My attention returns to the Devan agents as the time comes to renew my work visa and the registry on my blaster, which is legal to carry openly in Zi Vi. Once that’s settled, we head into the Golden City.

Glittering buildings stand tall against the cloudy sky. Between them stretch twisting metal walkways crowded with people. In a place where time has little meaning, the city is always busy. Some Devans are finishing their workdays, others just beginning, still more stumbling drunk or sleeping in the tiny, jammed-together apartments that line the streets. The near-constant drizzle of rain provides ample breeding grounds for rust and plant overgrowth even in such an overpopulated area. Despite the nonstop efforts of city workers to keep the jungle at bay, vines crawl over the walkways, and weeds sprout in the narrow cracks between buildings, stark black against the otherwise-colorful city.

We pass by neon signs and billboards, each of them screaming promises in bold letters, endorsed by the plastic smiles of gorgeous celebrities: SPICIEST FOOD ON DEVA! BEST LIVE SHOWS IN ZI VI! PUREST SANITA IN THE CITY!

Like most beautiful things here, it’s best to assume they’re all lies. The truth of Deva is far uglier: a drunk vomiting off the curving pathway onto the head of an unsuspecting man on the crossing below; a hovercraft racing by so quickly that several people skin their knees diving out of its way; a thin child begging for food on the steps of a luxury apartment complex. And occasionally, when the pathway takes us high enough, we get a look at the dark jungles closing like a noose around the city. They serve both as a constant threat and a reminder of the less fortunate living in tiny, overgrown villages in its depths, dreaming of the neon city that will never be more than a speck of light glimpsed through tangled foliage.

By the time we make it near the center of the city, my clothes are sticking to my skin, and I’m choking on the humidity and the smell of so many warm bodies pressed together. The first walkway we try is closed off for clearing. Beyond the glowing, bright green cones stretched across the path, quarantine-suited workers spray the intruding strangle-vines with chemicals. Even in Deva’s most developed city, the jungle constantly grapples for control.

We’re stopped again halfway down the next walkway, this time by a line of police wearing all black. Law enforcement is a rare sight anywhere on Deva; they must be in place just for the Interplanetary Council, to keep the crowd under control. People still press as close as they can get, snapping pictures with their comms though the Hall is barely visible from here.

Corvus’s expression is dark as his eyes land on City Hall. When a passerby trying to snag a picture bumps into him, he shoves her and sends her stumbling.