the elevator doorway, still holding the cloner. The doors closed, touched the prone form, and retracted.
A single word fell from JD’s mouth, that sacred word he used sparingly so it would never lose its luster: “Fuck!”
* * *
Police dogs leaped from the rear of the auto-truck, data upload-download syncing the machines, connecting them to the hub downtown at the precinct. Thermal imaging rendered useless by the heat blooming from the burning retail market. Visual information streamed in through the remaining sensors: electro-optical, backside illumination, lidar.
CBRNE sensors warned of petroleum fumes and toxic gases in the smoke. Audio sensors picked up the crackling roar of the flames, isolated its wavelength, and removed it from the incoming feed. Voices now—people crying, people talking in tones indicating excitement and/or fear.
Bodies moved in alleyways on the opposite side of the road. Dogs coordinated with split-second transmission of tactical data. They ran across the street and gave chase.
Unit K-9-983 trailed a suspect—tagged cfa4xpn7j3 on the fly. They were estimated to be between thirteen and sixteen years of age, height one-hundred sixty-three centimeters, weight approximately fifty-four kilograms. Traces of accelerant were detected on the suspect’s clothing, evidence filed inside the dog’s memory cube for future deposition.
The dog quickly gained on the suspect—the girl, really, a child—its legs stretching to bound across the cement. It pounced, struck the girl and knocked her to the ground. She screamed and rolled onto her back. The dog stood over her like a wolf over its prey. Blinding flash of light as the dog took a high-resolution photograph, tagged it with the relevant evidence, time, and date, uploaded the data package to the police servers, and left the girl there. Its metal body whirred as it ran for the next suspect, picking up on accelerant fumes like a bloodhound chasing a scent.
CHAPTER TEN
The cursing continued like a monastic chant, until finally JD closed his mouth and waited for his tongue to still. He pocketed the cloner, and dragged the moaning guard out of the elevator so the doors could close.
“Kid,” he said sharply into his headset.
“Already on it. Replicating footage from the guard’s last rounds.”
“How long before he’s meant to be back at his post?”
“Don’t sweat it, bro,” Khoder said, sounding as calm as JD wanted to feel. “Just do the thing.”
Long Hair reached clumsily for the walkie-talkie at his belt. JD slapped his hand away, grabbed the radio, and pocketed it. He crouched and hefted Long Hair onto his shoulders. JD hauled the guard down the corridor as he squirmed, praying to every god and none that each apartment door he passed would stay closed. He reached the cleaning cart, molded from gray recycled plastic, and laid the man across it. He rifled through his rucksack on the trolley’s lower shelf, spilling latex gloves onto the floor in his search for zip ties. He fastened the man’s hands and feet, and pushed the cart to Lee’s apartment as fast as its squeaking wheels would let him.
He pressed the key cloner to the security panel just above the handle of Lee’s door. He held his breath and waited.
Blip blip.
JD left the cleaning cart blocking the hallway outside and carried Long Hair into the apartment, kicking the door shut as he went. As soon as it closed he dropped Long Hair to the floor. The guard opened his mouth to call for help, and JD winced in sympathy as he shoved a filthy cleaning rag into the maw. A roll of thousand-mile tape always weighed heavy in JD’s rucksack, so he tore off a strip and sealed the guard’s mouth shut.
“I’m sorry,” JD said. “Don’t let anyone tear that off, alright? You’ll want to use eucalyptus oil first.”
Long Hair tried to focus on JD’s face, but his eyes bugged out and rolled in his sockets like a ship on rough waters.
JD slumped against the doorway and sat on the ground beside Long Hair. His heart, or his lungs, or something inside his chest, ached with every breath. JD put two fingers to his wrist as though checking his pulse were the same as slowing it.
Gradually his eyes adjusted to the gloomy apartment. Thin slices of light seeped in between the window blinds at the far end of the living room, straight ahead from the entrance. The kitchen and laundry sat to the right, gleaming dull with burnished steel appliances. To the left, the rest of the apartment hid down a pitch-black hallway.
JD pushed himself up off the floor. He crossed over to