Detours

[John Doe ..er... Smith]

The taste of fudge and the color blue blended in a confusion of sensation as Dietrich exited the Matrix. The feeling of being sucked backwards through a tornado gave way to a more ordinary feeling of cramped muscles from his meat body being in the same position for too long. He ached. With a stifled groan he pulled the Strawberry Skin off his head, the fine mesh of wires and sensors that allowed him entry to the virtual world.

"When are you going to replace that kid toy and get a real data jack, Deeters?" asked the other person in the room. A year older than his brother, tough and wiry Max had dropped out of school his senior year to take up a job as a delivery boy for a local gang. Now Dietrich was a senior, but he planned on sticking it out and getting the electronic entry of "high school graduate" in his citizen profile.

That did not stop him from occasion network run to help his brother, though. And to help himself a little at the same time. A little overweight and definitely non-athletic, Dietrich found the electronic world of the Matrix irresistible. He spent his free time on the school's equipment and wasn't above coming back after hours to use things like the Strawberry Skin while no teacher was "looking" over his shoulder.

"This time, Max. This time we may have done it. You wouldn't believe what I just found on Bravestar. Goods and shipment dates for next week. This isn't historical data like I usually find. This would make a great target to the right people." He turned to face Max, excitement in his eyes. "If you could just find those people we could have enough cred for both our projects!"

A grin spread over Max's face. "Bravestar, huh? I think I know just who. A chummer in the gang gave me a v-chip of some data hound of the Knights. The guy has a personal grudge against the Bumblebees and would very much like to see them taken down a notch."

"Oh, this would definitely drop their pants. And I think some of the goods are from that vanished Knights shipment that was on the tridee yesterday. This isn't just paydata like normal. We are not talking about getting a hundred or two. This is more like five or six thousand nuyen. More than enough for my data jack *and* your skill chip."

The excitement was starting to infect Max. "What are we waiting for? Slot this in the terminal and let's give him a call."

[John Doe ..er... Smith]

“What the frack are we doing here, Max?” whispered Dietrich harshly. “I’ve never even held a gun. And this one looks like it was put together by a blind person. It will probably blow up in my hands!”

“Easy, bro, easy,” Max cajoled. “It’s only as a backup in case something goes wrong. And these guys are pros, so nothing is going to go wrong.” He peered over the stack of busted shipping crates and scanned the alley. “They just want us here to make sure we weren’t pulling a fast one on them. They’ll handle all the work and we will get our cut without you ever having to squeeze the trigger.”

“It’s not *my* trigger finger I’m worried about,” said Dietrich. He drew a breath to continue then paused as a strange electrical sound suddenly swelled overhead then travelled the length of the alley. A Bravestar drone dropped from the sky and stopped at the end of the alley. It hovered there without further movement or noise.

“Stones! It’s the Bumblebee’s bumblebee,” he whispered. “It could shoot right through these old crates…”

“Quiet or it will!” Max looked down the alley, rocking himself back and forth a little as he always did in hard thought, like the mechanisms in an antique clock. Dietrich was struck by an image of his brother transformed into cogs and gears like some tridee killing android.

“Okay”, he said at last. “It would have only shown up here if some alarms had gone off or something. It is waiting, like for an ambush. Our chummers must have screwed up somewhere and this thing is going to take them full in the face when they round that corner.” He looked hard at his brother, putting force behind his words. “We have to do something. And fast.”

This time it was his eyes that did the rocking. He looked up and down the alley without moving his head, measuring distances between objects and potential cover. He looked down at their current location and gave a small nod to himself.

[John Doe ..er... Smith]

Max gestured toward the mouth of the alley. “See how that drone bobs up and down a little?” Dietrich nodded his head. “The top of the line ones don’t. This is one of their refurbished jobs. They use them on patrols out here in the sticks where no one important is looking.”

Dietrich looked the drone over. Now that his brother mentioned it, the machine looked weather-beaten. The exterior did not throw back reflected light, it shrugged it off grudgingly.

“The gang took out one of these before with an IED. Something about the refurbish process leaves the bottom brittle. Don’t ask me why. I just know it turns into nothing but a dust cover protecting some otherwise valuable components. You could probably kick through it if the drone was on its side. But it is not going to roll over for us.”

He gestured the other direction from the drone, back down the length of alley from which they had initially come. There were a few locked and barred doorways and some mounds of broken crates like they currently huddled behind. No other shelter was visible for a couple hundred yards.

Max grabbed his brother’s shirt at the throat, pulled him in close, and glared at his little brother. Suddenly seven years old again, Dietrich automatically said “I didn’t do anything!” It came out in a whisper, though, the conversation of the last two minutes having already set the habit. “You are *going* to do something, Deeters. You hear what I’m saying?” When his brother nodded, Max continued. “In a moment that bucket of rust is going to hear something down the alley. It is going to float down here to investigate. When it floats past this position, *you* are going to slide out underneath it and shoot straight up. You got that? You’re going to shoot it through that weak brittle base”. He punctuated his words with the tip of his gun.

“Wh.. why… why don’t you?” asked Dietrich.

Max grinned, a mad grin that echoed in his eyes. “Because I’m going to be that noise it hears!” he said. He leaped from hiding and started running away from the crates, back the way they had come. Back down that two hundred yards of shelterless killing zone. Immediately the drone spun around toward this commotion. It overshot the turn, corrected slightly, and lined up with the fleeing human. Tilting forward, it started down the alley.

“I hate it when he does that!” thought Dietrich. “Crap, crap, crap!”

[John Doe ..er... Smith]

Dietrich watched in fascination as the runner's med-kit went to work on his brother. The box had unfolded itself, then unfolded, again, and again, and again, until it was a metal framework that completely encircled the prone teenager. Fine needles speared into his body to deliver the chemicals its scanners determined were needed. Tiny probes worked on edges of Max's leg where the drone's firearms had taken a large bite out of his thigh. They appeared to be gathering the fragments of shredded tissue and stitching them back together, using some sort of epoxy to fill in where flesh was missing.

“Hey, kid!” called one of the runners. “What did your brother call you, 'Detours'? Yeah, that was it. Hey, Detour. He said you were good with electronics. Go check that drone for anything we can salvage and sell. The med-kit won't be finished with him for a couple minutes, then he'll be as good as new. We clear out of this location in three,” he said, raising his voice, “and anything we can't carry gets left behind.”

The other runners grunted in acknowledgement as they broke crates apart and loaded their contents in bags and satchels. Vials of drugs, small electronics, and even some pistols went into the runner's packs. One or two items might get damaged from the rough handling but the remainder more than made up for it.

Dietrich stepped over to the remains of the drone he had shot. The bullets had torn through the base and ripped their way up then ricocheted from the outer shell, doing even more damage. He reached in and felt around, tracing the outline of the drive unit to the power source. He popped the power pack out, grabbed a few optical chips, and then it was time to go.

Max was sitting up, rubbing the patched spot and flexing his leg experimentally. He looked around, still slightly hazy from the drugs, then spotted his brother. A self-satisfied grin crossed his face. “Looks like it worked,” he said.

“I could kill you myself!” answered Dietrich crossly. “Why would you do something so stupid, so foolhardy, so…”

“Because I trust you, bro. I knew you could do it. That when the moment for action came you wouldn't freeze up and let me get iced. Full trust, Deteers, full trust.”

“It's time for full thrust,” said the runner who spoke earlier. Dietrich never heard his real name but the others called him Breaker. He gestured to two bags. “You get the light one, Max, and Detour gets the other. Let's red-shift, everybody.” He handed a pistol to Dietrich, a brand new Slimline taken from the cache they had scored. “Figured you earned a replacement. Nice shooting.”

Dietrich grunted nonchalantly and slid it into his waistband as he pick up his bag. Inside, though, he felt pride swell. It felt good. It was the icing on the cake, the payoff of the adrenaline rush. “I am going to do more of these 'runs',” he told himself. “This is the career for me.”