MATTHIAS EMERGES from the Iros’ dismal apartment complex three stories up, carefully crawling out a smog-grimed window that looks no different from its dozens of neighbors. His slippers patter like runoff against the fire escape as he navigates his way down to us. A sagging plastic awning slows the end of his descent. I glance over as he joins Lain and I where we’re nestled at the mouth of the alley atop a pile of uncollected trash bags, watching the southern edge of the Orange through JOY-magnified pictures.
“What’s the verdict?”
“I got what we needed.” He flashes me a projector screen from his JOY. One digital tag identifying the carrier as a Dynasty-affiliated Psi named Sya Dao, Iros-level clearance. It transfers to my JOY when he taps the sphere against mine.
“She give you any trouble?” Lain asks. She does a damn good job of not trying to sound curious.
“I got what we needed,” he repeats, firmer this time. He glances at the time on his JOY before slipping it into a sleeve pocket. From the other pocket, he withdraws a small jewelry case smaller than his palm and passes it to me. “The rest is up to us. You have the route planned, Lain? Let me review it.”
She nods and slinks back down off the pile of trash bags we’re using for cover. Electric-blue light flashes over her face as a surprisingly comprehensive map of the Orange manifests out of a nanolattice of particles. Small droplets of acidic runoff from the layer fifteen stories up splatter the projection for microseconds as they drip through. Her eyelids flutter. Fingertip scrolls, scroll-swipes, magnifies the bridge where we’re going to make our entry. The path from there to the deeper reaches of the Orange is a convoluted mess born out of the guesswork marriage between the outdated map they used last time and the intel I pulled from Carto Bask’s safehouse days ago. Sarah had a damn good idea where the Executor’s quarters would be. Deep in the central support pillar of the block, tower perimeter, something with a view of the entire Orange. Getting there, as usual, is the hard part.
While Matthias crouches beside Lain and makes final modifications to the route, I get to work on his box’s contents. I try not watch the thieves while I do. I look up at the darkened undercity stretching above for a distractive. Their closeness, the shared body warmth, the furtive and nervous glances Matthias steals at Lain, leave my stomach in a guilty knot. There’s real love between them, even though they try not to show it. I understand why. Feelings are a dependency, and dependency is a liability. Can’t have that for long in the Vents. So we keep things in the present, because believing those feelings could be the future, believing in general, is the fastest track to getting burned.
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I’m no exception to that rule. There’s a reason I asked Krey to back me up last time I came to the Orange, after all. Dreams are nice, but contingency plans for when they disappoint you are better.
In the box is the last part of the Iros disguise I’m already wearing: two contacts, pink and catlike. I pop them out and shudder and force my eyes to take them one at a time, blinking like hell when I’m done. Irritated tears leak out of the corners until I wipe them away. I shiver against the wet plastic of the trash pile while the last of the irritation fades. The silks Matthias and I wear are meant for bedrooms, not the street. Hollow cold seeps into my aching, battered body while I sit there by myself, manifesting and erasing a copy of the 6-Teba from my JOY to pass the time.
The gun my JOY can make is almost as good as the real deal. It’s the idiosyncrasies that set it apart. The weight is a mathematical calculation that doesn’t account for the chips and cracks. The grip is too smooth, too freshly stippled. The trigger too stiff, missing those years of wear I’ve left. Ammunition exists only until I eject the ammo cylinder. I do it once more for kicks, popping out the silvery tube and watching it splash into a puddle. It dissolves into cyan nanolines the moment it hits the concrete. A snap of my wrist, and the weight of fresh ammo returns.
Uncanny. And the moment my JOY shuts off, the 6-Teba disappears too, withering from existence just as quickly as it was spawned.
Supernatural technology that can make something from nothing in the palm of your hand, and the Creators, whoever they were, decided it would only be for fighting. This world, the gladiocracy they made, built entirely on the back of that choice. Was this really what they wanted when they set the rules? Was this their vision of utopia? A world where only the strongest rule?
I look out at the Orange.
Only someone in love with combat itself could have dreamed up the eighteen classes. Utopia was never the point. They wanted to make monsters who would create places like the Orange; and people like Sarah to fight them.
If any of the Creators are still around, they better be watching tonight. They gave us the flint. It’s time to reap the flames.