Chapter Twenty-Five
Erik laughed as he stepped out of the diner, Jia right behind munching on a half-eaten piece of toast. “If you wanted to beat guys up, you should have taken me out to dinner last night, not Chinara and Imogen. That sounds like a lot more fun than my evening.”
The diner exit fed into a sprawling commerce-level hub. They joined the flow of the morning crowds on their way to the parking platform outside the main hub. While some people glanced their way, no one approached them.
“I didn’t plan on beating anyone up,” Jia insisted. “It just worked out that way. I was hoping those idiots would understand reason, but I was reminded of something very important.”
“Which is?” Erik asked.
“That Uptown people aren’t any better than people in the Zone. The Zone might be rougher,
