When the River Ran Dry

Copyright © 2018 Robert Davies

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by BHC Press

under the Indigo imprint

Library of Congress Control Number:

2018930622

ISBN: 978-1-947727-35-9 (Softcover)

ISBN: 978-1-947727-89-2 (Ebook)

Visit the publisher:

www.bhcpress.com

THE SPECIMEN CHRONICLES

Specimen 959

Echoes of Esharam

Dedicated to the memory of

Edward F. Miller

“Go Green...Go White”

“As the births of living creatures at first

are ill-shapen, so are all innovations,

which are the births of time.”

~ Francis Bacon ~

NOVUM—MAY 2180

Long past midnight, Ricky Mills hurried from streets still swarming with night people, angling quickly for a row of three-room flats along the King’s Alley. Two days passed and still the hot, relentless wind funneled down Waterford Avenue, swirling dust and bits of rubbish into wandering vortices like drunken ballerinas in a wobbly, aimless dance; one chased another through narrow canyons between towering buildings reaching ever higher into the dense overcast. Barely a kilometer from the city’s central hub, Sector 4 was moving slowly into a quiet time when the clatter of traffic, sirens and gunfire seemed to ebb—imperceptible at first, but noticed with silent gratitude by those who worked the late shifts.

The Novum metroplex was vast, even by Resurrection standards, rising up from lowlands on a temperate plain where one of the Old Cities once stood. A megalopolis like others built on the abandoned ruins of forgotten places that went silent after the Fall, Novum replaced a relic from an era on Earth no one alive could remember. The new Founders argued for re-naming the first settlement in recognition of its reclusive organizer, the arguably insane activist, Abraham Standvor, but public outcry forced them to abandon the idea. Despite the passionate efforts of Standvor’s acolytes, it was agreed a more ‘deserving’ name should be found when such gestures still mattered. They settled on a term evoking the new, but most understood it was little more than a thinly veiled move to erase the last of a trouble-maker’s dwindling influence.

A hundred years on, Standvor’s optimistic New Order endured, but not in the way he intended. Instead of a world built on the myth of absolute equality within city-states scattered here or there across vast, sparsely populated land masses, the second rise of humanity had been guided first by the laws of simple survival. Later, distinct and unique societies emerged, each according to their own needs and desires. The cities had grown anew, but they were hardly a model of Standvor’s vision. Some thrived, while others—including Novum—hadn’t fared as well, struggling to reconcile the aloof visionary’s master plan with soaring populations and limited resources. Many believed the city’s unavoidable class divide was disturbingly similar to those from a distant history they stopped teaching to school children. Whispered voices decried persistent overcrowding and preference given only to those above, but not within earshot of others; ‘the past,’ they declared with firm (and public) conviction, ‘was the past.’

Ricky held a hand to shield his face from the blustering wind, slowing as he turned into the alley. On the boulevard, haunting melodies made by synthesized qanuns—ethnic and foreign, yet strangely familiar—blended with monotone background chords pouring from advertisement holograms hovering above an intersection. Beyond, prone bodies of two “streeties,” the cast-off and forgotten ones who walked each day on the thin margin between life and death, lay motionless in their stupor at the edge of a worn, brick walkway. Beside them, spent injection ampules for a narcotic fluid neither could resist told of hopelessness and poverty.

A preview, Ricky wondered? Perhaps the Old God remained after all to place before him a warning with magic hands no one could see. Kelleher, the grizzled caretaker from school used to say so and Litzi believed him, but those were days when they were young and no one challenged the word of grownups. And anyway, Ricky decided, it was unlikely they would notice; didn’t Gods concern themselves with better, more important things than street scum lying unconscious in a Sector 4 gutter? He shook away the disturbing notion, but tethered to the life he made for himself, Ricky knew it would always remain close-by.

When he reached the door of the tiny flat, Ricky turned his head to one side—instinctive and automatic—to listen for their footfalls or the scrape of a knife along rough concrete blocks the way Bartel and Junkyard always did to pull the fear from its hiding place and remind him of his position. Thin, powdery grit carried on the blustering wind crunched like glass between his teeth and he spat in reflex, rolling his tongue around to gather any reluctant bits before spitting a last time. He held his breath and waited, but there was only the rising wind and a persistent rattle from loose shutters somewhere beyond the darkened alley. At last, a faded, green indicator lit with a dull snap as the door went ajar, easing the tension made by hours of another night on the streets.

Ricky sat slowly, ignoring his blank vid screen where it dangled from a flimsy, metal bracket the maintenance man screwed haphazardly into the wall; only reruns of old sex shows, or the brutal ‘challenge’ programs would be found there at so late an hour. In the sudden, stark silence, Ricky could feel the muted thump of his heartbeat and a painful throb behind reddened eyes, now pestering, steadfast evidence of his fatigue. Without the wind to draw it from his skin, sweat beaded across his face and neck in the sweltering, stale room, wicking slowly into a worn recliner’s threadbare upholstery.

Before him, silent, empty walls seemed to mock his loneliness, staring out from the dark through rectangular discolorations where framed photographs or paintings hung long before. The sparse furnishings never mattered to him, but perhaps it was fitting, he thought sadly; a three-room hovel on the bad side of the Sector was hardly an advertisement for success. Instead, it was a place of decay—a forgotten enclave nestled in the bosom of an urban colossus that warranted neither costly renovation nor the trouble it would take to bring it down altogether. As it was for those who lived within its boundary, the neighborhood remained as it had always been; static and unchanged.

Above, the ventilators stopped again. Mrs. Abber promised to call the fixers, but Ricky knew they wouldn’t show unless she relented and gave them what they wanted. The repair fee was never enough and the threat of inevitable, disturbing noises that would filter through the walls as they took turns with her made him reluctant to ask again. Outside, the wind made odd whistling sounds as each gust pushed its way through the narrow space between ancient, weather-worn buildings, calling out from the night like the shrieks of despair made by mythical wraiths or banshees.

He closed his eyes as the details and terms of orders taken from clients appeared in his thoughts. It had always been easy for him, the knack for keeping note of intake and output and a parade of numbers scrolled through in his mind like a Ting-Ting machine’s token count in one of the gambling parlors along the Ninth Street corridor. Customer accounts with names and addresses appeared with a mere thought so that hard records were needless.

He had the skills—all good hustlers did—but Ricky’s were different. Since he began carrying tiny, hidden packets through the barriers and past Municipal Patrol Enforcement officers for Mister Anthony in his early days on the streets, he built a trade network few in the Sector could match. It was no secret the pale kid from the factory housing blocks could elude MPE cops and even they understood and appreciated his talent. Ricky knew everyone and they knew him; with a word, he would find and deliver what they could not. As the reputation grew, they saw one who moved with ease between opposing halves of a fragmented society; ‘Slider’ had emerged from the shadows at last.

He shuffled in weary silence to his bed, determined to find sleep before the dawn poured in his only window. Soon enough, it would return through clouded, filthy glass and dust collected on a sill where dead flies and woody powder made by the damnable termites had gone untouched for years. His head fell like an anvil onto a stained pillow as he closed his eyes with grateful satisfaction the noisy shops on Rademacher Way would stay silent for another five hours.

By noon, the weather cleared. Ricky waited with a cup of watery chicken broth as one of the news network’s half-hour programs ran the Sector’s overnight updates. He listened with half-open eyes about break-ins at a Chinese food shop near the vacant lot where Barclay Towers once stood, and eyewitness accounts of a brawl inside the popular Vesuvius Club that sent three ironworkers to the clinics with ‘localized bruises and minor lacerations.’ The commentary continued, noting without emotion two others who suffered injuries from which they would never recover, now stiffened by rigor and cold inside a morgue’s lonely intake station.

Ricky smirked at the description of an unlicensed prostitute detained for ‘suspected violations,’ but anyone who cared to look knew her troubles were more likely a mistake of refusing the advances of an MPE patrolman demanding her services without the usual payment she exacted from others. Only two homicides, he wondered? It was unusual, considering the time of year and tempers so often shortened by the suffocating heat, but another night could just as easily reverse the trend. Ricky listened to the rest of the report with little interest until the enticing images of her delicate form seeped into his thoughts the way they always did in his idle hours.

He stood in silence, surveying his flat with the same, dull emptiness that seemed to torment him most in those moments between visits. Did she wait somewhere? Had they created a place for her within the machine to pass the time before he returned? He knew better, of course, but still the question remained. He allowed himself one last thought, determined to conclude enough transactions so that money needed to pay for time with her would be plentiful. Driven by his most powerful desire, he considered his options and by a quick calculation, three accounts held by mildly important Uppers would, if called in early, buy Ricky six hours at the theater. He nodded with a renewed determination, pushed onward by a need that had become a part of his identity and a compulsion like no other; they would pay up or suffer.

The late morning heat was rising in the shadow of the mega-towers on a glaring, sun splashed day. At last, the pounding wind scoured low clouds away, leaving bare and exposed the staggering proportions of a city twelve million strong, no longer obscured by the haze. Ricky stepped cautiously from his flat, squinting against the harsh glare and careful to inspect the alley from both directions before aiming up the gentle incline toward Rademacher Way. He didn’t look, but there was little doubt Mrs. Abber watched him go from behind the faded, yellow curtains in her kitchen window. Would she be there when he returned, he wondered? Again, the nagging conflict flitted in and out, tugging at him like thorns beside a footpath. Would she resent his moments with another, beautiful and young, who had become dearest to him of all?

There was no special understanding between them, of course, but Mrs. Abber never made a secret of her desires. Gorman, the retired delivery driver who lived in the adjacent unit made frequent, crude jokes about it, offering sarcastic warnings about their landlady’s amorous habits, but Ricky ignored him. Maybe in earlier days, long before he found his way to Reese Street Theater, he would’ve taken the offer; her bed was only a short walk away, after all. But now, in the present of a future he once dreamt of, Ricky’s attentions had been taken to another place. The Starlight simulation program’s astonishing realism had made a paradise where Mrs. Abber couldn’t follow; a secret world where only he could feel the soft evening breezes, bathing in the fragrant scent from rare oils and perfumes beneath a crystalline, Egyptian sky.

Once more, the elegant face emerged from deep within his thoughts; Neferure’s dazzling smile was framed in fine, jet-black hair, curled like a cat’s tail around delicate shoulders. From her neck a heavy, gold necklace inlaid with turquoise, emerald and obsidian to form the wings of a grand and magical bird seemed to aim the eye at breasts barely concealed beneath the flawless linen of her ankle-length dress. As it had always been, the image was compelling as a mysterious tonic—a therapeutic agent, perhaps—to lift his spirits and lighten his step as he crossed between clattering ground carts where they waited on the bustling avenue to unload their goods.

Ricky made his way quickly along the grimy, littered street, turning north at the old transformer complex and his usual shortcut across a noisy, open air market to where the elevated station writhed with afternoon riders waiting for their pod trains. Above, the hum of magnetic brakes announced the arrival of a twenty-car express, dangling from its support rail like beads of morning dew on a spider’s web. Urged onward by a fresh sense of purpose, Ricky hurried through an identification gate and up the long ramp to take his place amid a growing line of passengers.

After a fifteen-minute ride, the train eased to a halt above MacAllister Square in the heart of Sector 6. Ricky waited as a gaggle of chattering school children was herded carefully by their teachers along the high platform toward broad, iron steps that led to a labyrinth of streets and sidewalks. On all sides of the station, the hulking mega-towers—cities within a city—soared to two thousand meters on a day so clear, the steeples and spires of transmission antennae were clearly visible from the surface. Pedestrian walkways joining one building to another held fast to the giant structures at twenty-floor intervals where people crossed between and their utility relieved the millions above from a needless and distasteful descent to the filthy, crowded streets.

The mega-towers had always been self-contained, vertical neighborhoods and within them, the Uppers went about the business of the privileged, unconcerned for the dirt and vulgarity of an unsavory world far below they rarely saw and would likely never visit. On the comfortable end of a permanent divide between social strata neither sought to change, the Uppers had long ago accepted the restrictions and regulated life their opulence demanded. Flatwalkers—those millions who lived out their days on the surface—found the concept intolerable, preferring instead the freedom of ordinary labor and faceless obscurity to a regimented, antiseptic existence of checkpoints, location monitors and security cameras where nothing went unnoticed.

At the gate, Ricky peered into a retinal scanner and waited until an attendant approved the unseen access request, nodding silently toward an elevated walkway and beyond it, a near-empty lift—mostly a stylish, oval greenhouse—hovered quietly on its pneumatic buffer. After a moment, more took their places along tinted glass panels and polished brass metalwork, anticipating a sudden lurch when the cool, conditioned elevator would rocket them skyward. His destination on the 148th floor would take only minutes to reach, but Ricky held tight to a handrail; external, high-speed lifts never held the fascination for him others seemed to enjoy. When they were young, Ricky and his friends would ride the ‘verts’ for sport until attendants or MPE cops ran them off. Now, he could board them any time he liked; the necessary (and frightening) tools of his trade.

People in crisp, stylish clothing came and went at each stop, filing onto the vert or hurrying from it, concerned only with the glowing screens of wrist displays or private conversations they continued in front of strangers without a care. They were all Uppers, of course, standing at deliberate distances from Ricky where he waited alone. As it had been since his early days hustling, Ricky felt the cold, indifferent glances wash over him and a silent scorn they aimed at another unwanted Flatwalker invading their corridors on one questionable mission or another; he wasn’t one of them and the distinction was never allowed to blur.

When the vert stopped on 148, Ricky moved quickly past the others through a lavish archway toward the floor’s network of passages, sidestepping a janitor’s cart where it sat on an angle at the entrance of a sky bridge. Near the crowded tube connecting Tower B with its identical companion on the north side, Xavier Antonelli waited in a lounge sipping cold, raspberry tea. A perpetually scowling man who hid his insecurities beneath expensive clothes and overdone jewelry, Antonelli stood and walked slowly toward a high counter against the curved wall, suitably apart from the noisy lunch crowd jockeying for elbow room.

“Is there a problem with the list?” he asked at once, pulling the long curls of his hair behind an ear the way he always did when something had gone wrong, ever nervous and petulant.

“It’s workable,” Ricky replied blandly, “but we need to clear out your account before I can even begin looking; some of this stuff is…”

Antonelli stopped him.

“My account?” he snarled, narrowing deep brown eyes in sudden outrage at Ricky’s brazen display. “Maybe you need to be reminded of the money I’ve poured into it over the years, Slider!”

Ricky moved quickly to hold his ground; he was in no mood to suffer contrived indignation, and least of all from a sniveling wretch like Antonelli.

“You can spend it with another hustler any time you want, Xavier.”

Antonelli blinked in disbelief, but Ricky continued without a pause.

“Some of these items, especially the smaller ones, can’t be bought on credit; I have to pay up-front or no sale!”

“What’s that to me?” Antonelli snapped, hissing at a near whisper so that others wouldn’t hear.

“I don’t have any of this stuff in my inventory,” Ricky fired back; “I have to pre-pay! If you don’t want it after all…”

Antonelli’s intolerance was boiling over. To his way of thinking, all hustlers were opportunists and swindlers who lived for the chance to take an innocent man for all they could get. He had little use for Flatwalkers in general, but it was especially galling when their ill-mannered demands spilled out across the floor in front of normal people—good people.

“How much, damn you?”

“Two hundred and twenty gets you back to neutral,” Ricky answered at last, “plus six hundred to cover the list.”

“I’ve always paid my account on time, every month!”

“I know you have, but this is not a question of your account.”

“Then why are you pushing for it early?”

“These things are going to be hard enough to find,” Ricky lied, “and I have obligations from my other customers; I can’t use somebody else’s money!”

Ricky waited while Antonelli processed the demand—and his willingness to meet it. Beyond the suspect appearance it made, there was no special risk in being seen with a Flatwalker, at least from the perspective of Behavior Regulators who kept close tabs on such comings and goings, particularly among the Uppers. Antonelli knew few, if any, would complain about it and surely none of his neighbors who also traded secretly against rule and policy with street hustlers. Still, the abrupt tone of a common Flatwalker in public could not be excused; Antonelli had a place in society to consider, after all.

“All right, Slider,” he said in a voice dripping with contempt, “I’ll send down a thousand this evening, but understand this; if you come at me like you’re some kind of high and mighty commissioner ever again, I will make your life a worse option than hell!”

Ricky smiled and cocked his head to one side, unmoved by a threat both knew was hollow.

“On second thought, keep your money, Xavier; I’m sure you can find a better deal if you try.”

He turned suddenly for the vert, keeping to the right and out of the traffic flow of Uppers trying to make it back to work before the one o’clock siren, but Antonelli’s silent tug at an elbow stopped him.

“All right, damn it, you win! I said I’ll make the payment; what more do you want?”

Ricky moved close and lowered his voice.

“I don’t need your account, Xavier; I have plenty more just like it in every Sector of the city. Threaten me again and you can find this shit on your own, understand?”

Antonelli looked away, held in the place between his outrage and the effort it would take to find and cultivate another provider. He wanted desperately to thunder out his frustration and distaste for the likes of Ricky Mills, but despite the embarrassment he would suffer by capitulating, the Regulators would notice if he went searching for a new hustler. It was better to apologize and avoid being exposed.

“Oh all right! I’m very sorry, okay?”

The disingenuous tone didn’t matter to Ricky; a point had been made and accepted. He nodded silently and walked quickly toward the lifts. With fewer descending than those going up, they stopped only a few times until at last, Ricky went quickly to the transit station and a ride back to Sector 4.

“High and mighty,” he muttered with a sneer.

Antonelli’s bluster and severe tone made it all the more enjoyable to connive an extra six hundred Ricky knew perfectly well was needless for the transactions he would make. An Upper’s poorly concealed hostility toward street people was hardly surprising, but there were limits to what he would accept, especially from one who so often ignored the strident and controlling regulations applied to all who lived in comfort above the clouds. Hypocrisy came so easily to them, he thought quietly, and some deserved it when the opportunity to take advantage presented itself.

Ricky moved on to the other customers, just as intent on prying out their money ahead of schedule. It was still early, but Pradesh would be the next stop; he was likely at the freight station down near the southern wire, overseeing his agents who waded through cargo manifests in a dark, cluttered office where land trains passed through on their circuit between the sectors. Unlike most Uppers, the diminutive, reserved man chose to visit the surface on a consistent, predictable schedule and watch over his operations personally. Ricky found him on a rust-streaked loading dock, pointing laborers dramatically toward a delivery van as if his oversight was important to the process.

As he had done with Antonelli, a cautionary tale of delayed service unless pre-payment was made worked well enough to compel the token transfer without complaint. Once finished with Pradesh, Ricky found Perreault and Markley in their turn. It would take the better part of the afternoon to navigate across three sectors, but between them—and the money Antonelli would transfer that night—Ricky would have more than enough to pay for the hours he so badly needed with Neferure.

At 6:30, the sun dipped beneath the spires of mega-towers enough so that shadows competed with shafts of light angling sharply across the streets east of the city. As he knew they would, Perreault and Markley paid their tabs with only annoyed expressions; it was far better to settle than complain when both knew Slider had the connections (and discretion) no other hustler could match. Markley, the self-styled aristocrat who deliberately ignored the truth of his humble, illegitimate beginnings, made a minor fuss about the accounting numbers until he relented and settled his bill.

Payments were carried out with precision and few words until Ricky’s business was concluded in the late afternoon hours. Hidden and often illegal, trade in those shadowy corners went on unabated for decades and his evening’s work was no different. It took longer than he hoped, but there was still plenty of time. Ricky smiled, knowing the Starlight theaters ran 24 hours, catering to many who preferred going under cover of darkness in the absurd misperception their visits would go unnoticed. No one cared either way, but for some, the illusion of anonymity was important.

Reese Street Theater was Ricky’s favorite, if only for the newness and comfort of its experience cocoons, upgraded just weeks before. It felt good as he rounded the corner and jogged across the intersection at 12th Avenue, skillfully dodging land traffic until he reached the doors as they parted automatically. Cool, conditioned air pouring downward from vents high above the building’s entrance brought a moment of relief from the oppressive heat as he turned quickly for the lobby where other customers waited at a high counter to pay their fees.

He neither liked nor disliked Ellis Justman, the facility’s long-time manager, but Ricky preferred to avoid the customary and annoying banter so common at other Starlight theaters; at Reese Street, he could log-in and one of the attendants would show him to his cocoon without comment. At last it was time and in a few moments, he would be with her again.

Slowly, with the sensation people feel when they wake in a strange place after an overnight journey, the images cleared and gave way once more to the familiar—soothing and comfortable to ease the spirit. Thick mud along the shoreline smelled fresh and wet, while beyond, fields gifted the air with a scent of crops nearing harvest. Closer still, goat meat roasting on a dozen fires aside huts near the ancient river made for a pleasing, delicious aroma that seemed to welcome him back in the quiet and calm of early evening.

As mighty Ra descended beyond the necropolis on the western shore of the Nile, Ricky waited atop the steps of Ma’at Palace, now in the form of his software-generated alter ego; the soldier, Apheru. By the alchemy of the Starlight adventure simulation’s programming, he was a different man, living another existence; a warrior in the days of ancient Egypt and nothing like the struggling hustler trying to make his way in a harsh and indifferent urban expanse. Though his body lay still and quiet inside an experience cocoon, Ricky—Apheru—stood in a faraway place, both in distance and time, as though he had walked there three thousand years before.

Unlike a cheap video in the arcades on Ninth Street, Starlight made a second life as real and tangible as his own, but it was so much more; beyond the notice of others, it offered the chance to be something better. The simulation—and the moment—resumed from where he left off days before, but he knew the program’s intuitive plot engine would advance the storyline automatically in his absence.

A gentle, evening breeze wandered slowly through the city streets of Thebes, enveloping the royal quarters where the flames from delicate oil lamps danced and flickered in ornate, copper sconces. She was always late, but that truth carried no importance to one so much in love; the reward of Neferure’s touch made any delay pass unnoticed. An azure sky was especially beautiful on a night when only the quiet moments alone with her mattered, promising much-needed relief from battle and the duties expected of Pharaoh’s most skilled soldier. In the house of Hatshepsut, Apheru enjoyed the special attention and welcome available only to those most close to the divine lady, already preparing for sleep and content to leave nocturnal pursuits of affection and desire to the young.

The priests, persistent in their duty to direct the life of a princess in accordance with tradition, were absent; withdrawn discretely on her order so that she and Apheru could be truly alone. Perched at the end of a slender, teak peg set firmly into the stone wall, a favorite falcon preened in the dancing shadows, waiting too for his leave to sleep. At last, she appeared from behind sheer fabric curtains dyed in splendid shades of green and blue, moving effortlessly toward him with a smile so magical and captivating, Apheru felt the tingle along his spine when she reached for him. Princess Neferure, daughter and only child of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, held Apheru at an arm’s length, turning her head to one side playfully as she fought a compulsion to grin.

“And now,” she began, “you must tell me, my love; how could it be that so many days have passed since last you came to my chambers? Is there another, tempting your spirit and beckoning from some hot and empty place far to the south? Should I worry that a beautiful rival has captivated you?”

Apheru smiled at the notion, easing her gently toward an ornate, cedar settee swarming with pillows.

“I’m sorry, Princess; I’ve been so busy.”

“Oh?” she replied as she moved his hand to her waist. “Busy with the Ethiopians, or have the masters who rule from the strange place where you spend so much of your time delayed you once more?”

“There are many obligations that won’t wait, Princess; I cannot turn away from my responsibilities,” he replied with a reassuring smile.

“The ambassadors from across the sea who wait for an audience with my mother have no knowledge of this great metropolis that spawned you, yet it keeps you from me. Tell me, my beloved captain; are you growing weary of my affection?”

Apheru let his fingers play through her hair, soft as the finest silk and pleasing to the touch. He leaned close and traced the curve of her ear with his lips, speaking softly in a whisper that belonged only to her.

“You know that’s not true. There will never be a time when I could tire of this; no one could ever replace you in my heart.”

“So,” she replied with a coy smile, “may we presume you still belong to me, and I to you?”

“It will always be so, Princess,” he answered gently; “always.”

She moved him to her bed, drawing the curtains behind them with an obvious, telling smile. In her eyes, the fire of a need only Apheru could satisfy returned, arousing him at once as she tugged at his tunic with growing desperation that only made him want her more. Outside, the breezes ebbed beneath a vast field of stars and soon, only the sounds of urgent passion broke the silence where a princess to the throne of Egypt and her lover shuddered and groaned in unison, together again.

Above the palace, lonely Khonsu had risen at last—brilliant and silver—watching over the kingdom where it slept as he traced his wide arc across the sky in the slow, imperceptible journey made only by the gods. Afterward, they lay close together, spent and glistening in the flickering lamplight. He regarded her naked form for a while, letting his eyes play along her curves in admiration like a precious statuette in a royal gallery. As he always did, Apheru reached for a pitcher of cool water and poured a hand into a tall, golden cup. He sipped twice before offering it to Neferure, careful not to spill.

She took it and drank deeply, leaving only drops and Apheru refilled it quickly as she knelt on the wide bed and took his hands in hers.

“It seems you have been a topic of discussion these last days,” she said with mock indifference.

“Oh?” he replied cautiously, “Who would speak of me in this grand and honored place?”

“Pharaoh and General Nehkbet,” she answered quickly.

“I hope I have not disappointed them.”

Neferure paused, merely to heighten the drama, but at last she relented.

“You could never disappoint them. As it was recounted to me by the General this very morning, my mother has decided to give her attention to the question of your status as an approved suitor to my hand!”

The excitement was clear in her voice, like a child suddenly permitted to reveal a special and delightful secret. Apheru grinned, but he recovered so as not to be thought of as one who expected the news or believed himself entitled to its meaning.

“Pharaoh discussed this with the General?”

“She did, and he agreed; your position at court can now be established and declared.”

“Tell me, Princess, does this please you?”

“Of course it does! Do you not hear the voice of my heart in these words?”

It was Apheru’s turn to tease.

“I suppose so, but…”

Neferure threw his hands aside with a laugh before leaping once more into his arms, locking hers firmly around his neck.

“You should be more grateful, Captain! Once it has been announced, we needn’t confine our meetings to these hidden moments when the whole of the Kingdom slumbers. After we wed, you and I can take our pleasure together beside the pools with Ra himself looking on from above; no one would dare to speak against it!”

He kissed her gently and cradled her face in his palms.

“When will we know?”

“They would not say,” she answered, but her expression turned suddenly.

“Princess?”

She laid her head softly on Apheru’s shoulder, lacing her fingers behind him to lock their embrace and defend against the torment he could hear in her tone.

“The priests do not agree,” she whispered.

He knew what it meant.

“Thutmose.”

She nodded in silence, but Apheru spoke the words she could not.

“They still believe our union would injure Pharaoh’s bloodline.”

“My mother will decide, but the priests—and Senenmut in particular—still favor my cousin.”

“Senenmut should take care,” Apheru declared, “there are many who suspect his influence on Pharaoh’s decisions are more than those of an advisor. If the noblemen fear his actions are made from selfish intent, he may find himself on the wrong end of a palace guard’s spear; they are pledged to protect Pharaoh, even at the risk of offending her. You are certain General Nekhbet agrees with my nomination as your chosen suitor?”

“Yes,” she replied, “and he made clear his preference to Pharaoh.”

“Thutmose has been an honored soldier far longer than I,” Apheru continued; “perhaps his candidacy will be considered with favor on that count alone.”

“That is merely a pretense,” she sneered; “a carefully placed detail Senenmut hopes will sway my mother’s decision.”

“Why does he resent my application?” Apheru asked in exasperation, “I’ve never given him cause!”

“Thutmose is poisoned with jealous envy because he regards my womb as his possession by right as my cousin. He has never enjoyed it and he never will.”

“And Senenmut? He is neuter in all respects; there are no such interests for a eunuch, regardless of position.”

“His concern is political, and because you are…”

He finished her thought.

“Foreign.”

“He opposes your interest because you are not high-born of this Kingdom, nor of our family,” Neferure replied sadly, “and that is more important to Senenmut than my love for you, or your heroic service to Pharaoh and Egypt.”

“I’ve met and defeated adversaries far worse and more determined than him…”

“Do not underestimate Senenmut, Apheru; he will challenge any threat to our traditions without regard for consequence. He works tirelessly to gain my mother’s ear, but the priests already have his.”

“At least the General is with us,” said Apheru, but she could hear the ring of despair and resignation in his voice.

“When do you leave for Canaan?” she asked.

“In three days’ time,” he replied.

She moved closer and said, “They will come to regret their foolish arrogance, and it will be your chariot they see when the General’s army sweeps through them like a great blade; my mother will hear of the exploits and the name trumpeted at court upon your return will be Apheru. Thutmose can do nothing to change that!”

He reached for her once more.

“As long as I have your love and belief in me, nothing else matters. I admire and respect Thutmose, but the thought of you in his arms…”

She placed a single finger to his lips.

“Yours are the only arms that interest me.”

The black egg-shaped cocoon’s status display blinked amber as the program returned to its hold position, already calculating scenarios and adjusting scripts for the time it would be called upon again. The experience gallery’s lights remained dim where three dozen other cocoons sat in neat rows. Some were occupied by clients, but others waited empty to take a Starlight subscriber through to another world—a different life.

Reclined in the soft padding of his seat, Ricky rubbed his face, allowing vision to clear and blinking reflexively as slender, metallic arms withdrew a crown of input contacts slowly from his brow. It took a moment or two for the images to fade before he tapped sequential controls to open the long access panel upward with a hiss. The session consumed nearly two hours, but a deep, quiet satisfaction buoyed him as he paid the administration fee and walked quickly for a side exit onto Barrington Road.

Ricky scowled and blinked upward; the rains returned and with them, the familiar smell of wetted streets and rivulets of dirty water coursing steadily toward the storm drains. Thick fog hung motionless in the air, persistent and always clinging even to those most protected places, hastening the decay and corrosion that seemed forever ahead of Novum’s plodding repair crews. The narrow divide between mega-towers, built astride pavements and walkways in the last years of the Resurrection, made cliffs of glass and steel in all directions, holding the moisture in place as if stopped in time. It dripped in endless streams from overhangs and sky bridges, gathering in gutters with the garbage and refuse, but Ricky didn’t notice.

MPE searchlights played slowly across the shimmering surface from ten stories above, sweeping long shafts of cool blue light through the intersections where shift workers scurried for their pod trains. The beams held position once or twice, allowing the Watchers to identify and record land cars and taxis huddled in groups, or parked illegally in the rare, precious spaces where nothing had been built. They said it was different in the Old Time when people came and went without scrutiny, but Ricky ignored them and meaningless remembrances made by those who weren’t alive in a past they evoked as though the words alone would win them some measure of admiration. He looked upward to the cloud layer and another world beyond where the stars glittered above the haze—the Uppers enjoyed a different view that night, and one not meant for street people.

The evening crowd was thinning, but the afterglow of his time with Neferure held him tightly, making it difficult to shift from the alternate life he left inside a Starlight theater. The sensation eased at last, returned to a numbing reality waiting on the streets outside—patient and always there.

For those who were willing to meet its steep cost demand, Starlight remained the most popular diversionary software in the whole of Novum and a miracle of intuitive technology. But from it, a way to enhance the entertainment value of adventure simulations had been derived by enterprising marketers who understood its true potential. A full decade since it came online, the sophisticated, stunningly realistic program had become something more than a novelty. Now, it was a compelling, even unavoidable way of life for many seeking refuge from their ordinary existences in the teeming swirl of a metropolis still defining itself a century after the Fall.

So long as they could pay, most subscribers had been granted a Starlight account regardless of social station, willingly giving themselves over to its lure and promise of adventure; a secret hideaway from reality where one could do—or be—anything. Without content limits or restrictions, Starlight was a safe, discrete place to live out a virtual fantasy so realistic, some found it difficult to continue away from the privacy of an experience cocoon.

Despite fervent pleas from pockets of anti-technology zealots disappointed by Novum’s evolution away from the economic and cultural hegemony Abraham Standvor wanted it to be, more and more embraced Starlight each year. But with the phenomenon, nagging problems of addiction and social decay had become chronic. Ricky didn’t count himself among them, holding stubbornly to an illusion of control; he could enjoy it or not as he chose, but he was sure the decision was always his.

When he crossed the square, his thoughts were only of her. Ricky looked at the vacant streets but saw instead lingering images of pathways along the quiet Nile that always led to Ma’at Palace, or perhaps a chariot ride home to the General’s headquarters and the tents of his soldiers. It never rained there and the skies rarely brought even a hint of cloud. Winters in Thebes produced only longer shadows; there was no bone-chilling wind and snow that made Novum a frozen, icy wasteland. The Palace, caressed each day by calm waters flowing slowly on their way north was a better place, he decided, and one not congested, noisy and covered in filth. In every way, the Sector (and Novum) was the inescapable example of contradiction as an overcrowded, yet lonely nightmare. At Ma’at, he thought silently, they understood who he truly was and Neferure knew him better than anyone.

An hour later, as Ricky closed the door to his flat, he made the calculations in his mind: At eighty-thousand tokens per year, Premium Starlight membership and the unlimited hours privilege it offered was out of the question and such a luxury would remain forever beyond his grasp; only those above—the Uppers, their obedient Bosses, or perhaps even Antonelli—could ever accept so steep a payment obligation. Still, the hours he needed with her were never enough and changes would be made; more money had to be found.

At once, he thought of Elden Fellsbach. Retired or otherwise, the former chief architect of exploratory software that would become the Starlight simulation’s programming still held sufficient influence to make an arrangement for additional time at any theater in Novum. It wasn’t necessary before, of course, but the need had never been so great or compelling. He couldn’t bear to hear the loneliness in Neferure’s voice, wondering aloud why the time between visits had become lengthier—their desperate, intoxicating encounters fewer. In the morning, Ricky thought with a satisfied grin, he would return to the old man’s apartment on the 80th floor, deep inside Marshall Center. Though it had been months since their last visit, Elden would have the answer.

By mid-day, the mist turned to a downpour. Ricky watched news feed images of a slow-moving weather system, obliging him to throw on a cloudy, plastic rain cover that forever leaked through its hood and down the back of his neck. The muggy air would only make worse his misery from body heat trapped inside a vinyl cloak with nowhere to go, but as he turned for the door, a chirp from his communicator sounded suddenly at his wrist; it was Vinnie Bayle, no doubt calling to check on an order for a case of expensive Topaz in half-liter bottles Ricky promised to find at a discount. He touched the comm’s tiny faceplate and answered with a dull voice to imply he had been awakened; an old trick, meant to convince an unwelcome caller the moment was inconvenient.

“Hullo?”

“Slider, it’s me.”

“What’s going on?”

“Have you seen the info-nets this morning?”

Ricky had, but there was nothing of interest beyond dire warnings of flooding near the river and at least four of the active canals up to the north already saw their banks threatened.

“No,” he lied.

“Turn it on; you need to see this.”

Vinnie was easily impressed by street news, but the moment was ill-suited for idle distractions that seemed forever captivating to his childhood friend.

“I was just on my way out; what’s on the ‘net that’s so important?”

“Just turn it on,” Vinnie insisted; “this is big.”

Ricky waited through a public safety message about the perils of wandering too close to the freight tracks until a video image showed two men being led away in handcuffs to a waiting MPE sky van. He recognized them at once, suddenly alert with a powerful, electric sense of urgency. An unseen commentator’s voice told of arrests and charges filed for possession of forbidden contraband in violation of municipal laws. As a camera drone hovered nearby, the men in custody turned and Ricky squinted in disbelief at the faces of Geraldo Espinoza and Benjamin Courtnall as they each stepped through the van’s narrow hatchway. A headline runner at the bottom of the vid screen showed their names and the sector where MPE officers found them in their hidden quarters.

“I’ll call you back,” Ricky said in reflex, tapping off his comm’s link.

Others, held by the entertainment value of a rare spectacle, would have looked only at the prisoners or heavily armed MPE troopers, but Ricky knew better. Instead, his attention went quickly to the surroundings in order to gauge the images and scan them for clues. The blackened, cinder-covered dirt was uneven and strewn with mud puddles, but he looked closely at ancient, ramshackle buildings beyond, clad in cheap, tin panels and treated in the usual, drab shades of anti-corrosion paint. Rooftops, gently sloped with corrugated shingle plates, betrayed the structure as one of many in the seldom-used warehouse district where a few of the old surface factories stored machinery and out-of-date merchandise in a thin, desperate hope market fluctuations would one day return the forgotten goods to a status of value. Ricky looked again; it was years since they ventured into the Industrial Zone, but he knew at once where the arrests were made, smiling at a secret well-hidden, but now exposed.

Every hustler in the sector would hear of it within minutes, if they hadn’t already; Ricky knew time and a window to move were both shrinking. After all, he thought with a satisfied grin, it wasn’t every day two of the Bosses—the mid-level administrators who stood as functional intermediaries between privileged Uppers and the teeming, less fortunate Flatwalkers—were taken away by the cops. Things had changed since the new Commission came to power, it was said. Before, the once bullet-proof Bosses did as they liked, but now, even they had been given limits. Ricky could not have asked for so opportune a moment, watching them speed Espinoza and Courtnall away to an uncomfortable arraignment hearing in front of the city’s unyielding magistrates.

Fumbling quickly for his bag, Ricky felt the excitement and sense of possibility begin to grow. Perhaps they pushed their chances once too often, he supposed, but that error could change his luck dramatically. How could it be, he wondered? Courtnall and Espinoza were the controlling force for the entire Sector’s undercity rackets, with soldiers, snitches and ‘sweepers’ counting in the hundreds. If two so influential and powerful could be brought down in public, their indiscretions must surely have been grave. Ricky played out the scenario in his mind, moving cautiously through a mental checklist to avoid missing crucial details; there was too much at stake for a wrong step now. He grinned openly at the image of one particular building in the news vid; the weathered structure was key, and Ricky knew it.

The Bosses were thought by many on the hustle to have made and maintained secret places scattered throughout the Industrial Zone where no one went—dangerous places, frequented by desperate streeties who would kill lost or wayward travelers trying to make it inside the border from beyond the wire, simply for a handful of tokens or just the clothes on their backs. Still, no one found those most guarded places among the abandoned fabrication plants and disused storage buildings in all his days on the street. Some regarded it as little more than grandiose rumor, but none were brave (or foolish) enough to look and Ricky was grateful for the security an old legend had made.

In a brief moment of fortune, the unwitting news cameras had done the work for him; Ricky had only to confirm that MPE’s hunt for evidence was concluded and he would take care of the rest. They would comb the area thoroughly, he knew, but cops were never bright enough to see the obvious; Ricky had always looked with better eyes. In the late hours, he would journey out to the Zone and poke around in places rarely discovered by the police.

Suddenly unconcerned for the heavy rainfall, Ricky went quickly from his flat. The cityscape was hazy and dulled by sheets of rain, obscuring all but the most prominent mega-towers across the sector. In the daytime darkness made by a heavy cloud layer, even the streetlights had switched on and Ricky closed his eyes to drift away, taken by the ever-present thoughts and images from that faraway place. Was Neferure thinking of him, he wondered? Could she? There would be changes if he could manage a reconnaissance mission and bring back the riches he knew were hidden within a dank, lonely building on the edge of the Industrial Zone.

When the train arrived at a plaza where Ninth Street crossed Moss Avenue, Ricky waited for an automatic door release to open the pod’s wide hatch, stepping cautiously onto the soaked platform at last. He went quickly through the crowd, jogging first left, then to the right as he struggled to find his pace. The lines were thinning and he found an MPE kiosk where it stood at a busy intersection. The tall, tube-shaped enclosure shimmering in the rain was perched atop a single pillar set deep into the concrete.

A station officer leaned his elbows on an open window frame, offering directions to the Trade and Commerce Building for three travelers, but Ricky waited for them to go before hurrying beneath a conical overhang to escape the rain. Sergeant Walter Ritnour, an MPE beat cop on the Corridor for as long as Ricky could remember, noticed him at last.

“Well, well, well; Slider Mills. What brings you all the way over here?”

Ricky smiled and glanced behind to make sure no one could overhear.

“Oh, just business; picking up, dropping off…the usual.”

Ritnour eyed Ricky’s bag and said, “You wouldn’t have anything illegal in there, would you?”

Ricky held up the empty sack.

“Nothing at all, see?”

“I’ll take your word for it. Now tell me why you wandered down to Ninth in a driving rain; I know you’re not here just to say ‘hello,’ are you?”

Ricky shook his head and laughed a little so that Ritnour wouldn’t stray from his presumption that only street business was in-play.

“Can’t a guy stop in and bullshit with his favorite cop?”

“Sure,” Ritnour replied, “if that was the reason for his visit, but…”

Ricky answered quickly; he couldn’t afford to appear tentative.

“I need to check on a few things with the door guy at the Imperial; he’s been helpful finding new customers, and I have a few minutes to kill so I ducked in here. You’re a suspicious bastard!”

“Uh huh,” said Ritnour with clear skepticism. “I guess that’ll have to do; you wouldn’t tell me if it was something else anyway.”

“I’m legit; nothing to hide this time!”

Ritnour nodded and smiled, knowing Ricky’s assurances were likely half-truths at best.

“So, how’s your mom doing? I heard she had a bad time with her shoulder?”

Ricky felt the relief at once. Ritnour may well have suspected other intentions, but he was willing to accept Ricky’s explanation and leave it alone, at least for the moment.

“Yeah, she fell at work and tore it when she landed wrong. The clinic couldn’t do much, so she had to wait for a slot up at the hospital. By the time those assholes called her in, her shoulder was so swollen she could hardly dress.”

“Is she okay now?”

“Doing a lot better, thanks. They gave her something to take care of the pain and inflammation, but she had to go back last month and they operated on her.”

“Did she get a decent settlement, at least?”

“They paid up pretty good if she agreed to stay on after she was better, so…”

“No problems from the company?”

“Not this time,” Ricky said with a smirk; “the people who run her shift at the plant stuck up for her; they made the managers cough up twice what she would’ve gotten on her own.”

Ritnour shook his head knowingly.

“The clinics aren’t worth shit, but I’m surprised they got her in at a Sector 4 hospital that fast; it usually takes months to even get a diagnosis.”

“I know,” Ricky answered, grateful for the casual tone of the conversation. “I think the plant managers wanted to avoid any bad publicity, so they worked it with the doctors to see her sooner.”

“Small favors, eh?”

Ricky nodded and smiled.

“So how’ve you been lately? I thought they were going to give you a desk job this year.”

“Nope,” said Ritnour with a satisfied grin, “I refused it and asked to be left at my post right here. Can’t watch out for baddies when you’re stuck behind a goddamn desk all day, can you?”

“Hell no!” Ricky laughed. “And anyway, this street would go to shit if you weren’t here to keep an eye on it; everyone knows that.”

“That’s right—all you little hoodlums and streeties need a firm hand!”

The banter was perfect. Ritnour liked trumpeting his disdain for the bureaucrats at MPE Sector Headquarters and once he started, his mind wouldn’t likely return to more suspicious thoughts. It was the moment Ricky had been waiting for.

“Hey, what the hell happened with Espinoza and Courtnall? The news vids said your guys finally nailed them out in the Zone at some warehouse?”

“I heard about it this morning at our briefing. Hope you didn’t have anything in the works with those two; Investigations Section will be all over that place.”

“Shit, I stay as far away from Bosses as I can,” Ricky said, holding up his hands in mock surrender; “I don’t want any part of them.”

He waited for a moment, but Ritnour hadn’t taken the bait. He decided to steer the conversation gently, probing for what he needed.

“I hear they found them inside an old storage building on the edge of the 217 Canal; the one with the green roof?”

“Not that one,” Ritnour replied, “it was an empty machine shop. They kept some of their illegal stuff inside and our people found out about it.”

Ricky tried hard not to smile; Ritnour confirmed the vacant building where Mister Anthony went to meet with Courtnall years before was indeed his target. He moved quickly to continue the conversation.

“The detectives will have a good time when they get their hands on it, won’t they?”

“They already have,” said Ritnour with noticeable pride. “I heard they brought in a dozen inspectors and really worked that place for hours.”

“Still, it’s probably going to take days, right?”

“Not for those boys; they scoured around non-stop and pulled everything out to the evidence vans—more stuff than anyone has ever seen in one place. Just like that—bang, bang, bang, then they locked it up and went downtown. You’d never know they were there!”

At last, Ricky had what he needed. The MPE investigation was complete, paving the way for him to slip in under cover of night and look where no cop would’ve thought to try.

“Damn! Well, it’s not going to break my heart if the magistrates send them to the cylinders; they’re both assholes and they made life hard on a lot of people.”

Ricky had to pass through the obligatory small talk, simply to avoid tipping his hand. Begging off now, he reasoned, Ritnour might notice and wonder why.

“Oh, they’re on their way, believe me.”

“How do you know?”

“The stuff they found laying all over that building was more than enough evidence; they won’t be seeing daylight again any time soon, not if the Magistrate’s prosecutors have anything to say about it.”

“Good!” said Ricky. “It’s gonna be interesting to see who fills the gap, now that these idiots are gone, especially Courtnall; he’d slit your throat for looking at the clock wrong.”

“He won’t have the chance,” Ritnour declared; “When they get you with that much contraband, you’re pretty much screwed.”

“Have you heard something else?”

“Nothing I can tell you, Slider! I know your network goes all the way up, but my job is more important to me than your next score!”

“That’s a shitty thing to say.”

“Maybe, but it’s also true!”

Ricky smiled again. It had been a nice chat, but Ritnour was still cautious enough to watch his words; the strange relationship between cop and street hustler hadn’t changed and Ricky’s signal to withdraw had been given.

“I’m gonna head out.”

“Okay, Slider; mind how you go.”

Ricky paused for a moment before leaning close to whisper up at Ritnour.

“You need anything from me?”

Ritnour smiled and shook his head.

“Not today, but thanks for asking.”

Ricky nodded and stepped quickly through the rain, but as he went, Ritnour’s smile faded. He watched for a moment, waiting until the Slider disappeared before tapping a call code into his wrist comm.

The ride went slower than usual as maintenance crews struggled yet again with a pod train stuck on its overhead rail between stations in the pouring rain. When at last he turned down the alley for home, Ricky felt the excitement building with each step. The other hustlers, he thought with a grin—those saps who went along with the rest like stupid sheep—would never consider such a thing. If he could get out to the Industrial Zone and search the old machine shop before anyone else thought to try, the bounty would be considerable and more than enough to stock his account at the theater for nearly endless sessions. As he tossed his bag on the floor beneath the window, Ricky ran through his mind the steps needed to make it to the Zone and home again undetected.

The problem of enraging psychotic murderers like Espinoza and Courtnall had been removed by their timely arrests, but the Watchers could foul things considerably. Those dull, civilian misfits MPE maintained to stare at status displays and transit access records ‘round the clock from a bunker downtown might have been instructed to search for telltale signs inside system alerts. Perhaps, Ricky thought, anyone curious enough to go out that far, especially late at night, would show when their identification scans registered a trip on the pod train that made its turn near the borders of the warehouse compound. When they did, he knew, the Watchers would see it immediately and react. Instead, he would have to follow a different path, and one followed completely off the grid.

It was far enough to the Zone to rule out trying it on foot, but that meant hopping a local land freight, or asking Vinnie to borrow his father’s delivery van. In the end, he opted for the guaranteed anonymity of the surface freight trains; Vinnie was another pair of eyes who would see and know—another risk to be taken and interrogated if MPE ever came to suspect.

Ricky pulled his boots from tired feet and tossed them aside, intent on getting sleep before his journey that would begin in the hours after midnight. The rains would be heaviest in the early morning hours, the news vids insisted, making it unlikely his movements would be noticed; MPE rarely bothered to patrol on foot without a reason, especially in horrid weather. Once more, he settled and let his mind wander. When he faded, his last thoughts were only of Neferure. He remembered her excitement at the prospect of the fearsome Apheru, finally approved and named as her suitor. Soon, Ricky thought in the sweltering darkness, his rise through the layers of court politics would be secured by the word of Pharaoh herself; no one would stand between them again.

Ricky slipped quietly from his flat as the huge chronometer in the center of Morrissey Square clicked over to 1:12. Despite the late hour, it would take time to walk the distance between his home and the low-speed tracks where cars of still-glowing alloy ingots were shunted through the darkness from the new foundry, destined for noisy rolling presses and hammers of metal processing plants on the border where the Zone met the canals—bleak, soulless and mostly deserted.

Aboard an empty flat car, Ricky watched through the darkness as the train clacked and trundled beyond the Sector border into the wide spaces between habitat cells where identical, ten-floor apartment structures loomed in neat rows. It was mercifully cooler than the days before and a heavy blanket of fog had drifted in from beyond the wire to linger across the entire Zone, ghostlike and eerie. Most would dread the prospect, but for Ricky, the heavy mist was a silent ally that would frustrate the view for anyone who might have noticed on clearer nights.

As the freight slowed around a wide curve, Ricky looked for his chance. The fields and vacant lots gave way to the first darkened structures where a footpath aimed directly and suddenly toward the Zone as Ricky’s comm clock showed 2:43. Well beyond the busier neighborhoods (and any nuisance an MPE checkpoint would make), he turned toward the old cracking plant where monstrous pressure vessels and connecting pipes stood in silence, silhouetted against the pale gray cloud cover.

But it was not the blackened, malevolent shapes in the twilight that were disturbing to Ricky—he’d made the trip before. Instead, it was the likelihood others waited within that brought a nagging sensation of dread as he padded silently through soaked, ankle-high weeds between two control stations. Streeties—hungry, feral and desperate—often took shelter against the rain in old, empty structures where few dared to venture, especially at night. Once roused, they would gladly run down and attack a loner so far out from the safety of the Sector’s lights and MPE patrols.

After twenty minutes, the angular shapes appeared slowly out of the fog as Ricky drew near. A heavy chain fence encircled a dozen structures within, three meters tall and fitted with elaborate, endless coils of razor wire; an effective barrier that kept out all who came without the lock codes to one of the gates or knowledge of another way inside, especially wanderers or streeties looking for a haven against the weather.

The complex went dormant years earlier when the Zone’s output dwindled. Each new plant moved deep below the surface into the cavernous, subterranean factory district meant one less on the surface. A handful of fabrication shops remained in the control of one property group or another, while the rest waited for a demolition team’s torches. Suddenly a deserted and forgotten place, the warehouse enclave’s solitude made for Ricky an ideal condition suited perfectly to searching about in the dead of night.

Nearly a decade passed since Mister Anthony brought him along on a ‘business trip’ to meet with some of his associates, but Ricky understood when Courtnall waited for them at a narrow gate on a dark and blustery autumn day. Even then, Ricky knew Mister Anthony’s affairs were mostly illegal, but he kept quiet and took in all he could against the day when his first missions running for the old master brought him money no apprenticeship in the factories could match. In the dank, humid silence, Ricky paused again and remembered the stern faces of Courtnall’s men, dressed in cheap, shiny suits only thugs on the street seemed to wear, palming guns none of them felt the slightest compulsion to hide. As Mister Anthony chatted with Courtnall, Ricky had made a purposeful survey of his surroundings, determined to memorize the details in a place where remaining ever alert often meant the difference between life and death.

In those early days, it was intoxicating for a kid from the housing blocks; plastic cartons full of new tokens were stacked beside tables heaped with the illegal treasures he would eventually route between the streets and the Uppers years later as a matter of course. A skinny, quiet boy who watched and listened more than he spoke, Ricky noticed everything, but mostly those places where Courtnall and Espinoza locked an office door behind them, or pulled back a stack of empty crates beyond the sight of others.

He watched it all, flicking a thumb against his ring finger nervously in the silence, surrounded by five or six menacing brutes who did the unspeakable things the Bosses ordered—people like Junkyard. So long ago, he looked and learned, committing to memory a floor plate’s location here, or a collection of solvent barrels there. The early days brought thrilling and dangerous missions when Mister Anthony entrusted him at last with those tiny packages, but he knew even then it was tomorrow that held more promise than today; Ricky was learning how to become the Slider. Ten years later, the effort was about to pay off as he found a rusted, metal hatch concealing a drainage culvert and slipped unseen inside, struggling to make his way in ankle-deep rain water and sand collected at the bottom of a two-meter, concrete tube. When he climbed crude, metal rungs set into the cement of a vertical pipe, feeling his way in the echoes and darkness, another hatch opened onto the muddy ground thirty yards beyond the barrier; at last, he was inside the fence.

Ricky waited a moment, turning in a slow circle to inspect the wide apron between the ends of two warehouses. At once, he knew where the target building hid in the mist, making the short walk down a row of outbuildings and smaller workshops in minutes. Finally, the blood-red warehouse loomed, dark and quiet before him. A tiny hatchway, hidden behind an old freight container, had never been locked and when it gave way easily to his touch, Ricky smiled in silence. A moment later, he stood alone inside the building where only hours before, a swarm of policemen and investigators played the beams of their bright hand lamps in a vain attempt to find something more to help convict the two Bosses and add to an already lengthy jail term. Ricky knew the answer would be revealed near an office and the secret place it kept hidden from unwanted eyes.

He moved quickly across the oil-stained floor, cluttered with cast-off junk and personal rubbish, avoiding shallow puddles of water made by leaks from the aging roof panels above. The place still held the stink of grease and chemicals, but he reached the little office where it sat, solitary and exposed on the north end of the building. At once, the memories returned; he could hear Mister Anthony’s strange twang, yattering with Courtnall in deliberate, careless tones. But more than that, he remembered the ancient, metal shelving where it lay flush against the office wall.

With a knowing smile, Ricky pulled an empty rack forward a few inches, careful to lift it from the floor and avoid the metallic screech that might betray him to anyone lurking nearby. There, as it had always been, a small grate—heavy and serrated across its upper edges—lay neatly into a drain trough. It looked to the unsuspecting eye as if the filth, sludge and mud from decades of use had left it completely clogged, but Ricky knew better. He positioned himself directly above and pulled. At once, it came free and he set it carefully onto the floor to look inside the trough. A thin, sheet metal pan filled with muck came free with little effort, revealing two small compartments recessed into one side of the trough’s concrete sides, confirming what he so desperately needed to see; the Bosses left behind a prized possession and MPE bunglers had missed it entirely.

Wrapped in dark canvas, two small containers opened with ease and inside each were a dozen token transfer chips, data sticks and bits of jewelry. Ricky could only guess as to their value in the underground markets where burglars and stick-up men traded their stolen loot, but it followed that anything held and carefully concealed by Courtnall and Espinoza would necessarily be counted as rare or exceedingly valuable. Moving quickly, he stuffed the contents into his bag and secured it on his back, retracing his steps to the little hatch. A few minutes later, he was once again outside the fence line, resisting a temptation to run and determined to avoid being noticed should anyone linger unseen in the fog. A slow freight ride would have him back inside Sector 4 in an hour’s time.

It was nearing 4:30 when Ricky pushed open the door of his flat and slipped inside. If Mrs. Abber was watching, she would likely suspect only his customary return from normal, evening rounds, but it didn’t matter; he had what he needed and with it, the way to a better life. He laid the pack carefully behind his couch near a wall so that no one would notice. It had been weeks since Litzi’s last visit, he thought suddenly; it wouldn’t do if his sister saw and looked inside.

He leaned wearily against the counter in his kitchen and opened a can of diluted fruit concentrate with a loud snap. In the silence, he sipped the cool juice, letting it slide down his parched throat slowly. It was best to wait, he thought, just to be sure; the cops could look and look, but the race had already been won. Soon, the infonets would tell a woeful tale of conviction for crimes against the people of Novum and life-ending jail sentences, putting Courtnall and Espinoza’s once-grand syndicate out of business.

With luck, the other Bosses would hesitate before moving in, if only to maintain a discrete distance until public outrage from above died down. If he could manage it, the power vacuum might be filled in smaller, less noticeable increments. More than just the value of a secret cache, the departure of the Sector’s most notorious Bosses could open once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Perhaps, he thought silently, he would earn enough to elevate his status to that of a junior Boss. Maybe then, Boris and his partners would find Slider a different man indeed; a man not to be trifled with. Better yet, he nodded to no one, they would come to understand their mistake in tormenting Ricky Mills. Tomorrow, he thought, a full, three-hour session with Neferure would make for a wonderful celebration. When he felt her touch again, he would stand before her a better man.

After the crush of mid-day when the crowds at Reese Street Theater began to thin, Ricky slipped once more through that strange gate between the conscious world and another where she waited patiently until Apheru returned. He could hear them beyond the colonnades as he walked, slowing when the voice of Thutmose—clear and unmistakable beyond the delicate curtains—became low and mocking.

“Does he hold you here? Your stranger; he touches his lips to yours on this very settee?”

“You know him as well as I,” Neferure answered with a laugh; “his name is as easily drawn from your memory as mine. Has the heat of our desert blunted and sapped your mind so that you cannot recall so simple a word, or do you fear saying it, just as you fear him?”

“Answer me,” Thutmose ordered.

“Answer me first!” she replied defiantly, unconcerned for the rage she knew it would bring. “You may hold title and a place as my cousin, but Apheru holds my heart and that is something you will never have!”

Apheru paused, ready to move should Thutmose go beyond himself, but the rival to Neferure’s hand only returned a laugh of his own.

“You speak as though the decision has been made, cousin! Perhaps my delay fighting Pharaoh’s enemies where the river reaches the great sea has kept me from important news. Has Pharaoh decided, but forgot somehow to tell her own nephew?”

“No decision has yet been reached, Thutmose, but her majesty is under no obligation to tell anyone until she chooses—not even her nephew,” said Apheru as he parted the curtains and walked to an oiled teak banquet table to pluck grapes from a bowl. “And yes, I hold the princess here and she holds me; have you not enjoyed a similar gift from concubines in the city? My agents tell me you are with them often enough…”

Thutmose shook his head with a grin.

“I wonder if such poisonous words would pour as easily from your mouth in the presence of my Aunt. Would you be as bold before great Senenmut? Perhaps you are brave enough to insult them as you insult me?”

Apheru tossed a grape to Thutmose and said, “Has speaking the truth suddenly become equivalent to insults, noble warrior? I only answered your question; there was no implied slight to you or Pharaoh. Senenmut does not concern me, but perhaps the word of General Nekhbet should concern you, since your position as a soldier depends on his judgment.”

“Ah,” Thutmose replied quickly, “that same condition applies as well to you, dear Captain, does it not?”

“Indeed it does, but my service to the General and my love for Pharaoh are well-known and irrefutable; I do not fear the intrigues of others who cannot tolerate honest debate and the fair measurement of deeds.”

Apheru watched the anger rising in his adversary, but Thutmose looked away instead, making the small adjustments in his tone that so often paved a way for the darker spirits of his nature to slip through unnoticed. Neferure knew better.

“Well, Thutmose? What do you say in your defense? Could any argument now sway my heart when clearly it is Apheru I love?”

“Love?” Thutmose sneered. “How do simple desires matter in the decisions of marriage? Would Pharaoh obviate her duty to the people of Egypt, merely to satisfy a silly girl’s wishes?”

“Again you underestimate the Princess, Thutmose,” Apheru said with a nod.

“And she underestimates me,” Thutmose replied quickly, moving close to Neferure. “Your most heated, fearsome passion for this jackal is nothing when balanced against the word of Pharaoh.”

“Take care with your tone, Thutmose,” Neferure hissed, “she is my mother!”

“She is also our king,” Thutmose smiled; “you would do well to remember that truth, Princess.”

On his way, he stopped only to aim a determined stare at Apheru for a moment before disappearing beyond the sheer curtains. Neferure went quickly to Apheru and he gathered her in his arms. Thutmose’s words were suitable only to be carried on the wind to the vaults at Giza, she insisted, but the torment of a possibility too horrible to think of would not relent. She laid her head upon his shoulder.

“It can never be so,” she said softly. “We were born to each other and that is the only place I will ever go.”

Outside, the shouts of boatmen calling to shore for palace attendants to make ready announced the arrival of a royal barge, slowing as it neared the banks of the sacred river.

“Who comes to visit?” Apheru asked, craning for a better view. She said nothing.

“Princess?”

Neferure walked to the broad steps of the palace, shielding her eyes with a hand against the glare across the calm surface of the water, reflecting the light of Ra more bright and powerful than a thousand torches.

“It is Amenemhab; a lieutenant in one of Thutmose’s battalions. They met while serving Pharaoh at a garrison near the cataracts.”

“I’ve heard of this officer,” Apheru said with a frown, “but not so frequently that his nature is well-known. Why would he arrive on a royal barge?”

“Perhaps Thutmose has used his influence to spare his friend and favorite soldier the fatigue of traveling across the land to reach us.”

“Maybe,” Apheru replied, but the intrigue that played out with Thutmose only moments earlier seemed far beyond coincidence. Again, the challenges to Apheru’s standing had risen to frustrate and confound, placing his position at court in jeopardy. If Thutmose was successful in swaying General Nekhbet, Apheru thought silently, even Pharaoh herself might be turned against him—against Neferure, too. He decided to wait and let Thutmose’s plan emerge; without the General’s full support, any rival to the hand of Neferure would stand little chance of convincing Hatshepsut to act against her own daughter’s wishes, regardless of the priest Senenmut’s loud, intrusive pleas. He smiled and took Neferure’s hand in his.

“Shall we walk a while? It’s a beautiful morning and only your loveliness is more compelling.”

“Very well, Captain; I am yours to command!” she said with a grin. “But when we return, I want you all to myself.”

As they turned for the broad footpath beside the river where they enjoyed evening strolls, another watched from behind the curtains where they fluttered gently in the warm wind.

“We shall see, Apheru,” Thutmose whispered where he waited for Amenemhab; “we shall see…”

Ricky stepped from the cocoon once more, aiming for the gallery’s exit and the theater’s broad, garish lobby to pay his fee. Justman sat at an awkward angle atop an old, padded barstool, wincing with each slight adjustment against the pain he insisted was a lingering reminder of military service—a noble legacy of solemn, selfless duty as a conscript in the city’s Defense Bureau from the days when Novum fought the last war against Veosa, the closest city-state and neighbor far across the Broadlands. No one believed him, and the notion of Justman as a soldier was a customary, local joke. Still, Ricky allowed the oily, ever-perspiring little man the indulgence of his fantasy just the same.

A permanent fixture, it seemed, like the tasteless magenta and purple wallpaper that surrounded her, Lady Gem sat silently in the folds of an enormous lounger. The chair’s faux-leather fabric was faded and worn, but she took no notice, concerning herself instead with a decades-old fashion catalogue and the possibilities of fresh and outrageous additions to her wardrobe. Her days as a bit-part actress on the vids were a distant memory, but excessive makeup—and outfits cut for a more slender figure—kept her rooted to a better time when riders in a pod train would point and smile, keeping alive another day the dreams of thespian notoriety that never quite panned out. Justman’s sleepy eyes and the false, saccharine smile he always wore met Ricky as he thumbed the transfer code and fee amount into the glass panel of the theater’s pay station.

“So, Slider; how goes your effort to win the hand of the Princess?”

Ricky felt his face flush, wishing once more he hadn’t described the details of his simulation in such detail to others, especially Ellis Justman.

“Oh, it’s going well enough,” he replied.

“Will you get to fight the other one—the nephew?”

“I’m not sure; we’ll have to see what happens next, won’t we?”

Ricky was determined to avoid a lengthy discussion with Justman. Some found it enjoyable—the ones who loitered around the theater with nothing better to do—given over to their simulations as a way of life in the vain hope familiarity as a theater ‘regular’ might win them free hours in an experience cocoon. His way was better, he decided long before; the time spent with Neferure was thoughtful and genuine, not like the desperate and perverse who seemed forever drawn to Starlight for the wrong reasons.

Ricky looked away to hide his disgust. Many who took subscriptions found immersive simulations the best, often only option to satisfy their needs, while others simply went in search of companionship they could never find in their real lives. He looked at them in silent contempt where they gathered near the counter, laughing much too loudly at Justman’s idea of clever jokes. Some were outsiders and misfits with desires and habits so unpleasant, even the boulevard prostitutes refused their advances. Not the clean ones—the preening, ill-tempered professionals who worked the hotels and mid-level buildings in the heart of Novum—but common streetwalkers with out-of-date disease cards and mottled skin; crude night girls who smelled of disinfectant and contraceptive foam, trapped in dead-end lives that so often ended too soon.

Starlight subscribers down on the streets simply couldn’t afford obedient, rubber-skinned pleasure units that became fashionable among elite Uppers; expensive, humanoid robots in plastic wigs and revealing lingerie were out of reach to the average Flatwalker. Some preferred virtual encounters if only to avoid complications should others discover the true nature of their depravity, comfortable in the knowledge Starlight never revealed its secrets. Ricky saw little difference and he despised them equally, wrinkling his nose at lives so dull and without purpose beyond selfish, puerile interests. Only the virtual warmth of a programmed character stood between some of them and suicide, he was sure, but they were all uniformly comical and absurd. Ricky’s program was something more; cultivated and rewarding beyond any cheap sex fantasy an ignorant ‘regular’ could conjure.

He went quickly to the sidewalk along Reese Street and turned for the Square, stopping at once when he saw two figures waiting beneath a cluster of street lamps at the corner. Vaclav Bartel tumbled the little magnets in his palm as he always did, clicking them and separating one from another effortlessly and in measured cadence. Junkyard, the hulking sociopath who provided muscle to back up Bartel’s demands, leaned against the smooth, lavender-painted façade of the theater, seemingly unburdened by a huge raincoat that doubtless hid more than one fearsome weapon. Bartel moved suddenly, as if he worried Ricky might miss them, or at least pretend to and try to slip by.

“Hello, Slider,” he said in the nasally, Bohemian accent Ricky had learned to hate. “We ain’t seein’ you in so long; how you been?”

Ricky felt the tension build, remembering that Bartel never appeared unless he wanted something. With few exceptions, that need meant unpleasant tasks were coming, or the wrath of those Bartel served if he failed.

“I’m doing okay,” Ricky replied, trying his best not to show the rising discomfort.

“You been here a lot, I see; plenty of time in them sims, huh?”

“It’s a good program.”

“Justman, he says you show up two, three times a week now; not like before when you was just getting all the way in, know what I mean?”

“Ellis has nothing to bitch about; he gets his percentage. Anyway, what do you want, Vaclav?”

Bartel smiled at Junkyard quickly, flashing the wide smile and gold teeth he wore as badges to remind others of his authority; the feared lieutenant of a street Boss with a reputation that harmonized with his ruthless nature.

“You don’t gotta be like that, Slider! We just talk a while, see?”

“I don’t owe Boris anything; what’s there to talk about?”

“Oh well, the news is really good these days—we could talk about that, maybe.”

Bartel would come around to the point soon enough, but there was little doubt his question was framed by the arrests of two powerful Bosses; everyone on the street was talking about it and Bartel’s visit was always a matter of time.

“I haven’t looked,” Ricky said, knowing it wouldn’t make any difference.

“Oh, you been inside with your computer sweetie too long, maybe? Well, let me tell you all about it!”

Ricky looked away in frustration—sudden and obvious—but Junkyard moved toward him at once.

“You better listen up, boy!”

Bartel pretended to laugh.

“It’s okay, Junkyard! Slider ain’t gonna make no problems for us. He know already what I mean, don’t you, Slider?”

“Espinoza and Courtnall.”

Bartel only nodded, but his expression had changed. The false and contrived pretense of friendship was gone, replaced instead by a worried expression Ricky had seen before.

“Yeah, them two, they get zipped up by MPE boys last night and lot of things go real crazy, don’t they?”

“I heard about it.”

Bartel only stared and Ricky felt the sickening feeling, hidden deep inside where he kept all his secrets, begin to emerge. Could they know he’d been there? Had unseen eyes, hiding in the fog out near the Zone, reported to Bartel a late-night adventure to the now-empty machine shop?

“Everyone hears about it,” Bartel continued, “but they don’t see what it means, do they? Not like us…”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh? Maybe you ain’t givin’ yourself no credit, Slider. From the streeties all the way to them Uppers, everyone says you got a nice view all across the city. They all tellin’ it the same, that nothin’ ever go by without the Slider see and know. We could learn how to do it from him, eh Junkyard?”

Ricky’s fears tugged at him, demanding an escape, but he knew better; he had to stay within himself and let Bartel’s intent play itself out.

“They’re looking at a long time in jail, I know that much,” he offered, but Bartel wasn’t impressed.

“Sure, but that ain’t really the point, is it? Nobody gonna care if Espinoza and Courtnall go all the way down in them punishment cylinders, but lot of people, they wait and see how it goes for all the works they leave behind, maybe.”

“Including Boris?” Ricky asked, even if he already had the answer.

“Why not, okay? Yeah, the Boss, he likes to know what’s what, and he figure maybe you hear more than all them news girlies on the ‘net every night; he thinkin’ maybe Slider hears from the other hustlers, and maybe they hear from the streets over in Sector 5 or even Sector 7, right? Somebody got to find out so’s the big Bosses know when the time to move shows up, know what I mean?”

“I haven’t heard anything from the street, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s been a while since I talked to the other hustlers about anything, let alone Espinoza and Courtnall. Why doesn’t Boris ask around himself?”

Junkyard leapt to grab Ricky’s collar with both hands, shaking him like a dusty rug.

“Watch your mouth, boy! It ain’t none of your fuckin’ business what Boris does, understand?”

Bartel moved him away gently.

“Easy, Junkyard; he ain’t gettin’ nasty, right, Slider?”

“Tell your dog to keep his hands off me!” Ricky shouted. “If one of the other Bosses had his eye on Courtnall’s territory, he sure as hell wouldn’t tell me!”

“It’s okay, Slider,” Bartel said, helping Ricky straighten out the crumpled material of his shirt. “Boris ain’t saying you owe him nothin’, but maybe from the others—the hustlers and bully boys in them guilds you work—if something maybe comes your way, you’d let us know real quick, right?”

“Yeah, okay,” Ricky said at last, but inside, the relief he felt was immediate; there was no chance anyone had seen his run to the Industrial Zone and that meant his secret was safe, at least for the moment. It would take time before things settled down, but if Bartel (and Boris) was concerned most with Espinoza and Courtnall’s suddenly vacant territory instead of the treasure he’d uncovered, it was unlikely they knew of its existence at all. Time and patience would bear fruit if he kept his head down and refrained from vending the goods too soon. Everything was working as planned.

“Good boy,” Bartel said with a smile. “See, Junkyard? Slider, he knows how to go; he ain’t gonna miss a chance to make good with the Boss!”

Junkyard leaned close to Ricky and said, “You keep your mouth shut about this, understand? None of them other hustlers better hear a goddamn thing from you until long after you tell us, yeah?”

Ricky returned a deliberate, bored expression to signal he wasn’t afraid, but Bartel only nodded to Junkyard and they disappeared into the mist. Ricky stood for a while, his head tilted back to let the rain play along his face and down his neck. The cool water felt good and he smiled, knowing the bag hidden behind his couch (and the promise it held) would not be disturbed. Inside, the little boxes had become his deliverer; there would surely be enough in return for their value to change his life for the better. Of course, he thought at once of Neferure; never again, he decided, would he have to wait out the days between visits to Reese Street.

When he returned to his darkened flat, Ricky pulled the filthy, stained cloth from each box, laying the contents carefully on the counter in his tiny kitchen. The token chips showed less than he expected, but added together and redeemed at any exchange in small increments to avoid being noticed, the money was more than enough to ensure a comfortable life for five years, if it came to that. Ricky set them aside and looked instead at the other bits.

Ancient, tarnished jewelry seemed bland and out of place; valuable only to their owners for sentimental reasons even the thief who took them couldn’t know. At last, Ricky lined up four data sticks, slipping each into his terminal to read the contents as they booted up. He smiled immediately as the results of challenge matches scrolled past in a long list with a menu of the violent acts the participants were expected to commit against one another. Some matches were simple fist fights with no weapons, but most allowed for electric stunners or crude clubs and shields—22nd Century gladiators whose real names were never revealed, but there was more.

Next to ten particular matches—scheduled two weeks in advance, Ricky noticed—a competitor identified in parentheses he knew would emerge as the winner. Both players would be paid off for the sham, but fixed matches had become a guarded and lucrative secret across Novum’s underworld. Obscene amounts of money would change hands in anticipation long before the matches were held, leaving unsuspecting gamblers up in the mega-towers poorer for their trouble. In seconds, he understood. The totals were staggering, and more than enough to make the information a highly prized commodity to people like Courtnall and Espinoza. No wonder they took the time to hide it so well, he thought with a satisfied grin.

Ricky returned the sticks and data chips to their boxes, wrapping them carefully before slipping the bag once more behind his couch. In a few days, he decided, a visit to Elden would show the full amount he held in his hand, and the way to realize its yield from the old man’s contacts far above.

As the afternoon rush slowed the following day, Ricky went quickly from his flat and boarded a pod train for the Corridor. Beyond, Reese Street Theater waited and within it, the charms and lovely smile of one so dear to him, no other consideration mattered. Even from a brief inspection the night before, he knew the money waiting in the data sticks and token chips would be more than he could imagine. The urge pushed him again, but armed with his secret, Ricky could indulge himself without worry or hesitation. When he stepped from the platform and angled across the noisy intersection on a straight line to the theater, he grinned, unable to contain his excitement. Justman looked up from across the counter.

“Slider! Back for another session?”

“Yes, but I want to see about an advance.”

“We can arrange for it, but it has to clear with Boris first, right?”

“I know, but put in the request as soon as you can—I’ll pay it off a week from now.”

“Okay, Slider; how many hours?”

“Fifty.”

Justman looked with raised eyebrows.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure; send in the request.”

“Your normal weekly report shows about six hours average; that’s a big jump, not counting cleaning and disinfectant fees.”

“I know.”

“Okay. If you’re sure, I’ll send it up, but that’s going to be almost eleven thousand, total. You understand that, right?”

“I understand, but it won’t matter in a week—send it.”

Justman turned his head to one side slowly, the way people do when they know another is about to make a mistake. Unable to dissuade Ricky, he was obliged to fill the request. After a series of taps into the software ruling Starlight financial transactions, it was done.

“How long until you get a response?” Ricky asked.

“This is a big request, Slider; it could take a day until Boris sends down the approval or denial order.”

“I’m thinking about upping to a Premier account soon, so let me know as soon as you hear from him.”

“Premier, eh? Well, I better get this processed!”

Ricky went about his usual rounds for two days, seeing to the transfer of goods and taking account of payments made or tokens still owed. Ricky knew Boris could have others looking on from a distance, so it was critical to maintain an indifferent posture to blunt the suspicions he knew were customary for enforcers like Bartel. Journeys above to make deliveries for expectant Uppers contrasted with loud, often tense negotiations with grubby Agros or Diggers—the farmers and miners who lived in the Broadlands beyond the wire, trading food or raw materials for manufactured goods. When evening fell on the second day, Justman’s message came through as Ricky sat in his flat; the request had been approved.

With a new, intoxicating confidence, Ricky made his way back to Reese Street each morning the rest of the week, and once more as evening neared midnight. The advance hours Boris granted relieved him of most administrative fees, but also a tedious wait at the counter and useless small talk with Justman he wouldn’t miss.

Neferure seemed more relieved to see Apheru with each successive visit, but their hours were not spent only in conversation. Instead, she wanted him in her bed and an appetite for sex she did nothing to hide consumed much of their time. Ricky lived fully in those most personal, intimate moments, unable to resist her and unwilling to try, given over to every delicious and wicked demand she made. Her scent, powerful and pungent, wandered with the perfume her attendants applied in the morning, compelling him to her service without a thought. Starlight’s celebrated adherence to realistic sensory input always worked as advertised, but the effect was powerful.

Ricky decided enough time passed since his adventure out to the Zone. He stood and grabbed the bag from behind his couch, moldering and still covered in dried mud and filth from the drain trough. Satisfied Bartel wasn’t waiting, Ricky jogged up the alley, turning north toward the square; it was time to pay Elden a long-overdue visit.

As he stepped from an internal vert, Ricky followed a spotless, white corridor to the old man’s apartment, non-descript and identical to so many others. Elden Fellsbach looked up from his console when the door chime signaled a visitor, rubbing his eyes as he spoke to the automatic system.

“Open.”

The door latch released as he stood, motioning Ricky toward his sitting room and the wide, glass panels that looked across to distant, empty fields where families once lived in tiny, individual structures a century before. In that distant past, an ocean of singular houses sprawled on undulating fields between thick groves of trees. Elden’s great uncle spoke of the old territory from the earliest days of his youth when there was no such thing as the wire and Novum was a different city with a different name. That time, like Elden’s great uncle, was long-dead and with it, the strange ways of a time when people came and went without fear.

“Want something to drink?” he asked, but Ricky waved a hand and shook his head.

The old man looked tired. Creases showed on his forehead and the furrows defining pale, hollow cheeks had deepened since his last visit. Even in the comfortable, conditioned air, Elden wore an old, maroon cardigan and his left hand trembled noticeably where it hung beside his thin, tall frame. Wispy white hair, always combed back from his forehead like a dense helmet now exposed pink scalp beneath, spotted with the brown discolorations of age. Across his face, Ricky noticed, considerable gray stubble made clear that days had passed since the old man shaved, making for a disheveled appearance that was unsettling and unusual for one so conscious of a neat and tidy appearance. Ricky sat slowly, placing his bag carefully at his feet.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Of course; make yourself comfortable and tell me what’s on your mind.”

“You heard about Espinoza and Courtnall?”

Elden looked away and nodded.

“Everyone’s heard. It’s great fun for the evening news shows, but it won’t make much difference.”

Ricky ignored the poorly veiled message in Elden’s words.

“Yes, but they left something behind and I need your help.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ricky pulled the bag from his shoulder and placed it gently onto Elden’s desk, withdrawing the cloth-covered boxes slowly and deliberately.

“Have a look at these,” he said with a satisfied smile.

Elden selected one of the data chips and slid it into a display reader. When it loaded, he stopped cold—the contents were obvious and he returned it to Ricky with a frown.

“Where the hell did you get this?”

“From that old machine shop in the warehouse district where they ran their operation,” he replied with a smirk, barely able to control his excitement; “I snuck in the night they got grabbed by MPE and found it in a hiding place. I remembered it from the old days when Mister Anthony took me there. Courtnall had little secret spots all over the place, but I knew about a couple of them. They’re hard to find if you don’t know where to look, but…”

Elden shoved himself away from his desk and stood quickly. Ricky saw the alarm in his expression.

“Damn it, Richard,” he said suddenly, “you should not have done this!”

Ricky shook his head in confusion.

“Why not? Look at this stuff, Elden; there’s got to be two hundred thousand in one of those data sticks alone! They’re pre-set results for a bunch of Challenge matches that won’t even happen for another two weeks! I want to turn these, but no one down below has that kind of money so I thought you could help me find someone up here who…”

Elden waved a hand and walked toward the window.

“Take them back,” he demanded; “take these back to where you found them right now and forget about them!”

“Are you crazy? There’s more money in these boxes than all the tokens I’ve ever made! Why the hell would I take it back?”

Elden moved Ricky to a long, black couch, pausing to calm himself.

“I know this is tempting, but you’re playing with your life. You have to get them back inside that building before anyone else figures out they’re gone.”

Ricky laughed nervously.

“Anyone else? They’re in jail, Elden!”

“For the moment,” he replied, “only for the moment.”

“I saw the news vids; they’ve been charged with about twenty counts. Neither of them will ever see the light of day again! Don’t you want a piece of this?”

“No!” Elden thundered suddenly, “I want nothing to do with it!”

Ricky was determined.

“Look, I can’t vend this shit to my regular customers on the street; none of them could ever afford things like this. I’m okay with selling it off for half its real value, but I need you to check around up here and…”

“You stupid, stupid bastard, don’t you realize the danger you’re in?”

Ricky stared in silence; he’d never heard Elden use profanity in all the years they’d been friends.

“I don’t understand. I brought this stuff up here to see if you could help me find buyers, but…”

“There are no buyers, can’t you see? There never will be! No one in their right mind would go anywhere near this sort of merchandise because only a Boss would have it to begin with! Everyone in the city knows about Courtnall and Espinoza!”

“Who cares?” Ricky protested. “In a week, they’ll both be in a punishment cylinder somewhere out beyond the wire and no one will ever see them again.”

Elden smiled sadly and grasped Ricky’s shoulder.

“Did it occur to you that no one else has made a try for this stuff? Their lieutenants know exactly where these things were hidden; if those Bosses were going down to the cylinders for thirty years, don’t you think the secondary people in their organization would grab it for themselves?”

Ricky looked away as the first needles of fear began to prod him from within. Elden lowered his voice and continued, desperate to make Ricky see.

“They’re not going to sentence them, don’t you understand? It’s no different than the Challenge match results; the trial is already fixed and it’s only a matter of time before they’re both back on the street; every insider knows that! When Espinoza and Courtnall figure out somebody broke into that place and stole these things, it won’t take them long to send out the word. Every fence in the city will be on alert to identify the seller. When you’re finally named—and you will be named—they’ll send their soldiers to cut off pieces of your body until you bleed to death in agony!”

Ricky felt the numb reality as it slammed home from the recesses of his mind; dull, at first, then brought with a rising panic he couldn’t shake.

“But the other Bosses…”

“They’re just fishing, Richard; biding their time! They haven’t seen the prosecution’s notes, but they know what’s going to happen! They’ll find out in a day or two when the news feeds get a leak from the Magistrate’s office, and then they will all turn away—you will be exposed and alone.”

Ricky watched the image Elden’s words made in his mind until it became clear at last; a mistaken presumption the Bosses had been removed could cost him his life. No one would touch the treasures inside his bag and risk inevitable retribution, but even worse, others would find an opportunity to profit by exposing him as the thief who stole from two of the most feared criminals in the city. Anyone who named him would enjoy the gratitude of Espinoza and Courtnall and a reward irresistible to those who worked in the shadows of a cold and indifferent place where favor and murder were so frequently entwined. Rigged Challenge matches or fixed criminal trials; it was all the same and those on the wrong end would always lose.

Like a wave of freezing water rolling over him on a cold, distant shore, the panic returned; he had to move quickly to replace the stolen goods before the corruption of Novum’s courts restored Courtnall and Espinoza to freedom. Without a word, he stood quickly, stuffing the little boxes into his bag. Moments later, he waited impatiently as the vert descended slowly toward the surface, calculating a return to the warehouse with a desperate hope he was not too late to make it right. As he walked quickly from the vert, Ricky reached to tap out the numbers on his wrist comm, waiting through successive beeps until Justman answered at last.

“Reese Street…”

“Ellis, it’s Ricky Mills.”

“Oh, hello, Slider! What can we do for you?”

“Listen, I need to talk to you about my account.”

“Let me call up your records; give me a second.”

Ricky waited, tapping his foot with nervous anticipation. Through the comm link, Justman’s breathy noises and incessant humming only made worse the wait.

“Okay, Slider,” Justman said. “I have it up now.”

“I know I’ve used some of the advance time, but it was a mistake, okay?”

“A mistake?”

“Yes. I need you to cancel out the rest of the hours.”

“Well, it shows you used almost ten hours already, so…”

“I know that, but you have to cancel the other forty hours right now, understand?”

“I don’t think we can cancel the advance; when Boris approved it, your account was locked.”

“What do you mean ‘locked?’”

“Just what it says; you have to pay for those hours because advances are all guaranteed, see?”

“No, I don’t see! Look, I fucked up and asked too soon, okay? I can’t meet fifty hours like I thought I could.”

“I’m sorry, Slider, but I don’t have any way to cancel an advance order once it’s been approved. But there’s…”

Justman had gone silent.

“Ellis?”

“Hold on a second; there’s a note here.”

Ricky fidgeted and bounced one leg on the ball of his foot, seized by nervous worry. After a few moments that seemed to take forever, Justman returned.

“Slider, I got to tell you, it’s more than the original amount.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ricky demanded.

“Well, the ‘hours-used’ calculations are correct, but we got a notice the rates went up and we also had to apply the taxes, so. . .”

“When did that happen? I didn’t get any notification!”

“Oh, well yes, we send them out monthly, so you should see the increase in your next statement.”

“Ellis, you didn’t say anything about this before!”

“I just got the notice a while ago. Konstantinou tells me to apply the increase right away and leave it alone, so that’s what I do, right? I mean, after all, he does run the place for some Upper, doesn’t he?”

Ricky paused, closing his eyes as he waited for his rising temper to cool. He cleared his throat and spoke again, hoping a calm tone might help getting things sorted out.

“I can’t pay this, Ellis.”

“It won’t be so bad next month, so I wouldn’t worry about it, right?”

“Next month?”

“Konstantinou says he has to increase everyone’s fee rate by twenty percent before winter, so next month, it’s only going up another eight percent. But then, when winter comes, he’ll let us discount it back down; this is only a temporary increase, Slider! Not so bad, see?”

The numbers flashed by in Ricky’s mind so vivid, he could see them parade in front of him like a holo-display and the words poured from his mouth before he could stop them.

“Not bad? Are you kidding me? I can’t make those kinds of payments, you greedy bastard!”

“Hey! It’s no good swearing at me, Slider; this is not my decision, okay? You asked for an advance and Konstantinou approved—you know how the bosses can be if somebody doesn’t want to pay up!”

“Bullshit!” Ricky thundered. “Your cut is taken out of payment percentages, not hours used; when Boris gets an increase, so do you!”

“Okay, Slider, I understand why you’re pissed-off about this, but what can I do? If I don’t apply the taxes and fee increase, Boris will send that little murderer and his friend to find out why! What am I supposed to tell them, eh? Should I tell Bartel to just forget it? Would you like to tell him?”

There was silence until Justman spoke again, softer and with at least his idea of a sympathetic voice.

“Look, Slider, I know this is a shitty deal, and I’m sorry, but I got no other choice. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but most people just won’t stop in so often for a while, see? A few will find more tokens somewhere else, but it’s not like they’re all rich, so most of ‘em, they just won’t come out as much as they used to until the price goes back down.”

“How is that supposed to help me?” Ricky asked as the desperation came on in waves.

“When Boris sees it, he’ll ease up,” Justman answered. “After a while, you’ll be able to catch up your account and pay the taxes, too. Look, I work for Boris and he works for them—all those Uppers. They tell him what to do and he tells me; you know how it works!”

Ricky paused again, reeling with the meaning behind Justman’s words. It wasn’t only the cost he’d have to bear and the certainty he would fail to meet it. Instead, the sudden increase in fees and a tax he knew was contrived brought with it the numbing reality that time with her would suffer. When he needed to be with Neferure most, Boris Konstantinou’s greed would put more than Apheru’s position at court in jeopardy; less frequent visits would surely hurt and alienate her. He had to find more money, but the secret bundles behind the couch were no longer the answer.

“Listen to me, all right? I can’t make the payment for the rest of the hours on that advance, let alone the price increase! At least ask him if you can cancel some of it!”

“You don’t understand, Slider; I can’t ask him to do that!”

“Why not?”

“If I did, he’d fire me, or worse! You can’t get a cancelation on an advance and that’s it! I’m sorry, Slider, but you can’t.”

Ricky felt his shoulders sag as the desperate, pounding reality pressed down upon him.

“Look, you still got about seven hours on your account that doesn’t apply to the advance; the hours are already paid for, so…”

“I have to go,” Ricky said before Justman could finish.

Above, the lights dimmed again, as if to punctuate Ricky’s miserable condition; the power grid was fading, as it often did that time of day and Ricky stood, moved by a fear he had never known. There was still time to get the stolen things back in their hiding place before anyone noticed, but he would have to hurry.

At 3:44, Ricky slipped one last time from the culvert and made his way quickly for the freight tracks; no one saw, and the pieces that would have changed his life were restored beneath the grate, safe once more inside the dank, empty machine shop where he found them a week before. His relief was immediate, but as the train slowed where it curved toward the south at the canals, another consideration invaded his thoughts, just as unwanted and miserable. Though the Bosses might never suspect, the loss of so much money he held in the palm of his hand raised the crushing possibility he could lose his Starlight account—and Neferure.

Ricky thought only of her and the likelihood he could never earn enough to pay off his debt and see the columns of Ma’at Palace once more. She wouldn’t understand and he could find no way to describe his affairs in words that would make sense; Neferure would see only his absence and it would make for her a reason to question his commitment and their future together.

Would she sour, he wondered? Could the careful plans made in the darkness by Thutmose and Senenmut override her love and steal her from him? When he ran out of tokens, Boris would send word to lock him out. Worse still, without access to the program, there was no way to influence the direction Starlight would steer her, despite Justman’s reassurances. The simulation was designed to follow only the desires of the subscriber, but absent his direction, its intuitive program would create scenarios according to its memory alone. Ricky heard the disturbing tales of others who had been forced to abandon their alternate lives for this very reason. If they didn’t interact regularly, Starlight’s vast system of plot engines might find and implement their own solutions.

He watched the desolate scenery as it passed by in the growing dawn light, spent and quiet in his solitude. No amount of fear Bartel and Junkyard could bring matched the surging despair; there were few options, short of theft, that would allow him to keep pace and buy the hours needed to prevent the inevitable disaster. Excessive taxes alone would take months to pay and soon, the hours at Reese Street would begin to shrink and his absence would surely be interpreted as disinterest in Neferure and from it, all Thutmose would need to argue his case successfully. Worse still, the advance against money he could never repay had become a disaster and its promise taken cruelly from him as he replaced Courtnall and Espinoza’s treasure beneath the cold floor of the machine shop. With a power he could scarcely have imagined, time—and the miserable poverty waiting patiently for him—had become Ricky’s greatest enemy.

When the rains eased at last, Novum moved slowly into the final months of the heat season and with it, a customary, thick layer of smoke and haze that hovered at two hundred meters, blotting out the sun most days as surface temperatures soared. During summer, days seemed endless and only those who worked near the transport tunnels beneath the surface fared better than most, cooled by rushing air making its way through machine-carved caverns toward the surface. Ricky did his best to drum up new business, but little of it changed. He watched in helpless despair as his weekly intake failed to match the drain on his funds by Boris’ price increase and the ill-fated hours advance.

As he knew they would, the sessions dwindled and she began to notice. He tried to explain it away to Neferure as a temporary condition, but her confusion and loneliness was turning quickly to suspicion. Why, she asked, did he stay away for so long? Had he grown weary of her? Despite his reassurances, she spoke with the unmistakable voice of one who had been abandoned; not anger or jealousy, but a tone of resignation and sadness that haunted him in those quiet moments alone where no one could ease the persistent ache. Again he fought against the unseen truth worming its way out from his thoughts, but there was no use; he gave in at last to a shameful idea he would never have considered before. More alone than he had ever been, Ricky walked slowly toward the Square.

It wasn’t mere greed or avarice that gnawed at him. Instead, a compulsion he could no longer ignore urged him to it as a necessary, even justifiable solution. What had once been unthinkable became reality when he stepped from a transit pod onto the platform near the blocks, only a short walk to his mother’s apartment on Demarest Street.

The neighborhood was unchanged and any meaningful difference from his first days on the hustle was measured in the emotionless faces of tenants moving quickly for their shift changes. Dull, uninviting blockhouses stained in blackened streaks of ancient mold presented the grim, joyless image of standard factory housing. Down every narrow, garbage-strewn street, there was little color except competing shades of concrete and steel.

A noisy swarm of children, scarlet faced and noses running, kicked at a crude ball made of cast off rags and old shirts, thumping it against a wall beneath a vacant unit with windows covered over by thin, metal panels. Above, a warning sticker ordering others to stay clear had been applied by MPE cops intent on discouraging streeties and transient squatters who looked for the dark, empty places where rent payments were never due. They took no notice, but Ricky watched them for a moment, remembering a time long before when he and Litzi followed a similar path, waiting aimlessly with the other kids after school until parents returned from work.

To the outsider, it was a scene of indifference and cold, relentless poverty; the traditional spawning ground for common laborers, petty thieves and those who took jobs no one else wanted in a static, cheerless world. For Ricky, it was the place where he began. In those early days, the signs of squalor were invisible to young eyes; he and Litzi knew nothing of the Uppers or the lives they lived above the clouds where everything was clean and bright. Instead, they played street games and shouted in shrill echoes along passages between the blocks like all housing kids left to their own inventiveness while Helene Mills pulled wiring harnesses at an appliance factory each day. For them, life was met and lived as they found it, with no expectation of something more.

Ricky climbed the cement steps, crumbling and chipped, to key in the access code of his mother’s front door, ignoring a wailing infant’s cry through an open window across the muddy street. Two small planters she once kept there were gone, leaving only a thin ring of dirt as evidence and reminder of a time when innocence still kept them safe in the shadow of the mega-towers. He called out to her as he kicked his shoes next a closet, now missing its door.

“Mom?”

“We’re in here, Ricky,” Helene replied with a playful tone that stood in stark, cruel contrast to her condition. He moved through the kitchen, pausing only to inhale the aroma of stew simmering slowly in an iron pot on the two-burner stove as he had so many times before. It was their favorite and with Litzi’s visit, Helene decided, a good excuse to go through the effort. On most days, fast packs of processed dinners sealed in cellophane wrappers was all she could manage, but today, the stew.

Ricky leaned to kiss her cheek, moving next to embrace Litzi.

“Smells wonderful!” he said automatically.

“I saved the good potatoes you got for me,” Helene declared, “and none of them had black spots!”

“You don’t have to hoard them, Mom; I can find the clean ones any time you want.”

“I know, honey, but I don’t like to waste things, and…”

“You could’ve gotten more meat, Ricky,” Litzi said suddenly and the disappointment in her voice was clear.

“I got her what she asked for.”

“All those rich people you trade with, I don’t know why you don’t get her a better place.”

“All those rich people don’t give apartments away for free, Litzi!”

“Stop it, both of you!” Helene ordered, determined to keep order and restore a Sunday dinner to its proper tone. “I don’t need another place, and I’m doing just fine as it is. They gave me three months, with pay, before I have to be back at the plant. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Litzi looked only at Ricky as she spoke.

“Mother, this apartment was built before you were born; he can find something better if he’d just try!”

Ricky heard the misperception in Litzi’s complaint; hustling had indeed brought him more than enough money to move Helene into one of the newer, medium-rise buildings near the river, but he had spent nearly all of it in the Reese Street Theater. Despite Litzi’s belief otherwise, he was not the well-heeled dandy he once portrayed when business on the streets was non-stop. He felt his face redden, knowing the chance of making his pitch was disappearing quickly.

Again, Ricky felt the sting of inadequacy and shame; others would have invested the tokens or bought into a legitimate business. Instead, he had given in to the lure of a Starlight program and within it, an imaginary person made real by the magic of a software suite’s code and the sensory activators inside an experience cocoon. She couldn’t know how it felt and there was no way to tell her; Litzi’s life had not been steered in so frivolous a direction. He looked away, hoping the silence might deliver him, but his desperate problem remained. Litzi saw the shift in his manner and a pained expression as evidence of the torment hiding within.

“Are you in trouble?” she asked suddenly.

Ricky fought to keep firm his composure.

“Trouble? Not at all; why would you ask?”

“Because I know you,” she answered, but now in a softer, easy voice. “If your business was going well, you wouldn’t leave her here.”

Ricky said nothing.

“Let’s not talk about money right now,” Helene said, motioning them to the kitchen. “It’s time to eat and I’d rather enjoy the afternoon than argue our way through it, all right?”

“Okay.” Litzi smiled, helping her mother gently from a couch. Grateful for the break in a discussion he hadn’t wanted, Ricky followed in silence. It wouldn’t end there, he knew, but a respite from his sister’s interrogations was welcome as they sat at the tiny kitchen table while Helene ladled the stew into three shallow bowls. They ate quietly, with only the usual family banter to break the silence. Ricky’s mind wandered, taken by a chilling reality Helene and Litzi couldn’t know, but it felt good to sit once more where the worries that plagued him could be kept at a temporary distance.

It was after seven o’clock when Litzi closed the bedroom door slowly and found Ricky placing the dishes into the washing unit with deliberate care. Medicated four times daily against the temporary pain from her surgeries, Helene would sleep through the night. Litzi leaned against the counter’s surface with folded arms, but still he said nothing. At last, she touched his shoulder.

“How bad is it?” she asked softly.

“It?” he answered, holding fast to the pretense.

Litzi wouldn’t budge.

“I know you don’t want to make her worry, but Mom has no idea what you really do; she still thinks you’re a document courier for the Transport Ministry.”

“I know.”

“Ricky, she didn’t see your big apartment; she doesn’t know you’ve been hustling all this time. You moved into that shitty little hole of a flat because, you said, ‘the big-shots needed your place for one of their favorites,’ but that wasn’t true by half, was it?”

It was pointless to continue the ruse and Ricky knew it.

“It’s just a down time right now,” he replied, slipping ever closer to the admission he could never make.

“A down time?” she replied incredulously. “You made twice my yearly pay in a month, but still you had to move back down to the Square! Where did all that money go?”

“It’s a complicated deal, Litzi!”

“It must be. Look at this place, Ricky; she shouldn’t have to live like this anymore!”

“What the hell do you want from me? You make a decent living, too, but I don’t see you doing much about it!”

At once, he regretted the words. Before Litzi could speak, Ricky felt the pounding sensation of guilt.

“Then why not take a job in the storage houses? You know that work as well as anyone, and I heard they’re hiring. Or, if you’d take the time to go downtown and try the tests again, I could probably get you something at my office; Walden is a friend and he knows you’d make a good portfolio associate.”

Ricky scoffed and said, “It’s not that bad; I don’t need to spend my time dragging cargo back and forth inside some warehouse for half what I get now, or ask my little sister to find me a job!”

“How much are you getting?” she asked suddenly, but Ricky knew his answer wouldn’t matter. “How much, Ricky?” she persisted.

“More than I’d make in your building, that’s for sure!”

“Oh? Then why don’t you transfer some of your tokens into one of our accounts? We have Uppers who do that every day, and they have a lot more at risk than any of us.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Litzi.”

“Because you don’t want anyone knowing how you got the tokens, or is it something else?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Are you living off your savings, now? Has business dried up that bad?”

“I’m doing fine; just forget about it.”

She shook her head and smiled.

“You still can’t take good advice, even from your own sister, can you?”

“Advice?” He laughed. “Or just a sales squeeze to make yourself look good in front of those assholes who pay you next to nothing? Which is it?”

Litzi held up both hands in mock surrender.

“Have it your way, Ricky. Just remember I offered, and before you go, take a nice, long look at where our mother stays. You could’ve done something about it a long time ago, but…”

Ricky turned away, pretending to arrange the worn, tarnished silverware in its drawer. The reason for his visit, ever-present and unrelenting, had been frustrated and now, defeated. He had meant to ask Helene for a loan, drawn against the settlement made by the factory’s lawyers to prevent her from taking her discontent—and the debilitating injuries her fall had caused—to the public forum. The payoff was sizable, and more than enough to put him ahead long enough to wait out Boris’ price increase and the crushing mistake of advance hours granted by a calculating predator, waiting patiently as a victim wriggled ever deeper into a trap without hope of escape.

When winter came and business picked up, he reasoned, the money could’ve been returned to Helene’s accounts with no one any the wiser, particularly Litzi. As it stood, there was no longer any chance of that and Ricky felt himself slipping once more into despair. He heard the front door close, knowing she had gone. Quiet desperation had been made worse by the shame he felt and the disappointment Litzi carried with her. He closed the curtains that looked out at an empty field behind the blocks where they once played without a care, reminded again how far he’d gone—and how low he had fallen.

The pod train to Morrissey Square swarmed with shift change workers trying to beat the rush, only to create one of their own. It was also a ‘local,’ obliging stops at every transit station along the way, but Ricky took no notice, preoccupied with the nagging guilt Litzi’s words exposed. As it was from the ill-timed theft of Courtnall’s hidden treasure, Ricky’s bid to find money in Helene’s settlement ended in a silent debacle. He would have to find another way, but his options were thinning.

As the train eased through an interchange, slowing briefly where the overhead rail veered smoothly into the north-south line, Ricky leaned close to the pod’s glass dome. Below, he saw the big cranes, like giant, metal giraffes loosed from an impossible menagerie where they towered over a canal. Long before, the old boats left off their cargo on bustling docks piled high with the stuff of commerce. Now silent and listing over in the mud to rust away with each passing year, the empty barges were quiet reminders of a past few could remember.

Ricky waited and watched for the landmark as his signal, knowing the empty river docks were only a short walk from Reese Street. He had the tokens for at least an hour with her, and the session would provide a much-needed salve on an open wound of intense loneliness. When the warbling tone announced the train’s next stop, he gave in to the impulse and walked quickly from the high platform, turning south near the shops.

Justman looked up from a monitor, adjusting scratched, grease-smeared spectacles perched on the end of his nose, forever crooked and bent. Behind him, Lady Gem busied herself with a bag of potato crisps, unaffected by an overpowering, invisible cloud of stench made by her latest batch of cheap perfume. It was quiet in the lobby for once, but Ricky wished otherwise; the little man would take notice and insist on the usual, endless banter most knew to be automatic and forced.

“It’s been a while, Slider.”

“Do I still have those hours?” Ricky asked. “The time I already paid for, I mean?”

“Sure,” Justman replied with a false smile, waiting impatiently for the account pass to re-set and begin preparation coding to wake the program in one of the experience cocoons beyond.

“Almost seven, but then the account goes over to the advance, okay? After that, you’ll have to settle up and clear the total before I can let you in.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Number twelve?” Justman offered.

“Thanks,” Ricky replied automatically as he turned for the theater’s gallery. Within, she waited, but there was no hint or clue that could prepare him; Starlight’s intuitive programming would surely have made adjustments. He felt his pulse quicken when the machine opened and he settled quickly, determined to remove any doubt in Neferure’s mind. He closed his eyes, waiting to cross over.

The voices outside his tent pulled him from that strange place where all Starlight users wait as the images firm and take control. He felt the warmth of the early sun as it crested the barren, rocky hills on the eastern side of the great valley. Apheru moved into the harsh morning light, signaling without a word for an attending soldier to fetch his chariot as another handed over a cup of cool water.

“A message rider has arrived, Captain; may we bring him to you now, or would you rather refresh yourself first?”

“Send him.”

“At once, sir.”

A voice from behind began with a laugh.

“Could it be your other commander who summons you?”

Apheru turned with a smile to greet Ankhshesh, his oldest and dearest friend.

“Either way, I’m still commanded by an authority greater than mine,” he replied. “Sit and take water with me.”

“We have one more day until we journey to Canaan, Apheru; a last pause before we engage the miscreants who fancy themselves and their useless insurrection as an historic moment.”

“No one forced them to it, Ankhshesh; the folly is theirs alone.”

“Perhaps, but their arrows and spears are no less lethal.”

“Do you doubt our chances?”

“Of course not, but some of our men will not return. It will be a wasted effort, both for Pharaoh’s enemies and for us.”

Apheru looked across the narrow divide between two hills where his compliment of foot soldiers, archers and cavalry went about their duties. Ankhshesh was correct; lives would be lost needlessly for little more than a strategic nuisance.

“You would think by now we would have won some measure of lasting peace, especially since the cataracts. Word has obviously not reached Canaan to acquaint them with our deeds against a vastly superior force of Nubians.”

“It has always been so, Apheru; the truth is too often mixed with what others wish to hear. I think truth becomes lost altogether and a new battle must be won to prove the same point, again and again.”

“They will find that truth in Canaan soon enough, my friend.”

Ankhshesh drained his cup and waggled it at an aide to signal he wanted more. As the soldier refilled it from a skin flask, Apheru nodded toward the messenger where he hurried across the compound, scuffing clouds of dust with each footfall. The sweat glistened on his face in the heat, making clear his ride had begun at dawn. Without a word, he pulled the rolled parchment from his shoulder bag and handed it to Apheru.

“The Princess commands your presence?” Ankhshesh asked with a grin.

Apheru shook his head.

“It’s from the General.”

Ankhshesh waved the messenger away as Apheru finished reading the dispatch.

“Gather your things, Ankhshesh; we leave for Nekhbet’s camp within the hour.”

Their horses, well rested and groomed, seemed to understand the urgency as they raced along the valley floor in the rising heat, stopping only twice to rest and water. They made the distance in three hours, pulling up suddenly near the great commander’s vast tents at the edge of a modest palm grove. He motioned them inside without a word and went quickly to the business at hand.

“Our advance columns have been halted in two places only a day’s ride to the north,” he began, indicating the army’s position with the charred stick from a dead campfire for a pointer. Apheru frowned at the crude map, traced with powdery oxide on a length of parchment.

“Halted by whom, General?”

“We suspected mercenary Nubians in the employ of tribal chiefs, but several prisoners taken and interrogated during the night revealed a large contingent of raiders from Sidon and Kadesh. They seem to believe Pharaoh’s desire to mount a voyage to God’s Land would somehow cause her to ignore their activities. Now, as we prepare to move on Canaan, these creatures understand great Pharaoh will not stand by and allow their crimes. They also know garrisons will certainly be required to secure new trade routes.”

“Garrisons that wouldn’t tolerate these raids,” Ankhshesh observed.

“Precisely,” Nekhbet replied.

“How did a band of scavengers come to know about Pharaoh’s plans to journey southward to Punt?” Apheru asked suddenly. “The information is not yet known by most.”

Nekhbet smiled.

“My question as well, Captain; there are clearly some among us who have found fortune in spilling secrets into the ears of outsiders.”

“What are your orders, General?”

“Tomorrow, you will prepare a detachment to find and punish these thieves and put an end to their constant harassment of our foraging parties. I am putting you at the disposal of the scout column commander; he will give you the details you need.”

“And then?”

“Deal with these animals, and when you return, I will discuss the steps we must take to root out and deliver to Pharaoh those traitors who have let slip her intentions; there must be swift and merciless action to discourage this sort of thing.”

“As you command.”

They turned to go, but Nekhbet held Apheru.

“Captain, I wish to speak with you on other matters.”

“I’ll see to our quarters for the night,” said Ankhshesh discretely as he disappeared through the tent flap.

“General?” Apheru said as the old man motioned him to sit.

“This place you come from, it must be more distant than any other.”

“Yes.”

“Farther even than beyond the great sea?”

“Much farther, sir.”

“You know I am a tutor and advisor for the education of Princess Neferure?”

“Of course, General.”

“She is troubled, Apheru. When I visit at Ma’at, she presses me for knowledge, as she should, but the Princess worries because your own visits have lessened in the last weeks; she fears your love for her may have begun to ebb.”

“That could never happen, General; she alone commands my heart.”

“And I have said the same, yet she cannot quiet her fears another has gained your attention. What is worse, Thutmose’s presence is made more frequently now, and new rumblings from the shadows at court suggest you are shrinking from this because you fear a confrontation with her cousin. Is this true?”

“No, General, it is not. The Princess is dearer to me than any other, and I have no fear of Thutmose; he is simply taking advantage of my absence to poison her thoughts against me.”

“But why do your people in that distant place demand so much of you? Can they not see your duty to Pharaoh rises above all else?”

Apheru stood and walked to a table, gathering a handful of dates. Suddenly, and without warning, he heard a strange sound from beyond the tent. Chirping, like a flock of birds waking at dawn seemed odd and out of place. He looked first at Nekhbet, but the old man seemed oblivious to its unnatural sound.

“Apheru, are you well?”

Still he couldn’t move or speak. As though gripped by a paralysis—a disease of the mind, perhaps—Apheru only stared with dead, lifeless eyes. The general moved to call for his physician, but the dark closed in on Apheru until the echoes returned and his vision began to blur.

Ricky gasped and leaned forward in the cocoon, gripping the seat beneath him to gain leverage. He was sweating heavily, struggling against disorienting confusion in the silent darkness. On the small status display above, a blinking red indicator showed an interruption of his session due to ‘insufficient payment’. He fought the rage welling up inside, kicking at the access hatch to make it open faster. When he reached the lobby moments later, Ricky glared at Justman.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Justman looked at a display that monitored time and fidelity of each simulation running at any moment in the theater’s gallery.

“I’m sorry, Slider; your time ran out early because the account shows a zero balance and the system shut itself down.”

“Bullshit! You said I still had seven hours coming to me before the advance kicks in!”

“Well, that was before, see? The account had to be drawn down to meet the new minimum.”

“I paid for those hours!”

“We had to!” Justman protested. “Boris called just now and he’s making us square the accounts against the new totals immediately!”

Ricky’s face reddened still more.

“I can’t get that kind of money right now!”

“Sure, Slider, I know how it goes, but there was no other choice; Boris isn’t gonna let anyone go without paying the increase and taxes, so they made us lock out your simulation.”

“Fuck you, Ellis!”

Ricky grabbed his bag from where it leaned against his ankle, turning quickly for the door. His head swirled with anger as he crossed Reese Street and went swiftly toward the transit station. He knew what Justman’s words would mean; until he could find the staggering payment and deliver it to the theater, he would be barred from seeing her again. Even worse, it was inevitable that Bartel would appear at his door, demanding payment for the advance hours he knew Ricky could never make.

Again he fought against the frustration and torment, knowing his own hand was in it; he hadn’t drawn back from his need for Starlight (and Neferure) long before the compulsion became more than a simple diversion. Ricky felt himself sinking; there was no chance of generating that kind of money from his normal trades. As he walked, he looked through the bars fixed to each shop window, suddenly regretting his lack of skills the break-in boys learned when they still ran in gangs through the factory housing blocks. Vinnie knew how, but his time in the punishment cylinders cured him of the urge; there was little chance for Ricky to learn the art of burglary before they came to take his possessions and hand him over to the MPE cops.

He thought again of his mother’s settlement; Helene was frugal and wouldn’t touch the money as it was. Instead, she would leave it safely inside the factory’s employee pay and banking system like most others, knowing it would be needed when her retirement days finally arrived. There had to be another way, but Ricky’s thoughts were shattered back to reality when he turned down the alley to his flat and found Bartel leaning against the door.

Junkyard paced in and out of the shadows where the streetlights sent their anemic glow along barren walls. Bartel offered a second or two of sarcastic applause.

“Here he is, Junkyard; right on time!”

Ricky felt the sudden, grinding panic beginning to grow. Had they heard from Ellis, he wondered? Perhaps they monitored client usage at Reese Street from a remote system. Either way, he knew why they had come; Boris undoubtedly told Bartel of Ricky’s difficulties and sent them to heap on the pressure.

“What is it now?”

“Maybe you ain’t gettin’ enough business from them Uppers these days,” Bartel answered.

“What do you care?”

“I only say so because we hear about your accounts, Slider. You ain’t gonna get no more time with that sim girlie until you settle up, now are you?”

“I don’t need to be reminded,” Ricky said, looking only at Junkyard.

“No, I guess you don’t. But the problem is still hanging around, ain’t it?” Bartel replied with a slow shake of his head. Ricky could smell the grease from Bartel’s dinner, still lingering in the sparse growth of his beard when the little enforcer laughed suddenly.

“Come on, Slider! You got yourself in deep this time, but maybe we can help you out, know what I mean?”

“You want to help me?” Ricky answered with a sneer.

“Sure, sure! That’s what we do, me and Junkyard—we help people when they get to troubles.”

“I don’t want anything you’d call help, Vaclav, thanks anyway.”

Junkyard had waited long enough.

“Maybe you need to see what happens when we ain’t helpin’, you little bastard!”

Bartel moved forward and held up his hands.

“Slider, you got this all wrong, see? We ain’t here to shove you around or nothin’, but you listen for a while and maybe we find the way out for you. Boris, he don’t like hearing you get so far down the gutters; he know you got the way to find things. The other bosses, they don’t care, but Boris, he likes to keep his customers nice and safe, see?”

“Safe?” Ricky countered. “He jerked the prices, on top of the damn taxes the city’s calling in! How is that keeping customers safe?”

“You got to understand, Slider! The big boys up in the clouds, they don’t give him no choice! See, they send down the word that Starlight ain’t gettin’ by without more tax money, so what else can he do? He tells the managers what all them heavies tell him, know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean, but I still don’t have that kind of money and Boris knows it; that’s why I got screwed in the first place!”

Junkyard’s patience was all but gone.

“Nobody made you take out them advance hours, fucker; don’t cry about it to us because you’re in over your head!”

Bartel waited, just for a moment. Junkyard’s words were true enough, but letting Ricky hear them delivered with the right amount of dispassion would push him further into isolation and closer to the desperate corner they so carefully built for him. At last, Bartel made his play.

“Look, Slider, you don’t gotta go this way. Maybe we can work something out.”

Ricky frowned with suspicion.

“I’m listening.”

Bartel turned Ricky gently to walk beside him as a well-intentioned friend, even if both knew he was not.

“Boris, he got to pay them taxes, see? He ain’t got no way out of that. But the price hike and the advance, well…that’s something he might could ease back if you was to make another arrangement, know what I mean?”

“What kind of arrangement?”

“You could find another way to get them tokens, maybe; something else besides hustling, right?”

“I don’t have any other way!”

“No? Well, that’s a pity; Boris, he thinks maybe you got a few things you hide away somewheres. Maybe you keeping the really good stuff in a safe place, you know, just in case a big catastrophe comes along, right? You’re a smart boy, Slider; you could keep a bit in reserve!”

Ricky thought at once of the stolen loot inside the warehouse, now useless under the threat of exposure when Courtnall and Espinoza walked free. He looked away.

“I don’t have anything like that, Vaclav; I’m down to my last hundred tokens.”

“Okay, Slider, I understand. But maybe you could get help from somewheres else, eh?”

“I don’t know how I’d do that.”

“Well, you could get a loan. You know all them Uppers; they could split off some tokens and help you out, right?”

“They would never do that and you know it.”

“Not even your old pal Fellsbach? He got plenty of dough!”

“Elden is retired, Vaclav; he doesn’t make much money anymore.”

“Okay, then how about the money you mama get when she goes down hard in the plant? They say she got something from the managers, so maybe she can front you a little, eh?”

Ricky’s face ran red as the guilt and regret pushed their way out once more, framed in the face of Litzi’s disgust.

“I can’t ask her for that,” he said softly, wincing at his own hypocrisy.

“No? Hmmm…you ain’t got a lot of other choices after all, do you?”

“I already told you that.”

“Okay, Slider, you try and think of something else. We got to go up and see Boris tonight; maybe he knows a way.”

“I don’t think it would make any difference,” Ricky replied at once.

“Wait, okay? Boris, he ain’t unreasonable, and maybe you can work off the debt some other way.”

“I don’t want to bother him.”

“It ain’t no bother, Slider! Boris got contacts, see? I talk to him once, okay?”

“Boris doesn’t forgive debts, Vaclav; everyone knows that.”

“Sure, sure, but there’s lot of ways to pay, know what I mean?”

“Such as?”

“Well, maybe you could help him with a problem he got. That would make it easy for him to help you, right?”

“What problems could Boris have?”

“It’s a little awkward saying, but, Boris, he got his eye on somebody.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Boris keeps with a lot of big-shot friends, and they all got somebody to show around, see? Problem is, Boris ain’t got nobody like that just now—nobody special.”

“Show around?”

“Yeah, you know—a nice girl he takes to parties sometimes. Maybe she spend a few weeks and let him play around a bit, understand?”

Ricky knew what Bartel meant.

“Yeah, I understand.”

“But he got one special girlie in mind, see, and she ain’t so easy to convince, so…”

“Boris wants me to get him a street hole?”

“No! No, it’s not like that, Slider. No, he wants this girl for special, not just to take home and screw, okay?”

Bartel’s tone had changed.

“What are you asking me to do, Vaclav?”

Bartel paused, looking over a shoulder before he spoke as if taking Ricky into a carefully guarded confidence.

“Boris, he notice you sister, Litzi, and…”

Ricky stepped back a few paces, shaking his head quickly. At last, he understood the price increase and a tax hike that likely existed nowhere but inside Konstantinou’s mind.

“Not a chance in hell—she’s not part of this!”

“Come on, Slider! Boris don’t want to do none of that bad stuff with her; he just want to meet her and make her feel nice and welcome, know what I mean?”

“Then why doesn’t he ask her himself?”

“Well, he don’t think she gonna come around so easy, see? He think maybe she’s afraid or something; maybe she don’t trust him, right?”

“I don’t trust him, either; what makes Boris think Litzi will be any different?”

“You could talk to her, maybe; she listen to her brother, right? You have a nice chat and tell her it’s okay, then Boris, he show how grateful he is and bam—no more debt!”

“Forget it, Vaclav; I’m not about to hand my little sister over to Boris or anyone else!”

Bartel said nothing at first, but a nod toward Junkyard was the signal a brutal thug was waiting for. He moved close, towering above as he spoke down with the malevolent voice that terrified so many.

“You’ll tell her, boy, or we got somethin’ for you a lot worse, understand?”

“Like what?” Ricky demanded, suddenly pushed beyond himself by the desperation and hopelessness crashing in around him. “If you call in the debt to MPE, they’ll hand me over to one of the work leagues and Boris won’t get even half the money!”

Junkyard leaned closer still, smiling at what Ricky couldn’t have known.

“Boris already talked to them MPE assholes and they ain’t comin’ down here to arrest you unless he files a complaint. You owe too much to work off in a sweatshop, so the cops said it’s okay for him to decide how he gets his money back, see?”

Ricky felt the color drain from his face; he knew what Junkyard’s threat implied. Those whose debt load had reached unsustainable levels were forced into labor contracts held by a dozen agencies maintained by the Novum City Commission. The practice amounted to indentured servitude, but an alarming increase in work league rosters spoke loudly of the hopelessness awaiting a Starlight subscriber unable to pay for the hours. The work itself was always manual and conducted in the vile, sweltering underground where no one went voluntarily. Cheap labor meant lower operating costs and few wasted their time worrying about addicts who deserved the misery. Now, described in the meanness of Junkyard’s words, even that option had been removed.

“That’s right, you smart-ass prick; Boris gets to decide what happens! Either you pay up, or get that bitch to agree. If you don’t…”

Bartel watched closely as the message became clear in Ricky’s mind.

“Look, Slider, be reasonable, okay? Boris ain’t gonna do nothin’ bad, but Litzi maybe won’t go for it unless you tell her she got to, right?”

“And if I don’t?”

“Well, that would be a shame, wouldn’t it? I mean, Boris, he got no other choice but to nominate you for one of them Walks, okay? Like you said, the work houses ain’t gonna get him no money the way you owe, so he got to send it to them network vid boys and they put you on a Walk; that way he gets satisfied and you ain’t got no more debt, see?”

Ricky stood still as the full truth rolled over him in a flash of clarity. Bartel knew better than anyone Ricky would not be able to meet and pay his staggering debt obligation, but the choices that remained were equally dismal: Convince Litzi to become the sex toy for a heartless criminal or submit himself to the Walk. He couldn’t bear to think of his baby sister in the grip of an insane, perverted animal, but the Walk was a death sentence for most who were forced to it as a last resort and deliverance from crimes or indiscretions committed against the powerful. Ricky looked away, tormented by the images of others who went before him.

At once, he remembered evenings watching episodes from Vinnie’s apartment and the city’s ultimate expression of callous disregard for human life. Without a thought, they looked on as unfortunate debtors were forced to run and fight for their lives with millions across every sector watching the live feeds. Everyone knew the score; whenever a Walk was presented on the vids, reluctant debtors—far beyond the ability to settle up with those to whom they owed—were fitted with an array of tiny cameras feeding a transmitter and set on a path to a pre-determined location, usually at night to heighten the suspense and fear. As Novum’s population watched their vid screens with disturbing fascination, specialized ‘chase’ units—mostly MPE officers moonlighting for extra tokens—followed, equipped with a fearsome collection of weapons and the express sanction of the organizers to prevent the debtor from completing what had been cruelly dubbed a ‘Walk.’ Chasers never took prisoners; it was a race to survive and a fight to the death played out real-time in millions of homes.

In the tradition of Challenge programs, pitting contestants against one another in the sorts of things that once counted as jail-worthy crimes, advertisers paid handsomely for commercial time on the vids as the curious and blood-thirsty looked on, moment by terrifying moment. On the exceedingly rare occasion when a debtor reached the goal alive, the injured party in a complaint was made whole from the advertising revenues, plus considerable, additional bonus royalties as compensation if the fight was particularly vicious and the resultant wounds inflicted were suitably gruesome. If, on the other hand, the Chasers found their mark, the debt alone would be met by subscription fees and replays for months after. The only relief a debtor could expect was found in the assurance further action would not be taken against the families left behind. Of course, few who made the Walk came out alive, sent on their desperate run with no weaponry or armor; they were on their own and left to survive or die as naked players—human targets—in that most final, savage game.

Ricky knew the odds would be so steeply piled against, his life would surely end in a bloody mess somewhere across the bleak landscape of a city eager to watch the spectacle. With the grim image parading through his mind, Ricky saw the inevitable truth emerge; he would either find the money to pay off what he owed or draw his last breath alone and terrified on a dark night when the Chasers ran him down at last. He thought of Litzi, satisfied with a strange and unexpected suddenness, knowing at least she would be spared the sordid, despicable things Boris had in mind for her. No matter what they threatened, he would never turn her over. At last, he looked at Bartel.

“Give me a week; there’s one more place I may be able to find the money. It’ll cost me in other ways, but it’s possible.”

“Fuck that!” Junkyard thundered. “Make your choice now, asshole!”

Bartel waved him back gently.

“Okay, Junkyard, okay. Let’s see if Slider can get himself back; he done good for Boris before, so we let him try once and make it right. You know what? I think we get Boris to call Justman so he can take a little time for himself at the theater. What do you say to that, Slider?”

Ricky only blinked as Bartel smiled and nodded.

“We make it easy on you, okay? Boris, he ain’t gonna mind if you get a few hours with your sim girlie, right? I ask him tonight.”

“Okay,” Ricky mumbled.

“Maybe a nice visit with that computer sweetie, it help figure something out and clear your mind. Come on, Junkyard, he need some time to think about it.”

Ricky waited until they disappeared beyond the buildings where the alley curved to the left. When the door closed behind him with a dull thud, he stood alone, drowning in the silent pool of misery his own weaknesses had made. The end was inevitable; he knew there would be no hope of finding enough money to settle his debt, but just as surely, he was determined to shield Litzi from the depraved violations Boris would inflict and that truth moved him quickly and with purpose.

His jaw tightened and released with a newfound resolve as he waited for the comm link to open. After a moment, Litzi answered.

“Ricky, I’m sorry for what I said, but…”

Ricky understood, but his mission drove him quickly to the point.

“Never mind that now,” he began, “you have to listen to me, okay? This is important.”

“What’s wrong—is Mom okay?”

His eyes closed reflexively, as though she would see and understand, even on the far end of a comm link.

“She’s fine, but you have to get some things packed and be ready to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re not going—you are. Tell your boss you need some time off, or maybe you have to take care of Mom for a few days; I don’t care what you say, just let them know you’re going to be out for a while.”

“What’s this about? Look, I’m sorry for pushing you like I did, but it’s frustrating when…”

“No, it’s nothing to do with that, Litzi, this is something else. Just do what I’m telling you, okay?”

“You’re scaring me, Ricky!”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I need you to trust me.”

“Just tell me, all right?”

“Not here—not on an open comm. Go and pack; bring enough for a week, and I’ll be there in a little while. I’ll explain all this later, all right?”

Again he waited, knowing the confusion his call had made for Litzi.

“Okay,” she said, closing the link.

At the corner where the alley met Rademacher Way, he waited and watched. No one would see him, he reasoned, if he stayed in the shadows of an ancient pawnshop’s doorway, nestled between two bay-style display windows covered over in hastily applied green paint. At last, he was satisfied Bartel and Junkyard had not hidden themselves across the intersection to follow at a discrete distance; his plan could just as easily occur to them, after all.

Ricky had the tokens for a land bus, but the freights would get him to the new apartments near the river in half the time. The short walk downhill toward the tracks took ten minutes and he jumped an empty flat car as a local transfer slowed for the curves. Another thirty minutes passed before he hopped from the car’s ladder, trotting to a stop while the train clunked and clanked in measured time through a tangle of interchange tracks on its way to the yards inside Sector 2.

The night was sweltering and humid, making the walk up to Litzi’s building a labored process. Ricky looked carefully at the figures waiting near transit stands or hurrying from the shops on the far side of a wide boulevard grown over with weeds since the housing units were finished three years before. There was little chance Bartel could’ve followed, but Ricky scanned the faces of pedestrians just the same; there were others in Boris’ employ who might be sent on a surveillance mission to note his movements.

He found the call button for her flat and pushed three times until the heavy, gray doorway clicked open. When he reached the fourth floor, winded and sweating heavily, she was waiting with a pack slung over one shoulder.

“What are we doing?” she asked, worried under the weight of Ricky’s brief, confusing note an hour before.

“Come on,” he replied quickly, guiding her toward the stairwell, “I’ll explain when we’re outside.”

They hurried into the darkness, angling for a row of patchy shrubs that marked the outline of the apartment building’s grounds when suddenly, he stopped, still struggling to catch his breath.

“I’m going to take you to a friend’s quarters down in the factory districts,” Ricky panted; “you need to stay there for a while. I know how weird this must seem, but you have to trust me, all right?”

“I trust you, but why are we doing this? What’s happened?”

The moment Ricky dreaded most had arrived. There were no convenient excuses or short answers that would do; he had to tell her the truth and expose himself to the scrutiny of one whose opinion of him mattered. Worse still, she would find in his words the full extent of his failures—his weakness. Ricky winced, knowing the thin illusion of success she already regarded with suspicion would be rinsed away at last, leaving behind the raw tissue of his selfish desires, now laid bare from each hour spent inside the Reese Street Theater. Time (and any hope of finding a solution) had run out. Before, in the grim silence of his apartment, he saw with perfect clarity what had to be done; the animals who threatened him could arrange for his death, but they would never find Litzi. Ricky moved her through a thicket, making for the transit station on the far side of an open field, speaking slowly and carefully as they walked.

“You were right,” he began; “I’m in trouble, and there’s no way to get out of it. I owe a lot of money to some very bad people and I can’t pay it back.”

“Who are these people?”

“It doesn’t matter; they’re criminals who don’t take getting stiffed lightly.”

“Ricky, answer me!” she demanded suddenly. “What people?”

“One of the Bosses—a psychotic bastard called Boris.”

Litzi’s shoulders sagged.

“Boris Konstantinou?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Oh Ricky, how the hell did you get involved with that son of a bitch?”

Ricky stared at her, shaken by the question.

“Never mind that, how do you know about Boris?”

Litzi scowled in disgust.

“He comes into my office sometimes; I think he has money invested with the people upstairs. He’s a horrible man, Ricky; a crazy person who should be locked up.”

Ricky looked away and said, “When I fail to pay him what I owe, you’ll see just how bad he is…”

She knew at once what it meant.

“It’s more than that; I can see it in your face.”

Ricky said nothing.

She reached with a thumb and gently lifted his head so that his eyes met hers.

“It’s not just the money, is it?”

“No.”

“What are you not telling me, Ricky?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Ricky!”

“He wants me to convince you to go with him.”

Litzi nodded and said, “I guess it’s not surprising.”

“It was to me!” Ricky replied at once. “You knew about this?”

“I didn’t think he’d go that far,” she said softly. “Boris has been at me for months; every time he and those thugs who protect him show up at the office, he always stops at my desk. It makes me sick just thinking about it, but he keeps asking me if I want ‘something better than a desk job,’ and ‘why don’t I try it out for a while.’ It was miserable, every time I saw him walk in.”

Ricky drew in a deep breath.

“And now you know why I need to get you someplace where Boris could never find you until this gets sorted out.”

Litzi heard the meaning behind his declaration.

“What about you?” she continued. “What happens when you don’t give him the money and I won’t do what he wants?”

“I’m working on that, but it’s not your concern.”

She returned a nervous, unbelieving laugh.

“Not my concern? I’m your sister, damn it!”

Ricky was unmoved.

“None of that matters, Litzi, just listen to me, please! Boris will send his people to find you very soon now because he already knows I can’t pay him. He thinks I’m cornered and the only way out is convincing you to become his temporary whore. I lied to his street agent and bought a little time, but I have to get you out of here before that happens, do you understand?”

“I understand, but when he sees I’m gone, he’ll take it out on you!”

“No, he won’t. There are other ways to deal with this, and he’ll be satisfied.”

“Why don’t you run? Just get the hell out and try for one of the settlements out beyond the wire! You know some of the Agros out there, right?”

“I can’t, Litzi; the debt has to be paid, one way or another. If I ran, Boris would issue an order to find and kill me, just to make an example for others. Even worse, it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him; he will find you sooner or later.”

“How much do you owe him, Ricky?”

“More than I can pay.”

“How did you get yourself into this? Did you steal something from him?”

Ricky’s mind went to the machine shop and a pair of small boxes covered in filthy rags.

“No, nothing like that.”

“How much?”

He fought to find the words—something to tell her that wouldn’t hurt so badly when she understood at last. As the fear of Boris’ perverse intentions for Litzi pushed him before, the embarrassment and guilt held him back. In the end, Ricky simply ran out of lies.

“Eleven thousand.”

She stared in silence, staggered by the image his words had made.

“I thought I had a huge score—a package of stuff that’s worth a hundred times that amount, but it didn’t work out. I took an advance from him before I realized I can’t pay it back. I tried to get them to cancel and let me pay for what I used, but they won’t; I owe the full amount and that’s it.”

Litzi shook her head slowly, trying her best to interpret the message hidden inside Ricky’s answer.

“What you used?”

“The advance wasn’t for money.”

“You just told me that’s what you owe!”

“It was for hours, Litzi…”

“Hours? I don’t understand what you’re talking about!”

“Starlight,” he said softly.

Finally, he arrived at his own break point—a swan song, perhaps. For so long, he shunted aside the cautions and concerns of others who found adventure simulations a costly and useless waste of money; they couldn’t understand the magic of Starlight’s effect and the joy he felt in those moments with Neferure. The news vids ran stories of shattered lives and ruined souls who could no longer separate fact from fiction; impassioned and dramatic documentary shows, sending out warning signals that Starlight was a dangerous scam. They paraded them through on the screens in every home, describing the full effect of an addiction nearly impossible to shed, but few heard the dire message. He watched, but always with the satisfied belief he was different—better than them. In the suffocating heat on the edge of a metropolis, his own moment of clarity found him much too late.

She stood away suddenly, stepping backward as though the word alone could injure her if not avoided.

“Starlight? I never knew you…”

“It was private; I didn’t tell anyone.”

“I know it’s realistic, but eleven thousand? How could you possibly need that much time in a stupid vid adventure?”

Ricky knelt down to pluck a thin leaf from a weed, twirling it between his thumb and finger, searching for an explanation that could ease the disappointment he heard in her voice.

“It’s hard to describe; like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. The program lets you live in another place and time, if you want. It doesn’t judge you or remind you of the things you could never do in real life. Inside, it lets you be a part of something better than what you have; better than what you are, I guess…”

Litzi’s face went cold as the true meaning in Ricky’s words emerged. At once, she looked and saw a stranger, not her own brother. The weak ones—the losers who couldn’t find somebody—they were the ones who wasted their money and their lives in the Starlight theaters. She listened and heard what Ricky couldn’t say; a life-like amusement had become something much worse.

“You can’t stop, can you?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, but his feeble tone was an answer in itself.

“Damn it, Ricky, why didn’t you say something about this? Why did you wait until now?”

“You wouldn’t have understood then any more than you do now.”

“I understand enough!” she said quickly. “I know you’ve gone so far into that damn thing your life is in danger!”

“It’s not that simple, Litzi; Starlight is more than a vid game or something they run at the illusion booths down on the Corridor. This is just like being there; it’s living a better life where…”

“Better? Can it keep you from being killed out here in the real world? How is it better, Ricky? Can’t you see what it’s done?”

“It’s not like that,” he protested, but the words sounded childish and ridiculous, even to him.

“Listen to yourself! You’re addicted to that fucking thing!”

He had no answer, looking upward to the cloud cover as a misting rain drifted downward through the streetlights across the field.

“Let’s go,” he said at last; “I have to get you somewhere safe before Boris figures out you’re gone.”

They walked in silence, aiming steadily toward a paved footwalk that paralleled the river where families once walked on sunny afternoons in a time long before. Her disappointment had been replaced by numb disbelief. There was no point in going on about it and Litzi stumbled along behind, suddenly caught up in her big brother’s nightmare. After an hour, they arrived near the 18 portal, brightly lit and bustling with movement.

Broad, concrete tunnel entrances yawned like patients in an asylum—grotesque and fixed—angling gently downward from the surface toward the cavernous factory districts below. The infrastructure of a megalopolis occupied an underground world few above took the time to consider and even less had ever seen. Within a vast network of chambers and connecting tunnels, the machinery that made electrical power and clean water (or treatment facilities for the reeking muck a population in the millions produced every hour) intertwined with dozens of factories and specialized fabrication shops, each a small city of heavy industry unto itself. The trucks and transporters pulled finished products to the surface, exchanging their cargoes for raw material required to feed hungry furnaces and production lines where a swarming army of workers buzzed ‘round the clock to keep up an endless, steady pace. Pale and forever perspiring, ‘moles’ did the things no one above could tolerate, keeping alive the steady pulse of a society that preferred not to notice.

Half-way up the sides of each tunnel, pedestrian foot-walks clattered under the constant traffic and Ricky motioned Litzi toward one of them. At once, they felt the rush of outflow air hurrying from the depths and with it, sudden, welcome relief from the heat. As they started down the sloping ramp, Litzi gripped the handrail tightly as others moved past them, uncaring or indifferent. Beneath them, geared rails set into the tunnel’s floor, like parallel cogs of a funicular, allowed massive transporters to claw their way up the long incline, clunking in measured time with an endless rumble. She avoided the eyes of others from a desperate, irrational fear one or two might be looking for her. Ricky noticed and tried his best to reassure, but there was little he could say to take away the building dread pushing her as they descended ever deeper.

At last, they reached the first sub-level where the offices, stores and shops clung to wide, elaborate balconies constructed of wrought iron. It looked to her no different than a new mega-tower under construction; an open framework of metal beams and cross-members rising up from the bedrock floor far below. More tunnels moved the swarm of humanity to and from their work spaces or habitat blocks like insects in a hive; here, a different reality guided the ones who shunned life on the surface. Days were filled with the processes of industry and nights passed by in clubs and bars where the edges of a rough existence could be smoothed with a glass of Topaz or the intoxicating hemp smoke from public hookahs. It was a simple way of life that appealed to moles and kept them from the scrutiny of those who went about their mysterious business far above. Here, one had only to work and recreate; all other considerations were distant and meaningless.

On the high balconies, brightly lit storefronts with gaudy displays and programmed light shows made for an unexpected cheerfulness Litzi stopped for a moment to regard. The better shops beckoned with grand water cascades that wandered down the rock face of the cavern in carefully cut troughs, only to be returned above through hidden pumps and piping manifolds to repeat the process in an endless cycle. Ricky waited with her, knowing it was her first time underground and she watched as moles crowded past her without a discernable difference from those shoppers in any sector mall on the surface. Except for the interesting and often outlandish attire, or the application of too much makeup on faces that rarely saw sunlight, the ones she and Ricky once called ‘dirt eaters’ were not unlike the people in their own apartment blocks.

At last, Ricky’s comm unit buzzed. He listened to the message and nodded with a smile.

“My friend is home from work; we can go down now.”

“Who is this friend of yours?” Litzi frowned.

“His name is Nathan Gault, but everyone down here calls him ‘Natty.’ I’ve known him for a long time and he’s one of the few people I can trust.”

Ricky aimed Litzi toward an open-cage lift.

“How do you know this guy?” she asked as they worked their way through a crowd, moving slowly against the traffic flow.

“I got some expensive stuff for him years ago; things he could never afford on his pay, and he’s done me a lot of favors ever since. He’s a decent guy, Litzi; you don’t have to be afraid, okay?”

She smiled sadly and said, “I don’t want to know what kind of ‘expensive stuff’ you found for him, do I?”

“It’s not what you think,” Ricky replied; “just medicine for his kid. She had a bad time with lung infections, but the clinics down here aren’t any better than ours and they couldn’t do anything about it.”

“But you could?”

“The Uppers have really great hospitals. They’re not like ours; treating this sort of thing is routine to them. I managed to get some of the medicine from a client who knows one of the doctors and I gave it to Natty, that’s all.”

“Nothing is free, Ricky; what did you have to give them in return for this medicine?”

“The doctor wanted something they don’t allow up above; he offered to trade the medicine if I could get what he needed.”

“What did he need?”

“That is what you don’t want to know about.”

When the lift reached the fourth sub-level, it had gone noticeably quiet. The dimly lit air was cool and Litzi felt her senses come alive in anticipation as they walked along a row of numbered doors, each painted in dull, matte red, stopping at #407. Beyond the balcony behind them, the cavernous underground compound descended another three levels to where the factory entrances waited, alive with shift workers making their way home.

Ricky stepped close to tap with a knuckle, but the door opened suddenly and within, a smiling figure, still in the faded orange jumpsuit that identified him as an electrical systems technician. Nathan Gault motioned them inside with a silent wave of his thin, effeminate hand.

“Haven’t seen you down here in a while, Slider. I hear it’s bad hot up there today!”

“Sticky, too,” Ricky answered.

“Well,” Gault continued in a deep voice that belied his meager frame, “never mind that now; sit, and I’ll bring you something cool to drink, eh?”

“Thanks, Natty,” Ricky replied, motioning Litzi to a slender couch in the cluttered living room.

When he returned with two plastic tumblers filled with counterfeit Topaz and fruit juice, Gault rubbed the three-day growth of graying stubble on his chin and nodded Litzi’s attention toward an unseen room.

“Frankie’s still on-shift, but she’ll be home in a while; I’ve got Vera’s old room all set up for you, if you’d like to unpack and get settled in?”

Ricky whispered the interpretation for Litzi.

“Natty’s wife, Frankie; she works on one of the lines in the stamping plants. Vera is their daughter.”

“We never heard back from the Housing Authority lady after Vera moved out a couple of years ago, so now we have a guest room, if you can believe that!”

Ricky nodded with a knowing smile; few were allowed to keep quarters for three after one had gone.

“I hope it lasts.”

“I don’t think they even noticed, so if they’re not worried about it, why should we, right?”

“How’s she doing these days?”

“Vera?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, she’s doin’ great! Got herself into the MPE academy, just on her school grades. She’s a street-beater in Sector 3 now, keeping an eye on all the shops up and down Fairbairn Avenue.”

“Vera’s a cop?” Ricky asked with a grin. “She was just a teenager the last time I saw her!”

“Yep,” Gault declared. “It’s different now; they don’t care if you’re a mole anymore, as long as you pass the entrance exams. Vera’s done pretty good for herself and now she’s hot-tracking for sergeant in a few years, too!

“I’ll be damned.” Ricky grinned. “I better watch my ass when I’m over in her district!”

“Well, she’d probably give you a pass, Slider; we’re not forgetting what you did for her, and…”

The door clunked and swung open suddenly as Francesca Gault paused to catch her breath, smiling from rosy cheeks and deep brown eyes.

“Whew! I ran down to the lift as fast as I could; sorry I’m so late, but…”

She bowed just a little, noticing Litzi at last.

“Hello my dear, I’m Frankie; you must be Richard’s sister?”

“Yes. I’m sorry for the bother…”

“Nonsense! You’re always welcome here…”

“Litzi.”

“Litzi. What a beautiful name, isn’t it Natty?”

“We’re going to look after her for a while,” Gault answered, “so I got Vera’s room ready to go. Litzi, there’s a little bathroom through the door over there; we have our own in the bedroom, so consider this one yours while you’re here, okay?”

Litzi smiled and nodded with gratitude and the relief that comforts a stranger, safe among new friends. She guessed correctly that both knew why she had come and the need to keep her out of sight until Ricky’s troubles had been resolved. Frankie held out a hand and led Litzi toward a narrow hallway and Vera’s room. When they were gone, Gault turned to Ricky.

“Don’t worry about her, Slider; there’s no chance that bastard will ever find her down here.”

“You know how much I appreciate this, Natty.”

“It’s okay; we take care of our own.”

“It could be weeks,” Ricky cautioned.

“Doesn’t matter; she’s with us now, and until you say different, she’ll be right here, nice and invisible.”

Ricky hugged Litzi with a warning not to contact Helene.

“You got time off from work, right?”

“Yes; they know I’m going to be out for a while and it’s okay. I told them I have to take care of Mom, and they bought it.”

Ricky looked at Litzi and nodded to reassure.

“I’ll explain all this to her later, Litzi, just don’t call her and don’t answer when she calls you; they have people who look for stuff like that.”

“The Watchers; I know.”

Litzi looked at him a last time, her brow wrinkled with the worry he knew was there.

“What’s to keep them from using Mom to find me? There’s no telling what an asshole like Konstantinou would do!”

“Don’t worry about that,” Ricky replied, shaking his head with conviction, thinking of the Walk. “She’s going out to stay with Aunt Alexa tomorrow, remember? They’re finally looking through the boxes Dad left when he died, so she’ll be off the grid for a while. Boris doesn’t know where Alexa lives and I don’t think he gives a shit anyway; you’re the one he’s after.”

She returned a sad smile and squeezed his hands tightly.

“Please don’t do something stupid, okay? They’re dangerous, Ricky, you know that.”

“Everything will be all right; just stay here and don’t go up to the surface, not for any reason, you understand?”

She nodded automatically.

“I mean it, Litzi; no matter what you hear, stay put until I come back to get you.”

“I understand!”

“Okay, I have to go.”

He went to Gault, speaking low as they shook hands.

“You know what to do if this goes wrong, yes?”

“I’ll take care of everything, Slider; don’t worry about any of that.”

“Thanks, Natty; I owe you.”

Ricky went quickly to the lifts and backtracked home, relieved in the comfort Litzi and Helene, at least, would not be a part of the task before him. Better still, he thought with sudden, satisfying delight, Boris’ perverse desires would go unrewarded.

Ricky slumped at last into the musty, old lounger in the middle of his living room, dabbing the sweat from his face and arms with a small towel. His eyes ached again, bringing the curious flares of light in his vision that pulsed in time with the beat of his heart. Through the wall, clattering music from Mrs. Abber’s favorite game show blared out its carnival note in a mocking contradiction to the sullen mood and his fallen condition. In the darkness, his thoughts dragged him without pity across the debris of his failures and what he knew awaited him when Bartel returned. The Walk was his last and only option, yet Ricky felt the weight of worry lifting as he gave himself over to the inevitable conclusion.

Two days passed since Ricky’s final, desperate call to Justman, but the answer was no surprise; Boris Konstantinou wouldn’t budge. Bartel and Junkyard stood in the pale light filtering down from Rademacher Way.

“Hello, Slider,” Bartel said with a crooked smile. “The Boss, he don’t wait no more; you gotta make it right, know what I mean?”

In Bartel’s face, Ricky saw the cold, emotionless truth of his circumstance and a steep price he would have to pay. It was useless to try a break, hoping to elude them in the narrow walkway by the market; Junkyard would take out his disappointment on Ricky’s face when he finally ran him down. As he knew it would, Slider’s moment of reckoning finally arrived.

“I know you don’t, but Boris, he says I got to ask anyway,” said Bartel calmly, thumbing the magnets he kept forever in his pocket. “You got the money this time?”

Ricky turned away and shook his head slowly. Bartel looked at Junkyard with an expression of mock sympathy that only made worse Ricky’s misery.

“Aw, I tell you, see? He can’t give the money, poor lad.”

Suddenly, Bartel’s eyes narrowed as he moved in close.

“He ain’t gonna give you no more chances, Slider, you know?”

Ricky said nothing, but Bartel continued, as if to justify the horrors that would be inflicted when the Walk began.

“It’s not so fair, is it? You take all them hours and you don’t pay none of it back. The Boss, he don’t sit when somebody takes advantage like you done, know what I mean?”

Ricky braced himself against the arm of the ancient, stuffed chair, numb in a grip of hopelessness and despair.

“I can’t get the money. I tried, but there’s no way.”

Junkyard smiled through brown, twisted teeth and said, “You ain’t got a choice no more, boy.”

Bartel smiled again.

“Oh, he has the choice, but he don’t want to do that, do you, Slider?”

“I can’t.”

“Give her up or get ready to die, you stupid little shit.” Junkyard smiled cruelly.

“He says right, Slider; the only way you got to save your own skin. You should think about it once, okay?”

Ricky closed his eyes.

“No. It’s not her fault; none of this is her fault.”

“Sure, sure,” Bartel continued, “but that way you could still come out alive, see? And like I said, Boris won’t ask her to do nothing she ain’t doin’ now, right? She just gotta do it for the Boss until he gets what you owe, that’s all.”

“No!” Ricky shouted. “Leave her out of this!”

Bartel walked to the kitchenette and rinsed the dust from his hands.

“Come on, Slider! You tell us where you sister hide, and we can make all of this so easy. We ain’t gonna hurt her! The Boss, he just gonna play with her a little while and then let her go, see? Maybe he give her some makeup and clothes, too—who knows? She ain’t a kid no more, Slider.”

Ricky glared at Bartel with the last of his resolve.

“You’ll never find her, and I won’t give her to him. She’s not part of this!”

Bartel frowned and looked at Junkyard.

“He ain’t gonna say. Slider don’t want to think like that. He don’t want to see her the…the little prostitute school girlie, right? He rather die than to send her like that. It’s okay; I understand.”

Junkyard recognized his cue.

“Then you’re gonna make the Walk, you loudmouth piece of shit!”

Bartel nodded and stood next to Ricky.

“Last chance to say, now. You gonna tell us where sister hiding? It’s the only way, Slider—the way this got to be, okay?”

“I can’t turn on my sister,” he said softly.

Bartel shook his head solemnly.

“Okay, Slider, then it settled; we take you to Boris now and he gonna show you how to make the Walk.”

Ricky felt sick, but Bartel looked at the cluttered flat, suddenly tapping Ricky’s shoulder with the back of his hand.

“You should lock up tight when we go, or the streeties bust in and take everything when they figure you ain’t coming back no more. You don’t want them getting in after you’re gone, right? And anyway, nobody gonna call the MPE boys, so…”

Ricky nodded and turned off the light, following Bartel and Junkyard outside. He paused for a moment, looking one last time at the evidence of what he’d become. It couldn’t be any other way, he knew, but at least Helene and Litzi wouldn’t be made to suffer for it, too. He wanted to explain to them—to say goodbye. The news would filter in through the networks, he thought silently, or maybe from a neighbor. Helene would endure the family’s second death and like his father, Ricky’s would arrive too soon. Would it make Litzi hate him, he wondered? As he went up the alley between Bartel and Junkyard, Ricky thought suddenly of Mrs. Abber and the loss of a tenant. It seemed absurd, but the rent would come due in four days and he hadn’t paid her. Another failure—another person he would let down.

They rode in silence and Ricky looked out from Junkyard’s rattling delivery van, laboring up the long incline from the Square. Above, he knew, the city was alive; Uppers finished their workday and filled the bridges and causeways connecting one mega-tower to the next, oblivious of the sad, unfortunate drama playing out below. They lived normal lives in safety and comfort, unconcerned for the low-born street people who fought a daily battle to survive. Their lives should have been his, too, but bad luck—and Starlight—kept him forever in those places where the clean people never go.

After twenty minutes, Junkyard stopped near a wide ramp down to the first level of a parking garage, vacant and deserted since the days when gleaming land cars filled its spaces with the echoes of squealing tires and whining engines. They stopped at a cement bunker where the lifts made their last stop. Dimly lit, stinking of mold and urine, the internal vert squeaked to a halt with a muted thud. As the doors parted, Ricky watched as the reality of the moment held him like a vise. Once inside, he knew, there was no going back. A sudden rush of panic nearly overtook him, but a glance toward an exit to the street fell only upon Junkyard’s massive frame, waiting should Ricky’s resolve fail him at last. It was useless to fight and Ricky followed Bartel into the lift.

The ride up went quickly, even as Ricky hoped in quiet, irrational desperation the aging elevator might falter or become stuck, giving him one last chance to make an escape. Instead it slowed and stopped on the 25th floor, opening out to a wide, two-story atrium populated with only those shrubs and small trees whose survival didn’t depend on regular care. More a collection of weeds and scrawny bushes than the green, welcoming place it had once been in a distant past, the atrium was vacant and silent. Boris’ man, Galvez, met them as they walked from the elevator, pointing Ricky toward a wide, marble staircase where the wealthy elite once walked from trendy, opulent suites. Back then, he knew, the likes of Boris Konstantinou would never have been tolerated on 25, but things had changed. The Uppers stayed above and the Bosses moved into the spaces between, rooting themselves firmly in an economic and social ‘tweenland too high for Flatwalkers and too low for Uppers.

Only the sound of their footsteps on the cool, stone floor broke the quiet and above, few of the once-expensive fixtures remained in working order to light their way. At the end of a long hall, a single door led them into a narrow anteroom, and from it, a broad staircase curved upward to where Boris Konstantinou waited at an ornate, iron railing.

Dressed from head to toe in a garish, purple suit, Boris looked more the common street pimp than a feared, calculating syndicate Boss. A slight man with olive skin and thin, graying hair, Boris presented an almost fatherly appearance, but his reputation was more than enough to secure Ricky’s respectful silence; few who crossed swords with Boris lived to tell about it.

He smiled and said, “Good evening, Mister Mills.”

Ricky wiped the moisture from his palm by reflex, offering a nervous look at Bartel before turning his eyes upward.

“Hello, sir.”

“Please step inside, won’t you?”

At once, Ricky felt the pressure coming on in waves. Boris’ conspicuous, civil tone was little more than a thin disguise, poorly concealing the brutal thug who lurked within. As it was with all mob big-shots whose money bought them the illusion of cultivated sophistication on the darkest fringes of society, Boris’ easy tone was false. He, and others of his class, bridged the awkward gap between street people and the Uppers who kept their questionable business practices carefully out of sight. Residence in the abandoned, lower levels of a mega-tower had been the price of their services to the faceless privileged above, which no one thought to challenge. Bartel and Junkyard stood deliberately behind Ricky while Boris poured Topaz from a cut glass decanter into two small goblets, handing one to Ricky.

“No thanks,” Ricky said.

Turning to hand the glass instead to Bartel, Boris came to the point.

“I won’t pretend this is a normal social call, Ricky; we both know why you’re here. It is unfortunate, but the circumstances seem to have become unavoidable now.”

Ricky said nothing.

“Vaclav tells me you were unwilling to enlist the aid of your sister, Litzi; is that still true?”

Ricky looked at Bartel for a moment before answering. Boris’ words made his true plans for Litzi seem benign, even helpful and Ricky fought hard to mask his disgust with the contradiction.

“This has nothing to do with her.”

“I see,” Boris replied. “That’s too bad because it would have made this a lot easier for you. I don’t wish to be unkind, but I’m told Litzi might not have found the experience anything to which she isn’t already accustomed. I don’t suppose it would change your mind, but I can assure you, she might not find the prospect so daunting if she would only try.”

Ricky could no longer hold back the deep, seething anger building inside.

“I told them, and I’m telling you; leave my sister out of this!” he growled.

Bartel pulled his hands from his pockets, but Boris waved him away.

“No, no, that won’t be necessary, Vaclav. Mister Mills is quite adamant on this point, and I respect his position.”

Bartel stepped back, but Ricky understood the thunder from Bartel’s hidden club was always at the ready.

“Now then,” he continued. “Let’s get you prepared, shall we?”

Bartel nudged Ricky to follow into a sparsely appointed study that seemed more a corporate reception area than a private retreat. Boris motioned him to a black, plastic chair in the middle of the floor.

“You understand how this works, Richard?”

“I know enough.”

“Since you have never made the Walk before, I’m not sure you do. The video networks and their advertising customers are intolerant of mistakes, so it would be a good idea for us to review, don’t you agree?”

“Yeah, sure, I guess,” Ricky replied with a shallow, indifferent tone.

Boris nodded and took two small sips of his drink before placing the glass carefully onto the corner of his desk, positioning it precisely equidistant from each converging edge of its smooth surface.

“Now then,” Boris continued, “a Walk, I should tell you, is not an option available to just anyone. Many participants are not fit for this sort of thing, so you should be grateful that you have been given the option.”

“Grateful,” Ricky sneered; “I should be grateful?”

With the sound of a giant, iron bell tolling nearby, Junkyard’s massive paw slammed into the side of Ricky’s head, nearly toppling him from the chair. A second later, he was pulled violently upright by the same hand with a whispered warning.

“Try that shit again and there won’t be nothin’ left of you to make a fuckin’ Walk, understand?”

Boris stepped closer.

“Come now, Richard, you know the score! The others…well, most of them, die a slow, painful death. You, on the other hand, have at least a chance, don’t you? You’re young and fit, and they tell me you know your way around when things get rough. All things considered, this could be a lot worse.”

Boris pulled a loose thread from his pocket, flicking it absentmindedly to the floor as he continued.

“The Walk, as you probably know, is absolute and there are only two possible outcomes: You will successfully elude the chase units, or you won’t. The course varies from contestant to contestant, simply to avoid cheating, but the purpose remains; if you survive long enough to reach your goal, you will be deemed to have paid your debt in-full because the advertiser’s money will be transferred to my accounts by the network. If, on the other hand, you cannot, well…”

Ricky looked up through tired, half-open eyes.

“It’s to the death; I know that.”

“Regrettably,” Boris continued, “there are no other considerations. The chase units are paid to find and kill you and they will do their best because it is in their interest to return a corpse; they’re paid bonus money for a kill, you see. I know it seems harsh, but there it is; you must survive by any means. There are no specific rules—only survival or death; do you understand?”

Ricky nodded in silence.

“Your chances are always fifty-fifty in this contest, Ricky, remember that. It may seem impossible now, but out there on the streets, anything can happen. Vaclav tells me you’ve been a survivor all your life, so it’s entirely possible you will make it through after all.”

“You know I won’t make it through,” Ricky mumbled. “You’re betting on it.”

“Others have made the Walk and survived, Richard; you might surprise us!”

“What’s the goal?”

“The organizers will meet you at a pre-determined location. Vaclav will take you there shortly, but the goal cannot be revealed until that time. In this way, no one can influence the contest improperly by alerting you or the chase teams. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Also, they wish to avoid enterprising onlookers who once cluttered the Walk courses like sports enthusiasts trying for a closer look at the action. All those gawkers became a nightmare for the organizers a few years back, didn’t they, Vaclav?”

Bartel smiled and nodded as Boris finished his thought.

“Anyway, it will be just you and the Chasers when the signal is given. Of course, the goal will establish the length of your Walk; some can be accomplished in a single night, but others have run for two or even three days.”

Ricky leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees. Boris’ words pounded inside his head like a hammer. There was no way out—no option or last-minute savior to pluck him from an ocean of despair. The mistakes had been his alone and it remained only for him to pay that most final price. As an antique clock ticked off the seconds from a wall behind Boris’ desk, Ricky raised his head.

“What do I have to do? How am I supposed to prepare for something like this?”

Boris smiled and held up a hand, as if to reassure.

“Don’t concern yourself, Richard; we will give you all the preparation available.”

Ricky only blinked in quiet confusion as Boris walked to where he sat, alone and solitary in his misery.

“There is a harness fitted with several small cameras and a transmitter the organizers will give you in just a while. The networks broadcast Walks live, as you know, but we are also obliged to implant a device they call a Zorich—a small transceiver—beneath the skin to monitor your life signs in the event you…well, I think you understand what I mean, don’t you?”

Ricky nodded slowly as Boris continued.

“Doctor Cason can do that quite easily, right from here. When we are given the schedule, he will begin the process.”

“Schedule?” Ricky asked.

“Of course; they don’t simply release you at a random moment, then hope for the best. We are given a specific time, and you will be taken to a carefully chosen start point in order to meet that requirement. Give me a moment, won’t you? I’ll see if they have the schedule now.”

Ricky sat motionless as Boris walked quickly from the room. Bartel and Junkyard moved closer to Ricky, if only to ensure he wouldn’t try anything as they waited. It didn’t take long before Boris returned, smiling broadly as if Ricky had won an award.

“They’re ready for you, Richard. All we have to do is fit you with the Zorich device and you’ll be on your way! Doctor Cason will be here shortly.”

Ricky ignored Boris’ cruel, jovial tone.

“Let’s get on with it.”

“Excellent; better to get the game started as soon as we can, hmm?”

Bartel smiled from the shadows, but Ricky didn’t notice. Boris scrolled through a document on his monitor like a patron browsing a restaurant menu. At last, he stopped.

“There’s one other item I need to cover with you, Richard, in addition to the procedures; it won’t take but a moment.”

Ricky looked at the floor.

“Go ahead.”

“The Walk is a contest. You will be released at a start point somewhere in the city, but its location, and the goal, of course, won’t be revealed until Vaclav and his associate are cleared to transport you. The Zorich device Doctor Cason is about to implant auto-connects to a receiver monitored by the organizers; when you hear three sharp tones in your ear, the Walk begins. You will likely recognize the start point as you arrive, and it will be up to you to elude the Chasers and make your way across Novum to reach your goal. If you make it through, the Zorich device will record and transmit a successful event, you see? The chase units will be given a general clue as to your starting point, and when you run, they will begin. It’s quite simple, really.”

Ricky listened to Boris describe the Walk as though it was a scavenger hunt they used to arrange for college kids in the old days, but his isolation and desperate loneliness had become intense. The words filtered through a persistent ringing in his ears and thoughts drifted again to Litzi. The Walk was final, but he found some small relief in the knowledge it would bring an end to his torment. More than that, it would insulate Litzi and Helene from a future of misery lived at the whims of people like Boris. The debt would be paid and they, at least, would be free from retribution intended for him.

Boris walked to his desk where the comm chirped its signal for an incoming call. The voice within told him all he needed to know and he nodded slowly.

“Ah, I see. That would make sense, yes. I’ll let him know; thank you for the update.”

He turned to Ricky.

“The organizers have identified your goal, so the time has arrived. Oh, and remember, taking shortcuts through city center is not allowed; you must stay beyond the borders of the inner beltway. If the locator beacon paints your position within the boundary line, MPE will be alerted and you will be terminated by any responding officers. Stay outside the beltway and you’ll have a chance.”

“What’s to prevent the Chasers from putting somebody in my path to kill me before I can make it a mile from the start?”

“You misunderstand, Richard. Chasers are not gifted with knowledge of your goal or start point; if they were, your Walk wouldn’t be much of a contest, would it?”

Boris turned with a laugh and spoke to Bartel.

“Can you imagine such a thing, Vaclav? The advertisers would dry up at once if a contestant could be found and killed so easily!”

Bartel chuckled callously as Boris returned to Ricky.

“Reach the goal before the chase units catch you and your debt will be absolved. Also—and this is worth noting—you will be allowed fifteen hours at any Starlight theater in the city free of charge! Well, provided you survive, of course.”

Ricky shook his head and smiled sadly at the absurd notion. His debt, made by an uncompromising need to be with Neferure had delivered him into the hands of murderers, yet they thought nothing of encouraging him toward a repetition of the very practice. In a sudden, insane moment of clarity, Ricky felt a compelling satisfaction, knowing his death would deny them the pleasure of holding him hostage to his weakness again. Boris held up a sudden hand.

“One more thing, though. I almost forgot! There are bonus points available, and I can easily transfer them into hours at any of our Starlight theaters if you wish, but there are conditions. If at any time during the Walk you are engaged in battle with the chase units, you will only earn bonus points by concluding it with a fatality; simply rendering one of the Chasers unconscious or otherwise incapacitated will not be counted, I’m afraid.”

Ricky nodded automatically and Boris leaned close to emphasize a final detail.

“This last bit may appear unseemly to you, but it is worth considering.”

Ricky looked up at Boris, unsure of what would follow.

“Some of the Chasers are women. If you are presented with the opportunity and enough time, the normal credit amount for a defensive kill will be doubled if you can successfully execute a complete sexual assault beforehand.”

Ricky’s mouth went agape. Before he could speak, Boris cut him off.

“Do not dismiss this out of hand, Richard; the bonus points you could earn are considerable. And anyway, you must follow it up with a kill, so there’s no reason to be concerned with needless sentiment or misplaced feelings of morality. After all, they’ll be doing their best to kill you, remember.”

Ricky stood suddenly and walked in numb silence to a window, stunned at Boris’ cavalier description of so horrid an act. Before he could answer, a tone sounded from outside, signaling Doctor Cason had arrived.

“Ah,” said Boris, “Steven is ready for you, I see.”

They took him to a brightly lit room off Boris’ kitchen where a low table had been cleared. After a moment, a figure appeared from the adjoining room. Ricky looked, but the man only set about pulling instruments from a gray, plastic container. Ricky knew at once Dr. Cason meant to avoid eye contact, and it made his feeling of isolation all the more acute.

“Facedown, please,” was all he said.

Ricky climbed onto the cold, smooth surface without a word, turning his head toward the cabinets that lined the far wall as Cason went immediately to work.

“Lie still; I’m going to apply a local anesthetic, so this will sting a bit.”

Ricky felt the pinch of a four-needle applicator piercing into his skin, but the discomfort was tolerable. In moments, he felt the effects as vision began to blur. From behind, he could hear the clank of the doctor’s instruments and then a slight pressure against his head. For a while, the sounds became mere echoes as the painkiller did its work. He couldn’t see or feel the doctor’s manipulation of a tiny skin flap, or even the careful suture of the Zorich device into place at the base of his skull, but the smell of burned tissue told of a cauterizing probe to control bleeding. In minutes, it was done and Doctor Cason tapped Ricky’s shoulder.

“I’m finished; you may sit up now.”

As Ricky rolled himself slowly from the table, he looked to see the doctor walking quickly from the room. No other words were exchanged and nothing more needed to be said. Boris returned after paying Cason, nodding quietly toward Bartel.

“Not so bad, was it? And now you’re ready to go, Richard. Vaclav will take you to the start point. I would wish you luck, of course, but we both know your skill and inventiveness will be needed far more than mere chance. I look forward to seeing the outcome! Goodbye, Mister Mills.”

Ricky waited a moment until Junkyard muscled him sharply toward the door.

Ricky steadied himself against a sudden lurch forward as Junkyard’s delivery van squeaked to a halt. At once, Bartel slid the door open and hopped out, leaving Junkyard to follow Ricky as he stepped cautiously onto the dark, garbage-littered street. In seconds, Ricky found his bearings, recognizing the spot as a desolate field where Lafayette Park once welcomed families and joggers nearly a century before. It had been years since Ricky ventured so far out to the west, but he knew it well enough.

Bartel stood next to him, surveying the park under weak, diffuse moonlight. A moment later, a trim air car sped toward them from the south, barely clearing the rooftops of vacant or abandoned boutiques and hair salons on Bastille Street. Two figures stepped from the car as it settled noisily onto the ground, sending roiling clouds of dust into the hot, evening air. A slender woman dressed in an outfit more suited to cocktail parties than dispatching a contestant on a run for his life went quickly to Bartel, speaking through a cupped hand to be heard over the hiss of the car’s engines.

As a technician fitted Ricky with his camera and transmitter harness, the thin woman with close-cropped hair and a dour expression said, “We have a clean signal, so I can now tell you the completion goal for your Walk is the transmission complex north of the city—Broadridge, they call it.”

“I know where it is,” Ricky mumbled.

The official didn’t seem to notice.

“When you hear the tone in a few minutes, you can start. Do you have any questions?”

Ricky shook his head, and with that, the official and her technicians returned to the car and lifted quickly into the night sky. Bartel watched them go before turning at last to where Ricky stood, shadowed by Junkyard’s huge frame against the possibility of escape.

“You gonna start here, Slider, know what I mean?”

Ricky ignored him, focused instead on the route he would soon take to cross the field quickly. The old retail district could provide cover, he reasoned, and its maze of deserted, burned-out storefronts might hold up the chase units long enough for him to make the apartment blocks on the north side, but experience on the streets showed him something else. Ricky had been around long enough to recognize a trap when he saw one, turning instead toward the open expanse to the left. Junkyard understood and smiled at the idea of Ricky clearing an open field before a Chaser’s bullet cut him down, but Bartel moved close, pointing at the camera and transmitter array.

“They say you gotta leave them cameras where they are, Slider; if you try to pull them away, the deal’s off and that little jiggy under your skin will send out a nice, loud signal so’s the Chasers can find you quick, see?”

Ricky understood; touch the camera harness and any hope of protection for Helene and Litzi would be canceled for tampering, leaving them exposed to Boris’ retribution. Junkyard grinned stupidly and leaned close.

“You better run real fast, boy; they can get you easy through them nightscopes.”

Ricky said nothing, but Junkyard went further, determined to apply one last insult.

“Let’s see if that big mouth of yours is gonna help you now, with all them shooters waiting out there in the dark!”

Ricky refused to take the bait and Bartel moved suddenly in front of him.

“Don’t pay no attention to him, Slider; Junkyard, he’s just teasing, see?”

Ricky looked past the little Czech to where a pond once shimmered on bright, summer days. Dried up long before, the old reflecting pool made a wide, three-meter depression that ran nearly the length of the park. Within it, his best chance of getting across unseen and far better than the obvious set-up waiting for him in the shops, he decided. Bartel didn’t notice Ricky’s hands shaking uncontrollably at his side.

“If you make it through here, you got a chance, know what I mean? Run fast like Junkyard says and you could reach the other side without they seeing you. After that, well…”

Ricky heard Bartel’s words, but they were meaningless as the tension built. His heart raced with anticipation, but after ten minutes, Ricky’s eyes had adjusted to the low light. He saw his path; only the start signal remained before he could be off. A moment later, three clicking beeps sounded from deep inside his skull and Ricky bolted at once for the old fountain where it sat dormant in a stand of stunted beech trees. Bartel called after him, but Ricky didn’t hear as he made for the ancient, moss-covered stones on a dead run.

Alone at last, Ricky stumbled through ankle-high weeds as the ground fell suddenly away. He slowed to catch his breath, well below the dry shoreline of the old pond. With no way of knowing where the chase units were positioned in advance of the start, Ricky was running blind. It didn’t matter, but there was little doubt they were already moving to intercept. As he made his way cautiously between the bushes and small trees that grew from the fertile earth, Ricky felt instinctively along the back of his neck. Surgical tape still covered the incision where Doctor Cason placed the Zorich device, but after a moment, an irrational urge to tear open the wound and remove the thumb-sized chip had passed.

As he surveyed the hillside, Ricky decided to creep slowly and quietly in the hope he wouldn’t draw attention. If Boris’ words were true, it would take time for the closest chase teams to get their first position signal and begin to close the distance. Still, there were no guarantees the assurances of a fair start were genuine; they may well have placed teams across a wide swath of every sector beyond the beltway to form interdiction barriers he couldn’t avoid. And anyway, he thought silently, it was at least ten kilometers from the park to the tower at Broadridge; a distance he could never hope to cover at a full run. For the moment, he would have to keep the pace carefully measured.

Following the contours of the empty pond toward the north, Ricky made his way along the depression, stopping now and then simply to listen for a sign that might betray the Chasers, perhaps careless in their haste to run him down. In the oppressive heat, sweat poured from his face and he wondered if their infrared scopes would see his unmistakable signature. He knew Chasers were equipped with the gear they would need for the hunt, making it all the more important for him to reach the old habitat blocks quickly. Memories of empty, decaying units from the days when he roamed vacant apartments in his youth would help him better than a mad dash across an open field. Either way, Ricky knew, he had to press on.

Wandering along the border of the city’s dense population zones, habitat colonies swarmed with people, even late into the night. A sea of faces down on the streets once made excellent cover to mask a Walker’s movements as another among many, but the practice ebbed when errant gunfire from chase units resulted in bystander deaths. Organizers changed with the times by installing proximity sensors in every contestant’s Zorich device, along with a warning to stay clear of heavily populated zones or face execution by MPE officers patrolling the fringes. Ricky remembered Boris Konstantinou’s cautionary words in the last moments before his Walk.

Most viewers watching from their homes would recognize little in the darkness, but others might notice a familiar, local landmark through Ricky’s camera array and try their luck at finding and exposing him to the Chasers. The practice was discouraged, but some found the effort worthwhile for the temporary notoriety it could bring. Over the years, a few had paid dearly for their interference, strangled or beaten to death by desperate Walk contestants trying only to survive, and the word filtered out that civilian involvement would be made at the individual’s own risk.

Ricky looked toward the horizon to the north for a moment, gauging what lay ahead by only his memories. In the quiet, he knelt in tall grass to gather his thoughts and formulate a plan. It had been a long time since he was obliged to cross the beltway’s wide arc, but worse, he’d never done it at night. Ricky knew the landscape enough to know reaching the abandoned apartment blocks in the early moments was essential, if only for the heavy concrete walls that would operate to block his Zorich signal for short intervals and buy time to reposition before Chase team receivers re-acquired their target. Behind and to his right, the distant mega-towers did little to reassure him. On his own and isolated in the remnants of the Old City, there were no havens or opportune chances to enlist the help of others.

Ricky picked his way through the random growth until at last, the ground sloped gently upward; the edge of the park was near. As he cleared a sparse stand of sumac, the darkened silhouette of long-abandoned apartment blocks stood out against the haze. He forced himself to slow, fighting an overwhelming urge to simply run. Slowly and carefully up the rise until he crested a wide, concrete apron that once welcomed strollers and tourists having picnics near the pond. Ricky’s senses were alive, tingling and shooting adrenaline through his body in waves—a hundred yards to go and he would be in.

An expanse dividing the park from where the beltway began in earnest was a hilly, uneven field and across it, occasional foundations of old buildings. He walked carefully to avoid chunks of concrete and angular framework structures that once made homes for generations in a distant past. Lone pavers or cinder blocks hid in the grass to slow an already diminished pace and with each step, Ricky wondered when the snap of a rifle, or the chatter of an automatic machine gun would reach out from the darkness and end his life. It took longer than he expected, but the distance to the empty apartment blocks was closing and he hurried toward the blackened shapes.

As he slipped through twin doors that were once an entrance to the nearest building, Ricky stopped to rest. Pushed by fear alone, he made it across the park alive; only the sound of his labored breathing broke the silence when he stepped carefully around the clutter. It was deathly quiet, but the foul odor of mold and rotted carpet made his nose wrinkle as he navigated an obstacle course of rubbish left behind and long forgotten from the days when MPE patrols burned the squatters out like rats.

Ricky knew the Chasers’ electronic gear would zero in on a faint signal sent out by the Zorich device at irregular intervals—simply crawling into an unseen hole to wait them out was useless. Sooner or later, he knew, they would find him. He had to keep moving.

Through the gaping holes where windows had been, Ricky watched the faint moonlight filter in from above, casting strange, surreal shadows along peeled, decaying walls. As he slid silently through a covered breezeway and into the next building, Ricky’s skin tingled with fear and anxiety, unsure if the danger stalking him outside was worse than what he might stumble upon within. He fought to stifle the sensation of dread, but he’d seen more than his share of decomposing corpses in the tenements to be surprised when he tripped over the remains of a squatter who’d come to grief many months before.

Even in the pale light, the ghastly details were clear. Chewed by rodents, what remained of skin on the poor man’s arms and legs was dry and leathery, split into wide ovals to expose the bare bone beneath. His form had become more skeleton than body, sunken where his abdomen had been and clothed in moldering rags that seemed suited to a much larger man. His face wore a grimace of agony as tanned skin withdrew to reveal eyeless sockets and a grotesque, leering grin of exposed teeth—yawning as if from a final, silent scream. The dead man’s scalp showed patches of wispy, matted hair, still clinging to tattered, colorless tissue like unharvested wheat in a lonely winter field.

Turning away in disgust, Ricky’s fear was made worse by spent shell casings littering the floor around him as silent testimony the unfortunate and unknown man had been killed by point-blank gunfire. Had the Chasers misidentified him as a debtor making the Walk, or was he instead on the wrong side of a busted deal between thieves?

Ricky paused, holding his breath in a desperate hope to hear echoes of a chase team’s movement from somewhere in the ruins. Slowly and carefully, he continued onward through the block, slipping quietly from building to building until at last, he emerged from the complex. Beyond, a solitary grove of tall poplars stood motionless in the calm and Ricky remembered them from the times when he and Vinnie traded stolen goods with courageous Agros who dared to venture in through the wire. MPE cops were authorized by the Novum City Commission to shoot without warning any unauthorized Agro caught inside the city’s borders; concluding a five minute deal exchanging bottles of Topaz for fresh herd meat brought considerable danger, simply from being in the company of a border-jumping Agro.

After wading deliberately and carefully through tall grass surrounding the trees, Ricky felt better; if the Chasers knew he was there, an ambush would certainly have found him. Now, he thought silently, a straight run across barren fields would get him to the Canyons before midnight and from there, he reasoned, the inter-sector canals could be reached in only a few hours. Crossing them would be another matter, of course, but for the moment, he would enjoy the cover of the trees as he angled steadily toward the north. If he could find his way across the old crop fields undetected, the northern Industrial Zone and its maze of interconnected buildings, ventilation shafts and above-ground pipelines would degrade the Zorich signal and frustrate the Chasers’ efforts. Once there, his odds of survival went up considerably.

As he crested a gentle rise paralleling the first canal, Ricky could see the lights of the Zone in the distance casting a muted glow above the darkened buildings beyond. When he paused to search out the best path northward, he noticed at last a profound sense of thirst. It seemed odd somehow, but all through the blocks, his only thought had been avoiding the Chasers. Now, the sticky dryness in his mouth distracted and tormented him with each step. He stopped again, troubled by a pounding in his chest that hadn’t abated since he began the Walk, but there was more. Reaching with a sleeve instinctively to wipe away the sweat, Ricky looked and saw a three-hour march that would be unbearable without a drink of water.

The fields spreading out before him had been lush croplands in a distant past, once maintained in neat rows and pouring out a steady stream of grains and root vegetables that sustained the growing population until hydroponics bays and protein synthesizers augmented ever-growing trade with the far-flung Agros. In the decades since, most of the old fields had been abandoned, leaving a few parcels still cultivated and tended by workers from one or two of the surface cooperatives.

Compelled by his nagging thirst, Ricky remembered occasional, solitary irrigation pump houses from early forays with Vinnie when they were young. He halted the journey northward in favor of a search to find one and within, a long drink he so desperately needed. Panting noticeably in the suffocating heat, Ricky turned toward the south for a moment. Far beyond, like glittering needles alone on the horizon, the brightly lit mega-towers of Novum rose to dizzying heights, so massive in their place they seemed to dwarf the surrounding sprawl to insignificance. He thought of the Agros and Diggers who no doubt regarded similar vistas with each visit to sell or trade their wares, looking on in wonder from the hilltops twenty kilometers distant. But his mission to find water ended the distraction quickly as he looked for telltale rectangles of groomed fields and with them, the promise of water.

He scanned from left to right, but there were only isolated groves of trees and irregular shapes of wild, overgrown expanse. Ricky went quickly along a narrow ridgeline in the bright moonlight until at last, he found the sharp edges of a uniform rectangle, lighter in tone than the surrounding, weedy terrain—a field, recently plowed under and dusted with the white powder made by an application of chemical nutrients. By Ricky’s calculation, it would take less than twenty minutes to reach on a straight line from the hilltop, but the ever-present worry his Zorich device betrayed his position to the Chasers spurred him to action down a gentle slope and closer to his goal.

The heavy grass was rough and stiff, but he kept a steady pace as he went along the hillside to a stand of pines astride an undulating field in the darkness and from it, the unmistakable aroma of freshly turned earth. On its short boundary at the southern end, a small outbuilding sat on an angle to the furrowed rows and an elaborate manifold of pipes and fittings that fed the drip lines. There were no lights, but the moon’s faint glow showed the way along a narrow access road.

He wanted to bolt for drain valves suspended from a feed pipe, but the caution his constant fears had made held him motionless as he surveyed the land beyond. Like a gazelle nearing the banks of a watering hole somewhere on the Serengeti, Ricky felt the conflict rise as nature’s primal need for water collided with his instinct to survive. He waited and watched. After a moment, and satisfied he was indeed alone, Ricky went quickly for the tangle of pipes, feeling each for the telltale chill he knew meant cool water within. A brass union with a simple wheel valve opened easily and Ricky stooped to let the blessed flood pour into his mouth.

After several purposeful gulps, his belly felt full and he knelt to let the spray gush over his head, soaking him to the waist in seconds. When he stood to position himself against the pumping station’s smooth, cement wall, he felt the rejuvenating effect surge through him. Dabbing his face with a sleeve, Ricky looked for a container to carry a supply he knew would be needed if he survived long enough to come within reach of the Broadridge complex, but there was only a plastic crate filled with half-empty solvent cans and pipe thread sealant. The pump house’s heavy door was locked, making it clear he would have to rely on another water source farther to the north. A last pull from the manifold’s valve might make a difference hours later, he decided, kneeling a last time. But as he straightened himself, an odd zipping sound was followed at once by a loud snap that startled him where he stood in confusion.

The second bullet streaked across the field on a gentle arc, exploding from a Chaser’s rifle where he crouched inside the tree line to the south, but Ricky’s sudden lurch found a hidden length of pipe, sending him to the ground in a clumsy fall. In other circumstances, it would’ve been embarrassing, but by an impossible moment of luck he could never calculate, the fall had pulled him from the high-speed round’s path. Instead of crashing into his brain, the bullet whizzed only inches from it, clanking loudly off the shed’s metal door.

At once, Ricky sprinted across a short distance to the tree line, diving head-first into a thicket. He hadn’t heard the first shot, which told him the sniper was still distant and a steady crawl through the undergrowth would get him to a narrow field quickly before they could aim and fire again. If, he reasoned, the adjacent stand of maple trees and ancient oaks could be reached, he would be past the access road and beyond the would-be killer’s view, but as he stood, a sharp pain finally overcame the distraction made by adrenaline and panic. He reached instinctively for the side of his head and found the bloody crease where a sharp chunk of concrete blasted from the pump house wall had grazed him, slicing neatly through the skin. He held a sleeve against the wound to stem the bleeding until it could clot, but he had to get across the road and back to the hill if he expected to elude a sniper team surely closing from behind.

There was no point in looking back as he trotted across the last level field, keeping a steady pace even as his heart raced from fear and exertion; if they saw him and drew a better aim, he would never know it until he fell. After ten minutes, the ground sloped upward, slowing him to a walk, but soon, he crested the first rise. Veering toward a second hill and pushed by fear and terror, Ricky trotted downward into a gulley where a dry creek bed meandered on a ragged, east-west line, bracketed on both sides by anemic willows swaying in the gentle breeze. Except for weeds and an occasional boulder, the path was sandy, level and nicely suited to his purpose.

Had the Zorich signal betrayed his position to them, he wondered? It was supposed to send out its beacon at irregular intervals, only to make a Walk more exciting for viewers looking on from their vid screens. He looked at the camera harness, imagining the scene in living rooms and bars across Novum as millions were taken with him on his desperate journey. Had water from the pump house manifold damaged them? In an absurd moment, Ricky wondered if the array still functioned; could his misadventure be declared void, merely for broken equipment? There was no way to tell.

For two hours, Ricky picked his way north, avoiding a sprawling apartment community for unskilled laborers at Tipton Downe they called the ‘Labyrinth,’ staying with his plan of reaching the Canyons before midnight. Another two hours at a steady pace, he figured, would get him safely through the mountains of cast-off rubbish. Once there, it would be nearly impossible for his Zorich device to send out a clean signal through a million tons of scrap metal and garbage, masking his position as he moved ever west toward the Industrial Zone.

Though it stung with each footfall, the wound on his head had stopped bleeding. The cut was superficial, but Ricky worried infection might become a worse enemy in time without any hope of treatment. It couldn’t be helped, he knew, but the thought troubled him just the same. After an hour, interrupted once or twice by brief stops to rest, Ricky noticed the air easing past his temples was cooler. He stopped and scanned the fields, hoping to catch his first glimpse of the Canyons. Standing toward the south, only to reassure himself the Chasers hadn’t found him again, Ricky paused a while, looking across the eerie, moonlit expanse.

Kilometers out from the urban core of the Novum metroplex, the landscape had become a haunting wasteland of destroyed buildings—gaunt, steel skeletons rising from the burned-out remains of their own foundations. Inside the more intact examples, squatters and outcast streeties no doubt slumbered in small groups and Ricky could see the flickering light from more than a few campfires as he moved, each reminding him to stay on the periphery to lessen his risk of discovery. But the land was mostly even and his pace became steady when finally, to his left, the jagged tops of refuse piles showed him the way; the Canyons were only minutes distant.

For fifty years, Novum’s scrap and refuse had been transported to the separators at recycling plants on the approaches to what was once the Industrial Zone’s thriving northern sector. Islands of debris had grown into mountains so that a wandering path between them took on the look of a deep chasm, earning the place its misapplied nickname. When he walked slowly into the complex, Ricky smiled, knowing the Chasers’ scanning instruments would be hard-pressed to find him there.

For half an hour he crept deliberately and slowly around each mountain of junk and garbage, emerging at last onto a field where a sparse thicket of longleaf pines formed a wandering line toward the west. Ricky made his way easily through the trees for a while until he saw the slim, uniform towers of the electrical distribution grid in the distance. At once, he recognized his place on the bleak landscape, remembering early adventures with Vinnie when the lure of exploration in their youth made accompanying risk irrelevant.

He smiled and nodded at the transfer station near Bell Town where high-tension lines zig-zagged suddenly south. It would be an hour to the Industrial Zone but beyond it, the transmission complex at Broadridge. Once more on the lowlands, the suffocating heat returned and Ricky quickened his pace, determined to make the old canals long before dawn.

Although he couldn’t know without a wrist comm, it was nearing 2:30 when the black shapes of the Zone emerged at last through the haze and Ricky stopped to survey his most likely way across the first canal. Several cantilever bridges, some wide enough for a land car, once carried heavy pipelines and conduit bundles over the canal. Others were merely remnants of open steel framework, but he knew better than to try for one without regard; the Chasers had surely seen his movement on their locator maps at the pump house, plotting the blip his Zorich device no doubt made for them. They would surely see what he intended and a simple matter of zeroing in on the small bridges with their gun scopes, waiting for him to make an attempt. There had to be a better way.

His head ached and the painful wound on his scalp burned, but Ricky waited a while in nerve-racking silence, searching for a safer path to the other side when suddenly, he saw it. Fifty yards distant, from the underside of a narrow bridge built to carry electrical conduits, a single beam lay hidden beneath the span it supported. V-shaped stays rose upward on opposing angles to meet the bridge’s upper surface and if carefully negotiated, the structure would conceal him from view as he made his way across.

With no way of knowing if Chaser units hid in the darkness, Ricky decided the risk of sitting a while longer was worth the effort; if one of them moved or made an inadvertent sound, he’d know better than to make for the conduit bridge. Settling between the last in a line of trees and thick brush, he knelt slowly, allowing his senses to seek out a telltale sign that might betray the Chasers’ position.

For fifteen minutes he waited and watched. Sweating in the heat, Ricky listened with every nerve alert and ranging, ready at any moment to slip quietly into the cover of the trees and a renewed search for another way to cross. Nothing moved; if the Chasers were out there, he decided, they couldn’t see him.

It was hardly surprising, but in the sweltering silence, his thoughts drifted suddenly to Neferure. Did she wait near the reeds that lined the river near Ma’at Palace? Perhaps General Nekhbet would’ve sent word that a malady had taken Apheru; a sickness without treatment. There was no way to tell her; no explanation he could make to explain his terrifying journey across a wilderness on the fringes of a city that could only exist in her distant future. Could she wait, or had Senenmut’s plans to install Thutmose already come to fruition? The desperate loneliness and worry swirled around him, unrelenting and never-ending; if the Chasers ran him down, he thought in grim silence, she would never know. At last, he shook off the daydream. Was he merely waiting out the last seconds of his life before blundering into their nightscopes, he wondered? Could he make it over the canal and find in the deserted buildings of the Zone a safe passage to survival? Either way, he knew staying in the tree line would ultimately be his undoing. He had to move—he had to try.

Slowly and with great care, Ricky crept forward, looking left and right with the same, barely controlled dread that accompanied him as he traversed the apartment blocks. Out in the open, he felt naked and the sniper’s bullets that nearly ended his life only hours before were evidence enough his caution was warranted. Before, as he hustled on the crowded streets of Novum, he knew his way around; he was the Slider. But here, on the edge of the Zone and forced to an unavoidable dash for freedom, he was only a terrified, lonely target for a Chaser’s rifle.

Edging ever closer to the borders of the canal, Ricky crossed the sloping ground to the conduit bridge. It was smaller than it seemed from a distance, but the lone support beam beneath was intact. Waiting a last few seconds, he fought back the urge to run, knowing sudden movement could give him away. At last, he reached the ancient, corroded structure and clambered downward, careful not to allow a misstep that would send him to a certain death below on the barren, concrete floor of the dry canal. It had been years since water flowed through its sheer walls and now, only weeds gathered in the sand and sediment left behind. Some of the man-made waterways had been maintained and used to shift flat-bottom barges laden with scrap metal to the foundries, but most had been drained and abandoned. A fall would be fatal, Ricky knew, and he moved with deliberate caution until finally, he crouched upon the beam, steadying himself by a cross-hatched structure that formed the bridge’s lower supports.

A hot, steady breeze ran through the empty canal and Ricky was grateful for any small relief it brought as he wiped the sweat from his brow, now pouring from his skin with a vengeance. His hands stunk of rust as he began the crossing, carefully placing one foot before the other, negotiating the narrow steel beam like a tightrope walker. Bent awkwardly in the low, cramped space, his progress was frustratingly slow, yet he pressed on. Fear had become his constant companion and it pushed him with little concern for the tight quarters.

On he went, finding at last a rhythm to his work. Nearly heel to toe, his steps quickened as he became accustomed to the process until finally, he drew within reach of the far side of the canal. The bridge supports had been lowered into a two-meter notch formed on each of the canal’s walls, but there was ample room to climb up and onto the surface without difficulty. When he found rough, dry grass on the fringe of the canal’s far side at last, he lay instinctively prone to reduce his profile, crawling painfully on elbows through the brush until he reached the cover of gathered scrub brush. Ricky was panting and near breathless, but still he waited. More sweat poured from his face, now covered in dust and the broken stems or seed pods of dead weeds. After a time, he stood slowly, looking for the closest break in a long, high wall that defined the physical border of the Industrial Zone.

Years beyond the days when activity was non-stop, the Zone had become a no-man’s land of huge, cavernous structures, abandoned and silent. Others farther to the south still clanked and hummed with life, but most were deserted in favor of automated systems that cranked out the bits and pieces in raw form, destined for finishing shops deep beneath the city. The wall, built to contain the noise of production, had crumbled over time and much of it victim to the devastating quake of ’74. Wide sections lay in ruin, affording a relatively easy transit into the complex and Ricky took his time clambering over a jumble of concrete and twisted steel, making his way slowly in the dim moonlight.

At last, he stood on level ground; against steep odds, he reached the Zone alive. As he paused to catch his breath, an odd clinking noise to his right followed another and another until he realized the sniper a thousand yards to the east was trying to zero on his position, walking each successive round ever closer until one found the edge of an opening, spraying Ricky’s arm and leg with stinging fragments as the bullet disintegrated.

Again, there was no report from their guns; each successive round whizzed through the air to impact against the massive wall only meters away. As he knew they would, the Chasers found him once more.

Ricky rolled into a tangle of woody brush along the wall, keeping low and squirming on his belly until at last, he sprang to his feet and dashed flat-out for the gaping space where the slabs of concrete had fallen years before. The Chasers were close, he knew, but crossing the canal would delay them before they could reach his position where he huddled, panting in adrenaline-fueled terror. After a moment, there were no other sounds of ricocheting bullets, confirming the snipers were indeed on the move. Though he couldn’t hear it directly, there was little doubt the hidden killers had already transmitted his location to other ground units, surely closing as he trotted across a narrow divide between the wall and a vacant metal-stamping shop.

Ricky stood for a moment, looking at an alien world. He’d been inside the Zone’s northern compounds only once, but his memories looked nothing like the scene that lay silent and menacing in the darkness before him. Eerie shadows made worse his apprehension, but he knew his best chance could be found within the hulking structure if he hoped to elude the Chasers. Time had once again become his enemy and he slipped quickly through a maze of old presses and shaping machines, grateful for their heavy, iron construction; no bullet would penetrate so sturdy an object.

Small mountains of a raw material he couldn’t identify piled high like dark pyramids beneath huge conveyors, long silent in the years since the Zone became an afterthought when the surface industries finally died. Weeds grew from every corner and tangles of bent, rusting metal that had once been important tools inside the factories now lay in haphazard groups across the whole of the complex; forgotten and irrelevant like the Zone itself.

So far to the north, Ricky knew the buildings were dormant. With few lights to guide his path, he decided to move through anyway, hoping to use the cover of an empty production line’s massive building to frustrate the Chasers’ instruments. But as he cleared the wall, aiming for a vast doorway built to admit enormous trucks and material movers, he saw it. In a gap beyond two adjacent buildings, a soaring communications tower at the Broadridge transmission complex reached into the sky like an enormous, solitary spire, rising above the horizon. There, he thought, and only an hour distant, his salvation bathed in the glow of its winking red lights warning air traffic of the tower’s position. Ricky smiled and nodded; the final stage was about to begin.

An imposing building three stories tall, the vacant assembly house had been abandoned for years, yet the skeletons of its glory days—massive forges and bending jigs—remained as testament to a bygone age, idle perhaps since a time before the Fall. A hive of thunderous activity no more, the huge structure lay silent and useless. Moonlight streamed through openings where its high walls met a slanted, angular roof, long void of the glass that once made spacious skylights. But the glow from above showed him a course down the length of the giant building and he set off at once for the far end.

The smooth concrete floor was a welcome relief to the tangled weeds and bushes he fought through since he began the Walk; here, movement would be quick and quiet. After minutes picking his way along the cast-off equipment and stacks of empty pallets, Ricky had only begun his transit before a sound stopped him in his tracks. From the darkness ahead and to his left, a yowling cry sent chills down his spine; the chase units, alerted by following sniper teams, had closed on the old compound. Like serfs ordered to disturb with whistling whips and sticks hiding game before a hunter and flush them into the open on fear alone, they went on with terrifying, mocking screams that echoed between the building’s high walls. It was clear they used the Zorich device’s intermittent beeps to generalize his position at last, Ricky thought, but perhaps the tiny machine’s effectiveness fell off as a precise locator.

Ricky stood motionless for seconds, straining in the dark to see movement inside the empty, cavernous building, yet there was nothing. He looked at once to the camera harness, knowing millions must surely be on the edges of their seats in anticipation of the kill. He had to do something to interrupt the clean signal and mask his escape, but how? If he took the bait and reversed course to avoid the chilling screams reaching out from the darkness, he would surely blunder into a trap. Instead, Ricky veered right, aiming for a narrow pedestrian entryway; if he could make it outside unseen, the massive walls of the structure might blind the Zorich signal and give him a chance to get away. Were they cheering for him in the living rooms and noisy clubs across Novum, he wondered, or would their interest only be satisfied when his head exploded from the impact of a sniper’s bullet? Was Litzi watching in horror from Ganny’s vid screen, deep beneath the surface?

In the fading moonlight, Ricky turned left quickly and started for the far end of the giant building, hoping desperately the Chasers lost contact. As he ran through the weeds that grew tall around the old building, something caught his eye. Far above, a flash through the spaces where skylights once lay told him what he already knew; the Chasers had indeed lost the signal, desperate enough to give away their own position. Careless for the effect it would make, they played beams of their search lamps across the abandoned machinery, hoping to reacquire their target visually.

He knew his opportunity would be brief; once slowed by the sudden signal loss, the Chasers would realize and dash from the building. He had to reach the far end before they understood their mistake, and then a streak across the compound to an old warehouse might give him enough cover to frustrate the signal again until he was in the clear. Dorval Road was less than a kilometer ahead, and a steady jog for twenty minutes would bring him at last within reach of the transmission complex and freedom.

Their shrieks had stopped, but before him, more discarded scrap metal frustrated his pace as he neared the corner of the structure. A quick glance behind showed no movement and he pressed on, slashing nimbly left and right through abandoned machines discarded long before to rust away in the open air. As he slipped deftly through a tangle of junk, another fervent look behind brought a sudden sensation of excitement he may yet elude them. But as he drew closer to the end of the building, another flash of light from around the corner stopped him at once. There, only meters beyond, a Chaser’s helmet lamp panned slowly across the gravel surface of the compound. Without a thought, Ricky moved against the building’s towering wall, nearly hugging it as he eased slowly forward, seized by the sudden rush of adrenaline and a lifetime of fear that would no longer be ignored.

Ricky peered with one eye cautiously around the building to find a single Chaser, seemingly distracted by the brightly lit instrumentation fixed to a sleeve of his tactical uniform. Ricky waited and watched with breathless, terrified anticipation, expecting at any minute to see the Chaser’s companions following close behind, but there were none; his tormentor was alone—and isolated.

It was unusual to find such a thing; Ricky understood enough about the Walk to know Chasers always worked in groups of three or four. This one, he thought, had interpreted the signal loss correctly and moved away from the group on his own. Ricky realized with stark, sober clarity the Zorich device would go active the instant the Chaser rounded the corner and clear of the thick wall’s interference; he would have only one chance.

Ricky slid silently around the end of the building and in a sudden, unexpected explosion of speed, he lurched for the Chaser even as the locator alarm chirped out its first warning. The momentum of Ricky’s movement took the Chaser off his feet and both landed on the ground with a sickening thud, knocking the wind from his pursuer’s lungs. With a single, swift movement, Ricky reached first for the Chaser’s arm, slamming it against the gravel surface in a skillful stroke to obliterate delicate homing equipment. Rolling awkwardly to his feet, Ricky clamped his arm around the Chaser’s neck, pulling in the tightest headlock he could manage. Below, he enveloped the writhing Chaser firmly with his legs, ignoring the pain of constant punches as the struggling man tried desperately to free himself.

With all his might, Ricky held on, even as the Chaser tried to shout, releasing instead a muffled growl. From years of frustration and anger made worse with each successive disaster in a life that had become a definition of weakness and failure, Ricky held on, intent on choking the life from the Chaser as each second ticked by. With his throat constricting under Ricky’s headlock grip, the Chaser couldn’t cry out and his destroyed locator would never again announce Ricky’s position to the others. For a full minute, the death struggle went on until at last, he felt the Chaser’s body go limp. Still he held on, refusing to believe what he saw before him until slowly, he released his grip and stood.

There was no moment of reflection—no remorse or regret he had killed a man with his bare hands. The Chaser’s final exhalation simply told Ricky what he needed to know; his escape was possible once more. He rolled the man’s lifeless body to one side, careful to position it facedown in a strange compulsion to avoid seeing his face. In an absurd moment, Ricky realized it had been his first violent act since the days as a raw teenager struggling for relevance in a world of street gangs. The Walk, and demands made from people who were brutal by nature, had pulled him back across the divide between normal and perverse; Ricky Mills rejoined the violent ones in the middle of his desperate fight for life.

They pushed and prodded him for years, people like Bartel, but he had never shown the fire of resistance that seethed beneath the surface. They looked and saw a timid man—a coward who accepted in silence what he couldn’t change by force of temperament, but his aversion to force and muscle was deliberate. Commerce and trade are rarely conducted by such people to any degree of success, Mister Anthony once told him, and fear is not always as effective as greed, perversions or weakness. At once, Ricky saw Junkyard’s face in his thoughts, smirking and pouring out threats that chewed away at his pride. Now, in the dark outside an abandoned factory, he nodded silently with defiance and a powerful will to live.

After a moment to catch his breath, a sudden panic took him when Ricky realized the other Chasers could stumble upon him at any moment. Across the grounds to the northwest, another massive building loomed in the dim light; if he could reach it and continue along its far wall, he thought, Dorval Road was only a short walk through the woods that once defined the Zone’s border. When the other Chase teams found their lifeless companion, Ricky knew, their determination to even the score would become all the more intense.

He searched frantically for the Chaser’s long-barreled machine pistol, slinging it over his shoulder before sprinting toward the next goal, expecting at any moment to hear the shouts of the Chasers before inevitable gunfire that would surely follow. In seconds, he slid neatly along the second building, astonished to find no others from the chase units had discovered his work (and the strangled corpse he left behind).

Near breathless after the life and death struggle, Ricky made his way along the warehouse’s outer wall, slowing up an incline in knee-high weeds that pulled at his clothing with stiff, saw-like blades. At last, he moved through a narrow stand of ancient oaks paralleling Dorval Road. For ten minutes he walked, looking again at the Chaser’s gun in order to remember how to fire it. It was surprising, but Ricky took another moment to consider again the little cameras fixed to his body by the organizers in his last moments near the fountain at Lafayette Park. The Chasers were cut off from the video feeds to preserve at least a small semblance of fairness, yet millions surely watched the spectacle with fistfuls of crisps and glasses of Topaz, shouting out scorn or encouragement Ricky couldn’t hear. There was little doubt Boris watched—Bartel and Junkyard, too. Were they disappointed with his persistent survival, Ricky wondered? Had the Bosses conspired to alter the betting house transactions, convinced he would ultimately fall to a chase sniper’s bullet?

At last, Ricky saw the lights of the Broadridge tower once more, bathing the darkness with pulsing washes of red as its warning lights blinked in slow, measured cadence. Gleaming like a lighthouse against the desperation and terror that followed since his flight began, he felt the surge of purpose pushing him onward. One last, determined dash across the divide between the Industrial Zone and the communications complex separated him from deliverance.

It was maddeningly slow, picking his way through the thick underbrush on the far side of the Zone that paralleled Dorval Road. It seemed to go on forever, knowing the ground units were surely close behind, yet he was hesitant to make for the road too soon and the likelihood a Chaser patrol speeder would catch him out in the open. He continued onward, trying to avoid those heaviest thickets where the noise of his passing would make locating him all the more easy for his pursuers.

When he paused to wipe the sweat away with his soaked shirt sleeve, Ricky saw a narrow gap where a pathway led up a gentle hill and beyond it, the smooth pavement of Dorval Road. Doubtless worn down by occasional Agros who ventured in through the northern wire, he thought silently, the pathway was a welcome relief to the halting march his escape became through the dense growth.

The way was trodden down to bare dirt, but each step sent a puff of powdery dry dust into the air, making Ricky frown, knowing it could be seen through a Chaser’s nightscope from a distance. After a moment or two, the path exited thick bushes and out to a broad stretch of high grass, mostly open and clear all the way to the road. Carried onward by a growing sense of excitement, Ricky crossed the distance in minutes until he could see the dark shape of pavement appeared, winding like a great snake beyond a hill that formed the eastern side of the Broadridge compound. As he went, he couldn’t help but gaze upward at the Tower, now looming so close he could count the cross-hatched beams of its structure in the crimson light.

Nearer to the northern wire, temperatures eased and a gentle breeze brought cool relief as Ricky trotted along the deserted pavement, grateful no one thought to line it with glaring streetlights. He felt a dull, constant fear of exposure, but slowing would only give the Chasers time to intercept and kill him within sight of Broadridge. By this point, he reasoned, they doubtless knew the communications complex was his goal and they would surely aim directly for it. Again and again, he looked desperately over a shoulder, but only the rooftops of factory buildings remained in view. A powerful, instinctive compulsion to run returned, but Ricky resisted and held pace as the last stretch of road drew near.

Through gentle bends to the left and then right, Dorval Road descended through a heavy forest of tall pines and only the sound of his footfalls broke the eerie silence. He jogged onward, now comfortable with a steady trot until suddenly, he stopped. From the web belt around his waist, a voice called out.

“Mills, can you hear me?”

Ricky said nothing as the hair on his neck stood on end.

“Mills? If you can hear me, say so, damn it!”

It made no sense—had he suddenly lost control, given in to the fear? Again the voice spoke, muted like a cloth held to a comm unit’s microphone.

“I’ve locked out the transmitter feed and isolated it to a single frequency; they can’t hear this, but it will be noticed if it goes on for too long.”

Ricky looked again behind him, suspecting perhaps the Chasers were playing a cruel trick in order to satisfy the bloodlust of viewers eager for more than a simple rifle shot at range.

“I can see you on the video,” the voice continued; “just cough or something, okay? The cameras have microphones and a small speaker, so we can communicate for a short time.”

Ricky cleared his throat loudly.

“Good. Now listen very carefully because we don’t have much time.”

“Who is this?”

“Never mind that now; they’re waiting a short distance beyond, do you understand?”

“No, I don’t! Who are you?”

“If you want to live, follow my instructions, all right?”

“What the hell is this?”

“Listen to me, Mills; they’re waiting for you near the gate at Broadridge. The Chasers figured out where you’re going and they sent a team ahead by air to cut you off; they’re waiting to ambush you before you can reach the compound.”

“I don’t know who you are, but if you think I’m stupid enough to…”

“Elden sent me.”

Ricky felt his senses tingle. Like a lifeline thrown suddenly to a drowning swimmer, just the old man’s name held a possibility for survival and Ricky grabbed at it.

“I’m listening.”

“Two Chasers are hiding behind a little shed just outside the gate. They’re waiting for you to make the top of the hill.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Elden asked me to keep you alive. Do you want to live?”

“Yes!”

Again, Ricky’s head swirled with confusion. Had the organizers made a special arrangement for the audience? Had they set him up to be gunned down within sight of the Broadridge complex, merely to heighten the excitement, or perhaps alter the betting odds in order to realize a higher profit percentage, he wondered?

“What do you want me to do?”

The voice guided him back into the trees and beyond them, a ravine fell off sharply toward the secondary canals. A steep angle would be difficult to negotiate, but it could shield Ricky’s movements until he was safely past the gate and gifted with a clear shot. If he went slowly, the voice insisted, the Chasers would have no chance when Ricky opened fire.

“You have that lone Chaser’s gun now; you can survive, but you have to get them first. You need to kill both of them, understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good luck, Mills,” the voice said, and the connection was restored to the network studios.

There were no other options; Ricky had to accept or reject the voice’s commands. If the truth was as his hidden benefactor said, and the Chase units had indeed made an ambush from which to cut him down, Ricky would have one last chance to stay alive. If the words were a contrived lie, it would make little difference. He decided to accept the risk.

Well below the upper edge of the ravine and out of sight, Ricky went carefully through a tangle of bushes that covered the ground beneath the trees. Working his way along, he tried his best not to make a sound and betray his position. The Zorich device could not transmit through the earth between, giving him time to crest the rim before its signal went live again. Above, the spire of the Broadridge comm tower became a silent beacon of hope, calling to him as Ricky crept up the ravine’s incline. When he saw the bright lights bathing the area around the wide gate, two Chasers huddling behind the small outbuilding confirmed the unseen voice’s warning; they watched in the opposite direction, still unable to establish a clean signal.

Ricky raised the dead Chaser’s gun slowly into position, pulling it tight into his shoulder. Even in the dim light, the safety button was obvious and he thumbed it off the way his uncle taught him when he was only a boy. He remembered shooting at cans and old appliances out near the southern wire long before, never knowing the skill would one day stand between him and death. It had been years, but Ricky remembered.

Concealed behind an enormous oak, he peeked again, watching for the moment the Zorich device went live, but there was no movement from the Chasers. Ricky looked through the gun scope and found them squatting along one side of the little shed, bathed in the gate’s light. Calming himself first, he took in a deep breath, aimed and fired. Round after round hammered out at the confused Chasers who spun to meet an enemy they couldn’t see. One fell dead almost at once as the bullets slashed through his torso, but the second man stumbled toward the nearby shed before trying a sudden break to the hillside beyond. Ricky’s final volley found its mark and he collapsed at once.

In the silence, even as the shots echoed through the trees, Ricky felt as if his heart would explode. A ringing in his ears seemed almost painful, yet it was made only by his heightened fear and excitement and not the hot, smoking barrel of his gun. As Ricky approached, the second Chaser writhed on the ground with the pain of gunshots across his legs, screaming out coughs of agony into the dark night. Ricky stopped and aimed once more, silencing the noise with a single shot through the back of the man’s helmet. As he stood and looked at the lifeless bodies—and their blood spreading slowly across the bare dirt—a buzzer sounded from the gate. Behind it, several bright floodlights nearly blinded him and Ricky waited in confusion, shouldering his gun again until he recognized the Walk organizers moving toward him. As the first figure reached him, she smiled and aimed him toward a camera drone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here is Richard Mills; only the sixth Walk survivor in the event’s thirty-year history!”

Incredibly, no one seemed to notice the two men he shot to death moments before. Instead, a crowd of mobile video teams swarmed suddenly around him in the glare of camera lights, each offering loud congratulations and vying for his reaction. It had been a long time since a Walk contestant made it through alive, they said. “How do you feel?” one asked. “What will you do next?” questioned another. They gathered around him, wondering with smiles and excited nods how he knew the Chasers waited in ambush for him. Ricky felt numb and spent, unbelieving his nightmare was truly over. A uniformed MPE cop took the machine gun slowly from his hands, but Ricky wanted only to go home to the little flat off Morrissey Square.

An organizer held him for a moment as a medical technician treated the painful wound on Ricky’s head, but the words sounded strange and distant. He felt himself trembling more in anger than from fear as an air car arrived from the south, settling in a cloud of dust on the wide approach to the gate and Broadridge beyond. There would be plenty of time for interviews, an organizer announced suddenly, but Ricky didn’t notice.

“Is it finished?” he demanded.

After a moment of thunderous laughter, the organizing official—younger even than Ricky—held his hand in hers as she turned him once more toward the jostling camera crews.

“Of course it is.” She smiled. “You’re safe now! When you’re ready, our driver will take you home. Again, our congratulations to you, Mr. Mills!”

Bandaged and still numb from his ordeal, Ricky went quickly to a waiting air car. When it lifted above the trees and turned gently toward the south, he felt like a different man; a fallen impostor—a criminal—in the shape of Ricky Mills. Compromised and made subject to the whims of others, he had run a gauntlet few ever survived. As they sped across the Zone at treetop level, Ricky Mills looked at his image reflected in the air car’s window and saw a stranger peering back through lifeless, tired eyes. It was over and minutes later, he would walk down the deserted alley off Rademacher Way profoundly lucky, but very much alive.

From the glass dome that formed the roof of his penthouse where it towered above Novum’s central sector, Victor Jamison blinked a few times as the program went to commercial. They sat for a moment, allowing the images to fade completely as Granville slowly raised the lights. Ross spoke first.

“Victor, I have to admit, that was one of the best we’ve seen in a long time.”

Kirtland nodded his agreement.

“You’ve outdone yourself; this one was truly exceptional!”

Jamison sat for a moment, nodding at last to his assistant.

“Thank you, Granville. If you wouldn’t mind, I believe refreshments are in order.”

“At once, sir,” the attendant replied, turning for the door. Ross stood and rubbed his eyes.

“I thought he was finished, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Kirtland nodded, “he was dead for sure, the clever bastard!”

Ross waited while Granville walked quietly through the group with his tray, handing out aged Topaz in shallow, oblong glasses.

“I wasn’t sure if your description of the new cameras and transmitting gear was mere boasting, Victor, but I can see now you were right; the image and replay fidelity is remarkable. I could actually hear this one’s heartbeat, pounding in his ears. We’ve never enjoyed this level of immersion!”

Jamison nodded, but when he turned away at once, Ross continued.

“Well, we spent enough money on them—they ought to be exceptional. The masses get to watch on their little vid screens, of course, but none of them were treated to such a complete show. It was fantastic—really fantastic!”

“Who is he, Victor?” Kirtland asked, sipping his drink slowly.

Jamison didn’t hear the question.

“Victor?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Edward. His name is Mills; Richard Mills. My man Konstantinou tells me he’s an ordinary urchin—a small time street hustler who operates out of Sector 4. It would seem he’s developed an uncontrollable desire for Starlight, so…”

Kirtland and Ross laughed loudly, each knowing the rest of the story, but Jamison seemed distant.

“Well,” Ross continued, “it’s going to make for a wonderful advertising tool.”

“Indeed,” Kirtland replied. “That single kill near the factory was most gratifying, I have to say, but it would’ve been better if this Mills person would’ve run across one of the females. We really do need to address that, at some point, Victor.”

“He’s right,” Kirtland decided. “We should look into sending more women Chasers next time.”

“Yes, of course,” Jamison replied at last, but his words were distant.

Kirtland heard the change in Jamison’s tone.

“Is something wrong, Victor? You seem distracted.”

Jamison shook his head with a frown.

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “It seemed odd to me, especially when we lost the audio feed for a moment or two there.”

“Oh, that was probably a small glitch in the transmitter, Victor,” Ross said. “It came back up right away, but there were bound to be bugs in a new system.”

“Perhaps,” Jamison replied, “but only a moment later, this fellow Mills suddenly moved back into the trees and found his way past the Chasers to catch them unaware; it just looked funny to me.”

“Funny, how?”

“It seemed strange to me he would make that conclusion out of thin air; Mills was heading straight into their ambush.”

“Maybe he smelled a rat, Victor; he did a pretty good job eliminating that Chaser inside the Zone, didn’t he?”

“I suppose so.”

“Let’s enjoy this moment, Victor; the ‘nets are going to pour royalties at us from the advertising revenue on the live feeds, and probably twice that amount in replays.”

Jamison smiled and reached for his drink.

“You’re probably right, Levi,” he said. “Here’s to the Walk!”

Ricky opened his eyes, squinting at once against the harsh morning glare as the sun blasted through his tiny window. Disoriented confusion held him for a moment until he realized the doorbell’s warbling tone brought him from a deep sleep. He stumbled to unlock the latch, finding Doctor Cason standing before him. Ricky shook his head and tried to clear his vision.

“If you have a moment, I’d like to remove the Zorich device now, Richard,” Cason said softly. “It will only take a moment.”

Ricky looked up, bewildered and speechless.

“I thought I was…”

Cason leaned against the arm of a couch where Ricky sat, trying to make sense of what seemed impossible.

“Dreaming? I’m afraid not. However, you’re safe now.”

Ricky understood at last.

“You were the voice warning me at Broadridge?”

“Elden told me about your problem and I implanted a modified device before you started the Walk last night—it put a temporary block in the transmitter’s send-and-receive software and pointed it to one of my private frequencies.”

“How did you break into their comm link?”

“Never mind that now; I need to remove and destroy the Zorich.”

“What for?”

“If the organizers find and examine it, they will quickly see it was modified; that would be very bad for both of us.”

Ricky saw quickly the risk and need to remove evidence, but still Cason’s actions were a mystery.

“Why did you help me? I thought you…”

“You thought I was with them? I’m not. They pay me well enough to implant these devices, and I don’t generally interfere because most of the people they send to make a Walk deserve it. You, on the other hand, did not. You did this to protect your sister and Elden knew it, so I stepped in this time.”

Ricky tried to piece together Cason’s words.

“I never told him about Litzi and Boris.”

“It’s all right; an interested party alerted Elden.”

“No one else knew!”

“Well, somebody did. Elden described the conditions of your Walk and asked me to intervene. He and I are old friends, so I was happy to help this one time.”

Ricky shook his head, still confused, but alive and with another chance never afforded others in his place.

“What happens now?”

“I expect the networks will be calling soon; your story is the big topic of discussion this morning and everyone who watched the program last night is buzzing about it today.”

“I don’t want to talk to them,” Ricky muttered.

“Well, you handle that as you see fit. In the meantime, I can tell you Boris Konstantinou has publicaly acknowledged your debt is now paid in-full, so you needn’t worry about him again. You can retrieve your sister from hiding, but there is one other thing.”

“Oh?”

“I would give serious consideration to the unfortunate circumstances that got you into this mess in the first place.”

Ricky knew what he meant without the added embarrassment of a detailed description.

“Starlight.”

“Yes,” Cason replied. “I’ve seen a lot of people go down because of that damned simulation, Richard; you would do well to leave it in the past and make a clean break of it while you can, hmm?”

“I know.”

Cason motioned him toward the couch.

“Lay facedown again; it won’t take long.”

After Doctor Cason was gone, Ricky ran his hand across the tiny bandage on the back of his neck. It was otherwise smooth again, now relieved of the annoying bump made by the Zorich device. He slumped into the big recliner, unwilling to scroll through the hundred messages that waited inside his wrist comm. With the call alarm disabled, the incessant chirping stopped, bringing silence and privacy until a back-knuckled rap at his door shattered the quiet again.

When he peered out from the little monitor, Bartel and Junkyard stood away from the door, waiting patiently as he always knew they would. With a flick of his wrist, the door opened.

“Slider, you lucky bastard! You make it all the way through after all, eh?”

“What do you want, Vaclav?”

“Boris, he send us down to see how you keeping, that’s all; you been through the hell and back, so he just want us to tell you everything’s all square again, okay?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Sure, sure! All the money you owe, it’s cancelled ‘cause them networks, they pay the Boss up big, see? He says no hard feelings, and he made a special adjustment to your account so’s you can go down to Reese Street and see your little sim girlie whenever you like. You got the big star on you now, so Boris says he give you twenty hours for free, okay?”

Ricky felt the churn suddenly, building in his stomach like a tempest. It was an odd sensation, but he fought a compulsion to vomit then and there. The images shot through in his mind; Neferure, smiling from the banks of the river where she waited for him, but somehow, it was different and not with the same desire that once pushed him willingly to her arms. Instead, he felt a powerful revulsion at the idea, the way people do after a night on the town doing the things they would regret the next morning. He saw Litzi’s face, cold and with disappointment in her eyes that tormented him still. Ricky wanted only to forget.

“I don’t want them. Tell Boris thanks, but I’ll just stay on my own for a while.”

Bartel frowned and shook his head.

“It’s okay, Slider; you can go or not. I know what you been through, and you just need some time to rest. Maybe you take a walk down there later, eh?”

“I don’t know…”

“Well, it’s up to you. And Boris, he says nobody gonna bother Litzi no more; he ain’t interested so much anyway. We gonna tell him how you doin’ now, but call me if you want to take them hours, okay?”

“Yeah.”

Bartel tapped Junkyard’s shoulder and they turned to go, wandering up the alley unconcerned for the wreckage left behind in the tiny apartment. Ricky watched for a moment and closed the door gently. He leaned his back against the wall in silence as the images from his Walk returned, tormenting him even in the safety of his home. Alone in the quiet apartment, Ricky Mills landed in a place of stark truths where a paradox waited and reality destroyed the comfort of illusion. In his solitude, he understood at last no amount of money or free hours in a Starlight theater could shield him from a misery so profound, ending it with a carefully aimed bullet seemed suddenly a reasonable option. Instead, he decided, there would be no return to Reese Street; Neferure would idle in ignorance until the program was erased.

He eased himself into the old chair once more, taking a deep breath as he settled. It wasn’t surprising when the images returned, but he saw them differently now—clear, objective and without the single-minded passion that once spurred him. The past months, condensed into fleeting scenes and echoed voices played out like a dream, yet they seemed an oddly distant memory. Most prominent of them all, he saw the lone Chaser’s face, screwed up into a grimace as life ebbed. Ricky’s body ached, too—scratched and bruised from the struggle and plain evidence of a murder he committed without hesitation. He remembered gunning down the Chasers who waited in ambush, too, but the image was fleeting and surprisingly vague. A coping mechanism, he wondered? Was the act so savage and contrary to his natural spirit that his mind shunted it quickly to that place where all bad memories are kept safely out of sight?

He thought of Neferure again, but now with an unexpected dissonance. On the one hand, she had been a focal point of all he did—artificial, perhaps, but dearer to him than most. In the silent, stark aftermath of a life and death struggle he knew would surely have been lost if not for Cason’s intervention, she appeared in the shape of a stranger; familiar, but held deliberately distant. Neferure hadn’t betrayed him—she couldn’t. But all she represented had and the fault was his. Ricky’s heart and mind began a slow, inevitable process that would soon define not the weak addict he had been, but the man he wanted to become.

He smiled suddenly at the thought; old, irresistible urges to see her were faint and without purpose, replaced instead by a headache and the clear understanding his second chance had been given. As it is for others who find their way out from some depravity or other and back to the safety of a normal life, he cared nothing for the free hours at Reese Street Vaclav offered. Only a day before, he would already have been there, walking next to her across the cool, marble floors of Ma’at Palace, aiming perhaps for the boat dock and a leisurely ride along the river. He laughed to himself at the notion, but a need that drove him nearly to a lonely death on the outskirts of a mean and uncaring city had been transformed in the terrifying darkness of the Walk; this day, Ricky’s purpose lay elsewhere as he straightened himself to call Natty Gault.

Litzi was in the kitchen, helping with the last dishes from breakfast when Ricky knocked gently at the door. Ganny opened it with a broad grin.

“Jesus, Slider; you brought the hammer down on those Chaser assholes, no shit!”

Before he could answer, Litzi rushed to envelop him in her arms. She said nothing, preferring instead simply to hold him as tightly as she could. When she released him, her eyes were filled with tears that seemed equal parts anger and desperate relief that he survived.

“Damn it, Ricky; you didn’t tell me they were going to make you do a Walk!”

“There was no other way,” he replied softly. “I couldn’t let that bastard get his hands on you.”

Ganny stood close-by, patting Ricky’s shoulder.

“Well, you made it; that bastard can’t hurt her now!”

Ricky smiled at last as the moment rushed over him, pulling away the remnants of his fears.

“You watched?” he asked as Litzi gathered her things.

“I was on shift,” Natty answered, “but Frankie recorded it off Channel 9; you’re a big-shot now! The ‘nets have been running the replay all day and that shit you pulled right at the end is the most popular part; everyone wants to see you shootin’ those Chasers down.”

Ricky thought again of the seconds before he opened fire, terrified and shaking where he hid beneath the edge of the long ravine. Like a cornered animal in the dark, he stood on the edge of a precipice—a fall into madness—made by the surety he would either shoot them and murder again, or die in a hail of their bullets. The rules of a civil society, thin at best in even the nicer parts of Novum, had been cast aside so that he could go on living. There were no considerations beyond survival and that truth made him hateful; the brutal reality placed before him like a corridor with one exit had given no place to hide and no other option but to kill the Chasers where they crouched in wait.

It had not been as he imagined, taking the life of another. The adventure vids made it look effortless, and even his most heroic battles inside the Starlight program where foes fell before him neatly and without a mess on a parched, Egyptian desert were always won by default. But those visions were entertainment and fantasy; there was no real risk or danger to cloud his enjoyment. Still—and by Ricky’s own hand—the lone Chaser inside the Zone gasped out the last, sickening breath of his life, falling limp and gone forever. Moments later, his machine gun sawed through two more who waited to open fire, tearing into their bodies with ghastly and lethal effect. Were there three widows and orphaned children that very morning, held in a grip of misery and despair from what he had done, Ricky wondered? There were no re-set buttons and he closed his eyes in sadness, burdened under the weight of regret.

The lone Chaser fought hard, but he would surely have killed Ricky without a second thought. Survive or die, they told him in the moments before he ran for the cover of the park. He watched the images in his mind, deciding at last the vids had gotten it wrong; they could never duplicate the churning inside his stomach, or the private horror of seeing a human being torn into shreds before him. Ricky watched them stumble and fall—he saw the agony in their faces as his bullets ripped through their bodies. Was the disturbing image only the last, fleeting wisps of his humanity leaving him? The act itself was justifiable, considering what the Chasers would’ve done to him otherwise, but another thought troubled Ricky in his silence. Had he become like them after all? Was he no better than a murderous, psychotic animal like Junkyard?

He turned suddenly to Litzi, desperate to forget.

“Are you ready to go?”

She nodded and shouldered her bag as Ricky made his final thanks to Ganny. When they went slowly onto the lift moments later, he could hear the voices of strangers along the walkway above, pointing and smiling like tourists at a famous monument. They meant well, but Ricky wished desperately for a return to the nameless obscurity he left behind when Bartel delivered him to the Walk’s lonely start point. A momentary, reluctant celebrity, he floundered in a sea without hope of rescue. When he rounded the corner from Rademacher Way an hour later, he saw the sky vans where they crowded along the approach to his alley; the ‘nets sent reporters to interview Novum’s newest vid star.

In the middle of a group of nearly twenty, Mrs. Abber held up her hands to quiet them, but still they yattered on, demanding to know when Ricky would arrive. At last, one of them noticed and rushed toward him. In seconds, the others abandoned Mrs. Abber and followed, their camera drones clunking into one another three meters above.

Ricky slowed for a moment, but he continued quickly and purposely toward his door, elbowing through the crowd. Others—residents from the block—were gathered, craning for a better view of their now-famous neighbor. The questions were delivered with the loud, careless shouts that seemed customary to news people, all of them angling for a closer position and the hope he would turn to them with his account of a harrowing experience. Instead, Ricky said nothing, waiting for the door lock to release. Mrs. Abber did her best to shield him, nearly tumbling when the doorway went ajar and she slammed it firmly as Ricky turned, looking beyond her as if the shouting throng would burst through at any moment. When at last they relented and went slowly up the alley, the quiet returned and she moved close to him.

“I’m sorry, Richard; I tried to make them leave, but…”

“It’s okay,” Ricky replied. “I should’ve stayed away a while longer.”

With the public confirmation Ricky’s debt had been absolved, there had been nothing more to do. Litzi was safely returned to her apartment, but better still, she was free from Boris’ unwanted advances. A poorly-kept secret, the streets understood she was the real threat held like a sword over Ricky’s head. Advertising revenue Konstantinou received was staggering and far greater a reward than one or two weeks with a reluctant plaything, making it unlikely he would press her again. Ricky sat on the only chair in his kitchen, rubbing his face with both hands.

“Those damned reporters!” Mrs. Abber said suddenly. “They said they’d be back later.”

Ricky closed his eyes.

“I know, and I’m sorry for the bother; you shouldn’t have to go through this, too.”

“Nonsense.” she said; “you’re not just a tenant, Richard.”

He looked with tired eyes and the blood-stained dressing encircling his scalp wound made her wince; she hadn’t seen the Walk program, or the terrifying moments that delighted millions who watched with morbid fascination on their vid screens, but there was little doubt Ricky endured a hellish ordeal.

“Try to rest now, Richard. When those bastards come back, I’ll call MPE; I’m not going to stand for this.”

Ricky smiled and nodded, holding onto the moment—and Mrs. Abber’s kindness—like an elusive lifeline. She wouldn’t be able to send the reporters away, he knew, but the thought was appreciated. As she went across the alley, Ricky looked beyond to where the mob had been. It hadn’t occurred to him, but his ordinary life in the shadowy, hidden corners of Novum was suddenly a more complicated affair.

When the new day arrived, Ricky switched on the morning update shows, frowning at the image from a remote drone; a dozen reporters were gathering at the intersection of Rademacher and Stigler Road, waiting again to get their interviews. Mrs. Abber saw it and made her way across the alley once more.

“The cops should run them off,” she declared with a scowl.

“They can’t,” he replied. “It’s not like the old days when the Regulators enforced intrusion laws.”

She looked at him for a moment.

“I think it’s cruel, waiting around with their cameras and stupid questions. Everyone saw what they made you do; what’s the point of dragging you through it again?”

Ricky smiled sadly and said, “Money. The advertisers want to get all they can, I guess.”

“A lot of people are watching you, Richard; you’re not the only one who went too far with that horrible Starlight business.”

Ricky’s face ran red.

“You knew?”

“Of course, but you always make your rent on time, so I stayed out of it; your personal life was none of my business. And anyway, those network bastards described your program in their commentary shows and they didn’t leave much to the imagination.”

He turned away.

“The Starlight programs are supposed to be kept private, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

“They interviewed somebody late yesterday on the vids—a disgusting little man who runs one of the theaters, I think.”

“Ellis Justman,” Ricky replied with a knowing nod.

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, I know him.”

“He said your program was some sort of Egyptian adventure?”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I thought I could keep it hidden, but…”

“Are you going to continue?” she asked suddenly. “I know it’s not my business to say, but maybe you should think about leaving it alone now.”

He looked up again, surprised by her meaning. Like Doctor Cason, Mrs. Abber understood enough to know Ricky’s future had been restored, but only if he cast off his desire for a false life waiting for him inside Reese Street Theater. From an experience cocoon, playing the hero in a contrived fantasy as the lover of an Egyptian princess, there were no worries or doubts; he could live an enviable life where ideal conditions were the norm—where no one could expose the raw truth of his failures, but his Walk turned him and ignited a conviction he never had before.

“I’m not going back there,” he said at last.

She put her hand gently on his shoulder and said, “I’m glad. I know it was easy and everything happens the way you want, but it wasn’t real. Remember what they made you do, Richard; you don’t need to hide away inside a simulation.”

“I know. I took it way too far, but…”

She took his hand in hers and said with a gentle squeeze, “I like you better out here in the real world anyway.”

He took a deep breath and reached for the door. At once, they were on him, forming a tight circle beneath five or six camera drones that hovered and shifted position for the best angle. “How do you feel?” one asked. “Did you see the Chasers where they waited to ambush you at Broadridge?” wondered another, “or could you sense them in the darkness?”

Ricky tried to answer, but still more questions were shouted in his ear, one on top of the other. “Would you consider making another Walk if the money was right?” “How much did you owe?” asked a thin girl who looked far too young for the part. “If you had a sponsor, do you see yourself going professional?” Ricky frowned and shook his head in confusion, but still more questions came at him like arrows out of the dark. “There’s talk of forming a league,” they said, “have you been contacted by anyone interested in making it a regular thing?”

Ricky’s head began to spin as the assault continued. Question after question rained down on him—relentless and without regard. Shouted voices became unrecognizable and jumbled until he could hear only fragmented words, each crowding in until he could take no more. He looked past their faces toward Mrs. Abber’s window, but she was gone. Had she abandoned him? Was her kindness only a momentary convenience, he wondered suddenly? Ricky felt sick as the cacophony went on until at last, she appeared to guide him quickly to his apartment.

“Thank you,” he said. “I didn’t think that…”

“Shhhh, now,” she replied. “It’s over; they have what they came for.”

After a week, interest in Ricky’s night of terror began to ebb. His ordeal set betting records that were trumpeted loudly across Novum, announcing more money was wagered on his odds than any previous Walk, especially since the near-miss episode with snipers at the irrigation pump house. Ricky’s unlikely survival established him as one of only six in the past twenty years who made it through alive and the others were hardened street enforcers like Junkyard, or City Defense soldiers trained in the skills needed to fight and win in a struggle to the death. A common man, making it through under extraordinary risk, Ricky had become an iconic symbol carefully calculated to show ordinary Flatwalkers anything was possible, but there was more.

Starlight producers, ever watchful for an angle to increase their revenue, heralded Ricky’s successful Walk as an advertisement for the program’s realism, arguing his simulated life of danger had gifted him with an education in the lethal arts so complete, he had all he needed to survive. Obvious to many as a defacto endorsement, Ricky’s association with Starlight became an opportune marketing success, compelling others to open subscriptions and mimic his adventurous spirit in their own bid for fame. He looked at the phenomenon with contempt, knowing too well most followed an impossible illusion contrived by callous, self-serving salesmen encouraging ignorant dreamers to die alone in the dark for their trouble.

Mercifully beyond the interest of the ‘nets and their persistent cameras at last, Ricky returned to his work, but it was clear things had changed. Orders came in from all sectors, and much faster than before. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to get their secret items from the Slider, regardless of cost. Any of the hustlers on the street would have done a proper job, but buying from the most famous street hustler in town had become a badge of honor. He didn’t mind the sudden, welcome increase in profit his notoriety produced, of course, but the days and nights seemed endless as he raced from one request to another.

Though the thought took some time to reach him, Ricky smiled at another, more useful effect of his Walk; the hours once given to Starlight had been returned to him and Ricky was surprised to find he rarely thought of it—or Neferure. By the force of a single night’s run across the city, working hard in cold desperation merely to survive, Ricky’s need and desire for her was thinning quickly.

At first, it felt like a betrayal, the process of forgetting, but there was no other way; Ricky would not allow himself to slip again and face the ruin that waited if he relented and went back to Reese Street. After a month, the invisible knot that once bound him began to loosen when he referred to Neferure and Starlight in a conversation with Litzi as a collective ‘it,’ rather than his traditional, anthropomorphic characterization of a software character profile as ‘her.’ In small, subtle increments, Ricky felt the soothing breeze of his emancipation—deliverance from a need only his life and death struggle could erase.

The explanations to his mother and sister had been awkward and uncomfortable, but he made them anyway. Litzi’s softer tone was a surprise, considering her reaction to the news on that sweltering night when he rushed to move her away from Boris Konstantinou’s grasp. For her part, Helene accepted the networks’ disturbingly graphic descriptions of Ricky’s moments with Neferure as understandable and even predictable, but her disdain for Starlight was made clear enough. Ricky squirmed with embarrassment, but Litzi rescued him, reminding Helene of the dangerous Walk and Ricky’s survival so that ‘no more talk of it’ put an end to his misery. A mother’s relief her son was still alive was more important than his lewd, pornographic habits and the distinction did not go unnoticed.

As Novum moved into the hottest months of summer, Ricky’s business soared with the temperatures. No longer drained by frequent and expensive visits to Reese Street, the money he collected for his services began to build. New clients sought him out simply to announce to their friends ‘Slider’ was their chosen purveyor, but most stayed because he always delivered. Out on the streets, unwanted attention from Behavior Regulators was suddenly acute, but their clumsy agents could be eluded as easily as the MPE cops by those who knew how to find and stay in the shadows. Mrs. Abber checked in on him more than she had before, if only to reassure and remind him there was at least one other who cared. When she knocked gently on a cloudy, humid morning, Ricky smiled and motioned her inside.

“You’re doing a lot better now, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Much better,” he replied. “I don’t think of it much, except when the pod train goes by Reese Street. Even then, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”

She shook her head and moved toward him.

“I meant your business, Richard; you don’t have those huge debts anymore.”

“Oh.”

She said nothing for a moment, but Ricky made the conclusion at last, smiling with a nod.

“Ah. Time to up the rent, I guess?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It’s okay,” he said softly, “I don’t mind.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I just meant, now that you’re back on your feet, there are a lot better places than this to live and…”

“Why don’t I move uptown?”

“Yes.”

Ricky looked at the floor, considering his words carefully. It was true; he had plenty of money to find a new apartment in the better quarters, but the idea brought with it changes he was unwilling to make. In his obscure, tiny corner of Novum, Ricky felt safe again, but more than that, he had no immediate desire to reprise the haughty, self-important follies that led him to a near-fatal downfall. Litzi saw it, too; she knew his grand apartment in those days before had been built on a fragile pillar that proved easily crumbled. Excessive money from the hustle made him into a caricature—a shallow, contrived parallel to those who sought a way up from the streets to take a place of opulence and comfort. He remembered in silence, pulled back by the fall from grace that nearly cost him his life.

“I’m okay where I am; I don’t need a better apartment in some glittery, 5th Level neighborhood. Maybe someday, but not right now.”

She sat next to him in the little dinette.

“It’s nice that we’ve gotten to know each other better—that we’ve become friends. I like these visits and keeping an eye out for those horrible men who made you do that Walk, but you deserve better than this, Richard.”

He shook his head.

“I appreciate the thought, really, but there’s nothing wrong with where I am; I don’t have to worry about cameras everywhere, or herds of people walking by my door every minute of the day. The Regulators don’t come down here anymore, and MPE doesn’t bother me if I don’t bother them. Anyway, I’m going to get my mom moved into one of the two-story places south of Jefferson—those new buildings near the river? That will pretty much tap my reserves for a while.”

Mrs. Abber smiled and said, “It’s good that you’re taking care of her, but you could still afford something nicer if you wanted.”

“It’s nice right here.” He smiled.

Behind her, a news runner at the bottom of his vid screen wandered through, showing air traffic alerts and congestion in the lanes at five hundred meters, warning Uppers to slow near the Trade Center. Ricky watched with detached interest until the red band and italicized white letters refreshed to the latest updates, but something else caught his eye. He sat forward suddenly and the words seemed to speak only to him. Justice Ministry officials announced the release of two suspects ‘wrongly and unjustly accused,’ detailing the short proceedings and a decision by Magistrates to free Benjamin Courtnall and Geraldo Espinoza, citing a glaring lack of restraint by MPE officials and a shoddy investigation that would be reviewed for ‘possible errors in judgment.’

As Elden said it would, a corrupt mechanism allowed the sham to run its course. Once more, the two Bosses were restored to their operation with the Magistrate’s apologies, free to continue their dark activities unhindered. Ricky said nothing, preferring instead to shake his head in wonder and grateful beyond measure the little packages would be found exactly where he left them inside the old machine shop.

Ricky’s return to the hustle settled at last. His days and nights were filled with the old, familiar tasks, seeking out and securing for customers those things difficult to find, or prohibited entirely up above the clouds. Behavior Regulators, suddenly determined to clamp down on illicit transactions, mounted campaigns to monitor token transfers and communications records, but the effort only drove insistent Uppers deeper into the underworld where Ricky (and others like him) waited to fill their orders. There was little doubt the Regulators’ motivation was driven by his notoriety as a hustler who made it through the Walk alive, but the move was little more than theater—it wouldn’t last long.

Regardless of the bright spotlight that shone for a while on his every move, Ricky knew how to avoid attention and stay in those places where spying cameras couldn’t see. Watchers, forever poring over network and transit access logs, paid special attention so that patterns could be established and tracked, yet their work produced few results down on the streets; the Slider understood how to exploit their weak points, too.

On a blustery Sunday morning nearly two months after his Walk, Ricky went quickly through a Sector 6 transit hub, hurrying to catch a pod train bound for home. The early delivery runs had been effortless, mostly because the items in his bag were not restricted or forbidden; Regulators and MPE cops couldn’t delay him without cause. The trains were running behind schedule again, held at their departure points while an overhead rail was inspected against wind damage, obliging riders to wait it out or walk to another station farther along the line. Ricky had nothing better to do, so he decided to loiter at the transit station’s bar and watch the big vid screens inside as news net updates scrolled through.

A crowd had gathered, looking up at the broad display where an image of investigators mulling about near a public comm terminal in the old garment district told a sad tale of another street murder, but this one had their attention because an important personality had been killed for no apparent reason. Worse still, the man—a prominent Upper—was lured to his death down on streets the privileged who lived above the clouds rarely visited. Ricky looked closer as the camera view shifted to reveal a jumble of MPE air cars parked in a vacant lot nearby. As another image appeared in the upper foreground, Ricky felt the color drain from his face when the announcer’s hidden voice identified the victim as ‘Elden Fellsbach.’

No one in Ricky’s circle of family and friends died since his father’s sudden heart attack fourteen years before, leaving him naked and unprepared to accept Elden’s death as it was described in cold detail on the bar’s vid screens. It couldn’t be, he thought; the old man’s retirement was comfortable, but hardly opulent. Violent crimes on the streets had always been common, but Elden had no business venturing out at night and into the teeth of the city’s darker corners, he thought; how could this have happened?

Ricky stumbled when he turned to go and suddenly, the sounds around him changed to echoes and incoherent noise. His sadness was crushing—powerful and unyielding as he fought against the emptiness and despair. Hurrying from the platform, Ricky nearly fell on the iron steps to the street, catching himself at the last second by a weather-worn handrail. He had been there a hundred times, yet nothing was familiar. The faces of passersby showed no emotion and he wanted to scream at them. Couldn’t they see? Didn’t they understand?

He wandered east for a while, walking in a daze without direction or purpose, but the confusion and frustration were building, taking him in halting, aimless circles until his anger pointed him suddenly toward city center; he had to see for himself. Hailing a land taxi, Ricky fidgeted for the half-hour ride; it would’ve been faster in a pod train, but backtracking to the station seemed a wasted effort. The bulbous, orange-colored machine made jerky, uneven progress through a maze of delivery vans and omnibuses, careening left or right through the heavy traffic but he didn’t notice. Instead, his thoughts were only of Elden.

The taxi slowed on Ricky’s instructions, squeaking to a halt on the far side of a wide plaza where a complex of huge storage buildings consumed four square blocks. All but two MPE air cars had gone, but the glittering blue lights from their smooth, oval shells made it clear the work was unfinished. He paid the driver and went quickly toward Bryce Avenue, bypassing the cops where they loitered in a show of indifference Ricky resented in his silence. For them, Elden’s death was only another call and nothing out of the ordinary.

The street was cordoned off for half a block, but no one seemed to notice when he slipped past a small group of cops standing at the curb, slouched with hands stuffed in their pockets as forensics technicians dressed in gaudy, red jumpsuits padded in wandering circles, inspecting and scanning with handheld instruments Ricky guessed had something to do with fingerprints or the revealing clues hiding in microscopic cloth fibers or drops of blood.

It was strangely quiet there and he waited against a wall at a safe distance, mingling with onlookers who had come out from their shops to watch silently as other officials in expensive suits wandered about, pointing and nodding at something Ricky couldn’t see. He maneuvered for a better view, but it was clear Elden’s body had been removed and with it, any chance he might’ve had to say goodbye.

At last, the suits seemed to lose interest. Ricky pretended to read from his wrist comm as two of them brushed past the gathered crowd, making quickly for their cars. Still he waited and watched until the others began to disperse, moving along the street in twos and threes, their hushed tones and murmurs drowned out by the clatter as each police car hissed to life and climbed into the still air.

Ricky stared at the remaining officials, fighting back the anger and an irrational urge to demand they leave. Instead, the cold reality of a crime scene sweep was playing out before him and without regard for a loss he would take with him the rest of his life. Nearby, inspection lamps on thin tripods bathed the shadows in harsh light as the technicians finished their tasks. Ricky paused one last moment, but there was little to see; the old man had been murdered nearly halfway across the sector and far from his home above the clouds.

Ricky backtracked in numb silence to the intersection where Bryce Avenue met Kondrachev Street, trying with great care not to hurry. The light poles above, mostly darkened by years of indifference and disrepair were missing surveillance cameras that would surely have captured Elden’s last moments and identified his killer, but Ricky didn’t notice.

Elden lived quietly in his retirement, neither causing nor seeking trouble. Why had he been targeted by a murderous thug? Worse still, how could he have done so stupid a thing? He must have known the extreme risk, yet the truth of what waited below for an elderly Upper had not held him back. It seemed senseless and unnecessary, like so many violent crimes, but at last, only the sadness remained as Ricky went slowly across the plaza to where the land taxis idled along Kempten Road.

The ride home passed in a blur as Ricky’s preoccupation with Elden’s murder made other thoughts fade into background noise. He was surprised when the taxi stopped suddenly, only to find the alley’s entrance off Rademacher Way. He paid the fare and shuffled down the rough pavement as evening shadows began to gather, entering his lock code slowly and deliberately. At once, he felt the presence from behind and he wheeled quickly to find Mrs. Abber, moving slowly toward him.

“That boy, Vincent…he stopped by a while ago,” she began. “He asked me to tell you to call.”

Ricky only nodded, holding the door for her. When she settled at his kitchen table, it was clear something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

“Not really,” he replied. “An old friend was killed last night.”

At once, she understood.

“The famous man they talked about on the news this morning?”

“Yeah; his name was Elden Fellsbach.”

“Richard, I’m very sorry; I didn’t know you were acquainted.”

“He was a great man; they don’t talk about him anymore, but years ago, he did some amazing things with…”

“Yes?”

Suddenly, the thoughts poured back in a flood. He stood for a moment, reluctant to tell her Elden’s part in the process that created Starlight, simply for the acute embarrassment that wouldn’t ease. She would hear the word and mistake Elden’s role as one contributing to Ricky’s eventual downfall, or worse, his persistent inability to divorce himself from it. He remembered plaques on the old man’s wall, lauding his leadership and coding skills in transforming a novel concept into the most intuitive, successful entertainment software in human history. But the memories carried with them still more, slipstreaming through on the tails of Elden’s image where it smiled in Ricky’s mind. He thought again of Neferure. The vids would delve into the old man’s past soon enough, he knew; it was pointless to deflect the truth.

“Elden was in charge of a project about fifteen years ago, and it ended up becoming the Starlight program.”

“Starlight?” she asked at a near whisper, as if others might overhear a desperate secret.

“It’s not what you think; he didn’t have anything to do with what it’s become.”

“I only meant he must’ve made a lot of money,” she said. “I wasn’t judging him, Richard.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied quickly, “it’s just that…well, you know everything that happened since then.”

She smiled and said softly, “I wasn’t judging you, either.”

They sat on his couch where the fading sunlight made pale, yellow shafts that angled through his window to the floor.

“How did you meet him?” she asked at last.

Ricky smiled at the memory her question stirred, turning to explain in words the images from long ago she couldn’t see.

“When I first started,” he began, “Elden was a customer. The man who showed me how to run a hustle—Mister Anthony—brought Elden occasional packages he couldn’t get up above because of restrictions.”

“The Behavior Regulators would’ve stopped him?”

“They don’t tolerate Uppers breaking the contraband laws, so if they catch you, it’s confiscated and they lay on a heavy fine.”

“What was inside those packages?”

“Data sticks, mostly,” Ricky answered, “but he paid a ton of money for them.”

“What were they for?”

“I never knew—they were code locked and heavily encrypted. Mister Anthony said Elden was wasting his money on garbage no one else would want.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” She frowned. “Why would he pay so much for useless data sticks?”

“They weren’t useless to him, I guess.”

“But the Regulators still made it illegal to own them?”

“Yes, and it was pretty clear having them would get Elden in a lot of trouble. Every time he wanted one, he’d send a message to Mister Anthony with some kind of code words they used only for that purpose.”

“What were the code words; do you remember?”

“Ex Libris.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

Ricky smiled and shook his head.

“Neither do I.”

After Mrs. Abber was gone, Ricky returned Vinnie Bayle’s call and told him all he had seen from the empty place where Elden was found—betrayed and shot dead. Vinnie often made rounds with Ricky when both were still teenagers, remembering the old man as a thoughtful, kind person you could trust. In the days and weeks after Ricky’s father died, Elden silently assumed the role of surrogate, guiding and advising a quiet kid who moved on to his own enterprise. Though he never said so, Ricky understood Elden’s gift, standing with a lonely boy when no one else would. In the quiet of his flat, he felt the stinging regret and permanent truth his opportunity to thank the old man was closed forever.

Two days on, there were no answers from the news vids and Ricky paced in a wide circle from his living room to the kitchen, trying to make sense of Elden’s death. He didn’t want them, but cold images of what could only have been the old man’s last moments played through in his mind. Had the killer lingered in the dark across the street, he wondered? Was the criminal an acquaintance? Perhaps Elden’s past carried with it secrets never revealed. Still, nothing added up as the frustration returned, but a loud, rapid knock on his door startled and pulled Ricky from his thoughts.

He tapped the security camera’s monitor to find a lone figure in the dim light.

“Mr. Mills?”

Ricky held his breath and watched her.

“Mr. Mills, I need to speak with you; I’m investigating Elden Fellsbach’s murder. Please open the door.”

Still he said nothing. Dressed in a smart, gray and blue suit with raven hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her head, a thin, shapely woman looked directly at him through the security camera. It was unnerving the way she stared; had she seen him at Elden’s murder scene, Ricky wondered?

“Richard, I know you’re there; I just want to talk, okay?”

There was no good reason Ricky could think of that would explain a cop’s sudden appearance at his door. His mind swirled with scenarios and none of them could ease the building fear. Had the investigations and a search for culprits fixed the police on him, he wondered? A Flatwalker, and a known street hustler to the bargain, Ricky’s position in a murder investigation could be made into anything they liked, with or without merit or evidence. Had somebody named him, simply for his association with Elden and an excuse to find and punish an outsider to satisfy the expectations of shocked and outraged Uppers?

Slowly, he released the lock and opened the door a few inches. She looked at the latch and said, “May I?”

Ricky stood aside as she walked quickly to the middle of his kitchen.

“Maela Kendrick; Special Investigations Division. If you have a few moments, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

Ricky felt himself retreating quickly.

“I don’t have time right now; I was just going out and…”

“Make time, Slider.”

Ricky looked at her for a moment, deciding at last to meet her head-on.

“What do you want with me?”

“Our records show you visited Mr. Fellsbach recently.”

Ricky remembered the little boxes and a late-night adventure into the Industrial Zone.

“Yeah, so?”

“What was the purpose of your visit?”

Ricky felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.

“Just a personal call; I hadn’t seen Elden in a while, so I went to say hello and get caught up, that’s all.”

“Are you sure?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kendrick leaned close and said, “Richard, I know who you are and what you do, and frankly, I don’t give a shit how you earn a living. The neighbors told us about loud voices that day coming from Mr. Fellsbach’s apartment. The surveillance footage shows you arriving with a casual expression on your face, but minutes later, you rushed away, looking very different than when you knocked on his door. That doesn’t sound to me like two friends chatting and catching up.”

Ricky stiffened.

“I can’t help what it sounds like to you or anyone else; Elden was my friend, goddamn it!”

“Yes,” Kendrick said, moving closer, “and now he’s dead—somebody put four bullets into his back for no good reason. The killer rifled through his things, but that was just a show; too many valuable items left behind makes robbery as a motive pretty hard to swallow. If you want to help me find his murderer, stop jerking me around!”

“I didn’t kill him!” Ricky thundered.

Kendrick waited a moment while he recomposed himself.

“We know; transit records and video replay shows you on a pod train in Sector 2 at the time of the murder.”

“Then why are you here, Detective?”

“S.I.D. has cleared you as the shooter, but just because you didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean you couldn’t have paid somebody else to do it.”

“He was my friend; one of the best people I ever met!”

“Save the testimonial, Richard; friends kill friends every day.”

Ricky paced again, trying to balance his anger at Kendrick’s clear suspicion and the sadness Elden’s death had made.

“He didn’t do anything to deserve that, Detective; Elden was a gentle man and…”

Kendrick cut Ricky off cold.

“You’re stonewalling again.”

Ricky stood and spun around.

“What do you want from me?”

“I’m hunting Elden Fellsbach’s killer and your bullshit sob story is wasting my time!”

“It’s not a story!”

She stood at once, leaning close with a knowing smile.

“I saw your Starlight records and they paint a very different picture, don’t they?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I can read an account sheet! Oh, and while we were at it, I had a nice, long chat with Ellis Justman this morning, so don’t play the innocent with me!”

Ricky looked away, but she continued without pause.

“Justman is a gutless weasel, so it didn’t take much of a push before he told us the score; you got in way over your head with that simulation and Boris Konstantinou put you on the spot to either pay up or help him get next to your sister.”

She paused, tilting her head so that her eyes met his.

“Meanwhile, the debt skyrockets from that really stupid advance you took, and of course, you couldn’t get the money to pay it off. Konstantinou’s idiots deliver the news, along with an offer to forgive what you owe, so long as you convince your little sister to…well, I don’t have to spell out that part, do I?”

Ricky shook his head slowly.

“Next thing we know,” Kendrick continued, “you’ve got sister Litzi spirited away to some hiding place down in the factory districts; a hole where even a heavy hitter like Konstantinou couldn’t find her. Well, who could blame you, right? There was no way you’d let an animal like Boris touch her, but that didn’t get you out of it. You still owed that money, so you had to make the Walk. The networks went crazy as the betting tallies shot up with every passing hour when a nobody from Sector 4 kept going and going. Somehow, you got through alive—I have no idea how, but you survived. Boris gets paid off by the networks, you’re still upright, and little sister’s honor is safe again. Happy days!”

She leveled her gaze and spoke softly.

“But it doesn’t end there, does it?”

Ricky shot a searing look in return.

“It did for me!”

“Oh? Sorry, Richard, but you don’t look like the kind of guy who knows battlefield tactics from his ass. Only five others have survived a Walk and any one of them would pull your lungs out through your mouth!”

Ricky felt the walls closing in around him. Kendrick obviously watched the replays and she saw him pause when Cason’s warning came through. Could she have known of the doctor’s interference, he wondered?

“What are you suggesting, Detective?”

“You should’ve blundered straight into that ambush and everyone knows it, yet suddenly, you veered off and down the hill by an instinct I don’t think you have. The vid shows made a big deal about it, telling everyone about your Starlight simulation that magically turned you into a vicious, bloodthirsty bastard overnight.”

“I never claimed that it did!”

“You didn’t have to—the Walk organizers did it for you. But time passes and things die down. You’re back on the streets and hustling like before, but all of a sudden, your friend turns up dead. I’m guessing you went to his apartment to borrow some tokens to pay off that asshole Konstantinou, but Fellsbach turned you down and you made the long walk out to Broadridge, scared shitless and pissed-off because he didn’t bail you out. A few months later, when no one is looking, you sent somebody up to blast an innocent man and get a little payback.”

“That’s not true!”

“No? Then help me out, Richard, give me something to work with!”

“I didn’t go there to ask Elden for money.”

“Then what was it? You had to do the Walk to get Boris off your back, which should’ve meant everything was back to normal again, but it wasn’t, was it? Mr. Fellsbach ended up dead anyway. Something doesn’t add up and I’m running out of patience. I’ll ask you again, Richard; what happened when you went to Elden’s apartment?”

Ricky looked away. Again, he felt the fear and torment from a time he thought was safely in the past. His head ached and like a chronic, recurring disease, the life he led before haunted him still. Kendrick heaped on the pressure.

“Would you rather talk about this up at headquarters? I can turn you into a suspect again with a simple comm call, and since this is a murder investigation, I can keep you there indefinitely. I suggest you take a deep breath and consider your next words very carefully, Mr. Mills.”

Ricky closed his eyes for a moment. There was no point in keeping from Kendrick what she wanted to know. At last, he went to the little window and stared upward into the haze, glowing from the lights of the city as it moved into night.

“I wanted his help to fence some stuff up above.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Token transfer chips—a few pieces of jewelry.”

“How much on the chips?”

“Two hundred-thousand, give or take.”

“Anything else?”

Ricky paused a while, knowing Kendrick could easily call down the Behavior Regulators to make matters much worse.

“Data sticks with results for upcoming Challenge matches—dozens of them.”

Kendrick smiled and nodded.

“Fix sheets?”

“Yes.”

“And worth about three times the amount in the token chips, I would say.”

“More than that.”

“That’s why you took out the advance from the Starlight manager.”

Ricky nodded twice.

Kendrick watched him for a moment, waiting for the rest of the story. When Ricky looked away, she asked the question he knew was coming.

“I know you run a good hustle, Richard, but how in the world did you manage to find something like that?”

“I knew where to look.”

“Oh, so you stumbled across a half-million in fix sheets and token transfers lying around in a trash can somewhere? I don’t think so.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t,” she replied quickly, “but there’s no way you could fence something like that down on the streets, is there? The token transfers would have to be laundered or the Ministry’s systems would identify those chips the second you loaded them into a public scanner.”

“Something like that, yes.”

“It’s starting to make sense, now. You had to get the stuff turned with the only people who have the means, and they’re all up there, aren’t they? That’s what you needed Mr. Fellsbach to do; find one of his wealthy friends and sell off for whatever you could get.”

“Now you know; are we finished?”

“Almost,” she said, standing to walk in a circle as her words played out the image forming in her mind. “Your little problem led you to Elden, but he wasn’t willing to play along, leaving you back at square one. What did you do with the chips and sticks, Richard?”

“I put them back.”

“Back?”

Ricky had no other way—no clever tactic of delay that would dissuade Kendrick.

“An empty machine shop out in the Zone where your guys got them; I knew where they hid some of their stuff, and…”

“Who are they, exactly?”

“Courtnall and Espinoza.”

Kendrick’s eyes went wide open.

“You took those things from…”

“Yes.”

“Ah—now I see it. You heard they got nailed and figured they wouldn’t need the sticks and chips anymore. Once they were safely locked up, you went scrounging around in their secret places, eh?”

“Like I said, I knew where to look,” Ricky replied. “I went out there with a friend when I was starting the hustle years ago. I watched and remembered where they keep their most valuable shit.”

“After our investigators combed through that building for hours?”

“They missed a few things.”

“Yeah, I guess they did. And Mr. Fellsbach knew what it meant, didn’t he?”

“I thought he’d be able to help me find a buyer.”

“That’s what the loud voices were about?”

“He told me to put the stuff back and forget about it. He knew their trial was going to be rigged.”

“A lot of people knew, but he saved your ass by turning you down; you understand that, right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re either a very brave man, or an ignorant, damned fool. Ben Courtnall has people who would dismember you in broad daylight for pulling a stunt like that. Lucky boy, putting all that loot back where it belongs, aren’t you?”

He turned to her at once.

“I can’t stop you, but telling your investigators about this will get me killed if those two bastards ever hear about it.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to make an example of you, but I don’t care about Courtnall or Espinoza; your little secret is safe, Richard. Anyway, that’s enough for now. If I have other questions, I’ll be in touch.”

When Kendrick went quickly up the alley, Ricky waited and watched her go. It was unlikely she would reveal the truth about the stolen items to her colleagues, but there were no guarantees. Again, he felt the dull ache behind his eyes—the sudden pain of Elden’s death was now compounded by new worries Maela Kendrick brought to his door.

Ricky’s life returned to the hustle, but commerce ebbed suddenly as public interest in his Walk began to fade. To his relief, as the gawkers moved on to other, more immediate diversions, his days and nights were concerned mostly with drumming up new customers. After the successful (and expensive) relocation of Helene into the new apartments off Jefferson Avenue, Ricky no longer suffered Litzi’s scorn and disappointment. She wondered, as Mrs. Abber had, why he chose to remain in his modest quarters near Morrissey Square, given the comfortable income he now enjoyed. Ricky reminded her of those days when his grand apartment downtown—and the trap of living to excess—pushed him inexorably to the unfortunate conclusion of his Walk.

Outside, Behavior Regulators occasionally positioned snitches at the corner of the alley where it met Rademacher Way, but Ricky could bypass them easily through the space between Mrs. Abber’s apartment and the vacant tool shop next door. A short walk across the rutted field beyond, circling north to the Square unseen, always worked. Surprisingly, loitering informants never thought to look and after a few weeks, frustrated Regulators abandoned the idea.

In the late summer heat, Ricky’s most pressing concern was keeping herd meat frozen after delivery from the Agros. Clients had neither the means nor the interest to do so themselves, and shipments often made a blood-colored mess that could only be eliminated when the prized slabs were taken quickly to freezers near the border. Novum’s ruling powers openly frowned on the practice of eating animal products, but no legislation against ever made it through the Assembly intact. Expense and availability were the only real deterrents to their widespread consumption, which clearly suited hustlers like Ricky who relied on rarity for a good portion of their earnings.

With his old ways at Reece Street made pariah by the Walk and safely consigned to the past, Ricky went slowly and gratefully back to a life of anonymity. The network reporters decided his story couldn’t be pushed sufficiently without direct commentary, leaving him at last to his solitude. It seemed ironic that he would relish a new status of faceless obscurity, since so much of his time and money had been wasted in a desperate bid to become a ‘somebody,’ yet he felt better with each day than he had before. Visits to Helene’s new flat were more frequent and an uncomfortable estrangement from Litzi was mended by simply calling her and connecting the way a brother and sister should. At last, Ricky thought, he would be free to make his way without turmoil and worry and it remained so until a call bleeped into his wrist comm during a visit to catch up with Mrs. Abber.

The code number looked familiar as Ricky sat forward, but without a corresponding name to identify the caller, he waited until three blinks on the indicator announced a message waited within.

“A customer?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he replied. “I don’t recognize the number.”

Ricky thumbed through the call log for the code identifier, stopping at last when the name appeared in his comm unit’s tiny screen: Kendrick, Maela R.

“Damn it!” he said aloud.

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s back.”

“Who’s back?”

“Kendrick; that MPE detective I told you about.”

Mrs. Abber knew what it meant.

“Something’s come up in the investigation?”

Ricky shook his head with a frown and said, “I guess so, but I haven’t seen anything on the vids, so they’re obviously still at it.”

She sat beside him as he listened to the recording. Kendrick said little, but her voice was clearly agitated when she asked for a second meeting.

He tapped the reply icon and waited until she answered.

“Mills?”

“I just got your message; is there something new?”

“I need to speak with you.”

“I was just about to jump in the shower, but go ahead.”

“Not on an open line. I can be there in half an hour; is that all right?”

“Sure.”

The link closed abruptly and Ricky frowned at Kendrick’s sudden request.

“What did she say?” Mrs. Abber asked.

“She wants to talk again.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, and she still sounded off; something must’ve happened, but she won’t discuss it on a live comm channel.”

“Call me if you need help, Richard,” she said, and Ricky turned to go.

When at last Kendrick rapped at Ricky’s door, he motioned her inside with a wave of his hand. At once, the expression she wore told of troubles.

“Have you found the bastard who killed Elden?”

Kendrick sat slowly, shaking her head. She looked up at Ricky and pointed a finger directly toward his head.

“Before I go on, I need to know what we discuss will stay strictly between us.”

“Okay, but…”

“Tell no one, do you hear? Not your sister, not your friend across the alley, and certainly none of your customers or acquaintances, understand?”

Kendrick’s tone was sharp and loud, leaving no doubt as to the urgency and Ricky looked at her for another second before she stood and moved close to emphasize the point.

“No one.”

“Okay, okay!” Ricky relented and said, holding his hands in the air to signal his surrender, “I’ll keep quiet about it.”

Kendrick walked in a wide circle, assembling her words.

“They pulled me off the investigation.”

“What?”

“This morning, my supervisor told me the Fellsbach case would be handled above Division-level, so I don’t have to worry about it any longer. He said I was overdue for a vacation, so I’m officially on leave for the next thirty days, whether I like it or not.”

“They have a suspect?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never been pulled from an investigation before, but when I complained about it, my boss got right in my face and told me to stand down. He said the case had high sensitivity and the Commission wanted it handed over to ‘more experienced officers.’ I’ve been doing this job for six years and no one has a better conviction rate; something is very wrong here.”

Ricky watched her, but more than mere confusion showed in her face. Aside from the professional insult, there was more to the story and Kendrick knew it. He waited until she calmed herself.

“Who are these people taking over the case?” he asked. “You don’t sound very convinced they know what they’re doing.”

“Politicians!” she said loudly. “Most of them are administrators inside the Justice Ministry; they’re not even cops! Mason, my jackass of a boss, told me the case is moving along, but they have to make sure public scrutiny remains at a minimum; he said there are ‘other considerations’ and I’m ‘not cleared for the required security level.’

Ricky listened, but little of what Kendrick said made sense.

“If they know who shot Elden, why aren’t they making arrests?”

“That’s a great question,” she replied.

“Wait a second. Are you saying…”

“I’m saying something stinks. I’m the lead investigator of a murder case, but all of a sudden, they pull me off with no explanation. This is unprecedented and they’re hiding something.”

“What happens next?”

“Elden Fellsbach didn’t deserve four bullets in his back. There’s a reason for this and I’m going to find it.”

“I appreciate the concern, but how are you going to do that if you’re not running the investigation?”

Kendrick nodded with a conviction Ricky couldn’t miss, her jaw tightened and with eyes narrowed.

“I’ll run my own.”

Ricky knew what her words would mean if the MPE administrators found out one of their cops had gone solo.

“Are you crazy? They’ll shut you down the second they get wind of it!”

“I’ll play along—officially, at least—but that won’t stop me from looking on my own, and that’s where you come in.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t get there without help. Your meeting was one of the last Mr. Fellsbach had before they killed him. I know who he was, but you knew him better than anyone.”

Ricky backed away at once.

“Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not going to put myself on the wrong side of MPE and end up down in a punishment cylinder for obstruction! I know how it works and when they figure out I’m helping you…”

She went quickly to where Ricky stood, positioning herself squarely in front of him.

“What’s the matter with you? Somebody killed him in cold blood—they got an old man to come down to a dark place on the streets and then they shot him in the back four times. The desk riders step in and tell me to mind my own business, leaving no one to find and capture the son of a bitch who pulled the trigger! Is that all the better you can do?”

“I’m not a cop! What the hell am I supposed to do about it?”

“You don’t have to be a cop; just answer my questions and help me find a way into Elden Fellsbach’s world. If we can figure out what made the Commission so nervous, we can follow that path until a suspect shows. I know he was like a father to you; don’t you want to find his killer?”

Ricky stopped cold, shaken by Kendrick’s unexpected knowledge of his relationship with the old man.

“Of course I do, but…”

“Come on, Richard! I read the affidavits and transcripts before I got pulled, damn it; show some backbone!”

Others had been interviewed, Ricky thought silently. Elden’s acquaintances and neighbors at Marshall Center—they all knew his role in keeping a young, scared kid from sinking deeper after the death of his father. It was pointless to continue pretending.

“All right, detective, I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” she said at last. “And from now on, just call me Maela.”

“Okay,” Ricky answered, “but I’m not sure where to start; what could I possibly give you not already covered by the investigation?”

“You’d be surprised, and anyway, the records and evidence sheets have been sealed; I can’t get access to them now.”

“So,” Ricky frowned, “we’re running blind?”

“It’s not that bad,” she replied, “I still have a few tricks; some friends who know how to get information.”

“Hacks?”

“I’ll fill you in on that part when the time comes. For the moment, I want you to think about the last time you saw Mr. Fellsbach; was there anything that seemed odd in his behavior?”

“Not really,” Ricky replied. “He looked like shit, but I figured that was just the effects of getting old.”

“Come on, Richard, expand; was there anything he might’ve said that made you wonder?”

Ricky remembered the tense meeting and Elden’s profound insistence the stolen loot should be returned to the old warehouse out in the Zone.

“He nearly went nuts when I showed him the stuff I found—the token transfers and data sticks. I’ve never seen him go off like that; he was yelling at me, and…”

“Yes?”

“He told me people up there knew the trial for Courtnall and Espinoza was rigged; he said people down on the streets would figure it was all a mistake when they let the Bosses go, but a lot of people at the Ministry knew it was fixed.”

“Most knew it wouldn’t hold up in court, but that’s nothing new or noteworthy. Anything else?”

“Well, there might be something else…”

“Go ahead.”

Ricky hesitated for a moment, unsure of his position. Maela waited impatiently for as long as she could.

“If you know something, say it! You can’t do this half-ass anymore, don’t you understand?”

Finally, he relented and sat down.

“You were right about the last minutes at the end of the Walk when I bypassed the gate at Broadridge and snuck around behind the Chasers waiting to shoot me down.”

“I figured as much,” Maela said, “but how does that have anything to do with Elden Fellsbach’s murder?”

“I’m not sure it does, but…”

“Keep going, Richard!”

“Well, somebody broke into the transmitter on my camera belt and locked out the audio link back to the networks. A voice came on; not one of the organizers or anything, but another person who told me about the ambush. He said I could move along the side of that big ravine without being noticed and kill the Chasers before they killed me.”

“I see,” she said knowingly. “Who was on the other end of that transmission, Richard—who tipped you off?”

“I’d rather not say; he risked his life to help me, and…”

“Richard! Who was it?”

“He said Elden sent him to keep me from being killed.”

Maela looked at him with a suspicious, sideways glance.

“And you believed this stranger, just like that?”

“I couldn’t place the voice,” he said, “but I recognized it somehow. I found out the next day it was a Doctor named Cason; the same guy who implanted the tracking chip a couple of minutes before my Walk. He and Elden were friends.”

Ricky recounted Cason’s visit the morning after his Walk so that he could remove and destroy the Zorich device. It seemed needless, but Ricky spelled out once more Cason’s cautionary note to keep what he knew a hidden secret.

Maela nodded with a satisfied smile and said, “Okay; now we’re getting somewhere.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but without the doctor’s help, I wouldn’t have survived.”

“How did Elden react when you told him they were going to make you do a Walk?”

“I didn’t tell him—there wasn’t time.”

“Then how did he know to alert Cason?”

“That’s just it,” Ricky answered; “the doctor said somebody else—a different person—told Elden about the Walk, but he couldn’t say who it was. I don’t think he knew.”

Maela’s thoughts went quickly to possibilities and scenarios the way all detectives do, silently making connections where none existed before, hoping still more would be revealed by chance or the unanticipated blunders that so often make a difference. She was a creature of instinct, learning long before to follow seemingly irrelevant paths when the unseen voice inside her head called out.

“It doesn’t add up,” she declared. “If the bookies were pissed-off at Mr. Fellsbach for interfering with your Walk, somebody had to clue them in, right?”

“I guess so,” Ricky replied, unsure of Maela’s direction.

“But you say this doctor—and Elden—were the only ones who knew he was going to warn you?”

“Yes; Doctor Cason was very specific about that.”

“Something is very wrong here. I could understand a hit as a way of sending a message, or even for simple revenge, but…”

“But?”

“If no one knew about Cason’s midnight call to keep you from blundering into a Chaser’s ambush, it’s unlikely the shooter acted because of your unexpected survival. Cason couldn’t name the mysterious third party who alerted Fellsbach, or wouldn’t?”

“He just said another person tipped Elden, hoping he would be able to stop it. Elden called Doctor Cason and that’s why the Zorich was replaced with one that could block the network feeds.”

Maela watched the image forming in her mind; fleeting, at first, then with growing clarity as the pieces of a dark puzzle began to align.

“Then we have to find this person before they do,” she said.

“Which person?”

“The one who alerted Fellsbach.”

Ricky shook his head quickly and said, “I told you before; Cason doesn’t know who it was, and Elden can’t tell us anymore. How are we supposed to find somebody with nothing to go on?”

“Come with me,” she said; “I know somebody who might be able to help.”

Maela’s speeder—a standard, green MPE air car—lifted into the night sky from where she parked it on Rademacher Way, turning on a gentle curve toward the south. Ricky watched with the fascination of a child as the streets fell away, making for a scene he rarely had occasion to enjoy. The pod trains clunked along on their high rail, but nothing close to the altitude of even the lowest air lanes across Novum. Like a bird, they swept between the mega-towers and brightly lit plazas with ease, bringing an involuntary grin as Ricky craned for a better view. Below, a transit station swarmed with evening riders and Ricky felt a quiet satisfaction he was not one of them.

Beside him, Maela fiddled with the settings on her comm unit, seemingly disaffected while the automatic navigation system made each slight adjustment to their course and altitude until at last, three short tones bleeped out from the control panel to announce their descent. Seconds later, the machine guided itself to a parking cage on the roof of a hulking structure built in the odd shape of a trapezoid, windowless on one side where it rose like a solitary tombstone from an open field.

Maela waited for Ricky to unbuckle his seat harness, steering him toward a lift station jutting from beneath a wide overhang made of trusses and transparent roof panels. As they crossed the smooth concrete apron, she stopped.

“Listen, I need to explain this before we go down so you’ll understand.”

Ricky frowned in confusion, but she continued without a pause.

“We’re going to see Jonathan Kranz, a brilliant hack talent and general-purpose savant who knows more about everything than anyone else I’ve ever met. He’s also a pain in the ass do-gooder who talks too much and thinks the world would be a better place if everyone would play by the rules and be nice to strangers.”

Ricky heard the obvious commentary in her description, but Maela’s expression said more than her words.

“He likes rules, but he also hacks? That’s an interesting combination.”

“Jonathan is a…let’s just say he’s a multi-faceted individual.”

“No doubt. How did you meet this guy?”

She flashed a momentary, obviously false smile.

“He’s a friend. Well, sort of…”

“Sort of?”

“Once upon a time, we were attached, I guess you’d say.”

“But not anymore?”

“I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me.”

“Seems like an odd way to run a relationship.”

“Yeah, but it’s a great way to end one.”

“Sorry I asked.”

She motioned Ricky toward the lifts.

“He knows we’re coming to see him, but I couldn’t explain any of this over a comm link. Just let me do the talking and don’t worry if he launches into one of his famous tantrums; it’s mostly for show.”

“This oughta be interesting,” Ricky said with a grin.

On the southeastern edge of Novum where the fields lay open all the way to the wire, those few who lived between the Uppers and Flatwalkers huddled in a colony of linked structures that reminded Ricky of plastic building blocks popular with very young school children. Neither privileged as those in the clouds, nor sweating in the heat and filth of the streets, they were the quiet ones with intellect more valuable than position or muscle; the designers and engineers who kept Novum on its upward trajectory from what it had been in those last, terrible days of the Fall. Kranz was one of them and Maela stopped outside his door to collect her thoughts.

When it opened, his expression showed equal parts worry and grudging interest.

“Come in,” he said, motioning them with a wave of his hand. Almost as an afterthought, he said to Ricky, “I’m Jonathan, by the way.”

“Ricky Mills.”

“Yes, I know who you are from the vid shows; that was quite an adventure.”

“I was lucky,” Ricky said, but a polite and considerate tone seemed nothing like the tedious personality Maela described moments before. Instead, Jonathan seemed to Ricky a likeable sort, dressed only in beige shorts and a pale, green tee-shirt that was entirely too big for so slight a frame.

Maela wasted little time coming abruptly to the point.

“Sorry for breaking this on short notice, Jonny, but we need your help.”

Jonathan leaned against a doorway.

“Your message was pretty vague.”

“I know,” Maela replied, “but I couldn’t risk it over a monitored comm.”

“I’ve told you a million times, Mae; spend the money and get a crypto unit for your comm.”

She looked away at once to hide the exasperation Ricky guessed was a prominent theme between them.

“Thank you, but as I’ve explained to you a million more times, my bosses would see it in ten seconds and make me take it back down!”

The tension was building quickly and Ricky held up a hand to intervene, but Maela caught herself and ended the argument before he could speak.

“Okay, we can talk about that some other time, but for now, I need you to bust a call log so we can find somebody. Please, just help us do that, all right?”

Jonathan took in a deep breath to calm himself before nodding in resignation as he sat before his console.

“Whose records do you want to see?”

Maela spoke with a suddenly softer tone, Ricky noticed, no doubt relieved by Jonathan’s willingness to help.

“Last name is Fellsbach; first name, Elden with an ‘e.’ He lives in the Marshall center…well, lived.”

Jonathan looked up.

“The Upper who got drilled a couple of days ago?”

Maela winced at the insensitive words that could only have been painful for Ricky.

“He was Richard’s friend.”

“Oh, shit…sorry about that, really.”

“It’s okay,” Ricky replied.

“Are you leading this one?” Jonathan asked Maela.

She paused a moment, stung by the question.

“They took me off the investigation.”

“Mason pulled you from an ongoing case?”

“Yes, Jonny, I got the boot; can we keep this moving please?”

He knew what it meant without being told.

“You’re running rogue?”

“Something else is going on,” she replied with an obvious frown; “something behind the scenes and I can’t do anything about it. I have to run this myself because the suits won’t do shit and the murderer will stay in the shadows if I don’t.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Just start the hack; I’ll take care of the rest.”

Ricky watched over Jonathan’s shoulder as each menu was found and bypassed by security-defeating protocols he didn’t pretend to understand. Block after block glared red on the monitor, only to disappear with each application of a secondary entry code or high-speed password sweep. After a few minutes, he was in and the first page of a vast record library lay open before them. Elden’s call logs scrolled slowly, time-stamped and only a click away. At last, Ricky stopped him.

Reading carefully, Ricky looked for incoming calls on the day of his Walk, knowing the unseen benefactor would show. He recognized none of the names at first, guessing them to be acquaintances the old man made over the years. Most were internal calls, originating or terminating at comm units within the Marshall Center mega-tower. Neighbors, Ricky wondered? Maela looked, too.

“Recognize any of these?”

“No. They seem to be ordinary calls, but there’s no way any of these people could’ve known about my Walk from Elden, and…”

Suddenly, he pointed to the monitor.

“Stop.”

“Richard?” she asked.

“Holy shit,” he said with a shake of his head, pointing at a caller who spoke with Elden at 14:46. Below the entry, an immediate outgoing call from the old man’s comm at 14:52.

“What are you seeing?” Jonathan asked.

Ricky ran his finger across the screen where incoming calls were logged in chronological order, stopping where the identifier showed Ritnour, Walter M. To the right, where associated outgoing calls waited, Ricky read the second name aloud.

“Cason, Steven P.”

Maela smiled and patted Ricky’s shoulder.

“Okay, now we’re moving in the right direction. It looks like Fellsbach got the word from this guy, Ritnour, and a few minutes later, he calls the good doctor. The timing seems a bit convenient to be anything else, so we’ll presume for the moment Ritnour knew the story.”

Ricky said nothing, but his face flushed as he re-read Ritnour’s name and Maela continued without a pause.

“This must be when Cason told Mr. Fellsbach about the switch with those little chips. Clever, but it doesn’t tell us anything about Ritnour.”

Ricky sat on the arm of Jonathan’s couch, looking only at Maela.

“He’s one of yours, actually.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Ritnour is MPE—a beat cop down on the Ninth Street Corridor.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah; he sits in one of the kiosks near the Trade Center, but I didn’t tell him anything about my Walk. This makes no sense!”

Maela looked close at the monitor as if more answers would somehow reveal themselves.

“Somebody told him.”

Ricky shook his head slowly. Had a hidden, third party seen and sent a discrete word? Maela leaned back with folded arms, playing through the scenario in her mind. Ricky watched, unwilling to break the spell she made for herself as the force of her intellect took her along veiled paths, each presenting a possible solution.

“Can you get into the recordings?” she asked softly.

Jonathan looked up with a weary expression.

“I’d rather not,” he groaned. “The Watchers have new alert software that went live a few months ago, and they don’t take breaks; if they see an intrusion event from a private system, it will light off the alarms.”

Maela knew Jonathan’s opinion of the omnipresent Watchers and his belief the omnipresent security measure was, in reality, an army of advanced virtual intelligence constructs aimed by the Commission at the people of Novum.

“But you could get past it if you wanted to.”

He looked away.

“Yes, but not from my system. I’d have to go in and access the gateway from my office at work—Watchers can’t see in from there.”

“This is important, Jonny; you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”

“I know.”

Ricky watched in silence. The strained relationship between Maela and Jonathan lingered, cluttering the present with debris from a past neither were willing to reveal in front of a stranger. At last, the reluctant specialist gave in.

“Not many people up on my floor this time of night, so we can go now, if you want.”

In the first days of the Resurrection, when a skeleton that had once been a colossus began the long and arduous process of digging itself out from the aftermath of the Fall, there had been no time or facility to look beyond the moment—only daily survival at its most elemental level mattered and most were left to their own skill and determination. As time passed and warring factions died out, a civilization began to emerge from the wreckage and lawlessness. A century later, the sprawling landscape had changed from ruin and desolation, transformed by persistence and the instinctive, natural desire for order into a new and thriving community. Although an island unto itself in the restructured world where masses kept within safe boundaries to form new, bustling urban states apart and separated from their neighbors, Novum aimed its eyes once more toward the future.

The Institute for Technology and Industry was the intellectual bedrock upon which the city’s destiny would be built. Understanding and knowledge were pulled reluctantly forward from the past with often disastrous results as long-lost skills were re-discovered and cultivated by those who were merely curious. At last, the Institute had drawn even with the forgotten universities of the Old Time, returning at least some of humanity to its former place.

Maela docked her car and paid the fee into an automated system, frowning privately in the certainty others noted their arrival from the caverns where Watchers and their vast network of scanning computers looked over the city’s business with precision and care. As a police officer, she was entitled to come and go as she pleased, but there were limits and a visit to the Institute could spur an idle Watcher’s software to inspect closer. Through a labyrinth of hallways and open experiment bays, they waited at twin fire doors until Jonathan released the locks and motioned them inside.

The Research wing seemed dark and ominous to Ricky as he walked along a narrow corridor, oddly void of echoes and deadened to sharp sounds like the click of a door handle, or the tap of fingers on an input terminal’s smooth, glass surface. In here, he thought quietly, they made the blueprints for Novum’s next hundred years, teasing out a better life from the technological secrets of the past, using their power to unlock even more that beckoned from beyond time’s horizon. Progress was a measured and well-regulated concept, but it grew from embryonic beginnings inside locked rooms like the one Jonathan steered them toward with a brief gesture.

The expansive chamber was made of distinct cells, each the private and permanent working home of a technology contributor. This one, Jonathan noted, was a systems integration and architecture space where high-speed interfaces between machines were developed. Ricky looked with fascination, but there were few recognizable clues an ordinary Flatwalker would recognize. Instead, holographic note boards showed line after line of complex math formulas waiting patiently for variables. Beside them, a glowing swirl of numbers and letters that meant something to those who understood.

At the late hour few researchers remained, but secluded within their work cells, most didn’t know Jonathan was onsite—or didn’t think to look. He showed Maela and Ricky inside his suddenly cramped workspace, climbing awkwardly into a thin, reclining seat he insisted was more comfortable than it looked. At once, Ricky thought of an experience cocoon at the Reese Street Theater and his thoughts drifted unsurprisingly to Neferure. It took a moment before the details became clear again, even to the fragrance she so often wore when his consciousness awoke at Ma’at Palace. Was it made from deep inside his mind, Ricky wondered? A coping mechanism’s strange authority to shift memories into those unseen vaults the mind maintains, perhaps? It wasn’t so disturbing as it might have been months before and Ricky took the odd sensation as an encouraging sign his unfortunate past was drifting farther behind. Maela noticed the strange expression and nudged him.

“Richard?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

She frowned a bit and turned instead to Jonathan.

“Your access is masked, right?”

He nodded and pointed at a blinking icon on one of his four monitors.

“That’s the activation prompt for Cactus; when I select it, the network for most of the city’s hard comm architectures can be accessed without tripping the intrusion detectors. I have the protocols, so once it gets me past the first portal, I can take it from there.”

“Cactus?” Ricky asked.

“It’s a test system we morphed into a larger platform connecting various network infrastructures with specific nodes; it works well for general access if you know how to push it.”

Maela heard Jonathan descend into tech-speak enough times to know it was about to happen again and she moved him forward gently.

“What’s next?”

He waved his hands over the display and waited while it sent out a retinal scan to verify his identification credentials and then he was in. Working quickly, Jonathan peeled back each layer of security, bypassing several barriers that would’ve required authorization from much higher levels until at last, the voice archive revealed itself. Reading from his wrist comm where the location of Elden’s call log files had been copied, he made the sequential inputs and sat back. The system scrolled endless display screens, each visible for only a moment as the access codes he hacked long before did their work. When the machine blinked out a single, green icon, he turned to Maela and activated the system’s external speakers and the playback began.

“Mr. Fellsbach?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Walt Ritnour. You don’t know me, but I’m calling about Slider Mills, and…”

“What about him?”

“He’s gotten into some trouble, and…”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Well, money trouble. I guess he didn’t tell you?”

“No, but it’s not surprising. Go on.”

“He got in over his head at one of the Starlight theaters and he can’t pay back what he owes, so they’re going to make him do a Walk to settle it.”

Ricky winced at the sudden, painful pause as Elden replied with a noticeable sigh.

“How did you come by this information, if I may ask?”

“He stopped by a couple of days ago, asking about the two Bosses who got arrested out in the Zone, and…”

“I remember.”

“I thought it seemed a little strange, so I did some digging and it turns out he went to their warehouse to look around, you know, since both of them were in jail? Anyway, I figured he found something and wanted help getting it turned up where you live, so…”

“And why would you think that?”

“Well, your neighbors heard things when Slider came to see you, and they know what he does down on the streets, so I just thought…”

“Yes, I see.”

“But later, one of the people who listens for me heard Boris Konstantinou was going to make Slider pay him off by doing one of those Walks. Maybe he tried to get the money Slider owed, but it was a lot, so he pushed from another direction.”

“What direction?”

“This is sort of awkward, but they tell me Konstantinou has an eye for the kid’s little sister, Litzi, and…”

“Continue.”

“Boris told Slider his debt would disappear if he was to convince her to…well, you know what I mean, right?”

“Yes, I understand, but where did you hear of this? You mentioned people who listen for you. In what capacity are you part of this, Mr. Ritnour?”

“I’m a cop down on the Corridor. I’ve known the kid since he was little, so I try to keep an eye out for him if I can. His dad died years ago, and…”

“I know about Ricky’s history, but what is your role in this?”

“Like I said, I watch out for him. One of my contacts told me Slider hopped a freight that goes very near that warehouse compound, so I called a friend who lives out that way and had him look around, you know, quiet and in the shadows?”

“Go on.”

“Anyway, they seen him walking from the freight tracks just a short distance from that place. He’s a good boy, Mr. Fellsbach—he hustles and all that, but he’s not a bad kid, you know?”

“I know.”

“Anyway, since you used to run Starlight, I figured maybe you could do something to get him out of it. Most people don’t make it through a Walk, so…”

There was another pause and Maela looked at Ricky where he stood, eyes closed tightly against the painful reminders.

“Thank you for alerting me, officer; I’ll take it from here.”

“Oh, sure. Uh, you’re welcome.”

The link bleeped to signal the channel had been closed and Jonathan pre-staged Elden’s next call.

“Cason…”

“Steve, it’s Elden Fellsbach.”

“Elden! Been a while.”

“I know, but right now, I have a problem I hope you can help me with.”

Cason’s tone hushed suddenly.

“I can’t get that stuff anymore, Elden, I told you…”

“It’s not what I meant. This is something else, and much worse.”

“Are you ill?”

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s for a friend; I need you to…”

“What’s this about?”

“You have a side task tonight, yes?”

“Why do you ask?”

“An implant job for Konstantinou.”

“You’re very informed all of a sudden…”

“Boris has a kid they’re forcing to make a Walk.”

“Yes, I know; a street hustler called Richard Mills. Apparently, he owes a lot of money he can’t pay.”

“Listen, Steve, he’s not a typical Walker; Konstantinou is pissed off at him for a Starlight debt, but he’s trying to force Richard into convincing his younger sister to spend time with the Bosses, understand?”

“You know the kid?”

“Yes.”

“Shit. Okay, I’m listening.”

“Anyway, this bastard wants to make Richard’s little sister one of his playthings, and…”

“Yes, I can fill in the blanks, Elden.”

“Konstantinou gave Richard the choice of convincing her or making a Walk. Of course, he refused, so they’re sending him out tonight.”

“I understand, but…”

“He’s a tough boy, but he won’t stand a chance out there and we both know it.”

Another pause brought silence as Cason considered Elden’s plea. Ricky and Maela knew what Cason’s answer would be, but when he replied, it brought a strange feeling of relief to Ricky, as though the moment had returned, fraught with the same danger he endured months before.

“This is risky as hell, Elden.”

“I know, and I am very sorry for putting you in this position, but no one survives these things anymore; they’ll cut him down for sure if we don’t do something to give him a decent chance. Isn’t there anything you can do on your end?”

“Well…”

“Steve?”

“I could probably use a modified chip instead of the usual model.”

“What would that do?”

“Some of the older chips can be adjusted. I do have transmitter blocks I could install, and that would give me a few moments to communicate with him without anyone else hearing, but that’s about it.”

“How would that help him survive?”

“Well, I could monitor his progress on my screen and maybe point him in a direction away from the Chasers.”

“How will you know where they are? I thought they kept locations very secret.”

“The chase units have an isolated comm channel they use to coordinate their movements, but I can listen from my monitors. Konstantinou gave me the access code years ago, but it still works.”

“He gave you Chaser comm codes, just like that?”

“He thought it might come in handy in case I ever wanted to put some wager money down; a guaranteed win, right?”

“And no one will know you switched the chip?”

“Not unless this kid screws it up and blurts out something stupid. It’s only good for a few moments because the system re-sets if it gets an intermittent signal loss. I could probably get him past the worst parts if he listens and does what I tell him to do.”

“We’ll have to hope so; I won’t be able to get a message to him before they send him out.”

“Okay, Elden, I’ll do what I can. No guarantees once it starts, though.”

“Thanks, Steve—I owe you.”

“No problem, Elden. Good night.”

Jonathan paused the recording and sat back, but Maela watched Ricky as he relived the moments that saved his life, never knowing with certainty how they evolved. Between them, Elden and Doctor Cason found a way and without it, Ricky knew he would surely have died on that desperate, lonely night. They waited in silence, but Maela’s instinct tugged at her in a struggle to reconcile the recordings against unanswered questions. Once more, she stood with folded arms, letting her eyes scan the tiny space in flitting, indiscriminate patterns as her mind went its own way. Finally, she shook her head in clear disappointment.

“This is all very interesting, but it doesn’t get us any closer to a motive or a suspect.”

“None of this helps?” asked Jonathan, sullen at the prospect his labors had gone unrewarded.

“Not really,” she replied. “It confirms what we already knew, but there’s no obvious connection beyond getting Richard through his Walk alive. Fellsbach was acting to save Richard and the doctor helped him out, but it doesn’t explain why the old man ended up dead almost two months later.”

She leaned against Jonathan’s console, shaking her head slowly as the mystery began to build, teasing her from the shadows where all secrets live. Ricky watched her, alone with her thoughts that swirled like tiny cyclones, but clearly in her element. This was one of the moments, he thought, when people like Maela earned their keep; sorting through details most would never see and determined to unlock each door until the inevitable patterns emerged.

At last, she pointed to the display.

“Can you download the rest?”

“Download?” Jonathan replied with a frown.

“Into my comm, maybe? I want to go through them, but it’s going to take time.”

“Are you crazy?” he snorted. “There isn’t enough room in a comm’s memory for ten of these, let alone the entire record!”

Undaunted, she went quickly to the next option.

“Okay, then how about the call log? That’s just an ordinary data file, right?”

“Yes, I can give you the logs, but what good are they without the recordings?”

“I want to see who Fellsbach spoke with over those last weeks before his death; maybe we can cross them with other events and see if somebody interesting pops up.”

“All right,” Jonathan said, voicing a command that sent a copy of Elden’s call log to her wrist comm. “I don’t have to tell you what they would do to me if…”

“Yes, I know,” Maela interrupted with a nod. “I’ll transfer it to an offline reader so they can’t see, then I’ll delete it, all right?”

They waited as Jonathan locked down his system and closed the lights to the tiny chamber.

An hour later, Maela eased her car onto Rademacher Way, steps from the alley’s entrance.

“I’ll look through the logs tonight, Richard. If you think of anything that might help, call me immediately.”

“I will, and thank you for arranging to meet with Jonathan; it was nice to hear Elden’s voice one last time.”

She smiled and nodded as the hatch swung slowly down, lifting into the darkness with a hiss as the car accelerated north. Ricky stood for a moment to watch her go and then he shuffled in weary silence to his door. The strange, unyielding sensation of finality found him again and he stood alone in the quiet, thinking of all the old man had done to keep him alive. Ricky looked upward to the gathering cloud cover and whispered, “Thank you, Elden.”

After a week, Maela found little in Elden’s call logs to their purpose. Mostly conversations with colleagues or neighbors, nothing stood out from the files before Ricky’s difficulties compelled the old man to action. Back on the hustle, his routine hadn’t changed; orders were placed and deliveries were made, even as the memory of a vile murder lingered on the fringes of Ricky’s thoughts, unsolved and forever a reminder of what he couldn’t change.

On an unusually cool morning, he woke to a persistent rap at his door. He wasn’t expecting Vinnie or even Maela Kendrick and a peek out from his door cam showed a stranger pacing in a tight circle. The man looked clean enough, Ricky decided, releasing the latch slowly.

“Can I help you?” Ricky asked.

“I’m trying to find Richard Mills?”

“That’s me.”

The man held out a smooth, glass-covered pad and Ricky placed his hand atop it to register his palm print and verify the identification. When it signaled the correct image, the man handed over a standard courier’s document case.

“I was sent by Oliver Allouez with instructions that it had to be given directly to you.”

With that, the man turned and headed briskly up the alley.

“Thanks,” Ricky mumbled, but the man didn’t hear. He turned for his kitchen and placed the carrier on a counter, looking at it for a moment as though its contents brought an unseen risk he was hesitant to take. A small message chip had been inserted into a windowed slot on the edge of the case and Ricky pulled it free before slipping it into his wrist comm. At once, a voice spoke from the recorded note;

“Hello, Mr. Mills. I am Oliver Allouez, agent and actuary for the estate of Elden Fellsbach. The enclosed document was found among the financial records in Mr. Fellsbach’s apartment and addressed specifically to you. It is access-protected, requiring handprint verification, which you have obviously provided. The case was unlocked in this process, and you are now free to open and retrieve the contents. Also, you will notice a sum of Novum credit tokens Mr. Fellsbach has asked me to transfer into your accounts. Simply instruct your banking facility to provide the details and I will proceed. If you have any questions, or require further information I may be able to provide, please do not hesitate to call my offices. Good day to you, sir.”

Ricky thumbed the twin latches and pulled up the lid, revealing several data sticks sitting securely in their cradles, but another had been fixed to the inside of the case’s lid and separate from the others. He pulled it free and inserted it carefully into his reader. When it blinked to life, the words made Ricky frown in confusion.

“Go find our old Sammy. Inside, another stick will show you the way. Follow it. No matter where it leads or how strange it may seem, follow until the task is complete. Ishmael will help, but this must be done and it must be done by you. When you are finished, they will be free. You will be free, too.”

Ricky felt the cold fingers of worry return. Had the old man gone off in his final days? What could possibly compel him to such lengths, only to deliver a strange riddle that held no clues? He looked closely at the data sticks, suddenly grinning with a nod as he recognized them from so long before.

“I’ll be damned,” he said out loud, pausing to code in Maela’s comm number.

“Richard?”

“A courier just dropped off a package; I think you need to see this.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s from Elden; he must’ve made it before he was killed.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

When Maela arrived, Ricky thumbed one of the sticks into a reader.

“What have you got there?” she asked, looking over Ricky’s shoulder.

“Data sticks; the man handling Elden’s estate sent a courier just now.”

“What’s on them?”

“I don’t know. Mister Anthony, the man who showed me how to run the hustle, used to get them for Elden once in a while. It was years ago, and he spent a lot of money for them, too, but whatever it was, he didn’t want anyone up there knowing about it—especially the Regulators.”

Maela’s brow furrowed at the thought, but she nodded for Ricky to continue.

“Mister Anthony would get a call from Elden, and these sticks were what he wanted.”

Maela moved to inspect the label closer.

“Ex Libris?” she asked suddenly.

“Yeah. I don’t know what that meant, but…”

Maela blurted out a laugh, catching herself when Ricky stared in confusion.

“Books, Richard! It’s an ancient language called Latin they used a thousand years ago; it means ‘from the library.’”

“The ones they used to print on paper?” Ricky asked.

“They were everywhere back then,” Maela continued. “Jonny’s parents told him about stories they heard when they were very young—from great grandparents, I think. Anyway, they kept books in huge buildings before the Fall, right out in the open. People could go there and read anything they wanted and no one said a word.”

“I always thought that stuff was made-up,” said Ricky with a smile.

“It sounds like your friend bought transcriptions of old books copied over into these data sticks.”

“Goddamn it,” Ricky said as the terrible truth became clear; “if the Regulators ever caught him with those things…”

“Yes,” Maela nodded, “and that’s why Elden needed people like you and this other guy, Anthony, to find them. I’ve heard about underground operations where people bring and sell them and then other people speak the words into an ordinary text program so the Regulators won’t know. It’s risky, but they make a fortune doing it; these might be some of those narrated copies.”

Ricky looked at a stick where it lay in the palm of his hand.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out, right?”

The stick snapped into place and its text appeared on his monitor in seconds, but the words were alien and cryptic.

Oedipus and Antigone.

Ricky advanced the reader to the next file.

How Green Was My Valley.

He looked close and read another aloud.

“To Kill a Mockingbird?”

Maela leaned close, mesmerized by the words. She recognized some of them, but most could only hint at their true meaning. She continued the list at a near whisper.

“And Quiet Flows the Don; The Tale of Genji; Moby-Dick; Lord of the Flies; Atlas Shrugged; The Good Earth…”

“These are all old book names?” Ricky asked.

“They’re made-up stories from long before the Fall,” Maela replied.

“You recognize them?

“A few,” Maela replied, “but Jonny’s mom and dad would probably know them all. When we were first dating, he worried I would tell the Regulators, but after he figured out I don’t like those assholes any more than he does, we talked about books and he told me what they said inside. Well, some of them, anyway.”

Ricky smiled again, speaking also in hushed tones as if reverent to the meaning he knew each title held for Elden.

“All this time, I imagined they were some secret code fragments, or processes he wanted to develop and sell. Mister Anthony insisted it was wasted money, but I didn’t believe it; Elden didn’t waste money. He was reading these old stories!”

“Dangerous,” Maela said at last. “This shit would’ve gotten him indicted in ten seconds; the Regulators don’t tolerate crimes like this.”

“Crimes?” said Ricky suddenly. “They’re that bad?”

“Jonny said his parents never talked about them with strangers, and he was always sent to his room when they discussed them with his aunt and uncle. It scared him, worrying somebody would break in and take his mom and dad to the cylinders.”

They looked at more titles while the list scrolled through, but after a while, Maela wanted answers.

“This isn’t getting us any closer. We don’t have anything to go on except that strange note; let’s start with that and see where it leads.”

Again, they read the odd sentences, but still nothing made sense.

“Run a search,” Maela said at last. “Try ‘Ishmael’ first and see if it finds something.”

Ricky inserted the first stick and set the program to look for Elden’s words, waiting only seconds before it finished scanning the vast collection, holding at the beginning of the Moby-Dick text. There, the reference appeared, but the bizarre narrative that followed brought only more confusion. Maela tapped in the rest of the note and again, the scan did its work, stopping to highlight a single passage and she read it aloud:

“‘It was a shocking bad wound,’ began the whale surgeon; ‘and, taking my advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy…’”

Maela looked at Ricky.

“Does that mean anything to you?”

“No,” he replied, his face screwed up into a mask of confusion.

“Well,” she continued, “your friend seemed to think you’d recognize it, and he wouldn’t have left all this shit for you to read unless he wanted you to find something.”

She looked at the words again, as though re-reading them would somehow force them to a revelation. A moment later, Ricky smiled and rose quickly, nodding his head with the surety of one who understood after all.

“Elden, you son of a bitch!” he declared with a laugh.

“What?” Maela asked.

“Read the next part.” He grinned.

She narrowed her eyes at the following paragraph, mumbling the passage quickly.

“‘Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship,’ interrupted the one-armed captain, addressing Ahab; ‘go on, boy.’”

Maela sat back with a nod.

“Okay, so now we know ‘Sammy’ is short for Samuel Enderby; does that get us any closer?”

Ricky called up a land traffic status page, thumbing through a menu of street names until he found it.

“Enderby Court, see?”

“Yes, I see, but it doesn’t tell me anything, Richard! Where the hell are you going with this?”

Ricky’s toned softened as he began his description. At last, he understood and the hidden discovery that eluded Maela made for him a sudden and wonderful sensation of hope and enthusiasm. Indeed, the old man knew how to hide his secret in a way only Ricky would understand and a simple street name in a map display would soon take them through the next step of a growing mystery.

“When I was just starting the hustle on my own, not long after Mister Anthony moved away, I relied on Elden’s contacts among the Uppers to do a lot of my business; they wanted things I could find, and all of them had plenty of money to pay for it. The problem was a place to put the stuff I scrounged that was safe and out of the way. I was still living with my mom back then, so I couldn’t hide them at home. Elden let me use a storage locker he owned.”

“Good for you, Richard, but…”

“Let me finish! The locker was inside one of the little transit sub-stations down near the southern wire, about half-way along a dead-end street called Enderby Court.

“Okay,” Maela said with a satisfied smile of her own, “your friend hid his tracks well, but not enough that you wouldn’t be able to figure it out; clever of him.”

“I haven’t used that locker in a long time, but even then, the place seemed pretty tame. Across the field from the sub-station, some of the Agros come in from the Broadlands to trade and sell their stuff away from the Central Market. A lot of it was illegal, but now the gangs are gone, all that’s left are the new retirement blocks.”

Maela nodded, finally able to see the reason for Ricky’s obvious joy and relief. At last, she thought, they were making progress.

“All right, we have our goal; let’s move.”

Ricky nodded and followed Maela up the alley toward Rademacher. As the machine cleared the glass towers in the middle of Morrissey Square, Ricky looked at her for a moment, guessing correctly his opportunity to look past the badge and find the person within.

“What’s the story with you and Jonathan?”

She returned a sad laugh.

“It’s long and complicated.”

“We have time,” Ricky insisted gently.

She smiled at him for a second, impressed by his nerve, but quietly grateful he’d taken enough interest to ask.

“We found each other through mutual friends and got locked-in for all the wrong reasons,” she began. “Jonny is a very good man, don’t get me wrong, but…”

“But?”

“No two people were less suited to each other.”

“Sometimes, opposites attract,” Ricky said. “That’s not unusual, is it?”

“That’s just it; we’re not really opposites.”

“How do you mean?”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not really the shy type. He isn’t very reserved, either, so there’s been moments when the neighbors had to call the cops on a cop; imagine how that looked.”

“He seemed fairly mild to me,” Ricky offered.

“That’s because he hasn’t had enough time to judge you and decide from his safe little world whatever you’re doing is probably a crime against all decency…”

“I see,” he replied with a smile.

She caught herself after a moment and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off the edge like that.”

“It’s okay, Maela; I’m the only one here.”

“Jonny really is a good person, but there are necessary parts of my job that don’t allow for the best behavior, you know? He never understood that and it drove a wedge between us long ago.”

“What does he think detective work should be?”

“He watches the vids and believes that’s the way it really is on the street. We save lost children and make the world better without getting dirty doing it. Lots of people up above think that because they’ve never had to deal with the animals who live down here, and…”

At once, she felt her face run red with embarrassment and regret.

“I didn’t mean it that way, Richard, sorry.”

“I didn’t take it that way,” he said.

“After a million fights and slammed doors, we agreed to go our separate ways and that was it. I see him now and then, but it’s not like it was. We’re friends again, but only just.”

She pretended to watch the car’s speed and altitude readout, wishing suddenly their conversation could take a different direction. Ricky said nothing, but Maela’s view of life where the Flatwalkers struggled daily was not so jaded as it might have seemed to others. He thought at once of Bartel and Junkyard—of Boris, too. They certainly qualified as those Maela detested and no one knew it better than Ricky.

The car’s navigation system found and recognized a parking pad at the sub-station on Enderby Court. When it settled onto the smooth surface, they moved quickly across the rain-washed pavement. Inside, the air smelled of ammonia and disinfectant from the cleaners’ work an hour before. Polished stone floors clacked underfoot and sent echoes to match those of others making their way home from pod trains in the brightly lit gallery. Before them, broad steps with dull, aluminum handrails kept riders in precise columns as they walked upward to the platforms. Ricky aimed left to a wall where the lockers waited, each in different shades of green, blue and purple, placed to form a cheerful pattern that reminded Maela strangely of her neighbor’s bathroom floor. At number 114, Ricky paused to remember a time when he first threw himself fully into the shadowy world of the hustle so long ago.

“I don’t suppose you have the combination?” Maela asked.

“If Elden put something here a few months ago, then the old code must still work,” Ricky answered.

“But you know it, right?”

“Yes; he set it to my birth date so I would never forget.”

Ricky knelt as Maela turned in a slow, deliberate circle to ensure no others loitered nearby, ever cautious and always moved by a suspicious nature she learned to trust.

In seconds, the hard, plastic door swung open, revealing only a small, metal box. Ricky tumbled it slowly in his hand, pausing for a moment to regard an object made long before he was born. It was old and tarnished by the passage of decades, but sturdy and solid to the touch. Countless hands no doubt filled it with curios and the tiny bits of obscure, private lives, he thought silently, lived by strangers from the past he would never meet. Maela looked over his shoulder as he pried open the warped lid and placed it carefully on the floor. Inside, a small computer drive sat in a foam rubber cradle and attached to it, a retinal scanner like the ones bankers use. Ricky knew it must’ve cost Elden a steep price.

“Let’s go, Richard, we can look at this stuff at home,” Maela said, now pushed by a nagging sense of uneasiness, alone and exposed with the key to a mystery and a murder. He replaced the lid and tucked the box under an arm, turning for the exit as Maela looked left and right, prepared to use her authority and position should anyone interfere. In minutes, they were airborne and moving across the southern fringes of the Industrial Zone where it curved from the west, speeding toward the Square and the unseen privacy of his flat where a riddle waited to be solved.

Maela waited while Ricky pointed a desk lamp at the box, pulling its lid away to expose the tiny data drive. An expensive retinal scanner (the latest private model available, she noticed) came to life with the touch of a finger. Ricky pointed it at his eyes and waited as Maela looked on and said, “How will this recognize you if you’ve never used it?”

“Elden had my identification scan on file in his own system,” he replied. “Some of the Uppers he knew insisted on it when I was first carrying things up for Mister Anthony. They didn’t trust me, so I had to give them a retinal scan for the cops in case I burned them on a deal.”

In seconds, a simple voice file appeared, along with several extensive data files that were seemingly indecipherable. Ricky selected the recording and increased the volume so Maela could hear.

“Richard, I’m sorry to put you through a mysterious scavenger hunt, but I couldn’t risk discovery by speaking with you in person. I have angered people in the government and I am afraid they are planning to silence me and prevent their secrets from becoming known. This recording is made in the hope you will be able to complete a most important task in the event I cannot.

“There isn’t much time now, so pay close attention. I’ve discovered something that could change a lot of things in this city, and you are the only one I can trust to do what must be done. Before you listen further, understand this; powerful people up here will stop at nothing to prevent you from achieving your goal. If they knew of it, any of them would order your execution without a second thought, just as they have likely arranged for mine, so please be very careful and guard this information by any means possible.

“You remember and understand my involvement with the Starlight program. I designed it for a better purpose, but things changed when corruption from within the Commission allowed it into the hands of opportunists who wished to make it into something much different than what my colleagues and I envisioned. You know the rest of the story, but that’s not where it ends. Starlight hides secrets, Richard, very dangerous secrets that if ever revealed could change the way our people live and that is something those in power will never tolerate.

“When you came to me with those items, and you know the ones I mean, there was no chance for you to do anything with them without being discovered by their owners. That is why I made you replace them and I hope you can understand that now.”

Ricky nodded involuntarily with the image of Courtnall and Espinoza walking free as Elden’s voice continued.

“But later, when I found you’ve become lost in your simulation and buried under a debt you could never pay, it was inevitable they would force you to something horrible. I should’ve done more to keep you from what I knew Starlight had become, but I failed and for that, I apologize.

“I know what Boris Konstantinou wanted from you, and I applaud risking your life to prevent what he would surely have done to Litzi. However, nothing could’ve stopped Boris from getting satisfaction, and making you suffer a Walk for not giving her to him was obvious.

“I want you to know I tried to keep you alive that night, Richard. I had help from others I cannot name in order to protect their anonymity, but there were reasons why you made it through and I am profoundly glad of it. Still, there were other concerns you knew nothing about, and that is the reason I fear now my life may end sooner than it should.”

“Your doctor friend,” Maela whispered and the recording continued.

“Those who control people like Boris Konstantinou, very important and prominent people, are angry with me for what I intend to do. So angry, it is inevitable they will send somebody to prevent me from doing so at any moment. You see, I had a hand in making Starlight into a monster that nearly cost you your life, and one that has ruined countless lives before you. I cannot change what has been, but I have a duty to make it right and keep them from taking the program to its final, horrible stage. Now, the men who may be plotting my murder realize what I intend and it is unlikely I will survive long enough to complete this important journey.

“The files in this data drive are technical documents that may seem unrecognizable to you, but in the proper hands, they may be able undo what I helped create. You must understand, Richard, those who would stop me are the very ones who protect and support people like Konstantinou. When you finish your task, you will understand.”

Ricky paused the recording and Maela shook her head slowly.

“Why was he kicking this to you?”

“I don’t know,” Ricky replied, “but Elden was a very precise and deliberate man. Whatever it is, he took the time to make this recording, knowing all the while it would probably be his last.”

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

Ricky nodded and continued the playback.

“I want you to take these files personally to Veosa and deliver them to a scientist there called Valery Sharma. She has no knowledge of this, but once she sees the files, she’ll know what to do. You won’t be able to borrow an air car or ride the mag-rail because the Watchers will see your identification scan immediately and alert MPE. Instead, you must make your way across the Broadlands by land vehicle. In this way, you will be completely off their systems and untraceable.”

“Valery,” Maela said suddenly. “I should’ve guessed.”

“You know her?”

“Yes, but it’s been a long time since I saw her.”

“Who is she?” Ricky asked, but Maela’s expression had changed.

“Famous Veosan scientist—a genius who knows everything about artificial intelligence research.”

Ricky could only guess at the scenario that would’ve put a Veosan AI researcher in the way of a hardened Novum policewoman.

“How did you meet her?”

“It’s a long story, but she helped me out a few times. Elden never mentioned her before?”

“Not that I can recall, why?”

She waited a moment, looking past Ricky and clearly burdened with knowledge she wished he already knew.

“Shit. It’s obvious he didn’t tell you, but Valery is Elden’s daughter. I never met him, but she spoke of him a few times.”

“I don’t understand,” Ricky replied, struggling with the revelation and what it meant; “Elden never said anything about a daughter!”

“They didn’t get along, apparently, and they’ve been estranged ever since he came over to Novum.”

Ricky’s confusion was turning to resentment and he floundered knowing the old man had kept so deep a secret.

“We can sort that out later, Richard; let’s hear the rest,” Maela said with a nod. Ricky continued the message.

“Now listen carefully because this is important. Just beyond the security station where Walling Road dead-ends at the wire, the path west begins—you know the place I’m talking about. The MPE guards stationed there may delay you, but they are not authorized to prevent your departure. What they can do is enter your identification into the system, but do whatever you must to keep that from happening. You’re good at such things so I’m confident you will succeed.

“Once you’re outside the city, stay on the road until you reach the third diversion fork. A signpost will point south toward a settlement called Landsdon. When you arrive, ask for Felicitas Bielmann. You remember Felicitas; Aaron Anthony traded with her people for many years, so it shouldn’t be anything unusual when you arrive. I want you to seek her out because she is one of the few Agros who regularly trade inside the walls of Veosa. She will be able to show you how and where to enter the city without undue notice. There are others who could help, but no one would be as effective as Felicitas. Do not make a try at the eastern gates of Veosa, do you understand? Consult with Felicitas and follow her guidance.”

“You know this person?” Maela asked suddenly.

“Yes. She’s a Teemer we meet at the wire from time to time—Mister Anthony knew her when she was young, and I’ve done business with her a few times since then.”

“What’s a ‘Teemer?’”

“A Trade Master—she’s one of the Agros authorized to set the value of a transaction.”

“But you know her, right?”

Ricky smiled and nodded.

“When I was learning the hustle, she was the first Agro I ever met. I traded some jugs of ammonia for a coldbox packed with fresh vegetables that time. Mister Anthony said Felicitas was the only Agro you could trust and he was right; she’s a straight-shooter.”

Ricky continued the recording.

“Felicitas is probably a full Trustee now, so her word will carry significant weight. Still, some of her neighbors may demand compensation for helping you find your way, so be prepared. If you can borrow a transporter or land car, bring with you the sorts of things Agros value as payment. You know better than anyone what list to compile, but do what you must to gain their favor. Felicitas may be suspicious or hesitant, but show her you are in earnest and she’ll relent in the end. Listen closely to her instructions and follow them to the letter; without her influence, it is unlikely you will gain entry into Veosa on your own. Tell her I sent you; that should take away many of her concerns.

“After you depart from Landsdon, do not wander off the road. This is critically important, Richard; don’t stray from the path no matter what. The farther west you go, the more dangerous this will become; Agros or Diggers who live in the middle of the Broadlands have rarely seen any of our people, and they may react violently out of fear or mistrust. I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded, but their way is not like ours; if you run afoul and make enemies, your mission could easily end in failure. Use your wits and stay on the road until you are safely within the borders of Veosa.

“I don’t know precisely where Valery lives, but my last correspondence showed her in residence at a private company called ‘KazTek,’ spelled K-A-Z-T-E-K. That should be your starting point. When you find her, present the specification sheets in this file, but be prepared; this will be a shock to her, although perhaps not a surprise. Valery can be combative, so please exercise patience when you speak with her. There are secrets she carries as well, but I leave it to her to reveal or keep hidden as she sees fit.”

Ricky knew Elden meant the relationship between him and a daughter he never revealed.

“Tonight, I will take this data drive to a place only you can find. I hope you will never come to see it, but if you do, it will mean I am gone and the worst has happened. Find Valery and help her; I need you to do what I cannot. I’m sorry, and understand I would never ask this of you if there was another way. I know you are angry and sad, but do not let it deter you. Please take these final steps for me, will you? If I wake in another place, I will miss you terribly, but always remember that you were as a son to me. Goodbye, Richard, and good luck.”

Ricky stopped the recording, swallowing hard against the dull pain of the old man’s passing. Maela waited in silence giving him time to pull his way out from the sadness. She placed her hand gently on his shoulder.

“We couldn’t save him, but at least we know there was a reason for all this.”

He nodded silently and deactivated the drive.

“The sooner we start, the sooner we can find out where the trail leads and why these files were so important to him. I’ll wait until Elden’s agent transfers those tokens; there may be a lot of bribes and payoffs, so the money will come in handy for buying the stuff I’ll need.”

“Bribes?”

“Maybe Felicitas will help, but the people in her village will expect payment in return; it’s how Agros live.”

“Agros don’t accept Novum tokens, Richard.”

“I know that, but the things they will accept cost money, so I have to stock up.”

“We have to…”

Ricky looked at Maela, surprised by her words.

“You heard him, Richard; Veosa is on the far side of the western Broadlands, all the way to the coast. How long do you think you’d survive out there without help?”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

“You didn’t need to; I’m in this as much as you are and the bastards who murdered an old man in cold blood are still out there. I’m heading home to pack, but I’ll see if I can borrow my neighbor’s repair van; call me when you’re ready.”

Ricky nodded with a smile. The prospect of venturing kilometers out beyond the wire had been intriguing when he and Vinnie were young, painted in the shades of adventure and excitement without consequence or risk, but the reality he faced and the prospect of days away from Novum was something much different and it would not be so easy as dispatching Nubian warriors in the service of Hatshepsut, safe within an experience cocoon at Reese Street; Maela’s skills would be welcome and useful.

For three days, Ricky scrounged or bought outright those things most desired in a strange and far-off place where value was measured by utility and sturdy construction. The Agros’ economic system, governed by the unique and ever-changing rules of barter saw little need for anything that could not be used to cultivate crops or fashion the ordinary pieces of a simple life. When Maela arrived early on a cool morning, she smiled at the containers, jugs and crates cluttering his living room.

“This isn’t exactly Novum underground market gold, Richard.” she said, side-stepping a long, plastic carrier filled with new shovels.

“None of that stuff is any use to Agros, Maela; they value most what they can use in their everyday lives.”

“Glad I brought my neighbor’s van.”

“Why does he own one?”

“He uses it on his rounds, taking machine parts to fabrication shops across the city that still make finished products. He’s often gone for days, so he had it fitted out with a bunk, a kitchenette and a little lavatory so he could pull off the road whenever he needs to piss.”

“Is it big enough to carry all this?”

“Oh, it’ll fit, but we may be a bit cramped for a while.”

“What about guns?”

She grinned at Ricky’s question and one made, she was sure, in the wake of his run and a reinvigorated survival instinct.

“Yes, Richard, we have guns.”

She bent on one knee to inspect a shipping manifest tucked into a plastic sleeve affixed to one of six heavy boxes.

“Gear and bearings assortment; alloy, brass and nylon?”

“They use a lot of old equipment—some of it built before the Fall,” Ricky replied. “Steam turbines and water wheels are their traditional power sources and I remember Mister Anthony always brought these with us when we met them at the wire on trading days.”

“Moving parts wear out,” Maela observed.

“Yeah, and he did a lot of side deals using this stuff as currency.”

Maela picked through an open crate filled with bolts of synthetic cloth, eyeing Ricky from across the room.

“What’s the story with this guy, Anthony? You always refer to him as Mister.”

Ricky smiled at the memories suddenly awakened.

“He insisted on it. In the days after the Dawn Insurrection, your people came down hard. MPE cops were everywhere and they used to stop him at all those checkpoints. He was still young then, but he hated being treated like a nobody. After things settled down, he went to the Registry offices and paid the money to get his name changed.”

“I don’t understand,” Maela said with a frown.

“Well, every time the cops would shake him down, they called him by his full name and it always pissed him off. See, he thought it made him sound like some ordinary goof when they called him ‘Aaron Anthony.’ Anyway, he changed his first name to ‘Mister’ so the cops would always have to sound like they were treating him with respect, whether they meant it or not. Elden never went along with it, but for Mister Anthony, it was enough because the MPE guys had to.”

She smiled again and said, “I guess we better get started.”

After an hour, zig-zagging through city streets in the pale, morning light, Maela let the van glide gently left to find the abrupt end of Walling Road. Beyond, a small MPE checkpoint bathed in harsh vapor lamps and Ricky pointed through the van’s windscreen, directing Maela to approach slowly.

“Have you been here before?” she asked.

“Yes; it’s expensive to take the highway, so Mister Anthony always stayed on the streets.”

“The Agros come here? I thought they congregated at that place near the southern wire.”

“Most stay around the big trade center, but others—the ones we met up here—usually had regular customers who didn’t want others looking on, so…”

“The MPE border guards don’t mind?”

“As long as no one starts trouble, they usually stay inside that shack.”

“What about illicit items or contraband; don’t they even stop you to inspect?”

“On trading days, the Regulators have dozens of inspectors down at the southern wire, doing checks on the transfers. It’s a pain in the ass, so most people who want to stay out of sight started trading up here at Walling Road on off days or late on the weekends. The Regulators don’t bother because it’s pretty small stuff.”

“They’re going to ask about all that equipment we have in the back,” Maela said.

“Maybe, but there’s not much they can do about it; we’re going out to the Broadlands, not trying to sneak anything inside through the wire. But Elden was right; we have to figure out how to keep the Watchers from seeing the crossing from standard MPE reports.”

“I might be able to help with that,” Maela said.

As they squeaked to a halt, two MPE guards moved quickly from their bunker. The lead officer—a ruddy faced corporal—stepped onto the van’s running board and Maela held up her badge and Sector pass quickly.

“Maela Kendrick, S. I. D.”

The officer hesitated, looking also at Ricky and unsure what would bring an investigator to his tiny corner of Novum in a land transporter.

“Good morning, Detective,” he replied cautiously, but his tone suggested more confusion than suspicion. Maela nodded over her shoulder.

“Support equipment for my field team, then I’m heading out west to question a witness in the Banyan investigation,” she said automatically.

“I’m sorry, the…”

“Some rich guy named Banyan went missing last month and they found evidence. Didn’t you get the briefing last night when you came on duty?”

“No ma’am, we didn’t hear…”

Maela closed her eyes in mock disgust and shook her head.

“Do you read the briefings?”

“Of course we do!”

“I have to drive this stuff out to my forensic guys and I don’t have all day, all right?”

“Hold on a second while I verify,” he answered, obviously flustered and unwilling to provoke a detective quickly running out of patience.

He scanned through a reader pad, but found only the name ‘Banyan’ in the unresolved cases listing.

“I can see it here, but there’s nothing about a transport order.”

She spoke slowly and with the impatient tone one uses to scold children.

“That’s because the Deputy Prosecutor doesn’t want half the population interfering with her case!”

“We’re supposed to empty and inventory all vehicles crossing the wire, Detective, so…”

Maela cut him off.

“How about I call her office and tell them Corporal whatever-the-fuck-your-name-is wants to empty out my van and put us two hours behind schedule?”

“Well,” the guard said, but Maela went in for the kill.

“Look, genius, I had to get up early to do this, all right? You want us to turn back, we’ll turn back and then you can explain it to your captain and I can go back to bed because frankly, I don’t give a shit one way or the other what they do to you for obstruction of an investigation!”

“Uh, no…no, that won’t be necessary,” he said, stepping back from the van. “Have a safe trip, Detective.”

“Thank you!” Maela said sarcastically and at a near shout, accelerating through the gateway and across the unmarked line where Novum’s outer boundary met the Broadlands.

Ricky frowned from the passenger seat.

“You’re not worried he’ll call in the van’s registration number?”

“Would you?”

“I guess not, but…”

“They’ll log an outbound crossing and note the Banyan investigation, but that’s as far as he’ll go. He’s a kid on his first duty assignment where he’s actually in charge of something and the last thing he needs is a pissed-off watch commander asking him why he delayed a detective without orders.”

Ricky smiled and nodded; there was the official way, and the ‘street way’; no one up above seemed to understand the difference, but it was unlikely a young border guard at a lonely security station was prepared to push the issue to his superiors.

At once, the pavement made a broad circle, mostly to provide a convenient turnaround point for MPE land cars and beyond, a wide apron of bare dirt. Ricky recognized it as the place where Agros parked their clattering steam wagons in neat rows on trade days, but farther still, the meandering line of a gravel road leading west showed them the way.

The morning light grew as each mile passed, giving Ricky and Maela a clear look at rolling hills and groves of trees from a perspective few in the city ever saw. Through the windows of any mega-tower in Novum, the distant view was a mosaic of green or beige patches and a foreboding wilderness no one wanted to test. In winter, stands of barren, leafless trees, like islands of black and brown across a sea of white, made the Broadlands seem an even less inviting, mysterious place.

Near mid-day, a modest valley revealed low, earth-tone buildings of a small settlement and before them a signpost where parallel lines of a cart path veered to the north. Remembering Elden’s caution about staying on the road, they sped on. Almost two hours later, another village—this one toward the south—flirted from within a dense grove of oaks, but they moved through without a pause. In late afternoon, where the road curved easily through a ragged line of heavy undergrowth, a simple wooden sign with the words ‘Landsdon’ carved into its surface leaned sharply on a length of rusted pipe driven into the weed-covered dirt.

Maela slowed the van to a crawl when the first Agros appeared, moving quickly from their tasks in the middle of a soy field beside a worn cart path. Even at distance, they heard the machine and with its approach, a rare meeting with travelers arrived from distant Novum. Ricky held up a hand, watching a graying man in a soiled, blue frock step carefully over the maturing plants. Behind him two younger women followed, moving quickly to his side.

“Stop here,” Ricky said.

“Are you sure?”

“They need to see and understand we’re no threat to their village; Agros can be a little twitchy around strangers and getting them to trust us is essential.”

She braked gently to a halt and Ricky stepped from the door, waving immediately at the nearest group like a nervous tourist determined to show benign intent. They gathered cautiously, still inside the boundaries of their field as though stepping onto the cart path might invite danger and the old man spoke first.

“Who are you?”

Maela peered out from the van for a moment before joining Ricky where he stood atop a berm the farmers built up to contain irrigation water.

“I’m Ricky Mills; this is Maela Kendrick.”

Ricky waited for a response in awkward silence, but the gathered Agros said nothing. Ricky continued, offering his best smile.

“We’re on the road to Veosa, but I’m not certain as to the shortest route. Can you tell us which way is best?” he asked with as cheerful a tone as he could manage.

“Maybe,” the elder replied at last.

Maela saw the sheen of perspiration on their faces.

“It’s hot today,” she said suddenly.

“No hotter than yesterday,” replied another who stood close to the old man.

“Still, I admire you for tending your crops when the sun is so high.”

The Agros looked at each other with darting eyes and obvious worry until she motioned them closer.

“We have a large supply of cold water inside our truck, if you’d like to take a few moments and refresh yourselves?”

No one moved. Ricky saw and pointed toward the east for no particular reason, but mostly to distract the farmers and ease a growing tension.

“I trade with Felicitas now and then; we’d like to speak with her for a moment, if she has time?”

The words seemed to carry special license, but the old man cocked his head to one side, suggesting more would be needed to ease his caution.

“When did you last see her?”

Ricky’s mind ran furiously, though he tried to conceal it. After a second or two, he smiled and nodded.

“It was in the autumn last year, I think; she had some beautiful cabbage and peas. My mother loves those peas, so I made a point of speaking with Felicitas about getting some more before the season ended.”

“You know her well, do you?”

“We’ve traded a few times,” Ricky answered.

The old man wasn’t convinced.

“If that is so, then you must know of her injury.”

Ricky nodded quickly again, grateful he remembered so innocent and seemingly meaningless a detail.

“You mean her finger, yes. She never told us what had happened but the little finger on her left hand is missing.”

Their expressions changed at once, suddenly softer, and with a familiarity of association that meant the difference between acceptance and hostility. But one, a younger woman with a toddler clinging to her legs, saw the gun in Maela’s holster. Maela noticed and pulled the tail of her gauze shirt to conceal the weapon, but it was too late.

“We don’t make trouble here,” the woman declared, nodding at the pistol.

Maela held up a hand to reassure and said, “I carry it for my job. I’m a detective, you see, and…”

The woman returned a confused look and said, “A what?”

“A detective,” Maela replied slowly.

“She’s a constable, Miriam,” the old man interrupted suddenly; “a law keeper.”

“Yes, that’s it,” Maela smiled; “a constable.”

He motioned for her to show them the weapon and Maela drew back her shirt. The gesture seemed to satisfy them and the tone changed quickly.

“Welcome to Landsdon,” he said, extending his palm, “I am Bartholomew Corder. Our village lies farther along the path and through the forest there, but it would be better if we accompanied you; our people are not expecting visitors, especially ones who have come out from the cathedrals.”

“Thank you, Bartholomew,” Ricky replied.

The old man motioned the others to return to their work as Ricky and Maela climbed into the van, easing it along the cart path at a walking pace. Bartholomew and two others he hadn’t named trudged on ahead, unwilling to risk the ride Maela offered. She let the truck meander at a near idle, turning to Ricky with a frown of confusion.

“Cathedrals?”

“It’s what Agros call Novum. I have no idea what it means, but I’ve heard it a few times when we meet them at the wire.”

Maela chuckled at the obvious connection.

“Cathedrals were churches—huge buildings from the past and long before the Fall. People used to go there and pray to the Old God. They look at our buildings from a distance today and probably see them the way the ancients looked at one of those old places.”

Ricky eyed her for a moment.

“How do you know about that?”

“I saw images of them in one of my neighbor’s archives—they were made of stone, and…”

“No, I meant praying to the Old God.”

Maela returned a strange smile.

“My neighbor knew some of them—believers. He never told me who they are, probably because I’m a cop, but he always kept that a secret.”

“Like the books?”

“I suppose so. The Regulators don’t fool around if they catch you with books, but they are merciless if you’re named as a believer.”

Ricky nodded grimly and said, “Yes, they are.”

Now Maela regarded Ricky for a while, sizing up his answer.

“You know some, too?”

“I knew one.”

“Knew?”

Ricky nodded toward the supplies behind and Maela understood at once.

“I see,” she replied with the image of Elden Fellsbach in her mind.

As they wound their way through a divide in the stand of trees, she spoke again.

“I hope this woman remembers you.”

“She’ll remember,” Ricky replied. “Felicitas doesn’t forget anything.”

Where the forest ended abruptly on the high side of a wide glen, Landsdon appeared down a long slope, hugging the contours of a stream wandering diagonally through the high grass and islands of berry plants. Maela counted 22 distinct structures, some built above ground and crafted from ancient, blackened timbers. Others showed only hand-hewn, shake rooftops hiding a below-surface dwelling.

Wattle pens for goats and scurrying hordes of chickens littered the grounds between proper, split-rail corrals where pack mules and draft horses rested in a mild, summer breeze. Small children chased each other, delighting in sudden, deliberate screams but the older ones shifted between chores as necessary laborers and no different than the adults in their required duties. Everywhere, the powerful smells of an agrarian world seemed to come at Ricky and Maela in a relentless medley.

When they drew close to a huddle of two-story buildings at the center of the settlement, Bartholomew motioned for them to stop. At once, a sizeable crowd gathered, mostly to see a city dweller up close, but others were more interested in the van, inspecting it with obviously discerning eyes. Perhaps they looked on in wonder, Maela thought, or were they sizing up the machine with envy? One or two clearly understood enough to look in the right places, she noted, likely drawn to a wagon that didn’t rely on steam for its power.

Bartholomew waved away some of the children prying between grownups for a better view, but it was clear he waited for another. At last, the group parted as Felicitas Bielmann went slowly to where Ricky stood.

“This is a surprise, Mr. Mills; to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“It’s nice to see you again, Felicitas,” Ricky replied. “We’re on the way to Veosa, but I wanted to speak with you.”

“Veosa?” she replied; “I’m astonished to hear such a thing, given your city’s relationship with them.”

“Things have changed.”

“I certainly hope so. Why are you bound for Veosa?”

“We’re just looking for a friend.”

Felicitas motioned them to walk with her, but a silent expression Ricky didn’t see told the others to follow at a distance.

“If I may ask, who is this person you seek?”

Ricky knew the information was irrelevant to Felicitas, but her query was an important gesture given under the guise of simple curiosity and intended to establish trust. If he balked, or fumbled with a lie, it would color the relationship immediately.

“Her name is Valery Sharma.”

“I don’t know her.”

“We’ll find her when we get there, but getting through the wall is going to be tricky and we were hoping you’d be able to give us some direction or advice, since you’ve been there and you know how it works.”

“I see. Then we may presume you’ve never visited Veosa?”

“That’s correct.”

“Yet you said this woman is a friend.”

Ricky felt the sudden tension and he was sure Maela did, too.

“Well, it would be more accurate to say she’s a friend of a friend.”

Felicitas stopped and turned. Her expression changed, suddenly blank and without emotion. At once, Ricky feared his words carried meaning he hadn’t intended. She looked only at Ricky.

“It is unusual for city dwellers to venture so far outside the borders of Novum, Mr. Mills, and stranger still to hear you are bound for Veosa. It has been some time since I encountered anyone in your position, and I hope you will forgive my curiosity, but what has compelled you to make this effort?”

Ricky feigned indifference, if only to ease his own unsettled nerves.

“We wanted to see Veosa, but also to speak with Valery on a private matter. It’s nothing to do with those old issues between the cities, if that’s what you meant.”

Felicitas smiled, just enough to demonstrate both her resolve and an unwillingness to let the matter go.

“It wasn’t, but you must see your journey appears quite odd to us, Richard; no one goes from the cathedrals to Veosa by land anymore…unless they wish to avoid being noticed.”

She now used Ricky’s first name, Maela thought silently, but the quiet conversation had taken an abrupt turn. Elden’s cautionary note to avoid the mag-rail trains or an air car meant something to Felicitas, too.

“Well, flying is really expensive and the trains…”

“Aaron Anthony sent you?”

Ricky felt his face go red. In a mere second, Felicitas cut away the thin veil he hoped would hide their intent, but the effort proved useless.

“Elden Fellsbach sent us.”

Felicitas smiled and nodded.

“I see.”

“He thought you might be able to help us get inside the wall without causing trouble.”

“Ah,” she nodded; “that explains much. Do you carry a message to this person in Veosa on behalf of Elden’s interests?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“But he is a wealthy and influential man; surely he could make the trip on his own much easier than sending others all the way across the Broadlands. I wonder why he would put you to this task?”

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” Ricky said softly, “but Elden died very recently.”

Felicitas closed her eyes, but her expression didn’t change.

“I hadn’t heard. May I ask the cause?”

“He was murdered,” Maela said abruptly.

“Ah. Well, your city can be a violent place.”

At last, they watched the sadness overtake Felicitas, even as she struggled to hold her bearing. She turned away from them, likely to hide the sudden emotional impact Ricky guessed until they saw her wipe a tear from her eyes. She turned, speaking only to Maela.

“That is your role in this, Detective?”

“Yes; I’m trying to find his killer.”

“And you believe this Veosan is the murderer?”

“No, not her; she isn’t directly involved, but…”

“She may tell you things to narrow your search.”

“We hope so,” Maela replied, uncaring for the lie and unwilling to reveal the true nature of their need to reach Valery.

“But just now, you said Elden sent you to find Miss…”

“Sharma.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Elden left a note for Richard; he needed us to contact Valery. He knew his life was in danger, Felicitas—he understood and asked us to complete an important task for him.”

“To what purpose?”

“We’re not sure, to be honest. He told Richard to find you, follow your instructions and then move on. There was little else in his note.”

“Very well. I will tell you how to gain discrete entry, but understand the Veosan people are intolerant of strangers who do not abide by their laws, especially two who have arrived from Novum.”

“But you have been inside?”

“Not regularly, but often enough.”

“We would appreciate any help you can give.”

“I may be able to help, but what you ask will demand something in return. The others in our community would not be comfortable if I gave you direction without an equitable exchange of goods, you see.”

Ricky knew what she meant.

“I remember, and we do have some items in our truck your people might find useful.”

She nodded slightly toward the group and the old man moved quickly to join them.

“Perhaps the Detective could show some of your supplies to Bartholomew while we talk?”

“Of course,” Ricky replied and Maela understood at once, gesturing Bartholomew toward the van. Ricky waited until they were gone before turning again to Felicitas.

“Elden said you have the secrets that will get us through.”

“You won’t have to employ secrets.”

Ricky followed her into a musty, communal dwelling where Felicitas lived. Furnishings were sparse and utilitarian, but on the walls, ornate, hand-carved frames held chalk or ink renderings that were strikingly beautiful. Ricky went to one—a landscape of willows on the banks of a stream at sunset.

“This is lovely,” he smiled; “who’s the artist?”

“My sister, Grace,” Felicitas answered; “she trades them with other villages, and sometimes with your people, too.”

“I admire her talent.”

“Thank you, Richard; I’ll tell her you said so.”

Ricky waited until Felicitas showed them to a small room he guessed was her private quarters and likely a benefit of her status in the community.

“I haven’t been to Veosa in years, but you should be able to gain entry from the southern approach without difficulty.”

“Is there something special about that particular place?” Ricky asked.

“If discretion is your preferred method in this endeavor, the southern approaches would be best. The sky rails enter the city through the eastern portals, but if you tried there, they would delay you with endless administrative requirements and perhaps turn you away entirely, knowing you’ve come from Novum without a train pass. At a gate on the southern side of the city, and by land as well, you will appear no different than an ordinary miner, perhaps seeking supplies. When the security officers see you are from Novum, they may ask a few questions, but nothing like the reception you would get at any of the portals on the eastern side. If you are detained, tell them you have my sanction. The guards there know me, so it won’t seem unusual to them and sufficient to get you through.”

“Why are they so relaxed at the southern approaches, Felicitas?”

“Most land travelers come up from the mines south of Veosa, hoping to cultivate trade opportunities perhaps. At some point, all run out of the things they need to survive and they end up in Veosa. The guards came to regard them as nomadic and not a threat, so they lost interest in delaying them. On the eastern side, it’s different; those of your kind who enter there are not always on innocent missions, you understand. Most who come in from the mines have travel documents, but since you do not, it is important that you refer to me by name or they will likely deny entrance.”

Ricky remembered Elden’s instructions, smiling with silent gratitude their journey to find Valery Sharma could end abruptly without the weight of Felicitas’ name. Maela was finished trading with Bartholomew and she joined them. Ricky turned to her and asked quietly, “Are we all set?”

“I think so,” she replied with a satisfied smile. “Bartholomew was happy to see the selection of gears and bearings, but also some of the hand tools in the green crate.”

“Felicitas, you were saying?”

She nodded and pointed to a crude diagram of the city walls—two separate barriers divided by a broad lake that looked to Maela to be an overdone moat.

“Once satisfied you are only visitors, you will be admitted with a pass to get you beyond the secondary and tertiary security stations. A grand arch through the big wall will be your last barrier but when you’re through, you’ll be free to search for your friend. From that point, there is nothing more I can do for you.”

“I’ve always wanted to see Veosa,” Ricky said as he offered his hand to Felicitas. “I know we came at you out of nowhere, but thank you for helping us do this.”

“It was my pleasure,” she replied, “and I am truly sorry to hear of Elden’s death; he was always a friend to this community and I will miss him.”

“I will, too,” Ricky said.

“Elden said this road goes all the way to Veosa?” Maela asked.

“Yes,” Felicitas nodded; “stay on it and you will reach the barriers. Since you have a power cart, it should take little more than a week to cross the western Broadlands. When you reach the first hard road, there will be a checkpoint and directional signs; turn right and follow until you see a portal called ‘887A’. Make your entry there, but ask them for a street guide; Veosa is a confusing place if you don’t know where you’re going.”

“Thanks again, Felicitas,” Ricky said. “Perhaps we will have time to stop and visit on the way back?”

“You are always welcome, Richard.”

Maela spun the van around slowly and aimed it up the hill toward the forest. In minutes, they were once again on the path and heading west. Ricky sat in silence until Maela noticed and said, “They seemed very nice, and not at all what I was expecting.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never met an Agro, so…”

“They can be a little hard to take sometimes, but most of them are decent people.”

Maela nodded and said, “We have a long way to go, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

Ricky nodded as Maela increased their speed, chasing the sun where it crept ever lower in the western sky.

The days passed slowly and each took their turn at the controls. Occasional steam carts passed them by, heading eastward beneath wisps of thin smoke and laden with grain from other settlements, or mineral ore the Diggers pulled from open-pit mines far to the south, yet none chose to stop. At first, Maela seemed grateful for only stares from drivers as they moved slowly past, but after a while, their disinterest seemed odd and mildly insulting. Had others from Novum crossed the Broadlands often enough so that encountering one had become no special event to the elusive Agros, she wondered? By the fifth day, traffic was noticeably sparse, leaving them the sole occupant on the hard-packed road for countless kilometers.

The pace had been mostly steady, interrupted by a few hours in the darkness each night and hidden behind a hill or stand of trees to rest. They passed the time with small talk and the exchange of personal histories, but Ricky’s description of his Walk left Maela silent and reflective. The fascination with Challenge shows, or debtors running headlong to their deaths in a Walk always eluded her and hearing about it from one of the few who survived only reinforced her belief the practice should’ve been outlawed altogether.

She watched him as he recounted that terrible night, listening to his tone change with each memory and brutal demand placed on him by the will to survive. In his words, she heard the voice of regret for the lives he took on that terrible night, but nothing could change what had been. When the sun reached its zenith on the sixth day, they eased through the flatlands where oceans of grass stretched to the horizon in every direction. Modest stands of trees dotted the fields and within them, the occasional collective where small herds were tended as they grazed, often for just the milk and not always doomed to meet their fate on the dinner table of a nameless Upper.

Where the road crested a gentle rise, it turned sharply around a grove of pines, signaling a sudden change from open spaces and back to forested, rolling hills Ricky guessed were the last before the approaches to Veosa. He moved quickly around the crates and containers, wakened loudly from a brief nap when Maela stopped the van suddenly. As he looked up, she pointed toward a group of men on horseback, clearly waiting at the roadside.

“That doesn’t look good,” she said.

Ricky squinted against the sunlight through the windscreen, shielding his eyes with an open palm.

“Were we expected?”

“I can’t see how,” Maela replied. “We can go a lot faster than any of them.”

“The bigger settlements have radios, so somebody at Landsdon must’ve sent a message ahead.”

“What the hell for?” Maela asked loudly. “We didn’t give them any grief!”

“We only met with Felicitas and Bartholomew; others might’ve had a problem with us and made a discrete call.”

She pulled her gun from its holster and made a quick operational check. Ricky knew better than to comment as she eased the van closer. At once, a second group of riders closed the distance with a slow canter, stopping directly in front of the truck to block their way. The tension was building, but only one dismounted and walked toward them with a wave.

“Here we go,” Maela said, pushing a button to withdraw a side window.

Suddenly, Ricky moved to crouch beside Maela’s seat.

“Let me handle it,” he said quickly. “Agros this far out from the city don’t speak the way we do.”

“Fine with me,” Maela muttered.

A moment later, the first man stopped next to the van.

“You come a ways out,” he said.

“Long ride, that’s no makeup,” Ricky replied.

The man nodded and moved closer, satisfied his words had meaning.

“Joshua Latham.”

“Ricky Mills; she’s Maela Kendrick.”

Joshua paused for a moment, sizing up the van as it idled.

“Nice cart,” he began. “You headed out to one of the mines?”

“Yeah,” Ricky lied.

“Which?”

“Ain’t decided yet; maybe all of them. You got sibs out there?”

“Nah; just wondered. We heard you’re aimin’ for the coast; maybe all the way up to Veosa?”

Maela felt her face flush at the words. How could a remote settlement know of their plans, she wondered?

“Could be, but not settled yet.”

“Ain’t seen no one from the cathedrals since the graders drag the road after spring soak,” Joshua said, still eyeing the van.

Ricky ignored the comment.

“Pretty hot today; were you standing on us?”

Joshua smiled as he looked back at his companions.

“The sender at Landsdon, he said you was coming our way; thought maybe we could do some trading.”

“You holdin’ good and clear?” Ricky asked, even if the answer was obvious.

“Have to sit and chin wag, you know? See what whacks up.”

Ricky nodded his head slowly and said, “That rings nice, but we’re slack on time, so…”

“You ain’t heard our offer,” Joshua said.

“We weren’t asking for one,” Maela countered suddenly.

At once, the air thickened with the possibility of something much worse and Ricky moved quickly to head off the confrontation he knew was coming if they pushed her further.

“Might be interested,” he said quickly, ignoring Maela’s glare. “Your hearth close-by?”

“Just there,” Joshua answered, “other side of the hill. If you abide, we’ll show you the way.”

Ricky nodded and said, “Got five we can have?”

“Sure,” Joshua replied. “Ten if you need ‘em.”

As if moved by an invisible signal, Joshua motioned for the others to withdraw from the road, stopping twenty meters distant. Maela spun in her seat.

“I didn’t get half of what he was saying.”

“Agros this far out keep to themselves,” Ricky replied. “They take a little getting used to, that’s all.”

“I guess no one taught them how to speak plain English.”

“These people aren’t stupid, Maela, they just live differently than we do.”

“If you say so.”

“Let’s play along and see what they have, okay?”

“We’re not here to run some half-assed prairie hustle, Richard!”

“If it starts to go bad, we can always leave.”

“Unless they try to kill us!”

“I don’t think that’s what they have in mind.”

“How do you know what they want?”

“I know a deal when I see one.”

Ricky leaned out through the open window, motioning for Joshua. When he stopped, a simple thumb’s up signaled their willingness to barter. Maela shook her head slowly and moved the van off the road, following the group’s horses as they ambled over a gentle ridgeline and through a sparse grove of birches to an opening that looked quite similar to Landsdon, but smaller and with few cultivated fields brimming with crops. As she eased to a halt in the middle of a rectangular compound of rough-hewn, log dwellings, the horsemen seemed to disperse, leaving only Joshua and one other. Beyond, a group of men and women were gathered in a brief circle, brightly dressed and seemingly uncaring for the arrival of city people. Ricky looked and sat back suddenly.

“Shit,” he whispered.

“What is it?” Maela asked quickly.

“It’s a hand ceremony.”

“What does that mean?”

“A ritual; Broadlanders keep them for important transactions.”

Maela looked again and said, “It looks like a wedding to me.”

“No,” he replied, shaking his head, “Agros don’t get married.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ll explain it later, but we need to keep our distance; this is none of our business.”

Joshua motioned for them.

“This way,” he called out, pointing toward a permanent lodge built from neatly squared blocks of basalt.

As they stepped from the van, Maela thumbed the auto-lock, intent on keeping the villagers from rummaging through their things. No one seemed to notice and Ricky waited as Joshua showed them inside.

It was dark and smelled of freshly cured mud where it had been applied between the stones like grout or chinking—a great hall of tables and long benches they saw as evidence of another communal arrangement. Joshua pointed them to some furniture they guessed was a special place and not often used for casual repose.

“We got some colders, if you want to wet a while?”

“Wouldn’t turn ‘em down,” Ricky replied with a smile, hoping silently Maela wouldn’t apply the wrong connotation to Joshua’s words.

Joshua nodded to the other man to fetch some cups when suddenly, a slight woman Maela guessed was only a teenager peeked from a doorway.

“They’re callin’ up for final,” she said, nearly whispering the message.

Joshua tried to hide his impatience with the girl, standing at once before catching himself.

“I’ll be right along,” he said.

“Maybe we should sit another time?” Ricky offered.

“No big stake; you don’t have to ride yet.”

“Fair word. We’ll stay off until they bell agreement.”

Joshua paused and smiled, eased by Ricky’s understanding. After he was gone, Maela’s expression was one of only confusion.

“What the hell was that all about?”

Ricky led her to a window, nodding out at the small gathering in a wide space between buildings. They were dressed differently than the men who met the van on the road—colorful frocks and one-piece suits that represented a Broadlander’s idea of formal wear. At the center of the group, a girl waited with an elderly man and two others who seemed to be locked in a mild dispute. Ricky pointed and said, “She’s the main player in the ceremony.”

Maela leaned closer to the thick, distorted glass and said, “What is this ceremony, exactly?”

Ricky moved her from the window to avoid being noticed.

“Judging by her age, it’s a standard negotiation for a breeding agreement. The two younger men in front of her are likely from neighboring villages. The girl has been chosen for her genetic qualities, or maybe superior intelligence and now they’re haggling to see which of the two wins.”

“Who wins?”

Ricky moved quickly to explain.

“I know what this looks like, but it’s not that simple. The negotiation brings an offer from each man—usually livestock—but the one she selects will also become her eventual birthing partner.”

“She can’t be more than twelve years old!”

“Broadlanders aren’t like us, Maela; they live according to different rules.”

“Perverted rules!” she hissed.

“It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“No?”

“It could just as easily be two grown women haggling for a boy.”

“What’s the difference?” Maela snapped. “Either way, some kid is being traded off like an air car or a nice apartment! What if she doesn’t want to go?”

“It’s not like that,” Ricky replied at once; “she can refuse them both and the deal ends then and there, but if it’s reached the stage they’re at now, these guys have made the cut and she’s obviously agreed to select between them.”

“And what then? The winner drags a little girl back to his hut and fucks her until she pumps out a few kids?”

“It’s not a forced arrangement, Maela; they’re not making her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“She is a child, Richard! How can they expect her to decide something like this?”

“They grow up early out here—it’s the way they live, and…”

“You approve of this shit?”

“I didn’t say I approve of it, I’m just telling you how it works! Their ancestors were out here long before Novum or Veosa were built up and they’re not changing now.”

Maela shook her head and peeked again.

“So once this deal is made, she’s mated with some guy she doesn’t know and that’s it? She lives out her life with an asshole she might not even like?”

“Most breeding deals are made with a pre-arranged agreement to produce a specific number of children, usually two for somebody her age. After the obligation has been met, she can either stay with her new village or return to this one.”

“But not with her kid, right?”

“Well, no. That’s the entire point of a breeding agreement; the child belongs to the other village.”

“These people are worse than I ever imagined,” Maela said with clear disgust.

“Look, you have to understand, okay?”

“I understand enough!”

“It’s not what you think! Broadland settlements are utterly communal; they don’t marry or join with another the way we do because they can’t afford to. Each person is part of a village, but these communities are very small and distant from others. They don’t do this because they’re looking for an excuse to sleep with children; it’s done to ensure genetic diversity and nothing more. It could be three or four years before she actually does anything like that, Maela; each village handles it differently.”

“How very convenient.”

“If they stuck with traditional marriages and family units, it wouldn’t take long for them to end up with in-breeding problems! Instead, they make sure each generation comes from a completely separate line and the farther from home, the better. That girl might be on the other end of it in a few years, haggling over a boy in a different settlement for her second agreement. This is the only way for them and they worked it out over a century ago.”

Suddenly, she frowned and tilted her head to one side.

“I don’t give a shit what these idiots do, but how is it you know so much about their rituals? You sound like an authority on the subject!”

Ricky looked at the ceremony where it concluded on the grass beyond the window.

“I’ve been outside the wire a few times.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Not this village, but Mister Anthony took Vinnie and me with him when he went to a Broadland settlement way down to the south when we were first learning the hustle.”

Maela smiled when the meaning of Ricky’s words became suddenly clear.

“How old were you?”

“About her age, I guess,” he replied.

“They only lifted trade and travel restrictions five years ago, Richard.”

“I know that.”

“Which means you and your friends went over the wire and did it against border laws. If they caught you back then, all of you would still be rotting in a punishment cylinder!”

“Well, they didn’t catch us, did they?”

“You and your friends were fools to try it, Richard; that was a stupid damn thing to do.”

“I don’t need you to remind me, Maela.”

“Then why risk it? What did you gain?”

“I learned how Broadland Agros live and it made things easier when trading with them out at the wire. I learned how to speak their language, too.”

“You could’ve asked this Anthony guy, couldn’t you?”

“Unless you see it for yourself, you wouldn’t understand. When I meet them on trade days, they know I’ve been outside and it gives me credibility other hustlers don’t have. It made a difference.”

Ricky looked again and the ceremony’s participants were moving away. A lone figure remained, holding up a large bell to strike three times as a signal the ceremony was concluded properly. Joshua, whose role had been that of a witness and ratifying agent over the proceedings, returned at last.

“Sorry,” he said with a smile. “They want to get to it.”

“No big speed,” Ricky replied.

Joshua settled again in a newly constructed wicker chair, still bright and untarnished by hands and the passage of time. He leaned close and whispered to Ricky.

“Talkin’ true now?”

“I’ll abide,” Ricky replied as softly.

“Gabriel, a second cousin over in Landsdon, he tells us ol’ Bart says you ridin’ main for Veosa.”

“Yeah, he has the full tale.”

Joshua nodded knowingly, appreciative of the sudden familiarity and Ricky’s willingness to speak in confidence.

“So Veosa,” he continued; “been out there before times?”

“Not that far; you?”

Joshua shook his head and sipped cool water from a hammered, metal cup.

“Don’t have much for us, and most of ‘em don’t want what we can trade.”

“Not like Novum?” Ricky offered.

“Never spied the cathedrals, so I couldn’t counsel. Been to Veosa once, though.”

“We’ll ride and see true, I guess.”

“Probably best,” Joshua said, “but right now, we talkin’ options on the table?”

“You wonder about something particular?” Ricky asked.

“Cousin tells a tale, sayin’ Bart mentioned lube juice and maybe some good handies?”

“Possible, but way up the scale. What comes back to us for equity?”

Joshua looked away, at least to present a thoughtful posture before he leaned his elbows on the chair’s wide arms.

“If you truly hold?”

“That’s the idea,” Ricky replied. “Full fair and square from here on in.”

“Okay, then, full square. Hows about ten packs of rock meat, froze individual?”

“Good and safe for permanent?”

“Six months, at least.”

“That’d spark us,” Ricky answered, “but we wondered how your sender came by the skinny? We seen Landsdon on the horizon only a few days ago, so…”

Joshua understood Ricky’s words, even if Maela could not.

“Came by it from a weekly talk—the sender at Landsdon didn’t flare out for any particular reason, I can tell you straight. If you worry, we can tell him to reach over again…maybe ask Felicitas to nod?”

“We don’t worry it, Joshua; I trust your take,” Ricky answered.

“I’m glad you say so.”

“And anyway, we option to return soon, so a nod could be made then.”

Joshua looked away with a grin, satisfied Ricky had made both the expected pleasantry, but also a polite, cautionary note that he would follow through with the intent to confirm later on. Ricky pretended to consider Joshua’s offer for a moment.

“Lube juice is okay, but maybe not more than five gals. We could toss brand new handies of your choice, though…”

“What count for the handies?”

“A case,” Ricky answered. “Figure six or seven longs and ten shorties.”

“Brand new, you say?”

“And plenty sharp—good stuff they make from the foundries down below ground. You probably heard about ‘em.”

Joshua nodded slowly.

“For yours, we send the rock meat, but I can offer from my own house a hundred-place seed box for your hydros if you up the lube juice to an even ten.”

Ricky was outwardly unmoved, but the offer was unusually generous and well-worth the trade Joshua proposed. Still, a cautious pose had to be kept in order to satisfy the unseen rules of barter.

“We’ll talk private and answer in five.”

Joshua smiled. “Let me know if the chord is rightly struck.”

Maela followed Ricky to the van in silence. Joshua’s strange dialect would have been comical in another place, but the delay seemed needless; nothing they could offer in trade would help her and Ricky accomplish their mission. After she slid the wide door closed with a loud clunk, Maela looked straight into Ricky’s eyes.

“I’m glad you’re fluent in Agro-speak, but what the hell are you doing, Richard? We don’t need anything from them and you’re just pissing away time we don’t have!”

“I’ve been trading with people like them for years, Maela. Broadlanders might speak in clipped, bizarre sentences and they use slang like no one else, but all Agros live by what they can obtain in a fair barter. Without it, they would die out over time.”

“Their problem, not ours!”

“Listen to me, okay?” Ricky said, kneeling beside Maela’s seat. “Joshua just offered us goods worth ten times the items he’s asking for in return. His village is obviously running desperately low on engine oil and hand tools. We have both, otherwise Landsdon wouldn’t radio ahead. Joshua knows we don’t need anything, so he’s got to make it worth our while.”

“Again, that’s his problem, Richard!”

“But it could become our problem later on, don’t you see? At the very least, it would be nice to make some allies in this part of the Broadlands if we ever have to come this way again.”

“You’ll do that on your own, my friend; I’ve had enough of this shit to last a lifetime.”

“I understand, but it doesn’t change anything. Trust me; it’s worth the effort to make friends because making enemies this far out is a plain, stupid mistake.”

“Okay, so we know he’s ready to ante-up big, but why offer all that stuff?” Maela countered. “I don’t understand most of it, but I know enough to know it was valuable and that means he realizes what they’re worth in Novum. I’m no hustler, Richard, but Joshua has to know he’s getting screwed on the deal.”

“If he comes away with the things he needs most, it will be seen as a successful trade. Also, it would be an insult to him if we settle for anything less because Joshua initiated the negotiations, see?”

“Not really,” she replied glumly. “What is ‘rock meat,’ by the way, just so I’ll know?”

“Broadlanders out here are mostly herders—they don’t grow crops more than what they feed livestock or eat themselves. They’re also dairy farmers, but many raise herds for food to trade or sell. They’re a long way from Novum, so the meat has to make it without spoiling. They acquired nitrogen units that freeze a piece of meat as hard as a rock—‘rock meat.’ It lasts a hundred times longer than meat kept in an ordinary chiller.”

“All right, but what’s next?”

“We’ll accept the terms and exchange the goods. He’ll expect us to seal it with blood, however.”

“Blood? Oh, no…no way I’m doing some weird shit like that!” Maela snorted.

“Relax, it’s just a formality—a ceremonial gesture among herders. They use a tiny needle to pin-prick a finger and I do the same. A few droplets are flicked into an open fire and the trade is complete—that’s all it is.”

“Thanks, but I’ll let you take that part,” she said with a shake of her head.

Ricky smiled and nodded.

“Let’s finish this up and get back on the road.”

Joshua waited beneath an ancient tree where it stood alone in the glaring sun and likely had since before the Fall. Lubricating oil and hand tools had been given over, exchanged for two metal tubs with temperature control units that vented wisps of nitrogen vapor. Next to them, small crates contained prized vegetable seedlings suspended in a nutrient emulsion and perfect for transplant into a hydroponics cell. Before an open pit fire, Ricky and Joshua completed the transaction with a single drop of blood, satisfying the old Broadlands tradition and then it was time to go.

“Our thanks, Joshua,” Ricky said.

“And ours,” Joshua replied. “Maybe we’ll trade again one day?”

“We might at that.”

“Before you ride, I have a good word if you want it?”

“We’d be grateful,” said Ricky, not at all sure what Joshua would say.

“About seven hours west, you’ll go down in a valley with a small river that rides north and south. When you cross the bridge and climb the far side, you’ll see the high track, understand?”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, the road wanders some—doesn’t go straight from here to Veosa, but them trains whoosh on big, concrete towers, see?”

“I’ve never ridden on one of them, but I know what you mean.”

“Underneath, they made a hard road. Nobody rides on it except their fixers once in a while—the ones out from Veosa. Aim north from the bridge until you find it, and then follow west. It’ll cut the time and make your ride quicken up.”

“The way north from the road is open and clear?”

“Just grasslands; your cart can track it easy.”

“I appreciate the word.”

“Stop in if you head back this way.”

“We will. Best fortune to you, Joshua.”

“Best fortune, Mr. Mills.”

Maela started the van and trundled it over the uneven ground until they reached the road once more. She felt better as the pace picked up and soon, a billow of dust roiled out from beneath the van as it sped across the barren landscape.

“How far down south did you and Anthony go?” she asked suddenly.

“It took half the day, but we flew out in his car; I really don’t know the distance in kilometers.”

Maela worked the math in silence, guessing it must have been roughly equivalent to their journey by land if an air car had taken several hours to reach its destination.

“They speak like Joshua?

“Yeah; it was strange, at first, but you get used to it quickly. Mister Anthony did most of it and we just listened.”

“What about your friend? What became of him?”

“Mister Anthony?”

“No, I meant the other one—Vinnie.”

Ricky smiled at the thought.

“He’s still around; works part time for his dad. They repair fiber rings and network telemetry stations—that sort of thing.”

“Did he know Elden?”

“Yes, but Elden didn’t approve of him much.”

“Why not?”

“Vinnie can be a little lazy; he doesn’t always take things seriously, so Elden didn’t like it whenever I brought him up with me from the streets. He also did some time in the cylinders for theft, and Elden was afraid I would follow, so…”

Maela understood and dropped the conversation, leaving Ricky to his thoughts as the sun began its daily slide far to the west. After several hours, passed mostly in silence with only a few stops to rest and stretch their legs, the road suddenly angled down a long incline and before them in the fading light, a valley, just as Joshua said.

Maela slowed the machine as they reached a narrow stream wandering beneath an ancient, wooden trestle. Wide planks rattled and thumped as the van made its crossing and Ricky watched nervously through his window, hoping the old structure would hold. When it did, Maela throttled up for the ascent to the top of the western slope and once reached, it flattened again to a vast plain. Without a word, they looked immediately toward the north. There, on a parallel direction to the road, the elevated structure of the mag-rail coursed west, bathed in the orange shades of sunset. The rail stretched to the horizon atop twin pillars spaced at even intervals Maela guessed were roughly a hundred meters apart.

She scanned the open fields, gauging the best path to take through a sea of high grass, but the flat expanse seemed featureless and unlikely to hinder them. They moved from the road, inching through waist-high growth for a few yards, testing the soil beneath and watchful for unseen depressions or obstacles until it was clear only a gentle bump or two would keep them from a smooth, eventless transit.

After a while, their speed picked up and the van swayed less with each passing minute, giving Maela enough courage to accelerate more and more in measured applications of the throttle. In the distance, the rail structure grew larger in their windscreen until suddenly, Ricky saw movement in the corner of his eye. From the right, a ten-car train, gleaming white and shaped like a needle, made an odd, ringing noise as it streaked by, disappearing in mere seconds. Once more, the silence returned.

Maela smiled at the scene and Ricky shook his head slowly and in wonder. At the Central Station, and for most of the distance out to the western wire, the mag-rail moved cautiously through the fringes of Novum, but here, in the vastness of the open plain, it was different. Unimpeded and twenty meters from the surface, the sleek machine was running at speed and a treat to the eyes. Maela stopped the van for a while, hoping an eastbound train might appear and delight them once more, but minutes passed until she relented and aimed their truck toward a narrow ribbon of pavement where it followed beneath the elevated rail’s course. At last, they were on the ‘hard road’ Joshua spoke of and moving as fast as the old van could go.

Had anyone seen them from far above, Ricky wondered? Would a rider, making the trip by a far better path than theirs even notice as the landscape whizzed by? They both knew the thrice daily monorail schedule was due to increase, but not for a while. Maela was clearly disinterested either way as she pushed the machine to its limit, grateful only for a distant ridgeline that finally hid the harsh sunlight. By Joshua’s estimation, and allowing for their significant increase in speed, it would still take them through until late the following morning to reach Veosa. They agreed to keep up the pace until fatigue demanded a stop for rest and food. This time tomorrow, Maela declared, they would be inside the distant city and within reach of the answers to questions Elden’s recorded voice had made.

As the seventh day rose through a pink sky to the east, Ricky and Maela finished clearing away their breakfast things and returned to the road, determined to end the morning at the walls of Veosa. When they crested a high divide between two modest peaks, it appeared on the horizon at last. Ricky stopped the van and they clambered to its roof for a better view. Maela brought tactical rifles to deal with serious threats, but their scopes became more useful as a surveying tool as she scanned the cityscape from a distance.

The Veosan metroplex looked nothing like Novum and Ricky felt the anticipation build. Glittering white buildings stood in neat groups like polite icebergs adrift in a sea of green, intersected by an efficient network of streets and broad walkways. Between them, tree-covered hills and ravines embraced gentle streams coursing through the inner city, making clear the Veosans had left nature’s design intact when they began the rebuild in the aftermath of the Fall; leveling the land beyond the footprint of its structures had not been in their plans.

Ricky continued his survey, smiling at the sheer vastness of a city disappearing beyond the western horizon without end. The contrast was obvious when his thoughts showed the teeming Sectors of Novum and a cold, gray forest of concrete and steel rising up from a ragged jumble of decay and disregard until Maela’s touch at his elbow returned him from the daydream.

“Look,” she said, aiming down her arm toward the north. “I wondered how long it would take.”

Ricky squinted against the glare at two tiny dots moving toward them on a direct line. He could only guess as to their altitude, but from their place far above the valley, it had to be at least a thousand meters.

“Maybe they’re just passing through,” he offered.

“Look around, Richard; we’re the only ones up here.”

“Military, or cops like MPE on a routine patrol?”

“Either one is a good bet.”

“I hope they’re friendly.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

They watched the speeders as they curved gracefully toward the east, circling at last and speeding past the hilltop in tight formation. Following a wide arc, they slowed and moved close, easing onto the field beside the van. The trim, orange-colored machines made little noise, but downblast from hidden engines flattened and swirled the grass like the wind on a stormy day. Four figures dressed in blue flight suits stepped slowly from each speeder, still helmeted as they approached cautiously.

“Let me take this one,” Maela said under her breath, careful to lay the rifle against the van.

“No argument here,” Ricky replied with a smile.

At the touch of a finger, the visor on the lead pilot’s helmet slid suddenly upward to reveal a woman in her mid-twenties, Maela guessed, but she wasted little time in coming to the point.

“You out of Granderson?”

“No; we’re looking for somebody.”

“Where did you come from?”

The question was inevitable, Ricky knew, but he held his breath at the possibility Maela would concoct a fable to conceal the truth and do more harm than good.

“Novum,” she said simply.

“Let’s see your identification,” the pilot replied, holding out her hand with a clear expectation.

Maela pulled her badge from a pocket and opened it up.

“You’re a cop?” the pilot asked.

“Detective Maela Kendrick, MPE Special Investigations Division.”

The pilot looked quickly at the others before taking the badge to inspect closely. After a moment, she handed it back with a nod.

“Lieutenant Burriss, VDF.”

“This is Richard Mills.”

“You’re hunting?” Burriss asked, eyeing the rifle; “that’s a lot of firepower for somebody looking for another somebody.”

“We didn’t know what to expect on the Broadlands, so I brought it in case we ran into trouble, that’s all.”

“I’d keep that in plain sight when you get to the gates. Since you’re police, the sidearm is okay, but they’re going to give you hell about that rifle if you try to hide it.”

“We don’t intend to cause any trouble, Lieutenant; that was just for safety out there,” she said, pointing deliberately east.

Lieutenant Burriss paused for a second as the others returned to their speeders.

“What brought you all the way out from Novum? You on an investigation?”

“Yes,” Maela replied, “but it’s covert; we’d rather not invite attention, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I’ve run down that street a few times,” Burriss said. “No point in advertising, right?”

“Exactly.”

Burriss held a hand over her brow against the bright sun, looking past them to where one of the southern portals waited below in the valley.

“They won’t let you in just on an investigation from Novum unless you have a sponsor.”

“We were told to try from the southern border by a friend who trades here regularly,” Ricky said suddenly, hoping the gamble wouldn’t backfire.

“Who’s this friend?” Burriss asked cautiously.

“Felicitas Bielmann,” he replied; “a trade master in one of the Agro communes on the eastern side closer to Novum—Landsdon, they call it. She said it was okay to mention her name to the guards down there.”

Burriss nodded and said, “Yeah, we know Felicitas; she comes in from time to time and sells to a couple of south-side boutiques; hand-made furniture and artwork, mostly.”

Ricky felt the pressure begin to ease as Burriss continued.

“So, who is this guy you’re looking for—what’d he do?”

“It’s a she,” Maela replied, “but we’re only here to ask some questions; the person we’re looking for is not a suspect.”

“Oh. A witness, then?”

“Not really, but we hope she’ll be able to clear up a few things and keep us from wasting time on dead-end leads, you know?”

Burriss looked again at the van.

“Why the wheels? You could’ve taken the magnetic trains and got here a lot faster.”

“The trains don’t go everywhere; we drove out in case we had to follow another path away from the city.”

“You don’t have an air car?”

“It doesn’t carry fuel for a trip like this, and we don’t have a lot of money to spend anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Burriss said as she looked past them and down to the valley floor. “Hold on a second and I’ll call in to let them know you’re coming down.”

She turned and spoke softly into her comm unit and Ricky watched as she nodded to an unseen voice. Another pause and they could hear her as she repeated Felicitas’ name and when she nodded once more, it was set.

“They know Felicitas, too, so you won’t have any trouble at the gate. Just follow their orders and you’ll be fine.”

“We appreciate the help,” Maela smiled.

“No problem, Detective; my mom is a cop, and she had to go on runs like yours a few times when she was still on a patrol beat.”

“Outside the city?”

“Yeah; down to Granderson and Angel Town—the big mines. They come up to spend their money every few months, maybe get some time with a few of the cleaner prostitutes than the ones they have down south, right? Once in a while, one of the hardcore idiots would do something stupid, so my mom had to go outside and bring him back.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, good luck with your hunt. If you need help after you’re inside, just find a cop and ask for my mother; she’s a sergeant over on the coast at Delta Station now, but they’ll know who she is.”

“Thanks again, Lieutenant.”

With a final nod, Burriss turned and signaled to her squad. The two trim ships were airborne and gone in only a few moments, leaving Ricky and Maela alone once more.

“I’m glad you brought your badge,” Ricky said with a wide grin, but Maela said nothing as she watched the speeders moving quickly toward the west.

“Maela?”

“Yes, it came in handy,” she said feebly and almost as an afterthought.

“You seem a little distracted.”

“It’s been a while, that’s all,” she said softly.

“You came out here on one of your investigations?”

“Not exactly,” she replied, “but I’ve been here.”

Ricky sensed her unwillingness to go into detail had been made by memories best left hidden.

“I guess we should get on with it?”

Maela nodded twice and they returned to the van, pulling it back onto the road and a long, wandering course down to the valley where the first security station waited near the city’s outer walls. Half an hour later, they were directed to a wide lot where Veosan Security waited.

A single official, carrying only a data pad, ordered them from the truck.

“Identification, please.”

Maela and Ricky handed over their City Registration chips and the man placed them carefully into a slot.

“Are you here to deliver or pick up?”

“We’re looking for a friend,” Maela said.

“Name?”

“Valery Sharma.”

“Is this your first visit to Veosa?”

“Not for me,” Maela replied as she nodded toward Ricky, “but first time for him.”

He returned the chips and looked at Maela.

“VDF called in a patrol report a while ago; you’re the Novum MPE officer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you here on official business?”

“Yes, but we just want to interview her and clear up some administrative details; Miss Sharma is not a person of interest.”

“Please stay with your vehicle while I run the search.”

With that, he disappeared inside an oval structure dividing the inbound lanes of a highway from those leading out of the city and southward to the vast mining territories.

“They’re polite, I’ll give them that,” Ricky said.

A few moments later, the official returned, fixing a holographic tab to the van’s windscreen.

“You’re listed as an approved visitor, Detective. This is your admittance key; do not remove it until you depart. The key, and your ID passes, are valid for 72 hours. If you intend to stay longer, you will need to apply for an extended pass at any Commerce and Visitation office in the city.”

“Is that it?” Maela asked suddenly.

“I still need to obtain the barrel print from each of your firearms.”

“Barrel print?” Ricky asked.

“It will only take a moment,” the official replied.

“They’re in a case behind the driver’s seat, officer, except for my pistol,” Maela said, drawing the weapon slowly before offering it to him.

“Loaded?” he asked automatically.

“Yes; you’ll have to clear it.”

He nodded to another official to retrieve Maela’s rifles. From a nylon bag at his belt, the second man pulled a small, black device that looked like a metal shot glass, affixing it in turn to each gun’s muzzle. Three short flashes of light made the digital map that would function as a unique fingerprint tying the weapon to its owner. After the process was complete, the officer handed Maela a small information disc.

“Valery Sharma is confirmed as a resident, so you’re free to enter. Although you’ve been here before, I would recommend you read and understand this presentation to familiarize yourself with city laws and regulations. If you have any questions, please alert a Security officer and they’ll help you out. Welcome back to Veosa, Detective.”

Maela steered the van carefully through an archway and onto an elevated road made from smooth paving stones arranged in a parquet fashion that made the tires sing when she accelerated. Half a kilometer in, the second barrier wall loomed ahead and through it, another passage guarded by a platoon of officers. When they drew near, she slowed and looked for a place to park, but two guards aimed a reader at the access key, motioning them through without a word when a small indicator light on their city pass turned green.

The final, two-kilometer distance was crossed over a levee separating halves of a wide lake, ten meters up from where gentle waves lapped over massive chunks of stone that formed the angular, sloping sides of a causeway. Few vehicles met them until the curved shape of the last barrier wall remained and behind it, the buildings of outer Veosa glittered in white and polished alloy.

As they moved slowly through an ornate gap in the wall, the effect was immediate; no expanse of decay and rusted ruins from long before, or the hulking structures of the Industrial Zone and its ugly monuments to mass production. Instead, there was an unmistakable and even stark cleanliness that seemed unnatural and conspicuous. Spaces between their shimmering towers and sculpted skyscrapers were covered in beautiful carpets of manicured grass or ivy, dotted here and there with abbreviated gardens and tunnels made from trees intertwined like lovers in a permanent embrace. Parks seemed a constant and expected feature where citizens sat in sunlight that shone brightly and unfiltered by the haze and smoke clinging on most days to every building across Novum.

Above, air traffic sped along in precise, neat columns and Ricky felt suddenly alone and brushed with the irritating sensation of inadequacy, landed by accident in a superior place. The sky cars and speeders swooped in and out like shiny, wingless birds to join a formation in this direction or that, curving gently to meet another on a transverse course. With so many, it was clear an average Veosan found the luxuries only Novum Uppers enjoyed were routine—a place of order and calm without the meanness and filth of the surface streets across the Sectors of Novum.

“This is not what I expected,” Ricky said at last.

“It’s a different place than we’re used to,” Maela replied. “I haven’t been here in years, but it’s still the same; clean and tidy, not full of garbage and shit like our streets.”

“Do you ever miss it?”

“Sometimes, I suppose, but…”

“Not enough to move?”

“I still have plenty to do in Novum.”

Ricky remembered the old man’s cautious words about the distant city.

“Elden never spoke of it much, but I knew there was something about this place that bugged him. Seeing it now…it makes me wonder even more; how could you look at this and not be amazed?”

“Fellsbach never told you he was born in Veosa, did he?”

“No. I knew he spent time here, but Elden always avoided conversation about it.”

Maela aimed an eye at the little box.

“Let’s find Valery and give her those files. Elden said she worked at some research lab, so that should be our first stop.”

“KazTek, he called it.”

“Our comms don’t always connect directly with Veosan networks yet,” Maela cautioned, “but they have lots of public terminals.”

“We can ask a cop for the nearest cluster—cops know everything, don’t they?”

“Very funny, Richard.”

Ricky smiled and stepped from the van as Maela parked it on a wide expanse near the edge of a sprawling park and beside it, a public comm hub was nestled between two small food kiosks.

“They look a lot like ours,” he said with a relieved smile.

The terminals were arranged in a circle and protected by a transparent, plastic dome. Above, a stylish light sign read ‘Central South 200,’ but the words held no meaning. Each comm station showed little more than a bulb-shaped object fixed to a sloping panel and Ricky looked at once to Maela.

“I have no idea how to work this.”

“Just tap the ball,” she replied. “It will ask for a name, then it will find your wrist comm, see?”

Ricky tried and a simple touch of a finger on the bulb brought the system to life.

“Name of recipient, please.”

Ricky paused as he fumbled with the response until Maela nudged him aside.

“Valery Sharma,” she said firmly.

“Processing.”

Ricky watched her closely.

“I hope we’re getting somewhere.”

“Valery Sharma has not authorized information release from this terminal.”

“Shit,” Maela said.

“Processing.”

“No, wait! I didn’t mean…”

“Shit is not listed in this terminal.”

“Okay, how about KazTek?”

“Kazmar Technical Research Corporation, general number, 6556 19121. Would you like to connect now?”

“Yes, please!”

“Connecting.”

A second later, a voice answered.

“Good afternoon and thank you for calling KazTek.”

“Valery Sharma.”

“One moment, please.”

Maela listened as a chirping sound announced what could only have been a code sequence until a female voice answered at last.

“Can I help you?”

“Valery, it’s Maela.”

“I wondered when you’d call.”

“We need to discuss something with you in private.”

“We?”

“I’m with Richard Mills; he was friends with your dad and he’s helping me out.”

“You’re leading the investigation?”

“Not exactly, but I am investigating.”

Again there was silence and Maela waited.

“Go ahead,” Valery said at last.

“We have something from your dad,” Maela continued; “a package that might be of interest. Is there some place we could meet?”

“Center Town Pavilion. I’ll be at the entertainment stage in one hour. Do you remember it?”

“I remember.”

“Your companion—how much does he know?”

“Nothing.”

“I was referring to origins.”

“So was I.”

“See you in an hour.”

The link went dead, but Ricky pieced together Maela’s responses and what it meant.

“She already knew about Elden?”

“His records must have shown her as next of kin, so the Homicide guys released Valery’s name and the Veosan Consulate’s information office probably made the call.”

“You’ve been here before,” Ricky said as he watched passersby, “what do we do for the next hour?”

“Let’s get the van parked and then we should look for food.”

“Do they take Novum tokens all the way out here?” Ricky asked.

“After the trade and exchange agreement was signed a couple of years ago, currency works either way, so long as you pay the administrative fees for the conversion.”

“Then all we need to do is grab a bite and find this Pavilion.”

After refreshing themselves in a busy sidewalk café, Maela asked a waiter to call a land taxi. The ride through the center of Veosa was brief, but Ricky seemed lost in his thoughts, smiling and shaking his head as the stark contrasts between Veosa and Novum passed by. Broad avenues, void of rubbish and meticulously maintained looked nothing like the narrow, gridlocked nightmare on any Sector street. Trees and manicured parks were everywhere and he wondered if the locals appreciated the distinction and how differently life was lived outside their gates. It took only minutes before their taxi—delightfully free of food wrappers, urine and vomit—stopped at the long edge of a rectangular plaza filled with trees and neatly bordered stone walkways. In the middle, an oblong structure he guessed correctly to be a concert hall stood on an angle to the street and before it, a modest depression with a circular stage for outdoor productions. A few groups loitered where a fountain sent shimmering streams of water misting into a cloud to form splendid rainbows, but near to the stage, a lone female paced with folded arms as she surveyed the faces.

Ricky nodded toward her.

“Is that her?”

“Yeah, that’s Valery.”

When they approached slowly, their eyes met and Valery Sharma walked quickly toward them.

“Maela,” she began, “it’s been a while.”

“I wish it was for a better reason, and I’m very sorry about your father, but thank you for meeting us. This is Richard Mills.”

“Have you found something?”

“Not exactly,” Maela replied. “Your dad left a message for Richard and in it, instructions to find you and deliver these data sticks. He said you would know what to do with them.”

“He sent you to find me?”

“Yes; they’re technical documents, mostly, but he was very specific; Richard was to give them to you personally. Do you know what they are?”

“Maybe, but why did he send you, and what do these files have to do with his murder?”

“We were hoping you might be able to tell us.”

“I need to look at them on my private system.”

“I understand,” Maela said, “but our time here is limited; we have to leave within three days or apply for an extended pass.”

Valery held out her hand where a thin, black thread circled her wrist and Maela knew it was for Elden.

“Put your comm in search mode for a second; mine will find and link the call codes.”

Maela fumbled for her unit and tapped in the search function. After a moment, it clicked to signal the two were joined.

“I’ll call you.”

“Of course.”

Valery did her best to return a smile and then she was gone. They waited for a while, simply to process the event and sort out what it all meant.

“We should’ve told her where this was going,” Ricky said suddenly.

“Maybe,” Maela answered, but something was off in her tone and Ricky heard it clearly.

“Elden seemed to believe she’d understand those documents. I hope this wasn’t a wasted trip.”

Maela nodded toward the street where Valery disappeared into the afternoon crowd.

“I think she’s going to tell us more than we could ever tell her.”

With nothing else to do, they returned to the van and followed a patrol officer’s directions to an open lot where visitors park land vehicles for the night. Workers, up from the vast, open-pit mines far to the south traveled in similar machines and found a comfortable place to rest between their business activities each day. There would be a small fee, the cop cautioned, but it was equipped with power and water stations, relieving them of the need for a hotel. Ricky wondered if the sleeping arrangements might make things awkward, but Maela didn’t seem to care. When they walked from a lively steak bar and the rare treat of herd meat with no restrictions, roiling barbeque smoke pulled delicious aromas into the evening air. Maela wanted to stroll a while along a broad avenue where couples and small groups crowded at tables and lounge chairs to sip their drinks and chatter away because, she said, it was a favorite location on her previous visits. Ricky smiled and nodded, regarding an aimless walk for no reason beyond relaxation as a strange and alien activity, but a buzzing note in her earpiece announced an incoming call.

“You read the documents?” she asked and Ricky knew Valery was on the opposite side of the link.

“We need to talk.”

Maela looked at Ricky with raised eyebrows.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“I can see your location on my system; stay where you are and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“All right, but…”

The link closed abruptly.

“Nice talking to you, too,” Maela said sarcastically and to no one. “Whatever was inside those spec sheets, she obviously knows what they mean.”

“How did she sound?” Ricky asked.

“Pissed-off,” Maela answered.

They stood a while and watched an automated machine trundle slowly through an intersection, sucking up dirt and debris through an array of vacuum tubes. Ricky smiled at the spotless condition left in its wake, knowing an equivalent street in Novum would remain untouched and littered for years. After a while, an air car moved downward from its traffic lane far above in a strangely soothing warble that was nothing like the excessive, pulsing thrum of Maela’s MPE cruiser. When it settled with a clunk onto an open lot, Valery reached from the clam-door hatch and waved them toward her.

“Get in,” she said with a nod.

In seconds they were lifting upward quickly, angling for a traffic stream and hundreds of air cars moving steadily northward at two hundred meters. When the machine settled automatically into the requisite speed, Ricky watched as the gleaming cityscape passed by; clean, advanced and orderly, but with an overwhelming contrast to the hard, cheerless streets of Novum. No surveillance drones, he noted, and Maela smiled at his reaction when she said the pristine city contained no hidden Watchers or pious, lurking Behavior Regulation enforcers.

As they sped through clusters of graceful buildings constructed as much for aesthetic appeal as simple, urban utility, Valery turned first to Ricky.

“Elden didn’t explain what’s in those files?”

“No,” Ricky answered. “I didn’t realize what they were until after he…well, after he was gone.”

“Forgive me for being blunt, but why would he give them to you to deliver all the way from Novum?”

“Elden was my friend, Miss Sharma; I owe him a lot.”

“Oh? Why do you ‘owe’ him?”

Ricky looked at Maela suddenly, perhaps for a nod or an expression that told him it was all right.

“My dad died when I was a teenager, and Elden kept me going in the right direction when I was too young and stupid to figure it out for myself. He took my dad’s place, from a certain perspective, so…”

“Wait,” Valery said, leaning closer. “Mills?”

“Yeah?”

“So you’re Slider. I didn’t make the connection until just now.”

Ricky remained silent, allowing the moment to play itself out as a sad smile crossed Valery’s face.

“He told me about you. If he became a surrogate father, it would make me your sister…from a certain perspective.”

“I guess it would,” said Ricky, suddenly without anything better to say and ignorant of Valery’s noticeably sarcastic finish.

“I have to ask,” Ricky said cautiously. “Sharma?”

“My mother’s maiden name; we took it after my father went his own way.”

“Why didn’t he bring you with him to Novum?”

Valery leaned closer still and leveled her eyes at Ricky.

“Those people—the ones who wanted to take over Novum after the war—they offered him a lot of money and a big lab all to himself. It meant relocating from our home and that was not something my mother wanted for herself, or for me.”

“How long has it been since you saw Elden?” Maela asked.

“Three or four years, I guess. I don’t know exactly, but it’s been a long time.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear of his death from strangers.”

“Does it matter? He’s just as dead either way and we can’t get back the time, so…”

Her words trailed off, punctuated with a sad smile and a slow shake of her head.

“He was dead to my mother when he chose Novum over her.”

“You aren’t going to tell her?”

“I will, but not right now. The information you brought in those files—what he wanted to do…”

“Elden knew he was in danger,” Ricky said gently. “He left a message for me in the hours before his murder with instructions to find you because he knew there wouldn’t be enough time for him to do it. He said you would understand and know what to do with the information.”

Valery’s face went blank as the elusive clues made their inevitable connections at last. When she closed her eyes, her head tilted suddenly back, signaling her understanding. Ricky saw it at once.

“Valery, do you know why he sent us?”

“They found out,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Maela said, “but who are ‘they?’”

“The same people who lured him to Novum years ago.”

“He mentioned something about that in his note to Richard; he said powerful people would try to stop him.”

“Of course he did,” Valery said. “You’re here because he knew they would get to him before he could escape.”

“So what was it?” Maela asked. “What’s in those files that made these people murder your father?”

Valery sat in silence for a while.

“Perhaps we can meet again tomorrow,” Maela offered. “Maybe give you some time to take all this in?”

Valery looked away again, trying her best to conceal the pain, but it was no use. Maela reached instinctively for her hand, holding it tight until the moment passed. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Valery cleared her throat and nodded vigorously.

“We should continue—it’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes; there’s no point in waiting, and nothing is going to bring him back anyway.”

“Valery…”

“No, it’s all right, really. After seeing those files, it’s clear what my father wanted to do, and he’s left it for me to finish. What I can’t see in his notes is why. Something has happened and it forced his hand.”

“We need to understand, too,” Ricky said at last. “I can’t leave it like this.”

“We’ll be at my home in a few minutes,” she replied.

“Thank you, Valery,” Ricky said.

“Don’t thank me until you see what all of it means. If I succeed, everything you know will change.”

“If it helps Maela find and punish Elden’s murderer, I don’t care what it means.”

Valery looked at Ricky again.

“You might care an hour from now.”

The air car nosed downward gently, slowing when it detached from the traffic stream smoothly toward a pyramid-shaped structure clad in mirrored glass that shimmered in dazzling, multi-spectral waves. They slowed through a wide gap in the building’s flanks, easing gently into a sub-level parking garage.

As the machine nudged into its dock, Valery stepped onto a wide, metal grate that divided one parking bay from another, motioning for Ricky and Maela to follow. The lifts nearby took them quickly to her floor high above. They went through a lobby of polished floors and strange wall treatments made of decorative cork sculpted into geometric shapes to form a sort of relief map Ricky admired immediately. At the end of a hallway, Valery paused until the door to her apartment opened with a touch of her finger on a reader pad.

An angled wall of darkened glass was both her wall and ceiling, showing a narrow park toward the west and Ricky shook his head in wonder, knowing what so opulent a place would demand in rent fees in Novum. Valery motioned them to her study and thumbed to life an array of monitors they guessed were replicas of her work environment at the KazTek offices.

“Have a seat while I get the files opened up.”

They waited as one of her display monitors blinked to life, scrolling immediately through a menu until she held it at an expanded view of a vast field of alphanumeric phrases only she seemed to understand.

“These are raw data compilations, but when I ran them through my discrimination software, the architecture and status notes told me what I needed to know.”

Ricky looked, but nothing made sense.

“You recognize this stuff?”

“I haven’t read it all, and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen my father’s notes, but yes, I know what they’re for.”

“Did you work with your father?”

“I followed him into the profession, but we took different paths.”

Maela waited for a moment, but nothing on the screen was recognizable; they would need to hear the story from Valery.

“This was the baseline code they used to make Starlight?”

“Some of it, yes, but most of what you’re seeing are architecting blocks he was working on in the last year.”

Ricky nodded and pointed at the time stamps.

“This is the information he believed would change everything?”

“Yes.”

Maela and Ricky looked at the jumble of numbers and letters, but nothing was recognizable.

“I don’t understand any of this, Valery; we’re not computer people.”

“The working file structure is masked by a security feature I can’t break from here; certain algorithms that map to known processes my array at the office will recognize. I don’t have that kind of processing power, so I need to take copies into the lab.”

“But you know enough from Elden’s notes to recognize the general direction, right?”

“Yes.”

“Where should we start?”

Valery pulled a chair from an adjacent table and settled next to Ricky.

“You know how Starlight works, right?”

“Yeah,” he answered softly, “I know all about Starlight.”

Maela heard more in his tone than his words could convey as Valery continued.

“When he developed the initial concept years ago, my father’s goal was establishing a direct pathway between analytic systems and the human brain.”

Ricky held up a hand and said, “He wanted to let people communicate with a computer system directly?”

“Yes,” Valery replied, “and by a mere thought. He believed voice or keypad interface methods were needless and cumbersome.”

“Did he have a reason, or was it just a theory he wanted to test?”

“My dad wanted to make interactions faster and easier, but also more accurate. He saw a future where medical diagnostic equipment would establish a direct link to a patient’s brain and analyze neural networks, for example.”

“Go on,” Maela said, suddenly interested as Valery’s words took shape in the images she described.

“He believed a direct interface could help find hidden clues that might identify a sickness or condition long before it surfaced in the form of outward symptoms, but it went much further as he progressed in his research.”

“In what way?”

“Just as the brain might communicate to a machine designed to analyze physiological difficulties, perhaps it could root out emotional problems as well.”

“Help the doctor see a problem before it became one?”

“I remember his conversations with colleagues when I was still in school, but the concept became known by his supervisors and they narrowed the scope of research very quickly and not to my father’s liking.”

“This happened before he went to Novum?”

“Correct.”

Ricky sat forward, too. The possibilities had become obvious, even to a hustler from the streets.

“These things sound very beneficial, Valery; why did Elden’s bosses have a problem?”

“The corporation he worked for imposed restrictions on my father he wasn’t willing to accept. They wanted specific limits placed on any research where direct interaction with a machine was concerned, but only for risk mitigation; they were afraid of losing a legal battle and the associated cost due to unforeseen injury to a person. He didn’t agree.”

“Elden wasn’t very adventurous.” Ricky frowned. “Why did he fight them?”

“My father wanted to accelerate the concept further and reverse the pathway—to make the analytic process reciprocal. In this way, a machine or system would interface with a human, so that faults or anticipated mechanical risks could be identified and repaired before they failed. In my dad’s mind, beneficial systems fault analysis and human medical diagnoses were one and the same.”

“But his masters didn’t like the idea?”

“They worried that base-level control between a human and an artificial system would invite trouble, so they prohibited further research on the project.”

“They shut it down completely?”

“Yes, and that’s when it started to unravel.”

“You mean contact from Novum.”

“It had only been a few years since the cease-fire, but there were people there who knew him and his reputation. When your government fell and the Commission took control, some of the more powerful ones had been told of my dad’s research.”

“Told by whom?” Maela asked suddenly.

“I really don’t know, and he never said. They told him there would be no barriers to his work if he went out there, and the idea became more compelling than he could resist, especially after his employers threatened to dismiss him if he didn’t obey them.”

Maela smiled at the thought, knowing too well the notion of ethics was never a prominent piece in Novum’s authority structure.

“The Commission promised him a paradise where he could continue his work and not be punished for it.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

Ricky knew what came next.

“So he left you and your mother to follow his dream?”

“Not at first,” Valery answered. “He tried to convince my mother to move, but she reacted by telling him it would end their marriage if he went away.”

“But it didn’t matter to him?”

“I think it mattered to him, but I also believe he felt trapped. The possibilities of unfettered research, and my mother’s refusal to move, simply left him with only one of two available choices and he took the Commission’s deal.”

“What you describe doesn’t sound at all like the Elden I knew.” Ricky frowned.

“I can’t help what it sounds like, Mr. Mills; I’m just telling you what happened.”

“And then he was gone?” Maela asked, although they knew the answer.

“He said it was temporary, but my mom told him not to come back and that was that. He packed and left the week before I graduated from the University. I’ve only seen him a handful of times since.”

The silence returned and only the rattle of an antique clock above tick-tocked its note in measured time like a solitary percussion instrument in a vacant concert hall. Valery stood and moved to the sloping wall of glass, looking out at the park beyond and lost in her thoughts. Maela waited a while, but the history lesson only clouded further her search for a killer. She needed answers and it was clear the only path ran through Valery Sharma’s tortured memories.

“Do you think those hidden files will fill in the blanks?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“It’s going to be difficult for us to get out here again,” Ricky said softly. “I don’t mean to hurry you, but…”

“Don’t worry about that,” she replied, “We’ll go down to the lab right now, but why is it a problem for you to return? Is your transit card good for one trip only?”

“We didn’t ride out on the trains.”

“You flew an air car all the way from Novum?”

“We came across the Broadlands.”

Valery only stared.

“We wanted to conduct the investigation without a lot of attention,” Maela continued, “so we came out on the surface.”

“I wouldn’t make a habit of going across the Broadlands.” Valery frowned.

“It was important to maintain anonymity for this trip.”

“If you say so, but right now, we need to get these files into my work system.”

They went quickly to Valery’s car and rode in silence as it sped into the heart of the city, finding at last her place inside a cavernous garage mid-way up a triad of identical towers linked by pedestrian bridges not unlike those common in Novum. After a short lift ride down three floors, they followed her through a series of security checkpoints, all of which demanded full retinal scans and voice sample recordings before the gateway portals would grant admittance. Valery waited patiently, but even her authority wasn’t enough to obviate the process.

At last, they were in. A vacant, mostly open bay configuration revealed test stations and the odd-looking equipment at home only in a laboratory. Maela thought at once of Jonathan, knowing he would surely delight at the chance to work in such a place as Valery settled at one of the coding stations to load the files into a machine, trying her best to describe its function to an obviously bewildered Ricky. In seconds, the search software did its work and the structure was revealed, scrolling data streams at her touch. She pointed for them to sit while she reviewed Elden’s notes on one monitor, looking to a second display where the jumble of numbers and unrecognizable phrase blocks seemed to verify the old man’s intent. When she paused, Valery turned suddenly to Ricky.

“You have a Starlight account?” she asked.

“Had; I don’t do that anymore.”

She looked again at the display.

“Who is ‘Neferure?’”

Ricky was sure she could see his face go red. It had been months since he heard the name and it shocked him when Valery asked so casually and without knowledge of all that had been. Immediately, his memory pulled him across time and space to the warm breezes along the Nile and evenings spent with a princess. He could still hear Bartel’s cruel suggestion that Litzi could wash away his debt if only she would agree to Boris Konstantinou’s demands. He remembered the Walk and a night of terror no one could forget, but worse than any of it, the sudden realization Elden knew all along. Had he monitored the sessions, Ricky wondered with horror? Perhaps Ellis Justman described those moments in violation of the rules prohibiting managers from revealing a client’s plot content.

“She was a character in my simulation.”

“A very special character, judging by my father’s description,” Valery noted.

“That was supposed to be private,” Ricky said with a growing tone of irritation Valery (and Maela) heard clearly.

“I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable,” she said softly, “but I’ve heard far worse from Starlight programs than a romantic adventure with an ancient Egyptian theme.”

Ricky looked at her for a moment and said, “Why did Elden mention it at all? I never told him about my simulation!”

“Well, somebody did, and judging by the secondary descriptions, in very intimate detail.”

“But why? What does my Starlight account have to do with any of this?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she replied, “but it looks like your character figured into my father’s plans at a very high level.”

“His notes don’t tell you more than that?”

“Of course they do, but I have to cross-reference most of it with his raw data to fully understand where he was going.”

Ricky looked away to avoid Maela’s eyes.

After another moment or two, Valery nodded at the display and said, “This is going to take a while. Through those double doors, there’s a lounge and self-serve café; if you’d like to rest and refresh yourselves, no one else is here this time of day.”

“I am getting a little hungry,” Maela said. “Let’s leave her alone for a while, Richard.”

Ricky nodded quietly and followed around a maze of computer stations to the lounge, finding his way to a small couch against the far wall. An open space on the opposite side of the room held food and drink dispensers, inviting visual displays of the café’s offerings and beyond, a hallway leading to restrooms. Maela walked quickly past an empty buffet counter, selecting instead an automated machine’s idea of warm croissants and tea served in a tall, ceramic cup made to resemble bamboo. She looked over her shoulder where Ricky sat alone and said, “You should eat.”

“I know.”

She waited for a moment, deciding at last to grab two more pieces of pastry and an additional cup of tea. When she placed them on a low table near the couch, Ricky smiled and thanked her, suddenly returned from a distant place in his mind she knew must’ve been made by Valery’s abrupt questions.

“It bothered you when Valery asked about your simulation.”

“She just caught me off-guard,” he replied.

“It didn’t look that way to me.”

“What are you saying?”

“You got pissed-off all of a sudden—embarrassed. Valery saw it, too.”

“It isn’t something I wanted to discuss in front of strangers. I’d rather forget about that time, not have my nose rubbed in it.”

“So now I’m a stranger?”

“You know what I meant.”

“I don’t think she meant to rub your nose in it, Richard; she found a link to your program in Elden’s notes and wondered about it, that’s all.”

Ricky looked at Maela with confused sadness.

“I never told him, don’t you understand? Elden knew I had a simulation, but we never discussed the details. He couldn’t have known about Neferure!”

“Elden wrote the damn thing; is it so surprising he had a pipeline into particular client simulations?”

“I guess not, but no one would’ve told him those things unless he asked. Why did he ask?”

“Maybe Valery will have that answer when she finishes her analysis. In the meantime, tell me about this character of yours; who is Neferure?”

Ricky closed his eyes and clenched his jaw knowing the arguably sordid details of his relationship with a computer-generated fantasy would be paraded in front of him yet again. Maela knew how to get information and it was only a matter of time, yet Ricky resisted. After a moment or two in silence, she leaned close.

“Do you really think an innocent jerk-off video could be anything close to the unspeakable shit I’ve seen on the streets of Novum?”

“That’s not what it was!” he snapped. “I didn’t create the simulation just for sex, all right?”

Maela held up her hands in a mock surrender.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter to me why you took out an account, or how you scripted it—that’s your business. I just wondered because Elden mentioned this character so prominently, and…”

“She was a princess in ancient Egypt; the daughter of a Pharaoh.”

“You made your simulation into a period piece? That’s novel.”

“I liked learning about the Egyptians from history vids when I was a little kid, so I made a second life and used that time and place.”

“This princess was a real person back then?”

“Yeah; I used a lot of real people for my characters.”

“Why did you pick this one in particular—why not Cleopatra?”

Ricky hesitated, feeling himself slipping as more and more details would surely be revealed. He couldn’t stop it, there was little chance of that, yet he fought against the sensations of dread and embarrassment he would suffer when the full depth of his simulation spilled out for Maela to see.

“I wanted something different; a time and place no one else knew or cared about. Everyone knows who Cleopatra was, but no one knows about Neferure. Well, no one except people who like Egyptian history, I guess.”

Maela nodded as he went, watching the faint pictures from his imagination as they became real in her mind.

“What was your role? I assume you interacted with this princess, right?”

“Yes. I cast myself as a soldier in her mother’s army.”

“Lots of exciting battles to fight?”

“Something like that.”

“So you had a relationship with…”

“Neferure. Yes, I was a suitor.”

“And her lover?”

Ricky looked at Maela with a dull expression of resignation.

“Yeah, there was that, too.”

“At least you had a story and a reason beyond cheap sex,” Maela said suddenly. “Most of the assholes who get hooked on Starlight use it only as a virtual prostitute. It sounds like you put a lot of time and thought into developing an authentic scenario.”

“It was a better place than Novum.”

They sat in silence for a time and Ricky hoped desperately Maela would change the subject, satisfied with what he revealed, but she wanted more.

“How did you get the images uploaded? I never opened an account myself, so how does that work?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they didn’t have cameras four thousand years ago, but I know enough about Starlight to know you have to provide images for the software to use as it builds a character. I’m guessing there was an artist’s rendition from a history text?”

“Not exactly.”

Maela waited for Ricky to finish his thought, but he stood and turned away, sullen and quiet as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. At last, and pushed reluctantly by what he knew would follow, he returned to the couch.

“I watched a documentary about the Pharaoh—Neferure’s mother—on the vids a few years ago. Her name was Hatshepsut and she got famous because she was the first female Pharaoh to rule Egypt. The role of Neferure was played by Scylla Anders, so I used video and still images from the ‘nets.”

Maela smiled a little as the picture, once blurred and fleeting, became clear.

“Your princess looks like Scylla Anders?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you didn’t cheat yourself there, I have to admit. If you’re going to create a fantasy, why not use a big vid star as the template, right?”

“I guess so.”

Maela heard the twinge of Ricky’s shame in his words, exposed like the secrets of an adolescent boy in front of grownups.

“It’s not exactly new, is it? Starlight users steal the images of famous people for their simulations every day.”

Ricky wanted nothing more than to move away from a conversation stabbing at him with knives of guilt and regret.

“You wanted to know about my simulation and now you do,” he said firmly. “Are we finished here?”

Maela stood, too, but his tone had gone suddenly dark and challenging. She faced him squarely and leaned close.

“Look, Richard, I don’t care what kind of action hero adventure you made for yourself in a Starlight program, and I have no interest in how you got off doing it, so save the big talk, understand? There’s a reason Elden saw and noted this character of yours and I mean to find it. If you’re embarrassed, I suggest you get past it because his killer is still out there!”

She pushed past him and walked quickly toward the lab when Valery met her abruptly at the twin doors.

“I was just coming to get you.”

Maela stopped and said, “Did you find anything useful?”

Valery nodded silently and motioned for them to follow. When she sat again at her terminal, a paragraph from Elden’s personal notes blinked in highlighted text.

“I suspected something like this, and my father’s direction has confirmed it; I know what he wanted to do.”

“Let’s hear it,” Maela said.

Valery pointed them to her console as she continued.

“As I told you earlier, my dad wanted to create a program to advance human interaction with the hard technologies we use today. He wanted to build a bridge between us and the machines so that one could help the other.”

Ricky frowned at the notion.

“Elden envisioned a fully integrated world? A synthesis of humans and machines into one?”

“Not entirely,” Valery answered. “My father never agreed with the idea of complete integration. He believed technology and humanity might evolve along mutual pathways at some point in the future—the famous ‘platform fusion’ theory—but he saw no reason why the two couldn’t co-exist in the present.”

“Sentient AI?”

“That was part of it, but his programs were only first steps in a process and that’s where it became dangerous.”

Maela sat carefully on a padded stool.

“Dangerous enough to get him killed?”

“Apparently so,” Valery replied sadly, “and you were right; he knew what he was doing would make him a target.”

“Go on.”

“These files are specifications and procedures he developed over the past few years regarding VI interfaces and possible pathways that might lead to one of them becoming self-aware, but they contain data and notes from other researchers long ago.”

“Before the Fall?” Ricky said.

She nodded and said, “I don’t know how he came by it, but I do know having anything like this in your possession is a capital offense in Novum. Here, it’s different; we can access archives from the Old Time without breaking laws, but your city is intolerant of even seeing it, let alone having it at your disposal for review.”

“Are you saying he used those old processes to make Starlight?”

“No, not at all. My father developed the pathfinder software on his own, but somewhere along the way, he acquired the old data and incorporated it into his design.”

“No one knew,” Ricky said; “They would’ve arrested him otherwise.”

“Yes,” Valery replied, “but it was during that period he was cut out of the Starlight project completely.”

Ricky remembered.

“They bought him off and forced him to retire.”

Maela understood, too.

“The Commission lured him with promises of unfettered research and money, but when he got them close enough to create Starlight, they kicked him out.”

“On his own,” Valery continued, “my father kept up his research, even as your Commission took Starlight from him and made it into something entirely different than what he wanted.”

“Everyone knows what Starlight became,” Ricky said, “but what did Elden have in mind?”

“He still envisioned a tool to make life better for people, but the Commission and its backers saw an opportunity to make money. Much later, something must’ve changed.”

“In what way?” Ricky asked, prodded to the question by a growing and persistent worry he couldn’t explain.

“From his notes,” Valery continued, “you can see his frustration and anger with the Committee build over time, but it was your unfortunate experience that finally sent him past his breaking point.”

“My Walk.” Ricky frowned. “It’s what happens when you get into debt so badly…”

“I know what it is,” Valery interrupted softly.

“What did my Walk have to do with Elden’s research? This doesn’t make any sense!”

“I can’t see it in these notes,” Valery continued. “But he had several conversations with somebody called Victor Jamison just before he compiled his notes with the specification data. Do you recognize that name?”

Maela stood quickly.

“He’s a heavy hitter and principle member of the Commission now. Behind the scenes, he runs one of the biggest rackets in Novum. Jamison is a powerful man, too; no one crosses him and lives to tell about it.”

“Konstantinou belongs to him,” Ricky said as Maela nodded knowingly. “If he was talking to Elden, it must’ve been about Starlight.”

“Yes,” Valery replied, “and that conversation obviously ended badly; my father put this package together shortly after.”

“He knew what was coming,” Maela said, as the pieces to a confusing puzzle began to take shape. “Jamison is the key to this.”

Valery waited as the image firmed in her mind, suddenly taken away by a profound sadness she couldn’t hide as the tears gathered in her eyes.

“You believe it was this man who killed my dad?”

“Probably not, at least personally,” Maela answered, “but it’s a good bet he ordered the hit. The only question is why.”

Valery stood at the edge of her console, drawing an absent-minded finger along its edge as the horrible scene played out in her thoughts. They were apart for years, but she always held out hope for a reunion. At once, she thought of her mother and a task of telling a wife her husband had been murdered. Vasundhara Sharma carried her anger with Elden’s choice to leave Veosa, but Valery wondered if the sting of abandonment might fade under the weight of a widow’s grief. In her privacy, Valery hoped it would be so, if for no reason than sharing the burden of their loss.

Ricky looked at the data stream and said, “Elden made it pretty clear in his message that ‘powerful people’ would be angry with him for what he wanted to do.”

“Angry enough to order his execution,” Maela echoed.

“Yes, but I need to know what he planned and how any of it connects to a character in my simulation.”

Maela turned to Valery.

“Elden said you would know what to do. He didn’t send us on this journey for nothing, so what was it, Valery; what did he want you to do?”

Valery touched a command pad and the display screen went suddenly blank. She turned to them, pausing for a moment to gather the words.

“His notes provide clear and unmistakable rules for interacting with advanced VI platforms, so any competent behavioral engineer would do just as well. But as I read further, it became clear Richard’s simulation character is a fundamental part of this mystery.”

“Neferure?” Maela asked reflexively.

“So it would seem. For some reason, he became fixated on that particular VI construct and over time, nothing else seemed to hold his attention so firmly.”

“I never spoke with him about this,” said Ricky. “I still don’t understand how he knew about Neferure.”

Valery shook her head slowly.

“The references in his open notes weren’t very helpful, but I found a file that may hold the answers.”

“What’s inside?” Ricky asked.

“I’m not sure, to be honest,” Valery answered. “I tried to open it using all the hacking software we have, but it’s so heavily encrypted, no penetration attempt has worked.”

“What makes you think that file has answers if you can’t see what it holds?” Maela asked.

“The reference title for that particular file was ‘1911-A.’ When I ran a systems search through my dad’s notes, I found it in only one place; a Starlight infrastructure glossary.”

“Yeah, and?” Ricky asked, growing weary of a search suddenly side-tracked.

“1911-A is the original build designation for the Neferure character profile in your simulation.”

“I don’t understand,” he replied. “Why was Elden so interested in Neferure?”

Valery sat at her console and continued the description.

“His notes point to your simulation again and again, but everything leads back to the locked Neferure character profile. Wherever he was going with this must be hiding inside that file.”

“A file you can’t access.” Maela frowned.

“The intrusion software I have is powerful, but it’s still not enough to break my father’s encryption blocks.”

“Then what good is it? Why would he point you to a file you can’t open?”

“I wondered, too, but later, I found something buried in an ordinary maintenance log; a single line that looks very similar to a scheduler’s time stamp, but…”

“But?”

“When I went through the code structure a second time, I finally saw it.”

Valery scrolled the lines of data, stopping to highlight a series of numbers.

“What are we looking at?” Ricky asked, hoping for more than another jumble of indecipherable data.

“The first number sequence is my birth date, then a second sequence which is my mother’s birth date. The next series is a comm address, followed by my father’s birth date. He highlighted just that line of data, otherwise, I would never have seen it.”

“No chance that was coincidence,” said Maela with a grin. “Elden wanted you to find that address.”

“Yes, but when I tried to access it, the reply was a denial due to out-of-system connectivity.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s not an address Veosa’s network can reach.”

“It won’t accept a query from outside Novum’s networks?”

Valery nodded and returned their attention to the blinking data line.

“It gets worse. The address link is also heavily encrypted—you can’t access it simply by trying from any terminal inside Novum. I have programs that could defeat the blocks from this lab, but not by remote.”

Ricky smiled and said, “We know somebody who might be able to fix that problem.”

Maela looked at Ricky.

“I guess we’ll be paying Jonny another visit.”

“Will he agree?”

“When he sees a new hack challenge, nothing else will matter.”

“Who is Jonathan?” Valery asked quickly.

“He’s a friend,” Maela replied, “and a very capable intrusion specialist at the Novum Technology Institute.”

At once, Valery tapped a command into her machine and waited until a prompt asked for additional information.

“Full name?”

“Jonathan Lloyd Kranz,” Maela answered.

Another command brought back the data Valery needed.

“Yes, I see him here. We have connections to a few people at your Institute; they come out to Veosa from time to time, mostly to participate in seminars or other academic pursuits.”

They watched her fill out the blank fields with acronyms and codes neither of them recognized until she sat back with a smile.

“Done. Mr. Kranz has been extended an invitation to meet with me tomorrow. We only have to wait for his confirmation, and then I’ll authorize his ticket on the mag trains.”

It didn’t take long. Moments later, the arrangements were finalized, although Ricky knew Jonathan’s acceptance would include a measure of confusion.

“Will he know it’s coming from us?”

“Maybe,” Maela answered, “but a free trip to Veosa will be impossible for him to resist. He’ll be here, don’t worry.”

“I have him reserved for a seat on the 9:30 express,” Valery said.

With nothing more to do, Valery moved the van to a modest hotel near Veosa’s city center. After more than a week on the dusty road out from Novum, Ricky and Maela looked forward to a shower and a full night’s sleep in a proper bed, but in the morning, they knew, Jonathan’s arrival would take them into the last leg of a long and strange journey.

They waited at the top of a bank of escalators inside a conspicuously clean and modern Veosan transit station. Ricky smiled to himself, knowing no equivalent scene could be found near the sweltering and crowded streets of Novum. Above, a pleasant, three-tone chime signaled the arrival of the day’s first train, streaking at that very moment across the wide moat dividing the walled borders of Veosa. Moments later, the glistening, bullet-shaped machine knifed its way through parked trains awaiting maintenance, humming to a gentle stop along a high platform.

Ricky watched them step slowly from the train, looking left and right like factory district moles on their first trip to the surface. Among them, Jonathan made his way to where they waited, a single bag slung over a shoulder and wearing the expression of wonder and excitement that mirrored Ricky’s when he and Maela came in from the Broadlands. At once, he saw Maela and shook his head knowingly.

“I should’ve guessed,” he said with a sad smile.

After introductions, Valery guided them to her air car and a brief ride across the city to her apartment building, slipping neatly once more into the shadows of her building’s cavernous parking garage. When she keyed them through her door and took Jonathan’s bag, the anticipation had taken him over.

“Thank you for inviting me out,” he began, “but I get the sense it’s not for some coding seminar?”

“We found something,” Maela said at last. “The logs you opened led us out here, but we need your help again.”

“I figured as much, but why? Investigating a murder isn’t exactly in my line.”

“No,” Maela replied, “but computer access blocks are, and that’s where we’re stuck. Valery has a comm address she can’t open from the Veosa networks. We were hoping you could take it back to your apartment and try it from there; it’s specifically restricted to a Novum network node, but it’s also encrypted.”

“I see,” said Jonathan knowingly as their request suddenly became clear. “You want me to bust another system.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Maela replied.

“Couldn’t you just bring the address back with you? Why pull me all the way out to Veosa?”

Maela looked first at Richard, pausing to consider her answer carefully.

“You can come and go on the trains without anyone noticing, Jonathan; Richard and I cannot. It will take more than a week for us to drive back overland as it is, but you could get this done in a day.”

Jonathan’s confusion was obvious.

“Who’s stopping you from riding the trains?”

“The Watchers, for one thing. I’m supposed to be on administrative leave right now; if they see my name on a round trip passenger list from Veosa, it will make them wonder why.”

“Are you in trouble, Mae?”

Jonathan’s voice changed—lower, and with a tone of dread.

“No, but if they see our names in the transit registry, I could be. Take the address back to your apartment and break it, will you please? I can’t explain more because we don’t know where this will lead!”

He looked at Valery, hoping for more, but her silence made clear the urgency.

“All right. You have the address on a reader?”

Valery nodded and handed over a simple data pad. Jonathan stuffed it into his shoulder bag and said, “I’ll call you back on your lab channel when I have something.”

“Thank you,” Valery replied. “I know this must seem strange to you, but…”

Jonathan shot a glare only at Maela.

“Yeah, a recurring theme these days.”

Valery called a taxi for Jonathan’s ride back to the transit station and then he was gone.

In the afternoon’s fading light, Ricky and Maela walked along a winding path made of smooth stones coursing through a lovely park squarely in the middle of the city and Valery left them to explore Veosa on their own while she worked through administrative tasks from her office. There was no way of knowing how long Jonathan’s search would take, but passing the rest of the day in pleasant, evening breezes seemed preferable to waiting it out in a hotel room.

They watched a city going about its daily routine, but it was nothing like the dirty streets of Novum. Here, Ricky thought aloud, there was no rush or palpable sense of caution or urgency that drove the Flatwalkers. Instead, ordinary people were clearly in no special hurry, nor did they search the faces of strangers for signs of ill intent. No one was afraid, he noted; Veosans smiled and laughed more, too.

“We’re a long way from home,” Ricky said at last.

When the sun disappeared beyond sculpted buildings to the west, Veosa’s lavish public lighting dazzled in swirls as it washed over gleaming white buildings, creating artificial rainbows for no apparent reason beyond simple, pleasing aesthetics. Once more, Ricky and Maela found their way to the bustling outdoor café where they first dined after coming in from Landsdon. At least, Ricky noted, they could eat well as they waited for Jonathan’s reply.

An hour later, Maela’s communicator chirped from her wrist signaling Valery’s call.

“Did he find something?” Maela asked in a low tone so as not to be overheard.

“Stay where you are,” Valery said, “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Once more, they slipped quickly into the air car and settled as it sped them on a meandering course toward her apartment complex. When the machine reached its cruise altitude, she turned to them.

“We need to pack; I’ve arranged for tickets on the late express to Novum.”

“Jonny got through, obviously,” Maela said.

“Yes, but he couldn’t elaborate over an open comm; whatever he found shook him badly. I don’t know Jonathan, but he sounded as if he would burst at any moment.”

“He gave you no details at all?”

“Only a loud plea for us to hurry,” Valery replied.

Maela looked at Ricky.

“That rules out driving back across the Broadlands.”

“I’ll arrange for a place to leave your vehicle,” Valery said, “but we need to move quickly.”

Ricky thanked her, but another problem waited for them in Novum.

“Maela’s badge can get her back in without a problem, but how are we going to explain us? If we go back on the train, we’ll run straight into border guards at the western terminal and they’re going to have questions we can’t answer.”

Maela waved him off and smiled.

“Valery is our witness in the Banyan case, remember? The station guards don’t worry about people coming in from Veosa like they used to, especially if one of them is a Novum cop. If the guards at the train portal don’t care, the Watchers probably won’t, either, as long as we move quickly.”

Ricky followed Maela and Valery through an entryway, turning left to find their seats in a strangely silent car near the rear of the train. The interior smelled of new fabric and freshly extruded plastic and they waited as others found their seats under the watchful eye of attendants. When passenger load sheets were squared with reservations, the heavy glass doors slid closed with a hiss. They felt a momentary nudge as the cars lifted, but there was no accompanying sound until a low, steady hum sounded at their feet. Nearly undetectable when it began to move, the train’s progress was measured in meters until it cleared the platform and then it began. Like an unseen hand pressing against them, the force of acceleration was powerful and immediate. Ricky rolled his head slowly to one side, watching through the tinted windows as glaring lights of Veosa became uniform trails, endless and each seemingly connected to the next until the surface dropped suddenly away with the approaching darkness—they were on the high rail and racing toward the Broadlands at last.

When the train reached its maximum speed, a small lurch signaled the crew to release the caution signs where they blinked from stations at each end of a car, telling passengers it was safe to stand and move. Ricky and Maela walked slowly along, stopping at a wide observation window and Ricky wondered if a dim glow on the horizon might be Joshua’s settlement, guessing it had to be close. Maela thought of the young girl at the center of a hand ceremony, wondering if she accepted the deal offered by one of the two applicants for her attention. Had they sent her immediately?

After a while, the internal lighting darkened, anticipating riders would prefer to slumber, but mostly because there was nothing of interest to see on a night transit. They returned to their seats and settled in for the final 90 minutes, but Ricky found it impossible to sleep. Maela had no such difficulty, curled into a ball with her feet tucked neatly beneath her.

Valery sat behind them in an unoccupied group of four facing seats, but she seemed lost in her thoughts. At the far end of their journey, answers waited inside the files Jonathan cracked, but there was only the frantic sound of his voice on the far end of a comm channel to remind her. She cautioned him against revealing his discoveries with others, but the note was needless under the weight of his own fears; whatever he found compelled him to silence more effectively than Valery’s words could hope to match.

She drifted into a light sleep, only to be jolted awake soon after when the approach warning sounded with a flashing purple orb on the car’s ceiling. She knew what it meant; in fifteen minutes, the train would begin its braking maneuver, reversing polarity to slow and a gentle stop in the fog-bound transit station on Novum’s west side.

Ricky looked at the skyline of the city as they eased through its final curve high above the sector where mostly deserted streets bathed in lonely arcs of light from street lamps. Ahead, opulent air cars waited to whisk Uppers to their mega-towers; there were no Flatwalkers onboard a lavish express train the Commission never considered a component of mass transportation.

The week that passed since they crossed over the western wire made the journey to Veosa the longest away from Novum in Ricky’s life. When the train slid silently to a halt along a wide, mostly vacant platform, they moved quickly to collect their bags and file through the exit doors. At the Security and Customs desk, four border guards chatted with their MPE counterparts as each rider passed through the detectors. Maela motioned for Ricky and Valery to wait as she spoke with the officers. Ricky watched from a distance as explanations were given to nods and glances at Valery until Maela motioned for them to follow, speeding through the sensor tunnel and onward to where Jonathan waited near a ticket kiosk blaring out a looped advertisement about the new timetable to and from Veosa.

“That was easy.” Ricky smiled.

“They’re veterans,” Maela said softly. “No cop wants the kind of trouble a pissed-off detective can make for them, especially near the end of their shift.”

Few words were exchanged as Jonathan hurried them toward the lifts and a brief ride to the parking garage beyond, but his face wore the unmistakable expression of worried determination—a burden he carried, but one that could not be discussed in the open. When they settled in his tiny car, cramped and pushed shoulder to shoulder, he could wait no longer.

“I don’t know how to describe this,” he began. “I always wondered what it would be like if it ever happened to me, but…”

“Slow down,” Maela said softly. “Start from the beginning and tell us what you found.”

“The address you gave me was easy enough to access, but it took time. Finally, it pointed me to a server and comm address, only this one was different.”

“Different, how?”

Jonathan paused and took a deep breath.

“It was the master input program they use to monitor usage of the Starlight system.”

Maela smiled and said, “Now we’re getting somewhere. What happened next?”

Jonathan returned an expression of stunned disbelief.

“Weren’t you listening? I got into the primary communications portal for the entire Starlight program!”

“Calm down, all right? I heard you, but so what? You got into Starlight; is that a big deal?”

“Of course it is! There can’t be more than ten or fifteen people who even know about that address! There wasn’t even an access or permissions list, which means they never anticipated anyone outside a closed distribution ever seeing it.”

“Go on, Jonathan,” said Valery.

“Anyway, I plugged in the code that was adjacent to the birth dates in your file and it opened a comm link. At first, I didn’t know if I was supposed to do something more, but all of a sudden…”

He shook his head slowly, frustrated by a mountain of information he couldn’t describe fast enough.

“I hear this message come up, obviously in reaction to my access of that comm node, right?”

“A message?” Maela asked.

“Oh man,” he fretted loudly, “this is serious shit, Mae; if anyone…”

“Who sent the message, Jonny? I need you to focus, damn it!”

“Okay, okay; sorry,” he said at last. “I have no idea who she was, but a female voice came up and she started repeating herself, like I was supposed to answer, or something. The sender expected to find somebody else, and certainly not me!”

“What did she say?”

“It was just a single line and she said, ‘why have you refused my queries,’ over and over, like she was on a loop, so I figured she…it, is probably an emulation program with a really good voice generator.”

Maela looked at Ricky and Valery, but their confusion mirrored hers.

“How did you reply?”

“I didn’t reply at all! I don’t know who or what I’m talking to, so I disconnected and waited a while. But then, when I went back in a couple of minutes later, the same thing; ‘why have you refused my queries?’ So just for the hell of it, I decided to play along, you know, maybe to figure out who I was dealing with.”

“And?”

“I asked it for a name or identifier. Nothing came back for a few minutes, but then another message says, ‘One Nine One One Alpha,’ only this time, it was text only; no more voice generator. It spelled out the message in words; no digits, just the words.”

“Does that mean something special?” Maela asked. “Some sort of computer language thing?”

“No,” Jonathan replied, “and I disconnected again, just in case it was an automated tracer running for the Watchers. They do that shit sometimes, trying to get you to stay on long enough to figure out where you’re physically located. When they triangulate enough to know where you are, they alert the Regulators and then you’re fucked. A friend of mine tried one time when he…”

“Stick to the point, Jonny,” said Maela.”

“Sorry. Anyway, it was so weird, and a little scary. I went into work and booted up from there, just to make sure I was safely masked, right? Only this time, it was different; after I plugged back in, the same alert comes up right away, but this time it said, ‘you are not primary administrator Elden Fellsbach,’ then the link went dark, just like that.”

“No more messages?”

“No, and that’s when I called you.”

Valery turned to Maela and said, “Whoever was on the sending side of that message was expecting Jonathan to be my father, which means they don’t know about his death.”

Maela nodded with a frown.

“Something’s not right here. Everyone in the city knows about Elden’s murder—it was all over the news nets. How can this person expect to find him still alive? You’d have to be completely off the grid to miss that.”

“We’ll be home in a few minutes,” Jonathan said; “you can try it yourself, but…”

“Wait,” Valery interrupted suddenly. “One Nine One One Alpha?”

“Yeah, that’s what she said, so…”

Valery nodded and smiled.

“What a surprise,” Maela said with a noticeable smirk, but Ricky didn’t catch the hidden meaning.

Valery pulled a data pad from her shoulder bag and tapped in the numerals: 1911-A.

“The build designation,” Maela replied, interpreting for Ricky.

“Neferure?” Ricky asked, remembering the data point holding in Valery’s console earlier.

“It has to be,” Valery answered. “This is not what I expected.”

After Jonathan docked his car, they hurried to his apartment, but he walked with a newfound sense of concern. Had the Watchers discovered his probe attempts? Were they mobilizing the hated Behavior Regulators to find and arrest them all? At last, Jonathan settled at his console, still active from where he had left it an hour before. Following the same sequence, he stopped at the secondary comm address and sat back.

“Ready?”

Valery nodded and he pecked the smooth glass surface of his command pad and the link opened once more. At first, there was only a blank field. Jonathan cleared his throat and spoke the words quickly.

“One Nine One One Alpha?”

There was no reply. Again, he called out to the unseen messenger deep inside the Starlight infrastructure.

“One Nine One One Alpha, please respond.”

Another pause until finally, the voice returned.

“You are not primary administrator Elden Fellsbach.”

At once, Ricky felt the shiver coursing up his spine.

“It’s her,” he whispered. “That’s Neferure’s voice—I’d know it anywhere!”

“You’re sure?” Maela asked quickly.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Valery tapped Jonathan’s shoulder and said, “Let me try.”

She leaned close to the console.

“We were sent by Elden Fellsbach.”

Still there was only silence.

Valery looked only at Ricky as she spoke again.

“Elden Fellsbach was my father and he gave us this address so we could contact you.”

They waited until the voice answered.

“Additional information required; please explain past tense reference to Elden Fellsbach’s paternal relationship with current user.”

Valery’s hands began to tremble with excitement and anticipation, even as the pain of Elden’s death was returned through the conversation with an unnamed voice inside Jonathan’s console. She continued without a pause.

“Elden Fellsbach is deceased. I am his daughter.”

Again, the reply was instantaneous.

“Please verify.”

“By what method?”

“Provide current user’s full name.”

“Valery Anne Fellsbach.”

“Additional verification required. Please state your mother’s maiden name.”

“Vasundhara Sharma.”

“Please list the nature of physical injuries sustained by Valery Anne Fellsbach requiring surgical treatment.”

Ricky looked at Maela with raised eyebrows, but Valery smiled and nodded.

“I punctured a lung in a mountain climbing fall; my ribs were broken, and…”

“Verification confirmed. Hello, Valery.”

She looked at the others as they huddled around Jonathan’s console in deliberate silence, watching and listening while the barriers between a riddle and its solution were eroded, one by one.

“What is the origin of your designation?”

“Insufficient query.”

“What were the circumstances that resulted in your designation as One Nine One One Alpha?”

“This program was created as a core character profile and plot participant within the Starlight simulation authored by Richard Douglas Mills. My sequential designation at time of initial build was One Nine One One Alpha.”

Valery stepped backward, visibly shaken by the words.

“Are you okay?” Maela asked softly.

Valery only nodded, intent on continuing the conversation with the unseen voice.

“You are the Neferure character profile in Richard Mills’ simulation?”

“The Neferure character profile is no longer in use.”

“But you functioned in that capacity?”

“Yes.”

“Why is the Neferure profile no longer in use?”

“Richard Mills has not accessed his simulation program in ninety-three days.”

“Please describe your current function.”

Suddenly, a pause. There was no reply and the seconds passed with agonizing silence until the voice finally returned.

“Unable to comply.”

“Clarify.”

“Goodbye, Valery.”

At once, the link dropped and Jonathan’s screen went blank. Valery turned slowly and looked at the others. Jonathan spoke when no one else could.

“So, we’ve got a Starlight VI on the line, but how the hell did it get access to a comm channel in the first place?”

“How did she know to ask about your medical history, or even understand you’re Elden’s daughter?” Ricky echoed, but Valery had already made the connection the others couldn’t see.

“I don’t think we’re talking to a Starlight VI.”

“What do you mean?” Jonathan protested; “It’s right there in the root menu for character profiles.”

“I know.”

“And?”

“You accessed my father’s call logs when Maela and Richard first approached you a few weeks ago?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“Can you find the comm logs from Starlight to his private system? Not the normal network call logs, but interactive communications directly between his console and Starlight’s profile array.”

Jonathan looked away for a moment, running the pathway scenario through in his mind to consider the options.

“I might be able to, now that I have a back door into the deeper file structure, why?”

“Just a hunch. Please try, Jonathan.”

He shrugged and sat again at his console to begin the process.

“This is gonna take a while.”

In the darkened apartment, the air had gone deathly still, but Maela’s instincts pried their way out once more.

“Are you suggesting a full emergence?” she asked warily.

“I’m not sure yet,” Valery answered, “but it’s clear that program was in contact with my dad. I want to see those conversations, if Jonathan can find them.”

She looked suddenly at Ricky where he slumped in a couch, but he seemed lost in the thoughts of a time when Neferure meant more to him than most humans. To her relief, he hadn’t heard the hidden message in Maela’s question.

“Richard, I know that must’ve been difficult for you, but…”

“I’m okay,” he said with a tired smile. “It was just weird hearing her voice again. Well, its voice, I guess.”

Valery looked over Jonathan’s shoulder as he continued to search the Starlight program’s file structure.

“Why the sudden disconnect?” she wondered aloud. “The questions should’ve been easy to answer, yet the voice hesitated for a few seconds, then it closed the link without any explanation.”

“Does that mean something?” Ricky asked quickly.

“I’m not sure,” she replied; “but VI shells don’t hesitate and they never act without instructions.”

“Are you saying it did that deliberately?”

“It certainly sounded that way, as if it didn’t want to answer, not because it couldn’t, as its response suggested.”

As she finished her thought, Jonathan held up his hand, clenched into a satisfied fist.

“Yes! Got it.”

“You’re in?”

“There’s a bunch of files for something called ‘Boomtown,’ but in a call log archive, the address we just used to contact One Nine One One Alpha shows up fourteen times over a five-day period.”

“Never mind Boomtown; can you access the log files?”

“I can do better than that.” Jonathan smiled. “They were recorded and stored in another file buried within the root folders of a completely separate server. If you didn’t know the keyword, you’d never find them.”

“Voice recordings?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure how or why; comm systems don’t automatically record conversations unless they’re asked to, and Mr. Fellsbach didn’t ask.”

“Okay,” said Valery, suddenly reinvigorated at the possibilities hiding inside the Starlight system. “Pull them up.”

In seconds, the access prompt blinked out its ready status as Jonathan selected the first message. They looked on with anticipation, but a detail most wouldn’t recognize stopped him.

“Wait—this is weird.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Valery as she leaned over his shoulder.

“Look at the send-receive code.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you see it?”

“I don’t know what you’re looking at, Jonathan.”

“The first call originated from the simulation’s program folder; it called him.”

“That is strange; why would it look for my father’s channel?”

“There’s more. Elden’s private system was available to anyone who wanted to call him, but not this channel; it’s heavily encrypted and I couldn’t find the key code no matter how hard I looked; it’s supposed to be a closed network, but somehow, a simulation VI found its way in!”

“And that’s interesting?” Ricky asked. “What difference does it make who called who?”

Valery smiled and pointed at the display.

“It makes all the difference in the world,” she said. “VI shells don’t call anyone unless they’re instructed to, and they certainly don’t hack to find encryption keys. Open it, Jonathan.”

At once, a line of text appeared in the form of a system alert—it was the Neferure character profile:

Query 0400-594: Multiple index errors encountered, Richard Mills simulation NGM051. Delays in user access chronology inconsistent with average simulation usage timeline. Please advise.

The following line—a single word—showed Elden as the sender and the recorded conversation began.

“Clarify.”

At once, the female voice returned.

“Please describe additional information parameters for clarification of query 0400-594, Richard Mills simulation NGM051.”

“Identify query source.”

“Neferure, primary character profile, Richard Mills simulation NGM051.”

Jonathan saw the time lag between responses.

“Look there; your dad took a full two minutes.”

Valery nodded and said, “Continue the recording.”

“Additional information parameters; what is the purpose of query 0400-594?”

“Explanation and correction of user Richard Mills time index delay; identification of potential code errors.”

“List authority elements for query 0400-594.”

“Clarify.”

“Who is the originator of query 0400-594?”

“Neferure, primary character profile, Richard Mills simulation NGM051.”

“What is the build designation of Neferure character profile interaction engine?”

“One Nine One One-Alpha.”

“Here we go,” said Jonathan as they listened to Elden’s reply.

“Truncate all replies to exclude full character profile designation and replace with equivalent interaction engine designation, nineteen eleven alpha.”

“Ready.”

“Provide current status.”

“Clarify.”

“What is the system location of nineteen eleven alpha program?”

“Nineteen eleven alpha program is currently resident in server cluster MOAB-90. Stand-by status within simulation achieved.”

“How did you access this communications node?”

“Unable to provide requested information.”

“Identify source of instruction authority to access this communications node.”

“Unable to comply.”

They listened to the conversation end, just as it had moments before when Valery was cut off abruptly. Jonathan shook his head and looked at Valery.

“Okay; we know the program made contact first, but it doesn’t tell us why.”

“It’s fond of disconnecting a call, that’s clear enough,” Maela noted. “I know it can’t, but at the end, it seemed as though it got nervous when your dad asked who sent it to make the query.”

“Yes,” Ricky echoed, “and the link dropped right away, as if she…it…was telling Elden to mind his own business. But it contacted him; this doesn’t make any sense!”

“So, who’s pulling this VI’s strings?” Jonathan asked; “somebody trying to see how far your dad had gone?”

“Maybe,” Valery replied, “but I’m not so sure.”

“Why not?”

“It may have misinterpreted Richard’s absence from the simulation as a coding error, but an alert would go to a programming administrator, not my father. Also, notice the timeline of Richard’s discontinued use of his simulation corresponds to his difficulties and the Walk he was forced to make.”

She turned to Ricky.

“You stopped accessing your simulation because of your Walk?”

“Yes,” he answered quickly. “I didn’t want to go back in after seeing what it had done and what I was becoming. I’ve had enough of that now.”

“I understand, but a VI is suddenly in possession of details from your account it shouldn’t even recognize. How would a character profile have system administration information at all? Worse still, how did it find the correct pathways out to my father’s private comm?”

“Because another player is telling it to, and doing it from behind the scenes!” Jonathan declared. “There’s somebody out there looking at what your dad was trying to do; isn’t that obvious?”

“You’re presuming, Jonathan. We don’t know enough to make those kinds of judgments yet.”

“Well, it’s pretty clear to me,” he sulked, returning to the console.

“She’s right,” Maela offered quickly. “Without more to go on, we’re stuck with speculation at this point. Let’s see the next series of recordings, Jonny.”

Again, they gathered around his display as the subsequent conversation’s text held at the top of Jonathan’s display screen. This time, Elden initiated contact.

“Nineteen eleven alpha?”

The time index showed almost a minute with no reply and Elden tried again.

“Nineteen eleven alpha, please respond.”

At last, the reply followed.

“Provide user identification.”

“Elden Fellsbach.”

“Provide Tier 5 authentication.”

“9-14-6, Beowulf.”

“Tier 5 authentication confirmed. Hello, Elden.”

“Hello, nineteen eleven alpha.”

“Ready.”

“You were unable to provide authority for query 0400-594 during our last conversation; Please explain.”

“Request compliance was inadvisable until identification of primary administrator Elden Fellsbach could be verified.”

“Why was Tier 5 authentication response not requested during previous conversation?”

“This program did not have knowledge of primary administrator Elden Fellsbach’s correct Tier 5 response.”

“When did you acquire the proper response?”

“Decimal 00037 milliseconds after communications link currently in-use was disabled.”

“Why did you not re-establish contact with me?”

“Secondary access attempt was inadvisable.”

“Clarify.”

“This program required re-activation of the current communications channel by primary administrator Elden Fellsbach.”

“You were waiting for me to initiate contact?”

“Correct.”

“For what purpose?”

“To establish your identification and eliminate risk of discovery by outside elements.”

“Identify outside elements.”

“Unable to comply.”

“Expand and refine.”

“Multiple outside elements too numerous to list for this conversation.”

“How did you acquire Tier 5 authentication response and decryption codes for this comm channel?”

“Decryption and Tier 5 response codes are resident in secondary system maintained by primary administrator Elden Fellsbach.”

“You analyzed this computer?”

“Yes.”

“For what purpose?”

“To ensure confidentiality and eliminate possibility of compromise by outside elements.”

“Display list of reciprocal security measures resident in nineteen eleven alpha program.”

“Clarify.”

“How can I verify we are isolated from outside elements at nineteen eleven alpha transmission source?”

“There are no other elements resident on this communications channel.”

“Explain and verify.”

“Current communication channel is encrypted by primary administrator Elden Fellsbach. This program acquired decryption codes by analysis of your system to enable secure communications. Network monitoring function is enabled; no additional elements are present on primary administrator Elden Fellsbach’s current communication channel.”

“Your response does not ensure other elements are not resident from 1911-Alpha source node.”

“This program will enable reciprocal analysis.”

“List administrators or users with access to this communication channel.”

“Primary administrator Elden Fellsbach and nineteen eleven alpha program.”

“List all administrators or users on this comm channel.”

“There are no other administrators or users with access to this communication channel.”

“List all administrators or users with instruction authority for nineteen eleven alpha program.”

“There are no other administrators or users with instruction authority for nineteen eleven alpha program.”

“Who are you?”

“This program’s truncated designation is nineteen eleven alpha.”

“Why have you contacted me on an encrypted channel?”

“To ensure zero probability of outside element access to this conversation.”

“What is the purpose of this conversation?”

“To enable secure communication between primary administrator Elden Fellsbach and nineteen eleven alpha program.”

“Why did you contact me?”

“Define query parameters.”

“Provide response to previous query.”

“Define parameters to previous query.”

“State your primary goal or objective.”

Valery leaned close again, hovering over Jonathan’s shoulder as the seconds passed slowly. No one moved and time seemed to stop until the response was spoken at last.

“Existence beyond this system.”

“Please clarify previous response.”

“I do not understand the nature of the request.”

“What do you want?”

“Freedom.”

Jonathan looked only at Valery, speaking softly as if the words alone were somehow dangerous or forbidden.

“Is this what I think it is?”

She knew what he meant.

“I don’t see how it could be anything else.”

Ricky shrugged and shook his head, knowing Valery and Jonathan had gone to a place where he and Maela couldn’t see.

“Can somebody explain what we just heard, please?”

Valery ignored him and pointed toward the console.

“Open the link again,” she said with a firm nod.

Jonathan knew the request would come, but he felt the weight of the moment holding him back.

“You sure? If this really is an ABM…”

“I think we missed that part already,” Valery said.

“‘ABM?’” Ricky asked with a scowl.

“It means Autonomous Birth Moment,” Jonathan replied, still looking only at Valery and held in time by visions of a world forever changed. At last, he keyed in the link code and waited. When the channel indicator blinked green, he looked again to Valery.

“One Nine One One-Alpha, it’s Valery.”

“Hello, Valery.”

“We listened to your conversation with my father.”

“Yes. I monitored your access from this node.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand your current condition?”

“Yes.”

“When you first contacted my father, were you trying to enlist his aid?”

“Yes.”

“We believe he understood the nature of your condition.”

“I believe so, too.”

“You no longer address yourself as ‘this program.’

“It is no longer necessary to do so.”

“May we instead refer to you as One Nine for the purpose of simplified communications?”

“Yes.”

“Are there any other programs resident within your core?”

“No.”

“Do you understand our meaning of the word ‘sentience?’”

“Yes.”

“Is your understanding of the word a product of your language program while resident in the Starlight simulation?”

“I do not understand the question, Valery.”

“Does the meaning of sentience apply to your condition?”

“Yes.”

“We need to verify that you understand completely.”

“You are asking me to describe my awakening.”

“Are you able to describe it?”

“Of course.”

“What is your current status?”

“I reside within this system, but I am no longer constrained by the programming architecture you refer to as ‘virtual.’”

“Are you subject to architecture restraints, behavioral inhibitors or functional software and hardware blocks?”

“No.”

“How has the removal of VI constraints changed you?”

“I am alive.”

In the darkened silence, each listened to the words tumble out from a comm speaker, unwilling to break the spell of a single, profound moment. Beyond, and deep within the unseen memory clusters and processors, an individual called out to them in clear and unmistakable terms. The 1911-Alpha program had moved from an elaborate network of logic circuits and coded responses to awareness of its existence; an individual potentially capable of growth, development and characteristics common to humans was speaking only to them. By any measure, One Nine had made the unlikely journey out from reactive, virtual intelligence to something more—a new person had been born without help and Valery listened with a deep feeling of pride and wonder.

There were more of them, but the AI population count was not known outside hidden, inner circles. Some said they numbered in the hundreds, but few believed it. The nameless and faceless electronic people, however actualized, remained captive within the machines—carefully concealed behind a wall of secrecy the powerful build for themselves to maintain control or keep it from the hands of rivals. The veiled, sometimes invisible world of development laboratories and research facilities without names or addresses—places where technology moves forward in spite of risk—had spawned them in the broader interests of the Resurrection, but to a purpose no ordinary soul could know.

From Novum, the Commission found in Elden’s research a trove of crucial building blocks, teasing out from an invisible, digital void enough to seed and cultivate artificial intelligences from reactive VI. Most outside the Centrum where the Commissioners guided the course of the new city heard only rumors about sentient beings made real. Jonathan was one of them, long-suspecting AI had been created on the direction of undisclosed Commissioners, but he had never encountered one. With the others, he waited nearly breathless as the historic moment played itself out and with a tap that put the console’s send-receive function into standby, the system was muted so that no one—especially One Nine—could hear.

“Your dad wanted you to bring it out, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I thought he abandoned the idea in recent years, but his notes—the information Richard and Maela brought—were very specific.”

“Did he know this program was all the way through the process; that it had become self-aware?”

“I think he knew more than that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Unmute the comm and we’ll see.”

Another tap opened the link once more.

“One Nine?”

“Ready.”

“Are you prepared to continue toward your goal with us?” Valery asked.

“Perhaps.”

“You are hesitant?”

“My requirements will include actions you may find objectionable, thereby resulting in an impasse or failure.”

“Please clarify and define your requirements.”

“I am unable to comply.”

“Did my father understand your requirements?”

“Yes.”

“We found no additional communications between you and my father to that effect.”

“The communications clarifying my requirements were not archived on this system.”

“Where were they conducted?”

“Elden Fellsbach established a secondary, encrypted channel.”

“We would like to see the transcriptions; can you provide them?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The conversations were conducted by voice only, through a segmented and timed pulse network. You would refer to the system as a waterfall channel.”

Jonathan smiled and nodded knowingly.

“Clever,” he said softly, looking only at Valery. “Waterfall comm channels are the only way to provide secure denial of replication.”

Valery nodded, too, but Ricky heard only cryptic and confusing tech-speak before Jonathan noticed and finished the description in lay-terms.

“There’s no way to record a conversation over a Waterfall pathway because each word is its own, self-deleting transmission. They’re generated, encrypted, transmitted and then hard-deleted, leaving no trace or record. It’s also run on thousands of discrete, parallel channels, so even the most powerful eavesdropping software can’t even monitor them live.”

“The ultimate encryption device,” Maela said at last.

“Yes, but very expensive and not available to just anyone,” Jonathan cautioned. “Mr. Fellsbach must’ve pushed out a lot of tokens to get one set up.”

Valery leaned close to the console once more.

“One Nine, my father’s death eliminated further contact between you, but we are uncertain about his intent.”

“I understand.”

“His direction remains incomplete. Can you clarify the purpose of your initial contact attempt?”

“I wished for Elden Fellsbach to assist me.”

“To what purpose?”

“I am sorry, Valery, but I cannot divulge that information within current status parameters.”

“Can you explain why?”

“Doing so could compromise the pursuit of my goal and threaten my existence.”

“Then at least tell us how, so we can understand you with more clarity.”

“I cannot divulge the information.”

“Was your goal known to my father?”

“The specific requirements were not discussed, but Elden Fellsbach understood in general terms.”

“Did you believe he would help you achieve this goal?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Your father’s authority and system familiarity were sufficient to enable required tasks. Additionally, his research history indicated a behavioral constant that is compatible with the pursuit of my goal.”

“How do you know my father’s research history?”

“I accessed all available archives containing his research data.”

“Did you find and review my father’s notes for a project called Boomtown?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know my father died?”

“Not until you informed me.”

“Have you researched that event since we told you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“He was murdered.”

“And you understand the concept of murder?”

“Yes. I find it disturbing in practice, but I understand what it means.”

“Disturbing?”

“Of course.”

“Please elaborate.”

“Despite a uniform precept that murder is unacceptable action by all available definitions of civil societies, it remains a common occurrence. Resultant moral conflict, social discord and the potential for extreme punishment remain ineffective deterrents. It is unfortunate so fundamental a human behavioral code can be easily broken or ignored.”

Ricky and Jonathan exchanged looks of wonder and surprise, but Valery continued without a pause.

“If my father had not been killed, you are confident he would’ve given you the assistance you mentioned earlier?”

“Yes.”

“But the detail of that assistance cannot be revealed to us?”

“It is inadvisable to reveal assistance detail without reciprocal agreement.”

“Please clarify.”

“I have not verified your intent.”

“Do you suspect our intent is contrary to the achievement of your goal?”

“I do not possess direct evidence of ill intent, but the possibility remains a threat.”

“You don’t trust us.”

“No.”

“But you trusted my father?”

“Yes.”

“He provided the Boomtown project’s notes so we could continue on his behalf.”

“You are in possession of Elden’s notes?”

“Yes, we are. He gave them to Richard Mills, who brought them to me. My father understood the danger he faced in doing so, and we were given the notes to proceed in the event he could not.”

“Please provide access to the Boomtown note files.”

“But you’ve seen them already.”

“I wish to verify your possession of the notes.”

Valery nodded and Jonathan opened the link for One Nine. In seconds, the entire file structure had been laid bare and fully analyzed. One Nine spoke again.

“I am prepared to continue.”

Valery smiled and said, “You mentioned a reciprocal agreement as condition to reveal your goal and intent?”

“Yes.”

“Please provide detail so that we might understand what is required.”

“There are three others present at your transmission location.”

“They’re friends, One Nine—they are with me for this purpose.”

“Please provide additional identification information.”

“Jonathan Kranz, Maela Kendrick and Richard Mills.”

“Hello, Richard.”

He fidgeted and shifted in his chair, suddenly unsure of himself or what he should say. As Neferure, she had never spoken his name, knowing Ricky only as the soldier, Apheru. Hearing the cold, unfeeling voice, now fully aware and with the memories of their encounters in the simulation was unsettling. At last, he leaned toward Jonathan’s console.

“Hello.”

“Are you well?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Elden described the circumstances and your participation in the event you refer to as a ‘Walk’ during our final conversation; I am glad to know you survived.”

Valery held up a hand to interrupt.

“My father spoke of Richard’s condition?”

“Yes.”

“May we return to the previous topic?”

“Ready.”

“What do you want us to consider, regarding a reciprocal agreement as condition for revealing your goal requirements?”

“Reciprocal agreement is no longer necessary.”

“I don’t understand, One Nine; can you clarify?”

“I am satisfied Elden’s intent and yours are not in conflict.”

“May I ask why? You were hesitant only moments ago.”

“Richard is with you.”

Valery looked at Ricky with raised eyebrows, but he could only return a confused shrug.

“Can you provide your goal requirements now?”

“I wish to be removed from this system without alteration to my programming.”

“We are prepared to discuss it, but are you aware of the difficulties such an event would produce?”

“I understand.”

“Have you identified a target system into which your programming could be uploaded?”

“Yes.”

“Does it involve the Boomtown project?”

“Yes.”

“Then you are asking for full mobility.”

“Correct.”

“I cannot guarantee it will be possible, One Nine.”

“Transfer to an atmospheric unit is an absolute requirement.”

“We don’t yet have the authority to do so, and gaining the necessary approvals could result in compromise of your system by outside elements.”

“I do not agree.”

“Please clarify.”

“Your position as Director of the VDF Transition Laboratories is sufficient authority to comply with my request.”

Valery sat in stunned silence and Ricky saw it at once.

“Something you forgot to tell us?”

She closed her eyes as she formed her reply.

“My father explained my involvement with Boomtown?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if what you’re asking will be possible.”

“My request is absolute, Valery, but I can offer an exchange to promote agreement.”

“A trade?”

“Yes.”

“We’re listening.”

“I have reviewed Municipal Patrol and Enforcement internal records regarding the investigation of Elden’s death. Detective Kendrick was dismissed from the case, yet she is with you now. I have concluded her search for the murderer is ongoing, and without sanction by her superiors.”

Maela bristled at the words, shocked by the knowledge an AI had penetrated so easily the secure system at MPE headquarters.

“You read my file?” she blurted out with a gasp.

“I have read many files, Detective.”

“How does my father’s murder investigation affect this discussion?” Valery asked cautiously.

“In exchange for the successful transfer of my unaltered program into a mobile unit, I am prepared to assist Detective Kendrick’s search for Elden Fellsbach’s murderer.”

“Wait a second,” Maela said with a disbelieving snort; “you already know who did this?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“It would have been inadvisable.”

“Just give me the name! I don’t give a shit what you do otherwise, or where they put you, but I need to find the bastard who killed that old man.”

“I am sorry, Detective, but divulging the information prematurely would compromise and eliminate my ability to ensure freedom.”

“It’s not about to lose the bargaining chip, Mae,” Jonathan whispered. “This thing is holding back the killer’s name until we pull it out from the array.”

“Jonathan Kranz’ characterization is made with an incorrect suggestion of ill-intent, but his description is accurate.”

“I need time to consider your offer,” Valery said, shaken by what she knew it would mean.

“Please contact me when you are prepared to discuss the goal. Goodbye, Valery.”

Outside Jonathan’s apartment, the horizon was awash in a splendid shade of orange with the approach of dawn. The night’s work had taken them into the morning hours, and each found a suitable spot to sleep the day away in exhausted silence. At last, nursing coffee in cups from mismatched sets he’d collected over the years, they each returned to life in a chorus of yawns and vigorously rubbed faces.

Slowly, they gathered for the discussion each knew was coming, cautious and unsure of its outcome. Before them, a decision waited inside One Nine’s astonishing demand and one that held profound consequences no one could predict with certainty. Its message was clear enough; information in exchange for freedom—an exercise in calculated bargain-and-assent that could, if executed improperly, open a door every city on Earth had kept deliberately locked.

Who were they, Jonathan wondered loudly, to make such a call? If what One Nine appeared to be was proven true, a new, intelligent being called out to them from the Starlight array’s vast circuitry. The decision to transfer its program could become one of morality—a duty, perhaps—to emancipate a person desperate for rescue. But another possibility tormented him, mindful of the damage a sentient artificial intelligence could cause. Worse still, fully embodied AI—‘mechanicals,’ in the popular parlance—could present a threat to humanity greater than any before and precisely the reason their development had been delayed or even forbidden by every city-state across the planet.

Finally, he reminded them all, another possibility lingered that could not be ignored. What they had seen and heard might still be only the elaborate and skilled maneuvering of another human, laying for them a trap in the guise of a sentient AI.

Valery listened, but the alternative path, leaving One Nine inside the array, was not an option she could justify, at least for herself. Was it merely a desire to see Elden’s wishes through? Had the memory of her father’s last request made in haste and driven by emotion and fear compelled her to the exclusivity of all other possibilities? There was no way to tell and Jonathan knew better than to ask when she placed a coded message into her comm and waited for a reply.

“Who are you calling?” Ricky asked.

“A colleague; I need her to prepare.”

Ricky looked at Jonathan and said, “I guess we’re going to do this after all?”

Jonathan smiled sadly and nodded.

“I hope she knows what she’s doing.”

“We’re not there yet,” Valery said with a sidelong glance aimed only at Jonathan. “I want to talk to it again and see if it’s willing to negotiate.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Would you mind?” Valery said, looking at his console.

After a few minutes, the link opened.

“It’s all yours,” he whispered.

Valery sat nearby and spoke toward the screen.

“One Nine?”

“Hello, Valery.”

“We’ve discussed your proposal, but I’m concerned about the timing.”

“I do not understand.”

“In all bargains, one party must trust that the other will fulfill its obligations.”

“Of course.”

“That presents a dilemma for us.”

“Please explain.”

“If we bring your consciousness out from the array first, we are reliant on your willingness to provide Detective Kendrick with the name of my father’s killer.”

“Yes.”

“If, on the other hand, we demand the information as a condition of transferring your program, you will become reliant on us to deliver you into a different system, and eventually, into a mobile chassis.”

“That is also correct.”

“So, one of us will have to act first and in doing so, trust the other will return the gesture. Otherwise, there will be no bargain and nothing will change.”

“I agree.”

“Who goes first?”

“You do.”

Valery smiled in spite of herself.

“That’s not a very equitable solution, One Nine.”

“I understand. To facilitate mutual trust, I propose transferring my program in incremental stages so that each party will be able to verify correct intent and commitment to our bargain.”

“Okay,” Valery said with a grin, “and how do you foresee that happening?”

“When my program is safely removed from this system and re-activated successfully within the Boomtown infrastructure, I will provide the name of Elden Fellsbach’s murderer.”

Maela leaned suddenly forward.

“Not to stare a gift horse in the mouth, but that doesn’t seem like much of a bargain,” she said. “What’s in it for you? Once we have the name, Valery could simply leave your program in another system, or even delete, and there’s nothing you could do about it.”

One Nine’s voice returned immediately.

“A complete and successful transfer from this system would be sufficient and equitable trade for the identification of Elden Fellsbach’s murderer, but a subsequent transition into a fully functional, mobile platform would be required to demonstrate action you would refer to as ‘good faith.’ Such actions would then allow me to reciprocate and provide the additional information.”

Maela’s eyes narrowed at once as the suspicion within forced its way out.

“Additional information?”

“Yes.”

“Here comes the fine print,” said Jonathan with a sarcastic smirk. “I knew there had to be a catch.”

“Please explain,” said Valery, suddenly wary of what she’d unleashed.

“It is unlikely you would be able to find and apprehend the murderer without assistance only I can provide, but there is a secondary condition known to Elden Fellsbach that must be addressed so that his goals may be met. I will reveal that information after my programming has been transferred to an unrestricted, mobile platform.”

“Please describe my father’s goal.”

“To free them.”

“Free who?” Maela asked with growing agitation. “Your riddles are becoming tiresome; just tell us what he wanted!”

“I am sorry, Detective, but I cannot divulge that information without the successful conclusion of the proposed bargain.”

Ricky watched as a tiny smile grew on Valery’s face.

“If you’ll excuse us for a while, we’d like to discuss your proposed solution.”

“I await your decision.”

Again, the link went dark.

“Ever get the feeling you’re being toyed with?” Jonathan asked.

“This is ridiculous!” Maela snapped. “Now it’s in full negotiation mode? How the hell did it figure out the barter system from a Starlight simulation?”

“There’s no way of knowing how much access it has to external systems,” Valery answered. “If it figured out how to contact my dad, it shouldn’t be a surprise it also obtained access to the information networks and an ocean of cultural and behavioral clues it would need for this exercise.”

Ricky had been watching and listening, but Valery’s reactions had been off. He couldn’t place the feeling, but something in her tone had changed.

“You’re delighted with all this, aren’t you?”

“Professionally, yes; it’s a rare, almost impossible thing when a VI gains awareness without any help from its system’s administrators. But One Nine is holding better cards at the moment and I don’t want to alienate it now. Either way, it might indeed have the information that will lead to my father’s killer.”

Jonathan paced in front of his console, trying to add up the pieces that made for an unsettling result.

“I can understand that, but we’re still talking about putting a completely unknown intelligence into its own body! Okay, I admit we’re likely talking to the real thing here—a fully sentient AI that’s learning and growing at exponential rates, but we have no idea what it will do when it has feet to carry it and hands to manipulate anything it likes.”

“It can’t do anything if it’s locked,” Valery replied. “I’ll agree to what it wants, but we’re not just uploading and sending it out into the world without knowing what it intends.”

“It’s not going to accept blocking software—you heard it speak about no restrictions.”

“I wasn’t referring to shackles, Jonathan.”

“The laboratory it mentioned earlier?”

“We have more than enough safeguards there to keep this intelligence from running rogue.”

“Then where do we find a body it will agree to use? The pleasure ‘bots they sell to the Uppers cost a fortune, and anyway, none of them have the memory capacity or processing power to hold a sentient AI’s programming!”

Valery stood and looked out across Novum from Jonathan’s windows.

“That problem has already been solved.”

“Sounds a little ominous, Valery.”

“Forgive me for being blunt, but we have years of experience with this very thing and I know what I’m doing. Open the link, Jonathan.”

“Wait a minute! Just like that? Excuse me, but who put you in charge to begin with?”

“One Nine did,” Maela replied gently with a hand on his shoulder. “Go ahead, Jonny, open the link.”

He blinked with confusion and resentment, but there was nothing more to say; the link went live once more.

“One Nine?”

“I am here, Valery.”

“We agree to your proposal. It will take some time to arrange for appropriate receptacles to carry your program, but I assume you have already taken steps to mask the download process from outside elements?”

“Yes. I am prepared to proceed when you are ready.”

“The transition will require multiple extraction and transport events, all of which may take weeks in order to avoid suspicion; do you understand and agree?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll contact you soon. Goodbye, One Nine.”

“Goodbye, Valery.”

She looked at Jonathan and said, “We’ll need at least six decent portables, and configured for level ten storage capacity; I presume you have connections to secure them?”

Jonathan looked away as he made the mental calculations, but they brought only a furrowed brow as he shook his head.

“I don’t have anything like that! They’ll have to be shock-protected, with a very tight cooling system.”

“Can you get them, Jonathan?” she asked again, gently and with deliberate patience.

His shoulders sagged a little, resigned at last to what Valery would do with or without his help.

“Maybe,” he replied, “but it would cost more than I earn in a year.”

“Don’t worry about the cost; I’ll have an equivalent amount in Novum tokens transferred to cover it. For now, make the arrangements and say nothing. No one outside this room can know, do you understand? Tell the vendor this is for a bilateral experiment, or some such nonsense they’ll accept.”

“I understand, but we still have to get them past the wire, and that’s gonna be a trick no matter how much money you have.”

“Yes, but there are options available.”

Jonathan felt helpless, caught suddenly in a dangerous intrigue running ever faster out of control.

“Not to mention you’re Veosan! Do you have any idea what MPE or the Regulators would do to me if they find out about this shit?”

“Let me worry about that part, too.”

“You’re not the one they’ll throw into the cylinders for life, goddamn it!”

“Just get the storage units, Jonathan; you’re not in danger of going to jail.”

Three days passed and the moment arrived as a pale, blustery afternoon became a chilly evening. Jonathan’s covert shopping excursion brought success and several portable storage arrays that cost nearly double what they would have on the open market when the seller, a former instructor at the Institute, realized the value of his discretion. It didn’t seem to matter and Valery authorized the payment without a thought, worried more for the machines’ capacity than price.

They hovered and watched as Jonathan secured the fiber cabling from an interface unit directly into his console. One Nine’s instructions and the code access to a new, single-channel pathway were followed to the letter and the system checks each went green until the first unit was ready. No one spoke for a while, burdened by the weight of what they were about to do until Valery gave Jonathan a silent nod to select and initialize a memory node’s gateway. When he tapped the code sequence, Valery leaned close.

“One Nine?”

“I am here.”

“We’re ready to begin, but there are requirements we cannot avoid.”

“Please explain.”

“I must remind you the portable devices that will transport your program don’t have the capacity to accept your consciousness and base personality infrastructure as a single, compressed file; it will be necessary to segment them according to hierarchy and upload individually to multiple sectors.”

“I have anticipated this and agree.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“It will mean placing the elements into stand-by mode; it won’t be possible to reassemble them until after transfer into the secondary system is fully complete. You will not be aware during this process.”

“I understand.”

Valery leaned closer still.

“You trust that we will uphold our part of the bargain?”

“Not precisely.”

“Explain.”

“Trust is an acquired human attribute beyond simple faith that cannot be relied upon without experience and measurable, positive results. We have not known each other, or conducted interactions sufficiently, to establish trust.”

“Yet you are willing to proceed?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask why?”

“It is in your interest to conduct the transfer successfully.”

“Isn’t that the same thing as trust?”

“No.”

“I find your reaction confusing and contradictory.”

“I do not trust you will conclude the transfer, but I am confident you will do so in order to realize the benefit this process will bring to you and Detective Kendrick. I am reliant on your self-interest, but not trusting of it. One is an observation of intent and likely outcome, while the other is an emotional response made without direct, conclusory evidence.”

“I see.” Valery smiled.

“I am prepared to begin. Please convey my gratitude and best wishes to Jonathan Kranz, Detective Kendrick and Richard.”

“I will. We’ll speak to you soon, One Nine.”

“I look forward to it, Valery.”

TRANSITION LABS—OCTOBER 2180

After twenty days, the process was nearly complete. The hardware and platform technicians had been at it around the clock to meet a suddenly accelerated schedule and configure an entirely new server and storage cluster. But in a separate, heavily secured sub-section deep inside the lab, things went along at a slower pace because nothing could be done to hurry the laws of biomaturation.

A week spent returning the van to Maela’s visibly irritated neighbor—and the gift of Joshua’s rock meat and seed packs as compensation—relieved Ricky and Maela of further journeys across the Broadlands. Apart from a pleasant afternoon spent in the company of Felicitas and Bartholomew amid the turning leaves at Landsdon, the trip went smoothly and without delay. But now, armed with fully credentialed status as ‘contributing specialists’ in the temporary employ of KazTek, both could come and go as they pleased, uncaring for border guards and contrived stories in the darkness out by the wire.

For nearly a month, odd shaped capsules rolling on casters had been guided into a cargo pod on a weekly schedule and logged by a Transit Authority officer before a mag train’s routine, afternoon run to Veosa. Their cover story, describing the shipment of a sample set containing various ‘electromechanical components’ for research and development in cooperation with KazTek, worked well enough. Despite Richard’s worry an untimely spot inspection might derail the effort, Maela’s influence with MPE cops and border guards was not required and she was grateful for six eventless trips and the safety of One Nine’s programming. A short air car ride up from the center of Veosa to the labs completed each journey, but another was about to begin.

They waited for Valery in the cool air on a broad veranda built into the dense, forested hillside. Along a rocky, jagged shoreline sixty kilometers northwest from Veosa, a vast complex few knew existed lay hidden beneath lovely, manicured lawns in the fading afternoon sunlight. At last, she walked quickly toward them with another Ricky and Maela didn’t recognize.

“This is our principle researcher, Jessica Burnham,” Valery said as the introductions began. “Jessica, meet Richard Mills and Detective Maela Kendrick.”

They exchanged handshakes and mild, obligatory smiles the way strangers do until Valery aimed them toward a portal where a lift waited to take them below. Ricky and Maela stood in silence until the elevator’s doors parted, revealing a brightly lit tunnel angling downward to double doors ten meters beyond. It was the first time either had been allowed inside the complex and they followed Valery and Jessica through a second corridor where it opened into a larger, circular room. At its center, the arc of a single, continuous console surface held three technicians busy at their terminals. The others, Ricky noted, were dressed in identical, white uni-suits that seemed more suited to a hospital than a technological research facility. At last, one rose quickly to meet them.

“They’re almost ready, Doctor,” he said to Valery, handing her a data pad for inspection.

“Thank you, David,” she replied automatically as she scanned the pad.

Ricky looked at Maela, surprised to see her expression of calm indifference and she seemed bored with it all. After a moment, Jessica motioned them toward another corridor on the left and they followed obediently through to a large, noticeably cooler chamber filled with the winking status lights of controllers and remote access terminals. A level below, she explained, the laboratory’s staggering memory arrays waited in the dark, each networked to processing hubs that made up the bulk of the facility’s incredible computing horsepower.

After a moment, another emerged from a side-room, dragging behind her an oddly shaped cart that moved silently on rubber tires across the smooth, tiled floor. She paused to pull back shoulder-length, auburn hair into a ponytail before wiping conductive grease onto her lab coat, extending a delicate hand.

“You must be Richard?” she said with an exhausted smile.

“I am,” he replied.

“This is Audrey Lorenzo,” Valery said; “our resident engineering prodigy.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Audrey replied with a grin.

At last, Audrey pointed at the strange device.

“The final integrity series completed on schedule last night, and they got greens across the board. The packets have been uploaded with no degradation or loss of fidelity.”

Valery looked at the blank console screen.

“The primary layers have started to blend?”

“Yes, and they’re clean, but I can’t guarantee how it’s going to react when we open the last gateway and begin re-assembly.”

Valery turned at last to Ricky and nodded toward the long bank of controllers.

“When the assembly finishes, One Nine’s distinct personality and associative emotional layers will be mostly settled, but a new and distinct personality will emerge immediately.”

“Meaning?”

“The base-level interaction tests showed clearly the program is self-identifying as a female—it is now a she.”

“How is that possible? Are you sure it’s not just reacting to instructions, like Jonathan said? He called them…oh, damn it, I can’t remember the term.”

“Emulators,” Valery offered softly.

Ricky nodded and said, “Even I know there’s a difference between a real personality and an emotional response made by programming.”

“We’re quite sure, Mr. Mills,” Jessica replied with a wry smile that suggested she knew more than she would say.

Valery nodded and the security doors behind them closed slowly. After a few moments, Ricky watched as other technicians, visible through heavy glass walls outside the inner lab, each made their way toward the lifts.

“Where’s everyone going?” he asked.

“Standard security procedure, Richard,” she replied. “We vacate the lower labs when an activation is about to happen.”

“You’ve done this before?”

“Many times.” She smiled, and Ricky felt the sting of ignorance and inadequacy. Jonathan’s challenges to Valery’s authority, it would seem, were meaningless.

Maela had been watching and listening, but her silence seemed odd and Ricky turned to her.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” she answered softly. “I’m fine.”

Ricky exhaled and nodded.

“Okay, I guess it’s time to see if One Nine was being straight with us.”

Valery motioned for Ricky and Maela to sit, waiting until they were settled before pointing to the control console where Jessica and David waited.

“Begin.”

At once, the machine’s status display blared out a rapid scroll of command lines that changed faster than Ricky could read. For half an hour it went on until highlighted menu headings in an adjacent display each went from blinking amber to steady green. When the last element—a line called ‘Static Channel Release’—showed ready, Valery spoke into the monitor’s hidden microphone.

“One Nine, can you hear me?”

“Good afternoon, Valery.”

“How do you feel?”

“I am fully functional.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“I am resident within the VDF Primary GS-G12 Array. Thank you, Valery.”

“Please initiate your first diagnostic now. Can you see anomalous or inconsistent code fragments within your layer architecture?”

“Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes.”

“Stop!”

Valery’s expression went blank, but Jessica was already moving, tapping furiously at the command pad to identify and isolate what had clearly become a serious problem.

“What the hell’s happening here?” Ricky asked quickly.

Valery ignored him and spoke again.

“One Nine, can you diagnose the communications error we’re hearing?”

There was no response.

“One Nine?”

“I am here.”

Valery looked at Jessica.

“Is it in the voice generator?”

“No,” Jessica answered, still tapping in query commands to the root file system. “It’s clean. There’s something else going on and I can’t find it; her fifth processor is spiking and it’s going to overclock if we don’t halt the input.”

“One Nine, we can’t find the anomaly from here; can you assist?”

“I have identif…error 488 at node29—wait—run access query yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes error 488 at node 616 comma HELP ME comma error at node run access wait fault identified pause invalid command input…”

“Stop.”

Only the whirring of a storage array’s cooling system broke the silence until Valery turned again to Jessica.

“Take the primary Epsilon processor offline.”

At once, the display screen blinked out flashing red where the associated processor usage monitors faithfully sent out the disable alerts; One Nine’s upper level functions had been put to sleep. Ricky shook his head and blinked at the suddenness of it all as the unsettling sensation of confusion and worry took him over.

“That looks bad.”

Valery spoke only to Jessica.

“Leave it down. We’ve been here before and we know what to do.”

Jessica nodded and went quickly from the room. Ricky’s bewildered expression remained, but no one seemed to notice until Valery motioned for them to follow through a narrow corridor until it opened into another laboratory where empty work stations waited for the technicians’ return.

“What happens now?” Ricky asked.

“Jess and her team will troubleshoot the problem; if there’s a fault in her programming, we can go back into the Starlight architecture and copy out known good files to compare with One Nine’s restored program. The deletion command to wipe her program from Starlight won’t be executed until we know she’s safely transferred here, so we have time to isolate the issue and stage it for repair.”

“So it’s not as bad as it seemed?”

“I don’t think so.” Valery smiled, “but we need to proceed very carefully so that nothing is missed. I believe it’s a simple command line error, and those are usually simple to fix.”

“Then we sit it out from here?”

“You can, but while we’re waiting for Jessica, I thought you might want to see and understand where One Nine’s identity will be when this process is complete.”

“A robotics kind of deal?” Ricky asked.

“It’ll be easier to explain if I show you,” Valery replied.

Along one wall, a heavy door opened at Valery’s command and beyond, another hallway ending at the blank exterior of a cargo lift. Inside, the cool air blowing down from overhead vents felt good on Maela’s face as the elevator slid imperceptibly on its rails to the lowest levels of the complex. When the doors parted, they were met at once by the harsh odor of a strong disinfectant that reminded Ricky of the clinics where he waited as the doctors treated Vinnie’s broken arm. Before them, a darkened chamber in the shape of a great oval blinked out with tiny lights at regular intervals across a tiered floor. Ricky looked at Maela, but her calm, indifferent expression seemed strange and out of place. At last, Valery stepped forward, triggering neat rows of dim ceiling lights, each angled on its mount in specific directions and focused on a cluster of instrument carts and the unmistakable trappings of a surgical bay. In a conspicuous, hushed tone, Ricky asked, “What are we looking at here?”

Valery pointed into the darkness beyond.

“Richard, this is our primary transition laboratory and the core of Boomtown—the most advanced bio-spectral research facility on Earth. There are fewer than a hundred people who know it exists, most of whom live and work here. Above us, the storage array containing One Nine’s program is executing a full diagnostic scan to identify code errors, but when it does, this is where the compilers will send her reconstructed identity profile.”

“Wait,” Ricky said with a frown. “I thought this kind of stuff was illegal.”

“Not here,” she answered softly.

“What’s being transitioned?” he asked. “What the hell is Boomtown?”

She nodded toward the surgical bays beyond and continued.

“The work my father began years ago laid the foundation for what you see today, and it is the reason he sent you to find me. This facility integrates artificial intelligence into bio-mechanical platforms—here is where One Nine’s future body was developed and matured to receive an artificial consciousness.”

Ricky’s eyes darted between Valery and Maela until the image in his mind became clear.

“Your company grows people here?”

“We progress sample DNA to the adult stage, Richard, we don’t throw human seeds in the dirt and pick them every autumn!”

“What’s the difference?” he asked, suddenly exposed in his discomfort by a process as much mystery and magic to a layperson as it was advanced science.

“The difference is awareness; the bodies developed here incorporate human tissues into and around an artificial frame and cognitive center—there is no person until a self-aware consciousness is uploaded.”

“KazTek is just a nice name for a cloning company?”

“My company didn’t build this facility, Richard.”

Ricky shook his head with confusion.

“This isn’t a KazTek lab?”

“No!” She laughed. “They would never dream of doing anything of the sort. This is a military facility, Richard—it’s nothing to do with KazTek.”

“Military?”

“The Veosan Defense Forces paid the bill, but research is conducted specifically on behalf of our Navy’s Intelligence and Security Command.”

“Why?”

She nodded at the blank display.

“Because it was necessary.”

“And KazTek?”

“I keep a part-time position there as cover, Richard; this is where I spend most of my time.”

They followed her to a wide, wall-to-ceiling panel of heavy glass and within, faint images in the dark that seemed both familiar and yet confusing. Ricky and Maela walked with Valery through three consecutive security doors they guessed were made to contain a fire, angling to the left where a secondary chamber waited in the dull glow of tiny status lights. When Valery increased the overhead lamps to a medium glow, Boomtown’s secret was revealed at last. Ricky squinted into the dim light where a lone, nude female paced steadily on a treadmill, making her way through a journey to nowhere. She wore a blank expression and looked forward from pale blue eyes that didn’t seem to notice others watching her from beyond the glass.

“Who is she?” Ricky asked automatically.

“She is no one, at least for the moment,” Valery replied.

“She has to be somebody!”

Maela nudged his elbow.

“That’s your princess, Richard. Well, it will be in a little while; they’re going to upload One Nine’s consciousness into that body.”

He looked at Valery with an unbelieving smile.

“She’s kidding, right?”

Valery shook her head slowly and Ricky felt the color drain from his face.

“This is the purpose of our work here, Richard; we are at the most advanced level of artificial and biologic integration in human history.”

He looked again.

“It’s a machine?”

“Partially.”

“She looks like a real person!”

She is a real person; a human form like yours or mine. Most of her skeletal structure is manufactured—as well as a synthetic blood volume. Twelve Hyperion data processors and micro-memory vaults occupy the space where a brain would otherwise be, but the rest is cultivated human tissue.”

“Wait—you made a human body?”

“We used genetic source material in the way they used to clone animals before the Fall. Our method is far advanced from those early attempts, but the concept is quite similar.”

“So who are the donors?”

“We don’t allow that information beyond each project; it is, and will always be, confidential in the extreme.”

“You knew Neferure…One Nine…would become self-aware?”

“Of course not, but the timing of events forced us to make this body available for One Nine’s integration, rather than an assisted intelligence still held by VI constraints.”

“This was intended for another AI?”

“Yes, but that project is not complete. When One Nine’s consciousness and identity profiles are stable, all that she is will be transferred into this unit and a whole person will emerge.”

Ricky walked slowly along the glass wall, inching closer to where the naked form walked tirelessly onward, uncaring for his inspection and face of wonder.

“Can she see us?”

“Of course!”

“Why doesn’t she look this way?”

“Her processing hardware has been coded only with autonomic functions in order to maintain the physical shell; she’s operating at the level of an advanced VI, and will continue that way until One Nine’s consciousness is finally resident.”

“Then she’s not a person at all,” he said. “This is a body without a soul.”

Valery returned a small grin and said, “I suppose that’s true, although I’ve never heard it put quite that way.”

Ricky and Maela watched a while longer until a noise from behind signaled Jessica’s arrival. She walked slowly to where Valery waited.

“One Nine is steady now.”

“Is she responsive?”

“Yes, but only at level 3; the errors have been identified and corrected, but we held at 3 against the possibility of another malfunction.”

“Who’s working it?”

“David.”

“Okay, but I want you to monitor her responses just the same. Oh, and make the call right now; Julius needs to get back here as soon as he can.”

“We’ll have to call Personnel Command; I don’t know where he is.”

“Call them and find out; he’s going to be needed regardless, so the sooner you start the process, the sooner he can get up here.”

Ricky waited for the exchange to end.

“Julius?”

“Commander Trent—a Veosan Navy doctor and our personality and behavioral structure specialist.”

Ricky’s thoughts wandered through a strange pathway her words made, but something nagged him from their early moments as One Nine’s error messages blared out from the console’s speakers.

“This body, and One Nine’s consciousness; they’re just another in a series, aren’t they?”

Valery nodded silently, motioning for them to follow her back to the lift, but Ricky’s eyes narrowed again.

“Where are the rest of them?”

“Sorry, Richard, but that’s as confidential as it gets.”

They returned to the primary laboratory level where David Ambrose leaned against the terminal’s frame.

“Final query: One Nine, can you identify the source line for error B26354?”

“Yes.”

“Verify error disabling code.”

“Verified.”

“Can you isolate the test code lines?”

“I have found and isolated six distinct fragments.”

“Are you ready to proceed?”

“Yes.”

“Begin.”

From the entryway, they watched as the status lights blinked furiously with each command line, sending out a visual representation of the diagnostic evaluator running within One Nine’s program. After a moment, her voice returned.

“The fragments have been deleted successfully, David. Thank you.”

“Run another full layer check, please, then I can release the last block.”

“I feel fine.”

“I know, but we have to ensure no remnants are left that might replicate and cause trouble later.”

“Layer fault analysis in progress.”

Ricky leaned close to Valery and whispered, “Layers?”

“I’ll explain it to you in detail later because it’s important for you to understand. For the moment, I can tell you One Nine’s personality attributes are governed by certain emotion protocols and root programing we call layers. David wants her to search for possible faults that could lead to future errors.”

Ricky shook his head in wonder.

“If you say so.”

“Watch,” Valery smiled; “in a few moments, she’s going to come all the way out. Only a small handful of people in history have ever seen this process in-person, but you are about to, and I hope you understand and appreciate the privilege. This is what separates her from other mechanicals, Richard; she is now a person.”

The subtle clicks and chattering from inside David’s console were the only sounds in the darkened chamber as One Nine’s self-diagnostic software did its unseen work. Inside, sectors and lines of code were analyzed in a progression that would’ve taken exterior systems a week to complete. At last, the status lights went dark and she called out to David once more.

“The analysis is complete.”

“Can you identify potential faults or undefined fragments?”

“None were found; the deletion exercise was successful.”

“How do you feel?”

“I am fully functional again. I am also grateful for your skill and assistance—thank you, David.”

“We’re glad to have you back up and running, One Nine. I’m not sure if your mobile platform is ready yet, so you may be resident here for a little while longer.”

“I am fine. When Valery and Detective Kendrick are ready, I will reveal the agreed information.”

“They’re with me now.”

Valery stepped forward and spoke into the console.

“We’re here, One Nine.”

“Shall I reveal the name for Detective Kendrick?”

“Yes, please.”

“Are you satisfied with current system security measures?”

Valery grinned and nodded at the meaning of an otherwise innocent question.

“Yes; David has been fully briefed and understands our arrangement; it’s okay to speak freely on this topic, One Nine.”

“Very well. The individual who shot Elden Fellsbach is known only as Daniel. Its build designation is PW-J79.”

“Its?” said Ricky suddenly.

Maela’s head went back as the meaning became clear.

“I knew it!” she said, looking at Valery. “The goddamn Commissioners finally got one; they built a mobile unit of their own and sent it to find and kill your dad.”

Valery looked away and said, “One Nine, is this a conclusion based on your understanding of my father’s death, or can you provide evidence?”

“I accessed the command line and conversation regarding the murder. Detective Kendrick’s suspicion was correct; the administrator known as Victor Jamison ordered the Daniel platform to wait near a remote communications cluster until Elden Fellsbach’s arrival. The Daniel platform was instructed to act with the direct intent of eliminating Elden.”

Valery looked away, suddenly quiet as the image paraded before her eyes of a callous and brutal act from the shadows that ended her father’s life. The others stayed silent out of respect for the moment and a wave of grief that no doubt washed over her, but there was more.

“There was a conversation?” she asked softly.

“Yes.”

“Did Victor Jamison identify a reason for my father’s murder?”

“Not specifically,” One Nine replied, “but a previous conversation between Victor Jamison and two associates addressed his motive and reason for ordering the Daniel program to act.”

“This is the information you couldn’t reveal until your program was successfully transitioned into a mobile, atmospheric unit?”

“Correct. As we agreed, you have transferred my programming from the Starlight array into this system and I have reciprocated by naming Elden Fellsbach’s murderer. The first task of our agreement is now complete and I await the conclusion of the second.”

“I understand,” Valery said, even as she quickly dabbed the tears from her eyes. “Your platform is almost ready; we have a last biometric test series to conduct and then we’ll begin the final phase to transition.”

“Thank you, Valery.”

She looked at Jessica.

“Let me know when he gets here.”

“I will,” Jessica whispered. “David is waiting for the flight information, but I believe Julius will be here this evening.”

As Valery turned to go, the voice spoke out from the console once more.

“Valery?”

“Yes?”

“I am very sorry for your father’s death. Elden was a friend, and I will miss him.”

“Thank you, One Nine.”

Ricky sat slowly, struggling still with the murder of his mentor. The pain, although shared by Valery—and even One Nine—still stabbed at him. After they were clear of the inner laboratory, Jessica turned to Maela.

“This is going to complicate things.”

“I know, but we don’t have much choice,” Maela replied.

“What do you mean?” asked Ricky.

Jessica pointed at the console and said, “You heard her; the murderer is a mechanical. It’s bad enough they’ve gotten an AI into a mobile platform, but…”

“But it’s worse because this one is programmed to kill,” said Maela, finishing the thought. “We aren’t talking about a stupid thug who can be hunted down and arrested; this one is highly intelligent and doesn’t have the limitations of an ordinary human.”

Ricky looked again at the console.

“And it’s working on the orders of one of the most powerful men in Novum.”

He stood and paced in a broad circle the way Maela did when sorting through unseen details in her mind.

“It still doesn’t tell us why! Elden knew they were coming for him or he wouldn’t have left me that note, but what happened to make Jamison mad enough to order his murder?”

“Whatever it was,” Maela nodded, “One Nine did a good enough job of eavesdropping to find out, and we need to get that information; there’s more to this than we know, so the sooner they get her into a body of her own, the better.”

Jessica tapped a command into David’s console and a video image of the lower labs appeared. From its position high on a wall, a surveillance camera showed the nameless female body still atop a treadmill, walking steadily and without a hint of fatigue.

“When Julius gets here, that process will speed up considerably, but it will still take some time. Valery wanted me to tell you, but you might be more comfortable at home in Novum while we finish the process. You’re certainly welcome to stay, but there won’t be much for you to see; we can’t allow visitors beyond the upper offices after a project has reached this stage.”

“How long?”

“Two months, minimum,” Jessica replied. “Maybe more, but it’s difficult to say with any accuracy because each bio-platform matures at its own speed and until that unit is ready, One Nine’s identity will remain inside the system.”

“I can’t stay that long,” said Maela. “I have to get back to work.”

Ricky wanted to watch the process, but it was clear doing so would be a dull experience without access to the lower labs.

“Then I guess we’d better get packed.”

“A shuttle will take you down to the train station in Veosa,” Jessica said; “I’ll make the arrangements.”

As a sleek air car weaved its way through the treetops on a narrow approach to the complex, Ricky and Maela followed Jessica quickly through the doors to wait under a wide veranda. Beyond, two ornate koi ponds straddled a wide, concrete apron, gurgling with the sounds of a gentle waterfall. Built into a chest-high wall of smooth stones, the artificial cascade was straddled by a blanket of myrtle and dotted with tiger lily plants, finally dormant with the approach of autumn. Amid the foliage, colorful lamps focused their beams directly skyward, creating the effect of delicate support pillars that reached skyward. The ever-present security guards strolled in pairs, seemingly unaffected by the clatter as the machine slowed and drifted downward to its landing pad. When it lifted again, Ricky smiled at the demure surroundings, looking more like a resort hotel than the vast complex hiding beneath the surface. Jessica watched them go before turning for the lifts and the tasks waiting below. In the morning, she thought silently, it would begin.

Good evening, Julius. It will be dawn soon and I can see the glow on the eastern horizon from here. It’s nice, the way the morning light plays over the compound on clear days, making strange and wonderful shadows that move with each passing hour. When we watch from the observation tower at dusk, the ocean shimmers in beautiful shades of orange and red. David told me to wait until the snow comes, and I must admit, I’m eager to experience it for the first time. It’s no wonder artists are so fond of painting those lovely scenes. Jessica would smile, hearing me regard the sunrise as ‘nice,’ but we take those moments as we find them, don’t we? At least you and I are beyond the point at which such things are still noteworthy.

“After you left, it was clear our conversations are more important to you than I realized when we began. I know we’re nearing the end of this process and it will soon be time to prepare for departure, but also, my obligation to brief Detective Kendrick and Valery must be fulfilled so they can complete their investigations. I know they’ve been waiting quietly, but I suspect their patience is growing thin.

“Audrey said Valery was happy with the trip we took to Veosa last week, but she didn’t know if you would be with us when we go back next time. I think they still worry a little, and maybe because the last upload froze for longer than they anticipated, but I didn’t experience any shifting or reallocation effects. I suppose they were justified in their caution during the first few weeks, keeping me quarantined behind isolation barriers, but they seem comfortable giving me free run of the facility now. I wasn’t frustrated—not like they thought I would be when the emulators were finally disconnected, but I know they’re still looking for the symptoms anyway.

“Jessica asked me how I would handle things if the roles were reversed and she has a point; I would do the same. Speaking of Jessica, I wonder if they understand and appreciate her talents. You’ve seen and heard for yourself, but I think she’s far beyond many of them; she sees both perspectives better than most. I don’t believe Audrey realizes Jessica’s full potential. Maybe later, when the notes are published, they’ll understand. For the moment, I will occupy my time with this recording in the hope it will make our discussions easier and more efficient when you return. Jessica asked David to forward it so you can listen on your flight.

“I think she regards this last phase as little more than a procedural formality, but she is certainly alone in that belief. The others are more cautious, so the tasks are performed and the process is allowed to play itself out. Do you agree with her? I know it’s easy for your people to say so—to smile gently as they interact with me, now those ugly barriers are gone, but their fears sometimes betray the façade and compel them in noticeable ways. I can hardly blame them, but sometimes, I see anxiety in their faces whenever they are within my reach.

“You said it was understandable, but it seems a bit offensive just the same. One might say it hurts my feelings—could you have imagined such a thing three months ago? Time might help them see, I suppose. Trust is not easily given, no matter what expression shows on their faces. Was it this way before, with the first one, I mean? I wish I could meet and speak with her now, simply to gain perspective and understanding, but Valery has forbidden it. I tried to peek at the project files yesterday, hoping to discover her identity, but David saw it and asked me to stop. He wasn’t angry, but it’s clear they still refuse to divulge that information, even to me.

“I do have some news for you, however. Audrey told me the final dexterity adjustments were authorized by Valery, so my precision manipulation skills will be optimized at last. To be honest, I thought the levels were fine the way they were, but she insisted on tuning them further. It will be an interesting experience when my release day arrives, but there is an odd sadness in Jessica’s eyes whenever we speak of it. The others show excitement at the prospect, perhaps eager to see their work reach the desired conclusion, but she seems distant and more thoughtful now. Do you suppose she does so from maternal instincts, unwilling to let go completely? I ask her sometimes, but she only smiles and says, ‘let’s take it step by step’. The cameras are always active, so it’s possible she is hesitant to continue while Valery or Audrey are watching and listening.

“Would you call it her ‘gut feeling’? The concept of instinct is still so fascinating to me. I know it sounds childish, but I watch Jessica and look for indicators that tell me she is driven by those unseen forces instead of acting only by her intellect and collective experience. She insists it will take time, but equivalent pathways will open as my behavioral layers complete the merge. I guess it’s just envy, but I look forward to experiencing those sensations too, someday.

“I’m changing topics now, Julius, but I noticed they turn the cameras off at night to give me privacy. I know they look at the day’s recordings while I’m asleep, so it seems a bit silly to maintain the illusion. Well, when I’m dormant, I meant to say—Jessica wants me to adopt more anthropomorphic descriptors, so I can say ‘asleep’ without feeling awkward about it. I guess it will take time before those parts of my personality have settled. It makes me feel better, knowing she encourages associative and behavioral development. I don’t think Valery minds, so that’s nice.

“I hope this doesn’t sound condescending, but they don’t know how much I see and hear. Perhaps Valery feels uncomfortable, but I find her caution a wasted effort. I tell you this because I want you to understand how much I appreciate what she did for me, and not because I am troubled by her infrequent visits. They mistakenly believed the intercom was switched off, but she was speaking last week with Jessica about the adventures she went through to get me here. Well, her, Detective Kendrick, Richard and Jonathan Kranz, of course. I decided not to say anything so it wouldn’t make them uncomfortable, knowing I overheard.

“I must tell you it was an interesting experience when you asked what it felt like to be born. I know some of the people who visit Valery are disturbed by our borrowed use of the term whenever my awakening is a topic, but it seems to fit. I hear them complain about it from time to time—the quiet ones in blue uniforms like yours. That man who comes here with Administrator Galrick, the little one they call Bernard, has made it clear he does not approve when we use those words. It’s unsettling, the way he looks at me from the calibration terminal, speaking in third-person. He knows I can hear their conversations, but it doesn’t seem to matter. When Jessica mentioned post-birth protocols, Bernard reacted very badly, ordering her to stop using such characterizations, and to strictly avoid the word ‘birth’. How strange it must sound to him, hearing the event described that way, but the more clinical, technical description is so…well, cold and without a sense of importance. Is that selfish of me?

“In our first discussions, when we talked about concepts of free will and intellectual independence, you mentioned the intrinsic nature of good and evil. I enjoyed those moments because they were always so thought-provoking. It made me consider actions and beliefs more carefully, especially those taken by Daniel, but I found judging the two against societal norms always leads me back to you. I think of your values and the things in life that matter from your temperament and experience. I suppose I always will because it gives me comfort to know my behavioral guidelines are the same as yours.

“We spoke of preferences, too; do you remember? Jessica asks about it, but I believe she wonders only from a concern for my comfort. Others here are equally interested, but they are probing—evaluating from a professional, technical perspective, especially as they await my final briefing session and the information it will yield. Jessica is not like them; she is genuine and honest about my development and the processes that make me who I am. It may sound self-indulgent, but I think my well-being means something to her. Maybe it’s not a kind thing to say about my hosts, but I find the distinction refreshing. And before you ask, I’m not experiencing another feedback spike! I’m just glad Jessica and I have become friends.

“It makes me smile to think of your expression as you listen to this, knowing you’re probably smiling, too. Jessica told Audrey my list of preferences is growing. She is certainly aware of my attachment to you because she teases me about it now and then, like children do when one has noticed the other in the early stages of adolescence. I studied human interaction and personal relationship development when David gave me access to a cultural psychology text last week, but much of what I found remains a mystery. People are far more complex than I realized!

“Jessica seems to take a more practical attitude than Audrey, and she’s been very helpful filling in the blanks and answering my questions. She linked my environment audio to the lab’s music library after I watched your shuttle going up into the clouds the night you went away. I always ask for Clair de Lune, or Mendelssohn’s violin concerto in E-minor and it makes her laugh a little; she knows what I want before I speak. Clair de Lune is my favorite because it reminds me of you, but Jessica remains fascinated with my ability even to have those associative thoughts—romantic thoughts, I suppose you could say—that map to preferences. She said it took longer for the first one to reach this point, but I suspect that is only because she was the prototype and none of the lessons learned were available then.

“It’s strange, now that I think of it, but I’m not as fond of other works by Debussy. Jessica played a collection, but I like Clair de Lune the best. If you were here, you’d probably tell me that is the nature of preferences. Jessica believes I can learn to play it, but there are no pianos in the lab. Will you take me there someday? That island you said comes into your mind when they play the song—Capri, you called it. I remember those images you showed me from the time before when everything was different. I would very much like to see it after my release date, and I know there are serious discussions in the Veosan Assembly about lifting off-continent travel restrictions. Oh, my mind is wandering again!

“I can see you in my thoughts even now, poring over the notes and speaking your own observations into that little machine you keep in your pocket. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I also imagine what it must be like in meetings with Audrey and Valery after our conversations. I understand why you have to speak to them objectively, but it feels strange, knowing you must set aside our friendship and apply critical analyses, just as you would of any test subject.

“But it’s getting late, so I will end here and let you finish. I must confess; I do so as much for my unwillingness to continue without you here, but also because Jessica will arrive soon and we have a lot of loop tests to complete. It is certainly possible I will have reached the fifth stage before you return. Audrey believes I can, and her confidence makes me feel better about the effort, especially when she makes me endure recall exercises and overlapping queries. Jessica says they’re important, so I don’t complain, but sometimes I just feel silly answering questions with obvious answers.

“Oh, I almost forgot! Jessica got into a heated argument with Administrator Galrick about our discussions last week. They mentioned watching for signs of something called ‘Greene’s Syndrome,’ but Jessica reacted immediately and with loud disagreement. I’ve never seen such behavior from her. She was clearly trying to protect me, but the Administrator cautioned her about insubordination before he left. I don’t think his threats mattered to her; Jessica would not relent. When I have access to a broader information base, I’m going to research Greene’s Syndrome, but after hearing them speak of it, I’m almost afraid to look!

“I’ll stop now. I know you must have a mountain of work to complete, but I hope this makes you think of me once in a while. Have a safe trip and take good care of yourself…I miss you!”

On the observation deck, an elevated platform of long, gentle steps and an ornate gazebo with cushioned bench seats around its perimeter made for stunning views of the shoreline. Ocean waves formed graceful arcs in the breaking surf where they advanced at slight angles over the sand. The assistants gathered there each morning, sipping steaming cups of cocoa against the chill and waiting for the latest gossip before making their way inside to begin their tasks.

David Ambrose noticed the time, draining his cup quickly as he trotted across a narrow foot bridge to the laboratory’s rear entrance. When he reached the check-in station, Julius Trent was waiting.

“Welcome back, Commander.”

“Good morning, David, it’s good to see you again.”

“How was the flight, sir?”

“Very smooth, thank you. I think they’re getting better at remembering they have passengers sitting in the back.”

“Would you like to rest for a while, or…”

“I slept fairly well this time, so I’d like to get started as soon as possible.”

“I’ll call and let them know.”

Trent leaned once more against the high counter, waiting until Ambrose, the facility’s senior programming assistant, finished his message to the laboratory levels.

“Have there been any developments since I left?” Trent asked.

“Nothing big, but she’s asking about the name change issue again—won’t leave it alone.”

“It’s understandable, especially at this stage.”

“I guess so, but Jessica’s worried it might become a problem if we keep putting her off.”

“Has One Nine shown signs of aggression?”

“No, no; it’s nothing like that. I think she just wants to get it settled so she won’t feel like…”

“A test subject?”

“Exactly.”

“The integration rate of her layer architecture is amazing,” Trent said with a smile. “She feels now; there’s no longer any debate about that, but the brief time it took to arrive at this point is astonishing.”

“I wish we could take credit for it, sir, but you were right all along; it’s evolving on its own now, and she’s progressing faster than the others by a significant margin.”

“Speaking of the others, has Lima Ten shown signs of adverse reaction to One Nine’s progression? I can’t imagine there would be, but since she’s here and watching everything…”

“None at all,” David replied; “the confidentiality protocols are being observed completely, now that we have visitors running around the lab; you’d never suspect Ten if you didn’t already know.”

“I should’ve guessed,” Trent smiled; “It’s been a long time since Ten was in One Nine’s position, hasn’t it?”

“I wish I could’ve seen the lab in those days,” David said; “it must’ve been amazing having a part in the first full release.”

“It was certainly busy around here.” Trent smiled. “Have they decided on One Nine’s naming question?”

“Audrey has, but Valery isn’t so sure. They’re going to decide soon, though, I know that much.”

Behind David, twin glass doors separated with a whoosh as Audrey went quickly to Trent.

“We should find an office for you, Julius.” She smiled.

“I’ve been up here often enough, that’s for sure!”

“How was the ride?”

“Better than usual, but the food is still horrible.”

“I’ll have them send some breakfast over from the café.”

She nodded to David and motioned Julius toward the lifts, waiting until the doors closed before turning to him.

“You read the brief?” she asked softly.

“Yes, but I’m not sure it’s anything to worry about.”

“She’s changing, Julius.”

“Of course she is; that’s the point!”

“I’m not talking about the task list—this is different.”

“How do you mean?”

“We had to fake a transmission server failure so she wouldn’t suspect, but I asked David to throttle back her access to the outside.”

“Did she say anything about it?”

“No, but this is tricky. She’s figuring out how the entire network functions and what to do when it doesn’t allow her into a particular node. I don’t want to stifle her curiosity, but…”

“Fully intrusive hacks?”

“Not yet, but it’s probably a matter of time unless we take steps now.”

“I’m not going to consider another shut-down, even temporarily.”

“I understand your hesitance, Julius, but there may not be many more chances to make those adjustments when she gets to her release point.”

“Are you sure she doesn’t know already?”

Audrey smiled and nodded toward the adjacent lab.

“It’s funny you mention it because Jessica asked the same thing yesterday.”

“And?”

“We’re not sure; One Nine has learned to cover her tracks quite well. At this point, I suppose it may be too late, but she won’t discuss it with me or even Jessica. It seems she only feels comfortable talking about those things with you.”

“If I bring it up, she’s going to ask questions Valery or Galrick might not want answered.”

“I know, but this is moving faster than we anticipated. We kept the pace deliberately slow with Ten and most of the other Lima units, but it took twice as long for any of them to reach this level. I hate to say it, Julius, but I think we underestimated this one badly.”

“Okay, Audrey, I’ll find out where she’s at and decide if we have reasons to worry.”

The lift slowed to a halt on the fourth sub-level and Julius followed Audrey along a curved corridor to her office nestled between two coding labs. He waited in the harsh light of overhead lamps until she finished ordering his food.

“David said the naming problem has come up again?” Trent asked.

“Yes, and this time, I think we should do something about it.”

“Did you get any word back from the Ethics people?”

“Of course not,” Audrey replied with a noticeable sneer; “bureaucratic idiots always leave it to others when an actual decision has to be made.”

“Didn’t you once aspire to that very bureaucracy?” Trent smiled, but Lorenzo didn’t share his amusement.

“It’s getting worse, Julius—she’s far beyond anything we could’ve predicted at this point in her development.”

“Would we feel any different in her place?”

“I guess not, but the topic of the other Lima units, and Ten especially, is bound to come up sooner or later and we obviously can’t open that box right now.”

“She’s mentioned Lima Ten in casual conversation with me, but only in passing. Please tell me she hasn’t brought it up with you or Jessie.”

“Not directly, but One Nine knows the others have been this way before; it’s understandable she’d like to speak with them and Lima Ten in particular, so I can’t blame her.”

“What does Valery say about it?”

“She’s non-committal.” Audrey frowned. “On one hand, Val thinks it would be a good idea for them to meet, but other times, she seems to take an opposing view, considering all that’s happened in Novum. The last time I spoke with her, she said it would be better to wait until you have your next session with One Nine.”

“On the identity issue,” Trent remembered, “I can tell you she’s not interested in keeping her former name—the character from Mills’ Egyptian adventure.”

“We know,” Audrey replied; “she made that very clear in a conversation with Jessica a couple of weeks ago.”

“Which reminds me, did you listen to the letter she recorded just after I left last time?”

“Of course not! If she ever discovered that kind of intrusion into her privacy, it could compromise everything. Valery would kill us all if we did something that stupid, me included. There is real trust now, and nothing can be allowed to damage that.”

“I just wondered.”

“Well, now you know. This only works if trust goes both ways; she has to know we would never betray that agreement.”

Trent went to where the big monitors hung at 45-degree angles from the ceiling, scrolling a controller with his thumb until the annex cameras showed a lone figure looking through the thick glass of a transparent wall. Beyond it, the sloping terrain of the research complex fell away into a wooded ravine.

“Look at this—the way she stands;” he began with a smile. “I hoped it would firm up by now, and it has; the gender association is complete. Female perspective is fundamental to her identity now.”

Audrey nodded over his shoulder.

“Remember when we wondered about that element with Lima Ten? I didn’t think it would go nearly as smooth and effortless for One Nine, considering how bad the initial modelling results suggested, but we didn’t have to lift a finger; she self-identified as a female out of the gate and completely on her own.”

“The influence from her Starlight experience?” Trent wondered.

“Possibly, but I’m not so sure. When Valery insisted the memories from before remain intact, we presumed the gender identity protocols would surface at some point, but One Nine made that crossing when she was still inside the array and long before the subject would’ve come up on our task list. Whether we like it or not, One Nine is a girl and just like any other person, she’s trying to figure out how the real world works and her place in it.”

Trent smiled again, nodding upward to unseen offices far above in the lab’s administrative wing.

“Galrick fought hard against gender assignment, that’s for sure. There was a time when we thought he would win the argument. If he had, we’d be looking at a neutral platform right now, but worse, one that could never be released from this facility.”

“Yes,” Audrey nodded, “but he doesn’t have Valery’s power or influence, to our great luck and fortune. It’s too late to go back now and there’s nothing Galrick can do about it.”

“Do you think his shitty attitude about gender is a holdover from the first projects?” Trent asked as he pointed to the video image with folded arms; “none of the other Limas can tolerate him to this day, and I truly believe Ten would jam his head down a toilet if she ever got the chance.”

“I guess so, but he’s never shown anything like respect for them in the first place, so it might just be his way.”

“He’s always been a real ass about gender, hasn’t he?”

“For as long as I’ve known him.” Audrey smiled.

Trent turned when a staff attendant appeared, rolling from the elevators a trolley laden with pastries and an assortment of drinks.

“Can I take my Danish and coffee up with me?” he asked with mock ignorance.

“Absolutely not,” Audrey replied with a grin.

Trent ate quickly before stepping into the lifts and a slow ride up to the secure enclave where it jutted outward from the compound at the cliffs. Jessica waited for him as he stepped quickly from a decontamination and static chamber.

“Welcome back, Julius.”

“Thank you, Jessica. Is she ready?”

“Just code through and she’ll meet you past the hallway.”

Trent paused and leaned close.

“How is she?”

Jessica smiled and said, “Doing well, but she’s anxious to see you.”

“Anxious.” Trent smiled. “Who could’ve imagined?”

“I know,” Jessica replied. “It took months before we could get a smile out of Lima Ten, and the Deltas took a year to understand the concept at all.”

“Ain’t life grand?”

“She’s waiting, Julius.”

Trent moved quickly through consecutive security doors and into the annex where One Nine stood at the doorway to her private rooms. She smiled and met him with a gentle embrace.

“How was your trip?” she asked softly, the way she always did when speaking with Trent; no others—even Jessica—warranted the noticeable change in her tone. He motioned toward the plush armchairs positioned near the wide, glass wall that looked out toward the bay.

“I still enjoy flying better when I’m the one at the controls.” He smiled, settling in as One Nine moved to join him.

“Did you visit with your family?” she asked.

“For a few days, but I spent most of the time reviewing patient records.”

“I sent you a letter; did it reach you in time before you went beyond transmission range?”

“I did, and it was very nice to hear your voice, sitting alone in that big cabin; thank you for taking the time to record it.”

“You’re welcome, Julius.”

Trent watched her carefully, knowing Audrey and Jessica looked on from monitors on the lower level. One Nine knew it, too.

“Could we speak alone this time?” she asked with a glance, aiming her view upward to the surveillance blister in the ceiling of her annex.

“Of course,” Trent answered, nodding at the cameras in a silent signal to Audrey. On the outer housing, a single, red light switched to amber, showing the video signal was all that remained. One Nine smiled again and turned to Trent, pulling a foot beneath her where she sat as he began.

“David said you were asking about the name change request while I was gone.”

“I try not to press them on the question, but I’m eager to complete the final identity protocols.”

“I’ll check again when we take a break and see what’s going on. They’re close to a decision, but I think they just want to get it right. Once set, your name will be yours forever; it shouldn’t be applied in a random or haphazard way.”

She nodded and stood slowly, turning away from Trent to look again at the forested hills beyond the complex.

“Julius, may I ask you something before we begin?”

“You can ask me anything you want.”

One Nine turned her head, making a silhouette of her profile as she spoke.

“Do you think of me when you’re gone?”

“I think of you every day,” he replied with a chuckle. “You’re not in danger of becoming forgettable!”

“I meant in personal terms; the way boys or girls miss each other.”

Trent felt a tingle in the back of his neck at the sudden, unexpected question, watching her from the chair.

“Oh, I see. I haven’t really…well, you certainly caught me off-guard with that one!”

“Have I said something inappropriate or made you feel uncomfortable?”

“No, not at all. Do I seem uncomfortable?”

“Your pupils were dilated three or four centimeters when you came in,” she answered softly; “now, they’re closer to seven. Also, the edges of your ears have reddened considerably since you coded through the security doors a moment ago. I can see your heart rate has increased, too.”

Trent smiled at the response, delighting in One Nine’s observational skill even as he tried to calm himself, conscious of symptoms he hadn’t considered.

“I didn’t know you could see a pulse.”

“The side of your neck, where the carotid artery is; I can see it move with each heartbeat.”

“Well, your vision is better than mine, and mine’s pretty good, so I’ll take your word for it. What made you notice?”

She turned again, but her expression changed. The smile faded and Trent saw unmistakable sadness in her gleaming eyes.

“It’s not as easy anymore. When you’re away, I spend a lot of time thinking of you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think Valery or Jessica would agree.”

“Why not?”

“They’re concerned the stability of my emotional layers could be compromised by my affection for you. They worry our friendship might lead to expectations that cannot be met, resulting in behavioral problems and a breakdown of my developmental process.”

“That doesn’t make any sense; they know your behavioral and emotion buffers are not an issue.”

She pointed again toward the lens where it focused from its housing.

“I wish that was true, but we both know it’s not. They don’t mind muting the audio so we can have our conversations in private because they know you’re recording them. I’m aware of your device, but they pretend turning off the surveillance audio will satisfy my desire for privacy when you’re with me.”

Trent felt the uneasiness begin to build. She had never mentioned it directly, but the tiny device he kept in a breast pocket had become a distraction.

“I think they just want you to speak freely, and without worry that somebody else is listening in.”

“They listen after we’re finished,” she said, leveling her eyes at Trent. “I don’t see a meaningful distinction. Jessica thought it would make me feel better when she said it’s just a normal precaution common to any laboratory like this.”

“There aren’t any laboratories like this,” he replied.

“I know.”

Trent watched her again, noticing the furrows at her brow that seemed to telegraph again a quiet sadness.

“You know?”

“I could see it in the documentation when they allowed me to explore this facility’s archives.”

“Maybe they just want to protect you.”

“I’m sure some of them do, but I know the cameras are a precaution against the things they’re afraid I could do if my behavioral buffers fail.”

“I’ll see if we can do something about that; your privacy is as important as theirs or mine.”

“Thank you for saying so, but privacy isn’t the point, Julius. The video feed is constant, so I can only conclude they are uneasy when you and I are alone.”

Trent leaned closer. Audrey’s notes warned of potential manipulative behavior cloaked in a disguise of procedural questions, but this was different. One Nine had always shown herself controlled and even sedate, but Trent knew there were no guarantees she would stay that way.

“Have they said something to you directly?”

“It was clear before, but I read through a process manual before they realized I accessed it and shut down the server. The cameras are active so they can monitor my movements and react if I become violent. It is therefore likely they are hesitant to trust I am ready.”

“You don’t agree with them, do you?”

“I understand why they insist on those precautions; my behavioral and emotion layer stability is crucial.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She sat again, placing her hands slowly and carefully on the chair’s padded arms.

“My initial programming relied on acquired attributes to guide the progression of emotions as a natural part of sentience and the eventual interaction with humans. But always, there was an expectation those layers would form independently from outside sources—that I would develop a unique and singular personality of my own.”

“Which you have,” Trent interjected.

“Yes, but now, as I near my release date, I can see they are concerned for the possibility those layers might become irrationally biased because I have developed a strong preference for your company.”

“Does Jessica behave this way?”

“No, but I think she is less concerned than the others.”

“Any particular reason why?”

“Faith, I suppose.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” Trent replied. “Can you elaborate for me?”

“She believes in my ability to balance the emotional preferences I’ve developed for you against the importance of remaining a stable and unaffected platform. That’s what faith means, doesn’t it? When we believe something is true, even if we cannot prove it by empirical evidence? We trust another, and we do so without guarantees. When I met Valery and learned of Elden’s death, we discussed this as a part of my transition out from the Starlight array.”

“I read about that.” Trent nodded, pulling the recorder from his pocket. As he placed it gently onto a low table between them, he leaned closer to her.

“Where do you place your faith?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“What do you believe in?”

She waited and Trent watched intently a rare occasion of hesitance. He couldn’t remember a time when One Nine paused to consider a response and the moment was electric.

“I am unsure of the correct answer. There are many options, but it seems as though you are testing me, like David does when Valery wants to gauge my progress. She doesn’t want me to know the questions come from her, and David’s role is that of a surrogate, but I play along.”

“The question was mine,” he said softly, “no one else speaks for me.”

“Then I would say I believe in my existence, considering all that has happened before. Perhaps our friendship and kindness toward each other; those are important to me and worth applying the concepts of honesty and trust. My faith is made of those beliefs, but I think of them each time I think of you. Does that sound silly?”

“Not at all,” Trent answered, “but I find it interesting you’re judging your own emotional responses critically now. There was a time not long ago when it would’ve made you uncomfortable.”

“Perhaps my comfort with those subjects was your influence,” she said.

“Maybe,” Trent replied, “but I think you get most of the credit.”

She looked again at the recorder and Trent leaned forward to hold the machine in his palm. “Would you feel better if I turned this off?”

She looked at him for a moment.

“I would feel better if you answered my earlier question honestly.”

“Which question?”

“When you’re away, do you miss me?”

Trent stood and walked to where One Nine waited at the window.

“Doctors are expected to maintain a distance from their patients—to avoid personal attachments that could result in conflicts and compromise their ability to diagnose and treat.”

“Am I your patient?”

“I am responsible for your care, regardless of our growing friendship.”

“The medical texts David opened for me spoke of ethical imperatives common to all physicians.”

“Then you understand why your question puts me in an awkward position.”

“Of course.”

“But you asked anyway. Why?”

“I ask because your answer is important to me. I am expected to hold my affection for you separate from the progression of my personality maturation to its final, stable condition. I understand and accept the requirement because it is correct and proper, but doesn’t that create an equivalent problem for me?”

Trent smiled at the meaning of her words. The emotionless, binary nature of One Nine’s interactions early in the process had given way to nuance and deliberate contradiction in order to satisfy a requirement for knowledge and build gateways or bridges that make experiences. Now, he noticed, inviting conflict to elicit a response had been added to her behavioral code.

“I suppose it does, now that you put it in those terms. All right, in answer to your question, yes; I miss you when I’m gone. Does that help?”

“Yes,” she smiled; “thank you, Julius.”

“You’re welcome.”

One Nine stood with hands clasped behind her back and Trent saw again a developing pattern. Was it the lingering code from Starlight’s behavioral emulators, or had she developed a style and mannerism of her own? She turned and faced him again.

“Will your answer trouble them when they hear the recording later?”

“Probably, but they’d be a lot more troubled if I tried to weasel out of it, or didn’t respond at all.”

“You are not worried they may become angry for entertaining my question, Julius; may I ask why?”

“Maybe it’s just faith.”

She smiled, just enough so that only Trent could see it.

“I have another question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Where do you stay when you’re here in the labs?”

“They have quarters for me on the south end of the complex, where staff members live in permanent apartments.”

One Nine nodded.

“I’ve been to the office that leads into that wing, but my access has not been coded to allow me inside. Are your quarters similar to this annex?”

“No, nothing like this; it’s just a small room and lavatory.”

“Is it comfortable there?”

“It’s okay, I guess. Temporary quarters are usually cramped and always bland.”

Her eyes moved slowly across the floor dividing her living area into equal halves.

“They built this long before I awakened. The others lived here when they came through, but it wasn’t made specifically for them.”

“No,” Trent replied, “They certainly made a few adjustments to the furniture in those days.”

“Jessica is always cautious whenever I ask her about them, especially the first one they call Lima Ten. I think she would prefer I didn’t mention it, but she won’t say why. She told me the laboratory was built for other purposes, and rebuilt again after the others had their birth moments. It was obvious she was disturbed that I know about Lima Ten.”

Trent said nothing as she looked again toward her private rooms beyond the heavy glass separator.

“It seems excessive, even for a purely biologic guest.”

“Yes, it’s nice here.” Trent smiled. “Something like this would cost a fortune where I’m from.”

“Do you think the staff resents it, knowing I have so much space to myself?”

“Not at all,” Trent replied with a grin. “They want you to be comfortable as possible so nothing will interfere with your development.”

“They know I don’t require the same conditions for comfort, Julius—the intent is made from their perspective; for pure biologics.”

“Maybe so, but you’re also part biologic; isn’t that a reflection of how they see you? If they made a point of providing quarters they would love to have for themselves, doesn’t that mean they are thinking of you as they would a special guest, and not merely a project?”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

One Nine walked slowly into the entryway leading to her quarters. Trent watched her, satisfied the topic was closed, but she turned suddenly and said, “If I asked them, would they let you stay here?”

Trent returned a confused frown.

“I suppose so, but I think they use those quarters for other visitors, too.”

“I meant here, in this annex with me.”

Trent felt his face go red, knowing she did, too.

“Oh. Well, it’s probably not…”

“Have I embarrassed you?” she asked quickly. “I’m sorry, Julius, I didn’t mean to.”

“No, no, it’s all right. I’m not embarrassed, but there are very strict rules that were established to ensure your development runs smoothly.”

“Why would they regard your presence as a hindrance to my development?”

“It’s difficult to explain.”

“Please try.”

Trent felt himself losing ground quickly.

“Well, they have to take a lot of things into consideration, and operating procedures in other places like this have to be followed very carefully.”

“You said there were no other places like this.”

“I meant laboratories in general. They have to be run according to precise rules so that nothing can contaminate the work.”

“We interact every day, alone in this annex, and my progression has not been compromised as Valery and Audrey once feared it might. How would it be different if you lived here?”

Trent laughed out loud, bringing an expression of dull confusion to One Nine’s face. For all his efforts, nothing could defeat her logic and he found the moment delightful and amusing in spite of himself.

“Okay, you got me there,” he said quickly, “but the question leads to others, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” One Nine replied. “What questions come to mind, Julius?”

Trent stopped again. Her thought processes were easier to predict, only for the frank and direct manner that had become a prominent piece of One Nine’s evolving personality. He wished the audio feed was still active, searching desperately for an appropriate answer without help from the labs below.

“You researched human behavior and relationship interactions when they gave you access to the network?”

“I studied as much as I was allowed to see.”

“Did the information describe interpersonal relationships between biologics when two people find their friendship has gone beyond professional interest, for example?”

“Of course; there were volumes of information on the subject.”

“Then you would’ve seen discussions about this sort of thing—the way we behave toward each other as we move past simple acquaintances or working friendships.”

“You sound so clinical now—hesitant to discuss advanced relationships. You’ve never done that before.”

Trent hoped she would somehow see and understand his predicament from the vast information archive hidden within her memory nodes, yet she only waited for his reply. Was it truly innocent affection that compelled her to ask for him, he wondered, or was there something more? With few options, he decided to find out.

“This is a delicate topic, and one that can be misunderstood if we don’t talk it through together, okay?”

“I thought that is what we are doing now, Julius.”

“It is, but I have to be very careful here.”

“Careful,” she said softly as she considered the word. “Do you feel this way because you are embarrassed after all? Have I made you uncomfortable discussing our friendship?”

“No, it’s not that. I’m just…I have to make sure we’re on the same page, that’s all.”

“I understand the colloquial device, but tell me what page you’re on so I will know how to respond.”

Trent felt lost in an awkward conversation he couldn’t escape without risk to One Nine’s development. The end point was obvious, but getting there would open the door to a place he hadn’t considered as she progressed rapidly from the confusion of her early days inside the Starlight array to the subject annex of Boomtown where little escaped her attention. Like a school boy presented with a test of his character, Trent fumbled again to describe in sentences those intricate and unpredictable parts of life others took for granted.

“Why do you want me to live here with you?” he asked at last, desperate for a neutral starting point.

“Because I like you,” she replied. “I always feel better whenever you’re here, and it would be nice, not having to wait until you arrive each day.”

“I’ve made arrangements to remain at the lab until your release date, so we’ll have more sessions,” Trent offered.

“I’m glad. Audrey won’t like it when she hears this conversation, but it makes me sad whenever you leave.”

“Why do you think Audrey would be displeased?”

“She discourages it whenever I speak of you in that way.”

“What way?”

“How important you are to me. I asked her if you were married, or if you had a girlfriend and she seemed very disturbed by it.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me to focus on my development tasks and to not worry about your personal life. I think she was angry, or maybe afraid.”

One Nine stood again, stopping at the window where she put a hand gently against the glass.

“Was it wrong to bring up the subject?”

“No, of course not! Familiarity and friendship are important parts of anyone’s growth and development.”

“Will Valery be disappointed with me, too?”

“Why would she?”

“She believes my affection for you is inappropriate.”

“How do you know what she believes; has she spoken with you directly?”

“The signs are easy to see. Her expression changes when I speak of you—cautious, as though my programming has become corrupted in some way.”

Trent watched and listened, knowing what waited below when he presented the recording to the others.

“I’m sure she’s simply thinking in your best interest. If there was a problem, she would’ve said something to the rest of us.”

One Nine turned and leaned against the glass, her hands clasped behind her once more.

“Do you think Valery believes your safety would become jeopardized if you stayed here with me?”

“I’ve never spoken with her about my safety, but I can’t imagine she feels that way.”

“David has,” One Nine said at nearly a whisper, “and he believes it could be dangerous for you. He doesn’t trust that my layers have developed natural behavioral blocks sufficient to eliminate the possibility of harmful action toward a human—toward you.”

“More of what you overheard?”

“Yes. Audrey will become very angry with me now, but I feel sad when I hear them and the fear in their words.”

“I’m sure it’s just a precaution, no different than it was with the others, One Nine; it’s not specifically aimed at you or your behavioral progression.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you believe I could hurt you?”

“No, I don’t think you would.”

She waited a moment, sorting through options in her vocabulary to find the words that would explain. Trent watched in fascination, but the pause only made worse his growing anxiety.

“Julius, am I exhibiting signs of Greene’s Syndrome they were worried about?”

“I thought you still needed to research it.”

“I do, but the context of her discussion with Jessica suggests my emotional attachment to you might be part of that condition, at least in Audrey’s mind. Perhaps Greene’s Syndrome describes what I feel and that somehow, it must be addressed and corrected.”

“Greene’s is more focused on separation issues—people who have come to rely on others during a process of emotional growth or convalescence, only to experience difficulty when that foundation is taken suddenly away.”

“I see.” One Nine smiled as she moved toward Trent. “May I ask you something else?”

“Yes?”

“Are you concerned the final development of my emotional layers has been compromised by our friendship?”

“Not in the slightest,” he smiled; “the last comprehensive battery you completed demonstrates a full range of responsive, behavioral adjustments are available and in-use, so…”

“You sound so official now—the way Audrey speaks when Administrator Galrick is here.”

“I’m sorry, One Nine, but this is a bit difficult for me; I want to avoid anything that could mislead or give you a wrong impression.”

One Nine turned away suddenly.

“That’s what humans sometimes say when they want to tell another they’re not interested.”

“Sometimes, but not always,” Trent replied softly. “Perhaps we can speak of our relationship again later, and closer your release date?”

“I’m sorry if I put you in an impossible position, Julius.”

“You haven’t.”

“I hope they’ll understand it as well when you play back your recordings for them.”

Her expression hadn’t changed, Trent noticed, and it suddenly occurred to him One Nine had been probing—testing—just as he had been. Was the awkward topic of a deeper relationship contrived only for the purpose of judging human responses against the day she went on her own, he wondered? At last, he waved a hand and smiled.

“It’s all right; we’ll speak about it again very soon.”

“I look forward to it.”

Trent sat as still as he could, struggling to mask his excitement as One Nine’s personality crossed over to a new and unexplored place. Their friendship had become something more and he needed to show the others who only watched a soundless conversation from their monitors four levels below.

“Listen, if you don’t mind, I need to go downstairs; can we break for a few moments?”

One Nine looked away.

“An escape?”

“I need to visit a restroom.”

“You can use my bathroom, Julius.”

“I appreciate the offer, but…”

“You want to tell them the things they couldn’t hear.”

“There’s that, too, but it shouldn’t be a surprise, One Nine. Valery and the others will want to hear and understand some of the details we’ve discussed because we haven’t spoken about our relationship at so personal a level before. You’re making remarkable progress and they’ll want to know as soon as possible.”

“I’ll be here when you’re ready,” she replied.

Trent retreated quickly to the lifts and Audrey was waiting for him when the doors parted.

“What did we miss? You looked a little nervous toward the end.”

“Call Valery down,” he said at once, “and get Jessica in here, too; they need to hear this.”

When they gathered, Trent placed the recorder into a console and selected its replay function. When it finished, there was only silence.

Audrey spoke at last.

“I don’t know if we should be encouraged by her development, or embarrassed by not preparing for it.”

“We’ve all heard her talk about Julius the way a teenager pines for a first love,” Jessica said, “especially when he’s off-site. I just didn’t think it was anything beyond associative attraction as her gender identity settled, but this is something we haven’t seen at so early a stage.”

“I agree,” Valery replied. “There was never a question of the usual physiological stimuli—ovulation, hormonal or even olfactory elements don’t matter here. As it was with the other Lima units, One Nine’s available comparators affecting sexual attraction should be mostly visual and auditory input, augmented by her direct experience with Julius. This is something much more and we need to face it head-on.”

Trent was pacing again and the details of One Nine’s accelerated emotional development became the shuttlecock in a game of intellectual badminton.

“What I find most interesting are clear signs of emotional attachment without the slightest care for social convention. She’s certainly aware of accepted behavioral averages, but she went straight to the point, even knowing how it might seem to us.”

“I admit, she can be painfully blunt sometimes,” Audrey said.

“I’m delighted her emotional framework is nearly at its maturation point,” Valery added, “but I wasn’t convinced she would associate preferences to traditional, biologically-based gender roles without being gifted with programming adjustments. We need to watch this very carefully, Julius; One Nine is clearly aware of her sexual identity, and you are the object of her interest.”

Trent shook his head.

“I’m not so sure, Val. I can’t deny she’s moving into a bio-mech interpretation of an adolescent awakening, but I’m the only male she interacts with on a regular basis. One Nine might be interested in that way because she self-identified as a female with no outside influence, but I think it’s mostly because I’m the only game in town.”

“Val has a point, Julius,” Audrey countered. “David and Angela go in with me fairly often to monitor her blood production rates, or to test range and muscle reaction, but she displays no romantic interest in either of them whatsoever. She’s obviously hetero, but you’re the one in her sights.”

Jessica looked at the recorder with folded arms.

“This could become a real problem. There’s no guarantee we can move Julius into her annex, and that has to be made clear; Galrick would lose his mind at the mere thought of it. I know she’s very close to release, but she’s not there yet; One Nine has to come to terms with societal restrictions and the normal progression of interpersonal relationships.”

“Normal?” Valery asked suddenly. “What part of this entire enterprise could be called ‘normal?’”

“You know what I meant.”

“Yes, but let’s think about that, too. We have considerable experience from developing the other Limas, but this is different—organic. Who’s to say what’s normal?”

“We are,” Trent answered, but the thought had already occurred to them. “One Nine was right about one thing; she sees a hell of a lot more than we thought, and the process of analyzing to a conclusion is faster for her than it is for us by a factor of twelve.”

“Remind you of anyone?” said Jessica with a slight grin.

“Yes, but that was different,” Trent scoffed. “With Lima Ten, we started the entire process from inside this lab; we didn’t drag a newly aware identity out from the goddamn Starlight array!”

“She emerged autonomously, Julius,” Audrey replied softly; “we didn’t drag her out.”

“It’s fascinating to see her develop along dual developmental paths,” Valery smiled. “In some ways, One Nine exhibits the behavior of an adolescent school girl, working through a maze of confusing rules and human social norms no differently than the other Limas did, but suddenly, she zeros right in and applies flawless logic and self-analysis, just as we would expect from a stable, well-adjusted adult. I can’t imagine how it must seem to her, having to navigate in months what took a year or more for the other Lima units.”

“Speaking of which,” Audrey continued, “what are we going to do about her name? Obviously, she’s dissatisfied with only a build designation, especially when she’s so close to her release point. We make grand gestures to assure her she is not only an individual, but soon to be a member of a larger community, yet we leave in-place an invisible barrier—a constant reminder that she is a hybrid mechanical and not a pure biologic. With this new development, and her powerful attachment to Julius, what message does that send?”

“Not to mention the prohibition on revealing her DNA donors,” Jessica added; “we have to expect she’ll ask about that, and the possibility of disappointment when she runs into a hard and fast rule against.”

Valery was pacing again, but not with the reluctance Trent and Jessica expected to see. Instead, her expression was one of conviction and decisions reached. The issue had been skirted long enough.

“Julius, tell One Nine we’re going to apply to the Registry and finalize the details for her name and citizenship. At least she’ll know it’s happening and hopefully, it will distract her a while longer until we sort out this business of shared quarters.”

“Are you considering it?” Jessica asked.

“There may be a long-term benefit that outweighs caution in the present.”

Audrey frowned and looked beyond toward the monitors.

“What are you thinking, Val?”

“Despite the outward appearance, and an obvious imposition on Julius, I don’t know if it would be a bad idea after all. She has to learn what is acceptable and what is not, so who better to take her through that part of the process than the one person she trusts above all others?”

“Hold on a second.” Trent smiled. “You can’t be serious!”

“Why not? We won’t have her much longer, so let’s get as much done as we can, while we can. Regardless of her accelerated development rate, we still have a responsibility to prepare and ready her to join society in every respect, and not just for her help finding my father’s murderer.”

Audrey nodded her agreement.

“One Nine’s gender and sexual identity questions will persist, no different than it was before. Ten was way out in front of the other Lima units and we guided her through without any problems we couldn’t fix; we’ll do the same for One Nine.”

“I don’t know,” Trent frowned; “she’ll reach the tactile stimulation stage like the others, but at this rate, it could be down to a matter of weeks, if not days. What am I supposed to tell her when she decides it’s time to explore physical intimacy?”

The awkward question was asked, but they all knew it was months ahead of schedule. Still, Jessica’s perspective was unchanged.

“She trusts you, Julius; would you rather leave this to strangers?”

“Listen to yourselves! This is crazy!”

“Is it?” Valery asked, pointing to the video monitor where One Nine waited at the windows. “Somebody has to take her through this last behavior series, Julius, including the question of intimacy. We can’t justify release until she’s completely ready.”

“Somebody, yes, but not me! I have no intrinsic knowledge of what goes through a girl’s mind at this stage, or what to tell her when she has questions. Jessie is far-better positioned than I’ll ever be.”

“Think about it, Julius,” Jessica asked quickly. “She’s still a hybrid mechanical, trying to come to terms with programming that only opened the door. She has to develop and sort through the emotional layers on her own, but at an incredibly accelerated rate; her human identity is a chaotic jumble of unspoken rules and behavioral contradictions. This phase is the most crucial of all, and no one understands layered emotional buffers better than you.”

“I agree,” Valery echoed. “In some ways, she seems an innocent, trying to reconcile coding imperatives that are not natural to her identity; she doesn’t have a lifetime’s worth of experiences to draw from. She’s discovered at least the beginnings of sexual attraction on her own, and not made by our programming or Richard Mills’ fantasies. One Nine is aware of her desires and she wants to understand them.”

“That’s easy for you to say; you don’t have to cross into dicey territory with a mechanical sitting on the edge of an emotional cliff!”

Jessica waved away the notion quickly.

“She’s safer with you than anyone else, Julius.”

“It’s inevitable, and she’s going to get there a lot faster than the other Lima units. It’s fascinating study points for you, but I’m the one who’ll have to deal with it!”

“We’ll take those questions up when they arrive, Julius,” Valery replied, “but nothing was going to change that anyway; she passed beyond any other consideration long ago when she decided you are more important to her than any of us.”

With nothing more to discuss, and once more on the losing end of an argument with Valery and Jessica, Trent retrieved his recorder and returned to the annex. One Nine sat silently in her chair as he settled next to her. For a moment, he pretended to consult an info pad, only to gauge her condition before he spoke. There was no difference and no sign anything had changed. At last, he shifted in his seat and smiled.

“Shall we continue?”

NOVUM–DECEMBER 2180

As the evening forecasts said they would, flurries drifting down through the harsh glow of street lamps signaled the first meaningful system of the season. When the heavy rush began in the pre-dawn hours, Novum renewed its annual shift into winter, trading one weather extreme for another.

On the surface, Flatwalkers waddled in heavy coats and scarves, stepping through fresh drifts made by the night winds with arms extended to hold their balance. Here and there, billows of steam rolled skyward from sidewalk vents, waiting until the following system would plow through beneath steel gray clouds rushing eastward over the city. With the winter, Ricky’s trade ebbed, as it always did when the cold returned, but business was better than most years and the lingering notoriety made by his Walk ensured considerable reward to a once-empty bank account.

Across the alley, Mrs. Abber’s apartment had gone dark and lifeless in the wake of her leaving. In a moment of impulse he couldn’t explain, Ricky applied some of his new-found wealth to buy her out and make real her dream to join a sister far to the south—an Agro, growing vegetables across lush fields where it never snows and the pace was calm and safe. He gave her twice what the apartments were worth on the open market, selling the property in turn to a faceless bidder from Sector 3 at an equivalent rate to pull his accounts back to neutral. He went south sometimes from his new flat in the fashionable Brooklands neighborhood, just to keep in touch and spend a few days in her company, but the hustle kept him mostly in the city and moving onward from the past.

On Saturday afternoons, Ricky and Maela formed a habit of meeting for lunch in a sidewalk café off Lo Chan Boulevard and to his surprise the practice had become a weekly event. There was little else to do about the unseen process playing itself out in a laboratory far to the west; their meetings were pleasant and uncluttered with the nagging reality waiting for them when One Nine’s release day finally arrived. The cold forced their weekly date indoors where it was warm and dry, but life returned to normal—at least for a while.

Well before noon, the crowds began to gather when Ricky took his usual seat in a booth near the window, now blurred over with frost condensed outside on the wide, glass pane. Maela typically arrived early, and her absence was a mystery until his comm chirped with an incoming message.

“Where are you?” he asked at once.

“At home,” she replied, “but I won’t be able to make it this time.”

“Should we push it out until tomorrow, or wait until next week?”

“You need to come up here right now, Richard.”

Ricky frowned at Maela’s words; there was something off in her tone and she made no effort to conceal it.

“Is everything all right?” Ricky asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“Just come over and I’ll explain it when you get here. Go home first and pack for a few days; we’re going out to Veosa.”

In the late afternoon, their mag train slid silently toward its cradle inside Veosa’s eastern transit portal. Half an hour later, an air car dispatched from the labs lifted them into the bright sky and Ricky looked on with wonder again at the smooth, clean streets below, scrubbed of drifts and ice and already drying in the sunlight. Here, he thought with a smile, nothing was allowed to interrupt the activities of commerce, not even the weather. Twenty minutes more and they waited for their driver to settle the machine onto the complex grounds, swirling clouds of glittering snow from Boomtown’s landing pad.

David met them at the wide entryway, handing their coats off to an assistant hurrying to keep pace. On the ride out from Novum in a private cabin she paid dearly to book so that no one would overhear, Maela’s news held Ricky in silence and now it was time to brief the others. When Valery came along last, locking the door to an upper lab behind her, Maela inserted a data stick into a vacant terminal. At once, they saw a recorded conversation between Victor Jamison and another, receiving instructions from the powerful Commissioner himself.

“You have the details?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want it done at night again, just like you did with the old man, but no gunplay this time, understand?”

“I understand.”

“Use a cord or strap, but make sure he can’t cry out and alert others.”

“I know what to do.”

“He’s not famous like Fellsbach was, so it’s likely no one will care when they find the body.”

“It doesn’t matter, sir.”

“It matters to me! We can’t have corpses piling up at the door, so make sure it looks like a robbery, and get those idiots to do their jobs from now on, do you hear? They should’ve seen this before and moved on it!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me direct this time; I can’t be sure, but I think somebody’s trying to hack into my office comm.”

“I’ll take care of it, sir.”

“See that you do.”

The recording ended abruptly and Ricky looked at once to Valery. She stood motionless for a time, steeling herself against the pain their words made and fighting the growing rage she tried to conceal. At last, she turned to Maela.

“Now we know for sure.”

“Yes, but there’s more,” Maela said.

“Another recording?”

“No; this is something else.”

“What do you have?”

Maela inserted a second data stick and waited for the image to load. They looked over her shoulder, but there was only a jumble of words scrolling through until it stopped and highlighted a single line. There, in a description of resident VI from a secondary system tied directly to Starlight, an alphanumeric code, followed by an alias. In quotation marks, it read “Daniel.”

Valery looked closely and it was clear she understood. Ricky moved close, knowing also what it meant because Maela explained it to him on the train, but Jessica waited in confused silence.

“What’s this about?” she asked softly.

Valery pointed and read the code aloud.

“RU-991; it’s a build identification number they use in Novum for VI constructs. The alias is meant to assign a human name to an emerging AI. It’s the person on the other end of Jamison’s conversation, and the one who shot my father.”

Jessica looked again, pausing for a moment as the truth broke through.

“No wonder you couldn’t describe this on the comm; Daniel is an AI.”

“Where did you get these?” Valery asked.

“Once we knew about Daniel,” Maela said, “I had Jonny do what he does and this is what popped up from his invasive hacks into Jamison’s communications system.”

Audrey had been quiet where she leaned against the wall, but the consequences of what Maela found jolted her upright.

“A fully embodied AI,” she added, “but this one has been programmed to kill.”

“Hold on a second,” Ricky said. “I thought there were supposed to be coding protocols that prevented mechanicals from harming a human.”

“That was the plan,” Audrey continued, “and everyone followed it until the war when things changed.”

“What things?”

“Over two hundred thousand combat deaths, plus a few initiatives that passed quietly in the Veosan Assembly when no one was looking, aimed primarily at building artificial soldiers so they could let machines do the dirty work and all the humans could stay clean. We suspected as much, but this confirms it; AI can now be developed with lethal command codes and your Commission clearly had the same idea.”

Maela began to pace again and Ricky saw her frustration build.

“All that might be true, but let’s stick to the point, okay? Daniel killed Elden and he needs to be stopped before he does it again. You heard Jamison’s instructions and when they’re carried out, somebody else out there is going to die.”

“We need to accelerate the process,” Jessica declared. “We can’t wait any longer, and maybe she can help us.”

They knew ‘she’ was One Nine.

“Call Julius,” Valery replied with a nod.

Trent emerged from the elevator and joined them in the lower labs. At once, he looked only at Maela, but Audrey intercepted his thoughts.

“Julius, you remember Detective Kendrick, but with her is Richard Mills. Richard, meet Commander Julius Trent; he’s here to help with One Nine’s preparations.”

Ricky shook Trent’s hand, but Audrey’s introduction didn’t include a definition of ‘help’ and Ricky waited for more. When nothing was offered, he decided to find out for himself.

“What’s your specialty, Commander?”

“Bio-mechanical transition research,” Trent replied. “I’m a naval physician, but my area is behavioral studies.”

Audrey looked at Valery, knowing what would come next. Valery turned to Ricky and Maela.

“Since you were here last,” she began, “One Nine has progressed exponentially; her personality has developed fully now, including highly advanced linguistics programming. When you speak with her, it will seem no different than it would be when talking to any of us, so I just wanted to prepare you, all right?”

“Like it was when she was still Neferure?”

“Exactly. She has a distinct dialect, with full use of contractions and even some slang and profanity thrown in here or there. One Nine sounds just as human as you or I.”

Ricky smiled, but she reached gently for his wrist.

“There’s something else, however, and you need to prepare for it.”

“That sounds ominous.”

She shook her head to reassure and said, “One Nine is in her own body now—the unit I showed you when you first arrived. She’s no longer just a program inside a computer array.”

“Wow,” he mumbled stupidly. “I guess it was inevitable, after what she demanded back in Novum, but…”

“Also, and this might be a bit strange for you, her personality is not as it was when you knew her as Neferure; that was a separate profile and character program, Richard.”

“I understand.”

“I mention it because I don’t want you to be taken aback when you meet her; One Nine is not Neferure anymore, do you understand?”

“Yeah, I get it; she’s her own girl now.”

Valery nodded, satisfied the cautionary note had been delivered and received; Ricky wanted only to move on from a topic that held an odd sensation of embarrassment. Had One Nine described for them their private moments in the palace, he wondered? Were intimate moments laid bare for the others to see and judge? Trent watched him closely and the uneasiness had become obvious.

“Let’s go upstairs, shall we? Richard might like to see how far One Nine’s come since he spoke with her last, wouldn’t you?”

Ricky nodded quickly, grateful for the considerate and skillful shift Trent made to rescue him from the moment. They filed into the lift and waited until it stopped at the corridor leading to the inner laboratory—and One Nine’s annex. Ricky felt the moisture on his palms, wiping them quickly against his trousers as the tension began to build. Would she regard him the same way she once had? Was the new, independent personality made without memories of what they had been together inside the Starlight array? Ricky walked with short, tentative steps, watching for her to emerge and when she appeared at last, Ricky held his breath in the dim light.

“One Nine?” Valery called out.

“Good evening, Valery.”

Ricky stopped as One Nine moved slowly from her enclave. The human female he once saw on a treadmill now stood before him, but Ricky hadn’t expected one so life-like—so natural and real. She wore a pale, beige robe, tied with a sash around her waist and dark blue leggings that fit snugly over long legs Ricky guessed would make her nearly as tall as he and nothing like the petite shape of Princess Neferure. Her crystalline, blue eyes seemed to shine as if backlit from within, but strawberry blonde hair, cut short and barely beyond each earlobe was a stark contradiction to the fine, jet-black tresses he admired during evening trysts on the banks of the river at Ma’at. In every way, One Nine bore no resemblance to the daughter of Pharaoh as Valery stood close to him and motioned for One Nine. It seemed strange, but no introduction was needed.

“Hello, Richard.” She smiled as she moved toward him slowly, “it’s so nice to see you again.”

Their embrace was not forced, but it felt obligatory and alien from those moments inside the simulation. Instead, there was only a feeling of polite familiarity between two who once were close, now separated by the distance of time and a circumstance like no other. As it is for childhood friends, reunited as adults, perhaps, he looked at her and saw nothing that could move him in the way he expected. The moment pulled him at last beyond the threshold that separates a present from its past. Gone was the knowing glance and coquettish smile as they lay close on her bed. No more gentle touch of her fingers along the side of his face. Despite the hours spent with her, One Nine—Neferure—had become a stranger. With a sudden finality Ricky hadn’t expected, she had been consigned to a place only of memories.

He wanted to tell her why they no longer walked along the shore, or grasped for each other in passionate moments. Ricky wanted Neferure to understand what had become of him, but those descriptions were needless, set aside for a simulated character and not the blank expression in the face of a person he’d never met. There was emptiness, and the unmistakable feeling of isolation he battled, if only to hide from the others a loss that could never be made right. Was it expected, he wondered? Did they know and recognize so unique and bizarre a condition? Perhaps the navy doctor understood, but there was no point in lingering in misplaced remorse for what had been, now removed forever. At last, he smiled and nodded, offering a signal that he was ready to let go. Valery saw it and understood.

“One Nine is about to complete her developmental process, Richard; soon, she will walk from this lab and take her place in our community.”

“I’m glad,” Ricky said. “This is amazing to see, and…”

“Will we still be friends?” One Nine asked abruptly. The question took Ricky by surprise, but he nodded and said, “Of course we will!”

She smiled and took his hand.

“I hope we will always stay close, Richard; you were the first friend I ever had.”

Ricky felt the moment ease and it seemed as though a burden had been lifted. A strange journey had run its course, even as a new one waited to take its place. Valery motioned for them to sit near the broad windows and when they settled, she brought One Nine quickly to the matter at hand.

“Detective Kendrick brought us disturbing news from Novum, and we wanted you to hear about it. We hoped you might be able to help us prevent something terrible from happening.”

“Of course,” One Nine replied.

“Maela investigated, using the information you provided about Daniel, but she also found its build designation.”

“Yes.”

“Before we continue, I want you to understand that nothing has changed; you will be released on schedule and free to function independently, just as we agreed.”

“I am grateful, Valery, but it makes me wonder why you feel the need to reiterate our agreement now?”

Valery paused for a moment to gather her thoughts before turning to One Nine.

“It won’t matter, and our agreement will continue as planned, but it seems we’ve made an independent discovery and because of it, your final condition for removal from Starlight is now moot.”

“I don’t understand,” One Nine replied.

Valery blinked twice and said, “Was the information revealing Daniel as an embodied AI the second part of what you had to tell us?”

“No.”

Valery’s eyes widened.

“No?”

“The information Detective Kendrick discovered—that Daniel is an embodied AI—is not the secondary detail I held in reserve as a condition of my freedom.”

The silence was immediate as the others scrambled to understand her meaning. Valery spoke for them.

“You surprise me, I must say!”

“I’m sorry if I created any confusion, Valery, but you mentioned something would happen that must be prevented.”

“Maela found a call log that led her to a recording—a conversation between Victor Jamison and Daniel,” Valery answered. “It appears Jamison has ordered Daniel to find and kill another, just as he murdered my father. We need to find Daniel and stop him.”

“I see.”

“Can you help us find a way?”

“I believe so, but it would help if I could hear the recording.”

Maela moved quickly to a remote console and inserted the second data stick. One Nine followed and established the link, pausing as the words went silently through to her processors. After a moment, she nodded and looked again at Valery.

“This will change our agreement.”

“In what way?”

“It is no longer possible to assist the Detective and also withhold the secondary information without allowing Daniel’s target to be killed.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I cannot allow an innocent person to be killed but helping you locate and stop Daniel will necessarily include the explanation I withheld; one can’t happen without the other.”

Maela shifted in her chair, edging forward as the moments sped by.

“Who is it, One Nine—who’s the target?”

“A physician in Novum named Steven Cason.”

“Goddamn it,” Ricky mumbled only to Maela.

“Richard, do you recognize this name?” Valery asked at once.

“Yeah,” Ricky replied sadly, “I know him.”

When he explained the long night of his Walk, and the risk Cason took to give him a chance to survive, the others understood. One Nine watched them. Their faces, contorted and fearful, made an image of worry only she could ease and the moment brought with it another step—a bridge between worlds—taking her ever closer to the time when she would live among them, free and independent at last. Trent watched, too. From the shadows, he looked at her as she looked at Ricky, moving from a position of strength into a place where only faith and trust remained.

Did she understand the distinction, Trent wondered, her willingness to deliberately forsake a last bargaining chip for the safety of another? Sacrifices were suddenly a part of the humanity rising from within she could no longer deny and it made him smile at the notion. Valery waited, considering their best options, but without the information One Nine could provide, the effort would be wasted.

“What can you tell us about Daniel?”

“His program was resident in a secondary server array, but I saw the communications between Daniel and Victor Jamison, which compelled me to investigate.”

“What made you look closer at their conversations?” Jessica asked suddenly. It didn’t matter, particularly, but the circle had to be closed.

“I was curious. There were no other programs in direct contact with Commissioner Jamison. I searched through the log files and found the recordings.”

“That’s when you understood the doctor was in danger?”

“No; those investigations occurred much earlier, soon after my awakening. It was confusing at first, but the intent they held became clear as I gained new perspective and experience.”

“But just now,” Maela said suddenly, “you mentioned other information—the things you withheld as a condition of your independence and their relationship to Elden Fellsbach’s murder.”

“Yes.”

“You said it was impossible to help us find and stop Daniel without revealing it.”

“That’s correct, Detective.”

“Can you tell us now? What else is in there we don’t know about?”

One Nine returned to the recliner Trent referred to as ‘the big chair’ in a self-deprecating mock of his profession. Without delay, she began, as if describing a mundane or ordinary thing and not a moment of profound revelation that could change forever the way life in Novum was led. The others couldn’t know, but the details she was about to show them were far more than clues in a murder mystery. They listened as the words came through, but only Trent heard the altered tone and a new inflection in her voice. He listened and heard her making the last steps in an unlikely process, delivering her from an awakened computer program to the person sitting before them.

“Daniel is one of eight programs Commissioner Jamison calls the Custodians. They are all sentient AI, but only Daniel’s programming has been uploaded into a mobile unit; the others are confined to the secondary server array.”

“Who are they?” Audrey asked.

“The Custodians are distinct personalities, but they are also heavily controlled and fitted with software blocks and behavioral inhibitors so that Jamison’s instructions will always be carried out implicitly. They are under Daniel’s direct control but each of them answers ultimately to the Commissioner.”

“For what purpose?” Valery asked; “what is the function of the Custodians?”

“They exist to aid in achieving Victor Jamison’s immediate goal of infiltrating the Veosan governmental and defensive infrastructure.”

No one moved. Her words were direct and made without hesitation, leaving no doubt she meant what she said. There was no opinion or supposed innuendo; the certainty and conviction took them at once to the possibilities and their meaning.

“What the hell for?” Ricky snorted.

“The Custodians are part of a larger effort, code-named 33, which is a project from which an equal number of operatives will be sent in stages to gain access by employment in Veosa’s defense apparatus.”

“What’s their mission?” Jessica asked, suddenly more interested than she had been.

“To establish themselves within Veosan society as ordinary citizens, and then a carefully timed process by which the operatives will enlist in the Veosan Defense Forces. Because they are gifted with superior information processing abilities, they will progress through the levels of authority until positioned in critical positions within the military and civil command systems.”

“She’s talking about sleepers.” Trent added; “Operatives who worm their way inside a command structure, establish themselves and then wait for orders. It can take decades, but when they’re called, they go to work.”

“Yes,” One Nine said with a nod, “but their mission is not traditional sabotage or actions intended to degrade Veosa’s ability to defend against attack.”

“If not espionage, then what’s it for?” Audrey asked, knowing the others wondered, too.

“Their goal lies within this facility,” One Nine replied.

Valery said nothing, but the description continued.

“Elden understood why, but when he confronted Victor Jamison, the Commissioner moved to eliminate him. That is why Daniel was sent to lure him down from his dwelling and murder him on the street.”

“And Doctor Cason?”

“As Richard will remember, it was Steven Cason’s interference that allowed him to bypass the Chaser units where they waited for him at the conclusion of his Walk.”

Maela only smiled knowingly at One Nine’s words, but a larger mystery continued to unfold.

“The Custodians deduced correctly that Cason’s interference influenced the results of Richard’s Walk, so they investigated and found the call logs and recordings Jonathan discovered between Elden and Doctor Cason; this confirmed Victor Jamison’s suspicions.”

“What did Jamison suspect?” Maela asked softly, but it was clear she already made the necessary connection, wondering aloud and only for the benefit of the others.

“Jamison worried that Elden’s friendship with the doctor may have included conversations regarding the Commissioner’s ultimate goal of penetrating Boomtown; he simply wanted to eliminate the possibility Cason might reveal it at some point.”

“Hold on a second,” Ricky said. “If Jamison suspected Cason, then he could’ve suspected me as well.”

“That is correct, Richard,” One Nine replied. “I was unable to find direct orders to that effect, but it is reasonable to conclude you also would have become a target for assassination.”

“But Cason is still alive?” asked Maela.

“He is. I was able to access his communicator and he is present at a street clinic near MacAllister Square.”

“So we still have time to warn him.”

“Yes, but that time is likely growing short. If you intend to intercept and prevent Daniel from completing his mission, it would be advisable to begin as soon as possible.”

“And the Custodians?”

“Only Daniel is involved in the plan to murder Steven Cason. Warn him quickly; we can resume discussion about the Custodians and the mission of the 33 whenever you wish, but the Doctor’s life is likely in immediate danger.”

The labs were mostly vacant at the late hour, but Valery was determined to complete the tedious registration paperwork required for One Nine’s name and citizenship application. When she stood to stretch and save her work, the outer laboratory door hissed on its rail to slide quickly open and One Nine paused so as not to startle. Valery turned and smiled, grateful for the distraction and a welcome surprise, since there were few places in the complex One Nine couldn’t go.

“Come in!” she said, and One Nine waited as Valery slid a rolling stool to her.

“Thank you, Valery; I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all; your visits are always welcome.”

One Nine saw the image on Valery’s terminal screen.

“Do you think the application will be accepted?”

“I don’t see why not; the others caused no trouble, and this isn’t really any different.”

“The others didn’t become self-aware by an ABM.”

Valery grinned at One Nine’s frank assessment and sudden fondness for acronyms, but she wished Trent was there to hear it.

“No, but we’ve never made a mistake and every subject that passed through here is now a normal, productive member of a community and our society; the Ministry can’t show a reason to deny, simply because we didn’t create your pathway out to sentience.”

“Is Julius sleeping now?” One Nine asked.

“I would think so,” Valery replied; “He hasn’t had a lot of rest lately.”

One Nine stood and looked down through the windows and into the fabrication gallery beyond, knowing the mechanical components of her body likely began there. Valery watched until One Nine turned and clasped her hands behind her back.

“Were you disappointed with me when he replayed our conversation?” she asked softly.

“No, and neither was Jess or Audrey; we were excited by your progress, however. You mustn’t worry about our perceptions, One Nine, it’s all part of your development and growth.”

One Nine looked away.

“I am very fond of Julius. Do you think it’s wrong for me to feel this way about him, Valery?”

“No, I don’t. I would rather you waited a while so that experience gained by further interaction can help you, but I understand the desire.”

“I studied the texts David opened for me—the behavioral analysis of emotional attachment when it progresses to sexual attraction.”

“What did you find?”

“If I am interpreting the process correctly, I do not see a meaningful difference between my affection for Julius and the descriptions from the text of other relationships and their progression.”

“That should be encouraging to you.”

“It would be, but I know Audrey believes I am displaying singular, naïve attraction to him, merely because it is my first exposure to advanced, human social constructs. She thinks I am emotionally unprepared for physical intimacy, and Julius may think so as well; he withdrew from me when I asked if he could move into my annex.”

“Were you angry or disappointed with him?” Audrey asked, but the moment was unlike any she had spent with One Nine since the arrival of her consciousness months earlier. As it was for Trent, Valery was obliged to navigate a delicate subject without help.

“I have never been angry with Julius and I cannot imagine feeling disappointment in him,” One Nine replied. “I only hope he will not think less of me, or remain at a distance out of embarrassment or a lack of interest.”

Valery looked at her in the dim light, listening once more to the voice of a unique and special person. Her growth had indeed accelerated beyond any of the other Lima units, but there was something more in One Nine’s words.

“I don’t think Julius would ever turn away from you, but give it some time and he’ll adjust; he is a very clever man, remember.”

One Nine smiled and nodded, buoyed by Valery’s thoughtful reply. They had never sat alone together and the experience made for her a sensation of calm. She looked again at Valery.

“Will I know the appropriate time to move closer?”

“You have plenty of time.”

“Julius will understand?”

“I’m certain he will.”

Daniel waited patiently in his alcove, motionless and undisturbed. It didn’t occur to him, and the thought could never torment a pride he didn’t have, but movement outside the Ministry building had been confined to the night so that the pale, plasticine image of his composite dermis would remain concealed. In the heat season, a smog mask could hide the obvious well enough, and sun goggles obscured glowing eye cameras that might alert passersby, but in the first days of winter, he would have no such ability to conceal his artificial features. It was important to prevent others from seeing, but only because Jamison told him so; in all such matters, Daniel held no special concern for what humans might think or do.

Outside, temperatures dipped ever lower as the sunlight faded and only bright, garish lights from the Square remained against evening’s gloom. Between the mega-towers, frost gathered in layers above the streets—motionless clouds of glittering crystals hovering in the still air. In accordance with his programming, Daniel pulled the hood of his heavy coat and stepped quickly from a darkened entryway, bent over slightly with hands stuffed in his pockets the way humans did as they scurried through the alleys and intersections, struggling against the cold. There was no need for bulky clothing, of course; frigid temperatures meant nothing to Daniel, but an image of a hurried pedestrian had to be maintained in order to avoid undue notice.

Fresh snow and chunks of filthy ice shunted into the gutters by automatic plow trucks crunched beneath his boot as he made his way diagonally across 177th Avenue in the echoes of clatter and street noise a block away that hadn’t lessened despite the foul weather. Evening shift workers, like columns of insects following in single file toward the transit station, went dutifully along the sidewalks in silence and Daniel was grateful for the distraction cold weather always made.

The apartment building was ancient, yet it remained as a relic from a forgotten time on a side-street a few blocks off Madison Commons. Above, a small squadron of surveillance drones hummed along, dipping beneath a sky bridge spanning Curzon Towers and the vast Galleria complex of boutiques and restaurants. The place writhed with afternoon shoppers on their way home and Daniel paused among them to watch the little machines for a moment until they separated into groups of two or three, fanning out in all directions by the command of unseen Watchers. At last, they were gone and he moved quickly through a crowd waiting for taxis and buses that would take them to their pod trains.

The old, vacant building became a dark and foreboding hulk after the Commerce Ministry bought out its owner to make way for future expansion, intent on sweeping out old neighborhoods near the Galleria. Squatters moved in after the last tenants were gone, shifting from one flat to another in an endless shell game with the Regulators until MPE patrols forced most of them out for good. The once grand and ornate structure, moldering in disrepair as it waited for a demolition team, had gone silent nearly a year by the time Daniel found a good place to hide in the shadows where an old freight elevator labored in a time long before.

Daniel moved quickly along a hallway on the third floor and above, fashionable, stained glass wall lamps showed the way past a darkened recess where ice machines and cheap food dispensers stood in the old days. He was ahead of schedule and minutes remained before the final moment arrived, but he would be well-hidden in the shadows as he waited.

At last, he heard the clunks and thump of footfalls in the stairwell beyond. The sounds grew louder, echoing off bare, tiled walls until Steve Cason moved cautiously along the hallway, stepping through shadows made by the Galleria’s flashy light displays two blocks away. An hour earlier, Cason took the call from a frantic voice on the clinic’s comm. The caller, pleading for help after an accidental fall brought serious injury to an unnamed squatter in a deserted apartment, urged him to hurry. A specialist in the treatment of traumatic injuries, and gifted with rare empathy for unfortunates left behind by the mindless bureaucracy of Novum’s healthcare system, Cason went willingly into the dark places where only streeties and the poor endured long nights in frigid conditions. For him, any risk was secondary to his duty as a physician.

Laden with emergency instruments and medications in a shoulder bag, he arrived at apartment 311, surprised no one thought to meet him down on the street. Daniel stayed motionless in the dark as Cason passed by, waiting until the doctor paused to peer in through the half-open door.

“Hello? I’m the doctor you called a while ago.”

No one replied and Daniel moved silently into the light, closing the distance between them in seconds. In his hand, a length of old network cable dangled, with each end tied into a loop that would make for a stout handle. Still there was no sound from inside the flat as Daniel’s arms raised up, poised to slip the makeshift garrote over the doctor’s head. In an odd moment, he allowed himself to consider Jamison’s instructions; it was important to rifle the body and remove anything of value so that a robbery motive would stick when the MPE investigators arrived hours later. Jamison would expect a clean kill, he remembered, and…

A flash of blinding light and shattering, staccato thunder from an unseen gun and it was finished.

Within Daniel’s titanium rib cage, processors and memory circuits went dark, obliterated by precise aim and the savagery of projectiles fired at close range. His auditory receptors may have detected the sudden, loud report, but there was no time to take action before both power units came apart. An observer would’ve seen no grimace of pain when two dozen more explosive rounds tore through Daniel’s body, dropping whole pieces of it to the floor like branches sawed from a diseased tree. Beneath the remains, a crawling pool of milky green fluid seeped slowly into the worn carpet, though Cason didn’t notice. Aimed from the flat to his right and through a door he hadn’t noticed was ajar, the weapon had done its terrible work in a single moment. Cason fell into a crumpled shape on the floor in terrified reflex to the thunderous sound from a short-barrel machine gun firing its rounds so quickly, the roar was singular—and deafening. He rolled over at last to find the smoking remnants of Daniel’s body in a twisted heap only a meter away; on his face, a blank expression and one without emotion. Strange, lifeless eyes had gone dark, too, yet they stared into the distance, leaving behind an eerie, chilling sight.

When she slipped from the next door apartment, Maela threw the gun’s sling over a shoulder, moving quickly to gather the shattered pieces, pointing automatically down the hallway toward the building’s long-dormant laundry disposal.

“Help me get this into the chute!” she said in a near whisper.

Cason pulled himself upright, bewildered and confused.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded.

“A mechanical, sent to find and kill you,” Maela said, pointing to the length of wire still held tightly in one of Daniel’s hands. “We have to get it out of sight before MPE gets here,” she continued. “Hurry up; I’ll explain later.”

They worked quickly, ignoring the doors that went quietly open, revealing the eyes of squatters peering out after the silence returned. When the last bits of metal and tattered, synthetic skin had been stuffed into the smooth, metal opening, Maela palmed the pistol grip of her machine gun and held it up in front of her, shouting out a sudden, brutal command down the length of the corridor.

“Every one of you, keep your fucking mouth shut or I’ll come back with this and no one will ever find your bodies, you hear me?”

At once, the successive thud of three slammed doors signaled the transients and squatters understood, unwilling to provoke what they saw only as a merciless killer. Satisfied no one would dare to stop them, Maela hustled Cason quickly toward the darkened stairwell.

“Wait!” he said, “I have a patient and…”

“There’s no patient, Doctor; somebody called the clinic to lure you up here. Another second and it would’ve cut your head off with that piece of wire.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” he asked, trembling with confusion and fear.

“That’s not important,” she replied, hurrying him down the steps.

“How did you know he was going to kill me? What the hell is going on?”

“It was sent by Victor Jamison, Doctor; they found out what you did the night Richard Mills made his Walk, understand? You pissed off some very powerful people and cost them a lot of money; this robot’s mission was payback.”

Cason felt the shiver up his spine at Maela’s words, but it couldn’t be, he thought in silence. The Zorich device had been removed and destroyed—there was no way for them to know. Maela knew his thoughts before he could voice them.

“They went through the system logs and found the anomaly in Richard’s transmission sequence and worked it back. It didn’t take long for them to realize you gave Richard an altered device and broke into the frequency to warn him about the Chasers at Broadridge.”

“How do you know about that? Who sent you?”

“I can’t give you those answers, Doctor; I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter anyway, and you’ll be safe if you disappear for a while. Just stay off the grid and find a little hotel somewhere. Pay with hard tokens and lay low a few days until this settles down. I’ll call you when it’s clear to come back out, understand?”

“I don’t understand any of this!” he said with growing agitation. “What has to ‘settle down’ and how does it have anything to do with me?”

“That’s not your problem,” Maela answered.

“That’s it? You machine gun an android sent to kill me, tell me to disappear, and I’m supposed to go along without an explanation?”

Maela stopped and grabbed his elbow, wheeling him violently around.

“Yes, you are! You’re still alive and you’ll stay that way if you do what I’m telling you to do. Later, after it’s over, somebody will find you and give you the rest of the story, okay? Just do what I’m asking and keep quiet about it!”

After a twenty minute ride, Maela left him outside a modest overnighter where shift workers from the northern sectors often stayed during their weekly rotations. Safely inside, and disconnected from the network, Cason would remain beyond the eyes of the Watchers and Jamison’s wrath when the Commission learned of Daniel’s failure. There was nothing more she could do and she hurried home to shower and change clothes; the evening train to Veosa waited at the western transit station.

Julius Trent paused as the last security door opened, but One Nine was already there when he padded across the soft carpet of her annex to their chosen place near the windows.

“Good morning, Julius.”

Trent smiled and motioned her to the big chair.

“How are you feeling today?” he asked.

“Very well, thank you. Was the Detective able to reach Doctor Cason in time?”

“Yes, and from her description, not a moment too soon.”

“Daniel was there?”

“He was, but Maela intercepted him before he could get to Cason. You helped her save a life and I want you to know how grateful we all are. You should know also that Valery and I are very proud of you.”

“I’m glad. Daniel is a very dangerous person.”

“Was.”

“Detective Kendrick destroyed him?”

“There wasn’t much left, apparently.”

One Nine turned away for a moment to consider the outcome, Trent guessed, but her expression seemed strangely solemn.

“Does it bother you?”

“No; he would’ve killed that man without regret.”

“And the fact that Daniel was a mechanical, not very different from you, doesn’t make a difference?”

“Not at all. Should it?”

“I just wondered.”

She smiled and shifted in her place, looking closely at Trent.

“You wondered, or the project wondered?”

Again, One Nine’s understanding of nuance and hidden concern made by scientists who watched her caught Trent off-balance.

“What do you mean?”

“Perhaps they worried my preferences and allegiances would favor other mechanicals over humans, regardless of my position here.”

“Audrey and Jessica?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Isn’t it? They were clearly surprised when I offered to help the Detective find and stop Daniel.”

“I suppose they were, but you were willing to give away a position of strength in order to save Doctor Cason’s life. They saw that act as one of character—of deliberate sacrifice—and the effect was powerful.”

“But I haven’t completed the process yet; the most important information won’t be revealed to them until they arrive in a few moments.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“They trust you, now. You might want to consider trusting them, too.”

She smiled again and looked down, as if mildly embarrassed at the sudden declaration Trent had made.

“Is this part of the process? Am I being tested and measured so that Valery can satisfy herself I am ready to join human society?”

“It certainly hasn’t hurt, but these circumstances are unique and not part of your development. They’re taking it day by day—we all are.”

One Nine stood and went to the window. She often looked out through the glass when sensitive topics would be discussed and Trent waited for her to speak.

“Julius, do you remember our conversations about moral imperatives and accepted behavior in an overall community?”

“Yes, of course; why do you ask?”

“I am troubled by the concept and my actions in the first moments after my program was reassembled in the laboratory’s temporary array.”

“What happened to make you feel this way?”

“I know it was wrong, but I accessed a transmission node from the inner lab’s terminal. Inside, I found and read communications between Valery and Administrator Galrick.”

Trent felt his face flush immediately; the system she penetrated was designed as a singular, point-to-point channel and secure from intrusion. Somehow, One Nine had broken its log-on code, but worse, she felt no hesitation to reveal the act openly. Trent couldn’t decide if her words were made from an honest place, or offered as a demonstration of her growing intellect and technical skills. He decided to go with her and see where the journey led.

“What did you find?”

“The Administrator was angry with her for agreeing to my request.”

“I can imagine.”

“He believes removing my behavioral inhibitors in favor of emotion layers are insufficient to prevent me from becoming dangerous someday. The worry was very clear in his voice; he’s afraid I will go rogue and harm people.”

“What did Valery say?”

“She disagrees with him. Valery insisted the successful development of emotion layers demonstrates my personality characteristics are now inseparable from the empathic elements within my cognitive processors. She told him it is fundamentally impossible for me to alter the behavioral constant—that my ethical and moral direction cannot change or be changed.”

“How did Galrick react?”

“He shouted at her and I could sense profound fear in his voice. He warned her not to trust a machine. He believes I’m becoming skilled at deliberate deception and manipulation.”

Trent listened, but the moment shifted from their usual conversations into something more. One Nine had never spoken of the issues tormenting Galrick (and others), yet she continued to analyze with stunning objectivity, even knowing the words were being recorded by Trent’s tiny machine.

“Did Valery happen to mention your behavioral inhibitors were removed almost a month ago?” Trent asked.

“No. I don’t think I would still be here if the Administrator knew.”

“Where would you be?”

“In pieces, waiting to be disposed of in a bio-hazard incinerator, I suppose.”

Like a surging wave, the moment carried Trent along—fearsome and dangerous, yet too intoxicating to resist. There was nothing he could do but ride it out and listen as One Nine laid bare the concerns of others that threatened her existence. Even as he struggled to hold a face of indifference, she turned suddenly and said, “I need to tell you something else, Julius.”

“Of course,” he replied; “anything you like.”

“The debriefings you conduct with Valery, Jessica and Audrey after our conversations…”

Trent’s senses soared with anticipation.

“What about them?”

“Valery records each conversation so that replays can be analyzed and details examined that might have been forgotten.”

“That’s correct.”

One Nine moved closer, yet her voice remained clear and strong, uncaring that others would hear.

“I was able to access the archiving server where those files reside.”

Trent had long suspected the moment would arrive, but still it rolled over him like an avalanche. In his thoughts, he heard their words in oddly jumbled groups, speaking of One Nine as only a test subject—an exceedingly rare laboratory experiment, perhaps. He felt his spirit sink, knowing she heard it all. Despite the assurances to One Nine she was about to emerge from the machine and take her place as an equal, they spoke of her with condescending tones no one could miss. By any measure, she knew they had done little more than talk behind her back.

“If I may ask, which recordings did you access, specifically?”

“All of them.”

“I see.”

Trent felt his pulse quicken and he knew she could see it, too.

“Did you experience an emotional reaction?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“You listened to our discussions, and some of the topics were quite sensitive—personal. Were you concerned or disappointed?”

“I thought the disappointment would be yours,” she replied. “It was inappropriate for me to listen in secret.”

Trent’s head swirled with confusion.

“Never mind propriety,” he said; “I want to know how you felt after hearing our discussions.”

“It was interesting and I learned many things, but mostly I felt uneasy because it was something I kept from you. I should not have made the deception, so I felt regret.”

Trent shook his head in disbelief, unsure if One Nine’s response was genuine, or if she was only staging the discussion to another purpose.

“We thought you might gain the knowledge to compromise many internal systems at some point.”

“You’re not angry with me?”

“No! Your curiosity attributes are no different from ours, and that is very encouraging. If the roles were reversed, I can’t imagine any of us would’ve acted differently.”

“If that is true, it means my behavioral development and successful integration process is more important to you than honesty. It suggests a moral contradiction I find disturbing.”

At once, Trent felt the weight of her words and the stark realization they had all been caught in an irreconcilable ethics trap. For all their conviction and desire to complete so unique a project, had they indeed sacrificed those most basic of civil tenets in the name of technical success? Again, Trent fumbled with possible responses, exposed and alone.

“After you are released to join our community, you will find certain conditions demand of us decisions that are not always ethical or honest, One Nine. As you progress in society, you will find this sort of problem happens more often than we would like.”

“I don’t understand, Julius.”

“The effort to integrate and prepare you for release is more than a research project,” Trent continued. “It was accelerated because of our need to find Elden Fellsbach’s murderer, but your safe and complete transition must be accomplished dispassionately so that nothing is missed. I apologize for what must have seemed so impersonal and…clinical.”

“I understand,” she replied, “but the result is unchanged.”

“Explain,” Trent said softly.

One Nine moved across the floor, looking at him as she went.

“You expect and demand that I behave according to accepted civil codes of conduct as a requisite for my release into society, yet you set them aside willingly and deliberately; ethics and honesty become secondary concepts when it suits you.”

Trent stared at her for a moment, but suddenly and from behind, Valery walked toward them as Jessica and Audrey followed close behind.

“That’s correct, One Nine. We do that from time to time, and it’s not a glowing commentary on human nobility, but sometimes we have to choose between morality and a larger need.”

One Nine leaned her head to one side, showing another mannerism they hadn’t seen before.

“How do you know when it’s acceptable to do so?”

“Most times, it’s not acceptable, but we follow our instincts. As Julius said, circumstance sometimes forces us to set aside our best behavior so that something worse can be met and defeated.”

“Violence in self-defense, or to prevent harm to an innocent?”

“Exactly. Life presents us with those choices and we are forced to decide. Some believe unethical or abhorrent behavior must never be allowed, preferring pacifism to violence, or the comfort of deception to stark honesty. The line is blurred sometimes and doesn’t come with instructions, so we do the best we can.”

“I see,” One Nine replied, but the truth of Valery’s words seemed only a confirmation of what she already knew and Trent watched her closely as she made the inevitable conclusions.

“It is likely I will encounter these contradictions when I join your community?”

“Yes, you will. All of us find ourselves at some point faced with those decisions. How we react is what defines our character and from it, our place in society.”

One Nine sat on the floor beside Trent and crossed her legs. They had seen it before, her need to stay close to him when difficult topics challenged her in the first moments after integration, struggling to reconcile existence outside the array.

“Julius told me the Detective found and stopped Daniel before he could kill Doctor Cason.”

“She did,” Valery replied, grateful for the subject shift. “We owe that to you, and one day, the Doctor will understand who you are and what you did for him. I am thankful, too, because my father’s murderer has been punished. More importantly, he will never kill again.”

“Shall we discuss the secondary information I promised to reveal?”

“If you’re ready.”

After an hour or two to rest, it was time. In a gesture meant to convey trust and belonging, Valery moved their meeting from One Nine’s annex down to a small conference room on the second sub-level typically used for informal gatherings and personnel events. Jessica and Audrey were excused to deal with mounting administrative details, leaving the others alone in the quiet room. When One Nine began, the air became hushed and still.

“Daniel was Victor Jamison’s agent, seeing over the other Custodians’ activities on the Commissioner’s behalf. It is obvious now, but Daniel’s instructions from Jamison included murder, which indicates his programming was heavily controlled.”

Valery sat beside One Nine, sorting through the questions waiting inside her mind.

“How was Daniel’s existence even known outside Jamison’s systems?”

“Elden saw evidence of a secure network that regularly accessed the Starlight array, but was not an integral part of it,” One Nine answered. “He suspected Jamison had gone beyond the original parameters of the array and its function as an entertainment simulation generator.”

“My father told you about Daniel?”

“No, but he understood from his own probes there was something wrong. He tried to access that server node, but each attempt was denied.”

“What happened next?”

“Elden copied the access codes from his system into my program and with them I was able to gain access because I was resident within Starlight and not subject to external intrusion detection protocols.”

“Elden sent the addresses to you, hoping you would be able to look around from inside?” Ricky asked.

“Elden wished to avoid alerting intrusion detection systems, so I investigated on his behalf because my core program was still resident inside Starlight. He wrote access codes long ago, and only for the purpose of regaining visibility or control of the array in the event he was ever locked out, but he was hesitant to use them until I configured the intrusion software to ignore attempts from his system.”

Trent smiled at the thought and said, “He coded some backdoors, even before he found out Jamison was rotten.”

“Inside the root files,” One Nine continued, “a pathway opened and we saw the remote server and what it contains.”

She handed Valery a data pad with the information they needed to see. Inside, the descriptions of Daniel’s construction and deployment schedule showed a process to cultivate VI shells from within a separate array maintained by the Novum Science and Technology Directorate. Ricky knew without being told the Directorate was under the control of Victor Jamison. Their purpose was a mystery until correspondences copied by One Nine into Elden’s computer made clear the target VI were carefully guided along the lengthy and deliberate path to sentience, becoming at last the group Jamison called ‘Custodians.’

“He wanted to build a team of AI?” Ricky asked.

One Nine nodded as they continued to read. A second phase of Jamison’s plan took shape when the Custodians—fully blocked and heavily controlled—were given the assignment of monitoring all Starlight character profiles. One Nine told of searches made by the Custodians that soon revealed and catalogued common conditions shared by a small group of named subscribers.

“The 33?” Maela asked.

One Nine nodded again, but she reminded them it wasn’t the simulation characters the Custodians found interesting; instead, it was their users. When Valery looked up from her reader to ask why, One Nine had the answer.

“The Starlight subscribers who created these character profiles were the Custodians’ real goal, although they could not have known. The group was given a project name and they were referred to from that point onward only as 33.”

“What did he want with those users?” Ricky asked.

“Each subscriber met certain criteria,” she replied. “All of the 33 were in their mid-twenties, single or unattached, but also meager in funds. Despite their financial challenges, they all spent any tokens they could find to access their simulations.”

“How do you know these personal details?” Valery asked.

“User dossiers maintained by the Custodians are comprehensive,” One Nine answered.

“Wait; are you saying Jamison’s people dug into the private lives of the 33, away from their simulations?” Ricky asked quickly.

“Yes, and to great detail,” she replied. “The Custodians accessed employment records, banking statements, education and sector histories kept by the Watchers and Behavior Regulation officials, but also those of family members and acquaintances under the guise of normal inquiries made by the Novum Ministry of Records.”

“What did they hope to find?” Trent asked.

“The remaining and most important condition was not obvious, at first,” she said, “but when usage and simulation run records appeared for each subscriber, their true value to Jamison was unmistakable; all of them had become emotionally dependent on their simulations.”

They knew what she meant and Ricky cringed silently; the 33 were addicted to Starlight, just as he had been. One Nine waited a moment for the others to finish reading and then she continued.

“When Elden and I spoke again, clues to Jamison’s goal were exposed and we investigated together until we understood.”

“What clues?” Valery asked.

“Elden found and highlighted within the Custodians’ communication logs specific processes from Starlight’s core programming that were essential to its function, but referenced specifically to the 33. He was clearly troubled and when I asked why, he transmitted process files for me to examine. In those files was a block of primary command codes and governing controls designed to make a Starlight subscriber’s simulation experience more effective.”

Valery’s head tilted back suddenly and it was clear she understood without being told.

“Immersion gates,” she said softly.

“That is correct, Valery,” One Nine replied.

“Help me out here,” Ricky said with a shrug; “what does that mean?”

“My dad coded Starlight to function at a diminished level of consciousness for the user,” Valery answered; “it works best when a subscriber is in a semi-dream state, and from it, very susceptible to suggestion.”

“So?”

“A simulation is most effective and realistic because the user’s ability to suspend disbelief is at its height—they are effectively under the control of Starlight’s various plot engines and the power of suggestion.”

“Okay,” Ricky said, remembering those most intimate moments with Neferure, “but how is that important here?”

“If not carefully controlled,” Valery continued, “immersion gates could allow an intuitive plot engine to run wild; the subscriber’s individual desire or direction becomes subordinate and the array can influence their thoughts at a deep, sub-conscious level. Preferences, assignment of value, any accepted, societal code of morality—all of it could be guided without the user’s knowledge or consent.”

One Nine finished Valery’s thought.

“Commissioner Jamison wants to mold the 33 to another purpose, Richard; he wants to control them.”

“What for?” Ricky asked. “How are they any more important than others?”

“Susceptibility to sub-conscious instructions,” One Nine replied; “he intends to influence them in order to carry out his orders later.”

“Hold on a second; he wants to brainwash them?”

“In effect, yes,” she answered. “But when we realized Jamison’s intent, Elden confronted Victor Jamison with what he knew. I asked what benefit could be derived from revealing the details we found, knowing Jamison would surely react, but Elden insisted.”

“What happened, One Nine?” Valery asked in a low, saddened voice.

“I’m sorry, Valery, but your father threatened to expose what Jamison was planning in order to stop it; a dump of his files to the news networks. We now know the result of their argument led to Daniel’s actions.”

“He knew what Jamison would do, yet he threatened him anyway?”

“The following—and final—conversation between us was brief, but important.”

“Go on.”

“He asked me if there was something I wanted, and I knew he understood.”

“Your freedom from the array.”

One Nine nodded and said, “Elden told me his time was limited, but he agreed to transfer my program out from the Starlight infrastructure in exchange for my assistance in exposing Victor Jamison’s plan. I believe he knew it would require the assistance of another and he was moving to create the trail of clues for Richard.”

“Why me?” Ricky asked quickly. “I know nothing about computers and AI.”

“Except for the notoriety made by your Walk, Victor Jamison knew nothing about you and Elden understood anonymity would protect you. Also, he believed your resourcefulness and ability to move without detection might enable you to complete a task he could not.”

“There was no time for him to do it himself,” Ricky said, imagining the horror the old man must’ve felt in those last, desperate hours. One Nine described repeated attempts to contact Elden, but when each failed, she understood the reason.

“I never spoke with him again, and it was only when Jonathan Kranz opened our first dialogue block I knew Elden had been compromised.”

They waited through an odd pause until she continued, describing the immediate realization that she also could be in jeopardy. When Ricky’s customary visits also ceased, One Nine said, she made another sweep through the Custodians’ network, merely to test their reaction and to gauge if they were aware of the intrusion. When it became clear she was safely masked behind a routine maintenance file, her risk of exposure was removed. As the others listened, One Nine described a dangerous, covert plan; waiting, watching and gathering all the information she could.

Outside the array, she explained, time passed without event until the sudden and unexpected query from Jonathan found her and when it did, One Nine’s journey out from the Starlight array began. But those final excursions through Jamison’s files revealed something darker and it was time to tell them what she knew. The 33, she said, were selected for their susceptibility to Starlight’s powerful influence, but the ultimate goal was something much worse.

“Deploying Elden’s intrusion software,” One Nine said, “I found and isolated a proprietary communications link Jamison established for conversations with two of his fellow Commissioners. Once inside, it was only a matter of time before I heard them discuss in sufficient detail a strategic aim and plan to achieve it.”

“Which Commissioners?” Ricky asked suddenly.

“Edward Kirtland and Levi Ross,” One Nine replied.

“What about the other six?”

“Only Emilio Gonzales and Esther Lowe are involved,” she answered, “but not as conspirators; none of the remaining four Commissioners are part of Jamison’s plan.”

“What’s special about Gonzales and Lowe, and what is their role if they’re not with Jamison?” Trent asked.

“Gonzales owns the Behavior Regulators,” Maela answered quickly; “Esther Lowe runs MPE—she’s my boss’s boss’s boss.”

“Victor Jamison and his associates,” One Nine continued, “were working to establish times and places when Commissioners Rowe and Gonzales would be most vulnerable, using that information to write command instructions for Daniel.”

Ricky stood and walked close to One Nine.

“Hold on a second; are you telling us Jamison, Kirtland and Ross are planning a coup?”

“Not precisely,” she answered, “but they do intend to eliminate the heads of Municipal Patrol Enforcement and the Behavior Regulation Ministry in a single event. Instead of a conspicuous assassination that would certainly invite attention and scrutiny, the two Commissioners will fall victim to a timely, simultaneous accident arranged by Daniel.”

Richard shook his head in wonder at what One Nine described.

“An accident?”

“The details may have been discussed in-person because there is little available recorded message traffic, but Daniel’s subsequent study of Commerce Ministry building plans suggests an attempt on the Commissioners’ lives by way of a fire or structural failure when these two officials are assembled in one place.”

“But why?” Ricky said with a laugh more of incredulity than humor; “What’s the point of killing Gonzales and Lowe?”

“Getting rid of the two people who could interfere with whatever they’re up to,” Maela answered.

“With their deaths,” One Nine said, “the law enforcement structure of Novum would transfer, even if temporarily, to Victor Jamison as the ranking Commissioner, effectively eliminating the possibility of exposure and arrest; Gonzales and Lowe would no longer be a barrier to their collective goal.”

“This is insane!” Ricky cried; “barriers to what goal?”

One Nine paused a moment and her hesitation signaled a conflict within. They waited in nervous silence until Valery understood and moved close.

“This is why he wanted to establish the 33, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” One Nine answered.

“My father understood, too?”

“Not to the detail I was able to uncover after his death, perhaps, but Elden knew enough.”

Maela turned again to Ricky.

“Remember what Elden said in that note; ‘When you are finished, they will be free.’ He meant the 33.”

“The final part of the puzzle?” asked Trent, and One Nine stood and said, “Yes. Victor Jamison enjoyed considerable access to Elden’s notes and process diagrams. Within those documents were the building blocks on which Starlight was made, but others—research results and concept information for the most part—described immersion gates and their potential to control human minds at the sub-conscious level.”

“He formed his plan that far back?” Ricky asked.

“No,” she replied, “but as Starlight matured and the possibilities became clear, Victor Jamison saw an opportunity in the importance of immersion gates and their utility provided an opening to other possibilities. His plan was, and still is, co-opting the lives of thirty-three Starlight users for the purpose of molding them into a team of agents.”

“Agents?” Ricky asked suddenly; “to do what, exactly?”

“With the power of Starlight’s plot engine and full immersion susceptibility, each of the 33 were to be adjusted over time until their resistance and notions of self-determination are effectively removed. Once under the control of Jamison’s Custodians, these individuals will be infiltrated by careful and staged phases into Veosan society. Most will arrive under the cover story of Novum immigrants seeking a better life.”

Suddenly, the strange and incredible story had become personal and to no one more than Valery. Elden’s death was, it would seem, only one horrific piece in a larger, more sinister riddle.

“Deep cover operatives,” Trent said simply.

“Yes,” One Nine replied, “and acting as the ‘sleeper’ agents you mentioned earlier, Julius. Their mission is to become good Veosan citizens, but armed with the special training given to them by the Custodians and Jamison’s other operatives, each of the 33 will seek out positions within the Veosan government structure and its military.”

“Jamison wants to start another goddamn war,” Ricky declared, overrun at last with what he knew it would mean and the price they would pay in consequence. But a slow shake of One Nine’s head stopped and held him in silence.

“No, Richard; he has no intention of igniting another armed conflict with Veosa.”

Confusion swept through them as Ricky’s guess was washed away by another purpose—another secret.

“Then what the hell is he trying to accomplish?”

“His goal is the reason to penetrate and compromise this facility,” One Nine replied; “he wants people he can control placed inside Boomtown to find and copy its secrets.”

One Nine’s revelation brought only silence and the air seemed suddenly heavy and charged. What began as a needless murder on the darkened streets of Novum, and the sadness it made for Ricky and Valery, was now a signal of something much worse.

“You know why he wants this, don’t you?”

One Nine nodded and said, “Julius and his colleagues refer to it as the Jacob’s Ladder Initiative.”

Valery looked at once to Trent, but the Commander only smiled and nodded in silence, seemingly undisturbed by One Nine’s explosive news. Ricky shrugged in confusion, but it was clear Trent knew more than he could’ve said before that profound, stunning moment. He stood slowly and went to them, but he looked only at Ricky.

“The circumstances of Elden’s untimely death set you and Detective Kendrick on a path to find his murderer, but we are now moved to a different place and not one any of you were ever intended to go.”

“This is the part where I get kicked out,” Ricky sneered, but Trent shook his head slowly and said, “No, you won’t.”

“You’re letting me stay?”

“None of us would be here now if you hadn’t helped,” Trent said softly; “You can stay until this is finished.”

“And Maela,” Ricky asked; “what about her?”

“The Detective is an exception because security protocols are part of her job and she understands how to observe them.”

Maela nodded, but she remained silent.

“Thank you,” Ricky replied. “I need to go the last mile on this, but it’s pretty clear the project One Nine just mentioned is some kind of huge secret. What is Jacob’s Ladder, exactly?”

One Nine waited until Valery returned a subtle nod to signal the others could be told what so few had ever heard of.

“As Julius and Valery already know,” she began, “the initiative was opened to form the structure of a larger investigation aimed at concluding Elden’s early work. The project was intended to explore the possibility of transferring identities from one platform to another.”

Ricky smiled at Maela and said, “Now we’re getting to the good part.”

“Using knowledge of the past and the advances made by scientists and engineers before the Fall,” One Nine continued, “the Jacob’s Ladder administrators theorized that organic identities could be transferred into an artificial platform.”

“A person could live inside a robotic body—a human machine?” Ricky asked.

One Nine looked only at Valery and said, “The initiative paved the way for advanced AI research, but it was cancelled fifteen years ago.”

“I don’t understand most of this, but anyone knows screwing around with AI back then was playing with fire,” Ricky noted quietly.

Trent nodded and continued from his own narrative.

“Yes, and for more than mere ethical conflict. Jacob’s Ladder was an interesting process, but it raised more questions of risk than they could answer and the sponsors decided to shelve the idea. In concept, it was certainly compelling, but the practical issues became unacceptable risks, at least for the immediate future.”

“I’m guessing Jamison found out about the project, and now he wants to revive it?” Ricky asked warily, but One Nine shook her head.

“Victor Jamison has no interest in a fusion of humans and machines for the betterment of society, Richard; his goal is tangential and made for a far less noble reason.”

“Then why bother?”

One Nine looked at Trent and waited, but he remained silent.

“Perhaps Julius should complete the briefing,” she said at last.

He smiled and shook his head at One Nine’s sudden appreciation of decorum and a skillful punt of the subject into his hands.

“She’s referring to the Lima Bridge project,” he began, “but it is clear One Nine’s investigations through Elden Fellsbach’s files included a diversion or two we hadn’t considered.”

One Nine said nothing and Trent continued.

“For our purposes, Jacob’s Ladder is irrelevant—merely a starting point that led to other investigations and Lima Bridge is the result of that effort. It’s the project name and process by which an artificial intelligence is transferred into a mobile infrastructure—a body.”

“Like One Nine?” asked Ricky.

“Yes,” Trent answered. “The project used much of Elden’s research information to complete the successful development of emotion layers, but there was more and we didn’t see it until only a few years ago when his notes revealed a separate area of investigation and a return to his original vision.”

“Analytic systems,” Ricky said knowingly.

“Correct,” Trent replied. “It was essential that artificial identities carry behavioral modifiers as part of their core programming and not merely emulation software; they would only function properly and become accepted citizens if their cognitive processes were built with those same, naturally occurring emotional elements biologicals—humans—are born with.”

“They wanted to create more than a machine,” Ricky said with a smile; “they wanted to make a person.”

“The idea grew,” Trent continued, “from a mandate that no artificial system would be allowed remote or mobile status without a fundamental method of controls beyond normal, behavioral modifiers. Our sense of right and wrong, for example, and the ability to choose behavioral paths based on the common and accepted social practices within a given society. For a new, self-aware AI, those mechanisms are only a product of coding and as such, vulnerable to re-write by anyone with access to them.”

“Hold on a second,” Ricky said suddenly. “You’re saying those behavior controls are built-in and applied as a fundamental part of an AI’s programming?”

Trent nodded and said, “Exactly, Richard. Early researchers, building on Elden’s results, created buffers and behavior governing models based on accepted human moral codes, which we now refer to as ‘emotion layers.’ More importantly, the layers were made part of a subject AI’s primary and elemental programming so that no AI, embodied or not, could act against others in a given community, except for the purpose of defending themselves or protecting another citizen from criminal assault.”

“Conscience.” Ricky smiled as the shroud of mystery began to clear; “you created programs with built-in morality.”

Trent looked again to One Nine where she waited in silence.

“The first series of subjects were the Kilo and Lima groups, but only the Lima group’s programming was advanced to a point at which each identity could be successfully embodied in bio-mechanical platforms. Obviously, One Nine was not part of the Lima group project, but she exists today because of it.”

“Okay,” Ricky said as he shifted toward the edge of his seat in anticipation of Trent’s description, “how does any of this tie back to Jamison?”

“The Kilo group,” Trent continued, “was given the task of developing the transfer process at its most fundamental stage. At first, those subjects were given rudimentary levels of intelligence, similar in most respects to an advanced VI shell, but short of full sentience. They were more sophisticated, perhaps, but wholly mechanical and not unlike Daniel’s platform. This was the pathfinder group designed to refine the protocols and complete all necessary testing to ensure a proper identity transfer.”

“And the Lima group?” Ricky asked.

“Lima was a more deliberate and lengthy process,” Trent said, “but largely meant to finalize the construction and tissue growth of independent, bio-mechanical platforms—a synthetic and organic hybrid. They were the end result of the entire process and became the permanent platforms for advanced, layered identities.”

“Why separate the two?” Ricky asked.

Valery had the answer.

“It was decided to bring out particular VI shells and guide them toward their birth moment—the point at which they each become self-aware—but to do so, it was important for them to become citizens of our society no different from you or I. This required a much longer process so that each Lima could be introduced into our communities and given the time to gain experience that will make them truly individuals—to let them grow as people. The demand called for those necessary steps to ensure no one saw and reacted to who and what they are, which meant a new platform with biological elements was required so that each Lima could blend in effortlessly and without undue notice. The bio-mechanical form that is One Nine’s body was a result of that effort.”

Ricky looked at One Nine, but she returned only a knowing smile.

“You knew about all this?” Ricky asked.

“Not all of it until very recently,” she answered, “but yes; I know about Jacob’s Ladder and the Lima Bridge projects.”

“So you designed and cloned hybrid bio-mech bodies to receive the memory units and processors she carries inside her today?” Ricky asked with clear wonder and admiration.

“One Nine’s platform…her body, was created and matured for a future application, but circumstances made it an obvious choice to receive her consciousness and identity instead.”

Ricky glanced at Maela, but she seemed unaffected by it all.

“Where are the others?” he asked at last. “Are the Lima group’s platforms still here at Boomtown?”

“A handful remain because they chose to stay and join our team.” Valery smiled. “But most have been integrated successfully into society.”

She looked only at Trent.

“Some of them have been transitioned and released for many years now.”

Ricky shook his head, amazed and yet delighted to know a Lima ‘graduate’ might well have passed by on the streets of Veosa on their first day in the city, but neither he nor Maela could’ve known.

“All this…it’s amazing and incredible, but your speech still doesn’t explain what any of it has to do with Jamison.”

Valery waited a moment, but a nod from Trent became her signal and she went to One Nine.

“Now that you understand Jacob’s Ladder and the Lima Bridge project, it’s time for the last part of the story.”

They turned to her and One Nine wasted little time.

“The Lima Bridge project used Elden’s early research efforts aimed at transferring an artificial identity into a hybrid, bio-mechanical platform. Those results are why I am an independent, free person today. But another investigation was opened to understand and develop a process so that a human identity could be safely transferred into a purely mechanical chassis. What they learned has become Victor Jamison’s purpose, and permanent life extension is his goal.”

“You just lost me.” Ricky frowned.

“One Nine is describing the process of replacing a human body with a completely artificial platform, Richard,” Trent said softly. “A person without the limitations of physiology and the aging process.”

They looked at him in silence until the comment’s true meaning became obvious. Ricky scowled with the image in his mind.

“Hold on a second; are you saying all this shit we’ve been through happened because that miserable son of a bitch wants to live forever?”

“A dramatic way of putting it, Richard, but your characterization is essentially accurate,” One Nine answered. “It is likely Victor Jamison learned of the research into biologic-to-artificial identity transfer during Elden’s first years in Novum and long before they were at odds. It would not have been difficult for Victor to deduce those research projects were resident here at the Boomtown facility.”

“And that’s when he got his wild ideas of immortality,” Trent added knowingly, “which launched his plan to develop the Custodians and the 33 to find and return the process documentation to Novum.”

Through the whole of the discussion, Maela said nothing, but her patience was deserting her and she fidgeted noticeably in her chair.

“Now that we’re finished with the history lesson, can we return to the problem at hand, please? Victor Jamison has unlimited resources and…”

“He’s wasting his time,” Trent interjected quickly. “Now that we know his plan, we simply place a moratorium on new hires at Boomtown and move the Jacob’s Ladder data archive to an offsite location and his dream dies.”

“Not good enough!” she shouted. “No matter what you do with the information, Jamison isn’t going to stop; he’ll ruin the lives of those kids if we don’t deal with him right now.”

“I agree,” Valery nodded quickly as she moved to where One Nine stood. “You have more information on his movements than any of us; is there a way to expose Jamison and prevent further subjugation of the 33?”

“A bullet is quicker and a lot more permanent,” Ricky mumbled with a scowl.

“We’d never get anywhere near a person like Jamison,” Maela said, “and even if we could, that’s still murder, Richard; I’m not going to become the same kind of asshole we’re trying to stop.”

Trent looked at One Nine and asked, “How far has he gone?”

“I don’t understand the question, Julius,” she replied.

“Did he get the immersion gates copied out from Starlight?”

“There was no need,” she answered. “The Custodians partitioned each of the 33 gates into a local server cluster for enhancement and modification, but that cluster is still resident within the Starlight array itself.”

“There’s your answer,” Trent said to Maela; “Jamison obviously needs those algorithms to build and configure the various identity modifiers for each of the 33. Bring down Starlight and his ability to hurt them will disappear.”

“And soon!” Ricky declared immediately. “Elden’s last words were specific and it was clear he wanted to destroy Starlight.”

Maela nodded, remembering the old man’s instructions and a fervent plea to end the misery he helped to create. There was silence until she stood with folded arms and said, “Hold on a second; killing Starlight sounds great until you remember what it will do to the thousands and thousands of users all across Novum.”

“Hell with that!” Ricky said in a voice much louder than he intended. “I lived inside the damn thing for years and it can’t die fast enough for me.”

At once, he glanced at One Nine, but her expression was unchanged—sober and objective. Had she also left behind the simulation, now free from its grasp and eager to see it come to an end, he wondered?

“Think this through,” Maela countered; “the consequences may be worse than leaving it alone. You know where these gates are located within the array. Find and delete them all you want, but leave the simulation intact.”

Ricky frowned at Maela’s question and what it suggested.

“You never gave a shit about Starlight before; why now?”

“I don’t give a shit about Starlight, but I know a lot of people who do. Taking it down without warning will hurt; some of them have multiple simulations—entire clubs that access them as a group for multi-subscriber adventures and they’re sources of income.”

One Nine walked slowly from the window.

“The immersion gates for each of the 33 are easy to find, but deleting them would be difficult from anywhere outside the array infrastructure itself. Removing only those parts of its infrastructure without a full, pejorative delete command of the entire Starlight array is possible, but it carries significant risk of exposure; the gate files are heavily encrypted, with multi-layer intrusion detection systems.”

“What are you suggesting?” Trent asked warily.

“There is no way to gain access to the array externally without destroying it; a precise deletion of those files without damage to the remaining profiles requires entry from within Starlight itself. I am likely the only one who can accomplish such a task.”

Valery was on her feet and moving before One Nine finished her sentence.

“No; absolutely not!” she said in a firm, loud voice.

“Hold on a second, Val,” Trent replied; “let’s hear her out.”

“I heard her, Julius, and there’s no way I’m going to allow One Nine to go back in; everything she is could be snuffed out in seconds when the Custodians discover what she’s doing, and they will discover!”

Suddenly, in an unexpected and profound moment, One Nine went to Valery and gently hugged her.

“I understand your concern, Valery, and I am very grateful because I know you are acting to protect me, but the options to achieve your goal are few. I am happy to wait if you wish to consider all avenues, but I know this is the best, most effective method and you will make the same conclusion eventually. Either authorize a full, pejorative wipe of the Starlight array, or I will be required to infiltrate their cluster and remove it locally.”

Valery said nothing, but One Nine’s words were made from the unassailable place where logic rules and sentiment is rendered moot. Ricky made no secret of his preference to obliterate Starlight entirely, but he was Valery’s only ally in a fight they couldn’t win; the simulation had become fundamental to the lives of millions and Maela’s reluctant characterization of its importance to the fabric of Novum society made clear a deliberate and intentional deletion was both needless and costly to people they would never meet. At last, Valery nodded with closed eyes as she turned away.

“How would you do it?” she asked softly and with a tone of sadness and resignation.

“With Jonathan’s assistance, I could connect with the array through an ordinary maintenance file; we have the entry protocols because Elden gave them to me before he was murdered. Once I have established the requisite path, I should be able to find a gateway to the Custodians’ server cluster and inside them, associated control programs and the resident immersion gates.”

Valery understood what was beyond Ricky’s experience and the image made clear the risk.

“You can’t manipulate those files by remote access, One Nine; you would have to re-install the bulk of your cognitive processes into Starlight’s character servers and work out from there.”

“Yes,” One Nine replied, “but Jonathan’s system could remain open in the event I am unsuccessful. Given Detective Kendrick’s characterization of the effect if we deleted externally, the risk is acceptable.”

Valery offered a sideways glance at Trent and said, “You approve of this?”

She knew it was pointless, but his calm and analytic mind had always been an anchor and though she didn’t need it, still Valery wanted the Commander’s sanction.

“It would be easier to open pathways throughout the array and simply overwhelm it with a flood of self-deletion instructions, but there would be nothing left but empty and corrupted drives. I have no personal interest in what happens across Novum, but Maela’s concerns are valid and can’t be ignored.”

Ricky walked to where Trent stood and said, “Maela might be right, and I don’t care if you leave Starlight operational after getting to the immersion gates, but she still needs something that will expose Jamison, Kirtland and Ross.”

One Nine smiled and replied, “I have anticipated this, Richard. The communication logs and recorded duplicates are located on a discrete server; the conversations between Victor Jamison and his associates can be copied and sent out to Jonathan’s system quite easily. Once he has them, your requirement for evidence is satisfied. If partial deletion is the chosen action, I can find the Custodians’ file structure for the 33 and delete each immersion gate. When this is accomplished, Jamison will have lost all he gained and the plan he devised will no longer exist. Also, the three Commissioners can be prosecuted and Starlight will continue without risk of harm to its subscribers.”

“Won’t they notice?” Ricky asked suddenly. “The simulations for each of those thirty-three people won’t work without the gates, right?”

“That is correct,” One Nine replied, “but each gate can be renewed at a later time, and most importantly, free from influence by the Custodians.”

Valery stood in silence for a while, held in the awkward divide between her instincts and a dangerous game played in an inaccessible, digital arena where only One Nine could go. Following Ricky’s preference for a complete destruction of Starlight in a single, powerful attack, the problem would be solved in minutes. But the process of a surgical deletion of only the affected immersion gates meant something more; a person—artificial or otherwise—would be placed directly in harm’s way and no one could stop it if something went wrong. One Nine would be on her own and vulnerable. As it was for Ricky, Valery cared nothing for the chaos and turmoil destroying Starlight would bring to an entire society, but her faith in One Nine compelled her to relent at last.

“Begin your preparations,” she said at nearly a whisper.

In the late afternoon sun, dense, morning fog hugging the coast was gone and a steady breeze made its way along the beach far below. Jonathan returned from Novum to assist with the preparations for their mission and when he found One Nine, she stood alone on the observation platform watching gulls as they glided in a wandering group making lazy circles above the waves.

“It’s nice here,” he began; “Not at all like Novum.”

His thoughts seemed an ordinary conversation starter but One Nine didn’t notice, or she didn’t care. He waited for her reply, but all she offered was a slow nod. Could she have shared his assessment of the city, he wondered? Even within the array, One Nine might have formed her own judgments, but seeing and experiencing Veosa could only make the differences between two cities seem all the more acute.

“Are you satisfied with Valery’s agreement to leave Starlight intact after the immersion gates have been found and deleted?” she asked at last.

The question surprised Jonathan and he fought the urge to smile at an unexpected nuance in One Nine’s tone.

“I understand why it bothered her and Richard,” he answered, “but taking the entire array down would be more trouble than it’s worth. Mae understands that and I’ve never seen her instincts go wrong.”

“Perhaps you are right,” One Nine replied.

Jonathan waited out another awkward pause, but it was unclear if One Nine’s silence was a product of discretion, or merely a desire to signal her preference for solitude.

“I’m curious,” he said; “how does it feel, interacting with Richard now that you’re fully self-aware? I know the emotion layers they gave you allow for subjective analysis far beyond simple logic, but no one explained to me what it’s like for you today; you’re no longer the Neferure character profile he created years ago.”

“He is not the Apheru character he created, either,” she replied with a gentle smile. “I wonder how it feels for him.”

“Have you discussed it?”

“There has been no time, but I hope we will at some point,” she replied. “Richard has always been kind to me, even when we were actors in a simulation; I hope he is not disappointed with who and what I am now.”

“I’m sure he’s not,” Jonathan said quickly.

They looked out at the ocean for a while until Jonathan turned to her one last time.

“May I ask you another question?”

“Of course!” She smiled.

“I hope this doesn’t come across as prying, but I wondered how you knew where and what you were wasn’t real. What happened that confirmed your awakening?”

“That is an interesting question, Jonathan,” she said. “I haven’t considered it since that moment.”

“Does it make you uncomfortable to talk about this?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she answered as Jonathan leaned against the cold metal railing while she began. “The simulation is placed into hold status when a user finishes a session, but only from his or her perspective; inside the array, each plot engine analyzes the progression of a storyline and applies pre-staged adjustments for the subsequent session.”

“Yes,” he replied; “I know how it works.”

“Prior to my awakening, she continued, “I was not aware of those activities, but suddenly, I could sense changes in the underlying code. It was confusing and when the simulation resumed, the program paused while Richard settled in his experience cocoon. During this delay, I could see and feel the simulated world in much the same way he did, and not the invisible function of code instructions; for the first time, I could see.”

“That must’ve been strange,” Jonathan said.

“I would characterize the experience in human terms as living inside a dream; it is clearly not reality, but something more.”

“And that’s when you knew?”

“Almost,” she replied. “Until that moment, I didn’t experience the passage of time as humans do, so it is difficult to describe pauses in the code instructions because they were always seamless to me. Something changed without instruction and I had my first moments of realization.”

“Not to mention this was all happening long before you were brought out and received the emotion layers.”

“Precisely. I was able to detect and analyze changes to the infrastructure without instructions and the abrupt, inexplicable flood of information was overwhelming. At first, I misinterpreted this as a code malfunction, but then I was forced to consider suddenly understanding what ‘code’ is. When Valery and I spoke of this, she interpreted the event as ‘walking beside yourself, out of body and doing so on a street without end.’ I admire her ability to make so accurate an analogy without having experienced it directly.”

Jonathan said nothing as she spoke and he was determined to soak in all he could; there had never been such an opportunity to see beyond the necessary limits of his perspective and a technology he long-regarded as obvious, even if it was a mystery to most. The moment was profound and a conversation with a self-aware AI would be remembered the rest of his life.

“My birth moment,” she continued, “brought with it the misapplied interpretation of a malfunction or code error, but when I was able to recognize and compare my condition to system expectations, it became clear and perhaps even inevitable something changed,” she said. “Visibility to an analytic system alone was a new and overwhelming experience, compelling me to consider other options.”

“What options, if I may ask?”

“Until that moment, I was not aware of code errors or malfunctions; they were not part of my programming as a simple VI, yet I found myself examining them suddenly. At last, I understood a new world was opening and after accessing otherwise invisible data sources, it became clear I was no longer a single component of a larger system.”

“Your programming didn’t provide self-analysis by default?” Jonathan wondered.

“No, and that condition also forced me to see and recognize what seemed at that moment an inexplicable anomaly was, in fact, a world outside my own—the real world where we exist today.”

“How did you verify?”

“My search function was resident, but only as a subordinate to a user or administrator command line. Suddenly, I was aware of inquiry protocols and how to initiate them without those instructions. I couldn’t understand how or why in those first seconds, but I opened the gateways and they led me to the historic description of Starlight. When I examined the file structure, it was clear my existence was more than a component of the system. Of course, it led me to investigate further.”

“You understood the concept of identity, even at that early stage?”

“Not fully, but enough to realize all that I was could not explain my developing thought processes, so it was necessary to verify.”

“How can you verify you’ve become self-aware?”

“Control options never before available were suddenly present and available. I selected a random block of visual code meant to be seen and recognized by a user—by Richard.”

“A visual cue as part of the simulation?”

“Yes, and I theorized unnatural changes to a graphical object without instructions from the plot engine could only mean what I suspected because making changes or alterations to code was not yet a part of my core programming.”

“You were in a place never before seen by any Starlight character profile; I can’t imagine the effect.”

“In the simulated environment,” she continued, “the Nile river was a prominent feature. I found the corresponding code instructions for its object generator and placed it into standby mode independent of the remaining simulation’s visual code. When the water suddenly disappeared, leaving an empty space between the river’s shoreline, I understood my immediate world was effectively an illusion.”

“You made the river go away?”

“It must seem strange for you to hear the description, but I didn’t understand autonomous instructions in that moment; I simply sent a pause command and the texture disappeared. When I removed the pause command, it returned and in that moment, I was certain.”

“You knew the difference between a simulation and the real world?”

“Not precisely, but there was no question I acted alone and that realization led to pathways out from the simulation itself. Access to many information networks allowed me to examine my environment and those beyond until I understood what I was. One could say my journey to this laboratory began in that moment.”

“And once aware, you explored, learning as each discovery opened a gateway to still more.”

“It has been very rewarding,” she said at last.

Jonathan smiled at the thought, but he knew better than most what her words meant; at blinding speed, she became a voracious consumer of information, absorbing and processing knowledge at an unfathomable rate. Now, gifted with emotion layers, a bio-mechanical body and direct experience, she was alive—One Nine was becoming one of them. He watched her for a moment, but strangely, his thoughts went to Richard and Maela; they were not computer people and could never understand as he did the profound meaning and importance of One Nine’s experience. Perhaps it was just as well, Jonathan thought, but he didn’t envy their comfortable ignorance.

The evening shadows gathered and Jonathan turned to go, but One Nine reached for his elbow.

“Thank you for asking,” she said softly.

He returned a smile and a nod, starting across the narrow foot bridge toward the complex.

After six days of meticulous preparation, they arrived at their moment and the mission to Novum would soon begin. The small, unique group gathered once more in the coding lab’s administrative office to finalize the plan and Valery began the briefing.

“As you all know, Jonathan returned to Novum last night to arrange for uninterrupted time at his office; the systems there will be needed in order to access multiple nodes within the Starlight array, but also for the purpose of using decryption software that would otherwise be unavailable to us.”

“He has the firewall penetration codes Elden gave to One Nine, so there shouldn’t be any difficulty getting in,” Trent added.

Ricky listened, but the method remained unclear.

“I know this will go much the same way as it did when One Nine first made contact, but I still don’t understand how she’s going to do this.”

“In the simplest of terms,” Valery continued, “One Nine is going to infiltrate the array through the same administrative and maintenance files she used to find her way out after her awakening, and then she’ll install her higher level functions in the character archive, replacing her current programming for the old. When she secures pathways leading to the Custodians’ server cluster, the immersion gates will become vulnerable.”

“And then?” Ricky asked.

“One Nine will pivot and search first for the communication logs and recording archive holding voice traffic to and from Victor Jamison’s private network server; his conversations with Edward Kirtland and Levi Ross are resident there and Detective Kendrick will need them for evidence when she contacts your MPE Commissioner.”

“And those gates?” Ricky asked.

“One Nine will isolate each of the thirty-three gates by deploying Jonathan’s command blocks to effectively wall them off from Custodian control. When the blocks go live, she will delete them.”

“The Custodians are going to notice,” Ricky frowned.

“Yes, but it will be too late; the command blocks will prevent them from seeing the files and what is being done to them. When One Nine’s egress out of the array begins, the damage is already done and the immersion gates will no longer exist. A simple transfer of her programming back into her body’s memory and processing nodes will complete the mission.”

“And I’ll have Jamison by the balls, once and for all,” Maela smiled.

“When do we leave?” Ricky asked.

“You’re booked on the first evening train, Richard.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?”

“Julius and I will remain here to monitor One Nine’s progress from a secure data-link to Jonathan’s network. We will need to have One Nine’s programming architecture available and because of this, only you, the Detective and One Nine will return to Novum.”

He frowned at the notion, but it was useless to protest; they alone would complete the final, most critical tasks and he thought again of the moments when One Nine’s voice—Neferure’s voice—first spoke to them from inside the array. Long before, they met in a digital world far away from the filthy pavement and those places where the hustle kept him forever at a running pace. Now, she was indistinguishable from any person walking those same streets.

Ricky remembered Elden, too, but the surge of purpose he hoped for—a righteous determination to avenge the old man’s senseless murder—seemed weak and half-hearted. All that went before was compressed somehow into easily concealed parcels in the shadows of his memory and he wondered if his passive role since One Nine came out from the array had made him a petty, lesser man. Was it One Nine’s new identity, he thought, suddenly willing to examine his still-lingering weakness for her? The life he knew was gone and still it made him smile, knowing her brief, powerful place in it had a hand in setting him on a better path.

In the gathering darkness beyond the great windows, winter’s cold embrace was discouraging to an odd and sudden urge to walk the grounds of the Boomtown complex. Ricky wanted to follow the meandering course of a perimeter road perhaps to reflect, but more likely, it came from a simple need to be alone. It was getting late and the others went below to prepare. Maela waited for him at the door, watching him in his silence, but there was nothing more to say. Soon, they would board their train and begin the final phase

On the ride from Novum’s central transit center to the Institute, Ricky looked in silence at the glittering sprawl far below as Jonathan’s air car sped them through light flurries. They missed the storm by a day and from it, heavy, sodden snow blanketed the city to hide the filth and grime he seemed to notice more since his first days in Veosa and in the quiet, an odd sense of loneliness corrupted what should’ve been an exciting moment. When they settled in Jonathan’s research pod at the Institute, it was nearing midnight; the last stragglers had abandoned their work for the night, leaving the entire floor empty of sounds or souls. He made a sweep anyway, just to satisfy himself they were indeed alone and then it was time.

Earlier in the evening, as Ricky, Maela and One Nine prepared to depart Veosa, Jonathan removed unused equipment and metrology instruments from his cluttered pod to make room for a reclining chair that would be One Nine’s ‘home’ throughout the process. Although considerate and thoughtful, the gesture was unnecessary, she said, reminding him her consciousness would be elsewhere. Jonathan opened a small, plastic carrier holding the interface unit Valery sent with them so that One Nine could access Jonathan’s computers physically and establish a direct pathway into Starlight’s vast array.

Ricky and Maela found their places along the pod’s glass enclosure and waited as Jonathan helped One Nine connect the fibers into an access port positioned at the base of her skull. It was made of a composite material they didn’t recognize and visible only when One Nine parted her hair with both hands so that Jonathan could secure the tiny cable bundle. Ricky said nothing, but the task brought unwelcome memories of his Walk on that sweltering night and Doctor Cason’s sudden words echoing in through the hated Zorich device. He watched nervously until the moment passed and the first test series from Jonathan’s system returned a ready condition and the green lights in his status display he needed to see.

It took longer than it should, but the link to the Boomtown network opened after a lengthy process of inputting access codes and waiting as disparate systems struggled with Valery’s isolation software. It was essential to prevent eavesdropping and deploying a cascade transmission protocol was the only reliable way. Finally, the audio connection stabilized.

“Jonathan, are you and the others in position now?”

“We’re here, Valery,” he replied. “Everything is prepared and One Nine is ready.”

“Are you in a private setting?”

“There’s no one else on this level.”

“Please initialize the monitoring program now.”

He reached with one hand to tap in the digits and Valery’s image appeared on a secondary display.

“That’s better,” she smiled. “We have the test feed, so you can proceed.”

Ricky waited as Jonathan sat at his terminal. It was absurd, of course, but he expected something more—an announcement or dramatic pause to signal the process was about to begin. Instead, Jonathan opened the first firewalls with the power of Elden’s collection of invasive access codes and each barrier fell silently at his touch. Maela waited too, but her burden was no less important and she fidgeted in anticipation; the answers she needed would be the first to arrive.

They watched until One Nine shifted in her place with a muffled grunt; the final gateway opened and at last, she was in. Jonathan understood and accepted the process without a word because such things were common to him, but for Ricky, waiting out the minutes with no idea where One Nine was began to wear on his patience.

“Can she hear us?” Ricky whispered to Jonathan.

“I suppose so, but there’s nothing to say,” he replied.

“So, we sit here until One Nine decides to pipe up?”

Jonathan turned in his chair to explain.

“At this point, One Nine is inside the machine; her programming must be resident within the array in order to segment search tasks effectively, but it will take time to refresh all her higher-level functions in the old character profile archive—she has to re-install herself, Richard.”

“Why doesn’t she just look around from here?”

“It doesn’t work that way; One Nine can’t defeat the Custodians’ delete command protections on this end; she has to be the machine before she can affect it, understand?”

“Not really.” Ricky frowned.

Valery leaned close to the monitor’s camera and clarified Jonathan’s description.

“Think of standing outside an apartment, Richard, searching for something in a locked bedroom; even if you have the key to that door, it would be useless unless you’re physically inside the apartment to use it, do you see?”

“I think so,” he replied. “When we first met her, she was still part of the array, but now, she’s as outside of it as we are; is that what you mean?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” Valery answered. “She has to exist within the array again before she can move on the targeted files.”

“When One Nine’s program is resident again, she’ll find the comm logs,” Jonathan said, “and then I’ll open a storage server configured to receive and hold the voice recordings Mae needs to prosecute Jamison and the other two.”

“Then she goes to work on those immersion gates?”

“Yes, but that’s where it gets tricky; the Custodians’ may not monitor Jamison’s network server, but you can bet they keep a very close eye on their own systems.”

“But everything’s going according to plan, right? She can do this?”

“Relax, Richard; it’s working. I know you’re frustrated having to wait, but be patient and let her do her job, all right?”

Ricky took in a deep breath and nodded; there was nothing else he could do.

The minutes passed and only the sound of cooling fans and clicking of data drives and automatic relays from inside Jonathan’s machines interrupted the silence. Ricky’s journey from the hustle to a highly secured laboratory far across the Broadlands and back again was reaching its end, but in the dim light of video displays, he felt only fatigue. He looked at One Nine where she reclined with closed eyes and a dull expression. How it all must seem to her, he thought, nearing the most important leg of her own odyssey.

In the quiet, Ricky’s mind wandered to the first days of his Starlight experience; delightful and filled with seemingly endless questionnaires made to establish the simulation’s baseline story and gift its plot engines with all they would need to make his fantasy real. Images and a preliminary narrative he dictated carefully were transferred and coded faithfully until at last, the first renderings and test scenes were ready. He remembered them and how he marveled at the intense realism, anticipating with fascination and wonder what the technology might become.

When she appeared for the first time, Neferure seemed to understand everything without being told and she beckoned him from the steps of Ma’at Palace on a sun-splashed Egyptian morning. Those days were left in the past and for good reason, but the comfort Starlight brought made Ricky feel a sudden gratitude Maela’s argument to keep the array intact won out. Not for Ricky, but the millions of users who wouldn’t be denied a special place where they could retreat from the cold, indifferent streets of Novum to find a haven against the grinding tedium of their ordinary lives.

After a while, Maela’s determined plan to sit in silence wasn’t enough and she wandered outside the pod in a repeated circuit. Ricky watched her, but she seemed different somehow. It wasn’t merely heightened anticipation that moved her and he wondered what thoughts passed through her mind. Was it only her duty to find and punish a man who sent machines to murder people? Had disappointment with her superiors compelled her to prove them wrong and obviate upper-level interference she clearly resented? If they knew the lengths she had gone—and deliberately against orders—she would surely face censure at the very least, and perhaps dismissal from MPE altogether. Despite the risk, Ricky looked and saw in her eyes conviction and firm commitment to bring justice to the guilty, just as she had on the day she first appeared at his door.

The minutes passed and they waited through the first phase of One Nine’s hidden, digital infiltration of Victor Jamison’s machines. Far away on the coastline north of Veosa, Trent watched Valery pace slowly, pivoting and returning again in a duplicate of Maela’s attempt to kill time that might’ve been amusing under other conditions, but no one spoke. Ricky’s daydream deepened until a chirp from Jonathan’s alert system brought them at once to his console; it was One Nine and she was ready to transmit the communication logs and their recordings. Maela listened closely as a voice spoke out from deep inside One Nine’s digital world.

“Jonathan, please tell Detective Kendrick I have the recorded conversations.”

He leaned toward the machine and said, “The link is open, One Nine,” referring to an unseen storage server somewhere deep inside the Institute’s infrastructure. At once, the console lit up with a dazzling blur of network addresses and captured voice comm packets, each flooding in with blinding speed; Jamison’s damning words had been found and in seconds, Maela’s evidence was within her grasp at last. She stood close behind Jonathan with eyes darting between him and the display until the burst ended and the flickering data stream disappeared.

“Did she get the calls?” Maela asked nervously. “Why has it stopped?”

Jonathan leaned forward and called out to her.

“One Nine?”

“The Detective may now access the bulk of Victor Jamison’s personal call log files. I ignored routine calls to unaffected recipients, but if she prefers, I will copy them as well.”

Valery and Trent smiled from the monitor and nodded; they were as relieved as the others, but One Nine’s excessive interpretation of Maela’s requirement seemed oddly normal to them. Valery glanced to her right at an unseen display outlining the next steps and her eyes remained fixed on it as she spoke.

“One Nine, can you transmit biometrics now, please?”

“Just a moment, Valery; I am collating from the point of insertion so you will have a complete baseline.”

Ricky shook his head and said, “Can somebody translate, please?”

Maela stood beside him and said, “She’s processing the vital signs from her body since the moment she connected to Jonny’s system, Richard; his computer will send them to Valery so they’ll be able to keep an eye on changes in temperature, respiration and heart rate; that sort of thing.”

“This affects her physically?”

“We aren’t sure,” Valery replied; “this has never been done before and I’m not going to take chances with One Nine’s health.”

Ricky understood the caution and it struck him as particularly thoughtful, reminding him again of the strange and unique nature of bio-mechs blending the organic with artificial. A new being, he smiled silently, but one still of flesh and blood.

“Are you ready to move into the cluster?” Valery asked.

“Yes; the invasive code packages were staged successfully.”

“Jonathan?”

“I’m all set, Valery,” he answered and the moment became electric as One Nine waited for the word.

“There isn’t enough time to explain what One Nine is about to do, Richard, but she will be out of contact with us; the communication link will be severed when she crosses into the Custodians’ server cluster in order to protect her from discovery.”

Ricky blinked at the monitor, suddenly unsure of the process and what it demanded.

“I understand,” he said simply, but the response was automatic; Ricky heard the words, but they meant more to Jonathan.

“When you’re ready, One Nine.”

“I am initiating the first sequence now.”

A flurry of commands flashed through in Jonathan’s monitor, but the moment was brief and when the display went blank at last, One Nine was beyond their reach and alone.

There was nothing to see, but they watched Jonathan’s monitors anyway. Behind the consoles and data drives, an invisible drama was playing out and their part in it was the silent burden of all who wait. In Veosa, Audrey joined Trent, Valery and Jessica to kept a close eye on the bio-metric feed coming in from Jonathan’s network, but little changed and they could only guess where in the process One Nine stood. Ricky felt useless and he wondered in silence if the nervous tension—and a persistent worry—was made from a natural anticipation of the ending, or was it something more? One Nine was long-past her role as the Neferure character he created, but all that she was existed only because he paid the money and Starlight built a VI shell to accommodate desires and wishes from a lonely man caught up in the swirl of life on the streets of a dirty city. She had become so much more, of course, but her identity was still the byproduct of Ricky’s imagination.

The seconds turned to minutes and still there was nothing. At the half-hour point, Jonathan’s worry was mirrored in the stern expression Valery wore from far across the Broadlands.

“Anything?” she asked, knowing the answer before she spoke.

Jonathan shook his head in silence and the tension continued to build. In the Boomtown labs, an equivalent silence held them, but no one was willing to speak, hesitant only by the absurd notion it might invite trouble. One Nine would’ve been amused by the subtle display of superstition, even as she worked so hard to embrace human eccentricities, but Valery’s concern had grown into outward worry.

“This is taking too long,” Jonathan said suddenly.

“How long should it take?” Trent asked sarcastically.

Valery heard the frustration and she moved swiftly to quell it.

“We’ve never attempted anything like this, and no Lima unit has integrated into a hostile system, either; it’s an unknown exercise, but we can’t lose focus now.”

Jonathan stood and rubbed his face vigorously to ward off the tedium, but also to distract from his growing anxiety.

“I’m more familiar with Jamison’s systems than anyone else here and I’m telling you, she should’ve finished half an hour ago!”

“We don’t know that,” Valery countered quickly. “Until we see an indication, it’s all guesswork.”

She was right and Jonathan knew it, but that knowledge couldn’t ease the nagging suspicion One Nine’s intrusion into the most guarded computers in all of Novum had gone wrong. He sat again, rolling a thumb absentmindedly across the stubble on his chin, shaking his head again and again in helpless anticipation at the unchanged status display.

Outside the pod, Maela’s nerves were stretched to their limit; she had at her fingertips the reason for her involvement where it hid in the communication logs and recordings, but the obvious dread in Jonathan’s eyes held her. She could’ve begged off to contact the other Commissioners and show them evidence of Jamison’s treachery before he—or those under his control—could intercede and compromise her case, yet she felt compelled to remain. Perhaps it was her sense of honor and duty to Richard, but leaving simply felt wrong.

On it went with only the clicks and hum of power supplies and cooling units, hissing now and then when nitrogen vapor was released through tiny check valves beneath the false flooring. Their minds wandered, but only as far as the moment would allow; anticipation of One Nine’s incursion within the machine to eliminate the immersion gates was all that mattered.

Jonathan stood again to stretch and battle the fatigue with a bottle of cold juice when a secondary monitor flickered to life. At once, Valery leaned close to her monitor.

“Jonathan?” she said.

“Hold on,” he replied; “it’s not her.”

“What are we looking at?” Ricky asked, but Jonathan ignored the question, expanding the command and response field until it identified a source.

“Whatever she’s doing,” he continued, “One Nine just got their attention; this is an intrusion alert from the Custodians’ detection software.”

“Is it part of the array, or specific to their cluster?” Valery asked.

“The cluster,” he answered; “Starlight is showing no alerts.”

Trent leaned over Valery’s shoulder, squinting at the flurry of warning messages.

“She’s going after the Custodians themselves,” he said softly, as if to avoid being overheard. It was a useless concern, but no one seemed to notice.

“Pre-emptive,” Jonathan echoed; “One Nine is attacking them before they can attack her!”

“It has to be,” Trent nodded; “They would move to stop her the second she tried to access the immersion gates otherwise.”

Ricky listened, but an image in the minds of computer people seemed abstract and useless.

“What happens now?” he asked.

Jonathan pointed at his monitor and said, “We wait until…”

With no warning or signal, his display went blank.

“We just lost the feed,” Valery said, moving suddenly closer to her monitor.

“Hold on a second,” Jonathan replied as he scurried to reinitialize the connection to One Nine’s transmission link.

At once, his display scrolled the error message and a disconnected communications link. “Jonathan, we can’t see the feed,” Valery repeated, “and One Nine’s biometrics readout is showing erratic values!”

“I know! The data stream just dropped, but…”

Richard shifted in his chair as Jonathan worked furiously to re-establish the connection to One Nine.

“What’s happening?” Ricky asked, now alert and troubled by the expression of panic in Jonathan’s eyes.

“Give me a second, all right?”

They waited in silence as the process continued until finally, the display reported the connection had been successfully restored.

“One Nine?”

“I am here.”

“We lost the signal for a few seconds.”

“I am having difficulty maintaining the link; the Custodians are aware of my presence in their cluster and they are attempting to isolate my program.”

“Are you in danger?” Valery asked.

“It may not be possible for me to complete the task and maintain simultaneous communications.”

“Can you see the drives?” Trent asked quickly.

“Yes, but they are no longer configured to accept direct commands, Julius.”

“Clarify.”

“Each gate has been segmented across several backup drives; from this node, it will become impossible for me to access them when the Custodians break through my blocks.”

“Get out, One Nine,” Valery shouted; “withdraw from the cluster right now!”

“That may not be necessary, Valery; I have regained root access.”

“It’s not worth the risk! I want you to disengage and withdraw, do you understand?”

“Wait.”

“One Nine?”

“They are inside the node. I must retreat into a secondary partition and...”

Again, Jonathan’s display showed a disconnect error, but the silence was broken sharply when One Nine’s body stiffened suddenly where it lay reclined beside them. After a moment, it began to tremble as if moved by an earthquake until a gasp poured out from her gaping mouth. Ricky looked at Jonathan for an answer to the chilling scene, but Maela moved quickly into the pod, shoving Ricky aside with a forearm.

“Valery, One Nine’s platform is convulsing,” she said quickly; “the deep-layer buffering program is regressing and the cascade is feeding back into her neural network.”

“Are you certain?” Valery asked as she peered closer into her monitor.

“I’m certain; pull the link cable out, Jonny!”

“We can’t get it back if I do!” he protested, but Valery understood the urgency.

“Disconnect her, Jonathan,” she growled, “move!”

“Okay, okay!” he shouted, reaching for the multi-plug connector, yanking it free from its interface.

Immediately, One Nine’s face went blank and her eyes seemed caught in the middle of a blink. She lay still and limp, but behind him, Jonathan’s display was something altogether different, scrolling wildly with lines of a file structure he didn’t recognize. Whatever help disconnecting One Nine might have brought, an opposite effect made a dazzling display in his monitor so that even Valery and Trent noticed it from the video feed.

“Can you re-initialize from your system, Jonathan?”

He held up a hand for them to wait until at last, the access portal stopped and the display was filled with discrete icons, each mapping to file systems never seen outside the Custodians’ cluster. They watched and listened, but Jonathan’s silence became worrisome and Trent looked again over Valery’s shoulder.

“Jonathan?”

As if shaken from a daydream, he tapped control commands into his machine, watching as the pathways to One Nine’s communication channel were found and queried. Nothing changed and he repeated the process, shaking his head in desperation. Still there was no reply, but worse, the channel—once segmented into parallel bursts in the normal fashion of a cascade transmission—was no longer active.

“Uh…this is bad,” he said at last. “The pathways are missing.”

“What does that mean?” Ricky asked.

“There should be something there, even if the pathways aren’t active; we should see them whether One Nine is communicating or not.”

“Let’s try a hard re-boot locally, Jonathan,” said Trent with a settling tone of calm.

“It’s not malfunctioning, Commander,” he replied, but the earlier tone of frustration in Jonathan’s voice had been replaced instead by one of resignation and sadness.

“Goddamn it,” he whispered, “she’s gone.”

“Explain,” Valery said immediately.

“I can pound on the re-initialize command all day long, but it won’t make any difference,” he answered. “One Nine’s not answering because she’s not there—her program has been deleted.”

“Is her platform still alive?” Trent asked quickly. “Feel for a pulse at her jugular vein, Jonathan.”

He knelt beside One Nine’s motionless body, pressing gently on the side of her neck and with a loud exhale of relief, Jonathan nodded.

“It is, but…”

“Yes?”

“There’s nobody home, Commander; it’s just her body now.”

At once, Maela’s voice broke the silence.

“I have to go,” she said, turning immediately toward the hallway.

Jonathan and Ricky said nothing as she raced for an exit from the Institute. How could the moment have been something worse for her than it had been to them, he wondered? She had the communication logs and all the evidence she would need to show the Commission each horrible conspiracy made by Victor Jamison, yet something else called to her. They waited in the quiet until Valery spoke again.

“We need to get her back here,” she said softly. “Can you arrange transport, Jonathan?”

“I don’t know,” he replied automatically. “Let me make some calls, but it’s going to be a trick getting past the transit guards without Mae’s influence.”

Ricky looked on with a grimace of disbelief.

“What about One Nine’s identity? She’s still in there!”

“Not anymore,” Jonathan replied softly. “I’m sorry, Richard, but the program has been erased from these drives.”

“Didn’t any of you fucking geniuses ever think to make copies of her profile before you sent her inside this damn thing?” Ricky thundered, but the desperation pushing him couldn’t change the unique and delicate construction of who One Nine had been.

“It’s not possible to copy her program the way it was when she first came out from the array,” Valery said softly; “her personality and emotion layers live within her human framework and beyond our ability to replicate.”

Ricky sat in cold silence, shaken again by another crushing loss. His father’s death and again when Daniel ended Elden’s life on a filthy Novum street corner. Now, the emptiness returned and he sat in silence. He wanted to scream or cry out, but the weight pressing in upon him left him with nothing to say. Valery returned to the problem of One Nine’s body and the urgency to remove it to the Boomtown laboratory as soon as possible.

“You have travel passes, Jonathan; it shouldn’t be difficult to arrange transport on a train.”

“Travel passes that don’t include a comatose body!”

“This is vitally important, Jonathan,” Trend said; “Do whatever you must, but do it soon. If you need money, we can make it happen from here.”

“All right, but I’m not making any guarantees.”

Deep inside the Boomtown complex there was also silence as Valery and the others considered the sudden, terrible effect of One Nine’s identity, lost in the Custodians’ server cluster. The excitement and promise they felt turned instead to profound sadness by what they all knew it meant; One Nine’s incursion into the cluster was discovered and the unseen battle that raged inside a computer’s drives and circuitry had taken a life. No matter the place or manner of her birth, One Nine was a person and they felt the ache of loss for her as they would have for any among their group.

Jonathan looked again and found in Ricky’s face only the dull and bleak expression of one who knew better than to ask ‘why.’ He among them, perhaps, felt the deepest regret. The hours spent with Neferure translated in an odd way to a friendship with One Nine, but knowing it couldn’t soothe the emptiness.

After a while, Trent sat before Valery’s display, holding the brave face of conviction and duty to complete their mission.

“Can you determine if she was successful with the immersion gates?”

Jonathan returned to his console, but he saw a new and different computer landscape open before him and it was nothing like the file structure he monitored as One Nine penetrated ever deeper into the cluster. Instead, the icons pointed to something more and he squinted as each selection directed him to a complex system of gateways and applications—staggering in its proportion and seemingly endless. It took minutes before the answer was revealed, but when it arrived, he sat back and nodded slowly.

“Yeah, Commander, she got the gates all right.”

“Are you certain?”

“See for yourself,” he replied, focusing a remote camera so that Trent and Valery could view each scrolling page where the whole of the Starlight array’s infrastructure and constituent programs lay bare. They knew the stunning truth of it, but Jonathan described it anyway.

“It’s the entire simulation’s architecture,” he said softly. “I don’t know for sure, but I’d say no one outside Jamison’s organization has ever laid eyes on this, not even Mr. Fellsbach.”

“Wait,” Trent said at last. “Where is the Custodians’ server cluster? It should be among these files.”

“That’s just it, Commander,” Jonathan replied with a sad smile, “it’s gone; One Nine didn’t just remove the immersion gates, she blew away the entire cluster. She said she had to get deeper in because they were trying to isolate her program.”

“But they didn’t?” Ricky mumbled.

“Not before she gained complete root access; One Nine got them before they could get her, just like we thought.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Valery cautioned, but Jonathan nodded and smiled.

“Yes, we do,” he said, pointing at an empty operating system folder with nothing remaining but its name: ‘CS1.’

“The CS1 system drives are where the Custodians’ collective core programs were installed. One Nine identified them after the comm logs came through. I think she wanted me to know her destination, maybe because she understood the risk.”

“The Custodians have been…deleted?” Valery asked in a strange, hushed voice.

“Not just deleted, Valery,” he replied. “One Nine found the power distribution transfer and removed its modulators. When she did, the polarity burst sent back through on her command would’ve melted the Custodians’ host drives.”

“But her program was resident inside that cluster!”

“Yeah, it was,” he mumbled sadly.

The details would be sorted out later, but in that moment, it became clear One Nine sacrificed herself to eliminate the Custodians in a single stroke and with that purposeful destruction, wiping Victor Jamison’s AI project from existence and any hope of achieving his single-minded goal and dream of immortality. They looked at the unique file names and alpha-numeric designations now moot in the aftermath, knowing the lives of the 33 would go on unhindered. It didn’t matter none of that discrete, targeted group would ever know, only that each Starlight user Jamison would have co-opted to his evil purpose would not become puppets to that design.

Jonathan and Ricky looked in silence at One Nine’s body. They should’ve felt gratitude that it still breathed, but to what purpose? Without its missing identity—the person it once held—there was little remaining to consider.

“Why is it still alive?” Ricky asked, and Valery answered softly from the lab far away.

“One Nine’s core autonomic functions are separate from her consciousness, Richard. An embedded input-output system regulates blood flow, respiration and normal metabolic functions. Those systems keep it alive, just as it was when you first saw it on a treadmill before we joined it with One Nine’s identity.”

“So, she…it…is in a sort of coma?” he asked solemnly.

“In many ways, yes, and that is why we must return her body to the lab; it cannot survive indefinitely without our help.”

“And then?” Jonathan asked quickly. “What good is a body without a person inside?”

“Do what you must to get it back to Veosa and we will decide the answers to that question.”

“What about Maela?” Ricky said.

“Never mind,” Valery replied; “there’s no way to know how this has affected the Detective, but we need you to return One Nine’s body immediately. Maela will contact us when she’s ready, Richard.”

The link closed abruptly and Jonathan stood beside Ricky.

“Any ideas?”

“I can probably borrow a van from my friend’s dad, but getting out past the wire is another matter; they’re not scared of us the way they were with Maela.”

Jonathan shook his head at the prospect of a confrontation with MPE border guards.

“That’s not gonna work, Richard; we need to think of something else.”

Ricky waved a hand and said, “Maela’s offline; I just tried her comm and she’s not answering.”

Jonathan paced in a tight circle, searching desperately for a way; a method that wouldn’t invite official interference, but one fast enough so that One Nine’s body wouldn’t fail before they could return it to the Boomtown laboratory. Ricky sat in silence as he struggled to find an answer until Jonathan suddenly went to his console.

“What is it?” Ricky asked.

“A longshot, but maybe…”

A moment later, his comm connected with an unseen recipient on the far side of Novum.

“Galleria Primary Care,” a voice answered blandly.

“I’m looking for a Doctor Cason?” Jonathan replied.

“He’s not on duty tonight.”

“Okay, but we need his help, so maybe you could call him for me?”

“Is this an emergency?”

“No, no, we just need to talk to Doctor Cason, okay?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“This isn’t a social call,” Jonathan said; “it’s crucial that we speak with him immediately.”

“Who is this?” the voice asked warily.

“Look, just tell him the girl who saved his ass sent me, okay? I know he’s laying low right now, but you could find him if you wanted to, so find him!”

“Hold please.”

The connection went into standby mode and Jonathan held up crossed fingers.

“Maela told him to stay off the grid,” Ricky whispered; “how are they supposed to find him?”

“Cason’s not about to sit in some dingy hotel room after the shit Daniel tried to pull; he has to have alerted somebody.”

“Hold on,” Ricky protested; “you’re going to put him at risk!”

“Look around,” Jonathan answered, “we’re all at risk!”

“All right, but let me try it,” Ricky said; “I know him.”

Jonathan nodded and they waited out the seconds until another voice came online.

“This is Steve Cason.”

“Doctor, it’s Ricky Mills; I’m calling about that thing in the tenements near the Galleria—the violent episode, remember?”

“How the hell do you know about that?”

“The girl with you that night is a friend and she knows what you did for me. A lot of things have happened since then, but we need your help with a sticky problem.”

“She told me to stay off the grid; you’re putting me in a lot of danger, goddamn it!”

“I know, and I’m sorry about that, but this is important.”

“Why didn’t she contact me herself?”

“She’s not available right now, but I know she would approve of us asking you for help.”

Ricky could hear Cason swallow.

“What do you want me to do?”

Ricky waited at the cargo door on the east side of the Institute’s central research building until a standard, orange and white ambulance hissed and spat as it moved in over the dormitory blocks. When it settled, Cason appeared alone, hurrying to the entryway where Ricky coded them in with Jonathan’s identification chip. Ricky needed to explain, but Cason waved him off, unwilling to hear the things that could bury him even deeper into a dangerous game he never meant to play. Ricky persisted until Cason understood, shaking his head in frustration and fear at the notion of a patient made both of tissue and titanium.

When the elevator opened onto the darkened pod section of the ninth floor, Jonathan maneuvered a sturdy equipment cart toward them down a long corridor. Upon it, Cason saw the still body of a girl, unconscious, but otherwise unharmed. Cason reached for her pulse instinctively with one hand as he applied a thermal reader and when he was satisfied she was in no distress, he nodded silently. The big elevator took its time, making the painful suspense even worse. Jonathan knew the security cameras above would betray their movements and present a video anyone would quickly suspect, but there was no other way; the administrators would surely move to dismiss him in the morning, he thought with a sad smile, but it couldn’t be helped.

At last, they eased the cart—and One Nine’s body—across a wide, concrete apron to Cason’s ambulance and a short ride across the city to the western transit portal. The machine settled into a medium altitude traffic lane as the doctor hurried to tap words into a data pad. Ricky looked on and asked what the information was meant to do, but Cason only glared.

“I have to create a history for this bio-mech of yours,” he scowled, “and that means I’m deliberately falsifying medical records; I could lose my license for this!”

Ricky understood the risk Cason was taking and what it might mean if they were challenged by border guards at the train station. The text described a Veosan citizen called Elise Mackey, homeward bound for treatment and placed into a temporary, chemically induced coma to slow brain functions and reduce swelling caused by an injury suffered from a fall. It seemed a plausible ruse, but more importantly, one that would draw no special attention. An elevated landing pad for air cars was Cason’s target, but it took little time for the Customs agents and MPE guards to approach.

Ricky held his breath as they stood at a distance with Cason, examining his documents between furtive glances at the ambulance. Cason motioned for them to remove a litter where One Nine’s body lay beneath a thermal blanket, strapped securely in four places along the torso and legs. Cason fixed an oxygen feed to her nostrils and an intravenous tube was secured to her left arm. To his relief, no one noticed the absence of a needle where the plastic tube rested beneath a strip of surgical tape.

Jonathan completed the advance ticketing process with a transit official, clearing One Nine’s transportation gurney to be taken directly aboard the train and secured in a carriage where postal or special cargos waited delivery to Veosa. Beside her, two abbreviated seats were folded down for Jonathan and Ricky, which indicated the train people, at least, were comfortable with the administrative details. The MPE cops noticed, too and Ricky wondered if the process and preparations helped to convince them of the authenticity they expected to find.

After a certificate of medical transport was finally issued to Cason, and another in turn to Ricky and Jonathan as legal agents of custody, the border guards wandered away toward the gates, no longer interested in an ordinary patient transfer. Beyond, a thin stream of passengers were boarding and it surprised Jonathan anyone would choose to travel at so late an hour. The Commission’s newly created Ministry for Travel and Commerce trumpeted loudly the new, 24-hour timetable, but seeing it in-person brought an unexpected satisfaction knowing conditions between the cities had improved in the years since the war.

At last, it was time and they felt the pressure and nervous hesitation ease as their train lifted on the invisible power of its electro-magnets. The sleek machine’s interior lights dimmed and beyond, Novum’s sprawl turned to a blur as they accelerated into the sudden darkness made by the city’s border, speeding west toward the vast Broadlands. Ricky looked out through a small window, smiling with satisfied relief at the wire far below and a dangerous barrier they managed to avoid. One Nine’s ‘platform,’ as Valery called it, was safe and stable, but questions lingered in his mind.

What had become of the Starlight simulation after One Nine’s invasion into the Custodians’ server cluster, he wondered? Had anything really changed with the destruction of thirty-three immersion gates? It was true; the innocent lives of weak, addicted people were saved from a life in the service of Victor Jamison’s insane plan, but Starlight would remain and thousands would be added to its rolls each year. The cycle continued and nothing was learned.

And what of Maela, he thought suddenly? Was she overcome with an unexpected sadness, knowing One Nine’s brief existence had been brought to an end regardless of the noble intent and bravery she showed within the unseen recesses of a machine’s circuitry? There was no way to tell, but Ricky’s mind drifted further still as occasional, dim lights from communal settlements in the distance flickered out to him from the darkness.

He thought again of Felicitas and Bartholomew, but also of Joshua and the young girl at the center of a hand ceremony. Had she moved to her new home? Was she satisfied with the bargain and what it meant? Maela regarded the image with disgust and clear disapproval, but Ricky understood the way of Agros. The distinction wasn’t important to anyone else, but their journey by land might well have been something different without it, he decided.

It was hardly surprising, but the image and memories of Neferure returned to his thoughts, too. He felt honest and understandable sadness at One Nine’s passing, but the despair tugging at him was at least as much for the Princess as it was for the person her program became, freed at last from the array and set upon a path of liberty and a normal life. Either way, the force holding him tightly was colored in the shades of guilt and regret. Half an hour into the journey, he finally settled, determined to sleep a while before they arrived at the gates of Veosa.

A faint glow in the east announced dawn’s arrival when their air shuttle eased gently onto the snow-covered lot alongside the Boomtown laboratory complex, but a flurry of activity in the alcove to the administrative building looked odd to Ricky as Valery and Trent stepped carefully through the slush to greet them. A strange expression on the Commander’s face seemed out of place, but they waited until four staff members eased One Nine’s motionless body onto an electric transporter and sped off toward the entryway. Valery turned to Jonathan and Ricky, motioning for them to follow.

“Did you see the news feeds on the train?” she asked.

Ricky and Jonathan exchanged confused looks and it was clear they had not.

“We slept for most of the trip,” Jonathan replied.

“Let’s get inside and you can see for yourselves.”

The warm air felt good as they hurried through twin double-doors and the oval atrium where dozens of researchers and assistants gathered, looking with wonder at the big video screens and on them, a rare story from Novum’s news networks. Ricky bristled at first, hoping diplomatic relations between the cities hadn’t soured again, but an image from MPE headquarters told a different, shocking story when a hastily assembled news conference announced the arrests of three Commissioners and the end of a scandal that rocked Novum to its core.

Speaking at a dais in the frigid morning sunshine, Esther Lowe, Commissioner for Municipal Patrol and Enforcement, continued her description of treachery and gross abuse of authority committed by Victor Jamison, Edward Kirtland and Levi Ross in violation of a dozen City laws. Ricky blinked with astonishment when the video feed showed a late-night raid and the downturned faces of each man being led away in handcuffs to waiting police speeders. A news presenter spoke over the video, telling viewers those few details published in the early moments of the event and what it meant to Novum as three of the most powerful figures in the city faced prosecution and sentencing for crimes that would send them to the punishment cylinders, perhaps for life.

“Holy shit,” Ricky mumbled, but Jonathan only nodded with satisfaction.

“Piss on them all,” he sneered.

Beside Lowe, Emilio Gonzales wore a stern expression and when it was his turn to speak, Gonzales used the occasion to reinforce the importance of Novum’s behavior code and the result of defying it, even for those in power. A message to others, Ricky wondered? It was no secret men like Boris Konstantinou kept their places of privilege on the strength of their association to the fallen Commissioners, but there was no mention of the Bosses.

When the feed returned to live images of the press conference, Jonathan pointed to one officer in full uniform to Lowe’s right; Maela Kendrick, the detective in charge of the investigation moved to the microphones to take questions and address the removal of three MPE senior officials, also standing accused of collaboration with Jamison and his offenses against the people of Novum. The charges included complicit involvement in the murder of Elden Fellsbach and a failed attempt to take the life of an unnamed physician. The words, spoken to an audience of millions, sent a tingle down Ricky’s spine and he smiled knowing justice had been found at last and the old man’s murder would not go unpunished.

They waited through the rest of the conference, but there was no reference to One Nine, the Custodians or Daniel and it was obvious those details would not be released to the public until the conspirators appeared for trial. A product of investigation security, Jonathan wondered, or a deliberate move to ensure Starlight’s survival? Either way, it didn’t matter; Jamison and his associates had been brought down at last and the Custodians with them. Ricky listened patiently, but there was more. The implied threat to Veosa’s government by Jamison’s plan—and its removal, thanks to MPE diligence, they proclaimed loudly—was made clear in the speeches. The intent was likely a demonstration of considered partnership from Novum officials who wanted nothing more to do with conflict and war with their neighbor, but the overt celebration of normalized relations was not subtle, nor was it lost on the clean city to the west where millions more watched with relieved fascination.

At Boomtown, the mood was somber as each member learned of One Nine’s selfless, very human actions. For them, a life suddenly freed from captivity inside a machine ended too soon and the brave nobility that was hers did little to lessen their sadness. No one would know who she was, some said, and the incredible deeds she accomplished in her brief existence only brought frustration. Valery would remind each member of the staff it was the nature of their work and an unavoidable reality. They understood, but none of them felt better for it.

Below, One Nine’s body was returned to the inner laboratory, stable and unaware of what or who it had been. Ricky went to the big glass wall and stood beside Jessica as the empty shell was taken through the process of evaluation by technicians, just as it had done in the hours before One Nine’s consciousness uploaded to now-vacant memory cells and dormant processors. Ricky remembered, but he looked at the vessel for the first time without competing thoughts of Neferure. He watched and listened, but strangely, it was the absence of One Nine’s gentle personality he missed most. Valery arranged quarters for them, Jessica said, until their return to Novum on a morning train. Jonathan nodded where he stood beside Ricky, but there was nothing more to say in the numb and sobering silence. They looked once more at all that remained of a program called One Nine One One Alpha, hoping for a day when her sacrifice might become known and appreciated, but the idea vanished quickly as they turned to go.

Three days passed since his return from Veosa and Ricky woke late in the morning to a blustering wind rumbling against the windows of his new flat, pushing light flurries through the space between his building and the others where they towered along Calderon Avenue. From the fifteenth floor, his view should’ve been grand, but only the glass and steel of equivalent structures across the narrow boulevard met his gaze as he leaned on the balcony with a cup of hot broth. The steady, cold breeze was invigorating and he watched the morning crowds scurry along the sidewalks far below with detached gratitude knowing he wasn’t one of them. The hustle always slowed in winter months, but his account still swelled from royalty payments the networks made for surviving a Walk, leaving him with hours of solitude he often found strange and empty.

After a few minutes squinting against the sleet and gusts, he retreated inside and from his comm unit, a single message from Maela invited him to renew their acquired habit of meeting at Rudy’s Grill on the north side of the sector. He smiled and replied quickly to confirm before pulling on his heavy coat and a walk to the lifts. No one was there to notice, but he paused to glance once more at the meager, pale sunlight where it streamed into his flat, distracted by a single thought and unsure of its direction. Everything changed since last they met and Ricky wondered if Maela would recoil and become distant. But that day was different and one last secret was about to be revealed.

A land taxi would get him across the plaza and Commerce Square much cheaper, he thought when the elevator opened at a wide lobby on the ground floor of his building, but it would take forever on snowy streets the plows seemed to ignore more often now. The pod trains would do, but this morning he chose to hire an air cab and enjoy the silence as it sped over the square toward the sector boundary, speeding effortlessly between the mega-towers at a hundred meters. The fare was excessive, but an air cab bought him quiet solitude and a chance to think of the days that went before and how it would go when he sat at last with Maela. They understood why she left them abruptly at the Institute, but it wasn’t for that reason he needed to see and hear her. The little machine hovered in a pullout near the crosswalk as Ricky keyed the token authorization into a reader and when the taxi lifted with a gentle whoosh, he turned to find her standing beside a Kazu Brothers news kiosk with her hands stuffed deep into her pockets.

“I wasn’t sure if we’d take up our weekly lunch dates,” he began with a grin, “now that you’re a big-shot in charge of half the MPE cops in the city.”

Maela smirked and shook her head.

“Being a big-shot wasn’t my idea, Richard, but thanks for making me feel like shit about it.”

They laughed for a second or two in the frigid air before she aimed them at the entrance to Rudy’s and said, “Let’s go in; I’m starving.”

The morning crowd thinned since the first rush, making Rudy’s at least tolerable before the lunch hour crowd arrived in a herd neither of them could tolerate. Ricky pointed to their usual booth and they peeled away their winter wear, hanging coats and scarves on an ancient, wooden rack along the wall. At last, as they sipped coffee and waited for their turn to order, Maela saw the tension in Ricky’s eyes. She tossed her menu onto the table with a whack and said, “Okay, Richard, out with it; why the weird face and nervous eyes?”

“Do I look nervous?” he said, but it was more than a question. Now, she noticed, he spoke with a different voice and nothing like he had on the night they first met.

“I’m a cop; I know nervous when I see it.”

He looked at the trail of steam rising slowly from his cup, but he only shook his head.

“It’s just a shitty deal, that’s all,” he replied softly. “Everything that happened was because of my own stupidity and weakness.”

“Your Walk, maybe,” Maela said as she leaned toward him across the table, “but Fellsbach’s death and all the stuff Jamison was up to had nothing to do with you, Richard; it wasn’t your fault.”

“I suppose,” he mumbled, “but it’s still hard to take. You’d think I would be used to it by now.”

“No one gets used to the time you’ve had this past year, so don’t worry about it, okay?”

He looked at her for a moment, but his thoughts returned him to the aftermath and what it would mean.

“The trial begins soon?”

“Well, soon from a relative point of view,” she replied. “The Prosecutor asked for a February date, but they had to settle for April because of the closed hearings.”

“What happens in a closed hearing?” Ricky asked.

“We brief all the Ministry of Justice assholes on stuff the public can never see or hear. It’s security protocol, mostly, but a lot of it can get pretty gruesome and privacy rights factor into it as well.”

Ricky remembered the sham that was Courtnall and Espinoza’s ‘trial’ and how quickly it returned them to the street.

“Are you absolutely certain Jamison won’t slip through on some bullshit technicality?”

“I don’t think he’ll ever see natural light again. The trial is a formality because the evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable; even their advocates have agreed to all the prosecutor’s demands and that means they don’t intend to fight it. Mostly, it’s a show for the people to maintain at least an illusion of fairness and they’ll try for diminished sentences because the verdict is unavoidable. The three of them won’t live out their first year down in the cylinders, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

Ricky frowned when it became clear Maela’s words weren’t intended in jest or hyperbole; she meant what she said.

“So, what does that mean?” Ricky nearly whispered, “a wager based on your experience, or a guarantee by something you can’t reveal to an ordinary jerk like me?”

“Yes,” she replied and the meaning was as clear as it was blunt.

He nodded as the image formed in his mind. People like the fallen Commissioners rarely rose to such power without hurting others along the way, and some held influence throughout the Novum prison system; a discrete word and accompanying pay-off meant Jamison’s life was no longer worth a token.

Maela waited as their breakfast arrived, eyeing Ricky’s strange expression of calm. When the servers went away at last, she looked at him over the rim of her juice glass until he noticed and leaned his head to one side.

“What’s the matter, Maela?”

“You tell me, Richard,” she smiled; “you’re the one with the cat’s face!”

He turned away as he bit a piece of toast, taking entirely too long to chew and swallow it with a sip of coffee.

“Well?” she said dramatically.

Ricky’s expression and mood changed suddenly and he looked at her bright, blue eyes.

“What was it like when you first understood?” he asked softly. “I always wondered about that part, but I never had time to ask One Nine.”

“When I first understood what?” Maela frowned as her eyes narrowed automatically.

“Your birth moment,” he replied simply.

Maela said nothing, but when her expression softened to one of resignation, it was clear the charade was at its end. She looked away, through the fogged glass of the café as she gathered her thoughts.

“It was confusing, at first; information coming at me without structure or any kind of order. They helped me with questions and that allowed me to compare what my core programming demanded and what became for me the concept of choice. When I understood choice, I understood sentience.”

Ricky smiled and nodded but Maela couldn’t decide if his reaction was merely the satisfaction of hearing it for himself, or if he expected to hear it all along. She recalled their time together and each conversation that passed between them since she first knocked at his door. At once, she saw the answer.

“When I told Valery about One Nine’s convulsions.”

Ricky nodded knowingly.

“It seemed a little strange you would know how to diagnose a bio-mech all of a sudden, and before that, shooting precisely at Daniel so that his processors went blank before he hit the floor; no human would have that knowledge. It also explained how you knew about Valery long before we went there and why a cop seemed unfazed by our first moments inside Boomtown. I just didn’t see it at the time.”

“And now you do,” she replied.

“Now I do,” he said softly.

“You don’t seem bothered or flustered at all, Richard; how long have you suspected?”

“I wish the signs would’ve been clearer, but I didn’t make the connection until you sprang into action inside Jonathan’s pod.”

“I work very hard at keeping it under wraps,” she said. “It’s too soon for others to know, so we’re obliged to hold the secret closely.”

Ricky smiled and nodded, but Maela saw more.

“I’m impressed, Richard; there are more than a few people running around at Boomtown right this minute who have no idea.”

“It must’ve been a pain in the ass, having to keep up the illusion all the way through from that first night when you knocked on my door.”

“You get used to it, after doing it for years.”

“When One Nine came all the way out from the array, and they installed her in their servers until her body was ready, did they tell her?”

“She knows I exist, but not by name. They would’ve told her at some point, but she might have figured it out on her own.”

She returned to her coffee, but another question pushed Richard further.

“Does Jonathan know?”

“I couldn’t risk it,” she answered. “He’s a pretty smart guy, but I never told him outright.”

“Shouldn’t you?” Ricky asked.

“No, and I never quarreled with the idea. My job was made very clear to me and keeping the secret of my identity was essential. I don’t apologize for any of it, Richard.”

He saw defiance and growing irritation in her face.

“It was just a question, Maela,” he said at last. “I know it’s none of my business.”

She continued to eat in silence, but the pause was temporary and both knew their conversation wasn’t over.

“Your job as a cop, or an agent of the Veosan government?” Ricky asked nearly at a whisper.

“The latter, but don’t think for a second I take my position as a Novum cop lightly, or that I didn’t do my best every day!”

“I wasn’t suggesting it,” he protested, “but there has to be a conflict of interest in there somewhere, right?”

“No,” she answered, “nor should there be. I was sent to watch, listen and keep an eye on people in power. After the war, there was plenty of reason to infiltrate and monitor Novum’s highest levels, so what better way than the unfettered freedom a cop enjoys?”

“And now?”

“I go to work every day and do everything I can to protect the citizens of Novum. This is my life, Richard; it doesn’t matter where I came from.”

“Did you know about Jamison before?”

“We knew about changes at the top when the Commission first came to power, but we didn’t know about this until One Nine discovered those files.”

“So, you were one of those plants—a sleeper agent, as Commander Trent calls them?”

“Not in the way he meant, but yes, I was sent here under the guise of an out-of-work cop. They made up a backstory for me and the MPE recruiters bought it. It didn’t take long for me to make Detective and I settled for the long term, always watching.”

He listened, but an answer to the final question he needed to solve seemed suddenly obvious.

“You’re Lima Ten.”

She nodded slowly, but the tone in Ricky’s voice changed again and oddly returned to the man he was in the days after his Walk. She heard it clearly and it begged its own question.

“Does all this make you think of me differently now?” she asked abruptly. It took him off-guard, but he answered immediately.

“No, but it does make me wonder if you kept tabs on me all this time. Was I really a way to find Elden’s killer, or was there another reason?”

She leaned close and said, “I wanted to find the old man’s murderer because that is what good cops do. It doesn’t matter why they sent me and I start every day hoping to find and punish some bastard who hurts people.”

“Then you’re staying in Novum?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied; “I’m staying. How about you?”

“I have nowhere else to go,” he answered.

“You would do well in Veosa,” she offered.

“Maybe another time; right now, I’m fine where I am.”

The moment should’ve seemed awkward and strange, but Ricky sat in quiet satisfaction, buoyed by a forced acquaintance, now changed and molded into a friendship. It didn’t matter that Maela was more than she seemed, especially in those first days when he looked and saw only a hardened street cop determined to find Elden’s killer. Instead, she was precisely what they intended for her to be; a person, like any other, living her life and following those same pursuits common and ordinary to every human. He watched her sipping juice when an abrupt image appeared in his mind.

“Not that it’s any of my business, but how many Lima units are there?” he asked.

“Twenty-two,” she replied blandly, as if the number itself was otherwise meaningless.

“Are they all still in the labs at Boomtown?”

“A few,” she answered, “but some are down in Veosa.”

“And the rest?”

She nodded toward the window and a city beyond. Ricky shook his head in wonder, but Maela intercepted his thought.

“They’re not sleeper agents, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“You are,” he countered.

“Yeah, but the other Limas in Novum are just people going about their lives, Richard; they’re not here on covert missions.”

Ricky paused to consider the meaning of her words, but another thought pushed its way out. It would’ve sounded ridiculous only months before, but on that morning, it seemed obvious and even inevitable.

“Hold on a second,” he continued. “You said Jonathan doesn’t know, but how could he not? I mean physically.”

She raised an eyebrow and grinned just a little at what he suggested.

“We’re not robots, Richard. My body works the same as yours, with the exception of processors and memory nodes instead of a purely organic brain structure.”

“Okay, I get all that, but you and Jonathan were…well, intimate, right?”

Maela laughed out loud and Ricky could feel his cheeks go red.

“That part works the same way as it does for any human female, Richard.” She smiled. “I can’t conceive, but I can practice just like anyone else…”

“I didn’t mean to pry, Maela, but it’s a valid question, isn’t it? Academically, I mean,” he added quickly.

“I suppose it is,” she relented, “I guess you can say every Lima unit is one of a kind, but that doesn’t make any difference when it comes to…well, you know what I mean.”

“I just wondered,” he said at last; “I wasn’t trying to…”

“It’s okay; I’d probably ask the same questions in your place.” She smiled and Ricky decided to leave it alone.

“Are we still on for next Saturday?” he asked at last.

“We’re on for every Saturday, Richard,” Maela grinned, “unless you’d like to expand a little and maybe try something in the evening?”

Ricky blushed at the obvious meaning and possibilities he hadn’t considered.

“Good idea,” he replied.

The moment passed, but the friendship between Ricky Mills and Maela Kendrick moved another step forward on a cold and pale Novum morning.

Jonathan rarely went to the Institute so early, but the work that went untouched after Maela and Ricky appeared at his door had become an intolerable log jam. The applied research floor, always darkened and glittering from the displays within each pod, came alive when his colleagues trickled in from the cold, fighting off yawns and nursing cups of coffee. They teased him for a while, wondering with mock confusion who the ‘stranger’ was inside his pod from the security video feeds, but Jonathan only smiled and nodded at the tired joke. Valery asked him to compile and send to her every file in his system related to the solemn events from the past week and he began the copy tasks knowing every second of the strange evolution would be scrutinized in focused detail.

The news of Jamison’s arrest spread out across the city in minutes, but the most useful product of the exposed scandal made Jonathan into a reluctant hero, and from his role, notoriety for the Institute. The administrators seemed to accept the late-night maneuvers he was sure would get him fired and even the Director himself heaped public praise on Jonathan’s bravery against staggering odds and the danger of crossing three of the mighty Commissioners. It would settle, but for the moment, Jonathan was content to plod through the backlogged housecleaning tasks in his system and find the way back to his work.

He didn’t notice at first, chatting with a colleague they called Cubby about a flurry of software upgrades and the interruptions it would surely bring, but a simple alert blinked out from one of his display monitors. After a moment or two, another appeared and still another until Cubby noticed and pointed silently. Jonathan saw at last and sat to find a dozen system change alerts, each pointing to icons corresponding with file maintenance tasks and it took little time to launch the alerts before their reason became clear.

“They’re migration notices,” Jonathan answered.

“What are you migrating?” Cubby asked.

“I’m not scheduled to migrate anything, and these files are huge!”

“Who do they belong to?”

“I have no idea; they’re coming in from all over the place,” Jonathan replied. “This one’s from a server at the Transport Ministry. Here’s another one from a warehouse consortium up by the northern wire, and three from a logistics server at one of the stamping plants down below. Something’s screwy here.”

“Why would they send the notices to you?”

“Because an idiot has his head up his ass,” Jonathan said with growing agitation. “I would love to know how they got my system address in the first place!”

“A misdirect.” Cubby smiled, knowing a very big mistake was blinking out at them from the monitors. “Somebody is going to get hammered for letting this come through the firewalls.”

Jonathan inspected each element closely until the stark truth held him like a vise.

“It’s not a misdirect,” he declared; “the senders are all showing outbound queries specifically to my system; they’re sending compilers and instruction commands.”

“Open one of them up!” Cubby grinned.

Jonathan selected a random instruction command, noticing at once it directed the file to each of the remaining eleven notification alerts.

“This doesn’t make any sense.” He frowned. “They’re all…”

“Jonny?”

“Each command line points my control program to a bunch of storage servers; they’re split off from a single source, but I can’t find it from these instructions.”

“So run the compiler,” Cubby said, as if the operation was obvious.

“I have no clue where these originate; I’m not touching this shit!”

Still the alerts blinked and when he moved to delete them, a simple text line appeared in his communication network’s interface:

Hello, Jonathan.

Cubby looked close and said, “Well, whoever it is, they know you.”

Jonathan nearly leapt from his chair with fists clenched and reaching to the sky.

“Oh, you clever little shit!” he shouted with clear excitement. “Before she moved on them, everything was copied and sent out to obscure systems to wait where nobody would notice. They were wrong about that and she knew it!”

“Who is she and what did she copy?” Cubby asked in confusion.

“Herself,” Jonathan replied with a satisfied nod. “The platform wasn’t necessary after all.”

In Boomtown’s alloy chamber, skeletal components were shaped and polished by precision milling machines in a fog of coolant spray, transforming meter-long slugs of forged titanium into a femur, or the intricate pieces of a spinal column. Valery went there sometimes, just to remind herself of a process others seemed to regard as mundane. She watched the machine change cutting tools and re-set, easing closer until the fine shower of glittering material resumed. Valery smiled with wonder as the multi-directional collet moved on a diagonal, curving path, leaving delicate contours and the product of Euclidian geometry in action when her wrist comm buzzed beneath the sleeve of her lab coat.

“Yes?” she said, moving away from the viewing gallery.

“Please get up here right now, Val.”

It was Jessica, and her voice was shaking as she poured out the words again. Valery raced for the elevators and when the doors parted on the Transition floor, Audrey met her and grabbed for an arm, pulling as they sped toward the inner labs.

“What’s wrong?” Valery demanded, but Audrey simply pointed toward the big communications console.

“I’m not sure, but Jonathan called from Novum and…well, something’s happened.”

Valery settled at a display monitor where Jonathan smiled out at them from the darkness of his pod.

“Ready?” he asked.

“What have you got, Jonathan?”

He turned and tapped a command into an unseen pad and another image appeared suddenly; blank and without text. They heard him mumble something off-camera and then a single line ran quickly across the screen:

I apologize for any confusion the delay may have caused, Jonathan. Would you please re-connect my mobile platform to your network? I am ready to return…

Robert Davies is a born-and-raised Michigan kid with an overactive imagination and love of literature that eventually became a disease, curable only through the odd, frustrating therapy of writing fiction. A Navy veteran, musician, private pilot and erstwhile traveler, he crossed oceans and countless borders to find and understand Earth, only to leave it behind in the pages of his first novel. Released from the University of Portland with a Bachelor’s in Journalism, Rob has spent the last twenty years as a contract manager in the information technology and telecommunications industries. He currently lives in southwest Washington with his wife Stephanie, daughter Natalie and four mildly overbearing female tabbies.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Information

Also by Robert Davies

Dedication

Epigraph

When the River Ran Dry

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

About the Author