Data Runner by Sam A. Patel Page A

don’t care because I’ve earned my wings. As a bird, I can fly.
    It’s all about adaptation. Adaptation is the key to success when you’re running data. And in that sense, it’s like I’ve been training for it all along. Parkour is all about adaptation. Adapting to one’s environment. Only the unskilled barbarian hulks his way through life’s barricades and leaves a wake of disaster in his trail. The traceur doesn’t do this. The traceur doesn’t knock an obstacle out of the way unless it’s absolutely necessary. He meanders his way past it. Over. Under. Through. Around. He gets past not by moving the obstacle but by moving himself. That is parkour, and working this job I use every technique I know just to get it done.
    People on the platform look at me like I’m crazy when I throw down my backpack and slide off the top of the train before it even stops, catch the ground with both hands, and roll out. My body armor rocks across the tiles and springs me back up. I pick up my bag and keep moving. I’m downtown now, and the patent office is just—
    Interceptor. Somewhere. I can’t see him, but I can sense him. I look.
    One by one the crowd around me disappears as I filter it all out. Just like Red Tail advised, I disregard everyone who does not register as a threat until all I see is the sneakernet. Just like the undernet is a network hidden beneath the aggregate Internet, the sneakernet is a world hidden in plain sight among the commuters and trains. But people act differently on the sneakernet, and that’s what you learn to spot.
    The guy with the newspaper. You know why? I can smell it on him. But it’s more than that. I think he wants me to smell it on him. I mean, come on, sitting out in the open like that with his comm shades on, it’s almost like he’s trying to be obvious about it. Until I realize, that’s exactly what he’s doing. He wants me to spot him.
    There are two sets of stairs leading to the upper deck. The guy with the newspaper is covering the left side. There doesn’t appear to be anyone covering the right, which is how I know they’re there, lying in wait. It’s a bottleneck. The guy with the newspaper thinks I’ll see him and go for the other stairs, whereupon the others will come out of nowhere and have me trapped. So which way do I go? Easy. I don’t go for either stairs. Rather, I head for the guy with the newspaper. Why? Because I’ve already spotted him, and I know his position, and I can see his hands, and it’s exactly what he won’t expect.
    â€œHey, disruptor!” I yell and run straight at him until he has no choice but to stand and drop his paper. But it’s too late for him to do anything else. I leap through the air with a flying kick that knocks him off his feet, step off the tile and vault over the railing to the stairs behind him. From the corner of my eye I see three more disruptors come racing down the opposite stairwell. But before they hit the bottom, I’m already at the top.
    The turnstiles are backed up with people trying to get out. I head for the gate. Leap. Kick the release button with my toe and fly straight into the wrought iron gate that swings open with my momentum and lets me out. One more set of stairs and I emerge from the underground.
    To a clear blue sky and the bright of day.
    And just across the street, the building housing the Free City branch of the patent office.
    Dexter meets me outside afterwards. It’s not even noon and we’ve completed one run apiece. I look around. “Where’s Pace?”
    Dex doesn’t even have to say it. I can tell by the look on his face.
    â€œStill?”
    â€œI don’t think he’s cut out for it,” he says.
    â€œIt hasn’t been that long. Give him time.”
    â€œTime has nothing to do with it. This is a sink-or-swim profession. Look at you. They threw you straight into the