I turned to see a fourth security guy, who must have been sent to keep an eye on the side entrance I’d just used. He started toward me.
I glanced toward the doorway I’d just come through, but knew I’d never make it. The man rested his hand on his stunner, but didn’t draw it.
“Xiao-Xing?” he asked again.
I’d already turned at the sound of my name, and he’d seen it. He knew it was me.
“Look, I—”
“Into the lobby,” he said, gesturing toward the door.
“I—”
“Now.”
Part of me wanted to run, but I knew my best bet was to stay cool. I did like he said, and he moved in behind me while I headed into the lobby.
All three of the security guys there looked over at us when we came through. In between them was a little twig of a woman I hadn’t seen when I first came in, her skirt flared out around skinny legs in striped stockings.
“Yun?” She didn’t look away. She raised her finger, and pointed at me as one of the guards patted her back.
“Well, well,” Casanova called over. “You must be Xiao-Xing Shao?” The woman next to him looked relieved to have his focus somewhere else.
“Yun?” I called, but the guard said something to her, and she left the lobby. On the sidewalk outside, she glanced back once as she headed down the street.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Casanova said.
“My Dad’s still pulling security over in Render’s Strip,” I said, looking back to them.
“Are you Xiao-Xing Shao?” he asked again.
Yun had turned me in. My goddamned babysitter had turned me in. Why? How much did she know?
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s me. What’s the problem?”
“We need to ask you some questions,” he said. “Come with us.”
“Why?” I asked. “What’s this about?”
Casanova’s hand drifted down toward his stun gun as he took another step toward me.
“We going to have a problem?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Look, my Dad’s in security and—”
“Did I ask you if your father was in security?”
“No, I’m just saying. I know the drill. Don’t get your dick in a knot.”
His eyes narrowed, and he popped the latch off the holster where the stunner sat. I held up my hands.
“Kidding,” I said, trying to think fast. I had to get into my apartment. If I could manage that then I could grab the gate remote and I’d at least have a chance to get away.
“Let’s go.”
“I can’t,” I said. The officer unclipped the stun gun from his belt and started toward me. “No, I mean… I just have to go to my apartment first.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got a surrogate haan up there that needs to be fed, like, ten minutes ago. That was my sitter who just left. Let me go up and take care of him.”
“You’re in the surrogate program?”
I wasn’t, not anymore, though I had been for a long time. If he checked I’d be busted, but if he didn’t, then it just might work. I fumbled in my wallet and dug up the old card, holding it up just long enough for him to see.
“He could die,” I said. “You want that on your record?”
That did stop him. He looked at the screen for a minute, then back at his buddies, then back at me. His eyes went out of focus for a second and I could tell he was looking me up, checking my story. After a minute, he snapped back. He didn’t look happy.
“Mei,” he said over his shoulder. “Go with her.”
“Thank you,” I said, hustling past them. One of the three other men broke rank and followed me as I headed to the elevators.
“She gives you any trouble, shock and hood her,” Casanova called after us. “We got a schedule to keep.”
The officer moved in close behind me as I jabbed the elevator button. When the door opened, he got on with me and stood rigid while we rode up.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked him.
“We’ll explain at the detention center.”
“Dandruff,” the ad box said, the A.I. icon appearing on the screen. “Embarrassing dandruff—”
Mei used his security card to override the box and the A.I. flickered out.
He didn’t say anything else the whole ride up. How much did he know? Could they have already found and tracked the intrusion back to us? I tried to calm down, to tell myself that if they did know, if they were sure, then I wouldn’t be headed up to my apartment right now. I’d be arrested, and on my way to prison.
I went to contact Vamp on the 3i, but the transmitter had been taken offline. The officers had used the security back channel to shut it down.
Damn it.
“Just tell me—”
“I told you we’ll explain at the detention center.”
When we reached my floor, Mei followed me as I hustled down the hall, hooking a left at the hallway T toward my unit. My badge shook in my hand as I touched it to the reader, and when I pushed open the door I crossed the room on the other side before I heard it clunk shut behind me. I glanced back and saw the officer unclip his radio, keeping his eyes on me as he spoke into it.
“We’re here,” he said. “She’s going to feed the little maggot now. We’ll be down shortly.”
“Grab a drink if you want,” I told him. “I have shine. Check the cabinet.”
He didn’t move. He just stood in the doorway blocking the way out.
“Suit yourself.”
I headed into my bedroom where I’d once kept the crib, and heard him follow me not far behind. As soon as he looked inside, he’d know I’d been bluffing. I didn’t have many options left.
I slipped through the door and closed it behind me.
“Hey, open the door,” he called.
“Other people make him nervous,” I called back. “Just give me three minutes.”
I turned the bolt just as he turned the knob and tried to push open the door.
“Open the goddamned door, right now.”
“Three minutes!”
He wasn’t giving me three minutes. He tried the door again, and then I heard him radio down.
“She’s locked herself in her room,” he said. “Get up here and bring the pry.”
“What about the surrogate?” a voice came back.
“I don’t think she’s got one; I think it’s bullshit.”
“On our way.”
I didn’t have long. I grabbed my Escher tablet from my dresser and opened the field. I found the black hole twistkey, then threw open the closet door and jammed it into the gate’s socket. I turned it, and as soon as the portal opened I scrambled through into the factory ruins. The sounds of the guard shouting and banging on my door echoed through the hall behind me as I sprinted to the rusted door.
I squeezed through, and made to grab the box of explosives along with the pistols and ammo, when on impulse, I stopped.
Once I was gone I wouldn’t be going back to the apartment, not now. Assuming I could get away, they’d stake the place out. That meant I wouldn’t be able to get back to the black hole drop, unless…
I found the gate remote inside the tablet and switched it on. The interface lit up in the air in front of me, and I waved my finger through the options until I found where to set up an endpoint. I pointed the remote onto one grimy wall of the factory, and locked the endpoint in.
The box would be safer out in the rim. Chances are they wouldn’t find the drop, and wouldn’t have the twistkey if they did. My tablet could be searched, but not the drop. I took the pistols and ammo and fed them into my tablet’s Escher field, but left the box behind as I ran back as fast as I could.
By the time I crawled back through the gate, the guard had reached the end of his patience. I shut down the gate, tossed the twistkey into my tablet, and stowed the whole thing in my pocket. I shut the closet door behind me and looked around the room for anything else that might be useful. I noticed, then, that my computer sat idling when it had been off before I’d left. A lightwire connector hung from one port, draping over the edge of the desk.