Read Online Data Runner by Sam A. Patel - Free Book Online

a while, so your runs will always be point to point within the Free City. Payment gets wired into your account upon completion of each job. It’s that simple. If all goes well, you won’t see us again for a while.”
    â€œWhat if I need to get in touch with you?”
    â€œJust like the business card, run your chip over any scanner ported into the aggrenet. The scanner will return a local error, but there’s a trigger code in there that will get back to us.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œThen we’ll find you.”

7
    â€œThis is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” says Dexter without a hint of exaggeration.
    To be fair, it is the stupidest thing I’ve ever suggested in my entire life. “But you did bring it?” I ask anyway.
    â€œIt’s in my bag,” he says. “But let me just say again for the record how completely moronic this is.”
    The old public library is a three-story building that’s been boarded over. This particular section of Main Street got hit pretty hard by the downturn, so the library is just one in a string of abandoned buildings that’s been fenced off at street level. The only way in is from the top.
    Three buildings over, Dex and I use the fire escape to get to the rooftop of the old gym. I guess it’s kind of ironic. Back when the town had money, people would use machines with hologram projectors to simulate climbing up a wall when all they had to do was go outside and do it for real. Although looking at it now, I guess it could only be people like us who see the forest through the trees. All those open-faced buildings. All those heaps of rubble and half-crumbled walls. All those towers of vacant Blackburn Corps of Engineers scaffolding that are just enough to make it seem like a reconstruction effort is underway when really there is none. All those exposed pipes and jittery old fire escapes. All the steel cables running down empty elevator shafts. It all makes the perfect training ground for the Brentwood Dragons. That’s what makes us different. While everyone else compares Brentwood to its former glory, we embrace it for what it is now. We see the beautiful playground beyond the blight. Because for us, there are no obstacles that are not challenges. Obstacles are like plateaus, and there are plenty of plateaus, but those plateaus are never limits. There are no limits.
    From the rooftop of the old gym, Dexter and I gap jump the buildings to get to the old library.
    All week long I’ve been tracing in dressy clothes with my body armor underneath to get used to both of them. I figure if I’m going to make it on the sneakernet then I’m going to have to blend in, and there is no way I’m going to do that in the Free City looking like a kid from Brentwood. The shoes were harder, but Dexter helped me find a pair of black lace-up boots that are both stylish and functional, protective but light. The new clothes I got used to quickly, since that was how I used to dress anyway. The armor is a different story. It’s a big change, that’s for sure. Particularly when rolling out of a landing. I’ve grown accustom to feeling the ground across my back as my frame absorbs the energy. But now I have this shell between me and the ground that doesn’t absorb but transfers the energy, so each time I come out of the roll there is all this extra momentum popping me off the ground like a spring. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I might even use it to my advantage once I get used to it.
    Dexter and I make our way down the stairwell to the third floor. The entire floor is empty. All that remains are the concrete pillars and load-bearing walls holding up the ceiling. Everything else is gone. Even the pipes in the walls have been gutted.
    â€œAre you sure about this?” he asks.
    â€œCyril said that other runners have been shot at.”
    â€œShot at doesn’t mean shot