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That gave Marasi pause. If they didn’t work for Harmony, whodidthey work for?

Moonlight led the truck caravan off the highway at last, passing through the outskirts of the city on the northern edge.

“It’s so… fabricated,” Moonlight said. “Look at that sign. You see it?”

“The billboard?” Marasi said, glancing at the large posted drawing of a stylized version of Bilming, with light rising behind it.PRIDE IN PROGRESS, it said.OUTER CITIES SELF-RELIANCE MOVEMENT.

“Those are all over the city,” Moonlight said. “Nights! The same exact piece of art, a hundred times over. Art that can be reproduced… is it really art at all?”

“Of course it is,” Marasi said. “Why would it stop being art just because it’s replicated?”

“It’s crass.”

“Said like an elitist,” Marasi said. “If you truly were interested in thebeautyof the art—instead of some tangential sense of control—you’dwant everyone to be able to experience it. The more the better.”

“Well argued,” Moonlight said. “I’ll admit that my distaste for Autonomy might taint my opinion.”

They led the convoy onto Biggle Way, then drove slowly in a single-file line. Eventually someone fell into step alongside Marasi’s truck, wearing a red jacket as the notebook said. She unlatched the window again.

“Ahead, across the Grand Motorway,” he said. “Third building on the right.”

She nodded and put the window back up. At the end of the street, they reached the Grand Motorway—a vastsix-lanehighway. Marasi had never seen a street so wide. “Are there really so many cars these days that such a thing is necessary?”

“They’re planning,” Moonlight said, “for a much larger city in the future.”

Well, they might not need that many lanes yet, but there was still plenty of traffic on the Grand Motorway. They had to wait for traffic to slow and give them a chance to cross. Ahead she could see a line of large warehouses—the third one’s cargo door was open. That was it, their drop-off.

“Are you going to interfere?” Marasi asked. “With our operation?”

“No,” Moonlight said. “You have my word.”

“Can I talk to you afterward?” Marasi asked.

“Yes,” Moonlight said. “But Marasi, I can only say so much to an outsider. For now I’m just here to watch.”

At a lull in the traffic, Moonlight pulled across—though the other nine trucks had to wait their turn.

“And what if bullets start flying?” Marasi asked. “You’re going to sit here and watch?”

“I’m not a constable, as you pointed out,” Moonlight said. “So yes. Consider me an external admirer of your work. Interested in the quirks of those who follow the law—and their…value.”

She smiled in a knowing way, then pulled into the cavernous warehouse. As soon as all ten trucks arrived, the sting could begin.

21

Wayne nodded as the trucks ahead waited to cross the highway. “Well then, Hoid,” he said to the coachman, “that’s all I know about how to pickle vegetables.”

“… Thank you?” Hoid said.

“’S all right,” Wayne said. “I’m a bastion of useful information, I am.”

The truck ahead of them pulled forward, crossing the vast motorway filled with sixteens upon sixteens of cars. Hoid moved their truck up, next in line.

“Can I have my harmonica back now?” Hoid asked.

Wayne fished in his pocket and brought it out. “I traded you fair for this!”

“You did nothing of the sort.”