Breakaway

by Michelle Diener

  Until she'd drawn him into the secret passageways of the Under Deck, he'd believed what Ronald Fadal had done at the mines was the biggest coup the architect had pulled off against the Cores.

  “Trouble?”

  He turned, saw Sofie standing just inside the room. There was something shy about the way she stood, all dewy from her shower, her hair damp, with tendrils curling around her face.

  Something squeezed his chest, hard. He wanted this every day. He wanted her every day.

  He held out the jah he'd made her to tempt her closer.

  “Thanks.” Her smile as she moved forward to take it made him feel a little giddy, like he'd given her something infinitely more valuable.

  Then he remembered what she didn't know about him, about the mines, and he wondered if he'd get that kind of smile again.

  Finkle cleared his throat. “When do you want to leave?”

  “Leave?” She curved both hands around the mug, as if to warm them.

  Leo fought his irritation. Finkle was behaving as usual. It was him who'd changed. “I have to go to Phansi.”

  She paused, mug halfway to her mouth, and flicked her gaze between him and Finkle. “Neither of you seem happy about it.”

  “Finkle doesn't want me to go, and neither do I, but I have to. I want you to come with me.”

  “Come with you? To the mines?” She said it slowly.

  “It's dangerous, as I've said, and it'll take at least two days if we stop to rest, but I have to go and I don't want to leave you here without me.”

  She took a sip of jah. Swallowed. “I've never even been to the mines. How could I help?”

  “Because your father built those mines, before he started on Felicitos, and he may have built some of his tricky Halatian secrets into the structures there, too.”

  She took another sip. “That wouldn't surprise me, but there are miners out there who might know about it. A few have looked me up over the years when they've come in to Tether Town. They probably know more about what my father did out there than I do.”

  He went still at that.

  Some of the miners had looked her up?

  He wondered whether they'd been checking on her, wondered if they'd felt guilt at what they were doing, and then he wondered why none of them had ever raised the matter with him.

  He would have to find out who had approached her so he could compensate them if they'd helped her and her sister out, when it should have been him doing it.

  He forced himself to speak. “Even if you're right, I still want you with me.”

  She glanced at Finkle, who pretended to study his screen, then turned to Leo with a sigh. “What am I missing here, Leo?”

  He was damned if he would say anything in front of Finkle. “I'll tell you everything when we're on the way to the mine. But right now, I need to organize transportation and supplies for us to take on the journey, and I would appreciate it if you could take Finkle up to the Under Deck. I'd like someone to watch what's happening up there while we're away.”

  She studied him, as if assessing his sincerity. Sighed again. “All right.”

  He raised his cup of jah, tapped it against her own. “Finkle?”

  “I should go with you to the mine.”

  Leo shook his head. “Not while there's a treasure trove of information to be found here, and not while that war ship is sitting in one of the Cores warehouses.”

  “Then Dee,” Finkle said.

  “I'll let you figure out who should come. Only two people, plus Sofie and myself.”

  Finkle tapped at his screen. “I'll get a team together, and then Miss Erdo and I can leave.”

  Sofie smiled politely at him, and swallowed the last of her jah. “I can hardly wait.”

  The gloves she'd borrowed from Leo were itchy against her back and stomach.

  Sofie had put them under her shirt, fixing them in place with a scarf she'd wound around her torso, and she squirmed as the rough edge of a seam rubbed her raw.

  “All right?” Finkle asked.

  “Fine.” She smiled brightly at him over her shoulder.

  He'd brought Sam from the team that helped her move the night before along with him, and the two men seemed to be constantly pulling themselves up short, as if they were about to pass her on the stairs, only to remember she was the one who was leading the way.

  She faced forward and kept going.

  She was climbing as fast as she could, and she'd made the decision not to let them rattle her.

  Up ahead she saw the image painted on the side of the wall she and Leo had found last night, the strange, almost naive drawing of a person slitting their wrist, with a pool of blood below.

  She said nothing about it as she passed it, and neither did Finkle or Sam.

  When she reached the top, she put her hand on the wall and heard the hum of the scan.

  From the sound Finkle made at the back of his throat, it seemed he at last grasped the necessity of keeping her around.

  “It only works for you?” he asked as she stepped into the secret corridor and held the door for them.

  She nodded, and rubbed the gloves under her clothes. “You did pack enough food and water for a while, right? Leo and I will be gone at least five days.” In fact, she was worried they'd be longer, and she'd tried to talk Leo and Finkle out of taking someone up here without her around to bring them back out.

  “I've got plenty of supplies. I've survived out at the mines in the snow,” Sam told her. “Living in climate controlled conditions in the Under Deck will not be an issue.”

  She had warned them. They were big girls and boys.

  She started moving again, but she realized neither man was behind her, breathing down her neck as they had done from the start, so she stopped and looked back.

  Both of them were staring through the one-way wall at the foyer, at a small group of Cores execs talking next to the lift.

  “How can we hear them?” Finkle's voice was reverent.

  “Here.” She showed them the dial, and Sam and Finkle fiddled with it for a bit.

  “I thought we were in a hurry,” she said.

  Finkle pushed away from the wall. “We are.”

  They followed her down the passageway, past the offices, and then up the stairs to the Deck.

  Sam whistled. “The boss told us about it, but seeing it . . .”

  “You'll need to prop the door open,” Sofie told him. “I think only I can get through.”

  Sam pulled a small, heavy doorstop out of his pack, and Sofie reopened the door that had shut behind them so he could wedge it in. “All good.”

  Sofie put her hand in her pocket and brought out a thin transparent bag. “In case of emergency,” she said, and lifted up her shirt to pull out the gloves. She put them into the bag.

  Finkle stared at her.

  She shrugged, looked over at Sam. “It might not work, but it's worth a try if you need to get down before I'm back. They should be covered in my DNA.”

  Sam took the bag with a nod. Gave Finkle a jaunty salute. “I'll be in constant touch.” He tapped his ear, and Finkle nodded.

  He looked covetously out at the warehouse, and then turned away.

  Sofie followed him out, and Sam came behind her, without his pack.

  Looked like he was going to make the warehouse his base of operations.

  When they left Sam behind and started down the stairs, Finkle went first this time, murmuring into his comm set. Sofie guessed he was testing the connection with Sam while he still had her around to get him back in if there was a problem.

  From the back and forth, though, it seemed to be working.

  She slowed as she passed the image her father had painted, trying to figure it out.

  He'd died when she was eighteen. In all the time she'd had with him, never had she seen anything on this level of strange.

  She'd never believed the story told by the med tech about what he'd tried to do on his death bed. Never believed any of it.
r />   Now she did.

  There might even be a kill switch, she acknowledged for the first time.

  She saw Finkle was far below her, but he'd stopped and was waiting, looking up at her.

  She jogged a little faster.

  By this afternoon, she and Leo would be off to Phansi.

  She'd never left Tether Town, never ventured anywhere close to the escarpment, with its dangers and wonders.

  She realized the flutter in her stomach was nerves and anticipation.

  She'd wanted to go to the mines for a long time. Had begged her father over and over to take her with him.

  Too dangerous, he'd said, which had made her laugh. Tether Town, where you could be grabbed as you walked past an alleyway, or knifed in the street, was dangerous, too.

  Especially for two young girls whose father was never around to protect them.

  They'd had Zyr, and Fallia, and, she'd thought at the time, Veld. But her father hadn't known that.

  She saw, with surprise, that Finkle had stopped at the correct level, even though there was nothing to distinguish this floor from the others.

  He was good.

  She brushed past him to get to the keypad, and he gripped her upper arm.

  “I don't know what to make of you.”

  She looked into his eyes, a mix of browns, blues and sage green in a face of warm brown. “I don't care.”

  She saw the briefest smile tug at his lips. “Don't put my boss in danger.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “So far, he seems to be doing quite well on that front all by himself. In fact, I've been the one hauling him out of it.”

  Fink released her. “I don't know what to make of that, either. But you bother me. The timing of when you caught his eye, and now your secret passageways and your connections to the resistance. It just doesn't sit right.”

  “Well, you better keep an eye on me, then,” she told him.

  He grunted. “Be sure I will. And if I'm not there, someone else will be.”

  She smiled at him, tapped out a random number and pushed the door open. “You a loyal guard, Fink?”

  “Count on it.”

  She shook her head. “Life has taught me not to count on anything.”

  Chapter 22

  Night was falling, and from her hover, Dee signaled to him that they should start looking for a place to stop.

  He signaled back his agreement, and they both shifted out of auto drive and lifted the hovers up to get a better vantage point.

  Up until now, the hovers had flown three feet above the ground, following the route that had been created by the massive transports that moved the ore from Phansi to Tether Town. Years of using the same route had blasted the soil from the rocks, creating a road lined with high dunes of dust on either side.

  There was no way they'd spend the night next to the road, though.

  Besides the real possibility of being hit by a transport, the Cores sent people up and down this route weekly.

  Leo didn't need a Cores snoop coming upon them and asking questions.

  The mountains looked close, but from long experience, Leo knew they were another six or seven hours away at least. They would have to find somewhere to camp out on the plains.

  Without the need to discuss it, he took the right hand side of the road, and Dee, with Carver hanging on behind her, took the left, and they both rose even higher.

  Behind him, Sofie shifted.

  Since they'd left Tether Town four hours ago she'd been tucked up against his back, hanging on with arms around his waist.

  It was a feeling he could see himself learning to crave.

  As Dee rose up, Carver stood and twisted at the waist, looking back to check if they had anyone coming up on them from behind.

  They could have had a scanner fitted, kept better track, but that worked both ways. Scanners were easy to pick up, bright and clear as a hello wave.

  Most people took their chances without one, including the Cores.

  They'd mostly stamped out the hijackers--the Cores weren't averse to dealing with crime when it affected them directly--but there were always a few mad or desperate enough to try and take a transport for the riches inside it. If they could sell the ore, in most cases it was enough to set them up for life.

  That kind of one-off score inspired some to take the risk.

  None had managed it for a while, though. Or, not that Leo had heard.

  Still, no sane traveler would risk spending the night beside the road.

  Dee peeled off with a wave of her arm, and Leo followed her as she led them up a slight rise and down the other side.

  It looked like everywhere else at first glance; choppy, uneven ground that was too exposed, but when they got to the bottom of the incline, he saw there was a rock overhang and just around the corner, lush greenery that suggested water.

  “Been here before?” he asked as they parked the hovers between two massive bushes tucked close to the hillside.

  Dee nodded. “My mom found it back when she worked the transport crews. She showed me years ago when I worked with her, but it's tricky to find.”

  “Ever have to run off hijackers when you worked a transport crew?” Sofie asked as she slid to the ground.

  Dee glanced at her. “A few times.”

  “I didn't think the hijackers went for Gaudier transports. At least, that's the rumor.”

  “And we make sure to keep that rumor alive.” Carver winked at her as he pulled off his helmet.

  Sofie snorted out a laugh. “It's working. I've never heard anyone brag they've taken one of yours.”

  There was silence.

  “That's because no one who's ever tried has managed to live long enough to brag.” Dee stored her helmet in the long, deep storage space at the back of the hover.

  Leo winced. His outfit was brutal, but for the first time, that bothered him. He didn't want Sofie to see him as no better than the Cores.

  Sofie shrugged. “It's not like they don't know the deal going in.”

  Dee blinked, and Leo realized she'd deliberately been baiting Sofie, trying to scare her off.

  He caught his lieutenant's eye but she stared back blandly.

  They thought they were protecting him, which would be hilarious if Sofie wasn't their target.

  With her, he was long past saving.

  “Well, are we going to stand around, or are we going to set up camp?” Carver asked. “I'm starving.”

  “Thanks for dealing with those oppos for me the other day.” Sofie glanced over at Carver, then spooned up more stew. “It was you following me, wasn't it?”

  He paused a moment, then nodded. “Sorry I scared you down the alley in the first place.”

  She noticed he kept his words soft and didn't look in Leo's direction, as if he were trying not to attract Leo's notice when it came to this.

  Had he been in trouble for it, she wondered?

  “Thought you were from the Cores,” she explained. “And you thought I was an untrained admin clerk.”

  He shrugged. “First rule of business; never assume.”

  Leo looked over at them, and Sofie sent him a bright smile.

  He didn't smile back, and she bet he'd worked out the direction of their conversation.

  Carver must have thought the same, because his shoulders were hunched.

  “Well, I appreciated you taking them down.” She patted his arm and stood, walking to the small waterfall pouring down the side of the rock to rinse her bowl.

  They weren't drinking the water--they'd brought enough supplies they didn't need to take the chance--but the constant rain of the last few days must have fed the source of this spring, because it was leaping off the rock it was so full.

  Leo joined her. He and Dee had been talking in low tones on the other side of the fire and she moved aside so he could rinse his bowl, too.

  “Want to take a walk?” she asked.

  They hadn't had a chance to talk since Finkle had brought her back from t
he tower. They'd packed clothes and food, and set off straight away in the two long, sleek hovers, and there had been no way to talk after that.

  He nodded, but she read reluctance in the way he put her bowl with his and stacked them with the others.

  She'd been wondering what it was he needed to tell her since last night, but whatever it was, he thought she would be unhappy about it.

  The thing was, she couldn't think of a thing he could tell her that would make her angry.

  She'd known about Leo Gaudier long before she met him. Knew the rumors.

  That he was somehow cheating the Cores--that the Cores had sold him old, used-up mines but that he somehow managed to make them viable again, and it had driven the Cores mad trying to work out how he did it.

  That he was running transport for the independent prospectors as well as his own operations, and that no one who dealt with him ever went back to using Cores transport services.

  That alone made the Cores suspicious of what he was up to, but they'd never managed to pin him down on anything.

  Unless he was about to tell her he was actually collaborating with the Cores, she couldn't see a single reason why she would be angry about anything he'd done.

  She waited for him at the edge of the fire's glow.

  He joined her, flicked on a bright light, and took her hand to lead her through the bushes.

  The vegetation thinned, and after five minutes they came to a massive rock, at least three times higher than Leo.

  He helped boost her up the face of it, and she clambered to the top, which was almost flat.

  She spent the time waiting for him to join her by turning slowly to look around her.

  The camp was visible by the muted glow of light, obscured by the bushes. In all other directions, the plain stretched out, undulating and not as flat as it looked from the distance. It wasn't as barren as it appeared from Felicitos, either.

  There were small, succulent plants everywhere, growing through cracks in the rock and over the ground.

  As Leo pulled himself up, much more smoothly and effortlessly than she had, something lumbered through the undergrowth.