Dames for Hire by S.C. Jensen

Author:S.C. Jensen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S.C. Jensen
Published: 2021-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

I didn’t sleep. I sat on my wonky chair and sulked. Mittens came out of hiding and sat with me for a while. Then the cat said, “I recorded it. Just in case.”

“Thanks.” I wiped the back of my hand over my eyes and pushed my bangs out of my face. “Not that anyone would care if they’d gotten rough.”

“Maybe not,” Mittens said. “But the feedreels love that kind of stuff. It might be enough to make the Chief uncomfortable.”

“Last time I made Swain uncomfortable, he returned the favour.”

“You didn’t have the media behind you that time. You have to think about things differently now. You aren’t on the force. They don’t like you. But that opens other avenues of protection. Like this guy Vector that just called.”

“Mick Vector?”

“I intercepted that one too.” Mittens purred and rolled over to expose its belly. “Figured the uniforms were giving you a hard enough time without that angle. He left a message for you.”

I tickled the nanoparticle fur absently. “What message?”

“Wants to meet you at the Heights,” it said. “To talk business.”

“Great. You know he’s the one behind the shill I’m supposed to smear for Flint, right?”

“Doesn’t hurt to keep your options open,” Mittens said and grabbed my hand with its claws. “You don’t even like Flint.”

“I like Rae.” I shook the tingling sensation out of my hand and glared at the SmartPet. “And I don’t like Vector’s methods.”

Mittens shrugged in a way no real cat ever could. “Want to call him back?”

“I’ll go,” I said. “Might as well spend a bit of this retainer before I get myself faded.”

“You want a ScanAnon pass? You can afford it.”

“Nah,” I said. “Let them watch me if they want to. I don’t feel like hiding anymore.”

“It’s your funeral.”

I set the cat on the floor and pulled on the overcoat and hat I’d gotten from Dickie. “Do I still look like a pro skirt?”

“Maybe one that doubles as a hitman.”

“Close enough,” I said, and called in the ride.

I had to hoof it a ways to the nearest pick-up point. The auto-driving hacks don’t go down the tertiary roads without video surveillance on every corner. Too easy for a mob of desperate skids to overpower a slow-moving pod, knock out the maglev system, and piece it out for the hock market. I knew HCPD could be watching me. My ID would pop up in the hack system, and if I was flagged—and of course I was—someone down at headquarters would hear about it. But it was late, and the night shift was notoriously lazy, so there was a chance they wouldn’t catch my movements until morning. In any case, they probably wouldn’t try anything inside Gibson Heights. Even Swain watched his step around the highbinders.

So I got inside the hack pod, sat back, and let it take me back to the pretty glass dome that protected HoloCity’s richest, most virtuously delicate snowflakes. The hack slid smoothly and silently along the grid, first through the Grit strips

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