Unity by Elly Bangs (free e reader txt) 📕

She nodded again.

I kept my eyes on the crowd and leaned in closer to Naoto to ask, “Do you know her destination, or is she the only one capable of discussing it and planning the route?”

The look on his face answered for him. He sighed and confided, “She just needs something to break the downward spiral, and I know what she usually takes. Find us an autopharmacy booth and I’ll do the rest.”

“There are no autopharmacies on the surface,” I said. “There’s probably a drug dealer in the market. What does she normally take?”

He stared at me long and hard, sizing me up. He leaned in close to say, “Look, I know the plan was only for me to tag along this far, but I can’t leave until I know she’s okay. Until she’s functioning again, and safely on her way the hell out of this place. Just point me to a dealer. I’ll handle it.”

I nodded. His distrust was palpable, but I didn’t mind it; I was a monster, after all. I was also thankful for his help, even if it gave me a second body to guard.

“No autopharmacies?” he echoed to himself, incredulously. “How does anyone live up here?”

It was all too clear now that he’d been a lifelong aquapolitan until today. He stared in disbelief at almost everything: the tents and yurts and crude shade structures melted together from hundred-year-old plastic trash, brand names still legible; the formations of trailers nestled among the walls of half-destroyed buildings; the clots of human beings whose skins were all pockmarked and leathery from the harsh environment.

“What do they do when storm season comes?” he asked Danae. “Pack up the entire town and move it out of the way?”

Danae only stared ahead. Her cold sweat attracted a thickening layer of dust, forming a mask.

“Essentially,” I answered for her. “Those that can afford the energy expense usually try to migrate out of the path of the worst weather. Others may try to ride it out, if they can afford three months of provisions.”

“What do they do if they can’t afford either?”

“Perish,” Danae murmured.

The market was a two-tiered labyrinth of stalls and narrow corridors. I took comfort in its cluttered design: lines of sight would be short here, hiding places numerous, crowds too dense to run through. Plankton burgers were frying on sheets of hot black metal. Hiding in their warm and pungent steam, burying our voices under the noise of the bustle, we were as safe here as we could be.

I pointed out a vendor stall with the white stripes that customarily signified dealers and dispensaries on dry land, and Naoto motioned for us to wait while he muscled through the crowd to negotiate the purchase. It took him a while. When he returned, he had an unmarked, single-use injector full of a milky, sky-blue fluid.

“I’m sorry it’s not what you usually use,” Naoto told Danae, his hands curling softly around her shoulders. “I can barely understand the accent up here, honestly, but they said it would help. It’s the strongest mood stabilizer they had.”

She turned sluggishly toward the wall for a semblance of privacy. She rolled up the sleeve of her coveralls, put the needle in her vein, and squeezed the bubble.

Naoto shot me a harsh look. “You could have warned me they don’t even take cash up here. I had to barter a silver ring for that one injector.”

Something was wrong. We were still well within Epak’s Greater Economic Zone; this close to the coast, Medusa Clan enforced an informal requirement for everyone to transact in squid. The vendor wouldn’t risk the severed fingers, unless—

“He cheated me, didn’t he,” Naoto said, reading my face.

I looked up from the headlines scrolling across my shard. “Yes, but we have bigger problems. The global market is in free fall. Squid will be functionally worthless on land for now.”

“Since when?”

“Since Medusa Clan began to redeploy its forces for war with Norpak. Just now.”

Naoto blinked hard and steadied himself against a canopy beam. “Fuck. It’s revenge for Dahlia. Duke’s going to drag the entire Pacific into full-scale war just to get revenge?”

I said nothing, but I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Even setting aside what Duke had told me, if Norpak had really orchestrated the bombing of Bloom with the blue-tattoo man as their agent, they would have gone on the offensive immediately afterward; a decapitation strike is pointless unless followed up by a rapid and massive attack. Instead it was Duke who had broken the ceasefire.

Naoto was visibly wilting with Gray Day fear, and I suspected my own effectiveness would start to degrade if I let myself think much more about it. I had to focus on our present and practical concerns. I had to keep my clients focused.

“We should barter for some basic provisions, and get you both into much less conspicuous clothes,” I said, forcing my voice smooth against the pain in my chest. “Trade anything else you can both spare for metal money that might still have exchange value here. Then Danae and I need to move on from Crossroads as quickly as we can. The resumption of hostilities is only going to further complicate long-distance travel. As it is, she’ll need something valuable to barter for onward transport. Any ideas?”

Naoto looked askance and nodded. “I have something.”

“What is it?”

“Let me worry about that. For now, let’s just—”

Danae cut him off with a gasp. She blinked and shuddered. Blood rushed back into her face. She passed him a wide-eyed glance to say, “That was no mood stabilizer.”

“Are you okay?” Naoto asked.

“I don’t know what I just put in myself.” She stifled a sharp laugh. “But I think it’s working.”

Naoto rubbed his face nervously.

“I suggest we move on from Crossroads as soon as we can,” I said. “We need a destination.”

“Oh.” She stared up at the harsh bright sky peeking between the plastic threads of the canopy. “Redhill? It’s . . . east. Due east of here.”

I tried