A Break in the Sunlight

21. Information Station

"So what if we do get picked up?" asked Lucy, the huffy one in the purple flak jacket.

"You send out a hail and keep cool till Voltore gets there."

"And what if they get.. impolite?" smirked a dark girl with a black eye. The rest of the girls snickered.

"You take it," said Biddle blandly. "If you've cleared your cache they've got nothing to call you on, short of a diskscan. And they're not going to do one of those in the precinct house. Even if they did we can sue them on a thousand different counts."

"Man, I don't trust Voltore." Lucy's voice was high-pitched and her cadences were annoying. "He gives me the frackin' creeps."

"Deal with it." Biddle answered, and turned to the rest of the group. "Any other questions?"

The girls who lounged and leaned around the room gave a chorus of grunts and shrugs in the negative. Jaren shrugged with them. It was pretty clear. The information they were carrying wasn't to fall into police hands. Nothing more to say.

"Alright, then. Get out of here. Let's try not to have any more repeats of Monday, shall we?" Biddle gave the dark girl a dry look and dismissed them all.

Jaren left the room behind Lucy and another girl, talking in low tones as they traversed the underground corridor and headed for the stairs.

"What does he know about it anyhow?" Lucy said, "He treats us like flatlined meat-heads."

"You are a flatlined meat-head," one girl said, passing by. Lucy hissed at her.

Jaren wasn't sure what race Lucy was. Midran, maybe. She had a fine down of feathers instead of hair, but other than that looked basically humanoid. She could have been called birdlike, but for the heavyset form and broken nose. For all of Jaren's six weeks with the Biddle and Bok'Wyn Courier Company she'd never heard a pleasant word pass her lips.

"I tell you," she was saying now. "Some of this stuff we're carrying is big-time. I don't have to hack it to know."

"How would you know if you hadn't hacked it?" Jaren said matter-of-factly.

Lucy stopped dead and turned a malignant stare on her. "What're you inferring, Princess? That I hack my deliveries?"

Jaren shrugged. "You made the inference, I was just making conversation."

"Well, next time keep it to yourself, or I'll rearrange your precious little face. Come on, Fenny. It reeks in here." She dug her fingers into her companion's arm and hauled her away.

Jaren watched them go with a smirk, then turned as Biddle emerged from the door behind them.

"Jane!" he called.

"Jaren." she corrected him for the fifth time running.

"Whatever," he replied absently, motioning her closer. He was already hooked up and double-tasking. She could tell by the remote node patched up into his bioware and that glazed look in his eyes from multi-focusing. "Come in here for a moment, will you? I have a delivery that could use your touch, if you don't mind the overtime."

She followed him into the resource suite.

All rights reserved. Copyright Jae Darcy 2016.