Scarlet Angel (17 page)

The weapon made a thunk on a nearby table or
counter. The man spun her around again.

She stood in the room with the two large men and a
young boy with nearly pitch-black skin sitting at a small laminate
table. Her gun sat only inches from his hand. By Scarlett’s guess
he was no more than seventeen. Old, once white, now yellowed
appliances sat against the far wall.

The teen ran his finger along one of the grooves on
the weapon. “That’s a serious piece of hardware you have there,
Missy.” His words chopped from his lips with a South African
accent.

“
Thanks. You Miles?”

“
Maybe. Who’s asking?”

“
Someone who wants to start
over.”

Miles shrugged. “Don’t know what you want from me,
lady. I’m just a kid.”

“
I hear you help people looking to
start over.”

“
No idea what you
mean.”

She let out a deep sigh. “Fine. My name is Scarlett.
I’m looking for Miles Jameson and I need your help.”

He laughed. “Let’s just say, hypothetically, that I
was this Miles person. So? Why would I care?”

“
Because you make IDs and I need
an ID. And, hypothetically, I might have money to pay
you.”

“
Okay. Well, if I were this Miles
person, I think I’d be worried about not getting caught. I mean,
making fake IDs is a very, very illegal thing. I could,
hypothetically, get a life sentence for making a Citizen Card. How
would I know I could trust you? I don’t know you. You don’t have a
recommendation. How would I know you are not a pig?”

“
Well...” Scarlett looked around
and noticed a fourth man in a dark hallway behind Miles.
Trust.
A balance of force.
She took a deep breath, and
moved.

Scarlett leaned back into the man holding her
shoulders. She stomped hard on the instep of his right foot. He let
go. She chopped at the other large man’s throat, hitting just below
his Adam’s apple. He stumbled back, gasping.

She spun around. Scarlett slammed her fist into the
small point just below the first guard’s ribs. Air spewed from the
man’s lungs and he hunched over. She grabbed his coat and
yanked.

The man lunged forward. His massive form tumbled
through the kitchen and into the dark hallway. He crashed into the
fourth man in the shadows.

Scarlett snatched her gun from the table. As she
moved, her thumb flipped the safety off and switched the weapon to
plasma rounds. She slid into the metal chair opposite Miles at the
table, the bridge of his nose centered in her sights. The gun made
a soft whine as it powered up.

The bodyguards slowly recovered and froze. Miles
held his breath.

“
Let’s see…” She smiled. “How
about this?”

Scarlett turned the safety back on and the plasma
charge dissipated. She angled her wrist to show the side of the gun
then set it on the table. “No guns, no guards. You think you can
trust me now?”

“
Yes.” Miles’ voice was barely
more than a squeak.

“
Good.”

“
That was very impressive. You are
very graceful.”

“
Thank you. So, I’m fascinated by
this setup you have. How does a kid like you get into a business
like this?”

Miles’ brow wrinkled. “Hey, watch it! I’m almost
seventeen. ‘Sides, what do you care?”

“
I don’t. I just think it’s
interesting. Now, as I said, I need a new ID.”

“
Who do you want to be?” He waved
off his men.

The man still recovering from the punch to the
throat stepped closer. “But boss…”

Miles rolled his eyes. “Please, Pauly, if she wanted
me dead, all four of us would be.”

The bodyguards disappeared into the rest of the
house.

“
I want to be myself.”

“
Well, that’s not very
productive.”

Scarlett squinted and shook her head. “Right. Uh, I
don’t know. Someone without a history.”

Miles rolled his eyes again. “Fine, what’s your
current name?”

She hesitated. Scarlett wasn’t sure she should tell
this child her full name.

“
Look, I deal in secrets. Anyway,
it’s not like I keep records or anything.”

“
Scarlett. Scarlett
Mallack.”

The boy thought for a moment then smiled. “How
fitting.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
I’m kind of a word and name
junky. Mallack comes from the ancient Hebrew word for
angel.”

“
So.”

“
So, as I said, you’re very
graceful almost like... Here, how about...” Miles grabbed a piece
of wrinkled paper and scribbled something down. He twisted the
paper around and slid it across the table. “...this.”

She looked down at the paper.

“
Scarlet Angel?”

Chapter 26
Normalcy

I used to think I wanted to be anything but
ordinary. Right now, I’d take ordinary in a second.

* * *

Scarlett stared at the empty living room. The barren
rectangular space gave her a strange sense of normalcy she thought
she would never have again. There was no furniture or stuff to fill
the room, but that didn’t matter. It was her space.

She’d spent several hours scouring the rental ads
and two days walking the streets just to find the right place. In
the end, she’d settled on the bottom floor apartment of a small
building. There were six other units in the complex, but hers was
the largest. While the other tenants all entered from one main
door, Scarlett had her own entrance.

Beneath her feet, blue shag carpet squished between
her toes.
That definitely has to go.
She thought the same
thing about the pink wallpaper in the kitchen and bathroom.

As she looked at the open and empty floor a lost
memory from her life as Jillian drifted back. Nearly ten years ago,
she’d stood in another empty apartment thinking very similar
things. That had been her first apartment on her own.

She remembered handing her first rent check to an
older Indian man. Something about him seemed wise. That night he’d
brought her a plate of Samosas and they played Parcheesi.

She rented the apartment because she’d just been
hired to her first research assistant position. A new city with no
roommates and no friends for support. But she’d made it work.

She’d made it work until... Violent images consumed
the other thoughts. Scenes of a dark room and a man on top of her,
grunting and thrusting, flashed through her mind.

Scarlett shivered and shook her head. She forced the
memories from her mind as a wave of nausea threatened to bring up
her lunch. Her hand felt the gun under her coat. The hard resolve
of its steel shape reassured her. Her tears stopped and her stomach
settled. She would never allow herself to become a victim like that
again.

“
Hey, you okay?”

Scarlett’s heart jumped. She’d forgotten the older
woman was there. She sniffed and rubbed her nose. “Yeah. I’m fine.
Just remembering something, that’s all.”

“
Don’t you go blubberin’. I ain’t
got time f’ that.”

“
Thank you so much, Mrs. Kranster.
I appreciate you renting the place to me.”

“
Yeah, well... Ya’ paid cash, so I
ain’t gonna run no credit check.” Mrs. Kranster wore a bright
floral print nightgown and held a lit cigarette in her left hand.
She wagged her age-speckled finger at Scarlett, nearly losing her
ashes to the forest-like carpet below. “But, you bettuh’ not be
havin’ any loud music. I’m raht upstairs.”

“
Not a problem. Oh, and would you
mind if I replaced this carpet? On my own dime, of course.
”

“
Huh? You don’t like that?” The
corners of Mrs. Kranster’s mouth turned down even more from her
already present frown. “Well, all’right, fine. But nuttin’ too
crazy.”

Scarlett fought back a chuckle. “Will do, Mrs.
Kranster.”

“
Well, here’s ya keys. We still
use old fashioned locks with metal keys here. No fancy keycards or
nuttin’.”

She took the jingly objects from the old woman.
Scarlett thanked her again and saw her to the door.

That night, Scarlett slept on a new mattress and box
spring on the floor. While comfortable, she was restless. Images of
Derrick, Universal Dynamics, and other random memories filled her
dreams. Some of them she understood the context of, others she did
not.

She awoke sometime after three a.m., tangled in her
damp sheets as they clung to her body. The room smelled of her own
sweat.

With her eyes wide open and sleep a long way from
returning, she unwound herself from her soaked bedding and took a
shower. Cold water sputtered from the showerhead but quickly became
a steady stream of heat.

Steam filled the room. The tiny jets of hot water
soothed her muscles and her shoulders relaxed. She hadn’t realized
how tense she was.

When she was done, she dressed and grabbed her
commpad. One of the faces from her dreams stood out. As she focused
on his face, memories of him drifted back to her. She remembered
Dax Lewis from her time at the University of California. They’d
both been in the engineering program, but he’d dropped out just
before graduation. The two had hung out in the same groups of
friends, though they were not particularly close.

Scarlett never saw him again.

She also remembered that he had a knack for the
programming side of technology. In fact, it had even gotten him in
trouble with the faculty on more than one occasion.

Maybe it’s time to reconnect with Mr. Lewis.

Scarlett did a quick search online to find anyone
using the names Daniel Xavier Lewis or Dax Lewis. With the
exception of an obnoxious teenager with a penchant for posting the
phrase “fuck it” everywhere and a grizzly old man, her search came
up empty.

She knew it was possible that he could have left the
state or even died, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. She just
needed someone a little more capable than herself.

The next day, Scarlett took the autobus to the
coffee shop where Jules worked. She ordered her usual drink from
the young barista and sat at a nearby table. A few minutes later,
Jules took her break and sat beside her.

“
Did you get my
message?”

“
Yep. You know it’s a good thing I
had the opening shift this morning and was already up. I might have
to kill you for waking me up that early.”

Scarlett smiled. “Yeah, sorry. I couldn’t
sleep.”

“
S’okay. Anyway, I found a few
things. I didn’t want to send them across the open net.” Jules slid
a small memorychip across the table.

Scarlett stuck the chip in her own commpad and
scanned the contents. “Looks like Mr. Lewis is little more than a
ghost.”

“
He actually went to some pretty
extensive lengths to become invisible. It’s only because you had
personal information about him that I was able to find
him.”

“
Hmm...”

Jules chewed on one of her fingernails while
Scarlett continued reading. Finally, Scarlett could not take it
anymore. “Okay, what’s buggin’ you?”

“
Well, it’s just that... I’ve been
around enough greys and hackers. This guy is probably hiding for a
reason. Chinese Mafia, Yakuza, even big corporate espionage.
Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to be found.”

Scarlett looked up from her commpad. “Don’t worry,
no one will know that you’re the one who found him.”

“
It’s not me I’m worried about.
These are serious people.”

“
Just my cup of tea
then.”

“
Just promise me you’ll be
careful.” Jules’s brow furrowed.

Scarlett reached out, took her friend’s hand, and
smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. So, let’s see. The few credit
purchases that can be traced back to him are spent at a place
called MakerMasters.”

“
What’s MakerMasters?”

“
It’s a makershop.”

Jules shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

“
Makers are like these underground
hobbyist engineers who build things with other things. They’ve been
around for a long time, but ever since the Trade and Patent Wars,
the corporations have made modifying their products illegal. Makers
went from being simple hobbyists and extreme recyclers to being
legally questionable.”

Jules scrunched her forehead. “If they’re
underground, how is there a public shop for them?”

“
Most makershops provide a
workspace with tools and basic components. You’re not allowed to
bring in copy-protected parts, but just about anything else is fair
game.”

“
Ah.”

“
Okay, so I guess I get to pay a
visit to this makershop.”

“
Like I said, just be careful.”
Jules glanced down at her watch and nearly jumped out of her seat.
“Shit! My break’s over. I gotta go clock in. Message me later on
how it goes?”

“
We’ll see.” Scarlett smiled. She
didn’t like Jules getting so involved with her plans. The last
thing she wanted was for there to be any connection between the two
that could endanger the younger woman. At the same time, having a
friend to confide in, even without giving specifics of her
end-goal, provided more stress relief than she thought
possible.

Scarlett leaned back and took a sip of her coffee.
Now, how to approach Dax…

Chapter 27
MakerMasters