"Mr. Benson?" A boy named Gene glanced up at their captain. "What are we doing here?"
Benson swung to face them, walking backwards. "We're learning, kid."
"Wouldn't we learn more in studies?"
"You might learn more facts. But what good are facts if you don't have anywhere to use them?" Benson gave Gene a long look, then gestured to the street. "From here, it looks like the Locker's got two dimensions. East-west, north-south. But you're wrong, dummy. It has three. The first is space. Realm of the pirates. The flyboys."
"And flygirls," Kansas said.
"All right, correction: the fly-people. They bring in fresh goods from anyone stupid enough to fly outside the Lanes. The Locker's lifeblood. And they keep all the govs and corps off our back." Benson stepped over a pile of greenish goo that Ced hoped was just puke. "The second dimension is the boardrooms and back rooms. That's where things get done. Where the bosses decide where to send their ships. Where to focus their teams. How a new market gets divvied up. People like us tend to think the people in the suits are soft. Well, I'll tell you this: if there was a dollar in it, those guys would sell your soft parts to that hot dog-slinger over there."
Gene swerved around the legs of a panhandler seated against the wall of a pawn shop. "So what's the third dimension?"
Benson grinned. "You're standing in it. The street. This is the frontline. Know what the frontline is? It's the place where most of us suckers wind up. To make it on the front, you have to know it. And the only way to know the street is to be in it."
A few of the others shivered against the cold, wary of the brightly-dressed young men and women cruising through the civilians. Ced, though, was happy to see the urban sharks out on their routes.
Because it meant he was back where he belonged.
* * *
For two weeks, they split their time between tramping around the streets listening to Benson's lectures, playing games of tag and squares in the office, and reading about something called supply and demand. That was so boring it made Ced want to volunteer to scrub the kitchen's dishes, but everything else was fun, so he didn't mind.
"Right!" Benson clapped his hands, ambling to the middle of the wide, open room. "Wondering why I've had you reading this dense old rich-man talk? Because you're about to put it into action for yourselves. First, you're going to select a leader."
"For what?" Ced said.
Kansas rolled her eyes. "Who cares? A good leader can lead anything."
"I might choose you for a squares captain. But if I was picking the captain of a pirate ship, I'd choose Benson."
"I'm not eligible for this one," Benson said. "You're starting a business. Here's the kicker: you get a cut of the money you make. Most will go against your debt, but you'll get some walking-around money, too. So choose your new CEO wisely."
He told them to put their vote on their devices. Ced typed in Kansas' name. He was sure she'd get chosen—she wasn't afraid of anyone, and she had this draw to her, like she might do something amazing at any moment, and you couldn't look away or you might miss it.
"Congratulations," Benson said after everyone had voted. "The CEO of your new business is…Heddy!"
Heddy glanced between the other kids, smiling, blushing a little. She was good at math and made sure everyone knew it, but Ced didn't know why they'd chosen her except she was popular.
"As CEO," Benson continued, "it's your job to assign the other jobs. Logistics. Distribution. Marketing. Protection. Whatever you think you need. As for your product…"
He moved to a table set to the side and picked up a foot-square thinbox from its surface. The box was empty. Where it had rested sat a fleet of tiny spaceships.
"What you see before you is the action figure line of Swimmer Attack!, a show canceled before most of you were toilet trained. A few months back, our parent company picked up several thousand of these babies. Not on purpose, mind—it was extra cargo on a grab job. They tried to move them retail, but the show only got five episodes deep. Nobody gives a damn about its figurines; the sales force's efforts barely made a dent in our supply. They were about to sell them to the recyclers for a few bucks, but I convinced them to let me take a whack at it."
He strode across the line of kids, index finger upraised. "They took their shot and now they're cutting their losses. As the Dragons, they can afford to do that, because they've got a hundred different irons in the fire. Doesn't matter if you have to toss one out. But the Iguanas? You? This is all you've got. You make it count, or you die trying."
Niki's mouth fell open. "We have to die?"
"Kidding about the dying. But everything else is true." He got down on one knee to look them in the eyes. "One last thing. Don't screw this up, okay? This Junior Gangster Legitimate Business League, the Fightin' Iguanas, this was my idea. If we crash, it'll be me who goes down with the ship. So go out there and get rich!"
After an inspection of the toy ships, Heddy assigned them their jobs. Donner and Marly were on marketing. Ced didn't know what a COO was, but that's what Heddy named Jole. She assigned others to keeping track of money and inventory and stuff like that.
Heddy came to Ced and tapped her lips with the tip of her finger. "You beat Dapp up until he had to leave, right? So I guess you're in the streets."
He pointed at Kansas. "She helped."
"Then she goes with you. Okay, team. Let's go to work!"
They spent the whole rest of the day talking, mostly about which of their friends they could sell some of the toys to. Heddy came up with a distribution plan to set up stands outside the nearby places kids hung out—the gaming stadiums, the shooter rinks, that sort of thing. Ced put in a few ideas, but nobody really listened to him. He got the impression it was because they'd assigned him to protection, and all protection was good for was eyes and muscle.
The next morning, while Heddy had the others working on stands and signs and stuff, she sent Ced and Kansas out to find the exact spots to set up in. They hit the streets, weaving through pedestrians on their way to Killscreen, a local gamer hangout.
"This is dumb," Kansas said. "We'd make more money dumping this crap in the recyclers and spending our time begging instead."
"Why's that?"
"We're not going to make any money selling toys."
"Somebody must. Or else they wouldn't make them."
She eyed him. "Are you making fun of me?"
"I'm just saying that kids buy toys."
"Not these ones. Or Benson's bosses would never have given them to him."
Ced laughed. "People will buy anything. You just have to make them want it."
"Okay, then I'll tell them I'll punch them if they don't buy."
He shook his head. "This is why you're muscle, not marketing."
The street outside Killscreen was crowded with stalls, shacks, tables, and people carrying fold-out trays of crud. It looked messy and dirty, but the Locker took pride in its independence and made it easy for bizmen to set up their own operations—Ced had actually looked into going legit back when he and Stefen were in the early phases of their fruit thing.
That was cool, but the plastic pavement was sectioned off into little rectangles marking each in-street shop's space. And every single one of those spaces was occupied.
"Big deal," Kansas said. "So we set up down the street."
Ced swerved around a man in a pea green jacket arguing with a device-carrying bizman. "That's past the tube stop. Half the kids will be gone. It'd be like trying to catch a fish in Drydecker Pond."
"Drydecker Pond? What are you talking about?" She glared up at a man in a long coat who was about to plow into her. The man contorted himself to avoid the collision. "This is where Heddy wants us. Make it work."
Ced moved to the safety of the outer wall of a skate shop where the pedestrian traffic wasn't so bad. Some of the stalls took up their entire designated rectangle, but many had open space around them. The answer was obvious: partner with a vendor with extra room.
> The first man laughed. "Get out of here, kid. I don't need you clogging up my lanes."
Ced stepped toward him. "But—"
The man shoved him in the chest. "I said get lost."
He had no better luck with the next two. They were turning him down before he could get to the meat of his proposal. He'd have to fire his bullet before his defenses were down.
He eyeballed a woman selling rows of fighter ships, robots, and dinosaurs. In a lull, he strode right up to her.
"I've got product just like yours," he said. "If you let me sell it with you, I promise I can double your traffic."
She glanced down at him. "Save your breath."
"And I'll give you 10% of everything we sell." He wasn't sure Heddy would like that, but he knew enough to know they'd make up for the loss with the right location.
The woman sighed. "I'd spend the next fifteen minutes dickering you up to 18%, but it isn't my call, kid. You want to sell here? Then go talk to the Orcs. They run this whole neighborhood."
Ced trudged back to the wall. "Now what? Do we set up a deal with the Orcs?"
"Screw them," Kansas said. "We're not paying off another crew. We'll use a roamer."
Heddy wasn't happy about that. Going with a roving vendor meant they couldn't use any of the glitzy signs and things Heddy and her marketing department had put together. But Kansas explained the situation on the ground and Ced backed her and Heddy gave them the go-ahead. She was going to put up a stall a few blocks away in Pub Alley, too, but Ced thought that was dumb. Nobody but grownups went there.
In the morning, they hit the streets early. A boy named Parson was doing the actual selling, carrying a case of the action figures and a device for transactions. Ced and Kansas roved the block, keeping an eye out for trouble and also sending the occasional kid to Parson. It looked like they were doing pretty good.
Hours later, the station's lights dimmed. They wrapped up and Ced was shocked to learn the take. That whole day, they'd sold two toys: one to a little girl who Ced was pretty sure had mistaken the Swimmer Attack! figures for the ones from Extinction Games. And another to a five-year-old boy who got three steps away, stopped to stare down at his dingy fighter ship, and burst into tears. He'd begged Parson for a refund, but Kansas refused.
As they trudged home, Kansas shook her head. "That was awful."
"It could have been worse," Ced said. "At least we tried, right?"
At the 12th floor of the Dragons building, Benson flung out his palms in disbelief. "That was awful! It would have been better if you hadn't tried at all. At least that way we could still pretend you're not utterly hopeless!"
For the next half hour, he interrogated them about what they'd done and what they could do better. Most of the kids looked embarrassed or scared. Heddy looked like she might cry. Kansas looked annoyed, then so bored she started to yawn.
Ced, though, he was mad. And the longer Benson berated them, the madder he got. They were just kids. Weren't they here to learn how to do what the grownups did? Wasn't the whole point of their first contract to shape them into productive members of the crew? To—
An idea arced across his head.
As soon as Benson quit shouting, he filled in the others. Kansas didn't like it, but she agreed to give it a shot. When they got back in the street, she started the morning by chasing Marly and Donner around the block, toys in hand. Ced watched from nearby.
"What are they doing?" a younger boy asked him.
"Playing Crews," Ced said. "All the older kids are using those. I hear you can get them over there."
He pointed to Parson. The boy glanced at him, then back at Ced. He toddled over to Parson and came away with a sleek red fighter, making whooshing noises as he held it aloft.
That day, they sold twenty units. Benson told them it was a start. The day after that, they sold almost thirty. The day after that, somebody started posting about them at the net. Kids went to Parson in a nonstop stream. They had to send a runner back to the office for another case of toys, then a third. By nightfall, they'd sold more than two hundred.
After that, it dipped, but rebounded the following day. Benson told them if they kept up their pace, they'd run through the supply in three weeks—and see a fat bonus for it.
That morning, they had the heat down again, but that didn't stop the crowds. Ced was talking to a young kid, telling him how the Swimmer Attack! figures were a limited run and there wouldn't be any left soon.
"Ced!" Kansas' voice pierced the babble.
Ced turned. Across the street, Parson was being accosted by a woman in an ugh-green jacket. A small wishbone pierced her left ear. Ced sprinted to them, joined by Kansas.
The woman pulled Parson forward by the collar. "This your boy?"
"Could be," Ced said.
She curled her lip. "This is Orc turf. I see you selling here again, and we'll see how business goes when you're selling this junk from the inside of your ass."
Kansas balled her hands into fists. Ced said, "What do you want? A cut?"
The woman laughed. "I want you to get all your Baby Dragons out of my street. Before someone gets hurt."
She flicked Parson's nose, then walked away.
"We should get her," Kansas said. "Right now. When she's not expecting it."
Ced rolled his eyes. "And then what? All her friends come for us? It'd be just like when I stood up to Dapp. Only this time, no one's going to bust down the studies door to save us."
"Don't you dare say we need to quit."
"All we need to do is move spots. We created the demand. We can sell this stuff anywhere now."
Kansas rubbed her mouth, then shook her head sharply. "You have to fight back the first time it happens. Otherwise, they'll never stop punking you. We're not going anywhere."
He at least got her to switch things up, making Flip the roamer and operating more on the fringes of the bustling street. Ced kept his eyes sharp. By dark, nothing else had gone down.
On their next trip out, they stuck with Flip. Ced stayed closer than usual, eyes darting to anyone in pea green clothes. He couldn't shake the idea he should have told Heddy or Benson, but there was something about Kansas that made you want to believe.
Around noon, shouts rang out from up the street. Ced sprinted toward the disturbance. The crowd opened a wide ring, showing Flip running away as fast as he could. Behind him, Kansas stood her ground, black batons in hand. The woman with the wishbone in her ear stalked forward, a knife gleaming in her grasp.
7
Rada fell to the ground, pain crackling from the back of her skull. Fury erupted right after. At herself, for getting caught unaware. At MacAdams and Webber, for not watching her back. At Toman, for sending them to this ass-backwards city of lunatics and primitives.
But mostly for whoever had hit her.
She rolled onto her back. A heavyset man stood over her, blackjack in hand, legs spread wide. His beard gleamed with metal pins; she recognized him as one of the men passing around the bottle at the gate.
To either side of her, MacAdams and Webber cried out, fending off attackers. The bearded man raised the blackjack for another blow. If Simm had still been with them, he could have disarmed the man with a flick of his wrist. She regretted not having learned more from him before the FinnTech killer in the ghost ship had taken him away.
She'd picked up one or two things, though. Like the knowledge that enthusiasm and meanness made good substitutes for skill. She cocked her leg and drove her heel into her attacker's balls.
He gagged and staggered back, falling into the dirt, clutching his crotch with both hands, eyes bulging. Rada popped to her feet. Behind her, Harl Nunez—formerly known as Marcus DuPrima—scrambled to his.
"Harl!" she barked. "You're in great danger. Come with us if you want to live to see the morning."
The man with the pins in his beard struggled to his knees. This put his face level with Rada's waist. She drove her knee toward his nose, striking his eye socket instead. He f
ell and made no effort to get up.
"Who are you?" Harl said.
"We're with the Hive. Understand?"
People who'd been watching the fight in the ring turned to watch the one unfolding on the patio. MacAdams had his guard up, exchanging jabs with a leather-bundled hulk equal to him in size. Webber feinted at the face of a man wearing a long, shapeless shirt. As the man dodged back, Webber grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head, trapping the man's arms and whaling on his head.
"So the rumors are true?" Harl—Marcus—said. "Finn sent an assassin?"
"Spindly guy. Very creepy."
"You mean Yan." Marcus grabbed her sleeve. Despite the jungle sun, he was pale. "You have to help me. Take me to Benez."
"Happy to do just that. Come on."
She came at MacAdams' opponent from the side, booting him in the knee. He buckled. MacAdams' fist came at him like a rogue comet. The man groaned and spun prone. Webber was sitting on the third man's head, which was still bundled in his t-shirt. Seeing Rada, Webber drew back his elbow and socked the still-wriggling man in the approximate location of his jaw.
Around them, leather- and rubber-clad bystanders whooped and clapped, exchanging bets. Someone was calling out, pointing at them. Rada took off at a jog back toward the gates.
Marcus kept his head on a swivel. "Is Yan here now?"
"Last I heard, he was still on his way," Rada said. "But I intend to leave a me-shaped cloud of dust before he gets here."
"This is him?" Webber swerved around a man who was either passed out drunk or dead. "DuPrima?"
Rada put a finger to her lips. "Now's the time to finally learn how to keep your mouth shut."
The sounds of the arena fight faded behind them. Rada didn't see any pursuit, but when they peeked down the street leading to the gates out of Bartertown, the exit was blocked by a passel of men in makeshift black armor. Some swung bats or rods. She thought she saw a gun. She retreated around the corner.
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