This driver failed to do so with such nonchalance that Ambrose wondered how he kept his job. Then he realized there was no license displayed anywhere in the cab. He held on as the driver cut across four carefully controlled lanes and drifted halfway into a fifth before hitting a thruster-boost, rising up over the traffic and turning down a blind alley between two atmoscrapers. They popped out the other end, where the driver momentarily joined the orderly traffic, pulled another sideways maneuver, and screeched to a stop in front of a plexi cylinder the size of an elevator.

Subcanopy airlock.

“This one takes you to the edge of Little Saigon.” The driver turned to face him, regarded Ambrose’s blue holo-suit, his unblemished skin. “You sure about this, kid? I mean, I don’t wanna poke my eye where it don’t belong, but maybe you wanna get your kicks slummin’ in some Unison dive instead of ol’ Little S.” The cabbie raised the eyebrow that was still attached to human skin. Ambrose calculated that if he turned around now, he could return to the lab with a minimum of awkward explanation.

Then he thought of his dream. He thought of the woman from the transmission and what else she might know.

“This is fine, thanks. How much do I owe you?”

“Just try not to die down there, and we’ll call it even.”

“You mean—”

“Get outta here.” The back door opened.

“Thank you,” Ambrose said.

The driver grinned. Most of his teeth were ruined stumps. “It was on my way home.”

Ambrose hopped out of the cab. The street was mostly deserted. No one looked at him. Inside the airlock, he rode a rusty platform down past a plexi display case. He peered inside. Steam swirled around several bluish white statues. He looked closer and realized they were people frozen in openmouthed terror. He shuddered. Was this some kind of public art exhibit?

Then he remembered something his father had told him long ago: there was flash-coolant in the airlocks. Topside residents with hardcoded IDs could come and go as they pleased without triggering the coolant. But if unauthorized subcanopy dwellers tried to ascend, they’d find themselves trapped in the airtight chamber as first their internal organs froze, then their blood, then their skin.

And, his father had chuckled, if they were truly lucky, they’d find themselves displayed inside the case as a warning to their fellow citizens. If not, they’d simply be discarded.

It was an effective deterrent.

One of the icy figures was a teenage boy who’d put his hands in front of his face at the final moment. His wide eyes peered through splayed fingers. In front of him someone had scratched PEEK A BOO into the plexi.

What kind of a place was this?

The platform hit the bottom with a jarring thud. The airlock door slid upward. Steam escaped.

For the first time in his life, Ambrose Truax stepped out into the subcanopy streets.

5