“If we’re not in range of a coral rig there, there isn’t one,” said Marisa. She pushed the button, and the elevator rumbled.
“What are we expecting when we get there?” asked Omar. “Fat lady behind a wall of soda cans? Pasty, feeble girl permanently tethered to her computer system? I don’t know a lot of hackers.”
“You know three,” said Anja, “and we’re all super-hot teenage girls.”
“Point granted,” said Omar, “but what are the odds it’s another super-hot teenage girl?”
“Maybe it’s a super-hot green-skinned monster woman,” said Anja.
“We already ruled her out,” said Marisa.
“Maybe she has a clone,” said Anja. “It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing about her.”
Sahara, as always, took control of the situation. “Hackers are only strong in the digital world; in the physical one we should be able to intimidate whoever this is.”
“Well,” said Omar. “Since our whole plan is apparently just ‘be scarier than the scary hacker,’ you’ll be glad to hear I’ve got a gun if we need it.”
“I’m not remotely glad to hear that,” said Anja.
“I am,” said Sahara. “Just don’t do anything stupid.” She glared at Anja. “Either of you.”
The elevator stopped on the fifteenth floor, and they stepped into the hall. Only some of the lights worked, leaving the corridor in a kind of a half-light gloom. Marisa was glad of it, honestly; it made it that much harder to see how gross the walls and floors almost certainly were. They stayed close together as they walked, avoiding eye contact with the handful of silent people they passed in the darkness. They’d already rounded the first corner when the tablet dinged softly.
“Got one,” said Sahara. She held the device up to her face. “Whoever it is, they’re poking around in the file system. Standard keywords: financial, banking, etc., etc.” She bit her lip, and then grinned. “Backtrack finished: her network ID is listed as 21737. Is that a room number?”
“The one next to us is 15682,” said Marisa, reading the door next to her. “Looks like we’ve got her. Twenty-first floor.”
Anja led the way back to the elevators, though this time they had to wait much longer for one to arrive. When a car came, it had a pair of white guys in it; Marisa and her friends stepped in silently, pushed the button for 21, and stood awkwardly while the car rumbled up. Anja farted right as the elevator reached their floor, and blamed it loudly on Omar.
“That’s disgusting!” she shouted. “Oh—you smell like a zombie movie died in your intestines.”
Omar smirked but said nothing, and they heard the guys in the elevator laughing as the doors closed.
“Follow me,” said Sahara.
“Do we have a plan?” asked Marisa. “The honeypot found her, but it isn’t going to get us in the door.”
“We got in Andy Song’s door pretty easily,” said Anja.
“Song was a moron,” said Marisa. “And he was, let’s remember, scared to death of whoever we’re about to drop in on.”
“There it is,” said Sahara, pointing ahead. “Two doors down. I’m going to send Camilla to check it out first.” She blinked, and the nuli with the cute red bow flew ahead and turned a slow circle in the hall. “Camera over the door—just a little one, probably narrow field and wireless.”
“I should stay out of its sight, then,” said Omar. “If she knows me, like you said, we don’t want her to know I’m coming.”
“We don’t want to freak her out with numbers, either,” said Sahara. “If all three of us stand there, she might get nervous.”
“Hang on,” said Marisa. She jogged back down the hall toward the elevators, took the lid off the garbage can, and sifted through it gingerly with her metal hand. She found a paper bag and pulled it out—a fast food sack from something called Casa Rancherita. She filled it with other bits of balled-up junk, to make it look full, and jogged back to the rest of the group. “Food delivery,” she said. “Maybe it’ll set her at ease.”
“Only if she ordered food,” said Sahara.
“Don’t say it’s for her,” said Omar, “say it’s for a neighbor who isn’t home.”
“Sounds good,” said Marisa, and looked at the logo on the bag. “I guess this giant sombrero means I’m the one to do it.”
“That’s racist,” said Anja, and grabbed the bag. “Don’t call me a hero, but I think the world is ready for a white girl delivering Mexican food.”
“Let Mari do it,” said Sahara, and handed the bag back to Marisa. “Anja, you walk past the door and double back. The rest of us will wait just out of view on either side, ready to jump in if something goes bad.”
“So I’m just the face-puncher again?” said Anja, feigning offense. “Stop stereotyping white girls.”
“Go,” said Sahara, and Anja grinned before walking down the hall. She went about one door past 21737, stopped, and crept back silently, staying out of the camera’s view. Sahara and Omar crept up into a similar position on the near side, and then Marisa took a deep breath and walked up the door. She held the bag up, logo visible, and knocked loudly.
Who would answer the door? Andy Song had been terrified of this hacker, but was that because she was scary, or because he was just easily scared? What if it was Ramira Bennett, or someone like her? They’d barely escaped with their lives the last time they encountered her. Could they handle another round? Marisa remembered the pinging sound as the tranq dart had hit her metal arm, and turned herself slightly to present that side to the door. Maybe it would provide the split second she needed to avoid getting knocked out again?
If, of course, the hacker was dangerous. But how dangerous could the hacker really be?
The door flew open, and Marisa yelped as she saw the barrel of an assault rifle less than a foot from her face, pointed straight at her. She stared back at, practically cross-eyed, and started to raise the bag.
“Delivery from—”
“Marisa Carneseca Sanchez,” said the hacker.
Marisa realized two things almost simultaneously: first, the hacker knew her name, despite the spoofed ID.
Second, and even more shocking, was that Marisa knew who the hacker was. That voice had taunted her too many times. Marisa looked away from the gun and into the blue-haired Latina’s face.
“Renata?”
“Thanks for the bag of garbage,” said Renata. “I think I’m going to kill you now.”
EIGHTEEN
“Wait,” said Marisa. Seeing Renata again was . . . well, it was insane. Renata was a mercenary; she’d worked with them on a data heist to take down a telecom company, and then halfway through betrayed them for a payout from the telecom. “What are you doing here? You’re the hacker?”
“I’m a hacker,” said Renata. “But I didn’t really expect that to be the reason you want to kill me.”
“I’m not here to kill you,” said Marisa. “I’m trailing a freelancer. I had no idea it was you.”
“No te creo,” said Renata. Her left hand was cybernetic, just like Marisa’s arm, though the model was older and less sleek. She adjusted her grip on the rifle. “What’s with Machote and his gun, then?”
Marisa tried to look innocent. “Who?”
“Come on,” said Renata, “I’ve got cameras all up and down the hall—you only found the obvious one that everyone finds. I watched you fish that food sack out of the trash, for crying out loud!” She pointed subtly with the rifle: “You’ve got some galán out there with a gun, though he doesn’t look like muscle. And I’m pretty sure his name isn’t Rosarita Chiquitita de la Santa Biblioteca.”
“What?” asked Omar, still out of view.
“Is that the fake ID you gave him?” asked Anja. “I love you.”
“Hi, Anja,” said Renata. “And Sahara.”
In Marisa’s peripheral vision, she caught a glimpse of Sahara rolling her eyes. “Frakkin’ Renata,” she grumbled.
“I swear we didn’t know it was you,” sai
d Marisa. “Would we have showed up here with just one dinky little pistol?”
“Hey,” said Omar.
Renata still wasn’t convinced. “You still brought a gun, though.”
“For intimidation purposes only,” said Marisa. “We thought we were going to find some snot-nosed little kiddie coder or something.”
“Information?” asked Renata.
“That’s all,” said Marisa. “You did a job for someone, and we want to ask you about it.”
“How’d you find me?”
“Honeypot,” said Marisa. “Your coral rig pinged it, and we followed the signal back.”
“Nice,” said Renata, and her suspicious glare slowly turned into a smile. “Time to change that setup, then.” She turned the rifle, pointing it at something in a side room out of view, and fired one shot. “Setup changed.” Suddenly she smiled brightly. “Come on in!” She stepped to the side and beckoned Marisa with her metal hand.
Nobody moved.
“Look, I’m a mercenary,” said Renata. “We can’t hold grudges or we’d never get any repeat business. Come in, come in.”
Marisa still didn’t move, and her friends stayed safely out of sight as well. Along the hall she heard doors starting to open; some of her neighbors had heard the gunshot.
“They’re not going to call the cops,” said Renata, gesturing toward the other tenants. “Most of them are Krokheads anyway; they don’t want the cops here. But they might mug you for cash, because: most of them are Krokheads, as mentioned.”
“Fine,” said Sahara, finally stepping into view. “Let’s go in.” Her nulis followed her through the door, and she smiled sweetly at Renata. “We’re live, by the way, so don’t try anything unless you want ten thousand witnesses.”
Renata glanced at the nulis and nodded. “Audio?”
“Just a playlist.”
“Good.”
Marisa followed Sahara into the one-room apartment, finding it to be nearly empty: a futon, a mini fridge, and several computers and monitors of varying size. One of them, a small black tablet, had a brand-new hole through the center of the screen; behind it was a hole in the wall, through which she could see all the way into the neighboring apartment.
“Don’t worry,” said Renata, “nobody’s home.”
Omar came in next. He smiled at Renata—not his full-on-charm smile, but a modest one that still managed to look rakishly handsome. “Hi,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Rosarita Chiquitita. You’re Renata?”
“Most of the time,” said Renata, shaking his hand with a smile. “Damn, Mari, this one’s a catch.”
“Careful which hand you shake,” Marisa told him, nodding toward Renata’s prosthetic. “One of them explodes.”
Renata grinned at Omar, showing her teeth. “It’s called a hand grenade.”
Omar kept his cool, but allowed himself a small chuckle. “So. How do you know each other, exactly?”
“Renata helped us break into a megacorp,” said Anja, stepping in behind him. “Remember KT Sigan? But then she turned on us halfway through the job.”
“Oh, we had fun, though,” said Renata, and closed the door behind them. “And you still won, in the end, so: respect.” She held up her fist, and Anja bumped it with her own on her way to the futon. Renata turned to look at them, the rifle still held somewhat carelessly in her right hand. “You girls heard from Alain?”
“Not recently,” said Marisa, with a guilty glance at Omar. She looked away just as quickly. Alain was kind of sort of a prospective maybe boyfriend, maybe, but he was also an anticorporate freedom fighter, and was rarely ever around. Omar was right here.
“Let’s talk business,” said Sahara. “You were hired by Francisco Maldonado to steal a DNA template from ZooMorrow.”
“Maybe I was,” said Renata. “What about it?”
“He’s my father,” said Omar. “Your testimony could put him in jail.”
“If it’s my silence you’re looking to buy . . .”
“You’re misinterpreting the situation,” said Anja. “We want to put him jail.”
“The DNA he asked you to steal was my mother’s,” said Omar. “She faked her death to get away from him, and he’s been hunting her ever since. If you can show solid proof that he hired you for that specific purpose—”
“No way,” said Renata. “First, because there’s no way to give that testimony without also incriminating myself. I’m no criminal mastermind, but I’m pretty sure that’s a no-no.”
“They could grant you immunity to get to the bigger catch,” said Marisa, but Renata shook her head.
“Second,” she said, “Maldonado didn’t hire me to hack ZooMorrow, he hired me to find his wife. ZooMorrow was just my Plan A.”
“Oh, come on,” said Sahara, looking up at the ceiling. “We were so close!”
“No one’s going to arrest him for stalking,” said Omar. “Not ZooMorrow or the LAPD.”
“Stalking’s still a crime,” said Marisa.
“You can stop asking,” said Renata. “If I started turning on my clients I’d never get any business.”
“Are you kidding?” asked Marisa. “You turned on us.”
“I turned on Alain,” said Renata, “and only because he was a lone dude, and KT Sigan was paying enough to keep me as a pet. Of course, then you destroyed their US business, so here I am coraling an old apartment block like some kind of moron. So: not eager to start burning more bridges.”
“No one would prosecute my father for stalking anyway,” said Omar. “He’s too powerful. Direct infringement on megacorp property, yes, but stalking some random woman we can’t even prove is alive? Nobody’s going to care.”
“He’s right,” said Sahara. “Remember that stalker I had from the vidcast? Ganika’s rent-a-cops took my testimony and then never did a thing.”
“Whatever happened to that guy?” asked Anja.
Sahara gave her an innocent smile. “Nobody knows.”
“Feel my arm,” said Anja, holding it toward Sahara. “I’ve got goose bumps on my goose bumps.”
“We’re not going to just mysteriously ‘disappear’ my father,” said Omar. “Even if I wanted to, he has more bodyguards than most people have friends.”
“No,” said Marisa. “If we can’t stop Don Francisco directly, we have to do it indirectly—we find Zenaida and help her ourselves.”
“Two problems with that plan,” said Sahara. “First, there’s no way Francisco only hired one merc to hunt down his wife. There could be tons of them out there, and we’re days behind them. Second, and I want to stress this: one of those mercs is standing in this room, listening to all of our plans, holding an assault rifle.”
“Okay, hang on there,” said Renata, waving with her free hand. “Seriously, this is perfect: we’re both looking for Zenaida, so let’s work together! I’ve already done a ton of legwork, and you’ve apparently done a ton of your own. We’ll share leads, pool our resources, and get this done before anybody beats us to it.”
“We have opposite goals, though,” said Marisa. “We’re trying to protect her—you’re trying to take her back to the man she ran away from.”
“Po-tay-to, pa-tah-to,” said Renata, dismissing the idea with a wave. “That doesn’t stop us from finding her, it just . . . complicates the endgame a little bit.”
“What exactly did the Don hire you to do?” asked Sahara.
“Gather verifiable data on exactly where and how to find her,” said Renata. “As long as Omar’s daddy can confirm that my data is real, I get paid.”
“We can work with that,” said Anja. “Don Francisco pays her to help us find Zenaida, and then we help Zenaida escape before he can grab her or whatever.”
Omar looked at Renata. “And we have your word that you won’t double-cross us? Try to capture my mother and work out a new fee with my father?”
Renata put a hand on Omar’s shoulder. “You sweet summer child.”
“If you want her to do somet
hing you pay her,” said Marisa.
“Fine,” said Omar. “We’ll work that out later, but for now we’re on a deadline. Show us what you’ve got.”
Marisa sent Sahara a private message: She’s going to turn on us. She always does.
So we know it’ll happen, said Sahara, and we can plan for it.
That never works.
Trust me.
“Zenaida de Maldonado is a hard woman to find,” said Renata, moving across the room toward the computers. She kept the rifle in her hand, and when she sat down cross-legged she placed it in her lap and leaned over it to type on the touch screen. “I know she’s back in LA, and I know she’s on the west side. I think she might be by one of the docks, but that doesn’t really narrow it down. This city has a disgusting number of docks.”
“You sent a nuli to find her,” said Marisa.
“I sent four,” said Renata. “That’s how I was able to narrow down her location. I used the ZooMorrow DNA template to give some seeker nulis the scent, and after trolling around for a while they all gravitated toward the coastline. When I lost the first one I figured it had to be drone hunters looking for a free meal, but by the time I lost the fourth it was obvious she was taking them out herself.”
“She shot them with an EMP gun,” said Omar. “And she used at least one of them to film a video of herself.”
Renata looked at him, surprised. “You’re kidding.”
“Three videos,” said Marisa. “Then she broke into the Maldonado house computer and planted them as malware. The whole family thought they were seeing a ghost.”
Renata burst into peals of laughter. “Oh, that’s amazing! Like, VR videos? In augmented reality?” Marisa nodded, and Renata laughed again. “Ándale, those would look like ghosts, wouldn’t they? Especially if you already thought she was dead. I’m definitely going to have to use that sometime.”