Runner's Companion.pdf - Free

Simon Wentworth (order #1132857) 9face from side to side, checking for balance and symmetry—notthat any natural metahuman face was perfectly symmetrical—hethought he might finally have it. He gritted his teeth as he slippedon the filthy tee-shirt and jeans of the petty thief. If things went asplanned, he’d be out of the disgusting clothes soon enough.Horse opened the door and looked down at Banshee. “Well?”he asked, mimicking the thief ’s voice.Banshee stared up at him, then looked back at the unconsciousman tied to the ratty motel chair.“Great,” she said, as she pushed past him into the bathroom,“Who’d believe you could possible get uglier.”Raimee was sitting in the other chair, staring into AR, butSquirt smiled at him from where he was hunched on the floor.“Looks good, boss,” the troll said. Horse walked over to theunconscious man, giving Raimee a nudge as he stood beside her.They’d picked the thief specifically because he matched Horse’sheight and build, had no cyber or bioware, and because he alreadyhad a record and had spent time in a detention facility. His recordsaid he was mundane and at his age the police would have no reasonto subject him to any astral scans.“Huh?” the technomancer asked, then blinked. “Oh, yeah,”she said, looking him over carefully, comparing him to thecaptured thief, no doubt running some techno version of facialrecognition software. “Pretty close. His mouth is a bit bigger.Maybe the eyebrows are closer together….” She shrugged. “Shouldbe good enough to fool a normal check. I fixed his fingerprints inLoneStar’s database, so you’ll match, as long as they don’t bouncethe check back to Interpol or something. The biometric-contactsshould last 24 hours.”Banshee stepped out of the bathroom and joined her threeteammates. “So, you really gonna do it, huh?” she said, shaking herhead. “Never heard of anyone tryin’ to get into the joint before.”Horse felt his face stretch into an unfamiliar grin. “The clientwants a riot at 8:55 am. We deliver.”Of course, the client also wanted a certain NeoNET executiveto be killed in “random violence” during the riot. That wasn’tgoing to be his job—Raimee would take care of that part, throughan “accident” with the facility’s drones.Less than twenty minutes later, he was in the back of a patrolcar, on his way to the Downtown intake facility. The patroldrone had ID’d him just as planned, and two officers had shownup minutes later, arresting him for a parole violation and tossinghim into the back of the car. Ten minutes later, he was in line atthe intake facility, waiting to be processed. He had just over sevenhours left to complete the job before his face would begin to regainits natural shape and features, and his skin would fade fromebony to copper.At the intake facility, the impersonal cops, in their armoredblue uniforms, supervised the metahuman sized drones that actuallyinteracted with the “suspects.” Cold and brutally efficient, thedrones herded Horse into a tiny room, where he was ordered tostrip. Cameras watched from all corners, and a small drone stoodby, equipped with a visible tazer (and who knew what else). Horsewas relieved to finally take off the filthy clothes, stood resignedthrough the decontamination spray and chemical shower, thenaccepted the bundle of shapeless orange flats that the small droneproduced. The orange flats bagged around the waist and were aRunner’s Companiongood six inches too short in the leg, but at least they were clean.Horse gritted his teeth as a second drone injected a small chip intohis arm, without the benefit of any local pain relief.“Human male, ID 29∆7–36f∆972-lk83◊0mv, proceedthrough door and follow the orange line to bunk assignment,” thedrone said in its mechanical voice. Under the watchful eyes of thecameras—Raimee had confirmed that the entire facility was runby three spiders at all times—he sulked down the corridor, followingthe orange line. Three other men were in the hallway as well,wearing the bright orange flats. Automated guns—supposedlyarmed with non-lethal ammo—followed their progress, while atall armed drone stood against the wall, its featureless face watchingthem. At the end of the corridor, a metahuman sat behind athick panel of ballistic glass. He gave each inmate a bored look,then waved them through. When it was Horse’s turn, the guardsaid “Bunk 387,” and then looked back at his display.Horse was in.It was perhaps a matter of luck, or a measure of his talent,that he’d never been inside a Lone Star detention facility. Thiswas a level 1 facility, for the low level criminals, the unaugmentedand unAwakened street-scum that Lone Star caught andprocessed every day. The room he was in was the size of a largeauditorium, with bunkbeds spaced evenly every 2 meters, eachmade of sturdy plasticrete, with a black painted number on eachside. No mattresses, no blankets, just a hard plasticrete slab. Most173life on the run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .