Checking over my shoulder one final time, seeing the disturbance had become a scuffle, I climbed up onto the bench to the side of the camera I’d chosen, just outside the filming angle, and reached around the back searching for its interface connections. It took two tries, and the scuffle sounded like it was winding down just shy of drawing drones to the kitchen, but still enough to keep the cameras on them and not me, before I found it.

  And a precious thirty seconds, that felt like thirty minutes, to get the transponder wired in.

  Its status light blinked green three times to indicate Si had received the feed and was in control.

  I jumped down, pocketed my make-up case and headed towards Trent to offer assistance at his food prep stand.

  “Clean that mess up,” Tan ordered Wang Jie, both still in their predetermined roles, as my heart rate slowly lowered and the shaking in my hands became just a trembling in my fingertips.

  I could see Trent glancing at them, flicking concerned eyes up to my face. But he didn’t comment. Nobody was talking; all as dutifully silent as the day shift crew had been.

  I checked my watch surreptitiously. One minute gone. Nine torturous minutes more of loading up plates, pulling heated trays of food from the ovens and transferring them to platters, and stacking the dirty dishes in the sink at the back of the room, as Tan, Alan and Wang Jie all traipsed out into the cafeteria to get the food set up.

  We all continued to work in that mind-numbing utter silence. Carrying out our tasks as though we had done them time and time again. We didn’t look at each other. We didn’t look at the cameras. Heads down. Lips sealed. Dedicated Citizens going about their jobs.

  “Ten minutes,” Trent said softly beside me as I slowly lowered the plate I was carrying to the bench.

  “You think it will have been enough?”

  “We have to trust that Si has done his part. There’s no more time.”

  The guys walked back in at this point and came to stand before us at the rear of the kitchens; well within camera and microphone view. Which now, hopefully, should have been showing us working studiously and appropriately on loop from a recording Si should have taken.

  I turned to look at Tan.

  “Wang Chao,” he said, not beating about the bush. My eyes skipped over to Wang Jie.

  I didn’t trust him. There was something off about this man. But he was our only chance now.

  “Wang Chao does not know you,” I said and Wang Jie took an abrupt step back at the words.

  “Lena’s right,” Trent said. “He’s had confrontations with all of us. Lena he knows extremely well. It has to be you.”

  Wang Jie looked to Tan for support, but didn’t receive it.

  Instead Tan said, “You serve him his meal. You stay within calling distance should he need anything. And most importantly, you block his view of any of us, cutting off any potential chance of recognition before it has an opportunity to happen.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said, voice uncertain and slightly higher than usual.

  “You don’t have a choice,” Trent announced, closing down the discussion before it got out of hand. “Lena will be targeting those identities we need throughout the room. Alan and I’ll be ensuring they stay in the cafeteria long enough for her and Tan to assume the identities and get what we need from in the factory itself. But the plan has changed.”

  Several heads snapped up at Trent’s words, mine included.

  “Is that wise, this late in the game?” Tan queried.

  “We have no choice,” Trent semi repeated. “With Wang Chao here things have drastically altered. We need to be in and out even more quickly than we’d originally intended. Si can help us to a certain degree, now he has access to the security system and a way to interfere with their transmissions. But his access will be limited.”

  “What do you suggest?” I asked.

  “Shiloh,” he said softly. “Those identities that have the best chance of getting to Shiloh. You target them and leave the less likely ones alone.”

  “But we don’t know for sure where in the complex Shiloh’s mainframe will be,” Alan pointed out.

  “What divisions were we intending to target?” Tan asked.

  “Research and development, weapons, the main assembly line, quality control, and the management offices,” Trent said in a rapid fire of words.

  “None of which,” Tan pointed out more slowly, “describe where in the process the drone comes to life.”

  “You mean where it becomes Shiloh,” Wang Jie said with an obvious shudder.

  “Exactly,” Tan agreed. “If we knew that, then we could follow the input back to her mainframe.”

  “That’s if she’s even here,” I offered. All eyes turned to look at me.

  “This is the most highly protected property in all of Wánměi,” Trent pointed out carefully.

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel right.” Then promptly ruined the effect by reaching for my throbbing temple.

  Trent frowned, then after giving me a steady and prolonged look, turned back to the others. “We limit who we go for.”

  “Limit to how many?” Tan asked.

  Trent looked at me again, something working behind the churning sea of blue in his eyes.

  “Two identities,” he announced and my mouth fell open.

  How on earth could we limit who we went for to just two?

  Then it got worse.

  “The first two most appropriate to enter the cafeteria,” he added.

  We’d planned on making multiple fact finding trips, throughout the shift, into the factory itself. Taking identities as they arrived in the cafeteria, spending fifteen to twenty minutes using them out in the complex, then returning before they finished their meals and trying for more.

  There was no way to tell who came at the beginning of a meal break and who left it to the last minute. And luck, I’d already decided, was not on our side. Getting who we wanted - needed - was a tall ask.

  I was already shaking my head, ready to argue the point.

  “We don’t,” Trent said very slowly, enunciating each word, “have the time.”

  I let a breath of air out at the obvious logic to his words.

  “First best two,” I whispered, hoping that saying the words aloud would help make them better.

  It didn’t.

  “Now,” Trent went on, eyes still on my face. I could feel the heat of them even if I didn’t look up from my study of the floor. “In what order of importance?”

  “Management offices,” I announced.

  “What?” Wang Jie exclaimed. “How will Shiloh be there?”

  “She won’t,” I agreed. “But if she’s not in this complex at all, the offices might lead us to where she is.”

  “She has to be here,” Tan argued. I remained tight lipped.

  “OK,” Trent said. “Management offices, then what?”

  I could have kissed him. Backing me, over what did appear the most obvious course.

  “The main assembly line,” Alan said. “If all else fails we could follow the inputs back to the sources from there.”

  “What about quality control?” Wang Jie asked. “Surely it’s there they test a drone to make certain Shiloh can interface with it.”

  Silence as we digested that. He had a point. I stared at him, trying to see fault in his suggestion, trying to see an ulterior motive, but coming up blank.

  Trent ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh.

  “Management offices,” he said. “And then whichever of quality control and the assembly line appears first.”

  “I still think the management offices are a waste of precious time,” Wang Jie grumbled.

  I really didn’t like that man.

  I expected Trent to come to my defence again, but he was watching me, lips pressed in a thin line as he contemplated Wang Jie’s words.

  “I stand by my suggestion,” I said, because I did. Everything would be documented in the management offices. Everything.

  And I had no intention of letting Wang Chao scare me off and every intention of going after more identifies once I knew which ones would get us to Shiloh.

  It was a reconnaissance mission inside an active assault. Not ideal. But what choice did we have?

  Drone City was on the tightest security level.

  Just like Wang Chao.

  Trent looked toward the cafeteria doors, then back to all of us one by one.

  “Get in there. Get out,” he reiterated. “Stay safe,” he added, just as the first sound of workers arriving for their dinner on the other side of the doors could be heard.

  “Showtime,” Tan said, giving me a crooked smile, clearly having heard my earlier quip in the back of the truck.

  “Showtime,” Alan repeated, not offering a backward glance, but instead pushing open the doors and walking through as though without a care in the world.

  The man was made of steel.

  I took a step forward in order to follow him, when Trent placed a hand on my arm stilling me. I watched as Wang Jie and Tan followed behind Alan, neither of them noticing that Trent had waylaid me. Then I turned to look up at him when the rest of the team were well out of sight.

  He stared at me for a long moment, both of us uncertain of what to say. The sounds of the cafeteria filling, on the other side of the closed doors, so very far away.

  And then he breathed one word, just one word. So full of meaning. So full of everything he could ever possibly say. So full of him.

  So full of our first night in bed together.

  “Lena,” he said, just as a drone announced out in the cafeteria that the Chief Overseer had arrived.

  Chapter 23

  Well I Never

  Trent

  “All rise for the Chief Overseer,” Shiloh’s voice sounded out through the door.

  This was happening too quickly. Too fucking quickly for me to stop it. To prevent it from all falling apart.

  Fuck me. But this was going to go south too damn swiftly. And there was nothing, not a damn fucking thing I could do to protect her. Nothing at all.

  I watched as she hesitated, her face going a shade paler, if that was at all possible. And then the Elite in her rallied. Shoulders back, chin up. Fuck, I was so in love with this woman.

  She sucked in a deep breath of air and headed toward the door.

  I wanted to grab her. Stop her. Throw her over my shoulder and run the other way. I wanted to keep her safe. Keep her from facing her childhood nemesis. I wanted to kill the motherfucker once and for all.

  I reached out. Almost touched her; stayed her. Almost did what my heart demanded I do.

  But this wasn’t just about me. Wasn’t just about Lena either. For a second, an inconceivably long anguished second, I hated that I had been born to Mason Waters. I hated that the leadership had fallen to me.

  My father and I had never had a close relationship, unless you counted the many times he stripped his belt off when I was young and thrashed the living daylights out of me. For some minor indiscretion or other. For some perceived failure to perform. For just being me.

  I got too big to beat eventually. I got too smart. But the bastard found other ways to reach inside and stab my fucking heart out with a knife.

  You think you’re better than me? He’d shouted one time. You think the son of a street whore is better than me?

  Never mind that I was his son too, and that he’d lain with a supposed “street whore.”

  You’ll never rise above it. Never have the respect necessary to lead an army. Unless you harden the fuck up.

  He’d reached for his belt then, but remembered at the last second that I was finally big enough to fight back.

  Just like your fucking mother, he’d said instead. Putting a quick fuck before anything else. And look where that got her?

  Where did it get her, Dad? I’d asked, stressing “Dad” as I so rarely used it.

  He’d spat on the ground, a habit that proved beyond a shadow of doubt that he was most definitely not model. Born in a time when the rules weren’t quite as strict.

  That had been his problem. He remembered. He never forgot what it was like before General Chew-wen.

  Wiped, son, he’d replied, stressing the term like I’d done with “Dad.” It got her the fuck wiped and you left in a gutter on the side of a Wáikěiton street. And now I’m hobbled with you. Trying to make something out of you. But you’ll amount to fuck all, you will. Too busy putting emotions, your own debauched desires, before duty, before necessity. Too busy being a fucking whore just like your useless fucking mother.

  I blinked as the memory faded, my eyes landing on the back of Lena as she reached for the door. My heart pounded in my ears as it always did when I reflected on my arsehole father. My fists clenched tightly, my breaths coming too quick. He’d taught me everything I knew. Despite thinking so little of me, he’d groomed me for the role of leading a rebel army. Tough love, he’d often said. But there was little love about it, only convenience.

  I was his son, by blood, regardless of the regretted connection to a prostitute. I was his son. It was always going to be me he’d hand it to.

  But there were some things he’d failed to teach me. Some things I now knew that I had learnt all on my own. Some things that did not make me Mason Water’s illegitimate son.

  They made me Trent Masters, Lanie Master’s love-child. They made me the man I am today.

  I reached for Lena’s hand and slipped mine over it. Wrapping my palm around her smaller one. Fingers laced, skin connected. Like a furnace or an impossibly bright star encased in my grasp, almost too hot to hold on to.

  Her face came up, eyes flicking to mine. Her lips parted on a surprised breath of air.

  Take her away. Out the back door. Hide her. Keep her safe.

  I closed my eyes briefly on the overwhelming need to protect her and forced myself to accept that there were other ways to that, while also doing what needed, what had, to be done.

  This was bigger than us. Bigger than my unquenchable desire for Lena. Bigger than my heritage.

  Wánměi. This was about Wánměi.

  A city Lena loved. A city she bravely fought for. A city that would crumble if I didn’t let her be who she needed to be.

  If I wasn’t who I had to be, as well.

  “Together,” I whispered.

  She smiled. It was fresh and beautiful and so fucking free.

  It blasted the echo of my father’s voice away and slammed the locks closed on the door to the vault inside my head. It replaced it with sunshine and the dazzling sparkle of a too hot star.

  “Together,” she whispered, sucking in another breath and then pushing through the doors.

  It took me too long to realise what was wrong. Still basking in the glory that is Lena’s smile. That is her ability to wash away the darkness of my past and cover it with light.

  Tan and Alan were serving factory workers as they approached the counter, dishing up hot noodles and wantons and incongruously spaghetti bolognese. Wang Jie was in position, blocking them from view from a central table that was extravagantly laid for only one man.

  Everything seemed to be in order, at first glance.

  But Tan and Alan were furious, I could tell. Anger like I’d rarely seen on either mans’ usually stoic faces. Their eyes, when not needed for serving, were piercing daggers into the back of the man sitting alone over by a wide eyed and clearly unsure Wang Jie.

  The man who had to be the Chief Overseer.

  But he wasn’t Wáikěinese like Wang Chao.

  He wasn’t any Chief Overseer I’d heard had been appointed, or seen plastered over the vid-screens before.

  “Well I never,” Lena said quietly at my side, in what had to be the understatement of the year. But her hand in mine was like a vice grip.

  I glanced at her face, saw the same anger that was present all over Tan and Alan. And then looked back at the new Chief Overseer.

  I took a step forward. Fuck knows what I thought I’d do unarmed in a room full of drones. But the urge to throttle the conniving, back-stabbing, slimy bastard was too great to ignore.

  Lena’s tight grip on my hand was all that stopped me.

  Harjeet… Fucking… Kandiyar.

  I’ve finally found you, you fucking bastard.

  Chapter 24

  It Was The Enormous Task Before Me

  Lena

  Why was he here? That’s the only thing I could think while I refilled a serving dish that had gotten low, even as I continued to scan the cafeteria for faces that matched the identities we were after.

  One look at Trent when we’d walked in and I’d thought the entire job was about to implode. But he’d gotten himself under control. He’d gotten his anger, an anger that was matched by the rest of us I was sure, under control. And then he’d turned towards the serving counter and taken his allotted place, freeing me up to scan those factory workers already present.

  I’d spotted an R & D employee we’d considered a target straight away, but research and development wouldn’t get us to Shiloh. None of the management team had arrived, and as yet neither had the quality control or assembly line workers we were after.

  Our assault had turned into a waiting game. Normally, I had a high level of patience, but today everything was off.

  My eyes kept being pulled back to Harjeet, sitting at his table and eating each mouthful presented him so precisely. He looked unchanged from when I’d last seen him. Immaculately and extravagantly dressed in a p'ta r'aru. Rich royal blue silk folds to his p'ta trousers and a plush, brocade embroidered, gold, long-line r'aru jacket. His thick head of black hair was coiffed to utter perfection, smoothly shaved, tanned sculpted cheekbones gave him movie-star status, and the angle of his strong chin matched the regal, austere look he effected with such ease. The man should have been born an Elite; he was wasted as a Citizen

  But why was he here?

  The last time I’d seen him had been at his home in Little D'awa, drinking tea laced with anaesthesia and handing over the flash-drive I’d retrieved from Overseer Markham’s suite at The Quay Resort. When I’d awoken, Harjeet had been gone, in his place had been Chew-wen Wang Chao.