“I am, too,” he said. “We can be freaks together.”
“Deal.”
I was out, fully dressed and ready to go, in four minutes with no choice but to wake Darby so we could start our day. On my way, I opened up my storage locker and took out my vest, reaching in a pocket and pulling out a watch. Timepieces were hard to find. This watch had been crafted sometime in the twenty-first century. It had a digital readout and had been retrofitted with a nano-helium battery. Time pieces had all but become obsolete by the twenty-second century, saved only by collectors, since everyone had access to time by merely asking whatever device they were closest to what time it was.
My timepiece read 7:47 a.m.
We wouldn’t be able to take off to Port Station until later tonight. I wanted to time it just right to hit the border at blackout. That would be the safest and most effective way to enter the city.
“Darby, time to wake up.” I tapped the bottom of his foot.
He flung himself awake, sputtering as he managed a complicated spin off my bench, landing on the floor in a flurry of arms and legs.
Laughter erupted behind me as the kid walked into the room. I snickered right along with him. “That was really smooth, Darb. What if I’d actually been an intruder?”
“He would’ve been smoked,” Daze answered as he buzzed straight for the cooling unit, taking out a protein cake and the jug of water. He avoided the amino acid drink. It seemed he was getting smarter and smarter.
I was glad the urchin felt comfortable enough to help himself. One less thing to worry about. “Smoked?” I asked. “Are you talking about dead? Because, yes, the lump on the ground would be dead. Do you hear that?” I grinned down at Darby, who was content to lay there, arms spread, eyes closed. “You’d be dead.”
Darby extracted himself slowly, his muscles likely much tighter than mine from all the effort he’d put forth last night. “I’m aware of what smoked means.” Darby heaved his way back on the bench, his hands combing through his hair. Behind him, the screen morphed to the one with bees, and the dreaded buzzing filled the room. Daze had commandeered the remote. “It refers to the smoke that used to come out of guns when they were fired, correct?” He glanced at Daze for approval of his theory.
“Nope.” The kid punched a button, and the screen morphed to the mountaintop. My personal fave. “It’s the smoke that comes from your body after it’s been blasted by a laser. Sometimes the person’s clothes even catch on fire.” His eyes got big, the whites showing all the way around. “But they don’t care, because they’re already dead.” Death was always a fascinating topic.
Darby shook his head. “I’ve never seen someone with a smoking hole through their body, so I can’t confirm or deny. I also don’t own a laser gun. But I have seen enough death to last a lifetime, smoking or not.” He stood. “Is it okay if I use your cleaning stall?”
“Go right ahead,” I replied. “Once we get to Luce, I’m happy to drop you off if you need a ride.”
“That’s not necessary.” Darby walked away, rubbing his muscles. “Just get me as far as where I met you last night, and I’ll take it from there.”
I cocked my head, thoughtful. “I’m having trouble equating the new improved always-leaves-his-house Darby with the old catatonic one.” He ignored me. I called after him, “This is going to take some getting used to!”
“Tell me about it,” he mumbled, snapping the door shut.
* * *
“You sure you’re going to be fine?” I asked for the third time. “I don’t like leaving you here alone with only a taser.” Even though seekers were usually less active during the day, that didn’t mean you wouldn’t encounter any.
We stood in front of the safe room where Darby had made his unexpected appearance last night.
Darby shook his head. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Okay. If you say so. Hit me on your phone if you have any issues,” I told him. “I can turn Luce around and be back here in no time.”
“That won’t be necessary, but I appreciate it.” He turned to Daze. “It was nice to meet you.” He stuck out his hand, and the kid shook it. “Make sure you keep her safe. Holly attracts danger like metal fragments to a macro-magnet.”
Daze grinned. “That’s why her name is Holly Danger. She told me.” There was a hint of pride there. But I was certain it would disappear soon enough. Likely when I gave him his first official order he didn’t like.
I didn’t hug Darby. That’s not what we did. Instead, I gave him a two-finger salute off the top of my helmet and turned down the hallway, the kid trailing after me. “Daze, do you need the rope this time? We’re coming up on the rafter.”
“No,” he replied. “I just couldn’t see last night. That’s the only reason I needed it.”
“Ah, is that so?” I stopped in front of the open window where drizzle lashed down a little heavier than it had yesterday. During our travels here, I hadn’t detected any more UACs, which had been a bonus. Whoever had been searching for us last night had given up or were looking elsewhere. “It wasn’t because we were shimmying over a skinny rafter more than twelve stories up? Seeing the water in the daytime makes it worse, just so you know. Until we lower the grip line, I’d appreciate it if you held on to my back, just to be on the safe side.”
“Okay.”
I positioned myself on the beam and waited for Daze to scramble up behind me. The kid dutifully gripped the back of my vest as I held the rope above my head, my gloves making the otherwise slippery connection tight. “Twenty-three steps. That’s all we need. Count them out loud or count them in your head, it’s all the same.”
We were almost to the other side, ready to disembark, when a loud crashing sound erupted from inside the building.
Two seconds later, a seeker came into view, rambling down the hallway in front of us.
Then another.
The building had been compromised.
I reached around, clutching Daze in a death grip by the shoulder, and flung him inside. He landed on the floor, his helmet flying off. “Stay down!” I yelled while I sprang over his head, unhooking both my Gem and my taser simultaneously. The seeker was closing in quickly, so I brought my boot up and kicked him squarely in the chest.
He was thrown off balance, stumbling back, crashing into the female just behind him. They weren’t in full kill-mode, but they were threatening enough, making frantic movements, growling, and talking gibberish. Their skin was unwashed, their scalps missing chunks of hair, and dried blood covered the man’s arms and face.
I aimed my twin barrels at them. “If you get up, you’re going to go down again and it’s going to hurt a lot.” Sometimes, if they were just coming down from a fix, a few words could penetrate the cloud. More noise erupted from the hallway. The stairway had to be compromised. It was the only way onto this floor. “Dammit!” I shouted. Being caught unaware was a pain in the ass. Lockland should have warned me.
My tech phone went off in my vest.
Too late.
The man began to claw his way up off the floor. I had no choice but to tase him. I sent out a charge, and he arced backward, clutching his chest before he went limp, pinning the female.
I made the only decision I had left to make. “We’re heading in there,” I shouted at Daze, gesturing to a door on the right. I ran, scooting the kid through ahead of me. It wasn’t a safe room, per se, but it was a way out. I slammed the door and engaged the bolt Lockland had installed. There was one on every door of this hallway for this very reason.
“Why don’t we just go back over the beam?” Daze cried, fear causing his words to quake. “To the building we just came from? There were no seekers there.”
“There’s no other way to cross into this building from that side, and Luce is in the basement. It would take us all day to circle around the canals to get back here.” I holstered my guns, formulating a plan in my head. “If we can’t make it out this way, we’ll do that, but this building has multiple escape
routes. What is this? Lesson number six or seven? Always know your environment.” Fists began to hammer on the bolted door. Garbled words like need and Plush made their way through the gaps.
I walked over and pounded my own hands against it, the sound echoing into the room.
“Why are you doing that?” Daze asked, panicked.
“I’m making as much noise as possible. I want to draw them all to this location. We need the stairwell clear.” I positioned my mouth over the seam. “I have your fix of Plush right here. Come and get it!”
As the pounding grew louder from the other side, I wheeled Daze around, guiding him to the back corner. Once there, I cleared some debris out of the way and pried up a floor tile.
A welcoming hole gaped at us from below.
I lay on my stomach, sticking my head down into it, trying to filter out the noise the seekers were making from anything coming from below. After a moment, satisfied, I sat up. “It’s a four-meter drop. I know you can do it. It’s clear down there. I’ll lower you down as far as I can before I let go.” I stood, brushing myself off.
“But…but, I don’t understand.” Daze backed up instead of moving toward the hole. “Why don’t you just kill them? You have a Gem.” He raised his small hand and pointed to the bottom of my vest. “One laser blast and they don’t get back up again.”
I took my helmet off so Daze could see my face as I leaned over, settling a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t kill indiscriminately. Ever. I only kill if there’s no option left. That’s rule number eight. It’s an important one. Don’t forget it. Why do you think we take the time to secure these routes in the first place?” I slid my hand down, hooking it under his elbow, walking him to the front of the hole. “They are human beings who made a stupid choice a long time ago. A debt they are paying for the rest of their lives.” Hopefully, that would change if Darby had any say. “Now sit down and let me lower you in. I’ll be two seconds behind you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The stairway was blissfully empty. The commotion on twelve had drawn all available seekers looking for a fix to that location. I’d hustled Daze down the rest of the flights double time, relieved to see Luce sitting pretty, like nothing harrowing was happening upstairs.
“Get in,” I instructed, nodding toward the craft while pulling a tech phone out of my vest. “Jerry, it’s Ella,” I said into the speaker. “Are we still on for lunch at eleven?”
Two beats later, “Yes, unless you still need help with your sewage problem?” Brief static, then, “I can be over in fifteen.”
“Nope,” I responded. “It’s taken care of. But I could use your help with my cooling unit this afternoon. It’s on the fritz.”
Lockland was offering to come to my aid, and I told him I was fine, but he’d have a mess to clean up later.
“Will do,” he said.
“Instead of meeting on seventh, let’s meet on ninth.”
“Got it. See you there.”
I stowed my phone and pulled out my watch. It’d taken us a little under two hours to get here. It was ten after ten. We were now meeting at Bender’s, but I could get there in forty-five minutes, no problem.
Opening Luce’s door, I climbed in and punched her starter button. The props engaged immediately as the landing gear retracted. She hovered a meter above the ground.
I patted her dashboard, because I was superstitious like that.
Then I reached in the back, straining, my hips twisting, until I found what I was looking for, my fingers curling around another helmet. I tugged it forward and handed it to Daze, since he’d lost his during the fracas. “Here, put this on. It’s going to be as big as the last one, but it’ll have to do. I need you covered at all times when we’re out in the city until we solve your…issue.” I raised an eyebrow. What else were we supposed to call it? “This one doesn’t have a full face mask, so you should be able to breathe just fine.”
I flipped a lever on the dash, and the wall behind us began to open. I was happy to see that Daze had already, smartly, utilized the shoulder harness as I redirected Luce around in the small space. Turning a gyroless dronecraft in a confined area was trickier than in the wide open, as the props created all sorts of funky wind shear. It was a good thing I’d done this hundreds of times before.
In this exact same spot.
Daze leaned forward, peering into the darkness in front of us. “That’s so cool. Are we going inside the building?”
“Yep.” I eased the craft forward, punching the lever again once we passed over the line to resecure the room. “This was something called a parking garage before flying became all the rage and, for the most part, people began to park in open-air lots.”
Daze fiddled with his harness straps, his voice dropping barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry…for back there.” His apology had been uttered almost inaudibly. If I hadn’t been concentrating, I would’ve missed it.
I angled Luce between the columns, making my way up and out. “Don’t get in the habit of apologizing for things you had no clue about. But always apologize for rules you knowingly break. Those are words to live by, spoken to me by a very smart man—and one you’re about to meet,” I said. “Seekers are dangerous, they attack us, and we kill them. It makes sense. I didn’t lay everything out for you, so don’t worry about it.”
“I’ve never seen one that close before,” he said. “I got scared.”
We were at the top of the ramp. I slowed the craft to an idle in front of a large door. This one was worn with age, and the internal graphene honeycomb pattern had worn through. I turned to the kid, my arm flexed along the back of his seat. “I was scared, too. I hate surprises. Always have. My friends and I have safeguards in place for that very reason. They should’ve worked to prevent what happened today. It’s been a long time since I’ve been ambushed. Back in the day, I might’ve even used my Gem gun.” I grinned. “But I’m older and smarter now.” I tapped the side of my helmet where my temple was. “I know seekers aren’t intentionally trying to harm me. They are fueled by something compulsory we can’t understand. Think about it. The same people clawing at that door to try to get to us would’ve ignored us if they’d been blissed-out on a fresh hit of Plush.” We were waiting for the light to blink on the wall. Lockland must be being extra careful. He’d flash it when the street was totally clear. “Now, an outskirt aggressively pointing a laser at my chest? That would be a different story. If someone has intent to harm me, I harm back, and I try to be first. Because if I’m not first, I’m dead.”
Daze looked skeptical, his hands dropping to his lap. “You were scared? You didn’t seem like it.”
“Of course I was. If I hadn’t been, how do you think I could’ve jumped over your head that fast? Did you see that move? If you didn’t know me, you’d have thought my legs had enhancements. Fear amps your body, giving you exactly what you need to accomplish your goals. Without it, you’re sunk.” The light on the wall flicked to green. I punched a button on Luce’s dash, and the door began to slide. “I need you to crouch down in your seat. You don’t have to go as far under as you did before, but I want your head below the windows.”
Daze complied, slouching down in his seat, the harness no match for his bony body. Even at its most cinched, the kid had room to move. “Where are we going?” His new helmet slid down to cover his eyes. He pushed it back, irritated.
“We’re heading to Bender’s shop. He’s a mechanic who can fix anything and everything. Lockland is meeting us there. They’re my crew, and they’re going to help us formulate a plan to break into your old house tonight. Breaking and entering is kind of my specialty. How does that sound for a fun evening out?”
“Fine, I guess.” His listless reply surprised me.
When the wall had fully expanded, I eased Luce out on to the street. “What gives? Last night you were happy about the plans.” I lofted us higher immediately. There weren’t many rules to operating a dronecraft. The only one anyone followed to the letter was height.
Head-on collisions were messy, and no one wanted to crash if they could help it. If you were heading north, you cruised around twenty meters high; south, fifteen; east, ten; west, five. Any lower than five, and you could run into trouble with debris and crap in the lanes.
“Nothing gives,” Daze answered. “We can go.”
I gained full altitude, no other crafts in sight, my eyes automatically tracking the skies for a matte black Q7. I’d seen him yesterday, but he hadn’t seen me. The advantage was all mine, just the way I liked it. My windshield was clear, even though rain pelted down at a steady pace. The surface of the glass was structured so nothing stuck to it. Instead, it beaded and rolled up and over the roof.
I cruised past a series of dilapidated buildings. The city was divided into four quadrants: the canals, Government Square, The North, and The Middle, which was where we were heading. Most law-abiding citizens congregated in the government hub, as it was the most protected. The North was occupied by outskirt types—folks who, for the most part, opposed most laws and chose to live a rougher existence. The North was also home to rathskellers, skells for short. They were some of the only communal gathering spots in the entire city. But these weren’t warm and inviting hangouts. They were hostile, edgy establishments where people came together to make deals and trades, gamble, fight, exchange information, and blow off steam. Lots and lots of steam.
I wasn’t a fan. If a client hired me to locate something and requested we meet at a skell, I agreed. Always with my Gem in plain sight. I didn’t ever choose to frequent them on my own.
The Middle, where Bender lived, was its own protected community. They didn’t appreciate outsiders and guarded their community with gusto. They were a little friendlier than Northerners, but not by much. They also followed the laws, kind of.
I maneuvered around a particularly large outcropping of twisted metal girders, a building that had fallen on its side. “You know, this Tandor guy isn’t going to win. I meant what I said yesterday about being your sustainer. It means I keep you alive, which I intend to do.”
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