That’s the problem with eggshells, really. Once it’s gone, you got yolks for days.
As soon as we were in, she dropped the laptop and practically ran to Jericho’s desk. He’d actually had his name etched into the front of it. With a period at the end. What a real disappointment this guy was.
“That it?”
She was holding up the box, examining it. “I think so.”
“Can you check it?”
She was so overwhelmed that the question caught her off guard. She seemed to snap to realization a half-second later and she ran over to the laptop.
I casually opened the drawer to Jericho’s desk, the big bottom drawer, and unzipped my pants.
“Whoa, what the fuck are you doing?”
“I made a promise Marine, just do your shit. And don’t look. It’ll make it weird.”
“Oh yeah, that’ll be what makes it weird.”
I shouted. “I’m peeing in this desk, Marine.”
“Fine, fine. Pee in the desk. Fucking pervert.”
It was hard to get started but once I did, the stream was solid and the feeling, physically and morally, was delightful. It must have been a really well-made desk because nothing was leaking out onto the floor. I was well past the point of clipping off the stream when a bookshelf behind me opened.
“Holy shit, holy shit. Marine. Guard my penis.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding.” That was Jericho’s voice. He was angry. “You’re actually pissing in my fucking desk? You know, I was going to wait until your little adventure was done to come out and spoil the fun, but good fucking Christ, you are a real fucking mess, Charles.”
“You’ve got your name engraved on a desk I’m peeing in, so I think we really…” I was mostly done. Last few squirts. Oh that’s good. “I think we really shouldn’t point fingers.” I zipped my pants up.
“You know what? I’m done with this whole thing.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
I pointed my laser finger at Jericho and he threw his hands up immediately.
“Whoa, whoa. You’ll never make it out of here if you… do… whatever that thing can do. Understand me. I’m done.”
“Done?” Marine came to her feet as she asked.
“Done. That’s the real box with Hakua in it. We’ve already pulled the data off of it. A copy. And we honestly have no use for you or your robot brain or your disgusting desk-pissing boyfriend.”
I played bashful. “I mean, we’re not officially—”
“Shut up. I don’t care. Just… just get the fuck out of here. Take your shit with you.”
I looked at Marine. “Does he mean me?”
“Go!”
Marine took a step away from her laptop toward Jericho.
“Don’t ever steal from me again, Jericho.”
He sneered. “You’ve got nothing else we want.”
She sneered back and turned toward the door, stopping to pick up the laptop. “Come on, Laze.”
And so we left.
Chapter
EIGHTEEN
Unbefitting a person who has his name engraved in his desk like a fucking toddler, Jericho actually wasn’t lying. We got on the elevator, it went to the lobby and not the special torture lab and when we got out, there were no guards waiting for us and the cameras didn’t conspicuously turn as we walked. Marine was quiet, mostly just holding the box in her arms, looking down at it occasionally and checking the ports to make sure they hadn’t been tampered with.
We left entirely without ceremony and started walking back toward Marine’s shop. It was a long walk but the overnight busses were awful and they only ran every hour or so in the direction we were going. My legs hurt still, but that seemed like not the sort of thing she wanted to hear.
Passing by the courtyard was good for a laugh. There were maybe a dozen melted plastic pole arms and some bushes that were a couple yards away had a nice brown-to-green gradient. The sidewalk was covered with collapsed foam that’d been used as a heat shield from the looks of the placement. Or a massive wall of hot air had kept the sprayers from getting the stuff onto the blotto box. Screens on the high rises around us were showing the news already. “Mysterious blackout at Vircore Building.” The Earle was probably balls deep in some teenage runaway by way of a celebration.
At some point my legs stopped really feeling the ache, which was welcome, but also made me concerned that I was going to die or that I had a blood clot.
“What does thrombosis feel like?”
“I don’t really have blood so…”
She seemed out of it, but there was that concern that she didn’t really want to talk. I guess she could just tell me if that was the case.
“So we got your box back.”
“Yeah…” She held it out, looking at it. “Hopefully.”
She hadn’t had time to verify the box before Jericho showed up and she’d maybe been convinced he wouldn’t give us the time to verify it since she left so readily. Hard to say, but that seemed likely. I wouldn’t have trusted him that far either. Leaving was the right call but it left her uncomfortable, clearly. She still had the laptop we’d stolen from the office. Well, I did. I’d been carrying it since we got off the elevator. Nice thing about robot hands is they don’t get tired, I was finding out.
“Why don’t we stop somewhere, make sure it’s all in there?”
“Really? I figured you’d probably… you know…”
“Be hungry? Well, I mean, yeah. And thirsty, honestly. Thirstier than hungry. But I could go for some gyros. Unless you’re in a hurry.”
The nearest gyro place was at the edge of the business district, right next to ours. Probably be another thirty minutes walking. Marine clutched the box tight and shook her head.
“It’s fine. Gyros sound good.”
A ridiculous thing to say. Gyros always sounded good. Weirdly dry-but-moist meat that’s carved off a macabre cylinder of dead lamb parts? And then they stuff it in weird bread? And there’s soupy garbanzo bean dip? Name a thing that sounds bad out of that list. Nothing. And then you put cucumber cum
