She’d run a small empire from this room.
You’d never know by looking at it. Wasn’t even a legal unit, stuffed up in the top of the building with the HVAC systems and the roof access. No kitchen. Bathroom was around the corner, shared with the building’s maintenance workers. A mattress thrown on the floor, hot plate in an alcove, sofa dragged in off the street. Bit of a view. It didn’t have much.
What it did have was power, and a hard link to the sat-grid on the roof.
The most striking feature of the room, aside from an inexplicable suit of ancient samurai armor in the entryway—fake probably and dragged in off the street like the sofa, but maybe not?—was the computer station. Quadruple monitors, a xeo 12 with AI assist, and neural interface. The chair in front of it was worn in the padding. Heavy use.
She’d been there a lot.
The poster on the wall above the workstation was telling. Get Mad, it read.
She certainly had gotten mad, hadn’t she? Everyone was mad, now. The financial district might never recover. Not to mention the ministers and their reputations. Down in the streets, through even the pelting rain that was so much louder this close to the roof, the chanting of protestors could be heard.
I leaned over the workstation and passed my hand over a mug of tea. Cardamom from the smell of it.
I looked at my partner, his expression expectant, and his plainclothes still dripping from the rain. “Still warm?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Cold.” I said. I was dripping, too. “She hasn’t been here in a long time.”