The Last City by Nina D'Aleo Read Free Book Online Page B

grinned. Nelly sprang off the edge of the bench and landed back in Eli’s pocket. She curled up and fell asleep.
    ‘What’s that?’ Diega asked, pointing to something on Eli’s workbench.
    ‘This,’ Eli said grandly, picking up the object, ‘is my latest design in shielding technology.’ He showed them the large mirror-faced shield. ‘It’s made of smash-proof, lightweight sagittarian glass, resistant to extreme heat or cold, with the unique radiating protection designed to completely shield the holder, even the parts of the body not covered.’
    ‘ Dimenef reflets ,’ Diega said. The shield shivered and shrank down to a compact palm-sized mirror. She gave a teasing grin.
    ‘It’s a work in progress,’ Eli said, mentally kicking himself for not taking morphing skill into consideration when he was designing it. ‘Here.’ he handed it to Silho, ‘a welcome to the team gift from me!’
    The new recruit spoke a soft thankyou and took the mirror.
    Copernicus rejoined them. ‘There’s been another attack – another hollow body.’
    Diega cursed. ‘Where?’
    ‘Fortitude Hill. Eli, I want you on site for this one. I want you to evaluate the injury and tell me what kind of weapon could have made it.’
    ‘Yes, boss.’
    ‘And try not to upchuck this time,’ Diega poked Eli in the ribs as she got to her feet.
    ‘I have everything under control,’ Eli said, his voice projecting far more confidence than he felt.

5
    T he suburbs of Moris-Isles and Fortitude Hill were 640 levels and an entire universe apart. Somewhere between the two, desperate, dirt-dredging, seven-families-to-one-room poverty had given way to pristine, sculpted gardens, highly polished transflyers and seventeen-rooms-to-one-man mansions. Here, under the eternal blazing stare of high-powered laser-globes, the feeble lantern-lights of the city slums and the shadow people who subsisted beneath them faded to a half-forgotten dream. Silho stood on the corner of Saint Wickham and Berry streets, surveying the neighbourhood through the underwater waver of a concussion. Her head throbbed in a remorseless pounding rhythm and a migraine pain ached behind her eyes, but she fought not to show it. Not today – the first day of really living after a lifetime of dreaming.
    In this neighbourhood, only the snip-snip of water sprinklers and the gurgle of fountains broke the silence of night. Scents of freshly cut lawn and citrus leaves perfumed the air. Silho glanced around at the others climbing out of the transflyer. Their movements were shaky. Diega had put them through a punishing trip of speeding swoops and swerves and very near misses. Silho hadn’t needed to be an empathetic sensor to feel the Ohini Fen’s undercurrent of frustration sparking into anger. Ev’r Keets had got to her badly, though in exactly which way Silho didn’t know, and, in truth, didn’t care to know. Diega’s nasty attitude was getting old fast, and Silho’s dislike for the Fen, though she hid it behind a well-practised mask, was growing by the second. As for Ev’r Keets . . . Silho’s chest constricted painfully and her throat tightened as the memory of what had happened in the interrogation cell replayed again behind her eyes. During her military training, she had never connected the renegade Keets with the scullion-gypsy girl Zingara Ohavor – someone she remembered as a friend, someone she had looked up to, had wanted to be, if only because she reminded Silho of her mother. What she felt seeing Zingara after so long, in such a way, could only be described as heartbreak – if what was already broken could be re-broken – because it meant only one thing. Ismail had died and taken to his grave every grain of hope and goodness Zingara had tried to hold on to, and she had tried, leaving behind the shell – Ev’r Keets.
    Silho blinked away the empty sadness misting her eyes. She forced it back into a dark corner of her mind, to stay until she was alone, in her own