Charles Stross: The Clan Corporate

She glanced at the locket. "Hang on. It was James's. Is it a Lee locket, or a Clan locket?" There was a big difference: a Lee locket would take her to New Britain, where a Clan locket would dump her somewhere in downtown New York. Which would be a pain, but if she could make it overnight, get some cash, she could phone Mike in the morning. Whereas if she ended up in New London… "Only one way to find out."

Miriam turned round and stared at the corpse. He wore a soldier's greatcoat. She'd need that: her current outfit wasn't exactly inconspicuous anywhere. Swallowing bile, she stooped and rolled the body over. It was surprisingly heavy, but the coat wasn't fastened and she managed to keep it out of the puddle. She pulled it over her shoulders: the pockets were heavy. Mentally she flipped a die, tensing. New York or New London. Please let it be New York…

She stared at the knotwork by the light of a blazing palace. It was hard to concentrate on world-walking, to find the right state of mind. The sky lit up behind her for a moment, as a pulse of sound slammed through her, then cut off suddenly. She stumbled, a dull ache digging into her temples, and her stomach flipped. The rich sweetbreads came up in a rush, leaving her bent over the stone gutter. The stone gutter. She straightened up slowly, taking in the narrow street, the loaf-shaped paving bricks, the shuttered houses leaning over her. The piles of stinking refuse and fish guts, the broken cartwheel at one corner.

"Fuck, I don't believe this," she said, and kicked at the curbstone. "Ouch." It was New London, and her dream of easy defection shattered on the rock of reality. Frustrated, she looked around. "I could go back," she told herself faintly. "Or not…" She'd run into the Clan again, and she might not be able to get away. With Creon dead, and the US military able to invade the Gruinmarkt, Henryk might do anything: going back was far too dangerous to contemplate. It'd be much harder to steal a Clan locket and run for New York, wouldn't it? Damn, I've got to find Erasmus…

There was a chink of metal on stone, from about twenty yards up the alleyway.

A chuckle.

"Well, lookee here! And what's a fine girl like her doing in a place like this?"

Miriam's stomach lurched again. Not only am I in New London instead of New York, she realized, I'm in the bad part of town.

There was another chuckle. "Let's ask her, why don't we?"

And the bad part of town had noticed her.