Daughter of Zeus ✔

11.3

The girl was easy to find. Moretz's guards put a tracker on her the night she crashed the dinner party. She was smart and ditched it after a few hours, but not before giving off general coordinates.

Shylar downloaded the location to his interface and did as he was told: he found the girl.

The coordinates took him through downtown Atlanta, past cobblestone buildings and small bistros. Then the buildings changed. With each block, full walls gave way to crumbling brick. Holes gaped where there should have been more building. People lingered on the sidewalks, seeming not to care if they were inside or outside. A child in a shirt and pants much too big for him leaned against a rusty fence. He was cleaning a shotgun nearly longer than he was tall. The child waved as Shylar's car went by, and he waved back.

Dark and deep conditions didn't surprise him. He was right at home. Though what he saw was a bit darker and deeper than what he was used to. The pop-pop of gunshots a few blocks away put him on high alert.

Finally, he came to the end route of the coordinates. A tall building, one of the few with four walls instead of three quarter, loomed. Black paint was peeling off in long strips. At some point, the building must have been an animal hospital as a faded picture of a dog and cat decorated the front wall. There were lights on around the side worth investigating, considering reliable electricity was a rarity in such a neighborhood. Shylar passed the building and parked three blocks down.

"Nice car."

An old woman with no teeth eyed his vehicle. Other cars littered the roadway, but they were frozen in place, stripped of all parts, forever left to rust in the sun.

"Touch it, and I break your arm," he said with no malice.

The woman backed away and shuffled off. As he walked the few blocks back to the building, he noticed others watching him. Two youths on the opposite street and one young woman in front of him. They let him be. His skin color helped him blend in, though his clothes were all wrong. He took off his coat and held it out to the young girl. She wouldn't take it.

"I don't have any money."

Her face was sallow and pinched. He shoved the coat in to her hands, and she fell over.

"Sorry."

Helping her up would be futile, as she would be averse to touching him. Shylar's clothes made him look like a Prominent, and in this neighborhood, Prominents were feared and avoided.

Without the leather coat, he hoped to be less conspicuous. His choice in clothes was moot, as he didn't see another soul until he approached the front side. The dog and cat smiled down at him with faded eyes and faded teeth.

"Hi, guys."

The painted slogan on the porch beneath the pair read: Take care of us and we'll take care of you.

Around the corner, floodlights beckoned. He could hear a voice and another, then another. Shylar withdrew his weapon—a just-in-case. Communication with subjects was unnecessary, and he was programmed to avoid contact. If they saw him and felt like talking, his gun would respond.

He poked his head around the wall, careful to steer clear of the peeling black flakes which were apt to cling to his shirt. The first person he noticed was the girl from dinner. She was easy to spot, being the only white face in the crowd of six. They were arguing, if their loud voices and rough gestures meant anything.

Discreetly, he snapped a few photos of the group. They looked harmless, like a bunch of college protesters. For the neighborhood they occupied, they appeared well-fed. He wondered what they did for a job, if they had one.