4.5
I drop down from the crate stack, landing in a slight hunch, my body tense. Fingers waits by the claw, gripping the Ourovane case tightly by the handle. Her suit, like mine, is too damaged to recoup its energy reserves and maintain invisibility. This is going to make getting out of here a lot harder, especially with that employee’s warning about security on the way. And Fingers looks hurt, leaning on the conveyer hose atop the crane head, catching her breath.
She pulls the MX-3 inhaler from her pocket and lifts it to her face. The synthetic skin over her mouth peels back, revealing thin, bloody lips. She takes a deep pull, the vapour hissing as it fills her lungs. A small shudder runs through her before she coughs, shaking it off. The suit seals shut around her mouth again, and she looks at me. “You okay?”
I flex my arm awkwardly, gesturing towards the pouch on my left shoulder. “Spoofer’s disconnected. Need you to jack it in. I—this arm makes it difficult.”
Fingers steps closer, pressing against the area where the spoofer sits. The anti-fibre skin reacts instantly, peeling away to expose the port. “Is it broken?”
“I don’t think so.” It looks intact, probably just a loose wire, maybe dislodged by the magnet or jolted free from the electricity. Doesn’t matter. I pull out my neural cord, and as Fingers inserts it into the spoofer, the connection stabilises. The skin warps back into place when she pushes the lead along my neck.
I squint, seeing the same quick-hack list from before. Relief washes over me. If it had been wiped, we’d be screwed, totally doomed. No way out except guns blazing, and we’re in no shape for that.
Fingers climbs back onto the crane head, and I follow her up. Using ‘Manual Override’, I guide it through the floodgates again, listening to it rumble to the top. Rain pounds down on us, relentless and heavy, so much so that, even if our suits were working properly, the force of the weather would no doubt unveil them regardless. The brewing storm lashes out with squalls so fierce they nearly knock us off, while the rain pelts our sides like tiny, nipping bullets. Below, the sea churns, heaving its black, foaming body against the hull of the cargo ship. It roars and snarls, each wave a clawed hand that slashes at the steel plating, trying to drag the colossus down into its maw. The ship groans in protest, its gargantuan frame lurching side to side like a drunkard trying to stay upright in a fistfight. The deck tilts sharply with every swell, creaking and listing and thud-thud-thud. Workers, both humans and androids, have evacuated, not a single one in sight, and farther south, where the other ships taper out and a set of squalid marinas sit moored to the piers, I see strange lights—those lights. Drones. They’re approaching, their red blinkers cutting through the mist like warnings from the underworld.
This time they’re not looking to scan material. They’re looking for us.
I grab Fingers by the shoulder and pull her behind the centre hose of the crane head, keeping out of sight from the drones. Although they are a good distance away and move rather slowly, they likely have infrared scanning technology that can detect abnormalities from a mile away.
She notices them, too.
I look towards the terminal, finding most of the workers scattered about like yellow ants, their supervisors on the holo, calling for security. All we have to do is stay clear, stay low, and ride the crane head towards the terminal, lower it down, and wait for the perfect opportunity to—
The crane head suddenly halts, and the conveyor pulley pops, sending a plume of smoke and electricity into the air.
“What happened?” Fingers says, her voice panicked.
I try to bring the crane head back to life, but my spoofer blinks with a red message:
ERROR: **XR-HT3000 Series 1** CIRCUIT FAILURE. PROCESSING INCOMPATIBLE.
The circuits. The employee had mentioned there was a problem with them. Not good. Not good at all.
“The crane head,” I say. “It malfunctioned.”
She flails a frustrated arm. “You’ve got to be fucking shitting me,” she says. “Now, of all fucking times?”
“I don’t know.” I point to my neural port. “It won’t hack if it’s broken. The spoofer doesn’t respond.”
“What?” she says. “What kind of shitty model is that?”
“I don’t know!” I say, unsure of how to reply. “It’s just—it doesn’t work that way. And I hate to rush, but those drones are gonna be here any minute and we’re sitting ducks.”
Fingers peeks around the side of the crane head, groaning, wondering, thinking. She takes a step up on the side of the crane head, holding one of the pistons for support, tugging on the conveyor like some dead cable. She runs her hand along the crane pulley itself, then looks over at the sea, then once again back at the approaching drones. “Okay,” she says. “I have an idea, but you might not like it.”
I clear my throat. “What?”
“The crane pulley.” She points at it, at its long body which extends the entire way down to the terminal. Then she points to the side of the cargo ship, where the water swirls and clashes, foams and sloshes, up and around and back and forth.
There’s a jetty between this ship and the other, with a ladder leading into it. The wooden planks are warped from years of salt and sun, dark stains marking places where seawater has pooled and dried in endless cycles. A set of rusted metal stairs leads up from the jetty to the terminal above, their edges lined with algae and chipped paint. To the right of the stairs, a massive sewer pipe juts out from the concrete wall, its grated mouth yawning over the water below. Thick bars block anything, or anyone, from slipping inside, but the rot still seeps out. A steady trickle of murky water drips from its underside, spilling against the waves in rhythmic splashes. The dark liquid disperses into the sea, mixing with the foam before vanishing into the current.
Fingers focuses on the jetty. “We get down there, we swim across, we climb up the other side,” she says, more to herself than to me.
I stare at the sewer pipe, then at the swirling mess of water between the ships. “You want us to swim in that?”
Fingers looks at me, and I can tell, even through the mask, that she’s glaring. “Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
“How do you expect us to jump in?” I say. “The crane isn’t positioned over the water, and this ship is way too damn big for us to hop.”
“Rotate the crane,” she says, pointing to the pulley. “Position it above the water. We jump, we swim, we climb.”
“And if we get carried away by the waves?”
“The waves are pushing against the breakwater,” she says. “Look.”
I follow her finger, squinting past the mist rising off the sea. In front of the sewer outflow, where the harbour wall meets the water, a heap of massive rocks juts out. They’re haphazardly stacked, some half-submerged, others jutting up at odd angles, their surfaces worn smooth from the endless clash of tide and storm. The waves slam against them, curling white foam over their edges before rolling back into the sea. The breakwater does its job well: redirecting the current, keeping the worst of the surge away from the docks. But the water here is still a mess, churning between the ships, sloshing against the rocks, twisting and pulling in unpredictable swells.
“The water is pushing against the breakwater,” she repeats. “We need to ride the current towards the ladder. Worst case scenario: we use the rocks to climb.”
It’s definitely an idea I don’t like—it’s a high fall and I’m not sure I can swim with only one arm—but what choice do we have?
Fingers nudges me. “There’s not much time.”
She’s right. We’re stuck up here otherwise. Seeing no other option, I use ‘Manual Override’ on the crane itself, select ‘Rotate’, and watch as it slowly positions itself over the rough waters. It’s high, very high, more than fifty metres. I look over at the blinking drones and see that they’re practically already over the smuggle ship, sweeping their red scanners all along the docks and crates. One of them approaches the crane. It’s on to us.
Fingers tucks the Ourovane case between her arms. “Fall straight,” she says. “In three... two... one....”
I take a deep breath.
A bit of silence. Then, Fingers says, “Jump!”
We leap off the crane and plunge fifty-some metres to the sea. When it hits, it hits hard. The water doesn’t welcome me: it slams into my skin, a cold, crushing force that knocks the breath straight from my lungs. For a moment, there’s nothing but chaos. The world twists, turns, tumbles. My body flips, weightless and directionless, swallowed whole. The water bubbles and plugs my ears, even through the suit, muffling everything into a deep, humming silence. My heart pounds, each beat a dull thud inside my chest. The cold seeps in fast, wrapping around my limbs, tightening, numbing. I kick, but the sea drags at me, thick and heavy, as if wanting to keep me. Pressure builds in my head, in my ribs. I need to breathe. I need to get up. I beat against the waves, struggling to fix my sight on the surface above. Through the spoofer, the LED encryptions along the ship’s stern flicker in coded bursts of green. Ahead, the safety ladder dips into the water, barely visible between the chop of the waves. Fingers is almost there, the Ourovane case held high above her head as she kicks, angling her body to ride the current towards the jetty.
I follow suit, stretching out, arm upright, kicking hard. The water batters me from every direction, reckless and wild, but there’s a rhythm to it, a push-and-pull I can work with. I clench my fist. Instantly, the anti-fibre plating over my forearm peels away, retracting like liquid metal. My mantisblade unfurls, long, curved, and heavy. The weight shifts me, just enough. The propulsion of the mechanism acts against the current, a stabilising force. I flex and unflex, small, sharp adjustments, feeling the drag and pull of water against steel. Every movement tilts me, angles me, guides me.
The ladder draws closer. The current shifts, fighting back. I tighten my grip, flick my wrist, let the blade’s momentum cut through the resistance. Closer. Closer.
My fingers brush wet metal. I seize the rung, hold tight, and pull myself up. The ladder jerks under my grip, slick with brine and rust. My knuckles tighten as I cling to it. The waves don’t want to let go. They crash against my legs, dragging, pulling, urging me back into the depths. But I grit my teeth and haul myself upwards, foot searching blindly for the next rung. It’s difficult, especially with only one arm, but I manage, even if just barely.
Then, as I’m about to reach the top of the wooden jetty and pull myself above the surface, a powerful current pounces forward, threatening to drag me towards the rocks of the breakwater, but something, a hand, swoops in and catches my arm. I look up and see the shadow of Fingers through the blue haze of my scanner. She pulls me up, using both arms, pressing her leg against the steel safety rail for support. Soon, I’m out of the sea, and water oozes out of the suit, filling with air. I gasp and crawl on to my side.
“You still in one piece?” Fingers says, catching her breath, too.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
It takes me a bit to respond. Eventually, through the stormy winds, I say, “Do you have the case? Is it okay?”
Fingers reaches down next to me and picks up the case. I didn’t even notice it. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, it is. But you gotta pick yourself up and move. Our suits won’t work, not in this weather. Rain’s too heavy, and it’s too damaged, so we’ll have to be careful.”
“Is the place on lockdown, do you think?”
She shakes her head. “Depends who they called security on. If it’s the rogue bot, no need to lock the terminal down. If it’s us? Maybe. Doesn’t matter.” She nods. “What matters is you getting off your ass and using that spoofer.” She extends a hand. I take it. With a firm pull, she hauls me to my feet. “It still working?”
I nod back at her. “Yeah, works fine in the water, too.”
“Good,” she says. “Watch out for any cameras, disconnect them when needed, and for God’s sake, don’t draw any attention.”
A difficult ask, especially with no invisibility, but I do my best to abide by her words. We head up the metal stairwell leading to the terminal, watching the drones scan the cargo ship overhead, looking like nothing but red glisters through the smog. When we reach the top and see the open shipyard of cargo containers, android units, and those supervisors in black, I scan a camera attached to a datamine watch terminal and use ‘Server Locator’ to link all the cameras in the area. The infrared mode is fully operational on each and every one of them. Not that it matters now, though it’s likely to make identifying anomalies that little bit easier. Still, it’s possible to follow the same route as before, so I lead Fingers through the maze of containers, pulling into the side whenever an android passes by on its tracked base, and when the time comes and there’s no possible way to go without alerting a camera, I turn it off with ‘Manual Override’, moving on to the next tier, and to the next, and to the next. It takes some focus, but eventually we manage to make it back to the loading gate where trucks normally pull through, and thankfully it’s still open. I disconnect the camera linked to a nearby watch terminal, exhale slowly, and step forward. Almost there. Almost free of this Godforsaken rut. Then, a low, thrumming roar cuts through the night. I grab Fingers and yank her behind a nearby dumpster just as a massive shape emerges from beyond the gate.
An aerodyne.
Its twin thrusters burn hot, kicking up swirling eddies of dust and rain as it hovers above the yard. The angular hull, reinforced with composite plating, bears the unmistakable insignia of the security division—“Meridian Transport Patrol.” Its underbelly bristles with sensor arrays, a forward-mounted turret tracking in idle sweeps.
From the shipyard, a supervisor points towards the cargo ship, shouting something inaudible over the engines. A confirmation blip flashes across the cockpit’s external display. Then, with a tilt of its nose, the aerodyne shifts course and surges toward the ship, its thrusters flaring bright as it accelerates into the haze.
I press my back against the dumpster, heart hammering. That must be them.
Wasting no time, we head back through the gate, leaving this place once and for all. We keep running, checking back every couple of seconds, just in case someone spotted us on the way out, but it looks like we’re in the clear. There’s a road leading off to the far left that wraps around most of the district—I presume designed for carriers and trucks—while the right breaks off into the apartment complex where we’d initially observed the terminal yesterday, as well as, of course, the market.
We crouch under a gap in the gate between a pair of rusty bins, heading back to the market sprawl, where patrons rush past one another in heaping riptides. An easy place to get lost in, to hide in. We weave through the crowd, moving fast but not too fast. The bodies pressing in around us provide cover, but they also slow us down. A group of street kids dart between stalls, those damn kids, their hands quick, lifting credchips and microdrives from distracted customers. A woman with augmented arms flexes chrome-plated fingers, bartering aggressively with a vendor over a combat mod. Somewhere in the distance, a gunshot cracks the air. No one flinches. A towering Oni-faced man, his mask painted in blood-red glyphs, stands watch over a gambling den, his glowing eyes sweeping the market, just looking for trouble. A pair of gang-affiliated fixers loiter near a noodle stand, their coats lined with hidden holsters, exchanging low murmurs between bites.
Fingers nudges me. “This way.” She ducks under a string of hanging lanterns, cutting through a narrow alley wedged between two vendor stalls. It leads away from the main sprawl. Away from prying eyes.
I cast one last glance behind us. The market rages on, oblivious. We disappear into the shadows.
On we go, steadily now, keeping pace. When we reach the parking lot, I’m delighted to see Fingers’ Fragment Roamer parked untouched between two lines. It’s a relief, and as we step inside, away from this bastard storm, I realise, with enormous, skin-tingling satisfaction, that we’ve done it. The job: it’s finished, and that hundred grand is ours.
Fingers places the Ourovane case under her seat, starts the engine up, and puts it into gear. She takes off, and soon we’re out onto the main street again, heading back towards the Old Mill.
“Holy shit,” I say, excited. “We—that’s it. We’re out, Fingers!”
“That we are, Mono,” she says, not bothering to indicate at her turns. She tugs the head of her suit down, revealing her neck and collarbone, damp with seawater. Strands of wet cyan hair cling to her skin, the glow of the dashboard lights catching in the soaked locks, making them shimmer elegantly. A few loose strands hang over her face, sticking to the curve of her cheek and the bridge of her nose, swaying slightly with each sharp swerve of the jeep. Her lips are split, a thin smear of blood tracing from the corner of her mouth down to her chin. She licks it away absently, eyes fixed on the road ahead. The cut isn’t deep, just enough to sting, I bet, but she doesn’t seem to care.
I watch her knuckles tighten on the wheel, the subtle rise and fall of her shoulders as she exhales. The city lights streak past the rain-slick windshield, smearing neon reflections across her face. She grins, teeth flashing through the blood.
“We’ll talk about the job later,” she says. “You did good out there, but you have some weaknesses. Some issues that need ironing out. Things I don’t wanna see you do again.”
I nod. “Yeah, I admit I messed up a lot.”
“It’s okay,” she says. “You’re new, at least from what you tell me. But you gotta remember: it’s my life on the line out there, too. Not just yours.”
She has a point there. I really should have stopped arguing with her so much. “I understand.”
She pats my shoulder, taking another turn. “Zip that down. You’re making me nervous.”
I chuckle, unzipping the head of the suit and letting the damp fabric fall loose. Flipping down the passenger-side sun visor, I glance into the mirror. My reflection stares back: blood smeared at the corner of my mouth, hair a tangled mess. The vitals display on my HUD says I’m fine, and more importantly, I’ll live. Still, I really could use a haircut. Fingers mentioned it looked wild the other night, and she wasn’t wrong. Something short, maybe. Tight at the sides, practical. Nothing that could get yanked in a fight or caught in machinery. Yeah, that’d make sense.
Then there’s the issue with the wire connecting to the spoofer. I can’t let that disconnect again. It’s too important, too influential, to my ability to perform. I’ll see what can be done.
What was it Fingers once said? That some people embedded spoofers in their systems as a cybernetic implant? Though, of course, she also mentioned it came with risks, big risks. Still, it’s not like I can live like this, asking someone to pop my neural wire back into place every time it unplugs.
Definitely a puzzler.
After forty-five minutes or so, we make it back to the Old Mill on the south side, across the canal, park up, and head inside to get dressed before meeting Rico at Flux. Fingers had sent him a text on the way, that she’d gotten the material, and he was delighted, wanted to meet up as soon as possible, as did we. Fingers doesn’t break stride as we approach the entrance. She presses her car key beneath the square intercom, the device giving a soft, affirmative beep before the reinforced door unlocks with a mechanical click. We move quickly, our footsteps echoing against the worn floor panels. The hallway stretches ahead, narrow and utilitarian, lined with doorways leading to forgotten storage rooms and abandoned units. At the far end, the large elevator waits, its rusted steel doors marked with that same marking THE BLUES FUCK US RAW!!!
We catch it down to Dash Two and step into the foyer, expecting silence, but instead, I find three figures gathered around the central coffee table. Dance, Cormac, and Vander. The room is dim, as always, the only light coming from the flickering screens mounted on the walls, casting harsh shadows across their faces. Dance Fletcher, the spoofer reveals his true name to be, is hunched forward, a finger pressed to his temple, eyes narrowed in intense focus. In front of him on the table is a small spider-robot, its legs twitching with mechanical precision as it skitters across the surface, making soft clicking sounds. The spider pauses, then moves again, its metal limbs climbing down and tapping against the floor, effortlessly defying gravity as it mounts to a wall and climbs up.
Cormac O’Cormac—what a name—leans back in his chair, lengthy steel arms hugging himself, watching with mild amusement. His oversized, yellow oilcoat drapes to the ankles, edges frayed and weathered. Vander Sinclair stands beside him, his foot tapping restlessly, eyes scanning the tiny bot as it ascends the wall. His expression is less entertained and more impressed, though it’s hard to tell if he’s still adjusting to the novelty or just calculating how best to use it. His hair is still tied back into that ponytail, and those lips are still shining with blue.
“What is that?” Fingers yells through their laughter.
Dance doesn’t miss a beat. He doesn’t even look up as he responds, still guiding the spider bot with a finger to his temple. “Ah, this little beauuuuuuuty is a HexaMite Model 82: military-grade, stealth chassis, composite graphene frame. The legs are all servo-driven with high-torque actuators, so it can crawl, jump, even stick to walls, like you’re seeing. The whole rig’s powered by a lithium-silicon core, pretty efficient for its size, mate.” He grins, eyes flashing as the bot flips mid-air, landing with precision on the far side of the room.
Like a cat, it always lands on its feet.
Fingers and I head into the red room and start taking our suits off, becoming butt-naked. As we get dressed into our other clothes, Fingers says, “And how did you afford that?”
“Didn’t,” Dance says. “Stole it.”
Fingers suddenly stops putting her top on and walks into the foyer again wearing nothing but pants. She looks at Dance, her arms spread wide in confusion. “You stole it? What are you talking about?”
“I got a lead, madame,” says Cormac, standing up to his enormous height, steepling his fingers. He splays them out as he talks, his voice taking on a slow, calculated rhythm, each word dripping with that eerie, British lilt. “Hm, yes. You see, it wasn’t exactly stolen per se. More like, liberated. A bit of... creative acquisition.” He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing slightly as he considers his words. “I’d been tracking a delivery route for weeks, oh yes, I have. The HexaMite Model 82 was making its way through the underground, through a secure transport node. Some fancy corporate types wanted it, but didn’t realise the value of the tech they were hauling.”
Fingers lets her arms hang at her sides. Then she starts putting her top on. “You guys... I told you, it’s not safe to go on these big jobs alone.”
“Well, you sure survived your big job, didn’tcha mate?” Dance says. “I wuddn’t there with you. Cormac wuddn’t there with you. Vander wuddn’t there with you. You got on fine, ay? Although a bit bloody. Otherwise, you’re fine, ay?”
“This was a two-person job,” Fingers says, fixing the T-shirt over her somewhat muscular shoulders. “Any more and it could have messed things up. Besides, how are you controlling that thing? You’re a chemist, not a netrunner.”
Dance removes a data shard from his temple, looking at her with his lips pressed tightly in a straight line. “Don’t have to be. Manual shard. Can control it as long as it’s in range.”
Fingers tightens her belt. “And the range is?”
“Fifty metres,” he says.
“Still need er a netrunner to have any sert of prergress,” says Vander, crossing his arms and standing with perfect posture. He’s so clean-shaven, yet he looks like the sort of man that would do well with a beard. “I knew the routes this convoy takes, having er worked for some of der engineerin’ programmes. Used to manufacture some of the bots myself.”
“You were an engineer?” I ask.
Vander nods. “Thirteen years. Manufactured androids, mainly. Even used to er help out with new designs from Techstrum.”
“I presume you didn’t work for them directly then,” I say.
He smirks. “Ner, definitely not. Hard place to crack into in general, ’specially for a young southsider. I’m not that old, only forty. Need fancy education, like masters and PhDs. I didn’t have no time or money for that. Just learned the trade.”
Fingers juts in. “Still, you guys managed to pull it off? How?”
“Hm, yes,” says Cormac, approaching Fingers closely, tapping his fingers together. “It was all simple, really. Wasn’t hard to slip in. A few well-placed distractions, mhm, a subtle, almost imperceptible diversion.... And just like that, I was in. Took the bot right off the truck, tucked it under my coat like a baby.” He smiles at the memory, his teeth a little too white, a little too sharp. “Not a single soul noticed. Not until after I was long gone, of course. By then, I was sipping tea and admiring my spoil.”
“You...” says Fingers, struggling to find words. She groans. “Look, at least you guys are okay. Mono and I: we got the material. Just gotta meet the fixer and cash in and then we’re done.”
I slip on the last bits of clothing, placing the spoofer on the coffee table in the red room next to Raze’s ashtray. “Yeah, it was—well, I wouldn’t wanna do it again. Probably smell like seawater.”
“More like sewer water, mate,” Dance quips, grabbing the spider bot and carefully placing it back into its containment case. He snaps it shut. “Looks like you took a beatin’, too. Come see me later if needed. Cool worms, Mono.”
“Cool worms,” I repeat, the words sounding strange as they leave my mouth.
“You dressed?” Fingers asks, eyeing me up and down. “Alright, good. Come on.” She grabs the Ourovane case by the handle and strides towards the door.
I start to follow her, but just as I reach the threshold, a cold hand lands on my shoulder. I turn to find Cormac standing there, his arm extended out creepily, a grin stretched across his face.
“She left her keys behind,” he says, pointing towards the red room. “Wouldn’t want to forget those, now, would she?”
I glance at him, unsettled by his gaze, and then back at the room. He’s just standing there, grinning like it’s all a joke.
He’s quite disturbing, I must say.
I step into the red room, grab the keys, and turn to meet Fingers, leaving the place behind as we head out to meet Rico and collect our money.
After all, we earned it.