Page 6 of Finders Keep Her
“I’m going to check the sensors and balance. If I’m going out, I might as well do both.”
He shakes his head at me. “I know you’re not lying, but you’re also not telling me the whole truth.”
“A girl has to have her secrets, Dad.” I bat my eyelashes.
“Maybe you’ll get some sun on that skin.”
“The sun is terrible for your skin, and it’s your fault I’m pale and have red hair. You remember those days? When your hair had some color.”
“Yeah, it was red before you came along and turned it gray."
“We could dye it.” That might be entertaining.
“Eat and do your run.”
“Fine,” I huff, only delaying the inevitable. When I’m done with the bar, I grab a water bottle and drop it into my bag. My dad taps his cheek when I head for the door. I kiss it but roll my eyes in the process, making him smile.
I do my normal job checking all the sensors before I head toward my hill. I really do need to check in with Bruce. I don’t want to get into real trouble if he has to come searching for me.
I also don’t put it past Cyberius to try and frame me to get me to come out of hiding. When I make it to my hill, I unpack my bag and send an alert to Bruce. I’ve been on his radar since that whole banking incident.
You exploit one little loophole and wipe out some debts to a big banking company and distribute the money to extremely ill people, and then the FBI is on your ass, but you don’t get any props for stopping the Zens virus, which was a pretty freaking cool virus. It could read your online forms and log your keystrokes, stealing information. It cleared out almost 75 million from its victims before it could be stopped. While the person behind it is the scum of the damn Earth for stealing from a lot of elderly people, the software itself was fascinating.
If Alex had stuck to robbing banks or something other than random people, I would have let it slide. Besides, I have never been a fan of his. He’s always just creating chaos. I mean, it can be entertaining at times but not so much at others.
All in all, I think my exploitation of a loophole took about 50 million, but I’m not counting the debt wiped because, whatevs. I think that should offset my helping with Alex’s Zens virus.
I suppose it might have, because Bruce has never put me in prison. I also helped fix that loophole. Everyone is welcome for that. Not that they gave me any thanks. Some people are just plain rude.
It’s not long before I’m dinged back, letting me know he’s available to speak. The line rings a few moments later.
“Yellow,” I say when I answer.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Bruce?”
The line goes quiet for a few seconds. “Who else would it be, smartass?”
“I don’t know. There are a lot of cool Bruces out there. I keep hoping it might be one of them. Bruce Lee or Bruce Wayne.”
“Bruce Wayne?”
“You don’t know who Batman is?”
“From the movie?” Wow, he really needs to get out more, and that’s saying a lot coming from me.
“You know another Batman, Commissioner Gordon?”
“Fucking hell,” he mutters.
“Bruce Willis! You know that one?” The line goes quiet again, but I hear a deep sigh. He’s already exhausted by me, and we haven’t even gotten to any real conversation. “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.” My dad loved theDie Hardmovies. We used to watch them at Christmas.
“Marks—”
“That’s me, even if you wish it wasn’t.” I drop down onto the ground, crossing my legs. The sun is now up high in the sky.
“When I try to get into contact with you, you need to respond, or we’re going to have problems.”
