“Is that what I think it is?” Mal asked. She felt herself vibrate with anticipation, her adrenal gland pumping. Pestering him for months had gotten nowhere, but she kept coming out of habit and a wish for the future.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he said. He held the paper up, as if to taunt her. He was enjoying it. “This is just a trial run. Something to prove you can handle explicitly illegal acts without shitting your pants and crying out for mommy.”

  “Is that what happened on your first job?” she asked. She had to resist the urge to snatch the details out of his fat hand.

  “Yes,” he deadpanned. His eyes unfocused, remembering. He was still for a moment, then he smiled and handed her the gig description.

  “Finally,” she said. A test was a way in, a chance she could seize, and she felt fate spiral out from the instructions in front of her.

  “It’s simple enough,” he said. He dug his fingers back into the strands of mechanical nerves. “And perfect for you. Head to the entertainment district outside the arena, find the plaza full of ZenTech vending machines. Use your little skeleton key and empty them all out. Let the spectators take the goods, and keep yourself clean.”

  “Hitting a corporation directly?” she asked. It seemed ill-advised, but she was so far from the decision makers and all their hidden plans.

  “Yeah, one of the chapter masters wants to make a name for himself,” he said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Guy’s obsessed with recreating the whale fall that happened after Energo Lunar killed the moon. What you’re doing is just a small piece in the first shot across the bow. If I thought it was too dangerous, I wouldn’t have saved it for you.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She spun on her heels and made to leave. Excitement was eating her alive, and threatened to overtake her rationality.

  “Wait,” he said. He opened another drawer and tossed her a mask. “Wear that. It’s got interference built into the lining. Should keep you off their cameras. Maybe.”

  “You’re the best, Doc,” she said. The mask was white as snow, a stitched neon pink and blue mouth grinning up at her. “Have you heard anything about my sister?”

  “No,” he said. There was nothing else to add. “Stop by when you’re done.” And then he was lost in troubleshooting the implant, and forgot her existence.

  She rode the elevator back up and hit the street in all its night glory near a sprint. She felt the wind on her skin as she went, all that neon shining bright above her like hope, or a beacon in the dark. She moved through the crowded sidewalks, the pulsing arteries of the city, past the punks and corpos and small-time mercs, the party-goers, the B-girls and bouncers, the robots and military hardware and NDPD street patrols, all that teeming life en route to her destination. She sucked in dirty air and moved her legs, let the rush envelope her. Boots on pavement, one foot in front of the other. She donned the mask when she reached the plaza and took in the excess: cobblestone stretched out in front of her, interspersed with planters and benches and so many holograms of trees, advertisement screens for Hayashida Corporation, Aeon Automotive, Tianwei International, and Tenno Tech hovered in all directions—there were brothels, memory theaters, dive bars, upscale restaurants, and gaming centers framing the plaza, the arena ever-important in the distance. She mingled in the crowd, hand clasped tight around the hack in her pocket, and considered her escape. It would be easy enough, once the scramble started, to slip away unnoticed.

  She made her play, one machine at a time—she held the makeshift rectangle to the displays and pressed keys until every item was highlighted. When the contents disgorged at her feet, she moved on. With the disguise fastened to her face, she fancied herself a renegade, a people’s crusader come to deliver justice to corporate greed. Three cheers for the big hero. Items bloomed free in her wake. Another machine, another hack, another payload delivered to the masses. The spectators didn’t hesitate; chips, candy, soda, sandwiches, stuffed animals, hangover cures like aspirin and electrolyte solutions, eye drops, sleep aids, face masks, and canned synth-meat, to the more esoteric selections of spare ties, shirts and skirts, undergarments, guitar strings, cartoon figurines, bike parts, small animal holo-emitters, and condoms were snatched the moment they came to rest. Malory did not stop until she hit every spot in the plaza, until she heard the approach of corporate security. On her way out, she grabbed a hologram of a potted cactus as a souvenir. The high of success didn’t fade until she was sitting in front of the Doc again, her face flushed, covered in a layer of sweat. It felt good to get away, to not be whipped in front of strangers, to prove she could fight back.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Good job, kid,” the Doc said. He’d finished the calibration while she was gone and sat at his desk pouring over detailed schematics and product brochures for new hardware releases. “Already made network news. Some of the more revolutionary types have been calling you the Good Samaritan.”

  “It’s good, right? Does that mean you’ll have more work for me?” Mal asked. She played with her new prickly emitter, and decided to name it Julian.

  “Always right to the point with you,” he said. He let his hair down, ran his fingers through the gray until it dangled smooth at his shoulders. He looked tired. “But yeah. There’s something big in the works. I put your name in for consideration.”

  “Awesome!” she cheered. She ran her hands through the hologram, watched the light bend and scatter where she would have felt the prick of spines.

  “Don’t get too excited, he said. He reached over, pulled an envelope from a stack of blueprints and manuals. “I also have bad news. Something came for you while you were out.”

  “What is it?” she asked. She eyed the yellow paper, the Black Hands logo sealed with synth-wax on its surface. Serious business, then.

  “Next of kin notice,” he said. He sighed and handed it to her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh,” she said. It was worse than she expected. A right hook from a blind spot that left her reeling. She undid the seal and read the words:

  To whom it may concern,

  Be it known, henceforth, from the date of reading, that the next of kin of one Oscar Karna, hereby deceased, known to have fallen while ensuring the operational success of the Black Hands Cartel, do hereby consent to the personal assets of the aforesaid decedent to be disposed of or seized by, pursuant to Black Hands Charter 3C:11-18, for the benefit of expediency and ease of the Chapter Masters and the Administration. No burden of burial shall be transmitted to any heirs or creditors in compensation for said asset disposal or seizure.

  That was the totality of a life, taken. One of the people she’d known since childhood, gone forever, with nothing to show for it. The two hadn’t been close at all, separated by too much time, but loss was never compatible with logic. She felt herself cry, then, and didn’t try to stop it. She left her previous success forgotten.

  “Look, kid,” the Doc said. He placed a large hand on her shoulder and held her steady. “I’m not gonna try to make you feel better or offer meaningless platitudes. That isn’t constructive. It hurts. I know. Believe me, I know. Let yourself feel it, work through it on its own terms. And when you’re able, do something small to honor them, show their spirit you remember.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She wiped snot on her sleeve. “I should go.”

  “Sure,” he said. He let her shoulder go and leaned back in his chair. The metal creaked with his weight.

  “See ya later, Doc,” she said. She folded the notice, put it in her pocket, and turned to leave. One of her boots was untied.

  “Hey,” he said. He offered a sad smile. “There's an extra room in the back you can have. Being alone in that shithole you’re renting isn’t gonna help.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She headed for the elevator. She bit the inside of her cheek and stopped in front of the doors. “I’ll take your offer after I clear my head.”

  She wandered the streets for a while, lost and aimless, until an idea took hold. Something half-heard in the drunken endings of their cohort’s going away party—the names on the abandoned satellite tower Oscar led them up to watch the skyfall, how the others thought it made a gravestone worthy enough for their station. It seemed as fitting a place as any to let herself feel vulnerable. She found herself outside the building, and squeezed between the gate. The climb was easier with age, without a passenger. She scaled the same wall, the busted sign over the entrance, the abandoned scaffolding, and did not look down. A grip on a suspension cable, her boot crammed into the seam of sheet siding, one handhold to another, until she reached the top. She gave the finger to ZenTech headquarters when she reached the top and headed to the base of the uplink. The chalk outline had long faded, but their names still sat, forever etched into the surface. She stood in silence; there was no great truth to whisper except none of them ever stood a chance. Oscar died trying to get one, at least. That was the best any of them could do. She crossed a jagged line through his name and sat to watch the sunrise.