“This is what I get for complaining about the soap,” he muttered, pressing himself against the wall.
The grate was already digging into Cinder’s bare foot and she shifted her weight onto her cyborg leg. “All right, Cadet. Which way?”
“Captain.” He opened his eyes and peered down the tunnel in each direction, but beyond the pale light filtering in from the closest manhole, the sewers disappeared in blackness. Cinder adjusted the brightness of her flashlight, sending it darting over the frothy surface of the water and dripping concrete walls.
“It’s near the old Beihai Park,” Thorne said, scratching at his whiskered chin. “Which way is that?”
Cinder nodded and turned south.
Her internal clock told her they’d been walking for only twelve minutes, but it seemed like hours. The grate dug into her foot with each step. Her wet pants were plastered to her calves and sweat dripped down the back of her neck, sometimes tricking her into thinking it was a spider fallen down her jumpsuit and making her feel guilty for giving Thorne a hard time before. Though they didn’t see any rats, she could hear them scurrying away from her light, down countless tunnels that fanned out beneath the city.
Thorne talked to himself as they walked, working through his clogged memory. His ship was definitely near Beihai Park. In the industrial district. Not six blocks south of the maglev tracks … well, maybe eight blocks.
“We’re about a block away from the park,” Cinder said, pausing at a metal ladder. A spot of light drifted down toward them. “This goes up to West Yunxin.”
“Yunxin sounds familiar. Sort of.”
She pleaded for patience and started to climb.
The ladder rungs bit into her foot, but the air was blissfully fresh as she neared the top. The sound of the rushing water was replaced with the hum of maglev tracks. Reaching the manhole cover, Cinder paused to listen for signs of humanity, before pushing the cover off to the side.
A hover glided overhead.
Cinder ducked, heart racing. Daring to inch her head up, she spotted silent lights atop the white vehicle. It was an emergency hover. Visions of androids armed with brain-interface-overriding tasers sent a shudder through her, before the hover turned a corner and she saw a red cross on one side. It was a medical hover, not law enforcement. Cinder nearly collapsed from relief.
They were in the old warehouse district, near the plague quarantines. Medical hovers were to be expected.
She glanced both ways down the deserted street. Though it was still early, the day was already hot and whimsical mirages were rising from the pavement, having forgotten the drenching summer storm from two nights before.
“Clear.” She hauled herself up onto the road and sucked in a deep breath of the city’s humidity. Thorne followed, his uniform glaringly bright in the sun, except for the legs, which were still murky green and smelled of sewage. “Which way?”
Shielding his eyes with his forearm, Thorne squinted at the concrete buildings and rotated in a full circle. Faced north. Scratched his neck.
Cinder’s optimism crumbled. “Tell me you recognize something.”
“Yeah, yeah, I do,” he said, waving her away. “I just haven’t been here in a while.”
“Think faster. We aren’t exactly blending in with our surroundings out here.”
With a nod, Thorne started down the street. “This way.”
Five steps later he paused, pondered, turned around. “No, no, this way.”
“We’re dead.”
“No, I’ve got it now. It’s this way.”
“Don’t you have an address?”
“A captain always knows where his ship is. It’s like a psychic bond.”
“If only we had a captain here.”
He ignored her, marching down the street with spectacular confidence. Cinder followed three steps behind him, jumping at each sound—trash skidding across the road, a hover crossing an intersection two streets away. The sun glistened off the dusty warehouse windows.
Three empty blocks later, Thorne slowed his pace and peered up at the facade of each building they passed, rubbing his chin.
Cinder began desperately searching her brain for Plan B.