Unify report after Silte Corp’s servers became unhackable; Skexka who had tracked Adelson to the Houston Warehouse. Yet here she was, errand-girl to the faceless masters, obediently lying on a cold stone floor in an abandoned garage on the east side of Austin, fantasizing about handing over her priceless stolen information and walking away from the so-called Anti-Corp, and the civilized world in general, for good.
Darkness had just filled the oil-stained garage, which was supposed to be her refuge until dawn, when she decided she couldn’t take it anymore.
With a shake of her grimy, greasy hair she slipped her headband on and grabbed her backpack full of everything she owned: it was exceedingly light. She wheeled the scooter to the door and through the gloomy lobby and then out into the night. She didn’t care anymore about valenC’s stupid rules; she was tired of it all.
She didn’t have to ride far down the street to find a convenience store, which she entered and then excitedly purchased a carton of regular Camel’s with some cash she kept for emergencies. She had the first one lit before she even stepped out of the shop, earning admonishments from the clerk in some generic East Asian accent. Standing beside the scooter again, she sucked that first cigarette down in under a minute, feeling the heavy buzz as nicotine filled her body for the first time in several days. She lit a second immediately and put five more under her headband for the ride to valenC’s hideout.
The scooter barely made a sound as she sped along the busy city streets; its tiny engine’s noise couldn’t even begin to challenge the bustle and music of the Austin nightlife. Skexka took it all in and wondered how valenC would react when he saw her there a day early, having used main roads during one of the busiest times of the night. She found that she really didn’t care what he thought, because she was leaving the movement regardless—that was certain. As long as he got what he wanted he would be satisfied. And she had what he wanted. It had cost at least a dozen lives and well more than the ten grand she had been given to fund the operation, but in the end she got it. The encrypted folder was a measly twenty gigs: not even a blip on her tab’s hard drive. Whatever it was, it wasn’t much.
And getting it had been almost too easy. They had gone into the Houston Warehouse under the false pretense of extracting Lorne Adelson, who had access to the information in question. That part nearly fell through; the shit brain hired thugs started shooting long before they needed to. But the detective got in and got Adelson out, the thugs died in pools of blood, and the woman and Adelson drew most of the Guardian goons out long enough for Skexka to slip in a back door, find the Silte representative’s office, hack into a desk screen and pilfer the data she needed. The escape to her waiting scooter and supplies was just as simple; the only difficult thing was the guilt.
Oh, the guilt.
She might never get over it, the guilt of leading four people—one of whom was basically an innocent bystander—to their deaths, while several others died in the chaos that ensued. But she had to forget about it for now. Once the stupid files were transferred she could move on and find a way to keep living. She just hoped that she could find a life free from all of this madness. Maybe she could keep going on the scooter—without all the rules this time. With her relatively hefty payment for the retrieval and delivery, she could get a decent secondhand e-car and cross the country for years, staying in hotels and sleeping in proper beds. Or maybe she would venture down through Mexico to South America, lose society in the jungle and reconnect with a simpler existence, then move on down south as far as a car could take her and stare out at the sea—the last one you could cross that would carry you away from civilization. It sounded so beautiful, but first she had to
Darkness had just filled the oil-stained garage, which was supposed to be her refuge until dawn, when she decided she couldn’t take it anymore.
With a shake of her grimy, greasy hair she slipped her headband on and grabbed her backpack full of everything she owned: it was exceedingly light. She wheeled the scooter to the door and through the gloomy lobby and then out into the night. She didn’t care anymore about valenC’s stupid rules; she was tired of it all.
She didn’t have to ride far down the street to find a convenience store, which she entered and then excitedly purchased a carton of regular Camel’s with some cash she kept for emergencies. She had the first one lit before she even stepped out of the shop, earning admonishments from the clerk in some generic East Asian accent. Standing beside the scooter again, she sucked that first cigarette down in under a minute, feeling the heavy buzz as nicotine filled her body for the first time in several days. She lit a second immediately and put five more under her headband for the ride to valenC’s hideout.
The scooter barely made a sound as she sped along the busy city streets; its tiny engine’s noise couldn’t even begin to challenge the bustle and music of the Austin nightlife. Skexka took it all in and wondered how valenC would react when he saw her there a day early, having used main roads during one of the busiest times of the night. She found that she really didn’t care what he thought, because she was leaving the movement regardless—that was certain. As long as he got what he wanted he would be satisfied. And she had what he wanted. It had cost at least a dozen lives and well more than the ten grand she had been given to fund the operation, but in the end she got it. The encrypted folder was a measly twenty gigs: not even a blip on her tab’s hard drive. Whatever it was, it wasn’t much.
And getting it had been almost too easy. They had gone into the Houston Warehouse under the false pretense of extracting Lorne Adelson, who had access to the information in question. That part nearly fell through; the shit brain hired thugs started shooting long before they needed to. But the detective got in and got Adelson out, the thugs died in pools of blood, and the woman and Adelson drew most of the Guardian goons out long enough for Skexka to slip in a back door, find the Silte representative’s office, hack into a desk screen and pilfer the data she needed. The escape to her waiting scooter and supplies was just as simple; the only difficult thing was the guilt.
Oh, the guilt.
She might never get over it, the guilt of leading four people—one of whom was basically an innocent bystander—to their deaths, while several others died in the chaos that ensued. But she had to forget about it for now. Once the stupid files were transferred she could move on and find a way to keep living. She just hoped that she could find a life free from all of this madness. Maybe she could keep going on the scooter—without all the rules this time. With her relatively hefty payment for the retrieval and delivery, she could get a decent secondhand e-car and cross the country for years, staying in hotels and sleeping in proper beds. Or maybe she would venture down through Mexico to South America, lose society in the jungle and reconnect with a simpler existence, then move on down south as far as a car could take her and stare out at the sea—the last one you could cross that would carry you away from civilization. It sounded so beautiful, but first she had to
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