SLAM by Tash McAdam

while Leaf wriggles his
nose from side to side, swooping eyebrows narrowed in
concentration. Then he brightens suddenly, unhunching himself and
waving a hand in the air to get their attention.
    “They’re all wired!’” he exclaims, excitement
filling his hushed voice. “All the buildings’re on the original
wire trunk, holdin’ massive servers. Maybe the terrorist chap needs
a pluggable connex for summat, not just wireless. Look!” He takes
the datapad right out of Abial’s hands so quickly that she’s still
blinking at the empty space where it was when he starts typing away
on the touchscreen, pulling up and discarding things so rapidly
that Serena can’t even make out what they are.
    Pickpocket, she’d bet on it. She snerks at
Abial’s mildly shocked expression, then looks back at
him.
    “Aha!” He taps again, and the city map is
overlaid with a blueprint that shows massive swathes of wiring
under the city. The original underground power lines for the entire
City’s grid. Serena’s eyes scan the map, and then the blueprint
over it, her heart racing. Leaf is right – every building hit is at
a terminal point on the wires, meaning direct access to the City’s
power if you manually spliced in. That would explain the
electricity cuts, for sure.
    It seems that whoever they’re chasing needs
power, lots of it, for whatever they’re doing.
    Leaf pauses, his face suddenly growing
serious, concern painting his features. “Nukeslints! If I figured
it out this fast, either the soldiers are thicker’n rocks, or they
know too.”
    “And they’re probably already on their way to
the next stop.” Serena finishes his thought for him, mind flashing
through the possibilities. Whoever this person is, they’re taking a
traceable route. The soldiers have to be on to it, which means
they’re probably waiting at the next building. If Serena and Abial
are going to get there first, they don’t have much time.
    She nods, pursing her lips. “You’re right,
there’s no way they missed this. Not with the sort of tech they’re
running. Look, there’s three buildings that make sense as a next
stop, and four more a little further out, if this person is willing
to move an extra klick. So she could be hiding in any one of these
seven locations!”
    “She?” Leaf raises a sharp eyebrow, black eyes
glittering like oil. “Why she?”
    Serena smirks, raising an eyebrow
back at him. “Why not? Anyway, if they’re sending the Institute
scrabbling like this, it doesn’t matter who they are. Just that we get to
them first. They’ve got to be important, and that means we need
them.”
    Abial scrapes her hair off her face, pulling
it into a firm horsetail. “Right, we’re gonna need an evac plan,
and a safe house other than this one. Can’t risk coming back to the
same place. I vote we get some food, put a plan together, and
bounce ASAP. If you guys are right, we don’t have much time.” She
slaps her hand on her hip to check her zap, then realizes she isn’t
wearing it, and sighs. “Weapons would be nice, too. Leaf, could ya
try and pull something together for us?”
    But he’s already sliding toward the door,
moving like silk. He pats his hair back into place, and suddenly
the guttersnipe is gone, replaced by a self-confident, affected
young gentleman. The chameleon effect is impressive; Serena would
never guess that he was the same pickpocket who’d been entertaining
them for the past ten minutes. He grins at them, and the mask
disappears for a second. Then he listens at the door, waits a few
beats, and slips out of it without a sound.
    There’s a beat of silence, and then Abial
breaks it.
    “He’s kinda creepy.”
    Serena blurts a laugh at the idea of Abial
being creeped out by their new friend. She’s usually so
unflustered, taking everything in her stride – something Serena has
always been envious of. “Eh, pretty neat trick, changing it up like
that. I wonder if he can do any other characters. Maybe he