Nemesis by Emma L. Adams Page A

my head. “Never mind. We have to celebrate, right?”
    “Actually, the tech team invited me out tonight,” said Jeth. “You can come if you like.”
    I pulled a face. “Your tech talk goes way over my head.”
    “Okay, just a thought. You don’t really know anyone at the Alliance yet, right? Aside from Sunshine over there?”
    I laughed. “I guess not. And please don’t call him that to his face.”
    “Oh, come on… no, you’re right, it’d probably be the last thing I ever said.” He ruffled my hair. “Ada, you deserve some fun in your life.”
    “I guess I do. Sure thing. I’ll come.”
    Maybe it would make me feel a little less deflated. My social life up until now had consisted of sneaking around the Passages and the occasional ever-awkward work social in which I’d had to pretend to have things in common with people who’d never believe me if I told them how I spent most of my spare time. I’d barely thought about my old job recently.
    “My life’s so weird,” I said, aloud, as we passed by a group of tourists. The ordinary street, red-brick buildings and thick traffic, smothered in the smell of car fumes, couldn’t be more different to the almost-otherworldly atmosphere of Central.
    And I knew which world I belonged in more.
    “You only just figured that out?”
    “Very funny. How’re things in Technoland, anyway?”
    “Technoland? Pretty awesome, actually. These guys are the real deal. And it’s nice to be hero-worshiped a little.”
    “They’re impressed with the Chameleon, then?” We stopped at the crossing opposite the tube station.
    “Hell, yes. The head of tech had to lock them away because people keep trying to steal them to prank each other. I’ve created a monster.”
    “Hey, could be handy for the Alliance. Spying and so on… though it’s a bit creepy.” I pushed back the image of identical twins appearing from thin air in a warehouse, and concentrated on the ever-present roar of traffic and not getting hit by a maniac taxi driver as we crossed the road to the station.
    “Yeah,” he said. “They’d need authorisation to take them offworld, of course. There’s enough trouble with invisible goblins…”
    “Um… what? Did you just say invisible goblins?”
    “Trouble in Valeria,” he said. “Cethrax got hold of some bloodrock solution, apparently, and without the Campbells to keep them in check, they’re running amok with it.”
    “Damn.”
    “I know. Hope they can deal with it.”
    “Sure they can,” I said. The Alliance coped just fine with regular monster attacks from the beasts of Cethrax in the lower Passages. But the idea of them getting hold of bloodrock solution didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. Skyla had used that to fool the entire Alliance. Then again, Central had new defences in place now.
    But Nell had been the one to make the bloodrock solution. Nobody else knew how to do it. We’d given it to the Knights, who’d had it confiscated by the Alliance… so how had Cethrax got hold of it?
    That’s not part of your job, I told myself.
    After all, I had a bigger worry: breaking the news to Nell. I’d barely seen her all week, because she’d been running errands and dealing with the Alliance representatives in charge of getting us proper Earth citizenship. Since we were technically illegal offworlders, it had taken a lot of time for the Alliance to sort out our situation, and I had a feeling Kay must have been behind some of it. And I’d repaid him by, once again, acting like a crazy person. I guess I’d never pictured an evil ex-girlfriend appearing at Central and throwing insults at me. My track record for screwing up relationships was pretty pathetic, but up until now, it had been because I couldn’t afford to care too much. What was I supposed to do, fall hard for some guy and then be unable to answer any of their questions? Pretending to be mysterious only got me so far. As for the guys I’d been with, most had either fled from