The rain went from gentle to mean again as we stood high above the flooded street. I spotted a shadowy unknown climbing the gangway up at 13th. Bulky and broad-shouldered, moved like he knew his way around.

“Ready to head in?” I pointed out the intruder.

Rubio shrugged. “No profit here but the riches of solitude.”

“Who’re you quoting now?”

“Me.”

I laughed and nudged him ahead of me onto the walkway.

We tramped through the rain in silence for a few blocks, eyes fixed on the dim and unreliable path, each wrestling with our own demons, but with a sharp ear for the guy behind. At least he was pacing us, not trying to catch up—proper protocol among denfolk on the walkways. About where the first line of Unca Joe sentries should have demanded the night’s password, Rubio slowed.

“Action up ahead.”

We stopped between 9th and 10th, listening hard. Shouts and cries from downtown. The walkway kinked around a couple of tall rubble mounds blocking the view toward Unca Joe.

“Engine,” Rube noted.

The rising whine of a boat motor. Not a sound you heard that often, least not downtown. Unca Joe kept a motor dinghy at our dock. It ran on biodiesel from the kitchen, but we rarely had enough to start it.

“Is it ours?”

“Not unless it’s had a major tune-up. Listen to that purr!” He crossed eagerly to the rail.

A long, sleek dart with a hooded cockpit and headlights slewed round the corner at Second and 9th, tossing up a plume of spray. As it gunned by, heading north, the big guy behind us caught up.

“Passing!” he bellowed.

A Joe enforcer. Rube and I shrank against the building to let him by.

“What’s up?” I called as he barreled past.

“Gonna find out!”

Down at 8th, a mob of Joes racing uptown along the walkway pulled up at the corner, leaning over the rail to watch the speedster vanish behind the spume of its own wake. Amid a jumble of shouts and curses, they whirled and ran back the way they came, the big guy racing to catch up. The planking shivered beneath us.

Rubio stared after the boat like an envious kid. “Definitely uptown.”

“Not the law?” The police amphibians were usually old and cumbersome, but who knew? They still had some access to fuel supplies.

“Why would the law waste their time down here? No, that’ll be private money.”

That seemed even less likely, until I recalled the girl’s thuglets in their shiny black armor, helmets, and face masks, new equipment a lot flashier than they were.

Rubio leaned toward downtown. “Better check it out.”