wheel-based vehicles to any thermal signatures they see. We will update citizens as soon as we know anything more.” Moiri sounded rattled, Iver noticed. She was usually a little cool with him, a little withdrawn, but she sounded as if she were genuinely upset he was missing.
“Who's behind this?” Someone called. “The rebels?”
“We don't know who's behind it. It would be premature to say this is the rebels, or some new start to the war.” Moiri's lips firmed and she leaned forward. “Former rebels live peacefully in Touka City right now. They are your friends and neighbors. One thing I will promise, though. Whoever is behind this, we will find them, and hand them over to the VSC fleet commander to deal with.”
There was a beat of silence at that.
“This isn't considered an in-planet matter?” A member of the media asked.
“Considering it involves the head-of-planet, no.” Moiri drew herself up. “Now, I'm sure you will understand how much I have to do right now. I'll make an announcement as soon as we learn something substantial that will shed light on what's happening.” She turned on her heel and walked back up the stairs, an assistant on either side of her. One leaned closer to whisper in her ear, and she gave a nod and sped up, disappearing through the front entrance.
“We need to talk to her,” Hana said.
Iver grunted in agreement. The crowd was slowly dispersing, some standing in groups to talk, others drifting away in small huddles, heads together.
There was a nervous tension in the air.
A worry.
“They're scared the war is about to start again,” Hana said. “I'm scared the war is about to start again.”
Iver didn't like the bleakness he heard in her voice. Because she was thinking she would have to go back to flying runners, and he didn't like that thought. Not at all.
“It's not going to start again.” He would make sure of it. No matter what he had to do.
Chapter 12
“That's the dru-dru Linnel escaped in.” Hana crouched against the council building wall and stared at the bright green-yellow of the scooter parked near the back door in the fine, misty rain. She wiped rain drops off her forehead and rubbed her cheek against a sleeve.
"You’re right." The rain had caught in Iver's dark hair, forming tiny droplets that gleamed like crystals in the diffuse up-lights set in the flowerbeds. “Looks like he just rode up and parked in the most convenient spot.”
Iver leaned against her, shoulder and thigh against her own. She liked the solid feel of him. Liked the way the fabric of his clothes stretched over his muscles.
"Simon told Banyon to point whoever is cooperating with him in the Protection Unit at Linnel, that it would be easy to arrest him because Oniba was in the trailer." A trailer, she noted, that was no longer attached to the scooter. "Would the Protection officers bring the dru-dru here if they had arrested him?"
Iver shook his head. "It would have been taken to Protection Central. It looks like he ditched the trailer somewhere."
"So either he escaped the net Banyon threw out, or he has contacts of his own." As she said that, Hana rejected the idea. Linnel was too obsessed, too focused on his own agenda to make contacts and connections outside the army. He was almost incapable of doing even that. She'd noticed how appalled his colleagues were with his obsession with her, and she didn't think he would be accepted back into the group now that he'd shot Oniba.
"So he's got a friend in the building?" Iver said.
Hana shrugged. "Or he thinks he does. Or more likely he has someone he has some leverage over. I don't think Linnel has friends. Not any more."
Iver gave a nod. "Well, this doesn't change our plan to sneak in quietly and talk to Moiri when she's alone."
"But if Linnel sees me . . . " Hana thought it through. What would he do? He wanted her for something--she wasn't sure what--but attention of any kind probably wouldn't suit him.
"He'll slink away and wait for another opportunity to get you," Iver said.
She nodded.
They approached the door, and Iver put his fingers into the gene sniffer to get in. The laz locks more commonly used through the VSC were another piece of tech that didn't work here. Unless you were fine with being accidentally shocked every time you opened a door.
"You're coded in here, too," he told her.
She hadn't known that. "Why?"
"Just in case you needed