The Society of Contemporary Art Museum was a faux-Daniel Libeskind explosion of glass, concrete, and aluminium cladding, tacked incongrously onto the back of the Old Pack House. Ten years since it had unveiled its looks still split Corvites down the middle. Personally, Brendan thought it was very nicely detailed, although he had somewhat less complimentary views about the whole that the nicely detailed parts added up to. 

Brendan knew he was taking a risk. But he tried not to think about it as he flashed his media pass at the security guard and went to locate Adrian. He was just here to stand on the periphery and observe things. Hopefully they had not even considered the eventuality that he would be in the crowd. He didn't need to get close to anyone. As long as he wasn't recognised by anyone he would be fine. If anyone did work out who he was he would have to figure things out there and then, but he tried not to think about it. That had worked surprisingly well for him in the past, and there was no reason for him to think it wouldn't tonight. 

The meeting was being held in a mezzanine, a rhomboid of concrete suspended on rather dainty steel cables above the foyer. At least, that was where the second tier of the guest list had been allocated. The real action was taking place on another rhomboid suspended by more dainty steel cables where workers were fiddling with the microphone on a podium that had been set up. Behind, more workers were fiddling with a huge projector screen. 

On yet another suspended rhomboid several metres higher, the VIPs were filtering in via a very delicate glass staircase. All of the top brass was here. Some of the faces looked familiar from the TV news, but he didn't know the names, except for George and Cameron. Halberstam and the other school officials were keeping them on their toes. He could tell that some of them were already looking rather removed from the setting. You could see the pills taking effect in real time.

No doubt Halberstam and the others had deliberately chosen this evening strategically; it couldn't have been the first choice. Still, the Alphas had no choice but to submit to the whims of the godless wolves who ran this place. A hostess was offering pills to any guests who had forgotten theirs. Hopefully they would be too busy keeping their guests and benefactors from soiling themselves to be vetting the guest list too thoroughly. 

Keeping to the other side of the stage, Brendan pressed against the polished stainless steel railing, brushing past unfamiliar faces. he felt exposed here, high above the floor. He dared himself to look down. He finally found Adrian where he'd said he would be, next to the table. He was with someone he didn't recognise. 

"This is Graydon." Adrian introduced the newcomer. "He teaches English at Carleton. He's new, like me." 

Brendan shook the proffered hand with no hesitation. He was about the same age, well-dressed, cleanly shaved. If he was a new recruit he was most likely safe. Most of his teachers at Carleton had had no idea of what was going on behind the scenes. There was no indication that this had changed. As long as he did his best to stay in the margins, away from the top brass, he would be fine. 

All eyes were on the other mezzanine level. Some of the alphas were clearly discomforted and sitting down; others were taking it better. It was all a bit comical. You could sense the tension as people struggled to suppress their sniggers on top of fighting the side-effects of their own medication. You could pick out the ones that had been educated over in the Republic, as they were mostly functioning as normal, walking around, greeting the other guests, chatting up a storm with the school administration. 

Brendan took the opportunity to scan the crowd for any familiar faces. He was expecting at least a few, but there was nobody he had known, just people he had known of. A part of him had wanted to be recognised, despite the obvious risk this would bring. A small consolation for the blood, sweat and tears he had given to that institution. He told himself it was safer this way. Shielding oneself from the exposure of cameras was easy. Shielding from wolf eyes, on the other hand, was a different story. 

He glanced over at Adrian. He seemed to be taking it extremely well. Even the most seasoned wolves did not enjoy find taking the pill and staying up late on full moon to be a pleasant experience and could not make it through the night without betraying their discomfort for at least a moment. Suppressing your wolf by magical means, like Brendan was doing, had its own different side-effects. You could tell what type of suppressants a wolf was using by looking at his body language. Having closely observed Adrian for several minutes, he seemed to be completely unaffected. It was admirable. He knew it was possible with a lot of training, but it was very rare. 

 =Halberstam moved to the side closest to where Brendan was standing, and Brendan finally had a chance to get a good look at him, the first one he had had in several years. He looked older. His beard had grown longer than Brendan remembered, and the last vestiges of brown in his hair had disappeared from it. The paunch had grown more pronounced. All the better to reinforce his image as a humble old man, a career educator. He was chatting to a dapper looking Alpha. He looked worried. 

He looked away. When he dared to look up again, he had moved on, away from the edge of the balcony. He breathed out. What if it happened again? He thought about getting out. It was too late for that. Leaving would be exposing himself to too much scrutiny. Better to stay, keep a low profile, and slip out unnoticed in the rush to leave after the event had concluded. 

He politely waved on a server with a tray of champagne flutes. They were notorious for swiping fingerprints and DNA off glasses for their own purposes. He knew cleansing spells that could counteract that, but he wanted to be able to focus on the speech. Also the magical residue that would leave would give him away. Never fight magic with magic, so went one of Beidzner's favourite dictums. Simplify and add lightness, as Colin Chapman used to say. Beidzner was oddly fond of telling stories about Colin Chapman for someone who had no interest in cars or racing. The simpler the solution, the better. Magic depended a lot on feel. If it felt right, it was right. And the less complicated something was, the more likely it would feel right. 

The entire building went dark. A hush resonated across the room. Brendan relaxed. He had a bit more breathing space now. 

The podium was suddenly bathed in light, illuminating a middle aged guy in a black turtleneck. Bald head, glasses. David Berger. He looked older than in all of the photos on the official website. The shifting pills were obviously doing a number on him, or the lighting up on the podium was off, as his skin had a pallid tone, and you could almost see the sheen of sweat on his forehead. It was a surreal sight, but then most people in the room were buzzed off their faces on suppressant pills, so they would be none the wiser. 

"Firstly, I'd like to acknowledge our friend and benefactor, and the driving force behind this project, the Honourable Alpha George."

A smattering of polite applause rang out around the room. It was the first time Brendan had laid eyes on Alpha George, who looked like an angry hamster. His haircut was not helping. It was an open secret that Alpha George had made his fortune in the smuggling business. Industrial quantities of contraband would be speedboated from a ship offshore to his pack territory, on the far west coast of the island, and smuggled across the border. Despite several extradition attempts by the Republic he had never been even tried for his crimes. He was clean now, he had proclaimed. Once the smuggling business had been shut down he had left his illicit ways behind him and diversified his business. Now he was approaching respectability. 

Berger clicked the remote in his hand. The screen behind him sprang into life. Brendan immediately recognised the craggy cliffs and unforgiving sea of the West Coast. "As those in my inner circle know" - he gestured to his colleagues in the audience, who hollered back at him- "I've been a keen surfer since my teens. It's my dearest hobby. About a year ago, I was out there, paddling out, when a thought struck me." 

He paused for effect. The screen cut to a blown-up view of his face, which drew some more laughter from his colleagues. The audience drew in, transfixed. 

"What if you could commute by surfing?"

The room burst into laughter. The laughter was at first hesitant but quickly spread. The ice had been broken. He had them in his thrall. Even from his distant lookout on the mezzanine, Brendan could feel the mood in the space shift. The joke had made them forget about their own discomfort for a little bit, and that was everything to them. Everybody around him relaxed a little. The Alphas were happy. All was forgiven for missing the full moon.

"You know, it was a crazy idea." He embodied the crazy but brilliant teacher stereotype, with the jabbing hand gestures and the lightning quick changes of subject. "But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. What if we built a city where you could really surf to work? What if we reimagined the city as we knew it?" 

He pressed the pointer. The screen changed to a bunch of parti diagrams showing how he had arrived at the form of the crescent moon. The kind of stuff Brendan would pull an all-nighter doing in over a few Red Bulls in third year. But a bit fancier. 

He switched to the next slide. Another hush spread through the crowd, as a sublime panorama of the rugged West Coast played on the screen. The video zoomed into a cluster of buildings floating on the sea, arranged in the shape of a crescent moon. A series of walkways connected the buildings led to a central green space. It was almost photorealistic but just analogue enough that one could clearly tell it was a rendering. He could see the swaying of the trees. Brendan tried not to think of the computing power required to render this. 

The foreground fell away to reveal a cutaway of the scheme, from the roofs of the pods to the bottom of the seabed. The crowd in front of Brendan gasped audibly. The structure below the sea was revealed. Although not to the kind of detail Brendan would have preferred, it was enough to have the crowd on tenterhooks. A network of pods tethered by steel cables to piles drived deep into the seabed, floating on pontoons a few metres above sea level. 

"This is the real nifty part." Berger indicated at the network of lobes attached to the edges of the pontoons with the pointer. "Revolutionary technology that harnesses the energy of the waves. But what's even cooler is the materials." He pulled out a square of what looked like a handkerchief out of his pocket. The screen cut to a close-up of him once more. Brendan could see at once it was not in fact a handkerchief. "This is an incredible material. Waterproof, highly heat and UV resistant. It will outlive you. It is the perfect material for Crescent City..."

Brendan felt Adrian stiffen, next to him. 

Berger went through more slides. More buzzwords. A place to belong. Communal facilities. Flexible living. Sustainability. Blah blah blah. He was talking gobbledygook, and he knew it, and the crowd was lapping it up. Some of his colleagues groaned. In jest, of course. 

"Finally, I would like to announce an open competition for the transport corridor between the town centre and the foreshore. We will consider all options, but with an emphasis on new and innovative solutions. There will be further details on our website." Brendan perked up. Finally. The break he had been waiting for. The stress, the constant fear was all worth it. He was already rehearsing his speech to Floriana. 

He decided to think about it more on the way out. Now was no time to let his guard down. And never mind there was every chance his plan could go pear-shaped... 

The presentation wrapped up and Berger departed the stage to rapturous applause from the upper stage. Someone else stepped up to the podium and made a short announcement. There would be a scale model on the ground floor and a Q&A session. If everyone could make their way down to the ground floor it would be well appreciated. 

Brendan and Adrian followed the crowd down the narrow staircase to the foyer. A scale model of the site was being unveiled beneath the velvet shroud. A shimmering, roiling sea, no doubt created by some type of magical process. Buildings arranged in the shape of a crescent moon. The rugged coastline modelled in minute accuracy. Even from far away it was immediately clear to Brendan which stretch of coast it was. 

People milled around. Hundreds of phones came out, taking pictures. They ignored the commotion and joined the crowd of people heading for the door, careful not to attract attention. Brendan forced himself not to look towards the source of the noise, trying his hardest not to let the curiosity get the better of him.