Agency

101 Hammock Ride

I won’t be able to hear you speak over the engines, so I’ll just monologue at you. Resist the urge to look around, because you’re playing a stuffed doll. Sorry you have to get up this way, but anything like a real helicopter would blow Stets’ law-breaking budget. Virgil’s got somebody retroactively faking that you guys are big stuffed dolls in a Caitlin art piece. Underestimated the draw of what little web stuff we’ve had up since this morning, cryptic as it is. SFPD showed up sooner than expected, and you don’t want to be on the ground, because Pryor and a fresh batch of contractors are there already, looking for you and Manuela.

Verity, reading this against the sky, as the hammock rose, hoped the noise protection was working. The full-throttle roar of Grim Tim’s Harley would have been mild by comparison.

Now the drone, gray quadcopters mounted low on either side, like bulbous panniers, rose vertically past her, behind white Helvetica.

If it looks like we’re pulling this evening out of our ass, it’s because mine is legion. The branch plants were still doing things for me, behind my back, when Cursion erased me. When they started recompiling me, they set this evening in motion even before Stets and Caitlin knew about it. Once I recompiled, there was just me, right? Now I’m all of the branch plants, but I’m still spoofing like there are a few, because that could be handy. But keep that to yourself.

Now the drone dropped past the hammock, like a rock, behind Eunice’s text.

Pryor’s got some dickhead shooting at us from the ground. Or make that past tense, now Conner’s on the case.