The service tunnels are eerily still, the only sounds coming from the streets above. We jog through with Frank leading the way, only vaguely aware of the mass of angry rioters stamping in the other direction, over our heads.

“Where are you taking me?” Sheridan demands, though her stern tone is somewhat softened by how out of breath she is. 

“Can’t leave you there,” Frank mutters, turning left down a secondary damp tunnel. “Dunno what new dirty hidey hole you’d run off to.”

I glance over at Sheridan; her dishevelled skirt suit covered in smears of dirt and oil. I don’t know what to feel, whether to feel anything. For the past decade, she’s been a symbol of power for Skycross, the steel grip on a nation, never bowing to pressure or caving to worker’s demands, no matter how reasonable they were. 

And this whole time, she was just the figurehead. A pawn to draw fire while the real manipulators moved their pieces into place.

“Why would Harding go after Lena?” I huffed, splashing through the tunnels on Frank’s heels. “Does he even know she exists?”

“Oh, yeah, they go way back,” Frank grunts. “He’s the reason she lives the way she does. But that’s not why he’s after them, and you know it.”

He turns right and motions to the ladder climbing the wall of the service tunnel ahead. “We’re almost there.”

“You first,” I say to Sheridan, waving her ahead. 

She rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue, clambering up the ladder with bare feet, muttering under her breath.

I reach for the first rung, but Frank reaches out and grabs my hand. “If she runs—”

“She won’t run,” I say, completely certain. “Where would she go?”

A ripple of conflicting emotions crosses Frank’s face, but he gives a curt nod and lets me go. We climb up the ladder into Lena’s storeroom, instantly noting the toppled boxes. Despite the mess, nothing seems to have been taken—Lena’s stash of syrups looks untouched, including the jumbo bottles of Honesty Dani and I stole from Reform. 

Sheridan opens her mouth to speak.

“Shh,” I raise a hand, motioning to the door. Don’t know who’s there, I sign to her.

She frowns at me. “What?” she mouths back, her voice barely a whisper.

Of course, Sheridan doesn’t use sign language. With no contact with the working masses, what use would she have for it? 

I settle for raising a finger to my lips and pointing to the corner. “Hide,” I mouth back.

Frank climbs up behind me. Useless, he signs. She’s been a VIP from day one.

We listen out for any signs of a scuffle in Lena’s unit, but barely hear a thing. Do you think Harding’s in there? I sign to Frank.

Only one way to find out. Frank places one hand on the door and raises his eyebrows at me.

I nod.

“What are you doing?” Sheridan hisses.

Frank bursts through the door, and I follow immediately, checking every corner of Lena’s living space for wardens—the row of monitors, her ramshackle kitchen. We move through the unit quickly, pulling back screens and curtains, but there’s no one in sight. 

Furniture and tins of food have been dropped on the floor, store cupboards left open and empty of supplies. Half of Lena’s bedding has been taken, and the corner where she kept her supply of Emotiv’s syrups is ransacked. 

“Rioters,” Frank grunts. “Or maybe Abandoned…”

“Why would they raid Lena?” I ask, a cold sweat forming on my forehead. “She’s been helping them!”

Frank picks through Lena’s monitor station, checking the screens—half of which are off or flickering static. “If Harding took them already, they wouldn’t know this was Lena’s place. Not all of them, anyway.”

“Do you see them?”

He doesn’t answer, just stares at the screens like he’ll find them waving back to him.

“Animals,” Sheridan spits with venom behind us. “I’ve said it all along! You try to help them and this is how they repay you!”

I ignore her, trying my radio headset again in the vain hope that Dani or Lena will reply. If Harding has them, there’s no knowing how far he’ll have gone. With everything he’s built crumbling around him, how desperate will he get? I call for Dani, but just get the usual static in response. I switch the channel on the pack attached to my hip, but still get nothing.

“Ugh!” Sheridan picks her way through the chaotic jumble of belongings the rioters have left on the floor, wrinkling her nose as if she’ll catch a disease. “How do people live like this?”

I slam my fist into the desk. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

It’s her turn to stare at me, open-mouthed like I’ve just slapped her.

“You have no idea what people do to survive, do you? You take your self-driving car to work, sit in front of a camera and read a script. When did you last step foot outside of Central Square?”

Sheridan gapes at me. “Um…”

“You can’t begin to imagine the suffering your ignorance causes.” I walk up to her, jabbing my finger in the air between us, just shy of prodding her in the ribs. “You don’t know because you refuse to look at it. Well, here it is.” I motion to Lena’s unit. “And you think this is filth? This is heaven compared to the people living on the streets under your regime.”

“It’s not my—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” I’m practically screaming, like a stopper has uncorked itself inside me and every bit of bile is coming out in one go. “I don’t care if you made the decisions or not, I don’t care what you knew or didn’t know. You sat by, and you watched. We all did. We’re all as bad as each other. I turned my nose up at people who needed my help, and now I’m no better than them. No, I was never any better than them. And now it’s gone too far. It’s all… it’s too late…”

Frank pats my shoulder, and a sob escapes from me without warning. The look of shock on Sheridan’s face is too real, too familiar—guilt and admission, mixed with outrage and denial. I turn and crumple against Frank’s chest, tears blurring my vision, choking me.

“It’s alright, Kyla,” he hums, stroking my shoulders. “We’ll find them. We’ll find them both.”

“He’s taken them—” the words come without thought, only interrupted by my hiccuping gasps for breath. “—why them? Why can’t he just stop—first my brother and now them—”

I gaze up at Frank through thick pools of tears, his sad smile swims in my vision. 

“We’ll find them.” He holds up a radio. “We’ve got Melly.”

I frown. “But Melly’s….” 

“In many places at once.” Melly answers through the radio.

“We’ll find them. But—” Frank points the radio at Sheridan. “We need to keep her somewhere she won’t interfere.”

Sheridan grimaces at Lena’s quarters, as if she’s afraid something will jump out at her. “You’re not going to leave me here, surely.”

I roll my eyes, turn my back on her and take the radio from Frank. I walk over to Lena’s monitor desk, desperate to ignore the dark mirror of Sheridan’s shameless ignorance.

We have to make a plan. Plans are good—they distract me.

It feels as though all the trauma from the past few weeks is stalking me. I can feel its eyes on my back. The moment I stop moving forward, it’ll catch up to me, and then I won’t be of use to anyone.

I sniff, wiping my tears and inspecting the monitors, desperate to see something in the static. “Melly, did Lena at least manage to broadcast Sheridan’s answers?”

“Sorry, Kyla. It doesn’t look like it. They were probably gone before you even got to the warehouse.”

I nod, checking every screen for a sign of movement, even though I know I won’t find anything. “Where could he have taken them?”

“I’ve gained access to Harding’s file within the Reform server,” Melly replied. “Let me pull a few things up for you, maybe we can find something.”

A monitor flickers, and the display updates from static to a scrolling list of names—hundreds of names with dates and ID numbers. “What is this?”

“Staff listings, mostly wardens.” The names continue scrolling until one flashes, highlighted in blue—Dennis Harding. “Most of the folders contain little information; social registrations, identifying data. But Harding’s is different…”

She scrolls through the long list of data inside Harding’s file—some dating back over twenty years. 

“There’s lots of history in here, but most of it is full of redacted information. Disciplinary reports, warnings… and then something changed. We get recommendations for promotion, commendations, a long list of character references and letters of support. He climbed the ranks so quickly he went straight to the top within only a few months.”

I point at the screen. “Wait, there. This file, from fifteen years ago. What happened here?”

“Glad you asked.”

Melly opens the file—a letter of recommendation for Harding’s appointment to Head Warden, written on stationery with a very familiar symbol printed at the top—a large, embossed letter E, surrounded by a diamond. The name at the bottom—Rufus Sinclair—is familiar, but it’s difficult to put a face to it.

Frank peers over my shoulder, grunting a sigh of contempt. “Figures.”

“Harding was endorsed by Rufus Sinclair, Emotiv’s CEO,” Melly explained. “And it must have been convincing, because just after this was received, Harding was named Officer in Chief. His predecessor hadn’t even finished their first term.”

My stomach sinks as pieces click into place. “They made a deal…”

Frank nods. “Cheap labour in return for a promotion.”

“Surely Sinclair doesn’t know how people are being treated—” I begin, before stopping myself. “No, of course they know. Right?” I glance at Frank with the sinking feeling of defeat heavy in my guts.

He presses his lips together and nods.

“Sinclair,” I say, motioning to the monitor. “Are they still in charge?”

Frank nods. “For as long as I can remember.”

“So… what sort of property do they own in Skycross?”