Free The Nexus by J. Kraft Mitchell

Sketch?  Anyone with any involvement in illegal activities on MS9 knew that name.  Sketch was involved in just about every game in town—guns, drugs, prostitution, you name it.  If there was a governing body for the local criminal underground, Sketch was the prime minister.  If there was a mafia on Anterra, Sketch was the Don.
    And now he wanted to hire Jill.
    This job would definitely be the highlight of Jill’s career.
     
    JILL always did a little research before an errand.
    When she punched in the name of Tanaka Brothers’ Gallery on the net, she found out it had been in the news not too long ago.  Last week an employee there had been arrested.  Neither the gallery nor the police would say why.
    Jill knew why.  Sketch had tried to use an inside man to get the list off the computer, and that inside man had been caught and thrown in jail.  Jill smiled to herself.  She wouldn’t be joining him.
     
    SHE flew her bike to the Aurora Bridge Mall early that evening.  The bridge was a massive stone and metal structure overlooking the river.  The river was actually just a long, skinny extension of the lake, north of the Avenue of Towers.  The mall was made up of tiers of brick walkways just off the bridge, lined with shops of expensive trinkets, clothes, art, electronics, and so on.
    Jill found Tanaka Brothers’ Gallery on the third tier.  It was a fairly small place between a coffee bar and a book shop.  She paid a nominal fee and walked inside.
    Photography was never Jill’s thing—especially this kind of photography.  The images were all black and white, or else tinted a single color like red or yellow.  The photos were of people, trees, buildings, all at strange angles and with strange blurred effects.  Most of the pictures were mounted on glass partitions that created a sort of maze through the little place.
    There was one security guard in the gallery.  He didn’t look as bored as security guards usually looked.  There was also a nicely dressed Japanese host who must be one of the Tanaka brothers.  At one point she saw him disappear into a white door in the white wall at the back of the gallery.  The office would be up the stairs behind that door.
    She’d have to get into the office after hours.  Her original plan had been to hide until closing time, then have the place to herself.  It wouldn’t be the first time she’d used that method.  But there was no place to hide here—no restrooms, no furniture; just one room with glass partitions.
    Jill left the gallery, sat on a bench across from it, and started cooking up a plan B while shoppers buzzed around her.  She made a quick survey.
    The Gallery offices were on the second floor.  The book shop next door was three stories high.
    She went into the book shop.  It had a nice atmosphere to match its merchandise, tall wooden shelves and reading areas with antique furniture.  A stairway in back led to level two, which was not as busy as level one.  Another stairway led to level three, which was even less busy.  She walked to the back corner—the philosophy and theology section, which was the emptiest area of all.  A door in the corner said “Employees only.”
    It was after six o’clock.  Tanaka Brother’s Gallery closed at seven.  The book shop closed at nine.  Jill grabbed a volume off the theology shelf, and found a chair by the window across the room.  She appeared to be engrossed in a massive, centuries-old religious exposition.  She was actually engrossed in other things.  To one side she could see out onto the mall walkway.  Since the book shop was at an angle compared to the gallery, she could see the front door of the gallery as well.  To the other side she could see the employee door across the room.
    The evening grew dark outside as she waited.
    At seven minutes past seven, she saw Mr. Tanaka closing up his gallery for the night.  His security guard left.
    At a quarter past seven, a middle-aged woman in spectacles