Page 17 of The Danger Kiss

“Two words for you,” he said mysteriously.

“Two?”

“Yes, two.” There was a pregnant pause. “Blanca. Zola.”

Blanca. Zola.

My little Blanca?

“What about her?” I bit out.

“She’s in town, Dalek. I just took her retinals for the auction buy-in this afternoon. I am bound by law not to disclose her identity to anyone, but, fuck it, I’m letting you know. I still owe you.”

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my pounding heart.

Blanca fucking Zola.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Yeah, right,” came the sardonic response. “Listen, I have to go, in case this line gets picked up with keywords.”

He was right. The family name Zola was a keyword everywhere in the world.

“Do you…” I was grasping at my thoughts. “Do you know where she is now?”

“I’m not sure, but she won’t go far. It looks like she wants in on the auction and was asking about The Danger Kiss.”

Two names I haven’t heard in many years. Two names I thought I would never hear or mention again.

Blanca Zola.

The Danger Kiss.

Two secrets I thought would never come out of the city’s underbelly.

“Are you saying she wants The Danger Kiss?”

“Yeah. She put in a vial of her Unseen Reaper as a buy-in and offered half a dozen more. She could easily sell these online for more than her start bid of a billion, but she’s come down here and had her retinals taken willingly.”

I must find her, I thought dazedly. I must get to her.

“For whatever its worth, thanks for letting me know,” I said. “It’s not that she’s got anything to do with me. I doubt she’d even remember me. I last saw her when she was a kid.”

“I guess. Everybody knows better than to get in the way of a Zola.”

“Yeah.”

We exchanged goodbyes. The line went dead, but I stood still in the middle of the gym, staring at the shadows cast by the bags in the sparse light as I clutched the communicator in my hand like a lifeline.

Despite my words to Chareol, I knew what I was going to do.

I had to find her.

Somehow, I knew exactly where to start.

***

I found myself navigating the labyrinthine streets of Asphalt City's slums, a neighborhood next to the docks called Project D. The residences of the project overlooked the dead, oily sea waters of the coast.

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