By the time the three came across an intersection in the tunnels, Grace’s hands had finally stopped shaking. She still didn’t feel anything remotely resembling calm, but her heart wasn’t on the verge of exploding anymore, either.
Jasper nodded toward a smaller tunnel branching off the one they’d been walking through. “Get in position,” she told Holly. “Make sure the others are ready.”
A ladder waited on the opposite wall. While Holly disappeared into the darkness behind them, Jasper and Grace climbed the ladder, passed through a manhole cover, and emerged in an alleyway.
“Whoa,” Grace breathed as she scrambled onto concrete. The buildings around them stretched into the upper districts, some for nearly a mile, leaving only thin slivers of the pale red sky peeking through overhead. “It’s sunrise already?” All in all, she hadn’t felt like they’d spent much time in the police station or the tunnels, but maybe all of the adrenaline coursing through her had warped her perception of time.
Jasper straightened up and adjusted her coat. “Yep. Follow me.”
Grace was too nervous to annoy Jasper with more questions, so she trailed her silently through a maze of alleys. Her gaze darted in every direction as they walked. Dumpsters around them overflowed with garbage, and small rodents scurried into the shadows beneath as the two passed. Puddles of liquid that probably weren’t water reflected neon signs and flashing billboards.
It was wildly different from the upper districts Grace had spent the past few years living in.
They finally stopped in front of a dented door in the side of a sleek black building. “You gonna ask what we’re doing?” Jasper asked as she picked the lock.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to tell me,” Grace replied.
“Well, we’re going up.”
“How?”
“Out of service elevator. My technopath—the aforementioned hacker—got it running with her—” Jasper spared a hand to make a wavy motion. “—techy mind powers.” The door opened with a click. “We’re going all the way to the top, so we’ll have time to talk.”
“About what?” Grace followed Jasper into the building.
“You, obviously.” Lights flickered on, and a short walk down a hall brought Jasper and Grace to an elevator waiting with open doors. “Can you think of anything that would lead to Starr turning on you now?”
The elevator’s silver—and slightly rusted—doors closed and reflected Grace’s ragged reflection back at her. “It probably has to do with Kara Callisto,” she answered, wiping at a dark smudge on her chin with her thumb.
“Thea, take us to the roof,” Jasper said into her ear comm. The elevator jerked up. “Kara who?”
“She showed up at the palace a few pentasols ago and said she was an ambassador from Earth,” Grace explained. “And then—well, a couple of hours ago, my math tutor didn’t show up to my rooms for our usual lesson.”
One of Jasper’s eyebrows shot up. “That early?”
“My lessons have always started pretty early.” Grace shrugged. “I’m always done by early afternoon, though.”
“And that leaves you plenty of free time to…?”
“If I’m not invited to any events—” These days, that was usually one of Starr’s public speeches or rallies. It had been a long time since Grace got to go to a party where people were allowed to mingle with her. “—I usually watch TV or read. I eat dinner in one of the dining halls and chat with palace staff.” A bit awkwardly, Grace shrugged again. “My life hasn’t exactly been exciting, until this morning.”
“Right.” Jasper rose onto her tiptoes and lifted a portion of the elevator ceiling. She pulled a black duffel bag off the roof. “And what happened when your tutor didn’t show up?”
“I went looking for him and realized the halls around my room were completely deserted,” Grace recounted. “Kara found me in time to save me from one of my bodyguards. He shot at me, Kara hit him with her blaster, and we ran. She didn’t have time to explain much before police found us and killed her.” Her chest tightened at that last bit. At the memory that resurfaced with the words.
“What was Kara able to tell you?” The bag dropped to the ground. Jasper knelt, unzipped it, and drew out a small knife.
Grace had to think for a moment to find the useful bits of information among frantic memories of her time with Kara. “She said she’s from a group called Earthguard, and that I match the profile of a girl abducted from Earth.”
Jasper pulled out bigger and bigger daggers from the bag and stashed them in various pockets. “‘Bout time someone did something,” she muttered. Louder, she asked, “So, you are from Earth, then?”
“I guess.” Grace’s brow furrowed. “Kara also said something about an issue with the timeline that she would explain later.”
“Timeline issue? What’s that supposed to mean?” Jasper asked. A wider variety of weapons and devices came out of the bag. A gun, a smartsphere, a tablet…
“No idea.” Grace swallowed. “And I guess I’ll never know, now that she’s dead.” Remembering Jasper’s earlier question, she added, “Anyway, Earthguard also wanted me because they can use me as evidence that Starr has secret labs. They might be able to use me to make the Interstar Council take action.”
Grace hesitated a moment before continuing. “I’m not sure how useful I’ll be without any memory of all that, but I guess my wings are evidence enough, if they can prove they were made in Starr’s labs.” She turned a little so that she could glance at her folded wings in the elevator door’s reflection.
“Kara’s arrival must have scared Starr, then. He realized he’d run out of time to deal with you quietly.” Jasper stood, leaving the empty bag on the floor of the elevator.
Grace looked Jasper up and down quickly, impressed by how much stuff had gone into the coat’s pockets without any obvious bulk. Just a few slight bulges here and there. “Kara made it sound like Starr’s been abducting a lot of humans for these secret experiments,” Grace noted.
“Not just humans,” Jasper replied. “And it’s been happening since before Starr was born. Syrus Starr, I mean.” Jasper’s expression darkened.
Right. Syrus, the current governor, was one of many in the Starr family that had held the title of governor.
“Did Kara mention how long Earthguard’s been investigating the abductions?” Jasper asked. “Or how long they’ve even been around?”
Grace shook her head. “Nope. Sorry.”
The elevator let out a terrible creak as it slowed. Grace flinched. It had been out of service for a reason. What if it broke down? What if they got stuck? Or dropped all the way to the ground? What if—?
“You good, Angel? You look nervous.” Jasper drew a knife with a hot pink handle from one of her pockets and inspected the blade. She was too smart to use a dangerous elevator, right?
Maybe Grace’s fears were irrational, but she needed to distract herself from all the ways her mind was telling her she could die in the next five minutes. “You gave Bruce Wright your age in Earth years. Are you from Earth, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” Seeing Van Terra in the news, Grace had always assumed she was one of the many humans whose ancestors had been recruited to come to Kronos for work-related reasons. Travel between star systems was ridiculously expensive. “Why’d you come here?”
The elevator stopped. “Sorry, no time for my backstory now,” Jasper said as the doors opened. She returned the knife to her pocket.
The two stepped out of the elevator and onto the roof of a skyscraper. This was the view of the city Grace was used to. Rooftops, streams of flying vehicles, and glimpses of the planet’s ocean in the distance. The sky had lightened to a faint pink, but the sun Gemma rose in the east, rapidly turning it blue.
Kronos was on the far side of Gemma now, and the Janus System’s other sun, Myni, wouldn’t be visible in the sky for another season. Kronos’s two moons were up, though, faintly visible on the horizon. Hedas reflected a gray-green light, while the larger Iros had an iridescent sheen to it.
The rest of the Janus System’s planets orbited one star or the other. Kronos was the only one to move in a figure-eight around both. That entire figure-eight was a starcycle—roughly two and a half Earth years.
“Well, looks like we’re running with the theory that your wings were made in Starr’s secret lab.” Jasper’s gaze swept over the city.
“Starr’s secret lab,” Grace repeated, the phrase still sounding utterly unbelievable to her. “And where is that, exactly?”
“Underground. The place is called Sky Labs, ironically. The Starrs obviously didn’t want their name attached to their experiments.” Jasper pointed to a door on the other side of the roof. “We’re going in there.”
The door opened before either of them could move. Eight people emerged. The group was made up of various species from around the star system, but they all wore the same black pants, black combat boots, and red shirts.
“Are they with us?” Grace asked.
“Absolutely not. I don’t do the whole matchy-matchy thing.” Jasper lowered her voice. “Do you not know who these people are?”
“Am I supposed to?” Grace asked as the eight formed a loose circle around them.
“They’re Red Blades.”
“What are Red Blades?”
Jasper groaned. “You don’t have a clue, do you? Okay, keep quiet and I’ll handle this.” She flashed a smile. One of her hands slid into a pocket. “Hello there! What brings you all to this…rooftop?”
A man whose skin was covered in dark green scales stepped forward and held up his empty hands, a cold smile on his serpentine face. Grace’s eyes quickly went to the tattoo on his wrist: a knife dripping with blood.
“I could ask you the same thing, Van Terra,” the man said. His hands dropped to his sides. “But I already know you’re here to rob the jewelry store a few floors down.”
Grace shot Jasper an incredulous look. “You’re what?”
“What did you think we came up here to do? Enjoy the sunrise?” Jasper’s focus shifted back to the man. “Don’t tell me you’re here to stop me. You’ve done far worse than robbery.”
“We’re not here for you, despite the reward on your head.” The man nodded at Grace. “We’re here for her.”
“Me?” Grace yelped.
“Too bad,” Jasper said. “She’s mine.”
“We’re not letting you leave with her.” The man flexed one of his hands. His associates inched forward, their own hands moving to guns at their sides. Along with the weapons, Grace spotted more bloody knife tattoos. Were they part of one of the lower district gangs? The name “Red Blades” did sound familiar, the more she rolled it around in her head.
Jasper drew a dagger.
“Bringing a knife to a gunfight?” The serpentine man laughed as he drew his gun from his side holster. “Idiot.”
Jasper’s head tipped to the side. “Angel, you may want to get down.”
The other Red Blades lifted their guns. Heart pounding, Grace dropped to the ground.
Jasper moved with speed and grace that bordered on inhuman, deflecting every bullet with the dagger’s blade as if it were a shield. With her other hand, she drew a second dagger. The gunfire continued and she danced in a circle around Grace, throwing bullets to the ground. Grace remained crouched, frozen, with her hands over her ears.
The gunfire finally stopped.
“Guns run out of bullets.” Jasper smirked. “And I’m Van Terra. Idiot.”
She lunged forward and stabbed the closest man in the chest. Grace flinched.
A woman to Grace’s right, with the pale green skin and pointed ears of a West Kronosian, drew a dagger of her own and darted forward. Grace tried to scramble away but wound up staggering backwards and falling.
The woman was halfway to Grace when Jasper sent a knife flying into her shoulder. Clutching her arm, the Red Blade cried out and dropped to her knees. Another Blade, a blue-furred man, swung at Jasper with a pocketknife. Jasper laughed and knocked it aside.
Grace dropped her gaze to the ground beneath her and focused on getting back up. Her legs had turned to jelly, her hands had gone numb, and every frantic breath brought her closer to passing out. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think about anything besides the clinking of metal on metal. The tang of blood in the air.
The rooftop fell quiet. A hand grabbed Grace’s shoulder. She yelped and looked up.
“Whoa, it’s okay, it’s me,” Jasper said. “Take a deep breath. If you pass out, I’m not carrying you.”
Grace risked a glance around the roof. They were the only two left standing. “Are they dead?” she asked, avoiding looking at any particular body for more than a second.
“Not yet. But some of them might get back up if we stick around too long, so…” Jasper jutted a thumb at the door.
Grace climbed to her feet, took a shaky step, and then another. “Okay. I’m okay.” As they started across the roof, she asked, “What are your daggers made of?”
“A galaxium alloy,” Jasper answered. “It’s tough stuff, but even the best knives break after enough bullets.” She lifted an eyebrow. “So, you really haven’t heard of the Red Blades?”
“I guess they do sound familiar.”
“They’re the biggest gang on the planet.” Jasper reached the door first and opened it. A light flickered on automatically to illuminate the staircase on the other side.
Grace had heard about gangs operating in the lower districts, but… “I didn’t think there were any gangs up here.”
“That’s what the government wants you to think.” Jasper laughed. “Seriously, though. The gangs—some of them, anyway—bring the elite families drugs and other illegal imports. In exchange, they get a degree of protection from the law.” After a pause, she added, “Though, you are right that they don’t usually make themselves visible up here. Today was a rare exception. You were enough of a target to make them come up.”
Grace was too focused on not tripping down the steep roof-access staircase to fully grasp everything Jasper said. “Why does the biggest gang on Kronos want me dead?” she asked, still processing the new information.
“Because they work for Starr, obviously.”
“What?” Despite her best efforts, Grace stumbled at the next landing. Her legs were still shaky from the confrontation on the roof. Her hands weren’t any better, she noticed as she caught her balance.
“The Red Blades do all of Starr’s dirty work for him,” Jasper explained. “The governor has his own personal army, and the public has no idea. And that’s on top of the upper district police forces that are more loyal to him than they are the law.”
Grace glanced at her as they started down the next flight of stairs. “How do you know all of this? And about the lab experiments?”
“I have my ways.” Jasper hopped over the last three steps.
“And I’m—” Grace swallowed. “How sure are we that the lab I escaped was one of Starr’s?”
“It explains why Starr’s so determined to get his hands on you again,” Jasper answered with a slight shrug. “And the Sky Labs experiments mostly revolve around cyborg enhancements.”
Grace frowned. “I’m not a cyborg.”
“Yeah, you are. That’s what your wings are. Cybernetic.”
“Right. I guess I never thought about it like that.” Grace paused a moment before starting down the next flight of steps after Jasper. “But a lot of people in the city are cyborgs. They aren’t all experiments.”
“Sure, they have basic replacements for missing limbs. If they’re rich enough, with the right connections, they might have a computer chip in their brain or an illegal weapon implant.” Jasper waved a hand as she leapt down to the next landing. “But Sky Labs tech is next level and has been for decades. Nothing like those wings exists anywhere else.”
Jasper exited the stairwell and led Grace into a hallway bathed in the warm glow of dimmed lights. “Now,” she said. “This is where it gets serious.”
Grace stared at her. “And the gunfight on the roof wasn’t?”
Jasper shrugged.