Velvet Ruin

The rain in this city tastes like copper and regret. I've been crouched on this ledge for forty minutes, letting it soak through my leathers, watching the mark's apartment through a pair of stolen binoculars that cost more than most people's rent. My fingers are numb. My braid's gone slack and waterlogged. And the man I'm supposed to be robbing just ordered his third glass of wine and still hasn't passed out.

"Come on," I mutter. "You're seventy-three, you've got a bad heart, and that bottle's half empty. Do the math."

He doesn't do the math. He settles deeper into his armchair and opens a book.

This is what separates the professionals from the desperate. The desperate would've gone in an hour ago, tripped a silent alarm, and spent the night in a holding cell explaining why they were dangling from a penthouse window. I wait. I always wait. Patience is the only thing my mother ever gave me that was worth keeping.

My earpiece crackles. "Vava. Status."

"Status is wet," I say. "And bored. He's reading."

"Reading what?"

"How should I know? I'm not a librarian."

Vivu's laugh is tinny through the cheap speaker. "You've got maybe twenty minutes before the patrol sweep. That's your window."

"I know my window."

"You say that every time."

"And I'm always right."

I lower the binoculars and check my harness one more time. The rope's secure. The carabiners are silent. Everything's silent, because I paid a fortune for silence and I don't waste money. Below me, the city sprawls in all its grimy glory, neon bleeding into puddles, hover-cars humming along elevated tracks. The rich live up here, in the clouds, where the air's filtered and the rain doesn't stain your clothes. The rest of us live down there, in the steam and the smoke, making do.

Tonight, I'm making do with a necklace. A very expensive necklace that belongs to a very corrupt man who made his fortune selling weapons to both sides of a war he helped start. The irony isn't lost on me. It never is.

The mark finally sets down his book. He yawns, stretches, and shuffles toward the bedroom. I count to sixty after the light clicks off, then another thirty for good measure. Then I move.

The window's sealed with a biometric lock, which is adorable. I pull a small device from my belt, press it against the glass, and watch the light flicker from red to green. Three seconds. Amateur hour. I slide the window up, ease myself through, and land on the marble floor without a sound.

The apartment smells like old money and fresh flowers. Real flowers, not the synthetic stuff. There's a painting on the wall that I'm pretty sure is an original, and a rug that probably cost more than my entire education. I don't touch any of it. I'm not here for the art. I'm here for the safe behind the bookshelf.

The safe's a Kessler 9000. Top of the line. Supposedly uncrackable.

I crack it in four minutes.

Inside: documents, a few credit chips, and the necklace. It's even uglier up close. A massive diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds, all of them screaming for attention. I pocket it and close the safe, leaving everything else exactly as I found it. No sense in being greedy. Greedy thieves get caught.

I'm halfway back to the window when the lights snap on.

"Don't move."

The voice is female, low, and comes from the doorway behind me. I freeze, hands raised, already calculating distances. The window's twelve feet away. The woman's maybe fifteen. I can make it, but not before she does something stupid.

"Turn around," she says. "Slowly."

I turn.

She's standing in the doorway with a stun pistol aimed at my chest, and she's not what I expected. No security uniform, no corporate badge. Just a woman in a worn leather jacket, dark hair cropped short, goggles hanging around her neck like she forgot to take them off. She looks like she crawled out of a junkyard, and she's holding that pistol like she knows how to use it.

"You're not the owner," I say.

"Neither are you."

"Fair point."

She tilts her head, studying me. "You're Vava."

It's not a question. I don't like that.

"Depends who's asking."

"I'm asking."

"Then I'm whoever you want me to be."

She snorts. "Cute. I've been tracking you for three weeks. The job at the Meridian Tower, the vault at the Kensington estate, the data heist at the Central Exchange. That was you, wasn't it?"

I don't confirm or deny. "You've got a lot of free time."

"I've got a lot of reasons to find you." She lowers the pistol, just a fraction. "I need your help."

"Most people just ask for an autograph."

"I'm not most people." She holsters the pistol and steps into the room. "My name's Vivu. I'm a scavenger. I work the outer sectors, salvage what I can, trade what I don't need. A few months ago, I found something. Something big. Something that could change everything for the people down there."

"The people down there can't afford change."

"They can't afford to keep living like this either." She pulls a datapad from her jacket and tosses it to me. I catch it one-handed. "Look."

I look. It's a schematic. Complex, detailed, way beyond anything I've seen from the outer sectors. It's a power core, but not like any power core I know. This one's clean. Efficient. It could power a city block for a year on a single charge.

"Where'd you get this?"

"Salvaged it from a crashed corporate freighter. The crew was dead. The cargo was intact. I've been trying to build it ever since, but I need parts. Rare parts. The kind you can only get from places like this." She gestures at the apartment around us. "I need someone who can get in and out without being seen. Someone with your skills."

"And what do I get out of it?"

"A cut of the profits. Enough to retire. Enough to disappear."

"I like disappearing."

"I know. That's why I picked you."

I should say no. I should hand back the datapad, climb out the window, and forget this whole conversation. Working with strangers is how you get caught. Working with idealists is how you get dead.

But there's something in her eyes. Something stubborn and desperate and familiar. I've seen that look before. In the mirror, mostly.

"I work alone," I say.

"I know. But you shouldn't."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's an observation." She steps closer, close enough that I can smell the dust on her jacket and the oil on her hands. "You're good, Vava. You're the best. But you're also tired. I can see it. You've been running for so long you forgot what you're running toward."

"You don't know me."

"I know enough."

The rain's still falling outside. Somewhere in the building, a clock ticks. The mark's still asleep in the next room, dreaming of his blood money and his ugly necklace.

"One job," I say. "We do one job, and then we go our separate ways."

"One job," she agrees. "That's all I need."

She smiles. It's not a nice smile. It's the smile of someone who's been waiting a long time for a yes.

I don't trust her. I don't trust anyone. But I pocket the datapad, and I follow her out the window, into the rain, into whatever comes next.

And somewhere behind us, in the dark, a camera I didn't spot clicks on.