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passage through the K-gate. The gaggle of trainspotters on the platform end were going wild, and well they might, thought Zen. On any other night he would have been there with them, fighting for a proper look. Because it was like something from the threedies , this train. A massive, brutal machine, horned and armored like a dinosaur, its hull barnacled with gun turrets and missile pods and stenciled with the logo of the Network Empire.
    What was a wartrain doing in Cleave?

5
    The bulk of the black loco hid Zen from the sightseers on the platform as he was hustled along between the tracks, then bundled up steps and through an open door. He was angry, confused, and secretly a little scared, but the railhead in him still felt excited to be boarding such a train.
    Inside there was a white cabin, with screens on the walls where an ordinary carriage would have windows. Most of the screens were on standby, displaying the imperial logo, a zigzag lightning flash sparking across two parallel lines.
So these guys must be from Railforce
, thought Zen. “Bluebodies,” people called them, because of the blue graphene-composite armor they wore in combat. Only, Railforce didn’t usually bother much about what went on out on the branch lines, unless there was a rebellion or something. They certainly weren’t in the business of hunting down small-time thieves.
    “Name?” someone asked him.
    “Zen Starling.”
    A man stood watching him, bald head gleaming in the light from the screens like a well-worn ebony newel. He had a black splinter of a face, sharp-featured and sour, with a thin scar that twisted one side of his mouth down. You didn’t see scars much—the meanest backstreet body shop could fix up a scar for you. When people kept them, it usually meant they were trouble.
    “What do you want with me?” shouted Zen. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I was just—”
    “It would be a bad idea to waste my time,” said the Railforce man. “Where is Raven?”
    Zen blinked. “Is this about the necklace? That girl—is she one of your people?”
    “This is not about a necklace,” the man said. “Where is Raven?”
    Zen said defiantly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    The man looked past him again. “Maybe he’s not made contact yet. Did you learn anything from the drone?”
    “Fried,” said one of the others. “Sorry, Captain Malik. It self-destructed before we could get anything out of it.”
    Captain Malik gave a cold smile. “Raven hides his tracks well.”
    “Who’s Raven?” Zen asked.
    The screens behind Malik filled with pictures of a man’s face. A white face that was all angles. White faces were rare on the Network, where most people came in various shades of brown. Zen would have remembered a face like that.
    “I don’t know who that is,” he said.
    “Well he knows who you are,” said Malik. “His Motorik contacted you tonight in Ambersai.”
    Photos from the Ambersai now, grainy blue images scraped from security footage. They showed Zen moving between the stalls, and behind him, in the crowd, the girl in the red raincoat. It looked as if she had been following him for several minutes before she tried to intercept him at the goldsmith’s stall. That made Zen uneasy, because his instincts usually told him when he was being watched or followed, and he’d sensed nothing. So she’d only been a Moto? For some reason, he felt disappointed.
    “I didn’t
talk
to her. She got in my way, that’s all.”
    “She helped you escape with that necklace.”
    “She didn’t help. She tried to stop me. Isn’t she with you?”
    “No,” said Malik. “We tried to track her, but she vanished. So we tracked you, instead, and followed you here to Cleave. What does Raven want with you, Zen Starling?”
    Zen shrugged. He didn’t know. Nobody had ever taken much interest in him before tonight. “I told you, I don’t know any Raven.”
    “We’ll see,” said Malik. “My data diver’s searching