Chapter 3: That's a Good Girl

Rappel down from the rooftop, Talys had said. It’s easier than gaining access from the inside, Ravi had said. But Sev wouldn’t have heard the end of it had she bailed on the Op, so here she was: 90 meters above the floor of the deck, pressed up against the glass of the hotel’s exterior like a fly on a lamp. She gripped her rope tightly, shivering from top to bottom. “How much further?” she said into her comm.

“Just a few more meters. Come on, don’t dawdle. And for the love of god, stop looking down. You’re freaking me out,” Talys’s voice chirped in her earpiece. The thief was some distance below her—Sev didn’t look down to check how far—and by the tone of her voice, already bored of waiting. The raucous of Deck 8 traffic roared from below even at this hour, and the wind was blowing her auburn hair into her eyes as she worked.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Sev said.

“Leave me out of your fantasies,” her partner drawled. Sev snorted a laugh and pushed her feet gently off the glass, shifting downward a meter or two. The rope slid against her gloved hands until she gripped it tight once more, her feet crashing against the glass with a little more force than she intended. “Careful,” Talys hissed. “Crack a window and there’ll be alarms blazing.”

“Why aren’t we more worried about somebody spotting us from inside?” Sev said, her voice trembling slightly.

“Because the hotel is rented out for the gala downstairs, and everyone is there,” Ravi said through her earpiece, likely from all the way back in Moonphase. “Besides, you’re on the dark side of the deck and wearing all black, genius. Now get down to Talys so we can finish this.”

“I want to point out that you hired me as a hacker. This isn’t exactly my area of expertise.”

“That’s why I’m here. I’ve done this a hundred times before, I know what I’m doing. Come on, get your ass down here,” Talys replied.

Sev closed her eyes, released her grip, and pushed off once more, this time descending several meters before stopping. She’d just about reached Talys by now, and seeing that, she made the final push and rappelled down next to her.

“See? That wasn’t so bad. Now get ready to jaunt. It’s going to feel uncomfortable for a second or two. Push off in three,” Talys said. Sev didn’t have time to respond before the counting began. “One. Two. Three,” the thief counted, and on three, she pushed off and simultaneously flicked on her quantum field. Sev pushed off as well, just a moment behind. The field didn’t look like much—a blurring effect in the air, few odd particles of light floating in her vision. She’d never jaunted before. Talys had impressed upon her that it was perfectly safe. It did nothing to assuage her fears. Together, the two of them swung backwards, then rocketed towards the glass like a pendulum. Just as they were about to slam into the glass. Talys pressed another switch, and Sev felt every inch of her body pull, stretch, tear. It was like all of her organs were trying to get out.

Instead of slamming into the glass, they passed right through it. Their ropes severed and frayed at the edges of the quantum field, leaving only Sev’s backpack, their harnesses, and the remainder of their rope coils attached to their hips. Talys was quick, Sev had to give her credit. The second they were through, she snapped the field off, making them solid once more. She tumbled into a roll as they hit the floor. Sev followed shortly after with quite a bit less grace, rolling onto her back and crashing into a nearby wall. “Fuck, that was weird,” Sev said through choking gags. The feeling of being ripped apart was gone, but her insides roiled. She struggled not to vomit.

“You get used to it,” Talys said. “Well, I did my part. Your turn.”

“Give me a damn second,” Sev muttered. She managed swallow down some spit and keep herself from losing her lunch, but every muscle in her body was still cramping.

Talys put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Shhh, don’t talk. Just ride it out. Try to relax your muscles.” Sev didn’t have the ability to question the thief’s uncharacteristic gentleness. She was too busy trying to remain a three-dimensional chunk of matter. “Just a bit more. Don’t fight it.” It felt like an eternity before her cramps started to fade and her vision stopped swimming. “There we go. You good?”

Sev pressed her palms into her eyes, picked herself up, shook her limbs out. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.” The room they found themselves in was some kind of den. A large sectional couch with pristine white cushions dominated the room, the opposite wall taken up by an enormous screen and entertainment system. A glass coffee table sat in front of the couch, a mug of cold, half-drunk tea atop it. Paintings covered the wall behind the couch, the kind that looked vaguely expensive without meaning anything whatsoever.

“Don’t mention it,” Talys said, back to her usual self. Her eyes were like daggers. Sev got the impression she meant that literally, and made a note to herself not to say a word to anybody, then a second note to herself to use Talys’s kindness to blackmail her later.

“All right, you guard the entrance while I link my rig up with the network here,” Sev said, pulling her backpack off her back and unzipping it to reveal the contents inside—several cable coils, various external drives, a visor, and a singular console: her pride and joy. She slid the device onto her wrist, and latched it closed. Then she donned her visor and switched it on, activating the link between the two.

Code flew past her screens and clouded her vision for a brief moment while it whirred to life. Within moments, her OS had booted, and it was already marking and labeling every bit of tech in the room that was linked to the hotel’s network…along with several that were not. Curious. She scanned the room, making sure to do a secret handshake with every single thing she found.

Talys’s voice chirped in her ear. “I’m at the room entrance. Damn, this place is fancier than advertised. A suite, I presume. Kitchen alone is half the size of my entire apartment,” she said bitterly. And Talys had enough wealth to afford one of the better b-deck apartments; that is to say, it had more than just one room, and wasn’t a closet. Sev, on the other hand, lived in a loft with a small desk, a dresser, and a ladder reaching up to her bed. And that was it.

“Defenses are loose,” Sev said, pinging to find any ICE nearby. There were—but surprisingly, they were sparse. A guard dog and a few nets to catch unsuspecting digital intruders. She booted up her icebreakers and went to work. The guard dog was first. It wasn’t an actual dog, obviously—ICE were digital countermeasures designed to attack runners intruding on a digital network. Runners like Sev. The “guard dog” was nothing more than an elaborate alarm system, one with an advanced AI that let it sniff around actively and seek out intruders, unlike a more standard tripwire-style alarm system. Fortunately, Sev came prepared for just such a thing. She ran a virus that effectively pinged all over the room like a bouncing ball. The dog, seeking to identify any threats, was too busy following to ever catch up. It was the digital equivalent of throwing a juicy steak to distract a real dog; it chased and chased and chased, never fully able to trace to the root; to Sev.

“Slight problem,” Suzuki’s voice came through her comm. She’d made contact with the mark while they were rappelling down the exterior of the hotel. “The mark is leaving.”

“Leaving?” Ravi replied. “What do you mean leaving?”

“She’s headed back up to her room. I tried to stop her, but if I press any further she’s going to suspect something.”

“Stop her from leaving. Spill a drink on her. Cause a scene. Anything. Just stall for time,” Ravi said, his voice increasingly agitated.

“I’ll do what I can, but she’s on high alert. Something has her spooked, and it definitely wasn’t me.” Suzuki’s voice crackled out as she turned her mic back off.

“Seven, are you in?” Ravi said.

“Not quite yet,” she replied. The nets were causing no small measure of problems. While she ran circles around the guard dog, she had to actively tear through the rest of the security—there was no trick here, no way to distract them, just pure brute force. And every time she cut through one of the nets with her datablade, a new one appeared. To say it was annoying was an understatement. Sweat caked on Sev’s forehead. If she didn’t get through this ICE soon, they might have to abort the whole thing.

“Well hurry it up. We’re running out of time.”

“You try running perpetual distraction on a sentry while simultaneously cutting through several terabytes of restructuring data,” Sev replied with a roll of her eyes. Everyone’s a critic.

She cut through the last defense just as Suzuki whispered into her ear: “Boss, I did my best, but she’s coming up. Also, I’ve been kicked out of the hotel.”

“Sev?” Ravi’s voice was murder.

“The hell did you do?” Talys yelled over him.

“I’m in,” she said. “Hardwiring into her datacore now. Five minutes.” She got up and walked over to Marion’s console, withdrawing a cord from the her own console attached to her wrist. Marion’s was a big, clunky thing, an old flatscreen with an attached folding keyboard. It didn’t have a compatible port, but that wasn’t an issue. With a typed command, the end of her cord morphed to fit the right slot. 

“I’ll explain later,” Suzuki replied, “Right now I’m stuck outside with no eyes on her.”

“Talys, run interference,” Ravi ordered. She confirmed, and Sev heard the front door open and shut loudly from the other room. It was all on her now. A tense minute passed as she started downloading data. 

“I don’t see her,” Talys chirped. “She must have taken a different route or something. She’s not in the hallway by the elevator.

“Keep looking. Try the stairs.”

Sev was almost in…almost…just about…when she heard the click. It was the sound of a safety being turned off. Something cold and hard pressed against her temple.

“Get up,” a woman said, her voice hard. Shit. Sev still had her visor on; she was barely able to see anything that wasn’t digital data or part of the hotel’s network. She stood up, slowly, raising her hands in the air.

“Don’t say a word,” the voice issued. Prying fingers tore her earpiece out of her ear, Ravi’s plotting drowned out by the sounds of reality around her. Her visor was pulled off of her head from behind, and now she could see the world around her. 

“You must be Marion,” Sev said. “Can’t say I’m a fan, so far.”

“Same. Turn around, slowly.”

Sev did. And as she did, ironically, she came face to face with the most gorgeous creature she’d ever laid eyes upon.

The picture Ravi had showed did Marion Bordeaux little justice. Marion was tall—taller than Sev expected, at least 6 inches taller than her, not quite six feet, but close. Her hair was done in waves, cascading across her left shoulder like a delicate waterfall. She wore a gorgeous dress that probably cost more than everything Sev owned, combined. It was a shimmering red, extending down to the woman’s ankles, though with a large slit down the legs that exposed her right leg all the way up to her thighs. Sev’s eyes lingered on that long, creamy leg for far longer than she probably should have, given the situation. Marion’s eyes, sharp and narrow, were trained on Sev…though she couldn’t help but catch those eyes wander up and down Sev’s body as well. Probably just committing her to memory. Right?

“That’s a good girl,” Marion said, and Sev’s knees shook. That shouldn’t be the response to having a gun trained on one’s head, but those were magic words. She bit her lip briefly, then came back to her senses.

“If I were really a good girl, you’d put that gun down,” she said, trying to affect a nonchalant attitude despite the situation.

“And if you were smart, you’d stop speaking out of turn,” the woman said, domineering. “Now tell me what the hell you’re doing here.”

Sev could just barely hear voices chirping in her earpiece on the ground, though it was too far away to comprehend anything. “It’s nothing personal,” Sev explained. “Just a job. Nothing more.”

“Just a job,” Marion repeated. She glanced over to the cord hooked into her console. “And would this job, by any chance, pertain to Jackalope?"

Sev blinked, at a loss. “Jackawhat?”

“...Shit,” came Marion’s response. She lowered her gun just enough to get a better look of Sev. Sev gave her best, most winning smile. “Goddammit, Harper. I can't believe you'd betray me like this...”

“Sucks to be you I guess,” Sev said heartlessly with a shrug of her shoulders.

Marion sighed. “I need answers, and I’m assuming you’re not working alone. So you’re coming with me. Got it?”

“Yeah, I know you have a gun and all, but that’s not gonna happen,” Sev said. They had one rule: don’t get captured. Getting captured was the first step to getting your memories scanned.

The woman leveled her gun right at Sev’s eyes. “Try me.”

---

Next Chapter!