The Rising Dawn

Chapter Two - The Message

Tricks ran over the rooftops, hardly touching the ground. Her arms were spread, an open challenge to the world, as she flew. It wasn’t her greatest skill. It was unperfected and raw but Tricks could still run over the high world like a bird.

 Her grey coat flapped like wings around her, the silent pockets full of glittering treasure. Behind her, a great way behind her, somebody was just realising that their jewels had gone and that somewhere out there, racing through First Segment like a rumour, was a very clever person.

  Tricks Cadaver was a thief. It was what she had always been and always would be. She was better than anybody else in the whole of Second Segment, possibly even the entire city. She did what nobody else dared: she became famous amongst the Diamonds.

  Diamonds was Second slang for the wealthy, the happy, the comfortable people of First Segment. It came because they were out of place, hard and glittering in a blackened city. They broke everything and still sparkled. It was a bitter phrase, when you got right down to it.

  But to the Diamonds, Tricks was known as the Magpie. She was famous. They didn’t know her face or her name, but they knew her. They knew of a whippet-quick girl who could steal anything, and would. They knew she belonged to Second. They knew they couldn’t find her.

Tricks was small and slight and fast as wingéd hell. She was designed for hiding places and small passages and daring escapes. She had cut her hair so close to her scalp that it was scarcely there at all. Every part of her was contained, condensed, built for thievery.

  She leapt up to the top of a chimney post on a large house and let out a wild crow of victory, a shout out to the Diamonds of the world: you’ll never take me alive. It was tempting to duck in through the windows and startle the people, bowing as she left.

  But no. She had to be sensible. Even Tricks knew not to push her luck. Her get-out-of-jail-free card was in her pocket but death wasn’t what Tricks wanted at this point in her life, even a quick death from cyanide. She had plans.

 With a muffled whoop, she leapt on, launching herself from house to house until she reached the guarded wall that kept the Diamonds safe from ruffians like her. Allegedly, that is. Three…two…one…

 The jump was impossible but Tricks made it, latching her fingers around the bars that covered the top of the wall and using her momentum to pull herself upright. As quick as she could, she made the leap into the bare no-man’s-land.

  It was risky, of course. It was probably safer to go through at the heavily-watched checkpoints than take a chance on the mines and pitfalls. Tricks knew it well, though. She was through and safe, crawling under the wire and running up the sheer wall.

  Before gravity had a moment to understand what was happening, she was on the top and leaping from house to house on her home ground, safe, home and dry. Her heart was laughing at the rush it brought her. She couldn’t imagine a world where she didn’t live like this. Tricks had always been a thief.

“This is impossible!” Fuya fumed. “Impossible!”

Tricks yawned. “Technically speaking…”

“Shut up,” Fuya snapped. “No, don’t shut up. I need your help.”

Tricks nodded, easily. “Is it that bad?”

“That bad? That bad?” Fuya shook her head. “It’s even worse.”

“A meeting on neutral ground?” Tricks smiled. “That bad?”

“It’s not on neutral ground,” Fuya explained. “It’s at her HQ.”

Tricks sat bolt upright. “You’d be insane to accept.”