12

"Shrapnel Systems is a machine shop, not an arms dealer," Bennie shouted. She was pacing around her office, her hands balled at her side one moment, gesticulating furiously the next. "We don't make weapons. We make… we make things that make life better!" she said, her voice climbing with each word. "Smashball is fun. Prosthetics help people live. The repairs we do save people money. We're supposed to be using our skills and our tech to make the world a better place, and now people are fucking dead because of us!"

Eight-Ball was leaning against the door to her office, his arms crossed and his lips pressed into a thin line. He said nothing as she paced around. Just watched her. Just stood there and took her shouting without reaction.

Dammit, fight back! Bennie thought. This would be so much easier if he fought back. At least then they'd be on even footing, two adults fighting about adult things. Instead, he was handling this like her Uncle Cyp did every time her frustration with a project had boiled over into anger. Just standing and watching, waiting for her to calm down.

Bennie sat down at her desk and rubbed her temples. She could feel the beginnings of a headache, a nasty one, and everything was making it worse. The crashes and clangs of the team getting the smashbots ready for practice downstairs. The buzz of the new neon sign outside her window, "Shrapnel Systems" in bright orange lights against a darkening sky. She'd been on edge since Thursday morning, and when Eight-Ball had ambled onto the workshop floor with his easy nonchalance and his stupid new gold chain, something in her had cracked.

Eight-Ball tilted his head to the side, studying Bennie out of the corner of his eyes. "Bens. You good?"

Bennie's pulse pounded in her temples. "Am I good?"

"We weren't dealing arms, Bens," Eight-Ball said, his voice calm and even. But he wasn't smiling the way he normally would be, and his eyes were dark, as if he hadn't slept well. "All we did was make a cybercore. Not a bomb. Not a gun. We made a brain for a robot.

"Or, not even the brain, right? The skull. We made an empty skull. The programming to… to do whatever, that was all someone else.

Eight-Ball smiled, nodded his head like he was agreeing with his own words. "And besides, we did it all for the System! Isn't that a good thing? That's, like, patriotism!"

God, is he trying to make me feel better? she thought. No. She couldn't let that work. "Yes, and then the System used my cybercore to assassinate two Panoceanian ministers," Bennie hissed. "And now you, me, and everyone at Shrapnel Systems are loose ends in an international conspiracy. How well did you even know 'Agent Hanssen' before you told him, 'Sure, my boss will help you build a killbot'? Are you even sure he's with the System? Or did you just hear '10 million bits' and you said, 'We'll do anything'?"

Eight-Ball's nostrils flared. He took a step away from the wall. "Excuse me? I made us into loose ends? I'm not the one who agreed to help Derrig, Bens! I'm not the fucking boss here! Maybe you haven't seen the big fancy new sign on the outside of the shop, but we're not standing in 'Eight-Ball Enterprises'!"

"You brought him in here!" Bennie shouted, standing up and leaning over her desk, one arm bracing her, the other pointing accusatorily. She was dimly aware that the sounds of machinery and metal on metal from the shop floor had quieted down, that the team would be able to hear them now.

"Yeah, and you could have said no, Bens!" Eight-Ball took a step forward. "But you didn't! Why? Were you scared? Were you excited to work with proprietary RoboCorp tech? Or was it just the money?"

Bennie's face twisted into a snarl. "Eduardo. Get the fuck out."

Eight-Ball sighed and leaned back against the wall. He brought his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes, tried to force away the exhaustion his look betrayed. "Okay. Okay, let's cool off. We can talk this out once we're both calmer. After practice or something."

Bennie looked down. She'd spent some of the money for the job getting herself a new desk, and she could see herself reflected in its unblemished acrylic surface. She was used to looking tired. She wasn't used to looking drained.

Bennie shook her head, slowly at first, then with increasing force. "No. You're fired. Get out."

Eight-Ball sputtered. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Bens, wait a second. You–"

"Leave. Now."

Eight-Ball stood motionless and unblinking. His jaw clenched, unclenched, clenched again. He turned without another word and left her office, the door shutting hard behind him.

Bennie slumped back into her desk chair and shut her eyes. She let out a held breath, her body crumpling in on itself.

Someone knocked at her door. For a second, Bennie was certain that Eight-Ball was going to come back in and give her a piece of his mind, or beg her to reconsider, or something. Anything.

Maybe she'd even hear him out.

Instead, Ashe said softly through the door, "Hey, Coach? It's time for practice."

***

Smashball practice sped by faster than Bennie could properly register. The same preoccupations kept threatening to crowd their way into her mind. Eight-Ball. The CCPD. The System. The Panoceanians. The dead.

Better to just lose herself in practice. So she did two people's jobs. She shouted. She ran drills alongside the team. She led the review of the footage Hyrak had recorded from the Swords' last game. She grilled Mortimer about the sponsorship deals he was working to secure. She fussed with Ashe's pilot pod, tweaking settings Ashe hadn't asked her to tweak. She kept moving, because as soon as she stopped, she started thinking about Eight-Ball. Agent Hanssen. The Cyber City Police Department. RoboCorp security. Whatever kind of military Panoceania had.

She thought about war machines, the kind she'd grown up being taught were evil for the evil they allowed men to do. The tanks and jets and drones that had been used in the wars of the 20th century. The artificial intelligence behind the Seymour Incident and the millions it had killed in nuclear fire. The peacekeeper bots that had roamed unchecked through the streets during the Corporate Wars.

The machine she'd helped build herself.

As soon as she stopped moving and closed her eyes, she could see her father's face, could hear him quoting from the Book of Henry. "A machine can take the life of a man, but it is not the machine whom the LORD holds accountable, for no machine can feel the shame of the taking."

When they got back to Shrapnel Systems, Bennie disappeared into her office in search of busywork. She organized the piles of handwritten receipts and IOUs from her dealings with the unbanked, filing away what was important and trashing the rest. She looked at her accounts, tried to project how long her money would last. She researched Panoceanian charities.

Time passed. Someone knocked at her door. "Come in," she called out.

Ashe appeared in the doorway still in her pilot's coveralls, her red hair tied back in a loose ponytail. "Crew's got the bots cleaned and put away, Coach."

Bennie nodded. "Good. Thanks." Ashe was silent for a moment. She sniffed and looked around the office, her eyes scanning the environment, settling on Bennie, and studying her. "So, what's going on with you?"

Bennie froze in place. "Nothing's going on with me," she said, too quickly.

Ashe stepped inside and shut the door behind her, then closed the distance between it and Bennie's desk. Bennie watched as her ponytail bounced with each step.

Ashe sat on the desk and ran her hand over its slick surface. When she spoke, her voice was soft and calm.

"This new?"

"Yeah."

"I like it."

"It's alright."

She was close enough Bennie could smell her, oil and sweat and something she was pretty sure was a synthetic vanilla. Ashe took a deep breath, focusing herself the way she did before do-or-die plays, and spoke. "The rest of the crew can tell something's weighing on you, but they think it isn't their place to ask."

"And you think it's yours?" Bennie snapped. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she broke eye contact, turned her attention back to her monitor. Dammit, why did I say that?

Ashe raised her eyebrows. "I think," she said slowly, "that everyone needs someone checking on them from time to time." She sniffed. "Even if they're being a bitch."

Bennie said nothing. After a few moments, she looked from her screen to Ashe's face. Ashe gave her a warm smile, faint crows' feet appearing at the corner of her eyes. "Bennie. Will you stop doing this whole thing you do and just talk to me?"

Bennie started to open her mouth, not sure what was going to come out. Then the sound of metal crashing to the floor rang out from the workshop.

Bennie jumped to her feet. Eight-Ball?

"Alright!" shouted a man's voice she didn't recognize. "Which one of you is it? Which one of you is Benedicta Shrapnel?"

Bennie was out of her chair and at the office door in seconds. She stood on the platform, hands clutching the railing, and looked over the chaos unfolding below her. Ashe's body pressed against hers as she tried to see for herself what was going on.

A vagrant had wandered in, his clothes filthy and mismatched, but his skin somehow impeccable beneath a day's worth of dirt and grime. "What's the problem?" she called out as she began making her way down the stairs.

Mortimer turned his head up to Bennie and flashed her a toothy grin. His hands were raised as he tried to calm the vagrant down like he was some kind of feral animal. "No problem, Boss! Just an unscheduled visitor. We got this."

"I need to see Benedicta Shrapnel! I need to talk to her!" The vagrant kept trying to slip past Mortimer, but Mortimer matched him step for step. Bennie glanced around the shop floor. Hyrak had a hand pressed to the side of his head, which meant he was filming the whole thing with his eye augs. Tuskie had quietly slipped behind a desk and was carefully sliding a pipe wrench into her hands. Steve looked up at Bennie helplessly.

"Not a problem, man. We'll get her for you," Mortimer said. His voice was calm. Soothing, with just a hint of his usual cockiness. "But you've got to tell us what you want, yeah? We can't just send you to see our boss without knowing why."

"She knows what she did! She fucking killed my dad!"

The color drained from Bennie's face.

Mortimer snorted. "Okay, well, you've obviously got the wrong lady."

She felt her stomach twist up more with each word.

"Yeah," Tuskie added. "Bennie's never killed nobody."

Oh, no. Oh, God, no. It can't be him.

But it was. She'd seen photos of him everywhere. Blue eyes. Blonde hair. Natural good looks with that bit of extra polish that obscene wealth enabled. This man was the son of the late Thaddeus Biggins.

Chadwick Biggins was in her workshop, and he was demanding to see her.

The crew exchanged confused glances and suddenly Chad surged forward. But Tuskie was waiting for him and his dash brought him straight into the pipe wrench clutched between her hands. She jabbed him square in the gut, and he stumbled backwards, bent over and coughing. "Oh, so that's how you want to play this?" he said between gasps. "You want to go? Let's go. I'll take you all on."

Chad stood up straight and raised his fists. He was taller than she'd expected, and now that he wasn't raving, he carried himself with the poise of an athlete. Or at least someone who worked out a lot. His eyes darted around, sizing up each of them. Tuskie held the pipe wrench in both hands like a club. Mortimer was grinning wildly, his own hands raised in a cruder, less refined version of Chad's own stance. Hyrak was keeping his distance, one hand still filming, the other groping along workstation tabletops for a weapon. Steve was looking around anxiously, waiting for Bennie to step in and do something. No one spoke. No one moved. Everyone waited for someone to say or do something.

Ashe obliged. "You sure about that, Big Boy?" Everyone turned to look at her. She'd slipped past Bennie and was standing next to Leah, the smashbot's manual control pad in her hand. Leah hummed in standby mode.

"No!" Bennie shouted, and Ashe jumped. She gave Bennie a look of surprise, her eyes darting towards Chad as if to say, "'No?' Really?"

Chad was still for a moment as he took in the sight of Leah's eight-foot tall, heavily armored frame. A look of rage darkened his chiseled features, and he squared up to Ashe, the rest of the team forgotten in the face of this new threat. He seemed tense, ready to attack. Then he froze. He looked around as if he was really noticing his situation for the first time: surrounded, unarmed, unarmored. He tilted his head and his eyes went distant for several seconds as if his thoughts were stuck buffering. Then he dropped his fists to his sides, all the fight suddenly gone from his body. "It has been brought to my attention that I absolutely cannot take you all on, and that it is in all parties' interest that we find a verbal resolution to our conflict. Is Ms. Benedicta Shrapnel here? I'd like to speak with her about her role in the murder of my father."

Bennie stepped up to Chad. "You want to talk? I'm here. Let's talk. First, I didn't kill Thaddeus Biggins. Don't know him. Never met him."

Chad's face hardened into steel, and Bennie felt her own resolve weaken some under that hard gaze. "I know you built the cybercore, Ms. Shrapnel."

The crew was glancing her way. "Boss?" Mortimer asked, the uncertainty plain to hear in his voice. Mortimer never sounded uncertain.

Bennie swallowed and stood up straight, avoiding Mortimer's gaze. "Let's talk in my office." She turned to point up the stairs at her office door. "But first. Guys, pat him down."

The crew was on Chad in an instant. "Whoa, hey!" he shouted as Mortimer and Steve ran their hands along his arms, his legs, his chest. "Easy, easy!"

"He's clean," Mortimer said. "No weapons."

"I mean, I haven't showered in three days, but I could have told you I didn't have a gun," Chad shot back. Steve chuckled. Bennie shot him a look. A smile played at the corner of Chad's mouth.

Hyrak tapped at his eye augmentation and looked Chad up and down. "He's got augs all throughout his body, but nothing that looks dangerous. Athletic enhancers, mostly. Kind of stuff that naturally builds muscle tone and eliminates fatigue toxins." Hyrak's voice pitched upward with uncertainty. "There's something in his spine and brain I've never seen before, though. Some kind of wetware, maybe?"

"That's Mimsy," Chad said flatly.

Hyrak grunted. "Sure. 'That's Mimsy.'"

"Is he safe?" Bennie asked.

Hyrak shrugged. "I wouldn't want to fistfight him one-on-one, but he's not specced like an assassin or anything."

"There, see?" Chad said, impatience creeping into his voice. "I'm totally safe. Can we talk now?"

Ashe grunted from over by Leah, the manual controls still in her hands. "'Safe,' he says. You know if you lift a finger against Bennie, you're not getting out of here alive, right, Big Boy?"

Bennie frowned. "Ashe. That's not necessary."

Chad eyed Leah like he was staring down a dangerous animal and maybe he still wanted to try and kill it. "That statistical probability was presented to me, yeah."

"Okay," Ashe said with a curt nod of her head. "So long as we understand each other." Ashe's eyes darted over to Bennie, and she gave her a wink. Bennie wasn't sure if that meant, "Don't worry, I've got you," or "Don't worry, I'm bluffing."

Bennie cleared her throat and gestured to Chad as she made her way up to her office.

***

The orange glow of the Shrapnel Systems neon sign flooded Bennie's office, and she and Chad both blinked against it. "That thing's really bright, isn't it?" he asked, holding a hand up to shield his eyes.

"I've got blackout curtains," Bennie muttered as she drew them closed, sat behind her desk, and gestured for Chad to sit. He dropped into the chair, his legs spread, his arms crossed, one foot forward and the other cocked against a chair leg. There was a confidence bordering on arrogance in his posture. It reminded her of the night she'd first met Agent Hanssen.

Chad looked around. He sniffed. He rubbed his eyes.

"Are you alright?" Bennie asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

There was more there, she knew, but she wasn't about to try and unpack it. Instead, she sighed. "Look," she said. "I didn't kill your father."

Chad leaned forward and started to open his mouth. Bennie held up a hand. "But. But I did build some of the parts that someone else used to do it. And I want to… I want to help. So I'll tell you what I know, and you don't turn me over to the CCPD or RoboCorp's private security or whoever. Is that a deal?"

Chad folded his arms over his chest and went silent, his mind turning over the offer. "That's probably a deal. Keep talking."

"A few weeks ago, my man Eight-Ball brought in a client looking for a custom cybercore. His name was Derrig Hanssen. He's a special agent. For the System."

Bennie watched Chad's face twist up as he processed that information. "Well, crap," he finally said. "I can't just roll up and grab a System agent, can I?"

"No," Bennie agreed. "But. You can go after the person who programmed the cybercore. They go by Tako-san. Freelancer. Very good. Very picky about their clientele. Eight-Ball said they and Agent Hanssen talked like they'd worked together before.

"Hanssen was trying to keep the two of us from talking to each other, but his timeline got sped up for some reason, and Eight-Ball had to meet them to upload their programming to my cybercore. Eight-Ball said they gave off a bad vibe. Said they had the eyes of a killer."

Chad nodded to himself. "Okay. That's the who. But I want to know the why."

"I don't know. I've been trying to figure out why the System would want to kill the Panoceanians and–"

"No. Why did you do it?"

Bennie blinked. "I didn't. It was Agent Hanssen." "You built the cybercore." Bennie looked away from Chad's gaze. "Based on Agent Hanssen's schematics and specifications. I never even saw it in action, or a working version of the bot it was supposed to go into."

"But you knew it would be dangerous."

Bennie glanced down at her desk, her reflection warped by its glossy acrylic surface. "Well… a cybercore by itself is only as dangerous as an empty skull. It's the mind inside the thing that's dangerous, and I didn't build that. Tako-san did."

Chad took a deep breath, let it out through his nose. He crossed his arms and sat up straight. He was tall. Even sitting, he was tall. "Ms. Shrapnel, come on. I'm asking you, why did you build a part that went in the machine that killed those people?"

Bennie could feel the old scriptures rising up from the depths of her memories. "The machine does not experience, does not feel joy or pain, does not have a moral conscience. The human does, and the human must not become like the machine."

Tears welled up in her eyes. Dammit, she thought. I do not want to be crying in front of this man.

"Because I didn't know what the cybercore was for. Because I needed the money. Because… because I told myself that whatever it was going to be used for, it couldn't be that bad. And now…" She sniffed and wiped them away. "And now there are a dozen people dead because of a machine I helped build."

Chad stared at Bennie in silence. She'd never felt so small. Finally, he looked away, his attention locking on a spot on her wall. "Yeah, well. I guess it's a lot of people's faults. Someone wanted my dad dead, and they did a lot of work to get it done."

"They wanted your dad dead?" Bennie couldn't stop the skepticism from playing out across her face. "Thaddeus Biggins? The guy that donates a billion bits to the city every year?" Bennie frowned. "Who'd want to kill Thad Biggins?" she asked, more to herself than to Chad.

Chad ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know. But I was watching the feed, and I swear Evie hunted him down. Like, him specifically." He put his hands on the table, fingers spread out, tracing the rampage through the auditorium. "The Panoceanians were in front of her, so she got them first, and then she jumped into the audience. But instead of just firing blindly, she scanned the crowd like she was looking for someone. If she'd only wanted to kill the Panoceanians, there were a couple aides and assistants she could have gone after. But she went after my dad specifically, I'm sure of it."

"Okay," Bennie said, drawing the word out in her hesitation. "That's… that's a hypothesis. But what makes you so sure?"

Chad tapped the side of his head and smirked. "Call it the Biggins Instinct."

Bennie scoffed. "The Biggins Instinct?"

"The Biggins Instinct! Look, I helped design Evie. I was watching her the whole time. I know exactly what her programming should have done by default, even if… wait." Chad paused for a moment, then his eyes suddenly lit with some unfocused thought. "Mimsy says this new information makes it less likely the System was behind things."

Bennie considered this. "Because there's no reason for them to start an international incident?"

Chad shook his head. "Because if people found out about Agent Hanssen's involvement, it would look like the System ordered the assassination of a major CEO, and that could restart the Corporate Wars. The ISA might not survive that."

Well, that's pretty good analysis. Better than she would have thought Chad could come up with on his own. "Okay, time out," she said. "Who or what is 'Mimsy?'"

"Mimsy!" Chad grinned. "He's my state-of-the-art digital assistant." The grin faltered some. "Well, it was state of the art like 20 years ago when I got it installed."

"It's called 'Mimsy?'"

"No, it's a… damn, I always forget. Multi-Modal something. It's named for a Greek god."

Bennie's jaw dropped. "You have a MMIR? They only ever made something, like, a hundred of those in the world! God only knows how many were ever installed, let alone still work." She started to stand up, reached for Chad like she could take him apart and examine him, then caught herself. She shook her curiosity and disbelief from her head.

"Sorry. We're getting off track." She sat back down. "Okay, say your MMIR is right, and the System didn't order the attack. Maybe that makes sense. Why would the System have one of their uniformed agents risk sparking off another Corporate War, especially when there are subtler ways to assert power? If the System needed your dad gone for whatever reason, why not just make up a charge, order him to come to the Capitol and deliver testimony, and arrest him?"

Chad nodded slowly. "Okay. So nobody in the System would have told Agent Hanssen to arrange the attack. Then who did?"

"I don't know." Then it clicked. She couldn't help but allow herself a small smile. "But I bet Tako-san does."

"Got it." Chad moved to stand up. "So I need to go and get this Taco Sam."

"It's not that simple."

"Sure it is!"

Bennie scoffed. "Mr. Biggins, you walked in here and got your stomach smashed in with a wrench. And I'm not even a criminal. But Tako-san is. They're liable to have a sentry gun trained on their front door to blow you away the moment you open it."

Chad's face was set in determination. "I'm not going to do nothing. Every hour that goes by, the CCPD and the RRT are hunting me. Evidence could be getting destroyed, or covered up, or just lost." He turned and walked towards her office door. "I need to do something, so I'm going to."

He held out his hand. "Thanks for the information, Ms. Shrapnel."

"Where are you going?" Bennie asked.

"I told you. I'm going to find this Taco prick and make them talk."

"...What?"

"You heard me."

"Is… Do you have a plan for how you're going to do that?"

Chad was silent. Oh, my God, Bennie thought. He absolutely does not.

"Yeah," Chad said. "Yeah, I'm going to get Taco Sam to confess, and I'm going to use that confession to clear my name and take down Hanssen." He took a deep breath. "And then, once the System strips him of his authority and the RoboCorp board installs me as CEO, I'm going to have the RRT throw a bag over that fucker's head, toss him in the back of a van, and then… something. I haven't decided what yet."

Bennie stared at Chad, her mouth slightly open and her eyebrows arched in disbelief. "That's not a plan!" "Sure it is! I'm planning on getting my revenge."

"That's a goal, not a plan! And it's one you can't even begin because you don't know how to find Agent Hanssen or Tako-san!"

"Well, no," Chad admitted. "Not yet. But I will! I've got a guy." Chad thought for a second, then grinned. "And a girl! I've got a girl, too."

"Even if you did find them, Tako-san's never going to talk to you."

"Oh, I'll make them talk."

"You don't even have the right name!"

"Sure I do! You said Taco Sam!"

"Tako-san! Tako-san! Like, Mr. Octopus!"

"Who's Mr. Octopus?" Chad paused, staring off into space. "Oh, it's Japanese. That makes sense."

This idiot is going to get himself killed. He's going to get himself killed, and…

Well. That kind of solves everything, doesn't it? If he dies, there's no CCPD investigation. No RoboCorp security. No Chad Biggins deciding that, actually, he would like some revenge and then coming back for me.

Bennie shook her head. She'd left Rustland exactly so she wouldn't have to live her life in deference to men like this: so damn stubborn that they can't understand what they don't understand. She'd held up her end of the bargain; if he was set on using the information she'd given him to get a bullet through his brain, well, that was on him. "Alright, Mr. Biggins. Well, good luck to you, I guess."

Chad opened Bennie's office door and stepped outside. Bennie expected to hear a flurry of activity from the crew, but the shop floor was silent. Instead, she heard Ashe shout at him. "Are we good?"

"Very good," Chad replied. "And, hey. Good on you for having the loyalty to stick around. That's a sign of a good employee." Chad glanced back over his shoulder at Bennie. "And a good leader."

Ashe snorted a laugh. "Get the hell out of here, you corpo stiff," she said. But Bennie thought there was a bit of amusement in her voice when she said it.

Chad's footsteps echoed through the shop floor. She heard the front door open, then shut with a slam. Bennie walked to the window that overlooked the street.

Outside, Chad began walking alone into the night. In her office, Bennie stood alone in silence, the Shrapnel Systems sign blinking and buzzing and covering everything in its fluorescent orange light.

There, Bennie thought. Problem solved. I didn't need this mess, anyway. This is the only logical choice.

Which reminded her of a line her father recited to her, telling her that being clever was not the same thing as being wise, that being observant was not the same as seeing someone: "The pollution of reason invades every social relationship. Any simplification that creates enemies and suffering must be corrected."

Bennie groaned. "Goddammit," she muttered. The scriptures were a pain in the ass, full of contradictions and prejudices and simple answers to complex questions.

But when they were right, they were right.

She turned and looked around her office for her coat, threw it on and raced down the stairs. "Bennie?" Ashe called out to her.

"I'm going after him!"

***

"Hey!" Bennie shouted. Chad jumped and wheeled around quickly, his fists raised and his shoulders hunched to protect his head. He relaxed when he realized who was chasing after him.

"Ms. Shrapnel?"

Bennie bent over at the waist panting when she finally caught up to him. "Look, let me," she began, gasping for air. "Let me help you. I kind of have a working relationship with Tako-san. At least we know each other exists. I can reach out to them, say I want to hire them for a job. We can arrange a meeting. You can do what you have to do when it's safe."

She expected him to protest, to say something about not needing her help, about having everything under control. Instead, Chad's face lit up at this news. "You can arrange a meeting? Perfect! Let me know when and where, and I'll be there."

Bennie put up her hands in front of her. "No, no, no. Absolutely not. Tako-san's going to recognize you and kill the whole thing."

Chad frowned. He looked like he was listening to the voice in his head and not to Bennie. "Fine," he finally said. "But if I'm not going, then I'm sending a representative in my place."

Bennie rolled her eyes. "Sure. Whatever. Let me set things up and I'll be in touch. You and your… representative can meet me back here. How do I contact you?"

Chad pulled an ugly brick of a handheld out of a pocket Bennie wasn't even aware that he had. It was hideous and outdated and woefully underpowered. And hard to trace, she realized in an instant. Maybe he's not such an idiot after all.

"Okay," she said after she'd captured the device's contact info. "And you've got somewhere safe to stay? Tell me you're not going to get followed home and bring the police down on my head."

Chad smirked. "Let's just say I know a little place."

Bennie looked doubtful. "And if the CCPD finds your 'little place'?"

Chad lowered his eyes. She followed his gaze to his hands. Were they trembling? He noticed her staring and brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles. "I can handle the CCPD if I have to."

Bennie just stared at him. "Fine," she said. What else was there to say?

They stood there in the street, bathed in the orange glow of the Shrapnel Systems sign. Chad looked at it, squinting against the brightness. "Is it supposed to flicker like that?"

"No," she said simply, glancing back at the sign over her shoulder. "It's supposed to be solid. Bright, but not blinding. And not sound like a bunch of pissed off bugs." She sniffed, turned back to Chad. "But I'm going to fix it."

Chad grunted. He didn't leave. After a moment, he scratched at his head. "Hey, why are you helping me?"

"Because… You need it."

"I need it?"

"Yeah. You need it. So I'm helping."

"Hm. I'm not sure I get you, but I appreciate it regardless." Chad stuck out his hand. "Thanks, Ms. Shrapnel."

Bennie stared at his hand. It was dirty. It was bandaged. It was attached to a man she didn't know well enough to trust.

She took it anyway.