11.3
“This place is wild,” Yvonne says as soon as we’re on the more stable set of metal platforms the structures are built upon.
With the thousands of levels in this section of the city alone, the walkway we’re on—though solid and stable—is thin with a direct drop below it to the set of buildings beneath. I don’t know if anyone’s managed to break through and fall below, but it probably wouldn’t kill them. It’s maybe a thirty-foot or so drop to the platform just beneath. Not too bad, at least for me.
Not that I have any plans of falling off anything. But I can be paranoid.
“Do we know where we’re going?” Zane asks as I point at the little squat building barely taller than me and slimmer than my ship.
“Respirators,” I say. “But not entirely. Last time I was here I made a good enough contact with someone who will probably know. Or at least she’ll know someone who knows. It’s easy enough to find the criminals here, but don’t bring anything like this up to any authority figure.”
I figure the other three adults get the picture, but I’m reiterating for Anya. She’s friendly and liable to talk to people—weird kid—and I’m trying to avoid interactions. I think again perhaps I should leave them in the ship, but the idea of having them outside my sight makes me more anxious than I’d like to admit. Just because Yvonne can handle herself doesn’t mean I want her alone with her little sister in a place like this, even locked in my ship. Paranoia, I know, but if I can’t protect them I don’t know what I’d do.
“Stay here,” I say, pointing to the side of the building. A few people are wandering nearby, many more around the corner heading into the center of this level of the city, but the platform on the edge of the shipyard isn’t terribly crowded, they’ll be fine for two minutes. “Don’t attract attention.”
Pushing my shoulder against the door, I slide it open until the automated system wakes up and opens on its own. The air here is stale and sickly as it is—inside it’s hardly better, but at least warmer than the chill of the ship port open to side a wide section metal city with tunnels leading to cold space.
The man behind a desk scowls at me and shuts the blinder on his little window, sealing him away from sight. Well, that takes care of chatting. I make a face at his door now he can’t see me, but I don’t need to engage with any humans. Tapping the sleeping screen along the wall—this place is barely ten steps across and no more than metal walls, the man’s booth, and a screen—I let it read off the panel in my arm. Taking payment, a whir of quiet noises hisses behind the wall, and a slot pops open. I grab the five little breathing masks, give the door another dirty look in case the man is watching me somehow, and head back outside.
Bat chuckles to himself. We’re off to a great start already.
“So…” Yvonne says, taking a look at my expression though I’m not terribly annoyed. “There aren’t many cyborgs around here.”
I shrug. “Not many. There will probably be some Amerov numbers, but they’re so used to unregistered numbers and criminals they shouldn’t bother with us. We won’t stand out. They’re not here to enforce anything really, just make sure there isn’t too much murder.”
“Encouraging,” Yvonne mutters, holding up the mask with one finger.
“They’re not used,” I tell her.
With a shrug, she watches me adjust the dials and strap on mine. They’re mostly simple, a curve of light metal covered with dark canvas, small crosshatchings of filters on either side. I push my hood off to get it over my head and pull the coat back into place. Between the two, I’m barely visible. With gloves on, I basically look human, as long as no one nosey gets too close.
As much as I don’t like this thing wrapped around my face, it’s a breath of cleaner air. Still stale as it’s being recycled and filtered, but it’s better than the thick atmosphere of this place. It would be worse the deeper we head into the city, and I’m glad at least the humans are using these. It wouldn’t bother me, and it won’t bother Bat, but they’ll probably appreciate it.
Yvonne looks somewhere near threatening between the mask and the glasses, and I snort, the sound echoing a bit against the mask.
“Shut up,” she says, and her voice has the same slight reverberation.
Anya is struggling with the strap with her new fingers, so I help her fix it into place and put her own hood up over her head. As suspicious as we would look like this in other places, we barely stand out here.
Zane is adjusting his but grimacing. Lalia doesn’t seem bothered, tapping her nails over the circular filters. It shouldn’t be for more than a few hours. We’ll be out of here soon.
* * *
The deeper into this section of Zar we walk, the more crowded the streets grow with both people and buildings, shops and vendors strewn out into the walkways. Cables string overhead, connecting the city like veins. As much as my skin crawls every time someone bumps into me—and I swear they’re doing it on purpose—this many people hide us. If there are bounty hunters or cyborgs or anyone who knows any of us, they’ll be hard-pressed to pick us out from a sea of faces and respirators. Not everyone wears one, but a solid half of the population appears to. We’re safer in this mess of bodies and clothing than we would be wandering openly in a place like Amethyst.
Still, I keep my hand just inside Yvonne’s elbow. She isn’t trying to grab my hand, probably realizing it would look out of place in such a city, but is holding tight to Anya. The kid isn’t nearly as bubbly and excited about pointing out places to shop as she was on Hytha, so I suppose she actually listened to my warnings. The siblings keep up well enough on their own, Zane’s shoulder constantly bumping into mine. It’s oddly comforting. Better he be in my space than strangers.
I looked at the map on my tablet for a while, but I’m better off navigating by memory. It didn’t seem very up-to-date, and plenty of the signs around here are worn and barely readable. Some of the landmarks look familiar enough, despite a decade or so passing since I was last here.
“That way,” I mutter, nudging Zane down the correct street.
We’ve gathered a few stares but nothing too drastic. I’m not certain if it’s because Anya’s a kid, some of my implants are still visible, or Yvonne is gorgeous even under the glasses and mask.
Someone bumps my shoulder right in between me and Zane, making him stumble. I catch him by the elbow and send a glare at the man. He’s big and kinda stringy in appearance, with a large enough pistol I think about making a remark.
“Nice implants,” he says, just loud enough, and with just enough of a gleam in his eye I decide ignoring him isn’t the best idea.
When he takes a step back toward us, I say, “Nice broken kneecaps.”
He stops. Not sure if that’s the best line, but he looks me up and down, glares at Yvonne, and wanders off, muttering to himself.
Charming.
The few people along the street who stopped to stare resume their business.
Anya is frowning at me.
“What?” I ask, getting us all walking again.
“Why did he care about your implants?”
Quietly, I say, “Some people are just gutsy enough to kill cyborgs for their parts. They’re great if you’re into black market dealings. Sometimes they don’t even kill us first.”
Yvonne shoots me a look and I grimace behind any mask. Probably shouldn’t include such details for the ten-year-old. Anya is looking at me with wide eyes, so I shrug and lower my mask so she can see my untroubled expression. The stench of the city hits me enough it makes my eyes water.
“Lucky for all of us I’m meaner than most.”
The way Anya’s eyebrows scrunch tells me she doesn’t believe that, but I’m growing accustomed to her thinking I’m a lot softer than I am. She hasn’t seen me kill anyone, barely even seen me hurt anyone. The worst is that doctor I knocked out on Amerov and the insane ForceZero numbers we took out on Lee’s ship. Hopefully, she didn’t see too many details when it came to that. If Yvonne had let me shoot Kel, maybe the girl would have a more accurate opinion of me.
I’m glad she doesn’t.
She tugs on my coat sleeve and asks in a low voice, “Would they want my prosthetics?”
“Ninety-nine percent of the population: no. But anyone bad enough to go after me would want them, yeah. You don’t look like you have them though, especially with long sleeves and pants. Don’t bring them up.”
I’m not taking them anywhere nearly dangerous enough to worry about this, but it never hurts to remind her to keep her mouth shut. Shoving my mask back in place before the smell makes me gag—not even the vendors cooking food along the crowded streets makes it much better—I spot the building I was looking for. The neon bright light hurts my eyes about as much as the swarming heat signatures of all the people contrasted against the cold metal of the city.
I’m just glad the place is still in business.
“Let’s hope this bar doesn’t end up as badly as the one back on Amethyst,” Lalia mutters.
“What happened at the other bar?” Anya asks.
“First time a ForceZero number attacked us,” I say. “It wasn’t pretty.”
“He’s sent a lot of them after you.”
Yvonne mutters. “Maybe there are more of them than I thought.”
I grimace, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Just because she’s under the impression there are only half a dozen of his private force doesn’t mean there aren’t twice as many. They’re a secret little army, after all, maybe Captain keeps the worst of them under wraps. Maybe the ones we’ve come across haven’t even been the nastiest ones.
If that’s true, I wonder if Audra knows anything about them.
Not much I can do dwelling on it other than make myself panic, so I put the thought to the back of my mind. If I ever get a chance to talk to Audra again, I’ll ask. Along with a million other things.
It’s late afternoon here—not that it’s obvious when there’s no particular rise and set to the sun, just the interior of the city for miles and miles of artificial light—so the bar is plenty open. As much as I’d prefer it closed or empty, the people will hide us. It won’t be weird for us to be in here, even if we’ve got a kid with us.
Maybe I should’ve left them behind, but as far as I know, this isn’t the type of place that’ll freak her out too much. If it is, I’ll have them wait right outside the door.
“You sure about this person?” Zane asks, looking about as paranoid as I feel.
Cheerfully, I say, “Nope,” and push my way past the manual door.