“I miss my baby,” Zoe muttered to herself as she boarded the subway at the 181 Street Station near the Radio Hotel.

She found a seat in a mostly empty car and sat down placing her backpack between her feet. Zoe had changed her NanoHair’s color to blonde with pink tips and her Kaisers’ color to green. She had also shortened her hair into a bob cut.

Zoe had barely recognized herself when she checked the mirror before leaving the hotel. A newly purchased green flower print flowing ankle length skirt over running leggings with oversized beige sweater over a t-shirt and new running shoes made her look more like a college student in Zoe’s mind than someone attempting to take on a powerful church and terrorist organization.

“Maybe taking on is the wrong phrase,” Zoe whispered. “I want to destroy it or at least set them back to the stone age.”

As the train started its journey, Zoe considered her plan. She would slice the church’s network, steal any incriminating information present and whatever credits were in accessible accounts, use the Atomic to nuke the network, and finally release the information to the press and police. Depending on how many credits were in the accounts, she would take a cut for herself and donate the rest as she had done when she robbed Cynthia Rockford’s investment account. The hitch in her plans was that the church should be expecting her to attempt to slice them once more and have prepared for that possibility. Another hitch was that their older slicers had taught her almost everything she knows about slicing and coding.

“I could use Flood, but I don’t want to take the network down until I’m finished taking everything I can get,” Zoe muttered. She sighed. “I really need some help, but there’s nobody I can trust with this.”

She thought it over for a few minutes and her mind turned to Doc Brown. The Cyberdoc and her husband were connected to the CSA. Heck, even her employees probably were as well.

“I’ll pay her a visit anyway after checking into the hotel,” Zoe promised herself.

*

Zoe got off the subway at the Grant St station near Lion’s Gate Field and walked to the Canal St Hotel. She checked in under another fake profile.

“Two-star hotel my butt,” Zoe said upon opening the door to her room. “This dump might be a half star and that’s being generous.”

The room was filthy, and she spotted food stuck to the floor as well as a rat eating it.

“Nope!” Zoe screamed, sending the rat scurrying to a hole in the wall. Zoe turned to take the stairs back downstairs. The sign stating that the elevators were out of order should have been a sign not to check in. “The people hanging around the lobby was another sign.”

“I want my credits back!” Zoe demanded after marching up to the front desk.

“Why? Is there a problem?” the man behind the counter asked. Zoe explained about how nasty the room was, including the rat and food. He shrugged. “Take the room or leave it. You’ve already paid and the agreement you authorized states no refunds.”

“That’s bullshit!”

“That’s life,” the man snickered. Zoe flipped him off and started walking out of the hotel. The man called out, “welcome to the corporate world!”

Laughter from the people loitering in the lobby chased her out.

*

Zoe calmed down after spending a while just sitting on a park bench at Hester St Playground and watching children play. She started looking for other cheap hotels nearby. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, she looked up as horns blared. Some idiots had almost wrecked in front of an apartment building on Forsyth St.

“Huh. I wonder if any apartment buildings near here also offer short term rentals,” Zoe wondered aloud.

A quick search yielded some decent results. Two options appealed to her. The first was in the apartment building across the street at 74 Forsyth. The building offered one-week rentals for fully furnished one- or two-bedroom apartments from 130 to 250 credits a night. A building at 143 Mulberry St in Little Italy offered similar rates and terms. Mulberry St didn’t have a view of the park like Forsyth St did, but it was closer to a variety of shops. On the other hand, Forsyth was closer to the subway stations on Grand St and Bowery.

“I’d rather be closer to the stations and the shops are in walking distance if I need anything,” Zoe said after thing it over. “Plus, Forsyth has a little bit of a view of some green instead of all the concrete.”

An hour and another false profile later, Zoe had rented a one-bathroom studio apartment for a week on the third floor of the old brick building at 74 Forsyth. She walked around the room after dumping her backpack on the pullout bed looking at the kitchen counter with barstool, stove, washer, dryer, fridge, wall screen and loveseat.

“It’s a shoebox, but at least it’s not too dirty and only costs 150 a night,” Zoe told herself.

The apartment didn’t have a balcony, but she could crawl through the bedroom window and sit on the fire escape if she wanted to be outside at night. The best thing about the apartment was the bathtub, washer, and dryer. It wouldn’t be the same as the boathouse, but it would do for now.

“I should have been renting apartments the last few days instead of cheap hotels and not moving around so much,” Zoe mused. “It’s time to go shopping for some food and then go visit Claire.”