by Wren Weston
The increased security helped Lila as it hampered Dixon. She finally caught sight of him on a far-off rooftop, peering down at a street she had passed ten minutes before.
His companions had long since scattered into the night.
“Told you I was better.” Lila smirked, emerging under the closest functioning streetlight, blocks away from the fire. She turned her back on Dixon and continued on, hoping he would not pop up again later.
The size of the buildings shrank the farther she traveled from Bullstow, and the paint became more chipped and faded. Flattened cigarette butts, chip wrappers, and crumbled scraps of paper dotted the street more frequently until the gutters overflowed.
Shabby pawnshops and liquor stores soon replaced the bookstores and cafés of the more well-to-do workborn. She ignored the blisters on her heels, both bleeding and stinging, and moved her gun into her front pocket. People here would notice the telltale bulge, whether or not the weapon had survived the blast intact.
Plenty had ventured from their homes after the explosion, workborn mostly, all wrapped in ill-fitting coats and cheap scarves. Some huddled on the stoops of apartment buildings or in the yards of crumbling houses, smoking cheap cigarettes and stamping their feet against the chill. Their heads turned infrequently toward the tower of smoke.
Not everyone paid attention to it. These workborn contracted with the poorest lowborn families, falling into bed late and rising early. It was not curiosity that drove most from the warmth of their beds. If they didn’t prove to their neighbors that such commotion would wake them, they could expect to be burglarized before the end of the week.
She already saw a few sideways glances at darkened windows.
The front door of an apartment building opened.
“Radio says it was a gas explosion across from Bullstow,” an old woman called out to her neighbors. She joined them on a stoop, her shoulders wrapped in a frayed knitted blanket. She held a steaming, chipped mug in place of gloves.
Lila did not ask for details. She kept her eyes to the ground, hoping no one would remember her tomorrow or notice that her peacoat and hair had been dusted with ash. It wasn’t much of a stretch to think that they wouldn’t. Studying a person too intensely, especially one’s face, was not done in this part of the city. Indeed, if Lila’s habits slipped and she looked around too closely, it would mark her instantly as a highborn. And that they would not forget.
The wealthy did not travel here. They sent proxies.
Lila turned down an alley, the stench of urine and month-old trash choking her throat. She stepped carefully, eyes tracking behind dumpsters and overturned boxes, with only a dim, flickering street lamp down the block to guide her. No one lay in wait. Only rats and cockroaches skulked in the filth.
She marched to the end of the alley, finally reaching a door that had been graffitied in a rainbow of hoary cartoons and letters. A stenciled red phoenix had been spray-painted above the sliding peephole. The door hung partly ajar, one hinge broken. For some reason the carelessness only made her angrier.
She took the thermal hood from her pocket and pulled it over her face, shoving her newsboy hat atop it and tugging the small brim down low. There was no telling who had already come back from the job or who had stayed behind. No one in the motley group had ever seen her face, except for Tristan, and she would keep it that way. The only thing that his people might recognize was her disguised voice, for plenty had heard her speak. Tonight they would hear her yell. She already had a half-composed tirade perched on the tip of her bitten tongue, waiting.
Lila yanked open the door and stepped inside.
The backroom of the old hotel was empty. Not just empty of people but empty of everything. The only things inside were grimy paint, the ever-present musty smell of an old building, and four piles of trash pushed to each corner of the room.
She bent down, snatched up a piece of crumpled-up cardstock, and unfurled it over her thigh. It was another AAS flyer, exactly like the one she had caught in the air near the explosion.
There had been a table there the day before. A lookout controlling entry into the safe house, more with his body than his mind. A refrigerator had taken up the corner, filled with cheap beer and leftovers from the Plum Luck Dragon. The empty sink lurked in the corner like a stranger. It had always been piled high with dishes, for none of Tristan’s people would lower themselves to do slave’s work now that they were free.
Not unless it was a punishment from Tristan.
Lila balled up the flyer and tossed it back on the ground, then slipped into the hotel lobby. Everything had been removed: the threadbare rugs; the battered black couches and mismatched ottomans; the chairs mended with unstained wooden legs; the table that wobbled unless you jammed a wedge of paper underneath; the worn tapestries over the windows that had held in warmth from overtaxed heaters; the stolen paintings that had lined the walls. Even the new pool table had been removed, as well as the wall of computers that had cluttered the front desk. Everything was gone except for random piles of litter, peeling wallpaper, and dust.
Lila ventured upstairs into Tristan’s room, empty now. Bed gone, closet devoid of weapons and ammunition, the little string of bottle caps snatched up from the window. She stepped inside, not prepared for the shock of it all. It was as if her own family had stolen away in the night, vanishing without even providing her with a hint of their return.
She kicked a lone bottle cap in the center of the room and listened as it echoed against the walls.
A door opened somewhere in the hotel, creaking.
Dixon.
Lila slipped out of the room, prowling down the hallway. But no matter which room she looked into, she found nothing but the occasional beer bottle.
She chucked them against the wall as she came to them, one after another, the shattering glass mocking her with every crash, forcing her to throw the next one harder and harder and harder.
She ran out of bottles long before she ran out of anger.
The bottle of Saveur in her pocket was the last instrument of solace, destroyed in Tristan’s room. She dropped its cap next to the only one he had left behind.
With nothing else to do, Lila washed her face in his bathroom sink, ridding herself as best she could of her makeup and prosthetic nose and chin. She dried her pale face on her sleeve and peeked out the window. Sunrise was still a couple of hours away.
A door slammed in a far-off room, rattling against its frame.
Lila stepped over the shattered glass and took off her boots, then rushed through the hallway on silent cat paws and peeked over the upstairs balcony. Two lean figures crept across the lobby downstairs.
Neither form belonged to Dixon.
Lila drew her tranq gun, stilled her breath, and waited.
“Did the door shut?” a teenage boy whispered in the darkness.
“I had to slam it closed,” a girl replied. “I don’t like this. What if the owners come? What if someone’s already squatting here?”
“Meeting a junkie is better than being burned alive. Did you see that fire? Do you really want to sleep under the stoop tonight?”
The friend mumbled something that Lila could not hear.
“We’ll leave in the morning when it’s safe.”
Turning away, Lila put on her boots, pocketed her gun, then slipped out through an upstairs window. She had no more time to dawdle. Not for children and certainly not for an asshole like Tristan.
Time had grown sparse, and she was expected at home.
Chapter 3
Lila hid behind a pecan tree across from the Randolph compound, soaked in the cool humidity of the morning. She had arrived at precisely five o’clock, two and a half hours before sunrise, and had spent much of the last half-hour crouched behind the tree. Safely under the hood of her thermal suit, she studied the compound, its defenses, and the people who patroll
ed it.
The Randolph family enjoyed tighter security than the politicians of Bullstow, for the Randolphs were one of the wealthiest families, not just in New Bristol but in the entire state of Saxony. Wolf Industries boasted ten square kilometers of architecture, ranging from mirrored skyscrapers filled with offices and condos in the north, to the neo-classical mansions of the fifteen heirs scattered widely around the southern entrance, the oldest segment of the estate. Each building and statue shone in the night, as clean and perfect as those in Bullstow, surrounded by extensive grounds. Slaves and servants had coaxed every shrub into beauty, clipped every blade of grass close, and scraped every sidewalk to reflected glory.
It wasn’t only the staff who kept the estate so clean. Due to pollution concerns, the Randolphs had moved their manufacturing plants to the outskirts of the capital city more than fifty years ago, long before High House had placed pollution restrictions on the highborn. The chairwoman had built a rail system to link them, positioning the station one street away from the estate’s north gate. The bullet train stretched for an entire block, chauffeuring everyone to the plants and back home again every hour. All but the slaves, of course, for they lived in a series of residences next to the plants.
The Randolph family, or Wolf Industries to be precise, owned much more than just manufacturing plants, though. At least thirty percent of the land under New Bristol belonged to the Randolphs, which made much of the city its tenant. In addition, Wolf Industries partnered with, or invested in, at least a quarter of the lowborn shops in New Bristol. The family also traded extensively throughout Saxony, dominating several key industries in the region, including manufacturing and research, headquartered in New Bristol, and oil refining, which was centered three hundred kilometers away in La Porte and farther east in New Orleans. The family had even managed to procure a small but significant share of the natural gas market around Beaulac, the second largest city in Saxony after New Bristol.
To protect the estate, their matron had erected security towers every two hundred meters around the perimeter of the compound. Like every other highborn family, the Randolphs employed their own militia, women and men who functioned as a security force and defensive regiment for the estate. Lila watched them patrol, searching for one woman among the blackcoats.
The ubiquitous floodlights shifted direction.
Lila dashed from her spot and climbed over the wall.
As she scrambled to gain purchase, her boot caught the edge of one of the signs that ringed the exterior of the compound, glorifying the Randolph family’s coat of arms and the accompanying motto, Mutual Benefit. The words were far older than the city of New Bristol, even older than America itself. The motto had been brought over from the old countries, long before the Allied Lands formally recognized America as a sovereign territory of the commonwealth. Indeed, the first prime minister had even appropriated it as one of the defining values in society, business, and government.
Unity, above all else, had been declared the first.
Lila landed safely on the other side of the wall and thanked her luck that the sign had been bolted on securely. Dewy grass immediately latched on to her boots as though ratcheted on by static.
“Stop. Who goes there?” called out a woman in a sentry uniform—black with crimson piping—and a long leather blackcoat to match. She pulled on the lead of her German shepherd. The dog barked in excited aggression as both sprinted across the grounds to intercept.
Lila pulled up her thermal hood briefly as the pair reached her.
“Chief Randolph.” The woman bowed, wearing her sentry cap and blackcoat with the same grace as an evening gown. As she straightened, her face broke into a wrinkled grin.
The beast next to her breathed out in moist white bursts. It strained on its lead, confused when it couldn’t scent Lila through the gasoline and smoke, too surprised by it to keep barking.
Lila wished she could say the same about the dog. The odor of wet mutt filled her nose, and she stepped back from its tinkling chain. “Commander Sutton,” she returned with a stiff nod, wondering if the woman would question the state of her clothes or their smell.
Sutton said nothing. Perhaps she didn’t notice. Everything smelled of smoke on the estate, for the direction of the wind had changed half an hour before.
The commander turned away and murmured a few words into the radio affixed to her collar, then keyed in a code for the security office on her palm computer. A search light that had been on a path to inspect them swung back around into place, and the commander slipped the palm computer back into her pocket.
“How’d you know it was me, chief?” Commander Sutton asked, her mouth twitching at the corners.
“Patience. It didn’t take long for me to recognize your walk among the others.”
“I have a walk?”
“You drag your left leg slightly. You were also the only one who was looking out for my arrival. Not so much that anyone would notice.”
“You did.” The woman rubbed at her thigh, scanning the rooftops. “I suppose it’s too chilly for me to ignore the stiffness this morning, or perhaps I’m getting so old I don’t even notice it anymore. I suppose you heard the blast earlier?”
“Heard it? You can see the smoke from here. What was it?”
“The news called it a gas explosion, but I’m not buying it. Didn’t have the right feel to it. Can you imagine a gas explosion less than a hundred meters from High House and Falcon Home? What if the prime minister had been in residence?”
“He wasn’t. Besides, accidents can happen anywhere.” Lila stuffed her fists into her coat pockets. “Time never passes for an old soldier, does it?”
“I suppose you’re right.” The commander motioned for Lila to fall into step beside her. The dog trotted after them obediently. “My head’s too full of the past tonight.”
“You’re not the only one.” Lila thought back again to the explosion five years before. She had been a lieutenant directly under Sutton’s command back then. When the explosion shook New Bristol, both women had jumped into a militia truck and sped to the scene, witnessing the fear spread after the Almstakers claimed responsibility through a hastily posted video online. The video hadn’t held up to the evidence, though. Bullstow ignored the Almstakers’ claims in the official report and blamed Bryan Rail. They claimed that a commercial train from the company had jumped the tracks, an accident later attributed to its poor safety record. It wouldn’t have been so devastating if one of the cars hadn’t been carrying a shipment of fertilizer.
With thirty-four people dead and scores injured, the outside shareholders sold their stakes of the lowborn business in a rage. Wolf Industries had swooped in and bought Bryan Rail at a steep discount.
That was the price of failure in New Bristol.
“The government militia is on the scene,” Commander Sutton said as they dodged a floodlight and sidled around the nearest building. “I suppose Bullstow wouldn’t lie.”
“I suppose they wouldn’t.”
“I sent a dozen blackcoats to assist, headed by Sergeant Tripp and Sergeant Nolan. Perhaps they’ll sniff out something useful for us while they’re there.” Sutton inclined her head. “You managed to take care of every camera along this path tonight. They’re not out. They’re just pointed a bit out of line. Thermal, too.”
Lila frowned, slightly annoyed that all it took to beat her own security was a thermal suit and a jammer. She knew it was better than that, though. She had taken to breaking into the estate every month or so, all to shore up the compound’s defenses and keep her militia on its toes. She did the same to other Randolph properties whenever she visited.
At least Randolph engineers had been the ones to create the thermal suit and the jammer. Their energies had now turned to creating cameras to see through Lila’s toys. Chairwoman Randolph was unsure if the family would market either technology, though. Lila und
erstood the chairwoman’s reasoning, for she enjoyed having toys the other families did not. Then again, the family would lose out on a great deal of potential revenue by keeping the technology to themselves. Lila could afford her own mansion if she sold either device on the black market, provided that the structure had not been built on Randolph property. Beatrice Randolph never sold any land she didn’t have to.
But Lila had no intention of selling her toys.
“It was part of the test,” she told her commander.
“I thought you wished to test thermal?”
“I did.” She grinned, giving Sutton another half-truth. She had tested the thermal, just not on Randolph property.
“None of our patrols caught you snooping around the compound tonight. I suppose you’ve beaten the whole damn lot of us again.”
“It’s not a question of winning and losing. We can’t protect against every threat, commander. We’d drive ourselves mad trying.”
Sutton nodded. “Well, we’re at changeover. No one will notice if you come through. You don’t even need to use your jammer, and I’d be grateful if you didn’t. You might spook Captain McKinley, and I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I’m not going to alert Captain McKinley, commander. Tonight is a blackout. The militia does not need to know about this test of our defenses.”
“I said I was old, not senile or infirm.”
Lila did not apologize, though she felt bad for reminding the woman how to do her job when it was unnecessary. At twenty-eight years old, Lila might outrank the older woman, but Commander Sutton had been her superior officer for most of her militia career. When Lila had been promoted to chief of security nearly three years before, Sutton had been the first name on her list as her replacement. Sutton had proven time and time again how much she deserved the promotion. It was a pity that no one else had recognized her potential.
