Breakout (18 page)

21

A Pox on Their Houses

Eventually, the scavengers finished their feast and scuttled off, leaving three carcasses chewed all the way down to the bone. Dred waited a few minutes longer and jumped down. Her fingers had scabbed over while they were waiting, giving her respite from the throbbing. But she didn't regret taking her turn, no matter what Jael thought.

Not trying to be quiet, she raced down the corridor, with Jael close behind. The lift doors stood open, and she skidded inside, pressing the button that would deliver them to the repair bay. With a groan and a shudder, the mechanism kicked into motion, but as they descended, the box jerked and strained, heaving and dropping in unsteady judders, until the lights went out entirely.

“Shit.” She could see in the dark better than most, but . . .

“On second thought, possibly it wasn't the best idea to take the lift when this part of the station is on emergency power,” Jael said.

A quiet chuckle escaped her. “If only we'd considered that before getting on. How far down do you think we are?”

“No idea. But this is starting to feel like a heroic quest.”

“With all the obstacles between us and the artifact we must retrieve to save the world?” Dred admired his imaginative bent, especially at a time like this.

“Our own hides anyway.”

“Close enough. There must be an emergency hatch up top. Boost me up?” In answer he wrapped his arms around her thighs and lifted. “A little higher if you can.”

“You know I'm not the big man, right? Any more, and you'll be on my shoulders.”

“That could work. Set me down.”

Though Jael grumbled, he let her clamber up, then somehow he managed to straighten without them toppling over. Balancing wasn't easy, but now she could reach the ceiling. Dred felt around until she discovered the latch. Flipping it open meant getting conked on the head; she took the hit on her skull, and the impact made them wobble. As Jael stumbled toward the wall, she leapt from his shoulders and grappled for the top of the lift. This time she didn't cut up her fingers worse, but the scabs broke open, making it hard to hold on. Practically tearing out her nails, she scrambled up and flopped over on her side, breathing hard.

“Hey,” Jael called. “Still in need of extraction down here, yeah?”

“I wouldn't forget you. It's marvelous how handy these are.” She lowered her chains and braced, so he could climb. The resultant burn in her arms echoed in her injured hands, the blood flowing freely. Fortunately, they were small cuts, not enough for the loss to weaken her too much, only make a mess.

“You've got my vote,” he said, surveying the area. “Looks like there's a ladder.”

“Then let's get moving.”

“Not so fast. It's a long way down.” Jael tore a strip from his shirt and wrapped Dred's hands with a practiced touch.

“Thanks. That'll help me hold on.”

“Let me know if you bleed through, all right?”

“I promise. Doubt I will. As long as I don't have to do any more stunt jumps, this should scab over again pretty fast. How're your bites feeling?” She was asking because her legs felt sore and hot where the rodents had gouged out her flesh.

“Not great.” From him, that was tantamount to admission of a problem. “But it's too dark for me to see the damage, though.”

“Likewise. You want to go first, or should I?”

“I will,” Jael said.

He made the leap from the top of the lift to the rungs affixed to the side of the wall look graceful and easy. Conscious of how clumsy she could be with makeshift bandages on her hands, Dred hesitated and only moved once she was sure it wouldn't hurt him if she fell. She hit the metal handholds with a clang and almost slipped, but his hand came up, clamping onto her calf with an unshakable resolve.

“I'm fine, you can let go.”

Without arguing, he did.

It was a tight squeeze downward; this shaft wasn't meant for normal use. From what she could tell, it had only been included for emergency maintenance; it ran parallel to the lift space and offered floor access every fifty meters or so. She tried counting as they climbed, but Dred soon lost track of where they were.

“How are we supposed to know when we're far enough down?” Jael asked eventually.

Though her arms were tired, that wasn't a good gauge of how long they'd been climbing. It had already been a long-ass day, between the Silent, the scavengers, then complete mechanical failure. So she couldn't trust her own body to estimate distance, and the darkness made it impossible to read any markers that might've been posted for Monsanto workers.

“We should probably get back to the station proper and look for the stairs,” she said.

“On it.”

She found a hatch, forced it open, then edged into a tiny crawl space that eventually widened to a small landing, blocked by a blast door. There was a security panel, but thanks to the power outage, it was blinking a
NO
SERVICE
alert. She swore.

“With no power, shouldn't this have opened?” she muttered.

“Today's not our lucky day, love.”

With no way to cut through this much metal, they retraced their steps back to the emergency ladder. This time Dred went first; they climbed to the next tier and tried again.
Same obstacle.
By then, her arms ached like mad, but she couldn't be the first to complain or ask for quarter. Besides, it wasn't like anybody was coming to save them. So even if she felt strange and dizzy, hot and sick . . .
Well,
suck it up, weakling
.

She started to shove past to the crawl space, but Jael pulled her back. “If we're trapped, we still will be in a couple of hours.”

“You suck at pep talks. We'll also be hungrier and more dehydrated.”

“Did you check the bag Calypso sent with us? We have a packet of paste to share and a bottle of water. When we get back, remind me to thank her.”

•   •   •

AT
first, Jael didn't think Dred would go for a rest break. But eventually she relaxed and let him draw her against the blast door that was currently blocking their path. Its sturdy presence also meant nobody could get at them, so they could sleep like they were locked up in the docking bay. He didn't actually expect her to close her eyes, but she leaned her head against his shoulder.

More than I thought.

“Give me the paste. Might as well top off if we're taking a breather.”

He ripped it open and watched her suck down half of it. Then she passed it over, and he drained the rest. “Water?”

“Thanks.”

She was careful with that, he noted, taking only a few swallows. They could both get by much longer without food than fluids. The emergency lights flickered, giving a low-wattage strobe. With a faint sigh, he pulled up his pant leg to survey the damage. As expected, small chunks of flesh were missing, but more disturbing? The damage to surrounding skin; it was already turning black, and yellow ooze trickled out of each wound. His armpits were sore, too, and when he pressed, the glands seemed to be swollen.

Worried, he touched Dred's cheek and found it burning hot, dry and tight. He compared it to his own and tipped his head back to accuse the ceiling. “Seriously?”

She was already a little out of it, or she would've noticed on her own. He checked her over and found hard lumps forming faster, not just in her armpits. That meant her immune system was a few paces behind. That made sense since the abilities he'd shared probably didn't divide neatly down the middle. But it also scared the shit out of him. Cranky, she batted his hands away.

“Hurts,” she mumbled.

Not wanting to scare her, he said softly, “Sorry. Get some rest.”

“You should sleep, too.”

“I will.” There was no way in hell.

We caught the damned plague from those mutant sewer beasts. It's probably contagious.
Which meant even if they could find their way out—and that was a question, considering how weak they both were—they shouldn't go back and expose the others.
We'll either survive this with a bottle of water and no medicine, or we die together. Right, then.

At this point, he couldn't remember which mad Queenslander had said it—his head was fuzzy and aching—but he recalled the sentiment well enough.
Sometimes it feels like the station itself is sentient, like it's trying to kill us.
He'd dismissed that as paranoid nonsense but now that Perdition was nearly a lifeless void, and it was still finding ways to test his admittedly superhuman survival skills, it was hard to ignore.

“I never meant to hurt you.” Her voice was clear as a bell, but her eyes were shut.

He had the feeling she wasn't talking to him. Yet . . . “Why?”

“You were collateral damage,” she whispered.

Despite the pounding in his head, he still snapped to attention. This prickled his nerves as a secret she'd kept to herself, a story she probably wouldn't share if she were in her right mind. Because he was an awful bastard, he encouraged, “Was I?”

She nodded, cheek gliding against the rough cloth of his shirt. Her face looked a little softer, too, as if she wasn't such a hardened killer in these memories. “Nobody believed me about your brother, not even you.”

“I should have.”

“Yes. You know how many people he hurt?”

“Not really. You should tell me.”

“Dead people don't remember anything,” she mumbled.

“Remind me.”
Yeah, I'll probably burn in hell for this.

“I'm so sorry, Cedric.” For long moments, she was quiet and he thought she'd succumbed to deeper sleep, but then she whispered, “I'm sorry I never loved you—that I pretended. But it was close, you were so kind. Too gentle, truly.”

Jael had never been accused of that; his savagery ran bone deep. Maybe he didn't want to hear this story after all. As he registered the misgivings, she slumped against him. A palm against her forehead told him her fever had spiked. He had no idea how long illnesses like this took to reach critical levels, but she was definitely progressing faster than him.

I need to cool her down, but I can't waste our water.

Nothing in his life prepared him for the sheer helplessness and terror of holding Dred's limp body in his arms and having no way to help her. He couldn't call for backup. There was no way out, only an endless descent into darkness, and he couldn't carry her.
Too weak. We'll both fall.
An awful voice whispered,
It would be quicker.

Shivering, he pulled her into his lap. The fact that he felt cold now instead of hot meant he was getting worse. Jael tilted his head against hers and couldn't tell who was hotter. She reached for him with fitful hands, moaning as he held her tighter, and something between them burst. One of the lumps, probably, and it carried the stench of the beasts that had bitten them, a putrid syrup that felt sticky on his skin.

He had been to recovery hell so many times, lived through impossible wounds and purified himself of incurable ailments. Yet it didn't matter right then because even if he made it,
she
might not, and in this flashing darkness, that felt like a fate worse than death. If cutting himself open and letting her drink his blood could save her, Jael would've done it. But it probably wouldn't since he was infected, too.

Trembling, he wrapped his arms around her, his whole body, and they toppled sideways before the blast door. His lashes flickered in time to the guttering emergency lights, showing him the same scene, again, again, the rusted gray metal of the floor, the curve of her cheek, painted red with the awful fever, the ragged tumble of her hair over his arm.

His eyes shut.

Don't care,
he thought.
Live or die. As long as I'm with you.

22

Mission Impossible

When Dred woke, her lips were like two slashes of leather, and her whole body hurt. Once, not too long after her arrest, she'd incited a riot in gen pop without getting away fast enough. The enraged crowd had knocked her down, trampled her.
And I didn't feel
this
bad when I woke up in the infirmary two days later.
Now, everything was dark, and at first, she thought she'd gone blind.

Then she realized her eyelids were fused shut with some kind of gluey secretion. With trembling hands, she scraped the gunk away from her eyes until she could open them. The emergency lights were still on, and she had no idea how long she'd been out. Jael was curled up on his side, and the floor seemed to be smeared with . . . something. Since it was dried, she couldn't be sure, but it smelled like blood.

Next, she realized her body was covered in open sores. Some had scabbed over, and others were still oozing. She'd never felt worse in her whole life. Her aching throat demanded water, so she rummaged through the bag until she found the bottle. From the look of it, neither one of them had had anything to drink since they'd eaten the paste.
When was that?
She sipped, then put it down, worried about Jael.

Rolling him over took most of her strength. At first glance, he looked dead. His face was skeletal, eyes sunken with dehydration, and new lines had formed on his dried skin. He, too, had the sores all over him, and she couldn't tell if he was breathing. Dizzily, she leaned down, setting her ear to his chest. The thumps were so slow and faint that it took her a couple of minutes to be certain it wasn't her own pulse echoing in her ears.

Supporting his head, she tipped some water into his mouth and rubbed his throat so he'd swallow instead of choke. At this point, she'd taken care of him more than anyone in the world, but it was mutual.
We just keep saving each other.
This time, however, she couldn't see the way out. They didn't have the supplies for a complete recovery, and climbing down while they were so weak seemed like suicide. Likewise, they weren't strong enough to break through the blast door, either. She couldn't fathom a solution to this problem.

Dred didn't know how long it was before he stirred in her arms. He had the same trouble with his eyes, but once they opened, she could tell he was lucid. Wincing, Jael struggled upright, and she knew too well how sore he felt. Just this much exertion left him shaky, and fury flashed in his blue eyes over the unaccustomed weakness.

“Ridiculous,” he muttered. “They're
rodents
.”

“The better question is how to get out of this.”

He shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

“If we pop the panel, will cutting the right wire make the door disengage?”

“Hell if I know,” Jael said. “But it's worth a try.”

He struggled on his hands and knees, then made it to a standing position. She handed him her boot knife. After a little tinkering, he managed to get into the panel, but it didn't look like she expected it to inside. Beneath, there were no loose wires, just the smooth metal of pressure chips. Security wasn't her specialty, but she felt fairly sure that they needed current to open the door. Dred stared up at the flickering emergency light.

Jael sighed and rested his head on the wall. “We're stuck.”

“We could try pulling the emergency light down and touching the live wires to the inside of the panel.”

“Whoever does it will probably be electrocuted.”

“It's my idea. I'll—”

“Forget it,” he said. “Hand me your chain.”

She did as he asked. Maybe she should protest his determination to take all the damage, but since she didn't even know if she could stand up, it seemed wrong to offer false assurances. As Dred watched, he slammed the emergency light, so sparks sprayed out, and the bulb shattered. On the downside, the landing was plunged into complete darkness. Jael cried out.

“Shit, are you all right?” Somehow she was on her feet, wobbling toward him blindly.

“Stay back.” The words came from between clenched teeth. “Don't touch me.”

She heard him thumping at the wall, then the crackling of a live wire. Electricity sprayed in an arc from the tip of the broken wire, highlighting his features. His mouth was a flat white line, but he kept pulling.
Please don't let the cable break. Please let it stretch far enough.
He pulled and pulled, getting closer to the panel. Then the wire just . . . stopped. Dred just
knew
if he forced it, he'd yank it out entirely, and it wouldn't work.

Without asking his thoughts, she grabbed his arm and pulled it straight. The shock nearly made her open her hands.
No, I'm doing this. If he can take it, I can.
After that first jolt, numbness flooded her, which was probably worse. Her body felt like it was filled with hot metal, and her arm weighed a metric ton. Yet even as her shoulder screamed, she raised it and leaned, leaned, then, at last, she slammed her palm onto the pressure plate.

The door snicked open.

Dred let go, collapsing before the glorious crack, and she bathed her face in the rush of cool, fresh air. Jael fell over next to her, pulling the gap wider. She couldn't tell how badly he was injured, but he must be burned. Reaching out in the dark, she took his hand and got another little shock. His fingers were curled; he couldn't seem to open them. He pulled away before she could explore the extent of the damage.

“Let's go,” he said hoarsely. “The others have probably given us up for dead by now.”

She picked up the bag and found it almost heavier than she could carry. “They have more faith in us than that.” Bravado was all she had as she pushed through the door.

•   •   •

IT
took some wandering before they found the stairs. Jael recalled fighting his way down them when the mercs were after them, but now it was as much as he could manage just putting one foot in front of the other. On the next level, a surviving sector directory told them it was another five flights to Repair at the bottom.

“How are we going to carry everything back?” he asked quietly.

Dred didn't answer. Her breath came quick and fast, pained little pants, as she stumbled down the steps after him. His chest hurt, too. Everything did, really. It would be so easy to fall down and not get up.
Tired. Hungry. Thirsty.
The litany of silent complaints occupied him for another flight. There, he took the bag from Dred and dug out the water bottle.

“Rest break,” he said, taking a swig.

“Last time you said that, we passed out for Mary knows how long.”

“I'll be stricter this time. No lolling around on my watch, Devos.”

In the flicker of the emergency lights, he saw her smile flash. “I'm surprised you remember my last name.”

“I remember everything when it comes to you.” She didn't seem to realize that he had a hard time forgetting
anything
but for once, his freakish recall made somebody happy. “Right, moving on.”

She seemed grateful that he didn't linger over the emotional revelation.
Mary, I don't have the energy.
Pushing forward required all his reserves, and by the time they got down to the level designed for repair, he was shaking all over. Between the residual sickness and the electrocution, Jael couldn't believe he was still upright.

You know this is for you, yeah, love? You're always making me do impossible things.

Jael hoped like hell they didn't run into any of Silence's killers. He didn't have the speed or the strength to drive them off, and Dred was no better off. They both needed a week of good food, clean water, and uninterrupted sleep, but this was Perdition, so they'd be lucky to get a day and a half of rest, a packet of paste, and to escape drinking their own urine.
Which is most assuredly not sterile.

His vision sparkled with the lights and darks that meant he was close to passing out. So he paused, ostensibly to let Dred catch up. She leaned on the wall for support as they finally left the stairs and stepped into the internal corridors again. The repair bay stood open, courtesy of their last raid. And he doubted anyone else had been down here since the slaughter in the upper reaches of the station.

“I don't even remember what we came for,” Dred whispered.

“Glad Vost made a list.”

Focus. This is what we need to get off station . . . it's the last step.

The bay seemed cleaner down here, less close than it had been in the ducts and definitely the lift shaft. He fiddled with the circuits and managed to reroute power, so the main lights came up. Dred let out a relieved sigh, but the brightness also let him see just how sick she was. Her lips had cracked with dryness, and she had the look of a living corpse. Open lesions mottled her arms, probably beneath her clothes, too. A quick inspection assured him he didn't fare any better beneath closer scrutiny.

“We look like hell, huh?” she said ruefully.

“More than. On the bright side, by the time we lug all this junk back to the docking bay, we should be past the infectious stage.”

Dred touched her forehead, then his. “The fever's broken, along with the lumps. So, hopefully, we already are.”

“That would be a bright spot, yeah?”
Seems more likely we'd carry the plague back and watch the others die, given how our luck's been lately.
But apparently he'd internalized Martine's superstition about not predicting awful things out loud because he ate that thought.

She nodded. “I'll take this side of the bay. Anything we locate, call it out, so we'll know to stop looking.”

“Sounds good.”

What should've taken only a little while stretched into a momentous endeavor because they kept needing to rest.
Sucks when bending over makes you winded.
Dred didn't complain, though, so he didn't, either. Somehow, her opinion of him had become more important than anything else. That should've scared the shit out of him . . . and once it would have. Once, it might've even driven him to betray her to Vost or even to Silence, because Dred could hurt him in ways that superseded the physical. This woman had the power to scorch and salt his soul so that nothing could ever grow.

But she won't.

There was no science to explain his surety. But he would've taken this conviction to the bank for a loan. He caught her eye as she tumbled forward on hands and knees, trying to pick up something Vost needed. An abortive moment—his first instinct was to help, but her icy glare said that would be a mistake. On her own, she struggled and hauled the part to the center of the bay, along with the small pile of junk they'd already identified.

Sod this. How the hell can we get back like this, hauling gear?
The return would be a gauntlet—all those stairs, the corridor they had to cross, then the ducts?
Forget it.
With this much junk, it would be open hallways, the whole way. He was tempted to say frag the whole mission, but then their chances of getting off Perdition went down dramatically. Each time they popped out of the docking bay, they risked Silence's taking them down.

“What the hell is that for?”

She shrugged. “If I knew how to build a shuttle from scrap parts, I wouldn't be doing grunt work to pay for my ride off station, would I?”

He laughed. “I love how honest you are.”

“You know what they say—the truth is a weapon too sharp for most.”

“I never heard anyone say that.”

“Yeah, well, you don't get out much. For the last hundred turns, you've been touring all the best prisons.”

Jael was about to joke back when a noise jerked his gaze to the door.