Chapter 24 · Undercity Broker - Chapter 24: Below the Dead Line

Lin didn't wait for someone to make the first move. He pocketed the reformed map and ran.

The ash had barely settled when he bolted past Su Jin's line, ducking under the arm of a scavenger who swung too slow. Shouts erupted behind him. Lei's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and furious, ordering his crew to follow. The Bureau agents moved faster. Lin heard boots on metal, the click of safeties going off.

He didn't look back. The market's main corridor was too exposed. He veered left into a narrow gap between two stacked containers, squeezed through, and came out near the old transit tunnel entrance. The one everyone called the Dead Line.

No one went past the fourth junction. The rails there had collapsed into the flooded zone below, and the water wasn't water anymore. It was black and thick and it moved on its own. Scavengers said things lived in it. Mutants who'd gone too far, or maybe something older.

Lin's arm burned. The tattoo crawled up past his elbow now, branching like roots under his skin. The voice in his head wasn't whispering anymore.