Free Escapology by Ren Warom Page B

sending her from bad to worse, to turning an important Cleaning job into a major clusterfuck, provoking an unnerving response.
    Amiga dislikes herself today more than she does most days, and she’s holding her bag away from her body as if it smells rotten. In a couple of hours it probably will, but she’ll be rid of the contents by then. Getting rid of the sneaking self-doubt and bone-deep dislike won’t be anywhere near as easy.
    Rounding the corner at high speed, she attacks the next flight with equal ferocity, aware that time has no intention of waiting for her. Three flights more and she’s out onto the roof of the ’rise, one of about fifty cluttering up the block. Breath coming in hard gusts, she powers across to the edge and crouches out of sight, checking her watch, counting the seconds and her blessings with them. Four minutes. Perfect.
    She accesses her flash, cracking onto the secure frequency cooked up for this little shindig.
    Here.
    Flesh flashes to her right. Deuce, hiding just a little higher on the next ’rise.
    About time, Amiga. What in hell kept you
?
    None of your damn business.
    Faux-hurt ripples down the feed back at her—that’s new, clever bastard.
    Harsh much.
    She rolls her eyes.
Neat trick. Asshole.
    Isn’t it just?
he replies judiciously. Adds with extra snark on the side,
You’re fucking late be tee double-ya, and this is our only chance, so you’ll permit me a little grievance.
    Get off my case. You know I have other business to attend.
    You went on a job first? Did you deliver yet?
    Nope.
    It’s still
with
you?
A great wave of disbelief roars down the feed, rattling her skull.
    She hisses, cat-like.
    Cut that out, Deuce, or I will carve you up. I had to have reason to get into the vault today.
    That’s plain nasty.
    No, it’s my
job,
asswad!
Pissed beyond measure, she slams off the frequency.
    It’s not his fault he irritates her so much, he never used to until she dumped him. Work that one out. She can’t. Taking a deep breath she opens her bag. Next to a black cloth sack she avoids with a fastidious wrinkle of her nose, is a portable bolt-thrower. Deuce’s design. A pretty little lightweight contraption one fuck-load tougher than it looks. Over on the other ’rise, Deuce is packing its twin. The wires on these babies have semi-robotic ovoid weights at the end rather than points, equipped with weapon-system immobilizers. They’re aiming to catch a drone, not destroy it.
    Catch a drone.
    Therein lies her whole ish with this shit. Deuce didn’t furnish her with all the facts, big surprise. Turns out they’re not the only J-Hack collective catching a drone. This thing she’s going to thieve from her boss will be going out on five drones in total to hell alone knows where. One drone would be bad enough, but five? Stupid.
    Drones are a collective, controlled by the Hive Queens. The collective will notice these ones missing; it’s just a matter of time. They won’t find them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t triangulate final positions and use abstracted data to map the probabilities behind the loss. This could, eventually, lead them back to the Hornets. It’s an outside chance, but it exists, and the Hornets are too cool about the whole thing. Why? Because the contract is for Da Fellows.
    Amiga doesn’t dig it. Her danger-dar is on red alert and her continued involvement is down to one single thing: if she doesn’t do this they will. And letting them wander happily to their deaths is not an option. But their naive trust in this Fellows type pisses her off. Especially Deuce’s. He’s got smarts to spare, yet he’s wasting none of them on analysing what the hell might be going on here. It galls her no end.
    She’s halfway through assembling the bolt-thrower when Twist pops into her IM. She jumps for reals, almost putting the bolt through her own goddamn leg.
    Amiga. You need to explain why you aren’t here, reporting in.
    Mouthing a litany of the foulest words she