OF THE UNDERCITY’S infamous kings and queens, only six now remain to fill the seats of eight. I watch through a false wall of bookshelves as they filter in one by one from the promenade, finding their places around a stretched ellipsoid of a gold-and-marble table. Each seat is separated a full meter from its neighbors. Three along each side of the table, one at the head, one at the foot beneath a transparent stained-glass frieze of the Section’s first Champion locked in vicious combat against a serpentine leviathan. The rest of the conference room is insulated by understated décor. All the fake gold and jazzy brass of the street-level gambling halls are for people accustomed to overcity luxuries. Behind closed doors, Venter style- simple, brutal, shaped like concrete- takes over.

Even the room itself isn’t anything to speak of, size-wise. Fake plastic books lining the walls fifteen feet high, arched ceilings, marble pillars in between, ornamental torches for light. Behind the shelves, rooms like mine, where lieutenants linger on couches smoking lighters and glaring sullenly at their peers. Cutthroat, hazy silence. Low ceilings, carpet floors, insulated walls. One door back to the promenade, another looping around a small hall to the conference room and a tiny service stairwell. Everything clean, a little too clean; the kind of clean that makes you wonder what had to be cleaned up before you arrived, then decide you probably don’t want to know the answer.

The colors around me are yellows, pastel pinks and blues, slate greys, black stripes, and a smattering of silver. Missing are the young lieutenants of Dax’s gang, purple and black. And Sarah only had me.

Despite my size, I’m at home amidst these bonebreakers. Half their age, leaning against the false wall, a gunslinger with attitude who stands shoulder to shoulder with a Psi and a Biohancer who introduced herself by kicking out one of Nero’s underlings to make space on the best chair in the room. Now Lain’s sitting on the arm with a borrowed lighter in her fingers. The seat filled by one of the Anvil’s duelists, a weathered shield-wielder with rebar-brown skin. Lain catches me staring too long, blows a whisper of smoke at me.

I look back to the conference room.

As Ulysses finally reenters and the heavy doors swing shut behind him, the tension on the other side of the wall immediately skyrockets. Concentrated lethality suffuses the air to the saturation point, so palpable you can almost feel it on your fingertips. Years have passed since the last time the Eight gathered together. That they do so tonight could only happen because they’re joined by two empty seats.

I don’t need to remind myself that these people aren’t friends. They aren’t allies. They’re gangsters. Fighters, politicians, and if they have to be, killers. The scruples and morality of the surface don’t apply when you’re born with a boot already pressed to your throat. Up there, killing is the highest sin, anathema to a people who glorify combat. In the Vents, it’s a brutal necessity. Something every person in that room has proven before to sit where they do now.

Through the wall and ten feet in front of the bookshelf I stand behind, Nero sits one seat down from the empty fore of the table, dressed for war. Black combat gear, acidproof rainwear with the hood down, the cowl of his serpentine Mecha head entirely exposed. Severe, his gaze tracks every step Ulysses takes to the center seat on the opposite side. At his left hand, floral Yelena patiently files her cuticles, eyes flirting across the table. The technician Kun Kharsa sits to her left, and rounding out the base of the ellipse, the aging doctor Wishbone finishes shrugging out of an extensively layered full-body cloak; cream colored.

Ulysses and the Anvil, martial master and long-graduated student, take two of the seats on the opposite side of the table. Those at the head and its right hand remain empty, creating a lopsided arc, head missing. The point isn’t lost.

Those on my side of the room brought backup. Behind Nero, Volt leans casually against the opposite side of the same bookshelf I’m watching through, fingers patiently clasped at his belt. Two of Yelena’s elementals flank her on small wooden stools, and Kun Kharsa brought a hulking Guardian of his own. Fearsome spirit-mask over his face, dark muscle lurking through the open center of a plain white haori, a six-foot sweeping blade strapped to his back. I can tell at a glance he’s a hired talent like Volt, only brought on as an extreme security measure. There’s few fighters in the Vents who could be considered elite warriors, and most of them are either dead or already on Dynasty’s payroll.

Notably, Wishbone and the Anvil are unaccompanied in the room. As is Ulysses. But I’ve never seen him bring backup, either.

Ulysses eases into his chair with an arthritic grunt. More salt than pepper in his hair than I remember, dark circles fresh under his eyes, beard still filed close and sharp. Brow narrowed, hard. Along with the Anvil, he’s the most simply dressed at the table. Olive-green shirt with short sleeves stretched around his torso, rugged tan pants, left his jacket on a peg by the torch behind his chair. Arms thick, body strong. But that patience I remember so well is all but gone as he clears his throat and runs a hand down his beard.

“I don’t want to be here longer than any of you do,” he says, laying one scarred hand on the table. “Nero. You obviously have something to say, rendezvousing first.”

I’ve never heard him talk like this before, like a hand on a sheathed blade. There’s a callousness to his tone. The other half of the most brutal Martial Artist in the Vents. The reason the others at the table still fear him, despite the mundanity of his lone class. I devote all my attention to him. He and Nero are the only ones at the table who are guaranteed to know Sarah’s fate. If Ulysses is opening with a misdirection, what’s his play? Is he trying to make the others show their hands first?

Nero responds to Ulysses’ question with a slow blink, then motions to the empty seats between them. “I would suggest we wait for the woman who spearheaded this gathering, but in the spirit of simplicity, I’ll voice my doubts instead.” His mechanical voice rasps through the silent room. “We’ve all seen by now what happened to Dax. I’ve received firsthand reports that his entire gang was wiped out. The Vector Seven block is in ashes. And I imagine that Sarah Morninghawk, if she’s not already met the same fate, will not be joining us tonight.”

He disguises the lie amongst so many truths that the others can’t help but bite on. Wishbone perks up first from the foot of the table, boots kicked up and dripping off the marble edge. His mask distorts his natural voice into a monochromatic warble, all the emotion of a dental drill at rest.

“Firsthand reports from whom?”

Ulysses watches the snake.

“We each have our sources,” Nero says. “It isn’t becoming to play the fool, doctor.”

Yelena chuckles. “He’s only poking holes, Nero. You’ve got more of an idea what’s happening than the rest of us.”

“Dynasty,” the Anvil interjects. Like a younger Ulysses, he’s even broader, more diverse in his capabilities, and less scrupulous in morals. His flinty grey eyes sweep the table’s occupants in one pass, challenging each in turn. “Dynasty is what is happening. Sarah already told us that much in her communique. Her absence doesn’t prevent us from coming to an agreement on her proposal.”

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Yelena meets the challenge with a glossed smirk. “I came to entertain her ideas. Not the silence of an empty seat. An alliance and a war against Dynasty?” She chuckles lightly and motions to Dax’s vacant chair. “What harm has the syndicate done us besides exterminating our competition?”

Silence from the rest of the table.

No one is eager to join her in pissing on the memory of a man who did more good for their children than the rest of the Eight combined. Dax’s gang was large, but all kids. Street rats like me. None over twenty-five. Even in my room, the lieutenants stir angrily, battle lines instantly drawn between Yelena’s Elementals and everyone else.

Surprisingly, Nero is the first to respond. “If you believe the syndicate will stop at Dax because he was the weakest of us, I imagine yours will be the next seat empty,” he says, not even bothering to look at the woman. “His fate was a testing strike. A prod to garner a reaction.”

“Quite. They’ve been nibbling at us for years because we refused to be provoked into a war, each making our own solutions.” Kun Kharsa finally throws a word in. A small man with a reedy rasp of a voice, dressed down in a straight-ironed shirt that makes him look no more threatening than a low-level insurance agent. Dark hair, prominent widow's peak, flat eyes that have ordered men beaten to death without blinking. His chin raises at the other end of the table. “What does Dynasty stand to gain from giving us a reason to unite now? A threat to one of us is a threat to all. All it proves is that if Dax can be picked off and disposed of, any of us can. Their Executor has been cultivating the syndicate’s presence in our city for years. She is cunning and clever. A savant with a vision we do not understand, one greater than our city or even our Section. In tactics, she is more than a match for any one of us at this table.”

“You speak as if you know this Executor personally,” the Anvil growls.

“All I am is a blind man, making sense of the hand that plays with the city around me. I feel the ripples of her movements. I may not understand where they go, but I can sense the intelligence behind them, and it is not one that would decide Dax’s downfall on a whim.” Kharsa shakes his head. “No, it is no whim that pushed us together. An intentional act. And so I would posit a question to you all: why now?”

“Why now?” Yelena murmurs. “Speak plainly, tinkerer. Or have the fumes from your chemical plants finally found root in that aging mind of yours?”

Ulysses crosses his arms. At the foot of the table, Wishbone stands and paces over to the stained glass window, resting his hands on the lip. A reflection of his carved drakesbone mask gazes out over the Kwa-Hon’s golden streets. I glance at Matthias, taking advantage of the pause.

“Sense anything?”

He waves a hand at the ceiling. “This entire building is blanketed by Psis. Basic privacy protocol. Not even an Iros could eavesdrop.” He notes my spread-foot stance. “Something bothering you?”

I watch the false wall in the corner of my eye. “Just a feeling.”

Back in the room, the Anvil leans back against his stone chair. “If Dynasty’s Executor is a tactician of the caliber you profess, Kharsa, there is only one reason she would risk giving us reason to unite. Giving it to us on a silver platter, no less.”

Nero folds his fingers in agreement. “Because there’s no risk to her at all. Because she suddenly believes she has already won this war of attrition, and we have not even decided to fight.”

Wary quiet descends in the wake of his words, broken when the Anvil drives a fist against the table.

“Is that all the fight you have in you?” he asks, rising from his chair, palms flat against the table. “We are the Eight. In all the Vents, only Champion Fang’s name commands the same respect as ours. We did not build our streets by capitulating to invisible enemies- we took them by force. Sarah brought us together because she sensed, as have we all, that the future of the Vents has come to a head. Something has changed with Dynasty.” His voice rises with every word, building to an impassioned crescendo. “If this Executor wishes a fight, if she has handed us an invitation to war, then let us take it with an open hand. Dynasty may have the resources to exsanguinate us one by one, but when it comes to blows, we have the manpower to erase them from the Vents in a single night. Giving us a reason to join forces was their first and last mistake. Don’t you agree, Ulysses?”

It speaks to the presence of the man that both rooms wait on a pindrop for his response.

Ulysses closes his eyes. Releases a tight breath from his chest. I wonder what he’s looking for behind his eyelids. Some older memory? Sarah?

When he finally speaks, it is low, tinged by a father’s exhaustion. “War, is a dangerous word,” he says, letting it linger on the air. “Kun’s theory is only one possibility. Perhaps this Executor doesn’t care now if we unite. But it is just as possible that Nero was correct at the start. That we are being provoked into a fight.” His eyes open halfway, staring patiently at the serpentine machine, though he continues to talk to the Anvil. “You were right too, Marcus. The future of the Vents is coming to a head. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but it is coming. We have all felt it. In the morning, when we walk the towers and watch for the sunrise, there is silence. Our families do not risk sending their children to school. Our shops are closed for fear of violence. Our streets are emptier. Our rooms, quieter.” He pauses, scratching at his beard. Not a man of many words, it takes him time to find them now. “We are the coals at the bottom of this city. For years, we’ve been too small a concern for the corporations and the Champion to involve themselves in our matters. Sarah always wanted to change that. But if we join forces now and give Dynasty the fight they desire, it will fan those coals into flames. They are already growing. Grow too far, and it will not end with our enemy in ashes, but all of us.”

Nero mutters something into his collar. A moment later, while the Anvil retakes the room’s attention, Volt shifts to examine the bookshelf and mutters through the false wall. A mic hidden in the wall transmits his words through. “We’re losing them. Get her in here. Now.”

Matthias makes to nudge me, but I’m already moving, sidling down the side corridor that loops around the side of the conference room. The other lieutenants note the move and a few begin to rise, but Lain beats them to the draw and kicks the door shut behind me. The volume on the other side of the wall keeps growing. Voices shouting back and forth now, anger and outrage as chairs scrape back.

“Are you suggesting we simply let Dynasty off the hook, master? They killed Dax!”

“I’m suggesting we take our time. Emotions never make good decisions.”

“A rash reaction could be exactly what they’re looking for. Shimano Yor is practically screaming for intervention-”

“You are mad, Kun! Preaching fear, then war, now patience-”

“And what of you, witch? You have done nothing but sing the syndicate’s goodwill-”

“Rich words coming from you, Nero. You might as well be the Executor’s footstool for how often her men ferry their contraband through your docks-”

Boots thudding against the stone, 6-Teba one latch away from drawing, I reach the heavy stone door at the end of the hall and shove my full weight against it. My chest rises and falls unevenly, the ceramic shrapnel still lodged between my lungs. A seam of light splits the door’s rectangular frame as I begin rolling it open, quickly growing into a pool of firelight that spreads down the adjoining hall as it slides into the wall. On the other side, the whole conference room is in an uproar, slow to register the sound of me opening the secret passage.

Even Nero. He’s shaking his head at the table, nails drumming on the marble, muttering to himself.

“-another reason. How simple. How banal.” He clasps a hand to his forehead. “Not to unite us, not to provoke us…” He looks to the foot of the table, where masked Wishbone slowly turns from the grand window, the stained-glass leviathan’s eldritch eye gleaming ruby red over his head. In his hand, a battered white revolver that silences the room.

“…but to gather us all under one roof.”