Finally, after an eternity, we stop. They shove me out roughly and sit me down onto what feels like a couch of some kind. The darkness over my eyes shifts as one of them unties the knot at the back of my blindfold.
They lift it away. I squint in the sudden light.
I’m in a luxurious living room that looks like it’s part of an estate, except that there are no windows. The couch I’m sitting on—all the furniture in the room, actually—is severe in its elegance, all clean, rectangular lines and muted colors. The lights embedded in the ceilings fill the room with a cooling glow.
And standing before me is Dominic Hann himself, dressed in a tailored shirt and trousers. He smiles as my eyes meet his.
“Eden Bataar Wing,” he remarks, scrutinizing me. His voice is as rough and grainy as I remember, as if he suffers from some kind of chest infection. “Your brother has quite the reputation.”
Always known in relation to Daniel, even down here. I narrow my eyes at him and clench my teeth. “What have you done with him?”
“He’s safe. I didn’t bring you here to terrify you, although I’ve been told it’s a bad habit of mine.” Hann steps toward me, and that’sthe first moment when I realize that he isn’tphysicallyin the room with me. His figure is slightly translucent, and as he moves, I see his shoes pass through the thick surface of the rugs.
Too afraid to be in the same place as your guards?I want to say archly to him, but the thought of Daniel captured somewhere here keeps my retort at bay. Instead, I say, “And what’s the point of all this?”
He pauses beside me and sits down on the couch, as much as a hologram can sit. I can see the cushions through his body. He coughs forcefully enough that his shoulders hunch from the force. When one of his guards gives him a questioning look, he waves her away with an impatient hand.
“You’re a Sky Floor citizen,” he begins when he’s cleared his throat enough. “There are few in this country who can enjoy a more luxurious lifestyle than yours. And yet there you were, in the Undercity, risking your level and your reputation in order to enter a drone race.” He looks sidelong at me. “What brought you down there?”
I can’t help the sarcasm that rises now in my voice. “You went to all this trouble just to ask me why I was down in the Undercity?”
Hann smiles. A couple of his guards smile along with him, and when he laughs, so do they. “There’s a spark in you,” he says, genuine fondness in his voice. “You’re made for our world down here. I don’t attend Undercity events. I haven’t watched a drone race in years. There’s no reason for me to show my face and risk my own safety for an event that my guys are going to bet on for me anyway. So why do you think I showed up after one of them told me about you?”
“My drone,” I answer without hesitation.
He nods, pleased, and some small part of me feels oddly complimented by that. “You told me you built all of that yourself.”
“Where are you going with this?” My anger is starting to triumph over my fear. “Are you going to tell me what you want or not? Where’s my brother?”
Hann leans back in ease and ignores my questions. “I looked up your files. Seems like you’re a star student at Ross University. And yet, here you are, coming down to the Undercity week after week. That’s not the typical behavior of a Sky Floor kid with their entire future ahead of them.”
“You didn’t bring me here to be my therapist.”
At that, Hann laughs. His guards join in. “No, I didn’t. I brought you here because I think you are the kind of talent that I see only once in a generation.”
“Show me my brother,” I demand. “Then we can talk.”
“Rest assured, he is safe, and I will do you the favor of keeping him that way.” He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, then regards me with a piercing gaze. “But this is not about him. I’m not interested in your brother. This is about you.”
His words are hitting some part of me that yearns to hear it.This is not about him. If Hann is trying to manipulate me, he’s going to be smart about it, I warn myself. He understands exactly what my weak points are.
Where is Daniel? What has Hann done to him?
The man frowns at my expression. “You’re not used to hearing that, are you? That you’re the focus?” He rises from the couch. His hoarse voice is oddly gentle, with that same warmth that had drawn me in when I first met him. “Come with me, please.”
As he steps out of the room, he snaps his fingers once without looking back at me. At first, I think his guards will drag me up and force me forward—but instead they bow as they approach me, thennod for me to follow Hann out of the room. I hesitate, afraid, but then start walking.
We head out of the room and down a narrow hallway. As we make several turns, the clean walls and elegant corridors vanish, making way for a smooth concrete floor and steel walls and ceilings. Here, they usher me into what looks like a train inside a tunnel.
This must have all been salvaged and renovated from an old, abandoned part of the Undercity.
We ride in silence for a few minutes before the train comes to a gentle halt. Then we step out into a hall that opens up into a vast, cavernous space.
I balk at the sheer size of it. It looks like a factory filled with halls of identical machines, each of them blinking blue in unison. There must be millions and millions of them, and when they’re all stacked together like this, they look dizzying. Overhead, sheets of cold white lights shine down on the building.
Giant vents run along the ceiling, and tall steel beams tower up in rows. In the center of the room, though, is a large, circular structure that looks like some strange combination of steel and glass and… twisted, fractal mesh. Like something halfway between machinelike and organic. It has a soft blue glow about it. Surrounding it are metal supports, and in the center is a large, circular platform where several workers now stand. The platform’s floor changes to a smooth, dark metal, and my boots clank against the new surface as I step onto it. A couple of the workers look up to see us enter.
“You are getting exclusive access here, Eden,” Hann says to me as he strides toward the structure. “This is a world-class engine I’m building, so I suppose you could say we have similar interests.”
