Read Online The Last Firewall by William Hertling - Free Book Online Page B

she’d left in the current apartment, comforted that she at least had the backpack, and headed instead for the train station. She took the southbound train, part of a vague plan in the back of her mind to work her way to Mexico. Now here she was in Los Angeles.
    The tram squealed to a halt, and she boarded following a woman lugging a baby and a stroller with three quiet kids in tow. When it was her turn to pay, Cat kept her implant ID in anonymous mode and used a payment card. She went for the rear, having a better understanding after a few weeks on the run of what it meant to keep your back to the wall.
    Hugging her backpack on her lap, she forced herself to be calm. She had an hour until they reached downtown, then she’d find herself a flea-bit hotel and get a job. She’d spent the last two weeks in some never-never land, with no thought of the future. She couldn’t steal payment cards forever.
    The tram was quiet, the other passengers silent, wispy data streams showing them reading, watching video, playing games, or communicating. She closed her eyes, shut down her implant, and started qigong forms in her head. She might not be able to do the physical movements, but she could still visualize them. The more perfect the visualization, the more perfect the practice.
    She started with Liu He’s Jade Woman form, followed with Ba Duan Jin, and finished with Hu Lu Gong. She checked her implant and saw she had thirty minutes left. She moved onto karate, starting with the Nihaichi kata, then mentally rehearsed knife fighting.
    The mental practice abruptly brought back memories of the fight in the park. All the loss and pain and loneliness surfaced, but she pushed aside the thoughts. She’d had enough of them during the long nights in San Francisco.
    The tram finally lurched to a stop downtown. She shaded her eyes from the brilliant sun, more used to Portland’s persistent clouds. She slung her backpack over both shoulders and started the search for a hotel. She wanted something cheap, near high bandwidth net access, and preferably off the main strip.
    She felt safe in the crowd, once more anonymous and untraceable. She glanced at the time—mid-afternoon on a weekday. People would be at work. She trudged along, watching people’s clothing. She ignored anyone in business attire, the hip, and the casual. She looked for the poorly dressed, the hookers, the homeless. When she saw someone who fit the description, she headed in their direction. She wanted a crowd where anonymity and secrecy were the norm. The density of what she was looking for gradually increased until she found herself off First Street. Once an upscale Asian neighborhood, now boarded windows spotted the storefronts, druggies huddled in doorways, and a long line marked a rice kitchen.
    A hooker in a nonexistent skirt and impossibly tall heels called out to her. “Coming to slum, honey? I got what you want.”
    Cat shrugged further into her hooded sweatshirt and kept going. The hooker was right. She wanted to disappear among these people, but even after two weeks she still looked too clean for the street.
    At the corner of Rose, she stopped beside a sign advertising rooms by the week. Underneath the peeling paint and barred first floor windows, it looked like it had once been an upscale condo. Now rooms went for less than the price of dinner. Cat did some quick math and realized that with the payment cards in her boot, she could stay here for a week, even counting food expenses. She could look for a job and have a real place to stay instead of squatting in other people’s vacant apartments.
    Cat followed hand painted wooden signs to what passed for an office. A toothless man with a few hairs poking out of his otherwise bald head squinted at her behind an old-fashioned e-paper sheet. No implant then.
    “You want it for an hour?” he asked.
    Cat didn’t want to think about what he assumed she’d do with a room for an hour. “I’ll take one for a week.”