Juliet and Bennet hurried across the street, still almost devoid of traffic. As they stalked down the side alley of the processing plant, Bennet quipped, “Guess they don’t get started too early in this part of town.” When Juliet failed to respond to his attempt at levity, he asked, “See any workers with the drone?”

“Yeah, but my PAI mapped us a route upstairs that avoids everyone on the first level. She’s seen three people up there, all told, only one obviously carrying a gun.”

“No cameras out here?” Bennet frowned, looking up the sides of the two industrial buildings they were walking between.

“Just facing the front and rear entrances. We’re going up there,” Juliet pointed to a small window above a pallet stacked with empty five-gallon buckets. “We drop through, and the rear stairwell is just ten meters away.”

“Uh,” Bennet slowed, pressed to the concrete wall, and turned to look Juliet in the eyes. “I’m not sure I can fit through that, and it’s closed.”

“I’ll get it open, and Angel says you’ll fit.”

“He will. Even his broad shoulders will clear the opening.”

“She’s sure, huh? I’d hate to get stuck.”

“Tell him what I told you about the window casing,” Angel suggested, and Juliet realized she wasn’t really being fair to Bennet; her mind was racing, occupied with hurrying in there to help Rissa and Cel.

“Angel says the best way to open that window is to pry the window casing out of the concrete. She says it was installed poorly; she saw some light coming in around the casing with the drone. I trust her.”

“Oh. If the whole casing is coming out, yeah, I think I’ll fit. Nobody’s gonna notice that?” Bennet started walking again, sidling up to the pallet of old chemical buckets.

“Nah, only a few workers on the processing floor and none in clear view of this corner.” Juliet began flipping and stacking buckets, building a makeshift set of stairs.

“Not very good security . . .”

“Well, it’s a gas processing plant. I guess they aren’t worried about people stealing much out of the windows.” Juliet wasn’t trying to sound snarky, but it came out that way, so she added, “I mean, seriously, though, wouldn’t someone need a pretty big operation to get away with enough helium or whatever to make it worthwhile?”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s not like we’re talking Helium-3.” Bennet started shifting stacks of buckets closer for Juliet to work with, and soon, she had a tiered staircase against the wall that she could climb up to the window. She shrugged out of her backpack and handed it to Bennet. “Hand me that prybar when I get up there.” Then she hopped up one stack to the next until she was shoulder-level with the window. Bennet handed her the prybar, and she got to work, trying to wedge its business end under the cheap alloy window casing.

“Try to get a wide angle so you don’t apply too much pressure; we don’t want to shatter the glass,” Angel suggested.

“Trying,” Juliet muttered, gritting her teeth. The stack of buckets wobbled under her feet as she scraped and jammed the prybar around the edge of the casing, trying to find a good purchase. Bennet grabbed the top of the bucket stack, holding it steady while she worked, and finally, after a couple of minutes of stressful scraping, she felt the bar slip under the casing. She gently started to apply some pressure. The metal immediately began to deform, bending up, and she worked the prybar along the wider gap, pulling, shifting, pulling, until, after just a few seconds of work, the whole thing started to scrape and slide out of the concrete enclosure.

“Easy peasy,” Bennet laughed, catching the window as Juliet hoisted it down to him.

“Wasn’t even screwed in or anything. Just some caulking around the outside seam.” Juliet poked her head in the opening, scanning the dim corner of the industrial building. Angel had been right about no one having a line of sight on the window; huge stainless tanks blocked the majority of the first floor from view. To the right, a concrete staircase led up. “Looks clear. Going in.” She hoisted herself through the window, rotated, and dropped down to her feet.

In her comms, Bennet asked, “Want your pack?”

“Yeah, drop it through ahead of you.” Juliet lifted her SMG and then crouched at the foot of the stairs, straining her ears. She asked Angel, “Do you still have eyes on them with the drone?”

“I have eyes on a closed door behind which I last saw Rissa and those two men. I identified the one with the suit as Redbot and the other as a wanted criminal, Arnold ‘Lobster’ Stevenson.”

“Lobster?” Juliet snorted, then jerked her SMG up, startled as her backpack fell to the concrete floor. Seconds later, Bennet dropped through, landing on his boots with a pair of heavy thuds. He froze there for a moment, and Juliet listened carefully, sure that Angel was also analyzing the sounds coming from around the noisy processing plant. Nothing alarming happened, so she motioned Bennet over. He crept close, hoisting her backpack on the way and handing it to her as he crouched down.

“What’s the plan?”

“Well, the way I see it,” Juliet whispered, “Redbot’s kind of a white-collar crime guy and not very big-time. His hired muscle isn’t exactly pro-level.”

“Yeah?”

“So, we’ll creep up there, and you can knock on the door, act like an idiot, saying something like you were here for a job interview in the processing plant and got lost. He’ll probably send his muscle to escort you out, and I’ll jump ‘em. We can see what we’re dealing with after that.”

“Huh. What if their PAIs call for backup?”

“I’ve got a jammer.” Juliet tapped the deck hanging from her neck.

“Right. Let’s do this. You lead the way; I’m assuming your drone has eyes on the bad guys?”

“Well, eyes on the door they’re behind.” Juliet stood and started up the stairs, hugging the wall, SMG ready, wishing she had a stun baton or that her needler wasn’t ruined. She really didn’t want to kill all these people, but she wasn’t going to let them sell Rissa and her baby to some corp. When they reached the top of the stairs, Angel directed them through a few quiet hallways until they stood at a corner, around which was the door leading to Redbot’s office.

Using the feed displayed in her AUI, Juliet figured out where Angel had hidden the spider drone. It lurked in the corner behind an overflowing trashcan, its little black body tucked between a crumpled juice box and a fast-food wrapper. “I had to hide the drone there when a third individual walked into the room and closed the door.”

“But that’s where we saw them punch Rissa?”

“That’s right.”

Juliet, still lurking behind the corner, turned to Bennet. “We last had eyes on them through that door. Just go knock on it and act like a lost blockhead. I’ll wait for you guys to turn toward the stairs, then I’ll come up behind you.”

“Should be easy enough.” He grinned and sauntered past her, clearing his throat noisily. He stomped up to the door and knocked on it loudly. Juliet counted to three before the door opened a few inches, and a figure, obscured by Bennet, peered through the narrow opening.

“What? He’s busy.”

“Uh, I had an appointment. Interview, I mean.”

“What?” The man’s voice rose an octave with incredulity. “Yo, Red, you hiring more muscle?” His voice rose to a shout as he addressed the room behind him.

Thanks to Angel managing the gain on her audio implants, Juliet heard a man with a distinct English accent ask in a nasal voice, “What you on about, Lobster?”

“Uh, muscle?” Bennet asked. “Nah, I was supposed to talk to someone named Chip about driving a tank truck. You know, for the plant downstairs.”

“This dipshit’s looking for a job in the refinery.”

“Well, get him out of here,” Redbot said, “EvoGen’s coming soon.”

“Come on, dude.” Lobster swung the door wide and stepped through. Before he closed it behind himself, Juliet, watching through the drone feed, saw that Rissa was sitting on a rolling desk chair, hands bound in front of her, and Redbot and another man in a suit were sitting on a long, pale brown couch against the far wall.

“Do you think that’s all of them?” Juliet subvocalized, hurrying down the hallway, lurking in a recessed alcove with a beat-up old document processing machine.

“We can try to assess better when you’re done dealing with Lobster.”

Hearing Angel call the guy by his nickname almost elicited another snort out of her, but Juliet clamped her mouth shut and waited, watching in the drone feed as the thug marched behind Bennet. They turned the corner while Bennet chattered away, “Oh man, I feel so dumb. Thanks for showing me where to go. You guys don’t work for the foundry, huh?”

“Nah. Boss just rents the space.” Lobster didn’t have a gun in his hand and seemed very at ease, and Juliet didn’t know if that was good or bad. He might be a total blockhead, or he might just be very confident in his ability to handle a threat. Hopefully, Juliet reasoned, it was both, and he was wrong about the latter. As soon as they turned toward the stairwell, Juliet moved out of her position and quietly approached, noting a high-pitched ping in her ears as Angel turned on the jammer.

As soon as she rounded the corner, she lifted the MP5 to Lobster’s back and said, “Freeze.”

“What?” he whirled, hand reaching for the big pistol hanging under his left arm. He stopped short, though, following Juliet’s advice and freezing when he saw her serious expression and even more serious weapon. Juliet had to admit her SMG was an intimidating weapon with its military-style carbon fiber housing and stock, its upgraded sights, and its bulky, threatening noise suppressor. Anyone who knew anything about guns would recognize that it was hardware that meant business. His eyes glazed over, and Juliet figured he was trying to call for help or warn Redbot.

“Don’t bother.” Juliet tapped her deck. She was about to say something more, but Bennet reached around the guy’s neck and flexed his prodigious arm, cinching Lobster into a murderously tight chokehold. “Don’t kill him!”

“Nah,” Bennet said as Lobster thrashed and slapped at his arm frantically. Just seconds later, he went limp, and Bennet lowered him to the floor. He flipped him over and pulled his hands back. “Toss me one of those shrink-ties.”

“Right.” Juliet yanked one of the ties from her vest pocket, noting it was oddly bent in the center—no doubt from the shotgun blast she’d eaten in the tunnels. Nevertheless, it worked just fine when Bennet hooked it around the man’s wrists and yanked the activation tab.

“How you gonna keep him from calling for help when he comes to?”

“Sec,” Juliet said, yanking her data cable out of her arm and kneeling to jack it into Lobster’s data port. “I’ll shut down his PAI.”

“You still got eyes on the hallway?”

“Yep,” Juliet said, glancing at the drone feed. “Door’s still closed.”

“This thug has a bargain-basement PAI. I’m in.”

“Nice, girl. Get it!” She grinned savagely and, at Bennet’s raised eyebrow, said, “My PAI is beating his up.”

“His ocular and auditory implants are disabled, and I’ve shut down his PAI. It will require removal and a firmware reset to turn it back on.”

“He’s out of commission. Let’s go.” Juliet stood up, retracting her data cable and hurrying back to the door. As she approached, Angel upped the gain on her auditory implants, and she heard a muffled conversation taking place.

“. . . just a few more minutes. When Lobster returns, I’ll have him clean that mess up in there.”

Muffled, inarticulate, high-pitched protestations told Juliet that Rissa was still alive. Angel cycled through her different visual spectrums, but either the door was surprisingly resilient, or the people inside the room were too far beyond it for her to pick up their signatures. “It sounds like it’s just the two men and Rissa in there,” Angel said.

“Why not send the drone through?” Bennet breathed, his mouth just an inch from the nape of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine. She nodded and carefully turned the doorknob, ever-so-slowly pulling it open a few inches. Angel was ready, and the drone darted through. Juliet watched in her feed as it raced to the right, hugging its legs close as it crouched behind another trash can. The two men on the couch hadn’t noticed anything; they sat there, one reclining with his legs crossed and his hands behind his head, the other sipping a can of soda called Rad-Hype.

The drone slowly panned around the room, and other than another closed door, Juliet didn’t see anything to be worried about. She subvocalized into her comms, “I’ll take care of the two men. You get Rissa loose.”

Bennet nodded, and Juliet pulled the door open, stepping through, gun leveled at Redbot and his friend. “Don’t move a centimeter.”

“What the fuck?” Redbot howled, his hand reaching for a pistol grip inside his jacket. Juliet fired the gun, putting two rounds through the top of the couch with loud click-hiss emissions from her SMG.

“Didn’t you hear me? Next two will be in your heads.”

“Jesus, Red! Don’t move!” the other guy cried, his hands already above his head. Juliet knew she looked like serious business in her black-visored helmet, and she stepped forward threateningly, putting herself between Bennet, the still-bound Rissa, and the two men. “Don’t kill me! I just do accounting for this prick. I thought he was legit collecting a bounty!”

“Is this how EvoGen does business? I report a bounty I want to collect, and you come and murder me so you don’t have to pay?” Redbot managed to come off as righteously indignant, and Juliet almost laughed in his face.

“Where’s the other girl?”

Redbot said, “What girl?” but his eyes darted toward the closed door, so Juliet shifted, keeping him in her sights while watching the door. She gestured with her gun’s muzzle.

“Get up, accountant.”

“What? Why me?”

“You have three seconds to get to that door and open it. Three . . .”

“Shit, chill!” He jumped up and hurried to the door. Juliet watched him but glanced at her rear-view camera feed, noting that Bennet had Rissa out of the chair and was helping her to stand.

“Get her out to the hallway.” Bennet didn’t reply, but she heard him talking softly to the girl, urging her to move.

“Cel! They killed her,” Rissa sobbed the instant Bennet pulled the gag out of her mouth.

“Get her out!” Juliet hissed. She watched her feed when Angel drove the drone through the other door as the “accountant” opened it. In the small window on her AUI, she saw a cluttered office space that clearly wasn’t being used for office work any longer. The desks were all shoved to one side of the room, the chairs were stacked by the blind-covered windows, and Cel’s body, clad in a dirty lime-green jumper, lay battered and bloody on the stained, dust and debris-littered office carpeting. “You filthy, scum-sucking creep!” Juliet growled, training the muzzle of her gun back on Redbot.

“I didn’t do it!” Redbot cried.

“Juliet!” Angel said, startling her with the sharpness of her tone. “Cel isn’t dead. She’s comatose, but I’m detecting a pulse.” Angel zoomed in with the drone’s camera; sure enough, she saw the tiny vessel on Cel’s skeletally thin left wrist throbbing up and down.

“Get her out, Bennet,” Juliet subvocalized into comms. “I’m getting her girlfriend. She’s alive.” She was still staring at Redbot, but she gestured with the gun. “You both have almost zero seconds to get facedown on the floor here.”

“I’m hurrying!” The accountant scurried back toward the couch, dropping to his knees, his hands still up. Juliet followed him with her eyes, and that’s when she saw, in the window on her AUI displaying her helmet’s side-view camera, Redbot reaching again for his gun. She still had her crosshairs pinned to his chest, so she squeezed the trigger, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. The MP5 spat out five rounds before she let go, and the recoil, light as it was, walked her bullets up, stitching a bloody line from his sternum to his chin. He never had a chance to cry out.

Juliet rushed forward and drove the accountant down to the ground with her left knee, riding him down so he grunted, “Oof!” as she came to rest with her knee still in the center of his back.

“Hands,” she barked.

“Lucky,” Bennet said in comms. “I had to find a door. I couldn’t get her through that window without hurting her. Just go through the hallway behind the stairs. There’s a door that opens to the rear alley. It’s clear. I’m calling us a cab.”

Juliet had been working on binding the accountant’s hands while Bennet spoke. When she jerked her data cable out and jammed it into his port, he cried, “What are you doing?”

“Turning out the lights. Better than killing you.” While Angel worked on his PAI, she subvocalized, “Pick up the cab a block away. Send me a pin. I think EvoGen is inbound, so keep your head on a swivel.”

“I’m through this man’s ICE. His name is Bernard Capshaw, by the way. Do you want me to render him senseless?”

“Yeah, eyes and ears off. Delete everything you can on his local directory; images of me, Bennet, the girls, everything.”

“Done. Your jammer will have kept our images off his net storage. You should plug me into Redbot.”

“Forget that,” Juliet growled, standing up and walking over to the dead man on the couch. He was already slumped forward, so it wasn’t difficult to reach the back of his neck, where she dug her thumb under his PAI chip and yanked it out. She pulled it about six inches from the port, trailing quite a little nest of synth nerve fibers, and then she snatched her vibroblade from her arm sheath and sliced through them. As she strode toward the other room where Cel lay unconscious, she pocketed the chip and sheathed her blade.

“Lucky,” Bennet said into her ear while she hoisted the thin, impossibly light girl into a fireman’s carry, “I’m at the corner one block east of the building. I saw a van pull up. Two men got out and went in through the big bay door at the front of the building.”

“On my way. Wait in the cab when it comes.” Juliet stomped out of the office, Cel over her left shoulder, her MP5’s muzzle leading the way. She held her middle finger on the trigger—discipline be damned; she knew nanoseconds might make a difference, and she was worried she’d be slow getting that finger into the trigger guard. “Is there another way out?”

“Not that I know of. Windows, obviously, but . . .”

Juliet had paused at the turn leading to the stairs and was looking at Lobster, still lying on his face, hands and ankles bound. “Did you delete all the images of Bennet from his local storage?”

“No. I didn’t think of it before I shut the PAI down.”

“Dammit, neither did I.” Juliet stepped up to the prone man and, grunting with effort, knelt beside him. She still had Cel on her shoulder, but the girl was completely still and not very heavy, so she let go of her and used her left hand to pry the man’s PAI chip from his data port. He began to writhe and grunt around the gag Bennet had stuffed in his mouth as soon as she touched him, but she ignored it, jerking the chip and all of its nano-filament synth nerves out of his head. He bucked wildly and then lay still.

“You may have given him brain damage . . .”

“I don’t care,” Juliet growled. She’d seen this creep punch Rissa in the face and didn’t doubt that he’d been in on what happened to Cel. She jammed his PAI chip into her pocket, put her hand back on Cel’s back, and, with a grunt and a protesting burn in her thighs, lurched to her feet. At that moment, the door to the stairwell opened, and two men came out. They each held heavy pistols, were dressed in yellow and green jumpers, and wore tan ballistic vests stitched with bright yellow logos: EvoGen.