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.