CHAPTER EIGHT

  The trams weren’t her favorite. She’d gone through most of the stations across the city, and each time she tried to look at the tech that kept them running, bright red alarms flashed. The whole tram stopped and wouldn’t start again until Rangers came on board and gave her a stern talking-to. No scanning, no testing, nothing.

  Ever.

  Which was like putting a magnificent cake in front of a kid and demanding they not so much as sniff it. Bullshit. She was the best techie in the city. They’d left a massive monument to what would happen if they gave a genius engineer absurd amounts of money and told them to make something that would massively help the populace and last forever.

  Nanotech was involved, especially in the system’s ability to repair itself. The cars, the structures, and the elevators never showed a scratch despite the millions of people who used the damn things every day. The electrolev that moved the trams was another marvel.

  And the software. It seemed simple to the people on the street. It kept the fuckers moving back and forth, day in and day out, but it was more than that. It calculated how many people were on the trams at any one time to keep them below the maximum weight occupancy. It noted when people tried to take samples of the tech.

  Perhaps their most impressive feat was to keep the trams running from point to point, every fifteen minutes from every station. Thousands of cars across the city without ever jamming, clumping, or running into each other.

  It made sense that the sky-city people didn’t want someone like her getting her grubby hands on tech that would revolutionize their transport systems. Inside a year, she could turn a smidge of nanotech from the cars into the ability to get them to and from the sky cities without relying on those fucking shuttles.

  Which would be a problem for those who wanted to keep filthy mutes on the ground where they belonged.

  Clare rolled her eyes and settled into her seat next to the adjudicator.

  How the fuck had she ended up in this mess? With an adjudicator who’d been sent down to beg for her help. If the pack heard about this, they wouldn’t believe her. Or they’d keel over dead from laughter.

  Sky people asking her for help. It was practically an admission that their superiority was bullshit. They never outright said they were superior to others. That wouldn’t be political of them. However, they meant it with every word.

  Anselm was better than most, and even he had to stop himself from casually insulting her because of where she was born. At least he tried not to be the asshole he’d been programmed to be.

  He was nervous as fuck, but he didn’t look it. He seemed calm, collected, and bored as the tram moved. Like he was a few stops from nodding off. Most people frequently took the trams. It was the safest place in the city.

  Clare had heard of people on the run simply riding the trams until their money ran out. Murder was illegal, but the authorities struggled to catch murderers here.

  Two stops later, a stern-looking, middle-aged woman took the seat across from them. Her clothes were ragged, but she could have been a haggard mother of four, a beggar picking through trash, or a cold-fish hired killer. Which appearance she seemed to fit depended on the lighting and her expression.

  “Never thought I’d see one of you down here,” she muttered once the hum of the tram gave them privacy. “Always nice to know the people up top care about what’s going on down here.”

  Her thumb caressed a thick bronze ring on her finger. Clare tilted her head when she noticed Anselm wore one too. It had to be a way for them to identify each other, but she could have sworn she hadn’t seen it on him before. She didn’t remember him putting it on. Must have been one of those adjudicator tricks.

  “The asset?” the woman asked, nodding at Clare.

  A flicker of annoyance crossed Anselm’s face. She wasn’t subtle, despite the tram’s hum covering her words. Someone used to this work should have known who she was dealing with and assumed the person sitting with him was the asset.

  Anselm paused, silently condemning the woman before he offered her a gentle nod.

  “Right. Follow me. We’re getting off at the next stop.”

  Anselm relaxed against his seat. He showed no sign that he’d heard her and didn’t say a word. His lack of reaction got under the woman’s skin, and she shifted in her seat until the tram came to a halt. Anselm slipped Clare’s hand on his arm like they were a couple returning from a night of revelry.

  They exited the tram before their contact, but they met up at the elevator on the way down. The woman had to get on last, which meant she got off first.

  Clare wasn’t sure if Anselm thought about these things. If they came to him naturally or if he was simply lucky. Either way, not bad.

  It didn’t matter, though. Clare hadn’t paid attention to the automated announcements, but she noticed they were in Wedge. One of the slums, a spot that hadn’t been claimed or sponsored by any pack or coven.

  People came here when they didn’t want involvement with werewolves or vampires. Some of the unclaimed areas were proper neighborhoods where law enforcement kept things going for the rich folks who showed up.

  Wedge was not one of those places. This location had been left to rot on the outskirts of the city, which meant it was grungy and sketchy, full of the dregs.

  They followed their contact to a building a few blocks from the tram, where she waited for them to reach her before pulling keys from her pocket to open the doors.

  Anselm displayed no reaction, but the way his arm tensed around hers was enough to indicate he was fuming. She could almost see the smoke coming from his ears.

  They followed the woman up three flights of stairs to a small apartment. It had once been a studio the likes of which people would kill for closer to the city center. With its proximity to a tram station, she guessed it was worth more than she made in a decade and would cost a small fortune in rent every month.

  The place was arranged to hold as many supplies as possible. Two twin beds stood in a corner. One bathroom and a tiny kitchen with a sink, stove, and fridge formed into a single contraption.

  The bathroom was spotless, if sparse. She always expected those to look like a warzone.

  “Safehouse. Should keep you in one piece until tomorrow.” The woman tucked her hands into her pockets, looking pleased with herself. “Nothing we can do for tonight, so you’ll lay low here. You should try to sleep. I’ll come along tomorrow to pick you up in the shuttle.”

  “What time tomorrow?” Anselm asked.

  “I’m not sure. Morning or afternoon. When I have access to the shuttle.”

  “Right.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Thank you for your help. Stay safe out there.”

  “Will do, lovely.” She winked and handed him the keys to the place. “You two lay low.”

  He smiled and kept the expression on until she was gone.

  “She ticked you off, huh?” Clare grinned and dropped onto one of the beds. Small but surprisingly soft and comfortable. Not to mention clean. She doubted the contact was responsible for cleanliness or maintaining the safehouse supplies. She’d probably made copies of the keys someone else handed her and planned to come back after they were gone and clear the place out.

  “I don’t have high standards for operatives on the ground, but that was amateurish.” He shook his head as if reprimanding himself for saying that aloud. “Anyway, get a bite to eat, then we can sleep. We’ll need it.”

  The food was simple and meant to last a long time in storage, but the quality was surprisingly high. It felt like someone from a sky city had put this place together the way they expected it to be. Apartments in the Wedge were rarely in this condition. As she rehydrated the eggs and placed frozen biscuits in the oven, Clare made a mental note to buy a place like this, with a queen-sized bed and a few more frills, with the money from saving everyone’s asses up in Summerland.

  “What’s it like up there?”

  The question bubbled out of her as she watched Anselm pour himself a mug of tea to go with a pot pie he’d warmed up in the oven with her biscuits. It smelled like meat and vegetables, and the gravy bubbled up from the crisp crust. He’d immediately picked it out without considering anything else.

  “Hmm?” Anselm tried to taste the pie and burned his finger in the process. “What was that?”

  “In Summerland. What’s it like? I don’t want to stand around staring at everything. I’d rather be prepared.”

  He shrugged and sat at a small table close to a window. “Hard to explain. Never needed to describe it to someone before.”

  “Well, you’re going to now. I assume it’s different, but how is it different?”

  “It’s cleaner, for one thing.” He sighed and considered his answer like he was trying not to insult her. “There are air scrubbers every few blocks, but those aren’t necessary. Most of the vehicles run on clean energy, but people use the tram system. It’s like the one you have down here, only less confusing. The whole city was planned out block by block. If you’re ever lost, you can look at the numbers on the buildings and know where you are. The whole thing is shaped like a big fucking bird. The council holds at the head, most of the businesses are set up on the body, and the residences are on the wings. The most expensive homes peek over the edge so you can look down at the planet below.”

  Clare nodded slowly. Picturing the city was a distraction from the nerves making her body jittery. If all went well, she would see it in less than twenty-four hours, but it was still nice to think about.

  “Come on.” She cut one of the warm biscuits open. “You’re making it sound like a pristine paradise. Humans live there, so there must be something wrong with it.”

  “It’s not perfect, obviously.” He showed no annoyance in admitting that. “Most folks are pretentious pricks who spend more time thinking about what wine they’ll pair with their fish than what’s wrong with the city. Everything runs on automatic, so they assume nothing will ever go wrong. If something does, it’s someone outside their circle’s fault because they cannot be blamed.”

  It sounded like something he’d brought up before. That description fit with the way she pictured people up there.

  “It is clean and orderly, with beautiful parks and amazing architecture. The whole city is in a constant state of reordering itself. The best architects operate the nanotubes that run through every building, street, sewer, and engine, so occasionally, you’ll see them reconstructing an entire marble section. That’s entertainment, though not everyone thinks so.”

  She wanted to see that. It sounded like a place where alarms wouldn’t ring, and law enforcement wouldn’t be summoned if she took a few chips to look at those nanotubes he’d mentioned.

  Anselm paused for a bit of pie and continued. “Probably the best part is the community. They can be pretentious and long-winded sometimes. Well, all the time. But with a few exceptions, your neighbors want you to succeed. Your success is the city’s, and it belongs to them, too. It’s a community up there.”

  Clare leaned back in her seat across from him and nodded. “I can understand that. Being a member of a pack, a human member, means you’re there for everything. My successes are theirs, and my failures, too, but they show up to help when shit goes wrong. They step up to protect me when I need it. They might like to be closer to each other than I do, but it’s a sense of belonging you don’t get if you’re on the outside looking in.”

  Anselm grunted through a mouthful of steaming pot pie. It didn’t look like he’d considered that part of pack life.

  “That means any business success you enjoy up there, you’ll share with your pack? Even if it dilutes your gains?”

  She grinned. “Well, yeah. They took me in when I wasn’t much more than a shit on the street. Abandoned there by a crap mother and a useless father who never came looking for me. The pack set up alerts to get me back to them, and nothing. So yes, I know what it feels like to be part of a community. My successes will be theirs.”

  “Huh.” He yawned, nearly finished with his food. “All right. We can talk more about this tomorrow. We need to sleep. No point in being sleep-deprived when we have downtime.”

  He stood and checked the alarms and defenses around the apartment. Not as extensive as hers, but Clare thought that was for the best. Other people lived in this building. Her defenses would have made life difficult.

  She settled into bed without changing into her usual night clothes. She didn’t remove her boots. They might need to head out at the drop of a dime. She didn’t want to get killed because she’d spent a minute putting her boots on.

  Anselm made the same decision, which encouraged her. He didn’t slip under the covers. Instead, he used his coat as a blanket.

  Clare wasn’t sure when she finally fell asleep, but it felt like she’d just closed her eyes when a hand on her shoulder shook her awake.

  “Got word from the embed,” Anselm whispered. He hadn’t turned the lights on. “We’re moving in five minutes. Get ready.”

  He spoke like he hadn’t seen her get ready to leave her home in less than five. She was too sleepy to complain, though, and he met her with a mug of the best-smelling coffee. It was watery, but only because he’d prepared it in a hurry.

  Clare grabbed a handful of rice noodle packs and added them to her supply bags, along with a wide selection of flavor packets. Several other non-perishables joined them. As much as she loved the devices she’d packed into the other bags, she knew survival came first.

  She realized Anselm was watching her. “Problem?” she snapped.

  “No. I remember doing the same thing when I was a candidate. Getting as much food as I could from the mess hall and stuffing my pockets full before they shut it down. The shrink said hoarding food is a coping strategy for children who experienced severe trauma and neglect and were forced to look out for themselves and plan for disaster.”

  “You say that like it’s not common in New Houston.”

  “Right.”

  She’d touched a nerve there, but he shut down before she could ask any questions. She wanted to know how a kid who grew up in Summerland would have experienced anything like what she had. Yet no answers to her questions would come now.

  Besides, they had better shit to do. By the end of the day, she would be in a sky city, and Anselm would probably be sent off to another assignment. It wouldn’t matter then. She was curious, though.

  He was at the door by the time she finished, clutching the pack she’d handed him. Mostly batteries and spare parts, easily the least essential of her essentials…and also the heaviest. He carried it with one hand like it weighed nothing. Bastard. She was stuck carrying the lighter items she might need. Weapons, tools, and a miniaturized version of Florence. She doubted she’d need a medic up top, but they were still a long way from Summerland.

  They were down the stairs in less than a minute. The embed, as he’d called her, waited for them outside. Rain poured down, and she shivered beneath it. Must not have thought to bring an umbrella.

  “Took you two long enough.”

  “You said seven minutes. It’s been seven minutes.” Anselm hadn’t gotten over his annoyance with her, but he covered it better now. “You’ve got transport?”

  “Follow me.”

  She angled them behind the building they’d spent the night in and into a small shed leaning against it. The structure didn’t seem built to city coding laws, but it was out of sight and therefore out of mind.

  The shed housed a small delivery vehicle with a panel back. Only one seat was available at the front, the driver’s, which meant they had to squeeze in the back while the contact drove.

  “Got any plans for when you get back?” Clare asked Anselm as they reached the road. “Maybe ask Ms. Senior Adjudicator out for private adjudicating?”

  “I have to make sure you’re handed off to the council directly.” He crossed his arms. “I’ll probably be assigned to protect you and keep you from wandering off while you’re doing the vital work. After that, who knows? I go where I’m told and do as I’m told.”

  “A mindless soldier, huh?”

  He smirked. “Damn right. I wouldn’t be down here if I could think for myself.”

  It was a solid point, she supposed. People who thought for themselves sent people like Anselm to do their dirty work. Adjudicators had probably been coming to New Houston for years if they had a whole support network set up. She doubted the rest came for the noble purpose of saving lives, like Anselm.

  The drive wasn’t long. The streets worsened the farther away from the city center they traveled, but it presented a tradeoff. Less traffic, for one thing. Fewer open-air sewers for another. They also had clouds of dust drifting in from the desert to the southwest and the stink wafting from the southeast swamps. Clare spent most of her time out by the desert, anyway. Some people liked to head south toward the gulf, but large bodies of poisoned water that devolved into swamps didn’t appeal to her.

  The vehicle stopped, and Anselm jumped for the door. One hand slipped into his coat. He expected trouble and carried weapons he hadn’t broken out in their bar brawl. He was surprisingly spry, considering the damage he’d taken. The bandages remained around his hands, and the stitches on his cheek looked bright red and angry. Why hadn’t he revealed those weapons while dealing with the weres?

  She supposed if he had, she would have made him for what he was. Well, as someone from the sky cities. She would never have guessed he was an adjudicator. There was too much myth mixed into the reality, and he was too human to be seen as anything else. A capable human with secrets.

  Anselm exited the vehicle and motioned for her to follow. They’d arrived at an old tram station, one of several set up as middle ground while the primary system was being built then largely abandoned. They now housed the old, ground-based tram cars.

  “That’s the shuttle.” The embed pointed at a vehicle parked on one of the old tram lines. It was considerably smaller than the shuttles she saw going up three times a day. She wondered why they weren’t using those but assumed people watched the regular shuttles.