The driver sped on when they made eye contact. Lux looked every bit the down-on-the-luck veteran, and he probably didn’t want to risk finding out how down-on-the-luck Lux really was.
Two cabs rolled by, but Lux didn’t hail either of these; both were officially licensed city cabs. They ran twice the price of what they were worth, and hiring them meant logging in and effectively calling out his current location to anyone paying attention on the net. Assuming his tail, or his employers, knew where to look.
Another car pulled from the traffic and slowed to a stop. It was a two-seater, barely enough space behind the seats for a suitcase.
The driver leaned over the passenger seat. “Car?” he said.
“Seven Corners,” said Lux, destination the traditional affirmation in the black market of hired cars.
“700,” said the driver, and Lux opened the door himself. The price: another implied affirmation.
“We’re cousins,” said Lux. Their shared story.
The driver was a thin man, gaunt with sunken eyes and dark, thick eyebrows. He looked at once menacing and emaciated. His complexion was olive, not much darker than Lux’s; but Lux immediately, unconsciously, began comparing him to the countless national enemies who perpetually threatened the North American Union. Could this one be from South Asia, where nuclear war between states had cast a hundred million refugees out across the world? Or Latin America, where Lux had lost his arm, and where still NAU forces fought an insurgency of narcoterrorists in the jungles of Oaxaca? Or the Middle East, where two centuries of interference and provocation had bred generations of martyrs?