Tilde gasped. She reached out for the gift, but Garris was too fast.

  “No, child. You must never sell this jewel. It’s your legacy.”

  Legacy? What in the holla does that mean?

  Garris knew the score outside this flat. The instant anyone – even his chums – suspected this jewel was the real thing, they’d jump him.

  “It ain’t-a help me a wit if I just keep it in a box.”

  “You won’t, Garris. See there.” She pointed to a tiny latch on the gear. “Attach it to a chain and wear it beneath your clothes. It will keep you safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  Tilde closed her eyes and moved her lips in obvious prayer.

  “It’s a charm. Your great-grandfather and grandfather worked for many years in the most dangerous environments. They believed the jewel brought them good fortune. They survived the worst rigors until they were too old to take on those jobs. They passed on the charm to your father when he reached of age.”

  Garris knew where this story was heading.

  Good luck charms are for nancy null-jacks.

  “It didn’t keep Da safe.”

  He saw the agony in her tight wrinkles, but he didn’t understand why she couldn’t look past the silliness. They deserved a better home.

  “But it did, child. Mez wore it to work every day for sixteen years. One morning he forgot. I ran after him because I …”

  Garris knew the rest.

  “Plate 7 go that day?”

  “It did.”

  He glanced at the gear pendant with disdain.

  “Don’t mean slag, Mum. Weren’t nothing but an accident. This thing ain’t-a got powers to stop an accident.”

  His mother didn’t care for back-talk, of which Garris gave her plenty. Unlike the norm, she stayed her hand. Not that Garris would have minded the biting sting of another well-earned slap. His own servos absorbed the shock and recalibrated in short order.

  “You don’t have to believe in its power, child. Wear it because your Da loved you and passed this down to his only son.”

  The pendant felt warm against his palm, almost alive.

  OK, so maybe he could wait her out for a few weeks then slide it to market in secret. If she weren’t willing to use it to make a better life for what was left of the Severns, Garris figured he ought to try. Da would be proud.

  He attached it to a simple chain and slipped the pendant over his head, tucking the gear beneath his shirt where it rested against his chest. At first, he thought it might chafe, but his skin was stubborn and put up a decent fight.

  His mother exhaled with obvious relief when he displayed the chain.

  “Wonderful, child. It will keep you safe through the worst bits. You’ll see in time.” Soon, she headed off to work but insisted Garris stay home. “There’s an air quality alert down Un-Sec 4 today. A scrubber leak, I’m told.”

  “No EdBank today then?”

  “Best here.”

  Already, ideas popped into his head. It was his day of coming, after all. And he knew the shafts that would allow him to shimmy between Levels 24 and 30. These air quality alerts were bogus anyway. Only the null-jacks fell for them.

  As Garris plotted his adventures for today, he felt his chest warm near the pendant. Then, allowing for his imagination to enter the fray, the boy sensed the pendant keeping time with his heartbeat.

  He heard many wild stories about the age when this crystal was honed: Pre-Collapse Teton, its excesses, glories, and sudden fall. His favorite was the tale of the Rain Callers, humans who stood on parched lands with crystals atop long staffs, singing to the clouds until water fell from the sky. Not the toxic precipitation they experienced now, but pure water that nourished rather than tainted.

  The elders said people once planted huge tracts of food in actual soil, not in hydroponic shelves, and the rain would come when summoned by those with the right staffs and songs. Garris dismissed it as fantasy, of course, but the story found new life in a corner of his imagination when he felt the pendant’s warmth.

  By the end of that morning, after Garris conspired with friends via tagger and plotted his route up three levels, the pendant felt natural. Attached.

  OK, so maybe he wouldn’t sell it. Just for now.

  Then the comm unit on the wall beside their door buzzed. Garris hesitated. What if it was a tracker from EdBank hunting down truants? His mother didn’t know about his absences, or she wouldn’t have given him the day off.

  Instinct told Garris he was being a null-jack, so he pressed the receive button.

  “Garris? It’s Mrs. Pellum from next door. Your Mum, she’s been hurt.”

  All thoughts of schemes, pendants, and ancient tales vanished. He opened the door.

  “What happened?”

  “Maintenance lift failure on L26. It fell nine levels. She’s at MedBlock 3 on L22.”

  Garris didn’t think. He grabbed his jacket and ran past the neighbor who always seemed more a busybody than a friend.

  The crossways teemed with Blends changing shifts. Garris weaved between them, his small size an advantage. He jumped into the first lift and hated every time it stopped to exchange passengers. Finally, at L22, MedBlock3 loomed ahead, its utilitarian structure an outcropping from an industrial center which refined tithium and erasite. Garris pushed through the crowd gathering at the entrance. Emergency klaxons wailed, their shrill cry cutting through the constant hum of the industrial district.

  The medical ward was chaos. Blend technicians rushed between beds, their blue-tinged skin stark against white medical uniforms. Tet doctors never came this far south. Garris scanned the room, searching for his mother’s face among the injured. The ward smelled of burnt hair and seared flesh.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder.

  “You can’t be here.”

  Garris twisted away, ducking under the technician’s arm. Then he saw her.

  His mother lay splayed across a gurney, her torso split open from sternum to navel. Her heart exposed, still weakly pumping, pushing blood through arteries that emptied into the growing pool beneath her. Her wide eyes stared at nothing. The lower half of her jaw was gone, leaving a grotesque, gaping hole where her smile had been.

  A smile he always took for granted.

  “Mum,” Garris whispered, reaching for her hand. The servos in her fingers twitched once, twice, then stilled.

  Someone grabbed him.

  “No! NO!” Garris thrashed, his screams echoing through the ruined ward. “Mum!”

  The worker dragged him away, past a row of covered bodies, out into the expectant crowd of dazed and grief-stricken onlookers.

  Garris fell to his knees and tried to wish it all away. At one point, Tilde’s voice came to him, insisting the pendant relieve his pain.

  Of course, that never happened.

  Instead, as Garris listened to the grief of others, he heard scattered mumbling about the disaster. One word repeated itself until Garris felt rage rising from inside his belly.

  Accident.

  They called it an industrial accident.

  Indeed, the streams reported it as such. Inspectors arrived from the upper levels and the other Megas. They reached the same conclusion: Industrial accident caused by negligence.

  Not mentioned in the reports but always implied: Blends were to blame.

  Garris hid inside his flat for three days. The leaking intensified. The food ran low. Only paste remained.

  Outsiders visited twice, but Garris refused to unlock the door. Sinquin Housing Authority, they said.

  Fring you!

  Mrs. Pellum next door said they’d be coming soon for the flat. They wouldn’t allow an orphan boy to claim it for himself. Too much space, and he didn’t have that kind of chee.

  Garris thought of the pendant, which by now lay feather-soft against his chest. Yet the moment he thought of selling it, Garris could not hold back the tears. He heard the echo of his mother.

  “You must never sell this jewel. It is your legacy.”

  A legacy of what? He was the last of the Severns.

  What if Mum was right about you?

  He spent urns talking to the pendant. Together, they reached a conclusion:

  Yes, the crystal was a charm. Yes, it would protect Garris because he would need it where he was going next.

  These fringing null-jacks won’t get away with it, Mum and Da. They’ll pay with more than chee when I’m done with them.

  On the fifth day after Tilde Severn died, the Housing Authority returned with a formal edict for entry. They found no one inside.

  Nor did they ever track down Garris Severn.

  In the coming years, he found many nests from which to crawl out of and abscond with food and tools. He spoke regularly with the pendant, especially in the colder shafts where he hid.

  The day before he made the mistake of picking the wrong shop from which to steal, Garris named the pendant.

  It came to him out of a dream.

  Piker.

  He thought of celebrating this milestone with the best heist so far. He’d been studying the movements in and out of Ruhl’s Reliable Parts. Garris also noticed the type of men and women who entered and left the store empty-handed. He saw trends. Followed a few around to size up the operation.

  And then, for one dreadful moment, the pendant did not protect him.

  He was so sure he’d gotten away with it, walking out with two belts he’d barter on the black market. But just before he pushed the door latch, a firm hand grabbed his arm and swung him about.

  Dresh!

  The proprietor did not seem put out in the least.

  “You’re a new face,” Offante Ruhl said. “And I know all the faces, my young friend. What’s your name?”

  Garris wasn’t sure what overcame him in that instant. All he knew was that the owner was a friend. Yet how?

  “Tim.”

  It arrived out of nowhere. As did the equally strange surname, when Offante later inquired.

  “Odd name for a blue skin. Suit yourself. Family?”

  The lack of an answer sufficed.

  “I’m in need of an unlinked hand, Tim. Care to join the unfettered glory that is the Market Strip?”

  Garris realized he was wrong; the pendant did protect him.

  It kept him safe for another five years.

  Now, he was never closer to fulfilling a purpose set long ago in that empty, dilapidated apartment.

  ***

  Eight years had not blurred TimBob’s last image of his mother, her augmented heart pumping blood to a wasted body. But one aspect of the pain had dissolved somewhat: Whenever he woke up gasping, TimBob no longer smelled burnt flesh.

  Action day, Mum and Da. We’re going after the slag-heaps.

  He apologized for taking so long to reach this point, pulled up his ponytail, threw on his jacket, and said good morning to the original Piker. The nest was empty for now, but his little revolutionaries would return soon enough. They had their missions, knew what was waiting at the end of today.

  Whatcha reckon, Piker? We going to flow true?

  The pendant never answered in words, but the pace of his heart dulled and sharpened in rhythms he translated into a unique language. Piker offered nothing but praise and reassurance.

  On the matter of his choices for who would clean out the armory? The pendant found his picks to be inspired. True, they might not all survive, but his three revs brought the requisite skills, and TimBob knew he could count on every member of his flow-family.

  He, too, had tasks to complete, schematics to acquire. So TimBob left the nest in pursuit of his final purchase before the revolution.

  The Market Strip buzzed with its usual chaos despite the increased presence of enforcers. Vendors hawked their wares while customers haggled over prices. TimBob moved through the crowd with tactical invisibility.

  “Looking fresh today, hot knife,” called a nutrient paste vendor as TimBob passed. He nodded at the old refrain without slowing, using the exchange as cover to check his surroundings.

  Near the western crossway between Market Strip and The Swing, a woman in a maintenance uniform leaned against a railing, pretending to adjust her helmet. She met his eyes then disappeared into a narrow gap between two stalls. TimBob scanned the vicinity and followed her a moment later.

  “Beautiful day for atmospheric poisoning,” she murmured, the standard greeting.

  TimBob completed the authentication.

  “The air tastes like progress.”

  Their hands brushed as she passed him a small package wrapped in oily cloth. No words needed; they made this exchange a dozen times.

  “Central Arc?” He asked, to which she nodded.

  “126 to 132.”

  “Surprises?”

  “Only the message they’ll receive.”

  “For true. The word from Torque?”

  “Go.”

  He loved dealing with Elsa. Few words, all business. And much less obvious than Offante. So, he was surprised when she stopped him from leaving.

  “Head down.”

  “Enforcers?”

  “Worse. Angry father, on the prowl.”

  Dresh.

  Offante had warned him to stay away from Ruhl’s for this reason.

  “Dubai?”

  She nodded.

  “He’s talked to everyone on the Strip.”

  “He won’t find String.”

  “Don’t count on it. Offante tell you about Dubai’s history?”

  “Didn’t have to. Saw that meat-rob in action when I was a squirt. He won’t smash me in public.”

  TimBob said those words with uncertainty, albeit with the clarity that no matter how bad the beating, Piker would not allow him to die. He tucked the package into an inner pocket.

  “The rev goes full spark tonight.”

  He tapped his forehead in an abbreviated salute and shifted course behind the stalls until he arrived at the northern junction to the crossways into Mecha. Another pair of left turns, then he’d backtrack to the shaft which would lead him down to the nest.

  He’d forgotten about Elsa’s warning by the time he reached the shaft and prepared to open the vent.

  “TimBob.”

  He recognized the voice and asked himself why he was surprised. His shoulders sagged. The ability to appear out of nowhere ran in the Dubai family. He admired it in String, but this was downright inconvenient.

  His right hand moved toward the knife concealed beneath the other sleeve. He turned halfway to size up the scenario. Arliss stood five paces away, expression unreadable. Most importantly, the man came alone.

  If this meat-rob makes the wrong move, I’ll slice him true.

  “You lost, Mr. Dubai?”

  He said the words with a level of respect Offante taught him when addressing adults.

  “Not anymore, TimBob. We need to talk about my son.”

  “Ain’t-a sure who you mean.”

  “Don’t.”

  Arliss erased the five paces with a lightning assault and clamped down on the left arm before TimBob maneuvered.

  “Don’t try for the blade,” Arliss said, jaws steeled.

  “What blade? I got no pitch with you, sir.”

  “Sure you do, TimBob. I know your type.” Arliss pushed back the left sleeve to reveal the six-inch-long dagger. “Top quality. Mind?”

  Arliss took the blade and tucked it in his own jacket.

  “Same old meat-rob, for true.”

  The insult was specific, and Arliss used the opportunity to tighten his grip.

  “That clarifies things. You already know what I’m capable of.”

  “Beating the slag out of your own kind? Fringing scum. How was Rogue?”

  Arliss let go, but his eyes pierced TimBob with an empty stare that said this man wasn’t dealing in half-measures.

  “Dark,” Arliss said. “You’ll be there soon enough. I know Kip is running with your crew. I want him out.”

  “String made his choice.” TimBob met the father’s gaze with pride.

  “He’s twelve years old.”

  “What of it? I was eight when they forced me to be a man.” The words escaped before TimBob could stop them, raw with the pain normally buried deep. “Age don’t matter. Ain’t-a kid in my crew. String’s a man.”

  “He’s a child you’re teaching to be a criminal.”

  TimBob flexed his jaw. Arguing with a man jacked on combat servos was just this side of moronic.

  “I show my flow-family how to survive. String’s a natural. He sparks true.”

  “He’s under your spell. That much is certain.”

  “String chose us. We didn’t jock him.”

  “Now you’re going to unjock him.”

  And this man was supposed to be the best enforcer Offante ever had? Dresh. He don’t understand spit. TimBob decided to open the old man’s eyes.

  “String flows through the stacks like he’s got the blueprints burned into his circuits. Catches the current between levels, knows every dead sensor zone, every maintenance hatch that don’t register. Kid can ghost from bottom to top without triggering a single alarm ping. Got this natural spark for reading the pulse of the systems. Can feel when the sweeps are coming before the fringing drones deploy. Not just smart-flash, but deep-wire understanding how the stack breathes and moves. String’s got the Mega flowing in his blood, true-true.”

  Arliss studied him with a cautious eye. TimBob wondered if maybe, just maybe, the father finally saw the spark-truth in his boy.

  “A lot of words,” Arliss said. “Sounds like my son made a powerful impression. And yes, I know he’s well-adapted to the infrastructure. He’s a brilliant boy. He’s clever and good with his hands. But he’s not for you. I won’t try to break up your crew. I only want my son back.”

  “Our hearts are one beat. String lives in us, and we in him. That’s the true spark.”

  “His name is Kip.” Arliss’s voice remained even, controlled. “Whatever you’re planning, whatever crusade you’re on, he’s no longer part of it.”

  TimBob’s laugh came out harsh.

  “You been a ghost five revolves, Arliss. Think you can just flow back into the current like nothing’s shifted? The stack kept spinning while you were cage-locked. The whole district’s running on new code now.”