The Ark

17.

I jumped off the last rung of the ladder, landing beside Delta in the alleyway behind the giant dumpster. "Where's our ride?" I asked scanning the area.

She shrugged. "A pretty bike like that? Around here if it's not garaged, it's fair game." She started down the street, her strides oddly efficient for someone so small. I had to jog to keep pace with her. "Whoever took it probably did us a favour, it would have been tracked by now anyway."

"Where are we going?" I puffed.

Delta's cheeks dimpled with a smile. "To get us some transport," she said as though it were obvious.

I struggled to keep up with her insane power walk as we blitzed through a neighbouring estate. It didn't take long to realise that this was a less than affluent suburb. The rundown buildings were all the same—concrete, minimalist, boxy and the residents we passed carried the zombified look of overwork on their gaunt faces. Each street we walked down was clear of traffic—there wasn't a single vehicle in sight.

"Where are we?" I asked Delta as we swung into a driveway. Poorly laid asphalt crunched underfoot, loose stones flying off our boots as we followed the drive behind an apartment building and into a tiny parking lot. A group of local kids spooked as we rounded the corner and went scattering in all directions. Most ran back to their families, ducking into tents and other makeshift shelters that filled the lot.

"We're right on the American-Canadian border," Delta replied in a hushed voice. Her eyes were fixed on a row of garages lining the ground level of a building across the lot. "Most the folks around here have been displaced by developments and are taking shelter in the border-zones where territories overlap and the residency regulations are more flexible."

I kept my head down as we passed the shelters and the people spilling out of them. Not that anybody actually seemed to be paying us much attention. Delta came to a stop by a half-opened roller door and gave my arm a squeeze.

"Wait here," she whispered, "and don't go flashing your face around. There's a sizable bounty on your head as of an hour ago."

I started at her words, my head swimming with questions while my stomach plummeted through my boots. I drew breath to ask her why—only to find she had already disappeared inside the open garage.

I swore under my breath, kicking up a tiny wave of pebbles as I turned away from the garage. How could she be so blasé? Some shanty town in a border-zone was not the place to be hanging out with a bounty on your head.

I'd agreed to stay with Delta because I figured she had both a vested interest and the skills needed to keep me hidden from Zenith. After all, she'd found me and fought off a pair of Forcers in the process. I'd even been somewhat willing to give her the benefit of the doubt with the whole emotive-tranq thing, but now I was questioning my choice to stay with her. She was reckless and hellbent on taking down ZenTech—whatever the cost—and I was beginning to think that cost included me.