Alternia Comics

[Editor's note: This should be taken with the same grains of salt as the previous chapter. -- Karak]

Chapter Thirteen:
   "Same drill as last time." Em popped the trunk and began arming himself again. "I'll go in first. Hopefully we won't need this gear," he waved a hand at the open trunk, "but better safe than sorry." Varrow checked her pistols again and Em closed the trunk, locking the car and arming the auto defenses.

[Editor's Note: Apparently I posted the rough-rough draft of this chapter, without reading first to revise for place holders or general errors. Take this chapter with a grain of salt. --Karak]

   “You're sure you're alright to drive?”
   “Of course he is! The anesthetic wore off half an hour ago.”
   “The old man's right, Varrow. I'm fine. Mostly.” Em wobbled slightly as he walked across the room to his car. “Just a little off balance. It'll come back in no time.”

   “You got a Wire port down here? I'm not getting any signal...”

   Em reflexively tried to cover his face, but the gesture proved to be too little too late. Varrow opened her eyes to see Em stumble backward, bleeding from dozens of mostly superficial cuts to his arms, face and chest. “What happened?” She reached for his right arm, grabbing it to steady him. The cyberskin on his hand and wrist had been thrashed by the explosion, but she knew his right arm was still the best place to grab him to do the least damage.

   “It looks clear,” Em whispered, staring through the wall in the hallway, in to the apartment.
   Varrow nodded and held up her fingers, counting down silently from three before kicking the door in. As the door fell inward, she fell back into the hallway as Em ducked and walked in.
   Varrow heard it first, but em felt it. A soft click as Em's foot came down a meter in to the apartment, and a slight tension on his back foot. His toe had caught on a wire in the doorway. They froze.

   Em had long since gone to sleep, his eyes tired of scanning the lines of data on the computer screen. Varrow, unencumbered by physical display, stayed awake, pouring through the log files. It looked like the data went from the warehouse to a library not far away. Hacking from a public terminal made the hacker at once less traceable and easier to find. The data path was a dead end, but since she could trace the data to a specific terminal at a specific time, the library's usage records might have something useful.

   The young Indian man sat in the overstuffed chair skimming through the most recent Tech Digest catalog. Sadhur sighed wistfully at the new Nakamura cyberlimbs. He set the magazine down and slowly flexed his left arm, watching it carefully, listening to the familiar soft whirring. As he stood, he sighed and wished for the hundredth time since the job that he had remembered to pick up the DataFlex swtich.
   “Still pining over that stupid switch?” a grating, nasal voice asked from across the room.

   “Em?” Varrow called, stepping carefully toward the kitchen.
   “Yeah?” Em put down the coffee mug he had been washing as Varrow walked int to view.
   “Er.. don't you have a dish washer?”
   “Not worth running it. I only have four plates and three mugs anyway. What's up?”
   “I think I'm ready to log in again. With you.”
   “You sure? If you'll forgive the innuendo, you sound sorta dreamy. Something happen while you were in there?”
   “Sorta ... just some ... reminders.”

   “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” Varrow shouted at Em, ripping the Key's plug from her neck.
   “Varrow! Calm down, please!” Em pleaded, stumbling backward, treading uncertainly over piles of junk. He heard the crunch of a circuit board and was at once glad and sorry he was still wearing his boots. He kept his hands at arm's length, palms toward Varrow.

   “Jesus, Em. Don't you ever clean up?” Em chuckled nervously, clearing a spot on the sofa for her.
   “I'm not really here enough to care mostly. When I'm home, I'm either in the bedroom or the workshop. Somewhere around here though is The Key ...”
   Varrow carefully picked a path through the piles of junk covering the floor, settling gingerly on the sofa. “What do you need a key for? Isn't the datastore on the net?”