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A warehouse party tonight. This was the last thing she needed, to go hanging around the warehouse district. But Maria’d be more inclined to help her if Eliana showed up in person, and she wanted those documents. She wanted to get rid of Mr. Gonzalez.
* * * *
Eliana took the train into the warehouse district. It was crowded with people looking to celebrate the start of the weekend—women in furs and shiny sparkling dresses, men in Italian suits. Most were riding the train to its final destination at the docks. Hardly anyone stepped off with Eliana at the warehouse district.
The Azevedo warehouse was located in the middle of things, a big stone building that was probably among the first built here, when Hope City was to be just an amusement park. The warehouses had stored building materials and robots for the park, and then when the park had closed, the warehouses had mostly closed down as well, save for a scattered handful along the edges of the district that were used for storing supplies for the power plants. Eliana’d been to the Azevedo warehouse once or twice before; Essie’s artist friends threw parties there when they could wheedle someone from the city into giving them a permit. Essie’d claimed it was easier to do in the winter. Bread and circuses, she’d said, knocking back her drink. Eliana didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but she figured she had the general idea.
The Azevedo warehouse was hung with strings of multicolored lightbulbs. Light poured out the windows and flooded over the sidewalk. Music thumped distantly in the background. Something modern and unlistenable, no doubt, rock and roll from America and folk songs from Argentina, all of it run through cheap speakers for that Antarctican Independence distortion.
Maria wasn’t there yet. Eliana leaned up against a broken streetlamp and lit a cigarette. People emerged out of the street’s darkness in groups of threes and fours, all pressed close for warmth. Half of them were in fashionable mainland-style clothes, sheath dresses and ski
Eliana was almost done with her cigarette when Maria spilled out of the warehouse entrance, her hair already damp and shining with sweat. “Sorry, sorry!” she cried, ru
“It’s fine. I was just about to go in and look for you.” Eliana smiled. “So what exactly is happening with this party? Some of Essie’s friends?”
“Yeah, the musicians.” Maria looped her arm in Eliana’s, and together they walked inside. The sound blasted across Eliana as soon as she crossed the threshold; it was as bright and riotous as the multicolored lights hanging outside. Old park equipment was stacked up around the edge of the building so that people could dance in the center of the room, although the music was difficult to dance to.
“Jesus Christ,” Eliana said, shouting.
“Tell me about it.” Maria led Eliana through the crush to a cluster of tables built out of old brass pipes. A white bedsheet hung on the wall behind them, and someone was projecting slides of the Antarctic desert onto it, the snow painted over with garish, u
Essie sat at the table alone, drinking a beer.
“She’s here!” Maria cried, and Essie lifted her head and waved. She was in full Independence regalia tonight, her boxy dress cut out of sealskin and shaped at the waist with a rough-hewn, handmade belt.
“Oh my God,” Maria said. “I’m so glad you could make it. It’s been forever. And with all the blackouts lately, I was starting to get worried.”
“Me too.” Essie peered up from her drink as Eliana slid into the seat next to her. “It’s the mainland, you know. They’ve got the city under their thumb. They want us to know who really controls the power out here.”
“Politics.” Maria rolled her eyes. “Couldn’t we escape it for just five minutes?”
“You’re at an Independence party,” Essie pointed out.
“It wasn’t the blackouts. I’ve just been busy.” Eliana didn’t feel like listening to the two of them bicker. At least it was easier to talk here—the music was across the room, swallowed up by the big empty space of the warehouse. Essie waved her hand, and a bar girl came over and took their orders.
“So busy with what, exactly?” Essie asked. “Saving up money to sell out to the mainland?”
“It’s not about selling out,” Maria said. “She just doesn’t get that this place is home. Isn’t that right, Eliana?” She leaned close. “Why have you been ignoring us? Is it Diego?”
“No.” Eliana made a face at her. “I haven’t seen that much of him lately.” This wasn’t entirely true; she had, after all, seen more of Diego than she had of either of her friends. But that was because he showed up una
“So my guess was right, then.” Essie frowned and looked away. She always got like that when Eliana talked about leaving for the mainland.
“You break any big cases lately?” Maria leaned forward. “Anything—interesting?”
“No, not really.” Eliana tried to make her voice sound bored. She’d already learned that if she didn’t answer that question in the negative, Maria would hound her for details until she couldn’t stand it anymore. “I do need your help with something, though.”
“What? A case?” Maria perked up. Even Essie seemed more interested now.
“Yeah, I need a fake of something. To serve as a kind of—plant—for this thing I’m working on.”
“A plant?”
“Yeah, like a decoy.”
Maria leaned back in her chair. The lights from the projection spilled across her face. “A plant of what, exactly?”
“Schematics for an old amusement park robot. They don’t have to be real. I just need you to make them look official.”
“Oh.” Maria slumped down. “I thought you wanted something exciting. Like you were going to take down half the city council. But just some robot schematics?”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
Maria laughed. “I’m teasing! Sure, I could probably do something. Honestly, I’d probably be able to find the original without a lot of trouble.”
Eliana blinked. Mr. Gonzalez was willing to pay five hundred dollars for something Maria could pick up on her own? She’d thought the park robot schematics would be more closely guarded, that Maria would have to sneak around—
If Mr. Gonzalez was a city man, why didn’t he get them himself?
“I don’t need the original,” Eliana said quickly. “But if you want to find it and copy it and change up the schematics somehow—that’d be perfect.”
Maria gri
“That’s because you are,” Essie said.
“Not really,” Eliana said. “Giving me the real schematics probably is, but she’s not, and it sounds like no one would care anyway.”
“Whoever hired you cares.”
“Yeah, but he’s—” Eliana waved her hand through the air. “I shouldn’t talk about this, you know.”
“Oh, come on,” Maria said.
“I really shouldn’t. But there’s something off about him.”
“Hence the fake schematics,” Essie said. “Interesting.”
The bar girl brought them their drinks. The music had shifted into something resembling a traditional tango, although it was still filtered through with feedback from the speakers. Essie listened intently, nodding her head as if she were at a speech or a lecture.
“People are trying to dance,” Maria said, pointing at a couple weaving their way across the empty space.