by Tarah Benner
“Spill,” says Adra, jumping onto the bunk and swinging her feet, waiting for me to explain.
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling like an idiot. “I’m sorry I lied to you. It was my job.”
Adra’s expression is still stone cold. She doesn’t give two shits about my lame apology. “Your job is to be a liar?”
“I was investigating the Space Force,” I explain. “Something didn’t smell right. There were nine hundred operatives stationed on Elderon — what was supposed to be a civilian colony. Maverick spent billions building out an army. I had to figure out what was going on.”
“And did you . . . figure it out?”
I take a deep breath. “Maverick Enterprises received lots of threats against the colony while Elderon was being built. But I don’t think they ever thought something like this . . .”
“You mean we weren’t prepared for a total bot takeover?”
I shake my head. “But I got too close, and I was kidnapped. Lieutenant Buford was working with Mordecai. He tried to get rid of me so I wouldn’t talk.”
“Buford?”
“Yes.”
Adra’s scowl deepens. I can tell she’s rattled by this piece of information, but she’s trying hard not to show it. “Why should I believe you?”
“I’m not asking you to believe anything,” I say. “I just need to know how I can get into Maverick. Jonah and I left Elderon to stop Buford from activating the bots, but Mordecai was a step ahead. He killed Buford and attacked Silicon Valley to gain control of the biggest tech companies.”
“They’re saying Wyatt blew up Maverick HQ in California.”
“He did,” I say. “To save lives. Mordecai would have killed all the founders in that building. And he’d have about twenty more bots right now if Jonah hadn’t done it.”
Adra seems to consider this for a moment. “Wyatt knew you weren’t really Space Force?”
“Not until the end,” I say. “He wanted to turn me in. But then I got kidnapped, and this whole bot thing happened.”
“You’re not military,” says Adra. “Or counterintelligence.”
I shake my head.
She smirks and lets out a snort of laughter. “Well, that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Why you were so terrible.”
The corner of my mouth twitches into a self-deprecating grin. I’m too relieved to feel insulted.
“So what’s your plan?” asks Adra.
“I need to talk to Tripp Van de Graaf,” I say. “There has to be a way to get a message to Earth. We’re going to need reinforcements. Mordecai can’t fight the US military if he can’t control the Space Force, and he can’t control the Space Force if his attention is somewhere else.”
“What about the bots?”
“There has to be a way to shut them down. Mordecai’s sister is our best hope, but Mordecai is holding her hostage.”
“I heard she was involved.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think she ever meant for the bots to hurt anyone.”
Adra looks doubtful, but I can tell she’s coming around. “What about Wyatt? He still stuck on Earth?”
I nod. “Tripp Van de Graaf was in on blowing up the building. If we can get a secure line of communication to Earth, he might be able to clear Jonah’s name.”
Adra nods. I know she likes and respects Jonah — even if he was a hard-ass sergeant. All that old friction is gone, replaced by a mutual hatred of Mordecai and his army.
“I can help get you into Maverick and clear out the bots,” she says slowly. “After that, you’re on your own. We have our hands full here . . . in case you haven’t noticed.”
Right now, I could kiss her. Adra might be a little rough around the edges, but I know that I can trust her.
“Wyatt really saved those people’s lives?” she asks.
I nod.
Adra lifts her eyebrows. “He’s one of the good ones.”
I nod and crack a smile. Coming from Adra, it’s a high compliment. “Yeah,” I say. “He’s one of the good ones.”
8
Maggie
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all of this, it’s that it’s good to know a hacker.
Adra didn’t follow the typical path to becoming a private in the Space Force. From what I heard, she hacked the Pentagon when she was just fourteen. Before she turned sixteen, she was in legal trouble for trolling the White House from juvie.
Her cybercrimes continued to escalate until the age of eighteen when she was recruited by the NSA. Two years later, she was poached by Maverick to work as a penetration tester. She sat behind a desk until they started building out the Space Force.
Within twenty minutes of agreeing to help me, Adra has hacked her way into the colony blueprints. Maverick HQ is surrounded by bots to make sure no one goes in or out. The only way in, according to Adra, is through the colony’s air ducts.
Mordecai may already know I’m here, but he won’t be looking for me in the ducts. Maverick is probably being monitored from the inside, but Adra seems to think that she can access the security feeds and make me a digital ghost.
“Remember, any Optix is dirty,” she says. “Mordecai can listen in even if it’s turned off, so make sure you take out the battery. Same goes for desktops — anything with a microphone and a network connection.”
“Got it.”
Adra disappears for a moment to check that the coast is clear. We have to go up to the middle deck and access the ducts from an adjacent sector.
Apparently, the main duct in the dining hall is the closest to Maverick. It’s designed to funnel excess heat from the kitchen and the rest of the colony and release it back into space.
While Adra checks the hallway for bots, I change into a pair of my own Space Force blues. I comb out my hair and pull it into a ponytail, hoping the uniform will make me less conspicuous.
Changing into clean clothes has a steadying effect. Suddenly I feel braver — more capable of handling whatever comes next. I feel more like me.
I go out to meet Adra, who looks uncharacteristically nervous. We take the stairs up to the dining hall in silence, hoping we don’t encounter any humanoids or rogue maintenance bots along the way.
The dining hall is the true wild card in our plan, and the second we walk in, I’ll only have minutes. The place is usually swarming with help bots, and it’s one of the most heavily surveilled places on the space station.
Tripp once explained to me how Elderon uses facial recognition to predict peak intervals in the rush around mealtimes and determine how much food to prepare.
My heart beats faster as we approach the serving line. Miraculously, there are no help bots on the line. The colony is still on lockdown, which means no one is visiting the dining hall, but I can hear the non-humanoid bots preparing food to be delivered for breakfast.
I don’t know if they share the same hive mind as the humanoids. If they do, this could be another cafeteria bloodbath like the one at Vault.
Luckily, the bots pay us no attention as we slip into the kitchen — even when Adra bends down to unscrew the cover from the air duct. I find it difficult to breathe as I watch the bots work. They must only be programmed to complete the task at hand.
These ones aren’t designed to look like real people. They have humanlike faces, but their bodies are built for specific tasks. They have clear plastic skulls instead of hair, and some of them have serving spoons where their hands should be.
Finally, Adra gets the cover off and hands me a flashlight from her pocket. “Good luck,” she says. “Tell Ping I said hey.”
“You’re not coming?” I ask, my voice sounding a little desperate. When Adra said that she would help me, I just assumed she would be along for the ride.
“I’m gonna start working on clearing the bots out of the tech sector,” she whispers. “I might have to pull some strings to get what I need, but I’ll do my best to clear a path out of Maverick.”
I nod. My insides are churning with nerves, but I have to stay focused and execute our plan.
“If you get lost, I can’t help you,” she warns. “My Optix isn’t secure.”
I nod. This isn’t how I imagined getting into Maverick, but I’m just climbing into the air ducts. What could go wrong?
“Thanks,” I say, dragging in a big burst of air. I get on my knees and crawl into the duct. Immediately, I start to feel claustrophobic.
Even with the vent cover off, it’s smaller and darker than I expected. It’s going to be difficult to find the Maverick offices — even with the blueprints burned into my brain.
“Once you get there, wait for my signal,” says Adra.
I twist around in the small space, already feeling breathless. “What signal?”
“You’ll know it when you hear it. Just stay out of sight, and get us some reinforcements as quick as you can.”
I nod.
Adra gives me the closest thing to a smile I’ve ever received from her. It isn’t something she’s used to, I can tell. Adra normally gives off a vibe of irritation and toughness, which just makes it more special somehow.
I don’t wait for her to reattach the vent cover. I start crawling in the direction of Maverick, hoping I don’t take a wrong turn and end up lost and trapped.
Within two minutes, my knees and low back start to protest. The ducts are a hard slippery metal, and I’m scrunched on all fours. Within five minutes, I’m starting to sweat. The vents’ purpose in life is to draw all the extra heat out of the colony, and the walls are warm to the touch. I can feel the sweat beading up along my hairline and under my arms as the warm air drifts by.
At one point I’m convinced that I’ve taken a wrong turn and that I’ll be stuck in the ducts forever. But then I hear voices bending toward me, and I want to cry out in relief.
The voice is one I recognize instantly — the nasal-y whine of Tripp’s assistant.
Ignoring the sharp pain in my kneecaps, I shimmy down toward the source of the voice until Porter’s complaints echo all around.
How are we supposed to meet our deadline with these insufferable creatures running our lives?
I’ve been wearing these same clothes for the past thirty-six hours. Do I smell?
Ooh, I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.
I reach the piece of metal covering the duct and press my face against the grill. I can see Porter pacing back and forth in the administrative office wearing a pair of lemon-yellow pants and a periwinkle shirt. His outfit is completed by a jaunty lemon bowtie and shiny white shoes that make him look like a marching-band escapee.
“Porter!” I call, banging on the grill. I could hug and slap him — all at the same time.
“What was that?” Porter whispers, wheeling around in alarm. “Did you hear that?”
“In here!”
Porter yelps. There’s someone else in the room with him — someone I can’t see.
“Where is that noise coming from? Show yourself!”
“I’m in the air duct, you idiot!”
There’s a long beat of silence, and Porter’s face swims in front of the vent. At first I just see nostrils and his well-moisturized lips. Then he looks at me straight on, and I see his face fall.
“Maggie Barnes?”
“Don’t sound so thrilled.”
There’s a long pause. “What in the world are you doing here?”
I grin to myself. Porter definitely isn’t happy to see me.
“I need to talk to Tripp.”
There’s another long pause. “Mr. Van de Graaf is unavailable,” says Porter crisply, employing his usual annoying demeanor. “He is still mourning the loss of his father. He’s requested not to be disturbed.”
“Do you think I’d crawl through the air ducts to get here if it wasn’t important?” I snap. Harsh words are burning on my tongue, but I keep them to myself.
Porter is the ultimate gatekeeper when it comes to Tripp, and I need him to let me out of the duct.
“How did you even get here?” he asks in a breezy voice. “I thought you were gallivanting around California with that thug Sergeant Wyatt.”
“Let me out!” I cry, wanting to strangle him. It’s bad enough that Porter is a snobby asshole with an overinflated sense of importance. Every second he wastes insulting Jonah, Mordecai grows stronger.
Porter turns to converse with whomever he was talking to a moment before. I can’t make out exactly what they’re saying, though there seems to be some confusion around the exact tool needed to remove the vent cover.
Finally, a skinny guy in a blue paisley shirt appears beside Porter, and the two of them spend the next ten minutes struggling to loosen the screws.
I’m sweating and stewing in silence, waiting for dumb and dumber to remove the vent cover. I don’t know how Porter clawed his way up to an executive assistant position, but I’m definitely going to recommend a demotion. I have serious misgivings about any adult who can’t operate a screwdriver. He shouldn’t be the executive anything.
After a long ten minutes, the vent cover lifts free, and I tumble out into the cool office air. I squint in the bright fluorescent light, giving myself a few seconds to savor the identical looks of horror plastered over Porter’s and the other guy’s faces.
I’m sitting in a tiny office that must belong to the assistants. I’m surrounded by smart walls, which are flashing with to-do lists, project schematics, and what look like Tripp’s vision boards. There’s another free-standing whiteboard crammed against the far wall and a spotlessly clean desk with Porter’s name etched on a plaque.
“You look . . .” Porter begins. It’s obvious what he’s thinking.
“Like hell?” I finish, looking him up and down. “Really, Porter?” I ask, wrinkling my nose at his pastel outfit. “Strom just died. You could at least dress sad.”
Porter instantly looks ruffled. “I would if I’d had a chance to get out of here. These horrible bots won’t let us leave, and I don’t have a change of attire.”
I get to my feet, stifling a laugh that’s threatening to burst from my lips. I knew insulting his outfit would really get him in a tiff.
“Where’s Tripp?”
“In his office. As I said, Mr. Van de Graaf has asked to be left alone.”
“This is important.”
“I can put you on the schedule,” says the skinny brunet in a blasé voice. I turn to look at him. He could be twins with the snooty receptionist at my hair salon who always sneers at me when I try to get a walk-in.
I swivel my gaze back to Porter. “Who’s he?”
“This is Chaz, my assistant.”
“The assistant’s assistant.” I raise my eyebrows. “Yeah, I’m going to see Tripp.”
I open the door and head for Tripp’s office, and Porter and Chaz trail after me.
“You can’t just walk in there!” calls Porter, sounding slightly panicky. “Mr. Van de Graaf won’t even talk to me! He specifically requested to be left alone, and —”
“You could set back his recovery!” Chaz adds.
“Yes! You could set back his recovery by days, and we haven’t —”
I ignore the both of them and pound on Tripp’s door. The walls are frosted over for privacy, but I can see two people-shaped blobs inside.
“Tripp!” I pound on the door again, hoping there aren’t any bots lurking around.
“Go away,” comes a morose voice.
I can almost feel Porter’s and Chaz’s smug expressions. I want to smack them both.
“Tripp!”
“I said go away. I’m busy.”
“I told you,” Porter whispers, turning to Chaz. “I’ve never seen him like this — not even when Natasha broke up with him.”
But I’ve had enough. Tripp’s father might be dead, but Strom went out fighting for his company. Right now the Space Force is on the verge of collapse, and Mordecai has taken over Elderon. There’s no time for a pity party. Tripp can grieve when
Mordecai is dead.
I throw open the door and stride into the room, shocked as always by the mess. Papers and vision boards are scattered all over, and there’s a sort of stale unwashed smell I haven’t experienced before — probably wafting off the two men inside.
Ping is lounging in one of Tripp’s chairs with his broken leg propped up on a round orange pouf. Tripp is fully reclined on the couch in a T-shirt and boxers — one tan arm thrown over his eyes. “Who is it?”
“Maggie?” says Ping, completely dumbfounded.
At the sound of my name, Tripp perks up. He takes his arm off his face and turns his head to look at me. “Maggie?”
I raise my eyebrows and stand there awkwardly. “Tah-dah!”
Ping’s entire face lights up, as if he’s just realized it’s me. He braces his arms on the sides of his chair, struggling to get to his feet.
I cross the distance so he doesn’t have to move, and he wraps me in a one-armed squeeze. “Whatcha doin’ here, girl?”
“I need your help,” I say, hugging Ping and meeting Tripp’s gaze.
Tripp still looks stunned. His eyes are bloodshot and slightly unfocused. His face is greasy and covered in scruff, and his usually perfect hair is a mess.
From the looks of things, he hasn’t left the office to shower in the last two days, and he must not be using his Miracle Mousse.
“I’m sorry about your dad.”
Tripp shakes his head. “Father was stubborn . . . In the end it got him killed.”
“He was just protecting the company.”
“And I wasn’t?” Tripp snaps, squinting at me with a look I’ve never seen before.
“I didn’t say that . . .” I trail off and study Tripp. Something about him is off.
“I was trying to protect him. He is the company!”
“He was also your dad.”
Tripp scoffs and pulls himself up to take a swig from a highball on the table. He downs the contents and hollers for Porter.
I look over at Ping, who confirms my suspicions. Tripp is as drunk as a skunk.
“Father always saw sentimentality as a weakness,” Tripp mutters.
“I’m sure that’s not —”
