Hard Wired Trilogy DeAnna Pearce (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📖

open, Marco pulled himself out. The alley was empty, but with the commotion from the street, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. He helped the other man out, and with a quick nod of acknowledgement, they took off in different directions.

Marco sprinted down the alley. Spotting the emergency ladders that were only on the side of older buildings, he pulled himself up. He’d have better luck off the street. Sketchy Lou’s place wasn’t too far from here. If Marco could make it there, he could lose them. Climbing to the roof, he kept low and sprinted across.

He wasn’t sure who was after him, and the list could be quite long. Dealing in the black market, Marco had made enemies over the years. Dealers and thugs who thought the deal didn’t lean in their favor. But hacking into a VR? That was something only top level companies or governments would do. A pissed off dealer may take a pipe to your knees but wouldn’t spend the money to hack an obscure VR.

Maybe the hack was on his sister’s end? But she was in the middle of some ocean on a little island. If that was the case, who were the people outside the door? Were they that elite they could track his physical location so fast?

He jumped the short distance to the other roof. In this part of town, they barely had four feet between each building, squeezing as much money as they could from the real estate. It was only another block or so until he reached his destination.

He may not know who was after him, but that really didn’t matter. He’d have to relocate either way. Erase his tracks and get a new ID. Not only for him, but for his mother too.

It was one thing for him to deal in the shadowy world of the black market, but his mother was another story. She didn’t really understand his job and what she did know she didn’t like. More than once she warned him about becoming like his father, a VR addict who gave everything he had to stay in the programs, even his sanity.

Take that junkie in the basement, willing to die in VR. No doubt he wouldn’t be thanking the authorities for his rescue. That kind of mindless need made Marco sick, a brutal reminder of his father’s addiction, and they last thing Marcos intended to become was his father’s son.

Finding the rooftop door to Sketchy Lou’s building unlocked, Marco slipped inside, putting his worries aside. He needed to stay alert and make sure no one was tailing him. Using the elevator, he went down several floors. A woman soon joined him but paid him no attention. When he got off on the second floor, she remained behind.

He slipped back to the nearby staircase and went up two more floors. Sketchy Lou’s door was at the end of the hall. With nobody in sight, Marco knocked a rhythm on the door. The theme song to the game where they first met some five years ago. It wasn’t something he had to do, but it put Lou at ease. There was a reason Lou had Sketchy as a nickname.

Marco waved at the discreet camera set into the numbers at the side of the door. Lou had to be home; he was always home. Movement sounded through the door. Several seconds later, it opened to a dark space. Slipping inside, Marco blinked several times for his eyes to adjust to the low light. The door clicked shut behind him.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You got trouble chasing you?” Lou locked the door then retreated to the screens on a nearby desk.

“Trouble?”

“You’re breathing like a junkie who just got his crypto.”

Marco realized he was panting and focused on slowing his breath. He was safe, at least for the moment. “Just thirsty.” Walking over to the kitchen, he grabbed a cup and the nearby machine filled it up with iced tea.

“So, who are you running from?” Lou didn’t bother looking up from his screen. The soft glow from the screens that surrounded him was the only source of light in the small studio apartment. It gave Lou’s dark skin an eerie look, aged almost. Lou must be in his forties, maybe fifties. His chubby face made it hard to tell and Marco never had a reason to ask. He did know Lou had something happen to him, something bad enough that gave him a paranoia of others and made him worry the possible miniature people that hide in the wires and watch their every movement online. But that fear also fueled skills that made him the best in the business.

“Is it that bad you can’t tell me, or you don’t know?” Lou turned in his chair to look at Marco.

Marco took several gulps of the iced tea. “I’m not sure who’s chasing me.”

“Are you sure they are tracking you?”

“They hacked into a pretty damn secure VR.” Not that it was secure on his end, but it should have been monitored on his sister’s side. He had picked that shop at random, so how could they have found him there? It must have been someone looking for his sister then. That didn’t make it any safer for him though. His sister was worth a lot. It went beyond financial worth. Ari’s ability was quite a weapon to many governments and corporations.

Lou scratched at the rugged start of a beard. “So, you need a new digital fingerprint?”

Marco pulled up a nearby chair. “Probably. I think I need to head out of town for a while.”

“Really?” The disbelief was evident in his voice. “You’ve been talking about taking your mom out of here for a while. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I know, but I got connections here.”

Lou’s smile cocked, looking eerie in the darkness. “Right, connections. Always need to run one more job to afford to leave, then somehow the cryptos are spent before you pack a bag.”