Chapter 5 5

The abandoned subway entrance was three blocks north of her safe house, behind a condemned casino. She found it by smell first-stale water, rust, something rotting sweet underneath. Then she saw the fence, the plywood, the spray paint that said KEEP OUT in letters that had faded to pink.

Jessie stopped at the metal door. It was new, industrial, with a biometric scanner that looked expensive and out of place. She didn't touch it.

"Invitation," a voice said.

She looked up. Two men stood in the shadows beside the door. Suits, cheap, stretched over muscle that came from prison yards, not gyms. The one who'd spoken was bald, with a scar that bisected his eyebrow. Spike. She knew the type. They were the same everywhere.

"Lost my invitation," she said, her voice small, reedy, nothing like her own. She kept her eyes on the ground.

"Then you're lost, period." He stepped closer, into the light, trying to use his size. He was six-two, maybe two-forty. She catalogued him automatically: slow, left-heavy, probably carried a gun in his waistband that he'd never use fast enough. "Beat it, kid. This ain't no place for street trash."

Jessie looked up, just for a second, letting the single bare bulb overhead glint off her glasses. She let her hand tremble as she reached into her pocket. "The Jackal sent me," she whispered, the code phrase old, almost out of use. "He said to ask for Finch. He said Finch owed him."

Spike froze. He exchanged a look with the other guard. The name still had power.

"Wait here." He spoke into a wrist comm, his voice low.

A minute later, the door opened.

A man squeezed through, sweating, his shirt untucked, his face the color of uncooked dough. Mortimer Finch. Jessie knew him from a file she'd read in another life, another name. He ran the western territories. He was careful, greedy, and absolutely terrified of the right people.

He saw her slumped posture, her cheap clothes, her bad haircut. Disgust warred with caution on his face. "You mentioned the Jackal?"

Jessie nodded, not speaking. She held out her right hand, palm up. In the center of her palm, just below the thumb, was a small, faded tattoo, barely visible. A stylized scorpion, its tail a single, sharp line. A marker from a dead network, one only a handful of people would recognize.

Mortimer's eyes widened. He licked his lips. "My apologies. Please, come inside. What can I do for a friend of... an old friend?"

Jessie walked through the door. The air changed immediately, from desert dry to underground damp, from desperation to dangerous opulence. The tunnel opened into a cavern, lights strung like stars, stalls selling everything from weapons to identities to things she didn't want to identify.

People turned to look. They saw Mortimer's posture, the way he scurried beside her, the way his hand kept fluttering toward her elbow without quite touching. They looked away. Fast.

The VIP suite was a shipping container, refurbished, soundproofed. Jessie sat on the leather couch.

"I need a metabolic inhibitor," she said, her voice back to its normal flat tone now that they were alone. "Medical grade. Stasis-7 or equivalent. Not the street trash you sell to addicts. The real thing."

"Yes, yes, of course. I have a new shipment, just arrived, top shelf-"

"And privacy."

"Absolutely. The VIP suite. No one will disturb you."

Mortimer returned with a case, aluminum, medical. He opened it on the table and stepped back, hands raised, not wanting to see what she did with the contents.

Jessie didn't look at him. She was already loading the syringe, finding the vein, pushing the plunger with practiced efficiency.

The cool spread through her arm, into her chest, damping the fire. She closed her eyes and breathed.

For now, she was safe.