After the car turned a corner and the bakery vanished behind us, Passenger-Side spoke again.

  “Bit nicer than what you’re used to?” he asked me. It was the first time he’d invited conversation.

  I nodded. I was seeing more businesses now, all clean and well-kept, selling frivolous things like purses or furniture. They took over the first few floors of most buildings, with the higher levels used for residences, at least as far as I could tell. There were a few balconies, each one done up to suit the personality of the occupant. Another patch of green marked a park with actual trees. Everything had the word actual in front of it.

  “There’s definitely less sand,” I said.

  “Less sand, less blood,” Passenger-Side replied. “It’s nice here. Quiet. No bludgeoning people to death on the street over a stolen kebab. You know what I mean?”

  I frowned at the back of his shiny head.

  “Hey, you’re a big guy, is all I’m saying,” he said. “You were probably used to swinging that muscle around to get your way in the camps. Well, we don’t like that here. You got a chip on your shoulder, patch it up.”

  I looked down at my arm, all muscle, and I almost laughed. I’d spent the last decade trying to look small, trying to hide my six-foot-two height and all the meat I couldn’t help but put on. I hadn’t wanted to look like the person I used to be, because then these people would have never let me into their city. Not if they knew what I used to do with my muscle, with the phantom gun I could still feel on my hip.

  My laugh turned sour before it got out of me, and I closed my hand tight around the node in my pocket. “I’m not here to make trouble,” I said evenly. Too even, maybe. Too hard.

  “See that you don’t,” said Passenger-Side.

  See that you kiss my ass, I almost replied.

  Two minutes later, the car stopped in front of a government building. I knew it was government because, aside from the many windows, the whole place was as black as the car. A black like that took a serious dye job on the sodiprene, and I doubted the City broke conformity for no reason.

  The building was bigger, too. It could have fit six of the residential towers inside it. Passenger-Side got out and held the door for me, and I exited, my new pants crinkling.

  “Don’t try anything,” Passenger-Side told me. “We’ve got eyes everywhere, and they’ve all got guns.”

  I tried to bite back a retort, but failed. “I know that. I don’t have a death wish.”

  He snorted. “Your file say otherwise.”

  I flexed a hand. What file? What do these bastards have on me?

  But Passenger-Side was already stepping out and ushering me into the office building, leaving Whitey behind to park the car. I gave the place a once-over. The doors weren’t marked, but that’s because I had no ID chip and no eye implants to go with it. When most people approached this place, they’d see its name hovering over those big double doors, projected onto their retinas in glowing blue.

  For me, it was a big fat nowhere. No ID chip, no Deck.

  Passenger-Side knew this. “You get your ID on floor eight. Now get out.”

  I did, my hand still clenching and unclenching on the hyonic node in my pocket. I could see scanners inside the building, so I had to ditch this thing. I could leave it in the car, but I didn’t like that idea either. What if it went to a government building with high-level security? A scan could reveal it, clear as day, and suddenly I’d be a criminal. My citizenship status would then get revoked.

  Damn it. Why didn’t I just drop this thing in the sand the moment the others weren’t looking?

  It had been stupid, but I couldn’t blame myself too badly. The node was my only defense against guys like these blackshirts. I didn’t trust government types, because all they’d ever done was give me shit, but I could only hold onto the node so long. Better defenseless than arrested.

  So, when Passenger-Side was activating the revolving door of the building, I pulled my discarded necktie out of one pocket and the node out of the other. I bunched the tie up, wrapping it around the node, making a little ball of red fabric. The bit of clay helped the whole thing stick together.

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  Then, I tossed the bundle, pitching it to one side. I kept the movement slow and casual, because Passenger-Side was turning. He frowned at me, but the ball had landed inside an alleyway to my right. He didn’t see it roll away, and it made no sound.

  I met his gaze and shrugged. “I hate ties,” I said.

  He frowned at me, as if deliberating. Then he nodded. “Don’t blame you.”

  With that, we entered the revolving door. I breathed deep to keep my heart from pounding, because my suit was probably reading my heart rate.

  Inside the foyer, everything was marble, but I couldn’t tell if the white marble was real or not. Glass paneling shone on every wall, likely projecting news or directories or AI assistants. People queued up in front of every panel, waiting their turn, but we bypassed them all and headed for an elevator. Passenger-Side paused in front of it, gestured, and the elevator opened. He was pressing buttons that I couldn’t see.

  When I get citizenship, this will all be less confusing. It’ll be soon now. Just the top of this elevator….

  When we stepped inside, I looked back out through the foyer’s front windows. As the elevator doors closed, I saw a man standing on the sidewalk outside. He wore a motorcycle suit and a shiny black helmet. He was turned toward me.

  A bright green bird was perched on his shoulder.

  The doors closed, and I swallowed. My old instincts reared up. That guy had been staring at me.

  This didn’t feel right. I had no control here, no defense. The urge to flee was suddenly all I could think about, and I nearly decked Passenger-Side and darted out on the next floor.

  I shook myself. No. I was overthinking, falling back on old habits. And even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t make it twenty feet before a gun turned me into abstract art on the wall.

  Made into art, I thought nervously. How poetic.

  They made it into cake!

  The parrot’s words came back to me, and I had to wonder what it had been talking about. It was copying someone, but who? The motorcycle guy? It must have been the same parrot that I just saw on his shoulder. How could there be anything malevolent about that? He was just a guy out looking for his lost pet.

  These thoughts distracted me from the unease I was starting to feel low in my gut. I was about to get citizenship. I couldn’t do something stupid. Calm and collected, that’s what I needed to be.

  As we ascended, Passenger-Side touched his ear, and I knew he was listening to an implant. The doors shoved aside to reveal an open office level on floor eight. Sunlight poured in through even more floor-length windows, the City walls now slightly below us. Dunes rolled beyond them, heaps of tan, piles of white.

  It occurred to me that I was trapped here. In enemy territory. Behind so, so many damned walls.

  They’re not enemies, they’re citizens! What’s gotten into you?

  I couldn’t even answer my own question. Something was just wrong. I could feel it.

  “This way,” Passenger-Side groused, and I followed again. Old habits, old instincts die hard.

  Passenger led me down a corridor of offices, then turned into one. Inside, a sodiprene desk took up half of a medical-looking waiting room, with a pretty woman sitting behind it. She was handing a clipboard to a man leaning over the desk. I recognized the man instantly as another leech, because he hadn’t been given new clothes. He’d tracked dust all the way to the desk.

  “I can’t read,” the leech told the woman in a rusty voice.

  She tapped something on the clipboard. “This will do voice prompting.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  He turned away and sat in the center of a line of plastic scoop chairs, his face screwed up as he regarded the clipboard. With him settled, the receptionist’s gaze turned to me, and her smile faded. Her eyes flicked to Passenger-Side, skittish.

  Yeah, this ain’t right. I should run.

  I knew it at the absolute core of me, but this floor was crammed with office workers, and gun-cameras, and even a couple of security guards passing by (convenient that they would pass by just now, as I arrived), and I had to think rationally.

  They’ve seen my report. That’s all. They’re afraid I’ll be a problem.

  “This is our new citizen,” said Passenger-side. “The special case.”

  This was the first I’d heard of being special, but of course I was, with a ride like that. The alarms in my head were getting louder.

  The secretary tried to smile. She looked Latin, a transplant, for genetic diversity. Maybe from the Peruvian Synth, or Brazil.

  “Of course,” she choked out, as if she’d just bitten a lemon. She swung a beringed hand at the door behind her, set into a white wall with black framing. The City planners sure enjoyed monochrome.

  “Your chip is ready for you,” the woman said, her tone leveling out. “Mr. Lowell will ask a few medical questions, and then you will receive your implant, and become a full citizen. It’s just through there.”

  I nodded. They’re going to kill me in that office. The thought was baseless, but the twist in my gut didn’t care.

  Well, if they did try to hurt me in there, at least the fight would be one-on-one. Passenger-Side nodded me through but didn’t follow me; it was just me and the doctor now.

  What have I gotten myself into? I thought, closing the door. And how am I gonna get out of it?

  A squirrelly man waited for me inside, an implant gun in one hand, next to a medical table with paper stretched over it. The man just stood there, the blood draining from his face. He shook a little.

  I crossed my arms. “You’re fucking scared, doc.”

  The man winced. “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re scared of me,” I repeated. “Why?”

  The doctor looked like he’d just witnessed a bludgeoning in real time. He smiled uncertainly and turned half-away from me, indicating the medical table. “If you could just s-sit here, sir, I’ll get you chipped right away. Are you allergic to latex?”

  I took a step closer—

  And the doctor collapsed.