Page 65 of Coldwire
“What else was I supposed to do?” Nik returns.
“I don’t know”—Miz throws both her arms in the direction of the stolen hardware tossed in the back of the car—“make acopy?”
“I’m not going to make a copy and then leave the original in the data center. Once I’ve traced it, I’ve left the pathway for anyone else to pick up.” Nik props his leg onto one of the loose stone blocks separating the white lines. “NileCorp is already sniffing around, so we move fast. We get to Threto and bring this server with us to decrypt and extract.”
Miz takes a deep breath, her nose screeching with sound. She’s since put her septum ring back in, freed of her Xixi costume.
“A missing drive means that Upsie’s data center will know there was a break-in on their next inventory sweep, which could be as soon as later today,” she snaps. “This wasn’t the plan. What if we can’t get into Threto because you activated a nationwide security warning?” She throws her bag down, its thud loud on the concrete floor. “You took a risk, dumbass, and you should have asked us first.”
Nik turns away, scrubbing his face. He’s accepting the telling-off. Blare catches my gaze from the other side of the car, then widens their eyes to convey a silentYikes.
“Did you want me to leave the file there?” Nik asks. “Did you want me to leave theprogramthere?”
They’re speaking in code. It’s obvious in the way they’re emphasizing their words, and I have to imagine it’s only because I’m listening.
“No,” Miz hisses. “Of course not. But one file is nothing without the other parts. As long as everything is left in limbo, as long as Medaluo doesn’t notice what’s hiding in its data centers, there’s always a chance of retrieval. If we’re blocked out, then we’re done for. If Medaluo puts up its defenses, it’s over.”
“You were always going to have a short operating time anyway,” I say, inserting myself into the argument. Nik and Miz both whip around to look at me with a certain astonishment, as if they forgot I exited the car too. “TheBe back soon!sign you put up at the front desk isn’t going to fool them for long. Once they send a bot to check on Xixi and find her passed out at her apartment, they’ll go on high alert. The only question is whether you get half a day or two before they send notice to Threto.”
Miz shoves her hands into her pockets, sulking. Nik considers my words for a moment, then nods.
“You heard our soldier,” he says. “The goal now is getting to Threto. We’re wasting time debating anything else.”
Miz’s entire spine is trembling, turning her height even shorter. She looks like she’ll say more, like she has more resentment to fling around. Then her shoulders ease. She heaves a breath to cool down.
“I’m going to find a new vehicle for us,” she decides. “We can leave in an hour.”
The twenty-first floor is a food court.
Nik and Miz leave me and Blare there. Nik must not fear that I’ll run again, because I could definitely tackle a thirteen-year-old if I really wanted to.
Blare is typing away with one hand and occasionally spooning at a bowl of soybean milk with the other. My eyes flicker around, eyeing the sparsely occupied tables, the exits. There’s a skybridge that leads into the other half of the food court, but that side is dark, its shops closed. One of the windows is also partially cracked—it’s not bad enough for the owners to replace, but it’s emitting a loud whistling noise.
Out in the open, I’m paranoid, keeping watch over every other person sharing the space with us. We’ve seated ourselves at one long table in the middle of the food court. An air filtration system howls above, maintaining constant ventilation. Teryn must be nearby. It’s clear that we’ve finished in Upsie. Members of her team will already be drawing out a path to begin following us into Threto. If I were still in her unit, that’s what I would have suggested.
“Hey.”
Blare looks up. “Yeah?”
“How did you get involved in all this?”
Their plastic spoon halts midway to their mouth. It drops back into the bowl.
“I… volunteered,” Blare says. “I’ve always wanted to.”
My nose wrinkles. “Do crime?”
“Um,no.” Blare’s voice takes on a sneer. “Be a revolutionary. Maybenot everyone will agree with the way we’re bringing change, but it’s needed. Without us, NileCorp would be quietly killing people in their Pods, and everyone would be none the wiser.”
I kick my feet onto one of the chairs. Despite my best effort to wipe my shoes down, muddy clumps stick to the sides, crawling into the crevices.
“Do you really believe that?” I ask. “That NileCorp is capable of Indisposing people?”
“I don’t just believe it,” Blare says. “Iknowso.”
A loud clatter comes from the other end of the table. I flinch, spinning fast, but it’s only a group of kids fighting over a toy. They’ve smacked a tray of dumplings onto the floor. I assume they’re here unsupervised until a girl—the nanny—stands up to her full height, pleading for some order. She’s young. No older than I am, though I doubt she graduated from any sort of academy. A shoulder bag is slung across her body, the screen on the front blinking through advertisements. Every fifth slide displays her own services: she’s available to watch children from seven o’clock in the morning to ten o’clock at night for a flat-rate fee.
“If you give me the toy, I’m going to reward you with sweets when we get back. How’s that?” the girl tries.
