SILICONE

1

They donned the arachnofibre suits ten minutes beforehand, and Luna scouted the forty-plus cameras on her MD window. The layout of the building was slightly complex. Glitch had opted for the fourteenth floor, room thirty-two, and according to Chip that was where they would find the Power Gauntlets, stashed in a cybersafe or some other type of security-lock system. It would be no problem for someone like Luna. No problem at all.

Vanderman was tying his nubuck boots, leaning on the black king-sized bed and staring out the window wall at the blue-purple skyline. The holo-animals had been bright this winter’s night, whirling evenly through the sky, and the rain had been pounding against the double-paned glass like birds flying into a windscreen.

“How you feeling?” he asked.

She took a deep breath. “Nervous, you?”

“Nervous?” he said, gobsmacked. “You’re actually worried we might not pull this off?”

Luna spread her hands. “Just my sister,” she confided. “I hope everything goes right. This is the first time we… y’know, took on something this big.”

“I get it,” said Vanderman.

She walked through the room divider and grabbed her three-piece suit off the carpet. “Do ya now?”

He fixed the cuffs of the suit so that they connected with his gloves seamlessly. “Damn right I do. Grew up with two sisters myself.”

She went over to the window, opened it slightly, and tossed the suit outside. She watched it fall more than two hundred feet and become swallowed by a field of grass, shrubbery, and tarped flower beds. “How were they?”

“Fine,” he said. “When all’s said and done, with this take ’n’ all, I wanna visit them in Tahiti. My mom too.”

“I thought your mom was from Zemon?” Luna grabbed the skull helmet off the leather sofa.

“She is but she… she wanted to get away from the place too, y’know? So much politics, violence. A lot of violence.”

She nodded and squeezed her head into the helmet. “Thought you woulda gotten used to this place by now. Big man like you. Got revenge on Grimes.”

“Served that fucker right,” he snapped. “I hate murder.”

“But you’ve killed before.”

“There’s a big difference between murder and killing,” he said. “Murder has no reason. Killing has a reason behind it. Too bad this city is either murder or killing for the wrong reasons. I killed because I had to. So did you.”

He was right, though the only time she had to kill someone was when they had tracked down Grimes Paolini. He had killed Vanderman’s father in a drug-deal gone bad, and back then Vanderman hadn’t been able to let that go.

Good thing he didn’t, thought Luna. Otherwise we never would have met.

“How much money do you need, Vanderman?” asked Luna.

“Two hundred thousand at least,” he said. “Nice house near the ocean, relax, settle down. Find a woman and live a peaceful life, leave all this crap behind us. You?”

“Nevada,” she said.

“Nevada?” He looked at her, screw-eyed, perhaps not expecting her to say something that bold. “That’s a risk and a half. Why not move country altogether?”

Luna chuckled and shook her head. She walked over to the yellow case and clicked it closed. “Not me. ’Sides I don’t wanna leave the country behind. It’s MiliCorp I hate, not America.”

He smiled and nodded. He picked up the skull helmet from his yellow box and put it on.

Luna checked the time on the LED clock bolted to the wall. 9:57 P.M., it read. She thought that Glitch should have been heading out by now, and sure enough, Chip’s voice came from her ear-piece with a loud static burst:

“He’s headin’ out now.” It was as if he had picked the words rightly from her brain.

Luna fixed the helmet and slid her forefinger through the open compartment at the side, pressing the neural port. “Make sure he’s completely out of the building. We’ll head up to System Control after that.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I know how this works,” Chip said.

Two minutes later Chip told her that Glitch had taken the elevator to the parking lot, gotten in a fancy black car, and driven away. Without the Power Gauntlets.

Excitement rushed through her, quelled slightly by the need to take things seriously. “Alright, we’re going up up up,” she said. She jerked slightly as Vanderman touched her shoulder.

“Give ’em hell,” he said, and he pressed the side-button on his helmet.

Luna did the same. Her suit vibrated. She felt her body suddenly heat up, and the hair on her back began to stir and move, like a ripe pondweed bed. An intense pins-and-needles sensation pimpled her legs and chest, and then she became completely invisible.

At the same time, the fibres along Vanderman’s haptic suit wobbled into a state of invisibility, leaving only a faint outline of his body in which the skylight’s blue glow refracted.

After that, they left, heading into the foyer. It wasn’t a series of hallways like your average hotel; instead, it was a large, dark space composed of giant squares which connected to window-rooms, inside of which were glass coffee tables, beaded doorways, and large plant pots. There was a rich, hot-pink glow coming from the holo-projections of Chinese dragons dancing overhead. They swirled about each other, creating a yin-and-yang bond.

It was all wonderful, and had Luna been richer she might have even admitted this place was worth every penny, but there was a deeper reason as to why they booked a room on this particular floor. System Control was on the opposite side of it, at the end of a narrow hallway (according to Corridor 12 on her MD), and tonight there had been no scheduled maintenance checks.

At least, as far as she and Chip were aware.

They pressed through the tenth floor, through the different windowed rooms, across the sliding doors, and past the blue-blinking cameras. They stopped, finally, once they saw the black door at the end of a chequered hallway, one with a slim rectangular window, a red lightstrip across the top, and a keycard slot on the right side, directly above a potted fern.

She didn’t make a sound the whole way down the corridor, just slid on up to the access pad, took Vanderman’s ballpoint screwdriver, unscrewed the cover, and jacked into the undersocket. She navigated through her MD and hit , just as she had done a million times before.

But this firewall took her a bit longer to crack than expected. It wasn’t difficult, just time-consuming due to the vast number of lines she had to sift through.

It took five minutes for Vanderman to start. “You havin’ trouble?” he said in a low voice. “We don’t have all night, kid.”

“I got it,” she snapped, voice harsh.

The lightstrip above the door blinked twice with green, and then a woman’s voice spoke:

“Access granted.”

“Thank fuck,” he said.

“Relax you old bastard,” she said, heart thumping.

They stepped into System Control, shutting the door behind them. The room was dark, like the walls, and the supercomputers were just as they appeared on the camera system: iridescent cables and carbon-weave cases. Before coming here she thought there would be a smell of vinegar and, sure enough, there was. It was coming from the liquid-cooled systems manufactured within.

Luna opened her MD and unmuted on the Cloud Call. “We’re in,” she said.

Static. “Camera’s off. Go wild, Loonie-toonie.”

“Sarah doin’ alright?” she asked.

He sighed. “This time I got her a slushie,” he said.

Vanderman grunted his laughter. “Anything for yourself, little man?”

“A fuckin’ headache, that’s what,” he said. “Oh, and Luna baby, don’t worry, I’m not swearing around her. She’s too busy talking to the man at the counter. Don’t complain if we end up gettin’ thrown out. Ya hear?”

Luna placed a hand on the wall. “Have a look at the top?”

“Yup,” Chip said. “That’s how I knew Glitch left in the first place.”

“And?” she said.

“The gauntlets are there,” he said, “don’t worry about that. It’s just… getting them down to the parking lot that you gotta worry about. You might have to, y’know.” He clicked his tongue. “Be careful not to get spotted by… whoever, yeah?”

“We hear you,” Vanderman replied.

“Good,” he said. “Oh, Sarah’s comin’ back over. Let me know when you’re… fuck it, whatever.” The background noise suddenly cut off.

She rolled her eyes and headed over to the mainframe computer at the centre of the room. It was the heart of the Vadchia Plaza, the machine that controlled the electricity in all sectors of the building. They needed to disable Sector 2 (the hotel rooms) so they could shut down the security cameras.

Vanderman got down on one knee to run his hand along the vinyl jacket. He caressed it. No technician ever showed as much interest in machinery as he did. He often talked about getting to see this supposed Tier-1 technology for himself, wanted to know how it differed from a lot of the other tech out there, and this heist gave him ample opportunity to do that, considering things like this weren't exactly common in Zemon, not since MiliCorp took over, and not since he figured out only a couple places in the country had access to them.

“Beautiful, ain't it?” he said.

“What is?” she asked.

“The mainframe.” He opened the hidden compartment at the side of his boot and pulled out a ballpoint screwdriver. “Gotta love Vadchia tech.” And he began rotating the screws at the corners until the cover hung loose. He set it aside. The interior of the mainframe was a vertical rectangle composed of four large cubes stacked atop one another, and around each edge was a single circuit board illuminated by cyan LEDs. The cubes, as far as Luna was concerned, represented the different sectors of the Vadchia Plaza, with the bottom being the parking lot, the second-last the lounge, the second-highest the hotel rooms, and the top the helicopter port.

Luna had never seen a computer of this calibre either, not in person at least. She didn’t know how to feel about it. So much power in such a small case. It was crazy to consider. Regardless, this was a job best left to someone who was good with their hands; in other words, Vanderman, whose hours as a garage mechanic made him more than fit.

His gloves were designed to absorb large amounts of electricity and channel them directly into his nubuck boots; even so, Luna couldn’t help but feel a little nervous whenever he handled low-voltage machines, never mind high ones. What if one day his safety gear decided not to work and whatever he was handling fried him black? It was unlikely, probably impossible, but still.

He began unscrewing the plating on the second-highest cube.

“How long will the power go out?” she asked.

“Ahh.... Depends how long management takes to fix it. So ’bout an hour, hour and a half.”

“Shit, is that enough?”

He shrugged. “Should be.”

Just then, static came from her ear-piece. “Luna,” Chip said.

Luna plugged her opposite ear with her forefinger. “What is it?”

“Maintenance team is heading your way.”

“What? That can't be right? We made sure – ”

“Guess we got our timetable wrong,” he said. “They’re getting in the elevator now.”

“Shit!” She walked up to the door.

“What is it?” asked Vanderman.

“We have company. Maintenance schedule’s due today.” She peeked through the window and saw that the hall was empty.

“Now? Of all fucking times?” He removed his hands from the mainframe. “So what do we do?”

She thought for a moment, then said, “Chip?”

“Yeah?”

“Show me the camera on Corridor 12, outside System Control.”

“What?”

“Just do it,” she said.

He took a deep breath. “I swear you’re gonna kill my laptop with all these demaaaands, Luna.” Typing, typing, typing. It took thirty seconds for him to come back with a response. “There.”

A live feed of Corridor 12’s camera popped up in its own window. Two men dressed in armoured jumpsuits and blue eyeshields were walking down the hall, each holding a toolbox.

“No guns,” said Luna.

“Thank God,” said Vanderman.

“They’re headin’ up now. C’mon.”

“We gassing ’em or choking ’em out?” Vanderman asked.

“Both,” she said. “Can’t be too careful.”

Luna and Vanderman huddled together near the jardinière at the door, waiting, listening.

She heard voices on the other side; at first they were unaccompanied – just some subdued prattle – and she thought perhaps they were heading a different direction. But then she heard their footsteps clocking against the marble hallway, getting closer, louder, and knew that not to be the case. She snapped back, readying herself for their approach.

One of the voices, no longer muffled: “Place reminds me of San Maztropic.”

“I prefer this place over San Maztropic any day of the week,” the other said.

“The long hours?”

“Nah,” he said, “the food’s terrible.”

Seconds later the footsteps stopped and the door beeped open.

“Access granted.”

They stepped inside and the door closed again.

“Hey what’s – ?”

Luna grabbed him in a rear-naked chokehold, covering his mouth with her forearm. He thrashed, but she held him in place without a hitch. Slowly his body began to stiffen. Then, after a moment, he was still.

“It’s that easy,” said Vanderman. “Like takin’ candy from a baby.”

Luna drug the man across the carpet and laid him behind the jardinière. “Feels nice, doesn’t it?” She selected on her MD and the knockout gas plumed out, flowing into the man’s nostrils. He was out cold.

Vanderman pulled a steampump from his pocket, pressed it under the other guard’s face, and thumbed the plunger. The gas steamed out in the exact same way. He was one of those people who didn’t have an MD installed, one of the majority, Luna supposed, so he had to do things the old-fashioned way. She supposed it was his fear of having his brain taken over by MiliCorp that stopped him from getting one installed. That and money. It cost Luna a whopping seven hundred and fifty bucks to surgically install it in her brain five years ago. And it was permanent. She couldn’t remove it even if she wanted to.

“They won’t be out for long, better get this done quick.” He laid the other body on the floor.

Vanderman got back to unscrewing the cube, now with more determination. After fifteen seconds, it popped out. He pried the cables from the back.

Numbly, as if from a distance, Luna heard the power shut down. It was nothing more than a muffled hum. She made her way back to the maintenance men and snatched the keycards hanging from their lanyards. “Come on,” she said. “We don’t have long.” She unmuted the Cloud Call. “Chip.”

“Still here,” he said, bored.

“We’re heading up now,” she said.

“Cool,” he said. “Your powercube disabled everything in the third sector. Better get moving now, the security down here’s starting to get suspicious. I think they know.”

“Know what?”

“That someone’s up there, someone that shouldn’t be,” he said.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” she said.

“There’s the thank-you I was lookin’ for,” he said.

“Chip,” she growled.

“Yeah yeah, super serious, gotta take this real serious, lives on the line, yadda-yadda-yadda.”

She muted the call and deactivated her cloak.

“What are you doing?” asked Vanderman.

“Lights are off,” Luna said, and she pointed to the hall which had indeed been semidark, lit dimly by the orange glows coming from the battery-operated holo-projections of Chinese dragons. “Shouldn’t waste the suit's power. Just turn your nightvision on.”

“Good point,” he said in his most enthusiastic voice. He tapped the side-button on his skull helmet. Luna did the same, and the darkness turned bright green. “Let’s roll.”

They hurried through Corridor 12 and entered the elevator; the light was off, but the battery system ensured the gears were operational. Through the window, Luna saw the towering edifices sprawling across Zemon City, their glassy exteriors glimmering with the shine of nearby billboards and commercial businesses.

Kiss it all goodbye. We’re getting out of here.

“Select floor,” a woman’s voice said.

Luna swiped through the screen and tapped .

“Floor 18 selected,” the woman said. “Thank you for choosing Vadchia Plaza as your hotel to stay.”

The doors shut and the elevator ascended, playing a generic EDM song. When they reached the eighteen floor, they pressed through the foyer, into the central hall, around the dragon holograms, searching for the room labelled . Sure enough, the cameras were no longer blinking, so it was smooth sailing from here on out. Eventually, they found the door. Vanderman slid the maintenance keycard through the slot.

“Access granted.”

They stepped in slowly. The skyline’s glow poured through the west-facing window-wall and illuminated the hotel room. Luna saw a coffee table, menthol cigarettes, glass bottles, and a leather sofa with a piece of flannel cloth stretched across it. The ventilation pipe curved along the ceiling, held aloft by a single U-shaped crosspiece. Through the divider she saw a queen-sized bed with a black duvet, and across from that the cybersafe which held the Tier-1 Power Gauntlets.

A million dollars. The ticket to the good life.

Luna disabled her night-vision and hurried into the bedroom, brushing the portiere beads aside.

“Someone has a drinking problem,” said Vanderman. “Where is he anyway?”

“With the Legion discussing a deal,” she said confidently, kneeling in front of the cybersafe. “Don’t worry. By the time he gets back we’ll be looooong gone.”

“What, they gon’ pay him first?”

“Like hell they are.” She held out her hand. “Screwdriver?”

He pulled it from his boot compartment. “After?”

She shook her head and snatched it from his hand. “The trade happens at the same time.”

Vanderman sat on the sofa arm and picked up an empty glass bottle, raising it in the skylight until TIDAL WAVE CIDER glistered on its label. “What if the Legion trick him and don’t pay up?”

“You talk as if the deal’s gonna happen,” she said.

“You’ve piqued my interest,” he said. “Wouldn’t touch the Legion with a ten-foot pole if I were him.”

“You can say that again.” She unscrewed the dial pad on the cybersafe. She jacked her wrist-wire into the undersocket and felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her arm. It was a normal reaction. Hacking was a dangerous art; the risk of getting infected with malware was high in a city like this, but it was a risk Luna was willing to take. Clearing the malware from her system would be costly, sure, but if she managed to pull this heist off money wouldn’t be a problem.

She watched the numbers and symbols flow across her MD and branch into a separate window of 1s and 0s. To complete the hack and find the five-digit code she would have to match each symbol with a corresponding number until five numbers were consecutively placed alongside one another. Easy, except this particular firewall had a total of ten thousand numbers and symbols combined.

“This might take a while,” Luna said quietly.

“What’s up?”

“This is a Tier-2 cybersafe,” she explained.

“So?”

“So…” she said, “... get comfortable. They don’t make safes like this to protect a piece of silver. There’s a reason Glitch chose this hotel, ’cause of the security.”

“How long? Give me a time range.”

“Dunno,” she said. “I’ll try for half an hour.”

“You’ll try?” he said. “And what if you can’t crack it?”

“Then we leave,” she said. “Can’t let ’em see us, Vanderman.”

“Aw, bullshit!” he shouted.

“Quiet,” she said sharply. “You want me to do this or not?”

He sighed, this time with vehemence. “Sorry. Knock yourself out. It’s just that it’s a lotta money.”

“I’ll crack it,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“Here’s hopin’,” he said.

With that, she started deciphering the cryptic wall. The first ten minutes were a struggle – each attempt paved no path to a solution. She felt utterly useless, but eventually she managed to arrange two numbers. A and an .

“Progress is being made…” she murmured.

Five minutes later and she managed to grab another number: . She let out an exasperated sigh.

“Everything goin’ okay?” said Vanderman.

“About as good as it gets,” she said. “Three numbers in, two to go.”

“I thought a hacker like you knew her way around the screen,” he said.

“Do you wanna try this?” she said, snapping a look at him. He was lying on the leather sofa, his arm around the channel, feet crossed on the opposite end.

“Relax,” he groaned. “You should let Chip know you’ll be late.”

“Why don’t you make yourself useful and keep an eye out? Or is that too much to ask?”

“Christ, alright,” Vanderman said incredulously, and he stood. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.” He went to open the door and peek outside.

She continued working on the code, determined to crack this beast; she got frustrated, angry, even a little emotional, but after another ten minutes, she managed to pry a fourth number from the cipher: . This was it, she was so close, one more number and she would be a step closer to a million bucks, to getting out of this godawful city.

Come on. Where are you…?

The last number came after only thirty seconds, a beautiful . Finally! She managed to best the Tier-2 system; she really was the best out there.

A huge wave of satisfaction and relief swept through her, much like swooning. She clenched her fists and shouted, “Yes!”

Vanderman whipped up from the sofa and took a step towards her. “Did you do it?” he asked, his voice equally cheerful.

“Fuck yeah I did. I’m the fucking bes – ” Suddenly her MD popped up, all by itself. A series of flashing windows obscured her view – videos of naked women moaning, ads for penis-growth pills, and voyeur cams. The relief was quickly replaced with worry. “Aw shit!”

“What?”

“I’m infected with a virus,” she said.

“Worry about that later,” he said, rushing over to the cybersafe. “For now let’s get these gauntlets.”

“’Kay,” she said, doing her best to ignore the pop-ups. She punched the code into the dial pad – – and it blinked twice with green.

“Access granted.”

The safe opened and she could see the black-and-red crate. Vanderman grabbed the lug and muscled it onto the carpet. “Alright. Tell Chip to get the van ready.”

She unmuted the Cloud Call. “We have the gauntlets. Grab Sarah and get in the van. We’ll be down in a couple minutes.”

No response.

“Chip? You hear me?”

Nothing.

“Dammit Chip, answer me! Stop playing aroun – ”

“Miss Portalla,” a deep voice said, one that she didn’t recognise.

Her heart pounded. She took a moment to respond. “Who is this?”

“I should have known you’d try to steal my gauntlets. You are the biggest thief Zemon has to offer. What is it the people know you as? The Cyber Devil? Stealing from the innocent?”

“... Glitch?”

A chuckle. “Are you really that surprised? Did you think I’d honestly leave something so valuable in a fucking hotel safe? I tested those, cracked ’em in five minutes.”

“What’s going on, Luna?” asked Vanderman.

She shushed him. “Glitch, what’s in the crate?”

“Replicas,” he said.

“Fucking replicas?” she said.

“That’s right, Ms Portalla. Tier-6 replicas worth a grand. You should probably get a new scoutman; Chip isn’t very good at telling the difference.”

She growled, “Listen asshole – ”

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken: “You thought you had everything planned out, didn’t you?”

“What?” she snapped.

“You thought you could just walk into the Vadchia Plaza and steal from me like a cold-hearted criminal. It’s people like you that make this city terrible, people that take and take without consequence.”

She thought for a moment, and then asked, “What sort of virus is this, Glitch?”

He half-laughed. “You messed up bigtime, Portalla.”

“Luna, tell me what’s goin’ on,” said Vanderman, but she ignored him.

“You see,” continued Glitch, “I never did plan to give those gauntlets to the Legion. I planned on keeping them. But when I heard about you, I did a little investigating, found out where you live – by the way, L’illian’s camera system is so easy to break into – and listened in on all the details you and Vanderman and Chip were discussing.”

“What type of fucking virus is this?” she shouted.

“I call it soLong,” he said. “A Tier-1 virus. The only way you're getting that out of your system is if you pry the neural processor from your brain. But I don’t recommend it, you might not survive the procedure.”

“... How long do I have?” she asked softly.

He neighed. “I’d give you a month. There is another option, though, Ms Portalla.”

“What?” she said, fearing his response.

“Turn yourself in,” he said flatly. “I’ll remove the virus for you.”

“Turn myself in?” she said.

“Mhm.”

“But….”

“But? You really think you have another option?”

“I can’t do that,” she said. “My sister….”

He chuckled again, and then the chuckle turned into a sigh. “You’re really not going to like what I say next.”

Her heart pounded harder, and her fear turned to anger. “Where is she?” she growled.

“The thing about offering you a set of two choices wasn’t really a set of two choices,” he said.

“WHERE IS SHE?” Her muscles tightened. “Answer my fucking question!”

“I contacted security, the entire plaza is surrounded by police,” he said. “The only way out is by turning yourself in. You see, I’m much smarter than you, Luna. You might think you're some cyberhacking diablo but there’s one thing you never understood: don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

“If you don’t tell me where she is I’m gonna find where you live and beat the answer out of you,” she said. “Tell me. Where. Is. Sarah?”

“Ask Chip,” he said. “Oh wait, I have him, too.”

She started tearing up. “What do you want?”

“Turn yourself in,” he said. “The world could always use less assholes.”

“But… but….” She looked at Vanderman, who stood with his arms spread as if to say, What the fuck is going on? “She – I – ”

A sigh. “This is all a little boring. Like I said, you have no choice. The only way you get to see her again is if you turn yourself in.”

Silence. Pure… silence.

A flash of red and white pulsed through the window-wall, and she and Vanderman walked over to investigate it. Surrounding the plaza – the fountain with the giant pinball, the flagged sidewalks and marble-carved steps – were several swat vehicles, armed officers, and drones. People were hurrying outside. And Luna heard the far-off sirens; the endless whine of victory on Glitch’s behalf. This was it, the end of her, the separation from her sister. She placed her palm on the glass.

“Luna?” said Vanderman, but she was too shocked to utter a word.

“See you around, Ms Portalla,” said Glitch. “You can do this the easy way or the hard way. Regardless, you lose. It’s over.” He hung up the call.

“I messed up…” she said. “I fucked up really bad.”

“Hey hey,” said Vanderman. “It’s alright. We take the gauntlets down to – ”

“Don’t you get it?” she yelled, turning to face him. “Those aren’t the gauntlets. Glitch tricked us. It was a trap. And now they have Sarah and Chip!”

“A trick?” said Vanderman, and he paced over to the red-and-black crate. He clicked the locks and the crate steamed open with white vapour – hydrogen coolant, it kept the inside fresh and dustless. He pulled the gauntlets out. They were heavy and large, possessed stubby Kevlar fingers, red and blue cables twisting through the centre, and carbon-steel wrist armour.

“Of fucking course!” he said. “A dupe. How didn’t Chip notice?”

“Because he’s a moron,” she said. Then, as an afterthought: “I should have never trusted him. This is my fault.”

“Hey relax – ”

“Don’t tell me to relax,” she snapped, “and stop acting like we’re not gonna get caught. It’s over, Vanderman.”

He stared at her for a couple seconds. “So that’s it? Throw in the towel?”

She nodded. “It’s all we can do,” she said, her voice quavering.

“Do you remember what you told me when we first met? Four years ago?”

She shook her head.

“‘Hey bud, got a quarter?’”

Silence.

“You remember that?” he said.

“What does this have to do – ”

He made a cut-off motion with his hand. “You wanted money. Your sister was hungry, and your mom died. I bought you and her some noodles because, hey, I’ve been there. My dad was killed a long time ago in a drug-deal gone bad, and I was like you, I was mad. I wanted revenge, so what did we do?”

“We found him,” she admitted.

“Damn straight we did. Grimes Paolini. Slit his throat from here to here.” He pressed his thumb across his neck. “And it was satisfying. He was dead.”

“Vanderman – ”

“The point is, Luna,” he said, “when we put our heads together we can do anything. We have for the past four years and we will keep doin’ it until we both get what we want. And right now you want to get out of this city. That’s not gonna happen if we give up now, if we give up at all. You understand?”

She stood in silence. Then said, “So what do we do?”

Vanderman tapped his fingers along the dupe. “We do what we always do,” he said. “We run.”

“How?” she said. “They’re everywhere.”

“There’s a tunnel under the plaza,” he said.

“The sewer tunnel?”

A nod. “Yeah, leads into the Zex Market, the centre of town. Maintenance only.”

“How’re we supposed to get there?”

“Cloak-mode,” he said, prodding his wrist and turning invisible. He quickly switched it off and added, “We already have the keycards.”

“Then what?”

“Then we get out,” he said. “It’s better than getting caught and being put behind bars for decades.”

“What about Sarah?” she said, feeling emotion build in her throat. She cleared it. “Glitch has her.”

“One thing at a time,” he said. “Alright?”

It was plausible, if she didn’t mind the smell of other people’s shit of course, and she spent some time deciding whether or not she should go through with this. She could turn herself in, but that would leave her sister alone. Either that or she would be sent to some crappy orphanage cities away.

She might die out there.

But what would happen if she didn’t turn herself in? Would Glitch torture Sarah? Kill her? She didn’t know, and that made her stomach suds like a washing machine. She was tired and it was hard to think. But she knew what she had to do. She had to save her, she had to get her out of this city.

“Alright,” said Luna softly. “But be careful, please?”

“When am I never?” he said. “And look” – he placed a hand on her shoulder – “she’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. Okay?”

“I hope you’re right.”