CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kids surrounded Dade as he sat cross-legged on the floor with his Ghost mask still in place. Their hands reached forward to touch him, dipping into his pockets to steal pieces of candy he kept there for that reason. They thought they were sneaky. They’d grin and laugh, hiding their prizes away to eat later.
He tried to make time to spend with them after he dropped off packages of stolen VitD. It was the best part of the job as far as he was concerned. The staff didn’t mind that he lingered or that he kept his mask on. They allowed his visits while making sure the vid-feeds were turned off.
These kids were in flux status, refugees without parents. All were suffering from various stages of Violet Death, their skin marked with traces of the disease. They had been either trafficked from other cities or sometimes turned out by parents when they couldn’t offer support. Because they hadn’t had their data sensors implanted yet, it was impossible to match them back up with their families, and even more important, issue life-saving drugs. So they came to this clinic that helped abandoned kids who would die without his donations.
He always felt sad when he visited. While he enjoyed every second with the children, their situation made him desperate for change. The sadness inevitably turned to frustration and anger before he left.
What he did would never be enough. There’d always be more kids, and there would always be other facilities he couldn’t support. His efforts were a drop in the bucket compared to the complexity of the problem. The tiny ripples he made didn’t extend very far.
The thought made him frown, and he forced himself to stop and instead offer a grin to the precocious two-year-old who’d pushed her way into his lap. Her chubby hands grabbing his cheeks just under the edge of his mask, sending a sizzle of nanotech feedback to tickle his skin.
His comm link buzzed in his pocket. Dade fished it out, flicking his finger over the bio-scanner to pull up the ziptext.
I need Shine, Saben’s ping read. Will send location.
Dade read it twice, thinking he’d misunderstood. He wondered why Saben had ziptexted in the first place when using an electronic trail was too risky. The nervous energy that bothered him all morning came roaring back. Everything had been off since they’d parted ways.
They’d planned to deliver supplies together, but at the last second, Saben had gotten a ping, and then claimed personal business and bailed. Which had never happened before. Usually, Saben stayed within the radius of providing assistance whenever Dade was on a job.
Dade had gone anyway, unable to delay his delivery. It hadn’t been all that complicated to sneak out of the Tower alone. He timed his departure with the rotation of the guards and shuffled around some vid-feeds.
It hadn’t stopped him from worrying about Saben, though. And now a ziptext on top of it? Whatever he had to take care of must be something important enough for him to resort to monitored communication channels. Added to that, Saben had requested Shine. That made Dade’s instincts jump. Shine would be harder to come by than VitD. It wasn’t Dade’s usual trade, nor did he partake in getting high. He didn’t have the kind of connections that could score him any. That meant to get a hit, he’d have to troll the streets for a dealer.
He pushed back all of his questions. They’d be answered soon enough. Hopefully. At least he was still in his Ghost disguise. If he got caught buying Shine on the city cams, it would be less incriminating.
It might take some time, Dade typed. He wasn’t sure how successful he’d be at finding a dealer, much less convincing them to sell to a masked stranger.
Saben pinged back his coordinates. For the second time Dade was thrown off. What was Saben doing at the Center Clinic?
Dade left the dispensary amid disappointed cries from the children. They clung, but he extricated himself with a promise to try to visit the following week, careful not to give a specific day or time.
On the street, he looked for the darkest corners where the dealers hung out. Buying Shine made him think of Arden and the likelihood of seeing her again. Maybe he could figure out where she’d be and at least catch a glimpse of her. No, he had to wait for her to come to him. He’d promised that he wouldn’t seek her out. It was the best course of action. One he wouldn’t waver from, even though the temptation to see her again was almost too much. Arden would show up in the most unlikely places, he was sure of it.
It took a while before he scored. Turned out that no one trusted a man in a mask unless he was giving things away. Then he slipped into an area that he knew was a dead zone for the city cameras, so he could take off his mask and hood and cover anything that could be linked back to the Ghost. He kept his blackout band strapped to his wrist. To remove it would ping an alert of his location to his father on his scanners.
Dade checked the coordinates on his datapad to make sure he was headed in the right direction. He’d visited the Center Clinic only three times, and each time he’d accompanied his father. He felt vulnerable not only going to the Center as himself, which was a huge gamble, but also carrying Shine on his person.
The Center Clinic was a public hospital, so there was no reason for him to visit other than for shows of goodwill made by Croix Industries. Dade knew he would attract attention. He was always on the gossip-vids. His face a little too famous to pull off something like this. He’d be picked up on the security cams, and if questioned, he’d offer clunky excuses for his presence.
He liked a challenge, though. Besides, he owed Saben. Employee or not, he was first and foremost Dade’s friend, trusted with unquestioned loyalty. Which again made Dade wonder at the nature of Saben’s emergency.
The Center Clinic was located in an older area of the city, in the business district of Level Five. Rooms and offices had been built between existing buildings as the city fought to grow upward. This close to the city center, everything became congested and bottlenecked, the skywalks busy with pedestrians making their way home from school or work.
At the entrance, Dade paused, tipping his head to avoid the facial monitors. There were several govies at the door, their hands rested on the stun-sticks strapped to their sides. They looked into the faces of the visitors threateningly, not being subtle about it. Even if he hadn’t been aware of his father’s plan, he would have noticed their numbers increasing.