I looked down at the bars. They were processed and wrapped behind the force-field dome with no human intervention, but the wrappers were stylized, with elaborate hanzi characters. Except for the haan seal, they could have rolled off a Hangfei assembly line. They were learning how to market to us, how to make their gifts feel more like products with brand names, and logos.
No ingredient list, though, I thought as I closed the bag. Sometimes, especially with the haan, it was best not to dig too deep.
“All right flykiller,” Dragan chided. “Let’s go.”
I squirmed out from under his hand and he tossed the bag of rations playfully against my chest so I had to grab it before he headed for the exit.
“Hey, let me get that for you.”
I wrapped the bag into a bundle and looped the handle around one wrist. Dragan wove through the throng of bodies toward the door, waving back to Fang over his shoulder as he went.
Fang waved back, taking one of the smokes out of the jar as the little bell jingled. With Dragan outside, he flicked the cigarillo toward me and I caught it out of the air.
“See you later, little dragon.”
I blew him a kiss, and tucked the smoke in my pocket as I turned to follow Dragan.
Outside, the district’s main drag was a mass of bumper-to-bumper traffic surrounded by flows of people on foot, and on bicycles. Thumping music blended into electronic mishmash as people leaned out of car windows to talk to vendors, and catcall women. The shiny, smoke-colored domes of haan heads bobbed among the mass of human ones, eyes blazing and the occasional shifting movement under their scalps visible even from a distance.
Dragan lingered in the more or less clear patch of blacktop tucked to the side of Fang’s entryway, where a group of wiry boys stood in a tight circle drinking cans of whiskey soda and adding to the overall babble. He looked down the street at the commotion with the gonzos.
“Don’t start with them,” I told Dragan, tugging his sleeve.
“I’m not,” he said. “Dao-Ming made me promise I’d leave them alone.”
“She made you promise? Are you kidding me? She thinks they should all be lined up and shot.”
“She was very insistent about it.”
“Since when is she about not starting trouble?”
From the top of Fang’s steps I could see over the heads of the crowd to the main intersection in the distance. More people had gathered around the group, and while I couldn’t make out what they were saying I could see trouble wasn’t far behind. Someone snatched a handful of fliers away from one of the gonzo women and threw them across the pavement. When a tall gonzo with a bullhorn tried to step in, someone else tried to take his poster-board sign that read PREPARE FOR SECOND IMPACT.
I shook my head. You could see the damned ship from the intersection. Some people living in the area were old enough to remember the first Impact firsthand. After seeing a quarter of a million people get wiped out they didn’t want to hear about how great a Second Impact was going to be. Someone was going to get punched. Pretty soon, by the look of it.
“Dragan, come on,” I said, turning back. “Never mind them.”
When I looked back, though, I could see he’d tensed. His eyes had changed, angry now, and when I followed his gaze to the gonzos my heart sank. Alexei stood with them, near another small group of younger boys and girls. That little shitbag had been chatting me from right down the street.
I squeezed back past the group of boys and grabbed Dragan’s arm before he started plowing his way toward the intersection.
“Dragan, wait.”
Alexei, I sent over the 3i. Answer me.
“He knows today’s the day I redeem our tickets,” he said. “He knows this is where I come, and when. This is deliberate.”
I moved in front of him to block his path, but he didn’t move toward them. He didn’t even really seem mad, or maybe he just didn’t have the strength for it. He glared over my head toward the assembly.
“Come on,” I said, my voice getting drowned out for a second as an aircar horn blared above us. “Go home. I’ll talk to him.”
“He won’t listen to you.”
“He’ll listen to me before he listens to you.”
The second I said it I felt bad, but it was true, and Dragan didn’t seem as wounded by it as I thought he might be. He just stared down the street at Alexei.
“I couldn’t save his mother,” he said. “If I could have, I would have. I cared about that woman.”
“He knows.”
“I promised her….” He drifted off.
Alexei, I sent. Answer me, so help me, I saw you over there.
He didn’t answer, but his icon pulsed away. He’d gotten my messages, he was just ignoring them. I scanned the crowd to try to get his attention, but I’d lost track of him. I couldn’t see where he’d gone.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said again. “I promise. You’re already in enough trouble with the gonzos. If you go over there now, you’ll just make it worse. Okay?”
He frowned, trying to spot Alexei again as another aircar horn went off above us.
“Okay?”
More horns honked overhead, emitters whining as the neat rows of moving shadows broke apart suddenly. I looked up and saw a procession of slick white aircars heading toward the gonzo gathering. One of them had broken from the pack and come cutting down through three lanes of traffic, nearly clipping a convertible before cruising in really low. People edged out of the way, clearing a hole as it came down toward the pavement, ready or not. It vented hot air, and the people around it shielded their faces as it kicked up clouds of grit.
“Hey, watch it asshole!” I yelled over, but at least Dragan’s attention had moved off of Alexei. He watched the vehicle as it thumped down halfway in a no parking zone. One of the tinted back windows slid down partway, and a hand snuck out to wave someone over.
“You!” a voice called. “Yeah, you!” I realized that he was calling Dragan. Over the crowd, the rest of the procession had reached the street gathering and the gonzos had begun to clear spots for them to land.
“Dragan, never mind them,” I said, but he had already begun making his way over. By the time I caught up, he was standing by the rear door, peering in the crack in the window. “Dragan just go home. I’ll talk to Alexei and meet you—”
“What do you want?” he asked the guy in the car.
I looked at the driver but he just sat there with one hand on the control stick. He had the divider behind him closed, so I couldn’t see into the back.
“Dragan…” I warned.
The back door opened. Dragan looked in, and seemed to recognize the person inside.
I moved in next to him and saw three guys back there, all wearing suits. Two were big, tattooed guys and the third was an older guy but I couldn’t see his face. He gestured for Dragan to get in with one bony hand.
“Dragan…”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Wait out here.”
I tugged at his shirt, but he was doing it—he was getting in. He slid into the plush backseat and one of the suits grabbed the door to close it. Before he could, I slipped in and plopped down next to Dragan. We were facing a second seat that was under the divider. The older guy sat in the middle of it, his legs crossed like a woman, with the two tough guys sitting on either side of him.
The inside of the car smelled amazing… someone had been eating back there and the smell of food, real food, not rations, lingered heavy enough to make my mouth water.