Hunter and I both go still at once. Then he speaks quietly. ‘That’s a weird thing to say in an emergency situation, don’t you think?’
There’s a prickling on the back of my neck that usually means someone I’m running from has spotted me. I totally agree it’s a weird thing for someone to yell right now, but I’m trying to play the engineering student, not the career criminal who always suspects she’s about to get screwed. ‘I guess? Maybe they know it’s not an emergency? He must have his helmet off, if we can hear him at this distance.’
But when our eyes meet, I’m surprised to see that Hunter looks as wary as I feel. Living a life like his, I wouldn’t have thought he’d know how to be cautious.
‘I’ve had a lot of training,’ he says slowly. ‘Because I’d make a high-value hostage. And one of the things they’re always tellingme is that I should listen to my gut. Listen when that twitch between my shoulder blades tells me I’m not safe.’
‘I learned that … in a different place,’ I say, one part of my brain wondering what he’d make of the back alleys where I found my danger. Wondering what he’d say if I told him who put me in that danger, without ever knowing or caring. ‘But yeah, I hear you.’
‘Let’s step back out of sight. If we’re wrong, we can come strolling out and hug them one by one until they beg for mercy, no harm done. We don’t even have to admit we were lurking.’
My heart’s starting to speed up. I nod. Because that spot betweenmyshoulder blades? It’s twitching too.
With a gesture he dismisses the screens, and I brush the broken plastic cover for the monitors onto the ground and set the snow globe back in place.
Hunter scoops up his bag and retrieves my gloves for me, and I dart off to grab the boots and trousers he dumped on the floor. Then we hurry through the main entrance to the north.
I flick off the hallway lights at the control panel, and we press in against the wall, standing together in the darkness and silence. I’m nearer the door, Hunter just beyond me. I wish now that he’d put his damn shirt back on, but I don’t want to tell him I’ve noticed he’s not wearing one.
‘This is probably for nothing,’ he whispers. ‘I’m sure there’s a reason they’ve come in this way. He even said he’s home.’
‘And yet both our creep monitors went off at the same time,’ I point out.
‘Right. If there’s even a chance they’re hitchers or some sort of criminals, we can’t trust them. They could do anything. You know what those people are like.’
I think I make a sound, and my breath leaves me like a punch.
That’s me he’s talking about so casually.I’mone of the hitchers he can’t trust – one of the people his family would prefer to leave behind, while they build themselves a new world on Mars, screwing the old one in the process.
How the hell am I going to convince this guy to give me a ride out of here once he works out who – and what – I am?
Then footsteps sound across the room, and four figures in pressure suits come stalking in, fanning out to different workstations as if they know exactly where they’re going.
There are no Pax markings on what they’re wearing – could they be from another station, come to investigate the evacuation alarm? Their helmets are already off, though, so they’re clearly not worried about asphyxiating when the station vents.
They take up their places – all unsmiling, all business. There’s an efficiency to their movements that has me holding my breath, as if they’re predators and might hear me exhale.
The leader – I swear, I know by the way he walks – stalks over to the commander’s station. He’s in maybe his forties, his head shaved down to dark stubble, built like he could fight three guys at once. He wears a patch over his left eye, which has to be a choice given how easy a bionic would be to fit. The patch should make him look like a fake pirate, but actually just makes him look like he could rip you in two and not break his stride. Everything about him screams single-minded purpose.
The Pirate sweeps everything off the desk in one quick, sharp gesture. The snow globe smashes, sending up fragments of glass and drops of water. The plant’s pot shatters, dirt scattering across the floor. Then he sets down a portable system on the desk and starts plugging it into the commander’s outlets.
‘Minute one begins on my mark,’ he says, and each of the invaders raises a hand to check their wrist unit. ‘We have seven hours and fifteen minutes. Mark.’
7 HOURS, 15 MINUTES REMAINING
Two of the others start peeling off their pressure suits, ready to get comfortable, but one woman puts down the crate she’s carrying and throws open the lid. She moves with the kind of deadly grace that a snake uses to hypnotize small animals right before it lashes out at them.
She pulls out a pistol and tosses it to the nearest woman.
Her teammate catches it, turns it over in her hands like she knows exactly how to use it, and then secures it at her waist. And then she turns around, and I catch sight of her face. She has a hard expression and a tattoo that runs straight across her forehead like a tiara, brightly colored jewels drawn around a silver band that seems almost to shine.
Shit.
I know this woman. She usually runs with the Gramercy gangs, and I last saw her back on Earth.
In an instant I’m back in an alleyway, my lungs burning, my legs giving out as I push myself to keep running, keep running,keep running. I know I can’t, I know it’s impossible – and I know that if she catches me, if they catch me, they’ll leave me bleeding on the concrete, an example for others. An example for my mother, who’ll never even know, though they don’t believe that.
I feel the rough plasteel of the apartment building’s wall as I grab at its corner, swing myself around into an intersection, and dive behind a snack cart. The vendor looks down, and I see him weigh it up.
