“Maz-15. The rare stuff.”
The thrill I’ve been trying not to acknowledge goes right out of me.
“There’s no such thing. Don’t waste my time. You have business or not?” I ask. Is this supposed to be code for something? I swear, if this guy is only here to mess with me on this already terrible day, I’m gonna track down his darkest secrets and make sure the entire internet hears about them.
“I’m serious,” he says. “You delivered some of it with Mattie’s haul today, mixed in with some of the obscuraz. Deep violet color, high tensile strength, effect similar to magnaz. Your crew is the only one I know of who’s ever managed to draw some. MMC keeps it way hushed. I need you to go back to the same spot where you found it and get me more.”
Wait . . . what?
I keep my face impassive, but it’s like someone’s just hit the brakes on my brain. That bright purplish stuff Mattie picked out in one of our vials . . . that was a new strain of maz? There’s a fifteenth strain, and we were the first ones to find MMC’s stash?
Thought number one: badass.
Thought number two: Remi is going to be the most excited.
Thought number three: sounds super fake, can’t possibly be real, but if it is . . .
Thought number four: sounds expensive.
How much to charge, though? I’m not about to establish too low a market value for a hot commodity out of impatience. Maybe I can get him to name a price first. For, you know . . . scientific reasons. Not because we’re going to take the job. Just to know.
I turn my gaze to the shopping district down the street and keep quiet. Better to examine the guy from the corner of my eye and let him sweat a bit. His polished demeanor slips when I’m no longer looking straight at him. His skin is ashen, eyes darting, fingers drumming against the side of his leg. Obviously buying stim spells on the regular to stay awake. Not a great idea, that, but I’m no doctor, and he didn’t come to me for health advice.
He needs some raw magic quietly siphoned off from MMC’s stash, and that happens to be my specialty.
Was. Was my specialty.
“Mattie has a big mouth. We just delivered those vials to him a few hours ago,” I say. Not too surprising, ultimately. Word travels fast in the black market.
“And he was getting them for me.”
I nod. We knew the vials weren’t for Mattie. The story tracks. I chew the inside of my lip and let myself consider it for just a moment. Remi would lose it at the chance to play with a brand-new strain of maz. They have all kinds of grand plans to study maz in college and beyond, and this would be the ultimate science project.
And what better way to go out with a bang? This is what our crew does best. One last job for the best damn siphoning crew in Kyrkarta, for real this time, bigger and better and more lucrative than ever.
Maybe even enough to make them all stay.
“You realize a job like that would cost you, right?” I say, holding my gaze on the street below. No explicit confirmation. Just an observation.
“I can pay,” he says, almost too desperate. Something in my gut twinges a warning, but then he pulls out a deck, tilts the screen toward me, and brings up a new transaction: eight thousand credits. “And this is just the first payment. I’ll give you the same on delivery.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. Wouldn’t do to seem eager, or like I need the money too bad. I do, of course, but that isn’t any business of his.
Sixteen thousand credits. This new strain must be real, if he’s offering that kind of money up front. That’s enough for Remi to be able to afford Kyrkarta University instead of going all the way to Jattapore. And if Remi stays, Jaesin will stay. We can get a real place in the bridges district, something much nicer than the crappy flat assigned to us in the Cliffs. Jaesin will find a job easily—he’ll charm every interviewer from the first handshake. Ania will be off to her fancy private university either way, but she’ll visit a lot more often if we’re all in one place. It could work.
It really could work.
They’re going to be so mad at me. But if I ask them first, there’s a chance they’ll say no. I can’t risk it.
It’s too good.
We have to.
Besides, it’s our grand farewell week. What better way to go out than with an epic score?
“Note down how many vials you need in the memo field and send those credits over. You’ve got yourself a deal,” I say. He hands his deck to me, and I input the info for my shell bank account. “Can’t give you an exact delivery date and time. These things are risky, you know, gotta be careful about the where and when. We’ll put you at the top of our client list, though.”
It’s a client list of one, but he doesn’t need to know that. It’s just . . . very exclusive.
In my head, I’m already past the guilt of screwing over my future employer again, pushing it aside to dive right into planning. Jaesin and I will need to scout around the area where we pulled our last job, see if we can figure out how the new maz got into our stash, if there’ve been any changes in patrol patterns. . . .
“As soon as you can,” the man says, his intensity bringing him a bit too close. “I have a big project coming up, and I have to have it by then. I’ll add in a bonus two thousand if you can have it done in two days.”
Eighteen thousand. Keep it cool.
“Okay, okay, you got it. Two days, no more. Anything we need to know about it that might help us? What it can do, what you have planned for it?”
For just a second, something in the man’s eyes slips. Something hard. “Mind your business and get me my maz,” he snaps. His expression smooths barely a second later.
“Sorry, I . . . sorry,” he says. And sure enough, he slips a slim glass vial with a stimspell from his pocket and crumbles it onto his tongue with a sparking glow. Called it. “This project is complex. It wears on you.”
I check the status of the transaction on my lens display—paid in full, yes—then nod at the guy.
“We’ll take care of our end, so put it out of your mind and focus on your project. You need any weaving services along with the raw stuff?”
He waves me off. “No, just the raw maz. I’ve got the rest.”
I shrug. “Your choice. We’ve got the best, though, so don’t go shopping around elsewhere. You change your mind, you come to me.”
He raises a hand in farewell and ducks back through the rooftop door without another word. I watch him go, then flop onto my back for one last moment alone with the sky.
With any luck, next week I won’t be sitting under these stars alone.
Five
I SLIP BACK INTO THE club with fire in my veins, practically vibrating with the thrill of another job. Maybe I’m not ready to be done with this business after all. This is what I’m good at. The hacking, the deals, running from the cops in this city that I know better than myself. Why would I give it up?
The atmosphere in the club is oppressive after the fresh night air, the sunnaz decor suddenly false and pale in comparison to the stars. I scan the room, looking between all the writhing bodies for three familiar forms, trying to disconnect my emotions in case I see something I really don’t want to see.
But the others are nowhere to be found.