Archon's Queen (13 page)

Invisible.

Their brains subconsciously disregarded her as she pushed at the door to make it beep as though she had left. She crept to the far counter, but neither attendant reacted to her. When the man took his eyes away from a necklace of dangly gold baguettes with small rubies affixed to the ends, she palmed it into her shopping bag and backed away.

The man continued showing pieces to the blonde. With his attention locked on the other woman’s hands, he remained oblivious to the one missing.

Anna went to the door, maintaining her projection of nonexistence in their minds. The entire area pulsed with electrical power; the door beeper, the holographic sign, and the anti-theft field emitters that would certainly sense the purloined necklace in her bag. The entirety of it came to her in threads of amber light. A three dimensional construction drew itself into her reality, a feeling of power wherever active wires lay. She merged her thoughts with the essence of it, pushing the electricity out of the security system and the door. For all intents and purposes, everything simply powered off.

A block away, she glanced over her shoulder, smiled at the lack of alarm, and became part of the crowd.

Anna had not returned to Mason’s, an old haunt of hers, since she was sixteen and fell in with Mr. Carroll. The place was still dingy and decrepit, in a part of the East End where the Propers would not want to be after dark.

A certain rustic charm dwelled in the way he’d rigged the door with actual bronze bells, and how she had to kick small objects out of her path to make it through the aisles. The rear of the shop hung thick with the combined smell of beer, cigars, and Middle Eastern incense. She stopped at a counter with a bullet-resistant barrier made of polycarbonate resin and metal mesh. Several gouges and twisted strands of metal gave away where vibro blades and bullets tried and failed to rob the place.

Behind the protective barricade, a large man in every sense of the word leaned back in a chair that creaked beneath his mass. Easily six and a half feet tall, he seemed quite muscular beneath the paunch of a sincere love of ale. Unkempt black hair jutted at random below a fading blue bandana, and pins and knick-knacks from various motorbike events studded his imitation denim vest.

Anna sauntered up to the counter. “Oi, Mason, long time.”

The man leaned forward, letting the wooden chair legs strike the floor as his weight shifted. It took a moment for his eyeballs to appear out from under furrowing brows, and another for them to widen with recognition.

“Anna? Zat you?”

“Aye.” She upended the bag, spilling both necklace and earring box onto the counter.

Mason reached through the tiny opening for the small white cube, but Anna was faster to snatch it back into the bag. “Not that one, need to flog the gold. This is a chintzy bauble you wouldn’t want.”

He drew the necklace through the tray and dangled it in front of his face. Coarse beard hairs parted as his fingers slid through them, rubbing back and forth in an appraising glower. Anna felt the old, familiar fear come back. There was nothing stopping him from telling her to get lost and keeping it. No matter how much she’d brought him, as soon as the loot was on the other side of bullet-resistant barriers, she dreaded that every time. Mason didn’t question how she had come to possess such a thing, he knew why street youth came to him. If he didn’t know her, a well-acted posture on top of her height would’ve let her pass for fifteen. He lowered the jewelry to the counter, letting his weight rest over the chain.

“You know, lass. You’re gettin’ a wee bit old for this now. If you get pinched, Old Bill won’t let you off with a rap on the wrist and a free supper.” He grinned, flecks of green leaf clung to his teeth. “Kind of miss the glory days. I’ve you to thank for much of my current state of comfort. Shame you got in with that uptown lot. You were the best little filch.”

She stared off, wondering how much of the stuff on the shelves she’d brought here.

“Look at you, gone out then? Oi.” Mason snapped his fingers in front of her face.

She leaned on the counter. “I know, it’s a one-off. I’m not lookin’ ta go back to that life if I can ‘elp it. Too risky.”

“Buck up, lass. You’ll get no trouble ‘ere.” He winked. “Figger I kin do bout eighteen hundred for it, if’n you’ll ‘ave it.”

“That’s fine then.” Anna scowled in her mind. The store was asking for ten thousand. Still, what he offered felt like a fortune now.

Mason slid the credstick back through the recess in the counter, past the bullet-resistant barrier, eighteen hundred credits richer than it had been a moment before. As it changed hands, he clasped his fingers through hers in the sunken channel, a silent offer of help. Anna thanked him, not moving until he broke contact.

“Thanks, Mason.” Despite his slovenly appearance, she trusted him. One of the few men who’d never looked at her
that
way. “I appreciate it.”

“Take care’a yerself, girl.” He grabbed a tool to detach the security tag from the necklace.

Outside, she turned at the sense of a small sphere of electrical power. A volleyball-sized orb hovered, peeking past the corner of the building at the end of the street. Anna thought it strange an advert bot tried to hide rather than bombard her with things to buy.

She thought it even more peculiar when it followed her at a distance, but paid it little mind.

It was probably only a perv hacker checking out her ass.

ubsequent a credits-only transaction at Plonk’s, Anna stopped at the market. She had popped for a case of Panda’s instant meals, the more expensive brand not made from OmniSoy, and a small white teddy bear. With one parcel under each arm, she approached the police line around The Ruin.

Because she had zoom in her purse, she had half a mind to invisibility her way past the cops this time to avoid the hassle. Of course, they’d not be as dim-witted as the jewelers; they would notice their cameras burning out. All it would take was one lapse of concentration and she’d seem to appear out of thin air among them. That would invite unwanted attention. The voices in her head argued about whether she should pitch her head down and tolerate the derision she deserved, or avoid it altogether. Before she could come to an accord, a voice ahead of her shouted.

“That’s her.”

Her heart stopped. She looked up to see a half-dozen police, two female, with rifles aimed. The little white teddy bear trembled with her.

“‘Old it right there, then.” The man in the center took a step forward.

She blinked. “What’s this about?”
What the hell are you doing? Don’t give them attitude.

“Special request, lass. Drop the stuff and up against the wall with ya.”

Anna stared at the road, dreading what she knew would follow. Perhaps all six of them would take turns this time. The nice sergeant was nowhere in sight. After stepping to the nearest wall, she set the crate of meals down and placed the bear on top of it to keep it off the muddy ground. The hunger that had been forming in her gut twisted into a knot of queasiness as she assumed the position against the grey bricks.

They shuffled up to her, keeping a wary distance, which she thought rather odd. One of the two female officers approached, slinging her rifle and performing a cursory squeeze-down to check for weapons before peeking into her tiny purse.

The officer’s visor flickered, bathing her face in green light. “Not seeing any weapons.”

“Check again. These Cov vermin kin ‘ave plastic knives on ‘em,” said a man.

Anna remained passive as the constable secured her hands behind her back. The cold metal about her wrists made her think of Tommy. Fear kept her thoughts from drifting into the realm of sex as the female constable searched her pockets reached under her shirt. Finding no bra, the hand retreated in an instant. Strictly professional. Anna endured it without protest, in fact giving the woman a grateful glance. It bothered her how nervous the officer was.

Something’s not right.

The woman spun her around and led her along by a hand on the elbow, taking her to the same room where Constable Brown had strung her up like a side of beef. Another slice of dignity sloughed off at the thought of it.

She followed nonverbal commands to a chair by the steel table, and sat. The officer left her to stare at her knees while one of the men set her purchases and purse on a shelf. The female officer traded her weight from leg to leg, inching backwards with each shift. With the other constables leaving, the woman broke into a run out the door, leaving Anna alone.

The feck are they scared of?

Paths of electricity in the lights above thrummed in her mind, as did wires running inches below the floor plate, and even near her wrists in the powered restraints. She let her unnatural senses probe the binders, smiling when she found the contacts to the hasp motor. A small jolt of power there would open them. She leaned back in the chair, hoping that by ignoring the thickening stone-like quality forming in her skull, the withdrawal would be less harsh.

She focused on containing her fear and shame. If she blew out the restraints, she would be stuck in them for hours while the police scrambled for a tool capable of cutting them, an experience she did not want to relive. She played with opening them, but put them back on, afraid of the beating that would earn her when the police returned. Her body stiffened as she eyed the cameras in the corners of the room. Hopefully, no one had seen the cuffs open and close. Trembles took over; whether it was withdrawal or fear she could not tell. Popping the cuffs required a lot of precision control and tiny voltages. It wasn’t something she’d be able to do in a panic. If she wanted to run, she’d have to commit to it before the situation escalated.