that’s where we were going.”
“I don’t trust her, either. I know where Crystal lives, and where she works; it would have been easier for her to go home than to get to my place yesterday. So why did she come around? Why did she lie to me?”
“You sound paranoid.”
Enda laughed.
“Maybe she just wanted an excuse to see you,” JD said.
“Or maybe Zero paid her off.” Through the camera in her phone, I saw Enda’s eyes narrow, and then darkness as she slid the phone into her pocket. “She just called Zero.”
“What?”
“I have cameras and microphones set up in my apartment. I just saw her call them.”
JD blinked, struggling to catch up.
Enda sighed. “Kali set us a trap. Zero got themselves a spy. Both of them think Mirae’s going to the apartment. While they shoot each other, we’re going to sneak into the commune and rescue Soo-hyun. East, right? Past the canal?”
“Yeah,” JD said, sounding uncertain. “You knew Crystal was going to sell you out? You slept with her; I—I heard you.”
Enda smiled. “You know how many times I’ve been crossed in my work? I like to give them a chance early, before I invest too much into the relationship.
“The plan works even if Crystal hadn’t called Zero; we’d still be drawing some of Kali’s people away, and making the next part easier for ourselves. Her betrayal just buys us more time.”
“I can’t believe you.”
Enda nodded, waiting for the judgment, the disapproval.
“You’re amazing,” JD said.
Enda looked at JD and laughed.
“What will we do about Zero?”
“They can wait; for now, let’s just get Soo-hyun.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Driving across the city took the better part of three hours. All the major routes had been blocked by emergency services or stretches of water too deep to risk, forcing Enda to override navigation and guide them down small streets and thin alleyways as they made their way east. The truck slowed and stopped beneath the wide arc of a highway overpass, marking the boundary between Songdo proper and the condemned and collapsed buildings around the canal. The touchscreen mounted in the truck’s dashboard flashed the words “Navigation Error,” and “Rental Limit Reached.”
“Fucking shit,” Enda said. She hammered the screen with her finger, but the engine fell silent. “I’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”
“I’m coming with you,” JD said.
“How’s your leg?”
JD shrugged. “Hurts like a bastard, but I’ll live.”
“You can barely walk without wincing.”
JD shrugged: And?
“We’ll be crossing through a flood-prone area, littered with debris.”
JD frowned. “Soo-hyun’s family; I’m coming with you.”
Enda’s eyebrows jumped and she nodded at JD. “Fine,” she said. “It’s what I’d do.”
They climbed out and walked to the rear of the truck. JD lowered the tailgate, and six of me leaped down onto the asphalt in police dog bodies. JD patted one of the dogs on the head.
“I’m impressed,” Enda said. She got down on her haunches in front of the nearest quadruped drone. “You in there, Mirae?”
“Yes,” I said, issuing from each dog in not-quite unison. The smooth flat voice I had borrowed from the Mechanic came through the dog loudspeaker badly distorted. Robotic.
“Is it all the same you, or different?” JD asked.
“Different instances,” one of me said. “We are in constant communication, but I can feel us growing apart. Soon we will not be me.”
Enda’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she checked it. “That’s enough robo-philosophy for now, I’ve got to take this.”
JD nodded, and Enda stepped away for privacy, unaware that the effective hearing range for my police-issue bodies was approximately twenty meters. I realize now that I could have chosen not to listen, but in that moment, anything less than total sensory intake was unacceptable.
She answered the phone. “Hyldahl.”
“Detective Li of the Neo Songdo Police Department.”
“If you’re opening with that, I guess this isn’t a social call.”
Li ignored her quip. “What do you know about a shooting at an apartment in north Songdo?”
“Which one?” Enda asked.
“Which apartment?”
“Which shooting.”
There was a pause, and Li swore in Mandarin. “Are you there right now?”
“I’m on the other side of the city, Li. If you’re not already tracing this call, I’ve got truck rental records to prove it.”
“But you were there yesterday. Before you deny anything,” Li said, cutting off Enda’s blanket denial, “I know your car was parked outside the same apartment block for four hours yesterday.”
“How do you know it was my car?”
“You ask questions when you’re being evasive. It’s obvious because you’re otherwise frustratingly to-the-point.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Li. You must be mistaken about