Free The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 by J. Kraft Mitchell

to refer to you by your real name.  It was just as well. 
Jill’s reputation came with her real name, and this guy was apparently
impressed.
    The next thing
she noticed was that the letter was signed “Sketch.”  That got her heart
racing a little.  The Sketch?  Anyone with any involvement in
illegal activities on MS9 knew that name.  Sketch was involved in just
about every game in town—guns, drugs, prostitution, you name it.  If there
was a governing body for the local criminal underground, Sketch was the prime
minister.  If there was a mafia on Anterra, Sketch was the Don.
    And now he wanted
to hire Jill.
    This job would
definitely be the highlight of Jill’s career.
     
    JILL always did a little research before an errand.
    When she did a
search on Tanaka Brothers’ Gallery, she found out it had been in the news not
too long ago.  Last week an employee there had been arrested. 
Neither the gallery nor the police would say why.
    Jill knew
why.  Sketch had tried to use an inside man to get the list off the
computer, and that inside man had been caught and thrown in jail.  Jill
smiled to herself.  She wouldn’t be joining him.
     
    SHE flew her bike to the Aurora Bridge Mall early that evening.  The bridge
was a massive stone and metal structure overlooking the river.  The river
was actually just a long, skinny extension of the lake, north of the Avenue of
Towers.  The mall was made up of tiers of brick walkways just off the
bridge, lined with shops of expensive trinkets, clothes, art, electronics, and
so on.
    Jill found Tanaka
Brothers’ Gallery on the third tier.  It was a fairly small place between
a coffee bar and a book shop.  She paid a nominal fee and walked inside.
    Photography had
never been Jill’s thing, especially this kind of photography.  The images
were all black and white, or else tinted a single color like red or
yellow.  The photos were of people, trees, buildings, all at strange
angles and with strange blurred effects.  Most of the pictures were
mounted on glass partitions that created a sort of maze through the little
place.
    There was one
security guard in the gallery.  He didn’t look as bored as security guards
usually looked.  There was also a nicely dressed Japanese host who must be
one of the Tanaka brothers.  At one point she saw him disappear into a
white door in the white wall at the back of the gallery.  The office would
be up the stairs behind that door.
    She’d have to get
into the office after hours.  Her original plan had been to hide until
closing time, then have the place to herself.  It wouldn’t be the first
time she’d used that method.  But there was no place to hide here—no
restrooms, no furniture; just one room with glass partitions.
    Jill left the
gallery, sat on a bench across from it, and started cooking up a Plan B while
shoppers buzzed around her.  She made a quick survey.
    The Gallery offices
were on the second floor.  The book shop next door was three stories high.
    She went into the
book shop.  It had a nice atmosphere to match its merchandise, tall wooden
shelves and reading areas with antique furniture.  A stairway in back led
to level two, which was not as busy as level one.  Another stairway led to
level three, which was even less busy.  She walked to the back corner—the
philosophy and theology section, which was the emptiest area of all.  A
door in the corner said “Employees only.”
    It was after six
o’clock.  Tanaka Brother’s Gallery closed at seven.  The book shop
closed at nine.  Jill grabbed a volume off the theology shelf and found a
chair by the window across the room.  She appeared to be engrossed in a
massive, centuries-old religious exposition.  She was actually engrossed
in other things.  To one side she could see out onto the mall
walkway.  Since the book shop was at an angle compared to the gallery, she
could see the front door of the gallery as well.  To the other side she could
see the