Our lives might depend on it.
58 MINUTES REMAINING
I’m sticking to the shadows and watching Nico as he works his way through the rovers the Graves team arrived in. There are three, and he’s on the second now.
I’m a software guy, not a hardware guy, and it takes me a minute to figure out what he’s doing – but then it clicks. He’s getting into the guts of each one and he’s disconnecting things.
Realization slowly creeps over me, shock taking over from the pain of watching them haul Cleo away.
Nico is leaving exactly one lifeboat still functioning. That’s why my sister told him I’ll be in hers. Because the others won’t start at all.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. She came here prepared to kill thousands of people from other settlements – why wouldn’t she wipe out her own team? If she takes them with her, they’rea vulnerability, each one a potential leak. I asked her about her crew. I asked her if they’d be a liability.Don’t worry about them, she said.
Eventually, no matter what kind of explosion takes this place out, someone’s going to work out there are bodies here that shouldn’t be here, and extra rovers docked. It’ll take a while, though, and everything – the uniforms, the rovers, their equipment – is unmarked. It was the first thing I noticed when they arrived. She’s been planning this since the start.
These people work with her. She knows their names. And she has Nico prepping to leave them behind.
Nico straightens up, stretches his back, and walks around to check the controls of the rover, tapping at the screen as he brings up the displays. Doesn’t want the sabotage to be too obvious too soon, I guess.
I hold my position, trying to slow my thoughts. I don’t have long before I’m due back – I told Marguerite I wanted to check Cleo’s work in the greenhouse. I said nobody had been watching her closely enough. She could have tried to sabotage it. It’s a thin excuse, but my sister’s busy.
I slowly ease back along the balcony and out through a door, into a quiet passage.
Shock is giving way to a strange kind of calm. Everything’s narrowing down to the next fifty-five minutes of my life. Thousands of people out there are relying on me, even if they have no idea. Cleo’s relying on me.
I treat this moment like a programming problem – I close my eyes, cast out my thoughts, and take in the whole of thepicture. I let the facts run through my brain without hooking on to any one thing, like a cascade of numbers falling in front of me as I scan them for the combination I need.
I need a weakness. I need a place where I can find a crack and start to pull it open.
Is it one of her people? Is it one of her systems? Is it … wait.
Wait.
Slowly, for the first time in what feels like forever, I start to smile.
Because I know what to do.
53 MINUTES REMAINING
Sabrina’s striding quickly as she makes her way back from the oxygenators, where she’s been making the last adjustments to the oxygen flow. We won’t feel the effects for hours – and this place doesn’t have hours, but the levels must be so high by now that the smallest spark …
I step out in front of her as she reaches an intersection, and she stops immediately, wary.
‘We have to talk,’ I say quietly. ‘And fast, I’m expected back.’
Her eyes narrow and she looks me up and down, assessing. ‘Oh,’ she says, after a moment. ‘Not so close with your sister after all, huh? Don’t do this for Cleo. I’m sorry about it too, but she was stupid and this is what happens when you’re stupid. You don’t have to be, and I’m sure not going to be.’
‘I get it,’ I reply, holding up both hands, keeping my tone easy. I’m a Graves. I know how to stay calm during a negotiation. ‘You’ve picked a side.’
‘I’ve picked the side that pays me,’ she replies.
‘Here’s the thing, though.’ I pause, let the tension kick up a notch. ‘That side you’ve picked? It hasn’t picked you back.’
She frowns. ‘Say what?’
I take a step closer. ‘You’ll have to figure out how to verify this on your own, but I’ve just seen Nico disabling two of your three rovers. You think you’re getting a ride in my sister’s? That she’s going to haul a loose end like you on out of here?’
Sabrina studies me. ‘She’s taking you, I’m guessing,’ she says.
