Overlooking Main, two big screens dominated the far end of the balcony. One usually played an old video from our vast library plucked from the waters. The other showed whatever the Mainland net had up and running, if anything. This depended on the weather and energy supplies, both ours and theirs, what satellites still functioned, and who controlled any of that at the time. Mainland politics had most to do with it, but figuring out who was in charge over there at any given moment was the unsolved mystery. If you’re confused, join the crowd. But it was the best we could do with scavenged equipment and a wrecked downtown infrastructure. Of course, following over-there politics didn’t put dinner on the table or tell you the next day’s weather, but it was crucial if you aimed to go there.

The CB sets took up a far corner, reliable but short range, so mostly for emergency inter-den contact. A bank of desks and tables straggled along the next long wall, holding a ragtag assortment of computers, each with quirks and bugs and trauma-related issues, just like the rest of us. Our oldest and youngest were best at repairs, the oldest ’cause they’d been engineers and had the skills, the youngest—our Wiz kids or Wizzers—’cause they’d never had a machine that didn’t need fixing.

“When I joined,” Rube told me once, “the den still had an uptown bank account. We could pay for cable and internet. Online shopping with drone delivery was reasonable. When Misha took everything down as usual, most of it never came up again. The bank went bust, and now, even if we had the credit, we’re too few down here for any provider to risk going up against the cease-and-desist by offering downtown service. The Feds want us out of here! We’re a pain in their ass!”

“Ready anytime,” I grinned. “Mainland or Bust!”

“No. Don’t you see? Being here, unruly independents, we mess up their scheme.”

Scheme? Sure. Rubio and his issues with authority. But I should’ve listened.

The loft wasn’t crowded, not on an extra-beer night. A screen or two glowed as I came out of the window-bright stair hall and let my eyes adjust. Patient faces intent on searching up distant relatives or scrolling through casualty lists, still being updated even months after Abel. The sort of data free government internet was willing to provide, when it could.

A junkyard of old chairs and sofas ate up the rest of the space. On my way to the weather desk, I stumbled over a dude sacked out in the aisle, apologized, and two steps later wrecked my shin on the leg of a chair.