‘It’s sodium bicarb,’ someone else replies. ‘You can cook with it. It’s fine.’
This is my cue. ‘Um …’ I let reluctance ooze into my voice and pause to be sure I’ve hooked the people nearest me.
‘What?’ Marguerite snaps.
‘Too much of this stuff can cause, um, digestive issues,’ I say as delicately as I can manage. ‘Pretty intense ones.’
It’s sort of true. True enough.
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Grace mutters, still beside me.
‘Unfortunately not,’ I reply. ‘But we didn’t shut down the water supply yet, so the showers are still available. We should rinse it off, and maybe relocate to the bridge?’
So that’s how I end up walking through the silent base at gunpoint, covered head to toe in white powder. Hunter rigged some of the other suppressors to go off as well, so it wouldn’t be suspicious that it only happened in the room we were in. He didn’t have time to get them all, I guess. Pity – it would have coated the whole station and made blowing it up that much harder.
The showers are in one big, communal room. Floor-to-ceiling walls divide each cubicle, and each one has a curtain you can pull across the front for privacy.
Hunter disappears into one straightaway, already pulling off his shirt to gratuitously show off his excellent back muscles. I absolutely do not think about the way the water will be sluicing down his body in a minute when he showers. Not even a little.
He’s left a cubicle free between us, and Marguerite heads into it, firmly drawing the curtain behind her. ‘Five minutes, people,’ she calls out, sounding cranky. Which, fair.
A pissed-off Grace, covered in white from head to toe, checks my cubicle to be sure there’s nothing useful to a prisoner in there, and then ushers me inside. She stays dressed for now, one hand on her gun.
I catch her eye and pull the curtain across experimentally,silently asking if I get privacy for this. She nods and takes one step back.
I yank the curtain the rest of the way, and waste no time. I retrieve Hunter’s cuff from its hiding place in my cleavage, then haul off my tank and bra. I shimmy my pressure suit down over my hips, dumping my powdery clothes on the bench just inside the cubicle’s opening. Then I hit the control panel with my palm, and step into the glorious stream of water.
This moment is almost as good as kissing Hunter. It’s like the warmth of the shower washes away not just the white powder and the sweat and the red dust that permanently clings to me, but the fear as well, just for a moment. Something inside me unclenches, and I close my eyes as I tip my face up to the spray, letting myself have this. It might be my last peaceful moment.
I only have a moment, though – I have to hurry, and this next part of the plan has zero finesse. I leave the water running, watching the white gunk drain away toward its date with the water recyc system, which probably isn’t going to love it – assuming it continues to exist long enough to form an opinion.
Then I wrap a towel around myself and stick Hunter’s cuff down my cleavage again.
Carefully I poke my head out around the curtain, ready with an excuse about the soap dispenser, but Grace is near the door now, talking to her girlfriend, Blue Braid. Which I guess means she’s off her table in the classroom, and our enemies are almost up to full strength again. There’s something softer in Grace’s body language as she looks up toward her lover.I’m sure glad you didn’t get fried, I’m sure she’s saying.
Anyway, she’s distracted, which means this is my moment. I carefully lean around the divide between the cubicles and get a look at Marguerite’s clothes sitting on her little shelf.
Her cuff sits atop her clothes.
The trick in moments like this is to be quick and decisive. I slide my hand into the gap, closing it on the cuff, my heart trying to hammer its way out of my chest.
I start to pull the cuff free, my other hand lifting to pull Hunter’s from its hiding place.
Hopefully she’ll just slip on Hunter’s cuff, and not notice it’s duller than hers. That’ll give Hunter a few minutes to try to hack his way through her protections and send out our SOS and our warning.
A hand grabs my shoulder and yanks me back – then the person spins me around and I find myself looking into the furious gaze of Blue Braid.
Oh, shit.
30.
HUNTER
1 HOUR, 15 MINUTES REMAINING
CLEO SCREAMS IN PAIN,and I bolt out of the shower, not even bothering to shut the water off.
I wrap a towel around my waist and hustle out of my cubicle to find Cleo’s been grabbed by Blue Braid, who’s twisting her arm up behind her back.
