Their transport glided low between the towering high rises that dominated the commercial zone. Anya's eyes widened, captivated by the lights that seemed to illuminate the area's night sky and streets. Her wonderment was palpable.

  Noa smiled as she studied her sister’s expression.

  “Pre vogue, right?”

  Anya nodded. She had never flown in a transport this late after sunset, and the city looked even more impressive.

  “Hard to believe that’s Lowbie Town, actually looks decent…”

  “Easy when we’re way above ground,” Noa smirked, leaning in her seat to look out and down from the window of their vehicle.

  “Ladies. Comm check.” Hassan’s voice joined their discussion.

  Noa pressed at the tiny bud lodged in her ear, tapping it before she looked at Hassan. “Check, check.” She smiled.

  “I hear you, crystal. Checking in.” Anya replied.

  “Good. Everything works dazzily.” Hassan sighed in relief as he leaned back and looked out on his side of the ride.

  “Can’t wait to qualify for the comms implant.” Noa mused as she returned her attention to the city below their transport.

  “Five minutes, gear check.” Hassan tapped Noa’s shoulder. Who nodded in response as she proceeded to do so; her eyes studied Anya, who was doing the same.

  “Now, just a reminder. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t stare at anyone...” Hassan glared at Noa, who shrugged in reply.

  “... unless I give the OK. Any questions?” he continued as he looked at each sister, who shook their heads.

  He nodded curtly. “Good…” He turned to Noa.

  “Emil, how would you identify him?”

  Emil was Hassan’s contact. He wasn’t a digger, but he worked for one of the many fixers—middlemen—and had an extensive network of ready-for-hire talent, from the cheap, less-than-skilled to the expensive, professional expertise.

  Noa recalled the notes in her mind. “A bit taller than me, boney. Right temple fully chromed up to his nose. Responds well to being called Bones.”

  Hassan nodded approvingly,

  Noa continued. “Don’t proposition to him about payment the first time out. He will set the rates. Otherwise, he would require a trade, usually in the form of a simple task.”

  This time, Hassan smiled and dipped his chin. “What else?”

  “If, for any reason, he requires a task performed. No kill jobs, no high-risk jobs. Grab and Go is ideal. Anything in between will wait for your advice.”

  Hassan’s smile never left as he patted Noa’s shoulder. “Good. I’ll be hanging back and monitoring.”

  Anya gave a dissatisfied shrug. “Wait, why aren’t you doing this for us?” she blurted before she realized what she had asked.

  Noa rolled her eyes.

  “This here, it’s part of your training. You have to know how the regular people go about it. It won’t be every aspect of it, but it's a start.”

  Anya opened her mouth to respond, but Hassan cut her off.

  “All Essedars of the past are familiar with how behind the scenes work in the quad-cities, and I mean, ALL... Essedars. You can’t govern or control a people if you don’t know what makes them tick, in detail.”

  She sighed heavily and nodded. She looked at Noa, who shrugged and smiled in response.

  Anya and Noa primarily spent the moments before their transport landed, making the most of their time, bombarding Hassan with more questions.

  Their hover transport finally landed a couple of blocks from the destination, and everyone ran through a final gear check.

  “Oh fuck, the smell.” Anya wrinkled her nose while she rubbed it as the side doors of the transport opened up.

  Hassan stifled a chuckle as Noa got up. He noticed her not taking her usual deep breath before setting on a task.

  “I know right… yeesh.” She replied as she descended the short ramp. That was when Hassan noticed it.

  “You brought Deni?”

  Noa turned to Hassan, “Hmm? Oh, yea. She’s gonna keep me extra safe.” She smiled. ‘Deni’ was the name she had given to her balisong. Her hand moved to where it was secured on her equipment belt around her waist.

  “Why, you don’t approve?”

  “No, it's fine. Once you graduate, I have a knife to gift you. That is, as long as you graduate with flying colors.”

  “Heh. School subjects are child’s play, Hassan. And I’m almost done anyway, near the top of my batch.” Noa smirked confidently and winked as she turned to head to the club.

  The sisters walked with their arms intertwined, making snide remarks about how wet the streets were and how it made everything smell so much worse.

  The group paused before they rounded the corner opposite where they were headed.

  “Ok. I’m gonna hang back. Your training should do you enough to handle the usual asses a place like this has. But don’t find a reason for it.”

  The sisters nodded.

  “Here, these passes should give you VIP access. Meaning you don’t have to queue up.”

  He raised a hand, almost instinctively, knowing full well how his two-star trainees would act, and continued, “...I know. You girls have your passes. But those flag you as High Rise, these don’t.”

  Each sister took the small, matchstick-sized token and studied it before nodding.

  Hassan’s brows frowned, not used to having both of them paying so much uninterrupted attention.

  “Immediate intervention? Or do you wanna try your skills before the Intel guys go in?”

  Noa’s lips scrunched to the side, and her eyes slid to the side before she responded. Her head tilted to the side as she looked at Anya, who responded with a shrug.

  Noa nodded before turning to Hassan. “Try skills.”

  He smiled and nodded knowingly. “Try not using Deni; I don’t want to handle any deaths.”

  Anya shrugged at Hassan’s statement.

  Noa’s lips bent up at the side. “I don’t have to take them out like that. There are... Other ways… right?”

  He shook his head, knowing what his silver-haired student meant.

  “Lowbie or not, they are still people, Noa.”

  This elicited an amused chuckle from Anya, which made Hassan turn his attention to her.

  “You have something to add?”

  “Hmm? Nope, I’ll be tail on this, Noa leads.” Anya smiled at him, ignoring what he had just asked.

  Hassan nodded curtly, “Okay, go ahead. I’ll join after you gals have gone in.”

  —-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The sisters started their stroll to the entrance of the club, arms intertwined again.

  “This is interesting, but… I think I prefer when we travel with Father and Mother.” Anya suddenly spoke up.

  “Oh? Lemme guess, security, and other… um… amenities?”

  She chuckled at Noa’s response and shrugged. “Well, not entirely. It’s um…”

  She lifted a hand from her sister’s arm, making a swirling pattern with a finger while she pointed at the state of the sidewalk. It wasn’t in a bad state, but her eyes picked out the leftovers from what she surmised - correctly, were things people used when they hung out or lived on the streets. Then she wrinkled her nose, a disapproving look on her face.

  Noa smirked. “Oh, that… yea, well.” She shrugged. “The House Council does give funds for the civil gov to keep people off, but greed is good for them, and it gives us fuel to keep them in line, so we let them do it, to a point.”

  Anya looked at her sister, skepticism on her face. “How do you know this?”

  Noa winked at her.

  “I kinda accidentally heard Father talking to someone from another House the other day.” She shrugged.

  Anya sneered. “Heh, well. Whatever, but they should really look into the smell. Everything looked so vogue from the transpo. On the streets, though…” She didn’t finish but instead made a face that showed her disapproval, much to Noa’s amusement.

  They continued, mostly with Anya’s tirade of disappointment, before they paused as they reached within meters of where the club entrance.

  “You know it hit me; we don’t have to wear these clothes over these suits. Its full body, material, and color are vogue. Right?” Anya suddenly blurted out.

  Noa sniggered. “Yea, I know. Hassan insisted. He has this idea about how High Rise kids should dress.”

  Anya giggled. “Well, this time, I’ll humor him. Besides, isn’t it easier for plate replacement if the suit wasn’t covered?”

  “For me, it is, or should be; I’ve raised this with him before. He insists that field plate replacements are not as easy as we think. I guess he should know more about that.”

  “Hmm, I guess.”

  “Did you know they have new plate options now?” Noa suddenly said enthusiastically.

  “New… plate options?”

  “Yes! Like…okay, the ones we have now are pretty much the high-end standard. It's the hard plate over the soft full body it's stuck on. The newer ones actually react, like, kinetically. Some small reaction to deflect more of an impact onto it. Pretty daze, right?”

  “Huh, I don’t really get how it would work, but yea, sounds daze.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  They could feel eyes on them as they approached. Noa fleetingly glanced at the long line of patrons waiting for their turn to enter. The thumping bass was already strong enough to make their hearts respond.

  They reached a pair of large, tall men who seemed to guard the entrance to the place. They raised their hands almost in unison, displaying the small objects that Hassan had given them.

  One of the guards closed in on them, and one hand signaled for them to raise it higher. Noa watched as his right eye glowed with a soft neon blue. Her mind immediately deduced that he was scanning the objects.

  They waited a few moments before he grunted and nodded.

  “You girls go in then. Have fun.”

  Anya smiled and winked, pulling Noa with her.

  “I thought you were tails on this?”

  “Yea, once inside. I wanna go in and see how these people ‘party.’”

  Noa chuckled and followed with an amused grin. As they descended deeper into the club, the light from the streets turned into stark darkness. Only the lines of lights at the edges of each step and either side of the corridor guided them down the stairs. The thumping bass became more robust and harder as if the lighted entrance ahead of them was alive and emitting its own loud heartbeat.

  They passed the threshold into a large hall. Darkness still enveloped the place, but there were lights everywhere—lines and shapes on the walls—neon paintings in frames of varying levels of explicitness.

  Hassan’s voice came over on their earbuds.

  “He’s usually in the western VIP rooms on the upper floor.”

  Noa nodded and proceeded to turn left but was tugged back by an unmoving Anya.

  “Hey, head in game.” She hissed at Anya, who seemed to be studying the crowd around them and on the floor below.

  She looked at Noa and smiled. “Sorry, it's fascinating.”

  Noa chuckled. “Nothing we haven't seen. I think that Yarla plat-head girl does the same stuff with her parties.”

  Anya grinned and nodded. “Less stinky, too.” She giggled to a nodding Noa, who then tugged her toward where she wanted to head.

  “Did you notice the groups at the tables?”

  Noa bopped her head as she looked at the different doors on the western end of the hall. “Yea, cliques, a lot of gangs, too.”

  “Mhmm, yet they seem to just not care about it. You’d think that, you know, Brotherhood don’t jive with Hyena, and vice versa.”

  Noa’s focus turned to the corner of her vision, where the people Anya mentioned sat around. Commonly, the two of the most influential street organizations would be at each other’s throats, but not here.

  Her eyebrow rose as she nodded, acknowledging the observation before she tapped her earbuds.

  “Hassan, five doors here.”

  “Part of the lesson, Noa, find out which.”

  Noa rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

  They walked to the raised walkway leading to the doors. A large man similar to the one outside at the entrance stood at each one.

  “What do you think?”

  “Hmm, left to right? Or right to left?” Noa finally had Anya’s attention.

  “I got one better. You start right; I start left; meet in middle?”

  Anya giggled, “Done.”

  They mounted the short stairs to the raised platform and proceeded to their points, the large men attending each door not budging an inch despite how the sisters deliberately swung their hips.

  —-----------------------------------------------------

  Anya’s first door came up empty, and she neared the second door when it opened before she could question the attendant at the door.

  “Hey, blud. You comin' to party?” A stocky man much shorter than her suddenly called out.

  Anya’s eyes regarded him dismissively, her brows scrunching as she amusedly scoffed. “With you? No?”

  She stepped beside the large attendant and looked into the room. Four other men were in it, but no one matched Bones’ description.

  Shrugging, she spun around and was about to head toward the third door when a hand brusquely grabbed her arm with a firm grip.

  As if by reflex, she jerked her arm forward and, feeling the man closer, struck behind her with her heeled boot, connecting with his shin. This elicited a quick yelp, and the grip around her arm loosened as she spun, raising her other arm.

  Her sweeping elbow connected with his cheek, and his knees crumbled as he fell to the gangway that made up the platform.

  Anya glared at him. “Stay!” she barked at him, as if he was a house pet, before proceeding.

  Her gaze met Noa’s, standing at her second door, hands on hips, before she raised it to her sides as if asking what went on with her sister.

  Anya replied with a shrug and smiled before sauntering over to her sister.

  Noa looked over Anya’s shoulder. The man who went down was still sitting, shaking his head.

  “Trouble?”

  Anya shrugged. “Some Lowbie grabbed me; all good.”

  Noa chuckled. “You sure? Are you gonna have to burn the top now?”

  Anya made a face and tilted her face to the side, “Ha ha, funny.”

  “Anyway, found him…” her head motioned to the large man in front of the door, “...apparently Bones had already told the kerb to look out for us, and to think, they didn’t even budge when we walked past.”

  Anya shrugged. “Can’t get good help nowadays, I guess.”

  Her sister chuckled. “Now you sound like Mother.”

  “Shall we?”

  “Yes, let’s!”

  They thanked the still stoic large attendant at the door, who opened it for them. Inside was Bones, whose only company was a pair of bottles filled with clear alcohol.

  “Girls, come in. I’ll turn on the soundproofing.”

  Noa smiled back as they stepped past the threshold. The door shut, cutting a significant level of noise from outside. Only the thumping of the bass against the walls accompanied the otherwise starkly quiet room.

  —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Bones had left the room. The three had gone through what the sisters were looking for and were presented with only a few options.

  “So, what do you think? You were listening in, yes?” Noa could feel the excitement rising within her as she waited for Hassan to reply.

  She nodded at Anya, who gestured at her with a bottle before pouring the contents into the glass opposite her.

  “The Grab gig sounds fine. I can assign a guy or two to help.”

  Noa pondered what Hassan said momentarily as she sipped her glass.

  “I think I should do it with Anya, maybe have a digger?”

  Hassan chuckled and replied with a quick and flat “No.”

  “Why? We can handle ourselves, Hassan.”

  “Against drugged-up partygoers and drunks, sure. But, if you guys go into the field, it's a different story.”

  “Fine, two of your guys. I still think we need a digger.”

  “Agreed, I’ll contact a reliable fixer I used to work with.”

  “When?”

  “Well, he said by Sunday, so anytime before that. It’s midweek now, so not many days left.”

  Noa nodded and turned to Anya, who was swaying to the barely heard music beyond the room's walls.

  “Babe. What days are you free this week?”

  “This week? None. We have a major exam on Saturday, with mandatory attendance for Friday.”

  Noa sighed and turned her attention back to Hassan.

  “Anya can’t make it. We need at least one day prep, and she’s only free tomorrow for this week.”

  “How serious are you in wanting to solve this…issue you guys have?”

  Noa looked at Anya, then leaned back.

  “It involves one of the plat-heads…not ours, but another. Still, I think it’ll reflect on Anya how good, and soon we settle it.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line before Hassan replied.

  “Okay, so we have to go without her then. Don’t worry, I’ll break the news to her. SEHIL exams are important, and missing or getting bad scores is not a good way about it.”

  “Alright. So that’s it then?”

  “That’s it. Ready to jet?”

  Noa smiled as she finished her glass and then refilled it.

  “Not yet, maybe an hour or two?”

  “Don’t you have classes tomorrow? And doesn’t Anya need to prep for that exam of hers?”

  “Oh, lighten up, Hassan. Anya is a straight-A student, and I don't have classes tomorrow.”

  “Fine. Just… don’t make any trouble.”

  “Oh, I’m hurt, me? Trouble? Pssh.”

  “Smartass,” came Hassan’s amused reply before they cut the line.

  Noa giggled before she turned to a happily swaying Anya.

  “So?”

  “Bad news and good news.”

  “Gimme the good news; I know the bad news is probably from Hassan,” she smirked.

  “We can stay for as long as we wanna!” Noa announced jubilantly.

  —-----------------------------------------------------------------------

  They had spent two hours ordering more drinks using the VIP room. The large men who attended each door had already left.

  The club was emptying. Only a few tables remained with patrons at them, and they were mainly knocked out or in the process of getting there. A few were still dancing to the ever-present music.

  As they headed off the platform, Noa was greeted by the man that Anya had struck earlier.

  Her right eyebrow rose as she regarded him. Her left hand slipped back, grasping the baton attached to her belt.

  “Yes?”

  “That blud made a fool of me…” He drunkenly said, glowering at Anya, who stood beside and behind Noa.

  Noa’s clear green eyes regarded him, slowly looking him down and up before she smirked at him.

  “And? This is news to you?” she chuckled amusedly.

  He glared at her, his right hand slowly rose, and made a beckoning motion. His four other friends approached closer.

  “We’re gonna teach you young bluds a lesson; no one messes with me.”

  Noa snapped her head to Anya, who nodded in response as her hand slid to her holstered pistol that barely peeked under her jacket.

  “Just… you guys? Are you sure? You should go home and cry to your mama. Tell her you got your ass handed to you by a gurl.” Noa giggled mockingly, rolling the ‘R’ and emphasizing it while her right hand poked at his shoulder.

  “Why you lil’...” he lunged at Noa, his arm swinging clumsily.

  Noa side-stepped out of the way of his swinging arm, her hand deftly moving as she pulled her baton from her belt and slammed it to the side of his head, which sent him reeling.

  A heavy force slammed into her sides as another man joined in, his fist badgering at Noa’s side before his hands grasped at her waist and lifted her.

  Her baton slipped out of her hand. Noa screamed as he quickly and easily lifted her, and her hands forcefully clapped simultaneously at his ears, the impact making him grunt and his grip on her weakened. She continued and slammed a fist at his nose.

  Behind her, another man had run headlong into a prepared Anya. Despite being able to dodge his initial charge, he had managed to grab at her calf.

  Anya whipped the end of her pistol against the side of his face, sending him staggering back, and she followed with a violent kick to the other side of his face that sent him flying back to a railing.

  She turned and raised her pistol just in time at another man who was about to slam a chair against her.

  She smirked as she shook her head, the pistol barrel aimed at him. “Back off, peton.” she snarled at him.

  The remaining man in the group was staring at them, and his face wore a look of fear.

  “All good babe?” Anya called out, her eyes fixed on the man she was aiming her pistol at.

  “Yea, gonna hurt when ‘nalin downtime hits, though.” Noa winced as she rubbed her rib. She was gritting her teeth as she closed in on him slowly.

  The club’s bouncers were at the side. Some men stood with them, raising their hands to signal the bouncers not to intervene.

  The man who was late in joining had backed away from an approaching Noa until he found his back pressed against the railing, which looked down on the lower floor of the place.

  She stood facing him, her baton pressed under his chin as she pushed it up.

  “This how you party?”

  “No, no, please, we didn’t know.”

  “Know about? I told you guys to go home to your mama, but no.” She sneered at him.

  He looked behind her. The man Anya aimed at had sat down, hands on his head, and Anya backed away. His other friends were lying on the floor.

  “You.. you killed them!”

  “Nah, I don’t like Lowbie blood on me.” She hissed in reply.

  “Besides, too much effort after.”

  “You’re gonna let me go then?” He asked, confused. A smiling Noa just nodded at him.

  “I am…but…” She dragged out the last word.

  “But?”

  Noa smirked and winked before she stepped aside, and he saw a glowering Anya behind her, who stepped forward and suddenly whipped her pistol against his face, sending him to the floor.

  Noa smirked. “I don’t think my sister will.” She nudged him onto his back with her boot before stepping back and looking at Anya.

  “Daze?”

  She looked around and slowly holstered her pistol before nodding.

  “Daze, let’s go.”