The Law and the Codas

Chapter Thirty-Two

"You okay?"

"I'd be okay if I hadn't been forced into wearing this stupid disguise," I mumble, feeling a few stray strands slick against my skin, made sticky from the replicated summer humidity. "This stuff's like straw and the weather's doing me no favors."

My frown worsens as my fingers brush the leather belt, cinching me in at the waist. I'd rather have a voracious python wrapping itself around me, at least it would eat me and end my suffering.

Sin nudges me in the arm, smiling. "At least you're well enough to complain."

"I think I'll only stop complaining when I'm dead and even then, I'm sure I'll find something to bitch about, so don't fret."

Sin slows his gait so he can stare down at me, his lips losing their smile from seconds ago. I guess macabre wasn't the right attitude to have during a run.

Clearing my throat, I continue to blather, hoping what I'd just got said gets buried in an avalanche of incoherent nonsense. "Hey," I place my arms behind my head, both bags of Elysium pressing down on my shoulders and bouncing off my hips. "I read on the Network, real cities made it hard to see the stars. And then all the company buy-outs of lower sectors and littering those sectors with product advertisements, made it hard for the stars to be seen so eventually, they stopped programming the lower sect's night skies with them."

Craning his neck plate ware, Sin says, "Never really paid attention." Unencumbered stars reflect in his brown eyes. He smiles. "Guess there's an upside to everything."

I snort. "I wouldn't exactly call it an upside. More like an unexpected perk." I stare up at Sin, whose head is haloed by an overhanging sign. "Kind of like how a fork can have the unexpected perk of being jabbed in someone's eye."

"Wasn't an eye." Sin points to his throat. "Jugular."

"So our anatomy lessons came in handy?"

He nods. "An unexpected perk." The corners of his lips curve upward. Sin motions to Jonathan and Marava who walk arms linked in front of us. "You avoiding them?"

"One-zero. Forks."

I eye Sin. "Forks?"

He shrugs. The four satchels slung over his shoulders slap against his sides, like ants ramming a mountain. "It stuck."

"We're to meet at the Viper Nest," Keran says sidling up to me. She's got two satchels, each filled with Elysium slung in a criss-cross over her body. Underneath, her clothes are oddly contemporary - a long, duster, black, falls to mid-calf. A crop top covers enough skin to be considered a shirt but leaves enough exposed to warrant quick glances and lip smacks from passersby not comatose as they peruse the Network. "Local tech bar, nothing fancy."

The words tech bar conjure images of expensive tech - the latest neural headsets and Network NavDots, attached to peoples' temples. Men and women laying out on plush lounges in a haze of scented smoke, while the drip trays straddling their chins catch excess drool as one by one their wishes were fulfilled in virtual space.

Other people frequented these places too, seeking to drown out their realities through cheaper and less creative avenues. The bars always came stocked with top-shelf liquors, some imported from ally nations, others smuggled.

Of course, outfitting such places with millions of dollars worth of tech meant exorbitant entrance fees, but apparently we need not worry ourselves. The Codas had things under control and if they didn't I'm sure Keran would take control at the end of that shiny gun nestled under her arm.

Sin places his arms behind his head, as if we're out on a leisurely stroll, the five of us chatting away as though we were old friends, and not accomplices looking to hock illegal drugs to a club of sedated upper-plate elites. Marava walks with her arm looped in Jonathan's. Ever since his wound healed, he looked better and relieved that Marava had stopped bothering him so much.