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Jameel awoke again to the sound of tolling bells, although this time it wasn't as abruptly as when he'd been nudged. Somebody's causing quite a stir. He flicked his eyes toward Jabal, who stood behind his desk, leaning almost completely over it, speaking with Desmond and... So, Altair decided to show. Good timing.

The old man had been recounting the events inside the Bureau up until the point of Desmond bursting in when Altair interrupted.

"They were here because?" he asked. Jameel decided to answer him.

"They were with me." Altair looked over at the other man. Hopefully, the Eagle was smart enough to know just precisely what happened to him by looks alone. He'd probably seen enough mace wounds to know them by now.

"It appears one of them still is." He eyed the Novice curled up at the Owl's side and frowned. He couldn't have been older than twelve if looks were to be believed, perhaps fourteen at a stretch. The Master Assassin studied the two critically. "Ah, he come after his mother. Was she the one from Damas? No, he's too pale... Of course, she's the Alexandrian!"

"Son of Umar, your envy is showing." Jameel sneered. "Your bloodline must not go as far as this Novice claims, seeing as he looks to come squarely from your loins onto the floor a fully formed man-child."

"I resent that man-child bit." The comment did bring the Son of None's attention back to the lookalike and away from him, thankfully. Altair folded his arms as he gazed at Desmond.

"Who are you?"

"Desmond Miles. You're my ancestor." The bartender rolled his eyes. "And for the record, I have parents." Altair looked at him dubiously. "Look, I can explain, but it's going to sound like a long, long, cheap sci-fi movie, and my being here's mostly that kid's fault in my opinion."

"Sci-fi movie?"

Des ignored the question and settled in to again tell the story of why he was here. As he spoke, the other man's eyes widened, narrowed, and repeated the process. When he finished, he sighed, "You don't believe me, right?"

"Not a word of it, but if you were part of some sort of Templar plot, you would have been dead long ago." Altair looked at the man who claimed to be his descendant, his mind processing the story. "You've done well enough today for a Novice. I see no harm in keeping you around for as long as you take to find the fastest way back to wherever it is you said you come from."

"What sort of Templar plot, Altair?" Jabal wondered, stroking one of his birds.

"The Templars could have hired this man to impersonate me." Jameel grinned to himself at the notion of someone running around pretending to be Altair. It was absurd. Who would want to be this man? His life has gone from terrible to horrendous in a mere month's time!

Altair, Abbas, and he had been friends of circumstance. Both the other boys had lost their mothers early on, and a scant two years after his own parents' deaths at his brother's hands, the Saracens had killed Altair's father, Umar, in exchange for the life of Abbas' father. The same man whose life had been saved had run off in the night, never to be seen again. Or so the story went.

As they grew older, they grew apart. Jameel had his nearly all-consuming vendetta to nourish and set out fulfill it as soon as his Journeyman's rank would allow. What split Altair and Abbas was unknown to him--one said one thing, the other something else, and both stuck to their versions adamently, so he'd given up the subject for lost.

To see Altair receive the traitor's death for the events of Solomon's Temple and the resulting Templar attack on their home, even if it had been only a ploy, was something that saddened him, though, despite the distance that had grown up between them. Perhaps not the attacking of our home. I would have done him in myself for that alone had Al Mualim not beaten me to it.

He hadn't seen the Eagle since he'd risen from the dead, sent out on missions as he was. Now to hear him spouting this babble... It was too much. He had to say something.

"Templars..." He paused, pain raking his chest. "Templars can't copy faces. They can only hide them."

"True." Altair smirked. "Besides, if they could copy faces, why would they let de Sable keep his around?" Jameel started laughing at Altair's jab at the bald Templar, but was cut short by his protesting ribs.

Desmond set his arms behind his head, looking at the two Masters.

"So, what should we do about your mace-swinging psychopath, Jameel?"

When the pain passed, he answered, "We isolate him from those mercenaries of his. The problem is they cling to him like flies on a corpse. Try to chase them away and they'll come right back. Try to kill them and more will take their place." His brow furrowed in thought, fingers absently clenching on the boy's shoulder as he moved for the first time in hours. "There has to be a way to chase them off without Kadin noticing."

"Smoke 'em out 'n' shoot 'em in the head." The Sparrow's comment in English made Desmond jump. Altair leaned back and looked at the boy quizzically. Maybe he was wrong about the Alexandrian. Christian pilgrims were a viable option, too.

Lex sat up on his elbows, saw Altair, looked at Desmond, and cocked his head so far to the left it almost touched his shoulder. Recovering his train of thought from the derailment it had had on seeing the New Yorker's doppleganger, he mimed sighting down a rifle barrel and pulling the trigger.

"Yeah, dumbass, if we were still in our own time. They don't exactly have guns here," Desmond said, returning to Arabic. Jameel stared at Desmond like he'd grown an extra limb right then and there. We don't have what here?

"Yeah. But they have a smithy and the Chinese traders." A devilish smirk was crawling up the boy's face, straight from the bowels of hell. Or so Desmond thought. "And what do the Chinese have?"

"You can't make a gun."

"A gun?" Altair broke in. "What is a gun?" Desmond waved his hand at him, then leaned forward to look at Lex.

"You cannot make a gun," he repeated. The Eagle looked at the wounded man for some answers. He shrugged, just as stumped, and continued listening to them argue.

"My friend's a blacksmith. My dad--" Lex broke off. My dad... He hadn't thought about his father--foster-father? adoptive father?--since leaving that night and heading for the nearest train tracks out of town. "He used to make old Colts and rifles and ammo for collectors and crap." Desmond gave him an odd look. "What? Somebody has to do that. And they don't come cheap either."

"Your friend was a blacksmith?"

"Traditional family trade turned enthusiastic hobby."

"And your dad made old guns for a profit."

"Uh-huh."

"And you know just how to make one because...?"

"I like to find out how thinks work, okay? Consider that my little hobby." Lex stood and wobbled. He nodded to Desmond, started to give him a thumbs up, then stopped as he remembered that it wasn't polite. At least, not here. That had been one of his first lessons from Malik after he'd asked the man what it meant, as leaving several angry people in his wake had left the boy more than a little confused. He curled his thumb down against his palm and waved toward the rooftop door. "I'll grab the materials if you grab the place to get working."

"While all this banter is very fascinating," Altair ground out through clenched teeth, "we do not understand a word you're saying. What is a gun?"

"To rip off a show called Burn Notice, which you two will never need to hear about again: a gun is just a muzzle with a firing pin." Again, the English jarred the men. The boy dropped into his native tongue when he didn't know how to say something in theirs. He would be speaking well enough, if stilted and slow as a child first learning to read aloud, and then plop a word or an entire statement down in the middle, breaking the flow. Jameel made a mental note to help remedy that, and another immediately after to tell Malik that he'd been right about that communication problem. Lex climbed up through the door and disappeared. Desmond looked at Altair.

"Do you know where a smithy is?" The man sighed and gave his lookalike directions. When the barkeep had disappeared as well, the Son of None took a seat beside his comrade.

"Well, do you suppose whatever they have planned will work?"

"Kadin's probably moved to another city by now." Jameel shifted himself to a more comfortable position, his hand settling on the bracer by his side. He felt vulnerable without the comfortable leather and constant weight of his first and foremost weapon on his arm, but he didn't have to go far to reach it. Slipping the ring over his right pinkie, he moved it. The blade popped up beautifully, despite having an odd bend in the blade. Good, the mechanism still works. Saves me some coin, that's for certain, if this venture of theirs doesn't.

The taller man's eyes flicked to Altair. "But if I know him, he'll be secure in his supposed victory, if not with his hired men. Whatever these boys have planned, it better be effective."



Getting back to the Bureau proved no easier than going outside. No, easy would have been anything else but this, Desmond thought. Easy would have been us not having to sneak back and forth. In this case, easy was getting out here!

Getting out of the Bureau to the market was breaking out of the prison camp. Normal guards to the left of them, to the right of them, and on the rooftops. Accompanying them were patrols of Ravenwatch archers. The archers not only had their standard serrated arrows and the glass variety, they also had arrows with little firework like rockets strapped to them. The fuses weren't lit, but the younger Eagle assumed that could be done at a second's notice. The arrows were held loosely against the bowstrings as the blackbirds moved about the streets and roofs, occassionally peeping into hay carts and roof gardens and sometimes over vendors' stalls to check behind the counters.

As the man watched, he tapped the boy's arm and pointed. A cluster of scholars was moving along, mumbling something or other among themselves and steering clear of the feathered nightmares. When they drew nearer, the Novices slipped into the center of their formation. One of the scholars glanced toward the two hooded figures and frowned. Their eyes widened, both faces giving him an imploring look. After a tense second, he returned to his muttering with an almost imperceptible nod.

As they threaded through the streets, they saw the true extent of the archers' patrols: they extended almost the entire length of the city from the docks to the entrance. Even the backalleys had some bird or two working them.

They reached the middle district after what felt like years. A few stalls lined the streets where artisans and craftsmen hawked their services and wares. The bartender tapped the men beside him on the arms, who in turn alerted the man ahead of them.

"Shukran," he whispered, then nudged Lex forward. The boy murmured his request. The carpenter gave him a scowl and held out his hand. Slapping his palm to his face, he dug in his pocket and pulled out a quarter. The wood was handed over and slipped inside his robes as the man bit the shiny piece of metal. They moved on.

Lex drifted into the smithy as Desmond continued a circuit of the block, if it could be called a block, with the scholars. He peeled away from the men with another low word of thanks and disappeared inside the building.

Getting out came later, the churchbells ringing out at midafternoon, but this time signalling None, the Ninth Hour. He knew what this was because he asked the smith. The tall American almost missed hearing the adhan. At least that didn't make him jump like he was going to be attacked at any moment.

If getting out of the Bureau was breaking out of the prison camp, this was surely breaking into one. It was stupid and uncomfortable. I hate this plan, Desmond grumbled to himself as he walked ramrod straight back to the nearest cluster of scholars. They weren't the same men as before--these were older, most with full beards that tended toward gray on two of the men--but they gave them shelter just as well.

Hiding weapons was never the most comfortable thing in the world, but having a firearm buried beneath his clothes was too insane. Lex was no better. He had those plus the daggers tucked into his boots. To make matters worse, the Crows were staring at them now through their bone white masks. Each time, it felt like one of them was going to come over and ask to see some identification from them. One of them moved toward him from the group it had been patrolling with. Desmond felt his heart skip a beat, but the danger passed them by, intent on inspecting some large pots in a cart that was being drawn behind them.

Separating from the men, the Assassins scurried up the ladder and into the Bureau.

The two Masters looked at them as Lex wiped the grime from his face with his sleeve.

"Got 'em done," he breathed as the Americans opened their robes and removed the weapons. Desmond set the rifle against the wall and popped his back as Lex set two pistols down on the floor and removed the daggers from his boots. The two began closing their robes again, Lex sheathing the daggers in his belt.

"You're either a genius or completely insane."

"Yeah, sure, Dessy," Lex said absently, waiting for a response from the others.

Jameel stared at the guns like he had with the iPod. Those odd-looking things can kill people? The best they look like they can do is dump water from a fountain. He glanced at Altair. The other man's puzzled expression spoke for him.

The weapons looked like the Frankenstein love children of the unholy union of wood and metal. At least, the pistols did, with wooden grips wrapped in leather, forming the base of the gun, everything else metal.

Finally, Jameel spoke: "Which one's the gun?"

"All of them are." Lex pointed to the gun Desmond had set to one side. "That's a rifle. Well, technically they're all rifles. I did some rifling along the inside of these babies here"--he held up one of the handguns and moved his finger along the barrel--"to help with the accuracy and all that, but that there's your standard, every day rifle."

Taking a small pouch from his belt, he pulled out one of the bullets from it. These had taken the most time to make. He'd basically winged his way through it. Desmond fiddled with the pouches on his person, a bag of bullets and a bag of gunpowder.

The gunpowder he'd nicked from one of the nearby stalls as they'd gone along. The merchant wouldn't miss his nice, fat bag, would he? After all, he'd been too busy talking with a pretty girl to notice someone else ahead of them stealing a basket from him.

The boy loaded the gun and looked at the men. "Well, ready to see what one of these bad boys can do?" Altair gave him a just-get-on-with-it look. Jameel already looked like he wanted to fold his arms. Taking one of the pillows from the floor, Desmond went into the large Bureau room and came back with a pomegranate.

"Okay, wait, what is that?"

"You've never seen a pomegranate before?"

"No. Well, yeah, at the store, but I didn't know what they were."

"It's a fruit, you moron! You eat the seeds inside. Now shoot the damn thing. Jabal wants his lunch back. You might as well split it open for him." Lex pressed the pillow to the one end of the gun, took careful aim, and fired.

The fruit exploded, splattering Desmond and the wall and floor with seeds and the red and white shell of the fruit. Jameel, along with Altair, had flinched as the debris went flying. Had that been someone's head, it would have showered the spot with gore. Maybe this is what we've been needing after all. Jameel relaxed, willing his heart to slow back down. He picked up one of the stray pieces of shell and turned it between his thumb and forefinger. On another note, who's going to clean up that mess?

"Impressive," was all the Red Owl could really think to say. Altair was watching the Novices with a new found wariness. The tension was shattered when Lex went over to the destroyed fruit, scooped up some seeds that had somehow remained fixed in the shell, and popped them in his mouth. Desmond made a noise of digust.

"What the hell, man!"

"They're good." Lex continued popping seeds in his mouth. "Really good. I gotta get me one of these when we get home. Masyaf, I mean. When we get back to Masyaf."

The silence was palpable. Desmond was staring at him with something caught between sadness and anger. He swatted the piece from the boy's hands.

"You'll get sick if you do that. Get a fresh one next time."

"I agree with you, Jameel," said Altair, his voice finally returned to him. "It is impressive. Concealable as well."

"Who's going to take them, though? This city's more heavily guarded than it's ever been. You won't be able to walk three feet without running into Ravenwatch, or a guard, or even a Templar. Escaping through the main gates would be more difficult than swimming around the walls." Jameel stared at the ceiling. There wasn't much he could do while wounded as he was, except sit, and that was infuriating when there was work to be done. Could the Novices do it alone?

One Novice, he corrected himself. Even though he'd managed to go out and make the guns, Lex was still hurt, too. He watched the boy in the corner of his eye, balanced on his uninjured leg. That would mean Altair would have to go in his or the Sparrow's stead. Altair will have to go. His mind then conjured up the image of the other Assassin shooting himself in the foot. He wanted to laugh, but his ribs wouldn't allow it, so he settled for a smirk. He'll have to learn to use one of those things, too.

"I could go," Lex volunteered, snapping Jameel out of his daydream. The others stared at him. "What?"

"You're injured, dumbass." That was from Desmond.

"They're just flesh wounds. I can still go. If I can go out there and make some guns, I think I can pretty well fight those things. Wouldn't you say? Huh?"

"I say you're an idiot!"

"Who traipsed around outside making the guns? Besides, some able bodied person has to stay here, considering it'd just be Jameel and Gandalf over there." Jabal looked at the boy from the corner of his eye, making a low noise of annoyance. Jameel narrowed his eyes at him. Lex picked up one of the guns, the two time travelers having a heated glaring match. Desmond reached around for the gun. The boy turned away, keeping his back to the man. The scuffle lasted a few seconds longer until Desmond chicken winged Lex's arm and confiscated the weapon. He passed it off to Altair, who held it awkward between thumb and forefinger as Lex picked up the other gun.

"Look, Altair'll probably end up shooting himself in the head if he goes alone--"

"--Excuse me?" the elder Eagle hissed.

"--and I'm going. So where're we headed?" Desmond took in a breath, held it, and let it go. When he spoke again, it was in a low voice, the kind he used on the rowdier customers.

"Kid, I'm only going to say this once. No."

"Desmond is right," Jameel added, now able to get a few words in edgewise. "He and Altair are the only ones left uninjured, so they'll go. Then again, Altair might injure himself with these...err..." He thought back to the word Desmond had used. "Guns." The Sparrow gave him a petulant little glare. Fine. If you behave like a child, I will treat you like a child. His explanation was done with utmost care, each word said in the same way as a man telling a child why he shouldn't stick his hand in a bee's nest. "Lex, you've been shot. Three times. Imagine if they laced the arrows with poison the next time. You wouldn't be able to make it back to the Bureau without collapsing dead in the street first. I'm sure they have their bomb arrows out by now..." He sighed as the boy looked away. "Lex, you're remaining here. Sit, before you act on that little cannon fodder offer of yours and get pinned by fifty arrows.

"You'll have to search for my brother. I don't know where he went after he dropped me from the docks."

"It shouldn't be too hard to find him." Desmond slipped the rifle onto his back after figuring how to slip it under his belt and the strap that went diagonally across back to hold his chest armor in place. "Man as big as that stands out in the crowd."

"If your idea's going to work, Desmond, I suggest putting it to use before we have to start back at the beginning."

"By that he means we should get moving," translated Altair, shoving his desendant up the wall and out into the dimming evening light.

Silence hung between the two Assassins left in the Bureau, the Rafiq bustling about his own work, altogether ignoring them now that they were up and about. The Red Owl kept his eyes on the roof and the changing light as the Sparrow watched the shadows growing longer and darker along the walls.

"You're not my dad," Lex murmured to a particular patch of shadows in the corner.

"I'm not your father," Jameel agreed, blue eyes staring at blue sky, "and I would never care to be referred to as such."

"I'm not useless, even if I am hurt."

"Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that you were."

"Dessy--"

"Desmond would have been driven to distraction by you and you by him. At least you're out of each other's way for the time being." Lex shut his eyes, quiet descending on them once again.

Then, "I'm sorry for getting you caught." Jameel looked over at him, the boy's eyes turned back to him. How Altair could have thought them related after looking him full in the face was beyond the Master Assassin. Even Malik had pointed out one of the most stricking differences between them. Lex's eyes were brown, the same unremarkable, dark shade as almost everyone he'd met in life.

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why do you think you got me caught?" Lex lowered his head, fingers twisting the fabric of his robes. "Stop that. Look at me." He reached over, lifting the boy's chin when he still kept his eyes down. "Do not blame yourself for this, Sparrow. It's not going to help me heal any faster if you do. It's pointless." He moved his hand away and laid down on his side. "Besides, Kadin would have found me anyway. He knows his little brother all too well."

The last sentence dripped with contempt. No, not just contempt. Hatred. He really does hate his older brother. Definitely wants him dead, from the sound of it. Lex thought back to the last time they'd spoken of Jameel's brother in Masyaf. Then he'd sounded as if he blamed himself for Kadin joining the Templars. Now... Now it's like he doesn't even acknowledge Kadin's his flesh and blood anymore. Lex looked at the man, who met his eyes but looked through him at something else.

"What happened with you guys? You and him?" Lex wondered. Jameel focused on him. "Were you always out for each other's necks?"

"Why do you want to know? Is it your business to dig into my past? Is this what friends do?" Jameel's voice was venemously low.

The boy flinched, hurt, but countered sharply with, "Yeah, actually, it is what friends do. Friends worry about each other." His face heated so that even under the tan he'd gotten, his cheeks shone a dusty pink. "And I'd worry about you regardless, Jameel, even if you didn't consider me a friend."

The Red Owl took a second look at him as he moved himself up to a cross-legged sit. Lex mimiced the position. He lifted his hand, stopped, then rested it on Lex's shoulder.

"I will tell you of what happened, but my needs won't become yours. I wouldn't ask you to share my burden and I'm not doing so now in telling you what was taken from me that night."

"It's my fervent hope that you don't ask it of me either," called the Rafiq.

"Shut up and go back to your birds, old man!" said the two in unison. Jameel sucked in a breath through his teeth and let it out again before looking at Lex once more and beginning his tale.



The archers were everywhere. They coated the the city in moving shadows. The Eagles pressed themselves into the shadows, buried themselves in whatever hiding place was available. Altair covered Desmond's mouth quickly as they moved toward the rich district, three of the Crows running by. One of them actually flapped his arms and cawed.

When these had gone, they scurried to the next hiding spot, and the next after, block by block. Desmond glanced toward their feet as he heard a hissing noise. No snake to be found. The sound was getting closer. It was followed by a shrill noise.

CRAP! The man shoved his ancestor forward, taking to his heels. The ground exploded, raining dirt and stone around them. The shrill whistle of the bomb arrow's flight alerted more of the Ravenwatch archers,

Bombs exploded around them, taking out chunks of wall. More archers were alerted to their flight as the pair went. Stinging glass joined in the detritus that peppered them, along with the standard black bolts. The men split up, Desmond taking to the rooftops and Altair racing along below him on the ground.

The American skidded and turned, panicking in the chaos around him. He dropped from the roof, rolled, and--

"Oh, s**t!"

The mace pounded into the dust where his head had been seconds before. Kadin lifted the weapon again, baring his teeth in what was either a grin or something nearing a snarl. Desmond put up his fists. The giant brought the weapon around. The barkeep ducked, moving to one side. The mace followed after him. He dove behind the man, kicking at his back.

Desmond threw himself into a barrel roll, arms up over his head, as the steel head came down for him once again. A loud cracking noise split the night, an explosion like yet unlike those firecrackers the Watch had used before. Kadin flinched back and took off as Altair jumped down and helped him up. "That only took you long enough, gramps!"

"Show me how to use this thing properly next time!" said Altair as they took up the chase again. It was made easier by the trail of blood spreading after Kadin. The shot had clipped the Templar's head. Desmond once more hurried to the top of the nearest building. The time traveler unslung the gun from its place in his belt, shouldering the rifle and taking aim.

Kadin had made good time, a cluster of his archers surrounding him as he pelted toward one of the city's side entrances. Getting the man's neck in his sights, he fired, then sent off another round toward the center of his back. The first bullet went low, catching one of the bodyguards full in the back of his head. The body dropped to the ground. Hearing the thud, Kadin jumped upward and out, the second bullet imbedding itself his right calf as he passed through the gates.

"Damn it!" The Novice squinted into the growing twilight, shielding his eyes from the last, sinking rays of the sun. A cluster of some three or four caravans sped off into the distance. The man gulped as he heard the sound of a bowstring being drawn, the hiss of a lit fuse shrinking.

Des pressed his foot onto the edge of the roof and threw himself out into the air as the arrow was released. He dropped into the abandoned cart at the bottom of the building as the section above him exploded.

Altair staggered as a large chunk of roof and wall almost crashed down on the backs of his legs. Grasping Desmond's arm, he hauled the other man out and made a straight shot toward the Bureau.



Lex looked up as he heard footfalls on the roof and opened the door. Altair dropped in with Desmond slung over his shoulder like a sack of hammers. He had a nice gash on his head, but he was breathing. The boy helped the other time traveler to Jabal's desk. The old man bound his head wound tightly, keeping an eye on the Master Assassins in the other room.

He rushed forward as a black arrow zipped through the roof door, shutting it. Lex looked around the doorway. Jameel leaned away from the arrow that had imbedding itself into a pillow beside his head. Moving to a sit, the man took the arrow and untied a scroll of parchment from it.

Jameel opened it and flung it away almost immediately as if it was some poisonous snake. The parchment unrolled on the floor to reveal a well-detailed sketch of crow in profile.The man scrambled backward until his back met the wall, curling up despite his shrieking ribs. His eyes were wide, the whites visible even in the shadows of his hood.

"Not again...not again...not again..." The Owl muttered, each time growing louder. "Not again... Allah, not again!"

Altair stooped and picked up the parchment, looking at the sketch.

"Jameel? What is this?"

The Red Owl responded by trying to pull the hood down over his face, hiding it completely in the shadows. He squeezed his eyes shut. Jameel--fearless, strong Jameel--was in a state of sheer terror, Lex realized. The realization finally brought home just what kind of situation they all were in with a physical chill of fear.

"Their signature. It's death. The one-eyed crow. We're on their hit lists. We've been marked for death, Altair! All of us!" This last was almost screamed. It morphed into a nerve-rattling laugh. "They no longer need permission from their employer to hunt us like animals! We stuck him, so they'll strike back." Though he was sure the mercenaries would hunt him for free, Ravenwatch enjoyed their greatest source of income from Kadin. They would now protect that income by hunting down the very thing that hunted their employer. "They may even get a bonus for each head they collect."

Altair went over and pulled the man up to his feet by the front of his robes.

"Calm down." He gave Jameel a shake. "Calm down. It's not as if we haven't been on many a man's hit list before. We're Assassins, Jameel. If they come for you, or any of us, we will kill them. Understand?"

Jameel looked at his fellow Master, surprised. Friends. His eyes turned to the others gathered at the threshold to Jabal's room. I have friends. Altair released him. The group looked up at the sounds of footsteps overhead. Footsteps?

"They're on the roof. Move." The Owl swallowed visibly, stepping into the shelter of the stone roofed room with Altair. If they made for the main entrance now, there was no telling how many arrows would pin them to the floor. We need to get out of this city. We need to get out of this city now.