Wayne wandered over to where a group of men sat under a dirty cloth awning while eating bruised fruit. “Who’re those outers?” Wayne asked as he sat down, using the accent he’d just picked up from the old man.

They didn’t even question him. A slum like this had a lot of people—too many to know everyone—but you could easily tell if someone belonged or not. And Wayne belonged.

“Conners for sure,” one of the men said. He had a head like an overturned bowl, hairless and too flat.

“They want someone,” another man said. Rust and Ruin, the chap’s face was so pointy, you could have used it to plow a field. “Conners only come here if they want to arrest someone. They’ve never cared about us, and never will.”

“If they did care,” bowl-head said, “they’d do something about all those factories and power plants, dumping ash on us. We ain’t supposed to live in ash anymore. Harmony said it, he did.”

Wayne nodded. Good point, that. These building walls, they were ashen. Did people care about that, on the outside? No. Not as long as they didn’t have to live in here. He didn’t miss the glares Wax and Marasi drew, pointed at them by people who passed behind, or who pulled windows closed up above.

This is worse, Wayne thought. Worse than normal. He’d have to talk to Wax about it. But for now there was a job to do. “They are looking for something.”

“Stay out of it,” bowl-head said.

Wayne grunted. “Maybe there’s money in it.”

“You’d turn in one of our own?” bowl-head said with a scowl. “I recognize you. Edip’s son, aren’t you?”

Wayne glanced away, noncommittal.

“You listen here, son,” bowl-head said, wagging his finger. “Don’t trust a conner, and don’t be a rat.”

“I ain’t a rat,” Wayne said, testily. He wasn’t. But sometimes, a man just needed cash. “They’re after Marks. I overheard them. There’s a thousand notes on his head, there is.”

“He grew up here,” plow-face said. “He’s one of us.”

“He killed that girl,” Wayne said.

“That’s a lie,” bowl-head said. “Don’t you go talking to conners, son. I mean it.”

“Fine, fine,” Wayne said, moving to rise. “I’ll just go—”

“You’ll sit back down,” bowl-head said. “Or I’ll rap you something good on your head, I will.”

Wayne sighed, sitting back down. “You olders always talk about us, and don’t know how it is these days. Working in one of the factories.”

“We know more than you think,” bowl-head said, handing Wayne a bruised apple. “Eat this, stay out of trouble, and don’t go where I can’t see you.”

Wayne grumbled, but sat back and bit into the apple. It didn’t taste half bad. He ate the whole thing, then helped himself to a couple more.

It happened soon enough. The men of the fruit-eating group broke apart, leaving Wayne with a basket full of cores. They split with a few amicable gibes at one another, each of the four men claiming he had some important task to be about.