Mateo sat by his bedroom window, smoking a cigarette. Dusk had come and nearly gone. Spring was breaking into summer and tonight was one of those typical summer nights they write poems about, soft and warm and full of secrets. As the daylight faded, electric light began to fill the windows of the many tower blocks. The windows glowed yellow, and at first they were dim. But as the sunlight left and the buildings slowly vanished, these yellow squares of light snapped into clarity, floating in the atmosphere like so many lanterns. Cars and bikes streamed along the roads. Cats yowled, adolescents practiced guitar by the open window, the bars and restaurants burbled with post-dinner drinks. The city returned the heat of the day, such that the sky was a cold thing and the earth a warm mother. Figures stood outside in pairs, raising small embers near their faces and then lifting them away.

Mateo loved dusk, loved sitting by his window and watching how it changed the city. But on this particular night he could not bring himself to love it as he should. He was worrying about the new, strange shape of his life. He felt himself poised on the edge of a precipice, sensed that the world had flipped upside down. How could he enjoy the simple things like dusk with the world upside down?

He had tidied his room: thrown dirty laundry in a great pile, stripped his bed, fed the black trash bag yawning open in one corner, swept. That he had done this shocked even him. He had taken out Poro’s journal and crawled though it, worried about missing something. There was nothing new. The same strange codes in the back, the same encrypted notes in the front, and that single code in Standard on the inside cover. He’d written it down on a piece of paper and then held it limply in his fingers as he’d watched night fall. There was nothing new there.

The chapter had hung around the pool for a while, watching TV, but they had found it difficult to talk to each other. Underarms was alright, really, but he was beaten up, and they wouldn’t be doing any more jobs soon. One at a time each of them had thought of an excuse and filtered out. Now Mateo had driven home and cleaned and sat to watch dusk.

In his hand was the strange card that had fallen from the journal—the “Ace of Sands”. He looked at it. Looking at it put him almost in a trance. He clicked the pen in his hand, flipped open his own journal and started writing. Prince had died. He’d stolen a priceless artefact, killed a vadu, received a Mantle, killed a thrall to the second most powerful figure in the city, been invaded by some kind of parasitic artefact from behind the Wall, been given his brother’s old journal and found it filled with a mysterious code, received a communication from the Executive Branch itself, received a power ranking from an ancient, immortal being in the form of a strange playing card.

That was a lot to process. So far, Mateo approved of his strategy to keep moving, but it couldn’t last forever. Underarms’s brush with death was sobering. He needed to face facts: life had changed. If he let something slip now it could have serious consequences, not only for himself but for the people he loved. And if he didn’t take time to figure it all out, something would slip through.

He looked at the list in front of him and thought of all the moving pieces and the potential sources of danger. It occurred to him that out of all of it, Wisely was the biggest threat. He was sitting in a Crete medhouse, for Pit’s sake. They might be a fairly small chapter but people knew their names, especially in some circles. If the Kid got to Wisely, Mateo was screwed, and so was Wisely for that matter. He knew his real name, his family even. Raia had babysat them both when they were younger. Phelix, the fence he’d met who had set him up with the Peep, would have a hard time figuring out his real name without help from Wisely, Thrift or Underarms, and Thrift and Underarms could look after themselves. His most urgent priority—other than attending the meeting tonight to prevent the Executives massacring his family—was to get Wisely moved out of Giggler’s and somewhere safe. Otherwise it would all come tumbling down.

He looked out the window, clicking the pen. He didn’t feel any better. A hot flush passed over his body.

He shivered. The flush came again, stronger this time, forcing his hair to stand on end. He felt it flowing up his spine, felt it coalescing near the nape of his neck, and he jumped down from the window sill, panicking. Wait, he thought. Not now. I don’t want to- With a jolt he felt the energy flow down his arm. He flung it up and pointed at the window. There was a crack as the shot rung out and the glass shattered.

“Fuck.” He said out loud. “No, wait-”

It happened again, quicker this time, the build up and the unwilling, somewhat orgasmic release of energy. Mateo sat with his arm out the window, pointing it at the sky, panicking. His body was shaking, his heart racing. The thing jolted through him and another bolt of power shot towards the heavens. He could feel it doing something to him, feel that this energy was his and it cost him to expend it. Again his finger fired. And again. Three more times the energy ran through his body, as if through the apparatus of some alien piece of technology, and unleashed on the sky. He was aching from it, a deep headache alongside muscle fatigue. He waited, sucking in rags of air. His heart slowed to a canter as minutes passed and another shot didn’t come. He exhaled, relieved, exhausted. He was here, his arm hung out the window, his hair dripping sweat, when Sally burst into the room.

“What out the Pit is going on in here?!” she squealed, staggering into the room and standing in the centre of it. She gawped, looked slowly around. “We heard it from downstairs. What’s going on? Are you setting off fireworks again?”

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Mateo slipped down the window and collapsed against it. He looked up at Sally. Her anger faded slightly as she saw the state he was in, but she didn’t speak.

“Again?” moaned Mateo. “When have I ever set off fireworks.”

“What? Oh, maybe that was the last tenant. Then what were you doing? You cost me customers!”

“Nothing,” said Mateo, sighing outwardly, his thoughts racing. “It’s a fire-tech I’m practicing. Sorry it’s so noisy.”

“Quite the tech! What will they come up with next?” She squinted, looking around them. “And who tidied your room?” She had often offered and he had been very clear that he preferred it messy.

“I did,” he said, smiling.

Sally eyed him. His smile dropped. She didn’t believe a word of it. In fact she wasn’t even looking at him. She was staring at the floor, spotless where he had swept it with a broom. “And you’ve been going to the library? Honestly, Mateo, I don’t know what’s come over you. I hardly even recognise you anymore.”

“Library? What?” He sighed. “Fuck off, Sally, I haven’t been to any library. What the Pit would I do in a library?” He scoffed. “Read?”

Sally leant down, picking up something off the floor and showing it to him. “Then why do you have a book ID, clever clogs? You know what they say, Mateo: lies have no legs. You can’t go around making up stories and expect anyone to like you.”

Mateo squinted, confused. She was holding the code from Poro’s journal.

= = = = = = =

Mateo sped along the skyway, a flash of blue liquid weaving between vehicles. The cars rose and fell behind as large, spectral lumps of colour. He checked his exit, saw the crisp white lines to his right stutter and break, and guided the bike to the off ramp, forcing himself to slow down. He had to admit, the Okü was a sweet ride, quicker than his Dayzl if not quite as responsive.

He’d arranged the meet in Kinju, a suburb of Zone Six on the border with Zone Nine about 20 minutes on the J-way from Sally’s. It was a lot less built up around here, more of a concrete park than a jungle. Most of the houses were only three floors, with a frontward courtyard and balconies, and it was common for a single vast, extended family to live in each. Kinju was famous for eateries and had a lot of his favourite spots, but the restaurants were in the same buildings as the houses—only marked with small, wooden A-frame signs out front—and were famously easy to miss. Koe’s was one such restaurant.

He drove down the street, clicking the dimmer on his headlights. Barking erupted around him. There were a lot of dogs in Kinju. Mostly they were shouting from behind the iron bars of the frontward courtyards, silently watched by old men sat looking out on the street, shirtless and smoking. A few strays ran up to Mateo, following behind his bike. Koe’s was a tiny place and, as far as he knew, the only place open to eat on this street. Can’t have been many F-bikes passing through. He pulled up outside, rubbed a few mangy dog heads, and locked up the bike.

He assumed Koe was a family name and that they were all, in fact, Koe. If not, Koe was probably the wizened old man who sat out front on a cheap plastic chair, smoking cheap plastic cigarettes. His son sat beside him, shirtless, chatting in quiet tones with his dad, a child asleep in his lap. The old man waved at Mateo and pointed inside. The son didn’t even glance over, jostling the child on his knee absentmindedly. Mateo passed them and went into the house, oddly comforted by how little interest they showed.

If Koe wasn’t the old man either, then it was surely the matronly old woman who appeared at the top of the stairs, looking all excited. She met him and guided him to a room at the back, gabbling happily about what there was to eat today. They only did a few different things each night but the food was always fantastic. Mateo had chosen the place because they had this small room in the back, usually reserved for romantic dates, and because he figured the Executives might play nice in such a peaceful, family setting. He sat down and lifted up the window, letting in the cool summer breeze, and the matronly woman set down an ashtray. He ordered a beer and she smiled and wandered off.

He didn’t have to wait long before he heard rustling in the passage way and looked up, expecting to see the lady returning with his beer. It was another woman entirely. She had thin, straw coloured hair pulled tight in pony tail, wore a knee length beige trench coat, shiny shoes, had long, beautiful hands with a single gold ring on each middle finger, thin lips and a plain face. She carried herself with the unmistakable pride and confidence of a zus. It was obvious the moment you laid eyes on her, much like the way you can tell someone is schizophrenic or addicted to drugs just from the way they navigate a room. She took off her coat—revealing a cotton shirt unbuttoned twice and baggy suit pants, as well as a bracelet of ball bearings around her wrist—and folded it, laying it on a small table to one side. She sat.

“Good evening, Mateo. I’m Goell. What a lovely place to have us meet. Is the food as good as I’m expecting it to be?”

“Sure is,” said Mateo, his smile cold.

“Have you ordered?”

“Only a beer.”

“Swell, what beer do they have?”

“No idea.”

Goell called the woman in and asked what beer they had, in the end ordering Gjanut for both of them. Mateo blinked appreciatively. It was a good beer.

“So, have you brought the item?”

Mateo coughed. “Yeah. Of course. Only I’d like some proof of identity. A nice wardrobe and a couple of rings doesn’t put you in the Executive Branch.”

Goell nodded, glancing over at the doorway. She reached into her pants pocket and took out a thin leather wallet and handed it to Mateo. He flipped it open. In the top half was an Executive ID pass with Goell’s picture and her Executive rank—which was meaningless to Mateo. But he barely glanced at the ID. In the bottom half of the wallet was a synthcard: the legendary metal cards which permitted entry to the Wall. It glowed faintly in his hand with a colour he couldn’t quite place, slightly translucent. He swallowed hard, trying to act cool. He was holding one. He stared at it for a few seconds, then sighed and flipped the wallet shut again. With a flick of the wrist, a gust of wind snapped the wallet out of his hand and Goell caught it. She put it in her pocket.

“Come with me,” she said.

They walked out onto the pavement. Idling in the middle of the street was a Tripple Black Penzo. Several people had come out of their houses to look at it, which didn’t bother the car. It just sat there, rumbling quietly with the life of its combustion engine. Goell made a gesture. Not sure what else there was to do, Mateo unlocked the bike and handed her the medical box with the Orikon Heart. There would be no last minute bargaining, not here. She approached the Penzo, opened a backseat door, and handed the box to someone. Then the Penzo drove off and Goell led them back into the restaurant. Two blue bottles of Gjanut were waiting on the table, dripping condensation, as well as a single hand-written menu. They sat. Goell picked it up.

“Hmm, I think I’m going to start with the zurek. You?” She handed him the menu and he scanned it.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll have the same.” He gestured at the lady on the end of the corridor and ordered two zurek, then put down the menu and sipped his beer. “So,” he said. Goell’s pretty, ordinary face was turned up towards him, calm and faintly smiling. “You said you had some information for me?”