by Hanna, K. T.
Bastian smiles and tries to figure out ways to keep them from checking the air filtration systems. “We’re going to have to check a few things first.—new traders, new sources of food or water, perhaps some sort of flu or other virus.”
Carly nods again. “I was so scared I was broken. This is all I’ve ever had…” and this time she doesn’t swallow the tears. Nimue moves to console her. With her own empathy evident through touch, she can exert calm over Carly in more subtle ways.
“Give me a moment.” He takes a deep breath and seats himself in the chair. “I need to scan your minds and see if there’s anything we need to be worried about.”
“Mind-sifting?” Dirk speaks the words with a type of reverence, interlaced with a bit of fear.
Bastian nods. “It’s nothing drastic, but I want to make sure someone hasn’t been trying to influence you.” It’s the best he’s been able to come up with on short notice. “I need you to link hands with each other, and then with me.” Nimue slips her hand into his left, and he shoots her a warning immediately not to try anything. Carly’s grip is fierce, just like the girl.
“Ready?” They nod and close their eyes.
Touching each of their minds in turn, Bastian makes sure he’s there just long enough to appear to be checking them for any danger. He doesn’t force anything—there’s no need to hurt them to keep up a pretense. Instead, he quickly scans each of them for loyalty to the GNW. Only Dirk’s is solidly established. Carly wavers more than he thought she would, and Nimue obviously benefited from her time with Sai. The other two are only loyal to the jobs that keep them from being fuel for the grid.
He lets go and smiles, putting his gloves back on quickly. “This isn’t your fault. I’ll let Deign know there’s nothing wrong with your abilities. We have to look elsewhere.”
Now he has to warn Deign to communicate to the Damascus that the outer PCs are not Exiled and figure a way to keep the grid workers safe and out of the line of fire.
Sai flattens herself against the wall, willing both her legs and the very slight adrium sheen to her body armor to blend into it. Dom motions for her to shush as they both wait in the alleyway. Which, come to think of it, is far too narrow to be an alleyway. It’s really more of a crawlspace. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to imagine a much larger place, tries to calm her breathing.
“Shield or stop thinking so loud.” Dom’s voice is barely above a whisper, so soft it could have been a sound carried with the wind.
She nods and clamps down on the bricks that make up her wall. There are no cracks, and she frowns at Dom having eavesdropped. Again. She pauses, watching for Dom’s signal, all the while completely certain that there’s something just not right about the whole situation.
“Now,” Dom breathes the word and moves out. She follows him, in tune with his shadow. He stops abruptly and motions to stay silent. Something moves up ahead, something big and noisier than anything else they’ve come across.
She holds perfectly still as a huge, skulking thing standing easily eight feet tall looks down the alleyway where they’re standing. It raises its face and appears to sniff the air for several long seconds. Sai tries not to move, to meld herself into the shadows. She can feel the familiar prickle at the base of her skull as the adrium parasite tickles at her thoughts. Only in times where she might react with fear, where she might just give in, does it try to get past her guard. At least, for now. The constant awareness is exhausting. She shakes her head to clear the thoughts and focuses on their stalker.
It stands in silhouette, and its features are a mystery to her. But it’s tall, and it’s a machine, and the whir of its gears plays a strange sort of staccato beat to her mind. Almost lulling, almost familiar, but just out of her grasp.
Apparently satisfied with what it does or doesn’t sense, it backs up, slinking, and grunts a few times. Human shapes gather around it, and there’s a distinct metallic clink as they walk brusquely away.
“Don’t see that every day,” she quips softly only to receive a glare from Dom.
“It’s adrium, vaguely Damascus. I really hope that’s not what I think it is.” His voice has a hollow sound to it, much like some of the dominos before they found themselves. If he’s that shaken up by their visitor and the patrols, then maybe there is a need to worry after all. Maybe this is Owen’s revision. She resists the urge to reach out and squeeze his hand because he doesn’t take well to it in the field. Dom looks around and nods.
They move out again, in perfect unison. She can barely make out the rear end of the patrol that’s moving away from them, which means they’re shorter on time than she thought. It’s difficult not to hyperventilate, not to panic, but she manages not to constantly refresh her wrist’s display.
The grate in this PC is on the ground, and she knows, with complete positivity, that the second patrol is about to turn the corner. She can feel it in the alien way they move, in the faint echo of their footfalls from the other alley. Jumping down into the beginning of the sewers, she allows her legs to absorb the impact and hopes that, as Dom pulls the cover back over the top of them, the smell masks their scent.
Moments later, metallic footfalls echo down to them. She moves quickly with Dom to the side of the huge drain that goes all the way through the center of the earth for all she knows. There’s barely time to leverage themselves to a holding spot as the footfalls clank over the lid they just shut. Her upper body aches, but Sai shrugs it off and refuses to let it bother her.
Falling is not an option.
The footsteps pause for a second that seems longer than all the hours they traveled from Alpha. Just when she thinks they won’t leave at all, their measured marching resumes. She sighs with relief and shimmies around in front of Dom, straining her shoulder muscles and refusing to look down as she approaches the sill to the ventilation shafts.
With several of these trips behind them now, she’s far more used to the climb. It still hurts, strains, and constantly challenges her, but now she can take the lead some of the time, which she’s much more comfortable with. She reaches out to grab the next sill just in time to hear another faint echo of a patrol about to pass overhead. This timing is getting far too close, and Sai’s heart sits in her throat. The constant anxiety is wearing down the barrier, and her parasite is slowly beating down the door. Would it really be so bad to just let it? Just for once? Let it feed off her core, catapult her power levels…
Dom clicks his fingers in front of her face, and she snaps out of her thoughts. He gestures to her pack, but Sai shakes her head. Neither of them know exactly what’s ahead; she might need the added advantage the spiked gloves lend her. Dom shrugs and phases through the two-fan ventilation shaft, leaving her in his wake.
The corridors in this facility are immaculate, and the constant patrols can be heard easily. It seems the closer they get to Central, the more difficult these infiltrations are becoming.
Simple even, but something tugs at the back of Sai’s mind and gives her a bad taste in her throat. Her blood runs cold, and she realizes she wants to do so much more than just knock them out.
She shakes her head again and bites back on the worry. Dom warned her about the parasite, but lately it’s becoming a struggle.
Dom takes the right, Sai takes the left, and the guards are unconscious before they even realize they’ve been grabbed. Sai lowers herself carefully and looks up at Dom, grinning widely. He shrugs and strikes a pose.
In the midst of a dangerous mission, it seems obscenely inappropriate, and Sai can’t help but stifle a laugh. He points to his wrist to indicate time and then to his lips for her to be quiet. She nods and watches as he checks the feed he’s looped in place for the monitors in these hallways. If they hadn’t known the cameras were there, they’d miss them every time. Sometimes Kayde’s information proves invaluable.
It’s amazing what technology can do these days. Even with some of it lost forever after the Disaster Era. She inches to the side and glances around the
corner. The corridor is clear, and they have two more sets of guards to take care of.
The second set is just as easy as the first, and uneasiness settles in the bottom of her stomach like uncooked dough. Isn’t there a saying about things coming in threes?
Dom shrugs at her. “Don’t overthink it. Bastian would let you know if you were in danger.”
“Then why the patrols? Why that…thing?” Sai wrings her hands and doesn’t notice until one of the glove’s spikes digs into her fingers. She scowls.
“That might be one of Owen’s new additions. It’s like them to send it to a PC that isn’t Central so they can keep it away from their people while they test its capabilities. It’s still fresh and probably not fully integrated into the Damascus network, so it’ll be more inclined to answer to what it’s instructed to do.” His eyes scan every possible avenue. She wonders if the parasite is trying to take control of him, too.
They reach the double doors barricading the filtration system from the rest of the facility. All the components are newer here. Sai feels like she’s breaking into a hospital.
“On three.” Dom nods at the bar and the keys they have from two of the patrols. Inserting them into the locks on either side of the door, they look at each other and count.
“One. Two. Three.”
The keys twist and the bar becomes available, granting them entrance.
“We’re lucky we don’t need fingerprints or a retina scan,” Sai murmurs, and Dom stops mid-stride to glance back at her before continuing on.
“You had to say that.”
She raises an eyebrow at his back. “Not suspicious are you, Dom?”
He shrugs again, and the gesture is far more fluid than she remembers upon first meeting him. “Not really, but it’s best not to tempt fate, right? Anyway, if I remember correctly, they had to rebuild this facility not too long ago, along with the filtration systems and generators. Most of the others have been around for decades, if not longer. This is probably the nicest one you’ll see—enjoy it.”
Sai laughs softly as they make their way to the hub. She can still feel the prickle up her spine, the lead in her stomach, the uncanny sense of something not being right.
But nothing happens, not even when Dom finishes the insertion of Ebony into the system.
“It’s really okay, Sai.”
She tries to believe him as they’re pulling the bodies of the prone soldiers back into the hall, into three separate parts of their routes. It’s just hard to shake the feeling she’s being watched, even as she sees Dom release the cameras just before they begin to ascend the shaft again. The gnawing at her feels like it’s about to gobble her up from the inside.
“You’ve really got to stop being so nervous about this, Sai.” Dom’s tone is even and calm as he switches the console over to navigation mode.
“I’m not being nervous,” she says, picking at nonexistent fluff on her armor and trying to ignore the pain that’s been shooting down her spine since they returned to Mele.
Dom pauses and raises an eyebrow at her.
“Fine.” Sai crosses her arms and folds gently into her seat, hissing in discomfort. “But it’s not nerves, it’s a gut feeling.”
“You don’t usually ignore your gut feelings,” he says and finally sits down as Mele begins the trek to the next PC. “Why are you ignoring it now?”
“I’m not ignoring it. Telling you about it is tantamount to not ignoring it.” Sai throws her head back and resists the urge to scream—barely. “What I mean to say…” And she almost surprises herself with how calm she sounds. “…is you’re now aware of my gut feeling and should help me act on it if the situation warrants.”
“That’s logical.” He seems pleased with her response. “I will agree to it then.”
“Thank you.” She throws her hands up in the air and narrowly avoids uttering was that so hard out loud. She’s tired and knows it’s getting to her, making her snarky and irritable. Instead, she keeps it in her head. It sounds much more smug that way.
“You’re sitting stiffly.”
Sai hesitates, but she knows he’ll just keep pushing or giving her that sideways glance. “Back problems. Sometimes the junctures flare up.”
Dom does the side-eye now. “Talked to Jeffries?”
“It’s from overstimulation.” She rolls her shoulders, trying to loosen the tension. “It’s still a rather recent graft.”
Dom frowns. “Should you be doing this then?”
“Who else are you going to take, Dom?” Only once she says it, Sai realizes he could take Dael or Joe or any of the dominos now. But Dom is nice enough not to answer at all and focuses his attention back on the navigation system.
“How long to the next stop?” she asks after realizing she’s been staring at him for a while now. His features blend in and out of the darkness. Only his silver eyes remain constant when he’s conserving energy.
“A few hours.” He frowns and blinks a couple of times, eyes momentarily illuminating the dark. “Actually we might not make it. We’ll be restricted to nights for the rest of these, and I think we’re going to miss our window. That last one took a lot longer than I’d anticipated.”
“That last one blew.” She looks out of the panel at the side and frowns, trying to avoid wondering if Dom’s affinity for blending with the darkness comes from the parasite. It’s still almost pitch-black outside, no moon to illuminate anything. “You sure we’re not going to make it in time?”
“Positive.”
“And why are you positive that great hulking thing was Owen’s new and improved lieutenant?” She knows why, but doesn’t really want to admit it herself.
Dom shrugs. “I’m not positive. I just put two and two together and got four, which I know surprises you, but there’s little we can do to change that.”
The smirk curling the corner of his lip is almost unnoticeable, and Sai wants for nothing more than a pillow to throw squarely at his head. Instead, she decides to change the subject as a chuckle escapes her despite her best efforts.
“You mentioned it could just be that PC? Security-wise?”
Dom nods.
“Why that PC? What the hell happened to it that would require such an extensive refit?”
Dom flips the autopilot switch and turns to her, one arm draped casually over the back of his chair. “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.” What an odd and infuriating question. Sai scowls at him and crosses her arms, ignoring her back’s twinges.
“Sorry, I thought you were being facetious.” He looks down at his feet for a moment and then back up, the full kaleidoscope of color running through his eyes. “I thought you realized we were in your home PC.”
Sai shakes her head. Fifty-Two. 2350. PC 17. The old facility designation elicits a wave of nausea. She’s not sure why she blocked out the PC they were in. “Seventeen. I didn’t realize we were in PC 17…”
The walls sliding. The rubble showering down around her. Bastian reaching out a hand and beckoning her to come with him. The fire and the water, the smell of burning flesh—all very overwhelming and powerful, even if it is just a memory. “Is that why…why the entire underneath was rebuilt?”
Dom nods and speaks softly. “What you disrupted was nowhere near the capital building, but the passageways run under the PCs. While the dampers thankfully worked, the basements are still linked together through years of tunneling. There’s a direct route from the Central building to their underground engine rooms, and the filtration plant sits about half a block to the side of what used to be your home.”
Sai looks up at him, suddenly understanding everything with horrifying clarity. Her stomach twists in knots that lend gravity to the strange gut feelings she had while in there. “I not only killed everyone in those buildings, I could have killed the entire PC…”
“The damage you did wasn’t that bad. And you didn’t kill everyone. There were survivors—I promise you that.”
&nb
sp; “How do you know?” She pushes back on the panic she can feel rising because the darkness hovers at the edge with glee, but it’s difficult.
“Because I was there, Sai. I helped Bastian after he delivered you. Myself and a crew of the other dominos were sent in to save anyone we could. Our abilities make structural damage far less dangerous for us.” He leans forward and lays a hand on her shoulder, his eyes suddenly back to the warm liquid silver she needs to see. “I’m sorry—I really thought you realized.”
“They never told me who I killed and who I didn’t specifically. I thought everyone died. They held that over me the whole time. Apparently they didn’t think it was a good idea to tell me I’d almost devastated the entire PC.” She coughs, all the moisture gone from her throat, and reaches up to entwine her fingers with Dom’s, like he might anchor her here in the now. Breathing is difficult, and she shakes her head to try and get her body to react in a more normal way.
“This stretch is easy enough for Mele to navigate. Her autopilot is almost a true one now, thanks to Twen…Dael and Evan.”
Sai smiles at him, knowing he deliberately mixed up the name to get her smile. Dom’s memory is far too precise to have actually forgotten something like that. He reaches down and reclines her chair as far as it goes, his hand still firm in her own.
He crouches down and brushes her hair out of her eyes. His fingers linger on the shorter strands, left over from the operation that linked her synapses to the adrium spinal column implant. For a few seconds he focuses on her intently, those silver eyes like a pinwheel, lulling her to relaxation. When he speaks, his voice is soft, almost like a caress. “You should rest. Maybe tell me what it is they told you if they never spoke the truth.”
It’s not really something Sai’s ever spoken about with anyone else. “What do they say?”
Dom looks at her helplessly and shrugs, squeezing her fingers gently.