moving in the shadows was another, and planting false evidence was a third. I was skilled at all three. Maetrin and Eos were scheduled for execution in the morning. A small tweak to the System meant simply that the records showed the execution had already been carried out. Between the upsurge in euthanizations and the routine execution of dissidents, two nondescript plivoi would never be noticed. For all intents and purposes, they would be dead.
If I had faith in one thing, it was my own abilities. No one would connect me with this disappearance, if they noticed it at all.
The stolen gurzas breathed laboriously in the thin air as we stood in the shadows outside Bright Horizon. I looked up at Eos, and he down at me.
“Will you be able to navigate without your earpiece?” I asked finally, feeling a bit pathetic. I wasn’t skilled at farewells; until now, there was no one I cared about enough to say goodbye to, honestly.
“We’ll be fine,” Eos reassured me. “The patroi would probably be scandalized to hear it, but we plivoi are far less reliant on the System than the rest of you. We’re better at surviving than you give us credit for.”
I laughed feebly, glancing over my shoulder for any signs that the other Enforcers were onto me. Maetrin had moved her gurza to the edge of the dome’s shadow and was watching me, her gaze heavy with mistrust. I knew she didn’t believe my offer of help was genuine. I couldn’t blame her; I had been, after all, responsible for the death of her partner, if nothing else. If I hadn’t alerted Ketros to Nikos’ presence, none of this ever would have happened.
I’d had a choice then, too. My whole life, I realized with a twinge,