Page 43 of Neon Flux

I was going to have her doing that again.

And then I was going to fucking end her.

Maddox gave me a very knowing look and left me alone.

“Briefing’s in fifteen. Don’t be late.”

“Yeah, yeah…” But I was already looking through old case files.

I scanned all the images from a data center infiltration in Blue, but she wasn’t there. Only one woman had shown up in any of the images, and she’d been too short. I went back a month, then another month in my files, but nothing. This was getting me nowhere. Maybe it was nothing.

I pulled up that mirror image again.

She’d been smart. That “hotel” had been filthy, so any DNA samples I could’ve grabbed—if I hadn’t been scrambling out of there—were contaminated. Should’ve guessed a place called The Blackout would have anti-recognition tech. I had no useable footage from inside the bar, and neither did Maddox. She had known that. This wasn’t some petty thief or regular sukeban. She was good—good enough that I might have considered recruiting her, if I didn’t have to kill her.

But she’d made one mistake. She’d left me that note.

I went back six months to an incident at the Tech data center that had led to the leak of the Kinetic Shield. A group of pathetic do-gooders had infiltrated the server rooms. Maddox and I hadbeen called in after the beta squad wrecked the place. I didn’t remember much of it. I’d been called in on my night off, and I’d had enough Vector in my system to kill an elephant.

I searched all the vids still in storage from my Vysor and played through the few clips side by side—when I heard it.

“Until next time, doll.”

Oh fuck.I replayed the vid. I’d cornered some dumb fuck at the end of a hallway, gun to her head, when she’d struck my head with a pipe. My shield had stopped it from being deadly, and I’d grappled with her. I watched the fight on my terminal screen, and it was better than any porn. We’d slammed into the surrounding stacks, and she’d almost gotten the upper hand on me—but I’d pinned her to a server and fried her. My arm slammed into her ribs, and she screamed and screamed. I wrapped my hand around her throat.

“Is that all you’ve got?” she’d said.

Fuck me.That was when the cameras finally managed to capture her face.

“There you are.”

She’d changed her hair, and her face was covered with an anti-recognition mask that flared and obscured her to my camera. The image wasn’t good enough for our top-of-the-line facial recognition program. A red warning popped up:

Incomplete data. Run anyway?

Our system with all the data in the world couldn’t recognize her, but I saw that spark in her violet eyes, that immense hatred, and I knew it was her.

“Until next time, doll.”

I hit enter, and the progress bar popped up on my terminal as I headed off for the briefing.

CHAPTER 14

CY

Imade my way to our private conference room when Maddox grabbed my shoulder.

He shook his head. “We’re upstairs today.”

Not often we got called up to the big bossman’s office. “I thought he was in the capital?”

Maddox shook his head. “Flew back this morning. Must be urgent.”

We walked toward the elevators, and Tex was waiting for us. He gave nothing but a curt nod before we all piled into the chrome box. He swiped his hand over the security panel and hit the button for the top floor.

The door slid closed soundlessly, and we began our journey up one hundred and fifteen floors. Tex and Maddox both stood there, feet spread apart, hands behind their backs like this was some sort of military inspection. I leaned against the cold metal wall.

“Guess bossman’s taking this attack pretty seriously,” I said.