler delivery. I’ve been running like hell for nearly a month. Twenty-seven days to be exact, to the detriment of everything else. Even PK club. For the past twenty-seven days, running data has been my only form of parkour. But in some strange way, the past twenty-seven days have shown me more than I ever thought I was capable of. Because for twenty-seven days, I have done the best parkour of my life. The best part though, twenty-seven days of running has not been without its rewards. I am just one run away from the magic number. Martin’s note. “You feel like taking a little trip tonight?”
Dex knows exactly what I mean. “The syndicate?” he asks.
I nod.
Dexter offers a congratulatory bow. “Well done.”
“Pick me up after dinner.”
“Not a problem.”
With Pace’s load overdue and afternoon pickups waiting for me and Dex, lunch is off. We part, Dex going off in one direction, Pace and I going in the other.
Pace begins to hyperventilate when the interceptors come at us from both sides of the tunnel. “Breathe,” I tell him. “Just breathe.”
“They—re—goi—ng—to—ge—t—us—”
“No they’re not. Give me your sweatshirt.”
“Hu—huh?”
“Just do it.”
Pace gives me his sweatshirt, and I hand him my sweater. He’s a full size smaller than me so neither one fits right, but it’s enough to get the job done. Behind us, one interceptor approaches. In front of us, another awaits.
Pace begins to calm down. “They’re going to shoot us.”
“No, they’re not. They’re retrievers, not disruptors. Their mission is to recover your load. But they’re not going to do that either. You hear me?” Pace seems to zone out. “Pace!” He finds his way back. “Listen to me. We’re going to run straight at him and scissor around. Just like popping a bubble. Wall run around him and keep going.”
“What if he gets me?”
“He won’t. He can only go one way, and he’ll come after me.” I indicate Pace’s sweatshirt, which I am now wearing. “You just get around him and keep going. Do not stop. Do not turn around. Don’t even look back.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine. You just keep going. Okay?” The answer doesn’t come as quick as I would like. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Thanks, Jack. I really owe you one.”
But I wave it off. “Dragons don’t keep tallies. You just keep going. Keep running until you make the delivery.”
I put out a fist. Pace pounds it. We go. Straight for the interceptor. Pace running at my heel, until we break. The interceptor stretches out his arms to grab both of us, but as we split apart he has to choose, and he chooses me. Pace takes two steps up the tunnel wall and skirts past him as I get thrown against the other side. My only concern now is that Pace will stop, but he doesn’t. He keeps going.
The other interceptor catches up to us. He turns on a torch to give us light. One is bald, the other is getting there. Both look like ex-athletes. Meaty, but nowhere close to lean. The balding one with the torch pulls out a large bone saw from a holster clipped to his belt.
“You’re making a mistake,” I say. “You’ve got the wrong runner.”
“Ye
ah, we’re always making that mistake,” they laugh. “We always got the wrong runner.”
The bald one throws up my sleeve and suddenly freezes. Both of them freeze, especially the guy with the bone saw, who shines his torch closer to my arm. Now they look at each other. “This guy is Arcadian.”
Bald guy keeps me secure but loosens his grip as the other one scratches his head with the butt of his bone saw. “I think we got the wrong runner.”
Suddenly the bald guy flares his nostrils and shoves me into the wall. The sad part is, I’m not even carrying my own load. I’m getting all this over an empty briefcase. “Where’s your friend?” he barks.
“Friend, what friend?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he says. “The other runner. Where’s the other runner?”
“How should I know? I just ran into him a few minutes ago.” It’s true, every so often you do come across other runners down here, but when that happens you usually just nod and go your own way. There’s no way of knowing who you can trust down here, so most runners just ignore each other whenever they pass in the tunnels. “We were just running in the same direction is all.”
They eye each other. You’d think they’d recognize Pace’s sweatshirt from when they chased him earlier, but I don’t think these guys are all that bright.
“So what do we do?” he asks.
“Should we take his arm anyway?”
“That’s pointless,” I interject.
“Shut up!”
“I’m telling you, it wouldn’t serve any purpose.”
“Shut up! You just shut up!” He scratches his head with the bone saw. “He’s right, though. They got those fancy chips that can’t be removed.”
“So what do we do?”
“There’s nothing to do.”
He puts away the bone saw. The other lets me go. I figured as much. As far as I can tell, Ito and Gendo are the only ones hacking off arms indiscriminately. Like I told Martin before—retrievers are like data runners, they always work for somebody. No contract, no money. No money, no point.
