Zero-G (11 page)

It takes Knox longer than he'd like to dispose of the stompers' bodies. By the time he's finished, his bad leg is on fire.

He limps back into his surgery, teeth gritted, prickles of sweat standing out on his forehead. As he digs in one of his cabinets, hunting for a bottle of pain pills, he realises that the room is mess. Hale's blood, dried to a thin black crust, still speckles the operating table. The wheeled surgical stands, usually lined up against the wall, are out of place, tilted at crazy angles to each other. A tray of surgical tools is on the floor, and he can't remember how it got there.

He finds the pills, and dry-swallows two of them, the bitter taste rolling around in his mouth. He should clean up – put everything back in order, scrub the table, make the room perfect again. But before he can act on this thought, a wave of exhaustion crashes over him. He's not used to physical activity – as if anybody could be used to dumping two bodies into a furnace. He limps to his chair, finds it with his right hand, then sinks into it. A minute. That's all he needs.

His mind drifts back to Amira. To the woman he loved. He had to work hard to see her again – he couldn't be sure she'd ever visit his hospital, and he might have spent months without seeing her. That was unacceptable. He began to use every excuse he had to get out of his shifts, throwing himself into finding out who she was. His supervisor, a pallid, careful man named Goran, tried to discipline him, but he barely noticed.

He saw her for the second time in the Apogee gallery. He was up on the Level 1 catwalk, and she was passing below him, sprinting across the floor. He couldn't take his eyes off her. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds before she vanished into one of the corridors, but those seconds are etched into his memory. Every movement she made, every turn of her head, every adjustment of her pack. It's all there.

He gropes for his tab screen, a sudden longing shooting through him. In a few taps, the sketch program appears. The drawings are right where he left them – his finger is a clumsy tool, but he was always skilled at anatomy, and he's drawn her perfectly. The curves of her muscles, the sharp angles of her jaw. The only thing he couldn't get right are her eyes, but he doesn't blame himself for that. No painter could. Her body was perfect, as if a goddess had decided to walk among humanity. Even her missing fingers, taken from her by the sub-zero temperatures in the Core, seemed to enhance her beauty.

He zooms in on the drawing, scrolls down. What would her thighs have tasted like, he wonders. He tries to imagine it, imagine
her
, naked, opening her legs to him, beckoning him …

No. He shuts the tab screen down, lets it drop onto his lap. Best not to. He'll never get that chance. Not after Hale and Okwembu snatched her away from him. The familiar anger returns, burning hot. Hale should have thanked him for being merciful, for sparing her life. That won't happen again.

He gets to his feet and stands, swaying. For a moment he feels dizzy, and puts out a hand to steady himself against the wall, then coughs. His chest feels a little tight.

“No way,” says the stomper.

The stomper I'm talking to is holding two stingers, one in each hand. His jacket is off, and he wears a brown undershirt, soaked with sweat. His mask is slightly askew on his face. The outer door, made of criss-crossing metal bars, is locked shut. His partner leans against the wall, arms folded.

I was right. There are no longer eight stompers outside the maximum security brig. There are only two. Doesn't look like it's made things any easier for me.

“You think Captain Royo wants me to go back empty-handed?” I say. “It's like I said: I
have
to check the prisoner for Resin exposure.”

The lie sounds ridiculous even as I say it. But it's the best I have. Two stompers is as good as my chances are going to get, and I have to get inside.

“Will you relax?” the first stomper says. Tomas, I think his name is. “We're all fine down here. No virus, inside or out.”

I can feel the eyes of his silent partner on me, studying me, like I might start coughing myself.

“Orders have changed,” I say, through gritted teeth.

“Until I hear it direct from Royo, orders stand. If you were coming, he would have called us.”

“He's a little busy right now. In case you hadn't noticed, there's a bug going around.”

Surprisingly, he seems completely unmoved by my death glare, staring down at me over the top of his mask.

“Royo's going to be pissed when I tell him you didn't listen,” I say, but Tomas is ignoring me, his gaze somewhere over my shoulder. Inside, I'm screaming at myself for not coming up with something better. After all I've been through,
this
is the best I can come up with?

I trudge away. Amira's face jumps to the front of my mind – for her, it would have been easy. She took down eight guards breaking me out of a brig, like it was nothing. She'd go through these two in about five seconds.

I could probably do the same – I've fought bigger men before – but even if I did, all they'd have to do is broadcast one alert over the comms, and stompers would swarm all over us. And with no more than a dozen hours left on Knox's deadline, I need to come up with something. Fast.

Think, Riley. Think
.

Slowly, I turn around, and get right in Tomas' face.

“The hell are you still—” he starts, but I cut him off.

“Listen to me carefully,
stomper
,” I say, channelling the tracer I used to be. “Do you know what's going to happen if we don't uncover where Resin came from? Total anarchy. I've been ordered to eliminate this prisoner from the investigation.”

I jab a finger on his chest. “Now, I could call Royo,” I say, tapping my SPOCS earpiece. “Ask him to reconfirm his orders. I'm sure he'll be
thrilled
to hear from you. After all, it's not as if he has a lot going on at the moment. When this whole thing blows over, he's going to remember that you insisted on checking in. But, hey, you want to spend the rest of your career cleaning out the toilets back at Big 6, you go right ahead.”

Tomas glances back at his buddy, who hasn't moved from his place against the wall. Without another word, I turn around and start walking.

It didn't work. They're not going to let me in. I have to think of something else. Maybe I can knock them out somehow …

“Hold up.”

It's Tomas. “One minute, in and out. Then I don't want to see you back here.”

Speechless, I just nod. We walk back to the entrance. The other stomper taps a keypad on the wall, buzzing me in. As I step through, the first door closes behind me. The control pad to open the cell doors is on the wall to my left, but I don't dare touch it.

There's a beat, and then the inner door slides back.

I jog down the cold passage towards the far end. If anything, the brig is even colder now – when I breathe, the air burns on the way in, and becomes crystal-white vapour as it comes out. The block is in darkness – I can't tell if it's another power failure, or if they're turned off deliberately.

The light's off in Okwembu's cell, too. But then there's a shifting form in the darkness, and I see her asleep on the cot, her body curled under a thin blanket.

I need to get the stompers to open the door to Okwembu's cell. I need her ready to go, not fast asleep. And, somehow, I need to surprise the stompers before they can transmit an alert call, and take them down. Preferably without killing them.

I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get all those things done.

I rap on the plastic barrier. The shape under the covers shifts slightly, curling in on itself, as if caught in a bad dream. “Okwembu,” I say.

That's when I hear shouting from outside – shouting, and gunshots.

I stop, hardly daring to breathe. There are scuffling sounds, another two gunshots, and then silence.

My body reacts before I can think about it. I have to hide. I spin in place, looking for somewhere to hunker down, but there's nothing. I'm in a short corridor surrounded by locked cells. Not good.

There's a bang, and the inner door slams open. In surprise, I lose my balance, skittering backwards, only just managing to stay upright.

I slip into the shadows at the far end, pushing back against the wall, hoping that I'm not too noticeable. My hearing comes back slowly. Okwembu's up, her hands on the plastic, staring at me.

I look back down the block. There are people stepping through, silhouetted from outside. There's no way to make out their features, but I count six at least. One of them turns to the keypad that controls the cell doors.

“Which cell?”

“Doesn't matter.”

“Open 'em all.”

There are several clicks, and then all the cell doors slide open, vanishing into the ceiling. I don't waste any time. I slip into the cell opposite Okwembu's, pressing up against the wall, hoping the darkness keeps me hidden.

Footsteps pound down the passage. Okwembu has shrunk back into her cell, her body nothing more than a dark form against the far wall. She has to know why they're breaking in, and what it means for her. Someone's had the same idea as me – they're using the chaos to get to Okwembu. But, unlike me, they'll be wanting her dead.

Do something
.

The men find Okwembu, crowding around her cell. Their shapes are dark silhouettes, but I can see their shoulders slump in relief, and I hear a couple of exhausted cheers. I have never wanted to be holding my stinger so badly, to feel its weight in my hand and the rough edge of the trigger on my index finger.

I shrug my stomper jacket off my shoulders. I'm wearing nothing more than a tank top underneath it, and the cold air cuts right through the fabric. It dances across my bare arms, raising thousands of tiny bumps.

With no weapon, with nothing to hold them off, I have exactly one option. It's a terrible, terrible idea, but it's all I've got.

I bolt from the shadows, running right towards them.

In the split second before I reach the man at the back, I have just enough time to be grateful that he's the same height as I am. One arm goes around his throat, the other slams into his temple. He gives a strangled cry of surprise, and I feel his body go rigid as I pull him close to me.

The others spin around, guns up, pointing right at us. “Anton!” someone shouts.

“Don't move,” I yell, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. “Come any closer, I'll snap his neck.”

But my mind is reeling. I've heard the name Anton before. He was back in the Recycler Plant – the one who I had to hide from by climbing up the vat. Are these the same people?

Can't worry about that now. I squeeze tight, and Anton cries out. Snap his neck? What was I thinking? Now I have to sell it, to make them
believe
that I can do it. I can barely make the others out – just dark forms with raised arms. My heart has climbed up into my throat. At any moment, I'm expecting to see muzzle flashes, to feel bullets tearing through us.

“Easy,” says one of them.

Anton tries to pull away from me, attempting to shrug out of my grip. I pull harder around his throat, and he gives off a horrible choking noise. “Bad idea,” I hiss into his ear, before raising my voice. “Okwembu! Get out here.”

There's no movement. The men stand frozen, not knowing where to look. My eyes have become accustomed to the darkness, and I can see that they've got scarves over their noses and mouths.

Janice Okwembu glides through, passing between them like a knife through ribs. Her face is blank, expressionless, as if being broken out of prison is the most natural thing in the world.

She stops in front of me. “What comes next, Ms Hale?” she says, clasping her arms in front of her.

I jerk my head behind me, and without another word she steps in that direction.

“I can take her,” says someone from the edge of the group. From the sound of his voice, he's younger than the rest. I can see his gun trembling slightly in the air.

“Quiet, Ivan,” barks one of them. Before they can react, I start dragging Anton backwards, following Okwembu. He takes awkward, stumbling steps as he walks, and I have to fight to keep him upright.

“Where do you think you're going to go?” says one of them, spreading his arms. “You can't drag him forever.”

“Watch me.”

“Outer Earth's finished. People are dying out there. Why don't you come with us? We can protect you.”

“Not convinced. Sorry.”

“What else are you going to do?”

I'm no more than a single step ahead of them, the plan forming in my head as I go. With their stingers raised, the men start to take hesitant steps towards us.

Okwembu speaks from behind me. “If you've got a plan, Ms Hale, now would be the time to share it.”

Ivan's stinger goes off.

The bullet ricochets off the floor in front of me, dinging off the metal. Without thinking, I shove Anton forward. Choking, he stumbles into the group, knocking another man off his feet. They all start firing, muzzle flashes lighting up the dark cell block, the bangs echoing off the walls. I grab Okwembu by the shoulder and run, head down, heart jackhammering in my mouth, my shoulders itching as I wait for a bullet to slam into my back. Some pass so close to me that I can feel the blowback.

We've got no more than a couple of seconds' head start, and I can already hear running feet behind us. I shove Okwembu through the door to the brig – out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of Tomas and his partner, laid out on the ground, dark pools of blood around their bodies. I jab the keypad by the doors, hitting every button, hoping it'll do something.

With a metallic buzz, the barred gate slams shut. A second later, a man slams into it, snarling in anger.

We take cover, flattening ourselves against the wall. I glance over at Okwembu. She's looking around her, squinting in the bright lights. Her eyes widen as she looks in my direction. “Behind you!”

I'm just in time to see someone's hand, clutching a stinger, thrust out of the bars and point in our direction. Its owner twists his arm around, hoping he might hit us when he pulls the trigger.

I dart forward, gripping his wrist. In one movement, I jerk upwards, twisting as I go. His wrist snaps cleanly, and he screams in agony. The stinger clatters to the floor.

I don't have it in me to thank Okwembu, or even to meet her eyes. “Move,” I tell her, pointing back down the corridor.

We bolt, putting distance between us and the brig. I can hear her breathing as she runs beside me, low and even.

It's a few minutes before we stop. We duck into a side room, an abandoned hab of some kind. No telling if its owners are dead or have simply walked away, but the place has been stripped. Bare metal cots and overturned lockers make the place look as if the station stopped spinning, let the resulting zero gravity lift everything up, then kicked back into gear.

Okwembu sits down on one of the lockers. Her shoulders rise and fall in huge, juddering gasps. I lean against the wall, breathing hard. I did it. I got her out.

Now I just have to get her all the way across the station to Knox. Without being seen.