Skyscrapers fill the horizon, climbing high on all sides of the busy dock. The sky glows an indeterminate color, night washed away by the concentration of city lights. People filter between parked ships. A trio chatters excitedly as they pass the open air lock of the Rua, a cloud of citrus perfume and herbal smoke drifting behind them.
Pale blocks the air lock holding Ocho, and the two of them glare accusingly. I scratch Ocho on the chin. “You’re not coming with me. It’s too risky.”
Pale pouts.
“Waren, make sure you keep an eye on them.”
“Of course.”
If it was any other kid I’d be worried for them on a planet as vibrant as this, but with Pale I’m more worried for everyone else. Anything could happen if he wandered off, got scared, angry, or confused. I need to protect him from himself as much as anyone else.
I leave my cloak bundled on the floor inside the air lock for Ocho to sleep on, and check my outfit one more time. It’s as close to upscale as I could find among my limited wardrobe, a black jumpsuit with fine white pinstripes. Top two buttons undone, lapel folded back, hair brushed over my shoulder. I slip my feet into the stilettos Waren printed for me, struggling to remember the last time I had the chance to wear high-heeled shoes.
“How do I look?”
“You should put your hair back up,” Waren says.
“Everyone’s a critic.” I tie my hair in a bun and fix the rebreather to my face to block surveillance. I put a hand on Pale’s shoulder and gently push him away from the door. “Stay here,” I say again and through the mask my voice sounds harsher than I’d meant.
I leave the ship and wait for the door to hiss closed behind me. I fall into step with a small group of revelers dressed in red and gold, already drunk, cheering and howling at the sky though the night has barely started. I trail them out of the dock then lose them immediately on the street. The roads are closed to traffic, bustling with thousands of bodies. The city is electric, hum of fuck and commerce beneath a thumping downtrap beat. Crowds flock like migrating birds, heading toward star-bright columns of light reaching to the sky.
With people pressed in all around me, my heart thuds hard to the distant bass track, rattling my sternum. Psychic itch of flight or fight, short of breath. I squash the urge to pull the mask from my face, even for a second. I inhale deep and hold it for a moment, releasing a long sigh that lingers around my mouth, suffocating, trapped by the rebreather. I keep moving.
It’s not that I like being alone, but I’m never this anxious on my own.
Running lights of heavy surveillance drones circle overhead. Airships hang static just outside the city center—the rich enjoying the atmosphere without having to mingle with the rest of us.
The current of the crowd slows, and I crane my neck to see ahead. A security checkpoint manned by androids and flesh-and-blood guards blocks access to the fund-raiser dance party in the city square. They’re filtering everyone through scanner fences, people corralled like cattle—cattle that could be armed or dangerously augmented.
“Waren, there’s a checkpoint,” I hiss under my breath. “No way I’ll get through without a biometric scan. I told you this was a bad idea.”
“And I told you we’d deal with it,” he says lightly. “Give me a moment.”
I push left through the crowd, fighting against the riptide of people shoving forward, eager for the party to begin. A chaotic rave thrashes beyond the scanner fences. A thousand bodies writhe on beat, their drink- and drug-fueled systems communing with the holographic sea creatures that float above the plaza: fish, whales, dolphins, sharks, and squid, in all their engineered genetic variations.
“Here,” Waren says, and a marker appears on my HUD.
I reach the edge of the throng and elbow my way out. I keep walking against the flood of people heading for the entrance, cursing every well-dressed drunk who knocks into me. This should be my scene—a crowd to get lost in, booze, drugs, and bad decisions of the filthy, sweaty variety—but something’s missing. These aren’t my people; they have jobs and families and permanent residences. I can see it in the clothes they wear, the tastefully low-key augmentations, their clear eyes. They aren’t drinking to forget, they aren’t drug-fucked because it’s the only way to cope. This is recreation, nothing more. There’s no desperation here, and its absence is like drowning.
The crowds thin the farther I go, music distant, reverberating off the faces of all those skyscrapers. I start looking for a way in, a quiet place where I can break through the temporary fencing blocking every alleyway.
“Where are you leading me? Sewers? Air vents?”
“Not quite.”
I round the corner on Waren’s marker. A knot of people mills on the road outside a busy loading bay. They’re all dressed in black and white, waiting for work—gaunt, dark-eyed, slight reek of misery. A truck idles in the bay, gap between it and the convention hall bustling with wait staff wearing mirrored visors over their faces, ferrying boxes of wine inside.
A man watches over the workers—clean-shaven, sharp-jawed, with broad shoulders slotted neatly into a well-tailored suit. His is the kind of trunk you want to climb. Until he opens his mouth.
“Alright, you worthless fucks, I need six more staff. Line up and let me have a look.”
“Waren,” I say quiet; “I hate you.”
“Better do what the man says.” Waren might not have a face, but I can hear the smile in his voice.
I join the hopefuls lining up on the footpath before the boss. Most are disheveled and obviously desperate for the work. The man takes us all in with a glance, and something like guilt stabs my chest when he picks out me and five other clean-looking folk with a slow, deliberate point.
“Grab a mask, get inside, and get to work.”
The five others rush ahead, jostling for position. I follow them into the loading bay, feeling the hateful glares of all the others left behind.
The reflective visors sit in a carton stacked beside the truck. I stand back while the others fight over the masks and don them quickly, afraid the job will be snatched back as easily as it was given. When they’re done I take the last mirror mask, lightly scratched on the left side. In one smooth motion I remove my rebreather and replace it with the visor, glancing around to make sure no one got a look at my face.
I grab a box from the back of the truck, fall into step behind another waiter, and trail him through a warren of tight corridors, movements mechanical as we drop the boxes off inside a walk-in fridge. The others head back to collect more wine, but I push deeper into the building.
I find an automated kitchen gleaming with chrome and more tech than most cockpits. One of these machines decants bottles of sparkling wine into champagne flutes resting on clear glass trays. A server pushes through thick black curtains at the far end of the hall, gentle din of the fund-raising event slipping through behind her. She takes a tray and turns back, effortlessly carrying it balanced on the tips of her fingers.
“This is such a bad idea,” I say under my breath. I slide a tray off the counter and follow the other waiter, holding it awkwardly in both hands.
Beyond the heavy curtain, florid strings curl through the air of a stately ballroom. Refined chatter and fake laughter emanate from clustered groups—each one likely wealthier than entire planetary populations—while waiters mill around the room with trays of wine and canapes.
This is more of what I expected from a fund-raiser—not the chaotic street party outside, but a gathering of the ultra-rich donating to a cause as though it might verify their humanity, their morality. As though one act of charity could offset all the unethical shit they did to “earn” their wealth.
“Excuse me, I need your help desperately, dear.” I stop and turn at the voice—a low drawl, flat enough that I can’t tell if the man is being sarcastic. He’s short, with rust-colored skin peeking from the cuffs of his navy suit. “Down here,” he says, and I bend until we’re face to face.
He leans in close and I expect him to whisper something, but instead he opens his mouth and pulls his lips back. He runs his tongue over his teeth checking for scraps of food. The smell of copper and rot seeps in behind my mask as his hot breath fogs my mirrored visor. I almost retch. He steps back to check his reflection, adjusts his tie, and turns away without another word.
I continue stalking the space, pausing when a guest needs wine or narcissistic satisfaction. The strings go quiet and conversation slowly dies as people turn to face the stage at the far end of the ballroom.
A man with onyx skin and tousled red hair crosses to the podium while the gathered guests applaud. Rafael Hurtt, in the flesh. He beams beneath the spotlight, turning slowly so the whole room can bask in his smile. His skin is genehacked pure black for maximum UV resistance. Probably got it done when he first started mining but keeps it that way for PR: to show he’s still a worker, a man of the people. An unfashionably thick moustache sits like a bulkhead between his mouth and the rest of his face. He wears no jacket, his shirtsleeves rolled up to show the onyx pigmentation spilling down his forearms, wrists, and hands.
“I’d like to thank you all for being here tonight. Whilst I appreciate everyone outside who’s helping raise money for the Montero refugees, we all know that the real work will happen here in this room.”
More polite laughter. An oxymoron. Laughter should be raucous, but in my travels I’ve found that the richer a person is, the less they know how to live. Too much to lose, I guess. They can’t afford to let go, even for a second, even just to laugh.
“We have a truly unique collection of items up for auction tonight. These pieces of art, sculpture, jewelry, and furniture were rescued from Montero, created by artists and artisans now dead or displaced. This could be your chance to secure a priceless artifact from a culture that, at best, will survive in small pockets throughout the galaxy, and at worst will be forever extinguished.
“But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? The cities, towns, and yes, perhaps even the culture of Montero are gone, but the survivors? The survivors need our help.”
The crowd applauds, some nodding solemnly. A curtain rises behind Hurtt, revealing shelves lined with paintings, vases, statues, plates, and countless other items. Neatly stacked shards hold media, files, and documentation, and holo-cubes flicker with photos and video from Montero, taken before the planet’s magnetosphere was stripped away. The last remnants of a lost planet’s history—an entire culture on sale to the highest bidder.
Hurtt begins crying the first lot, but I tune him out. On the right side of the ballroom a small group of people mill by a table, backs turned to the stage, hands pressed to their mouths. Concerned murmurs ripple out through the crowd in the way discord always does.
A woman approaches me, reaching for a glass of wine. I thrust the tray into her hands and push past her, eyes tracking a private guard advancing on the table with a hand raised. The onlookers step aside to give her room, and the security officer bends to lift the overhanging tablecloth. She’s thrown back, sharp cry as she soars through the air, cut short when she hits the floor. The rest of the room falls silent, a quiet squeal of feedback coming from the stage where Hurtt stands stunned.
Fuck.
People back away from the table but I move forward. I grab the tablecloth and hold it up, squashing the telekinetic blast tossed at my chest. Pale sits under the table surrounded by discarded bones and half-eaten hors d’oeuvres. Ocho sits in his lap, chewing a piece of red meat stripped from a metal skewer, purring loud.
“Pale,” I hiss. “I told you to wait in the ship.”
He frowns and lowers his head, looking at me with huge eyes, pupils dilated in the dark.
“How did you even get here?”
“Waren,” is all Pale says.
“I’ll deal with that digital bastard later. I expected better from you, Ocho.” She looks at me, but doesn’t stop eating, doesn’t know she’s in trouble. Wouldn’t care if she did.
“Step away from there!”
I exhale sharp through my nose. “Stay here and don’t move until I say so.”
I drop the tablecloth and raise my hands slowly as I straighten up. I turn to find the head of security back on her feet with another dozen guards around her in a tight semicircle, bulging with genefreak muscle mass, laser sidearms aimed at my torso.
The woman in charge wears a charcoal suit that probably cost as much as the rest of the guards’ outfits combined. She glowers at me down the barrel of her laspistol.
“Remove the mask,” she says slow, long gaps between her words.
A million ways it could go wrong, I said. Keep an eye on them, I said. Remind me again why I let Waren go untethered?