7.2

  We come to the conclusion that the smart move is to get the hell out of the city, at least for a while, because even if the NACP inquiry was just smoke blown up a chain of command to keep some high-ranking asshole in a suit feeling like the leash is still tight, there’s enough heat in the air to cook us alive, and stepping back into those streets with ‘Project Talon’ waiting just around the corner feels less like bravery and more like suicide. People are hunting now, real people, with badges and guns and maybe even worse, people with no names at all, and they’re looking for me, for Dance, and anyone even vaguely touched by the fallout of what we did, what we are, and if those questions start stacking up, it's only a matter of time before they stumble on Cormac, or Raze, who can’t sit still long enough to fake innocence, and God help us all if Fingers (Morgan Ellis-Vale to the rich and powerful) ends up on their radar, too, because once that kind of name hits a whiteboard in some off-limits war room, you're not dealing with cops anymore; you're dealing with exterminators.

  Dance shrugs like it’s nothing, and Vander gives one of his tired nods, the kind that means he’s already packed in his head, while Cormac calls it a vacation with that creepy O’Cormac humour of his, and even Fingers, usually wary of anything that smells like trouble, agrees to come without much coaxing. She doesn’t say why, but Raze mentioned that she’d been looking for an excuse to leave, to come with me. But Raze, though, Raze is a different story. Of course he can’t go, not when his sister’s still stuck in the south, sick and small and tethered to the only thing in this world that makes him stay, because as much as the idea of being hunted might rattle the rest of us, he’s got bigger things to worry about, like getting her across the canal to the cleaner parts of the city where maybe, just maybe, she can get care that isn’t filtered through six layers of bureaucracy and budget cuts. Sure, Paxson might be better than what we’ve got here, but it’s not good enough, not for her, and he knows it, and Fingers agrees; she says the city’s no goldmine, just quieter, and that’s enough for us, for now, because we don’t plan on staying long, just long enough to shake off the shadows nipping at our heels and for me to start digging into the parts of myself that someone, somewhere, clearly didn’t want me to find.

  We split off after the talk at HQ, each of us with our own errands, our own baggage, agreeing to meet later at my place once we’ve gathered what we need, and I make my way outside to the Old Mill parking lot where my car’s been sitting like a rusted-out sentinel, climb in, and start the engine, pulling onto the city roads that always feel half-drunk and too crowded, weaving past pedestrians who treat crosswalks like suggestions and seem to forget the meaning of red lights the second they’ve got somewhere to be. I drift south through the grime and static hum until the skyline thins and the old bones of my apartment complex rear up in the distance, squat and ugly and full of noise, the whole place wrapped in streaming kanji like a bandage trying to hold the guts in, blinking every few seconds in some dying neon rhythm while the cracks beneath the surface widen, the kind of structure that looks haunted without needing a ghost, massive in that way only southside housing ever is, built to hold too many people and too many secrets. I park inside, then follow the path up the concrete stoop like I always do, passing by the kiosks reeking of old gunpowder and fresher cigarettes, and just as the door slides open, I hear the pitfighters below—shouting, crashing, bodies hitting concrete like punctuation marks—and I realise, without much conviction, that I won’t miss this place when we go. Not even a little.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if someone living here, or who once lived here, ends up going absolutely insane.

  When I reach the apartment, I peel off the visor and the overalls, both of them heavier than they should be, head straight to the en suite and take the kind of long, scalding shower that feels more like a cleansing than a rinse, because escaping death earns you more than just a rinse. No calls come in to ruin the moment, no urgent pings or sudden demands or tick tickety tock, Mono. Just the sound of water and the silence that follows it. When I’m done, I towel off, dress in something clean, leave the visor on the counter because lately it’s been straining the eyes more than helping them, dump the filthy overalls down the trash chute, and start packing into a cardboard box that’s seen better days: spare clothes, basic hygiene stuff, a few snacks I won’t miss if they melt in the glove compartment. This isn’t a vacation; it’s a step sideways, a pause in the story while the city figures out whether it still wants me dead or not. With Fingers off meeting Quillon Bennet to collect payment for all of us, I’ve got time to kill, so I walk slow and pointless loops around the complex, staring down into the square-cut courtyard where that handful of kids play tag around a fountain that never shuts off, the screen behind me droning on with another news channel playing catch-up. Sure enough, there it is: footage, questions, officials prodding at The Ghost in Satin for security logs, digging for clues and names and shadows to pin down. I listen, wondering if they’ll say it—Rhea Steele—or Dance Fletcher, or some other name they can run through a registry until it spits out an address, my address, this exact place, this exact corridor, and if they do, that’s it, I’m burned, I’m done, I’m—

  Footsteps behind me, sharp and steady, not the stiletto click of high-heels but still hard enough to make the floor sing a little, and my heart does that thing—stops, skips, surges—because for all I know it’s an NACP agent come to drag me off or worse: to put a bullet between my eyes and save the paperwork, so I turn fast, bracing for it, but it’s not them, not even close. It’s a woman. Brown winter coat, a little too thick for this weather, and she isn’t even looking at me. Her attention’s on one of the doors across the hall: an old unit that burned from the inside out over a decade ago, left blackened and half-forgotten. Never got the insurance payout. Never got fixed.

  She kneels in front of it. Not with a sense of urgency. It’s calm, almost ritualistic. She places something at the base of the doorframe. Not flowers. Not candles. Something smaller. I stick around, even though I know I shouldn’t. This isn’t my business. She hasn’t even seen me. Still, I watch her. No scan—left the spoofer upstairs—but she doesn’t strike me as dangerous. No visible tech, no chrome under the skin, no signs of the usual. Just a woman. Simple as that, really. Then she sits. Just lowers herself all the way down like a child might in a sandbox, legs folded, posture loose. I step a little closer and catch sight of the object she placed. A doll. A bunny, handmade, stitched from old brown cloth and faded plaid, like something you’d find tucked in the arms of a child who never made it out. Her head stays bowed. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just sits there in silence.

  It should be nothing. It probably is nothing. But my gut twists all the same. Something about her, the stillness, the quiet way she touches the doll’s ears, keeps me there. And against better judgment and whatever survival instinct I’ve still got, I step closer.

  “Hey,” I say gently. “Are you… alright, miss?”

  She doesn’t look at me. Just keeps flapping the bunny’s ears with her fingers. A beat passes, and then she says, “I’ve seen you before.”

  My pulse spikes. Shit. Is she talking about the article? About the news?

  “…You were inside Dr. Maelstrom’s office,” she finishes, voice low. “Same girl. You were covered in blood.”

  I pause, caught off guard, but a little relieved. “Oh… yeah. I don’t… remember you?”

  She doesn’t answer right away. Just draws in a breath, slow and full, like she’s choosing whether or not I’m worth the energy. Then she stands. Turns to face me. Her eyes are tired, not with the kind of exhaustion that sleep can fix, but something deeper, older. She looks young—maybe my age, maybe younger—but her skin has that chalky pallor that says she hasn’t been eating right, hasn’t been sleeping well. Her hair’s cut in a shag that clearly missed a brush this morning, and maybe yesterday, too. And then it clicks.

  I do remember her.

  She’s the woman I saw outside Dr. Maelstrom’s office right after he handed me the map and sent me off to find Fingers. She was just another face then, one of a million in this city. But now, in this quiet hallway, in front of this scorched door, she’s not forgettable at all.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding slowly. “You had some implant work done. Your arm, right? Or surgery, maybe.”

  She doesn’t respond. Just stares. And there’s a look in her eyes that carries more weight than any words. Then I notice it. She’s angry. Not yelling, not bristling. Just… simmering.

  “Sorry,” I say, raising my hand a little. “I didn’t mean to intrude. It’s just, you were sitting there alone, and I thought—”

  “And your logic,” she cuts in, her tone razor-clean, “was to interrupt a woman sitting in front of a burned-out apartment, holding a half-melted bunny doll, head down, clearly not in the mood to talk? That made sense to you?”

  I blink. My mouth opens, shuts again. She’s sharper than most. Sharper than me. “Christ,” I mutter. “I was just concerned.”

  “Do yourself a favour,” she says, flat, final. “Stick to your own business. Don’t get tangled in anyone else’s. You’re not special, and you’re not going to fix this city. There’s nothing you can say, nothing you can offer me that’s going to change what’s already broken. So, stay in your own lane. Is that too hard for you to understand? Really?”

  Silence. Total shock. I'm half-mad myself. “Well, no need to be an asshole,” I snap, stepping back, heat boiling up fast. “God forbid someone shows concern in this city. Everyone’s walking around with a stick up their ass, pretending it’s normal. And we wonder why everything’s falling apart—because no one gives a damn. Everyone’s too busy hating each other to see straight. All I said was, ‘Hey, you alright?’ But I guess that’s a threat now. Because I’m the monster, right?”

  The woman chuckles. “You think you know a thing about how this city works? How long have you even been here, hey?” Her eyes flash electric blue. “’Cause from what I see… you’re a dead girl. Rhea, isn’t it? Or just some clueless bitch playing hero, thinking she can tell me how to live?”

  Another moment passes. She’s a… netrunner? I shake my head, still standing there, stunned, completely blown away by the way this has turned. “I get that you might have problems, seriously, I do—but that doesn’t give you the right to take it out on everyone else. All I wanted to do was see if I could—”

  “Help?” she sneers. “Oh, right. Help. That what people like you do?” Her voice drips with mockery. “There’s only one person in this city who actually helps—and it damn sure isn’t you.”

  Then it hits me. The scent—bergamot. Not mine. It has some memory to it, and not the far kind. “Wait, you’re… Silas’ friend, aren’t you?”

  She glares into my soul, and her irises turn blue once again. “You better step out of my fucking way. Now.”

  Now my heart’s really pounding. Is she going to...? I move. This is not worth it. “Look, just forget I said anything, alright? I’ll be on my way, but I’d really appreciate if you didn’t flash those eyes on me. Bit much for someone just trying to be decent. I get it, though. I messed up. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. I’m sorry. Won’t happen again. Christ.”

  She shakes her head, eyes cold. “Christ has nothing to do with it. There is no God. And yeah, you better keep out of my way, Rhea. I’m sick to death of people like you. And don’t think I'm stupid—I know that’s you on the news. And I know you're worried they'll catch you. I bet you thought I was an NACP officer, didn't you? The way you turned, hey? I could call the cops and have you dragged out of here in cuffs, but what would that fix? Nothing. This city will keep rotting, because people like you can’t let others live. You have to set fires, tear things apart, make life unbearable for folks just trying to survive. ‘Oh, I’m poor, I shall rebel!’ Rich. Everyone here is poor. But they grit their teeth and live. It’s not much, but it’s life, hey. And you? You just make it harder. So don’t come to me with your fake sympathy. I see right through it.”

  She shoves me, a smooth, dismissive swipe, then turns and walks off like she didn’t just rip open my ribs and spit in the cavity. Like my name was hers to use. I stand frozen, pulse thudding. I don’t know who she is, not really, but it’s clear she’s not just some mourner passing through the wreckage. No. She’s someone. And she’s dangerous.

  I watch her go, the brown cloth bunny swaying in her hand like a pendulum, something quiet and sacred and broken all at once, and she doesn’t move for anyone. Just walks straight down the corridor like she owns it, like the building itself has been forced to acknowledge her presence. The tenants shift aside without a word. They don’t look at her, not directly. Like they know her. Like they’ve seen what she can do, what she is, and decided it’s safer not to get in the way. There’s powerful tech under her skin. I can feel it, even without a scan. Subtle, deep-level stuff. She’s not like the others. She’s not like anyone.

  And the fact she knows who I am, and that I'm wanted.... Christ.

  My phone starts buzzing in my pocket, a soft, distant vibration that takes me a few seconds to notice, because my head’s still spinning, caught somewhere between fear and awe and the creeping sense that I’ve just crossed paths with someone important. Wrong kind of important. I pull the phone out and see Fingers’ name lighting up the screen. I answer.

  She tells me she and the others are on the way and that a hundred and sixty-six thousand eddies has been wired to my account.

  I blink. I hadn’t noticed that either. Pull the terminal up with a flick of my thumb, and sure enough, there it is. The kind of number that makes you feel like you’ve just been handed a second life. Quillon must’ve been very pleased. Which means, at long last, everything’s wrapped up. No loose ends. No fallout.

  I head upstairs, put on my visor, grab the cardboard box—my life in four corners and a bit of duct tape—and carry it down the stairs to the parking lot. It’s hotter down here, thicker, like the building’s exhaling its last breath. Twenty-five minutes pass before Fingers rolls up in her old Fragment Roamer, the engine spitting smoke, black fumes twisting from the exhaust like it’s trying to ghost itself out of existence. And the thing that catches my eye, the little detail that snags at my brain: none of the others show up in their own vehicles. They’re already riding in her jeep (save for Raze, of course). Waiting.

  Interesting. Must be trying to avoid paying for gas, which makes sense, I guess. It’s a long trip. Why waste more money than necessary, right? And here I was thinking we’d be riding out like a posse in the wild west.

  The jeep rattles and groans as it rolls over the pothole-pocked concrete, suspension screaming, until it lurches to a stop with a screech. I move around to the rear, pop open the back door—the one with the spare wheel bolted to it and a rusted latch that sticks if you don’t lift just right—and slide my box in beside the others already stacked in a chaotic heap. There’s all kinds of junk back here. Bedrolls. Scavenged tech. A dented cooler someone forgot to empty. But mostly what catches my eye are the vials. Dance’s Lumina stash, glowing yellow like little bottled suns, each one cradled in a tangled web of bungee cords that look more hopeful than secure. I wedge my box in a spot where the vials won’t roll or shatter if we hit a speed bump hard enough to launch us into orbit. And if they do? Well, Dance is the one footing the bill for that particular light show.

  After that, I go to open the passenger door out of habit, but Vander’s already claimed it, sitting there like he’s been fused to the seat since birth. Fine. I think maybe I’ll just take one of the middle rows and ride in peace, maybe even catch a breath. But then a window at the far back slides down with a whine, and Dance leans halfway out, grinning like an idiot and waving his arm like we’re best friends.

  “Back here mate,” he says.

  I hesitate. I don’t get why he wants me to sit with him. We’re not exactly buddies. He’s loud, he’s unpredictable, and he has this constant edge of mischief that feels like it could either save your life or get you killed, depending on the day. Still, he’s not the worst. Just… Dance. And really, what harm could it do?

  Seeing no reason not to, I climb into the very back row and slide into the seat next to him. The belt clicks into place just as Fingers throws the Roamer into gear and pulls out of the parking lot, tyres crunching over loose gravel and broken glass. The engine wheezes like a dying animal, but somehow it keeps moving. Dance is already fiddling with that little handheld device in his lap: clunky, scratched up, clearly modified. I glance at it and catch the faded model name stencilled across the top: Brickie.

  He twists a knob, and the screen blooms to life with a familiar shape. I recognise it right away: one of the firewalls from the tunnel network: the weak one, the training wheels. The “babywall”, as he called it.

  “Righty-o,” he says, tapping at the screen. “Now, at some point, you’re gonna want to get yourself an auto-cracker. Seriously. Plant one of those babies in and half your stress just vanishes. But until then, I reckon it’s smart you learn the basics. Not high-tier netrunner stuff, just... problem-solving. Pattern spotting. The kind of tricks that’ll stop you from messing everything up and potentially save your life.”

  “You’re actually gonna teach me the puzzles?” I ask, raising a brow.

  He nods, still focused on the screen. “Gonna be a long ride, mate. May as well.”

  He’s right about that. According to the map on my phone, Paxson is a two-hour drive from the southern district, given all the traffic.

  Why not?

  So, as we enter the busy streets, Dance walks me through the logic behind solving the first puzzle, the level-one security wall keeping the electric substation closed from the outside. He starts by explaining that the top row of the firewall are known as ‘pointers’, and that the letter and number both represent a position on the board beneath it. So, taking this example, the first pointer is ‘D3’, and to solve for its ‘p-string’, you need to follow the corresponding letters at first vertically and then horizontally. So, D3 vertically becomes D8, which then horizontally D3, which then vertically becomes D9. The closest p-string is always the indicator of directional change, and in this case, the solution (or p-string), is ‘D9’, the third ‘D’ in the sequence.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  (Authentication Required)

  Seems simple enough. I agree. Only Dance explains that’s only scratching the surface. Most firewalls are a lot more complicated than that, and some are pretty much impossible for the human brain to crack. He shifts to the next puzzle, one of the firewalls that secured a mag-lock over an android coffin in one of the convoy jeeps. This is special because some of the letters are not given to you, which means, as Dance explains, you have to use the sequence of p-strings to solve for ‘X’. The solution is normally included in the firewall, and it’s not always simple. In this case, the second-to-last pointer, X-1, we can assume for a moment is ‘I’, and work our way down if needed. If we apply ‘I’ to the sequence of code in the third string, X-2, we vertically fall to X-1, and across to the left to I-1. Yes, that works. Because it’s closest. And no other letter aligns on the X-1 vertical string, except for B-9, but Dance explains that this is ‘blocked off’ by X-5 in the preceding row.

  (Authentication Required)

  X = I

  “So it’s kind of like a game,” I say. “Where some letters act as blockages, and others are, I guess, opening up pathways.”

  Dance makes a wobbly motion with his hand, half-shrugging. “Ehhhh, sorta, mate. It’s a puzzle, yeah? If you reckon puzzles are fun, then sure, call it a game. But the main thing is the logic behind it. You get the rules, you get the solution. Simple as that. And hey, it’s a long bloody drive—we’ve got time. I can run through it again if your brain’s still in low gear.”

  I shake my head. “Nah, seems straight-forward enough. Then again, you gave me the solution. Everything feels easy when someone’s already drawn the map. But still, thanks.”

  “No dramas, mate. Better to learn it now than fry your brain later when it counts.” He twists the knob on the brickie, and the final puzzle shows up: the complicated one. The one that appeared when I tried to unlock the doors to the substation manually, after we got locked in with that thing.

  The same logic applies in terms of positional problem-solving, but the only thing different are the two unidentified Xs in the centre, which Dance explains are known as ‘dual notations’. These letters represent missing identifiers in the string. And Dance essentially explains that this will operate on a basis of trial and error, which is precisely why auto-crackers are so important, because they can sift through all the possible solutions for the dual notations and have it cracked within seconds. For Dance, he can find the solution using the regular positional method for the other pointers, but he would have to continuously try different letters and numbers to find that middle figure.

  Good thing those security guards opened the door when they did. We could've spent ten minutes combing through possible solutions in that substation, and I might’ve blacked out long before we found the right one.

  Could’ve died, even.

  (Authentication Required)

  “It looks more complicated than it actually is,” he says, tapping the screen. “But same logic applies, yeah? Most times, you’ll run into dual notations, more than one at once, and those, my sheilaaaaaa, are some tough bloody doooookies.”

  I believe that. I guess the moral of that whole decryption slog is this: I need to invest in an auto-cracker. Doesn’t have to be pretty, just fast enough to outpace the ice. The kind of tool you don’t name, just feed. And since I’m heading to Paxson, I’ll need every edge I can get.

  And yeah, I did a lot of research on Paxson. It’s not exactly a city, not really. More like a sector. A trade-hub grafted into the edge of the scrublands like an old implant nobody took the time to sterilise. Dusty, sun-scoured, low on charm but high on traffic. You’ve got smugglers, mercs, wetware brokers, tech surgeons by the dozen, and every one of them pays a cut to the same person: Dr. Calyx Ward.

  She’s not a myth. She’s not hiding in the shadows. She’s the one running the damn place, officially. Mayor, Administrator, Regional Director: whatever title fits the mood that week. Doesn’t matter what you call her. Everyone just calls her Ward. Because she is Paxson. She controls the power grid, the med stations, the implant registry, and the border nodes. You need a license to cut open a skull in Paxson? Ward signs it. You want a blackout zone to make someone disappear? Ward charges extra. They say she was a trauma surgeon during the Syndicate Rebellions. Whatever that is. Stitched up soldiers in tents while bullets came through the walls. Then she pivoted. Took her expertise and her lack of sentiment and built something profitable. She’s not interested in ideals, so to speak. She’s interested in systems. Supply, demand, control.

  There’s no election in Paxson. No city council. Just Ward. Her word is policy. Her policies are profit.

  So yeah. I’m getting that auto-cracker. And I’m keeping my head down.

  We keep driving south, deeper into the city’s gut. The streets narrow, then open wide, like a throat swallowing us down. Buildings flicker past, grey and hunched, like they’re too tired to stand up straight anymore. Eventually we hit the turnpike and roll onto the highway. That’s when the sun punches through the top of the jeep, blinding, like the light at the end of a tunnel, sure, but not the kind that means redemption. No. It feels more like the kind of light people see right before they die on the table. And the road hums beneath us, deadpan forever and ever. Nothing out here feels alive. Even the air smells cooked. And though we’re moving fast, it doesn’t feel like progress. It feels like surrender. Like we’re heading towards something we can’t turn away from.

  Despite Fingers blaring rock music at the front, and the constant chatter of Cormac, Vander, and Dance rolling up and down the seats, I manage to shut my eyes and drift off into a dreamless kind of sleep, the kind that only happens when the body gives up before the brain does. When I wake up, the air inside the jeep is a little too hot, sweat pooling in the crease of my neck, and I roll down the window just to breathe. That’s when I see it.

  Paxson.

  It rises from the horizon in uneven shadows, not a skyline exactly, but more like a collision of districts. The outer edges are all exposed steel, stacked containers, scaffolding webbing up the sides of gutted towers, cables hanging like jungle vines. The buildings look assembled instead of built: metal patched over concrete, concrete poured over rust, entire stories bolted onto the tops of others like afterthoughts or acts of defiance. Nothing here was ever finished. It just kept going. And as we draw closer and cross the crooked sign that says it all—WELCOME TO PAXSON—smoke drifts from vents in slow spirals, tinted green and purple, caught in the sunlight like oil on water. Old billboards stutter between corrupted ads and blank-faced warnings. Wind turbines spin on rooftops already crowded with satellite dishes, solar panels, and nests of wire. Everything hums, though I wouldn’t say with energy. No, more with fatigue. Like a city breathing through a cleft nose.

  We pass under the first arch checkpoint, and that’s when I start to see the people. They line the edges of the street, some leaning against faded walls, some hawking tech from crates, some watching us pass like they’re trying to decide if we’re just tourists or trouble. The clothes are layered, mismatched, everything patched up and customised: old military jackets cut with LED strips, leather dyed with oil and paint, boots reinforced with scrap.

  Farther in, automated trolleys skim by on rusty rails. Drones hover above intersections. And the signage, oh the signage: it glows in every direction, half of it broken, the other half so bright it drills into your eyes whether you want to read it or not.

  There’s no centre to this place. No heart. Just constant movement, noise, heat. And I swear, as the jeep rolls through the sandy asphalt roadway, it’s like everyone’s looking.

  And something tells me they remember every face that’s ever crossed the border.

  Fingers follows the satnav deeper into the city, past shuttered storefronts and crooked alleyways, until the buildings start leaning close together, like they’re closing ranks around something they don’t want seen. We reach it when the road turns to patchy gravel and the streetlights thin out. The motel stands at the corner of a dead intersection, crouched under a jungle of wire and scaffolding. A massive holo-sign on the roof flashes between signal bursts. It’s supposed to read ‘The 404’, but only ‘The 40’ remains, either because of power decay or theft. Don’t know. Don’t care. The rest of the sign hangs by a single support bracket, buzzing in the wind.

  And we stop here, park out front. When I finally get to step outside and stretch my legs, I feel like I’m in an entirely different country, and boy is it hot.

  It doesn’t take long for us to grab our stuff and check into the motel. Most of the rooms in the building are empty, which could be a blessing or a curse depending on how long you’ve lived in cities like this. It’s convenient, sure. We each get our own door to shut, our own square of quiet. But there’s a reason places like this stay vacant. Bad air. Bad memories. Or just bad luck. Even the parking lot looks abandoned, with only a pair of rusted motorbikes parked crooked near the chain-link fence, one of which probably belongs to the guy manning the front desk.

  The rooms aren’t too bad, though. They smell a little funny, like stale water and plastic curtains that haven’t been pulled back in weeks. There’s a buzzing from the ceiling fan that never quite stops. The sheets are thin, the walls thinner. Every cough or zipper or bootstep carries like it’s trying to escape. But for today, it’s enough.

  I dump the box of my things onto the sagging motel bed and start rolling them out. There’s dust in the corners and something dark smeared under the window ledge, but I don’t look too closely. When I’m done, I pocket the key and head back outside.

  The heat hits me first—wet and stinking of exhaust—and then the sight of Dance, leaning against the jeep, a half-empty bottle of water in one hand and the brickie in the other. His bushy eyebrows are furled, and he just looks up, all shrug.

  “Well, this’s a funny old situation,” he says, flicking his thumb across the screen. “Been a bit since I stepped foot anywhere outside N.A. Paxson’s its own beast. Might be a little rusty—’scuuuuuse the pun.” He chuckles at himself. No one else does. He nods towards the brickie. “Signs aren’t too clear. Dark net’s even worse. Nothing on this Cierus Marlow. Not a blip. Feels like she doesn’t exist.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter, hand sinking into my pocket. “I tried myself. Rico might’ve given me a fake. There’s barely anything on Ourovane either. Like they’ve both been scrubbed clean.”

  “Must be important,” Fingers says, throat dry. She clears it. “Only people who disappear off the net entirely are the ones who know how.”

  Cormac locks his hands together, glancing between us. “If that’s the case, then Rhea must be important, too, oh yes. She seems to have, how shall I say, been wiped from the books?”

  Huh. Never really thought about that.

  “Or,” Vander chimes in, licking his awfully blue lips, “maybe they both got wiped. ’Cause they knew too merch. Memory isshure, right, Monner?”

  I nod once. “Yeah. A memory issue.”

  Vander tilts his head. “So wouldn’t it er make sense if she had her memory cut at a er BD clinic?”

  I frown. “A BD clinic?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Y’know. Deep screrb, memory kill, the works. Some of ’em’ll slice your past up like it never happened. Saw a er man get his wedding wiped just ’cause his ex kept showing up in dreams. And they er sell it in the form of a BD chip, because people pay for some messed up sterf.”

  It’s a possibility, though that would mean anyone in the entire city could have purchased a BD with my memories on it. Hell, they could have destroyed it or moved country with it in their backpack. No, it can’t be gone. My memory has to be out there, somewhere.

  “I know a person who might be able to help,” Fingers says.

  “Oh, yeah, here we go,” Dance says evenly. “Information that would have been useful a couple hours ago. Go on.”

  Fingers lets out a quiet chuckle, brushing dust from her vest. “Yeah, yeah. Look, part of the reason I wanted to come was... well, my sister lives here. Works the day shift at a bar called All Drops. Out near Sector Eight, tucked under the rail bridge.”

  That gets our attention.

  Cormac straightens slightly, brow furrowed. “Is that one of those bars that advertises privacy rooms but doesn’t list a menu, yessss?”

  Fingers raises an eyebrow. “She’s a bartender, not a saint. But she hears things. People drink. People talk. Especially people who think no one’s listening.”

  I shift my weight, uneasy. “And you think she might’ve heard something about Marlow? Or Ourovane?”

  “I think,” Fingers says, “that if there’s any place in Paxson where names like that might bubble up, it’s a place where the drunks are corporate, the music’s too loud, and the cameras don’t work half the time.”

  Vander snorts. “Sounds er charmin’. Do they serve drinks with eyeballs in ’em?”

  “Only on Fridays.”

  We laugh at that. Not because it’s particularly funny, but because we need to. Because the week’s been long and hot and weird, and laughter keeps the gears from grinding too hard.

  “So, maybe we should head up there?” I say. “You know where it is?”

  Fingers nods, but there’s a twitch at the corner of her mouth. Not quite a smile. Not quite not. “Yeah. It’s a bit of a walk, but I remember the way.”

  “A walk? Can’t we just drive?”

  She shakes her head. “Once you see the city centre, you’ll get why wheels aren’t allowed. No room. No point. Too many ghosts.”

  That shuts us up for a beat.

  I try to shake it off. “To All Drops, then. Let’s see what the city’s really like. Can’t hurt, right?”

  … Right?