by Lu, Marie
“Hey!”
Pressa’s at the front of the entrance, leaning against a tree and waiting for me. Her face is round and smooth and light brown, the shape of her eyes slender, and when she gives me that easy smile, one of her teeth is endearingly crooked.
Her smile vanishes immediately at the look on my face. “What happened to you?” she asks as I approach her.
I got to know Pressa when I started showing up early at school every morning to work on my inventions. I helped her speed up her work by installing additional code into the cleaning bots. We’ve been hanging out ever since. In a university full of hostility, she’s been a lone comfort.
I think about telling her everything that just happened. If anyone understands what it’s like to deal with some of these seniors, it’s Pressa. But the words lodge in my throat, refusing to come out. Real men don’t press flowers into their books. They don’t spill their insecurities to their friends. Daniel certainly doesn’t tell me about all the things that happened to him in his past. Real men suck it up and change the subject until their hearts wither to dust inside them.
So I fold the words back into my mind and smile instead. “Nothing,” I reply. “Just glad to be out of class.”
She gives me a sidelong glance, as if she doesn’t really believe me, but she doesn’t push me further. Her arm loops through mine. “Still want to head to the Undercity?” she asks me.
I nod as we head toward the elevators. “I’ve been ready all day,” I reply.
She grins and gives me a wink that she knows always improves my mood. “Good. Because there’s a drone race happening later this week, and at least a hundred thousand corras waiting to be won. I figured we should go enter our bets.”
Drone racing. Gambling. These are dangerous activities in the seediest part of Ross City, but it’s the one place where I feel good about myself. I grin back at her, admiring the way her bobbed hair forms a straight line with her jaw. Then I unhook my backpack from one shoulder and reach into it. I pull out a small, circular tube.
Pressa’s mouth forms an O as she studies it. “Is that what I think it is?” she whispers.
I smile a little. “If you’re thinking it’s a drone engine, then you’d be right,” I reply. “I’ve been working on it for weeks.” Good thing Emerson didn’t dig any farther than my dried flowers. “This time, we don’t have to just place a bet. We can enter the race.”
Pressa shakes her head and grins. “Sometimes I wonder if you belong up here in the Sky Floors,” she says. “You have way more in common with the rest of us down below.”
I don’t answer her as we head into the nearest elevator and start making our way down. Maybe she’s right. I don’t fit in up here, in the Sky Floors where everything’s perfect until it isn’t. My heart belongs to the lower floors, the part of this place that hosts things like drone races and gambling. The part that Ross City doesn’t advertise.
The Undercity.
DANIEL
Eden’s not picking up his phone again.
I tap off the virtual ringing icon in my view, swear under my breath, and try calling him one more time.
Maybe the connection’s bad. I am currently in the pockmarked streets of the Undercity, after all, perched in the shadows on top of a crumbling neon sign overlooking a crowded street. This is the lowest rung of Ross City, the ground floor, where sunlight never reaches and where neon signs advertise the rusty jumble of cheap storefronts lining either side of the road.
It’s not like this is the best place to make a call to the Sky Floors.
No answer again.
I take a deep breath and try not to be annoyed. When we first moved here to Antarctica, I promised myself that I’d never lose my temper with Eden. He survived a goddy revolution. He lost our parents and nearly his life.
He’s my little brother. And nothing would ever be worth getting angry with him about, as long as he is alive and healthy.
Still. You’d think a kid could get around to calling his brother back now and then. Maybe he’s hanging out with classmates. I don’t know much about who he talks to these days. Last time I visited him at school, he seemed friendly with some seniors named Jenna and Emerson—but they’re headed into their finals for the year. That means he’s going to be out more, doesn’t it?
The concept of a university, of taking exams without real consequences, is so foreign to me that trying to figure out Eden’s life nowadays gets me nowhere. June would probably understand him better. I wonder for a moment if I could use this as an excuse to call her, get her opinion on how Eden might be feeling.
My thoughts always wander to June. I fiddle idly with a paper clip ring on my left hand, try to force her out of my head, and call my brother one last time.
He doesn’t answer.
I sigh, give up, and turn on the geolocation tracking on him. That’s another feature of Antarctica’s Level system. You can at least find out where someone is.
“Any sign of her?” a voice comes on in my earpiece. It’s from my AIS co-agent, Jessan.
I let Eden’s geolocator keep searching and instead focus back on my job. My eyes scan the bustling marketplace below me. “Not yet,” I mutter.
Jessan sighs over the line. “She’s late. Maybe she’s not heading out today.”
“Give her a few more minutes, yeah?”
“Fine.” Jessan hangs up, and I go back to my watch.
It’s a good thing I’m crouched in the shadows here. People always recognize me, for one reason or another. My face is the one they’ve seen before on the news, on the wanted posters that used to plaster every goddy JumboTron back in the Republic of America.
Now it’s the one that appears whenever you’ve committed a crime against Ross City. It’s the one you see right before I arrest you.
My name used to be Day, the boy from the streets of the Republic. The fugitive who unwittingly started a revolution.
Now, though, I’m Daniel Altan Wing, of the Antarctica Intelligence Service. My job is to hunt down the worst criminals in Ross City. Here, apparently, I’m the law.
Pretty ironic for me, yeah?
Unlike other AIS agents, I’m kind of a fluke. I grew up in the grungy, broken streets of Lake. I stole and fought and scraped by with the worst of them. I used to be the most-wanted criminal in the Republic, a street rat who somehow got the credit for making a government crumble and rebuild itself. I know what it’s like to live in the worst places in the world.
Most of the others I work with didn’t grow up like that. Certainly not my co-agents, Jessan and Lara. They’re Antarcticans, born and raised here in the glitzy, hyper-advanced, technological wonderland of Ross City. So they tend to treat me with a sense of curiosity and awe.
What’s it like, they ask me with wide eyes, to live in a world like the Republic?
I usually shrug off the question. Life in the Republic is a nightmare that I’d prefer to leave in the past.
If anyone from my Republic days saw me now, they’d probably laugh. I don’t look anything like how I used to—my hair long and tied back into a knot, my cap secured tightly to obscure my features, my clothes worn and grungy from the streets. Now I’m wearing a sharp black suit and sleek black collar shirt and polished shoes, and my hair’s cut short and wild. I still can’t get used to it, so I run my hands through my hair all the time. By the end of the day, it looks like a goddy disaster zone.
I wonder what June would think of me. Then again, I wonder what she’d think of a lot of things.
My leg’s starting to fall asleep, so I shift my crouch and keep waiting. Today, we’re down here tracking a woman who works for Dominic Hann, one of the most dangerous criminals in the Undercity.
Me, Daniel Altan Wing, tracking a criminal. Sometimes the thought makes me want to crack up.
But Dominic Hann isn’t anything like me. He isn’t some kind of vigilante fighting for justice or for his family. He’s a killer, cold and merciless.
In the past two years, Hann
has become the most notorious name in the Undercity’s crime circles. He’s left bodies hanging in the middle of intersections, gutted and mutilated. He runs illegal racing rings down here. He gives out loans to anyone not living in the Sky Floors, to people with low Levels who are desperate and hungry, and then comes for them and their families if they can’t pay him back with double the amount.
No one who’s crossed paths with Hann seems to want to talk about him. It’s been hard to gather info.
Some people ask me why I chose to work in such a dangerous job after everything that’s happened to me. I’m not sure, actually. Maybe it’s because the thought of someone terrorizing the poor down here reminds me too much of my past. Maybe it’s because this is the world I know, and crossing paths with danger is something I’m good at. Not that I like being familiar with all this.
The Undercity is a far cry from the gleaming luxury of the Sky Floors. This is where the poorest people in Ross City are. Spilled garbage and rusted scooters stripped of parts litter the intersections down here. Crowds of people stream by underneath me like a tide of ants.
Through my vision, I can see their virtual Levels hovering over their heads. LEVEL 6. LEVEL 10. LEVEL 14.
My gaze settles on a few homeless people crouched against the walls, begging idly for spare change. Level 0 hovers over their heads. People with Level 0 have no rights at all. They can’t rent housing. They can’t take the trains. They barely have the right to rest in the streets.
You can work your Level up, of course. That’s the whole point of this system. Over time, some people in the lowest floors have been able to level up into the Mid Floors and get access to better food, housing, and transportation. But pulling yourself up that way takes an overwhelming amount of work. Most never make it out.
Ross City is still a better place than the Republic’s ever been. What advanced nation doesn’t have some poverty? At least these people have never been subjected to the Republic’s Trials or the Colonies’ stifling corporations.
But as far as I’ve seen, no place in the world treats their lowest rungs well. That’s why I hate being in the Undercity. It’s too much like life in Lake, going hungry and sleeping in alleys. Every time I come down here, I end up having nightmares.
People may think of me as some kind of shining hero. But honestly? All I really wanted in the first place was to protect my family.
Suddenly, I tense. My posture straightens. My gaze fixates on a woman who has just emerged from the bodega underneath my neon sign. She glances furtively behind her, then merges into the crowd with a shrug.
I tap my ear once. “Time to go,” I say to Jessan, then hang up and rise.
I shrink farther back into the shadows of the building, slide off the neon sign, and start inching along the second-story ledge. Down below, the woman’s moving surprisingly fast. If I wasn’t specifically tracking her, I would have lost her in the crowds.
My feet move with the assurance of someone who’s done this a thousand times before. I hop between ledges to another building, then another, my figure never emerging from the shadows. My fingers search instinctively for the next crevice in the walls to grip.
Up ahead, the woman turns down a narrow side street and makes her way through a food market. I stop short of the turn and cut instead through the back side of the buildings, then shimmy down from the second-story ledge to land in an alley leading out to the market.
Smoke from open grills lingers in the air, layering the street here in haze. I keep the woman’s light-brown hair in sight as I hurry from one alleyway to the next. At least the people here are so preoccupied with hawking food that none of them notice a ghost slipping behind the stalls, a shadow moving among them.
Gradually, I edge closer. The woman looks back every few minutes, like clockwork. After a while, I kick off against the wall in an alley and move up to the third floor. My speed picks up. A series of laundry lines connect the next building with the one I’m currently on—I step onto the line, crouch to grab it with my hands, then use my momentum to swing down to the second floor.
Now I’m just a few paces behind her. Her movements are quick and nervous, as if she’s sensed that someone may be watching her. My eyes flash briefly to the buildings around me. Jessan and Lara should be on their way, too, closing the trap around her.
The woman abruptly darts into what looks like a dead end. I hop into a second-floor balcony and swerve around the corner of the block after her. When I reach the alley, I see her about to slide through a narrow corridor at the end of it—but Jessan’s already there at the other side. She steps out of the shadows, wearing the exact same black outfit as me, and points a gun at the woman.
The woman whirls around to try and run back the way she came, but I’m already there. In one move, I leap from the second-story balcony, grab the edge of a sign, and swing myself down.
I land right in front of her and pop up onto my feet, my hands in my pockets. “I don’t think so,” I say.
She throws a punch at me, but I step to one side and easily dodge her. Cuffs are already in my hands—as she stumbles past me, carried forward by her own momentum, I seize one of her arms and pull it behind her back. I snap one handcuff against her wrist, then the other.
“Alexandra Amin?” I say through gritted teeth as she struggles against my grip.
She doesn’t answer, but there’s a desperation to her moves that betrays who she is.
I allow myself a small smile as Jessan and Lara both approach me now. Jessan sighs and claps her hands together, while Lara runs a hand across the smooth, tight bun knotted high on her head.
“About time,” Jessan mutters as she places a call to the AIS’s headquarters. “This one was elusive.”
“Keeps our jobs interesting, yeah?” I reply to her with a lift of my eyebrow.
Lara barks out a laugh at that.
We’ve been tracking this woman for a month. She’d reportedly been Dominic Hann’s personal assistant, gathering info for him and helping him run messages down here in the Undercity. Our intel on her told us she grew up with him and was about his age.
She’s a lot younger than I thought she’d be. I remember the rumors about Dominic Hann himself, supposedly the youngest crime lord in Ross City, and wonder what other gossip about him might be true.
This will bring us one step closer to hunting him down. I start to recite the woman’s rights to her.
“You have the right to be judged before a court of Antarctican residents in addition to the Antarctican Level system. Before you stand trial, you have the right to—”
She twists around in my hands and gives me a wild, terrified look. “I have a daughter,” she whispers to me. “Her name is Ashley Amin. Don’t let Hann punish her because I’ve been caught. Please.”
I blink, taken off guard. “Nothing will happen to your family,” I tell her. My voice turns low and steady. I can hear the fear in her words. “I promise you. We just need your help.”
That’s when I notice a light foam building at the edges of her lips. Her skin has turned ashen and sweaty, and I realize the trembling of her limbs isn’t just from fear. She turns those wide eyes back on me again. Her gaze sears straight through me.
“Don’t let him hurt my daughter,” she gasps, foamy spittle flying. “Don’t let him.” She keeps repeating the words deliriously.
I curse and glance at Jessan. “Call for help,” I say. “She’s poisoned herself.” Jessan taps on something in her view without hesitation.
My stare whips back to the woman. I shake her once as her eyes start to glaze over. “I’ll protect your daughter. Where can we find Hann?” I demand. “What’s his next project?”
The woman’s head lolls to one side. Nearby, Jessan is calling for an ambulance.
“Drone races,” the woman finally whispers, her voice so quiet now that I barely catch it.
“Drone races?” I say. “Where?”
But her eyes roll back, and she goes limp in my arms. I shake her
again, but her body has stopped trembling. When I touch my fingers to her throat, I can’t find a pulse.
I’m no stranger to dead bodies, of course. I’d seen my fair share ever since I was a kid—after all, I’d been left for dead myself by the Republic and had to crawl my way out of a lab’s mortuary when I was ten years old. I’d played dead for years on the streets of Lake, had seen my own mother and brother slaughtered, had witnessed plenty more deaths when the war broke out in earnest between the Republic and the Colonies.
But that has never numbed me. Every time I come face-to face with death on this job, I feel the same sickening despair settle deep in my stomach. The same sense of repulsion and grief.
This is my fault. I shouldn’t have questioned her so severely. I should have checked to make sure she wasn’t swallowing some kind of poison. I should have stopped her.
Now she’s dead, and we’re left with barely a thread of info about Hann. I lay the woman on the ground and slowly push myself back onto my feet as Jessan and Lara pat down her lifeless body.
What kind of man is Hann, to inflict such deep fear in his assistants that they’d rather kill themselves than be captured? What would Hann have done to this woman if she’d lived?
The blare of the ambulance arrives at the alley’s intersection, and in a daze, I look on as two people clad in white rush to the body. Lara walks up to me and folds her arms.
“Drone races, eh?” she asks.
I nod. “If anyone finds out when the next one is,” I reply, “don’t let them shut it down yet. We’ll be there, if Hann’s going to show his face.”
Lara nods. “Too bad about this one,” she says, shaking her head. “I felt a little sorry for her.”
“We wouldn’t have to feel sorry for her if the Level system was fair,” I mutter.
She sighs in exasperation. “Not this again.”
“People like this work for Hann because they don’t have a choice.”
“Hey, you want to argue about it, take it up with Min.”
