The hovercam’s lights get a notch brighter, and Srin’s commentary starts in my ear.
“This is a live feed from Paz, where a Shreve military drone has broken into the Marine Institute. It seems to be stealing raw materials from a damaged building. Is this the start of a resource grab?”
I turn to Essa, frowning. “Doesn’t look like a military drone, does it? No weapons.”
“Maybe Shreve doesn’t expect us to fight.” She takes hold of her wrist. “They’re wrong.”
I shake my head, lowering my knife. My father is too cautious to start feasting on the spoils of war before he’s secured the city.
Something else is happening here.
“The Pazx can do nothing as they watch the invader from Shreve tearing at their city’s wounds. To launch a brazen attack in the wake of a natural disaster must be the work of a truly twisted mind.”
The grinding sound starts to smooth out, until it reminds me of the burr of an autodoc fixing my bones.
“Srin?” I say softly. “You might want to pause this.”
“What will the dictator of Shreve do next? An all-out military invasion?”
“Srin! Stop for a second.”
The commentary fades, and then Srin’s voice is closer in my ear.
“What’s your problem, Frey? This is exactly what we needed!”
“Just wait.”
I climb the slanted floor, push through the Institute staff so I can see the drone better.
“Stay behind Srin 3, Frey. I’m still broadcasting!”
“Okay, fine.” I come to a halt just beneath the hovercam. From here, the Shreve machine looks even less like a military drone.
Because it’s not a military drone—it’s a fabricator.
A hole in the wall on six legs, as squat and powerful as a rhinoceros.
“Oh no,” I say.
“Frey, tell me what’s going on. This’ll play better with narration.”
Before I can answer, the machine opens its maw again. But instead of eating more rubble, it vomits out a collection of finished items.
Flashlights, water purifiers, med patches. Pop-up shelters, inflatable beds, transmitters. Even a few toys.
All of it made from the recycled rubble of the Institute. This machine is the fastest hole in the wall I’ve ever seen.
It lumbers a few feet farther, and starts chomping again.
“Uh, Frey? What just happened?”
“This isn’t a military drone, Srin—it’s a fabricator. He must’ve had a fleet of them in orbit, ready for this earthquake. Stop broadcasting!”
“A fabricator? What the … oh.”
The lights on the hovercam wink off. But it’s too late—the whole world has already seen what’s happening.
My father isn’t here to conquer Paz.
He’s here to save it.
I wake up the same way as yesterday, gasping like my lungs are full of water.
The dream is the same too—the buildings falling, spilling an ocean of dust. The clouds sweeping across me, choking the air with the smell of darkness and loss.
I sit up in bed, panic twisting every muscle.
“Frey,” Srin’s voice comes. “It’s okay.”
It’s not.
The smell of burning isn’t a dream. It still hasn’t lifted, ten days after the quake. It’s worse here in Rafi’s old apartment, with the breeze coming through our missing wall. This was the only place we could find after Srin’s hotel filled up with foreign journos covering the aftermath.
I miss that hotel, its working elevators and running water. Like I miss the certainty that the earth is steady and dependable beneath my feet.
Uncertain is how it always feels, here in Shatter City. That’s what the Pazx call their home now.
Too shaky for Morning Buzz, I start my day with Calm.
“We’re out of water again,” Srin says. She’s at Rafi’s makeup table, staring at a pile of comm gear, a set of needle pliers in her hand.
“Already?” I swing myself out of bed, cross the apartment floor, and lift the water drum by its handle. It weighs almost nothing. “Did you take a bath?”
Srin looks up from her gear and fixes me with steely eyes. “My last bath, if you could call it that, was at the hotel. Four days ago! When was yours?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Then maybe wash yourself while you’re at the main,” she says. “We all gotta breathe.”
A sharp retort goes through my head—in Rafi’s voice—but I say nothing.
Instead, I imagine water running through my hair, clothes clinging to my skin, wet and clean. Since the quake I’ve worked my way through everything in Rafi’s closet. Clothes get dirty fast in a city of ruins.
“You coming?” I ask Srin. Twenty-liter water drums are heavy when they’re full.
“No, I want to get this gear working again.”
I frown. “Change your mind about leaving tomorrow?”
“Nope.” Srin turns back to her work. She can’t stand living in Paz anymore. The rationing of food and water. Breathing dust from the quake. My father’s fabricators roaming the streets. “Just thought you’d want to talk to Col once more before I go.”
“Oh, sure.” I’m blank for a moment, uncertain what to feel.
I miss Col’s voice, but when we talk, it’s always the same argument.
He wants me to abandon this city, to join his Vics in the jungle. But they can’t help in the war against my father anymore. In the wake of this disaster, attacks on Shreve food supplies only backfire. Last week, Zura and her crew hit a relief convoy by accident—or maybe it was a trap my father set. Either way, it played into his hands.
Paz is the best place for me to fight him now.
This is where his greed is aimed.
And just as important—if my sister wants to find me, Paz is where she’ll look.
I glance at the other bed in the room. It’ll be empty once Srin leaves. I’ll be alone again.
A long touch of Morning Buzz brightens me up.
“Thanks for doing that, Srin. Col must be worried.”
It’s been four days since we last spoke—Srin’s gear was broken in the move, and we can’t use the city network. Most of the new repeater towers were built by the RFS—the Relief Force of Shreve. You never know who’s listening in.
But Srin’s gear can reach the Amazon direct. I’ll take a long touch of Cherish just before we speak and tell Col that everything’s okay.
“See you in an hour,” I say, lifting the empty water drum.
She nods. “I’ll make sure it’s working by then. It’ll be good for you to talk to him.”
I smile at her, almost giggling from the Buzz.
Srin worries about me too.
I climb down the elevator shaft.
The rope ladder was made by Marxo, who lives beside us. He’s handy with ropes and pulleys, and helped us cover the missing wall of Rafi’s apartment with a relief tent. He doesn’t speak English, and never asks what we’re up to. The perfect neighbor.
I pull my hoodie tighter before heading out into the street. Rafi’s dazzle makeup is thin on my face, the last tube almost empty. The Relief Force of Shreve is here in a dozen different ways—fabricators, repair drones, wardens. All of them watching for me.
Officially, my wedding with Col has been postponed so Shreve can focus all its resources on helping Paz. My father’s propaganda simply ignores the fact that Col has appeared on the feeds, talking about our escape. It’s even more truth-missing than usual, as if losing me finally broke something in my father.
No heir. No spare. The whole world knows that he’s alone.
Out in the wild, Rafi has been silent. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.
I haven’t found the right feel to fix that yet.
Our street is busy today, but they all look like real Pazx—handmade clothes and water bottle slings, shaggy haircuts. Shreve agents try to blend in sometimes, but they never get the local bod
y language right. A lifetime of talking with your hands changes the way you move.
Essa says I’m pretty good at passing. But that’s me—an impostor my whole life.
I don’t look much like my sister anymore. Srin buzzed my hair short with my pulse knife, then tinted it orange with the local berry dye the girls here use. Even my face is different, my cheekbones growing sharper with every missed meal. The relief effort brings in enough food for the survivors but picking it up means a DNA check. To make sure nobody’s collecting double rations, the other cities’ relief forces share their data with the RFS.
My father has said all the right things—how he wants to return to the global community. How he’ll leave the Palafoxes’ ruins soon, sharing their metal with the world. How he plans to return Victoria to democracy in a year or so.
And no one can deny that the RFS is here in Paz, helping provide food, water, and shelter for two million people. Another half dozen cities are here too, including my father’s natural enemies like Diego, but none arrived as quickly or in such numbers as Shreve.
The rest of the world surely doesn’t believe my father’s change of heart, but it’s simpler for them to pretend they do. Pushing Shreve out of this relief effort would be costly and dangerous.
In the midst of crisis, anything is easier than another war.
Every day the RFS is here, they gather the Pazx’ biometrics, making lists of names, addresses, friendship groups. They wrap their candy and alcohol rations in Shreve red and make sure to give neighborhood captains extra clothing and food. All of it builds the databases and allies they’ll need when the surveillance dust comes down.
You can have the city, my father said. A wedding present.
I doubt he’s changed his plans of conquest just because I’m gone.
There’s not much Paz government left to conquer—the mayor, city council, and head warden were meeting in the central city at the very moment the quake struck. My father’s timing was brutally perfect as always, and there are rumors that wardens and other officials went missing in the hours after the quake.
I remember my military tutors teaching me the term for this—a decapitation strike. My father always took a particular interest in the strategy, starting with Aribella Palafox.
The city AI has the same voice, but everyone can tell it’s not the same machine. That old personality emerged from years of conversations with two million citizens, their collective wit, their values, their sense of humor.
The new one blathers like a talking toy.
No one’s coming to save us.
I head toward the water main, staring at the shafts of morning sun slanting through the buildings, looking for any sign that the air has been corrupted. Everyone says the sunsets are redder than they used to be. That’s probably thanks to a few hundred buildings falling down, but without an electron microscope we can’t know for sure.
One day we’ll be breathing dust without knowing it.
The next day, the RFS will show up and take me away.
At the end of Rafi’s block, I have to climb over a hill of rubble gathered for recycling. Our neighborhood seems to be low priority for cleanup. Most of the heavy repair machines are in the center of town, digging out the giant metal skeletons of the towers—and the bodies of the lost.
Past the rubble, I keep to back alleys and smaller streets. We’ve tapped a water main a klick from Rafi’s place, far enough away that no one will suspect us if the tap is found.
But hauling water that distance is a total pain.
In an alleyway, I pass a man crying. He’s sitting on a recycler, his bag of rations set carefully beside him, like he’s only resting. But his Grief is loud and soulful, unapologetic. It fills the alley, contrasting with the soft smiles of the passersby. They reach out as they walk past and brush his shoulder.
In Shreve if someone wailed publicly like this, the wardens would show up and take them away. But here in Shatter City, you have your feels when you need them.
I still haven’t cried—this isn’t my city.
“Psst,” comes a voice from a doorway.
My hand reaches for my knife, but it’s Essa.
I join her in the shadows of a ruined house. It’s been a few days since she last came by with news from the local resistance. Not everyone in Paz is sitting around letting my father’s occupation take hold. People knock down his drones with slingshots, strip battery packs from his fabs. There are even rumors of rebels sneaking into the city at night to hit my father’s forces.
I’ve been giving Essa hand-to-hand combat lessons for her to pass on to her friends.
“Are you okay?” I ask. That’s how we all greet each other now.
“Philosophical,” she answers with a shrug.
That’s the feel with glasses and a thoughtful, distant gaze. Not really my thing, but my family tomb isn’t a pile of scrap in the city center. It wasn’t just her brother that Essa lost that day—it was all three parents, four cousins, and more friends than I’ve ever had.
“But my mood’s about to change,” she adds with a smile. “There’s a Shreve fab working alone a few streets over. Want to help?”
I reach for my wrist, find the little face with piercing eyes and a straight, firm mouth. It’s called Resolute, but I have another name for it.
Steadfast.
“Let’s go,” I say.
A few minutes later, a noise reaches us, echoing out of an abandoned ancient square—the unmistakable rattle of a recycler. Essa peers around the corner and makes a fist, the local hand sign for a Shreve hole in the wall.
They’re everywhere now. Two dozen fell that first night, beating the other cities by precious hours. Another hundred have arrived since. They’re efficient at turning rubble into useful gear—but Essa and I are certain that’s not all they do.
That’s why we hunt them.
I take a quick look around the corner. The fabricator stands in the middle of the square, its huge maw grazing on rubble—no RFS wardens keeping watch. But it has scanners mounted all over it, to grab the identities of vandals like us.
We wear reflective face masks so millimeter-wave can’t map our teeth. AI can recognize people by the way they walk, so we each pump one shoe tighter to throw off our gaits. We pull on gloves, for DNA and fingerprints.
My pulse knife has just enough charge to get this done. And around my heart is a cloud of hornets. There’s wildfire in my veins.
Fighting is one thing I don’t need feels for.
“Ready?”
Essa nods.
We round the corner and head straight for the fabricator, walking fast across the broken cobblestones.
Right away, scanners bristle along its back.
Fabricators aren’t allowed to mount weapons—they usually try to run. But this one turns toward us, and I can see now that its six legs aren’t as stubby as a normal Shreve fab. It’s leaner than usual, designed to move fast.
It’s backing up, like it’s about to charge.
I squeeze my knife to half pulse. A well-thrown strike will take out the machine’s brain, and I can plunder its batteries to recharge. But the fabricator rears up, putting its belly full of rubble between me and the brain case on its back.
Delaying tactics—it’s called for backup, of course.
As Essa and I split up, trying to outflank it, the sound echoing through the square changes. The rattle of breaking rubble shifts to the burr of fabrication.
It’s making something.
Before I can get an angle to throw my knife, its maw opens wide …
A fluttering swarm comes spilling out. Tiny drones, like the butterflies the extraction team tried to dart me with.
“Careful!” I call to Essa. “They sting!”
My pulse knife roars to life. I fling it at the swarm.
It cuts a few of the drones into glitter—the rest scatter. They roil in the air for a moment, splitting into two swarms to come at both of us.
Essa pulls off her coa
t and whips it through the air, like fending off bees with a blanket. I call the knife back into my hand and flail.
The drones dart and weave, trying to get past my blade. It’s like fencing with a dozen opponents, where any pinprick will knock me out.
Forced back across broken cobblestones, I stumble, almost going down. A drone flits past my guard. I jerk my head back, the stinger barely missing my cheek.
I slash it into fragments, but sooner or later one will hit.
The yellow charge light on my knife is blinking.
At that size, built in a fab, how are these little drones so clever, so fast? They can’t have their own AI—the fabricator’s controlling them. It’s already chomping at more rubble, getting ready to overwhelm us with another swarm.
If I can kill its brain, the butterflies will all die at once.
Covering my face, I plunge through the storm of wings, charging the Shreve machine. Run hard across the open ground, leap onto a rock pile, then down onto the fab’s back.
It fights me—bucking fiercely, all six legs reeling. My free hand grabs a scanner on the spine to keep me on.
Essa’s butterflies have left her alone to swarm me now.
I plant a foot on either side of the brain case, squeeze my knife to full pulse, and bring it down …
As it sinks into the armor, the knife goes dead in my hand.
The battery light turns red.
But the fabricator is hurt—it stumbles beneath me. Shuddering, brain-wounded, it staggers to one side. My left foot slips, and I fall backward onto its metal skin, barely keeping hold.
The butterflies reach me, but they look demented now. They’re flying random patterns, like cleaning drones set loose in a fallen building, not knowing what’s rubble and what’s furniture.
One brushes my arm but doesn’t sting.
The fab tosses me off onto the cobblestones—agony shoots through my right ankle. My fingers go straight for my feels, pumping Painless as I scramble clear of the stamping metal legs.
The fabricator settles for a moment, then aims itself at me. It shudders once all over, a metal bull readying to charge.
“¡Aquí!” Essa calls, waving her coat, trying to get its attention.
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