Jacqueline threw the digi-missive across the room to shatter into tiny shards of tech. Her latest assignment would waste her talents taking out a little band of smugglers. She wanted a much bigger target. No, not wanted. Needed.

She needed to take down Giant Corp.

She stalked past the sparsely furnished front room, through the dim hallway and into the back room of her small apartment, toward the hacking cough. On Jaq’s bed, her sister, Merrilyn, stared listlessly at the ceiling as a bloodied cloth flittered from her hand to the floor. Jaq sat on the edge, careful not to jostle the one and only person dear to her. Well, the only one left who took up residence in her personal space.

“I told you not to trust Giant Corp.” She ran a hand through Merry’s blond hair, so like her own.

Merry’s slight pat on her arm reassured her, though only a little. “They said the treatments would work. What else could I do?”

“What else, besides sell your condo and leave us destitute to pay for a charade?” Jaq clucked soothingly to take the bite from her remark. She had other reasons to distrust Giant, but Merry didn’t know about those.

“Don’t go to work,” Merry pleaded. Too weak to keep a hold, her hand fell back to her side and she closed her eyes, her lashes dark against her pale skin. “I’d rather never recover than have you do such horrible work.”

“I’m good at it. I’ll be fine.” Yes, she would be fine. She was good at what she did at Mother, the secret espionage arm of the Global Organization of Strategic Equity, de facto government of New Castle.

“You’ll be fine?” Merry took a deep shuddering breath. “Then why are you chewing your nails again?”

She yanked her hand away from her mouth and rose without disturbing the sheets clinging to the wasted body beneath. Damn. She hadn’t mangled her nails like this since…No. She wouldn’t think of him.

“I love you, sister.” Merry’s strained voice cracked. She coughed, the spasms lifting her slight frame off the bed.

“I’ll send the nurse.” She backed out of the room while Merry shook her head with the barest movement.

It didn’t matter what Merry thought. To afford the nurse, Jaq had to work, and damn if she’d waste her time on the penny ante stuff. The medical bills to keep Merry alive had bankrupted them both.

Right on time, the nurse arrived in her bright white jumper, her perfunctory nod to Jaq showing her usual taciturn nature. This efficient dark-haired woman had been on the job for two months but Jaq barely knew her. With a bit of guilty relief, she shrugged into her threadbare jacket, hurried down the corridor to the lift, and spent the short ride down torn between going back and screaming inside the empty tin can. She did neither before she escaped onto the teeming streets of New Castle, a city so large it covered a quarter of the continent.

Without greeting or apology, a man in a drab tunic bumped past her to go in her building. She didn’t recognize him. Not surprising since the high-rise held thousands. Nothing but dingy gray concrete buildings and lines and lines of carts selling food, housewares and the latest psychedelics.

A hovercraft she couldn’t afford zinged by with low humming. She stepped onto the moving walk and shrugged. “Don’t need a stinking hover.”

The low-flying mechanical transports wouldn’t get her where she needed to go.

She looked up despite herself. Most landers never did.

Above the ground, trees and low-flying birds—scarcely topping the highest scraper—the floating islands slowly circled the city, never casting their shadow in one place for too long. The constant, tempered blue sky dispersed around the black circle dotted with red engine lights. Rising from the platform structures, visible from the ground, tall mansions and spires disappeared into the clouds.

One of those islands held the corp she now existed to take down. Even before Merry’s illness, she’d been aware of Giant Corp’s greed and Mother’s reasons for looking into them. Up there, she’d find a way to make them pay for what they did to Merry. Up there, another agent, a charming dark-haired one, pursued a similar mission. If he’d done his job, the Giant would’ve fallen before Merry got hurt.

Honk.

She snapped her chin down. A hovercraft swung by close enough for the air to push aside the flap of her jacket. She stepped back onto the moving path and kept her attention on the ground rushing by. A pair of couriers crashed in the street next to her. One wore a shabby jacket like hers. The other, one of the special aeroweave tunics that glittered silver. Nobody stopped to see if they were all right. Edging her foot to the side of the walk, she nudged aside a gawker toward the exit. Before she could reach it, the two couriers were on their feet, cursing and gesticulating wildly at each other, so she stayed on the moving conveyor belt.

Several walk switches, a jaunt in a subcar and a retinal scan later, she entered Mother headquarters. The long, sprawling building resembled a warehouse more than an office building. From the outside, nobody would guess this was home to a spy agency that employed agents, mercenaries and rogue scientists to keep the megacorps in line.

This early in the morning, the place appeared empty. All the better, really. Her steps echoed on the shined floor in the wide sparse corridors.

Just as expected, the equipment chief, who practically lived at Mother, bustled about in the basement where the mercs got their daily rations of mechguns, lasers and a multitude of nanodevices to get them into impossible places. And out again. Usually.

“Monsieur Bovine.”

Dressed in his standard drab browns, the beefy man with a drooping mouth blinked at her from his desk. He smiled warmly. “Jaq.”

Nobody called her Jacqueline. Or, for that matter, Mademoiselle Robinson. “Remember those beans you told me about?”

His eyes lit up and he shot up from his chair, which skittered back with a loud screech. Around the desk faster than his bulk should allow, Bovine strode toward one of the cabinet-lined walls. Without a pause to read the label, he yanked open a drawer and pulled out a box with reverence. “These pretties are my latest. Nobody believes in their use—the cretins can’t dream big enough. Like magic, these beauties are.”

With a flip of his wrist, he gripped her hand, turned it palm up and carefully shook out the contents of the box. The cold little stones shone brightly in the dark room, a room as murky as they all seemed to be here at Mother. It was as if the secrecy of the agency forbid them to install good lighting.

She closed her fingers and the pale green sparkle winked out. “They’re alive?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Bovine’s eyebrows arched. “Machines aren’t the only technology I dabble in.”

“No, of course not. If what you say is true…” She put up a hand before Bovine could interrupt. “I believe you. These are just what I need.”

“Your latest requisition order is for listening devices and a few mags of ammo, Jaq. Your standard op. Why would you need my magic beans?”

“I have higher aspirations than a few measly smugglers.”

He raised a brow and paused a second, but she stood mute before he frowned.

“Take these, too.” He held out a pair of dice, and her disgustingly traitorous heart flipped in her chest. Bovine didn’t notice her internal turmoil. “I made these for Harper English, but he didn’t want to trade out his lucky dice with these. Wish he’d taken them on his mission.” He gave her a hard look. “Just match up the fives, press together, and it’ll transform into a stiletto.”

With shaking hands, she palmed them and shoved them in her pocket as if they burned to the touch.

“Don’t get yourself in trouble, Sprite.”

Besides her sister, Bovine was the only one to show concern for her. Once upon a time, there’d been another, but Harper English was gone.

Jaq came from the streets. A homeless teen with a five-year-old sister had nowhere to go except Mother. The agency had approached her—they recruited youth on the streets from time to time—trained her, and housed the two sisters, and all Jaq had to do was become an agent, then take assignments to keep watch on the megacorps. Bovine had been young then and took to her like an older brother. Harp hadn’t looked at her like family. Not at all, but that was past. She blinked fast to clear the blurring sting in her vision.

“Don’t worry. I always avoid trouble.” Not even a flicker of a grin over her statement. She gripped the beans tightly and resisted the urge to hug Bovine goodbye. She’d be seeing him soon enough. But just in case—“Hey, remember the special frequency walkie you wanted to give me to keep in touch with you?”

“You finally came to your senses.” Bovine returned to his desk and rummaged around until he held out a small clip-on device similar to the ones she’d used on previous ops. “Here. It’ll connect to me in voice, video and positioning all at once. Though you’ll only have audio.”

“Got it.” She slapped it to the underside of her jacket collar. “Later.”

Bovine nodded, lines radiating from his soft brown eyes crinkling in concern. Grabbing a few evidence bags from the counter and shoving them in her jacket, she gave him a thumbs-up as she backed toward the door.

“You weren’t going to tell me, were you? You’re not leaving here yet. Tell me what you’re up to. Now.”

He didn’t yell, or even speak sternly, but he might as well have frozen her in place with what amounted to an order. He cared for only a few of them, treating them like family. The girl whose special hair he’d designed. And her. She owed him an explanation.

“I’m going after Giant Corp.” She stared at the ceiling and tried her best not to feel like a naughty teenager being caught sneaking fertilization inhibitors before a hot date.

“You know Harp is up there. They’ve scheduled his extraction. There’s no need for you to trouble yourself.”

“I have to do this myself.” She gulped back the knot in her throat.

“Why? How can this job be personal, to make you jeopardize everything you’ve worked for? That doesn’t make sense.” Bovine cocked his head at her. “And you wouldn’t undercut a deep op. Mother could cut you loose. Then where would you be?”

She shook her head. “I’d be nowhere, but this is something I have to do.”

“Let Harp do his job.” Unusual frustration on Bovine’s features revealed his concern for her. That reminded her just how few other people cared for her and only strengthened her resolve to fight for Merry.

“They made Merry sick. I need the antidote. Harp’s extraction is scheduled next week. I’ll never get the antidote in time if it’s tied up in arbitration.”

The sternness in his eyes softened to understanding. “Merry’s sick?”

“And I have to get the antidote before the week is out. Before it’s too late.” Her eyes stung as she whispered, “Or she’ll die.”

With a nod, he said it all. He wouldn’t stop her. “I’ll see if I can find someone to cover for this other job of yours. Get in and out of there. Get the job done smoothly, or I don’t think Mother will like its agent ignoring her assigned job.”

“Thank you.” Throat too tight to say anything more, she backed out.

Bovine yelled down the hallway after her. “The beans need to grow overnight.”

Overnight. Fine. That fit the plan just fine.

She didn’t bother to take the lift up to the top floor to the assignment desk. Whatever assignment they had for her could wait. It wouldn’t pay much. Mother’s mission was to secretly police the megacorps housed on the floating islands above New Castle. The org employed agents to take down any bad guys and in return the agents got to confiscate rewards from the mark, except in the cases of intellectual property, scientific advances, or whatnot. The agent could claim cash on hand, their only source of pay. Nothing else.

No antidotes.

Besides, a job didn’t amount to a hill of beans if her sister died. Merry was all that was bright in this world, even if Jaq had trouble telling her so. Merry understood.

Back at her residence housing, she went straight through the garish yet drab lobby filled with no-longer-plush furniture, which had to have been here since Merry was in diapers, and stepped out into the middle courtyard. Green space was at a high premium and though this little garden might be the best feature of the tenement housing, nobody ever seemed to use it. Maybe because it wasn’t all that green.

Quiet except for the hum of the hovercars passing in a constant stream in the thoroughfares on both sides of the scraper, the garden was twelve paces deep and thirty wide. She knew from experience. Beside the patch of bamboo, the only greenery in the gravel-filled garden, she sat on the lone bench and checked her watch. Good timing. In five minutes, she’d double-check the island’s position for the last time.

With her toe, she kicked the gravel around for a few moments before she made herself focus. Thinking of Merry would only upset her and leave her fingernails chewed to the quick. Instead, she set her internal clock and meditated. Deep breaths. Noise faded away. The world fogged. A memory of a man in jeans, dark hair and dark eyes, giving her warm caresses and hotter kisses threatened her tranquility, but she shoved it in her internal lockbox. Never a time for those wasted thoughts. The hurt.

A shadow passed overhead. She pulled herself into the here and now to check her watch. Time. She pulled the binocular lenses out of her pocket and slipped them on. After days of studying this same subject, the lenses were perfectly focused.

The floating island had a distinct call sign on its trailing edge as it passed overhead.

The Giant Corporation.

Like clockwork. It’d come about twice more before doing so again at exactly 0500.

The beans in her fist had grown hot from her skin. The small stone-like tech was a bioengineered product, the only shot she had. When she dumped them in the hole she’d made with her toe, she let out her pent-up breath.

Tomorrow morning, she’d get what she needed from Giant Corp.

The singer stood in his trademark white linen shirt and blue jeans, waiting with the band in the grand dining hall. The tall ceilings with blazing chandeliers highlighted the full tables, guests and higher-ranking residents laughing and drinking wine as if this was a grand party rather than a nightly occurrence in the Ochre mansion.

At the head table, Ochre frowned at the man next to him. The older businessman, dressed more conservatively and formally than any in attendance, smirked as he clicked closed a briefcase, rose and left the room. Ochre stared blankly around him and squeezed a piece of paper in his fist. It didn’t matter exactly what the letter held. It was another in a long line of notices of failed finances, failed products, and another harbinger of the fall of the Ochres.

Beside him, his wife, Vera, a concerned frown marring her beauty—a look she wore more and more each day—reached over to stroke his arm. They exchanged hushed words. A look of urgency slashed across Ochre’s features and he gripped Vera’s arm. She jerked into his lap and stroked his face, and then she gave the wave the singer had waited for.

He signaled the band and when the bars of music blended into the noise of the crowd, he sang. As it went every night of late, he’d be ignored but for the Ochres, who seemed to calm with the music filling the empty spaces in the crowded room.

Performing into the wee hours of the night, he waited until the Ochres left before he sought his own, empty bed. And waited.

The night passed slowly as she tossed and turned on her sofa. The two-room place wasn’t much, so with Merry in the bedroom, Jaq slept on the couch. Her eyes and back ached when her watch finally reached the appointed time. Within minutes, she dressed, ate and donned a courier bag—her planned cover as a medical delivery carrier. Unable to resist, she quietly opened the meticulously oiled door to the bedroom to see the shallow rise and fall of Merry’s chest. Without a sound she closed the door and walked the short hall lined with her commendations.

The nurse should be here before Merry woke, but as Jaq left the apartment, a pang shot through her and her hand tightened on the doorknob, refusing to let go. Merry shouldn’t need her in the early morning hours before the city woke. She’d only be alone for three hours. This was all for her, anyway.

Her boots scuffed the floor as she dragged herself away.

Outside, the sight in the courtyard brought her to a standstill. The beans she’d planted had combined into one incredibly tall vine that grew straight up in the air. The large green stalk, bigger around than a hovercar, took up nearly the entire garden. The bench had been pushed to the side, the bamboo uprooted and strewn about. Green. The air smelled fresh and verdant.

Along the sturdy, smooth trunk, thick stems shot out at regular intervals, spaced perfectly to use as a ladder.

Not much time left. She burst into action. Without a backward glance or any hesitation, she started climbing. And she climbed, and climbed, and climbed. Above, the top of the beanstalk disappeared into the haze.

Past the quiet tenement building that rose higher than the hovercar thoroughfares, the wind whipped at her clothing, jacket flapping in the wind. She ignored the prickles running over her skin from the cold as she gripped the vine rails.

Ahead, the lights of another island disappeared. She was in the right spot. She dared a peek at her watch as she clutched tightly to her green ladder. Still ten minutes left. Without a clue how long it would take her to climb, she’d pushed herself and now had to wait, dangling high above the ground. The city beneath was covered in high-rises, zipping cars, a thin blanket of smog, and glaringly bright vid-boards playing the latest garish advertisements. Early morning workers went about their business, never looking up. They’d never see her fall from the strange vine they’d never notice.

Her mouth ran dry. Eyes closed against the dizzying sway of the vine, she took deep breaths. She could do this. She had to.

Her hands started to sweat. She held on tighter as a chill worked under her jacket. Behind her, a low churning sound grew louder.

The island.

She blew out a breath and blinked the dizziness into submission.

Security systems on the floating island would alert the guards the moment a mechanical object touched its outer hull, but a plant was a different story. As a lander, she’d never been on any of the floating islands—homes to the rich, security sanctuaries for the wealthy corps, flying above the ground far enough to avoid the legal systems below. A moment’s doubt assailed her that the recon she’d done, the dossiers and schematics she’d pilfered, wouldn’t be enough. Or, that the report of Giant Corp’s arrogance—they considered themselves to be impervious so only staffed minimal guards—would turn out to be a gross error.

The lower platform of the island brushed against the vine, and a quiver echoed down the beanstalk. She gripped tighter and held her breath.

The engines rumbled closer. Not much longer. Leaves rustled as the bottom of the flying platform brushed past.

One, two…three.

With a push off the rung beneath her feet, she lunged up toward the trailing edge of the island and landed on the exhaust housing platform. So far, all had gone according to plan.

The maintenance tunnel was right where it should be. The smallest step would take her over the lip and down to the ground who-knew-how-many stories below. She looked back.

The vine still stretched into the sky out of sight. Below, clouds gathered and blocked the view of her building. A bit of vertigo assailed her, and she swayed. With a jerk, she faced forward again. Sweat slicked her grip and she clung fast.

At her back, a small breeze rustled her clothes. To her front, stale air sat unmoving in the man-height pipe. She pivoted her hold on the metal handle, lunged to the side of the maintenance tunnel and dove inside its shadows.

The countdown began—six hours until they came back around to the beanstalk, her only way off this island. It wouldn’t be there after. New Castle would be awake and the Island reps below would have it cut down. Six hours.

And if the bureaucracy worked fast, the Island reps might have already had the stalk cut down. Now more than ever, she hoped the red tape was as sticky as time immemorial. Otherwise…Otherwise didn’t bear thinking on. She flipped her jacket closed against the chill.

The mesh flooring rang with each step. At evenly spaced intervals the lights shone down from above. She passed several hatches before she came to the one she’d targeted from the stolen maps.

“Damn ladders.” She huffed a breath and climbed to the hatch. Her muscles ached and burned in protest. “I hope this is the last ladder for a while.”

Balanced beneath the opening, careful to turn the handle quietly, she eased the door up. No movement broke the stillness enveloping the room. She waited until her breathing evened and her hand steadied before she pushed up into the quiet kitchen.

She ratcheted herself over the ledge, came to a crouch, and let the door settle noiselessly. She grinned into the darkness.

A movement flickered to her left. Too late, she couldn’t respond.

A hard shove sent her into the cabinets. Her breath forced from her lungs with a whoosh. Vision sparkling, she calmed her racing heart to save her energy for escape.

A large body pressed against her and bent her over the counter.

Her hand snuck halfway to her pocket for the stiletto dice before it was gripped in a tight vise. With a grunt, she bucked against her silent captor to no avail. She couldn’t move.

She was trapped.