I slide the black glove on my hand. The lead covers my moniker.
“Your moniker can be tracked. Right now, your signal is coming from the detention center. When you move away from it, you leave a trail, unless your moniker becomes invisible by blocking that signal. With that glove, you can walk right by a stinger and it will never know you’re there. It won’t challenge you. It won’t report you to the MPs. It will be blind. Stinger drones send out high-frequency pings that interact with your moniker. With the source covered, they get no feedback.” She puts her own glove on. “Now, let’s see what mischief we can find.”
We set off. She locates internal heartwoods used solely by the Stars, Atoms, and a few Swords who maintain the Tree Base’s infrastructure. I head toward the one that leads up, but she grabs my arm. “We can’t go up,” she says. “Most of the Census agents are up, replacing monikers. We go down.”
One level down, we come to a laundry. Even at this hour of the night, Stone workers are busy washing bedding and uniforms. We bypass them by sneaking behind the large industrial machines. The tumble and hum drown out our sound. Coming to a separate aisle, we’re hidden behind large racks of black leather coats.
“Here.” Flannigan takes a long black coat from the rack and holds it up to me. She hands it to me, along with the white uniform shirt and black trousers of a Census agent.
“What is this for?” I ask, as she chooses a tailored coat for her small frame.
“Don’t you want to get your fusionblade back?” she asks, slipping on the white Census shirt. She stares at me, a challenge.
“How do you know about my fusionblade?”
“I make it a priority to know all there is to know about the soldiers I serve.”
“No,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Something’s wrong. You know entirely too much about me. Did you know I was going to be put into detention?”
“It was over three hours from the time you brandished to the time they picked you up. In that time, Census made a move on you. You can connect the dots.”
“You had me picked up?”
“Of course I did. No one reported you—it’s the Sword secondborn code never to rat on each other or you’re labeled a turner, and turners die badly. I had to do something or Agent Crow was going to kill you.” She slips into the black trousers.
“Who are you?” I ask, not moving.
“I’m a friend. Now do you want to get your sword back or not? This is the only chance you’ll get. The Census agents are busy changing out the Tritium 101 monikers, which means there are only a few left behind to guard the lair.” She completes her ensemble with a black-leather flat cap that hides her hair and shadows her face. It’s not the uniform of a Census agent, but it may go unnoticed.
“How would we ever find it? There’s a network of tunnels below this entire Base.”
“I have the schematics,” she replies. She locates a bag stashed among the coats, and reaching in, she extracts a wrist communicator. “I can’t turn on the communicator until we’re underground or it will be noticed.” She puts on the powered-down wristband.
“This is insane.”
“No more insane than them taking away everything you cherish in one day. In light of that, I think this is a very sane decision.”
She walks toward the heartwoods, taking the bag with her, slinging the strap of it over her shoulder. I follow, and we descend together toward ground level. Flannigan tries hard to hold back a smile. “I’m glad you could make it,” she says. I stuff my hair up into the flat cap and pull the short leather bill down low to shadow my face.
When we reach the ground floor, we cross out of the utility corridors and exit into a warehouse area. Crossing it is simple. We just move as if we own the place. Stingers patrol the perimeter, but they’re blind to us.
We approach Census’s steel bunker doors. Two more stingers, like enormous hovering wasps, vibrate in the air on either side of them. Icy fear prickles my spine. I swallow down bile. We stop by the door’s scanner. The hum of the automated sentinels grows louder. Every impulse tells me to turn and run. Instead, I stand absolutely still between a stinger and the privateer.
Flannigan eases a small box from the bag. It contains a row of moniker chips individually encased in lead sleeves. She chooses one and slips it from its cover before returning the lead sleeve and box to the bag. The moniker’s hologram shines with aqua light, resembling a cresting wave of water in Flannigan’s palm.
It’s a firstborn’s Sea-Fated moniker.
I have a moment of sheer panic, thinking the stingers will turn on us when they read the pings from the roiling moniker on her palm. Neither one moves. The identity must have authorization to be in this area. The scanner illuminates when Flannigan flashes the shiny, tumbling wave beneath it.
The bunker doors roll open.
Flannigan steps inside the bunker. I follow behind. The doors slide closed. Two armed soldiers stand across a narrow hallway ahead of us, guarding elevators. The men are protected by armor, but their visors are open. A crooked smile forms on the smaller soldier’s face as we move toward him. His flirty voice is directed at Flannigan in front of me. “And who might you b—”
In a blink, Flannigan pulls a Census tranquilizer gun from the bag. Aiming it at the one speaking, she shoots him in the cheek. Surprised, the soldier is slow to react. He doesn’t raise his weapon. Instead, his hand lifts to the silver dart embedded in his flesh. Flannigan pivots. The second guard reaches for a rifle propped against the wall. The dart from Flannigan’s gun strikes this soldier below his temple. Neither Sword drops right away, but both of them stagger, stunned. Flannigan fires two more darts, striking each man just above his jaw. Eyes roll upward. The smaller one falls first, followed close behind by his partner.
“Help me,” Flannigan whispers, thrusting the tranquilizer gun back into the bag. I grab one of the guard’s feet while she gets his arms. We struggle to pull him into a dark room, out of sight. The next one is harder to move, but we manage it.
Flannigan hurries to the elevators. I follow her. Using the stolen identity, she calls a lift. The doors of one slide open. We step inside.
“Is that a copycat moniker?” I ask as the elevator begins to descend.
“Yes, the firstborn profile belongs to a Census agent stationed in the Twilight Forest Base, but he has access to Census in this Base as well.” She slips the copycat into the slot in the side of her glove on top of the lead that covers the moniker implanted in her skin. The Census agent’s crashing wave shines dimly through the glove. “I keep a few of these handy for the doors that are hardest to open. It won’t matter in a few days. They’ll all be useless.” Switching on the wrist communicator, she pulls up the schematics for Census’s underground lair. “The key to getting around is to project confidence. Try not to look anyone in the eyes, but don’t avoid them either.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Privileged boredom works with the aristocracy, especially in Virtues. Census agents are different. You have to behave like a predator. You fear nothing. You’re the hunter. Hunt.”
Flannigan stops the elevator at a floor near the lowest point in the Base. When the doors open, cold air wafts over us. The black leather coats make sense now.
What the privateer said earlier is true. Unlike the last time I was here, there are very few Census agents guarding the corridors. The ones that should be stationed by the elevator on this level are absent from the post. We just pass by the checkpoint unchallenged. The few agents we encounter in the corridors move with purpose, barely giving us a look. Their arrogant conviction that they can never be infiltrated is almost funny. If I weren’t so terrified, I’d laugh.