Free Inquisitor by Mitchell Hogan

twice.
    Outside on the service floor, the LEP was a twisted mass of smoking, jagged metal. One of its eyes still functioned, a violet light following her as she scurried past. She shot it and, with gritted teeth, slipped out through a disused exit.
     

Chapter 5
    Angel kept her head down, covering her face with her hair as best she could. She pushed her bloodied hands deep into her jacket pockets. She’d already pulled out the shards of glass and made makeshift bandages from strips of a passing tablecloth, but she needed stitches. Probably a lot of them.
    As calmly as she could, Angel walked down the back street to the nearest metro station. One stop later, she got off and swapped to a different line. Another stop, and she repeated the procedure.
    Twenty minutes of brisk walking, and she entered a shopping complex kilometers from her hotel. News streams she accessed via her implants showed pictures of her on the crime channels.
    She bought strong painkillers along with tinted glasses and a tight woolen cap. A quick scan of the establishments, and she found what she was looking for: a medical center. It was dark and dingy inside, and the carpet threadbare. Just the thing.
    The doctor was shady, wearing a stained lab coat and surrounded by yellowing paint and outdated equipment. She seemed half asleep and surprised to see someone walk in.
    “Yes?” the doctor said querulously, as if not sure whether Angel was a customer or an inspector . A name tag pinned to her coat labeled her as Dr. Woodrow, and she was sixty if she was a day.
    The medical center was obviously either a front for dishonest business or only saw the poorest of the poor. Angel pushed aside her Inquisitor’s instincts, forcing her attention to more urgent matters.
    “My hands have been cut. They require stitching.” Angel held them out. Her bandages were starting to bleed red splotches.
    “Looks nasty. Please, sit here.” Woodrow indicated a plastic chair next to a bright light.
    Angel paused, slightly surprised by the doctor’s lack of curiosity as to how the injuries were sustained. After a beat, she sat, and the “doctor” took out a pair of scissors and snipped away the linen strips. Humming to herself, Woodrow made quick work of stitching the cuts and applied a layer of artificial skin with greater skill than some of the derma-surgeons Angel had seen at HQ.
    “The stitches will dissolve in a week. You can peel the covering off then. Try not to use your hands.”
    Angel snorted. “Hard not to. I’ll survive. It’s not the first time I’ve had to be patched up.”
    “I can see that.”
    Angel wondered how much more the doctor had noticed, although if Woodrow recognized her from the bulletins, she didn’t show it. Or she didn’t care. Angel transferred a large cash payment to Woodrow’s account, using her untraceable anonymous credit chit, the one she carried for emergencies.
    She stood up, flexing her hands. They hurt, but they’d be useable. “You never saw me.”
    Woodrow merely smiled. “That’s my specialty.”
    Angel found a beauty salon and had her dark hair bleached white. Red urgent messages had been pouring into her inbox for the last half hour. She didn’t dare access any for fear they could trace her location.
    She needed somewhere to go, to stop and think for a while.
    It wasn’t long before she was walking down the streets of the entertainment district. Along a narrow but clean side alley she found what she was looking for: an exclusive club catering to the wealthy, the type of place where money could buy almost anything.
    At the door, she flashed her credit chit. With a smile, the doorman, an actual human doorman, waved her inside.
    She chose a booth at the back, ordered something alcoholic at random along with a rare steak, sat back and relaxed.
    For the time being she was safe. An establishment such as this wouldn’t turn her in, even if they knew she was a wanted criminal. In fact, they would more likely have a