When Shade was 7 years old, he thought he had seen a ghost. He saw a man step out of a brick wall, walk across an alleyway, and phase through another brick wall. When he told his parents what he had seen, they convinced him that ghosts aren’t real and he must have seen someone walk through doors that he couldn’t see. Shade knew he saw what he saw but every time he brought it up his parents would find a new excuse for why he was wrong. His father even walked into a wall, nose first, to prove the point that it was impossible to walk through a wall. Shade remembers his dad cursing up a storm because he walked too fast into the wall. Shade began to question what he saw and eventually came to the conclusion that there must have been a door there and he just didn’t see it. In the end, maybe ghosts didn’t exist but what the hell was that noise that came from the rock, Shade wondered.

“What now? Because I should probably finish my delivery,” Shade said, trying to keep his voice even.

“Our driver will be here soon. We should go meet him,” Tomás said, looking down at his watch.

Tomás placed one half of the rock in his vest pocket and placed the other half back into the orb case, shutting the lid. The case reversed every opening motion and the two parallel lines faded. Standing up, Shade palmed the case and put it back in his pack. He was anxious to get moving as the earlier he could make his delivery, the more time he had to sightsee and take in the city. This was a most exciting part of taking this job to Shade. It was his first time outside of the country and he wanted to take some time to explore and put his poor Spanish language skills to use.

“That is a cool case,” Tomás said, “it’s a ball but it doesn’t move when you set it down. It is perfectly balanced.”

“I can’t give this one to you,” Shade said with a chuckle. Tomás shrugged.

Walking through the neighborhood, Shade tried to look closely at the houses that were under the guise of the holographic emitters. He had never seen holograms operate on such a large scale before. Every house in a growing 10 block radius looked like it had holes in the roofing and was held together by spit and a prayer. Shade caught a glimpse of the inside of someone’s home as they were walking out the door and sure enough, the inside was well decorated, similar to Tomás’ house. He guessed that Tomás wasn’t lying to him and that the people here really were living fairly well despite how busted up things looked.

Holographic clothing was becoming the new fashion, “Lytewear” was the current name for it. On a small scale, with a few small emitters around the wrists and neck, people would wear several outfits in the span of seconds, leaving politicians to wonder about the possibility of criminals changing their look immediately after they commit a crime. Old people, Shade thought, always clutching their pearls when technology sets their world on fire. Besides, no one could afford it yet. It was still the crown jewel of high fashion houses and the very rich. Everyone wanted it though and Shade figured it would only be a matter of time before it became affordable enough for regular people to own it and for politicians to try and regulate it. But this amount of detail on this scale made Shade’s brain feel fuzzy every time he thought about how it could be accomplished and how much it cost to operate on an industrial level like this.

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“How does it work?” Shade asked.

“How does what work?” Tomás responded.

“The holograms. At this scale, I would guess you have a thousand of them working to keep this place covered,” Shade said, waving his hand in a circle.

“If a stranger came to your home and wanted to know all of your secrets, would you tell him?” Tomás asked with a wink.

Shade nodded and let the subject die. It was going to kill him being this close to the answer to a question and being denied. He understood about secrecy though as his job required that he keep a lot of secrets. If he didn’t then he wouldn’t have lasted so long as a Courier. Some new Couriers get greedy and think they can sell the things they know. They can make good money from a few secrets but eventually they try to sell to someone who’s in the same network of secrets and they get exposed. Mostly, those Couriers get blackballed and never work in the so-called “underground” again. Who would work with someone who can’t keep a secret? Sometimes you don’t hear from those people again. It doesn’t happen often that a Courier turns but when they do they have a hard time finding a job outside of a cubicle. To them, that’s no life at all.

Outside of the neighborhood, Tomás led Shade down a steep hill where three cars waited in a line. Tomás slowed near the bottom and looked back at one of his guard. He motioned for Shade to stay where he was and he walked the rest of the way to meet one of the drivers, who was waiting at the front of the middle car. Tomás started the conversation with a light tone but his voice soon grew louder and forceful. The driver’s tone matched Tomás’ and Shade was afraid that he’d have to jump into the middle of a fight. He could barely hear what the two men were arguing about but they were speaking so fast that he could only catch every other word and his grasp of Spanish language was best when spoken slowly. Tomás threw his hands up and walked back to Shade.

“What’s up?” Asked Shade.

“These are not the regular drivers,” Tomás said, hands on his hips.

“You don’t trust these guys?”

“They say the one driver who was supposed to take us, he was, he was...how you say,” Tomás was struggling to come up with the right word, “esta muerte. You understand this?”

“Muerte. Dead. Did he die or was he murdered?”

“Murdered! Yes, that is the word,” Tomás said.

“And what does that have to do with us?” Shade asked.

“The driver was the only one I trust to deliver this package and now he is murdered?”

“You think he was killed because of the package?”

Tomás nodded. Shade took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. This wasn’t new territory for him but usually he had people he could call on when things were looking like they were about to go sideways. Shade thought Tomás could be that guy in a pinch if he was ever out this way again but right now they were both at a crossroads.

“Can we wait until tomorrow? Maybe I can find someone else,” said Tomás.

“Can’t wait. The code in the keys is on a timer and we don’t have that long,” Shade responded. “We can’t use these guys?”

“They want triple the price since there are three of them instead of one.”

“Can they guarantee our safety?” Shade asked, motioning a finger to everyone.

“They say yes but I don’t trust them. How much extra do you charge if we have trouble on the way?”

“My fee is paid,” Shade said. He thought about his options but with no contacts in the city he didn’t have much of a choice but to go along with whatever the night brought him.

“Can you guarantee that we will make the delivery if we ride with them?” Shade asked.

“I will protect the package with my life,” Tomás said. Shade believed him.