I was already on the magway so I let it carry me around the city, scenic Primgrofaine. Home of grey hydroponic towers, year-round grey smog clouds and even greyer people. On the mag lines I could finish my usual daily wanderings in under an hour, which defeated the entire purpose. I wondered if it would be different once I had someplace to be or someone to be with. Mallory wasn't like anyone I'd ever met before. She was different.

  My conversation with Mallory played over in my head, the way she carried herself, the way she talked. She was a someone. From the second she looked at me, she was in control. Our entire conversation was at her whim. She was the master of her own destiny, she'd risen up the company ladder and couldn't even take a day off. That's how important she was.

  I wanted to be like that, to have that kind of power over people with a few spoken words and small gestures. The way she'd done it was like art and she was a master. I needed to talk to her again, to see how she had done it. If I was her bodyguard, I could watch her. If I became a spy, I could be her confidant— that sort of thing happened all the time in the movies. Above it all, I just wanted to be with her in a way I'd never wanted anything or anyone before.

  The sun was setting when I stepped off the rail car and back at the northern secondary junction. The banner ads tinted red by the waning light of our distant star. Damn it! I'd forgotten to ask her which department she worked for! And I hadn't even given her my contact info! I kicked at a wad of rubbish as I stormed from one mag line to the next. That might have been my only real chance at getting out of the Stacks and I blew it! I was such a bloody idiot.

  There had to be a way to fix this. I could run into her again and I'd… What were the odds of finding any one person at random in a city of millions? One in millions, although one in a million sounded better in my head. But factor in how many people you could see in a day when you walk the city streets, and the odds grew to one in thousands. I'd been wandering the streets from the day I was old enough to leave my Stack unescorted, and today was the first time I'd seen her— or any company higher up for that matter.

  Mallory had been my ticket out of a life condemned to farming the Stacks. She was my chance at a better life, a life as my own man! A life where I'd be more than just some dirt-poor farmer no one remembered the day after meeting me. She was the only thing I wanted because she was everything I could never be. Not if I stayed here eking out a living, just another one of the millions. What were the odds of finding her again? Once in a lifetime, and I'd blew it.

  On the grey towers looming over me, the banner ads started their cycle anew. I hadn't noticed the smog clouds lurking lower until the first drops of a warm spring drizzle started falling. Everything was right back in its routine without skipping a beat. I was just too stupid to accept my fate— to realize that this was my life and I'd be stuck here forever.

  I leaned on a railing and looked down at the city below me. From the rail junctions, I could see just how massive the city was both above and below, railways connected it all like the veins in a leaf. I could see the roots of the nearby tower below and the massive stone stalk of it was lost in the smog somewhere above me. Beyond that, there were dirty clouds laden with spring rains preparing to water the city.

  A rail car left the junction and gathered speed so quickly it was a wonder the people inside weren't all thrown to the back and crushed. Someone nearby cursed faintly as misting rain started to fall upon the city in earnest from the grey clouds overhead. Everything was so damned grey in this bloody city.

  "Was that the three-fifteen eastbound?"

  I lolled my head to the speaker. He was unimpressive; a short well-policed beard of brown speckled with copper and silver, a larger than average nose and a plain, slightly lopsided face. His clothing was remarkable only because he wasn't wearing corporate worker's garb; instead it was cargo pants and a tight blocky grey, long-sleeved shirt that showcased his slim waist under a broad chest with broader shoulders.

  "Probably," I said with a shrug. "Not like I have a watch. You should have your act together by now old timer."

  He stood there and checked his own watch, then looked back to me. He clucked his tongue and joined my casual lean on the railing, except where I looked down on the city, he rested his elbows behind him and watched the sky.

  "It's been a while since I've just stood in the rain." He said.

  "You can do that somewhere else old timer." I grumbled in frustration.

  "I could, but I'm already here and I've got nowhere better to be."

  I looked him over as he stared up into the darkening sky. He was colorless, it wasn't dark enough yet for the blue and red hues of the flashing signs and banners to reach his skin. Instead, the color shone in his weary eyes. He had a look of immutable contentment on an aged face. It was aggravating to look at.

  "You really don't have anywhere better to be?" I asked.

  "Nope, how 'bout you Kid?"

  "I'm not a kid gobshite." I cursed.

  "You're younger than me. That makes you a kid, Kid. So how about it?"

  "I thought maybe… but I guess not." I said dejectedly.

  I felt the weight of my mistake settling heavy with my admission. I wanted to stew in my misery in solitude, but this guy just stood there smiling into the rain next to me. He had an aura about him, his contentment was palpable and passersby couldn't help but cast questioning glances at us as they tried to avoid the rain. I couldn't blame them. Life in this damned grey city was already miserable enough that everybody needed some kind of chemical persuasion just to get by, and on top of everything else it was raining weak acid that would leave your skin red and raw for days. What did this old fool have to be smiling about?

  Just as they couldn't help staring, I couldn't help but ask. "That train, did you need to be somewhere?"

  "Nowhere that can't wait another day. I'm just trying to kill time." He said with a sigh. A moment later he gave a dark chuckle, the sound at odds with the light in his eyes.

  No, I was mistaken. The reflected light was only on the surface. His amusement was perfectly matched with the humors of his true shadow-cast eyes. He was carrying something in there, something heavy and the mad bastard was laughing under the load.

  "I guess I'm doing the same. Nowhere better to be." I said shaking my head.

  "Aren't we a sorry lot then." The bleak man chuckled again.

  "What's so funny?"

  "Nothing really, you just reminded me of back when I was a kid. Before people had to work the Stacks. So much time on our hands we didn't know what to do with it all."

  "Sounds nice." I grumbled.

  A gentle breeze kicked out from an overhead train zooming past, thin walls of water falling into the drainage grates surrounding the rails below. The banners started their cycle anew, and for a brief moment the false light of public advertisements was entirely gone from his cold hollow eyes.

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  "It was." He said, checking his watch again. "But then them bots got uppity and it all fell apart. Before I knew up from down, I was a soldier and everything changed. Me and every other person who could hold a rifle were off-world, being told we were the saviors of the galaxy. We thought we could do it all and be back in time for tea… Now I'm supposed to live out my twilight years in a grey city I don't recognize, half-empty of people barely scraping by like it's always been this bad. When the hell did everything get so expensive?"

  The rain was warm, and though this man smiled into it the contentment had abandoned his eyes, a brittle edge taking its place as the banners looped into a new cycle. Without the light to hide behind, he just looked like everything else in this city— grey and tired.

  "How did things change?" I asked. "My teachers never talked about before. Everyone I know has always acted like the Stacks were worked by people since… well, forever."

  "They're probably just stuck in a rut, trying to come to terms with things," I shook my head disbelievingly at his words, "or something else. Maybe they just do what they do for their own damned reasons and I'm blowing hot air. No one's got all the answers Kid. Bots used to do the skut work so people had the time to do what we wanted. It was the golden age and we were free! Never had to worry about paying bills or wondering where our next meal would come from or working a job we hated. There was always more than enough to go around, but the bots went bad and it was us or them. Now folks gotta pretend it ain't so bad maybe. Whatever helps them get through the day. One way or the other, we all need to fall asleep at night."

  "If you don't like it here, then why don't you leave?" I asked. He certainly sounded like he was full of hot air. I couldn't imagine the world ever being the way he'd described.

  "I was going to…" He said, rechecking his watch with a frown. "But I missed my train."

  "There'll be other trains, you know."

  "…True." He admitted cautiously.

  He let his sleeve fall and cast his gaze around him, taking in the city— I think for the first time since we'd started talking, he actually saw what he was looking at instead of some half-remembered yesterday. The banners overhead cycled their loop as the rain fell and minutes ticked by. It didn't matter how often the cycles looped or how many colours they cast on the city. The overwhelming grey wouldn't be ignored, not by either of us.

  "You said you were a soldier, right? I heard the Greys need more. Did you like it?" I asked.

  "I thought… Nevermind. It was the best thing in my life, and I miss it every day from the second I wake up until the one I fall asleep. Some days, I'd trade everything I've got for a few more years of service, of purpose. Things were simpler in the Colonial Marines. Things made sense. I could be proud of who I was and what I did, no matter how bad it got. These days I spend more time in the past just remembering than I do in the here and now."

  "Then why don't you give this up and go back instead of wasting your days smiling in the rain like a weirdo and chatting up random kids?" I asked.

  "You've got some fierce notions for a snot-nosed Kid. How's your stomach? I'll show you why if it's tough."

  I nodded, and he lifted his shirt to show me a ruin of scar tissue around a hole in the center of his guts that passed clean through him and offered a glint of metal wrapping his spine. I'd never seen anything like it. This old guy had a hole in him. I had to fight down the urge to stick my hand in there and see if it really did come out the other side of him.

  "Docs say I'm a cripple who'll never walk again." The old soldier said, dropping his shirt to cover the old wound.

  "But you're standing right now." I said dumbly.

  "Oh really, am I now? I hadn't noticed that Kid. Let's run to the clinic me and you so you can point that out to them."

  "Sorry. I didn't-" I started, but he sighed and waved me off before scratching his beard.

  "It's a sore point with me, don't worry about it. The damn technophobes won't let me serve because of the metal spine but without it… People like me… Soldiering was a good fit. After the Bot Wars, nobody wants to work with a cyborg. Easier for everyone if I just live quiet and disappear. What about you Kid, why aren't you working?"

  "It's… I can't find a job."

  "You live in Primgrofaine—a city that's importing workers off every IceBreaker that comes through the solar system—and you can't find work? You're either stupid, or you must not be looking very hard."

  "I'm not stupid! I'm not a layabout either! I just met her and I didn't think to-"

  "Her?" The bleak old soldier asked.

  "Mallory Brennan. She offered me a job, but I didn't get a chance to give her my contact info. Now I'm going to be stuck in the Stacks eating onions and cabbage for the rest of my miserable life just like my parents!"

  I could feel myself deflating as I spoke. I hadn't said it out loud yet, but the guilty confession was the brutal truth. Now that I'd said it, I was damned to work the Stacks and kiss my better life goodbye. It was a cruel joke for fate to dangle a spot of hope in front of me, only to snatch it away.

  He stared in silence while I slumped over the railing in defeat. It really was hopeless. I looked down at the rails below me, some forty-odd meters below me. Mag trains still zipped by heedless of the pooling water—or anything else in their way for that matter—sending up sheets of it as they endlessly repeated the same cycle from one rail junction to the next. I just wanted out. It would be so easy to lean a little further over the railing and…

  "The Mallory Brennan?" The old soldier asked.

  "Yes, that Mallory." I answered, still not having the slightest idea who that Mallory really was.

  "Walk it back Kid, tell me what she said. I need the exact words."

  And so I did. It was easy to retell. I'd replayed the conversation in my head dozens of times already. I couldn't capture her mannerisms, but I told him what she said and how she'd entranced me in our short conversation. The old soldier watched me the entire time, his brown eyes anchored on me in the present and as warm as a loam bed freshly tilled. It was the first time I'd ever talked about a girl to anyone; my parents weren't the talking type, and I hadn't seen my so-called 'friends' from school since I graduated last month. It felt childish talking about this perfect woman to a man three times my age, but he just nodded and listened and smiled into the weakly-acidic rain like there was something dreadfully amusing about life. Whatever the big joke was, he didn't let me in on it.

  I finished and asked. "So what should I do now?"

  "You gave her your name, so I wouldn't worry about it."

  "Weren't you listening? I didn't give her my contact info!"

  "Like I said, you gave her your name. It'll be fine Kid. Have you checked your emails yet?"

  "No, I don't even have a tablet and if I did why would I? She. Doesn't. Have. My. EMAIL!"

  "She said she'd get you an email, so she will. If you knew the first thing about old Miss Sorrow, you'd know she keeps her word, and she doesn't do anything by halves. Here," His hand disappears into a pocket. He frowns and plunges his hand into another pocket. "Scrap, guess I should have brought it."

  "Brought what?"

  "My handheld, I was gonna let you use it. But I didn't want it to get destroyed, so I left it at my place." His eyes glazed over before he extended his CIN-chipped left hand in a closed fist. "Just bump it and you'll get a ping from me. If you don't have that email, I'll get you a job Kid, soldier's honor."

  I eyed him warily. "It can't be anything in the Stacks."

  "Hand to the Adversary." He said, smiling. I didn't much care for God or Satan or any of that stuff, but he clearly did. I gave a resigned sigh and bumped his fist, feeling a minuscule tingle from my CIN implant in response.

  "It's not like I've got anything to lose." I said as I stood there in the rain with the old soldier. We were both soaked through, but he didn't make a move to leave, and neither did I. A train pulled into the junction below us and he looked down at his watch again. "What time is it?"

  "Five twelve." He answered.

  "You've still got time to catch the train if you wanted."

  He turned over and looked down at the rail line, water streaming down his face. He gave a broken, half laugh that did more to chill me than a few hours standing in the drizzling rain did. He looked at me with a thin rictus grin as the minutes passed. His knuckles were bright white as he tightened his stranglehold on the railing overlooking the magway until a chime sounded the train's departure. The train sped passed under us. He released a long breath, but his face didn't fully relax.

  "Guess I couldn't do it, Kid." He pushed himself away from the railing so violently it was left quivering under me. "Catch my train, that is. Besides, it's gotta be the three-fifteen. The time matters. I've got a promise to keep."

  I tried not to think about whatever it was I'd just seen. Whatever it was this old soldier was carrying, I didn't much like the sight of it.

  "You gave me your word." I said. "I'll let you know one way or the other by day's end."

  "Looking forward to it Kid." He waved his departure as he disappeared into the rain.