For you, and Dell.

I creep back into bed, where Dell fell asleep thinking everything is going to work out. It won’t. Not after tomorrow. But she hasn’t figured that out yet, so I hold her until morning, and in her sleep she holds me back.

    When I think of Wiley City, this will be what I miss. Not the magic pods, or freely growing food, but this, being close to a woman who inspired me and challenged me, and changed me for the better. Touching, finally, the night sky.

* * *

I WAIT FOR my interview in the lobby. Without looking, I see six black jumpsuits, Maintenance workers on a day they don’t usually work, waiting with me. I’m dressed in Dell’s suit, and it makes me feel confident. I guess it’s easy to be confident when you’re helpless, easy to be fearless when you have nothing left to lose. I’m bobbing along in a tide I’ve set in motion but can no longer control.

When the time comes, I buzz up. The voice that answers scans my face for identification and unlocks the elevators. When I step on, Maintenance steps on with me. The black jumpsuit nearest me elbows my side.

“Mr. Scales,” I say. “For a mechanic, you spend a lot of time away from the row.”

“Heard we’re blowing up some rich guy’s stuff. Wouldn’t miss this party for all the silver in the world,” she says.

She’s younger than I first thought, younger than me, and it makes me hate Nik Nik all over again. It’s refreshing, simple, and familiar to hate him. It reminds me that, months ago, before crashing on 175 changed my whole life, hatred for him was my only complex emotion.

The only way to get past the guards is in plain sight. I count on Wiley City classism to keep the employees from looking Maintenance in the eye long enough to realize how Ashtown this batch is. It’s a risk, especially after being so wrong about Dell’s classism, but they’ve been in the building for half an hour and no one has looked close enough to sound an alarm yet. When they review the footage, they’ll see that I’m the one who let the vandals in. Adam is too smart to think that’s a coincidence.

Michael is huddled toward the back of the elevator. He’s probably hoping I don’t recognize him, but I knew he’d be here and I need a favor.

    “Mr. Cross?” I take out the package with my hair and note in it, and hand it to him. “Can you see that this makes it to the Rurals…if anything happens.”

He takes the package, frowns at its lightness. Then he must understand, because his eyes dart up like he’s scanning my scalp for the missing piece.

“You’re not going to die.”

“Actuuaaaallly…” says Mr. Scales, before someone else elbows her into silence.

I smile, or try to. “It’s okay. I know.”

When we get off the elevator, the jumpsuits turn right toward the hatch and I turn left. The waiting area is full. They only took the top 2 percent of applicants to the interview stage, but between all the testing groups there are easily over two dozen. It seems every research head has been forced to take part in the selection process. A woman with a portable screen is going from applicant to applicant, dividing us into groups depending on who our interviewer will be.

Someone grabs my shoulder. I recognize the creaking plastic of the jumpsuit before I turn around.

“You’re on the wrong floor,” the Maintenance worker says as I face him.

My heart bounds, but I nod in resignation, following without resistance as he leads me to the elevator. He’s focused on me, which means he doesn’t see the counterfeit Maintenance crew heading fast toward the hatch. I don’t know what’s about to happen to me, but the runners will do the job.

The elevator is programmed to go up, which makes the destination obvious. When we get off the elevator at Adam Bosch’s office, I expect more Maintenance armed with anything from stunners to chains. But it’s just Bosch’s secretary, a woman so Wiley City she could be made of ice. She ushers me back, past the interior fountains and lush ottomans, into Adam Bosch’s office.

    He doesn’t stand when I enter, and I don’t want to sit. While I’m watching, he rubs at his eye.

“You look like shit,” I say, trying not to sound nervous. “Trouble with your super-tech? This is why smart people wear cuffs.”

He takes a bottle out of his pocket and tries to squirt a few drops into his eye, but it’s empty.

“The next model will be self-lubricating. That will solve the problem.” He scoots closer to his desk. “Please, sit.”

I raise an eyebrow and take my seat. “Are you pretending this is a real interview? I figured this was either the part where you tell me you’d never hire me for analyst, or you hire me, but give me a stern warning that you’ll kill me if your secrets ever get out.”

He laces his fingers. “Maybe there’s a third option. Maintenance pays better than analyst ever will. Plus, we’ve recently developed a need for more workers in that arena. It’s harder than you can imagine to find people willing to do what I need.”

The offer is an empty one. There’s an edge to his words, not quite concealing his rage. He’s angry at me. He knows.

“Is it? Your brother always made recruitment look easy,” I say. “Is he why I’m here?”

He leans back, too relaxed. “I didn’t peg you for a planner. That was my mistake. I thought when you wanted revenge, you’d come into my house and kill me. But to sell me out to my brother? That…that was an interesting move.”

I curse Nik Nik for showing his face. I curse myself for expecting anything less from the peacock of an emperor.

“Was it?”

“Of course. When you have no power, it’s best to align yourself with those who do. A pawn recruiting a king to fight on its behalf. But this isn’t a game for pawns, Cara. That’s why I went to him directly, king to king, and made a friend.”

Fuck. What’s a gun to the kind of power Adam can offer? My mouth is dry, but I try to hide it.

“You made a friend of the emperor? No easy feat.”

    “I made him an irresistible offer. I told him I would secure jobs and visas for some of his more promising staff to work in Maintenance for me, and I sent along a pile of cash to sweeten the deal.”

I’ve been spiraling since he began talking, imagining what I would do if I’d been double-crossed by Nik Nik, but then one word sticks out.

“Sent…you didn’t…you didn’t send the offer, did you? You took it in person.”

“I hardly have time to be running into the desert,” he says, but his face is already twisting. Some part of his brain is aware he’s made a mistake.

He could have had me. He could have beaten me easily. I laugh. I can’t help it. I laugh and keep laughing.

“So you insulted the emperor by making an offer remotely, you insulted him further by giving him cash, and then you insulted him a third time by assuming he would part with his men if you paid enough. They aren’t his slaves; they’re his family.”

Adam licks his lips. Hubris. That is the word that will be written on his grave. He’s spent decades studying any space he’s ever wanted to conquer, any person he’s ever wanted to win over, but he didn’t bother to check even the most basic things about Nik Nik. Because, despite his blood and his birth, he thinks of us as simple, stupid, greedy creatures.

And me, for my part, I was saved by my knowledge of him. I will bring Adam to his knees because I spent years yielding in his brother’s house. Every bruise and broken bone, every moment of self-loathing and tainted desire, has led me to this: sitting across from the smartest man in the universe, and having the upper hand.

“Nik Nik was supposed to just blow up the hatch, but now I don’t know what he’ll do,” I say.

He still looks calm. His hand is steady as he presses his ear.

“Communications for the building have been down for five minutes,” I say. “Don’t panic. Buildings like this are meant to contain an explosion. And the hatch is so unstable, you took extra precautions in that room. No one will get hurt.”

    “Nothing is going to happen. The emperor is a smart man. He knows how valuable it will be to have friends in the city. He needs someone like me. Besides”—he smiles wide—“I’m his big brother.”

“You are. And you have no idea what he is capable of doing even to those he loves.”

I check the countdown on my cuff. Fifteen seconds. I grip the arms of the chair and brace myself. He opens his mouth to speak again, some bravado to hide his fear, but it’s time.

The shaking is subtle twenty stories away, but it’s enough to set the sirens off and for Adam to understand.

I expect rage, but as the smoke slowly drifts up past his office window he only leans farther back into his chair. His face is pinched as he works at this problem, this puzzle it’s too late to solve.

Moments later a second explosion goes off, louder than the first, though it’s farther away. When I look out the window it’s easy to see the second wave of smoke, as big as a city block.

“Looks like your house is gone. You really should not have sent cash.”