The smog from the foundries left the air feeling heavy and oil as Maris and Liam ran along the rooftops of the city. The sun had dipped behind the Western Mountains, the last light of dusk barely penetrating the omnipresent clouds. No stars shone through, and below them, the streets were quiet, shops shuttered for the night. Nobody wandered the streets at this time. Not in this neighborhood. Even those who didn’t fear the gangs had gone into their rooms, resting or eating their meager dinners. Tomorrow was another day at work and every morning you could see the street sweepers going into the alleys to get the bodies of those who couldn’t work.

Magna City had no place for those who couldn’t contribute, after all.

But for Maris and Liam, their work day had just begun.

Maris laughed as she ran, her lithe form nearly invisible against the grimy brickwork of the buildings around her. Clad in a dark body suit, her tools in a backpack, each one wrapped to ensure that they’d never give her away with a clank or bright reflection of light on metal, she barely had to look down as she moved.

“Hurry, Liam!” she called. “Night’s getting old.”

‘The night’s not even started,” Liam said. His clothes were bulkier, his frame larger than Maris’. Where her steps were soundless, he made noise.

Maris shook her head. “You really gotta work on that,” she told her friend. She grinned, as she saw a gap coming up, an alleyway bisecting two buildings. Without hesitating, she took the leap, stretching out her legs as for a moment, death yawned beneath her.

Then she hit the other side, stopping and spinning around in an exuberant gesture.

Liam was nowhere to be seen.

“Liam?” Maris asked.

“You know, there was a board between the two buildings,” Liam said as he walked over to her. “I took it while you were celebrating almost dying.”

“I’ve done that jump a hundred times,” Maris protested.

“And all it takes is one slip,” Liam said. He ran his fingers through his tightly coiled hair. “We take enough risks. We don’t need to take unneeded ones.”

Maris snorted. She coiled a lock of her green and black hair around one finger. “What, you’re going to live to be old? Rich, with ten thousand brats?”

“I don’t know about the brats, but old and rich has some attraction to it.”

Maris shook her head. “You spend too much time thinking about the future.”

“And you don’t think about it enough.” Liam shook his head. “Just, let’s get this job done without you breaking your neck?”

“I’ve never broken my neck!”

“You only have to do it once!”

“Fine.” Maris rolled her eyes. “We’ll get there the boring way.”

“Thank you.”

Maris shook her head. That’s Liam. Sure, they were friends, but Liam seemed to think that one day they’d get out of here. Get the big score and retire to Admiral’s Hill.

Not Maris. When she was at the bars, she saw the old cooks and waitresses and whores, and when they got into their cups, they had the same story. They were the kids who knew that the rules wouldn’t apply to them. Maybe they’d work hard, maybe they’d make that one big score…

And yet here they were, waiting until the Coughing Curse took them, or they fell behind on their taxes and were cast out, or were just knifed by someone looking for their big score. Trying to live to get old just meant you’d have a bad ending.

But Liam won’t calm down, and I don’t need him worrying.

Magna City was built around a low mountain range, long since given to the wealthy. Around it were the factories, forges and shipping yards, and around them was Drudgetown, where most of the people lived. The forges were still going, the furnaces tinging the bottom of the soot-clouds red. But Maris wasn’t heading for there.

“Right, we’re coming up on the Wall,” Maris said.

“I’m presuming you’re not going to try to jump this?” Liam said.

“Har. Har.” The gap between the buildings and the Wall was just over 50 meters. The Wall itself was forty feet tall, with enforcers patrolling the top and manning watch towers, with only bare ground in front of it.

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Supposedly the Sundown Rioters were buried under that ground, a lesson to anyone in Drudgetown who wanted to repeat their feat.

“I—hoods up!” Liam snapped. The two huddled against a low chimney, pulling their hoods up and over their heads as an aetherflyer soared overhead, searchlights playing over the city.

Looking for someone? Maris paused. No, just being a jerk. The lights weren’t fixed on any given spot, just whipping back and forth over the buildings, giving any light sleepers a moment of what did I do? If they had been looking for anyone, they’d have brought enforcers.

But that didn’t solve the issue of the Wall.

Fortunately, every wall had a weakness.

“Right, they’re just circling around,” Maris said.

“You ready?”

Liam consulted his watch. “Twenty minutes until the next train. It’ll be close.”

“If you had run like I was running, we’d have at least thirty minutes.”

“Unless you broke your neck.”

“I was not—“ Maris took a deep breath, staring at her friend’s smile. “Fine. Now let’s hurry. I don’t want to have to come out and do this again tomorrow.”

----------------------------------------

The Upper City liked to stand aloof from the rest of the world, but even the wealthy had to eat, and shipments of grain came in every day from the farmlands outside of the city. There were guards around the trains, of course, especially as they came through Drudgetown.

But the guards’ vigilance relaxed as the trains got closer to the Wall. There was no time for someone to try to derail or block the train and make off with grain, cheese, or meat. Not before aetherflyers and armed enforcers would be sent against them.

Now Maris wasn’t joking. She and Liam paused, pulling their hoods up and daubing their faces with dark paint. They’d only gone into the Upper City twice before, and both times…

Calm down, Maris. You did it twice. This is no different.

But they might kill Liam. There were rumors about that happened to girls, especially attractive ones, in the Upper City. Maris remembered one of her roommates in the foundling house. She’d been picked for a maid…

And she’d come back two years later, looking like she’d aged ten. A week later, and she’d hung herself from the window.

Well, they have to take you alive to do that, Maris thought. She—

“Mind on the job,” Liam said. “Next train is due in four minutes,” he snapped his watch shut, and put the valuable tool back in a padded pocket. “Let me check your gloves.”

Maris nodded and held out her hands. Liam frowned as he looked at the metallic contact points, opened a flap on the glove. “You barely have any aether here.”

“I’ll get more.”

“I don’t want you sliding off.” Liam reached into his backpack, pulling out a single, brass and crystal vial, a dim greenish glow shining through the crystal.

“I have barely any aether? What about you?”

“I’m fine.” Liam shook his head. “We’ll buy more or get some from Mario.” He twisted a knob and then touched the tip of the vial to Maris’ gloves, first one, then the other.

Maris held up her gloved hands and nodded. “It’s enough.”

“Good, let’s go.”

The place they were heading for was a dip in the track. Supposedly, there’d been an earthquake long before Maris or Liam had been born, and when they’d repaired the tracks, they had just followed the old track. Now the route dipped down, narrow walls on each side, barely enough room for a human body to fit between the walls and the train.

That is, if you were slim, or really determined to become one with the stone. Maris set her rope as Liam did the same, and moments later, the two were rappelling down the side, the slimy, soot-covered bricks slippery under their feet.

Better not slip here. Further down, Maris could hear the sound of the train, echoing through the cut. Maris pressed herself back into the wall, the little depression she’d been aiming for barely enough for her and Liam to fit.

“Wait for it to slow.”

“Not the first time I’ve done this,” Maris replied.

And then, with a blaze of lights and a roar of the aether-powered engine, the train was upon them, the engine-car whipping by. Maris felt the wind whipping by her, trying to pull her to her death among the clashing wheels, sparks flying from them.

C’mon, any moment now…

And then the train started slowing. Out of sight, around the curve, the dip was rising into a turn, and the big locomotive was having to slow down to keep from jumping the tracks. Maris waited until it was as slow as it was going to get and then…

“Go!” She and Liam made the leap, the contacts in their gloves holding on to the smooth metal sides of the car.

Hurry, hurry, hurry! If they were like this when the train car emerged from the cut, a blind man could see them. Maris scrambled down the side until her face was only a few inches from the spinning wheels, and then scrambled underneath the car, only a tiny space between her and the tracks below. Behind her, Liam did the same, with a little more cursing as he nearly slipped to his death.

“Watch it!” Maris hissed.

“I am!” Liam pulled himself up. “I’m not skinny like you are!”

“You eat too much.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Liam got his hands secured, then looked over at Maris. “The train won’t slow up until they hit the yards. We’ve got ten minutes.”

“Yeah.” Maris glanced down at the ground. “Try not to let the blood rush to your head.”

Liam rolled his eyes. “I hope they haven’t found the hole.”

“If they have, we’ll figure out something else.” Then Maris fell silent. The train was speeding up, the noise washing away anything softer than a shout.

Upper City, here we come. Please have your valuables ready for delivery.