“Kilmar just ordered us to take Fiona Russell to the conference room and lock her in there.” Bart began pulling her along, and Pallo trotted on her other side.
“Why?” Vira sounded surprised.
“Because he says we can’t put her with—” Bart bit off what he was about to say. “It’s the only place we’re allowed to take her that has a working lens feed.” Bart kept his tone short.
“Fine. Secure her and then come help. This is chaos.” Vira shut off the comm.
“What’s going on? Why did the cables drop?” Fee asked.
“Not sure. It looked like—” Pallo started to answer then cut himself off. “Never you mind.”
That was fine. Eazi could tell her when they were alone. Although she’d have to sing out her questions, if there was lens feed.
She was led past the foyer, to a room to the left of the entrance, and as they passed the little lounge area, she noticed the disposable cups were all over the floor again.
“Must be when people open the door,” Bart said, looking at the mess. “The hot air rushes in from outside.”
Pallo grunted, as if he didn’t care, either way.
They unlocked the room, and Pallo checked the closing mechanism, as if she might somehow have rigged this one, too, and then Bart motioned her in.
The room was much larger than her cell, with about twenty chairs around an oval table.
The floor was the Balcoan equivalent of polished concrete, and there was a small area at the back that looked like a tiny kitchen, and perhaps a bathroom.
As soon as she cleared the door, it shut behind her, and she heard the electronic lock snick into place.
She did a slow turn in place, looking for the lens, and couldn’t see one.
She frowned, but Bart and Pallo had been telling the truth when they’d spoken about the lens feed, she was sure of it. So maybe the lens in here was hidden. Perhaps so that the company heads from Distani who came here didn’t know they were being recorded.
It might be how the companies dealing with Paxe were pressured to switch their production to this facility instead. They might have initially thought they would be supplying both groups, only to be blackmailed into dropping Paxe.
And the one group who wouldn’t bend, for whatever reason, got burned to the ground as an extra lesson to the others.
“What the hell is going on?” she sang under her breath, trying to channel Imogen Heap’sHide and Seek. Whoever was monitoring the lens feed wouldn’t be able to understand her if she spoke in English anyway, but if she sang, they would probably assume she was singing to herself, rather than speaking to someone.
She headed for the back of the room to see what was in the kitchen and whether there was a bathroom behind it.
“Hal is here. Or he was. He found theUnhil, the battleship that’s supposed to lift the frame up, and the Garmman shot at him, but they panicked, because they didn’t know what he’d do in response, and so they dropped the cables to allow them to maneuver and fight.” Eazi sounded very distracted.
“You say he was here. Where’s he gone?” Fee kept the questions up using the same tune as she opened the cooling unit and checked out the food inside.
She hadn’t eaten for what felt like a very long time, and she crouched down to see what there was on offer.
“Three more battleships appeared on the scanners. Hal thinks some are bogus. Small runners using tricks to fool the scanners. He had to clear the area of threats before he can come back.”
“How long will he be, and am I still getting a rescue?” she sang as she pulled out a few things to make the Balcoan version of a tasty wrap.
“He’ll be a while, I think. The battleships are spread out. If they are battleships.”
“If you can speak to him, tell him to be careful.” She hummed a little as she put her wrap together.
“I will. And the two runners are still coming for you, but I’ve told them the path out of the air tunnel may be compromised if people are going up and down the stairs now to access the storage level. I’m going to try to find the code to this room so I can get you out, and we can hopefully find an alternative exit.”
She was about to respond when the door to the conference room opened, and the man Bart called Kilmar stepped in.
He was filthy, covered in blood and grease and sand, and he looked very pissed off. Vira was right behind him, looking the same, minus the blood. When she stepped into the room, Nukolo eased in after her, equally in disarray, but like Kilmar, he had blood on his clothes, face and hands.
