GID had this memory of Jude Boerio, propped up on pillows, eyes glazed from some combination of booze, sex, and creative soul dreaminess. His brow furrowed with an earnestness that would’ve been funny on his bald-headed, square-jawed, oh-so-manly face, if it hadn’t been so sweet.
“The old guys had it right,” Jude had said, like he was intoning a prayer. “The music-makers from the before times, they got how it works. Your audience, they do more than just listen. Even when they think they’re just banging their heads and pumping their fists and screaming lyrics they don’t entirely understand, they’re hearing things that get inside their heads and hearts and start to change what they think, who they are. Maybe they don’t know it, but we make a difference—one word, one riff, one beat at a time.”
One word at a time. Hopefully that would work, because it was the only plan Gid had.
Gid was nervous about walking around on the surface. Unlike Daria and Kaiden, her face wasn’t on a wanted list, and Muire wasn’t in on this part of the plan. So Gid should be safe—as safe as it got, these days.
Even if things did go wrong, Gid could take comfort in knowing Seven was in on this part of the plan. As usual, she kept a nearly-translucent window open on her lens monitor that showed the steady signal of the tracker in his boot. Gid always knew where Seven was, and it was always nearby. He was her security blanket. Nothing could get to Gid without going through him first.
But after spending so much time in the dark underground, being in daylight and open air left Gid feeling exposed. She focused on walking like she was in no rush, aiming toward North Tower. She tried to ignore the patches of unrelenting blue that shone through the garden terraces jutting out from North Tower and the surrounding high-rises, which were tall enough to cast their own shadows but still dwarfed by the anchor tower.
The shops surrounding North were mostly antiques and tech, high-end and pricey. The people moving among them matched, with their expensive suits and even more expensive tech. A subdued pall rode on their shoulders, and maybe they walked faster and talked less than they’d used to. But they went about their business much like they always had. The sun’s light and heat bounced off steel and glass, just like always. The salt-laden air frizzed hair and clung to skin, just like always.
Nothing touched these people, certainly not the struggles taking place in the sub-levels beneath their feet. That may as well have been another world entirely. Nothing moved those who lived and worked in the towers, not unless it threatened their own personal welfare.
Gid squared her shoulders and lifted her chin and smacked her boots on the thoroughfare leading up to North Tower, as if she was as fearlessly confident as they were of her right not only to exist but to thrive.
Extra security had been posted on North’s ground floor, especially near the bank of elevators that led to the Child Education Center. So far as Gid knew, Graves weren’t in the business of threatening children. But not everyone taking shots at the law these days answered to Graves, so Gid grudgingly understood the urge to be safe instead of sorry.
No one questioned Gid as she stamped self-importantly through the air-conditioned foyer, sweat cooling on her face. She didn’t need to trick anyone into lending her a security code for the residential elevators this time. Although she was mildly surprised it still worked, she used her own code and made her way to floor 62. The plush carpeting in the chilled hallway silenced her boots.
She probably could have let herself into the apartment, too, but she didn’t. She buzzed the intercom instead and held her breath while she waited. Her heart worked up into her throat, and her pulse pounded every bit as hard as during any Graves operation.
On the other side of the door, footsteps. Then a brief silence, and Gid knew the person on the other side of the door was checking the security viewscreen. Was looking at her.
She was tempted to turn and run back the way she’d come, fast before the door opened. But if Graves was going to put a stop to whatever Tapia was up to, then this was something Gid needed to do. She braced herself.
All the locks snapped open at once and the door flew open, recklessly wide.
The eyes that confronted Gid were blue like hers. Although the man in the doorway was darker of complexion than Gid, Gid’s nose was a smaller version of his. They stood at equal height—that trait of Gid’s had come from her mother.
Nervous as Gid was, she was startled when her smile required no effort at all.
“Teddy. Hi?”
Gid’s dad reached into the hallway, wrapped his arms around her, and dragged her across the threshold and into a bear hug. In less than a breath, Gid became a little girl again, loved with a purity and enthusiasm that stole her breath. She was alarmed to feel tears threatening.
By the end of Gid’s second breath, when Teddy’s arms remained as tight as ever around her, Gid started to feel crushed. Suffocated. That was a more familiar feeling.
She made herself stay in the hug anyhow. She owed Teddy that much. But she peered over his shoulder and took relieved note that no one else seemed to be home. That was the plan—her mother shouldn’t be home, just her dad. Gid had counted on it.
“Gideon. Thank heavens.” Teddy’s embrace relaxed, finally. Gid stepped back, putting an arm’s length between them even though he kept hold of her shoulders. “I was afraid you’d gotten caught in that trouble in the sub-levels.”
And there. Right back in her face again, all the reasons Gid didn’t live here anymore.
There were a thousand ways Gid could’ve answered. She could have explained how huge an understatement “that trouble” was. She could have told him it involved the whole city, and that the real trouble wasn’t with the sub-levels at all. She could have told him where she’d been and what she’d been doing and tried to put into words why.
But Gid knew her dad. She knew exactly how much good any of that effort would do her. She’d had that conversation with her parents—with her mother especially—a thousand times, the one that started with Gid wondering what was so wrong about helping people who had less and ended with her parents reminding her that things were exactly as they were for good reasons. Those who provided the most valuable service to the city and worked hardest were rewarded, and the reward motivated everyone to perform the valuable services and work hard.
In theory, Gid could even see how it made sense. In practice, though, it had become something else entirely.
Never in her life, though, had she managed to make her parents see that. So Gid just smiled at her dad and said, “I’m fine, Teddy. Really.”
His face twitched. The insistence that Gid call her parents by their given names instead of “silly drippy pet names” had come from her mother. Teddy wouldn’t mind if Gid called him dad, but Gid was instinctively certain that was a bad idea right now, for both their sakes. Gid’s insides quivered as it was.
Teddy’s fingers tightened on Gid’s upper arms, an affectionate squeeze, and then, slowly, he let go and motioned toward the efficiently-organized living area—oatmeal leather and clean white walls and geometric wall hangings that were more calculated than artistic.
“Come in, Gideon. Come in. You know, if you need to move back home…”
Teddy left the invitation dangling—like it hadn’t been for the past four years, since Gid had turned sixteen, dropped out of school, and moved out all in one fell swoop. She planted her toes at the edge of the sculptured carpet and shook her head. “No. Thanks, I mean. But I’m good.”
Teddy’s smile faltered, but only for a second. Gid forced hers to stay put.
“You know,” Teddy began, and Gid knew what was coming before he started. “I know your mother can be… hard to know. She’s so disciplined and driven. She expects a great deal from herself, and from others too, I know. But you have to believe she loves you.”
“Olivia isn’t the problem.” Which lay somewhere between the truth and a lie, because Gid’s mother certainly had been the problem, or a big part of it at least. But sorting out assorted emotional baggage regarding her parents was not why Gid was here. “I need your help.”
Teddy’s shoulders dropped. Gid thought maybe he’d finally tell her no. Finally he’d say he was through letting her have her way in all things.
But his smile remained fixed. “Of course. Anything for you, sweetheart.”
Gid felt sick, abruptly. The air was too perfectly temperate and stale. The walls were too blindingly unscarred, and the brightness hurt her eyes. Gid thought of all the people on the street below and in this tower, of how they had no idea what it was to do without—without food, without light, without the ability to work and feel like they were doing something important with their lives. Without anything.
Gid’s parents were those clueless people in the towers. Technically, Gid was, too. What was it Seven had said so long ago, before he’d become Seven? “You can go home anytime you want. Doesn’t matter if you fall, someone will catch you. You will never understand what it’s really like, having to make it without a safety net.”
Gid shoved the memory and its attending guilt aside. She needed to get this done and get out of here. She took a deep breath and spit out the words. “I need to get onto the LM4 residence floors.”
Teddy blinked. The corners of his mouth dropped, and his brow furrowed. “Inside the… Well. I suppose I could take you—”
“No. I need to get in alone. Just me.” Another lie. They should’ve come easily by now. Gid had been lying to the man for at least half her life.
Teddy’s only sin was ignorance. He deserved a better daughter.
He was still frowning. “Gideon. Why would you need—”
“I can’t tell you.” It wouldn’t matter. It had never mattered to Teodor Santiago why his daughter wanted anything, only that she did—her mother really hadn’t been all of the problem. “I just really need your passcodes. Dad? Please?”
Teddy’s shoulders and the corners of his eyes drooped near-simultaneously. Gid recognized the tells and knew, possibly even before he did, that he’d give Gid what she needed.
She let out a breath she’d never really needed to be holding, but her relief was oddly tinged by disappointment. The thought that whispered through Gid’s head was that Teddy should stand up to her, at least once in his life. But he never had.
“I hope it helps,” he said as he uploaded his security codes through the sleeve link on the tech jacket Gid had borrowed from Daria. Not “I could lose my job over this.” Not “I hope you know what you’re doing.” Not even “I wish I understood why this is so important to you.”
Teddy hugged Gid again before she left. He whispered, “I love you,” into her hair.
“Love you, too, Dad.” Gid managed to kiss his cheek without giving in to an abrupt urge to burst into tears. Then she darted into the hall before either of them could do or say anything else.
Gid waited until she was in the elevator, alone, breathing steadily and not crying, before she opened the comm line to Daria.
“I have the codes,” Gid told her. “If you handled your share of the details, we should have everything we need.”