Thunk.
Even through my helmet I can tell that was a hell of a lot louder than I intended. Books, it landed on books. They softened the blow, but there's no time to waste.
I quickly search the room. No one's in the office. The night vision goggles paint the room green. The brick cutout rests squarely on several piles of books, it didn't even knock any over. The brick walls are bare, but several bookcases are set along the walls and full with either books or knick-knacks—probably trophies of some kind. Directly across from the door is an oversized desk illuminated by the light from under the door. It's a monstrous wooden thing. I wouldn't be surprised if Pete had it raised just so he could look down at people when doing business.
I turn off the gravity subroutine and take off my helmet so I can hear properly. Hopefully, if I have to bolt, I'll have enough warning to get it back on and escape.
The safe is waist high and almost as wide and deep, and at least five hundred pounds of the latest and greatest steel alloy. There's no way I'm moving this thing by hand. Which is where Puo's idea comes in.
I take Puo's modified extra gravity suit, which is the largest we have, out of my pack and start sliding it over the safe. Once most of it's stretched into position I turn it on. Even though the suit isn't a closed system yet, it's enough to generate a weak gravity field, reducing the weight enough for me to get the rest of the suit around the bottom. I seal the gravity suit and activate the hover subroutine. It rises and bounces between my chin and chest.
I'm silent for this job so I signal Puo it's ready.
Puo speaks through my earpiece, "I'm one minute and forty seconds away."
I signal back 'acknowledged.' Puo is up in the Pelican driving a loop in the airways around the area. Each loop takes about four minutes. Which means there's only a twenty second window every four minutes when the safe can be delivered, or I can be picked up.
I guide the safe toward the window. When Puo gives the signal—
Voices. Someone's approaching the door.
One, maybe two. I can't tell. I scoop up my helmet. The safe is blocking the only way out. I position myself to chuck the safe at the door and start to squeeze my helmet on.
The handle twists and the door shunts inward. It's locked!
I freeze with my helmet halfway on and listen over my beating heart.
"Do you have a key?" a man with a deep voice asks.
"No," another man answers, "it's Pete's office. He don't give no one keys to his office."
Oh, thank God for Pete's paranoia. That stupid bastard just bought me time.
The first man says, "Then we have to call Pete."
"I ain't callin' Pete."
"You said you heard something."
"I did."
Puo thunders in my earpiece, "Forty seconds away." I know the men can't hear Puo, but his voice is jarring. "Launch the package in thirty. Sync in three-two-one, sync."
I activate a hack of the pickup routine on the safe and push it outside the window. When Puo's in position the safe will fall into the sky.
"Fine, I'll call him," the first man says. "But you're going to tell him what you heard."
"If you're calling him, why don't you tell him? I don't want to wake Pete up."
The voices fade down the hallway the way they came. I look out the window, the safe's gone.
Fifteen seconds later Puo comes on the line again, "Package delivered, unwrapping it now."
I type the situation out on the communicator. We have probably less than ten minutes, including getting that brick back in place.
Puo's responds, "Understood."
It's all business for him now. He's in his element with the safe. Safe cracking is about as intimate as I've ever seen Puo get. I've even heard him refer to it as caressing the tumbler.
I'm tempted to go through Pete's stuff while I wait, wipe boogers on the coffee mug, run his pencils through my ass crack, that sort of junior high stuff that's stupid but so oddly satisfying. But he can't know we were here. Even though he's probably on his way right now.
If Pete catches on, this whole thing is blown. Pete needs to find something. Something that could explain the noise, justify him getting called, but stop him from looking further.
There's a bookcase with adjustable shelves by the window and the top shelf is even overloaded. I remove all the items and scatter them about like they fell. The bookcase is close enough to where I set the brick cutout down that it could justify kicking over the books when I leave to cover any debris. The laser cutter takes care of the front left-side adjustable piece that holds the shelf. A slight cut is enough for me to break the rest of it with my hands, giving it a sheared, tried-to-hold-too-much-weight look. Perfect.
It's been three and half minutes since the safe left. Pete could be here any second. I query Puo on his status and wait for a response.
And wait. And wait.
Four minutes and forty-five seconds. I have to get the safe back in and restore the brick wall. I resist the urge to keep pinging Puo, he's probably in the middle of climaxing.
Five minutes, fifty-one seconds. Puo speaks through my earpiece, "Got it. Repackaging and ready to drop in two minutes ten seconds."
My impatience flares. Two minutes of dead time. Two minutes for simple repositioning. Two minutes of Pete drawing closer.
Time hasn't been kind to me lately. The past eighteen or so hours have passed like minutes, now the minutes pass like hours. Every creak of the building, every noise coming from the street through the window sounds like a gunshot. It's wearing on my nerves.
And the damn musky smell of Pete's office isn't helping. I should've worn nose plugs. The smell is overpowering, almost like Pete's in the room. I can't decide if Pete uses a cologne that makes this room stink, or if this room makes Pete stink.
Finally, Puo says, "Twenty seconds out."
I force my helmet back on.
Puo continues, "Sync in three-two-one, sync."
I sync my gravity subroutine and go outside the window to direct the safe back in. The safe is falling toward me. This is a precision drop like nothing we've done before. At least when I drop, on the way down I can adjust to some degree where I'll land. The safe doesn't have arms and legs to steer. But objects don't just fall straight down when pushed off a moving vehicle. They capture some of the momentum. It's all part of the calculation and fervent prayer.
Fortunately, in a night sky that is clouded with moving objects, the safe is hard to distinguish against the background. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to hit the edge of the roof.
Clang!
The safe clips it and spins on the way down. I'm able to corral it, but the noise is on the level of throwing a metal trash can to the ground.
Well, if they didn't hear the first noise, they certainly heard that. I get the safe back into the room, set it in place, and remove the gravity suit. I look the safe over. No scuff marks that I can see; must have hit on the bottom or back, which is fine with me.
Puo says, "Isa, a vehicle just descended and pulled in front."
Thirty, forty-five seconds at best before Pete gets here. I'm already moving.
All I need to do is move that two-hundred pound block of bricks that nearly ripped my arms off once before. I dart into my pack to get the handles and stop when I brush up against the extra gravity suit. It worked with the safe.
I put the modified gravity suit on the back the bricks first, then attach the handles.
Shadows start jumping underneath the crack of the door. They're coming.
I activate the gravity subroutine. Two-hundred plus pounds of brick magically turns manageable. I kick over the books.
I'm in the air with my ass outside the window, about to fit the bricks back in place, when the shadows stop moving again.
They're outside the door.
I might make it, they might not notice the wall right away. I line up the edges.
The left edge won't fit. The brick wall is upside down.
I get ready to use the blocks as a weapon. I strain and can barely hear someone's soft garbled voice. They keep talking. They're just standing there.
I seize the opportunity and flip the block around. Sweat drips down the back of my neck from the effort. They still haven't opened the door. I fit the block into place and pull it flush. I made it.
I take the handles off and remove the modified gravity suit. My adrenaline's so high I think I can hear them through the brick. I'm left with an uneasy feeling. What did I forget?
The distant voices are getting louder. They're not in the office. They're on the roof, heading straight toward me.
I use the building to leapfrog myself toward the back of the building. Silence is secondary to speed. I just turn the corner when my heart stops.
A muffled yell, followed by a back-and-forth I can't distinguish.
My eyes are glued to the roofline.
One one-thousand—two one-thousand—three one-thousand. No movement.
The muffled talking continues. They must've found where the safe hit the roof. With any luck, they'll assume it was some type of throwaway from the sky.
My body can't take much more adrenaline. I use the gravity suit to drop to the ground and make a run for it. I need to find someplace to hole up in and have Puo come pick me up. I think I might finally be able to sleep after this.
***
Three hours later I'm back on the Pelican getting cleaned up. What I really need is a decent shower, but I'm making do with a wash cloth and a fresh change of clothes.
After escaping from Pete's place, Puo and I decided he couldn't just drop down and get me after all. Personal air vehicles aren't very common descending down into Pete's slum. The Pelican would be noticed—and reported.
I ended up having to wait for public transportation to start back up and take me to a better part of town for the pickup. I passed three of the dullest hours known to man, sitting in an all-night diner in my own filth, keeping an eye on the door. I hadn't planned on taking off my gravity suit, so I sat in the diner in a tank top and black yoga pants, plastered in sweat. Fortunately, with my odor, I fit right in at the place.
Those three hours weren't completely wasted, though. Puo's been deciphering the ledger. I finish cleaning up and walk into the cabin.
Puo looks solemn, resigned.
"Well?" I ask.
"Pete stacks."
I slump into the chair next to him. Stacking is when a mark splits his stash among multiple locations. "How many?"
"Definitely four, possibly five. There's something else, Isa. Pete keeps his wealth in the physical. Jewels, precious metals and the like. Even if we could hit all the stacks, we can't physically move everything by ourselves. The Pelican's too small. We can't expose ourselves to get help."
"We don't have to steal it, just destroy it or stop him from getting access."
"Isa, Pete's loaded. We could hit all but one and he'd survive."
Where's Puo's optimism now? His we-can-do-anything attitude? Suddenly, it gets hard and he wants to roll over?
"Isa, you gotta call him."
"Stop using my name, Puo. It's annoying, Puo. I'm not a child, Puo."
Puo taps the tan ledger. "Pete's embezzling."
Interesting. The Boss gets a cut of all the crime that goes down in the city. If Pete's embezzling and we have proof, then we're not coming to him in a position of weakness. We're whistle blowers doing the Boss a favor, still looked down on like scum, but maybe after everything is cleared up we could leak the true story.
But God, I hate calling the Boss. I'll be perceived as a scared little girl, "Daddy, there's a big bad man after me. Daddy, I need you to protect me. Daddy, I'm too weak to help myself." It's enough to make me sick. Pete deserves it though.
"You gotta call him," Puo repeats.
"Fine." My brain's shot. I can't think of anything else that might work. I'll make the call later at a more civilized hour.
I lean into the reclined seat. I haven't slept in almost twenty-six hours. My nerves are fried, my brain's dead, my body's exhausted. Falling asleep isn't the problem—staying asleep is.
The twenty-minute chunks are the high performers. The rest average between ten and fifteen minutes. Every time I slide into sleep, Winn is there to meet me.
His clean-shaven face gains a gray, scraggly beard. His well-fitting clothes morph into a disheveled prison uniform. The worst are the images of his hands. His soft, surgeon's hands. Steady and strong, turning into cracked, nicotine-stained skeletons bound by handcuffs.
After about an hour and half of this, I give up. Winn will haunt me waking or sleeping. At least while awake, I can block some of it out.
It's 8:00 a.m. Winn is due to be released in an hour and a half. If the Feds do release him. They're probably working overtime to pin the theft on him. Even if he is released, Pete will pick him up at the first opportunity to work off his debt.
Winn doesn't realize that he's already too deep in our world. The criminal underworld leaves a trace on a person. People who have fallen into crime hold themselves a certain way. They know where to look, linger a second too long on a cop. In Winn, this is an oxymoron. If I saw him for the first time, my thoughts would be that he's trusting, a rube, but from the trace, in trouble, panicked.
In other words, easy prey. An ideal mark, a perfect patsy. Winn will spend the rest of his life wasting away in a cell or in the hands of someone like Pete, being used and manipulated.
I can't leave Winn to this fate.
"Puo, I'm going back for him."
***
I stand in a storage closet full of restoration chemicals in the loft where the Island used to be. Owned and run by Ashley's Restorations. It wasn't even a half hour after we had turned control over to the twit that she had changed the name.
The Feds released Winn an hour ago. I had picked up a disposable communicator, and sent a one-word message to him: Island, then tossed it in the trash. The Feds will have hacked his communicator at a minimum and are going to be watching him, but we need to get Winn now before Pete gets his hands on him.
I've been waiting for twenty minutes, drifting in and out of alertness. Even after I had called the Boss, I still couldn't find rest, stuck in the same track of questions. Will he come? How angry will he be? What will I say? Will he believe me? And more importantly, will he have a visual cortex bug?
The last question bothers me the most. There's little I can do if he does, other than coldcock him and run. We don't have the equipment to deal with it anymore, and even if we could take him somewhere to deal with it, the Feds would know where and who, as well as get an image of me.
I hate waiting.
Puo speaks through my earpiece, "He's here, and he's got a tail." Puo's high in the sky in the Pelican, running command.
I ready my equipment and step flush to the side of the door.
Several minutes later, Winn enters, turns on the light, and walks past me. I put the end of a short metal tube I found in the closet between his shoulder blades. "Shhh."
He freezes.
I start scanning with my other hand. Sure enough, the scan picks up a tracking and audio bug almost immediately on his citizen chip. Well, good tricks are good tricks for all sides. That's one bug. I keep scanning.
Puo says, "More plain-clothed cops are showing up."
Not a good sign.
Winn starts to tense, he still doesn't know it's me. He's going to do something stupid. I lean forward and kiss the back of his neck, then nibble on his ear for good measure. He relaxes and I drop the metal tube.
I initiate the visual cortex scan. The scan itself takes only a few seconds, but then the software needs time to chug through the data before giving the results. Puo explained why it takes so long to me once. Something about how the brain communicates with tiny electrical signals that can mask the signature of the bug.
Seventy percent done. I take a deep breath. If this comes up ne
gative, then all I have to do his remove his citizen chip and we can get out of here.
Puo interrupts the silence, "They're forming a perimeter around the building. I also think they got an unmarked air vehicle up here."
Great. I was hoping they'd be content to watch. The earlier text probably got them hot-to-trot.
Eighty-five percent done.
Puo says, "They're entering the building. You gotta get out of there."
Shit. I need to get the audio chip out before we can bolt, but the scan isn't done.
If the Feds get my image, at best my ability to work will evaporate, at worst I'll rot in a ten-by-ten concrete jail cell for twenty-three hours a day for the rest of my life. I'd be a maximum security risk—an accomplished thief, con woman, and escape artist. There probably wouldn't even be a window. For twenty-three hours a day, for the next sixty years, I'd just sit there. I'd be insane in less than a year.
Ninety-four percent done.
Puo says, "They've got dogs."
I step around front to face Winn and put my fingers to my lips to keep him quiet. I had made my choice when I decided to come here. Thankfully, he listens. He still trusts me. I expect to see anger. Instead I see fear, desperate need—that I'm his last hope. Why does he still trust me after I nearly hung him out to dry? He's like a lost puppy that deserves better.
I put the extraction device over his left hand to remove the citizen chip. Once the device indicates it's found the chip and got a lock on it, I rip the device off bringing blood and the chip with it. There isn't time to be gentle.
Ninety-eight percent done.
I set the chip in the center of the floor. I motion to Winn to add his communicator next to the chip. I open the door to the loft and wait. Attenuated dog barks travel up and out the stairwell from the first floor. Winn looks at me in alarm. His round blue eyes contrast against the straight line of his jaw. I wink back.
A hundred percent. No cortex bug.
I grab Winn's shirt and run for the corner of the loft with the small specialty elevator and climb in.
The shaft is lined with regularly-spaced bars to make the descent easy. I added them when we got the loft, as a quick escape route. I still can't believe we had to burn this place. It was perfect.
Underwater Restorations Page 3
