Free The Nexus by J. Kraft Mitchell Page A

emerged from the employee door and went downstairs.
    At two minutes before eight o’clock, Mr. Tanaka left his gallery.
    The middle-aged woman hadn’t come back.
    Jill set the book aside and approached the employee door.  There were no customers in sight.  She knocked.  No one answered.  She knocked again.  No one answered.
    Jill went through the door.
    She was in a small office in the back of the building.  It had a window to one side—a window that overlooked the rooftop of Tanaka Brothers’ Gallery next door.
    A minute later she was on the gallery roof.  The mall below was brightly lit and crowded; the rooftop was silent and dark.
    She went to the back edge of the roof.  Metal rungs built into the wall made a ladder leading down to the alley behind the gallery.  A window in the second story office was within reach of the ladder.  The lock on the window would have been easy to jiggle open if she hadn’t been doing it leaning out from a ladder.  She still managed.
    Now she was in the office.  It was small and cramped.  The computer glowed on the desk.  The monitor played a slideshow of the Tanaka Brothers’ photos.  How narcissistic.
    Just about every errander had basic hacking skills.  It took only a few moments to bypass the computer’s security login; a few more moments to locate the document file called HPCAMVEN; a few more moments to scribble its contents—a couple dozen names and addresses from Earth—into Sketch’s notepad; a few more moments to cover any sign that the file had ever been opened.
    By the time the spectacled woman was wondering who had opened her office window, Jill was on her skybike a half a mile away from the Aurora Bridge Mall.

9
     
    SKETCH’S address was a high rise suite up the river from the mall.  It wasn’t really his address, Jill was sure; it was just a place he’d picked to conduct tonight’s business.  Jill parked on the street a block away from the tall, round building and walked toward it.  Behind one of those glowing windows on the twenty-third floor, he was waiting for her.
    She paused half a block away from the high rise.
    The thing about doing a job was that once it started you didn’t usually have time to think about anything except the job itself.  It was rare when you got a breather, had a little time for your mind to wander.
    Like right now.
    The thought had been pushing its way further and further to the front of her mind.
    Maybe she should have accepted Holiday’s offer.
    In the notepad in her backpack was the list.  She’d stolen it from people she didn’t know.  She was bringing it to a man she didn’t know, who wanted it for reasons she didn’t know.
    She’d called Holiday’s offer ridiculous.  And it was.
    More ridiculous than being a pawn for criminals who couldn’t care less whether you live or die once they’ve done with you?
    It was a long time before Jill started walking again.  And when she did, it was away from the high rise.
     
    TWO hours later she was at a classy hotel near the west rim.  Off the lobby was a row of empty payphone cubicles.  She took out a screwdriver, opened the inner workings of one of the phones, and made some personal modifications including the addition of a device she’d brought along.  Then she dialed.
    A few seconds of canned music played on the other end of the line.  Then:
    “Anterran Governmental Complex.  How may I direct your call?”
    “I need to speak to a jail warden, please.”
    “I’m transferring you now.”
    Canned music filled the line for several moments.
    “Warden Bollis.”
    Time for one of Jill’s best impersonations.  “Hello, I’m calling with the Anterran Daily Recorder , regarding the escaped prisoner.”
    An uncomfortable grunt.  “I’m sorry, I don’t have time—”
    “It will only take a moment, sir.”
    “They told us not to talk to the press.”
    “I understand.  In that case, maybe you could transfer me to the personnel who arrested her in the