The Last Firewall by William Hertling Page A

spare jeans and other two shirts for a pair of boots with three-inch heels. Mrs. Gonzales offered her a plate of rice and beans after they’d traded clothes. She’d almost taken it, but just then the vid-screen above the sink displayed a picture of her and she wanted to be somewhere else, fast.
    She went back to her room and threw the beets in the sink, then put her hair in a quick ponytail. She pulled out her combat knife and held it up, taking a deep breath. What the hell, hair grows back. She reached back and cut just below the hairband, five inches of hair falling to the floor. She undid the ponytail and presto, her shoulder length blond hair was converted into an instant bob.
    She unscrewed the drawer pull from a dresser and used it to pulverize the beets until she had a good mulch. She added hot water to the stoppered sink. Then with a plastic bag over her hands, she’d worked the mixture into her newly shortened hair. Five minutes later she carefully rinsed in a cold shower. She looked in the mirror. Bright, beet red hair.
    She looked at her last pair of jeans. She slid the boot knife out of its sheath, and worried the jeans until she had worked four good-sized holes in them. She put the jeans on, then slipped into the heels. She shrugged into her T-shirt, then went back to the mirror to check the effect. It wasn’t quite enough. Removing the shirt, she cut off the sleeves with her knife, and put it back on. Perfect: Different hair color and cut, clothing, height, and gait, all in a cohesive grunge style. That should be enough to temporarily avoid the police and AI scanning camera feeds.
    She used the knife to pry a dozen diamonds out of the necklace, distributing them among her pockets, shoe, and backpack. She hid the necklace with its remaining diamonds under the bottom dresser drawer.
    Two bus rides and a long walk later, she ended up in yet another of Los Angeles’s bad neighborhoods. This one was dotted with a half dozen pawnshops in twice as many blocks. She picked the second one and walked in. Past cases of musical instruments, handheld computers, and stereos, she found the back counter. A solid-looking woman in jeans and a plaid shirt stared her down, a heavy automatic pistol bulging out of a holster on her belt.
    “What do you want, kid?” She stood with her arms crossed, legs squared.
    “You buy jewelry?” Cat asked.
    “If it’s not stolen. Put it on the counter.”
    Cat pulled a matched pair of the smaller diamonds out of her pocket. “These were my grandmother’s.”
    “Of course they were.” She unfolded her arms and picked one up. She looked at it for a second, then grunted. “If you want me to give you an estimate, I got to put it in the machine.” She gestured with her head at grey metal box on the back counter. “It does the estimating for jewelry. I don’t know nothing about it.”
    Cat squinted at the machine in net space. She didn’t see anything sentient. Would it match the diamonds against a database of stolen jewelry? She had no idea how these things worked, but she had to take the chance. “Go ahead.”
    The woman put the two diamonds on clear plastic tray, and slid it into the machine. She turned back to Cat. “I’m Jo.”
    “I’m Catty.” What the fuck. It was the best she could come up with. Her own name had come out of her mouth before she was ready. She needed to be thinking ahead about this stuff.
    “It takes a couple minutes. Look, I can only offer you street price.” She looked genuinely sad at the thought of buying them.
    “It’s OK.”
    The machine hummed behind her. “If they really are your grandmother’s, I can do it as a loan. You come back in a month with the money plus twenty percent, you can have them back.”
    “That’s OK. I’m not gonna have the money. I’ll just sell them.”
    The woman grunted. “I had a daughter about your age, you know. If she took off for some reason, I’d want to know. I’d want to find her.”
    Oh Jesus, could the