by A. B. Keuser
Which was a problem. Even though Flynn’s left side was numb, the whole ordeal had been too easy. And Archie was better at creating distractions.
Henri helped him to his feet while the miners mingled, still casting suspicious glances and recriminations their way.
“You need to get the captains to cease all work. If they could do this… they can do something far worse.” He wasn’t about to mention the Lazarai with this many onlookers.
“I still can’t believe she’s mixed up with them.”
Flynn was happy to let her think he had immediately thought of Sophia. “People do strange things for even stranger reasons.”
Still shaking her head, she looked over the crowd. “I’ll get them to do a full search, use this as my reasoning, but I cannot let anyone start the rumor that Sophia’s in league with those people. It would ruin too much if you’re wrong.”
Flynn started to remind her that sort of mindset got people killed, but shouting from the far tunnel pulled his attention away.
North pushed his way through the crowd, shoving and elbowing wherever necessary.
“There you are,” He grabbed hold of Flynn’s arm and started to drag him back the way he’d come. “You have a serious prob—”
The whole of the planet seemed to vibrate beneath him. Everything felt as though he’d been placed in a pipe and it had been knocked by a ball peen hammer. Even the deafening noise was there too.
He wanted to run for cover, but there was nowhere to go. That was one of the many problems he was going to bring up to the idiots who weren’t listening to Putty… assuming they didn’t turn into the first casualties from a cave in in thirteen years.
When the ground finally settled, Henri ordered the rest of the miners out. This time, she didn’t let anyone argue with her.
But North—and the two men who’d come with him—grabbed Flynn and Putty and dragged them through the tunnels.
The other captains were already at the monitor hub when they arrived. He’d heard the room—if one could call it a room—existed, but hadn’t seen it until now. Every surface in the rough hewn dome was covered in screens
And Flynn had to stop to reorient himself.
“After the tunnel issues were brought to light by Monroe and Stevens we started doing some back tracing on our feeds.” Drea glanced at him, but she was talking to the small, volunteer security force they’d assembled. “There have been strangers in the mines for the past several weeks, maybe longer. We can’t be sure. Someone wiped our archived feeds, so we’re working off the lesser quality backups.
“This worker alerted me to their presence.” Drea tapped on the screen indicating a woman in a hard hat and vest whose face never came into camera.
“With the latest issue in the weighbelt feeder, we need to do full sweeps of the open mines. If you find anything that seems suspicious, you call your assigned captain.”
She outlined a few more procedures and rules, and sent them on their way, before she turned to Flynn and Putty.
His brother had spent her lecture undressing the equipment with his eyes and Flynn doubted he’d heard half of it.
Handing them masks, Drea nodded toward one of the two exits they hadn’t come through. “The air isn’t super clean once we get a kilometer or three inside.”
Seamus and Mischief stood in a dark alcove, watching. A mask secured over face and muzzle. The kid threw him a salute, and glanced away... as if they weren't about to follow them.
Before Flynn had a chance to warn the kid’s mother, North appeared out of the thick air.
The mask muffled his voice. “We can’t turn the blowers back on until we’re sure it’s not gas.”
The mines were eerily still, dust hung in the air, gritty and stagnant.
“Until you’re sure what isn’t gas?”
A low growl rumbled near Flynn’s feet and he looked down as Mischief knocked her shoulder into his calf.
“What is it?”
The question received a high pitched whine in response… and then, Mischief shot off.
Flynn started after her, but he didn’t start running until Seamus and—following after with a string of curses—Drea rushed past.
The only reason Flynn reached the dark store cavern first was that Drea had grabbed them and hauled them back for a world-class scolding. Mischief sat at its entrance, her ears back head lowered so her shoulder blades were sharp peaks.
He cracked a phosphor stick and threw it inside, expecting it to hit the wall, or the ground.
The dull thump was a too familiar sound and he turned back to Drea. “Get them out of here. Right now.”
With a sharp nod, and harsh orders, she sent Seamus away with one of her security volunteers, and—thankfully—Mischief went with them.
“What is it?”
The light slowly brightened and Flynn cast a cursory glance over the interior.
“Your Peace officers never left.”
Their bodies were piled against the back wall. Salt had been heaped around them—most likely to take care of any fluids—and what appeared to be twenty crates marked as air freshener were broken open nearer to the door.
Flicking on her high-beam flashlight, Drea traced over all of that, and then moved the beam toward the ceiling.
“The ventilation shaft. That’s why we smell them now.”
“I guess we could turn the blowers back on, then.”
“No.” Chad said from behind them. “Not until you’ve cleared this up and dealt with the remains. I don’t think any of your crews will thank you for making them breathe in recirculated corpses.”
“Glad you could join us, Doc.” Flynn said before squatting down to look at the nearest crate.
He wasn’t about to go inside. He couldn’t look at the bodies.
But he could stare at the crates… and could see the fabric caught on one of the slats. He could see the clear shoe print.
“I think we know what the Anders impersonator was doing down here….”
“He did this?”
“I’d be willing to bet he was involved. But I’ll save a conviction for after a full inquiry.” He stood and turned away from the bodies, leaning on the tunnel wall just to the right of the entrance. “But it would explain a few things.”
North had been standing at the back of the group, his face was an odd shade of green—not one caused by the lamps. “I’ll get Henry and have this taken care of. Then… I’ll coordinate things from up top.”
He hurried away, and Drea pushed herself to standing. They all watched him go, until Drea finally turned to Flynn. “You’re not the only ex-soldier in these mines who doesn’t want to look at the corpses. Difference is, you were on the front lines long enough that you can ignore the bile roiling in your gut and the harsh reminder that the worst monsters in this universe wear faces exactly like our own.”
Flynn dipped his head in a nod. “I think it’s time we take the walk we’ve been avoiding.”
All but one of them followed. And the man Drea had left behind to guard the corpses looked as though he’d have preferred to join them.
The entrance Flynn had found didn’t lead away from the main shafts, so much as avoid them while cutting through. Whoever was behind this was confident in their course.
Confident men could be the most dangerous.
The tunnel forked about five kilometers in and Flynn paused, looking back to Drea for direction.
“That way is the original tunnel… this one’s new.” She nodded toward the left tunnel and didn’t take her eyes from it as Flynn surveyed them both.
Split up,” he said, pointing two men in the other direction and nodding for his brother to stay with him. “If there’s someone waiting for us, we don’t want to give them an easy snare.”
“What about me?” Drea asked, brow raised, a challenge he imagined she was used to issuing.
“I want you covering my back.”
There was no one in the group he trusted more down here. Not even Putty.
/> “Just don’t do anything that’ll make me shoot you and we’ll be good.” Drea adjusted the mask over her face.
“If you do, I’ll know I deserved it.”
Adjusting his own mask, he wiped at the dark lines smudging over the clear front plate. The further they got inside… the thicker the air was. But his toxicity meter never went off. He didn’t have to stop and turn them back because of the UPD-5 saturation. And that was more worrisome than if he had found the problem they expected….
Thirty-Nine - Kathrynn
The top of the RTF Terrafarm tower provided a beautiful view at this time of day. The horizon was all violet haze.
With its newly fractured moon, the sky was striking.
It faded in and out of a future not yet set. They were at a turning point. The choices made now would determine the fate of more than just this one planet.
There was something about fulcrums like this one.
Her blood sang and her skin crawled with effervescent energy. But giving into that feeling did nothing. The jittering of her nerves wouldn’t steady her blades and now was the time when death would follow her like a shadow as she did the Great Mother’s bidding.
But this high up, her head clear, she could see anything.
Some might say there was nothing to see. Beyond the domes, flat desert spread outward, the contours and outcroppings hidden among the deep ochre and rust colored landscape that reached toward the town, presently a bare smudge on the horizon.
The tactile memories she’d made there were already beginning to fade.
But that was her life. A life she’d accepted and had no intention of leaving.
Dropping down to the catwalk, she slipped into the RTFs main dome, following the long lines that spanned over her hybrid poplars.
Trey stood near the center of the dome, to one side of the massive hydration system that simulated rain, studying the timing unit bolted to its side.
He shifted his shoulders, as though he was wearing an uncomfortable woolen sweater.
He didn’t hear her approach until she let him.
Flinching when he saw her, his confusion quickly turned to a slow smile. “I swear I left you on Caireaux.”
“And you thought I’d stay put just because you weren’t there to drive me home?”
He smiled, but she couldn’t return it.
“You betrayed the Great Mother.”
“I betrayed you, there’s a difference.” He glanced nervously at her shoulder, as if he could see the hilt of her sickles through her. “I was just following orders. I knew you’d find your way off that planet. You’ve always been self-sufficient.”
At least he believed everything he said, so nothing sliced at her.
Trey walked away from her. There was a certain confidence in the act she appreciated. Most of the men in the Lazarai wouldn’t have turned their back on her. Wouldn’t have trusted her not to kill them simply for existing.
Those rumors were the ones that amused her. Not because she enjoyed being painted in such a bleak light… but because they were utterly absurd, and also gave her the ability to do as she pleased.
Dropping down to the catwalk’s secondary level, she kept pace with him. “Do the trees make you miss home?” She asked, when he finally acknowledged she wasn’t going away.
“Home is an abstract term that doesn’t apply right now.”
“Fine, do they make you miss Ludo?”
“No.” His smile was rueful. “Nothing makes me miss Ludo… not right now.”
“Not anymore.” She agreed, knowing he’d understand.
They passed a few of Sophia’s workers, but none of them batted an eye at her, once they looked at him.
“You used to care who knew you were on a planet.”
“Orders are to make our presence known… though not our exact identity.”
“He wants to run Sophia Refuti into the ground socially as well as destroying her fourth most profitable enterprise?” She’d been selling off terrafarming techniques and equipment patents for the last several years. Kat could only guess at their values.
“I don’t know. I’m a soldier. If you recall, that means I let other people ask the questions.”
“And that’s probably why Archie likes you as much as he does.”
“I doubt it.”
She doubted it too. “It’s time for you to leave.” She held open the side gate, ignoring the guard who did take notice of them and leading him toward her borrowed bike.
“I can’t go until what we’ve done here is finished.”
She stopped and turned on her heel. “You were going to stay behind?”
He shrugged. “Holzen wanted someone he could trust here.”
The future hit her like a hard fist to the stomach and she doubled over, cursing as Trey reached out, caught her.
Breathing as normally as she could, trying to find that equilibrium, she clutched at Trey’s arms with an unyielding grip, uncaring what marks she left behind.
She didn’t know how long it took before she was able to ease away from him, to breathe normally. To look up and see the concern on his face.
Trey, for all his posturing and pageantry, didn’t deserve the lies Holzen had fed him.
“He’s leaving you here to die.” The words were cutting even to her own ears. “Archie wanted one less person who might choose my side over his.”
“I thought we were all on the same side.”
“You’re too smart for that.”
He scowled and then looked away. “And now you’re going to say something to convince me I’m wrong?”
Perhaps not say….
She’d done it a handful of times before and as unpalatable as the thought was this time around, she would do it again.
But neither of them would enjoy it.
“I can show you the future of your present path.”
He wet his lips and glanced at her shoulder. “They say… you’d have to kill me if you do that.”
“They also say I have unnatural traffic with the madris. So what do they really know anyway?”
He bit his lower lip, twisting his face around in a scowl. Chewing on himself as he chewed on the option.
“What does that involve?”
“Pain, a kiss… and probably a splitting headache in four hours.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “Probably?”
“I’m not going to have sex with you, and the only other time I’ve done this without that mutual release, the migraine was… intense. You’ll want to be someplace safe with someone you trust when that happens.”
Glancing past her, over her shoulder instead of at it this time, he dipped his head in a hesitant nod.
“Alright.”
She grabbed hold of him. Didn’t give him a chance to change his mind.
Pressing her lips to his, she stared directly into his eyes. Wide with surprise, she saw everything in them, a flash of impossible futures, solidifying into the one that would occur if everything went to plan.
The more contact she had, the easier it was, so she held tightly to his face, unwilling to do anything more.
And when the planet exploded in a bright flash of green and gold—beautiful despite the cost—Trey jerked away.
She let him go.
Let him stumble backward and fall to the ground, gasping.
Hands, claws against the ground, he struggled to breathe.
By the time she found the stability of the present again, he was still shaking. “There’s no ship left for me to take.”
“The temple.” She said, eyes still on the trailing plume of the departing Lazarai.
“Tell them Serbal’s sacrament led you to them. That you need sanctuary, and that the red sister will follow you soon.” Sometimes superstition and myth had their benefits.
“Will that save me… save Jenine?” Kat hadn’t seen that future.
“If the sisters think I’m coming to execute you, they’ll put you in a very safe place and make s
ure no one else can get to you before I do.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting?”
“The Great Mother has plans for you that not even I have seen before now.”
Hesitantly, he nodded. “I’ll wait for you at the temple.”
He staggered away, and she let herself sway against the sharp sensations still coursing through her. What she needed to do would be easy. But letting the others finish what needed doing without her… that would be the hard part.
Trey reached his concealed ground car and peeled away in a dust cloud.
She didn’t wait for him to disappear from sight before she turned and ran.
She had an office to break into, plans to annotate, and a bullet to dodge.
Forty - Sophia
Banks had left her to Maggie’s tender mercies, and threatened her with ambiguous punishment if she stepped foot outside the terrafarm’s gates.
She had enough to check on inside the complex, so she didn’t argue.
Her meanderings, with Maggie a silent shadow behind her, took her through the ant-hill like tunnels under her facility and to the jagged maw she stared at now.
The tunnel wasn’t on her schematics, unfinished or otherwise, and she pulled the scanner from her belt to set it at the entrance.
The sonar-burst popped her ears, but otherwise left her unaffected. The data though…. That left her with more questions than answers.
It didn’t end. Not for the half mile the device could reach.
Wherever the tunnel led, someone was bound to be using her farm—its resources—for ill gains.
She should have waited for Banks. But there was every chance he’d be gone for hours.
Cursing herself, and him too, she turned to Maggie and gave her a weak smile. “Ready to take a walk?”
“You’re the boss.”
Sophia pulled her gun and held it with her flashlamp like Banks had taught her.
Maggie freed her own from her holster.
Cold air swept around her and the ground beneath her feet had been leveled, meant for movement of equipment. The work hadn’t been done by amateurs, though she hadn’t seen any record of….
“Your miners do good work.” Maggie traced the arc of the tunnel ceiling and said, “I hope we can get them back to fill this in again.”