Scarlet

Cinder nodded and turned south.

Her internal clock told her they’d been walking for only twelve minutes, but it seemed like hours. The grate dug into her foot with each step. Her wet pants were plastered to her calves and sweat dripped down the back of her neck, sometimes tricking her into thinking it was a spider fallen down her jumpsuit and making her feel guilty for giving Thorne a hard time before. Though they didn’t see any rats, she could hear them scurrying away from her light, down countless tunnels that fanned out beneath the city.

Thorne talked to himself as they walked, working through his clogged memory. His ship was definitely near Beihai Park. In the industrial district. Not six blocks south of the maglev tracks … well, maybe eight blocks.

“We’re about a block away from the park,” Cinder said, pausing at a metal ladder. A spot of light drifted down toward them. “This goes up to West Yunxin.”

“Yunxin sounds familiar. Sort of.”

She pleaded for patience and started to climb.

The ladder rungs bit into her foot, but the air was blissfully fresh as she neared the top. The sound of the rushing water was replaced with the hum of maglev tracks. Reaching the manhole cover, Cinder paused to listen for signs of humanity, before pushing the cover off to the side.

A hover glided overhead.

Cinder ducked, heart racing. Daring to inch her head up, she spotted silent lights atop the white vehicle. It was an emergency hover. Visions of androids armed with brain-interface-overriding tasers sent a shudder through her, before the hover turned a corner and she saw a red cross on one side. It was a medical hover, not law enforcement. Cinder nearly collapsed from relief.

They were in the old warehouse district, near the plague quarantines. Medical hovers were to be expected.

She glanced both ways down the deserted street. Though it was still early, the day was already hot and whimsical mirages were rising from the pavement, having forgotten the drenching summer storm from two nights before.

“Clear.” She hauled herself up onto the road and sucked in a deep breath of the city’s humidity. Thorne followed, his uniform glaringly bright in the sun, except for the legs, which were still murky green and smelled of sewage. “Which way?”

Shielding his eyes with his forearm, Thorne squinted at the concrete buildings and rotated in a full circle. Faced north. Scratched his neck.

Cinder’s optimism crumbled. “Tell me you recognize something.”

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” he said, waving her away. “I just haven’t been here in a while.”

“Think faster. We aren’t exactly blending in with our surroundings out here.”

With a nod, Thorne started down the street. “This way.”

Five steps later he paused, pondered, turned around. “No, no, this way.”

“We’re dead.”

“No, I’ve got it now. It’s this way.”

“Don’t you have an address?”

“A captain always knows where his ship is. It’s like a psychic bond.”

“If only we had a captain here.”

He ignored her, marching down the street with spectacular confidence. Cinder followed three steps behind him, jumping at each sound—trash skidding across the road, a hover crossing an intersection two streets away. The sun glistened off the dusty warehouse windows.

Three empty blocks later, Thorne slowed his pace and peered up at the facade of each building they passed, rubbing his chin.

Cinder began desperately searching her brain for Plan B.

“There!” Thorne jotted across the street to a warehouse that was identical to every other warehouse, with giant rolling doors and years of colorful graffiti. Rounding the building’s corner, he tested the main door. “Locked.”

Spotting the ID scanner beside the door, Cinder cursed. “Figures.” Kneeling down, she pried the plastic face off the scanner. “I might be able to disable it. Do you think there’s an alarm?”

“There’d better be. I haven’t been paying rent all this time for my darling to sit in an unprotected warehouse.”

Cinder had just downloaded the programming manual for the scanner’s product number when the door beside them swung open and a plump man with a thin black goatee stepped out into the sunlight. Cinder froze.

“Carswell!” the man barked. “Just saw the news! I thought you might be showing up here.”

“Alak, how are you?” A grin broke across Thorne’s face. “Am I really on the news? How do I look?”

Without answering, Alak swerved his attention toward Cinder. His friendliness froze over, buried beneath a trace of discomfort. Gulping, Cinder shut the scanner’s panel and stood. Her netlink was already connecting to the newsfeed she’d abandoned during their escape, and sure enough, there was a stream of warnings flashing across her own picture, the one they’d taken when she’d been admitted into the prison. ESCAPED CONVICT. CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS. IF SEEN, COMM THIS LINK IMMEDIATELY.

“Seen you on the news too,” Alak said, glancing at her steel foot.

“Alak, I’m here to pick up my ship. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”