She emerged into the twilight and looked around. “Now, we’re supposed to take the Elmtree shuttle, Dade said.”

“They have shuttles here?” Nolan asked before he could stop himself.

Melina gave him a look of supreme irritation. “Of course they have shuttles here! Nolan, we haven’t even left the city limits! Why would you think we’d suddenly wandered into a wasteland?”

“I just—I’ve never been—oh, never mind.”

The bus arrived five minutes later. Elmtree was apparently a popular route, for a crowd of gulden men scrambled for the bus as soon as it pulled to the curb. Luck had positioned the blueskins in just the right spot; they were among the first to board. Nolan’s eyes went immediately to the back of the shuttle, where twenty or thirty gulden women were crammed together in seats that were clearly meant to accommodate about half their number. The benches up front, he guessed, must have been left empty for the men.

Melina, oblivious, headed for the first unoccupied seats and sat down. “I think,” Nolan began, but she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him down next to her. “I think women are supposed to sit in the back,” he whispered in her ear.

“Nonsense,” she said aloud. “It’s a public conveyance, and I can sit anywhere I choose.”

The rest of the seats filled rapidly, and about a dozen men remained standing in the aisles, wrapping their hands around chrome rails. The bus lurched forward, and Nolan was thrown against Melina. He righted himself quickly and took a furtive glance around.

No one was actually staring at them, though he would have sworn all eyes were turned in their direction. A few of the riders glanced his way, took a few moments to consider Melina, then returned their attention to their printouts or their conversations. Yet every nerve in Nolan’s body screamed its awareness that he did not belong here. He felt like a foreign particle introduced to a host body that had begun to marshal all its resources to throw him out.

“We should be on the shuttle fifteen minutes or so,” Melina said. She was looking out the window, apparently watching for landmarks, for every once in a while she nodded. “We want to get off at Cloverton.”

“And then what?”

“And then we walk.”

“How far?” Nolan asked nervously.

“A few blocks. I don’t think the exercise will be too much for you.”

“I just thought—it’s going to be dark soon, and—”

She turned to give him a malicious smile. “Just think how dark it will be when we come back this way,” she said.

Which made his stomach lurch with apprehension. He did not know why he felt so certain they would be lucky to return from this adventure alive.