Free The Last Firewall by William Hertling

She paused. “Something with a fire escape.”
    He made choking sounds, which she gradually realized was a laugh. “It’s two hundred extra for a fire escape. You want it?”
    She slowly shook her head. That’d leave her nothing for food.
    “I give you the third floor, and if there is a fire, you just jump.” He cackled some more.
    Cat handed over the bulk of her payment cards. Her boot felt empty.
    The old man handed her a digital key on a chain.
    “No ID locks?” she asked.
    He laughed again. “Room 317c.” He pointed down the hall toward an elevator.
    On the third floor, she tried to find 317c, getting lost in a maze of mismatched doors. The original apartments had been broken up into smaller rooms. She finally found it, entering to find a small bedroom with a microscopic bathroom. She walked over to the window. She tried opening it, but it wouldn’t budge. Four screws told her why. She looked out toward the street. She didn’t think she’d be jumping three floors anyway.
    Domicile secured, it was time to look for a job. She stared at her backpack, self-conscious. She’d look less like a vagrant without it. To most people, the bag held almost nothing: clothes, toothbrush, some energy bars. But it was everything she had, and her stomach lurched even at the thought of leaving it behind. She caressed the bag with one hand, swallowing hard. She turned to the door, leaving it on the bed.

13
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    “I ’ M TIRED OF THIS ,” Tony said. “It’s not right.”
    “Shut up and help me,” said Slim. He carried the woman, his slight frame struggling with her weight.
    Tony reluctantly took one arm and dragged her across the room. Her head drooped and her mouth hung open, still unconscious from the neural stun.
    The solid wooden chair faced the window. They left it that way as they wrestled her limp body into the seat. She was heavier than she looked at first glance, heavily muscled under her now rumpled clothes. When they had her positioned, Slim got out a roll of duct tape.
    Tony looked on, depressed about the whole situation. “None of the others told us anything.” He glanced over at the memory extraction machine on the table, just a little aluminum box with a couple of positionable antennas protruding from the rear. “They can block us somehow.” The neural stunner had worked fine, but the memory extraction failed to function against their hardened, military grade implants.
    “We don’t know that,” Slim said. “This one, I think she’s the leader. She’ll tell us something.”
    Tony shook his head but said nothing. He hadn’t liked Slim’s plan from the start. And repeating something that didn’t work the first seven times was dumb. Slim had certain skills, but thinking wasn’t one of his strong suits. He broke open an ammonia smelling salt under the woman’s nose. The pungent odor overwhelmed the room immediately and her head jerked up.
    “Hello, Sonja,” Slim said.
    Sonja moved her body violently but ineffectually. Slim had duct taped her legs, arms, and body to the chair. She struggled, but there was no give. When she realized the effort was futile, she stopped and looked at the two of them. “I must be getting close.”
    “Very good, Sonja,” Slim said. “You are. But now we need something from you, the records of your investigation.” Slim was silhouetted by the cheerful sun coming in the window. “We want to know what you know.”
    Sonja said nothing, just stared off past them. “Let me go.”
    Slim bent down in front of her face. “Just tell us, Sonja. It’s not hard. You’re investigating some murders.” He caressed her neck. “We already know you are. So it can’t hurt to tell us what you know.”
    She grimaced again and tried to pull her head away. She was wearing a necklace, some kind of tribal carving. Slim looked at it and yanked it off. “Answer me. How did you find out about the murders?”
    Sonja didn’t reply.
    Tony looked over to the aluminum box on the table.