“Good enough. This going to be expensive?”
Elliott turned back to us, eyebrows hoisted. “Talk to Reese. She’ll probably have to buy the parts in, but maybe you can get her to do the surgery on a retrospective federal basis. She could use the juice at UN level.”
I glanced at Ortega, who shrugged exasperatedly.
“I guess,” she said ungraciously, as Elliott busied herself with the screen. I stood up and turned to the policewoman.
“Ortega,” I muttered into her ear, abruptly aware that in the new sleeve I was completely unmoved by her scent. “It isn’t my fault we’re short of funds. The JacSol account’s gone, evaporated, and if I start drawing on Bancroft’s credit for stuff like this, it’s going to look fucking odd. Now get a grip.”
“It isn’t that,” she hissed back.
“Then what is it?”
She looked at me, at our brutally casual proximity. “You know goddamn well what it is.”
I drew a deep breath and closed my eyes to avoid having to meet her gaze. “Did you sort out that hardware for me?”
“Yeah.” She stepped back, voice returning to normal volume and empty of tone. “The stungun from the Fell Street tackle room, no one’ll miss it. The rest is coming out of NYPD confiscated weapon stocks. I’m flying out to pick it up tomorrow personally. Material transaction, no records. I called in a couple of favours.”
“Good. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Her tone was savagely ironic. “Oh, by the way, they had a hell of a time getting hold of the spider venom load. I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what that’s all about, would you?”
“It’s a personal thing.”
Elliott got someone on the screen. A serious-looking woman in a late fifties African sleeve.
“Hey, Reese,” she said cheerfully. “Got a customer for you.”
Despite the pessimistic estimate, Irene Elliott finished her preliminary scan a day later. I was down by the lake, recovering from Reese’s simple microsurgery and skimming stones with a girl of about six who seemed to have adopted me. Ortega was still in New York, the chill between us not really resolved.
Elliott emerged from the encampment and yelled out the news of her successful covert scan without bothering to come down to the water’s edge. I winced as the echoes floated out across the water. The open atmosphere of the little settlement took some getting used to, and how it fitted in with successful data piracy I still couldn’t see. I handed my stone to the girl and rubbed reflexively at the tiny soreness under one eye where Reese had gone in and implanted the recording system.
“Here. See if you can do it with this one.”
“Your stones are heavy.” she said plaintively.
“Well, try anyway. I got nine skips out of the last one.” She squinted up at me. “You’re wired for it. I’m only six.”
“True. On both counts.” I placed a hand on her head. “But you’ve got to work with what you’ve got.”
“When I’m big I’m going to be wired like Auntie Reese.”
I felt a small sadness well up on the cleanly swept floor of my Khumalo neurachem brain. “Good for you. Look, I’ve got to go. Don’t go too close to the water, right?”
She looked at me exasperatedly. “I can swim.”
“So can I, but it looks cold, don’t you think?”
“Ye-e-es…”
“There you are then.” I ruffled her hair and set off up the beach. At the first bubblefab I looked back. She was hefting the big flat stone at the lake as if the water were an enemy.
Elliott was in the expansive, post-mission mood that most datarats seem to hit after a long spell cruising the stacks.
“I’ve been doing a little historical digging,” she said, swinging the terminal arm outward from its resting place. Her hands danced across the terminal deck and the screen flared into life, shedding colours on her face. “How’s the implant?”
I touched my lower eyelid again. “Fine. Tapped straight into the same system that runs the timechip. Reese could have made a living doing this.”
“She used to,” said Elliott shortly. “Till they busted her for anti-Protectorate literature. When this is all over, you make sure that someone puts in a word for her at federal level, because she sure as shit needs it.”
“Yeah, she said.” I peered over her shoulder at the screen. “What have you got there?”
“Head in the Clouds. Tampa aeroyard blueprints. Hull specs, the works. This stuff is centuries old. I’m amazed they still keep it on stack at all. Anyway, seems she was originally commissioned as part of the Caribbean storm management flotilla, back before SkySystems orbital weather net put them all out of business. A lot of the long-range scanning equipment got ripped out when they refitted, but they left the local sensors in and that’s what provides basic skin security. Temperature pick-ups, infrared, that sort of thing. Anything with body heat lands anywhere on the hull, they’ll know it’s there.”