Flying vehicles of all kinds maneuvered around the structures, following flight patterns and rules of travel I didn’t immediately understand. Everything from small, single-person, rotor-driven boxes to huge freight vehicles zipped back and forth overhead, though their routes seemed intentionally designed not to block the sun from the ground. The resulting strobe effect flickered through the pedestrians. Compared to the other planets Matt and I had visited, Atlas was the closest to what I had always imagined a futuristic city would look like. In fact, it made the other worlds we had visited, save for maybe Kasper and to a lesser extent Caprum, look like backwater shitholes.

  Keep guided us along the street at a quick pace as more Royal Guard vehicles moved into the area. They swept overhead a few times before landing so close behind us I got the sense Keep had timed our escape to stay one step ahead of them without looking like we were on the lam.

  We walked a few more blocks, passing what appeared to be a raised landing area for the aircraft on my right. Dozens of vehicles took off and landed in rapid succession, smoothly navigating tight confines and making their way into the flow of traffic. Keep slowed there, directing us into the landing site.

  “How did you know which direction to go when we came out into the alley?” Matt asked him.

  “I recognized the building we were in,” Keep replied. “Remember Sherlock, this isn’t my first rodeo. We’ll grab a transport here and take it downtown, closer to the palace.

  “Are we still staying at the Galaxian?” I asked. The hotel was part of our original plan, and once we reached it, we would be mostly back on track save for the need to rescue Head Case.

  “We are,” Keep confirmed.

  We took an elevator up to the landing platform, joining a short queue of people waiting for transport across the city. They were mostly dressed in outfits not too dissimilar from my more typical Spiral threads. We were the only ones wearing what I took to be more formal attire, making us seem wealthy compared to them. Enough so that we drew some prolonged looks that made me uncomfortable. What if any of them recognized us?

  The line moved quickly, the transports swooping in, picking up riders and lifting off again within a handful of seconds. Within a few minutes we boarded a taxi large enough, probably-not-coincidentally, to carry all of us and touched down when it was our turn. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised the transport was automated, but I gawked just the same, rushing to the front of the nearly-square vehicle to look out the full-length windshield in the open front. David joined me there, and we continued gaping at the city as the transport slid smoothly in with the other aircraft.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” David said.

  “I’ve already seen some incredible things,” I replied. “This is still pretty unreal.”

  The city was beyond beautiful. Pristine and sparkling, covered in high rises split by landing areas and plenty of parks, along with an assortment of buildings with more artistic architecture, the purpose of which I could only guess.

  And then there was the palace.

  It came into view shortly after takeoff, as the transport rounded one of the myriad skyscrapers. Situated on a lush property that covered at least ten city blocks, it was easily recognizable as the most classically built structure in the city. Keep hadn’t been kidding when he called it baroque. In fact, the first thing that came to mind was the Palace of Versailles in France. If he had told me the Empress’ palace was a straight up clone, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  The biggest difference I could easily discern was in the gardens. Five of them surrounded the round instead of rectangle main building. I didn’t need Keep or Quasar to tell me each outer circle represented one of the quadrants, with Atlas in the middle. The diverse flora growing in them made that clear. Even if that wasn’t enough, it appeared as though the guards standing watch around the gardens were picked from the ranks of each Duke’s military, their varied uniforms augmenting the colorful display.

  “That place is huge,” David said.

  “And old,” I replied. “It escaped the sigiltech war unscathed. It was built over two thousand years ago.”

  “Wow.”

  The transport skirted the perimeter of the palace grounds before turning and descending. I spotted the Galaxian Hotel as we neared another landing site. As tall as many of the residential towers in the city, its windows were coated in material that sucked in the ambient light while diodes along the structure flashed, making the whole thing look as though a small piece of outer space had been transported to the planet’s surface. The effect was very cool, but also a little nauseating.

  We exited the transport and returned to the street, walking two blocks to the hotel. The space effect didn’t extend to the bottom floors, which sported full-length windows that allowed a complete view of the extravagant interior. Watching people come and go from the building, and looking inside, I suddenly didn’t feel as overdressed. Where we had stood out for our outfits before, now everyone around us seemed similarly clothed, allowing us to blend in easily with what I assumed was Atlas’ upper-crust.

  “I’ll get us a room,” Keep said as we entered the Hotel. “Wait here. Don’t stare.”

  “Instructions easier given than followed,” David replied under his breath as Keep made his way to the front desk. I agreed, but it was hard not to be taken by the opulent excess of both the hotel’s decoration and the people around us.

  “Now this is what I always imagined the future would be like,” Matt said. Even he failed to adhere to Keep’s act-like-you’ve-been-here-before edict.

  “I’ve never stayed anywhere like this in my life,” Druck added.

  “The room service is kind of a letdown,” Gia commented. Of course she had been here before.

  “How much do you think this is costing us?” Matt asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s coming out of our account,” I replied. Keep still had my phone, able to make payments with it at will. “At least it’s only one night.”

  Keep returned within a couple of minutes. “We’ve still got a few hours before it gets dark.” He motioned to the elevator. “Shall we?”

  CHAPTER 20

  In order to accommodate all of us in a single room, Keep had booked what the hotel called the Nebula Suite. Over four thousand square feet, it occupied the entire south side of the ninety-ninth floor, just one below the Universal Suite, which took up the entire one hundredth floor. With five bedrooms and three bathrooms, the Nebula Suite could sleep all of us with barely any doubling up, and offered amenities and perks unlike anything I had ever come close to experiencing on Earth.

  Not that I would have time to experience it here. Despite the one hundred thousand electro cost for a single night, we only intended to be there for five to six hours at most. A major expense, to be sure, but it would be more than worth it if we succeeded in getting our warning to the Empress, and even more worth it if she both pardoned us for our prison escape and made sure Head Case was returned to us.

  A long shot? Probably. But we didn’t have a whole lot of options. We’d already discussed and dismissed sending her the recording of Sedaya’s conversation with Neftal indirectly. There was no way to guarantee the stream would ever make it in front of her eyes, especially if the duke already had loyalists planted in the palace, ready to intercept anything that might cast suspicion his way. Other than that, as wanted fugitives, there was little else we could do to make sure she understood the danger except present it in person. And none of us were under any pretense that a live audience was guaranteed to end well.

  But we had to try.

  Entering the suite, it was hard not to be excited by everything it had to offer. The view was breathtaking, with full length windows wrapping around the corner of the open main living space, which was decorated in dark wood, gold, crystal, and fine rugs as though we were already inside the Empress’ palace. Fresh flowers were placed on every table, perfectly arranged, and an array of delicacies waited on a tiered centerpiece in the middle of the room, along with a few bottles of chilled champagne. An equally ornate corridor led to the bedrooms and bathrooms, and Druck and David took off down the hallway, eager to see everything. The rest of us stayed behind, more reserved than the newest member of our group and the mech pilot. We had gone from rags to riches, literally, inside of an hour.

  All it had taken was nearly suffocating while being crushed together in a rolling coffin

  “Well, we made it,” Matt said, walking over to one of the windows and looking out at the city. “A little worse for wear, and down a bunch of equipment. But we’re here.” He turned to me. “What’s with that box you had David pull from the pack for you?”

  “Bill and George gave it to me. It was a gift,” I replied as Shaq squirmed out from under my coat, regaining his place on my shoulder.

  “And you didn’t open it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not? Someone gives me a gift, I tear right into it.”

  I smiled. “The tag suggested I should open it when the time seemed right.”

  “The right time is always now,” he joked.

  A wave of panic hit me. “Shit. I don’t know what happened to it once we got out of the cart. We left in such a hurry—”

  “I have it,” Alter interrupted before I could get too upset. “I knew it had to be important to you.”

  I smiled, relieved. “Can you hold onto it for me for now?”

  “Of course.”

  “I think our little adventure in Old Haydrun may have worked out for the best,” Keep said, his gaze shifting to me. “What you did back there. I’ve never seen or heard of it being done before. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say you saved our lives, kid.”

  Shaq nuzzled my neck in gratitude.

  “Yeah, nice work, Ben,” Matt agreed, clapping me on the shoulder. “You saved our bacon. All of us.”

  “Pure self-preservation,” I replied. “But I’m glad it worked out for everybody."

  “Do you think you can do it again?” Keep asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think so. Why?”

  “Throwing all that debris around downstairs took a lot out of me. If we get in trouble inside the palace…” He trailed off, but the meaning was clear. Any emergency escape that required a more powerful use of sigiltech would fall on me.

  “I could freeze up at any time,” I reminded him.

  “Which is why I overexerted myself against the ambush,” he replied. “It’s not how I would have drawn it up, but what are you gonna do about it?”

  We stared at one another, a weight settling over the room.

  “Y’all have to see this,” David shouted, rushing back down the hallway. “The rooms are incredible. Everything about this place is incredible.” His enthusiasm was an unplanned tension breaker that forced me to smile.

  “I never thought I’d live like the upper crust,” Druck agreed. “Even if only for a few hours. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the spa tub, covered in bubbles.”

  “You’re going to take a bubble bath?” Quasar asked.

  “Yeah, why not? We paid for all of this, we should use it.”

  “Aren’t you a tough guy?”

  “Tough guys like bubbles too.”

  “Ben,” Gia said, her serious voice in sharp contrast to the moment of levity.

  “What is it?” I replied as the others fell silent, the weight returning as quickly as it had faded.

  “I haven’t had access to the hypernet though my neural link since we launched our assault on Sedaya’s freighter. My neural link couldn’t get a signal from underground, and of course it couldn’t connect inside the cart. I finally reestablished the connection.”

  “And?” I asked.

  Her face hardened. “Apparently, at almost the same time I was being attacked on my planet, a dozen other nobles and their successors were assassinated across the Quad. None of the assassins were captured, and no one has come forward to claim responsibility. The media is calling it the most deadly day of nobility reorganization in centuries.”

  I swallowed hard, my heart suddenly racing in response to the news. “Geez. And you were on the hit list.”

  “And the only one that survived, thanks to you,” she replied. “There’s another piece I think you’ll find interesting. One of the affected noble families was—”

  “Nobukku,” Keep finished for her.

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said.

  “Sure it does,” Matt said. “I think we’re pretty confident Sedaya arranged the assassinations. Nobukku probably outlived his usefulness, and getting rid of him both removes the only other person who may have had a change of heart and warned the Empress about his plans. Plus, now, whatever Sedaya promised Nobukku in exchange for loyalty, he keeps."

  “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock,” Keep said. “Right on the money. Nobukku’s death is understandable. The others, not so much. If the line of succession is broken, the Empress selects the next family to take control of the duchy. It would have benefited Sedaya more to wait until he gained control of the Hegemony before removing his primary opposition.”

  “But that would also be a lot more obvious, wouldn’t it?” Matt questioned.

  “True,” Keep agreed.

  “Misdirection,” David said, drawing our attention.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Like a magician.” He smiled. “Not the sigiltech kind. A traditional street magician. Misdirection. Hey, what’s that over there?” He pointed into the distance. Druck fell for it and looked, and David punched him in the arm.

  “Hey!” Druck said, spinning back as David put up his hands.

  “I could never beat you in a fight. But if I put your attention somewhere else for a second, I can get in one good shot. That might be all I need.”

  “If I’m Sherlock, maybe you can be Watson,” Matt said. “But what would Sedaya’s one good shot be?”

  “I don’t know,” David replied.

  “You can bet he’s planning something,” Keep agreed.

  “Or he already did whatever he intended to do,” Alter said. “The assassinations happened weeks ago.”

  “Has the Empress named successors?” Keep asked.

  “Not yet,” Gia replied. “It appears she’s waiting for the Royal Guard’s investigation into the murders to wrap up. She doesn’t want to inadvertently promote the party or parties responsible for the killings into a higher position of power.”

  “That makes sense,” Quasar said.

  “This would all be moot if the Spiral wasn’t so damn draconian,” Druck said.

  “Don’t start whining again.”

  “I’m not whining. I’m just saying that—”

  “We know what you’re saying,” Quasar shot back. “You manage to make a comment against the Empress almost every day.”

  “Both of you, shut it,” Matt snapped. They both stopped talking. “Gia, is there anything else we should know? That intel is interesting, but I don’t see that there’s anything we can really do with it right now.”

  “No,” she answered. “Like Alter said, it happened weeks ago. But I definitely think it’s related to all of this.”

  “I think we can all agree with that,” I said. “I know you’re going to do more digging on the topic.”

  “Of course.” She paused. “There’s something else.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” David said.

  “The Blue Burn. It didn’t have any details attached to it when we chased after the ship. It still doesn’t. At least not publicly.”

  “I sense a but coming on,” Matt said.

  “But there are rumors going around in darker corners of the hypernet. They’re saying Prince Hiro was taken.”

  “What?” Quasar practically screamed with surprise.

  “Prince Hiro?” Keep said. “Kidnapped? That can’t be possible.”

  “Yeah, there’s no way anyone could get past the palace guards,” Druck said with a laugh, since that was exactly what we were planning to do.

  “But why would they want to?” Quasar said. “Kidnapping the heir to the throne won’t get them the throne. They’ll only succeed in drawing half the Royal Navy to whatever planet they try to hide on.”

  “Maybe that’s the idea,” David suggested. “If you pull half the fleet away, then you only have half left to fight. Divide and conquer.”

  “Which might be necessary if you’re Sedaya and you just lost an entire space dock of sigiltech ships,” I said.

  “They’re just rumors,” Gia reminded us. “Not everything on the hypernet is true.”

  “You can say that again,” Matt agreed.

  “There must be something prompting the rumors though,” Quasar said.

  “The Blue Burn bounty was publicly broadcast to every ship in the area,” Gia replied. “And Hiro hasn’t been seen since.”

  “It was yesterday,” Keep scoffed. “The kid’s probably just sleeping in.”

  “Someone claiming to work at the palace says she heard from the maid who cleans the prince’s room claims she wasn’t allowed entry this morning. But again, only hearsay.”

  “We’ll find out for ourselves soon enough,” Keep said.

  “What if it’s true?” Alter asked. “What if Prince Hiro was taken?”

  “Then I bet the Empress will give a hell of a lot to whoever brings him back,” Keep replied.

  “You mean us?” Matt asked.

  “Why not us?”

  “We still have to make it into and then back out of the palace both alive and not in handcuffs.”

  “And we already tried to stop the blueburn,” I added. “It didn’t go that well for us.”

  “You know what they say. Better luck next time. But you’re right. First things first. We’ll just keep that one on the backburner until we make it back here safe and sound. Badabing badaboom.”