Rewired_ The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology - James Patrick Kelly [19]
Mabel knelt and looked into Kitty’s face. “Has she had any water since she was knocked unconscious?”
“No.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, give the poor woman something to drink, Lyle.”
Lyle handed Mabel a bike-tote squeezebottle of electrolyte refresher. “You zudes don’t grasp the situation yet,” he said. “Look at all this stuff I took off her.” He showed them the spex, and the boots, and the stun-gun, and the gloves, and the carbon-nitride climbing plectra, and the rappelling gear.
“Wow,” Pete said at last, dabbing at buttons on his spex to study the finer detail, “this is no ordinary burglar! She’s gotta be, like, a street samurai from the Mahogany Warbirds or something!”
“She says she’s a federal agent.”
Mabel stood up suddenly, angrily yanking the squeezebottle from Kitty’s lips. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Ask her.”
“I’m a grade-five social counselor with the Department of Urban Redevelopment,” Mabel said. She presented Kitty with an official ID. “And who are you with?”
“I’m not prepared to divulge that information at this time.”
“I can’t believe this,” Mabel marveled, tucking her dog-eared hologram ID back in her hat. “You’ve caught somebody from one of those nutty reactionary secret black-bag units. I mean, that’s gotta be what’s just happened here.” She shook her head slowly. “Y’know, if you work in government, you always hear horror stories about these right-wing paramilitary wackos, but I’ve never actually seen one before.”
“It’s a very dangerous world out there, Miss Social Counselor.”
“Oh, tell me about it,” Mabel scoffed. “I’ve worked suicide hotlines! I’ve been a hostage negotiator! I’m a career social worker, girlfriend! I’ve seen more horror and suffering than you ever will. While you were doing push-ups in some comfy cracker training-camp, I’ve been out here in the real world!” Mabel absently unscrewed the top from the bike bottle and had a long glug. “What on earth are you doing trying to raid the squat of a bicycle repairman?”
Kitty’s stony silence lengthened.
“It’s got something to do with that settop box,” Lyle offered. “It showed up here in delivery yesterday, and then she showed up just a few hours later. Started flirting with me, and said she wanted to live in here. Of course I got suspicious right away.”
“Naturally,” Pete said. “Real bad move, Kitty. Lyle’s on antilibidinals.”
Kitty stared at Lyle bitterly. “I see,” she said at last. “So that’s what you get, when you drain all the sex out of one of them… You get a strange malodorous creature that spends all its time working in the garage.”
Mabel flushed. “Did you hear that?” She gave Kitty’s bag a sharp angry yank. “What conceivable right do you have to question this citizen’s sexual orientation? Especially after cruelly trying to sexually manipulate him to abet your illegal purposes? Have you lost all sense of decency? You…you should be sued.”
“Do your worst,” Kitty muttered.
“Maybe I will,” Mabel said grimly. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
“Yeah, let’s string her up somewhere real sunny and public and call a bunch of news crews,” Pete said. “I’m way hot for this deep ninja gear! Me and the Spiders got real mojo uses for these telescopic ears, and the tracer dust, and the epoxy bugging devices. And the press-on climbing-claws. And the carbon-fiber rope. Everything, really! Everything except these big-ass military shoes of hers, which really suck.”
“Hey, all that stuff’s mine,” Lyle said sternly. “I saw it first.”
“Yeah, I guess so, but…. Okay, Lyle, you make us a deal on the gear, we’ll forget everything you still owe us for doing the shop.”
“Come on, those combat spex are worth more than this place all by themselves.”
“I’m real interested in that settop box,” Mabel said cruelly. “It doesn’t look too fancy or complicated. Let’s take it over to those dirty circuit zudes who hang out at the Blue Parrot, and see if they can’t reverse-engineer it. We’ll post all