by K. Gorman
Finally, he nodded, then dropped his shoulder and turned toward his wife and daughter with a gesture. “All right. Let’s do this.”
Marc gave a nod to Verina, and the girl slipped away back down the hallway, only the soft tap of her shoes and the swish of her clothes audible. She would keep part of the watch at the entrance of the tunnel, with a stream pulled up on her netlink that hooked into both Jaxx, two floors down, and the dashboard of the Nemina where it sat parked over four kilometers away.
If anyone disrupted any of the connections, Soo-jin and Cookie would send the alert to both Marc and Karin’s netlinks.
Then, they’d run like hell.
“Do her first,” Senton said, and a rough emotion broke his voice as he put his hands around his daughter’s shoulders and prodded her forward.
Her mother made a move to follow, one hand lifting as if on instinct, but the move was cut, and the hand returned to her side, listless. Her stare fell back on Karin, who felt it burn into her, as if she knew something important was about to happen.
Karin’s jaw tightened. She went to her knees. Senton had never mentioned his daughter’s age, but she had to be almost even with Ethan, maybe even a bit younger. She stepped forward, her black eyes reflecting the light on their surface in a wet shine that did not penetrate. Marc closed in behind her, a warm presence.
He pulled out a knife.
“You might want to move,” he said to Senton.
Senton’s attention snapped up, eyes alert, focusing on the knife. “What?”
“The Shadow comes out,” Karin explained. “We have to kill it when it does. Otherwise…”
Otherwise, they’d all be getting their asses beaten. Even with the modern healing station on the Nemina, she still felt the stiffness and bruises from her last encounter with the Shadows.
And that one had been planned.
She shook the memory away and lifted her hands. The girl’s hair felt soft to the touch. Someone had washed it, brushed it. The thought of Senton doing this warmed her toward him. She felt guilty about all the bad things she had thought about him.
He just wanted what was right for his daughter. He just wanted her healed.
She shouldn’t have been so worried or distrustful.
Senton's daughter resembled her mother more than him, with a strong, narrow nose that complemented her aquiline features. The olive tinting to her skin could have been from either parent.
Karin wondered what color her eyes were. “What’s her name?”
He seemed taken aback, as if he hadn’t expected her to ask the question.
“Camille.” He paused, then made an awkward gesture upward to the other Lost. “My wife is Lorraine.”
French, she thought, thinking back to her studies. Old Earth French.
Then, she glanced up at Marc. “Ready?”
“Ready,” he said, hefting the knife.
She nodded to Senton, then gave a meaningful glance between him and the knife.
He took the hint and stepped back, out of range.
Then, she focused on the child, and on the light.
It was hard to describe her abilities. An extension of herself, embedded into her blood and bones right through to the marrow, they fluttered through her skin with a tingling warmth that, if she didn't pay attention, would go unnoticed. The light lived inside her, able to be called forth and retracted—and yet, she could also feel other light sources nearby. The hall at the end burned with them, just as it roared with noise. They cluttered the edge of her mind like data on a computer. If she wanted, she could pull their power to herself and use it.
She'd done it before.
Camille’s breath brushed against her forehead as Karin bowed her head, looking inward for that instinctual power that scientists had programmed into her psyche. It came to her easily, readily—but manipulating it to drive out the dark inside the Lost required focus.
Energy filled her hands, making her skin tingle. She counted in her head, feeling it build.
One.
Two.
Three.
Power exploded in a silent burst, and Camille jerked, suddenly non-compliant. Karin gripped the girl’s head as she struggled, wrists locked and fingers tight around her scalp, willing the light to drive inside her. Camille shook. Her forehead slammed forward, and a burst of numbness smacked through Karin's lips. A warm, coppery taste filled her mouth.
Then the Shadow flew upward in a silent rush. Its half-corporeal form chilled her marrow as it crashed through her. It rose up, a single-toned scream ripping across her psyche, looming much larger than the child below her, great and terrible, ready to swoop down on her.
Marc stabbed it in the head with his knife.
It froze like a bad animation in a video game. Every part of it stopped in space. After a second, it began to fade.
Camille fainted. By the time Karin caught her fall, the Shadow had already turned to wisps in the air.
Karin lowered her to the floor, the action giving her time to slow the roaring of her heart.
“One down,” Marc said, his tone soft and low, words meant only for her.
She nodded, then stood. Flexing her wrists and fingers, she looked toward Senton’s wife—Lorraine.
The woman was still staring at her.
A shock went through her, but she pushed through it, gritting her teeth. Light, children, and people, in that order. Lorraine had every reason to be looking at her.
That didn’t make it any less creepy.
“Thank you.” Senton’s voice trembled. He had gone to Camille, propping her up in his arms as Karin walked away. “I—I don’t know what I would have done if… if…”
“We know,” Marc said impatiently. “Your wife will be fine, too.”
An irritated thought crossed her mind at his seeming indifference to the plight of his wife, but Karin let go of it. She didn’t know the particulars of their relationship, and why shouldn’t he be overjoyed about his daughter? She didn’t have kids herself, nor, for that matter, parents, so she couldn’t imagine how it must feel to have them injured or Lost. He was probably just relieved about his daughter—it was a pretty miraculous thing she could do.
And besides. Maybe he didn’t much like his wife. Or perhaps their marriage had stagnated, and they were keeping it together for Camille’s sake. She’d heard of that happening—and he had been a week away on a space station when they’d picked him up.
Whatever. Not her problem. All she had to do was heal Lorraine Armalan, and she and Marc could skip right on back to the Nemina. Then she’d have her nav systems back and an entire system to lose herself in.
Her mood lifted as she stepped toward Lorraine. The woman stood taller than her, so she had to reach a bit to position her hands—with only two Lost, they hadn’t taped them down like they had the others. Lorraine’s size proved to be some risk, but it was much easier to chance the black eye and get it done fast than hang around long enough to restrain them.
Light peeked out of her palm like a flash of quicksilver. She reined it in with a thought, letting it build on the inside of her skin as she cupped the sides of Lorraine’s head. Best not to let it show too much. They didn’t know much about the Shadows, nor about how much the Shadows could actually see and understand when they were possessing people. She didn’t want to give them any opportunity to counter her. That would just make her job difficult.
She adjusted her grip as Lorraine shifted, her shoulder coming in close to just barely touch Karin’s inner elbow, as if they were sharing an intimate moment. Lorraine’s black eyes stared at her. Karin looked into them as the energy built, focusing on them, making it—
Pain stabbed into her leg. She sucked in a breath. Light stuttered across her palm as she took a step back and looked down.
A syringe stuck out of the front of her thigh. Lorraine pushed the plunger all the way in, then jerked it out. Her face twisted in front of Karin’s, mouth opening as if to say something.
Then Marc
was there.
She stumbled back as he leapt between them. Lorraine yelped, shying away from him, but he slammed her into the wall, wrestling the syringe from her hand. Karin looked down. A drop of blood darkened the blue of her jeans, but it was small, barely visible. A slow, numbing warmth spread up her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” Senton said from the floor. “When I told her what you could do, she—”
“You selfish bitch!” Lorraine spat from the wall. She’d sunk down after Marc had let her go. “How could you just leave?”
Karin’s mouth froze. Her tongue felt heavy, the muscles around her jaws lethargic. “I—”
“Verina!” Marc bellowed up the hall. “Trouble!”
He turned back, brow furrowing as he squinted at the syringe in his hand. Beyond, Verina’s form blinked past the mouth of the hallway as she sprinted away.
She’d go find an intersection to their escape route, make sure it stayed open.
“You could save people.” Lorraine stared at her, the blankness now completely gone from her face. Her eyes were still black, though they were narrowed, full of emotion like no Lost was capable of.
Contacts, Karin realized belatedly.
“Why?”
Karin struggle to form words. “I—my sister, she—”
“Cyclozine,” Marc spat. He glanced around for a second, then threw the syringe down to the wall before turning her way. Strong hands lifted under her arms. At some point, she’d sunk to the floor. “Come on, let’s get you out.”
He hauled her to her feet. Then, when she wobbled, he extended the motion to lift her across his shoulder. One arm latched tight around her legs. She had a good, backwards view of the hallway as they left, Senton on the right near the wall, holding his daughter tight in his lap, Lorraine on the left.
Lorraine's eyes, full of blame, burned into Karin’s mind as Marc carried her out.
Chapter 4
“Don’t worry, it’s just a sedative,” Marc said. “Nothing permanent.”
The stairwell echoed with the quick-paced stomp and thud of his boots. More than once, Karin winced at how close the ceiling ran. His shoulder jammed into her ribs like a jackhammer.
Once out of the public eye, Arcin-17’s halls were not anywhere close to ‘pretty.’ Even the last corridor, with the empty, gutted stores and neglected maintenance schedule, had been better than this. Here, concrete met concrete in a tight, packed maze with no sense for comfort or, as far as she could tell, safety. Only the rusty handrail provided any balance for the drop. More than once, she felt the closeness of a light burn over her head as they passed.
At least there was light.
Marc’s netlink chimed in his pocket. On the next landing, he paused to pull it out, then resumed his run. His voice rasped, light and breathless. “Tell me some good news.”
“Route A’s jammed. Cops are waiting.”
“That’s not good news, Cook,” he growled. “What about B?”
“B’s clear. Verina’s almost to position. What’s going on?”
“They jabbed her with Cyclozine.”
“Eww.”
Karin sagged as they reached the next landing. The numbing had spread to her face, and all of her muscles felt like lead. If Marc’s running hadn’t been jostling her…
She bit her lip hard, using the pain to keep her eyes open.
He slowed at the next junction. A small, tight hallway cut off from the left, and a series of pipes bent to follow it in. A warm, damp smell came to her nose. When her hand brushed the wall, its rough texture scratched at her knuckles. Further down, toward the next set of stairs, a plain metal door sat in the wall under a light.
“Hanging up now,” Marc said. “Call again if anything changes.”
He fumbled to return the netlink to his pocket, then wrapped his arms around her waist and back.
The world swung around her. A second later, concrete pressed against the stubs of her fingers. She pushed herself against the wall as he stood back up, and grimaced as the room shifted and rocked around her. It felt like she was on a boat.
She focused on him as he fumbled through his pockets, sucking in a breath and struggling to keep her attention afloat. “Cyclozine?”
“Yes,” he said. He pulled out a small kit and frowned down at its contents. “It’s a fairly standard drug. I brought some stimulants to counter it.”
The swaying became too much. She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall. “Are they legal?”
“Technically, yes, but…”
“You’re not a doctor,” she finished for him. “And the human body is a complicated machine.”
Especially her body. She had no idea what the scientists had been doing to her for all those years, but she did know it had involved many, many injections and more than a few surgeries.
“Right,” he said. “But I have done this before.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Back in training. We did all kinds of things. Had to experience the effects of drugs first hand so we wouldn’t panic in case of gas.”
Now that made her open her eyes. “The military got you high?”
He caught her tone with a brief flash of teeth. “Fallon is a bit weird. No wonder they left the Alliance.”
She snorted. As far as militaries went, Fallon had the largest. It had technically been the first empire, but that had been a long time ago, back when they had still been doing remedial terraforming on Belenus. The Alliance had always sat uneasy with its imperial eccentricities, but Fallon’s orbit put it between Belenus and Enlil on the outside and Nova Earth on the inside, which made it hard to simply cut off.
It also put the ERL Gate within its easy reach for a quarter of the inner planet's year.
But nothing catastrophic had happened since Fallon had broken. Even the Border Wars had been small skirmishes, set on moons that only governments and mining companies cared about.
Trade, travel, and contact with Nova Earth went unscathed.
Marc leaned down. She didn’t resist when he lifted her arm and pushed her sleeve up. The second needle bit into her forearm just past the place her tattoo had once been.
“You’re going to feel like shit,” he said, capping the needle before returning it to the box. “But you’ll be awake.”
“Good. Maybe I’ll even be able to walk.”
“Maybe. Until then, though…”
He wasted no time asking for her permission. His hands went under her knees and shoulders, and he picked her up. The ceiling swayed above them as he turned down the next set of stairs and continued their flight.
He was right. She did feel like shit. The drugs kicked in like a gunshot, and a rolling queasiness crashed through her body in waves. Her eyes felt heavy and dry, but wide awake, and the pressure in her head shifted into something lighter and more acute. A tingling spread through her muscles.
He veered right after several landings—she hadn’t kept count—and squeezed them in through a narrow door and down a cramped hallway. A patch of shadow covered them as they slipped across the threshold, and she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the new, dimmer area. Pipes and vents bulged from the ceiling, and the concrete sat stained with yellow-brown moisture. Hanging lights buzzed overhead, some so close, their heat burned into her hair.
She tapped his shoulder as they came to a second stairwell, this one wider and less industrial—one of the university paths? They had come through a door first—and he paused.
“I think I can walk now.” She squirmed, one arm going to his shoulder to brace herself.
“Good. I’m not sure how long I can keep that up.”
Sweat glistened on his forehead. As he let her down, she caught a whiff of his smell, a mix of the Nemina's circulated air and fabric detergent tinged with salt. His arm shook as he lowered her to the ground, but he didn't look anywhere close to tired.
“If Cookie were here, he’d be making fat jokes,” she said.
“Yet another reason he wasn’t
on board with the original crew.” He frowned as she stumbled. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes.” She flapped a hand at him and tried to ignore the rush of blood to her limbs. For a second, her heart seemed to beat so hard that it overpowered her lungs. She sucked in a slow breath as spots filled her vision. “Just give me a moment.”
Marc’s netlink chimed.
Sol, she thought as he took it back out. I'm not going to get a minute.
“What is it?” he said.
“Alliance and security are crawling the place.” Cookie’s voice faded. They heard him mutter, as if he were leaning away from the microphone to confirm something. “They’ve blocked part of B Route, too.”
“Where?”
“Under the university. They’ve got a patrol in the corridor. I’ve got the Nemina logged into their feeds. I think we can still do the route if we’re careful. It’s only one patrol.”
Marc’s teeth grit together, but he turned and waved Karin down the stairs. They moved slowly. She peeked over the railing as she went. Their current stairway continued down another two floors, all of them dim except for the last one, which brightened at the bottom. A broad Hegir-Nuna University banner confirmed her earlier suspicion than they’d wandered into one of the schools. Below, the portraits of twenty headmasters and mistresses were mounted on the wall, along with several signs that called for silence.
Maybe they were close to the library. Or maybe the university just had a really uptight view of its hallway regulations.
She shook her head. Either was believable. Despite the location of its campus, HNU was known for its more straight-laced, disciplinarian approach to studies as opposed to Ninurta and South Francis universities.
“You think we can get by?” Marc’s voice rose to express his doubt. “How many?”
“One patrol, two patrolmen. And I think one is a girl.”
Karin raised a silent eyebrow at Marc, who rolled his eyes skyward with a patient, long-suffering breath. “Don’t let that cloud your judgment. You’re sure we can get through?”