Written by kilozombie

Thank you to: BrassDragon/Fabledragon for the cover
Thank you to: 3lmer for editing and so, so much advice
Thank you to: gurfan for editing and all of the website stuff

Special thank you to: BungoFungo, for creating the 'Dust' setting, and being a limitless well of advice and ideas. None of this would exist without you.

Use the paintbrush in the top left to change color schemes for readability.

Contains: animal violence.

Rhodes

Someone is shaking my arm.

Someone is shaking your arm.

Blood seeping out of my palm. She's bleeding. I can't see anything and I can't feel anything and someone is shaking my arm. It tastes like smoke. I want to sleep for five more minutes, please. I'd sooner sleep a thousand years than get up from this. Calling it quits. I'm calling it quits.

I'm shaking your arm. Go away.

It smells like mud. I'm in bed still. I'm in a cot somewhere. I'm falling off a rooftop. I'm holding a—

If she falls asleep with a concussion she'll die.

If you fall asleep she'll die.

If I fall asleep I'll die.

Someone is shaking my shoulder. When I look up I see two beady red eyes like rubies on a face like an insect and I want to go back to bed and I'm tired, I'm finally tired, I'll go to bed now.

She's screeching now.

Someone is shaking your arm.

If I die she'll die.

If you die she'll die.

Just five more minutes.

No, no. You don't have five minutes. Don't call it quits. Get up.

Please.

I need you.

-

-

-

The sound of heavy footsteps passing by the door. The sound of a drop-ship outside blotting out everything. Papers and rags all scattered in every direction, and smoke, and fire, but the fire is dying. I try to stand up.

-

-

-

I get woken up by a gunshot from somewhere through that door. Eyes heavy-lidded and head as light as a feather. When I look down there is almost no light except for the same two red eyes and I can see myself splayed across the floor of the closet for a few moments. Someone has put a rag on top of my knee where it's bleeding. It feels cold. I go to try and touch it.

-

-

-

I enter a peaceful and dreamless sleep for an eternity.

-

-

-

When I wake up again I realize, with some frustration, that I'm not dead and I haven't gone anywhere. As with every time this kind of thing happens I come back to my memory of past events very gradually and in reverse order. I am in a closet. You are in a bedroom closet on the thirteenth floor of the Perium Apartment Block of the Finest Seawalk District of Salt Row. Okay. How'd I get here? You were trying to abduct a Tasran woman. That doesn't sound good. You failed. In what way. She's abducting you instead.

I look over at the two beady red eyes in the dark. She is staring at the slice of amber light coming from below the closet door. Her features are unclear without any light but I know that she has a bum leg and a frail body and she couldn't have gotten me here herself. I carried her. She told you to. I remember. It looked safe and hidden. It is safe. I know what I'm doing.

No, I don't.

I sit back and lean my head against the wall and feel something seeping out of my ear and when I go up to reach it my body goes, whoa, Nelly, there's not enough blood in your body to be lifting your arm like that. Fuck you. Okay. I just lean back and wait for time to pass.

Work your way backwards.

I am here to abduct this Tasran woman. A Tasran is a whole new kind of species, discovered by human Pioneers all across the Dust Sector upon our arrival! As natives of the planet Jazid—

I know.

Why am I abducting her.

I look over and she's curled up in the closet and she couldn't be much taller than half my height and like all of these bugs I don't have a clue what expression is on her face. She's hiding with me. Who are we hiding from?

Her world became a flash of brimstone and her body got split open and she bled until she was dessicated. Then she spoke. I'm not dead. I just want five minutes.

Don't sleep with a concussion, Nelly, you'll die.

I just want five minutes.

- 1 -

By the time I had the strength to stand it had been about thirty hours and I was starving to death. The Tasran woman's name is Rhodes. She suggested we wash ourselves under the dock a few minutes from her apartment and then beg for food from a street market. Then she told me she could kill me if I didn't help her, and I didn't ask how. I hadn't said anything in a while.

She leads us out of the closet hidden beside her wrecked bed. Floral sheets and shattered wood furniture. Lots of particle board bits everywhere, and an enormous hole in the plaster and concrete wall separating it from the outside world. I can see a reflective glass-and-steel building across the way. Dust in the air still and four enormous bloodstains on the unvarnished floorboards. I follow her weakly out her door and into a stonelike stairwell with corroded railings.

-

Rhodes is only four feet tall. Her wings are clipped and she walks with a terrible limp and has to sit down constantly to rest. I despise this about her immediately and despite being half-dead I don't sit with her, but she tells me not to go ahead or she'll kill me. She talks a lot and she talks very quickly and frantically. She calls me 'freak woman'. Then she apologizes. She has four antennae and three are tiny nubs and her eyes are crimson gemstones cut funny, with her faint pupils like flaws in crystal.

-

We reach the edge of the city seafront during dusk with the sky alight in auburn and grey. Enormous concrete seawall stretching from end to end many kilometers across, serving as a boardwalk mostly for freight. A piece of old scaffolding takes us down.

The beach here recedes too far into the dock and has no sand, just rocks. Crags and sharp stone aggregate in the shape of a sandbar. I step into the seawater to try to clean myself and my leg hurts badly upon touching an incoming wave and I wail and fall back onto the shore. I wish I could drink this water. I would kill for some water.

She washes her clothes and I sink against the gravel for a while and contemplate falling asleep but she screeches at me until I'm awake, and we clamber back up to the dock.

-

Rhodes explains that we're going to a wet market. She explains that we're in Salt Row and that it's a poor district and I'll have no problem blending in. I don't even know what city we're in. You've got a fever, honey, but that's okay. Look for some sign of where you are, Nelly.

Now I can raise my head up a little and I stop for a second along the harborside. The sunset is behind us, behind a thousand old steel and mooncrete buildings reaching up into the sky in choir formation, and the sea looks terribly unfamiliar. Stretching on forever. A pale green expanse stretching on forever. And past the ocean and past the clouds and past the sky there is some angular tower of dizzying size peering through the firmament. I'm struggling to stay upright and I hear Rhodes tell me, don't drop me if you're about to fall over.

I put her down and then sit as a collapsed pile of limbs.

My eyelids are so heavy still, my body isn't working for me. I feel like I'm getting piloted around by someone else. Knees feel hot against the mooncrete of the boardwalk. It's like concrete, orbit-shipped directly to where you need it! Mix on-site for whatever the situation demands. I can see an enormous harbor to our right—some ten thousand containers there, and ships in the sea all the way to the horizon. From here they look small. I remember getting to port in a ship like that one there, an enormous freighter twenty stories high. Faces of sailors who didn't ask who I was.

"Do you eat fish?" she asks.

I look over. She's as pale as me now. Some sheltered city rat whose entire life is on a computer. Some of her head is cleaved off and replaced with aluminum and wires stretch into her chitin. Her red eyes are blinking rapidly in the evening light.

I nod.

"They give away offcuts to hobos. You look poor," Rhodes explains, "but you need to hide your arm, because it looks expensive."

My right arm is made of metal. I got it when I was younger. When I look down at it it doesn't look particularly expensive and it hasn't served me very well but I don't have the strength to argue.

"And I don't look poor because I got this." She points at her head like I'm a child who needs visual instruction. Maybe I am. "So I can't do the talking."

I nod.

"Can you do any talking at all?"

"Pell," I say. It might be a name. It comes out of my mouth like I'm barfing it up and my teeth feel so dry like they're going to crack. I cough a couple times and it's like fire.

She cocks her head and squints her eyes with doubled eyelids like a frog. "What?"

"Can talk."

For a second Rhodes looks like she's angry at me but it's just the reflection of seawater in her face and shadows casting from her antenna. No expression at all besides the sunken shoulders and defensive posture. "We both need food, to live. And we both got, ah, ah." She winces and it seems like she's about to expel something out of her nostrils but then she loosens up. Sea air is oppressive and I feel like sneezing, too. "Not your friends that shot you, I assume?"

News to me that I got shot. No, it isn't. I remember the guy in the suit pulling the trigger. Was aimed at my head before I grabbed him.

I sit there limp and completely brain damaged.

"No," I say.

"Not my friends either. Don't got friends."

She doesn't look like she has friends, yeah. I reiterate in my mind that I could probably sock her unconscious right here. Where would that get you? Acting impulsively gets you nowhere at all. So I don't. "Okay," I say.

"Remember," hisses Rhodes, "I hacked into your arm and can kill you with it."

Her voice sounds uncomfortable with the language. Or maybe it always sounds uncomfortable. Stilted like her throat is tied up. "Okay."

After a few minutes I go to the fish market and Rhodes hides underneath a piece of cardboard by a dumpster.

-

Stalls made out of stamped sheet metal scattered randomly in front of the Diorin Sailor's Guild. The place is awash with people of the sea, salt-battered and poor and intimate in how they crowd. Some lug little wallets and one has a money card. Cryptocurrency. PiCoin is the future of commerce for the future you. Sailors from Berith and Haraad can now rejoice: celebrate the Palisade Trawling Company's new partnership with PiCoin with Velnias-exclusive benefits and reward points. Your pay is safe with us. I stifle my limp. Not good to limp in front of other people.

There are a couple of men with turbans and a woman heaving around an enormous gilled lizard stuck with a skewer. The sound of heavy conversation from every direction fills the air—this thick accent over spoken Common like everyone has rocks in their throat. The owner of a far stall peeks out from beneath an enormous plastic hat with a false eye, and I can see whiskers protruding from an ugly beak-snout. Baldari. The taste of Confederate rations starts to bubble up in the deep and carnal recesses of my mind. I stand at a middle distance away from him and interrupt the people in front. "Ey," I say, but it comes out like a grunt. "Spare something for a vet?"

"Ba," I hear. He is laughing uncomfortably. "Pal cotta?"

"No money." I wave my hands. Rhodes covered my metal arm in some of her rags and made herself a pretty scant figure in the process. "No Vasthi. Just Common."

He lifts up his head and I can see his narrow face, jagged in places, furred and sleek. The Baldari are an extant species of the Dust who once were known to civilization as only the Hegemony, but in recent centuries the great Migration has—but he interrupts. "Free stuff for friends only. Trade?"

"Oh."

"Trade?"

I retrieve the six-shooter I had in a pocket. There is a scream from the lady with the lizard and she drops it on the ground, and I hear some scrambling from elsewhere in the market. The distinct sense of a gun being pointed at me, from far off. Someone is a quickdraw. Too many people are armed. My throat is so dry but I manage some words. "Trade," I mutter. I fling the gun at him like it's a nasty swamp thing that caught hold of me.

I don't remember where the gun is from. Jarman's Accessories. From the War, after the War, we'll refurbish it without any questions asked.

The Baldari, who has now tossed his hat onto the ground in a desperate attempt to scramble under the counter, slowly raises from his hiding spot. His one good and wild eye is wide open like the fish he's peddling. "Elt, Jameson, jen gora," he wails. "Asshole!"

"Trade." I reach out my hand and rub my fingers together aggressively. "Trade."

"Asshole, asshole."

Something possesses me. I loom over the stall until my hands are planted on it. I'm going to throw up. I'm seasick, Pell. "Trade." The sound of metal against metal.

His wild eye goes stiff.

-

I end up getting two ugly slab-shaped fish and a fishing rod from the market.

-

Rhodes and I are camping under one of the docks as the evening turns to night. She hands me a bottle of slightly murky water from some drinking fountain and it's empty before I can even process it; in a few minutes I've drunk a half gallon and I still feel too weak to stand. She has a little pocket knife and she clumsily tears apart the fish, and when she's done making cutlets I burn them with a heating element embedded in my forearm.

We eat without conversing. I lay down backside against the sharp rocks of the upper shore and try to come up with something to think about for a while.

- 2 -

When I open my eyes again it's nearly sunrise and my body hurts all over. For breakfast we eat the leftovers from the fish. Rhodes asks me where my arm is from.

"Stromm's," I tell her. I am mostly busy eating. The fish is chewy like gum and tastes like red meat.

She is perched up on a tall rock by a pillar, embedded in some shadow, and nibbles at her portion like a feral animal. "Is that where you're from?" she asks.

I nod to her.

"Eh, right, right. But how'd you lose it?"

My eyelids feel heavy. I stare at her a little while. "Was a prisoner during the War. They cut it off when it got infected."

She stares back. Eyes narrow. "Sorry," she says.

"Fine. Happened a long time ago."

"I got this after a concussion." Rhodes points at the section of her skull that has been replaced by aluminum and electronics. It's the most bold-faced cybernetic I've seen, at least. She doesn't have the luxury of blending in, not here or anywhere else. "Was this why you were trying to kill me?"

"No," I say. "Wasn't trying to kill you."

She scrunches her mandibles together and I think she's grinning, or whatever the equivalent is. "Don't lie," she says.

"Not a liar."

"I'm a hacker," Rhodes says. She seems to like the word. "I can make you punch yourself to death with your arm. Already got it hacked. So don't lie."

I glare at her.

"I'm not gonna. I just. Could."

Mostly I want to finish eating. The sensation in my stomach is still a cold and empty chill like frostbite, and I know it'll take some days to pass properly. In the midst of all this I still haven't paused for even a second to think of where I am and what's going on. Like a brain-fog. Maybe I really do have a concussion. It becomes impossible to sort things out.

I tilt my head back down away from Rhodes. The hacker.

-

In November of last year there was a high-profile killing of a diplomat by his own security system. Jericho Arborist, native of Stromm's Landing, landed here—in this city, Velnias—and, shortly after arriving at his hotel, was shot dead by a ceiling-mounted turret in the hallway outside his suite. He was lodged at the Greenview Solutions Oceanside Palace only a few kilometers from where Rhodes and I are hiding right this moment.

Shortly after the death of Jericho Arborist, two things happened: firstly, Greenview Solutions publicly deemed his death to be an accident that they were responsible for. The ultimate insurance payout, which was sent directly to the League of Free Worlds, was enough hard cash to boggle the mind. The League was hurting for money—still is—and getting that much from a corp seemed like, to anyone paying attention, more of a bribe than anything else.

Secondly, Greenview Solutions privately derived the identity of someone they claimed to be the actual perpetrator, had her abducted from her home in the outlands of Stromm's Landing despite a complete-planet blockade, and executed her inside of the Greenview Research & Development Megacenter's 112th floor.

I am remembering now that this person was my wife.

-

It's been some minutes since Rhodes spoke. I've been chasing this moment—face to face with the hacker who knows more than me, who knows more than anyone—for a long few months. I was close. I was close before things went to shit. But I don't have the will in me to freak out right now. It's a quiet fire.

I primarily just want to eat.

"You know anywhere to hide out?" I ask her.

"Yeah, obviously," Rhodes says.

So we get to talking.

-

The next while is a whirlwind of practicalities and explanations and pragmatics. I tell Rhodes that I had a gun but don't anymore. She seems unbothered that we're unarmed and gives her spiel about the situation: "Greenview owns the whole fucking waterfront." She has a rasp for a voice, like a cat's tongue made manifest. "Beh, but not everything, in that way. Just owns all the land mostly, and runs paycheck for a lot of the sub-companies in the area... but not like they have cameras in every building. Just most buildings."

"The market?"

"That specific market I picked is cool. Or cool enough. But people might start talking if a lady with a metal arm showed up and makes a scene."

I sneer at her. "Didn't make a scene."

"Okay, okay." But she doesn't buy it.

The fact we're unarmed is inconvenient but not overall relevant, because we wouldn't last in a firefight anyway. Case in point: I got my leg shot and Rhodes got her apartment blasted open. In broad daylight. The key, she claims, is going to be information supremacy and obscurity. "I'm familiar," I tell her.

"Not, ah, beh, fucking, swamp obscurity. Like, in a city."

"Explain," I tell her. Humoring her, of course.

Salt Row and the general eastern waterfront of the city is enormous—no city in the Dust Sector is larger, and no seaboard has as many buildings. To search for us manually would be a waste of everybody's time, but there are some problems even with places like where we sit at this very moment. "Living leaves evidence," she explains.

"I am aware."

"Like, everything leaves evidence. Rent. Trash. Fish bones. Rumors. Rumors especially. People post on the buoy net..." She goes on a while. The notion here is that we can't be seen, but we have to be seen, because it's impossible to survive in a city without being seen. Thus the longer you are in a place, the worse it gets. "A ticking time bomb," she says.

I tumble a sharp rock between my fingers absentmindedly. "How long are they gonna look for you, then."

"Well you tell me! I-I didn't ask for this."

"Don't know what you did to get their attention."

She has a baffled look in her eyes. "Right."

"...I guess I have guesses as to why." But I roll it over in my head a second and come up mostly blank. By all appearances the corp in question thought they found their culprit. They paid an enormous sum to get that culprit. Why the fuck would they be after her? What did they know?

"Well, skpt, freak woman," Rhodes chitters. "Hacked your arm, so tell me your guesses."

I wave it off. "They're shit guesses. Greenview didn't care you existed, last I knew. We had an insider."

She boggles out her eyes. "YOU had an insider. You don't even fucking speak Vasthi. Explain!"

"It's good to have ears in places." I shrug.

"This is a terrible explanation."

"Okay."

With her threat of killing me with my own arm sort of hanging ambiently in the air, Rhodes huffs, shakes her head, and gives up. We get back to talking strategy.

It is unclear why Greenview wants Rhodes dead. It is completely clear why they would want me dead: I am a rogue element from an extant colony who is obviously seeking retribution for something they did. But when I showed up to Rhodes' apartment, they were already there for her. Or someone was there for her.

Men in expensive suits and facemasks, guns, a dropship hovering out her window. No identification. Could as easily be the League's own people. But we have to assume that the looming threat is the same between us—corpos that own the waterfront.

"So we move away from the waterfront," I suggest.

"No. No! That won't work either," Rhodes explains.

"You are confusing."

She waves her hands. Her perch under the dock makes her look like a nesting bat of some sort. "Okay, so, I just explained that information is everything. Well, I live here, and have, like, all the information memorized here. And hacked into tons of computers here."

"Anywhere Greenview isn't at?"

"Well, I, ah, beh, worked for Greenview. So. I mean, before this. Long before this."

"How long?"

"Year and a half. Before I got this." She taps at the skull-welded cybernetic taking up a third of her face. A year and a half is a long time for this woman. "Places I know, stuff I know, overlaps with them. It is—" She drops into a series of Vasthi curses an octave down her vocal range.

I'm trying not to stare at the cybernetic. "Bad idea to work for a corp."

"They own everything, freak lady. Like saying don't drink water."

"Not my name."

"Don't even know your name."

With a kind of grated sigh, I admit that my name is Nelly.

"'Kay. I am Rhodes. You skipped over my point."

"I get it." I nod to appease her. "Is there anywhere that you know, but isn't owned by them?"

"Yes." And suddenly her mandibles splay out again—I really do think this is her version of a grin. "Barely. But yes. And we'll have to move every couple days."

"Getting off planet eventually?"

She waves that off. "We live in unsold apartments in certain blocks owned by OMI instead of Greenview. OMI is another big player on Salt Row. Make sense? Different corp?"

"Yeah. Heard of them."

"Okay, and you will be the one scouting it out on-foot. Can't rely just on computer sources."

I give her a very incredulous look. "They also know my face."

"At least you can run away! I'm being practical."

I sit up straight to see what it feels like. When I look down I still have a grisly wound on my left leg, all tied up and inflamed and unpleasant. Need to disinfect that soon. "Fine." She wasn't going to volunteer for it anyway.

"Good! Good. Then I plan our next moves once, ah, all is settled. I-I think. I'll start looking up places to go. Will send you scouting first thing."

"No." I'm sure as shit going to mull over her idea first. It sounds bad on instinct. It reeks. But she knows the city and I don't. Need to think. Need a way to think.

"No?"

"Not yet. I'm going fishing."

- 3 -

The offcuts and guts from the market fish make adequate bait. I don't know what's in the Cestabin Sea of the Palisade, I don't know what screwed-up things trawl the shore, but it's all carbon and cartilage and it'll do. Couldn't be much harder than carp. I head to the end of a rickety dock a few minutes from Rhodes' hiding spot and carry the old Baldari's fishing rod over my shoulder like a shotgun. That's Jack. Shows up sometimes to take tithe. Don't go being stupid, fed, he'll blow your head off. I don't recognize the model or how the reel works—some kind of fancy mechanism with a gear that locks up at discrete angles. No lures but two spare hooks.

I cast out into the sparkling green and tilt my head down to not get blinded by the sunrise.

-

I think I have a concussion.

-

After half an hour I manage to catch something that was skimming the surface and pull it up and knock it out with my knuckle. It's brown. Not a lot bigger than a Stromm's herring and with dollish eyes and convalescent fins that droop sadly at the touch. It doesn't look very edible, so I make it into some more offcuts. Wish I had Rhodes' knife. Dirty work.

-

Shoulders starting to ache. I think it's actually a delayed pain from sitting there drooped in the closet. I don't remember if... she picked the hiding spot or I did. It was a wild and completely opaque affair. Why didn't they search her apartment more closely? Did they think we ran?

Heard that other gunshot while we were in there. Trying to remember if I came with anyone.

-

Yeah. I did. Obviously. Fuck's sake. Jed Garcia. Not from Stromm's, not someone I knew closely, but a Palisade outlander with as much skin in the game as me. He found us an insider, he got me the passport to land at Berith, he found the ship to take us here. It was smart. I thought it was smart anyway. I'd never seen so much water in every direction. It made me think, nobody is going to find you out here. That's a reassuring feeling I think.

Must have been Jed they shot. I don't know if he fessed anything up but I doubt it. Seemed solid enough.

I think he was one of those genuine blood-and-land types. The Magenta Rebellion isn't just about the here-and-now, it's about the future of the free planets. Not the League of Free Worlds—not about what we oppose. It's about the people that actually live here. It sounded good coming out of his mouth. Sold me on it anyway. Though now all his kind of people are dropping like flies.

Trying, now, with my head aching, to figure out if I ever earnestly believed in that shit or if it was just convenient. Hey, Jed. You actually trying to do anything for me? Is this about my dead wife or is it about the truth? Can't ask him now.

-

I get a bite finally. Something big and tugging hard and freaked out at the sensation of a hook in its face. For a while I'm convinced this cheap fishing line is going to snap on me but after reeling for what feels like forever I yank upward and something just works—and in a magnificent sail of seafoam and salt I catch something completely beautiful.

At least a meter across, bulky, with iridescent scales in a burnt blue and white checkerboard. A great tail now thrumming viciously against the rotted boards of the dock. Two enormous eyes like chipped shards of volcanic glass, and still it jaws, gnaws, suckles desperately at the distended liver of the dead fish that became its bait.

Today's not your day, buddy.

I kill it.

-

Still fishing.

I think... that thing in the distance is the Kesh. Or the Kesh Ring, something like that. A superstructure wrapped around the planet, the whole Palisade, visible only in clear skies or at night. I thought it was a building at first. It sits peacefully at an off angle like a seam between realities, and its reflection in the Cestabin ripples and warbles dreamlike. All the ships look like they're sailing there.

-

Things get better by noon; I used the pretty fish's tail as chum and the brown 'herring' as bait and by the time the midday warmth sets in I have a few carcasses of various sizes, two that look like deflated green balloons and one shaped like a winged saber of some sort, its nose protruding awkwardly between two clueless eyes. Another one of the brown things which I throw back.

-

I go back to the fish market. Didn't ask Rhodes if it was a good idea. I lug the four fish over my shoulder and keep the rod stuck in the back of my sweatshirt and show up to a similar enough crowd. Sweaty now and kind of exhausted from the walk, but I show up to the old Baldari's stall and show him everything but tailless beauty fish. "Trade," I say. "Trade?"

"Ba, saik," he murmurs. "Do you have different words you can say?"

"Yeah." I point at his tackle box. "I need some lures."

He eyes me up some more. His odd and gaunt face beneath the enormous hat looks puppeted. "...Just order on buoy?"

"Undocumented," I explain, enunciating carefully.

His shoulders droop immediately. "Ah. Well..." He points a finger at the pair of balloon-looking specimens on the counter. "Poisonous. But other one isn't." He sweeps the poky fish to his side of the stall and pushes away the poison ones. "Hang'd Knight. Ten Vicks."

"Just need some lures. Hate using bait."

"But..." He loosens even further, head dipping down. "My lures..."

I ignore his plea for a moment, and hold out the big fish with no tail. "And is this edible?"

The Baldari tilts his head, and then nods hesitantly. "Not good, but. Yes." I am happy about this information. I like that fish and want to eat it. "Flop jewelfish."

"Okay. Just need a couple lures. I'll owe you."

"Ehhhh..." He is doing everything in his power.

"Please?"

Eventually I am able to convince him to part way with exactly two shiny baubles that look like angry faces, and then I abscond.

-

"Was a bad idea," Rhodes says. By now she's scavenged a big, heavily-stained duffel bag from the garbage, and has loaded it up with five water bottles and a variety of bent metal tools she claims can defeat padlocks. "Was a bad idea, but at least you got food."

"And lures. Don't forget the lures." I am quite proud of my haul. I look like an honest fisherwoman. "Going to need to eat, however long we're here."

She glares at me. "It's bad to show up more than literally once to any person. Much more likely people will remember..."

I wave it away. "Just twice. Promise."

"Better be." Rhodes makes a face. "First spot is going to be while down the bay, anyway."

"Show me."

So, as I get to cooking the fish, she retrieves a piece of newspaper and begins to draw out our route.

- 4 -

It's not like anything I could have imagined, the way the world enters an auburn haze once the sun goes past the apex of Velnias and turns to nothing but a hint of a corona. Earliest sunset I've ever known. The foundations of the city are the black metal buildings of threatening corpos and market supercenters overseeing enormous square structures hewn of stone made to house thousands—five stories at first, then as high as a hundred, rolling along. There are squat buildings and slim ones, sheer glass windows on steel, but then old-seeming angular concrete with burnishing all over, and then something carved from polycarbonate in a pastel color, and further west there are corroded warehouses built beside streets hanging over an endless stacked city called the Gutters which holds up everything. Then, towering above it all are the skyscrapers, these perfect Platonic things, which feel more like they came out of my imagination of a city never imagined, shaped into their forms of aluminum and tungsten and brass and cyan concrete, and coated from sharp corner to corner with enormous indistinguishable screens, hanging or mounted or floating by slowly aboard something with helicopter blades, advertising and flashing and blinking to the stars. These skyscrapers make up the skyline of Velnias, its face from afar, the one I saw on the boat here, I think. They are hundreds of stories tall and there are so many and they stretch on forever in that direction, blotting out the sunlight from sheer scale. Everything drops into shadow all at once. Like someone waking you up from a nice dream. Still dreaming about something, Nelly? I keep my head low and hands in my jean pockets here, and return my mind to ground level, where the quiet boardwalk makes way for a bustling urban bramble where I start to finally see groups of people in summer clothes. Velnias is supposed to be a rainy city. Hope not. Enjoying the clear skies.

Here as I walk there are upright apartments springing up out of nowhere, and city shops with bright lights coming from big windows appear around every corner. Thin roads not made for automobiles here, but some motorbikes idling. Suddenly not unbelievable that Rhodes and I could blend in for a while. Stay still. Most animals are built to detect movement, not identify complex shapes in the brush. But it's not like that at all. Keep moving. Sunlight replaced by hanging lamps over entrances. I pass by J-11 Road and then J-12. There's a lanky woman guiding a motor rickshaw who passes by me and gives me a sharp look, and I'm spun around and nearly run head-first into somebody carrying a large paper bag from a grocery store called MILLIGAN'S. Scooting out of their way and straight into a crowd in an intersection.

Cobblestones suddenly, laid over old concrete with craquelure. North is that way. I'm not being moved by the waves of people but I do feel like I'm flopped over.

West is that way. I reach my real arm out and slice through.

-

J-25 Billet Mother Apartments. Double doors made of synthetic wood and plastic glass which are barely wide enough for my shoulders and they lead immediately into a spiral staircase with tall steps. The outer commotion leaves the air but the inside is thrumming with some bass from one of the upper apartments. A short hallway over there. I proceed upward.

An old-looking lady passes me. I make a sound and she doesn't and she passes by like air.

Fifth floor. I am hoping that 5-A is on a side hallway but the door is right by the staircase and a window and I feel vulnerable. The thrumming bass is coming from the fourth floor—techno or something. I run my metal hand over the doorhandle and try it to make sure it's locked. Give it a knock, then another. Hollow inside, echoey. Another lady from upstairs slips behind my back while I'm facing away.

I crouch down slightly. The plate of the lock on the door reads 'BARGER'. I spend a second remembering and then put my palm on the face. One tap with my middle finger, two taps with my index finger. Then I wait.

After a little while my metal hand starts moving on its own.

It's uncomfortable and weird and I look away. My hand fishes out a flimsy, thin piece of metal from my jean pocket after searching for a while. Taps around, feels the door, finds the deadbolt, finds the keyway. Then it sticks the shim in the base of the lock and jiggles for a while and, like magic, it opens.

I just poke my head in first, but I hear footsteps from upstairs and abandon all caution to sneak inside.

-

The place is dusty. One bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen, almost no furniture. A bed. I check the closets, no vermin. Creaky wood floorboards. I put my palm on my knee and tap with my middle finger to indicate that it's good.

-

Rhodes shows up after a couple hours during the lull in market traffic and looks ready to collapse. Something bad with her legs. Real bad with her motor skills anyway and she's bad at walking on a fundamental level. I get her to the bed.

We eat a little dinner wrapped in newspaper. The flop jewelfish isn't so bad. Tough as hell and muscly and cartilaginous but a little sweet and still juicy despite being so cooked. Rhodes tells me that the scales look pretty. "Think there's an album cover," she murmurs, "like that. Fish. Should've kept the tail."

"Yeah," I admit. "Tail was pretty."

She brought lots of drinking water at least. And there's plumbing. Not the worst campsite. The bedroom has a door and it's next to the fire escape if things get bad.

It'll do for now.

- 5 -

It's raining. Rhodes has taken the bed and I made a little nest on the floor and I'm on my back but I can't sleep. When I told Rhodes I was hoping it wouldn't rain she laughed so much. Giggling, cackling, like some night animal with glowing eyes. My impression is now that it rains a bunch in Velnias. Great. The music from downstairs hasn't let up. I am staring at the ceiling.

I don't think she's sleeping either. When I look, she's sat curled upright.

"Hey, got a question," I say.

"Okay."

"Serious one."

She shrugs. "Sure."

"You know anything about Jericho Arborist?"

Sudden narrowing of the eyes from her. I turn away. "Don't know," she says. "What, you think I did that?"

"Interesting." That's how she responds? "Just asking."

"Might know who did it," she says, almost like an afterthought. "But it's my information to keep."

"Okay."

"Like. Heard from places." She pauses and I hear her nibble at her own chitin. "Can't not hear. What, was he really important for you?"

I hum. "I guess. Diplomat for Stromm's Landing. He was a New Deal guy." I'm frowning now. "Not good or bad for me personally. I didn't live in the big cities." Bring Peace And Order To Chaos. The League Should Have Listened.

"Yeah I could guess that part about you," she laughs.

"You think you know who got him, though."

She lets out a hiss of an exhale. "Maybe... maybe. Greenview said it was an accident..."

"Yeah, but." I wave my hand around, and then wince as the song downstairs falls into a pre-chorus that is enormously loud.

"Yeah, you get it."

I try to close my eyes and make the loud music go away.

-

It doesn't go away. I think this is something called retribution pop. Timpanis slamming away above a chorus of severe-sounding young men.

"You did good with the arm thing," I offer up. I sound pretty groggy.

"Thanks," Rhodes mutters.

I look at her. She's still wide awake as ever. Curled up with eyes looking ahead. "Can you do that with other things?" I ask.

She kind of stiffens up. "Yeah."

"Using the cybernetic? Never seen that kind."

"Yeah. It's, ah." She looks over my way. There's something about her eyes. Always a little shut, like she's trying to see someone just past you. Her silhouette so contorted and runty. I guess those are mean words to describe someone. She is a very odd-looking Tasran. She continues. "After. Um. After some shit happened I had brain damage. So. Greenview hooked me up. But it made things worse."

"Oh."

"It's, like. I can't stop hearing it. The, uh. Everything I'm hooked up to." Her one good antenna flicks around a little. "Just wasn't good at it anymore. Was good. Then wasn't good. And they canned me for it."

I offer up a hand. "But you're in their computers."

"I guess." She holds out her hands to try and grab at nothing. "Can't focus, most of the time. Finding your arm was. Fucking hard. Ahah."

I lay back and try to stretch out my legs a little. It's a little numb in my left. "Like how?"

"Like I'm all over the place. A-A-And... eh. Eh, I dunno. It's been hard." Rhodes has something guttural in her voice. Maybe would have more fight in her if it weren't so late, if it hadn't been as long a week. "Yeah. So. Might have heard something, about that guy, but. Yeah."

I pause for a little while and say something that comes to mind. "I think I might have brain damage."

"Mainly leg damage," Rhodes retorts, instantly. She's pointing at my shot leg now like it's a spider she's trying to annihilate with a finger laser. "Should fix that, actually. Like we should fix it now."

"I guess. I'm beat."

She hops out of the bed. Where did she get hops? I'm bewildered and shoot her a look, but she continues. "Gonna go get you, like, a first aid box. Hydrogen peroxide."

I try to stop her but she's suddenly nimble. "What," I say. "No, man, stop. Why?"

"I can do what I want."

No more words come to me. I guess I'll stay. She gives me some blank expression for a moment, and then hurries out the door into the apartment complex.

-

Didn't kill Jericho Arborist, huh. Sure. Yeah. Okay. I can run with that and believe it for now. But you'd know who really did it. Surely. Not her. She'd know her. Her. You'd know who got her killed. You'd know because you did it. Did you? Did she?

It must be late. The people downstairs stopped playing their music. It smells a little like weed.

-

Hope she's not getting herself killed over me.

-

I'm finally drifting off by the time Rhodes gets back. A sudden torrent of wind and rain starts machine-gunning the window and I struggle to an upright sitting position and she's brought back a bottle of generic-brand disinfectant from who-knows-where. And a roll of paper towels, and a charcoal-ridden hand rag. "C'mon," she mutters. Her legs are wobbly.

"Okay," I say.

She has me roll up my pant leg, but her own bandages from before are getting in the way. I just take the jeans off. Looks worse than I remember. That's because time passed, idiot. Festering and numb and yellow in the wrong places. Not pleasant. "Shit," she says.

"It's fine. Good timing." I take the disinfectant. Taking the rag bandage off is the first step—opens the wound and some black blood seeps from a failed scab. I see now where that round took apart cartilage on the back of my knee, but no bone I don't think. Wouldn't be able to walk if it was bone. Don't break any bones, Nelly, your bones are your friends. Hurts some but not terribly. "Might jolt up. Uh. Hold my leg down."

"'Kay," she whispers, and holds my leg down.

Not fun work. Disinfectant foaming things up and burning and seeping and leaking everywhere. Rhodes sneaks the rag under my leg after the first bit leaks down and it's mostly clean from there but I do spasm a bunch, wish I didn't. "Fuckssake," I say. Wish I didn't.

"Didn't find anything like bandages. S-Sorry."

"S'okay. Sheets from the bed."

She scampers over, but then stops herself. Mandibles tight against her face when I look over. "C-Can't leave any trace, actually. No." Living leaves evidence.

I shake my head and swallow some spit. "Fine. S'fine."

"Okay." She crawls back over. Wings twitching.

"Shit. It just." I'm kind of rambling half-aware now, looking at the damage. "Feels like taking something apart and not knowing if it'll go back together. You know?"

"Yeah," Rhodes laughs. "I-I know. Obviously."

I grumble about something indistinguishable, something about a gun. Don’t babble, Nelly. I clear my throat. "Can you get antibiotics," I ask.

"Maybe."

"Gonna need those some point."

"Okay." Rhodes has just the faintest look of optimism in her eyes. Like it wasn't broken when we put it back together after all.

She rips her other sleeve off and uses it to cover the whole mess of my leg. It covers it mostly. Just need this fucking thing to heal. In the span of a few minutes we mop up whatever has leaked on the floor and she stuffs the dirty rag in the duffel to be trashed later. No trace. No evidence. No trail.

I get to sleep eventually.

- 6 -

In the morning Rhodes calls the apartment 'compromised' and I'm inclined to agree. Something with it feels wrong and I don't want to sleep another night with the loud music anyway. Left too much evidence maybe. "Could chance two or three days with other places," she mutters, "eventually."

I don't know what Rhodes' plan is for the long term. It isn't easy to ask.

She has us stay the morning and suggests our next spot. Goes through a few suggestions actually, not that I have a frame of reference. I'm agreeing with most of them. Trying to stand in the bedroom but, of course, last night has actually made my leg work a lot worse after paying some attention to it. "Spot above a convenience store in Little Baltra," Rhodes says. "Uhh... ah... unsold houseboat..."

"Houseboat sounds good."

She waves her hand around. Staring out the window at the cobblestones getting soaked. "Yes, but will be definitely just a single-night thing. Weekend inspections."

I look over to her and squint. "What day is it?"

"Wednesday," she says.

"Weekend isn't close."

She smiles faintly with her eyes. "Don't wanna chance it."

-

We gather our things. Rhodes has the duffel in her lap, I carry her. She manages to get the deadbolt locked again from the exterior—some mechanical magic with the shim—and I get her out of the building so she doesn't have to manage the stairs again. Keeps itching at her face cybernetic. I don't ask.

We split up at a small bookstore on the way so she can get something for me and I head to the spot on the waterfront she mentioned. It's a longer walk this time and I am resting heavy on my good leg to spare myself the sharp pain that keeps coming from my other knee. Lucky it grazed, Nelly, you'd have a hell of a time. I'm having a hell of a time. It probably hurts worse for her. Probably does. She's got it worse. Yep. Careful of people that look sad all the time. I didn't make a fuss about my arm. You did at the time. It's raining now.

-

I have become rapidly soaked in water.

I wish I had a hood or a coat at all. Getting blown over by the morning chill. I spot a corner store labeled TOM'S on my walk, all this light pouring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Ground floor of some enormous, cheap row of shops. I duck inside to get out of the rain.

There's heating in here and sterile floors and severe overhead lighting. I ruffle my hair dry for a second and try to find something like an umbrella to steal real quick. A very tall guy behind the counter tilts his head and squints at me and laughs nervously with someone else in back. "Hi lady," he calls out.

"Hi," I say. There are some yellow raincoats folded up in a stand near the entrance. The doors swings shut behind me and some bells ring. "Hi. Rain's bad."

"You need one of those?" He has an accent like Rhodes, thicker and more contorted. His skin is brown, his nose is crooked. He has soft eyes. Not his business what I take though. I lift up the raincoat. Says it costs two Vicks.

"Mhm." I put it on quickly and step outside.

"Have a good one!" he calls at me, laughing harder now.

-

It strikes me walking down one of the main streets near the ports that everyone I see is wearing a raincoat like this now. Must have had it in a purse or a pocket or something. Folds up easily I'd imagine.

-

I have some boots from home which aren't faring very well since things went to shit in Rhodes' apartment. Looking down at them now, keeping my head low. Hair dangling out of the rain hood and making it hard to see. Keeping to myself. Keep to yourself for a while, fed, nobody trusts you. There was a cobbler in Flint Wake a few kilometers from where me and Pell lived. Made shoes and boots out of horse leather and old tires from the War. You'd think the rubber would have gone bad. Nearly forty years now. Walking in some history I guess.

Cobblestones turn to old concrete. So many cracks, visible rebar in some steps. I'm at the dock now.

Lockstone Private Moor north of the OMI Shipping Megaplex. Six long platforms extending far out from shore and housing all kinds of little dinghies and houseboats and yachts. Armed security here, not of any affiliation I recognize. Doesn't look viable until I notice our actual destination a little ways hidden behind the upscale dock, marked only by a sign that reads 'MEERKAT'. I veer right suddenly onto a concrete platform cutting a hundred meters into sea.

Not very hidden. A dozen houseboats and a sailboat that looks old. Ours is the fifth on the left. I'm tempted to walk away but the prospect of finding another meeting spot is...

It'll be fine. Just need to sit down.

I go to have Rhodes pick the lock for me but the door to the captain's seat is unlocked and I get access to the rest from there.

-

Rhodes shows up in a red raincoat and brought an umbrella for me, as well as a generic brand bottle of antibiotics she must've swiped. "Where'd you get that," she asks, when she notices I've already got my own coat.

"Found it," I respond.

I'm fishing again. Rod draped over the railing. It's a good spot, the rain is good too. Can't help but be grinning by the time she's shown up. There's a little bit of dry cover beneath the roof of the houseboat on the port side where I'm sitting, although my legs are soaked at this point, kicked up. Got five mystery fish on the other porch seat. "Getting way too comfy too fast," Rhodes mutters, exhausted.

"Thinking I fish now while it's easy and we won't have to for a while."

She sets down the duffel next to my collection of fish carcasses and settles down on the deck. "I been really, ah, ahhh, worried. All day."

I nod. "Yeah."

"Got your book," she says. After limply dropping the antibiotics into the duffel, she hands me a laminated hardcover copy of TRAWLING IN THE CESTABIN: A FISHERMAN'S TESTIMONY. It's a couple decades out of print but she did her due diligence. "Looks cool."

"Does." I set it in my lap and put the rod aside to make room, and flip it open past the front cover. I've been an honorary Vasthi since my mother took me to the Palisade in search of a better life. I hope this compendium is of some use to those as unfamiliar with this beautiful sea as I once was, and that my records of the life beneath the surface is some small measure adequate in the eyes of those that have taught me. Thank you to Jean cor Corabinn and the Skip on which we sailed. There is a calligraphed drawing of a flop jewelfish above the words. It makes me smile a little.

"Door was unlocked?" Rhodes asks.

"Yeah. Hey, had a question." I lean over to her. Her cybernetic is lit up in green right now. Didn't notice the lights on the back of her cranium til now. "You, uh, hacked computers. Why can't we use 'em to look this stuff up on the net?"

She looks at me defiantly. "Well, book is easier, cooler, don't need me around."

"Fair enough."

"And... would leave evidence," she hisses, contemplatively. "Unfortunately. Computer activity from unknown source, stuff like that. League, ahhh... I mean, like, Greenview..."

Doesn't make sense to me. I squint incredulously. "You're the hacker. Search and then delete the evidence. Rewrite the record."

"That would be nice." She sounds wistful though. Wouldn't it be nice if we could fly away. "Maybe hack a bigger computer..."

"Can't do it now?"

Rhodes shakes her head. "When... you use a computer to do anything, e-even just searching the buoy net, it leaves evidence. Whoever is looking, it would look suspicious." She looks shifty though. Her eyes aren't on me all of a sudden. For all her little twitches she never breaks eye contact like that. "Greenview would see it... f-for sure. Would know I'm still in the system. Send a MONITOR core to lock us out. Or c-call the League."

I'm nodding along, but I'm caught off guard by something. "League shouldn't need to care. Or they'd be on our side. Stupid as it sounds." Hands behind my head now. Not that Rhodes is clueless about galactic policy but I figure I know the story more than her. "Their diplomat is the one that got killed. They got a payout, but... worst case they come asking questions. It won't involve the Peacekeepers, I don't think."

"Sound really sure," Rhodes snarls.

"I feel pretty sure."

She looks back at me. "I live here. I know what the situation is. Not a good idea to do anything online right now." Now she sits up slightly, but only slightly, using the wall of the boat as support for her screwed-up back.

"Okay. Just was asking," I murmur.

"Gimme the book. I'll see which fish we can eat."

I hand it over. For a second I feel her snatch the book and I hold it from her. Something wrong with you right now. Always something you aren't saying. Say the line about killing me with my own arm again. I give it to her. She buzzes with her mandibles and turns away.

- 7 -

Houseboat swaying gently in the night breeze, tide coming up and the rope tying us to the dock weaning gently in the rain. The Palisade has a moon much larger in the sky than the one on Stromm's Landing. Nightlife on the bay blots out the stars but I can see that moon clear as it was daylight. Rhodes is sleeping inside. Or hopefully sleeping. Not sure she can. Too loud, all of it, too loud. If you could hear the city breathing it would be too loud, too loud.

Got lucky with this spot. A working shower, a bigger bed, insulation, a spot to fish.

What do you think, Nelly. Think getting the League involved wouldn't just get you two black bagged and killed?

Rhodes isn't good news, not for Greenview Solutions or the League. Disgruntled former employee with a lot of power. Wonder if they know she's still in their computers—if they think they locked her out. I can look but not speak is the name of the game. Said she sees through cameras sometimes instead of her own eyes. Maybe why it feels like she's looking through me half the time.

And that power is something that would get her killed.

Guess I'm the only one not trying to do that.

But I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about the League. I'm thinking about giving up, saying, I'm too small for all this. Never did shit for me on Stromm's Landing but maybe you can get the fuckers that killed my wife. Some tiny meaningless victory. Not like they've got any incentive to start knocking heads in Salt Row over just me, though. They'd only care if they had her.

Her.

Hacker. If she did kill Jericho Arborist and they did blame Pell then it's her fault. Her fault. Why'd you do it. Why? What would it get you.

That power is something that would get her killed.

Guess I'm trying to do that, too.

Not tonight. I don't feel like it.

-

I fillet the fish in the kitchen with her knife. Two of the tiny ones I've gotten familiar seeing at the surface; Rhodes said they're just called 'brown gruel' and smell a little like fresh mud. Another Hang'd Knight, bigger this time. I notice looking closer that the Hang'd Knight's mouth is attached to the long, spindly spike on its front. Prehensile. It's fatty and looks pretty tasty. Then the long slab-shaped fish shaped like a spade or a teardrop I found out is called a starlet. The three golfball-sized 'hodags' I caught are poisonous unfortunately. The blobby pink one is edible but it's called a bony slider and is mostly a skeleton, not a lot to eat. Cooking everything that we can eat and charring it black so it lasts a little longer. I get the idea to make a bone broth but Rhodes would cuss me out if we used the saucepan in here so it's just gonna be roast fillets for a while. My palate can handle it but I'm wondering if she'll want to go get fast food one of these days.

Not sure how we'd get money.

We'll have to eventually. Can't keep this up forever. Can barely keep it up as is. If we're only staying in the houseboat for a night then we'll have to move again tomorrow. My leg doesn't like thinking about that. Can't imagine she wants to trudge through the rain again.

What's your endgame, Rhodes?

It's alright if you don't have one. I don't either. I haven't for a long time.

-

I wrap up the cuts in newspaper. Lots to go around this time. Rhodes found a nice-looking backpack on her way here and said she'll grab it early when nobody's around, so I'm on duffel bag duty. Food and water.

Until I sell her out.

Until that happens we'll continue doing this.

Ceder

- 8 -

Deep breaths.

Looking at myself in the mirror for a second and don't recognize the sight.

Hair has been growing out. Haven't found the time to cut it. Mottled and... doesn't matter. I itch at a little wound on my face from this morning. My head feels heavy. I exit the bathroom. Rhodes is watching the beachfront from a lounge chair with her head hung low.

-

It's been a few weeks. Not easy at any point but things have gotten slightly routine. We talk a lot, but I'm not a great conversation partner. I've felt disloyal and lied to her about various things and I'm certain she's had reason to do the same. I've tried to think of ways to get out of this thing, alone, but I don't see myself doing that. For now we're in it together. Would rather she doesn't die because I screw up.

Almost screwed up a few days ago. I was, by that point, pretty convinced we were being chased by ghosts. No sign of Greenview, no sign of being followed. Then when we're walking out a corner store together she gets harangued by a few homeless guys and nearly taken away before I scoot in. Thought it was some unrelated scam until one of them dropped the name Arborist and then we both freaked out.

Ran through alleys and back roads for two hours that day. My shot leg gets no rest, huh. But eventually we were kilometers away and could breathe. I've been getting used to carrying her like luggage to keep us close and covert. We use the duffel for that, now.

Anyway. The threat is real again. Doesn't change that we're hungry and poor and need to sleep.

Got the luxury of staying in places longer sometimes when Rhodes has confidence in the spot. We'll have this hotel room for the day and tomorrow since it's reserved for someone who's not gonna make it here in time. Asked Rhodes why. "Saw him have a heart attack on a subway," she said, straightforward. I didn't ask more.

Time is something we simultaneously have too much and too little of. It's a little past noon and we'll have until tomorrow night; it feels like we don't have a moment to breathe regardless.

I go sit in the other lounge chair to watch the bay.

-

"Kesh Band," she clarifies. "Not, aha. Kesh Ring. Close."

"Any people on it?" I ask.

Rhodes shrugs. "Some, yeah. Some live there. It's good for making spaceships."

I squint to see it through the clouds. A dark seam, blobby, extending from sky to sky. Different angle than this morning, different angle than last night. Rotates differently than the planet does. "Who built it?"

"Dunno. People from before Velnias was a thing."

The idea makes me laugh a little. "Uh-huh."

She waggles her hands. "Ahhh, like, nobody knows who, but, you know, it's always been here! Aliens."

"Bet it's a cool place to live."

"Yeah. Oh, yeah, fuck yeah. I think it's microgravity though." She leans back a little and crosses her legs with a little shake. "You'd fare very badly."

I look back at her. "You'd fare well. Why aren't you up there?"

"No place to hide. No, um, city." Rhodes clacks her mandibles softly against her mouth, as if she's trying to correct her own words. "And couldn't get transit anyway, us. With this going on."

"Have to figure out something eventually."

"Ahah. Yeah."

I look back outward.

It's enormous but it's not too enormous to not be able to see it all at once. The grandeur of the Velnias waterfront eventually gives way to these vast rings of artificial land north and south, built to combat the intense waves. Industrial districts there, smokestacks and wide asphalt roads. Then the many thousands of plots of freight platforms handling every bit of cargo destined for Berith, Ere, Haraad, all the other places whose names I don't know. From this angle I can see that only a little bit of the walk is actually a walk—the rest, and most of what Rhodes and I avoided, is nothing but shipping.

Can make out some older buildings below us. The ones too close to the water to be built on top of. Brick, which I hadn't seen anywhere else in the city, lots of brick and mortar. Some buildings with funny designs and painted steel artwork for rooftops in the mix, where they demolished the old stuff.

Then I turn my attention back out at the Cestabin Sea itself. Resting in the shadow of the Kesh Band it looks like rolling, verdant hills of quartz, all those hard edges made of seafoam, and from this hotel room on the fifty-sixth floor of the Okamoto Industries Jeweled Stay & Work Luxury Hotel I can make out the trade routes trailing north and south around the bay. Then a lone few superfreighters sail directly east across the ocean to Haraad where the rain gives way to seaside heat. Those sailors are in for many days of rough seas. If I try, I can picture myself aboard, running from all this.

Then again I can only really picture myself being right where I am, for better or worse.

After a few minutes, I peer back over to Rhodes. She's nested against the side of her chair, eyes mostly-shut, hands gripping the armrests so tightly it looks like she's straining. Her one good antenna is drooped as if sapped dry. "All good?" I ask.

"Yeah," she murmurs. "Tired."

I leave her to it.

-

We play blackjack for a little while during the sunset. I'm better at it than her. The imaginary dealer keeps cleaning us out for imaginary cash though. I playfully suggest we win a bunch of money at a casino by cheating with the mounted cameras. "Easy job," I say, chuckling.

"Think we'd still have shit luck," she laughs.

"Ey, maybe." I hunch over the coffee table peacefully. Reminds me of killing time back home.

-

Just after I've drifted off to sleep my arm slaps me awake desperately.

Rhodes is crouched on the floor and her eyes are boggled out and I crawl next to her. "What," I ask, foggy in the head.

"Like you said to look for," she whispers. "Guy in the lobby with an ear piece."

"Searching for us?"

"Think so. Loitering." Then she goes quiet for a second and I see some tears in her eyes. Fear I guess or overwhelmed at looking through all the hotel's cameras at once. "Not alone... not alone. Like four others are using the stairwell."

I'm gritting my teeth and bring her upright by her shoulders. "Shit. Leave no trace."

We scamper around the hotel room frantically to get everything we've left. Deck of cards I toss in the trash because I'm panicking too much. Duffel bag, backpack, two bottles of water. I make my bed and Rhodes flattens the comforter on hers. "Coming up," she hisses. "Don't think they know which room we're in but must have seen us coming into the building."

"Sticking to the plan, then."

I hoist her up in my arms and hurry out of the room, locking it behind us.

-

We come into the sixty-fifth floor bathrooms and they're unoccupied. No way to run, no secret passage. Just have to hide until the heat is gone. Closet case. I get us into a stall and leave the door shut and locked and crouch on the closed toilet seat so they can't check for us under the stalls. I have the bag by my side and Rhodes in my arms.

We fall completely quiet. I can see her eyes filled with tears. Watching the whole hotel now, with her cybernetic. Too much all at once. Too much. Wish I had the confidence to tell her it's gonna be okay.

-

"Still here," she whispers. I don't know how long it's been.

-

The sound of the bathroom door coming open. A few heavy footsteps in, then a pause, then they go out. Rhodes whispers something I can't hear. My knees are fucking killing me.

-

Rhodes tells me they're fanning out through the whole damn building. Every hotel room is getting a knock. Nobody in Greenview garb. If OMI knew they were doing this they'd be in such shit. Or the corps are cooperating. Just don't check the camera feeds. Please. Plainclothes people with earpieces and anonymous faces. Whoever can be scrounged up.

She's not able to sleep. I'm not able to rest.

-

Three hours of this.

-

In the morning the last of them leaves through the parking garage in the basement. Big limousine. When I come out of the bathroom stall I immediately collapse on my numb legs and yelp out and drop Rhodes. She scrambles to my side. "S-Sorry," she whimpers.

"I can't walk," I tell her.

Well if you can't walk then neither of you are getting out of here alive, Nelly.

I keep trying to slap my legs awake.

-

A tall woman in a two-piece suit comes in the bathroom and finds us. Rhodes tells her I'm drunk. "Can you get us some water?" she asks. She masks her accent almost entirely.

"Water," I repeat.

She gives us an empty smile and says, "Um, sure."

After she leaves the bathroom I decide it's time to crawl. Now or never.

-

We use the elevator. I look at my knees and they're red and purple. Blood vessels popped. Stupid fucking plan. I'm on the verge of tears from discomfort and my breath is short from panicking. When I look into Rhodes' eyes I see someone who hasn't slept properly in weeks. Been checking cameras for us. Just watching. Just watching to be sure. Every night. For things like this. I'm holding her close. Her little heartbeat fluttering on an uneven rhythm.

When we get to the parking garage she guides us to an unoccupied dark corner behind one of the ramps. After a couple minutes of nervous scooting I manage to get there and by that point Rhodes is walking a little bit but she's clearly gassed. I am only half conscious.

I sit up against the concrete and curl up in a ball and wish I was home.

-

When I was sixteen I joined up with the Confederate military and got sent to Stromm's Landing on a blitz to re-secure it for an upcoming offensive in the War. I only got an hour of sleep each night leading up to that. You're a fucking mariner, boy, you're a fucking soldier. Man up. It felt good to have a gun in my hand. It felt like I was making something of myself. All a haze now but the realest the world had ever been at the time. Shot a couple people and don't remember their faces. Slept in hammocks, kept watch around fires. Few months later when I got captured and imprisoned by locals I remember thinking, I wish I was home. Back home. I wish I hadn't done any of this shit at all.

Then again in prison I had a lot of time to sleep.

And I met Pell.

-

"Need to do something about this," I whisper to Rhodes.

"Yeah?"

"Please. Can't keep running like this. You can't."

She holds her head against my arm and whimpers softly. This woman has not known rest for as long as I've known her. "Yeah," she says.

"Can you think of anyone that can help us. Anywhere."

"Maybe."

"I'll take a maybe."

She exhales with sharpness. "Mmmhh. Guess I would take a 'maybe' too at this point."

So I ask her what she's got.

- 9 -

Laudenberger Subway Station, a little before noon. Inland from Salt Row far enough that we're nearing Tiab Town which I am wholly unfamiliar with. The ceiling is low and the air is strange; simultaneously near enough to Free Port Exchange to see a lot of traffic and a diverse set of traffic. First time I've ever seen this many Tasran in one place. Bugs abound. Their garb is extravagant but intentional like models in trenches; the Tasran here, who are of the Tasran guilds, or else a corp in affiliation, dress with belts and capes and cloaks and coats, and coiling waterproof headdress with holes for antennae, and most prominently an assortment of custom-made facemasks displaying horrible grins and snarls, or even just obscure shapes which evoke some kind of emotion. But all still bustling and busy and paying little mind to the equal measure of Salt Row vagabonds. Humans like myself in hoodies and raincoats but also joggers in shorts, whole bunches of sailors. I've heard most Palisade sailors come from Berith but some are returning home here. Tight garb, sweat, an urge to get on the next train. Then the stray cats everywhere and one mutt on a leash having the time of its life staring at everyone.

I have Rhodes curled up in the Bug Bag and we're waiting for the next train from Ever Street. I look like just another hobo carrying her life on her back.

Legs working well enough to hobble around but that's about all we're gonna get out of them today.

-

Right on time.

I post up behind a pole and try to straighten my mop hair and pick out a tall person with a suitcase, wearing robes that look almost holy to me. White and gold speckled and with a cape and enormous outlander boots for trekking in saltwater. I'd seen Archeo-Christian crosses in some places on Velnias and Sikh men in turbans at the markets and Lohmanites loitering outside boardwalk churches but I don't recognize this look. Not recently anyway.

Someone from Haraad across the sea. An enormous lizard tail swishing behind him low to the tiled floor and horns peeking in a straight line through his hood. Not Norakkin but of a similar faith.

Nelly, what do you think about the War anymore?

I don't feel any way about it at all.

I'm following the figure at a middle distance. He's headed not to the stairwell leading to the street level but to a side entrance intended for Velnias civil workers. I continue to trail behind him. Looking to the stairs with my head cocked to the side but my eyes on him. It's only when we break free of the crowded subway platform and I divert my course from the stairs that, in a flash, he's turned around.



I was trained in the Forward Thinking Protectors center on Old Tibor for nine months, when I was still pretty much a kid. In that time we got a lot of news about the War that had consumed the last century and our opponent in that war. The Third Empire is our greatest and most long-lasting enemy to freedom in the United Confederate Colonies, but fear not! We did a lot of target practice on pictures of lizard people, a lot of silhouettes of rounded snouts and long tails and spikes, and we ran drills on defeating the grav-lift tech that made their tanks unstoppable, and practiced shooting at a target twice our height that didn't stop for anything, and we talked a big game about cutting off tails and gutting them and everything else you talk shit about in boot camp. Then I never shot at a Norakkin in my life. Some things just work themselves out.

This Neriak wasn't Norakkin at any point anyway. So it's just a flash of remembering that hits me on accident. He does have a gun though.

Holding a strange blocky pistol at hip level but I direct my attention to his face. Blood red and brown scales like wet peat in fading patterns alongside a pallid neck, and a dozen bracelets and neck rings that jangle mostly silently from the felt wrapped around them to deaden the sound. A bronze loop piercing below his lizard chin and an enigmatic expression always showing teeth. He is large and fat and nimble. His gun isn't visible from the side and only barely visible from the front, the way he's brandishing it. I put my free hand at a low angle to indicate that I am not a threat. "Hi," I say.

"Have you been following me?" he asks. His accent is thick and blunt and his voice is deep. It reminds me of a dead tree stump.

"Yeah." I clear my throat and briefly glance behind myself to make sure we're alone. Close enough. Not being crowded around at least. I return my gaze to him. "I'm a fugitive outlander on the run from a corporation called Greenview Solutions. I need help and am running out of options."

He tilts his head very deliberately. Within a second he's lowered the gun. Maybe he's just recognized that I'm not very mobile or able to ambush him. "Oh," he says. "I suppose. Could we talk with some privacy?"

So he cautiously regains hold of his roller suitcase and leads me into the maintenance passage.

-

Rhodes has crawled out of the Bug Bag and is sitting beside me on a closed metal coffer a few paces into a tunnel, off to the side. I have learned that the Neriak's name is Ceder. He is mildly put off by the fact that I had a person hanging out in a duffel bag but the details of our situation at least give it some justification. "Why choose to follow me?" he asks.

I am mostly doing the talking. Rhodes is quiet and making herself small. She gets a word in sometimes but I'm fine with taking over. "She noticed you take the same route every day, carry luggage but don't return it. Figured you were militia or a caretaker or with the Rebellion or something. Got desperate," I explain, now running a little low on breath, "and took a risk."

"I manage a speakeasy," he replies, quietly. Then he pipes up. "But I was in the Rebellion, in a sense of speaking. Good people here, good cause. Things have certainly gotten muddy of late."

"Noticed." I am mostly deadpan on that subject. The Peacekeepers quelled that riot real quick. Could've been us, Nelly, could've been us. "I'm from Stromm's Landing, a village. Contributed a little..." I frown and shake my head. I don't know if I want to mention Pell around Rhodes. We still haven't talked about it in any detail at all. "...moved some eighty millimeter guns from War bunkers to the cities, help counter the, uh, Cobalt Act tariffs."

But Ceder holds his palm up to interrupt. I notice he has trimmed claws. "I do not need cred from you or anything. I believe your story, if only for the brazen nature of it." He looks over to Rhodes, who looks at him back. "The cyber-netic puts me off some. Is it why they're after you?"

"Maybe," Rhodes murmurs.

"It's a good bet," I say. "Helps some around the city. How we found you."

With a little pride she speaks again. "Couldn't, ah, do that with just a normal computer. Could see the whole schedule, i-isolate you out... past sixty days of activity..."

"I do have a routine," Ceder admits. Then he nods. "I see. It is their property, and that is why you have gone to such lengths. I know a friend who can remove it for you and solve this."

I jump in immediately. "It's holding her brain together. Not an option."

"And, ah, ah, the backdoor is probably why they're pissed," Rhodes adds.

To this Ceder nods with a slight acceptance. "It is still putting me off," he mentions, "but I understand." I know the Third Empire faithful have plenty of issue with these sorts of things—imitations of life is the phrase I got taught—but the Haraadi Neriak are of a lot older sort and it seems, at least for him, a flexible point. "What are we to do?"

"I just wanted a place she could sleep a night or two," I say. "Can't be on the run forever. If you know anyone, if you know anywhere in the underbelly..."

"Undercity," Rhodes whispers.

"Undercity."

Ceder seems to be mulling it over. His expression is inscrutable but not like Rhodes who simply doesn't emote like me—I think he is just hard to read. I keep my bug close and wait to hear the news that we're a bad omen and we should get the fuck out of his sight.

Then, he says, "Well, I have a back room."

- 10 -

I don't know shit about the 'Undercity', of course. The city below the city. Then there are cities below that city. But not a lot of people live this low under Velnias and it is harder to blend in and so much can go wrong that Rhodes had never even entertained the idea before now. The story goes that what you see of Velnias now is only what's built on top of the rest, that even the Gutters are structures atop a structure—that there is entirely a layered history, old skyscrapers now buried in concrete made of moonrock and subway tunnels that just keep going down. Old factories turned to caves replacing the habitats of many a kind of vermin. All this a product of time. Hundreds of years. Maybe a thousand. Before humans got stuck in the Dust Sector we had thousands of years of history but all of that disappeared in the blink of a wormhole. Velnias hasn't disappeared.

I guess in part like the Neriak we're following. Got the impression he's old. Probably more memory of the War than me but also probably participated in the conflict even less. Wonder what he thought about it, if he thought much.

My legs are real fucking annoyed about how much walking we're doing but I don't intend to stop this close to salvation and I really don't want to drop Rhodes. So we go on.

The subway maintenance tunnels which run under a lot of this part of the city have all kinds of mysterious doors that beg the imagination and eventually Ceder finds one that looks familiar to him and pulls a key from a pocket along his flowing white robe. I look at the deadbolt. BARGER. We could have shimmed this one.

-

Rhodes has her eyes shut in my arms. I doubt she's sleeping but she's not watching through cameras right now, I don't think. Hope not.

-

The route is circuitous and full of short-stepped stairs. At some point we're in someplace that looks cleaner than the tunnels—linoleum floor and submarine lamps and a couple of people chilling on a metal bench that looks stolen from a nearby community center. There are signs in Vasthi that look professionally made though. Rhodes limply sits her head on the side of my arm and points at one of them. "Can we, ah, use that bathroom," she asks.

Ceder pauses and turns back, and then I see a smile strike his face. "Certainly. It is just a short bit to the Hang'd Knight, though," he says.

"Like the fish?" Rhodes laughs, softly.

"Pre-cisely like the fish."

-

We take a detour to a pretty well-kept public restroom. I chat with Ceder a little bit out front while Rhodes takes time to herself.

"How deep are we?"

He can't hide a little smile. "Not deep at all. Just the place called Corundum Town. Some people here call it the boardwalk of the Undercity, as it is nice for visitors. It was once a mega-mall some kilometers across."

I think briefly about what deeper would look like. "Me and her couldn't find any entrances to the Undercity."

"It is hard to, on purpose. Sometimes folks seal popular stairwells with concrete." Ceder has some thoughts on that that strike his face, but he keeps them to himself. "There are some local police here, like above. Very little League presence, though not none."

"Yeah." I glance over to an adjourning wall with a notice board. Lots of papers hung up, little advertisements for concerts, parties, container sales. I see one newer than the others. LOST: Aria Barathrum Smith. Baultriel accent, long brown hair, may have been cut. Please call if you see her. There's a photograph of a young-looking and thin woman posing for a picture at a red light bar someplace far away. The datapad number looks somewhat smudged out. I turn to Ceder. "Didn't seem like a good region to hide out til now."

"It won't be for her," he explains. "An expensive cybernetic causes rumors."

I smile emptily. "She said the same."

He looks at me like we're a couple of adults standing outside a birthday party. You hiding in there, honey-baby? Your grampa just wants to see his kid. Please? Could you at least make an appearance? Then he speaks. "I am certain I can keep you in the back room a couple days, but I am not so certain that I can take responsibility for your problem for long."

"Work for you, if you'd have me." I swallow. "Or just... if you know anywhere with free supplies, anywhere to hide out..."

As I speak, Rhodes hobbles out of the bathroom with her antenna drooping. "We can talk about this in due time," Ceder says to me, before turning to her. "Ready?"

She clasps her mandibles to her face. "Mhm. Think so. Is the speakeasy actually safe?"

"You can be the judge," Ceder says. Happy to seesaw between caring about the situation and being nonplussed. I've known many men like that. "If you are still coming along."

"Haven't seen cameras around," she admits. "So maybe. I guess. Out of options."

We are. So we continue along with Ceder deeper into the commerce district of Corundum Town beneath the city.

-

I am little bit dazzled by the scale of the place. Floors upon floors, new passageways made out of old metal shipping containers. We start coming across more tiny plazas that branch off into every direction; lofted painted ceilings, a piece of hanging artwork, concrete everywhere but nice tile floors. Skylights blocked by sheet metal and reinforced to keep the place from caving in. The signs are all in Vasthi. I went to malls as a kid back home but they were freakishly clean and there was a lot of sunlight and I never got the sense anyone could live there, but people clearly live here. From Ceder's description I picture one of those city-sized megamalls that holds two hundred shops, a hotel, a casino. From deep within it I have no clue how big this one was. I keep Rhodes in the Bug Bag since things are getting kind of crowded but she's chatting to me softly and nobody around is close enough to hear.

"See any food shops?"

I tilt my head down to her. There was a meat place running out of an old store along our walk, smelled familiar. Lesh sells kebabs out his old grav tank. Before ya ask, it don't float anymore. "Kebabs, I think?"

"Fucking love kebabs," she hisses from the Bag. "Fuck I wish we had money."

"Might soon." I lower my voice a little. Our guide is a bit ahead of us. "Going to try to work for Ceder, see if he'll let us stay longer."

She pauses for a bit. "...If you can, ah, ah, avoid getting attention."

I nod even though she can probably only see me through a slit in the zipper. "I can shave. And I got taught you can put cotton balls in your mouth to look different."

"Beh, you're not gonna put cotton balls in your mouth all day."

"Naw, but." I laugh a little. "Prosthetic nose?"

"Is that all it takes?" she asks, incredulous.

I step over an abandoned leash for an even-more-abandoned dog. "You tell me, outlaw." Then, I say, after a moment contemplating, "I'll do something."

-

We pass by an underground market square where a playground used to be. There are stores but mostly stalls, and a lot of Baldari. One with their fur in a nice bob. Can't help but notice some people look kind of wealthy. I muse to Rhodes. "Does feel a little like a mall, I guess."

"Heard there's a part that used to be an aeroport," she says, quieter now.

"For planes?"

"No, for boats." She laughs. "Yes, for planes. Would have been a fun way to escape, right?"

I don't think I've been on a plane since home. Everything's reminding me of that. "Yeah. Hold on, think this might be it."

We come up on an unmarked maintenance door in the corner of the plaza. Slightly rusted and heavily used, with track marks on the tile floor where it's been dragged open. Ceder looks back at me as he grabs the handle. Like he's taking one last look to see if I'm a threat. I guess I just don't look it, because he nods, swings the door open, and leads us through a small painted hallway.

After a short stroll through a place that looks particularly transitory we come across a white door with an etched image of a Hang'd Knight, floppy tube-mouth and beady eyes and all. Drawn in a flattering pose but still as silly as I remember. He takes us inside with a smile.

It reminds me of this old spot in Flint Wake run by a boatman and his wife, some bar and grill that always smelled like smoked pork. The place here is windowless and cramped, of course, but there's a couple well-dressed employees already here setting up chairs, tables, turning on lights. One Baldari, one human. Wood trim along the walls. Uncommon for Velnias—despite the Palisade being full to bursting with trees it's still expensive to import from the farms. Canvas artworks of some of the sights around here, one of the skyline from Salt Row. A photograph of Ceder with some people he must call friends. "Said you manage it? You buy it out?" I ask.

"During the, mm." He pauses. "Yes. I'll say more in private."

I pass by the people working with my head down. Ceder rolls the suitcase all the way to a back door behind the bar counter and pulls out a jangly keychain to get it open, and I follow.

Nice little kitchen area with vents that must go all the way to the surface somehow, and a plywood table for employees to take lunches, and then a back room office Ceder says is safe. It's at this point that I get Rhodes out of the Bug Bag and she can finally stretch a little. Crappy legs but it can't be helpful to be in the bag all the time, although she's never complained. There are dim overhead lights like we're in a ship cabin at night.

Then we get into the office.

Immediately in front of the door is a shrine, built where an old dining booth used to be—layers of shelves made of whatever material Ceder could scrounge up, stacked full to bursting with figurines hewn of wood on every level, dotted with beads and tiny pebbles and painted marbles, and all hammocked between unlit candles in glass cups which Ceder is quick to start lighting with a plastic firestarter on the lowermost shelf. On our left is a cozy study with a chair big enough for a Neriak, on our right is a vacant area with a little table and some boxes stuffed in a corner. "There?" I ask, pointing.

"Mhm, yes," Ceder says, paying us little mind now. "Blankets in... the topmost box on the far right. I think."

"Thank you," Rhodes blurts out, and scurries over to set up shop.

- 11 -

It really is a hiding spot. At least it seems that way. Rhodes has made herself a little nest on the floor using some plastic bags as a pillow. After a half hour Ceder seems settled in, has done most of what he needs to to get things running. Customer or two out front need drinks. I hear some clattering in the kitchen. My head still feels heavy from being up all night.

"So, uh." I manage a small smile. Ceder is working out something in the study, so I raise my voice. "Can I work for you, Ceder?"

"Well." He tilts his head down further, studying a calendar. "Need a prep cook always. Dishes. If you could make runs to the shops, but I would suppose that's not something you want to risk."

"I can change my appearance some." I shudder a little bit. "I got a fishing rod stashed away on the surface, could fish up food for, uh. For the kitchen."

At first I assume this is a stupid thing to suggest but Ceder's wizened eyes brighten as he turns to me. "That so?"

"Yeah. Did it for a living on Stromm's."

"Ah-huh, swamp fishing." He can't stifle a grin. "People down here like variety. Scrounged-up things. We sell haykays, rolls with mixed meats."

Rhodes pipes up gleefully. "Those are good," she says. Then she quietens a little. "I mean, um. Ones I've had."

"I can do that. If you'd let us stay a little while, or..." I look over to her. "Just Rhodes, at least. Been meaning to plan some kind of exit strategy but it's gotten away from us." Away from her, I mean to say. I'm always talking about escape.

"The idea is growing on me somewhat." Ceder tilts back to what he's working on. "I kept some stowaways right after the Peacekeepers showed up from orbit during the Magenta Rebellion. Friends of mine. It got very risky all of a sudden."

I nod. "It'd be very kind of you."

"Kind I can do. Just uncertain about how long I'm staying." He tightens his broad shoulders a little. "Was planning to sell the place at last, head home. The Rebellion is over."

"Guess so." I know it'd been over on Stromm's by the time I left. Just Jed Garcia and a few other diehards trying to keep it alive in spite of the risk. Already got what we wanted? Nelly, they brought the hammer down. That's not the clue to give up and roll over. It means it was working. "You don't like owning a bar much, then?"

Ceder laughs softly. "I have a lover to return to, family to see."

Rhodes asks, "How long you been here?" I can tell she's been scanning around. Maybe took a look-see at whatever was in those boxes.

"Three years, off and on."

"Since the start, then," I mumble.

Ceder puts down a pen and takes in a long breath. His tail is wrapped around one of the legs of the chair. Those pretty white-and-gold robes dim a lot in provenance when they're under overhead lighting like this. Probably a lot better under sunlight, Haraadi sunlight. Strange enough I don't feel homesick for Stromm's swampland despite spending a great deal of my life there. But I know homesick is something that can drive a person completely crazy. Maybe crazy enough to take in a couple of fugitives you have no right caring about.

"Well," he declares, "why don't you work tomorrow, prep at six. I'll show you how. Then we see."

"Okay." I nod sharply. "Will do."

So I start working for Ceder.

Hang'd Knight

- 12 -

My head is feeling pretty clear for the first time in a while. I got myself a Universal Audio Player tuned to a local channel, some rock and bluetimes, none I recognize but all sound alright. I'm fishing in the bay again. This angle in the southmost part of Salt Row has a good view of a cruise liner that's been hanging out in port a while. Colossal thing fifteen stories tall and gleaming cyan and red and plastered with League flags. Tethered with enormous ropes to a civilian dock with a mansion-sized office to take tickets. Suits, guilders, a few Neriak that look Imperial to me, at least a dozen Confederate tourists in clean-cut slacks and awkward, expensive rain jackets.

I have my rod up on a pole that only cost a Vick. Makes things easy. Leaves me a lot of time idle.

-

The first few days I was doing things unpaid, but Ceder and I eventually settled at thirty Vicks a day, made easy to swallow by the fact myself and Rhodes are getting room and board as a result. Was catching up on sleep the entire first week but eventually started to doze off normally, though the complete lack of sunlight in the daytime hours keeps me yawning through the evening shift.

Each day after eight, when the place is open and ready but nobody's coming by, I head up the same way via Laudenberger Subway Station on foot to get to the seaboard to fish. I found a nice spot—an abandoned concrete dock that heads far into the water. There are parts crumbled to rubble from where it used to moor a big ship, maybe a trawler, and those days are long behind it. But it's good and lonesome still.

Been easy living overall and lots of time spent staring at the ships going in and out of the bay. I get a lot of time to think to myself. Sometimes Rhodes taps me on the knee with my hand, lets me know she's still here. I tap back. Sometimes we tap a lot. Don't know how to put it other than I've gotten to liking her company in spite of disliking her baggage.

I've shaved. Flat buzz-cut for generally disrupting my silhouette. Ceder gifted me an old full-face guilder mask meant for humans of a bygone age and I took to an enormous green jacket from his wardrobe that does well at keeping my tackle organized.

Obviously during all this downtime I'm thinking of ways out. Probably could manage to get aboard one of the superfreighters, somehow, bribe someone or stow away. From Berith or Ere or Sanctoport it would be at least easier to find a shuttle into orbit. But the risk is never gone, no matter how I go about it. If Greenview paid the League enough to get through the orbital blockade back home, they can pay to scan for one fugitive that's wronged them. Even if I get home I'll still be radioactive. Won't be safe to have me around. They'll come looking for their missing fed if they know you're alive.

And this doesn't account for Rhodes either way. She has a distinctive face, look, behavior. Even if we hide the cybernetic we'll never be loose. It's their property, it's their problem. Loose end.

She did kill Jericho Arborist. No other way about it. Wired into the building, turned on the turret at the right time. The question is why. And she won't fess up to it—not that she did it, not why she did it. Just boggles the fucking mind why she'd lie. All I wanted were answers coming here and I don't even have that. Just a bug I'm too sympathetic for and lethal levels of heat.

I guess she's guilty about Pell. Never said as much but it would explain things.

Might be worth bringing Pell up.

-

By noon I've got three kilos of brown gruel and a wriggly thing a meter across called a lace ribbon, which is eyeless and looks more like some kind of distended tongue than a fish. The former go well in haykays when boiled and mashed, the latter makes for a good special. I lug everything in a steel bucket filled with ice back to Corundum Town and keep my head low.

-

The lunch and evening are busy enough at the Hang'd Knight. Maxine the chef (and seemingly a thousand other things) likes the look of the lace ribbon, says she'll sear it in rounds like steak. She has me ready the brown gruel for filling. I don't talk much or at all—was actually pretending to be mute the first day but it quickly became too inconvenient. But I'm doing okay and keeping my head low. Always a lot to do.

I get the haykay filling ready and fresh-frozen by one o'clock and we start getting orders for them soon after. Corneo tortillas fried crispy, mashed mixed meat (some synth-beef makes the gruel go further), loads of aromatic savory spices from Little Hegemony deeper down. Made of mushrooms and mixed with peppers that grow in the marshes south of Velnias.

Not a lot of people eat in but a lot get food to go, or stay for drinks. Lots of homebrewers in Corundum Town, a local vodka called Boyz Unlimited, a local synth-gin called Coolio. There's an old-as-dirt jukebox in the corner of the main room that usually gets hogged by some of the Little Hegemony punks, playing loud-ass techno and singing karaoke over songs not meant for karaoke. But they're all Baldari and seem to treat the place better than anyone. I vastly prefer the guys that drop in every day for an evening beer than the various tourists and Guilders who look at me funny. Keep looking for earpieces, haven't seen any yet.

Lots of spoken Vasthi in the air. I haven't picked up jack shit unfortunately. Ceder flips effortlessly between Vasthi, Common, and his language back home, Dronhas, when he's chatting on the datapad after a long day. Lilting and with long words and low sounds that would hurt my gut. Even Vasthi seems pretty tough to speak. I guess I feel like I'm pretty much stuck in my ways. Maybe, deep down, I figure that if I learn the language of Velnias, I'm gonna be stuck here the rest of my life.

However long that is.

Pretty quickly a lot of people are off work and we get an evening rush. Dozens of haykays, some of the lace ribbon steaks go out as specials. We run out of fish to use in the rolls and resort to synth-lamb which gets a sad look from the first Baldari who gets the lame stuff. I'm set to task on a round of cheesebread and immediately get thrown onto dish duty afterward. Just me and Maxine most of the day, Ceder popping in, and then some burnout from elsewhere in Corundum Town makes a brief appearance in the kitchen but burns a steak and gets cussed out.

Finally an older woman named Gabs shows up to lighten the load, and Maxine lets me off the clock at around eight.

-

Saved a couple good haykays for Rhodes. We set up around the old table in the back area of the office with stools from out front and eat dinner together. She has a brightened look in her eyes. "Hey, thought of something. You want me to buy you a datapad?" I ask, in the middle of a slice of cheesebread.

"Ahh, ehhhh," she mumbles, considering it. "Could probably use it safely. Been kinda eager to check the news and stuff, see how, ah..." She takes a little bit of a haykay in one hand and drinks some water with the other. "—I don't talk with 'em anymore but there are some people in the Gutters I used to hang out with, and I wanna stalk their forum accounts, you know, make sure they're still okay."

"Sounds like a yes." I shoot her a little smile. Been saving anyway. Datapads are pretty cheap.

"Cool. You getting anything for yourself?" Rhodes tilts her head slightly, and her antenna flourishes a bit. "Um. Maybe use the datapad first for something?"

"Was thinking maybe call home, but..." I shake my head. "Definitely not safe."

She nods. "Obviously. Sucks you can't, though."

"Is what it is. I told folks I'd be unlikely to come back or contact them." I frown. "Garcia was supposed to have some secure way of doing it, but never told me."

"Prolly was gonna use burners," Rhodes says. "Buoy burners. Anonymous messages. Gets carried on the buoy net and can't be traced back. Cool little tech thing, prolly sold around here somewhere."

"Oh," I say, thinking about it for a sec. "Even so. Don't want any attention getting back to them. It was already enough, what happened."

I let it stir in the air, but in spite of a weird look from her, she doesn't ask any questions. We keep eating.

-

After I've gone and gotten Rhodes a gin and tonic, Ceder finally gets done with whatever call he's making in the office and gets up, takes a big stretch. I call over to him. "You want to chill with us a little?"

"I don't want to intrude," he says, putting his broad hands on his hips. "But sure." He picks up his glass of clear liquor of some description—I don't think it's anything local—and pulls his office chair to sit perpendicular to myself and Rhodes.

"Not intruding," I tell him. I scoot to make way for his enormous legs.

Rhodes leans a little against the wall beside the table and takes a sip. I didn't get the impression she drinks a lot. "Was that family you were talking to?"

Ceder smiles, but it's only a moment. "I wish it weren't. My mother's half, who are not keen about any of this."

"My mom used to, ah, ah, lock me in the room a few days for hanging with the wrong people."

He gives her a funny look, and then nods. "Likely would have done the same to me."

I pipe up. "What got you over here and into all this?"

And to that Ceder just kind of sighs, laying his broad elbows on the table and resting his chin on his palms. His piercing rattles a little on his wrist. "I was younger during the War, and became long friends with many from Salt Row in particular. Things were much more amicable on the Palisade by necessity." A long breath from him. Some history in the air. "I had my part to play during that time, and though the Vasthi I knew are old-timers, I know their children and children's children, and I remind them how we fought for the city. You might recall the interests of the UCC overhead for many years...?" He motions at Rhodes.

"Wasn't born yet," she murmurs. "Ah, I mean, I read about it. I'm twenty-six this year. Learning about it makes me fuckin' hate the feds anyway."

Ceder laughs a little. "Oh, that so," he says.

"What?"

I glance at Ceder. It's not really a glare so much as a look of curiosity. I guess of anyone he'd probably know. You still walk like a fed, asshole. Pick up the pace.

He starts smiling obnoxiously with all his teeth. "Hate the feds, hmm?"

Rhodes leans forth like an animal. "What, you implying I'm a fed?"

"No, he's guessing that I'm one," I say, grinning.

"It's the small details," Ceder explains, leaning back again. He takes a short sip of his liquor. Even from the adjoining seat I can smell ginger and hellfire from the liquid. "Your accent is... Nowy, and stilted like an old Tasran. No doubt you intend to make it sound descended from the first Polish-Hallat settlers of Stromm's Landing, centuries ago. But you speak sometimes with words like 'adjoining', 'adequate', 'numeral'. You mention things tasting like 'red meat', 'white meat', like 'real beef', which we don't rear here often, nor on Stromm's." No, no, hun, sorry. No meat for a while. Things are... uh, complicated right now. We've still got plenty of food, that's not the problem. Ceder gives me a self-satisfied look. "And you still walk much like soldiers I've met, and little like partisans I've trained."

"No shit," Rhodes gasps. "Nelly?"

"I mean, I told you I was a prisoner in the War."

"Fucking, ah, I forgot about that! Holy shit!" She doesn't know whether to be astonished or mad or both.

Ceder asks, more plainly this time: "Where are you originally from, Nelly?"

"Old Tibor. 'Til I was sixteen."

To Ceder this is a pretty straight answer but that actually incenses Rhodes to keep going. Now I see that 'smile' on her. "Oh, so you're like that? Does that mean you got opinions on New Tibor? Do you think they shouldn't have been liberated?" It's its own planet, Pell, it wasn't our business.

"God." I lean dramatically against the wall some more and let out an exaggerated sigh. "Rhodes, you've been online too long. It's too politically complicated for you." Then I grin. "But, uh, no. It made things way worse."

"Oh, dear," Ceder laughs.

Rhodes has her eyes on me wild and excited. "Oh? Oh? So you're still kinda UCC, huh?" She really wants to goad me into a play-argument and I'm not turning it down.

"Not like the League helped them out at all afterwards. Shit, Rhodes, it's not like you're from there."

"Yeah, but I read politics! A lot. I used to."

Ceder butts in, smirking like an idiot. "Did the Confederacy treat it well before the War, then?" He's asking rhetorically. He knows.

I wave it off. My memory of home is straining. Hard to figure out what's real. "I dunno. I was just a kid. I'm not saying New Tibor wasn't, like, an occupied colony. Just saw how things were pretty stable where I lived."

"I appreciate your candor," he says, "though you'd cause a scene if you brought this up anywhere else." It's unclear if he's talking to me or her by the way he's angled.

Rhodes has some recited lines now, and she's rattling them off. "Don't you think it's fucked up that New Tibor gets no aid from anyone? Don't you think Old Tibor could do something? That's like, the thing, about being Tiborian, right?"

"It's a shit show out there."

"I mean, yeah," says Rhodes. "Total shit show. And they're the victims."

"Totally."

"Like—"

I interrupt her because I'm having fun. "Victims of the League—"

"—of the Confederacy abandoning them, you mean!"

"Sure, kinda, I mean, the League still won't make it easy for independent aid to get on planet..."

"Oh, fuck's sake." She giggles a little and slaps the table. "I should not have started this shit."

It should have been rough and tense and serious but none of it is. I finally crack into the beer I got from the kitchen marked Zesty Misty in a recycled aluminum can, and we drink.

- 13 -

Past eleven o'clock some of the more serious types come into the Hang'd Knight and I help Ceder out with the other end of his job. As I understand there's a militia coalescing somewhere, some local cops but also some ex-Rebellion types, who want to flush out the League from one of the districts in midtown, in spite of the threat. I saw pretty quickly what makes Ceder actually good at this—he has a warm demeanor and he talks kindly, sure, but he's scarily quick and efficient, and has a memory as solid as stone. Often people come in for seconds at a time, drop a bag on their table, get handed a second bag. Small arms most commonly, then very often there's written info, meeting times, cash being laundered. I mostly play tough guy out in the main room while Ceder retrieves some illicit cargo below the floor of the back room and in the ceiling of the kitchen. I asked what a certain thing was—Ceder explained it was an old spike-strip from the League arsenal, painted gray and with a strip of folded, black tissue paper to make it invisible in the night. Lots of things like that. Whatever works. He has pride, I think, in guerilla tools and concealable arms, and maybe some are his invention. Says he knows gunsmiths and the like down here, and I wonder if it's all as simple as him liking the work in earnest, or even just the parties at play. Jarman has what you need. Everything comes with a guarantee, and ours is a warm drink with your refurnish, every time.

It runs well into the night. We get some drunk people seeking the Undercity nightlife but more often just a Baldari who's late to the party and they don't seem to notice the difference between grey market and black market.

It doesn't tire me much but it does get blurry. We close at two and I usually retire then.

-

I am still kind of buzzed from my second Zesty Misty when I ask Ceder about his little shrine. Think he'd mentioned it some other time but not in great detail. I'm leaned against the door, Rhodes is bubbly and curled up on the floor looking at the many idols. She pipes in. "Yeah," she says. "Why all the different people? Why not just, like, Norak over and over?"

Ceder steps over. He has a slightly drunken grin and a synth-wool nightgown on. He lifts up one of the figurines from the top shelf. I noted earlier they are hand-hewn—I'd seen him work on one for the past week, something cut out of balsa wood and painted by hand with a little brush the size of my pinky. The one he holds now looks very much like one of the humans in the kitchen, Maxine or Linda or maybe Gabs. Distinctly I see that there are no eyes despite other facial features. He speaks, now, showing it off in the candlelight. "Depicting Norak is a task best left to the Norakkin. They frown upon idolatry," he says, adopting almost a preacherlike tone, "but in Haraad idolatry is a most sacred practice. Are you familiar?"

"Not at all," I say honestly. "Did know some of the gods. Norak and Baor and... uh. Hasul. The one that eats."

"The gods are for those who seek the gods," chuckles Ceder. "No, ah. With us they are always, but in us they flow, not any other which way. They are the eyes and we are the hands which hew."

Rhodes tilts her head, and her antenna flicks. "Is that Maxine? The, ah, the woman out front?"

"It is," Ceder says, nodding. "A depiction of her. As all these are depictions of people important in life. Here, and this," and he takes hold of another, squatter figure with a lizard snout, "is One of Riverbeds of the Greater Sun, a priestess, most wonderfully recounted in some, ah, older tomes back home. Some centuries my prior and yet in depicted memory she persists."

"With no eyes," I note.

"With no eyes. Eyes are that which belong to Norak and the rest of the pantheon of the Naarnhask. Those few who actually met with godliness, who became tangibly holy." The blazing red Eye of Norak is always visible in the night sky of a little-regarded Free World called Tursho. To think a star so significant could reach so far! "For us who live and relive, we remain without sight. At least in depiction." He smiles. His character fades for a second as he regains his balance from leaning over his shrine. "Ah. So—there are a great many halls in Haraad which evoke the idea of holiness, but we reserve depiction for those like ourselves. There we have trust in our ability to be guided by Norak, but not absolute trust in our ability to be guided, forever, by one another."

"Yeah," Rhodes muses. She does sound mildly drunk still. "Yeah. Haraad's around just as long as Velnias. I-I don't even know any people from a hundred years ago, but you do, right?"

"A great many." Something of an odd expression strikes Ceder's face, but it's gone just as quickly. "It has an air like a necessity, to sculpt those who are important. The prayers are many and intimate. Especially for the dead."

Then it's quiet in the back room for a little while. Ceder looms over his shrine and Rhodes ponders it, eyes wide open. I am thinking about something far away and far off and terrible. My eyes flick to the floor, and after a short while, I notice I'm crying.

What did you look like?

Why can't I see you?

What cruel shit is this?

"Nelly," says Ceder, his holy tone fading instantly. "What is wrong?"

"Fuck," I murmur. I am too loose to keep the thoughts in. "I, um. I was thinking about someone. Is all."

"Who?" asks Rhodes.

"It's alright," Ceder assures me.

I swallow. Something like rocks in my throat. "My, uh. My wife. I was trying to picture her and I realized I can't. At all." Fuck I can't swallow.

It becomes too quiet again. And Rhodes sinks into the floor further and doesn't comment. And when I look over, Ceder is offering a hand. His palm is broad, his claws are little mountains in the candlelight. "It would not be too late to hew an image of her," he whispers.

"I don't remember," I murmur.

"It would come to you. Your hands. I know the feeling." He speaks lowly.

I wipe my face and look up at him, and the brunt of it gets too overwhelming, and I go to lay in the corner to get away from it all. I don't hear either one of them call to me. The night becomes quiet.

-

Another week goes by.

- 14 -

She's sleeping underwater.

I'm drowning.

She's fucking collapsed. Pell, get over here.

On my back. Sand billowing heavy into the freshwater. A boot holding me down. Do you know where you are? Need water.

God I just need a drink of water.

She's sleeping. She's unconscious.

I must have got a concussion.

That's her hand against your face.

Metal hand.

My hand.

-

My hand shakes me awake by the cheek. Rectangular metal digits squeezing the life into and out of me. I am panicking and heaving and can't catch my breath—but I'm not underwater at all. Just camped out on the dock again and the sun is intense and my eyes crackle with dryness as I open them. You trying to make a piece of jerky out of yourself? I wrest control of my hand again and sit up straight in the deck chair.

"Fucking," I say, but I'm not talking to anyone. I look around for Rhodes but she's nowhere.

Not nowhere. I look back down at my arm.

I tap my middle finger against my knee, weakly. Sign for all-clear.

-

Must have been spasming in dreams. I head out from the dock to get water. Despite having some cash now it's always free to find a water fountain. Lugging my fishing rod in the hem of Ceder's jacket and breathing heavy through the plastic mask I head up Burnish View on a thin and corroded sidewalk up by some old buildings where a coffee shop and bakery sit on top of one another, each accessible to a different level of the walk. There's a small plaza here like a spot in some rustic Norakkin town with benches and ceramic eaves and a little sculpture of a dog, bronzed and with brass inlays. Would feel some degree like a homely place but it's uncrowded and a little worn down and, most blatantly, in the shadow of some enormous glass-and-steel office building only a hundred meters from the waterfront. Wonder if, long ago, it was a nice spot, or if it was always being eclipsed by some obelisk like that one. A microscopic electric taxicab goes by in steeled silence.

I get to the drinking fountain out front the bakery. Got to take a sip first so I pull off the mask. I have seen lots of guilders wearing ones that look more expensive—made of some polymaterial and I've heard they're bulletproof. This one's just plastic. It depicts some Tasran spirit, a biztram, but I don't know which. None of the five I recognize. Big obnoxious fangs and kaleidoscopic pupils and horns that flow like hair. The paint is cracked and fading, it's more like a party favor, but it does an adequate job at hiding my face from cameras so I got few complaints.

I fill up a plastic bottle before noticing there's a little post board hung up on the locked glass door of the bakery. Some scraps of paper, a ballpoint pen clipped to the top. I get an idea and snatch the pen.

-

Slow day going at the dock anyway and I got reminded of Rhodes when she woke me up. I get back to the deck chair, pull free a brown gruel that was suckling on the lure, and once it's killed and in the bucket, I get a piece of newspaper from my bag to write on.

'THANKS', I write on the paper. My handwriting is still shit. Then I realize she's probably not here, not present, so I go to tap my knee, but before I know it I lose control of my hand.

'FOR WHAT?' my hand asks. The discomfort fades in favor of a sort of amusement and awe that it worked. Not like she can see through your eyes. She's just feeling it out.

'WAS HAVING NIGHTMARE'

'THOUGHT SO OR DYING'

'NOT YET'

'HOWS IT GOING'

I smile at that. Never done this before with her. Wasn't convinced it'd work at all. I write back. 'FINE. DATAPAD?'

'DATAPAD GOOD'

'DOING WHAT?'

She pauses, or at least she stops writing me for a second. Maybe distracted, maybe just gathering her thoughts. I set the rod back into position into the harsh waves of the Cestabin, and then my arm acts up again. 'PLAYING INTRANET POKER TO GET BETTER', Rhodes writes me.

'WANT TO PLAY WITH CEDAR TONIGHT?'

'SPELLED CEDER I THINK', she explains.

'HOW DO YOU KNOW'

'LIKE HES A GUY THAT CEDES'

'NERIAK NAME?'

'YEP.' The newspaper is now covered in scrawled, barely-readable handwriting.

'PLAY WITH HIM TONIGHT?' I ask.

'YES'

I keep fishing for a little while. Don't know how to describe it other than there's a little flutter of something nice in my stomach which has been absent for a very very long time.

-

It's a pretty good haul in the end. Less brown gruel, more of the bigger types—a Cestabin lesser gulper, which is a rotund, tasty-looking, and aggressive thing that took a few strikes to kill, as well as a young flop jewelfish with some kind of split in its tail like it's a mutant. I also fish up something slimy and freaky with two mouths on its sides, which I don't remember from the book Rhodes got me, so I throw it back.

Semaphore

- 15 -

During the lunch hours the Hang'd Knight gets abuzz pretty quickly. Turns out a bunch of prostitutes and the like from Baultriel in midtown have come in a group. I spot lots of Tasran and humans and one lanky Neriak in all sorts of garb, edgy and then skimpy and then tight and then flamboyant. The mood is good and the Baldari from down in Little Hegemony are having a hell of a time, but I also spot some rough looking guys in the back I recognize, local cops and ex-cops, and I remember that Baultriel is the red light district where they've been working on an offensive. As before there aren't any accidents in Ceder's business; I imagine between dances and flirting and screwing under the table there is a lot of militia talk.

The kitchen heat gets to me pretty bad. I've got a lot of things to hand Cup the bartender, and haykays to make quickly, and Maxine's special with the gulper ends up being lots of little sushi cutlets in the style of a Baltra buffet. My metal arm doesn't get tired of the chopping but it's a little stressful. Her and I don't speak much at all but it's not the worst thing to be in tandem with someone. When I row one way, you follow that motion exactly. Don't deviate.

The night goes mostly as planned. Ceder is in and out a lot with luggage and boxes and bags. He goes in for ten-some minutes to pray, then out again in a flash. At some point I'm refrying some haykay filling and Rhodes tap-tap-taps me on the leg a bunch with my index. Hey there, it means. I tap back with my middle. All clear.

-

It came from that trawlerman book, partly. The first night we communicated by taps just in a code we made up for different kinds of deadbolts or padlocks, but from then on we had a little system like semaphore, which is a kind of language of flags used by ships for centuries and counting. Check in. All clear. Clarify. Need immediate assistance. That last one is indicated by thumb-taps. We worked a little over the days before we met Ceder to try to invent more complicated semaphore, combinations of taps, but it became too much of a headache with all we had to think about. Now I know we can write one another, in a way.

It stopped being so weird after a while.

-

I go on break at the usual time after the evening rush. When I get in back, Ceder and Rhodes are sat hunched around the little table and already laughing about something. They pause only slightly when I come in, but Rhodes has her little grin plastered on her face. Datapad stuffed in the back of her tall slacks I bought her, and the two of them are playing cards.

I shut the door behind me. "Already, huh."

"Got to get a head start," Rhodes says, sticking her weird bug tongue out at me.

Ceder speaks. "I wish we were playing for cash, or—and that you had cash, Rhodes, I'd be making better off than I do with the speakeasy."

She giggles again, but then a ferocity erupts in her. "I'm good at mahjong, just so you know," she explains. "Not my fault my luck is bad in this one."

"Could hear the laughing just barely from outside. Careful," I say, "just a little more careful."

"Of course," Ceder says, nodding. "Thank you. Sit?"

"Sure." I go to sit.

The deck of cards is a full fifty-five strong and resembles one like I saw an odd Tasran named Pitchin use for playing back on Stromm's, with a faced Biztram being used to depict each of the five suits. I become dealer the first round, and Ceder sets me up with some meaningless chips, and we play five card.

I played a lot with Pell. And others, of course. Swamp militiamen like cards a lot because it can be played silently and under very little light. In the time after I turned coat there was still a lot to worry about on the surface, and even after the War there was the League to worry about, to beat back, among other things. One of our purposes, or I guess I say purpose to indicate that it's what we did without knowing exactly why, was to be some of the bushmen that killed and disappeared folk that wanted to destabilize or infiltrate or tax the outland swamp villages. Protectors I guess would be the really charitable term, but in reality it just felt like there had to be some counterbalance, some counter-influence, to what was happening in the cities. Except for the tithe men, the Lohmanites, who took tax just like the League. Corporations and speculators very much like Greenview Solutions saw so much potential in Stromm's that I never did. Guess that would make me a bad suit.

Anyway, in that time which stretched forever, we would do a lot of camping in obscure places playing poker by moonlight.

You can do poker like it's exercise. Draw, redraw, bluff, bet, fold, repeat. Like moving an arm back and forth. Luck flows in and out of you like water does.

Of course Ceder plays it like every hand is life and death and spends some extra time considering his moves with an excellent (but not perfect) poker face, and Rhodes plays it more fiercely and intensely and unpredictably, and as a result, I find myself getting pretty drained of chips from underestimating her play. I want to say beginner's luck but maybe my mind's just elsewhere.

I keep giving her little grins.

Five card and seven card and seven-two-up and holdem and baseball and so on, and a few Tiborian variants I learned as a little kid, and Ceder has plenty of very strange ones from Haraad which require clarification of the rules and get us laughing a little. Rhodes suggests several times we play mahjong but it's just too much bullshit to keep track of so we pass, of course. Not like we have a set handy anyway. But we do play a few rounds of 'Rhodes poker', which is some shitty and hilarious variant we make up on the fly to satisfy her constant crowing about a different game.

We play til my next shift in the dark hours of the night.

-

I've gotten a light familiarity with some of the shady types doing business at this time. The ones who are just common customers and are just buying a gun or buoy burner or custom datapad are usually one-and-done, never to be seen again, but there are a few who buy or sell things constantly, one single half-cylinder of some big artillery piece at a time contained in the thin of a backpack or underneath a haykay container. The risks are low, says Ceder, a thousand times lower than in someplace like the city-state of Baltra, but there are nosy cops and petty thieves in both the Undercity's many parts and the rest of Velnias, where law comes from whatever source happens to be nearby, often Guilders with their own interests. And getting caught and processed with an anti-tank rifle is not a great idea anyway.

That is what's going around, though. A couple eclectic types with funny glasses were talking to Ceder earlier about their study and ideas about Peacekeepers and their armor, and what it might take to defeat it at close range for cheap. Lots of little ideas of shaped charges from old mining efforts, or recreating railgun drives that can run on an automobile battery. Nothing beats 12.7mm for how cheap it is from Flint Wake. Powder propellant is king out here.

Then some more fancy stuff—Faraday cage bags, polymer firearms. They got concerns about surveillance and a MONITOR core, which is something I only ever hear Rhodes talk about. Big plans elsewhere and not my business at all.

I zone out a little bit, to be honest. My mind is elsewhere. I am tapping my knee at a constant pace and getting replies in equal quantity. I eventually turn in early.

- 16 -

It happens quickly. I didn't want to break the magic by waiting for a better opportunity and it was long overdue. I was embracing Rhodes, which I hadn't done much before, and then in one motion we were in the obscure corner of the room under an enormous blanket clutching each other again, more closely. I have my real hand underneath her button-up shirt and her fancy slacks down and aside. She doesn't have breasts but her soft, interlocking chitin feels good to the touch, and her hands against my stomach and groping my chest rile me up plenty. From this position I can rub at her wings, which are clipped but not immobile, and which buzz softly against the cushion below us. I kiss her, and her mandibles grip softly against my lips.

It's quiet. Just little whispers for 'yes' and 'no' and sometimes more complicated questions and answers. But not complicated like things have been. Just 'can you do this for me'. For a little while the whole outside world and the shit about Greenview and Jericho Arborist leave my mind, maybe for the first time in a very long time, and I just loom over her and caress her and fuck her. Her weird bug smile is warm. Her ruby eyes are pretty. I've grown to like these things about her.

-

Eventually we're done and the warmth is overwhelming and I don't care and I just lay beside her with her in my arms. The tiredness comes to me pretty fast. I feel more tired than in a long time. Can't stop smiling with her chest rising and falling beside mine. I have my hand clasped around hers. Her thin clawed fingers don't scratch me.

We sleep like this. Or I sleep, at least, for a few hours, even after Ceder comes in and does his thing in the office and prays and turns in on the cot behind his chair.

-

At some point very early in the morning, Rhodes wakes me up and I'm slow to open my eyes. She's looking off. She takes a little while to confirm I'm conscious before asking, out of the blue, "Was your wife's name, uh, Pelleratz Karinger?"

"Uh," I grunt. Takes me a second to realize she's speaking, and then longer to realize what she's asking. You shouldn't bother with my full name, though. Just call me Pell. I feel vulnerable. "Yeah."

"I know," she whispers, "that she died because of what happened. To Arborist. That's why you came, and... and came looking for me."

I nod. Something wells up in my face and suddenly I'm tempted to fling Rhodes against a wall for bringing it up. "Uh-huh."

"I wanna try, ah, and figure out who did it. I will," Rhodes says.

This particular idea, right now, doesn't spur me to move. Just want to go back to sleep.

She speaks again, even softer this time. "I'll work on it."

I drift off uncomfortably.

-

The answer is that Greenview Solutions 'did it'. Isn't it, Rhodes? Isn't it? Or is there something more you're not fucking telling me, like there always has been?

-

My dreams are nasty and uncomfortable and when I wake up Rhodes is drinking a mug of foreign tea without looking at me, and during the whole morning I don't speak to her and get to my fishing spot without having thought a thing.

- 17 -

She apologizes, of course, for mentioning Pell, but she's got not a lot to be sorry for on that front. Once I've cooled off fishing for a few hours and return, head clear, I tell her she doesn't have to be sorry. Just killed the mood and made me all sad. But it's good to bring it up. "You'll work on it?" I ask her.

"Yeah," she says, "already looking stuff up." She waves her datapad at me. Her eyes are droopy.

"Okay," I say. "Following up on leads?"

"Gonna prolly need to do some in-person scouting," Rhodes explains, though her voice lilts a little. "If..."

"Can make time. Just let me know after my shift." I pull Ceder's tackle jacket off and hang it on the chair I've taken to using.

Then she pauses, and I pause there, and just as I'm about to drift back into the kitchen to start with the haykays, she catches my eye. Narrowed gaze. Like she's got something to say about 'after my shift', or maybe 'in-person scouting'. But neither bubble up as words for her, and she just nods, and turns down to the datapad, which is rapidly becoming her whole world.

"See ya in a bit," I say. I leave the back room.

-

After the shift, which gets pretty rough as Ceder's late to come back and direct things and Maxine is replaced by Linda, Rhodes does indeed have a follow-up on a lead. Why not any earlier? We convene around the table and although I'm kind of lousy with lack of sleep I'm excited, from somewhere deeper down, to finally be doing the fucking thing I came to do: ask the hacker what happened to get my wife killed, whether she did it or not.

"There's a person," Rhodes explains, gnawing on some of the haykays I brought her for dinner but speaking anyway, "called Jean Jacket, she is like me, she is online all the time. In holding at a local cops place for something not related. She turned coat on a corp."

"Greenview?" I ask.

"Yeah. Kinda. I-I mean, sorta, it's a subsidiary. She stole from 'em some info and also some raw cash."

Now my gaze lightens a little. I don't want to call it hope but it's something. "You think she was behind the Greenview hack?"

"Prolly not. But she stole info. Data. See what I mean?"

I frown. "Not sure how stealing data works. Is it... on a computer?"

"Encrypted hard drive," she says. "In the station."

"How do you know this? Thought we weren't supposed to leave tracks." I reach forward and poke her cybernetic, and she recoils slightly.

"I'm not, I'm not." A faint grin with her mandibles, then it's gone again. "Um. I mean, like. Well. What she's doing is she posted on forums what happened to her, what she has, her location, and everything."

I roll my eyes and sit back, exhaling. "Rhodes, I would have assumed you would be able to see a honeypot from further off, given you're a 'hacker'."

"I got reason to trust her. I got good reasons! Shit, you think I'd bring it up?"

"Just seems stupid risky to try to spring someone because of some intranet story."

Rhodes sits back, plants her hands on the desk, and begins a spiel. "Okay. So I know her, anyway, I know her shit. She doesn't need to be sprung either. She's being moved offworld, by the cops, 'cus she did the right thing. Basically boasting about it. All we gotta do is get put in as security detail and ask her to search the drive for info, then do the job as normal. Won't even leave a trace."

My brow is pretty low here and my forehead is sweaty from the kitchen. "How do we do that."

"Hacking," she says, and now she smiles big-time, and as she starts to explain, I can see the barely-perceptible flick of her faint pupils as they roll to either side, pause, and jitter—and she goes back through her endless fleet of cameras to exposit.

-

I get to do the first part of the gig that same night in the darkest and most neonlit hours of Velnias past midnight. I head up through the subway station into Laudenberger Square, this huge park of rolling astroturf and food trucks and buskers and concrete made into wild patterns, which is still bustling even at this time. I forego my mask in my bag and wear a baseball cap instead, low to my eyes and plunging them in shadow. Even though it's crowded nobody is really looking at each other. By this time the big bars and the automat, which dispenses alcohol for cheap past eight PM, have converted the witty and quick-moving masses of Velnias into drunks all over, and the expensive spirits from Jazid similarly turn the Guilders into easy things to avoid.

After glancing at a security camera I go over to a nearby parking lot and tap my index finger. I get a quick response—three fingers press my thigh, then my middle twice. Easy pickings. There's an electric moped in the third spot from the left, and when I step on, the suspension seems to respond pretty nicely. Seat could fit her. Good enough. By the time I'm on that seat, my arm is already set to work on the keylock with a shim.

-

Velnias should get smaller, or seem smaller, when you've got a vehicle, but the enormity of it actually gets a lot more daunting when—despite going fifty kilometers an hour—it still feels like forever to get anywhere. The moped is clearly for someone smaller than me and the motor whirs pretty angrily going uphill, but I've got to use the freeway if I want to get anywhere, so it's gonna have to put up with me. Gotta use the rightmost lane for slow, shitty, electric vehicles. Even at top speed and passing a building every few seconds I get the feeling like I'm still out in the country somewhere on Stromm's, kayaking through the Outhe or on an airboat in the wetland south of Harbaugh, or even riding in my parents' car after a dust storm. Going so long the travel starts to feel like staying still. Thirty minutes to get from one district to another. I head on a ramp going down to a part of the Gutters.

It doesn't open up like I thought it would, based on all the maps. Instead it closes off. Narrow between two sheer gray apartment blocks that could each house a thousand people. I buzz toward a split-off in the narrow ramp, then another, then another, and I'm trailing a slow-moving yellow cruiser clearly as intimidated as me. Rhodes gave good directions and I'm repeating them in my head but now I'm getting distracted in the heavy stench of smoke and trash.

This lower level I reach, Bermonde Flat, isn't even the bottom of the Gutters, just a transitory level more or less on the same height as some of the richer districts, but hanging—a sheer fifty-meter drop—above a lower street completely saturated on every angle by mass housing complexes and a system of shops and manufactories that could rival the entirety of Flint Wake in one little block. Don't think too hard about it. I come to a stop in an empty parking lot beside an uninteresting, and unblemished, mega-block building which also stretched above the road and stretches below me still. BERMONDE CIVIL, it reads, in corroded metal lettering.

I adjust my hat a little, take a deep breath, and head in the plastic glass doors.

Haven't seen a police or militia station in person since back home, and those were pretty rugged affairs, with lawmen being essentially whoever the League could pin a badge on and could look normal. Not necessarily corrupt but easily intimidated by anything that wasn't internal. Order-keeper, not cop.

This place is well-worn, if a little nauseating from the harsh overhead lights with exposed wiring going into a plaster compartment along the wall. I see someone at the desk and shoot him a very large smile, and tip my cap at him. "Ho," I say.

"Morning," the man says back, flatly. He has dim eyes with deep shadows under them and well-cut hair. "Night, I mean."

"Can I have some help with something?" I ask, leaning forward like I'm somehow in the middle of something more important. I'm exaggerating some parts of my Stromm's accent, more even than I did when meeting Rhodes.

He beckons me over with a hand, and I come over. The linoleum is stained a solid coat of yellow, and an assortment of empty halls and opaque doors surround us. He has a lamp over him like a doting bird, turned off. "Sure. You from around here?"

"No, I weren't," I say. Too exaggerated, fed. "Uh. No, I just tried to get some work, got a construction gig around here, uhh... four-two-six central..."

The guy's eyes light up. "Don't say."

"Yeah, and I can't find the site, and I'm worried."

A look of empathy on his face suddenly. But also amused pity—like watching a kid dunk themselves into a puddle. "I can get you some papers. Did you give out any information to the construction company?"

I nod, cautious on purpose. I think he's disarmed enough that I can play it cool from here. "Uh, just my identification, uh, hours available, bank card so I could start getting paid..."

He grimaces. "Yes. Er, you're going to find that card is already disabled by the League, most likely. People have a scam set up around here."

"No shit," I say, enunciating the 'shhh' to really sell it. I make an angry face and adjust my cap.

"There's consumer, um, protections," he stammers. "Thank god you didn't try with a PiCard. They can, um, fish, phish, or phreak, I forget..."

Now my angry face becomes very sad and afraid. "What do I do?"

"Listen, they probably will call you, but maybe they haven't. Can you wait a second?"

I point at the door nervously. "I got to get to the bank, then."

"Yes, of course, I—"

"Like, now. Could I get, um, could I get something to e-mail—"

He stammers. He's got paper all over his desk now, pulled from everywhere. "Yes, yes, we've been having a problem with them, these people. Go if you, uh, need to, datapad mail me here, this is my work mail." He scribbles frantically on the back of a business card and slaps it on the desk. "During hours, of course."

"Uh. Oh. Thank you, I guess," I say. "Um, I'm Sammy," I also say, like I'm remembering how to have a conversation, or else took the card to be a flirt of some kind.

He nods very awkwardly. "Marko," he says. "It says on my shirt." Indeed it does. Wasn't part of the rehearsal so I didn't notice. "Call back? This could actually be helpful."

"Okay."

So I take the card, give Marko a nervous farewell, and part with what I needed.

- 18 -

In the morning when I report back, Rhodes tells me we'll need to sit on it for a while, which makes some sense to me. Apparently her hacker compatriot Jean Jacket isn't necessarily being carted off soon and we'll have some warning, since there's the worry that this corp Greatest Industries Velnias will try something funny in spite of the fact that whistleblowers are supposed to have protection under League law. Cops have got to prove in a local court that she's a whistleblower before they can be sure they're safe transporting her, so she's sixty layers of defense deep in the Gutters for now, and we are on standby.

I tell her how it went in the precinct and show her the card, and she's pretty delighted. Her research was good, I did well by her metric, I got a good mark. "A good mark-o," she says, cackling softly.

"Guessing he works late very often. Probably tired by that time."

"Easy pickings, I hope," Rhodes hums, wistfully.

I shrug. "Also got the impression he cares about his job, though. Cared about these scammers pretty good."

Now she's twirled around in her seat to tap on her datapad. "Well, if it doesn't work, not a big fear, ah, yeah? Just one wrong email about scheduling."

"He clicks on the file, his computer's done?"

"Yeah." She is very proud of this fact. "Done for. But also opens a real schedule document in its place from somewhere on his computer, makes it look redundant."

I nod at that. Sounds good to me, too. I slip on Ceder's jacket, which has started to be my jacket at this point, and the old Baldari's rod, which is definitely my rod at this point. A little worry strikes me. "Hey, Rhodes?"

"Ah-huh?" She doesn't even look up, but her antenna flails in my direction.

"Why are local cops escorting her, why not Peacekeepers? Thought this was a big deal."

A very slight pause. "Peacekeepers is for if the corp shows up to take it on. Then they get called."

"Uh-huh. Shit." Pit in my stomach all of a sudden. "Fair enough."

"Won't happen," Rhodes says.

I lug my bucket underarm and glance at her, but she doesn't glance back. "Okay, then. See you."

"See ya."

-

It's a humid day and raining heavily. The yellow raincoat I stole a couple months ago is holding up just fine, even fits over Ceder's jacket, but there's still something nasty in my gut as I'm fishing. Being idle, with the rod up on the stick I bought, keeps my mind racing for no real benefit. Wild how the sea calms down in this artificial bay, because I would have imagined the rain to turn it chaotic in seconds. Scanning the horizon, counting the superfreighters going in and out, exhausted in my mask while sat still. Hoping that listening to music will drown out my thoughts a little, but the bluetime station keeps playing old sad ballads.

No big catch yet, despite the rain. Six brown gruel excited to come to the surface. Shit knows how these things live when they're so gullible.

-

I don't know if I love her. Maybe I do. I got this affection in me like I've met something that felt impossible to exist, some oasis of things, somebody who I didn't expect to like at all. Maybe it's a... rebound is what they call it, but it's been some time since Pell got taken. Besides I don't think Pell would have given a shit. Her view was pretty strictly that living people are living and dead people are dead. Still. Sometimes feel her words nibbling at me like I'm good bait.

Don't think I'm good enough to still deserve her words. Or that she's got any business sticking around. Dead is supposed to stay dead. Stop lecturing me.

If I like Rhodes it's earnest, I think, or at least as earnest as I'm capable of. She is charming in a different way than other folk I'm drawn to. And in spite of everything, she did right by me when I was half-dead, or mostly dead, in her apartment. Maybe could've held her own without me, waddled around and survived, but I also don't get the feeling that she was living for much, not at that time. Don't got friends. I wasn't living for much either. Now I am. Now it seems like she is. When I shut my eyes and let the roar of the rain and the crash of the waves overwhelm everything, and pretend I'm outside myself looking in, it's hard to picture Nelly as anything but alive, now. Felt dead for a long while. Even with Pell.

If I think about it, those endless fucking hours in the swamp shooting at shadows and not speaking for days, I don't see a living person. Just an outlander in the shape of whatever she needs to be.

If you'd asked me then I'd say I had no future. Then it got complicated.

-

The clouds are parting a little over the horizon, and the Palisade's sun is shining at an unpleasant angle to my eyes, but it's still pouring hard on the dock. Getting kind of uncomfortable and the facemask isn't helping. Ache in my shoulder. I go to scratch it, and notice the old Baldari fisherman is sat on an upturned bucket, fishing behind me.

His wild eye is calm like the storms of his little fish stall have passed, and he seems serene, facing just at an off angle from me. The clouded sunlight reflects ambiently under his big plastic hat and makes him look friendly. "Ho," he says.

"Hi again," I tell him. Ruins my disguise, but I couldn't help replying, and figured he'd recognize my voice anyway.

"Ah," he snarls, but it's not an angry snarl. "You. Undocumented fisherwoman. Thought was my rod, heh heh."

I nod and tip my hood further over my head to keep out some of the rain. He is honestly kind of difficult to hear through the downpour, so we've both got our voices raised, and I lean over to quiet down my Universal Audio Player a few ticks. "Treating me well," I tell him.

"This spot good?" he asks.

I shrug. "Treating me well, as well. Lonesome."

"Ah. Sorry," he says, and starts to get up. "Leave to it, friend."

He calls me friend? All I ever did was throw a gun at him and trade for his precious lures. But he seems to mean it. I reach up and brush his arm. "No, it's fine," I tell him.

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

His beak-snout contorts into a broad toothy smile, and his whiskers splay out. Caught him in a nice mood I guess. "Great. Always like new spots."

So I fish back-to-back with the old Baldari.

-

We chat very minimally but amicably. He seems to fish like I do, seems to like the peace, seems pacified dull by the waves lapping against the dock, much like I am. I learn his name is Pivvik and that he bicycles around. I ask him if it's a good way to get about. He says it is. I tell him I figured he had a boat of some kind, and he says he's repainting it.

-

We part around noon when I have a good haul and the rain has partly let up. He's mostly given me all the brown gruel of his own catch, having no interest, and asks about it. "Good when chopped up," I say.

"Tshh, sure," he says, and he grins again. He has something else to say as I'm turning around. "Mad if I come back for more fishing, sometime?"

I think about it just a second and respond. "Probably won't see me again."

"Aw. Shame."

He seems to accept it without fuss. I reckon I will actually have to find a new spot, or else wait for him to get done repainting his boat so I don't see him again. Rhodes' advice rattling around in my head. Don't meet someone more than once. Thrice is beyond pushing it.

Then again I've had to meet Ceder a hundred times now, and the kitchen staff, and passing glances with all those coming to the bar. Wonder if it's a ticking time bomb too.

I wave goodbye to Pivvik for good.

Supranendum

- 19 -

Ceder and I dress Rhodes up for the town. Three weeks cooped up in a back room and she's antsy as hell and needs to do something out and about. Says she's also making use of the risk by buying something in-person, though I could have done the dead drop myself.

I got her those tall slacks that reach up to her stomach, and the button-up she found in the garbage, and Ceder fished out some old suspenders to complete her look. I bartered for a guy's beanie the other day and now it fits her pretty well, albeit with a hole for her antenna. Less distinctive with her cybernetic hidden but not completely unremarkable. "Place is for-sure safe?" I ask, since the risk has been itching at me.

"Family-owned," she says, chittering, but then glances off. "...not sure why an automat is family owned."

"Automatically made with love," Ceder laughs. He is crouched at eye level with Rhodes, judging her look. "There are many a pejma who look like you. You'll blend in."

She squints slightly. "Tch, does make me think, should get a fucking mask already, put it in the League's records as a whole different person."

Ceder stands back up. "Easier said than done, friend."

"Working for me so far," I say.

He turns to me. "It wouldn't, if you had to go through a checkpoint. The Guilders have their masks like faces, but yours would not be recognized, or..." Then his deep-set eyes go deep into thought for a second. "...or recognized as a person you are not, perhaps."

"Whose was this originally?"

"Some human-Guilder with ambition." He leaves it at that. "You'll be by for the midnight shift, Nelly?"

I nod. "Or earlier. Place is close."

He steps back into the vacant doorway to his office and droops his head slightly. His gilded robes flutter against a fan he's got set up beside his bed. "Praying for you two, naturally. Take some care."

"'Kay," says Rhodes, and she clambers into the Bug Bag, which I pick up and start to zip up.

"You as well," I say.

He mentioned praying. My eyes go, kind of involuntarily, to his multi-layered shrine, where the candles are still fresh and a little aromatic. Sea and smoke is how I'd describe the smell. Atop the highest rung, beside Maxine and Gabs in effigy, I see myself, or a smaller version of myself, cut of balsa wood and painted. I'm in my fishing outfit save for the mask, which is carefully placed into my hand, alongside a rod slung around my back. Would have taken him hours to get those details right. It took someone a very long time to etch that stock, Nelly, so don't get it too dirty. Broad shoulders and a mean-looking eyeless face. Strange seeing it.

I turn away and take the two of us out to eat.

-

It isn't that close to Laudenberger, but it's quick on the electric moped, which I've now kept stashed a couple blocks away where the road starts to slope down—Salt Row's own Gutters, where the rough sailor types live in stacked concrete blocks that stretch down with basements and sub-basements, and roads evaporate into tiny alleyways like veins. I chatter with Rhodes quietly from her spot in the Bug Bag. "You made any progress on my thing?"

"That's what we're getting," she says. "Ah, ah, but... c'mon, I just mostly wanna eat and hang out."

Hard for me to mind that. "Sure. I'll forget about it for a bit."

"Know it's important to you."

I don't know if it is. I guess it is. The mystery at the heart of all of it. It's as important as anything else that we make up as important. "I'm happy with whatever. Here it is."

I drag out the electric moped from its place upright inside a rotted-out checkpoint booth, and once it's out on the street and folk can see it, I quickly get Rhodes to shim the lock using my hand.

-

It's a short ride north. She hangs tight in the Bag and I do my best to balance the moped, though it's a pretty steady thing. Really, whoever previously owned it should have hidden it better. Miscreants about.

-

We show up out front a place called CANTEEN SYSWAP and I park where we can see the moped from inside. A broad asphalt street with pretty fast traffic, transitory between a couple districts I don't know the names of. The automat is an enormous shop in the bottom floor of an even-more-enormous supercomplex, black metal with tinted windows and a million advertisements climbing up a hundred stories. Busy and the air is loud with commotion, and a light drizzle doesn't stop a couple street food vendors from cooking in the open air. Smells fucking good, and one of them is making pork gyros. But Rhodes was craving automat food so we're heading inside. The doors slide open automatically for me.

I head to one of the single-person bathrooms to de-Bag the Bug and, once Rhodes pats herself down and washes her face, we go on a date.

-

The automat is like others in the city, although decorated to be vaguely rustic with a beige tile floor and faux-wood chairs, and with only one lone security camera that belongs to Rhodes' eyes. Tables everywhere, usually two-seated and spaced evenly, with one wall of the building dedicated entirely to a thousand little chutes, horizontal and thin, with labels in Common, Vasthi, and Yontazzi, which is the old language of the Tasran and their Guilds. Neither Rhodes nor I actually know Yontazzi aside from some swears. Each chute is for a different item of food or drink, and if you slip in some cash or a pay card, it comes to you pretty much instantly.

Rhodes walks solidly out with me and leans against me whenever she starts to wobble on her bad legs. There are a good number of people inside and it sounds echoey, and she directs me as to what's good to eat at places like this, starting with a sushi packet, then a cheap energy drink, then some tortilla chips and some hot sauce and sourballs and...

By the end of it we've spent twelve Vicks on a boatload of food and we head to snag a table with our arms full.

She crosses her legs under the table; I have to spread mine just to sit comfortably. The height shift is pretty comical. She lays down our haul and starts picking stuff out. She's gotten a can of Jetsurp for herself and Frucor Blakashi for me—the former is a sugar bomb energy drink, the latter is a lime soda. Lots of brands around. Funny to think most corps are ostensibly something as innocuous as drink-makers. Then an array of hand snacks, sweet-smelling and plastic-tasting sushi bites, onigiri lathered in green sauce, tortilla balls containing rice and meat, a very scarily fatty and juicy cube of synth-beef. Haykays, fried rolls full of lettuce and mixed meats, but perfectly cylindrical and crunchy instead of soft. Everything I try tastes exactly like the ideal of the thing it's supposed to be and every bite is identical.

Then our main dishes of salty ramen in auto-heating bowls, which shift and simmer as they cook again by some chemical means, and which taste divine.

For a while we eat like crazy, like we haven't eaten in weeks, and then eventually I'm sated and happy and smiling and staring at her. She's doing that thing again, with her mandibles splayed wide out and her eyes low and ogling her mostly-eaten ramen. I speak. "Been meaning to ask."

"Uh-huh?"

"Is that, uh... is that thing you're doing..." I reach my arm up over the table to point rudely at her face. "Is that a smile?"

She squints her eyes, and lets out a very solid laugh. "Yeah."

"Okay."

"This a smile too?" And she reaches over the table, which is an ordeal, and forks a finger my way. And I grin.

"Yeah."

We eat a little more. The onigiri bites have some kind of sour and spicy sauce I can't place, and I'm worried I could snack on the tortilla spheres forever. "This a place you ordered at before?" I ask.

"Naw," Rhodes explains, leaning back a bit in her seat. "Reminds me of one, but isn't the one. Was a place near my house close enough I could walk without hurting myself. Way cheaper, too, 'cus it was in the Gutters. Ah, Salt Row."

"Close to where we were, then." I think back to the alley where I stashed the moped.

"Compromised, but yeah, actually, kinda close."

I squint at her a little. "...You, uh, been having trouble walking for forever, or... recent thing?"

She bows her head. "Same as when I got my wings clipped. Was a bad thing when I was a kid, was... was some bad people."

"Shit."

But she immediately perks up again, like a riposte. "You always been like this?" She waves at my whole gist, which I guess is supposed to mean something.

I tilt my head. "Like how."

"Like, ah, beh, a Neriak, I guess?"

"Doubt I'm anything like a Neriak."

Rhodes grins. "Not like Ceder, not like that. I mean big and lumbering and slow talking."

I take offense to that. "I don't talk slow," I say.

"Okay, but you talk little," she responds.

"Just how I talk."

She frames my face between her fingers as she nibbles on the remnants of a long-ripped-apart haykay. "Well, I look at you, and you got complex fucking thoughts, and sometimes you say 'em, but other times, it's just, like, Rhodes, I'm fishing. I'm fishing now. Not hard to see. Blah blah blah."

"Yeah, and why do you..." I have to quickly come up with something to take issue with. "Why do you look at your datapad and laugh about stuff and don't show me, eh?"

Rhodes squints. "What, you want me to? You wouldn't get the intranet stuff, it's stupid."

"I could get it."

"No, no! It's stupid."

"Why, is there a lot of slang?"

She cackles. "Yes! Yeah! It's stupid Velnias jokes and shit! It's why I don't use intranet slang around you, I'm being nice."

I'm looking at her very suspect. "You do say 'beh' a lot. Acronym?"

"That's not slang! I don't say acronyms out loud, I'm not lame! That's just my mouth doing shit."

"Never known a Tasran to do it," I say, although I'm kind of lying, because Tasran tend to make stupid noises as a matter of course. Even Yontazzi sounds very silly. Words like albala.

"Well," she says, pointing at me fiercely, "now you know one."

We go on like this for a little while as we finish off the food. The automat mostly consists of people coming to grab a meal and leaving, and there are very few that stick around, but the ones that do tend to be funny-looking. As we finish eating, Rhodes teaches me the art of people-watching, which is something I thought I knew how to do but she's insistent I'm doing it wrong. Supposed to ascertain intent and backstory by looking at random strangers from a distance.

Okay, then. "Check the cameras to see how they got here?" I hazard.

"That's cheating," Rhodes says. "Super cheating. You're supposed to, ah, extrapolate!"

"Fine." I begrudgingly laugh, and try to make something up. A couple of human men in the back corner, both with eyeglasses. One's eating and one's not. Neither are talking. "Those two are socially awkward," I say.

"Obviously. More?"

I squint. "...Brothers?"

She shakes her head. "Nah, boyfriends."

"Pshh. Not every couple of people in here is dating, Rhodes."

"Well," and I think she is about to exclaim, we are, but I am uncertain either of us is willing to say that part out loud. Her especially. She's been avoiding it. Why are you so hard to grasp sometimes?

We continue not to talk about each other—to talk about this thing—at all. We eat and clean up, people-watching until we run out of strangers to make up stories about.

-

Our last act in the automat takes place in the tiny parking lot out back, with me standing watch a few meters off. She drops a paper bag she'd been carrying into a knocked-over garbage bin, and pulls out a larger plastic bag from within, and we scurry to get it, and her, into the Bug Bag quickly, and then head back to Laudenberger Station.

- 20 -

It's one of those nights Ceder and I are left alone, and we drink and barely chat. I talk to him about Rhodes sometimes, how I feel about her, but only sometimes. He is proud of his little effigy of her. I've become a bona fide employee now. I picked up some Vasthi words and didn't try to forget off the bat so maybe I'm coming to feel like I belong, but it all still has this feeling like a dream. Still dreaming? Still dreaming about something, Nelly? My sleep is mostly dreamless.

Ceder heads out to do the dark bidding, and I remain in the back when Rhodes returns from her masqueraded trip to the kebab shop.

-

The job starts tonight. Been a couple weeks since our date, and despite me treating her better than ever, I am not very intimate with Rhodes and we are all business. I feel giddy I guess, something making me twitch at the toes. Don't know how I'll sleep like this but maybe I won't need to. Tomorrow they're taking Jean Jacket out across some part of the city to another and we've got til early morning to intercept.

Rhodes is hunched over her datapad, whose keyboard is now all smudgy with her constant clawprints, and I'm tired as hell, but I got a fire in me that's been muted for a long few weeks and I want to see what she's doing, so I loom over her shoulder.

!!!!!!!!!!!D3LUXE SPOOFFER!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a hacked e-mail client of some kind. I didn't use these much back home; Pell handled the buoy uplink and whatever we needed to do. Her own kind of hacker I guess.

"You snooping?" she asks. Some degree of humor missing.

I nod. "I'm snooping."

"Hasn't taken the bait yet." Then, with a lower tone, she says, "Yet."

It's only midnight. "He'll take it," I say. "He will."

Well, we're only hoping. It's all we've got. Marko needs to click on that fucking email or else we need to scrap the whole plan. And fifty Vicks on an outfit.

I try to stick around, but I'm drowsier than I've ever been. Feeling the weight of buckets of fish on my shoulders.

I curl up in our shared nest.

-

Someone is shaking me awake.

Someone is shaking you awake.

Rhodes with a crazed look on her face. "Did it," she cackles. "He clicked it."

I scramble in drowsiness over to her datapad on the table where it's propped up by a plastic flange. Instead of her home screen, or the email client, or anything I'd expect Rhodes to use, it's the computer screen of one Marko Harrigate, Safety Officer of the Free Peoples' Law Enforcement of Bermonde, and he's moving the mouse around and clicking on things.

"Mine," she says. "Fuck I'm tired. Hah." Her voice is more ragged than even the worst times when we first met.

"Cool," I say, and I smile, but my whole face has weights on it. "Game tomorrow, then?"

She pokes me in the chest. "Game tomorrow. Sleep."

"I ought to. You ought to."

And Rhodes makes a little funny face. "Might."

I stumble and then collapse back into our nest and go out into oblivion.

-

We're going to have you shoot when I say 'three'. Hold down the trigger tight and follow your tracer rounds. Recoil will stabilize almost instantly. I know. I can use a gun, Pell. It will surprise you, the sound, but don't let it scare you. Won't surprise me. Watch the target. Don't lose track of it. I won't, Pell. I promise.

I drift out of sleep, from one stupid-as-shit plan into another.

Morning is a mess. Ceder gave me the day off. I eat stale cheese bread and drink a lot of tap water. All my costume bits in the Bug Bag like I'm preparing for war. Kill some partisans. Kill, you shouldn't be afraid to use that word. It's what we're doing, fed.

Not a killing job, though. But I am bringing a holster. I stuff Rhodes in the Bag, and Ceder gives me a solemn little prayer, and we head off.

- 21 -

Back home there was tell of cow riders, or rangers, or cow boys, or something like that, who wore huge mud-striding boots and lived like animals out in the brush of Stromm's wilderness, and shot at whatever things crossed them, riding some members of the wildlife that could manage the rough terrain. Heard of one little compound on a hill with a Confederate who wore skulls and mounted a defense without surrender. Then some folks who just liked to shoot other folks, or took slaves.

Guess I am looking a little bit like a ranger now. I ride the electric moped with a cop hat and a jumpsuit in the Obogaltra red colors, a fake badge, calvary boots from a surplus store, a black utility belt with bells and whistles, a backpack, and the Bug Bag. No mask. Won't need it today. Breath is heavy here and my head is light. We ride on.

From Laudenberger to Bermonde Flat in the early A.M. hours of Velnias in-between the times when the latest partyers and Guilders collapse from exhaustion and the corps wake up, and all the sunlight is a thin band over the Cestabin Sea far from here, just a hint, just an idea. All the streetlights on and the advertisement towers blaring unabated and the cars few and the shadows many. Didn't sleep much. Didn't sleep well. Dreams of something from a long time ago, or not dreams, just thoughts, like I wasn't asleep at all. Head heavy and Bug Bag tight to my stomach. We ride on.

Down from Bermonde Flat around an enormous supercomplex of roads and intersections, thin, with stacked shantytown structures of the Bermonde Gutter every which way. I look like a cop but not the right kind to be around here. Doesn't matter. Through a back alley that turns into a small pedestrian bridge that turns into a ramp into a parking garage, and from here out into a wide-open street of the bottommost and most decrepit layer of the precinct of Bermonde, and only a block from the BERMONDE CIVIL building, but at ground level, where the front entrance looks hewn from some blast mining operation from long ago. From here I de-Bug the Bag and place Rhodes upright beside the moped, and with a faint nod she mounts, scoots away in the opposite direction, and rides on even further beyond that.

-

"Morning," I say, to somebody haggard and shorter by me than a head, exiting BERMONDE CIVIL. Looks like something shitty happened. She pays me no mind. I enter the building.

An enormous old-feeling hall made of concrete and painted to look like marble, with a floor that was once polished but is now strewn with muck and mud and dust. Quiet overall, with some phones going off someplace, and a group of people arguing their case about something to an intern at a desk near the entrance. Not the kind of welcome I would expect from a city police station in a place so big, but then again policing on Velnias is a complicated thing. I catch a couple eyes and that pang in my gut erupts but they don't stare for long. Not notable. I come on up to an enormous front desk reception area with a tired expression. "Obogaltra Precinct," I say, to the first woman at the rightmost spot, "joint escort with one of yours."

She lifts up a gun from the desk—not a gun, a scanner that has a pistol grip. Swings it by my face. It hangs in her hand limply for a second, then emits a 'bleep', and she tilts to look at her computer monitor. "Oh, that one."

"Uh-huh. I know the drill," I say, getting a little confident, "and don't need the whole rundown."

"You're on floor fifteen with the garage exit."

She waves over at a metal doorway that sits in the middle of the hall leading someplace secluded, and I can make out what might be an elevator. Metal detector, with ropes to make it inconvenient not to use. Then as I'm about to walk, the woman speaks again, as if she never stopped talking. "Name."

I tell her, "Alla Coriander."

"Date of birth."

You're getting old, Nelly, and I'm getting older. "First of January, 489."

She nods in approval. "Place of birth?"

Home, with your mama. I pause again and narrow my eyes at her. "It probably says Starlit Point Residence Care in Crater, Stromm's Landing. I was a foster."

Then she squints a little, and then nods. "No, but it's one nearby." She tack-tack-tacks on her keyboard for a sec. "Know who you're working with?"

"Lieutenant..."

"Lieutenant Metts. Taller than you, brown beard."

"Thank you." And I motion like I'm about to go.

"And," she says, "just so you're up to speed, the woman you're transporting is—"

I wave my hand at her face. "I'm aware. I'm aware, very aware. I'd rather not do any of this." Sensing that she's done with questions I need to respond to. I jerk myself away from her view as her mouth opens, hop around the metal detector and over the rope blocking me, and proceed to the elevator.

-

Blend in. Like in the brush. But not like that at all, as I've said. Stay on the move and look like you belong. I stand in the elevator tiredly which I don't have to fake, and a couple young-looking locals in uniform pass by me to stand in the back. I hear one say 'Obogaltra', but under his breath, and not directed to me. Some deep training in me to look completely forward and pay no mind. Or maybe it's a poker instinct. Elevator up to the Bermonde Flat level. I exit.

Floor fifteen of the precinct is even quieter. I prop my hands up on my belt and holster like cops I've seen in holotape films and exit into thin, flatly-lit halls with linoleum flooring, and try to follow the scant instructions Rhodes managed to dig up. Might have changed which rooms is which, and so far I thought I'd have seen a little break room but it was locked up and called 'MONTGOMERY'. Far as I could tell the building is sprawling and massive and many other floors are shut and abandoned, but this one sees some life now and then, local cops trying to wrest some control over Bermonde. Not my problem. I round a corner and pull at a door and come into the Flat Level Garage Complex.

Playing the part of a regiment boy again, playing the part of a soldier. It isn't necessarily hard but it doesn't come as natural as I thought it would. I ask the nearby patrolmen beside a beat-up car where to go, like a foreign precinct cop might, and I eventually find my way past all the asphalted loading bays into a small holding room.

Flat eggshell walls and with terrible overhead lighting. "Sir," I say, firmly. Tall and broad and kind of fat guy sat at a plastic fold-up table. "Officer Coriander."

He leans back in his chair. He has a wide nose like a spade. "Coriander? Are you with Obogaltra?"

"Yessir," and I tap my badge. It won't hold up against intense scrutiny, but Ceder did a good enough job chipping away at the bronze.

As he opens his mouth to speak, a flimsy white door on the other end of the room comes open, and a handcuffed woman emerges from the bathroom there. Human, with long and mottled hair nearly to her hips, and a dour look on her face. "Hi," she says, mutedly.

"Well, let's go before sun-up," says Metts, and immediately stands up to grab her hand with his. Gloved, and as a whole he looks gussied-up as an officer in the UCC might. I am a sharp contrast. By the way he's yanking her around now I don't get the strong impression she's here fully willingly, but Rhodes does want her course unaltered. Why? Old friend, I guess. Why all this? For me. You think?

We head out, and Metts drags Jean Jacket over to an electric car with a holding cell in back, but no Bermonde colors. There's a small sabretache laying on top of the trunk, and after stuffing her in the cell, he puts the bag in the trunk, too. He gets me into the passenger seat, and we're off.

-

Bermonde Civil doesn't have a shuttle takeoff pad, and it's a known blunder to use the starport for something covert like this, so we're driving over to Obogaltra Station which has its own surface-to-low-orbit pad, which will take Jean Jacket to wherever she's being escorted next. Didn't ask exactly what. Just care about what I came for.

Low light and an old car smell. I am tapping something complicated on my knee.

Velnias is just coming awake now, still with no sunlight but some early-early traffic. I am quiet. In spite of that, Metts is talking a lot. Rhodes told me that the city cops have an infinite amount of gossip, since they can't act on most of it, and this guy is no exception. "Her real name is Jeanie Pitts," he says, as if I hadn't been briefed whatsoever. "She was with this corp, and took every damn cent from their accounts before up and leaving. I think she figured she'd get some of it back by turning herself in and whistle-blowing. Didn't you?" He leans back behind himself as we're turning up an exit ramp—always a bad idea—and whips his head back around right before we go careening into the barrier. "Ahuh. The Pikes are going to the League, and you boys are taking home the bit of cash she took. So Bermonde basically gets squat, aside from the legal fees."

I pipe up quietly. Hadn't spoken much yet and my voice is still rough. "Boys?"

"Obogaltra," he says, with the same awkward tone as when he said it the first time. "Well, you look like a man. Anyway, Greatest Industries Velnias is probably going kaput now, but we still had to keep her in case they were going to try something. Not now, though. And we're pretty low-profile in this thing. We call her the brush tiger, 'cus she looks like any old car on the road. Not that we're lucky enough to have a shuttle pad like you boys. That'd make this so much easier."

I try to make something up. "Shuttle pad's a target," I say. "Has its drawbacks."

"Ah, well. Anyway, we taking her through the Gutters or the top roads?"

"Gutters. No entrance at top level." It's a lie but it's necessary, here. Or maybe I could have just said, top level is too risky. Be smarter, not quicker, Nelly.

Jeanie Pitts, or Jean Jacket, speaks from the back. "Wait, but there is." Her voice is haggard and has a lisp. Might have been a rough couple of weeks waiting for her trial, might have been pleading her case a lot. Rhodes didn't mention a lawyer.

"I was instructed not to use it," I clarify. "It's a chokepoint. Sorry, Lieutenant."

Metts hasn't noticed my slip-up or doesn't care. "Gutters it is. Hey, look, you can see the Supranendum." He points off in the horizon, at first I think maybe at some kind of notable skyscraper or one of the advert helicopters, or maybe even one of the stars in the morning sky, although there are very few. Then as we crest over a rise in the highway I see more clearly what he'd been seeing. A blimp—or something like it, I don't know—a gigantic floating structure hanging on enormous outstretched arms in the air, drifting gently between two of the tallest buildings in the north of the city.

"Yeah?"

We trail down the highway into a large collection of cars parked in a traffic jam. "Yeah," he says, "been ages since I've seen it out. Think that's Okamoto Park." Metts slows down the car to a halt eventually, right along the spot on the freeway that I was hoping. No visibility behind us, lots of people stopped in front. Someplace, very far ahead, an auto-taxi is trying to make a U-turn in the worst possible spot. It'll free itself eventually. Gives us a few minutes to do our thing.

I try to make out what it is. No big adverts, no big logos. A big compartment on the bottom, a blinking light on its nose. "Why's it there, you think?" I ask.

"Probably an event," he says. "OMI stuff. Maybe they got a new CEO."

"Guess it's not really our business," I say. About the most conversation-killer thing I could imagine.

I have my head tilted down, and so I don't see the first explosion.

-

When I was prisoner on Stromm's, the person named Pelleratz was my jailor. She wasn't good at it and not familiar with it but she did keep me in a room with a locked door which was enough at the time. Couldn't pick locks like Rhodes can, couldn't break the door with one arm. There was a barred window put in when it started getting used as a cell, and practically the only thing I could do was look out the window most nights. Stromm's, like other places, doesn't have a luminous night sky. Just a few stars that haven't been blotted out by the Blackpatch. It was sight enough to keep me occupied.

One night there was a crash like this one, though I guess louder, which woke me up and got me to staring out the barred window again.

The story goes like this: the UCC was making another push, one of the last ones before the War finally ended, to try to take Stromm's, and they were going to bombard the outlands where myself and Pell now both resided. By now the Feds had gotten pretty ineffectual here, lots of dead rookies and captured men like myself, and they blamed the people in the swamp. They had a ship up there in atmosphere called the Rossberg, the UCN Rossberg, and it was going to drop bombs like nobody had ever seen before. Glass it, is what people were saying at the time.

There was a bigger gun, a great ship-killing Gun somewhere in the jungles—one which nobody knows the fate of, not even now—which was used to shoot the Rossberg that night, and it hit, and six hundred separate compartments were breached at the same time. Fuel lines and tanks got compromised a couple seconds later. Then the reactor, which I hear was state of the art at the time, stopped being able to power the enormous thrusters which kept the Rossberg aloft, and then it blew.

I remember seeing the ship fall from orbit to ground. I saw most of it and I can't get it out of my head. The shrieking sounds of sub-explosions and counter-explosions and radio glitter in my eyes and the colors, so many colors of every shade, falling from the firmament to the shadowed swamp of Black Hook. I think it was the prettiest thing I ever saw happen in my life.

This is a little like that.

-

At first I can't tell that it's falling, but it is falling. The Supranendum is falling. One of its gigantic lofty arms with a turbo-thruster is missing when I look up and I can catch glimpse of that same thruster flying wildly to the base of Okamoto Park, faster than gravity would take it, and there's a quieter and more sudden 'boom' when it lands. Smoke pluming out of the hole where the arm should attach, smoke and flame. Then the perfect levelness of the craft fails like every error is compounding all at once, and within a matter of a few seconds it's sideways, then it's spinning—

Metts has his jaw open and is silent. I hear Jean Jacket say, "What the fuck," like this is something we're doing for her viewing pleasure. The Supranendum falls below the fiftieth floor of one of the towers and by that point I think all three of us have realized it's not going to right itself, it's not going to stay aloft, it's a goner.

Then the biggest boom of all as it collapses, and in every direction from the site there's a rapid and enormous burst of technicolor—some extremely expensive thing going up in a little explosion among bigger explosions—and the white and black smoke starts billowing out almost instantly after the flash.

I'm about to try to say something, anything, when I see Rhodes in the rear-view mirror.

- 22 -

She's quick to it, and wearing a balaclava that must be making it hard to breathe or see, and neither Metts nor Jean Jacket are paying the back of the car even half of a mind. I turn away from the mirror and speak. "What was that," I say.

"It broke up," says Metts. "I-I saw the arm go." He retrieves his walkie-talkie from his belt and doesn't seem to notice that I'm not doing the same, and he starts to bark his version of a check in on Bermonde radio. "All units, this is Lieutenant Louie Metts, I'm on the highway and we just saw the Supranendum—we saw—we have a six-forty emergency!"

Jean Jacket says, "What the fuck," again, but with feeling.

I peer back in the mirror just a second. The trunk is popped up—lockpicked, or maybe Metts didn't even remember to lock it. Security through obscurity. But not like that at all. Not if she always knows where I'm going. Sound of the car rattling as Rhodes slams the trunk shut, with the sabretache over her shoulder.

She's quick on her feet. Hops. It'll come back to bite her later, it's going to hurt like shit for a week, but it's her plan and I'm sticking to it. By now Metts has tilted his head, and he's trying to open the driver-side door, but not before Rhodes has run past it and danced on her feet between all the traffic, heading forward, heading away. "Fuck," says Metts, tossing his radio down, and then louder: "Fuck!"

I get out just as he does, and I tell him, "Don't bother."

"No," he erupts. "That's the cargo. Wait here, watch her." And he scurries off after Rhodes, with long strides but worse agility. Please. Please make it.

I hang out beside the passenger side door, watching the smoke of the Supranendum billow out into the sky between the two Okamoto towers, and try to catch my breath.

-

A couple minutes later, after what must have been one hell of a foot-race for her, I see Rhodes jetting back through all the traffic, and this time she's on the moped. I don't get a second to process it before she shoots me a smile with her eyes and throws the sabretache at me. I catch it with the brunt of my chest, which takes the wind out of me, and when I look up she's speeding off behind us, darting between cars going in the opposite direction that are settling to park behind us.

Not here to waste time. I click open the back door lock using a little fob Rhodes fashioned for me and pull it open to see Jean Jacket.

She is baffled. I can see bafflement in her face. I exacerbate the baffling by pulling the gun from my holster and pointing it at her. "Kachow," I say, which I decided I was gonna say a while ago, but now seems inappropriate given the felling of the Supranendum.

"What?!" she says, her voice cracking. She retracts into the other corner of the car. "Did you do that shit?!"

"No, look," I tell her, and knock on my gun. It's a wooden prop. Doesn't even look like a gun. "I'm here 'cus of your old friend Rhodes."

That changes her expression. "The fuck," she says, but now it's smoother and relieved.

"I got some questions about Greenview Solutions I need you to look up answers to." As I say this I'm pulling open the main flap of the sabretache. Inside is a pretty large wad of hundred-Vick bills lumped together, which I slip in the innermost pocket of my pack, alongside a small flash drive, which I take in hand. "Got a datapad here," and I retrieve the one in the wide pocket of my bag. "Do your thing." I offer Jean Jacket both the datapad and flash drive, after tossing the sabretache on top of the car.

The whole time she's squinting at me in dazzlement. "Look up?"

"From this," I tell her, and I waggle the drive.

"Ba, saik," she murmurs, and starts to un-scrunch from the corner of the car. I notice that traffic is moving a ways ahead of us—we don't have long.

I thrust both things further in her direction. "I got to know some shit. Aren't you a hacker?"

"I didn't think Rhodes was serious!"

I am baffled now, too. She didn't mention talking to Jean Jacket. Stay anonymous, she said. Stay quiet. Son of a bitch. Now I'm gritting my teeth. "Use your encrypted drive on this and search—"

"—I don't know whose that is! That isn't mine!"

"What?"

Now the car a couple places ahead of us is moving. Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. "It's just not," she screeches. "I can't fucking help you. She did a favor for me once so I said I'd do a favor for her, but I can't help you. That cop is coming."

My body moves for me. Cold air running through me. I put the datapad back in my bag, and the drive back in the sabretache. Just like we agreed. Did we agree on anything? Why won't she help me? Why did they talk to each other? Favor? Favor?

I am trembling. I slam the back door shut and stand up, and just a second later, Lieutenant Metts is on us, panting, hands on his knees. Now the car behind us lets out a rough beep, and I weakly motion the sabretache in the air. "Got this, uh, from him," I say.

"Good," he says. "Good. Fuck. Good. Shit, good, I guess." He stumbles over to the driver-side door, and I get into the passenger side like a robot.

Why wouldn't she help me? What favor? I look back and Jean Jacket putting on a face like nothing is wrong. We drive off.

-

I show Metts the inside of the sabretache. "Took the money," I say, flatly, "think he took the money."

He grunts and puts his radio down again. "You better be the one to explain that to your boys. I'm not sticking around."

"The flash drive is still in here, though."

"What?" He glances back over. His knuckles are popped out and his face is sweaty, and he's jetting through traffic at a reckless pace. Heading northeast now. Not a long way yet. Empty in my stomach like a knife is sitting there. "What? Don't touch it."

I clear my throat to try and fix the dark feeling in my mouth, but it doesn't take. "Thought it was hers," I murmur.

"No," he says. "The cargo was just cash. The biker's probably trying to phish you. Destroy it at your station."

So he drives to Obogaltra Station.

-

Metts turns on the public radio out of sheer nervousness. Every channel blares the same thing. The Supranendum is down, they say, the city's prominent festival airship is down, the death toll, the injuries, the holograph projector that cost some millions of Vicks to construct. People on the ground. People crushed. Parade. I am empty. I am empty. I don't understand what's happening. I tap on my knee. Check in. No response. Check in. Rhodes? Rhodes, what's happening?

-

We get to the station in the Obogaltra Gutters and park. A similar installment as in Bermonde, but in old-looking bricks made of stone, enormous and cut finely and reflective and I am empty. I am just going through the motions. I mumble some stupid excuse to Metts about car-sickness and slip out of the car before he can even speak back at me and stumble to the nearby alleyway, and once I'm out of view I run, and I run, and I run.

What did you do? I need to get to a subway, I need to meet her back at Laudenberger Station, or Corundum Town, I need to tell Ceder. I am tapping on my knee. Check in. Check in. What did you do?

My mind is blank and my boots feel cheap and I throw my hat and badge in a trashcan and I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing until I'm already in Obogaltra Golden Trainway Station aboard a free ride southeast to Salt Row.

-

I'm crying. I'm too hot in this stupid fucking outfit. I still have the fake gun in my holster. Quiet morning train with a muddy floor and rusty handholds. Then it gets filled with people trying to get to work. It starts to rain outside as we poke above the Gutters, and I hear people murmuring about the Supranendum. It's fucked up, they say. A tragedy. Mechanical fault. Failed inspections. Safety checks ignored. They think a screw was loose somewhere. A screw is loose in you. A screw is loose in her. I tap my leg. Check in. I tap my leg. Check in.

-

I get to Laudenberger Square. I run to the spot a couple blocks off where we last hid the moped. No sign. I go back to the station.

-

Corundum Town is quiet. No lunches or dinners. No kids in the old playground. A big bulky television playing silent video footage of the Supranendum going down; some compounding force making that external arm wobble and wobble until the joint explodes and it flies off. Cast-off. Casting off. Long quiet walk and my head hurts bad. I go to the Hang'd Knight.

Cup is sweeping the front and waves hello to me once he recognizes me. I don't recognize me. I nod at him and push back to the kitchen.

Maxine is heating up the oven and chopping greens and waves. I nod at her and push back to the back room.

Ceder is on the phone with somebody, and looks at me with confusion. There is no Rhodes here.

I collapse in the corner and I'm empty.

I tap my leg. Check in. I tap my leg. Check in.

-

Eventually having nothing else I pick through my backpack. She had me buy a new datapad for this—still has hers on her. I could message her if I knew what she was using, if I could find her new alias somehow, somewhere. I could. I tap my leg. Check in. I don't even boot the datapad on.

I pull out the money and count it. Idle thing I guess. Just to verify it's here, just to verify any of this happened. We agreed to try to get info from the hacker named Jean Jacket as to the identity of the person who killed Jericho Arborist. We agreed. That is the plan. That's what we're going to do.

Hundred-Vick bills, and at least a hundred of those. More money than I've ever held in my life. Hands sweaty. I pull the roll apart and a small, folded piece of paper falls in my lap.

I unfold it and read it. Handwriting is ragged but neat.

-

'NELLY

SORRY. WAS HARD TO DECIDE TO DO

THIS. I KILLED JERICHO ARBORIST

AND I'M SORRY WHAT HAPPENED AFTER.

YOU ARE NICE. I DON'T WANT TO BOG

YOU DOWN. GO SOMEWHERE ELSE, THEY

ARE AFTER ME, NOT YOU, AND I'LL ERASE

THE FACE YOU USE FOR THIS JOB. THIS

IS A BUNCH OF CASH AND SHOULD HELP

YOU. PAY CEDER BACK OR WHATEVER

YOU NEED TO DO. DON'T WORRY ABOUT

ME, I CAN HANDLE MYSELF NOW

THANKS TO YOU.

- YOU KNOW WHO'

-

I sink in my seat until I'm a puddle. The knife in my gut goes further in. Twists. I scrunch up into a ball against the wall and cry and then wail, and my body fails me, and I want someone to tell me it'll be okay.

I don't know what to do.

Please. Please don't. She'll die without me. She'll die without you. I'll die without you.

Please.

I tap my leg.

Check in.

Check in.

Check in.

Aftermath

- 23 -

Three months pass.



My eyes are half-shut and I'm zoned out and I realize I don't know where I am at all.

As with every time this kind of thing happens I come back to my memory of past events very gradually and in reverse order. You are fishing, again, on an abandoned concrete dock near Laudenberger Square. Seems right. You walked here from Corundum Town. Nice. You live in the back room of a speakeasy called the Hang'd Knight. Sounds good. You held an effigy of a person named Rhodes this morning. I did?

Feeling out of place in my folding chair. My shoulders droop heavily.

I am getting old.

I stand up and crack my knuckles and reel in my lure to set it on the dock so my rod doesn't get yanked into the water by some brave fish while I'm not paying attention. My eyes go to the harbor all around me. Another cruise ship, another few cruise ships, moored to some fancy dock in the northernmost civilian part. Late summer now and warm and sunny as hell, and I have a sun-burn on the back of my left hand. My friend Ceder is lending me his flat-cap with a wide brim to keep most of the glare out, although I really need to pick up some sunglasses one of these days.

I look to the sea. I can see to the horizon clearly, and even at this low angle I can see one hundred and one thousand ships in the Cestabin, all going someplace, all coming from someplace, all running and all willing to stay. I shudder a little at the height of some of them. Superfreighters make me feel puny.

I look to the shore. Along the streetside there is a little parade. Some miscellaneous Tasran holiday I don't know the name of, some great big flags being held aloft on poles mounted to pack animals from the outlands. Been hearing the crackle of cheap fireworks that way, and seeing a few brave bugs dive into the Cestabin like a fishing bird, then out, with their buzzing wings taking them all the way in a perfect arc. Must be a real lively thing, having working wings.

Maybe I should go over there. Get my mind off things, take a break. Not like it's a good day for fishing so far. Go meet somebody new, go be a human being.

I look behind me. The building closest to my spot, the Oro Waterfront Living Apartments, is short and stout and unremarkable, with little tchotchkes in the windows and some lights on in the midday. There's a billboard blotting out some of the oceanview windows, advertising some memorial drive for the Supranendum Disaster. Some knife in my gut returns, or maybe it was not gone at all.

I don't got much to look at after all. I sit back down and put the lure back in the water, and then I pull out some newspaper.

Old habit by now. Old routine. I write a letter to nobody with my metal arm.

-

'RHODES

THERE IS A FESTIVAL FOR SOME TASRAN HOLIDAY I DONT KNOW THE NAME OF, NEARBY ME NOW. IM CONTEMPLATING GOING TO IT AND ASKING WHAT THEYRE DOING. IM NOT VERY SOCIAL TODAY SO PROBABLY WONT. WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR INPUT.

ALSO, NO FISH STILL, SEA SUCKS TODAY. JUST BROWN GRUEL.'

-

I wait for a little while, then I scrunch up the scrap of newspaper and toss it into the sea.

-

Later I feel content taking back a dozen brown gruel and a glassfish, which is a nice and bloated and transparent thing that blobs around the surface during high tide. I lug them in the ice bucket up the long series of steps and alleyways and past a busker playing a piece of resonant metal, and into Laudenberger Square.

Against an old piece of advice I've started to recognize a lot of faces around. Street musicians about, and a couple merchants selling fresh-ish fruit from the western farm arrays, and even some park regulars. Old couple of humans over there playing chess on a stone table, a Tasran with six antennae and a placated expression feeding some of the native city bats. I wave hello, I wave goodbye. Can at least appreciate the feeling of recognition in people's eyes. Not wearing a mask these days.

(No, I don't know. I don't know if I'll get found, hunted, killed, or who by, or why. I've run out of effort to care.)

In the centermost part of the square, where most of the tall buildings on our sides aren't quite tall enough to blot us into shadow, there's a group of Neriak—ferals, I think, not of any religious order, by their clothing—basking and sunning and stretching and, in a couple spots by the bushes in the middle, exercising on mats. I see one Haraadi by their white robes, but much smaller, younger I think, than my friend Ceder.

Heading down into the subway tunnel. The smoky and salty scent of the outside air gives way to something kind of musty and rancid in the Undercity. I go on.

Got my own keyring and it's an easy little trip through the tunnels. Very familiar now, and I got a couple alternate ways to get to Corundum Town that take longer. Once had to take one just to avoid a very awkward-looking couple making a scene in one of the hallways, clothes down and whatnot.

The mainway of Corundum Town is nice during the middle of the day, occupied and still spacious, and always with new things popping up or changing. One of the abandoned stores is being refurbished into a barber, I see, with some folk in hi-vis and carrying what must be packs of lumber from the shipyard. A Baldari is not far off, indulging with unseen pals in some weed, crouched around a shuttered hallway entrance. Someone's riding a bike shirtless up and down my route, and some odd Tasran is chittering away and picking at some of the linoleum with their hands, maybe unconsciously, as they sit criss-cross against the floor.

I am enjoying the walk. Lots to see. Time flies and soon enough I'm at the hidden entrance to the Hang'd Knight.

Cup the Baldari bartender greets me. I give him a ruffle on the head and smile some. Nice man, polite to me, barely talks, but I heard he's got a sweetheart somewhere else in the city that he's saving up to visit. I head into the kitchen.

Maxine is in, and so are Gabs and Linda, so I hand over the fish and head to the back office.

Ceder is here. He's been expecting me, heard me come in. His pretty white-and-gold robes are on, and he's seated with the energy of someone ready to go on a whirl. "Good afternoon, Nelly," he says.

"Morning."

"Day off?"

I shoot him a funny look. "Yours too, unless you changed your mind."

"Of course, of course," he says, his deep voice a little mischievous now. "But you're not necessarily meant to do work, like fishing, on your day off."

"Just come on," I say, sighing, and laughing a little, too.

We go have our day off together.

- 24 -

Just to head this off at the pass, I'm not into men, and Ceder's not into women, and besides I've already got some case of heartbreak for one woman in particular and he's got heartache for one man in particular, but we are good friends now, and since the shit that happened with Rhodes we've had nothing but time to chat about our respective lives. We head to go get lunch at a place that makes wraps called jabes, or they're tortilla sandwiches I guess, with loads of chick-pea filling and cheap peanut sauce from a can. My treat, since I'm still very well-off with the money from back then.

We sit out in an old food court which has seen some tidying-up by the Corundum Authority, which is mostly just a bunch of random people on a council who take tax from the businesses. It's nice, though, with mood lighting.

"Poker tonight?" I ask, naturally.

He winces slightly. "Maybe."

"Don't have to."

"If Cup were free, yes, but he's off to Baultriel later."

Something passes by my face. "For..."

"For who-knows-why, but it is not my business." Ceder places his broad hands on our table and gnaws at his jabe. He's too big for it, so he's using the tip of his lizard muzzle to take tiny bites, and the filling is spilling out onto his paper plate.

"Guess so." My jabe is the right size. I take normal bites out of it. Tastes pretty alright, though it's very mushy inside.

We let the quiet dominate the conversation for a little while. No people-watching like me and Rhodes once did. Just quiet.

After a little while, I strike up a subject. "Ceder, I said I, uh, was gonna stop writing Rhodes, but I haven't. Picked it back up pretty quickly."

"Mm. Well, you did say you know she can read it."

I shrug. My shoulders ache again. "...Probably can. Unless she's out of town. Or... or I was wrong at how easy it'd be for her to sense."

His eyes are down to his food, but he holds still. "Are you upset that you have returned to writing her?"

"No," I say, then grumble. "Yes, I guess. Angry still. God, I can't get angry enough for it to leave my system completely. Comes and goes."

Ceder nods. "There was a time..." Then he waves it off.

"Go ahead," I tell him.

"There was a time that I had something of similar ilk, some anger, some long anger, which I'm certain was different enough to be, ah... not helpful to ruminate on. But I mean to say that I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Not your fault."

"Well," he murmurs, "it always can feel my fault, that I did not notice her planning to exit."

"Not sure how much she planned in advance."

He manages a weak smile, tooth showing. "Certainly when she suggested meeting with Jean Jacket she knew the encrypted drive was a lie."

I wave my jabe around a little. "She didn't know what she was saying. Felt guilty, I guess, felt like she had to say something. Wrote herself into a corner. I guess the money was meant to fix the guilt."

"It could not have accomplished that," Ceder says, matter-of-factly.

"Or it really was to get me somewhere safe, get me back home." The visceral scent of mud and sight of dark silhouettes in the distance strikes me, then goes away.

"Well, she knows you haven't done that, if you have been writing her."

"Yeah, but she sure as shit doesn't write back."

I shift my feet a little under the table like I'm a kid, and we descend into a muted silence again. I'd like to say the conversation made me incensed, but it never does with Ceder. His gaze is sweet, his guttural voice is slow and plodding, and nothing at all like other Neriak I once knew. With Pell we were with a great number of Norakkin and Baorin, folks from the other end of the War, who were on great big flaming crusades against colonies elsewhere in the outlands—they called them holdouts, but they were just places where people lived—that had some Confederates still living as loyalists, friendly still to the UCC, even after the War ended. The Neriak I knew then were very fierce and very violent, and Ceder doesn't seem to have interest in being either, at least not most days.

"Nelly," he says, after a few minutes cleaning our plates. "Could I take you to an arcade, or something of that ilk? I've the feeling you'll go back working if you don't have any recreation."

I shrug slowly. "Guess I probably would."

"Or we could simply walk."

-

We go for a walk. The whole east end of Corundum Town is less familiar to me, but there's a decent amount to see—the story goes that it was, itself, once a seaside part of the megamall, that it had a great view, that it was opened during some old Velnias festival and themed after local ecology. In one main trading hall we pass through, there's still an old hanging plaster sculpture depicting an adajanat warbler, something I've never seen in person. Long as hell, spiny, six-eyed. Lives deep and far from the shore. Some people off-world only know it and no other fish in the Cestabin.

Further ahead there's an aquarium, apparently. Not sure if abandoned or operating, but we'll go find out, I guess.

Ceder leads me along with a flowing and patient gait like he's walking up the aisle of some worship site someplace. He glances over at me, walking all straight and without a hunch. "You know, I recall you nursing a leg wound when we met," he says.

"Yeah. Gunshot. Was a glance, though," I tell him.

"Saving Rhodes, is what I heard."

The memory fades in and out. "Never really could figure that out. Think it was, think it might not have been. Got hit in the head after."

"Did you fancy her at first?"

"Ah, god." I shrug. "I doubt it. Actually remember hating her, hating that she couldn't walk much."

"You were taking good care of her by the time you and I met."

I don't love this line of talk so much. I stuff my hands in my jean pockets. "You and your husband, you don't talk about him at all."

He smiles wide, all across his reptilian face is a smile. Funny how it looks. "Well. We aren't hus-bands, to start," he says.

"No?"

"Were you and Pelleratz wives in some official sense? Did some Christian or Lohmanite give vows?"

"Tsh." I chuckle a little at that. "No, course not. Guessing you didn't."

"Well, some words," Ceder says, "around a shrine, in a godly hall. We set an arrangement in law, but any group can do that, of responsibility in a legal way. We share owner-rights, for instance."

"Ah."

He nods. "It also keeps us from hurting one another," he says. "And from betrayal, though the latter is rare to prosecute."

I glance at a shop we're passing that looks like some kind of cobbler. Rugged-looking workboots on display, maybe for outlanders. Really could use new boots sometime, and I bet that's where Ceder got his. I turn back to him and speak bluntly. "Not, uh, hurting him to be so far off so long?"

"I suppose it is."

"Sorry," I say.

He lets loose a soft grunt in the bell of his throat. "I have many years on me, Nelly, I have had many with him. It will be al-right."

The thought strikes me that Ceder will probably outlive me.

We round a corner to a more dim part of Corundum Town's east wing, but not dim for lack of lighting—there are many blue lights ahead, and what looks like some big sign for something. We go toward it.

"Probably going to keep writing to her," I say, not really knowing why.

"Perhaps she'll appreciate it." And Ceder leaves it at that.

-

We get to the front of the Velnias World Fair Aquarium. It has been out of commission for a while from the look, and someone has taken care to remove most of the glass, though whether as scavengers or for safety I can't know. The lights are on, though, old lights run by new electricity, and the pale blue hue everyplace makes it feel a little like it's still running. I get stricken with a memory of some aquarium on Old Tibor, someplace which might be gone by now for all the years passed and earthquakes and storms. I remember seeing a fish twice my size eye me up and pass me gone, like I was its friend.

Ceder and I step in and go exploring a little. No harm in it.

"Nelly is a nice name, I think," he says, as we step over some discarded cable in an empty hall. We're in the North Sea Wing, though some of the plaques are missing. "Came up with it?"

"It was Eleanor at first," I tell him.

He shoots me just the smallest grin. "Yes, well. Came up with Eleanor?"

"What are you implying, Ceder," I ask, though I already know, and I'm already a little suspicious.

"Merely that you've picked a nice name, Nelly, and you are a nice woman."

Can't tell at this point if he's clocked that I changed my name when I was made a prisoner, which I did, or that I changed my name when I learned I was a woman, which I did. Guess for Ceder it could be both. "You got a full name, right? Ceder of something?"

He seems to have played out my internal thought in my head on his own. "And Rhodes is a nice woman, and I believe she was much like you, having made a transition—"

I slap him on the shoulder, hard. "Ceder of something, yeah?"

"Ceder Of Supwater," he says, finally, exhaling, chuckling along with me. We step into a large amphitheater with many seats, and a blank—ripped and blank—canvas board which may have once hosted some movie. He leans against the wall of the tunnel we came through, and glances at me. "Ceder Of Supwater, That Whom Humbles Upon The Inkling Sun."

Can't help but be awed a little at the length. "Was the sun 'inkling' when you were born?"

He shakes his head, smiling broadly. "No, and it has never been, not as long as Haraad has been basked in its glory. Though in some far parts, parts of the north and south where Kbir is inkling, it is said that kind Haraadi are born, wound tightly with their kind, so my mother named me like those who dwell there."

Wouldn't have supposed a Neriak to live anywhere without plenty of heat, though Corundum Town has a sort of cold about it. "It's a nice name."

Another quiet falls on us, which I don't mind. We glance around the amphitheater for a little while, finding nothing that a better scavenger couldn't have found, and then progress someplace else in the aquarium.

-

Lot to read up on. We found a plaque about some of the trawler favorites. For instance, a brown gruel is a sort of symbiote, and has some algae living as its fins, native algae from before all the terraforming. No explanation on why there are so many, or why they're so stupid.

-

We make our way through, at one point stepping into what was once a big enclosure for a big fish, and down some plaster tubes with their paint fading, to the entrance of a small and delicate chamber with some warning signs out front, welded to the wall long after the place got shut down. One reads: 'DON'T BREACH. THANKS.'

We step inside the chamber. Against the far wall is something kind of anachronistic to the place, given it was once aboveground—a window into the Cestabin itself, to the seaboard, poking through some enormous slab of concrete. It's muddy, and stuffed to the brim with bubble-like strands of ambient plantlife, but the enormous exterior lights are still on and we can peek at least a dozen meters into the water. Ceder says it pretty plainly: "Ah, wow."

"Why's it here?"

He grits his big teeth a moment, and puts aside his hood, and squints at the piece of window-frame holding out all this water. "I wouldn't be able to guess. It does not seem right to be here, but here it is."

I peer around. Looks the same as any other one of the rooms in the aquarium, the same fading paint and dim overheads. "How'd the town get buried, even?"

"Lost to time," Ceder says. He has to pause a little while to think. "Likely some... excited project from some excited corporation. The land above is very well-developed. This must have been made after." He pokes at the glass, and it doesn't give at all.

"Well made," I say, but even as I talk, my words feel kind of useless. We're in a little submarine now, having walked into a dream. "God."

We just stay there for some time, and watch the wandering bits of algae move and swerve and float, towards us, away from us. No fish come to visit.

-

After a decent while, Ceder says something, though his deep voice is airy and light now. "I kept bringing up Rhodes, on our walk," he says.

"You did," I mutter.

"I did, because I think you are right to write to her." He swallows, and I can hear something faint cracking in his demeanor. "I think... you should... want for her, Nelly, that you shouldn't move on."

Again, I am quick to it, and something is bunched up in my face. "Fuck, man, I haven't moved on. I'm hurting all the time about it."

"Yes," he murmurs.

"I just want to tell her not to fucking run away." I pause but then I don't want to pause. "I would have told her it's okay. I would have, I fucking would have, and she didn't even give me a chance."

Ceder pauses, then holds out his palm. "So you do not think any part of her note is a lie?"

"No," I say, "not a word. I trust it. 'Cus she thinks she was good as gone."

"Well." He retracts his palm, then, but he has a smile. Sort of makes me angrier, but then it sort of mellows me out. He has a way of doing that to me. "Can I show you something, back home?"

The word 'home' echoes in my ears a second, the notion of a place I call home, the notion that I do, indeed, call the back room of the Hang'd Knight home. So I have to accept, and I accept with the feeling like my head's gonna explode. "Yeah," I say. "Please."

So we go back home.

- 25 -

Quiet, and with low light. I can hear Maxine and the gang readying up for dinner, but it's all muffled past the heavy door to the back room, and we got ourselves some peace. I'm sat in my usual chair, doing my usual thing. Staring at the little figurine of Rhodes that Ceder hewed some months ago, thinking about her.

He painted where her cybernetic meets her skull, and used a piece of wire for her lone working antenna. Got her wings right, her stiff and useless wings—they got forcibly clipped by somebody a long time ago, and they never got healthy enough to repair. Her weird grin with her mandibles, her slight hunch. Her ruby eyes missing and present only in my memory. I don't know why she didn't trust me. I thought I could be trusted. I did everything to be trusted.

"Found it," Ceder calls from his office. "I have found it. Oh, if I'd lost this, I'd be out of my mind." He lifts up a little shoebox from someplace very high in his stack of miscellanea, and carries it over to the little table. He's delicate like he isn't with anything else. "These are to my Bloom," he says, quieter, and takes off the lid.

Lots of papers, scraps of papers. Folded-up neatly. Some in envelopes, some loose-leaf. "Letters?"

"Yes," he says, with this embarrassed warmth about him. "Whenever I get the inspiration. Sometimes it is when I'm out and about, and I have to retrieve whatever paper is handy."

I think about writing on scraps of newspaper that I throw into the Cestabin Sea. I swallow. "You don't send them, though."

Ceder sits beside me, pulling one free from the very top. It's labeled, it has an address somewhere on it. "No," he muses. "No, because the phone does as well at talking to him as can be. But I do get the urge to write letters."

"And you don't send them?"

"Not yet." He looks to me. "Sometime. When I go back home. All at once, I think, so that he may pick them apart and recount the time."

I lean over to the box and examine one. Dronhas script is thin, angular, full of little boxes and circles and triangles, and small accent-marks between characters. The words trail off past a fold in the paper.

-

Ceder has retrieved a pen, now, and some thin-rimmed glasses that sit atop his muzzle, and has begun writing on a new, neat piece of paper. He pauses to glance off at the far wall for a while, and I speak. "You headed home soon? Anytime soon?"

"I think so," he says. "Whenever this Baultriel escapade from the militia finally comes to some kind of head, whenever they decide what to do. You have surely noticed them stalling out, whirling around. The infighting."

"Hadn't, really," I admit.

"Well, it had better proceed sooner than later." Sometimes it seems like Ceder doesn't care between 'sooner' or 'later'—then other times, like right now, it seems he cares about it a great deal. Bitterness in his tone.

Then I say something I guess I shouldn't, but the knife in my gut compels me. "Was thinking of asking if you'd take me along."

He doesn't turn his gaze to me. "Would have to learn Dronhas to live in Haraad," he says.

That's the only criteria? I mumble something to myself, clear my throat, and speak up. "Having trouble enough with Vasthi," I say. "Dronhas sounds harder."

Now he's whittling his pen slowly on the piece of paper, etching out a word or two. "It is like any language," he murmurs. "And you are not so terrible with Vasthi."

"That's it, though. Just learn Dronhas, and..."

"And I'd take you, Nelly, for I think it would be right to do."

For some reason that hits me in the face, and I scrunch up, and I think about Rhodes again. I think about running away. I think about running away with her.

I pick up the letter I had been looking at, and I squint at the script, and I try to imagine. What if I did learn this? What if I was sticking around a little while? What if I was here, on the Palisade, a very long time?

I sink in my seat, and snatch up the paper beneath the sheet Ceder is using to write, and I nab a pen from his little pen cup, and start scribbling down a letter with my metal hand.

-

'RHODES

YOU MEANT A LOT TO ME. AND SEEM TO STILL.

I KNOW IVE WRITTEN IT BEFORE, BUT I DONT WANT YOU TO LEAVE, AND I DONT WANT TO LEAVE WITHOUT YOU. I WANT TO ASK MORE QUESTIONS AND I WANT TO KNOW YOURE DOING OKAY. YOU NEVER BOGGED ME DOWN. YOU MADE ME COME ALIVE A LITTLE.'

-

I pause for a second and tremble.

'AND I LOVED YOU.'

But that's about all I can manage, so I fold it up and put it aside.

- 26 -

Couple weeks later I find myself fishing at midnight.

Think I must have the day off. Don't know. Been in a malaise for some time, fell asleep an hour, woke up and it was dark as can be. My Universal Audio Player is the only light, a little pale glimmer against my face, but it's turned way down and I can only hear the faintest traces of some bluetimes groove, snare and ride in the cold night air, and a quiet bay, with no boats nearby at all.

I am fishing. Lure in the water, my hand on the rod to feel for any jitter and buzz. Caught mostly brown gruel, of course, and threw them all back. Just doing it to kill time and listen to the waves.

Always more intimate when you can't see the white-caps and crests far away, when you can only make out the black water splashing and un-splashing against the concrete, and it feels and sounds as if you're just in it, surrounded, held.

You know?

I know. How I feel about some things, anyway, but I couldn't get into fishing. I don't have the patience for it. I know you don't, Pell, that's alright. I stuck around to do it with you. Did we ever have this conversation? Is this a memory?

But I did like the waves, and the dashing of them against our boat, when we went on a ride across Black Hook Lake to get to the little settlement there. Maybe you recall it... you probably don't, it was so long ago now. I do. Of course I do. We were headed there to pick up some munitions, get you a fighting gun from a nice gunsmith. It had a nice stock, so I didn't want you to drop it. You didn't have your new arm yet. Could barely hold the thing. I laugh a little in the empty sea air. But that doesn't matter now. We've done a lot of trips like that, trips for business. Sometimes I worry that's all I am to you. I worried the same. All the time worrying if my life meant anything to anyone. I hope not, Nelly. I hope when you're up and about again we can forget about the Rebellion, I hope we can just cast it aside.

I remember. She thought I was asleep. I was nursing a wound.

I just remember the waves, I remember the peace of it. God, can you believe how little we get to know peace? Call it a flaw in my character, I don't know anything else but what we do. But I want peace. I want that for us. I do. I know I seem like I'm lying when I say it, but I do.

I want peace for you. I wanted it for you, too.

Then I reach my hands out to try and touch it, touch at the memory, but it fades again, and I'm left beached on the dock, sobbing to myself.

I remember. I do remember. It's all a haze, but it's not gone from me. All those stupid warring hours against silhouettes in the brush, I keep seeing silhouettes, I keep thinking of myself holding a gun tight on my shoulder and letting the recoil carry my aim from one to the next to the next. Many a time. You made me a sniper, too, Pell, you thought I had very delicate hands and good eyes, and that I'd make a good one. I—God I don't even know if I was aware I was doing it at any point, but I did it, it's what we did.

Trembling now, trembling worse.

Something brushes the line, catches the lure. I reel it up unsteady. Just a brown gruel. Just another dumb fish doing the same fucking thing again.

I throw it back.

I keep seeing silhouettes, I keep seeing the same ones. They were from the loyalist camp, I'd bet. Look at this one's clothes all torn up, those are UCC clothes. Were they? Pell, are you still there? I want to know if they were.

I want to know. Pell? Are you there?

But she's gone again.

I slack my shoulders and sit back and wait for the fish to come along.

-

Sleeping again. Conscious that I'm sleeping but not conscious enough to be awake. Rod flitting gently in the water, something grabbing on, suckling, failing to pry it loose. My body feels so heavy.

-

Are you awake, Nelly?

No.

I was thinking to myself some terrible shit. Like I've done you wrong, or made you wrong somehow. I know I don't normally talk like this.

You never talk at all anymore.

I'd like it if you got to sit on some shore someday, somewhere sunny.

Not for me.

And when I picture what's best for you, old woman, I don't picture myself. I think I'll be here until I get shot and die. And I know you figure the same for yourself.

I know the same.

But it doesn't have to be true. These things aren't in stone.

-

Someone grabs at me, but I'm too tired. I'm too weak.

-

There's nice places. That's all I mean. Don't you want a nice place to live?

Stopped wanting.

No. I guess you... I don't know... what you want. You've been so absent. I've been pushing you too far.

Stopped being. I'm too tired. Can I have five more minutes?

I've made you the wrong kind of person. I've made you like me, honey.

Five more minutes. Stop touching me.

I'll leave you be. You're sleeping.

Five more.

Stop grabbing me.

-

Stop touching me. Stop grabbing me, Pell. Stop. Need immediate assistance.

-

Need immediate assistance. Stop yelling at me.

-

Need immediate assistance. Who needs me. Who wants me. I'll get out of bed in five minutes. Karinger said we're going on a run. There are some slavers from Port West who are in Finch's territory and we have the go-ahead. Need immediate assistance. I'm coming, I'm coming. Give me five more minutes.

-

Just give me a second, Pell, I don't want to be a person.

-

Gonna be a person today?

-

Need immediate assistance. I wake up and look down and my hand is slamming my leg like a battering ram.

Shotgun

- 27 -

Fuck.

I'm running. I only have one hand working. I'm running as fast as I can, blind and freaked out and swearing under my breath in the dark. Up the dockline. Up the rungs. Past the cobblestone steps. Shoes hitting the pavement louder than god. I'm here, I'm fucking here, I'm here. Need immediate assistance. Thumb against my leg. Thumb means need immediate assistance. She's here. She's fucking here with me right now.

Need immediate assistance. I know, Rhodes, I fucking know! I'm running!

Bakery. The bakery has a pen and paper.

I'm up after what feels like forever, I fall at one point over my own feet, but I'm here. Early morning lights on in the bakery through muggy windows and the light splays across the tiny little plaza and there are two people inside, and one notices me. Doesn't matter. I get to the notice board and rip free a scrap of blank notebook paper hung up on a pin.

Pen. I need a pen. Where's the pen they keep here? Stole it already. Months ago. What?

I look inside. Two humans with mesh haircaps and bizarre expressions. Need a pen. I go inside. Need immediate assistance. Shhh. I go inside. Ceramic floors and echoey interior and two enormous metal machines blaring out a mechanical whir in back.

"Need a pen," I blurt out.

"What?" one of them asks, the one with long hair and tan skin.

I look freakish and wet with sea vapor. "Need a pen, or else she's gonna die." Need immediate assistance.

The other one says, "Your hand," but it seems accidental.

"Please."

Need immediate assistance. I wrench control from Rhodes with all my strength and slam the front counter and the plastic top shatters apart.

"Fucking hell!" someone shouts, further in back.

"Need a pen," I say.

Trembling people. They're trembling like I'm a threat. One of them finds a pencil in her apron and hands it to me and it falls to the floor, and I get it, and I stumble out with my legs wobbly.

-

I let her write. Eventually she understands that I'm letting her write. I am sat against the dry fountain in the plaza, holding my eyes open with one hand, writing with the other. Dim outside.

-

'SORRY,' she writes first.

Don't care. Get to the point. You're in danger.

'HIDING IN ABANDONED BUILDING. THEY FOLLOWED. SURROUNDING NOW. GOT MAYBE 15 MINUTES UNTIL FIND ME. PROBABLY WILL QUESTION AND THEN DRIVE OUT. 267 WEST ALTON. CLOSE'

Yeah. I can map it out in my head. West Alton is not close. Two hours away on foot. You're fucking with me, Rhodes, you're fucking with me.

I wrench control back. Feels like death. 'HOW MANY'

'FOUR INSIDE IDK OUTSIDE'

I write. 'GONNA GET HELP'

'OKAY,' she writes. Her handwriting is a scribble. I can't control my breath.

'THEY HAVE ARMOR?'

'NONE'

I stand up. I'm so wobbly. She's stopped writing and hitting my leg and I can start to feel the pain from where she slapped me awake. Must have been trying a while. I fold up the paper and stick it in the breast pocket of my fishing jacket and start my way towards Laudenberger.

-

Surreal, this hour. More quiet than I've ever seen. Or maybe my vision is just dim from all those dreams, all those memories. Few streetlights are on, and no signs. Have to cross a few wide streets to get to Laudenberger but there's no traffic. A couple factories whirring to life, a couple automated cleaning vehicles. Some aerodrones above, blinkers on. I go on.

-

In a haze I get through Laudenberger Square and into one of the subway entrances, and by this point I'm feeling the distance between now and when Rhodes was tapping at me, when she was telling me she was here, she was always here, she was always here. Now I think it was a dream, all of it. Stupid Nelly dreaming of stupid shit. Face the truth. But it doesn't have to be true. These things aren't in stone. I'm panting but I get to the entrance of Corundum Town where the overhead lights are finally bright again, like morning has come, but it doesn't feel like it ever will.

Barreling down the halls and tunnels until it opens up into a plaza; another plaza; another plaza. I see a group of folk wearing like colors, and with eight-armed crosses made of metal strung around their fronts, all waddling down one of many stairwells. I go on.

Check in. I tell her check in.

She says, need immediate assistance. I go on.

-

The Hang'd Knight is dead silent and closed and the lights are completely off save for a few red lamps near foot level, presumably from when the place was something else a long time ago, and I slip through the kitchen and into the back room.

Ceder is asleep. He is a big heap covered in blankets, and I shake him awake with my real hand so that Rhodes doesn't think I'm trying to communicate anything. God knows if she's taken or not yet, I haven't asked. Ceder is slow to come alive—up late as he always is. "Please," I murmur.

"Nelly?"

"Rhodes wrote back. Needs help."

"Alright," he murmurs, but not really consciously. "Be right there."

I need five minutes. "Now," I tell him, against my own better judgment.

He comes upright like a person of the mud, a sour and blank expression on him. "Show me what she wrote," he mumbles.

I retrieve the paper and watch his deadened, tired eyes scan it. 'HIDING'. 'DRIVE OUT.' 'WEST ALTON.' I speak something under my breath, but it's useless and I'm panting too much to get anything useful out. Was running the whole way, now it's catching up with me. Just like all those other times I ran til my body died on arrival. All for her. Come on, come on. I tap for her to check in. She just taps, need immediate assistance.

I heft Ceder upright after a few seconds, and he speaks again. "We'll get her," he says. More solidly now. Heart beating, heart beating. "Come."

He lifts a couple boxes from the corner of the back room, prays for a few seconds by the shrine, and takes me along, carrying our meagre cargo.

-

All the way back through town. All the way back to the subway. I'm getting antsy again. I know Ceder is faster than this—I've seen him run, I know his strides are longer than mine. He moves like a soldier. Even pace. Conserving energy.

-

We board a train to Ever Street. He's awake now and speaking, speaking quietly but firmly, like he does in the night hours at the speakeasy. "Need to get you armed," he murmurs. "Weapon crate I was going to sell soon, still in my van. Rest we just got rid of. You will have to manage."

"What's left?"

"A shotgun," he says.

I nod, swallowing. Holding onto one of the vertical metal bars. Mostly-empty train and running autonomously. There are a couple Tasran in rave garb in the back looking at us funny. "They're not armored," I say, my voice now kind of dry.

"Yes. We'll hope it remains true."

I wince. "Not sure if they're Greenview or someone else."

In a tone I haven't heard from him before, Ceder says, "Doesn't matter. We will get her."

-

Almost to Ever Street. I write on the scrap of paper using Ceder's big backside as a surface. 'WHATS HAPPENING'

'GOT ME'

'GONE?'

'NOT YET. BULLSHITTING. JUST TALKING ENDLESSLY'

'GREAT'

'PLEASE COME'

'I WILL'

We are close now. We are close. I'm coming, Rhodes.

-

Ceder's van is parked outside a warehouse in Glasstown. This district is quiet, but there used to be ten thousand factories working in an array like a great, unified machine. Most are dead now, dead or repurposed, or apartments and office buildings and Guilder hives built atop the rubble. Amber streetlights and immense gridded streets stretching off into the forever. His van is a stout but unremarkable thing—a bleached yellow paintjob, four old wheels, blacked-out back windows. This street, Ever Street, is even further from West Alton. But we have wheels now.

He takes me around back and pops open the doors to the trunk, where only a small collection of cargo remains, as well as a dozen briefcases and suitcases used for lugging it quietly through the subway. He gets us two pairs of ballistic vests, police-issue, with little insignias from Baultriel Law Enforcement. Then he picks up a wooden crate and drags it to the edge, and pops it open with the nub of his claw. "Here," he says.

Resting in a bed of paper scraps, I see a shotgun.

It was a Hodeway Super Steady once upon a time, but everything's since been replaced, and it takes six-gauge shells now. The features are a little corroded, the metal nickelplated but dirty and dusty and coarse to the touch. Still an odd muzzle break carved into the choke, and a few scuffs in the pistol grip from a metal hand holding it too tightly. A sling made of horse leather. The stock is wood—real wood—with an engraving of a knight in steel armor, burned to deepen the color.

"Can you use this?" he asks, retrieving an unlabeled box of buckshot. Six gauge is what you wanted, man, don't blame me if it's hard to find ammo.

"It's mine," I tell him, and hold it. Lighter than I remember, or maybe I have gotten better at holding heavy things.

He looks at me oddly. "It is now, I suppose."

"No, I mean." I clear my throat and then check the chamber. It can fit four shells in the tube safely, five shells unsafely. Keep it to four, and don't cycle it until you're ready to shoot. Fox couldn't get the safety working with all the mods. "It's mine. It's one I had."

"Oh," Ceder says, and in his expression, and in the expression of the Dust all around me, I see a faint and confused smile.

I take some spare shells, load it to four, and we get going.

- 28 -

He has masks for us in the glovebox. A cheap party mask for me, resembling a devil, and as he's driving, he wraps some rags around his face like a keffiyeh until I can make out barely a thing. Takes off his bracelets, takes off his neck ring. I clothe his bare neck in some scraps of black cotton and as he's waiting at a stoplight he checks on his own handgun. Don't know what it is, if it even has a brand, if it's bespoke. Never seen him shoot it, always seen him carry it. Boxy and enormous and with no sights at all. Braced it against his hip to aim it at me, first time we met.

Besides our facial disguises and vests I think he's still in his pajamas and I'm in my fishing pants. Gonna have to ditch it all if this works.

If this works.

I tap my knee with my index finger. Check in. She taps back. Need immediate assistance.

-

Looking down at my good hand. Earlier I was shaking a lot. I lift up my palm from my knee and just hold it out, and I'm still a little shuddery, but—

Calm down, fed.

—I hear her again.

Hold still. I will hold still.

-

Moving lightly now and the air raising me up. We park three blocks away and approach on foot along the side of an enormous brick building half-collapsed and now skewered by a pillar holding up a great wide highway which rests above us. The Gutters, West Alton District of Velnias. We'll have to move every couple days. She must've run out of good hiding spots along the coast. Or she was trying to get out.

Carrying a box by a handle in one hand and my old gun with the other.

We come to a corner. There's a small alleyway with one end blocked up by a fence, and a black-painted sedan parked just by the entrance to an old concrete apartment block with all the windows missing. There are streetlights, but they are so faint with urban decay and the sidewalk is bathed in a near total darkness.

Our footsteps so light now. I speak to Ceder and he speaks back. Trying to make last minute adjustments but it doesn't matter what we say anymore. I move to the other end of the alleyway by the building and lay the metal box down and start to turn a latch. It deploys quietly; a scissor mechanism, unfurling and unfolding along the concrete as I turn, bit by bit, until it reaches fifteen meters alongside Ceder, and once he has it stable I arm it with a little click of a lever.

I kneel down on the sidewalk there and write to her with a scrawled piece of paper pinned to the concrete.

'READY,' I write.

I hear shouting from inside the building. Second or third story. Humans, then a Tasran—a Tasran shouting. 'READY TOO,' she writes.

'CAR?'

'THEY WILL USE THE CAR'

'PROMISE ME'

'I HOPE'

Hope will have to be good enough. I cycle the bolt of my old shotgun as I hear her yelling go quiet, but the other shouting—two voices, maybe three?—continues. Continues and continues. Banging of wood.

Couple minutes pass like this.

I look to Ceder. His eyes are gleaming in the nightlight. He is expressionless. I am starting to tremble again.

Calm down, fed.

They are using the stairs in the building. Sneakers, not boots, and I hear what sounds like a puffy coat, sleek and expensive and unfitting. I hold myself. I hold the gun upright and a gust of wind from down south pulls my piece of paper away from me until it flies away.

Sound of a car door opening. Another, another. Then one shuts. Another, another.

An engine turns on. I look to Ceder and see his eyes pull away. I know he is praying but I don't know how I know. I take a breath.

More footsteps inside the building.

Listen close. I am, Pell. I am. What do you hear? I hear a car going out of park. I hear tires struggling with a wet driveway. I hear other things. I hear the rain starting to pick up. I hear it drizzling in Sundown Street. I hear someone exiting a corner store and the bells ringing on the doorway and I hear a flower getting picked out of a pot on a windowsill. I hear a dog barking. I hear you. I know you're not there. I hear you regardless. I hear the tires turning and a splash of a little puddle and I hear Rhodes in my ear and I hear Ceder's heavy breath. I hear two kids in a backyard half the size of my prison cell playing with a football. I hear my breath. I hear my heartbeat.

I hear the mechanical whir of spikes thrusting upward and tires popping.

We brace against our cover. The car pulls forward another meter or so before the passenger side door swings open and a man with gelled hair and round-rimmed glasses tries to turn to face me but he doesn't see Ceder, he never saw Ceder. I hear the sound of an explosion ten times more striking than the Supranendum or the Rossberg as Ceder shoots his head off. A fusion pistol with a fusion cell, and a bolt of pure solid straight lightning goes through his skull and turns it to a thousand pieces of carbon—bone and brain and eyeballs black and his hands still gripping the top of the door tightly. I cannot hear my heartbeat anymore. I tense my hand and thrust forward my shoulder and aim at the man in the driver's seat struggling with his seatbelt; he is handsome like someone I used to know a long time ago, with a wide nose and curly hair, and I shoot him and it becomes daytime for a second, I can see every little detail everyplace, I can see the paint of the car where it's flecked off, I can see his beautiful face lit like he's getting his picture taken, then the sound reaches my ears and pops into silence everything in the world and when the flash is gone I see nothing but the remnants of a face and upper body, and all the blood sprayed across the dashboard and seat and doorframe and a fully-grown man turned to dripping bits, and the glass powderizes and sparkles in the lamplight, and then the door falls off its hinges. Wake up. Flashing lights. Something brushes me in the backside and dust fills the air in front of me. I turn around. There's a man in a puffy jacket leaning out of one of the empty windows firing at me and I swing my gun up and shoot him and his torso turns to mist. I turn back. Ceder has his gun at hip level and he has turned and fired it again but I don't hear it clearly this time. A storm of superheated air and then another and I shift to the wall again to aim—atop the steps someone without a head is falling over and then another shadow is perched behind a dumpster shooting my way, he was hiding there, he was always there, and I see that he has hit Ceder in the chest, and I shoot him. The metal railing up the steps to the doorway turns into a plume of dust and rust and when the flash is gone I see the shadow has turned to a massive black shape of dripping blood and Ceder is crouched behind the trunk holding his gun one-handed atop the car and training it at the entranceway and he beckons me forward with a wave and I pull open the rear door closest to me.

Rhodes is inside, handcuffed behind her back, half-naked in just her old slacks. I see her ruby eyes and she clambers towards me. I take her in my arms and let my shotgun fall from my hands. One shot left. It falls and then gets caught by my sling and goes to my backside.

Somehow now I hear the first of my spent shells hit the ground.

We run. I have never run like this in my life, not for any reason. I skip every second step and bound like a horse. I have been shot in the back and don't know it yet. I hold her. I can feel her heartbeat leaping out of her chest and I can feel her heart touch mine. Tears in her eyes. I hold her. I hold her so close. I can't hear a word she's saying.

What do you hear? I don't hear anything, Pell, I have just shot my gun and I can't hear anything. What do you hear? A buzzing. I can hear a whistling and a buzzing. The whistling is getting louder.

What do you hear?

Ceder's head tilts up. Mine tilts up, too.

There is a shape approaching out of the firmament at a speed that should not be possible for anything in atmosphere.

I know instantly, though I have never seen one with my own eyes, that this is a Rapid-Entry Dropship of the Peacekeepers of the League of Free Worlds, and that they are coming down from low orbit at a speed quick enough to make earthquakes of the ground from sheer noise, and that they are coming to us.

Ceder yanks me close. Must know my ears aren't working. He shouts at the top of his lungs but it is only a whisper. "Peacekeepers," he says. "I have a contingency. Distraction. Run with Rhodes. Run, run. I'll go. Run."

So I clasp her closer to my chest and run off to the side.

-

Down an alley. Skipping down the steps. Feet bleeding. Nelly, they brought the hammer down. The whistling grows so, so loud. The Peacekeeper response time can get as low as sixty seconds. Can you believe that? In the League's hands, you are never more than one minute away from rescue. The whistling like the sky is screaming.

-

The ground is shaking. I see her eyes. Through a parking garage we go. I realize now that I've been shot in the back, and the ceramics in my vest are jostling around, and it feels like my bones are jostling around. Small cartridge. Can't breathe properly. I see her red eyes.

-

I nearly fall over. Out of gas. I hold her like a potato sack and go again and run.

-

I have you. I have you. Please don't go again.

-

Please.

- 29 -

When I wake up again I realize, with some relief, that I'm not dead and I haven't gone anywhere. There is a flat of cardboard covering my whole body and it's raining.

I go back to sleep.

-

Inertia brings me back a few minutes later. Quiet along the seaboard.

I pull the cardboard aside and see that I am in some thin, wet, dim alleyway in the evening of a new day, and Rhodes is across from me, soaking wet, still half-naked, her eyes weary. I try to lurch up towards her but my body doesn't want to. Sharp pain in my shoulder. A glob of rainwater splatters against my face. "Rhodes," I say, and it gets mangled by my dry throat so much that it sounds like a moan.

"Hi," she says back. Her voice is muted. The ringing from the gunfight is gone now and in its place is just the gentle applause of rain. "Can you, ah, can you move?"

"Maybe," I admit.

"Got a place to hide out near. Apartment is still unsold."

Stay on the move. Right. Stay in the brush. Right. I look around. Brick walled buildings, stench of rotting garbage, mud, a broken gutter. Not even sure if I got us here, or... or if she got us here. No recollection after a point. She's taken off my ballistic vest and facemask and put them somewhere. I glance over to my left and see a pinprick wound in my shoulder from where a bullet went straight through some of my skin. Recoil, fed, recoil. Your first shot might hit center mass, but where's the next shot going? First shot in my back. Second shot in my shoulder. Lucky to be alive. Lucky she's alive.

I look over and I assure myself, again, that she is real. Spine doesn't hurt like I assumed it would.

"Thank you," Rhodes says, now, and I hear some twinge of brokenness in her voice. Don't know what it means.

I get up.

She has had a lot of time to rest. Wearing some ill-fitting shirt twice her size, carrying a garbage bag. I can hear a couple things rattling around in it, but not much. "Carry me in this," she says. "Close by. Not long."

"What?"

"Like the Bug Bag," she murmurs, and she has the faintest version of her smile.

I try to smile back at her, but I get interrupted by a sharp, rough cough. "Right," I say. "Is this real?"

She awkwardly dips her head down. "I guess."

I reach over and check my shotgun. She's already unloaded it—shells still in my pockets. I keep it unloaded and put the sling around just one shoulder, then motion at the garbage bag. "Tell me where we're going," I say. "Then let's go."

I got you now, Rhodes. You'll be okay.

We'll be okay.

-

I got us to Salt Row, apparently. Or she got us to Salt Row. Ran down those alleyways until I was unconscious, must have been running eastward toward the Cestabin. No sign of Ceder, of course, but also no sign of the Peacekeepers, no extra holes in my body. Blood drying around my shoulder into a makeshift bandage, and an occasional pinprick ache from the bruise on my upper back. I carry my old shotgun by the sling, and hoist the garbage bag with Rhodes in it over my shoulder. Metal arm makes it pretty easy. Somebody named Jack used to walk like this, used to carry a shotgun over his shoulder. Think he died in the Magenta Rebellion, think he tried something audacious in Stargard. How many clueless idiots like me died for that. What good did it do.

The cobblestones and concrete sidewalks are soaking wet. We're in a crowded neighborhood but not quite the Gutters and it's not the worst walk and I notice again that my feet are bleeding, or at least my socks are soaked with blood from before. I tap the bag handle with one finger. Check in. She taps back. All clear.

J-28 Street. There's a place called Seaview Public Library that is four stories tall and a diverse crowd of people are gathering out front the entrance. Banner for some event. There's an automat here, but it looks small, built into the corner of a rustic-looking apartment block, dim lights and nobody inside.

J-27 Street. A couple cheap compact cars are parked outside an indoor shopping center. Two people are busking, one with a pair of hand drums, one with a stringed piece of oval-shaped wood. There's a line to get a burrito at a little food truck and three of the Baldari in the line are wearing the same raincoats in Salt Row cyan. There's a rotting tire out front one of the brownstones.

J-26 Street. Another automated street cleaner, rugged, covered in graffiti and moving slowly across the old street. No cars are supposed to drive here but there's a convertible with one wheel up on the sidewalk, and then a couple people gliding by on bicycles. Two people step outside an apartment block and slip on some yellow jackets.

J-25 Billet Mother Apartments. I'm tracking in a lot of water. Scuffing my boots against the tile entranceway, staring down at the set of doorways in the first floor hallway, watching for movement. Don't hear anybody upstairs. From my pocket, I retrieve a tiny piece of metal cut from a soda can, and proceed upstairs. Rounding each corner with my breath heavy from exhaustion. Got my bug in my garbage bag. I pass an old woman on the stairs again and she gives me a funny look.

Fifth floor.

I wipe my shoes at the door.

Rhodes shims the lock for us with my hand.

-

Back again. Been months now, been months, long enough it should have been sold, or the lock changed, or the furniture rearranged, but in the dim light of an overcast evening it looks just like the first day we spoke along the seaboard of the Cestabin. I take Rhodes out of the bag and place her gently down, and one of us initiates a hug, and we hug, and I'm still sopping wet with rainwater, but I hold her. She is small and I am too large. I hold her.

No time to ask anything. I just want her to be able to lay down.

I lead her along into the bedroom. The sound of faint electronic drums beneath us, the floorboards creaking under me. The heaviness in my head. I pick a little at what else is in the garbage bag—my compromised ballistic vest, my mask. We'll have to find a good place to burn them both. No evidence, no trail. What do you think are the odds Ceder got out? What are our odds?

I stumble over and crumple onto the floor and sit on my ass, and Rhodes clambers onto the old bed, on top of the comforter.

I speak now because I've been waiting so many months to speak. "I'll hit them back," I say, my voice crumbling under the lack of water. "Greenview. For you. For that. I promise. I don't know—"

"It was the League," Rhodes says. Her piercing gaze on me. A weary look.

"What?"

"It was the League, that got me to kill Jericho Arborist," she says, and now she's trembling, trying to grip her knees planted on the bed. "That's why, that's why, ah, ah... beh... that's why the Peacekeepers came so fast, to us, I'm sorry, I should have said."

I blink again to make sure she's still there. "What's Greenview—"

Then she speaks over me again. More powerful than me in her tone. "Greenview really doesn't know shit," she whimpers, softly. "It's been the League after us. Why I knew you'd be s-safe if I wasn't around. It was me. It was me, I was the problem. Just w-w-wanted to reclaim me." Now her voice is gibbering and pained.

Before I know it I'm on my feet. Fire in me. Fire in me. Like when I woke up and Pell was gone. Like those months and months and fucking months poured into it trying to find out where she went. The grief in my heart when I knew she was dead and then had to figure out, piece by piece, that she was dead. Fire. Fire in me. I am upon Rhodes and she scrambles flat against the bed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry," she says.

"Why didn't you fucking say it was the League?! Ever? Ever?! I asked you so many fucking times, you know why—"

"I didn't know how—"

My voice is someone else's voice. It's yours and always has been. "Everything I fucking did for you and for us and now Ceder did for you, and you lied, you fucking lied—"

"PLEASE," she screams.

I pause.

"Please let m-m-me talk."

Tears on my face. I can taste myself dying.

"I didn't w-want you to leave or hurt me, or not trust me, I h-had to. I just didn't w-want you to leave."

She is propped up against the window and she is scared of me. My hands are shaking like I need to break something in half.

"It w-was my fault," she whimpers. "I'm s-s-sorry. I just couldn't f-figure out how to s-say anything ever."

"You got forced into it," I tell her.

"No."

I grit my teeth forcefully. "I would have forgiven you. I forgive you. I would have. You got forced into it. It's the League. I can be mad at the League. It's not hard to be mad at the League."

"I d-didn't get forced," Rhodes whispers.

"Okay."

"I didn't. I n-needed money. They came to me." Now she looks off, or she is gone, lost watching some cameras somewhere. "After the shit happened and I needed my brain fixed I couldn't work and I couldn't k-keep anything and lost all my money and I was gonna be homeless. And I was s-scared and I took the job. And then you came. And then they came, a-at the same time." Rhodes looks at me, comes back to reality, and I realize she's smiling. "A-And you saved me from them."

My hands are on the bedframe. Crawling up to her. I just didn't want to lose you. Maybe I could have lost you and kept on living. It could have been so straightforward. "Why did they have you do it," I ask. Then I realize I don't care about that. I get loud enough to make my chest hurt. "Why did they point the finger at Pell."

"I don't know," she says.

"Lying," I say. She is lying. Always lying. Be careful of people that look sad all the time. This wretched creature. Cockroach. Gutter rat. I am on her now. "Just admit it. I forgive you. Just fucking admit it."

Scared of me. "I don't know."

"Please. Just admit it."

"I don't know. I s-swear I don't know why. I just f-fucking turned the turret on."

I grip her by the shoulder. "Just tell the fucking truth for once in your life," I tell her.

Her whimpering turns to a scream.

I pull my hand away. It is covered in blood. There is a terrible leaking wound in her bare shoulderblade where my... my metal hand. I wasn't in control of it. She's hurt.

God she's hurt. I pull away. I pull my whole self away. What did you do, Nelly.

She is quiet now. Just staring at me and then the finger-shaped wounds in her shoulder, divots, chasms in her chitin, red soaking her gray self, her self, the self I loved about her, I have gone and hurt her for no reason at all because I am not in control of anything and I back up until I'm against the wall and nearly slip into the closet and tremble viciously from the sight of it.

"I'll get something for that," I manage, and I tumble out of the apartment.

- 30 -

Wandering through the street now. It's pouring rain. At first it's tempting to think, to ponder, to feel guilty—but it doesn't seem like it is any use to think about things right now. I wish I was still by the Cestabin in the night waiting for fish to come along. I guess I don't wish that. I walk.

Clouds blotting out any sense of reality. And here comes the nighttime. I look up and all the buildings along Salt Row are blinking with ten thousand lights. I look back down.

My creaky metal hand has blood on it now. I stuff it into my pocket.

I got a plan. It's not a complicated one or very responsible. There's a corner store nearby and I will just buy some medical supplies. At that point I'll fix part of my mistake and then maybe get out of Rhodes' life. Why am I like this? Why is she like this? Why'd I say all that shit? Why'd she say all that shit? Why'd I hurt her? Why'd she hurt me?

No, I said I wasn't going to think about anything. I walk.

-

Back on Stromm's I knew a Tasran who died. It was my fault. Got him killed from my own stupid choices. Red eyes, too. No, I said I wasn't going to think. Walk, Nelly, just walk.

-

I make it to the corner store called TOM'S. Been here before. Ducking in to dodge the rain.

The bells on the door ring for me, and I wave a little hello to the guy at the counter, who looks at me funny. The overhead lights are oppressive and I feel like I'm a troglodyte facing sun for the first time, and it smells like chlorine. Just passing it all by right now. Some other tall human in the store lugging around a bag of chips in one hand, tired eyes, freight drivers' eyes, and he pays me no mind. I go between the rows just hoping I'll find anything. Taste of rations in my mouth again. No, not quite. Taste of gas station food in my mouth. The gas station outside Crater had good packaged food from the city. I am too wide and tall to belong in a little shop like this.

I find a good assortment of what I'm looking for. A kit of ChitinCare SewUp and some gauze and a lot of different medicine creams and a can of Jetsurp and some sour gummy candy. And a little cheap datapad half the size of Rhodes' old one. I lug it all to the counter.

The guy at the front is happy to see me for some reason. Deep eyes on a young face, and a crooked nose that looks familiar. "Hi, good evening," he says.

"Thank you." I start fishing around in one pocket.

He takes a look at my assortment, starts scanning each piece. Swear I had it here still. I check my back pocket. "Gonna be..." He squints slightly. "Thirty-one fifty, or twelve-something PiCoin."

Found it. I retrieve a few hundred-Vick bills and put one down on the counter. Realizing now that I used my metal hand to do it. Still covered in her blood.

"Oh?" he murmurs.

"Can you keep the change for yourself?"

Then he nods furiously. "Thank you. Cool of you." Now he's really smiling. Part of something interesting for once.

I nod cautiously. "Yeah. Uh. Was just giving you this to ask you don't tell anyone I was here."

He leans in and hushes me playfully. "Lady, I do that for free."

That makes me grin at him a little. I push the bill forward to him. "Then, uh. Have a good one."

He puts forward a paper bag, stuffs all my goodies in, and hands it to me. "You too."

So I go back out.

-

Pouring now. But oddly quiet. Quiet from all the rain draining into the sidewalks, all the people in raincoats with their voices muffled, passing by. I stop outside the shop with my bag and I stare up at Velnias from below. There is one skyscraper of enormous proportions nearby, one overlooking Salt Row, with unfathomable, wrong architecture, shaped like spikes into heaven, ten thousand lit windows on a breathing and thinking machine shaped like a building, and I get some rain in my face, so I lift up my hand, and the rain comes down, and comes down, and comes down, like always, like nothing has changed at all since the first day I died and came back. Then the blood on my hand starts to wash away.

Salt Row

- 31 -

I reach the apartment again and the thrumming of music is quieter, and it is later at night now, and my head is light, and my mouth is dry. I enter and try to keep my footsteps light. Some part of me is sure beyond doubt that Rhodes will be missing, she'll have found that electric moped or robbed some new kind of transportation in the fifteen minutes I was gone, or she'll be waiting for me with a shotgun pointed at the entrance, but when I come inside she is still there in the bedroom, straightened the bed, made a nest on the floor for me with some of the throw pillows and the comforter. I don't speak and she doesn't speak. Her bleeding shoulder is exposed still, and so I clamber on the bed to patch her up.

Never used this brand of chitin stitches, but used some in the past of similar make. Instructions on the back translated badly to Common. She leans against me for support and I reach over her and gradually meld and remeld and sew together her mangled shoulder-chitin. Two big wounds mainly, two holes in her, some cartilage broken, some veins cut. Lots of disinfectant. "Ow," she murmurs.

"Hold on, it'll get better," I tell her. Applying the topical cream now. Really should numb up soon. Her chitin is frail, weak, like she's been malnourished. Maybe hasn't been eating well lately.

She dips her head against mine. Her ruby eyes dulling and her mandibles crunched against her face in pain. I dip the thin-as-hair needle into one bit of chitin again and sew another line.

Come on, Rhodes. Let me make it better, then you can fuck off like you wanted. I tell her, "Be out after I do this."

"You're leaving?" she asks.

I have to explain myself. I don't like doing that. I gently press into where her shoulder meets her neck, and apply a couple stitches. She winces as I'm doing it. "I feel bad for you," I mutter, "but stupid for trusting you."

Then she blurts some words out just as I'm wrapping up, just as my throat is tight. "I got your letters," she says.

"Yeah?"

"Got 'em, most of them. I-I, ah, missed the first couple, 'cus I wasn't near paper to... to figure out what you were writing. But I got all the rest. Wrote 'em down or figured out how you were moving your arm."

"Okay," I say.

I apply some more stitches. Almost done both front and back now. She's good at holding still, more than most. I did patch up plenty of people back home, all species, all stuff like this. Lots of unexploded ordnance on Stromm's from the War, lots of civillians in the outlands with shrapnel wounds or mangled legs.

Rhodes says, "I do love you back, I think. I like you a lot anyway."

"Stupid idea."

"No, writing wasn't stupid," she whispers.

"Stupid to..." I'm about to say stupid to love me but it feels so rash and brutish and stupid, too, to say something like that. She means it. What does it mean that she means it?

She grips my arm loosely. "And I held onto the stupid, ah, letters, even though... stupid for op-sec, too, to hang onto 'em. I did burn them when the League came over, y-yesterday. But kept them until then. So I could look back."

Briefly I think about Ceder's lover, his Bloom, all those letters, all those words from all these years. My face scrunches up. I retrieve some disinfectant and gauze. The bed is messy with little spats of blood but I can't manage to care. "Why did you leave," I ask, all choked up, not knowing why I'd ask something so stupid.

"You know why," she whispers. "Wanted to go it alone again. Thought it'd be easier. I did it before, ah, to... to someone. That kind of thing. And she forgot about me eventually, got over me."

I admit, "I might've, eventually."

"Glad you didn't, I guess."

"Glad I didn't." Only reason she's not gone with the League is because I'm stupid. Could have been a lapdog. Now she's just a roach in the gutter water.

She doesn't move a muscle as I'm applying disinfectant. Don't know if she's already numb there or if she's just good at it. Gauze, now. Lots of gauze. Got plenty to change it, was thinking she'd change it herself. Am I sticking around? Should I? She doesn't want you to leave. I know that. I guess I know that. Trouble is I haven't decided if I'm gonna.

I want to talk about anything else.

"...So those guys were League?"

Rhodes' register drops a little. Suddenly she sounds just like she did when we first talked under the dock. Plan-maker, craftswoman. "Kinda," she says. "Local hires, I think. Not super well-equipped, and not super trained. But they were all using earpieces." That makes her cackle a little, cackle madly like a night-animal again. "It's fucking crazy, you told me people like that always use headsets and stuff. It's real."

I smile faintly. "Yeah. Predictable."

"They kept using 'em to radio in with... ah, ah... whoever. Up in orbit, maybe, asking what questions to ask me."

"The League did use local hires back home," I muse. "Like that. I mean, shit, they used you, even."

"Yeah. Tshh, I don't have to tell you how they work." She grins. Mandibles down and out and calm.

I wrap the gauze all around, and around, and around. She's thin but not delicate, helps me along a little, has me tighten it further. Eventually it's good and tight and a little sticky. "How important... are you, to them? Grand scale?"

"I guess not crazily," Rhodes concludes, after a moment. "Would have sent smarter guys, better guys, I think. They don't think I'm that good at what I do."

"Do they know about the backdoor?"

She nods. "That's why they used me. But they know if I use it again, they can... shut me down." Wording there seems dire, and she lingers on it.

I pipe up. "Why don't we just remove the backdoor, so they stop caring?"

Then Rhodes looks up at me, and her bright eyes seem so familiar again. "See, shit, that was starting to be my idea, too."

The notion that both of us would come up with the same idea astounds me. Doesn't happen often. I weakly laugh. "Just patch the backdoor and they leave you alone?"

"Maybe. Prolly not." She turns back, and I finally pull away. Medical job is done. Now we're just two women sat on a bed, waiting out a storm. "Problem is I'm still a loose end. And if I let them patch the backdoor, I got no cameras anymore, no police scanner or Peacekeeper watch, I got no... info, you know. Which fucking sucks."

"Makes escaping pretty hard."

"Yeah. Impossible." She sighs.

"You're not a big loose end, though," I say. "Are you?"

"I mean, I got some League secrets, I was part of a conspiracy to kill a diplomat..."

I shrug. "You got proof of much?"

She shakes her head. "Pretty much squat. You can fake that shit anyway, so even if we went to the press or something, it won't really work, I don't think. Then they'd definitely want me super-duper-dead."

I sit up more straightly, and stare off.

The rain is all behind us, scattering on the window. Barren little apartment room. I see the spot where I'm supposed to be sleeping and all I can think is that it's exactly like every little hammock I've used on my own, and all I want in the world is to be able to hold Rhodes in this bed, like nothing happened, like nothing's coming.

Nothing's coming? Just because it doesn't look like anything's coming, or sound like anything's coming...

"What about," I whisper, "we use the backdoor to get out, and then destroy it."

"Fuckin' wish," Rhodes says.

"What wouldn't work?"

She swallows, squinting and looking out. "They have MONITOR cores in Velnias, the whole network of things. In a few seconds after, like, shutting off a camera, or editing a feed, or changing a database, one would pinpoint me, lock me out, and—" Now she taps her head-cybernetic, where half her mind resides. "—counterattack. I'd get my brains fried."

I wince. "Shit." Shut me down, she said.

"It is shit. It makes me mad it's so shit." Her claws dig into the bedsheet below us. "All this shit I can look at but can't touch. All these ways out that leave us defenseless. I-I've just been going through the city living one fucking stupid night at a time and I don't... I didn't..." Her voice breaks. "I didn't even have you there to do it with. Can't get out of my own head."

I don't know how to feel. I don't know how to feel about anything. Months spent pining for this lady and it turns out I was wanted, I was. I wasn't ditched by a callous asshole. Or maybe I was and I'm still a fool. I don't care. New fire in me. New fire from someplace far away. "I know some MONITORs we could turn off for a while," I say.

"Ba, saik..."

"The ones in Baultriel. It's—"

Rhodes cackles again, but it's a sad cackle. "Nelly, you can't go turn off a MONITOR, they're the most guarded fucking things ever."

"Sure, but what if we had a team."

She squints at me. "Okay?"

"The ones in Baultriel are a pain in the ass for the militia there, too. I heard little bits from Ceder. Why shit hasn't moved at all for them, why he's still stuck here in the speakeasy."

"Uh-huh..."

I lean over to get a look at her face. She's considering it. Her eyes aren't elsewhere. Really thinking. "Would disabling just one be enough?"

"Disabling," she says, "is not enough. There's so many in Velnias watching different systems. But if we could subvert it, in person, we'd have a smokescreen for the whole fucking city. Give us as much time as it's turned in our favor. Fucking... even five minutes would be more time than I've ever, ever had with that much power."

"Enough to get us out?"

Her voice is rocketing along, her head bobbing. I can tell she's thinking faster than she can speak. "Yes. Yes, fuck yes, because—in just a—I could make a million little copies of me on cameras going places, going everywhere, every escape route, every shuttle in every starport. I could completely fuck their intelligence and give myself a thousand identities. I-It'd be obvious what we're doing, but..."

"But they can't follow up on them all," I whisper, grinning like a madwoman.

"You fucking get it." She's grinning like a madwoman, too.

Now I'm leaned back, kicking my legs a little, imagining us running. Running for real. Running with direction. "And where do we actually go?"

"Well, there's orbit, I guess," she says, rocking her head. "But I don't got any friends anywhere, and... and I dunno about Stromm's..."

No. My head isn't there at all. I shake my head and wave it off.

"I also got the idea of, ah, maybe... maybe asking Ceder if we could come to Haraad."

And that makes me laugh. "Hey, I was thinking the same thing."

And once again we've had the same idea. Maybe she's even thought about learning Dronhas. This hacker living by the sea in a town with nearly no computers at all. Would she like that? Maybe I would like that.

I lean against her.

-

God and her heartbeat is here, it is still here. It was not a dream.

-

I hold her hand.

"Please," she whispers. "I... want this. But I also need to ask you something."

"Alright."

"Please don't hurt me, like that."

A little shudder passes through me. I nod slowly. "Okay," I say.

Rhodes is weak now, weak all of a sudden, and looks up to me, but also looks at something impossibly far away. "I got to be like this 'cus of people really close to me."

Ceder's little pact with Bloom not to harm one another. Such a simple thing. Would be so simple. I want to cry. "I won't hurt you."

"I won't either," she murmurs.

And I just go quiet from there.

I'm not without fault for hurting her. And she probably hates sitting here with only excuses. Knows that I probably won't trust her again, knows she can't make it up to me. I got reason to leave and I haven't, yet. Not hard to guess why.

I see myself like I am across from myself and half the time I don't know what I am, what I've been all my life. Comes easy to see the worst in people but I've been trying to dodge that instinct with her. To my detriment, I know. But she is still here. In spite of that.

I want to be good to people, Pell. I know that's what you wanted for me. I know it's the last thing you wanted for me. I get a chance and you didn't get one. I won't fuck it up.

I promise.

-

I give her the can of Jetsurp, and we share the candy, and we ride the night out. She patches up the glancing wound in my shoulder while I spend a while watching the news on the datapad I bought. New freeway being planned in Surro. Freight train got stuck in station for a few hours. Gang leader dead at twenty-six. I'm checking for anything about our shootout, anything about the Peacekeepers that got called in, but find no coverage of last night anywhere. After a bit we put on a monster movie called Hsu Park 2 instead. Giant ugly bat-mammals breaking out of some nature reserve and taking revenge on the city. Sometime at midnight we are both too tired to stay awake, and I curl her up in my arms, and I drift off to the sound of muffled techno from the downstairs tenants.

- 32 -

I'm still trying to grab at her when I wake up, quiet and out of breath, but she's not there. Then I panic—but after opening my eyes I see Rhodes, curled up in some pillows on the floor, patched up and shirtless and smiling faintly, gnawing at the last of the sour candies.

"Hey," I say.

She raises up a clawed hand to wave. "Morning, freak." Then she throws a sour gummy at me like she's quickdrawing a throwing knife, and I fail to catch it, and it bounces off my face to the floor.

I have really come to like this woman.

-

Not as poorly equipped as when we were first on the lam, and it's a little exciting, and the air is different, and our plans are pretty set. Few days out of the Undercity to let the heat die down—just in case Ceder was grabbed, or turned, or whatever—and then we'll scout it out bit by bit. I have two hundred Vicks left from the emergency fund in my back pocket, so I go out to an open-air market called J-4 Plaza and buy a new-used duffel bag with some extra leg room, and I get a knicknack vendor to break down the hundred-Vick bills into smaller bits. I get back to the apartment one final time, we name the duffel bag the New Bug Bag, and she clambers in with our scant few supplies.

There's a faint early morning drizzle, and the few humans walking the thin streets can't decide whether to tough it out or use raincoats. It smells like mud and sugar, and there's a lightness in the air. Sun is out but obscured by a thin fog, and not overhead yet.

Rhodes is keeping my unloaded shotgun warm in the New Bug Bag. Wrapped around it like a weird pillow.

Don't feel like scrounging up a new fishing rod, since I like my old one, so we travel to get some food to last the escapade. There's a surplus store near the shore on Seesee Street. Windowless, and housed in the second floor of a nasty-smelling warehouse-turned-apartment, with dingy overhead lights and a half-dozen people scrounging around the endless bins and shelves. It's grey and dusty and smells like rancid sweat. Cheap gear on display, a couple single-shot shotguns, then the usual assortment of satchels and flares and firestarters and whatnot. Cans of food, expensive as always. I get us peaches and gattas and beans and soups and a little camp stove, and end up spending over fifty Vicks on just staying alive. Necessary though, and the extra cans will be useful later.

Finally, and as the rain is starting to dry up for morning sun, I head to a kebab stall right by the seafront and get us both some skewered synth-beef with plenty of malt vinegar drizzled on all sides. Last time I tried to get Rhodes some kebab, I misunderstood, and fucked up, and got shawarma, and I had to wait three months to get another opportunity.

We camp out under one of the docks that's not too rusty. I de-Bag the Bug, give her a kebab, and we eat good for the first time in two days.

-

This is a good spot. Low tide today, and the murky brown sand makes adequate seating. We eat and chat and drink a whole bunch of water, which I hadn't realized how badly I was craving. Between us we've got my gear from the shootout—vest with a bullet in it, plastic mask. Been brainstorming ways of getting rid of it, and we've settled on just stuffing it in someone else's garbage later.

I cack out and watch the waves of the Cestabin come in and out for a little while, and Rhodes joins me, hugged tight against my side.

-

"That's a Gritch glasseye," Rhodes whispers. She's pointing at one of the red-feathered, big-beaked birds skimming the surface out there, not far from a superfreighter's knifelike bow.

"You do bird watching?" I ask.

She chitters. "No. Hah. Just know it from the intranet."

I squint. Unlike the ones on Stromm's this one is native to this planet. So much I don't know still. Its big wings look like they were bloodied and then bleached, and it moves so slowly that it doesn't seem to move, until it lands atop a new wave and lays flat on the water, floating without effort.

"There's a copy protect cracker called Gritch," she says eventually.

I smirk. "Cool. Nerd."

"I'll show you it," Rhodes whispers. "Later. And that album with the flop jewelfish on the front. When we get your UAP back."

I hold her hand tight. "Soon enough."

"Soon enough," she agrees, and we stick there watching the waves for a while.

-

Eventually she speaks again. "Hey," she murmurs. "Earlier, you... we didn't talk about what happened, a-and why the League had me do it. But I can, now."

I nod a little against her. "If you'd like."

"I only got theories, but they're better than last time." She gets closer to me. There's a crane whining further to our left on the shore, pulling some debris from the water.

"Hit me," I say.

"Okay." So Rhodes clears her buggy throat and starts to explain. "They didn't want to tell me why shit was going down, but it was really urgent. They told me if I didn't get him done right there, like, in the hotel, it would be job failed."

"They knew you had the backdoor?"

She hums without certainty. "I think... they knew I was familiar with Greenview systems, but they definitely didn't know the extent of the bug at that point."

I lean over to face her, curiously. "What's the extent?"

"Everything running Berry," she says. "The operating system. Ah, ah, it's like... what your datapad runs on, what your arm runs on, what the cameras run on. If I hook in, I can make it work for me."

"Fits with what I've seen. Sure, so they thought it was just Greenview's problem."

"Yeah. Now they know it's everywhere, but they don't know how it works." She has the unmistakable sound of pride in her voice. "I hope it fucking scares 'em."

I murmur happily. "Hope so, too."

"—Ah, ah, but you asked theories, about Jericho," she says.

Thanks for staying on track, Rhodes. I nod and scrunch up against her a little. "Sure."

"I looked stuff up about him. I'm not, like, good with politics, but he seemed, ahh... anti-League? Or something like that? Plus, there's all the money they got from Greenview in insurance, and then the bribe they got to go... ah... get Pelleratz."

"More complicated," I explain. "Well, maybe not the second part. The League does need money."

"Sure, eheh."

I clear my throat. "I'll give you the lowdown on Jericho Arborist, if you can put up with me talking about state taxes and shit for a little while."

Rhodes giggles softly. "Cool date idea."

"We'll see." I bring my gaze up to the horizon line, to where the Cestabin Sea meets the Kesh Band, where the world seems to end and begin all at once. "You probably know this, but the Magenta Rebellion was all about taxes. Some other stuff came out of it, but that's where it started. I heard for the Palisade it was about export tax, since it was a huge cash cow for the League."

"Yep," she says. "Ah, and income tax on people who aren't local."

"Shit, really?" I smirk. "I've been dodging, then."

"Tshhh. Don't tell Ceder."

"He's gotta be dodging too." I laugh a little. "Okay, okay, but. Taxes. Stromm's taxes."

She nods. "Stromm's taxes."

"The planet's self-sufficient, a little like the Palisade, but mostly just through agriculture. Lots of good land for farming. The League wanted to use it explicitly for that—way smaller population, fewer cities, and theoretically self-sustaining off the local farms. No export tax, so we were encouraged to sell every last bit. And a huge import tax, instated a few decades ago, so we don't import any more than we need."

"Like fifty percent?"

"Two hundred percent," I tell her. "Pay three times the cost of goods, two thirds of it goes to the League. Wild shit. Obviously that was a target of the Rebellion, but it's not that simple." I go take a little swig of water, and now I'm really in a storytelling mode, all excited to explain local politics to her. "Stromm's isn't actually self-sustaining. We get monsoons and flooding, and a few years ago both of those combined to completely fuck our harvests for the year. It could have been a famine if we really were trying to survive on our own." I say we like I lived in the big cities. But it affected me, too—I remember the trouble in surviving that winter cut off from easy supplies. "Instead we imported at the crazy tax rate just to survive, and that put the local government in a hole. Corps like Touchdown Systems bailed them out, but, you know, that came at a cost. Started buying equity, owning the farms themselves, setting up shop."

Rhodes shivers. "Yeah I can see where this is going."

"That's the real target, that's what had people in the Rebellion freaking out. And local politicians were freaking out, too, and they made a plan."

"The New Deal Coalition? The one Jericho Arborist was in?"

"Yep. You must've seen."

She lowers her head in thought. "But he was just one guy."

"Getting to that. Anyway, you probably saw their plan. 'Hey, next time there's a disaster, let's not buy from League planets, let's buy from somewhere else, and skip the tax.' In this case it was the UCC that came knocking. The fucking feds, of all people."

"It kinda makes sense, i-if they've had interest in the planet since forever."

I nod. "And they offered a great rate, too. Way lower rate. I think it ended up being a six percent tax from the planet of Merrol. This was all going on behind closed doors, and it was all legal, but threatened the shit out of League sovereignty."

Rhodes asks, "Did it actually go through?"

"Uh-huh. Couple years ago. Another monsoon, and—" I grit my teeth. "—Some people think there were corps sabotaging the farm arrays, too, trying to catch a piece of the pie. But it didn't work out for 'em either way. Stromm's bought a shitload of food from Merrol at a miniscule tax rate. I remember eating Confederate rations that year."

"Fuck," she murmurs. "League would be pissed. Is that why they... had me go after him?"

"I don't know." I glance off. "Maybe. Thing is, he was supposed to be up for election this year, or, uh... the guy who appointed him. And he's just one small fry. Big conspiracy to kill him seems like overkill."

"Was he gonna lose the election? The, ah, guy of the guy?"

"Dunno. Maybe not. People I knew were pretty back-and-forth on the Coalition. They did save lives, and the UCC food was cheap enough that it didn't put the government in as much trouble."

Rhodes sits with this for a little while, and I sit with her, but I swear I can almost hear her brain whirring along. Maybe the cybernetic chunk of her head has a little fan in it. She speaks in a lower, more thoughtful tone. "...They did want him dead real quick. Maybe they thought he was about to pull something. Maybe the UCC is... here. Velnias."

"Sure," I say.

"So he was, like, a security threat. Selling secrets to the big bad enemy. Or trying to convert people here to his side, to be friendly with the UCC. They were worried he'd disappear after the hotel stay, I think."

I purse my lips. "Would explain all the risk and effort. Needed it done immediately, needed it done plausibly. The Greenview thing was just good cover."

"And Pelleratz...?" she asks.

For that, I already have an answer. There's a pit in my stomach all of a sudden, and I take a deep breath. "Realized she'd make a good scapegoat, as we were talking."

Rhodes glances up at me, pulling away so I can see her pretty eyes. She has a narrow, calm gaze, but her antenna is drooped. "Was she, ah... was it not random, you think?"

"Almost," I mutter. "She was our buoy operator in the outlands. Outlanders are terrorists and scumbags. Believable, I guess, that she would have some insane vendetta against a local diplomat, hack in, kill him, leave no evidence. You didn't leave any clues?"

"Fucking nothing," she says. "I did the job perfect."

"I think the League pointed 'em her way, then, because nobody's gonna miss some terrorist in the swamps."

I leave it at that, and she leaves it at that, and her unsteady breath makes me hold her tighter. Not your fault, hacker. The worst part of all this is that it's not your fault Pell specifically took the fall, and nobody specific can get held accountable, and I have nowhere to put any of this, and the fire in me has resorted to melting all my functions from the heart to the lungs.

Just need a moment not thinking about any of this. Or a year.

The two of us watch the bay for much of the day.

- 33 -

Camped out in a cramped modular shed for the night. Abandoned construction site by the water, some kind of water lock for one of the seawater canals that didn't end up coming to fruition. Supposed to be more seasonal workers coming next year to fill it back out, and a guard comes by every couple weeks, but we've got a contingency in case that happens, and it's nice to be by the sea anyway.

We leave the window open to let in some sea air, and we watch another couple movies that night, camped out on the cheap carpet floor. Killing Sarah and Killing Sarah II. Thriller double feature. Sometime after the sun sets Rhodes gets to sleep.

-

I step onto the little scrap wood porch to get some air. In my thirties I picked up smoking and in my forties I dropped it, but occasionally I find a real good spot to smoke. I didn't really drop it, to be honest. Could go for a joint right now. But instead I just sip water and eat some peaches out of the can.

Over there. That one. That's my favorite superfreighter I've seen so far. Short lengthwise but tall as the rest, with big towers all along its length with blinking yellow lights, and called the CS PARAGON. I like it because it looks very stupid. The front is all curved and bent forward and downward like the snout of an animal. Check in. Finger tapping against the wood railing.

I glance back, and then call through the window. "All clear," I say, and the sea air catches my voice and turns it into fog.

Sound of light footsteps, and then Rhodes comes up to the open sill, rubbing at the eye closer to her cybernetic. "Sorry, I just got worried," she grunts.

"No problem. Mind's just racing too much to sleep."

She gives me a tired, friendly grin. Her mandibles go slack. "Okay."

I lean against the railing a bit. "Want to go on a night walk?"

"Sure," she says, laughing faintly.

-

Not much shore to speak of here, but plenty of flat concrete, and I carry Rhodes atop me like she's an armed lookout. Unlit in most parts, but the moon is nearly full this time of the month and it's not hard to avoid the little divots in the rocks and mooncrete.

"What were you thinking about?" she asks, leaning against my head to whisper in my ear.

"Not much," I say. "Pell a little bit, then I was looking at that stupid freighter."

"Is it just Pell, not Pelleratz?"

I nod. "Just Pell."

She grips me by the shoulders to hold on. I go up a little escarpment up between two railings and by a bench. Conceivably could have been a good spot to watch the water, but it reeks of rust. We go on. Rhodes speaks again. "She, ah, was she... can I ask about her?"

"Shoot." I guess I can't work up any reason not to talk about her. Dead is dead. Things lay where they will, now.

"You okay with moving on?" Her voice cracks slightly. "I mean, I-I'm worried, and have been really worried, that I'm... that we shouldn't be together, 'cus I'm fucking it up."

I shrug, which bumps her up and down. "Hurt me bad when she died, but we were often pretty distant. Just gets to be bad if someone you know that long goes."

"...was your wife, though."

"Sure. Was a lot of things. Got me to do a lot of things."

I hear her buzz with her mouth a second, and then settle down. "Fair, I guess. Was all I wanted to know. I know it's kind of selfish."

A little chilly over here on the open seawalk. Wind's picking up. "Can I ask you a selfish question, then?"

"Fuck it, yeah."

I glance up at her above me, peering down at my face. "Why'd you never answer any of the letters back?"

She glances away. "I did, once," she says.

"Never got it."

"I gave you all clear, after one. I-I did it on accident."

I roll my eyes and huff. "Never noticed, don't really care. Why'd you never do it on purpose."

"To make you give up," she murmurs. "Give up on me. I got addicted to this idea of running away and forgetting about everything. Just like last time."

"But I don't want that," I say, stupidly enough.

"I know. I wish I didn't do it."

I grip her legs softly to make sure she doesn't fall off, and we head down a little scaffold to the beach once again. The sand is moist with the sea air. "I guess we're just talking in circles."

She exhales. "Yeah. I guess my explanation doesn't, like, get better."

"S'fine."

"I really fucked up," Rhodes says now, "and been trying not to think about it. Like we could have spent this whole time together and been girlfriends. I always do this shit. A-And I'm not asking you to feel bad for me, I'm just sorry. I won't pull that shit again, and I don't... really wanna think about it."

Can't say I disagree. All of me is trying to claw her back, claw back the notion that we have a future. I briefly felt like I had one, with her. I want that feeling back at all costs. Maybe why I'm so quick to forgive and forget. I just want tonight to go nice. I want every night to be nice. I speak up again after a little while. "What do you want to think about instead?"

"Tshhh..."

I smile. "What are you thinking about, usually."

She pauses, and rests her claws on my hair. I stop short to examine a little dry culvert, before stepping over it. Then she speaks, and her tone has become a little wistful, a little fairylike. "I can tell you exactly what," she says. "It's like this.

-

"There's a little wind in Laudenberger Square right now. There's a busker playing keyboard to a couple humans, one tall and one short, with expensive puffy jackets. I think it looks like they're condescending, but—but I don't think the busker cares. There's a Tasran with guild clothes, he has a nice bottle of something, camped out on a bench. Maybe he's asleep. He's drooling all over himself. There's two city busses on Ferra Street right north of there, one going east, one going west. I see some Neriak with pretty orange eyes in the back seat of one. Where'd he come from?

"A-And I see... ah... I see a little kid on Port 15 West stomping around in a puddle, with really raggy clothes. I think maybe she's homeless, or maybe she snuck out.

"I see someone with glowsticks around their hands... someplace in Baultriel, the Gutters, somewhere fun and dingy and loud, but outside that place... and then I see, like, fifteen guys in yellow vests on a window sill at a construction site, pretty close to us now, and... five of them are smoking, two are drinking. I think they got to be talking about something stupid, because they keep laughing about nothing and smiling like idiots.

"Over there, that's the ground floor entrances of the Platatie building, you know, ah, the one with all the greenhouses in all the windowsills, and the rotating door is spinning like someone's in there, but there's nobody. I think we just missed 'em. I see someone pushing a shopping cart onto a subway train. I see two people on that train, on their datapads, I see 'em freaking out over something on the screens. I think it's gonna rain on Sundown Street.

"I think it's gonna rain there, and I think it will feel nice."

-

Her head swivelling around, her eyes gone someplace else, her smile faint. We are perched, now, on a railinged ledge in front of a seaside convenience store with all the lights off. Staring out at the bay. I'm staring out, but Rhodes is staring elsewhere. Always like that with this girl.

"You gonna miss the camera net?" I ask her, quietly.

She tilts back down to me, resting her hands on her knees by the sides of my head. "It mostly sucks. I still can't tune it out."

"Seem attached to the city. Seem like you'll miss seeing it when the backdoor's gone."

But Rhodes just smiles wider at that, her mandibles so loose and playful. "Tshhh, yeah. I will. But it'll still be here."

I bring my arms up and clasp the railing, and the sea air blows through the both of us for a while. Sounds of waves lapping up against a concrete shore, sounds of horns from far, far off, trainyards in warehouses and ships in port. The rattling of chains against the wind. "Sure," I laugh, after a little while.

"You miss Stromm's Landing at all, Nelly?"

I look up. Hard to tell if she asked it, or if someone else did. My gaze goes level again, where the dim clouds meet the horizon. "No idea." But then I pause, and wince, and realize I do know. "...No."

She cackles softly. "Why not?"

"I don't know. Just been there too long." My metal hand grips the hollow railing tight. Enough effort and I could shatter the thing. "All the people I loved are dead or dying. Stromm's Landing just looks like a place where I'll be buried."

"What about who's left? You ran with people, still, right?"

The irony of what I say makes me laugh. "Guess I figure they can assume I'm dead."

"Ha! Oh, god."

"Never said I didn't get it."

She just pauses, and eventually replies, though her voice is a lot lighter again, like the airs have carried her up and away. "I think Haraad will be a cool place to be."

I take a deep breath and soak it in, and smile. "Let's get there."

- 34 -

My footsteps light. Light enough to fade into the night mist like it is nothing at all. Shoes sinking into the soft sand along the shore. Unarmed now. Not unarmed, Nelly. Clenching my fist. Practically unarmed. Breath so heavy. Stupid fuck-up. Stupid fucking oversight. Approaching the shed again by the water and having to remember, each step, heel to toe, don't scrape, no sudden movements. I keep my arms out wide to avoid my shirt sliding against itself. The sounds of uneven waves against rocks. Not unarmed, Nelly. Show 'em hell. No time for complicated semaphore. Check in, I tap. All clear, she replies. I approach from a low angle by the water, clambering softly up on a concrete block.

The can of peaches is gone. Took it inside with him. Means he was hungry or gathering evidence. Not unarmed, Nelly. I clench my metal fist. Stupid fucking plan. Don't go back to the scene of the crime. Fucked if you don't. Fucked if that vest gets anywhere. Mask made you distinctive. I step up further along.

The sounds of the creaky floor inside the shed.

I come up beside the porch as a silhouette shrouded in the nothingness of the black Cestabin Sea at night, and I peer inside where a gentle light pours outward.

A human with pale and aged skin, wearing a tight undershirt with the colors faded to gray, and a raggy windbreaker with all the threads loose. He is crouched by the New Bug Bag and stuffing his hands inside it, pulling aside the opening, dipping his thin head inward. I can see that his hair is all scuffed from years without trim, and he holds a plastic lighter in his spare hand, holding it close to see his work more clearly. My open can of peaches sits beside him with the plastic spoon still in.

You looking for evidence, or are you just scavenging? If you walk out of there with that vest it puts us in trouble. How to communicate such a thing to someone. I crane my head silently to try to spot something attached to either ear of his, but see nothing. If he is signaling back to his handler, he is doing it in his head—an implant could do that.

I loom there.

The ruffling of fabric as he stands up, slowly, and holds out the ballistic vest to look at it, grasping the collar in one hand and holding up the lighter. Must be able to see the damage to the backside, the remnants of a bullet. He moves with hardly a sound, but the creaky floor isn't helping him. He's used to staying unnoticed. But Rhodes noticed you. She couldn't help it.

Can't stop him here. He'd hear my steps. Just waiting, now.

He slips on the vest with hesitation, and then crouches back down.

-

Cans of food. Datapad, which he briefly flicks on, then flicks off upon reaching the lock screen. The shotgun. Did you leave it loaded? Four in the tube, none in the chamber. He can figure it out if he's curious enough. He lifts it up by the front grip and weighs it up. My breath escaping me and entering me, but not at the right pace, and I'm losing oxygen in my lungs. Did you leave it loaded? Come on, man. Just leave it. Be smart. Not your shit to take. Be smart. Who would leave a stash like this here and not come back for it. Fucking greedy asshole. Don't make me stop you.

I catch a glimpse of his eyes in the dark interior. Brown irises and no expression in them. He flicks the lighter off for a moment, and I hear him playing around with my gun—then the loud sounds of him checking the chamber, then cycling the bolt.

Air turns cold all of a sudden.

He slips the shotgun back in the bag, and then starts to put the bag's strap over his shoulder without zipping the top.

-

I await beside the small plank staircase leading upward, slightly hunched to keep my figure blacked out by the darkened sand of the beach, and hold my breath. He spends another moment searching about—must see the bedding Rhodes was using, but won't find much else—and then I hear him step onto the porch, and see his lithe figure stand out against the moonlit sky. Then he turns towards me and comes nearly to the stairs, and as he inhales a breath, I speak.

"Stop," I command.

He does, and his legs shake briefly. His old and intense eyes trying to find me in the dark, and his hands out and open at his side. I see now, from this position, a scraggly black beard crawling along his face, and the word 'BAULTRIEL' on a patch on the vest. "Yes," he whispers.

"Not your shit to take."

"Mine now." And he dips his head slightly. "Need it. Let me take it." Then something darker in his voice. "Don't come closer."

My fist clenches. I cannot be much more visible to him than a mote in the sky. Even if you graze 'em, they'll still be mostly dead. He could pull my gun out of the bag and turn me to paste quick, or even fire from within the bag. And could buy himself time if he steps backward or I stumble on the steps. He must know what I mean to do with him. Am I close enough to stop him if he wants me dead all of a sudden? Use your words, kiddo. "You can take the food," I murmur. "But you don't want the gun or vest. Better you don't."

"I will give you back the mask," he says flatly. His voice creaks slightly under some unforeseen weight. Lying. Is he lying. Answer if he's lying.

"You do not want any of that shit. It's going to get you killed. It's stolen. It's bad to have." It's not something you want. Need to get rid of it. Should have gotten rid of it. Evidence. Bad evidence. It could get us tracked down. It could fuck up the Baultriel play. My mind is racing bad now. Come on. Come on.

The sea crashes against the shore.

I see his free hand start to move.

Then I move. Happens before I'm aware. Some thousand leagues I move in an instant and then swing my arm and collide with him, I am not aiming at any part of him in particular, and my metal hand touches where his neck meets his torso. Something bad happens. Guess I would describe it as his chest splashing against the porch.

The rest of him collapses, and the bag drops to the ground, and a terrible and short sound comes from his broken body.

-

Washing myself in the seawater. Still trembling. A wave nearly bowls me over. I dispose of the man's body here.

-

I get back to Rhodes up the walk a hundred meters. Brought the vest, in its ripped-apart and bloody state, and the rest of our things in the bag, including every bit of trash. We talk quietly about what happened, but not much, and not much of use. Tired out of my mind and rattled. We leave to find better shelter.

Undercity

- 35 -

Curled up in bed around her.

There's banging in the next room over. Picked a little basement motel to hide out in this time. My head hurts. I pull just a little away from Rhodes. Delicate and sleeps lighter than anyone I've ever met. Datapad on the nightstand. I reach over. Don't wake up, don't wake up. Sleep. Heavy raggedy comforter over the both of us, keeping away the morning light out the window. Smells like paint in here.

I flick on the datapad. Six AM.

Fine. Whatever. I'll be awake now. I set my chin on her head, nuzzle into her faint warmth, and scroll the news for a little while.

-

Still nothing about our escape attempt, but the dead man in the water did get a tiny news story, some press release from Salt Row PD, no name, no theories, just a little note at the bottom of the back page. Not the first person to haunt my thoughts. Been on my mind the past few days. I can't stop thinking about it. I wince every time I try. Why didn't you just do something else, Nelly. Why didn't he?

No use in it. I go back to scrolling elsewhere.

New bad habit of mine. I didn't do this shit back home or even when working with Ceder, but we have a lot of downtime again, and I can't help but check everywhere all at once for anything related to us, anything notable, any opportunities. Free day at a local gym got us showers and a sale at a Salt Row thrift store got us cheap sets of clothing, and I've been trying to silently scrounge up any info about Ceder and the Hang'd Knight but there's nothing at all, even on pirate news sites.

Little news story from Baultriel last week—as little as the one about the dead man in the water. Two dead protestors, it says, and fifteen more sent offworld. Accident, it says. Shit is no better than last time I checked. Wonder if Ceder's got cold feet yet. Or if things are imminent.

Rhodes buzzes a little. Does it while asleep sometimes. I wrap her tightly and sit there, just thinking.

Time to move, I reckon.

-

I don't want us to go through Corundum Town the normal way. If it's an ambush we're fucked with no recourse. Unfortunately this means we have very few options—there is only one normal way, after all—so we need to take the abnormal way, and that's going to be hard.

-

In the Undercity it is tough to get a meal. In Corundum Town it's not so hard—people take money and sell you food, cooked food—but any further down and things get troublesome. The cost goes up, or the cost becomes barter. Money stops working, stops mattering. Difficulty is reaching those places, and reaching them intact. Get robbed or eaten by some foul thing in the dark. So in the dark, a can of food goes a long way, and we need to make a trade.

Our cans of food went a long way this week, but we've eaten through the most of it and the last bit is part of our plan. So me and Rhodes split one final spare can of beans on the floor of the motel bedroom, pack up, and hoof it to the nearest way down.

Ceder wasn't kidding. Lot of the easy ways down—the ones that get any traction on the intranet—become hotspots, and then someone makes them inaccessible. Good intentions I guess, trying to keep the peace down there, keep out cops and nosy journalists, but I've lived down there for months now and still hardly know any tunnels that still work. But there is one nearby, in the back room of a bagel shop. Headed there now.

Got the New Bug Bag and the Bug inside and she's tapping along with me, check in, all clear, check in, all clear. It's a light drizzle and a dim morning and the streets of Salt Row, here, are overly wide and cars are passing us. Little downtown area six blocks from the waterline, and not fun to be exposed here. Lots of tall-as-hell buildings made of glass and hewn of a thin foreign stone, and sidewalks too wide to be comfortable, but too grimy to be regal. A tiny Guild lives in that tower, across the street from us—a million little window entrances and a bustling market in the ground floor, once a furniture store, now a loud and freakish place. My stomach sinks a little. Check in. I look forward toward one last crosswalk. All clear, I respond.

Planning to talk less during all this. My words haven't done me any good lately.

-

Cozy spot in the base of a megastructure, with the door hidden in the shadows beside the entrance to an office lobby. I keep my eyes level and my expression stony as I walk in. A gangly and thin Neriak leans over the side counter with tired eyes, and gives me a little "Ba." I give them a little head-up and walk right past everything. Nice linoleum floor has gotten yellowed and all the seats are empty right now. Got to act like I work here or I've got business or something. I just waltz to the nearest employee entrance and step into the back room.

Feel like I've got eyes on me and I do—I'm behind the Neriak now, and their odd horned head curled to look at me. It's kind of getting popular now. On the intranet. Just passing through. Just a tourist. I don't say a word and I don't hear one.

Into the pantry and the slow scuffing of heavy footsteps from behind me, and I swing the Bug Bag around my back and start down a ladder in the far corner as quickly as possible.

Small tunnel, tight fit. I climb down a few rungs and feel the concrete scraping against my elbows, and then I hear Rhodes in the bag. "Ow," she mutters.

I shut a hatch above and then speak, trying to get even closer to the ladder, give her some space. "Sorry," I say. "I'll be quick."

"You're okay," I hear. She shuffles slightly and grunts. "Ready to be out of the Bag though." There's lights along the way, emergency lights, just enough to see what I'm doing. I bump my nose on a rung and make a sound but continue. Knew it wasn't exactly going to be luxurious.

Takes me a minute of climbing down, huddling up, huffing and keeping my breath steady, to reach the bottom. A little concrete box with a couple rusty doors, a grated floor, some emergency submarine lights. The air is immediately different here. Dusty and stale and frozen in time. Not gonna waste any time; I unload the Bug Bag by placing it on the ground, and a frazzled, achy Rhodes emerges, stretching her thin limbs and shuddering from the sudden chill in the air. "Beh," she murmurs.

"Sorry," I say again.

She steps over and embraces me, and I embrace her back, reaching my arms down. "Good. All good." Pulls away, then looks up. Her pretty eyes are half-lidded here, tired, but she's smiling. "Ready."

I nod and crouch down to the duffel, and she does, too. Still a lot of random shit here, although we did find a good trashcan for the old evidence. I have to fuss through our belongings a little while before finding what I'm looking for. "Shit, you know," I chuckle weakly, "never looked up if this would work underground or not." I pull free a cheap plastic compass and hold it level.

"Why wouldn't it?" she asks.

"I don't know," I say, shrugging. North is that way. Remains stable, at least. Works however compasses usually do. "South. South is Corundum Town."

Rhodes grins and stands up straight, having found her end of the deal. A little kid's ball cap with a hole for her antenna. It'll be better than nothing. "I'll get us there," she says. "Pal cotta, sa baata jora."

- 36 -

Walking down a big concrete slope now, with grates in the ceiling sealed over by a dark and old cement. Along the aqueduct on our left, there are still bits of rubble—asphalt that seeped through and solidified into odd organic piles. The lighting is spotty but solid, and not flickering, and I can't tell if it was built particularly well or if there are still folk replacing the bulbs. Don't know where the power's coming from, maybe the same grid as the city above. Rhodes leads the way and I hold the compass in one hand, stable, keeping track. We are headed northwest right now, which is less than convenient. Got to go down before we can go anywhere.

She walks funny, like she is trying to take all the pressure off both her legs at once and not succeeding much. Still kind of fun having her lead me around for once. Always felt that way, but now it's literal.

Proceeds like this for a long while. Flat parts, intersections, all uninhabited by people, but now we are seeing some of the particular vermin that like the stretches of mildewy underground. Little bug lizards, or maybe just very agile lizards, that Rhodes calls niddies, with a grin on her face. A spot of moss along one ceiling seems to gestate and breathe, and there is at least one dog running about in the shadows. Then we find another ramp that heads downward, this time looking like an old maintenance tunnel for an even older trainway, and we proceed.

After an hour of walking we take a break along the wall where there is a small inset for a doorway, and Rhodes collapses against me. I sit with her.

"Hi," I say.

She hums. "Shit is a long way," she says.

Trying to look sympathetic. "Just the way it is, I guess."

"Tsshh, yeah. It could be worse. We'll ask for, ah, directions soon."

"That'll be nice."

Rhodes nods along, and glances at our backpack. At first I figure she probably wants a snack, probably knows we can't afford to eat any more, but then she speaks. "Armed still?"

I nod. "We expecting things down here?"

"Maybe. There's wild animals and stuff."

"Well, okay." That eases me up some. "Can handle wild animals."

"Just going to avoid them if we can," Rhodes says.

"We'll see."

We rest there for a little while so she can get her strength back. Though I suspect it never really fully comes back. Always takes a little bit more from her until she's so sapped she breaks.

-

After we're up and about again, and after we reach the bottom of a series of ramps, we finally come across people again, or at least signs of people—a still-hot camp stove and some clothes piled around a doorway in the tunnel, along with signage for a 'MATACHIN CAMP'. We peer inside and, past a ramp downward, spot the dark remnants of a train platform; black water in the dark pit where rails once were, and a kayak tied to the 'shore'. A sign held up in the water pointing towards 'SEA EXIT'. No movement for now, so we move on. Finally able to head south, and the ground stays mostly level.

We pass by a few hatches in the ground that have the Vasthi word for 'FLOODED' on them, and more than a few possible exits out of the spillway seem to have collapsed, or been sealed after-the-fact to keep out water. Doesn't rain here anymore but the sea is close enough to cause problems.

Eventually the way to proceed gets a little convoluted. The train tunnels take an unwelcome bend westward, so we try to cut through an exit that heads upward on a bit of scaffolding, but the heavy metal door is both locked and sealed behind with concrete. We backtrack to find another door of the same make with a sign in Vasthi, and Rhodes gets us in with a more complicated lockpicking attempt, something with two metal bits and a while of tinkering. Swears under her breath some, but we get through.

On the other end is a pretty striking place, odd and dark and not altogether easy to understand. "This was outside at one point, I bet," Rhodes says.

"Shit, maybe." The ceiling is held up only in part, and only in places—concrete bulging downward from the weight of a city atop it, with pillars from what was once an overhang above a train station holding it up. More like a cavern than a tunnel, and then hewn out in places manually by people trying to make more passageways. More signs than we've seen yet, none in Colonial Common. Modern electric lanterns held in by cheap wrought iron pitons, with long power cords going into the distance one way and another.

"Okay, getting somewhere," Rhodes says, now. She stands with her hands on her hips and leans forward to read the intricate details. Not quite a map but closer than we've had. "Corundum Town gets mentioned here. Plus some other shit. There's... ah, ah... a way down to Little Hegemony, but it's kilometers and kilometers off."

I shake my head. "Don't need that. Just need someone native to trade with."

"Yeah. Someone dug a tunnel to Varre Trading Post. Or, uh, I guess it's just Varre... Post. There's probably people there."

Makes me glance up at the ceiling a little. Reinforced concrete buckling in places, bits of rebar poking through. "Crazy to imagine tunneling through all this."

Rhodes faintly giggles. "Yeah, can't be good for the fucking stability up there."

"Just not what I'd expect people doing under a big city," I say.

"Could have been decades ago," she says, "or earlier. We're levels and levels down."

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Perfectly good train station here, or it was once upon a time. Why keep building on top? Why all this for so many years? "Velnias," I murmur distastefully.

But that just makes her beam. "Yeah," she says.

We trek towards Varre Post.

-

Tunnels like they used pickaxes, maybe something mechanized, but the toolwork is uneven and often leaves gaps in the concrete where cobwebs gather and tiny eyes flit at us in the dark. The air is musty and nasty, and condensation drips occasionally off the many hanging extension cords along the ceiling. I lead and Rhodes tails so close I can feel her.

Awkward footing and not fun to breathe such a muggy atmosphere. We take another break just to sit, but there's nothing comfortable to rest on.

After twenty minutes of trekking south, passing a dozen little lantern-lit intersections in the cave, we hear the sound of an animal up ahead. A yelp maybe, half-sapient and half-feral, and it echoes unpleasantly against the craggy mined concrete. "Shitssake," I say, and I feel Rhodes jump against me.

"Gun," she whispers.

Already working on it. I unhook my shotgun from inside the duffel and pull it at a low angle toward the ground, though I keep the bolt uncycled. "Could've been a person," I guess.

I can feel her getting low against me. "Maybe. Don't aim at 'em."

Don't have to tell me twice. Preferable if I don't have to kill any more random people in front of Rhodes. I go onward. Hard to keep my footsteps even here, all the little marks of collapsed and swept concrete in places. I see some chalk marks along the wall but they don't look like script.

The tunnel takes a shallow left turn—further southward—and I crane my head right to follow it along. Wild animal, maybe. Wild animal. Fuck lives in a place like this? A couple niddies come out of the stonework along a piece of rebar and then clamber in the opposite direction to remind me. Little ecosystem. Whatever old vermin live in the city and crave the dark.

A little longer and my spatial sense tells me we're close to where the sound came from, but the echoes threw me off, and we're barely ten paces from where we heard it. I get a move on.

-

At one last intersection we find a person, and I lower my gun wholly to the floor. A Neriak here with muddy green and yellow scales, but not half the size of Ceder, and with a smear of blood trailing out a horrible gash in his leg. Looks like a bite maybe, or a prolonged gnaw, and from his unmarked raggy clothes and weak musculature I guess I could expect something big to get the better of him easily. "Ho," I say.

"Ba," Rhodes says.

A strained and awful expression on the lizard's face. "Ba," he mutters. "Ca co balata. Ca albala, djet—" He raises a trembling arm toward some shuffling in another leg of the intersection, and I swing around.

A scrawny thing, hairless and bright-skinned, with four eyes that gleam horribly in the artificial lantern light that surrounds us on all sides. It stands on six legs and is much taller than me. It begins to scramble towards me and I pull back the bolt and shoot.

- 37 -

Holding my head now, and knelt, and the smoke tastes like coals, and dust has filled the room thoroughly. I crawl over to Rhodes and the bleeding Neriak, who thwaps me on the shoulder, and cycle the shotgun 'til it's unloaded again. Then I load it right back up.

Generally a bad idea to fire this thing indoors though. We spend a few minutes recovering with our ears ringing like crazy but what used to be the creature is just now a plain contorted corpse with all its limbs in a pile, no longer attached to the body. I take the duffel off and set it beside me, and pull free some leftover medical shit from when I hurt Rhodes; a few stitches, gauze, disinfectant cream. "Sorry," I say. Still hard to hear myself.

"Incta tibla, a, a," he says. "Ca co chicoret Vasthi." I recognize 'thanks' in a different tone than I'm used to hearing back at the Hang'd Knight.

Rhodes looks at me with a faint smile. "No Common, I don't think."

I send him a smile. "Ask if we can get him somewhere, yeah?"

She reaches up and adjusts her hat, and speaks. Vasthi is a quick and tongue-tying language. I can pick out bits, just bits. Think Common came second for her. I examine the terrible marks the thing made on the Neriak and make the assumption that a bunch of cream and pressure will help it some, but he'd probably benefit from surgery. There is a loose brown tooth from the animal's maw still in a bit of his musculature around his digitigrade shin, and I don't feel like it'd do much good to dislodge it here. I just lather everything in disinfectant and start wrapping gauze. Not sure why it didn't go for the kill on him.

Eventually Rhodes switches back to Colonial Common. "He lives at the trading post," she says. Then, quieter, "He's really young."

"Ask him if I can carry him."

"Om, arret cor?" Rhodes throws a motion at me. "Pitza Nelly. Pitz Rhodes."

I look at her funny. "Using our names?"

"Come on," she says, tensing up her mandibles at me.

"Ba, ba," the Neriak assures us. He is out of breath and I can feel his weak limbs shaking against my grasp, and his words come out like he's trying to get them away from himself. "Pitz Cascine."

I top the wrappings with one more sticky bandage for pressure and then offer my arm to him. "Hi, Cascine."

He swallows, and takes my arm, and I lift him up into a fireman carry, his arms wrapped around my front, secure. Never lifted a Neriak before.

-

Gentle with him, especially given his scrawniness. Don't know what young precisely means for a Neriak, but Rhodes seemed freaked out—could still be a teenager. Get you back home, kid. I leave my shotgun slung in case we hear more shit, but things slow up and become a little chattier as we head the rest of the way to Varre Post. Neither Cascine nor Rhodes can agree on what the animal was, and the exact circumstances of how he came to wander out here seem vague. Kids like to wander. Not confusing to me.

After a little while of calming down, I ask Rhodes something as Cascine rests his head against my shoulder. "Isn't Vasthi a pidgin? Why don't I ever notice the loan words?"

"Not a Colonial pidgin," she says, and she's laughing a bit, though the situation has dulled both our humor some. "It's a meld mostly between Yontazzi and Dronhas. We were here before you, you know." She motions at herself and Cascine like they are representatives of their respective species.

"Shit, it is?"

"No way you didn't know."

I shrug and exhale. "Guess I'm that stupid."

"Ahhh..." Rhodes skips ahead of us and shakes her head. There's a bassy voice emanating from the halls far up ahead, almost like a gas engine. "Not stupid, just doing a bunch of shit. I think we're close. Gota i? Cascine?"

"Ba," he murmurs.

We reach a small spot-welded staircase made out of old train parts, and pass through a curtained doorway into a large space. Think it was a warehouse at one point, or even the skeletal frame of a factory—big and stretching off into the distance, with vaulted ceilings where there now sit a hundred hammocks and sheet metal platforms. There are fires and smoke vents like I'd seen in places in Corundum Town, but also electric heaters, and a thousand power cords hanging everywhere. Carpets too, and lots of curtains denoting different areas. We're greeted immediately by a few old-looking human women along a bench, two of whom stand to attention upon seeing us. I hear a few shouts in Vasthi.

"Ba, ba, ba," wails Cascine. "Tlec a catori ba tis saatu. Pitza Nelly." His voice is raggedy and creaks and cracks with unconstrained agony coming to him all of a sudden.

Rhodes does the talking and I remain a statue while the women call for help. Eventually they manage to get the kid down flat and a stout Baldari with a bag full of tools takes a look at the seeping wound, and all the while Rhodes gets the whole story across, I assume. Can't get a perfect idea of what life is like down here but they treat the Neriak kid like family, despite me not spotting another feral amid the various small crowds around. "Rhodes, ask about our thing,"

"I am," she says, nervously adjusting her cap. She turns over to a particularly large man in heavy clothes who is rubbing Cascine's head, cupping him in some broad palms. "Tjeti, ba? Arrete? Gota arret?"

The man nods. He has old, frail black hair and a dour expression, staring wordlessly at Cascine's leg get unwrapped. Looks worse now, and discolored. Rhodes stands up beside me and takes my arm.

"They do have a person who can scout," she says to me, her voice low now. "And we're not horribly far from Corundum Town, at least."

I chuckle faintly. "Hope this diversion wasn't stupid."

Rhodes shakes her head and holds me close as we walk through the damp, warm interior of Varre Post. "Playing it safe. You learned that."

"Took me a few months," I point out.

"Tshhh, whatever."

-

We barter with the courier and scout of the town, or at least someone willing to do the work, named Edjebo. Tall and slender Baldari with a tank-top and brown eyes with tiny pupils. At first we try offering money, of course, but it gets a laugh, so we barter with the six remaining cans of food. Given that we're close enough to Corundum Town and helped out Cascine it goes pretty well. Three cans now, to go check out the Hang'd Knight and, if possible, try to spot Ceder inside. Three cans when he comes back, regardless of what he finds. We hand over the first cans to his mother sitting beside him, and wait.

-

We buy deep-fried niddy nuggets, which taste pretty good for being made out of a pest lizard, and bum it up with the locals for the hour and a half it takes. Things are quiet and peaceful, at least as peaceful as the Undercity can be, and there are clearly very few tourists. A couple trading stalls, only one of which takes cash—the food shop—but the atmosphere is good and Rhodes, despite not exactly being a social butterfly, is right at home amid these folk. I just nod along and say hello to people walking along, and fix my eyes on an elderly Tasran with a sewing machine on the upper floor.

Eventually Edjebo returns. I spot him jaunting along in the south-facing tunnel towards us and he seems pleased with himself, and relays as much as he can to Rhodes. He also writes down some simple instructions to get to Corundum Town from here, and Rhodes seems pretty excited about what she hears. "It's closed, but wasn't locked, he says," she says. "He says he stumbled in like he was there on accident, and there's tons of Baldari in there, and Ceder, and they're having a meeting or something."

"Baultriel play," I say quietly.

"Yeah. Well, and he's not fuckin' dead at least."

I nod, pursing my lips. "And probably not turned, given he's having guests..."

We stand up, but Rhodes pauses there. I see something real in her eyes. Tired, here, but she says, "We can go back, if you don't like how it sounds."

She's scared of this, maybe, willing to try a different plan. But it sounds workable to me. And I don't want to try a different plan. "I like how it sounds," I respond. "Let's roll."

I hoist her up on my back, bus our little plates back to the food stall, and we head out.

- 38 -

Ends up being that our easiest route to Corundum Town follows another abandoned train tunnel that has been turned into a canal, and we trail it mostly south along a bend and past various intersections to different spots in the Undercity. We can see the seawater now, low in the rusting pit beside us, but the concrete platform still shines with residual wetness and Rhodes was able to spot where—near to the ceiling—it seems to reach at high tide. Good for now, but could be inaccessible for hours at a time, days at a time. Routes change on the regular. We pass by one cloaked person riding a little kayak north, who greets us in Vasthi, but mostly it is quiet, and we come across no more big animals.

I talk a little, we shoot the shit. Rhodes has thought up a bunch more albums we should listen to when I get my UAP back. Still doubting we'll have time, though. Things with Ceder could be on a knife's edge. Just hope he'll have a talk with us. Not sure how he'll feel.

We pass by an entrance to another settlement, or at least instructions to climbing up to one, and by some enormous mural of the skyline in Tiab Town painted on the old black concrete of the train tunnel, and at least one capsized vessel in the water, possibly up to three, depending on how you count the debris. At one point we figure we can see reflected sunlight down one of the passages eastward, but it has to be too far, it has to be something else emitting light. We go on.

After a little over an hour I've carried Rhodes all the way to Corundum Town.

-

We come down into the old Velnias World Fair Aquarium to the sound of a low electric hum. All the pale blue lights are still on, and we have emerged from a hatch in the ceiling into the strange chamber Ceder and I once found, buried past kitsch plaster tunnels and seemingly nonsensical, with a pressure-sealed window into the Cestabin Sea some meters below the surface. I help Rhodes down the little pop-out ladder, seal it behind us, and stand a moment, slackjawed again by the sight of something so odd.

Then I realize I'm looking at a fish there through the window, peeking curiously in the murky water to the cold interior.

It's a fish I've seen before. Or a kind I've seen before, anyway. In the water it looks graceful—a many-finned eel with some faint trail behind it where it floats, and beady red eyes, and two mouths on either side of its body instead of along its muzzle, which ends in a lazy taper. I stop there still, to not alert it, and Rhodes comes up slowly by my side.

"I think I know that one," she says quietly.

"Yeah?"

Her voice is steady. "They're called Smiles of Biztram. Meant to be a good sign if you see one," she says, "but it speaks from both mouths."

A biztram is a jungle spirit from the planet of Jazid! Next time you compliment a Tasran, maybe you could make them laugh by saying they look like one! Not now. That's shit advice, anyway. I lean my head to match its tilted self, but then it tilts the other way, so I tilt the other way, and then I am certain I hear it whisper something, and then it flits off into the dark deep of the water. "There it goes."

"Cool," she says, and there's a little shakiness in her voice. "Tch. Fucking crazy there's a window here."

"I know, right," I say, but seeing other parts of the Undercity has tempered my expectations of normalcy from this city-below-the-city. Nobody around with authority to dictate what is being done or why. It had some a purpose to someone once, and now it remains.

-

We take the short, leisurely stroll back to the west end of Corundum Town, passing through the World Fair Aquarium in reverse. I take her to the interesting little exhibits at least—we laugh over the one about brown gruel, and she has some delighted fascination for the one on deep sea poppels—but there's not a lot here for us and an air of urgency. The vaulted halls of the town are fairly occupied this time of the week, punks celebrating the weekend, shops popping up a little past the aquarium, smells of roast meat from every direction. Getting kind of sick of the smell of roast meat.

By this point I've stuffed my gun into the New Bug Bag once more—feels wrong packing so much heat in someplace more civilized. Funny how things shift so quickly through just a few passageways.

We take one final break for Rhodes' legs, sat on a bench in a little square, beside a fountain which is no longer running. The skylight has some discolored greenery wrapping around all the stainless steel framing, and the windows are missing, save for one little shard of glass poking into a bit of concrete.

"Like we agreed," I say quietly. "You need to explain yourself to Ceder."

"I will," Rhodes says. Her head is hung here, and her voice timid. "If he's not... if he would rather not do this plan, we can try elsewhere. Maybe a smaller MONITOR in a smaller district, maybe..."

I gently place an arm around her. "Yeah. We'll figure out something."

"Sorry it took so much shit to get to this point," she mutters.

Not the worst experiences of my life. I could've had worse. Had worse at times, and feeling like I'm doing something is a nice change of pace. "You're working at it."

Seems like that strikes a chord with her. She smiles, then the smile fades, and she envelops herself against me, and we embrace for a little while. "...I should get in touch with those girls from back in the day. And Jean Jacket, again. Tell 'em all the shit that happened. Be a person, I-I guess, is what you'd call it."

"Sure," I say, mildly amused. I grimace a little though. "I mean, probably not. Opsec."

"I know, I'm just kinda daydreaming. Just realized I got so much unfinished business, a-and I miss them, and I never said sorry to anyone's face."

"Could've guessed that much."

She makes a muted warble under my arm and then sighs. "Nelly, how the fuck do you trust me with anything? How's Ceder gonna?"

Not a great answer for that. I take a deep breath. "Coming clean about the League shit is the only thing you can do. First and only step. Then you just hope, and if it doesn't go well, we do something else."

"I wanna be a better person," Rhodes says, as quietly as if she never spoke at all.

Doesn't take much effort to want. Doesn't take much to want to be better, Pell. Truth is I am still in the dark, I am still the person I am, and wanting is the smallest little step. Rhodes is further in the dark than me, now. No chance to be selfless and stupid anymore. Fighting to live.

For the first time in a while, I feel my grip loosen over her. Part of me feels detached again. Maybe at the end of all of this I really will feel like a complete fool for doing so much for her, but then again I have always been a fool, and I will continue to be one for a while. Don't know the extent of heartbreak I could still feel if Rhodes betrayed me again, but I know it could happen. I only have stupid hope. I want you to be a better person. What kind of trouble makes a person think such a thing? Pell thought it for me, once, and now I feel the same for someone else.

Anyhow. I don't need to say any of that out loud to Rhodes. I just hold her tight and sit for a while 'til her legs get better, and then we head to the Hang'd Knight.

The River

- 39 -

I knock at the light metal door into the speakeasy and, when I get a response from an unfamiliar voice to "fuck off," I decide to just step in. It's locked now—maybe Edjebo bursting in made them more cautious—but I still got my copy of the key, and I get it open pretty easy, bringing Rhodes inside with me.

The interior is bright and crowded. Extra chairs from storage and everyone bumping shoulders around cramped tables. Many a face here, many a face I don't recognize, all manner of Baldari and humans and Tasran, a few in guilder clothes and one with a mask. Some are clearly prostitutes, some are not. There are two men in full uniform from Baultriel Law Enforcement and one nearly jumps at me to stop me from entering, but I hear the deep-throated voice of Ceder cut him off. "All good," he says. He is sat at one table with a pile of papers and two discarded datapads beside him, and his robes look completely mundane in the harsh overhead lighting. He looks tired.

"Ho," I say, frowning, getting a good look at everyone. Things have fallen quiet, but my presence doesn't seem particularly surprising. A few Baldari on a corner table keep chattering, and things start to resume. The air is all arguments.

Ceder stands up slowly and has to stiffen to get some ache out of his legs, and then he's over, and he embraces me with his whole self, until I am smothered. Big lizard chest going in and out, heavy. Wasn't sure I'd be here. Then after I pat him on the back, and say, "Hi, man," he turns to Rhodes, and gives her the same treatment. She is a little bit in tears.

After a moment, he turns over to the group of Baldari on one end of the room. One is picking their teeth with a stick, and a couple more are bickering over some paperwork. "These are some friends of mine," he says. "I will need to speak with them."

"Go, Ceder," says the Baldari picking her teeth, "not like we were getting anywhere."

"Hush."

His bracelets and necklaces jingle as he leads us to the back room.

-

The shrine is lit, and the dimness in the rest of the room feels like home. I drop off my existing stuff, and Ceder hasn't discarded any of what I used to own—my cash, my fishing rod, my jacket. All manner of loaned and given things, but a few things I've earned, too. My UAP is where I left it, hanging by a belt loop on a coat hook. Rhodes sits at the table where we used to play poker, and Ceder retrieves some water for the both of us.

"It was not so terrible," he explains, finally taking a seat. "The Peacekeepers have me rattled, but are no longer a surprise. I have contingencies for these things."

"Sorry we didn't get in touch so long," I say.

He shakes his head, smiling at me. Tired smile. "If we'd longer prepared, we would have made ways to signal each other, but..."

I shrug, sitting between him and Rhodes. "We sent that Baldari to scout it out. Hedged our bets you weren't compromised."

"Oh, Nelly," he says, with a weak laugh. "There would be no compromising me."

Rhodes pipes up, and her voice sounds dry. "Thank you, ah, for coming for me."

"Needed to happen, didn't it?"

"Ah, well." She takes a little drink, clearing her throat. Trying to avert her eyes from Ceder's. "Some stuff we need to... I need to come clean about."

He nods. "Go ahead. I have been curious how things went in the interim days."

Not great, not the worst. Though of course that's not where Rhodes starts. "I mean before that," she murmurs. "Lied to you and Nelly for the longest time, got you to do that stupid thing at Bermonde, and there's more, too."

"Okay. I am still listening." He has his hands cupped together.

"I got contracted by the League to kill Jericho Arborist. We think, ah... we think it was some conspiracy about the UCC, but we don't really know. The League was after me originally, but Nelly came first. Then they picked me up again, and... that's why the PK response time was crazy fast."

Ceder is stony-faced for a moment, but then he slowly frowns, and then frowns some more. His teeth are showing, but he does not tremble. "I see."

Rhodes sniffles. "I know that probably could've fucked with the Baultriel play. I was stupid not to say anything before you got here. Desperate."

"Of course, of course." But his voice indicates little sympathy. He has sunk heavy into his seat, and his breath comes out of him hardly voluntarily. Lot going on in those eyes. I sink into my seat a little. Not my fight to fight, of course. If he wants to wring her neck, I suppose it's their problem to sort out. "This is upsetting," Ceder says.

"Yeah."

"This has me upset. Mm. And I blew up the van for this," he murmurs.

I start ruffling through my things. "Let me pay for that," I say. "I still have cash—"

He holds up a palm, and doesn't even look my way. "Things have accelerated anyhow, regardless of what happened. The van passed its use. But I am upset."

"I—"

"Are you affiliated with them any longer?"

She gets incensed by that. "The fuck? No, obviously. Once I did the job they wanted me on the leash, that's all."

Ceder waves his hand at her, once again compelling her to quiet down. "It was a mundane question. I understand you."

"O-Okay." Rhodes shrinks back down into her seat like she's been hammered down.

"Is there anything else."

I clear my throat and look to Rhodes, and after a moment composing herself, she speaks. "...Yeah. I got, ah. It's selfish but I have something to offer you. I think I can help with the Baultriel thing and, by doing it, I can help myself. So I'm here to ask if you'll hear me out."

At this, Ceder pauses. He takes a deep breath, and then his stony expression falters, and he falls into a crestfallen expression, resting his head on his palms, sinking into his seat. "I see," he says. "Gah. I do not know. I wish you had not lied so long, friend."

"Yeah."

He sits there a little while. Looks like he's all spun around by this. "I do not know, I do not know. I am already so caught up in what is happening..."

"I can help," Rhodes says. Sounds like she's forcing it out of her mouth.

"Maybe you can," he mutters back. "Likely you cannot. I would need to ponder, and at least consult someone in the militia."

I start to stand up. "Sorry we troubled you, Ceder. You got enough shit on your plate, we'll—"

"No!" Rhodes grips her seat tightly, and her breath is suddenly racing. "No. Please. I promise what I have will help. Baultriel is the second most surveilled precinct in the entire city nowadays and I can shut it down for good. I looked shit up, I-I know this could help."

Ceder swallows some spit and looks up at her. "Second only to the Transit Hub, yes." Just saying words to get his mind off the worst thoughts.

"I only have one shot to use this stupid backdoor, then they'll patch it. And after I do this, f-for Baultriel..." She scrunches up her face terribly and trembles. "Then I can try to make it up to you."

His old eyes just dig into her for a while. I recoil slightly just from the presence of it. I want to speak, but I'm held in place, my throat is held closed. Not my fight. Not your fight. What happens happens. But I care about her. I cared about you.

Then Ceder relents a little, and starts to stand. Not seen him so weary before. He steps around me, steps to the door. "I have to resolve this meeting," he says. Then he rubs at his face and glances at the floor.

"Okay," Rhodes says, quietly.

He stays there a little while near the door, in the threshold between two worlds, before turning, clenching his other fist, and exiting out into the kitchen, and onward.

-

She asks me how I reckon it went. I give her my honest opinion.

Unreasonably tired, now, and I want to rest, but we hunker down by the door to eavesdrop on the meeting a little, though it's a haze. Just a lot of mentions of 'no bloodshed'. Favorite turn of phrase in there. Talking about the protest yesterday, too, I think. Rhodes says, "Yelling a lot," but I'm not sure what to make of it all, and I'm starting to feel lethargic from the day, and I slip away to lay in our old bedding.

- 40 -

Some time passes like this.

-

Lost in my thoughts here. Kicked back against the floor, lamenting that we didn't bring along any food to eat here in the back room. Staring at the ceiling, a while, then I glance over at Rhodes.

She's crouched on her chair, leaned against the wall, browsing on the little datapad we got. Probably filling her mind to drown something else out. Chittering now and then, maybe laughter, maybe seeing something fun on the net. But her hands tremble, too.

I look back at the ceiling.

Seems like it was a stupid idea after all. Front to back. Ceder has his own shit going on and plenty of it, and we have been enough of a burden.

You haven't been a burden at all, Nelly.

Stupid instinct. Easy to disconnect myself. In basic training I was pretty proud at being the best at things and, in the shadow of Pell, it got worse. Valued not making mistakes. Came easy to pretend I never did. Then again I am filled with little flashes of memories of every mistake, every time, every time. How Nelly fucked over this person and that person. And the people I shot for worse reasons.

Little pathetic voice crying out, but I didn't hurt you, Ceder, but I didn't do you any wrong. But I've staked my claim to Rhodes and I got to own that.

I guess it's a better place to be.

Can't get out of this just doing better than my peers. Need something from other people, need to trust them.

Can I trust you, Rhodes?

I look over and see someone bathed in the dimness of the room and I think, no, of course not. The only way someone could trust you is if they didn't know you.

Then I pause for a while and think again, and I trust her more than my heart knows what to do with. Just tired of shooting for her, tired of fighting for her. I want something better, Pell. I'd like it if you got to sit on some shore someday, somewhere sunny. I want someplace quiet. I want to shoot the shit and watch movies with her and live in a back room with her all my life until I die someplace quiet. I don't want more out of it.

Long days fishing and having her hang around doing nothing at all. I want that. Why do I want that.

I love her.

-

I try to sleep.

-

Nothing in the way of memories left. Nothing I haven't scanned through. I dream of a great and vast sea, someplace on... Vaegom. Oceans forever on that planet. Nothing there for me. Then I drift to Haraad, bathed in tropical heat, these old cities surrounded by jungle. Someone good is bleeding on the shore. It fades.

City parks someplace cold with alpine colors. We are holding one another and telling stories forever. We stomped along the shore and splashed ourselves in water until we found you again. Then the swamp. Clambering up a tree with my shotgun. Shadows moving below us.

Two, says Pell.

Count 'em. But wait a moment. Three, I tell her. Then it's cold again.

I dream of holding her and cuddling and watching stupid films until the sun burns out, then I dream of sweet-smelling meat in some infinite market beside a canal.

Four, I decide. Four and no more. I turn back. It has turned all into a river of shadows.

Pick out one. I fire.

Ears bursting again. Recoil. I weld my cheek to the stock and fire.

-

My shoulder fucking hurts.

Sweaty. Maybe got a fever this time from all the trudging in mud. Pell, get the clinician.

-

I love her. Never known anything so sure. But then she went and died for nothing. Some stupid thing plucked her out of the world. Hand from the clouds. She couldn't have ever known what killed her. We are puny things. These are mountains moving us.

I love her. I want a better life for her.

No more beatdowns in alleyways and her limbs aching and clipped wings. No more lying because she's stupid and doesn't know what lying does. No more running.

If I could hold so tightly that my arms would burst.

I love her.

-

Shivering now. I can't stand the heat of this room.

-

"Ah, she is asleep," I hear.

I try to open my eyes. One sticks shut. Ceder's wide face and his tired eyes, piercing through the darkness. I wriggle myself slightly awake, and his gaze comes back on me. "Uh," I grunt.

A slight smile strikes his face, though he doesn't seem to have meant to wake me up. "Nelly. Hello."

"Hi again," I say, though I'm only half conscious here, and it feels too fucking hot to breathe. Too cold actually. I slink my chin under the sheets some.

Ceder stands slightly, though he is still hunched. "I was going to ask if you would like to play some poker," he says. "Though it is late, I had the urge."

I cough, and then say, "Yeah."

So I get up.

He has brought us some food from the freezer and reheated it. Cheesebread, lemon cake, some little pucks of meat in fried potatoes. Rhodes is setting up chips and cards and it feels a little like the world I imagined for myself in dreams, though I do feel like throwing up, so I don't eat much more than a nibble.

"Hey," Rhodes says. She waves at me stiffly.

"Mhm." I blink and sit down at my usual seat. "Go okay?"

"Whazzat?"

Got to itch at my face. Sweat on my forehead. "I thought you'd tell Ceder our side of what happened, past week," I say, though I don't know why I thought that. She contorts into confusion, and I say, "Uh, sorry."

Ceder takes a seat now, coiling his fat lizard tail around his chair. "I expected she'd wait until you were here to corroborate," he says. "I am curious."

"I'll deal for holdem," says Rhodes, quieter now. She starts dealing out our pocket cards and I clear my throat again.

"It went alright," I explain to Ceder. "Rhodes found us spots to camp out, again. It was like old times. I brought cash with me, so there wasn't much trouble." Gotta clear my throat again again. Fuck's sake. C'mon, Rhodes, do the talking, I'm not good at it.

"Yes, but the Undercity! I hope things went well there, as well. Clever, not to take the obvious entrance."

I flip up my pocket cards briefly. Six and seven, spades and daggers. Sure. Once lost fifty Vicks bluffing with six and seven off suit. Probably fold instantly. We'll see what the table does. Let me guess. Eight and nine off suit. Close enough, Pell.

Rhodes finally speaks once we all have our cards. She has a little smile. "We took the route through Pete's Bagels in uptown," she explains. "Then we had to navigate kinda blind."

"Ah, smart, though. That is what I would have done." Ceder looks at his cards briefly and then not again, like Jarman would, when we played once. Doubt he has anything, as he pauses speaking for too long. He likes to bluff for its own sake. "The flooded tunnels?"

"Partly, I guess." Rhodes puts her two cards in her hand and switches the order around. I mean, maybe playing for a straight, or just likes them in a certain order. Who knows. Ace four or something. "We started by going through all these train tunnels that weren't flooded, then went... like... outside, is what we figured, 'cus the ceiling became a cavern."

Ceder grins widely. "I love that section. There are wolves that live down there, I have heard, arboreal wolves from the UCC. Check."

"Check," Rhodes says.

No sense letting them play for free. "Ten cents," I say, and I flick over a chip.

"Sure, sure." Ceder calls with one chip of his own.

"Fucking wolves is crazy," Rhodes mutters, then sends one of her own chips forward to make the pot right. "We saw a lot of niddies mostly, but also some huge thing that nearly killed a Neriak kid. Pot's right." She flips over the first three community cards in order from the top of the deck.

Face of daggers. Dramatically, Rhodes says, "Biztram Jenize." Spirit of mischief. I know the poker ones.

Face of spades. "Biztram Hizashi," she says now, chittering in a little amusement. Spirit of power.

Face of diamonds. "And the Biztram Utash. Haha, holy shit." Spirit of tribute.

"Three of a kind on the table," says Ceder, grinning with all his teeth. "Either of you have faces?"

"Just the one," I tell him. Some people I've met really hate table talk. I appreciate that these two love it.

Rhodes doesn't respond and just squints at the table. "Who wins if it's five faces up?"

Ceder puts on a teaching tone again, like when we first got her into poker. "It would be a split between whoever's left. Nobody would have a better hand."

I cough some into my elbow and take a tiny sip of water from Rhodes' bottle. "Okay, so don't fold, Rhodes," I explain, dubiously.

"Beh, fuck off," she says, chuckling a little.

Since it's his bet, Ceder tosses in a fifty cent chip, and leans back some. "What kind of huge thing did you see?"

Rhodes calls without hesitation. Bet she has jack shit at this point, but I probably got worse than jack shit. No chance for a straight or a flush anymore. Only way I get my ten cents back is if I split the pot or make a full house. Guess it's not the worst odds. "Tall, not wide, taller than Nelly, with six legs," she says. "Ah, ah, and white skin, and no fur. It bit the shit out of the kid's leg."

"I do not know it," Ceder says, though his vision narrows. "You ran?"

"Nah, Nelly shot it, saved the kid."

"Ah, that is great to hear." He looks to me, partly because it's my turn to bet.

I shrug. Bad idea to stay in, but fifty cents on the first game of the night isn't terrible. Fake chips anyway. I call. "We made it okay. Hired that Baldari to check for you."

"I should have been more keen on what that was. I could have greeted you outside the speakeasy, made it safer, given you a little scare."

Rhodes says, "Pot's right," and deals the turn aboard the table. Face of hearts. Now everyone's eyes are on it, and she goes, "Tssshhh. Okay. The Biztram Adla. That's four."

"So you've got five of a kind now, Nelly," Ceder explains.

"I actually do, yeah."

He bets fifty cents. "As do I. Varre Trading Post?"

Rhodes nods, squinting at her cards for a moment. "Yeah, or whatever it's called. It wasn't that long a thing, only a few hours on foot... ah, whatever, call." She tosses forward some chips.

Got to clarify here, it's very stupid to call their bet now. Not got shit and likely don't have high card. Maybe twenty percent odds we split. Odds just don't make sense. Look a fool if I keep playing, knowing what cards I've got.

Then again I suppose it could happen. Fun to take the stupid odds and get rewarded, sometimes. And if I crowd them out, my cards don't matter at all.

"Vick fifty," I say, and I throw in three chips. "Vick to you, Ceder." Then I got to cough some more. Fucking headache, too. Slept wrong I guess.

He effortlessly tosses in a Vick chip. "I am glad you are both alright," he says.

"Fuckssake," Rhodes says, rolling her eyes. Then she throws in a Vick. "Rich hand for nobody having shit, ah?"

"Pot's right," I tell her, smiling a little. Though it's probably bad that I just effectively tossed away a Vick fifty for nothing. We'll see. Ace or a face card bails me out, ten or nine could save me, too. Can't win the hand but maybe claw back something.

She looms over the deck and puts two of her fingers on the top card to pause and wait. "Glad you're okay, too," she whispers to Ceder, and she turns over the river.

Face of clubs. "Ah," she says, exhaling heavily. "Biztram Nadaz, of rivers. Fucking kidding me. I swear I shuffled, you saw me..." Laughing now.

Spirit of rivers, luck, lots of things. Ah, ah, I guess 'defiance of destiny' is what they'd say in a pamphlet about her.

Ceder has an immense grin on his face, leaning over the table now. In the dimness his features become a little like a comic book. "Nadaz upon the river is quite the sign," he says. Adopts that tone I remember, when he tells stories of old figures in Haraad. "Five faces, itself, quite the sign. I am no soothsayer, but it can mean many things."

It means you have many faces. "Means we have many faces," I say, and I have to swallow some spit to get my throat less dry. "It's one in half a million, I think. Never seen it happen in holdem. A buddy of mine got it in five card, with better odds. We joked about it forever."

"Yes, Nelly," Ceder says, tapping the Biztrams one by one. "We each have many faces. I would think this is the trouble with us, that we are hardly as we appear. That is what is eating me alive this night."

Suddenly doesn't feel like Ceder is seeing this as odds. He has no surprise in his expression, like it was always going to happen. Rhodes is still processing, has her eyes squinted. "Half a million, fucking really?" she asks.

"Not sure what you mean," I tell Ceder.

"We lurk in the dark, now, fugitives of the League, yet I run a legitimate establishment. I have killed, and you have, but you will return someplace quiet and calm one day, as will I. How can this be right? All the people of our world are two-faced, are we not?"

"So we split?" Rhodes asks, tentatively starting to motion towards the pot.

Ceder turns, but it's like he didn't hear her. "It is a fated thing, as well, to see something so unlikely. Like when the Supranendum fell, and the timing of that—was unfathomable, no? What timing. That you hurt her, and myself, and the world broke along with it."

She sinks slightly, and I can't tell what her expression is. "Fuckssake," she murmurs. I look at my cards again. Six and seven, off suit. Stupid hand to play to completion, but—actually, no, something is wrong.

I pull up one card and it's not a seven at all. Thought it was but I misread, didn't look properly. Face of hearts. The Biztram Adla again. Spirit of health and longevity, it's supposed to be. But it's not supposed to be here. "Hold on," I say, croaking a little.

"Yes?" Now Ceder looks back to me, and I see that his expression is so strained that he must be crying.

I hold up the face card. "Deck must be mixed with a different one. I got a duplicate. Didn't realize 'til now."

"Ah, ah," he enunciates, gritting his teeth. "Right. I must have... stupid mix-up. I'm sorry. The hand is invalid, then, I suppose."

Rhodes is gripping the table with all her might. "Same result," she says.

"Yeah," I mutter.

"Same result if it's a real hand or not. We split the pot." Her voice is at once ferocious and so weak, like she is expending the last of herself, and all these years of being at the bottom of the world have finally caught up with her.

I see Ceder retract, and all of him is left on the table. Heaving breath. If Neriak could shed tears I know, somehow, that he would be sobbing. Got tense so suddenly. We're not talking about poker anymore, of course. "Yes," he says, quietly, looking off. "It is the same."

We sort out the deck issue, redistribute chips, and start from the beginning again.

- 41 -

Headache.

I crawl out of Rhodes' embrace in a kind of haze. She wakes up, grunts something. I stumble over to the table and check our datapad. Little past nine o'clock. Headache. Headache. Front half of my skull like it's bursting. Great. I sit at my chair and push my forehead into the surface of the table as hard as I can to keep my brain from falling out.

-

A pounding at the door wakes me up again, and it's bright in the room, and Ceder is in his pajamas cleaning up all the empty beer bottles and piles of chips and cards, and Rhodes is curled up in her chair, and I swivel stiffly to the pounding. Fucking pounding headache still. No, the pounding is in real life. Ceder goes to open the door.

A large Baldari woman in a big leather jacket and jeans stoops her head and steps inside. Nearly my height and wide, and with no sleeves I can see she looks muscled. Black fur, sharp muzzle. Saw her at the meeting last night chewing on a toothpick the size of an axe handle. Her eyes flit to me, and then to Rhodes, but we receive only a grunt. Then, to Ceder, she says, "It's urgent."

"Come in," he says, groggy, wiping at his face.

She has already come in, but she does come in a bit further. "The... Rhodes can stay. Uh, who is this one." Now she's pointing a clawed finger at the side of my head.

"Nelly," Ceder says, smiling tiredly. "She is good. You said urgent?"

"Yeah, the snake-killers want to act now, so shit is bedlam, and we need to move."

A flash of something across Ceder's face, but then it's gone. On a whim I eject myself from my seat and shuffle over to the kitchen, stepping beside the Baldari. "Need to make breakfast," I say. Not sure where it's coming from in my chest but it sounds awful.

"Okay?" the woman says, baffled.

"Leave the door open, I can hear."

Need to eat something. If you're sick and you don't eat anything you die. Also Rhodes needs to eat something and I'm not gonna let her subsist on candy for breakfast any longer. I retrieve some synthetic milk and cinnamon and oatmeal and start a pot on.

The pause in the back room is broken by Ceder saying, "Go on, Noss."

"Tch. Okay." She glances over to me but I'm pretty much blank, and so she turns back to the people actually listening. Rhodes hasn't said a word yet, but her head is craned up. "Ceder talked to me privately. Said a hacker-bug could help us. I wasn't going to come until tonight, but shit accelerated, and now I need to hear you out on it."

"Who are the snake-killers?" Rhodes asks, slow to speak. I'm pouring in milk.

Noss tilts her head up to examine her properly. "Just a faction. One of us. You haven't been in the meetings, so you wouldn't know."

Ceder exhales sharply. "We will catch her up, then."

"Fine."

"They have certain interests," Ceder explains. "And a certain plan. They champion cutting the heads off the snakes, and so they would like an organized assassination of some people. Pimps and landlords and the owner of the Old Chit in downtown Baultriel, to start."

Now Noss interrupts him before he speaks again. "They are going to do it, now," she says. "Tonight. No negotiating. They broke off after the meeting and told almost nobody. I heard from my mother, of all people."

"Ah," says Ceder, and he grimaces.

I think my head is going to explode into a billion little pieces. Stirring an oatmeal slurry now, and I say, "Seems like a fine plan in principle." Guess deep in my addled brain I agree that killing is sometimes pretty good.

"Bah—" Noss sounds off with a growl.

Ceder pipes up. "Some discretion is what most people agree is needed."

"It does sound, ah, immediately useful, at least?" Rhodes says.

"Tch-cht. You especially shut the fuck up," says Noss, pointing at Rhodes, who recoils a little. "Don't presume to know anything. They are reckless and will get many people killed with this. There's nothing to do but damage control, but know they are not right."

"You're worried about Peacekeepers," I say.

Another grunt from her. "Of course I am! Who's not?!"

I frown and look back at what I'm doing. "No, you're right. Seen it where I used to live. Stupid people got caught up in fighting 'em."

"They think that railguns and bombs will save them, that they will just beat the PKs back. It'll be a bloodbath. It'll be a bloodbath," Noss says. "Nobody's got a fucking head on straight."

"Calm yourself a moment," Ceder says, quietly. Can see he's still cleaning up our table. "No sense in losing your mind. You'll need it."

Something about him pacifies her, and she spends a moment quiet, her deep voice turning to nothing but heavy breathing. Then she turns back to Rhodes. "Explain your plan."

Her and I lock eyes a moment while I'm stirring and I stop. Hey, Rhodes.

All clear, I signal.

All clear, she has me tap back.

And she speaks to Noss. "If I can get ahold of a MONITOR and subjugate it, ah, I can kill the city's surveillance and fast response system, all of it. I know of a bug in the Berry operating system and I can install backdoors if I plug into somewhere with enough access, and we can use that for the cameras and shit."

"Doable," Noss says. Oddly stable all of a sudden. "We know where it's being routed, roughly, but shutting that down has been a shitshow, and it wouldn't be permanent."

Ceder has a mild growl in his voice. "Dangerous," he says.

"Doable, though."

"Okay. If we do that, I... and if the MONITOR can't fry my brains out... I can make the surveillance network melt itself into slag, every bit, I think. Then I can have the traffic towers jam landing data for the Peacekeepers, and..." Suddenly Rhodes is uproar. I don't think she's noticed that she's standing now. Her eyes go to me again. All clear, Rhodes. All clear. Do your thing. "Whatever else you want. Crash financial systems. Change electronic access requirements on doors. Wipe records."

Noss exhales so heavy it nearly pushes her over. "Bold claims. You do that shit and they'll want your head the rest of your life." She puts a thick hand on Rhodes' shoulder, now, and she recoils a little. "Don't be stupid."

"I-I'm not," she murmurs.

"You want out. That much I picked up. So don't go killing yourself for our cause." Then Noss has a smile crawl up her muzzle, though on a Baldari it just as easily looks like a baring of teeth. "You can turn off all surveillance? You're sure?"

A weak croak. "My friend found a security flaw a long time ago. Jean Jacket, sh-she thought if we get to one MONITOR we can get as many as we want. And if we get a backdoor I can melt the cameras by overvolting them. Then we just... jam Peacekeeper landing data, and ruin traffic for the city cops, and you get a little while to do whatever."

"We just want it to be better, little woman," Noss says, and there's a degree of pride in that. "You're Vasthi as much as I am. You see how they're tearing this city to shit. The League would rather that Salt Row and Baultriel and everywhere else just up and burnt. Independence is the only way." Like the old, old days. Like in campfire stories.

Rhodes starts. "I—"

But Noss stops her immediately. Not her turn to talk. "I'll radio in to the other leaders. Everything happens tonight," she says. "We will batter down their doors, girl." I see Ceder starting to smile, but Rhodes is still frozen solid. "Don't need hacking for that. Baultriel is two million strong. We'll run on the banks and stop traffic ourselves, and you get to run away."

I see, now, that Rhodes is crying. Too much all at once.

Check in, I tell her.

Long pause.

All clear.

"Okay," she finally says, mandibles stiff and twitchy. "How do we get to a MONITOR core?"

-

We talk plans a while. I confess to them that I've probably got a cold or some kind of nasty Undercity bug but there's no time to wait it out. I make bowls of oatmeal for everyone and drizzle on a shitload more cinnamon, and we draw out little diagrams on napkins, and we eat. Ten AM now. Gotta get shit done before the evening. It's too fast. It's reckless to try and make this happen.

Something feels familiar about it, though.

From one stupid-as-shit plan to another.

Baultriel

- 42 -

Velnias is not my city and the Palisade is not my world, but I am here now, and I suppose I am now of this city and of this world, and so I have taken up the mantle of someone who cares about it, same as anyone takes up the mantle of a carer for whatever cause they are stuck between. Wasn't Nelly growing up on Old Tibor. Wasn't a citygoer in the endless swamps of Stromm's Landing. When Pell sailed us on a vacation north to someplace warm and pretty, islands in a little jeweled sea called Gavoris upon the equator, I felt like throwing up so bad I couldn't stay. I'm seasick, Pell. It wasn't home. Nothing is home until you are placed there too long. Do you miss Stromm's Landing at all, Nelly?

Whoever was there was not me, and I am not her. But I am still a stupid brute doing what I am told. That's alright by me. Always did well as someone else's soldier.

One hand lopped off and the other all calloused and tan. I belong to Salt Row and the sea air and I belong, too, in the awaiting arms of the town of Baultriel, despite never being there in my life. Why does Ceder care about it? Why do I?

Sometimes you love something, is all.

Baultriel is a slum. It's a red light district some massive strata across, spanning mostly Gutters but with many tall buildings, and just about everyone is raised in the grey markets or the black markets. Daughters of prostitutes and fathers of gangsters. The League's trying to outlaw prostitution, and anyhow the sheer quantity of drugs and bodies shuffled through the precinct was enough for them to accelerate the surveillance structure. NO FREE TRADE IN BAULTRIEL. PENALTIES APPLY. Then some people protested and got killed. Then again. Then again after that. Guild Destri takes slaves and the Peacekeepers take permanent prisoners, and the little city of Baulriel just rots.

I don't know a thing about fixing any of it. I just figure I can love it for someone else's sake, and I can hold a gun alright, and that's all that's being asked of me.

-

I can hold a gun.

-

Staring down at my shotgun splayed out on the table, now, all the component parts I've been cleaning to distract from my headache and fever. Whirlwind of movement around me, Ceder unpacking disguises from the ceiling, Noss borrowing use of his desktop computer. Rhodes is bickering with the both of them but I can't hear any of it.

Wiping down the barrel.

Carbon and gunsmoke. Only fired you four times and you're already tired.

Stock comes off with these pins here. Needs new varnish someday.

How'd you get here? You fly on some spaceship, same as me? Why? You've seen too much fighting. It should have been retirement for you. How'd I lose you, anyway?

I detach the pistol grip. It's from some airgun kit and I screwed it on wrong and it doesn't look right having something stupid and plastic on a nice wooden stock. But it looks exactly right, too. Just like it used to.

How'd you get here?

"It won't work," Ceder says. Snaps me out of my trance. "We cannot suppress it."

I look over to him. He's dressed. No robes, just a suit jacket and some slacks, big but fitting. Black gloves. Hiding his scale color. "What?" I ask.

"We cannot mount a suppressor to your gun." He smiles a little. "When I received it, I wanted our gunsmith to install threading of a proper type, but someone had already chipped out a... crude muzzle brake. It wasn't worth the extra cost."

Yeah. I guess someone did do that, for some reason. "Oh well," I say. "Wouldn't fix the sound much anyway. Got anything else?"

"This time, yes. Though I'm sorry to make you two part again."

"Nah." I'm starting to wake up again. Back into reality. We're gearing up and I'm smiling. "It should be a walking stick at this point," I tell him.

He seems to get a kick out of that. "Then we shall retire it, and get you a rifle."

Heard that before. "Her too?" I point at Rhodes.

She looks away from her datapad to wince and squint at me. "Nelly, I don't know even how to use a gun."

"We will do the shooting," Ceder assures her, "although nobody will be shooting much, if we are lucky."

I nod, and take one last look at my shotgun.

I'll be back for you. But I won't need you. You've given enough.

Promise.

-

I am put into a poorly-fitting two-piece suit and adorned with a plastic mask of the Biztram Nadaz, and we walk out of the Hang'd Knight as a motley bunch of criminals at noon.

- 43 -

As always, the subway does a good job of getting us where we're going, and it's a shame I spent these months so often on foot or else riding a stolen moped to get about. As long as we're unarmed at least—probably not the best idea to use public transit while packing heat.

We shuffle mostly out of sight of the cameras in Laudenberger Station and slink into the first train to Lowry Harbor. According to Ceder he's got no reason to think we need to be cautious here, even after the shootout—confident in his own ability to cover his tracks, and maybe a little too confident in mine and Rhodes'. Suppose it means the trip to the other part of the Undercity was pointless, but it did save that kid's life, and it was safer than barging into Corundum Town blindly. Train is a little dirty and smells faintly like gasoline, but it's on time and isn't too crowded.

I look down at Rhodes hugging my side for support. She's got a Tasran surgical mask and a beanie to hide her cybernetic, and she looks a little goofy, buried under my arm as I use a pole to stand up. "Did you used to do public transit a lot?" I ask, quiet enough not to make a scene.

"Yeah," she says, smiling faintly. "I loved the train. How I got, ah, all those... got work done in Salt Row. Cams and shit. It took months."

I nod. "Sure. Guess you'd need it to travel, since you weren't walking," I say.

She looks off. "I did also have a moped for stuff that wasn't close to a station..."

"So that's how you came up with that idea. You get it stolen ever?"

"Naw. I was smart."

We did have some fun conversations, back before she ran off, trying to justify our moped theft by reckoning that the owner deserved it. "What happened to ours?"

Rhodes hums mutedly, and doesn't turn to me. "Did me really good, 'til... you know." Yeah, probably best we leave that unsaid here. Not a good spot to talk business.

I look across the train. There's some old looking folks with instrument cases, one guy with tan skin fiddling with a trumpet. Two seats occupied by stray cats who must be on for the long haul. A big Neriak blocking the view to the next car, clothed in red and brown robes like something I'd seen back home. And Ceder and Noss across from us, in their own little conversation. They act a little like father and daughter on occasion, though Ceder also seems to get a kick out of seeing her flare up and groan. Both are wearing simple cloth facemasks—maybe believable that they're just for fashion, but not that believable.

Not a long ride, which is for the best, because we stand out pretty bad.

-

Noss is parked a couple blocks from the Ajbal Station Platform in Lowry Harbor, not far off the waterfront. Horrible stench of motor oil swirling in the air, and concrete dust on everything, and we emerge out of the subway into a loud construction zone for some kind of enormous renovation of the freight platform just aboveground. Cargo trains are a decent part of Velnias' commerce, and a lot of cargo might as easily come from Berith by land as by sea. Lots of folk about, and a big ostentatious cafe with vaulted windows, and a squad of armored security by a parked van. We got no business here.

On the corner of Bolasettum and 119th, we come across Noss's car. It's a beater, I think you'd call it, this compact green-painted thing with a combustion engine partly emerging from the hood, paint flecking off and a splatter of rust on the back, and a floppy antenna sagging pathetically from the front of the roof. Angular, too. Probably cheaper than the electric moped Rhodes and I used, though it's also probably got more robust security.

"Don't scuff it up," Noss explains, and I almost laugh at that. "Rhodes, sit behind Ceder, he's gonna need leg room and you're tiny."

"Okay, but don't squish me," says Rhodes.

Ceder gives her a smile. "I will not squish you."

I sit behind Noss, the others pile in, and we get going. Tires screech for a second when she gets the engine on, and it's bumpy from the word go, but it works.

-

Heading into the very center of Velnias, now. Baultriel is its heart geographically and red-lit like blood, and even in the midday, there are still a thousand blinking lights and neon signs and enormous imposing buildings with different designs making for a glass-toothed skyline. The highways of the city are far above the streets, and higher above the Gutters, and then Noss takes us on an off-ramp and I think we're close, but we're not even out of Lowry Harbor, and we're getting on a superhighway. Ten lanes either direction and we're nearly touching the buildings on either side. Little daunting. I look over and Rhodes is as infatuated staring out the window as me.

"Shit, we're higher up than some apartments," I say, laughing a little.

"I get a little vertigo up here," she says back. "But when I was little I used to really like being in the back seat and just watching."

"Sure. I liked the same as a kid."

Rhodes tilts over to look at me, and we lock eyes. First time in a while we're in someone else's hands. "Yeah? Where'd you live on Old Tibor anyway?"

I hear Noss let out a noise. Whatever. Not like I intended to keep it a secret. Probably worth clarifying I'm not much of a fed, though. "Paraschiv. The capital. Most years the sandstorms kept the view pretty hazy, but I remember my parents driving me to basic training and watching the whole city disappear bit by bit." One last look at home, kiddo. Sorry for saying that. I know you'll be back soon.

"Was it big?"

"Yeah, I guess." It was my whole entire world. Though I spent most of it indoors. "Wide, not tall. You could drive forever and keep seeing farms. I bet it's different nowadays, but probably not that different."

She nods, though I reckon she can't readily conceptualize forty years. Neither can I. "It's like that here too, you know," she says. "It'd take you days to drive out of Velnias, if you include all the smaller towns."

"Damn right," says Noss.

I snicker. "Everything's bigger around here, huh."

"You could never ever explore it all," she explains. "Not even one district. I don't even know most of Salt Row, i-it's probably the size of your home town."

"Probably." I know you'll be back soon. "Things always seem bigger when you're a kid. It felt as infinite as this."

"Rhodes," calls Noss. Her voice still has a little contempt in it, but she's lightened up since we first met. The growl is as guttural as ever, though. Just how she talks. "I got confused and forgot. What network key do we need to pick up?"

Rhodes shakes her head. "Ah, ah, no, we don't need it. I mean, we need it, but I can spoof it when we get to the core."

"Bah. I don't like chancing that." I hear her step on the gas a little harder. We pass by a little convoy of electric cars in the rightmost lane. "Can't we get a physical copy?"

"It'd be in a League checkpoint, I dunno where..."

"We have insiders. I'll ask."

Weakly, Rhodes says, "Okay."

Then Noss's voice gets a little firmer. "Don't whimper at me. If it doesn't work, and we're stuck holding out in the server room with you fumbling—"

"Then I'll be dead," Rhodes stammers, "and you'll have time to run."

"Tch. Our allies elsewhere expecting us to do our jobs won't have time to run."

"Fucking cool it," I tell her. Gritting my teeth a little. "She knows the stakes."

I hear her start to speak, but Ceder says, "Yes, Noss, a little faith."

Noss relents and flicks the car radio between a few frequencies, pulls a couple dials, and turns it on. The roar of static fills the car, and then fades as she starts to tune the antenna.

Rhodes reaches over, and I hold her hand.

-

It's a rapidfire series of affairs. Turns out the radio in Noss's car is a souped up walkie-talkie like I used to use back home, complete with a little encrypting setup and a patch panel by the ashtray, and even as she's barking commands into various channels she uses codewords, short sentences. Partially Vasthi, although when she speaks to "Team Seesee" she speaks entirely in Common, and doesn't seem to like whoever's on the other end. Eight channels, and she treats them as leaders with as much responsibility as her. Team Glass is arming for operation Velvet. Team Mini is arming for operation Runway. She tries to mobilize Team Seesee but they're slow to get organized every time she checks in, and it seems to piss her off plenty. "Albala," she says.

"Seesee will come around," Ceder assures her. "We have been preparing—how long? Everything is set in place, as it has been for very long. We are too ready to be caught unready."

"They sound unready," Noss grunts.

"They have time to fix that."

I lean over to glance at Noss in the rear-view mirror. "It's safe to use radio for stuff like this?"

"Barely," she responds. "We think the League busted our encryption back in July, so we changed it, but they could've busted it again since then. I'm using codewords."

Ceder pipes up, too. "She uses the radio every day, almost exactly like this. This won't seem different than usual, despite it being a very different day."

"Cool," says Rhodes.

Funnily enough I hadn't seen Noss around the Hang'd Knight much, if at all. I figure I'd remember her, with her height and bulk. As we pass close by a grand and imposing skyscraper that looks like a hotel—a little like the Okamoto Industries one that me and Rhodes once hid out in—I ask a question. Talking staves off the headache. "How'd you two meet, anyway?"

"Tch, take a guess," Noss says.

Ceder leans back and gives her a little smile, then turns to me. "I knew her grandmother during the War, and I helped raise her mother. Then I was back home for a while, though the timeline escapes me slightly. Then I returned to see Noss when she was born, and helped them secure housing."

"You were gone a lot," Noss says, quieter, "but I remember you during March of the Free every year."

"Hah, yes. I suppose I came over for vacations now and then."

Come on, fed, drink. Come on. It's a good day to drink your brains out. "What's March of the Free like around here?"

"Fucking crazy usually," Rhodes giggles.

"I like it," says Noss.

Ceder gives me a sly look. "I would not know. I don't typically remember it the morning afterward."

I snicker a little. "I see."

"Anyhow," he says, "certainly more lively than anything else. The Guilder holidays are... not for you and I, and Pioneer Day does not see much Vasthi attendance."

"Yeah," I say, "you don't see anyone cool at Pioneer Day anywhere." Some shit city kids do to celebrate being colonizers. "Oh, god, the way my parents would fawn over it every year..."

"You aren't much Fed anymore, right?" asks Noss. "Don't got to punch you in the face to make sure you play along?"

I stare at her.

She grunts, but I can hear her exhaling some tension out. "Good. You still stink like a Confederate, but if Ceder trusts you..."

Rhodes is a little astonished. "How the fuck do you people keep detecting fed on her?!"

"I don't know," Noss says. "It's just a thing."

"No, I wanna know too. I got a new accent, I should stink like swamp at this point..."

But Noss continues to be no help. "Whatever. You're with Baultriel now. I don't care. Just follow orders and we'll get this done."

"Can do, ma'am," I say, and I cough.

"And don't die yet," she says.

"Yeah, Nelly," Rhodes says. Her voice is a little restrained. "Don't die anytime soon. I like you."

I got better things to do than that.

I just lay back and stare at the roof as Noss gets back to checking in with the squad leaders on her big radio, and Ceder and Rhodes watch the city go by, and I think about some long-off time like this, some car on a dirt road headed someplace foul to do business, brandishing guns, and making things change, and I am a gun, and I am just your gun.

We take one turn onto an offramp, and head into the little city of Baultriel.

- 44 -

Down on the streets we are completely dwarfed by the infinite apartment blocks in every direction, and the highways blotting out the sun overhead, and all the light is replaced by neon. The nightlife is thriving at noon, but some roads are completely unoccupied, and too wide, and abandoned warehouses and broken-down factories in the bottom floor of megastructures peek out of every corner. At times it looks like a warzone, and at times it looks like the prettiest and most lively parts of some fantastical city in a novel, with ravers and scene kids about, and prettily-dressed Baldari coaxing money for some service or another, and lights in all the windows, all these lives, all these people. In Baultriel there isn't really a difference between Gutters and non-Gutters. It's all low and stinks of shit and looks like home.

Cameras at every intersection, though.

And Baultriel Law Enforcement out front of that building, and that one.

And that Baldari over there is getting pushed along by three Tasran into an abandoned building.

Noss is gripping the steering wheel tight. Ceder has his face low, and puts on a carved wooden mask with painted fangs like an overgrown monster of some kind. Rhodes is curled up against the side door. She puts down the datapad she's been typing on. "I'm sorry," she says, like she is some thermoelectric cell in space, emitting but not for any reason. Sorry for what, lady? Sorry is such a stupid word for stupid people. Don't be stupid anymore.

"Shush," I tell her, quietly.

"What?"

"Stop being sorry. You got better shit to think about."

Noss leans back in her seat slightly. "And cut your wireless on your datapad, moron."

She snaps back. "Obviously I did." After a moment of trembling, she elaborates. "I was looking shit up before we got here, and I gotta write a virus. The camera subroutine here got changed last week, so I'm starting from scratch."

"You need more time?" I ask.

"Nah. It's just getting me stressed the fuck out. Was sorry for not doing it sooner."

Ceder has a self-assuredness in his voice. "You will do well in this. Noss, next left."

"Thank you, I know," Noss grunts. "Come on, you know I know the way."

"Ha, yes, of course."

"How'd you find these two people, anyway," she asks. I guess it's a little playful. Doesn't seem to despise Rhodes the same as this morning.

"In some gutter somewhere," I say. "Like stray cats." I could use a vet. Head is starting to throb real bad from all the moving around, but at least I can still see.

Ceder proudly clears the record. "They were on the run, and I took them in. Nelly also worked for me. They earned their keep."

"Very like you."

Noss makes a left at Blastdeck and 56th, and we emerge onto the heart of the innermost row of bars along the most populated main street in all of the Gutters. Traffic slows. Lots of little rusty electric cars, buskers in full bands, dusk lighting and great concrete expanses spattered with wet trash and foul runoff, and people too day-drunk to walk alongside groups of young Baldari and Tasran sprinting around getting into some shit. Big overhangs on bigger buildings. Basement bars forever. Lucy's. The Bald Pit. Frank's Glasshouse. Easy Swinging. Two human Peacekeepers in light plastic-steel padding are chain-smoking outside of an unmarked storefront. There's a sign that says NO LOITERING. Nobody is doing anything that isn't loitering.

Somehow I figure there'd be a more obscure route to get where we're going, but I see Noss has her head tilted, and she is looking at the row of Baultriel folk with some longing. Maybe a slow moment looking at it before things go to shit is what she needs.

Then the traffic lets up, we speed up, and we get where we're going by two PM.

-

We're huddled around in a dim personal storage container about six meters across in any direction, and I'm on a raggy couch that could have easily come right off the street. There's an anti-tank gun under the cushions though. And all the cardboard boxes around are filled with more things of its ilk.

Rhodes is sat in the corner on one box, displaying her cybernetic to Noss, who is casually loading a couple mags on the floor. Has an interest in her, though. Rhodes pulls at a little tab on her facial cybernetic and does something I haven't ever seen her do—she starts unwinding a flat, multicolored cord, which emerges from her skull in a way that looks like a parasite, more than anything. "See?" she asks.

"Fucking gnarly," Noss admits. "Kahah. So you're just fully computer up there, huh."

Rhodes lets go of the cord, and it effortlessly unwinds and snaps back into her head with a whir. "Nah. Thirty one percent. Any more and Ceder would have to kill me."

"No I wouldn't!" Ceder calls, shuffling through some boxes.

Noss bangs a couple extra oddly-shaped rounds into the magazine she's been stuffing. "So," she says, "how long's it take once we wire you in?"

She ponders. "Ah, to what? The MONITOR?"

"The thing we're about to do."

"Like ten seconds, about?"

"Tch." Noss seems tempted to laugh it off, but I see some kind of other emotion pass her face, and she pauses. "It better. We're going to be on the tightest fucking schedule."

I call over, itching at my head. "That thing long enough to reach out of the Bug Bag?"

"Yeah, if you help!" She laughs, but it's a little forced. "I can, ah, crawl out a little maybe."

"Whatever you gotta do."

"Just as long as you are out in swift order," says Ceder. "Nelly, I have found what I was looking for."

"Yeah?"

He plops down a cardboard box in front of me, heavy and jostling with rattly things, and then unfurls it, crouching in front of me. "I will have to explain some of this."

So Ceder walks me through my armaments for the day.

I have been equipped with a special-issue League chemrail rifle called an NLNA Leopardo 4, with a short magazine and standard ring sight, as well as a big tubular suppressor slapped on the front. I click on the mounted flashlight and it stings from how bright it is. The gun is surplus, technically, though I doubt it came from a surplus store. "We never used chemrail back home," I comment.

"It is the future, you know," Ceder says, playfully. Railgun perks made accessible and portable.

"Fucking pain in the ass, and smells terrible, and you can't handload it."

Noss nods. "True. But it's what you get."

The Leopardo is equipped with an underbarrel grenade launcher, also standard, although it has some grippy tape and the hinge feels funny with overuse. Ceder explains that, for the work we are doing, it is convenient not to shoot people with bullets. "We are expecting two threats," he explains. "Flesh and blood, and robotic. For both, bullets will be less than helpful. These," and Ceder pulls free a box of white-painted forty-millimeter grenades, "are airburst foam shells, as once requisitioned by Baultriel Law Enforcement. They solidly cast a person's legs and arms with a rapid-sealing material, which makes hostage-taking much simpler."

"I knew a guy that got killed with these," I say, flatly. One of Jed Garcia's friends.

"Yes," Ceder says. His tone lowers drastically. "Aim as far from the head as you possibly can. The little computers inside the payload will try their best."

Try your best to talk it through, Nelly, but aim for center mass if you have to.

"Then there are these."

He hands me a different box of shells, this time with transparent tips revealing some kind of intricate payload. The box is just matte black cardboard, but the shells themselves look immaculately-made, with little markings in Colonial Common and instructions on loading and unloading.

"EMPs," I say.

"Yes. Electro-magnetic pulse. Er, or ions. I cannot remember which. Both?"

I grimace a little, and then let out one single laugh. Kind of burns my throat. "I don't mean to say shit, but no wonder you got eyes on Baultriel if this is what you've been hauling."

Noss pipes up immediately, and accidentally thwacks Rhodes in the face with her elbow as she shifts to face me. "It's not so fucking simple," she says.

"I know. Just commenting."

She opens her muzzle for a moment, teeth bared, but again she relents, and turns back to Rhodes to bicker about our plan with her.

"Nelly," Ceder asks, "you are aware on how to load and fire these shells?"

"Yeah. I was on smoke grenade duty for ages." I have to cough a little at the mention of smoke. Maybe I got smoke in my lungs. Actually it's probably some shit I caught in the Undercity.

"Pacification will be our main purpose. No bloodshed in Baultriel. Use the foam shells without prejudice, and if we come across robotics, assail them relentlessly with the ions, and destroy them. The bullets are simply to reiterate our presence for those disinclined to listen to words."

"Got it," I tell him. Got to blink heavily because the light is starting to worsen my headache. Don't turn into a migraine. "Got it."

He's got more goodies for me in the box and in assorted little hiding places around the storage closet. Another ballistic vest from Baultriel Law Enforcement, and a green shrapnel helmet made of solid steel that looks flimsy. A big bunch of webbing that goes over everything else and has spots for eight of the grenades. Earmuffs, or I guess headphones, which quiet loud sounds before they blow your eardrums out. I had a pair like these once. There are three sets of everything, which I take to loading up in the overworked Bug Bag for transport back to the car. "When do we go?" asks Rhodes.

"Seesee said they'll be ready at six, and Thursday is already in place. You three can stay in here," says Noss. "I'll man the radio in the car."

"Will you eat something first, Noss?" asks Ceder.

She stares at him blankly for a moment, then sighs. "Yeah."

"There are some surplus rations in here. We will all need our strength."

So, in the little twilight before a terrible storm, we eat some rations.

-

Salted herring from some aquafarm someplace, in a vinegary sauce. I still have no appetite. A juice box too sweet to drink. Powder coffee, which I am happy to have, and Rhodes lends me a water bottle to mix it in. Always seems to bring me water these days. We eat huddled up on boxes and shitty furniture, and for a little while, we can breathe.

Rhodes asks a question. "Noss," she says. "Why do you trust that I'm not bullshitting I can do this?"

"Oh, you could be," Noss grunts. "But I did a little background check when Ceder was talking to me."

"Yeah?"

Something twinkles in her deep-set animalistic eyes. "Your hacker name isn't hard to find shit about online. Turns out it was you and your little gang that were behind the Delron hack, back in 536." Nine years ago now. There's a loyalist camp that's been here since 534, and we're the ones that get to bring 'em to light. Noss grins. "Those rapist fucks who got fucked over, it was your doing."

I know all this. The Delron hack is what got Rhodes into prison for a year, and it's what made her so easy to find online. If you look on the buoy and you're trying to find someone associated who could be behind the Jericho Arborist fiasco, Rhodes' name lights up like fireworks. Ex-hacker kid turned corporate. Brilliant. Crippled. Impulsive. Untrustworthy. I knew her track record before me and Jed even landed in Berith; I don't know why she didn't wonder how I knew to find her, but she was easier to find than she probably hoped. Hubris I guess. Often is hubris for her.

Rhodes slowly smiles back to Noss. "Yeah. I did lots of bold stuff as a kid."

"Well, I was a kid too, and I remember thinking it was good news that those shitheads got what was coming." But then Noss flicks a finger at her. "But I'm still watching you, hacker, because bold idiots have gotten my people killed before, and if you're wrong about what you can do, you need to say so before there's no going back."

"I'm right," says Rhodes. No hesitation, and again she looks fired up. "The backdoor is the only reason me and Nelly are alive, and the MONITOR exploit is the only way they could stack so many on an overlapping network. Neither one's got patched yet. I've never been more confident in shit in my life."

Ceder puts down a chunk of synth-beef he was gnawing on. "It was some sort of fate," he says.

"Tch!" Noss exclaims. "Here we go."

"It was some sort of fate for you to drop back in the middle of all this, at this point in time, after all that has happened." He leans back slightly as if creaking on a nice rocking chair, then forth. "I have decided to have some faith in it, no matter what I may think about the state of affairs."

Rhodes is quiet. "You have been nice in hearing me out," she mutters.

"When Norak speaks through somebody, with or without their permission, it is our duty to listen." Tiredness strikes his expression. "It is my duty."

I sip at my cold instant coffee. Everything is feeling a little dreamlike.

Hour until we got to get moving.

Check in, I tap.

"All clear," Rhodes says, too quiet to hear, too quiet to be real, but still there, as she always has been, ephemeral and omnipresent in my life since the day I learned her name.

MONITOR

- 45 -

Parked outside a big lot in the outskirts of Baultriel. We can see it just barely over there, around the corner of this old apartment block and across a street, sitting in the middle of a field of dead grass and bordered by barbed wire fences. Five-story prefab building with bright searchlights, cameras out the ass. I am downing the last of my coffee, and my foot is thudding against the floor of the car, and Rhodes climbs into the Bug Bag after slipping on earphones.

Noss has binoculars. The radio is on but we haven't heard a word in ages. Nobody is speaking. Nobody has spoken in ten minutes.

The sun is so gone from the world in the evening, someplace so deep as the Gutters, that it seems like an endless midnight, broken up only by the streetlamps and neon advertisements too high up to easily pilfer. Scuffed mud and rubble and League trucks out front, and six enormous radiotransmitters on the top of the building.

Noss sits up straight. She spots something through her lenses, and then I see it, too. A white van pulls up out front and parks.

She leans into the car radio and keys the transmitter.

"Thursday, this is Control. Scram."

Then, like she has killed something with only a word, the power in twenty percent of Baultriel goes out, and we are plunged into the dark, and I burst out of the car already sprinting, with the Bug Bag around my shoulder.

Backup power won't be on until the control system realizes there's too little electricity to power the cameras. Two minutes if we're supremely lucky. I cross the street in three great strides and have to slap down my helmet to keep it from flying off. The world disappears into a black smudge but I get to the fence and pull some cutters from my right pocket. Snip. Snip. "Fucking hell," Rhodes says, and I realize quite late that I'm hearing gunshots.

I see the muzzle flashes in the artificial night. Team Seesee is shooting out the cameras on the exterior of the building. Gotta make it look real. More than ten silhouettes storming the front. Snip. Snip. How long now? I force myself through the gap in the fence and then get back to sprinting.

So much screaming and yelling in the building now. I hear the organic 'ploomp' of one of the foam grenades going off, I hear the loud racket of suppressed gunshots blasting open windows and smashing computers and I hear Vasthi screams and I slam myself into the wooden back door so hard it nearly comes off its hinges.

Stairwell. I am greeted by a man in a small ballistic vest and eyeglasses, facing the other way, facing towards the interior. He is slow and surprised and shell-shocked and I manage to swing around to grip my gun in time to shoot a shell at his crotch.

It happens instantly. The rattling ring of a metal container hitting concrete, and the horrifying snap of bone nearly coming in half, and both of his legs from the calf upward are encased in a massive glob of pale material, and his scream overpowers everything. I slam my non-metal fist into his jaw and throw his handgun outside, and he collapses, writhing in a stiff motion. Not got time to cuff him. I start climbing the stairs.

One of the overhead lights is flickering. I load another foam shell in. Rhodes is getting jostled around a lot. Fuck I'm tired. Come on, legs. Exploding with pain all of a sudden. Third floor and there is someone else suddenly and I shoot at her knee point-blank and she flies back upside-down and collides with the concrete and gets stuck there wailing. I sprint up to the roof but the door outside resists me trying to slam it open with my aching shoulder. "Fuck," I say. Locked. I try it and it's locked.

Okay. I brace the Leopardo's stock against my metal shoulder and put the tip of the suppressor up to the doorknob and squeeze the trigger until, in a horrible smoking stinking mess of brutally loud automatic fire, everything falls apart into a slagged mess, and I kick it open.

There are six radiotransmitters silhouetted against the faint ambient light of Baultriel, and I take us over to the closest one. Emergency override box. If we were stupid and brash we'd blow it up but that'd only increase Peacekeeper response time by an extra minute or so, and we're not here for that. "Padlock," I shout, panting, head throbbing.

"I got it," Rhodes wails. "Open me up, I'll picklock it."

No time to waste. "I got it," I assure her, and I shoot the padlock into slag, too.

The box comes open with a whine and puff of chemsmoke and shows off an intricate interior with a thousand little knobs and dials and diagnostics and I don't care. Plugs labeled BUS 14. BUS 15. BUS 16. "Which bus," I ask.

"Doesn't matter," Rhodes says. We go through a brief and harrowing exercise in trying to get her little cybernetic cord to come out of the bag far enough to reach into one of the buses, and it's not enough, so I pull her out and have her stand. Can't have long left before the cams go back on. "Okay."

She puts the delicate nerve-wire from her brain into BUS 14 and her eyes go blank, and she is gone.

-

More gunshots. More foam shells breaking more bones.

More screaming. More broken glass.

Somewhere, far off, there are sirens coming alive.

-

Rhodes lets out a horrible yelp and falls into my arms.

-

Babbling horribly. Sobbing and covering her eyes with her hands. "It hurts," she screams. "Fuck."

"What?"

"It's so much."

"Can I disconnect you?"

She sucks in some tears and shuts her eyes harder. "Yes, yes, go! Fuck!"

I take her out of BUS 14 and stuff her into the Bug Bag and the rooftop lights start to flicker to light definitively. I whip myself around and with the last couple rounds in the Leopardo I shoot a volley at the lone camera watching over the roof, ratatat blasting everything into sharp focus again, and then scramble over toward the nearest ledge.

Noss's car is still parked there. Almost out. Come on, we're almost out. I retrieve something from the biggest pouch in my webbing—a wrapped-up coil of rope made of bungee cord—and start to unfurl it over the lip of the overhang. Too short by a meter but it'll do. I tie it around a bit of metal trussing bordering the concrete lip of the rooftop, wrap the Bug Bag around my back, and rappel.

Don't drop me.

Don't drop me. I lower below the fifth story windows. Shoes bracing poorly on the weird footholds and contours. I go past a window just barely. Heavy. If I actually lose grip it's all over. I hear Rhodes whimpering.

Don't drop me.

My real palm is aching already. Make sure you wear gloves if you're gonna rappel, Nelly. Fuck you. I forgot. Lower, lower, lower. Just low enough that when it gives it won't kill me. Third story. I plant against the bricks and my left shoe slips and I have to crouch sideways to regain grip. I hear more screeching from inside as the lights come on.

Second story.

I hear the sound of the sky imploding into a stratospheric vacuum. In the League's hands, you are never more than one minute away from rescue.

Whistling sears the air and I feel like I am a kid in class again getting caught pulling someone's hair. I reach the bottom floor and my palm is bloody and I land horribly and flat-footed and it aches bad, but I am alive and I have you, Rhodes, I still have you, and I sprint with the last of myself out through the hole in the fence, and across the street, and around the corner, and return to the car, and I collapse in the back, and Noss hits the gas so hard that we lift off the ground by the back wheels.

- 46 -

"Fuck," Rhodes whimpers. I got my arms around her. We're speeding twenty kilometers an hour over the limit. Cop cars pass us in a line of four and Noss slows down and we're lucky enough not to draw attention. "Fuck, there's so much."

I squeeze her tighter. "You're in the back seat of a car," I tell her. "I love you."

"I l-love you," she sobs. She's absentmindedly scratching at her cybernetic.

"It's just the net. It's just cameras. You're still here."

"So much more than cameras," Rhodes says, after a second. We don't have our seatbelts on. Noss and Ceder are shouting at each other and at the radio, but it's measured shouting, and I'm not sure they even perceive that we're here right now.

"But you're right here with me."

"Yeah."

"Just two girls with headaches."

"Ha-ha." But she sounds worse off than me.

I decide to try something stupid. "Do you want to try to find us in the net? Find us on cameras?"

"Why?"

"...Just try to focus on one thing at once, is all I'm thinking."

"Okay." And she grips my hand tight, and it gets covered in my blood. "I'll look."

It's too big. It's all too large to be so tiny in. We are moved by the mountains. But we are here, Rhodes, we are here, we are on some back street somewhere fleeing. The land and seas are infinite but we are not infinitesimal. "Start at the surveil junction," I tell her.

She nods and swallows some spit, eyes closed. "I see it," she whispers.

"What's going on?"

"Dropships. Landed on the grass. Barricades. I think Seesee is barricading."

I wince. "Gunfire?"

"No. Ah. Y-Yes."

They are a decoy. Willing or not. They're stuck there and, by design, no individual member in that team knows anything about the bigger plan. Just make a big show of things, Seesee, and you'll have done your job.

"Can you find where we drove off, Rhodes?"

She squeezes my hand. "Yes," she finally says. "North. Intersection 1450 then 1451. F-Fuck, I feel like I'm a MONITOR core r-right now."

"Can you find us?"

"I," and she squeals softly and crumples into my weight. "I don't know. Samson is messaging Eledo about tomorrow night. A Baldari is screaming into his phone. His power is out. Ade astar pjeto. Albala. Albala. Casto ar gallat e passetto, albala."

I grip her backside hard. "You're here with me, Rhodes. You're in Noss's car."

Her crying turns lucid. "One of Seesee is dead," she says. "They shot her."

Grunting in the front seat. Ceder speaking lowly and readying his rifle; I hear him pull back the bolt. I speak. "Focus. You're in Noss's car."

"I can't find it," she whimpers. "Two dead. Fuck, why aren't they stopping?!"

"You're with me, Rhodes." I kiss her forehead and put my metal hand over her cybernetic.

"It won't shut up! I-It's Salvo Nine! He's spamming the channel with information about the shootings, look at this map, look, Nelly. Look at all the outages. Something is happening." Her spindly hands crawling along my body with no rhyme or reason. She's not here.

"You're still here."

"Ba." I hear her cough and I need to cough too. "O-Okay. I'm here. Please d-don't go."

We barely beat out a yellow light at an intersection and Noss screeches at us. "We're almost there!" she yells. "Can she do the thing?"

I grimace horribly and my head wants to pop. Stop yelling. All of you stop yelling. "Give her a fucking second, please," I ask.

"You don't got long!"

My arms around Rhodes. Shielding her. I'll bite your head off. "Give her a second."

Ceder speaks. "Nelly, arm yourself properly. Somebody will carry her."

I look at him and I also want to bite his head off. But his voice is booming and overpowering and it breaks me down, and I break away from Rhodes, and I do my duty as a soldier.

New magazine. New grenades for my webbing. I have to wipe my palm on my pants because it's bleeding too much.

Rhodes slumps against me, and her voice is a whimper. "I can do this," she says. "Just get me there."

"Okay," I say.

"Just get me there so we can get out."

Drool is coming from her mouth, and her eyes look like she has been making them bleed by squeezing all her eyelids so hard. I stick the new magazine in my gun and set it on the floor, muzzle pointing upward, and grip it tightly to keep it from being jostled. In the cramped interior it takes some doing, but I'm able to sling the Bug Bag around my back with one hand, crammed with new tools. "Final stretch," I tell her.

In short order, having crossed much of Baultriel over the speed limit, passing by buildings enveloped in a hellish darkness, we reach the League Authority & Enforcement Planning Building on 51st and Pillbox.

- 47 -

We park just out front beside many other cars.

It is a dense and severe structure with old stone pillars and ugly bronze letters spelling out its given name, heavily reinforced concrete with black metal siding and steel modillions sharp like knives, right near the center of the Gutters in a niche plot of land where the artificial grass is, somehow, deader than dead, and its thousand camera-eyes sag similarly lifeless as if bowing in prayer for us.

The assault team is already outside and stood in black clothes along the walls without a word, and we get picked up by the fifth squad of team Mini. A couple garbage truck drivers got bribed to divert traffic and it's dark as hell in the street. Three insiders left the fortified blast doors of the front unlocked for Mini and us, and two more insiders have the backup generator room barricaded and are keeping them disabled for now. Noss and I form up near the stone steps up to the entrance with our guns up in the air and Ceder stands further back, and Rhodes is in the arms of some enormous man who has handed off his rifle.

We are just in time, and no earlier or later.

It's starting to rain.

"This is Control," Noss says. Her words cut through the silence. I see some heads turn. Nobody recognizes anybody but everybody knows her voice. "Go."

We storm the building.

This time of day on a random Wednesday has the place packed full of people huddling and chatting about the power outage, and we form up like an arrowhead and Noss shoots a shell and Ceder shoots a shell and I shoot a shell and our footsteps are silent on the tile floors but the screams start ringing out, legs tangled up, arms tangled up, then the third and fourth squads split off into the immediately adjoining rooms and batter down doors and yell for silence, quiet, quiet. A tall and well-dressed human to my left catches one of them, a security guard with a shoddy vest, trying to pull a datapad, and she snatches it away and stuffs it in a Faraday bag around her waist. We are kicking and yelling at everyone we come across. I load another foam shell.

Squads six and seven head up the frontmost stairwell while ours heads down. The halls echo so hard it's impossible to hear any vocal commands but Noss is giving them anyway, curt and short. I hear screaming. I see someone in a raincoat on the stairs and Ceder kicks him into the wall and seals him there with some foam and the ceramic wall cracks from the force. I shoot the wall beside him and screech at him. Noss uses zip ties. We are an assembling line.

We proceed downward.

The first basement level serves as a sort of checkpoint against these kinds of incursions and we see fewer offices and desks and computers and more fortifications, but all the blast doors have already been opened for us and the darkness is to our benefit; bright flashlights cutting through it, shocking, dazzling, incapacitating. I catch one woman trying to run past us to the stairwell in the left leg with a foam shell and she goes to the ground and I have to kick her to see if she's conscious, and she is. "Help," she croaks, but I am too busy loading another shell.

We round the corner towards Processing and Authentication and I look back to see if the person carrying Rhodes is still with us and in that moment I am caught off guard by thunderous, unsuppressed gunfire.

A horrible rattling of a submachine gun yanks my attention forward. A muzzle flash in the darkness. The guy to my left in a black hoodie and surgical mask has a hole in his head. Two others fall. I shoot a foam shell towards the unidentifiable blackness and we sprint forward in a low formation.

Security guard. Got brave. Foam shell covering his chest and paralyzing his arms. I got blood on my shoulder.

No bloodshed in Baultriel. Unless it's ours.

I knock him out with my metal fist and snatch his gun away. When I look back I notice that I have punched his nose clean off.



Someone shouts forward that we have two dead and one wounded but we do not stop.

-

By now maybe squads six and seven have reached the roof and disabled the transmitter, but there's no reason to think so yet. Have to move too quickly for anyone to get an emergency pulse out. Not that the Peacekeepers have it easy right now—there's fires being set, assassinations being pulled off. The martyrs in Seesee are putting up a fight and making a show of things. We are the only silent arm of the operation and the less we dawdle the better we can hide.

Noss brings us forward and Ceder and I form up behind her. We pass through Processing and Authentication and disable a few lab workers in the clean room as they sprint to hide in the bathrooms, and one of the other Neriak in our squad goes to clear the bathrooms proper. "Check the stalls!" I call after her.

"Ba!"

Two others start covering our rear as we finally reach the second basement floor, past another stairwell, and Ceder sets up a tripwire along the topmost step hooked up to some little gadget. We come across one more security guard trying to be a hero. People are unpredictable. He lets off one shot above my head before someone catches him in the chest with a foam shell and I hear bones breaking as he collides with a scanner bollard.

Buried under enough earth to start firing shots to intimidate people. So many shouts. Stay. Put your guns down. Nobody has to get hurt. I have taken to punching whoever's down and my stance is low. Knees hurt like hell from the rappel earlier. Hand covering my handguard in blood. It's too fucking hot in this gear and I want to go home.

Proceed.

Upon reaching the Control Room beside the Server Room we fan out into smaller fireteams at last, leaping on the consoles and finding people huddled up, trying to find a buoy connection to use their datapads. Bunch of unarmed workers here now, with the guards mostly dispatched; I see Ceder shout down one trying to pull a gun and, at last, some people can be simply zip tied without needing to break bones with foam shells. I lose track of most of the squad save for the shapes of their flashlights piercing the dark. Noss locates our insiders and shouts out to keep them from getting targeted, but as far as I can tell nobody has managed to get the Server Room open. Not my job. I'm just scanning between all the consoles.

Scale of this place is staggering. At least fifty people tasked to watch over Baultriel communications every day, and this is just one building with one MONITOR. Ten thousand chat channels and phone calls and cameras being analyzed and then these people in suits with cushy chairs tell the system to bring the hammer down. Headsets and snacks and drinks scattered across the floor. My flashlight catches one guy trying to crawl to the exit and I shell his legs into the carpet, and then I tilt my gun upward to illuminate a sign by the wall closest to the Server Room windows.

EMERGENCY ALERT, it says, just above a red button surrounded by hazard tape.

A woman is sprinting towards it in the dark, nearly tripping over her heels. I have no time.

You push that and your life is over.

No. Our lives are over.

I aim at her head and pull the trigger.

- 48 -

Are you awake, Nelly?

Too long I've been awake.

I was thinking to myself some terrible shit. Like I've done you wrong, or made you wrong somehow. I know I don't normally talk like this.

Why did that spring to mind like that?

I'd like it if you got to sit on some shore someday, somewhere sunny.

What about you?

And when I picture what's best for you, old woman, I don't picture myself. I think I'll be here until I get shot and die. And I know you figure the same for yourself.

I don't want to go without you.

But it doesn't have to be true. These things aren't in stone.

-

Someone has yanked my gun upward.

-

There's nice places. That's all I mean. Don't you want a nice place to live?

I do, Pell. I do. Why couldn't I get us there in time?

No. I guess you... I don't know... what you want. You've been so absent. I've been pushing you too far.

There's no such thing as too far. Why didn't you come back?

I've made you the wrong kind of person. I've made you like me, honey.

It wasn't too late for you and it sure as shit isn't too late

for you.

-

I look and there is a mark in the concrete just above the EMERGENCY ALERT button, and the woman has turned back to me with all the blood drained from her expression, but there is no hole in her head and, despite my best efforts, I have not killed her, and she crumples to the ground and sobs and I put zip ties on her.

"Control!" I scream. "Control, get someone to disable this!"

Noss is on top of a console with her boots planted wide, and I catch only her broad-waisted silhouette as she turns back to me. She huffs out. "Ground comms already got cut! It's fine! We're dark," she says. "Finish clearing!"

I look back down at the human woman I nearly shot. Her makeup is running. Her thin, aged face looks like so many of the worst and best people I have ever known. I don't realize that I haven't taken a breath in a while and finally break and sniffle and lower my gun away from her face. You almost died for nothing at all. I almost killed for nothing at all.

I ought to be done with that kind of thing by now.

Got to do my duty. I finish clearing each row and column of the Control Room alongside Ceder, who has caught up by now and has maybe detected a little of the shock in my expression, and we go along and incapacitate any stragglers. Nobody has much to say to us. I finally spot the tall, broad human carrying Rhodes walk into the room, and Rhodes herself is still panting and crying, though it seems like she's gotten a little bit of a better hold of herself. Noss speaks when she spots them. "Rust," she calls. "Have Crux open the blast doors."

The human tilts his head up and faintly smiles. "Where to, little woman?" he asks Rhodes.

"Any console," Rhodes says. "They should all be good."

I head over to help lower her down into one of the cushioned roller chairs that hasn't gotten knocked over. She's trembling but still present. Not in the camera net right this second. "Focus," I tell her. "We're close now."

"I hope so," she says.

Noss arrives, and then so does Ceder, to loom over us. "We are expecting four Hoplites," Ceder says, raising his voice for the room. "Everybody use EMPs. If you must shoot, aim for the midsection, where they contain batteries. Use the servers as cover—we do not need them. But do not shoot the MONITOR. Do not risk shooting the MONITOR."

"Yessir," I hear most reply.

"Is it shielded from EMP?" I ask.

"Prob'ly," Rhodes mutters. "It's their prized possession." After a little fiddling, she manages to replace the console's power port with a handheld battery we brought along. It comes alive slowly and in parts, and she settles her shaking fingers on the keyboard, hammering on ALT and FUNCT to get to the network settings before it boots up properly.

Some part of me wants desperately to settle in the chair with her, but the squad is already huddling up near the blast door to the Server Room. Some are peeking in through the thick bulletproof glass—the interior is dark as hell, interspersed with server racks forming big obelisks, all quietly turned off in the outage. I give Rhodes a brief little look, and then step over to the group forming up. My knuckle is bleeding. I didn't notice just how much.

"Load," Noss tells us. We all load up with EMP shells. A Hoplite military drone is designed to enforce safety and security in a maximally-effective and maximally-efficient manner. Our drones can support each other tactically in a squad of up to ten individuals, and have training on par with the best Confederate soldier. Put yourselves in trusted hands. Put yourself in TruStar hands.

I don't like robots.

"Opening," Rhodes cries out. The man called 'Rust' stands by her side to shield her from the entrance. She's turned on the lights inside, too—faint overhead emergency lights separate from the power net.

Noss speaks again. "I want three on the left, three on the right, four up the middle. We need a full clear for Crux."

The gigantic heavy door begins to creak, whine, and slide upward, and a plume of cold comes out towards us.

We hear the sounds of battery-powered machinery coming to life within.



Things happen in a blitz. We take fire from one of the Hoplites almost instantly and each group goes for cover at once. It doesn't seem to care about the precious server banks one bit, and a rack gets torn to shreds by some extremely fast-firing gun; Ceder and I group up and fire EMPs on either side of a bit of cover and hear a deafening roar of hard drives being fried. Somehow through the chaos we hear more of their hoppy metal legs darting between cover but still don't see shit, so I load another EMP while running and Noss covers our advance. The group on the right takes more fire and I hear some yelling and screaming, and finally as we go forward I spot one of the Hoplites.

A metal piece of origami shaped like a man, enormous and made of thick slabs of steel, and with its cubic head close to its chest; I bring up my rifle and it spots us and leaps back into cover, but it's already too late. The shell collides with the floor and explodes into a sparkling blue and white light and the screeching of machinery ends.

More. Surrounding us rapidly, by the sound of their heavy footsteps. "Left!" I call, and Ceder swings around and tries to catch it with EMP, but his shot goes wide and hits the back wall, and it's only another shell from someone further back that catches the Hoplite properly. "Two down!"

"Three!" I hear someone else call. "I—"

A guttural scream and ripping flesh.

I turn back to see the Neriak woman who joined us. A different kind of robot, gaunt and lifelike, has shoved its fist through her chest, and she stands there paralyzed, and dying, and then dead.

I try to bring my gun up but the sudden roar left me startled and I realize too late that Ceder and I are getting flanked, and the last Hoplite is upon us. It readies a machine gun and starts shooting and I fire my EMP point blank at its face.

Everything goes wrong all of a sudden. My arm hurts more than anything else has ever hurt.

My metal arm hurts.

-

I'm writhing. It fucking hurts. It hurts and I have bullet holes in me. I am covered in blood. My helmet is on the floor with a dent in it. I look faintly upward and see Ceder bracing against the server rack for support, and there is a hole in his left arm, and a mark in his chest where a bullet hit his vest. But he's all blurry.

Trying to get hold of my gun again. I don't know where it went.

My arm isn't cooperating. My arm is off. My arm hurts so fucking much.

I try to use my real hand to crawl but it's splattered in blood and I realize I don't have a ring finger anymore.

Fuck.

The robot I saw earlier is gone and there's more screaming and yelping and gunfire. My gun is over there, by the broken Hoplite. Too far away to crawl. I'm out of EMPs. I'm out of foam shells, too. Gripping at the carpet.

"Nelly," I hear, screeching from the other room. Rhodes.

Fuck.

Are your Hoplites not doing the job? Appropriate, authorized clients may find it prudent to commission a custom Boxer-class Drone for the ultimate leader in private security. Put yourselves in trusted hands. Put yourself in TruStar hands.

Footsteps. Noss is here. Noss is beside us. She must have seen where the Boxer went. It's an elegant thing and moves without a sound and has synth-muscles and I need to get up, I need to get to Rhodes. What if she's—

"Get up," Noss tells me. "Get in cover."

I try to reach for her hand.

The Boxer comes from behind the closest bit of cover and shoots her with a high-caliber rifle.

My vision turns to blood. Noss falls. One of her legs is nothing but viscera and she took one step towards us and fell towards Ceder, and I hear both of them yell, and I am stuck there, shocked and broken, and useless.

I look up.

The Boxer turns to head to the Control Room.

I stand up.

Its head rotates on its axis to see me. My metal arm trails behind me limp but I am faster than I have ever been despite my legs failing me, despite the world dissolving into a haze. I come towards the Boxer and try and will myself to tackle it but in a moment it has stepped out of the way and slams the heft of its rifle into my chest.

Broken rib. I lose my breath and stumble into the server rack and the computers explode against me. Shattered drives and sparks and something sharp jabbing into my back.

It readies its gun again.

Boxer Drones are powered by a state-of-the-art ion battery bank designed to resist fire and cold and pressure and bullets and I am powered by nothing at all, nothing at all, and it brings the muzzle of its gun to my head, and it is too late, it has always been too late for me, and I am stuck there in that moment of death forever.

Then again I am not, and have never been, completely dead, despite being so certain of such a thing. So I tilt my head downward under the muzzle.

Fire in me. My whole world turns to a flash and my hair burns and I go forward into the dark.

I grab the Boxer's synthetic forearm with the last of my ability and shove myself into its body so hard that I feel I'm going to crumple. I am on top of it and pin it with my legs and hit it and hit it and hit it and scream and my hand isn't good enough to kill it and I hit it again and I hit it and after it is already in pieces the man called 'Rust' comes and shoots it.

- 49 -

Noss is not dead. Ceder is not dead. Somehow I am not dead, either. I have to put some bandages around the stub where my finger used to be and I'm bleeding out of my nose a bunch, not sure why, and Noss is planted flat against the floor and is completely gone from shock, but she is breathing. Ceder, to his credit, seems an invincible person, apparently unaware how much he is bleeding, and is instead just tourniqueting what is left of Noss's leg.

Rhodes is here. She guides me to the MONITOR core.

It's an enormous, cylindrical thing, made of hardened black steel, welded into a titanium frame. Most of the outer casing is just armor, just raw armor, but the internals are a mighty computer, mightier than any other I know of. Not smart, maybe, but mighty. Everything Rhodes wired herself into, and plenty more, this thing is tasked with analyzing and authorizing. Whatever Rhodes has tried to act like this past year, the MONITOR is.

I retrieve the last tools we need from the Bug Bag. Firstly, a big blanket with a Faraday cage embedded inside, which I sling over the machine's casing to block its outgoing communications entirely. Then the network key, just a little flash drive with a metal case, which I pilfered from the unconscious Noss. The maintenance hatch pops open after a little fiddling with a shim. I hear some moans and grunts and groans from the injured people elsewhere in the room, but my metal arm has stopped hurting. It just lays limp by my side. Rhodes plugs in the portable battery to get the thing started.

A little screen in the hatch comes alight, but only slightly. Black with white text. I have to squint slightly to read it.

'BOOTING AFTER UNEXPECTED SHUTDOWN.

ALERTING LEAGUE AUTHORITIES OF UNEX-

-PECTED SHUTDOWN.'

"Not today, big guy," I say, my voice entirely too hoarse.

Rhodes laughs. "Yeah, not today."

I look to her. I must look kind of fucked up, but when she looks back, I think she is just happy I am still here, and I am happy she is, too. "Ready?"

"As I can be," she says, and she plugs herself into the core.

-

It takes a little bit. I settle in with my working arm around her. I'm bleeding on her. Whatever. Job's gotta get done.

"It's not really fighting me off," she mutters. "Mostly just confused." She has plugged the network key in its slot, and that seems to have tamed the thing.

"What's the next step."

"It's pacified," she says. "Quieted down. You can prolly take the blanket off now."

I nod. It's getting kind of fuzzy again. "Sure thing," I say, and I release my grip on her to tear off the Faraday cage on top of the MONITOR, like I'm unveiling some special thing.

Rhodes takes a deep breath. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'm gonna write up something. Ah, ah, to... to go along with what I'm doing." Her excitement is so far behind layers of panic and fear, but it's starting to come back with every word. "I wanna tell the League something."

I don't know what that means, but I nod, and I set my head on her head.

Without her moving her hands, some words start to appear on the little screen, and I watch them.

-

'YOU HAVE A BUG IN YOUR SYSTEM.



HA-HA!



WELL, IT SHOULD BE CLEAR BY NOW THAT

LEAGUE NETWORK SECURITY IS SERIOUSLY

FUCKING ASS. BUT DON'T WORRY TOO BAD,

I FOUND THE ERRORS FOR YOU. AFTER TO-

-DAY, I WON'T HAVE ANYTHING UP MY

SLEEVE AND YOU WON'T HAVE ANY MORE

BUGS. AT LEAST UNTIL SOMEONE FINDS

SOME MORE. HA-HA!



FIRST THING: THE BERRY OPERATING SYS-

-TEM HAS A SYNTAX ERROR IN SUBROUTINE

5417 IN MAIN.CTS. IT SHOULD BE EASY TO

FIND IF YOU READ CLOSELY. IT LET ME

SET UP BACKDOORS IN ALL AFFECTED SYS-

TEMS I GOT MY HANDS ON. UNTIL NOW THE

MONITOR CORES IN VELNIAS MADE THIS

VERY DANGEROUS TO USE, AND NOW THAT

YOU CAN PATCH IT, I WILL BE COMPLETELY

USELESS AGAINST YOU.



HOWEVER, MONITOR CORES HAVE A BUG, TOO.

I FOUND SOMETHING VERY FUNNY.'

-

I'm holding her now, arm too weak to do anything else, and I laugh a little. "Thought you said Jean Jacket found the bug," I say. My nostrils are really clogged. Red hot.

"Well," Rhodes says, "she can thank me for taking the heat some other time."

-

'HERE'S THE GIST OF HOW IT WORKS:



IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HAVE TWO OR

MORE SEPARATE MONITOR CORES OVER-

-LAP THEIR COVERAGE IN A NETWORK,

YOU NEED TO KEEP THEM FROM FIGHTING

WHEN YOU DO MAINTENANCE. SO TO

AVOID CATASTROPHE, WHAT YOU DID WAS

GIVE RANDOM LEAGUE PERSONNEL SOME

EXCLUSIVE HIGH-SECURITY KEYS, WHICH

CONVERT A MONITOR CORE INTO AN

ADMINISTRATOR MONITOR CORE. DOING

THIS INCIDENTALLY HAPPENS TO GIVE IT

ABSOLUTE POWER OVER ALL OTHER

MONITORS. LOL!!! OOPS!!! MAYBE DO IT

SMARTER NEXT TIME!!! BECAUSE I FOUND

A KEY AND NOW I CAN CONTROL ALL THE

MONITOR CORES IN THE CITY!!!



BUT I'M ACTUALLY DONE WITH CAUSING

STUPID CHAOS. I DON'T WANT TO BE

CHASED FOREVER. OBVIOUSLY YOU WILL

WANT TO CHASE ME AFTER THIS, BUT I

WILL BE BETTER AT RUNNING THIS TIME,

AND I WON'T MAKE IT EASY.



I DO JUST HAVE ONE REQUEST THOUGH,

AND I KNOW IT WILL SEEM REALLY

STUPID . . .

BUT IF YOU COULD, WHOEVER IS MAKING

DECISIONS AT A HIGHER LEVEL, I WOULD

BE VERY THANKFUL IF YOU WOULD NOT

CHASE AFTER ME, BECAUSE I AM NO LONGER

THE DANGER TO YOU I ONCE WAS, AND

I WOULD JUST LIKE TO GO SOMEWHERE

NICE AND LIVE THE REST OF MY LIFE

IN PEACE, RIDICULOUS AS IT SOUNDS.



HOPEFULLY FOR THE LAST TIME,



RH0DES'

-

And she tells me that she is sending that message out on some message board somewhere, just a single time, like a scrap of paper falling into a sea. Someone will see it, she says. Someone will find it floating out there.

She talks me through the rest as my head starts to throb harder and harder. She's making the city-owned camera network in Baultriel melt itself to slag, like she said she would. She says it's like turning off a thousand little pinpricks in her mind. She's having landing beacons overvolt themselves, too, and diverting traffic, and deleting records, and turning off swear filters in chatrooms. Everything she's ever wanted. Then she leans tighter against me and whispers, and I can see all the world fading in and out of her eyes. She whispers she is forging footage of herself running away, running somewhere. For now until next year, in every camera in Salt Row, someplace, someone. The sight of a Tasran running free. She says she is drawing herself in forged witness interview documents that will place themselves inside of hard drives six months from now. She says she is on every ship in the Cestabin going every single place until the end of time, and I do not ask how or why, because it hurts too much to speak or breathe, and it is too hot, and it hurts, and I would like to rest my head here forever.

Cestabin

- 50 -

Check in.

-

Turning over in my sleep. Sleeping on my back hurts. Sleeping on my side hurts. In the dead of night I feel my brain melting. I keep running. I am being held.

-

I had a friend named Alves in school. She got me into baseball. It turns out if you get to playing a sport, you start to wake up a little. I don't play baseball anymore, Rhodes, I matured out of it. Nowadays it's stupid shit like poker and shooting people. We had a team called the Pairs. Or was it Pears?

-

I wake up and try to signal Rhodes. Check in. The sheets are bloody and heavy and smother me to death again.

-

You lost a lot of blood that one time, Pell, you got shot in the thigh. Within five seconds you were pretty much unconscious. What a shitshow! We had to retreat. I carried you. You seemed so frail. What's that? Speak up. I can't hear you. Speak up for a sec, Pell? Honey? Speak up, I can't hear you.

-

Ceder tries to force me to eat. I cough and make a mess of soup everywhere. I'm sweating so bad.

-

Rhodes?

-

Check in.

-

Please hold my hand so I know you're there.

-

Ceder looms over me that night. "You're babbling," he says, babbling. "Rhodes is fine. She has gone to get you some more buprenorphine."

-

No, no, no, don't go. Don't run somewhere dangerous. I want to hold you in my hands forever. Don't you know you're on the run? I tried to hold you as they took you, but O'Dell held me back in my cabin and they came and shot Rita and then they took you and they were shouting so loud. Why'd they take you? What fucking came of it? When you died, did you say anything at all? Did you try and bullshit to get out of it? I hope so. I hope you escaped somehow. You're in the ventilation shafts sneaking around like in the movies. Here. I've got a little computer I can use to track your movements throughout the building. I can see the signal that is your arm moving around, and I'll open doors and disable turrets for you. Right?

-

I open my eyes, creaking with nausea, and see Rhodes holding her pocket cards close to her chest. She sees I'm awake. I feel like a kid again. No, no, Mom, I'm sleeping. I'm so sleepy. Can't you tell.

-

Check in.

-

"Hello, Nelly," says Ceder. I am so secretive. He doesn't know I'm awake. I've always been awake. "I'm taking the plunge. I'm selling the place to Cup, like I ought to have a while ago. Now's a good time." He is smiling.

-

Rhodes? Why won't you say all clear?

-

She's holding me. It feels like midnight. She is trembling and crying and asleep. I try to wake her up. She won't wake up though. She is sleeping deeply for the first time in her life. But I have so many questions, Rhodes, please. Please wake up.

-

Check in.

-

That's right. You died. I forgot that you died again. I keep telling you stories. I keep telling you about things here in Velnias like I'm sending letters. I try to ask questions but all I hear are your old words, your old and irrelevant words. Mostly, hey, Nelly, go shoot this person. Go shoot this person for the good of Stromm's Landing. Don't you care about what we're doing here? Yes, Nelly, I love you, of course I do. Did you ever say that? Did you ever? Why won't you talk to me? What'd I do to deserve this shit. Hey, Pell?

Pell, I think I found something else to do with my life. I don't know if... hah, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get my words straight, because I'm dying and very feverish, and this is a dream, and dreams make you talk funny. I know you're too far gone to talk back, but let me just rant for a second, okay? I forgive you. Whatever you're sorry for, I forgive you. If that means a thing to you. I'm waking up. Sorry. I can't stay. I can't stay long enough. I can only say, I forgive you. I think that I'm going to grow into somebody else, and you won't recognize me. Sorry. I have to go. I'm waking up.

Pell? Pelleratz Karinger, speak now, or forever remain a ghost.

I forgive you.

I'm going to stop talking now.

-

"Ceder," I say.

No. Rhodes is here with me. She is stood beside a cot in the back room of the Hang'd Knight. I am in that cot. Someone must have wheeled it in from elsewhere. I got an IV in my arm. She is holding some crackers she wants to feed me.

"Hey," she says, humming a little. "He said you've been waking up a little." Her eyes look so warm.

"Check in," I try to say, but I don't think I'm successful.

"I got us a spot on a boat," Rhodes says.

I shoot upright and then my head gets fuzzy.

-

Where are we going?

-

I hear the ruffling of cloth against the seaside wind.

- 51 -

Check in. Check in. Check in.

Check in. Check in.

Come on, lady, you know I hate when you don't reply to check in. We had a whole fucking thing about this, we had a tiff. I slowly sit upward.

I'm not in the back room anymore. I don't have an IV in my arm anymore, and the gauze wrapped around my shoulder feels dry. My head feels very clear and I've got this incredible lightness in my chest and stomach like I am invincible. I look around.

A cabin. I recognize this as a ship cabin for crew members. Metal walls, one circular window, thin but heavy covers over me. A poster of a pretty woman in the corner. The lights gently swaying with the slight bounce of waves.

No shit. It's actually happening?

Check in. Check in. Come on, Rhodes, don't fuck with me. Don't freak me out like this.

I try to lift up my metal arm and it's still limp, and doesn't seem to reply to anything I try, and has in fact been broken for days now.

-

Trying to stand up is a process. Whoa, Nelly, there's not enough blood in your body to be lifting so suddenly. I get dizzy and my head throbs, but I've been resting a long time, and I am coming to realize, slowly, that I might very well be in perfect health.

But that doesn't track, does it? My body still hurts.

-

I find a water bottle set out for me, and some packaged cookies in a drawer, and eat good. Actually I eat kind of irresponsibly and consume an entire sleeve of chocolate chip cookies in about five minutes. Whatever. It's my prerogative. I'm having a little trouble, because—

Right. I got my ring finger shot off.

Well, it could be worse.

There's other stuff in the room. I found a box of all of Ceder's little figurines, placed carefully in layered platforms of cardboard. Then the two datapads we bought at different points, both out of battery. I find one box with a couple of my possessions under my bed. Someone's folded up my fishing rod to fit in the cardboard box, and my old shotgun is here, too. But the bolt is missing. And the trigger assembly. And the pistol grip. Actually it's pretty much just a hollow box with no more shooting parts.

Huh.

The mattress itself is wet with sweat, but I finally feel free from it, free from the fever. Fucking hell it got bad for a while. I don't like fever dreams.

Someone has put out some tight cotton clothes in pastel blue, maybe to make me look like a sailor. I unfold them and put them on but it takes a lot of effort. I got a big anchor on my body, this useless metal arm, and get the inclination to take it off, but Pell wired it in pretty good and did nothing but further secure it to my musculature as we got older. Guess I'll just live with it for a little while.

I head onto the deck.

We're on a superfreighter, I can figure that out right away, with all the cabins accessible on a high deck overlooking the sea. The Cestabin Sea smells like dreams. I can't help but step out towards the railing. Everything's made of metal and my mouth tastes slightly like rust, but the railing is solid enough to lean on.

Sun overhead casting glitter-light on the entirety of the green sea. Nothing in sight either way I look, no land, no city. The enormous million-ton boat just gently creaking in the breeze, which itself isn't too intense this time of day. Warm like a good memory.

"Good morning," Ceder says. I see him also leaning against the railing to my right.

I run over to go hug him.

-

We settle there to watch the waves for a while. Ceder is in his white-and-gold robes again, speckled with the cosmos of the dimly-lit Dust Sector, and as the wind floats his clothes in the wind, he looks happy to finally be headed somewhere.

"How long's it been?" I ask.

He hums thoughtfully. "Eight days." It looks like they have taken their toll on him, but he doesn't look tired right this second. "It has been a bit chaotic."

So he catches me up.

-

For us, for the militia, things could have gone worse. Of course we lost people, but we did make it out, apparently; I was too far gone to move myself, but Ceder made it work, and Rhodes, equipped with a subservient MONITOR, was able to make the escape a foregone conclusion for us and the rest of Mini. She fulfilled her end of the bargain, melted all those cameras and the MONITORs in Baultriel when she was done with them, and Ceder is pretty confident it'll at least help. The news didn't necessarily like that we injured a lot of civilians, but the lack of fatalities became a point of pride for Ceder especially. Nobody died. Nobody who we were targeting, anyway.

Some people did get assassinated. The snake-killers did what they wanted, and we provided willing cover for them. Guess that'll be a pain point for a while.

And half of team Seesee is dead. The Peacekeepers didn't show much mercy.

Ceder got us back to the Hang'd Knight, though he's light on the details as to how that worked out, and we've been laying low since, save for the times Rhodes ran through Corundum Town trying to scrounge together some more meds and liquid food for me. She disappeared a few days in, then came back dragging along an IV stand she had bartered for. So much for opsec, lady.

Then, as I remember him saying in my dreams, he sold the speakeasy to Cup, said his goodbyes to whoever was still alive, and we absconded.

I ask about the one loose end I was worried about. "Noss?"

"She was not doing too badly, last we spoke. She lost the leg, though."

"Shit. Sorry." Lucky to be alive at all, but I don't say that.

"Remains herself, though, and still as angry as ever at the snake-killers. Angrier still. Baultriel will be happy to have her." His voice warms up as we speak. "I was even more worried about you. You got shot three times."

I bend back and forth slightly, trying to feel it out. Where? Shoulder a couple times, and my finger? I guess. "I didn't notice at the time..."

That makes him laugh softly. "You have the right heart to pull that sort of stunt with the Boxer, Nelly, but humans are as fragile as ever."

"We're all fuckin' fragile," I say. We shed a lot of our own blood that day and I'm sure I don't know the half of it.

"I suppose." Ceder lays his arms on the railing and leans forward over it to catch the noon sun with his broad face. Then something funny strikes him, and he laughs. "Ah, wait, you would not even know the most important thing that happened," he says.

"Uh-huh?"

He is clearly amused by something I'm clueless about. "Nelly, you were aware that the Free Worlds election was scheduled two nights after our little raid, yes?"

I shake my head. "I don't follow that stuff."

"Kelly Markabo got elected President of the League."

"Oh." Got to rack my brain for a second. "The free arms initiative guy?"

Ceder laughs. "No, that was Kelly Tsabo." Then he stares at me. "Twenty years ago."

"I see."

"Markabo is good for us—he is with the Worlds Insubordinate, and he has a left-ish track record. I think there is some potential of things getting better."

I can't hide my confusion. To be honest I don't know who Markabo is and I've forgotten the goals of the Worlds Insubordinate. "Cool?" I say, hesitantly.

"Yes," Ceder says, nodding. "It is cool. Though... for us... in the here and now, it will not necessarily make things easy."

"I figured."

"The League is clearly upset over what happened. We did a decent job of concealing our identities, but Rhodes..." He grimaces slightly. "We will need to practice proper operational security, even in a quiet city like Haraad."

"So that is where we're headed?" I ask. I got a twinge of relief in my voice.

"Yes, Nelly," he says, and maybe I caught his cynicism off guard. "Rhodes was insistent, and I was happy to accept. I have come to like your company."

"You too."

"It won't be impossible. Just keep rumors to a minimum, and—" Then he stops himself, and laughs a little. "—actually, no, Rhodes has probably given you the whole spiel before, hasn't she."

I grin. "More than once."

-

From bartering with the sailors, Ceder has managed to get some meals for the trip, as well as a little bit of weed. He rolls us a joint there on the railing, and we smoke. "She's sleeping in a hammock downstairs," Ceder tells me of Rhodes. "You can go check in with her soon. I just know I won't be able to get a moment with you privately afterward."

"Ha, probably," I mutter. I take a little puff and pass it back to him. I'm letting the sun warm up my backside, which is still chilly from sitting in my own sweat. "How's she doing."

"Fantastic. I've never seen her so relaxed." He takes a modest—for him!—inhale, then lets the smoke pour out of his nostrils.

I take the joint back and let it settle in my fingers a bit. "Gonna be weird for her to be in someplace with so little tech."

"Ah," Ceder says, shrugging, "we will see. She is fairly young. Maybe she will change with time."

"Hey, I'm changing with time, too, asshat." I sock him on the shoulder a little. Or, no, wait. I don't succeed in doing that. Right. My arm is fucked. I look down sadly at it. "Ceder, why's my arm still off."

He nods. "That. Right. Yes. I think the ion fried it."

I grimace. "Well, that sucks."

"My apologies. I know you two used it to communicate, too."

"End of an era, is all," I say. "I had this since my twenties. Earlier, actually."

He pauses for a little while, taking a deep breath. I match. It's good to taste the sea air. I like how the Cestabin fixes my sinus problems, generally. Maybe why I liked fishing so much. Then Ceder speaks. "You remind me of my sister," he says. New tone. He has abandoned something gruff in his voice.

I glance at him. "Yeah?"

"She is also missing an arm." He smiles faintly. "Left. Left instead of right, but also at the same place, near the shoulder. It was from a blast."

"Mine was just some cuts that got festering," I explain, nodding. "Blast from what?"

Ceder shakes his head. "The War too. See, there are some parallels." He is amused, but only a little. "Your side, er—when the side of the Confederacy killed the Emperor, it incensed some of the Haraadi."

"I heard," I caution.

"Not myself. I have little connection to the Third Empire, spiritually, emotionally..." Then something strikes him and he has to grimace. "My sister ran off. She fought in New Tibor, with the militia there. I have never seen her like that, and never again, and it left a big hole in the family for a while. Even when she was back. Even when she got a prosthetic." He motions at my dead arm.

"Like mine?"

"Eh." I take a drag as he speaks. "Mm. You know how Imperials are about cybernetics, and... and it's a little like that here, so... a simple prosthetic. Give that here."

I hand him the joint, and he's trembling a little. Needs a little respite, and takes a big drag to match mine. "Simple's better than nothing, I guess."

He waves the joint around aimlessly. "Yes, I suppose. It's just... gah." Shakes his head again. "I made... we made Noss lose her leg, nearly her life. I wish I had more control over these things. I wish my sister had not lost the arm." Then he swallows, and I am starting to feel a pit in my stomach. Why did I go to Stromm's Landing? "I wish she hadn't gone at all," Ceder says. "It tore up the family so badly." Like you're tearing apart yours. Fuck, Ceder, why are we like this?

"You think we're stupid for shooting and dying all the time."

"I know I am." Some helplessness in his voice.

"It's what we got told to do, isn't it?"

"Ha. You have a way of putting things, Nelly."

Guess so. I feel stupid now and kind of red in the face and I get him to give me the joint back. Trying to savor it. "She's alive, at least," I murmur.

To that he very solidly nods. "I won't drag you or her into these messes again."

"Mm." I grimace. "But you'll go into 'em again."

"I hope not."

"Then don't."

"Alright." And he laughs, weakly at first, and then a little more, and then I hear that he is choked up, and crying a little in his Neriak way, and so we embrace.

-

I hope not, too. But I got no control over this man and his whims and his long, long life. When he holds me there I feel like crying, too, and I look over at the long stretch of sea, and the glistening waves touched by sunlight, and the lightness in me, I get no impression, or reminder, of anything I've ever seen before.

It kind of hit me all at once.

I'm going somewhere new.

- 52 -

I head to go find the stairs. The ship sways a little unpleasantly for my poor sea legs, and I've got to clutch the railing to be stable. After it passes, and I gain my footing again, I get to the rear-facing bit of the tower, which overlooks the enormous and endless array of cargo containers gridded and stacked atop the back of the ship—the POCHTLI—in multicolored pastel. Ceder says we're welcome to chat with the sailors a bit, since there aren't many and they're all bribed well and kind enough to passengers, but I don't see any from here. Just a ghost ship. I go to the stairwell to the lower cabin level.

Like Ceder said, Rhodes is resting in a hammock inside of a small niche between two cabins, with a fuzzy skull cap over her head to keep out the wind and hide her cybernetic. Gonna need to get used to wearing things like that, or else come up with some other solution. We'll see.

I watch her sleep for a little while, and after contenting myself that she's actually able to sleep, having cut off the backdoor, I wake her up.

"Hey," I say.

"Oh, shit," she mumbles, and sits up, and leaps into my embrace.

-

The roach is still alight, and there's still a little left, so we share it as we sit on the hammock together.

Rhodes does most of the talking at first. "I watched the thread fucking explode," she giggles. "The message I sent went kind of viral. I saw Jean Jacket posting about it, even. It was a fucking hell of a play."

"You get lumped in with the Baultriel militia?"

"Kinda. I mean, I hope I took the spotlight." Then I squint at her, and she giggles. "I mean, like, away from the militia, so they don't get so much heat."

"Suuure."

"They're calling it the night of fireworks, or bata palatosita in Vasthi," she explains. She takes a big inhale of the joint and nearly hacks up. "Auh—ah—b-because of all the cameras getting overvolted. A lot of 'em sparked. No fires though. I should've been more careful."

I shrug. "You saw the buildings. They're all concrete there."

"Nah. There's wood parts of the slums. I guess not where the cams were though."

Now I give her a hopeful grin. "...You figure we did well by Baultriel?"

She doesn't know, by the way she's looking at me now. "I hope so," she mutters. "People were conflicted. I don't know how to do the right thing. It's a fucking mess."

"Eh." I shrug. I get the inclination to kiss her on the cheek. "We did what was asked of us, and did our best."

"I guess." Rhodes settles against me, and hands me the little stub of what's left of the joint, which I let burn a little. "Taking a break from the intranet now," she says.

"Good. How's that treating you?"

"I am, to be honest, kind of out of shit to do." She leans back with me, and the hammock posts creak. "But my head doesn't hurt, and it's pretty. I wanna be the kind of person who can live with that."

I smirk. "You don't gotta be some old-timer like me. I'll buy you books and a laptop and shit. We'll listen to music. I'll watch you, uh, program, or whatever."

"You gotta take me fishing at least once to see if I like it."

"Okay, nerd."

We settle there for a little while. The superfreighter has a resident population of birds; Gritch glasseyes and multicolored Gritch soarers and horrible Gritch crawlerbugs who like to nibble at the algae along the sides and hunt the fish that get stunned in the gigantic wake, and they're all pretty fun to watch. Brave around people, too. One of the glasseyes settles on the railing and looks at us funny for a while. Big beak. Colored like blood.

Rhodes says, "Buzz off, dude! Whaddya want!"

"Fuckin' silly-looking bird," I laugh.

I try to settle against her a little more and then the hammock posts creak harder, and then I realize they're creaking too hard, and then it falls.

-

My ass hurts. I caught Rhodes, though, with my one good arm. At least the posts weren't nailed into the wall, just tied to some poles, but it did break a little metal flange in half. Whatever. The glasseye buzzed off like Rhodes asked it to, so we go stand by the railing.

"Welp," I say, suddenly.

"It's OK," Rhodes assures me, laughing. "I'll sleep in your bed next time."

I grin. "Good by me."

It's gonna be a while until we see land again, so this view of the Cestabin Sea is going to be normal for a while. Doubt I'll get bored of it. The sparkling of the sun and the whitecaps are enough for me. We're port-side looking north, so I can't see the Kesh Band except for hints, and it leaves the whole view completely immaculate. I guess I might get seasick if we hit some bad weather, but I'm not nauseous yet, not like I expected. I lean against the railing with my good arm and let the wind take my hair up.

"Hey," says Rhodes. "Is your arm still not working?"

"Yeah. Ceder says it got fried."

"Tshhh, prob'ly..." She squints slightly, staring at it hanging by my side. "Maybe it's fixable, though."

"You think?"

"I could give it a try."

I don't know why, but that sudden thing hits me with a wave of emotion, and I smile at her, and my throat feels tight again. "Okay," I stammer.

"Owe it to you, I think," she says.

"I mean, fuck, don't be thinking like that. You'll go crazy."

"And!" Rhodes suddenly shouts, laughing. "And I miss tapping shit to you!"

"Okay, okay..."

She steps up to be beside me, and I feel her arm around my lower back. "I worry," she says, "all the time, that things will never actually be... fixed, like, after what I did."

"It is what it is."

"What if we just start over from scratch?"

She looks, and sounds, like a moron saying that. And I think she knows it. She immediately clutches her mandibles like she's trying to take it back, but I already heard it. "That's just running away again, lady."

"Oh." And she trembles. "...Yeah. Sorry. I'm getting used to this."

My stomach sinks a little. "Don't give up on it, either," I tell her, practically begging. "Just let it sit. Make it up to Ceder like you said. You got time."

Rhodes grips me tighter, and I wrap my good arm around her. "Won't give up on it. Fuck that. I promise. You'll let me try?"

I nod. "Part of being in a relationship is... I don't know. Fucking up and trying again, I guess. Had to do it before." I toss the roach into the Cestabin.

"Yeah?" She tightens her mandibles a little. "...yeah." Then, after a moment, she loosens her grip on me a bit, and tilts her head to peer out at the Cestabin, peeking just over a bit of railing at her height. "Shit, hah, you called it a relationship. We're official now, I guess."

"Wanna get married?"

She laughs. "Now you're moving too fast."

I grin. "Just trying to tie you down, Rhodes."

"Hey," Rhodes says, "you know, you can't call me Rhodes anymore. I'm notorious."

"Okay. What's your new name."

"Ahhh, Rose?"

What. "That's the exact same," I explain.

"No, no! It's Rose. Not Rhodes."

"Nobody in the world is going to fall for that."

"The League is stupid enough."

"No," I say. "They are not."

"Okay," she admits. "But we are very slightly smarter."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

We banter over this for a little while, and we try to come up with new names for each other, but we fail for now, and we remain just Nelly, and just Rhodes.

-

Don't take my memories from me. Don't take your mistakes back. I want to make new memories and new mistakes. I want a future.

- 53 -

Rhodes and I head back to go get Ceder and play some poker.

Nice day out. She says the wind picks up a lot, which is alright by me, since wind cools me off in the sun, and it isn't raining at least. Then she says it rains sometimes at sea, too, and gets her laughs in.

Ceder's where I left him. Him and Rhodes embrace briefly and go inside to get some cards while I take a breath. Not loving all the stairs everywhere. Don't tell me I'm gonna end up like Rhodes. Then again... if I'm not running around shooting people the rest of my life, I guess I could live with aches and pains like this.

Anyway her and Ceder are laughing in the room and seem to have their own cadence of bantering, but I can't hear the words. Once they come out with a little box of stuff, I try to imagine how things might go in Haraad. I don't think, even now, that Ceder has forgiven her. It would be silly to forgive someone so quick for something like that.

Have I forgiven her, even? We lock eyes as she comes out of the cabin, and I don't know. I suppose it doesn't matter. I hope she can put up with us giving her shit. That's part of not running away.

We head down.

-

The main deck, the bit with all the containers, has a small corner devoted to R&R for the crew and stowaways, with folding tables and umbrellas and lots of cigarette smoke from the sailors. There are a couple other Haraadi who are playing chess, and some humans who seem... maybe Tiborian, by their accents, and then the sailors, who are overwhelmingly Vasthi, come by on break. Ceder has his own table set up for us in a bit of shade, just beside a pink storage container. "Come," he says.

Him and Rhodes start to unpack our cards as I sit down, and then I realize they aren't unpacking cards at all.

They're unpacking mahjong tiles.

"Okay," says Rhodes, "time to play!"

I guess Ceder noticed my horror because he laughs his ass off.

"Kidding!" Rhodes assures me, after waiting just long enough for me to accept that I'm about to have a shit time. "I'm kidding, we're just fucking with you!"

"Good," I say, teeth out.

Ceder sits, and starts to immediately put the tiles back in their bag. "But it is a nice game," he says. "Rhodes has been teaching me the basics."

"I am not going to play mahjong."

"Come on," she begs. "Sometime. One time."

I give her a look.

But Ceder is pretty playful about the whole thing. He gets the cardboard box of cards we've used in the past and starts to shuffle. "Don't be so afraid of learning new things, Nelly. Remember that you both will need to learn Dronhas."

Rhodes looks back. "Ah, yeah, right."

"Hey," I snap, starting to laugh, "it'll be easy for you, whiner, you already know Vasthi."

"It's a pidgin! All the tenses and shit are mixed up!"

"You will learn," Ceder says. "You will learn together. Do your homework together and whatnot. Else you will stick out even more than usual in Haraad, and that is a security risk."

Nice. Good way to get to Rhodes is to use her language. "True," she says. She's giving us all some fake chips again—we've gotten pretty good at this whole routine, as I count them out to be sure.

"Whatever you think is best, Ceder, you just tell us," I say.

He dips his head down thoughtfully. "I don't mean to make things too stressful. I simply remembered that my Bloom is monolingual, and it'd be nice if you could actually communicate with him."

"Course we will, yeah. What's he like?" I ask.

"Oh," he says, quieting slightly, "I don't know how to begin. He's very special to me, he's... brash, and complicated, and he loves his books. You will have no shortage of reading material for your learning, and... and he will surely have to grill you to make sure you are not trouble..."

Then I give him a longer look, and a smile. "You're excited."

"More than even you can imagine, Nelly." Ceder has a complicated expression, and it sits there for a while on his face. He is a complicated person, and he is right—even in all my years I cannot imagine what it is like to live so long and so many places. Then he returns to the world as Rhodes finishes passing out chips. "Five card," he says, and we play some poker.



We're having a pretty good time. I'm winning most hands and Ceder's too excited to see me alive, it seems, and so his poker face is shit. At one point in a holdem game I have pocket aces and I'm pretty confident in my own lying, so I ask Rhodes to guess what I have, but she says I have a pair, and then breaks out laughing. "Knew it," she giggles. I guess I'm not as good at hiding when it's her looking at me.

The wind is gentle, but we do still have to be careful not to let our cards blow away. And it's a little hard to play poker one-handed, but not impossible, and I've done it before.

-

"Hey, Ceder," I say, after one particularly tense game of seven-two-up, "why's my gun all fucked up, by the way?"

"Oh," he mutters. "Yes. Ah. The internals... fell into the ocean."

I squint at him. "Did they now."

"That's right." Then he smiles at me, though it is faint, or maybe just a different kind of smile meant to communicate something oblique. "It is merely a walking stick now."

Uh-huh. "Fits," I say, and then I cough some. Sea air is still humid and salty even though it tastes good. "Ah, shit, I didn't bring water."

Rhodes, who hasn't won a hand in half an hour, pipes up. "I'll go get us some."

"No, no, I will," Ceder says, and he's already stood up. "Don't overdo it, friend."

"Sure," she laughs. "Thanks."

"Thanks, Ceder." And he heads off, with long strides, back to our cabin.

-

Once he gets back with water, and after we've eaten some packed sandwiches, we play a last few hands of whatever games we hadn't played yet, like baseball and Rhodes poker, and make huge bets and bluffs and completely ruin the delicate balance of chips between the three of us, but I'll mostly leave that to the imagination, because it tends to always go the same way, and that's how I like it.

We talk about Haraad at last, the city itself. It's a big place. Bigger than just the main town, with a split-up countryside all under the city-state banner, and with integrated non-Neriak populations further north. The little neighborhood where Ceder lives, or used to live anyway, is right by the Naf river inlet from the Cestabin Sea. Naf is a Dronhas word meaning glass, but Cestabin is a Yontazzi word, it turns out. None of us know what Cestabin means.

Anyway the neighborhood, Pitul, has a lot of tailors and painters and bookbinders, and other little specialty occupations that lend themselves to tiny shops along the river walk, which I'm already excited to explore. The plaza where he lives is home to many an old-timer who likes to sit and sunbathe, and there tend to be kids playing in the courtyard, and the grocer is just down the street. It's everything, I guess, that Rhodes and I have been avoiding—repeated interactions with familiar faces. Can she get used to that? I hope so. That's reality.

Then again the reality she has lived for so long is as near to normal for her as anything else. Velnias is so big you could get by never meeting the same person twice, no problem at all.

That's an addicting concept. I see where she got the tendency to stay on the run. You get to live as your own little world, with just whatever you carry.

-

I remember, a long time ago, when I was in my twenties, I ran away. I'd sworn allegiance to you, Pell, or to Stromm's Landing, I don't remember which. Then I got scared and angry and wanted to gun it on my own, so I ran away. I lived in the swamps for two months. I traveled north. I robbed a traveler, this young girl with a pearl necklace—was probably fake—and fished for carp, but carp is a fucking nightmare to catch, so eventually I was so behind on calories that I was skin and bones. Tried hunting one of those ail striders, the ones that look like rocks, but they don't seem much bothered by bullets and run too fast in the water to catch.

Then I got far enough north to reach the plains city of Wafburg, and I tried buying food, and I got arrested for trying to peddle my stolen shit, and then there you were, like you knew what was happening all across the outlands. You got me out and we went home.

I don't have the right words for it, but I think Rhodes should know by now that I am not great at being on the run. Is she any good at staying put?

I would like her to stay with me in Haraad. But if she needs to run—if she has not changed—I need her to take me with her. Why's it so hard to say this shit to people still living, Pell?

-

We wrap up the game, fold the table and umbrella and stash them safe from the coming rain, and head back to the cabin as a trio of strange runaways and soldiers. I am hoping, though it isn't a particularly reasonable hope, that I will have these two as companions the rest of my life.

-

It's evening now.

Rhodes sits with me while Ceder snores inside. We are in plastic chairs outside our cabin, and we watch the sun called Kbir set behind the ship. Some clouds obscuring it. The sky turning pink and purple and orange in gradients, but then in flashes. Spikes across the stratosphere. Even if all these colors were coalesced together all at once it would not be one millionth as brilliant as the capabilities of the holograph projector in the fallen Supranendum, but then again it would be real, and it would be greater in scale and scope by that same million; but it is all subdued in the sea fog, and as Kbir dips toward the horizon she becomes ever-fainter, an inkling, like a life falling from a cradle. Or maybe she is simply running away.

"You ever seen pictures of the Milky Way?" she asks.

I turn over to Rhodes, and rest my head against my good hand. "Yeah. And, uh, Andromeda. And the other ones." All too far away in some unknown direction to see, now. Or long gone. Nobody knows which.

She chitters. "Galaxies are the prettiest shit there is."

"Eh." I liked the Rossberg exploding more. "Maybe in person they would've been."

"The Dust is pretty too," she admits, "even with so little stars. You'll see tonight, it gets bright. You can see the Eye of Norak, you can see Brigadine, you can see... you can kinda see some lights in the Blackpatch sometimes. There's no light pollution here."

I nod. Didn't often come above deck on the boat from Berith, so I've never seen the night sky at sea. "Wonder if it'll compare to nights on Stromm's."

"You'll have to compare."

"I'll tell ya which one I like better," I decide.

"Anyway, ah," Rhodes says, sitting up a little, "after tonight, after we stargaze and shit... I'll take a look at your arm. Tomorrow morning, first thing."

Lump in my throat all of a sudden. "Okay," I manage. Then something strikes me. Probably a memory of you, again. Like some words jostling around in my skull. Too ephemeral to recite. "Maybe we'll just take it off."

Rhodes squints slightly. Her doubled eyelids flitting. "If you can live without it."

"Probably can by now."

"Been with you a long time," she points out.

I groan, and I have to laugh. "Fuck, that's such a bad reason to do anything."

She chitters. "It's true! Maybe you'll feel really shitty being one-handed! I mean I already feel weird as hell without the backdoor, and I only had that a little while." A year is a little while for this woman.

"Just saying I probably can live without it." And I lean back, and I just want the sunset again. "Not would. Necessarily. I don't know."

"Okay," Rhodes says, resolute, "then I'll take a look tomorrow. How about it?"

Alright.

We can wait and see how I feel.

It's been more a weapon on me than anything and, since the day I got it, I have been feeling like it has never served me particularly well, but then again it is merely a thing I had attached to me, and I have served it more poorly than anything.

Been saying goodbye to a lot of parts of myself and maybe too eager to do so.

-

I didn't get to say an actual farewell to Velnias, not with my fever and the bullet holes in me, but I suppose that tracks. When Rhodes ran away I didn't get to say goodbye or please-don't-go. I didn't get to say goodbye to you either, except in my stupid dreams. I didn't say goodbye to Stromm's Landing—I really did think I'd go back at some point. Ditto for Old Tibor, and my parents. Just a few years of service and I'd come back home a hero, I was told. But that isn't how it works. You go where the waves take you and you accept, whether consciously or not, that everything valuable and important can suddenly disappear without letting you see it coming. Goodbyes are pretty worthless anyway. Either you meet again or you don't. Why bet on it either way?

I still have Rhodes. I still have enough fingers to play poker. And I still have Ceder, and these hopes in my head of a quiet life in Haraad. I have my memories, and until I die for real I'll take them along as long as I can. I only have the capacity to carry so many things with me, but I've grown to accept that fact after failing to hold onto so much else.

Besides that, there's always something new to find over the crest. Hard for someone, even bitter as I am, to ignore that fact. Guess I'm probably not out of the woods on that particular blessing. Someday Ceder will wake me up to say he is running to go aid some important cause somewhere, and I'll have to decide if I am really as committed to retiring as an old fisherwoman as I say I am right now.

No. There's no question.

I am. I am weak and unarmed and I want to be left alone.

If you could do one last thing for me, Pell, it would be to let me go.

The Dust

The Neutral Zone

Velnias

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Thanks for reading.