“What do you think, Nelson?”

She ran a finger along the three little gears hanging from the necklace underneath her shirt. If Sliv could fix a topside scoot, surely he could handle a simple thing like a watch.

“Yes, that boy.” She gave Nelson a kick. “I know. Shut up.”

* * *

Half an hour later, she tore down the side of a stack into the heart of Rio II. Nelson rattled beneath her, protesting the reckless speed. She threaded her way to the front of a caravan of scoots all jockeying for position on the choked road. The lenses of her goggles collected a red and black spatter that she smeared away with her sleeve. Rio II had a gnat problem.

She sped down an alley that smelled like fish guts. When she emerged, the old Saturnine War Veterans Hospital squatted before her like a giant spider, each long hallway a leg that jutted out from the crumbling center dome. The crowd thinned out—even people who didn’t believe in ghosts tended to give the abandoned hospital a wide berth. According to Sliv, it was the perfect crash pad.

A quick ride alongside one of the spider legs brought her to the spot where he’d surprised her with the necklace: an old access door in the ground, half off its hinges. Beneath the triangle-shaped hole, cement stairs faded into darkness.

She cut Nelson’s engine. The relative silence—voices mishmashed into a faraway murmur, scoot engines a faded whine—reminded her of the A.I. junk-transport road. She hopped off the scoot and walked Nelson carefully down the stairs in front of her, using his headlight as a lamp. She felt the reassuring weight of the stunner inside her sleeve.

The tunnel was empty. It was also very clean, with none of the dirt and debris that gathered in every corner of subcanopy ESC. Just smooth, gray cement stretching on into oblivion. She leaned Nelson against the wall and waited. Her presence wouldn’t go undetected for long.

A sound in the darkness in front of her. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

She held her breath. She listened.

Again, closer. Tap-tap-tap-tap.

She half expected a blind man to emerge from the darkness and shuffle past, his cane testing the ground in front of his feet. Instead, a metallic insect the size of a small dog appeared at the edge of the headlight’s glow. It had titanium pistons for legs, which slid back and forth at the knee joints. Its head was a camera lens connected via two wires to some kind of alkaline battery on its back. The lens swept Mistletoe from head to toe and back again. Three silver gears attached to the battery turned in time with the camera’s movements.

Mistletoe waved.

“Hey, Sliv,” she said. Her voice echoed in the tunnel. The insect seemed to stare at her face for a moment before skittering backward into the darkness.

Alone again, she clenched her fist and the tip of the disruptor slid out of her sleeve. The insect reappeared, accompanied by a round plastic disc on wheels that bumped into the wall, changed direction, hit the other wall, and finally came to rest at her feet. An ancient stereo speaker lashed to the top of the disc crackled to life. Three silver gears turned along its side.