Free Droids Don't Cry by Sam Kepfield

Droids Don’t Cry
    T HEY T RACED H ER J ACKING and sent out a recovery squad. The gridware had a warning trigger, letting her do a quick disconnect. It left her head spinning for a critical few seconds, seconds that might have gotten her fried by the black ninja-suits, but she was far away in an office complex on the edge of town and it took them all of five minutes to speed out there, sirens blaring and lights strobing, to find a broken glass door with small organic traces on the sharp edges and a smashed CPU and monitor.
    By then lisa was well away from the office park—a series of buildings like golden-glass ice-cube trays rising above carefully landscaped mounds and gardens—over the wall and through the brush outside, with a half-mile of decaying housing between her and the office. She stopped in an alley, the misting rain dampening her hair and soaking her clothes, and she hid in the fog beside a Dumpster that smelled of rot and waste.
    She heard the whine of a Raptor III turbojet above, dopplering from right to left, fading and then looping back. Arc lights lanced through the fog, swiveling and probing, looking for her. In the distance, she heard the whoop! whoop! of sirens draw closer.
    The dim turned to white glare, then dim, then back to glare as the Raptor’s spotlight centered on her. Her eyes irised shut against the blinding white. As she ducked away from the Dumpster, she heard a loud hiss and crackle as the electric dart hit metal. Gravel and brick chips bit into her palms and knees as she fell and then scrambled to her feet just ahead of another bolt that tore a chunk from the brick wall. She sprinted to the head of the alley, eyeing the Raptor above and turning her head to the dark, empty street ahead.
    She ran down the cracked sidewalks, weaving as she went, covering a block in ten seconds, then another. Her boot slammed against an upraised lip of concrete, sending her tumbling head over heels, landing against a brick storefront. Another wire-guided dart lanced out, hitting the wall above her shoulder as she twisted out of the way, rolling and leaping up and through the plate-glass window as laser beams sliced through the sidewalk and metal facing.
    Inside, lisa wove around the pitch dark filled with the detritus of tipped shelves and displays, racing to the back door, heaving against it and breaking the rusted chain looped through the handle, out into the alleyway again, just as a black police cruiser skidded to a stop. Two figures emerged from the wedge-shaped car. Downloaded instinct kicked in. She ignored the command to stop and rushed the nearest one instead. A shot went wild before she slammed into the cop and bulldozed him against the car, with a rush of breath out of his lungs and a snapping like wet sticks in a bag. Her left hand went to his right, closed around the .41 automag, and yanked it free. Pivoting, she sent an elbow to the cop’s face, knocking him out. She aimed the magnum at the Raptor and squeezed off four shots. All four struck home. The Raptor wobbled and rapidly fell from view behind the skyline. A muffled crump, a flash of light, and a mushroom cloud of smoke marked the demise of ten million dollars’ worth of lightweight metal, plastic, and circuitry.
    After firing the last shot, lisa whirled around, assumed a perfect Weaver stance, and leveled the automag at the remaining cop, who had his weapon pointed at her. He was young, dark-haired, tall and handsome, and in another life…He was sweating, his hands trembling slightly as he thumbed the safety off. The hood of the cruiser separated them.
    “Drop it, skinjob,” he growled. “You’re coming with me.”
    “Or what?” she challenged, voice dripping contempt. “You’ll shoot? I can duck that, you know. You might wing me. And then I’ll have to kill you.”
    “Backup’s gonna be here in thirty seconds, less. Drop it. Now.” He was going to wait out the clock.
    She sighed. “You’ve forced my hand. I’m sorry.”