Time Until Suspected Drop Off : 37 minutes

“Okay, calm down. Maybe this is no big deal,” Silvy said.

Iris had her hand pressed against the bathroom door to keep it shut as she had the HAB unit equivalent of a panic attack. She couldn’t actually hyperventilate without lungs, but her heart was still racing. “Silvy, I am not equipped to deal with another HAB unit.”

“Yeah, but she isn’t listed under her actual name on the registry. She’s going by Leilani Harper. She does… okay I can’t actually find her content channel, but she guest stars in like every major collab related to these e-celebs. I think she’s legitimately here for the gambling. Nothing to do with you.”

“And if she sees me? Gets a scan of my data file? What am I supposed to do if I get recognized?”

“I mean, unless she’s working with the smugglers, you’re just trespassing, right?”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Like that would fly.” Someone knocked on the door and she nearly jumped through the roof. “Occupied! Sorry,” she blurted out, and jammed the door lock shut.

“Just stay calm. We’ll get through this. Okay, look, Leilani is retired. She got discharged after the Canal attack.”

“If she got discharged, why does she still have the same HAB unit body? She’s got more power in there than I do. And her body is a decade out of date!”

“Okay, you have a point there. I think the name of the game here is don’t get seen. We’re not guns blazing here anyways. We would have just cut a hole into the cargo compartment if that were the case. Here, let me get the livestreams. This is even better than me having my own drones inside. They’re filming her for us.”

Again, someone knocked on the door. Iris steeled herself, popped the lock and jerked the door open so she could glare out with one eye. “What is it?”

Outside was an expressionless butler. He held up his hands, using a cleaning rag to covertly offer her a roll of toilet paper. The bathroom had been equipped with three different rolls of toilet paper, but one had been stolen, another used up, and the third soaked with water from the sink. At least she hoped it was water. “Thank you,” she said, taking the roll and putting it on the counter. Not that she needed it, but she didn’t need that kind of attention.

Then he offered her a marijuana joint, a shot of liquor, and a pill she guessed was diazepam. The joint got her attention. Not laboratory synthesis squirted into a vaporizer, actual plant bud rolled up in paper. That gave her pause, but the gesture was too coldly sincere to be suspected. The butler was saying, “If you’re having an anxiety attack, take one of these before you make a scene.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, and took the joint. She gently shut the door and sat down on the toilet, looking at the thing.

While she was wondering if the joint had come from the missile silo farm, Silvy came up with a solution. “Okay, so, if you want to get past her without her seeing you, you need a room like that bathroom where you can shut a door between you and her, and have her go past you. Right? What about just going around?”

“What do you mean going around? Like outside the train? That would defeat the purpose.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we can be more stealthy about this than full exposure, right? What if you went back to the connection tunnel? Between the two cars, with the rubber shielding. Slice a hole in it with one of your blades, then tear it open. They’ll just treat it as wear and tear failure, and then do it again further up. Easy.”

Iris nodded and slid the joint into her pocket. “Right, sounds good.”

The plan lasted until Park Young stepped into the connection tunnel with her. “Wildcard! Just the woman we need,” he shouted.

Iris slid the microblade back into its sheathe and glanced at him. “Hello again, Mr. Young.”

“Mr. Young? Please, I stream in english. That name sounds fake! Just call me Park. We need a fourth player for a round of Red Baron.”

Iris stopped herself from telling him to fuck off. “That’s in one of the side bet rooms, right?”

Park Young grinned, his cheeks a little flushed. “Side bet room for side bets of a most elite variety.”

Iris told herself it was the safer option, it didn’t involve climbing along the outside of a moving train, nor alerting security. It even avoided her having to damage private property, all while keeping her out of sight from Leilani. She agreed, and a minute later was sat down around a table with Park Young, a man called Mojo Blitz, and a young artist girl by the name of Miina. Those were their online personas at least. They each had loyal followings paying by the minute to tune in and watch them play a game designed for five year olds: bounce the Red Baron up to protect your coins, except for them, the first one out took a shot and stripped off a piece of clothing.

“Now then,” Park declared, hefting up a glass of beer. “To the pre-game fun!”

Iris tapped her Rising Sun drink against it, and saw the glob of mystery material had made it up to the ice.

Silvy groaned. “I can’t believe you agreed to this. To these clout chasers.”

“Why not? Leilani will pass me over in just a moment, won’t she?” Iris responded, watching the little plastic plane spin round. She had a lever to flick it up and away just before it hit her coins, and with her HAB unit reflexes, she couldn’t miss it. Five minutes later, eight shots had been taken, and she had bare man chest on either side of her.

The girl, Miina, had seemed timid and insecure about the whole thing, and yet the more Iris watched her, the more cunning the girl seemed to be. There wasn’t any hesitation in the way she played, absolutely cutthroat, and yet she kept the cute girl act up. The one time she lost the round, she made a show of desperately jamming the lever and panicking, only to miss the Red Baron entirely. She bemoaned having to take a single shot, and then slowly peeled off her stockings for the cameras.

Iris felt like she was watching a magic show from behind the magician, where all the tricks could be seen. It left her entirely disappointed. Through her internal radio line, she asked, “Leilani’ll pass in just a moment, right?”

“She’s finishing the interview now,” Silvy said as Park Young wailed for the camera and took another vodka shot.

“Oh, thank God.”

“Twenty seconds and go.”

Iris smiled. “Sorry, just got a message. I’ve got to bail on you all. Do have fun without me though,” she said, much to the men’s disappointment. The viewership of their sidebet probably plummeted as soon as she stood up without having lost a single piece of clothing, but that wasn’t her problem. With a shrug, she finished off her drink and finally tasted the red glob.

It was sour and as sticky as glue.

She ducked out of the room to their surprise and staggered back into the hall while still trying to choke the glob down. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Leilani heading over to the bar. Iris bolted back into the connection tunnel, back into the interview chamber and let out her breath. No one else was in her way.

She might have been spotted by some eagle eyed viewer, but that wouldn’t matter. She walked past the camera crew. She fiddled with the gifted joint as she passed the serving crew. They all ignored her as she seemingly went past them to find a smoking spot. And then all that remained to block her was a padlock.

“Digital lock,” Silvy warned.

Iris rolled her eyes and pinged it with her internal systems. The protection should have only been civilian grade, it should have opened up on command for her. Instead it locked down harder and sent out an alert. “Silvy, what was that?” The interface screen flashed red.

“That was quantum encryption. What the heck?”

The system started sending out datapackets, bouncing them through the train’s internet and signaling something, maybe everything. “Silvy, did my cover just get blown? Was that a military grade failsafe?”

“I’m checking, I’m checking! Okay, yeah.”

“Yeah?” Iris grabbed the handle of one of her weapons.

“Yeah, your cover is blown–”

“What the fuck?” Iris shouted, and tore free her micro-blade.

“I don’t know! I think that’s proof they’re smuggling on here though, don’t you? How else would they have this level of protection for a cargo shipment?”

Iris didn’t waste more time talking. She slashed the deadbolt. The door didn’t open. She switched to infrared vision and spotted five other deadbolts keeping it shut and hacked them apart. Forcing the door open after that was more like shoving over a piece of scrap metal, but she jumped in. Motion detecting lights blinked on, illuminating all the pallets and barrels. The entire car was filled with BISON.

“Silvy, these aren’t stolen, are they?” Iris asked, moving from one shipment to the next, all in pristine condition. Factory shrinkwrap even. Then she smelled something that had no business among farm supplies. Iron oxide and aluminum with a bit of borax. Iris was very familiar with that, it was the scent of thermite.

“I mean, if it was done with BISON’s cooperation, then there would have to be manifest papertrails, right? Maybe this is a legal shipment and they’re siphoning off it?”

“Silvy, why would somebody be transporting a few hundred pounds of thermite disguised as civilian farm goods? Along the major supply connection between Korea and the Sprawl? Because I can’t think of any good reasons for them to have done that. Can you?”

“Thermite? They’ve got thermite in there? Uhhhhh, let me check. Because we’re totally friendly with Korea, so getting it into there from UAAF seems really strange, you know? But like, if that’s for the smugglers maybe? That’s a really specific kind of bomb though.”

“Yeah, pretty specific. It’s kind of only used for destroying bridges.”

“Iris, I think you’re staring at a major international incident in the making. Like, bigger than shooting down a stealth bomber.”

Iris snarled. “So what am I supposed to do about this? Get Mendel on the line! He’s gotta take responsibility for this.”

Another set of footsteps joined Iris. She spun as Leilani Blake stepped in behind her. She looked every bit the celebrity. Hair done up with curls. Low cut dress with a stretchy skirt that showed all the bits of skin loyal viewers would want to see. The only problem was the etched micro-blade in her hand, charged with so much electricity arcs flashed through the air whenever she held it still. There was nothing cute about that. “Well,” the butcher said with a grin. “You Blumhagen bitches sure do move fast, don’t you?”