Page 129 of Neon Flux

Me: It’s about the project Tanaka had you working on. The off-the-books one.

It was a shot in the dark—and vague enough to mean anything—but I had a feeling I wasn’t wrong.

Taos: When?

Jackpot.

Me: One hour.

Taos: K.

I foundher at an upscale medical spa in Sky District—her choice, delivered via a last-minute message. The place reekedof privilege, offering neural stabilization chambers and chemical balance adjustments that cost more than my monthly rent.

Taos sat in a secluded alcove, a custom biometric monitor wrapped around her wrist, its display cycling through metrics I couldn’t quite make out. Her blonde hair was perfectly styled, her clothes expensive but understated. I was getting a look at the real her—not rebel leader Taos, but the woman beneath. Only the careful, measured way she moved betrayed anything more.

“Protected clinic,” she said by way of explanation, gesturing vaguely at the privacy screens around us. “No monitoring devices. And I had an appointment anyway.”

I took the seat across from her. “Thanks for coming.”

“What’s this about, E?” Her fingers tapped a complex rhythm against the table—not nervousness, I realized, but impatience. A spa attendant approached with some kind of herbal infusion, and Taos waved her away without looking up. Her hand went to the glowing crystal at her throat, toying with it absentmindedly. The same one I’d seen on worshippers of the Divine Light.

“I need to get inside the Church of Divine Light.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and she let out a short laugh. “You? At a service? That’s hard to picture.”

“No,” I clarified. “I need to know their dirty business. I need access to an Echelon member’s service—or at least inside their physical security.”

Her smile disappeared, and she fidgeted with the glowing crystal again. “I don’t think I can do that, E.”

I rubbed my forehead. I didn’t want this to get ugly. Taos wasn’t a bad person, but her idea of revolution always seemed to align conveniently with her personal interests. I flicked over the code—mycode—with her fingerprints all over it.

“You’ve seen this before?”

Her eyes went wide. “No!”

So yes. I took a deep breath. “POM has it. Only a matter of time until they trace it to you.” Let her call my bluff.

“What? How is that possible? We destroyed the—” She cut herself off. “How would you know that?” She looked me up and down. “Wait…don’t tell me you’re working for them?”

“I’m not working for anyone.” Lie.

“E! How could you do that? I thought you understood. That’s why you helped us. You wanted to bring those corpo bastards down.”

“What I want is to survive, Taos. To live until tomorrow. To sleep soundly at night knowing my needs are taken care of.”

“How can you do that when they own every aspect of our lives?” She leaned forward, her voice taking on that too-familiar revolutionary fervor that always felt rehearsed. “What we eat, what we drink, what we watch, what’s on the news. Don’t you want to fight back?”

“Ican’tfight back, Taos! I’m barely keeping my head above water. I’ve got debt up to my eyeballs, jobs that run me into the ground. I don’t have the time or energy to fight. I don’t have theluxury.”

This wasn’t what I’d come here to talk about, but she was pissing me off.

She looked at me with something between pity and contempt. “That’s a coward’s response. Just proves you’re okay with the status quo.”

Oh no.Fuck her.She did not get to say that to me.

“Easy to stand on that soapbox when you can run back to your trust fund anytime,Sarah.”

Taos froze. Several seconds passed while she processed what I’d said. “You looked me up?”