He’s silent for a moment. My eyes lock on a silhouette that appears at the entrance of the shuttered bar ahead of us. It’s one of his men; I recognize him as one of the people who had held me hostage in the Undercity. Beside me, Pressa stiffens.

He approaches us. His eyes are expressionless. “Come with me,” he says.

DANIEL

The main difference between the Antarctican military and the Republic one is that, back in the Republic, we knew exactly who we were fighting. The Colonies were pushing on our border, and their airships filled our skies.

Here, though, they hide in the shadows. Our enemies are ourselves. And it makes it that much harder to fight back.

I frown as we survey an area where we are to try to make an announcement to catch Hann’s attention. Ross City used to be filled with virtual billboards that stretch all the way across the entire sides of skyscrapers. Their 3-D advertisements wandered around on each floor, all the way to the ground. Now though, with the Level system shut down, only a few screens still work, ones that were physically installed and operated before the Level system was implemented. Old-fashioned tech.

June holds out a device to me. “Here,” she says, tapping its screen once so that it lights up with a blue glow.

I study it with a thoughtful frown. “What’s this?”

“When we send our message out to Hann, let’s send out different versions on different frequencies.” She nods down at the device. “With all of Ross City’s systems down, Hann will be using more primitive communication tech, just like we are. This will tell us whether or not he’s listening in on one of our frequencies.”

I look at her. “So we run a different message on each frequency,” I reply, puzzling out what she’s saying, “and based on how he responds, we get an idea of roughly where he might be in the city.”

She blushes a little at me. “It’s how I first tracked you down in Lake.”

A dark figure standing in the middle of a midnight street, holding up vials of plague cure. Me, crouched in the shadows of a second-story ledge, talking into a crackling speaker. The memory wavers in my thoughts. “So that was how you did it,” I murmur.

She looks away toward the city, as if sorry to bring it up. I wait a moment before I reach out to touch her hand. Her skin is cool to the touch.

Our beat of silence ends as an officer comes up to us to set the frequencies on the device. She nods toward the platform where we will be playing my statements. “We’re ready to start, whenever you are,” she says.

I nod back, then get up and head with June over to the platform. There, we run through several of the alternate statements we’ll be releasing. Finally, I clear my throat, and as they start recording my voice, I begin the first statement.

“We have a deal we’re ready to cut with you,” I say, forcing myself to stay calm and my chin to stay up. “I know there’s something you want from this city that we can offer you. But we want a meeting with you, face-to-face.”

My voice reverberates into the mike. It’s jarring to hear the silence around me as I record. Has Eden already found his way back to Hann? Has the man even responded to him?

“We are prepared to give you a good offer,” I go on. “But the city can’t go on like this. Both you and I know that. So let’s find a way to negotiate, unless you want to continue this stalemate. We will meet you in two hours in the Undercity, at the intersection that divides the four quadrants of Ross City. If you choose not to come, we’ll have to force you out. Let’s do what we can to avoid a bloody end to this.”

I finish. The message starts to play from the beginning again, looping endlessly until the meeting time. I listen to it several times. When we’re all sure that it sounds right, we move on to the next statement.

A half hour passes before I record every single variation. There are differences in the locations where we’re asking Hann to meet us, with the kind of deal we’re offering him. I feel a sense of hollowness as we go about it. He could easily not be listening at all—or he might have figured out what we’re doing in the first place. But it doesn’t matter if this works or not.

All we’re doing is buying Eden time.

June gives me a nod when we’re done and begins broadcasting out the different messages on each frequency.

“Place a call to Eden,” she says quietly. In order to give a realistic illusion that Eden and I are at odds, I need to try to contact him.

I call Eden. As expected, he doesn’t answer. Even though I know he isn’t supposed to, a part of my chest still tightens in fear.

I call several more times, then stop. It’s a good sign that Eden isn’t picking up, I tell myself. It most likely means that he and Pressa are in, and that he’s no longer on the grid.

June is already checking the harnesses on her waist and legs. She’s going to lead a small team into one of the intersections we requested Hann to show up in, to watch for where he might appear. I’m wearing a similar getup—hooks, harnesses, and an assortment of knives and weapons. My team will head to the opposite side of hers. Still other teams are on their way to the other locations.

I watch as she works. She may not be with her Republic teams, but even here, with a patrol of foreign soldiers at her beck and call, she exudes a natural leadership that makes them wait respectfully for her command.

A sudden sliver of a memory returns to me at that. I remember the swing of her dark ponytail as she stood in an alley, her hand on her hip and her chin tilted up, the light in her eyes invincible, calling out a challenge for a Skiz fight. The first time I saw her. The first moment she caught my eye. How could I not have known then, immediately, who she was?

June notices me looking at her. A curious smile touches the edge of her lips, and she tilts her head at me. “What?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head, embarrassed to be caught. “I was just making sure you looked like you have everything, yeah?” I point out the gun at her hip and the climbing hooks hanging from her belt. “If, for some reason, Hann does show his face—”

“—then our teams are ready on the ground, hiding in our zones on every side of the intersection.” June nods down at the street. It’s desolate right now, the usual rows of cluttered shops and neon signs shuttered and fenced off. “And if he doesn’t show—”

“Then we hope that it’s because he listened to Eden’s warning and has taken him into his circle.” I take a deep breath, run through the elements of the plan in my head, and look down at my watch. “We should hear from him in several hours.”

June walks up to me. She reaches out to touch my wrist with her hand, gently coaxing me to lower my arm. “We’ll hear from them before then,” she promises. “I’ve seen Eden in worse situations.”

“I know.” I run a hand through my hair, trying to keep my eyes on the horizon instead of on her so that she can’t see my worry. “I’m just thinking everything through.”

June hesitates, then edges close to me. Her lips brush mine in a light kiss. For an instant, it’s as if she has created a small, sheltered space for us—even here, on a tower overlooking a standoff. I close my eyes and let myself lean into her, savoring this small moment of peace.