Lila zoomed down Leclerc Street, a block away from the capitol. The building sat at the epicenter of the city and its twelve highborn estates, with their walled and gated compounds scattered around it, their pockets of skyscrapers, high rises, and glass-domed towers. The estates shot through the mud of the lowborn and the muck of the workborn like rose bushes of varying beauty and size, sporadically planted, struggling through weeds in a large garden.
And these rose bushes towered over Bullstow.
Lila slipped briefly onto the interstate before disembarking two exits later in East New Bristol. The foot traffic moved briskly down the sidewalk on either side of the street, boots clomping on graceless feet, heads undulating like a ribboned wave. They stamped over the grit, soot, and litter on the streets, and their conversations pitched up and down like a rollercoaster depending on the topic. The bells on wire-framed bikes rang out as their riders impatiently threaded in and out of the crowd.
The road became grittier as she traveled down Wickersham, and the smell of damp, sooty air choked her nose. She cruised past the yawning gates of the Wilson-Kruger compound, its name sculpted in twisted steel. Dirty as a workborn slum, the estate stood as a cautionary tale to the rest of the highborn in the city. These days, Chairwoman Wilson abandoned more structures than she filled, leaving the skyline pockmarked and chipped and covered in grime. Vandals had shattered the windows in many buildings, sprayed the doors with paint, and even cracked the bricks in their boredom.
At one time the noise from the plants had been deafening, but the sound of the machines had decreased year after year, traded for the squeals and shouts of the idle. The last time Lila had been inside the compound, half-drunken groups had milled inside like hordes of zombies, for there wasn’t enough money to keep all the plants open and there wasn’t enough sense in the chairwoman’s head to find them other employment. There would be even more people now, in want and in need of something to do. She did not envy the woman’s chief of security for having to deal with the fallout.
There might not be anything left of the estate after Chairwoman Wilson died, except for the land underneath it. Fortunately, Beatrice Randolph was very fond of land and considered the investment worth it. If Lila’s mother did not raze the plants and erect skyscrapers in their place, then she would likely rent out the property to lowborn businesses. On the day of the transfer, every highborn inside would become members of the workborn, dividends cut off, bank accounts slashed to pay the Randolphs for their marks. They’d have no prospects until they bound themselves in service to another family through contract, picking up their old roles for pay as doctors, architects, programmers, or perhaps clerks and landscapers if they could not find better. Many would move for new opportunities and anonymity, starting fresh elsewhere.
Lila emerged on Shippers Lane after changing her license plate to a fake one in an alley. The street sat on the border of East New Bristol, the poorest section of the capital. The buildings looked little different than the Wilson estate, except that there were no walls surrounding them to keep anyone in or out.
She parked her bike in front of a worn, yet well cared for, Chinese restaurant. Smells leaked out of the Plum Luck Dragon: fried rice, chicken teriyaki, sweet and sour pork, beef lo mein, barbecue ribs. People stood outside chatting with one another, shaking hands, and laughing. Lila knew the restaurant’s name well, even by its Chinese characters. It had been spelled out on every takeout packet in
the old hotel.
She glanced at her palm, which had continued to trace Tristan during her ride.
He had not moved from his spot.
Circling around the restaurant, Lila crossed into the alley and wrinkled her nose at the smell of piss and rotting food. Her stomach lurched, and she thought she might be sick.
Behind PLD. Now, she messaged Tristan.
Her nose had just begun to adjust to the stench when a rangy man stepped into the alley, casting his dark, wary eyes over her. His long brown leather coat smelled faintly of smoke and gasoline, a welcome relief from the odors in the alley, and his white scarf was gray from soot. It smeared onto his face as he unwrapped it from his jaw. The ends dropped around his neck like a loosened tie, exposing his slave’s incision and a deeper scar where it had been cut out.
Lila thought, not for the first time, that Tristan would have fit in well in High House if his mother had not been born a slave. Even with his low birth, he might have made something of himself. Instead, he had run away from his masters at seventeen and had taken out his slave chip six months too early. It was much too late for him to claim respectability now.
Even still, Lila wondered how he’d look in a burgundy coat and black breeches.
“I’m not a member of your militia to be ordered about, chief,” he grumbled. His words hung in the air, wrapped in the remains of an accent from the western state of Bordeaux, infused with the rolling waves of the sea. He thrust his sooty knit cap into his pocket, and his close-cropped dark hair stuck up oddly, so unlike the long locks of the proper senators of Bullstow. He mussed it, furthering its disarray. “How’d you find me?”
“I traced your palm. I shouldn’t have had to.”
“Reaper said it couldn’t be traced.”
“Your hacker isn’t as good as I am. You neglected to answer my message.”
Tristan’s mud-caked work boots scratched against the ground as he backed away to the opposite side of the alley, only three paces wide. “I’ve been busy today.” He studied her from head to toe with his dark eyes. “What do you want?”
“What do I— What do you think I want? I want to know what in the world you were thinking last night.” She slipped her hand into her breast pocket and turned on her jammer.
Tristan eyed her pocket.
“The AAS?” She rolled her eyes. “Why didn’t you just call it the Anti-Slavery Society?”
“A-S-S. ASS? You think we should call ourselves ASS?”
“It fits you better.”
“Dixon said you were limping last night. Are you hurt?”
“Do you care?”
“I asked, didn’t I? Dixon lost track of you, and the others never saw you cross their checkpoints. I figured you were okay when you finally sent me that message, vague as it was.”
“Why’d you ignore it, then? Is typing out a few letters so strenuous?”