Page 20 of Scales Make Three

Direct hit.

The screen glitches, fuzzing out with a static burst. He curses, startled, nearly dropping the device. His cover broken, he stands up too quickly and bolts through the crowd, muttering about a system error. No weapon draw. No confrontation.

Testing the waters, then.

I watch him go, already running biometric snapshots through my neural implant. No matches yet. Not Tugun. Not known affiliates.

Yet.

“You just threw a rock,” Sable says flatly.

“I did.”

“At someone’s tablet.”

“Compad.”

“Why?”

“Maintenance.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “You maintenance’d that guy’s compad so hard he fled like you owed him money.”

I shrug. “He looked suspicious. Like someone who eats plain toast.”

“That’s your metric now?”

“I trust my instincts.”

“And your instincts say to assault electronics in public?”

“Non-lethal discouragement is a valid defense strategy.”

She stares at me for a long moment, then bursts out laughing.

Not just a chuckle. A full, head-thrown-back, loud, no-holding-back laugh. Every person at the nearby tables turns to look. A bird flutters out of the vines. Even the judgmental waiter glances over.

Sable doesn’t care.

She’s laughing like she’s not the target of a galactic bounty. Like her world isn’t on fire. Like she can breathe again.

My chest does something weird. Tightens. Warms.

I let the parasol tilt a little more her way.

A kid walks past—a scruffy little gremlin with neon-stained fingers and the audacity of youth. He stops beside me, staring up like he’s seeing a mountain that talks.

“Are you a robot?” the kid asks.

I grin. “No. I’m better.”

“Can I climb you?”

Sable looks like she’s about to object, but I shrug. “Sure.”

The kid grabs onto my arm and starts hauling himself up like it’s a jungle gym. He perches on my shoulder in seconds, legs swinging, whooping like he’s reached the summit of Mount Absurd.

“Best café tripever!” he yells to his equally sticky siblings.