David clocked out of his delivery shift just after dusk, jacket zipped and slate synced, and took the long walk back along the market row because the air smelled better there and the noise covered his thoughts, and halfway past the noodle stand he heard raised voices in the cut between buildings, not the chaotic kind that meant a gun was already out but the push-pull rhythm of three guys trying to box someone in, so he stepped to the edge of the alley and saw her, short and pale under a streetlight, silver bob, jacket hood down, hands loose at her sides while three gangers with cheap jackets and cheaper chrome eased around her like they were closing a lid; the front one moved first, palm up like he wanted her shard or her wallet, mouth going with some line about "toll," and the girl's face didn't change, just the faintest tilt of her head like she was bored, and David knew what a bad turn looked like and didn't want to watch it, so he took two steps into the mouth of the alley and said in a normal voice, "Medical courier, you're blocking my route," like it was true right now and not two hours ago, and all three looked at him because people can't help it when somebody says something plain in a calm tone, and the girl's eyes flicked to him then back to the three like she was counting. The front guy squared up, hand drifting toward his belt where nothing legal lived, and David didn't wait; he gave himself a small burst, not the full burn, just enough to cross the space before their brains caught up, hand on the girl's sleeve to pull her past the line as he pivoted into the lead man's space, shoulder to sternum, push and step, the kind of move Vera drilled into his head for hallways, then cut the burst and kept walking like it was all one motion, the girl already beside him, both of them out of the alley before any of the three found words, and when they did it was just swearing and noise because the moment was gone. On the sidewalk she didn't stop, she matched his pace for a dozen steps, then said without looking at him, "Thanks," in a voice that sounded like she meant it and also like she hadn't actually needed him, and he said, "You looked fine," because she had, and she looked up at him sideways, eyes quick, and said, "You're fast," not a question, and he shrugged like it was nothing and kept moving. They crossed to the bright side of the street where the shop signs threw color at the pavement, and she put two fingers to her temple like she was checking a thought, then said, "Got a name?" and he said, "David," simple as that, and she said, "Lucy," and that was also simple. She stopped at a street map mounted to a post and pretended to read it while her eyes flicked to his collarbone and lower back where the faintest lines glowed under his jacket when the light hit right, then said, "You want to make some quick cash?" and when he didn't answer she added, "No guns, no blood, just catching," and she tapped the map with her knuckle like she was pointing to a route and not asking him to cross a line. He thought of Vera's rules about not flexing in cameras and about not being a hero, and he also thought of the clinic ledger where the credits were posted against his mother's file and how much more was left, and he said, "Define catching," and Lucy smiled with just the corner of her mouth and said, "Walk with me." They cut through two blocks to the big crosswalk over the tram line where foot traffic thickened, and Lucy pointed with her chin at the flow of commuters, saying low, "Some people carry shards they shouldn't, and they shouldn't because they don't know what's on them, and the ones who do know? They can afford to lose one," and before he could parse it she flicked her wrist, a thin jack trailing from her sleeve like a thread, her other hand sliding across her slate, and a man ten feet ahead flinched by a hair as a data shard kicked out of the port at the base of his neck, a tiny click like a nail hitting tile; David didn't think, he just breathed and moved, a tight microburst to step into the arc and snatch the shard out of the air before it hit the ground, then walked on as if he had picked up his own key, slid it into his palm, and passed it to Lucy without breaking stride. The mark never turned, never saw them, and Lucy said, "Nice hands," in that same flat tone people use when a dog actually sits the first time, and he said, "That's it?" and she said, "That's it," and pointed at another target, a woman pacing with one hand on a call, and repeated the motion, flick, pop, catch, pass, and it started to feel like a drill, one he could do without drawing eyes if he kept his body language level, and after the third one Lucy steered them off the crosswalk and into the shadow under a billboard, jacked her cable into a blank panel beside a maintenance door, eyes flicking left-right like she was reading code in the air, then popped the door and pulled him into the service corridor where she cracked the first shard on a portable reader; lines of text rolled by with file names—the kind of stuff that meant resale value—and she shook her head, "Junk," slid it into one pocket; second shard, "Decent," another pocket; third shard, she made a small satisfied sound that wasn't quite a laugh, "Good," and slipped it into a different pocket, then shut the panel and tugged her sleeve to hide the jack. Back on the street she said, "We'll drop later," and pointed up, and he saw a small courier drone orbiting the block, one of those independent vendors that did blind buys out of dead drops, and she explained while they walked, "We sync a drop point, drone grabs, decrypts, we get a split, no faces," and he nodded because that part he liked, faceless beats handshakes in this city. They ran the loop for an hour, always moving, never hitting the same flow twice, Lucy timing the pops to the gaps where cameras pointed the other way, David catching without looking like he was catching, and when he missed one on purpose because a kid cut between him and the target, Lucy didn't get mad, she just said, "Good call," and pointed someplace else; they kept it small and quiet, four good shards, a couple of duds, and then she said, "Enough," and led him to a public vent where she lifted a grate three inches, slid the shards down a chute, closed it, and held her slate under the lip until it beeped, and both their slates buzzed a second later with a credit tick that wasn't huge but wasn't nothing either. David watched his balance update and thought about groceries and med stuff and a decent pillow for his mother's chair, and Lucy watched him watch and said, "You're not from the petty side," and he said, "I work," and she asked, "Where," and he gave the truth that wasn't the whole, "Clinic runs," and she nodded like that made sense and didn't push. They cut through a stall row where a guy was selling real apples and another guy tried to sell them "Corpo burgers" by yelling that his grill was cleaner than their hands, and Lucy bought a cheap soda and handed it to David without asking, and he took it and didn't comment that he had made better ones with his crew because none of this was about soda, it was about cadence, and their steps matched without trying. At the far end of the row they paused on the edge of an overpass where you could see the highway lights string out, and she said, "You've done that before," and he said, "Not that," and she considered him a second and said, "You should be careful," and he said, "You too," and she smiled again with that corner mouth. On the way down a patrol rolled by slow, and Lucy's sleeve twitched like she was ready to fuzz their plates if needed, but the car kept moving, and David said, "How many of these runs do you do," and she said, "Enough to eat," and he said he knew that number, and they didn't talk for a stretch after that. When they hit the drop confirmation, Lucy checked her slate and said, "We're square," and then added, "You in tomorrow?" and he hesitated because he had a route in the morning and a check-in with the techs in the afternoon, and he said, "After five," and she said, "Same spot," and that was that. They circled back toward the clinic side without meaning to because that was where his feet pulled, and on the corner she stopped and said, "Hey," and he said, "Yeah?" and she pointed to the ridge of his jacket where the faint circuit lines on his back might show if he moved wrong and said, "Hide that," and he nodded and zipped up higher and said, "Thanks," and she turned away with a, "Don't get dead," and melted into a tram crowd so fast he lost her in three steps. He bought food from the same stall as last time because the guy there didn't overcharge if you said hello first, bread and a piece of meat and a small container of greens that looked like they hadn't been grown under a bulb, and he carried it up to the clinic courtyard where the guards ignored him because he was there every night now, and he sat with his mother and told her about deliveries and not about Lucy, and he told her about a kid on a landing who drew the van again and taped it up crooked, and he told her that the soda with the pine taste had been good today, and her eyes flickered when he said "good," and he squeezed her hand and felt the small squeeze back and said, "You're getting there," and the nurse came to swap a line and said, "Ten more," and he nodded and just sat. On the way home he cut through the same crosswalk where he and Lucy had worked, not to run it again but to see if the rhythm changed, and it hadn't, the city still pushed and flowed and ignored itself, and he kept his hands in his pockets and his face down because arrogance gets you noticed, and noticed gets you hurt. In his apartment he put the leftover credits into his ledger and set aside a slice for a cheap blanket because the nights were colder now, and he clipped the emergency card in his wallet into the inside of his jacket like the tech had told him, then stared at the ceiling until the glow in his back seemed to pulse with the beat of the building, and he told himself the new work didn't change his rules: no guns, no hurting people who weren't trying to hurt him, no taking risks that put a line back to his mother's bed. He thought about the way Lucy had moved, about the way she had picked marks without blinking, about how calm she had been when three idiots tried to box her in, and he wondered how long she had been doing this and what it would take to make a person look that steady, and he recognized the answer because he saw it every day in the clinic: you get steady by surviving enough times that your hands stop shaking. The next evening he showed up at the same corner five minutes early and she was already there because of course she was, leaning against a post like she owned the block, and they didn't say hello, they just walked, and the work was smoother because they had it once already; she adjusted her timing to his speed, he adjusted his body line to her angles, and marks fell off the flow and into the drop like small stones in water, and when the drone pinged payout she gave him a split again without comment, and afterward they sat on a low wall and split a street skewer and talked about nothing important, vendors and bad music and how you can't trust yellow curry if the pot's too clean, and he almost told her about his mother then and didn't, and she almost asked him where he worked exactly and didn't, and that felt right because names get you paid but details get you buried. He went home lighter both nights and slept without once getting up to check the chain, and the third night he skipped because of the tech check and Lucy didn't message or complain, she just showed up the fourth as if a gap was no big deal, and they moved through the city like they had practiced this for weeks. After a week of this David found himself listening for beeps that weren't his, the tiny eject sound that meant money, and every time he caught a shard he kept his posture level so cameras saw nothing but a kid adjusting his sleeve, and every night he told himself he could walk away from this the minute it felt wrong, and every morning he went back to the van and ran the legit routes because one bad day does not erase all the good. On a quiet night when they took a break on a stair to nowhere behind an old theater, Lucy looked at him and said, "You okay?" and he said, "Yeah," and she said, "You sure?" and he said, "Yeah," because you don't talk about weight when you're still learning the balance, and she nodded and didn't press. When they stood, she said, "Tomorrow I introduce you to some people," and he said, "What people," and she said, "Work people," and he didn't like the word but he nodded because he understood how cities work, you don't stay solo forever, and he told himself he would keep his rules and his escape route and his eyes open, and he walked home thinking about a crew he hadn't met yet and a future he hadn't chosen and a mother whose fingers were getting stronger around his hand.
