Tricks of the Trade - By Laura Anne Gilman Page 0,82

know what kind of day it would be, but at least it wasn’t starting with a pre-apocalyptic warning.

“We think The Roblin made its first real move last night,” I said, before Nick could tell my story. I gave them a quick rundown, ending, “Something tore up my place – moved furniture, loudly, tossed my linen closet, broke a piece of glass-art – ” damn it, I was still weepy about that “ – and made everyone in the building believe that there were open flames in my apartment. I’m just lucky I got home when I did, or they would have called the fire department and maybe hacked down my door to get in.”

Which might have been funny, seeing my super trying to explain to the fire department... but no, thanks.

“You saw The Roblin?” Stosser went on alert.

“No.” Seriously? I would have told him that, instead of sitting here bitching. “The place was empty when I got there. The windows were all locked, the door secured... . I guess imps can Translocate.”

“Or walk through walls.”

“Comforting thought, that,” Sharon said dryly. “So it’s gone from following you to fucking with you. Why you?”

“It was here.”

“What?” We all looked at Stosser at that revelation.

“A few nights ago. I have an alarm set up, similar to the spell Ben has on the front door that recognizes us, and challenges anyone it doesn’t recognize. It went off, but by the time I got here – twenty minutes, tops – the place was empty. And also a mess. Whoever it was, it had been going through our personnel files. Based on the timing of it first stalking Torres, and the tossing of her place, I think that it is a reasonable assumption that it was The Roblin, looking for... whatever it was looking for. Your address, one supposes.”

“Great. So flattered.” What the hell made me such irresistible imp-bait?

Stosser looked at the other two. “Have either of you had anything odd happen? Not just the general weirdness we’ve been seeing, anything out of the usual at all?”

Sharon shook her head, but Nick looked thoughtful. “Maybe. I didn’t think anything of it, or, at least, I figured it was just under the ‘shit happens’ category. But yesterday morning I was tweaking my netbook – ” And that still freaked me out, that Nick could use a personal computer. Most of us, a heavily warded desktop was the best we could do, and even then we had to be careful, but the rules were different for current-hackers. “ – And something surged.”

“Surged.” Ian had a look on his face that meant he knew what Nick was talking about. “You’re all right?”

“Yeah, I was more surprised than anything else.”

“You should have told me.”

“Yah, well, I was going to mention it to Venec, and... ” Nick’s voice trailed off. “How is he, anyway?”

And, damn it, he looked at me when he asked that, not Stosser. Damn it... I gave back a blank face like I didn’t know anything. Which I didn’t, other than the fact that I hadn’t gotten any Merge-inspired alarms, so he was probably doing fine and either still sedated or had his walls up tight.

“They are releasing him later this morning,” Stosser said. “Knowing Ben, he’ll be here as soon as he finds his clothing and hails a cab.”

“You let him check out alone?” Sharon turned on Stosser, probably as pissed as she got. Sharon was a prima donna and a pain in the neck, but she was also in a lot of ways the mom of the group, her and Pietr, and apparently moms did not let people check out of hospitals alone.

“If I’d shown up, I would have told him to go home, not come here, and we would have gotten into an argument,” Stosser said calmly. “This way, we avoid the fight, which I would have lost, anyway.”

When the hell did Stosser develop a sense of humor? He wasn’t wrong, though. That would have been Ben all over.

Big Dog turned to me, then. “Your apartment’s okay?”

“For now,” I said. I really didn’t want to get into the details, not until I had a new place lined up.

“All right. Nick, I want you to work with the netbook, here, where we’re properly warded, so we can determine if it’s infested.”

“Infected,” Nick said, correcting his terminology.

Boss scowled at him. “With a mischief imp, infested might be the better word. Go. Sharon, when Lou and Pietr get here, do a full sweep of the office, and double