Am I?
The music pounds in my ears, rising and falling, the smell of drink and sweat and perfume overwhelming. My breath comes too fast, my vision hazy at the edges, and Remi must notice, because they go stiff under my hands, losing the rhythm.
Losing it all.
I pull away, turn my back on them, and flee the room.
This was supposed to be an amazing night. We were supposed to all be together, enjoying our last bit of time in the city that raised us.
So of course I’m alone on the roof.
The bathroom was too obvious. The second-floor catwalk wasn’t far enough. But some of the employees love to smoke on the roof, and they’re bad at keeping the access stairwell locked. Just what I needed.
The view is awful up here, honestly. I spend a lot of time on the roof of the Cliffs, and from there you can see the whole city spill out before you in all its false neon glory. From the roof of the club, it’s walls to the left, walls to the right, a disgustingly overpriced shopping district to the front, and a bunch of rooftop storage pods behind me. But there are a few stars above, shining through the light pollution. The one constant. No matter where I am, I can always leave the ground behind and climb into the sky.
The rooftop access door opens behind me, and I drop my head onto my knees. I’ve been found, apparently. Too predictable. Time to fight with Remi again. At least it means they aren’t down there dancing with someone else. In my head, Ania lectures me about how unfair and gross my jealousy is, but I shove it away. I don’t need her preaching.
“Diz?”
I jerk in surprise and whirl around. Not Remi. It’s a nondescript guy in his mid-twenties, vaguely familiar, leaning against the same door I used. He holds up his hands and stays back, which I appreciate. I’m suddenly very aware of being alone on a rooftop without good sight lines to the street below. I slowly shift my weight forward onto my feet, moving from seated to crouching in case a quick getaway becomes necessary. The man gives a disarming little smile and waves, keeping his distance.
“Sorry,” he says, his voice light and casual. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your stargazing. I just had a question about acquisitions, and I figured it’d be best to ask without the crowds.”
I keep my expression level, but I can’t help the spark that word lights in me. Acquisitions. This guy wants maz. Still suspicious, though, how he found me up here on the roof.
“You saw me in the club?” I ask.
He makes the universal gesture for lenses, waving two fingers in front of his eyes. “You checked in on social. It was in your feed.”
Oh. Obviously. Rookie mistake.
“I can’t remember if we’ve ever met face-to-face, but you’ve done some work for me before,” he continues. “I’ve been using Mattie’s crew lately, but this is a job I need you for specifically.”
I reconsider the man in light of this new information, the familiarity snapping into focus. Shane Drammond. We have met before, and he’s not quite as plain as I thought initially. His outfit is understated, a simple black button-down and tan pants, but the pieces are fine in quality. His shoes probably cost as much as one of my starting paychecks at MMC, and I don’t even want to think about the watch. He reeks of money, to those who know where to look . . . which means he’ll pay well.
Not that we’re supposed to have any more clients. Last job ever, remember? We’re out of the game. The others will be furious if I take another job.
But what kind of job could he need us specifically for? It can’t hurt to hear what Fancy Shoes has to say, right?
“What do you need?” I ask, my voice automatically shifting to business mode.
The man smiles and takes a few tentative steps forward.
“Maz-15. The rare stuff.”
The thrill I’ve been trying not to acknowledge goes right out of me.
“There’s no such thing. Don’t waste my time. You have business or not?” I ask. Is this supposed to be code for something? I swear, if this guy is only here to mess with me on this already terrible day, I’m gonna track down his darkest secrets and make sure the entire internet hears about them.
“I’m serious,” he says. “You delivered some of it with Mattie’s haul today, mixed in with some of the obscuraz. Deep violet color, high tensile strength, effect similar to magnaz. Your crew is the only one I know of who’s ever managed to draw some. MMC keeps it way hushed. I need you to go back to the same spot where you found it and get me more.”
Wait . . . what?
I keep my face impassive, but it’s like someone’s just hit the brakes on my brain. That bright purplish stuff Mattie picked out in one of our vials . . . that was a new strain of maz? There’s a fifteenth strain, and we were the first ones to find MMC’s stash?
Thought number one: badass.
Thought number two: Remi is going to be the most excited.
Thought number three: sounds super fake, can’t possibly be real, but if it is . . .
Thought number four: sounds expensive.
How much to charge, though? I’m not about to establish too low a market value for a hot commodity out of impatience. Maybe I can get him to name a price first. For, you know . . . scientific reasons. Not because we’re going to take the job. Just to know.
I turn my gaze to the shopping district down the street and keep quiet. Better to examine the guy from the corner of my eye and let him sweat a bit. His polished demeanor slips when I’m no longer looking straight at him. His skin is ashen, eyes darting, fingers drumming against the side of his leg. Obviously buying stim spells on the regular to stay awake. Not a great idea, that, but I’m no doctor, and he didn’t come to me for health advice.
He needs some raw magic quietly siphoned off from MMC’s stash, and that happens to be my specialty.
Was. Was my specialty.
“Mattie has a big mouth. We just delivered those vials to him a few hours ago,” I say. Not too surprising, ultimately. Word travels fast in the black market.
“And he was getting them for me.”
I nod. We knew the vials weren’t for Mattie. The story tracks. I chew the inside of my lip and let myself consider it for just a moment. Remi would lose it at the chance to play with a brand-new strain of maz. They have all kinds of grand plans to study maz in college and beyond, and this would be the ultimate science project.
And what better way to go out with a bang? This is what our crew does best. One last job for the best damn siphoning crew in Kyrkarta, for real this time, bigger and better and more lucrative than ever.
Maybe even enough to make them all stay.
“You realize a job like that would cost you, right?” I say, holding my gaze on the street below. No explicit confirmation. Just an observation.
“I can pay,” he says, almost too desperate. Something in my gut twinges a warning, but then he pulls out a deck, tilts the screen toward me, and brings up a new transaction: eight thousand credits. “And this is just the first payment. I’ll give you the same on delivery.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. Wouldn’t do to seem eager, or like I need the money too bad. I do, of course, but that isn’t any business of his.
Sixteen thousand credits. This new strain must be real, if he’s offering that kind of money up front. That’s enough for Remi to be able to afford Kyrkarta University instead of going all the way to Jattapore. And if Remi stays, Jaesin will stay. We can get a real place in the bridges district, something much nicer than the crappy flat assigned to us in the Cliffs. Jaesin will find a job easily—he’ll charm every interviewer from the first handshake. Ania will be off to her fancy private university either way, but she’ll visit a lot more often if we’re all in one place. It could work.
It really could work.
They’re going to be so mad at me. But if I ask them first, there’s a chance they’ll say no. I can’t risk it.
It’s too good.
We have to.
Besides, it’s our grand f
arewell week. What better way to go out than with an epic score?
“Note down how many vials you need in the memo field and send those credits over. You’ve got yourself a deal,” I say. He hands his deck to me, and I input the info for my shell bank account. “Can’t give you an exact delivery date and time. These things are risky, you know, gotta be careful about the where and when. We’ll put you at the top of our client list, though.”
It’s a client list of one, but he doesn’t need to know that. It’s just . . . very exclusive.
In my head, I’m already past the guilt of screwing over my future employer again, pushing it aside to dive right into planning. Jaesin and I will need to scout around the area where we pulled our last job, see if we can figure out how the new maz got into our stash, if there’ve been any changes in patrol patterns. . . .
“As soon as you can,” the man says, his intensity bringing him a bit too close. “I have a big project coming up, and I have to have it by then. I’ll add in a bonus two thousand if you can have it done in two days.”
Eighteen thousand. Keep it cool.
“Okay, okay, you got it. Two days, no more. Anything we need to know about it that might help us? What it can do, what you have planned for it?”
For just a second, something in the man’s eyes slips. Something hard. “Mind your business and get me my maz,” he snaps. His expression smooths barely a second later.
“Sorry, I . . . sorry,” he says. And sure enough, he slips a slim glass vial with a stimspell from his pocket and crumbles it onto his tongue with a sparking glow. Called it. “This project is complex. It wears on you.”
I check the status of the transaction on my lens display—paid in full, yes—then nod at the guy.
“We’ll take care of our end, so put it out of your mind and focus on your project. You need any weaving services along with the raw stuff?”
He waves me off. “No, just the raw maz. I’ve got the rest.”
I shrug. “Your choice. We’ve got the best, though, so don’t go shopping around elsewhere. You change your mind, you come to me.”
He raises a hand in farewell and ducks back through the rooftop door without another word. I watch him go, then flop onto my back for one last moment alone with the sky.
With any luck, next week I won’t be sitting under these stars alone.
Five
I SLIP BACK INTO THE club with fire in my veins, practically vibrating with the thrill of another job. Maybe I’m not ready to be done with this business after all. This is what I’m good at. The hacking, the deals, running from the cops in this city that I know better than myself. Why would I give it up?
The atmosphere in the club is oppressive after the fresh night air, the sunnaz decor suddenly false and pale in comparison to the stars. I scan the room, looking between all the writhing bodies for three familiar forms, trying to disconnect my emotions in case I see something I really don’t want to see.
But the others are nowhere to be found.
Did they leave without me?
I feel it start inside me as if watching from a distance. My shoulders hunch in. My breathing grows shallow. Stay calm, just look at the crowd. I wasn’t gone that long, so it’s unlikely they’ve already left. I just missed them, obviously. They’re here, somewhere. I close my eyes, take three deep breaths, and prepare to scan the crowd again. When I open my eyes, they’ll be there. They will.
A hand lands on my shoulder, and I nearly jump right into the burly guy in front of me. Heart racing, I whirl around and come face-to-face with Ania.
“What’s with the face?” she says, lifting her hands in surrender.
“This is just my face,” I practically snarl. Whoa, rein it in. I need her not to kill me when I tell her about our new last job ever. A little sucking up might be in order. Over Ania’s shoulder, Remi and Jaesin are messing around, flicking things off a table at each other and laughing. I guess everyone was fine without me. What was I expecting?
Well, their attitudes will change one way or the other when I tell them about this new job I’ve already committed to and accepted payment for without asking them, hah. In my mind, of course, Remi is immensely grateful for the opportunity to go to their dream school, and Jaesin is secretly relieved he doesn’t have to move, and Ania is glad for the excuse to break some rules and get away with it one last time before reverting back to perfect-student mode. More likely, though, is a giant temper tantrum from Jaesin that’ll set everyone else off. Not exactly something I want to go down in public.
I school my expression and force some of the tension out of my shoulders. “Hey, can we head home?”
Ania’s gaze sharpens. “What happened? I saw you and Remi dancing, and then you were just . . . gone, for like an hour.”
Almost two hours, actually, but who’s counting?
“I need to talk to everyone,” I say, and leave it at that. Ania frowns, but nods. A message pops up in our group chat.
*~Epic Group Chat: GRAND FAREWELL WEEK Edition~*
Ania: Hey, stop horsing around and let’s go
Remi: wow, that might be the most mom thing you’ve ever said
you’ve officially spent too much time with jaesin
I’m sorry, you’re cut off
Jaesin: *eyeroll*
Remi glances over in our direction and we lock eyes for a long, uncomfortable moment. I can’t seem to get anything right when it comes to them. Every time I start to fix things, I just screw them up all over again. Worse, if possible. If we do this one thing, though, if they stay . . . maybe it can be the start of something new. Maybe I can do better.
I turn and shoulder my way toward the door. Hopefully my friends will be feeling a bit more charitable toward me soon.
As we emerge onto the street outside the club, the music fades into a dampened thrum, the bass still beating in our chests long after the higher tones are gone. Ania instantly relaxes as the cool early evening air hits her skin. I didn’t realize how tense she’d been since we arrived. Not so much her scene, despite the fanciness and wealth, I guess. She enjoys dancing sometimes, even though she has no rhythm, but crowds get to her.
As we start our walk home, the noise of the club and the shopping district disappear altogether, the near silence of No-Man’s Land wrapping us in ghosts. The club and all the surrounding buildings were well reinforced, their structural spells solid with fresh maz and money. This old neighborhood, not so much. It was once populated by the sort of middle-class family that was typical of MMC employees. So many of them were killed off in the first wave of the plague that the neighborhood was decimated, with those few who were left eventually moving to other areas to escape the eerie silence. Lots of our neighbors at the Cliffs were once part of these families. The house numbers affixed near their front doors glint in the faint moonlight as we pass. I hate walking through here, but it’s the fastest route home.
Behind me, Remi and Jaesin keep up their cheerful babble, determined to drown out my mood with their own. Ania shares my quiet, though, waiting for the hammer I’m wielding to drop. No sense in making her wait any longer.
“We have another job,” I say, loud enough that Remi and Jaesin can hear behind me.
Silence. Then, louder silence.
After a long, uncomfortable moment, Jaesin clears his throat.
“I assume you’re waiting for us to comment on the fact that just a few hours ago we said we were absolutely, completely, one hundred percent done with siphoning jobs, yes?”
“Well, yeah,” I say, combative, then remember my whole tactful sucking-up strategy. Are we really going to play this fake-calm-questions game, though?
“And I also assume,” Jaesin continues, “that you’ve already committed us to this job without asking us, or else you wouldn’t be so weird and shifty right now.”
“Yep,” I say. Ania shoots me a look, one raised eyebrow with her are-you-truly-this-bad-at-life expression. Ugh. Remi, at least, seems neutral. Waiting for the details.
I’m plenty fucking aware, thanks, but please, repeat that as often as possible so I can’t forget for even five seconds. Jaesin pushes on.
“We have so much to do to get ready to move, Diz. We can’t afford to get arrested. I could lose my job offer in Jattapore. Remi could lose their place at the university. We’ve played our luck this far. The whole point was to quit while we were ahead.”
“Well, if we—” I start, then cut myself off.
If we get this payout, maybe you won’t have to leave.
I tip my head back to stare at the stars again, much more visible in this dark, broken neighborhood. The constellation of Ailia, the ancient dancing warrior of firaz, shines overhead, precariously balanced on one toe. I feel you, man. This is a tipping point for sure, but I know just how to give Jaesin a good shove over the edge.
“It’s sixteen thousand credits, and he’s already paid us half,” I say, completely casual. “Another two thousand if we can do it fast.”
Ania doesn’t even blink, but Jaesin stumbles over a chunk of broken concrete, and Remi gives a low whistle.
“We’d need a truck to hold sixteen thousand creds worth of maz,” they say. “Who’s the client and what’s their deal?”
“The client is Shane Drammond. We’ve done jobs for him before, but usually through dead drops and middle men, and he’s always paid us on time. The job, though . . .” I can’t help the grin that fights its way onto my face as I look over at Remi. “You’re gonna love this.”
They raise an eyebrow and meet my gaze head-on. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. The job is for eight vials of maz-15.”
Remi’s face goes blank with confusion. They look to Ania, then back to me. “Is that . . . code for something?”
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