CHAPTER VII
Rajindia
Med-clinic.
Such an innocuous name for such a deep-seated change. Bhaaj still remembered the day Doctor Karal Rajindia set up her clinic in the Undercity. No one came near it. No one bothered her, either, because the Dust Knights gave her protection, but they’d all have rather seen her get lost—until they discovered she really could heal them.
It also didn’t take long for people to realize she cared about her patients. Although officially Karal lived in the City of Cries and only came to her clinic during work hours, she often slept here. Gradually people warmed. Eventually they created beautiful living quarters for her in the clinic, polished rooms with carved walls and exquisite art, an exchange in return for her care.
When Bhaaj told the Ruby Pharaoh that her people had no real medical care, only self-taught healers, she hadn’t expected much response. Even at her wildest imaginings, she’d never have thought that Dyhianna Selei Skolia, titular ruler of the Skolian Imperialate, would send one of her own physicians. Technically the pharaoh no longer governed, only served the elected Assembly, but no one doubted the immense power she wielded. She was one of only two Kyles strong enough to build and maintain the Kyle web used by the rest of the telops. It made sense that Karal Rajindia served as her doctor. Karal specialized in Kyle medicine, which involved the neurological mutations that let humans use the Kyle network, what many people called the psiberweb. And the pharaoh had sent her here, to the Undercity.
A curtain of blue and green beads created by a glass blower hung in the clinic entrance. When Bhaaj shook the curtain, its beads jingled together, creating a sparkling wash of music.
“Come,” a voice called from somewhere within.
Bhaaj pushed aside the beads and entered, aware of Ruzik and Tower holding the curtain open behind her. Their entire party trooped into the waiting room beyond, filling the delicate place with their overly muscled and armed selves. Bhaaj felt like a wrecking ball in a glass shop. No one greeted them; whoever had called out had remained deeper within the clinic.
Weavings softened the walls, cool swaths of blue and green with gold accents. Bhaaj wondered if the artists who created these works had any idea they evoked the oceans that no longer existed on Raylicon. Gold rugs warmed the floor, with accents of blue and green. Sculptures of winged reptiles stood in the wall nooks, dragons glazed in blue, green and gold, with red accents and rubies for eyes. Another curtain hung in an archway across from them, and Bhaaj heard people talking beyond that sparkling drape of beads.
“Saints almighty,” Lavinda murmured. “Are these works genuine?”
“Genuine what?” Bhaaj asked, preoccupied with the distant voices.
Lavinda indicated a tapestry on the wall. “My family has one of those in a dining room of our home. It looks like that, except its colors aren’t as vivid.”
Bhaaj squinted at her. “You have an Undercity rug hanging in your palace?”
“Our ‘rug’ is nearly six thousand years old.” Lavinda motioned again, her gesture taking in the entire room. “These weavings, and the ones created by that man whose home we visited earlier—Bhaaj, they look like those few works of art that have survived from the Ruby Empire. Except these are better.” She spoke with incredulity. “I’ve only visited two places here where people live, and both have decorations that anthropologists would consider priceless.”
Bhaaj had no idea what to say. True, even she could tell that Weaver’s tapestries were better than the imitations sold by the vendors from Cries. But priceless? The Majda tapestry probably had that great worth because of its age. You could find modern versions of such art everywhere in the Undercity. Lavinda’s response suggested Weaver could ask even more for the works he sold on the Concourse. He had to be careful, though. If he and the other Undercity artists flooded the market with “priceless” works of art, they wouldn’t remain priceless for long.
She spoke thoughtfully. “The techniques used by our weavers come down more directly from the Ruby Empire than what you see in the city. I wouldn’t be surprised if modern textile producers have lost those methods. My people do it all by hand.” She shrugged. “To us, drinkable water is more valuable than these tapestries.”
“Water?” Lavinda blinked. “Why?”
“Pure,” Ruzik said.
“Oh. Yes, of course,” Lavinda said. “I imagine the water that occurs naturally down here is poisonous. But your people can go to the city and get purified bottles from a filtration facility.”
Bhaaj gave a bitter laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Well, no. Why do you say that?”
“They won’t sell to us,” Ruzik answered, his voice tight. “Never.”
“We show up, they call cops,” Byte-2 said. “Cops throw us in clinker. Lose key.”
“Even if they didn’t call the police,” Bhaaj said, “my people can’t pay for water or food.”
“Filtered water isn’t a luxury product,” Lavinda said. “The prices are low.”
Bhaaj struggled to cap her anger. “We have no credit here. Most don’t even know what it means. Hell, only three people in the Undercity even have a Cries bank account: myself, Jak, and Weaver. Probably Angel too, or she will soon.”
Lavinda didn’t respond at first, she just stood, taking it in. After a moment, she asked, “Can you filter the water yourself?”
“With what?” Bhaaj asked. “Leftover scraps of tech we salvage from Cries dumps?”
Tower said, “Not all salv—”
“That’s right,” Bhaaj said quickly, cutting her off. “Sometimes we can’t even get salvage.” The last thing she needed was for Tower to inform an army colonel that their cyber-riders stole most of the supplies they needed to cobble together filtration equipment. They couldn’t buy the systems; water itself might be a low-priced product in Cries, but filtration equipment came at an appalling cost, its expense driven by a monopoly from the most powerful company on the planet, a corporation the Majdas owned stock in, maybe even had family members on the board of directors.
Lavinda looked from her to Tower. Instead of prying into how they built their systems, she said, “Do you have enough filtration equipment to serve your population?”
“Eh?” Tower turned to Bhaaj. “Say what?”
“Ask about water,” Bhaaj said. “Good water. Have enough?”
Byte-2 snorted. “Majda queen make jib. Bad jib.”
Lavinda glanced at Bhaaj. “I didn’t catch that. Did I offend him?”
“He thinks you’re making fun of us, asking if we have enough water.” Bhaaj rolled her shoulders, trying to relax her tension. “Lavinda, we do have filtration systems, small ones that we patch together. But they have to serve over a thousand people. It’s not enough. The biggest causes of fatality here, after violence and murder, is desperate people drinking unfiltered water and dying from the poisons it carries.”
Lavinda stared at her. “Can’t you get help from the City of Cries?”
“No. If we can’t pay, we can’t drink. Period.” Bhaaj spoke bluntly. “Oh no, wait. I forgot. They’ll ‘allow’ us to work on the water farms for a wage even less than the maintenance costs for your robots.” She took a breath, calming her surge of anger. “Weaver recently bought a filtration system for this clinic and gave Doctor Rajindia bottles of filtered water, in return for Karal treating our people who had nothing to trade with her. He could do it because his work sells for good prices, and his daughter knows how to manage the income.” She breathed out, letting her pulse slow. “This way, more of my people will accept healing. It’s not charity. The Undercity gave Doctor Rajindia a water filtration system and looks after her home. The Dust Knights protect her. In return, she heals them, including offering pure water if they need it to survive.”
Lavinda’s forehead furrowed. “Karal Rajindia could easily get the funds—”
Bhaaj laid her hand on Lavinda’s shoulder. When the colonel stiffened, Bhaaj withdrew her hand, knowing she’d gone too far. No one touched a Majda without permission. Her action had the desired effect, however. Lavinda shut up. Yes, Karal Rajindia could get funds to install a filtration plant, but no one here would accept water that way, with nothing given in return. Weaver and his daughter had come up with the solution. Bhaaj had no doubt that Karal also upgraded and maintained the system without letting anyone know, so she could continue to provide filtered water for a desperate but proud people who refused to accept charity.
Lavinda spoke quietly. “Have your people always lived like this?”
“It’s better than it used to be. Centuries ago, less than half our population reached adulthood.” Bhaaj’s voice roughened. “By adulthood, I mean the age of fifteen or sixteen. We don’t have the luxury of a prolonged youth.” She took a moment, then added, “The situation has improved.”
A woman spoke in a pronounced Iotic accent. “Mostly in the past few years. You have Major Bhaajan to thank for that.”
Bhaaj and Lavinda both turned with a start. The woman stood in the inner archway, holding a few strings of beads to the side. She wore her straight dark hair pulled back, but a few locks had escaped to frame her face. She was a striking woman, with large eyes, high cheekbones, and elegant features.
Lavinda spoke with respect. “My greetings, Lady Rajindia.”
Doctor Karal Rajindia bowed to Lavinda and spoke in Iotic, the language of royalty. “My greetings, your Highness.”
Bhaaj looked between the two of them. They both came from the noble or royal Houses. With Lavinda in the room as a contrast, though, it struck Bhaaj how much Karal had changed. The doctor’s three years of working with the Undercity had gentled her in a way hard to describe. She seemed more . . . open. When Bhaaj had first met her, Karal kept her hair shorter, not even shoulder length, a professional style that gave her a sophisticated appearance, in charge and ready to work. Since then, it had grown out until the dark mane flowed around her shoulders and down her back in the Undercity style.
The beads stirred and a man appeared, joining the doctor. Although Bhaaj didn’t recognize him, he clearly came from the aqueducts. He had that shape to his face, the high cheekbones, tousled black curls, large eyes, an overall look most people would recognize as Undercity. Unlike most, though, he had no scars. No one had ever broken his nose. No lines of strain marred his exceptional features. In a Skolian entertainment center, he could easily have found work as a model. This man came by his looks naturally, however; no way existed here for him to get the body sculpting that many theatrical artists paid a fortune for nowadays, fighting the competition they faced from digital “actors” animated by EI brains.
“Eh.” Tower gaped at the fellow. Bhaaj almost smiled. Even a hardened warrior could find herself thrown off balance by a handsome man. The fellow said nothing. Of course no one asked for his name, not even Lavinda, who would have expected an introduction in the above-city.
Instead Lavinda spoke to the doctor. “Thank you for taking time to meet with us, Lady Rajindia.”
“Call me Karal, please.” The doctor tilted her head toward Byte-2 and continued in Iotic. “Your messenger said you needed a guide for the Maze.”
“Not need,” Byte-2 said. “We fix that problem. Got new one.”
Karal blinked at him, then spoke in the Undercity dialect. “You ken the queen’s talk?”
“Nahya,” Byte-2 said. “Only ken talk from down here.”
“But you ken what we just say,” Karal said.
“Yah.” Byte-2 seemed baffled. “You say in Undercity talk.” He gave the barest nod to both Lavinda and the doctor, a sign of respect. “You learn it well.”
“My thanks.” Lavinda looked more confused than thankful.
Bhaaj spoke. “I think our Undercity dialect descends more from ancient Iotic than modern languages. We’ve lived in comparative isolation, so it hasn’t evolved as much.”
Lavinda spoke in modern Iotic. “Can you understand what I am saying right now?”
“I ken,” Byte-2 said.
“Mostly,” Tower added.
Ruzik spoke in Skolian Flag. “I understand most of what you say in Iotic, sometimes better than in Flag. Except you have an accent.”
“Interesting,” Lavinda mused. She glanced at Bhaaj. “According to your army records, you learned Iotic in only a few months.”
It had actually only taken Bhaaj a couple of tendays to teach herself, but she hadn’t let on at first because it seemed useful when people didn’t know she understood them. She’d stopped hiding it after she realized many of them considered her an uneducated idiot. Goddess, it had felt gratifying to see the shock on their faces when she answered in Iotic.
She said only, “I figured I’d get promoted faster that way.”
The man with Karal shifted his weight like a runner who needed to sprint away. To Karal, he said, “We go?”
“Yah,” she murmured.
Interesting, Bhaaj thought. He and Karal stood closer than either Undercity natives or Skolian nobility normally tolerated. Their heads leaned toward each other by the barest amount. Small, almost unreadable signs, but she recognized them. Hah! Love reared its ever-present head. But Karal was a Skolian noble. To say it would shock her House if she had a relationship with an Undercity man was like saying the galaxy had a few stars. How delightfully scandalous, or it would be if it didn’t threaten the Undercity’s good fortune in having Karal as doctor. Bhaaj hoped they stayed discreet.
Lavinda spoke to the man. “Are you the guide?”
“Maze guide,” he told her. “But it not help you. Maze not have a path out of Undercity.”
Bhaaj said nothing. The Maze did offer a way to leave the Undercity, an exit into the ruins of the ancient city Ixa Yaxlan out in the desert. The military kept it a secret. Bhaaj knew about it from a previous case, but even with Max helping her, she couldn’t find it on her own. Too much interference from cyber-rider tech hid the route.
“Not need guide anymore,” Ruzik told the man.
“Cartels let Majda queen visit after all,” Byte-2 said. To Karal, he added, “Punkers want come here, too. Part of bargain.”
Karal regarded him uneasily. “I’ve never treated the cartels before.”
“We protect you,” Ruzik added.
“They want to bring their children,” Bhaaj said. If Karal turned away the cartels, it would scuttle their precarious bargain with Lavinda.
Karal was watching her closely. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Of course I’ll treat them. I wouldn’t turn away anyone, child or adult.”
“We done now?” the man with her asked. “We must go. Fast!”
“Go?” Bhaaj asked. “Where?”
“The Down Deep.” Karal nodded to the man. “He came to tell me.”
“Med problem?” Bhaaj asked.
“Yah.” Worry etched lines across the doctor’s face. “Two die. One more sick. Red rash.”
Bhaaj grimaced. For people beyond the aqueducts, the carnelian rash amounted to no more than a childhood illness, one easily conquered. Not so here, where it often proved fatal.
“You go,” she told Karal. “We’re fine.”
Lavinda was watching them closely. “What is it?” she asked Bhaaj.
“An outbreak of carnelian rash.” Bhaaj stopped, caught by a crushing memory. As a child, she’d lost one of her circle-sisters to the rash. The small girl had died in her arms while Bhaaj desperately tried to soothe her. Although Karal had convinced people in the Undercity to get the vaccine she offered, she had more trouble reaching the Down Deepers, who avoided anyone outside their insular world.
“Do you need help?” Lavinda asked Karal. “I could bring more doctors.”
“Nahya!” Tower said.
“That would be a disaster,” Ruzik said in Flag.
“Why?” Lavinda asked. “We can treat carnelian rash.”
“No one will see it as help,” Karal told her. “It will look like the above-city thinks they can trespass on the Undercity just because the people here agreed to let you visit.”
Bhaaj spoke. “It’s a balance, Lavinda. My people accepted your visit. Even the punkers let you pass. But that’s just you and your guards. Four of you, like a dust gang.” When Captain Morah opened her mouth, no doubt to protest that portrayal, Bhaaj held up her hand. “Yes, I know, you’re Majda security, not a gang. But that’s how we do it here, protecting people. The four of you form a unit just as do our dust gangs.” She spoke firmly. “If you bring in anyone else, people will think you lied, that your visit is a precursor to betraying their trust. The Knights might reconsider the support they’ve given your visit. The cartels will withdraw what is already only a grudging acceptance.”
“Seriously?” Lavinda asked. “When we’re offering life-saving treatment?”
“Not take charity.” Tower practically spat the three-syllable word charity.
“It’s fine,” Karal told Lavinda. “I can treat the rash. I have plenty of medicine.”
“Will you be safe going to the Deep?” Lavinda asked.
“Of course.” Karal seemed surprised by the question. “Carnelian rash isn’t contagious, especially if you have health meds in your body. You only risk catching it if you drink infected water. The virus dies in other environments.” She exhaled, sounding tired. “Unfortunately, people here don’t have even the simplest health precautions we take for granted.”
“Goddess,” Lavinda muttered. “Someone in Cries ought to clean up the water here.”
“Yah, right,” Ruzik said with an edge. “Because the above-city so wants to use their precious resources on us.”
Tower spoke coldly to Lavinda. “This is our home. We take care of. Not slicks.”
Lavinda considered them. “What if we offered a bargain, say equipment to help filter the underground lakes here in return for your people letting us train them to use their Kyle abilities. Like with Angel.”
Ruzik met her gaze with an impassive look. “We see what Angel says.”
Good answer, Bhaaj thought. Although he offered no agreement, neither did he dismiss the offer. Until Angel weighed in about her new job, however, no one would do squat with these nebulous abilities none of them understood anyway.
“Can we visit the Down Deep with Doctor Rajindia?” Lavinda asked.
Bhaaj blinked. She hadn’t intended to go that deep. Lavinda had come here to make connections, though, and the Deep had the highest concentration of Kyles. Her presence offered a powerful message, that the above-city was willing to meet the people of the aqueducts on their terms. Instead of waiting, perhaps they should go with Karal. The Rajindia noblewoman understood Lavinda better than anyone else here, and she also knew the aqueducts. She could offer a bridge between their two worlds.
Bhaaj spoke to Karal. “We come with?”
“Do you all have nanomeds to deal with the rash?” Karal asked. “It’s unlikely you’d catch it even if you don’t, but it’s best to be safe.”
“All of us,” Lavinda said, her motion including herself and her guards.
At the same time Bhaaj and Ruzik both said, “Yah. We have.”
“All right. Come with.” Karal tilted head toward her friend. “He take us.”
Bhaaj nodded. They could use a guide. Reaching the Down Deep was no trivial matter.
The passage of time saturated the ruins.
Ruzik stayed alert as he brought up the rear of the Majda queen’s company. They followed a tunnel wide enough for their group to go two or three at a time, and he scanned the area as they walked. They numbered ten now, including Doctor Rajindia and her friend, the man called Paul Franco. Ruzik had heard of Franco, enough even to know his name. Franco earned fame because he lived in the Maze, this dense and tangled region that separated the Undercity from the Deep.
Although Ruzik wasn’t ready to trust the stranger, he kenned why someone might retreat to the Maze, staying away from everyone else. Hell, he’d thought about it himself as a kid, those times when the misery around him pressed on his mind until he had to escape. Instead of retreating, though, he gave the people in his circle the best life he could manage, enough so that sometimes, they felt happiness instead of pain.
Up ahead, Bhaaj was walking with the Majda queen, pretending to maintain their distant formality. Odd that. Neither of them seemed to realize they considered each other a friend. No matter. They’d figure it out.
Darkness lurked beyond the glow of their lamps, as if time had left ever-thickening shadows in this buried world. The chilly air had a faint scent, what normal people called “rocky sweet,” and Earth books called “cinnamon.” Ruzik had looked it up during one of his secret forays into the digitized records of the hilariously named “Cries University Chemistry Department Library.” That scent came from a molecule called cinnamaldehyde. Who the hell named this stuff? They actually said all those words out loud instead of just in their head.
He liked the learning, though, bad-mannered names and all. Traces of cinnamaldehyde showed up in the rocks, all that remained of the long-ago time when a sea had stretched across the land above. No one seemed to know what plants or other biz had existed then. It seemed like a story, a fable for telling small kids late at night, but never mind. He enjoyed the subject.
Ruzik let himself fall behind, out of earshot from the others, and tapped his gauntlet. Angel’s voice rose into the air. “Eh?”
“Check in,” Ruzik said.
“You good?”
“Yah. Done with punkers.”
“What’d they want?”
“Let their kids do Kyle riz.”
“Odd.” Her tone lightened. “Good.”
“Yah. Not need more check-ins,” Ruzik added. “Majda do them.” They no longer had to hide their actions from the colonel’s hard-assed sister now that they’d finished with the punkers.
“If need again,” Angel said, “Say to me.”
“Yah.” Ruzik let himself smile. “Good say.”
Her voice warmed. “Yah.”
With that, they cut the link.
Ruzik continued to monitor the area, alert and intrigued. It was one reason he liked being Bhaaj’s second; it meant trying new things, like this visit to the Deep. He even enjoyed the reading she inflicted on them, or at least he did after he figured out how to sneak onto the university meshes, those treasure troves of knowledge forbidden to his people. Ho! He delved into any subject that interested him, especially philosophy. Amazing. All those crassly polysyllabic words had an actual use, letting you talk about the ideas that spun and spun in your mind, never spoken.
Ruzik kenned it now, that because many of his people were empaths, they shared a sense of complex ideas instead of saying them. Except it always felt vague, besides which, not everyone could do it. When you had enough words, however, you could tell anyone exactly what you meant. All that learning also helped him find ways to improve life for his circle beyond the obvious solution of beating the shit out of other gangs and taking what had belonged to them.
He couldn’t get enough of military history. The strategies used by battle leaders fascinated him. The more he learned, though, the more fucked it seemed. All that sweat humans put into killing each other, and for what? Yah, you needed to survive, and he’d learned to stay on top, for his circle, his gang, and himself. Even so. The endless wars humanity wreaked on itself seemed like a miserable waste. A better way had to exist. Not that he had any ideas to offer, but he pondered it anyway.
So much had changed in the four years since he’d met Bhaaj. Rumors had swirled back then about a ganger who’d spent decades fighting for the “army” and then come home. Some kids claimed she’d taught them some sweet moves for the rough-and-tumble. They called themselves dust knights. Yah, cute. Maybe they could go hug some dust pups.
Then the cartel war came, crashing through the Undercity. He’d fought the punkers, killing several. He didn’t want the remorse that came to him in the night when even Angel couldn’t soothe his nightmares. Fuck the cartels. They’d smashed people he loved.
By the time the war ended, they’d all heard about how Bhaaj fought—faster, stronger, and smarter than anyone else. They wanted, needed to learn how she crushed her enemies. Ruzik kenned now that some of her abilities came from changes in her body, the “biomech web.” Even without it, though, like in the race in Selei City, she slayed.
After the war, more than the usual kids came to train with Bhaaj. Adult gangers, cyber-riders, even a cartel assassin. Before that session, Ruzik had known his power, known that no one could slam him in the rough-and-tumble. That day, he’d learned otherwise. He fought like crap. To master tykado, he had to relearn everything. He’d also finally recognized Bhaaj. In her youth, her dust gang had protected the circle where he and Byte-2 lived. Although she’d left the Undercity when he was small, some of his earliest memories included how well she’d treated them.
The rep of the Knights had spread fast, even up to Cries. When Ruzik and Angel placed in the Selei City Open on the world Parthonia, people asked their names. They just answered, “Dust Knight,” and the title spread into the offworld version of a Whisper Mill, what slicks called the interstellar networks.
A scrape came from the darkness behind him.
Ruzik stopped and turned, putting his back to the wall of the tunnel.
Listening.
There! A scrape.
Tower, he thought.
She sent him a sense of questioning.
Come. She’d been just ahead of him in their group. If she slipped back here, no one would notice except maybe Bhaaj, and she knew she could trust his instincts.
As Tower appeared out of the shadows, Ruzik held up his hand, cautioning silence.
They stood and listened.
Yah, again, boots scraping on stone, faint but there.
Tower took up position across the tunnel, and Ruzik touched his gauntlet, slowly fading his light. A sense of agreement came from Tower, followed by the dimming of her light. They kept it gradual, as if they were moving away. In a few moments, the darkness became complete. He couldn’t see his hand when he held it in front of his face.
Listening.
More scrapes nearby, stealthy footsteps.
Unease came from Tower. Concentrating, Ruzik picked up her mood, something about not bashing people they knew nothing about. Yah, right, their followers had a good reason for skulking around this remote, isolated place. They creep, he thought with enough force to reach her. They hide. He had one priority above all else: protect the Majda visit. Attack now, ask questions later.
A sense of agreement came from Tower.
They waited.
The footsteps came closer.
Three people, Ruzik decided.
Yah. Tower’s actual thought came to him that time, a rarity.
Closer still—he heard breathing—
Now! Ruzik hit a panel on his gauntlet.
Light flooded the tunnel, blinding after the darkness. Ruzik was ready. He had two seconds to see what they faced: a woman with a giant dagger, a tall man with a knife, and a smaller man with a knife sheathed on his belt. Ruzik lunged at the tall man.
The big guy took a second too long to ken what had happened with the light; by the time he reacted, thrusting his blade, Ruzik had already blocked the strike. At the same time, he kicked hard, whamming his boot into the man’s knee. His opponent shouted and stumbled backward, staggering while Ruzik came at him with a series of tykado punches. Although the guy sort of countered his blows, he couldn’t move worth shit. Ruzik pivoted away, grabbed the guy, and yanked him around, twisting his arm behind his back. Wrapping his other arm around the man’s neck, he squeezed until his opponent gasped for breath. Locked in that stance, he kept up the pressure, trying to cut off the man’s breath enough to make him pass out. Damn! This guy had control. Ruzik forced him to the ground—the guy dropped his knife—Ruzik kicked it away—
An attack came from the side, a blow that hurtled Ruzik across the ground. Moving by instinct, he rolled and jumped to his feet. The woman he’d seen earlier came at him, stabbing at his chest. He spun on one foot, evading the worst of her attack, but her knife slashed his arm. As blood spurted up, he gritted his teeth. He kept moving, hard and fast, raising his fist—
Tower barreled into the woman. In that same instant, another blow came at Ruzik from behind. Pivoting, he found the dude he’d knocked down was up again, swaying but still going. The man lunged, but mistimed his faltering steps, making him easy to evade. With a grunt, Ruzik socked him hard. As the guy staggered, Tower grabbed him, then dropped him to the ground on his stomach and yanked his arms behind his back.
Whirling, Ruzik saw—damn! The dagger chick was up again, wielding her knife even as blood leaked from a gash on her side. He grabbed her bicep, blocking her thrust, and pushed her face first against the wall while he pulled her arms behind her back. Holding her wrists with one hand, he forced the knife out of her hand, then pulled off the cloth he used as a belt. Uncowed, she continued to fight even as he tied her wrists behind her back. Heaving in a breath, he glanced around—yah, there, Tower had tied up the taller guy. The smaller one lay motionless on the ground, either unconscious or dead.
Ruzik pulled his prisoner away from the wall and shoved her toward Tower. As the woman stumbled forward, she cursed at him, and then fell, catching herself on one knee.
“Sit,” Ruzik said. “Stay put. Or you get dead.”
The woman eased into a sitting position, staring like she could incinerate him with her gaze.
“You too.” Tower hefted up the taller man and pushed him over to the woman. He sat next to her while he glowered at Tower. For good measure, he gave Ruzik the same look. So they stayed, a surly duo with their hands bound behind their backs.
Ruzik glanced at Tower, and she nodded, kenning his intent. While she made sure the duo remained secured, Ruzik went to where the third man lay by the wall.
“You alive?” Ruzik asked.
The man groaned and opened his eyes. “Fuck, no.”
“Eh,” Ruzik told him, more relieved than he’d ever reveal. He had no wish to kill them. He turned the guy over and pulled off the man’s ragged belt. It worked far better for tying his wrists than for holding up his ugly-assed trousers.
“What you doing?” the guy mumbled.
“Stand up,” Ruzik told him.
“Can’t,” the guy muttered.
“Yah, can.” Ruzik put his hand under his prisoner’s large bicep and pulled upward, helping him climb to his feet. The man grunted at him.
“Here.” Ruzik took him over to his companions, who sat unmoving under Tower’s cold stare. With an unceremonious push, Ruzik sat him next to the other two.
“Fuck you and your kids and your kid’s kids,” the woman told Ruzik, followed by some of the most inspired cussing he’d heard, like Go drown your ugly crap holes in rotting gas-slug corpses. Hah! Next time he got pissed, that’d be a good one to use. He stood in front of the hapless trio with his arms crossed, letting his biceps bulge. Blood ran over his arm from where the woman had sliced him.
Tower moved behind the trio so they couldn’t see her. That way, she and Ruzik could see into the tunnel beyond in either direction in case anyone else came skulking around.
“Why you creep after us?” Ruzik asked, his voice deceptively mild.
They all scowled at him.
“Thieves,” Tower decided.
“Yah.” Ruzik considered them. “Want to pinch our stuff, eh?”
The woman spoke in a harsh voice. “Majda queen got more than she needs.”
Well, shit. They had meant to rob the colonel. His voice hardened. “Queen got bargain with us.”
“Yah,” Tower told them. “You screwed up.”
“Yah, well, fuck you,” the woman told her.
Ruzik glanced at Tower over their heads. “They break bargain. Go after queen.”
Tower snorted. “Leave ’em tied up, eh? Feet, too.”
Ruzik motioned at the walls. “Tie to holes in rock. Leave here.” He had no intention of stranding them alone without a way to escape, but they didn’t need to know that.
“Wait!” the woman said.
“Not leave us,” the tall man said.
“Not got water,” the woman said.
“Not got food,” the tall man added.
The muscular man grunted. “Not got shit.”
Ruzik spoke to Tower. “Maybe we just cut throat. Not leave to starve.”
She pretended to consider the thought. “More kind, eh?”
“Nahya!” The woman stared at Ruzik. “Not kill.”
He met her gaze. “You spit on bargain with queen. With Dust Knights.”
The beefy man said, “Got no tumble with Dust Knights.”
Ruzik tapped his own temple. “Knight.” He pointed to Tower. “Knight.”
“Eh?” The guy’s face paled.
“Gangers always rough-and-tumble,” the woman said. “We lose, we leave. Not kill!”
Ruzik knew exactly what she meant. Dust gangs battled to protect their territory. You never killed your challengers, at least not on purpose. The losers gave up the contested stuff. Done.
“This not same,” he said. “You go against Majda. They get pissed, we all pay price.”
The thieves had the brains to look scared, at least the woman and the taller guy.
“Stupid to fight Dust Knights,” Tower added from behind them.
“Not know you Knights,” the muscular man claimed.
“That lizard crap,” Ruzik told him. Everyone knew they protected the Majda visit.
“We go.” The woman made it sound like an oath written in blood. “Not mess with queen.”
“Not come back,” the taller man promised.
“We swear,” the woman added.
“Yah, well, all people swear,” Ruzik told her. “Then here you come. We let you go, you try pinch Majda again.”
“Nahya!” the taller man said.
“You got any good stuff?” the beefy man asked Ruzik. “We pinch yours.”
“For fuck’s sake,” the woman told him. “Shut mouth.”
Ruzik glanced at Tower, and she nodded, her agreement hidden from the thieves. He scowled for a while as if he were waging a mental battle. Finally he said, “So, yah. Okay. Got prop.”
The thieves sat up straighter, hope flashing across their faces. “We listen,” the woman said.
“We keep hands tied,” Ruzik said. “Take boots. Then let you go. You keep lights. Go out way you come in. Not bother us again. Never.” He shouldn’t have added that last; proposals didn’t include forever demands. He was pissed enough, though, that he didn’t care.
“Yah.” The woman didn’t even try to negotiate. “We go. Not come back. Never.”
Ruzik made a show of looking at Tower over their heads. “What think?”
She waited long enough to make the thieves sweat more. “Maybe.”
“Why maybe?” Ruzik asked.
“Not like them,” Tower said.
“Yah,” Ruzik agreed.
“We swear!” the woman said.
“On honor!” the taller man said.
“Got pinched stuff at home,” the beefy man informed them. “Need get back, or some bit-kit pinch it back from me.”
“Goddess all-fucking-mighty.” The woman glared at him. “Shut mouth!”
“You not helping,” the other man told him.
Ruzik just looked at Tower. They let the moment stretch out until it became excruciating.
Tower finally said, “What the hell. Let them go.”
The thieves visibly sagged, the taller man letting out a whoosh of breath.
Ruzik and Tower made quick work of taking the boots from their prisoners and flicking on their lamps. That done, they hefted the three thieves back up to their feet.
“Go.” Ruzik shoved the woman in the direction the trio had come, back toward the Undercity. “Not come back.”
“Yah.” Tower pushed the taller man. “Never.”
“Or we whack,” Ruzik added.
“Not want that,” the beefy man informed them.
“Enough,” the woman told him. The trio set off, limping back home.
Ruzik watched until the light of their lamps faded. “Stupid,” he muttered.
“You trust them not to come back?” Tower asked.
“Mostly.” Given the beating they’d taken, Ruzik doubted they’d have tried going after the Majda party again even if he and Tower hadn’t threatened to kill them. “But we keep look out.”
“Yah.” Tower touched his arm. “Better fix that, eh?”
Ruzik looked down. The blood from the gash across his bicep had dripped down his torso. As much as he hated to use their good water for anything besides drinking, he needed to clean the wound. He could bind it with a strip of cloth torn from his shirt.
“I take care of.” He motioned toward the tunnel in the direction of the Deep. “We get back to Majda.”
“What?” Bhaaj said.
Lavinda glanced at her. “I didn’t say anything.”
Bhaaj frowned as they walked along the tunnel. The Majda guards were up ahead with Karal and their unnamed guide. Byte-2 came next, then Lavinda and Bhaaj, with Ruzik and Tower to bring up the rear.
“It’s nothing.” Bhaaj fell silent, concentrating. Ruzik and Tower had fallen behind and were up to something. Both were . . . doing their job, guarding the group.
“Eh,” Bhaaj muttered.
“What’s up?” Lavinda asked.
“Just thinking.” Whatever Ruzik had found, she trusted his ability to deal with it.
“I should check in with Majda security,” Lavinda said.
“Good idea.” The more open they kept their comms, the better.
“Raja,” Lavinda said.
A woman answered with an elegant Iotic accent. “Do you wish me to contact the palace?”
Up ahead, Byte-2 whirled around, drawing the knife at his belt, fast and efficient.
“Ho!” Tower said behind them. “Who the hell said that?”
Bhaaj glanced back with a start. Tower was following them again, with Ruzik coming up behind her.
“Not problem,” Ruzik called to his brother. “Just queen’s talky.”
Byte-2 scowled, but after a pause, he sheathed his knife, keeping his hand on the hilt.
“Raja, identify yourself,” Lavinda said.
“My greetings,” Raja said. “I am the EI for Her Royal Highness.”
Bhaaj wondered if Lavinda realized Raja had an Iotic accent. You couldn’t buy an EI that way; they came with a neutral template. However, true to their name, EIs evolved with their users.
“Raja, contact Duane Ebersole in palace security,” Lavinda said.
“One moment,” the EI answered.
While they waited for Duane to come online, Bhaaj fell back, giving Lavinda privacy. Joining Tower and Ruzik, she spoke in a quiet voice. “Problem?”
“Nahya.” Ruzik kept his voice low. “Thieves come. We deal. Send home.”
“Beat them up,” Tower said, her voice barely audible.
“Tell them we cut throats,” Ruzik added.
“For fuck’s sake,” Bhaaj said. “Not kill people.”
“Not do it,” Ruzik allowed. “Just scare them.”
Tower smirked. “A lot.”
“We keep look out,” Ruzik said. “Just in case.”
Knowing Ruzik and Tower, Bhaaj suspected they’d terrified the would-be thieves. Ruzik was another matter, though, with that bloody cloth on his arm. “You hurt?” she asked.
“Nahya,” he told her.
“Get healer for it,” Bhaaj said.
“Not need,” he growled. “Is fine.”
Bhaaj scowled at him. “Always you say fine. You die, still say fine.”
Tower gave a silent laugh. “Like Bhaaj, eh?”
“Nahya,” Bhaaj told them, even though Tower spoke the truth. Sometimes her Dust Knights learned her ways too well. “Healer Karal look at.”
Ruzik grunted, but then said, “Yah. At Deep.”
From up ahead, Raja spoke at a normal volume, which they could hear back here. “I have Captain Ebersole on the line.”
As Bhaaj caught up with Lavinda, Duane’s voice came over her comm, professional and friendly. “My greetings, Colonel Majda. How is the visit?”
“It’s good,” Lavinda said. “We’ve met with some families, with Doctor Rajindia, and with uh—” She squinted at the air. “Other citizens who have an interest in the Kyle program.”
“I’ll let General Majda know it’s going well.” Although Duane said nothing about Lavinda’s pause, Bhaaj had no doubt he’d noticed. He missed very little. He was also the only member of the Majda police force—hell, any police force—that people from the aqueducts tolerated. Or at least, they no longer tried to whack him if he came here.
Bhaaj glanced at Lavinda and motioned at her comm. With a nod, Lavinda said, “Captain Ebersole, Major Bhaajan would like to talk to you.”
“Of course,” Duane said. “My greetings, Major.”
“My greetings,” Bhaaj answered. “I was wondering if you knew anything about someone named Mason Qazik. Angel said he contacted her about his sports team.”
“Sorry,” Duane said. “Never heard of him.”
“Hah!” Lavinda grinned. “I can answer that one. He coaches the Olympic track-and-field team. I suggested he look at the recording of the Selei Open, the race that Angel won.” She spoke in a confiding voice. “My niece Azarina is a runner. She hopes to make the Olympic team. She’s quite good.”
Bhaaj smiled, then realized she’d never responded that way to a royal. Well, never mind. If her subconscious thought the time had come with Lavinda, who was she to argue.
“Oh, I know who you mean,” Duane said. “I didn’t recognize his name, but I’ve seen him on a few sportscasts.”
“Angel is meeting him at the sports complex today,” Bhaaj said. “Eighth hour after Midday Sleep. I’m worried they won’t let her in.” It was one of many places in Cries that forbade entrance to her people. Not that anyone from the Undercity wanted to go there. They didn’t even know it existed. Even so. Someone had felt the need to decree that none of her people could invade their precious sports fiefdom, never mind that such an exclusion wasn’t legal for buildings supported by city funds.
Lavinda spoke. “Captain Ebersole, why don’t you meet her there? Make sure no problems come up.”
“I’d be happy to.” If it bothered him that he got relegated to the arena while the less senior Captain Morah had the prestigious assignment of guarding an heir to the Majda throne, no sign of it showed in his voice. Although Bhaaj doubted he missed the slight, he wouldn’t have reached his high position in a female-dominated profession if he didn’t know how to deal with it. She’d learned fast in her youth that she’d never survive in the army if she couldn’t control her urge to beat up people who bad-mouthed her Undercity background. And Duane could run circles around her with his restraint.
“Thank you, Captain,” Lavinda said. “I’ll check in with you again later.”
“Will do, Colonel.”
After Lavinda signed off, she scowled at Bhaaj. “Don’t give me that look.”
Bhaaj blinked, baffled. “What look?”
“That ‘What the hell is wrong with your idiot sister, not sending him here’ look.”
Bhaaj spoke blandly. “I would never speak with disrespect about the General of the Pharaoh’s Army.”
“Listen, Bhaaj. She knows she’s from another era.” Lavinda exhaled. “She may not like the way customs have changed, but she adapts as best she can. Surely you’ve seen your own people struggling to deal with similar cultural conflicts.”
“Not at all.” An edge came into Bhaaj’s voice. “We don’t have the luxury of telling half our population that they can’t step outside roles supposedly dictated by their sex.”
A call came from Captain Byte-2 up ahead. “One by one.”
Lavinda glanced at her.
“He means go single file.” Bhaaj motioned toward the path ahead. “This way narrows.”
Lavinda grimaced. “It’s a good thing I don’t get claustrophobia.”
“Yah.” Bhaaj gave her the truth. “These tunnels are ancient. We don’t dig new ones or widen them because we don’t want to threaten their stability.” She trailed her hand along the wall. The rock felt smooth. “The architects who built this place were geniuses. These ruins have lasted for millennia. They aren’t indestructible, though. Sometimes they collapse.” Hence, the Maze.
Lavinda spoke dryly. “Vaj would have a royal fit if she knew what I was doing.”
“It should be safe.” Bhaaj stopped as Byte-2 held back, letting the doctor’s mystery friend go ahead of him, probably so he could keep watch on the man. Once they started again, Lavinda followed and Bhaaj came next along the narrowed tunnel.
Nothing broke the silence except their muffled footsteps and the distant dripping of water. Their party stretched out, well separated as they walked. Eventually the path widened again, but Bhaaj held back, sensing Lavinda’s wish to take in their eerily beautiful surroundings alone. Delicate stone hangings appeared out of the darkness, their crystals glittering like constellations brought here from the night sky. These caves predated the ruins by eons. Over the ages, they had become a wonderland of rocky lacework and rippled stone curtains, all formed as mineral-rich water trickled through the rock from underground streams and lakes. Bhaaj hoped the Deepers hadn’t become desperate enough to drink the unfiltered water. It could spread carnelian rash wicked fast.
Karal Rajindia fell back to walk with Bhaaj. “I never knew about this route to the Deep.”
“I doubt many people do,” Bhaaj said. “Your friend seems to know the Maze well.”
“He lives here,” Karal said. “He’s like a nomad wandering through the outer edges of the Maze.” She spoke dryly. “This is some labyrinth. If my EI wasn’t mapping our route, I’d never find my way out.”
“Even that might not be enough.” Bhaaj thought of her previous attempts to trace a path here. “The Maze is huge, maybe even hundreds of square kilometers. It’s crisscrossed by all sorts of tech-mech signals. It’ll interfere with your EI.” She paused, then added what she’d normally never tell someone from Cries. With Karal, it was different, though. “The signals come from the cyber-riders. They hide us from the above-city.”
“Paul mentioned something like that.”
“Paul?” Bhaaj didn’t recognize the name. It sounded like Caul, one of the most common Skolian names, but she liked this variation.
Karal motioned toward her friend. “Paul Franco.” She winced. “Ah, damn. Don’t tell him I said his name.” Her look turned rueful. “It’s hard to change a lifetime of customs.”
Bhaaj spoke wryly. “I had a terrible time when I enlisted. I kept fighting people for asking my name.” She glanced at Paul. “How’d you meet him?”
“After he broke his arm, he came to my clinic for help.” The hint of a smile touched her face. “We hit it off well. We’re both empaths.”
“Ah.” Bhaaj had no idea how to respond. Imperialate royalty never “hit it off well” with even highly placed commoners. With someone in the Undercity? Unheard of. Then again, the bond that formed between empaths could defy even the strongest customs.
“We got to know each other by playing the Doppelganger game,” Karal added. “It’s fun.”
Bhaaj grimaced. “I hate that game.”
“Really? Why?” Karal regarded her with curiosity. “Did it come up with someone you didn’t want to look like?”
“The opposite.” Bhaaj spoke with a longing that she usually repressed. Down here, though, in the darkness surrounded by a glittering fantasy world, it felt more distant. “I tried every database I could access, and I never got a single match.”
“Not even a relative?”
“I don’t have any.” Bhaaj pushed away her sense of loss. “After I enlisted, the army checked to see if they could locate anyone who carried even a small amount of the same DNA as me. They didn’t find anything.”
Karal spoke thoughtfully. “Before I started working here, I thought the government had DNA records for just about everyone. That was before I realized how thoroughly your people stay off the grid.”
Bhaaj shrugged as if she didn’t care about her lack of relatives, which was a lie, but not one she’d admit. “That’s what the army docs told me. All my ancestors must come from the Undercity. Back then, the military had no records on our population.”
“We have a few now, from my clinic.”
Bhaaj stiffened. “You’re spying on us?”
“Well, no. It’s just for my patients.” Karal paused. “It’s confidential. I always let them know I keep records. I’m not trying to trick anyone.”
“They don’t know what ‘keep records’ means.” Bhaaj scowled at her. “They have no idea the above-city can identify them from those records.”
“Bhaaj, I explain it, I swear. In detail. Some agree and some don’t. For those who don’t, I respect their wishes.”
Bhaaj still didn’t like it. After all this time, though, she knew Karal well enough to trust her word. Besides, it benefited the people of the Undercity to know more about their genetics. “Did you and Paul find any doppelgangers for yourselves?”
“A few.” A smile warmed her face. “Our favorites are from Earth. He looks like a man called Dario Franchitti who raced cars in the twenty-first century. I look like an actress from that era named Alana De La Garza, but with darker coloring.”
Bhaaj wondered how it felt to know that people existed who looked enough like you that they might share some of your ancestry, even as distant as Earth relatives. She’d never had that gift.
“You’re lucky.” Bhaaj hesitated. “One time, I sort of found one. She wasn’t real, though. It was a digital painting called ‘Warrior’ by an artist named Luis Royo from Earth. It appeared on the cover of the magazine Heavy Metal in the year 2005. The picture looked like me when I was young.”
“Were you happy with it?”
“I guess.” Bhaaj shrugged. “You could see through her clothes. I never dressed that way.” Then she amended, “But yah, she otherwise looked like me. Her face, the other stuff she wore, her hair, her shape, it could have been me. She just wasn’t a real person.”
“Maybe the artist used a real model for the painting,” Karal offered.
“Maybe.” Bhaaj felt too embarrassed to admit just how thoroughly she’d searched. She’d never found anything about any woman who might have posed for the picture. That didn’t say much, though. Earth had lost a huge amount of data during its Virus Wars, which decimated both the living and digital spheres, wiping out a significant portion of the human population and their records. Even if the data had existed, Bhaaj doubted it would’ve helped. Genetically her people had diverged from Earth’s populations long ago. Any similarities, like the ones Karal and her friend Paul found, probably happened more by chance than any close genetic connection.
Karal was watching her closely. “You have ancestors. Somewhere.”
“I’ll never know, I guess.”
“Someone must have witnessed your birth.”
Bhaaj spoke bitterly. “Yah. My mother.” She really didn’t want to talk about this. It hurt too much. Her mother had come from the Deep. Maybe. Probably. Hell, who knew. For most of her life, Bhaaj had denied the Deep existed. Yah, she was an idiot. Everyone in the aqueducts knew about it. Deepers almost never visited the Undercity, though, so she’d let herself “forget.”
No one knew what happened during her birth beyond a vague tale that someone found a dead woman in a cave with her newborn baby squalling for help. For some reason, they took the infant to the orphanage in Cries. Why? Women here often died giving birth, especially before Karal had come. The mother’s circle always found a place for the baby. No one would strand a child in that blighted orphanage. Yet some monster had left her in a basket by its door with a message tucked into her swaddling, its words scrawled in the Undercity dialect: Parents dead. Bhaaj’s jan.
Bhaaj’s jan. The daughter of someone named Bhaaj. That message remained her sole legacy.
She’d lived in the orphanage for three years, until the day Dig Kajada freed her. The cops had caught Dig stealing food on the Concourse and dumped her in the orphanage. She ran away, of course, back to the Undercity, and she took the younger Bhaaj with her. Dig, Jak, and Gourd became Bhaaj’s family, a ragged gang of kids with no supervision except Dig’s demon of a mother who didn’t give two shits about them. In her youth, Bhaaj had dreamed her father came from the above-city. That fantasy died when the army found exactly zilch about her heritage. She’d lived with that loneliness ever since.
She said only, “My mother died giving me birth. I saw it.”
“I’m sorry.” Karal’s forehead wrinkled with puzzlement. “How could you see it as a newborn?”
“Not see, exactly.” It was a moment before Bhaaj continued. “I’m an empath. Apparently, my mother was too. You know how that works, yes? The parents and unborn child form a bond. My mind linked with my mother. Maybe my father, too.” Father. Some unknown stranger held the dubious honor of that title. Maybe he had died, maybe not. If he’d lived, he obviously hadn’t wanted her. She’d rather believe he chose to abandon her, though, than what the note left in her basket said, that both her parents had died.
“You mean your mind was linked to your mother’s during the birth?” Karal asked. “That can be traumatic. I hope the doctor or midwife monitored the process to protect you.”
“What doctor or midwife? I was born in a fucking cave.”
Bhaaj, she has no way to know, Max thought. It’s not her fault.
Bhaaj took a breath, then spoke more evenly. “The Kyle docs think I experienced every moment of my mother’s labor, linked to her mind. And then I—I died with her.”
Karal spoke softly. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t remember, of course.” Bhaaj gave up trying to pretend she didn’t care. “The neurologists think that’s part of why I repressed my Kyle abilities.”
Karal spoke with compassion. “Many of your people do.”
“It’s a survival mechanism.” When the doctor started to speak again, Bhaaj held up her hand. She couldn’t talk about it anymore.
Someone spoke up ahead, and they all slowed down, gathering into a group.
“What’s wrong?” Karal asked.
“Too much light,” Paul told her.
“Too much?” Lavinda seemed perplexed. “We hardly have any at all.”
“Close to Deep now?” Bhaaj asked.
Paul nodded. “Lamps too bright for Deepers.” He switched off his light, followed by everyone else. Darkness closed around them—except it wasn’t truly dark. The stone everywhere glowed, an effect too faint to see when their lights were on. A blue sheen spiraled across the walls, and the lacy rock formations shimmered as if dusted by an ephemeral blue glitter.
“Good gods,” Lavinda said. “What is that?”
“Bioluminescence,” Karal said. “I think.”
“Bi-what?” Tower asked.
“Living thing that makes light,” Karal said.
“Bio jibber,” Byte-2 muttered, unimpressed.
Tower went to the wall and peered at the swirls of light. “Rock glow blue. Not alive.”
“This light lives,” Bhaaj said. It was some sort of algae, though different from what floated in seas. It needed less moisture to survive.
Tower turned, then jerked, her face barely visible in the blue light. “Bhaaj! Got bio stuff.”
Lavinda spoke uneasily. “She’s right, Bhaaj. You’re glowing.”
Already? The only other time Bhaaj had come here, it had taken longer for the chemicals in the air to react with whatever they activated in her skin. She glanced at her arms. Her skin already showed a faint blue luminance.
I don’t like it, Max thought. Last time, this algae mucked up my systems.
I thought you updated your tech to fix that, Bhaaj thought.
Yes, and it will help. However, I can’t guarantee it won’t eventually affect me.
We won’t stay here long.
All right. I’ll let you know if any problems start.
Good. Bhaaj spoke to the others. “It’s a genetic trait of the Deepers. Their skin reacts with the algae in the air.”
“But you aren’t a Deeper,” Lavinda said. “You’re Undercity.”
“I have some Deeper DNA.” Bhaaj shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Not both parents. If I was pure Deeper. I couldn’t go aboveground without protection. The sunlight would scorch my skin. Even living in the Undercity would be difficult.”
“Enough talky.” Paul looked ready to jump back into motion. “We go.”
“How far?” Karal asked.
“Not much.” A curl fell into Paul’s face, and he pushed it aside. With that done, he headed into the blue-tinged darkness. The rest of them followed, spreading out again.
Lavinda walked with Bhaaj. “Raja, my EI, says the algae are getting into her systems. I don’t want to lose my line to Captain Ebersole.” With a scowl, she added, “The last thing I need is Vaj deciding she needs to ‘rescue’ me.”
“Raja should be all right. We won’t be here for long.” Bhaaj tapped her gauntlet. “Max can deal with it better. If you ever can’t reach Captain Ebersole, I can contact him. I also have two of my beetle-bots.” She still had the little spy drones in the pocket of her jacket. “I could send one of them.”
“Good.” Lavinda thought for a moment. “It wouldn’t hurt if we also had a person to relay messages, just in case our tech fails.”
Bhaaj raised her voice. “Byte?”
Ruzik’s brother glanced back. “Eh?”
“Need Tam,” Bhaaj said. “You get?” No one could run like Tam Wiens, especially in long distances. Byte-2 and Tam had remained friends for years, even after Tam left the circle protected by Ruzik’s gang and joined her own dust gang.
Byte-2 slowed to walk with them. “How get? No whispers here.”
Bhaaj raised her gauntleted arm. “I call. You talk?”
“Tam not got comm,” Byte-2 said.
Ruzik said, “Ask Hack.”
“Oh. Yah.” Bhaaj nodded. As a cyber-rider in Ruzik’s circle, Hack also knew Tam, and Hack had all sorts of tech-mech he could use to contact people.
“Hack find him, no problem,” Ruzik said.
Byte-2 scowled at his brother. “Find her. Not him.”
Ruzik squinted at him. “Uh, okay. Her.”
Ruzik’s confusion didn’t surprise Bhaaj. Tam hadn’t transitioned until after she left his circle, and mostly she just kept in touch with Byte-2. Born only two days apart, they’d been like twins.
After leaving a message with Hack, they continued on, heading for a world with no light, only blue swirls that glistened as if ghosts had brushed through the Deep.