I’d shown Eon’s holo to what felt like hundreds of people, but no one had said a thing.
“This is pointless, Cy. We’re wasting time, and if Tex knew—”
“Well, then it’s a good thing he doesn’t. Come on.”
We were in uniform today, masks on. That meant we got what we wanted, but people avoided us like we had a walking case of C89.
The crowd parted before us like a river around a boulder, everyone’s eyes averted. Then I saw someone struggling against the flow—a woman with a little boy tugging on her arm, waving at something in a store window. I approached her and her eyes widened, but she was caught between her son and me. I pulled up the rendering of Eon on my wrist display to show her.
The woman shook her head. “Never seen her,” she responded automatically. She started to walk away, dragging her wildlingalong behind her when he chirped, “Mom! That’s Eon!” She shot her son a look and tried to drag him faster, but it was too late.
“Hold on their, champ. How do you know this woman?”
The boy grinned at me, delighted to have the right answer. “She works at the mod shop Mom took me to. She’s the best! She gave me the latestMegaBoyepisodes.”
Dumb brat.
I stood tall and loomed over the woman so she knew exactly what would happen if she lied again. “And where might this shop be?”
Her lips flattened into a line, and her grip on the boy’s hand tightened until he was trying to squirm away. Her eyes darted to the weapon at my side and the POM badge on my chest. She exhaled. “Dr. Chopra’s. At forty-five and Q7.”
Maddox looked at me, but I waved at him to follow, knowing the way.
I saluted the boy, which he mimicked back. I looked up at his mother. “Better toughen that one up if he’s gonna survive out here. Nobody likes a nark.”
We made our way through Magenta, up stairs and over catwalks. I even ducked through a shortcut in an old vent someone had crudely welded a grate over. Two kicks from Maddox and it was open. Giant fuckin’ nerd, but one who never missed a day at the gym.
“You really do know your way around here, huh?” Maddox asked, wrenching the grate free and tossing it to the side.
“Never forget your first, right?”
We ducked into the vent, and the other side spit us out less than a hundred meters from the clinic.
“Any chance there are cameras in there we can access?” I asked.
“In a mod shop? No. Even we need a warrant for that,” Maddox said.
“Guess we do this the old-fashioned way then.” I unholstered my gun.
Maddox eyed it suspiciously. “You going to shoot her?”
“She’s got a shield,” I said.
“You assume she’s got a shield.”
“She’s got a fuckin’ shield or she’s a dumb bitch who wouldn’t be worth anything alive anyway.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “So this isn’t personal?”
“Shut the fuck up, man.”
We reached the level with the shop. It looked like everything else in Magenta—run-down and plastered over. The front looked like a legitimate chip clinic, but every shop in Magenta offered illegal upgrades as well. Black-market hormone modifiers were the most common, but I’d seen everything from spyware to supposed Flux enhancements.
I casually walked closer but passed the door, doubling back to look through the front window.
There she was, bent over the front counter like she knew I was watching. Ass out and arms crossed on the counter in front of her, pushing her tits up as she laughed with a customer. Looking like a dream. This was her—the real her. Her hair was lavender now, and she wore a torn tank with some noodle shop graphic over a negligible skirt. True Magenta fashion. Ripped and dirty and sublime.
Seeing her like that had my mind reeling.
