The descent from tower-level skyway to storage-level streets wound in dizzying loops and always made Kas wish he had a stronger constitution. Grateful he hadn’t eaten much, he clung to the siderail and closed his eyes, focusing on breathing until the descent stopped and the zipcar leveled out into a straight line. The streets all had sharp corners requiring slowing the zipcar and advance switching to ensure the tracks were aligned properly, which made the lower levels altogether inferior.

The storage level was anything but sleek, everything from the zipcar tracks to the buildings looming up on either side rough and worn from uncountable years of use. The tower bases weren’t kept clean like the upper spires, allowing grime to conceal their brilliant colours and blur everything into greys and browns.

He saw a few more of those stupid ‘RISE UP’ posters plastered across the walls as he walked up the ramp to the warehouse, and dropped them into storage to dispose of later. There were people who enjoyed ranting on about the alleged class differences between those who lived in the upper floors of towers and those below, but Kas didn’t believe it could be as bad as all that.

If the posters were to be believed, there was a great rebellion growing in the shadows of the spires. But from what Kas remembered from his school days, playing at ‘overthrowing the tippies’ had never been more than childish ignorance and naive arrogance. Even if life was unfair to some people based on who their parents were, a call to violence was never going to solve anything.

The Elurium company warehouse sat in the eighth floor of a towerbase, and Kas definitely would never have been admitted without his ID if Bet hadn’t called ahead. He had to pass a rigorous inspection, comparing his mageprint to the one Bet had sent over, before being admitted. He’d have sworn the weedy man at the inspection gate dragged the process out deliberately, clearly uncaring about the urgency of the situation.

Finally the guard handed him a visitor pass, and Kas ran inside. Instead of wide curved windows to let in the multihued light from countless spires, the warehouse was lit by flickering light orbs hanging at intervals across the ceiling. Kas unrolled the requisition order and checked the quantities, helpfully labelled with their location in the seemingly endless shelving.

Each section of the warehouse had different wards, ensuring he couldn’t casually wander into the higher security storage. Even the ‘common’ items were expensive, and Elurium owned a lot of them.

Kas glanced at his requisition order as he reached the basic consumables section, filling half of each of his first three layers of his pocket storage with the 150 recharges allocated, then moved on to patches and feelers and surgers. He moved as fast as he could, but there was only so much time to be saved when collecting hundreds of items, and he felt intensely conscious of time passing.

What kind of security were they anticipating to need that many recharges for? Kas could break into almost anything he’d encountered on two at most. Add a few surgers to help confuse the wards, and ten should be enough to get through anything. Maybe he didn’t really understand high end security as well as he thought.

When finally he’d finished collecting everything, he hurried out. The guard stopped him, insisted on inspecting the visitor pass before finally waving him through.

Kas made it halfway to the zipcar terminal before someone barred his way.

“Excuse me, I’m very busy,” he said, surreptitiously tapping his pocket storage on in case he needed a weapon in a hurry. You never knew in the dark depths of the old city, where no security orbs patrolled.

“You just came from that storage depot,” the stranger said, voice low and rough, obviously exaggerated to conceal his identity. “So you must have something good in there.” He pointed to Kas’ arm, indicating the pocket storage.

“Not mine, only on loan,” Kas said. He dropped the AutoSlash into his waiting hand, letting the tug of its enchantments guide his hand into a guard pose. He relaxed into his stance, the blade gleaming white with power, starkly visible in the dimness.

The would-be robber backed up a step, clearly unnerved, but didn’t turn to leave. He glanced around, then seemed to draw courage from the emptiness of the street. “So you got a fancy sword. That doesn’t mean nothing. I can still drop you before you have time to blink.”

Kas snorted. “I doubt that. If you were capable of doing so you already would have.” Besides, anyone with that kind of skill would be in high demand. Perhaps not at a prestigious company like Elurium, but certainly at one of the lesser companies that worked mainly from the mid layers.

The man clenched one fist, and then it was Kas’ turn to reconsider. Power flared to life around his hand, crackling like vibrant green lightning,

He wasn’t bluffing. Kas didn’t even know what kind of spell would give off so much energy, but he certainly didn’t want to be on the wrong side of it.

But he couldn’t imagine his life being anything but over if he surrendered any of Elurium’s supplies to a hoodlum. Ziv had made it clear how much they had to lose if this job went bitter, and Kas did not want to be the cause.

Sometimes he wished he’d bothered to pay attention in warding class. All he’d cared about was breaking them, not creating them. Even a personal ward was too slow and unwieldy to be worth learning, he’d thought. The constant drain of upkeep for something that you were unlikely ever to need? No thank you. But that did leave him without recourse when facing an opponent capable of flinging spells at a distance.

His arm vibrated as the AutoSlash tried to pull him to a new position, but he’d tensed up too much. Kas forced himself to relax, the sword aimed out at the stranger, its tip dancing in small cycles as it tracked the spell. Perhaps the enchantments on the blade could absorb or deflect the attack. That was his best hope now.

“Really, you don’t want to hold out on me,” the stranger growled. “Drop the sword and I’ll let you go.”

Kas felt the sword tug him and moved with it, striding into a quick lunge that forced the assailant to retreat. The blade flicked to the side, nicking the man’s hand and dispelling the magic gathered there. It hissed sharply as it dispersed, sparks of green light exploding in all directions. Kas danced backward, the sword’s guidance getting him out of the way before a single spark could touch him.

Kas glanced down at the sword with admiration. He’d used the QuickStrike regularly before, but this next generation was something else altogether.

“Last warning,” Kas said, taking a step forward. “Leave and don’t bother me or anyone else from Elurium if you value your life. Or your bank balance, for that matter.” After all, every good mercenary-thieving company knew a hit to the finances could hurt as much one one to the vitals.

That seemed to be enough. The man ran, clutching his injured hand, and disappeared into the shadows.

Kas dropped the AutoSlash back into the pocket storage, then took off running toward the terminal. Alas, the sandglass read 12:49; he’d have to wait for the 13:00. He paced anxiously, but nothing he did could make the zipcar come sooner.

“Hey, Elurium boy!”

Kas spun, the voice startling him from his worry. The mugger was back, this time with two friends. They spread out slowly, weapons at the ready, and Kas knew if they surrounded him even the AutoSlash wouldn’t be enough to save him.

“I really don’t have time for this,” Kas snapped.

Why today? He’d made pickup runs through this station dozens of times and never been accosted before. Why did everything have to go wrong the one day he was on such a tight schedule?

Kas pulled out the AutoSlash and backed against the nearest wall, hoping the zipcar would arrive before the thugs could do anything. He glanced up at the corner of the terminal, where a monitor orb ought to be hovering. It lay on the ground, dim and lifeless. Turning a relay broadcast on the trio would likely have deterred them - but no, even that option was out of reach.

Blud take them!

Unfortunately, the thugs were aware of their rapidly approaching deadline and seemed just as eager to get on with things as Kas was to delay. The original mugger brandished his hand, now sporting a patch, and power began to gather. This time he was too far away for Kas to disrupt the spell, and lunging for him would leave him vulnerable to the others.

The two newcomers spread out to either side, staying out of reach of his blade as they readied their own weapons.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Didn’t I say? For your stuff. Hand it over and you can go.”

“It’s not mine to give. I can’t afford to lose any of it.” Kas mentally scrolled through the pocket storage, trying to find anything he could use to get out of this. A surger might be enough to knock the spell out of control, judging by how easily it had fallen apart the first time. He’d have to reimburse Elurium, but that was a small price to pay. He glanced down the track. Still no sign of the zipcar.

“I know there’s no way to get items out of that thing so long as it’s tuned to you,” the mugger on the right blustered, pointing his heavy clobber stick in Kas’ direction, “but you don’t need much more than an arm and a head to make it spit out its goodies.”

Kas was no stranger to threats of physical violence, but from what he could see these people moved with forced confidence, intending to terrify, exaggerated rather than genuine. It all felt like bravado, trying to show off how tough they were to each other, trying to shock the rich visitor into folding. Kas wasn’t easily shocked, and as far as thugs went these rated pretty poorly compared to most he’d seen. If they knew what they were doing, he’d never have escaped the first one.

But even if they were only second-rate at best, they could still hurt him. He could definitely hold off any one of them, probably two, but three was a bit much for a support thief. Ordinarily he’d be in a group with a dedicated guardian to protect the more specialised personnel. He simply wasn’t equipped to take on--

“And what exactly is going on here?” a strident female voice demanded, freezing all four men in surprise. Kas had never been so happy to see a mysterious stranger step out of shadow, hands on her hips. She was short, dressed all in grey apart from a black band strapped across her chest, with bare arms that clearly showed the strength of hard labour.

“Nothin’,” grumbled the mage, extinguishing his hand in a flare of green sparks. “Nothin’ at all.” He skulked away into the shadows, his two friends scurrying after.

“They’re getting bolder,” she said, walking toward Kas. “One more way our city is failing us. It’s not safe to wander alone.”

“I wasn’t wandering, I was waiting for the zipcar.”

The woman tilted her head. “Kas?”

Kas frowned, studying her face: scarred across the cheekbone; brown hair tied back tightly; eyes a deep red that could be mistaken for brown in the right light…

“Milena? What are you--” he gaped, struggling to connect this fierce confident woman with the timid girl he’d once known. “How…?”

“Someone has to keep the streets safe.” She tapped the black strip across her chest. “If tippers don’t care, then it’s up to us.”

Something teased at Kas’ mind, and he pulled the rebellion posters out of the pocket storage. RISE UP, printed in grey, with a solid band of black beneath, followed by the usual propaganda.

“You thinking about joining the cause?” Milena asked, misinterpreting his interest.

Kas shook his head. “I hadn’t imagined you as being the rebellious sort.”

“It’s not about rebelling, it’s about forcing them to listen. And unfortunately there are very few people down here with enough influence to make them care. So if we don't have the 'right' people, we'll have to make up for it in numbers."

"It'll never work."

Milena shrugged. "Never know until you try. Would you rather lie down and let them walk all over you?”

“No one’s walking over me. I chose the life I wanted. It’s a free world.”

“Then you’re fortunate. Not everyone can do that.” She tucked a page into his hand, a folded paper of the same bland style as the posters. “If you ever decide you’re ready to change the world, come find me.”

The zipcar pulled into the terminal, drawing Kas’ attention. By the time he thought to look back to thank Milena for saving him, she’d already gone.