Direct hit.
The screen glitches, fuzzing out with a static burst. He curses, startled, nearly dropping the device. His cover broken, he stands up too quickly and bolts through the crowd, muttering about a system error. No weapon draw. No confrontation.
Testing the waters, then.
I watch him go, already running biometric snapshots through my neural implant. No matches yet. Not Tugun. Not known affiliates.
Yet.
“You just threw a rock,” Sable says flatly.
“I did.”
“At someone’s tablet.”
“Compad.”
“Why?”
“Maintenance.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “You maintenance’d that guy’s compad so hard he fled like you owed him money.”
I shrug. “He looked suspicious. Like someone who eats plain toast.”
“That’s your metric now?”
“I trust my instincts.”
“And your instincts say to assault electronics in public?”
“Non-lethal discouragement is a valid defense strategy.”
She stares at me for a long moment, then bursts out laughing.
Not just a chuckle. A full, head-thrown-back, loud, no-holding-back laugh. Every person at the nearby tables turns to look. A bird flutters out of the vines. Even the judgmental waiter glances over.
Sable doesn’t care.
She’s laughing like she’s not the target of a galactic bounty. Like her world isn’t on fire. Like she can breathe again.
My chest does something weird. Tightens. Warms.
I let the parasol tilt a little more her way.
A kid walks past—a scruffy little gremlin with neon-stained fingers and the audacity of youth. He stops beside me, staring up like he’s seeing a mountain that talks.
“Are you a robot?” the kid asks.
I grin. “No. I’m better.”
“Can I climb you?”
Sable looks like she’s about to object, but I shrug. “Sure.”
The kid grabs onto my arm and starts hauling himself up like it’s a jungle gym. He perches on my shoulder in seconds, legs swinging, whooping like he’s reached the summit of Mount Absurd.
“Best café tripever!” he yells to his equally sticky siblings.
