Cooper walked halfway down the platform. He tossed the plastic shopping bag at the trash and missed, the bag landing at the base of the metal can. He left it there and took a seat on the third bench. The portico hid the sky.
In five minutes Zane’s hacker would be here, or not. He was betting on not.
A train rounded the curve, ungodly noisy. There had been talk for years of retrofitting the tracks to allow a maglev train, faster and quieter, but the money had never been in the city’s budget. Cooper was glad of it; he liked the El the way it was. Old-world thinking, sure, but the rattle and clank made him happy. He rested his arms on the back of the bench, crossed his legs.
As the Brown Line pulled in, the platform erupted into a mass of motion. People jostled to get off as others fought to get on. Conversations, phone calls, music. Excuse-mes and curses. A man rapped to himself as he walked, completely unselfconscious. The wave of humanity crested with a recorded tone and the announcement that doors were closing. The tide pulled away with the train, leaving the platform suddenly empty.
Except for a very, very pretty girl who had not been there a moment ago.
Cooper blinked, startled. His palms went sweaty and the back of his neck tingled.
The Girl Who Walks Through Walls wore boots to the knee, soft tights to the hem of her skirt, a fitted shirt, and a loose jacket that had plenty of space in the cuff to conceal the snub-nosed pistol she was pointing at his chest.
She said, “Get up.”
Cooper stared—
She is not part of the plan. She’s a surprise on a day with no margin for error. In about sixty seconds, everything is going to explode.
Why is she here? Why now? She can’t be working with Zane.
There must be sources within the department. John Smith has informers.
And how the hell does she do that, anyway?
—at her, conscious, suddenly, that his mouth was open. He closed it. Was this how other people felt about what he could do? Her ability to move unseen was uncanny. He could have sworn he’d been looking right at that spot. “You made it out of the Exchange, I guess.”
“Stand up. I won’t say it again.”
He read her intent in the lines of her shoulder, the set of her mouth, the fury in her eyes, and he stood up. Slowly. “I don’t work for the DAR anymore,” he said. “Shooting me won’t help your boss.”
“I’m not here for that. I’m here for Brandon Vargas.”
His bafflement must have shown on his face. Her lips tightened. “Of course. You don’t remember. He was just another number to you. Walk.” She gestured with her head, not the gun. A pro.
Cooper glanced in the direction she indicated. The nearer exit. She meant to take him off the platform before shooting him. Normally he’d have welcomed that, knowing that every second he was alive he’d have a chance to turn this around. But not today.
Today stepping out from under the roof was a death sentence.
“Listen to me,” he said. “There’s something you need to know.”
“Start moving or I’ll shoot you right here.”
“I don’t think so. You’re not actually invisible. You may know how to be where people aren’t looking, but I’m betting once they’re staring, you’re just as screwed as anyone else who fires a gun on an El platform.”
“Maybe I’ll risk it.”
“For Brandon Vargas?”
“Don’t you say his name. His life was shit because of men like you. Men like you put him in an academy. Men like you made him a slave. And when he refused to join the government after he graduated, you killed him. You’re the boot of the system, Cooper. It’s your job to step on human beings. And you don’t even remember them.”