"I want to fight," I tell him as we ride the gravLift down with Harmony. They've doctored my Sigils so that they are brighter to match the highReds. I wear the loose garb of a highRed and carry a pack of street-scrubbing equipment. There's dye in my hair and contacts in my eyes, all so that I look a brighter shade of red. Less dirty. "I don't want this mission. Worse, I can't do it. Who could?" "You said you would do anything that needed to be done," Dancer says. "But this …" The mission he has given me is madness, yet that's not why I'm frightened. My fear is that I will become something Eo would not recognize. I'll become a demon from our Octobernacht stories. "Give me a scorcher or a bomb. Let someone else do this." "We brought you out for this," Harmony sighs. "And only this. It has been Ares's greatest goal since the Sons were born." "How many others have you brought out? How many others have tried what you're asking me to try?" Harmony looks over at Dancer. He says nothing, so she answers impatiently on his behalf. "Ninety-seven have failed the Carving … that we know of." "Bloodydamn," I curse. "And what happened to them?" "They died," she says blandly. "Or they asked for death." "Maybe Narol should have let me hang." I try to laugh. "Darrow. Come here. Come." He grabs my shoulder and pulls me in. "Others may have failed. But you'll be different, Darrow. I feel it in my bones." My legs go shaky when I first look up at the night sky and the buildings stretching around me. I slip into vertigo. I feel like I am falling, like the world is off its axis. Everything is too open, so much so that it seems as though the city should tumble into the sky. I look at my feet, look at the street, and try to imagine that I am in the tunnelroads from the townships to the Common. The streets of Yorkton, the city, are a strange place at night. Luminescent balls of light line the sidewalks and streets. HC videos run like liquid streams along parts of the avenue in this hi-tech sector of the city, so most walk upon the moving pathways or ride in public transportation with their heads crooked down like cane handles. Garish lights make the night almost as bright as day. I see even more Colors. This sector of the city is clean. Teams of Red sanitation workers scour the streets. Its roads and walking paths stretch in perfect order. There's a faint ribbon of red where we are to walk, a narrow ribbon in a broad street. Our path does not move like the others. A Copper woman walks along her wider path; her favorite programs play wherever she walks, unless she strides beside a Gold, in which case all the HCs go quiet. But most Golds do not walk; they are permitted gravBoots and coaches, as are any of the Coppers, Obsidians, Grays, and Silvers with the proper license, though the licensed boots are horribly shoddy things.
