The Trap (24 page)

“He’s in the Domain Building,” I say to Sissy. “Makes sense. Lots of sun inside. A good place to hide.”

Sissy taps her mouth with a curled knuckle, forehead furrowed. She glances at the TextTrans. “How can we be sure it’s Epap?” she says. “What if it’s someone
pretending to be him?”

I stare down at the TextTrans, my body chilling over despite the sunshine beating down on me. Sissy’s right. On the other end might be someone who has just finished devouring Epap, and has
now lucked upon a way of luring two more unsuspecting hepers.

“The Domain Building’s sun-proofed,” I say. “No dusker would hide in there to lure us. Not in the daytime. It’s got to be Epap.”

But Sissy’s not satisfied. “Daytime will be nighttime in a few short hours.” She rubs the back of her neck. “If we’re going back into the metropolis with night fast
approaching, we need to be sure it’s him.” She grabs the TextTrans out of my hands.

She stares intently at the screen. “His birthday’s eight months away.”

The TextTrans buzzes. We read the characters before the TextTrans blanks out completely. It will be the last characters to ever appear on the TextTrans finally gone kaput.

I
HEAD OVER
to the carriage. I’m reattaching her horse to the traces when Sissy catches up with me. She stands on the other side of the
horse.

“What are you doing?” she says.

“What
we
are doing.” I pull the leather strap through the latches, hard enough to cause the horse to snort with complaint. “We’re going back for Epap.
Together.”

“You don’t—” she begins to say.

“It’s already late afternoon. We don’t have much time. We certainly don’t have time to argue. I’m coming with you. We’re both doing this.”

She stares at me silently. She starts shaking her head. “Gene—”

“By the time we get to the Domain Building, dusk will be almost upon us. We need to slip in and out quickly. Find Epap, then get the hell out.” I reattach the horse collar, fastening
it securely. “There’s going to be no room for error. No room to get your bearings, to find your way. I know the Domain Building. You need me.”

Sissy doesn’t say anything, but I feel her eyes scrutinizing my every move. I slide between the two horses, double-check the axle. The carriage is ready. Sissy is still staring at me. I
walk to the nearest tree. “Getting fruit for Epap,” I tell Sissy over my shoulder. I pluck a few of the larger dangling fruit, cradle them in the nook of my arm.

I throw the fruit through the window into the carriage. As I walk around to the front, I see no sign of Sissy. She’s not inside the carriage, nor is she standing by the horses. I scan the
trees.

“Up here,” she says from the driver’s seat. She’s sitting on one side of the bench, leaving room for me to sit next to her. Our eyes meet and she holds my gaze. I hop on,
sit beside her.

I grab the reins, slap them down. The carriage takes off, slowly, then faster as the horses break into a gallop. The ground blurs beneath us, green to brown. With every bounce, Sissy and I bump
against each other. She slides closer to me, leaning against me. I press back slightly. Wind blows hard against our faces. We don’t speak as we push toward the distant skyscrapers. Back into
the hornet’s nest. But Sissy is next to me, Sissy is with me, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

I
N THE HEART
of the metropolis once again. The horses trot nervously along, hoofs stamping loudly on the hard concrete, their ears flicking.
Everything feels too close: the shuttered store fronts, cafés, delicatessens, the towering skyscrapers flanking us like enclosing fingers. Absent is the sense of emptiness and desolation
that had always attended my daytime visits. Now there is only the sense of millions hanging behind paper-thin walls of the steeled skyscrapers.

By the time I pull the horses over and tether them to a pole in front of the Domain Building, the sun has dropped more than halfway to the horizon. Shadows creep across the street as if clawing
us. There is less than an hour of sunlight remaining. We walk to the front entrance, a set of wide revolving doors. Unlocked, like everything else in the daytime.

“That’s a lot of floors to cover,” Sissy says, her head tilting back as she looks upward.

“Sixty-four to be exact. But Epap said he was hiding in sunlight. We’ll only need to search the atrium and the top floor—those are the only two areas where sunlight can
penetrate.”

“What else is in that building?”

“A bunch of government bureaus. Laboratories and conference rooms and lecture halls. We avoid them, okay? Our approach is simple: search the atrium, then, if we have to, get in the glass
elevator, head up to the top floor. We’ll be covered in sunlight the whole way up. And back down, of course, when we leave.”