That didn’t last. The moment they emerged from the fancy suburb and hit the city, Zoey thought she could sense a crackle of tension in the air, a sour mood. It had to be her imagination (the supposedly world-class sensors in the back of the van didn’t note any direct threats) but she felt it in her gut. Hunched shoulders on the sidewalks, people staring at their shoes as they walked, the wound-up angst of a mutual, unresolved grievance. Even if her instincts were right, there was no reason to believe it had anything to do with her. These people led their own lives. Maybe it was the stress of Halloween shopping.
Still, she felt trapped in the armored vehicle, like there wasn’t enough air. When they stopped at an intersection, she concentrated on the light, willing it to change, holding her breath. At one point a passerby stared a little too long and she wondered if they’d made the vehicle … but then they just kept walking. That was the thing—the moment a single person saw through the subterfuge, anyone and everyone who had bad intentions could know inside of a minute. That was the terrible magic of the Blink network.
Still, they crept along with the rest of the traffic and passed unmolested into West Turner, a place in which not a single door didn’t have an armed guard and the doors they guarded wore metal bars. Zoey made a mental note of the plentiful neon and the cool clubs and restaurants and tried to shout down the small-town part of her brain that was treating this like a safari. Hell, it’s not like any of these people were the angry nerds who’d put the bounty out on her. This was fine. Everything was fine. Look, there’s a brick BBQ joint with a giant golden pig on the roof with smoke pouring out of its butt! That’s pretty cool.
Will, who had an eerie and annoying ability to read Zoey’s moods, said, “If Alonzo starts getting political, just move on to the next subject. Don’t agree or disagree, just say that’s not what we’re here to talk about.”
“Political?”
“If he starts talking about economic justice, racism, any of that. Alonzo is an activist, at least in his own mind, and your father had a … complicated relationship with the community. He’ll try to go to work on you.”
“Wait, the heart-eating guy we’re going to meet was an enemy of my father? You’re just now mentioning that?”
“‘Enemy’ is a strong word.”
“And he had ‘problems’ with ‘the community’?” She made air quotes with her fingers. “Is that your way of saying my father was a racist? On top of everything else?”
“No. Not in his opinion. Get ready, we’re here.”
For some reason, when it was said earlier that Alonzo ruled a system of tunnels under the city, Zoey was picturing stone walls lit by torches. Instead, they pulled up to a covered stairwell ensconced between two buildings that led down to a bustling, well-lit thoroughfare two stories high, with storefronts and food carts and people zipping around on electric scooters.
“Is there a whole other city down here that nobody ever told me about?”
“No,” said Will, “only about eight blocks of it. This was supposed to be the start of a subway system way back at the founding, but Arthur was never big on public transportation, so it just sat dormant until Alonzo’s crew came down and built it out. Five of the city’s ten best restaurants are down here, so there’s that.”
There were sideways glances at the Suits and their bodyguard (who was in a black tunic with a katana on his back, Wu’s Stay Away outfit) and for a good reason: their presence down here could not mean anything good. They soon arrived at a men’s clothing store called Threads of Power, a gleaming storefront with gold trim and, in the display windows, six naked mannequins. When Zoey got within about ten feet of the entrance, the mannequin nearest to her blinked to life, the skin replaced by a hologram of Zoey herself, now wearing a striking crimson skirt-and-jacket combination. A floating price tag hovered over every item and she noted that the system’s algorithm had, like every stylist she had worked with, determined she should be showing more chest.
Jazz music wafted from the store as they passed through. Zoey assumed that at some point they’d be ushered through some kind of armored door and wind up in a back room full of scowling henchmen smoking cigarettes and polishing bullets or whatever people like that do in between crimes. Everybody in the city did their dirty work behind some kind of legit storefront, even if the city’s law enforcement situation barely made it necessary. Zoey thought it was partially a status thing for these guys, having the cool restaurant or whatever to slap their name onto. Either way, Zoey found her eyes darting around the racks of suits and dresses, studying the mannequins and nattily dressed salespeople for clues, trying to find the cracks in the facade. Unless this wasn’t Alonzo’s place and Will had just stopped to ask directions.
Will approached a counter helmed by a wiry young black woman with a shaved head and, before he could speak, she said, “You just won me a thousand dollars.”
“How’s that?”
“I bet Alonzo that you would bring her and her bodyguard both; Alonzo said you’d come alone. We made a bet, I won.”
“Is he here?”
“Oh, he’s here,” said the woman. “He’s been waiting all morning. Cleared his calendar, just for you.”
She was at least four inches taller than Zoey, though from behind the counter it was impossible to know if she wasn’t in heels or something. She wore a dress that was made of a delicate silver material that almost seemed like chain mail, draped over broad shoulders and bare arms. No polish or art on her fingernails. She had a tattoo over her left breast of some kind of falcon, like something you’d see in Egypt, and Zoey thought she could detect where it had been applied to cover a circular scar. The shape of an old bullet wound.
Will glanced up toward the ceiling and said, “Well, that was considerate of him.”
“Yeah, he must really want to see you people. Or, he knows the winter lines are coming in today and that every inch of these shelves have to be swapped out and four girls called in sick, and that if he pokes his head out of his office I’m putting his ass to work. I’ll bet you the thousand dollars I just won that when you go up there, he’ll pretend to be on the phone. Here…”
She hit a switch under the counter. Behind her, a pair of mannequins slid aside, opening a hidden door and revealing a narrow staircase going up.
They circled around behind the counter, which immediately felt to Zoey like a dangerous trespass, then up one floor to find an enormous office that somehow felt bigger than the entire store below it. There was a black marble desk in front of a sound system that occupied the whole of the rear wall. A muscular man sat shirtless behind the desk, a thick beard jutting from his face, a tattoo of a teardrop under one eye. Zoey wondered if he was wearing pants. This, presumably, was Megaboss Alonzo.
Alonzo put down the phone he’d been pretending to listen to without even feigning a good-bye. “Welcome!” He looked at Zoey. “You’re looking well.”
Zoey was sure she’d never spoken to him before, but said, “Thanks.”
“You’re not letting the trolls get to you, right? I know you had some hard times over the summer.”
“I try.”