by Dan Abnett
"Hurry it up!" he shouted.
"Hatch is dead!" Bigmouse called back.
"Power?"
"Power's out!"
"Just the hatch," said Preben. He nodded up at the roof. A little link dish beside the chimney flue was in the middle of an automatic re-alignment.
"Get it open!" he ordered.
Bigmouse put his thumper over his shoulder on its sling, opened his thigh pack and pulled out an electric driver, a little thing the size of a stylus. It zipped the screws out of the lock plate almost silently. Bigmouse let the die-cut plate fall off the key pad into his palm, then switched the drill for a juice stick, inserted it and powered up the lock assembly. It banged two or three times, whinnied, and then the hatch shunted open a couple of inches. Stabler got the snout of her PAP in the crack, and then forced the door wide open with her left hand and foot.
Inside, an entry corridor. Metal grille decking, boot bench, a wall rack for tools and lamps, a row of hooks. Weatherproof coats, all high-vis, rustled in the wind.
He took a step forward. Fear made him puke. He kept the swill in his mouth, sucked it back, swallowed it.
"The side," he said, throat rough from stomach acid. "Find the secondary."
Stabler looked at him.
"You and Preben. Go."
They took off around the end wall, down the lea side of the building.
He led the way in. It was tight. Everything was flagging his target sampler. He banged the end of his piper against the tool rack.
"Jesus, Bloom," said Bigmouse from behind.
Stupid. He knew better. Nerves were making him stupid. The taste of puke in his mouth was making him brainless. The beam piper was too much gun for close interior work. A PAP was the preferred clearance weapon. That's why Stabler had looked at him funny when he'd sent her around instead of letting her take point.
He made his pipe safe and locked it to the carry slot on the backplate behind his left shoulder. He drew his PDW, matt grey and heavy, armed it, got it comfortable in a two-fist grip. Bigmouse already had his out. The Personal Defence Weapon was an automatic (caseless) handgun manufactured under SO contract by Colt. Forty 2mil rounds in a disposable slot-in stripmag. An interrogator flashed up on the inside of his left lens. Did he want to mate the PDW's muzzle sensor with his target sampling system?
He selected no, killed all the eye junk jumping about on his lenses. He didn't need any more distractions.
He glanced back at Bigmouse. From the faint glow behind his glares, it was clear Bigmouse had selected yes. Of course he had. That would be the smart thing to do. That would be the approved thing. That would be SOP.
"Power to the door was cut from the inside," said Bigmouse, checking the interior side of the hatch lock. "Someone pulled a fuse."
The corridor headed away from the hatch to a cross junction. The hanging coats smelled wet. He put his hand on the shelf below them, felt the run-off of rainwater that had collected there. Somebody had been out, early, in the rain. How long had it been raining? Since daybreak? Since the small hours?
The overheads were motion-sensitive, a powerconserving function, but they didn't light up. Someone had stuck little strips of torn tape over the wall sensors.
Why was that? Was it for a good reason, such as the onoff lights had begun to annoy one of the long-term residential scientists? Was it for a bad one, such as the corridor had been prepped for an ambush?
The utility wall liner was covered in instruments, everything from modern hydrometers to antique barometers, even a skein or two of non-local seaweed, brittle and pungent. Among them were drawings done by children, skies at the top, grounds at the bottom, suns somewhere between the two, with square cabin houses and people in yellow and orange coats, and lots of windmills.
They edged on, sweeping left and right, training their PDWs. Here, old coffee tins had been left under a patch of leaking roof. They were full of water, overflowing. There, a signed SO flag with the logo of the Climatographic Division, framed behind glass like a picture. Old paper books on a shelf, damp from the air. Wooden boxes of unwashed root vegetables, still thick with soil, slid under a wall bench. The smell of turnips, of earth. A sun-faded kite hanging from a wall bracket.
He heard a noise, swung his gun up. A coastal-form blurd, the size of a man's middle finger, was bouncing off the tinted skylight overhead, trying to escape into a golden summer's day that didn't exist.
He lowered the weapon, tried to lower his breathing rate along with it. It was so damn airless. His chest was tight.
"Bloom."
Bigmouse had found the station hub. Through a hatch doorway to their left was a large monitor room, stacked with junk and equipment. Most of the consoles and boxes were off, but some still glowed on standby power.
"The heating pipes are warm," said Bigmouse, touching them. "Where did everyone go?"
"See if the answer's in one of those," he replied, looking at the consoles.
Bigmouse holstered his PDW, and sat down at the primary position. He looked the console over, then opened a fascia panel and wired in another juice stick. The box mounted above the console lit. Bigmouse drifted through weather patterns, temp charts, precipitation measurement tables.
He could still hear the blurd knocking against the tinted skylight.
"Look for a log," he said.
"I'm looking for a log," Bigmouse replied.
He went out, through a pantry where tinned and dried goods sat on metal shelves. Through a side door lay a washroom, with stalls, sinks and a mirror. It smelled of bleach that was intended to mask the aroma of damp and a brimming septic tank. The windows were reinforced with wire mesh, and formed rectangles of pale, luminous daylight. The mesh and window sills were crusted with dead blurds.
He ducked back out. A broad, unlit well of a passageway continued on into a machine shop, beyond which lay the generator plant. There was a background hum. He swallowed back fear and bile. He used the LEAF to keep the weapon rock-steady.
Tools hung on pegboards. Labels were handwritten. Hoist chains dangled over workbenches, and an inspection pit yawned like a freshly dug grave, heady with the smell of oil. There was an up-and-over hatch, currently locked tight, which allowed small or mid-sized vehicles to be brought indoors up a concrete ramp.
Despite the LEAF, his hands were shaking.
"Stop it," he whispered. "Stop doing this to me."
He flicked on his target sampler, lit the lens. There was something in the shop with him. The genny hummed, just running on reserve. Doorway: yellow flag. Lockers: yellow flag. Shadows of the inspection pit: orange flag. Side door: yellow flag.
Movement: red flag.
He was going to shout a warning, but he'd retched into his mouth again. He felt as though his heart was about to blow up.
He fired the handgun.
FOURTEEN
The PDW made two thunderclap sounds. The recoil punched his wrist. Blowback gases choked him, acrid, prickling his face. The muzzle flashes were so bright, his glares auto-tinted.
He hit something. The opposite wall detonated. A peg board shattered, one corner releasing so it swung down sideways onto the workbench. A noisy avalanche of wrenches and pliers, hammers, handsaws. Nails and washers pinged off the floor, rolled like coins, scattered.
He stood blinking for a second, gun gripped and aimed, ears ringing. Smoke fumed around him in the light from the skylight. A final rolling washer trickled to a halt.
"Bloom? Bloom!"
Bigmouse, over the audio. He could hear his voice too as he came crashing through from the hub.
He swallowed hard.
"Clear!" he shouted. He still hadn't lowered the gun.
Bigmouse ploughed into the shop, PDW out.
"Fuck happened?" he asked.
"Clear," he replied. It seemed like all he could say.
"Was it contact? Did you get a target?"
"Yes."
"What the fuck did you shoot at?"
The up-and-over shutte
r hatch clattered open, letting in daylight and the laundered smell of rain. Preben and Stabler stood there, framed in the square of light, aiming their main weapons.
"Clear!" he told them. They lowered their guns cautiously. He could smell burned metal where they'd sliced the padlock off the shutter.
"Hell's happening in here?" Stabler asked, coming in. "Nes?"
"He started shooting," said Bigmouse.
"I had a contact," he said. "I saw a contact. In the doorway."
"There's nothing here," said Stabler. She looked at Bigmouse. He saw Bigmouse shake his head at her.
"There was movement. Right in front of me. I saw someone. I saw a weapon."
He looked at the three of them. The fear was looping inside him like a snake biting its tail. He hated the looks on their faces.
He holstered his weapon and adjusted his glares. Review playback. Movement. Red flag. Flash flash, bright as an eyeburning sun. What the hell had he shot at?
Slow it down. Red flag alert. Flash. Back a little. That shadow blur, just before the flag. A nanosecond of movement. What was that? An apron, hanging on a pegboard, caught by a breeze? Enhance. Nothing, something.
A figure. A human figure.
"Someone came out of that doorway," he said, pointing, reading his glare display.
"Who?" asked Stabler.
He shook his head. "It's just a shape."
"Not real then," said Preben.
"It's a person. You can look at the playback. I'm running frame by frame. A shape. It red-flags."
"Were they armed?" asked Bigmouse.
"Yeah. I can see it. A pistol, left hand."
"What make?" asked Bigmouse.
"It's just a shape. A… silhouette. For a frame, no more than that."
"So where did they go?" asked Stabler. She was staring right at him. "Bloom, come on. Please. What the fuck's with you today? Where did they go?"
The audios crackled. Bigmouse turned away to report their sit to Huck on the secure link.
"Someone came out of that doorway," he repeated to Stabler. What was that look on her face? Pity? It made him want to scream.
"Fuck," said Preben.
They looked at him. He was staring down into the inspection pit.
He went and stood beside Preben.
A young woman was tangled at the bottom of the pit, face-down. Her head looked like it had been dipped in blood.
Best guess was she'd come out of the side room, the shop store, and fallen into the pit diving out of the way of his gun. His shots had missed her because she was already falling by the time he fired. He'd killed the peg board instead. He'd almost blown her head off.
She'd hit her hairline against the pit wall falling into it, almost scalped herself. There was a loose flap of skin, and blood everywhere, excessive amounts that had, at first, looked like a killshot to the skull.
They'd got her up out of the pit using a backboard from the medical suite, and Preben had cleaned and sealed her scalp wound. She didn't wake up. They made her comfortable.
"No name tag," said Stabler.
"The clothes are settlement standard," said Preben. "She's a local."
"Scared local," Stabler agreed.
They both looked at him.
"She had a weapon," he said.
"Yeah, where is that?" asked Preben.
The girl looked very pale, pale as death. Her breathing was so shallow, you could scarcely see it. They'd made her comfortable on a couch in a shelved alcove off the hub.
He bent down beside her. He could smell her blood, tacky on her weatherproof jacket, matted in her hair and along the sealed tearline. She was small, with a heartshaped, symmetrical face and tight features. He wondered what her eyes were like. Her hair was dark, almost black, and thick, but cut back to a bob.
"No name tag," he said. "No brooch. You've looked in the pockets?"
"Nothing," said Stabler.
"The tag pocket's empty, too. See?"
He pointed at the small, plastic window pocket on the breast of her coat. It was empty.
"She could have taken the tag out," said Stabler.
"Maybe it's not her jacket," said Preben. "Maybe it's not anybody's jacket."
"Why would she take the tag out?" he asked.
"Fuck is going on?" asked Stabler. "Nes, what? You think you've brought down a paramilitary here? What the fuck? Is that what you're saying?"
"She's a station tech. A local," said Preben.
"We don't know that."
"We know you scared her so bad she fell in a hole and brained herself," said Preben.
"Cicero," Stabler began.
"What?" he asked.
"Cicero says he wants to talk this out with you as soon as Eyeburn's secure," she said, with reluctance. "May have to write up a formal. I mean, discharging a weapon at a local."
"You know it wasn't anything like that," he said. "Freek®, Karin! I showed you the playback. Red flag. She had a weapon."
"I didn't see a gun," said Stabler. "We didn't find a gun."
"You saw it!"
"I saw something. A shadow. Her hand, maybe. A torch."
She looked at him. It wasn't even clear from her expression that she wanted to help him. They could all feel how wired he was. It was as though they didn't know him. As though he wasn't himself.
"We don't even know who she is," he insisted. It felt stupid.
He got up and walked away, balling his fists to stop them quivering. He banged the door into the restroom, slammed it behind him. He looked at the windows, just soft slabs of colourless daylight, the mesh grilles choked with dead blurds. Except the end one. The blurds there littered the floor under the sill. The bleach-masked bad stink lingered.
He took off his glares and squared up to the mirror. It had a crack across it. His face looked back, drawn and white. His tan had gone, and the blue in his eyes had dimmed. He looked like a crazy person.
"Whoever you are," he said, "whatever your name is in there, stop it. Stop freeking® me up! I mean it. You've got to stop. I can't think! I can't centre! Freek® it, man!"
He took a breath, another, sucking hard, fighting panic.
"I don't get scared," he whispered. "I just don't. Not ever. I get pumped. I get ready. Not scared. Never scared. Freek® are you doing to me? Are you such a freeking® baby you're infecting me with your fear? It's in me, man! It's leaking into me! Is that you? Are you too freeking® scared for this? Get out, then! Get the freek® out of me! I mean it! Get out of me and leave me be so I can do this!"
Another breath.
"I need to do my job. If this is you, you're stopping me. You're freeking® me up. If this is the process, then that's got to stop. End of. Finit. Tell them. Tell them to yank you out of me."
No one answered, but the snake in his belly knotted again.
"I nearly shot that girl. I nearly shot her because you made me crazy. As it is, that head wound. She could die anyway."
Nothing.
"Freek's® sake! Are you hearing? Are you in there?"
"Fuck are you talking to?" asked Stabler. She was in the doorway of the restroom, holding the door open. The new look on her face he liked even less than the old one.
She took a step towards him.
"Who were you talking to, Bloom?"
"No one. Myself."
"What the fuck is up with you?"
"Nothing."
"Don't give me shit, Nes. I need to know. What is up with you?"
"I– Nothing. Nothing. I'm wealthy. I'm golden."
Stabler shook her head.
"I never thought it would be you," she said. "I never thought it would be you. They say sometimes people break when they finally get to the Hard Place, and it's often the last person you expect. But I never thought it would be you."
"I didn't break," he said. "I haven't broken."
"Then I don't know what the fuck this is," she said. "We've only just started, Bloom. We haven't even gone hot, and you're cutting loose at civilians."<
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"It isn't like that," he said.
"What the fuck is it like, then?"
