by C. A. Wilke
Bobby froze for a few seconds. His stunned silence gave Scarlett the opportunity she was waiting for. The moment his expression shifted from shock to anger, she moved.
Scarlett thrust her hands up at the knife. With one hand she ripped the weapon away. She wrenched Bobby’s wrist hard, forcing him to bend over and scream in agony.
A yank on the Asian boy’s arm pulled her forward. She brought her left leg up and slammed the top of her foot into Shane’s head. He collided with Mondo and crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
She shifted her grip on the knife. Scarlett thrust the knife at the recovering Mondo. Before he could react, the blade tore through the sleeve of his coat and pinned him to the wall.
Bobby bent his arm and moved in closer to Scarlett. He brought his fist up into her kidney.
Scarlett gasped from the impact and let the boy go.
“Alright bitch. That was some freaky moves. But now I’m gonna kick your ass.” He took a fighting stance. His fists framed his face as he bounced on bent knees.
Scarlett stretched her back and rubbed where he hit her. Dammit. That’s gonna bruise. She stood up straight and let her arms fall to her sides. “Bobby, give Ms. Ling back the card and you can walk out of here.”
Bobby laughed. “You a crazy bitch.”
“You really love that word, don’t you? Do you have mommy issues?”
The boy’s eyes widened with rage. He moved in and swung wide.
Scarlett lifted her arm and stepped closer. Bobby’s forearm thudded into her side. She brought her arm down and wrapped it around his. A quick heel-punch to his midsection drove the wind from his lungs.
Motion behind her caught Scarlett’s attention. She swung around, bringing a breathless Bobby with her. She let him go, catapulting him into Mondo.
Bobby slammed into the Hispanic boy and jerked upright. Mondo froze, a look of pure shock on his face. After a moment, Mondo stepped back. In his hand he held a short-bladed knife covered in blood. “Oh shit! Oh shitohshitohshit! Bobby, dude! Ohmygod!”
Scarlett stepped back.
Bobby turned around to look at his friend, revealing his wound. Blood soaked the jacket. The puffy garment made it hard for Scarlett to tell exactly where the gash was.
Bobby dropped to his knees.
“Ling, call an ambulance. Tell them a white woman is injured.” Scarlett stepped up to Bobby. “Mondo.”
Mondo turned to Scarlett. “What the fuck do you want, lady? You made me stab him. He’s gonna die. Ohshitohshit!”
“Mondo, listen. Help me get his jacket off.”
“What?”
“Help me get his jacket off. I need to see how bad it is.”
The two grabbed for the boy’s jacket and started pulling. A moment later, the bloody garment lay on the floor.
Scarlett tugged up the boy’s shirt. Blood seeped from the wound in his back.
Mondo took a step back. “Oh fuck, man. He’s gonna die!”
“He’s not gonna die. An ambulance will be here any minute.”
Mondo continued to mumble about Bobby and dying.
Scarlett walked over to Mondo and grabbed his throat. “Calm down, dumbass, and listen to me. He’s probably not gonna die, this time. But if you come back here, to this store or any other in the neighborhood and do anything other than buy a pack of gum... Next time you all won’t be so lucky. You got me?”
Mondo struggled to nod against her grip. Her grip released and he collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath.
Scarlett walked over to the counter. She pointed to the camera in the corner just as Ling hung up the phone. “That work?”
Ling shook her head. “No. It’s supposed to scare them away. But...” She held her hand out. “It doesn’t work.”
“K. Good.” She looked over at the two young men huddled together. “He’ll be fine.”
Scarlett moved to the door, stepping over Shane.
“You a saint. They try t’kill you, den you save his life? You just like a angel.”
“Thanks, but I’m no angel. Look, I gotta go.”
She rushed out the door and down the street, trying to look casual.
* * *
Ling watched the red-haired woman disappear through the doorway. The bell rang again as the door closed. She looked at the boys on the floor in her shop and muttered to herself. “A red-haired angel. A scarlet angel.”
Chapter 22
Coffee
Treating someone who prepares your food like crap is a sure way to get some extra biological material with it.
* * *
The smell of fresh coffee drifted across the small shop to Scarlett’s nose. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Ahh...”
A middle-aged woman in a dark blue suit yanked open the door and shoved her way past. The woman huffed at Scarlett.
Sooorry lady. Pardon me if I haven’t had coffee in almost six months. Stupid Neil.
Scarlett walked up and stood behind the businesswoman. The executive’s tone was precise and sour. “Look. You better not screw up my order. They screwed up my order yesterday. I want a no-fat, half-caf, soy latte with no foam with sugar-free hazelnut and regular toffee. Don’t give me that sugar-free toffee flavor crap, it tastes like shit. But the hazelnut is fine. Oh, and make it quick.”
The barista, a woman in her mid-twenties, replied with a simple and polite ‘Yes Ma’am.’
The woman glanced down at the nearly empty tip jar and its taped-on, handwritten sign. She mumbled under her breath. “Psh. Get a real job.”
The barista’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink. She handed the businesswoman back her eCash card and thanked her for her business.
The obnoxious woman stepped aside to wait for her order and Scarlett moved up to the counter. Pinned to the barista’s chest was a simple white nametag. “I wouldn’t worry about her, Julie. She’s just rude.”
“Oh, no Ma’am. It’s all good. We just want to make sure her order is just like she likes it. What about you? What can I get you?”
“How about just a medium white chocolate mocha with a double shot and a bit of Amaretto and one of those cinnamon things.”
“Alrighty. That’s nine fifty-two.” The woman answered then tapped the order into the register screen. The readout read exactly as she’d announced.
“You just gave me the total before you entered it.” Scarlett handed over her eCash card.
Julie shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve always been good with numbers. And code.”
“How come you’re here? Why aren’t you programming these machines instead of using one?”
She handed the card back. “Oh I used to. I actually have three degrees in advanced programming. But, ah... My company got downsized. Haven’t been able to find much beyond this since. Oh, what’s your name?”
“Scarlett. Well, good luck. I hope you get something soon.”
The barista tapped the name into the machine and smiled back. “Me too. Have a nice day.”
“You too.”
Scarlett turned to see the fussy businesswoman lecturing another barista on the preparation of her drink. She chuckled to herself and wandered over to pick up one of the available digital newspads. A couple minutes later, her coffee was ready.
The brown high-back chair was low but comfortable. She sank into the seat and set her drink on the side table. A scroll through the news showed nothing surprising. Bored with the borrowed newspad, she set it down and leaned back to enjoy the coffee and just being out of Neil’s apartment.
She kept her eyes closed and listed to the chatter of the other people in the shop. When she heard Julie say she was heading outside for her break, Scarlett’s eyes shot open. A vague idea formed in her mind.
Scarlett grabbed her drink and headed outside. Around the back of the store, she found Julie engrossed in her own commpad. She approached the younger woman, despite the odor of rotting coffee grounds and other indiscernible garbage. “Julie, mind if I ask you a question?”
&nb
sp; The woman’s head shot up and she looked at Scarlett with wide eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m on break. If you need something, Daniel inside can help you out.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”
“Umm... okay. I guess.”
Scarlett leaned against a yellow cement post just a few feet from the painted door. Rivulets of a dark liquid with an oily sheen ran beneath her feet. “You did say three programming degrees, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s impressive.”
Julie held up her commpad. “Not impressive enough to get a job, apparently. I was looking to see if anyone’s replied to any of the twenty-seven resume submissions I made last week.”
“And?”
“Nothing. Not even a ‘thanks for applying.’ You believe that?”
“Wow. That’s harsh. But I wanted to talk to you about that. Have you ever thought about doing any freelance work?”
The woman cocked her head to the side. “Like what?”
“Well, like this.” She pulled out her new commpad. “I just bought this. I’ve been out of touch for a while, so I needed a new one. Kind of making a fresh start, you know?”
“K.”
“I want to make it secure. I don’t want anyone to be able to listen in or have access to my content if they were to get a hold of this thing.”
Julie reached out for the device. “May I?”
“Sure.”
She took the commpad and looked it over. “Well, this is on CyberBell. Their standard signal is pretty good for preventing casual eavesdropping. I mean, there’s some upgrading that could tighten the signal security.”
The barista tapped the power button and the device flashed to life. “Wow, you haven’t even registered it.”
Scarlett shook her head. “Nope.”
“Well, there’s plenty that can be done to lock out unwanted eyes. The touchscreen is sensitive enough for print registration and you could have a custom retinal scanner linked to the camera.”
“You can do that?”
Julie powered the device off and handed it back. “Sure. I mean, not here, but I could. But, why me? I’m nobody. There’s plenty of security shops that could do that for you.”
Scarlett arched her eyebrows. “That’s precisely the reason. You are not part of one of those companies. As you said... because you’re a ‘nobody’.”
“This isn’t anything illegal, is it?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Um, okay then.”
“Good. Um, how’s two thousand?”
The younger woman’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “Two thousand credits?”
“Yep.”
“That’s more than two weeks’ pay!”
Scarlett smiled and put her hand out. “Is that a yes?”
Julie smiled too. She reached out and shook Scarlett’s hand. “That’s a yes.”
“Good, now how soon can you do it?”
The barista looked at her watch. “Oh, shit. My break was over three minutes ago. Um... I’ve got a couple more hours here. Then I can do it.”
“Good. I’ll be back at one-thirty then.”
Julie nodded and dashed back into the coffee shop.
Scarlett smiled. She strolled out of the alley to find something to do for the next two hours.
Chapter 23
Jules
Einstein was right. Time can only flow forward. We can never go back.
* * *
Scarlett walked around the commercial district for a while. She finally settled on a bench in the park facing a large grassy area surrounded by birch trees. Watching the people sitting on blankets or tossing toys for their dogs relaxed her, it let her feel normal just for a few minutes. These people have no idea. They live happy, carefree lives. I was one of them, once. Could I be one again? A beep from her commpad signaled the alarm she’d set. She looked down at the device and was surprised by the time.
“Wow. Already...” She stood and headed back to the coffee shop, back to Julie.
She waited outside the shop, a few feet from the door and out of view from anyone inside.
The young barista stepped out and wrapped her apron into a bundle. Her drooped shoulders and bags under her eyes showed what the rest of her day had been like. She looked up one side of the street and then the other. When her eyes fell on Scarlett, her posture perked up and a flicker of light appeared in her gaze. “To be honest, I was a little worried. Thought you might not come back.”
“Why? Did I come across like I was jerking your chain?”
“No, but that would be just my luck.” Julie pointed down the street. “Let’s take an autobus to my place. I’ve got everything I need on my system.”
“Good. So, how long do you think it’ll take?”
“Not long. Maybe an hour or so. Most of the code is ready. Just needs a tweak or two.”
They took a short autobus ride and got off in front of a silver tower. Streaks of dust and exhaust soot covered the sides of the building where a recent rain marred the uniform filth. As they stepped off the bus, Julie stopped and looked up. “It’s not much to look at but the rent is pretty good and the building is safe.”
“That’s what counts, right?”
A brief ride in the elevator delivered them to the seventeenth floor. Julie turned to the apartment right off the lift. “Home sweet home. Make yourself comfortable an’ I’ll get to work.”
Scarlett handed the younger woman her commpad.
Julie sat at a desk and several holoscreens appeared. She typed at a virtual keyboard and swiped at the air. Lines of white code scrolled through the air. “So, what I’m doing is setting up a double firewall system with partition masking and quantum cryptographic encryption.”
She looked up over her shoulder at Scarlett
“Quantum encryption? You can do that?” She stared back with wide eyes.
“To be honest, I set it up about a year ago. Ready for my next job, you know?”
“Yeah. So, that’s, military grade, right?”
The younger woman continued to type away. “Pretty much.”
Scarlett turned around and scanned the room again. A sink and several small appliances seemed to fight for space in one cramped corner. A single twin bed sat shoved against another wall. Other than the entrance, there were only two other doors. Scarlett expected one led to a bathroom and the other a closet.
Dry-erase smart boards and sticky notes lined the rest of the walls. Nearly every inch of paper and white board was covered in algorithms and bits of code. “Wow. I can only understand tiny bits of this but... some of it is really brilliant.”
“What those? Not to brag, but I’m probably one of the best in the region. But it takes me time to get good code down. Some of the coders I’ve met spit out lines of brilliant hack like they’re machines, pardon the pun. And it’s stuff that makes me look like a third-grader. “
“They’re hackers?” Scarlett sat down on the edge of the bed. Several springs squeaked under her weight.
“Well... Hack is what we call code, whether it’s a traditional hack or just a program. But most of them do have major issues with authority figures. But they prefer to be called Greys.”
“Greys?”
“I guess years ago, hackers fell into three categories. Black hats were the bad guys, white hats the good guys and the greys were anything in between. I think they adopted the name out of their ambivalence and apathy to the rest of the world”
Scarlett continued looking over the code plastered to the walls. Her eyes stopped on something different. “Hey, Julie, what’s this?” Scarlett stood and walked over to one of the smaller white boards.
“If you want, you can call me Jules. Most of my friends do. Well, the few I have. Sorry, which one?”
“Okay, Jules. This code.” She pointed to a sectioned off area of the board in front of her. “It doesn’t look like digital programming. It almost looks, I dunno... biological.”
Jules spun around in her chair. “That’s because it is. Or, at least I hope it will be some day. It’s a pet project of mine.”
Scarlett whistled. “You know, this is really impressive.”
“Thanks!”
The conversation faded into silence as Scarlett walked around the room. She tried to decipher what she could of the coding, but most of it was complete gibberish. Eventually, she sat back down and just waited.
“Almost done.”
Scarlett’s eyes flashed open at the sound of Jules’s voice. She hadn’t even realized she dozed off. “Huh?”
“Oh, uh... one sec... and, done. Your commpad is ready now. I just need you to set the print and retinal scan.
Scarlett climbed to her feet and pressed her finger against the commpad’s screen. She stared at the small camera and heard a click from the speakers. Red letters blinked on the screen, “Registered.”
Jules tapped a few buttons, rebooted the device and handed it over. “You’ll just need to touch the screen with that finger and stare at the camera any time you turn it on or wake it up.”
The commpad turned back on and Scarlett tested the security. The device gave her instant access. “Not that I doubt you, but how do I know if it works?”
Jules held her hand out and took the device back. She locked the screen and tried to unlock it. Instead of accessing the desktop, a small circle flashed around where Jules’ thumb pressed on the screen. ‘Denied’ flashed in white letters next to the circle. She tilted the screen for Scarlett to see.
Scarlett took the commpad back. “This is fantastic. Would you mind me calling on you for future work?”
“Sure!”
“Great.” She held her hand out for Jules’ eCash card. The younger woman handed it over. She pressed the two cards together, tapped on the tiny pad and transferred the funds. She struggled not to smile.
“There you go. Three thousand.”
Jules squinted and wrinkled her brow. “Wait. You said two.”
She couldn’t hold it anymore. The corner of Scarlett’s mouth cracked in a smile. “Did I? Oh well. It’s already there, and you were so quick and helpful.”
