He didn’t let go of her hand. Instead, he took it in both of his. “It does not have to be like this.” His gaze intensified. “Meet me for coffee. Tomorrow.”
Heat rose to her cheeks, but then she fought back her instinctive response. It made no sense to go down this path. Not for a woman with a death sentence.
“I wish I could,” she said. “I would have liked to.”
As she pulled away her hand and went out, he put his e-cig back in his mouth and leaned on the countertop, his face inscrutable.
She summoned a self-driving taxi through Flyte. She had to grit her teeth against the agony in her stiffening thigh muscles as she got out of the Flyte car and limped to Old Blue. At least it wasn’t raining.
Once in her car, she beat her forehead slowly against the steering wheel. She was near to tears, but she forced them back. Maybe she was at a standstill for now, maybe she had gotten hurt, maybe she couldn’t go on doing what she had been doing, maybe she would get caught any day now.
But she wasn’t done yet, by God.
Not done yet.
Helen drove to her condo with her injured leg aching. Sharp pain came with every movement of her foot on the accelerator, and braking brought new waves of agony. She wished she had taken one of the pain pills before leaving the pawn shop. She clenched her teeth and carried on, but by the time she parked in the garage, her muscles were stiff and she could hardly move. She sucked in air through her teeth as she pulled herself out of Old Blue and balanced on her other leg.
Was she even capable of getting to her condo by herself? She looked around for something she could use as a crutch or a cane. Nothing. And it wasn’t like she could call Mandy to come help her to the condo.
She ground her teeth again. There was nothing else for it. She took a few deep breaths, then set her jaw. She focused on her breathing as she set out. Each step shot agony through her leg from hip to heel, but she kept putting one foot in front of the other. Within ten steps, she broke into a sweat.
As soon as she turned down her long corridor, the familiar smell of mildew welcoming her home, she saw a young couple making out in the hallway a few yards ahead, their arms wrapped around each other. Smacking sounds made Helen grimace.
The guy pressed the girl against the grimy wall as he kissed her with adolescent passion, blocking Helen’s view of the girl’s face, but Helen would have recognized her daughter’s blue plume of hair anywhere.
Helen lost her focus and staggered. She put too much weight on her injured leg, and pain jolted through her. She winced and put a hand on the nearest wall to balance herself.
Could she still escape notice?
The couple exchanged the angles of their heads, and Mandy saw her. Her eyes widened.
Of course Helen couldn’t have been lucky.
Why the hell hadn’t she gone to her sleep locker instead of home?
Mandy leaned her head back against the wall, her eyes closed. The boy took it as an invitation to kiss her neck before she pushed him off.
“Hey, Mom,” Mandy said, her voice lower and slower than usual, her eyes heavy-lidded. “Whatcha doin’?”
The boy turned around quickly. Helen took him in at a glance. Leather motorcycle jacket, skinny, long hair tied back, a poor excuse for facial hair: the lead guitarist from Mandy’s rock band.
Helen had lost her focus, and tears threatened to spill from the sheer agony of standing. She wasn’t sure she could speak.
But she had to.
She strained toward normal Mom behavior. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”
Mandy laughed gently. “I know, right?”
She was stoned.
“Hi, Mrs… Whatever,” the boy offered. He had the same glassy-eyed look.
Helen barely glanced at him. “Kid, go home. Right now.”
“Mo-o-om,” Mandy protested weakly. “I don’t want him to.”
Helen took a deep breath. “I want you in that house right now. Kid, go. Home.”
“Yeah, okay, Mrs…” He looked at Mandy for help, but she was staring with wide-eyed betrayal at her mother. “Sorry, Mrs…”
He sketched some sort of little bow and slunk down the hallway.
Mandy was still staring at her mother, her head tilting as she no doubt began to realize how late it was for her mother to be getting home… and possibly that she didn’t recognize her mother’s clothes… and maybe that her mother was standing very still and holding on to the wall.
Helen let go of the wall and forced herself to take three steps. With her remaining strength, she pointed at their door. She didn’t want to do this, but she had to make Mandy get away from her before she figured out that her mother was injured. “Go in and go to bed. I don’t want to see you again until morning.”
“You are the worst mother,” Mandy said. And she went inside.
19 Days
Helen went straight to bed with intense gratitude for the sleeping pill, or, as she decided to start calling it, the lights-out pill. It turned the lights off on the pain, the bone-deep exhaustion, the residual panic from the escape, the terrified anticipation of a SWAT team breaking into her apartment and dragging herself and Mandy out in handcuffs—all of it.
As she came into consciousness now with the bullet wound in her thigh stabbing agony, she took a full dose of Zara’s pain pills along with her waking pill. She lay on her bed as she waited for the medications to take effect. Her heart pounded so hard, it shook the bed.
Jessie came in and nestled against her back, and she turned over to pet him.
Her thoughts went to Mandy, of course. She wondered how long Mandy would stay angry. If the past were any guide, Helen could expect two or three days of the silent treatment. Helen thought over their encounter the previous night, trying to imagine some way she could have handled it better. Welcome to parenting, she told herself. Twenty years in and you still haven’t gotten it right.
She often felt that she couldn’t get anything right. And this Robin Hood Thief thing was falling right in line with the rest. Her clumsy failure last night had risked the life and freedom of not only herself but also Egemon and possibly Zara. And a taxi driver.
It’s not enough, she thought. A dozen stolen knick-knacks and three donations. It’s not nearly enough. But if she could hardly walk, let alone run, she couldn’t risk entering other people’s homes—not for burglaries, and not for crashing parties. Not anymore.
Egemon. Remembering how he’d swept her up and carried her into his shop last night brought a trace of a smile to her lips. For a moment, she’d felt blissfully safe and cared for. She remembered his invitation for coffee. She wanted to dwell on the possibilities that might lay there, but she dismissed them with bitter pain. Love was for those with years left to live. Like Mandy.
Mandy and her lead guitarist. At least she had someone. Hopefully he would be of some use to her when Helen was gone.
Failure and exhaustion felt like lead weights in Helen’s stomach. She felt so sick and dead and empty that even getting dressed seemed too difficult a task to imagine.
And yet life went on.
Life went on until it didn’t.
And she still needed to pretend to go into work for her daughter’s benefit.
She got up and got dressed.
On the way out, she saw Jessie’s dog food bowl, empty.
Of course it was empty. Of course Mandy hadn’t seen to it. The dog would starve to death after Helen died.
Don’t be dramatic, she told herself. Mandy will grow up just as soon as she’s forced to… and not a moment sooner.
The bowl looked grimy, and she picked it up to wash it. Jessie leapt off the loveseat and rushed over, eager to be fed, and pawed at her legs. “Down, puppy,” Helen said without conviction.
Her arm and leg muscles spasmed, and she fumbled the bowl and nearly fell. She caught herself by grabbing at the sink, and she cursed her faltering body. Jessie made a beeline for the bowl, sniffing to see if food had appeared in it yet,
then looked up at her accusingly. “Just a minute, puppy,” she told him weakly.
Once she felt that her muscles were stable again, she gently pushed Jessie aside and stooped to pick up the bowl again, and as she did, she saw that someone had taped a plastic baggie to the underside of the bowl.
Her forehead furrowed as she pulled it off.
The lost cash cards were inside.
“Oh my God…”
Of course. Putting them there was exactly something Helen would have done. Mandy would never have found them there—not in a million years. And no burglar would ever have looked there.
She leaned back against the counter and laughed until she cried.
Helen fought an hour and a half of traffic on her way to a public library. Pouring rain was half the problem, and the rest was construction. Then, just as the construction traffic eased, Helen hit another bad patch of traffic and then a thirty-minute detour around a teeming, angry crowd and a police blockade—she never saw what was going on.
Once she finally reached the library and got settled in, she checked for news about herself with trepidation, and immediately found her fears confirmed: Last night’s target had reported everything to the police, including how their security forces had shot the Robin Hood Thief, and the police chief had given a press release. The journalist at MCCTv had spun it into a first-rate story about how the Robin Hood Thief’s time was running out.
With a heavy sigh, she checked her new Whatsit account. Fans had posted and commented on the news story. A lot of people were expressing their concern. She’d received a message from Christian Smith at LSTV: [ You OK? ]
Perhaps in a moment of weakness, she replied: [ Yeah, thanks. ]
She looked more closely at his profile picture. He looked older, a bit stout, with coarse salt-and-pepper hair in a buzz cut and a square jaw that gave him a tough, jaded look. His bio said he was a former Army aviator before becoming a journalist.
Back on Helen’s account, she saw that someone had created an enhanceable post—one that others could freely modify and re-share—that displayed the rising tally of money collected and given to charity by copycats around the United States. If the numbers could be trusted, they’d donated almost fifteen thousand dollars now. Nothing about arrests yet.
Helen shook her head. She posted: [ You guys, I really did get shot last night. I almost got caught too. I’m okay, but listen, it could happen to you too. Think about what you could lose. Please don’t take the chance. I love you, but don’t do this. ]
Helen stretched and sighed. Next, she would compose another letter to the media. If she could do nothing else, she at least wanted to get full credit for what she had done—including the blackmail.
Maybe there was a little ego in all of this for her after all. Just a little.
She considered sending the letter as an email to LSTV, then wondered if she weren’t better off just posting it on her own Whatsit profile.
She could pay to boost it, even project it into the 3’scape in places the Entitled would see. Like their offices, and their bank buildings, and their tennis courts.
Yes. She wanted the wealthy to see this message. She would set it to broadcast to individuals with incomes over a million dollars a year. Afterward, she would share it privately with her own fans. Plus whatever enemies are following me on my profile, she thought wryly.
Dear lovely wealthy people,
Have you noticed the news about how Mr. Brock Tolbrook and Mr. Emanuel White both suddenly decided to give enormous sums of money to the very same charities they’d first donated to at the Net Worth Notion?
(Go ahead, look it up. I’ll wait.)
Now, don’t you wonder what the deal is? Does it maybe seem a little… unusual… that these two unconnected people took these very similar actions?
Well, my friends. I would like to step up and claim some credit for that.
Those donations were made on behalf of the Robin Hood Thief.
They’ll never admit it, of course. They’ll protest that they just felt really generous all of a sudden. But will you believe them?
I will not tell you why they agreed to do it, because I promised that if they made the donations, I wouldn’t spill their secrets. And there has to be some honor among thieves, after all.
For the rest of you who have secrets (and who doesn’t have one or two?)… I can save you some trouble and effort and considerable embarrassment. If you don’t want a little visit from me or one of my agents, you can just go ahead and proactively make a few donations.
You don’t have to make them so public as these last two donations. You can make a few sporadic and private contributions that don’t catch the news—just so long as they total a million dollars or more. Trust me, I’ll know.
And just a word of advice: I suggest giving to charities you think I might approve of.
Love, the Robin Hood Thief
She posted it with a wry grin. It was a bluff, of course. She had no way to know whether any of them complied or not, and no agents to send after them. But if her bluff frightened even one more rich guy into giving a big sum of cash to charity, it was well worth it.
Another message from Christian Smith already: [ Any chance I can snag an interview with you soon? ]
She ignored him. Given that her career in crime was over, she had nothing to say. Anyway, he could write a story based on the letter she’d just sent out.
Then she slumped back in her chair and stared at the wall above her projcom screen.
She wasn’t done, she realized. She kept trying to tell herself that it was over, but the larger part of her wasn’t buying it. That part of her insisted she just needed a new strategy. But what? She was out of ideas and running out of time.
There was something about these fans she had now. About Whatsit. Something. But her brain just couldn’t put it together.
Helen stared at the projected screen, her eyes glazed.
A weather alert popped up. A polar vortex would be coming sometime in the next week or so, bringing temperatures down below freezing. I should still be alive for that, Helen thought. I’ll have to find my jacket.
New comments rushed in on Whatsit in response to her latest letter.
[ Is she saying what I think she’s saying??? ]
[ B-L-A-C-K-M-A-I-L baby ]
[ Holy shit. How’d she do that? ]
[ I bet she’s bluffing ]
[ who cares as long as it works? ]
[ That is pretty much the coolest thing ever. ]
Helen grinned a little.
It wasn’t that late, but she could plausibly be home from work now, so far as Mandy was concerned, and she was too tired to stay and work any longer. She needed to go home and rest.
A chime from her e-paper. She pulled out her e-paper to see what Mandy wanted. Her message said: [ Are we srsly out of yogurt? ]
[ Yes. Srsly. So very srsly. GO GET IT YOURSELF. And pick up some dog food while you’re at it. ]
As she stood up slowly and her thigh screamed protest, the locket holding the black pill swung out of her shirt where the top button had come unbuttoned.
“I know, I know,” Helen muttered to it as she tucked it back under her shirt. “You don’t have to remind me.”
Twenty minutes later, Helen rushed through a thunderstorm back to the library, back to a projcom.
Her brain had finally caught up, and her heart was racing in excitement. The answer had been obvious all along.
She couldn’t physically go into people’s houses anymore… but she might not have to.
How many times during this misadventure had she wished she were a hacker? Or knew one?
These fans of hers on Whatsit… they were anti-establishment, anarchist types. What were the odds that any of them had that skill set?
For a moment, she let herself daydream of the things she could accomplish with the right partner… heck, what couldn’t she accomplish?
She posted again: [ Dear my lovelies, if any of you are h
ackers, I would love to have your help to expand the scope of what I’m doing. Not just blackmail. Much more. Interested? ]
Answers came so quickly that Helen didn’t know how to react. She immediately recognized her own naiveté. How would she vet these people?
Then one message got everyone’s attention.
[ ok you amateaures back off. Its Cobalt and i will take it from here. Robin, u got fifteen minits to message me at this profile. The rest of you mfs mind ur own beeswax. Peace/up ]
[ whoa ]
[ shit yall shit just got real ]
[ *bows and scrapes* Oh holy one, guide us ]
[ Cobalt come on let us play too ]
[ oh come on no way is it is the real Cobalt. Why would he post as himself? That would be dumb. ]
[ Maybe he’s not scared. I wouldn’t be. Posting on Whatsit is easily anonymized. ]
The “real” Cobalt? And where had she heard that name before?
Conscious of the fifteen-minute time limit he’d given her, she took two minutes to look him up.
Cobalt. American hacker. Trademark phrase: peace/up
Cobalt broke into the hacking scene with a bang in 2046 by deleting the identities of thirty US legislators. He took credit for the hack promptly, stating, “Fuckers deserve it for thinking theyre better than us and not speaking for us like their fucking job says theyre suppose to [sic].”
A few months later, Cobalt claimed credit for hacking and defacing the New York Police Department’s website, leaving the message, “Cowards and bullies. Also we suck dicks.”
In May 2047, Cobalt defunded a school district. Three months passed before the school recovered a small portion of the money. Their data and financial recovery experts appraise the likelihood of recovering the final sums at less than 5%.
In September and again in November of 2047, Cobalt worked with anarchist group Sons of Man to flash-riot two shopping malls. Sons of Man enter public spaces quietly and individually, without drawing attention, then riot from within on cue. Cobalt added to the two performances by hacking the PA systems and providing a soundtrack of punk music.
The Robin Hood Thief Page 14