Time to work out how to stop her father's vengeance lighting up the sky.
Chapter 27
Leo caught a glimpse of Carver making his way out of the doors.
The woman beside him was in the bulky uniform worn by weigh station staff, but that made no sense.
He was supposed to be watching Sofie's back.
Leo stepped closer to the transparent wall, and realized the woman could be Sofie. It wasn't Ursula; her hair was a bright chestnut to Sofie's dark brown.
So why was Sofie wearing her uniform?
His comm set chimed as he turned to the door. Ursula.
“You need to distract the Cores fixers coming up the stairs.” The controller's voice was urgent.
As she spoke, he saw them walking up. When he glanced at the entrance, he noticed the hovers and the guards.
He couldn't see where Sofie and Carver were.
“Why?” he asked.
“The weigh station is going to blow up if they try to switch anything on.”
Leo tried to keep the surprise off his face. “According to who?”
“Your little Ronald Fadal expert. She says the next truck on the weigh pad will trigger an explosion.”
“Is that so?” Leo tried to keep his tone neutral, turning away and walking blindly toward Donnie as Hendric and Suz made a fuss of the Cores fixers as they came through the door.
“It seems like it,” Ursula's voice was tinny in his ear. “She says the lounge is a bomb shelter, so everyone needs to get in here, or as far from the weigh station as possible.”
“Call a meeting.” He kept his voice soft, and bent toward a surprised Donnie, pretending to be talking to him. “The arrival of the Cores will make everyone want to find out what's going on anyway. It's a good opportunity.”
“True, but Sofie thinks the arrival of the Cores means we're about to have some idiot demanding we switch the weigh pads on again.”
That was true, too.
“Where did she and Carver go?”
“To the power control hut.”
From his current angle, bent over Donnie's workstation, he could see the three hovers, and the guards who would have made the journey from T-Town to Phansi.
“Did they get through the guards?”
“Don't know. I've got my own job.” The strain was evident in Ursula's voice. “I have to start reaching out to everyone. You stop those Cores touching anything.” She cut off, and Leo bunched his fists.
He wanted to check that Sofie was safe, but Carver was with her, and as she'd proved to him many times before, she could more than look after herself.
He bent a little closer to Donnie. “Can you stop them switching anything on? Do something to the controls?”
Donnie glanced behind him and turned back. “For a bit, I suppose.”
“Anything you can do will help. Fadal set this place to blow at the first weigh-in after the algorithm shut down.”
Donnie's eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
Leo nodded, and Donnie's hands trembled as they danced over the panel.
“Leo Gaudier, I didn't know you were here.”
Leo turned, and although he hadn't recognized the Cores fixer earlier, he now realized he looked familiar.
There was a beat of uncomfortable silence.
“Oh? Had you heard something else?” Leo asked politely.
“No, no. Just thought I saw you in Felicitos a day or so ago.”
Leo shrugged. “Did you just arrive?”
He nodded, and Leo remembered his name, Servos, a mid-level exec. The woman with him must be the tech he'd brought along. She was looking at Donnie, her dark eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing?”
Donnie didn't seem to realize she was speaking to him, and she walked toward him, irritation in her step.
“What are you doing?” She reached his side, and frowned down at the panel.
Donnie lifted his head, a puzzled expression on his face. “There've been some recent power variances. I'm running a diagnostic on them.”
“How long does the diagnostic run?” The woman bent a little to get a closer look at the screen in front of Donnie.
“Half an hour.”
She straightened with an explosive sound of disgust. “I can't test anything while a diagnostic is running.”
Donnie lifted his shoulders. “I didn't realize you were coming right now.” His comm set chimed. “Sorry. Have to attend a meeting.”
He stood, nodded politely to the woman, and walked out of the room.
Leo decided he would try to hire Donnie away from the weigh station the first chance he got.
If they managed to survive the next half hour.
“You should go back to the lounge.” Sofie stared at the panel in front of her, and then glanced at Carver. “There is no sense in us both being blown up if I get this wrong.”
He shook his head and she sighed.
Behind the big panel in the power control building, they'd found a spiral staircase going down into a small bunker with a panel covering one wall.
“The problem is, I don't think he made a contingency for the explosion to not go ahead.” She'd come to that conclusion pretty fast, but she'd hunted in panic for any suggestion she was wrong.
She was just wasting time now, and she knew it. Knew lives were on the line.
“You mean there's no off switch.” Carver had stayed out of her way, keeping back as he leaned against the doorjamb and let her get on with it.
“Oh, there's an off switch, but it's for the whole plant, as far as I can work out. Not the explosion.”
Her father had obviously wanted the power to shut everything down at will. Exactly what she'd expect of him.
“How long since the Cores execs arrived?”
Carver glanced at his comm set. “Twenty-five minutes.”
Panic gripped her again with sharp claws. “We can't wait much longer. And I don't think it'll help, anyway. We'll need to find the bombs and defuse them at their source.”
“That would have been fine if we'd managed to get here way ahead of the Cores.” Carver tapped at his comm set, then looked up in frustration. “Still no signal. Probably blocked down here.”
“If I switch it all off, we could look for the bombs under the guise of checking for the fault.” It was the only thing she could think of.
Carver nodded. “That will have to work. I know some of the prospectors have explosives sniffers for the mines, to make sure everything has been gathered up after a controlled blast. We'll have to get them to the weigh station.”
Sofie nodded. Her hand hovered over the switch that would shut everything off.
She wondered again what was happening in Felicitos.
Whether there was a kill switch just like this hidden somewhere behind a panel there, too.
It was looking increasingly likely.
“No downside,” Carver reassured her. “It's either this, or boom.” He opened his fingers and fluttered them.
She gave a tight nod and pulled the lever down.
Chapter 28
Leo leaned against Hendric's desk, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw weigh station staff and some of the prospectors who'd been waiting with their ore trucks make their way one by one, or in pairs, to the lounge.
Ursula was getting the word out.
There were ten minutes left until the system rebooted.
Leo wanted to walk down to the lounge himself, more to find out if they'd heard from Sofie than for his own safety, but he didn't want to leave the Cores unsupervised.
If he had to shoot them to stop them fiddling with anything, he would.
“Any reason you're hanging around?” Suz had stepped away from where Servos and Hendric stood beside the jah machine, and she kept her voice low.
Leo grinned. “Just want to see what they're up to, is all.”
“Thought so.” She flicked a glance at the two men, and then glanced at Haga, the Cores tech, who sat at Donnie'
s station, scrolling through information on the screen. “Looks like she's keeping an eye on the scan. When it's done, they'll want to start everything up.”
That's what he was afraid of.
Leo shrugged. “I've got a deep investment in this place, and I don't trust the Cores.”
She made a face. “Those are my bosses you're talking about.”
Leo said nothing. Suz had to know what everyone in Phansi thought of her and Hendric, and the other Cores employees who lived and worked here.
Servos couldn't have heard what they said, but Leo saw his head rise.
“You got some pressing orders for ore waiting in Felicitos, Leo, that you're here so early in the morning?”
“I do,” Leo smiled. “I was just up for my normal visit, but when I got in last night, I was told the weigh-pads were on hold while the comm signal was down, and I came in early to see what was happening.”
“You made good time. I know I saw you two days ago in the Upper Reaches.”
Leo crossed his arms over his chest. “Shadow prowlers.” He leaned back against the wall. “Don't know about you, but I can't sleep well when I know one is around. It tends to make everyone more eager to stay on the road.”
“You saw evidence of one?” Suz looked at him with interest.
“Actually saw one in the flesh at Cloud Falls. Thought we heard one about six hours after that.” He accepted a cup of jah from Hendric with a nod of thanks and took a sip. “We weren't particularly interested in sleeping out another night after that.”
“We saw evidence of one at Cloud Falls,” Servos admitted, his tone a little less aggressive. “Probably the one you spotted. Was it big?”
Leo took another sip. “They all look big to me.”
Hendric chuckled. “Tell me about it. I've only ever seen two with my own eyes, and both times, I didn't stop to compare how big they were.”
“Well,” Servos set his cup aside. “If your business here is concluded, Gaudier, we'll be using this office to test the system.”
In other words, get lost.
It was nothing more than a dominance move--he didn't think Servos suspected he was hanging around to interfere.
“I'd like to watch the experts, if you don't mind.” He set his own cup down.
The look Servos sent him was venomous. “Actually, I--”
“Done.” Haga looked over at Servos and gave him a sharp nod. “I overrode the last three checks, so we can get going right now.”
Leo slipped his hand into his jacket pocket, and closed it over the cool, hard surface of his laz.
Haga and Servos were talking to each other, and he used the distraction to walk to the window, look down over the weigh pads, and put in a call to Donnie. When the controller answered, he didn't explain or bother with pleasantries, and he kept his voice low. “They overrode the systems check. Tell whoever has the first truck in line to not drive it onto the pad.” He cut off the call, and turned around, leaning back against the wall, with legs crossed at the ankles and both hands in his pockets.
“We need to get the first truck moving.” Servos turned to Hendric. “What's the process?”
“Either Donnie or Ursula will call them up.” Hendric looked around the room, as if surprised neither was there.
“I'll call them in,” Suz said, and picked up her comm.
Like Leo, she walked to the window as she activated her comm. “Can you come back to the control center. The system has finished its reboot.” She was silent for a moment. “Then leave the meeting early. You're needed here.” She cut off the call, and Leo could see she was irritated.
If they refused to come, she'd look bad in front of the execs, and they most likely had never disobeyed her before.
“I don't need them back here to start the line moving,” Haga said. She tapped at the screen, and the first truck started up.
“Where's the miner that truck belongs to?” Leo asked, and he knew his tone was sharp.
“I don't need to know, the trucks are all automatons, and the system can control them while they're in the weigh station.
Leo vaguely remembered the wording of the Cores contract, and she was right.
His grip on his laz tightened.
If he shot Haga and Servos, there would be no going back. No working against them in plain sight. No walking the fine line. This would put him firmly over it. And that meant he would be much less effective.
He straightened up, and curled his fingers more tightly around his laz.
“There's someone standing in front of the truck,” Hendric said suddenly. “They're waving their arms.”
“If they don't move, I'm fine with running them down.” Servos stalked to the window to look at what was happening below.
“What can they see that we can't?” Suz asked. “There must be a problem down there.”
“I can't see anything--” Haga turned in her chair, and the lights went out.
They were inside the building, with no outside windows, and the darkness was impenetrable for a moment, until Leo's eyes got used to it and the faint dawn light filtering through the big open doors illuminated the interior.
This had to be Sofie's doing.
He smiled.
She always came through.
“I guess Donnie was right to be worried about the power fluctuations,” Suz said.
Leo looked out over the massive warehouse space, and saw the people Ursula must have gathered in the lounge were all standing in front of the truck Haga had started up.
Its engine coughed a few times, and then it fell silent, and everyone began making their way out of the warehouse toward the open doors and the light.
His gaze landed on Ursula, and she flicked her hand in a 'come here' gesture.
“Well, I'll let you get on with your work,” Leo said. He nodded to Hendric and Suz and walked toward the door.
“Gaudier.” Servos's voice was trembling a little.
Leo turned back, eyebrows raised in question.
“We're in control here, not you.”
Leo smiled. “Of course you are. Everyone knows that.”
Leo was walking toward them as Sofie and Carver rounded the corner of the power control hut.
She quickened her pace, unconcerned about holding back.
With Leo, she'd decided some time ago, she was all in.
But he gave a tiny shake of his head when they got close, and she slowed again, and tried to set her face to neutral.
“Could you tell where the power fluctuations were coming from?” he asked, and she knew it was for the benefit of the guards standing nearby.
She shook her head. “It was all over the place. Then it just went down.”
“Ursula and Donnie need a word,” he said, and turned back toward the doors.
She fell into step with him, and Carver kept pace on her other side.
“That was not a moment too soon,” Leo murmured.
Sofie bit her bottom lip. She should have done it earlier. She'd been too cautious.
Donnie and Ursula were waiting for them in a huddle away from the doors, along with about five men and women who she guessed were prospectors.
“What's the story?” Ursula asked as soon as they joined the group. She kept her voice low.
“There's no way to stop the explosions from the hidden board. The only way to do it is to find them one by one and deactivate them individually. My only solution in the interim was to flip the kill switch for the whole plant.”
“Shit.” One of the prospectors sent her a startled look. “There's a kill switch?”
“Saw it myself,” Carver said quietly.
“Shit.” He looked around, as if unsure what to do.
“We need explosives sniffers brought down here.” Carver was talking to Leo. “And the cover story can be we're looking for the power fault.”
“Well, there is a power fault.” Donnie was looking at Sofie with interest. “I'd like to see that kill switch, if I may.”
Sh
e nodded, but she didn't know whether that was a good idea or not. Something to think about later.
She watched from the sidelines as things were organized, her gaze swinging around to the Cores guards. They were yawning as the sun finally broke through clouds and shone down on Phansi, warming the air a little, although the wind still cut through clothes and skin, right to the bone.
Hendric came out, with the two Cores execs trailing behind them, and he looked desperate.
“Don't worry, Hendric, we've got all the prospectors on board to help look for the fault. We're just calling them down now. They'll be crawling all over the place in about half an hour.”
“We don't have enough equipment for them all.” Hendric was holding a screen in his hand, and he obsessively tipped it end over end.
“They've got their own equipment for their own operations. I've asked them to bring it along, so there's no problem there.”
“Well, the sooner the fault is identified, the sooner we can start weighing again. It's in their own interests.” The female tech's tone was bored.
“You going to help, Gaudier?” The male exec asked.
Leo had been standing with Carver and Ursula, head bent in deep conversation, but he lifted his head and smiled a slow, lazy smile that made Sofie shiver. “You couldn't keep me away.”
The man grunted. “Good.” He looked over at the guards. “We've been racing through the night to get here. We'll go catch up on some sleep. I hope there's good news for us when we come back.”
It was a less than subtle threat, but no one reacted.
Getting rid of the Cores for a few hours was the best case scenario.
No one waved them goodbye, but as they got on their hovers and left the plant, she could see a few prospectors wanted to dance in relief.
Chapter 29
Loud voices woke her.
Sofie kept still, and kept her eyes closed.
She must have fallen asleep in the deep armchair beside the fireplace at the end of the kitchen. She could hear the fire crackling and the clink of cups in the kitchen, but most of all, she could hear the anger and bitterness in the voices of the two men and one woman who were talking to Leo.
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