LITMIR.BIZ

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from the interior scaffolding empty. Most of the pack were out running, and the few who were in huddled on couches plugged into their VR sets or playing games of Tisk. The little ceramic discs clattered like bones on table tops.

      Vadith’s quarters were on the mezzanine section right at the top, and Nuri clambered up the ladder in double time. As expected, G’Ren was squawking, and her name cropped up twice before she stepped onto her boss’s level.

      Vadith was large for a Heran, which meant he was two heads shorter than Nuri. She liked the fact that she now looked down on him, but that didn’t stop him from reminding her where her place was – at the bottom of the pecking order in his pack.

      His grey skin made him all but blend in with the hide-covered daybed upon which he reclined, blinking at her with his large, liquid-black eyes while he sucked on a gizza pipe. Beneath the dim strip lights, his complexion looked pasty even for a Heran, his short, skeletal limbs at odds with his pot belly and oversized oval head. G’Ren sat on stool to Vadith’s right, his skin gone peach-coloured in places, which suggested he was well pleased with himself. All six of his facial tentacles quivered in poorly suppressed mirth.

      Nuri sighed, trying to keep her shoulders straight.

      “I’ve got it, boss.” She reached in her pocket, overcome by a sudden reluctance to surrender the trinket.

      Vadith put down the pipe’s mouthpiece, puffed out a plume of smoke and clapped his hands. “Well, bring it. Don’t be tardy.”

      She strode forward and withdrew the pin. Vadith snatched it from her hand before she had a chance to examine it.

      “Yes, yes! This is exactly it,” he crowed, stroking the little dragon with long, grey fingers.

      “If I may ask,” Nuri started, “out of all the items there, why this one? There were rubies –”

      “I can get rubies at the market,” he snapped. “This” – he held up the item to the light fittings – “is irreplaceable. An ancient human tribe called the Celts made this. It’s the real deal.” Vadith smugly pinned the item to his jacket. “And this is where it will stay.” His tiny mouth squinched up with pleasure.

      Realisation hit Nuri. “You made me and G’Ren risk our necks for a trifle?”

      Vadith straightened, his left hand protecting the dragon pin. “There is more to this game than merely profit, child.”

      “That was top-class security you had us breach,” Nuri continued. “We almost got caught.”

      “I told you we didn’t have much time,” G’Ren broke in. “And you had to waste it.”

      Nuri fixed him with a glare. “Not now.”

      “This, Nuri, was a straight in-and-out job, and you had to gawp like a glimmer bug at a light fitting,” Vadith chastised. “Most unprofessional. You could’ve gotten caught, and then what?”

      “But we didn’t,” Nuri said, hot shame burning her face.

      “Not this time.” Vadith cleared his throat. “You’ll be on bathroom duty for two weeks. Perhaps scrubbing the drainage outlets will give you time to reflect on the importance of teamwork.”

      Nuri swallowed back her indignation. The last time she’d given Vadith lip, he’d extended her bathroom duty to an entire month. It had taken a week to get the grime out from beneath her fingernails afterwards.

      Vadith’s puckered little mouth stretched into what he might consider a smile, but what she thought looked more like the back end of a fen-flit’s larva. “Do we have an understanding?”

      Nuri focused on the scuffed toes of her grip-boots. “Yes, sir.”

      “Good. Dismissed.” Vadith sniffed. “Now, G’Ren, I am well pleased …”

      Nuri didn’t stay to hear more.

      Bathroom duty for two weeks – that was a special brand of awfulness. The others would make sure to dirty things up even more. They were like that. Nuri’s chest felt tight, and she scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her wrist. It wouldn’t do any good to cry coming down the stairs. No sign of weakness among the pack, the unspoken rule.

      What she did need was to go for a run. Maybe as far as the north-western border before Flint’s territory at the ruined warehouses. An hour out, then back again before sunrise. Maybe she’d pick up useful intel or loot along the way. Fortune favoured those who took initiative.

      “Where you goin’?” Shiv called as Nuri leapt up onto the hatchway.

      “For a run.”

      “Tonight’s close call not enough for you?”

      “Oh, sod off.” Nuri pushed herself from the balcony and landed solidly in the alley between the Den and Mama Ria’s.

      The ground was slightly squelchy from the previous afternoon’s rains. The ancestors alone knew what else festered in the muck.

      If she had more of a spine, she’d stay and deal with the ribbing she’d get from her pack-mates. By the time G’Ren came down from his little chat with the boss, the story of how Nuri had nearly botched the entire mission would be the talk of the Den. Everyone who came in would hear the news second- and third-hand until the story was so blown out of proportion, you’d think Nuri had accidentally on purpose set the entire city on fire.

      The snide comments about her muddied ancestry would come into play too.

      It didn’t help that Nuri wasn’t quite human. Or any known species for that matter. Which only added to the teasing. Humans didn’t have a fine spray of translucent scales on their upper arms and cheeks. When Nuri was younger, this had looked like glitter, but now that she was nearing adulthood, actual scales were forming. They gleamed like mother-of-pearl in a certain light, and she supposed they could be pretty, if it weren’t for the fact that her skin had no pigment. She was as pale as wax, and her dreadlocked hair was bone-white. It looked as if someone had stripped all the colour out of her with industrial-grade bleach, and she hated it. The fact that her ears were pointed too, and her teeth were a smidgen too sharp, had earned her the nicknames Monster and Fangface.

      Everyone in the pack teased everyone all the time, but for some reason the nicknames stung her that little bit more, even though she tried to hide it. What were words, after all?

      About the only thing she even liked about herself were her eyes. The irises were dark red, verging on indigo, with little flecks of violet in them, almost like a nebula.

      Vadith said she must have a nocturnal species in her DNA, but Nuri didn’t burn in sunlight any worse than the other lighter-skinned species. She just had to wear shades when she was outside during the day because her eyes were unusually sensitive to light, and she knew for a fact she could see as well in the dark as one of the Mahai-kin. So there was that.

      Nuri pulled her hood down low and started running. As she approached the dead end, she dragged herself up onto a stack of crates and followed the boundary. Her path along the wall was a mere foot’s width, but that was fine. Up here, on the rooftops, she was the mistress of her surroundings, lifted from the dirt and detritus into a world of buzzing neon and flashing LED screens.

      Calan City’s lights became their own constellation, shimmering screens showing windows onto other worlds. Trains snaked along their rails, and every ten or so minutes yet another spacecraft gained clearance from the port to the north. The city never slept – the muted roar of thrusters, the wail of sirens and the ever-present hum of power drives kept up a constant drone. No matter where Nuri went or how high she climbed, there was no silence. No quiet. The air tasted of burnt plastic, dust and despair.

      Her goal for the morning, before sunup, was to reach the old relay station. It was right on the edge, before the fens, abandoned because the ground was subsiding and new tech had made the station obsolete – at least until someone found some value in the structure.

      None

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