<b>Roo'd</b>

# Roo'd

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# Chapter #48

Tonx swore and slammed his fist against the tall plastic pedestal in front of them. They were at the base of the third of eight monolithic buildings, each blotting out the sky in a sheet before them. They’d had absolutely no luck in tracing any sort of information about where the box might be beyond knowing it fed into the data center for these eight buildings. Scanning the directory was useless, he knew, and access to the data center was limited to monthly maintenance visits — the next of which was three weeks from now.

“This is hopeless” he said, swearing again.

“Chill” said Cass, her voice level. “At least we’re doing something. Besides, it sounds like Feed’s got a good lead.”

“The boy’s going to get us fucked, playing with haxors in some underground like that. That shit’s more illegal than heroin around here.”

“Feed’s got a good head” she said.

“I know” said Tonx. “It’s just so fucking hopeless. We’ve got to find that box, get our code out from under the nose of some bigwig IT official, and then market it. You know I haven’t even figured out a way to Proof of Concept it yet?”

“Don’t worry” Cass said, turning her back to lean against the pedestal.

“Listen, why don’t we go back by the data center again? Maybe I can sweet-talk one of their suits into taking me to lunch...”

“No” said Tonx. “It’s bad enough that I’ve dragged you here to act as translator, I don’t want you sweet-talking dangerous corp-boys.”

“Did it ever occur to you I might have wanted to come here?” asked Cass, her voice suddenly cold. “I’m from here, you know.”

“Sweets” said Tonx. “Sorry. I’m just worried about you, that’s all. Of course I figured you’d want to come. But” he ran his hand through his hair, tucked away some errant strands. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you, you know?”

Cass smiled. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

Tonx’s comm rang. They’d gotten him a new one at the airport, used the IDs Cessus had gotten for them to clear it. He’d kept the yellow Hello Kitty glasses, though. Something about them appealed to him, some sort of retro-throwback irony thing.

Tonx yelped as he saw it was Marcus, mashed the channel open.

“Marcus” he said, “where the fuck are you?”

Cass couldn’t hear what Tonx did, but she could see Tonx’s face and the sudden color that blotched it. He almost threw his comm across the foyer, changed his mind and punched the plastic pedestal again with his free hand.

“You’re what?” he hissed. “With who? No, I don’t give a shit about how many of them there were. We’ve been running around like fucking crazy wondering where you were.”

Tonx was silent for a moment.

“Yeah” he said. “Yeah” he said again, more quietly. “Okay, that’s true, but...”

He ground his teeth together, and Cass grimaced.

“Actually, yes. That would work perfectly.” He turned and stared at Cass. “Marcus?”

The mod fighter said something on the other end of the line. Tonx smiled, baring his teeth. “You’re still in big trouble. I’ll call you back.” He hung up.

“What?” asked Cass.

“Motherfucker’s spent the last 24 with a group of ‘young lady admirers’ who have a fan club here. They picked him up at the airport after his flight was delayed. He says he couldn’t get to a comm unattended until now.”

Cass blinked, then smiled, then laughed a deep, belly shaking guffaw that doubled her over holding her sides.

“It’s not funny” insisted Tonx, although now he, too, was smiling. “Asshole’s got us an ace in the hole, though.”

He leaned over and shoved at her playfully.

“Stop laughing, I’ve got to make a phone call.”

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