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She lifted her gaze, and I met it defiantly. "Three days from now, you'll want me too."

"You really think I'll change my mind?"

"I do, actually."

I scowled. "Why is that?"

I went rigid as Angel ran her tongue along her forefinger, licking the apple's juices off her skin. Then she smiled a wicked smile, her lips still perfectly lined. "You've changed, Edie. But not that much."

Angel dumped me at Kepler's rail station. Her goodwill only seemed to extend to the docks, and not much farther. But it suited me just fine. The tense silence in the flyer was suffocating, and I was eager to be out of this new Angel's presence.

"Think about it, Edie," she said from the flyer. "I'll be waiting for your call."

I grunted in response, turning away from her and moving toward the rail station. Another sharp whistle made me stop midstep. I turned back slowly. Angel had my phone in her hand. "Dropped this."

 

I approached her warily, then reached out to take the phone. Angel pulled it close to her chest and met my eyes. "Remember, Edie," she said, her dark eyes searching mine. "Remember that I can do this without you. Can you survive on the outside without me?"

Angel proffered the phone and I had to resist the urge to snatch it out of her manicured hand.

I shoved it in my pocket, then turned on my heel and started toward the station again. I half expected her to call out to me, but she said nothing. As I slipped into the crowds—the rail station was always crowded, even in the dead of night—falling in step and changing my posture, I hazarded a glance over my shoulder.

Angel was gone.

I sighed. Lost in the crowds, out from under her scrutinizing gaze, I felt more at ease. That feeling of weightlessness continued, Kepler's gravity lighter than the constant downward pull of the Rock. The faces may have been unfamiliar, but the feeling of being in a crowd wasn't. The low light of Kepler's simulated night was familiar. The brushed steel walls—once polished to a shine, now grimy with generations of handprints—were familiar. I approached the turnstiles leading to the tracks and smiled. The roar of the monorail was familiar, and so was the ride to Ward 2.

But when I slipped my rail card from my wallet clip and touched it to the sensor, a grating beep stopped me in my tracks. I tried again, and the beep was more insistent. I glanced at the screen. Insufficient funds.

I braced myself on the turnstile, preparing to vault it, and froze. I glanced down at the chip in my hand. The flesh was raw and red.

I thought of what the guard said. Someone was always watching you on Kepler, and I wasn't willing to risk my freedom on petty crime. Who knew what obscene punishment there was for fare evasion under Joyce Atlas's watch.

I turned away from the turnstiles with a frustrated sigh. It was nearly an hour's walk from the docks and through the Lower Wards. If Kepler was such an impressive feat of human engineering, why were the lifts never in service, and why did it have so many goddamn stairs?

I exited the rail station onto the quiet streets. It was always dark in the Lower Wards, where the towers loomed and the skybridges blotted out Kepler's simulated night sky. Screens on the towers' faces cast flashing neon light across the streets, advertising vids and products and mods I'd never heard of. A waifish model appeared on a screen beside me as I passed, dancing and striking poses that showed off the sleek mod on her belly as it changed colors from electric blue to neon green to hot pink. The friendly rounded lettering of the Atlas Industries logo appeared above her head with a tagline for the mod: Performance. Precision. Perfection. BioTelos. The model smiled at me, tracking my movement. I scowled back at her and picked up my pace.

I turned back toward the street, where a lonely figure far off in the distance was drunkenly staggering down the sidewalk. Their footsteps faded as they turned the corner. A lone flyer passed overhead in a pounding of bass and whining of engines before it shot off toward its destination. In the silence that followed, it was quiet enough to hear the low, constant thrum of Kepler's monolithic engines, the hushed breath of its life-support systems. At this hour, when all its people were asleep, it felt like it was just me and it.

"Miss me?" I asked softly.

Angel was right: I knew Kepler better than anyone else. I spent my childhood racing through its narrow streets, exploring its labyrinthine catacombs, and climbing its soaring towers. In combination with an apprenticeship learning the ins and outs of the station and all its systems, I was more knowledgeable than any mechanic, any lab coat. Any cop too. Whenever a lift went sideways or a job went south, I could disappear into Kepler. I knew it would keep me.