It wasn’t long before Rivet returned to the cabin where Lacey waited. This time, they brought someone else.

Rivet hopped off the ladder and rocked back on their heels. “Wrench, meet Lacey. Lacey, meet my sister.”

The newcomer, like Rivet, wore grimy overalls and combat boots. Any similarity ended with their clothing. Unlike her broad-bodied sibling, Wrench was spindly and hunched, standing no more than five feet tall. Messy braids framed her narrow face. Her hair looked so similar to Rede’s, it made Lacey’s chest hurt.

No time for breakdowns. Lacey drew herself upright. “Nice to meet you, Wrench,” she said. “I’m sorry about the circumstances.”

Wrench responded with a terse nod.

“Yeah, actually, we wanted to talk to you about that.” Rivet hooked their thumbs in their overall straps. “I’m guessing a very cool and experienced paddler like you doesn’t just slip and fall into the river on a midnight stroll.”

Lacey’s throat tightened. “I’m guessing two cool and experienced boaters don’t just happen to rescue drowning girls in the middle of the night.”

“Hey now.” Rivet tilted their head in exaggerated shock. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened, okay?”

“How much I tell you depends on how you found me,” Lacey replied.

“What, do you think we’re out to get you?” Rivet rolled their eyes.

Lacey shrugged. “I’m not inclined to trust people of your profession. No offense.”

“Our profession?” Rivet’s eyes narrowed.

Lacey indicated the diving suits, the electric lights. “Are you not fuel jackers, then?”

Rivet made a face. “That is such a stupid name, honestly. I mean, it’s just not accurate…”

“We’re fuel jackers,” said Wrench.

Lacey met Rivet’s eyes and stared them down. Fake badassery was something she had practiced plenty. After the quake, it was a matter of survival. The only other choice would be letting the team flounder in community politics and succumb to outside threats, which they hadn’t. Until now, that is.

“Fine.” Rivet huffed a sigh. “Whatever. Basically, me and Wrench were diving for the main under the Tilikum wreck. We usually dive at night because no one thinks our boat’s suspicious if the motor isn’t running.”

With a start, Lacey remembered the Frankenboat she’d seen that night. “But I only saw one, and it was on the opposite side of the river,” she protested.

“It was, yeah, but we weren’t.” Rivet rolled their eyes. “God, how dumb do you have to be to dive exactly where you anchor? That’s the first place that others’ll shoot. No thanks. We avoid the competition on this boat. Anyway, we were diving when we saw you in the water, and that’s a pretty common trap which we’re usually way too smart to fall for, but hey, what the hell, you gave off an okay vibe. So we gave you CPR or whatever and hauled you back to the boat, and then once we saw your face, we recognized you from when we used to work for-” Wrench cut Rivet off with a stomp to the foot. “Ow, Jesus fucking Christ! I wasn’t gonna name names.” Rivet turned their attention pointedly back to Lacey. “I was just gonna say, when we worked for someone you used to talk to.”

“Sure, but why did you rescue me?” Lacey shook her head. “No offense, but it doesn’t seem like the best strategic move.”

Rivet snorted. “Of course it is! You know the river better than probably anyone. I bet you know all the best spots to find old mains no one’s tapped yet.”

“Don’t you have maps for these sorts of things?” Lacey asked.

“Rich people and industry insiders have maps,” Rivet huffed. “Pretty much just brokers.” They paused. “You know how those guys operate, right?”

Lacey shrugged. “Not the nuts and bolts, but I’ve got a handle on it.”

The fuel jacking economy wasn’t hard to grasp. It was a simple three-part system: jackers, brokers, and buyers. Jackers found gas mains, tapped them, and brought the fuel back to the brokers. The brokers acted as go-betweens. They were the ones who actually talked to the buyers seeking fuel. More importantly, they acted as boss for the teams of jackers they employed within a certain area. Without one, no jacker would be able to find work. Sometimes, brokers were nice people who charged buyers just enough to cover the cost of labor. These were often just community leaders with enough street smarts to navigate the market. But that was only sometimes. Brokers didn’t exactly have a reputation for being soft.

“Okay, ,so you’ll probably guess that these guys like to hoard important info for themselves,” Rivet said, “You’ve got to work for the brokers to get access to the map. They never give you the whole thing, just specific places you’re supposed to go, and the places are only ever within your broker’s territory.”

“So what do you need me for?” Lacey huffed. “Just go ask your broker for more spots.”

Wrench’s jaw twitched. She exchanged a tense look with her sibling.

“Well, we’re kind of between brokers at the moment.” Rivet refused to meet Lacey’s eye. “We were diving that night because we thought we might be able to find a little leak. Our boat’s low on fuel right now. We just wanted a top up.”

“But that isn’t the main reason we decided to keep you,” Wrench said. Her soft voice reverberated through the cabin. Hearing it, Rivet stood a little taller. “We think your skills would give us an edge.”

Lacey frowned. “My skills?” Probably negotiation, she thought. Her mind raced. If these two were really without a broker, they must be desperate. Unaffiliated jackers didn’t last long. They would likely ask her to vouch for them. She would be the post-apocalyptic version of a job reference. Not a bad plan, Lacey knew, given how much influence she used to carry. They just didn’t know how drastically wrong they were about that now.

“Your skills, yeah,” said Rivet. “As in, rowing.”

“Paddling,” Lacey corrected automatically. Then she registered what Rivet had said. “Wait, what?”

“Your canoe things can get places that most other boats can’t,” Rivet explained. “We’ve got ours rigged up to look like one of those houseboat junkers, but that disguise doesn’t fool everyone. We’ve been shot at and almost boarded so many times. Police, other jackers, all that shit. No one’s nice to other big boats out here. Your little canoes, though? No one cares. Nobody hardly ever see those, and they know — well, they think that they aren’t a threat. No big deal.”

“Also, canoes are human powered,” said Wrench. “We pay for our own fuel. If we could park our boat somewhere, use the canoe to get to a fuel main, set up a long tap line to our boat, and then use gas for our long distance trips, we’d be increasing our bottom line.”

Lacey nodded slowly. That was smart. Credit where credit was due.

There was just one problem.

“You still don’t know why I tried to drown myself,” Lacey said.

Rivet blinked. “Oh, yeah. I forgot you were supposed to tell us that.”

Wrench heaved a sigh.

“I can’t tell you everything,” Lacey hedged. “I’ll be as honest as I can, though.”

“Spit it out,” Wrench snapped.

“You know I negotiated my team’s safety with a bunch of people,” Lacey said. “I got to know a lot of them. I mean. I thought I did. I guess I got cocky.”

“What, did you take a job from the wrong person or something?” Rivet picked their teeth idly. “Seems like stuff like that would happen a lot.”

“It did,” Lacey said. “We took more than our fair share of sketchy jobs. This was different. It wasn’t just some squabble. We thought it would be okay because he didn’t seem like…well, he just didn’t set off any alarms. We don’t give passenger trips often, but we took him on because he seemed normal. I didn’t look into the details as much as I should have. We took him where he wanted to go and nothing happened. Then, later on, someone contacted me. The passenger was investigating something. I don’t know what. Whatever it is, it goes really deep. They weren’t happy with him. Then one of the people he was investigating found out I was the one who booked the job, and they weren’t happy with me.”

“You couldn’t handle the pressure?” Rivet arched an eyebrow. “Seems out of character for you.”

“My team would’ve been obliterated,” Lacey said bluntly. “I’d say killed, but realistically, it would be worse. That might still happen.” She licked her lips. They were so chapped, she tasted blood. “Look, I’ve been threatened before, but nothing like this. This person has serious heft. If they wanted any of us gone, we would just disappear.”

“Why abandon the team?” Wrench asked. In a way, Lacey appreciated her forthrightness, even if it stung a little.

“I told them that I was the one who booked the job and no one else knew what the passenger was doing. Which is true,” Lacey added. “I took all the blame. This person told me that someone would have to answer for what we’d done. I was the obvious choice. I just…I couldn’t let my team witness something like that. It would hurt them to know that I’d been killed. They might even be stupid enough to go after the ones who did it.” The thought alone made her stomach churn. “The team had to think it was my idea.”

Wrench nodded along. “I assume that whoever this was would leave the rest of your friends alone to avoid attracting attention?”

Lacey nodded. “They definitely wouldn’t want to start anything suspicious.”

“Not a bad plan,” Rivet mused. “If you’re gonna stay with us, though, I gotta know just how risky it is to have you on board.”

“I’m honestly not sure.” Lacey threw Rivet an apologetic glance. “I don’t know if they’ll be searching for me. If the team spreads the word that I’m dead…” Her voice petered out. Pressure built up behind her eyes, hot tears threatening to spill over her lashes. Rede’s face floated in her mind’s eye. She would be devastated. Every one of them would be.

“Hey.” Rivet’s sharp voice dragged Lacey back to reality. “If you’re going to do this, you can’t be a pussy about it. Commit one hundred percent or go on back to your boat friends. No in between.”

Lacey stared with bloodshot eyes. “I can’t go back,” she said.

But she couldn’t live with herself if she let her friends think she was dead.

Wrench lurched forward to grab Lacey’s arm. Her fingers clenched around her bicep like a vice. How was such a tiny person so strong?

“I do not give a fuck about your feelings,” Wrench snapped. “You tried to kill yourself. You failed. You did a shitty job. You fucked up and then you fucked up again trying to fix it. Now you’re here, with two other people who’ve got a long list of fuckups. We saved you. You owe it to us to help us find a broker.”

“You didn’t save me,” Lacey hissed. “You ruined my plan.”

“Boo fucking hoo.” Wrench’s grip tightened. “You’re here now, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re going to help us.”

Lacey opened her mouth. A thousand words jockeyed for space on her tongue. Pleas, arguments, threats, tools of rhetoric she had deployed time and again.

She met Wrench’s gaze. Arguments were always stronger with eye contact.

Before Lacey could choose what to say, something in Wrench’s face stopped her. She had seen that look more times that she could count. Rede had looked like this when they reunited after the quake: hard on the outside, empty on the inside. Inna called it a paper maché face. Lacey didn’t have her own name for it, but she knew what this expression meant. It was the look of a person on the brink of losing everything.

These two weren’t going to let her go without a fight. Lacey could escape and attempt suicide again, or she could keep herself alive long enough to help a pair of siblings who needed nothing short of a miracle.

“Okay.” Lacey let herself relax. “What do you want me to do?”

Wrench’s mouth twisted in thought. “I think the first step is to find us some of those canoes.”