The Tesla Legacy

Chapter 24

Quantum liked his borrowed apartment. After being confronted by that woman, he didn’t feel safe going home. Who knew how long she’d been following him before he noticed her?

So he’d done what he usually did when he went to ground. He found an apartment marked as empty on Airbnb, using an algorithm he’d invented to search the database for unrented temporary apartments. Once he found one that he liked, he’d hack the owner’s email account and find out how he had tenants pick up keys. Then it was an easy matter to show up at a convenience store with fake ID and pretend to be a renter or to retrieve the key from under a mat or a coded mailbox.

This apartment was particularly nice. It had a widescreen TV and Wi-Fi, and the last tenant had left the fridge partially stocked. Quantum was settling in when his phone buzzed. Ash. It had been hours since Quantum told him that he’d lost Joe, and he knew Ash was furious. He was going to have to take his lumps and smile. If he could manage it.

Said by a man who was not down in the tunnels on a speeding train, knowing that if he jumped he might get his legs cut off or he might land against the third rail and get electrocuted. Not on Quantum’s list of ways to spend the day. He gritted his teeth.

That sounded promising. It was the first mention of reward. He’d been doing this as a freebie, even blowing off his regular freelance IT work, just for karma points. But cash would be better.

That sounded pretty vague, but it was a start. Quantum rested his feet on a blocky coffee table that looked as if it came from IKEA.

That meant he didn’t care whether Joe Tesla lived or died.

Sometimes Quantum wondered if Ash was a CEO or a Mafia don. He wanted things done, and he wanted plausible deniability if they were. Would he have businessman loyalty, which was to say none at all, or would he reward loyalty like a Mafia don?

Quantum did. Bottom six meant bottom six figures, or $100,000. How and where were easy too — Bitcoins from Spooky’s petty-cash account, simple and untrackable. But he didn’t trust Ash.

Quantum’s stomach did a backflip.

Quantum’s stomach went straight from backflip to full-on spinning. Ash knew who he was. He knew about the identity Quantum had abandoned years ago. Nobody in his new world knew his real name. Except Ash.

He took a deep breath. He didn’t owe Joe Tesla anything. Best plan was to get the device, get paid, and then dive down so deep that Ash would never find him. He sat up straight on the anonymous couch and decided how to play it. Matter of fact.

Ash would know that was a yes.

Quantum looked around the comfortable apartment and sighed. He’d have to be up early. Grand Central opened at 5:30 a.m., and he’d have to stake it out again, but he needed a disguise. He decided to go for beggar. He’d need to skip shaving, buy a filthy jacket off one of the homeless who haunted the terminal, smash up a fedora so he had a battered hat to shield his face from the cameras, and make himself a cardboard sign. If he put a mirror on his begging cup, he’d be able to sit with his back to the clock and still watch it. Hopefully, a clever position and the disguise would be enough to conceal him if that hot Hispanic woman from last night had been sent by Tesla.

If not, he’d have his gun.