All these years of single-minded focus have led me here, to this. If I can find her, I’ll be able to drag all LaRoux’s crimes into the light. Not like Flynn Cormac did, but publicly, irrefutably—with Towers, I can prove enough of what he’s done to ruin him.
I’m starting again with Towers’s arrival at Corinth—under a fake name, of course—and preparing to comb through the arrivals records for that date again, when off to my left I hear the soft rippling chime I assigned to the mailbox I left for Alexis. Huh. Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again, Dimples.
I lift my left hand, clad in a half-finger sensor glove, to point at the screen, then beckon. The sensors beep at me obediently as they switch the displays, flipping my main screen away to the left, and throwing up Alexis’s message in front of me. I’d pretend I wasn’t grinning, but there’s nobody here to know.
Hi babe,
No need to come over tonight after all. My father and some of his friends stopped by, so I’m going to go out to dinner with them. I’ll see you this weekend though—we’re still on for the park where we met last time, right? I’m dying to see you.
Love, Alice
My grin dies, crumbles to dust, and blows away on a cold, cold wind as I stare at the message. Oh, hell. But I don’t have time to dwell, because I’m already yanking down a keyboard, fingers flying over it to trace back her message and bring her cameras to life as I voice my other instructions. “Command: Scan the message on screen forty-nine. Check for security breach. Make sure no bugs got in with it.”
The ping takes only a few seconds, and I force myself to slow my breathing, close my eyes for a moment, so I’m ready when two soft chimes announce the security check result, and success with the camera.
“Security intact,” the system promises me. And then the cameras blossom to life, delivering half a dozen sharp images of her apartment to my screens, and my oh-so-calm breath jams in my throat.
There’s a brute of a man standing over her in a bedroom, and as I watch she tries to drag herself up onto her elbows, then collapses once more. The gorilla reaches down and helps her up by grabbing a handful of her hair—she whimpers, clearly groggy, and I find my hand lifting, like I can reach through the screen and stop him.
“Where are you taking me?” she asks, her voice catching with a sob that could be real, or could be one of her tricks—though given the situation, it has to be at least partway genuine. She’s given me the warning I need, though—they’re going to move her. While part of me is taking a deep breath—whatever they’re planning to do to her, that means there’s time before they do it—the rest of me is filling with dread. Because if they need to move her first, it’s probably going to be messy.
I speak again as I flex my legs, the movement instructing my chair to straighten up and release me. “Command: Open a voice channel to Mae.”
Seconds later, Mae’s cheery voice is flooding my headset. She always sounds like she was just sitting there, wishing you’d call. “Why, hello there, Handsome! What’s the special occasion?”
“I need backup.”
The shake in my voice is enough to stop her in her tracks, and the laughter drops away. “Emergency?”
“The worst,” I say quietly. “I’m sending you an address. I’ve got LaRoux security forces removing an ally of mine. I’m going after her, I need eyes.”
She sucks in an audible breath. “Honey, you’re not ready for this. We don’t have half the files we need to—”
The gorilla pulls Alexis to her feet, steadying her by the shoulders as she sways, trying to blink her way back to consciousness.
I peel off my gloves, scrabbling through the pile of clothes on my bed to dig out my boots. “So that’s why I need to get her back with minimal contact. Find me security cameras, public access cameras, traffic cameras in the vicinity of my current feed. I need to see where they go.”
“And how the hell am I going to figure out which one’s them?” Mae asks, though I can see from the displays she’s throwing up on my right-hand screen that she’s already on it, as I pull on my boots and tie them with shaking hands.
“Look for—”
She finishes the sentence for me. “Anything with a LaRoux badge, got it.”
On-screen, the gorilla’s speaking to Alexis again. “We’re going somewhere we won’t be disturbed. You can tell us exactly what you were doing when you came calling, and why your friend was there.”
“My friend?” She sniffs, lifting a tearstained face, giving him the full force of her big eyes and running mascara. She’s trying, even now, to protect my identity—or maybe just to protect her own. “I don’t know anything about the guy I was with, I promise. We didn’t go together. He took me hostage.”
Easy there, Dimples. Definitely not trying to protect me. I find one of my reversible T-shirts, with a LaRoux Industries logo on one side, black on the other. I flip it black side out and haul it on over my head, followed by my climbing harness. It’ll attract attention, but if I end up needing it to reach Alexis in time, I don’t want to be fumbling with straps—and I’ve seen plenty weirder fashion on the streets of Corinth. Then I’m digging through a nest of wires to find what I—usually laughingly—call my crime bag, and slide my lapscreen in beside the supplies already there. I shove my night-eye goggles on top of my head and jam an earpiece into my ear, and running a wire from it to my screen, I’m ready. “I’m going mobile, Mae. Lock the signal down as tight as you can for me.”
I hate the idea of broadcasting our conversation, but we don’t have time to rig up anything more elegant. Alexis doesn’t have time.
“Done,” Mae says, her voice crisp in my ear. “I see the car they’re using, I’m ready for them.”
“Careful, there’ll be traps.” But she already knows that—LRI brings a whole new meaning to system security. I press my face against the iris-cam at the door and shove my thumb against the scanner, and my door releases with a hiss.
Mae laughs, though she doesn’t sound amused anymore. “Please. I know what I’m doing, kid.”
I bolt out into the alleyway outside just as Dimples and her friends leave Kristina’s apartment.
With a ping from Mae, my headset throws a transparent projection of the camera feeds up in front of me, the audio streaming directly into my ear as I hurry down the alleyway and out into the broader street beyond. It’s lined with stalls and shouting hawkers, roofed over by the next level of housing above us.
Alexis is speaking as she’s bundled into a car, and I’m smelling Mama Samorn’s rice as I run past the stalls, focusing on the voice in my ear as my worlds jumble together. “What, you think because he picked me for his safety shield he decided to tell me his master plan?” Alexis’s voice is still shaking. “If you want to know why he was there, why don’t you find him and ask?”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” the gorilla replies, as the camera angle switches to one inside the car, mounted by the driver’s head. “And you’re going to help.”
“But I don’t know anything,” Alexis wails, drawing her knees up to her chest. The way her gaze darts around, I think she’s wondering if she can kick one of them in the guts, then lunge for the door. But it’s some kind of stretch limo, and she’s got three of them in the back with her. It’s not going to happen.