Drone races are illegal, technically.
If you’ve ever been to one, you know why. Basically how it works is that a total of a dozen racers, who each brings their own flying machine, compete in races that take place all over the Undercity. The drones zip through the air and along the narrow, crowded streets down here, going fast enough to kill a person or destroy the side of a building. They have no permits to fly. They don’t get permission to set up a trail through the streets. The gambling that happens over them is all cash, so the government can’t tax or trace it. Still, it’s an exciting sight. People will gather to watch them shoot by until the Level system catches on—promoting disruptive behavior!—and the police come to break it up. Even then, it can be hard to pinpoint exactly where the race’s starting point was and catch those responsible for organizing the whole thing.
Pressa’s been gambling on the races for years. Several months ago, she told me about them, and I went with her to watch a race without telling my brother about it.
I loved them immediately—the homemade ingenuity, the way the drones are usually pieced together haphazardly out of spare parts, some of them sleek and small and fast, others large and heavy and menacing. They tear down the streets at a hundred miles an hour, and when I watch them, I can’t help but be impressed that something so fast and dangerous can be made just by putting together metal scraps from the Undercity’s junkyards.
Now Pressa and I emerge from the elevator onto the grungy ground floor of the Undercity and head toward where she lives, a tiny, ramshackle apartment above her father’s apothecary.
“How’s your dad feeling today?” I ask Pressa as we pass through a food market on our way there. “We’re not bothering him, are we?” We move in and out of the smoke from open grills. Over each food stand hovers virtual text telling me what they’re serving. My system automatically translates some of the foreign text into English. KEBABS. SUGAR CANE JUICE. CORN SOUP. FRIED
DOUGH.
Pressa shrugs, trying not to look concerned. “Don’t worry about it,” she replies. “He’s having a pretty good day today. He’s probably downstairs in the apothecary right now.”
Technically, her father’s apothecary is as illegal as the drone races, although Ross City’s too lazy to do anything about it. If your Level is below a 7, you’re not allowed access to regular health care. Antarctica claims it’s because if your Level is that low, you can’t be trusted not to use the drugs for illicit purposes.
So Pressa’s dad runs an apothecary where he sells all kinds of dried herbs and natural medicines that are unapproved by the authorities. It’s not really the best option for the poor, but it’s better than nothing.
Pressa stops on a smaller street branching away from the marketplace, then guides us through the maze of graffiti walls and cracked ground before we finally emerge on a different street.
Her father’s apothecary sits on the corner of this intersection, its window barred with rusted iron and its door ajar. It’s a dingy and dirty place, the kind of shop you’d never see in the Sky Floors, where you can have things like toothpaste and shampoo and medicine delivered right to your doorstep just by saying the items out loud.
But the sight of the apothecary still makes me smile. The lights on inside give it a warm glow. As I step in, the familiar, medicinally sweet smell of licorice fills the air. Next to a potted bamboo plant, a lucky porcelain cat sits on the checkout counter, its painted face bobbing back and forth. The aisles are crowded with shelves of cardboard boxes, each with something scribbled on them in Chinese—raw aconite for treating arthritis, ginseng, ephedra stems, rhubarb roots. On and on.
We make our way to the front counter, where an old man’s chatting with several customers. Beside him is his assistant, a lanky boy named Marren, who’s helping to fill a paper bag with various herbs. The customers pat the man on the back, then wish him well before they leave.
Marren sees us first. He waves, then gently taps the old man on his shoulder. The man’s head jerks up—he peers around the store before his eyes settle on us. He breaks into a smile.
“Well,” he says, giving me a wink as Pressa slides over the counter to give him a kiss on his cheek. “It’s the skyboy. How are you, Eden?”
I smile. “Doing well, Mr. Yu,” I reply. “Pressa says you’re feeling good today.”
“Did she, now?” The man raises a graying eyebrow at his daughter. “You don’t think I always feel good?”
She just rolls her eyes at her father. “Never seen such a sickly guy in so much denial.”
Mr. Yu gives me a mock-pitiful look. “My daughter wounds me every day,” he laments. Pressa gently punches his arm.
He does seem stronger than usual today. His back is less hunched, and his skin looks like it’s got some color in it. Pressa says he has a disease that has been slowly eating away at his muscles, but it’s the kind of thing that you need a Level of at least 25 for in order to treat properly at a hospital.
The herbs Mr. Yu sells don’t do his condition any good. That’s why Pressa gambles. The amount of money she needs in order to get illegal doses of the medicine that’ll actually save her father is so exhorbitant that even Daniel doesn’t make enough to afford it.
“What brings the skyboy down to the Undercity this time?” Mr. Yu says to me.
“Eden’s going to show me how he put together his latest gadget for his Robotics class,” Pressa tells him as she takes my hand and drags me away from the counter.
Mr. Yu brightens at that. “Oh! Great!” He gives me an approving nod as two more customers come into the store. “You know I always appreciate you sharing your Ross University classwork with Pressa. Keeps her out of trouble down here.”
I’m not the best liar, so instead I just give Mr. Yu as toothy a smile as I can manage before Pressa drags me through the apothecary’s back door. By the counter, her father turns his attention to his new customers as they all greet one another enthusiastically.
“Mrs. Abesman!” he exclaims, giving her an affectionate hug. “It looks like my aconite tonic is working wonders for your arthritis. No, don’t worry about paying me back right away. Take your time. How’s your son?”
His voice fades away as we exit out into a back alley.
“Are you ever going to tell your dad how you’re getting some of his medicine?” I ask Pressa as we walk.
“Are you out of your mind?” Pressa replies over her shoulder. “You know how he’d react if he knew about the races?” She turns briefly around to make a mock face of horror. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to protect you from the dangers of the Undercity! You don’t understand how dark it can get. They’ll bleed your wallet dry. They’ll kill you!”
“I mean, he’s not all wrong.”
Pressa shrugs and keeps walking. “Listen, if you don’t learn to take your chances down here in the Undercity, you’ll get walked all over. Besides, it’s not like we have much of a choice. Dad’s Level isn’t gonna get any higher.”
Her voice turns harder at this. She knows there’s nothing I can say in response to that, so I don’t. What right does a privileged skyboy have to tell Pressa about what they should be doing in the Undercity? Besides, I know what it’s like. The rules are different when you’re poor.
“What are the details of the drone race?” I ask instead as the street we walk through narrows. Here, the graffiti gets denser, paint layered over paint until the walls are blanketed with it.
Pressa pulls out a wrinkled, folded piece of paper from her pocket and shoves it at me. I shake it open and read it.
DRONE RACE
SEMIFINALS at MIDNIGHT 8 RACERS, 8 DRONES
CASH ONLY, 100 CORRAS BET TO ENTER
Pressa glances quickly back at me. One side of her lips tilts up in a smirk. “You still thinking about entering your own drone in this?” she asks.
Races like this are never strict. If you show up with a drone last minute and impress the organizers, they’ll add you into the heat. I nod, then pull the circular engine out of my backpack again and hold it between us. “I want to test the efficiency of this engine, anyway,” I say as I hand it to her. She curiously turns it over in her hands.
“What’s it do?” she asks.
My words turn eager. “I’m trying to get it as close to a perpetual energy machine as possible. See this battery? It’s double the efficiency of the battery that runs my Sky Floor home and ten times as powerful, so I’m going to retrofit it onto a drone, and it’ll shoot the whole thing forward up to two hundred miles per hour—”
She looks at me skeptically. “Get outta here.”
“Numbers don’t lie. If it works like I think it will, I’ll design a bigger version to help power buildings in the Republic.”
“Already getting ahead of your internship, aren’t you?” She raises an eyebrow and shakes her head at me. “You and that bleeding heart of yours.”
“You’re the one willing to risk your life for your dad.”
She shoves me, and I laugh at her. Then she gives me a questioning look. “Won’t you risk losing your internship if you’re caught racing down here?” she says. “Your brother’s gonna kill you if he finds out what you’re planning, you know.”
Daniel. The mention of him clouds my temporary good mood. “He’s not going to know,” I say with a shrug. “Even if he did, he’s not going to be able to stop me.”
Pressa and I stop in front of a tiny shop crowded with people. She raises an eyebrow at me. “Listen, I’m serious. Your brother’s an AIS agent. That’s not nothing. If he tracks you down at a race, he might bring other agents with him and arrest people left and right. I can’t afford that kind of hit.”
“He’s not going to stop us,” I reply firmly. “Now stop worrying about him, and start fantasizing about what you’ll do with a hundred thousand corras when we win.”
Pressa searches my gaze, then decides against arguing. “If we win,” she says.
“When,” I insist again.
She grins at me, then looks back at the crowd as everyone pushes toward the front of the shop. Here, there are no virtual overlays. It’s too dangerous to run drone races on the Level system. So at the front of the shop stands a tall man so lanky that he looks like a moving skeleton. He’s taking cash bets from people and writing them down on paper.
Pressa has no qualms about waiting around patiently in line. She shoves her way forward just like everyone else, snapping at people who are putting in their bets too slowly. Finally, she gets to the front and takes out a wad of cash from her jacket.
She shoves it at the tall man. “A thousand corras,” she says to him, then nods at me. “On this guy.”
The man eyes me skeptically. “Who the hell are you?” he grunts.
I swallow, then raise my voice to match Pressa’s confidence. “I’d like to enter as a racer,” I say.
A look of amusement crosses the man’s face. He somehow has the grace not to laugh at me. Instead, he just shrugs and jots down a note in his book. “You got a drone ready?” he says.
“It’ll be ready by the time the race happens.” I take a deep breath.
He doesn’t ask for more info. If I can’t follow through, we’ll be the only ones who lose money, anyway. He pockets Pressa’s wad of cash and nods at
me. “You’re in,” he says. Then he loses interest in us and waves at the crowd behind us. “Next.”
We both step out of line as the people behind us push forward. Judging by how many bettors there are, this is going to be a big race.
When we manage to get out of the throngs near the shop and head back the way we came, Pressa nods at me. “I’ll be at the race tonight about half an hour before it starts,” she says. “You can’t be late, all right? My money’s on you, and if you’re late, they’ll start without—”
“Have I ever been late to a hangout with you?” I reply.
She smiles a little at that, then steps closer to me. Her hand brushes my arm. “No,” she replies. “And I expect you to keep it that way.”
I put both hands over my heart and flutter my lashes once at her. “You know I love you,” I reply.
She rolls her eyes, but her smile doesn’t waver. “I gotta go help my dad at the shop. See you later, skyboy.”
I watch Pressa go. The hairs on my arm where her hand touched me stand on end, making my skin tingle. Somehow, it’s easy to lose track of time when I’m with her.
It’s late afternoon already, and with the heavier foot traffic down the narrow street, I can tell that workers here are on a break between shifts. The food markets are crammed with people, all busy wolfing down a bite of burger or pastry or sandwich before rushing off to their next jobs. I shove my hands in my pockets, already lonely without Pressa’s company, and start heading back toward the nearest station, where an elevator will take me back up to the higher floors.
Wandering around the Undercity as a skyboy would be a scandal if word of it got out beyond Pressa and Daniel. The university could expel me and strip me of my degree. The government might even confiscate my passport, making me lose my internship in the Republic.
Still, I can’t help myself. If only I could feel this comfortable up in the Sky Floors.
I make my way through the throngs until I decide to take a shortcut through an alley. The instant I turn into the alley, though, I know I’ve made a mistake.
Someone is standing at the opposite end of the narrow path. When he sees me coming, he straightens and starts walking in my direction.
Behind me echo footsteps. I keep my head down and continue walking, but a sixth sense tells me that someone has noticed me. Maybe it’s because I
don’t walk like everyone else down here. Maybe it’s something in the clothes I’m wearing.
As the man reaches me, he casts me a quick glance. Then his eyes dart to the space right over my shoulder.
It’s all I need to see.
Thieves.
I suddenly break into a run. The man beside me stiffens in surprise, then whistles to his partner to go after me. His footsteps pound the pavement behind me. I don’t look back. I just keep going.
But he’s too fast for me. One second, I’m nearly to the end of the alley. The next, a rough hand grabs me by the collar and sends me flying backward. My back slams hard against the wall, and then there’s a hard blade pressed against the skin of my throat. I find myself staring into a pair of hard eyes.
“Well,” he says, smiling as his friend saunters up beside him. “Got us a skyboy.”
I try to struggle, but the man’s got at least fifty pounds on me. A buzzing sound of panic seeps into my thoughts. I have to get out of here.
That’s when I hear his voice. “One more time. I dare you.”
It’s my brother. Daniel. His eyes are trained on my attackers. And right now, the smirk on his lips is the dangerous kind.
I groan and hang my head. Oh, hell.
