One of the guards looked over at JD, attention snatched away from the football match by the squeak and slosh of the cleaning cart. He was the largest of them, built like a retired rugby player—broad-shouldered but with muscles rarely used and cushioned by a layer of fat.
JD beamed at the man as well as he was able, playing the part of the innocent janitor. “I have changed my mind,” he said. “I’ll finish for the night. All the sirens are giving me a migraine.”
The guard nodded. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
JD’s brow furrowed, pinpricks of sweat seeping out of his palms.
“Your robots,” the guard said, and he chuckled.
“They will finish up without me,” JD said, guessing they might. “I can control them from home to be sure they do a proper job.” If it wasn’t already possible, it would be with the next model of cleaning bot.
The guard nodded again and turned back to watch the game. Dismissed, JD kept walking. He timed his breath to his footsteps—inhale three steps, exhale three steps—and pushed the cart to the maintenance exit.
Stepping outside into the rain, JD breathed deep, then coughed, choking on the garbage rot of the compound’s bins mixed with the thick smell of burnt capitalism—melted plastic and ruined food. He pushed the cart up the ramp and into the back of the van.
“Got you something, Kid,” JD said, reaching into his rucksack.
Khoder peered out from behind the stacked cleaning materials, face aglow in the light of screens—his natural habitat. His eyes went wide when he saw the framed photo JD had stolen.
“Bro,” he said. “For me?”
“That was the deal.”
Khoder snatched the frame from JD and held it close, studying it like it was another of his screens, this one static but still important, a frozen portal to the past, to a point in time that defined the now, remade the city they lived in, run by corporate mandate.
JD slammed the van doors closed, slid the ramps back into place, and walked around to the driver’s side door. He opened a channel to Soo-hyun. “Shades,” he said. “We’re moving. If you’re not clear yet, meet us on the corner in ninety seconds.”
He got into the front seat and keyed the ignition, listening to the heavy patter of rain on the roof of the van. He put it in reverse, backed out of the maintenance alley, and steered toward the front gate.
JD drove slowly past a pair of police dogs, scanning the grounds with the battery of sensors embedded in their robotic frames. His heart beat double-time and he stared ahead pointedly, as though his gaze would be the thing to catch their attention. In the rearview, JD watched one of the dogs stop and turn, raising its snout to scan the vehicle.
JD cursed under his breath. He stopped at the boom gate and a crackling noise like static emerged from the security booth—the sound of huge crowds cheering. A blur of bright-lit grass streaked across a tablet resting on the guard’s lap, bathing her in a sickly glow.
The smile fell from her lips as she saw JD. She put her tablet down and exited the booth, wearing a bomber jacket against the wet. “You’re not the usual guy—he at the game?” she asked. She rested a hand on her hip casually, but all JD could focus on were the taser, mace, and heavy steel torch hanging from her belt.
The muscles in JD’s face twitched in momentary panic. He tried on a smile, but neither he nor the guard believed it. “He told me he was sick, but I’m pretty sure he was lying,” JD said with a shrug, dropping the Omar act. “I don’t mind, I need the money.”
“I hear that. You gonna show me the back of the van? Standard procedure.”
“Back of the van? Sure thing,” JD said loudly, hoping Khoder was listening.
He got out but left the motor running; the curious dog had turned away and joined its partner, heading for the burnt-out apartment. The engine chugged loud and low through the muffler, blowing hot on JD’s shins as he opened the rear door. The guard took the torch from her belt and shone it into the van, a sliver of Khoder visible between two blue plastic barrels.
“Where are the—”
With a resounding thonk of steel on skull, the woman collapsed. Red appeared as if from nowhere—the skinny white specter emerging from the shadows, clutching a length of rebar, stained with rust and