Page 81 of Coldwire
The worker waves for us to move ahead. The dashboard shows10:03 P.M., and there’s a sharp whistle blowing from one of the other workers, who raises both arms and signals for the cars behind us to turn around. They’re closing. We’re the last ones being let into the city.
“This is going to be a nightmare trying to leave,” Miz mutters, easing the van forward. The barrier lifts. Our wheels crunch, gliding us right past.
“We should count ourselves lucky that we made it in,” Nik says.
I breathe out, shifting to cross my legs. My foot dangles, the tracker inside sitting snugly. Teryn’s not going to be able to monitor me here unless she rode ahead. Three days. If I’m to serve NileCorp well, I need to get us finished with Threto, and into Offron, in three days.
“We’re unlucky that there’s a new wave of influenza,” Miz counters.
My eyes flicker to the rearview mirror, watching Nik loll his head into his hand, propped on the armrest.
“There’s always a new wave somewhere,” he says. “That’s just downcountry. We should have planned for this. Now we’ve infiltrated at the worst possible time. The booth workers will have made a note for the surveillance network that our license plate is only permitted at the dam.”
He must notice me watching him, because Nik’s attention flickers up to the mirror too. He quirks an eyebrow. I uncross my legs and swivel around, facing him properly.
“Are you really Irisean?”
Nik scoffs. “No. I recited him a grocery list.” He pulls out a box from his bag and tosses it at me. “Masks on.”
There is not a single blind spot in all of Threto.
“We’ve waited long enough,” Miz says, twenty minutes into driving incircles on the inner expressways, avoiding each turn that takes us down to the city. “The cameras below don’t cycle through active periods. Scans are repeatedly showing they’re always on.”
“We can’t have the cameras identifying us until we’re exiting the facility,” Nik insists. “It’s not enough time to get away. They’ll circle us in mid-operation.”
Threto is significantly more inland than touristy Upsie—which means a tighter fist over the city. Medaluo can manage affairs here without international news picking up its every move and publishing criticism on the feeds. Angry protests against the government are eliminated before they’ve started. Dissidents are taken away the moment they make a marketplace purchase for a clean banner to write on.
“What if we drive right up to the facility?” Blare asks. “Get there first and then plan an entrance route.”
“We can’t get off these highways,” Nik answers evenly. “Police will be on our tail when we drive the wrong way.”
The roads into Threto are built on an elevation, reserving the streets underneath for pedestrian use. The buildings to either side of us loom at thirty, forty stories high. Threto is sprawling, but Threto also receives the increasing burden of Medan rural drain. If people are moving here to keep themselves afloat, then the city must strengthen its pillars and patch up the holes on its undersides. Grow tall, grow bright, plaster advertisements on every available face of its skyscrapers until the electric bills are sponsored too.
“We could cover up the windshield?” Blare tries. “So that the cameras don’t log our faces.”
At this height, I can see directly into the apartment windows. Mothers scrubbing clothes in the bathrooms, fathers talking into headsets. The sidewalks have emptied out. Though there aren’t cameras on the highway, there are digital eyes fixed on every building we drive past, pointed at the street level to make a note of visitors.
“Blare.” Nik gives them such a withering look that I duck into myshoulders out of secondhand indignation. “If we cover the windshield, don’t you think the cameras will findthatsuspicious and ping our license plate instantly?”
Blare folds their arms across their chest. “I’m just trying to help.”
Nik sighs, reaching over to tap their elbow. “I appreciate it.”
I eye the interaction through the rearview mirror. If Blare only met Nik after they were recruited into his ring of anarchy, they can’t have known each other for much time. But there was a familial feeling in that gesture, long-standing and comfortable. Slowly, I take in the shape of Blare’s eyes, the blue color, the light brown hair that ends unevenly at their chin.
“We still need to get off the expressway soon,” Miz says firmly. “Hover any longer and when we go down, the cameras are going to trigger an alert to tell the precinct we were circling.”
“Fine. Let’s do it.” Nik leans forward, directing the wheel to one of the off-ramps. “As soon as we drive down, we need to ditch the vehicle. Threto city police will wonder why we’re going in the wrong direction if our excuse was the Tri-Split Dam.”
“You know,” I cut in. “The problem isn’t only evading identification. No matter how thoroughly we cover up, Threto surveillance will also ping their precincts as soon as multiple cameras fail to identify who we are.” I shift to look over my shoulder, speaking directly to Nik. “They don’t need to know we’re Atahuans to come after us. They just need to be suspicious about why the cameras aren’t logging registered Medans.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that,” Nik says. “Our best bet is going by foot and hoping we avoid most of the city cameras.”
A best bet is for gamblers. A best bet accompanies the spin of a wheel, the throw of a die. It’s luck.
Corporate soldiers aren’t trained to take bets. We are trained to make evaluations.
“Three Towns National Data Center is by the river, and we just drove in from the east highway boundary,” I say. “That could be a five-hour walk.”
