Obsidian Prey by Jayne Castle

dark eyes. “Believe me when I tell you that at company headquarters, you are legendary.”
    “I’ll try to take some comfort from that.”
    The reporters reached the sled before the Guild men could stop them. Lyra recognized several familiar faces in the crowd. Cruz was right; she had given a lot of interviews three months ago when she had filed the lawsuit.
    Tina Tazewell from the Frequency Herald rezzed one of the low-tech cameras designed to work in the underworld and snapped off several shots. “Miss Dore, is it true Amber Inc. had to call you in to rescue a team trapped inside the ruin?” she asked.
    “That’s my understanding, Tina.” Lyra scooped Vincent off the dashboard and climbed out of the sled. “Evidently they don’t have anyone on staff who can handle the job.”
    Excited by the commotion, Vincent fluttered up onto her shoulder. She heard more cameras rez.
    “Can we assume that you agreed to assist in the rescue effort because you and Cruz Sweetwater have a personal relationship?” Tina asked.
    “Heavens no,” Lyra said airily. “This is strictly business.”
    Out of the corner of her eye she saw Brett Bolton from the Current step in front of Cruz. He had a notebook in hand.
    “Does this mean that the Amber Inc.-Dore feud is concluded, Mr. Sweetwater?”
    “What feud?” Cruz asked.
    He went past Bolton and sharked through the gaggle of reporters until he got to Lyra.
    “If you’ll excuse us,” he said, “Miss Dore is a little busy at the moment. She’s got a team to rescue. For the record, Amber Inc. is very grateful to her for assisting us in this crisis.”
    “How grateful?” Tina Tazewell demanded.
    Cruz ignored her. He took Lyra’s arm and steered her toward the jungle gate where the hunters and the people in AI uniforms waited.
    The entrance to the rain forest was a large, rectangular opening in the green quartz wall. Humid heat flowed out into the corridor, but it evaporated almost instantly, nullified by the always steady temperature of the catacombs. Lyra saw a little dirt and one or two dead leaves on the floor of the tunnel and knew that they had been carried out on the bottom of someone’s boots. The debris would soon disintegrate and disappear altogether, thanks to some as yet unidentified mechanism that kept the tunnels clean.
    Nothing escaped the jungle unless it was carried out. A number of gates had been opened during the past few months, and at each of them a mysterious and—to human senses undetectable—force field kept the flora and fauna securely confined within the rain forest the aliens had created. The researchers and scientists had quickly discovered that living specimens did not last long aboveground. The plants and animals in the artificially constructed jungle required the heavy psi atmosphere inside their bioengineered world to survive. Like the aliens themselves, they found the surface of Harmony an inhospitable and deadly place.
    The green glow of artificial sunlight was clearly visible. It was night on the surface, but the jungle ran on its own schedule.
    Lyra moved through the gate, Cruz at her side. At once the rich, living energy of the jungle enveloped her. The Guild maintained a clearing directly in front of the tunnel entrance, but she knew it required daily maintenance. The jungle reclaimed territory with startling speed. Paths established one day usually vanished by the following afternoon.
    Beyond the perimeter of the clearing the massed greenery pressed close. It was impossible to see more than a few feet because of the dense foliage, all of it shimmering in various hues of luminous green. The trees towered upward, forming a leafy canopy that concealed most of the quartz sky. Small things skittered in the undergrowth. Birds screeched in the distance.
    “Thanks for coming down here, Miss Dore,” one of the Guild men said.
    She gave him her most vivacious smile. “Well, it wasn’t like I was doing anything else more entertaining this