Chapter 32: Infiltration
I tucked the batteries into my pack and tried not to think about the fact that I had just, in about ninety seconds, identified the next industry I was going to import from a dead world to a living one.
Mira would weep with joy. I had already ntally drafted the patent application.
We slipped into a side alley, and Zero ducked into a doorway and ca out three seconds later holding two clean shirts and a pair of pants that I had absolutely watched her not pay for.
"Zero."
"What."
"You stole those," I said, even though I already knew it was true.
"I borrowed them with no plan to return," she said, smiling innocently.
I rolled my eyes. "That’s the definition of stealing."
"Lukas, sweetheart, I just spent enough credits on cloaks and water purification to feed a family for a month. We are fine. They were stretched out on a line behind a building, and the people inside were in the middle of an argunt about a rooster."
"...Fair enough."
We changed in the alley, with our backs to each other, and I tried very hard not to think about the fact that my girlfriend was getting changed three feet behind
in a dirty alley in a post-apocalyptic gang town.
’Romantic, in a niche way. The honeymoon will be wild.’
I pulled the cloak on over the new shirt, tied the cloth mask over the lower half of my face, and felt the dust color of everything settle over
like camouflage. When I turned around, Zero was already done, hair tucked up under the hood of her cloak, mask on, only her eyes visible.
She looked, with just her eyes showing, deeply unfair. Even in these odd clothes, she looked so stunning. Or maybe I’m just too deeply in love with her.
"Stop it," she said.
I asked, a little confused, "Stop what?"
She said, looking away, "Whatever you’re about to say."
"I haven’t said anything."
"You were about to. I could feel it from here."
I smiled and said, "I was going to say you have very nice eyes."
She whispered softly, "Lukas."
"Statent of fact. Inadmissible as flirting."
"...Get moving."
I laughed, really enjoying these monts with her.
...
The inner ring was easier to get into than I had expected, which made
imdiately suspicious that it was about to be much harder.
The outer periter of the courtyard had two checkpoints, both manned by n with the sa kind of patched armor as the outer gate guards but with a distinctly aner posture. Zero pulled
into a doorway across the square and crouched beside , watching.
"Black Snake holds this building," she murmured. "The high-rise on the right. Their sigil’s on the gate. The other four buildings belong to the other gangs. Each gang has its own structure. The convoy went into Black Snake’s, so that’s our target."
"How do you know the sigils?" I asked, surprised.
"My mories are coming back, sweetheart. I told you. I ca through Halfmark before, a long ti ago."
"...How long is a long ti ago?"
"You don’t actually want the answer to that." She grinned at .
’Filing that under "questions about Zero’s age that I am wisely not pursuing." Right next to "what exactly is Zero," and "where Zero ca from," and basically every other Zero-related question.’
I asked, trying to change the subject, "How are we getting in?"
She nodded toward the side of the Black Snake building. "Service alley on the east face. Cargo doors. It’s less guarded because they assu nobody’s coming in that way. I’m going to go around the long way and take out the two on the alley quietly. You keep eyes on the front guards. When I signal, you cross."
"Why am I crossing the open square?"
"Because your job is to get inside. My job is to make sure you can."
"...Right. Sugar mommy mode."
"Sugar mommy mode."
She vanished around the back of the doorway like she’d never been there, and I crouched and watched the front guards and tried not to think about how attractive it was when she went into operator voice.
Sixty seconds later, a cloaked figure on the east side of the Black Snake building gave
a small wave from a now conspicuously vacant cargo door, and I crossed the square at a relaxed walk, which is harder than running, because running gets attention and walking does not.
The two guards Zero had put down were not, in fact, dead, which I noticed because she had left them propped against the wall in postures that suggested unconscious napping, complete with a half-eaten ration bar in one’s hand.
She had staged a scene. Anyone walking past would see two slacking guards, not a breach. ’I love this woman. She thought of the cover story while she was knocking them out.’
"Show-off," I murmured.
"Earned complint," she murmured back.
We went in.
...
The Black Snake building had been an office tower once. The lobby was cracked marble and the elevator banks didn’t work, but the stairs did, and we took them.
Zero went first, two flights at a ti, silent as a held breath. I followed, slower, listening for movent above us, holding the gun she had pressed into my hand at the bottom of the stairs.
"They have CCTV," I whispered, my eyes catching a small black do mounted at the corner of the second-floor landing. "And drones, probably. They’ll know we’re here in a minute."
"Then we do this in less than a minute."
"Casual."
"Sugar boy. Move."
We hit the third floor and the first patrol ca around the corner. Two n, rifles half-raised, and Zero went through them in a single fluid motion that I was already getting used to but still couldn’t quite track.
She didn’t kill them, I noticed. She broke things—wrist, knee—and laid them down, and they were going to wake up in a lot of pain, but they were going to wake up.
"You’re being rciful," I noted, stepping over them.
"They’re security guys. They didn’t kidnap anyone. They just clock in and stand here." She shrugged in response. "If I began to kill everyone trying to survive in this broken world, no one would be left to accompany us."
My lips curled up hearing that. "My girlfriend has a code of ethics. That’s so hot!"
"So you want to make out here? If not, then move, Lukas."
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