Part 25 (2/2)

Morris stopped at the door to the stairway. The readout set into the wall beside it showed a red image of a closed lock until he swiped his hand terminal across it and keyed something into the display that opened. The lock switched to green, and the door slid open. Of course a prison would put the locks on the emergency power circuit, Amos thought. He wondered what else was locked.

A landslide of mud, water, rocks, concrete, and rebar spilled into the corridor. Morris yelped and jumped back, then fell to the ground, grabbing one s.h.i.+n. His pants were ripped, and Amos caught a glimpse of a dark wetness between the man's fingers. Blood.

”Morris!” Rona said. ”Report!”

”I'm gonna need st.i.tches.”

”I'm moving ahead to look,” Amos said, leaving So don't shoot me as a given. Beyond the door, the stairway was gone. Rubble and dirt were so thick, he couldn't even tell if the stairs still existed under them. He couldn't tell where the water was coming from, but it smelled clean. Which meant it was probably the drinking water. Another tremble shook a few stones and a head-sized ball of concrete loose.

Sullivan was muttering a stream of obscenities under his breath that sounded less like anger and more like the first signs of panic. Amos shook his head.

”No one's getting out that way,” he said. ”Not without a few months and a digging mech. We're gonna have to find another way up.”

”There isn't a G.o.dd.a.m.n other way up,” Rona said. ”That's the evacuation route. That right there.”

”Peaches?”

Clarissa's voice was calm but still a little slurred. ”Hard call, Amos. It's a prison for high-risk criminals. They don't put a lot of easy egress routes in it.”

”Fair enough,” Amos said. ”But say you had to think of something clever?”

”The guards have overrides. If we can get access to the elevator shaft and the car's not blocking it, we might be able to climb up.”

”Ten stories at one g on a broken hand?” He didn't mention the possible concussion that was probably s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with her sense of balance.

”Didn't say it'd be fun.”

”The access ladders are all locked down,” the escort said. ”They put doors across them so no one can get up without permission.”

Konecheck gave a wide, mirthless laugh, and Sullivan trained another of the strange not-quite-guns on him.

”Peaches?”

”I don't know. Maybe we could find something else.”

Amos stretched his neck, the vertebrae popping like firecrackers. ”This,” he said, ”is getting to be a long f.u.c.king day.”

Chapter Twenty-five: Naomi.

Hour by hour, history rolled out, every new moment making things worse. The newsfeeds from Earth and Mars, and then reports from Tycho Station and Ganymede filled with reporters and journalists blank with shock or else weeping. The hammering of Earth took most of the bandwidth: images from an apocalypse. Cities along the coasts of the Atlantic with grinding waves shattering fourth- and fifth-story windows. An army of small tornados forming behind the shock wave's leading edge. The planet she was so used to seeing glow as the city lights made it a permanent fire, going dark. The field hospital at Dakar where ash and stones rained down upon row after row of the dead. The shaking UN spokesman confirming the death of the secretary-general. The void between the planets was alive with chatter and speculation, reports and theories and then conflicting reports and theories. With the complexity of light delay, it was almost impossible to put events in order. Everything seemed to be happening at once.

Which, she supposed, was how Marco had wanted it.

The events in other places things that would have been shattering on any other day seemed footnotes to the grand thesis of destruction playing out on Earth. Yes, there had been an attempted coup on Tycho Station, but the Earth was dying. Yes, an OPA cell had taken control of the ports on Ganymede, but the Earth was dying. Yes, a battle was going on between Martian escort s.h.i.+ps and an unknown force near the Hungaria asteroids, but Earth was dying. The sense that something vast had descended on all humanity was inescapable.

Outside, in the common room, elated voices rose with each new report, cheering with delight. In her a.s.signed quarters, she watched with a growing numbness. And beneath it, something else. After half a s.h.i.+ft, she turned the screen off. Her own face reflected in the emptiness that followed looked like another stunned reporter searching for words and failing. She pulled herself out of her crash couch and walked out to the common room. It was so much like the Roci's galley that her brain kept trying to recognize it, failing, and trying again. An utterly unfamiliar s.p.a.ce would have been easier than this architectural uncanny valley.

”Hoy, Knuckles,” Cyn said, rising from among the crowd. ”A que gehst, yeah?”

She made an automatic Belter's shrug, but Cyn didn't sit back down. Not the question of a friend wondering where she was going, but of a guard demanding information of a prisoner. She arranged her expression more carefully.

”This was why, wasn't it? This was why he wanted me?”

”Marco son Marco,” Cyn said, and his voice was weirdly gentle. ”He thought we should get you, so did, yeah? Why does why matter? Still the safest place to be in the system right here.”

Naomi took a long breath and blew it out.

”Lot to take in,” she said. ”Big.”

”Is that,” Cyn said. Naomi looked at her hands, her fingers laced together. Act like one of them, she thought. What would she do if she were one of them again? The answer came too naturally. As if she was one of them. As if she always had been.

”s.h.i.+p's got an inventory,” she said. ”I can do the checks. Be useful.”

”I'll join,” he said, falling into step with her.

She knew where to go, how the lift would take her, where the machine shop was. In the years she'd been on the Roci, she hadn't been aware that she was also internalizing the design logic of the Martian Navy, but she had been. When they reached the shop, she knew where the diagnostic arrays would be stored even though she'd never set foot in the place before.

Cyn hesitated before he opened the cabinets, but only a little. Checking inventory, testing batteries and relays and storage bubbles, was something everyone did in their spare time if they grew up in the Belt. It was as natural as drinking water, and when she picked up an array, he did too. The door to the cargo bay was sealed, but it cycled open for Cyn.

The bay was well-stocked. Magnetic pallets locked to the decks and walls in neat rows. She wondered idly where it had all come from, and what promises had been given in exchange. She went to the nearest, plugged the array into the pallet, and popped it open. The crates unfolded. Batteries. She took the first, snapped it into the array. The indicator went green, and she snapped the battery back out, replaced it, and took the next one.

”All going to be good,” Cyn said. ”Military grade, this.”

”Well thank G.o.d militaries never get s.h.i.+t wrong.” The indicator went green. She swapped the battery in her hand for the next one. Cyn went to the next crate over, popped it, and started doing as she was doing.

She recognized it as a kindness. He hadn't come down to be her friend, but her jailer. He could as easily have put her back in her cabin and locked the door to keep her there, but he hadn't. He could have stood guard over her while she worked through the batteries, but he didn't. He pretended that they were together on the task, equals. Even if it meant missing beer and Armageddon with his friends. Against her will, Naomi felt a spark of grat.i.tude for that.

”Big day,” she said.

”A long time coming,” Cyn said.

”Long time,” she agreed automatically.

”Got to be weird seeing him again.”

She pulled another battery, checked it, put it back, grabbed the next one. Cyn cleared his throat.

”Me falta,” he said. ”Shouldn't have said it.”

”No, it's fine,” Naomi said. ”Yes, it's weird seeing him again. Did a lot to get away from him last time. Didn't see ever coming back.”

”Bad times.”

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