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  "I've got you now, Carmody," she murmured. "I've got all I need. Your little toy is going to be mine."

  CHAPTER 2

  The city of Camulod looked like a circuit board from above. It was night on this side of Hesperus. A river went past below, a black stripe cut into sections by the golden bars of bridges. A major boulevard, like a river of white and yellow fire, flowed through the shadows, then into a grid of residential towers. The streets were lit, but the rooftops were dark, showing as black squares on a grid of shining white. No vehicles moved at this late hour. She had the city to herself.

  Cassie sat in the open doorway of her skimmer, feeling the faint vibration of the wind and wishing she could feel it cold against her skin. She wore a helmet with a full face mask and a body suit with gloves. It would protect her from stun shots and laser burns, hide her face and keep DNA evidence contained. But it made the whole experience less visceral.

  Not that she was feeling detached. Far from it. The whole galaxy seemed to sparkle around her. The trinket she was after would net her close to a million creds, but the real reason she did what she did was moments like this. The rest of her life seemed dull and bleak by comparison.

  Her fingers traced and retraced the antigrav harness that would shortly be keeping her alive, and she couldn't tear her eyes from the drop. The skimmer was no more than thirty or forty meters above the rooftops, but those were eighty-story buildings below her. Sure, she'd done this sort of thing before – more or less – but a miscalculation would be fatal.

  "There is no cause for alarm," said a calm voice in her ear. Roger was controlling the skimmer, and he was monitoring her vital signs.

  "Who said I'm alarmed?" she asked crossly, and made her fingers stop their compulsive fidgeting. It wasn't easy.

  "Your pulse is more than sixty percent higher than normal," Roger reported. "You will need to manage your adrenalin levels carefully if you hope to—"

  "My adrenalin levels are fine," she interrupted. "Stuff it."

  "We're approaching the target building in thirty seconds from my mark," Roger reported. "Mark."

  His interruption, however unwanted, had served its purpose, diverting her thoughts from a circular pattern of rising stress. She was close to the zone now, that perfect spot where adrenalin made time slow down, where decisions were faster, the mind was sharper, and fear was a distant, abstract thing. Too much adrenalin and you got clumsy, developed tunnel vision. Too little and you missed the benefits.

  Cassie took a deep breath, smelling the cold, fresh air above the city. "Just right," she said, and grinned.

  A green rectangle appeared in the lens over her right eye, superimposed on the top of an approaching rooftop. At the same time, Roger said, "Do you have the target?"

  "Roger, Roger," she said, and endured a moment of pained silence. Roger had complained about that particular joke more than once. She grinned, stood, and gripped the edges of the doorway. The force of the wind increased, and her heart rate increased with it. This was it, the best part of every mission, that golden moment when every nerve in her body screamed at her to turn back.

  She laughed with sheer animal joy, stepped forward, and threw herself out of the skimmer.

  The harness kicked in immediately, tugging her at hips, armpits, and crotch. She fell, slowing with every passing meter, until the wind died down to nothing. The rooftop drifted up, closer and closer, just a dark hole beneath her, and she touched down with a gentle thump.

  Not much light reached the rooftop, and she wanted to pause in the shadows and wait for her eyes to adjust. She might have tripped an alarm, though. Safety lay in motion. She waited for a glowing arrow to appear on her lens, showing her East, and ran forward. The edge of the roof was protected by a low parapet, and she trailed her fingers along the top of it as she ran along the roof. She'd programmed her implants with care. She would know when she was above the window she needed.

  The arrow flashed red, and Cassie took a deep breath, then stepped onto the parapet, spread her arms, and jumped.

  For a moment she just enjoyed the sensation of plunging into space, the side of the building across the street flashing past her at a range of fifty meters or so. Then she twisted herself around until she was facing the building she'd jumped from. Windows whipped past, each one taking longer than the last as the harness slowed her down.

  When she floated to a halt she was directly in front of a window on the 63rd floor. She scanned left and right, counting windows, making sure she hadn't drifted to the side as she fell.

  Nope. It was the right window.

  Moving quickly but carefully, she unspooled safety line from her harness, scraped away the plastic cap, and pressed the knob on the end of the cable to the top edge of the window. The glue needed no more than five seconds or so to set. She gave a careful tug on the cable, then powered down the harness to conserve the battery, resting the soles of her boots against the transparent alloy. She took a mini scanner from a pocket and played it over the window.

  The first pre-set gave her a view of the inside of the apartment, simply amplifying the small amount of light that made it through the tinted window. The amplified view appeared on her lens. Expensive furniture, nice art on the walls, and not a hint of movement.

  Her gloved fingertip found a little inset button on the side of the scanner and she switched to the next pre-set. Holding the scanner close to the window, she peered within the thick pane, looking for tiny wires, micro-tubes, or other sensors.

  Nothing. She grinned in the darkness. No one bothered protecting their windows sixty stories up.

  Pocketing the scanner, she drew the pistol strapped to her leg. It was a remarkably expensive gun, capable of a great many things. Right now she had it rigged to spray an acid foam in a swath several centimeters wide. She set to work on the window, spraying back and forth, covering an area as wide as her shoulders and a bit more than half her height. She caught brief whiffs of a chemical tang before the breeze between the buildings whipped it away.

  She glanced around, checking the buildings behind and beside her for any sign of an observer. Nothing else was moving. Cassie turned her attention back to the window.

  The acid had burned completely through in a few places. A few small bits of alloy were about to break away, and she plucked them out and tossed them into the apartment. They landed silently on the expensive carpet inside. She gave another squirt on a stubborn shard, then broke it away in her free hand and held it as she holstered her pistol and slid a leg in through the hole she'd made.

  She hooked a heel against the inside of the window, pulled herself closer, and used her hand to pull her head and shoulders inside. The room inside was dark, a shadowy cavern that looked featureless in the dim light. Cassie set her shard of alloy on the floor out of the way of her feet, then drew herself in through the hole.

  The wind made a low moaning sound through the hole in the window, and Cassie heard a distant hum of fans as the building's environmental controls compensated. If Carmody was a light sleeper she'd have to stun him and hope that the resident AI didn't take notice.

  Unclipping the safety line and leaving the spool on the floor behind her, she moved deeper into the room. Her eyes were adjusting, and she could make out the shapes of sofas and entertainment machines. A blue light appeared on the side wall as the apartment AI detected movement, but Cassie had prepared herself by attaching service robot transponders to her harness. The AI identified her as a janitorial machine and paid her no further attention.

  The third pre-set on the mini scanner showed her the apartment much as the AI would see it. Using a combination of scanning and information gleaned from databases, the lens on her eye showed her power conduits behind the walls, water pipes, and data lines. She could see load-bearing struts within the walls and the reinforced mesh and sensors that made the front door effectively impenetrable. Cassie could make out eight different security features in and around the door, and she grinned as she glanced back over her sh
oulder. The floor-to-ceiling windows had no protection whatsoever.

  One more part of the room showed a combination of structural and sensory security elements. Her left eye, the one without the lens, told her it was nothing but an ordinary holo projection tank. Her right eye, though, told a very different story.

  Cassie spent a couple of minutes examining the holo tank, knowing that she wasn't seeing everything. The tank was about a meter square, and rose to a height of about a meter and a half. The top was an ordinary holo tank, but the base of the tank was something else entirely. The scanner could make out layers of steel and ceramic plates and a forest of wires feeding sensors that would detect any kind of tampering.

  When she was sure she'd seen all she could, Cassie dropped to her knees and examined the front of the holo tank's base. She had to set the scanner to detect skin oils before she could find the right spot to press. A hidden panel slid open, and she found herself looking at the handle of a safe.

  From there it was easy. It should have been impossible, of course. In theory a burglar ought to be stumped by a modern safe, a thinking machine that would set off an alarm, summon police, and wake the homeowner if a stranger came tampering.

  Artificial intelligences, though, could be fooled. You just had to come in knowing what kind of AI was in place, and bring the correct hardware to bamboozle it. But anything expensive enough for a high-tech safe was going to have an insurance policy, and a good insurance firm would want to know what the homeowner was using for security.

  Cassie allowed herself a sigh of relief as she read the little manufacturer's plate on the front. Hammersmith and Quan 9064. Her trip to Vanatel hadn't been for nothing.

  The cracking machine was no bigger than a sandwich, and it cost as much as a small spaceship. All she had to do was set the machine on the floor, almost touching the safe, and wait. The two devices spent most of a minute in silent communication, the cracking machine answering every query and providing every protocol. Cassie knelt there, hardly breathing, dying a little bit with every second that trickled past. If this failed, she might not even know it until police came storming through the front door.

  With a low metallic click, the door of the safe swung open.

  Documents in cubbyholes lined one side of the safe. Cassie ignored those. There were some boxes made of dark faux wood, their lids closed. She ignored those as well. There was no way to tell what extra security features might be incorporated into those innocuous cases.

  She saved her attention for the gemstone that held a place of honor in the center of the safe. It was a strangely dingy thing for such a priceless artifact, a pale red lump of rock crudely carved to look like a bird. Most of the surface was rough and grubby-looking. Only here and there where the carver's tools had dug deep could she see the underlying crystalline structure of the gem.

  As an objet d'art it wasn't much. As an artifact of a lost civilization it was beyond price.

  Not that she would have any trouble putting a price on it, of course.

  A quick scan of the safe assured her that there were no surprise security features protecting the gem. Something deeper in the safe lit up like a Union Day celebration, though, and she frowned. Careful not to touch anything, she leaned closer and peered past the gem.

  A simple metal box, dark blue, as wide as the two palms of her hands side by side, filled the back of the safe. There were optical sensors all around it, and more. Her scanner detected a mesh of electronics just beneath the skin of the box. It would have its own tracer and alarm system, constantly broadcasting its location if it was stolen.

  None of the extra security features affected the gem. Cassie spent several minutes examining the gem in every way she could think of, reassuring herself. No, Jim Carmody had set up this safe so that he could take out his little red bauble and play with it without needing to deactivate the alarms on the blue box.

  "Huh," she murmured. There was only one conclusion to be drawn. The gem, priceless though it might be, wasn't the most valuable thing in the safe.

  The temptation to steal the box was nearly overwhelming. She squashed it. The carved gem would bring her almost a million creds, and she would get away clean. The over-protected mystery box would set off every alarm in the apartment and get her caught.

  Her fingers were a centimeter from the gem when the lights came up behind her. Her stomach lurched and she flinched back, her heart hammering in her chest. She scooted around the holo tank, pressed her back against it, and peered around the corner.

  A dim light shone at floor level in a corridor leading deeper into the apartment. It was just enough light to let someone navigate the hallway without bumping into a wall. The AI had detected movement.

  Someone was up.

  Cassie held herself frozen, listening to the machine-gun beat of her heart. How much time would she need to roll onto one knee, draw her pistol, flip it to stun, and drop the interloper? If Carmody shouted a warning to the apartment AI she would have to grab the gem, dive out the window, and haul ass back to the roof. It would be a race against police response times, and men as rich as Carmody tended to get excellent service from law enforcement.

  A faint sound reached her straining ears, the delicate pad of small bare feet on carpet. It was a kid, by the sound of it. Carmody had a daughter, Lark. Nine years old. Maybe she needed a drink of water. Maybe she wouldn't notice the panel that stood open on the side of the holo tank base. Maybe she wouldn't hear the wind moaning through the gaping hole in the front window.

  The child sighed in the darkness, a sound so sad and woebegone that Cassie smiled in spite of her stress. So the pampered child of one of the richest men on the planet imagined she had problems, did she? Were there only a dozen toys on her last birthday?

  The sound of running water came to Cassie's ears, then a clatter like a drinking glass tumbling into a sink. The clatter ended suddenly, as if the girl had caught the glass in mid-bounce, and silence reigned.

  Metal clicked against metal somewhere deeper in the apartment, and the little girl gasped in alarm. A moment later Cassie heard the urgent scurry of little bare feet as the girl hurried back to her bedroom. Cassie rose to one knee, thinking to grab the gem and make her escape.

  A man coughed, and she froze again. Bedclothes rustled, something creaked, and feet rustled on carpet. A door slid open, the light in the corridor brightened somewhat, and Cassie heard heavy footsteps.

  Carmody was up.

  "What are you doing?"

  The man's voice was low and gruff with sleep, and it sounded so close that Cassie flinched, looking around to see if he'd crept up beside her. She was alone in the main room, though.

  The little girl replied, her voice a quavering murmur, and the man bellowed, "What the hell is wrong with you? God damn it, how many times have I told you—"

  And Cassie cringed at the sound of a fist striking flesh.

  Three blows landed, each one clearly audible from Cassie's hiding place, before the girl began to scream. The blows continued, each impact causing a momentary drop in volume as the child screamed, and Cassie crouched in the darkness, telling herself that this was her chance to grab the gem and get away clean.

  Then she stood up and ran down the hall. She forgot the gun strapped to her thigh. She forgot the danger. It all disappeared in a red haze of rage as she raced silently over thick carpets, past shadowy paintings and closed doors, to an open doorway. All she could see of the child was a small pair of feet sticking out from under the covers. A burly man stood over her, a stocky figure in pajama bottoms and a gray tank top, one thick arm raised high and starting to come down.

  The toe of Cassie's boot caught him on the back of the leg just above his knee, and he collapsed, his bellow of rage turning into a squeal of surprise and pain. He turned to look at her, just in time to take a punch to the bridge of his nose. He cried out, his hands coming up protectively, and she caught the tips of his fingers in her right fist. A quick twist bent his wrist back and left him yelp
ing helplessly in her grasp.

  It was Carmody. She knew him from the holos she'd studied, despite the hand curled protectively around his nose and the blood pouring over his chin. His right hand was up, his fingers in her fist, his palm directed at the ceiling. He gaped at her, then said, "What the fu—"

  A quick twist of his fingers made him yelp again and fall silent. They stared at each other, both of them panting. Cassie could see the child in her peripheral vision. The girl had the sheets pulled up in front of her face. Nothing showed but her eyes, her forehead, and a fan of dark hair.

  "Are you all right, kid?"

  The child didn't answer, just gazed up at Cassie with wide, dark eyes.

  Cassie turned her gaze back to Carmody. "Of course she's not all right. She's had a knuckle-dragging ape beating on her."

  Carmody's voice came out in a whisper, a torrent of frantic, terrified words almost overlapping one another. "What do you want I'll give you money I have cash just don't hurt me I can pay I—"

  She twisted hard on his fingers and he lapsed into sobbing. After a few seconds she let up on the pressure. It was several seconds more before he recovered enough to stop moaning. Finally he said, "What do you want?"

  Cassie pondered the question. "Let's start with an apology," she said.

  "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, whatever I've done I swear I won't do it again, I'll make it up to you—"

  Her knee rose in a short, sharp arc, smacking into the back of his left hand, mashing his palm into his injured nose. He flinched back, crying out.

  "Not to me, you idiot!" She jerked her head toward the bed. "Apologize to her."

  Carmody stared at her, face blank with confusion.

  "You've been beating a child," Cassie said patiently. "And you say you don't know what you've done?"

  His mouth opened and closed several times. Finally he managed to say, "What?"

  Cassie twitched her knee, and he flinched. "Apologize to the kid," she said.

  "What!" For the first time there was something other than fear and confusion on his face. Carmody looked genuinely angry. "Apologize to her?"