The problem with robbing a guy who just bought a Shusher is that there was definitely a reason that man needed a Shusher. A street pusher, or common thief wasn’t going to bother with one. Far too expensive when the best you could hope for was an encrypted credit chip, drugs, or some spare Vascs. No, a Shusher was expensive, and only expensive criminals bought them. The Inspector was as expensive as they came.
“How do you even know where to find him? He’s practically a myth.” Remy asked as they crouched under a freshly snow-dusted hedgerow outside the Water Lily Complex. Aside from Frank’s Revolution Estates, the Water Lily was the pinnacle of style and comfort in New Madison. Nosy doormen, bad lobby music and everything. Josie crouched next to him. He could smell her cherry gum. Always with the same fucking gum. She shrugged.
“He wanted delivery. Shusher’s need attunement to work right. Guess he didn’t want to come down to the shop with us common folk, eh?”
“Guess not.” He agreed. Bullshit. If half of the stories he’d heard about the man were true, the Inspector wouldn’t have a greased up fence over for something as mundane as attunement. Something smelled fishy and it wasn’t the lake spilling over its steel banks. He checked his Vasculator. Josie had loaned him a tuned up Force for the night. It seemed to be working but you never really knew with the modded ones until you tried it.
“Come on, he gave me the code to the service lifts. We can get up that way without anyone seeing us.” She ran out still in a crouch and, after a moment, Remy followed her into the lightly falling snow.
“We’re going up the service lift,” he muttered. “To rob the Inspector.”
Well, the Water Lily was as nice of place as any to die, he supposed. If Josie was double-crossing him, he’d already stepped in it. In for a penny, in for a pound.
The front entrance of the Water Lily teemed with people. Men dressed in their penguin suits and women flaunting feathers longer then their arms smoked, laughed, and chattered on the open-air lounge overlooking the lake. Small heat units hovered above the patio in a dome, melting snowflakes as they fell toward the patio.
They sneaked around the other side, though no one on the patio would have given them a second glance. The service entrance itself was much quieter. Since the patio crowd would revel late into the night, everyone was likely inside working. Josie reached the entrance and Remy sidled up next to her along the wall. He tried to catch his breath and stretch his calf. He had jogged at a crouch and standing up straight hurt.
“You got fat, Remy.” Josie admonished with a wink. Remy touched his belly and shrugged. It was softer than when he’d first come to New Madison, undoubtedly. Softer, but he still didn’t have a gut. Not yet, anyway.
“Retirement suited me, Josie. Just gotta do a few more jobs so I can get back to it.”
She snorted and removed her left glove. Her bare fingers paused for a moment under the light before she touched her thumb to each and punched in a five digit code on the old style keypad next to the door. It blinked green and clacked open.
“Skin augments? Those are new.” And expensive. First, surgery from a doctor willing to do it and who wouldn’t rob you halfway through. Second, a couple Vascs about as expensive as a Shusher but a lot more felonious. He wondered how deep in the shit she had found herself since their last rendezvous.
“A woman should always have a few surprises at her fingertips.” She replied simply. They slipped in the back door and made their way through a loading area. It was quiet at this time of night though they heard pots and pans clattering from the nearby kitchens as cooks continued to pump out unreplicated food for the well-paying party. She heading away from the kitchen noises to a darker room filled with large gray machines. His stomach rumbled at the scent of food.
“We should grab some take out after this.”
If we survive. He left that part unsaid.
“If you’re buying sure.” Josie nodded past the machines in the dark room. “This way should be clear. No one does laundry at this hour, we can get right up there.” She wiggled her fingers again and punched in a longer code into the keypad. Remy was surprised the Water Lily still bothered with keypads even if they had biometric scanners. He was thankful, though. With Josie’s augments, this was a lot easier than finding some doorman’s misplaced staff badge and then getting eye surgery for retinal scanning.
The ride up was uneventful. They soared upwards encased in real glass overlooking the lake. Its dark water reflected a sliver of moon and a scattering of stars like a black mirror. Beyond, the greenish glow of the Ghostfence flickered as outlanders tested its remote corners where the dome of New Madison touched the ground. It was about time for the Redcaps to do another ranging to clear out their warrens. Maybe the outlanders would even take a few Redcaps with them. Win-win for everyone in the city.
The lift door opened and they stepped into a hallway much like Frank’s Revolution Estates. The carpet was the same creamy white, and the walls had pre-revolution wallpaper between ornate brass molding. It was like the designers wanted to create a place that announced its occupants had more money than sense.
Josie led them down the hallway to the last room on the right. Again, her fingers danced over a keypad. A secondary scanner appeared and she placed her palm on it to read. We’re just going to walk right into the Inspector’s apartment, huh? Remy shivered, though he couldn’t see the snow falling anymore. Not much to do now but see it through. Scrapping a job half-done was as bad as botching it outright most of the time.
Hope you know what you’re doing Jose.
The door clicked open and Remy followed Josie inside. She motioned him to be quiet and he was more than happy to oblige. Quickly, Josie swapped out the card in her Vasc for something else but her unit was cloaked so he couldn’t see what it was.
Remy looked around. The Inspector’s apartment was nicer than Frank’s, though he didn’t really have anyone else but his to compare to. His own apartment could have been a smoking lounge or a broom closet for the Inspector. Josie stepped slowly through the entryway and moved into an office. A simple wooden desk stood in the center while two potted ferns filled the far corners. Behind the desk, full glass windows overlooked the assembled party below and showed the glittering mirror of the lake clearly above the neighboring buildings.
Josie started rifling through the desk drawers and tossing files to the side. Remy had never wanted to rob her client, and that feeling only grew when she finally told him who the client was. No more jobs with Josie, he told himself. He went to the window and looked down at the little people below.
“Hell of a view.” He whispered.
“Yes, I like it.” A man’s voice came from the hallway. Remy spun around and thrust his left arm out reflexively. The man raised his arms and eyebrows though a small grin cracked his face. Remy couldn’t believe that he hadn’t heard him enter.
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“Oh no, don’t stop on my account. Josephine, it is so nice to see you again, even though our last rendezvous ended so poorly. You are a devilish woman to tease me so.” The man was impressively built, tall and handsome. He wore a red silk robe over deeply tanned skin. His hair was slicked back tightly on his head and a precise mustache rested on his upper lip.
Remy gritted his teeth. The Inspector.
“Fernando, I’m taking it back and you can’t stop me. It’s still my property. And besides, you’re the one who cheated on me.” Josie threw a stack of papers at Fernando and Remy stepped back toward the window.
God damn you, Josie.
Fernando, the Inspector, shrugged lazily, “She was a rare beauty, as you are, my dear. You cannot expect a man to say no to his deepest impulses can you? Do you remember our own furtive escapades in the moonlight? The sunset joyrides over the wastes? Canoodling in the server room during our last work of art? Those were good days, Josephine. Come back, let’s try them again.”
Remy was ready to agree with him. There had to be a better way to get a Shusher. Anything other than being here at this moment would be a better way to get a Shusher. The Inspector stepped forward but his footsteps were silent. Remy never realized how eerie an active Shusher could be. The man was practically a ghost. Josie threw another folder at him.
“How dare you say that to me? After what you did? You ruined it! Not me, you! Give me my Vasc.” She held out her hand. Fernando looked over to Remy. Fernando’s eyes looked him up and down slowly. Remy couldn’t help but feel like a piece of meat about to be thrown out.
“Is this him? The man you left me for?” Fernando narrowed his eyes and met Remy’s. Remy’s own widened and he started to shake his head. This was the last thing he needed. The Inspector thinking he stole his woman. And Josie being that woman no less. Absolutely not. Josie grabbed his waist and his heart sank into his feet.
“Yeah, this is him, Fernando. Iroh’s a better thief than you, and better where it counts.” Well, at least she hadn’t used his real name. Remy couldn’t think of anything else that could go wrong.
Fernando’s face reddened and he took a slow breath. “Is that so, Iroh?”
Remy shrugged. He didn’t trust his voice. With how things were going, Remy’d likely insult the man’s mother if he tried to explain. Maybe the Water Lily would not be such a good place to die after all.
“Your boyfriend is a mute, Josephine. A pity, he can never read you poetry beneath the stars.”
“You know I hated your poetry.”
God damn it, Josie.
Fernando raised his left arm and Remy stiffened, preparing for 50,000 volts to arc through his chest. Maybe he’d get lucky again and survive long enough to wake up in a cell. The volts never came. Instead, Fernando tapped his Vasculator and a card popped out. He tossed it to Josie.
“You wound me unfairly, Josephine. I do not want your charity if this is how you feel. I’m not a man without feelings or dignity. Take it.”
Josie looked at the card and slipped it into an inner pocket of her jacket. “Thanks. Now, we’ll show ourselves out.” She grabbed Remy’s arm and stepped around the desk. Remy was willing to play whatever role she wanted to get out of this room. Anything to get out of this room. Fernando held up his left arm with outstretched fingers. His right hand jammed a new card into his Vasculator’s slot.
“I spared you last time because I was a fool in love. I’ll not make the same mistake twice. Iroh, it was nice to meet you even under such dour circumstances.”
The boot time of his new card saved their lives.
Remy grabbed Josie and slammed her down behind the desk as a fork of lightning thick as a lamp post ripped past them and into the glass. The window exploded in all directions and shards scored Remy’s face. He extended his own left hand toward the desk and blasted it away with the modified Force.
The desk crashed into the Inspector and carried him across the room. It smashed against the far wall and Fernando crumpled with a loud grunt. He was right next to the entrance. Remy looked about, desperate for another way out. Wind rushed through the broken window whipping Josie’s hair into his face. He couldn’t out duel a man with a Volt like that. A Force was more utility than anything, but a Volt with bolts like that could drop a man in a second. What did Josie have in her Vasculator?
The Inspector staggered back to his feet and withdrew an old style percussive hand gun with his right hand. Remy couldn’t wait for his system to recharge enough to use again. He’d be long dead before that could happen.
“Do you trust me?” Josie yelled into his ear over the wind. He shook his head. Absolutely not. Josie always had the worst fucking ideas.
“No, but do it.” They really had no any other choice. He certainly couldn’t think of anything to do. She wrapped her arms around him and rolled as hard as she could to the right. They tumbled over broken shards of glass and out the window as twin forks of electricity shot into the empty space above them. Remy gripped Josie tightly and would have screamed if his throat could unclench. This was not a better solution than being electrocuted in the Inspector’s office.
It was a long fall from the 100th floor but the end would come quickly. There wasn’t a pool of water beneath them or some sort of elaborate system of bedding and trampolines so Remy was sure they were pretty much fucked.
“Force!” Josie yelled into the wind. She released him with her left arm and extended it away from the building. He looked back at the rapidly approaching patio below as the penguin-clad men and peacock-feather women fled from beneath them. What a stupid fucking plan. Blow them back through a window? He groaned.
Well, it was a better plan than nothing, he had to admit. Not by much, though. Remy fought against the wind and extended his own left arm. Now they could end up splattered on the outside of the glass before sloughing onto the ground. Wonderful.
“Go!” he felt her Vasc activate a split second before his own and their momentum abruptly changed. His back took the brunt of the window and he’d never been more relieved to feel glass shards burst round him. They landed in a rolling heap in the living room of a petrified family.
“You okay?” he grunted. There was blood everywhere. Had that all come from him? Josie nodded slowly and staggered to her feet. She would have fallen if he hadn’t been there to catch her. Her pupils dilated and she blinked them trying to focus. She could hardly stand.
“Concussion. Come on, we got to get out of here.” Throwing an arm over his shoulders, he turned and saw the family for the first time. They hadn’t moved from their meal but the mother had fainted into her mashed vegetables. “Uh, hey.” He tried to tip his cap and only found blood from the broken glass where his hat should be. Damn it, Josie. He’d always liked that hat.
There wasn’t really anything else you could say to a family after crashing into their living room from outside of their skyscraper. Remy tossed a credit chip on the table as he hobbled the pair of them out the door. “Hope this covers it. Sorry.” There was no way twenty credits would cover it.
The floor’s layout was the same as the Inspector’s floor and Remy half-dragged Josie’s uncooperative feet to the laundry lift. He just hoped her glass-shredded fingers retained enough similarity to pass. It had only been a few minutes, right? The room filled with maintenance lifts was blessedly empty and Remy used Josie’s fingers to match the digits he saw her punch in earlier. The lift came and he pulled Josie in with him.
“Come on, stay with me. Stay up!” He slapped her on each cheek, not hard but hard enough to refocus her eyes. She mumbled something he couldn’t understand but remained upright so Remy took that as a good sign. Was it a good sign? He had no idea how to care for a concussed person.
The lift descended and they stumbled out the service entrance past two cooks out for a smoke break. Remy dug into his pocket and handed each another credit chip.
“Just having a smoke, right? Didn’t see anything unusual?” The smaller one shrugged.
“Nah, just the usual, man. Slow night.”
Remy liked men who could be bought. They spoke the same language. He almost asked for a hit off one of them. Lord knew he needed one. Instead, he adjusted Josie’s arm so he carried more of her weight on his shoulders.
“Have a good one.”
They didn’t reply and continued their smoke break. He shuffled to the left, away from where they had approached, hoping that any blood trail would be covered by morning. Remy took two more lefts, then a right before settling on a bench in a small park nestled between two apartment complexes. Remy waited several minutes to catch his breath before hoisting her arm over his shoulder again. They shuffled side streets for nearly an hour before reaching his apartment. They’d only had to duck down two side streets to avoid Redcap patrols but Remy didn’t think he could have carried her another block. Josie’s legs barely moved by the end and he staggered under the effort.
Remy breathed deep, lifted her with the last of his fading strength, and started up the stairs. Maybe he was getting fat.
“You owe me a hat.”