Juliet slipped into a bathroom door, waiting for Angel to time the movements of some nearby employees. While she leaned there against the cold tile wall, she contemplated what she was doing. She’d come to the chop shop with the vague goal of “shutting it down,” but what did that mean? Was she going to subdue every employee? Was she just going to try to capture Vicky and count anyone else as a bonus? What if Vicky wasn’t in? So far, Angel hadn’t identified her on the camera feeds, but then, they didn’t know who she was or what she looked like.
She subvocalized, “If I try to take out every employee without raising some kind of alarm, this is going to take hours. So much for getting a good night’s rest.”
Angel, pragmatic as usual, replied, “Well, if you can put this task behind you, it might be worth messaging Frida and asking to reschedule your one-on-one lesson with Tanaka for the afternoon.”
“Yeah.” Juliet nodded, thinking it through. “Yeah, good point. It’s not like I’m still working at the scrapyard; Tanaka can’t fire me.” She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the building—faint whines of power tools, pipes creaking, an air scrubber toiling away somewhere, and clanks and thumps galore. The warehouse definitely wasn’t sleeping. “You have control of the local net, right? I don’t have to EMP everyone we come across to stop them setting off alarms?”
“That’s right. I’ll intercept traffic from their PAIs. There’s a breakroom two doors down the hall on the left, and two employees are there. It might be a good time . . .” Angel trailed off as Juliet started moving, slipping out the door into the brightly-lit hallway, smiling at the camera cluster at the far end, and darting toward the door Angel had already highlighted on her AUI. “Was that smile for me?”
“Yep!” Juliet whispered, the sound so slight it might as well have been a subvocalization. “Thanks for being so awesome, Angel. Imagine how hard this would be without you and Fido.”
Juliet lifted her new smart rifle to her shoulder with her right hand and gently turned the handle with her left. Her mini-map showed two red dots about two meters from the door, and when she quietly pulled it open, she saw the chop shop workers sitting at a square, folding table. One was flicking through something on his AUI, and the other was softly blowing on a cup of noodles. Neither looked up as Juliet entered. “Hey, guys, stay calm because I don’t want to hurt you if I don’t have to.”
Both men wore stained, well-worn blue overalls very much like the ones Juliet and her coworkers used to wear in the scrapyard. Neither looked to be armed, and Juliet had a feeling the workers in Vicky’s operation didn’t get into the enforcing, stealing, and transport side of the operation. The man on the left, with the noodles, slowly set his cup down and blew out a heavy sigh of defeat, muttering some softly-spoken expletives. The other one, a slim, black-haired kid who looked to be still in his teens, blinked rapidly several times and then started to jerk to his feet. “Ah-ah!” Juliet stepped a little closer, brandishing the rifle a menacingly. “Stay in your seat, and things will go nice and smooth for you.”
“What is this shit?” the kid whined, falling back into his chair.
“Just do what she says, Flint. We ain’t paid enough to get shot.”
“Good advice from your friend.” Juliet stepped around the table, getting behind the older, calmer man. “Keep your hands on the table, boys. I’m just going to disable your PAIs temporarily.” When she stepped closer to the bigger man, she pressed the muzzle of the rifle into his back, just next to his spine, and said, “Seriously. I promise I’m faster than you. Don’t mess around.”
“Easy. I’m not looking to die.” He spread his fingers wide, pressing them into the tabletop to emphasize his compliance.
“How many in the building like you? I mean not muscle, workers.”
“Eight, not counting us. Ten altogether, I guess,” the man said as Juliet deftly slipped her data jack into his port.
“Quiet, dude!” the kid hissed. “Don’t help this corpo-sec bi . . .”
“That’s enough out of you,” Juliet growled. “Think things will be better if I have to assume everyone’s a banger?” He scowled, and Juliet returned the glare and added, “I’m not corpo-sec, either. If Vicky’s jerkoff buddies hadn’t robbed my friends, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“So, you ain’t calling the corpo pigs on us?”
“We’ll see how it goes.” Juliet wasn’t sure if she was lying. She figured they might cooperate more if they didn’t know she was, in fact, operating on an LCS warrant, though. “Where’s Vicky, anyway?”
“Probably in the office upstairs,” the man in front of her said.
“I’m done with his PAI,” Angel announced right after he spoke. Juliet pulled her cable out and walked around to the kid. When she started to reach her cable toward his exposed port, he leaned forward, avoiding her reach.
“Kid,” Juliet hissed, pressing the muzzle into his back, “just because I’m trying not to make a mess doesn’t mean I’m afraid to do it. Settle down.”
He spat to the side but sat up straight. Juliet plugged her cable in and felt a little dirty despite knowing she was in the right with the whole situation. While Angel worked, she looked at the other man, noting his dark brown irises were focused on the gun at her hip. “How many muscle are downstairs in the work area?”
“Uh, there’s some out front and then two by the bay doors on the work floor.” He nodded toward her Texan. “I know who you are. Vicky put out the word for everyone to watch for a wired-up merc chick with a big six-shooter. She’s gonna be ready for you; I mean, rumor is she hired some out-of-towner to watch her six after you iced two of her crews.”
Juliet’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”
“Juliet, both of these men are in a chat group with more than a dozen other names, some of which match the biometric files on the local network. The groups routinely share schematics and work schedules. The most recently shared file is a vid featuring tear-down instructions for Gal-tech maneuvering thrusters.”
Listening to Angel, Juliet frowned, initially confused by the seemingly off-topic trivia. Then, some dots connected in her mind, and she smiled broadly. “Hey, boys, tell me: Are you working on Gal-tech maneuvering thrusters tonight?”
The kid just scowled at her, but the other guy, the almost normal, kind of friendly, criminal chop-shop worker-drone, chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, we got a big delivery about fifteen minutes ago. Twenty units.”
“So, you all share files with each other on your chat groups?”
The older man’s eyes widened, and he stammered, “Yeah, but . . .”
Juliet winked at him and pulled her data cable from the dark-haired kid’s port. “Don’t worry. You’re cool. I’ll send my package from the kid’s PAI.”
“What?” He spun in his chair, and he almost looked like he would stand up, but Juliet took a step back and waved her gun barrel back and forth. He scowled. “You can’t do that. Besides, I already alerted security when you got here. Nice job not using a jammer, pig.” He smirked and folded his arms over his chest.
“Oh? You did, huh? Guess I might as well just kill you then. Don’t want to have to worry about hostiles on my six.” His mouth opened, and he glanced at the older man nervously. Juliet sighed, shaking her head. “Relax. I’ve got control of the net. Your message didn’t go through.”
While she wasted time bantering with the younger man, Angel said, “I’ve compiled a trojan watchdog daemon and attached it to a slightly modified version of the teardown vid. I’ll send it out to the work crew with a message that he ‘found an easier way to do the job.’ Does that work?”
“Are the door guards on the chat?” Juliet asked aloud, hoping the friendly worker would spill a few more details.
“I don’t think so. I’m only counting ten active names,” Angel said as the friendly guy shook his head.
“Nah, they use their own comms.”
Juliet nodded. “Okay, I’m almost done, and soon you can sit here and relax ‘til this is all over. Push your chairs together, back-to-back.” The kid grumbled, and the man sighed heavily, but they complied. When they were both sitting back to back, Juliet used a couple of shrink-cords to hook their wrists to each other’s chairs. As she stepped toward the door, she asked, hoping for just a little more insight. “All right, boys, last chance to earn some points with me: Where is Vicky’s office upstairs? I’m not seeing her on the cam feeds. Any idea how many will be with her?”
Stolen story; please report.
The older worker, his back to her now, said, “Nah, we never go up there. Can’t be hard to find her office, though. Only she and her goons go up there. Uh, like I said, rumor is she hired a dude to deal with you, so, yeah, that’s all I know.”
“Get melted,” the kid threw in for good measure. Juliet snorted a soft laugh and slipped out the door, following her mini-map to a large room with nearly a dozen red dots moving around.
“You’ll know if they open the trojan, right?” she subvocalized as she approached the opening leading out to the warehouse floor. The whirr of power tools, clanks, laughter, shouts, and music playing from a tinny speaker wafted into the short hallway.
“Yes. Three have already opened it. The watchdog daemon is installing itself.”
“Okay, as soon as you have control of their PAIs, start sending messages to the ones who haven’t opened it. Tell them stuff like, ‘Oh, man, you gotta see this. It’s way faster than what we’ve been doing.’ After all the workers have the watchdog, you can stun them, and I’ll jump the two door guards. Then it’s just Vicky and her guard.” Juliet frowned as she pictured the scene—eight workers suddenly dropping to the floor in a sort of seizing fit. “It won’t give them brain damage or anything, will it?”
“It shouldn’t. The voltage required to disrupt normal synaptic functions is minimal.” As Angel answered her, Juliet watched her mini-map and saw one of the red dots approaching the hallway. She ducked into a custodial closet and stood in the dark, waiting for Angel’s tricks to play out. The red dot paused at the hallway entrance for nearly two minutes, then drifted back onto the warehouse floor. Juliet blew out a pent-up breath; she’d been ready to pull whomever it had been into the closet but would rather let the watchdog handle things. “Five infected, four watchdogs fully installed.”
“Great, Angel. Perfect.” Juliet visualized how she’d handle the two door guards. They’d undoubtedly rush into the warehouse to see what was up when the workers went down. She could probably hit one with the EMP. Could she intimidate the other to stand down?
Something about her being the aggressor, the one to invade their place, made her loathe to hurt anyone. If things were flipped, if these guys were invading her hangar, she was sure she’d feel differently. Still, they were criminals; they were part of the same group that had hurt Bennet and threatened Aya, and Juliet wasn’t afraid to defend herself. Lurking in the dark, her head against the closet door, she whispered, mostly to herself, “Don’t hesitate. Don’t be stupid. If they start shooting, you have to put them down.”
“Six infected. No, eight. They all have the trojan. The watchdogs should be ready in less than two minutes.”
Juliet nodded and pulled the bolt on the smart gun back, peering into the breach, confirming one of the slender black polymer casings was visible in the chamber. When she let the bolt fall shut, she looked at her AUI, confirming the crosshairs and ammo count were present. “I just wish I had a silencer. It would be nice not to alert Vicky.” She sighed and shook her head. “I won’t shoot unless I have to.” Angel didn’t respond, but Juliet could feel her agreeing. She focused on her breathing while she waited, calming herself and steadying her nerves.
“The watchdogs are ready.”
Juliet nodded and, like a ghost, slipped out of the closet, gliding toward the factory floor. “Please change the door guards’ dots to yellow. As soon as you fire the watchdog stuns, boost my speed.” Juliet watched as the two dots furthest to her left turned yellow.
When she’d crept up to the warehouse doorway, she crouched, holding the gun ready. She could see quite a lot on the warehouse floor—pallets piled high with plastic bins and barrels, workstations cordoned off with holographic caution lines where men and women operated grinders, torches, and saws, workbenches lined with equipment, and even open service pits, likely meant for working on stolen vehicles. From her vantage, she could see four employees and, over the top of a big plasteel bin, the top of the bay door where the guards would be stationed.
Angel began her countdown, “Firing in three, two, one, GO!” Juliet stormed through the opening, angling around the large, royal-blue plasteel bin. She crouched at the rear corner, taking in the scene. Angel had taken her literally when she said to boost her speed. Even as she crouched there, she saw two employees falling to their hands and knees, but they moved as if submerged in water. The two guards, visible from her new spot, had been standing together, ostensibly chatting, but now they were mid-whirl, turning with faces comically stretching into surprised expressions as they looked toward the collapsing employees.
Both guards wore similar gear to those at the gate—one with a leather coat, one with an army surplus ballistic vest, and both with a lot of bulky, obvious chrome. They each had large guns on slings. One looked like an electro-shotgun, and the other like a souped-up AK-style rifle. Juliet didn’t want them squeezing those triggers, so, with her mind on overdrive, she reasoned she should make her move while they were still close together. She kept her rifle gripped in her right hand, but she lifted her left, aiming the implanted antennae array at the general vicinity of the two men’s heads. Then, she darted forward, trusting Angel to fire the EMP at the optimal range.
One of the men never saw her coming; he was focused on the weird scene playing out in the warehouse as the workers dropped their tools and fell to the floor, convulsing. The other was good, though, catching Juliet in his peripheral vision and whirling, lifting his gun as he turned. At least, Juliet figured that’s what he meant to do; she’d already closed to five meters before he finished the turn, and his gun came up past his hip. A line of static shot through the center of her vision, momentarily misaligning the top half of the men from their bottom halves, and a high-pitched ping sounded in her right ear, and then both guards started stumbling around, slapping at their heads; Angel had fired the EMP.
Juliet was quick to capitalize. She swept the feet of the guy with the shotgun, sending him crashing onto his back. Then, as the other guard lifted his AK, his face screwing up into the rictus snarl of a madman, she lunged forward with her left hand, stinging him just under his jaw with another one of her paralytic needles. His face instantly calmed, and he haltingly collapsed as he lost control of his limbs in a fast-moving cascade. Knowing he was out of commission, Juliet leaped on the other guy, driving her knee into his back as he tried to clamber to his feet. He’d dropped the shotgun as he fell, and she shoved it, sending it sliding out the bay door.
Angel updated her: “I see you on the camera feeds. I don’t see anyone coming. The workers are recovering, but I’m communicating with them through their AUIs—informing them of the watchdog, letting them know we’re monitoring them, and cataloging their crimes. I hope it’s all right that I’m telling them we may offer them leniency if they don’t struggle.”
“Well, I don’t have any say in that . . .”
“You could pressure Hines.”
“Yeah, all right,” Juliet grunted as she wrapped the guards’ wrists with a shrink-cord. She continued applying pressure with her knee as she shoved her data cord into the first one’s port. She thought about what Angel said and nodded. She was right. “Okay, yeah, ask the workers for a couple of volunteers. Pick the first two to reply and tell them we might let them run for the hills before the uniforms arrive if they come help with these two guards.”
Not long after that, Juliet watched as an older, gray-haired man with quite a paunch and a young woman with facial tattoos that would give Tanaka a run for his money hauled the two hog-tied guards into the back of the white panel van just outside the door. As they closed up the rear doors, she asked, “No other muscle around, right?”
The girl, kind of pretty, with thick eyebrows and irises that moved through oscillating patterns of red, purple, and pink, shrugged and said, “Just Vicky’s new boy toy.”
“Boy toy?” Juliet lifted an eyebrow.
She shrugged. “The blond pretty boy who’s been shadowing her for the last week or so.” She jerked her chin toward the cameras. “She’s probably waiting for you.”
Juliet grinned. “Nah, she’s seeing a loop of you guys working your tails off.”
“True?”
“True-true.” Juliet contemplated her for a long moment, imagining herself standing there with grease-stained fingers, dirty old work clothes, and hair pulled back in a ponytail. “There any creeps working on the floor? Anyone I shouldn’t let go?”
The older guy could tell Juliet was talking to the girl, but she saw him shift a little, sort of clearing his throat like he wanted to say something. As the girl contemplated the question, Juliet looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Well? Someone who ought to be here when LCS rolls up?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Downing.”
“He’s an asshole,” the girl confirmed. “Runs the floor for Vicky.” She peered into the warehouse. “He’s sitting over there by the belt grinder.”
“Anyone else?”
The girl shook her head. “Nah, everyone else is pretty cool.”
“Okay, listen. The program controlling your PAIs will self-delete in twenty-four hours. Get everyone together and walk out of here. No vehicles! I don’t want to tip Vicky off. If you try to start a vehicle, you’re going to get zapped. Understand?” She looked out the bay door, through the chain-link fence, at the dark industrial district. “Walk a couple of miles, and then the program will let you call a cab or a friend. It’ll be listening, though—don’t try to tip Vicky off.”
“I wouldn’t!” She held up a fist, and Juliet bumped it with her knuckles. “Thanks for being a chill chick, merc.”
Juliet nodded at her, then turned and jogged through the warehouse, aiming for the door at the back where a set of stairs led up to the second-floor offices. “Hines might not be happy to learn you released all of the workers,” Angel said as she approached the door. Juliet opened her mouth to respond, but Angel kept speaking, “Not that I disagree with what you did. None of these warehouse workers are getting rich from what they’re doing here. I’ve taken a look through their communication logs, and they weren’t exactly treated well.”
“Hines won’t care. He wants the operation shut down, which means getting Vicky and confiscating all this stuff. Besides, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Juliet reached for the heavy metal door to the stairs, but Angel stopped her with a quick warning:
“I don’t have a camera feed for the stairs. In fact, I only have one camera upstairs. It’s trained on the hallway and the door leading out of this stairwell. I imagine it’s there so Vicky can see if anyone comes up.”
“All right,” Juliet whispered, gently pressing the handle down and pulling it open a couple of centimeters. All she could see was a small, square of concrete with plasteel steps leading up. She pulled the door wide, and slipped through, gently letting it click shut behind her. She stood there for several heartbeats, listening, but didn’t hear a sound. As quietly as she could, she began ascending the steps, two at a time, swiftly making it up to the second-floor landing. “You can see the hallway?”
“Yes. It’s clear.”
Juliet slowly pulled the door open and peered through. A long hallway led past four wooden doors and ended with another door. Every door was partially open, and most were dark. The door at the end of the hall, though, was brightly lit. It was only open a little, but through the small gap, she saw shadows bouncing on a wall with a poster for a band called Blacklight Riot.
Juliet started forward, gun ready, carefully stepping on the balls of her feet, glad that, though they were heavy, her boots had thick rubber soles. As she approached, she heard a woman’s voice, a little raspy but full of depth—the kind of voice that made you wonder what it would sound like if it broke into song.
“Yeah. They’re working hard. We should have the components broken down by morning. Tell Favreau he can expect a delivery by eight. Uh-uh. I was serious; I expect point six; these are fresh, unblemished. Okay, okay, you do that. Talk to him and get back to me.”
Juliet’s smile widened as she heard the woman; she was the one who’d sent that meathead to slap around her friends and “deal with” her. She was only a few meters from the door and had half a mind to burst in and shout for everyone to get on the floor, but she wanted to know a little more about the mysterious, “pretty boy” bodyguard. “Wish I had a drone,” she subvocalized. “Keep alert, Angel; I’m going to listen with the lattice.” Juliet crouched against the hallway wall, gun muzzle trained on the door, and slowly, deliberately inhaled, opening herself to thoughts.
That little weasel! He knows what those things are worth. He should know I’m not going to . . .
Juliet tried to tune the voice out; she’d already heard enough of Vicky. A hollow, echoing voice drifted to her, and, for the first time, she swore she got a sense of where it came from—off to the left of where she’d “heard” Vicky’s thoughts. Juliet concentrated on the indistinct sound, taking another deep breath, willing it to come to her, and then she heard a voice that sent chills down her spine.
Can’t believe I took this gig. Well, free fare to Luna, a few weeks of easy pay. Listen to her! Wish she’d forget I was here and quit trying to impress with that tough, boss-lady act. God, this is tedious. How about a sweep? Yeah, I could take a walk. Kick some tires out in the lot.
Juliet could feel her heart racing, could feel the sweat breaking out in her armpits and the palm of her left hand, so it wasn’t a surprise when Angel asked, “What’s wrong, Juliet?”
“Angel,” she subvocalized. “It’s Jensen. That’s Jensen in the room with Vicky.”