At ten minutes to midnight, the riot bots detonate around the block.
Our ropes tremble, each suspended harness bracing against the shock waves slithering up the skyscraper’s exterior, but we stay put patiently, twenty floors overhead. By the time the protesters run in our direction, the tear gas will have dispersed fully from the explosions, exactly as we outlined at the base. They won’t see us.
“Capture unit, get ready.”
Anti-NileCorp protests are a common sight along Button City’s main avenues. When they get too unwieldy, NileCorp rolls in their riot bots on behalf of the Atahuan government, always faster on the scene than local police. Button City has more NileCorp warehouses per square foot than anywhere in the world. There’s going to be something at the ready no matter what sort of trouble disrupts.
I test my line. The hold loosens enough for me to take two careful steps down the vertical glass before glancing over my shoulder, tracking the panicked figures running below. There’s faint yelling, maybe. Hard to tell. My suit helmet does its best to block out nonessential noise.
“Mint, keep eyes on surveillance.” My earpiece continues to feed through. “Eirale, proceed to ground floor.”
Tonight’s demonstration is made up of truckers. They cobbled together their signs when a new line of NileCorp’s autonomous semis put tens of thousands out of work, and then NileCorp’s data scraping smoothly deposited their plans onto our radar. There’s a process to shutting down a protest quickly, efficiently. Riot bots steer the dissidents all to one side of the road. Tear gas explodes from the canisters and takes out their vision for a few hours—or a few days, with the unrulier troublemakers who try to tackle the bots. Before long the street will clear, and their resistance symbols copied off the internet will be nothing more than soggy signs disintegrating in the sidewalk puddles. Usually, there’s no need for the corporate soldiers, the units like us, to get involved.
We’re reserved for high-level hire. Such as capturing anarchists.
“All right,” Teryn declares, satisfied with the coverage we have. “Let’s go.”
I unlatch my carabiner, let the rope run slack. My suit screams a warning that I’m going too fast, that I’m going to hit the concrete and I should consider rappelling properly. The screen before my eyes flares red, trying to calculate the damage upon impact.
I turn the line taut suddenly. My harness seizes tight; I jolt to a stop just before my boots touch the ground. I haven’t been a NileCorp contractor for long. They assigned me to the Button City base six months ago. While everyone else in my grade who went the route of NileCorp private forces was posted directly after our final exams and sent downcountry to run amok in the real world, I wasted three months recovering. Still, all those years of military school have prepared me to be fast, faster than the NileCorp-issued suit that tries to propose my next movements for me. The red fades. The suit’s screen clears when I detach my harness.
My quick exhale warms the inside of my helmet. A row of billboards synchronizes on the street level, changing from Eveline ads to a news segment. I barely catch President Sterling taking the podium, the crawling ticker at the bottom announcing RELATIONS SOUR FURTHER WITH MEDALUO—INCIDENT IN THE NORTH SEA, before the tear gas has clouded my vision, closing over the top of my head.