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edge of Eilon Park, I felt a pang of surprise.
    “Wait a minute,” I said, turning slowly to Rapp. “ This is where we’re doing our grid maintenance?”
    Rapp looked at me like I was crazy. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I told you we were going to City Center. Why?”
    “Because,” I said. “This is Kora.” I pointed to a nondescript door on the side of a big nondescript building. “That’s the rear entrance.”
    “That’s the club you’ve been talking about all this time?” Rapp pushed the door open and climbed out of the Egg, his feet hitting the pavement with a thud. “I have to say, man, I was picturing something—I don’t know—like, fancier or whatever. That just looks like a big, dirty warehouse.”
    I frowned as I climbed out after him. “It’s the back door,” I said. “Anyway, it’s not supposed to look like anything on the outside. That makes it seem special when you see the inside. ”
    Rapp cocked his head curiously and gave me a shrug like, whatever you say , and headed to a pole towering above the bottom slope of Eilon’s Hill.
    In the days before I’d learned how to manipulate my ID band, it was practically the only place in town where I could go to dance and hang out at night when my parents were out of town. It wasn’t anywhere near as cool as the Chimæra, and the music was actually pretty bad most of the time, plus it always sort of smelled. But because they didn’t serve ampules, there was no age restriction for getting in. I took what I could get.
    Now, though, I would have given just about anything to be back at Kora, even with the bad music and the awful smell. Suddenly I missed that smell.
    Now I was standing outside, in a wrinkled, ugly green tunic, and well, there was nothing I could do about it. I shuffled over to Rapp, who had already used a harness to elevate himself a third of the way up the pole towards the grid point’s control panel, and prepared to hoist myself up with him. At least up there, no one would recognize me in my tunic.
    Before I could begin my ascent, Rapp called down at me. “This one’s actually not in such bad shape—looks like a one-man job. I told Orkun I’d be able to handle it on my own, but she still doesn’t trust me.”
    I was annoyed. It wasn’t like I was that into the idea of hauling myself all the way up there just to fiddle with a bunch of wires for hours, but at least it was something to do. “So what? I’m just supposed to stand here and watch you work?”
    Rapp, already engrossed in running diagnostics on the control panel, sighed and looked back at me. “If you want to help, go check on the next patch on our list. Sector Two ninety-seven’s walkable, but if you’re feeling lazy you can program the Egg and I can meet you there.” Rapp turned back to his work.
    It was like Rapp was trying to get to me. He knew I had never done a maintenance run before and wouldn’t have a clue how to start. He was forcing me to ask for help. Maybe he knew me better than I’d figured—if there’s one thing I hate, it’s asking for help.
    “Rapp. You know I’ve never done it before.”
    “Orkun ran through every last step just two days ago in class.”
    Had she? I honestly had no recollection of it. “Guess I missed that,” I said.
    “It was on the homework too. Oh, wait . . . you never do the homework.”
    For a second I thought he was actually mad, but then he started to chuckle, and tossed the key to the Egg down to me. “The spare kit’s behind the passenger seat. The equipment is mostly self-explanatory, and if you get confused you can always hit the Prompt button for an explanation.”
    He turned back to his work. “Trust me, it’s not that hard. If you can trick the door scanners at the Chimæra, you’ll be able to figure it out in no time.”
    I walked up Eilon’s Hill with my kit on my back and an info-mod in my hand—it was a small square device that could pinpoint my exact location in the city, and would also