One Last Midnight by Claire Winn

Author:Claire Winn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Science Fiction / General YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Action & Adventure / General YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Dystopian
Publisher: North Star Editions
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

PART 2: INK

1 – where things immediately go south (as usual)

Logging in: Kaya Almeida

August 28, 2189

Independence Festival, Darkday-IV

some backwater part of Requiem (smells a little like a dead scarni?)

I don’t make a habit of sneaking out without telling my sister where I’m going. Today is an exception.

It’s the darkest part of the night-cycle, but despite the chill, sweat sticks my exosuit to all the wrong places. My favorite hoodie doesn’t help with the heat, but it does give me a bit of cover from the CCTV circuits I sense at the edge of every alley in this part of town.

I wouldn’t be here if Asa’s safety weren’t on the line.

I project my mind outward, reaching for every hum and buzz in the circuits around me. The tech in this district is grittier, jammed up with grime and sand and god knows what else; no doubt some of it’s as old as the city itself. It’s close to noon GMT—technically waking hours on Requiem—but there are no sun lamps illuminating the streets here. No festival lights or plastic masks or cheap disposable holo-projectors. This is the territory of people who don’t want to be found.

I ping the tracker in my pocket as I fidget with it. My mental nudge sends a signal toward its source, and something else pings in answer. I follow it for another block, until the silhouette of a building in the smog resolves into a towering mass of concrete and scrap metal.

This must be the hideout of the ones spying on my sister.

The front door—or back door, it’s hard to tell—is attended by a scrappy guard sporting some spiky mods along his bare arms and a tuft of dark hair that looks half-scalded off. He grips a vapor stick between his teeth.

“You lost, chickling?” He sounds bored, as if it’s the door’s job to keep visitors out, not his.

I extend my mind toward the door controls, hidden just inside. Hey, there. Care to let me in? I’ve met a number of these locks before—pretty standard encryption, easy to coax open. It’ll only take me a moment.

My eyes must glaze over during the hack because the guard gives me a weird look. It’s hard to split my mind into more than one place, like trying to play multiple video games at once. Even harder when slipping could mean accidentally spilling my thoughts into a certain someone’s. Someone I’ve been trying so desperately to avoid over the past few months.

I can’t let that happen. Not again.

I force my face into a grin, even as I mentally slide beyond the door into the security cameras and internal comms. “Hey. I’m here to talk to your boss.”

“Are you, now?” He snorts and looks me over. “And who might you be?”

“Someone she’s expecting,” I lie. “Old friend.”

His eyes narrow. “Is that so? I suppose I can ask.” He peels back the cuff of his gauntlet, revealing a wristlet with a cracked screen. He taps it and starts talking. “Hey. Kid out here says they’ve got an appointment—”

He stops short.

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