And it wasn’t like he didn’t have a lot of stuff going on. This Wicinski business had interrupted his current project, one that had occupied him for weeks. Essentially, Roddy was on a mission to protect the vulnerable—because what would be the point of his skills if he didn’t use them to good effect? It would be like Thor using his hammer to put up shelves—and his chosen group (“Ho’s Hos”) was made up of a random selection of models from clothing and perfume ads in lifestyle magazines: a diverse range of 17–23-year-old women. They were his
True, when the Rodmeister said ‘trackable’ he meant provided you had access to sophisticated technology, but that was the thing about saddos: there was always going to be one who was both savvy and kitted-out.
He shook his head, and fished a handful of M&Ms from the packet in front of him. Ho’s Hos. And how he looked after them was, he began with a basic assumption, that each would have a presence on social media, the chances of which he put at a conservative 100 percent. After that, it was straightforward image-recognition, which was where the technology came in. Matching a Facebook profile, a Twitter glimpse, to a photo-shoot: basically, once you’d scanned and uploaded the image and made a cup of tea, your job was done. And sometimes, too, other photos came to light; other photo-shoots these perfume and clothery girls had signed up for, which might or might not involve perfume but had little to do with clothing. These too he downloaded and saved and printed out: all part of the dossier-building. And once a dossier was thick enough, Roddy dispatched it directly to the girl in question—first class delivery; no penny-pinching—so she’d know she had a well-wisher; someone intent on alerting her to the dangers a saddo predator could represent. He did this anonymously. Heroes work in the dark. But he liked to think of these girls—women—receiving his packages, and realising how much care and attention had gone into them; how focused some unknown but totally woke stranger was on their well-being, to compile these warnings about their vulnerability. He imagined their grateful tears as they reconsidered their online options. Fewer selfies emailed to boyfriends. A little less online sharing. A bit more wary in general, really, and as he thought about that something shifted on one of his monitors. Not the Wicinski turd; that remained static. The CCTV feed. There was someone at his door.
A blonde woman in a long dark coat.
Roddy blinked.
Nah, couldn’t be.
But it was.
He headed downstairs, pausing at the hallway mirror. Looking good, man. Looking fine. He practised a quick boyish grin: not the full wattage, because he didn’t want to cause damage. “Phasers to stun,” he murmured, then opened the door.
On Emma Flyte, former Head Dog.
“Mr. Ho.”
“Hey.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Are you all right? You seem to be in pain.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
“. . . I was grinning, that’s all.”
“Oh . . . Mind if I come in?”
He switched the boyish grin off. Stick to business, to start with. But really, like, yeah, right: business. She was no longer Head Dog; no longer Park. No kind of business could bring her to Roddy’s door.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but your mouth is open.”
Closing it, he led the way inside.
Downstairs was a kitchen and a living room he barely used—storage, mostly; lifestyle like Roddy’s, you wound up with a lot of cardboard boxes—so he went straight up the stairs, and she followed. Stood in the doorway of his workspace a moment, taking it in. A faint burble leaked from his abandoned headphones, and a louder hum from the monitors. The feed from the street showed his empty doorstep, a quiet pavement.
Flyte said, “You remember me, I take it?”
Roddy gave a curt but meaningful nod, and wiped dribble off his chin. Sure, babes. I remember you. Until recently she’d been in charge of the Service’s internal security: chicks did all sorts of important stuff these days, which was great. And he’d encountered her before, of course. There’d been an interrogation situation, long story, but clearly he’d piqued her interest. Kind of inevitable. Of course, the downside of being in that role, head of security, was she couldn’t get involved with active personnel. Had to keep herself aloof. Anyway, here she was, no longer in the job. And here she was, in Roddy’s house.
“I do indeed.” Smooth. “Can I offer you a drink?” He consulted a mental list of his fridge’s contents. “I have Malibu.” Women dig Malibu, so Roddy always kept a bottle handy. Better check the best-by date, though.
