Coalescence

“Still not getting it.”
“H-YWIRE!”
Emulator shrugged. “Highwire? Uhm… Okay… I guess your little funhouse mirror
trick is something out of a circus act. So… uhm.. yeah.”
“No it – ” The third thief paused for a moment. “Ac-ually, sure. Le-s go wit- that.”
With that the thief waved his hand and the image from the other side of the wall
stretched and squished. Then flipped. Emulator’s eyes tried to track the three would-be
criminals, but by the time any sort of sense returned to the image from the other side of
the barrier, they were gone. The wall then soon dropped, leaving Emulator alone on the
campus. She sighed and raised metallic fingers to her ear.
“Did you see them, Rick? Where did they go?”
There was a pause. The only sound was a dull electronic whine.
“Rick?”
“I’m looking. When the third creep showed up, there was some kind of interference that
glitched out the camera drones. I’m checking to see if there any outside of whatever…
perimeter… around you guys…”
Emulator could hear keys being clicked on a keyboard again. She rolled her eyes and
made a mental note to remind Rick that it was easier to use the touch screen; keyboard
shortcuts were so two years ago. It’s 2011 for crying out loud!
“I… can’t find them.”
Walking over to the device the thieves had been trying to steal, Emulator gave it a quick
evaluation. It was covered in dents and scrapes. And it was leaking what might have
been coolant.
“This thing is pretty trashed…”
“But at least they didn’t get their hands on it.”
“Yeah…” Emulator trailed off for a moment. “I guess that’s something.”
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