“They seem to be on a different node,” she said. “Working on it.”
“No. Please. She’ll come around,” an unknown voice said from under the door. Male. Bronx accent. “Just let me work with her another week. Please—”
Blood splattered across the floor. Splattered again. And again. Pulsing out in a steady rhythm. The body attached to the purple-painted toenails fell. Bounced. Still spurting blood. Spy caught a view of the face of a Black woman. Her throat had been slit. Blood pulsed out from the carotid. Then it dribbled. And stopped.
In the background I could hear a man sobbing softly. Two pairs of shoes headed toward the door. “When you finish weeping like a child, clean that up and dispose of it outside,” Warhammer said. “Jack, bring in the next batch of people to be incorporated. This is taking too long and we’re losing too many.”
Spy rose off the floor. The two cats separated and darted away, disappearing into the dark.
“That was . . .” Mateo didn’t finish his sentence.
“Yeah. It was,” I said softly. Warhammer was making thralls fast and not helping them along with med-bay protocols. Some were dying in transition.
On my screen, I followed the progress of the cats as they explored. At one corner, Spy found a stairway going up, marked Level 2 on a bright blue sign. Maul also found a staircase up. Working separately, they found the main command center, marked MCC; storage for armor and munitions; a medical department; and lots of unmarked doors. There were few traces of rats here, but signs of a lot of human activity. The cats dodged people several times, darting into shadows.
After exploring the rest of Level 2, Maul joined Spy on the other side of the compound, and keeping a sharp eye out for more cameras and people, they slinked up the stairs to the upper level, Level 1.
On this side of the compound there was only the faintest old scent of rat. Instead there was the stench of sweat, urine, cooked food, sex, and moldy showers and latrines that hadn’t been properly cleaned. Spy disapproved of the complicated tang, and sent me a scent-vision of the different smells of many people, an equal mixture of male and female, healthy and sick. The sick scent was the pong of humans transitioning into thralls.
“Barracks for the hoi polloi,” Jolene said, sounding chipper. “If Evelyn is enthralled to Warhammer, this is where she’ll be.”
Unfortunately, there were a lot of technologically sophisticated cameras, probably multi-spectrum. “Jolene? Cams?”
“On it, Sugah,” she said. One of the cameras rotated away from the cats, as if something had caught its attention. The other cam followed. “Looks like we got more than one security hub. This is fun.”
And dangerous, I thought. “Spy, you and Maul circle this level fast and head back.”
The cats took another turn, peering around. Their tactical-vest cams adjusted to an even dimmer light. They trotted that way and Spy caught the stench of filthy human bodies, the reek of rotting blood, death, and despair. They followed the stink and peeked into a narrow passage. It was murky here, twilight, but the floor was clean. No rat droppings. There were doors along the corridor, three to each side. A sign Maul caught on his camera read Stockade.
“If Evelyn is not enthralled and is a prisoner,” I said, “this is where she’ll be. Can you see into the cells?”
The cats touched heads again, communicating.
“In case you’re wondering,” Jolene said, “I’m thinking they got someone watching the cameras now, and they noticed my lil’ tricks. I’m altering the glitches.” The security cams rotated, stuttered, and stopped. “Security in the stockade is offline, but Spy, you make it quick.”
At the far end of the stockade’s narrow passage, two human guards were playing cards, arguing about the rules. Neither was watching the dim corridor. Spy appeared in Maul’s camera as she slinked along one prison wall. There were six doors, constructed of heavy-duty clear hempglass, not quite the quality used for war and space, but good enough to hold prisoners. Spy turned her chest cam toward each door as she passed.
In the middle cell on the left was the former second-in-command of the USSSSunStar, Captain Evelyn Raymond. “That’s her,” I said. I wouldn’t have recognized her except by her tattered, blood-stained uniform.
Mateo growled, a sound worthy of one of the cats.
Evelyn was vastly different from her military photographs—emaciated, thinning gray hair, her skin a sickly pallor, showing bruises and poorly healed scars. None of that should have happened had she been transitioned. Nanobots would have made her younger and healthy and forced her to be on Warhammer’s side, not gaunt and in prison.
I remembered the smell of the severed finger Warhammer had sent to me. It had led me to believe Evelyn had been transitioned into a thrall.
Spy studied Evelyn, and so did I. Her fingers had been broken and not set, allowed to heal out of place—the nine she had left, that is. The stump of the tenth was swollen, freshly healed skin at the amputation site.
If Warhammerhadtransitioned Evelyn, why was the captain in pain? Could nanobots be directed by the queen to harm a thrall?
I remembered Cupcake changing personality because I had needed a secretary, a warrior, and a badass right-hand woman. She had become that within hours. Warhammer needed a hostage.
Thrall or not, Evelyn was a trap.
Well that bloody sucks.
Maul let out a“Sisssss,”which meant he was unhappy, and Spy looked around, her cam catching his face. His lips were curled back to flash his canines, meaning he was feeling more than simple annoyance. Spy seemed to gather something from him, and she ran past the arguing guards, who never saw her.
Maul went the other direction. Spy darted into a passage with a door on the end and two others bracketing it. She angled her camera to reveal each door’s purpose: Kitchen, Bakery, Prep.
