Free Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") by Laurence Dahners Page B

him. He’d have to find her AI and destroy it with whatever record it had been making of this chase. But, first he had to get her away from the front of this window; there were people moving around inside. Good thing she’s too short of breath to scream.
    As Jimmy leaned to his left, getting ready to drag the girl away, she put her hand up towards him. He thought she was reaching up to fend him off, but then he saw a small canister in her fingers.
    It sprayed something into his eyes.
    Agony shot through Jimmy Ray. He leaned back, sucking in a breath to yell at her. This sucked the pepper spray down into his lungs as well.
    As if his eyes, throat, and lungs didn’t hurt enough, the bitch’s knee shot up between his thighs and crashed into his crotch.
    Seconds later, as Jimmy Ray crouched on his hands and knees in agony, he heard cops. How the hell did they get here so fast?
    The cops asked what had happened and the girl told them how Jimmy Ray had chased her, offering the record from her AI as confirmation. They pulled him to his feet and dragged him inside the very building the girl had been leaning on.
    Through bleary-teary eyes, Jimmy Ray realized that the bitch had run a loop that had taken them around and brought them right up to the police station. It was like she’d been toying with him! She’d been leaning against the station’s windows when she’d attacked him! Isn’t there some kind of law against this? Entrapment or something?
     
    Mary Stone sat staring at the young woman with some bemusement. Short blonde hair and a cute face. She might have a nice body though it was hard to tell in the oversized clothing she wore. Certainly no one could accuse her of teasing or enticing men by the way she dressed.
    Mary had watched the video record from the woman’s AI in awe. The guy had chased her down the long hill from Rosemary Street and then back up the other side, running faster all the time. She’d led him out through a neighborhood then looped back around, through the parking lot out front and wound up against the front windows of the police station. All without ever seeming to get panicked. The video from her AI showed her glancing back over her shoulder at regular intervals, then running faster if needed to keep the man from catching her. Her breathing and footfalls were steady in the audio record, not at all the panicked gasping that you might expect from a slender young woman being pursued by a large man.
    “Ms.…” Mary looked down at a screen, “Gettnor?”
    The young woman nodded.
    “So, do you know Mr. McAllister?” She clarified, “Jimmy Ray McAllister?”
    Gettnor shook her head. “I assume you mean the man who chased and attacked me. No, I don’t know his name. However I have seen him at the homeless shelter quite a few times.”
    Mary blinked. Despite the worn, poorly-fitting clothing the young woman’s speech did not strike her as typical for the homeless people she had known. “Do you work at the homeless shelter?”
    Gettnor shook her head.
    Mary glanced back down at her screen then back up at Gettnor. “Are you homeless?”
    Again, Gettnor merely shook her head.
    Mary tilted her head curiously, “Then how did you come to be seeing him at the homeless shelter?”
    “I eat dinner there a lot of nights. You don’t have to be homeless to eat at the shelter. Mr. McAllister, if that’s his name, has approached me quite a few times. He sits down next to me while I’m eating dinner.”
    “What do you two talk about?”
    “We don’t talk. I get up and leave.”
    “And tonight? Did he sit next to you tonight?”
    “No, he sat at the next table.”
    “But he left at the same time as you did?”
    Gettnor shrugged, “He didn’t get up when I did, but he must have gotten up and left soon after that.”
    “And you think that because?”
    “Because he wasn’t far behind me as I walked down the hill.” Gettnor said this as if stating the obvious.
    “Okay. So then you