NIGHTTIME IN Eastern Seaboard City. Mistletoe stood at the edge of a four-lane street. The articulated frame cars passed in the perfect, never-ending procession she knew from all those afternoons staring up through the airholes. Their collective hum wasn’t much louder than the distant rumble that filtered down through the canopy. She crossed her eyes slightly so that the single headlight on each car blurred into the one behind it and the lanes became unbroken lines of white light. All around her, atmoscrapers stretched up between the traffic streams like massive fingers poking through a glove.

She wished someone were here to share this sight with her, but even Nelson was gone. She felt incredibly alone, and not in the way she’d always craved. She longed for Ambrose’s soft hand to hold. She imagined him standing next to her now, pulling her close among the dazzling patterns of light.

Across the street, the topside entrance to the airlock rose out of the ground, a sleek plexi cylinder capped by a round black roof with a green light poking up from the top. She guessed that was topside ESC’s way of telling people that the airlock was in service. But what people? She looked back and forth. Endless cars. No pedestrians.

She walked up the deserted sidewalk to the first storefront, which turned out to be a series of silver boxes emerging from a gently glowing panel in the wall. Each box was emblazoned with a bold U. A sign floated above the boxes: ENJOY BETTERFOOD!

Simply reading the word food sent sharp hunger pangs shooting across her midsection. She tried to remember how long it had been since she’d eaten anything. What kind of topside cuisine was in these boxes? She peered above, below, and between each one, but there was no visible way to order food. And anyway, she didn’t have any money. She didn’t even have a hardcoded ID. She wondered if she would trip an alarm if she opened a box.

Her gnawing hunger urged her on.

She reached for the nearest box and froze. Someone was behind her.

“Psst! Kid!”

She turned. A yellow cab idled halfway up on the sidewalk. It was boxier than the teardrop-shaped cars that most topside people drove. There was a figure in the driver’s seat, shrouded in shadow. She clenched her fist. The disruptor slid out of her sleeve.

“What do you want?”

Her voice sounded loud and harsh up here, with only the smooth traffic hum to compete with. She realized that she was still wearing her orange riding goggles around her neck and felt absurdly out of place.

“Need a lift?”

She stepped forward cautiously, disruptor raised. The driver had wispy black hair combed over to one side. He squinted through a pair of thick glasses perched at the tip of his nose. A pair of fuzzy holo-dice hung from the rearview mirror.