Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

The echo of stomping boots floated down to Connor when he reached the base of the ramp to the Lucky Sevens’s cargo hold. Cold dread felt like a stone in his stomach.

Yemi grabbed the handle of his duffel bag. “Yemi goes now.”

Connor waved for the mechanic to settle down. “Hold on. We’re working out the details on this job. It’s big.”

“Big? The job is big, or the job is not real? Yemi is not sure.”

“It’s the biggest job we’ve ever had.” Connor hated himself for lying. Then again, in many ways, the job was exactly what he was saying. If they landed it, it would be enough to save the team.

What could be bigger?

He sucked in a deep, hopeful breath and nearly gagged on the smell of the smoke the laborers had blown at him. Sang starport was fast approaching the title of worst place he’d ever been.

Vicente tugged on Yemi’s bag. “C’mon, Yemi. Let’s grab a beer, huh?”

The mechanic twisted his mouth into a skeptical frown. “Yemi thinks this is not true, but Yemi will have a beer.”

Connor let out a held breath. “Thanks.”

He headed up the ramp while the other two men returned to whatever they’d been talking about before—something that made Vicente let out a booming laugh.

Selen was midway into the cargo hold, pacing back toward the entry, arms crossed, lips squeezed into a tight line that looked ghostly white in the chancy lights.

She scuffed to a stop when Connor held his hands up in surrender, then she pointed back toward the exit. “Go.”

“What? I thought you wanted me to stay on?”

“I’m reconsidering that. Later. Right now, we’ve got an appointment.”

“An appointment? With Mosiah?”

“Azure Crane. In the Meadows.” She sighed, then she pushed past him and headed down the ramp. “Now.”

He hurried after her. Part of him wanted to thank her for making the call to Mosiah. Another part wanted to point out to her that she’d probably ruined any chance of renting another air car—or any car at all—with her antics at the rental place.

Before he could say anything, he spotted a sleek, pewter air car speeding toward the Lucky Sevens.

It wasn’t a beat up, ancient thing, either.

Yemi paused a few steps up the ramp to admire the air car as it came to a stop. “A GalaCar 77i. Yemi knows good cars.”

Connor puffed out his chest. “Like I said, it’s a big job.”

Vicente flashed an approving thumbs up, then wrapped a beefy arm around Yemi’s shoulders. “Maybe a few beers, huh?”

Selen climbed into the back of the car, but rather than relaxing and enjoying the plush seat and the warm, cinnamon-scented air, she sank in on herself and cast her furious gaze out the window.

Despite the hostility rolling off of her, Connor took the seat next to her. Their relationship was strong enough to survive. It had to be.

When his door closed, the robot driver sent power to the fans, and the car climbed into the air, banked, then sped back toward the nearest of the openings in the upper city landscape and a column that it could follow down to Meadows.

For a moment, Connor imagined that the sea of lights beneath them was just another version of Winter far below, but there was no commonality between the two cities. The darkness here in Sang would only last for a while, then the sun would crest the horizon and day would come again.

It would always be dark for the people of Winter.

That had been the core of Wentz’s fight against the Directorate forces and their Unity masters. Without someone to stand for the common person, the rapacious corporations would never stop their drive toward optimization.

Efficiency. Elimination of human expenses.

A sting of pain ran through Connor’s gut. Here he was, thinking of the champion of human worth and decency, while riding in a robot-driven car.

It was insidious the way things sneaked up on you.

Selen turned and looked him up and down. “You won.”

“What? No. If we get this job, we all win. We keep the team together.”

“You don’t understand Mosiah. There’s no winning with him.”

Connor reached out for her hand, but she refused to let him hold it. He pulled his hand back. “Can you talk about him?”

“I don’t have a choice now, do I? You and your old girl—”

“That’s not fair. Let’s leave Toshiko out of it.”

“You and your old girl forced me into this.”

“What’d he do? Did he double-cross you? Hurt you?”

“I lost a lot of people on the mission, okay? A lot. He’s bad people. And he has a lot of enemies.”

“Bad people meaning…?”

“Meaning he’s done bad things. He’s not the nice guy he presents himself as.”

“Can I ask for a couple examples of what that means? Wentz did some bad things. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice. Mosiah used to run security for a very dangerous group of people. He was bloodthirsty.”

“He doesn’t seem that bad.”

“Oh, he’s a changed man. Just ask him.”

Connor frowned. “People do change, Selen. I’ve changed. It’s called growth.”

“This kind of stain doesn’t wash away. It goes all the way through.”

“All right, so we keep an eye on the guy.”

“Like with Litvinenko?”

That was anger and pain speaking, Connor told himself. Selen resented being forced to give in. “We’ll all keep our eyes on him. And now that we have a chance at a job, that’s going to include Yemi.”

“Yemi’s old and washed up.”

“You said before his experience makes him irreplaceable.”

“What I meant was that his age makes him affordable. If I can save up a little money, I’ll pick up another Golem to handle the mechanic work. Driving and piloting, too.”

“I thought we’d agreed one android was enough.” Connor clenched his jaw.

This was one of the fights that would never end. Selen refused to listen to reason when he discussed his concerns about replacing—automating—members of the team. She’d assured Connor that his position could never be replaced, that combatants would always have to be humans.

But after what had happened at Nyango, he knew better.

He massaged her shoulder, relieved when she didn’t pull away. “We’ll need to replace Ibrahim and Mikael.”

“I can take on demolitions.”

“I was going to train with Rudy.”

Selen shrugged. “It’s just blowing things up. Be careful, you’ll do fine.”

“Did you put out an ad for an engineer?”

“Before we left. Keep expectations low. I made it clear we’re lifting off soon and we only need a journeyman.”

That might technically be correct, but Connor knew better. The Lucky Sevens was getting to that age where it could be prickly, and they were way behind on maintenance. A journeyman could be overwhelmed.

But they didn’t have the money for a master engineer. Not yet.

Selen pulled his hand away from her shoulder and to her lips. She kissed a knuckle softy, then nibbled on it. “You love this old girl?”

Connor’s breath caught in his throat. How could he possibly explain the complex feelings—of betrayal and failure and innocence and naive stupidity and obligation and—

She bit his knuckle.

“Hey!” He pulled his hand away. Blood reddened the knuckle flesh.

“I asked you a question.”

Connor pressed a thumb against the cut. “You said you didn’t like using the word love.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Do you want to talk about our relationship now?”

The earlier fury returned to Selen’s eyes, and she turned away from him.

Then the air car dove, taking them down into the darkness below and their meeting with Mosiah.