Marisa stuck out her tongue and made a gagging noise. Her mom used the kids as cheap waitstaff when she could, and Marisa hated it. “Just buy a nuli already—you’re, like, the only restaurant in the world that still uses live waiters.”
“And our customers appreciate the personal touch,” said her mother. “Go sit down. I’ll be there in a bit.” She bustled off, delivering waters to a table in the back, and Marisa tried to remember which was table twelve. Even this early, the restaurant was filling up, and Bao was just skilled enough—and just mischievous enough—to be impossible to find in a crowd. A handy skill when you fed your family by picking tourists’ pockets in downtown Hollywood. After a moment she gave up, checked the diagram on the restaurant computer, and walked straight to him.
“Well done,” said Bao with a grin. He was half-Chinese and half-Russian, and looked just enough like each to blend perfectly into either crowd. He was wearing all black, like Marisa, but whereas her clothes were designed to be noticed, his were designed to disappear. If he didn’t catch you with his deep, piercing eyes, you might never notice him at all.
“I cheated,” said Marisa.
“I’m shocked.”
She took a drink of water, the ice so cold that the glass was drenched in condensation. The shock in her mouth made her shiver. “You didn’t get caught leaving school?”
“You insult me.”
“I never understand how you do that. Security’s so tight in that place; it’s like a prison.”
“Their digital security is tight,” said Bao. “Try to walk through any door in that building with an implant and fifty different security guards will know about it instantly. But when you’re the only kid in school without a djinni, they tend to forget that sometimes plain old eyes are better.”
Marisa nodded, taking another sip of ice water. How many times had they had this conversation? “Seriously: what kind of weirdo doesn’t have a djinni? That’s like not having . . . feet.”
“Some people don’t have feet.”
“Not by choice. A djinni is a phone, a computer, a scanner, a credit card, it’s my . . . key to my house. It’s everything. You and my abue are the only ones left in LA without one.”
“I’ve never felt the lack.”
“It will change your life, Bao, I’m serious.”
“Speaking of,” he said, “you see the news?”
Marisa nodded. “Scorcher won the Oceana Regional.”
“No, the real news. The Foundation is protesting the new Ganika Tech plant they’re building in Westminster.”
“I suppose we should have seen that coming. The biggest djinni company in the world and a militant anticybernetics group? It’s like a match made in heaven.”
“Not so much a ‘group’ as a ‘terrorist organization,’” said Bao. “And they’re right here in LA. This doesn’t freak you out?”
“It’s all the way down in Westminster,” said Marisa, and held up a finger. “Note that this is not me being cavalier about them blowing people up just because they’re far away. I sincerely hope that they don’t, and that, if they do, they get caught. But I reserve the right not to be shocked when terrorists commit acts of terror. That’s exactly what they want; that’s like playing their side of a lane.”
“I’m going to guess that’s an Overworld metaphor.”
“Exacto. If we let the Foundation dictate the terms of—”
“Hold up,” said Bao quickly, his voice low, and Marisa could tell instantly that something was wrong. “That looks like trouble.”
Marisa followed his gaze back over her shoulder toward the front of the restaurant, seeing three young men in long, untucked dress shirts, their hair pulled back in tight ponytails. Two of them had bionic arms, Detroit Steel by the ostentatious look of them, one on the left side and one on the right. The third man, standing between them, was almost impossibly skinny, his face covered in ornate, skull-like tattoos.
“La Sesenta,” said Marisa, identifying the gangsters immediately. La Sesenta was Mirador’s resident street gang, and seeing them here was even more trouble than Bao suspected. “Mierda.”
“You recognize any of them?”
“The skinny one’s called Calaca,” Marisa whispered. “He’s pretty high up in the gang.” The three cholos were standing in the entryway, surveying the restaurant like they were thinking about buying it. The look sent shivers down her spine.
“No gangs allowed,” said Guadalupe loudly, bustling fearlessly toward them from the side room. Marisa felt her heart skip a beat at her mother’s brazen disregard for the danger; the other customers had noticed the cholos now as well, and a nervous wave rippled through the restaurant. “No gang colors, no weapons. We don’t want any trouble here.”
“Si, se?ora,” said Calaca. He smiled, and half his teeth were steel. “That’s exactly why we’re here—we don’t want any trouble either.” His accent was thick, but his diction was almost humorously overeducated. “The problem is, the man you rely on to keep you out of trouble is doing a very poor job, as our presence here might indicate.”