Chapter 6 It's Been A While

He didn’t think anyone had followed their cab, hopefully the blast kept them out long enough for the trail to run cold. The cab stopped in front of Jewels’ building O’Neil stepped out first scanning the road to make sure everything was clear, while Jewels swiped her hand across the credit machine.

Ralph greeted them at the door, “Good evening Miss Devonshire,” seeing the dried blood on O’Neil he continued. “What happened to your friend? Looks like your friend could use some medical.” Her entire building was owned by Star Corp., who gave apartments to its employees as part of the benefits package, so O’Neil’s appearance should really draw much attention.

“I cut myself shaving.”

Ralph smiled, “who was holding the razor?”

O’Neil looked Ralph directly in the eyes, “haven’t they put you out to pasture yet?”

“Mr. O’Neil, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen you around here.” His large grin nearly swallowed his head. “It’s nice to see you two back together, I always thought you made a great couple.

“It’s good to see you too Ralph.” He extended his non-chipped hand. Jewels swiped her hand over the scanner, and tugged at Ren’s sleeve edging him towards the door.

“Come on Hon it’s been a long night we should head upstairs.” He followed the ruse and headed towards the door.

“Mr. O'Neil, you forgot to scan in.” Ralph moved to block the door.

“Oh yeah I guess I did, you see Jewels was hoping that… Well you know when I left the company it wasn’t very pretty.” He looked down sheepishly at the ground. “You see Miss Devonshire is up for a promotion and the company might not like it if she was hanging around the likes of me.”

“You two know what you’re asking?”

Jewels jumped in bore he could continue. “Yeah Ralph, but it’s only a felony if they catch you. Besides you know Ren’s not a terrorist.”

“Move to your left a little,” he gestured them together so that they'd block the atm camera across the street. He tugged quickly at a cord hanging from the door scanner.

“Looks like the scanners down again.” He winked a Jewels. “Mr. O’Neil I guess I’ll have to take your thumb print to follow security protocol.”

O’Neil placed his left thumb on the pad, wishing more people followed the spirit of the law rather than the letter.

Her apartment hadn’t changed much in the three years they had been apart. She was still immaculate, and she had a brown thumb, as her dead ferns would attest. “Have a seat,” she said nodding towards the couch.

He thought he could hear his bones ache as he sank into the mock leather couch. He glanced around the flat, “nothing ever changes does it.” He looked around for a moment longer. “You still don’t even have a T.V.”

Yelling from the back room she answered, “I don’t have the time. Star keeps me really busy and I spend the rest of the time reading tech manuals.” She reappeared in the living room. “I know you don’t believe in a lot of the gadgets but you’d be surprised how quickly these things change.” She sat an oblong device on the coffee table. “Let me see your hand Ren?”

He flopped his hand into hers automatically. “This may hurt, you’re the first breather I’ve tried this on.

“What,” he flinched back a little.

“If you still worked for star you’d know this but chip jacking is the latest in crime.” She forced his hand open inserting the probe into his flesh.

“The Feds have wanted to keep it pretty hushed, and of course we’ve obliged, but there have been a lot of chip jacks lately.” She rotated the probe into the next layer of skin. ”You don’t fit the normal victim though.” She made contact with something deep in his tissue.

“What rich?” He flinched hard as she tugged and something.

“No a genner.” She pressed a button and an ultra purple light lit up the probe. “They only go for genners, the word at the corp. is some Gov is looking for a bio weapon, and they need the IDS to find it,”

“I hadn’t left Jor-Tech more than an hour before they grabbed me.”

“That’s great!” she exclaimed.

“What?”

“Sorry, not Jor-Tech, your chip’s still there, they only stunned it.” She pressed a few buttons on the probe, “this is going to hurt like hell Ren.” Bright orange energy shot directly from the probe into his hand. His entire nervous system felt like a thousand ants bit him at once. The room spun black as he wondered if Jewels was trying to kill him.

When he came to he found himself in a familiar place, her bed. “What the…” He said groggily, “What happened?”

She handed him a glass and two pills. “I had to recharge your chip. Take a few minutes and these will make you feel better.” She sat down in the chair beside her bed.

“Ren, what happened to us? I mean we were more than just partners, seeing you again has made me think.”

He had been thinking from the moment he saw her at the inferno. Despite all the craziness he’d been through all he needed was to see her eyes sparkle like her name and nothing else seemed to matter. He reached his bandaged hand out to touch her knee. “Yeah I know what you mean. But maybe we should think about this after things settle down.” He retracted his hand. “CabCo, God knows how many bounties are out looking for me right now.” He shut his eyes; too many people were willing to settle for the kill bounty to take the time to see his chip worked.

“I fixed that Ren.” She ran her hand along his brow. “Like I told you chip jacking is the latest thing. I filed a report with star and transferred your data there, all charges have been dropped.” She reached into the nightstand. “In fact star is willing to pay if you will file a report about the chip jack, they only know of one other person who has survived.” She handed him a pad to file the report on.

“Who was the other one?” He asked as he began filing the report.

“I don’t know. I can call in and ask if you’d like.”

“Yeah, it might be interesting.” He tossed the pad down and grabbed her, pulling her towards him. “Now that I’m not a wanted man, maybe we can have that talk.”

She ran her hand over his body. “I think you want to do more than talk.”

“Always the detective Jewels.” He started to unfasten the buttons her shirt.

She pulled back momentarily. “It’s been a while Ren do you mind?” She handed him a vira-scan.

“Ladies first,” he said handing the device back to her. She gently inserted her finger into it and moments later a digitized woman’s voice said “clean.”

He could feel the slight sting of the needle as he inserted his finger. “Clean,” was all it took and then it was like they had never parted in the first place.

The orange haze of daylight crept in threw her window.” Blinds,” she moaned. The automated blinds closed locking the daylight out of their cocoon. Darien notice the flashing led across the room first.

“Jewels, you got a silent alarm?”

She buried her face into his chest. “Yeah, every unit in this building does.” She rolled onto her pillow snuggling into her comforter.

“Then we got company.” He said slipping out of bed and into the clothes she had folded over the bedroom chair. Jewels got up as quickly grabbing a Taser from her nightstand. She pressed a button on the alarm unit and a hologram here her living room projected from the center of it.

“Fancy.” Darien whispered.

“Shhh.” Her living room had been clearly ransacked. “Well someone has been here.”

Darien pointed to the room door as it pulled slight open. Before the person on the other side could see they were awake Darien yanked them through the door knocking them in the back of the skull. Ralph fell to the floor stunned.

“Shit,” thought Darien. They cleared the rest of the apartment while moving Ralph to the couch. The place was all clear, and from what they could tell nothing was missing. Jewels filled to reports over the vidphone, O’Neil’s and about the break in. Twenty minutes after that Ralph came too.

“Did you hit me Jewels?” Ralph asked

“No.” She said.

“Then you hit like a girl, O’Neil.” He smiled.

“Knocked you out.”

“Yeah, and I’m an old man.”

“I know this may look like a locker room, but it’s still my apartment and I’d appreciate if you turned the testosterone down.” She sparked her Taser to punctuate her point.

“What happened Ralph?” O’Neil asked.

“I should have seen it coming. Someone was beserking in front of the building and I went out to zap em. While I was out there they turned off the roof censor.”

Jewels handed him some water. “They came in through the roof, whose place they get.”

“No ones, just yours. They were in and out before I even noticed the censor was down.” He sipped his water. “I figured when I saw the place you two was dead.” He looked at them closely. “Glad to see you sleep like the dead.”

Ralph left after gather his wits, and they started talking about the Jordan case. “It was an easy close, Ren. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Simple pod-jacking, that’s it.”

“What about the body how was the DNA scan.”

She shook her head, “I don’t remember the exact figures but it was enough to get the conviction.”

“You mean the perp's DNA?”

“No Jordan’s, the body was burned pretty badly. You know there was one thing, the burns were chemical, the lab thought. A new kind of dissolving agent they thought.” She sat down next to him, “none of the evidenced really mattered one of the jackers confessed, for immunity.”

“So you didn’t need much of a DNA match, because they told you who he was.”

“Yeah something like that.” She put her head on his shoulder, “I can think of better things for us to do today than talk shop.” So could he.

When he got up to leave she was a sleep on the couch, he laid a blanket cross her and reached for his coat where he had hung it the night before. It wasn’t there. “Must have been moved in the fray.” He thought looking around the room. “Oh well I have a chip so I won’t need to barter, I’ll get it later.” He shut the door quietly as he made his exit.