“The HOD!” Stepan exclaimed.
Looking at Blue in the dim warehouse light, he could make
out the boy’s smirk.
“How exactly could I get into the HOD?”
Long pause, then Blue said,
“There’s ways to get anywhere in the B.”
“You’ve been to the HOD?”
Longer pause. “Maybe.”
“Because you wanted to do…what?”
Silence.
“Ah.” Neither one spoke for a long
time then Stepan said softly, “If I get caught in the HOD, I might go to jail?”
“If you call from the HOD and don’t
get caught your cred on the Rim’ll flicker high enough to
get a meet with the
Mafioso.”
“Not who I’m called to talk to.”
Blue snorted. “You make one of
your church things and they’ll be wantin’ to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“Mafioso – ‘e own ebbyting.”
“Mafioso don’t own Jesus Christ.
He owns them.”
The boy looked up at Stepan,
studying him then said, “You really ain’t afraid of the ‘So?”
“The God I serve is greater than
anything made by Humans.”
Blue grunted and said, “Couple
years ago, one of the old men found a broken antigrav plate.
It’s just a piece,
but OM Gillad hooked it up to a new power cell and got it to float. People
borrow it alla time.”
“You know him?”
“I can. OM Gillard, he’ll let me
use it. He says he’s been saving it for something special. Seems like you want
to do something special up on the roof.” He paused. “You got seeds?”
“In my back pack.”
“You didn’t bring a back pack.”
Stepan laughed. “I’m a believing
man, not a stupid one.”
Blue nodded, saying, “Nicely
played, mister.”
“Should we go to the HOD?”
“Sure. We’ll pick up the antigrav
plate from OM Gillad on the way back then we can go up to the roof.”
“Maybe we could ask your friend if
he has any rope so we can make a ladder and don’t always have to use his
antigrav and its power cell.”
“Let’s go,” Blue said. Stepan
followed Blue. Outside of the warehouse, they headed for the center of
Burroughs Dome.
“Are we just going to hop a train
down to City Halle?”
“More ways than that to get into
the center of the Dome,” said Blue. They walked some distance before they came
to a closed up, windowless column.
“Isn’t this a seismic station or
an atmospheric monitoring pod?”
“Both.”
“You can’t,” Stepan began,
following Blue around the curve. He almost tripped over the boy who had dropped
to a squat and was flinging aside dust and debris. “What are you doing?”
Blue ignored him until, squirming
like he was trying to reach a handle underground, he grunted. Straining upward
and groaning, he kept at it until a seam appeared. The pitted, filthy surface
slid up then stopped with a shriek of metal about sixty centimeters from the
bottom. Blue looked up at Stepan and grinned, saying, “We’re gonna take the
subway.
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