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His back looked so smooth and unblemished it didn’t look like his at all.

I wasn’t even wearing the ring he’d given me. I’d given it to Lily to wear for me, before she left with her grandparents.

Thinking about her brought a tightness to my throat, so I shoved her out of my mind, even as Revik clicked his own pack around him, motioning for me to follow as he swam deeper under the pier.

Surli and Stanley mapped this area extensively, mainly for surveillance and infrared, although we had a pretty good idea of the physical layout. Motion detectors and image captures littered the length of the pier, but they had nothing under the docks. Surli and Stanley were tasked with clearing out a portion of the south-side docks the night before, so we could slip through.

By now, they should have help. More seers were scheduled to join them yesterday, including Dalejem and Chinja.

I wasn’t thrilled about Dalejem’s inclusion, but Dalejem knew Dubai.

We got to the far southwestern end of the complex a few minutes and a number of swims later, including a riskier one that took us out into open water and across the bows of several docked ships. The route we took should have been in a line absent of any direct surveillance according to the specs we’d been given, but yeah, it was still unnerving.

Doing it without the gear made sense, in case we were spotted and needed to get on land and out of there in a hurry?but it also made it harder, in that we had to stop in the shadow of one of the larger bows to catch our breath, huddled on the side facing away from the nearest docks.

Both of us were panting by the time we made it to the opposite pier.

I found the ladder, and we both caught hold of the metal rungs. Revik nudged me to go first, so I began climbing up as carefully and as quietly as I could, hoping no one would be in the section of dock directly above.

Luckily, another ship was being unloaded on that side, one that looked like it had docked not long before ours, so there was plenty of camouflage. When I poked my head above the edge of the pier, the closest dock workers I saw were busy unloading crates a few dozen yards away, and not looking in our direction.

We’d been told by Surli and Dalejem that a good chunk of this landing area existed as a regular, old-school, open-air dry dock prior to Dubai becoming a quarantine city. As part of the so-called improvements undertaken by Shadow, they’d covered the dock to make the port more secure. They’d also expanded it to about five times the original size and cleared a swath of land behind it to function as a security perimeter. That perimeter included a fenced off section of beach armed with organic binary electric grids and land mines.

The dock was accessible from the mainland only by train.

Dubai had always been as much a fabrication as a reality, but there was very little “real” habitable environment here at all anymore. The water all came from purified and desalinated seawater. All crops grown came from underground fields of reconstructed soil and genetically-enhanced seeds designed to survive on simulated sunlight and drought-level irrigation. All lakes, lawns and golf courses were entirely man-made, of course, and would have dried to dust in days without the extensive atmosphere-adjustment fields, crazy amounts of watering by the desalination plants, and constant additions of both real and artificial topsoil.

Shaded concourses graced most of the man-made structures, misting water down on the land and people below, pretty much 24/7.

Really, it was more of an amusement park than a city.

Now, with Shadow at the helm, it was a fortress in many ways, as well.

During a planning session we’d discussed why Shadow would choose so many coastal and island cities as the focal points of his quarantine zones, given the amount of maintenance involved just to keep them viable.

Revik believed the choice was deliberate. He said Shadow would prefer that, since the residents of those cities would forever be dependent on whoever owned the infrastructure.

It would give him more control.

Surli told us they were bringing human and seer slaves in by the boatload, mostly from India and other parts of Asia, but also from the West and Africa. With the increase in construction projects, those shipments had grown more frequent.

I peered over the top of the ladder, spotting the surveillance camera as soon as I looked up.

I stared at it, frozen, then realized the light was off.

Surli and Stanley did their end.

Taking another breath, even as Revik’s fingers circled my ankle in a silent question, I began to move, disentangling my foot from his hold carefully so I wouldn’t accidentally kick him in the face. Once I got to the top, I walked deep into the nearest row of storage crates, to get out of view of the open stretch of pier.

Looking back to make sure Revik followed me, I unhooked the waterproof pack and set it on the ledge of the nearest container. I unzipped the bag to get at my regular street clothes, along with a headset, jewelry and the small gun I planned to carry. I’d already pulled the wet tank top over my head by the time Revik had his own backpack off.

He was staring at my bare upper body when I glanced up.

I smacked him in the chest, clicking softly.

“Come on, pervert,” I whispered. “Mind on the job.”

He smiled faintly, but shrugged, then slid out of his shorts, turning me into a hypocrite when I paused long enough to stare at him.