“These are the guys who run this hall,” Rain said. “Theo and I heard about them when we were asking questions last night. People had a hard time translating it. They live in the systems.”

“Prison family. Successive generations spent arrested.”

“Kind of. But it’s more complicated. It’s not just prison. It’s other services. Goddess elevated them to a certain status by making an office for those who were loyal and willing to do what she needed. Like private military. These guys and people like them signed right up. They’ll accept anything if it gets them a cot and hot food without them having to work. Military, Goddess’s task force, prison, some types of school…”

“Useful,” Ashley said.

“Kind of scary,” Rain observed.

“But useful. Scary and useful often go hand in hand,” Ashley said.

People squared shoulders and raised chins as they stared us down.

“Any of you speak English?” Ashley asked.

“Goddess’s tongue,” I added.

A boy with long hair said something in a foreign tongue. An adult offered a one-syllable response.

“I learned for school,” the boy said.

“We need a favor. We’ll buy,” Ashley said. “But we need it soon, no fuss.”

The boy translated.

Another one syllable response.

“Guards say you killed the Goddess in Blue.”

“She threw a building at us.”

The boy considered, translated, got a grunt of an answer, and then said, “Cost us.”

“If you want to drag out this conversation, we’ll go elsewhere.”

“If you want a favor, we’re the best.”

“Not Rafa?” Rain asked.

The boy wrinkled his nose. His parent nudged him, and he translated, catching the parent up on the last few exchanges.

The man made a face, momentarily disgusted.

“They put their dicks in dogs,” the boy said.

“They what?” Rain asked.

“Idiom,” I guessed. “I hope.”

“They make messes, fall over each other, drink. The only thing you can trust them to do is put their dicks in dogs. You don’t want them.”

“Then deal with us. We need a distraction,” Ashley said. “We’ll pay.”

She held out her hand, palm down, thumb tucked in. The boy reached out, and Ashley laid her hand atop his. The knife was there, hidden from view, and the boy felt it.

“That’s—”

“Sharp,” she said. “There are more like it. That’s your pay. But you distract the guards, so we can do what we need to do.”

The boy translated, dropping his voice at the tail end.

The adult answered with the longest sentence yet.

“Dangerous. Burns the hand we want to keep warm,” the boy translated back for us.

“What do you want?” she asked, more tense, almost hostile. Time was running out if Armstrong was due to arrive and collect us.

The boy shrugged. “This.”

“You want security,” I said. “You want reliable. Comfort. Stability.”

“Yes.”