“You must have alternate safe houses,” Cassidy replied softly. “Another place to stay.”

  “We do,” Jessica said. “Trouble is, if Leiana double crossed us like you thought, none of those locations are secure. She could have told them anything.”

  “Or everything,” Garrett said.

  Cassidy nodded. “We have to assume as much. I know somewhere we can go. We’ll need to get across town.”

  “We could grab another roto,” Jessica suggested.

  “No,” Cassidy replied. “To be honest, I’d prefer if you turned that thing off for now.” He nodded at her ClearPhone.

  “Cass, everything runs through Leonidas. There’s no…” She trailed off in response to the look he was giving her.

  “You went through a lot of trouble to get me here,” Cassidy said. “Since I am here, I expect you to do as I say. Otherwise my expertise doesn’t really mean anything to you.”

  “Sorry,” Jessica said. She turned off the ClearPhone and shoved it in her pocket. “You’re right.”

  It took a couple of minutes to reach the front of the line. They were just stepping into the elevator when a dark roto passed overhead, a searchlight sweeping over the rooftop. It didn’t hit the lift until the doors had closed, hiding them from view.

  “That was close,” Jessica said.

  They were shoved into the cab with a dozen other people, pressed in tightly as it descended. Cassidy was first out when it reached street level, his hand tucked under his jacket, just in case. He pulled his hood up when he spotted a police officer a short distance away, chatting with the pad operator.

  “This way,” he said, leading Garrett and Jessica in the opposite direction. He wasn’t sure if Nevis would go as far as to involve regular law enforcement. Their involvement had the potential to create a lot of difficult loose ends. Even so, he wasn’t taking unnecessary risks. Unless the UDF went all out to find them, he was confident he could get them from uptown to downtown.

  Jazz wouldn’t be happy when he showed up with Garrett in tow. He would be more unhappy when he asked the dealer to give Garrett and Jessica safe haven. He would probably be ready to put a gun to Hall’s head when Cassidy told him the UDF was looking for them. Guys like Jazlin didn’t stay in business as long as he had by screwing with the UDF. The action would strain their relationship, but he didn’t have a choice. There was nowhere else for them to go.

  “We can take the subway most of the way,” he explained as they walked down a street crowded with mostly higher-class pedestrians. Dressed in fine suits and skirts, with leather coats or long wool blazers over the top, you could always tell the gentry from the unkempt masses. They all remained dry under wider-than-normal umbrellas that made sure everyone gave them a wide berth. Most were headed to local eateries or shows, or to one of the many aristocratic night spots in the area. “There’s a station seven blocks from our destination.”

  “I hate the subway,” Jessica said.

  “Everybody hates the subway,” Cassidy replied. “Which is all the more reason to use it.”

  The underground rail in the city was nearly two centuries old, and with the invention of the roto had become an artifact of history. Expensive to maintain due to the water seeping through the soil beneath the city and leaking into the tunnels, slashed budgets and disinterest from the upper crust had led the entire system into terrible disrepair. Even so, it remained popular with the poor and disenfranchised, its cheap fares leading to constant overcrowding. That in turn led to a fair amount of crime and violence among the ridership. Few women would ever go into the subway alone, and even groups wouldn’t choose to ride the railway unarmed.

  The best reason for them to go below ground right now was because neither the UDF or the police held much of a presence there. Entering the subway was at a person’s own risk.

  The nearest station was two blocks away. Cassidy led Garrett and Jessica in silence, staying a few feet ahead of them as they navigated the crowds. He was still angry he had been forced to kill agents in order to escape, and a part of him didn’t think any explanation for all of this the pair provided would turn out to be worth it. There was something else, too. A few minutes of quiet had led him to realize that no matter what happened from this point forward, his days were numbered.

  Not true, he decided a moment later. His days had always been numbered. He just hadn’t known it.

  If he was destined to die, and soon, then he wanted to make the end as fitting as he could.

  They reached the entrance to the subway, a set of stairs surrounded by cracked and taped glass and fronted by a gate that ground noisily aside at their approach. Cassidy hesitated at the top of the steps between a pair of escalators, his eyes settling on the graffiti that covered both sides, in some cases overlapping multiple times. For a moment he considered taking another route from their location to Jazz’s pharmacy. This was the quickest and most secure. That they would be safer underground than they were above spoke volumes about the situation.

  Cassidy led the way down the cracked, pockmarked stairs.

  Chapter 38

  Cassidy, Jessica and Garrett reached the bottom of the subway entrance which fed out into a small plaza that had once been lined with storefronts and smaller eateries. Places to grab coffee, donuts, bagels or sandwiches. They were mostly boarded over now though many of the boards had been ripped off and homeless could be seen packed inside the shops. They perched on dirty sleeping bags or on old delivery robots, smoking cheap drugs and chatting as they tried to get through life.

  The scene was similar outside the stores too. Small tents dotted the landscape. Garbage covered the walls and piled up in the corners while dirty ragged humanity tried to occupy their time and maintain whatever sanity they had left. It was an ugly crowd though mostly harmless. Like anything, it only took a few rotten assholes to bring trouble down upon the larger group.

  Hundreds of eyes lifted toward the trio as they walked along the plaza toward the stairs leading down to the subway platform. They didn’t show any signs of aggression. Rather, most looked away immediately, almost embarrassed to be seen in such a sorry state. The people in front of Cassidy, Jessica and Garrett moved aside at their approach, seemingly intimidated by their higher-end fashion and confident posture. Or maybe it was all because of Garrett. A head taller than Hall and all muscle, the little boy Cassidy had known as Benjamin had grown up in a big way.

  They slipped through the masses unmolested, though more than one of the gathered crowd held out their aged ClearPhone to ask for a coin transfer. Cassidy marched through them without paying them any mind, while Jessica showed her compassionate side, apologizing because her ClearPhone wasn’t charged so she couldn’t offer them any money. They reached the next set of stairs and started down. The stairwell was mostly clear, though a few people sat against the walls, using them to lean on while they slept.

  Cassidy slowed his pace a little, backing up until he was beside Jessica, while Garrett took the lead. He glanced over at her. “Tell me what happened after the Initiative was done with you.”

  She looked back at him and then straight ahead, her expression hardening. “I went on with my life,” she said. “As lousy as that was. My parents abandoned me about two months before the UDF picked me up. Just after I had gotten over my initial fear of being out on my own. So many kids like me, they get taken and moved around, become part of the sex trade. I knew that going in and I swore that wouldn’t happen to me.”

  “Did you manage to stay out of that life?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t easy, Cass. I remember waking up in an alley, covered by a waterproof blanket. I had a memory of someone taking me in for a few days. They were really nice to me. Fed me, gave me fresh clothes. But then something changed and they had to throw me out. No explanation given. I thought about trying to find them, but of course I didn’t have an address or a last name. I spent that entire first day crying over what I thought I had lost, without knowing I’d never had it at all.”

  “Did that make it better or worse, in the long run? The altered memories,” Cassidy asked. It was something he had always wondered about, but there had never been anyone to ask.

  “I think better,” she replied as they reached the bottom of the stairs and followed Garrett onto the much quieter platform. Random groups had gathered in the shadows around small portable heaters to keep warm. “Like I said, I had this sense of you after that. Like maybe you were the person who had been so nice to me. I found that comforting in a way, but also painful. I was alone again. On my own. What I did have was a fresh determination to survive. And a confidence I don’t remember having before that.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “Is it? Did you ever care about the people you inhabited? Were they really more than a tool for you to exploit?”

  “It depended on the person. Kids like you, sure. Criminals? Not as much. But never above the mission. I thought I was helping. You’re telling me I wasn’t. I don’t know what to make of that.”

  “You can’t be held responsible for what you didn’t know. What the archon wouldn’t let you see.”

  “For example?”

  “The Hell Motel,” Jessica said. “They took kids off the streets to make guns. Those guns were going to the resistance. They were preparing to fight back, and the loss of the assembly line cost months. Multiply that by all the other operations that were broken by the Initiative, that’s why the uprising never happened.”

  “Uprising against what?”

  “Unity.”

  “Unity is an AI designed to ensure our survival,” Cassidy said. “Why would you want to fight that?”

  “You’re toeing the company line again, Cass,” Jessica said. “We have reason to believe Unity isn’t an AI. Or at least, isn’t in control. That somebody, or a group of somebodies, is writing the directives to keep us under their thumbs.”

  Cassidy flinched at the idea, finding it hard to believe. “How would they do that? Why?”

  She smiled. “That’s the question, isn’t it? We don’t know yet. But we’ve been trying to find out.”

  “That’s one of the reasons the archon won’t let you see the UMI,” Garrett said, coming to a stop near the edge of the platform and facing them. He spoke quietly enough the few bystanders nearby wouldn’t hear him. “They’re supposed to be reserved for certified engineers, so they can run maintenance programs on Unity’s subprocesses without having to go up to the source. But what does it mean if one or more of them falls into the hands of the resistance? What would it mean to you as a Shade?”

  “It wouldn’t matter what I thought,” Cassidy replied. “The memory would be scrubbed away as soon as I came in. I’d never know what I did or didn’t see.”

  “But the scrubber would see it,” Jessica said. “What would they think?”

  “They’d wonder how a gang ended up with a UMI, for one,” Cassidy replied. “And probably if they were able to affect Unity with it. I don’t see why that would be a big problem.”

  “A single spark can start a bonfire,” Garrett said. “All it takes is one person to start asking too many questions and the whole house of cards might collapse. The loss of control of the mobile interfaces proves that not everyone is on board with what Unity is doing, which isn’t the narrative the UDF or anyone on the human side of the government wants exposed. We’re all supposed to be so happy and safe because a totally unbiased entity is in charge of our civilization. Look around at all the happy people, Cass.” He said it sarcastically, motioning to the homeless around them.

  “The planet is dying,” Cassidy said. “Unity’s doing the best it can.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  A rumble in the distance distracted Cassidy for a moment. Their train was coming.

  “You weren’t sent into the Hell Motel because of the kids,” Jessica said. “You were sent in because the UDF wanted to recover the interface and stop the resistance from making guns.”

  “That’s a bold statement to make,” Cassidy replied. “I worked jobs that involved child sex trafficking. You can’t explain that away as resistance to tyranny. If that’s what you call it, we’re done here.”

  “The archon, Cassidy,” Jessica replied. “What you saw and what was real aren’t the same thing. Yes, the resistance has used children to make things, but they took them off the street and gave them food and shelter and kept them away from the real traffickers. Or at least they tried.”

  “Then why did you thank me for saving you?” Cassidy asked, giving Garrett a sharp look.

  “Because I was scared,” Garrett replied. “I didn’t understand what was happening or why. I know better now that I’m an adult. I’m not saying their methods were perfect, but it was better than some of the alternatives.”

  The platform lit up as the arriving train rounded the last curve, its headlights spearing through the tunnel. Cassidy looked away from Jessica and Garrett, fighting to make sense of things. Had he given up his entire life, body and soul, for a lie?

  “I still don’t understand why. Why the cover-up? Why the lies? Why go through all of the trouble?”

  “That’s why we needed you, Cass,” Jessica said. “To help us find out.”

  “How?”

  “We need to break into Bizrathi Praan’s Golden Spire,” Garrett said. “We think he’s connected to whatever’s behind Unity and maybe we can find some answers there.”

  The train, its metal exterior rusted and faded and coated in graffiti, reached the station, a slowing blur as it began to wash past them. Its brakes whined loudly as it decelerated, creating a piercing echo on the platform.

  “I’m not a burglar,” Cassidy said, raising his voice over the screeching. “You don’t need me for that.”

  “You’re a highly trained killer,” Jessica replied, keeping her voice low. “And you’re also a Shade.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “We think Praan is too,” Garrett said. “And that the two things are related.”

  “How?”

  “If we knew everything, you wouldn’t be here,” Jessica said.

  The subway train came to a stop, the doors sliding open. A handful of riders got off the car beside the trio before they stepped inside. The seats were all taken by people who looked like they had been riding all day, their clothes completely dry. Some of them slept, their heads leaned on one another. Those who were awake were doing their best not to make eye contact with each other or with them as they moved to the center of the car. Taking hold of the handrails, they waited for the doors to close and the train to get back underway.

  When the doors at either end of the car started to slide shut, a pair of hands blocked each one, pushing them back open. Five riders piled inside at each end, all of them raggedly dressed but clearly looking for trouble.

  “Let’s table this discussion for later,” Cassidy suggested, eyeing the group.

  “Agreed,” Jessica replied.

  The new riders formed a line in front of the doors, blocking them until they had shut and the train began to move.

  The two groups began to close in.

  Chapter 39

  “Give us those packs,” the thug at the front of the group on Cassidy’s right flank said. “And you’ll get off this train alive.”

  The words stirred the homeless in the seats of the car, who quickly gathered their things and evacuated the immediate area. Their reaction told Cassidy they had seen this group before and knew that the targets resisted. The threat of violence was real.

  “Turn around and go back to the doors,” Cassidy replied calmly. “And you’ll get off this train alive.”

  The thugs on either side laughed at the comment before producing weapons from their clothes. Mostly knives and shock sticks. No guns, which only bolstered Cassidy’s confidence.

  “You’re funny,” the leader said. “I appreciate a good sense of humor. Now hand it over.”

  “You’re a big man,” Cassidy replied, turning toward the leader and tapping on the pack. “Come and get it.”

  The leader’s smile turned into a snarl and he lunged at Cassidy, who reached out almost casually, grabbing the man’s wrist and activating the tranq ring against it. The man stumbled forward and dropped between Cassidy and Jessica.

  “That was sad,” Jessica said in response.

  The failure of the gang leader didn’t dissuade the others. Instead, they rushed the trio as a group, pushing one another in an effort to reach them.

  Cassidy set himself in preparation, fists up and ready to fight. Jessica did the same beside him, while Garrett handled the group on the other side. The first thug reached him, stabbing out at his face with a knife. Cassidy tilted his head away from it before grabbing the man’s hand and using the tranq to put him down. He grabbed the knife from him, turning it in his grip and blocking a shock stick as it came at his chest. He turned with the momentum, throwing a hard right hook that cracked against the thug’s jaw and knocked him back.

  Beside him, Jessica used her coat to block a knife thrust before swinging her arm in the opposite direction, smacking the blade away. She stomped the man’s foot with her boot before kneeing him in the groin, finishing up with an uppercut to his chin that sent him sprawling. The second attacker climbed over the first, throwing himself at her in an attempted tackle. She turned her shoulder into him, ducking low and throwing him up and over her head. He hit the side of the train car and rolled off the seats to the floor. Her foot met him there with a kick to the face that knocked him out cold.

  Cassidy’s second attacker eyed his downed buddies around him, took one look at Cassidy’s balled fists and reconsidered his options. He dropped his shock stick and backed away, keeping his hands up while he retreated to the door and stayed there.

  “Good choice,” Cassidy said, lowering his fists. He leaned over to lift up the leader, still awake but too medicated to move. “You should be smarter about who you hassle,” he said, shoving the man toward the door.