Eve jerked her body free, whirled. “Screen name of user and location of activity.”
USER NAME OBERONNYC, LOCATION CYBER PERKS, FIFTH AVENUE AT FIFTY-EIGHTH . . .
She was running for the door when Roarke pulled it open. “I’ll drive,” he told her.
She didn’t bother to argue. Any one of his vehicles would be faster than hers. She grabbed her communicator on the race down the steps.
“Dispatch, this is Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.”
Detailing orders, she snagged her jacket and headed out the front door.
It took them six minutes and twenty-eight seconds from the notification to Roarke’s swing to the curb in front of Cyber Perks. She timed it. And she was leaping out of the car before the brakes stopped squealing.
At a run, she spotted the black-and-white and the uniforms she’d ordered.
“No one leaves,” she snapped, flipping out her badge, then sliding it shield out into the waistband of her trousers.
The noise blasted her the instant she walked through the doors. Cyber-punk rolled like a tidal wave, swamping the voices of patrons and beating violently against eardrums.
It was a world she’d yet to explore, and it was jammed elbow to groin with a motley throng who sat at counters, tables, cubes or airskated between stations. But even in the stupendous confusion, she saw the order.
Freaks with their painted hair and tongue rings were strewn across a section of color-coded table space. The geeks, earnest faces and sloppy shirts, were huddled in cubes. Giggly teenage girls skated in herds and pretended not to notice the packs of teenage boys they sought to al
lure.
There were students, most of whom were gathered in the café area trying to look sophisticated and world weary. Pocketed with them were a smatter of the standard urban revolutionaries, uniformed in sleek black, which students worshiped.
Scattered throughout were the tourists, the travelers, the casual clientele who sought the atmosphere, the experience, or were simply scoping out the place as a possible fresh hangout.
Where would her man fit?
Tracking the room, she strode to the glass kiosk marked Data Center. Three drones in red uniforms sat on swivel chairs in the center of the tower and worked consoles. They kept up what appeared to be a running conversation through headphones.
Eve zoned in on one, tapped on the glass. The boy, with a smattering of fresh pimples on his chin, looked up. He shook his head, attempted to look stern and authoritative, and gestured to the headphones on Eve’s side of the glass.
She shoved them on.
“Don’t touch the tower,” he ordered in a voice that was just waiting to crack. “Stay behind the green line at all times. There are open units in the café. If you prefer, there is currently one cube available. If you wish to reserve a unit for—”
“Kill the music.”
“What?” His eyes darted like nervous birds. “Stay behind the green line or I’ll call security.”
“Kill the music,” Eve repeated, then slapped her badge on the glass. “Now.”
“But—but I can’t. I’m not allowed. Whatzamatter? Charlie?” He whipped around in his chair. And all hell broke loose.
The roar that burst out of the crowd outdid even the computer-generated ferocity of the music. People leaped off stools, out of cubes, screaming, shouting, cursing. A wave of them charged the data kiosk like peasants storming the king’s palace. Full of fear and fury and blood lust.
Even as she reached for her weapon, she took a wayward elbow on the chin that rapped her head back against the kiosk and exploded a fountain of white, sizzling stars in front of her eyes.
And that seriously pissed her off.
She kneed a green-haired freak in the groin, stomped hard on the instep of a wailing geek, then fired three blasts at the ceiling.
It served to stop most of the momentum, though several bodies tumbled or were simply flung in the general direction of the kiosk.
“NYPSD!” She shouted it, holding up badge and weapon. “Kill that fucking music. Now! Everybody back off, go back to your seats or stations immediately or you’ll be charged with rioting, assault, and creating a public hazard.”