by Lu, Marie
“I’ll do my best,” I say. It’s amusing to see a look of surprise on her face for the first time. Her eyes are bright and wide.
Then she smiles and shoves me toward the racer lineup. “Yeah, you better,” she calls over her shoulder as she heads back into the crowd. I watch her go until I can’t distinguish her from the mass of onlookers.
The red lights overhead flash again. Everything in the space tenses. I turn my view onto the channel that will follow the track of this race, then brace myself in the line and turn my eyes to the starting path.
Then the starting sound goes off. My drone flies out of my hand to hurtle forward, nearly lost in the blur of others. Cheers explode from the audience.
I tune out the mystery of my patron. I tune out what Pressa might be thinking about me or where she is in the crowd. I forget about my brother. All I do is focus on the track.
My engine, now warmed up, moves faster than ever. It glows a fierce blue-white as it curves around the end of one alley branching off from the square, clipping past two other drones to take an early, easy lead before vanishing around the intersection.
From the stands come shouts of surprise—but unlike at the semifinals, there are no grumbles. No angry calls at me. It’s almost as if Dominic has stopped anyone from wanting to antagonize me.
Drones close in from behind me, seeking to knock me out or catch me off guard from both sides. But I’m too far ahead now, and they can’t catch up. We hurtle through the narrow streets of the city—past one intersection, then another, through a food market, down an alley winding around a series of smoke-spewing factories.
This time, I’m better at steering my drone. It zips sideways through a small crack in a wall, narrowly staying on track while cutting short the race path by a hair. One drone manages to close in behind me. I veer my drone up, tricking it into following me, and then suddenly dive down toward a busy street of stalls selling fabrics and pots. At the last second, I pull my drone level again. But the one following me can’t do it fast enough. Its wing catches the side of one of the stalls, and it goes careening out of control, smashing into the side of a building in a shower of sparks and metal.
The people on the street let out startled cries. It’s all I get to see before my drone leaves the scene behind to dart through the rest of the track.
There are no other challengers that come close this time. My engine churns faster and faster, its glow intensifying. My heart feels like it’s close to bursting. This is exactly how I’d envisioned it working. It’s perfection.
The entire race felt like a blur of seconds. Then I’m already hurtling back toward the square, leaving a trail of virtual neon blue on the race path behind me.
My drone zooms back into the square, winning by a handy two lengths. The crowd explodes. I can feel hands slapping my shoulders hard. A ringing fills my ears as the plaza catches the fever of a hot race. Everyone is on their feet. Vaguely, I register Pressa shoving me in excitement as my name appears at the top of the rankings again.
The rush of the win is so strong that I feel dizzy from the glow of it. I close my eyes, relishing the feeling, not wanting it to end. Everything is a haze around me—the roaring stands, the virtual numbers hovering in the center of the arena, shifting in real time as they declare me the winner.
Then the red lights in the plaza flicker. The audience looks up, momentarily confused. They’re supposed to flash only when the race begins and ends. Delayed reaction? But right as I think it, they flash again—then flicker out completely.
I blink in the new low light. Everyone breaks into a buzz. Already, some people start making a beeline for the exits as whispers lace through the crowd that the event’s been compromised. The police are here! The guards are coming! Clear out!
Somehow, my eyes catch a movement that’s all too familiar to me—the sight of a silhouette high up against a wall, perched with perfect balance. I see the figure against the massive circuit-breaker board that I’d first seen situated at the entrance to the plaza. Even though I can’t make out anything but his outline, I recognize him immediately.
My brother is here.
DANIEL
Usually, when I’m in the Undercity, I’m doing a sweep with my fellow AIS agents. I’ve definitely shut down illegal gambling and drug operations and all sorts of other cracked businesses before, as well as closing down unauthorized, makeshift elevator stations built out of old sewage tunnels.
But tonight I’m alone, masked, and hooded. I look like one of the hundreds of gamblers that roam this place.
It’s obvious that this side of the Undercity is the worst side—rows and rows of tents line the walls along the narrow, dark streets, and vendors stand outside forlorn, empty shops, watching me as I pass their storefronts.
Here, in this outfit, I go back to my Lake routine—hunched shoulders, listless gaze. I’m careful to keep a lookout for anything suspicious while at the same time not making eye contact with anyone. It seems to work okay. People think I belong down here, someone who’s clearly used to walking rough streets. But it still puts me on edge.
I didn’t come to Antarctica just to return to living like a street orphan.
What the hell is Eden doing down here again? The thought rings through my system like a warning bell. He’s the smartest damn kid in his entire university. He’s got an internship waiting for him back in the Republic. He’s got friends. He’s got everything he needs.
Why is he here? Why can’t I understand him? Why won’t he talk to me?
His location now takes me to a small, unremarkable bar. The bartender gives me a hostile look. This kind of place should be intimidating for most people unused to being down here, but I’ve seen plenty worse than this.
“What’s going on in there?” Jessan says over our line.
I observe the bartender’s posture, then everyone else in this space. “My guess is we need a password to get through,” I whisper. “Can you scan the outside perimeter for anything behind this building?”
“Looking now,” she says. I step out of the bar and into one of its narrow side alleys.
At first, it looks like any other dead-end street—a narrow space packed with garbage bins and wads of trash strewn all over the place. But when I walk closer to the back wall and run my hand along it, it feels thin and hollow. On the other side, I hear the sound of raucous cheers. There hadn’t been a doorway to this in the bar, at least that I could see. This is some kind of shoddy, makeshift wall separating the main streets from a hidden space.
I glance up to see where the back wall ends. It extends up maybe five or six floors, a crumbling brick surface bordered on either side by dilapidated apartments.
A familiar sight to a runner.
I sprint toward the wall, then skip up several steps to grab the second-floor ledge of the building next to the back wall. In a few seconds, I’m pulling myself up and jumping to grab the third floor’s balcony railings. The exertion sends a familiar thrill through me. This was how I survived in the Republic.
It takes just a moment for me to get to the top of the back wall. The cheers coming from the other side suddenly turn deafening. When I get my first glimpse over the wall, everything looks bathed in a hazy glow from strings of red lightbulbs.
I find myself staring down at a clearing packed full of people. There must be at least a thousand people crammed into a space that’s probably meant to fit less than half that number. They crowd around a small clearing in the center of the square, where a line of racers now stands with their drones.
Eden’s location in my view now flashes as it signals he’s very near. And sure enough, when I take a closer look at the racers, I see him.
His familiar blond hair, his glasses, his wiry, lean frame.
My brother’s a drone racer.
I lean against the wall, in danger for a moment of losing my balance. Maybe I’m just making up what I saw—maybe I’m so intent on finding Eden I’m hallucinating.
But when I take ano
ther look, he’s unmistakable. It’s him, along with his friend Pressa, who’s in a long blond wig and wearing a smug look of satisfaction.
Not only was Eden in the race, but judging from the way everyone’s gathering around him, he won.
That’s when I notice the other man. He’s standing before both Eden and Pressa, his face hauntingly recognizable from all the internal AIS reports I’ve seen.
Dominic Hann.
I can’t believe my eyes.
Dominic Hann has killed hundreds. He’s committed some of the most gruesome murders I’ve ever seen—some that make even the worst of the Republic’s crimes pale in comparison. The image of the body in the streets is still fresh in my mind. I think of the sheer terror on the faces of the witnesses we were questioning. Even the act of hunting for him is considered dangerous. You don’t want a man like this setting his sights on you.
Dominic Hann doesn’t attend races like this. He rarely appears in public when he can just send his underlings in his place. He’s one of the most elusive figures terrorizing the city. AIS has glimpsed him only a few times, with nothing but a grainy photo of his face to prove it.
And yet, here he is, standing in front of my brother, a thoughtful smile on his face. As I look on, Hann says something to Eden that I can’t make out.
The blood in my veins chills to ice.
I force myself to stay calm, blending into the shadows, while the audience below gapes at the exchange. Before him, Eden stays frozen, unsure what to say in response.
Walk away, I urge him silently. Turn your back. Run.
Except my brother doesn’t. He smiles a little at Hann and then says something to answer him.
I feel like I’m back in the Republic again, looking on helplessly as the soldiers take my family away.
Why is Hann talking to him? What does he want with him?
But even as the questions flood my mind, I know the answer by instinct. It’s because Eden made the best drone here. His nimble hands have built a machine so remarkable that it caught Hann’s interest. That it beat out all the experienced racers. That it won.
I’ve never doubted Eden’s talents, but have I still been underestimating him?
Everyone makes room for Dominic Hann as he steers Eden back toward the center of the clearing. Hostile looks linger on my brother. If it weren’t for Hann’s presence beside him right now, he might already have a knife in his back.
A surge of panic hits me. I have to do something.
My hand lingers by the gun at my belt. I’m not as good a shot as June, but I’ve gotten pretty good over the years with my AIS training. From here, I might be able to take out Hann with a single shot to the head.
But Eden would be the most immediate suspect. The new kid, suddenly here when Hann’s killed? I don’t know how many of the people in this audience are Hann’s spies and bodyguards, but I do note that there are some whose eyes sweep the audience instead of focusing on the racers. If I managed to kill Hann, his men would shoot Eden dead before the body even hit the floor. And there’s no guarantee I’d hit Hann. What if I missed?
I grit my teeth and force myself not to draw my gun. Instead, my gaze goes up to the red bulbs dangling over the space. I follow the trails of lights until they end next to the walls, the sides of which are supported by a lattice of thick, steel beams. An enormous circuit breaker sits against the wall that would have led back into that small bar.
I straighten a little from my perch on the back wall. In the shadows, I know I look like little more than a moving silhouette, and no one seems to notice me as I swing to the crisscrossing steel supporting one of the side buildings and pull myself soundlessly up onto the lowest horizontal beam, then the next one.
I keep climbing until I reach the circuit breaker. The wires connecting all the ceiling’s bulbs bunch together here in the upper corners. Aside from those bulbs, this clearing is lit only by the weak light coming from the surrounding buildings’ apartments.
I pull a knife out from my boot. Down below in the clearing, Hann pats my brother on his shoulder.
The sight’s enough to send a shudder deep through my bones. I slash once through the red bulbs’ wires.
The entire space plunges into darkness.
No time to waste. I turn on my system’s grids. In the chaos, a series of thin, neon-blue virtual lines light up over my view, showing me where to go and where people are. I swing down from the beams one at a time, as fast as I can. My feet hit the ground in seconds. Then I’m bolting into the crowd, shoving past people as I seek out my brother.
I reach him. In my grids, he looks like a sickly green animation.
He lets out a startled shout before I clap a hand over his mouth. Then, without a word, I pull him with me and run. To my overwhelming relief, he doesn’t resist. He just follows me.
We dart through the crowds to one of the narrow alleys that other people are running toward, one that dead-ends at a nondescript shop, then leads out into a main street. Everyone around us jostles past, panicked that the clearing is being raided.
Somewhere behind us are Dominic Hann and his men. But I don’t dare look back.
“You followed me down here,” Eden snaps at me as we go. In the darkness, his eyes glitter once, livid. He doesn’t have a clue how close he came to death.
“You don’t understand,” I say. “That man was Dominic Hann.”
At that, Eden blinks at me. “So?” he asks.
“So,” I answer grimly, “you have no idea what you’ve just gotten yourself into.”
EDEN
Dominic Hann.
Daniel says his name again as we sit back in our apartment. For the first time since I can remember, he tells me about one of the missions that he’s working on. Apparently, he’s been on the trail of this guy for months.
He tells me that Dominic Hann is wanted for at least a dozen murders and has probably committed many more that have never been linked to him. Undercity victims indebted to him, unable to pay back their money. People who have crossed him, whether on purpose or accidentally. And now councilmen, given the murder that happened tonight.
“And there you were,” my brother says, pacing in front of the couch where I sit. “Having a conversation with the deadliest murderer in Ross City like you two were goddy friends.”
“He just wanted to profit off my winnings,” I say, trying not to show my shaking hands. In my view, I can see messages from Pressa coming in, each more frantic than the last. Your brother was there! she’s exclaiming. Are you home? I’m back at my dad’s shop. Everything just went pitch-black! Are you all right? Eden?
Can’t talk right now, I quickly message her back. Tell you later.
“Right.” Daniel flashes me a look. He seems even more annoyed as he notices I’m messaging while he’s talking. “Because that’s all a notorious killer needs, a few extra corras in his pocket.”
“He liked the design of my drone, he offered to be my patron so that he could see it race, and he pocketed a bunch of money for my win. He never seemed interested in hurting me.” My voice turns urgent, as if I’m trying to convince myself too.
I try to picture Dominic as a ruthless killer. But his calmness still lingers in my mind, the way he understood me with a single observation, more than my brother does right now. The contrast between these two thoughts makes me shiver.
Daniel stops right in front of me and sighs. “Eden, I know you don’t know what it’s like to truly live on the streets. I’ve worked my entire life to make sure that never happens to you. I know you don’t understand a lot of what happened tonight, or what made it so dangerous. But—”
His tone makes me recoil. I know you don’t understand. Like I’m still ten years old. Like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with my life. “Don’t talk to me like that,” I say.
He frowns at me. “Like what?”
My temper starts to boil over. “Like that,” I say again as I get to my feet. “This isn’t a conversation or a discussion. We�
�re not even having an argument. You’re lecturing me.”
“You were down in the Undercity again! In a drone race! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”
“Then scream at me!” I insist. “Tell me how you can’t believe I did what I did tonight! Anything’s better than your pity!”
“I don’t pity you!” he yells. “My life would be a lot easier if you weren’t disappearing off to the dregs of this city every night!”
The Undercity is nothing but a pit of filth to him. When had he changed so much? “If the agency you work for wasn’t so tyrannical,” I yell back, “Pressa’s dad wouldn’t need to be a millionaire just to survive. We wouldn’t need to gamble on the races. And I wouldn’t have to explain myself to you as if I were talking to a damn stranger.”
Daniel just shakes his head. “You don’t get it,” he mutters. It’s all he resorts to, turning me back into the little brother.
But we aren’t brothers here. He’s my father, and I’m his son. The feeling of distance, along with the fear of everything that happened tonight, now threatens to smother me.
In disgust, I turn away. “When I leave for the Republic,” I say, “maybe it’d be best if you didn’t come with me. You should just stay here.”
Daniel winces, and I feel an urge to take it back. But instead I turn from him and head to my room.
Behind me, Daniel raises his voice. “Wait, Eden,” he calls out.
I pause as he hurries to my side. “Please,” he says, taking a deep breath.
“What?” I mutter.
He hesitates and his gaze hardens on mine. “Fine. Go to the Republic by yourself.”
He’s letting me go? I narrow my eyes at him. It surprises me how his comment cuts me. But my pride refuses to let me show that. “Fine,” I repeat.
Daniel winces again, as if he’d been hoping I’d say something different. But we each stay on our own side, no longer able to understand each other. It’s like I’m looking back at someone I haven’t known since I was a baby.