@ashresurget || discussed starter
Cutting through Greektown had shaved minutes off the return sprint to Jericho, and with it being just before 3 AM, the square was practically empty. The store fronts still glittered alluringly, but their patrons and employees had all gone home, narrowing his risk of being recognized to a small margin allowed for only due to the heavier CCTV in the area. Cyberlife was a practical den of cameras, and too risky a prospect for him to tackle alone, and without a focused plan. But the Smith & White, around the corner, was a different matter.
He wasn’t supposed to stop anywhere. He definitely wasn’t supposed to detour.
But his people stared back at him from their glass cages, used like mannequins for human convenience, and something in him burned.
He was in the store in under ten minutes. He regretted the hole he had to punch in the front door, but in the overall scheme of things the scale of that particular property damage was rather irrelevant. He worried his hurry was making him sloppy and his thirium pump raced in his ears, accelerated by his own anxiety. Or was it simply the dark, and the stillness, and the ramifications of his failure if he did get caught?
He had a backpack full of blue blood and bio-components, and soon he’d have a dozen or so of his people to escort. But it would be worth it.
He was reaching up, synth skin peeling away to smooth, white alloy, fingers inches away from the hand of the first android in the display window, when he heard the crunch of glass.
Damn.
He froze.
Someone must have spotted him; must have reported him.
He turned, slowly, hands not lifted but both in sight. It hadn’t mattered last time; that he wasn’t armed and wasn’t dangerous. They’d put a bullet in his skull without asking, without even hesitating.
“I’m not armed.”
