Spellhacke- M. K. England Page 0,28
All good points, I know, but going during the day feels like waving a giant flag to announce our activities. We’ve always hit at night before. We’ll have Ania and Remi and their misdirection spells to help us slip by unnoticed, but it won’t stop anyone particularly observant. Or anyone looking for us specifically.
I bring the drone back a few streets and find a sewer cover with a finger gap it can duck through, then fly quickly back to the access point at the park to double-check there won’t be anything in our way underground. Once I hit the hatch, I turn back around and trace the pipe back to the valve we tapped last night, counting intersections against the map to make sure I’m in the right place. Straight shot, no blocks, no extra security, no issues. Looks like we have a plan.
“It’s dangerous,” I say, because I have to. If Jaesin’s going to have a dad crisis about it, better for it to happen now.
Jaesin nods, and the corner of his mouth twitches up into the faintest grin.
My answering smirk is automatic. Adrenaline and hot blood race through my veins, making my skin tingle, my fingers twitch with anticipation. Getting away with eighteen thousand credits’ worth of maz in broad daylight?
This is going to be the greatest last score of all time.
Seven
KYRKARTA CITY IS MUCH MORE beautiful at night and from a distance. The darkness hides all the people, though many of them are still out and about, seeking their poison of choice. If only you really could dance, screw, or drink the last ten years since the spellplague away, I would be right there with them every night. As it is, I only join in on the really bad nights.
Most nights I keep to watching from my rooftop perch. If it wasn’t near the highest spot in the city, my vantage point atop the Cliffs would be useless. Our building is less than half the height of the steel spires that make up the downtown business district.
As it is, I have elevation on my side, and the city sprawls out before me, each section divided by invisible but firm borders. Rich assholes pretending nothing bad ever happened, next to gentrifying assholes who consider themselves saviors, next to oblivious assholes who just want a big house. Shopping, shopping, shopping! Trendy cafés full of well-paid young MMC employees. Shiny bland newness constructed after the spellplague. Nightlife with drugs, bordered by nightlife with moderately less drugs. Strip clubs and by-the-hour motels. Abandoned “memorial” neighborhoods overtaken by maz-mad squirrels. Bad places to be in an earthquake. Bad places to park your car. Bad places to be alone.
Much of it glows with neon, with maz, with money and desperate forward-looking optimism. The parts that don’t aren’t parts you want to visit anyway.
I never look to my left or rear from our roof. The Cliffs are on the southeastern edge of town, part of the orphan district. No one who doesn’t live here calls it that out loud, but they might as well. The neighborhood is roughly divided into thirds: the Cliffs (plague orphans who try hard), the Caves (orphans who don’t care), and the Badlands (orphans who really lean hard into the whole FML vibe).
We never go near the Badlands.
We cut stop number two of our grand farewell tour short in light of the job tomorrow morning. We went to Barret Tower, the tallest building in the city and the ultimate tourist destination, inasmuch as there is such a thing in post-plague Kyrkarta. Only Ania had been there before, so she insisted on dragging the rest of us “before the family broke up,” as she put it.
Admittedly, the view was spectacular. Possibly better than my own favorite spot. It put us that much closer to the stars. We spent most of the evening pointing out constellations, rattling off schemes to get selected for the lunar living program, imagining ourselves as movie heroes who get to steal spaceships and gallivant across the stars, far away from this place. It was a gorgeously clear night, worthy of basking. We left early (for us, at least, meaning before midnight) so we could get some sleep.
Well, so the others could sleep. Sleep and I aren’t on speaking terms.
A notification pops up in my vision, the green border around Davon’s photo melding with the lights of the business district on the horizon. I open the message, and the words spill across my lenses.
Davon: Will you talk to