onto his lap. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, hyung.”
“I do worry,” JD said as Soo-hyun slammed the door closed behind them. He held the taser with two fingers, trying to decide what to do with the weapon. He pocketed it, delegating the decision to his future self.
“Just you and me, Khoder,” he muttered, pulling back into traffic. If the kid heard him, he didn’t reply.
They drove around the block to the enclave entrance. After a half second for the cameras to read the van’s plates, the boom gate lifted and JD drove beneath it, picturing the view from the restaurant as he guided the van to the maintenance access. He opened the van’s door and paused, smacked in the face by the scent of sickly-sweet rot and rodent feces.
“Can you hear me, Khoder?” JD said into his headset.
“Loud and loud, bro.”
JD walked around to the rear doors and opened them both up. “You better hope the van is airtight, because the smell out here is disgusting.”
“Be quick with the doors then, asshole,” Khoder said, voice doubling in JD’s ear. He was dimly lit by the screens that surrounded him, eyemask over his face for complete digital insertion.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” JD muttered. It took him the better part of a minute to find the ramps for the bots, which were recessed underneath the van’s chassis. He slid the two metal planks out, then maneuvered the four cleaning bots down onto the ground behind the van, followed by the cleaning cart loaded with mop, bucket, and his rucksack.
“Alright, Khoder, I’m going in.”
JD keyed the robots’ power, and followed them into the nearest rampartment building as they happily blooped, ready to go to work.
CHAPTER NINE
The cleaning cart squeaked sharply with every push, weighed down with a steel bucket filled with water, and tubs of solvent and floor polish. JD topped up the different bots according to Omar’s notes and triggered their cleaning routines. The four machines spun, whirred, and whined, projecting holograms of slipping stick-figure people as they moved up the corridor. When the bots moved on from a section of floor, the building’s Augmented feed put warnings along the floor and walls—the images eventually dissipating in response to fluctuations in localized humidity.
White ceramic planters lined the corridors, potted with plants that JD couldn’t name. Their leaves were so brightly green and shiny that they looked plastic. JD pressed a wide leaf between his thumb and forefinger, felt the subtle grain of the plant—too fine to be anything but organic.
It was the most high-class residence JD had ever been inside—floors laid with authentic marble tiles, corridor walls decorated with boring art that had obviously been bought in bulk, the kind you see in hotel rooms and the background of advertisements. The corridor was, by definition, a liminal space, but JD imagined the vapid interior decoration extended into the apartments themselves; the residents all wealthy enough to own a number of homes situated around the globe, each as lifeless as the next. It made JD want to spit, so he did. A moment later one of the squat cleaning robots passed over the sputum, erasing his worthless protest.
“Kid, what’s your status?”
“Why ‘kid’ all of a sudden, bro? It’s disrespectful.”
“It’s your codename.”
“Bro,” Khoder said, dragging out the single syllable, apparently impressed. “Should I use your codename, bro? What’s your codename?”
“Just keep calling me ‘bro,’ ” JD said. “What’s your status?”
“I’m already in, bro.”
“Really?”
“Yup. They’ve got vulnerability scans running on the network perimeter, but there’s always a way in. Usually management or internal bullshit means there’s an IP range not getting scanned. I just had to find it.”
JD was certain that was the most words he’d ever heard Khoder speak consecutively. “So, we’re good?”
“I’ve disabled the internal alarms. Couldn’t stop it from calling out, but I was able to change the number it calls. Any alarms you trigger are going straight to the nearest Reggae Chicken.”
JD chuckled.
“Heads up,” Khoder said; “security coming your way.”
“Alright, thanks,” JD said. “Keep an eye out, and tell me what Shades is up to.”
“Will do, bro.”
According to Omar, the guards made regular rounds to earn their keep, but the first one wasn’t due for another fifteen minutes. JD heard the guard before he saw him—the thud and squeal of heavy-soled boots over tiled floor. He took the mop from Omar’s cart and began mopping just behind the cleaning robot, looking busy, pretending the bot missed a spot. It hadn’t, but sometimes they did, and according to Omar that was the