Free Watch Dogs by John Shirley Page A

Pearce. They were pushy, inquisitive, threatening. They might find out about it, if they were persistent and lucky. And if people involved in the project didn’t keep their damned mouths shut.
    Verrick spun in his desk chair, to aim a sudden glare at Starling. “You remembering what we talked about, with respect to Iceberg, Starling? High level discretion?”
    “Sir, yes sir, I do remember,” Starling said hastily, rubbing his hands together in washing motions.
    “Just see that we get all those drones ready when we need them.”
    “Sir, you sure you don’t want them weaponized, sir?”
    “Yeah. I’m sure. They’re not the weapons. Just make sure they’ll do what they’re supposed to. Or you’ll be running through those woods out there, under one of your own drones, instead of some dumb animal...”
    #
    Eight P.M., and Mick Wolfe trudged along a snowy street on the Southside of Chicago, just a few blocks from Washington Park. Cars had made dark, slushy ruts down the middle of the street, past a boarded over restaurant and a liquor store; a truck hissed along through the slush, then turned the corner.
     It wasn’t thick snow; the snowfall had been sparse. Thinking like a Delta Force operative, Wolfe wondered if snow was to his advantage, or disadvantage, in the coming conflict on this terrain. Probably the latter—anything that slowed him down would increase his risk, if he were being hunted. And he knew he’d be hunted.
    He did have one advantage, if Aiden Pearce could be believed. Pearce had gotten back in touch; his face, this time, appearing on the PC where Wolfe had been sitting.
    “You’ll find something that looks like a television remote control, in the top drawer of that desk,” Pearce had said. “That’s a security cam scrambler. Take it with you, and anytime you’re crossing a street it’ll blot out the cameras on the block you’re coming to. It’s designed to look like a glitch in the system.”
    “Take it with me where?”
    “You’re going out to a Tech Shack store! I can see the PC is running slow for your program—you’re going to need an external drive to speed things up. I can’t arrange for it to be brought to you, right now. Too risky. You can simply buy one at the Tech Shack—ten blocks north. I recommend you walk there. Don’t trust the cabs, not till you hear differently. You’ll see someone you’ve met once before on the way—Blank. He may have a message for you.”
    “But Pearce—”
    But then Pearce’s image had vanished.
    And now Wolfe was trudging back from the store with his small backpack over one shoulder; the external drive was tucked into a plastic bag inside the pack. He’d gotten to the store just two minutes before it had closed.
    He looked nervously up the street toward the block of abandoned projects. He wasn’t happy about being out after dark, in Black Viceroy territory. He had a gun, but so what? How many Viceroys would he run into? They’d all be armed.
    “Wolfe...” came the gravelly voice, from the alley.
    Wolfe stiffened, turning toward the alley. Then he remembered what Pearce had said. “Blank? That you?”
    “Yeah. Come in here, outta the street lights...”
    Wolfe crossed the sidewalk, stepped into the shadows. A silhouette stood there—the man’s breath plumed out into a slanting beam of street light. Blank stepped forward, just enough so that Wolfe could see his scar-blurred face, and a bit of his gnarled, burn-reddened hands.
    Wolfe shuddered. He’d met Blank once before in a homeless encampment after asking people on the street how to find Pearce. But he hadn’t gotten a good look at Blank there, in all the smoke from the campfires and the uneven glow from the flickering flame light. Blank had listened to Wolfe’s enquiries, and approached him, claiming he could take a message to Pearce, for a price.
     Wolfe had taken a chance—and Blank had come through. Was Blank the one who’d betrayed Pearce to the hitman that day? It