Victory Bridge arched over the Tempsan River. Cobbled pavement and softly illumined lampposts deceived the truth. Their quaint charm lured Lenith into ease. Despite serving as the artery between the Hub and the rest of the city, it seemed like such an insignificant monument.

Lenith crossed the bridge in a slow, contemplative lurch. Concrete parapets prevented sightseers from plummeting to their deaths. Thrashing tides lapped along a canal several yards below the bridge. Vented walls swallowed the rushing waters in succinct intervals, harvesting its energy, spitting out mist that rose and transformed into the fog.

She passed many people—Chimayri and civilian alike—on her way over the arched path. Their statuses were hard to discern, as none appeared downtrodden, despite some smelling as though they hadn’t bathed in days; others smelled of synthesized flowers. She said nothing and paid them little attention. These disparate strangers repaid her in kind. The hissing waters provided all the conversation they wanted.

At the bridge’s end, Lenith had a choice. A lush, green park with the same lampposts greeted her to the left. Sapling uldor trees glistened orange in the dying light. Paved paths wove between their slender trunks, curving at the riverfront. Lenith debated going in and wandering. But she was on a mission.

She followed Victory Road along the walled grove until Marlic’s instructions told her otherwise. A sign over the park’s gated entrance told her that it was called Wandering Uldor.

The black, four-lane pavement went as far north as Lenith could see. The skyline remained elusive, although the fog cleared once past the bridge. Obtuse, windowless buildings blocked the general population from easily watching the Hub. The Chimayri must’ve known this made resistance or assassination that much harder.

Lenith traveled east at the first fork, onto Bendre Street, and the city revealed itself.

All around were functioning, thriving stores unlike any she had seen before. Shops were stacked atop each other, connected through second floor bridges and accessed by stairwells at every crossroad.

Vibrant signs fought for undivided attention. The fluorescent glare gave Lenith a headache. She forced onward. Exploration could come later. She figured she had plenty of useless time now.

A vacant, stately ethos loomed over the people clogging the street. They knocked into her and each other, carrying on without a word, seeking their way to the next door worth passing through. Their paths, in their own lives, had no time for a newcomer.

It was a relief. Liberating. She had always been met with an outpouring of the same, generic questions at whichever new camp her family arrived. ‘Where are you from?’ ‘What’s Herielt Thaymen—master of the Graymen—like?’ ‘Why are you so quiet?’

Lenith had no story worth telling to anyone in colossal, impersonal Sudbina.

If she had any understanding of the city’s layout (which she did not, yet), she would understand this: While Victory Road served as the one and only thoroughfare to the Hub—a paved river which all other streams in the city led into—Bendre was considered a dividing line between two halves of an extensive commerce ward.

Everyone knew Bendre Street, a sanctuary to all (except those in the Blocks); a place to advance on a culturally perceived ladder comprised of clothes, foods, restaurants, furniture, devices, and a Chimayri annex conveniently tucked between a toy shop and a children’s clothing store.

Solar collecting panels under dense, pentagonal tiles formed most roads in Sudbina. Few traditional vehicles traversed them—the personal transportation of yesteryear was long forfeited. Almost all cars and trucks that remained were helmed by the Chimayri. Motor-scooters ushered privileged denizens around at a programmed, leisure pace no faster than the average man could run.

Storefronts engorged customer ego. The bright signs blinded them of uncertainty and debts. Side-shops and dingy pubs filled alleys and side streets, both above and below ground. The fading, somnolent sky disappeared. All the stars in the sky ceased to spark.

Lenith fought the allure. She wrested from all the temptation. The flow of bodies forced her to keep moving, never looking at the directions in her hand, going, going, gone.

Rumors in the Gray Area had always circulated that Sudbina’s denizens were all forced to dress the same. Untrue. Lenith passed by men in fastened rags which they somehow called clothes. She was rammed by a woman adorning a lace scarf and blue jacket with short, black antlers mounted on its shoulders. She saw a family that all dressed in black and white, but that seemed to be by choice.

Bendre Street curved through the crammed storefronts for blocks and infected the streets that spidered out from it with the same exuberance.

At the center of the street, as she discovered once the crowds thinned, a metal rail protruded like an ankle-high median. Low hums and drones thrummed at equal intervals.

A boy cut away from his family and hopped over the rail at the crossroads of Bendre and Hoake Path, eliciting a cry from his neatly dressed mother and condemnation from a decorated father. He laughed and vaulted over to rejoin them.

Lenith took Hoake Path north, as the instructions commanded. She walked beside the rail line until it continued down one street and she took another route. Then a long, uninterrupted walk began. Lenith enjoyed it. The crowds didn’t maraud here in the residential wards.

The hastily typed directions noted a tall red building called Olied on her path. She was to head eastward beyond it. It had an oversized sign with bright lights both behind and built into its fat letters. The building was three stories tall with a ribbed façade that vibrated with muted thumps escaping from within.

Olied, like many places of pleasure, was inaccessible behind panel-locked doors. A privileged and powerful few were allowed entry.

Marlic had left one note off to the side of the directions which read ‘Turn around if you EVER reach the particle shield’ along with Pelinda eymer Viscel’s apartment number and a series of digits for use at Charity.

Digital signs strung up by thick, black wires listed nearby places of interest at each intersection, and in which direction to find them. Recognizing one of the names, Lenith took a detour.

Ξ

The Blocks—standing at four stories tall, four buildings wide, and naturally the same shades of light gray that they had been in Aglebon’s underwater speech—were impossible to miss. A familiar (now headless) statue stood at the top center of the steps: a well-dressed man with a book under one arm and a flower in the other.

A plaque at the base of the statue read ‘An opportunity that we have given you not to squander. – Torigen Aglebon.’

Each building had its own number at the top and nothing else to differentiate one from the other. The third building was under construction, adding two more floors.

Dozens of square windows not big enough for a fist to fit through made the Block exteriors look like grids illuminated for a child’s entertainment. Lenith marveled. The halls within were big enough to fit hundreds of rooms, like packing rodents into pockets. A building so big, yet so small. And there are four of them.

She idled at the foot of the cracked stoop leading toward Block Two’s entrance. She took a seat. Numbness settled into her thighs under Aglebon’s headless purview. A crisp wind slapped her across the face. Her hair whipped into a red flurry. She waited.

Shades of deepening night set in. Lights mounted to the Blocks intensified, casting long, untrusting shadows. A Noctam officer approached. She knew because he wore a thin Chimayri suit of red stripes and accents. The visor over the top of his face glowed weak blue against a soft jaw and tapered eyes.

The officer asked what Lenith was up to. She feigned her residence as Block Three, and she wanted some fresh air. How much were Noctam paid to walk around with their faces exposed? Then she recalled Marlic’s words. They were there to help. Killing them would be like murdering a dewfluff and expecting praise. The officer carried on without another word.

Lenith spotted Iggy walking down the street long before he saw her. He was in a faded green shirt and a pair of Hub-given black pants. A bandage was taped down to hide the majority of a fresh cut that split from his forehead to his jaw, opposite the bruised cheek.

She waited to stand until he noticed her. Perhaps because the lights blinded him or he suffered a concussion, Iggy walked right past her. She rose as his boot caught on the first step toward Block Four.

“How’d you get that beauty on your face? Already out picking fights?”

Iggy faltered and spun around. His head swung to the side, as if heavier than he could manage. He somehow regained himself. “What are ya doing out here?”

“From what I’ve been told, all of us are put in here.” Lenith crossed the ankle-high divider that separated the stoops from one another. Closer to Iggy. She smelled his perspiration. His fear. “So, I waited for any familiar faces to appear. It’s as simple as that.”

“Oh. What one are ya in?” Iggy touched his hand to the bandage. Blood had stained through and turned the beige gauze copper-colored.

“I’m not. My Chimayri worked out a deal. I get to stay somewhere else.”

“Mine wasn’t too friendly. Aren’t ya full of luck?”

“My dad’s dead. O so much joy, I get to adapt to city life. But I have it so well off. Look at me. I’m so full of luck.” Lenith swelled with emotion and she smacked Iggy’s wide chest.

“Lenith, I—”

“You’re a pathetic man. I didn’t wait out here this long to listen to you. I can’t stand your voice. The only reason I’m here, Iggy, is to say you were never worth the price my dad paid. You deserved to die when you showed up at Hidden Ash. You deserved to die at Rugerbin. We gave you everything and you found out how to take more. I refuse to give you another word.”

She left him on the stoop. Her hands trembled. Her body ached with satisfaction.

Ξ

A rail ran down the middle of Treak Street, too. Ilius patrolled with idle hands on their holsters. A particularly stocky officer leaned on a grate meant for parking scooters. His girth inflated the ribbed design of his suit, stretched the orange marks around his arms.

All of Sudbina’s residential area was growing upward. Intelligent machinery clung to facades and rooftops. Their drills and breakers tore apart the old in preparation for the new.

Smaller, well-programmed mechanisms worked tirelessly to build the additional floors.

The hair along the back of Lenith’s neck stood. Dark roofs were ideal for Furies and other unknown beings to watch from, without regard. Unlike the Blocks, each building was varied and unique. Easy to identify. Sparse signs shone like beacons; the constant bombardment of colors from the commerce ward had finally died off and Lenith’s eyes could rest.

Nearing the second block of Treak Street, Kisset 3 stood tall with a neon green sign proclaiming from the roof. The façade had a soft hook at the far end, which undoubtedly allowed for more housing. Vast windows with fine white trim demarcated each floor. Chips in the emerald siding grew more complicated the higher they branched and, by the fourth floor, splinters and cracks overwhelmed.

Lenith pushed the flimsy front door aside. The comforting scent of baked fruit and dough greeted her. She wiped her shoes on a beige mat next to two doors, one led to a miniature shop stocked full of food and necessities and the other room was lined with lockers for parcel deliveries. Clothes washers rumbled past her field of view.

Voices and laughter echoed from an alcove off to the side of a decommissioned elevator. When the front door rattled shut, the voices quieted to whispers.

The lobby was painted a light shade of orange. Her shoes left residual prints across the blackwood floor as she followed a blue line on the left wall to a spiral stairwell hidden away in the corner. Someone had plastered a paper sign to the steel newel: Mind the steps. And then, in much smaller print below: To be remodeled in the Eighteenth Year.

Already something to look forward to in the New Year, Lenith thought.

The steps were narrow. She grasped multiple times for a handrail that had been removed at some point. Its brackets were still there. She hoped she loved the third floor, because she hated the thought of treading these steps again soon.

The stairs opened into a spacious third-floor hall. A panel and utility hatch accompanied each apartment door. The panel screens were soft blue. Lenith approached Apt 35 and studied the panel’s simple interface. She had three choices. A rectangular outline asked her to ‘SCAN’ something (Lenith assumed for the identification card Marlic mentioned), ‘PING’ and ‘Leave Message.’

She tapped ‘Ping.’

The icon flashed orange.

Two locks clunked. The door slid aside. Pelinda eymer Viscel poked her head into the hall. Her new roommate had arrived.